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March 16, 2009
OT 09-09
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I’m really confused with this :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123680870885500701.html?mod=article-outset-box
Weapons of Mosquito Destruction, so weiiiiiiiird …
I don’t know if April fools is in advance/if there’s a tradition of making that kind of jokes in US press/if I’m too paranoid, but isn’t it some kind of credulity test ??
Posted by: totoro | Mar 16 2009 10:05 utc | 1
Jewish Peace News highlights this Haaretz review of what is said to be the most atrocious of all time arms-dealer promo spot. Judging from the comments in Haaretz, reactions are highly influenced by cultural factors.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 16 2009 11:34 utc | 2
Googling finds repeated mentions of
“Szabolcs Márka. Assistant Professor Columbia University Department of Physics”
When the satirical supermarket tabloid Weekly World News (no longer being printed) would publish fanciful stories they made a point of using completely fictitious names [except once they did a story on the Rev. Billy Graham’s view of the afterlife, playing it completely straight – another example of their sense of humor, I believe] – so I conclude that this WSJ story is reality-based.
“These are the days of miracles and wonder.”
— Paul Simon [cf. theautomaticearth.blogspot.com]
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. | Mar 16 2009 11:34 utc | 3
The ruins of Detroit
Two French photographers immortalize the remains of the motor city on film
Some of these are stunning.
Also see, Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom
Hurry better regulate and tax that shit, before people drop out of the system! I mean come on, if their growing their own food, they’re not buying our GM food, nor are they in our controlled ‘total institution’. Somebody needs to pass a hidden ridder bill/ law quick!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 16 2009 12:23 utc | 4
Viva la revolucion.
Good news for the people of El Salvador:
Reagan spins in his grave:
By 8:45pm El Salvador time, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal had released results showing Funes with 51.6% of the vote and Avila with 48.4%. This reflected a tally of 73% of the votes.
And Funes better watches his back, as the US Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group is certainly on his case.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Mar 16 2009 13:20 utc | 5
b,
Christopher Bollyn thinks that Obama, Biden, and Bush all wearing baby blue ties is symbolic of their unconditional support for Israel. Do you think he’s right on this, or do you think this is just a coincidence?
http://www.bollyn.info/home/articles/polphil/rahm-emanuel-and-barack-obama/
Posted by: Cynthia | Mar 16 2009 15:39 utc | 6
Bin Laden says Gaza was a holocaust:
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip a “holocaust” and las……
….wait a second….. Osama Bin Laden? As in “we suspect he died of kidney failure” Bin Laden?
Geez, the new team didn’t even bother to come up with a new villain. Talk about recycling old material….
Posted by: Jeremiah | Mar 16 2009 17:21 utc | 7
The following two articles seem fitting to post together.
IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’
The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as “global quantitative easing” by printing billions of dollars worth of a global “super-currency” in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.
DOLLAR CRISIS IN THE MAKING – Before the stampede
Unfortunately, we cannot be confident that world leaders know what they are doing in seeking to resolve the crisis. Are their measures attacking the heart of the problem, or only its periphery? Are they exacerbating the crisis, either by enacting certain misdirected measures, or by failing to enact certain required measures? Are they setting up conditions that make a dollar crisis and radically increased financial upheaval virtually inevitable, by blindly pushing ahead with a simplistic agenda of trying to spend their way out of the present crisis?
Posted by: Rick | Mar 16 2009 23:57 utc | 8
@8 that’s the fucking Telegraph hyperventilating again. The money under consideration is a drop in the bucket, even compared to the needs of the LDCs that will get it, and calling humdrum SDRs a supercurrency is a typical Thatcherite gag reflex to multilateral action. If I was an effete toff with impaired sphincter tone from my public school days, I would be shitting about this instead.
Posted by: …—… | Mar 17 2009 2:01 utc | 9
If the chinese want to replace the $ as a reserve currency, then the yuan must eventually appreciate. I don’t see why this is a threat to anyone.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 17 2009 2:19 utc | 10
Of course you don’t see it, that’s because you’re not an effete toff with impaired sphincter tone from your public school days. It’s the best thing that could happen. It will help Chinese soft power squeeze out corporatist Anglo basket cases like Britain and the US.
