Archive for March, 2009
EPA to monitor 62 schools’ air
EPA to monitor 62 schools’ air
The plan will cost about $2.25 million and includes taking samples outside schools in small towns such as Story City, Iowa, and Toledo, Ore., and in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. It comes in response to a USA TODAY investigation that used the government’s own data to identify schools that appear to be in toxic hot spots.
via EPA to monitor 62 schools’ air – USATODAY.com.
Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain
Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain
Growing up poor isn’t merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory.
The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life.
“Chronically elevated physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement,” wrote Cornell University child-development researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg in a paper published Monday in the: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For decades, education researchers have documented the disproportionately low academic performance of poor children and teenagers living in poverty. Called the achievement gap, its proposed sociological explanations are many. Compared to well-off kids, poor children tend to go to ill-equipped and ill-taught schools, have fewer educational resources at home, eat low-nutrition food, and have less access to health care.
via Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain | Wired Science from Wired.com.
Conservatives Falsely Assert That Green Economy Legislation Would Impose $3,100 Tax On Families
Conservatives Falsely Assert That Green Economy Legislation Would Impose $3,100 Tax On Families
Conservatives in Congress are resting their objections to effective green economy legislation on a bogus stat. Conservative leaders like Rep. John Boehner R-OH and Sen. Mitch McConnell R-KY are attacking the cap-and-trade proposal before Congress by claiming that it would “cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices.”
This is a deliberate lie.
Court to count up to 400 ballots in Senate recount trial
MO. Court FINALLY rules!
Court to count up to 400 ballots in Senate recount trial
The absentee ballots are far fewer than Norm Coleman sought and appear to include many that Al Franken had identified as wrongly rejected.
The ballots appear to include many that Franken had identified as wrongly rejected as well as ballots that Coleman wanted opened. About half come from Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis counties, places Franken won by significant margins.
Spokespersons for Coleman and Franken were not immediately available for comment.
The panel emphasized that some of the nearly 400 ballots might not be counted, but were included in the order because their eligibilty was unclear.
via Court to count up to 400 ballots in Senate recount trial.
Congressman Bob Inglis on the Nationwide Energy Town Hall
South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis welcomes participants of Focus the Nation’s 2009 Nationwide Energy Town Hall and discusses how to talk emission reductions with climate skeptics.
YouTube – Congressman Bob Inglis on the Nationwide Energy Town Hall.
Michael Moore Stalking Lawmakers On Capitol Hill
Michael Moore Stalking Lawmakers On Capitol Hill
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has spent the last two days on Capitol Hill buttonholing members of Congress and quizzing them on their banking-sector bailout votes.
“All the usual suspects have dodged us, but I’m moving a little faster these days so we were able to catch up with some of them,” said Moore in an interview with the Huffington Post.
Moore was spotted at a hearing of the Senate Financial Services Committee Tuesday morning, seated behind TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren — baseball cap and all.
He spent the rest of the afternoon wielding his camera in the Dirksen senate office building, looking for members to go on the record.
In the middle of an interview with Rep. Elijah Cummings (R-Md.) on Tuesday, a bird above Moore relieved itself on the filmmaker’s shoulder. He brushed it off his jacket with the help of an aide. “Congressman Boehner is up in the tree,” Moore speculated of the Republican minority leader from Ohio. (He wasn’t.)
via Michael Moore Stalking Lawmakers On Capitol Hill.
Big Brother wants to smell your fear
Big Brother wants to smell your fear
LAW enforcement agencies are seeking scientists to develop an artificial nose that can detect the smell of fear as terrorists pass through security at airports.
The US Department of Homeland Security is advertising for specialists to devise airport scanners that will sniff out “deceptive individuals”.
[...]
Homeland Security wants a device that automatically compares odours with scents collected from crime scenes and held in a “smell bank” which, like DNA or fingerprints, could be used in court.
Last week officials said they only wanted to explore the possibilities but scientists are already predicting that it is only a matter of time before police will be able to sniff out crime artificially.
One bright spot for scent libertarians: the Times says “Lopez’s Glow range and Chanel No 5″ mask natural smells and confuse detector dogs, so they’ll likely prove a large tripping point in the development of such a thing as an artificial nose.
It also says the nose could theoretically detect the smells of certain diseases or disorders, like cancer or depression.
via The Raw Story » Big Brother wants to smell your fear.
Sanford: It would be ‘fiscal child abuse’ to accept millions of stimulus dollars for education.
OPS: Another report from that Alternate Universe on the Right
Sanford: It would be ‘fiscal child abuse’ to accept millions of stimulus dollars for education.
As Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) continues to wage an ideological war against $700 million of sorely-needed stimulus funds for his state, he has become more and more desperate to stave off his critics. Tonight on Glenn Beck’s Fox show, Sanford claimed that accepting the funds — 80 percent of which would fund education in his state — would be akin to “fiscal child abuse”:
BECK: But your point, if I’m not mistaken is, no, no, no, you’re taking care of the children in South Carolina by not taking it. Can you explain that? […]
SANFORD: Since we don’t have any of this money that’s now being dispensed from Washington, DC; since we’re going out and printing money and we’re issuing debt to solve a problem that was created by too much debt; since that’s taking place, and since those costs will be borne by the next generation, in fact it is sort of fiscal child abuse to do what we’re doing.
BECK: Yes.
Watch it:
French workers detain four Caterpillar executives – Europe, World – The Independent
French workers detain four Caterpillar executives
Dozens of French workers facing the sack at a factory run by US company Caterpillar detained four managers today and demanded further talks on the announced layoffs, a union official said.
The world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment plans to slash jobs in various countries and the union official said 733 workers were set to go at the site in south eastern France out of a total of 2,700 staff.
The plant’s director, the head of human resources and two other managers had been locked in an office since this morning “in a good-natured atmosphere”, said Alain Massy, a representative of the moderate CFDT trade union.
Locking up managers is becoming a common practice in France when mass lay offs are announced, with police apparently reluctant to intervene to avoid violence.
Managers at plants run by Sony and 3M have been effectively been held hostage this month in disputes over planned redundancies. On both occasions, unions said they managed to wring concessions from the executives.
A senior police officer today negotiated a resumption of talks between unions and management at Caterpillar, but it was not immediately clear if the bosses were free to leave.
via French workers detain four Caterpillar executives – Europe, World – The Independent.
CEPR – Pay for Play? Tax Credits for Paid Time Off
Pay for Play? Tax Credits for Paid Time Off - by Dean Baker
Economists are increasingly coming to the recognition that the current downturn is likely to be longer and more severe than they had expected at the time the last stimulus package was approved in February. As a result, there is likely to be interest in additional stimulus in order to boost the economy and lower the unemployment rate.
This paper briefly outlines a method for Congress to quickly boost demand in the economy, while at the same time promoting important public ends: an employer tax credit for paid time off. This paid time off can take the form of paid family leave, paid sick days, paid vacation, or a shorter workweek. This tax credit can both provide short-term stimulus and also provide an incentive to restructure workplaces in ways that are more family friendly. It is possible that many workplaces may leave in place changes made to take advantage of this tax credit even after it has expired.
Report – PDF pdf | Flash flash document
via CEPR – Pay for Play? Tax Credits for Paid Time Off.
Chris Dodd: The Moment for Credit Card Reform
The Moment for Credit Card Reform - By Chris Dodd
We all know what an uphill battle reforming abusive credit card practices has been. As a twenty-five year veteran of that fight, I know it as well as anyone. But this morning, the Senate took a big step up that mountain.
Today, the Senate Banking Committee passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act – legislation I wrote to stop abusive and deceptive credit card practices once and for all. Indeed, 2009 may well prove a watershed moment for credit card reform.
For people like Samantha Moore, a paralegal from Guilford, Connecticut I met a few weeks ago, it couldn’t come a moment too soon. In January, she was three days late on a credit card payment – the first late payment in 18 years. For that seemingly minor transgression, she had her interest rate raised from 12% to 27% and her credit limit slashed from $31,400 to $4,500 – told that the reason for the severe penalty was that she hadn’t been paying enough to other creditors and that their high credit limit exceeded their income.
Samantha was a victim of “universal default” – where credit card companies use unrelated information, like a late utility bill, to increase that family’s rates.
via Chris Dodd: The Moment for Credit Card Reform.
Vitamin D From Sun Exposure Reduces Cancer Risk, Ecological Studies Find
Vitamin D From Sun Exposure Reduces Cancer Risk, Ecological Studies Find
Getting enough vitamin D can significantly reduce the risk of several different types of cancer, and ecological studies done over the past decade have confirmed that sun exposure is a critical source of this vitamin, according to a recent report in Annals of Epidemiology.
Researchers have been looking at the connection between vitamin D from sunlight and cancer risk since 1980, when researchers Cedric and Frank Garland looked at geographic maps of cancer deaths and found that mortality from colon cancer was highest in places where residents got the least amount of sun exposure (such as in high latitudes).
William B. Grant, PhD., Director of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) in San Francisco, California, has been one of the foremost researchers on vitamin D and cancer incidence since 2000. In a 2002 study, he identified 14 different types of cancers that were linked to insufficient UVB exposure, and estimated that between 17,000 and 23,000 people die prematurely each year in the U.S. due to a lack of vitamin D from the sun.
The strongest associations between vitamin D from the sun and cancer have been with colon and breast cancers, but links have also been found with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, ovarian cancer, and kidney cancer. Studies have also connected vitamin D to a reduced incidence of other diseases, such as colds and flu, coronary heart disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.
People can get vitamin D in two ways: from the diet (in foods such as salmon, milk, and eggs) and through sunlight exposure (the skin produces vitamin D when exposed to the sun’s UVB rays). Yet diet supplies only about 200 to 300 IU of vitamin D each day; a fraction of the recommended dose for cancer prevention, according to Dr. Grant. “The amount of vitamin D in diet is just not sufficient to have an impact, he says.
Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’
Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’
In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, “more people” were “coming forward” to talk to him now that “the president and vice president are no longer in power.” Hersh replied that though “a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, ‘call me next, next February,’ not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.
“Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”:
Filibusters skyrocket under Republican minority in 110th Congress.
Filibusters skyrocket under Republican minority in 110th Congress.
Yesterday, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) slammed the idea of passing health care reform and other Obama priorities through a simple majority of the Senate, a process called reconciliation. “Now, if they do that, that, in effect is the nuclear war,” Kyl said. The Republicans have become experts at using Senate filibusters — or often just the threat of filibusters — to block the Democratic agenda while in the minority. As this chart from Norm Ornstein shows, the use of filibusters have skyrocketed under Republicans:
via Think Progress » Filibusters skyrocket under Republican minority in 110th Congress..
