The Konformist Meets Rock Hall of Famers

On March 2nd, Konformist editor Robert Sterling, along with Konformist Kontributor and pal Chris Dolan of Celebrity Circle Television (a L.A.-based cable show from the 80s returning soon after a 22-year hiatus) arrived at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa.  The end result: we were within five feet of Rock HOFers Alice Cooper and guitarists Robbie Krieger (of The Doors) & Steve Cropper (of both Booker T. & The M.G.'s and The Blues Brothers band) as they rocked out to a few Cooper tunes.  The cause?  the Second Annual Patrick Warburton Golf for Kids Tournament, a charity event that benefits St. Jude Children's Hospital, founded by the actor best known as Seinfeld's David Puddy.  Steve Cropper was particularly kind, as he and Dolan are old friends, and we had a great time with his wife Angel and his friends.  Among the others at the event were fellow Seinfeld alumni John O'Hurley, Jerry Cantrell (former Alice in Chains guitarist), actor Robert Hayes, actor Rob Morrow and comedian David Spade.  A pretty mind-blowing event.  For more info:

http://patrickwarburtongolf.com

Meanwhile, on March 1st, Sterling & Dolan were at the Golden State Collective Cannabis Lab in Santa Monica for another worthy cause.  It was The 420 Collection, an exhibition of paintings by Grace Slick to raise awareness on the issue of medical cannabis.  It was a honor meeting Ms. Slick, who literally had a deep conversation with the two of us for over a half hour.  A portion of the proceeds went to the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).  For more info:

http://www.420Collection.com
http://www.gscmbc.com
http://www.mpp.org

Wedding Photos: Blueboy & Fluffer

On March 21st, 2012, Konformist employees Blueboy & Fluffer officially became a married couple after living together for a little over a year.  Their registry is at Target...

Former KGB chief a suicide, police say

Fri March 30, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/world/europe/russia-kgb-suicide/index.html

Former Soviet spy Leonid Shebarshin, who was very briefly head of the KGB, was found dead Friday in his apartment in Moscow, an apparent suicide, officials said.

The 76-year-old left a suicide note, the state-run news agency Itar-Tass reported Friday, citing city police. A weapon was found near the body, Investigation Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.

The contents of the note were not disclosed "in the interest of the investigation," according to police, the news agency said. Shebarshin was alone in the apartment, it added.

According to Itar-Tass, Shebarshin was born in Moscow in 1935. He served as an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover in Pakistan, India and Iran and took high-ranking positions in the KGB beginning in 1983. He was appointed deputy chairman in 1989. He led the KGB for one day only, on August 22, 1991, and retired the following month.

Hypocritical Use of Piracy As a Corporate Weapon

The Hypocritical Use of Piracy As a Corporate Weapon
Myles Peterson
March 31, 2012

Rupert Murdoch, media tycoon, founder and Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, has been a fanatical supporter of tougher anti-piracy legislation including PIPA and SOPA in the US. But this week it was claimed that Murdoch’s piracy crusade is a rather hypocritical one, with his News Corporation now at the center of a major piracy scandal in which it’s accused of encouraging piracy to cripple competitors.

Troubled international media giant News Corporation felt the ice crack beneath its feet this week after years of enduring ill winds blowing from phone hacking scandals in the United Kingdom and United States.

The Australian Financial Review and the BBC’s Panorama programme combined to publish a four-year investigation into the operations of News Corporation subsidiaries, unveiling damaging claims of a plot to facilitate and encourage piracy with the aim of crippling pay-television rivals.

The allegations cast shadows across the main-stream media landscape, with implications for the conduct of news outlets and the arguments of anti-piracy lobby groups through to the structure of the pay-television landscape itself.

The reaction of News Corporation’s 81-year-old Australian founder and CEO was swift. Rupert Murdoch used his new love of micro-blogging platform Twitter to rubbish the claims, the publishers and make implied threats of legal action against those raising the allegations.

Murdoch’s sensitivity is understandable. The negative publicity generated by earlier phone hacking scandals could be alleviated in part by suggesting that if immoral – even illegal – activity had taken place, it occurred during the pursuit of journalism, however tawdry or overzealous.

Using piracy as a corporate weapon to damage competitors contains no such narrow mountain trail to the moral high ground. Worse, it undermines a global campaign against piracy led by Hollywood lobby groups such as the MPAA, of whom News Corporation is a major member via its entertainment subsidiary, FOX...

Full Article:
http://torrentfreak.com/the-hypocritical-use-of-piracy-as-a-corporate-weapon-120331

Seven Day Plan to Hold Wall Street Accountable

A Seven Day Plan to Finally Hold Wall Street Accountable
New evidence points to illegal behavior. Prosecution is the only way to keep that behavior from continuing.
Bruce Judson
Monday, 03/19/2012
http://www.newdeal20.org/2012/03/19/a-seven-day-plan-to-finally-hold-wall-street-accountable-74581

It’s now a near certainty that Wall Street executives committed felonies.

The recently released audits of robo-mortgage activities by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) details shocking behavior at the five banks constituting the Federal Housing Administration’s largest mortgage servicers. At Wells Fargo, management quashed a midlevel manager’s study of the foreclosure process as negative results began to emerge, and it gave an individual whose last job had been in a pizza restaurant the title of “vice-president of loan documentation” to facilitate robo-mortgage signing. Bank of America evaluated employees on the volume of foreclosure affidavits produced. JP Morgan Chase gave individuals titles such as “vice-president of Chase Home” where “the titles were given by Chase for the sole purpose of allowing individuals to sign documents and came with no other duties or authority.” Citigroup and Ally similarly engaged in seemingly illegal practices.

Under federal law, the knowing filing of a false affidavit with the court is a felony offense of perjury, punishable by a prison term of up to five years. An individual violates laws against perjury whether he or she personally appears in court and swears to a false statement or provides the court with a false affidavit. Individual states have their own perjury laws, which were undoubtedly violated as well. The HUD report also suggests that individual banks may be guilty of obstruction of justice and the criminal violation of the False Claims Act for filing insurance claims without following HUD requirements.

Since the start of the financial crisis, federal and state officials have been struggling to change Wall Street behavior. To date, every effort has failed miserably, and the weak enforcement provisions of the robo-mortgage settlement are unlikely to meaningfully change this dynamic. Government officials have also relied, with a very few exceptions, entirely on civil enforcement when criminal laws appear to have been egregiously violated.

The greatest moral hazard now confronting the nation is what appears to be increasingly brazen criminal activity by financial industry executives. With each decision not to prosecute, Wall Street executives justifiably conclude that they are immune to the rules. As a result, it appears that Wall Street criminal activity is increasing in frequency and severity, as opposed to the reverse. The activities surrounding the collapse of MF Global are one example.

So what can be done about it? We can change the behavior in the financial service industry for a full generation in just seven days. This plan may seem to be tongue and cheek, but it hearkens back to a similar action in the era of the Great Depression. In the final months of Herbert Hoover’s presidency, the Senate Banking Committee began an investigation into the causes of the Great Crash of 1929, and a young prosecutor named Ferdinand Pecora was appointed as Chief Counsel. Subsequently, the Roosevelt administration conveyed to Pecora that “the prosecution of an outstanding violator of the banking law would be the most salutary action that could be taken at this time. The feeling is that if the people become convinced that the big violators are to be punished, it will be helpful in restoring confidence.” Ultimately, this investigation, which came to be known as the Pecora Commission, led to the indictment of one of America’s most prominent financiers; demonstrated widespread self-dealing in the financial sector; and, as noted by historian Alan Brinkley, generated “broad popular support” for Roosevelt’s reform agenda, including the creation of the SEC and the Glass-Steagall Act.

My seven day plan is based on a simple premise: When criminal laws are egregiously violated, the guilty parties should face appropriate punishment. Here’s the plan:

Day One: Read the HUD Inspector General’s reports and the public records of past mortgage foreclosure cases from across the nation.

Day Two: Meet with the team at the Office of the Inspector General at HUD that prepared the audits. Obtain the names of all the bank officials, lawyers, and notaries whose behavior, as cited in the audit reports or otherwise known to the investigators, represent clear and unquestionable criminal violations. Add to this list other individuals who have similarly demonstrated or testified to behavior unquestionably constituting criminal acts, as indicated by the public records of the mortgage foreclosure cases reviewed in day one.

