Author's posts
Apr 03 2009
Arctic Icecap Gone Within 30 Years
Crossposted from Antemedius
For years as the planet warms the arctic icecap has been melting and retreating.
Many of us have long known that arctic wildlife like polar bears, gray whales, killer whales, narwhals, seals, and arctic fish and bird populations, as well as arctic coastal human settlements, are in danger of eventual extinction as their natural habitat has been retreating, but what most of us haven’t known is the extent and speed of the retreat.
Because of recent ice loss, Arctic surface air temperatures are warmer than normal, and much warmer than scientists expected to find.
As the ice has been melting the growing spans of open water absorb more sunlight than the ice previously did, so as more open water becomes uncovered, the remaining ice will melt more quickly. This will itself accelerate the rate of warming and lead to more ice loss. In addition, global climate change is likely to drive warmer ocean currents into the Arctic region.
You get the picture. What has developed is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic, and for the rest of the planet, and for all life on Earth. It’s been nice knowing you.
The shrinkage of the Arctic ice cap is viewed with much alarm by climate researchers and scientists, as it appears to perturb important ocean currents elsewhere, notably the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe its balmy climate.
Now a new report by scientists Muyin Wang of the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and James E. Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, is published in todays edition of the American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters, forecasting nearly complete icecap loss by 2037:
Apr 02 2009
The Political Fallout: Obama And The Economy
Crossposted from Antemedius
Obama is enjoying a high 61 per cent job approval rating in America for his handling of foreign affairs, but has suffered a marginal slump in public backing on his tackling of the financial crisis, a national opinion poll has said.
The approval on the foreign front is up by seven points since February, the Gallup said in its latest opinion poll on Obama released yesterday.
His job approval rating for handling the economy at 56 per cent is down by a slight margin of three points. This is, however, higher than his rating for handling the federal budget deficit of 49 per cent, it said.
Real News – April 2, 2009
Chomsky on critical support, Pt3
Chomsky: It should be remembered that Germany went to the depths of barbarism in 10 years
Apr 01 2009
Obama’s Afghanistan Surge: What’s Going On?
Crossposted from Antemedius
Today in “The secrets of Obama’s surge” Pepe Escobar says that “the President is not exactly telling all that’s going on in AfPak”, and argues there are many more strategic issues at play than meets the eye – and the President and his team’s spin:
President Obama’s highly anticipated new strategy for what the Pentagon now calls AfPak – Afghanistan and Pakistan – is full of grey areas.Most extra troops will be deployed to poppy-growing areas, not to fight al-Qaeda, the President’s stated number one objective.
The President talks about building trust – but as the US cannot trust the Pakistani ISI, the Pakistani people don’t trust the US or even their own government.
Mar 31 2009
We Cannot Continue To Excuse Poor Decisions
Hat tip to Armando this morning…
Eugene Robinson writes in an op-ed piece at WAPO today:
Both the credit crunch and the reluctance of consumers to spend what money they have left are the direct result of Wall Street’s atrocious misbehavior. Yet the administration’s plan for rescuing the banking sector involves generous inducements, big subsidies and the opportunity for wealthy investors to become much wealthier while assuming very little risk. There are reasons for structuring the bank bailout this way, and there are reasons to take a get-tough attitude with the auto companies. But the juxtaposition is galling — and, for many autoworkers, potentially devastating.
“We cannot continue to excuse poor decisions,” President Obama said yesterday as he laid down the law to Detroit. But it’s hard to reconcile that declaration with policies that seem to excuse, if not reward, unspeakably poor decisions made on Wall Street.
I can’t argue with the administration’s decision to force GM chief executive Rick Wagoner to resign. It was encouraging, even, to see the White House employ that kind of muscle, given the fact that the president now has to oversee so much of the economy. But shouldn’t the first public flogging have involved one of the bankers who got us into this predicament? On Friday, the day when Wagoner got his walking papers, the biggest cheeses on Wall Street went to the White House for a cordial meeting. All still had their jobs when they left.
[snip]
Our tough-love message to the banks: Would you mind, possibly, lending some of that money we gave you? If it’s not too much trouble, that is. And would you like another pillow?
