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.
April 2008 archive
Apr 03 2008
Pony Party: DocuDharmathon
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
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under the fourth tab in the right column that says::: Site Donations
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Apr 03 2008
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~
Apr 03 2008
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…
Apr 02 2008
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!
Apr 02 2008
Four at Four
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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.
Apr 02 2008
Mind if I scare the living shit out of you for a moment?
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:
Apr 02 2008
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.
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
Apr 02 2008
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.
Apr 02 2008
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.
Apr 02 2008
Breaking: New Article On Torture at Guantanamo
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.
Apr 02 2008
Tibetans to Bush: Don’t Go to Beijing Olympics — Rally in DC — UPDATED
Please see the update at the end of this diary, with letters to the Chinese people and the world from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
On Monday, March 31, a large group of Tibetans, Americans of Tibetan ancestry, and other American supporters gathered at Lafayette Park outside the White House in Washington, DC to ask President Bush to make a statement for human rights and refused to attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in protest of Chinese government oppression of Tibet.
I have been very moved by the mostly nonviolent struggle of the Tibetans to regain their freedom, and by the strength and compassion shown by the Dalai Lama in urging them to maintain nonviolence at all times. I decided it was important to go and stand in solidarity with them. This is my report on the event.