Notes 30
Naming and claiming the Commons
Rewriting the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Wednesday 19 January 2011
by: Bill McKibben | YES! Magazine | Op-Ed
What cooperation and sharing have to do with saving the world.
Things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes.
If we are to somehow ward off the coming catastrophes, we have to reclaim this atmospheric commons. We have to figure out how to cooperatively own and protect the single most important feature of the planet we inhabit—the thin envelope of atmosphere that makes our lives possible. Wrestling this key prize away from Exxon Mobil and other corporations is the great political issue of our time, and some of the solutions proposed have been ingenious—most notably the idea put forth by commons theorist Peter Barnes and others that we should own the sky jointly, and share in the profits realized by leasing its storage space to the fossil fuel industry. For that to work, of course, we would have to reduce that storage space quickly and dramatically. Barnes’ Cap-and-Dividend plan offers one way to make that economically and politically feasible.
_______________________________________________
When I was in Kauai a couple of years ago, natives were worried about Monsanto
Experimental farm contaminating local seeds through pollination by bees, butterflies
Ryan Stock, Truthout: "'A fabulous Easter gift,' commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil. Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift. Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all. 'Long live the native maize seed!' they chanted in unison. 'Monsanto's GMO [genetically modified organism] and hybrid seed violate peasant agriculture!'"
_______________________________________________
Biggest arm of self serving propaganda in the government
Countering Pentagon Propaganda About Prisoners Released From Guantanamo
Andy Worthington, War Is A Crime: "For several years now, one organization in the US government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantanamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response to the 9/11 attacks. That organization is the Pentagon, and its habit of issuing announcements regarding the alleged recidivism of prisoners released from Guantanamo - without documentation to back up its claims - has also exposed a startling lack of journalistic integrity in the mainstream media."
_________________________________________________
Obama’s picks for Administration supported vested interests not transformation but he persists in pretending to be the good guy--and we buy it
Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story
Matthew Skomarovsky, LittleSis: "Larry Summers' path to the Obama administration, and his record within it, are symptomatic of a new American plutocracy, and his new job at Harvard will keep the gears of corruption greased. Summers rose to power under the protective wing of Wall Street and Democratic Party mogul Robert Rubin. He aggressively advanced Rubin's program of financial deregulation and faithfully rescued his cronies when deregulation went wrong. Despite the economic catastrophes these policies have contributed to, Summers and other Rubinites have continued their political ascendancy in recent years, filling top positions in the Obama administration
_____________________________________________________________
Propagating the myth. Keeping the faith
Ira Chernus | How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Mired in War
Ira Chernus, TomDispatch: "When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked. Conservatives are often the nicest people - that's what I told him - the ones you'd like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you're always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied. So why, I asked, don't you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they're strangers--because we’re nice people and THEY are not.
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Christian model does not work any better at solving world’s problems than Chinese model--but the Chinese ARE at peace. No imperial policy there.
WASHINGTON – Chinese President Hu Jintao denied his country is a military threat despite its arms buildup. "We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development," Hu told the luncheon. "We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House members "raised our strong, ongoing concerns with reports of human rights violations in China, including the denial of religious freedom and the use of coercive abortion" as a result of China's one-child policy.
"...an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society - cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian." -Howard Zinn,
Thursday, January 20, 2011
7% the tipping point pushing us over the cliff
Notes 28
Can’t pay the bill on the back of workers and students and the elderly.
AUSTIN, Texas – Public education in Texas is facing billions in proposed budget cuts that would include slashing arts education, pre-kindergarten programs and teacher incentive pay as lawmakers take on a massive deficit with the promise of no new taxes.
_____________________________________________________
Maybe Republicans could set tax rates at Eisenhower levels instead. By thinnest of margins in 2010, Republicans won 65 seats and are determined to turn the country upside down
by Chris Bowers
Sun Jan 16, 2011
A 7% national popular vote victory is a landslide in contemporary American politics. Democrats showed this in 2006 when they took back the House of Representatives with a 6.49% victory. President Barack Obama again made this point in 2008, when he defeated Senator John McCain by 7.27%. Just eleven weeks ago Republicans provided a third example when they won the national popular vote for Congress by 6.83%. A 7% victory isn’t just a win--it’s a thumping, a shellacking, or some such catch-phrase.
_____________________________________________________
Getting the word out and making it a matter of conviction like the NRA does
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon | A Time for Action - Not Servility
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, RootsAction: "While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility - a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever. But this is not a time for despair. It's a time for new activism - built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media."
________________________________________________________
Time to keep the money home. RAISE TAXES
Think China Has a Big Stake in US Business? Not Yet
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "China holds almost $1 trillion in U.S. government bonds, but it's made only modest investments in the nuts and bolts of the U.S. economy. China lags far behind its Asian and European competitors in direct investment in the US - taking stakes in manufacturers, suppliers, warehouses and other businesses. In fact, cash-rich China is near the back of the pack."
___________________________________________________________________
The rats under the rocks are overreaching. Maybe America will be revulsed by what it has done.
Is decline in workers’ power behind slow job growth?
By Zachary Roth
"For corporate America, the Great Recession is over. For the American work force, it's not."
That's how David Leonhardt of the New York Times puts it.
Leonhardt, a respected economics columnist for the Times, appears to disagree. One "obvious" explanation for slow job growth, he argues, is a shift in power away from workers and toward management. Leonhardt writes.
"For all their shortcomings," Leonhardt writes, "unions remain many workers' best hope for some bargaining power."
______________________________________________________________________
Escape from emptiness. Make your life mean something
I Joined the Peace Corps Because of Angelina Jolie
by Sean Smith Info
“When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow,” Jolie said.
