Captivity - Day 76 Motel Hell

So we're minding our businesses, as we always do, in partial silence, and I'm working from home, enjoying the partial silence. Then I hear LOUD winds and rain. Then several huge BOOMS. Apparently is was raining. Well, too.

The BOOMS must have had something to do with all the neighbors, standing outside, with their masks and color-coded umbrellas. I think all the trees decided to go on vacation. They went down the block and embedded themselves  in the convenience store. It looked like a porcupine or that stupid Covid graphic.

Called Power company - all lines busy. Uh-oh.
It's all over the city and suburbs. They said it would be 24 hours for a fix. Impressive.
The guy who works at the provider said DAYS.
Ummmm.....

Mrs lefty said NO.
I can't work with no power (I'm powerless), so we found a hotel that was dog-friendly. Mrs lefty was absolutely in heaven because I had to register and she didn't have to listen to my extended grumbling about having to wear a *$#*ing mask. At least the room had a bed.

The dog was impressed too. She barked. At ridiculous times. For no reason. And when she barks, she won't stop, no matter what you do. So I went into action and slammed my finger in the heavy metal door. It was a good night.

You can't find or buy food in the area. Our power outage caught most of the restaurants (that weren't closed). We actually got voicemail at a pizza place. No convenience stores. Most traffic lights out. Even the vending machines were empty. It's 2020, people.....  Why did this happen? Some bizarre weather event we're not even supposed to get: a derecho.

While I'm at a virtual meeting, the dog starts barking again. I run to stop her, with my usual lack of success. Her mommy is taking her back home, but she has to change her clothes first (mommy, not the dog). I'm standing there, dog barking, missing my meeting, open-mouthed, because a change of clothes is needed. I was worried the car would start to fly and the hotel would turn upside down, cuz I wasn't dealing with reality - just watching it.

We're living in the Twilight Zone. More accurately, the Twilight Zone Hotel.
We were lucky... power was back early. All color-coded umbrella neighbors happy, and most of the trees removed from the convenience store. Dunkin was open, so frozen hot chocolates for breakfast and a thank you for staying open during the Flying AIDS crisis.


To recap, we have the Flying AIDS, looting, massive power outages, and the cicadas are ready to come out. The favorite tv show in America features furries, we can buy candles with the scent of Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina, Black Lives Matter has split with Looting Your Stuff Matters, and police are learning how to dance on a neck. The president came in with a long list of people he wanted to piss off and by God, he's nearing the end. His opposition fondles little girls and can't remember doing it (or much of anything else).  Maybe them there televangeelists have a pernt. Will there be beer in heaven? Will there be beer for those of us staying here?


So how's your day?





George Floyd, RIP, was contacted by a spiritual medium today. Asked what he wanted people to do in his memory, he said, "Well, peacefully protest. And loot. Definitely loot. Peacefully protest AND loot at the same time."  Asked what he wanted at his funeral, he said, "Oh God..noooooo.....not Al Sharpton!! He'll just make things worse! He didn't bring Jesse Jackson, did he?" Asked about racism, he said, "Sometimes it ain't about race. People see racism everywhere."


Idiot Governor says PA will move from red to yellow tomorrow. For those of you following along at home, he means PA will officially allow things Pennsylvanians have been doing anyway.  I remind you again: I didn't vote for this half-governor. We're being TOLD what we're ALLOWED to do. Not what our founding fathers had in mind.

Vote libertarian- you won't get this crap.

Inpeach!

OJ Simpson has been granted parole.
He told the judge that "he'd kill to get out of there." - Gilbert Gottfried
Hide your collectibles.  - twitter

• Just a short time after the suicide of Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington (singer: Linkin Park, STP) hung himself. The only question remaining is what these rock stars knew about Hillary Clinton.

It's somewhat unlikely that you'll get to visit the International Space Station, but you can do a Google Street View of it. Spoiler: the view is inside only and there are no aliens visible.

• In a 2015 general election in England, an investigation into allegations of pedophilia against a councillor was stalled to help the Labour Party. After the election, the councillor was convicted of downloading child porn. Do you have any idea how high up this goes?

There are hotels that charge you fifty dollars a day to store personal items in the mini fridge. Guess where... if you guessed Detroit, you'd be wrong. California, yes. Besides - goes to Detroit voluntarily?

