If you don´t comment, Cambone will win!
Back to Main
May 11, 2006
OT 06-41
Comments
Putting Abu Ghraib into the manuals.
LAT: Army Rules Put on Hold
The Pentagon has been forced to delay the release of its updated Army Field Manual on interrogation because of congressional opposition to several provisions, including one that would allow tougher techniques for unlawful combatants than for traditional prisoners of war.
The Defense Department’s civilian leaders, who are overseeing the process of rewriting the manual, have long argued — along with the Bush administration — that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists or irregular fighters. The United States needs greater flexibility when interrogating people who refuse to fight by the rules, they have said.
But some lawmakers think that creating different rules for enemy prisoners of war and irregular fighters contradicts the torture ban passed by Congress last year, which requires a “uniform standard” for treating detainees.
…
Lawmakers expected to see the new document last month. However, the Pentagon canceled those briefings and instead described the manual to only a handful of senior senators and aides. As the dispute with Congress has grown, the military has continued to delay the document’s release — and defense officials say they do not know when they will release the new manual.
…
“No person in the custody … of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility,” the law reads, “shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.”
But there is a debate over the meaning of the provision. An administration official said Wednesday that nothing in the McCain amendment prohibited treating prisoners of war or unlawful combatants differently.
But a congressional aide said the meaning of the amendment was clear.
“They couldn’t be further from the mark,” the aide said. “The intent of Congress with regards to the McCain amendment was to have a single, uniform standard for all detainees.”
…
But not everyone inside the Pentagon is comfortable with the two standards. Some argue that it is important to give soldiers a single set of rules that apply to everyone.
“One camp says ‘Terrorists don’t play by the rules’; the other camp says ‘Treat everyone the same,’ ” said a Defense Department official.
Although military officers do not appear to be challenging Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense who is taking the lead in writing the manual, some Army officers argue that the field manual should not have any gray areas. They have pushed for rules that are as unambiguous as possible.
“They don’t want soldiers doing any interpretation,” the defense official said.
Fauxreal:
On the question of women I suggest you explain how anyone is going to get this lot back in a veil http://www.lastsuperpower.net/images/women-peshmerger
People who had policies of leaving Baathists alone to oppress the Iraqi peoples, never show this type of picture. Why do people say nothing about the Kurds? What is the way forward for women in Islamic countries generally? The new constitution in Iraq is good in recognizing the equality of both sexes before the law. Elections are good that are conducted under that constitution and in the context of a vibrant mass media that now exists. This is the way forward. Baathism and Al Qaeda are not!
Consider what happened to the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman about a hundred years ago http://www.sydneyhistory.com.au/kellerman.html
‘At the height of her popularity, Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach for indecency – she was wearing one of her fitted one-piece costumes. The resulting newspaper headlines and outpouring of public indignation were a death-knell for Victorian attitudes towards women’s swimwear.’
So it would appear that Islamists are as backward as the US culture was about a hundred years ago. With the speedup of modernity and globalization the women under Islamic oppression will struggle along and could be expected to catch up in two or three generations.
There are now elected women about a third on memory of the parliament and they are not all in veils nor are the women on the Iraqi mass media. Even the US that had a constitution that clearly stated all men were created equal, had slaves! So struggle, to make the US constitution a reality, went on for hundreds of years and goes on still. How could it be otherwise?
Why would we not expect backward sections of the Iraqi peoples to oppress other sections? Women, homosexuals, atheists and so on have to continue to struggle as they did and do in the US. But now they have a chance to go forward with their struggles that under a Baathist tyranny (equipped with tanks, helicopter gun-ships etc) was stalled as dead as the women and children of Halabja. Is not that the key question, rather than the existence of a culture (Islam) that you find so backward, as to be offensive?
I am not a liberal at all. Indeed I oppose liberalism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm
Until 1974 there was an article in the German constitution stating that a wife’s job was to raise the children and tend to the household. Until 1959, there was a law on the books that declared that the husband had the final say on family matters. And a woman could be divorced wihtout alimony for failing to fulfill her marital duties, i.e., to put out for her husband on demand.
Och, weren’t those the gut old days?
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 11 2006 13:05 utc | 4
There is definitely a sea change of opinion about the Bush administration sweeping across the US. Even newspapers in solid red states like South Carolina are getting into the act. In a recent article about Sam Bush, one of the best bluegrass mandolin and fiddle players on the planet, the Charleston Post & Courier had this to say:
“Certainly not.”
