Friday
Tuesday
Op-Ed Columnist - Wall Street Voodoo - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Wall Street Voodoo - NYTimes.com: "a new kind of voodoo: the belief that by performing elaborate financial rituals we can keep dead banks walking."
Friday
Intelligence wiretap power upheld | SCOTUSblog
Intelligence wiretap power upheld | SCOTUSblog Constitution? What Constitution?
Tuesday
Op-Ed Columnist - Mideast Dream Team? Not Quite - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Mideast Dream Team? Not Quite - NYTimes.com: "it is only in the U.S .Congress that a defense against terror that results in the slaying of hundreds of Palestinian children is not cause for agonized soul-searching."
U.S.: Bush Foreign Policy Legacy Short of Disastrous
U.S.: Bush Foreign Policy Legacy Short of Disastrous: "inflicted unprecedented and possibly permanent damage on Washington's image abroad"
Monday
Sunday
Saturday
Wednesday
The Journal Goes Frontline : CJR
The Journal Goes Frontline : CJR: "the big problem, which goes unmentioned here, is wage stagnation for everybody but the top one or two percent. I’m not denying that lots of us have overspent, but real wages have gone nowhere over the last four decades, and declined over the last several years."
Monday
Tuesday
Wind Energy Industry Applauds U.S. Senate Passage of Renewable Energy Credits
Wind Energy Industry Applauds U.S. Senate Passage of Renewable Energy Credits: "the wind industry is on its way to charting another record-shattering year of growth. That 21,000 MW of capacity will generate over 60 billion kWh of electricity in 2009, enough to serve over 5.5 million American homes and eliminating the burning of
30.4 million short tons of coal (enough to fill two 1,000-mile-long coal trains),
91 million barrels of oil per year, or
560 Bcf of natural gas (about 9% of the natural gas used for electricity generation)."
30.4 million short tons of coal (enough to fill two 1,000-mile-long coal trains),
91 million barrels of oil per year, or
560 Bcf of natural gas (about 9% of the natural gas used for electricity generation)."
Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com: "we can’t continue in this mode of “Dumb as we wanna be.”"
UPDATE: Attack on Gaza -- Self-Defense or Mass Murder?
UPDATE: Attack on Gaza -- Self-Defense or Mass Murder?: "In the usual process, the U.S. government -- and media here -- are playing down questions about whether Israel overreacted in its massive air strikes on Gaza, while the foreign press, and even Haaretz in Israel, carries more balanced accounts."
Thursday
Wednesday
Irregularity Is Uncovered at IndyMac Bank - NYTimes.com
Irregularity Is Uncovered at IndyMac Bank - NYTimes.com: "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One"
Winners & Sinners : CJR:
Winners & Sinners : CJR:: "Cheney’s favorite day was the one when thousands of innocent Americans were murdered by terrorists—because it made it possible for him and his henchmen to wiretap innumerable Americans without obtaining warrants, commit war crimes, and destroy America’s reputation in every corner of the world.
Happy Holidays."
Happy Holidays."
Tuesday
Regulator Let IndyMac Bank Falsify Report - washingtonpost.com
Regulator Let IndyMac Bank Falsify Report - washingtonpost.com: "It is the second time Dochow has been removed from a position as a senior thrift regulator. He was demoted in the early 1990s after federal investigators found that he had delayed and impeded proper regulation of Charles Keating's failed Lincoln Savings and Loan."
Monday
Saturday
The Associated Press: Conservatives win court case in Va. church dispute Although African-Americans were widely blamed for the success of California Prop. 8 and similar measures, at least one writer argues convincingly that African-American churches are no more homophobic than white churches (and the Episcopal schism is the most public evidence of that). Still, it's instructive to see yet another law originally intended to preserve institutional racism being applied in service of the gay-hating community.
Friday
Bloomberg.com: News
Bloomberg.com: News: "Bernanke is basing hundreds of billions in emergency lending on credit ratings from companies that gave AAA grades to toxic securities."
Thursday
UAW busting, Southern style - Los Angeles Times
UAW busting, Southern style - Los Angeles Times: "When one compares how the auto industry and the financial sector are being treated by Congress, the double standard is staggering. In the financial sector, employee compensation makes up a huge percentage of costs. According to the New York state comptroller, it accounted for more than 60% of 2007 revenues for the seven largest financial firms in New York.
At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car."
At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car."
