Cow Tokens! Get your Ur Cow Tokens here!

Sumerian Cow Tokens
April 24th, 2017

So what is the value of an Ur Cow Token?

Sorry, I can’t get a market price for Ur per se so you’ll have to settle for a Sumerian one from around 1953 – 1935 BCE backed (and baked) by the Royal mint itself which in “very good” condition fetches around $1200 in Federal Reserve notes good for all Debts Public and Private.

Or a Cow if you have a TARDIS, market value for one of those is $1642 and you get the income from the meat and milk and manure and the little baby Cows which over a 4.7 year lifespan (oh, don’t get sentimental on me, we’re talking about an imaginary Cow from an economic standpoint and you can keep it in a feedlot so you don’t have to do any of those icky pitchfork thingees).
…
Anyway it’s $2582 in net income at least which is more than twice as many green pieces of paper as that dried out piece of dirt.

Wait ek. I can monetize that future income and invest it in something with a higher return!

Sure, at a discount, and please tell me what other investments are going to yield 20% per year?

Uber stocks?

                  12/19/17   12/19/18
        Dow      24,792.20  23,323.66  -1,468.54
        S&P 500   2,690.16   2,505.95    -184.21
        NASDAQ    6,994.76   6,636.83    -357.93

My point in this particular piece is the concept of notional value. It’s about the same as getting Pot Drunk in Poker. Just because you put a lot of money in doesn’t change your hand, that money is gone. At each stage of the game you need to evaluate its strength against the strength of the other hands in the Pot which you do based on incomplete information including what you know about the habits of your opponents. This is why I doubt Computers will ever be any good at it.

If you play for money the easiest way to make some is create a game so complicated (Dealer’s Choice) that it convinces weaker players that their hand is strong or can improve when it’s not very likely to. This way they will keep adding money until you win. My sucker game is 7 Card Stud, Hi-Lo, 2 down, 4 up, 1 down, with a fair amount of wild cards (at least 8) and 3 Twists. Twists are face up cards you have to pay for (some go for Pot Match, I normally call prix fixe at 5, 10, and 25 because I am not a total asshole) and have to use. Hi-Lo means that you can shoot for the best hand or the most worthless hand. You split the pot unless everyone folds and you can compete for both parts of the pot by rearranging your cards.

If you’re not looking to catch a Straight Flush or better after 5 cards or working a 7 high for Low hand, time to drop. Only idiots buy twists, for one thing it’s a sign of weakness. It’s really a simple game if you know how to play.

Some people perceive value based on how much they’ve invested, sunk costs. Others know it’s how much money you can get for it now and how much it will cost to replace.

I, for one, am always willing to trade magic beans for live jive Cows. Hope you get lots of golden eggs before the traitorous harp calls the Giant on you.

And now, The Epic of Gilgamesh, not in Sumerian.

It’s about the First Amendment.

I used to be a huge supporter of Israel. The image of Jews rising from the ashes of the Holocaust to form a democratic Nation/State was enormously romantic (in the classical sense) and I cheered on their military and territorial success. Indeed I could make a case for a persecuted people overcoming tremendous odds to preserve their independence even now.

But there is no denying that today Israel is an Apartheid State, ruthlessly and routinely repressing its Arab population and stealing their possessions.

As such I’ve been participating in a minor, personal boycott of products that are the direct result of illegal expropriation and exploitation, things like Sabra Hummus (yes, I eat Hummus, have my own kickass 3 Garlic, 8 Lemon recipe too) and Sodastream.

Sodastream is a hardship for me. I drink at least 3 Liters of fizzy water a day and while it’s not the biggest deal in the world and certainly won’t break me financially it’s still a buck a bottle and that’s $3 a day or $1095 a year. My beer brewing buddy is hooked up with a carbonation system (in bottle fermenting is a pain in the ass on many levels I’d be happy to mention in excruciating detail but they’re not really relevant) but he uses a real regulator (not cheap) and CO2 tanks (also not cheap) and 5 Gallon Soda canisters (more money). I’d guess his setup cost around $500 and a canister, tank, and regulator are quite a pile of stuff too, not likely to fit on your counter.

Anyway I don’t make a big deal of it, anymore that I do my Atheism, but for some people lack of enthusiasm for the actions of the Israeli Government equates to anti-Semitism and I suppose if that’s your yardstick then I am. Other people think the extreme policies of Benjamin Netanyahu are reprehensible and to express their disapproval urge a boycott.

