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May 2, 2009
Links May 2 09
  • Yuck – Swine of the times: The making of the modern pig – (Harpers)
  • No change – U.S. May Revive Guantánamo Military Courts – (NYT)
  • No change – Up to 100 inmates can't be tried or freed, Gates says – (France24)
  • Putsch preparations
    1 Petraeus sees Pak gov't has 2 weeks "before next US action" – (World Bulletin)
    2 In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition – (NYT)
    3 Gen. Kayani among world's most influential people: Time – (The News)
  • The guy who gave them information got 12 years – U.S. drops spy charges against two ex-AIPAC officials – (Haaretz)
  • Has it ever been so? – Sadly, Israel is no longer democratic – (Haaretz)
  • Credit Default Swaps are moral hazardous – Derivatives and attempted state capture in Kazakhstan – (Mavercon/FT)
  • "The best solution" – Berkshire's Munger Favors Ban on Credit-Default Swaps – (Bloomberg)
  • Hardly enough – Citi Said to Need Up to $10 Billion – (WSJ)

Please share your links, news and views in the comments.

Posted by b on May 2, 2009 at 05:37 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Under “Rich and Korrupt”, the Dutch Royal House Finances Act provides Queen Beatrix and her retinue some 100M Euros every year for expenses.
There are 16,408,557 residents of the Netherlands,therefore each resident pays only 6 Euros every year to support their Queen, although if you consider only working taxpayers, the number is more like 1 Euro a month, the equivalent of two quarts of milk, or a fresh haaring and a cup of kafee.
Therefore Karst Tates couldn’t have saved his rent in taxes by assassinating the Queen, unless you consider the hidden financial impact of the Queen’s investments, not that anyone ever disturbs or discloses the financial activities of the royals.

Posted by: Sharon Carmichel | May 2 2009 6:22 utc | 1

Jeff Stein who brought new life to the Harman case has a new post on the sequel:

Rozen further muddies the issue by referring to “DOJ’s burgeoning investigation into Harman.”
Not only was a Justice Department “investigation” of Harman not “burgeoning,” it had not even begun, as I and others have reported, based on first-hand sources.
The Justice Department was investigating secret Israeli operations in the United States, not Harman. (And now even that investigation has evidently come up empty).
Back in 2005, however, what the congresswoman was overheard saying to the wiretap target was troubling enough to prompt an investigation of her. But as I have reported, the FBI was blocked from questioning her by Attorney General Gonzales, with the support of National Intelligence chief John D. Negroponte, according to my now numerous sources.
Everything else written about hidden agendas in this case is speculation, which, by the looks of instant commentary on the AIPAC case, will undoubtedly continue to take the place of reporting on this sordid affair.

I’d like to know more about that “has evidently come up empty” and hope that Stein will continue to talk to his “by now numerous sources” to do some more “reporting” on this matter. If there are any disaffected insiders trying to bring these affairs to public attention, they should certainly take heart from the recent decision of the U.S. government not to pursure the case against Rosen and Weissman. Who knows, maybe even the hapless Larry Franklin will soon be exonerated, since he too was only trying to do what was, in his view, right for the U.S.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 2 2009 9:17 utc | 2

For a good laught, I pick this citation from Debka from Gordon Prather last article:

“Moscow had informed the Iranians that its spy satellites and intelligence sources had picked up preparations at Israeli Air Force bases to destroy the 140 warplanes, the bulk of the Iranian air force, on the ground the night before the display, leaving its nuclear sites without aerial defense.”

As Prather too comments, can this report be conceivably?
Mayday in Mexico at the days of Swine Flu.
Why much of the discussion about Swine Flu is racist.

Posted by: andrew | May 2 2009 10:16 utc | 3

Iraq’s Wrecked Environment.
Obama’s first 100 days: the Afghan War is becoming America’s War, by Marc Herold (in case you missed it, 3 years ago Herold wrote a great article about Afghanistan Afghanistan as an empty space).