• There is a coffee shop called Bitty and Beau's Coffee, which only employs people with disabilities. That really says something.
• Of course there's going to be that one ass who gets upset because his order is wrong. He yells, "What are you, retarded?" The entire store comes to a stop and answers, "Why yes, we are."

Bored? Go to Familytreenow.com - once the shock is over...
Go to https://www.familytreenow.com/optout to get yourself removed.

• Zakk Wylde, professional wild man, sometime guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, solo artist and founder of Black Label Society has put forth his own line of coffee. Yeah, it's a bit more expensive. We picked up Valhalla and Death Wish. Both are medium roast, as opposed to our usual french roast. Death Wish has rather a lot of caffeine in it. I tried both, which were kinda light, as expected, but good-tasting. The Death Wish did not have me banging against the walls, which is most fortunate. The story goes that Zakk used to drink a cup of Death Wish before shows. I suspect that buzz is normal.

One of the greatest inventions of the 2000s, the Roomba, will actually spy on you. The company will be selling 'maps' of your house. But it's ok, you have to opt-in. The cat, meanwhile, will sell the same info for five cents less than the Roomba.

• An American and a Swedish company have asked some of their employees to voluntarily get chipped, for the purposes of entering the building, logging into their computers, and cashless purchases from the company store. George Orwell and Christians are screaming from the grave and in person. What could possibly go wrong?

In wonderful news, Adobe has announced the death of Flash. No updates will be produced after 2020. This means the web and any other users of Flash will have to decide what they're using next. Then the hacking will start on that. The wicked Flash is dead!

• The DEFCON Hacking Convention is taking place in Las Vegas. Having learned from past years, many local vendors are shutting down their networks out of sheer terror. UPS Store will not accept anything on USB. The only store that is safe is Starbucks - where do all geeks go all day?

Very few in the country (and outside) have not been paying attention to the press and the travails of President Trump. We all know I'm a libertarian and think that anyone was better than Hillary. The press coverage, plus online commentary, is ridiculously biased, if not outright lies. Yes, Fake News exists.

I suspect if Trump stood on an earthmover and made a short speech about how great America is, we would see the following:

• Trump stood on a what he called an earthmover. In reality, it's a dump truck.  - NBC News
• Drumpf is an idiot - twitter
• The president, today, spoke from a piece of construction equipment, obviously provided by Russia.  - CNN
• That's not even the real color of an earthmover - here's a link to paint samples from that year of production.  - Reddit
• We have evidence that the bolt that holds the upper part of the mirror on was made in China. Kim Kardashian told us.  - DailyMail
• I stole an earthmover, smashed a few cars, and tipped it over. - FB video
• Obama did it better -  Huffington Post
• We need Obama more than ever.  - twitter
• The president bravely stood on a symbol of American engineering. - Fox news
• Did you see the way his shoes were tied? INPEACH!  -FB
• Today the president cut off all aid to the poor.  - CNN
• This proves that the president is an antisemite  - Jewish Defense League
• He is full of hate.  - Southern Poverty Law Center
• He's a racist.  - Black Lives Matter
• Why were there no overweight, non-armpit shaving transgender women of color in the video?  - social justice warriors
• He is making America great again!  - Sean Hannity
• HE STOLE THE ELECTION - the Democrats. All of them.

*Inpeach: parody of the people who scream "IMPEACH" whenever Trump does something.

Chicago, Chicago... it's a Wonderful Band

No matter how I tried, no matter how I used Official Phraseology, no matter how I financially justified, I could not stop my boss from sending me to Chicago.

But I don't like to travel....

But I've already been poorly trained on this...

But the company shoudn't waste their money...

But if I get near the TSA, I'm going to need bail money....

But since the boss asked nicely, I couldn't say no.  Well, I could say no, but I like my job.

WHAT DO JEWISH WOMEN MAKE FOR DINNER? RESERVATIONS

I have traveled all over the country in very strange ways but never have I gone through the blood, sweat and tears required to simply make arrangements for a flight and hotel. My colleague had everything done for her via our employer. Because I'm a different class of employee, I had to make my own reservations. And when I say make my own reservations, I mean get all sorts of estimates and submit them, allowing my employer to decide which fit within the financial guidelines.  My coworker got to stay in a really nice hotel, to which I was refused admittance, due to rate (although I suspect they didn't like my mustache). I booked a four star hotel via Travelocity, which, strangely enough, managed to look nothing like the rooms on their website. In fact, when I opened the door to my spacious suite, I immediately noticed that my room seemed to be missing half of its promised volume: it was a spacious closet with a king-size bed. And when I say spacious closet, it did not have a spacious closet, instead gracing me with a six-inch deep closet that required me to turn my jacket around so the door would close. But at least they had an iron. I knew I had arrived at my hotel when I noticed that the entrance was completely blocked by construction. This was to be a theme.