Day Three: Indict all of the individuals on the list compiled on day two.

Day Four: Indict banks and financial institutions on criminal charges where criminal behavior by employees (as demonstrated by day three indictments) appears to be endemic. The Justice Department guidelines for prosecuting firms include: (1) the pervasiveness of such activity, (2) the compliance procedures in place, (3) attempts by the corporation to end bad behavior, and (4) cooperation with federal investigators. In 2008, the Justice Department adopted a policy of accepting “deferred prosecutions,” involving agreements to change corporate behavior without damaging innocent third parties through prosecution.

Corporations receive the benefits of “legal persons,” as demonstrated by Citizens United. But they must also bear the responsibilities of these privileges. A reading of the HUD reports, and other public records, suggests several banks should clearly be prosecuted.

Day 5: Discuss plea bargains with indicted lower-level officials in return for cooperating in investigations of higher-level officials.

Day 6: Consider plea bargains with indicted banks, which require the removal of all remaining officers and directors who were serving when egregious criminal activity occurred, as well as senior officials who were in a position to exercise appropriate supervisory responsibility but chose to look the other way.

Day 7: Indict any senior Wall Street officials implicated by new cooperative testimony resulting from activities on day five. Adopt and announce a policy that future criminal violations will be prosecuted in a similar fashion.

What is particularly disturbing is that a look at the evidence already in the public domain (much less what investigators already know) shows that none of the actions discussed above are entirely absurd. The purpose of prosecution not simply punishment. It acts to deter further illegal activity and to restore public confidence in our system of governance. The nation desperately needs both of these benefits today.

Moreover, these ongoing, almost certainly criminal activities are ultimately dangerous threats to our economy, the success of capitalism, and our democracy. In his column on MF Global, Joe Nocera noted that “customers need to be able to trust” the laws protecting their money. “Otherwise, the markets can’t function.”

Today, as in the era of FDR, we must send a message to the financial community that illegal behavior will not be tolerated. By prosecuting blatant felonies now, we will deter future misbehavior and begin the process of recreating a fair society where equal justice prevails.

Bruce Judson is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and a former Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.

Minimum Wage

From MoveOn.org: Hours a week at minimum wage needed to afford a two bedroom apartment

Hacker "Sabu" worked full nights online for FBI

Full Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/hacker-sabu-worked-full-nights-online-fbi-005900686.html

One late-night visit by the FBI was all it took for the notorious hacker known as "Sabu" to switch sides and become a valued snitch.

Hector Xavier Monsegur cooperated immediately in June, helping investigators close a net around five other leaders of the international hacking group Anonymous, according to court documents made public on Thursday.

Monsegur sometimes stayed up all night, talking with co-conspirators to help the government build its case, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Pastore told a Manhattan federal court judge at a secret hearing days before Monsegur's August 15 guilty plea, the court papers showed.

Monsegur, 28, was arrested at his small apartment in a Manhattan housing complex on June 7, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday in announcing charges against him and five others. The precise time, 10:15 p.m., was revealed in Thursday's court papers.

"Since literally the day he was arrested, the defendant has been cooperating with the government proactively," Pastore told Judge Loretta Preska.

Monsegur was freed on $50,000 bond the day after his arrest. He later pleaded guilty to each of the 12 computer crimes he was charged with in cases brought in four different states. The cases were later consolidated in New York.

Federal prosecutors said Monsegur had confessed in court after signing a cooperation agreement with the government. Details of the deal and any reduction in prison time that he hopes to receive will not be known until the court makes the information public.

Monsegur and the five others were senior members of Lulz Security (LulzSec), an offshoot of Anonymous that took credit for hacking attacks on government and private sector websites, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday. Targets included the CIA, Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency, Japan's Sony Corp and others including in Ireland and Mexico...

20 million could lose employer coverage

20 million could lose employer coverage under Obama health care overhaul
Kate Randall
17 March 2012
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/heal-m17.shtml

As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored coverage in 2019 under the health care legislation signed into law by President Obama in March 2010. This is the worst-case scenario set out by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in a report released Thursday.

The CBO’s most optimistic estimate, which the federal agency says is subject to a “tremendous amount of uncertainty,” is that 3 million to 5 million could lose their employer health coverage each year from 2019 through 2022.

The new projections for loss of employee coverage are a substantial increase over last year’s estimates, when the CBO’s best prediction was that only 1 million people would lose employer-sponsored coverage.

The new study is the latest indication that the health care overhaul will result in a deterioration of health care for the majority of Americans, and not the improvement touted by the Obama administration. Working families and those in low-wage jobs stand to suffer the most from companies eliminating coverage.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained during the administration’s campaign for its health care “reform,” the scheme was the opposite of universal and quality health care for all. Drawn up in close consultation with the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries as well as Wall Street, it was driven by a determination to reduce government deficits and health care costs at the expense of the working class. In addition to cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, the plan is designed to ration health care on class lines, depriving millions of working people of benefits on which they currently rely.

Beginning in 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will mandate individuals and families to obtain insurance or pay fines that could eventually rise to as much as 2 percent of income for all but the very poor. Those who purchase insurance on the health care “exchanges” set up under the PPACA will be at the mercy of private insurers who can increase premiums without any meaningful government oversight.

Companies with more than 50 employees that stop offering health coverage will be levied a $2,000 per employee tax penalty. The CBO projection indicates that a significant proportion of businesses will find it financially advantageous to drop coverage and pay the penalty.

The CBO’s worst-case scenario is in line with previous studies on the impact of the health care bill on employer coverage. A study released in August 2011 by human resources consultants Towers Watson showed that at least 9 percent of companies planned to drop their coverage by 2014. A study last June by the McKinsey Company showed that an even larger proportion, 30 percent, were likely to stop providing coverage when provisions of the PPACA take effect.

On the same day the CBO published its report, the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) released a national study showing that employer-provided health coverage has already been substantially eroded as a result of the recession. Between 2007 and 2010, the share of children and working-age adults covered by employer-sponsored health insurance dropped by 10 percentage points, from 63.6 percent to 53.5 percent.

The study notes that increased unemployment was the key driver of this loss of employer coverage, with the proportion of people younger than 65 with no employed workers in the household jumping to 31.6 percent in 2010—up 10 percent. This rise in joblessness accounted for approximately three-quarters of the drop in employer-provided health coverage since 2007.

However, the HSC study found that about 20 percent of those who lost their employer-sponsored health care from 2007 to 2010 were employed but either dropped from coverage by their employer or opted out of it. The survey also showed that a steady decline in employer health coverage was well underway before the official start of the recession in December 2007, with fewer companies offering coverage and fewer employees choosing to enroll because they could not afford to pay their portion of the cost of coverage.

Employer-sponsored coverage in the US is rarely provided free of charge to the employee. Going forward, it has still not been made clear precisely what level of coverage businesses will be required to offer their workers to qualify under the Obama health care legislation.

The HSC surveyed showed that employer-provided coverage has become increasingly unaffordable for a significant share of the workforce, particularly low-wage workers. Households with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line—$44,100 for a family of four in 2010—saw employer-sponsored health care coverage drop dramatically, from 42 percent in 2001 to only 24 percent in 2010.

In addition to low-wage workers, segments of the population seeing a disproportionate decline in coverage were young adults, people with a high school education or less, and those employed in small firms.

In 2007, among those aged 18 to 27, 70 percent lived in a household where at least one member was working and 43 percent were covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. By 2010, only 50 percent lived in working households and employer coverage had dropped to 31 percent.

People in families headed by someone with a high school education or less saw their employer health coverage decline from 47 percent in 2007 to 36 percent in 2010. For those employed by companies with less than 100 workers, employer health coverage fell from 51 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2010.

As the CBO report demonstrates, the numbers of those losing their employer-sponsored coverage—whether they are dumped by their employer or can no longer afford it—will rise as a result of the Obama health care overhaul. This tendency will be exacerbated by the continuing rise of overall health care costs, driven in the main by the spiraling profits of the insurance companies and giant health care providers and pharmaceuticals.

A new report by the Annals of Family Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal, predicts that the average cost of health insurance for American families will surpass average household income by 2033.

The report finds: “If health insurance premiums and national wages continue to grow at recent rates and the U.S. health system makes no major structural changes, the average cost of a family health insurance premium will equal 50 percent of the household income by the year 2021, and surpass the average household income by the year 2033.”

