“Veterans”

I use a ‘Live TV’ toolbar to get a number of stations, worldwide, which brings up a player that stays up as I’m browsing or working. Most aren’t worth watching or are not in english, but some interest viewing can be found as well as a few english language News Programs or Networks, like the BBC and Al Jazeera.


Checking in on Al Jazeera English to see what they were reporting, most of the time like the BBC and a few others, much more than the U.S. MSM, free press and all, on Iraq and Afganistan and other regions, I caught the near ending of a Special Program series they are running called ‘Veterans’.

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In a special four part series Al Jazeera looks at the fate of veterans from some of the world’s most savage or forgotten conflicts.

Whether they are conscripts, civilians, survivors – all have felt the shock of war and have been forced or chosen to fight to defend their country, their families or even  an idea they do not fully comprehend

Some veterans have reintegrated into normal life with great ease and success but others have been unable to overcome the legacy of the conflict and say they have been abandoned by the countries they once served.

The first of these reports is on the Soviets in Afganistan, Remembering the Soviet ‘Vietnam’

, which I happened on, the last few minutes of.


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The Black Tulip memorial in Yekaterinburg is one of few tributes to victims of the war

More than 600,000 troops participated in the Soviet Union’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, the USSR’s largest military operation since the second world war.

Yet for many in modern Russia, and in other former Soviet countries, the conflict is one they would rather forget and is regarded with humiliation. Two years after the Soviets were forced to withdraw the USSR collapsed and many veterans returned to a changed country.

Al Jazeera found many of those who returned alive and are still disappointed by the lack of support they received and still bear the psychological scars from a conflict sometimes referred to as the USSR’s “Vietnam”.

They have this report on their YouTube Channel, and I bring both parts to you.

While you watch this, if you choose, place in your mind another country and a present conflict, actually Two, might even travel back in memory, for some, some 30 to 40 years ago as well!!


Veterans – Soviets in Afghanistan – March 31 – Pt 1



12 and a half minutes

Veterans – Soviets in Afghanistan – March 31 – Pt 2



11 and a half minutes


The next three, in the series, will be:

Rwanda

Few conflicts are imprinted in the public conscience as much as the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

In one of Africa’s bloodiest ever atrocities it is estimated as many as a million people from the country’s Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus people could have been killed in a period of only about 100 days.

Although now at peace Rwanda still has many wounds to heal and the reconciliation process has been painful for many veterans of the country’s often forgotten longer civil war.

Bosnia: The siege of Sarajevo

The Bosnian capital Sarajevo is a tranquil and picturesque place. However its name will forever be associated with bloodshed after the city was subjected to one of the longest sieges in modern history in 1992.

For 44 consecutive months, its citizens were forced to take up arms to defend themselves from attack by Serb forces – forces whose violent actions against Bosnian Muslims across the country gave rise to the term “ethnic cleansing”.

The destructive effects of war endure for many veterans and Al Jazeera met people who fought on both sides and a volleyball team who have put physical injuries aside to turn misfortune into triumph.

Argentina and the Malvinas

The Falkands war is a conflict many people in Argentina would like to forget but one that most cannot. Although the war in 1982 lasted just 74 days the effects have lasted a last time for the country’s veterans.

A total of 649 Argentinians died in the conflict and for those who survived they became synonymous with a humiliating defeat and an unpopular military junta that collapsed soon after. At least another 350 veterans have committed suicide in the 25 years since the war.

Al Jazeera visited survivors still effected by the war for who the Malvinas (as the Falklands are known) are still an inalienable part of Argentina.

Veterans, beginning with Soviets In Afghanistan, airs from Monday March 31 at the following times: Monday 0630, 1430GMT, Tuesdya 1130GMT, Wednesday 2030GMT, Thursday 0730GMT, Friday 0230, 1330GMT

I came in a few minutes before this was stated: “Veterans are the best peace keepers, they know the value of life!”

I’ll just say most are and most do!

The rest look like a continuation of this interesting series, but that first, and our own, should have been Remembered and Understood by the Neo-Cons, who’s interest were, and are, Wars Of Choice, sending others to battle for them.


In Wars Of Choice an ‘enemy’ didn’t exist, it’s created once invaded and those invaded fight back many times with regional help, more often than not, no one intercedes except the arms merchants, for there’s wealth in them there Wars, and Damn the Inhumanity!!

And I hope the Treatment of our returning Veterans, of Mutiple Tours, Stop Lossed, and some Returned to Theater with PTSD, more than once popped into the mind as you watched the above Video Reports, as well as what some of these Soviet Soldiers are now experiancing, reminds me of my ‘Nam Brothers!!

News of the New Depression is slowly spreading.

If you’re at all familiar with Michael Fox (the columnist, not the actor), and you’re trying to decide if the current economic crisis is a recession or a full blown depression, he certainly makes it hard to be optimistic.  Back in November, Mr. Fox reported that the New Depression had already begun.  In February, he reported that it had entered Phase Two, and that it had gone global.