It’s their First Amendment Right to do so. Free Speech baby, even if you consider it borderline Nazi. “Jews will not replace us.”, while hurtful, isn’t the main problem (though it is non-classically ironic that some of those who chant that are quick to label those who advocate peaceful things like boycotts anti-Semites), it’s driving your car into a crowd of counter-protestors and killing them or roaming the street in gangs to beat up anyone you think looks vaguely Homosexual (or Brown or Communist- read Jewish). That’s kind of not allowed.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions has a number of people alarmed as support for it grows, especially in Europe. The U.S. Congress, much to its shame, is proposing the Unconstitutional “Israel Anti-Boycott Act” to limit its expression here.

Paul Waldman today highlights action by Diane Feinstein (Jewish) and Bernie Sanders (also Jewish) to try and stop this misguided (and did I mention Unconstitutional?) action.

Bernie Sanders’s new plan to force a genuine debate in Congress on Israel
By Paul Waldman, Washington Post
December 19, 2016

Earlier this week I wrote about the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, a piece of legislation that some Democrats and Republicans are hoping to quietly attach to a budget bill so it can be passed into law. The bill would bar American companies and individuals from participating in certain boycotts of Israel, and, though even its supporters say it would have minimal practical impact, it represents a serious attack on fundamental principles of free speech.

The bill is also part of a broad nationwide movement playing out at both the federal and state level to quash criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud government and its policies toward Palestinians, an effort that Democrats unfortunately have participated in far too often.

Now two senators — Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — have a plan to try to do something about this. They are coming out against that measure, which could help realize the larger goal of forcing a genuine debate in Congress that does not place such criticism off limits.

It is a lack of debate about Israel — not just about the Netanyahu government’s policies but also about how we in America should react to them — that allows provisions such as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to flourish. But that also means that if you draw enough attention to them, things can change. We may be at a point where politicians who would previously have gone along precisely because it seemed like the easiest thing to do given that few people were watching are now having second thoughts. And that’s what makes this an important lesson in how politics works.

Sanders and Feinstein represent two influential Jewish senators from different points on the ideological spectrum. On Wednesday morning, they sent a letter urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) not to include the IABA in the latest budget bill.
…
In the past few years, Republicans have elevated “support for Israel” to a core conservative belief, which in their case means not support for Israel in general but support for policies that deny any rights to Palestinians and seek to expand West Bank settlements so that returning land to them will become impossible. The unspoken but clear long-term vision of both the Israeli and American right is that if the Palestinians are made to suffer enough, they will eventually give up their hopes of self-determination and accept their miserable lot. Both the Netanyahu government and the Trump administrationn have stopped even pretending that they support a two-state solution.

That will not change. But what can change is how Democrats approach this issue. The reason that so often so many Democrats go along with the Republican approach for “support for Israel” is that it seems like the easiest thing to do. That’s because there’s an imbalance of power at play which determines the risks politicians face for taking certain positions. For instance, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a well-organized and well-funded lobby with the ability to reward its friends and punish its opponents. Groups that advocate Palestinian rights are not nearly as powerful. Which is why, despite the fact that AIPAC has long been not “the Israel lobby” as it styles itself but, in truth, the Likud lobby, Democratic politicians still troop to its meetings to proclaim their “support for Israel.”

And when something like the Anti-Israel Boycott Act came up, I’m sure more than a few Democratic senators and congressman said to themselves, “This is really an affront to free speech. But what is opposing it going to get me? The only people who will notice are the ones who’ll be angry.”

But what’s important about calculations like that is that they’re open to change. When you have a bill such as this one, the more attention it gets, the more opposition will rise. Especially for Democrats, the cost of supporting it begins to increase. If it hadn’t started getting attention over the past few days, Sanders and Feinstein might not have written that letter to make their opposition vocal. And now other Democrats might be having second thoughts too, and could decide they have enough cover to pull back their support.

That process could be pushed along if we begin to debate the way conservatives all over the country are pushing to quash any dissension from right-wing Israeli policies. As I said, this piece of legislation is part of a nationwide effort in which two dozen states have passed laws forbidding the state to contract with companies that support boycotts of Israeli products. The result is cases like this one, in which a speech pathologist in Texas who contracts with a school district to work with students was told that she would have to sign what was in effect a loyalty oath to the Netanyahu government, promising not to support any boycott of Israel, as though that could possibly have anything do so with her work. She refused to sign, and sued instead. Now the ACLU is also suing over the Texas law, which the state will fight; Gov. Greg Abbott has said, “Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies.”