The room was on the 20th floor and featured a spectacular view of an alley. I dared not ask whose alley it was. I did get a spacious desk on which to work, featuring a chair that I suspect was older than me.

At the airports, I discovered there was a Qatar Airlines.  It turns out they have no set destination: they go wherever they're hijacked to that day.

When friends and relatives ask me how Chicago was, I say "Windy". They're not kidding when they call it the Windy City. Because O'Hare Airport was designed by drunk monkeys, there was no way to get from my terminal to my coworker's terminal, so I had to walk a few city blocks outside. If the direction was away from the wind, I could have let it carry me there, but no, I had to walk Triple Uphill to locate the terminal. The nice policeman I asked looked really confused until his partner told me to go outside and walk a few blocks. This would not have mattered except Work Rules stated only my colleague could rent a car - I couldn't.

Chicago has all the charm of Center City Philadelphia, without the on-street parking. I don't know about the rest of Chicago but our section required a car or public transport to go anywhere, which then required parking. Parking cost a week's salary, but only if you stayed under thirty minutes. Anything over an hour required a title loan, which, oddly enough, one could obtain approximately every two blocks.  In fact, you could not swing a dead cat without hitting a title place, a 7-11 or a Starbucks, most of which closed at six or seven, along with the restaurants. Because who wants to eat at a restaurant at six or seven anyway?

Chicago is also inordinately fascinated with the use of car horns. I truly believe that if a Chicago-an's car horn is broken, he can't drive. My colleague is from Texas and never hears car horns. Why? Guns.  

If you can't afford parking, there's always the elevated train system, which is organized by colors. My local transport was the Brown Line, so called because riding on it causes you to poop yourself. But I kid... I only had to stand for thirty minutes to get to my destination, accompanied by a very talkative blonde, droning on about marketing to her frustrated coworker, who strained desperately to get a word or grunt in here or there. It was like being forced to listen to your great aunt talking to your grandmother about World War Two housing.

The reason I found myself on the Brown Line (if you didn't watch out, you'd wind up on the Red Line, or, heaven forbid, the Pink Line - with stops at all shoe stores, as well as the theater district), was to visit a guitar institution in Chicago - the Chicago Musical Exchange. After much complaining by the internal voices about not staying in, I found myself at the door. CME was blessed relief after years of shopping in Philly, the black hole of music and musical instruments. There were new guitars, used guitars, vintage guitars, amps and a ton of used and new pedals. There were guitars I had only heard of. It was a blast except for the fact that their lefty section was a bit anemic. It illustrated precisely why the Philly area is such a wasteland. As if that weren't enough, their sales staff knew what they were talking about!

THE TSA

Why haven't I flown since we bombed Iraq? Because of the TSA. There were work polls about whether or not I'd get held for Special Screening. I have to admit that the agents of the TSA were quite nice and practical. When I arrived at the line, they asked whether I would prefer the groping or the full cavity search. I went all-in, so to speak. You don't get that kind of courtesy at the DMV. 

You have to take your shoes (sneakers) off, put your bag up and open your laptop. Then you go into the glass whirlwind room, where you stand there with your hands up (because you're being robbed) and some metal thingie moves around you, obviously to graph your tolerance to metal thingies moving around you. When you exit the phone booth, one of the nice, uniformed TSA people watches your image (while several others point and laugh), then it's off to the gate. Except in the case of my laptop, which they needed to sniff very closely, as the excess amount of dog hair obviously set something off. I asked what they were looking for and the fellow said powder. I assured him I couldn't afford that stuff and went about my business, cursing at a volume insufficient to trigger a Terrorist Alert. At no time did I yell 'SECURITY THEATER' or show them the Fourth Amendment I had tattooed upon my nether regions.

