Video: Beautiful time-lapse of Yosemite

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Microsoft backs off of CISPA "support"

The NSA and creepy right-wing Republicans seem determined to jam through something that will crush privacy in America and destroy our traditional values, but it may be getting a bit harder to do.

Love them or hate them, Microsoft carries enough weight to win or lose, and the company is now shifting from its mild support to raising questions about CISPA. Microsoft and the rest of the tech community needs to be encouraged by consumers to fully drop support for these attacks on privacy.

More from CNET:

In response to queries from CNET, Microsoft, which has long been viewed as a supporter of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, said this evening that any law must allow "us to honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers." Microsoft added that it wants to "ensure the final legislation helps to tackle the real threat of cybercrime while protecting consumer privacy." That's a noticeable change -- albeit not a complete reversal -- from Microsoft's position when CISPA was introduced in November 2011.

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Lehman was showering employees with millions before collapse

If you want to keep your food down, don't read these numbers.

Where else but Wall Street can you divide $700 million among 50 employees? It's so painfully obvious to anyone with an ounce of objectivity that the problem leading to the 2008 crisis was the compensation. Any company that pays out crazy money like Wall Street should expect similar problems.

Keep in mind that to date, none of the Wall Street bankers were ever forced to pay back their bloated bonuses, despite the business being wiped off of the books. It does not work that way in any other business outside of Wall Street. Even now after this crash, these are the people who are considered to be part of polite society, but there's nothing polite about this at all.

More on the sickening story of compensation at Lehman Brothers at the LA Times. Read the rest of this post...

Spain clobbered by austerity

The news just doesn't get any better for Spain. The overall unemployment number now stands at 24% and the ratings agencies are hammering the Spanish credit rating due. Analysts now admit that the problem is austerity. Back in the US, the GOP has been successful convincing many that austerity is the answer and for the most part, they've been unchallenged by the Democrats. There's plenty of proof across Europe that austerity is a failure for this crisis but since the Republicans don't bother to read much or watch what's happening outside of their little world, they have no clue. Even the pro-austerity Angela Merkel is reported to be warming to the idea of scrapping austerity in Europe and the Tories in the UK are struggling to make excuses for austerity. Can we all just admit that austerity will only make things worse with this economy and move on to a more productive and honest discussion? Read the rest of this post...

The MF Global scam is "straight-up embezzlement"—Corzine is "the original George Zimmerman"

Will Jon Corzine ever see the inside of a courtroom? Or will his Ruling Class status — poster boy for "They Who Cannot Be Jailed" — keep him free and happy till he dies?

Consider:

▪ Jon Corzine was the CEO of MF Global, a commodities dealer that stole customer funds to cover its own losing bets, then went bankrupt immediately after giving out bonuses.

▪ Jon Corzine is also this guy:

He's Top 0.1% in spades: a Goldman CEO, a senator, a governor, and a major Dem fundraiser in an election year.

So what do you think? In a world where Nixon was pardoned, can this man be arrested? In my view, return to Rule of Law would be a revolution.

Our last news was that big-deal prosecutors, manly men like Preet Bharara of New York and Chicago's own Patrick Fitzgerald, are suddenly going to need a "smoking gun" before they begin to touch the case. (Is that how prosecution now works? Or is that just the "Top 0.1% Rule"?)

Here's Matt Taibbi on why Corzine is "the original George Zimmerman" (my emphases and paragraphing):

So the Senate Banking Committee is beginning hearings today on the MF Global scandal, hearings entitled, "The Collapse of MF Global: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications."

Apparently the government has already moved to the reflective, introspective, South Park-ian, "You know, I learned something today!" stage in its examination of the scandal, despite the fact that the government’s official "response" hasn’t even started yet, i.e. authorities have yet to arrest a single person in this brazen billion-dollar theft story.

To make an obvious comparison: Much like the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, the outrage here goes beyond the fact of the horrific crime. An equally profound insult in both cases lay in the fact that that serious crime obviously had been committed, and yet authorities refused to act for months. This situation with former Goldman chief and U.S. Senator Jon Corzine and the officials of MF Global involves a less physically savage offense, but the authorities' refusal to act is every bit as incredible.

