Quote of the day - 06-29-2017.

A very telling comment in an article from Ray McGovern -

Handpicking analysts is a time-dishonered method used by unscrupulous intelligence managers to get the answer they want. Parry is right; it started BIG-TIME with Bill Casey and his windsock protégé Bobby Gates. I was there; I watched it, and then left.
It takes about 20 years to put enough malleable managers in place to corrupt an entire institution — like the Analysis Directorate of CIA. But sycophants are not hard to find, even in the best of institutions.

Twenty years after Casey/Gates prostituted the ethos of speaking/writing the truth without fear or favor, politicization reached its apogee with the thoroughly dishonest preparation of the NIE on Iraq WMD issued on October 1, 2002. The chair of that estimate, a tried-and-tested-by-Rumsfeld charlatan, was actually coached behind the scenes by none other than Dick Cheney. Indeed, Cheney in effect wrote the estimate’s terms of reference in a speech including all kinds of exaggeration on Iraq on August 26, 2002. Hundreds in the inside knew about the fraudulent process and product on pre-Iraq War “intelligence.” But NO ONE, NO ONE spoke out.

It's amazing how true this is in just about every facet of life. Even in large corporations, there's always someone somewhere (usually of a toxic personality or with a deep psychosis) who's willing to be a yes-person and advance up the ladder while spouting bullshit and shitting on others to get there.


https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/29/nyt-finally-retracts-russia-gate-canard/

Never trust columnists who can't be bothered to read up on what they are supporting.

Armchair warriors, and Monday morning quarterbacks.

Case in point -

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/thomas-friedman-whines-about-his-lost-tpp

(Thank you FAIR)

How tired life can be.

No I don't mean boring.

I mean days where work starts the moment I get up, and ends the moment I climb into bed.

I mean when the day begins with one's heels sore, and ends with the whole foot numb from running around.

Sore fingers from typing. Sore shoulders from driving.

Sore mind - too many assholes in authority that I have to be subservient to.

Too many times stuck in the van listening to the white people go on and on about all sorts of shiny penny things I don't give a fuck about, while your's truly hauls their fat asses to and from work.

What happened to my life?

How did it all go astray?

No it's not a mid-life crisis if one has been feeling this way since I was 25.

There's got to be a better way. Maybe when the new one is born, I'll have a different perspective.

We'll see. It's only 2 weeks away.

The lies of capitalism.

1) Wealth will “trickle down”  

2) I took all the risks
3) I could pay you more if there were less government regulations
4) If you work hard, one day you can be rich like us (We live in a meritocracy)
5) This is as good as it gets (there is no alternative, TINA)
6) We give back to the community
7) The system (and economic theory) is rational and takes into account social and environmental costs
8) The future will be better
9) It’s Just Business
10) Financial markets & debt are necessary


https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/26/lies-that-capitalists-tell-us
   
 

A basic income experiment to watch.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-neoliberal-writing-on-the-wall-ontarios-basic-income-experiment/5596243

Something telling -

The above cited CUPE Ontario memo gives an indication of a very striking feature of the pilot. While people will face fewer conditions, many will also lose supports and services they currently rely on. People presently on social assistance who go onto the pilot will no longer have caseworkers and will be expected to ‘self navigate’ when it comes to accessing sources of assistance they would previously have obtained with the help of those workers. Moreover, a whole range of supplementary benefits will be lost, such as the Special Diet that provides additional income on the recommendation of medical providers. Medical transportation assistance and mobility devices will also become the responsibility of those who shift to the pilot. Disabled people, especially, might find, despite the additional BI income, that they are actually far worse off than if they had stayed on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

The point that emerges here is that even as they roll out their showpiece test run that provides income to just a few thousand people and enables them to be far more generous than they would be if they were setting up a widely available programme, they are cutting back on other entitlements. I think it’s clear that the Ontario Liberals are establishing a model for a low paying, means tested income support system that is primarily concerned with subsidising low paying employers and that would be paid for by cutbacks in other areas of social provision.

More Scamazon shit.

Here's some additional info -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americas-amazon-problem_us_59443b5be4b06bb7d2731cba

"This statement and the amount of power in Bezos’ hands should frighten all Americans. Bezos meant that Amazon will soon be so good for consumers that it would just be folly not to be a member. But what he unwittingly implied is that as a citizen, you will have no choice but to interact with his institution to buy and sell key goods that everyone needs — on his terms."

Oh the irony.

1880 – "O Canada", today the national anthem of Canada, was first performed in Quebec City, during a Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day banquet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Canada