Archive for March, 2009
50 Years After Dalai Lama’s Flight, Future Looks Bleak for Tibet
50 Years After Dalai Lama’s Flight, Future Looks Bleak for Tibet
Unless there is a change in the fundamental nature of the Chinese dictatorship, Tibet will quite certainly languish in its current state.
A full half-century after the Dalai Lama left his home for India, the prognosis for Tibet doesn’t seem too encouraging.
The Dalai Lama himself has alleged that the Chinese are not being serious about negotiations and has hardened his rhetoric, accusing China of making Tibet a “hell on earth” and of viewing Tibetans as “criminals deserving to be put to death.” The Chinese authorities, on their part, seem wedded to their often-hilarious rhetoric that portrays the Dalai Lama as a “splittist” and as a “jackal clad in Buddhist monk’s robes” who wants to break up China.
But the Dalai Lama has time and again insisted over the past many years that the Tibetans want just “meaningful autonomy,” not full independence.
via 50 Years After Dalai Lama’s Flight, Future Looks Bleak for Tibet | The Progressive.
Van Susteren responds to conflict-of-interest allegations in her Palin coverage.
Van Susteren responds to conflict-of-interest allegations in her Palin coverage.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reported this week that Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren’s husband, John Coale, is one of “the figures charged with guiding [Gov. Sarah] Palin’s political image in Washington” — raising questions about a conflict of interest in Van Susteren’s reporting on the governor. Today, Van Susteren said on her blog that her husband is not a “paid adviser” to Palin but that he has “helped her” in the past:
via Think Progress » Van Susteren responds to conflict-of-interest allegations in her Palin coverage..
Obama puts up $2.4 bln for electric vehicles
Obama puts up $2.4 bln for electric vehicles
President Barack Obama Thursday unveiled a 2.4 billion dollar boost for electric vehicle development, vowing to compete with foreign nations in the race to be world leader on renewable energy.
“We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad or we can create them here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity,” Obama said on the second day of a campaign-style swing in California.
Obama said the money would be used to develop next generation plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and advanced battery components and would create tens of thousands of US jobs and reduce reliance on foreign oil.
He set a target of putting a million of the environmentally friendly vehicles on US roads by 2015.
The plan would also give a 7,500 dollar tax credit to people who buy plug-in hybrid vehicles, Obama said, as he toured a plant in southern California developing the new generation transport.
via The Raw Story | Obama puts up $2.4 bln for electric vehicles.
Dreyfuss: Cheney belongs in jail
Dreyfuss: Cheney belongs in jail
Politico talked to Richard Dreyfuss Tuesday as he appeared at both the National Press Club and the African-American Civil War Memorial.
Dreyfuss was asked if he missed having Cheney around the White House. “I miss having him in jail,” he responded. “That is where he belongs.”
This video is from Politico, broadcast Mar. 17, 2009.
via The Raw Story | Dreyfuss: Cheney belongs in jail.
Homeless to be moved out of tent city
Homeless to be moved out of tent city
A SPRAWLING “tent city” of the homeless that has drawn worldwide media attention as a symbol of US economic decline will be shut down
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city’s downtown.
Mr Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks.
“We want to move as quickly as we can,” he said, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion.
“They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do,” he said. “We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We’re going to tackle it head-on.”
via Homeless to be moved out of tent city | World News | News.com.au.
Holder rescinds Ashcroft-era FOIA guidelines
OPS: Some good news for Democracy.
Holder rescinds Ashcroft-era FOIA guidelines
“A presumption of openness,” is now supposed to guide federal agencies’ responses to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Attorney General Eric Holder today sent a memo to agency heads that reverses FOIA guidelines that have been in place since Oct. 12, 2001. The Bush-era presumption, established by then-attorney general John Ashcroft, was that agencies should first assume that information should not be released — and put most of the burden on the requester to prove otherwise.
“Any discretionary decision by your agency to disclose information protected under the FOIA should be made only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial, and personal privacy interests that could be implicated by disclosure of the information,” Ashcroft wrote in that 2001 memo.
In a statement, Holder says that:
via Holder rescinds Ashcroft-era FOIA guidelines – The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency.
Identity theft nets some tax refunds, stimulus checks
Identity theft nets some tax refunds, stimulus checks
CNN) — Thousands of taxpayers across the country aren’t getting their refund or stimulus checks because criminals have stolen their Social Security numbers in an identity theft scam, CNN has learned.
“We see a lot of activity right now, because clearly folks who are trying to perpetrate a fraud have to get their claims in early before a true taxpayer files their return,” said Nina Olsen, the national taxpayer advocate for the Internal Revenue Service.
Olsen, whose independent office is set up to help taxpayers, said her office fielded several thousand complaints this year connected to the scam. The Federal Trade Commission reported that approximately 50,000 taxpayers complained about tax fraud and employment-related identity theft during 2006, compared with 18,000 in 2002.
via Identity theft nets some tax refunds, stimulus checks – CNN.com.
Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’
Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’
AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (CNN) — Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.
Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. “My will to live disappeared,” said Taro. “I’d lost my identity, so I didn’t want to live on this earth. That’s why I went there.”
Taro, who did not want to be identified fully, was swimming in debt and had been evicted from his company apartment.
He lost financial control, which he believes to be the foundation of any stable life, he said. “You need money to survive. If you have a girlfriend, you need money. If you want to get married, you need it for your life. Money is always necessary for your life.”
via Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’ – CNN.com.
Intelligence made it clear Saddam Hussein was not a threat, diplomat tells MPs
Intelligence made it clear Saddam was not a threat, diplomat tells MPs
• Government left ‘paper trail’ in build-up to war
• More facts still to come to light, says former envoy
A former diplomat at the centre of events in the run-up to the Iraq war revealed yesterday that the government has a “paper trail” that could reveal new information about the legality of the invasion.
Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, told MPs: “A lot of facts about the run-up to this war have yet to come to light which should come to light and which the public deserves to know.” There were also assessments by the joint intelligence committee which had not been disclosed, Ross told the Commons public administration select committee.
He told the inquiry that the intelligence made it “very clear” that Saddam Hussein did not pose a significant threat to the UK, as was being claimed at the time by ministers, and that tougher enforcement of sanctions could have brought his regime down.
Airstrike kills 11 insurgents in Iraq: US military
Airstrike kills 11 insurgents in Iraq: US military
American flag-burning marks 6-year war anniversary
A US airstrike north of Baghdad reportedly killed eleven insurgents, but there is no word on whether or not any civilians were hit. According to an Iraqi official, the strike took place on the eve of the six-year invasion of Iraq by a US-led coalition.
“Military spokesman Maj. Derrick Cheng told The Associated Press on Friday that ground forces searched the site after the strike and found a cache of weapons, munitions and parts to build improvised explosive devices,” the AP reports.
The AP adds that, an Iraqi security official, who “spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media,” said it occurred Thursday morning.
via The Raw Story | Airstrike kills 11 insurgents in Iraq: US military.
The Golden Rice Scandal Unfolds
OPS: Once again – Monsanto and GM Frankenfood
The Golden Rice Scandal Unfolds - Press Release: ISIS
The Golden Rice Scandal Unfolds
Phase II clinical trials on children have been conducted with unapproved experimental GM rice enhanced in pro-Vitamin A that has the potential to cause birth defects and developmental abnormalities
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins
This report has been sent to the United States Food and Drug Administration on behalf of ISIS
Clinical trials of unapproved, uncharacterized GM rice on children
More than 30 senior scientists and academics signed an open letter condemning
researchers at Tufts University (Boston) in the United States for carrying out clinical trials of genetically modified (GM) ‘Golden Rice’ on children [1] (Scientists Protest Unethical Clinical Trials of GM Golden Rice). The scientists claimed that the trials were in breach of the Nuremberg Code of Ethics brought in at the end of the Second World War to prevent any repetition of the experiments conducted by Nazi scientists including many on children.
via Scoop: The Golden Rice Scandal Unfolds.
Antarctic ice melt could shift Earth’s rotation: Study
OPS: That’ll change your day.
Antarctic ice melt could shift Earth’s rotation: Study
Scientists say the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would have such profound effects it would shift the planet’s rotation, sending a bulge of water into the Northern Hemisphere.
The enormous ice sheet, which many experts believe could collapse as the climate warms, is so heavy that as it melts it “will actually cause the Earth’s rotation axis to shift rather dramatically,” reports a team led by geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica, at the University of Toronto. The scientists say the North and South poles would move about half a kilometre if the entire ice sheet collapses and shifts more water north.
via Antarctic ice melt could shift Earth’s rotation: Study.
IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’
IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’
The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as “global quantitative easing” by printing billions of dollars worth of a global “super-currency” in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.
Alistair Darling and senior figures in the US Treasury have been encouraging the Fund to issue hundreds of billions of dollars worth of so-called Special Drawing Rights in the coming months as part of its campaign to prevent the recession from turning into a global depression.
Should the move, which is up for discussion by the summit of G20 finance ministers this weekend, be adopted, it will represent a global equivalent of the Bank of England’s plan to pump extra cash into the UK economy.
via IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ – Telegraph.
Hedge fund makes headlong rush into gold
Hedge fund makes headlong rush into gold
Investor John Paulson, whose hedge fund made billions betting against subprime mortgages, is making a massively bullish call on gold.