FLY BY NIGHT CAR RENTALS

As I mentioned, I wasn't allowed to rent a car, so my coworker and I went off to the rental place. We were greeted by some guy with teeth so white and so large, we were afraid that he would eat his own head at any moment. This does not surprise me, as a certain rental car company that I shall not name (but rhymes with Wenterprise) has the slimiest employees I have ever met. After the obligatory shaking of hands, I had to shower six times, with my clothes on. To be fair, everyone was polite and efficient, although it was amusing to watch two female employees fight over who had all the damn keys (for those of you playing along at home, it was Ashlee).

As we were in a foreign country (Chicago), we thought a GPS would be handy. Wenterprise thought so too, as they charged ten bucks per day to rent one. The GPS on my phone is so locked down I don't think I can ever enable it, so we decided on the rental GPS. That little Garmin did a wonderful job of getting us to the hotel. Unfortunately, it sucked at everything else.  Hungry, we asked it what was nearby and selected BBQ. Off we went, to the closest BBQ place, until we discovered the highway was closed. The Garmin wouldn't take no for an answer, so we went to the next closest place. This place literally didn't exist. The third closest place was fifteen minutes down the road and had changed hands to become a greasy chicken joint.  It took but a moment to figure out what was up here: there is no BBQ in Chicago - only a series of empty GPS promises to get you to visit non-BBQ restaurants.

After this great realization, we figured there would be more and better near the hotels.  Boy were we wrong. We wound up at a burger place on the first floor of a high rise. As it turned out, everything is on the first floor of a high rise in Chicago, with the exception of a very scary round parking garage, in which you back up to the edge, presumably before plummeting twenty stories, ala Fast and Furious 26 and 1/2.  

We quickly discovered that the Garmin was a tremendous tool, provided you didn't use it within ten miles of our hotels.  We were making a right onto my street while the Garmin was telling us to go up a few blocks and turn on a different street. It would recalculate in the middle of a street. In the end I threatened to drop it from the Sears Tower and Wenterprise was nice enough to not charge us for it.

Speaking of modern appliances, I attempted to use several to locate a restaurant near our hotels, to which we could walk (coworker's hotel required 30 minutes' notice to fetch our car). I asked Yahoo Maps, which provided about 1500 restaurants, each of which were either too fancy, too expensive or too closed. They also had the audacity to refer to McDonalds and Popeyes as restaurants.

I don't travel well (or frequently), although you're probably wondering why. The wife and the dog came to pick me up at the airport, but neither would admit to driving. One of them also sat on my lap and licked my face all the way home but I'm going to let you guess which.

I leave you with this wonderful exchange I had with a stewardess:

HER: Warm nuts?

ME: Why yes, they are.

THIS WEEK'S TUNE

I thought it might be interesting to start including links to some music I like. This particular piece of musical proficiency is brought to us by Lyle Lovett. It features some really spicy guitar, as does most of my music. Lyle's really underrated.

Return of the Bilderbergers

This year the group is meeting at the Watford's Grove Hotel in England.  Who are the Bilderbergers?  Only a smal handfull of the richest and most important folks in the world.  These meetings set the agenda for many topics. [courtesy Infowars.com]

Here are this year's attendees:

