Looks like even the rightards are giving up on the whole "Obama killed Breitbart" insanity.. When Sinclair News is the debunker of ANYTHING wackadoo, you know that narrative has finally been extinguished-but good! Excerpts:
Sinclair News has been following up and reporting the FACTS as they relate to the March 1, 2012 death of conservative Journalist Andrew Breitbart since his death became public. Since the Los Angeles County Coroners Office issuing its COD (Cause of Death) on April 20, 2012 some Internet organizations have continued to claim Breitbart was murdered and even went so far as to knowingly start a completely false claim that LA County Coroner Forensic Tech Michael Cormier was involved in the March 2, 2012 autopsy of Andrew Breitbart and was murdered the day the Breitbart cause of death was reported April 20, 2012 (this was done by Alex Jones and WND among others) Despite the statements from the Los Angeles County Coroners office that Mr. Cormier had NO involvement in the Andrew Breitbart autopsyWND and Jones continued to claim otherwise until this past week when WND tried to cover itself by trying to claim another ‘news organization’ reported the opposite of what Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter had said.It should be noted that Forensic Tech Cormier’s name is not on a single piece of the Breitbart Autopsy Report. Lessee, Obama kills Breitbart with aheart attack gun,or Breitbart kills himself by stressing his heart(His already weak heart)with fatass-ery,alcohol,cocaine, and rage? Heart problems with no self control? It was only a matter of time, babies.. Poor andy: An entire career of manipulating sound and fury, ultimately, signifying nothing.
If the world ends on December 21, blame a German butterfingers who dropped a volcanic rock skull once owned by SS overlord Heinrich Himmler in his laboratory this week. According to legend, the Mayan skull, which was stolen from Tibet by the Nazis and imbued for believers with magical powers to enable mankind to survive an apocalypse, fell and chipped during a photo shoot. For some, this is a catastrophe that foretells the end of the world, but others advise us to keep calm and carry on. Apocalypse soon: For some, ancient Mayan calculations indicate the world will end on December 21, 2012 'It was probably put down somewhere a bit wobbly,' an eyewitness told a German newspaper. 'Suddenly it crashed to the floor. A big piece broke off the chin. It's really tragic.'
Thomas Ritter, an historian who owns the skull, said it was given to him by the family of a former British soldier present at the 1945 arrest of Himmler, who ran the Gestapo, the SS and the extermination programme which murdered six million Jews. He added that he believed its accident wouldn't 'anger the Gods' and that the world will still be turning on December 22. The skull is 1,000 years old and one of the legendary Mayan skulls that belonged to the lost, ancient race of Mexico, which were said to be infused with magical powers. The 3lb skull is made of volcanic rock and, according to Ritter, was seized by SS men sent on an expedition to Tibet between 1937 and 1939 to look for the lost city of Shangri-La. Ritter said: 'The Nazis were convinced that 13 such skulls existed and that whoever owned them would have control of the world.' Himmler died on May 23, 1945 using a poison capsule hidden in his mouth to take his life.
File Under: What we thought we knew; we don't. The BBC, via The Extinction Protocol. Excerpts:
May 13, 2012 –TONGA –Researchers studying the Monowai volcano, near Tonga, recorded huge changes in height in just two weeks. Lead author Tony Watts of Oxford University told the BBC that the revelation was “a wake-up call that the sea-floor may be more dynamic than we previously thought. I’ve spent my career studying the seabed and have generally thought it pretty stable so it’s stunning to see so much change in such a short space of time.” As many as 32,000 underwater mountains have been identified around the world and the majority are believed to be volcanic in origin. Several thousand of these may be active but a combination of ocean depth and remoteness means that very few have been studied. The team then left the area to carry on with planned research elsewhere but three days later were warned that seismic detectors on the Cook Islands had detected violent activity around the volcano over a five-day period. “If we had been over the volcano during the eruption, rocks could have hit the hull of the ship – that could have been potentially dangerous.” Later the ship returned to the scene and the scientists were surprised to see how much the volcano had changed. In the space of a fortnight, one part of the volcano’s summit had collapsed by as much as 18.8m while new lava flows had raised another area by 79.1m. Most striking was the creation of an entirely new volcanic cone.