Paulson & Co. paid $1.28-billion (U.S.) yesterday for an 11-per-cent stake in AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., one of the world’s largest miners of the precious metal.
The deal is just the latest example of a major international investor buying into bullion as a safe haven amid the global financial crisis.
As the economic meltdown has worsened in recent weeks and months, firms such as Eton Park Capital Management LP, Greenlight Capital Inc. and Hayman Advisors LP have been boosting their exposure to the yellow metal. The investment funds are turning to gold as central banks around the world continue to print money in hopes of stimulating economic growth.
via reportonbusiness.com: Hedge fund makes headlong rush into gold.
Duplicate Payments to AIG Counterparties?
Duplicate Payments to AIG Counterparties? – by Richard Wise
The easiest way to tell this story is to post the text of a letter I sent to my Senators and Congressman yesterday. Here it is:
Sen. Christopher Dodd, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Hon. John B. Larson
Gentlemen,
I noticed that several prominent financial services firms that received TARP funds last year also appear on the recently-released list of counterparties to be paid by AIG from bailout funds.
These firms include AIG International, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo/Wachovia, and possibly others. The total of counterparty payments due to these firms from AIG appears to be at least $30,900,000,000.
This presents the possibility that some of these firms could have applied for and received TARP funds last fall, in anticipation of defaults by AIG; and are now in line to receive payment by AIG. Thus, they stand to be paid twice, with the money for both payments coming from taxpayers.
This possibility raises three questions:
via OpEdNews » Duplicate Payments to AIG Counterparties?.
Seeds – How to criminalize them
OPS: Monsanto MUST be stopped before they own – FOOD!
Seeds – How to criminalize them
…by simply defining seeds as food and then all farmers’ affordable mechanisms for harvesting (collecting), sorting (seed cleaning) and storing (seed banking or saving) as too dirty to be safe for food.
Wisdom says stop a bill with everything unspecified and actually waits til next year for an unspecified “Administrator” to decide what’s what.
Where we come from, that’s called a blank check. Who writes laws like that? ”Here, do what you want about whatever you want and here’s some deadly punishments to make it stick.”
Wisdom says know who wrote that bill and be forewarned.
Wisdom says wake up.
Here’s the bill. Let’s use our imaginations and extrapolate from the little bit it reveals and from the reality we know.
via OpEdNews » Seeds – How to criminalize them.
The Real AIG Conspiracy
The Real AIG Conspiracy – by Prof. Michael Hudson
It may seem odd, but the public outrage against $135 million in AIG bonuses is a godsend to Wall Street, AID scoundrels included. How can the media be so preoccupied with the discovery that there is self-serving greed to be found in the financial sector? Every TV channel and every newspaper in the country, from right to left, have made these bonuses the lead story over the past two days.
What is wrong with this picture? Is there not something over-inflated about the outrage led most vociferously by Senator Charles Schumer and Rep. Barney Frank, the two leading shills for the bank giveaways over the past year? And does Pres. Obama perhaps find it convenient that finally, at long last, he has been able to criticize something that he believes Wall Street has done wrong? Even the Wall Street Journal has gotten into the act. The government’s takeover of AIG, it pointed out, “uses the firm as a conduit to bail out other institutions.” So much more greed is involved than just that of AIG employees. The firm owed much more to other players – abroad as well as on Wall Street – than the assets it had. That is what drove it to insolvency. And popular opposition has been rising to how Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain could have banded together to support the bailout that, in retrospect, amounts to trillions and trillions of dollars thrown “down the drain.” Not really down the drain at all, of course – but given to financial speculators on the winning “smart” side of AIG’s bad financial gambles.
“The Washington crowd wants to focus on bonuses because it aims public anger on private actors,” it accused in a March 17 editorial. But instead of explaining that the shift is away from Wall Street grabbers of a thousand times the amount of bonuses being contested, it blames its usual all-purpose bete noire: Congress. Where the right and left differ is just whom the public should be directing its anger at!
Chávez to nationalise Santander bank unit
Chávez to nationalise Santander bank unit
State money to be channeled to small farmers
CARACAS, March 19 – Venezuela will go ahead with the nationalisation of the local unit of Spanish bank Grupo Santander, president Hugo Chávez said on Thursday, weeks after officials said the purchase was on hold.
Since first winning office a decade ago, Mr Chávez has nationalised large swathes of the Opec nation’s economy and this year has moved to increase state control of farms and food production inspite of a sharp drop in oil income.
via FT.com / Americas / Business – Chávez to nationalise Santander bank unit.
BofA linked to Merrill writedowns
BofA linked to Merrill writedowns – By Greg Farrell in New York
Bank ‘played role in preparing accounts’
Bank of America was directly involved in markdowns that contributed to Merrill Lynch’s $15.3bn loss in the last quarter of 2008, its final reporting period before the Wall Street bank was acquired by BofA, sources familiar with the matter say.
Mounting losses at Merrill during December almost derailed the acquisition. Ken Lewis, BofA’s chief executive, threatened to walk away from the deal unless the US government provided $20bn in extra capital. The deal closed on January 1 after federal officials pledged their support.
via FT.com / Companies / Banks – BofA linked to Merrill writedowns.
Eliot Spitzer To Make Appearance On Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday
OPS: This should be good.
Eliot Spitzer To Make Appearance On Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday
This Sunday, on Fareed Zakaria GPS, Zakaria’s guest will be former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. CNN previewed the piece in the Situation Room today, in which Zakaria and Spitzer discuss the presence of “hints of a looming disaster” when Spitzer had AIG under investigation “years ago as the New York State Attorney General”:
ZAKARIA: So, do you think the problems that AIG got into later on stemmed from some of the same practices that you were trying to get at?
SPITZER: They stemmed from an effort at the very to to gin up returns whenever, wherever possible, and to push the boundaries in a way that would garner returns almost regardless of risk. Back then, I told people that AIG is at the center of the web. The financial tentacles of this company stretched to every major investment bank. The web between AIG and Goldman Sachs is something that should be pursued. And as I’ve written…
via Eliot Spitzer To Make Appearance On Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.
World’s Deadliest Spider Found In Whole Foods In Tulsa
World’s Deadliest Spider Found In Whole Foods In Tulsa
TULSA, Okla. — One of the most deadly spiders in the world has been found in the produce section of a Tulsa grocery store. An employee of Whole Foods Market found the Brazilian Wandering Spider Sunday in bananas from Honduras and managed to catch it in a container.
The spider was given to University of Tulsa Animal Facilities director Terry Childs who said this type of spider kills more people than any other.
Childs said a bite will kill a person in about 25 minutes and while there is an antidote he doesn’t know of any in the Tulsa area.
via World’s Deadliest Spider Found In Whole Foods In Tulsa.
Suze Orman To Bush: “You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family’s Fortune”
Suze Orman To Bush: “You Owe The American People Every Penny Of Your Fortune And Your Family’s Fortune”
In a long profile by WWD’s Jacob Bernstein, Suze Orman sounds off on George Bush and blames the ex-president for the financial crisis (near the bottom of the first page):
Sitting in a green room after her TV interviews, she lambasts everyone from Alan Greenspan to Larry Summers to the former president of the United States, who holds an especially dark place in her heart. “Commander in Chief?” she says of George W. Bush, with a mix of disbelief and scorn. “You blew up every single financial vessel we had and if you think you aren’t personally responsible, well, the blame starts at the top. There is no higher top than you, SIR! If I were you, I would feel so absolutely horrific that I would take every penny I had and distribute it to anybody and everybody to help them in whatever way I could. You owe the American people every penny of your fortune and your family’s fortune.”
Geithner defends bonus action
OPS: It was Timmy! Not Dodd.
Geithner defends bonus action
Treasury Secretary explains his role in stimulus bill talks. At issue: Loophole that allowed $165 million in bonuses to go to AIG executives.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told CNN Thursday that his department, concerned that language about bonuses would not hold up to a court challenge, asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include an executive pay provision in the stimulus bill. The loophole allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to pay out $165 million in bonuses.
In an interview with CNN’s Ali Velshi, Geithner said the Treasury Department was concerned the government would face lawsuits if contracts were breached for the bonuses.
“We wanted to make sure it was strong enough to survive legal challenge,” Geithner said. “But we also worked with [Dodd] to strengthen the overall framework, and his bill has this very important provision we’re relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that were made that there was no legal ability to block.
via Geithner defends bonus action – Mar. 19, 2009.
Obama’s new message to Iran
Obama’s new message to Iran - – Glenn Greenwald
(updated below – Update II)
There will be no shortage of people attacking this as a Chamberlain-like capitulation to the Evil Persian Hitlers, and there will be an equally vocal group mocking it as an empty gesture from America’s bloodthirsty and war-craving emperor. It’s true that, ultimately, this will only be meaningful if followed up by action, but this video — sent by Obama to Iran, and to Iranians, for Nowruz, a major national holiday, and released this morning — is, after 30 years of nothing but threats and hateful rhetoric exchanged between the two countries, a palpably different message not only in tone but also in content.
