Friday, April 10, 2009
04-10-09
- Fascism: When Corporations Run Government:
- For Every $1 Corporations Spent Lobbying For Income Tax Breaks, They Saved $220 In Taxes (wonkroom)
- Military-Industrial Profiteers:
- We Are All Georgian Protesters Now (digby) Georgians fed up with petty neocon tyrant Saakashvili, whom Bush neocons propped up to reignite the Cold War with Russia by criminal invasion of South Ossetia.
- Odierno setting the stage for continuing the occupation beyond deadlines. (timesonline) How long will Obama let this thing go on? With a little finessing, Bush's generals could keep the war going on right up to the elections in 2010 and 2012, deliberately jeopardizing Dem chances for reelection to power.
- Iraqi shoe thrower is world’s 3rd most powerful Arab (arabianbusiness)
- The Greatest Theft of All Time:
- Matt Taibbi: The Official End of Obama's Honeymoon (smirkingchimp) "How are all those CHANGE posters looking now?"
- Hey Paul Krugman... (commondreams video)
- Four Bush Holdovers Responsible For TARP Decisions (wonkroom) "Evidently, part of the problem here is that the Obama administration hasn’t yet named some of its appointees to the TARP Investment Committee. But with TARP funds 'running thin,' and the program expanding to include life insurance companies, the administration may want to get around to doing that."
- Global Broiling / Poisoning:
- Oh How the Lying Liars Lie, and Get Paid Well For It: Marc Morano (nytimes)
- One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars (guardian/uk) "pollution from the world's 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases . . . Shipping is responsible for 18-30% of all the world's nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution and 9% of the global sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution" and "3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions"
- Panama Canal Zone - Miraflores Locks (accelerated webcam)
- Police State 2009:
- London G-20 Police Goons Murder Innocent Passerby (dailymail pics & video) "By using highly aggressive tactics to manage demonstrations, the police are discouraging the peaceful, law-abiding majority from demonstrating and therefore risking radicalising these events." Why is it that it is usually the police who cause the trouble at otherwise peaceful demonstrations?
- Oh, Those Silly Republicons And Their Strange Fetishes - First It Was David Vitter And His Diapers, Now It's Teabagging:
- Rachel Maddow on conservative teabagging craze (americablog video) - Andy Cobb points out in this not-safe-for-work PG-17 video, the conservatives may have bitten off more than they can chew (americablog video - video)
- The Tea Bag Lobby (digby) -- There is nothing spontaneous about this silliness; it is being orchestrated and run by two heavily funded public relations (lobbying) firms: Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. -- "Here's the thing. The right lost it's ability to be spontaneous sometime back when Phyllis Schlaffley was pounding the ERA. They require structure and leadership in order to function, which is one reason why their movement and their party are so stuck. (They proudly call themselves dittoheads, after all.)"
- Corrupt is Corrupt - Dem or Rethug:
- Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) Proposes Weak Reform of Payday Lenders (washingtonindependent) And Should Be Removed From Power. "Chairman of a House Financial Services subcommittee is pushing a loophole-riddled bill that would allow payday lenders, who are his top campaign contributors, to charge annual interest rates of nearly 400 percent."
- Tax Time: How Does Government Spend Your Money?
- Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes (warresisters) - FY2010 Pie Chart
- Obamamania - Janus in the White House - Can It Ever Be Any Other Way?
- The Two Faces of Barack Obama - One for the Masses, One for the Power Elite (antiwar) "The Janus-faced American hegemon speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and in two voices: one for the masses, who delight in his soaring idealism and seeming ability to express their deepest aspirations, and one for the elites, who hear a promise of continuity rather than change."
- Dust Sculptures in the Rosette Nebula (apod)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
04-09-09
- The Greatest Theft of All Time:
- Matt Yglesias: Wells Fargo Posts Record Profit (thinkprogress) but not exactly what you would describe as 'high quality earnings.' "It’s just to observe that the profits are less a sign of recovery than they are a sign of how much [government] policy activism we’re witnessing." -- It is also suspected by other observers that Citigroup's unexpected profit (that kicked off this month-long stock market rally) was possible only because AIG had funneled money to Citigroup from the TARP funds. So my question is: how much of WFC's record profits are sham in order to keep the rally going? After all, a rallying market at this time presents the impression that Obama's fixes for the economy are good and working. Big plus for Barack and his gang.
- Restore the Rule of Law And Legal Accountability:
- Murder Trumps Torture Says Bugliosi - An Interview (opednews)
- Separation of Church and State -- Another Broken Obama Promise:
- Keynote: Barry Lynn - Whatever Happened to the Separation of Church and State? (freespeech video - patience while it's loading)
- Phoebe: Comet Moon of Saturn (apod)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
04-08-09
- The Greatest Theft of All Time:
- The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than We Thought (huffingtonpost) "Insiders can easily game the system created by Geithner and Summers to cost up to a trillion dollars or more to the taxpayers."
