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April 14, 2009
Links April 14 09
  • Ethno-sectarian divisions vs. policy issues – Iraq’s New Provincial Councils – (Reidar Visser)
  • Nir Rozen on Iraq – The gathering storm – (The National via FLC)
  • Taxdollars at work – Goldman Sachs swings to profit, plans offering – (Market Watch)
  • Wells Fargo is bankrupt – Analyst: Wells Fargo to Show $120 Billion in Stress Test Losses – ( Naked Capitalism)
  • Up, up, up – Unemployment in catlady land – Calculated Risk
  • Propaganda for SUV’s – Study Says Small-Car Buyers Sacrifice Safety for Economy
     – (NYT)
  • It’s a depression when the national circus clowns go on strike – (3arabawy)
  • Afghans have a say in this? – Civilians Died in Airstrike by NATO, Afghan Says – (NYT)
  • NoKo: As you don’t pay as agreed we’ll make more nukes – (Reuters)
  • Not yet final – Minnesota Court: Franken Won The Election – (TPM)

Please add your news and views in the comments.

Posted by b on April 14, 2009 at 06:26 UTC | Permalink
Comments

B, you probably want to fix the link to the Oregon unemployment story. What’s the connection with Catlady Land?
Oregon’s big industry is forestry–particularly softwaood used in home construction. Also grass seed and sod, used to put lawns around newly-built homes. So, just like 1982, when the housing market takes a dive, so does Oregon’s economy. Over half the land in the state is owned by the government. (Oregon has a bit more than 2/3rds the land area of Germany with a population of about 3.7 million (est); about half of that lives in the Portland metropolitan are–leaving most of the state rural in nature).

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 7:11 utc | 1

Thanks Obelix – link fixed.

Posted by: b | Apr 14 2009 7:26 utc | 2

Today’s barometer of US-Iran relations: better, it seems.
An article about the “Egypt VS Hezbollah” story and its development and an Israeli commentary about it.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 10:06 utc | 3

Above it should be read “about the “Egypt VS Hezbollah” story development”, sorry.
Top Lebanese ex-officer admits to spying for Israel.
An audio interview to Dahr Jamail.
Iran offers to train Afghan police in drugs fight.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 10:11 utc | 4

Iran says it welcomes nuclear talks with West.
Peres answers: “Screw the rules, we do have nukes!”
A good analysis about this from Tomdispatch: Don’t flash the yellow light.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 10:15 utc | 5

Iran says it welcomes nuclear talks with West.
Peres answers: “Screw the rules, we do have nukes!”
From Tomdispatch: Don’t flash the yellow light.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 10:21 utc | 6

Neoconned again.
India rejects Pakistan’s demand for more evidence about the Mumbai attacks.

Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 10:29 utc | 7

It’s a bit misleading to say that the crash tests in which minicars performed so dreadfully are “propaganda for SUV’s.” The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashed three minicars into midsized cars by the same manufacturers: Toyota Yaris vs. Toyota Camry, Honda Fit vs. Honda Accord, and Smart (made by Mercedes) vs. Mercedes C-class.

Posted by: Peter | Apr 14 2009 15:17 utc | 8

Because catlady lives in Oregon, and is somewhat under-employed. I moved to Portland last summer (from Corvallis, 90 miles up the river, down south) with a pretty good chunk of savings, no job, and a lot of courage. I have a good part-time job as music director of a small church, and I’m picking up piano students and other free-lance gigs. Still draining my savings, but not so fast that I feel panicked. I watch my pennies, except when I go out to the pub to sing with my friends. Yes–we sing for hours, old British pub songs. I go out dancing 2-3 times a week.
It’s weird–there are a lot of people out of work, quite a bit of quiet desperation, and yet the city seems to be functioning very well. So far. I helped a friend make rent last month, no questions asked. She’ll pay me back when she can. If I want to get more students, I will have to slash my rates well below what I was charging five years ago in Corvallis. The hippy kids keep selling Starbucks lattes and going to yoga. People are putting in gardens. I need to go pick up some soil to fill the big pots that will frame my apartment porch.
Portland is a wealthy city, and a well-planned city with good public transportation. I hate to think of its beauty fading as the economic realities sink in over the next few years (reverse of what I experienced in East Berlin a couple of years ago, seeing the renaissance out of the gray peeling paint of the soviet years). The rest of Oregon will suffer more–the rural areas have been depressed for a long time, and there are folks out there with too many guns and too much meth. Our one advantage, if we as a state population can learn fast enough, is that our climate allows us to grow high quality food all year round.