It explicitly repudiates threats and is also deeply respectful not only of the people of Iran but also of its government. After observing that “for nearly three decades, the relations between our nations have been strained,” Obama repeatedly emphasizes “a promise of a new day”; never once mentions Iran’s nuclear program; and vows: “my administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and pursuing constructive ties between the U.S., Iran and the international community. . . . This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”
via Obama’s new message to Iran – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Republicans and Executive Compensation Limits
Republicans and Executive Compensation Limits – by Glenn Greenwald
As I wrote on Tuesday, it was clearly Treasury officials (led by Tim Geithner) who were the driving force behind the dilution of Chris Dodd’s efforts to impose strict limitations on the executive compensation received by bailed-out companies. That fact leads former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, writing at National Reveiw, to demand that Republicans blame the AIG bonus payments on Obama because he signed the stimulus bail containing the carve-out for pre-February, 2009 employment agreements:
President Obama rammed through the stimulus bill – over Republican objections – that explicitly protected the AIG bonuses. . . .
Either Obama did not know the provision was in there, which validates the Republican point that no one read this bill. Or he did, and signed it anyway. Either way, it’s a disaster of his making.
We should lay responsibility for the AIG bailout where it belongs – directly at the President’s feet.
That’s a nice illustration of the oozing, limitless deceit that characterizes the people who governed the country for the last eight years. It’s certainly true that the Obama administration advocated less rigid compensation limits than Dodd wanted. But most leading Congressional Republicans — the ones Theissen is urging blame Obama for the AIG bonus paments — opposed all forms of executive compensation limits.
via Republicans and Executive Compensation Limits | CommonDreams.org.
A Government of Men, Not Laws
A Government of Men, Not Laws - by David Sirota
United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers “treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work.” In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.
Following news that government-owned American International Group (AIG) devoted $165 million of its $170 billion taxpayer bailout to employee bonuses, the White House insisted nothing could be done to halt the robbery. On ABC’s Sunday chat show, Obama adviser Larry Summers couched his passive-aggressive defense of AIG’s thieves in the saccharine argot of jurisprudence. “We are a country of law – there are contracts (and) the government cannot just abrogate contracts,” he said.
The rhetoric echoed John Adams’ two-century-old fairy tale about an impartial “government of laws, and not of men.” Only now, the reassuring platitudes can’t hide the uncomfortable truth.
Last month, the same government that says it “cannot just abrogate” executives’ bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions’ wage contracts. As the Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to GM and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and “extract(ing) financial concessions from workers.” In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished.
via A Government of Men, Not Laws | CommonDreams.org.
Arms Race in Space
Arms Race in Space – by Bruce Gagnon
The new arms race in space is shaping up to be the largest industrial project in Earth’s history. To pay for this project, the aerospace industry has been lobbying Washington for a dedicated funding source. Budget allocations for missile defense – Star Wars – are only part of the huge sums of money redirected toward preparations for war in space.
Since World War II, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on Star Wars research and development. When Bill Clinton first came into office in 1993 he ceremoniously announced that Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), at that time funded at $3.5 billion a year, was dead. Then he quietly created the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and moved the $3.5 billion into the new space weapons development organization. George W. Bush left office having changed the name to Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with an annual budget of $10 billion per year.
Not counted in the MDA budget is the money that goes into space technology programs at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Energy, NASA, and others. Conservative numbers indicate that the total military space technology annual budget runs in the neighborhood of $75 billion per year.
via Arms Race in Space | CommonDreams.org.
Patent Reform Threatening American Innovation
Patent Reform Threatening American Innovation
If the legislation passes the most obvious loser would be American manufacturers.
Congress is set to resume its long-running patent reform debate, pitting America’s manufacturers against the nation’s tech companies who claim large infringement damages are hampering innovation.
The Patent Reform Act of 2009 would seriously undermine America’s long history of strong intellectual property rights, according to Kevin L. Kearns, President of the U.S. Business and Industry Council.
“This legislation will threaten America’s smaller inventors, large and small domestic manufacturers, venture capitalists, agricultural entities, biotech and pharmaceutical firms, non-profit research consortia, and research universities, among others,” he writes in a letter sent to congressional leaders and signed by 22 other groups. “Downgrading patent rights – which are fundamentally property rights – will seriously constrict innovation and the ability of domestic manufacturers to turn good ideas into products consumer want, and thus good jobs for working Americans.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
States Releasing Prisoners Due to Economic Hardships
OPS: Fine. Let’s start with the victimless crimes like possession of pot and prostitution
States Releasing Prisoners Due to Economic Hardships
In Michigan the governor has proposed releasing as many as 12,000 inmates.
States desperate for cost-cutting measures to balance their budgets may have found the perfect way to do so. Unfortunately it may make your neighborhood less safe at the same time. According to Newsweek, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is considering unloading a huge portion of its prison population to cut costs and other states may not be far behind. The state, facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall is desperate to save money and bring the budget back to balance. To do so, the governor is proposing what could be a very unpopular and dangerous measure.
In Michigan an average of more than $32,000 per year is required to house each inmate. The governor has proposed releasing as many as 12,000 inmates that have served their minimum sentences. With hopes of speeding that process up, she has expanded the Michigan State Parole Board from 10 to 15 members.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
U.S. Pumping Billions into Foreign Central Banks
OPS: Our Tax $$ at work – in other countries
U.S. Pumping Billions into Foreign Central Banks
For over a year the U.S. Federal Reserve has been injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign central banks, which are then using the funds to bailout their own financial institutions
According to the Huffington Post, for over a year now the U.S. Federal Reserve has been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign central banks, which are then using the funds to bailout financial institutions inside their own borders.
“The program has so far gone unreported in the mainstream media and is a major expansion of Federal Reserve involvement in the global economy,’ Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post writes. “It represents a stark break from the prior role of the Fed, moving it into territory more traditionally occupied by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
According to the Huffington Post, the Fed began injecting cash into foreign central banks on Dec. 7, 2007. One year later, the Fed had extended loans to other central banks amounting to nearly $600 billion. According to the Fed’s most recent report, that number is down to $314 billion as many central banks have repaid some or all of their loans.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Why What’s For Dinner May Be About to Change
Why What’s For Dinner May Be About to Change -By Gwen Schantz
From a White House garden to rule changes at factory farms, the era of industrial ag calling the shots is changing.
Industrial Agriculture is sooo 20th century. As America moves forward with a new agenda of change, our food system is getting a green, healthy makeover that promises to leave thousands of food and farm advocates with nothing to do.
For decades, foodies, animal welfare advocates, labor and environmentalists have joined together in an effort to educate their peers and affect policy change with the broad goal of improving the way our food is grown, processed, distributed and eaten. They’ve snuck into animal factories with hidden cameras, staged protests in Washington and boycotted fast food establishments. They’ve shopped at farmers markets and planted seeds in community gardens. They’ve formed a massive and remarkably powerful food and farm movement, and in general, they’ve kept quite busy reaching for a goal that until recently seemed completely futile and utterly out of reach.
But soon these dedicated food fighters may find themselves with little to do but sit down and eat.
via Why What’s For Dinner May Be About to Change | Environment | AlterNet.
The coming evangelical collapse
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise. -By Michael Spencer
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.
Why is this going to happen?
1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society….
via The coming evangelical collapse | csmonitor.com.
One Soldier’s Tale of How War Drove Him Crazy
One Soldier’s Tale of How War Drove Him Crazy – By Penny Coleman
“When it got really bad, I dumped 5 tons of sand into my basement to remind me of Afghanistan.”
“When it got really bad, I dumped 5 tons of sand into my basement to remind me of Afghanistan,” Jim told me. “I would just spend the entire day down there in my sandbox, smoking marijuana and working on peace of mind. It made me realize that you can close as many doors as you want, but ghosts walk through walls.”
Jim speaks with apparent ease about his war experiences and what they cost him. His stories are punctuated with vivid detail and bemused laughter, mostly at his own expense: How could he have been so naïve … how could he have failed to see what was going on around him?
He rubs his hands up and down his thighs frequently. It’s a kind of nervous gesture that he explains is a result of a spinal injury he sustained in an IED explosion — his legs still go numb from time to time. “But they don’t get numb to the point where I fall down anymore, so I won’t complain about progress,” he said.
via One Soldier’s Tale of How War Drove Him Crazy | War on Iraq | AlterNet.
Citigroup plans reverse stock split
OPS: Using OUR tax $$ to buy back THEIR stock? WTF?! Another blatant misuse of the bailout money. JAIL
Citigroup plans reverse stock split
NEW YORK (AP) — Citigroup Inc. said Thursday it is planning to increase the number of its common shares outstanding and execute a reverse stock split as part of its effort to convert preferred shares to common shares.
Citigroup’s shares soared more than 10 percent in early trading.
As announced late last month, Citi is seeking to exchange about $27.5 billion in public and private preferred securities as part of its agreement with the Treasury Department, which has pledged to match up to $25 billion of the conversions.
The deal represents the government’s third attempt in five months to prevent the beleaguered banking giant’s collapse.
Citigroup said all private holders of convertible preferred securities, with a total liquidation value of $12.5 billion, have agreed to the swap. The bank will also offer holders of non-convertible preferred and trust preferred securities to exchange their shares. The conversion price is $3.25 per share. Citigroup said it plans to launch the exchange in early April.
via The Associated Press: Citigroup plans reverse stock split.
‘Duke it out’: US school accused of encouraging bare-knuckle fights in cage
OPS: EVERYone in charge at this school should be thrown in jail – where they can fight to protect their own asses. These Republicans are truly sick.