This was Sam Bush’s answer when the famed mandolin/fiddle player was asked by Preview over the phone if he was any relation to the Bush family of presidential fame.
The Bush surname is merely coincidental, and while President Bush’s legacy is questionable, Sam Bush’s legacy and influence in contemporary bluegrass is clearly evident.
Here’s a link to the full article.
Posted by: Joe F | May 11 2006 13:47 utc | 5
I’ve put together an in-depth piece on Reliable Replacement Warheads (RRW) – the Administration’s program to manufacture a new batch of offensive nuclear weapons.
If you like Bunker Busters, you’ll love RRW.
Great article b, interesting quote, on “how an Army general joked to a Hill staffer that “if he had one round left in his revolver, he would take out Steve Cambone.” And that he (Cambone)”doesn’t have a lot of friends within the pentagon.
In a simular but different vein…
Anyone see the Irony here?
To be sure, let me get this straight, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD/I) Steven A. Cambone, with no prior intellegence experience was given security clearances at the highest levels of military. Indeed, Cambone dubbed the defense intelligence czar, responsible for the collection and distribution of ‘predictive intelligence,’ at first,(until it was shot down by congress) was part of the Total Information Awareness program under the Information Awareness Office (“IAO”) created by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”) which used the model and methods of [[Novel Intelligence from Massive Data]] (NIMD) to spy on literally anyone and everyone has access to national security intel of which –as my eariler post suggests–Dept of Justice Lawyers can’t even probe for investigation?
Help me out here ahhhhhhgggggghhh..
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 11 2006 15:06 utc | 8
patrickm- no, I would say the Islamic fundies are as backward as the dominionists in the U.S., and the talibornagains are a close second.
As I said before, you really do not offer substantial evidence to back up what you say, and, as I said before, you were wrong about the basis of arguments in ways that I can document…and provided you with enough information to find this information yourself, if you really wanted to. You offer photo ops as evidence, and apparently have never bothered to read about what actually ocurred in Iraq after the invasion that has direct consequences now.
However, if you are so sure of what’s going on, I assume you are also either in the military or have made sure your offspring are signed up. If not…words are cheap.
And now I am bored with you.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 11 2006 15:13 utc | 9
Sibel Edmonds endorses this view of her case. It makes some explicit what had been just conjecture. Of course, Giraldi is only explicit in stating those conjectures (e.g. links between
arms trafficking, drug trafficking, and the Neocon-Israel-Turkey axis) not in proving them.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 11 2006 15:51 utc | 10
So, since the DOJ has dropped its inquiry into the NSA wiretapping program because, they just wouldn’t cooperate will they also drop the investigation/indictment of Randy (Duke) Cunningham because Duke isn’t cooperating?
Great precident, just do not cooperate and you can get by with anything.
Jumping again, to simular but different issues…
I don’t think there will be any criminal investigations. There will be no inquiries into this, Bush can’t run for a reelection his army of spooks, crooks, bumblers, and torturers will walk as they did during Watergate I. The net result of these CRIMINAL scandal’s are that nothing will be any different for anybody, the entropy will continue unabated. One would think these are the kinds of scandals that might bring a government down, but they wont. However, the real story, perhaps further on, will not be the illegal collection of such intelligence, the lying, disregard for law, the subterfuge but instead the actions taken upon analysis of that intelligence.
Unfortunately, we have lots of practice.
What a great country! Fat of the land, and all that…If your part of the Mafioso class.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 11 2006 15:57 utc | 11
amazing the attn hilary clinton has in major media right now. even more amazing is she is feted as the obvious and inevitable choice of “her party.”
curious. does anyone here really believe she will be nominated?
there’s no way in hell. there’s always cheating, I know. but, no way. what a joke. she’s a strawwoman built and shredded by rightwinmg media. over & over.
though picking candidates is like choosing which bacterium you’d like to cause a week’s worth of diarrhea, I’ll go w/ gore/guilianni. guilliani wins.
Posted by: slothrop | May 11 2006 16:12 utc | 12
slothrop-
it’s just one more example of why I always thought politics was bullshit. I am sick of dynasties in U.S. politics, on either side of the aisle.
I want electoral reform that provides for instant run-offs, or that makes something more than a two party system possible…a one party two party system.
the good news is that, if all is, yet again, biz as usual, I feel absolutely no compunction to care and can go on with my life and fuck it all.
