Omission Accomplished

I'm all a flutter awaiting the May 1, 2013 grand opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in a a strip mall near Texas SMU...it's a library, a museum and a neo con theme park, all rolled into one! You don't have to read, you don't have to write or engage in any tedious thought type processes to enjoy the family fun. Take the little ones to the My Pet Goat Petting Zoo. Enjoy a refreshing Tequila Sunrise in America or Freedom Margarita at the 9/11 Karaoke Saloon Lounge! You can shout into the gold plated bull horn that George used at the World Trade Center in 2001! No obscenities, please. In fact you can pick up a miniature working 9/11 George Bush Jr. Bullhorn in the giftshop! There's something for everyone in the gift shop! Buy the snappy CD, all the really cool kids are digging on Meet The Bushies! Choose from a wide selection of realistic resin cast  miniature shards of actual debris and assorted unidetifiable body parts from the World Trade Center. Buy the

convenient patriotically wrapped gift pack assortment with the little Rudy Guiliani bobble head statue that speaks and speaks and speaks and ...don't worry, eventually the battery runs out. Imagine owning your own working model of Saddam Hussein's gold plated Kalishnikov? The original, which was gift to George is in the museum.  Back ground checks? Who needs a stinking background check?...well unless you are the wrong color, after all this is Texas! Take the American Century Neo Con Fun House Ride! See how many redeemable tokens you can pick up at the Raiders of the Lost Baghdad Billions Money Drop Casino. BUY NOW!
According to the library’s official website, it will be ”a results-oriented institute that will have an effect on our country and, we think, on the world,” focusing on areas including economic growth, human freedom, and education reform. But it’s tough to say what results can be gleaned from the legacy of the president who turned a budget surplus into a deficit, left us into a major recession, permitted the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, and instituted the “No Child Left Behind” education policy that is widely criticized even by Republicans today. “It looks like a theme park as much as it is a library,” according to Lou Dubose, co-author of “Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America.” Dubose points out the library also includes a freedom tower, a freedom plaza, a decision points library, the bullhorn Bush used to talk to first responders from ground zero, and even Saddam Hussein’s pistol.
“It’s kind of a parentheses around one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in our country’s history and they’re pretty shameless about it.”
Dubose describes the “triumphalist narrative” on display at the library as “a neo-con rehash of all the terms that were used to lead the country into war.”
“One would expect a little bit of a modesty from a president who has presided over that sort of failure,” he said. “And from a president who’s competing in the bottom ten in terms of presidential rankings that are done by legitimate historians.”
Dubose contrasts Bush’s airbrushed approach with President’s Johnson’s museum, which he describes as contrasting his great achievements like the civil rights movement, with his notable failure, the war in Vietnam. “There’s nothing on the other side for Bush.”

Here is what Al Sharpton's Program on MSNBC had to say yesterday:

Perhaps, you might want to view some of George Jr's original art works? He'd be so pleased if you picked up some of these classy reproductions suitable for framing from the gift shop!

Fish And Chocolate

From my collection

Fish and chocolate, a French tradition on April Fools Day. The traditional April Fool Kids prank dates back to medieval time, and you made a paper fish, which you attached to the back of your "victim". Now we still play jokes on each other, but the fish thing has become a chocolate thing...a seasonal speciality. You can read about my attempts at making chocolate fish here...and for some reason, a speciality of the chocolate industry of Belgium...
Too bad that America has lost it's appreciation of April Fools Day. Y'all have seem to have lost your sense of humor in general and I think it it has a lot to do with the Conservatives who seem to have lost the ability to see how fucking ridiculous they are in the eyes of the rest of the world. I read the news and I think everyday is April Fools Day for these jerks, but they aren't joking. The are hermetically sealed in an toxic atmospheric bubble of self righteous indignation. It's not easy to decide what is the best Republican April Fools Prank...hey it's like shooting chocolate fish in a barrel, but I nominate the Republican Chair Woman of Georgia, Sue Everhart as the official Republican April Fool.Not to be too cruel, just look at this mess! 

I swear to god I did not photoshop
this picture! Really!

 She let loose this bizarre theory that people will pretend to be gay in order to get health care benefits. (Maybe we could just, you know, give everybody benefits?)