A New Global Debt Crisis
40 Million Jobs at Risk
A New Global Debt Crisis – By NICHOLAS DEARDEN
Even ardent proponents of the free market find it hard to argue today that globalisation is improving the lives of the majority of the world. A system of inherent crises, which has fuelled historically unprecedented levels of inequality, has collapsed, leaving in its wake a nightmare for many developing countries who find the trade and investment that globalisation has made them dependent on, suddenly drying up. Across the world 40 million jobs are predicted to be lost in 2009.
Against this backdrop, world leaders who profess concern with the fate of the global poor should be asking themselves some soul-searching questions as to why they have stuck behind the dogmatism of free market fundamentalism for so long. Instead, some of the ideas for new funding put forward by Gordon Brown and others could, after an immediate injection of desperately needed cash, mean more of the same policies that have created the mess in the first place.
Reckless finance is nothing new. Throughout the 1970s banks and governments made enormous loans to developing world countries without much consideration as to who they were lending to or what they were lending for. Many countries have spent much of the subsequent 30 years weighed down by an unpayable debt which has allowed the rich world to force all manner of free market policies onto their economies.
via Nicholas Dearden: A New Global Debt Crisis.
Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor.
Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor.
In February, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) criticized the fact that the stimulus package provided funding for “volcano monitoring.” Ironically, last week, Mt. Redoubt in Alaska erupted, spewing gas 11 miles into the air and sending ash toward Anchorage. In an impassioned floor speech yesterday discussing the “importance of volcano monitoring,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — who introduced legislation funding volcano monitoring — took a minute to criticize Jindal’s ignorant remarks:
MURKOWSKI: I think we’re all aware that there has been some recent comments made about federal spending for volcano monitoring and the suggestion perhaps that this might be wasteful money — that we don’t have any need to be monitoring volcanoes. And I can assure you, Mr. President, that monitoring volcanoes is critically important to the nation, to the world, and particularly to Alaska right now where we are being held hostage by a volcano.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor..
VIDEO: Watch O’Reilly’s Harassment Machine in action.
VIDEO: Watch O’Reilly’s Harassment Machine in action.
Crooks and Liars’ John Amato has compiled a wonderful 87 second video that documents the methods and tactics of Bill O’Reilly’s Harassment Machine. The video shows O’Reilly producer Jesse Watters — the guy who accosted Amanda while she was on vacation — and other Fox henchmen stalking, ambushing, and harassing various victims. Watch it:
via Think Progress » VIDEO: Watch O’Reilly’s Harassment Machine in action..
Rasmussen Polls On Non-Existent ‘Global Currency’ Issue, Before Admitting It’s A Non-Existent Issue
OPS: Well, another Corporate Polling company to scratch off of your list
Rasmussen Polls On Non-Existent ‘Global Currency’ Issue, Before Admitting It’s A Non-Existent Issue
The right wing, led by the always reliable Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Glenn Beck, is in a panic about a supposed plot to replace the dollar with a “One World currency.” Repeating its pattern of echoing conservative memes, Rasmussen polled on the issue, and — unsurprisingly — found that most Americans favor keeping the dollar:
Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Americans say it is important for the dollar to remain the currency of the United States, including 70% who say it is Very Important.
Only three percent (3%) say it is not at all important if the dollar remains America’s currency, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
All four of Rasmussen’s questions asserted that a proposal exists to create a “new global currency” that will “replace the dollar,” asking how important it is “that the dollar remain the currency of the United States.” However, in its own write up of the poll, Rasmussen admits that “the issue” is not about replacing Americans’ dollar bills but rather with moving to a new standard for the global currency reserves:
Supreme Court rejects Philip Morris’ appeal of $79.5M award to Portland widow
Supreme Court rejects Philip Morris’ appeal of $79.5M award to Portland widow
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today threw out a cigarette maker’s appeal of a $79.5 million award to a Portland smoker’s widow, ending a 10-year legal fight to keep her from collecting.
In a one-sentence order, the court left in place a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court in favor of Mayola Williams of Northeast Portland. The state court has repeatedly upheld a verdict against Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA in a fraud trial in 1999.
The judgment has grown to more than $155 million with interest, and Williams stands to collect between $60 million and $65 million, before taxes and payments to her lawyers, said Robert Peck, her Washington-based lawyer.
The justices heard arguments in the case in December, but said today that they are not passing judgment on the legal issues that were presented. Instead, it is as if the court had declined to hear the case at all.
Philip Morris had argued that the award should be thrown out and a new trial ordered because of flaws in the instructions given jurors before their deliberations.
via Supreme Court rejects Philip Morris’ appeal of $79.5M award to Portland widow – OregonLive.com.
Cornyn: Minnesota Senate Seat Could Take “Years” To Resolve
OPS: Phucking Fascist Cowards. Proving again how much Republicans Hate the democratic process. It’s time to press the Felony investigations against Coleman and get him behind bars.
Cornyn: Minnesota Senate Seat Could Take “Years” To Resolve – By Eric Kleefeld
The Minnesota election dispute has now lasted for almost five months, with the seat vacant for the last three of them — but that might just be the beginning, with NRSC chairman John Cornyn telling the Politico that it could take “years” to resolve.
Cornyn, of course, is promising Republican resistance to any potential effort to seat Al Franken while Norm Coleman continues to challenge the result. And Cornyn is clear that this means Franken can’t be certified the winner if Coleman takes it to the federal courts, not just at the state level. But Cornyn seems to be going into new territory when he says it could take “years” to fix this thing.
TPM asked DSCC communications director Eric Schultz for comment. “Republicans have made it clear they will hold this Senate seat hostage in order to pursue their political agenda – at the hefty expense of Minnesota having full representation in Congress,” said Schultz. “We’re all awaiting the three-judge panel to return its verdict, and once they do, we will have yet another confirmation that Al Franken won the election – and hopefully he can get to Washington to do the job he was elected to do.”
via TPMDC | Talking Points Memo | Cornyn: Minnesota Senate Seat Could Take “Years” To Resolve.
3 Keys To Higher Love And Restoring Happiness
3 Keys To Higher Love And Restoring Happiness
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.” – Oscar Wilde
Last weekend, talking with the pilot of a private jet, I learned that he flies at 45,000 to 50,000 feet, higher than commercial aircraft which fly at around 38,000 feet. Apparently at the higher altitude there is less air. He can fly faster and more economically on fuel. The closer to ground you get, the more air and the “stickier” it is.
When we get high enough above any situation, with altitude we can shift our attitude and perceive the larger picture, a greater truth, than we can at ground floor level. At altitude, we touch into more of our joy and freedom. From there we can direct our lives into greater fulfillment even, and perhaps especially, during these difficult times.
via Anne Naylor: 3 Keys To Higher Love And Restoring Happiness.
10 Things You Should Know About Alzheimer’s Disease
10 Things You Should Know About Alzheimer’s Disease – By Sarah Baldauf
Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias do a number on the mind and body of the individual with the disease and can also take a major toll on the health and finances of the individual’s family. The Alzheimer’s Association’s latest annual report, “2009 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures,” documents the multilevel impact of the disease that 5.3 million Americans are living with today, which translates into a new case of Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds. And as the oldest baby boomers are due to reach age 65 over the next two years, that rate will balloon by midcentury, so that someone will develop Alzheimer’s disease every 33 seconds. As the burden of Alzheimer’s disease grows, states’ healthcare infrastructure will be strained; some states will see more than an 80 percent increase in residents with Alzheimer’s by 2025. U.S. New s caught up with Angela Geiger, chief strategy officer at the Alzheimer’s Association, to discuss some of the finer points of the new report.
via 10 Things You Should Know About Alzheimer’s Disease – US News and World Report.
A Child’s Sweet Tooth May Be All in the Bones
A Child’s Sweet Tooth May Be All in the Bones
By Jennifer Thomas
WEDNESDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) — Ever wonder why your children will eat only a few bites of dinner but have no problem scarfing down a big bowl of ice cream?
Blame it on their growing bones.
New research suggests that children who are growing rapidly have a higher preference for sweets than children growing at a slower rate.
Researchers gave 143 children ages 11 to 15 sugar-water and orange Kool-Aid with increasing levels of sweetness. Then they classified the children into two groups: high preference or low preference for sweetness.
They found that children who had the highest levels of a biomarker for bone growth (type I collagen cross-linked N-telopeptides) in their urine were most likely to be in the group that liked the sweetest drinks.
“It’s been known for a long time that children have an incredible sweet tooth — ‘Give me Cocoa Puffs and add more sugar,’ ” said Susan Coldwell, an associate professor of dental public health sciences at the University of Washington and lead author of the new study. “They are using a lot of calories during growth, and the body is responding to that by an increased sweet preference.”
via A Child’s Sweet Tooth May Be All in the Bones.
Protecting Against the Rampant Conficker Worm
Protecting Against the Rampant Conficker Worm – Erik Larkin, PC World
Businesses worldwide are under attack from a highly infectious computer worm that has infected almost 9 million PCs, according to antivirus company F-Secure.
That number has more than tripled over the last four days alone, says F-Secure, leaping from 2.4 million to 8.9 million infected PCs. Once a machine is infected, the worm can download and install additional malware from attacker-controlled Web sites, according to the company. Since that could mean anything from a password stealer to remote control software, a Conflicker-infected PC is essentially under the complete control of the attackers.
via Protecting Against the Rampant Conficker Worm – PC World.
How Old Are You Really? Can You Pick Up a Pencil?
How Old Are You Really? Can You Pick Up a Pencil?
Considerable attention has fallen lately on RealAge, a wildly popular online questionnaire that claims to calculate your body’s true age by factoring in your diet, medical history, exercise habits and less obvious indicators of longevity like how many close friends you have. Critics complain that the test is used by pharmaceutical companies to identify potential customers and bombard them with e-mailed ads.
No one, though, has warned about the danger inherent in the questionnaire itself: the mere act of slogging through its more than 85 questions could subtract years from your life. And the test gives short shrift to the adage “You’re as young as you feel” — few questions address what might be thought of as one’s mental age. Below, a more focused quiz that should save you precious hours:
via How Old Are You Really? Can You Pick Up a Pencil? – NYTimes.com.