Deniers may or may not have paid Mr. Fox much attention, if any at all.  But now news of just how bad our current economic crisis really is is starting to bleed into the rest of the Blogosphere.  Salon.com’s Andrew Leonard writes:

Most economists are no longer debating whether there will be a recession in 2008. Now, they’re arguing over when the recession started — was it last November, or December? — and how bad it’s likely to get. While they bicker, however, a far more terrifying economic specter from the distant past has sent a chill through the infosphere.

“We have not seen a nationwide decline in housing like this since the Great Depression,” said the CEO of Wells Fargo late last year. “It is now clear that the U.S. and global financial markets are experiencing their worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” wrote economist Nouriel Roubini last week.

What’s kept things from completely collapsing is the hardcore denial by those in power that anything is even wrong.  The children running the Federal Reserve “reason” that if they can hold off all public acknowledgment that there is a crisis, and that allowing the “free” market to run wild was the cause, then the problem doesn’t exist.  And if the problem doesn’t exist because no one admits there is one, then the “reasoning” goes that when the next administration comes in and has to tell the public the truth, blame can then be shifted to that bunch.  Because, after all, the Depression “didn’t exist” until the new folk in charge began talking about it.

Except it does exist, and it shan’t be long before even the lazy and all-too-often complicit corporate media are forced to admit it.  The independent media has already belatedly come to terms with the fact of the economic crisis.  Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive wrote yesterday about the growing problem of looting other people’s homes for metals such as copper and steel.  People are getting so desperate, they’re ignoring things such as televisions and stereos.  Guard your plumbing jealously, ladies and gentlemen.  That’s what robbers are really after in today’s Great Depression.

What’s that?  You’re still not convinced?  Let’s read more from Mr. Leonard.

In 1933, 24 percent of the workforce was unemployed. In February 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.8 percent (though there are reasons to believe that number significantly underestimates the true picture). Between 1929 and 1933, U.S. GDP growth declined by around 30 percent, the stock market lost almost 90 percent of its value, and a whopping 40 percent of the nation’s banks failed. In the fourth quarter of 2007, GDP growth registered an 0.6 gain. While stocks are down over the last year and a half, there’s still no consensus about whether we’re living through a “correction” or a full-scale bear market. And even though scores of mortgage lenders have declared bankruptcy in the last year, both the real banking system and the so-called shadow banking system of generally unregulated investment banks and hedge funds are still afloat, thanks in large part to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s dogged determination to ensure that if economic disaster does strike, it won’t be because the Fed failed to pump enough liquidity into the system (an error that conservative economists are convinced helped cause the first Great Depression).

Now let’s read some portions of Mike Fox’s report from last November:

The Chinese had begun a sell-off of their US securities. They have dollars held by their government and, separately by their treasury (like the Fed).

Today, that entity has made clear that they will be unloading some $400 billion, which they already began in August (according to the China Daily, they sold off $9 billion – without buying any new debt in that month alone) in an attempt to divest of American Government securities. (They still hold over a trillion dollars of, well, other dollars — stock, corporate paper, etc)

The Japanese, not to be outdone, sold off some $24 billion in US treasuries in August.

Today, GM posted a loss of $40 billion in the 3rd quarter, because they had so much anticipated income from anticipated tax credits that they had opted to show as possible income FOR THREE YEARS in order to minimize the appearances of real losses, that they now had to suck it up and stick it all on the balance sheet for this one quarter, even though, at selling cars, they made a profit in that quarter! Can you wrap your mind around LOSING 40 BILLION DOLLARS IN 3 MONTHS? There are many nations that don’t have that number for a GDP, annually. This is America’s great manufacturing giant. And, as they used to say, what’s good for GM is Good for America.

So, America, let’s just all write-down our losses in the third quarter and move on, shall we?

Today, Washington Mutual (the one hitherto considered clean), got nabbed on CRIMINAL charges by Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General of NY for their mortgages (specifically for defrauding Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with bundled mortgages).

Today, the Europeans (as I pointed out in my January 07 letter, not published on SC – everyone else thought they were safe) are suffering too. BMW and LVMH both took large hits on their stock values, as they realize that all that entry-level luxe crap – that foolish Americans were mortgaging the floorboards to buy – will no longer sell (3-series BMWs are where the money is, but that market just slammed shut, similarly Louis Vuitton, which has opened dozens of mall stores to sell items that used to be exclusive, may as well close those doors, because the market will revert to the rarified air it used to breathe, and all those middle class gals who’ve been buying $1200 purses will do so no more, because you can’t mortgage a house after it’s been foreclosed.