Sunday
Friday
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum - Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination - Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum - Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination - Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism: "offer a working model of immateriality via the implementation of a vast material cascade of affordances"
Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks bankrupt | U.S. | Reuters
Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks bankrupt | U.S. | Reuters: "government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded"
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: Comments for Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: Comments for Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP): "As nuclear terrorism remains one of the gravest threat to U.S. security, the United States should pursue policies that will reduce the stocks of plutonium, rather than produce additional plutonium"
Talking Points Memo | What Happened
Talking Points Memo | What Happened: "Democrats gave up efficiency and emissions standards."
Thursday
UnitedHealth to Insure the Right to Insurance - NYTimes.com
UnitedHealth to Insure the Right to Insurance - NYTimes.com Since innovative derivatives of other types of financial instruments are working so well.
Monday
Sunday
What Obama Has to Look Forward To
What Obama Has to Look Forward To and the Bush regime still has a month to go.
Saturday
Meltdown weakens NYC as global financial capital - Yahoo! News
Meltdown weakens NYC as global financial capital - Yahoo! News: "It's going to be a long, slow process and take many years for us to really restore our leadership in the world,' said Ron Chernow, who has written extensively on the history of Wall Street. 'New York has been damaged, and some of it I think is permanent."
Tuesday
Monday
Tanking economy drives National Guard enlistments | zanesvilletimesrecorder.com | Zanesville Times Recorder The real reason why any economic bail-out won't be designed to create jobs.
Saturday
Friday
Audit Interview: John Ryan : CJR:
Audit Interview: John Ryan : CJR: "The issues related to the unsustainable nature of this housing bubble, the sort of practices that it bred, how the role of Wall Street changed incentives and how the industry itself wasn’t sustainable — these weren’t secrets. ...
"there were significant risks here that were recognized back in the mid 90’s by all sorts of players and debated here in Washington, in terms of the risk of these complex financial instruments and the lack of transparency of the markets in which they were originated and traded."
"there were significant risks here that were recognized back in the mid 90’s by all sorts of players and debated here in Washington, in terms of the risk of these complex financial instruments and the lack of transparency of the markets in which they were originated and traded."
Popular Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties - NYTimes.com
More evidence that Big Pharma controls access to health information at every level: Sen. Charles "Grassley is systematically asking some of the nation’s leading researchers and doctors to provide their conflict-of-interest disclosures, and Mr. Grassley is comparing those documents with records of actual payments from drug companies. The records often conflict, sometimes starkly."
Thursday
Obama Needs a Protest Movement
Obama Needs a Protest Movement: "The parallels between the election of 2008 and the election of 1932 are often invoked, with good reason. ...FDR became a great president because the mass protests among the unemployed, the aged, farmers and workers forced him to make choices he would otherwise have avoided."
Wednesday
Protests Over a Rule to Protect Health Providers - NYTimes.com
Protests Over a Rule to Protect Health Providers - NYTimes.com What's needed is a rule to protect people from religion.
Monday
Don't Believe Spending Cut Rumors - Defense News
Don't Believe Spending Cut Rumors - Defense News: "The informal alliance between the services and conservative think tanks threatens to further politicize the military. The abuse of national security arguments to win political arguments is both morally suspect and threatens the security of the nation by delinking strategic assessment from public policy."
Friday
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Monday
Sunday
Wednesday
Editorial - So Little Time, So Much Damage - NYTimes.com
Editorial - So Little Time, So Much Damage - NYTimes.com: "Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing."
Sunday
Saturday
Friday
Naomi Klein: Bailout = Bush's Final Pillage | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet
Naomi Klein: Bailout = Bush's Final Pillage | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet: "The bailout has been designed to keep stealing from the Treasury for years to come."
A Last Push To Deregulate - washingtonpost.com
A Last Push To Deregulate - washingtonpost.com: "the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo."
Thursday
Wednesday
Appeals Courts Pushed to Right by Bush Choices - NYTimes.com
Appeals Courts Pushed to Right by Bush Choices - NYTimes.com: "Republican-appointed judges, most of them conservatives, are projected to make up about 62 percent of the bench next Inauguration Day, up from 50 percent when Mr. Bush took office. They control 10 of the 13 circuits, while judges appointed by Democrats have a dwindling majority on just one circuit."
Tuesday
The Political Scene: The Insiders: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
The Political Scene: The Insiders: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin.
