Food for thought

George Orwell via Mike Krieger via ZH:

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?
- Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984

Pretty crazy

What the title says.

S&P 500, toujours -30% par rapport aux plus hauts

Toby O'Conner de Goldscents, via ZH.Le S&P 500 depuis les plus hauts:(Cliquer pour agrandir)

Ce deuxième graphe illustre les variations du S&P 500 depuis plus de 10 ans en fonction des différentes bulles. Il identifie la dernière bulle comme une « currency bubble » ce qui est un choix éditorial de leur part. Tout le monde sait que tant qu’une bulle n’a pas explosée, elle n’existe pas…

(Cliquer pour agrandir)

1m14s

Via Glenn Greenwald. A voir absolument si vous avez 1m14s (en anglais):

Bush with a smile

Verbatim de Glenn Greenwald:

The American Prospect's Adam Serwer becomes the latest to comprehensively chronicle what is no longer in dispute among reasonable people: "the Obama administration's failure to reverse the trajectory of U.S. national-security policy and of its ultimate decision to embrace the core framework of the Bush administration's 'war on terror'." As Serwer puts it: "Obama hasn't departed from the Bush administration tactics on national security, he's just changed tone." Relatedly, The Washington Post publishes a letter from the ACLU's Anthony Romero who -- responding to The Post's unsurprising editorial support for Obama's assassination programs -- explains why such policies are plainly "unlawful."

Isn't it amazing that it even needs to be debated whether the President has the right to order the death sentence for American citizens far away from any battlefield with no trials given or even charges posed? Even more amazing is that it's actually not debated -- not because it's widely understood that the President has no such power, but because, between the authoritarian GOP and the Obama-loyal Democratic Party, there is bipartisan consensus for any lawless and Constitution-destroying actions Obama embraces. That outcome -- bipartisan consensus for what were once deemed the province of radical, right-wing Bush/Cheney policies -- is, as much as anything, a key impact of the Obama presidency. As Serwer writes, Obama's signature is "embracing Bush-era policies with minor substantive changes and a dramatic change in tone. This is Bush with a smile."