- Bernanke has embarked on the most radical and ruinous financial rescue plan in history (onlinejournal) ". . . the Fed has already lent or committed $12.8 trillion trying to stabilize the financial system after the bursting of Wall Street’s speculative mega-bubble. Now Bernanke wants to dig an even bigger hole, by creating programs that will provide up to $2 trillion of credit to financial institutions that purchase toxic assets from banks or securities backed by consumer loans."
- Restore the Rule of Law And Legal Accountability -- What Are a Few Broken Promises Among Friends? -- What is the difference between a bad person doing bad things and a good person doing bad things? Obama is more interested in programs than principles. He is frittering away the rights we have as citizens.
- Glenn Greenwald: Keith Olbermann's scathing criticism of Obama's secrecy/immunity claims (salon) -- Watch these videos.
- Glenn Greenwald: Obama, the ICRC Report and Ongoing Suppression (salon) "Obama has repeatedly done the exact opposite of what he vowed he would do: rather than 'seek full accountability for past offenses,' he has been working feverishly to block such accountability, by embracing the same radical Bush/Cheney views and rhetoric regarding presidential secrecy powers that caused so much controversy and anger for the last several years."
- The CIA Torture Cover Up (thedailybeast) ". . . a number of CIA officials implicated in the torture program not only remain at the highest levels of the agency, but are also advising Panetta. Panetta’s attempt to suppress the issue is making Bush’s policy into the Obama administration’s dirty laundry."
- Goodbye, Bill of Rights (antiwar) "History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever."
- Military-Industrial Profiteers:
- Do U.S. drones kill Pakistani extremists or recruit them? (mcclatchydc) ". . . concerns are growing among U.S. intelligence and military officials that the strikes are bolstering the Islamic insurgency by prompting Islamist radicals to disperse into the country's heartland."
- New Dept. of War Budget, Not Quite a Fundamental Shift (ips) "They're calling it a fundamental shift and that's both true and false," said Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. "It's true because their budget proposes the most ambitious set of cuts to well-entrenched weapons systems since the early 1990s." "It's false, though, because this budget perpetuates the upward trajectory of defense spending, it's higher than any of the Bush budgets that preceded it, and it increases funding for some programs that I think are a mistake," Pemberton continued.
- A Dash of Sanity From Iowa:
- Powerful statement on gay marriage by Iowa Senate majority leader (americablog)
- Unusual Dusty Galaxy NGC 7049 (apod)
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
04-07-09
- Another Dash of Sanity:
- Gay marriage now legal in Vermont (americablog) -- Now Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, . . . . Imagine all the heterosexual marriages now being destroyed in those states because gays can now marry. Why, I swan! It's a major catastrophe to all straight marriages everythwere.
- Those lovable RW evangenitals - or, how lying liars lie - let me count the ways:
- Apparently you have Rick Warren scared. He's lying again. (americablog) "So why did Rick Warren outright lie - again - twice - on Larry King about what he has said and done on gay issues? That's between Rick Warren and his God. Whoever that God is. Because if Rick Warren were worshipping my God, my Lord wouldn't be very happy about one of his 'leaders' outright lying, twice, to millions of Americans during Holy Week."
- "We're not anti-gay, we're just . . . . " They proclaim this lie with a straight face even though the Mormon church has been deeply involved against gay rights in almost every significant gay rights election across the United States for years.
- Obama gets it right: We are not a Christian nation. (washingtonmonthly) -- This is in accord with the Treaty of Tripoli, approved unanimously by Congress in 1797, stating clearly, among other articles, "Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Quick, call for the clean-up crew as RW evangenital heads explode.
- The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 274 (apod)
Monday, April 6, 2009
04-06-09
- Restore the Rule of Law And Legal Accountability!
- Prosecute or Perish: A Follow-Up (bradblog) "If waterboarding was a war crime when the Japanese did it to my father, why isn't it a war crime anymore?" See also my original 03-25-09 entry (Prosecute or Perish . . .).
- Our Dysfunctional Experiment With Democracy - Gone, Gone, Gone:
- Conyers Explains Failure to Impeach (firedoglake) -- Conyers wants a blue-ribbon commission such as the 9/11 Whitewash Commission - Gawd Forbid! Or maybe like the Warren Whitewash Commission?
- Health Notes - Raw Veggies?
- A Dose of Broccoli a Day Might Protect the Stomach (usnews) "consuming 2½ ounces of broccoli sprouts per day may help guard against H. pylori, a bacterium that is tied to ulcers, gastritis, and stomach cancer" -- See also reported benefits of raw cruciferous vegetables.
- The Greatest Theft of All Time:
- Robert Reich: Will Geithner Fire Corporate America? (robertreich)
- Chris Hedges: Resist or Become Serfs (truthdig/cd)
- Lendman: Obama's War on Labor (sjlendman) "Imagine the hypocrisy - open-checkbook trillions for Wall Street criminals v. a thinly disguised war on organized labor by scolding the auto giants for not forcing their workers to make greater sacrifices."