Duke it out’: US school accused of encouraging bare-knuckle fights in cage
The Dallas school system has been rocked by allegations that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage.
The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High in the Texan city knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators.
“More than anything, I’m in shock and disbelief – shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator,” said Jerome Garza, a member of the Dallas school board.
via ‘Duke it out’: US school accused of encouraging bare-knuckle fights in cage.
Most Guantanamo detainees are innocent: ex-Bush official
OPS: Then, at least, we have “Crimes Against Humanity” if not outright War Crimes.
Most Guantanamo detainees are innocent: ex-Bush official
Many detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.
“There are still innocent people there,” Republican Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell, told the Associated Press. “Some have been there six or seven years.”
Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a “mosaic” of intelligence.
via Most Guantanamo detainees are innocent: ex-Bush official.
Yuma County unemployment rate hits 22.5 percent for February
OPS: The article doesn’t say whether this is the U3 or U6 number. It’s probably the U3 meaning that the true unemployment figure is probably double that. For more on the difference between U3 and U6 go here: Graphs based on data from the BLS website:
Yuma County unemployment rate hits 22.5 percent for February
A total of 11,700 people were unemployed in Yuma County in February, the ranks swollen by store closures, manufacturing layoffs and business cutbacks, according to the latest jobless report released by the state Thursday.
That translates to a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 22.5 percent in February, according to the Department of Commerce’s monthly workforce report. The sobering figure continues the climb seen in recent months of Yuma County’s unemployment rate, which was 19.7 percent in December and 21.4 percent in January at the time of year when employment usually rises with seasonal jobs.
Last year this time, the unemployment rate was 14.8 percent.
“We go in late and come out early with these downturns. I hope that holds true this time, too,” observed Ken Rosevear, executive director of the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce.
Still, he expects a “long, hot summer. I fear it will get worse before it gets better. I just hope we don’t see any further erosion of retail and manufacturing. We need to look to keeping business local.”
Rachel Maddow – Rise of the conservadems
OPS: The Fascists have infiltrated the Democratic Party.
YouTube – Rachel Maddow – Rise of the conservadems.
Leading economic index points to more US weakness
Leading economic index points to more US weakness
A forward-looking US economic index fell 0.4 percent in February, suggesting a long, slow road to recovery for the recession-bound world’s biggest economy, the Conference Board said Thursday.
The business research firm said the decline in its index of leading economic indicators had followed a 0.1 percent rise in January and a 0.1 percent drop in December.
The February number was better than the 0.6 percent decline expected by most analysts.
Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the index showed some positive signs but not enough to promote a quick recovery from the deep recession.
“Financial market volatility remains strong, and the credit market freeze is relenting very slowly,” he said.
“The (index) suggests the recession will continue in the near term. A return to strong growth will not likely occur until 2010.”
via The Raw Story | Leading economic index points to more US weakness.
Anger in Pakistan at US plan to expand drone attacks against Taliban and al-Qaida targets
Anger in Pakistan at US plan to expand drone attacks
• Pentagon urges Obama to widen reach of strikes
• Islamabad warns of public backlash against move
Pakistan reacted with anger yesterday to an American proposal to expand its drone missile strikes inside the country against Taliban and al-Qaida targets.
Pakistani politicians and officials described the idea of extending military operations into the vast, south-west province of Baluchistan as provocative and counterproductive, and warned of a severe backlash if the US went ahead.
Sources in the US administration confirmed that the White House has received recommendations from the military about an escalation in the use of the CIA’s unmanned drones to launch missile attacks. At present, attacks are confined to the tribal areas in the north-west of the country.
Bush Attracts 14 Supporters to Fund Raising Lunch
Bush Attracts 14 Supporters to Fund Raising Lunch
The Bushes, from George H.W. to Jeb, have always had a soft spot for Northeast Florida, finding it a profitable place for them to fund raise. And what the area might now lack in quantity of adherents, it makes up in quality. Fourteen of Bush 43’s highest potential donors in these parts met with him today to be shaken down in person.
Former President George W. Bush attended a private luncheon in downtown Jacksonville Thursday to drum up support for his presidential library from a small group of supporters.
According to a Duval County Republican Party spokesman, Bush met with 14 invited guests…
Marty Fiorentino was one of the handful of longtime supporters who were invited to attend.
“I’m excited to see the president,” Fiorentino said. “I think he’s going to tell us about the library and what he’s doing post-presidency. We’re looking forward to hearing what it’s like to be back in private life and a civilian. Hopefully we can talk about some of the good times during the time he was president and campaigns and trips through Jacksonville. We’re looking forward to that.”
It can’t have taken long to cover each and every one of those “good times” from when Bush was president. What were there, like, two?
And even though everyone refers to it as a “library,” the big guy himself is calling it the George W. Bush Presidential Center. After all, “center” is so much easier to say than, “lie-berry.”
via Pensito Review » Bush Attracts 14 Supporters to Fund Raising Lunch.
New registration numbers are bad news for Republicans
New registration numbers are bad news for Republicans
The newest voter registration numbers contain more bad news for California Republicans, who find their membership slipping even as the number of registered voters climbs.
As of Feb. 10, the state had 17.3 million registered voters, up about 30,000 from Oct. 20 of last year. But during that same period of time, Democratic registration rose about 33,000 while the number of Republicans dropped by 30,000.
The numbers brought a quick horse laugh from Democratic Party officials, who suggested that the GOP leadership, with its stance on the various state and national issues, has put the party in reverse.
But the numbers are mainly a continuation of an ongoing trend that has shown GOP registration dropping from 35.2 percent of the state’s registered voters in February 2003 down to 31.1 percent currently.
During that same period, Democratic registration has grown, moving from 43 percent in 2005 to 44.5 percent today. The percentage of decline to state voters also has grown, moving to 20 percent of the electorate.
via SFGate: Politics Blog : New registration numbers are bad news for Republicans.
States cope with rising homelessness
States cope with rising homelessness -By Christine Vestal, Stateline.org Staff Writer
Tent cities are springing up around the country, including this one next to a homeless shelter in Reno, Nev.
Nearly 700 homeless families in Massachusetts are living in hotels at state expense because emergency shelters are full. New York City saw a 40 percent rise in families seeking shelter since the recession began. School districts nationwide reported more homeless kids in the fall of 2008 than the entire year before. And tent cities have sprung up throughout Hawaii and in Sacramento, Calif., Reno, Nev., Phoenix, Portland, Ore., and other cities.
It’s one of the most alarming aspects of the economic crisis: State officials are seeing levels of homelessness they have never seen before. President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package includes $1.5 billion to address the problem, but officials say it’s not enough to cover the cost of housing for millions of families in crisis.
via States cope with rising homelessness.
Israel, Iran liable to clash in 2009 over nukes, says U.S. intel chief
Israel, Iran liable to clash in 2009 over nukes, says U.S. intel chief
Haaretz
Israel and Iran are liable to enter into a confrontation or a crisis sometime this year due to Tehran’s progress in its nuclear weapons program and Jerusalem’s determination to thwart it, the head of U.S. intelligence told lawmakers on Thursday.
In a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the potential threats as foreseen by the 16 intelligence arms of the United States, Dennis Blair said that Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shi’ite group which is backed by Iran, has beefed up its weapons arsenal in preparation for another round of fighting with Israel.
Blair said Hezbollah presents a formidable threat to U.S. interests, particularly if the organization feels Washington directly threatens Iran or acts against the group’s targets, infrastructure, and leadership.
via Israel, Iran liable to clash in 2009 over nukes, says U.S. intel chief – Haaretz – Israel News.
BuzzFlash is in Serious Need of Your Ongoing Financial Support. We Hate to Think of the Economy Putting Us Under. Update I.
OPS: Buzzflash is one we do not want to loose. If you can help – please do. Note: If you click to Buzzflash through the button in the left hand side bar, OPS gets a little help also.
BuzzFlash is in Serious Need of Your Ongoing Financial Support. We Hate to Think of the Economy Putting Us Under. Update I.
Updated on March 19th at Bottom
THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG
By Mark Karlin
I’ve assembled a number of articles detailing the dire straights of the progressive mass media, but I’ll just write from the heart and the reality.
The first dreadful thought is that the depression is slowly draining BuzzFlash. We’ve always lived with just enough money to pay a few bills off at a time, but with the Wall Street welfare economic implosion it has gotten worse.
Please buy or give today at the BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace. We need to raise $17,000 (in progressive premiums sales or contributions) by March 31st to pay our bills.
Since I started BuzzFlash, the cry for a non-corporate mainstream media biased toward the oligarchy has had little impact. Fortunately, BuzzFlash was a pioneer in opening the Internet to progressive sites and an alternative source of news and commentary, but little has changed on radio and television. Even with the tremendous appeal of Rachel Maddow (and Keith Oblermann’s scorching preaching to the converted), television “news” is still just basically propaganda for the entrenched status quo. (The two major exceptions are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who are dismissed by the corporate press as comedians.)
BuzzFlash needs $17,000 in purchases and/or donations …. more…..
THE RIDICULOUS CLASS BIAS IN AMERICA’S TAX CODE
THE RIDICULOUS CLASS BIAS IN AMERICA’S TAX CODE
Jim Hightower | – Listen to this Commentary
The rich truly are different from you and me, for they are treated differently.