Getting To The Core Of What You Want
Getting To The Core Of What You Want
Dear Christine,
I recently read your book and did the exercise, “Getting to the Core of What You Want” and I discovered that the only thing I really want is to be happy, self confident and surrounded by people I love. My question is, what about all the dreams I have about tangible things like my career, travel, marriage and so on? Do we have to give that up and only focus on what really matters at the end? Or are we supposed to try to get it but not be affected if we can’t make it? I have to say I feel naked without all those goals I had in mind. I’m lost, what am I supposed to do now?
Getting to the Core, 22, France
Dear Getting to the Core,
You have presented a conflict many individuals on a personal growth path encounter. I acknowledge you for realizing at a young age that at the core of what we all really want is to feel joy, inner peace and love. And achieving those things is an inside job – nothing external can fulfill our internal requirements.
But we can still have dreams and goals! Holding a vision for what we’d like to create in life is not a problem, becoming attached to the outcome we think goals will provide is what gets us off course. If we chase goals with expectations, we will consistently be running through life looking for something or someone outside of ourselves to fulfill some need or desire.
via Christine Hassler: Getting To The Core Of What You Want.
Our Education System Needs Transcendence, Not Fixing
Our Education System Needs Transcendence, Not Fixing
Over the past two weeks I learned that three teens in three different leading independent schools on the East Coast took their own lives. Two of them committed suicide on campus. While we can never fully know the reasons young people make such tragic choices, the evidence is clear that an education system that does not put young people first plays a major role, and the broken system is not confined to our public schools or the underprivileged. For even the most successful teens, high school has become an anxiety-producing machine–and we don’t seem able to reprogram it.
With the U.S. House of Representatives’ stimulus package committing more than $100 billion for education programs in the K-12 environment, it is clear that education is crucial to business. Maybe it’s time to think of it as one and focus our attention on the consumers of that business: the students.
via Jenifer Fox: Our Education System Needs Transcendence, Not Fixing.
Sanders Makes Gregg Eat His Socialist Europe Meme
Sanders Makes Gregg Eat His Socialist Europe Meme (now w/ vid link)
by Dean Barker
This is classic, and a welcome antidote to the Judd Gregg anti-Obama Budget 24/7 media show:
Gregg introduced an amendment (defeated) that would have required 60 Senate votes for budget resolutions that don’t meet the European Union standard of limiting debt to 30 percent of GDP.
“We’re in such a bad situation in this nation right now… that [the Europeans] actually look good,” Gregg said.
- Dean Barker’s diary :: ::
[Bernie] Sanders pounced.
“I’m glad to hear that my neighbor from New Hampshire is suddenly interested in Europe,” he said. “And maybe we can take a hard look at the fact that virtually every European country has a national health-care program guaranteeing health care to all of their people, spending substantially less per capita than we do in this country — maybe we can add that. And maybe we can look at the fact that while we have 18 percent of our kids living in poverty, our European friends in some cases have 3 or 4 percent of their children living in poverty. And maybe while our families have to spend $40,000 a year to send our kids to college, they do it virtually free. So I like the idea of opening up the discussion about the pros and cons of Europe, but it is broader than my friend from New Hampshire is talking about.”
This is exactly what I meant when I lamented that we need to return fire with fire on Judd Gregg’s attempt to kill the health care, climate change, and education budget priorities we voted into office. Too bad it happened on C-Span and during one of Gregg’s interminable death by amendment sideshows and not on, say, Tweety’s show. Because we all know that the Villagers enjoy reporting on their own worlds more than the actual machinery of government.
Crossposted, with title change and some modifications for a nat’l audience, from Blue Hampshire.
P.S. My (dirty hippie European socialist) kingdom for a video of this exchange.
via Daily Kos: Sanders Makes Gregg Eat His Socialist Europe Meme (now w/ vid link).
11 Baffling Medical Conditions
11 Baffling Medical Conditions
Some Conditions Remain Clouded in Mystery Despite Researchers’ Efforts
They are conditions that one would be hard-pressed to find in medical literature.
Bring them up in front of a physician and in some cases you may get little more than a blank stare.
But they exist, often as an extreme form of a normal bodily function that most people experience every day.
via 11 Baffling Medical Conditions – ABC News.
DSCC: Republicans Pulled A “Hit And Run With Our Economy”
OPS: it was premeditated, making it more of a Drive-by
DSCC: Republicans Pulled A “Hit And Run With Our Economy”
Touching all the spots still sensitive from the Bush years, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a new online effort on Tuesday pinning the economic malaise squarely on the shoulders of the Republican Party.
Titled “They Broke It And Won’t Fix It,” the campaign is a clear reminder that the Democratic Party still sees political capital to gain from the previous administration. The accompanying video accuses Republicans of pulling a “hit and run with our economy” by following the policies of the George W. Bush.
“Republicans have done a hit and run with our economy,” reads the script. “For eight years Republicans backed President Bush’s policies that let businesses go unregulated, rewarded runaway speculation and favored the wealthy. They broke our economy and now they don’t want to fix it.”
via DSCC: Republicans Pulled A “Hit And Run With Our Economy”.
Netanyahu To Obama: Stop Iran, Or I Will
Netanyahu To Obama: Stop Iran, Or I Will
In an exclusive interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg Tuesday, just before he was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu issued a bold statement: if Obama does not stop Iran’s nuclear program, Israel most certainly will. The assertion seems to confirm Netanyahu’s own hawkishness, as well as the fears of US Middle East policymakers who support a more delicate approach to the region. From the interview:
In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons–and quickly–or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.
via Netanyahu To Obama: Stop Iran, Or I Will.
TARP Watchdog: “We Do Not Seem To Be A Priority For The Treasury Department”
TARP Watchdog: “We Do Not Seem To Be A Priority For The Treasury Department”
Elizabeth Warren, in charge of oversight of the financial industry bailout, told a congressional panel Tuesday that the Treasury Department has not been cooperating with her efforts to oversee the project.
“We do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department,” said Warren.
She added that the administration’s failure to ask for more accountability has led to a situation that is difficult to oversee. “This problem starts with Treasury,” she said.
Warren is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. We’ll update with video when it’s available.
via TARP Watchdog: “We Do Not Seem To Be A Priority For The Treasury Department”.
Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor.
Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor.
In February, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) criticized the fact that the stimulus package provided funding for “volcano monitoring.” Ironically, last week, Mt. Redoubt in Alaska erupted, spewing gas 11 miles into the air and sending ash toward Anchorage. In an impassioned floor speech yesterday discussing the “importance of volcano monitoring,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — who introduced legislation funding volcano monitoring — took a minute to criticize Jindal’s ignorant remarks:
via Think Progress » Murkowski rips Jindal’s ‘volcano monitoring’ comments on Senate floor..
“Accessory After The Fact” Defined
OPS: Something Obama needs to think about
ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT – Whoever, knowing that an offense has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact; one who knowing a felony to have been committed by another, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon in order to hinder the felon’s apprehension, trial, or punishment. U.S.C. 18
via “Accessory After The Fact” Defined.
Myths of the Robber Class?
Myths of the Robber Class? by David Swanson
“Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution.”
That’s the title of a booklet Cindy Sheehan is selling online. I know we have CNBC to set us straight on such things, but I thought I’d check out Cindy’s take. Her full-length books have been terrific, and I’ve published 1,631 shorter articles by or about her, because Cindy is not just a grieving mother. She’s a grieving mother who feels betrayed, is mad as hell, is uncorrupted by money, power, or party, would rather die than censor her statements, and gets straight to the heart of a question faster than anyone else I know.
Medea Benjamin recently wrote that Congress needs to see the people’s rage. A Congress member could get a fine understanding of the rage sweeping this nation by reading a few pages of Cindy Sheehan. Cindy advocates nonviolent and thoughtful solutions, but her writing is almost pure rage and fury the like of which hell hath not.
“We in the US of A,” Sheehan writes, “have less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we wastefully consume from 25-40 percent of the world’s resources, but we don’t have to apologize for being gluttonous pigs who murder innocent people for these resources.”
“Both political parties of the Robber Class,” Sheehan argues, “like to say that we have to fund the wars to ‘Support the Troops,’ and a very tragic amount of people in the Robbed Classes buy into that nonsensical rhetoric and even the so-called Peace Movement allows itself to be co-opted by ‘Supporting the troops, but not the war.’ The false urban myth of the hippie girl spitting on returning soldiers from Vietnam and calling them ‘baby killers’ was designed by the Robber Class so we would never question the war crimes committed by our troops which is unfortunately inherent to war and unavoidable during times of war.”
via OpEdNews » Myths of the Robber Class?.
Ohio man charged with drunken driving on bar stool
Ohio man charged with drunken driving on bar stool
NEWARK, Ohio — Authorities say a man has been charged with drunken driving after crashing his motorized bar stool.
Police in Newark, 30 miles east of Columbus, say when they responded to a report of a crash with injuries on March 4, they found a man who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower.
Twenty-eight-year Kile Wygle was hospitalized for minor injuries. Police say he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after he told an officer at the hospital that he had consumed 15 beers. Wygle told police his motorized bar stool can go up to 38 mph.
Wygle has pleaded not guilty and has requested a jury trial.
Pope orders probe into conservative order: report
Pope orders probe into conservative order: report
Pope Benedict XVI has ordered a probe into the ultra-conservative Legionaries of Christ, after allegations about the private life of the order’s late founder Marcial Maciel, the Zenit agency reported.
A team of bishops and priests will carry out the inquiry into the movement, after reports that Maciel, who died in January 2008 aged 87, had fathered a daughter, the agency reported.
A message published on the order’s website said that Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone had announced the “apostolic visit” to the leadership.
“This is the beginning of a process in which the Legion will fully and gratefully cooperate,” said the message to its followers.
Maciel was considered close to the two previous popes, especially John Paul II, who died in 2005.
But his successor Benedict asked him to retire in 2006 following an investigation into accusations by members of the group of sexual abuse of minors.
via The Raw Story | Pope orders probe into conservative order: report.
Goldfarb: ‘PNAC=Mission Accomplished; New mission begins’ with Foreign Policy Initiative.
Goldfarb: ‘PNAC=Mission Accomplished; New mission begins’ with Foreign Policy Initiative.
