Random Rant Thread

[miscmisc]

To me, James Baldwin is one of the coolest people who have ever walked on this planet.  I always wished that I could write and light a cigarette as cool as he did:



Fuckin' A.  He used to write sometimes about Israel-Palestine, and "terrorism" in general, and his observations from 40 years ago are still sharp as a knife, damning criticism of the post-9-11 America that would come 30 years later, and the culture that tolerates the kind of behaviors that Israel displays today.  From Just Above My Head:

I was traveling before the days of electronic surveillance, before the hijackers and terrorists arrived. For the arrival of these people, the people in the seats of power have only themselves to blame. Who, indeed, has hijacked more than England has, for example, or who is more skilled in the uses of terror than my own unhappy country? Yes, I know: nevertheless, children, what goes around comes around, what you send out comes back to you. A terrorist is called that only because he does not have the power of the State behind him – indeed, he has no State, which is why he is a terrorist. The State, at bottom, and when the chips are down, rules by means of a terror made legal – that is how Franco ruled so long, and is the undeniable truth concerning South Africa. No one called the late J. Edgar Hoover a terrorist, though that is precisely what he was: and if anyone wishes, now, in this context, to speak of “civilized” values or “democracy” or “morality,” you will pardon this poor nigger if he puts his hand before his mouth, and snickers – if he laughs at you. I have endured your morality for a very long time, am still crawling up out of that dungheap: all that the slave can learn from his master is how to be a slave, and that is not morality.

He talked even more specifically about it.  From Open Letter to the Born Again:

Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises. From the time of the Balfour Declaration (during World War I) Palestine was under five British mandates, and England promised the land back and forth to the Arabs or the Jews, depending on which horse seemed to be in the lead. The Zionists – as distinguished from the people known as the Jews – using, as someone put it, the ‘available political machinery,’ i.e., colonialism, e.g., the British Empire – promised the British that, if the territory were given to them, the British Empire would be safe forever.

But absolutely no one cared about the Jews, and it is worth observing that non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic.

But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of Western interests. This is what is becoming clear (I must say it was always clear to me). The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years…The collapse of the Shah not only revealed the depth of pious Carter’s concern for ‘human rights,’ it also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to whom Israel supplied arms. It happened to be, to spell it out, white South Africa.

I wonder why most African-American intellectuals stopped caring about the Palestinian issue.  Instead, we have total creeps like Corey Booker, who sucks up to the creepy cult sect of Judaism and shamelessly parrot the Israeli talking points.  And he's the "next liberal African-American leader".  Even rappers have notched down politics over the last 10 years.  It's not cool anymore? 

all that the slave can learn from his master is how to be a slave, and that is not morality.

James Baldwin would be dismayed if he were alive today.

[miscmisc]

My Israeli musician friend broke down when I was talking to him via phone.  He's been demonized and ostracized by everyone for not supporting this Operation.  He told me he's thinking of emigration now, the idea that had never occurred to him.  He's not been physically attacked or anything, but can't take it anymore.  His friend was fired for not supporting the attack too.

He's a "leftist", but often doesn't agree with me.  He thinks I'm too harsh on Israel.  He doesn't agree with Gideon Levy either.  But he's "leftist" enough for the society around him, enough to deserve to be ostracized.

Don't quote this post.  I will probably delete it in a few days, because it's too personal.  But that's what's happening over there.  None of your country's mainstream media outlets will report it, ever.

Actually, I will only delete the part above.  I will post some pics of the Jewish New Yorkers who went to the FIDF New York office to read out the names of the Gazans who have been killed, as a protest, and were subsequently arrested.







This is THE Jewish tradition.  They are only faithful to that.

[miscmisc]

Pwned:

www.democracynow.org/2014/7/23/a_debate_on_gaza_ali_abunimah

What other word can describe this?

OK, you might say: Democracy Now! has the ulterior (or not so ulterior) motive to set this creepy idiot called "JJ" against a no-joke veteran activist/journalist like Ali Abunimah; it was bound to be a one-way massacre exactly like Operation Protective Edge, only this time the roles were switched between the two sides. 