So I was seeking something authentic when I arrived in India, and I got more than I bargained for. A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
__________________________________________________
An abandoned dream financed through FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE
MAC, a middle class of homeowners
by Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter and Charles B. Stockdale
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The single biggest problem in the U.S. real estate market is simple: There are very few homebuyers.
That seems obvious, but the "buyers' strike" has caused house prices to drop, along with an epidemic of foreclosures. What's worse, the long depression in real estate is probably not over. S&P has forecast that home prices will drop by 7% to 10% this year. The S&P Case-Shiller Index has dropped for most of the 20 largest real estate markets over the last several months. RealtyTrac recently reported that more than 1 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2010.
Many economists argue that the housing market may take four or five years to recover. Even if that's proven to be true, the all-time highs of 2006 may never be reached again.
_____________________________________________________
Can’t pay the bill on the back of workers and students and the elderly.
AUSTIN, Texas – Public education in Texas is facing billions in proposed budget cuts that would include slashing arts education, pre-kindergarten programs and teacher incentive pay as lawmakers take on a massive deficit with the promise of no new taxes.
_____________________________________________________
Maybe Republicans could set tax rates at Eisenhower levels instead. By thinnest of margins in 2010, Republicans won 65 seats and are determined to turn the country upside down
by Chris Bowers
Sun Jan 16, 2011
A 7% national popular vote victory is a landslide in contemporary American politics. Democrats showed this in 2006 when they took back the House of Representatives with a 6.49% victory. President Barack Obama again made this point in 2008, when he defeated Senator John McCain by 7.27%. Just eleven weeks ago Republicans provided a third example when they won the national popular vote for Congress by 6.83%. A 7% victory isn’t just a win--it’s a thumping, a shellacking, or some such catch-phrase.
_____________________________________________________
Getting the word out and making it a matter of conviction like the NRA does
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon | A Time for Action - Not Servility
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, RootsAction: "While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility - a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever. But this is not a time for despair. It's a time for new activism - built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media."
________________________________________________________
Time to keep the money home. RAISE TAXES
Think China Has a Big Stake in US Business? Not Yet
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "China holds almost $1 trillion in U.S. government bonds, but it's made only modest investments in the nuts and bolts of the U.S. economy. China lags far behind its Asian and European competitors in direct investment in the US - taking stakes in manufacturers, suppliers, warehouses and other businesses. In fact, cash-rich China is near the back of the pack."
___________________________________________________________________
The rats under the rocks are overreaching. Maybe America will be revulsed by what it has done.
Is decline in workers’ power behind slow job growth?
By Zachary Roth
"For corporate America, the Great Recession is over. For the American work force, it's not."
That's how David Leonhardt of the New York Times puts it.
Leonhardt, a respected economics columnist for the Times, appears to disagree. One "obvious" explanation for slow job growth, he argues, is a shift in power away from workers and toward management. Leonhardt writes.
"For all their shortcomings," Leonhardt writes, "unions remain many workers' best hope for some bargaining power."
______________________________________________________________________
Escape from emptiness. Make your life mean something
I Joined the Peace Corps Because of Angelina Jolie
by Sean Smith Info
“When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow,” Jolie said.
So I was seeking something authentic when I arrived in India, and I got more than I bargained for. A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
__________________________________________________
An abandoned dream financed through FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE
MAC, a middle class of homeowners
by Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter and Charles B. Stockdale
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The single biggest problem in the U.S. real estate market is simple: There are very few homebuyers.
That seems obvious, but the "buyers' strike" has caused house prices to drop, along with an epidemic of foreclosures. What's worse, the long depression in real estate is probably not over. S&P has forecast that home prices will drop by 7% to 10% this year. The S&P Case-Shiller Index has dropped for most of the 20 largest real estate markets over the last several months. RealtyTrac recently reported that more than 1 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2010.
Many economists argue that the housing market may take four or five years to recover. Even if that's proven to be true, the all-time highs of 2006 may never be reached again.
_____________________________________________________
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
save your Confederate money. Slavery is coming back
Notes 27
Taking back America--pretty soon slavery will be popular again
New Ala. gov: Just Christians are his family
AP – Gov. Robert Bentley delivers a speech after being sworn in during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol …
Jay Reeves, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned Tuesday whether he can be fair to non-Christians.
"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," Bentley said Monday, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News
_________________________________________
Obama proves he’s a loser by trying to be a winner. Perhaps, instead of continuing to transfer wealth to the wealthy, Obama could focus review on how to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth based on benefits derived
from the Nation’s natural resources and the productivity not only of capital but of labor.
Obama announces review of government regulations
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Obama said some government regulations have placed "unreasonable burdens on business -- burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs."
He said he would require that in the future government agencies "ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth."\
_____________________________________________
Lies, damned lies, and Republican Congressmen
FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate
Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON
A recent report by House GOP leaders says "independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A
What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.
"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
__________________________________________________
Obama’s tax policy for businesses is headed wrong way. Easiest way to keep money home is to let the government tax it and spend it since corporations are spending it abroad where they can make more money.
China cuts loan target; foreign investment hits record
On Tuesday January 18, 2011
By Soo Ai Peng and
Aileen Wang
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters)
Data which showed China drew a record amount of foreign investment in December and for all of 2010 underscored the difficulties it faces in draining its economy of an abundance of money that is helping to fuel inflation.
