Sure, a lot of organizations make that claim. But Green Scissors is an organization that may have more credence than most. Green Scissors has been around since 1994 with the same aim - more money, better environment. Its 2012 report combines the efforts of three different organizations: Friends of the Earth, an environmental organization; Taxpayers for Common Sense, a "budget watchdog"; and R Street, a "free market think tank". These organizations have agreed on federal budget cuts that they claim would save almost $700 billion. The cuts would be in energy, federal insurance, agriculture, transportation, and lands and water.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Saving Money While Helping the Environment
After the Federal Reserve
Simon Johnson raises some serious concerns about the Federal Reserve of New York.
His initial concern is why Jamie Dimon remains a member of the board of the bank after the imbroglio in London which is being investigated by the Fed. He feels so strongly about this issue that he was able to get 38,000 signatures on a petition to remove Dimon. Johnson raises another issue re Dimon: why did he not step down when the Fed was negotiating the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan.
Stephen Friedman is the next director in Johnson's sights. As a Class C director Friedman cannot be a stockholder in a bank nor can he be involved in a company that controls a bank. Friedman's investment company appears to be actively involved in banks.
Finally, Lee Bollinger, the Fed chairman, does not meet the standards of the chairman as (per Fed rules) being "a person of tested banking experience.” Bollinger is a lawyer and president of Columbia University. He has no banking experience.
Johnson makes some good points here.
Has it quadrupled?
Latest reports claim that JPMorgan's trading loss has more than quadrupled. It is now $9 billion. Will this have any effect on Congress?
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Do you believe it?
This sign is supposedly from a Wal-Mart in Mississippi. It is hard to believe that people would not know what 15 is.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
SRO is NFG
SRO stands for Self Regulatory Organization. I'll leave you to figure out what NFG stands for.
War on Drugs vs. HIV/AIDS
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has just issued its latest annual report. It does not look with favor on the war on drugs. In fact, it asserts that the drug war has worsened the HIV/AIDS pandemic by creating barriers to treatment.The report accuses some countries, the U.S. among them, of ignoring "scientific evidence and World Health Organization recommendations and resist(ing) the implementation of evidence-based HIV prevention programs." Those countries that have adopted these programs have seen a significant decline in HIV.
Despite the decades-long war on drugs, the supply of illegal drugs has increased by 380% since 1980, while the cost of illicit drugs has decreased by 79%. The federal budget for the war has increased by 600% since the 1980s, while the price of the drugs has gone down by 80% and the purity of the drugs has increased.
Members of the commission include former presidents of Poland, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Switzerland as well as such notables as Paul Volcker, Louis Arbor, George Schultz, Mario Vargas Llosa, George Papandreou.
Baketball or Education
I know that colleges spend a heck of a lot more time recruiting basketball players than recruiting kids who are just students. But I was shocked to learn that, at least in the Washington, D.C. area, this mania shows up in high schools as well. In DC, high school coaches start recruiting when a kid is in the fifth grade, that's right Grade 5.
Most of these recruiters coach private school teams. How did it happen that this became standard practice? Do the schools give bonuses for winning? Are the coaches prepping to become college coaches? It is not an easy job. Some coaches travel across the country to find their next star. Unlike college, kids play basketball all year round; ergo, the coaches recruit all year round.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Worshipping the military
We have reached the stage where our army can be considered an army of mercenaries. But, it is an unusual brand of mercenary, as our Congress has placed these soldiers on a pedestal. One must not point out that GI Joe has been replaced by a career military person.
Not only does Congress champion the military as the only true defenders of this country, but it pays soldiers much, much better than the draftees of the old days. Military personnel costs have nearly doubled since fiscal year 2001 and now consume one-third of the Pentagon’s base budget—about $180 billion per year. It is not the Pentagon that has pushed for these raises; it is our Congress, most of whose members have never served in the military.
It is not only pay that has escalated. Health care costs have grown by 300% since FY2001. The primary reason for this astronomical increase is not the treatment of active duty soldiers; it's due to the cost of treating military retirees.
It's time that Congress listened to the Pentagon on this issue.
