Archive for February, 2010
The NYT Veers Neocon
Robert Parry –
Many American progressives don’t want to recognize how bad the U.S. mainstream news media has become. It’s easier to praise a few exceptions to the rule and to hope that some pendulum will swing than to undertake the challenging task of building a new and honest media infrastructure.
But the hard reality is that the U.S. news media is getting worse, with now both premier national newspapers – the New York Times and the Washington Post – decidedly sliding into the neocon camp, where the likes of the Wall Street Journal have long resided.
For the Post, this may already be an old story, given its enthusiastic cheerleading for the Iraq War. The Times, however, was a somewhat different story. Yes, it did let Judith Miller and other staff writers promote the fictions about Iraq’s WMD, but it hadn’t sunk to the depths of the Post.
That is now changing as the Times – behind executive editor Bill Keller and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal – tosses aside all pretense of objectivity in the cause of seeking “regime change” in Iran, today’s top priority for the neoconservatives.
Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.
Senate Torture Probe Uncovers Missing Emails
The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the George W. Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.
The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious”.
He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.
The email issue recalled the 2006 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings.
Full Story: U.S.: Senate Torture Probe Uncovers Missing Emails – IPS ipsnews.net.
Apple admits using child labour
Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.
At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.
The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.
Full Story: Apple admits using child labour – Telegraph.
Nevadans will feel impact of four-day government workweek
Most of Nevada’s government will soon transition to a four-day workweek. But the reasons for it go beyond filling the state’s $887 million deficit.
The plan, proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons and broadly supported by legislators, will save $600,000 on energy costs, make it easier to implement a 10-hour-a-month furlough for state workers and lift their flagging morale.
But legislative sources point to another reason — even if they’re loath to admit it publicly — for this major change: The reduction in the availability of state services will make the public feel the effect of the revenue shortfall.
It’s a potentially controversial, if intriguing, strategy.
Full Story: Nevadans will feel impact of four-day government workweek – Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 | 2 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun.
Mortgage Modifications and You — Part 1
Earlier this month the bankruptcy courts of the Second Circuit here in New York put on an incredibly informative seminar called “The Intersection of the Bankruptcy Loss Mitigation Program with HAMP/HARP.” It was presented for the education of bankruptcy practitioners and lawyers who represent consumers. It featured bankruptcy judges from the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, a senior manager for Government Programs and New Initiatives for Fannie Mae (the Home Affordable Modification Program and the Home Affordable Refinance Program being “new initiatives”), a VP/Deputy General Counsel for Fannie Mae, and the Director of Foreclosure Prevention at Brooklyn Legal Services.
For those folks living in New York state, the best news is that a version of this same program was presented two weeks earlier to both bankruptcy court judges AND NYS judges who will be staffing the mortgage foreclosure parts. The program was live streamed into the courthouses, so nobody had to miss it.
The Bankruptcy Loss Mitigation Program was begun in the Southern District of New York in 2008 and was adopted in the Eastern District of New York in late 2009.
Full Story: Mortgage Modifications and You — Part 1 | Firedoglake.
AL Gore – We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.
Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.
But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.
Full Story: Op-Ed Contributor – We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change – NYTimes.com.
BBC signals an end to era of expansion
The BBC will close two radio stations, shut half its website and cut spending heavily on imported American programmes in an overhaul of services to be announced next month.
Mark Thompson, the Director-General, will admit that the corporation, which is funded by the £3.6 billion annual licence fee, has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate.
In a wideranging strategic review, he will announce the closure of the digital radio stations 6 Music and Asian Network and introduce a cap on spending on broadcast rights for sports events of 8.5 per cent of the licence fee, or about £300 million.
Full Story: BBC signals an end to era of expansion – Times Online.
Medicare payments to doctors cut 21 percent Monday unless Congress acts
Physicians left their practices Friday frustrated at their elected leaders in Washington for failing to reverse a 21 percent Medicare payment reduction that will now take effect Monday.
The fallout is physicians may scale back on the number of Medicare patients they treat and some may drop out of the Medicare program entirely.
The payment cut likewise applies to members of the military on the federal government’s TRICARE insurance.
Physicians have been on pins and needles for sometime over the Medicare payment cut and they didn’t expect it would go through because of extensive lobbying and historically, Congress has reversed the cut in prior years.
“This weekend you will see a lot of them sweating,” said Dr. Joseph Gauta, president of the Collier County Medical Society. “Nobody thought this would take effect. They thought it would be fixed.”
Full Story: Medicare payments to doctors cut 21 percent Monday unless Congress acts » Naples Daily News.
OPS: So as in destroying the economy and Democracy with NAFTA, WTO, GATT, Glass-Stegal and the Telecommunications Act, the Democrats will take responsibility for wiping out Medicare?
Max Headroom Finally Coming To DVD!
A major injustice is about to be redressed.The ground-breaking cyberpunk TV series Max Headroom is finally coming out on DVD — and the extras may include the original British short film 20 Minutes Into The Future.
You may finally be able to throw away your VHS copies of Max, which probably have sentient entities growing on them at this point. Shout! Factory has scored the rights to do a complete box set, including all 14 episodes as well as unspecified extras. Home Media Magazine reports:
“Max Headroom” starred Matt Frewer as a reporter whose mind is downloaded into a computer to create a virtual clone who exists in the digital world. Amanda Pays, Jeffrey Tambor and W. Morgan Sheppard also star in the series, which ran for 14 episodes on Cinemax and ABC in 1987 and 1988. Set in the near future, “Max Headroom” depicted a world of television run amok.
Full Story: Max Headroom Finally Coming To DVD! – Max Headroom – io9.
What do we need health insurers for anyway?
When the chief executive of gargantuan health insurer WellPoint (parent of Blue Cross of California) went before a congressional subcommittee the other day, she displayed all the smile-through-the-tears pluck of Annie looking to a sunny tomorrow or Scarlett swearing to God she’ll never be hungry again.
WellPoint didn’t really want to jack up health premiums on its customers by as much as 39%, she said — it had no choice. “We care deeply about our California customers,” she said.
But what she was really telling the committee members was this: “Please put us out of our misery.”
Braly explained that her company’s premium increases on individual policies were based on several circumstances: One, people are getting older. Two, people are becoming unemployed, and if they’re healthy they’re dropping out of the insurance pool. Three, the cost of diagnostic testing is soaring.
Implicitly, she begged for the government to help — put people back to work so they’re eligible for cheaper group plans, and clamp down on costs. (Not even the government can stop people for growing older.) Without that help, she intimated, premiums are going to keep rising sharply and WellPoint’s already meager profits are going to be hammered worse.
Full Story: What do we need health insurers for anyway? – latimes.com.
OPS: we don’t.
Cannabidiol stops the spread of breast cancer.
California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute Final Report (2008)
We discovered that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychotropic compound from the plant Cannabis sativa, can inhibit the process of breast cancer cells that allow them to grow and spread (metastasis). CBD can also inhibit breast cancer metastasis in a mouse model. The research carried out in our CBCRP proposal demonstrated that CBD is a novel inhibitor of a gene whose activity is intimately linked to the aggressiveness of human breast cancers; this gene has been termed Id-1. Notably, our findings also indicated that Id-1 was a key gene whose expression needed to be reduced in order for CBD to inhibit aggressive breast cancer. One of the most significant high risk components of the initial application was to determine if CBD had appreciable efficacy against breast cancer in vivo (i.e., animal models). This high risk component was not pursued, since an independent group showed CBD was able to inhibit metastasis of MDA-MB231 cells to the lung of nude mice. Building of the previous findings, we made small structural changes to CBD that are expected to produce drugs that are much more active than CBD at inhibiting Id-1 and corresponding aggressive breast cancers. CBD has a low toxicity profile. An anticancer agent with a low toxicity profile that can both inhibit cancer cell growth and metastasis would be extremely valuable clinically. Understanding the mechanisms behind the anticancer activity of CBD may also lead to the discovery of new biological targets for the development of diagnostic tools and additional therapies for the treatment of cancer. In this project we found portions of the CBD structure essential to its biological activity for breast cancer cell growth inhibition. We are in the process of filing a patent on these discoveries. In addition, we studies the moleculr mechanisms that underlie CBD activity, and found that sustained upregulation of Erk (extracellular signal-regulated kinases, a type of protein kinase intracellular signaling molecules) is key to the ability of CBD to regulate the metastasis-specific inhibition of the Id-1 transcription factor.
Full report available on-line
Full Story: Medical marijuana news. Cannabidiol stops the spread of breast cancer..
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: To call Trent Franks ‘Lizard-Brain’ would be an insult to all reptiles
SD House of Representatives: Astrology can explain Climate Change
MSNB’s Rachel Maddow: To call Trent Frank’s Lizard-Brain’ would be an insult to all reptiles
The entire segment can be seen here
Full Story: YouTube – MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: To call Trent Franks ‘Lizard-Brain’ would be an insult to all reptiles.
Buffett: Execs should pay price for risky bets
“In my view a board of directors of a huge financial institution is derelict if it does not insist that its CEO bear full responsibility for risk control,” Buffett wrote. “If he’s incapable of handling that job, he should look for other employment. And if he fails at it — with the government thereupon required to step in with funds or guarantees — the financial consequences for him and his board should be severe.”
Billionaire Warren Buffett, in his annual letter to shareholders, sternly urged companies to develop harsh penalties for executives who get into trouble with risky investments.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. delivered a 61 percent jump in net income because the value of its investments and derivatives rose sharply in 2009 after taking a beating the year before. But its businesses’ exposure to housing construction helped keep it from outperforming the S&P 500 for the first time since 2004.