Posted by: andrew | May 2 2009 10:24 utc | 4

Tokyo’s Mean Streets, about Safety Ordinance in Japan.
Being a rotten apple pays.
Kaveh Afrasiabi
states some good points about the Iran Sanctions Enhancement Act:

Before adopting this bill, Congress ought to pause and think more seriously about the likely adverse results lest it gets implemented and, indeed, it causes significant disruption in the Iranian economy. In that case, Iran would retaliate where it could in the region by threatening US interests where they are the weakest, hardly a fulfillment of Obama’s current quest to enlist Iran on regional security.
[…]
Coinciding with an Iran-focused annual conference of the powerful pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), over the weekend, [1] the purpose of this pending legislation is to provide “a powerful new weapon to use against Iran”, to paraphrase Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, one of its sponsors.
Another key sponsor, Senator Joseph Lieberman, has also referred to it as “another stick” and, according to reports in the US media, has solicited the approval of the Obama administration’s point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, who is touring the Persian Gulf region to whip up support for the US’s diplomacy on Iran. He is an avid supporter of the “tougher sticks rather than carrots” approach toward Iran.
[…]
Instead of opposing the new bill, which puts US diplomacy squarely in the coercive mode, the White House has tacitly nodded to it, particularly since the bill cites several past campaign statements of Obama in support of hitting the supply of gasoline to Iran in order to “squeeze” the country. The expectation is that such an “interruption” would “significantly bolster current diplomatic initiatives”.
[…]
It appears that pseudo-engagement has replaced true engagement with Iran and the new legislation camouflages its true intention – to restrict, postpone and ultimately nip in the bud the flashes of a diplomatic change in the US’s hitherto coercive diplomacy toward Iran.

Posted by: andrew | May 2 2009 10:42 utc | 5

This use to be a good site for news on the Israeli Palestinian front…what’s happen? Now it’s only a foot note.
I think the pressure should continue on Israeli politicians, now is not the time to stop.

Posted by: cam | May 2 2009 14:32 utc | 6

DOJ announces dropping of AIPAC case on Friday afternoon, while most eyes are still focussed on flu. Who saw that coming?

Posted by: small coke | May 2 2009 15:32 utc | 7

What about the possibility that Harman was set up? It doesn’t excuse her having the conversation, instead of cutting it off immediately. And it means someone could assume that she would, at least, entertain the caller, thus being entrapped.
Nevertheless, the Israeli operative did call her. If that was a warranted FBI wiretap, isn’t there a good chance that the operative suspected a tap (or even knew it, from friends in high places. Could the call have been part of a bargain, in return for losing tap evidence?).
The specific purpose of entrapping Harman, I won’t guess. But she had a pretty good record, for a Congresscritter, on opposing torture. After the taping, she caved on warrantless listening.
Also, it seems that there was bad blood between her and Porter Goss going back years. Goss, by the time Harman was caught, was at CIA.
Finally, it does not seem that any of the events proposed in the phone conversation ever happened sunsequently. But Bush WH did get Harman’s vote for warrantless wiretaps.
A somewhat complex game, but one which one assumes that the Bush team played constantly with Congress. It’s the best explanation for why so many of the Bush WH’s best friends in Congress were also the most compromised.