I’m not talking about the merely affluent, but about the ultra-rich – those Wall Street elites who annually pocket tens of millions of dollars each through such financial entities as hedge funds and private equity firms. While you and I earn the bulk of our money from wages (or “ordinary income,” as economists so snobbishly call it), the richy-rich don’t receive anything as pedestrian as income. No, no, they have “gains.”
Aside from the snoot factor, what’s the difference? The tax code. Our ordinary income is taxed by the feds at a rate of up to 35 percent. The very rich, however, who haul in most of their money from capital gains and stock gains, pay only 15 percent on this income.
What’s at work here is another big difference between us and them. They have lobbyists and are able to make impressive levels of campaign contributions to key politicians – so, the tax code has been deliberately perverted to benefit them. Oh, tut-tut, sniff these swell ones, we take big investment risks with our money and we fuel America’s entrepreneurial spirit. So we are, in fact, special and deserve preferential tax treatment.
via Jim Hightower | THE RIDICULOUS CLASS BIAS IN AMERICA’S TAX CODE.
STIFFING WORKERS AND SPREADING CORPORATE WELFARE
STIFFING WORKERS AND SPREADING CORPORATE WELFARE
Jim Hightower – Listen to this Commentary
Time for another Gooberhead Award – presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues going 100 miles an hour, but forgot to put their brains in gear.
Today’s goober is the governor of my own state of Texas, Rick Perry. Who would’ve thought that any state could come up with a governor who’d be shallower, less compassionate, and more subservient to corporate interests than our previous gubernatorial embarrassment, George W. Bush? But, we did it!
Perry is strutting around like a banty rooster, cockadoodle-doodling about how, by gollies, he ain’t taking half-a-billion dollars in stinkin’ stimulus money from Barack Obama to extend unemployment benefits to the fast-rising number of Texans who’re out of work. To receive that money, says the guv, our state would be required to modernize its miserly unemployment rules to be a tad more generous to those who lose their jobs.
Uh-uh, he snapped, declaring that in a couple of years when the stimulus plan expires, it would then be up to the state to help unemployed folks, and he didn’t want Texans looking to Austin when they’re down and out. He then declared: “This is exactly how addicts get hooked on drugs.” Yeah, Rick, folks rally do want to get hooked on the $392 a week that Texas unemployment pays.
via Jim Hightower | STIFFING WORKERS AND SPREADING CORPORATE WELFARE.
Researchers Create Carbon Nanotube Artificial Muscles
Flex Appeal: Researchers Create Carbon Nanotube Artificial Muscles
Researchers for decades have been developing polymers and other materials they hope to someday use to create artificial muscles that, when given an electrical charge, mimic the real thing more cheaply and effectively than the hydraulic systems and electric motors used today. A group of scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas’ Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute reports in Science today that they have demonstrated a fundamentally new type of artificial muscle, consisting almost exclusively of carbon nanotubes, which can operate at extreme low temperatures that would cause other artificial muscles systems to freeze and at very high temperatures that would cause other muscle systems to decompose.
via Energy News and Articles from Scientific American.
Drink Up: Taking the Salt Out of Seawater
Drink Up: Taking the Salt Out of Seawater
Removing the salt from briny water is becoming more affordable
Almost three quarters of Earth’s surface is covered with water, but most of it is too salty to drink. And the 2.5 percent that is freshwater is locked up either in soil, remote snowpacks and glaciers or in deep aquifers. That leaves less than 1 percent of all freshwater for humans and animals to drink and for farmers to use to raise crops—and that remnant is shrinking as rising global temperatures trigger more droughts. The upshot: it’s becoming increasingly difficult to slake the world’s thirst as the population grows and water supplies dwindle. Analysts at the investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate that worldwide water use doubles every 20 years.
So the search for new water sources is on. One proved candidate is desalinization—technologies that extract the salt from brine drawn from the oceans or saline aquifers to create potable water. But the historically high price of desalinization has largely kept it at bay, a situation that’s changing as technology improves and growing demand squeezes freshwater supplies .
via Drink Up: Taking the Salt Out of Seawater: Scientific American.
A.I.G. Sues Government for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments
OPS: It’s time that AIG is crushed and it’s Senior Management jailed. When are the cowards in congress going to stand up? 
A.I.G. Sues U.S. for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments
While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.
A.I.G. sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles and other offshore havens.
A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that A.I.G. is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the Internal Revenue Service last year.
via A.I.G. Sues Government for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments – NYTimes.com.
IBM’s workforce in U.S. declines in ’08 but grows overseas
OPS: More Corporate treason from the company that helped Hitler organize the death camps.
IBM’s workforce in U.S. declines in ’08 but grows overseas
Company’s overall workforce increased slightly last year
March 19, 2009 (Computerworld) The number of workers that IBM employs in the U.S. declined by about 5% last year, but the company’s overall head count is increasing because of overseas hiring.
IBM finished 2008 with 115,000 U.S. employees, down from the 121,000 it reported at the end of 2007, according to its most recent annual report released this month. Overall, IBM finished 2008 with 398,455 employees worldwide, an increase of nearly 12,000, or about 3%.
In 2007, IBM said it had 98,000 employees in Brazil, China, India and Russia, but that number increased by 15% to 113,000 last year. Most of those employees are in India.
via IBM’s workforce in U.S. declines in ’08 but grows overseas.
Attorney General Issues New Freedom Of Information Act Guidelines
Attorney General Issues New Freedom Of Information Act Guidelines (3/19/2009)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON – New Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines calling for a “presumption of openness” were issued today by Attorney General Eric Holder. The guidelines, fulfilling the directive of a presidential memorandum issued in January, overturn the “Ashcroft doctrine” of the Bush administration that allowed the government to withhold information requested through FOIA whenever legally possible. The attorney general’s announcement comes during “Sunshine Week” and follows the introduction of legislation aimed at strengthening FOIA in the Senate.
The American Civil Liberties Union has been a vocal advocate for open government and urged the Obama administration to rescind the Bush guidelines in its January transition document. FOIA is a critical tool to improve government transparency and ensure public accountability. As a result of ACLU lawsuits brought under the FOIA, the government has released many documents that have proved invaluable to public debate and policy making, including two Justice Department memos authorizing the CIA’s use of torture, records about civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and FBI documents showing its improper use of surveillance tools. However, since the government in previous years has fought disclosure every step of the way, these improvements to the FOIA law are vital.
The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:
via American Civil Liberties Union : Attorney General Issues New Freedom Of Information Act Guidelines.
Wiki Disinformation Exposed – 9/11
Wikipedia Displays Blatant Disinformation Once Again
Flight Data Recorder Analysis
03/19/09 – Wikipedia, a primary on-line resource for diverse information, allows anyone to edit their ‘wiki’ pages. Many are aware through articles published by Reuters and other news organizations[1] that Wiki is a haven for intelligence agencies who also use it as a means of distributing false and misleading information. Recently it has come to our attention that an edit was made to the “9/11 Conspiracies” page containing factual errors and disinformation regarding Flight Data Recorder (FDR) analysis.
The original entry is as follows:
A June 2007 video, attributed to researcher Calum Douglas of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, presents an analysis of alleged Flight 77 black box data,[141] said to have been obtained from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under a Freedom of Information Act petition. It states that the approach path and altitude on the Flight Path Animation differs from the mainstream account of the path of Flight 77.
The updated edit and disinformation is as follows:
However, this is likely due to the fact that the NTSB animation which has been released is a working copy, in which the post-added animation is incorrectly calibrated to end the animation at the moment the plane hits the Pentagon. Similarly, the last piece of data from the FDR for United Airlines Flight 93 ends 4 seconds before the plane crashed into the ground, when it was still at an altitude of 2,182 feet.[142] A paper written by NASA scientist Ryan Mackey on Flight 77′s FDR data suggests that the last piece of data from the FDR was likely from approximately 4 seconds before the aircraft struck the Pentagon, explaining why the last piece of data on the FDR shows the plane at an altitude of 180 feet, even though the NTSB concluded that Flight 77 struck the Pentagon about 6 feet above the ground at a descent rate of about 39 feet per second.[143] In June 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board stated regarding the inconsistency between the FDR data and the reconstructed working animation that, “This working copy was never used for an official purpose; instead, the Safety Board is notifying all recipients of this animation that the record includes an erroneous annotation.”[144]
The editor begins the wiki entry with pure speculation as defined by the words, “…this is likely due to…”. The editor also fails to acknowledge
via Wiki Disinformation Exposed.
Climate change deniers have media outlets ‘everywhere’ now
Climate change deniers have media outlets ‘everywhere’ now
Despite the success of public awareness efforts on the dangers of climate change by the likes of Al Gore and others, the global warming denial lobby is still going strong, as can be seen by recent polling numbers that show fewer Americans believe climate change is a serious threat.
A poll released last week by Gallup says that while a majority of Americans still believe the seriousness of global warming is “either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated,” an all-time high of 41 percent of those polled say it is exaggerated.
via The Raw Story | Climate change deniers have media outlets ‘everywhere’ now.