The Obama-sponsored health bill is aimed, not at improving health care provision, but cutting costs for the government and corporations. From the beginning, the Obama administration has pitched the overhaul as “deficit neutral,” making the spurious claim that hundreds of billions can be slashed from Medicare and other government programs while improving the accessibility and quality of care.

Notably, the CBO report states that under the worst-case scenario—in which 20 million people lose their employer-sponsored coverage—the federal government will actually save $13 billion relative to baseline projections. Under conditions of skyrocketing health care costs, this can only be the result of reductions in care and forcing people into cut-rate plans on the “insurance exchanges,” or into Medicaid and other government programs that are being targeted for sweeping cuts.

Robalini On Disinformation

States of Depression
Robalini
April 12, 2012
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/04/states-of-depression

Here’s an article from Paul Krugman in the New York Times about the state of the economy, and this quote pretty much sums up his verdict: “In fact, if it weren’t for this destructive fiscal austerity, our unemployment rate would almost certainly be lower now than it was at a comparable stage of the ‘Morning in America’ recovery during the Reagan era.”

Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, is about as “liberal” (whatever the hell that means in 2012) as the korporate media will allow at this point. He has often been highly critical of Barack Obama, especially during the 2008 Democratic Party race, when he was one of the few to note Obama’s economic policies were already in campaign mode decidedly to the right of both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

That said, Krugman provides the following evidence:

One way to dramatize just how severe our de facto austerity has been is to compare government employment and spending during the Obama-era economic expansion, which began in June 2009, with their tracks during the Reagan-era expansion, which began in November 1982.

Start with government employment (which is mainly at the state and local level, with about half the jobs in education). By this stage in the Reagan recovery, government employment had risen by 3.1 percent; this time around, it’s down by 2.7 percent.

Next, look at government purchases of goods and services (as distinct from transfers to individuals, like unemployment benefits). Adjusted for inflation, by this stage of the Reagan recovery, such purchases had risen by 11.6 percent; this time, they’re down by 2.6 percent.

And the gap persists even when you do include transfers, some of which have stayed high precisely because unemployment is still so high. Adjusted for inflation, Reagan-era spending rose 10.2 percent in the first 10 quarters of recovery, Obama-era spending only 2.6 percent.


Of course, there’s many reasons behind this (two obvious ones are cutbacks on the state level aided by a lack of support from Washington and the extreme right-wing economics embraced by the GOP) but there’s a more obvious elephant in the room: Obamanomics is a primary cause for our current economic malaise. Indeed, his already right-wing campaign prescriptions hidden behind inane, context-free mantras like “Change” and “Hope” have been followed by actual policies which are even more reactionary than supposed liberal demon Ronald Reagan.

Krugman, even with his history of criticism against Team Obama, avoids these implications that his stats reveal. He also avoids the even greater indictment: for all the failures of George W. Bush and his reign, to blame the unemployment and tepid economy of 2012 on him would be untruthful. Barack Obama may have inherited a really bad hand, but his policies now are the bigger cause for economic woes than eight years of Bush Jr. This is all the more appalling when one considers Obama came into office with sixty out of 100 Senators, a decided majority in the HOR, and a supposed vast popularity with the public that desired leadership to combat the economic crisis.

The punchline: as the positions of Mitt Romney are even more reactionary that Obama’s, it appears that we are headed for a lost decade of economic malaise at least until 2016, and probably even further as the economic status quo shifts decidedly to the right.

Read Krugman in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/opinion/krugman-states-of-depression.html
*
The Women Who Named The ‘Big Mac’ Received A Plaque
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/04/the-women-who-named-the-big-mac-received-a-plaque/

Wall Street’s Broken Windows

William K. Black
March 4, 2012
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/03/wall-streets-broken-windows.html

James Q. Wilson was a political scientist who often studied the government response to blue collar crime. The public knows him best for his theory called “broken windows.” The metaphor was what happens to a vacant building when broken windows are not promptly repaired. Soon, most of the windows in the abandoned building are broken. The criminals feel little compunction against petty destruction because the building’s owners evince no concern for the integrity of their building. Wilson took social norms, community, and ethics seriously. He argued that as community broke down fewer honest citizens were active in monitoring and policing behavior. The breakdown in community was criminogenic – it led to widespread serious blue collar crime. He urged us to take even minor blue collar crimes and breaches of civility seriously and to demand that they be contained through social pressure and policing.

New York City’s police strategy embraced “broken windows.” The police increased the priority with which they responded to even minor offenses that upset the community – “squeegee men,” graffiti, and street prostitution. Reported blue collar crime fell in New York City. It also fell sharply in most other cities, which did not implement “broken windows” programs, but Wilson and the NYPD got the credit and popular fame for the sharp fall in reported blue collar crime in New York City. Wilson became one of the most famous blue collar criminologists in the world.

Wilson’s broken window theory remains controversial among many blue collar criminologists. As a celebration of his life and research I offer this discussion of applying “broken windows” theory and policies to elite white-collar crime.

Wilson was strongly conservative. His research focus in criminology was almost exclusively blue collar crime. That was a shame because “broken windows” theory is most compelling in the context of elite white-collar crime and because the application would reveal interesting twists in the theory’s potential. Such an application, however, would have been outside Wilson’s comfort zone. Wilson tended to use the word “crime” to refer exclusively to blue collar crime and his emphasis was on very low status criminals. In a book entitled, Thinking About Crime, Wilson argued that criminology should focus overwhelmingly on low-status blue collar criminals.

This book [does not deal] with “white collar crimes”…. Partly this reflects the limits of my own knowledge, but it also reflects my conviction, which I believe is the conviction of most citizens, that predatory street crime is a far more serious matter than consumer fraud [or] antitrust violations … because predatory crime … makes difficult or impossible maintenance of meaningful human communities (1975: xx).

I am rather tolerant of some forms of civic corruption (if a good mayor can stay in office and govern effectively only by making a few deals with highway contractors and insurance agents, I do not get overly alarmed)…. (1975: xix).

Notice that Wilson’s explanation is antithetical to his “broken windows” reasoning. There are, of course, relatively minor white-collar crimes. Wilson emphasized that it was the willingness of society to tolerate relatively minor blue collar crimes that led to social disintegration and epidemics of severe blue collar crimes, but he engaged in the same willingness to tolerate and excuse less severe white collar crimes. He predicted in his work on “broken windows” that tolerating widespread smaller crimes would lead to epidemic levels of larger crimes because it undermined community and social restraints. The epidemics of elite white collar crime that have driven our recurrent, intensifying financial crises have proven this point. Similarly, corruption that is excused and tolerated by elites is unlikely to remain at the level of “a few deals.” Corruption is likely to spread in incidence and severity precisely because it undermines community and the rule of law and it is likely to grow more pervasive and harmful the more we “tolera[te]” it.

“Broken windows” theory, in the white collar crime context, would lead us to make the prevention and deterrence of consumer frauds and anti-trust violations through prosecutions a high priority because of their tendency to produce a “Gresham’s” dynamic in which businesses or CEOs that cheat gain a competitive advantage and bad ethics drives good ethics out of the markets. These offenses degrade ethics and erode peer restraints on misconduct.

The ongoing crisis demonstrates that anti-consumer frauds are a direct assault on community. Mortgage fraud – and it was overwhelmingly the lenders and their agents who put the lies in millions of liar’s loans – physically and socially destroy community by producing mass defaults, homelessness, and vacant homes.

Taking Wilson’s “broken windows” reasoning seriously in the elite white collar crime context would require us to take a series of prophylactic measures to restore integrity and strengthen peer pressures against misconduct. Indeed, we have implicitly tested the applicability of “broken windows” reasoning in that context by adopting policies that acted directly contrary to Wilson’s reasoning. We have adopted executive and professional compensation systems that are exceptionally criminogenic. We have excused and ignored the endemic “earnings management” that is the inherent result of these compensation policies and the inherent degradation of professionalism that results from allowing CEOs to create a Gresham’s dynamic among appraisers, auditors, credit rating agencies, and stock analysts. The intellectual father of modern executive compensation, Michael Jensen, now warns about his Frankenstein creation. He argues that one of our problems is dishonesty about the results. Surveys indicate that the great bulk of CFOs claim that it is essential to manipulate earnings. Jensen explains that the manipulation inherently reduces shareholder value and insists that it be called “lying.” I have seen Mary Jo White, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who now defends senior managers, lecture that there is “good” “earnings management.”