You may be right on that.

But I'm telling you: if you had put a less creepy Israeli apologist, even a very handsome, manly one, in place of that feeble imbecile, the result wouldn't have been much different.  Ali Abunimah's got all the facts, and all the knowledge on the history on his side.  No one else could've done a much better job than that "JJ" idiot did.  Hell, if it had been Netanyahu instead, you would've probably seen something even creepier.  He gets really, really creepy when he feels that he's in danger of losing a debate, or of appearing to lose a debate; he would start touching the interviewer on the thigh or shit like that.

The Israel apologists can appear on TV and pretend to be reasonable only because the news anchors and interviewers massively help them out, the enormous luxury that people like Ali Abunimah rarely, if ever, get.  It's always basically a fight where the ref has already decided the outcome beforehand.  He is going to call their feeble attempt at a quasi-triangle choke an instant TKO and raise their hands.  Any fighter can collect W's of course, even that "JJ" fuckface.

The fact of the matter is almost none of the Israel supporters would dare to debate serious critics like Ali Abunimah face-to-face on a neutral ground, because they know that they would have no chance in hell in the regular octagon with a normal ref.  That's why every single one of the liberal Zionists has been doing their best to avoid standing on the same stage with astute Israel critics like Max Blumenthal.  They know it wouldn't even be much of a fight.

[miscmisc]

This is always, always, always what it looks like when it comes to the international attempts to investigate Israel's acts:



The USA, the beacon of freedom and justice, as the sole "No" vote (so much for "Iran doesn't listen to the collective international voice!"), with a bunch of Europeans and Japanese as the chickenshit abstentions.

Just burn this image on your brain and be ashamed.  Pretty much all of you are from the No/Abstention territory.

FYI, this is not a "let's call Israelis a bunch of genocidal maniacs and ostracize them in the international community" vote.  They just want to investigate, and we say either "No!" (<-- fucking dipshit) or "Er, don't know" (<-- fucking chickenshit).

[h]

*facepalm*

[bol]

So many interesting (and infuriating considering what is going on in the world) postings here, thanks for the like 2 hours sleep I had after reading it .

As a German I have especially much to add about how ridiculous (from arrogant over racist to stupid) the public presentation of the EU crisis is here.
To simplified summarise a part of it: Everybody you criticised rightfully for talking such BS considering the facts, is getting for the exact same piece huge cheers in German media (which is in part also why they present it so especially stupid, the more not on facts but on prejudices based, the bigger the cheers).

One little cheer from myself however, just got this link from 2011:
Neill Ferguson (yeah the guy who for example made the "Keynes was gay and so had no interest in the future of mankind" -argument-) got so stupid with his hyperinflation talk, that even in the right wing paper National Review a commentator back then made fun of him (shall I really link it= Well here you go: www.nationalreview.com/corner/266583/niall-ferguson-cries-inflation-ramesh-ponnuru .

Complete topic change: About Ukraine and the Germany reaction to it (going in parts also very Anti-Russia harming their economy), I think it is important to note that Klitschko and his party UDAR were founded in cooperation (and supported by) the German conservative party CDU/their foundation (Konrad Adenauer Foundation). They probably felt quite CIA-like using the connection to the popular boxer (fighting out of a german promotion company) to build up a opposition and gain influence. But of course they got in this unexperienced coup d'état genre beaten out by the experienced US and the Klitschko UDAR got pretty much no influence after the regime change.

[miscmisc]

I regularly check the German newspapers, so I know the tone of their arguments regarding the euro crisis.  I mean, it's over, right?  The crisis is over.  Take a look at the low interest rates of the junk bonds in the periphery.  We are saved, saved, I'm telling you.

