Archive for March, 2009
Obama On Afghanistan: I Will Not ‘Simply Assume That More Troops Always Result In An Improved Situation’
Obama On Afghanistan: I Will Not ‘Simply Assume That More Troops Always Result In An Improved Situation’
Since President Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last week, he and his administration have been careful to distinguish it from President Bush’s surge in Iraq. Today on Fox News Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed that the focus of the mission in Afghanistan has been “narrowed”: “I think what we need to focus on…is making headway and reversing the Taliban’s momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and really going after Al Qaeda.”
Today in an interview with CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Obama underscored this point. He pointed out that the reason he has increased troops in Afghanistan is because levels there are “greatly underresourced.” However, he is not going to “simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation”:
Planting cyber seeds
Planting cyber seeds -By Jeffrey Tomich
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Earlier this month, a blogger named Brad fired a virtual salvo at Jeffrey Smith, the author of “Seeds of Deception” and one of the most vocal crusaders against genetically modified foods.
In a 600-word post, Brad questioned the credibility of an online petition on Smith’s website, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to require labeling of biotech foods. He called the petition “sheer political theater” and prodded the activist for purportedly being a yogic flying instructor.
More than 30 comments followed in the next few weeks. On one level, the exchange was just another online debate about GMOs. But this one was notable because of who initiated and hosted it: Monsanto Co.
For years, environmental and food activists have made good use of YouTube video and Facebook to skewer Monsanto in the blogosphere. Now, the biotech giant is turning the tables.
via 03/29/2009 – Planting cyber seeds – STLtoday.com.
History Lesson: And These Are the People We Expect to Fix Things Now?
History Lesson: And These Are the People We Expect to Fix Things Now? - By Dave Lindorff
George Santayana once famously said, “Those who cannot learn from
history are doomed to repeat it.” But what about those who don’t just
ignore history, but who hire and take counsel from those who committed
historic follies in the past?
Back in November 1999, Congress passed legislation pushed by then
Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), rescinding the Depression-era Glass-Steagall
Act. The measure, backed by the Clinton administration, and
overwhelmingly passed by the Senate (90-8) and the House (362-57),
opened the way for banks to merge with investment banks and insurance
companies, and led directly to the current financial cataclysm.
A report on that Congressional action written by reporter Stephen
Labaton and published in the New York Times on Nov. 5, 1999 under the
headline “Congress Passes Wide-Ranging Bill Easing Bank Laws,” includes some remarkable quotes from key players in that sellout to the financial sector.
Here’s Larry Summers, a chief architect of the current financial
industry multi-trillion-dollar bailout giveaway being orchestrated by
the Obama administration, where he serves as director of President
Obama’s National Economic Council:
”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed
financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a
system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better
enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”
And here’s what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), awash in Financial
industry campaign donations but currently in high dudgeon over the Wall
Street’s bonus payments to executives, speaking about the ’99 measure
eliminating Glass-Steagall:
via History Lesson: And These Are the People We Expect to Fix Things Now? | Democrats.com.
Biden: No more US dictating to Latin America
OPS: as much as they’d like to.
No more US dictating to Latin America: Biden
SANTIAGO (AFP) — US Vice President Joe Biden said that the United States would no longer “dictate unilaterally” to Latin America, and that it had entered a new era in the historically troubled relationship.
“The time of the United States dictating unilaterally, the time where we only talk and don’t listen is over,” Biden said in Santiago after holding discussions with a clutch of Latin American leaders at a conference at a Chilean beach resort.
Biden’s five-day visit to meet leaders in the region, including a second stop in Costa Rica, aimed to pave the way for President Barack Obama, who is set to attend the Summit of the Americas next month in Trinidad and Tobago.
“My visit here is just the beginning of a renewal of a partnership with the Americas. In the past, even when we engaged positively we tended to engage ‘for’ the (western) hemisphere. We’re not engaging ‘for,’ this is ‘with,’” Biden added.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet hailed the new US administration’s “genuine wish to play a proactive and decisive role in the construction of a new world dialogue.”
Biden’s trip came as decades-long US influence in the region is waning, while Latin American countries have grown stronger and expanded relations with others, including China, Russia and India.
via AFP: No more US dictating to Latin America: Biden.
Financial Crime in America
Financial Crime in America – by Danny Schechter
Why Hasn’t Obama Targeted The Ongoing White Collar Crime Wave?
Another day. Another ponzi scheme
This time it’s the Millenium Bank in the Eastern Caribbean accused of a mere $65 million dollar rip off. (Ponzi king Bernard Maddoff allegedly took in $65 billion.) Regulators say there is a “ponzimonium” underway with scores of newly opened investigations. We are talking about pervasive institutional crime, not just individual theft.
The role of shady, largely unreported, “off shore” institutions is slowly emerging as a component of a larger criminal scheme. There is a report that “a class action lawsuit has been filed against several offshore entities and individuals on behalf of investors in four hedge funds who allegedly lost over $3 billion in the Bernard Madoff fraud.”
On shore, in New York, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued new subpoenas to AIG. Former Governor Eliot Spitzer is saying the problem there is not just with bonuses by billions from government bailouts going to “counterparties”—companies that did business with the infamous insurer which just changed its name.
Reports the Wall Street Journal: “CDS contracts were at the heart of AIG’s meltdown,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The question is whether the contracts are being wound down properly and efficiently or whether they have become a vehicle for funneling billions in taxpayers dollars to capitalize banks all over the world.”
The Obama people must be worried about the capacity of white collar crooks to undercut their own programs because they are setting up their own investigation of those who took bailout monies.
Reports a Memphis newspaper: “Eil M. Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), recently announced the creation of a broad, multi-agency task force designed to deter, detect and investigate instances of fraud in the soon-to-be-launched Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program.”
via Financial Crime in America.
The Dirt on Clean Coal
The Dirt on Clean Coal – By Ari Berman
In 1955 the Tennessee Valley Authority built what was at the time the world’s largest coal plant, near Kingston, Tennessee. More than fifty years later, the Kingston Fossil Plant produces enough electricity to power 670,000 homes and emits nearly 11 million tons of carbon dioxide–the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming–each year. On December 22 a dike broke at the plant, sending more than a billion gallons of toxic black sludge downhill into the ground, water and homes of eastern Tennessee. The infected area was some forty times larger than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and became known as the “nightmare before Christmas.”
The spill underscored the negative images the word “coal” often conjures up–battered communities in Appalachia, underground explosions, exploited miners, brutal strikes and black lung. Yet the American coal industry, which pumps 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and contributes more than one-third of the nation’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, is nothing if not resilient. Despite rising public concern about global warming and a growing awareness that coal is an irrevocably dirty business, the industry is spending millions of dollars on a slick messaging campaign stressing its “commitment to clean.”
Mexican drug cartels spreading roots in Atlanta
Mexican drug cartels spreading roots in Atlanta
When dealers move in, violence follows, authorities say
ATLANTA — On the outside, the modest three-bedroom brick-sided home on Village Green Court in Lilburn looked no different than many other houses in the middle-class suburban neighborhood.
But when police were called to the rented house in one of Gwinnett County’s oldest communities last month, they found a scene that has become familiar in the Atlanta area since Mexican drug cartels began setting up shop in well-established communities, in the midst of unsuspecting neighbors.
“We found a dead body in the living room and a dead body in the den. The floor was covered with kilo wrappers [for drugs] and there was a money-counting machine set to count hundred-dollar bills,” said Gwinnett County District Atty. Danny Porter, who spends much of his limited resources on drug-trafficking cases. “There were mattresses on the bedroom floor, a pickup in the garage and big buckets of charcoal placed throughout the house to absorb the odor of cocaine.”
The Obama administration announced plans last week to shore up efforts along the Southwest U.S. border and send agents to Mexico to try to dismantle drug cartels responsible for thousands of murders, beheadings and kidnappings there. Meanwhile, law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are waging their own battles to crack down on drug-related crimes that have spread to cities and small towns across America.
via Mexican drug cartels spreading roots in Atlanta — chicagotribune.com.
Biden: Social Security payments to begin in May
Biden: Social Security payments begin in May
People receiving Social Security or disability benefits will share $13 billion
WASHINGTON – People who collect Social Security or disability benefits will share $13 billion in federal money, each receiving a one-time, $250 payment beginning in May, Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday.
Biden also announced that $3.2 billion in grants are available for energy efficiency and conservation projects nationwide.
Both pots of money are from the economic recovery bill President Barack Obama signed into law in February. Obama says the $787 billion measure will help end the recession by saving and creating 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010, and putting money into people’s pockets.
via Biden: Social Security payments to begin in May – Capitol Hill- msnbc.com.
Bush Leaves Legacy of Fraud and Abuse At Small Business Administration
Bush Leaves Legacy of Fraud and Abuse At Small Business Administration — By Nick Baumann |
It’s been a rough decade for the Small Business Administration. The Bush administration slashed its budget by more than half, and many of its most experienced and knowledgeable employees were let go. To make matters worse, multiple investigations have found evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse at the agency, which is supposed to help small businesses drive economic growth. On Wednesday, the embattled agency was dealt another blow when the Government Accountability Office revealed that the SBA’s $8 billion program designed to funnel government contracts to small businesses in poor areas gave millions to companies that did not meet the legal requirements, including one that was “headquartered” in a trailer home occupied by someone unrelated to the company. Some of the owners of the “small businesses” in question admitted straight-out to the GAO that they were defrauding the SBA’s HUBZone program by funnelling money to big businesses or businesses outside the zones.
In total, the GAO found 19 businesses that did not meet the HUBZone requirements received some $30 million in federal contracts despite their non-compliance. One firm that collected $900,000 was particularly egregious in its rulebreaking:
[O]ur investigation found that the purported principal office was in fact a residential trailer occupied by someone not associated with the company. The company had represented its office as located in “suite 19,” when in reality, the address was associated with trailer 19 in a residential trailer park. The two employees of the firm—a father and a son—lived in non- HUBZone areas that are located about 90 miles from the trailer park. This firm also subcontracted most of its HUBZone work to non-HUBZone firms.
Chris Gunn, a spokesman for the American Small Business League, has been bird-dogging the SBA for years. He says that since the underfunded and overwhelmed agency was gutted by the Bush administration, “it’s not necessarily surprising that we see this amount of fraud and abuse.”
via Bush Leaves Legacy of Fraud and Abuse At Small Business Administration | Mother Jones.
Health insurers pull a fast one in proposed reform
Health insurers pull a fast one in proposed reform
The industry says it will treat all people fairly in return for a government requirement that everyone has to buy their product. But they want to charge different prices for different levels of coverage
It might have looked as if real progress toward healthcare reform was made last week when leading insurers proposed ending their long-standing practice of charging higher rates to sick people and denying coverage to those with chronic conditions.
But not so fast.
A closer look at the insurance industry’s plan reveals a potentially huge loophole that could short-circuit genuine reform.