Chairman

FRA	Castries, Henri de	Chairman and CEO, AXA Group
DEU	Achleitner, Paul M.	Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
DEU	Ackermann, Josef	Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd
GBR	Agius, Marcus	Former Chairman, Barclays plc
GBR	Alexander, Helen	Chairman, UBM plc
USA	Altman, Roger C.	Executive Chairman, Evercore Partners
FIN	Apunen, Matti	Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA
USA	Athey, Susan	Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
TUR	Aydıntaşbaş, Aslı	Columnist, Milliyet Newspaper
TUR	Babacan, Ali	Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs
GBR	Balls, Edward M.	Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
PRT	Balsemão, Francisco Pinto	Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA
FRA	Barré, Nicolas	Managing Editor, Les Echos
INT	Barroso, José M. Durão	President, European Commission
FRA	Baverez, Nicolas	Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
FRA	Bavinchove, Olivier de	Commander, Eurocorps
GBR	Bell, John	Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford
ITA	Bernabè, Franco	Chairman and CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.
USA	Bezos, Jeff	Founder and CEO, Amazon.com
SWE	Bildt, Carl	Minister for Foreign Affairs
SWE	Borg, Anders	Minister for Finance
NLD	Boxmeer, Jean François van	Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO, Heineken N.V.
NOR	Brandtzæg, Svein Richard	President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
AUT	Bronner, Oscar	Publisher, Der Standard Medienwelt
GBR	Carrington, Peter	Former Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
ESP	Cebrián, Juan Luis	Executive Chairman, Grupo PRISA
CAN	Clark, W. Edmund	President and CEO, TD Bank Group
GBR	Clarke, Kenneth	Member of Parliament
DNK	Corydon, Bjarne	Minister of Finance
GBR	Cowper-Coles, Sherard	Business Development Director, International, BAE Systems plc
ITA	Cucchiani, Enrico Tommaso	CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA
BEL	Davignon, Etienne	Minister of State; Former Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
GBR	Davis, Ian	Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company
NLD	Dijkgraaf, Robbert H.	Director and Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
TUR	Dinçer, Haluk	President, Retail and Insurance Group, Sabancı Holding A.S.
GBR	Dudley, Robert	Group Chief Executive, BP plc
USA	Eberstadt, Nicholas N.	Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute
NOR	Eide, Espen Barth	Minister of Foreign Affairs
SWE	Ekholm, Börje	President and CEO, Investor AB
DEU	Enders, Thomas	CEO, EADS
USA	Evans, J. Michael	Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co.
DNK	Federspiel, Ulrik	Executive Vice President, Haldor Topsøe A/S
USA	Feldstein, Martin S.	Professor of Economics, Harvard University; President Emeritus, NBER
FRA	Fillon, François	Former Prime Minister
USA	Fishman, Mark C.	President, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
GBR	Flint, Douglas J.	Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc
IRL	Gallagher, Paul	Senior Counsel
USA	Geithner, Timothy F.	Former Secretary of the Treasury
USA	Gfoeller, Michael	Political Consultant
USA	Graham, Donald E.	Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
DEU	Grillo, Ulrich	CEO, Grillo-Werke AG
ITA	Gruber, Lilli	Journalist – Anchorwoman, La 7 TV
ESP	Guindos, Luis de	Minister of Economy and Competitiveness
GBR	Gulliver, Stuart	Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc
CHE	Gutzwiller, Felix	Member of the Swiss Council of States
NLD	Halberstadt, Victor	Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary  General of Bilderberg Meetings
FIN	Heinonen, Olli	Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
GBR	Henry, Simon	CFO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
FRA	Hermelin, Paul	Chairman and CEO, Capgemini Group
ESP	Isla, Pablo	Chairman and CEO, Inditex Group
USA	Jacobs, Kenneth M.	Chairman and CEO, Lazard
USA	Johnson, James A.	Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners
CHE	Jordan, Thomas J.	Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank
USA	Jordan, Jr., Vernon E.	Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC
USA	Kaplan, Robert D.	Chief Geopolitical Analyst, Stratfor
USA	Karp, Alex	Founder and CEO, Palantir Technologies
GBR	Kerr, John	Independent Member, House of Lords
USA	Kissinger, Henry A.	Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
USA	Kleinfeld, Klaus	Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
NLD	Knot, Klaas H.W.	President, De Nederlandsche Bank
TUR	Koç, Mustafa V.	Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
DEU	Koch, Roland	CEO, Bilfinger SE
USA	Kravis, Henry R.	Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA	Kravis, Marie-Josée	Senior Fellow and Vice Chair, Hudson Institute
CHE	Kudelski, André	Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
GRC	Kyriacopoulos, Ulysses	Chairman, S&B Industrial Minerals S.A.
INT	Lagarde, Christine	Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
DEU	Lauk, Kurt J.	Chairman of the Economic Council to the CDU, Berlin
USA	Lessig, Lawrence	Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School; Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University
BEL	Leysen, Thomas	Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group
DEU	Lindner, Christian	Party Leader, Free Democratic Party (FDP NRW)
SWE	Löfven, Stefan	Party Leader, Social Democratic Party (SAP)