…now, where’s my passport again? I see the dollar is rising against the euro…wonder how long…may be a good time to get some travel funds.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 11 2006 16:30 utc | 13
i meant to post this argument from yesterday’s boston college debate on democracynow as reminder of theory being detached from experience.
We, as U.S. citizens, have the responsibility to take the world in its real dimension and to recognize the magnitude of the dangers we face, to recognize that these examples [u.s. torture & interrogation], which I see no evidence are widespread, just because this commission or that commission is formed. Juliet and I can form a commission tomorrow. The fact remains that you cannot put the sins of the United States and the sins of our adversaries in the same moral category. This is a moral distortion. It prevents us from seeing the world clearly and making the very difficult decisions that we have to make.
Posted by: b real | May 11 2006 16:31 utc | 14
and it is the eagerness to comprehend the u.s. as a “moral” torturer that will cause many people to secretly pull the levers in november’s general election for repubs. but later, voters will say to friends and family they voted against the status quo. sort of our john major moment, when british voters decided very privately they liked asskicking thatcherism.
in best of times, worst of times, repubs are a lock.
does anyone here really believe dems will “take back” congress?
Posted by: slothrop | May 11 2006 17:04 utc | 15
something else i want to get off my chest
anyone else find something wrong w/ the idea that neil has all kinds of progressives or whatnot singing along w/ the line:
Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
Posted by: b real | May 11 2006 17:37 utc | 16
Bill Lind on Afghanistan
Determining strategic objectives, and ensuring that those objectives are not contradictory, is the job of the most senior level of command, in this case the White House. By demanding that U.S. and allied troops pursue two conflicting objectives simultaneously, the Bush administration has created a no-win situation. Efforts to defeat the Taliban only work if they can gain the support of the rural population, but poppy eradication pushes the rural population toward the Taliban and its allies. (One could add a third incompatible objective, promoting women’s rights in a conservative Islamic culture.)
President George W. Bush likes to say, “I’m the decider; I decide.” The role of being the “decider” includes making sure that decisions are logically consistent. Mr. Bush is, from that perspective, a failed “decider” in Afghanistan. He failed similarly in deciding to invade Iraq as part of a global war against “terrorism,” when the destruction of the Iraqi state proved, predictably, to work in favor of the “terrorists.” He is failing yet again in picking quarrels with Russia and China when we need an all-states alliance against anti-state forces.
Interesting: A New Gesture From Iran?
The White House has brushed aside a new letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush that was designed, according to a senior Iranian official, to offer “new ways for getting out of the current, fragile international situation,” a reference to the impasse between the two countries over Iran’s alleged drive to develop nuclear weapons.
…
But a second document, written by a top Iranian official and given to TIME just before Ahmadinejad’s letter was made public, offers a more concrete foundation for negotiations to resolve the nuclear impasse. In the two-page memorandum, intended for publication in the West, Hassan Rohani,representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator, defends Iran’s nuclear posture, decries American bullying, and puts forward a plan to remove the nuclear issue from the U.N. Security Council and return it to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, a long-standing Iranian goal.
The letter also offers some specific Iranian starting points for negotiation. Rohani said Iran would “consider ratifying the Additional Protocol, which provides for intrusive and snap inspections,” and that it would also “address the question of preventing ‘break-out'” — or abandonement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Independent nuclear experts consulted by TIME said these proposals were “hopeful” signs.
The second letter looks fine to me.
b real, good point. Is Neil apologizing for his own embracing of the war on terror, implicit in his bandwagon-jumping song Let’s Roll? At the time I was disappointed that he missed the point so completely.
“All the power that [Neil Young mistakenly] gave him.” Or maybe he just means misplaced trust in general as shown by the US voter. Giving some clown the presidency with its attendant authority and ability to do good and bad. Mostly bad in this case, if not completely bad.
As far as Neil Young goes, I still have a lot of respect for his humanity and continuous experimentation, his uncompromising artistic integrity and his sheer style. Apparently he treasures mistakes and bad notes and is notorious for hiring session musicians, handing them a score, and recording and issuing the first take.
Navigating chaos as a method for creating true music unfettered by rehearsal and rote playing of the musician’s fallback cliches. David Bowie has the same talent for getting something special from his bands, inspired by or perhaps just refined during his many collaborations with Brian Eno.
Posted by: jonku | May 11 2006 18:51 utc | 19
Shia ringtone sparks scuffle in Iraqi parliament
The fragile state of the sectarian divide in Iraqi politics was exposed today when a fight broke out in parliament after a mobile phone ringtone played a Shia Muslim chant.
