Chicago cops’ new weapons

By Natasha Lennard, Salon

Monday, May 14, 2012 11:54 AM EDT

“This is simply a risk management tool, as the public will receive clear information regarding public safety messages and any orders provided by police,” Chicago Police spokeswoman Melissa Stratton told the Guardian.

However, during its first outing at a U.S. protest, during the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009, police blasted non-lethal sound waves from the device as a crowd deterrent. Unlike firing tear gas or swinging batons, deploying the LRAD does not create a dramatic media spectacle; indeed, videos from the Pittsburgh protests capture the LRAD emitting little more than a high-pitched siren. Those within the sound cannon’s range, however, have described immense pain and severe headaches and – in some cases – irreversible hearing damage. LRAD Corp., which produces the weapon for the military and domestic policing, said that anyone within 100m of the device’s directed sound path will experience “extreme pain,” according to Gizmodo (link corrected- ek).

“In Pittsburgh, they directed the LRAD at a crowd coming up the center of a wide street, then sent tear gas canisters down the sides of the street. Tear gas is painful, but everyone ran into the tear gas to get out of the LRAD path,” one protester who attended the Pittsburgh G-20 told me, asking to remain anonymous. Chicago’s Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has recently expressed that he believes tear gas to be an ineffective crowd control device – and based on lessons from Pittsburgh, the LRAD can produce a painful enough effect to force crowd dispersal without the dramatic media impact tear gas creates; it’s certainly a more insidious weapon.

(h/t Chris in Paris)

The Atrios school of blogging.

JPMorgan Unit’s London Staff May Go as Loss Prompts Exits

By Dawn Kopecki, Bloomberg News

May 13, 2012 8:45 PM ET

The entire London staff of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s chief investment office is at risk of dismissal as a $2 billion trading loss prompts the first executive departures as soon as this week, a person familiar with the situation said.

Tek Jansen.

Episode One.

Revisited.

A DocuDharma Tradition

I tease my mother by calling her Emily after Emily Gilmore both because overall my family reminds me very much of the Gilmores and because she’s never met a brand name she didn’t like whereas I’m perfectly content to buy generic.

I thank her among many things for a thorough grounding in the domestic and other arts.

Mom teaches first grade and is actually famous in a quiet sort of way.  The kind parents brag about and angle their kids for though she’s won national awards too.  Of course I owe everything I know about educating to her and among my own peers I’m considered an asskicking trainer.

She also insisted we learn to perform routine self maintenance, little things like laundry and ironing, machine and hand mending. basic cooking.  Of course she always indulged us with trips to museums and zoos, made sure we got library cards, did the usual bus driver thing to swim practice, had this huge second career as a Brownie/Girl Scout Leader for my sister.

At one point when I was old enough for it to make an impression she took her Masters of Fine Arts in Art of all things, so I know a little Art History with Far Eastern.  I understand how to bang out a copper pot and make silver rings because she took me to class once or twice.  She liked stained glass so much that she and dad made several pieces (you use a soldering iron and can cut yourself pretty bad so it’s a macho thing too).  They also did silk screening which taught me a lot about layout and graphic arts.

But she always liked fabric arts and in addition to a framed three dimensional piece in the living room, there are Afghans and rugs and scarves and pot holders and wash cloths and hats and quilts and dolls.

And the training kits and manuals for her mentorship programs, and the adaptations and costumes for the annual first and fifth grade play.  Did I mention she plays 3 instruments, though mostly piano?

She touch types too.

So to Emily, a woman of accomplishment and refinement, Happy Mother’s Day.

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Obama and Clinton Resume Arms Sales to the Torturers of Bahrain

By: Siun, Firedog Lake

Saturday May 12, 2012 1:00 pm

Mai Khalifa is just one of the royal family members who control all major roles in the Bahrain government. Apparently, this anti-democratic arrangement is just fine with the Obama administration. After all, they have now resumed arms shipments to the Bahrain monarchy at the very moment when Al Khalifa announced an even sharper crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

…

The Obama administration had put a hold on arms sales while Bahrain investigated itself on human rights violations. That report included clear accounts of severe torture and brutality including the details of the torture of Human Rights Defender Al Khawaja last summer and fall. Now Obama is approving arms sales even as Al Khawaja is on his death bed as he continues his hunger strike for freedom.