That's what I call changing the subject.  They successfully turned the whole thing into a "public debt crisis", when in reality that was just one symptom, the easiest one to deal with in fact.  Like I said over and over and over again, all it would take to avert the immediate crisis, meaning putting a bandaid over the wound to stop the bleeding for then at least, was the ECB declaring to firmly get behind the bonds and currency.  And many of the German elites objected to EVEN THAT, which is why we had that "crisis" go on for so long.

They had to cave in grudgingly in the end, but the damage has been done already, regardless.  The real economy has been irreparably savaged.  The horrible condition has become the new norm, and we'll have to live in it.  That crazy hard-money fanatic Jens Weidmann is still respected by Germans, and thus all is will with the world.  They have managed to set the bar so low that anything can be deemed as "success" now.  Good bye to the prosperous days in Europe.  It was fun while it lasted.  Thanks, Dr. Strangelove for nuking the... er, I mean, Mr. Schaeuble, for... well, nuking the economy of the periphery all the same.

Ramesh Ponnunu, who wrote that comment on the National Review, and whom I don't respect much, has been frantically trying to save the conservatives from going full retard.  He thinks that the Republicans have alienated too much of the working class, with their tax-cut-for-the-rich trickle-down nonsense and inflationphobia brouhaha, which anyone with half a brain could see are policies serving the rich first and foremost, and also pissed off too many ethnic minorities like Latino and so on with their assault on immigrants.  He's been unsuccessful to say the least, though.  That party has become a bunch of ignorant fools/loonies who could make anyone, even the sleazy Democrats that we have today, look much better in comparison.  Only deep-seated racism/prejudice among rural whites and Christian fundamentalists make it possible for them to survive now.  I think they will have to bomb spectacularly in the next election or two, and then start some kind of soul-searching again to bring back some sanity.  And that's the most optimistic scenario.

And yeah, Klitchko was supposed to be a kind of a German agent primarily for the CDU in that part of the world.  I also know that there is a significant faction in Germany who did not like what the CDU were trying to do with Klitchko and his UDAR.  The "German national interest" is clearly not really monolithic after all.  What Deutsche Bank wants is not the same as what Siemens wants, for example, as what Berlin, as a city, wants is drastically different from what Munich or Hamburg wants.

Anyway, you could indeed say that Germany was pwned by the US, the neocons in particular, in Ukraine.  I mean, the situation forced Klitchko to rally in public against Russia right next to that Georgian neocon loser Saakashvili, almost holding his hands even, whom no one in the German elite world, not even the Russophobes on the right, likes.  That was embarrassing for the CDU, indeed.

With all the recent conflicts with the US regarding spying and all that shit, and Sikorski effectively calling Germans a bunch of pussies, I suspect the status quo in the EU is slowly, slowly changing.

[bol]

Jul 24, 2014 8:13:21 GMT 1 miscmisc said:

They successfully turned the whole thing into a "public debt crisis", when in reality that was just one symptom, the easiest one to deal with in fact.  Like I said over and over and over again, all it would take to avert the immediate crisis, meaning putting a bandaid over the wound to stop the bleeding for then at least, was the ECB declaring to firmly get behind the bonds and currency.  And many of the German elites objected to EVEN THAT, which is why we had that "crisis" go on for so long.

And people like Weidmann (former Merkel adviser who she made chief of Bundesbank) who bitched about the ECB rescue, with very simple ideology and no real arguments nor with presenting any solution themself, got in the media here totaly hyped as mega brave and EU-rebels who with their so professional expertise get what all these Southerners can't get (of course not so smart as "we Germans").

The German media picture of the crisis is: Germans are working so hard and the other people are just jealous and want our money. And that is unfortunately not a too simple summary of it (it is a picture journalists like, beside it being bases on so simple-minded prejudices because you need to not have any knowledge then about the whole crisis to report that way but can feel as one of the "total serious people")
The only relatively sane media voice, Financial Times Deutschland, got closed end of 2012 and especially since then no real economic discussion is going on at all. (only exception in any big media that comes to my mind is the Herdentrieb Blog at die Zeit; Mark Schieritz, he was even quoted in the old thread)
What I mean is, even from pure egoistic point Germans would need to think: Is it clever to mass export stuff (with own cheap wages)? Without then actualy buying anything from it (far less imports)? Putting the other countries into debt with it and just getting money that the Germans lose then as the famous "stupid German money" in speculations abroad?
Some are getting richer, but obviously their politics is also for most Germans damaging.