Fiduciary duties are critical means of preventing broken windows from occurring and making it likely that any broken windows in corporate governance will soon be remedied, yet we have steadily weakened fiduciary duties. For example, Delaware now allows the elimination of the fiduciary duty of care as long as the shareholders approve. Court decisions have increasingly weakened the fiduciary duties of loyalty and care. The Chamber of Commerce’s most recent priorities have been to weaken Sarbanes-Oxley and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We have made it exceptionally difficult for shareholders who are victims of securities fraud to bring civil suits against the officers and entities that led or aided and abetted the securities fraud. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) has achieved its true intended purpose – making it exceptionally difficult for shareholders who are the victims of securities fraud to bring even the most meritorious securities fraud action.

The Supreme Court has held that banks and other entities that aid and abet securities fraud are immune from suit by the victims of securities fraud. Only the federal government may sue those that aid and abet fraud. The federal government has cut the number of financial fraud prosecutions by over one-half over the last twenty years even as financial fraud has grown massively. No elite CEO leading a control fraud that helped drive the current crisis has even been indicted. Elite CEOs can defraud with near impunity and become wealthy. Elite white collar fraud is a “sure thing” – the only strategy likely to make a mediocre CEO wealthy and famous.

Because Wilson did not research elite white collar crimes he did not direct his formidable intellectual energies and expertise to the study of who could prevent the breaking of corporate windows and repair those that were broken. This was a great loss because his studies of varieties of police behavior in response to blue collar crime are justly famous among criminologists. The central truth he would have quickly recognized had he thought of seeking to reduce elite white collar crimes is that only the financial regulators can serve as the “regulatory cops on the beat.” The police do not deal with elite white collar crimes. A small cadre of FBI special agents works on elite white collar crimes. There are roughly three special agents assigned to white collar crime investigations per industry in the U.S., so they never “patrol a beat.” They investigate only when someone brings a possible white collar crime to their attention. That means whistleblowers, but it overwhelmingly means criminal referrals from the federal financial regulators. Financial institutions may make criminal referrals against their customers, but they will virtually never make them against their CEOs. Only the regulators can make the thousands of criminal referrals against elite white collar criminals essential to a successful prosecutorial effort against the epidemics of accounting control fraud that drive our worst financial crises. In the lead up to the ongoing crisis we gutted the federal regulators, preempted the state regulators, and appointed anti-regulators to head the agencies. A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is trying to further gut the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). If we want to stop the criminals who are destroying our economy and our communities by breaking windows on an epic scale the first step is to rebuild a regulatory force committed to serving as the essential “cops on the beat.”

I listened in stunned amazement to the presentations of law professors who specialize in white collar crime and securities law at the two annual meetings that followed the ongoing financial crisis. Virtually every speaker in these sections presented arguments calling for reducing white collar criminal liability and liability for securities fraud. At the time they were speaking, the Justice Department had already ceased prosecuting major firms and the SEC brought a pathetically high percentage of its small number of enforcement actions against tiny firms with fewer than 10 employees.

We have systematically reduced effective peer restraints in our most important controls against financial fraud. Law firms, audit firms, and investment banks used to be professional partnerships. Each partner was potentially liable for any firm misconduct, which maximized the incentive to insist on higher levels of integrity. These firms are now virtually all corporations or limited liability partnerships. The incentive of partners to monitor other partners’ actions to ensure their integrity has largely been lost.

In the elite white collar crime context we have been following the opposite strategy of that recommended under “broken windows” theory. We have been breaking windows. We have excused those who break the windows. Indeed, we have praised them and their misconduct. The problem with allowing broken windows is far greater in the elite white collar crime context than the blue collar crime context. The squeegee guys make tiny amounts of money and are hated and politically powerless. The mediocre financial CEO who engages in accounting control fraud because it is a “sure thing” causes the bank to report record (albeit fictional) profits and becomes wealthy and politically powerful. He uses his wealth to make charitable and political contributions that make him far harder to sanction. He claims that any crackdown on him is “class warfare” by “neo-Bolsheviks.” Incredibly, the Wall Street Journal continues to serve as the cheerleader and apologist for those who become wealthy by breaking windows, communities, and economies.

Wilson warned of blue collar “super predators.” He called them “feral” – wild animals. These criminals are in fact dangerous, but they are odd candidates for the title of “super predators.” Wilson noted that they were disproportionately black and that they were confined almost entirely to the poorest neighborhoods in America where their pickings are poor. Accounting control frauds occupy Wall Street and other financial centers – the richest neighborhoods in the world. Their “take” from fraud is extraordinary. The blue collar criminals that occupied Wilson’s attention late in his career were politically and socially powerless. The fraudulent CEOs that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises are wealthy and socially and politically dominant.

Wilson had a fabulous career and added greatly to the policy debate about how to respond to blue collar crime. Our most fitting tribute to him and contribution to his legacy would be to apply his “broken window” theory to the elite white collar crimes and criminals that drive our financial crises. The troubling paradox is that the strongest proponents of “broken windows” theory and policies in the blue collar crime context are the strongest opponents of applying analogous policies in the elite white collar crime context. The Wall Street Journal is the most prominent example of this class-based incoherence.


Bill Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He spent years working on regulatory policy and fraud prevention as Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement, among other positions.

Bill writes a column for Benzinga every Monday. His other academic articles, congressional testimony, and musings about the financial crisis can be found at his Social Science Research Network author page and at the blog New Economic Perspectives.

Follow him on Twitter: @WilliamKBlack

Oreo Fried Chicken

As a special stoner Cooking bonus, here's a recipe from ImNotU99@yahoo.com combing both friend chicken & Oreos!
2 C. Oreo Ground Oreo Crumbs
1 T. fine ground coffee
2 T. chili powder
2 t. salt
1 C flour
2 eggs
2 T. Water
1 cut up chicken (8 pcs) moistened
salt and pepper to taste
Oil

Heat oil in deep fryer or skillet to 350 or slightly higher, but no more then 375. Constant 350 is the target temp. Combine oreo crumbs (no icing - make a ball out of that and eat it like an apple! :) ), coffee, chili powder and salt in a zip top bag. Salt and pepper chicken, dredge in flour and rest on rack for 30 minutes. Mix egg and water together and dredge chicken first in egg then Oreo mixture and carefully arrange chicken in fryer working in batches if necessary. Fry until done. Serve hot and juicy.

-You can add an optional tablespoon of dark cocoa powder to the flour mixture, if you wish and any preference you may have on dried herbs can be added to the Oreo mixture as well.
- To make extra crispy and a little fluffier texture, add 1/2 tsp baking powder to the flour mixture or use self rising flour.

Enjoy - Just remember where you got it!

Stoner Cooking: Chicken Recipes

http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/10-great-recipe-ideas-chicken-193800293.html
Baked Chicken Parmesan
Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 15m | Total Time: 40m

Ingredients 8 thin chicken cutlets (1 1/2 pounds total), kosher salt and black pepper, 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 2 large eggs, beaten, 2/3 cup bread crumbs, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 24-ounce jar marinara sauce, 1 pound fresh mozzarella, sliced

Directions

Heat oven to 400º F. Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

Place the flour and eggs in separate shallow bowls; in a third shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs and Parmesan. Coat the chicken with the flour, then dip in the eggs (letting any excess drip off), then coat with the bread crumb mixture, pressing gently to help it adhere. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken in batches until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Pour the marinara sauce into a large, shallow baking dish. Top with the chicken and mozzarella. -Bake until bubbling and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.

Calories per serving: 856


Chicken With Creamy Mushrooms
Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 20m | Total Time: 20m

Ingredients 8 small chicken cutlets (1½ pounds total), kosher salt and pepper, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 pound sliced mushrooms, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1/2 cup goat cheese, 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Directions
Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken in batches until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plates. Add the mushrooms and remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan and cook, tossing occasionally, until tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream, goat cheese, parsley, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Serve over the chicken.