Calif. lawmaker sees potential $1.5 billion in marijuana taxes
Calif. lawmaker sees potential $1.5 billion in marijuana taxes
It’s been said that many American trends, from fashion to music to governance, begin in California and move east.
If Tom Ammiano, a California state assemblyman from San Francisco, is correct in his assessment of potential tax revenues stemming from legalized marijuana, expect the debate to spread like a grassfire, so to speak.
Ammiano, who proposed legislation to legalize marijuana on Feb. 24, told CNBC’s Melissa Francis on Thursday that the plant is the state’s “leading cash crop” and could easily generate $1.5 billion in tax revenue the first year, if not more.
The state’s assembly recently had to tackle a $40 billion budget shortfall, taking drastic measures under a declared state of “fiscal emergency.”
via The Raw Story | Calif. lawmaker sees potential $1.5 billion in marijuana taxes.
CNBC host: Wall Street companies can’t ‘be run well’ by those making under $250,000.
CNBC host: Wall Street companies can’t ‘be run well’ by those making under $250,000.
As several bloggers and television pundits have noted, CNBC has consistently advocated on behalf of the interests of the rich during the recent financial crisis. Indeed, in an interview with Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) today, CNBC host Mark Haines made the curious claim that Americans who earn under $250,000 per year — or 98 percent of the population — can’t run Wall Street companies:
HAINES: Let’s get back to what I regard as a fundamental issue here. I know it’s politically unpopular, politically incorrect. I know it goes against all of the populist indignation that’s out there right now. But you can’t really, it seems to me, expect that these Wall Street companies are going to be run well by a bunch of people who don’t make more than $250,000.
Watch it:
KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With ‘Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines’
KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With ‘Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines’
Circuit court judge, county clerk and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006
County uses popular, unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting systems…
[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]
Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete, citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.
The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determinedin their final report: “There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries.”
via The BRAD BLOG : KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With ‘Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines’.
French unions claim 3m on street
French unions claim 3m on street
Demonstrations have been held in about 200 French towns and cities
French unions have claimed that up to three million people have taken part in street protests amid a national strike against France’s economic policies.
Police gave an estimate of 1.2 million people at rallies nationwide.
Schools have been closed and public transport disrupted, with demonstrations held in about 200 towns.
Unions are demanding more is spent to protect workers in the recession. Unemployment has reached two million and is expected to rise further.
Union members marched towards the Place de la Nation in Paris behind a banner that read: “United against the crisis, defend employment, spending power and public services.”
via BBC NEWS | Europe | French unions claim 3m on street.
Spitzer on AIG: I told you so
Spitzer on AIG: I told you so
Eliot Spitzer has a few words to say about the AIG bonus brouhaha: I told you so.
The former New York governor battered American International Group with charges of corruption long before his own dizzying downfall in a prostitution scandal. He has used this latest financial scandal to strike his old populist, Sheriff of Wall Street themes and, just maybe, mend his reputation — though critics contend that he bears a share of the blame for the insurance giant’s historic near-collapse.
Spitzer says the AIG bonus issue is “penny ante” compared to the billions of the insurer’s bailout money funneled to bad banks, and that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner owes America an explanation, quickly.
As for all those politicians piling on AIG this week? Been there. Done that
via Spitzer on AIG: I told you so — Newsday.com.
Republican Party on Suicide Watch?
Republican Party on Suicide Watch?
Is the Republican Party on suicide watch? Apparently so.
From day one of this Presidency the Republicans have been extremely negative. Most new Presidents get a honeymoon for the first hundred days or so. This is even more true during those times in U.S. history where an incoming President faced great and immediate challenges as is the case with the current situation. But no honeymoon for President Obama. Not a day, not a week, and not a month. No honeymoon at all. The Republicans have been united and negative from day one and the Party continues that negativity through the present time.
In times of crisis this nation typically unites across Party lines and works with the incumbent Administration to help solve the problems at hand. But not this crisis. Rather than work united for the good of the country the Republicans have chosen the current crisis as a means to attempt to rally their base for the elections of 2010 and 2012. They want this Administration to fail so that they can use that failure for political purposes in future elections
via Baldwin Park Democrat: Republican Party on Suicide Watch?.
Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?
Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG?
America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer’s.
Eliot Spitzer is back and he’s talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn’t what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?
Spitzer may be as “disgraced” as any anonymous sex loving Republican loser, but America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer’s.
Today in Slate Eliot Spitzer has a short op-ed that speaks volumes about what is going on, and indirectly, if you follow the money, what happened to him. Plainly stated, Spitzer brings the AIG Ponzi Scheme one step closer to the revered establishment when he explains how the bailout money was funneled straight into the top players, with Goldman Sachs being the name that comes up again and again. These top players already got bailout money, and Goldman is looking at zero losses at this point, while regular Americans are being asked to make concessions or just plain losing everything. here are the biggest financial entities in the world, making billions on what appears to have been nothing but air traded back and forth, and having gutted the American people they are walking away with 100% return to their stockholders. In return AIG seems to think that its appropriate to pay themselves bonuses with the leftover funds. This leaves AIG still a wobbly shell with no plan of how to go forward, and the threat of the collapse of all of the world’s financial markets still up in the air. So, what was all that bailout money for? Apparently to make sure that no one at Goldman or the other few top firms in the hand-out-line lost anything!
via Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG? | PEEK | AlterNet.
Court blocks Bush administration rule that allowed concealed, loaded guns in national parks
Court blocks Bush administration rule that allowed concealed, loaded guns in national parks
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked a federal rule allowing people to carry concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturns a rule issued in the waning days of the Bush administration.
The rule, which took effect Jan. 11, and allowed visitors to carry a loaded gun into a park or wildlife refuge as long as the person had a permit for a concealed weapon and the state where the park or refuge was located allowed concealed firearms. Previously, guns in parks had been severely restricted.
The Obama administration had said it was reviewing the Bush rule but had defended it in court.
Baby Boomlet: US Births In 2007 Break 1950s Record
Baby Boomlet: US Births In 2007 Break 1950s Record
ATLANTA — Remember the baby boom? No, not the one after World War II. More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any other year in the nation’s history _ and a wedding band made increasingly little difference in the matter. The 4,317,119 births, reported by federal researchers Wednesday, topped a record first set in 1957 at the height of the baby boom.
Behind the number is both good and bad news. While it shows the U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend, the teen birth rate was up for a second year in a row.
The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend that started years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older.
For a variety of reasons, it’s become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband, said Duke University’s S. Philip Morgan, a leading fertility researcher.
via Baby Boomlet: US Births In 2007 Break 1950s Record.
Project Movele: Spain’s Electric Car Plan
Project Movele: Spain’s Electric Car Plan
While an electric vehicle plan called Better Place has gotten a lot of attention for its lofty goals in Israel, Denmark and elsewhere, other plans deserve a little love, too.
In Spain, according to Spanish-language auto blogs, the Ministry of Industry and the Institute for Diversifying and Saving Energy have come up with a plan that they’re calling Proyecto Movele. Under Movele, the government would install an electric car infrastructure in several cities and subsidize private purchase of a small fleet of electric cars (as well as buying some for itself).
Diario de Sevilla writes that the plan is part of a larger economic stimulus package.
Treehugger’s April Streeter writes that the pilot cities have been chosen. They’re not surprises:
via Project Movele: Spain’s Electric Car Plan.
AIG Turns Over List Of Bonus Recipients
OPS: Again, these are not Bonuses – They are BRIBES. If Frank is serious he will use this list to ferret out those that have knowledge of criminal activity – and might, under pressure, talk.
AIG Turns Over List Of Bonus Recipients
AIG complied with New York Attorney General Cuomo’s subpoena this afternoon and turned over the list of employees in the firm’s Financial Products unit who received retention payments.
In a press release, Cuomo’s office emphasized that they were sensitive to the security concerns expressed by AIG CEO Edward Liddy at yesterday’s Congressional hearing. As a result, the Attorney General will be “doing a risk assessment before releasing any individual’s name.”
Here is the release:
via AIG Turns Over List Of Bonus Recipients.
Lawrence O’Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling (VIDEO)
Lawrence O’Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling (VIDEO)
Media Monitor Brian Cohoon drew our attention to this clip from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where Lawrence O’Donnell subjects Eric Cantor to some sort of reporting-like substance, effortlessly reducing Cantor to nonsense.
Basically, O’Donnell asks Cantor a straight question: “Are you going to vote for the ‘tax seizure bill’?” That’s the bill introduced by Charles Rangel that would recover these AIG bonuses that threaten to bring civilization to its knees. Cantor’s basic answer is no, but the roundabout evasions are a heaven-sent melange of tongue-tripping malarkey: “LISTEN,” Cantor purrs, “I am for whatever we can do right now to get that money back into the Treasury.” Except that “whatever we can do right now” isn’t, as it turns out, a PLAN. What follows, roughly paraphrased from the original Cantorese, is this: “But uhm, WHY ARE WE HERE TO BEGIN WITH … and the Rangel bill is terrible tax policy … but I will get those bonus payments back, with NECROMANCY, or I’ll pass a bill that requires Tim Geithner to figure all of this out, on pain of death or something.”
via Lawrence O’Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling (VIDEO).