“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

Everhart said while she respects all people, if same sex marriage is legalized across the country, there will be fraud.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Everhart said if she had a young child, she wouldn’t want them to have gay parents who would influence that child’s sexual orientation.

“You’re creating with this child that it’s a lifestyle, don’t go out and marry someone else of a different sex because this is natural,” Everhart said. “But if I had a next door neighbor who was in a gay relationship, I could be just as friendly to them as I could be to you and your wife or anybody else. I’m not saying that we ostracize them or anything like that. I’m just saying I’m against marriage because once you get the gay marriage you get everything else.”

 Sue Everhart, The biggest Republican April Fool of 2013! What a Georgia peach! Bless her heart!

Wanker Deluxe

OVERKILL

Adam Lanza? Never heard of him. According to the NRA , it's all part of a government conspiracy, but then again, to Wayne LaPierre, isn't everything?
The NRA issued a statement Thursday responding to the release of dozens of official police documents on Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza, saying that one of the items police found is not being accurately reported.
In searching Lanza's home, investigators found an NRA certificate registered in Lanza's name, as well as one in the name of his mother, Nancy Lanza. The NRA claims that the police records are false.
"There is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association. Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory," the statement said.
According to the documents, police found "Adam Lanza National Rifle Association Certificate" in a blue duffel bag. The official police documents detailed more than 100 items police found in Lanza's home.
Here's the relevant portion of the search warrant:

Frankly, I don't think there is much more to say here....
except, that maybe it really is the time to release the photos!
Does America have to be disciplined like a bad puppy and have it nose rubbed in its own shit?
I've probably said too much already....

FREEDOM

Early on the morning of May 13, 1862, a lookout on the U.S.S. Onward spotted a Confederate steamer heading out of Charleston Harbor directly toward the Union blockade. Commander F.J. Nickels was about to fire when he saw that the steamer was flying a white flag. “The steamer ran alongside and I immediately boarded her, hauled down [the] flag of truce, and hoisted the American ensign, and found that it was the steamer Planter, of Charleston, and had successfully run past the forts and escaped.”

The transport ship’s pilot, Robert Smalls, had resolved to escape slavery by steaming out to the Union warships blockading his city. When the ship’s white officers had gone ashore that night, he directed his eight fellow slaves to fire up the boilers and guided the ship to a nearby wharf, where they collected their families. Then Smalls donned the captain’s hat and coat and gave two long and one short blasts on the whistle as they neared Fort Sumter, as he had seen the captain do. The sentry sent him on his way. As he made for the Union fleet three miles away, he put up one of his wife’s bedsheets as a flag of truce.
Harper’s Weekly called the theft “one of the most daring and heroic adventures since the war commenced.” In his Naval History of the Civil War, Union admiral David Dixon wrote, “The taking out of the ‘Planter’ would have done credit to anyone, but the cleverness with which the whole affair was conducted deserves more than a passing notice.”

Smalls was given a monetary reward for the captured Planter and went on to serve in the South Carolina legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. When Abraham Lincoln asked why he had stolen the ship, he said simply, “Freedom.”

Reality Check

Oh, Shit....

TIME!

You know what? I hate the entire concept of Daylight Savings time...Who's saving what? From whom? Tonight here in Europe, my Time Zone, CET is changing the time at midnight. I am a solar powered organism. I hate the change in the fall, when I lose an hour of daylight to the fucking cows?...as far as I can figure, they are the real culprits.  As long as I get my 8 hours of sleep, I'm happy, but the more day light I get each day, the happier I am. I've been ranting about this for years. There are so many good reasons not to switch time and as far as I'm concerned, the most important one is me!

Just Wankers

A wee bit of wisdom from one of my favorite Scottish Philosophers, Irvine Welsh...

The Crisis Of Capitalism

Pretty fuckin' brilliant, I'd say!