And the media is reporting so scaringly total in direction of that picture. I sometimes watch "tagesschau", the most influential German TVnews show (feel like I need to to see what is up in the "mainstream"). When they reported one time about Iceland, they said how that country got up because they did big austerity (though they never call it austerity here but always things like "budget discipline"). Complete lie, Iceland did exact opposite than what the Troika with their austerity (see also krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/guess-whos-emerging-from-the-crisis/ ). When they reported about EU meetings about crisis in Greece they reported how they in Greece did still not fire many of their public employees and therefore are still in debt and in crisis (!!). They did not pay interest for the suffering or how huge the cuts made in Greece at all (according to German media generaly they did not enough austerity). They did instead bitch alot about how the Greek government with all the mass unemployment in their country did not on top fire masses of people in public sector (instead "only" made extreme wage cuts but that did not interest media). And according to them, that the Greeks did not follow austerity advises in that detail is of course the wrongdoing. No way the disaster could have any connection to austerity...

I have not a single time seen there anything reported that would even as the slightest touch maybe not support the German government line in Euro-crisis. Absolutely NEVER. It is a fking pain to watch.

[bol]

Somebody may now ask, if the German "quality" media is already reporting that way, how is the more tabloid like stuff reporting? Answer: They go completely apeshit!

Want to know how sick they are? I give you an example:
The Bild, Germany biggest newspaper (and tabloid) made several big stories on the cover where they tried to humiliate the Greece people as much as they can (which they often don't call Greece, but things like "washout Greece" etc.). For example one of their guys went to a Greece place and did give old Drachma around to poor people, headline with pcitures giving him the money out: "Bye Euro, here you washout Greeks have your money!"
Here is a German summary of their reports: www.bildblog.de/18326/leitfaden-wie-hetze-ich-gegen-ein-land-auf/ www.bildblog.de/16969/haeme-kleine-wills-wissen/ . I can translate a bit the headlines so you get the feeling: "Who shall believe Greeks?" (it is a rhetorical question, according to Bild they are all lazy liars), "Why do we pay the Greeks their luxury rents?" "We don't want to save money" (meaning the Greeks, according to Bild unwilling for austerity), "Greece are burning our Euros!" "You get nothing from us!" ("washout Greeks" then after in under title); "Washout Greeks insult Germans!" (yes they don't get the irony of even in the same title insulting Greece and then going victim mode why they not like their reporter)
And it is even far more sick if you see the whole articles with the pictures and so on course.

The media made a atmosphere of fear in the EU crisis as if there would be a war going (with the typical propaganda conclusion that anybody who is not on line with government, so austerity here, is an ally of the enemy and a danger to our country). When some weeks ago Gabriel (social democrats SPD politician) said that a little less strict Stability and Growth Pact may be possible while saying that he of course supports generally the line, media went crazy on him "He said Jehovah!". And typical SPD of course he did not try to make any change to austerity then.

[miscmisc]

Ja, ist es nicht manchmal deprimierend... Menschliches, Allzumenschliches...

You know, that's what I call the mercantilism syndrome.  I'm from a country that carries pretty much the same virus, so I'm very familiar with it.  Basically, those who suffer from it think that accumulating trade surpluses is an absolute economic virtue in and of itself - you know, selling a lot, and spending little.  It's a creepily Calvinist notion.  The idea that it's logically and mathematically impossible for everyone to do that at the same time doesn't quite occur to them.  Keynes is hardly the only one who pointed out that basic logical fallacy, but Germans (or the Japanese, for that matter), reasonably logical people otherwise, throw the elementary logic out the window when it comes to economics.  They somehow assume that there are always big buyers outside to sustain that model.  Maybe they think there are potential consumers living in Mars.  And if the Martians go Greece, they will start lecturing the poor aliens about how they must cut the spending, produce more stuff and sell it to, I don't know, maybe the Klingon or something.