Posted by: …—…. | Mar 17 2009 2:31 utc | 11
Of course you don’t see it, that’s because you’re not an effete toff with impaired sphincter tone from your public school days. It’s the best thing that could happen. It will help Chinese soft power squeeze out corporatist Anglo basket cases like Britain and the US.
Posted by: …—… | Mar 17 2009 2:32 utc | 12
The only people who get fucked by appreciation in the RMB are the chinese workers.
The global imbalances of trade favor no one.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 17 2009 3:00 utc | 14
These pesky iron laws of capitalist development.
damn.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 17 2009 3:02 utc | 15
Depends. China’s furious export promotion might pressure labor for now but medium term but there’s a lot of wealth built up for domestic investment. The enterprise zones themselves have lotsa optionality to exploit. Ask the Japanese – they had a quite a nice comfy lost decade. China’s could let wealth start to percolate into the interior, if they play their cards right.
Posted by: …—… | Mar 17 2009 3:15 utc | 16
Here’s the thing about zones of development. Fallow’s article in Atlantic which b linked to is really disingenuous wrt this communist-planned-capitalist-economy. He barely mentions rural china. It seems development will be massively & persistently “zonal.” The 90% will be ideologically/hegemonically purchased by the coastal capitalist class to legitimate development at the expense of workers. Same old bullshit.
And this must be accomplished by depreciating the yuan. Let’s not forget this.
Recipe for disaster.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 17 2009 3:43 utc | 17
There should be further news on the Victor Bout extradition proceeding in Thailand today. Meanwhile, here’s a video clip relative to the March 6 hearing.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 17 2009 7:32 utc | 19
@17 one really good Szechuan jacquerie would fix that. The CPC would dump Treasuries until every peasant has a plasma-screen home theater and granite countertops and a jet ski.
Posted by: …–… | Mar 17 2009 15:52 utc | 20
VIVE LA FRANCE!
a very inspiring video of the french boycotting israel.
Posted by: annie | Mar 17 2009 17:20 utc | 21
just for grins, for anyone who has struggled with the German language and that might even include our host, Mark Twain wrote this some years ago.
and if high German is difficult, try low German or the dialect where I am living in Rheinland Pfalz.
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 17 2009 18:22 utc | 23
you are going to give people nightmares, 300,000,000 chinese on jet skis whistling the ‘east is red’, attacking the motherland while some lone soul in malibu sings pat boone or is indeed pat boone
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 17 2009 19:03 utc | 24
@DoS – and if high German is difficult, try low German
– what’s difficult with low German? It’s much nearer to English and Dutch than high German. It is so easy that I could understand and talk it when I was two :-).
But that funny Twain piece is quite correct. Especially with those long sentences we Germans like to construct which is, I think, a relict of Latin influence. I try(!) to avoid that when I write in English but it still happens as you can tell from my writings.
Dan, there is a funny blog by a U.S. expat on German language at Nothing For Ungood. Some amusing stuff down in the archives. You will certainly recognize some of his language problems.
For extra alarmism they should all be first-born male ‘little emperors,’ uncontrollably horny due to gender imbalance back home, coming to take our nubile blue-eyed American women and our slots in decent colleges with their inscrutable superhuman intellects, flooding in until all our restaurants are forced to serve lamb’s ears, jellyfish, snake soup, rice birds, and nauseous Hakka offal in the buffets right next to the bacon bits and the people’s war is won without a shot.
Posted by: …—… | Mar 17 2009 21:12 utc | 26
Fafblog convincingly defends plucky little Israel’s right to self-defense.
Posted by: ran | Mar 18 2009 2:44 utc | 27
The Victor Bout extradition trial goes on, still inconclusively, with testimony from Bout’s wife,
Alla.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 18 2009 8:54 utc | 28
While at Fafblog, don’t miss The Bad Paintings of Barack Obama. I really, really, really liked the smiling Obama.
Posted by: anna missed | Mar 18 2009 9:24 utc | 29
A fitting coda to the Chas Freeman fiasco.
