Author: susie

And so it continues

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Not unexpected — the Israelis have been even more blatant in land grabs lately, several Palestinians have been seriously injured and one bus driver was found hanged in his bus. (Officials said it was a suicide.) Now we have this horrendous attack on people praying at a synagogue, and of course it will be used as a reason for more violence:

JERUSALEM — Two Palestinians armed with knives, axes and a gun stormed a synagogue in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood on Tuesday, killing three Americans — including a prominent rabbi — and a British worshiper in one of the deadliest attacks in years in Jerusalem.

The attackers — identified by Palestinian media as residents of mostly Arab East Jerusalem — were then killed by police in an aftermath that vividly showed the razor-edge tensions in Jerusalem after weeks of bloodshed and clashes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian leaders of inciting violence and promised to “respond harshly.” In the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, calls over loudspeakers praised the attackers.

In East Jerusalem, crowds hurled stones at Israeli police fanning out around the neighborhood where the attackers lived.

The Associated Press, citing Israeli police, said those killed included one Briton and three Americans — among them Rabbi Moshe Twersky, who taught at an English-speaking religious school in Jerusalem and was a member of one of the most respected families in Orthodox scholarship.

There’s a reason they call them ‘idiot lights’

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

David Cameron at the OU

And of course austerity politics sucked all the oil/disposable income out of the economy, the engine’s out of oil AND THAT’S WHY THE DASHBOARD IDIOT LIGHT IS ON, you fucking idiot!

David Cameron has issued a stark message that “red warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy” in the same way as when the financial crash brought the world to its knees six years ago.

Writing in the Guardian at the close of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Cameron says there is now “a dangerous backdrop of instability and uncertainty” that presents a real risk to the UK recovery, adding that the eurozone slowdown is already having an impact on British exports and manufacturing.

His warning comes days after the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, claimed a spectre of stagnation was haunting Europe. The International Monetary Fund managing director, Christine Lagarde, expressed fears in Brisbane that a diet of high debt, low growth and unemployment may yet become “the new normal in Europe”.

And of course the solution will involve…. more austerity!

Profit!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

This is what we get when we run (and fund) previously public institutions as for-profit entities:

Out of California’s years-long litigation over reducing the population of prisons deemed unconstitutionally overcrowded by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, another obstacle to addressing the U.S. epidemic of mass incarceration has emerged: The utility of cheap prison labor.

In recent filings, lawyers for the state have resisted court orders that they expand parole programs, reasoning not that releasing inmates early is logistically impossible or would threaten public safety, but instead that prisons won’t have enough minimum security inmates left to perform inmate jobs.

The debate culminated Friday, when a three-judge federal panel ordered California to expand an early parole program. California now has no choice but to broaden a program known as 2-for-1 credits that gives inmates who meet certain milestones the opportunity to have their sentences reduced. But California’s objections raise troubling questions about whether prison labor creates perverse incentives to keep inmates in prison even when they don’t need to be there.

Yet another episode

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

SAN ONOFRE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT UNIT 3 042

Of why private industry shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near nuclear power plants:

…workers packaging the waste came across a batch that was extraordinarily acidic, making it unsafe for shipping. The lab’s guidelines called for work to shut down while the batch underwent a rigid set of reviews to determine how to treat it, a time-consuming process that jeopardized the lab’s goal of meeting the deadline.

Instead, the lab and its various contractors took shortcuts in treating the acidic nuclear waste, adding neutralizer and a wheat-based organic kitty litter to absorb excess liquid. The combination turned the waste into a potential bomb that one lab chemist later characterized as akin to plastic explosives, according to a six-month investigation by The New Mexican.

So the wingnuts have taken over in PA

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Election Night Party in York

And of course insanity will soon ensue! I wish I’d hit the lottery. I would never read the news again:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Pennsylvania Legislature will be led by massive Republican majorities – including the biggest House GOP majority in more than 50 years – when Democratic Gov.-elect Tom Wolf takes office on Jan. 20.

But for two weeks before he takes office, those majorities will be sworn in and intact under outgoing Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, a fact that has not been lost on Republican Party backers.

That means it is still legal and possible – albeit technically challenging – to enact far-reaching legislation favored by many Republicans that Corbett might sign, but that Wolf had said during the campaign that he would oppose.

People who have looked into it could not find a precedent for such a move in modern Pennsylvania political history, but that does not mean it cannot be done.