Until those conducting all elections can guarantee at least a 95 percent accuracy rate with touch screen or opti-scan(Or further in the future, the Internet..), all elections should be conducted with paper ballots, and MUST BE counted by hand. Period.The Brad Blog. Excerpts:
New paper ballot optical-scan computer tabulator systems used to tally millions of votes in New York --- as well as "swing states" such as Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin --- do not tally votes correctly.That stunning admission comes courtesy of a new report released by the private company which manufactures, sells, services and programsthe systems which are now believed to have mistallied tens of thousands of ballots in New York in 2010.
The votes of more than ten million voters could be affected by a newly revealed failure in the voting systems set for use in those four states in this year's Presidential election, and in more than 50 different jurisdictions in Wisconsin during next month's historic recall elections. Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), the largest e-voting machine company in the U.S. and the maker of the paper ballot op-scan tally systems in question,have confirmed that their systems may overheat when used over several hours (for example, during an election!),and that they then may mis-tally and/or incorrectly discard anywhere from 30% to 70% of votes scanned by the machines. The only way to know that a hand-marked paper ballot had been mistallied by the system would be to examine the ballots by hand to assure that the computer had read and recorded the voters' selections correctly. (So why not just go ahead and do it right the first time?)
Really? Machines designed for elections and elections only can actually overheat during that 12 to 14 hour period? Thank God they don't have to be used two days in a row and they've got a two year fucking break between gigs! Can you imagine the chaos raining down on society if Slurpee machines and ATM's performed accordingly? Not to mention the whole Anybody-can-hack-this-system-in-under-five-minutes, thing. Anybody, including monkeys, theoretically..
Is it really a mistake when the companies making the mistake keep profiting from that easily correctable mistake? (Thanks toBart Copfor the thought articulation..)
Really short post.. Read comments for further hilariousness.. Here's my favorite!
..think it means it's no longer in the corium 'blob' state but capable of traveling into the earth's mantle in a stream-like state;which is much worse than any previous worst case scenario. There will be no remediation possible;resulting in radiological contamination of underground water-ways (interacting ocean and fresh-water aquifers) within this entire region, for hundreds-of-thousands of years. Given the amount of energy needed to maintain a liquefied condition without significant surface cooling is unusual.Classical thermodynamics has left the building…
I guess things will be super exciting by the time MSM starts reporting this again..
What may be lost in the noise that is the mainstream press is the fact that Greece has not been in a recession or even a depression,Greece has been in a state of slow motion economic collapse on the scale of past economic collapses such as that of Argentina but so far without the ability to default, devalue and inflate. And: Greek politicians traded insults and accusations Sunday following an effort by President Karolos Papoulias to broker a coalition government, increasing the possibility of new elections in the debt-stricken country. Papoulias called together the leaders of the three biggest parties on Sunday, a week after indecisive elections and three failed attempts to form a government.A default by Greece could drag down other troubled governments such as Spain and Portugal. Europe is keeping a nervous eye on Greece, fearing that the political chaos there could lead to defaults on debt that could threaten the future of the euro.Greek failure — or refusal — to make debt payments could hurt banks across Europe. The eurozone economy is fragile, and any financial shock could plunge the region into a deep recession, a development that would ripple across the globe. A default by Greece also could drag down other troubled governments such as Spain and Portugal.
Another weekend, another stunner in local European elections, this time as Merkel's CDU gets a record low vote in the state elections of Germany's most populous state North Rhein-Westphalia. According to a preliminary projections by ARD, the breakdown is as follows: •SPD:39% •CDU: 26% •Greens:12% •Pirates: 7.5% •FDP: 8.5% •Left:2.5% And:
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday in an election in Germany's most populous state, exit polls showed, a result which could embolden the left opposition to step up attacks on her European austerity policies.
Merkel remains popular at home for her steady handling of the euro zone debt crisis, but the sheer scale of her party's defeat represents a heavy blow that could tilt the German political landscape and leave her more vulnerable to domestic critics.
According to an exit poll for public broadcaster ARD, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won 39 percent of the vote and will have enough to form a stable majority with the Greens, who scored 12 percent.
The two left-leaning parties had run a fragile minority government for the past two years under popular SPD leader Hannelore Kraft, whose decisive victory on Sunday could propel her to national prominence.
Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) saw their support plunge to just 26 percent, down from nearly 35 percent in 2010, and the worst result in the state since World War Two.
Merkel's attention will now be divided between the financial crisis and domestic concerns, like keeping her job. I think Germany has begun to de-stabilize. Albeit a long way away, this vote was a pretty visible step in that direction..