Remember, this was back in November, before the bailout of Bear Stearns.  Now let’s take a look at Mr. Fox’s reports from February:

Egg, a British online bank, said it would cancel the credit cards of 161,000 customers it deemed too risky. The cards will stop working in March. The news provoked angry reactions from some credit-card holders who claimed their credit records were spotless. Egg was acquired by Citigroup last year, before the deterioration in money markets. [From The Economist, Feb. 7, 2008]

Citigroup recently found itself short of cash-on-hand, so they sold another 5% of the company to the UAE. That wasn’t enough, evidently, so now they’re tightening up on lending. First was the mortgage sector, now the consumer credit. Dropping 161,000 credit cards in Britain would work out to dropping over 800,000 were they to do likewise in the United States. Only, this is one small subsidiary bank in Great Britain, and this is only the beginning.

Those credit cards they’ve been “pre-approving” and issuing to anyone who’d sign up will soon be gone. Without the credit card – mad consumerism of the last ten years, store closures will be drastic, and accompanying unemployment will go without saying. Meanwhile, the government is printing more money to keep the spending spree going, even if the banks can no longer underwrite the party. Still, the Fed keeps lowering the interest rates to encourage borrowing – if only anyone were lending! Yet as the cost of money drops for the banks, credit card interest rates and fees are skyrocketing.

And:

Okay, people, if the foreclosure rate, the banks closing perfectly good credit card accounts, or the loss of thousands of jobs a month hasn’t convinced you, this is Earthshaking. Because, as depressed as the real estate market has been, and as volatile as the stock market has been, bonds have been the conservative investment of choice for large investment fund managers and long-term individual investors. Secretly, who hasn’t aspired to “retire and clip coupons?” (Note to the young’uns: tax-free municipal bonds used to have perforations like a sheet of stamps, and each coupon represented a monthly or quarterly interest payment that was like tax-free cash, thus the expression amongst the wealthy, “clipping coupons”; it has nothing to do with 20¢ off a box of Tide). Now this:

UBS AG won’t buy auction-rate securities that fail to attract enough bidders, joining a growing number of dealers stepping back from the $300 billion market, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. The second-biggest underwriter of the securities, whose rates are reset periodically at auctions, notified its 8,200 U.S. brokers of the decision yesterday, said the person, who declined to be identified because the announcement wasn’t publicly disclosed. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Citigroup Inc. allowed auctions to fail…Bank of America Corp. estimated in a report that 80 percent of all auctions of bonds sold by cities, hospitals and student loan agencies were unsuccessful yesterday.

That may mean as much as $20 billion of bonds failed to find buyers, based on the $15 billion to $25 billion of auction-rate bonds scheduled for bidding daily…Auctions are failing as confidence in the creditworthiness of insurers backing the securities wanes, and as loss-plagued banks…[Feb. 14 (Bloomberg)]

Yesterday, Warren Buffett, the billionaire head of Berkshire Hathaway Fund offered to personally shore-up the four companies that insure all bonds, and are at risk of having their own credit-worthiness downgraded (which would send a huge ripple of skittishness throughout the economy – a ripple, in my opinion, just waiting to happen). Mr. Bufett’s offer has been publicly rebuffed, and, yet, such bravado on the part of MBIA and Ambac isn’t making anyone feel the rock solid security they’re trying to convey. Everyone knows that when the defaults begin in bundled mortgage backed securities, they will not be able to come up with the $800 billion, and then, those holding more traditional bonds, those issued by municipalities and states, will be dependent upon the tax income of those entities, which are dwindling as the home foreclosure rate goes up.

And the Swiss are having none of it. So, yesterday, New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp.’s auction of $64.9 million failed. Likewise, the Port Authority (of New York and New Jersey), saw its auction debt soar to 20 percent on Feb. 12 from 4.3 percent a week ago.

Meanwhile, the CFO of MBIA, Charles Chaplin (no kidding), has taken his show on the road, telling everyone who’ll listen that everything’s okay, nothing to see over here, have faith. Earlier this week he announced that they had enough to cover any degree of failure that may occur, and today, he’ll be testifying before Congress that “A bailout of highly credit-worthy companies, who, at most, are at risk of losing the very highest ratings available, is misplaced.” But no disclosure of details has been made. So far, this roadshow is all talk, and I, for one would prefer to see the balance sheets. As the bonds themselves aren’t selling, the interest rate will have to go up to entice buyers. But that just increases the risk for the insurers. The problem snowballs.

By the way, did anyone notice that platinum hit $2,000./ounce last night? No wonder.

Convinced yet?  If not, don’t worry.  Sooner or later, the corporate media shall have to acknowledge that the New Depression exists.  The only question is whether it will happen under a Democratic or Republican regime.  If it’s the former, look for blame to be laid on the Democrats.  If it’s the latter, it’ll be those pesky regulations that take the blame, and the resulting wave of further deregulation shall inevitably lead to a meltdown that makes the First Great Depression look like a day at the beach by comparison.

