Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

April 12, 2009
Links April 12 09

Happy fertile springtime:

  • Easter eggs in Germany (Xinhua)
  • Nowruz eggs in Iran (Flickr)
  • Only one? – Darwin's egg found at Cambridge – (PressTV)
  • Not so fertile: – Uptick in Vasectomies Seen as Sign of Recession – (NYT)

Money:

  • Serious satire: Letter to FDIC on Geithner's PPIP (FDIC) pdf
  • Top talent? Then how did we get into this mess?
    Crisis Altering Wall Street as Big Banks Lose Top Talent – (NYT)
  • The real numbers are even higher
    China's foreign reserves hit $1.95 trillion at end of March – (Xinhua)

Middle East:

  • Depressing – Wall: A Monologue (NYRB)
  • Gideon Levy – The dark religious side of Israel – (Haaretz)
  • Simple question – simple answer: Yes. – Is the west thwarting Arab plans for reform? – (FT)

Afghanistan supplies:

  • The Karachi-Peshawar-Kabul route – Ten Nato supply containers torched in Peshawar – (The News)
  • The Karachi-Quetta-Kandahar route – 16 killed on second day of strike in Balochistan – (Dawn)

Please add your news and views in the comments.

Posted by b on April 12, 2009 at 06:02 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Dubai never had no Sinatra at the Sands

Las Vegas trophy project becomes symbol of trouble
Thu Apr 9, 2009 10:16am EDT
By Damon Hodge
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – It was conceived as the centerpiece of a thriving Las Vegas — one of the world’s most expensive building projects that would bring back glamour to the Strip and cap an unprecedented three-year economic boom.
Instead the $9 billion development named CityCenter — touted as the city’s most ambitious endeavor — has come to symbolize a global retail and leisure slump and the city’s struggles to come to grips with crushing unemployment and dwindling casino revenue.
Partners MGM Mirage — struggling to bankroll the project’s ballooning cost — and Dubai World had pondered placing the development under bankruptcy, thrusting its future into question, sources say.
Things appear to be buzzing along at the 67-acre glass and steel mini-metropolis of envisioned condominiums, hotels, shops and casinos in the middle of the Strip, dwarfing MGM Mirage’s own sprawling Bellagio and Harrah’s Caesar’s Palace.
The complex is scheduled to open in phases starting late this year, although analysts say it’s unclear if that target will be met.
Motorists and pedestrians slow to gawk at buildings glittering in the desert sun, while workers in white hard-hats and orange vests throng the site.
But trouble is brewing beneath the surface. In March, Dubai World, the development arm of the United Arab Emirates, sued MGM Mirage, claiming mismanagement and wanting out of further financial commitments. The U.S. company hired bankruptcy counsel, setting off alarms about solvency. And the company was forced to inject an emergency $200 million to keep construction going.
“The events of the last six months have been our Pearl Harbor, economically,” said Bill Thompson, gaming expert and professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “CityCenter might be too big to fail. If it opens, it’s a dramatic gesture that says we’re winning, we’re not defeated, we’re on the way back.”
“If it fails, it would be like a second Pearl Harbor.”

Good night Las Vegas, Nevada.
It Was a Very Good Year

Posted by: Abe Linclon | Apr 12 2009 7:05 utc | 1

And as of the post date of that article, it appears the prolonged and improbable dance that is Las Vegas is over as of this morning (sorry for a NY Post link):
COLONY CAPITAL, MGM MIRAGE TALKS COLLAPSE

Posted by: Abe Linclon | Apr 12 2009 7:10 utc | 2

“The dark religious side of Israel” makes me long for press freedom in Iran. It´s Israel´s one saving grace.

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 7:26 utc | 3

Great moments in brand equity.
Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.
“Facts about Goldman Sachs”

Posted by: Abe Linclon | Apr 12 2009 7:52 utc | 4

A new record for the US.
Interview to Glenn Greenwald, “Obama worse than Bush on state secrets”.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 12 2009 10:32 utc | 5

The comment somehow didn’t show the link, I’ll put the two urls here: http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/mayfaire/latimes0213.htm
http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/04/11/glenn-greenwald-18

Posted by: andrew | Apr 12 2009 10:34 utc | 6

Friedman has a very suggestive article on NYT today. He waxes lyrical about the preservation of forests, the cleanliness of rivers, the whiteness of beaches in Costa Rica and thinks like almost everybody else that by passing such and such legislation the environmental problems will melt away.
But the NYTimes Times is published on paper that is made by felling forests, felling natural forests and then those forests are replaced by arboreal unicultures.He does not see that he traveled to Costa Rica on some motorized contraption that used those natural resources whose extraction and elaboration pollute the world and that he laments.
His enviromental thinking seems to amount to Marie Antoinette building a little farm in Versailles and playing to be shepherds and clean hand cattlemen.
On the Times today there is also the beautiful article about vasectomies. It seems many people expect that their future will be assured by workers, that will be someone else’s children, and whose labor value the vasectomized will be able to extract through appropriate legislation, well backed by terror.
Chastity, that is cleanliness, involves not only the emission of one’s secretions but the chaste preservation of Nature. There is no vasectomy for Nature, there is no condom for Nature, there is no contraceptive for Nature. When I want to preserve Nature I have mostly to abstain from something. That is true for sex, for tourism, for chemistry, for universities for everything.
Frankly it is not so bad that a whole country come to complete stand still one day a week. That reduces the abuse upon nature by what? sixteen percent? The Orthodox Jews may look ridiculous in the eyes of enlightened Europeanized people but there is something profoundly right about abstaining.

Posted by: jlcg | Apr 12 2009 12:50 utc | 7

I agree with your last line, jlcg: Abstain for one day a week, then bomb the Hell out of the world for the next 6.

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 13:36 utc | 8

Messed up rant about vasectomies, jlcg, cmon. The decision not to procreate means you’re oppressing someone else? Only if you view your kids as livestock. In fact, the long run implication of reduced fertility would be a rise in wages as labor supply declines. Statistically speaking, for the individual, having kids in the US makes you much more vulnerable to the economic predation going on. When people do birth control in the developing world their lives get better. It’s no less sensible here in the undeveloping world.

Posted by: …—… | Apr 12 2009 13:47 utc | 9

… here in the undeveloping world …”
Love it! First time I´d heard that phrase. Witty.

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 13:59 utc | 10

b, thank you so much for everything – and now for those gorgeous fertile springtime eggs! Unique! So happy!
I hope you had an enjoyable hand in preparing them!

Posted by: lambent1 | Apr 13 2009 0:06 utc | 11

Back to Main