And of course, the same Germans would do their utmost to prevent others from becoming as successfully mercantile, accelerating the deadly race to the bottom.  It's a farce.

It may be just cute if some countries are independently marching on the mercantile road, but it's not once one country starts preaching to the others about not only the virtue of it, but also the necessity of it, especially when said country is a member of a currency union lecturing the other members.

Also, what's funny is that if you point out that they are virtually no different from the crazy American liquidationists back in the Great Depression ("Cut all the spending, stop all the government actions, and let the market take its natural course to recovery!"), they frantically argue that they aren't.  They absolutely hate to be put on the same level with the "crazy American right-wingers".  But they are.  I've never met anyone who successfully argued otherwise. 

Of course, I know they are not quite liquidationist.  Even Weidmann isn't.  They were far from liquidationist when they tried to put out their own fire after the financial meltdown after all.  In fact, quite the opposite.  But their need to justify their own model - and to save their financial sector from huge losses, of course! - leads to imposing the liquidationist policies on the others.  In other words, it's politics, and they are being intellectually dishonest in their attempt to justify their de facto caveman policies that will condemn millions of people in Europe into poverty for years to come.

And of course, the preexisting prejudice against the "grasshoppers" in the South greatly reinforces this stupid idea.  The notion that Greece has "not cut enough" is so crazy that it beggars belief - even the American liquidationists wouldn't go that far - but that's the power and convenience of prejudice.  Now, the German elites, both on the center-left and center-right, have intellectually regressed so much that they are now resorting to the "Hey, we are rich, and they are poor, so we must be doing something right!  Can you argue with success, heh?" shit.  It's basically not very different from an Israeli telling a Gazan that Judaism is the truth because he enjoys much higher standard of living than the Gazan.  It's really almost as obscene.  Germany's "success" has been built largely on the dead bodies of other economies in the eurozone, so the Israeli/Gazan analogy is surprisingly apt here.  That Israeli wouldn't be enjoying the "higher standard of living" if his ancestors hadn't kicked Gazans out of their houses, you know.  And the Gazan would be certainly much better off if he wasn't jammed into that concentration camp by Israelis.

You should give up for now, though.  None of this will reach the brains of your elites.  The disease that they suffer from is pretty much incurable unless the economic situation drastically changes, especially since their "arguments", which basically amount to declaring some sort of German superiority to the rest, are music to most ordinary Germans' ears, too.  Economic chauvinism is a great vote winner, unfortunately.  Never mind that the wealth of the German working class has been slowly hollowed out by the very attitude and policies that they celebrate.  They might as well sing Deutsche-Bank-uber-Alles.

[miscmisc]

It's absolutely amazing that so few know that Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, works for a little-known Ukrainian natural gas company.  Even Time, a magazine not exactly known for challenging the status quo, has reported it.

But the company, Burisma Holdings, did not disclose at the time the scope of their plans for influencing the U.S. government. Recently released documents show that Biden’s hiring coincided with the launch of a new effort to lobby members of Congress about the role of the company in Ukraine and the country’s quest for energy independence.

David Leiter, a former Senate chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, signed on to work as a lobbyist for Burisma on May 20, 2014, about a week after Biden announced he was joining the company, according to lobbying disclosures filed this month.

This totally reeks of the obscene American elites sending their sons and daughters to Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed, and that corrupt fool Boris Yeltsin tried to "Westernize" the Russian economy.  In fact, they are doing exactly the same thing, predictably.  Remember that Joe Biden, Hunter's father, is the second highest-ranking civilian in the US after Barack Obama.

There is no legal barrier to prohibit Hunter Biden from working with a company that can be impacted by the policy decisions of his father, and the White House has maintained that the Vice President has not been influenced by his son’s employment. “The Vice President does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company,” said his spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff.