The insurers are saying that they’ll treat all people fairly in return for a government requirement that everyone buy their product.
Yet if you read the fine print in their plan, it turns out that they’re reserving the right to charge different prices for different levels of coverage — a practice that would effectively keep us where we are, with sick (or potentially sick) people paying more for insurance.
via Health insurers pull a fast one in proposed reform – Los Angeles Times.
Grassroots Politics Examiner: Westwood One proves need for Employee Free Choice Act in Sen. Specter’s backyard
Westwood One proves need for Employee Free Choice Act in Sen. Specter’s backyard
Rev. Moon Exemplifies Right Wing GOP Subsidy of Big Media to Frame Message
Rev. Moon Exemplifies Right Wing GOP Subsidy of Big Media to Frame Message
THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG - By Mark Karlin
Rev. Moon has adopted a relatively low-profile in recent years (if you don’t count his bizarre “coronation” by elected officials in a Capitol Hill House of Representatives meeting room a couple years back), but that hasn’t prevented the weird religious leader (and close ally of the Bush family) from pouring an estimated 1 – 2.5 billion dollars into subsidizing the Washington Times since 1982.
In 2002, Rev. Moon pronounced “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.” But the reality is that the Washington Times — like the New York Post and Weekly Standard for Rupert Murdoch — are investments in obtaining financial regulatory and other favors from Republican administrations in return for helping frame and market the GOP talking points of tax cuts, cultural wars, and Wall Street gambling.
The Washington Times has only about 100,000 subscribers, but its newsboxes are next to the Washington Post throughout D.C., allowing it to appear as an equal — and to have its banner headlines seen by tens of thousands of D.C. “influencers” every day. Then, it also gives a byline and title for its writers to appear as D.C. pundits on television (just as Bill Kristol is identified as editor of the chronically money losing “Weekly Standard” during his ubiquitous “pundit” appearances on the tube) — as well as all television reporters need to quote it to provide “balance.”
via Rev. Moon Exemplifies Right Wing GOP Subsidy of Big Media to Frame Message | BuzzFlash.org.
Jonathan Miller to join News Corp
Jonathan Miller to join News Corp – By Ken Li
Published: March 28 2009 23:21 | Last updated: March 28 2009 23:21
Jonathan Miller, former chief executive of AOL, is to join News Corp this week to oversee the broad strategic digital initiatives across Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling global media, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr Miller will have operational control of News Corp’s MySpace internet social network, the IGN video games media and community service, Photobucket online photos service, Jamba, a mobile phone contents company, and News Corp’s interest in the Hulu online video site.
via FT.com / Companies / Media – Jonathan Miller to join News Corp.
Bank chiefs hold peace talks with Obama
Bank chiefs hold peace talks with Obam
Both sides urge mutual co-operation
Top bank chief executives held peace talks with President Barack Obama at the White House on Friday as the administration sought to soothe tensions over lavish Wall Street bonus payments.
The meeting came at the end of a week in which in which Mr Obama pushed back against efforts by Congress to slap hefty tax penalties on bonuses and warned people not to “demonise” investors and entrepreneurs.
via FT.com / World – Bank chiefs hold peace talks with Obama.
GOP in Congress fights tactic they once wielded
GOP in Congress fights tactic they once wielded
The term reconciliation typically conveys a sense of rapprochement reminiscent of restored ties between the United States and China or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. But in Congress, reconciliation can mean the opposite, conjuring up relationships more along the lines of Yankees versus Red Sox or Microsoft versus Apple.
Republicans are in a tizzy that Democrats are threatening to use the budgetary procedure known as reconciliation – it reconciles policy with fiscal guidelines – to overhaul the health care system, possibly enact legislation on climate change and rewrite education policy.
They have good reason to fret. If Democrats successfully invoke reconciliation, such major bills could pass by a simple majority vote, denying Republicans the filibuster, their sole remaining weapon to influence federal policy given the Democratic grip on government.
But the record is also replete with statements by Republicans like Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the party’s leader on budget issues, praising the logic of reconciliation when they were the majority.
via GOP in Congress fights tactic they once wielded.
Biden’s Daughter Targeted
Biden’s Daughter Targeted
A “friend” of Vice President Joseph Biden’s daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware, the New York Post reports.
Craig Crawford doesn’t buy it: “The newspaper’s editors act as though they took the high ground by stating ‘the Post refused to pay for the video.’ But then they go on to speculate in print about what’s on it — despite being unable to confirm that Ashley is on the tape.”
via Biden’s Daughter Targeted — Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire.
Former judge fired up on making pot legal
Former judge fired up on making pot legal
All right, tell me this doesn’t sound a little strange:
I’m sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He’s begging me to tell you we need to legalize drugs in America.
“Please quote me,” says Jim Gray, insisting the war on drugs is hopeless. “What we are doing has failed.”
As far as I can tell, Gray is not off his rocker. He’s not promoting drug use, he says for clarification. Anything but. If he had his way, half the revenue we would generate from taxing and regulating drugs would be plowed back into drug prevention education, and there’d be rehab on demand.
So here he is in coat and tie — with a U.S. flag lapel pin — eating his oatmeal and making perfect sense, even when talking about the way President Obama flippantly dismissed a question about legalizing marijuana last week during a White House news conference.
via Former judge fired up on making pot legal – Los Angeles Times.
Smokers Face A Hit As Tobacco Taxes Spike
Smokers Face A Hit As Tobacco Taxes Spike
WASHINGTON — However they satisfy their nicotine cravings, tobacco users are facing a big hit as the single largest federal tobacco tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday.
Tobacco companies and public health advocates, longtime foes in the nicotine battles, are trying to turn the situation to their advantage. The major cigarette makers raised prices a couple of weeks ago, partly to offset any drop in profits once the per-pack tax climbs from 39 cents to $1.01.
Medical groups see a tax increase right in the middle of a recession as a great incentive to help persuade smokers to quit.
Tobacco taxes are soaring to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children. President Barack Obama signed that health initiative soon after taking office.
Other tobacco products, from cigars to pipes and smokeless, will see similarly large tax increases, too. For example, the tax on chewing tobacco will go up from 19.5 cents per pound to 50 cents. The total expected to be raised over the 4 1/2 year-long health insurance expansion is nearly $33 billion.
via Smokers Face A Hit As Tobacco Taxes Spike.
Keys to the kingdom: Inside Saudi Arabia’s royal family
OPS: Even MORE reason to get the hell off of Saudi and all foreign energy
Keys to the kingdom: Inside Saudi Arabia’s royal family
The crown prince is seriously ill, and Saudi Arabia’s normally secretive royal family is openly clashing over who will take the throne, reports Hugh Miles
A dispute over Saudi Arabia’s royal succession burst into the open yesterday, revealing a power struggle in which one of the most senior princes in the oil-rich kingdom is reported to have disappeared. The prospect of instability in a country that is not only the world’s largest oil exporter but also a key Western ally at the heart of the Middle East will cause serious concern in Washington, London and beyond.
Rumours are rife over the position of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, 60, son of the heir to the Saudi throne, who has not been seen in public for weeks. Prince Bandar is better known abroad than almost any other member of the Saudi royal family, not only for his extravagant lifestyle, but because of his daring foreign policy initiatives during 22 years as the Saudi ambassador in Washington, where he played an important role after 9/11 and during two Gulf wars. His absence from public life comes at a sensitive time in Saudi Arabia: his father, Crown Prince Sultan, is gravely ill with cancer, throwing the succession to King Abdullah into question.
via Keys to the kingdom: Inside Saudi Arabia’s royal family – Middle East, World – The Independent.
Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack
Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack
INTELLIGENCE chiefs have warned that China may have gained the capability to shut down Britain by crippling its telecoms and utilities.
They have told ministers of their fears that equipment installed by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, in BT’s new communications network could be used to halt critical services such as power, food and water supplies.
The warnings coincide with growing cyberwarfare attacks on Britain by foreign governments, particularly Russia and China.
A confidential document circulating in Whitehall says that while BT has taken steps to reduce the risk of attacks by hackers or organised crime, “we believe that the mitigating measures are not effective against deliberate attack by China”.
via Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack – Times Online.
Rangel Says Feds Behind AIG Bonuses Were Out Of Touch
Rangel Says Feds Behind AIG Bonuses Were Out Of Touch
via NY1 | 24 Hour Local News | Politics | Rangel Says Feds Behind AIG Bonuses Were Out Of Touch.
Annals of National Security: Syria Calling
Syria Calling - by Seymour M. Hersh
The Obama Administration’s chance to engage in a Middle East peace.
When the Israelis’ controversial twenty-two-day military campaign in Gaza ended, on January 18th, it also seemed to end the promising peace talks between Israel and Syria. The two countries had been engaged for almost a year in negotiations through intermediaries in Istanbul. Many complicated technical matters had been resolved, and there were agreements in principle on the normalization of diplomatic relations. The consensus, as an ambassador now serving in Tel Aviv put it, was that the two sides had been “a lot closer than you might think.”
At an Arab summit in Qatar in mid-January, however, Bashar Assad, the President of Syria, angrily declared that Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the resulting civilian deaths showed that the Israelis spoke only “the language of blood.” He called on the Arab world to boycott Israel, close any Israeli embassies in the region, and sever all “direct or indirect ties with Israel.” Syria, Assad said, had ended its talks over the Golan Heights.
Nonetheless, a few days after the Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, Assad said in an e-mail to me that although Israel was “doing everything possible to undermine the prospects for peace,” he was still very interested in closing the deal. “We have to wait a little while to see how things will evolve and how the situation will change,” Assad said. “We still believe that we need to conclude a serious dialogue to lead us to peace.”
via Annals of National Security: Syria Calling: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.
Obama ‘our quarterback’ for final Olympic pitch: Daley
Obama ‘our quarterback’ for final Olympic pitch: Daley
Fresh from a Denver trip to promote the city’s Olympic bid, Mayor Daley on Saturday declared President Obama “our quarterback” who will help bring the Games to Chicago.
“This is the United States of America, and the person who’s our quarterback is President Barack Obama,” Daley said at a West Side garden show. “He is the one who will go to Copenhagen’’ to present the city’s final pitch to the International Olympic Committee in October.
via Obama ‘our quarterback’ for final Olympic pitch: Daley :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Chicago 2016.
A New Way Forward
12 million unemployed. Foreclosures up 81%. Wall Street has taken over. We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.
Our plan: Real structural change of Wall Street
DECENTRALIZE: Any bank that’s “too big to fail” means that it’s too big for a free market to function. The financial corporations that caused this mess must be broken up and sold back to the private market with new antitrust rules in place — new banks, managed by new people.
As Wall St. corporations grew bigger and bigger until they were “too big to fail,” they also became so politically powerful that they led to distorted and unfair policies that served companies, not citizens.
Its not enough to try to patch up the current system. We demand serious reform that fixes the root problems in our political and economic system: excessive influence of banks, dangerous compensation systems, and massive consolidation. And we demand that the reform happen in an open and transparent manner.
via A New Way Forward.
