Tag: Docudharma Times

This is an Open Thread: Nothing is sealed in plastic

Saturday’s Headlines: Democrats duel to the end in Nevada: Kids killing kids tests justice system: Iraq on alert for Shia festival: Captain of protest vessel claims spy trawler is shadowing him: Kidnap victims found dead after Mexico gunfight: Exile: the price for defying Putin

Economists Debate Efficacy of Stimulus Measures

In trying to assemble a bipartisan package to jolt the slumping economy, the White House and Congress have turned to familiar tools that experts say have worked in the past. But there is also a lively debate among economists about which measures will best accomplish the goal.

The favorite template for addressing recession fears is a set of tax measures and spending initiatives passed in 2001 and 2002, including a personal income tax rebate in the summer of 2001 that amounted to $300 to $600 per household and a tax incentive the following year aimed at encouraging businesses to invest in new plants and equipment.

President Bush highlighted both those basic approaches on Friday in setting out his principles for a deal with Congress to address the current downturn. Democrats are also likely to seek increased spending for programs like unemployment insurance or to funnel more money to states, an approach that Mr. Bush signaled he would oppose.

A “professional avenger” who performed acts of retribution for cash was arrested along with a client for handing out pamphlets defaming a housewife in Aichi Prefecture.

I wonder if he’s Batman’s cousin?

Weddings for pregnant brides, known as the Omedeta-kon Plan, have become increasingly popular in recent years in Japan. Please pass the shotgun.

Leave all Samurai swords at home. Thank you.

Japan’s first female governor, Osaka’s scandal-hit Fusae Ohta, decided not to seek a third term. She first took over the job when Knock Yokoyama was forced out over a sexual-harassment scandal.

This is an Open Thread: Transparency Counts

Friday’s Headlines: White House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone: In Compton, Clinton invokes King’s legacy: Three-way checkmate: Kenya street protests called off after police are accused of killing seven: German gangsta rapper ‘faked shooting to boost street cred’

Fed Chief’s Reassurance Fails to Halt Stock Plunge

WASHINGTON – The stock market plunged again on Thursday on bad economic news, taking little comfort from reassuring words by the chairman of the Federal Reserve or an emerging consensus about a stimulus plan that many worry could be too late.

On a day when stocks were pushed down another 3 percent on reports of more weakness in housing and manufacturing – bringing the decline this year to a stomach-churning 9 percent – all the major players in Washington agreed on the need for putting extra money into people’s hands quickly.

Spokesman: Bobby Fischer Has Died

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.

Fischer died Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Robert James Fischer was a U.S. chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15. He beat Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America’s first world chess championship in more than a century.

The event had tremendous symbolic importance, pitting the intensely individualistic young American against a product of the grim and soulless Soviet Union.

H/T RJones

This is an Open Thread: Let the sunshine in

Thursday’s Headlines:Republicans are losers as Romney win leaves the race wide open : Outrage as US accuses Britain of inexperience in Taleban conflict: Democrats go deep to court Latino vote :Dry, polluted, plagued by rats: the crisis in China’s greatest river: Battle of the blogs in Kenya: British Council chief detained as Russia steps up diplomatic dispute: Bad Reviews for Bush in the Mideast

Judge: U.S. gets Texas land for border fence

Feds succeed against city, could file 102 lawsuits against landowners

WASHINGTON – A federal judge has ordered a small border city in Texas to temporarily turn over its land to the federal government so it can begin to build a border fence.

U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered the city of Eagle Pass, on the border about 100 miles southwest of San Antonio, to “surrender” 233 acres of city-owned land. The Justice Department sued the city for access to the land.

Richard Knerr, 82; co-founded Wham-O, maker of the Hula Hoop and Frisbee

Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O Inc., which unleashed the granddaddy of American fads, the Hula Hoop, on the world half a century ago along with another enduring leisure icon, the Frisbee, has died. He was 82.

Knerr died Monday at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia after suffering a stroke earlier in the day at his Arcadia home, said his wife, Dorothy.

With his boyhood best friend, Arthur “Spud” Melin, Knerr started the company in 1948 in Pasadena. They named the enterprise Wham-O for the sound that their first product, a slingshot, made when it hit its target.

A treasure chest of dozens of toys followed that often bore playful names: Superball, so bouncy it seemed to defy gravity; Slip ‘N Slide and its giggle-inducing cousin the Water Wiggle; and Silly String, which was much harder to get out of hair than advertised.

This is an Open Thread: No International Borders Here

Tuesday’s Headlines: FDA Says Clones Are Safe For Food: Race enters the Democratic fray: Nigeria takes on big tobacco over campaigns that target the young: Barenboim becomes first to hold Israeli and Palestinian passports: Road hell: mind the cows!

Iraq Defense Minister Sees Need for U.S. Security Help Until 2018

FORT MONROE, Va. – The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.

Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.

This is an Open Thread: Ice,Wind,Snow and Rain Will Not Imped You

Sunday’s Headlines: In Texas, Weighing Life With a Border Fence: In Vegas, Politics Comes to The Strip: Saudi Arabia beheads foreign maid: Iraq opens door to Saddam’s followers: Bribery, brothels, free Viagra: VW trial scandalises Germany: Townsfolk defy ‘Mother Fire Throat’

Unions bitterly divided in Democratic race

A tight Clinton-Obama contest has raised the costs and stakes for organized labor. And no place higher than in Nevada.