Calories per serving: 454


Moroccan Chicken Salad With Carrots
Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 20m | Total Time: 20m

Ingredients 5 tablespoons olive oil, 8 small chicken cutlets (1½ pounds total), 1 teaspoon ground cumin, kosher salt and black pepper, 3 tablespoons lime juice, 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper, 5 ounces baby spinach, 2 cups cilantro leaves, 4 carrots, peeled into strips, 1/2 cup raisins

Directions
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Season the chicken with the cumin, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. In batches, cook the chicken until golden brown and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Cut into strips. In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, red pepper, the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil, and ½ teaspoon salt. In a large bowl, toss the chicken, spinach, cilantro, carrots, and raisins with the dressing.

Calories per serving: 433


Crispy Herbed Chicken Strips
Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 20m | Total Time: 20m

Ingredients 2 cups panko bread crumbs, 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, 8 small chicken cutlets (1½ pounds total), cut into wide strips, kosher salt and black pepper, 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1 large egg, beaten, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 2 Kirby cucumbers, cut into spears, 1/2 cup ranch dressing

Directions In a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs and dill.

Season the chicken with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

Coat the chicken with flour. Dip in the egg (letting any excess drip off). Then coat with the bread crumb mixture, pressing gently to help it adhere. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken in batches until golden brown and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Serve with the cucumber spears and ranch dressing.

Calories per serving: 597

100 Years of Oreo

The Oreo turned 100 on March 6th. Here's some facts about and recipes using America's favorite cookie...
Source:
http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/100-years-oreo-recipes-facts-famous-cookie-194400045.html

Which came first, Oreo or Hydrox? Though both have passionate followings, and Oreos outsell the Kellogg Hydrox sandwich cookie, Hydrox cookies actually came first, in 1908. They were discontinued in 1999, but returned to stores in 2008.

According to Kraft Foods, 84 percent of men and 59 percent of women eat the cookie without twisting it open first.

No one knows who came up with Oreos, or where the name really came from. Kraft Foods' corporate archivist Becky Tousey says that she thinks the name came from combining the "re" in creme and the two "o's" in chocolate. Others theorize that the name comes from the ancient greek word for mountain ("oros") since the cookies were once domed, or the French word for gold ("or") because the cookies once came in golden packaging.

Oreos are available in different flavors outside of the U.S.. In China you can find them in Green Tea, orange/mango, and raspberry/blueberry "Double Fruit" flavors. In Argentina, there's the Oreo Alfajor, with a half-banana, half-dulce de leche flavored filling. In Mexico, people enjoy "Trio Chocolate," with three different types of chocolate in each cookie, and Oreos with a cookies-and-creme filling (that's right -- Oreo cookies with Oreo-cookie filling, so to speak.)

Classic Oreos are 71 percent chocolate wafer and 29 percent creme. After decades of this standard, the company released the Double Stuff in 1975.

There's at least one street named after the cookie: Oreo Way, in New York City.

It takes 59 minutes for a bakery to make an Oreo.

The tiny pattern pressed into the wafer is a combination of 12 flowers (each made of 4 triangles), 37 dots, and 12 dashes. Each cookie also has 90 ridges running along its edges.


Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies:
Bon Appetit magazine calls these "the new cupcake."

2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 oz bag chocolate chips
1 pkg. Oreo cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars together with a mixer until well combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes about 2 dozen large cookies.


Triple-chocolate cookie balls
This no-bake treat that looks much more complicated than it really is.

1 pkg. Oreo cookies
1/2 cup milk
1 package JELL-O chocolate instant pudding
12 to 16 Baker's semi-sweet chocolate squares
4 to 8 Bakers white chocolate squares
In a small bowl, make a paste out of the pudding and the milk. Put 36 of the Oreos into a gallon-size zip-top bag and crush them (with a rolling pin or a mallet). Add the crushed cookies to the pudding mixture and stir will. Form the mixture into small balls and place on a wax-paper lined cookie sheet; freeze them for about 10 minutes.

While they're in the freezer, please the semi-sweet chocolate squares in a microwave-safe bowl and heat, stirring often, until melted. Dip the chilled oreo balls into the melted chocolate, place them on a fresh wax-paper lined cookie sheet, and refrigerate or freeze for another 10 minutes.

Melt the white chocolate squares, and drizzle the melted white chocolate over the cookie balls using a fork or a spoon. Return them to the refrigerator to harden briefly before serving.

Makes 40 to 45 cookie balls

Thirteen sensual aphrodesiac foods to improve your sex life

Thirteen sensual aphrodesiac foods to improve your sex life
Thursday, March 01, 2012 by: JB Bardot
http://www.naturalnews.com/035111_aphrodesiac_foods_love_life.html

Chocolate -- Chocolate works like no other food to stimulate human sexuality. It's delicious, melts on the tongue and has an erotic quality even when not thinking of sex. According to Amy Reiley in her book, "Romancing the Stove: The Unabridged Guide to Aphrodisiac Foods," chocolate helps thin the blood, improve circulation to sensitive parts and strengthen the heart enabling aiding endurance.

Strawberries --Try them dipped in chocolate for the ultimate aphrodisiac experience. There's really nothing that compares with grasping the little green leaves on top of a juicy strawberry dipped in luscious dark chocolate, and placing it between your lover's parted lips.

Espresso --With its pleasingly bitter tang and exotic scent, expressohelps to pump the blood. In her aphrodisiac cookbook, "The New InterCourses," Martha Hopkins recommends espresso for its ability to extend sexual performance and maintain the libido, increasing pleasure even for just a few delicious extra seconds.

Oysters -- Oystershave a long reputation for being a leading aphrodisiac. They're high in protein, low in fat and feel luscious in the mouth. And of even greater importance, they're high in the mineral zinc, says Reiley, an critical nutrient in the production of testosterone.

Asparagus --If it looks like something you're familiar with, it should. The asparagus resembles part of the male body and according to the "Doctrine of Signatures", penned in the 16th century, that which resembles one thing may improve that which it looks like. So, according to the theory, if it resembles a sexual organ, it is meant by nature to aid your sexuality. Even though the Doctrine was merely a theory, it's now known that asparagus is rich in calcium, vitamin E, phosphorus and potassium, offering extra energy to improve sexual endurance and stimulate sex hormones.

Ginger and Cayenne --Both of theseplay a role in the aphrodisiac department by encouraging increased, oxygen-rich blood flow to some of the body's most sensitive areas -- And that translates to greater pleasure.

Rosemary --This delicious herb associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, also boosts blood supply and helps increase sensitivity of the skin. Include it in your cooking and sprinkle a few drops of essential oil in the bath.

Bananas -- Bananas are another go-to aphrodisiac food not only because they resemble the male phallus, but because they are high in nutrients that enhance the production of sex hormones.

Basil -- Basil was used long ago by women as a scent of seduction to drive their men wild with desire. It's a strong aphrodisiac and is infused into some perfumes. Use it in a salad, a pesto or just leave some of the fresh leaves around to entice your man.

Pomegranate -- Pomegranate symbolized the love goddess Aphrodite in ancient Greece, notes Reiley. Modern researchers are conducting studies into the affects of pomegranate juice for the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Truffles -- Trufflesare a great aphrodisiac for the woman in your life. They're rich in amino acids and their scent is similar to that of a male pheromone, or sex hormone.

Grapes -- Grapes areassociated with Bacchus, the Roman god of ecstasy, and are a close contender with chocolate for being the top aphrodisiac. What could be more romantic than being fed peeled grapes, one by one by your lover, and waiting for that juicy, sweet explosion of flavor in your mouth?

Significa 3-21-12

Konformist Book Club Excerpt:
What Revelation Reveals
It is the Bible's strangest book. Even stranger, it was only one of many now-forgotten 'books of revelation'
ELAINE PAGELS
March 2, 2012
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577253611876502848.html

The Book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible, and the most controversial. Instead of stories and moral teaching, it offers only visions—dreams and nightmares, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, earthquakes, plagues and war. In the climactic battle scene, Jesus appears as a divine warrior, Satan is thrown into a pit, and all humans who had died faithful to God reign over the earth for 1,000 years.

The author, John of Patmos, was a Jewish prophet and a follower of Jesus who probably began to write around the year 90 after fleeing a war that had ravaged his homeland, Judea. But his Book of Revelation wasn't unique. At the time, countless others—Jews, pagans and Christians—produced a flood of "books of revelation," claiming to reveal divine secrets. Some have been known for centuries; about 20 others were found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.