Scientists find safer way to make human stem cells
Scientists find safer way to make human stem cells
* New approach may advance stem cell research
* Turns skin cells into stem cells leaving no risky DNA
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO, March 26 (Reuters) – U.S. researchers said on Thursday they have found a safer way to coax human skin cells into becoming powerful embryonic-like stem cells, taking a step closer to their potential use as treatments for diseases.
A team at the University of Wisconsin said they made the so-called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, from human cells without using viruses or exotic genes, which leave behind genetic material that might pose risks if the cells were used as medical therapies.
James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, whose study appears in the journal Science, said the finding represents the first time researchers have made human induced pluripotent stem cells without inserting potentially problematic new genes into their DNA.
Many teams are working on better ways to get ordinary skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, the body’s master cells that give rise to all 220 cell types in the human body.
via Scientists find safer way to make human stem cells | Industries | Healthcare | Reuters.
Caught In the Act Of Thinking
Caught In the Act Of Thinking - By Jonathan Alter | NEWSWEEK
Obama is following Roosevelt’s approach of making early down payments on big ideas.
Mid-tweet in last week’s press conference, reporters were already complaining that President Obama wasn’t making news. And by the old standards, they were right. Obama didn’t drop any bombshells, or rein in his agenda, as so many have been urging, or tee up a YouTube-ready sound bite. The same gasbags who had blasted him for demeaning the presidency by cracking jokes on “The Tonight Show” and drinking a beer at a basketball game (hadn’t some favored George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000 precisely because he was better “to have a beer with”?) now claim Obama’s boring. On Sunday he had to defend himself on “60 Minutes” from the charge that he was “punch drunk” with mirth; by Wednesday, he was derided as too serious and professorial.
If it’s the latter, Obama’s the cool professor who gets strong student reviews, as he did when he taught at the University of Chicago Law School. A year ago, Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s onetime strategist, compared him to his fellow Illinoisan, Adlai Stevenson, in order to discredit the upstart as an effete intellectual. Penn failed, in part because Obama won’t refute the charge by dumbing down his language or playing the plebe (as George H.W. Bush did by eating pork rinds) or otherwise pandering to those with less bandwidth in ways he knows are inauthentic. When Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a woman approached him and said, “Governor, you have the support of every thinking American.” Stevenson replied, “That’s nice, but I need a majority.” Obama is less cynical about the public. He seems perfectly content to be caught in the act of thinking in prime time.
via Caught In the Act Of Thinking | Newsweek Voices – Jonathan Alter | Newsweek.com.
19,000 UK credit card details posted on the Net … and accessible on Google
19,000 UK credit card details posted on the Net…and accessible on Google – By Sean Poulter and Jonathan Weinberg
The credit card details of up to 19,000 British shoppers were published on the internet – where they could be found using a simple search on Google.
The details apparently originated from the website of a criminal gang in the Far East.
The list, obtained by the Mail, includes the names, home addresses and full card details of thousands of Visa, Mastercard and American Express customers.
Google’s high-powered search engine inadvertently picked up the list during a ‘crawl’ of the web – allowing it to be seen and copied.
It was still viewable a few days ago, but a spokesman for the banking industry trade body APACS said that many of the cards on the list had already been stopped and others had expired.
However, these users’ home addresses – including door numbers and postcodes – were clearly shown, creating the risk of identity theft.
APACS also revealed that banks had merely put a warning flag on the accounts of those customers whose cards were still active, in order to monitor any unusual use.
Disturbingly, however, these customers have not been warned of the security breach.
via 19,000 UK credit card details posted on the Net … and accessible on Google | Mail Online.
Obama unveils overseas trip agenda
Obama unveils overseas trip agenda
US President Barack Obama will head to London on Tuesday for his first overseas trip since taking office, to take part in the economic summit of 20 major and developing nations.
Advisers said the goal was to manage the current crisis by restoring growth and to prevent a future downturn by reforming financial regulations.
Mr Obama has vowed to listen to his foreign counterparts and lead by example to address the economic crisis and work to stem future financial catastrophes.
“The President and America are going to listen in London as well as to lead,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Discussions are expected to be intense as there are wide differences between the US and Europe over how to stabilise and grow economies.
While in London, Mr Obama plans meetings with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the Queen, and British Conservative Party leader David Cameron.
Mr Obama is also scheduled to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
via Obama unveils overseas trip agenda – Daily Post North Wales.
Insurers shun those taking certain meds
Insurers shun those taking certain meds
How health insurers secretly blacklist those with certain ailments.
Trying to buy health insurance on your own and have gallstones? You’ll automatically be denied coverage. Rheumatoid arthritis? Automatic denial. Severe acne? Probably denied. Do you take metformin, a popular drug for diabetes? Denied. Use the anti-clotting drug Plavix or Seroquel, prescribed for anti-psychotic or sleep problems? Forget about it.
This confidential information on some insurers’ practices is available on the Web — if you know where to look.
What’s more, you can discover that if you lie to an insurer about your medical history and drug use, you will be rejected because data-mining companies sell information to insurers about your health, including detailed usage of prescription drugs.
These issues are moving to the forefront as the Obama administration and Congress gear up for discussions about how to reform the healthcare system so that Americans won’t be rejected for insurance.
It’s especially timely because growing numbers are looking for individual health insurance after losing their jobs. On top of that, small businesses, which make up the bulk of South Florida’s economy, are frequently finding health policies too expensive and are dropping coverage, sending even more people shopping for insurance.
The problem is, material available on the Web shows that people who have specific illnesses or use certain drugs can’t buy coverage.
via Insurers shun those taking certain meds – Costs of Care – MiamiHerald.com.
Obama at Notre Dame and Gingrich’s Outrage
OPS: Newts treason and fascism know no bounds.
YouTube – Obama at Notre Dame and Gingrich’s Outrage.
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President – by Ray McGovern
I was wrong. I had been saying that it would be naïve to take too seriously presidential candidate Barack Obama’s rhetoric regarding the need to escalate the war in Afghanistan. I kept thinking to myself that when he got briefed on the history of Afghanistan and the oft proven ability of Afghan “militants” to drive out foreign invaders-from Alexander the Great, to the Persians, the Mongolians, Indians, British, Russians-he would be sure to understand why they call mountainous Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.”
And surely he would be fully briefed on the stupidity and deceit that left 58,000 U.S. troops-not to mention 2 to 3 million Vietnamese-dead in Vietnam. John Kennedy became president the year Obama was born. One cannot expect toddler-to-teenager Barack to remember much about the war in Vietnam, and it was probably too early for that searing, controversial experience to have found its way into the history texts as he was growing up.
Innocent of History, and Distracted
But he was certainly old enough to absorb the fecklessness and brutality of the U.S. invasion and
via Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President | CommonDreams.org.
Pretending to be Civilized in an Epidemic of Institutional Sadism
Pretending to be Civilized in an Epidemic of Institutional Sadism- by Pierre Tristam
From the you-can’t-be-serious department: Savana Redding was a 13-year-old honors student at a small Arizona middle school. In math class one morning the principal ordered her to pack up and follow him to his office. The principal interrogated her about a planner Savana had lent a friend, and a few ibuprofin pills sitting on the principal’s desk, which were found in the planner. Savana knew nothing about the pills.
The principal then ordered her to the nurse’s office for a strip search. Over ibuprofin pills. Not that it would make a difference if she were carrying crack. She was 13. She was being ordered to strip. Her parents were never notified. Savana did not consent to the search but complied in humiliating details. She was forced, literally, to shake her bra and her underwear, exposing herself in front of the nurse and an assistant. Nothing was found. I don’t know what’s more perverse: The principal’s zero-tolerance stupidity over ibuprofin pills, the degrading search, or the fact that nine U.S. Supreme Court justices will hear this case next month to decide what limits, if any, there should be on school authority.
But this isn’t authority. It’s criminal abuse — of authority, of the child, of human dignity. How do we come to this? Stupid question, considering the accumulating record of a society where ideals of justice and humaneness mix with the basest controls in the name of discipline and order. They’re close relatives, those school officials who order a 13 year old strip searched, to those who have children Tasered, or to police officers who now use that instrument of torture as a routine means of subjugation, or to prison guards who do the same with restraining chairs. When the barbaric becomes routine, it’s called protocol. What should be denounced and forbidden is accepted and debated.
via Pretending to be Civilized in an Epidemic of Institutional Sadism | CommonDreams.org.
Jim Webb’s Courage v. the ‘Pragmatism’ Excuse for Politicians
OPS: Webb is also up against another well funded Corporate Lobbying machine. Fascism in it’s glory
Jim Webb’s Courage v. the ‘Pragmatism’ Excuse for Politicians – by Glenn Greenwald
There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb’s impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that. Webb’s interest in the issue was prompted by his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession. After decades of mindless “tough-on-crime” hysteria, an increasingly irrational “drug war,” and a sprawling, privatized prison state as brutal as it is counter-productive, America has easily surpassed Japan — and virtually every other country in the world — to become what Brown University Professor Glenn Loury recently described as a “a nation of jailers” whose “prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history.”
What’s most notable about Webb’s decision to champion this cause is how honest his advocacy is. He isn’t just attempting to chip away at the safe edges of America’s oppressive prison state. His critique of what we’re doing is fundamental, not incremental. And, most important of all, Webb is addressing head-on one of the principal causes of our insane imprisonment fixation: our aberrational insistence on criminalizing and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders (when we’re not doing worse to them). That is an issue most politicians are petrified to get anywhere near, as evidenced just this week by Barack Obama’s adolescent, condescending snickering when asked about marijuana legalization, in response to which Obama gave a dismissive answer that Andrew Sullivan accurately deemed “pathetic.” Here are just a few excerpts from Webb’s Senate floor speech this week (.pdf) on his new bill to create a Commission to study all aspects of prison reform:
via Jim Webb’s Courage v. the ‘Pragmatism’ Excuse for Politicians | CommonDreams.org.
Spanish Judge Accuses Six Top Bush Officials of Torture
OPS: Maybe we’ll have Gonzogate after all. It’s a crime that OUR government is ignore their sworn duty in this.
Spanish Judge Accuses Six Top Bush Officials of Torture – by Julian Borger and Dale Fuchs
Legal moves may force Obama’s government into starting a new inquiry into abuses at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
MADRID – Criminal proceedings have begun in Spain against six senior officials in the Bush administration for the use of torture against detainees in Guantánamo Bay. Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998, has referred the case to the chief prosecutor before deciding whether to proceed.
The case is bound to threaten Spain’s relations with the new administration in Washington, but Gonzalo Boyé, one of the four lawyers who wrote the lawsuit, said the prosecutor would have little choice under Spanish law but to approve the prosecution.