Monday
Sunday
Friday
Anti-Smoking Warnings Make You Want to Smoke, Claims Study - Advertising Age - News
Anti-Smoking Warnings Make You Want to Smoke, Claims Study - Advertising Age - News Or, why "Values Voters" vote for people with no values.
Thursday
Health insurers reinvent themselves as money managers - Los Angeles Times I'll think of a pithy comment as soon as I stop fuming, or figure out something that isn't wrong with this model.
Wednesday
A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN - Green Living, Environment - The Independent
A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN - Green Living, Environment - The Independent: "It argues that the world is caught up in not one, but three interlinked crises, with the food and fuel crunches accompanying and intensifying the financial one....
every year, for example the felling of forests deprives the world of over $2.5 trillion worth of such services in supplying water, generating rainfall, stopping soil erosion, cleaning the air and reducing global warming . By comparison, he points out, the global financial crisis is so far estimated to have cost the world the smaller one-off sum of $1.5 trillion....
Pavan Sukhdev, the chair of Deutschbank's Global Market Centre, who is leading the initiative, says: “Hundreds of millions of jobs can be created, there is no question that traditional industries like steel and cars cannot provide them. But this is a really huge business opportunity.” "
every year, for example the felling of forests deprives the world of over $2.5 trillion worth of such services in supplying water, generating rainfall, stopping soil erosion, cleaning the air and reducing global warming . By comparison, he points out, the global financial crisis is so far estimated to have cost the world the smaller one-off sum of $1.5 trillion....
Pavan Sukhdev, the chair of Deutschbank's Global Market Centre, who is leading the initiative, says: “Hundreds of millions of jobs can be created, there is no question that traditional industries like steel and cars cannot provide them. But this is a really huge business opportunity.” "
Friday
Voters contend they were duped into registering as Republicans - Los Angeles Times
Voters contend they were duped into registering as Republicans - Los Angeles Times "Elections officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM staff in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and Ventura counties say they are investigating complaints about the company..... It all sounds familiar to Beverly Hill, a Democrat and the former elections supervisor in Florida's Alachua County. About 200 voters -- mostly college students -- were unwittingly registered as Republicans there in 2004 by YPM staffers using the same tactic, Hill said."
The San Bernardino County story is several weeks old and extensively reported in local media - and just now making the Local section of the LA Times.
The San Bernardino County story is several weeks old and extensively reported in local media - and just now making the Local section of the LA Times.
Thursday
Tuesday
Freegans and FreeCycling Gain Fans - BusinessWeek
Freegans and FreeCycling Gain Fans - BusinessWeek: "Freecycle now has 6 million members internationally, and since Wall Street imploded it has been registering 50,000 more each week, up from 25,000 previously. Freecycle and the Freegans are among the fastest-growing groups on Yahoo!"
Experiments in Field Drawing on Vimeo The RFID pen maps out the fields surrounding an RFID tag.
RFID ("Ar-fid") chips represent an easy solution to tracking people or things. The chips are embedded in everything: cars, shoes, cell phones and clothing. Useful for retailers tracking inventory, but after the goods are sold the chips remain track-able. Buying chipped merchandise with a credit card links the RFID chip in the merchandise to your identity. RFID readers can be programmed to send an alert whenever your RFID chip is nearby.
Of course, you're a law-abiding citizen so you have no concerns about ubiquitous monitoring and surveillance.
RFID ("Ar-fid") chips represent an easy solution to tracking people or things. The chips are embedded in everything: cars, shoes, cell phones and clothing. Useful for retailers tracking inventory, but after the goods are sold the chips remain track-able. Buying chipped merchandise with a credit card links the RFID chip in the merchandise to your identity. RFID readers can be programmed to send an alert whenever your RFID chip is nearby.
Of course, you're a law-abiding citizen so you have no concerns about ubiquitous monitoring and surveillance.
YouTube - Rev. Arnold Conrad at McCain Rally - Jesus versus Obama?
YouTube - Rev. Arnold Conrad at McCain Rally - Jesus versus Obama? McCain's God is bigger than your God.
Wednesday
Tuesday
Monday
In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama | The Trail | washingtonpost.com
In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama | The Trail | washingtonpost.com: "'Kill him!' proposed one man in the audience."
Sunday
Mad Dog Palin : Rolling Stone
Mad Dog Palin : Rolling Stone "Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.
And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning."
And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning."
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