So what do the other revelations tell us, and how did John's come to trump the others? Unlike the Book of Revelation, the great majority of the others weren't about the end of the world, but about finding the divine in it now. Many offered encouragement to seek direct contact with God—a message that some early Christian leaders ultimately chose to suppress.

The Revelation of Zostrianos, found in 1945, tells how the young author, tormented by questions and overwhelmed by depression, walked alone into the desert. Finding no place "to rest my spirit," Zostrianos says he had resolved to kill himself. But he says that suddenly he became aware of a being radiating light, who "said to me, 'Zostrianos…have you gone mad?' "

This divine presence, Zostrianos says, released him from despair and offered illumination. Then, Zostrianos says, "I realized that the power in me was greater than the darkness, because it contained the whole light."

Another 1945 find, the Revelation of Peter, similarly opens in a desperate moment. Peter says he was standing in the temple with other disciples when "I saw the priests and the people running up to us with stones, as if they would kill us." Terrified, he says, he heard Jesus tell him to "put your hands…over your eyes, and say what you see." Peter sees nothing. Jesus tells him to do it again. Peter says: "And fear came over me, [and] joy, for I saw a new light greater than the light of day. Then it came down upon the Savior, and I told him what I saw."

Although such revelations might not change outward circumstances—tradition tells us that, just as Peter feared, he was caught and crucified—the Revelation of Peter suggests that what Jesus revealed enabled him to face his death with courage and hope.

These other revelations, written several generations after Jesus' death, were often written by anonymous followers of Jesus under the names of disciples—not to deceive their readers but to show that they were writing "in the spirit" of those whose names they borrowed. Many were probably not written by Christians at all. Some of the revelations drew upon sacred traditions of Egypt and Greece and, in some cases, on the Hebrew Bible. Others included practices similar to Buddhist meditation techniques.

The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false messiah. These taunts echoed John's own fear and doubt. Devastated, John turns away from the temple and heads toward the desert, where, he says, "I grieved greatly in my heart."

Suddenly, he says, he saw brilliant light as the heavens opened, and the earth shook beneath his feet. Terrified, John says he saw a luminous presence that kept changing form, and then heard Jesus' voice: "John, John, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid?…I am the one who is with you always. I am the Father; I am the Mother; I am the Son."

The Jesus who appears in the Secret Revelation doesn't look as he does in the Book of Revelation. Instead of a divine warrior leading heavenly armies to "strike down the nations," he appears as the apostle Paul says he saw him—in blazing light and a heavenly voice, and then in changing forms: first as a child, then as an old man, then—and here scholars disagree—either as a servant or as a woman. Through a series of visions and imagery, the Secret Revelation suggests that what is revealed to John is potentially available to all people—or, at least, to all who are receptive to what the spirit teaches.

In the fourth century, bishops intent on establishing "orthodoxy" labored to suppress writings like the Secret Revelation. Although they didn't deny that Jesus was human, they tended to place Jesus on the divine side of the equation—not only divine but, in the words of the Nicene Creed, "God from God…essentially the same as God." Orthodox theologians insisted that the rest of humankind were only transitory creatures, lost in sin—a view that would support what would become their dominant teaching about salvation, offered only through Christ, and, in particular, through the church they claimed to represent.

From the second century, Christian leaders, who saw their close groups torn apart as Roman magistrates arrested and executed their most outspoken members, felt that John's Book of Revelation spoke directly to these crises because it prophesied God's victory over Rome. Such Christians championed this book above the rest. Some challenged other books of revelation, with their more universal visions, calling them illegitimate and heretical.

Throughout the ages, Christians have adapted John of Patmos's visions to changing times, reading their own social, political and religious conflicts into the cosmic war he so powerfully evokes. Yet his Book of Revelation appeals not only to fear and desires for vengeance but also to hope. As John tells how the chaotic events of the world are finally set right by divine judgment, those who engage his visions often see them offering moral meaning in times of suffering or apparently random catastrophe. Many poets, artists and preachers have claimed to find in these prophecies the promise, famously repeated by Martin Luther King Jr., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

The Book of Revelation reads as if John had wrapped up all our worst fears—fears of violence, plague, wild animals, unimaginable horrors from the abyss below the earth, lightning, hail, earthquakes and the atrocities or torture and war—into one gigantic nightmare. Yet this worst of all nightmares ends not in terror but in a glorious new world. Whether one sees in John's visions the destruction of the whole world or the dark tunnel that propels each of us toward our own death, his final vision suggests that even after the worst we can imagine has happened, we may find the astonishing gift of new life. Whether or not one shares that conviction, few readers miss seeing how these visions offer consolation and that most necessary of divine gifts—hope.

— Excerpted from "Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation" published by Viking

Kindle Edition $14.99:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation-ebook/dp/B006LU1O44/thekonformist

Hardcover $16.25:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0670023345/thekonformist

Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged $22.70:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0307988260/thekonformist

Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $21.44 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/B007HI3B9U/thekonformist

A version of this article appeared Mar. 3, 2012, on page C3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: What Revelation Reveals.

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Music Video of the week:
Again, by Alice in Chains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__biilMpnmw&ob=av2e

Why is Alice in Chains the favorite Seattle band of Robalini? This is why...

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The World’s Top 10 Billionaires
Source: Forbes.com

1. Carlos Slim Helú
Net Worth: $69 billion

2. Bill Gates
Net Worth: $61 billion

3. Warren Buffett
Net Worth: $44 billion

4. Bernard Arnault
Net Worth: $41 billion

5. Amancio Ortega
Net Worth: $37.5 billion

6. Larry Ellison
Net Worth: $36 billion

7. Eike Batista
Net Worth: $30 billion

8. Stefan Persson
Net Worth: $26 billion

9. Name: Li Ka-shing
Net Worth: $25.5 billion

10. Karl Albrecht
Net Worth: $25.4 billion

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YouTube Film of the Month: The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4ugppcRUE

Via Disinfo.com:

Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings. He shows why mind is more fundamental than matter, and the the key to this shift is the revolution in our understanding of the light.

The excerpted version (10 mins) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqSxHzqm1pw

DVD available from:

http://peterrussell.com/store

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Kool Websites

Dutch Farms
http://www.dutchfarms.com

Welcome to Dutch Farms Inc., where we are proud to offer farm-fresh Dairy, Deli, Meat and Bakery products. We are a family-owned, fourth generation, Chicago-based company with Dutch roots.

The Dutch have always been known for their dairy products …especially wonderful cheese. At Dutch Farms, we offer outstanding cheese, butter and eggs. Try our dairy products in all of your favorite recipes. Soon, you’ll be saying, “I want Dutch Farms!”


TaxSlayer.com
http://www.taxslayer.com

Includes All Major Forms & Schedules:

Authorized e-File Provider

Business Forms (Sch C and F)
Rental Property (Sch E and K-1)
1040EZ, 1040A, 1040
Itemized Deductions
Tuition and Fees Deduction

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The Original Wrecking Ball: Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska”
Ian Crouch
March 6, 2012
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/03/bruce-springsteen-nebraska.html

Bruce Springsteen’s seventeenth studio album, “Wrecking Ball,” has landed. It pairs some musical experimentation—tape loops, samples, a bit of rapping (not by the Boss, thankfully, but by the gospel singer Michelle Moore)—with familiar Springsteen lyrical iconography: American flags, steel wheels, shuttered factories, and suitcases packed for a quick escape. Springsteen told Rolling Stone that “the record basically started out as folk music—just me and a guitar singing these songs,” before he began working with producer Ron Aniello on a more eclectic and anthemic sound. In the same interview, Springsteen also said: “This is as direct a record as I ever made. That’s with the possible exception of ‘Nebraska,’ which this record has a lot in common with.”

Let’s see. This January marked the thirtieth anniversary of the recording of “Nebraska,” one of the more mythical events in pop-music history. Over the course of several days at his home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, and armed principally with a guitar, harmonica, and glockenspiel, Springsteen laid down what he thought were demos for a new album that he’d record with the E Street Band. That album never got made; after rehearsals with the full band, Springsteen, his manager, Jon Landau, and others decided that the lyrics—about murder, hard luck, regret, and father-and-son strife—were better served by the low-fi originals. What emerged on “Nebraska” was a hushed, thin, and stark sound, which, because of its provenance, seemed almost divinely inspired. Accordingly, the device that captured the sound, a Tascam Portastudio 144 tape recorder, has become a kind of holy object among fans. The album’s lyrics, meanwhile, seem drawn from a harrowing and unnervingly gorgeous hell right here on earth.