“The only route of escape the prosecutor might have is to ask whether there is ongoing process in the US against these people,” Boyé told the Observer. “This case will go ahead. It will be against the law not to go ahead.”
via Spanish Judge Accuses Six Top Bush Officials of Torture | CommonDreams.org.
Earth Hour 2.0 a Success
Earth Hour 2.0 a Success – by Daniel Dale
City smashes last year’s record low power usage as lights dim across the GTA and as far away as Beijing
And the environmentalists said let there be darkness. And – for an hour, at least – there was darkness: in downtown office towers and suburban homes, in stores big-box and mom-and-pop, at gatherings long-planned and impromptu.
Not a solution, no, but a statement. At 9:30 p.m., the conclusion of the second global Earth Hour, the meter at Toronto Hydro’s control centre that measures city-wide electricity demand hit 2,545 megawatts – 15 per cent below typical demand at that time and 7 per cent below the lowest demand during Earth Hour in 2008.
Toronto’s reduction of 455 megawatts was larger than the cumulative savings of the entire GTA during last year’s event.
via Earth Hour 2.0 a Success | CommonDreams.org.
Dallas lawmaker wants cities banned from ticketing drivers caught on right-on-red-light cameras
OPS: As usual, here in Chicago the Mayor is behind the curve, not listening to those with experience, and is currently pushing to ADD red-light camera tickets in the city.
Dallas lawmaker wants cities banned from ticketing drivers caught on right-on-red-light cameras
There is controversy developing over red-light cameras.
A Dallas lawmaker wants to ban cities from ticketing some drivers caught by the system. Many cities in North Texas have red-light cameras.
Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway wants to put the brakes on some red-light camera citations issued to drivers who are making a left or right turn.
Her bill would prohibit cities from ticketing drivers seen on cameras who stopped before making the turn but didn’t stop before the white lines or the crosswalk.
It’s legal to make a right turn on red in Texas, but only if you stop before the white lines or the crosswalk.
“In Garland, the white line is the line that triggers the mechanism, but if you are not going over 15 miles an hour the mechanism is not triggered, so we do not capture that specific violation,” said George Kauffman from the city of Garland.
Obama Will Face a Defiant World on Foreign Visit
Obama Will Face a Defiant World on Foreign Visit
WASHINGTON — President Obama is facing challenges to American power on multiple fronts as he prepares for his first trip overseas since taking office, with the nation’s economic woes emboldening allies and adversaries alike.
Despite his immense popularity around the world, Mr. Obama will confront resentment over American-style capitalism and resistance to his economic prescriptions when he lands in London on Tuesday for the Group of 20 summit meeting of industrial and emerging market nations plus the European Union.
The president will not even try to overcome NATO’s unwillingness to provide more troops in Afghanistan when he goes on later in the week to meet with the military alliance.
He seems unlikely to return home with any more to show for his attempts to open a dialogue with Iran’s leaders, who have, so far, responded with tough words, albeit not tough enough to persuade Russia to support the United States in tougher sanctions against Tehran. And he will be tested in face-to-face meetings by the leaders of China and Russia, who have been pondering the degree to which the power of the United States to dominate global affairs may be ebbing.
via Obama Will Face a Defiant World on Foreign Visit – NYTimes.com.
Obama moves to fill 3 more slots at Treasury
Obama moves to fill 3 more slots at Treasury
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday moved to fill three top Treasury Department positions, seeking to give Secretary Tim Geithner added manpower at an agency that has been slow to fill vacancies.
Helen Elizabeth Garrett, a University of Southern California vice president for academic planning, is being nominated to be assistant secretary for tax policy. Also selected for slots were Michael S. Barr to be assistant secretary for financial institutions, and George W. Madison for general counsel.
Barr is a University of Michigan law professor and Madison is a former executive vice president and general counsel of TIAA-CREF.
“Under the leadership of Secretary Geithner, I have great confidence that they will be valuable and effective additions to our team as we tackle our nation’s economic challenges,” Obama said in a statement.
via The Associated Press: Obama moves to fill 3 more slots at Treasury.
Open Letter to Alaskan Rep Mike Doogan
Open Letter to Alaskan Rep Mike Doogan – by Scout Finch
Throughout recent elections, bloggers have become an increasingly important part of our political landscape, taking politicians and the media to task, demanding accountability, raising money for candidates, and organizing in force. Many, if not most, bloggers and blog readers remain anonymous for a variety of reasons. For a long time, I was also anonymous, fearful I would receive retribution at my now former job. But I spoke out using my anonymous handle “Scout Finch” because the injustices in this country were mounting and I could bear no more. I took inspiration from the legions of other pseudonymous anonymous bloggers, including many with funny names like Kos, Meteor Blades, Devilstower, and KagroX. They were influencing the debate and inspiring me to join the conversation.
I was also reminded of another group of anonymous writers who wrote under the pseudonym “Publius.” They once published a series of anonymous articles, better known as The Federalist Papers, which would become catalyst to ratify the constitution. One of those radical, anonymous writers would later go on to become President of the United States.
This country has long prided itself on the principle of freedom of speech. Writing anonymously about the affairs of our government is as old a tradition–or arguably even older–as our government itself. And the ability to speak freely without fear of retribution is as entrenched in our society as deeply as apple pie and fireworks on the Fourth of July.
So, imagine my surprise to discover this morning that you have taken it upon yourself to “out” the increasingly well-known Alaskan blogger known simply as AKMuckraker at the blog mudflats. From your newsletter:
via Daily Kos: Open Letter to Alaskan Rep Mike Doogan.
Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow? Maybe…
Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow? Maybe… – By Eric Alterman
The Liberal Media
The Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer confrontation on The Daily Show is being widely compared to that between Edward R. Murrow and Joe McCarthy over alleged Communist subversion in the Army. The analogy is considerably less crazy than it first appears. Sure, Murrow was Murrow, but there was a shlocky side to the Great Man. On Person to Person he would visit the homes of stars and suck up to them with a cloying mien that might impress Barbara Walters. And while the celebrity-stroking aspect of Murrow’s career does not comport in our minds with the brave, tough-minded reporter who covered war, famine and the like, it probably helped build much of his audience and garner the trust of those who did not follow national affairs closely.
Ditto Mr. Stewart. Yes, he makes funny faces and starred in Death to Smoochy, but, along with Stephen Colbert, his ability to entertain is what lends him his authority in the first place. Think about it. Why should we care who this or that newspaper publisher endorses for president? Answer: we only care because we care about the editorial influence on the audience. Presidential candidates don’t go seeking the endorsement of high school newspapers because, well, dude, kids don’t vote. Stewart and Colbert have the audience that powerful people want to reach; yet at the same time, these two men do not participate in a pack mentality, and that’s what makes them politically invaluable (and at this point, irreplaceable).
via Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow? Maybe….
Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads, Officials Say
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida — chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates — was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
via Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots – washingtonpost.com.
Deal Is Reached to Raise Taxes on Top Earners in New York
OPS: It’s a start. The Rich haven’t been paying their fair share since the Reagan and it’s time they started. Obama would do well to completely roll back the Reagan tax cuts.
Deal Is Reached to Raise Taxes on Top Earners in New York
Gov. David A. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature have reached a deal to temporarily raise taxes on New York’s highest earners in order to close the state’s yawning budget deficit, lawmakers and officials involved in the talks said on Saturday.
The new plan, which would expire after three years, would represent the largest state income tax increase in recent history, significantly larger than the surcharges imposed from 2003 to 2005, when the state last faced a major recession.
The plan would raise $4 billion a year by creating two new tax brackets, the highest one affecting those who earn $500,000 or more. If approved by rank-and-file lawmakers in the Assembly and State Senate, the tax increases would be a major victory for unions and liberal advocacy groups and a signal of the new balance of power in Albany, where Democrats won control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office in last year’s election.
via Deal Is Reached to Raise Taxes on Top Earners in New York – NYTimes.com.
Obama administration set to announce it will give more money to General Motors, Chrysler
Obama administration set to announce it will give more money to General Motors, Chrysler
The Obama administration was finishing work on a plan to give more financial aid to two Detroit automakers in return for tough cost-cutting measures that will ensure the companies’ survival.
President Barack Obama’s auto industry task force was expected to offer additional aid to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC while setting firm deadlines for the companies to get concessions from their stakeholders.
GM and Chrysler, which employ about 140,000 workers in the U.S., have already received $17.4 billion in government loans to survive the economic downturn and the worst decline in auto sales in 27 years. GM is seeking another $16.6 billion, while Chrysler wants $5 billion more.
With the companies running out of money heading into April, any short-term aid would help the auto manufacturers maintain their operations while they seek concessions. Administration officials declined to comment on the plan Saturday.
Rep. Shimkus: Capping CO2 emissions will take away too much ‘plant food from the atmosphere.’
OPS: Brain-dead , moronic and just the argument to connect to his republican base. That’s the really sad part.
Rep. Shimkus: Capping CO2 emissions will take away too much ‘plant food from the atmosphere.’
Progress Illinois notes that earlier this week at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Rep. John Shimkus R-IL tried to argue that the United States doesn’t need a cap-and-trade system to limit CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. In the past, he has called cap and trade “a shell game to hide the cost from the ultimate person who is going to pay.” Here is Shimkus’s newest theory:
SHIMKUS: It’s plant food. … So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? … So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.
Watch it
Subprime Swindlers Reconnect to Homeowners in Scams (Update1)
Subprime Swindlers Reconnect to Homeowners in Scams (Update1)
Subprime Swindlers Work A New Angle: Rescue Scams
March 27 (Bloomberg) — In early 2008, Cheryl Ann Montero, a California mortgage broker, held a series of free seminars in the clubhouse of the Lone Tree Golf Course in Contra Costa County, a suburban area near San Francisco. The attendees, homeowners facing foreclosure, were desperate for a rescue from their woes. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Montero delivered one.
She said her firm, Freedom Financial Solutions, could pressure lenders to stop foreclosures by challenging the legality of loan agreements, according to court records. Her fee: $2,500 upfront and a $2,000 monthly payment to cover legal costs. Promoting her services on the Web site Craigslist, Montero, a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman who looked like a soccer mom, became known as a foreclosure escape artist.
via Subprime Swindlers Reconnect to Homeowners in Scams (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Time-Lapse Video Of Red River Rising (VIDEO)
Time-Lapse Video Of Red River Rising (VIDEO)
Residents of Fargo, North Dakota are all too familiar with the surge in estimates of the weather forecasts that have accompanied the flooding devastating the region.
According to the Grand Forks Herald:
On Feb. 11, the National Weather Service said the Red River in Fargo had a 30 percent chance of reaching 34 feet. On March 13, it was a 50 percent chance of hitting 35 feet. On March 17, the number was 50 percent of 37 to 40 feet. And, one day later, a 70 percent chance of 39 to 41 feet.
via Time-Lapse Video Of Red River Rising (VIDEO).
Biden says U.S. does not plan to lift Cuba embargo
OPS: Can we just get over this stuipd crap – drop the baggage and move on?!