_____________________________________________________
Trying to put out the fire of protest against abominable conditions
2 Egyptian men attempt self-immolation
CAIRO – Two Egyptian men, possibly inspired by events in Tunisia, attempted to set themselves on fire Tuesday in downtown Cairo, just a day after another man burned himself in front of parliament.
Police managed to quickly extinguish the fire engulfing lawyer Mohammed Farouq Mohammed el-Sayed after he set himself alight outside the prime minister's office and he was rushed to hospital with minor burns.
Taking back America--pretty soon slavery will be popular again
New Ala. gov: Just Christians are his family
AP – Gov. Robert Bentley delivers a speech after being sworn in during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol …
Jay Reeves, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned Tuesday whether he can be fair to non-Christians.
"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," Bentley said Monday, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News
_________________________________________
Obama proves he’s a loser by trying to be a winner. Perhaps, instead of continuing to transfer wealth to the wealthy, Obama could focus review on how to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth based on benefits derived
from the Nation’s natural resources and the productivity not only of capital but of labor.
Obama announces review of government regulations
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Obama said some government regulations have placed "unreasonable burdens on business -- burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs."
He said he would require that in the future government agencies "ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth."\
_____________________________________________
Lies, damned lies, and Republican Congressmen
FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate
Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON
A recent report by House GOP leaders says "independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A
What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.
"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
__________________________________________________
Obama’s tax policy for businesses is headed wrong way. Easiest way to keep money home is to let the government tax it and spend it since corporations are spending it abroad where they can make more money.
China cuts loan target; foreign investment hits record
On Tuesday January 18, 2011
By Soo Ai Peng and
Aileen Wang
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters)
Data which showed China drew a record amount of foreign investment in December and for all of 2010 underscored the difficulties it faces in draining its economy of an abundance of money that is helping to fuel inflation.
_____________________________________________________
Trying to put out the fire of protest against abominable conditions
2 Egyptian men attempt self-immolation
CAIRO – Two Egyptian men, possibly inspired by events in Tunisia, attempted to set themselves on fire Tuesday in downtown Cairo, just a day after another man burned himself in front of parliament.
Police managed to quickly extinguish the fire engulfing lawyer Mohammed Farouq Mohammed el-Sayed after he set himself alight outside the prime minister's office and he was rushed to hospital with minor burns.
Monday, January 17, 2011
News unfit to print
Notes 26
How corporations became incarnate
Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a 'headnote‚' - a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever - that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations."
______________________________________________________________
ETC.
State Employee Actions: layoffs and furloughs ... Actions and Proposals to Balance FY 2011 Budgets: State Employee Actions: Furloughs and Layoffs
Maryland Politics: Maryland state worker layoffs coming
...Rendell administration announces 50 state employee layoffs
...Layoff Tracker: Budget cuts cost 159 Florida state workers jobs
More State Employee Layoffs Anticipated With Budget Cuts ...
______________________________________________
For whom the bell tolls--The ultimate message that a society has failed to deliver on the promises of social contract
Tunisia copycat burnings in 3 North African countries
By Marwa Awad and Lamine Chikhi Marwa Awad And Lamine Chikhi – Mon Jan 17, 8:08 am ET
CAIRO/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The self-immolation that set off the protest wave which toppled Tunisia's leader has led to apparent copycat protests in other north African states, with four men setting themselves on fire in Algeria and one each in Egypt and Mauritania.
In Cairo, a man set himself ablaze on Monday near parliament in a protest against poor living conditions.
______________________________________________________________
Why don’t we go to war against Arizona, maybe against every state where domestic terrorists have used weapons to kill innocent victims?
Extremist Killing Is as American as Apple Pie: Murders Grow on the Far Right Four Decades After Martin Luther King
Stephan Salisbury, TomDispatch: "The landscape of America is littered with bodies. They've been gunned down in Tucson, shot to death at the Pentagon, and blown away at the Holocaust Museum, as well as in Wichita, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Brockton, and Okaloosa County, Florida. Total body count for these incidents: 19 dead, 26 wounded. Not much, you might say, when taken in the context of about 30,000 gun-related deaths annually nationwide."
Remarks of Jeh C. Johnson at Martin Luther King Observance Day, The Pentagon January 13, 2011
For his efforts, Martin Luther King, the man we honor today alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was the target of government surveillance and harassment. He was also the target of racist insults, bricks, bottles, numerous death threats, a knife in the chest in Harlem in 1958, and finally, he was murdered in Memphis in 1968.
The most controversial and difficult stand Dr. King took the final year of his life was against the war in Vietnam. Other civil rights leaders urged him to remain silent on the issue, not to alienate President Lyndon Johnson, who had been their best friend on civil rights.
In accepting his own Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, our President recognized that, in response to an unprovoked terrorist attack, war is inevitable to secure peace, and that the role of the military is to keep peace.
_____________________________________________________________
Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – LONDON – A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
__________________________________________________
In name of anti-terrorism, unprecedented international lawbreaking and invasion of privacy
Swiss lawmakers angry at alleged US spying program
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press – Mon Jan 17, 8:47 am ET
GENEVA – Angry Swiss lawmakers called Monday for the ouster of U.S. diplomats suspected of illegally spying on people around their diplomatic missions, in a standoff over the use of counterterrorism measures.
The Swiss government said it has demanded a stop to any surveillance and is investigating the scale of what it calls an unauthorized spying program by the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the U.S. embassy in Bern.
The probe follows outrage in Iceland, Norway and Sweden over reports that U.S. diplomats were monitoring some of their countries' citizens — including allegedly taking pictures of street demonstrations and of people deemed security risks, sparking a wave of anti-American sentiment.
____________________________________________________
Our heroes defending our border against dangerous hordes. Sound like Gaza has come to the American border?