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion
Another WAPO article about lawmakers and their finances raises questions about the securities trades made by 34 lawmakers during the early days of the Great Recession. Many of these trades were made shortly after the legislator had spoken with Paulson, Geithner or Bernanke. The legislators say that, of course, they acted perfectly legally and ethically. However, the article does raise questions about the ethics.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Summer 1952
60 years ago I spent the summer in the hospital. I remember it well. The food was pretty bad. It was my first - and last - taste of tongue;
I can still see the hairs sticking out of it.
By and large, the nurses were friendly and helpful. Despite the anesthetics and pain killers, the
pain was pretty intense for the first couple of weeks after the operation,
which, by the way, was written up in some obscure medical journal. I particularly remember the pain when, a few
weeks after the operation, the surgeon removed a piece of metal holding my foot
in place. His healing and human qualities
were non-existent. He was a doctor of
the old school who knew everything and could never be wrong.
I still wonder who should have received the copy of “The
Caine Mutiny” that I read that summer. I
was not a good patient; my mother had to take time off from visiting me. Coincidentally, she spent some time on Martha’s
Vineyard, where thirty years later we, my wife and I, bought a house. What effect did that hospital stay have on my
life?
It was not my first hospital stay or first operation. I had been operated on three times when I was
an infant. Despite these infant
experiences, my journey through childhood and the early teen years was
relatively uneventful and common. I
played all the sports that my schoolmates did.
Surprisingly, I was an average athlete until I reached my teens. But, I was a different child and was quite
aware of that.
Clearly, my physical condition was part of that difference;
after all, I have worn a prosthesis for as long as I can remember. Plus, I was small, I weighed less than 60
pounds when I graduated from grammar school.
I was always the youngest, smallest and smartest kid in my class.
When I left the hospital, I was struck by how close together
the houses were in my neighborhood. I
had lost a sense of perspective. But was
that all I had lost that summer? Or, had
I gained something? Had I moved into the
beginning of adulthood? Until that summer I was truly a spoiled brat. And you can understand why. I was the youngest child and a handicapped
child who was not expected to walk. It
was quite natural that my parents satisfied most of my requests. That summer I realized – hazily, not in a
very deep way - that my request to be ‘normal’ in a physical sense was not
going to be satisfied then or for the rest of my life. And so began the journey to adulthood.
(Why do I feel a need to write this? Am I reaching an age when I just have to put
down something that says I am different, I am a person to whom attention must
be paid. But that’s what Mrs. Loman said
about Willy and that is not how I want to be remembered. Should I delete this post?)
Trans-Pacific Partnership
Very little has been written about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is an attempt to create a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Chile,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, all of which are considered Pacific Rim
nations. Canada will soon be joining.
However, it does not appear to be an agreement that we should be pushing. Leo Hindery may have the most salient reasons why.
1. It pays short shrift to the issues consumer safety and environmental practices and to the concerns of organized labor.
2. It breezes through intellectual property protection, regulatory coherence, and antitrust enforcement, especially of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
3. It allows for even more extreme financial industry deregulation while allowing for equally extreme foreign investor protections that in the past have helped American multinational corporations offshore American jobs. A proper trade agreement -- multilateral or bilateral -- should limit the massive investment incentives that many nations (although not the U.S., of course!) now use to draw jobs to their shores and thus have cost America millions of manufacturing jobs in just the last decade. These indirect export subsidies are nothing more than a highly effective way to circumvent WTO's prohibition of direct export subsidies.
4. It bans "Buy American", which would give all companies operating in any signatory country equal access to U.S. government procurement contracts (even though none of these other government's procurement comes even close to matching ours in amount).
5. It gives America's "Big Pharma" companies patent extensions while at the same time limits our ability to cut costs through 'drug formularies', even though such formularies are now deeply embedded in our Medicare, Medicaid and VA programs. The only possible result is much higher drug prices for American consumers.
6. It allows TPP's signatory nations to export the products of their highly subsidized State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), contrary to the objections of every small and medium sized American manufacturer, all of our non-service labor unions, and every right-minded trade economist in America. Nor are there likely to be appropriate limits on major foreign SOEs investing directly in the United States.