Biden says U.S. does not plan to lift Cuba embargo
VINA DEL MAR, Chile, March 28 (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday the United States would not lift the country’s embargo on Cuba.
“No,” Biden told reporters at a meeting in Chile when asked if the United States planned to lift the embargo. (Reporting by Reese Ewing, Simon Gardner, Adrian Croft; Editing by Simon Gardner)
via Biden says U.S. does not plan to lift Cuba embargo | Markets | US Markets | Reuters.
Alaska’s Mount Redoubt spews ash 50,000 feet high
Alaska’s Mount Redoubt spews ash 50,000 feet high
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska’s Mount Redoubt has erupted again, spewing an ash cloud 50,000 feet up into the air.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage says the volcano had a significant eruption at 1:20 a.m. Saturday. The ash is expected to move north toward the Alaska Range, missing Anchorage which is about 100 miles from the volcano.
The observatory says after the eruption, it detected strong seismic activity lasting 20 minutes or more followed by an hours-long low-level tremor.
Since the series of eruptions began Sunday night, the volcano has had about a dozen bursts. The last time the volcano erupted was during a four-month period in 1989-90.
via Alaska’s Mount Redoubt spews ash 50,000 feet high.
All the news that’s fit to be birdcage liner
All the news that’s fit to be birdcage liner - David Sirota
Newspapers have been battered by technological and economic forces, sure, but journalism has also delivered a one-two punch to its own jaw.
March 28, 2009 | At Northwestern University in the mid-1990s, the journalism professor with the most devoted student following was an understated teacher who said that substantive writing and reporting isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Alternately despondent and sanguine, he reminded me of Grady from the book “Wonder Boys” when he told us that he spent weekends drinking in his closet and that he corrected papers in green ink because “green is the color of hope.”
Professor Kupetz has since left Northwestern, and journalism is today running dangerously low on his emerald-hued optimism. Judging by the fatalistic declarations after this month’s collapse of newspapers in Denver and Seattle, the industry is morosely drinking in its closet, wondering what went wrong.
Most newspaper postmortems insist that decreased ad revenues brought on by the Internet and the recession caused journalism’s problems, not self-inflicted wounds. If that was entirely accurate, then readers might lament newspapers’ decline as a loss of must-read content. Instead, Pew polls find “many Americans wouldn’t care a lot if local papers folded.”
via All the news that’s fit to be birdcage liner | Salon.
Haaretz: Will the US financial crisis lead to a New World Order? Many world leaders are now calling for a global government.
Haaretz: Will the US financial crisis lead to a New World Order? Many world leaders are now calling for a global government.
Will U.S. financial woes lead to new world order? – By Adam Abrams
Is the U.S. about to lose its status as the dominant global superpower? Will the dollar collapse? If so, what would become the new global reserve currency and what would replace U.S. hegemony in a new world order?
American troops are currently stationed in over 150 countries around the world and have been actively engaged in combat since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. The pretext for the invasion of Afghanistan was provided by the 9/11 attacks.
A second front in the U.S. “war on terror” was opened in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq. As well these military expenditures, the U.S. has an outstanding national debt of $10.8 trillion and rising.
Although U.S. President Barack Obama has outlined a timetable for complete U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by 2011, he has ordered an increase of 17,000 more U.S.
troops in Afghanistan. With no clear end in sight to U.S. military engagement and with the U.S. national debt growing at an accelerating rate, it seems reasonable to ask whether or not the U.S. might be irreversibly overextending itself.
Worst Case: The Day The Dollar Falls
Worst Case: The Day The Dollar Falls
“…the US borrows 3 Billion dollars a day from foreigners…”
This is a Dutch (Netherlands) documentary from 2005. It is about a ‘Worst Case’ scenario where speculation on the currency exchange market plus a substantial sell-off of dollars from a hedge fund cause a chain reaction in the market, the economy and the political system.
Part 1/6
via : Information Clearing House – ICH.
Stocks Will Drop; Banks Will Go Belly Up – Roubini
Stocks Will Drop; Banks Will Go Belly Up – Roubini – By Charting Stocks
March 27, 2009 “Charting Stocks” — – The stock market will drop as major banks go belly up says Nouriel Roubini, the NYU economist that successfully predicted the current economic collapse. Below is the text from an interview Mr. Roubini gave today on Bloomberg TV.
U.S. stocks will fall and the government will nationalize more banks as the economy contracts through the end of 2009, said Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted last year’s economic crisis.
“The stock market is a bit ahead of the real macroeconomic and financial news,” Roubini, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the chairman of consulting firm Roubini Global Economics, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in London today. “We’ll have some major banks going belly up that will need to be taken over.”
The global equity rebound in March that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its best monthly advance in 17 years is a “bear-market rally” and U.S. Treasury yields will “remain relatively low” as investors flock to the safest assets, Roubini said. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s new plan to remove toxic debt from financial companies won’t be enough for insolvent banks, he said.
Roubini’s outlook contrasts with predictions this week from Templeton Asset Management Ltd.’s Mark Mobius and Traxis Partners LLC’s Barton Biggs, who said that equities are poised to rally as government efforts to revive the economy and banking system begin to work. Investors are “way too optimistic” about the prospects for a recovery in the economy and earnings, Roubini said.
Stress Tests
via Stocks Will Drop; Banks Will Go Belly Up – Roubini : Information Clearing House – ICH.
The Free Market, Financial Style
The Free Market, Financial Style – By MICHAEL HUDSON
How the Scam Works
March 27, 2009 “Counterpunch” — Newspaper reports seem surprised at how high banks are bidding for the junk mortgages that Treasury Secretary Geithner is now bidding for, having mobilized the FDIC and Fed to transfer yet more public funds to the banks. Bank stocks are soaring – thereby bidding up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as if the “financial industry” really were part of the industrial economy.
Why are the very worst offenders – Bank of America (now owner of the Countrywide crooks) and Citibank the largest buyers? As the worst abusers and packagers of CDOs, shouldn’t they be in the best position to see how worthless their junk mortgages are?
That turns out to be the key! Obviously, the government has failed to protect itself – deliberately, intentionally failed to do so – in order to let the banks pull off the following scam.
Suppose a bank is sitting on a $10 million package of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that was put together by, say, Countrywide out of junk mortgages. Given the high proportion of fraud (and a recent Fitch study found that every package it examined was rife with financial fraud), this package may be worth at most only $2 million as defaults loom on Alt-A “liars’ loan” mortgages and subprime mortgages where the mortgage brokers also have lied in filling out the forms for hapless borrowers or witting operators taking out mortgages at far more than properties were worth and pocketing the excess.
The bank now offers $3 million to buy back this mortgage. What the hell, the more they bid, the more they get from the government. So why not bid $5 million. (In practice, friendly banks may bid for each other’s junk CDOs.) The government – that is, the hapless FDIC – puts up 85 per cent of $5 million to buy this – namely, $4,250,000. The bank only needs to put up 15 per cent – namely, $750,000.
Here’s the rip-off as I see it. For an outlay of $750,000, the bank rids its books of a mortgage worth $2 million, for which it receives $4,250,000. It gets twice as much as the junk is worth.
via The Free Market, Financial Style : Information Clearing House – ICH.
Forging a Hot Link to the Farmer Who Grows the Food
Forging a Hot Link to the Farmer Who Grows the Food – by Brad Stone and Matt Richtel
America, meet your farmer.
The maker of Stone-Buhr flour, a popular brand in the western United States, is encouraging its customers to reconnect with their lost agrarian past, from the comfort of their computer screens. Its Find the Farmer Web site and special labels on the packages let buyers learn about and even contact the farmers who produced the wheat that went into their bag of flour.
The underlying idea, broadly called traceability, is in fashion in many food circles these days. Makers of bananas, chocolates and other foods are also using the Internet to create relationships between consumers and farmers, mimicking the once-close ties that were broken long ago by industrialized food manufacturing.
Traceability can be good for more than just soothing the culinary consciences of foodies. Congress is also studying the possibility of some kind of traceability measure as a way to minimize the impact of food scares like the recent peanut salmonella crisis.
via Forging a Hot Link to the Farmer Who Grows the Food | CommonDreams.org.
Police trying to ‘smear’ peaceful protests
Police trying to ‘smear’ peaceful protests - Brendan Bourne
Organisers of some of the protests planned in London over the next week to coincide with the G20 summit have complained that police briefings have given the impression that demonstrations will be mounted by anarchists intent on causing trouble.
Thousands of police will be on duty next week for the run-up to the summit on Thursday and to deal with any violence.
Events start today with a march for “jobs, justice and climate”, organised by an unprecedented alliance of more than 150 unions, environment, charity, faith and development groups.
Tens of thousands from across the UK and abroad will join a rally in Hyde Park, which will hear calls for action to save jobs, support a low-carbon economy and stricter control of the finance sector.
Organisers have rejected claims that the event will be anything other than peaceful and law-abiding as “smears”.
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Council (TUC), said there had never before been such a broad coalition with a clear message for world leaders.
“The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work, and have brought the world’s economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy,” he said.
via Police trying to ‘smear’ peaceful protests – Times Online.
Veterans For Peace Statement on Obama’s Afghanistan Policy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Veterans For Peace Statement on Obama’s Afghanistan Policy
NATIONWIDE – March 27 – Today President Obama announced what he termed, “a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
The President went on to say, “I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That’s the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you.”
The national organization Veterans For Peace takes issue with the President’s characterization of the conflict in Afghanistan and his policies. Vietnam War Navy Corpsman and National President of VFP, Mike Ferner, said, “The President has already escalated the war in Afghanistan by an additional 17,000 troops. Today’s announced escalation of 4,000 more troops is another step into the swamp. It doesn’t matter if those steps are big or small, we’re still going into the swamp and we need to turn around. At some point we will undoubtedly stop bombing and start talking. The sooner we do that the better.”
via Veterans For Peace Statement on Obama’s Afghanistan Policy | CommonDreams.org.
Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan — Sound Familiar?
Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan — Sound Familiar? -by Jim Hightower
Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to war we go!
As President Barack Obama begins winding down the Bush war in Iraq, he is building up his own war farther east. We’re told that it will be a new, expanded, extra-special American adventure in Afghanistan, involving a vigorous surge strategy to “stabilize” this perpetually unstable land.
The initial surge will add 17,000 troops to the 36,000 already there. Then, later this year, there is to be a second troop surge of another 17,000 or so. This mass of soldiers is expected to be deployed to a series of new garrisons to be built in far-flung regions of this impoverished, rural, mostly illiterate warlord state that is ruled by hundreds of fractious, heavily armed tribal leaders. We’re not told how much this escalation will cost, but it will at least double the $2 billion a month that American taxpayers are already shelling out for the Afghan war.