In “Heart of Darkness: Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska,” a new history of the album, published this past December, David Burke connects its themes to the political and economic climate that marked the early Reagan years. Springsteen has said that Reagan’s election startled him into a newfound political consciousness. Burke quotes a Springsteen interview in which the Boss said that “Nebraska” was about the loss of community and “spiritual breakdown,” times and places when people “just get shot off somewhere where nothing seems to matter.” Among the album’s story songs, murder ballads, confessions, and deathbed laments are plenty of sociological markers. Bad prices have killed the family farm. The bank is about to take the house. Vietnam vets have been screwed from all sides. Someone closed the auto plant in Mahwah.

The economy was lousy in 1982, and it’s lousy today, at least for the people who appear in Springsteen songs. “Wrecking Ball” is also filled with criminals, but they aren’t the outcasts and the misfits that populate “Nebraska.” This time, they are members of the one per cent. And, while “Nebraska” tells plaintive, first-person stories, most of the songs on “Wrecking Ball” are thematic rather than narrative—fables about the capital-letter ideas of Politics, the Economy, and the State of the Union. With its proud liberal populism and wide sampling of the national musical melting pot, “Wrecking Ball” is a big-tent vision of America. It may be an imperfect and deeply unfair place, but it’s still a party. And perhaps a hootenany will help sort things out. (It’s fitting that Obama included the album’s first single, “We Take Care of Our Own” on his campaign playlist on Spotify.)

If “Wrecking Ball” is the big top, then “Nebraska” is the freak show. Burke’s book is informative, but it places too much emphasis on the songs as cultural commentary; they are about something deeply sinister. Sissy Spacek’s affectless narration in the Terrence Malick movie “Badlands” inspired the album’s title track, told from the man’s perspective, which opens: “I saw her standin’ on her front lawn, just a-twirlin’ her baton. / Me and her went for a ride, sir, and ten innocent people died.” The prairie edge continues with the screechy yodel that kicks off “Johnny 99.” And the chilling shriek that ends “State Trooper.” Springsteen was reading Flannery O’Connor at the time. The album is shot through with the real possibility of an evil that transcends circumstance, what O’Connor writes about in the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”: “Then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”

“Nebraska” may be an anomaly in Springsteen’s career rather than a signpost. (Stephen Metcalf, writing at Slate, once called it “the only record you can push on the nonbelievers.”) It doesn’t offer signs of hope, redemption, or community. There’s no “we” anywhere in it. It’s nihilistic in its philosophy, and agnostic in its politics. Perhaps most importantly, the album, in its tightly controlled sound and theme, resists the power of Springsteen’s outsized personality and his immense power to entertain. There has often been a dissonance between Bruce Springsteen’s music and the content of his lyrics. It’s why “Born in the U.S.A.”—a deeply anti-American song—gets played at Tea Party rallies. The big political numbers on “Wrecking Ball” may have started as folk songs, and they look serious on paper, but they’ll be heard beneath the bright lights of stadiums, and most likely this fall at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Nebraska,” meanwhile, is about a different kind of politics, and should be heard in the dark.

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Awesome Technology: The Robo-Cheetah
Fatest robot on four legs at 18 MPH:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/robocheetah-sets-new-record-as-fastest-robot-on-four-legs-20120306-1uh7m.html

Not-So-Awesome Technology: Pink Slime

AKA Soylent Pink, it's ammonia-treated cow tissues that were added to beef at fast food joints (and even more sinisterly, school lunches) until recently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html

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Netflix Said to Be Aiming for a Cable Partnership
AMY CHOZICK
March 7, 2012
Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/business/media/netflix-is-said-to-be-meeting-with-cable-providers.html

Netflix’s chief executive, Reed Hastings, has often compared his company’s Web streaming service to HBO. That comparison is inching closer to reality.

Over the last several weeks, Mr. Hastings and his top lieutenants have met with major cable operators to discuss a way for Netflix to appear on monthly cable bills, according to people who are familiar with the meetings but are not authorized to discuss negotiations publicly.

A partnership with cable providers, along with an ambitious slate of original series, would put Netflix one step closer to competing with premium cable channels, like HBO, Showtime and Starz, that offer original series and movies for a monthly fee.

“To be able to add Netflix to the bill, that might be very powerful, especially as we do more and more original content,” Mr. Hastings said at a Morgan Stanley media and technology conference in San Francisco last week.

“We are more and more a classic cable network,” Mr. Hastings said, adding that partnering with cable providers would eventually be the “logical path.”

A Netflix spokesman declined to comment on discussions with cable operators, but said Mr. Hastings’s comments in San Francisco were “futuristic.”

The nascent negotiations with cable operators, first reported by Reuters, underscore how Netflix has evolved. Once, on the strength of its popular DVD-by-mail service and emerging streaming offerings, the company was viewed as a rival to cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the kind that could lead to widespread cord-cutting.

Netflix has stumbled, however, in obtaining rights to stream television shows and movies, and as the company has added streaming subscribers, it has lost subscribers to its DVD service.

At the same time, competitors have emerged. Last month, Comcast began an online streaming service called Streampix. The service is now available to Comcast’s 22.3 million Xfinity subscribers, but the company has the reach to one day expand the service beyond its customer base.

Also last month, Verizon said it would partner with Coinstar’s Redbox on a Web streaming service at a monthly rate of $4.99, compared with $7.99 for unlimited streaming on Netflix. The $79-a-year Amazon Prime service, which also offers shipping and Kindle benefits, has licensing deals with major television networks and movie studios. And Time Warner’s HBO Go, a streaming service available only to HBO subscribers, has been cited by Mr. Hastings as Netflix’s biggest competitor.

Partnering with a major cable operator would instantly increase the number of subscribers to Netflix, which currently has about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States, according to the company...

States of Depression

PAUL KRUGMAN
March 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/opinion/krugman-states-of-depression.html

The economic news is looking better lately. But after previous false starts — remember “green shoots”? — it would be foolish to assume that all is well. And in any case, it’s still a very slow economic recovery by historical standards.

There are several reasons for this slowness, with the most important being the overhang of household debt that is a legacy of the housing bubble. But one significant factor in our continuing economic weakness is the fact that government in America is doing exactly what both theory and history say it shouldn’t: slashing spending in the face of a depressed economy.

In fact, if it weren’t for this destructive fiscal austerity, our unemployment rate would almost certainly be lower now than it was at a comparable stage of the “Morning in America” recovery during the Reagan era.

Notice that I said “government in America,” not “the federal government.” The federal government has been pursuing what amount to contractionary policies as the last vestiges of the Obama stimulus fade out, but the big cuts have come at the state and local level. These state and local cuts have led to a sharp fall in both government employment and government spending on goods and services, exerting a powerful drag on the economy as a whole.

One way to dramatize just how severe our de facto austerity has been is to compare government employment and spending during the Obama-era economic expansion, which began in June 2009, with their tracks during the Reagan-era expansion, which began in November 1982.

Start with government employment (which is mainly at the state and local level, with about half the jobs in education). By this stage in the Reagan recovery, government employment had risen by 3.1 percent; this time around, it’s down by 2.7 percent.

Next, look at government purchases of goods and services (as distinct from transfers to individuals, like unemployment benefits). Adjusted for inflation, by this stage of the Reagan recovery, such purchases had risen by 11.6 percent; this time, they’re down by 2.6 percent.

And the gap persists even when you do include transfers, some of which have stayed high precisely because unemployment is still so high. Adjusted for inflation, Reagan-era spending rose 10.2 percent in the first 10 quarters of recovery, Obama-era spending only 2.6 percent.

Why did government spending rise so much under Reagan, with his small-government rhetoric, while shrinking under the president so many Republicans insist is a secret socialist? In Reagan’s case, it’s partly about the arms race, but mainly about state and local governments doing what they are supposed to do: educate a growing population of children, invest in infrastructure for a growing economy.

Under President Obama, however, the dire fiscal condition of state and local governments — the result of a sustained slump, which in turn was caused largely by that private debt explosion before 2008 — has led to forced spending cuts. The fiscal straits of lower-level governments could and should have been alleviated by aid from Washington, which remains able to borrow at incredibly low interest rates. But this aid was never provided on a remotely adequate scale.