Buffett used most of his letter, released Saturday, to reiterate the business basics that have made his company a juggernaut. But it did include a section about how corporations should manage risk. Buffett said CEOs and the boards that hired them should pay a steep price if their companies get into trouble with risky investments.
Buffett lamented that shareholders, not CEOs and directors, have borne most of the burden of company failures during the economic crisis.
Full Story: Buffett: Execs should pay price for risky bets – Yahoo! News.
White House: We Will Have The Votes To Pass Health Care Refom
The White House’s top point person on health care reform expressed confidence on Sunday that Democrats would muster the votes to pass legislation, implying that the votes weren’t there now.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, was pressed repeatedly by host David Gregory as to whether there were enough supportive Democratic lawmakers to get a bill through.
“I believe that we will have the votes to pass this in Congress,” DeParle said. “I believe that the president will keep fighting and that the American people want to have this kind of health reform.”
“But you don’t have the votes yet?” Gregory asked.
Full Story: White House: We Will Have The Votes To Pass Health Care Refom.
OPS: The question of course is: what will be in that bill at the time it’s passed. Seems to still be up for grabs. IF the President had any ballz he would give the Republicans 2 options: Vote for THIS bill with us or we will pass HR676 by our selves. But that won’t happen.
Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World
Before addressing the importance of spirituality in modern times, we should first define it. Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality. This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego. In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God. When we have even a partial glimpse of this level of awareness we experience joy, insight, intuition, creativity, and freedom of choice. In addition, there is the awakening of love, kindness, compassion, happiness at the success of others, and equanimity. As the turbulence of our mind settles down, our body also begins to heal itself because it also quiets down. The body's self-repair mechanisms are activated when the mind is at peace because the mind and body are at the deepest level inseparably one.
All religions are founded on a deep spiritual experience of unity consciousness where there was complete union between the personal and universal. Unfortunately, many times the followers of religion, instead of understanding the religious experience and seeking it for themselves ended up merely worshiping the founder of the religion. It is more important to fully grasp the teaching of the religion and its basic tenets, that have come from a deeper experience of transcendence. Self-righteous morality is not a means for experiencing higher consciousness. Higher consciousness, spontaneously leads to moral and ethical behavior. However, because spiritual knowledge is powerful, the custodians of organized religion have frequently ended up with destructive behaviors — power mongering, cronyism, control, corruption, and influence peddling. As a result organized religion has frequently become quarrelsome, divisive, and led to conflict. No organized religion has been immune to this unfortunate tendency. So, we have had the crusades and witch-hunts of Christianity, the Jihads of Islam, the violent communal riots instigated by fundamentalist Hindus and the persecution of minorities and ethnic cleansing all in the name of God.
Full Story: Deepak Chopra: Only Spirituality Can Solve The Problems Of The World.
OPS: Spirituality has nothing to do with most religions.
Bernanke’s ‘Naivete,’ Wall Street’s Publicly-Backed Bets
Who Will Rein In Those Credit Default Swaps?
“USING these instruments in a way that intentionally destabilizes a company or a country is — is counterproductive, and I’m sure the S.E.C. will be looking into that.”
That’s what Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said last week when lawmakers asked him about credit default swaps during his Congressional testimony. Concerns are growing about such swaps — securities that offer insurance-like protection and helped tip over the American International Group in 2008 when it couldn’t pay mounting claims on the contracts.
Now, there are fears that the use of these swaps may also help propel entire countries — think Greece — to the precipice.
First, Greece employed swaps to mask its true debt picture, with the help of Wall Street bankers, of course. And now it appears that some traders are using swaps to bet that Greece won’t be able to meet its debt payments and will face a possible default.
Full Story: Fair Game – Who Will Rein In Those Credit Default Swaps? – NYTimes.com.
HIV Still Plagues the U.S.: Some Areas Have Higher Rates Than Africa
In December, NEWSWEEK argued that new signs of life were showing in the AIDS activism movement. Let’s hope so. Recent research published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that within certain populations in America, the prevalence of HIV-infected people is higher than in certain parts of Africa:
More than 1 in 30 adults in Washington, D.C., are HIV-infected—a prevalence higher than that reported in Ethiopia, Nigeria, or Rwanda. Certain U.S. subpopulations are particularly hard hit. In New York City, 1 in 40 blacks, 1 in 10 men who have sex with men, and 1 in 8 injection-drug users are HIV-infected, as are 1 in 16 black men in Washington, D.C. In several U.S. urban areas, the HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men is as high as 30%—as compared with a general-population prevalence of 7.8% in Kenya and 16.9% in South Africa.
What’s interesting is that the research shows that a person’s sexual network, more than just his or her lifestyle choices, defines the risk of getting HIV in America. So, black and Hispanic women are at increased risk due to the instability of their sexual relationships —which is attributed to the high rate of incarceration of men in their networks—and their vulnerable or dependent economic situation, which may cause them to be fearful of suggesting safer-sex options to their companions. And black men who have sex with men are at high risk because of the likelihood of their choosing to engage in sexual activity with someone who is racially similar, and because of the prevalence of HIV within their sexual networks.
Full Story: HIV Still Plagues the U.S.: Some Areas Have Higher Rates Than Africa – The Human Condition Blog – Newsweek.com.
Massive Pharaoh Head Unearthed In Egypt
Archaeologists have unearthed the massive head of one Egypt’s most famous pharoahs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Sunday.
The head of Amenhotep III, which alone is about the height of a person, was found in the ruins of the pharaoh’s mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor.
The Egyptian-European expedition under the guidance of German-Armenian archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian has been excavating the temple near the famous seated colossi of Memnon for the last several years.
Full Story: Massive Pharaoh Head Unearthed In Egypt.
Bernanke delivers blunt warning on U.S. debt
Stage is set in U.S. for a Greek tragedy
With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.
Recent events in Europe, where Greece and other nations with large, unsustainable deficits like the United States are having increasing trouble selling their debt to investors, show that the U.S. is vulnerable to a sudden reversal of fortunes that would force taxpayers to pay higher interest rates on the debt, Mr. Bernanke said.
“It’s not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently,” he told the House Financial Services Committee. “It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability [of yearly deficits over $1 trillion], and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today.”
Full Story: Bernanke delivers blunt warning on U.S. debt – Washington Times.
OPS: Bernanke pretending he’s the responsible adult. The terrorist bankerster threatening to blow himself up, and take the rest of us with him. Congress should counter by taking over the FED and moving it under Treasury. ASAP.
Israeli DM: No Need to Coordinate With US on Attacking Iran
Barak Simultaneously Insists Iran No Threat to Attack Israel
At his visit to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC founded think tank, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterated his calls for Western nations to keep “all options” open in moving against Iran. But more importantly, he suggested Israel might attack Iran even beyond American objections.
“I don’t think that there is a need to coordinate in this regard,” Barak insisted, adding later in the speech that Israel has always “felt very proud that we never asked the Americans to come and fight for us.”
US officials have repeatedly expressed opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack, noting that it would be perceived internationally as an attack by the United States, which has provided Israel with enormous military aid over the years.
Full Story: Israeli DM: No Need to Coordinate With US on Attacking Iran — News from Antiwar.com.
UK Army says it needs 20,000 more soldiers
Defence chiefs believe the Army may have to recruit an extra 20,000 soldiers if Britain is to win the wars of the 21st century.
A British Army strategy document seen by The Sunday Telegraph states that the Army may need to grow by 20 per cent from its current strength of 101,000 troops if the country is to be adequately defended from future threats.
It stated that expensive equipment may need to be sacrificed to pay for the additional soldiers.
The disclosures were made in an Army response to the Green Paper which set out the terms for the Strategic Defence Review, due to take place after the General Election.
Full Story: Army says it needs 20,000 more soldiers – Telegraph.
OPS: Gearing up for another round with Argentina over the oil found in the Falklands?
Pot scare of the week: “may cause psychosis”
Here’s your alarmist marijuana headline for the week (from Businessweek): “Marijuana Use Can Up Psychosis Risk”
What researchers found, actually, was an association between tokers who start blazing heavily at a young age, and an increased likelihood they will develop a serious mental illness.
And, of course, we’ve known about the comorbidity of substance abuse and psychoses for many years.
But you can’t blame the media for going overboard, this time: The Australian scientists who found the association between heavy, early use of pot and psychotic symptoms (such as hallucinations), themselves suggest a causal link:
Full Story: Pot scare of the week: “may cause psychosis” | The Sci-Tech Heretic.
Shoveling Shit in Lousiana?
Len Hart -
The mantra du jour is that Obama hasn’t undone ‘Bush’. Ergo, Obama is just as evil as is Bush, or Bush Sr, or Ronald Reagan. Not so and not possible! It’s a false analogy that misses the point; it is strategy designed to deflect attention from the endemic corruption of the right wing party –the GOP; It is a false analogy that might have been tested in a focus group on K-Street. It has certainly caught on as do many another ‘successful’ mantra, slogan, or buzzword. And just as worthless!
One of my recent critics had clearly caught the ‘but Obama is just as bad as Bush’ virus and posted the following comment:
I used to really enjoy your blog when W was in the White house – most of your commentary was spot on (except for the part about Bush being an idiot – I don’t give damn who his father is, the USAF does NOT let morons fly jet fighter planes)
Flying an airplane is not evidence of political genius. I have known lots of pilots and would not trust one of them to run the nation, supervise a federal budget or negotiate a peace with a nuclear power.
Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Shoveling Shit in Lousiana?.
1997 DoD Briefing: ‘Others’ can set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely using electromagnetic waves
Presenter: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen April 28, 1997 8:45 AM EDT
Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week’s scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B’nai Brith.
A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we’ve learned in the intelligence community, we had something called — and we have James Woolsey here [*puke*] to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus [OMG! Who would do such a thing?], and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others [LOL] are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.’