Note the money quote
A senior official of the incoming Netanyahu administration, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, told The Times that he expects Mr. Arad to be able to travel to the United States for official business.
“This is an issue that the new government of Israel trusts can be resolved,” the official said.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 18 2009 10:13 utc | 30
Uncle!
Diebold Admits ALL Versions of Their Software Delete Ballots Without Notice
Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions’ (formerly Diebold’s) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That’s the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier’s Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier’s tabulator system,
Posted by: gus | Mar 18 2009 13:26 utc | 31
Gus-
That’s the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier’s Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier’s tabulator system,
The truth is stranger than fiction…
Posted by: David | Mar 18 2009 14:32 utc | 32
The Lede blog in the NYTimes discusses the Victor Bout extradition trial in Bangkok. The interview at the end of this blog post may be of interest. As usual, the allegations and assertions made here should be subjected to careful scrutiny, and do not in themselves constitute proof (even at the level of a preliminary legal proceeding).
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 19 2009 14:58 utc | 34
Bay Area MoAs,
I wish I could make your meet-up; damn I love SF, but unfortunately I’m too busy.
There is an interesting story I came across that involves the Conta Costa Times… I thought maybe one of you might know someone who would be interested in doing a story about the CC Times building alcohol-powered cars during the oil-crunch of the ’70’s.
I know a photographer that works at the CC Times, Karl Mondon, and when I told him about the cars, his reply was that he knew several of the old journalist were alcohol-powered, but didn’t realize the paper had staff-cars that also ran on the stuff.
I contacted the editor, and she acted like I was trying to get a photo of my baby on p.-1. Silly editor had a cool story sitting in her lap and she blew it off.
The reporter who did the original article has long since passed away, but one of my friends is his daughter, and she has all the old tear-sheets, files ect. from this time. Her dad was also a bit of a conspiracy nut, and some of the stuff in these files is really interesting. Amazing what information people managed to gather before the Internet!
I thought it was interesting, especially with the present fuel crisis we’re facing, to find a newspaper that had stepped-up to the plate and spent real money to see if alternative fueled cars were feasible. But then this story was written in the”good old days” when newspapers were still family-owned and spent money on journalism rather than celebrity fluff.
I am neither a reporter, nor much of a writer; and I sit knowing about this guy’s story yet I also know I’m not talented enough to write an article that could compare and contrast the previous story with now.
It kind of dawned on me today that there are a lot of smart people hanging out in the bar that might want to write this story, and if so, I’d be happy to get them in touch with my friend. I’ll even offer to do whatever photocopyingand mailing needs to be done at this end to help facilitate the work.
If anyones interested I can be reached at: staff@thefreedailyobserver.com,
thanks!
Posted by: d.13 | Mar 20 2009 15:01 utc | 35
Idiots – sailing submerged in one of the busiest waterlane of the world is
a. not allowed under UNCLOS,
b. very dangerous.
But the U.S. Navy never learns
2005: USS Philadelphia Struck by Turkish Freighter in Persian Gulf
The Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine USS Philadelphia ( SSN 690) recently collided with the M/V Yaso Aysen, a Turkish merchant ship. The collision occurred at about 2 am on the morning of September 5 about 30 miles off the coast of Bahrain, ..
2007: Navy says speed of tanker sucked submarine up to surface
The submarine Newport News was submerged and leaving the Persian Gulf when a mammoth Japanese oil tanker passed overhead at a high speed, creating a sucking effect that made the sub rise and hit the ship, the Navy said Tuesday.
2009: 2 US Navy vessels collide in Strait of Hormuz
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Two U.S. Navy vessels — a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship — collided before dawn Friday in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most important sea passages for oil supplies.
…
Both ships were heading to port and were going in the same direction when the incident occurred in the narrow Hormuz, said Christensen. He said the submarine was submerged at the time but that he could give no further details as the collision is still under investigation.
George Galloway banned from entering Canada!