Three top executives at JPMorgan are expected to resign this week in the wake of a $2 billion trading loss. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the three include Ina R. Drew, the head of the risk-management division responsible for the loss, along with the top executive and a managing director at the London branch that placed the trades under her direction.
According to several JPMorgan executives, Drew had offered her resignation several times since the extent of the losses became known in late April,but CEO Jamie Dimon had previously refused to accept it.
The situation changed however, when Dimon revealed the loss on Thursday and it led to a 10% drop in the firm’s stock price the next day.“We made a terrible, egregious mistake,” Dimon has since admitted. ‘There’s almost no excuse for it.”
The Jaime Dimon Countdown-To-Quitting clock begins!
As far as bubbles go, they don’t get more obvious than Australia, according to one economist and noted bear. Albert Edwards, economist with Société Générale, put out a note on Thursday morning whose title says it all: “The biggest bubble in recent history is heading for the mother of all hard landings.” Mr. Edwards cites Australia’s extreme reliance on the Chinese economy as the foundation for the current bubble. After all, Australia, a global heavyweight in mining, is dependent on the global commodity boom that China has largely helped fuel over the last decade. “All we have in Australia, at its simplest, is a credit bubble built upon a commodity boom dependent for its sustenance on an even greater credit bubble in China,” he said. And: Mr. Edwards adds that the current bubble has been precipitated by the fact that Australia has not experienced a recession for more than 20 years — making investors complacent as a result. “The absence of any recession since 1991 has led Australians to have an excessive appetite for debt in the belief the future will reflect the past,”he said.
And complacency, of course, is a big factor in bubble creation. That has led Mr. Edwards to conclude the following about Australia: “Of all the bubbles I have seen over the last 30 years in this industry, this one is even more obvious than the rather prominent nose on my increasingly haggard face,” he said.
Interesting that there've been no updates since May 2nd..UFO Blogger.Excerpts, with pictures!
..on May 2, 2012 NASA STEREO photographed down below image; in which you can see a gigantic Jupiter size doughnut-shape spaceship near sun. STEREO data suggest UFO was there from May 2, 2012 [Time Stamp - 19:15:40] to May 3, 2012 [Time Stamp - 23:55:40]. UFO is still there but from may 4 onwards NASA distorted the UFO from STEREO images. (Images at link.)
These images are very similar to..
STS-75 1996 Tether UFO Incident: NASA's STS 75 Columbia Space Shuttle Tether Science Mission TSS-1R launched on February 22, 1996 from Kennedy Space Center Florida. The orbital altitude was 160 nautical miles with a mission duration of 15 days, 17 hours, 41 minutes, 25 seconds and a distance of 6.5 million miles traveled.
The payload deployed was an Italian built Tether designed to gather data on voltage generated across the Tether while in the ionosphere. During the operation the Tether snapped from the Shuttle on day three just short of full deployment of it's 12.8 mile length Tether causing it to speed away from the orbiter. The Tether moving through the ionosphere became electrically charged with as much as 3,500 volts or 480 milliamps drawing the attention of UFO's orbiting the Earth. Very large UFO passing by and then behind the 12-mile long tether on filmed after the tether break on STS-75, Februay 25, 1996. The video camera was being operated by astronaut Claude Nicolier Photo of the STS-75 mission showing a UFO and the tether. Note that the tether is between 77-100 nautical miles away from the shuttle Columbia. The tether is 12 miles long. The UFOs all pass "behind" the tether which allows us to view and measure their minimum sizes. Some are 2-3 miles minimum diameter.
Mmm.. Flying, Jupiter-sized donut with jet propulsion.. Arrrrrrrghhh..
BAM. Thanks, Alan! James Miller via Zero Hedge drops the hammer. Excerpts:
Unbelievable. That is the only way to express this author’s utter bewilderment that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is still given an outlet to speak his mind.Actually, I am surprised Mr. Greenspan has the audacity to show his face, let alone speak, in public after the economic destruction he is responsible for. It was because of Greenspan, of course, that the world economy is still muddling its way along with painfully high unemployment.His decision to prop up the stock market with money printing under any and every threat of a downtick in growth, also known as the Greenspan Put, created an environment of easy credit, reckless spending, and along with the federal government’s initiatives to encourage home ownership, the foundation from which a housing bubble could emerge. It was moral hazard bolstering on a massive scale.Wall Street quickly learned (and the lesson sadly continues today) that the Federal Reserve stands ready to inflate should the Dow begin to plummet by any significant amount.Following his departure from the chairmanship and bursting of the housing bubble, Greenspan quickly took to the press and denied any responsibility for financial crisis which was a result in due part to the crash in home prices.In his infamous 2009 Wall Street Journal editorial, he had the nerve to blame availability of credit which financed the run-up in home prices to a “savings glut” in Asia. He writes.