What lies beneath us
Shortly after WWII, we began putting toxic liquid underground, using so-called injection. Now it looks as though we may have a problem, after we have injected more than thirty trillion gallons of toxic liquid into wells deep into the earth, using
broad expanses of the nation's geology
as an invisible dumping ground. While the EPA has regulations as to the frequency and methods of testing these wells, there are serious questions about the extent to which the EPA goes to enforce these regulations.
A ProPublica study of more than 220,000 well inspections found that over the period from late 2007 to late
2010, one well integrity violation was issued for every six deep
injection wells examined — more than 17,000 violations nationally. More
than 7,000 wells showed signs that their walls were leaking.
It doesn't smell quite right
The Washington Post has been running a series on the relationship between our federal legislators personal finances and their actions as legislators. In the latest installment, they looked at 45,000 individual congressional stock transactions
contained in computerized financial disclosure data from 2007 to 2010. They found that one-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded
stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies
lobbying on bills that came before their committees. While Congressional rules sound as though they prevent legislators from trading on inside information, the rules do allow them to
take official actions that benefit themselves as long as they are not
the sole beneficiaries.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Right Hand, Left Hand
Sometimes the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. A cliche that likes most cliches does, in fact, describe reality quite often. The right hand in this post is the State Department's Human Rights Bureau. The left hand is the State Department's Political-Military Affairs bureau. The right hand says some countries violate human rights. The left hand sells these countries arms which can help them in their efforts to violate human rights.
Here is a list of the countries to whom we supply weapons while castigating them for human rights abuses:
United Arab Emirates
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $2,465,144,471 (4th highest value out of 173 nations) |
| Types of weapons: | Missiles / rockets / torpedoes, firearms, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents) |
| Types of equipment: | Aircraft and equipment, ammunition |
Human rights problems
“Three core human rights issues continue to be of concern: citizens’ inability to change their government; limitations on citizens’ civil liberties (including the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association); and lack of judicial independence … political parties are not permitted. The government continued to interfere with privacy and to restrict civil liberties, including usage of the Internet.”“Political organizations, political parties, and trade unions are illegal.”
The government does not provide equal rights for women and foreign workers. UAE courts reserve the option of imposing flogging as punishment for adultery, prostitution, consensual premarital sex, pregnancy outside marriage, defamation of character, and drug or alcohol abuse.
Qatar
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $1,792,415,581 (8th) |
| Types of weapons: | Explosives, missiles / rockets / torpedoes |
| Types of equipment: | Military electronics, aircraft and equipment, ammunition |
Human rights problems
“The constitution provides for, but strictly regulates, freedom of assembly. Organizers must meet a number of restrictions and conditions to acquire a permit for a public meeting. For example, the Director General of Public Security at the Ministry of Interior must give permission for a meeting, a decision which is subject to appeal to the minister of interior, who has the final decision.”“The constitution provides for freedom of speech and press in accordance with the law, but the government limited these rights in practice … The law provides for restrictive procedures on the establishment of newspapers, closure, and confiscation of assets of a publication. It also criminalizes libel and slander, including injury to dignity. All print media were owned by members of the ruling family or proprietors who enjoyed close ties to government officials. There were no independent broadcast media, and state-owned television and radio reflected government views … In at least one case, the authorities contacted a reporter with a warning after the reporter published an article critical of the government.” There is no law criminalizing domestic violence or spousal rape.
Israel
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $1,462,319,370 (10th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents), missiles / rockets / torpedoes |
| Types of equipment: | Armored vehicles, aircraft and equipment, ammunition |
Human rights problems
“The most significant human rights issues during the year were terrorist attacks against civilians; institutional and societal discrimination against Arab citizens—in particular issues of access to housing and employment opportunities; and societal discrimination and domestic violence against women.”“NGOs continued to criticize … detention practices they termed abusive, including isolation, sleep deprivation, and psychological abuse, such as threats to interrogate family members or demolish family homes.”
Djibouti
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $1,396,999,702 (12th) |
| Types of weapons: | Heavy guns / armament, missiles / rockets / torpedoes |
| Types of equipment: | Military electronics, cameras / auxiliary equipment, ammunition |
Human rights problems
“The most serious human rights problem in the country was the government’s abridgement of the right of citizens to change or significantly influence their government; it did so by harassing, abusing, and detaining government critics and by its unwillingness to permit the population access to independent sources of information within the country.”“Numerous persons were detained for political reasons during the months leading up to the election and released afterwards. For example, the government charged eight men—including human rights activist Jean Paul Noel Abdi—with conspiring against the state. The prisoners were permitted legal representation and were allowed to meet with their attorneys before trial. Noel Abdi was released two weeks later. The remaining prisoners were detained for two months and released shortly after the election.”
