January 2009 archive

GM Loosens Credit Standards

For Car Loans

Just Another Credit Crisis On The Horizon

Israel prepares to send in the tanks



By Kim Sengupta in Jerusalem and Anne Penketh

Saturday, 3 January 2009

Israel appears poised to extend its week-long assault on Gaza by launching a ground assault, amid renewed reports last night that troops and armour were preparing to move into the besieged Palestinian territory.

As more than 300 foreign passport holders were allowed to leave Gaza after the border was temporarily opened, Israeli officials warned that a ground offensive was needed to break the military power of Hamas, which has continued to carry out rocket attacks despite pulverising air strikes.

‘What happens in war happens’

In 2004, photographs of abuses at Abu Ghraib shocked the world. Seven people were charged, but the face of the scandal will always be Lynndie England, the 21-year-old private grinning at the camera. Emma Brockes meets her



Emma Brockes

The Guardian, Saturday 3 January 2009

The road to Fort Ashby, West Virginia, runs through Mineral County, an area of freezing grey farmland and barrack-style bungalows, where the sign outside the bar – “Hunters welcome” – has an unnerving effect on the passing non-hunter. In Cindy’s coffee shop, customers speculate on the whereabouts of a lost cow and tell a weird Republican joke about the noise a chicken makes when its head is cut off: “Barack-Obama!, Barack-Obama!” Lynndie England has lived in Fort Ashby since she was two, but when she appears, suddenly, in the car park, her outline is crooked with self-consciousness. She grew her hair for a while, but people recognised her anyway, so she cut it short again.

The last time journalists came to Fort Ashby in any number, they upset residents by portraying it as “a giant trailer park”. There are two bars, two banks, a fire station, a school and a bookshop – the woman who runs the latter says, “I’ve no sympathy for what she did, but people behave differently in war than they do in their chairs at home, watching it on TV.”

USA

Obama’s View on Power Over Detainees Will Be Tested Early



By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: January 2, 2009

WASHINGTON – Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration – that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime. The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

All Languages Welcome

stone temple pilots – interstate love song

cross posted at kos

There has been a lot made of whether Roland Burris wanted Rolando Cruz dead rather then alive in 1992.

I do not know whether he did or not.

But I do remember the Jeannine Nicarico case.

Little Jeannine, age 10, stayed home from school one day because she was sick. Someone broke into her home, removing the door from its hinges and robbed it. She hid under a bed but was discovered and taken. Her body was found several days later in a wooded area. Her head smashed in and she had been raped, probably postmortem.

Badges – Minutemen

Having extra time off today, I’ve been doing a little maintenance on the Docudharma Series page.  

I just added 3 more series – which in some cases should have been done a long time ago.  (Sorry guys!)  I also removed a few series for users who left the site and deleted all their essays.  

Here’s the new badges – they are already appearing in the rotation of the flickr widget.  

Friday Constitutional – by Something The Dog Said Teaching, Law. The Dog takes us through each Article and Section of the Consititution.  Knowing the relevance and intent of this document is essential for every political blogger and citizen of the United States.   RSS Feed OR Tag Page

Manufacturing Monday – by Johnny Venom Economy, Business.  Johnny Venom digests the weekly business news, bringing you informative and detailed analysis of industry, labor, economics, world trade and more. RSS Feed OR Tag Page

Late Night Karaoke – by mishima Music.  mishima cues up the tunes so everyone can sing along.   RSS Feed OR Tag Page

Thanks to The Dog, Johnny Venom, and mishima for all their good work.  

I’ve been gratified by the good response in the blogosphere to the Petition for a Special Prosecutor.

I believe most people, if they take even the smallest bit of time to find out the extent to which human rights abuses and crimes against humanity have occurred via torture, promulgated by this misAdministration and admitted to freely by Dick Cheney, know the right thing to do is to give them a fair trial, which means an investigation and, if proven guilty, conviction and the full penalties of the law for those who were involved,  no matter at how high a level of power.

Even the folks who have made comments saying they are against holding those in power accountable do not deny crimes took place.

Yet there are obstacles, and I’m not speaking of the usual obstacles of the media and those in power.  There are obstacles within the minds of the citizens of the United States of America.

1. Nine Muslim passengers were removed from a AirTran jet, including three young children, because two other paranoid passengers thought a remark was “suspicious” reports the Washington Post.

   Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

   Their ‘crime’? One of the women asked another in their party about airplane safety and airport security.

2. The Green Zone in Baghdad is now under Iraqi control reports the LA Times. The transfer of control is “a first major step in the American withdrawal from Iraq.”

   2009 also brought other changes to Iraq including: Iraqi control of its airspace, the U.S. is to conduct raids only alongside the Iraqi army, arrest warrants and detention decisions are to be made by Iraqis, 15,000 prisoners to be transfered to Iraqi control, and private security mercenaries no longer have immunity.

3. According to the NY Times, the Manufacturing reports show depth of global downturn. “In the United States on Friday, a crucial measure of manufacturing activity fell to the lowest level in 28 years in December.” Reports were similar from Australia to Asia to Europe.

4. Lastly, the Star Tribune reports Minnesota’s NFL team owner pushes for a new football stadium to be built as “economic stimulus”. Zygi Wilf, a wealthy New Jersey businessman, wants the public to pay for two-thirds the cost ($635 million) of a new stadium for his Minnesota Vikings.