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (Reuters) – The parents of a Mexican teenager allegedly killed last year by a bullet fired by a U.S. Border Patrol agent across the Rio Grande river, on Monday sued the U.S. government for $25 million.
The U.S. Border Patrol says Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river last June when Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side shot him to death.
The FBI has said that he was attacking the border agents with rocks at the time.
The incident was videotaped by several individuals and was broadcast on the Spanish-language Univision television network, and posted on the internet.
"We have seen brutality captured on video tape that stuns us as a country, when we think that law enforcement are trained and should not do that," Bob Hilliard, attorney for the Mexican family
said.
How corporations became incarnate
Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a 'headnote‚' - a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever - that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations."
______________________________________________________________
ETC.
State Employee Actions: layoffs and furloughs ... Actions and Proposals to Balance FY 2011 Budgets: State Employee Actions: Furloughs and Layoffs
Maryland Politics: Maryland state worker layoffs coming
...Rendell administration announces 50 state employee layoffs
...Layoff Tracker: Budget cuts cost 159 Florida state workers jobs
More State Employee Layoffs Anticipated With Budget Cuts ...
______________________________________________
For whom the bell tolls--The ultimate message that a society has failed to deliver on the promises of social contract
Tunisia copycat burnings in 3 North African countries
By Marwa Awad and Lamine Chikhi Marwa Awad And Lamine Chikhi – Mon Jan 17, 8:08 am ET
CAIRO/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The self-immolation that set off the protest wave which toppled Tunisia's leader has led to apparent copycat protests in other north African states, with four men setting themselves on fire in Algeria and one each in Egypt and Mauritania.
In Cairo, a man set himself ablaze on Monday near parliament in a protest against poor living conditions.
______________________________________________________________
Why don’t we go to war against Arizona, maybe against every state where domestic terrorists have used weapons to kill innocent victims?
Extremist Killing Is as American as Apple Pie: Murders Grow on the Far Right Four Decades After Martin Luther King
Stephan Salisbury, TomDispatch: "The landscape of America is littered with bodies. They've been gunned down in Tucson, shot to death at the Pentagon, and blown away at the Holocaust Museum, as well as in Wichita, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Brockton, and Okaloosa County, Florida. Total body count for these incidents: 19 dead, 26 wounded. Not much, you might say, when taken in the context of about 30,000 gun-related deaths annually nationwide."
Remarks of Jeh C. Johnson at Martin Luther King Observance Day, The Pentagon January 13, 2011
For his efforts, Martin Luther King, the man we honor today alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was the target of government surveillance and harassment. He was also the target of racist insults, bricks, bottles, numerous death threats, a knife in the chest in Harlem in 1958, and finally, he was murdered in Memphis in 1968.
The most controversial and difficult stand Dr. King took the final year of his life was against the war in Vietnam. Other civil rights leaders urged him to remain silent on the issue, not to alienate President Lyndon Johnson, who had been their best friend on civil rights.
In accepting his own Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, our President recognized that, in response to an unprovoked terrorist attack, war is inevitable to secure peace, and that the role of the military is to keep peace.
_____________________________________________________________
Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – LONDON – A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
__________________________________________________
In name of anti-terrorism, unprecedented international lawbreaking and invasion of privacy
Swiss lawmakers angry at alleged US spying program
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press – Mon Jan 17, 8:47 am ET
GENEVA – Angry Swiss lawmakers called Monday for the ouster of U.S. diplomats suspected of illegally spying on people around their diplomatic missions, in a standoff over the use of counterterrorism measures.
The Swiss government said it has demanded a stop to any surveillance and is investigating the scale of what it calls an unauthorized spying program by the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the U.S. embassy in Bern.
The probe follows outrage in Iceland, Norway and Sweden over reports that U.S. diplomats were monitoring some of their countries' citizens — including allegedly taking pictures of street demonstrations and of people deemed security risks, sparking a wave of anti-American sentiment.
____________________________________________________
Our heroes defending our border against dangerous hordes. Sound like Gaza has come to the American border?
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (Reuters) – The parents of a Mexican teenager allegedly killed last year by a bullet fired by a U.S. Border Patrol agent across the Rio Grande river, on Monday sued the U.S. government for $25 million.
The U.S. Border Patrol says Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river last June when Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side shot him to death.
The FBI has said that he was attacking the border agents with rocks at the time.
The incident was videotaped by several individuals and was broadcast on the Spanish-language Univision television network, and posted on the internet.
"We have seen brutality captured on video tape that stuns us as a country, when we think that law enforcement are trained and should not do that," Bob Hilliard, attorney for the Mexican family
said.
Raising Taxes to pay U.S. bill
Notes 25
Illinois on the track to Eisenhower days and the end of the debt crisis. That’s all it will take to stop country's collapse. The bill has got to be paid, people. No more Reagan free lunches.
52.38% top marginal tax rate: Eisenhower, King of the Socialists
by mbzoltan
Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 10:54:53 AM PST
Only in 1988 and 1989 (Ronald Reagan's final 13 months in office) was the TOP MARGINAL rate down to 28%. It was 69.13% when he went into office, and went from 69.13%-50% from 1981-1986, then 38.5%, then 28%.
_______________________________________________
When will the public stop cutting its throat? Why is it services and people’s jobs that have to pay the bill for our profligate excesses
Camden, NJ braces for deep police, fire cuts
Camden, NJ, poor and crime-ridden, braces for deep cuts, slashing of police, fire staffs
Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press, On Sunday January 16, 2011
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- Yet another crisis is upon this burdened city, among the most impoverished and crime-ridden in the country.
