BRICS to launch World Bank and IMF rivals

 Are you hip to BRICS?

BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.^[2]

The grouping was originally known as "BRIC" before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010.

The BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialised countries, but they are distinguished by their large, fast-growing economies and significant influence on regional and global affairs; all five are G-20 members.^[3]

As of 2013, the five BRICS countries represent almost 3 billion people with a combined nominal GDP of US$16.039 trillion and an estimated US$4 trillion in combined foreign reserves.^[1][4] As of 2014, the BRICS nations represented 18 percent of the world economy.^[5]

A Philadelphia Story: Can a University Transform a City?

Here's two intriguing stories or perspectives on the expanding role of big urban university interacting with a local impoverish community.

As Drexel University in West Philly steps into the role of urban designer or community savior, the questions become:

Is this a post-modern version of gentrification? Or, Is this a big city university doing what big city government can not do?

Politico Magazine Presents

West Philadelphia, Reborn and Razed

By JOHN MARCHESE

Attorney General Eric Holden slams Sarah Palin

Sometimes short and sweet is just that, short and sweet.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Sarah Palin's impeach President Obama quest.

“She wasn't a particularly good vice presidential candidate. She's an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.”

Say no more. Case close.

And on the GOP party stuck in obstructionist mode.

Attorney General Eric Holder is challenging Republicans who are calling for his and President Obama's impeachment, and denouncing what he calls a "gridlocked Washington" stalled by what he says is a Republican Party bent on blocking any of the administration's efforts.

“For whatever reason, [some] Republicans decided early on that this was a president they were just simply not going to cooperate with,” Holder said in a rare interview with ABC News' Pierre Thomas.

 

"And over the past five-and-a-half years, we have seen demonstrations of that, where the president has reached out his hand, offered compromises that have simply not been met [in the way] they have been in the past by a Republican Party willing to do the appropriate things."

 

Administration efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, for example, have failed. source

Republican Reality: "I love my Obamacare (but not by that name)"

Live and in living color:

When you cut through the GOP and Conservative Entertainment Complex lies, distortions, misinformation and anti-Obamacare propaganda, you will discover a remarkable and under-reported and growing phenomenon:

Republicans love their Obamacare

Why we vehemently defend President Obama.

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 demonstrated how progressively our country has evolved.

The treatment of the Obama presidency by the Conservative movement from 2009 to present demonstrates how reflexively racist our country remains.

Fox News ignores positive job report.

Good Obama News: "Not up in here"

For some odd reason, call it my keen intuition -- yea right, a first grader could make this call -- I was not surprised Fox News downplayed the following positive job report and Dow Jones stories:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a surprisingly strong jobs report Thursday morning.

Employers added 288,000 jobs in June, significantly more than the 215,000 economists were anticipating.

The unemployment rate, which is drawn from a different survey of households, dropped from 6.3% to 6.1% the lowest rate since September 2008.

GOP: The Party of Hate

Ann Coulter: AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER

Ann and Bill

Most sane people know that Senorita Ann Coulter craves attention -- negative or positive doesn't matter -- notoriety sells books and brings invitations to speak.

This is her con. She knows the game.

If she can stir up the Mississippi gene in many Americans -- wherever they reside -- she can continue to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

She works OT to remain in the game. Her MO: lobbing offensive verbal Molotov Cocktails. Hate speech is her bread and butter. She relishes her ability to rile up folks, particularly la gente de izquierda (liberals).

Bill Clinton to Dick Cheney: "Shut up and sit yo azz down."

Former President Bill Clinton is peerless in his ability to frame the issue and discussion of the day.

With the combination of his folksy roots in Arkansas and his Rhodes Scholar education in Oxford, Bill Clinton can "chop up" the complicated into bubba-speak.

When Bill speaks, for better or worse (usually always better), people listen.

The Obama effect: The rise in ammosexualism

Ammosexualilty defined

A sexual fetish that finds pleasure in the power to kill dozens of people with the pull of a trigger.

An ammosexual may understand the desire of other people to live, but feels all the greater pleasure in contemplating that he has the power to overcome that desire with his power.

Ammosexuals are very protective of their fetish, and attack even the slightest gun safety measure on the grounds that they interfere with their pleasure.