By the way, the foreign press — ever ahead of our own — is calling the United States’ economic depression what it is.  How sick is it, that we must go to other countries’ news outlets and bloggers in order to get at anything even remotely resembling the Truth?

Pony Party: DocuDharmathon

(okay. so i’m promoting the damned pony… – promoted by pfiore8)

It’s spring.

spring sex. it’s true. i read it somewhere.

everybody, every manner of creature has more sex in the spring.

there’s spring cleaning… it’s a season.

spring forward… daylight savings time.

springs… it’s water

springs… coils in a bed

springs on someone… a surprise

spring to action… it’s a verb

and this action is one you can make to keep

Docudharma humming along

If you can spare a dollar or two, click the DONATE button,

under the fourth tab in the right column that says::: Site Donations

Thanks for your help in supporting Docudharma…

program note:

I’ve decided to re-promote this Pony, just in case somebody missed it…

However, I do need to recommend you to an incredible Pony:  73rd’s essay this morning. Wow! and for some reason, there is no way to post a comment… but, imo, this is a pony worth recommending.

what are our boundaries? what holds us in? or back?

what can we believe? what are we willing to do?

what gets us free? ah. i know something.

i have so much to tell.

and hey. remember. be excellent to each other.

Mythic Victory Surge: Boxer, Biddle & Rosen

This is Part I: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,

IRAQ AFTER THE SURGE: POLITICAL PROSPECTS 4/2/08.

Tomorrow see: Part II: MILITARY PROSPECTS.

Nir Rosen became my favorite guide to the real Iraq, the people and the streets of Iraq since I first read and diaried his comments last year. As one of the very few fearless reporters who have spent time without minders to speak of, with Iraqis out on the streets, talking to various segments of the population. His observations are invaluable and objective. He is no cheerleader.

For those who are unitiated, Rosen comes as a breath of fresh air. He is not out to impress everyone, does not behave like a typical panelist, but reads through his written testimony dispassionately, matter of factly, at a speed seldom seen in Senate hearings.

Today before the Committee on Foreign Relations two panels were heard on Post-Surge Iraq– the first military, then “political prospects.” You will find links to the Senate Committee hearings on Iraq this month here.

Electricity sparks flew for a while this afternoon as Barbara Boxer had the microphone. I love her rage.

~crossposted on the orange, still deluded I guess~

Senators sat with open jaws and then said things like, “I’m shocked to hear that.” “Do I understand you right? That’s just shocking!” They said it so much that the witnesses began to back pedal just a bit, wondering if perhaps they had used a bit of hyperbole, especially one Dr. Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was squirming at one point and one could see the bubble above his head reading perhaps:


“OMG, did I say that? Was I truthful by mistake? I’d better get some cover here.”

On the other hand, Nir Rosen was not flustered. He calmly supplied evidence gathered firsthand from his experience in Iraq. He actually speaks Arabic. Sometimes he is undercover in Iraq because no one expects him to speak Arabic, giving him access to candid remarks that Iraqis assume will not be understood.

Today — fireworks, outrage and incomprehension about how bad things are in Iraq came scattered throughout the hours of testimony –carried live on C-Span.org, and later on C-Span3.

At the end of the day it was Sen. Barbara Boxer who was shocked, and rightly so I might add. This stated fact did it for her:



The National Police act like militia for Malaki not as a national security force
.

Senator Boxer heard that and said, “What? Did I hear you correctly? Did you say……?” And they answered, including Mr.Biddle:

“Yes, that’s true.”

Boxer said:




“That’s not what we’ve been hearing from the generals. Everyone is telling us how well they are doing.”

Iraqi forces, the panelists told her, are composed of the militia, security forces and military. The Army is less sectarian, though still divided in loyalty, than the National Police.

If I’m right, Boxer then said: (paraphrase)

“Let me get this straight. After we’ve spent 20 billion dollars training the National Police, now we find out, now we are told that they are a militia acting for Malaki?!”

Boxer became very irate with Mr. Biddle and blasted him, very coherently, after one of his back-peddling-worried-about-my-own-ass, stammering responses. Boxer said, and I tried to transcribe this accurately:



“Are you saying we have made ‘bilateral agreements’ with ‘200 warlords’ –and that’s been called ‘diplomacy?!’ That is a total slap in the face of those of us who are against this war. We care a lot about the outcome. Don’t sat we don’t care about the outcome.”

Then, after reaffirming his statement to Boxer, he “clarified”:




“Well, we’re the only ones who are trusted as peacekeepers.”

In short, he said that the National Police of Iraq, and the Iraqi Army are not the ones trusted by Iraqis to be actual peacekeepers.”

Now, I do not know if that is correct, but it is rather incendiary for an occupation-friendly person to say that Iraqis cannot or are not trusted by Iraqis as being “peacekeepers.” (Of course, we knew that all along, but it’s not the admin. line.) Not when the administration and its current generals in command keep telling us how well the Iraqi Army isdoing.

