http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKCN1241YT

If your product allows for this, they will make you do it, and there's fuck all you can do about it. Score one more for OpenWhisperSystems, who designed Signal with this shit in mind.

Drudge is boasting about a Reuters rolling poll:
Clinton 41.3%
Trump 40.0%


If there is *anything* to be found from that email server that is even remotely scandalous, I don't think it would be hard for Trump to pick up a 1.3% swing. Cenk's right -- why the hell doesn't the democrat establishment seem even mildly concerned about this?

Fixed embed, now through Reuters

Sigh... Don't care. I know its true. Here's a story about it a year before the russian government propaganda channel decided to "Report it"

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/07/14/pentagons-big-budget-f-35-fighter-cant-turn-cant-climb-cant-run/

My point was that RT could have proof that the US government was responsible for every murder and death the world over since 1776 and I still would not care . Simply because of who is saying it.

I could be mistaken about this, but i seem to remember reading that because of the possible transmission of illnesses, and i suspect more likely because its such a disgusting and demeaning practice, in some places it can rate an assault charge.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-spitting-idUSN0727718920070308

From teh Interwebs in case you're thinking the octopus is being abused:

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A giant male octopus caught on cell phone video scaling his glass display tank at the Seattle Aquarium and reaching several tentacles over its open top has sparked Internet speculation that the massive mollusk was trying to mount an escape bid.

But aquarium officials say the octopus, named Ink, was not attempting a jailbreak in the video, which has gone viral on the Internet, but simply learning to embrace his new home with all eight arms.

"It was not an escape attempt," aquarium spokesman Tim Kuniholm said of the video, in which Ink inched his way up the cylindrical glass tank to squeals from onlookers. "It's a new exhibit and the animal was exploring his boundaries."

A Seattle aquarium employee later put Ink's arms back inside the case, and a so-called "evening cap" was fastened on top to help keep the curious fellow in place, Kuniholm said.

"Octopuses are very inquisitive by nature, and in this case ... Ink is an overachiever," he said.

Ink is one of two new giant Pacific octopuses on display at the aquarium. Found in Puget Sound, they are the world's largest species of octopuses, weighing on average about 90 pounds (41 kg) and measuring 20 feet (6.1 meters) across.

Kuniholm said the two male octopuses are kept in separate homes at the aquarium because the species is solitary by nature, with males and females coming together only to mate during their short 3-to-4-year lifespan.

In the next year, Ink will be released back into the wild as part of an ongoing education and conservation program for the species, the aquarium said.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Sandra Maler)

I liked the way the Reuters article closed:

It was not clear what support the German position, which appeared to take no account of the political change in Greece, will have in the wider euro zone talks.

I went against your advice and had a look at a DW article on the subject, and I see what you mean, there is quite a big disparity between the accepted position in the article and anything else I've read from outside Germany. I am now also left wondering how on earth any compromise could be made acceptable to German politicians, and then sold to the public. Since Ireland and Portugal are starting to recover despite The Austerity, it's entirely possible that the usual suspects will say "Look! It works!". They do have much more debt now though...

I can understand a certain aversion to excessive inflation, after the chaos caused by hyperinflation in 1923, but you'd think that if they remember that then they'd also remember where that led (and particularly with the rise of Golden Dawn).

As for Italy, it has somehow managed to muddle along on the edge of disaster for so long that I'm starting to think it can keep doing so forever.

Unfortunatly, it's not just Merkel and her cabinet. It's the press, it's the economics departments at universities, it's politicians at all levels. Call it an economic nationalism, hell-bent to defend what they know to be the moral way of doing business. Everything left of this special flavour of market fundamentalism has been systematically attacked and suppressed for at least 30 years.

For instance, our socialist party, still referred to as the fringe of what is acceptable, runs on what is basically a carbon-copy of social-democrat programmes from the '70s. Similar to the British Green Party and Labour. Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, Wolff, DeLong -- they'd all be on the fringe in Germany. Even the likes of Simon Johnson (IMF) or Willem Buiters (City Group).

If you speak out in favour of higher inflation (wage growth) to ease the pressure on our brothers and sisters in southern Europe, you'll be charged with waging a war against German saver. "You want to devalue what little savings a nurse can accrue? Don't you support blue collar workers?"