Just switch ‘yours,’ ‘others’ and ‘they’ with ‘U.S.,’ ‘U.S.’ and ‘U.S.’ This was in 1997. Imagine, after eight years of George W. Bush turbo-funding these lunatics, with no end to funding in sight… what they can do now. Oh, BTW. See, also, the list of dead scientists.
The most fascinating might be the Harvard scientist, Dr. Don C Wiley, ‘one of the foremost infectious disease researchers’ in the United States, who ‘got dizzy’ and his car fell off a bridge in Memphis, TN.
The bridge where his car was found is only a five-minute drive away and in the wrong direction from where he was staying, leaving authorities with a four-hour, unexplained gap until his vehicle was found. Now Memphis police are exploring several theories involving suicide, robbery and murder.
…snip…
Statement signed by then President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The statement claimed:
The U.S. is creating new integral geophysical weapons that may influence the near-Earth medium with high-frequency radio waves … The significance of this qualitative leap could be compared to the transition from cold steel to firearms, or from conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. This new type of weapons differs from previous types in that the near-Earth medium becomes at once an object of direct influence and its component.[13]“
Full Story: Citizens For Legitimate Government.
In D.C., more evidence that commercial real estate headed for foreclosure crisis
A mortgage crisis like the one that has devastated homeowners is enveloping the nation’s office and retail buildings, and few places are likely to be hit as hard as Washington.
The foreclosure wave is likely to swamp many smaller community banks across the country, and many well-known properties, including Washington’s Mayflower Hotel and the Boulevard at the Capital Centre in Largo, are at risk, industry analysts say.
The new round of financial pain, which some had anticipated but hoped to avoid, now seems all but certain. “There’s been an enormous bubble in commercial real estate, and it has to come down,” said Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, the watchdog created by Congress to monitor the financial bailout. “There will be significant bankruptcies among developers and significant failures among community banks.”
Full Story: In D.C., more evidence that commercial real estate headed for foreclosure crisis – washingtonpost.com.
Million homes planned for poor
Brazil’s President says he plans to provide funding for the construction of another 1 million homes that will be owned by the poor in Latin America’s largest nation.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s programme that helps the poor buy apartments initially envisioned construction of 1 million homes. But Silva told business executives in El Salvador that he will expand it to eventually build twice that many.
The popular programme – known as “My Life, My Home” – funnels loans from state banks to poor Brazilians who probably would never be able to own homes without the help.
The campaign was announced amid the global financial crisis and has also helped Brazil’s important construction sector.
Full Story: Million homes planned for poor – World – NZ Herald News.
OPS: The ‘Projects’ comes to Brazil
The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
Frank Rich -
No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen.
What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call 
him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged – NYTimes.com.
Cultural, Economic and Workforce Structures Help Reinforce U.S. Militarism
With total US military spending now approaching ¾ of a trillion dollars per year – about as much as the rest of the world's countries combined – cutting military spending is becoming an issue of concern for the peace movement and beyond, especially as the president has proposed a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending. As much as one might work to reduce military and defense-related spending, there are powerful cultural influences embedded in our society which make if difficult to shift spending to underfunded domestic needs.
High among these influences is the symbiotic interconnection between sports and the armed forces. Many major sports events start with such military displays as a precision flyover of jet fighters, the unfurling of a huge U.S. flag by members of the military services, the flag presentation by a military service color guard, or the singing of the National Anthem by individual or collective service members.
Besides these heavy overlays of military pageantry, sports announcers lavish praise on “Our brave men and women fighting for our freedom overseas.” Never do we hear in what ways our freedoms as citizens are being enhanced by our involvement in military conflicts, the rationales for which have become increasingly strained.
Full Story: Cultural, Economic and Workforce Structures Help Reinforce U.S. Militarism | CommonDreams.org.
Doctors Struggle to Treat Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections
A minor-league pitcher in his younger days, Richard Armbruster kept playing baseball recreationally into his 70s, until his right hip started bothering him. Last February he went to a St. Louis hospital for what was to be a routine hip replacement.
By late March, Mr. Armbruster, then 78, was dead. After a series of postsurgical complications, the final blow was a bloodstream infection that sent him into shock and resisted treatment with antibiotics.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad would walk in for a hip replacement and be dead two months later,” said Amy Fix, one of his daughters.
Not until the day Mr. Armbruster died did a laboratory culture identify the organism that had infected him: Acinetobacter baumannii.
Full Story: Doctors Struggle to Treat Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections – NYTimes.com.
Can Thin Mountain Air Make You Slim?
Looking for a new weight loss plan? Try living on top of a mountain. Twenty obese men spent a week near the top of Germany’s highest peak and saw their metabolism speed up, their appetite diminish, and more pounds melt off than they likely would have had they stayed at home, a new study reports. However, the study lacked a control group, so firm conclusions are tough to draw, other researchers say.
Mountain air contains less oxygen than air at lower altitudes, so breathing it causes the heart to beat faster and the body to burn more energy. A handful of studies have found that athletes training at high altitudes tend to lose weight. Gastroenterologist Florian Lippl of the University Hospital of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in Germany wondered how the mountain air would affect obese individuals if they weren’t doing any more physical activity than usual. “We know from our outpatient unit that it’s hard to motivate our obese patients” to exercise, says Lippl. “We thought if we bring them up there, the higher metabolic rate will do most of the work for them.”
Lippl and his colleagues invited 20 obese men to an environmental research station about 300 meters below the summit of Zugspitze, a mountain near the Austrian border. This was no hiking expedition. The subjects reached the outpost at 2650 meters altitude almost effortlessly, by cog railway and cable car, and once there could only take the same number of steps each day that they were accustomed to taking at home, as monitored with a pedometer. They were allowed to eat as much as they liked. The men also gave blood so that researchers could test for hormones linked to appetite and obesity, such as leptin and ghrelin.
Full Story: Can Thin Mountain Air Make You Slim? – ScienceNOW.
Evolution on the march
New DNA findings show that human genetic mutations are more recent, more rapid than once thought.
Conventional wisdom holds that if you could bring back someone from 40,000 years ago, he or she would blend perfectly well with today’s population.
After all, the fossils show that our ancestors were “anatomically modern” by 100,000 years ago, and by 40,000 B.C., they were creating complex tools and art.
It was easy to assume our species hadn’t evolved much since then.
Now molecular biology is overturning that assumption.
Evidence for more recent evolution is coming not from fossils but from patterns seen in the DNA of contemporary people. Genes show that blue eyes, for example, apparently didn’t exist until 6,000 years ago, and the ability to digest milk goes back just 7,000 years.
Full Story: Evolution on the march | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/08/2010.
Glowing Wallpaper Could Be a Better Way to Light Your Home
Thin is in, especially regarding digital displays like television and laptop screens. Now new graphene-based electrode technology has been developed which promises to provide affordable glowing displays which can be applied as wallpaper or applied to ceilings to provide a green, energy-saving alternative to light bulbs, according to ScienceDaily.com.
Today's ultra-thin lighting technology is mostly based on organic light diodes called OLEDs, which are widely used commercially in everything from mobile phones to televisions. Although OLEDs are fairly energy efficient, they have two major drawbacks: they are relatively expensive to produce, and they consist of the metal alloy indium tin oxide which is rare and complicated to recycle.
These concerns are part of what led Swedish researchers from Linköping and Umeå universities, in coalition with American colleagues, to develop a new alternative to the flat screen. Based on organic light-emitting electrochemical cells (or LECs), the transparent electrode is made of the carbon material graphene.
Full Story: Glowing Wallpaper Could Be a Better Way to Light Your Home – GOOD Blog – GOOD.
Quit smoking, it’s easy
Smokers are never told that up to 75% of successful ex-smokers quit unaided,” said a public health expert, who reviewed hundreds of studies into quitting smoking and is now calling for more effective campaigns and policies worldwide.
Drug companies, tobacco control advocates and public health professionals are over-promoting nicotine replacement therapy and other smoking cessation drugs, according to Simon Chapman and Ross MacKenzie from the University of Sydney, Australia.
The pharmaceutical industry is influencing public health practice away from methods that are proven to help the majority of smokers to quit, they said in their review in the journal PLoS Medicine.
Research into unassisted quitting is neglected
Full Story: Quit smoking, it’s easy | COSMOS magazine.
Despite Running A Health Industry ‘Trade Association,’ Gingrich Says He Will Not Register As A Lobbyist
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has founded several businesses, including a for-profit health care firm called the “Center for Health Transformation” (CHT) and a communications firm called the “Gingrich Group.” CHT serves approximately 94 health industry corporations and lobby groups, including health insurance (BlueCross BlueShield Association, WellPoint, AHIP, UnitedHealth), health IT (L-3 Enterprise, Microsoft, IBM), and pharmaceutical companies — with each paying up to $200,000 annually. And although CHT has no registered lobbyists or lobbyists on retainer, Gingrich has used his CHT business to promote his clients’ interests in Congress:
– Gingrich Meets With Lawmakers To Help Craft Specific Policy, Legislation: In March 2009, Gingrich met with Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) and other members of the GOP Doctors Caucus to help write conservative health reform alternative legislation. “Gingrich provided us with great insight as we work to craft health care solutions for the 21st Century,” proclaimed Gingrey after the meeting. As FireDogLake has reported, through his CHT firm, Gingrich wrote healthcare legislation introduced by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA). Gingrich’s CHT also “consulted” with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on health reform legislation that would deregulate the insurance industry. As the American Spectator reported, the Coburn-Ryan bill also contained the exact health IT proposals backed by Gingrich.
The Case against Greenspan and Bernanke
Mike Whitney -
Is there enough evidence to indict Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan on charges that they aided and abetted the banks and other financial institutions in the sale of fraudulent loans to investors?