Boxer quoted from a recent poll of Iraqi feelings about US presence in Iraq, done by abc/bbc:


     70% oppose presence of US forces

     61% say US makes things worse

     46% said security would improve if US forces left

     29% said would get worse if US forces left

On the question of refugees returning home we learned that there is no body with the country charged with adjudicating disputes of property. No  one body decides this and the US military is to be not concerned with this. Ultimately, they said, it’s too dangerous during a civil war to let people go back to their homes which may have been taken over by someone from the other sect.

Rosen told the committee that our troops are fairly brutal in what their mission is in Iraq. Rather than being police or peacekeepers, he said.  This is disturbing but fits with what I heard a general say last year in a passing comment that was never explained. Niren mentioned the 6900 juveniles in prison who can be executed, who live in “horrifying conditions,” adding that women prisoners are routinely raped.

He mentioned that in all the ministry (government) offices he visited they were covered with Shiite banners of all kinds. “Power,” he said, “is really in the hands of the militias. The Mahdi go into police stations and threaten those not sufficiently loyal to the Mahdi army. There is zero reconciliation.

Repeat:

There is zero reconciliation.

Rosen said that a report on humanitarian aspects, which he worked on during his recent trip, will outline some things that can be done.

When asked what should we do, Rosen replied:



“I’m not going to give advice to an imperial nation/government.” Then added, “I don’t think we’re there for the Iraqi people. That’s never been the case.”

Before we leave Nir Rosen, he has a Rolling Stone piece here

you might want to see, from which I give one little quote.


The jobs promised to members of the Awakening have not materialized:

An internal U.S. report concludes that “there is no coherent plan at this time” to employ them, and the U.S. Agency for International Development “is reluctant to accept any responsibility” for the jobs program because it has a “high likelihood of failure.”

Iraq showdown made Sadr stronger, backers say “Have a chocolate,” the thin, bearded man said. “This is for our victory over [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki.”

What did the military men say in the first panel today? Read tomorrow’s Part Two. Some interesting stuff.

Boycotting the Olympics is a terrible idea

For the Olympic diary: the United States is a country could decide to retire its athletes in uniforms of the component that specifically and explicitly addresses the issue.  The IOC might object, but the IOC of what object much more strenuously to an American boycott.  Were they going to do throw all the American medalists out?

For the Olympic diary: in 1980, the United States had a fresh crop of women swimmers, the like of which had never been assembled before, ready to redress the unfair shellacking they had received at the Montréal games of 1976 at the hands of the steroid enhanced East German women.  Or: Tracy Caulkins, Mary T. Maher, Tim Lenihan, Cynthia Woodhead, Joan Pennington,-these drug-free Americans had demolished the East German women at the world championships two years previously.

And who exactly remembers the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and any quote “political statement” that might have been made by the American boycott?  Or, for that matter, who remembers the effects of the 1984 boycott of the Los Angeles games, led by the Soviet Union-or even the reason for the boycott, for that matter?

Imagine, instead, this: an entire US contingent marching in to the opening ceremonies, every member wearing an armband of orange

One of the supreme ironies of the Olympic movement is that the ideal of the games themselves on the one hand engender and showcases world unity through the colorful and delightful intermingling of thousands of athletes from all over the world, and at the same time, are intensely nationalistic: after all, that’s how the games are set up-athletes represent their countries.

Sometimes the nationalism is delightful, as when the United States hockey team upset the Soviets at the 1980 Winter games.  That was a totally unexpected win, and it is difficult for those who did not experience it in one way or another to completely understand the symbolic importance of that game, coming as it did on the heels of the Iranian hostage crisis, a time full of shame for the American people.  Coming as it did on the heels of the Iranian hostage crisis in the Cold War.  Similarly, who I will gain between Hungary and is so union and at the 1956 games in Melbourne Australia was equally symbolic if not more so.  Hungary had just been brutally invaded by the Soviet Union, and feelings were intense as; blood.; the water literally ran red with blood.  As two of the world’s strongest teams faced off in the pool.

But I can deal with a cocky victory also came after President Carter’s announcement of the Olympic boycott, so Americans knew that the only opportunity that they would have during the Olympic year to express their pride in their country on the athletic venue was at Lake Placid.

Other times, the nationalism can get ugly.  At the 1984 games in Los Angeles, for example, which the Soviets and other Eastern Bloc countries boycotted in response to the 1980 US led boycott, I was saddened to see the over-the-top chance of USA USA USA exhibited by the home crowd at many venues for the US dominated.  It was an ugly display of in your face and nationalism, the kind of nationalism that is so closely associated the United States position in the world today.

olympic charter PDF

http://multimedia.olympic.org/…


51 Advertising, Demonstrations, Propaganda

[snip]

3. No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.

Bye-law to Rule 51

1. No form of publicity or propaganda, commercial or otherwise, may appear on persons,

on sportswear, accessories or, more generally, on any article of clothing or equipment

whatsoever worn or used by the athletes or other participants in the Olympic Games,

except for the identification – as defined in paragraph 8 below – of the manufacturer of

the article or equipment concerned, provided that such identification shall not be marked

conspicuously for advertising purposes . . .