The extra-special part of this effort is to come from a simultaneous “civilian surge” of hundreds of U.S. economic development experts. “What we can’t do,” said Obama in an interview last Sunday, “is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems.” To win the hearts (and cooperation) of the Afghan people, this development leg of the operation will try to build infrastructure (roads, schools, etc.), create new crop alternatives to lure hardscrabble farmers out of poppy production and generally lift the country’s bare-subsistence living standard.
What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. Yes, another privatized army, such as the one in Iraq. There, the Halliburtons, Blackwaters and other war profiteers ran rampant, shortchanging our troops, ripping off taxpayers, killing civilians and doing deep damage to America’s good name.
via Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan — Sound Familiar?.
Newspapers last bastion against political corruption says David Simon, award-winning creator of The Wire
Newspapers last bastion against political corruption, says creator of The Wire
In exclusive interview with the Guardian, writer David Simon expresses fears for newspapers’ future and accuses media owners of contempt
Fictional corrupt politicians are a mainstay of The Wire, David Simon’s celebrated television series about life on the Baltimore streets. But the show’s creator says he fears a real-life explosion of rampant corruption in American political life if the newspaper industry, in which he worked for more than a decade, is allowed to collapse.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the award-winning writer and producer launches a tirade against newspaper owners who, he says, showed “contempt for their product” and are now reaping the whirlwind. But he rejects the idea that newspapers should seek ways to embrace the new world of free information, arguing that they must urgently start charging money for content distributed online.
“Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model,” says Simon, a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. “To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city, as a local politician! It’s got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption.”
Armed With Sensitive Noses, More War Dogs Called Up to Serve Multiple Tours
Returning to Serve, Sniff – Sensitive Noses No. 1 Weapon Against Bombs
US Military Dogs Sent On Multiple War Tours, Suffer From Stress, Nightmares
Rambo sounds the warning as soon as the kennel door at Bolling Air Force Base creaks open, a ferocious, thunderous bark as loud and persistent as a jackhammer. In the next stalls, Rocky goes berserk, spinning in tight circles like a top, and Jess, ears perked, bounces excitedly up and down.
Then there’s Timi. He stays silent, his head bowed, ears bent. He stands motionless, averting his gaze.
via Armed With Sensitive Noses, More War Dogs Called Up to Serve Multiple Tours – washingtonpost.com.
Tens Of Thousands Gather In London To Protest Upcoming G20 Summit
Tens Of Thousands Gather In London To Protest Upcoming G20 Summit
LONDON – Tens of thousands of people marched across central London Saturday to demand jobs, economic justice and environmental accountability, kicking off six days of protest and action planned in the run-up to the G20 summit next week.
More than 150 groups threw their backing behind the “Put People First” march. Police said around 35,000 attended the demonstration, but there were large gaps in the line of protesters snaking its way across the city toward Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park.
The marchers are pushing for a more transparent and democratic economic recovery plan.
“The whole economic meltdown … There’s a really good opportunity for governments to get together and invest in a sustainable future,” said unemployed Steve Burson, 49, marching with the protesters.
The biggest groups backing the demonstration include the Stop The War Coalition, whose supporters marched under the slogan “Jobs Not Bombs,” Friends of the Earth, and the Trades Union Congress, an umbrella group of British trade unions, which is calling for Britain’s crisis-hit manufacturing base to share in country’s banking bailout.
via Tens Of Thousands Gather In London To Protest Upcoming G20 Summit.
Newsweek’s Krugman Cover Story: Obama’s Loyal Opposition
Newsweek’s Krugman Cover Story: Obama’s Loyal Opposition
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been one of most vocal critics of the Obama administration’s bank bailout plan. As the Financial Times noted Friday, Krugman is one of the “many prominent left-leaning economists” who is leading what the article referred to as “the liberal backlash” against Obama. For example, in a widely-read post on his blog “Conscience of a Liberal” last Saturday, Krugman criticized Geithner’s plan for the banks, declaring that “the zombie ideas have won.” His critique quickly echoed around the blogosphere and beyond.
This week’s issue of Newsweek highlights, and perhaps helps solidify, Krugman’s status as arguably the most prominent, influential and prescient critic of the administration on the left by featuring him on the magazine’s cover alongside the headline “OBAMA IS WRONG: The Loyal Opposition of Paul Krugman.” (SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGE OF COVER)
As Newsweek editor Jon Meacham writes in his letter to the magazine’s readers about the Krugman article:
via Newsweek’s Krugman Cover Story: Obama’s Loyal Opposition.
Wind-powered car breaks record
Wind-powered car breaks record
Greenbird wind powered vehicle
Wind powered Greenbird reached speeds of 126.1 mph
A British engineer from Hampshire has broken the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle.
Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph (202.9km/h) in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada.
Mr Jenkins told the BBC that it had taken him 10 years of “hard work” to break the record and that, on the day, “things couldn’t have been better”.
American Bob Schumacher set the previous record of 116 mph in 1999, driving his Iron Duck vehicle.
“It’s great, it’s one of those things that you spend so long trying to do and when it actually happens, it’s almost too easy,” Mr Jenkins told the BBC.
The Greenbird is a carbon fibre composite vehicle that uses wind (and nothing else) for power. The only metalwork used is for the wing bearings and the wheel unit.
via BBC NEWS | Technology | Wind-powered car breaks record.
G-20 to Set New Rules for Tax Havens Under Regulatory Shake-Up
G-20 to Set New Rules for Tax Havens Under Regulatory Shake-Up
WASHINGTON – The 20 largest economic nations in the world are expected to produce a new set of rules for oversight, transparency and conduct for offshore tax havens next week as part of a broader effort to overhaul the regulatory structure of the world economy, White House officials said Saturday.
The new “rules of the road” for Caribbean and other tax havens will be included in a communiqué issued by the Group of 20 nations at a much-anticipated London economic summit on Thursday, said Michael Froman, a deputy White House national-security adviser for international economic affairs.
It would come on top of new goals for global economic stimulus and efforts to coordinate regulatory oversight between the world’s largest economies as well as emerging economic powers such as Brazil, India and China.
via G-20 to Set New Rules for Tax Havens Under Regulatory Shake-Up – WSJ.com.
Pinochet judge weighs criminal probe of Bush ‘torture lawyers’
Pinochet judge weighs criminal probe of Bush ‘torture lawyers’ – Stephen C. Webster 
Spanish official says arrest warrants ‘highly probable’
Six Bush-era officials responsible for crafting the legal justifications permitting the military prison at Guantanamo Bay are the subject of a potential Spanish criminal probe which could place the men under serious risk of arrest if they travel outside the United States.
“[Spanish newspaper] Público identifies the targets as University of California law professor John Yoo, former Department of Defense general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer working for Chevron), former vice presidential chief-of-staff David Addington, former attorney general and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, now a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith,” noted Scott Horton at Harper’s.
He called them Bush’s “torture lawyers.”
On March 17, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, published an editorial in the Washington Note which accused Bush officials of knowingly holding innocent men in Guantanamo Bay for years.
“The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who indicted the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet,” reported the New York Times. “The official said that it was ‘highly probable’ that the case would go forward and could lead to arrest warrants.”
If the judge decides to open an investigation, it will be the first such legal action outside the United States, the private Cadena Sur radio said.
via The Raw Story | Pinochet judge weighs criminal probe of Bush ‘torture lawyers’.
Freedom for man who shot at [unannounced] cop
In Austin, something rather extraordinary just happened. A man who got into a shootout with a police officer — who had apparently opened fire without announcing he was law enforcement — is going to get off scott free.
A few excerpts from the Austin American-Statesman:
Travis County prosecutors on Friday dismissed the case against David Lozano, who lost his leg in a late-night shootout with an Austin police officer at Lozano’s Northeast Austin house in 2007.
“We believe that Mr. Lozano maintained a reasonable belief that on that day and time he was defending himself, his wife and his property,” Travis County Assistant District Attorney Steven Brand said.
The dismissal came after a series of expert witnesses for the state and defense cast doubt on whether officer Roger Boudreau told the truth about the confrontation, according to lawyers in the case.
Austin’s Fox 7 reported:
via The Raw Story » Freedom for man who shot at cop.
Wonk Room’s Matt Duss discusses new neocon think tank on Rachel Maddow Show.
Wonk Room’s Matt Duss discusses new neocon think tank on Rachel Maddow Show.
Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss discussed the emergence of the Foreign Policy Institute, the seeming new shelter for disgraced neoconservative foreign policy “experts.” Maddow asked Duss how is it that the architects of the Iraq failure are able to reconstitute themselves:
MADDOW: Here’s the thing I don’t understand about DC and national security policy: Why is it that people who are catastrophically wrong about big important things like foreign policy and war never, like, flunk out of that as a subject? It doesn’t affect our judgment of them apparently at all for the next things they want to do.
DUSS: I think that’s a great question, Rachel. I ask myself that question all the time. There seems to be this special dispensation in American foreign policy that, as long as you are wrong on the side of more military force, then all is forgiven. … As long as you make these errors in favor of more military action, then eventually you’re forgiven and allowed back in the conversation. And everyone just forgets about it.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Wonk Room’s Matt Duss discusses new neocon think tank on Rachel Maddow Show..
Olbermann reports the latest developments in teh Think Progress O’Reilly Harassment Machine campaign.
Olbermann reports the latest developments in our O’Reilly Harassment Machine campaign.
Last night on MSNBC’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann discussed our Stop Supporting The O’Reilly Harassment Machine campaign. “Tonight begins the comeuppance,” Olbermann said in awarding Bill O’Reilly his “Worst Person in the World” honor:
ThinkProgress.org contacted the sponsors of O’Reilly’s TV program, asking — not if they support his right-wing stances, his hypocrisy, his racism, his misogyny, his fact-optional approach — but if they could stomach him time after time stalking people who had dared to criticize him in print or online. And tonight, UPS has said enough.
Watch it:
Three Mile Island: 30th Anniversary of the Worst Nuclear Accident in US History
Democracy Now! Audio – Video – Transcript – MP3 download
Three Mile Island: 30th Anniversary of the Worst Nuclear Accident in US History
Thirty years ago this Saturday, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania malfunctioned, sparking a meltdown that resulted in the release of radioactivity. It was the worst nuclear accident in US history. The accident at Three Mile Island fueled the nuclear debate in this country that continues to rage to this day. We speak with anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman.
Guest:
Harvey Wasserman, independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist. In the early 1970s, he helped found the grassroots movement against nuclear power in the United States. He is senior editor of the Ohio-based freepress.org and the editor of nukefree.org.
via Democracy Now! | Three Mile Island: 30th Anniversary of the Worst Nuclear Accident in US History.
Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries
Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries
TORONTO — A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.
In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.
The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.
Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.
via Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries – NYTimes.com.
NE health summit: Hundreds demand reform
NE health summit: Hundreds demand reform
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Two different groups of people gathered here March 17 to talk about solving the health care crisis. Inside the Davis Center at the University of Vermont were some 400 people invited to the White House Northeast Regional Forum on Health Reform, hosted by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Republican Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont.
