Octafish
Octafish's JournalGoethe (and Beethoven) are tops.
Goethe’s social attitudes, like his musical tastes, were shaped in a more formal age. For Beethoven, 21 years his junior, the only true aristocrats were artists. In the mythology, his disillusionment was clinched by Goethe’s behaviour when they encountered royalty in the street, as reported 20 years later by Bettina: "Beethoven said to Goethe: 'keep walking as you have until now, holding my arm, they must make way for us, not the other way around. Goethe thought differently; he drew his hand, took off his hat and stepped aside, while Beethoven, hands in pockets, went right through the dukes and their cortege... They drew aside to make way for him, saluting him in friendly fashion. Waiting for Goethe who had let the dukes pass, Beethoven told him: “I have waited for you because I respect you and I admire your work, but you have shown too much esteem to those people.”’
SOURCE: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/a-meeting-of-genius-beethoven-and-goethe-july-1812?pmtx=most-popular&utm_expid=32540977-5.-DEFmKXoQdmXwfDwHzJRUQ.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
I'm just as ticked as the Socialists at Socialist World who are really hopping mad.
“USA Freedom Act”: A fig leaf for illegal spying
by Patrick Martin
World Socialist Web Site, 4 June 2015
EXCERPT...
The most overstated and effusive presentation of the bill came in the New York Times, the principal shaper of liberal public opinion and a slavish supporter of the Obama administration. Its account was headlined, “US Surveillance in Place Since 9/11 Is Sharply Limited.” That the bill affected only one of hundreds of intrusive surveillance programs went unmentioned.
The news analysis claimed, “The legislation signaled a cultural turning point for the nation, almost 14 years after the Sept. 11 attacks heralded the construction of a powerful national security apparatus. The shift against the security state began with the revelation by Edward J. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, about the bulk collection of phone records. The backlash was aided by the growth of interconnected communication networks run by companies that have felt manhandled by government prying.”
This paragraph includes a mass of falsifications and distortions. First, the “powerful national security apparatus” was in existence well before September 11, 2001—indeed, the role of the CIA, NSA and FBI in permitting and even directly facilitating the terror attacks, which allowed the US government to go forward with a long-planned program of militaristic aggression, including invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, raises many troubling questions.
The “shift against the security state” prompted by Snowden’s revelations was a shift in popular opinion, not a change in the policies of either Congress or the Obama administration, both of whom defended the intelligence apparatus and demanded Snowden’s arrest and prosecution for treason. And Snowden revealed far more than the bulk collection of phone records, releasing tens of thousands of documents on myriad illegal NSA spy programs directed at both the American population and the entire world.
Nor did American companies play any significant role in opposing government spying. On the contrary, Snowden’s revelations included the exposure of collaboration by Google, Microsoft and dozens of other Silicon Valley giants, and well as the entire telecommunications industry, with the build-up of an American police-state apparatus.
CONTINUED...
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/04/pers-j04.html
The supporting role played by Corporate McPravda to the NYT lead is touching.
One major correction: One Telco CEO did oppose the NSA domestic spy treason. Joseph Nacchio of QWEST Communications. The only one to go public in his opposition to the government's unconstitutional program, he got railroaded for his trouble and sent to prison.
The glitch came during turnover from government to the private sector.
USA PATRIOT Act expired to be replaced by USA FREEDOM Act.
Greenpeace releases confidential IAEA Fukushima accident report
Greenpeace releases confidential IAEA Fukushima-Daiichi accident report
The International Atomic Energy Agency report fails to accurately reflect the scale and consequences of the Fukushima disaster.
by Justin McKeating
Greenpeace Blogpost - 1 June, 2015
The International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors meets on June the 8th to discuss its confidential Fukushima-Daiichi Accident Summary Report. The report describes itself as 'an assessment of the causes and consequences of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan that began on 11 March 2011.'
Greenpeace has received a copy of the report and we made it public last week. We've also conducted an initial analysis of the report and our findings are not good.
Yukiya Amano, the IAEA Director General says the report is 'an authoritative, factual and balanced assessment, addressing the causes and consequences of the accident, as well as lessons learned.'
Yet our experts find it to be full of inaccuracies, uncertainties, and that it fails to address several highly important issues. We've sent our findings to Mr Amano.
Here are some examples.
• The IAEA admits that radiation monitoring was not working properly in the days immediately after the Fukushima disaster began.
• Despite this uncertainty, the report downplays the health risks to the disaster's many victims.
• This means that the estimates of the levels of radiation the people of Fukushima were exposed to cannot be trusted.
• The IAEA's analysis of the new safety regulations in Japan are superficial at best, and they offer no evidence in the report that the Japanese nuclear industry is operating to the global highest standards of nuclear safety.
• The reality is that there are major flaws in nuclear regulation in Japan with seismic and other threats to nuclear plants safety ignored or underestimated.
• The report dismisses the environmental impact of the disaster on animal life despite scientific investigations finding measurable effects on the region's fauna.
• The report fails to acknowledge the uncertainties that still surround the causes of the disaster. Much of the critical systems inside the reactors that melted down have not yet been inspected.
SNIP...
In short, the IAEA is moving to protect the nuclear industry instead of the people whose lives have been destroyed by the Fukushima disaster and those who may be affected by future nuclear accidents.
This is not a surprise, a central role of the IAEA is to promote the global expansion of nuclear power. The fact that all commercial nuclear reactors in Japan – 43 in total – remain shutdown is a direct challenge to the IAEA's mission. That is the context in which the IAEA report must be seen.
CONTINUED w links to IAEA reports, etc....
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/IAEA-Fukushima-Daiichi-accident-report/blog/53055/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%2BGreenpeaceNews%2B%28Greenpeace%2BNews%29
Greenwald makes a good point, with the FBI's record.
Before 9-11, they respected suspected terrorists' civil rights. Ask Zaccarias Moussaoui and Coleen Rowley and 3,000 people, many of whom should still be alive.
After 9-11, they classified Americans as terrorists -- especially the ones who asked WTF in regard to the Police State with Supercomputers.
It seems that's the only way they can catch anybody is to monitor everybody and figure out who to screw, like most of those arrested were entrapped in their terror plans they never would have imagined without federal assistance.
In Boston, the FBI even killed a "witness" who was handcuffed during an interrogation, shooting him seven times in his own home, repeatedly lying about the circumstances afterward.
Other than that, there's the history of the institution.
A Thread that Must Not Be Pulled
If it is, it goes back to really creepy folks* blackmailing Sweaty Denny.
* Whomever that may be.
Silver Star recipients deserve the best.
Same for Bronze star recipients.
Chickenhawks don't know any of that, though.
The kind of Democrat I endorse works to support the New Deal.
Those Democrats who've worked against the New Deal, not so much.
Case in point: The repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. That spelled disaster in the 2008 Bankster Bailout. The Democratic president who signed it into law was working in a spirit of bi-partisanship with his Republican Senate colleague to encourage new areas of banking by deregulating the financial industry cough gutting the New Deal protections of the Wall Street casino from using taxpayer-backed bank deposits.
See if you can spot some familiar names on this list:
They now work together at UBS -- which received uncounted billions in bailout money -- to specialize in some kind of "Weath Management."
PS: Forensic economist and former Fed regulator William K. Black wrote it reminds him of what happened during the Savings and Loans Crisis of the late 80s and early 90s. At the time, that was the greatest bank heist in history.
Elizabeth WARREN?
She's fighting Wall Street's predations on the American people, among other things.
Unlike Hillary whatshername who actually voted for the interests of the plutocrats over the American people on bankruptcy and credit card reform. Did I mention what she did for the Bankster bailout?
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