Galloway hits back…
Canada can’t muzzle me
To ban me from the country for my views on Afghanistan is absurd, hypocritical, and in vain
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 22 2009 17:44 utc | 38
Why I like J Street: It highlights the hypocrisy of nations like the U.S. and Britain that incarcerate those inciting violence and murder ….. as long as the incitement is by Muslims and not by Jews:
Last night at a New York synagogue, the leader of a controversial pro-settler group called for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, during a fundraising pitch for settlement activities in the West Bank. And people clapped!
At an event sponsored by Americans For a Safe Israel at the Safra Synagogue on the Upper East Side, settlement activist Nadia Matar said:
“We must kill all the terrorist leaders, starting with Mahmoud Abbas and all others. Nobody had any moral qualms at destroying the Nazi regime. We have to abolish the Oslo Agreements, there’s no difference between the PA, the Islamic Jihad, the Hamas, whatever names you have, they’re all terrorists and we cannot have peace with them.”
Where does one begin? First, Matar is inciting violence against moderate Palestinian leadership inside a synagogue. Second, she’s actively undermining a two-state solution by raising money to support Israeli settlements in the West Bank and endangering Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.
It’s scary to think that anyone would endorse this woman’s dangerous politics. Will you join me in asking Barry Freeman, whose organization Americans For a Safe Israel sponsored the event, to denounce Nadia Matar’s remarks?
This wouldn’t be the first time that the extremist settler movement has incited violence against peace activists, Israeli soldiers, and Israeli government officials.
Former Israeli Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin claimed inspiration from the extremist rhetoric of far-right political parties and groups that opposed a peace agreement with the Palestinians, such as Eyal (the “Jewish Fighting Organization”). [1]
Just last year, Israeli peace activist and settlement critic Ze’ev Sternhell was injured when a pipe bomb exploded outside his home. Flyers found at the scene offered a $250,000 award for anyone who killed a member of the Israeli peace group Shalom Achshav. [2]
Inciting violence against moderate Palestinians inside a synagogue is as morally repugnant as it is stupid. We need moderate Palestinians like Abbas who are committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And who exactly does Matar think would take Abbas’ place if she got her way? Someone more moderate?
I hope you’ll join me in writing to the Executive Director of Americans For a Safe Israel Barry Freedman asking him to renounce Matar’s remarks.
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=554
Thanks.
– Isaac
Isaac Luria
Campaigns Director
J Street
March 19, 2009
Posted by: Parviz | Mar 24 2009 15:42 utc | 39
The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup
Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes
By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet. Posted March 25, 2009.
What MS. Wolf and Ratner doesn’t say, is that the plans haven’t changed,and O man is continuing the wall street coup albeit with a different face.
Geithner: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Contingencies
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 25 2009 16:20 utc | 40
When men in Hamburg are not posting cutting commentary on weblogs, some of them sing “O sole mio” while having cars drive over their bodies.
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 25 2009 22:03 utc | 41
DoS-
Amazing, I guess I know what my next workout will include. In Colorado, he couldn’t do that in the winter time, the studded tires would be hell 🙂
That guy could make a killing in the south at dirt track races if he could do that singing Lynard Skynard…
Posted by: d.13 | Mar 25 2009 22:36 utc | 42
Conflict Mediation – Texas Style
DALLAS – Workers at a high school staged cage fights among troubled students, making them settle their differences with bare-knuckled brawls in a steel utility cage inside a boys locker room, school district documents show.
The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High “knew of the practice, allowed it to go on for a time, and failed to report it,” according to a 2008 report from the Dallas school district’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The documents were obtained by The Dallas Morning News for a story in its Thursday editions.
The report describes two instances of cage fighting between 2003 and 2005.
Dallas schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa confirmed that there were “some things that happened inside of a cage” and called the fights “unacceptable.”
No criminal charged have been filed in the case.
Former Principal Donald Moten denied the allegations, saying he had nothing to comment on because the fights never happened.
“That’s barbaric. You can’t do that at a high school. You can’t do that anywhere,” said Moten, who resigned in 2008. “Ain’t nothing to comment on. It never did happen. I never put a stop to anything because it never happened.”
But a middle school counselor who was fired from the high school and has filed a whistleblower lawsuit said Moten and members of the school’s security staff encouraged the fights.