That depends on whether there is sufficient proof to show whether the two men KNEW that the nation’s lenders were engaged in large-scale predatory lending and chose to do nothing. As we’ll see, both Greenspan and Bernanke were warned repeatedly about the mortgage/derivatives scam by credible professionals and industry regulators, but failed to act.
Here’s a definition of “aided and abetted” from the ‘Lectric Law Library:
“The guilt of a person in a criminal case may be proved without evidence that he personally did every act involved in the commission of the crime charged. …if the acts or conduct of an agent, employee or other associate of the person are willfully directed or authorized by the person, or if the person aids and abets another person by willfully joining together with that person in the commission of a crime, then the law holds the person responsible for the conduct of that other person just as though the person had engaged in such conduct himself.
Full Story: The Case against Greenspan and Bernanke | The Smirking Chimp.
On the Edge with Max Keiser
Max Keiser talks to Stacy Herbert about the financial headlines
- 26 February 2010
NOTE: at about 6min in Max explains why the “Move your Money” campaign won’t is doomed.
Sony, LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba accused of price fixing
U.S. Department of Justice has filed subpoenas against Samsung
A home electronics retail store has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd. and several subsidiaries, accusing the electronics manufacturers of colluding to fix prices in the U.S. optical disc drive (ODD) market.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims the disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet and discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives in products like the Sony PlayStation 3 and PCs artificially high.
“When the price of ODD began to dip, the Defendants entered into an illegal agreement to prevent competitors from entering into the market and to keep prices at a supracompetitive level,” the lawsuit states.
Full Story: Sony, LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba accused of price fixing.
China insider sees revolution brewing
BEIJING: China’s top expert on social unrest has warned that hardline security policies are taking the country to the brink of ”revolutionary turmoil”.
In contrast with the powerful, assertive and united China that is being projected to the outside world, Yu Jianrong said his prediction of looming internal disaster reflected on-the-ground surveys and also the views of Chinese government ministers.
Deepening social fractures were caused by the Communist Party’s obsession with preserving its monopoly on power through ”state violence” and ”ideology”, rather than justice, Professor Yu said.
Full Story: China insider sees revolution brewing.
OPS: What happens if China does have a revolution – and it continues for weeks or months – what happens in the US when all of the store shelves are empty?
Republicans Are Completely Silent When Millionairs & Billionairs Get Tax Cuts!
Sen Whitehouse
speech from the floor
Part 2
Leveling the Playing Field
When every country in the world has a VAT, and the United States is unprotected by a similar system of its own, international trade swings toward imbalance.
The VAT is the most popular tax scheme on earth. Value-added consumption taxes are used by most countries around the world including Canada, China, and Mexico. When every country in the world has a VAT, and the United States is unprotected by a similar system of its own, international trade swings toward imbalance.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America posted a case study of the effects of value-added tax schemes in the United States. The article clearly expresses how foreign consumption taxes undermine American workers and the consumer economy.
The only way to level the playing field is to institute some sort of protection of our own. The United States cannot dictate tax policy to dozens of sovereign nations around the globe, but it can and should insulate itself by reorganizing its own tax policies.
Full Story: Leveling the Playing Field | Economy In Crisis.
Senators Calling Commerce Out on Currency Manipulation
A bipartisan group of 15 U.S. Senators representing 11 different states is calling on the Obama administration and the Commerce Department to do more than pay lip service to combating China’s well-known practice of systematically undervaluing its currency.
In an unusually harsh letter addressed to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, the group of nine Democrats and six Republicans bashed the department head for his failure to seriously investigate numerous charges of Beijing currency manipulation.
In the letter, they claim that the Commerce Department has “prejudged the outcome of a subsidy investigation it has yet to do, rather than assessed the sufficiency of the allegation on the basis of ‘information reasonably available’ to petitioners to determine whether to launch an investigation.”
Full Story: Senators Calling Commerce Out on Currency Manipulation | Economy In Crisis.
Chinese May Strengthen Yuan
China, for years, has pegged its yuan to the U.S. dollar with the intent of always propping our currency up while holding the domestic currency down.
For many years the United States has seen its trade imbalance with China balloon. According to the United States Census Bureau, the U.S. had a $6 billion annual trade deficit with China in 1985. During the course of the next 24 years that deficit has grown almost every single year. In 2009 the total stood at $226.8 billion, that figure is expected to decrease slightly in 2010 but it will still likely be in the range of $200 billion or more.
The explanation for our trade deficits with Mexico and Canada are relatively simple, we import costly oil from these countries and NAFTA allowed us to ramp up outsourcing of manufacturing to their markets. If you took oil out of the equation we would still carry deficits with them, but they would be much smaller.
However, our deficit with China involves zero oil effect, it is all related to our demand for Chinese exported consumer goods.
Full Story: Chinese May Strengthen Yuan | Economy In Crisis.
Rash of Commercial Foreclosures on Horizon
The next shoe to drop in the ongoing financial crisis could be a rash of foreclosures in the commercial real estate market, the ramifications of which could be devastating nationwide.
The next shoe to drop in the ongoing financial crisis could be a rash of foreclosures in the commercial real estate market, the ramifications of which could be devastating nationwide, according to a report by the Congressional Oversight Panel.
“A significant wave of commercial mortgage defaults would trigger economic damage that could touch the lives of nearly every American,” the report reads.
Between now and 2014, $1.4 trillion in commercial mortgages are expected to come due. Many of those borrowers will face difficultly trying to refinance at the end of the mortgage’s terms, causing countless property owners to default, the report warns.
Full Story: Rash of Commercial Foreclosures on Horizon | Economy In Crisis.
$2000 per dead child!
Calculating Life for a Dying Empire
$2000 per dead child! That’s the amount of compensation offered by the Pentagon for the “collateral damage” which it has caused in Afghanistan. As the war escalates and more innocent victims of Washington’s aggressive actions accumulate in number, the US military calculates what it will take to placate grieving Afghan parents.
Eight years into a war deemed “necessary” by both Republican and Democratic Administrations, the death and destruction visited upon Afghan civilians seems reducible to neat and cheap compensation packages. And, yet, the real physical and psychological damage inflicted by the war-makers remains strangely abstract and without comprehension of the very real unintended consequences. The anger of Afghan families in the earliest days of US military intervention undoubtedly persists and may even fuel the continuing insurgency. According to a June 28, 2002 Los Angeles Times story about one Afghan who had lost his wife, mother and seven children to a US air attack, he bitterly lamented: “I put a curse on the Americans who did this. I pray that they will have the tragedy in their lives that I have had in mine.”
While not suffering this kind of tragic loss in just one family, US families have paid a price with increasing numbers of dead and wounded in Afghanistan. More generous with their compensation packages to families who have lost a loved one in military operations in Afghanistan, even the $100,000 offered cannot excuse the needless loss of life promulgated by the Pentagon and their so-called civilian bosses.
Full Story: Calculating Life for a Dying Empire | CommonDreams.org.
Hedge-Fund Assets Offshore Exempt From Reporting Rule
U.S. investors don’t have to report large holdings in offshore hedge funds and private-equity firms this year under disclosure rules designed to detect offshore tax evasion and money laundering, the Internal Revenue Service said.
The IRS announcement followed the issuance of proposed regulations yesterday by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury agency, that effectively spare fund investors from a June 30 deadline to report offshore accounts that exceed $10,000. Failure to file the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBAR, when required can result in penalties that exceed the value of the account.
In a notice today, the IRS said it “will not apply its enforcement authority adversely in the case” where people are invested in foreign hedge funds or private-equity funds “with respect to that account for calendar year 2009 and earlier calendar years.”
Full Story: Hedge-Fund Assets Offshore Exempt From Reporting Rule (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Do Toxins Cause Autism?
It took a few thousand years for us to realize the severity of lead poisoning, although the signs were certainly there: “crazy as a painter” was a catch phrase rooted in the demented behavior of lead-poisoned painters in antiquity. Mad as a hatter? Before the use of mercury was banned in the 1940s, hat makers used it in their craft–which left many of them drooling, twitching, lurching, befuddled and mumbling. Seems to me that when a segment of the population is suffering from a mysterious condition, it would be prudent to examine the possibility of environmental toxins as the culprit.
Lead, mercury, asbestos–can phthalates be next? Phthalates, called “plasticizers,” are a group of industrial chemicals used to make plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) more flexible or resilient and also as solvents. Phthalates, as described by the EWG are nearly ubiquitous in modern society, found in, among other things, toys, food packaging, hoses, raincoats, shower curtains, vinyl flooring, wall coverings, lubricants, adhesives, detergents, nail polish, hair spray and shampoo.
Full Story: Do Toxins Cause Autism? « Wake-up Call.
The Progress of Man
Robert C. Koehler -
How much longer can we tolerate soulless progress?
“Then the coal company came, with the world’s largest shovel/And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land/Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken/Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.”
John Prine was writing about his parents’ home in western Kentucky, not Niyamgiri Mountain in eastern India, but I couldn’t help but hear the echo of these four-decade-old lyrics as I thought about the struggle of the Dongria Kondh, around whom a global protest movement has grown to stop the digging of an open-pit bauxite mine in the middle of their land.
Maybe it seems odd to link Appalachia and tribal India, but I do so intentionally because it’s the same planet, the same phenomenon of progress, the same devastation of traditional life tied to place. Prine’s song about Muhlenberg County and “Mr. Peabody’s coal train” is called “Paradise,” which is kind of like a cry that these hills are sacred, or once were. Loving a piece of Planet Earth, feeling loved by it in return: This is not sentimental or “primitive” but a deeply human way of being in the world that resonates at some level with every last one of us.