Any violation of the provisions of the present clause may result in disqualification or

withdrawal of the accreditation of the person concerned. The decisions of the IOC

Executive Board regarding this matter shall be final.

dalai lama opposes boycott

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Shoot Yourself For Earth Hour!

http://www.henrymakow.com/next…

The solution to global warming that nobody is talking about!

http://thegeorgiaguidestones.c…

Also today Micheal Graham was talking about coed college rooms. Mike is Boston’s own “right” wing talk show host. Gender neutral room assignments they call it.  Hell, wish I was eighteen again!

What is interesting is never, ever to they equate any of this to the Illuminati Plan to Destroy America.  The college roomate thing is only a subplot in the degeneration of society.

http://www.cremationofcare.com…

Schools BTW have gone from centers of education to something else in the 90s

http://www.deliberatedumbingdo…  but that was not Satanic enough, education has now become centers of complicance training.

Also on education pResidential hopeful St. Juan McAmnesty spoke out about how only 1 on four BLACK and HISPANIC kids ever get high school diplomas.  Let’s see, pour through tons of stats, get it the marketing focus group type guys so they can tell McStain what and how to formulate the message.  Don’t know about you but a republican focusing on BLACK and HISPANIC should make the Red Alert buttons go off.

Other Illuminati news points to data mining.  ONLY THREE STATES have rejected the Stasi’s Homeboy Security plan for “real” ID.  In spite of stats telling us Faux News is dead FOURTY SEVEN states have raised their right arm at a 45 degree angle and said Seig Heil.

http://www.infowars.com/?p=1229

http://www.infowars.net/articl…

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar…

Four at Four

  1. Bloomberg reports IMF Cuts Global Forecast on Worst Crisis Since 1930s. The International Monetary Fund said there’s a 25 percent chance of a world recession and…

    The financial shock that originated in the U.S. subprime mortgage market in August 2007 has spread quickly, and in unanticipated ways, to inflict extensive damage on markets and institutions at the core of the financial system… The global expansion is losing momentum in the face of what has become the largest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression.

    “The IMF forecasts were on a slide presentation prepared by its Asia-Pacific department” and new forecasts are schedule to be published April 9. Of course, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is more interested in further deregulating the financial markets, described the IMF’s analysis as “overblown“.

    Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that “Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, presented his bleakest assessment yet of the economy on Wednesday morning, warning a Congressional committee that economic growth was likely to stagnate – and perhaps even contract – over the first half of the year.”

    With the dying U.S. economy, more attention is being paid to John McCain’s financial advisors, or as the Washington Post reports Economic slump underlines concerns about McCain advisers. Former Republican senator Phil Gramm “helped deregulate the financial services industries in the 1990s, and now sits in the corporate suites of Swiss banking giant UBS, which yesterday announced $19 billion in investment losses tied to the crumbling U.S. real estate market… Gramm, UBS’s vice chairman, said yesterday he was ‘totally unaware‘ of his bank’s massive holdings of securities tied to subprime mortgages, but, he added, ‘I’m confident we’ll recover.'”

    Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee in 1999 and under his misguided leadership, “tore down the Depression-era Glass-Steagall wall separating regulated commercial banks from largely unregulated investment banks. And little regulation was put in to replace it.” So Gramm is directly responsible for the current subprime mortgage mess and is clueless about his own bank. Feel confident in John McCain?

Four at Four continues with ‘terror’ financing and shipping from our good friends in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., John Yoo’s torture memo, and an update on Big Brother.

  1. Elsewhere in the financial news, the Los Angeles Times reports our ‘good friends’ Saudi Arabia is prime source of terror funds. “Saudi Arabia remains the world’s leading source of money for Al Qaeda and other extremist networks and has failed to take key steps requested by U.S. officials to stem the flow… Stuart A. Levey, a Treasury undersecretary, told a Senate committee that the Saudi government had not taken important steps to go after those who finance terrorist organizations or to prevent wealthy donors from bankrolling extremism through charitable contributions”.

    Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the Saudi failures mean that Americans who pay more than $100 a barrel for oil are in effect bankrolling extremism because wealthy Saudis “back-door” their profits into charities that fund extremist causes.

    Oooo… good point. However, “Nail Jubeir, press attache for the Saudi embassy in Washington, dismissed those concerns, saying the Bush administration has repeatedly praised Saudi Arabia for its efforts to combat terrorism.” Heckuva job Saudi terror payroll masters!

