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Question of the Day: Is Cyprus Unique?

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From Megan McArdle, on the supposedly unique nature of yesterday’s bailout of Cyprus’s banking system:

The problem is, Europe seems to be chock full of unique, one time problems with its banking system.

Roger that. Cyprus was basically an offshore banking haven for Russian plutocrats, so it grew to gargantuan proportions compared to the size of the country. If it had failed, the entire country would have imploded. That’s bad. On the other hand, no one really felt like spending a trainload of EU taxpayer money to prop up a bunch of Russian oligarchs. That would be bad too. So the EU’s politicos wanted to make the oligarchs pay a price for being rescued.

How about, say, a one-time tax of 10 percent of their deposits? Sold! But then the EU went further, imposing a one-time tax of 6.75 percent even on small accounts. Small insured accounts. This means that having an insured bank account no longer means bupkis in the EU.

So now the question becomes: Is Cyprus unique? Or, more precisely, can ordinary depositors and big investors be persuaded that Cyprus is unique? Because if they can’t, then they’re going to start pulling their money out of Spanish and Greek and Italian and Portuguese banks. And that would be very, very bad. It would turn the slow-motion bank runs of the past few years into the honest-to-God, high-speed, economy-ruining kind of bank runs.

And it all depends on whether everyone can be hypnotized into thinking that Cyprus really is unique. Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Mother Jones
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Question of the Day: Is Cyprus Unique?

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Build Your Own Potting Bench this Spring

Beth Cook

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Build Your Own Potting Bench this Spring

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Poped Out

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Watching the cheering crowds and the usual fawning secular media reporting on a new pope without the slightest bit of knowledge, I am, quite simply, poped out. A non-European! A Jesuit! Doesn’t he look warm and friendly!

The truth is, we don’t know much. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is described as a doctrinal conservative and a man of social justice. He gave up his limo and takes the bus. He’s said to be fan of Comunione e Liberazione, a conservative Catholic lay group.

He was ordained a priest in 1969 and by 1973 he was a bureaucrat—almost no history of serving ordinary people in parish life. He was a midlevel Jesuit functionary and then worked for many years in the Curia in Rome. His profile fits those of many bishops and cardinals appointed by the last two popes—youngish when appointed, little pastoral experience. Working as a Jesuit provincial doesn’t tell you much about the lives of women or children, of working and starving families.

Vamos a ver; we will see. The job of Pope can turn the most humble man into a elitist. After all, you are infallible.

I expected little; I think my expectations have been met.

Mother Jones
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Poped Out

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The Friday Cat Blogging Origin Story — Part 2

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The origin story of Friday Catblogging is a three-part epic. Four days ago was the 10th anniversary of Part 1: the day I first posted a picture of one of my cats. Today is the 10th anniversary of Part 2: the day I first posted pictures of both of my cats and promised to do more of this in the future. “Thanks to the miracle of digital photography,” I explained, “I can take literally endless pictures of my cats and it costs me absolutely nothing. You, of course, are the beneficiaries of this technological wizardry.”

And it’s true: you have been the beneficiaries of endless catblogging ever since. Still, this isn’t yet Friday Catblogging, merely a promise to post more pictures of cats. The 10th anniversary of that fateful decision comes on Thursday. You are all atingle over this, aren’t you?

NOTE: Yes, the 10th anniversary of Friday catblogging comes on a Thursday. It’s annoying. But what can you do?

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The Friday Cat Blogging Origin Story — Part 2

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Proposed CA law: Bike at your own risk

Proposed CA law: Bike at your own risk

Busted streets + incompetent city employees + you + bike = potential lawsuit! At least for now.

In most cities, if you injure yourself because of a neglected or damaged sidewalk or street, you can file a “trip and fall” lawsuit and claim damages. But California may soon change that for bicycle riders.

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, (R-Dana Point) has proposed a law that would provide total immunity for governments and their employees in the event of a bike accident caused by faulty city infrastructure. Public agencies already have “design immunity” under state law (i.e. you can’t sue because of the poor layout of a road or bike lane), but this bill would broadly extend that immunity:

This bill would provide that a public entity or an employee of a public entity acting within his or her official capacity is not be [sic] liable for an injury caused to a person riding a bicycle while traveling on a roadway, if the public entity has provided a bike lane on that roadway.

So OK, the state must be thinking that if you disregard the city’s very thoughtful bike lane and go riding out into the road and a city bus hits you, the city shouldn’t be responsible, right? Oh, except for this part: “The immunity set forth in this section is applicable regardless of whether the bicyclist was within the bike lane at the time of the accident.” (Emphasis mine because omg.)

And because of the broad language used, this bill wouldn’t just give cities immunity for their infrastructure — it would also indemnify the actions of city employees. As the California Bicycle Coalition puts it, “if you get hit by a drunk city employee, you’ll have no recourse.”

According to Cyclelicious, “State and local bike advocacy groups are already gearing up to fight this bill.” Hurry up, folks! And, uh, don’t trip.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Proposed CA law: Bike at your own risk

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Hugo Chávez Dead at 58

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Hugo Chávez, the firebrand president of Venezuela who has battled cancer since 2011, died Tuesday in Caracas. He was 58 years old.

Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced Chávez’s passing in a radio and television address, saying that the 14-year president died at 4:25 p.m. local time. Just hours earlier, Maduro had told the media that the socialist president was entering “his most difficult hours” due to a new, severe respiratory infection.

Chávez was last seen in public on December 10, when he traveled to Cuba two months after his latest reelection for his fourth cancer surgery in 18 months. Rumors about his health—indeed, whether he was still alive—persisted. His Twitter account, @chavezcandanga, sent a trio of tweets on February 18, after several months of silence. His last tweet read:

(Loosely translated: “I’m still holding on to Christ and trust in my doctors and nurses. Until victory forever!! We will live and we will triumph!!!”)