Full Story: The Progress of Man | CommonDreams.org.
Chile Shock 500x Energy of Haiti Quake
Geophysicist Warns of Tsunami Wave Triggered by 8.8-Mag. Earthquake
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile early Saturday morning released 500 times the energy of the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck Haiti last month, a geophysicist told CBS’ “The Early Show.”
Tsunami warnings were issued for much of the Pacific, including Hawaii, following the quake that struck near the Chilean coast, killing at least 76 people.
“When the earthquake occurred, it moved the land and then it moved the water causing the tsunami,” said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Jessica Sigala. “And the coastal areas of Chile have already noticed the wave heights up to about 7 feet.”
Full Story: Chile Shock 500x Energy of Haiti Quake – The Early Show – CBS News.
Fannie Mae Owes U.S. More Than $75 Billion After Latest Loss
Fannie Mae Posts 4Q Loss, Wants $15.3 Billion In Additional Government Aid
Fannie Mae needs another $15 billion in federal assistance, bringing its total to more than $75 billion. And worse, the mortgage finance company warned its losses will continue this year.
The rescue of Fannie Mae and sister company Freddie Mac is turning out to be one of the most expensive aftereffects of the financial meltdown. The new request means the total bill for the duo will top $126 billion.
And the pain isn’t over. Fannie warned Friday that it will need even more money from the Treasury, as unemployment remains high and millions of Americans lose their homes through foreclosure.
Full Story: Fannie Mae Posts 4Q Loss, Wants $15.3 Billion In Additional Government Aid.
Senators to propose abandoning cap-and-trade
Three key senators are engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation, preparing to jettison the broad “cap-and-trade” approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade.
The sharp change of direction demonstrates the extent to which the cap-and-trade strategy — allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits in order to meet a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions — has become political poison. In a private meeting with several environmental leaders on Wednesday, according to participants, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), declared, “Cap-and-trade is dead.”
Graham and Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) have worked for months to develop an alternative to cap-and-trade, which the House approved eight months ago. They plan to introduce legislation next month that would apply different carbon controls to individual sectors of the economy instead of setting a national target.
Full Story: Senators to propose abandoning cap-and-trade – washingtonpost.com.
In Afghanistan, U.S. plans major push into Kandahar
Even as Marines in Afghanistan continued to fight for control of the Taliban stronghold of Marja, senior Obama administration officials said Friday that the United States has begun initial planning for a bigger, more complex offensive in Kandahar later this year.
The assault on Marja, the largest U.S.-NATO military operation since 2001, is a “prelude to larger, more comprehensive operations,” senior Obama officials said Friday. Administration officials declined to say when the Kandahar offensive will begin, but military officials have said that it probably will kick off in late spring or early summer after additional U.S. forces have moved into the area.
“Bringing comprehensive population security to Kandahar City is really the centerpiece of operations this year, and, therefore, Marja is the prelude. It’s sort of a preparatory action,” said one senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Full Story: In Afghanistan, U.S. plans major push into Kandahar – washingtonpost.com.
Long-Term Joblessness “Off the Charts”
Hitting Middle Class Particularly Hard; Millions of Such Jobs Gone Forever, Reports John Blackstone
Even though many economists say the Great Recession ended over the summer, you’d never know it by the millions of Americans still struggling to find work. The once prosperous and gainfully-employed middle class is being hit especially hard, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.
The unemployment rate has backed off a touch from 10 percent to 9.7 percent, but that’s little comfort to the long-term unemployed – those out of work more than six months. They make up 40 percent of people collecting unemployment.
“These people, when you look at their unemployment rate, it’s just off the charts,” says Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. “It’s very different from earlier patterns that we’ve seen in recessions.”
Full Story: Long-Term Joblessness “Off the Charts” – The Early Show – CBS News.
QUID PRO DOUGH: House Ethics Panel Rules It’s Okay To Steer Contracts To Campaign Donors
The House ethics committee ruled Friday that seven lawmakers who steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm had not violated any rules or laws by also collecting large campaign donations from those contractors.
In a 305-page report, the ethics committee declared that lawmakers are free to raise campaign money from the very companies they are benefiting so long as the deciding factors in granting those “earmarks” are “criteria independent” of the contributions. The report served as a blunt rejection of ethics watchdogs and a different group of congressional investigators, who have contended that in some instances the connection between donations and earmarks was so close that it had to be inappropriate.
“Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions,” the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said in a unanimous statement.
Full Story: Ethics panel clears 7 on earmarks – washingtonpost.com.
OPS: Ethics? Really?
Health insurance hikes stun small businesses
While Anthem Blue Cross has been taking the heat for proposing rate increases of up to 39 percent on individual consumers, other health insurers have stunned some small businesses with hikes that in some cases exceed 75 percent.
Tom Simmons, president of an Oakland design and consulting firm with four employees, said he had just read about the Anthem increases when he opened a letter from his insurer, Blue Shield of California, informing him his monthly family premium would go up to $1,596 a month from $908, a nearly 76 percent increase.
“This industry is getting out of control. It makes me fearful of future years and what could become of things if something doesn’t change,” said Simmons, whose business health insurance policy also covers his family of three.
He ultimately was able to reduce the increase to about 16 percent, but only after switching to a plan with a higher deductible and other higher out-of-pocket expenses.
Full Story: Health insurance hikes stun small businesses.
Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ
Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning — on the order of 6 to 11 points — and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.
The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans' evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.
Full Story: Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ – CNN.com.
OPS: CwV @ BF -
#2 #1 agree. Also:
….Bailey also said that these preferences may stem from a desire to show superiority or elitism, which also has to do with IQ. In fact, aligning oneself with “unconventional” philosophies such as liberalism or atheism may be “ways to communicate to everyone that you’re pretty smart,” he said….
“liberalism” is an unconventional philosophy? Jesus was a Liberal. Historically liberalism has been ‘unconventional’ among the Powered elite (probably more to justify THEIR existence then anything else) but as CwV points out for the rest of humanity liberalism has been a survival tool
New ‘alien invader’ star clusters found in Milky Way
As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way — many more than previously thought — are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study. The report also suggests there may be as many as six dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered within the Milky Way rather than the two that were previously confirmed.
“Some of the stars and star clusters you see when you look into space at night are aliens from another galaxy, just not the green-skinned type you find in a Hollywood movie. These ‘alien’ star clusters that have made their way into our galaxy over the last few billion years,” says Terry Bridges, an astronomer at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.
The study (co-authored by Duncan Forbes of Swinburne University of Technology in Australia) has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Full Story: New ‘alien invader’ star clusters found in Milky Way.
Toyota accused of ‘withholding documents’
A top US lawmaker has attacked Toyota for allegedly withholding documents it was legally required to hand over in lawsuits by people injured in accidents in the Japanese auto giant’s vehicles.
Toyota immediately denied the charge from Democratic Representative Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that its actions betrayed “a systematic disregard for the law.”
On Friday, Towns cited documents obtained from a former Toyota in-house lawyer, Dimitrios Biller, as giving “evidence” of improper behavior including “routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation.”
Full Story: Toyota accused of ‘withholding documents’ – Yahoo! News.
FDIC shuts down banks in Nevada and Washington
Regulators shut down banks in Nevada and Washington on Friday, marking the 21st and 22nd failures this year of federally insured banks.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Carson River Community Bank, based in Carson City, Nev. and Rainier Pacific Bank in Tacoma, Wash.
Carson River Community Bank had $51.1 million in assets and $50 million in deposits as of Dec. 31. Rainier Pacific Bank had $717.8 million in assets and $446.2 million in deposits as of Dec. 31.
Full Story: FDIC shuts down banks in Nevada and Washington – Yahoo! News.
Huge quake hits Chile; tsunami threatens Pacific
A devastating earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami set off by the magnitude-8.8 quake threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.
President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120 people died, but the death toll was rising quickly.
In the town of Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, Associated Press journalist Roberto Candia said it felt as if a giant had grabbed him and shaken him.
Full Story: Huge quake hits Chile; tsunami threatens Pacific – Yahoo! News.
Woolsey: ‘It’s not over’ for public option
‘But if stripped, I’ll support bill and re-introduce later,’ Congresswoman tells Raw Story
woolsey Woolsey: Its not over for public optionWASHINGTON — A leading progressive in the House of Representatives insisted Friday that the public option fight is “not over” but signaled that its ostensible removal from the final package won’t necessarily strip the votes of liberal Democrats in the chamber.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and one of the most vigorous supporters of the idea, told Raw Story in an interview she was confident the Senate would pass the provision if only it’s brought to a reconciliation vote.
“There will be at least 51 members that will vote for it,” she said. “But [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] has to bring it to the floor.”
Full Story: Woolsey: ‘It’s not over’ for public option | Raw Story.
Rep. Tom Perriello Tells ‘Spineless’ Senate To Get ‘Its Head Out Of Its Rear End’ And Confront Climate Crisis
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) is “sick” of the “insider baseball crap” dominating the Senate debate over global warming and energy reform. In an interview with Grist, the first-term congressman stated in no uncertain terms that the country is at risk from global warming and our economy is at risk of losing the clean energy race. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Perriello has not one lick of sympathy for those in the Senate who deny these threats:
That’s more insider baseball crap. I don’t really care. I’m sick of starting with what can we get through the Senate; let’s start with what solves the damn problem. Until the Senate gets its head out of its rear end and starts to see the crisis we’re in, our country is literally at risk. Our economy is at risk, because these jobs are being created overseas. It should have the same urgency with this problem that it had bailing out Wall Street. We are swearing an oath to do what’s necessary to protect this country, not do what’s necessary to get a bill through the Senate.
