Archive for February, 2010

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says

Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said.

Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small,” said the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, which is restricted to the agencies concerned and not meant for public circulation. The group includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.

A more accurate assessment about the health risks of the screening won’t be possible until governments decide whether all passengers will be systematically scanned or randomly selected, the report said. Governments must justify the additional risk posed to passengers, and should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

Full Story Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says – Bloomberg.com.

Tancredo says Obama won because we lack a ‘literacy test before people can vote in this country.’

Yesterday was the start of the National Tea Party Convention, which is “aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation for the purpose of networking and supporting the movement’s multiple organizations’ principal goals.” One of the featured speakers during the convention’s kickoff was former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo. Tancredo told the audience that the country had elected “a committed socialist ideologue in the White House” because “we do not have a civics, literary test before people can vote in this country“:

The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Full Story Think Progress » Tancredo says Obama won because we lack a ‘literacy test before people can vote in this country.’.

The crisis is not over

Paul Craig Roberts -

Readers ask if the financial crisis is over, if the recovery is for real and, if not, what are Americans’ prospects. The short answer is that the financial crisis is not over, the recovery is not real, and the U.S. faces a far worse crisis than the financial one.

Here is the situation as I understand it: The global crisis is understood as a banking crisis brought on by the mindless deregulation of the U.S. financial arena. Investment banks leveraged assets to highly irresponsible levels, issued questionable financial instruments with fraudulent investment grade ratings, and issued the instruments through direct sales to customers rather than through markets.

The crisis was initiated when the U.S. allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, thus threatening money market funds everywhere. The crisis was used by the investment banks, which controlled U.S. economic policy, to secure massive subsidies to their profits from a taxpayer bailout and from the Federal Reserve. How much of the crisis was real and how much was hype is not known at this time.

Full Story The crisis is not over.

America is broke – and needs its old friends

The US badly needs its European allies to help redress its loss of balance and stem the haemorrhaging of its international clout

Barack Obama’s $3.8tn budget is a vastly complex affair. But one fact stands out plainly: in layman’s terms, America is broke. The federal government’s outgoings will exceed income by about $1.6tn this year; over the next 10 years combined, the predicted gap is $8.5tn. Given the partisan impasse on Capitol Hill over spending cuts and higher taxes, there is no reason to assume matters will improve any time soon.

Obama suggested this week that such mind-boggling improvidence is unsustainable, economically and even morally. But continuing, chronic American financial vulnerability also carries increasingly serious implications for US global influence and its standing as the world’s only superpower. In short, the deficit, and the mindset that produces it, begin to threaten the post-1945 security architecture.

The western world has been here before. In Asia, Africa, and the Middle East after the second world war, the US extended its geopolitical pre-eminence and market dominance, filling a vacuum where the exhausted British and European empires once held sway. Facing serious competition only from the Soviet Union, America supplanted the “old world” and took control. The end of the cold war entrenched its global grip.

Full Story America is broke – and needs its old friends | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Lobbying Imperils Overhaul of Student Loans

Four months ago, it appeared all but certain that the White House and Democrats in Congress would succeed in overhauling the student loan business and ending government subsidies to private lenders.

President Obama called the idea a “no-brainer” last fall, predicting it would take billions of dollars from the profits of private lenders and give it directly to students, and many colleges were already moving to get loans directly from the federal government in anticipation of the next move by Congress.

But an aggressive lobbying campaign by the nation’s biggest student lenders has now put one of the White House’s signature plans in peril, with lenders using sit-downs with lawmakers, town-hall-style meetings and petition drives to plead their case and stay in business.

Full Story Lobbying Imperils Overhaul of Student Loans – NYTimes.com.

Frank Exposes How the Right-Wing Media Spreads Disinformation

Ellsberg documentary attracts wide audience

On first impression, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” is the kind of documentary that no Sarah Palin-loving red stater would be caught dead seeing.

It is made by Berkeley lefties. It is a tribute to a man who leaked 7,000 pages of top-secret Vietnam War documents, revealing that our highest public officials were liars and essentially murderers. Its subtext is that we are awash in government deception again.

But the documentary – which follows Ellsberg’s path from Harvard wunderkind to Marine commander to White House and Defense Department consultant to political pariah – has been embraced by old and young, dove and hawk, earnest leftist and ardent right-winger as an inspiring story of patriotism and moral courage. Even stranger, the film has widely been described as entertaining.

Full Story Ellsberg documentary attracts wide audience.

Haiti – Still Starving 23 Days Later

You can walk down many of the streets of Port au Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti.

Twenty-three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.

On February 4, the UN World Food Program reported they had given at least some food, mostly 55 pound bags of rice, to over a million people. The UN acknowledges that it still needs to reach another one million people. The 55 pounds of rice are expected to provide a two week food ration for a family. Beans and cooking oil are scheduled to come later.

Full Story Haiti – Still Starving 23 Days Later | CommonDreams.org.

Pentagon to Increase Stock of High-Altitude Drones

“We can’t get enough drones,”

The U.S. military plans to more than triple its inventory of high-altitude, armed and unarmed drones capable of 24-hour patrols by 2020.

The long-range aviation plan delivered to Congress Feb. 2 calls for 800 high-altitude drones, up from 220 currently. “Recent operational experience and combat commander demands” are driving this “significant growth,” according to the plan submitted.

“We can’t get enough drones,” General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes the Afghanistan and Iraq war theaters, said in a speech Jan. 19.

Full Story Pentagon to Increase Stock of High-Altitude Drones (Update1) – BusinessWeek.

OPS: so we’ll start buying them from China – bet me

HAITI: U.S. Lawmakers, NGOs Call for Debt Cancellation

Three weeks after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers joined with key civil society groups here Thursday to urge the Group of Seven (G7) leading western nations to commit to cancelling all of the Caribbean country’s multilateral debt.

On the eve of Friday’s meeting by G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit, Canada, 94 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that also called for “the provision of assistance to Haiti in the form of grants so that the country does not accumulate additional debts.”

That call was echoed by a several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Oxfam, Jubilee USA, and Avaaz, which said they plan to deliver hundreds of thousands of individual signatures on petitions appealing for debt cancellation from across the world to this weekend’s ministerial meeting.

Full Story HAITI: U.S. Lawmakers, NGOs Call for Debt Cancellation.

Pennsylvania Coal Fire That Has Burned Since 1962

Centralia Fire: Final Holdouts Refuse To Flee

Standing before the wreckage of his bulldozed home, John Lokitis Jr. felt sick to his stomach, certain that a terrible mistake had been made.

He’d fought for years to stay in the house. It was one of the few left standing in the moonscape of Centralia, a once-proud coal town whose population fled an underground mine fire that began in 1962 and continues to burn.

But the state had ordered Lokitis to vacate, leaving the fourth-generation Centralian little choice but to say goodbye – to the house, and to what’s left of the town he loved.

“I never had any desire to move,” said Lokitis, 39. “It was my home.”

Full Story Centralia Fire: Final Holdouts Refuse To Flee From Pennsylvania Coal Fire That Has Burned Since 1962.

America’s 7 Least-Trusted Banks: Is Yours On The List? (PHOTOS)

According to a new report out this week, customers are much less likely to trust big banks than credit unions and regional banks.

In its annual customer advocacy rankings, Forrester Research, the Cambridge-based research firm, asked 4,500 customers at 50 banks if they agreed with the statement “My financial provider does what’s best for me, not just its own bottom line.”

Forrester ranked the financial institutions based on consumers’ responses, and the nation’s largest banks were overwhelmingly the worst performers, with only around a third or fewer of customers at big banks saying that they believed their financial institution put customers’ interests first. By contrast, about 70 percent of credit union customers responded positively to the statement.

Bill Doyle, a Forrester VP, told the NYT that the pattern of distrust toward the mega banks is nothing new. In the seven years the company has been conducting the survey, he said, big banks have repeatedly landed at the bottom of the list:

Full Story America’s 7 Least-Trusted Banks: Is Yours On The List? (PHOTOS).

Palin Camp Rips Limbaugh, Hits His “Retard” Comment As “Crude And Demeaning” | The Plum Line

Palin believes Limbaugh’s repeated use of the word “retard” yesterday was “crude and demeaning,” her spokesperson emails.

In the wake of Palin’s demand that Rahm Emanuel be fired for saying the liberal activist strategy on health care was “f–king retarded,” a bunch of people have been asking how she’d react to Limbaugh’s tirade on the air yesterday.

“Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards,” Rush said, adding that Rahm’s meeting yesterday with advocates for the mentally handicapped was a “retard summit at the White House.”

I asked Palin spokesperson Meghan Stapleton for comment on Rush’s rant, and she emailed me this:

Full Story Palin Camp Rips Limbaugh, Hits His “Retard” Comment As “Crude And Demeaning” | The Plum Line.

Mildred’s Temple Kitchen, Canadian Restaurant, Encourages Customers To Have Sex In Its Bathrooms

Visitors to Mildred’s Temple Kitchen, a restaurant in Toronto, Canada, are invited to spice up their love life this Valentine’s Day with a trip to the bathroom.

“Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?” patrons were asked in a not-too-subtle promotional e-mail.

The individual bathrooms will be open for sexual escapades from the 12-15th February. According to the manager, Rory Gallagher, a french maid will be working the toilets, making sure everything is “going smoothly and kept clean.”

