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1186 [lbo-talk] Narmada, damn! -- rank: 1000

Today I read almost two pages In a book by a mystical poet And I laughed like someone who'd cried a lot. Mystical poets are sick philosophers And philosophers are crazy. Mystical poets say flowers feel And they say stones have a soul And they say rivers have ecstasies in the moonlight. But flowers wouldn't be flowers if they felt, They'd be people; And if stones had a soul, they'd be living things, they wouldn't be stones; And if rivers had ecstasies in the moonlight, Rivers would be sick people ...

Document Size:	5696
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 1 05:13:54 PDT 2007

1187 [lbo-talk] Africa's silent spring -- rank: 1000

· World Health Organisation urges DDT's reintroduction · Environmentalists warn of long-term cancer concerns Sarah Boseley, health editor Saturday September 16, 2006 The Guardian DDT, a pesticide banned in the developed world, should be used to spray houses in all countries where people suffer from malaria, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, 30 years after it phased the practice out. The new push to use DDT to kill the malaria-transmitting mosquito in Africa and other parts of the wor ...

Document Size:	8483
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Sep 16 12:03:08 PDT 2006

1188 [lbo-talk] Housing Bubble to Burst -- rank: 1000

Comstock Partners, Inc. The Hard Landing For Housing is Already Here September 14, 2006 The market is suddenly assuming that since energy prices are declining and mortgage rates are drifting down, consumer spending will pick up and the housing industry decline will end. In our view this outcome is highly unlikely. Our negative outlook for consumer spending is based far more on the end of the housing boom than it is on high oil prices. In turn, it is now evident that housing is already undergo ...

Document Size:	7874
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Sep 16 03:00:59 PDT 2006

1189 [lbo-talk] Housing bubble to burst? -- rank: 1000

Wojtek: "Actually, in the area of housing, market is probably the best known distribution mechanism. There are really no other acceptable alternatives. What would you rather have instead of markets - Inheritance? Personal connections? Voting? Bureaucratic fiat? All of these strike me as breeding grounds for nepotism, favoritism, or discrimination." Well, in the UK we have bureaucratic fiat, breeding nepotism, favouritism and discrimination. The planning laws are designed to arrest ne ...

Document Size:	5711
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Sep 15 05:53:52 PDT 2006

1190 [lbo-talk] Housing bubble to burst? -- rank: 1000

The IMF warns Britain that its housing market is overvalued today - just as the Citizens' Advice Bureau warns that record numbers of younger house-owners risk eviction through missing their mortgage re-payments. My book 'Let's Build! Why we need five million new homes in the next 10 years' published later this month, explains why the housing boom has not translated into a building boom. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Build-Million-Homes-Years/dp/0955383005/sr=8-1/qid=1158248304/ref=sr_1_1/026-8972 ...

Document Size:	5902
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Sep 14 08:42:48 PDT 2006

1191 [lbo-talk] Israeli untermenschen -- rank: 1000

Bill Bartlett > Of course, silly me. Israel only "kills people" and > engages "in > exclusionary practices against those who do not > belong to the > national collective." Angelus Novus replies "Like most nation-states, yes." I would put the point stronger, since Israel is surely a nation-state in name only. Wasn't every step they took set out for them by their US advisors? I don't suppose that Condolleeza Rice was actually carrying the satellite phot ...

Document Size:	5509
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Sep 3 12:48:20 PDT 2006

1192 [lbo-talk] Israeli Übermenschen -- rank: 1000

The Israel = fascism equation is pretty daft, in my view. Israeli policies are certainly racially discriminatory, and lead to mass killings, but a check-list approach to definitions won't help. What is missing in the equation is that Israel, unlike Nazi Germany, is not author if its destiny, but a dependent state, that would be incapable of acting without US, and yes, European sponsorship. Certainly today the characterisation of Israel as totalitarian dictatorship misses the point that Zionism h ...