Mar 31 2009
What I Really Think Of Barack Obama, Or WTF Is Going On?
And What I Really Think Of Eric Holder, too.
I suspect, or hope rather, to give them the benefit of the doubt, that what they might be trying to do is rather than fight or go head to head with the plutocracy that has them surrounded and controls foreign and economic policy and the judiciary and the CIA and the NSA and the military and the media, is to find a way to coopt that plutocracy, get them to see that it is also in their best interests to stop all the looting of society and warmongering, and get them on their side.
I don’t know if they have a chance in hell of accomplishing that though, if that is what they are trying, or if they will end up with everyone simply throwing their hands up in disgust and concluding that it is Obama and Holder on the plutocracy’s side, as it looks so far.
Mar 30 2009
Obama And Neocons Agree?
PNAC attempts to resurrect themselves?
Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group
By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe
IPS Inter Press Service, 2009
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.
The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.
It appears Mr. Obama is happy to accomodate them, with fearmongering rhetoric indistinguishable from Bush’s.
Obama sets Qaeda defeat as top goal in Afghanistan
Reuters, Fri Mar 27, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama unveiled a new war strategy for Afghanistan on Friday with a key goal — to crush al Qaeda militants there and in Pakistan who he said were plotting new attacks on the United States.
“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Obama said in a somber speech in which he sought to explain to Americans why he was boosting U.S. involvement in the seven-year-old war and expanding its focus to include Pakistan.
The new strategy comes with violence in Afghanistan at its highest level since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. The militia has escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in border regions of Pakistan.
“The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked,” Obama said, stressing that stabilizing Afghanistan required an international effort, not just an American one.
The Afghan Plan, “Mr. Obama’s War”
by Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, March 30, 2009
As I write this, it’s been about 72 hours since President Obama official announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is now “Mr. Obama’s war.”
He says it’s “America’s war,” but we in the media have anointed it otherwise. He owns it.
Mar 30 2009
Obama And Neocons Agree?
PNAC attempts to resurrect themselves?
Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group
By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe
IPS Inter Press Service, 2009
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.
The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Plan, “Mr. Obama’s War”
by Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, March 30, 2009
As I write this, it’s been about 72 hours since President Obama official announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is now “Mr. Obama’s war.”
He says it’s “America’s war,” but we in the media have anointed it otherwise. He owns it.
Mar 30 2009
Tim Geithner’s Oligarchs, Or How Financial Powers Control The US Government At Your Expense
Crossposted from Antemdius
Political Economist F. William Engdahl is author of the book “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order.” Mr. Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively.
On Sunday Engdahl spoke with Real News CEO Paul Jay about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s so-called “Private Public Partnership” plan to rescue the financial institutions in the United States, explains what Geithner is not telling you, says the plan does nothing to address the concentration of financial power in the United States that is based in the five major financial institutions that compose what we refer to collectively as “Wall Street”, and describes the Geithner/Obama plan as a “band aid for a bad hemorrhage”, a hemorrage that will exponentially increase over the next two or three years and mushroom into something much worse than the 1930’s depression.
Real News – March 30, 2009 – 11 minutes 58 seconds
Geithner’s Oligarchs
Engdahl: Obama must confront the oligarchical power of Wall Street to solve crisis
Mar 28 2009
Obama Overdrawn And Sinking Over Economy?
Real News – March 28, 2009
Obama held hostage by PPPIP
Pepe Escobar: If Geithner’s plan does not work, the President sinks
President Obama’s destiny – more than his foreign policy decisions – will be sealed by how he deals with the US financial crisis, argues Pepe Escobar.The verdict of top economists on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s new PPPIP (Public Private Partnership Investment Program) has not been auspicious.
Some speak of taxpayer rip-off while Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman foresees a “lost decade of zombie banks”.
The President has been trying to appease Wall Street while at the same time appeasing America’s anger directed at anything bank bailout-related.
On a global level the Chinese have made it known their patience with America’s addiction to debt has limits.
The upcoming G-20 meeting in London is bound to discuss more radical steps, while back in the US some already dream of a new saviour, post-Geithner.