“We’ve always had little trysts in our bathrooms,” co-owner Donna Dooher told The Toronto Star. “We’re taking it to the next level on Valentine’s weekend.” She added that customers are expected to bring their own condoms.

Full Story Mildred’s Temple Kitchen, Canadian Restaurant, Encourages Customers To Have Sex In Its Bathrooms.

OPS: THE spot for a Nooner

Taliban Talks The Only Road To Peace In Afghanistan?

A Deal with the Taliban?

1. For thirty years Afghanistan has cast a long, dark shadow over world events, but it has also been marked by pivotal moments that could have brought peace and changed world history.

One such moment occurred in February 1989, just as the last Soviet troops were leaving Afghanistan. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had flown into Islamabad–the first visit to Pakistan by a senior Soviet official. He came on a last-ditch mission to try to persuade Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the army, and the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to agree to a temporary sharing of power between the Afghan Communist regime in Kabul and the Afghan Mujahideen. He hoped to prevent a civil war and lay the groundwork for a peaceful, final transfer of power to the Mujahideen.

Full Story Taliban Talks The Only Road To Peace In Afghanistan?.

Donors Reward Dems Who Pushed Public Option

An online effort has quietly raised nearly $90,000 in the past few days to reward three freshman House Democrats for organizing an effort to put the public health insurance option back into the Senate health care debate.

The three representatives — Chellie Pingree (Maine), Jared Polis (Colo.) and Alan Grayson (Fla.) — have so far received more than $20,000 each, with the rest going to Howard Dean’s Democracy for America group and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which organized the campaign and set up this website. The total itself may be less relevant than the fact that the cash has come in from more than 3,400 small donors, giving those members future access to an expanded fundraising base.

“It was easy to raise money for [the three members] because they did exactly what voters consistently say they want Democrats to do,” said PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor. “They fought for bigger change instead of smaller change, and by fighting for the public option they showed they were willing to directly challenge corporate power on behalf of everyday people.”

Full Story Donors Reward Dems Who Pushed Public Option.

Milky Way’s Most Massive Star Discovered

The Milky Way galaxy’s most massive star has been spotted in a “glowing stellar nursery” in space.

The picture (see below) of the massive Milky Way star was captured by the European Southern Observatory’s aptly named ‘Very Large Telescope,’ which measures 27 feet in diameter.

The telescope, located at Cerro Paranal, Chile, combined data from violet, red and infrared filters to create the image of the Milky Way.

This massive star is housed in the NGC 3603 nebula, in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way, which is known as one of the luminous and most compact star clusters. It is located 22,000 light-years away from Earth.

Full Story Milky Way’s Most Massive Star Discovered (PHOTOS).

20 New Anticancer Rules

Michael Pollan’s recent little gem of a book Food Rules inspired me to compile my own “rules” about what I’d like every person to know about how they can help avoid cancer – or slow it down if they have it. Here’s my best attempt at the exercise…

FOOD RULES

1. Eat like the war never happened: Make your main course what it was like before WW II: 80 percent vegetables, 20 percent animal protein at each meal. Choose the opposite of the quarter pounder tagged with a — let’s say leaf of iceberg lettuce and an anemic slice of tomato. Meat should be used as a condiment for taste, as in the old days when it was scarce, not the core of the dish.

2. Mix your vegetables: vary the vegetables you eat from one meal to the next, or mix them together — broccoli is a powerful anticancer food, but much more powerful yet in the company of tomato sauce, onions or garlic. Get in the habit of adding onions, garlic or leeks to all the dishes you cook (caution: do not try this with dessert)

Full Story David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.: 20 New Anticancer Rules.

Senator Franken Rips Into Comcast CEO Brian Roberts

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC President Jeff Zucker testified in front of House and Senate subcommittees Thursday as regulators decide whether to allow the proposed merger of the two media giants. Comcast is the largest cable TV and residential high-speed Internet company in the nation. NBC is one of the largest content providers.

The House hearing opened with several politicians waxing poetic about how the merger is great for America. While nobody in the room cracked a smile, their enthusiasm is laughable. The only people who could believe that the largest media merger in a generation is good for the public are either: 1) on the receiving end of the massive campaign contributions from said media companies; 2) bending to the phalanx of industry lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill; or 3) hoodwinked believers in the “all regulation is bad” approach that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown.

Not everyone is swallowing the snake oil Comcast is peddling to grease its takeover of NBC. None shone brighter yesterday than Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who aggressively interrogated Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker — all but accusing them of lying to his face.

Full Story Josh Silver: Senator Franken Rips Into Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

Blasts kill 32 at height of Iraq Shiite pilgrimage

A twin car bombing Friday targeted a crowd of Shiite pilgrims packing a highway as they walked to a holy city south of Baghdad for a major religious ceremony, killing at least 32 and wounding 154 people, Iraqi ministry officials said.

It was the third deadly bombing this week hitting the ceremony in which hundreds of thousands of Shiites have been converging on the city of Karbala. Friday’s attack struck during the culmination of the pilgrimage.

This week’s violence took place as Iraqi politicians argued over an effort to bar hundreds of candidates from running in the March 7 parliamentary elections because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he would not allow the U.S. ambassador to meddle in the dispute, which Washington fears could frustrate Sunni-Shiite reconciliation.

Full Story Blasts kill 32 at height of Iraq Shiite pilgrimage.

Martha Johnson: GSA Chief Confirmed After 9 Month Senate Hold-Up

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Martha N. Johnson as head of the General Services Administration, nearly 10 months after she was first nominated to head the federal agency.

Upon assuming office, Johnson “will become the first permanent Administrator of the General Services Administration in nearly two years.”

Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer. The delay was meant to pressure GSA administrators to approve a $175 million federal building project in Kansas City.

Full Story Martha Johnson: GSA Chief Confirmed After 9 Month Senate Hold-Up.

Security flaw puts iPhone users at risk of phishing attacks

When Apple introduced iPhone OS 3.0, it attempted to beef up the security of over-the-air enterprise management of iPhones by adding support for Cisco Systems’ Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP). However, a flaw in the implementation of the standard could allow hackers to offer mobile configuration files that appear to be from a legitimate source, but may otherwise set your iPhone to access malicious servers.

Ars spoke with a mobile security expert who discovered the problem (who asked to remain anonymous because he did not have approval to talk about the issue). He told Ars that the issue is one of trust: “Who would you trust to change your iPhone configuration over the air? Your carrier? Your company? Your IT security admin?” he asked. Apple uses SCEP as a way for the iPhone to check in with a certificate server to verify that a mobileconfig file has been signed by a trusted source, but flaws in the set-up on the iPhone mean that the process doesn’t always work as intended.

The problem stems from Apple’s method of checking root certificate authorities. Apple added SCEP, which intended to be a protocol to securely verify trust relationships for closed systems, to iPhone OS 3.0. However, a mobileconfig file that uses the older protocol for verification must be sent to the iPhone to initiate SCEP, and this older protocol has a verified flaw in its implementation.

Full Story Security flaw puts iPhone users at risk of phishing attacks (Updated).

Comcast unveils new brand name and logo

Comcast Corp. said yesterday that it would re-brand its TV, Internet, and telephone services as Xfinity on Feb. 12 to signal to customers that this isn’t the same old company.

Comcast will remain as the corporate name, but the company will emphasize Xfinity in advertisements and on 24,000 service trucks and thousands of employee uniforms.

The new brand name will first appear in Comcast ads, around the time of the Winter Olympics, in Philadelphia and 10 other markets and will then appear in Comcast’s cable-franchise areas in other parts of the country.

Full Story Comcast unveils new brand name and logo | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/04/2010.

Germanium Laser Breakthrough Brings Optical Computing Closer

Researchers at MIT have demonstrated the first laser that uses the element germanium.

The laser, which operates at room temperature, could prove to be an important step toward computer chips that move data using light instead of electricity, say the researchers.

“This is a very important breakthrough, one I would say that has the highest possible significance in the field,” says Eli Yablonovitch, a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department of the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the research told Wired.com. “It will greatly reduce the cost of communications and make for faster chips.”

Full Story Germanium Laser Breakthrough Brings Optical Computing Closer | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

Full Story Al Franken lays into David Axelrod over health care bill – Manu Raju and Andy Barr – POLITICO.com.

OPS:  Go AL!  Now how about a word or two on Rahm?

Tea party opening speaker suggests blacks be kept from voting

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a “literacy test” to protect America from presidents like Obama — a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.

Full Story Tea party opening speaker suggests blacks be kept from voting | Raw Story.

OPS:  If they get away with this, will the Jews be next?

Anthem Blue Cross dramatically raising rates for Californians with individual health policies

Policyholders are incensed over rate hikes of as much as 39%, which they say come on top of similar increases last year. State insurance regulators say they’ll investigate.

California’s largest for-profit health insurer is moving to dramatically raise rates for customers with individual policies, setting off a furor among policyholders and prompting state insurance regulators to investigate.

Anthem Blue Cross is telling many of its approximately 800,000 customers who buy individual coverage — people not covered by group rates — that its prices will go up March 1 and may be adjusted “more frequently” than its typical yearly increases.

The insurer declined to say how high it is increasing rates. But brokers who sell these policies say they are fielding numerous calls from customers incensed over premium increases of 30% to 39%, saying they come on the heels of similar jumps last year.