Jack Talks

I never saw this before. I have always admired Jack Bruce as totally open, incredibly talented natural musician. He plays Jazz, but has worked with some of the greatest avant garde composers of our time. Beyond being one of the most influential bass players ever, if you don't know who this guy was, he was the bass player of Cream and the vocalist and bass player on the Manfred Man 60's classic, Pretty Flamingo. He is an incredible keyboard player and composer and a classically trained singer. He has used all of these talents to push the boundaries of music in his own work and as a tool to be used by others. Here. Jack talks about music, plays the classical Indian instrument, the veena, then a grand baroque organ.

compréhension de la culture françaises

I hope this helps you understand French culture more profoundly. This is a promo for the Oyster industry located on the Atlantic Coast, in the vicinity of L'ile d'Oleron. And yes, this is a normal TV ad...it was just on during the Noon Time News on the local France3 channels all over France.

Me? I love oysters and I love this ad!

What So Never The Dance

Bootsy Collins in his Cincinnati based, post JB band, The House Guests, with his bro, Catfish Collins.

He left James Brown and took the horn section with him.  

This is their self financed single, What So Never The Dance...Now this is a bass riff for the ages!

ouragan dans un pot de thé

I'm sure that this is much more than you want to or need to know about French politics. I don't do this very often, but I am compelled to give some background on the latest developments on this land I am a part of now and love. It's very hard to explain French politics and the French mentality to Americans. I have been immersed in this culture for the last 30 or so years, but I will always be an outsider. This was the first really secular society, the word is laicitie, yet it remains profoundly Catholic. But for most French, the definition of being Catholic is profoundly different than an American, or an Italian. Your typical French male person who would identify them self as Catholic would be in the strict eyes of the Vatican living in a state of mortal sin. Culturally, most people are Catholics by heritage. There is a large Protestant population, that is what the Wars of Religion in the 16th Century were all about. There was a large Jewish population, but it's just beginning to really recover it's numbers 60 years after WW2. The Evangelist Christians are beginning to make inroads here, especially in the large Gypsy population, which was traditionally and nominally Catholic. Moslem?...don't go there...it's the fastest growing demographic group in France.
But this is a laic country. Churches are not allowed to own property directly. The historical churches all over France are State owned and maintained as our cultural heritage.  The outward expression of religious belief is considered wrong and in many cases, illegal.
There are religious private schools here but they are not state supported. So, most people while they identify themselves as Catholic, do not practice the religion as Americans do in their guilt bound strictures. Most French men are baptized in a church, the do the childhood rituals, first communion, confirmation and then outside of marriage and funerals, usually only are seen inside a church when they are dragged to midnight mass on Christmas...if the church in your village is important enough to rate a visit from the local cure for Christmas.
But it's in the culture, the holiday calendar is based around the cycle of Catholic feasts. Easter is lamb, Pentecost is veal...And everyone gets totally freaked out by the Pope! This whole new pope thing dominated the news for weeks and seemed to reawaken the latent religious DNA lurking in the French genetic makeup. It would seem that this is just another unfortunate coincidence that has dogged the Socialiste Government of Francois Hollande. One of his campaign promises was to make Marriage Equality a part of the French Constitution. It would seem just another step in our social evolution. The same groups would kick and scream. Just like the legalization of abortion, the abolition of the death penalty and the official decriminalization of homosexuality. The Catholics and the neo nationalist far rights all kicked and screamed, but most of the French supported these measures  and after they became facts, they accepted it and moved on. On the surface, that is what was happening with the Socialiste Initiative to legalize Gay Marriage. It is a de facto thing anyway. We have an institution called the Pacte...and there are less and less actual marriages and more and more Pactes. Any one can form a Pacte. It's a legal agreement, a contract both parties can negotiate. So more and more couples eschew formal marriages and make a pacte...there is no discrimination in the legal definition of the union defined by a pacte.
But, the Socialistes had committed to legalizing Gay Marriage and moved on it. Most of the French were in favor and most didn't care. The Far Right Catholics and the unholy alliance with the Neo Nationalists and the absurdly still existent Royalists did...but they traditionally don't like anything. The alliance of these factions had their bonds forged in Pre WW2 France. They became the backbone of the collaborationist Petain Government of Occupied France. Yes, the Royalists still believe that one day France will bring back Royalty and all of their useless titles will magically be restored and we will all become their peons and peasants again.