“Although the constitution provides for freedom of assembly, the government severely restricted this right. The Interior Ministry requires permits for peaceful assemblies and denied such permits to opposition groups during the election campaign.”
Honduras
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $1,390,675,958 (13th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms |
| Types of equipment: | Aircraft and equipment, fire-control systems, guided missile tracking equipment |
Human rights problems
“Among the most serious human rights problems were corruption within the national police force, institutional weakness of the judiciary, and discrimination and violence against vulnerable populations. Police and government agents committed unlawful killings. Vigilantes and former members of the security forces carried out arbitrary and summary killings … Although the constitution and law prohibit such practices, there were instances in which the police and military employed them, including police beatings and other abuse of detainees.”“On December 7, unknown gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed former senior government adviser for security Alfredo Landaverde. In the weeks preceding his death, Landaverde had publicly called for cleaning up the National Police and alleged that its leadership was linked to organized crime. An investigation into his death continued at year’s end.”
“During the year confrontations over a long-standing land dispute between owners of African palm plantations and rural field workers in the Aguan Valley, Colon Department, resulted in the deaths of or injuries to approximately 55 persons, including field hands, private security guards, security force members, one judge, and bystanders. At year’s end responsibility for all but two of these deaths had not been established. Human rights groups alleged that police, soldiers, and private security guards used disproportionate force against the protesting workers.”
Saudi Arabia
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $877,678,790 (16th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents), heavy guns / armament, explosives, missiles / rockets / torpedoes |
| Types of equipment: | Armored vehicles, aircraft and equipment, guided missile systems |
Human rights problems
“The most important human rights problems reported included citizens’ lack of the right and legal means to change their government; pervasive restrictions on universal rights such as freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and freedom of assembly, association, movement, and religion; and a lack of equal rights for women and children, as well as for workers.”“ … on July 27, security officials reportedly took a prominent human rights activist, Mekhlef bin Daham al-Shammary, from his prison cell at the Damman General Prison to a room where there were no surveillance cameras and severely beat him. A guard then allegedly poured an antiseptic cleaning liquid down al-Shammary’s throat, resulting in his being taken to a hospital.”
“There were reports that at least two of a group of 16 men found guilty of security-related offenses were tortured in the period between their arrest in 2007 and their conviction on November 22. Among them, according to the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Amnesty International (AI), was Suliman al-Reshoudi, a 73-year-old former judge, who was subjected in prison to “severe physical and psychological tortures,” including more than three years of solitary confinement. One of the detainees was allegedly beaten on at least seven occasions with metal sticks and received electric shocks. Saud al-Hashimi was reportedly abused by being placed for five hours in a severely cold cell and forced to confess, among other acts, to contacting Al-Jazeera television station and to collecting money without the permission of the ruler.”
Kuwait
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $693,691,173 (19th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents), heavy guns / armament, missiles / rockets / torpedoes |
| Types of equipment: | Armored vehicles, aircraft and equipment |
Human rights problems
“… there were reports that some police and members of the security forces abused detainees during the year. Police and security forces were more likely to inflict such abuse on noncitizens, particularly non-Gulf Arabs and Asians. Security forces reportedly detained, harassed, and sexually abused transgender persons.”“The government restricted freedom of speech, particularly in instances purportedly related to national security. The law also specifically prohibits material insulting Islam, the emir, the constitution, or the neutrality of the courts or Public Prosecutor’s Office. The law mandates jail terms for anyone who “defames religion,” and any Muslim citizen may file criminal charges against a person the citizen believes has defamed Islam, the ruling family, or public morals.”
“In December 2010 authorities shut the local offices of the Al Jazeera television network and withdrew its accreditation after it broadcast footage of police using force to break up an unauthorized gathering of oppositionists and subsequently gave airtime to opposition parliamentarians who strongly criticized the government for the police actions.”