Full Story Anthem Blue Cross dramatically raising rates for Californians with individual health policies – latimes.com.

Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys

Death reopens debate over ‘honour’ killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country’s murders

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an “honour” killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

The girl had previously been reported missing.

Full Story Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys | World news | guardian.co.uk.

House vote makes $1.9 trillion debt limit hike likely

The House on Thursday approved a record $1.9 trillion increase in the cap on how much the government can borrow.

The House also approved a measure that imposes tougher budget rules on lawmakers.

The votes, which broke down largely along party lines, come one week after the Senate approved both measures.

The legislation, which is expected to be signed by President Obama, will raise the debt ceiling to $14.294 trillion.

Full Story House vote makes $1.9 trillion debt limit hike likely – Feb. 4, 2010.

Palin skipped paying property taxes on cabins, records show

Records show that Sarah Palin hasn’t paid any property taxes on cabins that have been built on two backcountry plots partially owned by the former Alaska governor.

It’s unclear how long ago the structures were built, but records show that there are no tax assessments for the workshop, sauna and house-sized cabins spotted Thursday in an aerial survey.

Property taxes totaling $156.13 were paid on the land in 2009 — but that bill did not include anything for the structures because the local assessor didn’t know about the new construction nearly 100 miles north of Anchorage.

Full Story Palin skipped paying property taxes on cabins, records show | Raw Story.

Why the Economy has Fallen off its Tracks

Economist and former Vice Presidential candidate Pat Choate discusses his new book Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong and outlines the problems facing the United States with potential solutions to solve them.

Video at link

Full Story Why the Economy has Fallen off its Tracks | Economy In Crisis.

An Empire At Risk

The nation which survived the Cold War and rallied after 9/11 may have its global power greatly eradicated by this fiscal crisis

Economic historian Niall Ferguson, writing for Newsweek, believes that the United States may be entering an unprecedented period in its history. After successfully surviving the best that the 20th century had to throw at it, it may be undone from within by its own largesse and mismanagement.

The nation which survived the Cold War and rallied after 9/11 may have its global power greatly eradicated by this fiscal crisis.

During the past generation, the U.S. has built itself up as the preeminent world power. In terms of military, economic, and diplomatic power the U.S. reigned supreme. Now however, those positions are being challenged from within.

Full Story An Empire At Risk | Economy In Crisis.

Obama Budget Cutting NASA Moon Plan

According to Reuters, the budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be expanded, but some opponents feel like the cuts being made will be catastrophic for the agency.

President Obama’s 2011 fiscal budget seems to have struck a chord in virtually all areas of the government and the overall economy. His defense appropriations have drawn criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.

However, one part of the president’s budget that has drawn little public acknowledgment is his decision regarding NASA appropriations and which programs will be discontinued or cut back. Overall, the budget for NASA has been increased by roughly $19 billion for 2011.

According to Reuters, the budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be expanded, but some opponents feel like the cuts being made will be catastrophic for the agency. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) stated that the budget “begins the death march for the future of U.S. human space flight” with its cancellation of the Bush-era Constellation program.

Full Story Obama Budget Cutting NASA Moon Plan | Economy In Crisis.

H-1 B Visas Causing Wages to Stagnate and Costing Jobs

A report released by the AFL-CIO in December finds that there is no shortage of American IT workers, which proponents commonly claim to justify insourcing more cost-effective foreign workers.

A report released last December by the AFL-CIO found that many American companies are gaming the system and hiring H-1B guest workers as a cost-cutting measure.

The report runs contrary to the arguments usually made by proponents of the flawed program.

For one, the report finds that there is no shortage of American IT workers, which proponents commonly claim to justify insourcing more cost-effective foreign workers.

Full Story H-1 B Visas Causing Wages to Stagnate and Costing Jobs | Economy In Crisis.

Issa Says Democratically Elected Democratic Congress Is ‘Exactly The Same’ As Kazakhstan’s Dictatorship

Tuesday, during a hearing of the Helsinki Commission — an independent U.S. agency charged with promoting security and economic cooperation with eastern Europe and central Asia — that featured Kazakh foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) showed contempt for human rights by telling Saudabayev that Kazakhstan’s nature as a virtual dictatorship doesn’t concern him because “Washington, D.C. is exactly the same” because it is controlled by Democrats:

ISSA: I want to share with you something here today. Washington, D.C., is exactly the same. This is a one-party town, even though there are people who are not Democrats. And this town has decided to have representation, at least one member of the council, who is chosen simply to represent minorities.

Full Story Think Progress » Issa Says Democratically Elected Democratic Congress Is ‘Exactly The Same’ As Kazakhstan’s Dictatorship.

Tax the Corporations and the Rich or Take Draconian Cuts — the Decision Is Ours

David Sirota -

Plagued by deficits, communities everywhere must now decide between tax reform and public spending cuts — between economic life and death.

Judging by Tim Tebow’s much-hyped Super Bowl ad, “choose life” remains conservatives’ favorite abortion shibboleth. But really, the phrase better captures the stakes in the Great Budget Wars of 2010.

Plagued by deficits, communities everywhere must now decide between tax reform and public spending cuts — between economic life and death. And thanks to two Western bellwether states, we know what each choice means.

Choosing death means mimicking Colorado Springs — a Republican red tattoo on Colorado’s purple heart.

As a venue for political experiments, the sprawly GOP enclave is as pristine a conservative laboratory as you’ll find in America. If the city has garnered contemporary notoriety at all, it has achieved infamy for domiciling right-wing groups like Focus on the Family and infecting the world with viruses like Douglas Bruce — the father of draconian initiatives that seek to prohibit governments from raising levies.

Full Story Tax the Corporations and the Rich or Take Draconian Cuts — the Decision Is Ours | Economy | AlterNet.

Federal stimulus program pours $54 million into Wine Train project

A company won a $54 million contract to build new structures for the Napa Valley Wine Train tourist attraction. The result? 12 new jobs and “pork barrel” accusations.

NAPA – The corporate shareholders live in tribal villages in the outback of western Alaska.

The CEO is in South Carolina, where his prior multimillion-dollar venture – a dot-com for sail boaters – collapsed in bankruptcy.

But the main action today is in Napa, where, without competitive bidding, this unusual construction company won a $54 million federal contract to build a new railroad bridge and other structures for the famed Napa Valley Wine Train tourist attraction.

This is the world of Anchorage-based Suulutaaq Inc. Because the company was founded by Alaska natives, it enjoys special access to federal contracts.

Full Story Federal stimulus program pours $54 million into Wine Train project | California Watch.

White “Savior-Afflicted” Christians, Black Haitian Babies: This Won’t End Well

Would the Baptists accused of taking Haitian kids out of the country illegally have tried to pull this off in a predominantly white country? Doubtful.

While I don’t believe these folks were actually engaging in human trafficking, as very often happens in poor countries. Whether it’s for sex or body parts (check out this, this, and this on the organ trafficking business.). But human trafficking and organ trafficking are very real issues. And they are not the only ones.

What really gets me is the sheer arrogance, the blindness of white privilege and the blatant ignorance of “so-called” Christians. Even if the children were in fact orphans, and it appears that some weren’t, who on Earth would waltz into a country, ingore their laws, and honestly think they could just grab the nearest babies they found and walk away with them?

Full Story White “Savior-Afflicted” Christians, Black Haitian Babies: This Won’t End Well | | AlterNet.

Fury at Wall St. Banks Fuels Public Action for Move Your Money Campaign

The banking behemoths have used our dollars to destroy our economy. The Move Your Money campaign says we don’t have to wait for financial reform to fight back.

Since the burst of the financial bubble in 2008, and surely before, millions of Americans have watched as their life savings dwindled to fumes. Unemployment has held steady at 10 percent or above (among minority groups, it will likely hit the 20s this year) and one in five Americans went hungry last year. As the human recession has worsened, Congress has been slow to act to quell it, while they’ve rushed to the aid of too-big-to-fail banks.

A new campaign called Move Your Money aims to tackle the frustrations with the Wall Street banks, and the politicians they’ve bought off, head on. The campaign is based on a simple idea: Americans ought to move their money from the big banks — that took billions in taxpayer money and continue to foist outrageous interest rates even as they cut lending –  to local financial institutions that actually are a part of their communities. Move the money back home.

Full Story Fury at Wall St. Banks Fuels Public Action for Move Your Money Campaign | Economy | AlterNet.

Top 10 Problems With America Assassinating Americans

David Swanson -

The director of U.S. national intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee the government has the right to kill Americans abroad.

Here are 10 problems with this:

1. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don’t cease to be crimes because you cross a border.

2. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don’t cease to be crimes because you engage in them frequently. Assassinating non-Americans is just as illegal as assassinating Americans. The leap here is not to victims of a different citizenship but to the legalization of murder.

Full Story Top 10 Problems With America Assassinating Americans | Let’s Try Democracy.

Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”

The Mobile Press-Register picked up the story early this afternoon. The paper confirmed Reid’s account of the hold, and reported that a Shelby spokesperson “did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation of the senator’s action or his reason for doing so.”

Full Story Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks | TPMDC.

Fiscal Scare Tactics

Paul Krugman -

These days it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we’re told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren’t stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they’re reported as if they were facts, plain and simple.