[T]he presumptive cause of the world-wide decline in long-term rates was the tectonic shift in the early 1990s by much of the developing world from heavy emphasis on central planning to increasingly dynamic, export-led market competition. The result was a surge in growth in China and a large number of other emerging market economies that led to an excess of global intended savings relative to intended capital investment. That ex ante excess of savings propelled global long-term interest rates progressively lower between early 2000 and 2005.
Sounds convincing right?
Much of the aura of greatness attributed to Greenspan throughout his term as chairman was due in part to the purposefully overly-technical language he used when talking to reporters. Here he utilized the same technique, albeit in a simpler manner, to obscure the Fed’s role in the housing bubble.His explanation falls on its face though when looking at key historical data and by asking the right questions. .. And as economist George Reisman brilliantly shows, the “savings glut” argument doesn’t stand when taking into account the following questions and observations:
First, if saving had been responsible, rather than credit expansion and the increase in the quantity of money, there would have been a corresponding decline in consumer spending in the countries allegedly doing the saving.The fact is that there was no such decline.
Second, saving implies a growing supply of capital goods, more production, and lower prices, including lower prices of capital goods and even of land. These are results that are incompatible with the widespread increases in prices typically found in a bubble. Third, if somehow saving had been responsible for the housing bubble, the spending it financed would not suddenly have stopped.Such stoppage is a consequence of the end of credit expansion and the revelation of a lack of capital. Fourth, if large-scale saving rather than credit expansion had been present, banks and other firms would have possessed more capital, not less. They would not be in their present predicament of having inadequate capital to carry on their normal operations.This situation of insufficient capital is the result of malinvestment and over consumption, which are the consequences of credit expansion, not saving. Fifth, in the absence of increases in the quantity of money and overall volume of spending in the economic system, saving also implies an immediate tendency toward a fall in the economy wide average rate of profit.This is another result that is incompatible with what is observed in a bubble or boom of any kind, which is surging profits so long as “the good times” last.
It should be perfectly clear at this point that Greenspan holds the majority of the blame for the housing bubble. And yet many financial media outlets still see the former central banker as a type of guru on global economic affairs.
That reverence seems to be fading quickly. By this fall, people should (finally!)have a very different opinion of Alan Greenspan, all the choices he's made, and where those choices have brought all of us. Right now, it's still the economists and information junkies and people his policies destroyed. More to arrive shortly, to be sure..
Huge sunspot AR1476 is crackling with M-class solar flares and appears to be on the verge of producing something even stronger.The sunspot’s ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field harbors energy for X-class flares, the most powerful kind. Earth is entering the line of fire as the sunspot rotates across the face of the sun.
This morning, May 10th around 0418 UT, sunspot 1476 unleashed an impulsive M5.7-class solar flare. This is the 4th M-Class flare in 24 hours from this growing region. Apparently, the almost-X class explosion did not hurl a significant CME toward Earth. NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of more M-class flares and a 10% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.
The mystery begins. CNN. Excerpts(plus video at the link):
Thick fog and steep, mountainous terrain forced rescuers to halt their efforts to reach the wreckage of a Russian jetliner that crashed on a demonstration flight in Indonesia, the country's state news agency reported Thursday. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 came to rest on the side of Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, Vice Marshal Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told the Indonesian news agency Antara. Efforts to reach the wreck are expected to resume Friday morning, said Daryatmo, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "We have identified the crash coordinates, but our personnel have not yet arrived at the location," Antara quoted Daryatmo as saying. "However, because there is thick fog covering Mount Salak and the tilt of the cliff is 85 degrees, the evacuation process has been halted until tomorrow morning." The Russian Investigative Committee said 48 people were on board the plane, including eight Russian crew members. But the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti said the number was 45, citing Sukhoi Civil Aviation President Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk as sayingthree of the people on the passenger list did not board the flight.