-London Times
Posted by: beq | May 11 2006 18:56 utc | 20
It’s quite simple, really. Hillary Clinton cannot win a presidential contest. She is the candidate that will guarantee maximum Republican turnout to vote against the Democrats, combined with low Democratic turnout. Her nomination, in an instant, would swap the current positions of the Democrats and Republicans. So the right-wing media is trying to push her for nomination while at the same time avoiding saying any of the negative things you can bet they’ll bring out right away if she is, indeed nominated.
As long as she isn’t actually nominated in the end, I’m in favor of the media focussing on her. It means they aren’t watching anyone else in the meantime. Bill Clinton came, relatively speaking, out of nowhere in 1992, and it definitely worked in his favor.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | May 11 2006 20:38 utc | 21
Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance ?
Hummm?
Thomas R. Eddlem writes,
A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 11 2006 23:19 utc | 22
@beq
thanks that was powerful…
Maybe this has something to do w/it…
The biggest con: Democrats & Republicans work together to destroy America?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 12 2006 15:56 utc | 24
Hey Bernhard I see Moon has gone over 500,00 visitors since June 2004 – fabulous!
And get well to everyone who’s sick (r’giap, Malooga).
Chavez is coming to London next week – I hope to get to hear him speak.
Posted by: Dismal Science | May 12 2006 16:07 utc | 25
The Pentagon expanding the empire: Pentagon Seeks Expanded Counterdrug Role
Aiming to contain the threat of narcoterrorism and widen U.S. military influence over areas of strategic importance to the United States, the Defense Department is seeking permission to expand its counternarcotics partnerships with more than a dozen governments across Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America and Central Asia. …
an expending the impire: Pentagon Explores Border Patrols
The Pentagon is looking at ways the military can help provide more security along the U.S. southern border, defense officials said Thursday, once again drawing the nation’s armed forces into a politically sensitive domestic role.
AP bulletin sez the FBI executed search warrents on Goss’ house and office.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 12 2006 18:58 utc | 27
Zinni on Iraq: ‘We’re not withdrawing’
“It isn’t World War I anymore; we don’t come home anymore,” he said. Zinni said he doesn’t rule out a drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq at some point — he insists that shouldn’t happen now anyway — but the idea that the situation in Iraq will change enough to allow all U.S. troops to ultimately go home is simply wrong.
“We’re not withdrawing,” he said
It seems that we should all just make this mental adjustment concerning the US withdrawing from the middle east…. we will stay in significant numbers (whatever that is?) in Iraq.
I know I’m saying the obvious, but if the US were to pull out all troops from Iraq it would make the last 3 years a worthless effort. Its (almost) guaranteed that we’ll have the long term presence in Iraq.
I hope nobody is surprised.
Posted by: Soandso | May 12 2006 20:29 utc | 29
I see the dollar is rising against the euro…wonder how long…
It lasted an hour or two.
That said, I traded back half my euros today, because the dollar move is starting to get more mainstream media attention than I like. But I’m chicken, and always much too early.
Posted by: mats | May 12 2006 20:44 utc | 30
Well So&So:
The Iraqis might have a little something to say about that one, depending on how things turn out.
Posted by: Groucho | May 12 2006 20:45 utc | 31
re: Zinni- it’s outsourcing, yet again. only we’re outsourcing the military to other countries who don’t have enough American military on their soil.
We’re still manufacturing soldiers…even tho recruitment is down. As long as the govt. continues to favor the rich and decimate the middle class, eventually the military will become the middle class option too, just like it is for the poor now.
what a great fucking country.
mats- damn. I haven’t been watching the dollar much lately b/c it’s mostly falling or sitting.
so, you’re saying you let go of euros against the dollar? obviously you don’t plan to go to europe anytime soon…I think the euro is going to outperform the dollar for at least another two years.
…maybe more to artificially make the deficit look better.
Dollar slides again, I see.
and stocks down…oil cos must have had some biggies taking some profits…and it’ll go back up again. If Bush hits Iran, I predict 100/b within a month.
well, I’ll stick with my small-fry stuff. I found out recently that one of my “investments” has increased at least 96% over three years, or 32% per year. Not a whole lotta cash in those numbers, but at least I know what I’m doing there. not liquid tho. I’m betting the value will continue to rise. it’s one of the better performers among my “stock,” so to speak.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 12 2006 21:34 utc | 32
As expected everybody dutifully ignored $cam’s link to the Thomas R. Eddlem article.