Yet they aren’t facts. Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you’ll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates. The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren’t — and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe.

So why the sudden ubiquity of deficit scare stories? It isn’t being driven by any actual news. It has been obvious for at least a year that the U.S. government would face an extended period of large deficits, and projections of those deficits haven’t changed much since last summer. Yet the drumbeat of dire fiscal warnings has grown vastly louder.

Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Fiscal Scare Tactics – NYTimes.com.

OPS:  Even Krugman continues to ignores the elephant in the room – Military spending.   You’d think that spending more than every other country on the planet combined on War and Empire would at least deserve ‘honorable’ mention

Government Labor Statistics: Lies and Damned Lies | BuzzFlash.org

Dave Lindorff -

For months, the various government departments dealing with things economic–Treasury, Commerce, Labor and of course the Council of Economic Advisers and the Federal Reserve, have been issuing soothing words that the nation’s economy is headed back up from the Great Recession that allegedly began in December 2007.

But now comes word from the Department of Labor that, whoops, we minsunderestimated, as former President George W. Bush would say, the number of jobs lost. The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that because of a “modeling error,” it misstated the number of jobs lost between March 2008 and March 2009 by 17%. In hard numbers, that is to say, the BLS was reporting that a record 4.8 million jobs were lost during those 12 months of economic collapse, when in fact the job loss total was actually 5.6 million.

They missed 824,000 lost jobs! Just to give you an idea of how many people that is, we’re talking about 10% of the population of the city of New York, and more people than the entire population of San Francisco.

Full Story Dave Lindorff – Government Labor Statistics: Lies and Damned Lies | BuzzFlash.org.

Chase Denied Loan Mods for Now Forbidden Reason—Homeowners in Limbo

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Lesa Herron of Santa Rosa, Calif., opened a letter from Chase Home Finance (PDF). She’d been denied a permanent modification under the federal government’s loan-mod program, Chase said, because “Your hardship is not of a permanent nature.” No other reason was given.

For Herron, that was hard to understand. She was working two jobs and her mortgage payment still amounted to more than half of her income. She’d fallen two payments behind. If her money troubles were only temporary, it was news to her.

We at ProPublica reported last month that mortgage servicers are often not following the Treasury Department’s rules for the program and provided three examples. One involved another homeowner who, like Herron, had been denied a modification because his hardship was not “permanent.”

Full Story On The Hill: Chase Denied Loan Mods for Now Forbidden Reason—Homeowners in Limbo.

The government has your baby’s DNA

When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.

While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.

It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.

Full Story The government has your baby’s DNA – CNN.com.

Who’s Killing Financial Reform?

Robert Reich

Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms” needed by the public. “The fact is,” Dodd said, “I am frustrated, and so are the American people.” He charged that Wall Street’s intransigence was the reason for Congress’s failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street. “The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people who have lost so much in this crisis.”

In other words, it isn’t Congress’s fault. It isn’t the Senate Banking Committee’s fault. It certainly isn’t Dodd’s fault. The reason more than a year has passed since the biggest bailout in the history of the world and nothing has been done to prevent a repeat performance — even as the biggest banks are doling out more than $30 billion of bonuses, even as Goldman Sachs is awarding its big traders $16 billion in bonuses (more than the $13 billion Goldman collected from taxpayers via the bailout of AIG), even as AIG itself is handing out bonuses — the reason is … what, exactly, Senator? Because the Street has sent an army of lobbyists to Capitol Hill?

Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street.

Full Story Robert Reich (Who’s Killing Financial Reform?).

2nd large quake in month hits off N. Calif coast

Residents of Northern California’s Humboldt County were rocked by a magnitude-5.9 earthquake Thursday, but officials said there were no immediate reports of major injury or damage from the second large temblor to hit the area within a month.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake struck at 12:20 p.m. about 35 miles northwest of the community of Petrolia and nearly 50 miles west of Eureka. The shaking was felt within a 150-mile radius, as far north as southern Oregon and as far south as Sonoma County, according to the USGS Web site.

Local officials and residents reported feeling a rolling sensation that caused items to fall from walls and shelves. Many said the movement didn’t feel nearly as severe as the magnitude-6.5 quake that struck the same region Jan. 9 and caused more than $40 million in damage and one serious injury — an elderly woman who fell and broke her hip.

Full Story 2nd large quake in month hits off N. Calif coast – Yahoo! News.

Sanders Grills Geithner and Takes on Deficit Blame Game

Sen. Sanders questioned Treasury Sec. Geithner at a Budget Committee hearing and talked about Republican efforts to shift blame for record deficits away from their own unpaid-for spending habits during the Bush presidency.

One in eight Americans needs emergency food assistance

One in eight Americans does not have enough to eat and requires emergency food assistance. This staggering number is revealed in a report released on Tuesday by Feeding America (FA), a network consisting of thousands of food pantries, soup kitchens and similar agencies serving 37 million people in the US. The report, entitled Hunger in America 2010, paints a devastating portrait of the social misery faced by millions of American working people.

In what is the largest single study of domestic emergency food assistance ever carried out, Feeding America conducted 61,000 face-to-face interviews and surveyed more than 37,000 charitable agencies in its network to assess the level of “food insecurity” among their clients. “Food insecurity” means, simply, that people are going hungry. Survey respondents classified as “insecure” stated they could not afford to buy more food once they had run out, that they had been forced to skip meals because they could not afford them, and that they had not been able to eat when they were hungry because they could not afford to do so.

The FA investigation revealed the organization now serves 37 million people annually, of which 14 million are children. This marks an alarming 46 percent increase in people seeking emergency hunger relief since 2006. Seventy-nine percent of the 14.5 million households served by FA have annual incomes below the official federal poverty line, an absurdly low threshold of $22,025 for a family of four. Ten percent of the families surveyed are currently homeless; 60 percent do not have access to a car. More than one third of FA client households reported one or more adult family members were currently employed but still struggled to get enough to eat.

Full Story One in eight Americans needs emergency food assistance.

Missionaries charged with kidnapping Haitian children

Ten Americans missionaries detained in Haiti for trying to take 33 children out of the country after the 12 January earthquake have been charged with child kidnapping.

Edwin Coq, an attorney in Haiti says the Americans also are charged with criminal association.

The ten appeared in court Thursday before being taken to a jail in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

Just minutes earlier, an attorney for the Americans in the neighbouring Dominican Republic had said he expected nine of the ten members of an Idaho-based church group were going to be released.

“We expect God’s will be done and we will be released,” mission organizer Laura Silsby had told reporters before she entered the closed-door session.

Full Story Missionaries charged with kidnapping Haitian children – World – NZ Herald News.

U.S. Says 200 Troops on the Ground in Pakistan

The U.S. military has 200 troops on the ground in Pakistan. That’s about the double the previously-disclosed number of forces there. It’s a whole lot more than the “no American troops in Pakistan” promised by special envoy Richard Holbrooke. And let’s not even get into the number of U.S. intelligence operatives and security contractors on Pakistani soil.

The troop levels are one of a number of details that have emerged about the once-secret U.S. war in Pakistan since three American troops were killed yesterday by an improvised bomb. The New York Times reports that the soldiers were disguised in Pakistani clothing, and their vehicle was outfitted with radio-frequency jammers, meant to stop remotely-detonated bombs. “Still, the Taliban bomber was able to penetrate their cordon. In all 131 people were wounded, most of them girls who were students at a high school adjacent to the site of the suicide attack,” the paper reports.

The military tells the Times that in addition to yesterday’s deaths, “12 other service members had been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Full Story U.S. Says 200 Troops on the Ground in Pakistan | Danger Room | Wired.com.

AU Joins Broad Coalition Of Groups Asking Obama To Reform ‘Faith-Based’ Initiative

AU’s Lynn Says President’s Remarks At Prayer Breakfast Give Wrong Impression That Bush Policy’s Constitutional And Civil Rights Flaws Have Been Fixed

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today joined 25 national religious and public policy organizations in a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to make major changes to the “faith-based” initiative.

The joint letter to the president lays out a specific set of proposals to protect civil rights and religious liberty in federally funded social services and urges Obama to adopt them. They include banning employment discrimination based on religion in tax-funded projects and issuing uniform guidelines to ensure that no person seeking help in a publicly funded program is subjected to unwanted proselytizing.

In a speech today at the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama insisted that his administration has “turned the faith-based initiative around.” In fact, leaders of civil rights, civil liberties and religious groups say the president has failed to correct Bush-era policies.

Full Story AU Joins Broad Coalition Of Groups Asking Obama To Reform ‘Faith-Based’ Initiative | Americans United.

Recession’s job losses likely to rise by nearly 1 million

As bad as the government’s jobs readings numbers have been during the Great Recession, we’ll soon find out the real situation likely was worse.

ob losses during the recession may have been underestimated by close to a million jobs. So instead of employers cutting just over 7 million jobs from their payrolls since the economic downturn began in December 2007, it’s expected that the Labor Department’s new estimate will be a loss of 8 million jobs.

“It’s an enormous understatement of the severity of the crisis,” said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a union-supported think tank. “It confirms that things were actually worse on the ground than what the reports suggested.”