The wreckage was spotted at an elevation of about 5,800 feet (nearly 1,800 meters). Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for the rescue agency, said the authorities hope to start removing bodies from the area by helicopter Friday, and there has been no sign that anyone survived. Daryatmo said the Sukhoi logo had been identified amid the wreckage of the plane, which disappeared off radar screens Wednesday. An image released by the Indonesian military showed bits of debris strewn across a patch of steep mountainside that had been stripped bare of the thick surrounding vegetation. The cause of the crash remained unclear. The Russian Investigative Committee said it had launched a criminal probe into possible safety violations. The plane was on a demonstration flight for Indonesian Ministry of Transportation officials and representatives of Indonesian airlines, the Russian Embassy in Jakarta said before the crash.
Indonesia's Sky Aviation signed a $380 million deal in 2011 to buy 12 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, andpress reports said a number of Sky employees were on the plane that went down. Sukhoi employees are also among the missing.
Another battle in a secret war? What.. Corporations can't fight each other? Other conspiracy minded folks say Poland's Revenge. There's more to this story, and there is more information to come..
Whoopsie. Things just got wobbly for JP Morgan.Street Insider.Excerpts:
Shares of JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) are under heavy pressure after-hours Thursdayafter announcing a surprise conference call and large surprise mark-to-market loss in its chief investment office and exposure to a possible credit downgrade.
Since March 31, 2012, the company said its CIO has had significant mark-to-market losses in its synthetic credit portfolio.JPMorgan said the portfolio has proven to be "riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the Firm previously believed." The company said it now see a loss of $800 million in its CIO unit, versus an expected profit of up to $200 million.(A one billion dollar swing from projections!)Although CEO Jamie Dimon said it could "easily get worse."
The company said the loss was driven by $2 billion trading loss in its synthetic credit portfolio.
Despite the loss, JPMorgan said at this time it still expects to earn $4 billion in the quarter.
My guess is this is just the first of many surprise calls and losses in store for many, many corporations, finance-related or not. If JP Morgan cannot sustain, the worldwide economic repercussions will be significant and quick. Could JP Morgan be that falling domino that starts the chain reaction crash?
Nicolas Sarkozy could face questioning in a raft of party financing and corruption cases when he leaves the Elysée next weekand loses his presidential immunity. .. ..The outgoing president could soon be called for questioning – either as a witness or potentially as a suspect – in several corruption cases when he loses presidential immunity a month after leaving office on May 15. Judges are likely to want to summon him over an investigation into who ordered French intelligence to unlawfully seek to uncover the source of journalists working for Le Monde.France's intelligence chief is currently under investigation over the affair in which Le Monde exposed embarrassing links between Mr Sarkozy's government and Liliane Bettencourt, the l'Oréal billionaire caught up in a tax evasion and illegal party financing inquiry. .. Another case in which Mr Sarkozy's name has cropped up is the so-called "Karachi affair", a complex investigation into alleged kickbacks on arms contracts. Judges are looking into irregularities in the financing of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's 1995 presidential campaign.Mr Sarkozy was Mr Balladur's campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time. Magistrates suspect the Balladur camp of receiving illicit "retro-commissions" from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Mr Sarkozy's best man and former ministerial cabinet chief are both under formal investigation over the affair. Plus!: The most recent corruption allegation to be levelled against him is that he received 50 million euros of illegal campaign contributions from the late Muammar Gaddafi.(Sweet! This should really play well for his image, yeah?) Last month, investigative news website Mediapart published what it said was a copy of a document signed by Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi's intelligence chief in 2006 outlining the alleged funding deal.Mr Sarkozy has dismissed it as a forgery. Saif-Al Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi's son and former heir, last year unambiguously claimed that Libya had funded Mr Sarkozy's election.
Volcanic debris from Popocatepetl volcano closes Mexico airport. Terra Daily via The Extinction Protocol. Excerpts:
Ashes from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano forced officials to close the airport in nearby Puebla for some 14 hours, to allow for cleanup after it spewed out heaps of ash and rock.The Puebla International Airport was able to reopen Wednesday after dozens of workers cleared its runways of volcanic ash that posed a risk to departing and arriving aircraft, said officials. The airport’s closing caused just one cancellation, a flight to Houston, Texas early Wednesday, said Puebla’s civil protection director Jesus Morales. Since Popocatepetl came to life several weeks ago, it has spewed gas and glowing rock as much as one mile (1.6 kilometers) beyond its crater, and has intermittently belched out water vapor and ash. .. The city of Puebla lies in the shadow of the volcano about 55 kilometers (35 miles) from the federal capital Mexico City. The country’s second highest peak, Popocatepetl, means ‘smoking mountain’ in the indigenous Nahuatl language.