Perriello repeatedly expressed his belief that Congressional inaction on jobs, national security, and scientific “challenge of our era” is due to a lack of courage and responsibility:
7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food
Not that being part of a trend is ever a good reason to start or learn something new, but if it helps you move forward by being part of the “in” crowd, then you really need to plant your own edible garden this year.
That’s right, having your own vegetable garden is now trendy. In fact according to the 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report conducted by the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) Foundation, over 41 million U.S. households, or 38 percent planted a vegetable garden in 2009. And, more than 19.5 million households (18 percent) grew an herb garden and 16.5 million households (15 percent) grew fruits during the same period.
The study found that there was a growth in edible gardening from both experienced gardeners and from an influx of new gardeners: 92 percent of respondents had previous experience and 7 percent (7.7 million households) were new edible gardeners.
Full Story: 7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food : Planet Green.
How the Mountain of Climate Change Evidence Is Being Used to Undermine the Cause
We’ve gotten to a point where fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet than before — here’s how it happened.
Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal. It was a mixed and judicious appraisal. “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.” And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”
I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks, and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet. Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil” and last week, the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning “a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome” on a nearly party-line vote.
And here’s what’s odd. In 1989, I could fit just about every scientific study on climate change on top of my desk. The science was still thin. If my reporting made me think it was nonetheless convincing, many scientists were not yet prepared to agree.
Full Story: How the Mountain of Climate Change Evidence Is Being Used to Undermine the Cause | Environment | AlterNet.
Do not resuscitate the “public option”
Dr. Andy Coates, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and steward in the Public Employees Federation in New York, argues that it’s wrong to push for a “public option” now that Barack Obama is trying to restart health care legislation.
February 26, 2010
LIKE INITIATING CPR on a patient who was dead in the field and remains dead on arrival, the effort to resuscitate the “public option” is mistaken–and futile.
Once upon a time, proponents of the “public plan option” sought a “Medicare-like” program that might enroll every other person in the nation, and thus run private insurers out of business.
“A roadblock to reform,” cried the insurance companies. As a result of this complaint, nothing in the bills passed by the House and the Senate proposed to erect a public insurer that would possibly influence the insurance market.
Full Story: Do not resuscitate the “public option” | SocialistWorker.org.
Skewing the Health Care Debate
William Rivers Pitt -
President Obama met on Thursday with the glitterati of Capitol Hill in a much-ballyhooed confab on health care reform, and more specifically, the health of his current health care reform proposal. I was supposed to use this space to describe the details of that conference, to get into the nitty-gritty details of who said what, who made the most sense and What It All Means in the end. My intention was to do another running diary on the actual proceedings, but I couldn't do that, and for one reason: I didn't tune in to C-SPAN.
Instead, I spent my day oscillating between MSNBC, CNN and even Fox, not only to see what was happening at the conference, but to get a sense of how the three big cable news networks were covering the affair. I tired quickly of Fox, for all the oft-repeated reasons, and began flipping back and forth between the other two cans of alphabet soup. Every once in a while, CNN and MSNBC deigned to show footage of the actual event, but a majority of their air time was devoted to giving right-wing anti-reform mouth-breathing cretins free reign to spew their nonsense to all points on the compass.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Skewing the Health Care Debate.
Healthcare summit shows irreconcilable differences
If there is one thing the healthcare summit proved, its that despite President Obama’s attempts at trying to suggest that Democrats and Republicans aren’t that far apart, it is clear that there is a chasm between the two parties that will never be traversed. And this chasm, resulting in the two parties separation and going their own ways, will ironically,and eventually pave the way for using the process of reconciliation to pass a public option.
Full Story: Healthcare summit shows irreconcilable differences.
OPS: mike5000 @ BF
#1 Irreconcilable differences:Dimocraps: Americans must give a trillion dollars to the health mafia.
Rethugs: Neener neener neener.
Doctors: Single Payer covers everyone, provides better care, and costs less.
Nurses: Single Payer covers everyone, provides better care, and costs less.
Progressives: Single Payer covers everyone, provides better care, and costs less.
Most Americans: Single Payer covers everyone, provides better care, and costs less.
Dimocraps: Neener neener neener.
Rethugs: Neener neener neener.
Foreign Policy Hawks: Wrong Since 1938
Media Matters -
In every international conflict, the side that favors war invariably gets to “own” the flag. Those favoring diplomacy can complain as much as they choose, but it’s always the hard-liners, the hawks, and the “bombs away” crowd that successfully portrays itself as defender of the nation’s interests. This is true during the build-up to war, throughout the war, and afterwards. No matter if the war turns out to have been built on lies or false premises — or even if its results harm the nation’s interests — the side that pushes for negotiations is always put on the defensive by flag wavers.
This is hardly new. Sometimes, it gets pretty hypocritical.
In 1962, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a “White House source” leaked a story to a major national magazine that America would not have prevailed if President Kennedy had heeded the recommendation of United Nations Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson. The source — who, it was soon revealed, was JFK himself — said that Stevenson had proposed a “Munich.”
Full Story: Foreign Policy Hawks: Wrong Since 1938 | Media Matters Action Network.
SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US
by Brad Friedman for Hustler Magazine
Sibel Edmonds has named names. Why isn’t the Media reporting the Story?
SIBEL EDMONDS, a former FBI translator, claims that the following government officials have committed what amount to acts of treason. They are lawmakers Dennis Hastert, Bob Livingston, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, Stephen Solarz and Tom Lantos, as well as at least three members of George W. Bush’s inner circle: Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Marc Grossman. But is Sibel Edmonds credible?
“Absolutely, she’s credible,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told CBS’s 60 Minutes when he was asked about her in 2002. “The reason I feel she’s very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.” Edmonds’s remarkable allegations of bribery, blackmail, infiltration of the U.S. government and the theft of nuclear secrets by foreign allies and enemies alike rocked the Bush Administration. In fact, Bush and company actually prevented Edmonds from telling the American people what she knew—up until now.
John M. Cole, an 18-year veteran of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Counterespionage departments, revealed the panic of upper-echelon officials when Edmonds originally started talking back in 2002. “Well, the Bureau is gonna have to try to work something out with Sibel,” Cole said an FBI executive assistant told him at the time, “because they don’t want this to go out and become public.”
Full Story: LarryFlynt.com » Blog Archive » SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US.
Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested Friday the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.
“That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now,” he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization.
Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF’s special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit t
Full Story: Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency – ABC News.
GOP Rep: Blacks Worse Off Now Than Under Slavery (VIDEO)
Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, said on Friday that because of U.S. abortion policy, “far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.”
Franks made the comments in an interview with video blogger Mike Stark of StarkReports.com.
Slavery, said Franks, “is a crushing mark on America’s soul, yet today half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more black children, far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.”
Putting aside whether it’s appropriate to define slavery as a “policy,” Franks is correct, according to a Guttmacher Institute study on the rate of abortions in the African-American community, but the same report found that the higher rate was directly related to lack of access to contraceptives.
Full Story: GOP Rep: Blacks Worse Off Now Than Under Slavery (VIDEO).
City removes trash cans, streetlights to save cash
Colorado Springs, Colorado (CNN) — If you come to a neighborhood park in Colorado Springs, plan on bringing your own trash bags.
To save money, the city has removed the trash cans.
Need to catch a bus? Don’t try on evenings or weekends. The city has cut that service, too.
And when the sun goes down, Colorado Springs is going to look a little bit dimmer. City crews are removing every third streetlight to save money on electricity and light bulbs.
Full Story: City removes trash cans, streetlights to save cash – CNN.com.
OPS: Perfect – This Reich wing experimental suicide run will be fun to watch. I hope they keep going with this insanity LOL
The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth
Paul Craig Roberts -
The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the “Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members.
I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously.
How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? “A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,” reports the Washington Times.
The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.”
Full Story: The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth.
Uribe meets with CIA director
President Uribe met with CIA director Leon Panetta on Thursday to discuss the Colombia-U.S free trade agreement and the overhaul of Colombia’s scandal-ridden intelligence agency, DAS.
During the hour-long meeting, Panetta agreed to speak directly with President Barack Obama about Uribe’s desire to see the trade agreement passed soon.
Panetta also praised Uribe’s counter-narcotics efforts and his hard-hitting policies against the FARC.
The two also discussed how to reform training for DAS personnel. There are currently criminal investigations pending against 40 DAS officials for alleged involvement in the illegal wiretapping of journalists and human rights activists.
Full Story: Uribe meets with CIA director.
Housing Recovery Is Looking A Lot Shakier Than Expected
The recent slump in housing is making some analysts uneasy about a recovery that many thought sustainable just a couple months ago and comes at a time when the Federal Reserve is nearing the end of a critical, year-long program to support the mortgage market.
“Housing is at a pivotal, ambiguous point,” says Ted Gayer, co-director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.
A spate of recent reports from home sales to mortgage activity has been starkly negative. And, even if some of it can be written off to seasonal patterns, namely weather, the weakness is not what what people expected with the extension and expansion of the government's homebuyer tax credit that jacked sales for several months last summer and fall.
New homes sales fell to a record low in January, extending a two-month slide; pending and existing home sales were down in December; homebuilder sentiment in January fell back to where it was last June, and mortgage applications have fallen three of the past four weeks,
Full Story: Housing Recovery Is Looking A Lot Shakier Than Expected – Yahoo! Finance.
Girl Scout Cookie Recall 2010: Lemon Cookies RECALLED
A girl scout cookie recall was announced today by girl scout cookie maker Little Brownies Baker due to an off smell and taste for some cookies.
According to the Better Business Bureau, lemon chalete cremes cookies have been recalled due to complaints, though they are reportedly safe to eat.
The Louisville, Kentucky-based company said that no bacteria was found in the cookies and they are simply “not up to our quality standards.”