Geithner’s Treasury $500 Billion to $1 Trillion Plan to Purchase Legacy Assets PPPIP Whitepaper is here (.PDF)
Mar 28 2009
Obama Overdrawn And Sinking Over Economy?
Real News – March 28, 2009
Obama held hostage by PPPIP
Pepe Escobar: If Geithner’s plan does not work, the President sinks
President Obama’s destiny – more than his foreign policy decisions – will be sealed by how he deals with the US financial crisis, argues Pepe Escobar.The verdict of top economists on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s new PPPIP (Public Private Partnership Investment Program) has not been auspicious.
Some speak of taxpayer rip-off while Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman foresees a “lost decade of zombie banks”.
The President has been trying to appease Wall Street while at the same time appeasing America’s anger directed at anything bank bailout-related.
On a global level the Chinese have made it known their patience with America’s addiction to debt has limits.
The upcoming G-20 meeting in London is bound to discuss more radical steps, while back in the US some already dream of a new saviour, post-Geithner.
Geithner’s Treasury $500 Billion to $1 Trillion Plan to Purchase Legacy Assets PPPIP Whitepaper is here (.PDF)
Mar 25 2009
The Black Hole Of The Economy
A black hole gravitationally sucks in everything that comes near it, and nothing can return from the other side of the event horizon once sucked in.
Banks lending money is one of the major, if not THE major way they produce revenue and profit. In any business, when sales are down you do everything you can do to increase sales revenue – or you go bust – UNLESS you can produce revenue another way.
Yet the real message coming through is that the banks BANKERS seem to have decided that they do not want to increase revenue in any other way than simply taking it from taxpayers instead of lending to generate revenue.
This leads me to suspect that they have no intention of returning to providing the “product” they have always provided to generate revenue, but instead have decided to simply and openly steal it, and that the current economic crisis is not something the government is trying to correct but is instead actively a partner in intentionally manufacturing.
With government help. With Geithner’s help. With the presidents help.
We have a big problem. The problem is not the economic crisis.
What is “government”?
“Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion — such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.”
–Harry Browne
Thomas Ferguson is an American political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is also a contributing editor for The Nation.
Today Ferguson talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the banking crisis and the black hole at the center of the crisis, the Obama administrations response so far to it, and about something he thinks really needs to be done that is not being done.
Real News – March 25, 2009 – 12 minutes 25 seconds
Obama should save the banks, not the bankers
Tom Ferguson: Stimulus package is dangerously small; plan for toxic assets shovels money to bankers
Mar 23 2009
CIA Has 3,000 Documents On Torture Tapes
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 23 March 2009The CIA has about 3,000 documents related to the 92 destroyed videotapes that showed “war on terror” detainees being subjected to harsh interrogations, the Justice Department has disclosed, suggesting an extensive back-and-forth between CIA field operatives and officials of the Bush administration.
The Justice Department said the documents include “cables, memoranda, notes and e-mails” related to the destroyed CIA videotapes. Those tapes included 12 that showed two “high-value” prisoners undergoing the drowning sensation caused by waterboarding and other brutal techniques that have been widely denounced as torture.
The number of documents – but not their contents – was mentioned on Friday in a Justice Department letter from Lev Dassin, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, to US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Dassin told Judge Hellerstein that unredacted versions of the materials would be available for only him to review “in-camera” on March 26. The CIA also refused to provide the ACLU with a list of individuals who watched the videotapes prior to their destruction because that information “is either classified or otherwise protected by statute.”
The number of relevant documents – “roughly 3,000,” according to the letter – adds weight to the belief that CIA interrogators were in frequent communication with headquarters at Langley, Virginia, and with senior Bush administration officials who were monitoring the harsh techniques used and approving them one by one or even in combination.
The volume of communications also lends support to the suspicion that many officials were involved in the debate about what to do with the incriminating videotapes, not just one or two CIA officers acting on their own. CIA officials have said the videotapes were destroyed to prevent disclosure of how the agency’s interrogators subjected “war on terror” detainees to waterboarding and other brutal methods.