This policy malpractice is doing double damage to America. On one side, it’s helping lose the future — because that’s what happens when you neglect education and public investment. At the same time, it’s hurting us right now, by helping keep growth low and unemployment high.

We’re talking big numbers here. If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs.

And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent — significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage.

One implication of this comparison is that conservatives who love to compare Reagan’s record with Mr. Obama’s should think twice. Aside from the fact that recoveries from financial crises are almost always slower than ordinary recoveries, in reality Reagan was much more Keynesian than Mr. Obama, faced with an obstructionist G.O.P., has ever managed to be.

More important, however, there is now an easy answer to anyone asking how we can accelerate our economic recovery. By all means, let’s talk about visionary ideas; but we can take a big step toward full employment just by using the federal government’s low borrowing costs to help state and local governments rehire the schoolteachers and police officers they laid off, while restarting the road repair and improvement projects they canceled or put on hold.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 5, 2012, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: States of Depression.

Bill Maher wants you to forgive Rush

A privileged white guy who makes sexist comments would like us to pardon a privileged white guy for doing the sameMary Elizabeth Williams
Wednesday, Mar 7, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/07/bill_maher_wants_you_to_forgive_rush

This week in rich, delicious irony: A privileged, middle-aged man known for making sexist, derogatory comments would like America to forgive a privileged, middle-aged man for making sexist, derogatory comments.

After admitting that he does “Hate to defend #RushLimbaugh,” Bill Maher went on to tweet Tuesday, about the radio host: “he apologized, liberals looking bad not accepting. Also hate intimidation by sponsor pullout.” Wait, who looks bad here? My sides, they’re splitting!

Maher, of course, is a professional provocateur, a guy who views himself as an equal opportunity fly in everyone’s ointment. But he’s also the man who recently gave a cool million dollars to Obama’s super PAC and once suggested “don’t ask, don’t tell” be overturned purely “because it will make Rush Limbaugh explode like a bag full of meat dropped from a helicopter.” As such, he no doubt felt uniquely qualified to appeal to the left’s sense of justice. And no doubt there are plenty of talking heads – the ones who erroneously keep insisting that liberals and feminists have no problem with Maher’s track record of offensive remarks – who’d go along with him.

But as a matter of fact, lots of us were revolted when Maher called Sarah Palin a “cunt” and a “dumb twat,” and were grossed out by his ill-timed assessment of Lara Logan’s “intrepid hotness” last year. We actually don’t find sexism adorable just because someone lets Marc Maron on his show.

Maher has, quite rightly, said that “When you are a public figure you’re out there and you’re fodder for comedians to make comments on you.” And when you’re a comic and a genuinely smart guy, you can probably do it without reducing a woman to her genitals. Women can take criticism and satire just fine. It’s the misogyny that gets old.

Moreover, here’s a reminder. Limbaugh’s remarks about Sandra Fluke were not about a “public figure” –- they were about a relatively unknown law student. They were made again and again, dozens of times, over a full three-day period in which he called her a whore and a slut and demanded she post videos of herself having sex. They were followed by a deeply unsatisfying statement that “my choice of words was not the best.” Since then, the marketplace has asserted itself, American style, with both consumers and advertisers deciding what form of conversation they choose to support with their time and money.

Rush Limbaugh may still have a road-to-Damascus moment and express some genuine contrition for his three-day hate binge. But until that time, what we don’t need is another smug, condescending, overpaid white dude telling us to accept a phony olive branch, suggesting that our disgust makes us “look bad.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub.

Are Bankers Capitalists?

Thursday, 03/1/2012Bruce Judson
http://www.newdeal20.org/2012/03/01/are-bankers-capitalists-73236

Jamie Dimon says banks are more successful than media companies, but which industry is actually following capitalist principles?

The phrase “Wall Street” is evocative in American culture. For generations, it has referred to the showcase of American capitalism: our financial services system that ensured the efficient use of funds by channeling capital to its most productive use. Indeed, the governing ethos in America is that Wall Street is the heart and soul of our capitalist economy.

As I have written before, capitalism involves four basic principles: absolute responsibility for anything and everything that happens to your company (i.e. total accountability), equal justice under the law, compensation based on the real value created for society, and competition, which involves failure and what is often called creative destruction.

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has repeatedly touted the success of his efforts and disparaged critics. Earlier this week he compared compensation in the banking industry to the struggling media world, suggesting that the banking industry was far more successful. In speaking to journalists, according to Bloomberg, he noted, “Worse than that, you don’t even make any money… [while] we make a lot of money.”

Mr. Dimon is right. He and his colleagues are successful. But the real question is this: What are they successful at? By almost any criteria, the banks operate under rules that are so far from capitalism as to be unrecognizable. Let’s take Mr. Dimon’s comparison of the media industry and the banking industry further.

Both industries have been affected by unforeseen events. The Internet has undermined the viability of innumerable media businesses, leading to bankruptcies, changing business models, and intense competition for advertiser and subscriber dollars. In the face of these changes, industry participants have been forced to adapt or die. The forces of creative destruction, which are central to capitalism, have operated with an unforgiving ferocity. Formerly dominant entities have been forced to declare bankruptcy, while new media competitors and business models emerge on a seemingly daily basis.

In contrast, the banks argued that TARP was warranted because the economic tsunami of 2008 was unforeseeable. One of the essential functions of a financial institution is to manage risk. The majority of our large institutions failed entirely in this central responsibility as the economic crisis struck. In effect, many of our leading financial services firms were (and often continue to be) led by such poor businesspeople that if the principles of capitalism were enforced they would be out of business. My friends who are media entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley actually laugh when they hear the “we should not be responsible because this was not foreseeable” claims from the bankers. Every entrepreneur knows that they must make payroll each week or they are bankrupt.

At the same time, no one in Washington seriously believes the too big to fail legislation in Dodd-Frank will ever work. Inevitably, as in the case of AIG, counter-parties will declare that they will suffer irreparable harm if one of our leading banks is allowed to fail. I have come to call this “the Washington wink.” You ask a federal official if too big to fail legislation will work, they dutifully say of course it will. However, the “of course” is inevitably accompanied by a knowing wink.

In another divergence, the government has not subsidized media businesses. The banks may be showing profits, but they are on government life support. These so-called zombie banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve at almost no cost, and a long list of government initiatives have served as additional “stealth” bailouts of the banks. In the absence of this government support, would the banking industry still be successful? If media companies could borrow funds at almost no costs, I suspect their balance sheets and profits would be dramatically enhanced.

Capitalism is built on the idea that compensation and profits reflect the relative contribution an individual or firm makes to the total wealth of a society. Real societal wealth is anything that can be consumed or experienced. Profits are an accounting proxy meant to measure wealth. As I have written before, this proxy has failed miserably with regard to the banking industry. Given the loss of real societal wealth that accompanied the economic crisis as a result of poor bank management, the employment crisis, and the ongoing support the industry needs from the government, there is only one possible conclusion: at this moment the financial services industry is far more of a destroyer of real wealth than a wealth creator.

Meanwhile, media companies don’t profit by repeatedly breaking the law. The lack of enforcement against Wall Street undermines our democracy and capitalism, and is effectively another form of stealth government support for the industry. As noted here, JP Morgan Chase (like several of the large banks) is in the middle of a host of potential scandals. In a true capitalist economy, the government would enforce the law to prevent repetitive malfeasance. The executives leading a firm that repeatedly violated the law would be held accountable by the firm’s board for failure to exercise this basic responsibility to society.

Since the start of the economic crisis, the financial services industry has grown even more concentrated. It’s hard not to regard our largest financial services institutions as effective monopolies. Yet, to my knowledge, no investigation of antitrust issues related to the industry is underway. This is yet another stealth government subsidy. By contrast, in an earlier article I wrote about the misguided Justice Department investigation of e-book pricing, another area that is already suffering badly.

Yes, Mr. Dimon, you are a success. However, I would suggest that the success you so proudly proclaim reflects the loss of two of our nation’s most important values. The first is the failure of individuals and leaders to simply take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their companies. The second is that Wall Street, which should be the heart of American capitalism, has instead become the heart of a dysfunctional system that is destroying the nation’s wealth.

No, bankers are not capitalists. At every turn, they demonstrate that the last thing they want is the return of real capitalism to America.

Bruce Judson is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute and a former Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management.