…

While the torture and killing of Bahraini protestors continues, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was entertaining Crown Prince Al Khalifa. Some see the arms sale as a gesture of support for the Crown Prince who has consistently been promoted as a more reform minded royal even though, as Foreign Policy reports from an administration conference call briefing on the sale:

On the conference call, administration officials could not name one concession or deliverable the crown prince gave or promised in exchange for the goodies he is bringing home with him.

…

This … video is an episode of Julian Assange’s new program in which he interviews Nabeel Rajab & Alaa Abd. Right after the interview was taped, Rajab was arrested on his return to Bahrain for “insulting tweets” and he remains in jail today.

Maybe it’s time to go to another bar.

No more bets for Greek euro exit

Athens News

10 May 2012

Want a flutter on Greece leaving the euro zone? It may already be too late. A surge in bets has forced Britain’s biggest bookmakers William Hill Plc and Ladbrokes Plc to suspend betting on the odds of Greece dropping out.

…

“It is safer for us to suspend betting than to keep cutting the odds,” a spokesman for Ladbrokes said. “We have been slashing the odds repeatedly over the last few days.”

Ladbrokes is still taking bets on the Greek stock market losing more than 25 percent of its value in a single day’s trading by the end of 2012.

And if you fear Greece is just the beginning of the end for the European single currency, Ladbrokes is offering odds on the euro ceasing to exist by the end of 2012, which would make punters 33 times their original stake.

Ladbrokes is offering odds of 5/6 that the euro will cease to exist by the end of 2015 and 4/1 on two or more states to leave the euro by the end of the year.

William Hill, however, has closed betting on the euro still being in existence by the end of 2015 – a possibility it sees as closely linked to what is happening in Greece – with the latest odds before suspension at 4/6 in favour and 11/10 against.

(h/t Calculated Risk)

(h/t Matt Taibbi, 991 views)

Jamie’s Cryin: Dimon, J.P. Morgan Chase Lose $2 Billion

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

POSTED: May 11, 10:48 AM ET

This incident is certain to reignite the debate about Dodd-Frank and may undermine the broad effort to roll back the bill, which we wrote about in the latest issue of the magazine. Staffers on the Hill started mobilizing the instant the Chase news hit the airwaves yesterday, and you can bet we’ll hear more debate in the next few months about not only the Volcker Rule but the Lincoln Rule, which was designed to wall off risky swaps from the federally-insured side of these banks. I’ve heard from all sides today, with some thinking the Chase trade was Dodd-Frank compliant, and others saying it probably violated both the Volcker and the Lincoln rules.

Either way, the incident underscored the basic problem. If J.P. Morgan Chase wants to act like a crazed cowboy hedge fund and make wild exacta bets on the derivatives market, they should be welcome to do so. But they shouldn’t get to do it with cheap cash from the Fed’s discount window, and they shouldn’t get to do it with money from the federally-insured bank accounts of teachers, firemen and other such real people. It’s a simple concept: you either get to be a bank, or you get to be a casino. But you can’t be both. If we don’t have rules to enforce that concept, we ought to get some.

212 views.

China’s Big Banks Look More Like Paper Tigers

By Jonathan Weil, Bloomberg News

May 10, 2012 7:00 PM ET

After spending time combing through the financial reports of China’s biggest publicly traded, state- owned banks, I now understand what Jim Chanos, the famous short- seller, means when he keeps saying they are “built on quicksand.” He’s definitely on to something.

…

In a Bloomberg Television interview last week, Chanos said “the Chinese banks ought to be sending a thank-you note to Greece and Spain every month for keeping them out of the limelight.” It’s anyone’s guess how long they will stay this way.

What does it say about a president’s policies when he uses a cartoon character, rather than a real person, to justify his record?

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