- Dean Baker: A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion? (commondreams) "The Geithner plan is an effort to rescue the banks by using government funding to prop up the price of these bad loans to levels that will allow the banks to stay solvent. It is not clear that the plan is big enough to accomplish this goal, but that is the basic intention. If it doesn't work, then presumably Geithner will come out with another TARP permutation that involves giving the banks even more money. There is an alternative. Rather than using government money to keep them alive, we could force the banks to go through a type of managed bankruptcy process like the one that is currently being proposed for General Motors and Chrysler."
- Study Finds Toxic Assets Truly Worthless, Geithner’s Plan ‘Will Simply Transfer Wealth [Your Taxes]’ To Banks (wonkroom)
- Military-Industrial Profiteers:
- Keeping up the friction with Russia, and despite his disarmament pledge, Neocon Obama goes ahead with missile defense shield (thetelegraph)
- Jeremy Scahill: US Hypocrisy on North Korea: Let's Talk About Israel's Nukes (rebelreports) "Obama said of North Korea’s satellite launch: “Rules must be binding… Violations must be punished.” He used Iran to justify a controversial missile system. What about Israel’s nukes and violations?"
- Pol Pot's chief torturer says U.S. policy fueled rise of Khmer Rouge (thestar) "Cambodia became a Cold War battlefield in 1969 when the Nixon administration began bombing routes in the east of the country that Soviet-backed North Vietnamese troops were using to transport men and supplies for their war against the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. In 1970, then Prince Norodom Sihanouk was ousted in a coup led by U.S.-backed General Lon Nol, who cranked up the war against Vietnamese and Cambodian communists. . . . 'Prince Sihanouk called on the Cambodian people to go and join the communist Khmer Rouge in the jungle and that allowed the Khmer Rouge to build up their troops from 1970 to 1975,' he said."
- International Space Station Expands Again (apod)
Sunday, April 5, 2009
04-05-09
- Yes, Isn't It Clear That Islam Is a Religion of Peace And Love?
- 6 gay men shot in Iraq after clerics urge crackdown on gays (americablog)
- Update 04-08-09: Iraq’s Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder (nytimes) -- "In the past two months, the bodies of as many as 25 boys and men suspected of being gay have turned up in the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City, the police and friends of the dead say. Most have been shot, some multiple times. Several have been found with the word “pervert” in Arabic on notes attached to their bodies, the police said."
- Time for a little Pat Condell catharsis (youtube)
- When Is a Compliment Not a Compliment?
- Former GE CEO Jack Welch gives Obama an "A" on leadership (americablog) -- Just to refresh your memory, Jack Welch is the former CEO of one of the largest defense contractors (war profiteers). GE also owns NBC, its propaganda arm, which of course was reporting on the 2000 presidential election on election eve in 2000. After the mysterious lights out on computer data late in the evening, after which the numbers for Gore miraculously switched to Bush, Bush's cousin in Fox News Election Central immediately called the election for Bush. In an unprecedented move for the CEO of a parent company, Jack Welch entered NBC's Election Central and ordered them to similarly call the election for Bush. The other network sheep quickly jumped into line and thus established the consistent propaganda stream than Bush had won the election, despite the mysterious goings-on that night regarding conflicting exit polls and the mysterious downtime on the computer data stream. -- In a just world, Jack Welch would be in prison for the rest of his life for his part in the fraud that illegally placed interloper Bush into the house of power and for the damage the interloper wrecked on the world during his eight illegitimate years there. -- Obama should use his very competent left brain and regard this compliment by Welch as high-level proof that he is tragically on the wrong track and needs to stop, reconnoiter, and make massive changes in his administration's composition and direction NOW.
- Change We Can Believe In:
- The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama (globalresearch) "Corrupt new administration deepens and expands systemic criminalization and war agenda"
- Restore the Rule of Law And Legal Accountability!
- Obama wants punishment of N. Korea for "violation of rules" but thinks it's OK to let Bush criminals off the hook (firedoglake) -- sounds amazingly like the US's hypocritical self-righteousness over every other country's conflicting election exit polls but not our own.
- Conyers Wants [But Has Not Formally Requested] Holder to Appoint a Special Counsel to Probe Bush Crimes (pubrecord) -- Obama's and Holder's records already shows what the official response from them would be.
- Ray McGovern: Cowardice in the Time of Torture (consortiumnews)
- The Phony War on Drugs:
- Mexican president: US authorities 'complicit' in drug trafficking (rawstory with video) "'It is impossible to pass tons of drugs and cocaine to U.S. without some great complicity of some American authorities,' said Mexican President Felipe Calderone [sic]." -- What a whopper of understatement! Google Gary Webb.
- F**king Up the Food Supply Right on Course:
- Lendman: GMO Proliferation Bills (sjlendman)
- Military-Industrial Profiteers:
- Juan Cole: Top Ten Ways the US is Turning Afghanistan into Iraq (firedoglake)
- The Great Economic Shakedown:
- William K. Black: The Entire Strategy Is to Keep People from Getting the Facts (washingtonblog - yahoo)
- Spicules: Jets on the Sun (apod)
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