Algeria
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $406,056,112 (20th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, heavy guns / armament, explosives, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents) |
| Types of equipment: | Armored vehicles, aircraft and equipment |
Human rights problems
“There were reports of dozens of individuals detained for political reasons, including peaceful assembly in Algiers. In virtually all of the instances, police detained activists participating in protests or marches and held them either in the backs of riot trucks on site or transported them to nearby police precincts. Police released the activists without charges once the protests had subsided … Other human rights concerns were reports of unlawful killings, overuse of pretrial detention, poor prison conditions, abuse of prisoners, and lack of judicial independence.”“Every Saturday from February 12 to late April, government security forces prevented protesters with the political opposition group National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD) from staging a march in Algiers. On several occasions, CNCD organizers submitted paperwork to local officials requesting permission to march, but the requests were denied on security grounds. In some cases police arrested protesters and injured some of them as a result of participation in unsanctioned protests.”
“Between 3,000 and 5,000 university students on April 12 staged the first successful public march in Algiers since 2001, despite police efforts to prevent it. Students were largely nonviolent, but there were approximately 100 injuries.”
“Radio and television were government-owned and frequently broadcasted coverage favorable to the government. Sources maintained that broadcast media did not grant sufficient access to opposition parties and critical NGOs. During nonelection periods opposition parties and spokesmen regularly were denied access to public radio or television.”
Peru
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $404,325,333 (21st) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, heavy guns / armament, toxicological agents (may have included tear gas and riot control agents) |
| Types of equipment: | Armored vehicles, aircraft and equipment |
Human rights problems
“The following human rights problems …were reported: killings by security forces of protesters during demonstrations, harsh prison conditions, abuse of detainees and inmates by prison security forces, lengthy pretrial detention and inordinate trial delays, intimidation of the media, incomplete registration of internally displaced persons, and discrimination against women.”“Allegations of abuse most often arose immediately following an arrest, when families were prohibited from visiting suspects and when attorneys had limited access to detainees. In some cases police and security forces threatened or harassed victims, relatives, and witnesses to prevent them from filing charges of human rights violations.”
Bahrain
Commercial arms authorized:
| Total: | $280,373,829 (28th) |
| Types of weapons: | Firearms, heavy guns / armament |
| Types of equipment: | Ammunition, aircraft and equipment, military electronics |
Human rights problems
“On several occasions government forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force to disperse protesters … the government used excessive force on February 17 when it used tear gas, shotguns, batons, sound bombs, and rubber bullets to disperse protesters from the GCC/Pearl Roundabout. Approximately 1,000 MOI [Ministry of Interior] personnel entered the GCC/Pearl Roundabout at 3 a.m. to disperse camping protesters. Personnel from the BNSA, CID, and BDF Intelligence were also on site. Security forces fired numerous rounds of tear gas to disperse protesters and engaged protesters directly. The MOI indicated that a number of protesters assaulted police officers with rocks, sticks, metal rods, swords, knives, and other sharp objects. As a result, more than 40 officers sustained injuries, including severe cuts to limbs. The clearing operation and subsequent clashes between security personnel and protesters led to the deaths of four individuals from shotgun wounds and injuries to 50 protesters. Soon after the police crackdown, BDF tanks occupied the GCC/Pearl Roundabout to stop demonstrators from occupying the area. On February 19, security forces withdrew from the GCC/Pearl Roundabout, allowing demonstrators to retake control of the area.”“[In prisons] Many reports followed a similar pattern of abuse: arbitrary arrest, beating without interrogation, beating with interrogation, harassment and intimidation without further physical abuse, and then release of the detainee after any visible wounds or signs of mistreatment had healed.”
Friday, June 22, 2012
Peace in our time
Judging by the amount of space the media gives to Libya these days, one would think things are going well there. They appear to be going well in Tripoli, but many parts of the country are in serious trouble, says Nicolas Pelham, who has reported about the Arab world for a couple of decades.
Things are pretty bad in the south; the violence there is worse than when the 'revolution' was being fought. Ethnic feuding seems to be the main reason. An Arab leader in the area feels, “But we’re cursing this government for abandoning us to the
Africans.” An African has been placed in charge of guarding the Chad border; presumably he and his followers benefit personally from this position.