Last November, Weekly Standard super hawk Bill Kristol hinted that he would be starting up a new “think-tank” modeled after the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC). PNAC provided much of the ideological framework for the invasion of Iraq and many of its members and sympathizers lobbied heavily for it. Today, Kristol is officially launching PNAC 2.0 — or as it is now called, “The Foreign Policy Initiative” (started with fellow neocons Robert Kagan and Dan Senor) with an event in Washington D.C. on the future of the Afghanistan war. The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss recently observed of FPI:
Sanford’s ‘Compromise’ Offer To State Legislature: Adopt My Neo-Hooverite Approach
Sanford’s ‘Compromise’ Offer To State Legislature: Adopt My Neo-Hooverite Approach
As his state plummets into nearly unmatched unemployment and enormous budget shortfalls, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has been waging an ideological, politically-motivated war to prevent needed stimulus funds from reaching South Carolinians. He has already twice proposed spending some $700 million in stimulus cash to pay down the state debt — and has twice been rebuffed by the White House.
Five days before the deadline for accepting the stimulus funds, and as criticism of him escalates, Sanford gave a speech yesterday outlining a new “compromise” proposal: He’ll accept the $700 million but demand that the state legislature find other state funds to pay off the debt. In other words, You accept my neo-Hooverite approach of cutting spending in a deep recession:
via Think Progress » Sanford’s ‘Compromise’ Offer To State Legislature: Adopt My Neo-Hooverite Approach.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai signs a law that ‘legalizes’ rape.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai signs a law that ‘legalizes’ rape.
Today, the UK Independent reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has signed the new Shia Family Law, which women’s groups believe will essentially legalize rape. Specifically, the measure “negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home.” Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation, called it “one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century.” More details:
via Think Progress » Afghan President Hamid Karzai signs a law that ‘legalizes’ rape..
Feith Responds To Spanish Charges: ‘I Never Advocated’ For Torture, I Was Just ‘Giving Advice’
OPS: Nothing like a distinction without a difference to make a Criminal feel better
Feith Responds To Spanish Charges: ‘I Never Advocated’ For Torture, I Was Just ‘Giving Advice’
Last week, a Spanish court said it would consider opening a criminal case against six Bush administration officials “over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo.” Yesterday, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, one of the officials implicated in the complaint, went on Fox News to defend himself in front of torture advocate Bill O’Reilly.
Feith argued that the charges that he helped approve torture are completely bogus. “I’m being criticized for a position that I never advocated. And so the facts are just wrong,” he said. Feith said he was simply giving “advice” to President Bush and had no role in “directing” torture policy:
Sanders Puts Single-Payer On the Agenda
Sanders Puts Single-Payer On the Agenda
While the one reform that could cure what ails America’s health care system has attracted plenty of adherents in the House — 72 members have signed on as backers of House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers’ single-payer proposal and others back a plan introduced by Washington Democrat Jim McDermott’s legislation — there has not been a Senate proposal to rally around.
Until now.
That’s what makes Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ proposed “American Health Security Act of 2009″ such an important piece of legislation. In addition to being the first single-payer bill introduced in the Senate since the mid-1990s — when the late Paul Wellstone, D-Minnesota, sponsored a bill similar to the plan now being advanced by Sanders — it raises the profile of the doctors, nurses, patients and other campaigners who are trying to tell the Obama administration and its congressional allies that the legislative compromises they entertain are doomed to fail.
Under the American Health Security Act of 2009:
· Patients could seek care from the doctor or hospital of their choice.
via Sanders Puts Single-Payer On the Agenda.
Rapid Declines in Manufacturing Spread Global Anxiety
Rapid Declines in Manufacturing Spread Global Anxiety
Since it was founded by his great-grandfather in 1880, Carl Martin Welcker’s company in Cologne, Germany, has mirrored the fortunes of manufacturing, not just in Europe but around the world.
That is still true today. In a pattern familiar to industrial businesses in Europe, Asia and the United States, Mr. Welcker says his company, Schütte, which makes the machines that churn out 80 percent of the world’s spark plugs, is facing “a tragedy.”
Orders are down 50 percent from a year ago, and Mr. Welcker is cutting costs and contemplating layoffs to prevent Schütte from falling into the red.
That manufacturing is in decline is hardly surprising, but the depth and speed of the plunge are striking and, most worrisome for economists, a self-reinforcing trend not unlike the cascading bust that led to the Great Depression.
In Europe, for example, where manufacturing accounts for nearly a fifth of gross domestic product, industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil, it has fallen 15 percent; in Taiwan, a staggering 43 percent.
via Rapid Declines in Manufacturing Spread Global Anxiety – NYTimes.com.
Teachers Fired To Pay For Huge Corporate Tax Cut — Why?
Teachers Fired To Pay For Huge Corporate Tax Cut — Why?
By Dave Johnson
I’ve been asking around and it seems that most Californians don’t know that the budget deal that fires so many teachers also has a huge tax cut just for big, multi-state and multi-national corporations.
But it’s true. Last month’s budget deal that fires teachers, cuts essential government services, and guts the investments that bring future economic benefits also has a huge tax cut for the largest of corporations. While this part of the deal has been kept pretty quiet, the LA Times had a story, Business the big winner in California budget plan. From the story,
The average Californian’s taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state’s giant deficit isn’t so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall.
About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks — directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies — is tucked into the proposal.
But wait, won’t a big corporate tax cut cause companies to come to California, creating jobs? No, they are already here and it will drive them away, because it is paid for by firing teachers.
via Teachers Fired To Pay For Huge Corporate Tax Cut — Why? – Speak Out California Weblog.
In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony (Hardcover) — Reviewed Exclusively for BuzzFlash by Thom Hartmann
In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony (Hardcover) — Reviewed Exclusively for BuzzFlash by Thom Hartmann
What if the Japanese never really did “surrender” to us, inasmuch as we think they “adopted” our culture and values after World War II, but instead have been playing us for suckers, angry about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ever since? What if they’re collaborating with the Chinese in creating an Asian sphere of influence – decidedly un-democratic – to rule the world over the next century?
What if the Chinese have perfected a neo-Confucian system (with surprising resemblance to Machiavelli’s “The Prince”) that melds an oppressive and fascistic state with laissez faire capitalism, creating greater strength for both than has ever been seen before on Earth? And they are using this to both co-op and change our values, to take over our corporate and economic system, and to ultimately gain control of our political system? What if they were already well over halfway to that goal?
It all sounds a bit far-fetched to somebody raised on a steady diet of American corporate news. But the corporate news in this country is coming from the very corporations that are profiting from and empowering the Communist Chinese new Reich. We’ve been intentionally deceived, by “useful idiots” like Tom Friedman and openly staged news events like those surrounding the Yasukuni shrine “controversy” or the Sino-Japanese “war” over the Senkaku islands.
“In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony” is one of the most powerful, shocking, well-written, solidly documented, tear-the-scales-from-your-eyes books I’ve read in more than two decades. If you have any concern whatsoever about the future of American democracy, about peace in the world, about your own personal economic and political future, you must read this book.
Web of Debt
CAPTURED BY THE DEBT SPIDER
By Ellen Brown
President Andrew Jackson called the banking cartel a “hydra-headed monster eating the flesh of the common man.” New York Mayor John Hylan, writing in the 1920s, called it a “giant octopus” that “seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection.” The debt spider has devoured farms, homes and whole countries that have become trapped in its web. In a February 2005 article called “The Death of Banking,” financial commentator Hans Schicht wrote:
The fact that the Banker is allowed to extend credit several times his own capital base and that the Banking Cartels, the Central Banks, are licensed to issue fresh paper money in exchange for treasury paper, [has] provided them with free lunch for eternity. . . . Through a network of anonymous financial spider webbing only a handful of global King Bankers own and control it all. . . . Everybody, people, enterprise, State and foreign countries, all have become slaves chained to the Banker’s credit ropes.1
Schicht writes that he had an opportunity in his career to observe the wizards of finance as an insider at close range. The game has gotten so centralized and concentrated, he says, that the greater part of U.S. banking and enterprise is now under the control of a small inner circle of men. He calls the game “spider webbing.” Its rules include:
* Making any concentration of wealth invisible.
* Exercising control through “leverage” – mergers, takeovers, chain share holdings where one company holds shares of other companies, conditions annexed to loans, and so forth.
* Exercising tight personal management and control, with a minimum of insiders and front-men who themselves have only partial knowledge of the game.
The late Dr. Carroll Quigley was a writer and professor of history at Georgetown University, where he was President Bill Clinton’s mentor. Dr. Quigley wrote from personal knowledge of an elite clique of global financiers bent on controlling the world. Their aim, he said, was “nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” This system was “to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements.”2 He called this clique simply the “international bankers.” Their essence was not race, religion or nationality but was just a passion for control over other humans. The key to their success was that they would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government.
The international bankers have succeeded in doing more than just controlling the money supply. Today they actually create the money supply, while making it appear to be created by the government. This devious scheme was revealed by Sir Josiah Stamp, director of the Bank of England and the second richest man in Britain in the 1920s. Speaking at the University of Texas in 1927, he dropped this bombshell:
via Web of Debt – Introduction.
Mom pleads guilty in cult starvation death of son, but stipulates she’ll pull plea if he’s resurrected
Mom pleads guilty in cult starvation death of son, but stipulates she’ll pull plea if he’s resurrected
BALTIMORE — A former religious cult member pleaded guilty Monday to starving her 1-year-old son to death after making an unusual deal with prosecutors: If the child is resurrected, her plea will be withdrawn.
Ria Ramkissoon, 22, also agreed to testify against four other members of the now-defunct religious group known as 1 Mind Ministries. All four are charged with first-degree murder in the death of Javon Thompson.
According to a statement of facts, the cult members stopped feeding the boy when he refused to say “Amen” after a meal. After Javon died, Ramkissoon sat next to his decomposing body and prayed for his resurrection.
Union plumbers heckle and jeer ‘Joe the Plumber’ at rally
Union plumbers heckle and jeer ‘Joe the Plumber’ at rally
Despite the praise heaped on Joe Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” by conservatives as an exemplary blue-collar working man, many in the plumbing industry are none too pleased — and they’re letting it be known.
Wurzelbacher, a Toledo man first made famous by Sen. John McCain during the final presidential debate in 2008, appeared in Pittsburgh Monday night to rally opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. The act is ardently opposed by the business lobby because it would make it easier for workers to unionize.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s James O’Toole on Monday covered a preemptive rebuttal to Wurzelbacher’s remarks by union officials at the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plumbers Local 27.
via The Raw Story | Union plumbers heckle and jeer ‘Joe the Plumber’ at rally.