The new reading will come when the economists at the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release their annual revision of U.S. payrolls from April 2008 through March of 2009 Friday, using data that wasn’t available as the monthly readings were being estimated and reported

Full Story Recession’s job losses likely to rise by nearly 1 million – Feb. 4, 2010.

A long and persistent middle-class squeeze

Working Americans have long complained about a middle-class squeeze, but families focused on their day-to-day financial struggles may not always see how much ground has actually been lost.

EPI data tracking income and wage patterns show that the majority of income growth has for decades gone to a startlingly small number of top earners, while other workers have suffered a persistent stagnation or even decline in real earnings. While many middle-income families have lost jobs, homes, and retirement savings during the latest recession, their economic woes date back much further.

This pattern is best illustrated in the following chart, which shows that 34.6% of all income growth over the past three decades has gone to the top one-tenth of 1% of all earners—an exclusive group representing just 13,000 families. By contrast, the bottom 90% of all earners has collectively seen only 15.9% of all income growth over the same period:

Full Story A long and persistent middle-class squeeze.

‘Trickle Down’ Folly : Cutting Taxes Doesn’t Create Jobs

How NOT to create jobs:  Cut business taxes and lower wages?

Money does not trickle down in a capitalist economy — it flows upward, and that has always been true.

For years now, the corporate-owned Republicans have been telling us that the way to create more jobs in America is to cut business and corporate taxes and lower wages for workers. They would like to do away with the minimum wage completely, which would put downward pressure on all wages (except for corporate executives).

Even President Obama has recently jumped on this dubious bandwagon by recommending business tax cuts as a part of his jobs creation program. On the surface, this sounds like it might work. After all, if business owners got to keep more money from reduced taxes, they would be able to afford to hire more workers — right?

The real question is whether a businessman being able to afford more workers would actually translate into that businessman hiring more workers. I submit it would not. Answer this question — is a person in business to create new jobs or to make as much profit as possible?

Full Story The Rag Blog: ‘Trickle Down’ Folly : Cutting Taxes Doesn’t Create Jobs.

DOJ’S COVER-UP UNDER ERIC HOLDER

“Justice Official Clears Bush Lawyers in Torture Memo Probe,”By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek, January 29, 2010, at:http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/01/29/holder-under-fire.aspx.

In reviewing the action of government attorneys, judges and the legal profession generally, we must always recall that, “[t]here is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice …”– U.S. vs. Jannottie, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982). We must remember the sorry behavior of German judges and lawyers use of cronyism during Nazi era in allowing Hitler to power, because “[b]y the time the gas vans came and the human slaughter factories were built in Auschwitz and the other death camps, the murder of the six million Jews and other persecuted minorities was done completely within the framework of German law.” Yad Vshem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes Remembrance Authority, 2004.

Therefore, in this context we must consider and review the U.S. Department of DOJ’s recent whitewash of the torture memos written by DOJ’s attorneys under the direction of political appointees. The evidence confirms that prior discussion were entered into by DOJ and the Judicial Branch so to permit denial access to an impartial court and jury trial to deny any challenge to the acts of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Full Story DOJ’S COVER-UP UNDER ERIC HOLDER | Dailycensored.com.

The for-profit Educational Maintenance Organization: Academica, Inc.

The for-profit Educational Maintenance Organization

The first Florida charter school statute was approved in 1996, opening the door for the creation of charter schools as part of the state’s public education system, where they would operate independently. Since that time the race has been on, with Florida, along with other states such as Arizona, Louisiana and Texas, becoming the fasting growing charter school environments in the United States (Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools Website).

One of the first players to jump into the foray of for-profit EMO’s in the quickly transforming charter school climate in Florida, was Academica, Inc., a private corporation founded by entrepreneur and attorney, Fernando Zulueta. Originated in 1999, Academica’s website describes itself as: Academica is one of the nation’s longest-serving and most successful charter school service and support organizations.

The Company was founded in 1999 on the principle that each charter school is a unique educational environment governed by an independent Board of Directors that best knows the right path for its school, and Academica’s mission is to facilitate that Governing Board’s vision. Academica has a proven track-record developing growing networks of high performing charter schools (Academica Schools Website). In speaking about its business plan, the website goes on to claim: Academica’s winning business formula has played a major role in the success of Mater Academy and all charter schools under their management. Academica takes care of administrative duties such as payroll, budgeting, accounting and facility maintenance, which allow school principals and teachers to focus on providing top-notch education for their students Academica is a charter school service and support organization that works with schools in Florida, Utah and Texas. It was founded in 1999 on the principle that each charter school is a unique educational environment governed by an independent board of directors that best knows the right path for its school.

Full Story The for-profit Educational Maintenance Organization: Academica, Inc. | Dailycensored.com.

Global Censorship Technology Used in U.S.

Deep packet inspection technology monitors everything that goes through the internet. It is readily available in the United States and there’s no legislation that prevents the US government from employing it. Deep packet inspection is currently used in Iran. The Iranian Government has the ability to look through everything, land line telephones, mobile telephones, email, websites, looking for keywords and actually monitoring the entire traffic going through one chokepoint in Iran. Deep packet inspection is the use of sophisticated equipment that literally watches the entire internet for every piece of data, voice, and video looking for key words, such as “rebel” or “grenade.” It is widely known that since 9/11, AT&T and Verizon were being asked by the Bush administration to deploy this sort of off-the-shelf technology. And they did. Again, Obama came out against the law and said we must punish these carriers for doing this, because it’s illegal, and then he flipped under enormous pressure from the lobbies.

Full Story Global Censorship Technology Used in U.S. | The Media Freedom Foundation.

Towns Rush to Make Low-Carbon Transition: The Transition Towns Movement comes to the U.S.

More and more neighborhoods are making the transition to a climate-friendly community. Has yours?

The coastal town of Lincoln City, Oregon, has a lot to lose if nothing is done about climate change. The town sits 11 feet above sea level, and unchecked climate change could erode its beaches or flood the town.

Residents are taking matters into their own hands. “We could ignore it, let the federal government deal with it,” Mayor Lori Hollingsworth says. “We’re not willing to do that.” Last year Lincoln City committed to becoming carbon neutral through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and offsets.

Full Story Towns Rush to Make Low-Carbon Transition: The Transition Towns Movement comes to the U.S..

10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy

Scientists can tell us how to be happy. Really. Here are 10 ways, with the research to prove it.

In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.

Full Story 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy by Jen Angel — YES! Magazine.

A Green and Fair Recovery

One year has passed since the Obama administration enacted the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the largest boon to public spending and the safety net since the New Deal. Last week, President Obama linked economic recovery to investments in clean energy and green job creation in his State of the Union address.

More than $200 billion of the stimulus package was earmarked for projects that would either directly or indirectly create green jobs. The second round of reporting by ARRA recipients was made public on recovery.gov last Saturday. But, since equity is not a criterion either for who gets the money or for how recipients report their usage of the funds, we don’t know whether the stimulus has benefited those hardest hit by the Great Recession: people of color and single mothers.

Across all green sectors, most jobs are held by white men. Blacks and Latinos are employed in less than 30 percent of green occupations. Gender disparities are even more stark: white women are employed in only 5.7 percent of energy sector jobs, black women in 1.5 percent, and Latina and Asian women at less than 1 percent. Recovery funds shouldn’t be used to preserve the status quo, but to create genuine opportunities for people of color and women in the green economy.

Full Story A Green and Fair Recovery by Yvonne Liu — YES! Magazine.

Surgically Implanted Bombs: The Next Terror Threat? (VIDEO)

British military intelligence agency MI5 has uncovered evidence that terrorist groups have begun planning attacks with bombs surgically implanted inside a human body.

The bombs would be surgically implanted into men’s buttocks and women’s breasts, and could evade traditional airport security. According to The Daily Mail, MI5 became aware of the threat due to chatter on ‘Arab websites’ earlier this year.

he Daily Mail article reports:

Experts said the explosive PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate) would be placed in a plastic sachet inside the bomber’s body before the wound was stitched up like a normal operation incision and allowed to heal.

Full Story Surgically Implanted Bombs: The Next Terror Threat? (VIDEO).

John Oliver: “Stop Letting Old People Serve In The Senate” (VIDEO)

The “Daily Show” took on John McCain's opposition to gays and lesbians in the military last night, turning the tables and mocking his age in the process.

John Oliver excused McCain for his hypocritical stance, saying, “I think he may have forgotten what he said three and a half years ago…Old people are prone to memory lapses.”

Putting it bluntly, he proposed a solution that would keep inconsistencies like that from happening: “I think it's time we stop letting old people serve in the Senate.”

Echoing the views of those who believe gays should not be allowed to serve, Oliver pointed out the affect of the elderly on Senate cohesion:

Full Story John Oliver: “Stop Letting Old People Serve In The Senate” (VIDEO).

Experian Sued For Its Deceptive FreeCreditReport.com Ads

A Wisconsin woman is suing the credit-reporting agency Experian because its ubiquitous advertisements for FreeCreditReport.com made her think she could go to that site to get a free credit report.

Erica Possin, a college student in Wisconsin, wanted to check her credit before buying a new car. She’d seen the ads for FreeCreditReport.com, so she went there. Of course, she got her “free” credit report only after inadvertently signing up for a $14.95 monthly credit monitoring service.