The Berbers are also acting up. They are one of the largest groups in Libya; they make up over 20% of the population. Qaddafi spent a fair amount of energy trying to convert the Berbers to Arabs. He did not succeed.
Many of the rebel militias are still active and, in some place, in charge. There is no criminal justice system, the judges are not eager to issue verdicts, the police can't enforce the laws.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Do you still believe Moody's?
They downgraded 15 mega banks today: Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, UBS, HSBC, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, Royal Bank of Canada, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
A sucker is born every minute
And when it comes to ensuring that their child get into the right college, there are hundreds of thousands in the U.S.A. Our NYC correspondent sent me this article about Michele Hernandez, president of Hernandez College Consulting. Her tag line is "Get into the college of your choice". Her results displayed on her web site:
- 92% of our students were admitted to their first choice college
- 24 of 29 of our students were accepted early to Ivy League schools
- 10 years helping students enter Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, and
other top schools.
Her technique? A rigorous reading list and her unlimited time spent improving a student's writing, grammar, math skills, and more.
Her basic pitch? She worked in the admissions office of Dartmouth for four years.
Her fee? $42.000 for students starting in the eighth grade and slightly less for students starting later. Or, for those in a hurry, there is a four-day summer boot camp for only $14,000.
Her market? Rich idiots.
It's a very different world
What would you do if your daughter was engaging in extra-marital affairs? Would you do anything? Could you do anything? In parts of India this is a very serious matter. So serious that a father beheaded his 22-year-old daughter who was doing just that and, thus, “causing insult to him in society”.
Another Indian father burnt alive his 20-year-old daughter because she had eloped with her boyfriend.
JP again
Of course, JPMorgan has connections with the House Financial Services Committee. They are not as extensive as its ties with the Senate, but they also have a former member of the House on their staff.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Your Privacy Is Protected
The question asked by Senators Wyden and Udall of the Select Committee on Intelligence was "How many people inside the United States have had their communications collected or reviewed under the authorities granted by section 702?" They asked the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, L. Charles McCullough, on May 4. He passed it to the NSA Inspector General, as he thought the matter would be expedited by so doing.
The NSA IG, Mr. Ellard, did not see it quite the same way. He responded to Mr. McCullough on a classified basis. He felt that his NSA office was not equipped to do the job and, furthermore, it would violate the privacy of Americans.
Do we comply with the law?
That's the question the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, asks of us. Heyns and his group have been investigating our drone attacks and have issued a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The report does not say that we have not complied with the law. Rather it asks us to clarify what we do to comply. He cites figures from Pakistan which claim the drones killed at least 957 in 2010 alone. Heyns also does not state unequivocally that civilians have been killed, he uses "allegedly". However, it's pretty clear that civilians have been killed.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Protecting Its Citizens
Russia has one naval base outside of the country. That base is in Syria. It serves Russia's navy on missions to the Mediterranean. Russia also has military advisers in Syria who train Syrians on how to use the weapons Syria has bought from Russia.
There is a report that Russia will be sending two ship and perhaps 300 marines to protect its people in Syria. “We must protect our citizens,” Maj.-Gen. Vladimir Gradusov was quoted
by Interfax as saying. “We won’t abandon the Russians and evacuate them
from the conflict zone if necessary.”
What all this means can only be speculated.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Mexico - more than drugs
Yes, the war on drugs is a major factor in Mexico's problems. But even if the drug issue went away, Mexico would still have problems. One primary problem is the number of people living in poverty; in Mexico 52,000,000 of the 113,000,000 Mexicans live in poverty.
There are several reasons for Mexico's problems. One is the power of major corporations; they have been able to suppress competition and feed off the poor via high prices. Another is how the federal government spends its money; it supports the trade unions, political parties and state governments and does not have much fiscal control as to how the money is spent. And the feds don't collect much tax revenue; in Latin America only Guatemala collect a lower percentage of taxes. Corruption is also a factor; Mexico ranks 10th of 12 countries re corruption.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
115 Years Is Long Enough
Galpagos turtles can live for 150 years. Two of them, Bibi and Poldi, have been partners for most of the 115 years they have been alive. But now Bibi wants to call off the partnership. She is so insistent on this point that she bit off part of Poldi's shell. Her keepers and other experts can't figure out why Bibi has gone from this
to this
Friday, June 15, 2012
Lobbying the Senate Banking Committee
ProPublica has published some of the connections between JP Morgan and the Senate Banking Committee. Ten people are identified as having been employees of both the committee and JP, obviously not simultaneously. A former member of the committee, Mel Martinez, now has a cushy job with JP. 10 of the 22 members of the committee have received campaign contributions from JP. Might this explain why many committee members fawned over Dimon?