Deep layoffs of city workers go into effect on Tuesday -- cutting up to 383 jobs, or one-fourth of the city's employees.
The exact number depends on whether public workers' unions make last-minute concessions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another billion dollar bad idea badly managed with bad result and great profits for corporation
U.S. ends "virtual fence" project on Mexican border
By Jeremy Pelofsky – Fri Jan 14, WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama's administration on Friday canceled the troubled "virtual fence" project meant to better guard stretches of the vast U.S. border with Mexico and will replace it with other security measures.
The project, begun in 2006 and run by Boeing Co, has cost about $1 billion and was designed to pull together video cameras, radar, sensors and other technologies to catch illegal immigrants and smugglers trying to cross the porous border.
_____________________________________________________
Pollution is like global warming, unbelievable
Missed deadlines in clearing haze over parks
SEATTLE – More than 30 years after Congress set a goal of clearing the pollution-caused haze that obscures scenic vistas at some of America's wildest and most famous natural places, progress is still slow in coming
Saturday marks the deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to approve most state plans aimed at curbing pollution from coal-fired power plants and industrial sources to improve visibility at 156 national parks and wilderness areas such as Shenandoah, Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon.
But as of Thursday, the agency hadn't approved any state plans — or come up with its own, as required.
______________________________________________
The story of America captured in the tradeoff for jobs and money in North Florida
From a reader
I have worked in Paper Mills..Mills with Pulping operations like Digesters, evaporators / precipitators and Black Liquor Boilers along with Causticizing..produce really toxic runoffs in large quantities. If the environmental people come down too hard..they will just close the Mill and put a whole community out of work. Cantonment will become hard hit. There is really no way to get rid of these toxic by-product chemicals short of trucking it off and pumping it into a deep depleted oil reservoir.
_______________________________________________
How much evidence is required to prove cigarettes are deadly before manufacturers will be arrested, for you know, murder?
Smoking causes gene damage in minutes
– Sat Jan 15, 9:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Those first few puffs on a cigarette can within minutes cause genetic damage linked to cancer, US scientists said in a study released.
In fact, researchers said the "effect is so fast that it's equivalent to injecting the substance directly into the bloodstream," in findings described as a "stark warning" to those who smoke.
__________________________________________________
Laws against suicide apparently do not apply to global warming
Press Release 11-006
Earth's Hot Past: Prologue to Future Climate?
Study of Earth's deep past leads to look into the future
View a video interview with Jeff Kiehl of UCAR.
The magnitude of climate change during Earth's deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes.
The study, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl, will appear as a "Perspectives" article in this week's issue of the journal Science.
___________________________________________________
The politics and the egos and the amount of money involved is staggering
Cancer survivor aims to raze barriers with app
Cancer survivor aims to raze treatment, research barriers with an app to enable collaboration
Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press, On Sunday January 16, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In the late 1990s, Marty Tenenbaum was a hotshot e-commerce entrepreneur riding high on the dot-com boom when he noticed a lump on his body.
His doctor told him it was nothing, but when he finally had it removed, he learned he had melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Now 67, Tenenbaum still believes he would not have made it if he hadn't had personal connections at the National Cancer Institute who guided him toward cutting-edge experimental treatments that saved his life.
On Tuesday, he plans to launch a Web application to bring together patients, physicians and scientists regardless of where they work, live or went to college in hopes that the so-called wisdom of the crowd can lead to the best therapies.
Illinois on the track to Eisenhower days and the end of the debt crisis. That’s all it will take to stop country's collapse. The bill has got to be paid, people. No more Reagan free lunches.
52.38% top marginal tax rate: Eisenhower, King of the Socialists
by mbzoltan
Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 10:54:53 AM PST
Only in 1988 and 1989 (Ronald Reagan's final 13 months in office) was the TOP MARGINAL rate down to 28%. It was 69.13% when he went into office, and went from 69.13%-50% from 1981-1986, then 38.5%, then 28%.
_______________________________________________
When will the public stop cutting its throat? Why is it services and people’s jobs that have to pay the bill for our profligate excesses
Camden, NJ braces for deep police, fire cuts
Camden, NJ, poor and crime-ridden, braces for deep cuts, slashing of police, fire staffs
Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press, On Sunday January 16, 2011
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- Yet another crisis is upon this burdened city, among the most impoverished and crime-ridden in the country.
Deep layoffs of city workers go into effect on Tuesday -- cutting up to 383 jobs, or one-fourth of the city's employees.
The exact number depends on whether public workers' unions make last-minute concessions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another billion dollar bad idea badly managed with bad result and great profits for corporation
U.S. ends "virtual fence" project on Mexican border
By Jeremy Pelofsky – Fri Jan 14, WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama's administration on Friday canceled the troubled "virtual fence" project meant to better guard stretches of the vast U.S. border with Mexico and will replace it with other security measures.
The project, begun in 2006 and run by Boeing Co, has cost about $1 billion and was designed to pull together video cameras, radar, sensors and other technologies to catch illegal immigrants and smugglers trying to cross the porous border.
_____________________________________________________
Pollution is like global warming, unbelievable
Missed deadlines in clearing haze over parks
SEATTLE – More than 30 years after Congress set a goal of clearing the pollution-caused haze that obscures scenic vistas at some of America's wildest and most famous natural places, progress is still slow in coming
Saturday marks the deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to approve most state plans aimed at curbing pollution from coal-fired power plants and industrial sources to improve visibility at 156 national parks and wilderness areas such as Shenandoah, Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon.
But as of Thursday, the agency hadn't approved any state plans — or come up with its own, as required.
