"In 2005, Citigroup came out with a brochure for investors called “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances.” It urged investors to put money into a “plutonomy index.” The brochure says, “The World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest.”

Plutonomy refers to the rich, those who buy luxury goods and so on, and that’s where the action is. They claimed that their plutonomy index was way outperforming the stock market. As for the rest, we set them adrift. We don’t really care about them. We don’t really need them. They have to be around to provide a powerful state, which will protect us and bail us out when we get into trouble, but other than that they essentially have no function. These days they’re sometimes called the “precariat”—people who live a precarious existence at the periphery of society. Only it’s not the periphery anymore. It’s becoming a very substantial part of society in the United States and indeed elsewhere. And this is considered a good thing."

Mayor Ford cleans graffiti planted by Mayor Ford (tagless "fuck you"'s and "my turf"'s).

"Point to electoral district service for federal, provincial and municipal levels of government"

"Mincome is the name of an experimental Canadian Basic income project that was held in Dauphin, Manitoba during the 1970s. The project, funded jointly by the Manitoba provincial government and the Canadian federal government, began with a news release on February 22, 1974, and was closed down in 1979. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether a guaranteed, unconditional annual income actually caused disincentive to work for the recipients, and how great such a disincentive would be. A final report was never issued,but Dr. Evelyn Forget [for-ZHAY] has conducted analysis of the research. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teengers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. In addition, Forget finds that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 per cent, with fewer incidences of work-related injuries, and fewer fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse.[1]"

"FIRST PRO GAY RIGHT REGGAE ALBUM 11 TRACK OF HARD HITTING PRO GAY REGGAE MUSIC FIRST OF IT KIND BY A JAMAICAN REGGAE ARTIST HISTORY IN THE MAKING PLEASE CHECK IT OUT"

"In short, while not all food adventurers are economic elites, it is virtually impossible for an impoverished, or marginalized, person to fully participate in foodie culture as a consumer and food adventurer, rather than as a dishwasher in a fashionable restaurant, or subsistence farmer harvesting cocoa beans for a gourmet chocolate bar."

"A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and some of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada"

"Discussions of the political effects of the Internet and networked discourse tend to presume consistent patterns of technological adoption and use within a given society. Consistent with this assumption, previous empirical studies of the United States political blogosphere have found evidence that the left and right are relatively symmetric in terms of various forms of linking behavior despite their ideological polarization (Hargittai, Gallo & Kane, 2008; Hindman, 2008; Adamic & Glance, 2005)."

William Peyton Hubbard (1842-1935)
‘Old Cicero’ was Toronto’s first black city councillor
By Roger Hunziker

It is a dark and dreary evening in the early 1860s. Young Will Hubbard is driving his cab down Don Mills Road when he sees a man in danger of plunging into the cold waves of the Don River. Hubbard jumps out and saves the man from drowning: it is George Brown, famous editor of the Globe newspaper, and future Father of Confederation. In gratitude Brown hires Hubbard as his driver, and over time a friendship develops. Much later, the fatherly Brown would urge his young friend to enter politics, which Hubbard finally does in 1893.

"Although Goodhart's law has been expressed in a variety of formulations, the essence of the law is that once a social or economic indicator or other surrogate measure is made a target for the purpose of conducting social or economic policy, then it will lose the information content that would qualify it to play such a role. The law was named for its developer, Charles Goodhart (a chief economic advisor to the Bank of England)."

"it may be odd for you to think about, but MIT in the 1960s had two interesting characteristics. One was it was almost entirely funded by the Pentagon. In fact, I was in a lab which was 100 percent funded by the three armed services. Two, it was the main center of antiwar resistance. I’m not talking about dissent or, you know, protest. I’m talking about resistance, you know, organizing resistance activities, illegal activities. And the Pentagon didn’t care much, because, contrary to what a lot of people believe, one of the main functions of the Pentagon is just to provide a cover for the way the economy functions. The way the economy functions, it’s—you know, people like to claim it’s a free market economy, but, you know, most of it comes out of the state sector—I mean, computers, internet, airplanes, you know. The idea is the public is supposed to pay the costs and take the risks, and if anything works out, you hand it over to private enterprise. That’s called the free market."

The following quote was hastily yanked by the Heritage Foundation and replaced with a more diplomatic quote, but their first instinct is revealing:

"In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."