Elsewhere in the same piece, Taibbi discusses the apparent complexity of most financial crime — which tends to shield the criminals from public outrage. But that's not the case here; this is just "straight-up embezzlement":

MF Global is different. This is not complicated at all. This is just stealing. You owe money, you don’t have the cash to cover it, and so you take money belonging to someone else to cover your debts. ... It’s straight-up embezzlement.

He even quotes an internal company document contemplating the theft and wondering "what is the strategy if we want to keep the customer [cash] and wait until the storm passes?" Click to read; it's an eye-opener.

Which brings us to Taibbi's second point (and mine). Because the crime is so simple, the Our Betters Club — media included — is working overtime to rally round their member. Remember that when you listen to MF Global news stories — the media is complicit.

[T]here’s been an intense effort at trying to convince the public that no crime has been committed.

Whoever is handling MF Global’s P.R. (according to Pam Martens in this excellent piece, it’s APCO worldwide, a former Big Tobacco spin factory) appears to have convinced the company’s officers to emphasize the word “chaos” in describing the last days of the firm – as though $1.2 billion wasn’t intentionally stolen, per se, but simply lost in a kind of uncontrolled whirlwind of transactions that magically carried the money out of accounts off to worlds unknown.

The rest of Taibbi's piece lays out that part of the story — how the Chaos Defense is being played out like silly string by the lazy (or compliant) Our Betters Press Club. Reuters, the Times Dealbook, Corzine in congressional testimony — they're all on board with the Chaos coverup.

The piece is really worth reading in full; for starters, it's Taibbi at his clear-eyed researching best. If you care about Corzine and Rule of Law, it's a must-click.

Taibbi closes with the Rule of Law point:

It would be one thing if this was a country with a general, across-the-board tendency toward leniency for property crime. But we send tens of thousands of people to do real jail time in this country for non-violent offenses like theft. We routinely separate mothers from their children for relatively petty crimes like welfare fraud. For almost anyone who isn’t Jon Corzine, it’s no joke to get caught stealing in America.

Me, I'd like to close with this, a video of Taibbi explaining financial crime to Max Keiser of the Keiser Report. I've trimmed the clip to include just the Taibbi interview. Jump to about the 2/3 point to hear Taibbi discuss MF Global.

To get to that point more precisely, look at the digital clock ticking in the lower left corner of the screen, then use the slider to jump to the :54 minute mark and start watching (h/t Susie Madrak):



The entire Max Keiser segment is here.

Straight-up embezzlement, that's all it is. As Taibbi explains in the clip, we put poor women in jail all the time for stealing a little day care to which they're not entitled.

But Jon Corzine will float on Angel Soft clouds, clean and perfumy-fresh, to the next meeting of the Gotcha Club — his feet never touching the ground, much less a courtroom.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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The Beatles - Sexy Sadie

Yesterday was another walking day along the donkey path on the island of Thira, going up and down the hills and looking into the caldera hundreds of feet below the path. We spoke with more people are the Minoan eruption 3600 years ago, that is linked to everything from Moses parting the Red Sea, to crop failures in China, chaos in Egypt and even the lost city of Atlantis. At a minimum it was one of the strongest ever volcanic eruptions and it sent a massive tsunami to Crete which is 70 miles away. It also created an amazing caldera which is over 1200 feet deep, where cruise ships stay on idle since they don't have enough anchor chain to reach the bottom. The volcano remains active today and warms up a natural spring that feeds into the salt water. The bigger concern today though is the earthquake fault line that is active just off of the village of Oia. The other discovery has been traditional Greek food. I spent some time speaking with the chef at a great family style restaurant (Naoussa) about the local food, which is excellent and affordable. For those who like cooking and eating stew, beef stifado is amazing. (This seems to be a decent recipe for stifado for those interested though there are lots of variations.) It's a bit different from a French daube but not completely different either. The slow cooked whole onions are divine. I also had a sea bass which was cooked perfectly over coals. There's nothing more amazing than a simple, perfectly cooked fish for my taste. And Greek yogurt? Wow. I've never had anything even remotely close to the yogurt here which is very thick and not runny at all. What is amazing is that despite the heavy flow of tourists (it's pre-season now, admittedly and it's a zoo in the summer) the people here are amazingly friendly. I've been through plenty of heavily visited countries around the world and the Greeks here are as nice as they come. There are many in the island with ties to America or Australia so there's a definite bond between then and the overseas visitors. With the Greek economy being what it is today, it's likely that there may be another period of emigration ahead. Read the rest of this post...