Now, Possin is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Experian that seeks to “stop the fraud and seek compensation for the tens of thousands of consumers deceived by Experian’s FreeCreditReport.com to the tune of millions of fraudulently obtained profits.”

Full Story Experian Sued For Its Deceptive FreeCreditReport.com Ads.

NY AG Cuomo Hits Ken Lewis, Bank Of America With Fraud Charges

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed fraud charges against Bank of America and its former top executives this morning, alleging the bank manipulated the company's shareholders and the federal government in order to carry out a merger with Merrill Lynch.

According to the lawsuit, former CEO Ken Lewis and former CFO Joe Price hid more than $16 billion worth of losses at Merrill from shareholders in order to ensure their approval of the merger. But after shareholders voted to buy the ailing firm, the bank approached the government to demand an infusion of taxpayer cash. Without bailout funds, they told regulators, BofA would be unable to complete the merger. The government capitulated and funneled $20 billion of TARP money into the bank.

Attorney General Cuomo called Bank of America's conduct “a classic example of how the actions of our nation's largest financial institutions led to the near-collapse of our financial system”:

Full Story NY AG Cuomo Hits Ken Lewis, Bank Of America With Fraud Charges.

OPS: It’s about damned time!

Obama Eyes Biofuels, Clean Coal in New Climate Push

President Barack Obama announced new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with “clean coal” technology on Wednesday in his latest move to keep climate change at the top of the country’s political agenda.

The administration also outlined a strategy to boost biofuels production, seeking to nudge the country toward energy independence while balancing the environmental costs of grain-based motor fuels.

The moves are part of Obama’s effort to gain more votes for a climate bill stalled in the Senate that will seek to boost production of clean, low-carbon energy and help the country reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels.

The climate bill faces further obstacles after the election last month in Massachusetts that gave Republicans a Senate seat long held by Democrats, depriving the president’s party of 60 votes that could overcome procedural hurdles.

Full Story Obama Eyes Biofuels, Clean Coal in New Climate Push | CommonDreams.org.

Public Interest Groups Warn Congress: Comcast Takeover of NBC Is Anti-Competitive

Free Press, Consumers Union, and Consumer Federation of America

In testimony prepared for the House and Senate hearings Thursday on Comcast’s proposed takeover of NBC Universal, public interest groups Consumer Federation of America, Free Press and Consumers Union argue that Comcast has both the incentive and the ability to engage in anticompetitive practices if the government allows the takeover.

Corie Wright, policy counsel for Free Press, said, “In this testimony, we warn Congress, the FCC and the public about the effects of the takeover: higher cable bills, less competition and the concentration of power in one company across multiple media markets and platforms. Comcast is already the largest cable operator and broadband Internet access provider. Comcast will attempt to gloss over the fact that this takeover involves the elimination of head-to-head competition in the emerging online video market. If Comcast succeeds in bringing the cable model to the Internet, then consumers will lose.”

Full Story Public Interest Groups Warn Congress: Comcast Takeover of NBC Is Anti-Competitive | CommonDreams.org.

A Progressive Tax: It’s Not Socialism, It’s Correctionism

People don’t want to talk about taxes. Most of us are afraid that a tax increase will impact ALL of us. The media shies away from such a controversial topic. Certainly the rich don’t want to talk about it. And even lower-income people seem to have this sense that they will be wealthy someday, and government shouldn’t interfere with their plans.

So on we go with the cutbacks in train and bus service, and the loss of teachers, the cancellation of after-school programs in low-income areas, reductions in library hours and park services. Plus, of course, increases in state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, utility costs, license fees, parking meter rates.

The public rarely hears about one of the major causes of this assault on the middle class.

Full Story A Progressive Tax: It’s Not Socialism, It’s Correctionism | CommonDreams.org.

US mortgage sector braced for end of Fed help

Cold turkey time is rapidly approaching for the US mortgage market as the Federal Reserve gets ready to end its mammoth $1,250bn buying programme at the end of March.

The prospect of such a large buyer moving to the sidelines means that the “artificial market” created by the Fed’s hefty purchases – part of a monetary policy strategy aimed at reducing mortgage borrowing costs – should result in more normal mortgage rates, likely to be at a higher level.

The question is, how much higher? There is a great deal of uncertainty among many investors on exactly how to position themselves for the withdrawal of the Fed from the mortgage market. Many want higher rates, as it makes the investments more attractive. Yet the Fed wants to keep mortgage rates low to help home-buyers.

Full Story FT.com / Capital Markets – US mortgage sector braced for end of Fed help.

White House Prepares for Possibility of Two Supreme Court Vacancies – ABC News

SCOTUS Watchers Believe Justices Stevens and Ginsburg Could Decide to Step Aside

Lawyers for President Obama have been working behind the scenes to prepare for the possibility of one, and maybe two Supreme Court vacancies this spring.

Court watchers believe two of the more liberal members of the court, justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could decide to step aside for reasons of age and health. That would give the president his second and third chance to shape his legacy on the Supreme Court.

Last week, when Obama took the nearly unprecedented step of criticizing the court’s opinion in a major campaign finance case during his State of the Union speech, some believed he was showcasing for the American people that presidential elections, and Supreme Court nominations count.

Full Story White House Prepares for Possibility of Two Supreme Court Vacancies – ABC News.

Massive revision to show recession was even worse Capitol Report

More than 8 million jobs lost since 2007, updated Labor data will show Friday

On Friday, the government’s official data on U.S. employment will be updated to reflect what everyone already feels: In terms of job losses, this has been the worst recession since the end of the World War II more than 60 years ago.

Instead of job losses of 7.2 million as currently reported, it’ll be more like 8.1 million lost jobs, if the annual benchmark revision of payrolls through March 2009 comes in as had been estimated four months ago by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Full Story Massive revision to show recession was even worse Capitol Report – MarketWatch.

Is There Enough Food Out There For Nine Billion People?

Sometime around 2050, there are going to be nine billion people roaming this planet—two billion more than there are today. It’s a safe bet that all those folks will want to eat. And that’s… an incredibly daunting prospect. Right now, an estimated one billion people go hungry each day. So add two billion more people, a limited supply of arable land, plus the fact that rising incomes will boost demand for meat and dairy products, plus the fact that many key natural resources (fisheries, say) are already being overexploited… and it’s hard to see the situation getting better. And that’s before we get into the fact that the planet’s heating up, which is expected to wreak havoc on agricultural yields.

Still, not everyone’s convinced that feeding nine billion people—and doing it in a sustainable fashion—is a totally impossible task. A new paper published this week in Science, written by Britain’s chief scientific adviser John Beddington along with nine other experts, outlines a way this could actually be done. The catch? Doing so would require “radical” changes to the current global food system. The paper’s a great synthesis of a wide range of different food issues, and I’ll just pull out the main ideas:

Boosting crop yields: If the supply of farmland is ultimately finite, then boosting yields is the only way we’ll get more food. Now, this subject usually gets tangled up in heated debates about the virtues or evils of genetically modified foods—and the study authors do recommend GM crops as a “potentially valuable technology” that “should neither be privileged nor automatically dismissed.” (Imagining that fancy technology will just solve all these food problems, though, is likely misguided.) But there are plenty of smaller, more mundane yield-boosting approaches, too—right now, there are plenty of small farmers in the developing world that could get more out of their land right now with better training or access to financing. (This is known as the “yield gap.”)

Full Story Is There Enough Food Out There For Nine Billion People? | The New Republic.

Brown: Obama’s Engagement On Health Care Has ‘Dried Up’

Despite urging Democratic senators on Wednesday to forge ahead on health care reform, President Obama and his aides have been largely hands-off in guiding the legislative process, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post. And on Thursday a leading Senate progressive called out the White House publicly for abandoning the leadership role that is needed to get legislation passed.

“The president was weighing in pretty heavily on the discussions between the House and Senate before the Massachusetts special [Senate] election,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told Huffington Post. “It’s dried up since.”

“I think the president needs to work out with House Democrats and leaders in the Senate what we’ve got to do in reconciliation and what we can pass in reconciliation,” Brown added. “And I think we can do a lot. I’m not a minimalist here, that we just do the minimum, do the little bit that’s required. I think we can do some significant improvements on the Senate bill. We need to because House members are not exactly trusting of the Senate these days.”

Full Story Obama’s Engagement On Health Care Has ‘Dried Up’: Dem Senator.

John Boehner Complained To J.P. Morgan CEO About Donations

GOP Leader Tells Wall Street CEO: PAY US FOR OUR SERVICES!

The Wall Street Journal reports today that “Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street, trying to capitalize on an increasing sense of regret among executives at big financial institutions for backing Democrats in 2008.”

Despite a more favorable political environment than in 2008 and 2006, Republican congressional campaign committees are actually trailing their Democratic counterparts in fundraising totals heading into the 2010 campaign season.

As a result, GOP leaders are becoming increasingly aggressive about wooing major donations from the financial industry. The Journal reports:

Full Story John Boehner Complained To J.P. Morgan CEO About Donations.

The Myth of Business Friendly Legislation

If the financial industry, for example, is allowed to offer consumers credit at usurious rates, the interest paid to banks reduces the purchasing power of consumers, so other businesses lose sales.