Posted by: catlady | Apr 14 2009 15:43 utc | 9

Mike Whitney @ counterpunch interviews the guy Golden Sacks is trying to take down. he doesn’t mince words, for sure.
question: when will democrats in this country wake up? at the local, left-leaning blog i antagonize with uncomfortable realities, i’ve been called a number of things, but when they say i’m more annoying than the deranged rightwing trolls, i have to just shake my head in amazement.
because we live in the age of information, there is no excuse to not be informed. it’s willful ignorance, and i’m absolutely tired of it. they would rather remain within the false left/right dynamic, because it’s comfortable. because my criticism doesn’t come from either side of that bullshit dynamic, i’m a nihilist.
obama is a lying puppet of wall street, and anyone who can’t admit that is a delusional, starry-eyed idiot. the world’s wrath against the US for being the epicenter (and don’t forget dear london) will be justifiable, and because we refuse to get off our asses to do a goddamn thing about it other than bitch, we will deserve what we get.
fuck.

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 14 2009 15:55 utc | 10

Lizard,
It’s hard to argue with folks that treat politics like they do movies, sport teams and their fashions. Politics is boring. Politics is hard. Politics is sooo much work. Easier to parrot slogans, eat false hope and try their best to ignore the distant screams…
There are still people that haven’t bought into the BS. I meet more and more of them everyday.
One has to remember that only 57% of voters that could, did.
Of the number that did vote, many didn’t vote for either idiot, preferring as I did to vote for a third candidate. So when you get right down to it, a smidgen over 25% of americans voted for the most recent asshole in chief that effects the other 75% of our lives. I wouldn’t say that’s any kind of mandate.
The assholes running the show can crunch the numbers and I’m sure they must tremble when they see 75% don’t like the jerk in charge during any given administration… and during this administration that 75% has some really scary kooks in it… Kooks that even scare me. One can never trust people who would choose to wear swastikas and old german ss uniforms. Makes me shiver in my boots thinking of those idiots getting any foothold in the states.
The best thing any of us can do is to get to know the people in your community. Especially the ones with the guns and big trucks… You may not like them, but these are the people that will do something and its always better to be friends than enemies with people with guns. Just don’t do any drinking with them… that’s when trouble happens.
Lizard stay strong and keep being a squeaky wheel. I find the more I squeak the more I find others are willing to roll down life’s road squeaking in harmony. 🙂

Posted by: DavidS | Apr 14 2009 16:23 utc | 11

Catlady, I’m down here just outside of Eugene and while the unemployment rate in Lane County is dreadful, people seem to be doing what they need to do to get by, even with massive layoffs from RV makers and fading wood products. One of the reasons for the seeming lack of concern is that there probably never was much of a bubble here–and the strong counterculture, and of course, the university.
In some of the very rural counties (e.g. Curry), I don’t think that they ever saw even an echo of the boom.

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 16:24 utc | 12

Obelix-
My mom lives in Brookings out on the coast and there had been a huge building boom there, but of course that has slowed down, but she claims that houses are still selling because of retirees leaving cities to mold out their days in Oregon’s humidity.
One of my trips out to visit her I remember driving into a new development that was just streets and curbs –and Century 21 signs– one after another for blocks. I still kick myself for not shooting a photo of it. It was a crazy sight; and I say this having spent a teenaged summer working on subdivisions in San Diego in the late ’80’s during one of its boom times.
And maybe this is part of the worlds problem: ????