Document Size:	6252
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Sep 1 16:27:56 PDT 2006

1193 [lbo-talk] Funny to read Jack Straw's name on LBO -- rank: 1000

When my parents lived in Leeds when Jack Straw was president of the University Student's Union, my father once got talking to him over a drink and invited him back. Five hours of tedium later, my mother said 'don't ever bring him into this house again, or we'll die of boredom.' This was the man who, as a child, reported an ice cream van to the police for playing its chimes after the time allowed under local bye-laws.

Document Size:	5013
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 28 11:32:40 PDT 2006

1194 [lbo-talk] abuse allegations -- rank: 1000

At the risk of reopening an argument, I wonder if Jesse Lemisch would say that Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo's abuse allegations against her stepfather Daniel Ortega should stand? The last thing I heard was that the courts threw the case out on the grounds of the statute of limitations, but I might not be up-to-date. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1998/int/980323/latin_america.an_ugly_fa3.html

Document Size:	5093
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Oct 27 08:20:01 PDT 2006

1195 [lbo-talk] They tuck you up, your mum and dad (was Aptheker allegations) -- rank: 1000

Jesse goes on: "From what I understand, and know directly, just about every family -- yes, just about every family has a relative who has suffered in this way." Really? Are you saying that child sexual abuse takes place in every family? Or every other family, I cannot work out the maths. Whichever it is, I think you are wildly exaggerating. For the last three years I have been taking my daughters to nursery and infant schools, and picking them up, and have spent a lot of time in the co ...

Document Size:	6659
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 17:00:39 PDT 2006

1196 [lbo-talk] Aptheker allegations -- rank: 1000

Jesse writes 'Try it yourself: try to recall an event 40 years ago, and watch the layers of the onion peel off. especially it you tell the story to a third party.' Hold on a minute, according to the memoir, this was not a singular event forty years ago, but a regular event, over a ten year period, from the age of three to the age of 13, and not just any event, but a truly shocking event, which nonetheless, Bettina forgot about for 47 years. That tests credulity. Jesse objects to my citing the ma ...

Document Size:	6681
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 14:38:50 PDT 2006

1197 [lbo-talk] False accusation -- rank: 1000

>From today's Guardian newspaper, the story of May Willsher, now 24, seeking redress from social services for having been taken from her family in the early 90s: "She got very angry. She would want me to agree with what she was saying." Which was? "They were mentioning about private parts, things like that. Asking me, did one of the grown-ups touch you and touch your brothers and sisters in your private parts? They would want me to agree with it.' She is Social Worker Liz McLea ...

Document Size:	5824
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 13:15:32 PDT 2006

1198 [lbo-talk] False accusations -- rank: 1000

Jesse, writes > My goodness, suppose I paraded a number of court decsions in the south in > which blacks were convicted, their testimony disallowed, etc. > What would such cases prove? But I think you missed the point. In two of three of the cases I cited, the person who was originally supposed to have been molested by parents was subsequently suing the therapist who persuaded her to make those charges (and there are many more such cases, follow the link). In your anaolgy the therapists ...

Document Size:	6150
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 12:38:58 PDT 2006

1199 [lbo-talk] Feminism and the False Memory Syndrome -- rank: 1000

I hate to disagree quite so forcefully with Jesse, but I really think the arguments being put here are very weak indeed, and potentially very dangerous, too. Jesse says 'This stuff is nohthing more than a tarted up defense of bigotry, very archaic', as if Yoshie or I were arguing from a perspective that is ignorant of or precedes the impact of feminist critiques of the policing of sex crimes. But really it is Jesse who is behind the times. The impact of the child sex abuse panics is now itself h ...

Document Size:	7656
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 12:19:55 PDT 2006

1200 [lbo-talk] False accusations -- rank: 1000

Abney v. Therapist, In the District Court of Harris County, Texas, 11th Judicial District, Cause No. 93-054106. Former client, her two daughters and husband sued hospital and doctors for negligence in misdiagnosing multiple personality disorder and encouraging the belief that her family had participated in satanic cult rituals. Plaintiff also claimed fraudulent misrepresentation of her condition to the medical insurance carrier. In April, 1995, suit settled through mediation for an undisclosed s ...

Document Size:	6703
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 21 03:14:47 PDT 2006