About a year ago, I posted a piece titled Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. The gist of the piece is that although the farmer foolishly killed the golden goose, he nevertheless still had all the golden eggs she had laid before he killed her and was still much better off than he had been before the eggs were laid. I wrote, “Our governments have allowed [the business] community to decrease the wages of workers, eliminate relatively high-paying jobs by transferring them to foreign nations where wages are considerably lower, and create an ever growing income gap between workers and corporate officers. These corporate officers have become the mythical farmer, and their greed is killing the goose.” But since that community has profited immensely, the goose's death may not matter.

This piece recently brought this response from a person identified only as Bill:

Interesting. Except private business is the golden egg and the farmer is the government. I am a business owner who creates jobs for dozens of people and the government is taxing me to death. Unlike what Jefferson supposedly said, my country is the USA.

I presume that Bill is a “small” businessman; he employs “dozens” not thousands of people. I sympathize with Bill’s complaint about taxes; however, he puts the blame on the wrong party.

When one speaks about “business,” what is claimed is expressed in an empirical generalization. If, for instance, someone says businesses corrupt governments, s/he is saying that businesses generally do it, and all empirical generalizations have exceptions. So the statement can be true even if some businesses do not instantiate it. Bill's comment appears to imply two things, although neither of which is stated explicitly.

Full Story The Myth of Business Friendly Legislation.

Less than half of Republicans think Obama is an American

Poll: Birther ranks swell within GOP

If you are one of the many reasonable people who suspect the Birthers are really just a vocal minority faction of the Republican party, think again. According to a new poll, less than half of GOP voters think President Obama is an American citizen.

The poll, commissioned by liberal blogging site Daily Kos, reveals that just 42 percent of Republicans are convinced of Obama’s citizenship. Meanwhile, a full 36 percent are certain he is not native born, while another 22 percent aren’t sure.

That’s 58 percent of the minority party’s constituents who think Obama is, or could be, a foreign plant.

Among the Birther-core, the most gullible are white males from the south.

Full Story Less than half of Republicans think Obama is an American – Stephen C. Webster – Brave New Hooks – True/Slant.

Healthcare will eat up one in five dollars of US GDP by 2020, Medicare says

Health care legislation may be on the back burner, but a new report released today underscores its spiraling upward trend.

In 2009, health care spending consumed a record high 17.3 percent of the nation’s GDP, according to a study published in Health Affairs by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The figure is up from 2008, when health care costs constituted 16.2 percent of the gross domestic product. Health spending in 2009 totaled $2.5 trillion, a growth rate of 5.7 percent in a year when overall GDP contracted.

The trend has accelerated during the last decade as medical spending costs have surged.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation revealed in a September 2009 study that health care costs roughly doubled for the average American worker over the last 10 years.

Full Story Healthcare will eat up one in five dollars of US GDP by 2020, Medicare says | Raw Story.

Why the CIA is the World’s Number One Terrorist Organization

Len Hart -

The time has come to abolish the CIA –to smash it into a thousand pieces –as JFL had promised! Its leadership should be dismissed and investigated. Where there is probable cause, CIA members should be investigated and tried for crimes against humanity.

The CIA, itself a ruthless, terrorist organization inspires terrorism in response. In some cases, notably the CIA and al Qaeda, the relationship between the CIA and terrorism is symbiotic. The CIA perpetuates an “American Holocaust”, the deaths of some 6 million people from its inception to the year 1987. For as Long as the CIA Exists, the US will never be safe from terrorism. It has long been time to realize JFK’s dream of smashing the CIA into a ‘thousand pieces’.

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: “We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.” The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).

–Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Why the CIA is the World’s Number One Terrorist Organization.

Hannity Claims Bush Never Played Golf During Wartime

“… He Was ‘Far More In Touch’ Than Obama”

Last night on Fox News, Sean Hannity criticized President Obama for inviting famous guest chefs to cook at the White House, claiming the President is “out of touch” with regular Americans. “He’s jetting around to Broadway on vacations on our dime!” Hannity complained. “He is so far out of touch with what is going on,” said former Bush adviser Nicolle Wallace.

Both then reminisced about the days when a president was in office who was “far more in touch” with regular folks: President George W. Bush:

HANNITY: George Bush who you worked for did not play golf while this country was at war. He didn’t want the families of loved ones serving, well, that they may have lost the loved ones seeing him on a golf course.

WALLACE: Yes, I mean…

HANNITY: He seemed to be far more in touch.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Hannity Claims Bush Never Played Golf During Wartime: He Was ‘Far More In Touch’ Than Obama.

Moody’s warns US of credit rating fears

Outlook for budget deficit raises concerns

Moody’s Investors Service fired off a warning on Wednesday that the triple A sovereign credit rating of the US would come under pressure unless economic growth was more robust than expected or tougher actions were taken to tackle the country’s budget deficit.

In a move that follows intensifying concern among investors over the US deficit, Moody’s said the country faced a trajectory of debt growth that was “clearly continuously upward”.

Steven Hess, senior credit officer at Moody’s, said the deficits projected in the budget outlook presented by the Obama administration outlook this week did not stabilise debt levels in relation to gross domestic product.

Full Story FT.com / Companies / Financial Services – Moody’s warns US of credit rating fears.

Sovereign debt fears rattle investors

Yields widen and equities fall across eurozone periphery

Global markets were trading sharply lower on Thursday following further signs of contagion across the eurozone, as investors sold government bonds of many peripheral eurozone countries, sending yields higher.

Fears of default by companies in the eurozone periphery also rose sharply, indicating that contagion was spreading to the corporate sector.

Reflecting those concerns, the western Europe Markit SovX index, which measures the cost of insuring against the risk of default, widened beyond 100 basis points for the first time amid heavy buying in the sovereign credit default swap market. CDS spreads on Portugal hit record highs, up 28 basis points to 222 basis points, while Greek credit default swaps rose 9 basis points to 400 basis points, heading closer to records of 421 basis points reached in January.

Full Story FT.com / FT’s rolling global market overview – Sovereign debt fears rattle investors.

Senator Sherrod Brown Petition: Stand With Me Against Pay-to-Play Electioneering

Corporations and Big Banks are now allowed UNLIMITED spending to influence political elections.

The recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision lifted campaign spending limits for corporations. Now if the big banks on Wall Street don’t like what Congress proposes, they can DIRECTLY try to buy a legislature more to their liking.

Stand with me to demand no corporation may spend from its treasury without the express approval of its owners. If the Supreme Court is going to treat corporations as persons with full First Amendment rights, then you and I need to make sure real people are making those decisions. Sign the petition!

Full Story Sherrod Brown | U.S. Senator for Ohio | Petition: Stand With Me Against Pay-to-Play Electioneering.

Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.

Full Story Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads | Raw Story.

Daily Show Samantha Bee goes camo to report on the discrimination of men in America! – Kick! Making Politics Funny – A liberal dose of political comedy

Hilarious!  These have to be Conservatives.

Verichip is now called PositiveID!

Roll up your sleeve for the implantable human microchip, it’s now Positive?

As sure as the sun rises, so Verichip keeps spawning and shape shifting to gain market acceptance as people from across the globe unite and reject the IBM seed-funded, Raytheon-manufactured Human Implantable microchip company.

To “mark’ a new year, Verichip is now called PositiveID!. If you have followed this company’s progress as we have and cited the damning evidence showcasing a casual link between microchipping and cancer, Verichip is certainly not positive. But in this world of semantics and double speak, no doubt a CEO meeting along with other top execs decided that throwing the word “Positive” in the title would make Alzheimer patients who get microchipped without their consent less hesitant as their sleeve was rolled up in the name of “wander protection’. “Was that a needle?” asks the patient? “No! it was a mosquito bite, you have Alzheimer’s, remember?”

What has changed in 2010?

Full Story OpEdNews – Article: Verichip is now called PositiveID! Roll up your sleeve for the implantable human microchip, it’s now Positive?.

OPS:  It’s the Happy Happy Joy Joy Fun dot! Get yours Today!

The Hidden Issue of 2010

E.J. Dionne -

Vice President Joe Biden is tired of seeing the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan demeaned, derided and dismissed, and he wanted to talk about it.

But a funny thing happened in the course of an interview at Biden’s White House office on Tuesday afternoon. The vice president’s passions poured forth not when he was offering his point-by-point defense of the economic recovery plan but on the question of whether the United States is in decline.

Late in the conversation, I asked Biden about the surprise applause line in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech—“I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” Will we hear more on the America-as-No.-1 theme?

What followed was a torrent, in red, white and blue

Full Story E.J. Dionne: The Hidden Issue of 2010 – Truthdig.

Asian Stocks, Currencies Fall on Outlook for Economic Recovery

Asian stocks and currencies fell on concerns the region’s economic recovery may be derailed after Australian retail sales unexpectedly fell and New Zealand’s jobless rate rose to the highest level in more than 10 years.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.9 percent to 117.44 as of 5:05 p.m. in Tokyo. The Australian dollar dropped to a six- week low, the New Zealand currency slid to the weakest since September, and South Korea’s won declined for the first time in three days. Futures for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.3 percent. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 rose 0.1 percent to 249.61.

Australian retail sales decreased for the first time in five months and New Zealand’s unemployment soared to 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter. The data raised investors’ concerns that the Asian benchmark stock index’s 34 percent gain last year won’t be sustained as economic growth slows

Full Story Asian Stocks, Currencies Fall on Outlook for Economic Recovery – Bloomberg.com.