“It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff,” said former South Oak Cliff employee Frank Hammond. “They were taking these boys downstairs to fight. And it was sanctioned by the principal and security.”
The movie American Violet opens next month, and is based on the real-life experience of Regina Kelly, a waitress wrongly arrested and charged during a disastrous drug sweep in Hearne, Texas back in 2000. Kelly was one of 28 people arrested. Her refusal to accept a plea bargain eventually helped expose that District Attorney John Paschall case for the massive sweep was a sham, based almost entirely on the word of a pathological informant (who also claims he was beaten by police). Paschall promised his informant he’d drop the theft charges pending against him if the informant could produce information that would lead to 20 drug arrests.
Even after his case fell apart and Paschall had no choice to drop the charges against those who hadn’t alread plead guilty, he refused to exonerate anyone, telling the New York Times that of those charged, “I don’t doubt one minute their guilt in dealing drugs.” Paschall is still district attorney, and he’s not particularly happy about the movie. He told the Dallas Morning News, “The only way I’d watch it, I’d have to be handcuffed, tied to a chair and you’d have to tape my eyes open.”
Like the series of wrongful drug arrests in Tulia, Texas, the Hearne scandal was largely attributable to the federal Byrne Grant program, which not only creates the unaccountable, multi-jurisdictional drug task forces like those responsible for Hearne and Tulia, but then also sets artificial, improper incentives by tying future funding to the number of arrests and drug seizures a task force makes. Oddly enough, the Bush administration actually phased out Byrne Grants. Obama and the Democrats in Congress are bringing them back.
Anyone remember a few years back, on sixty minutes, or 20/20 or some show, like that –when they still did investigative reporting– on how the Texas Prison system was doing cage matches of of gang members and then shooting them if they lost. Or perhaps it was in the California Prison system? I’ll look it up when I have more time…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 26 2009 19:12 utc | 43
Aiding AIG (which had many overseas counterparties) rather than just adding more direct aid to the US subset of its counterparties is extremely strong evidence that the ties that bind are to an economic system and not nations or even national subsets of members of the system. Propping up Deutsche bank or whoever (a putative competitor) – how does that fit into US bankers’ interests? I would say that the paradox is resolved by declaring the concept of a US banker flawed.
In 1923 or 1945 or 1974 or 1983, this was not the case. Fair enough.
The appropriate place for this would have been in this thread
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2009/03/a-new-paulson-plan.html
but for some strange reason there is only swearing, maniacal laughing, and accusations of messianism
Posted by: boxcar mike | Mar 28 2009 16:55 utc | 45
@45: …but for some strange reason there is only swearing, maniacal laughing, and accusations of messianism
i reread the thread, and i think your personal assessment is somewhat limiting. other than that your comment (which i don’t necessarily disagree with) probably made slothrop smile.
on a totally unrelated note, eight people were gunned down in a nursing home Sunday morning, reinforcing my belief that springtime in the US is the season of psychosis. and it’s not even April yet.
Posted by: Lizard | Mar 30 2009 5:07 utc | 46
Last week-end Silvio Berlusconi’s new party, “Liberty House”, had its
first convention, the formal founding of what is likely to be Italy’s ruling party for as long as Berlusconi dominates the scene. To me, it appears that a majority of the Italian electorate has all but endorsed monarchy and the divine right of kings. One can get an idea of how bad things are, and how incapable the “traditional left” has been in organizing incisive opposition by noting that the “leftist opposition” is now dominated by Antonio DiPietro (who would ordinarily be characterized as a law and order populist) and Gianfranco Fini (who is the “internal opposition” within “Liberty House”, and an authentic neo-fascist ambitious and intelligent enough to keep his mouth shut on his ideological ancestry). Even a dependable leftist liberal like La Repubblica‘s” Eugenio Scalfari called Fini a “statesman” in his href=”http://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/politica/scalfari-editoriali/scalfari-editoriali/scalfari-editoriali.html”>Sunday editorial , and, at least in comparison to King Silvio, it’s true that Fini has a greater sense of constitutionality and limited government.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 30 2009 17:23 utc | 47