______________________________________________
The story of America captured in the tradeoff for jobs and money in North Florida
From a reader
I have worked in Paper Mills..Mills with Pulping operations like Digesters, evaporators / precipitators and Black Liquor Boilers along with Causticizing..produce really toxic runoffs in large quantities. If the environmental people come down too hard..they will just close the Mill and put a whole community out of work. Cantonment will become hard hit. There is really no way to get rid of these toxic by-product chemicals short of trucking it off and pumping it into a deep depleted oil reservoir.
_______________________________________________
How much evidence is required to prove cigarettes are deadly before manufacturers will be arrested, for you know, murder?
Smoking causes gene damage in minutes
– Sat Jan 15, 9:17 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Those first few puffs on a cigarette can within minutes cause genetic damage linked to cancer, US scientists said in a study released.
In fact, researchers said the "effect is so fast that it's equivalent to injecting the substance directly into the bloodstream," in findings described as a "stark warning" to those who smoke.
__________________________________________________
Laws against suicide apparently do not apply to global warming
Press Release 11-006
Earth's Hot Past: Prologue to Future Climate?
Study of Earth's deep past leads to look into the future
View a video interview with Jeff Kiehl of UCAR.
The magnitude of climate change during Earth's deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes.
The study, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl, will appear as a "Perspectives" article in this week's issue of the journal Science.
___________________________________________________
The politics and the egos and the amount of money involved is staggering
Cancer survivor aims to raze barriers with app
Cancer survivor aims to raze treatment, research barriers with an app to enable collaboration
Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press, On Sunday January 16, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In the late 1990s, Marty Tenenbaum was a hotshot e-commerce entrepreneur riding high on the dot-com boom when he noticed a lump on his body.
His doctor told him it was nothing, but when he finally had it removed, he learned he had melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Now 67, Tenenbaum still believes he would not have made it if he hadn't had personal connections at the National Cancer Institute who guided him toward cutting-edge experimental treatments that saved his life.
On Tuesday, he plans to launch a Web application to bring together patients, physicians and scientists regardless of where they work, live or went to college in hopes that the so-called wisdom of the crowd can lead to the best therapies.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Creating vibrant economy, Iraq mistake, life's value, Chinese ambitions, Holbrooke Hawk, Miami immigrants, social security myth, Iceland prosecutes bank thieves,Quantas not person,
What drives jobs and investment? Purchases, stupid, not phony ponzi schemes by bankers trading SDRs and SDOs with each other to boost paper profit.
Net rises on server chip sales
Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer, On Friday January 14, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Intel Corp.'s 48 percent jump in fourth-quarter net income, driven by strong corporate spending, comes at a turning point in the personal computer industry's 30-plus year history.
Some 350 million PCs were shipped in 2010, according to data released this week, and Intel CEO Paul Otellini says that more than 1 million PCs are now being sold every day.
___________________________________________________
Bad investment of time and money and ambition from the get go. Finally somebody who doesn’t want us running their politics for half a century like Europeans or Asians
BAGHDAD – Iraqi politicians face the contentious question this year of whether to ask U.S. troops to stay beyond an end-of-2011 deadline for their departure
"We heard a pledge from the government that it will expel the occupier, and we are waiting for it to honor its word," al Sadr said during a speech.
________________________________________________
Putting life and death in perspective
From a correspondent--Ryan 2
Two soldiers from my home state where killed in Afganistan the same day Giffords was shot. I wonder why she gets all this media attention and speeches from Obogo? These men died because they where sent over there under the lie that they where fighting for American freedom by politicians.
_________________________________________________
I’m trying to find where Chinese Military is on attack anywhere--in or outside of China.
No Luck
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S.-China relations are at a critical juncture and a summit between their leaders next week must produce "real action, on real issues" such as trade, climate change and North Korean nuclear proliferation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.
"It is up to both nations to translate the high-level pledges of summits and state visits into action. Real action, on real issues," she said in a major China policy address in Washington
__________________________________________________
I thought Holbrooke cut his spurs on Viet Nam and was an imperialist and a Hawk. Shows how much I know.
Obama eulogizes Holbrooke as clear-eyed diplomat
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was an extraordinary diplomat with a clear-eyed vision of America's place in the world who "served his country until his final moments."
At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967.
The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese.
As many commentators have pointed out, the Pentagon Papers included damning revelations of malfeasance at the highest levels of the U.S. government, such as evidence showing that President Lyndon Johnson had lied to the American public about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and that his successor, Richard Nixon, had expanded bombing campaigns to Cambodia and Laos.
___________________________________________________
Finally a small group of Cuban boat people in Miami has lost control over American foreign policy and failed efforts to embargo Castro to death
By Jeff Mason and Pascal Fletcher Jeff Mason And Pascal Fletcher – 1 hr 48 mins ago
WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) – President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Friday loosening more restrictions on U.S. travel and money remittances to Cuba, a further step in his efforts to reach out to the people of the communist-ruled country.
____________________________________________________
The myth and the reality of Social Security and Medicare
What's the 'Return' on Your Social Security Taxes
by Eric Schurenberg
Friday, January 14, 2011
Whether you believe it or not, Social Security is going to be a part of your future, and when the time comes, you'll be glad you've got it. Yes, our national pension system has some well-known fiscal problems, but Uncle Sam can solve them by any number of bearable cost-cutting and/or tax-raising solutions before the money runs out. The question remains, though: Is it worth it? Will the benefits you'd receive under current law compensate you for the career's worth of taxes you'll have paid into the system? The latest answer, generated by a new Urban Institute Social Security study, is: yes. (Surprised?) As far as it's possible to project, Social Security and Medicare give you a positive return on your tax "investment" even after inflation
________________________________________________
Why does little Iceleand prosecute banker theft and U.S. fines them? Why isn’t Richard Fuld in jail?