DEU	Löscher, Peter	President and CEO, Siemens AG
GBR	Mandelson, Peter	Chairman, Global Counsel; Chairman, Lazard International
USA	Mathews, Jessica T.	President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
CAN	McKenna, Frank	Chair, Brookfield Asset Management
GBR	Micklethwait, John	Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
FRA	Montbrial, Thierry de	President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA	Monti, Mario	Former Prime Minister
USA	Mundie, Craig J.	Senior Advisor to the CEO, Microsoft Corporation
ITA	Nagel, Alberto	CEO, Mediobanca
NLD	Netherlands, H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of The
USA	Ng, Andrew Y.	Co-Founder, Coursera
FIN	Ollila, Jorma	Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell, plc
GBR	Omand, David	Visiting Professor, King’s College London
GBR	Osborne, George	Chancellor of the Exchequer
USA	Ottolenghi, Emanuele	Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
TUR	Özel, Soli	Senior Lecturer, Kadir Has University; Columnist, Habertürk Newspaper
GRC	Papahelas, Alexis	Executive Editor, Kathimerini Newspaper
TUR	Pavey, Şafak	Member of Parliament (CHP)
FRA	Pécresse, Valérie	Member of Parliament (UMP)
USA	Perle, Richard N.	Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
USA	Petraeus, David H.	General, U.S. Army (Retired)
PRT	Portas, Paulo	Minister of State and Foreign Affairs
CAN	Prichard, J. Robert S.	Chair, Torys LLP
INT	Reding, Viviane	Vice President and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, European Commission
CAN	Reisman, Heather M.	CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
FRA	Rey, Hélène	Professor of Economics, London Business School
GBR	Robertson, Simon	Partner, Robertson Robey Associates LLP; Deputy Chairman, HSBC Holdings
ITA	Rocca, Gianfelice	Chairman,Techint Group
POL	Rostowski, Jacek	Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister
USA	Rubin, Robert E.	Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
NLD	Rutte, Mark	Prime Minister
AUT	Schieder, Andreas	State Secretary of Finance
USA	Schmidt, Eric E.	Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
AUT	Scholten, Rudolf	Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
PRT	Seguro, António José	Secretary General, Socialist Party
FRA	Senard, Jean-Dominique	CEO, Michelin Group
NOR	Skogen Lund, Kristin	Director General, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise
USA	Slaughter, Anne-Marie	Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
IRL	Sutherland, Peter D.	Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
GBR	Taylor, Martin	Former Chairman, Syngenta AG
INT	Thiam, Tidjane	Group CEO, Prudential plc
USA	Thiel, Peter A.	President, Thiel Capital
USA	Thompson, Craig B.	President and CEO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
DNK	Topsøe, Jakob Haldor	Partner, AMBROX Capital A/S
FIN	Urpilainen, Jutta	Minister of Finance
CHE	Vasella, Daniel L.	Honorary Chairman, Novartis AG
GBR	Voser, Peter R.	CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
CAN	Wall, Brad	Premier of Saskatchewan
SWE	Wallenberg, Jacob	Chairman, Investor AB
USA	Warsh, Kevin	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University
CAN	Weston, Galen G.	Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Limited
GBR	Williams of Crosby, Shirley	Member, House of Lords
GBR	Wolf, Martin H.	Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
USA	Wolfensohn, James D.	Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn and Company
GBR	Wright, David	Vice Chairman, Barclays plc
INT	Zoellick, Robert B.	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
AUT	Austria	INT      International
BEL	Belgium	IRL      Ireland
CAN	Canada	ITA      Italy
CHE	Switzerland	NLD    Netherlands
DEU	Germany	NOR   Norway
DNK	Denmark	POL    Poland
ESP	Spain	PRT    Portugal
FIN	Finland	SWE   Sweden
FRA	France	TUR    Turkey
GBR	Great Britain	USA    United States of America
GRC	Greece

Bilderberg Agenda

The 61st Bilderberg meeting is set to take place from 6 until 9 June 2013 in Hertfordshire, UK. A total of around 140 participants from 21 European and North American countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media have been invited. The list of participants is available on www.bilderbergmeetings.org

The key topics for discussion this year include:
• Can the US and Europe grow faster and create jobs?
• Jobs, entitlement and debt
• How big data is changing almost everything
• Nationalism and populism
• US foreign policy
• Africa’s challenges
• Cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats
• Major trends in medical research
• Online education: promise and impacts
• Politics of the European Union
• Developments in the Middle East
• Current affairs

Founded in 1954, Bilderberg is an annual conference designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America.

Every year, between 120-150 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media are invited to take part in the conference. About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and government and the rest from other fields.

The conference has always been a forum for informal, off-the-record discussions about megatrends and the major issues facing the world. Thanks to the private nature of the conference, the participants are not bound by the conventions of office or by pre-agreed positions. As such, they can take time to listen, reflect and gather insights.

There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.