After all let’s not completely lose sight of the game here. Our team must win come Nov lest we LOSE!.
That’s pretty much it isn’t it? Just as Negroponte set shia against sunni in Iraq so that a regime that suited neither could rule effectively unopposed, the Imperial dynasty in Washington has set all piss fart and wind, but not a bad bloke NRA member, grandads against one-time ERA activist who sent her own kids to a ‘good school’, grannies.
That way they get to control an empire neither one of the above really wants to even exist, let alone have run by this bunch of crims.
It would be cruel to point out that the Iraqis needed to have a few members of their family slaughtered to go along with it whereas amerikans merely let the slime from the video ooze along on their
living room floor; except that the ease with which this ploy has been implemented does have an upside.
That is, unlike the Iraqis, the amerikans can resist this oppression with little loss of life, provided they do unite.
Of course that would require left and right to happily forgo short term one-upmanship, sandpit wrestling to achieve that outcome.
At the moment most of the left is far too busy savouring their ‘inevitable victory’ in November to acknowledge the hollowness of that victory.
Of course those on the ersatz left who will personally gain from a November victory can claim that the only reason members of the right are suggesting a truce is because they know they’re gonna lose.
The bigger question is so what? Isn’t it time to subsume alla that hatespeech the main-chancers on both sides push out to get you out of the house on election day? If amerikans can manage that they will forgo the terrible fate that will otherwise destroy their state in the long-term.
It’s not even that difficult. All it requires is all the pissed off amerikans to concentrate on the things they agree upon and work towards addressing those concerns.
To put to one side the often paltry and specious issues they disagree on. The reaction to the pin pricks of criticism sometimes directed at amerikans on this site is pretty convincing evidence to an objective observer that there are far more of the former issues than the latter.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13 2006 0:35 utc | 33
I read the link Scam cited 2 days ago.
Hope it happens. No one was ignoring it.
Posted by: Groucho | May 13 2006 0:42 utc | 34
@fauxreal,
No, I agree that in the longer term the dollar is in deep, deep trouble. My point about being chicken and too early was only that, as a trader, I get nervous when there’s a lot of mainstream news reporting that quotes people stating that my side is surefire right, and I’ve seen 3 or 4 such wire stories make the lead box on Yahoo this week. That’s a part of what made me exit half my euro holdings today.
The ‘too early’ part just means that while I think the dollar’s going to see 1.80, maybe over 2, maybe much more than that to the euro, I also haven’t a clue as to the timeframe and many many people end up wiped out even though they’re right just because they get in and stay locked in too early. Ask anyone shorting internet stocks in 1998 and 1999.
I, on the other hand, have a tendency to get out too early. It’s always something.
Posted by: mats | May 13 2006 1:34 utc | 35
hi debs-
sorry, but I’d read the link already too. right after looking at the great photo essay beq linked to underneath it. if a John Bircher wants to vote for a democrat, more power to ’em. If someone wants to create a “center” party of moderate republicans and dems, more power to them because they would move the entire country away from the right wing and shut them up and out of power…well, at least out of power.
thanks again for pointing out how worthless we are around here.
hope you’re feeling better.
Posted by: fauxreal | May 13 2006 1:37 utc | 36
mats- you know much more about it than I do. You’re doing your own trades, etc. and I’m just a stock market voyeur.
see, I would’ve bought petroleum shares at least two years ago and sold them recently, if I had money for that sort of thing. And would then have taken the $$ and made my dwelling off the grid and able to sell to my neighbors. (we have that deal that lets your meters run backwards).
same with euros…except I would have bought them three years ago and sold today.
I did see that the FinTimes said the dollar was at its lowest low since 1997.
And I would invest long term in cos making solar shingles, etc. Have you seen some of the pictures of new buildings in Japan? They’re doing some interesting things with solar panels as part of the architecture.
a kid was staying with me from France last month and she, the other students with her and the teachers were all thrilled at how cheap things were here.
…maybe if I had lots of euros, it would make more sense to invest them in property somewhere in the south…northern Italy, maybe…
so, would I have lost my shirt on those deals or not?