Suddenly, though there is a new player in the game. The center Right UMP Party. They would be the equivalent of the Republicans in America. They controlled the Presidency with Chirac, then Sarkozy for 15 years. They are now bitterly factionalized after the massive defeat they suffered in the last election. There has been an almost fraticidial war going on between the followers of Francois Fillon and Jean-Francois Cope. During the UMP/Sarkozy administration, The UMP began to attempt to co opt the influence of the far right Front National as a strategy to win the 2012 election. Their rhetoric became more extreme against immigration and more openly traditional values and openly embraced the symbols of Catholicism. They blatantly exploited every supposed terrorist incident and many commentators are saying they were purposely lax and abetted a few incidents to reap the publicity value.
In the long run, this backfired. The Front National spent a lot of energy refurbishing it's image with Marine LePen as it's new leader and presidential candidate. As the UMP became more extreme, the FN tried to appear more user friendly. Behind the scenes of course it was the old FN allied with Neo Fascist groups in France and all over Europe, but they had the economic failures of the UMP and European Union to exploit. Not, that they had any real ideas...Jean-Francois Cope became the most dangerous demagogue in the UMP as Party secretary and the man seen as the architect of the UMP's neo nationalist extremism. After their utter defeat across France in the 2012 election, the UMP split as Filon and Cope sparred for leadership of the party. They had their first ever popular vote among members for the Party leadership which was an utter failure as both factions accuse the other of rigging the election. Six months later and the rift still isn't healed. Six months later and the UMP is trying to re inflate the punctured balloon of Sarkozy to somehow boost their image. Sarkozy is one of the great manipulators of French politics. A demagogue who in the very end, could not govern, but he sure could  manipulate. He was totally into governing by polls and trying to mold his public image according to the latest figures. His relationship to the well used aging model, wannabee pop star and ideological chameleon. She has had affairs with quite a few pop stars in France and powerful left wing political figures. She was Eric Claptons's lover and then dropped him for Mick Jagger.The Bruni/Sarkozy match up was totally the result of his publicist, Claude Gueant, who was an admitted admirer of Karl Rove, bringing Bruni and Sarkozy together after Sarko's marriage implode soon after his election in 2007.  Carla released a cd while she was officially first lady in France which died here, but sold internationally because of the morbid fascination with...hey she's French and like the presidents wife and singing about cocaine. She is releasing a new record presently which features a pretty pathetic ditty insulting Francois Hollande called The Penguin. Of course the morbid interest in Sarkozy is a smoke screen, he can never go back into politics. He is doomed to a legal limbo trying to fend off and fight the litany of corruption cases that he is involved in one way or another dating back to his days in the Balladur Government. Just today, he was linked to the manipulation of the UMP Party Secretary Elections...he is accused of working to corrupt the votes in favor of Cope, because he really dislikes his former Prime Minister, Filon. Meanwhile, this week has seen Sarko being hauled into court in Bordeaux and being charged with taking advantage of an old lady...this is the ongoing Bettencourt affair, where his party is accused of setting up a secret system to defraud Lillane Bettencourt, the dowager of the L'Oreal Cosmetic firm and the richest woman in France out of millions of Euros. This is serious and the right is freaking out.  Carla was on all the major media radio shows emoting and actually crying that her husband was being politically persecuted by the Left. To underline how serious the rupture in political discourse has gotten here, the judges, the media and a lot of left wing politicians have received very credible death threats in the last 72 hours.
Six or Seven months into the Socialiste Administration and France is suffering from it's worst

The Racist poster attacking the Minster
of Justice, Christiane Taubira.

unemployment numbers in decades. The economic idiocy of the Sarkozy years won't go away over night, but all sides are trying to make hay out of the ongoing disaster. The FN still has no real vision except get out of the Euro and deport immigrants. The UMP has become a nonstop noise machine of negativity and Cope and his faction are intent on taking the lessons of the Tea Party in America and running with them. Hence, the massively organized anti Marriage Equality Demonstration that took place in Paris on Sunday.  Suddenly,blatantly racist posters attacking Christiane Taubira, the present Socialiste Justice Minister appeared all  over France.  Taubira is a remarkable woman. She was a politically independent single mother who rose from poverty in French Guyana to become a scholar and professor in economics and agriculture, then political prominence there. Guyana is a French Over Seas Department and she became it's representative in the French Government. I've written about Taubira recently. She is the champion of the effort to push this law through.
The conservative Catholics have been protesting the Marriage Equality Law since it was first proposed with massive organized marches in Paris and other French cities for the last year. Most French support the concept of Marriage Equality. As I said above, it is going to become the law and the brouhaha will be over, like with the death penalty and abortion. The main opposition has been Christine Boutin and her Conservative Catholic Christian Democrat Party. They along with the Front national have been able to mobilize 
militant conservative Catholics from all over France and provide transportation to create the image of