    Our other ‘good friends’ in the U.A.E. are letting terrorists get ahold of sensitive technologies. According to The New York Times, the U.S. is alarmed as some exports veer off course.

    Roadside bombings of American troops in Iraq were occurring with unnerving regularity when military investigators made a disturbing discovery: American-made computer circuits sold to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates had turned up in the bomb detonators.

    That finding set off a clash with Washington last year when the Bush administration cited the diversion of the computer circuits to Iran, and eventually Iraq, as proof that the United Arab Emirates were failing to prevent American technology from slipping into the wrong hands. Administration officials said aircraft parts, specialized metals and gas detectors that have a potential military use had also moved through Dubai, one of the emirates, to Iran, Syria or Pakistan.

    The diplomatic face-off, which drew little public attention, prompted the United States to threaten tough new controls on exports to the United Arab Emirates, an ally. The nation had invested billions to become a global trading hub and had begun a campaign to burnish its image in the United States after the uproar in 2006 over a proposal to allow a Dubai company manage some American port terminals.

    The administration backed down only after the emirates promised to pass their own export control law. But it is unclear that much has changed nearly a year after the confrontation.

    Don’t worry about the Emirates though, since, according to them, it’s all our fault. U.A.E. officials and trade experts “blame America for overstating the potential dangers of certain goods or passing on tips about illicit shipments that are inaccurate or too vague to act.” When was the discovery of the parts shipped through the U.A.E. being used as bomb parts made? Oh, back in 2005 silly. But as S. M. Mir Ebrhimi, chief executive of Reza Nezam Trading explained “There is no problem in Dubai”.

  2. The Washington Post reports on John Yoo’s 81-page Torture Memo: Laws Didn’t Apply to Interrogators. “The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.” Yoo argued that a war time president has virtually unrestricted power and laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment are not applicable in times of war if the president says they do not. The president is above the law in times of war, therefore, the United States will always be at war.

    “If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote. “In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”

    Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a “national and international version of the right to self-defense,” Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations — that it must “shock the conscience” — that the Bush administration advocated for years.

    “Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification,” Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.

  3. Here’s today’s Big Brother update. The Bush administration’s Fusion Centers finally make it into the corporate media. The Washington Post reports the Centers tap Into personal databases. “Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver’s license photographs and credit reports… [and] one center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA”. The fusion centers marry corporate and government databases together and “use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies”. Officials state they are “rooting out obscure threats.”

    Meanwhile according to The New York Times, the Pentagon is expected to close controversial intelligence unit that “was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into domestic spying… The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, was created by Mr. Rumsfeld after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States and abroad.” The office’s budget and size is classified and has been “managing a database that included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls.” Of course, it was just a “mistake” those groups were put into the Talon database. “Some civil liberties groups said they worried that the change might be cosmetic and that the Pentagon might be closing the office to farm out its operations to other agencies that receive less scrutiny.” No kidding.

Mind if I scare the living shit out of you for a moment?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Okay, I got something really good coming down the pipes, actually doing a little investigative reporting. Seems there were some fronts used in the subprime market that are of very questionable legality. But more on that later, today I am gonna scare the living shit out of you.

I’ve heard a lot about American Depression this, Holy Fuck Our Money Is Worthless that, but where is the data?

Where are the charts?

Where is the pure information that will prove we are not over a barrel, because we can’t even afford the barrel anymore?

Well, folks, here it is. Take a drink, hit the bong or prozac up like a suburban soccer mom, because here we go into the rabbit hole:

All these charts are from the Financial Ninja, his notes are on the charts, not mine. These charts are direct from the Federal Reserve.

If you don’t read Financial Ninja, I suggest it, he always has great research, saves me a lot of time extracting bullshit like I am about to scare you with.

http://benbittrolff.blogspot.c…

So here we go!

Total Borrowings are up from around $16 billion in December to $46 billion in February, almost a 200% increase. Both historical records.

Like an 80s retrofad, we have gone Less Than Zero.

You’d shit a brick if you saw this graph with the $45 billion included.

YES, $45 BILLION. Poof! Gone off the books! Must be sweet to be king.

All abroad the fail train! Next stop Deflation, with local stops to Stagflation and Bushvilles.

Why save? If savings account rate is below that of the inflation rate, you actually lose money saving it in a bank.

Locusts, the locusts are coming. At the end of the day, the ruling elite will walk outof this country and probably to Dubai with all the money they have looted from the American public.

Good thing they had a pretty cool distraction going while they looted us.

You know, that whole Iraqi War thing?

On Becoming A Bit

Sure, you FEEL like a human being. Like a …..person. You have flesh and bodily functions and other people treat you like a person and all, but you aren’t a person anymore in a very important way. You are a bit.