Big Coal Defeat! Rednecks and Greens Announce Victory at Blair Mountain
Big Coal Defeat! Rednecks and Greens Announce Victory at Blair Mountain – by Jeff Biggers
After 500 mountains in Appalachia have been blown to bits by mountaintop removal, one peak was most likely saved today: Blair Mountain in West Virginia, the site of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War, was officially approved by the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places to be placed on the National Register.
This is a huge victory, as the tide continues to turn in the movement to stop mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
Some consider it the Bunker Hill of the labor movement. But the great battle in 1921, when thousands of union coal miners and World War I veterans donned their uniforms and took up arms to liberate and unionize the last coal camps in southwestern West Virginia held hostage to ruthless outside coal companies, has emerged as one of the great symbols of Appalachia’s fate today. Over the past several years, the Friends of Blair Mountain–an organization of community and labor activists, historians and environmentalists–have led an even more epic battle to save the sacred mountain site from a plan by coal companies to strip mine and destroy Blair Mountain through mountaintop removal operations.
The mountaintop removal war might soon be over. The Rednecks won. According to the National Registry Federal Program regulations:
“If a property contains surface coal resources and is listed in the National Register, certain provisions of the Surface Mining and Control Act of 1977 require consideration of a property’s historic values in the determination on issuance of a surface coal mining permit.”
via Big Coal Defeat! Rednecks and Greens Announce Victory at Blair Mountain | CommonDreams.org.
Ford Temporarily Shuts Down Torrence Avenue Plant
Ford Temporarily Shuts Down Chicago Plant
Plant Will Sit Idle For Next 3 Weeks
Ford has temporarily shut down its plant at 126th Street and Torrence Avenue on the city’s Far South Side. The Torrence Avenue plant and numerous other Ford plants will sit idle for the next three weeks, as demand for cars and sport-utility vehicles continue to lag. Production is exceeding projected vehicle sales by about $1 million vehicles.
CBS 2′s Jim Williams reports that the temporary layoffs are bad enough, but longtime workers are really nervous about what’s down the road.
David Schoenecker is one of those longtime Ford workers. He’s been at the Chicago Ford plant for more than 30 years. He’s now one of the employees out of work for the next three weeks.
via Ford Temporarily Shuts Down Torrence Avenue Plant – cbs2chicago.com.
Dealer’s Fortunes Rise and Fall With Hummer’s
Hummer’s Decline Puts Dealers at Risk
CHESTERFIELD, Mo. — In 2005, Jim Lynch placed a big bet on a big vehicle.
He was already a successful Hummer dealer, but he spent $7.5 million on a new 34,000-square-foot showroom in a wealthy suburb of St. Louis. He even turned 60 acres of Missouri River flood plain into a rough-terrain test track, with visions of people coming from afar to try, and buy, his brawny sport utility vehicles.
General Motors cheered him on, he says, telling him he could eventually sell as many as 1,300 Hummers a year — which start at more than $30,000 and can cost more than $100,000, not to mention the thousands that many owners spend on accessories — more than enough to cover his monthly mortgage payment of $60,000. He sold 70 new Hummers a month when he opened the store, but now sees only a handful of customers each month. “That doesn’t even pay the interest on my inventory,” Mr. Lynch said. “Now I’m lying awake at night trying to think of what I can do with this big, beautiful building.”
via Dealer’s Fortunes Rise and Fall With Hummer’s – NYTimes.com.
Financial Rescue Approaches GDP as U.S. Pledges $12.8 Trillion
We’ve spent our GDP
Financial Rescue Approaches GDP as U.S. Pledges $12.8 Trillion -By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
March 31 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.
President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with the chief executives of the nation’s 12 biggest banks on March 27 at the White House to enlist their support to thaw a 20-month freeze in bank lending.
“The president and Treasury Secretary Geithner have said they will do what it takes,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said after the meeting. “If it is enough, that will be great. If it is not enough, they will have to do more.”
via Financial Rescue Approaches GDP as U.S. Pledges $12.8 Trillion – Bloomberg.com.
The Extinction of Animal and Plant Species
The Extinction of Animal and Plant Species
The Planet’s First-ever Mass-Extinction Precipitated by a Biotic Agent: Humans
Amphibians_2 Should we be alarmed at the current massive die-offs being noted in the animal and plant kingdoms? After all, new species arise and old species die off all the time. Its just nature taking its course, right? Not necessarily. The Earth is now entering the sixth mass extinction event in its four-billion-year history, but what’s different about this die-off is that this is the only such event precipitated by a biotic agent: humans.
The extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species. From a purely selfish perspective, humans should be very concerned. Since we haven’t terraformed Mars yet, we still need a livable ecosystem on this planet in order to survive. As mass extinction occurs, experts say that we end up dealing with serious consequences. Recently, a team of scientists have discovered new information, that indicates things are worse than we previously thought.
“There’s no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now,” said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. “Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn’t. The fact that they’re cutting out now should be a lesson for us.”
A recent study supported by The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, found that nearly all of the amphibian species that inhabit the peaks of the Sierra Nevada are threatened. Wake and Vance Vredenburg, research associate at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley and assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University discovered that for two of these species, the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog and the Southern Yellow-legged Frog, populations over the last few years declined by 95 to 98 percent, even in highly protected areas such as Yosemite National Park. This means that each local frog population has dwindled to 2 to 5 percent of its former size! Originally, frogs living atop the highest, most remote peaks seemed to thrive, but recently, they are also dying off.
via The Extinction of Animal and Plant Species.
France is threatening G20 walkout
France is threatening G20 walkout
France will walk away from this week’s G20 summit if its demands for stricter financial regulation are not met, the finance minister has told the BBC.
Christine Lagarde told Hardtalk that President Nicolas Sarkozy would not sign any agreement if he felt “the deliverables are not there”.
Strengthening financial regulation will be one of the key issues at the G20.
France wants a stronger global financial regulator than the US and the UK would like.
If France were to leave the summit, it would be a blow to both UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama.
Both men have spoken of their high hopes for the meeting to stimulate international recovery…..more
via BBC NEWS | Business | France is threatening G20 walkout.
Anti-abortion groups lobby against Sebelius
Anti-abortion groups lobby against Sebelius
A coalition of anti-abortion groups hit hard against Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) Monday, sending a letter to every senator expressing their strong opposition to her nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Sebelius is set to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and Finance committees this week in advance of a possible Senate vote on her confirmation before Congress recesses on Friday.
On the way there, however, she is taking flak from the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family and other anti-abortion activists for her stances on abortion-related issues.
“On behalf of the millions of families represented by our organizations, the undersigned groups would like to express our opposition to the nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to become Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS),” the letter says.
via TheHill.com – Anti-abortion groups lobby against Sebelius.
Japan outlines new stimulus move
Japan outlines new stimulus move
Taro Aso on Tuesday instructed his ministers to compile a new economic stimulus package “as soon as possible before mid-April” in addition to a longer-term programme for growth.
“The Japanese economy is still in a critical situation,” Mr Aso said.
“I would like to make utmost efforts (to stimulate the economy) based on bold thinking,” he said.
The new stimulus package, which came just ahead of Mr Aso’s departure to join world leaders at the G20 summit in London on Wednesday, will have three main priorities: to ensure that the Japanese economy does not deteriorate further, to maintain jobs and boost Japan’s future growth potential, Mr Aso said.
via FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Japan outlines new stimulus move.
USDA predicts fall in crop sowings
OPS: and these insane Conservatives in Congress (including Blue Dog Dems) want to kill Organic Farming with HR 875
USDA predicts fall in crop sowings
High cost of fertiliser hits plantings
US farmers will sow fewer acres this spring with major crops, breaking a string of four years of cropland increases as the price of agricultural commodities fell from last year’s peaks, the US government said on Tuesday.
In its closely watched “prospective planting” report, the US department of agriculture said the country’s farmers will sow this year about 246m acres, down 2.8 per cent from last year’s 253m acres and the first acreage drop since 2005.
Among the key crops, corn, cotton and wheat suffered a drop in cropland, while soyabean increased slightly. US farmers are planting less because reduced profitability from lower prices and high cost for fertilisers, the USDA said.
Because the US exports half the world’s corn, one-third of its soyabeans and one-fifth of its wheat, changes in acreage – and hence output – have a significant impact in global food prices.
Hussein Allidina, head of commodities research at Morgan Stanley in New York, said that overall the report was “bullish owing to the decline in total acreage”.
“However, on a relative basis it is bearish for corn, as the market is getting more acreage than expected in spite of the drop, and bullish for soyabean, as the acreage increase is less than expected,” Mr Allidina said.
via FT.com / MARKETS / Commodities – USDA predicts fall in crop sowings.
Iran offers to help US rebuild Afghanistan
Iran offers to help US rebuild Afghanistan
Iranian delegate at Hague conference in major conciliatory move towards Obama administration
Iran made a significant conciliatory gesture towards the Obama administration today, offering to help US-led efforts to stabilise and rebuild Afghanistan.
At an international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague, in the Netherlands, the Iranian delegate, Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh, responded positively to Barack Obama‘s new strategy for winning the war against the Taliban.
“Welcoming the proposals for joint cooperation offered by the countries contributing to Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully prepared to participate in the projects aimed at combating drug trafficking and plans in line with developing and reconstructing Afghanistan,” Akhundzadeh, one of Iran’s deputy foreign ministers, said, according to an early text of his remarks provided by Iranian officials.
Akhundzadeh, whose mere appearance at the conference was seen as progress in US-Iranian relations – repeated Tehran’s earlier criticism of the Nato role in Afghanistan saying: “The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too.”
via Iran offers to help US rebuild Afghanistan | World news | guardian.co.uk.
E.J. Dionne Jr. – Neither Capitalist Nor Socialist
Not Capitalist, Not Socialist - By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Just a few weeks ago, the vogue was to declare that “we are all socialists now,” and to speak of how capitalist theory and practice were being toppled by an economic catastrophe that proved how profoundly flawed the old system was.
There is something to this, especially if what is seen to be falling is not the market system itself but an approach to capitalism that saw government playing an ever-smaller role in economic and social life, and finance reigning over production and invention.
The bywords now are stimulus (by government), re-regulation of finance (by government) and stronger safety nets (also provided by government). If there is one part of the system that is under sustained attack, it is the mechanisms of finance.
Still, that doesn’t make us socialist. There is, as yet, no broad demand for a government takeover of big companies or a widespread desire to replace capitalism with a cooperative system.
via E.J. Dionne Jr. – Neither Capitalist Nor Socialist – washingtonpost.com.
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19%
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19%
March 31 (Bloomberg) — Home prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, as demand plummeted and foreclosures rose.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index’s decrease was more than forecast and compares with an 18.6 percent decrease in December. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year- over-year records began in 2001.