The "martyred' Chrisitne Boutin image.
She got a whiff of tear gas during the
violence and is now playing it for all
she can get out of it....

massive opposition. This time, on Sunday, it was bigger and nastier than ever. This time with the link to the UMP, who is trying to use the Marriage Equality Law as a political tool to discredit the Socialiste Government, we saw for the first time, the conservative arm  of the UMP directly involved. They are in effect, trying to create a French Tea Party type movement. It doesn't matter that their policies are directly responsible for so many of the economic problems in France today. It doesn't matter that they are so deeply immersed in their own corruption scandals. They are effectively out of power and disintegrating. That makes them very dangerous and desperate enough to link to the Front National and the Christian Democrats and try to co opt them both again as way to regain political power. The language in the meda has been hyped up regarding intolerance and racial prejudice. Many of my French friends tell me that they have never seen the level of racism in the national discourse before. Many of these people are able to recall the tensions in France during the Algerian War.

 During the demonstrations in Paris on Sunday, the protestors attacked the riot police, The CRS to provoke them and then used their own children as a "human shield" when the CRS retaliated. Groups of protestors attacked the police and gave the fascist salute singing the national anthem. The UMP is playing with fire. They have unlocked the door and the demons are truly loose on the land. Gay marriage will be the law of the land. The votes will go through. The most popular politician in France is still Manuel Valls, The Socialiste Minister of the Interior. He has remained calm and strong though out all of this. If his government survives the next 4 years, he might be the next President of France! Most French are supportive in the polls, but the unholy alliance, the bad chemistry is something that will haunt this country for decades. For what it is worth, Francois Hollande did make a credible appearance on French Television last night. Hollande is a very intelligent, likable, straight shooter. His biggest handicap is politely saying, a lack of obvious charisma. He seems ready to compromise and find a middle road, but in this extreme political climate, it takes much more. When you are dealing with desperate sharks , reason is like blood in the water.

I realize that this analysis is far from complete, but do you have any questions? Because in tying to answer your questions, I might find more insights that may answer my own questions!

I.m putting together a post on French politics and the marriage equality law and the
real political problems here. It's not as obvious as you might think. So, to procrastinate,
and take a break...I scanned a photo I took in 1981 of the walkway on the
Williamsburg Bridge, back when New York City was literally falling apart....

Eurovision 2013

Why do I get so excited over the yearly ritual of Eurovision? I love trash culture! I actually anticipate the 4 hour ritual of the performances, the trans continental voting...the idiotic commentary, the national shame suffered each year by Britain! I am beginning to believe that the economic onus of being the Eurovision winner has a lot to do with the actual quality of the entries. If your country wins, well, they have to be the host of the next years competition..and what with the Euro Crisis, who needs that?  I just found this, the Estonian Band, Winny Puhh....this is going to be Estonia's Eurovision entry. This is kind of beyond wonderful in my universe. I have a lot of Estonian friends and few Estonian relatives and this explains a lot. They won't win. Nothing I ever like ever wins....But, I wish I was Estonian!

SPAM

I had a comment yesterday from Mr. Mojave Rat informing me that I had the word verification system on for my comments. I never noticed it, because blogger never asked me to use it...He said it was hard to use and I agree, it's pretty annoying to have to decipher the blurry picture and the very creative typography. I went to the dashboard of the blog and lo and behold, it was on! So, I turned it off. The results? This morning I awoke to find almost 300 international annoying spam comments posted from Malaysia, Italy, France, Korea...trying to sell me shoes, handbags and the latest Malaysian Islamic Women's Fashions. They were spread out though the last 3 years of posts on the blog. I'll keep it off for a while, but this is kind of amazing! What do you think?
UPDATE: I'm reinstalling the visual id commenting system. If you really want to comment here, you'll figure it out. I don't want to limit the comments to "authorized" bloggers...but hell if I'm going to put up with 100 or so spam messages clogging up my email everyday...Too Fucking Bad...but these assholes fucked it up for everybody!