2 ex-Landsbanki executives arrested in Iceland in connection with bank's spectacular collapse
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Two former senior executives with Iceland's failed Landsbanki bank have been arrested over allegations of market manipulation, the special prosecutor's office said Friday.
Prosecutor Olafur Hauksson said he had asked that ex-Landsbanki chief executive Sigurjon Arnson and former head of corporate finance Ivar Gudjonsson be detained in connection with investigation into the collapse of the institution. It's one of several Icelandic banks that failed in 2008 under the weight of enormous debts racked up during the tiny North Atlantic nation's boom.
_________________________________________________
Supreme Court says corporations are real persons but hard to arrest Quantas
Qantas to pay settlement in US price-fixing suit
Qantas to pay $26.5 million to settle US class action over price-fixing on cargo services
On Friday January 14, 2011, 2:35 am EST
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) -- Qantas will pay $26.5 million in a settlement of a freight price-fixing lawsuit in the United States.
Australia's national carrier said Friday that the settlement, subject to court approval, would resolve its liability in the case. Qantas must also cooperate with the plaintiffs in the case.
"In exchange, Qantas is released from claims made by all class members who were direct purchasers of air cargo services to or from the U.S. from January 2000 to 11 September 2006," the airline said.
__________________________________________________
Not hard to make a profit by borrowing from government for nothing and lending at a markup.
(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co reported a 47 percent increase in quarterly earnings.
Profit and revenue was stronger than analysts had expected, and the bank made more loans.
Net rises on server chip sales
Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer, On Friday January 14, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Intel Corp.'s 48 percent jump in fourth-quarter net income, driven by strong corporate spending, comes at a turning point in the personal computer industry's 30-plus year history.
Some 350 million PCs were shipped in 2010, according to data released this week, and Intel CEO Paul Otellini says that more than 1 million PCs are now being sold every day.
___________________________________________________
Bad investment of time and money and ambition from the get go. Finally somebody who doesn’t want us running their politics for half a century like Europeans or Asians
BAGHDAD – Iraqi politicians face the contentious question this year of whether to ask U.S. troops to stay beyond an end-of-2011 deadline for their departure
"We heard a pledge from the government that it will expel the occupier, and we are waiting for it to honor its word," al Sadr said during a speech.
________________________________________________
Putting life and death in perspective
From a correspondent--Ryan 2
Two soldiers from my home state where killed in Afganistan the same day Giffords was shot. I wonder why she gets all this media attention and speeches from Obogo? These men died because they where sent over there under the lie that they where fighting for American freedom by politicians.
_________________________________________________
I’m trying to find where Chinese Military is on attack anywhere--in or outside of China.
No Luck
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S.-China relations are at a critical juncture and a summit between their leaders next week must produce "real action, on real issues" such as trade, climate change and North Korean nuclear proliferation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.
"It is up to both nations to translate the high-level pledges of summits and state visits into action. Real action, on real issues," she said in a major China policy address in Washington
__________________________________________________
I thought Holbrooke cut his spurs on Viet Nam and was an imperialist and a Hawk. Shows how much I know.
Obama eulogizes Holbrooke as clear-eyed diplomat
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was an extraordinary diplomat with a clear-eyed vision of America's place in the world who "served his country until his final moments."
At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967.
The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese.
As many commentators have pointed out, the Pentagon Papers included damning revelations of malfeasance at the highest levels of the U.S. government, such as evidence showing that President Lyndon Johnson had lied to the American public about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and that his successor, Richard Nixon, had expanded bombing campaigns to Cambodia and Laos.
___________________________________________________
Finally a small group of Cuban boat people in Miami has lost control over American foreign policy and failed efforts to embargo Castro to death
By Jeff Mason and Pascal Fletcher Jeff Mason And Pascal Fletcher – 1 hr 48 mins ago
WASHINGTON/MIAMI (Reuters) – President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Friday loosening more restrictions on U.S. travel and money remittances to Cuba, a further step in his efforts to reach out to the people of the communist-ruled country.
____________________________________________________
The myth and the reality of Social Security and Medicare
What's the 'Return' on Your Social Security Taxes
by Eric Schurenberg
Friday, January 14, 2011
Whether you believe it or not, Social Security is going to be a part of your future, and when the time comes, you'll be glad you've got it. Yes, our national pension system has some well-known fiscal problems, but Uncle Sam can solve them by any number of bearable cost-cutting and/or tax-raising solutions before the money runs out. The question remains, though: Is it worth it? Will the benefits you'd receive under current law compensate you for the career's worth of taxes you'll have paid into the system? The latest answer, generated by a new Urban Institute Social Security study, is: yes. (Surprised?) As far as it's possible to project, Social Security and Medicare give you a positive return on your tax "investment" even after inflation
________________________________________________
Why does little Iceleand prosecute banker theft and U.S. fines them? Why isn’t Richard Fuld in jail?
2 ex-Landsbanki executives arrested in Iceland in connection with bank's spectacular collapse
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Two former senior executives with Iceland's failed Landsbanki bank have been arrested over allegations of market manipulation, the special prosecutor's office said Friday.
Prosecutor Olafur Hauksson said he had asked that ex-Landsbanki chief executive Sigurjon Arnson and former head of corporate finance Ivar Gudjonsson be detained in connection with investigation into the collapse of the institution. It's one of several Icelandic banks that failed in 2008 under the weight of enormous debts racked up during the tiny North Atlantic nation's boom.