What could we do with $50,000,000?
Granted Mr. Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army seems to be an evil person. But is it our job to rid the world of evil people? Should we have 100 Special Forces operatives searching for him? Should the Senate Armed Services Committee have authorized $50,000,000 to locate Mr. Kony? How else could we use this money?
Moving into Africa
Special Forces are now helping out in Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, Yemen, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya. They operate from a number of small air bases so that we can protect the U.S. and Africa from terrorists.
Surprisingly, we are using unarmed planes, most of which look like private planes. They are not jets, they look like most private planes flying in the African skies. Inside the plane, however, there is the level of sophistication one would expect from Special Forces: hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals.
Not so surprisingly, we ensure that private contractors get enough work to keep them profitable. (Did I hear you mention 'mercenaries'?)
Some State Department officials who are obviously biased against protecting our country have claimed that the military are gradually taking over foreign policy. These diplomats believe that most terrorists in Africa are too busy trying to overthrow the local bosses that they don't have time to attack us. In fact, the work of the Special Forces is aggravating the natives so that
they have begun to hate us.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Focusing on the inane
Rear Admiral David B. Woods, the head of the Guantanamo prison, does have his standards. He has made sure that when detainees appear in court they do not wear "clothing that is inconsistent with the decorum and dignity of a
court proceeding whether in the United States or the Middle East." He has also had his staff inspect the correspondence between the detainees and their lawyers; perhaps, the staff might find incriminating statements.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Times Are Tough All Over
Even the Nobel Prize is taking a hit. The amount of the prize has been decreased from $1,400,000 to $1,120,000, roughly 20%. This was necessary because “The Nobel Foundation regards this as a necessary measure in order to avoid an undermining of its capital”.
Bank Robbery Is Not What It Used To Be
Three English economists have studied the economics of bank robbery and concluded that bank robbery is not a very good deal. On average, the robber nets about $25,000 per person, which the authors feel might take care of someone for about six months. The chances of making bank robbery a year-round occupation are slim as the probability of being caught increases with each robbery so that it is likely that after four robberies the robbers will wind up in jail.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Break up the banks
Phil Angelides was the chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which concluded that the major cause of the Great Recession was the banks and their infatuation with complex mortgage derivatives. He's still convinced that something has to be done about the banks and thinks that the something should be breaking them up. Here are his comments:
[T]heir fierce resistance to any kind of reasonable change, the unrestrained use of their enormous political power and their willingness to use whatever means necessary to bend the political system to their self-interest without respect to the public interest, have provided in my mind the conclusive evidence that a modern era of trust-busting is now essential….
Here we are, two years after Dodd-Frank, there’s still no Volcker Rule after a voracious and sustained attack to eviscerate it by financial institutions. And of course those efforts have been bolstered, I want to be blunt, by the Republican allies of Wall Street in Congress who have tirelessly tried to strip funding from the Securities and Exchange Commission, from the Commodities Future Trading Commission, and have made an art form of blocking appointments to key regulatory positions that oversee our financial system.
Will Occupy Come Back?
In October you couldn't avoid seeing something about the Occupy Wall Street movement. There were more than 12,000 newspaper stories a month about it; Twitter messages were being posted almost every second. By May, fewer than 1,000 newspaper articles about the movement appeared; Twitter traffic had slowed to one every 12 seconds. Today there are few Occupy camps in existence.
The movement seems to be failing. I suspect that it's because there were really no leaders that could be seen by the average Joe nor was there a basic, consistent message. The organization was too democratic to succeed in the 21st century.