A glut of unsold properties may keep prices low, shrinking household wealth and damping spending. Still, sales of new and previously owned homes rose in February, indicating the housing slump, now in its fourth year, may ease as policy efforts to unclog credit and aid borrowers begin to take hold.
“At this point it doesn’t look great for the near term,” Robert Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC and a co- creator of the home price index, said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview. Still, he said, prices “can’t keep declining at this rate forever.”
The home price index was projected to decline 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the median forecast of 29 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, after an originally reported drop of 18.5 percent in December. Estimates ranged from declines of 17.2 percent to 19 percent.
via Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19% (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Government website now offers ‘suicide warning signs’ for victims of recession
Government website now offers ‘suicide warning signs’ for victims of recession
When the government starts warning you not to commit suicide, you know things have gotten bad.
The US Department of Health and Human Services now has a webpage for the current recession, “Getting Through Tough Economic Times.” Headlined under the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (www.samhsa.gov/economy/), the guide offers tips on “how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health.” The site went public Tuesday.
Among the deleterious health effects the recession may spawn, the government says, is suicide.
“Unemployment and other kinds of financial distress do not ’cause’ suicide directly, but they can be factors that interact dynamically within individuals and affect their risk for suicide,” the site says. “These financial factors can cause strong feelings such as humiliation and despair, which can precipitate suicidal thoughts or actions among those who may already be vulnerable to having these feelings because of life-experiences or underlying mental or emotional conditions (e.g., depression, bi-polar disorder) that place them at greater risk of suicide.”
via The Raw Story | Government website now offers ‘suicide warning signs’ for victims of recession.
Mysteries of logical reasoning
Mysteries of logical reasoning – by – Glenn Greenwald
(1) Anyone who favors marijuana legalization just wants to get high without being hassled, and anyone who favors drug decriminalization generally is or wants to be a drug user.
(2) Anyone who opposes a return to alcohol prohibition is almost certainly an out-of-control drunk.
(3) Anyone who cares about gay marriage or advocates for equal rights for gay couples is a closet homosexual who just wants to have sex with people of the same gender. The only reason anyone would care about that issue is if one wants to have gay sex.
(4) Anyone who believes in free speech rights for Communists obviously opposes private property ownership and craves Stalinism. Anyone who believes in free assembly rights for neo-Nazis secretly admires Hitler.
(5) Anyone who believes abortion should be legal just wants to have reckless sex without consequences.
(6) Anyone who advocates habeas corpus rights for accused terrorists or who opposes torture harbors sympathy for Islamic extremism and approves of indiscriminate violence against civilians.
(7) Anyone who opposes unrestrained government surveillance must be doing bad things in private that they want to hide.
(8) Anyone who believes in the freedom to practice a certain religion is probably an adherent of that religion and is motivated by a desire to practice it without interference.
Why is most everyone capable of understanding the egregious, illogical stupidity of propositions (2)-(8) — based on the bleedingly obvious premise that one can advocate the freedom to do X for reasons other than a desire to do X — while so many people embrace the equally illogical and stupid reasoning of proposition (1) as though it so self-evidently true that it requires no discussion?
via Mysteries of logical reasoning – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Obama signs landmark U.S. conservation bill
Obama signs landmark U.S. conservation bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama signed sweeping land and water conservation rules into law on Monday, setting aside millions of acres as protected areas and delighting environmentalists.
The measure, a package of more than 160 bills, would designate about 2 million acres — parks, rivers, streams, desert, forest and trails — in nine states as new wilderness and render them off limits to oil and gas drilling and other development.
The House of Representatives approved the measure on a vote of 285-140 a week after it cleared the Senate, capping years of wrangling and procedural roadblocks.
Opponents, most of them Republicans, complained the legislation would deny access for oil and gas drilling and said House Democrats refused to consider changes.
“This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted,” Obama said at a signing ceremony.
The areas that would be designated as new wilderness are mostly in California, followed by Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, West Virginia, New Mexico and Michigan.
via Obama signs landmark U.S. conservation bill | Environment | Reuters.
Drug wars and the balloon effect
Drug wars and the balloon effect
Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
Why have billions of dollars and thousands of anti-narcotics agents around the world failed to throttle the global traffic in cocaine, heroin and marijuana? Blame wrong-headed policies, largely driven by the United States, and what experts call the balloon effect.
Squeezing a balloon in one place makes it expand in another. Destroy drug crops in one region and cultivation moves to another. Cut a supply route in one place and another one springs up. Take the example of Colombia and Mexico, at present a focus of U.S. attention because of large-scale violence that threatens to spill across the border.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, almost all the cocaine consumed in the United States was grown in Colombia and shipped to South Florida along a variety of sea and air routes. Colombian traffickers fighting for market share turned Miami into a city where shootouts, contract killings and kidnappings became part of daily life.
That began to change when enraged citizens appealed to the federal government for help to crack down on the “cocaine cowboys.” Then President Ronald Reagan established a special force to cut the cocaine pipelines and end the violence. “The Mexicans must rue the day the South Florida Task Force was set up,” said Peter Reuter, a scholar at the University of Maryland. “That was the beginning of the problems it faces today.”
via The Great Debate » Debate Archive » Drug wars and the balloon effect | The Great Debate |.
Wagoner’s exit puts BofA CEO Lewis in hotseat
Wagoner’s exit puts BofA CEO Lewis in hotseat – By Elinor Comlay – Analysis
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis may be the next corporate boss to feel the heat after the administration forced General Motors Corp Chief Executive Rick Wagoner to resign in return for further government assistance.
The second-largest U.S. bank has received $45 billion from the government, making it one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money in the banking system.
Big shareholders have been calling for Lewis to step down since Bank of America announced in January it took a $20 billion government bailout to secure the acquisition of troubled Merrill Lynch & Co, which lost almost $16 billion in the last quarter of 2008.
via Wagoner’s exit puts BofA CEO Lewis in hotseat | U.S. | Reuters.
Cheating husband caught on Google Street View
OPS: Busted by Google.
A FURIOUS wife has called in divorce lawyers after spotting her husband’s car parked outside another woman’s house — on Google.
She saw the Range Rover while using the internet giant’s new Street View service to snoop on a female friend’s home.
The hubby had claimed he was away on business, but his missus recognised his motor immediately because of its blinged-up hubcaps.
The love cheat is not the only husband trapped by Google’s controversial new 360-degree photo search which covers 25 cities and towns throughout the country.
Top media lawyer Mark Stephens said: “I was talking about the Range Rover case when another divorce lawyer came up to say his firm was dealing with the same sort of thing. People are getting caught out on Google.
“I suspect the husband’s lawyers will claim it was an invasion of privacy that will cost him his marriage and Range Rover.”
via Cheating husband caught on Google Street View | The Sun |News.
Taliban Leader: We’re Planning Attack On D.C. “Soon”
Taliban Leader: We’re Planning Attack On D.C. “Soon”
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the U.S. capital.
Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday’s attack outside the eastern city of Lahore was in retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.
“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.
Mehsud and other Pakistani Taliban militants are believed to be based in the country’s lawless areas near the border with Afghanistan, where they have stepped up their attacks throughout Pakistan.
via Taliban Leader: We’re Planning Attack On D.C. “Soon”.
Most Americans Don’t Blame Obama for Economy, Poll Finds
Blame for Downturn Not Fixed on Obama
6 in 10 Back His Handling of Economy
The number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since Barack Obama’s election, and the public overwhelmingly blames the excesses of the financial industry, rather than the new president, for turmoil in the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
via Most Americans Don’t Blame Obama for Economy, Poll Finds – washingtonpost.com.
MSNBC’s 10 PM Search “On Indefinite Hold,” Will Continue Olbermann Repeats
MSNBC’s 10 PM Search “On Indefinite Hold,” Will Continue
Olbermann Repeats
NEW YORK — MSNBC will continue airing Keith Olbermann’s talk show twice each weeknight in prime time, putting on indefinite hold a search for a new 10 p.m. program.
That time slot has attracted attention ever since MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin suggested earlier this year he was on the lookout for a new show. Fans of the Internet show “The Young Turks” and of Air America’s Sam Seder have openly campaigned for their favorites.
MSNBC currently reruns Olbermann’s “Countdown” show only an hour after its original airing ends. It trails Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren and CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ in the ratings, but MSNBC executives have been surprised at its showing.
Fox has 2.1 million viewers, on average, in the time slot in March. Cooper on CNN has 1.2 million and Olbermann has 902,000, according to Nielsen Media Research. On a handful of nights, a rerun of Olbermann has even beaten a live Cooper in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic that MSNBC watches most closely.
MSNBC may give up entirely on the idea of putting a new live show in that time slot, Griffin said.
via MSNBC’s 10 PM Search “On Indefinite Hold,” Will Continue Olbermann Repeats.
Chicago’s Sun-Times Media Group Files For Bankruptcy Protection
OPS: …and another one bites the dust.
Chicago’s Sun-Times Media Group Files For Bankruptcy Protection
NEW YORK — The Sun-Times Media Group, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and dozens of suburban newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, making it the fifth newspaper publisher to seek protection from creditors in recent months.
The step, brought on by a precipitous decline in advertising revenue, means both of Chicago’s major daily newspapers are operating under bankruptcy protection. Tribune Co., the parent company of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 in December.
The Sun-Times Media Group, which filed in a Delaware court, said it will continue to operate its print and online properties. The company listed $479 million in assets and $801 million in debt.
It has retained Rothschild Inc. to help with a possible sale of assets.
“We firmly believe that filing for Chapter 11 protection and exploring the potential sale of assets or new investment in the company offers us the best opportunity to protect our respected media properties for the long-term,” Jeremy Halbreich, the company’s interim chief executive, said in a statement.
via Chicago’s Sun-Times Media Group Files For Bankruptcy Protection.
U.S. Needs World to Become More Open to Exports
U.S. Needs World to Become More Open to Exports
Membership in the WTO provides little benefit to average Americans.
The Doha round of trade talks are unlikely to be successful unless developed countries open their markets to more U.S. agricultural products, U.S. Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters Friday.
The trade talks which began in 2001 were designed to allow developing countries to prosper through “free trade,” yet the negotiations have been repeatedly derailed, mainly over farm subsidies in more developed countries.
The U.S. is rightfully unwilling to reduce its farm and manufacturing subsidies unless the developing world becomes more open to U.S. exports. Many developing nations have extremely high tariffs on U.S. farming products to protect their own domestic markets. Also, many developed nations have put a ban on U.S. food imports that are considered genetically modified.
