December 2, 2008 archive

Docudharma Times Tuesday December 2

Told In 2006 That

Banks Were In Trouble

Bush Did What He Does Best

Ignored It  




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Governors to press Obama for help with shortfalls

For Heroes of Mumbai, Terror Was a Call to Action

Thailand court dissolves governing party, sanctions premier

Sons of Mafia boss plead for private life

President Yushchenko seeks warmer links with Moscow as Nato hopes cool

The Queen of Campaigns

Rumour sparks Hebron settler riot

Mob runs riot as Zimbabwe runs out of water

Brazil goes high-tech in bid to protect vulnerable Amazon tribes

Officials Vow to Act Amid Forecasts of Long Recession



By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: December 1, 2008


WASHINGTON – The United States economy officially sank into a recession last December, which means that the downturn is already longer than the average for all recessions since World War II, according to the committee of economists responsible for dating the nation’s business cycles.In declaring that the economy has been in a downturn for almost 12 months, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed what many Americans had already been feeling in their bones.

But private forecasters warned that this downturn was likely to set a new postwar record for length and likely to be more painful than any recession since 1980 and 1981.

Rice urges Pakistan to cooperate fully with investigation

US secretary of state adds to global pressure on Islamabad as India claims to have evidence of link to deadly attacks

Julian Borger and Vikram Dodd in Mumbai

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2 2008 00.01 GMT


Condoleezza Rice yesterday called on full Pakistani cooperation with the investigation into the Mumbai attacks, saying they represented a “critical moment” in the new civilian government’s efforts to wrest control of Pakistan’s security services.

The outgoing US secretary of state said she did not want to “jump to conclusions”, but made it clear during a visit to London yesterday that she expected Islamabad would have to answer for the attacks which left nearly 200 people dead last week.

Rice, who is due to arrive in India tomorrow, urged its government to focus on the investigation of the attacks, and to avoid actions that might have “unintended consequences”, such as troop manoeuvres.

 

USA

A Pragmatic Pair Chosen to Confront Terrorism Threat



By Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, December 2, 2008; Page A11


In nominating former federal prosecutors to lead the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, President-elect Barack Obama yesterday selected two Democrats with sterling law-and-order credentials but less experience in detecting threats and gathering intelligence in the age of international terrorism.

Eric H. Holder Jr., the candidate to lead the Justice Department, served as the law enforcement agency’s second in command during the waning years of the Clinton administration, overseeing pursuits of violent crime, drug cartels and public corruption offenses. Janet Napolitano, who will run the sprawling Homeland Security bureaucracy, has served since 2003 as governor of Arizona, a border state at the forefront of the nation’s immigration debate.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

State of the Onion XVIII

Art Link

Not Quite Balanced

Stories to Tell

We both believe a story

(and so do they

and these and those…)

We both have a book

It’s just that you believe

that everyone should

worship your book

word for word

without context

while my book teaches me

that I must create

my own story

based on my principles

my ethical nature

my moral judgment

my basic goodness

as a human being

and laugh at the thought

that one person would seek

to force their thoughts

or beliefs

on another

I’ve read your book

You fear mine

And you claim

that your belief

is stronger?

You jest

I chuckle at your joke

Really

You slay me

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–March 23, 2006

Late Night Karaoke

Talking Leads To Talking

Arrested Development – Tennessee

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Madam Zelda!  Madam Zelda!

Has it only been 7 trading days?

11/20 Thursday -444.99 7,552.29
11/21 Friday +494.13 8,046.42
11/24 Monday +396.97 8,443.39
11/25 Tuesday +36.08 8,479.47
11/26 Wednesday +247.14 8,726.61
11/28 Friday +102.43 8,829.04
12/1 Monday -679.95 8,149.09

Schneier on the media information clampdown around Mumbai

This fear is exactly backwards. During a terrorist attack — during any crisis situation, actually — the one thing people can do is exchange information. It helps people, calms people, and actually reduces the thing the terrorists are trying to achieve: terror. Yes, there are specific movie-plot scenarios where certain public pronouncements might help the terrorists, but those are rare. I would much rather err on the side of more information, more openness, and more communication.

He gets it.