That’s obviously ludicrous, and there’s a strong case to be made that the greatest long-term threat to Israel is precisely the policies toward the Palestinians that critics of the Netanyahu government — both within and outside Israel — would like to see changed, and that people such as Abbott support (and yes, there are some Democrats who enthusiastically support them too). But without something resembling a real debate, the American public doesn’t hear why someone can simultaneously support Israel, oppose a particular set of Israeli policies, and oppose restrictions on the free speech rights of Americans. All they’ll learn is that there’s a “pro-Israel” bill out there, and if you oppose it you must be “anti-Israel.”

In their letter, Sanders and Feinstein hint at the need to undercut this basic mind-set. They stress that the Senate must “debate” the new measure as “freestanding legislation” on “its merits.” That is, its specifics must be debated, and not as a reflexive indicator of “pro-Israel” or “anti-Israel” sentiment.

I’ve long argued that the very idea of “pro-Israel” vs. “anti-Israel” is not just the enemy of rational thought and moral thinking, but also plays right into the hands of the American and Israeli right (you’ll notice that we don’t use that formulation with any other country; nobody talks about being “pro-China” or “anti-Canada”). It’s up to Democrats to create a more complete debate on this issue, because Republicans certainly aren’t going to do it. And standing up against laws that forbid Americans from expressing certain opinions would be an excellent place to start.

As I say, this is not at all about the relative merits of the Israeli v, Palistinian positions in the principal matters, it’s about the First Amendment. As such it does not violate our I/P policy.

And, just as a reminder, it’s not that you can’t talk about I/P, it’s that your post must be pre-approved by the Admins so we can avoid “hate speech” and inflammatory statements.

Oh, and I’m an Admin and I approve my remarks.

That’s what Quid Pro Quo means in Latin and while it’s always nice to do a favor for a friend, doing so Coercively (Extortion, nice little democracy you’ve got here, shame if something happened to it) or Corruptly (Bribery, here’s a Benjamin for ‘expedited action’) in the expectation of reward (something of value, doesn’t have to be money, “Mr. Bonasera, I want you to make my Sonny look good, you know, for his Mom.”).

As someone wrote today (can’t remember who, sorry) the thing about money is that it leaves a trail wherever it goes and Robert Mueller has been dutifully following it. Most of his Pleas and Convictions so far have been related to financial crimes.

It’s important to remember when looking at it from that angle Unidicted Co-conspirator Donald J. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, have been laundering money for Russian Oligarchs and the House of Saud for decades both in Casinos (a good place to do it since there’s a lot of cash floating around, like a Convenience Store or a Gas Station only bigger) and through Real Estate Transactions (where the real money is).

When we talk about easing sanctions on Russia what we mean is lifting controls on Billions of dollars of financial transactions for Putin and his cronies. I don’t think Putin much minds that he can’t vacation in Yellowstone, Russia has plenty of beautiful places. It bugs him a lot that he can’t take his Ruble stash of questionable value and turn it into nice, safe, liquid U.S.Treasury Notes. A $50 Million Penthouse Suite is merely a gratuity, a ‘valued customer’ discount.

Not that Rubles are entirely valueless. You can use them to buy Facebook Ads for instance.

The House of Saud is a little different. They’re not under any particular restrictions (though they should be) but they use their money to promote Wahabist Terrorism and exercise political control of Western Governments, both applications benefiting from a fair amount of anonymity (or at least plausible deniability).

Money Laundering is really the primary Business Model of the Trump Family (Ok, the Family has a side business in Fraud) and Trump Organization and it is not only illegal in and of itself but Unidicted Co-conspirator Trump stands accused of shaping Policy to benefit his personal finances.

In addition to being compromised by the threat of Blackmail because of his complicity in these crimes.

The Daily Beast has a piece about developments on this front today.

Mueller Ready to Pounce on Trumpworld Concessions to Moscow
by Erin Banco, Daily Beast
12.18.18

For more than a year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has questioned witnesses broadly about their interactions with well-connected Russians. But three sources familiar with Mueller’s probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration’s foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.