Those who have purchased one of the affected girl scout cookie boxes can call 1-800-962-1718 or visit www.littlebrowniebakers.com for more information.
As of this writing, there was no mention of the girl scout cookie recall on the official Girl Scouts Web site.
Full Story: Girl Scout Cookie Recall 2010: Lemon Cookies RECALLED By Little Brownie Bakers.
GOP Rep Steve King Defends K Street: ‘Somebody Needs To Stand Up For The Lobby’ (VIDEO)
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) took to the House floor on Friday afternoon to come to the defense of that beleaguered band of First-Amendment exercisers operating from their K Street redoubt.
“Yes, lobbyists do a very effective and useful job on this hill,” King promised. “Somebody needs to stand up for the lobby. It is a matter of providing a lot of valuable information.”
King qualified that if a lobbyist lied to him, he'd end the relationship. “If anyone gave me information that wasn't accurate or honest, if they found out about it, they would bring it back and correct it to me first. If I thought they were doing so intentionally, they would not come back to talk to me ever. There is a credibility there in that arena,” he said.
WATCH:
Full Story: GOP Rep Steve King Defends K Street: ‘Somebody Needs To Stand Up For The Lobby’ (VIDEO).
It Is Happening Here
by David Sirota -
Let’s pause and give thanks to Glenn Beck.
No, seriously — because that’s what he’s due.
We owe this talk-show-host-turned-political-leader gratitude for using his televised keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference to so frankly outline what the conservative movement has become — and why it repulses so many Americans.
Coming days after an anti-tax terrorist kamikaze-attacked a government facility in Texas, and following Republicans like Sen. Scott Brown and Rep. Steve King expressing sympathy for that terrorist’s grievances, Beck’s homily stands as the moment’s most forthright manifesto on the right’s authoritarian objectives.
Beck began his speech posing as a libertarian against “big government.” Notice that most Republican icons are now saying this, though not all resemble Beck — not all of them previously pushed the big-government Patriot Act or the even-bigger-government bank bailout.
Full Story: It Is Happening Here by David Sirota on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.
The Accidental Patient
Dave Lindorff: -
An Unexpected Encounter with a Health Care System That Seems to Work
As I write this article, I’m seated in a hotel room across from the train station in Geneva, Switzerland. There’s a slight, dull pain in my forehead from a two-inch line of stitches that are pulling together a gash that runs diagonally across my brow, thanks to a stumble on a high step on a sidewalk in the rain last night, that sent me flying airborne headfirst into a round metal lamppost.
I have been covering the Fourth Congress Against the Death Penalty sponsored by the United Nations and the international abolition movement, which brought together anti-death penalty groups from all over the world, and featured talks and workshops with a number of people, several from the US, who had spent years and even decades on death rows before being found innocent of the crimes that had put them there.
In view of their agonies and torments, my own little injury seems rather pathetic, but it did give me a chance, as the debate over how to deal with America’s health care crisis drags on in Washington, to see in person the workings of a non-socialist model of health care–but one that controls prices and also mandates (that word that strikes terror into every Republican heart) that everyone buy insurance.
The answer is, it works pretty damned well!
Full Story: Dave Lindorff: The Accidental Patient.
Oakland Exempts Wealthy from Parking Tickets
The City of Oakland has exempted two wealthy neighborhoods from its parking ticket blitz since last summer, and instead has targeted low and middle-income neighborhoods, the Chron reports. The city apparently exempted the upscale Montclair and Broadway Terrace neighborhoods after residents there complained about Oakland’s decision to begin issuing tickets en masse last summer to boost revenues. But the decision has resulted in parking tickets being issued disproportionately in low and middle-income areas.
The most common tickets have been for parking cars partially on sidewalks on narrow streets. City residents have been parking this way for years to avoid being hit by other motorists, but Oakland officials last summer decided to crack down on the practice as a way to help balance the city’s budget. But residents in East Oakland, where streets are as narrow as they are in Montclair or Broadway Terrace, note that it’s unfair to target them, and not wealthier city residents.
Full Story: Oakland Exempts Wealthy from Parking Tickets | 92510 | East Bay Express.
Plastic rubbish blights Atlantic Ocean
Scientists have discovered an area of the North Atlantic Ocean where plastic debris accumulates.
The region is said to compare with the well-documented “great Pacific garbage patch”.
Kara Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association told the BBC that the issue of plastics had been “largely ignored” in the Atlantic.
She announced the findings of a two-decade-long study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US.
Full Story: BBC News – Plastic rubbish blights Atlantic Ocean.
7 Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Meals
Many of us lead pretty busy lives these days and, especially those of us with families, are always trying to get dinner on the table as quickly and easily as possible. Occasionally we fall back on using prepackaged meals from the grocery store or calling for takeout. Those meals have more fat, salt and sugar than we need in our diet, they produce a lot of garbage from the packaging and they are more expensive than cooking from scratch.
In these uncertain economic times we really need to look at our food costs and start to spend more wisely. Here are seven recipes that will cover your dinners for a week, with some leftovers for your lunch. They are as quick as takeout, as easy as many processed dinners, and more economical and nutritious than both.
Chickpea Curry
My son eats a lot of tofu and I'm always encouraging him to add more legumes to his diet, so I decided on something with chickpeas. I had in my mind a recipe from Julie Sahni's cookbook Classic Indian Cooking as a starting point and we made up our own version. I had some dried Mexican chilies that Hugh had brought from his store. I've always rehydrated chilies, but Hugh put them in the bottom of a dry pan until they were fragrant, chopped them finely added a bit of olive oil and then crushed them with a mortar and pestle until they made a paste. We had some leftover rice and carrots from the night before and tossed them in as well. You could add vegetables such as zucchini or cauliflower as well. Get the full Chickpea Curry recipe at Planet Green.
Full Story: 7 Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Meals : TreeHugger.
Nuclear Power Renaissance Faces Serious Obstacles
The renaissance of nuclear power in the U.S. appears inevitable. It just may not happen as smoothly as the Obama administration and others hope.
The Vermont Senate’s vote Wednesday to block a license renewal for an Entergy plant shows that supporters of nuclear power still have big obstacles to overcome. Those include the growing costs for new plants, environmental worries and the age of the country’s existing nuclear fleet.
“I think if you said ‘ready, go’ today, any kind of meaningful addition would be 10 years down the road,” said Eric Melvin of Mobius Risk.
Full Story: Nuclear Power Renaissance Faces Serious Obstacles.
Most Credible Climate Skeptic Not So Credible After All
Patrick Michaels has more credibility than your average climate skeptic. Unlike some of the kookier characters that populate the small world of climate denialists—like Lord Christopher Monckton, a sometime adviser to Margaret Thatcher who claims that “We are a carbon-starved planet,” or H. Leighton Steward, a retired oil executive and author of a best-selling diet book who argues that carbon dioxide is “green”—Michaels is actually a bona fide climate scientist. As such, he’s often quoted by reporters as a reasonable expert who argues that global warming has been overhyped. But what Michaels doesn’t mention in his frequent media appearances is his history of receiving money from big polluters.
Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, has some impressive-sounding credentials. He has a PhD in ecological climatology and is a senior fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He’s a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and a former program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. He regularly touts his work as a contributing author and reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. (Almost every climate scientist in the world has at some point contributed to or reviewed an IPCC study.) Unlike climate skeptics who implausibly claim that there’s no such thing as global warming, Michaels accepts that it’s happening, but downplays the severity of the problem and the role that human activity plays in the phenomenon.
Full Story: Most Credible Climate Skeptic Not So Credible After All | Mother Jones.
“Meat Glue”: EU’s Approval Of Food Additive ‘Thrombin’ Freaks Swedes Out
Swedish consumer groups and politicians are united in alarm over the approval of thrombin, known as “meat glue,” an animal-derived additive that processed food manufacturers can use to combine varying meat products into a single piece of “meat.” Thrombin is an enzyme comprised of a coagulation protein from pig or cow's blood and a fibrous protein called fibrin, but the head of the Swedish Consumer's Association Jan Bertoft calls it “meat make-up.”
The concern is that consumers will be misled to believe that a processed combined meat product is a single piece of meat, and not a “composite meat product,” as products with thrombin will be required to note. “The problem is that it looks like real meat. It is the dishonesty in it that makes us think that it is not okay,” Bertoft explained.
Full Story: “Meat Glue”: EU’s Approval Of Food Additive ‘Thrombin’ Freaks Swedes Out.
School Administrator Boasts About Spying On Students Using Laptop Webcams
Computers have revolutionized classroom learning. But with this new teaching tool comes a new concern: student privacy.
During an interview with PBS, Dan Ackerman, a vice-principal at a Bronx high school, not only boasted of being able to monitor his students through webcams on their computers (unbeknownst to the students), but demonstrated it live, on camera.
At New York’s Intermediate School 339, administrators wield the authority to directly, remotely monitor students’ online activities to ensure that students are using the school’s laptops appropriately. But it doesn’t stop there.
Full Story: School Administrator Boasts About Spying On Students Using Laptop Webcams.
Leahy Calls For Justice Department Investigation Into Missing John Yoo Emails
A long-awaited Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report released last week found that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee “had committed professional misconduct in writing legal opinions that authorized torture.” The OPR report revealed that many of Yoo’s emails had vanished:
[W]e were told that most of Yoo’s records had been deleted and were not recoverable. [Former Deputy AAG] Philbin’s email records from July 2002 through August 5, 2002 — the time period in which the Bybee Memo was completed and the Classified Bybee Memo (discussed below) was created — had also been deleted and were reportedly not recoverable.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) “called on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the destruction of emails” and reported that “he destruction of these emails represents a blatant violation of the Federal Records Act (FRA) and may break criminal laws.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Leahy Calls For Justice Department Investigation Into Missing John Yoo Emails.