Magnitude 7.9 – TONGA REGION – Tsunami warning issued
Magnitude 7.9 – TONGA REGION
Why Obama Didn’t Know About AIG’s Bonuses
Why Obama Didn’t Know About AIG’s Bonuses
Washington Post: Federal Reserve’s Failure To Tell The White House About AIG Bonuses Exposes Problems In Relationship
Federal Reserve officials knew for months about bonuses at American International Group but failed to tell the Obama administration, according to government and company officials, exposing problems in a relationship that is vital to addressing the financial crisis.
As pressure mounted on AIG employees to return the bonuses, new details emerged yesterday about what the Fed, the Treasury Department and the White House knew regarding the payments and when. AIG executives said the Fed was informed three months ago by the company that it would pay $165 million by March 15 to employees working at its most troubled division. The Treasury and White House said they learned of the payments from Fed officials only days before they were due.
Close coordination between the Fed and the administration is now more important than ever as they near the launch of two signature programs to rescue the financial system, which together could reach $2 trillion and are aimed at reviving consumer lending and purchasing soured assets and loans from ailing banks.
via Why Obama Didn’t Know About AIG’s Bonuses – CBS News.
AIG Bonuses Contemplated in ‘08, TARP Inspector Says (Update1)
AIG Bonuses Contemplated in ‘08, TARP Inspector Says (Update1)
TARP inspector general says Bush administration specifically considered and approved AIG bonuses.
(Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush’s administration “specifically contemplated” paying bonuses to American International Group Inc. employees in its November agreement to provide federal bailout funds to the insurance giant, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said today.
Neil Barofsky testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. The panel held a hearing on the TARP program, which so far has spent $300 billion trying to reverse the financial meltdown.
The TARP contract between AIG and Treasury “specifically contemplated the payment of bonuses and retention payments to AIG employees, including AIG’s senior partners,” Barofsky said.
The insurer has received $173 billion in federal bailout funds and is now 80 percent owned by the government.
via AIG Bonuses Contemplated in ‘08, TARP Inspector Says (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
The Secret War Against American Workers
OPS: It started with Reagan and has never let up. Today we see the results
The Secret War Against American Workers – by Robert S. Eshelman
The Unemployment Story No One Notices
Juanita Borden, 39 and jobless, patiently waits as her résumé methodically works its way, line by line, through a fax machine at a state-run job center in downtown Philadelphia. Lying open before her on a round conference table is a neatly organized folder. “This is my résumé and everywhere I’ve been faxing to. This is how I keep track of what day I’ve sent them on, so I can call and check back,” she says, leafing through pages of fax cover sheets. “I usually give five business days before I inquire whether or not they’ve received it and whether or not they’re interested.”
Juanita was fired last October, when her employer found out that her driver’s license — a job requirement — had expired. “It was only a matter of twenty-six dollars. I was under the impression that it expired in November of ’08, but it was actually November of ’07, and because I hadn’t been driving I wasn’t aware of it.” The one occasion on which she was required to drive, though, she couldn’t, and that was all her employer needed to fire her for failing to fulfill her employment responsibilities. She has since renewed her license and says with an air of futility, “I’d like to have my job back if they would give it to me.”
She hasn’t been asked back and, despite her persistent efforts, she hasn’t received a single call from a prospective employer either. “The good thing,” she says, remaining remarkably buoyant despite her misfortune, “is that usually when I interview I get the job. So… I’m hoping for an interview soon.” Until then, her carefully managed folder serves as a small measure of control over an otherwise steady drift into poverty and homelessness.
via The Secret War Against American Workers | CommonDreams.org.
Coping in a World of ‘Peak Water’
OPS: “Peak Water” What a concept.
Coping in a World of ‘Peak Water’ by Nastassja Hoffet
UNITED NATIONS – As more than 20,000 people meet in Istanbul for a major week-long conference on future management of the world’s water supplies, women’s groups are working to ensure that policy decisions about this critical natural resource take their concerns into account.
[Women carry buckets of water in Bissau March 6, 2009. (REUTERS/Luc Gnago/GUINEA-BISSAU)]Women carry buckets of water in Bissau March 6, 2009. (REUTERS/Luc Gnago/GUINEA-BISSAU)
About a billion people currently lack safe drinking water, and another two and a half billion have no access to sanitation.
Experts note that women and girls carry the burden of the water crisis since they bear more household responsibilities, such as hygiene, cooking, gathering water, and taking care of children and the sick.
Those tasks expose them to many risks, like contamination by water-related diseases and violence in conflict zones, and often prevent them from going to school or having a job.
According to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, in developing countries women and girls walk an average of six kilometres a day carrying 20 litres of water.
via Coping in a World of ‘Peak Water’ | CommonDreams.org.
Microsoft releases IE8, new Web browser
Microsoft releases IE8, new Web browser
Microsoft on Thursday released Internet Explorer 8, a new version of its ubiquitous Web browser, adding features which the US software giant claims makes it safer and loads pages faster.
Internet Explorer 8 was available for downloading in 25 languages starting on Thursday at www.microsoft.com/ie8, the Redmond, Washington-based computer software giant announced in a statement.
Microsoft said IE 8 was faster than previous IE browsers and included “leading-edge security features in direct response to people?s increasing concerns about online safety.”
“Customers have made clear what they want in a Web browser — safety, speed and greater ease of use,” Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.
via The Raw Story | Microsoft releases IE8, new Web browser.
The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers
The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers
The Nation – By John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney
Communities across America are suffering through a crisis that could leave a dramatically diminished version of democracy in its wake. It is not the economic meltdown, although the crisis is related to the broader day of reckoning that appears to have arrived. The crisis of which we speak involves more than mere economics. Journalism is collapsing, and with it comes the most serious threat in our lifetimes to self-government and the rule of law as it has been understood here in the United States.
After years of neglecting signs of trouble, elite opinion-makers have begun in recent months to recognize that things have gone horribly awry. Journals ranging from Time, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New Republic to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times concur on the diagnosis: newspapers, as we have known them, are disintegrating and are possibly on the verge of extinction. Time‘s Walter Isaacson describes the situation as having “reached meltdown proportions” and concludes, “It is now possible to contemplate a time in the near future when major towns will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters.” A newspaper industry that still employs roughly 50,000 journalists–the vast majority of the remaining practitioners of the craft–is teetering on the brink.
via The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.
Million French workers march against Sarkozy
Million French workers march against Sarkozy
More than a million angry French workers took to the streets Thursday in a nationwide strike to force President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost wages and protect jobs as the economic crisis deepens.
“Sarkozy has to take from the billionaires and give a bit back to the poor,” said teacher Jean-Baptiste Voltuain, echoing mounting calls for the right-wing government to boost social spending by hiking taxes on the rich.
Voltuain was one of the marchers at a rally in Paris which was fronted by the leaders of France’s eight main unions as it snaked its way through the east of the city in warm spring sunshine.
The CGT union said three million people took part in protests across the country, but police put the number at 1.2 million.
A million civil servants went on strike, officials said, while protestors from both public and private sectors marched in the capital and in Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and around 200 other towns.
Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 200 youths who threw stones and other objects and lit fires in the street as the Paris march came to an end at Place de la Nation.
via The Raw Story | Million French workers march against Sarkozy.
House votes 328-93 to impose 90% bonus tax
Update at bottom: House overwhelmingly passes bonus tax
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) yet again went against the grain in Congress when he stood up in the House and argued against a proposal that would tax 90 percent of AIG executive bonuses, saying that it was a “disgrace,” a “distraction” and an “outrage” that undermined the Constitution.
“I rise in opposition to this rule and the bill because of the problem — because of the lack of need for this and the disgrace that this has brought upon us,” Paul said. “Yesterday, for instance, the Federal Reserve met and they came out and they announced that they would create new money to the tune of $1.25 trillion.”
via The Raw Story | Paul: Bill to tax bonuses an ‘outrage’ and unconstitutional.
McCain Decries ‘Loose Rhetoric About A Minimal Commitment In Afghanistan’ … Like His Own
McCain Decries ‘Loose Rhetoric About A Minimal Commitment In Afghanistan’ … Like His Own
In today’s Washington Post, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) have an op-ed calling for a robust “comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency approach” to the war in Afghanistan, demonstrating “unambiguous U.S. political commitment to success…over the long haul”:
As the administration finalizes its policy review, we are troubled by calls in some quarters for the president to adopt a “minimalist” approach toward Afghanistan. Supporters of this course caution that the American people are tired of war and that an ambitious, long-term commitment to Afghanistan may be politically unfeasible. […]
Loose rhetoric about a minimal commitment in Afghanistan is counterproductive for another reason: It exacerbates suspicions, already widespread in South Asia, that the United States will tire of this war and retreat. These doubts about our staying power deter ordinary Afghans from siding with our coalition against the insurgency.
Note to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow: Burning money is against the law.
Note to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow: Burning money is against the law.
Earlier today on CNBC, host Larry Kudlow introduced a segment on the government’s new Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility by lighting a dollar bill on fire. Kudlow said that the program — which is aimed at energizing “the asset-backed securities market that effectively subsidizes loans to consumers and businesses” — would result in “a lot of people lighting flame to the U.S. dollar which is going down in flames.” “No one is thinking about it, no one is worrying about it, it’s going down in flames,” he said. Watch it:
via Think Progress » Note to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow: Burning money is against the law..