Outside, under a bright and unseasonably warm sky, 200-300 people from the five-state region gathered to tell the forum attendees that they refused to be the marginalized majority, that they were demanding that the forum address HR 676, the Medicare for All bill, to fundamentally reform health care in America.
The protest was called by single-payer advocates, the Vermont AFL-CIO, nurses unions in the region, the United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Vermont Workers’ Center, when it became obvious that only a token number of single-payer advocates were to be invited to the forum. Most invitees were “stakeholders” not advocates, with a few people representing patients who had been mistreated or let down by the current system.
via People’s Weekly World – NE health summit: Hundreds demand reform.
Thomas Geoghegan on “Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy”
Audio – Video – Transcript – MP3 download
Thomas Geoghegan on “Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy”
Democracy Now!
The Obama administration unveils its $1 trillion plan to buy toxic assets from banks and restore the financial system. But should we return to the way it was? We speak with Chicago lawyer Thomas Geoghegan about his new Harper’s Magazine cover story, “Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy.” Geoghegan writes, “We dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter’s term.”
G20 protesters go on the march
G20 protesters go on the march – By Mario Cacciottolo
The protest ran from the Embankment to Hyde Park
The stream of thousands of people marching through London to protest ahead of the forthcoming G20 summit was an unusual beast.
Although there were pockets of noise, and chanting, live brass bands and booming sounds played over loudspeakers, the mood was often a little subdued.
But individually people were islands of anger, disappointment and concern over the global economy, the conduct of bankers, governments and financiers.
By the sheer scale of things, it was clear that the dismay felt by many in society by what has been dubbed either the “credit crunch” or “economic downturn” has upset enough to make them come and pace the streets of the capital.
via BBC NEWS | UK | G20 protesters go on the march.
Afghanistan: The Four Questions
Afghanistan: The Four Questions – by
Robert Naiman,
Questions remain about the Obama Administration’s policy in Afghanistan. Getty Images
President Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy on Friday – the traditional Washington day for burying things. But there weren’t any big surprises. The administration had been dribbling details out through the news media: more troops, more civilians, narrower goals. As for “narrowing the goals” in his speech, Obama had it both ways: He asserted, “we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future” and “we are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future,” while striking out against an assumed threat of a “return to Taliban rule,” and insisting that al-Qaeda terrorists “would accompany the core Taliban leadership,” which arguably implies that the set of US goals may not have narrowed very much, and that the US is indeed still trying to control Afghanistan and dictate its future.
via t r u t h o u t | Afghanistan: The Four Questions.
Nanocapacitors with Big-Energy Storage
Nanocapacitors with Big-Energy Storage
Nanopore arrays combine high power and storage capacity.
The ultimate electronic energy-storage device would store plenty of energy but also charge up rapidly and provide powerful bursts when needed. Sadly, today’s devices can only do one or the other: capacitors provide high power, while batteries offer high storage.
Now researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a kind of capacitor that brings these qualities together. The research is in its early stages, and the device will have to be scaled up to be practical, but initial results show that it can store 100 times more energy than previous devices of its kind. Ultimately, such devices could store surges of energy from renewable sources, like wind, and feed that energy to the electrical grid when needed. They could also power electric cars that recharge in the amount of time that it takes to fill a gas tank, instead of the six to eight hours that it takes them to recharge today.
There are many different kinds of batteries and capacitors, but in general, batteries can store large amounts of energy yet tend to charge up slowly and wear out quickly. Capacitors, meanwhile, have longer lifetimes and can rapidly discharge, but they store far less total energy. Electrochemists and engineers have been working to solve this energy-storage problem by boosting batteries’ power and increasing capacitors’
via Technology Review: Nanocapacitors with Big-Energy Storage.
A Better Biofuel Bug
A Better Biofuel Bug
Zymetis is testing genetically modified bacteria that efficiently convert biomass into sugar.
A tiny microbe found in the Chesapeake Bay is the focus of intense study for a biotech startup in College Park, MD. Zymetis has genetically modified a rare, cellulose-eating bacterium to break down and convert cellulose into sugars necessary to make ethanol, and it recently completed its first commercial-scale trial. Earlier this year, the company ran the modified microbe through a series of tests in large fermenters and found that it was able to convert one ton of cellulosic plant fiber into sugar in 72 hours. The trial, researchers say, illustrates the organism’s potential in helping to produce ethanol cheaply and efficiently at industrial scales. Zymetis is now raising the first round of venture capital to bring the technology to commercial applications.
Scott Laughlin, CEO of Zymetis, says that for the past two years the company’s scientists have worked to retool and pump up the tiny organism. The microbe’s main advantage is its ability to naturally combine two major steps in the ethanol process, which the company says could considerably slash the high costs of producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass like switchgrass, wood chips, and paper pulp. The company is running the organism through a series of trials to study how the system could be applied at an industrial scale.
via Technology Review: A Better Biofuel Bug.
People Died at Three Mile Island
People Died at Three Mile Island - Harvey Wasserman:
People died—and are still dying—at Three Mile Island.
As the thirtieth anniversary of America’s most infamous industrial accident approaches, we mourn the deaths that accompanied the biggest string of lies ever told in US industrial history.
As news of the accident poured into the global media, the public was assured there were no radiation releases.
That quickly proved to be false.
The public was then told the releases were controlled and done purposely to alleviate pressure on the core.
Both those assertions were false.
The public was told the releases were “insignificant.”
But stack monitors were saturated and unusable, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later told Congress it did not know—and STILL does not know—how much radiation was released at Three Mile Island, or where it went.
via Harvey Wasserman: People Died at Three Mile Island.
Understanding uncertainty: 2845 ways of spinning risk
Understanding uncertainty: 2845 ways of spinning risk
What would you prefer, a game in which you had a 10% chance of winning, or one with a 90% chance of losing?
In this article we explore how risks can be spun to look bigger or smaller simply by changing the way evidence is communicated. Research has shown that people’s perception of risk is vulnerable to this type of manipulation, and it becomes particularly relevant where health issues are concerned. Medical treatments can be presented as miracle cures or as completely useless, and life style changes can be made to look imperative, or not worth bothering with, all by changing the way risk is presented.
This article is centred around the animation below. We have taken a selection of ways in which risk can be communicated and applied them to several health issues. Putting the various options together, we reckon the animation contains 2845 different ways of expressing the effect of a medical treatment or life style choice on the risk of a health problem occurring. As examples we have chosen the effect of consuming processed meat on an average individual, and the effect of taking statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) on a moderate-risk middle-aged man.
via Understanding uncertainty: 2845 ways of spinning risk.
Nuclear Power Cannot Solve Climate Change
Nuclear Power Cannot Solve Climate Change
A new report finds that nuclear power plants cannot be built quickly enough and in a safe and secure manner to be a major global solution for climate change
Nuclear power plants cannot be built quickly enough and in a safe and secure manner to be a major global solution for climate change, according to a report released yesterday from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The report says the nuclear industry, under current policies and financing, won’t be able to build enough new reactors to make a difference in climate in the next 20 years.
“Without major changes in government policies and aggressive financial support, nuclear power is actually likely to account for a declining percentage of global electricity generation,” the report says.
The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2008 projects that without policy changes, nuclear power’s share of worldwide electricity generation will drop from 15 percent in 2006 to 10 percent in 2030.
via Nuclear Power Cannot Solve Climate Change: Scientific American.
U.S. mileage standards to rise for first time
U.S. mileage standards to rise for first time
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Friday imposed the first increase in mileage standards for passenger cars and boosted the floor for sport utilities and pickups beginning with model year 2011 vehicles.
The regulation is an abbreviated version of the initiative launched by Congress and the Bush administration in 2007 to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and cut tailpipe emissions.
It also comes amid deep uncertainty about the future of domestic auto manufacturers General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.
The Detroit-Three profited for years from larger and less efficient vehicles but now face the double wallop of a market downturn fueled by recession and a consumer shift away from their bread-and-butter products.
via U.S. mileage standards to rise for first time: Scientific American.
Tech rivals in cloud computing clash
Tech rivals in cloud computing clash – By Richard Waters
Microsoft and Amazon.com have clashed with IBM and a group of other leading technology companies over an attempt to set some broad technology principles for the coming era of “cloud computing”.
The unusual public spat points to a deeper struggle under way between some of the world’s biggest technology concerns as they try to position themselves for what is expected to be the next big thing in the tech world.
The skirmish “is about personalities, and anxieties about perceptions of leadership” between some of the tech industry’s biggest rivals, said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research.
“Cloud computing” has become the catch-all term for a number of different approaches to computing that share a common element: the greater centralisation of computing power in large-scale datacentres, rather than on PCs or individual servers.
via FT.com / Technology / Science – Tech rivals in cloud computing clash.
America’s liberals lay into Obama
America’s liberals lay into Obama – By Edward Luce in Washington
The liberal backlash against President Barack Obama has begun with many prominent left-leaning economists in the US attacking the administration’s plans to bail out the banks.
Paul Krugman describes the toxic asset purchase plan as “cash for trash”. Jeffrey Sachs calls it “a thinly veiled attempt to transfer hundreds of billions of US taxpayer funds to the commercial banks”. Robert Reich depicts Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, as a prisoner of Wall Street while Joe Stiglitz says the plan “amounts to robbery of the American people”.
via FT.com / UK – America’s liberals lay into Obama.
Robert Reich Says Barack Obama’s Obamanomics Isn’t About Big Government – WSJ.com
Obamanomics Isn’t About Big Government
The president’s focus is on improving human capital.
By ROBERT B. REICH
Twenty-eight years ago, Ronald Reagan used the severe economic downturn of 1980-82 to implement an economic philosophy that not only gave force and meaning to a wide range of initiatives but also offered a way back to sustained economic growth. Is there a similarly powerful animating idea behind Obamanomics?
I believe there is — and it’s not a return to big government.
The expansive and expensive forays of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board into Wall Street notwithstanding, President Barack Obama’s 10-year budget (whose projections may prove wildly optimistic if the economy fails to rebound by early next year) presents a remarkably conservative picture. In 10 years, taxes are expected to fall to around 19% of GDP, a lower level than the late 1990s. Spending is expected to drop to around 22.5% of GDP, about where it was under Ronald Reagan — including nondefense discretionary spending at about 3.6% of GDP, its lowest since data on this were first collected in 1962.
The real distinction between Obamanomics and Reaganomics involves government’s role in achieving growth and broad-based prosperity. The animating idea of Reaganomics was that the economy grows best from the top down. Lower taxes on the wealthy prompts them to work harder and invest more. When they do so, everyone benefits. Neither Reagan nor the apostles of supply-side economics explicitly promised that such benefits would “trickle down” to everyone else but this was broadly understood to be the justification.
via Robert Reich Says Barack Obama’s Obamanomics Isn’t About Big Government – WSJ.com.