123 Americans Die Every Day from Lack of Insurance Coverage
Every day the Republicans and the Democratic moderates in the United States Senate delay the passage of healthcare reform legislation, 123 more Americans lose their lives to uninsurance. The inability of hard-working Americans to afford health insurance, or adequate health insurance, or to prevent insurers that have taken their money for years from refusing treatment or dropping them outright, is a moral failure of our system.
Earlier this year, a Harvard University study published the findings that 45,000 people die per year as a direct result of lacking adequate health insurance coverage. As many as 5 million additional people are estimated to have lost their health insurance this year alone, a nearly 10% increase in the numbers of the uninsured. That means the figure for 2009 could be substantially higher than 45,000.
But working from the 45,000 figure, we can estimate that 123 people are dying per day, as a direct result of lacking adequate insurance coverage. For nearly all of 2009, the Republican party, joined by “conservative Democrats”, has been operating on the openly expressed opinion that it’s fair and responsible to start any debate on healthcare reform with the phrase “what’s the rush?” (They’re now going as far as to say they will “do anything in their power to stop this bill from becoming law”, urging supporters to rally under the slogan “kill the bill”.)
Full Story: 123 Americans Die Every Day from Lack of Insurance Coverage – J.E. Robertson – Open Salon.
Alleged Stanford fraud victims want money that was given to campaign committees
It’s bad enough for a politician or a party when a campaign contributor is accused of being a major league swindler. But what if the contributor’s victims also want their money back?
Several Democratic and Republican campaign committees in Washington have been hit with a highly unusual federal lawsuit demanding the return of $1.6 million in political contributions, which are linked to R. Allen Stanford and his firm, the Stanford Financial Group.
Ralph S. Janvey, a Dallas lawyer appointed as the receiver of Stanford’s estate, argues that the money, donated by Stanford or his associates, rightfully belongs to investors whom the financier is suspected of defrauding. The political committees “have no legitimate right to retain the funds, and the Receiver is entitled to the return of the funds for the benefit of the claimants injured by the fraud,” Janvey’s office said in a statement this week.
Full Story: Alleged Stanford fraud victims want money that was given to campaign committees – washingtonpost.com.
US military spied on Planned Parenthood, civilian phone calls
United States military intelligence spied on Planned Parenthood and other domestic groups as part of US security preparations for the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, according to a recently declassified military document obtained by a civil liberties group Thursday.
The document (PDF – page 98), drafted by a Pentagon Deputy Inspector General whose name is redacted, was included in more than 800 pages released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as part of a Freedom of Information Act Request. They include reports from the Pentagon’s Intelligence Oversight Board that were submitted to the Defense Secretary from 2001 to 2007.
Referring to an incident where military intelligence personnel distributed information about FBI spying on the 2002 Olympics, the inspector general’s office tersely remarked that an “intelligence oversight violation occurred.”
Full Story: US military spied on Planned Parenthood, civilian phone calls | Raw Story.
It’s time to end the filibuster
The American people are sick of process blocking progress. They’re fed up with an arbitrary tradition that allows a minority of Senators to prevent popular, much-needed legislation from even coming to a vote.
Frankly, so am I.
Please sign this petition to my colleagues in the Senate, supporting the Harkin-Shaheen proposal or other similar proposals to eliminate the crippling 60-vote requirement to overcome a filibuster.
Thank you,
Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator
Full Petition Text:
Dear United States Senators,
I urge you to support the Harkin-Shaheen proposal or similar proposals to eliminate the crippling 60-vote cloture requirement. These challenging times call for more progress, not more process. And that means we need to revisit the filibuster, which has allowed a minority in Congress to prevent popular, much-needed legislation from even coming to a vote…..
Full Story: Take Action: It’s time to end the filibuster.
Edward Bernays
“Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of… In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”
-Edward Bernays-
For more on Edward Bernays watch this BBC documentary:
The Century of the Self
The Missing Voices at the Healthcare Summit
The problem, of course, is that most of the really meaningful disagreements went undiscussed.
President Obama and congressional Republicans arrived at the White House health care summit with talking points — not just for the summit itself but for the after-summit jockeying to claim the upper hand coming out of a session that always had more to do with messaging than making progress to insure more Americans at less cost.
Obama got off a good enough line about “not campaigning anymore.”
Congressman Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican who has become a “party of no” pointman, showed up with Ross Perot-style props and plenty of gripes.
Ultimately, Obama summed things up pretty well:
Full Story: The Missing Voices at the Healthcare Summit.
Rains Threaten More Haiti Misery
The first heavy rains have hit Haiti since last month’s devastating earthquake struck, swamping makeshift camps that house hundreds of thousands of homeless and raising fears of landslides and disease.
The rains late on Thursday came as forecasters warned of a large storm heading in Haiti’s direction that could strike over the weekend.
More than a million people were made homeless by the deadly January 12 quake, many of them now living in flimsy makeshift shelters that offer little protection from heavy rains.
Full Story: Rains Threaten More Haiti Misery | CommonDreams.org.
The U.S. Chamber: A Record of Obstruction on Climate Action
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been fighting climate-change legislation and is now opposing federal efforts to regulate CO2 emissions. Its actions stand in stark contrast to an earlier business group, which more than a century ago fought to create New York’s vast Adirondack Park.
In 1883, New York faced an environmental crisis. Water levels were falling in the state’s rivers and canals, impeding travel and shipping. Scientists and editorial writers placed the blame on the logging and burning of the Adirondacks, which prevented the forests from exercising their usual moderating influence on stream flows. With the loss of the forests, it was feared, the steady release of water would be replaced by a cycle of floods and low water.
To make matters worse, these impacts were the result of logging only on the fringes of the Adirondack region. But in 1883, the Adirondack Railroad Company proposed to build a line through the heart of the forest. The inevitable expansion of logging into the interior would, in the words of a New York Tribune article, result in “disastrous climatic changes, … wasting freshets and parching drou[ghts].”
Full Story: The U.S. Chamber: A Record of Obstruction on Climate Action by Shaun Goho: Yale Environment 360.
“If you think it’s a socialist plot, give up your federal health care”
Senator Dick Durbin asks Republicans who oppose health reform to give up the health plans they and their families receive from the federal government as members of Congress: “The federal employees health benefit program that we enjoy as individuals and want for our families is all we are asking for in this bill for families across America. If you think it is a socialist plot and it’s wrong, for goodness sakes, drop out of the federal employees health benefit program. But if you think it is good enough for your family, shouldn’t our health insurance be good enough for the rest of America?”
The economic war being waged against Greece, the EU – and North America!
Greece, Gold and Financial Terrorism – Freedomain Radio Interviews Max Keiser
7th Circuit judges may testify in retrial over Web threats
Federal prosecutors are beefing up their case against Web radio talk show host Harold “Hal” Turner, charged with encouraging listeners to murder three federal appellate judges. In Turner’s retrial, which starts next week in Brooklyn, N.Y., prosecutors plan to call those judges to the stand.
Last week the prosecutors, who work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, overcame objections from Turner’s lawyer, Michael Orozco, and won permission to have the three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago provide testimony, according to documents filed in the case. The targets of Turner’s vitriol were Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, Judge Richard Posner and Judge William Bauer, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago.
Turner was indicted last June after he posted Internet messages that said the judges “deserve to be killed” for their June 2 ruling allowing a Chicago handgun ban to stand. (The same ban is now being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court.) In a June 3 post, Turner provided the names, work addresses, phone numbers and photos of Easterbrook, Posner and Bauer. He called them “traitors” and said “their blood will replenish the tree of liberty.”
Full Story: 7th Circuit judges may testify in retrial over Web threats.
Breaking: CNN’s Stunning One-Sided Coverage of Health Care Summit
In a stunning display of one-sided coverage, during the first three hours of coverage of the Health Care Summit televised so far, CNN only interrupted, whether for commercial or comment, Democratic speakers.
Yes, I could have watched the first three hours on C-SPAN, but I was interested in the balance of coverage.
I was stunned.
In the first three hours televised so far, CNN interrupted:
1. Pres. Obama (D) for a Chantax / Pfizer commercial
2. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D) (entire speech) for a Liberator medical device ad as well as an ad by American Future Fund featuring a lipstick-wearing pig which advocated “Tell Congress Start Over and Get Health Care Right.”
3. Pres. Obama (D) for ads (including an ad by the Oil and Gas Industry)
4. Sen. Max Baucus (D-sorta) for ads
5. Rep. Robert Andrews (D) (entire speech) for comment
6. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) for ads
7. Pres. Obama (D) for ads including another one by Pfizer
8. At this point, they did cut into the very tail end (couple seconds) of Rep. Charles Boustany's (R) comments but only to go to Rep. Anh Cao (R) for comment while not showing a couple moments of Pres. Obama (D) and several minutes of another Dem (didn't even see who he was!)
But oh, they came back straight away for Sen. McCain (R)!
Full Story: Daily Kos: Breaking: CNN’s Stunning One-Sided Coverage of Health Care Summit.
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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. 
I beg to differ.
Liberalism, defined as caring for the group (as opposed to caring only for the self) is a formative evolutionary trait. We band together for protection and food-sharing. Our young are totally dependent for a very long time and so the tribe circles around them and carries them along for it’s group survival. Assuring the wellbeing of all the tribe’s members is essential to the survival of the whole. This is the origin of Socialism, in the very same cave as Monarchy and Capitalism. They are ingrained into all of us in varying degrees. To some extent, a communitarian concept is a little more complex than I, Me, Mine, so it’s not surprising that it takes a tad more intelligence to understand how sharing your kill keeps your wife and kids alive and that furthers your genes.
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.” JSMill