I was going to post a reply to his previous blog on the subject that said the same thing, but then – especially having realized that he wasn’t buying the Associated Press bullshit erm, disinformation piece which claimed there were “only 10 terrorists” either – I realized that 1) I was preaching to the choir and 2) he’d probably find a way to say the exact same thing I wanted to, and say it better. He did.

My 20 year career in IT has revolved around the use of technology to ensure that people can communicate, especially in a time of crisis. I’ve lived through two such crises in which there was a major disruption of communications: the Flugtag/Ramstein Air Show disaster of 1988, and the attacks on the WTC. I’ve provided mission critical IT support during the first Gulf War. What I’ve learned from these experiences is that it’s far better to have a well-informed citizenry who are on your side, untrained civilians though they might be, than to worry about giving away information to a small number of enemies. Our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people. In such a crisis I, for one, would never hesitate to give any civilian – perhaps a fellow citizen soldier – the best possible fighting chance, even if their only desire was to get away unharmed.

So yes, as clinical as I might sound, there actually is a shred or two of compassion in there. Indeed, I find the willingness of the media to outright lie to the folks who need them the most to be one of the foulest manifestations of the lack of compassion displayed by the mindless and yes, heartless servants of the military/industrial complex.

Schneier seldom, if ever, disappoints. I really hope the coming administration will take his advice seriously.

Fifty days until sanity…

If I could have a moment of your time to discuss your crapper.

With the knowledge that Joe The Plumber’s book “Joe the Plumber – Fighting for the American Dream” is fast approaching publication, I, a professional writer of pronouns and gerunds and other stuff with serif based English letters, am becoming increasingly worried about my job security.

I mean… now that HE’S an author, there surely will be one less opportunity for people of my ilk to ply our trade. That said, I know me some math, and while there is one less slot for wordsmiths, there is a opening in the area of sinks, toilets, and septic tanks.

So, with that in mind…

Open Thread

So I’m glancing through the news this morning and I find this:

Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don’t bother looking up. It’s likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.

A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter.

People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two “large silvery stars” happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about “the UFOs” that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite.

Now I have been burned too many times by astrological events … either the sky is too cloudy to see the fabulous eclipses or there’s too much light in my neighborhood to view the wonderful meteor showers.

So I forgot about it until I got home from work.  I got off the subway in my usual trance, half asleep, and was walking the four blocks to my apartment when I inadvertently glanced up at the sky.

Wow!  There it was, a beautiful crescent moon, bright Venus and Jupiter right there!  Although it had been raining all week, tonight the sky was dark and clear.  The lovely sight put a big smile on my face.

Open thread is open for your tales of astronomical wowness or anything else that you’d like to share.

Sorry for my absence

folks, I have been out of here for some months. We are still moving to South America, This month I hope, but we’ve been fighting health issues, tax issues, and, of course money issues. More below the fold…

Banks Stopped Regulations That Could Have Prevented Financial Meltdown.

Well, it’s all coming out now.  The Bush administration was warned about the potential problems with the housing bubble and loans being made, considered regulation, but backed off under pressure from, guess who?  Yes, the very banks being bailed out now.

Accountability means one thing for working people and another for the investment class.

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,” California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

msnbc.com

Also on Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

From the “what were they thinking?” catalog: greenwashing the Chevy Tahoe

There are many greenwashing efforts for gas guzzling McSUVs, seeking to put a green shine on polluting behemoths.  Normally, these come from well-paid hacks and company publicity machines.  Sometimes, however, you have to ask yourself, “What were they thinking?”  

This is truly the case with the naming of the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid as the Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year.  Amid the overall absurdity of naming a 20 mpg, 5500 pound, $50,000+ light-duty vehicle that will mainly end up in suburban drive-ways (typically with just one person in them when driven) somehow green, one has to wonder at the “names” associated with the award. These include Carl Pope, Sierra Club’s executive director; Christopher Flavin (Worldwatch Institute), Jonathan Lash (World Resources Institute), and Jean-Michel Cousteau (Ocean Futures Society).  

Let’s be clear, the Tahoe Hybrid is less bad for the environment and less problemmatic for America’s oil addiction than the traditional Tahoe behemoth, but ‘less bad’ doesn’t mean “green”.

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