Cold Dead Hand

Jim Carrey....TFB!
Probably the deadliest anti gun parody ever made...and the funniest!

NRA OUTREACH

This is the recording of the Robocall that Newtown, CT residents were complaining about this weekend. Cheezofrikin Pizza, those librul parents of dead kindergarden children are just so damn touchy! I guess this hyped up hysterical screed of exaggerations and outright lies is a part of that new conservative tolerance outreach policy they think is going to save their flabby scabby asses...I won't even say, "Good Luck With That!" cause it's already a massive 

fail

Marbles/Businessmen/Spaces

Some music that changed my life when I needed it. Marbles, a cut from the 1970 recording by John McLaughlin, Devotion. Buddy Rich on drums, Larry Young on organ, Billy Rich on bass. This was McLaughlin's first record featuring him as a composer and band leader. He had been playing jazz and rock in England since the early 60's. He was actually the guitarist for Georgie Fame's band, The Blue Flames, but if you ever heard Jack Bruce's real first solo recording, Things We Like, then you heard an original jazz player in 1968, playing in a more traditional, free jazz setting with Bruce, Dick Heckstall-Smith and John Hiseman. The compositions were jazz pieces that Bruce had composed as a teen. Bruce  and McLaughlin collaborated around the same time with the great Jazz Drummer, Tony Williams in his ground breaking band, Tony Williams Lifetime, with the organist Larry Young. Bruce and McLaughlin collaborated with American Jazz Composer, Carla Bley on her epic 1969 masterpiece, Escalator Over The Hill...a journey that went way beyond any concept of jazz...it was rock, it was free jazz, it was big band, it was an opera, a history of music...country, arabic, Kurt Weil with an all star cast of artists. You have to hear it to believe it...Jack Bruce and Linda Ronstadt singing surreal country pop music duets. Here's the piece, Businessmen from Escalator. Bruce's passionate vocal and bass and McLaughlin playing rock that was light years ahead of anything that was happening on the radio:

At the same time, McLaughlin formed a fast friendship with another rock fusion jazz pioneer, Larry Coryell. They recorded the ground breaking record, Spaces. The band Coryell assembled for Spaces was the fertile soil that spawned some of the most influential music of the late 20th Century. The line up was Coryell, McLaughlin on guitars. Miroslav Vitous on bass, Chick Corea on keyboards and Billy Cobham on drums. Within months, Corea formed Return To Forever, Vitous had joined Weather Report and McLaughlin and Cobham had formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Coryell formed his relatively unknown, but incredibly influential band, The Eleventh House. Coryell is still composing and playing today and remains one of America's greatest natural resources. A real master. Here is the composition, Spaces.

When The ATM Runs Dry?

For me, blogging is a form of self education. I want to know and by researching and writing, I gradually absorb and collect material which allows me to understand and be able to explain it. I have had a basic, rudimentary knowledge of economics, but dealing with the evolution of the World financial crisis has led me in many different direction. As a European/American, I am directly affected by the Euro Zone crisis on many levels. On a temporal immediate level, the problems with the Euro as a currency work to my advantage. A weak Euro makes my American income worth more here. When the dollar was weak a few years ago, there was a period when the exchange rate was 59 centimes to an American dollar. That hurt. Now with the stronger dollar, the exchange rate is almost 82 centimes to a dollar. But it's a double edged blade. Food prices steadily rise and the per liter price of diesel for my car is 1 Euro 40 centimes. I also have bank accounts here in French banks. I feel I have to understand this mess to be able to deal with the future. I'm sure you are following the Cyprus Bank crisis, but do you have any idea as to how it will affect you? Do you understand the difference in financial policies promoted by the American Republican fiscal conservatives and the British? And why we have to resist them in every way we can? Because as in Britain, Conservatives can't seem to see beyond austerity born on the backs of the middle classes as a way to protect the banks and the wealthy who stash their money in them. You just have to look at Britain to see how that is working out for them.
There are many reasons for the Cypriot debacle, but a major one stems from a 2010 meeting in Deauville, Normandy, during which Merkel persuaded former French president Nicolas Sarkozy that private bank creditors in Greece should take a "haircut" as part of the Greek bailout.
That triggered a long fight between Berlin and Frankfurt, the German government and the ECB. As usual, Merkel prevailed, though privately she has conceded it was a mistake not to be repeated. Last year, when Greece's private bank creditors were forced to take losses as part of a new bailout, Cypriot banks, heavily involved in Greece, suffered hugely, making a Cypriot bailout inevitable.