The distance between Popocatepetl and Mexico city is 43 miles, so the airport was about eight miles away. This was just a burp, but volcanic activity is increasing. Continuing..
Ball lightning may be an atmospheric electrical phenomenon, the physical nature of which is still controversial. The term refers to reports of luminous, usually spherical objects which vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter.It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes, which last only a fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. Laboratory experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but it is presently unknown whether these are actually related to any naturally occurring phenomenon.
Blahblah.. Watch the video. I love Dude's "Whatzefok! I forget!" Exclamation on seeing "ball lightning" for the first time..
That's not lightning, zipping around, or staying in the same place, flashing. Not lightning..
For Greece: Shit just got real. Without a bailout, Greece's economy implodes. Then what? Can a bunch of crazy Neo-Nazis and Leftists really find common ground opposing the E.U./German bailout, and maybe, even a little romance..?Zero Hedge.Excerpts:
As we expected, the previous unofficial poll forecasts were total rubbish, and according to exit polls from NET TV, the results are as follows: •New Democracy: 17-20% •Pasok: 14-17% •In a stunner, Syrizia, or the coalition of the radical left - a vehement anti-Bailout party - gets more votes than the ruling PASOK party: 15.5%-18.5% •Independent Greeks: 10-12% •Finally, and not surprisingly in the aftermath of the French results, the ultra right Golden Dawn gets 6-8% of the vote and will make it into Parliament. .. Tallied across, up to 60% of the new parliament will be anti-bailout (at least according to exit polls), and hence "Domino toppling." Good luck with that pro-bailout coalition government. Needless to say these results are very ugly and make any prospect of a pro-bailout coalition cabinet virtually impossible.Suddenly the fate of the European experiment is in the hands of the ultra right and the far left - yup, Neo-Nazis will determine the future of Europe. How quaint... again - congratulations Europe.
Meanwhile, in Germany.. And just to confirm that the world is losing it, in the Schleswig-Holstein election, according to ARD, after the CDU (with 30.5%), SPD with 29.5%, Green Party with 14%, and FDP with 8.5%, we get... the Pirate Party 8%. So Neo-Nazis in Greece, Pirates in Germany: the world has officially lost it. And in France?
François Hollande has won the presidency of France, turning the tide on a rightwards and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe’s handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures. The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France’s first left wing president for 17 years.Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%. His emphatic victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago. And: The defeat of the most unpopular French president ever to run for re-election was not simply the result of the global financial crisis or eurozone debt turmoil. It was also down to the intense public dislike of the man seen as“President of the Rich”who had swept to victory in 2007 with a huge mandate to change France.Most French people felt he had failed to deliver his promises, and he was criticised for his ostentatious display of wealth, favouring the rich and leaving behind him more than 2.8 million unemployed.Political analysts said anti-Sarkozyism had become a cultural phenomenon in France. The turnout was high, estimated at around 80%.
The world wide markets should be reacting shortly. Greece has killed their bailout. The French threw out bailout enabler Sarkozy. Like it or not, Change will follow shortly throughout Europe, that is for sure..
CBC resumes live coverage 3 a.m. Central. It's gonna be a "newsy" week..