Somali Pirates Seize Libyan Vessel – flying the North Korean flag

A Libyan-owned merchant ship flying the North Korean flag has been hijacked by Somali prates in the Gulf of Aden, according to the European Union naval coalition in the gulf.

There was no immediate information about the cargo of the ship, a 4,800-ton merchant vessel called the Rim.

A United States destroyer, the Porter, and a helicopter from another American destroyer, the Farragut, were in the region and confirmed the hijacking to European Union officials. The American ships are part of Combined Task Force 151, an anti-piracy operation in the gulf led by the United States.

Full Story Somali Pirates Seize Libyan Vessel – NYTimes.com.

Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climbed

More Americans unexpectedly filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, indicating companies lack confidence the economic recovery will be sustained.

Initial jobless applications increased to 480,000 in the week ended Jan. 30, the most in seven weeks, from 472,000 the prior week, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance was little changed and those receiving extended benefits increased.

An unemployment rate that’s projected to average 10 percent this year will likely weigh on consumer spending, preventing the biggest part of the economy from accelerating. Without additional gains in sales, companies will be forced to keep cutting costs, limiting staff in order to boost profits.

Full Story Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climbed (Update1) – BusinessWeek.

Pennsylvania State Capital Mulls Bankruptcy as a Budget Option

- Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, will consider Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection along with tax increases and asset sales as options to address $68 million in debt service payments due this year, the chairwoman of a City Council committee said last night.

Every option, including tax and fee increases, bankruptcy and a state takeover through Pennsylvania’s Act 47 municipal oversight program will be considered, said Susan Brown-Wilson, chairwoman of the Budget and Finance Committee, which began a week of hearings last night to consider a 2010 spending plan.

The $68 million in debt service payments that Harrisburg faces in connection with the construction of a waste incinerator this year is four times what the city of 47,000 expects to raise through property taxes, and $4 million more than the city’s entire proposed operating budget.

Full Story Pennsylvania State Capital Mulls Bankruptcy as a Budget Option – Bloomberg.com.

OPS: Guessing that only the first few States to do this will get away with it. At some point the Corporations will figure out how to stop them- or own them

James O’Keefe’s race problem: “there’s definitely way too many black people in Ohio,”

A photo of the righty stuntman at a white-nationalist confab illustrates a career marked by racial resentment

Many of the conservatives who gleefully promoted James O’Keefe’s past political stunts are feigning shock at his arrest on charges that he and three associates planned to tamper with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s phone lines. Once upon a time, right-wing pundits hailed the 25-year-old O’Keefe as a creative genius and model of journalistic ethics. Andrew Breitbart, who has paid O’Keefe, called him one of the all-time “great journalists” and said he deserved a Pulitzer for his undercover ACORN video. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly declared he should have earned a “congressional medal.”

His right-wing admirers don’t seem to mind that O’Keefe’s short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O’Keefe at a 2006 conference on “Race and Conservatism” that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30  on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People’s Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O’Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O’Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.

Full Story James O’Keefe – Salon.com.

OPS:  Someone should make Ken Blackwell,  Michael Steele, Alan Keys  and the other Blacks in the Republican Party address this

Obama Makes Birther Joke At Prayer Breakfast

Raging Grannies Rip CBS Anti-Choice Super Bowl Ad

Raging Grannies of South Florida tear CBS a new one, in no uncertain terms, over its decision to run an anti-choice ad, a commercial from the Christian right-wing extremist group, Focus On The Family, during next Sunday’s Super Bowl. This savage song parody, set to the tune of “Three Blind Mice”, is part of the Women’s Media Center “What Does CBS Stand For?” campaign .

Shelby Aide Tells Senator What CFPA Is, Dodd Says Consumer Agency Still In Reform Bill (VIDEO)

Has President Obama’s plan to create a new consumer financial protection agency died on Capitol Hill? That may turn on whether two key senators can make a deal.

Over the last several months, the Investigative Fund has been tracking the agency’s topsy turvy journey through Congress. The House in December narrowly approved a bill that would create an independent agency – the CFPA — to oversee and write rules for consumer credit products such as mortgages and credit cards. Now the Senate Banking Committee is working on its own version of financial regulatory reform.

The panel’s ranking Republican, Richard Shelby of Alabama, has argued that a new, fully independent CFPA would create an unnecessary bureaucracy. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday [see our video] he seemed to leave the door open for a new consumer office to live within an existing regulatory agency.

video at link

Full Story Shelby Aide Tells Senator What CFPA Is, Dodd Says Consumer Agency Still In Reform Bill (VIDEO).

Public Health-Care Spending to Hit Milestone

For the first time, government programs next year will account for more than half of all U.S. health-care spending, federal actuaries predict, as the weak economy sends more people into Medicaid and slows growth of private insurance.

The figures show how federal and state spending is taking a bigger role while Congress hesitates over a health-care overhaul.

Government health programs are a growing burden on the federal budget, which is running annual deficits of more than $1 trillion, and rising health costs continue to batter private industry.

Full Story Public Health-Care Spending to Hit Milestone – WSJ.com.

Currency Dispute Likely to Further Fray U.S.-China Ties

To the growing list of grievances between the United States and China, add one more: the Obama administration is reviving American pressure on China to stop artificially depressing its currency, a policy that fuels its persistent trade gap with the United States.

The administration has told Chinese officials that currency policy will be high on its agenda this year for economic talks with China, a senior official said on Wednesday. The White House is also weighing whether to designate China as a country that manipulates its currency, when the Treasury Department issues its semiannual report on foreign currencies in April.

President Obama signaled the tougher line on Wednesday, telling Democratic senators that the United States needed “to make sure our goods are not artificially inflated in price and their goods are not artificially deflated in price; that puts us at a huge competitive disadvantage.”

Full Story Currency Dispute Likely to Further Fray U.S.-China Ties – NYTimes.com.

Millennium’s Longest Solar Eclipse As Seen From Space (VIDEO)

Did you miss the solar eclipse on January 15? Now’s your chance to see it–from a satellite’s perspective.

A European satellite launched by the European Space Agency captured the moon passing between the earth and the sun during the most recent solar eclipse, which was the longest of the millennium.

The animation (see video below) shows the solar eclipse as seen from space, and is made up of images that were taken one minute apart. According to Wired, the images from the satellite’s mission are ‘the first of their kind.’

Want to see more awesome space videos? Check out footage captured by NASA of a comet being ‘eaten’ by the sun, or take a virtual flight over the Martian landscape in an animation made out of NASA’s HiRISE images.

WATCH:

Full Story Millennium’s Longest Solar Eclipse As Seen From Space (VIDEO).

Summers’s role questioned as US economic policy shifts

Obama adviser fights talk of waning power

As President Obama and his team have rolled out a fresh set of strategies to fix the economy, one item on the list – curbing the ability of big banks to gamble in the stock market – has been viewed by some as a repudiation of Lawrence H. Summers, the former Harvard president who is the White House’s chief economic adviser.

Summers, who favored bank deregulation when he was secretary of the treasury for President Clinton, had counseled Obama for much of last year to take a less sweeping approach to overhauling bank rules. But that point of view publicly fell out of favor last month as the White House adopted a more red meat, populist tone after angry Massachusetts voters sent Republican Scott Brown to fill the US Senate seat that was held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

Taking on big banks, the president said, “is a fight I’m ready to have.’’ This week, Paul Volcker, a chief White House adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman who favors pushing tighter restrictions on banks, appeared before a Senate committee to press the administration’s case.

Full Story Summers’s role questioned as US economic policy shifts – The Boston Globe.

Obama Administration Knew Foreclosure Program Wasn’t Working Right, Did Nothing

Even as the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure-prevention program has foundered, Treasury Department officials have known that a key driver in keeping people in their homes in the long run is reducing mortgage principal, senior Treasury advisor Seth Wheeler told the Huffington Post. Wheeler is one of the architects of the administration’s housing plan.

But rather than pressure the mortgage companies to start reducing the amount mortgage-holders owe, the administration simply sat back and hoped servicers would do it on their own.

“When the administration came into office last year, from the get-go, it has certainly been aware of the link between negative equity and challenges in housing,” said Wheeler. “As the administration initially designed the modification program last year, it was aware of negative equity, was aware that some servicers were doing principal reductions.”

Full Story Obama Administration Knew Foreclosure Program Wasn’t Working Right, Did Nothing.

Secret Report On Afghanistan: Success ‘All But Impossible’

At a House Armed Services Committee Hearing on February 3, 2010, U.S. Rep. Todd Russell Platts (R-PA) declared the corrupt Afghan national security forces “one of the lynchpins to the success we’re going to achieve” in the Afghanistan war.

Platts should request a copy of the report obtained by NBC News which was prepared for General Petraeus on the Afghan National Army (ANA). The report details the massive shortcomings of a corrupt and often truant ANA, saying that “corruption, nepotism, and untrained/unmotivated personnel make success all but impossible.”

By the way, American Taxpayer…you’re funding that corrupt ANA with your tax dollars.

Video at link

Full Story Watch U.S. Rep. Platts (R-PA) Cheer the Corrupt, Unmotivated Afghan National Security Forces – Rethink Afghanistan War Blog.

OPS:  Ok, can we go home now?
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”   – John Kerry April 22, 1971