But Hunter Biden’s new job, along with the association with Burisma of other politically-connected businessmen, has raised concerns among some Ukraine watchers. “It’s unhelpful when we are trying to get across to the Ukrainians to clean up corruption and special deals for special folks,” said Ed Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank. “It maybe sends the wrong message that Westerners are just hypocritical.”

Russians are certainly familiar with all this crap.  Good luck, Ukrainians.  Study what happened to Russia under Yeltsin, and be prepared.

[miscmisc]

Another amazing thing is that the media portray the MH17 tragedy as if someone shot it down just for the heck of it, accident or not.  They don't give you the clear context in which it occurred.

The Ukrainian military launched air strikes in that very area.  There was a serious surface vs. air battle going on there.

I wonder how many people even know this basic fact.  There is a rather serious war going on there.  Thousands and thousands of people in Eastern Ukraine have been already displaced, about which few seem to care.

But of course, the most amazing of all is the fact that the Kiev government is begging for money, needing $5 billion more in loans this year just to get on top of the IMF "rescue" deal, while Ukraine's 100 richest people - roughly 0.0002% of the population - control 85% of Ukraine’s GDP/wealth.  It's absolutely insane or what.  The irony is that the only country that comes anywhere close in terms of inequality is Russia, supposedly their Enemy #1.

I can easily predict this: the inequality situation will get worse through the whole "Westernization" shit, as it did in Russia.

You would think that stripping the oligarchs (let's start with the current president, Poroshenko) of their obscene wealth and bringing their enormous "investment" abroad back into Ukraine would help. But Nooooo, that's communist!  That's the violation of the unalienable, supreme "property rights"!  No, they will have to cut the pensions, fire public employees, close down the hospitals, squeeze the workers' wages, AND then beg the "West" for money on top of them!  They are even about to increase the maximum age for conscription to 60 - only 5 years below male life expectancy in Ukraine - in the midst of all that.

Gosh, what a basket case.

But it's all A-OK because we've got Hunter Biden to lobby in Washington D.C. for the Ukrainian gas company.  Shit is fucked up and bullshit, and that's why virtually everyone involved in this Ukrainian shit, in both the US, EU and Russia, is a ridiculous bullshitter at the end of the day.  No one gives a fuck about Ukrainians, period. It's just a proxy battle between all the fuckers, and we will get Cold War 2.0 as a wonderful gift.  Isn't that brilliant?

Isn't it sometimes really, really depressing?

[miscmisc]

I badmouthed Canada, but you would never see this on the American mainstream media:

The Gaza war has done terrible things to Israeli society
www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-gaza-war-has-done-terrible-things-to-israeli-society/article19737911/

Something has broken down in Israeli society. Friends who always said they would never leave because they were too deeply rooted in the place, its language and their families are deeply worried and even despairing over the radical rightward shift of the mainstream political discourse. Several have said they were looking for opportunities abroad because they couldn’t see themselves raising their children in a country where dissent was slowly but surely being suppressed even as the national discourse hardened rightward.

Israel has always been a flawed democracy with many festering internal divisions. Its policies toward the Arab minority reflect the unresolved tension of a conflicted identity: Should Israel aspire to be a liberal democracy or a democracy for Jews? But in the five years since Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister and formed a governing coalition composed of far-right, racist and anti-democratic parties, something very fundamental has changed in Israeli society. It feels as though the majority is willing to suspend essential elements of democracy in favor of Jewish nationalism. There doesn’t seem to be a place for dissent anymore.

Sorry, Canadians.  You made a terrible decision of electing Stephen "Fucker" Harper, but at least your media is not malfunctioning like America's and many others'.

[miscmisc]

Just as I suspected...

A Secret in Cyprus Bank Bailout Stirs Resentment
dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/a-secret-in-cyprus-stirs-resentment/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

The BlackRock study, which has never been publicly released and was reviewed by The New York Times, suggests that the banks’ needs were €1 billion less than Pimco’s estimate of €8.8 billion; central bank officials did not brief the new Cypriot government on the report’s existence at the time of bailout negotiations in March 2013. Government investigators, who have continued to delve into the matter, say capital requirements were even lower, just over €6 billion.