After Successfully Protecting Wall St. Bonuses, Financial Lobbyists Turn Focus To Defeating Obama’s Budget
After Successfully Protecting Wall St. Bonuses, Financial Lobbyists Turn Focus To Defeating Obama’s Budget
As Roll Call reported this morning, financial services lobbyists “have moved into hyperdrive” in an attempt to soften taxes on bailed-out bonuses. The lobbyists working for the financial industry are organized into a group known as the Financial Services Roundtable.
Last year, the Roundtable lobbied aggressively to prevent “legislation from limiting executive compensation.” Scott Talbott, a senior lobbyist for the Roundtable, told the New York Times, “we are opposed to provisions on executive pay.”
Palin rejects nearly half of state’s stimulus funds meant for education, health care, and labor.
OPS: Hey, You Show ‘em Caribou Barbie.
Palin rejects nearly half of state’s stimulus funds meant for education, health care, and labor.
Following the lead of the other 2012 GOP presidential contenders, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) announced today that she would reject nearly half the $930 million Alaska was set to receive from the economic stimulus package. Like Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), Palin is set to further cripple the state’s education system:
The biggest single chunk of stimulus money that Palin is turning down is $160 million for education. There’s also $17 million in Department of Labor funds (vocational rehabilitation services, unemployment services, etc.), about $9 million for Health and Social Services and about $7 million for Public Safety.
How High Unemployment, Pregnant Teens and Unwed Mothers Make the Case for National Health Insurance
How High Unemployment, Pregnant Teens and Unwed Mothers Make the Case for National Health Insurance
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Care Statistics shows that 2007 was a record-setting year when it comes to American births. Not only did we beat out the apex of the baby boom in terms of sheer birthrate, but also we hit a record with births to unwed mothers at a whopping 40 percent. Furthermore, teen pregnancies increased for the second year in a row after a long period of decline throughout the ’90s and early part of this decade.
Whenever this sort of study comes out, it becomes immediately politicized. Social conservatives will blame liberals, the media and Jamie Lynn Spears (though not Bristol Palin). Liberals will blame social conservatives for demonizing sex and advocating abstinence.
Honestly, I’m betting all of the above play a role. But there’s precious little concrete action that we can take on those divisive social issues. There is one thing we can do immediately to stem the tide not only of out-of-wedlock children and teen pregnancies, but also of sickly mothers and children: Provide adequate healthcare to all.
U.S. jobless rolls swell to record 5.47 million
U.S. jobless rolls swell to record 5.47 million
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The
number of U.S. workers drawing state unemployment benefits hit another record high early this month and factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region shrank again as the economy battles a severe downturn.
The Labor Department said on Thursday that 5.47 million people stayed on the benefit rolls in the week ended March 7, up from 5.29 million the previous week and the highest on record.
Jobless rolls are swelling to record levels after Congress last year extended benefits beyond the regular 26 weeks.
With the economy mired in recession since December 2007, the nation’s unemployment rate has skyrocketed and the claims figures underscore the difficulty of finding a new job.
via U.S. jobless rolls swell to record 5.47 million | U.S. | Reuters.
U.S. says highway travel in January down for 14th month
U.S. says highway travel in January down for 14th month
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans drove fewer miles in January for the 14th month in a row, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Thursday, as the sinking economy cut further into highway travel.
U.S. highway travel was down 3.1 percent in January from a year ago, falling 7 billion miles to 222.4 billion miles.
January was the 14th straight month of declining highway travel, with miles driven now down more than 122 billion since December 2007, the department said.
It said revised data showed the national trend in declining highway travel did not begin in November 2007 as it had previously reported.
January’s drop in highway travel was almost double the 1.6 percent decline and 3.8 billion fewer miles driven the month before.
via U.S. says highway travel in January down for 14th month | U.S. | Reuters.
KBR Says Abiding By U.S. Laws Puts it At a ‘Competitive Disadvantage’
KBR Says Abiding By U.S. Laws Puts it At a ‘Competitive Disadvantage’
In a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, former Halliburton unit KBR complained that it will be at a “competitive disadvantage” to win “large-scale” international contracts because it is being forced to comply with U.S. laws.
Last month, KBR pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and admitted that it paid $180 million in “consulting fees” to two agents for use in bribing Nigerian government officials to win a lucrative construction contract for the Bonny Island natural gas liquefaction plant while former Vice President Dick Cheney headed the corporation. KBR paid a $402 million fine as part of its plea deal.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, KBR agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years to ensure it is abiding by U.S. laws, limit its use of foreign agents, and promised to file regular reports on the compliance program with the Department of Justice.
KBR, which was spun off from Halliburton into a separate company in 2007, said in a 10-K filing with the SEC, however, that “limitations on our use of agents as part of our efforts to comply with applicable laws, including the FCPA, could put us at a competitive disadvantage in pursuing large-scale international projects.”
via KBR Says Abiding By U.S. Laws Puts it At a ‘Competitive Disadvantage’.
Senate passes wilderness bill
Senate passes wilderness bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday passed a long-delayed bill to set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness, from a California mountain range to more than 1,000 miles of rivers.
The 77-20 vote sends the bill to the House, where final legislative approval could come as early as next week.
The Senate first approved the measure in January, but it was defeated last week in the House amid a partisan dispute over a plan to allow concealed, loaded guns in national parks.
The legislation — a package of nearly 170 separate bills — would confer the government’s highest level of protection on land ranging from California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range and Oregon’s Mount Hood to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.
Land in Idaho’s Owyhee canyons, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan and Zion National Park in Utah also would win designation as wilderness, and more than 1,000 miles of rivers in nearly a dozen states would gain protections.
Supporters called the legislatione among the most important conservation bills debated in Congress in decades.
via The Associated Press: Senate passes wilderness bill.
All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Geithner: Treasury pushed for bonus loophole
OPS: Stick a fork in him – Geithner is toast. And good riddens! NOW can we have a Progressive? Reich, Krugman?
Geithner Fesses Up: He Pushed for Dropping a Senate Restriction on Bonuses. Geithner’s Becoming a Radioactive Enable of His Wall Street Buddies Who Robbed America Blind.
Geithner: Treasury pushed for bonus loophole
CNN) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNN Thursday his department asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses.
In an interview with CNN’s Ali Velshi, Geithner said the Treasury Department was particularly concerned the government would face lawsuits if bonus contracts were breached.
Dodd admitted to CNN Thursday he’d added the controversial provision after a Treasury official pushed for it. Earlier in the week, Dodd had said he had not played any role in the addition of the loophole.
Geithner told Velshi Thursday he takes full responsibility for the situation.
Clean Coal–The Ultimate Oxymoron
Clean Coal–The Ultimate Oxymoron
A little over a year ago, I was in West Virginia driving slowly behind my husband. He was on his bike near the end of his cross-country bike race. As you can imagine, driving behind a bike never allowed me to go much over 10 miles per hour. So I did a lot of looking around. The two lane road took us through a lush, green forest that felt almost primordial. From my interest in biodiversity, I knew this region of Appalachia was one of the most biodiverse in North America. It is a way station for countless species of migratory birds and its waters are habitat for an amazing array of fish and amphibians.
I don’t remember how many miles of that exquisite forest we drove through before coming to an opening where I beheld the strangest site; so strange, in fact, I had a hard time computing what I was seeing. Then I realized what it was. Between two prominent mountain peaks was a bare, brown, flat area, not half as high as the two peaks.
via OpEdNews » Clean Coal–The Ultimate Oxymoron.
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?
A Program of Financial Concentration
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam? By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Professor Michael Hudson (CounterPunch, March 18) is correct that the orchestrated outrage over the $165 million AIG bonuses is a diversion from the thousand times greater theft from taxpayers of the approximately $200 billion “bailout” of AIG. Nevertheless, it is a diversion that serves an important purpose. It has taught an inattentive American public that the elites run the government in their own private interests.
Americans are angry that AIG executives are paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses after having cost the taxpayers an exorbitant sum. Senator Charles Grassley put a proper face on the anger when he suggested that the AIG executives “follow the Japanese example and resign or go commit suicide.”
Yet, Obama’s White House economist, Larry Summers, on whose watch as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration financial deregulation got out of control, invoked the “sanctity of contracts” in defense of the AIG bonuses.
via Paul Craig Roberts: Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?.
Tent Cities: An American Tradition
Tent Cities: An American Tradition
A couple weeks ago a reader shared word with the Huffington Post of a tent city in Virginia, about an hour outside of D.C., where tons of middle class people had put up stakes after getting ousted from their homes.
The tip was reporter’s gold and seemed entirely plausible. Foreclosures are surging, and those people have to live somewhere. But calls to five Virginia counties turned up nothing; the original tipster conceded it might just be a rumor.
The five county sheriffs all told the Huffington Post, though, that they’d heard of a tent city in Sacramento, California — one that had been featured on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
NBC Nightly News followed up with a “sign of the times” piece on the Sacramento shantytown. Apparently recently-employed people were shown cooking soup in coffee cans and living out of tents along the American River. The report said tent cities were also popping up in Seattle, Reno, and Nashville. Several other news organizations jumped on the story, all linking the tent city phenomenon to the recession. A UK Times Online headline declared that “America faces new Depression misery as financial crisis worsens.”
via Tent Cities: An American Tradition.
-
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
-
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. 