The Special Counsel’s Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates’ conversations about sanctions relief—and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said.

The new details would not only bookend a multi-year investigation by federal prosecutors into whether and how Trump associates seriously considered requests by Moscow to ease the financial measures. The new court filings could also answer a central question of the Russia investigation: What specific policy changes, if any, did the Kremlin hope to get in return from its political machinations?

“During his investigation, Mueller has shown little proclivity for chasing dead ends,” said Paul Pelletier, a former senior Department of Justice official. “His continued focus on the evidence that members of the Trump campaign discussed sanction relief with Russians shows that his evidence of a criminal violation continues to sharpen. This has to come as especially bad news for the president.”

Mueller’s interest in sanctions arose, at least in part, out of his team’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The Special Counsel’s Office noted in a court filing last week that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak concerning U.S. sanctions. But other portions of this court filing were left redacted.

Mueller’s team is looking closely at evidence—some of it provided by witnesses—from the transition period, two individuals with knowledge of the probe said.

“Sanctions conversations that happened after November are more serious,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer for Russia under President George W. Bush. “At that point Flynn, for example, would have already known he was going to be part of the administration and those conversations would have included plans for what might happen [next].”

And Flynn wasn’t the only figure talking sanctions during that transition period, three sources with knowledge of the probe said. Several individuals in Trump’s inner circle were developing their own plans to put pressure on other parts of the government to roll back the sanctions, which have cost the Russian economy more than $100 billion, according to Kremlin estimates.

It’s still unclear if Trump adviser Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, spoke about sanctions in their now-infamous meeting in the Seychelles held during the last days of the transition. But The Daily Beast previously reported that the two spoke broadly about Russian investment opportunities in the U.S. and the potential for peace in Ukraine.

Just a week after Trump took office, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii V. Artemenko handed Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, a “peace plan” that would lift sanctions. Accounts differ on how seriously the proposal was considered by the administration.

Around the same time, Trump reportedly asked staffers in the State Department to come up with a plan to roll back sanctions. But the department’s transition team was disorganized and understaffed, according to one person on the team. The request never made its way to people tasked with advising the White House on sanctions, according to two former national-security officials.

“The Russians were definitely looking to ease sanctions, or the relaxation of sanctions,” said one former Treasury official. “There was clearly a person they supported in the election and Trump clearly had a favorable view of Russia. But the transition was a mess and it took more time to get their feet under them. By the time they got their stuff together, Congress was increasing sanctions.”

The U.S. implemented sanctions on Russia in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea. Those sanctions were broadly supposed to make it more difficult for Russia to make money and to conduct business with the U.S. and its European allies. Several of Russia’s financial entities, including the Russian Direct Investment Fund, one of Moscow’s sovereign wealth funds, and VTB, one of the leading banks in the country, were put under sanctions but still allowed to transact with Americans under certain circumstances. Others, though, including top government officials like Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, the formerly state-owned Russian oil enterprise, were blacklisted.
…
With the careful maneuvering of business deals, Russia continued to conduct business with the U.S. and its European allies, two former Obama officials involved in drafting the sanctions said.

But compliance lawyers said investors and U.S. businesses were wary of the legal risks of doing business with Moscow. The lifting of sanctions, lawyers told The Daily Beast, would have allowed for Russia to conduct business with American and European investors with more ease. It would have allowed international businesses and individuals to lend money to Russia as well as borrow, which the sanctions currently broadly restrict.

The topic kept coming up during the campaign. In the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, for example, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly suggested a review of sanctions law.

Today, after virtually calling Flynn a traitor, Judge Emmet Sullivan postponed his sentencing for 90 day and suggested it could be delayed further pending “completion of his co-operation” in the Russian Treason Investigation.

You could take that as an indicator the Judge will depart from the sentencing recommendations of both the Special Counsel’s Office and Flynn’s defense lawyers, I think it’s disappointing we didn’t get some resolution or new information.

On the other hand Barbara Underwood, New York State Attorney General, entered into an agreement with Unindicted Co-Conspirator Trump’s “charitable” Foundation.

Trump Foundation to Close Amid Lawsuit Accusing It of ‘Willful Self-Dealing’
By Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times
Dec. 18, 2018

The Donald J. Trump Foundation will close and give away all its remaining funds under judicial supervision amid a lawsuit accusing the charity and the Trump family of using it illegally for self-dealing and political gain, the New York attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

The attorney general, Barbara Underwood, accused the foundation of “a shocking pattern of illegality” that was “willful and repeated” and included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” Ms. Underwood said.