_________________________________________________
Supreme Court says corporations are real persons but hard to arrest Quantas
Qantas to pay settlement in US price-fixing suit
Qantas to pay $26.5 million to settle US class action over price-fixing on cargo services
On Friday January 14, 2011, 2:35 am EST
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) -- Qantas will pay $26.5 million in a settlement of a freight price-fixing lawsuit in the United States.
Australia's national carrier said Friday that the settlement, subject to court approval, would resolve its liability in the case. Qantas must also cooperate with the plaintiffs in the case.
"In exchange, Qantas is released from claims made by all class members who were direct purchasers of air cargo services to or from the U.S. from January 2000 to 11 September 2006," the airline said.
__________________________________________________
Not hard to make a profit by borrowing from government for nothing and lending at a markup.
(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co reported a 47 percent increase in quarterly earnings.
Profit and revenue was stronger than analysts had expected, and the bank made more loans.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Everybody's got a hand in Assange whodunnit
Assange
John Pilger's Investigation Into the War on WikiLeaks and His Interview With Julian Assange
Friday 14 January 2011
by: John Pilger,| Interview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbeMsa9NmQw
The great American playwright Arthur Miller wrote: "The thought that the state ... is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."
My favorite secret document - leaked by WikiLeaks, of course - is from the Ministry of Defense in London. It describes journalists who serve the public without fear or favor as "subversive" and "threats." Such a badge of honor.
Assange said, “The release of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, with their evidence of the killing of civilians, hasn't caused this - it's the exposure and embarrassment of the political class: the truth of what governments say in secret, how they lie in public; how wars are started. They don't want the public to know these things and scapegoats must be found."
What WikiLeaks has given us is truth, including rare and precious insight into how and why so many innocent people have suffered in reigns of terror disguised as wars and executed in our name; and how the United States has secretly and wantonly intervened in democratic governments from Latin America to its most loyal ally in Britain.
As the US Justice Department, in its hunt for Assange, subpoenas the Twitter and email accounts, banking and credit card records of people around the world - as if we are all subjects of the United States - much of the "free" media on both sides of the Atlantic direct their indignation at the hunted.
In December 2001, with the "war on terror" under way, the Swedish government abruptly revoked the political refugee status of two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari. They were handed to a CIA kidnap squad at Stockholm airport and "rendered" to Egypt, where they were tortured. When the Swedish ombudsman for justice investigated and found that their human rights had been "seriously violated," it was too late.
The implications for the Assange case are clear. Both men were removed without due process of law and before their lawyers could file appeals to the European Human Rights Court and in response to a US threat to impose a trade embargo on Sweden. Last year, Assange applied for residency in Sweden, hoping to base WikiLeaks there. It is widely believed that Washington warned Sweden through mutual intelligence contacts of the potential consequences. In December, prosecutor Marianne Ny, who reactivated the Assange case, discussed the possibility of Assange's extradition to the US on her web site.
the statement by the original prosecutor, Eva Finne, that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."
The original prosecutor, Eva Finne, said that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."
Vice President Joe Biden declared Assange a "high tech terrorist"
At 23, Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to "a moral choice." His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.
"Government whistleblowers," said Barack Obama, running for president in 2008, "are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal." Obama has since pursued and prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president in American history.
John Pilger's Investigation Into the War on WikiLeaks and His Interview With Julian Assange
Friday 14 January 2011
by: John Pilger,| Interview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbeMsa9NmQw
The great American playwright Arthur Miller wrote: "The thought that the state ... is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."
My favorite secret document - leaked by WikiLeaks, of course - is from the Ministry of Defense in London. It describes journalists who serve the public without fear or favor as "subversive" and "threats." Such a badge of honor.
Assange said, “The release of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, with their evidence of the killing of civilians, hasn't caused this - it's the exposure and embarrassment of the political class: the truth of what governments say in secret, how they lie in public; how wars are started. They don't want the public to know these things and scapegoats must be found."
What WikiLeaks has given us is truth, including rare and precious insight into how and why so many innocent people have suffered in reigns of terror disguised as wars and executed in our name; and how the United States has secretly and wantonly intervened in democratic governments from Latin America to its most loyal ally in Britain.
As the US Justice Department, in its hunt for Assange, subpoenas the Twitter and email accounts, banking and credit card records of people around the world - as if we are all subjects of the United States - much of the "free" media on both sides of the Atlantic direct their indignation at the hunted.
In December 2001, with the "war on terror" under way, the Swedish government abruptly revoked the political refugee status of two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari. They were handed to a CIA kidnap squad at Stockholm airport and "rendered" to Egypt, where they were tortured. When the Swedish ombudsman for justice investigated and found that their human rights had been "seriously violated," it was too late.
The implications for the Assange case are clear. Both men were removed without due process of law and before their lawyers could file appeals to the European Human Rights Court and in response to a US threat to impose a trade embargo on Sweden. Last year, Assange applied for residency in Sweden, hoping to base WikiLeaks there. It is widely believed that Washington warned Sweden through mutual intelligence contacts of the potential consequences. In December, prosecutor Marianne Ny, who reactivated the Assange case, discussed the possibility of Assange's extradition to the US on her web site.
the statement by the original prosecutor, Eva Finne, that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."
The original prosecutor, Eva Finne, said that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."
Vice President Joe Biden declared Assange a "high tech terrorist"
At 23, Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to "a moral choice." His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.
"Government whistleblowers," said Barack Obama, running for president in 2008, "are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal." Obama has since pursued and prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president in American history.
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