Photobucket

States quietly buy, mine personal data — including names of your associates and relatives

And of course, it all starts at the top…

The Bush Administration Intelligence Hydra

You are an electronic file.

And when you displease the government….or your credit card company…or your HMO by say, wanting medical treatment….

Your file is pulled. And scrutinized. And judged.

Your life is no longer private. Your police record is no longer separated from your medical record or your credit record or your driving record or your tax record. If not now…soon. And if not now, soon….the jamoch at the DMV or the phone company can pull up your file and there you are, laid out like a centerfold. And it is only going to get worse Real ID as a wedge issue

As mcjoan says in the link above…

Warrantless wiretapping, retroactive immunity, Operation Total Information Awareness, passport file breaches, a toothless Oversight Operations Board stacked with cronies. Each a head on the monster that is the Bush administration’s approach to intelligence, one in which political expediency trumps the Constitution every time.

snip

So it’s time for the public to flex its muscle on this issue. The first step is to demand what Sen. Wyden is calling for–public hearings about what the government is up to in implementing the various components of Operation Total Information Awareness in outright defiance of a Congressional ban. The intelligence committees should immediate convene hearings and demand public answers. That means you, Jello Jay Rockefeller need to do your job. Every Democrat on that committee (Feinstein, Wyden, Bayh, Mikulski, Bill Nelson, Feingold, and Whitehouse) should be demanding hearings as well.

(You can contact them through the Contact Congress box on the right of the page.)

As I said in an earlier essay

One of the basic functions of government is supposed to be limiting government expansion. Government oversight. This is in many ways, the government truly representing The People. “The Government” knows this, the government knows The People want to limit it….and so we end up, after a long circumnavigation….back at our title. Our reality has become on a very very deep level, The Government vs, The People. And right now….the Government is winning.

I’ll admit it, I’m a refugee

I like this place, a lot. The more I’m here, the more I like what I see, overall.

I’m going to be checking in here a lot more often that the orange place, in part because of Front Page diaries like this biased piece and the other trash that fills orange space [I’ve gone back to check, because I miss some of the posters].

It’s sort of funny. I have grown to appreciate Barack Obama more, but have grown nearly totally disenchanted with the Great Orange Satan. You folks have to understand, I posted tens of thousands of comments a year at the GOS, and I was a lurker long before I registered, even.

So that is all, just my pleasant way of saying I’ll be hanging out here for a while. I enjoy the less polizei type atmosphere where people don’t yell at each other “It’s not really a diary” and while I have not seen anyone get a ‘Wrong!’ for a Frist here, the lack of general animosity is very refreshing.

Fox News Is No Longer The Number One Cable News Network

Continuing a long pattern of decline, Fox News once again underperforms its competitors. The first quarter of a presidential election year can generally be expected to boost viewership for news networks. For CNN and MSNBC this has been markedly apparent. For Fox News…not so much.

As a result of the hyper-growth of CNN’s prime time schedule (persons 25-54), they actually finished ahead of Fox News for the first time in six years. Another quarter like this and Fox will finish third behind both CNN and MSNBC.

The stagnation of Fox’s audience can be traced in part to the downward spiral of the Bush presidency. Fox has long tethered its fortunes to a conservative ideology that has fallen out of favor. Now they have trouble attracting either viewers or guests from the more moderate and/or progressive population. They also have an age problem. Fox News has both the oldest skewing audience and the oldest prime time line-up. That combination produces a staleness that is reflected in their ratings. It’s ironic that the Republican candidate for president is also the oldest to ever run for the office. He should be a perfect fit for Fox, if not for America.

In addition to CNN’s win over Fox in the average ratings statistics, Fox has fallen to fourth place (with 24.5 million) in cumulative ratings, behind CNN (33.2), MSNBC (28.4), and Headline News (25.9). Cumes represent the number of the network’s unique viewers and are arguably a more precise measure for news programming (explanation here).

So contrary to the boasting of Fox News narcissists, they are not the ratings juggernaut that they would have you believe. In fact, sooner than many might have predicted, they will be reduced to also-rans. In advance of that you can expect that they will fiddle with their programming to deliver even more sensationalistic, high decibel, conflict-driven fare that virtually drips with steamy melodrama, controversy and a nightmarish dread of Muslims, immigrants and Democrats.

Breaking: New Article On Torture at Guantanamo

Via Raw Story

Top Bush Administration officials pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo

Of Guantanamo interrogators: “You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas.”

“Torture at Guantanamo was sanctioned by the most senior advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense, according to the international lawyer and professor of law at University College London Philippe Sands, who has conducted a forensic examination of the chain of command leading from the top of the administration to the camp at Guantánamo,” Vanity Fair will report on newstands today.

The article directly contradicts the administration’s account to Congress, which placed responsibility on military commanders and interrogators on the ground for the practices banned by the Geneva Conventions.

Raw Story has an excerpt, go read.

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