Study: Health insurance premiums rising faster than wages – FierceHealthcare
Study: Health insurance premiums rising faster than wages
6 to 8 times faster!
According to a study for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, nearly 20 percent of workers in the U.S. are uninsured reports the Associated Press. In the mid-1990s, about 14 percent of workers-or one in seven-did not have health insurance.
The main cause for such high uninsured rates has been cost. According to the study, premiums are rising six to eight times faster than corresponding wages, making coverage virtually unaffordable. Currently, about 26.9 million workers are uninsured. Twenty percent of the working age population is uninsured in 14 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas), up from just eight states a decade earlier.
Despite those numbers, income and payroll taxes continue to pay for healthcare coverage for the poor, the elderly and children of low-income working parents.
via Study: Health insurance premiums rising faster than wages – FierceHealthcare.
The Quiet Coup – How the financial industry took over the government
OPS: If you read only one article on the financial mess – make it this one
The Quiet Coup – The Atlantic (May 2009)
One thing you learn rather quickly when working at the International Monetary Fund is that no one is ever very happy to see you. Typically, your “clients” come in only after private capital has abandoned them, after regional trading-bloc partners have been unable to throw a strong enough lifeline, after last-ditch attempts to borrow from powerful friends like China or the European Union have fallen through. You’re never at the top of anyone’s dance card.
The reason, of course, is that the IMF specializes in telling its clients what they don’t want to hear. I should know; I pressed painful changes on many foreign officials during my time there as chief economist in 2007 and 2008. And I felt the effects of IMF pressure, at least indirectly, when I worked with governments in Eastern Europe as they struggled after 1989, and with the private sector in Asia and Latin America during the crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over that time, from every vantage point, I saw firsthand the steady flow of officials—from Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and elsewhere—trudging to the fund when circumstances were dire and all else had failed.
Every crisis is different, of course. Ukraine faced hyperinflation in 1994; Russia desperately needed help when its short-term-debt rollover scheme exploded in the summer of 1998; the Indonesian rupiah plunged in 1997, nearly leveling the corporate economy; that same year, South Korea’s 30-year economic miracle ground to a halt when foreign banks suddenly refused to extend new credit.
But I must tell you, to IMF officials, all of these crises looked depressingly similar. Each country, of course, needed a loan, but more than that, each needed to make big changes so that the loan could really work. Almost always, countries in crisis need to learn to live within their means after a period of excess—exports must be increased, and imports cut—and the goal is to do this without the most horrible of recessions. Naturally, the fund’s economists spend time figuring out the policies—budget, money supply, and the like—that make sense in this context. Yet the economic solution is seldom very hard to work out.
No, the real concern of the fund’s senior staff, and the biggest obstacle to recovery, is almost invariably the politics of countries in crisis.
via The Quiet Coup – The Atlantic (May 2009).
We’re Going To Bang On Your Door Until You Get It Right…….
OPS: Blogger’s post on DU responding to the Moyers/Greider Interview (posted here previously)
We’re Going To Bang On Your Door Until You Get It Right…….
I voted for President Obama. I bought into the “Yes We Can”, “Change You Can Believe In” and “Hope” themes of his campaign. I intend to hold him to that. I’m not going to just blindly follow and cheer everything he does – like the Repugs did with Bush (even though they had to know that Bush was wrong most of the time). I will cheer President Obama on when I think he is right – but I will loudly criticize him when I think he is wrong. He told us that he will listen to us – so we need to speak up when we see him veering off path.
I see some here at DU saying “I’m going to wait and see what happens….” or “give him a chance…..” – my feeling if we wait and see or give him a chance – it will be too late because the forces in the back rooms will make the decisions.
No – we need to speak up and speak up loudly when we get the hint that things might be going south. I believe he wants it that way. That’s why he’s going out and listening to the people. I think he derives his power from us and if he knows that we’re pissed at something being done – he can use our anger/concern to his benefit when dealing with both the Dems and Repugs that might be taking him off course.
Right now – after listening to his answer on ‘healthcare’ the other day at the Internet Town Hall – I don’t agree with him. This is one area that I think is most critical to bringing this country back. We need to move to a single source plan. We need to get away from the insurance companies that are causing the problems that now exist in healthcare. We need to speak up now – in the formative stages of this reform. If we wait an see what his healthcare taskforce develops – it will be too late.
The people want single source. Most employers want single source. What makes the most sense is single source.
We can’t let the interest groups hijack this – we need to let him know. We don’t want more of the same – or something just repackaged – so that we can be told and manipulated into believing that it is reform. We want the real thing.
So don’t be afraid to speak up.
Bill Moyers Journal with William Greider
Transcript:
BILL MOYERS: As you know, earlier this week Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed a vast expansion of government authority that would crack down hard on Wall Street’s reckless behavior.
Just in time, it seems. You could almost hear the mob in the streets of Washington as he spoke. Popular anger was beginning to evoke unhappy images among Washington elites of the French Revolution, guillotine and all.
On the Op-Ed page of Sunday’s “Washington Post,” William Greider, the veteran political reporter of four decades, suggested a glass half full. He wrote that the public’s rage “has great potential for restoring a functioning democracy. Timely intervention by the people could save the country from some truly bad ideas now circulating in Washington and on Wall Street.”
Perhaps no journalist better understands the intertwining twists and turns of government and money, the collision of capitalism and democracy, than William Greider. He wrote the definitive account of the Federal Reserve system, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE. In the spirit of Thomas Paine he produced, WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE? Followed it with, THE SOUL OF CAPITALISM. And now, COME HOME, AMERICA: THE RISE AND FALL (AND REDEEMING PROMISE) OF OUR COUNTRY.
Bill Greider, welcome back to the Journal.
WILLIAM GREIDER: Thank you, Bill.
BILL MOYERS: We saw Secretary Geithner on Monday. We saw President Obama on Tuesday night. We saw Secretary Geithner again on Thursday. And the storyline seems to be, we’re going to get tough on the financial industry. Your old newspaper, “The Washington Post,” says, calls it, “A sweeping expansion of Federal authority of the financial system. A rebuke of raw capitalism, and a reassertion that regulation is critical to the healthy function of financial markets.” That’s the storyline as I read the week, but if you read between the lines, what’s missing?
via Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS.
We’re Paying Congress for This?
We’re Paying Congress for This? – By Stanley Kutler
Great crises and problems often have become the subjects of extensive congressional investigation and oversight. Congress has made prominent inquiries into, for example, the Civil War, the Reconstruction, the “money trust” in the Progressive Era, the banking follies of the 1920s and the Great Depression, the prewar defense preparations at Pearl Harbor, the oversight of military contracts during World War II, the Korean War and the emerging character of Cold War foreign policy during the mid-1950s.
Congress’ work gave us transparency and usually led to useful, progressive legislation. And now comes Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s choreographed extravaganza in the House of Representatives, supported by an echoing committee, with sound bites worthy of a night in the Borscht Belt. The ostensible probe of executive bonuses at AIG—forget about any investigation of the company’s decisions that so damaged the financial world—offered a painful reminder of Congress’ now largely ignored unique power of investigation, derived from its constitutionally sanctioned authority to legislate. True, Congress has abused this power from time to time, but that is no argument against its existence.
via Truthdig – Reports – We’re Paying Congress for This?.
Bush Torture Lawyers Targeted in Criminal Probe
Bush Torture Lawyers Targeted in Criminal Probe – By Scott Horton
Harpers
One of America’s NATO allies—which supported the Bush Administration’s war on terror by committing its troops to the struggle–has now opened formal criminal inquiries looking into the Bush team’s legacy of torture. The action parallels a criminal probe into allegations of torture involving the American CIA that was opened this week in the United Kingdom.
Spain’s national newspapers, El País and Público reported that the Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe focusing on Bush Administration lawyers who pioneered the descent into torture at the prison in Guantánamo. The criminal complaint can be examined here. Público identifies the targets as University of California law professor John Yoo, former Department of Defense general counsel William J. Haynes II (now a lawyer working for Chevron), former vice presidential chief-of-staff David Addington, former attorney general and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, now a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith.
The case was opened in the Spanish national security court, the Audencia Nacional. In July 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a former Spanish citizen who had been held in Guantánamo, labeling the regime established in Guantánamo a “legal black hole.” The court forbade Spanish cooperation with U.S. authorities in connection with the Guantánamo facility. The current criminal case evolved out of an investigation into allegations, sustained by Spain’s Supreme Court, that the Spanish citizen had been tortured in Guantánamo.
via Bush Torture Lawyers Targeted in Criminal Probe—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).
Obama order worries free speech groups
OPS: Especially worrying to the corporate gangsters . But there may also be some legitimate Free Speech issues also.
Obama order worries free speech groups
Free speech advocates from across the political spectrum are accusing President Barack Obama of impinging on First Amendment rights and are gearing up to take their case public.
At issue is an unprecedented directive that Obama— who has long railed against lobbyists as the personification of a corrupt Washington culture — issued last week barring officials charged with doling out stimulus funds from talking to registered lobbyists about specific projects or applicants for stimulus cash.
Under the directive, which began going into effect this week, agency officials are required to begin meetings about stimulus funding for projects by asking whether any party to the conversation is a lobbyist.
“If so, the lobbyist may not attend or participate in the telephonic or in-person contact, but may submit a communication in writing,” reads Obama’s memo, which requires the agencies to post lobbyists’ written communications online.
via Obama order worries free speech groups – Kenneth P. Vogel – POLITICO.com.
“Earth Hour 2009″-Edward Norton & Alanis Morissette
Saturday March 28 at 8:30PM
YouTube – “Earth Hour 2009″-Edward Norton & Alanis Morissette.
Berlusconi realises dream with new rightwing party
Silvio Berlusconi realizes dream with new rightwing party
• Freedom People includes Mussolini’s spiritual heirs
• Coalition brings Italy closer to two-party state
A unified party of the Italian right, bringing together followers of Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, and the spiritual heirs of Mussolini’s fascist blackshirts will formally be created tomorrow by delegates at a congress convened to inaugurate the movement.
Speaking from a giant platform in an immense exhibition hall, Berlusconi last night declared the gathering open and moved closer to realising his most cherished dream – leading a single power-bloc of the right.
As soon as a 50ft high screen above the platform showed the prime minister was entering the hall, 6,000 delegates sprang to their feet to give him an ovation. A beaming Berlusconi strode to his place while loudspeakers blared out his party’s election campaign song, whose title roughly translates as: “Thank goodness for Silvio”.
By tomorrow, when the congress ends, the 6,000 delegates will have turned the Freedom People (PdL) – made up of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (“Come on Italy!”) party and the post-fascist National Alliance – from an electoral coalition into a ostensibly monolithic movement representing the bulk of Italy’s conservatives. Since most of the centre-left is already united in a rival Democratic Party (PD), the latest merger brings Italy significantly closer to a two-party system.
via Berlusconi realises dream with new rightwing party | World news | The Guardian.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