Softcore porn franchise Girls Gone Wild is claiming record sales after one of its ubiquitous basic cable ads accidentally aired during a live telecast of the Good Friday service at the Vatican.

Ain’t america grand?

Posted by: DavidS | Apr 14 2009 16:36 utc | 13

@Peter – It’s a bit misleading to say that the crash tests in which minicars performed so dreadfully are “propaganda for SUV’s.” The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashed three minicars into midsized cars by the same manufacturers: Toyota Yaris vs. Toyota Camry, Honda Fit vs. Honda Accord, and Smart (made by Mercedes) vs. Mercedes C-class.
It’s propaganda for SUV because of the general “bigger is better” assumption that is projected but is generally false. The front collisions tested are maybe 5% of all accidents. To assess the overall safety of a car it is insufficient.

Posted by: b | Apr 14 2009 16:40 utc | 14

Side impact collision tests might have been more useful, but chances are the minicars would have done just as poorly. Or even worse, if that’s possible.

Posted by: Peter | Apr 14 2009 17:02 utc | 15

David, Oregonians make no bones about their feelings for their neighbors to the south, who have pretty much ruined their own state. Brookings is on what’s called Oregon’s Gold Coast and a destination (like Ashland and surrounds) of Californians fleeing their state. But the remainder of the county is pretty depressed. According to 2007 census data some 27.6 percent of the county inhabitants are over 65 years of age. I suspect that the figure for Brookings is substantially higher.
A boom in Brookings is small potatoes indeed–the city has a population of only 6,720 souls.
One “growth industry” in my area has been senior citizen warehousing–and one of the biggest developers of that, Sunwest, is bankrupt. My amateur music group has played in a number of their compounds and I’ve found the atmosphere oppressive in the extreme. I’d much rather play in their Alzheimer’s lockups, as the inmates there seem to enjoy the music more.

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 17:45 utc | 16

But don’t forget SUVs lead the pack in fatal roll-overs.

Posted by: Ensley | Apr 14 2009 20:53 utc | 17

A nice chat with Sibel Edmonds.

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 21:12 utc | 18

Aren’t we all delighted that Rupert Murdoch runs the Wall Street Journal, which now produces insightful and fact-filled pieces like this>

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 21:45 utc | 19

Darn, got the link wrong

Posted by: Obelix | Apr 14 2009 21:46 utc | 20

via inner city press, how can miguel d’escoto see some things so clearly

UNITED NATIONS, April 14 — The responsibility to protect, a doctrine that if a government cannot or does not serve its people others may step in to do so, was called by the President of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday a “new cosmetic improvement” on the “right to intervene.” Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, formerly Nicaragua’s foreign minister, said that R2P reminds him of the United States’ interventions in Latin America “to protect its interests.”
…
asked if d’Escoto is a supporter of or skeptic about R2P. D’Escoto answered that he has “reservations” about R2P, and may organize an interactive panel on the topic.

and yet

D’Escoto has already scheduled for June 1-3 a meeting on the global financial crisis. Inner City Press asked, in light of d’Escoto’s public praise of Barack Obama, who might come to the event from the U.S. government. D’Escoto answered that he “hopes God protects Obama,” comparing him to Martin Luther King

but then

He began the press conference by referring to the UN’s failure to bring about a Palestinian state. Asked about his past, he said he is more of a Sandinista today than in 1979.

Posted by: b real | Apr 15 2009 4:10 utc | 21

Obelix:
Pitchers of Ninkasi IPA for the house. If you head downstream and would like to have a Moonbat meeting, drop me a note here. I would love to organize a Pacific NW Moonbat weekend with annie, anna missed, lizard, see if we can dig up Uncle $cam. Who else?

Posted by: catlady | Apr 15 2009 7:16 utc | 22

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