In other words, Pimco overstated the cost for the Cypriot banks.  Why?  Well, this is the juicy part:

Stoking Cypriot anger is the fact that the Pimco report was used by European officials to justify the rock-bottom price that Greece’s nearly bankrupt Piraeus Bank paid for the Greek operations of Cyprus’s two largest banks in March 2013. Piraeus, which a few months later reported a €3.5 billion profit, is now Greece’s largest domestic bank and a hedge fund darling.

So, the allegation here is that they - meaning Pimco, CBC and the "European officials" - basically gifted around 20% of Cyprus GDP to the Greek banking system, just like that, based on a "questionable" report made by Pimco.

In this thread, I specifically mentioned the fishy deal over Piraeus Bank, because, well, it really, really smelled like fish to me at that time.  The Greeks had to pay so incredibly little for all the assets of two of the biggest banks in Cyprus.  It just didn't add up.  That price tag looked ridiculous to me, but the EU guys brokered the deal as if everything was normal.  It was bizarre to say the least.  So, I alleged in that post that it was a gift from Europe to Greece, at the expense of its little brothers, Cyprus.  They basically stole money from Cypriots and gave it to the Greeks.  I suspected that it was a quid pro quo for all the austerity bullshit that Greece graciously swallowed like "good European citizens".  That also explains why Pimco and many hedge funds decided to go so bullish on the Greek bonds and Piraeus Bank all of a sudden.

Many, many Cypriots lost their life savings over the whole thing, and the country is still under de facto capital control, which was supposed to last only for a few months (which is an absolutely scandalous thing for a currency union, but I guess no one cares these days).

What I learned over the whole aftermath of the financial meltdown is that I can trust my nose to detect fish.  This fish seems rotten to the core.  I'm in no mood to gloat over the "catch".

Why the fuck would anyone other than Germany and Austria want to stay, let alone join, in this rotten currency union, I have no idea.  OK, I lied: I do have an idea, but it's a really sad story of human weakness and stupidity.

[miscmisc]

As you probably know, the Israel-Palestine conflict has escalated, on the scale that even the Israelis themselves perhaps didn't quite expect.  It's practically the third intifada now.  Palestinians are revolting not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.  It's not just Hamas anymore.  A number of Palestinian citizens of Israel have been already killed, inside Israel proper.

It seems that Israel has even rejected the absurdly one-sided, appalling cease-fire deal prepared by John Kerry, like this for example:

1. A one-week, temporary cease-fire, starting Sunday, during which Israel Defense Forces troops will not leave the Gaza Strip entirely and will continue to locate and destroy Hamas tunnels.

WHAT?

That seems to me to mean that Israel can just continue to attack Gaza, but maybe I'm crazy.

If they rejected even that, Israel's stance is clearly that they will only accept a cease-fire deal where they won't have to cease fire at all - basically a cease-fire that doesn't affect anything as far as they are concerned.  Ridiculous.

One the other hand, Hamas publicly announced that they will not accept any deal unless halting the siege and blockade of Gaza is also on the table.

Meanwhile, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs attacked Brazil, who condemned Israels' actions in Gaza.

Israel calls Brazil a ‘diplomatic dwarf’ – and then brings up World Cup humiliation
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/25/israel-brings-up-brazils-world-cup-humiliation-and-calls-the-country-a-diplomatic-dwarf/

Sheesh.  WTF?  Is Israel the modern version of Kaiser Wilhelm II, man?  That guy made an enemy every time he opened his mouth, eventually leading to the disastrous result that is the German defeat in World War I.  Calling a country, one as big as Brazil no less, a "dwarf" sounds very Wilhelmine.  Big mouths usually end up regretting their words in international politics.  I wouldn't be surprised if they are going to do the same to ALL the countries who voted YES for the UN investigation.  I would've been surprised before, but wouldn't now.

What a mess Israel has become.