But this was like a pebble dropped into a pond, creating a ripple effect. A Pebble? More like the side of the cliff sliding into a pond that was already rippling from the steady erosion of the slope. Why do we refuse to regulate financial institutions? Why are they untouchable, when you see them commit the same crimes of greed over and over again? 

The so called  "Treasure Islands"are the very weak link in the worlds economy. Treasure Islands, like The Caymans, like Iceland and Cyprus were. Read the great book, Treasure Islands by Nicholas Shaxson to really understand how this all works and the inevitable disasters they create.

"Not only do they bleed revenues from cash-strapped governments and enable corruption; they distort the flow of capital, helping to feed ever-bigger financial crises." ...Paul Krugman,NYT

So now breezy warm Cyprus is just another edition of Iceland.  Iceland meant real trouble. Fortunately for the Icelandic population, it was the rude awakening that made them realize they had to take matters into their own hands by prosecuting bankers and rewriting their own constitution. They took their lumps but rejected the austerity bailout loans from the IMF. Iceland is small enough and has a Democratic Constitutional Government which allowed them this flexibility to change. Cyprus is much more serious. 

Officially, 37 percent of the deposits in Cypriot banks come from nonresidents; the true number, once you take into account wealthy expatriates and people who are only nominally resident in Cyprus, is surely much higher. Basically, Cyprus is a place where people, especially but not only Russians, hide their wealth from both the taxmen and the regulators. Whatever gloss you put on it, it’s basically about money-laundering, but this fact in itself goes vary far in explaining why Russia is making the threats it is making today regarding the Cypriot reaction to the bailout proposals.

And the truth is that much of the wealth never moved at all; it just became invisible. On paper, for example, Cyprus became a huge investor in Russia — much bigger than Germany, whose economy is hundreds of times larger. In reality, of course, this was just “roundtripping” by Russians using the island as a tax shelter.

"Unfortunately for the Cypriots, enough real money came in to finance some seriously bad investments, as their banks bought Greek debt and lent into a vast real estate bubble. Sooner or later, things were bound to go wrong. And now they have". ...Krugman,  NYT

The beat goes on.  There are Icelands and Cypruses the world around.  And we're being told by the Republican party that our deficits are the main problem.  Is it possible that Republicans are trying to do what they did regularly during the Bush administration:  use wars and other crises to keep us from turning our attention to what's really going on?  And the real problem is how the top 10% -- not just the top 10% of America's economy but the entire world's economy -- are bleeding the rest of us dry.

Everyone has seen the damage that runaway bankers can inflict, yet much of the world’s financial business is still routed through jurisdictions that let bankers sidestep even the mild regulations we’ve put in place. Everyone is crying about budget deficits, yet corporations and the wealthy are still freely using tax havens to avoid paying taxes like the little people.

"So don’t cry for Cyprus; cry for all of us, living in a world whose leaders seem determined not to learn from disaster". ...Krugman,NYT

Being on the ground in Cyprus is not easy these days.  Here's a report on what life is like now in Nicosia and beyond.
How much longer is the world going to be able to tolerate these parasites sucking the life blood out of humanity? Extractors of global wealth. Rent-seeking, tax-dodging , me me me muther fuckers. And they've got nearly half of western civilization fooled into thinking the problem is the people they keep poor, hungry, and ill but the other half is waking up. Greece, Spain and now Britain...when is America finally going to get THE MESSAGE? Don't Push Me 'Cause I'm Close To The Edge!