I'm excited not only for remasters of MBV's entire catalog, but for the news that the follow-up to Loveless is almost ready..!! Get those headphones ready, good-music-lovin' babies! I had assumed and was a little worried that Shields had musician's block, or that he'd taken too many drugs to produce an appropriate follow up(Like Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream after Screamadelica..). Turns out, MBV's troubles track back to standard music industry bullshit. Surprise!Pitchfork.Excerpts:
Rumors of My Bloody Valentine reissuing their back catalog started whirling around the internet as early as 2004. But, as is the case with most things involving these shoegaze originators, things took a bit longer than expected. A solid eight years later, though, they're finally here. On May 7, Sony releases remastered CDs of 1988's Isn't Anything and 1991's Loveless, along with a compilation of the band's early material, EP's 1988-1991, that features three unreleased tracks including the rumbling "Good for You", above(At the link..). While many would assume that MBV leader Kevin Shields' notoriously meticulous work ethic was responsible for the delay, that's not really the case, according to the man himself.Instead, the story behind these reissues is one of corporate greed and suspiciously lost tapes that nearly required the services of Scotland Yard to retrieve."The true story is as yet to be determined," says Shields on the phone from London, looking back on the twisty saga. One thing's for certain: These reissues were seen through by Shields, and he's proud of them. Though he does few interviews and is typically out-of-sight, Shields isn't especially shy or mumbly during our chat. Talking about the different ways he's been screwed by labels over the years, he sometimes veers off into the harried cadence of a conspiracy theorist, though there's no reason to doubt his claims. The crown jewel of the reissue series is a 2CD version of MBV's all-time classic Loveless that features a remaster of the original disc as well as another based on previously discarded analog tapes. (Shields says vinyl versions of the remasters are due "probably in a few months.") And the overall project just might act as a precursor to the two-decades-in-the-making follow up to Loveless. "We might finish it really quickly, and it might be up in a few months," he says, tantalizingly. "I tend to work really quickly, suddenly, and I might be willing to do that right now. We'll see!" .. Pitchfork: These reissues have been in the works for a few years. Why did it take so long for them to be released? Kevin Shields: The process actually started in 2001, when we managed to come to an agreement with Sony, who inherited us from Creation. Part of the Sony deal was that I wanted all of the EPs made into one package because, back in 2001, you could get the albums pretty easily but not the EPs. So it was basically a compilation of all the EPs, and that was it. Then we decided to do Isn't Anything and Loveless as well-- if we're gonna remaster [the EPs], we should remaster everything. In 2002, I tried to start working on it, but the studio that had the tapes, Metropolis Studios, lost them; the analog multi-tracks were all missing for a year.Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear. .. That took us to 2003. And then Sony fell into complete breach of contract due to various issues, and it took until last year to fully sort it out. In the meantime, I started the work anyway in 2006, and I completed it in 2007-- those are the ones [that leaked] on the internet, that was the near-completed work.And then Sony behaved very badly again-- like most sociopathic companies do, they can't help it--and I had to re-adjust the situation until it was slightly fair again, and that's why stuff is coming out now. Pitchfork: Are you saying Sony hid the tapes on purpose back in 2002? KS:Oh, they did. The contract we did in 2001 basically gave me ownership of the tapes, and then the Sony regime that existed when that contract was signed left. And when the new regime came in, the tapes disappeared.That was relevant because even though I was the owner, it would only revert back to me if I remastered from the original tapes--if the tapes were gone, I couldn't remaster from them and hence I couldn't ever own them. [When asked for a response to Shields' comments above, Sony sent the following message: "We have really enjoyed working on these hugely iconic re-issues with Kevin, and can't wait for the release."] .. Pitchfork: Is the idea of ownership over this material important to you? KS: Ownership and control is important, because if you don't own what you do, all sorts of stupid stuff happens to it, and people spend good money on garbage. .. Also, you don't get paid if you don't own it-- you know, we've never been paid one penny from the United States from any of the records we've ever made. In the record company's world, we're always in debt.But the strange part of the story is Loveless alone sold enough copies in its first year to put us out of debt. But somehow Warners have managed to create a situation where, hundreds of thousands of records down the line, we're still in debt. That's why the compilations aren't coming out on Warner Bros. They're extremely in breach of contract as well at the moment. [We did not receive an official statement from Warner Bros. on this matter by press time.]
Pitchfork: Sounds like you've been dealt an awful hand with these label issues. KS: I'm no victim here-- this is just the way it is for everybody. It's a bit like being in the middle of a battlefield and getting shot in the arm and going, "Why me?"I mean, to put it very, very, very simply: The corporate system is fully psychopathic, and any creative people who enter into business with any of these organizations come up against a lifetime of issues. You just deal with it as you go along.It'll keep on happening until people reorganize the organizations. Pitchfork: What do you mean exactly when you refer to these labels as psychopathic entities? KS: Well, the organizations are, but probably 70% of the individuals in them are decent people.But a significant controlling minority have no empathy. They don't give a shit. If you put them in a situation where they can't make any decision but one that is in your favor, they will-- but that can take years. That's the game. Most people just give up with time and go, "I'm a victim." The only reason I've got the reputation for delays and spending a long time on things is because I just don't stop. We've had incredibly huge obstacles in our way-- no tapes, no royalties, no cooperation on any level-- and we sort it out.
Kevin Shields kicks ass. Others in his position might have just given up and let the business bullies win. Thankfully, he's a fighter! Anyone obsessed with Loveless has waited over 20 years now for a suitable follow-up. Hopefully, our wait is just a few more weeks away.. Hopefully.. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean my ears with some MBV..
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