“What the United States is being asked to do has been quite succinctly, and with some degree of specificity, laid out in the framework … There’s less clarity and less predictability in what developing nations are being asked to do in market access,” Vilsack said.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Computer Worms – Conficker | Microsoft Security
OPS: Microsoft’s take on the worm – Thanks ederlore, for the heads up
Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm
Published: March 27, 2009
Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm
The Conficker worm is a computer worm that can infect your computer and spread itself to other computers across a network automatically, without human interaction.
If you are an IT professional, please visit Conficker Worm: Help Protect Windows from Conficker.
Am I at risk of having the Conficker worm? Am I at risk of having the Conficker worm?
What does the Conficker worm do? What does the Conficker worm do?
How does the Conficker worm work? How does the Conficker worm work?
How do I remove the Conficker worm? How do I remove the Conficker worm?
Where can I find more technical information about the Conficker worm and how can I stay up to date on the Conficker worm? Where can I find more technical information about the Conficker worm and how can I stay up to date on the Conficker worm?
Am I at risk of having the Conficker worm?
Most antivirus software could detect and block the Conficker worm, so if you have updated antivirus software on your computer, you are at a much lower risk of being infected by the Conficker worm.
If you or your network administrator have not installed the latest security updates from Microsoft and your antivirus provider, and if you have file-sharing turned on, the Conficker worm could allow remote code execution. Remote code execution allows an attacker to take control of your computer and use it for malicious purposes.
What does the Conficker worm do?
To date, security researchers have discovered two variants of the worm in the wild.
• Win32/Conficker.A was reported to Microsoft on November 21, 2008.
•Win32/Conficker.B was reported to Microsoft on December 29, 2008.
• Win32/Conficker.C was reported to Microsoft on February 20, 2009.
•Win32/Conficker.D was reported to Microsoft on March 4, 2009.
Win32/Conficker.B might spread through file sharing and via removable drives, such as USB drives (also known as thumb drives). The worm adds a file to the removable drive so that when the drive is used, the AutoPlay dialog will show one additional option.
The Conficker worm can also disable important services on your computer.
In the screenshot of the Autoplay dialog box below, the option Open folder to view files — Publisher not specified was added by the worm. The highlighted option — Open folder to view files — using Windows Explorer is the option that Windows provides and the option you should use.
If you select the first option, the worm executes and can begin to spread itself to other computers.
more…..
via Computer Worms – Conficker| Microsoft Security.
Six States Join Michigan with Double Digit Unemployment
OPS: Unfortunately even a terrific site like this ignores the difference between the U3 and U6 figures. More on the difference here
Six States Join Michigan with Double Digit Unemployment -Dustin Ensinger
Six other states joined Michigan with unemployment rates swelling over 10 percent.
The U.S. Labor Department released its most recent unemployment statistics last week. The numbers reflect a dismal economy shedding jobs at a rapid pace with little sign of recovery on the horizon. In fact, only one state was spared from an increase in job losses.
Every state in the union, with the exception of Nebraska, saw their unemployment rate climb in the month of February from January. Nationally the unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February, up from 7.6 percent in January.
Overall, Michigan’s job market has been affected the most by the beleaguered economy. With America’s automakers on the verge of collapse, unemployment in the state has surged to 12 percent. That marks the highest unemployment rate the state has seen since 1984.
Six other states joined Michigan with unemployment rates hitting double digits. South Carolina, Oregon, North Carolina, California, Rhode Island and Nevada all saw their unemployment rates swell to over 10 percent.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Growing Chinese Military Poses Threat
OPS: Sure hope China will sell us the equipment we will need when it’s time to challenge and confront them. Thanks Conservatives, heckova job
Growing Chinese Military Poses Threat
China’s growing military is increasingly a threat to U.S. interests.
China’s growing military is increasingly a threat to U.S. interests, and to its Asian neighbors, especially the breakaway Democratic nation of Taiwan, according to an annual Pentagon study of the Chinese military released Wednesday.
The study concluded that the People’s Liberation Army is currently engaged in seeking technology and weapons that would allow it to gain an advantage on America’s military. The study also found that the lack of transparency could lead to unintended conflicts between the two nations.
The report, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China,” is the first under the Obama administration and underscores China’s potential emergence as a military power.
“The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation,” according to the report. “Much uncertainty surrounds China’s future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Obama Rejects GM, Chrysler Restructuring Plans
Obama Rejects GM, Chrysler Restructuring Plans
Before the government stepped in to save the Big Three it had already been propping up Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes and many others for decades.
General Motors and Chrysler unsuccessfully pitched their restructuring plans to the Obama administration last week. As a result, the two companies have been put on notice by the government: they can either remodel their business plans, or have their funding cut.
The administration gave Chrysler 30 days to put together a new plan. General Motors was given 60 days to assemble a new plan. The administration also called for the resignation of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner who had been at the helm of the industrial giant since 2000.
According to the administration, President Obama wants to help the companies but as of yet they are not putting forth good restructuring policies. General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford clamored to Capitol Hill months ago asking for more government hand outs. Nonetheless, they have not organized programs that fit the standards of the new administration. GM has already received $13.4 billion from the government and Chrysler has been funded with $4 billion. When they went to Washington asking for more funds- $16.6 billion and $5 billion respectively – the White House gave their ultimatum.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Why Jim Hightower Shouldn’t Be the Only One Debating John McCain on Afghanistan
Video -
Why Jim Hightower Shouldn’t Be the Only One Debating John McCain on Afghanistan
The same neocons who orchestrated the war in Iraq and undermined US efforts in Afghanistan the first time around are at it again, determined to sink us deeper into the costly Afghan quagmire. They have resurfaced in the form of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington think tank headed by Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Dan Senor. As Sam Stein reported last week on The Huffington Post, the FPI will hold a summit today titled “Afghanistan: Planning for Success.” And slated to attend the event are powerful Republicans and Democrats like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY), and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). What’s particularly troubling about McCain and a think tank like the FPI is that they are trying to manipulate President Obama’s plans for military escalation into a massive, limitless war of Iraq proportions.
via Video | AlterNet.
A 21st Century Hooverville: Seattle’s Homeless Population Builds “Nickelsville,” a Tent City Named After the City’s Mayor
Democracy NOW! Audio-Video- Transcript – MP3 Download
An encampment is made up of over a hundred pink tents and is named to protest Seattle Mayor Greg Nickel’s policies around the homeless.
A 21st Century Hooverville: Seattle’s Homeless Population Builds “Nickelsville,” a Tent City Named After the City’s Mayor
As the nation’s economic and housing crisis worsens, homelessness is also on the rise, and an increasing number of people are setting up roving encampments or shanty towns that are popularly known as tent cities. Seattle’s newest tent city is called Nickelsville. The encampment is made up of over 100 fuchsia tents and is named to protest Mayor Greg Nickels’s policies toward the homeless.
Will the Tanking Economy Ruin Your Sex Life?
Will the Tanking Economy Ruin Your Sex Life? – By Dan Dorfman
Financial turmoil is taking its toll in the bedroom.
From the workplace and the marketplace, the devastating effects of the nearly $12 trillion worth of wealth-destruction over the past 15 months are reaching the bedroom big time. Or put another way, the sexual appetite of many financially-strapped couples seems to be going the way of the hula hoop.
This bleak turn of events on an integral part of everyday life is what I get from a cross-section of sex therapists and psychologists who relate today’s bevy of economic horrors — such as a sagging economy, massive numbers of layoffs or fears of job losses, a big drop in the stock market and declining home values — to mounting sexual problems.
“No two ways about it; the financial turmoil is taking its toll in the bedroom,” says Kara Nichols, a clinical psychologist in Chicago, whose practice focuses on singles and couples in the 25-45 age group. Pointing to growing money worries among her clients, largely stemming from fear of job losses and steep stock market losses, she takes note of a consequent increase in the incidence of depressive and anxiety disorders, symptoms synonymous with decreased sex drives. “It’s a definite trend that’s likely to reach growing proportions if the current economic stress is sustained,” she says.
via Will the Tanking Economy Ruin Your Sex Life? | Sex and Relationships | AlterNet.
Trust Your Guts
REPOST (2)
OPS: another term for the “Corporate State” that Greider is referring to here is, quite literally, Fascism.
Trust Your Guts – by William Greider
” If Wall Street gets its way, the “reforms” may further consolidate power and ratify a corporate state…”
A reassuring new story line is emanating from our leaders. I heard Representative Barney Frank, chair of the House Banking Committee, explain it. Then I read the same line in a Washington Post news story. That tells me people in high places are selling it. Dynamic capitalism, they explain, invents ways to create greater wealth, but sometimes it goes a little too far. Then government has to step in to correct things. This need typically occurs every generation or so, all in a day’s work. The Obama administration is proposing “sweeping” new regulatory laws so that capitalism can continue its good works.
The story makes disturbing current events sound practically normal. But what are the storytellers leaving out? They aren’t saying that this financial catastrophe was not merely an inevitable development of history but a man-made disaster. Greedheads on Wall Street did their part, but so did Washington. The reason we need new rules is that a generation of Democrats and Republicans systematically repealed or gutted the old ones–the regulatory controls enacted eighty years ago to remedy the last breakdown of capitalism (better known as the Great Depression).
The White House executed a nifty two-step this week to re-educate the public and deflect anger. On Tuesday Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner relaunched the massive bailout of banking and finance. Knowing how unpopular this is with the people at large, Geithner followed on Thursday with his “sweeping” plans to re-regulate the bankers and financiers. Whenever official plans are called “sweeping,” it indicates that they really, really mean it this time.
via Trust Your Guts | CommonDreams.org.
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The Rip Off Must Be Stopped! Click here to join the protest!
Big bankers ruined our economy and now they are gaming the political system so they can profit even more off the crisis they caused. They must be stopped.
On April 11th, 2009, the public will come out in cities across the country to express their frustration and disapproval with how our elected officials have handled the economic crisis. No one has been left unscathed; this protest is yours.
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Is Newt Preparing for a 2012 Run?
OPS: Is this a trick question?