A former paratrooper who spent two years in prison after a failed coup in 1992, Chávez took office in 1999, fought off a coup attempt in 2002 and a recall referendum in 2004, and was reelected three times, including in October, when he claimed himself healthy enough for another term. He gained fame for using Venezuela’s vast oil revenues to fund his anti-poverty social programs—and for his fiery, anti-imperial rhetoric. He also rubbed plenty of people the wrong way—on both ends of the political spectrum—with his strongman tendencies, his rewriting of the country’s constitution, and his alliances with the likes of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Maduro will take power until an election takes place within 30 days. He is likely to face Henrique Capriles Radomski, the Miranda state governor whom Chávez beat just months ago.

UPDATE, March 5, 3:33 PT: The New Yorker‘s Jon Lee Anderson, who first profiled Chávez in 2001 and long had great access to him, just posted an obituary. Read it.

This story has been updated.

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Hugo Chávez Dead at 58

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Jamaica and plastic ocean trash

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Jamaica and plastic ocean trash

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Things I Didn’t Know, Part 9,763

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From a CNN piece on today’s Italian election:

Polls are banned within two weeks of the elections, but the most recent ones had Bersani holding onto a slender lead over Berlusconi. Grillow was a distant third.

No polls in the final two weeks of the campaign! I wonder what effect something like that would have had on our election last year? Would fewer analysts have made fools of themselves? More? Would Nate Silver have spontaneously combusted?

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Things I Didn’t Know, Part 9,763

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Hagel suggests vague support for continued military use of biofuels

Hagel suggests vague support for continued military use of biofuels

One of America’s great soap operas is being performed live right now on Capitol Hill. It is scripted, predetermined, poorly acted, rarely interesting, predictable. Ladies and gents, the nomination hearings of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense.

Yesterday afternoon, we noted that Hagel, if OK’d by the Senate, will step down from his board position at Chevron. We suggested that this also meant Hagel would forget his years of fossil fuel advocacy, cleaning his slate on energy issues. Because that’s how it works.

Apparently, we were either right — or Hagel read and responded to our snark. Probably the latter. From The Hill:

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Obama’s nominee for Defense secretary, is backing a controversial ban on military purchase of alternative fuels that have higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil-based fuels. …

Hagel also backs military programs to expand use of biofuels in defense operations, but he argues large-scale use should only occur when the fuels are cost-competitive.

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

We’ll parse this out. The first paragraph above relates to a ban authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), meant to limit Defense Department investment in alternative fuels that — from extraction to refinery to combustion — create more climate pollution than conventional fuels. The targets of this measure are fuels like liquefied coal or tar-sands-based diesel. Hagel opposes using those fuels.

The second part is trickier. There’s been an ongoing debate over the role of biofuels in the military. The Navy in particular has embraced biofuels enthusiastically, recognizing that renewable, domestic sources of fuel provide a long-term tactical advantage. Allies of fossil fuels on the Hill — like Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) — suggest that such investment is a bad idea. Their primary argument is that biofuels are more expensive to purchase, allowing opponents of their use to make standard oh-my-gosh-the-federal-debt arguments against them.

In responding to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hagel wrote: “It is prudent for the department to engage in tests and demonstrations that confirm defense equipment can operate on a range of fuels.” The Navy is exploring how to use biofuels in part to figure out how to make the costs work over the long term, which means spending more now to have fuels with which to experiment. Hagel’s answer suggests that he supports a continuation of that practice.

As Politico notes, energy and climate may not come up during Hagel’s confirmation hearings.

“Compared with … things like Iran, Israel policy, defense sequester, any number of other things, I would say this is probably further down the totem pole than all of those,” Andrew Holland, a former Hagel energy aide now with the American Security Project, tells [Politico]. “I’d be surprised if there’s a lot of questioning about this.”

So we’ll keep our fingers crossed, hoping that the soon-to-be-former Chevron board member who is dumping his stock due, in part, to the company’s contracts with the government will advocate for a robust exploration of non-fossil-fuel-reliant military options. We’d ask a question about it at the hearings if given the opportunity, but we’re not cast members in this particular show.

Update: During today’s hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked about investment in alternative fuels. Hagel repeated that he thought researching such fuels made sense, but also echoed concerns about cost. In other words: nothing new.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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America’s Love/Hate Relationship with Debt

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This essay will appear in the next issue of Jacobin. It is posted here and at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of that magazine.

Shakespeare’s Polonius offered this classic advice to his son: “neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Many of our nation’s Founding Fathers emphatically saw it otherwise. They often lived by the maxim: always a borrower, never a lender be. As tobacco and rice planters, slave traders, and merchants, as well as land and currency speculators, they depended upon long lines of credit to finance their livelihoods and splendid ways of life. So, too, in those days, did shopkeepers, tradesmen, artisans, and farmers, as well as casual laborers and sailors. Without debt, the seedlings of a commercial economy could never have grown to maturity.

Ben Franklin, however, was wary on the subject. “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt” was his warning, and even now his cautionary words carry great moral weight. We worry about debt, yet we can’t live without it.

Debt remains, as it long has been, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of capitalism. For a small minority, it’s a blessing; for others a curse. For some the moral burden of carrying debt is a heavy one, and no one lets them forget it. For privileged others, debt bears no moral baggage at all, presents itself as an opportunity to prosper, and if things go wrong can be dumped without a qualm.

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America’s Love/Hate Relationship with Debt

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