Posted by: fauxreal | May 13 2006 1:49 utc | 37
groug communication, lettrists internationale, february 1953:
there’s no connection between me and other people. the world began on 24 december 1934. i’m eighteen, the splendid age of reform schools and sadism has finally replaced god. the beauty of man is in his destruction. i’m a dream that loves its dreamer. every act is cowardice if it requires justification. i’ve never done anything. the nothingness we perpetually seek is nothing but our life. descartes is worth as much as a gardener. only one movement is possible: that i be the plague and award the buboes. all means to oblivion are good: suicide, deathly pain, drugs, alcoholism, madness. but we also have to abolish conformists, girls over fifteen who’re still virgins, the reputed well-adjusted, and their prisons. if some of us are ready to risk everything, it’s because we now know there is nothing to risk, and nothing to lose. to love or not to love, this man or that woman, it’s all the same.
Posted by: slothrop | May 13 2006 2:32 utc | 38
US military, intelligence officials raise concern about possible preparations for Iran strike
It’s gonna be ugly…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 13 2006 2:48 utc | 40
I see ,Slothrop, that you are searching for meaning in your life.
This is good.
Contact Bernhard during normal business hours.
I’m sure he will lease you a psychotherapy stall, reasonable rent.
Doubt really you’ll get much trade however.
Sometimes talking to oneself proves efficacious.
Posted by: Groucho | May 13 2006 2:57 utc | 41
say one beautiful thing, groucho. it doesn’t have to be your own. I’m certain you cannot. you’ve made every effort to drive me away. but, truth is, you’re a canker here. a sad drunk.
we need the young to stake out with their impetuousnmess and scorn a revolution too afraid to breath.
and for you, groucho, you old piece of garbage, the beautiful ones who fight will be scenery for you as they pass by. and you’ll jerk off on your porch swing.
fuck you.
Posted by: slothrop | May 13 2006 3:10 utc | 42
Dollar/Euro – pretty early to bail out:
Morgan Stanley:
EUR/USD appears to be modestly overvalued (FV = 1.16), but it is nowhere near as overvalued as it was at end-2004.
…
As the USD’s cyclical descent continues, EUR and commodity currencies will likely be pushed deeper into overvalued territory while JPY will converge toward its fair value. This is one reason why we have argued that the short USD/JPY is a ‘higher quality’ trade than the long EUR/USD trade.
—-
I believe the momentum behind the rally in EUR/USD will remain sufficiently powerful that if the ECB does not try to cap EUR/USD, it will continue to rally. The important question this issue raises is if and when the ECB will turn vigilant on EUR/USD. My own sense is that 1.30-1.32 is likely to be a range to which the ECB may be sensitive. A large overshoot in EUR/USD would pose serious problems for the ECB, even though the Euroland economy should be able to absorb such an overshoot.
Euro/Dollar at 1.34 – 1.36 looks achievable this year. I will tighten up my stop-loss lines when it goes over 1.34.
your america is gonna die groucho, and it’s gonna hurt.
good riddance.
Posted by: slothrop | May 13 2006 3:33 utc | 44
I will tighten up my stop-loss lines
yes. the clever investment class will be ok. germans, dutch, chinese communists riding the waves of creative destruction.
hooray.
Posted by: slothrop | May 13 2006 3:37 utc | 45
b- don’t dare spend it on kobe beef
German ‘Robin Hoods’ Give Poor a Taste of the High Life
A GANG of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, who dress as superheroes and steal expensive food from exclusive restaurants and delicatessens to give to the poor, are being hunted by police in the German city of Hamburg.
The gang members seemingly take delight in injecting humour into their raids, which rely on sheer numbers and the confusion caused by their presence. After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on the exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers before making their getaway.
Posted by: b real | May 13 2006 3:49 utc | 47
Posted by: slothrop | May 13 2006 3:55 utc | 48
On a recent thread rememberinggiap said something about the Vietnam era protest of throwing medals over the White House fence could be echoed in our time by throwing cell phones and computers over the same fence.
Right arm, rg!
Posted by: jonku | May 13 2006 4:16 utc | 49
@b real – if I would buy Kobe beef, it would be from those “Robin Hoods” 🙂 – a funny bunch of folks – had some beer with them last summer.
@slothrop – Doug Noland is really good – for others who go to that link, scroll all the way down to his original writing. The first big chunck of his bulletin is just fact collection, the commentary below that goes to the heard of the matter.
No civil war?
Soldier killed in clash between Iraqi army units
The US forces will get squeezed between the fractions in this civil war. Too late to get out?
Karl Rove indicted for perjury
In case you didn’t notice …
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
[Truthout.org via Kevin Drum]
Somewhere I read that Rove will resign his post at the White House.
B’bye.
Posted by: jonku | May 14 2006 2:14 utc | 53