As Newt Gingrich converts to Catholicism, a leading Catholic conservative says his sins—including an affair with a congressional aide—”no longer exist.” Is he gunning for 2012? - by Max Blumenthal
When Catholic University announced in January 2005 that Newt Gingrich would deliver a speech on campus, a group of students rose up in protest, accusing the twice-divorced, admitted philanderer of violating the Catholic values that their school was founded upon. Four years later, just last week, on March 24, Gingrich blasted another hallowed institution of Catholic higher learning: “It is sad to see Notre Dame invite President Obama to give the commencement address since his policies are so anti-Catholic values,” Gingrich wrote on Twitter of the president’s scheduled May address. What happened?
During the George W. Bush era, Gingrich rose quietly from the ruins of his failed crusade to impeach President Bill Clinton, trying to transform himself from a Republican pariah into a voice of conscience for the badly demoralized conservative movement. The religious-right elements that helped orchestrate Gingrich’s downfall as Speaker of the House became the catalyst for his resurrection and may now propel him into contention for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. But winning them over has not been easy. Before earning a seat at their table, Gingrich has had to confess his darkest sins and beg for redemption, first on the radio show of his former nemesis, James Dobson, and then before a priest at St. Joseph’s Rectory, a Catholic church on Capitol Hill.
“He [Gingrich] has gone through a change in his life through his third marriage and he has decided to settle down….You’re never too old to settle down.”
via Is Newt Preparing for a 2012 Run? – The Daily Beast.
New Day Dawns for U.S. Global Warming Policy
New Day Dawns for U.S. Global Warming Policy
BONN, Germany, March 30 2009 (ENS) – President Barack Obama has reversed the U.S. position on global climate change negotiations from the skepticism, delays and obstructive strategies of the previous administration to a new cooperative policy based on both science and practicality.
“My team and I came here determined to make up for lost time. America is now once again strongly committed to developing a global response to climate change,” the President’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told journalists at the opening of the UN-backed Bonn climate talks on Sunday.
“We do not doubt the science, we do not doubt the urgency, and we do not doubt the enormity of the challenge before us,” said Stern. “President Obama and his administration are fully committed to action, both at home – where that action is well underway already – and abroad.”
via New Day Dawns for U.S. Global Warming Policy.
N. Korea to Try U.S. Journalists
International Crisis? “Two American journalists detained
in North Korea will be indicted and tried on charges of perpetrating “hostile acts” against the Communist state, a crime punishable by years in a labor camp, the North’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday.” The two journalists work for Al Gore’s fledgling Al Gore’s “Current TV.”
N. Korea to Try U.S. Journalists
Pyongyang’s decision to put Laura Ling and Euna Lee on trial signaled that the regime has no intention of freeing them soon.
Their indictment comes amid hightening tension between Pyongyang and Washington over a North Korean plan to launch a rocket by Wednesday next week. United States officials consider a possible rocket launch a provocative test of the North’s long-range missile technology.
via N. Korea to Try U.S. Journalists – NYTimes.com.
Three Mile Island, the NRC and Obama
Three Mile Island, the NRC and Obama
The Nation
It was thirty years ago this week that the Unit 2 reactor of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant began a partial meltdown. As its fuel rods began to burn out of control, a hydrogen bubble formed, causing a small explosion.
During the accident, plant operators were myopically glued to their instruments, which were incorrectly indicating that a crucial pressure valve was closed. In fact, it was open and draining coolant from the plant’s core, thus causing it to burn out of control. When the shift changed, someone on the new crew had the presence of mind to check the temperature on the reactor’s effluent pipe. It was way too hot. That meant the crucial pressure valve–which read “closed” on the monitors–was actually wide open.
The crisis was eventually brought under control. How narrow the margin of error. That accident was bad–43,000 curies of krypton radiation were released–but it could have been catastrophic.
via Three Mile Island, the NRC and Obama.
Legislation Introduced to Curtail Patriot Act Abuse
Legislation Introduced to Curtail Patriot Act Abuse
New Legislation Will Rein in Overbroad National Security Letter Power
WASHINGTON – March 30 – Congressmen Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) introduced legislation today to narrow the overbroad subpoena power in the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act. The bipartisan bill, National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009, aims to curb rampant abuse of that power by federal law enforcement following the expansion of the Patriot Act and was introduced with 17 cosponsors. NSLs are secret subpoenas used to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval.
“To ensure that Americans’ privacy and free speech rights are protected, there must be clear oversight and strict guidelines tied to the use of NSLs,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Mr. Nadler and Mr. Flake should be applauded for taking this legislative step. Their bill will realign the current NSL authority with the Constitution. Congress must take this opportunity to rein in the power of the NSL.”
NSLs were originally crafted to gain information about suspected terrorists but the Patriot Act expanded the statute to allow the subpoenas, which are issued in secrecy, do not require court review, and contain a gag order, to be used to obtain personal information about people who are simply deemed “relevant” to an investigation. After the statute’s expansion, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General released a series of reports over the last several years outlining systemic misuse and abuse of NSLs by FBI agents.
via Legislation Introduced to Curtail Patriot Act Abuse | CommonDreams.org.
We should ask HR875 sponsors to withdraw their cosponsorship!
We should ask HR875 sponsors to withdraw their cosponsorship!
There are a few “good guy” Congressional members on this list. I suggest contacting them and asking them to withdraw their support for HR 875. They probably don’t understand the underpinnings.
Please Urge them to help Kathleen Merrigan the Under Secretary of Agriculture to establish a separate stream of protocol and food safety for the alternative to now conventional GMO agriculture… organic; that is… to separate the organic from the conventional stream for national security and food safety purposes in case of the failure of one.
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] – 2/11/2009
Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [GA-2] – 2/4/2009
Rep Bishop, Timothy H. [NY-1] – 2/4/2009
Rep Carson, Andre [IN-7] – 2/11/2009
Rep Castor, Kathy [FL-11] – 2/4/2009
Rep Courtney, Joe [CT-2] – 3/3/2009
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] – 2/4/2009
Rep DeGette, Diana [CO-1] – 2/4/2009
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] – 2/4/2009
Rep Eshoo, Anna G. [CA-14] – 2/4/2009
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] – 2/10/2009
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] – 2/4/2009
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] – 3/19/2009
Rep Giffords, Gabrielle [AZ-8] – 2/4/2009
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] – 2/4/2009
Rep Hall, John J. [NY-19] – 2/4/2009
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] – 2/4/2009
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. [HI-2] – 2/4/2009
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] – 2/12/2009
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] – 2/4/2009
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] – 2/4/2009
Rep Lowey, Nita M. [NY-18] – 2/4/2009
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] – 2/10/2009
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] – 2/4/2009
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] – 2/4/2009
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] – 2/4/2009
Rep Murphy, Christopher S. [CT-5] – 2/4/2009
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] – 2/4/2009
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] – 2/12/2009
Rep Pingree, Chellie [ME-1] – 2/4/2009
Rep Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch [MD-2] – 3/10/2009
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] – 2/4/2009
Rep Sanchez, Linda T. [CA-39] – 2/4/2009
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] – 2/4/2009
Rep Schauer, Mark H. [MI-7] – 2/4/2009
Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] – 2/4/2009
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] – 2/12/2009
Rep Sutton, Betty [OH-13] – 2/4/2009
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] – 3/3/2009
Rep Wasserman Schultz, Debbie [FL-20] – 2/4/2009
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] – 3/3/2009
via OpEdNews » We should ask HR875 sponsors to withdraw their cosponsorship!.
San Jose Earthquake: 4.3 Magnitude Temblor Strikes California
San Jose Earthquake: 4.3 Magnitude Temblor Strikes California
A minor earthquake hit California this morning. Geologists placed the epicenter of the earthquake near Morgan Hill.
Courtesy of the US Geological Survey, here are some stats on the San Jose quake:
Magnitude: 4.3 – regional moment magnitude (Mw)Time: Monday, March 30, 2009 at 10:40:29 AM (PDT)
Distance from: Morgan Hill, CA – 18 km (11 miles) N (7 degrees)
Seven Trees, CA – 19 km (12 miles) E (91 degrees)
Alum Rock, CA – 20 km (13 miles) ESE (117 degrees)
San Jose City Hall, CA – 25 km (16 miles) ESE (104 degrees)
via San Jose Earthquake: 4.3 Magnitude Temblor Strikes California.
America the Tarnished
America the Tarnished – by Paul Krugman
Ten years ago the cover of Time magazine featured Robert Rubin, then Treasury secretary, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary. Time dubbed the three “the committee to save the world,” crediting them with leading the global financial system through a crisis that seemed terrifying at the time, although it was a small blip compared with what we’re going through now.
All the men on that cover were Americans, but nobody considered that odd. After all, in 1999 the United States was the unquestioned leader of the global crisis response. That leadership role was only partly based on American wealth; it also, to an important degree, reflected America’s stature as a role model. The United States, everyone thought, was the country that knew how to do finance right.
How times have changed.
Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness – claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways – have proved hollow.
via America the Tarnished | CommonDreams.org.
Healthcare Reform Vital, US Health Agency Says
Healthcare Reform Vital, US Health Agency Says
WASHINGTON – Reform of the U.S. healthcare system is vital this year because of growing costs and worsening care, the Health and Human Services Department said in a report on Monday.
The HHS report, published at www.healthreform.gov, compiles findings of dozens of studies that have been used to justify calls for a complete overhaul of the healthcare system.
While the need for change is not controversial, conservatives and liberals differ on how that should be approached. President Barack Obama has said he wants legislation this year but is leaving the details up to Congress to work out.
“Today’s report outlines the high cost of waiting to fix a system that has left too many Americans without the affordable, quality care they deserve,” HHS spokeswoman Jenny Backus said in a statement.
The report points out that the United States spent $2.2 trillion on healthcare in 2007, or $7,421 per capita. Healthcare accounts for more than 16 percent of gross domestic product, nearly twice the average of other developed nations.
via Healthcare Reform Vital, US Health Agency Says | CommonDreams.org.
Mysterious East Coast Boom Was Falling Russian Rocket
Mysterious East Coast Boom Was Falling Russian Rocket
The mysterious boom and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia Sunday night was not a meteor, but actually exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth, according to an official with the U.S. Naval Observatory.
“I’m pretty convinced that what these folks saw was the second stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched the crew up to the space station,” said Jeff Chester of the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Residents of the areas around Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Va., began calling 911 last night with reports of hearing a loud boom and seeing a streak of light that lit up the sky, according to news reports.
Chester heard about the incident this morning; the Naval Observatory gets plenty of reports of such fireballs and Chester investigated whether it could be a meteor or whether there were “any potential decays of space junk that were coming up,” he told SPACE.com.
via Mysterious East Coast Boom Was Falling Russian Rocket – Yahoo! News.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