Posted by: small coke | May 2 2009 15:48 utc | 8

A springtime rain is slowly soaking the ground outside while I write – I guess it’s a needed change from a week of beautiful weather (while I was working inside, damit!) if I want to see my beautiful flowers blooming.
I’ve been trying to do my best to follow all the MoA news and views over the past week but my own life became so busy, I’ve had a difficult time digesting so much information. I have a head full of your postings swimming around in my brain while I’ve been working on a couple of other people’s projects.
NPR is pretty much my sole MSM source and I’ve spent the week yelling at my poor radio as it broadcast the noise of empire marching on. We’ve been killing the messenger longer than radios have been around – tossing one of Edison’s kids against a brick wall in a fit of anger while listening to it spew the State’s filthy propaganda is a moment of pleasure briefer than the orgasm achieved during a back-seat handjob but…
I didn’t toss my radio. Enough of my friends are broadcasters so I know firsthand tossing a radio may bring a brief moment of pleasure, but the folks in the DJ booth (and their masters) don’t notice. Plus I’d need to buy a new radio; this whole process is just more pointless consumerism which may be THEIR reason for filling the airwaves with stupefying half-truths.
What I’m trying to say is THANK YOU! to b and the rest of you who are continually making me aware of all the turds floating in life’s swimming pool… While it might be easier to ignore them and hope I don’t bump into one, I think it is far better to know where they’re floating and maybe get somebody to remove the thing… Why do so many of our fellow humans tolerate swimming with turds when they can instead be swept from the pool, I haven’t been able to figure. Maybe we’re all turds disguised in skin suits and fear our own ouster?
I was talking to a friend yesterday while we were working and it was during our conversation I realized what a kook I must seem to a normal fellow like him. He was against war and for torture… It would take too much time to try and explain his thinking on this, and even if I did, no one but him would understand, or at least I hope that would be the case (and probably is here in the bar).
Yeah, when I snuck thru the doors to b’s bar, something happened for me; I realized I wasn’t alone in the weird world of thought.
It’s difficult to have a MoA debate with the members of the public who don’t want to know how the sausage of government is made… I’ve had adults cover their ears and start going HMMMMMMMMM (and they call me the FreaK…) when I’ve tried to open their minds to other possibilities in their thinking. These are the people who are constantly looking backwards to try and see their future. Everyone thinks they want the life their parents lived and yet they continue to complain things are still screwed-up. Isn’t one definition of madness is; doing the same thing, in the same way, and expecting different results?
The old Moon sits next door to the corporate/political butcher shop with a big picture window we can look into while we sip on our cocktails. We watch and agonize about the parts and pieces men with white shirts and bloody hands have been picking off the floor and adding to the mix. We can see how filthy that floor is from our barstools; in fact the whole world could see if they bothered to stop long enough to watch the butchers working. What is most frightening is how many people stop, watch, lick their lips and then march through the door to buy as many links as they can afford.
Food analogies… I must be getting hungry and boring you too.
Let me finish with something hopeful, at least for me it is. One of my projects has been helping a photographer buddy of mine start to build a sweet large-format B&W darkroom in my basement. He is going to be printing 20×24’s and larger from 2 ¼ negs and I’m trying to find Tri-X in 20×24 sheets (or larger) to use in a really cool pinhole camera I built years ago.
Used the pinhole to shoot R-3 paper (one or two 20×24 pieces loaded inside) while I worked at a custom E-6 lab where I had access to boxes of old R-3 paper, a 30 inch processor and a room big enough to load paper into the pinhole (R-3 is basically a slidefilm emulsion on paper used for printing slides, E-6 is photospeak for the process of developing slides)
Since the digital boom, the lab is now only doing digital work… and if I want to capture light on silver I have to shoot B&W, shucks ☺
A final thought: Hopefully Cheney has nightmares about being waterboarded; waking-up gasping for air with a pillow soaked in sweat and tears smothering him…

Posted by: DavidS | May 2 2009 16:02 utc | 9

Blurring the lines between magic and science: Berkeley researchers create an ‘invisibility cloak’

a “carpet cloak” from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible.
“We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric (nonconducting) materials,” says Zhang. “Our optical cloak not only suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach, it also represents a major step towards transformation optics, opening the door to manipulating light at will for the creation of powerful new microscopes and faster computers.”

Posted by: plushtown | May 3 2009 0:25 utc | 10

Commercial Appetite and Human Need: The Accidental and Fated Revival of Kobayashi Takiji’s Cannery Ship: Norma Field on the revival of a 1920 communist novel in Japan.
Extract from the novel: Kanikosen over at Neo-Japonism.
The subject has been touched briefly on MOA a few days ago in a MSM view from the Guardian.

Posted by: Philippe | May 3 2009 1:30 utc | 11

China continues to pull away from the dollar.

Posted by: china_hand2 | May 3 2009 6:42 utc | 12

Meanwhile, Asian diplomacy is set to undergo a major shift.
Apparently, Australia is now questioning whether it will “be able to rely on America to underwrite its security, as it has done pretty much since 1941”.
So now it’s pumping up its military.

Posted by: china_hand2 | May 3 2009 7:09 utc | 13

@12,
Yes, the Chinese would rather use their money more wisely, like loaning Kazakhstan $10 billion to shore up their banking system and extractive industries (related to KZ link above). After the Blackstone investment debacle and being refused on Sunoco, I don’t see much money coming from China to help US firms.
Long term strategies of avoiding confrontations, patience and plenty of cash.

Posted by: biklett | May 3 2009 7:17 utc | 14

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