LAS VEGAS — The tight race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has opened surprisingly deep and bitter divisions in the ranks of organized labor, as rival union leaders fly planeloads of last-minute volunteers into key states, accuse each other of trying to disenfranchise members, and even launch open attacks on rival Democratic candidates.

In Nevada, which holds its caucuses Saturday, unions backing Clinton are crying foul because some caucuses will be in casinos and hotels where a pro-Obama union’s members predominate — helping that union’s members and potentially discouraging others.

Meanwhile, inside the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has endorsed the New York senator and is leading the charge for her in Nevada, several officers are protesting the union’s decision to run negative ads against the Illinois senator.

Water-boarding ‘would be torture’

US national intelligence chief Mike McConnell has said the interrogation technique of water-boarding “would be torture” if he were subjected to it.

Mr McConnell said it would also be torture if water-boarding, which involves simulated drowning, resulted in water entering a detainee’s lungs.

He told the New Yorker there would be a “huge penalty” for anyone using it if it was ever determined to be torture.

The US attorney-general has declined to rule on whether the method is torture.

However, Michael Mukasey said during his Senate confirmation hearing that water-boarding was “repugnant to me” and that he would institute a review.

This is an Open Thread: No Rumpelstiltskin’s Here

Saturday’s Headlines: Baghdad Embassy Is Called A Fire Risk: U.S. attorney’s office accused of anthrax case leaks: Suitcase of Cash Entangles U.S. and 2 Latin Nations: Syria Rebuilds on Site Destroyed by Israeli Bombs: Less craic and more crackdown as Ireland takes a sober look at drinking: ‘Real’ Bhutto heir denounces family business

Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ’02 War Game

WASHINGTON – There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships.

In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002. In that war game, the Blue Team navy, representing the United States, lost 16 major warships – an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels – when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.

This is an Open Thread: Hiding in Spider Holes Not Allowed

Friday’s Headlines:Young Feminists Split: Does Gender Matter?: Kerry backs Obama to ‘turn new page’ in US politics: The rotten heart of Italy: See Naples and die (of the stench): Bush Outlines Mideast Peace Plan: Japan PM forces navy bill through

Public senses economy going south

Table talk among average Americans mirrors the anxiety reflected on the campaign trail and in Washington: times are getting tougher.

SEDALIA, COLO. — The numbers stopped adding up some time ago, and every month, Shane Covelli gets angrier.

He sells heavy equipment on commission, and construction firms aren’t buying. Covelli has sold his Corvette, stopped taking his wife out to dinner, pulled his son from the ski team. He has withdrawn nearly $50,000 from his retirement accounts and started taking extra work, laying carpet and pouring concrete evenings and weekends. Still, he owes more than he earns, and he can’t seem to fix it.

“It’ll take the country four or five years to dig out of this,” said Covelli, 44. “By then, I’ll be bankrupt.”

President Bush this week set aside months of sunny talk to warn that the nation’s economy faces challenges. “Many Americans are anxious,” he said.

This is an Open Thread: Call Anytime

Thursday’s Headlines: Millions of youths use cold meds to get high: Ashcroft Deal Brings Scrutiny in Justice Dept.: Chinese man killed after filming protest: Bodyguard testifies against Taylor at war crimes trial

For U.S., The Goal Is Now ‘Iraqi Solutions’

Approach Acknowledges Benchmarks Aren’t Met

In the year since President Bush announced he was changing course in Iraq with a troop “surge” and a new strategy, U.S. military and diplomatic officials have begun their own quiet policy shift. After countless unsuccessful efforts to push Iraqis toward various political, economic and security goals, they have decided to let the Iraqis figure some things out themselves.

From Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to Army privates and aid workers, officials are expressing their willingness to stand back and help Iraqis develop their own answers. “We try to come up with Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems,” said Stephen Fakan, the leader of a provincial reconstruction team with U.S. troops in Fallujah.

This is an Open Thread: Welcome to Dixville Notch

Headlines For Tuesday: Their last bids for the first primary: Violent Crime Down In First Half of 2007: New Leaders Of Sunnis Make Gains In Influence: German rail operator attacked over track fees for ‘Holocaust train’

Justices Weigh Injection Issue for Death Row

With conservative justices questioning their motives and liberal justices questioning their evidence, opponents of the American manner of capital punishment made little headway Monday in their effort to persuade the Supreme Court that the Constitution requires states to change the way they carry out executions by lethal injection.

Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the lawyer for two inmates on Kentucky’s death row who are facing execution by the commonly used three-chemical protocol, conceded that theoretically his clients would have no case if the first drug, a barbiturate used for anesthesia, could be guaranteed to work perfectly by inducing deep unconsciousness.

This is an Open Thread: For The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

Headlines For Monday: Voter ID Laws Are Set to Face a Crucial Test: GOP Doubts, Fears ‘Post-Partisan’ Obama :Stories China’s media could not write: Party’s over: Ibiza calls time on after-hours raves

Defying U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON – As the Bush administration struggles for a way to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a similar effort to scale down a larger and more secretive American detention center in Afghanistan has been troubled by political, legal and security problems, officials say.

The American detention center, established at the Bagram military base as a temporary screening site after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is now teeming with some 630 prisoners – more than twice the 275 being held at Guantánamo.

This is an Open Thread: Throw Caution to the Wind

Headlines For January 5: Underdog Clinton Goes After Obama: How the U.S. seeks to avert nuclear terror: France finds its own Anne Frank as young Jewish woman’s war diary hits the shelves: The smog Olympics

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan

This article is by Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt.

WASHINGTON – President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.