This week , I have been mostly reading:

• Greek tragedy - Christos Tsiolkas and a very unimaginative sub-editor at the Monthly: (Varoufakis:) "It wasn’t bad faith, it was a very definite plan. I called it the Schäuble plan. He has been planning a Greek exit as part of his plan for reconstructing the eurozone. This is no theory. The reason why I am saying it is because he told me so."
• Report: Hundreds of Civilians Killed by U.S.-Led Bombing of ISIS in Iraq and Syria - Cora Currier, The Intercept: "The report, from the nonprofit group Airwars, which tracks coalition airstrikes on Iraq and Syria, says that it has documented between 459 and 591 civilian deaths in 52 credible incidents. In one of the worst cases, in Al Bab, Syria, a U.S. strike on a local Islamic State headquarters being used as a jail killed up to 58 non-combatants, including women and teenagers. Next Saturday marks the first anniversary of the United States’ bombing campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq. Over the past year, a U.S.-led coalition including Canada, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and other European and Gulf states has carried out over 5,800 airstrikes against the group in Iraq and Syria."
• The unmaking of the Australian working class – and their right to resist - Dennis Glover in The Conversation: "Something similar to […] England in the first three decades of the 1800s has happened in Australia between the mid-1980s and today. Not the degree of immiserisation, but the pace and scale of social and economic change. The transformation from the industrial to the post-industrial era has been so total as to constitute the sociological equivalent of an extinction event."
• I am not well - Tressie McMillan Cottom, the smartest person on the Internet (according to me; I'm mailing the medal now, as it happens): "Jokes have abounded over the years about that time I was arrested. People on the Internet find it hilarious. Even my family makes fun of it at Thanksgiving. And it is funny. It’s especially funny after three years of being alive to allow it to be funny. It’s probably funnier because I wasn’t murdered. Jokes are weird that way."
• The Web of Relationships We Have To Save - Zeynep Tufekci: "Facebook engineers will swear up and down that they are serving people “what they want” but that glosses over the key question that if the main way to tell Facebook “what we want” is to “like” something. How do we signal that we want to see more of important, but unlikable, updates on Facebook? We can’t, it turns out."
• Corbyn and the Cringe Caucus - Paul Krugman at the usual venue: "There was a Stamaty cartoon during the Reagan years that, as I remember it, showed Democrats laying out their platform: big military spending, tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts for the poor. “But how does that make you different from Republicans?” “Compassion — we care about the victims of our policies.”"
• Obama: Opponents of Iran Deal are Warmongers - Juan Cole: "Lame duck Obama"—seven years worth of lame, that is—locates spine, says something. But still…
• To Defend Iran Deal, Obama Boasts That He’s Bombed Seven Countries - Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept: "By “ordered military actions in seven countries,” what he means is that he has ordered bombs dropped, and he has extinguished the lives of thousands of innocent people, in seven different countries, all of which just so happen to be predominantly Muslim."
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• America in the Way - Joe Stiglitz at Project Syndicate: "Just a few years ago, Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, talked about a global savings glut. And yet investment projects with high social returns were being starved of funds. That remains true today. The problem, then as now, is that the world’s financial markets, meant to intermediate efficiently between savings and investment opportunities, instead misallocate capital and create risk."
• Cops Gun Down un-Armed Journalist’s Career, LA Times fires Ted Rall – evidence blows up in newspaper’s face - Greg Palast: "The police believe they have silenced Rall, that his public pillorying by the Times “serves as an example” – a warning to troublesome journalists. Rall, to their dismay, is proving more of an example of undeterred courage."
• 14 Years Ago, a Woman Vindicated Me Now - Ted Rall: "One small way I can show my appreciation for my privileged status in American society is to speak out, like here, about my own experiences with bad cops. Because if it’s happening to white guys like me, you know it’s even worse for people of color."
• Style, Substance, and The Donald - Paul Krugman: "So why is Trump regarded as ludicrous, while Bush and Walker are serious? Again, on the substance they’re all ludicrous; but pundits are taken in by the sober-sounding personal style of the runners-up, while voters apparently are not."
• How the battle over biologics helped stall the Trans Pacific Partnership - Deborah Gleeson and Ruth Lopert in The Conversation: "Data exclusivity refers to the protection of clinical trial data submitted to regulatory agencies from use by competitors. It’s a different type of monopoly protection to patents. While a product is covered by data exclusivity, manufacturers of cheaper follow-on versions of the product can’t rely on the clinical trial data produced by the originator of the drug to support the marketing approval of their product."
• No Evidence Forced Waiting for Dole Will Work - Xavier Smerdon from Pro Bono Australia: What? Can't they just let their golden parachute tide them over for a few weeks? Next you'll be telling me kicking beggars doesn't do them any good!
• Your job will never love you: Stress and anxiety in our frightening new job world - Excerpt from "The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity" by Allison J. Pugh in Salon.com: "One might think that the pervasive sense of increasing job insecurity— and its resigned acceptance by precarious workers—would give rise to increased detachment from work, as people adjust to a new employment bargain. When one party in an exchange is seen as withdrawing its commitment, surely it is a rational response for the other party to pull back as well. Furthermore, concerns about losing worker dedication might then in turn act as a counterweight to these trends, discouraging employers from retreating from commitments to their workforce." Nope.
• Leader of extremist Israeli organization calls for torching churches - Ma'an News Agency: About time, too. "Despite announcements by the Israeli government in May 2014 to crack down on violent attacks carried out by Israelis against Palestinians, prosecution rates of Jewish extremists remain remarkably low." Go figure.
• Bernie Sanders should stop ducking foreign policy - Norman Solomon in Al Jazeera America: Personally, I have an angel on one shoulder advising "Pick your battles," and one on the other shoulder saying "You can't defend the indefensible".
• From Trump on Down, the Republicans Can’t Be Serious - Paul Krugman, NYT: "The point is that while media puff pieces have portrayed Mr. Trump’s rivals as serious men — Jeb the moderate, Rand the original thinker, Marco the face of a new generation — their supposed seriousness is all surface. Judge them by positions as opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks. […] Modern Republican politicians can’t be serious — not if they want to win primaries and have any future within the party. Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign policy are all necessary parts of a candidate’s resume."
• Facebook patents technology to help lenders discriminate against borrowers based on social connections - Mark Sullivan, VentureBeat: This is huge. Everything you do online is data in a credit worthiness report.
• 800,000 Australians Unemployed - Xavier Smerdon, Pro Bono News: "For the first time in 20 years there are more than 800,000 unemployed people in Australia, with five people looking for work for every vacancy available. The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that unemployment rose to 6.3 per cent last month." […] "[Senator Abetz] said the Government had formulated an economic plan designed to deliver stronger jobs growth by investing $5.5 billion in the new Growing Jobs and Small Business package, delivering $3.25 billion in tax cuts for small business and $1.75 billion in accelerated depreciation measures, investing $6.8 billion in jobactive, the new employment services system and negotiating Free Trade Agreements which will attract growth." Hey, the fewer people we hire, the more tax cuts and freebies we're given! Win-win!