The same blue collar workers have been stripped of their savings by 15 years of wage suppression, the same blue collar workers are looking at poverty when they retire, because the PAYGO pension system was turned into a capital-based system that only works to your benefit if you never lose your job, always pay your dues and reach at least age 95. The previous system survived two world wars without a problem, yet was deemed flawed when they realized how much money could be channeled into the financial system – only to disappear at the first sight of a crisis, eg every five to ten years.

Similarly, you could point out that a focus on trade surpluses might not be the greatest of ideas, given the dependence it creates on foreign demand, a weak currency and restricted wage growth domestically. But they'll call you a looney. "The trade surplus is a result of just how industrious our workers, how creative our scientists and how skilled our engineers are. It's all innovation, mate! Are you saying we force the others to buy our stuff? That's madness."

You simply cannot have an open discussion about macroeconomics in Germany. Do I have to mention how schizophrenic it makes me feel to read contradictory descriptions of reality every day? It's bonkers and everyone's better off NOT reading both German and international sources on these matters.


Any compromise would have to work with this in mind. They'd have to package in a way that doesn't smell like debt relief of any kind. People know that stretching the payment out over 100 years equals debt relief, but it might just be enough of a lie to get beyond the level of self-deception that is simply part of politics. If they manage to paint Varoufakis' idea of growth-based levels of payment as the best way to get German funds back, people might go for it. Not sure if our government would, but you could sell it to the public. And with enough pressure from Greece, Spain, Italy, and France most of all, maybe Merkel could be "persuaded" to agree to a deal.

As for Syriza's domestic problems: it's a one-way ticket to hell. Undoing decades of nepotism under external pressure, with insolvency knocking on your door? Best of luck.

Italy is hard on Greece's heels in terms of institutional corruption. Southern Italy, in particular, is an absolute mess. Given the size of the Italian economy, Syriza better succeed, so their work can be used as a blueprint. Otherwise we're going to need a whole lot of popcorn in the next decade...


Edit: Case in point, German position paper, as described by Reuters. As if the elections in Greece never took place.

This is a very "limited" presentation on this topic. The only reason we aren't on Mars right now is (surprise!) money.

Would you like to know more?



A few points to consider:
Total cost of the USA war in Iraq:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said."

TOTAL cost of NASA's budget over the last 50 years since its inception and adjusted for inflation:

$790 billion

So...NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, HuffPo, AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Politico, BBC, NYT, Free Republic, RT, NKorea News not enough, eh?

Is the fucking news to anyone? Do you guys read or even just watch the videos that are posted ON THIS SITE?!

http://videosift.com/video/Last-Week-Tonight-with-John-Oliver-FIFA-and-the-World-Cup

Or how about you look something up about this particular World Cup and the events surrounding it.

http://revolution-news.com/brazil-fifa-forces-evictions-for-world-cup-police-brutality-rages/

http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/fifa-world-cup-forces-homelessness-on-thousands-of-children/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-human-cost-of-the-fifa-world-cup/5390001

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-22992410

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/us-worldcup-brazil-idUSBREA3715H20140408

And it's all...ALL of it is for this. http://www.espnfc.com/story/1830732

hehe Reuters is just Obama's propaganda division. Some one must have slipped up there.

And rightly so since TheBlaze is Glenn Beck's news entertainment organization.

This link would be more compelling to the target audience:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-egypt-usa-idUSBRE95600J20130607

On the other hand, apparently the US Government lost $11.2 billion on bailing out GM. They *spent* 50 billion bailing them out, the 11.2 billion is just how much dried up and blew away entirely.

Maybe if we'd have just let some of those corporate juggernauts fail, as should happen in a REAL free market, we'd actually have seen more progress. I'm thinking of, say, Tesla -- that got a $465 million loan from the gov. and paid it off in full 9 years early.

Not so long ago -- within my lifespan -- the government actually *broke up* giant corporate monopolies like Bell telecom. Now we can't throw money at them fast enough. I guess lobbying "works".

(Reuters) - About 30 Syrian government fighters were killed when rebels set off a bomb in a tunnel beneath a checkpoint in a northwestern province, activists said on Tuesday.

Videos and images posted by opposition supporters online showed a massive plume of smoke and earth shooting into the air near a small town as men shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest).

Rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad regularly carry out guerrilla attacks against his forces, but the size of the blast, which occurred on Monday, was unusual.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the blast took place outside the town of Ma'arat al-Nu'man in the northwestern Idlib province.

At least two officers were among those killed when insurgents from the Islamic Front and the Shields of the Revolution Council set off tons of explosives in a tunnel running from the road to the checkpoint, the group said.