The closure of the foundation is a milestone in the investigation. But the broader lawsuit, which also seeks millions in restitution and penalties and a bar on President Trump and his three oldest children from serving on the boards of other New York charities, is proceeding.

Ms. Underwood and a lawyer for the foundation signed the stipulation agreeing to the dissolution. The foundation’s remaining assets are to be redistributed under judicial supervision.

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” Ms. Underwood said. “We’ll continue to move our suit forward to ensure that the Trump Foundation and its directors are held to account for their clear and repeated violations of state and federal law.”

Mr. Trump had said after the 2016 election that he would dissolve the foundation to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. But the attorney general’s office said that such a move would require its approval, given the continuing investigation.
…
Nonprofit foundations are supposed to be devoted to charitable activities, but the attorney general’s office, following a two-year investigation, accused the Trump Foundation of being used to win political favor and even purchase a $10,000 portrait of Mr. Trump that was displayed at one of his golf clubs. The existence of the portrait was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lawsuit accused the foundation of virtually becoming an arm of the Trump campaign, with its campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, directing the foundation to make disbursements in Iowa only days before the state held its presidential nominating caucuses.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements [from the proceeds of the fund-raiser] this week while in Iowa? Specifically on Saturday,” Mr. Lewandowski wrote to the foundation’s treasurer in an email disclosed in the lawsuit.

The attorney general’s office is seeking for the Trump Foundation to pay $2.8 million in restitution, which is the amount raised for the foundation at an Iowa fund-raiser in 2016 that Mr. Trump held on the day that he avoided attending a debate with his Republican rivals. The foundation reported $1.7 million in assets in 2017 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations that he used it for personal and political benefit
By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post
December 18, 2018

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and to give away its remaining money amid allegations that he used the foundation for his personal and political benefit, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Tuesday.

Underwood said that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the foundation and sought to have it shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofit organizations.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.
…
In a court filing in New York, Underwood said that the foundation’s remaining $1.75 million would be distributed to other charities approved by her office and a state judge.

The attorney general’s suit alleges that Trump used his charity’s money as his own piggy bank — including to help his presidential campaign by paying for giveaways at Iowa rallies.

“The Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization,” Underwood wrote in the initial suit.

The Trump Foundation was never the most impressive part of Trump’s portfolio: At its peak, in 2009, it had only about $3.2 million in the bank, a small sum for a billionaire’s charity.

The real estate mogul used other people’s donations to build up the foundation’s assets. In recent years, the largest gifts came from pro-wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, not Trump.

Trump gave away the money in his name and also used the foundation to pay his business’s legal settlements. Federal law prohibits using charity money for personal gain.

The Post’s reporting showed that, for years, Trump appeared to treat the foundation — which was, by law, an independent entity — as a checkbook for gifts that bolstered his interests.

The largest donation in the foundation’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.

The attorney general’s investigation turned up evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — all listed as officers of the charity — had never held a board meeting. The board hadn’t met since 1999. The charity’s official treasurer, Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, told investigators that he wasn’t aware that he was on the board.
…
At one point, Trump used the charity’s money to make a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R). The charity didn’t tell the IRS about that, as required — and instead listed that donation as a gift to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name. Trump’s team blamed accounting mistakes.

During the 2016 campaign, state investigators allege, Trump effectively “ceded control” of his charity to his political campaign. He raised more than $2 million at a fundraiser in Iowa that flowed into the foundation. Then, the state said, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski determined when and where it would be given away.

“Is there any way we can make some disbursements . . . this week while in Iowa?” Lewandowski wrote in an email cited in Underwood’s lawsuit.

Trump gave away oversize checks from the foundation at campaign events in the key early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, pausing his campaign rallies to donate to local veterans’ groups.

Federal law prohibits charities from participating in political campaigns. As president, Trump has called repeatedly for that law to be repealed.

My worry is that Weisselberg, who is testifying under immunity, and the Trump Organization will use this agreement to short circuit investigation of the Trump Foundation and prevent charges from being brought against Donny Boy Jr., Eric “Don’t Call Me Stupid”, and Ivanka.