You're Not Special
David McCullough Jr. is an English teacher at Wellesley High School. He also gave the commencement speech there this year. His concluding remarks are repeated below. I was surprised at how much I agreed with him. I've highlighted some of his comments.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages. And read... read all the time... read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.Thanks to our Brooklyn correspondent.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–quite an active verb, “pursuit”–which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil. Locally, someone... I forget who... from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point is the same: get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once... but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)
None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
A Different Country
Sweden is a different country and a successful country, not afraid to try new things. The latest is to have a different Swede manage the country's Twitter account every week.
An interesting idea.
An interesting idea.
Selecting the right words is important
I'm probably overstepping my boundaries by questioning an article by one of my betters, a Pulitzer prize-winning and best-selling author, who serves on the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and chaired the US Department
of Energy’s Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development - Daniel Yergin. He
went to Yale and earned a PhD from Cambridge. He mixes with people like Bill Gates, appears on television as an energy expert. And I, an old man from East Cambridge, find Dr. Yergin's article in the NY Times somewhat lacking in considering the environmental costs of "America's New Energy Reality".
It's quite interesting that the word "fracking" is not used in the article, yet the reason for our new energy reality is, in fact, the arrival of fracking on the scene. Yergin speaks of the natural gas market having been "transformed by the rapid expansion of shale gas production". As for the increased availability of oil, Yergin attributes it to " tight oil. That is the term for oil produced from tight rock formations
with the same technology used to produce shale gas."
Friday, June 08, 2012
If not me, then who?
There is a certain amount of family pride in the following video. My nephew is the subject of the video.
You'll get some sense of what it means to fly like the Blue Angels. More importantly, you'll get a good idea of what being a good soldier means. The military and we need more people like Robert serving this country. That's what Robert does best - serve all of us.
The video ends with my favorite version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
Surprises under the Arctic ice
NASA does study not only space, it also studies the oceans, via a project known as “Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment" or ICESCAPE. They've made an amazing discovery - a garden of algae under the Arctic ice.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Inspectors General MIA
The president does have a lot to do, I know. But one aspect of his job is nominating or appointing good people to important jobs. Inspector General is an important job. Yet, Obama has failed to nominate an IG for the following quite important areas of government, especially the Defense Department where much of our money is spent.
Department Vacant Since
State 1/16/2008
Interior 2/23/2009
Labor 7/13/2009
Homeland Security 2/27/2011
Defense 12/24/2011
SEC 1/27/2012
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Thoughts About Afghanistan and US
Some quotes from a talk by Lt. Col. Danny Davis:
If the U.S. government chooses not to address the two fundamental
political and diplomatic challenges its intelligence estimate is said to
highlight — corrupt government and Pakistan's support for extremist
violence — then why waste more blood and treasure?...Sarah Chayes
As in Vietnam, the insurgents can lose every major tactical engagement and still win control in some Pashtun areas once U.S. and ISAF forces are gone…Anthony Cordesman
Credible transition planning cannot be based on systematic dishonesty and omission of key variables...Anthony Cordesman
With its existing composition, the ALP (Afghan Local Police) cannot win public support and
trust in and provide stable and durable security for communities...Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
As political competition heats up within the country in the run-up to
NATO’s withdrawal of combat forces at the end of 2014, the differing
priorities and preferences of the parties to the conflict – from the
Afghan government to the Taliban leadership to key regional and wider
international actors – will further undermine the prospects of peace. To
avoid another civil war, a major course correction is needed…International Crisis Group
But, equally, for every dead Pashtun warrior there will be 10 pledged to revenge...Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles
An unprejudiced analysis, in context, gives us little reason to conclude
that the preconditions for a positive trend – for instance a cessation
of asymmetric warfare and a transition to more effective governance –
will be fulfilled in the medium term...German Institute for International and Security Affairs
So many in America
say with enthusiasm that “we support our troops!” Yet when faced with a
mountain of evidence that the lives of those very troops are being
spent in support of a strategy that has failed, is failing, and analysis
suggests will end in failure, no one is demanding that the divergent
views be reconciled.
If we genuinely value the lives and sacrifice the Members of our Armed Forces make for all of America, I contend their service deserves having these questions answered...Lt. Col. Danny Davis
68 Years Ago Today
WWII began its swan song. June 6, 1944 was D-Day, the beginning of the end for Germany, although many would die before the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. The media today may have recognized the 68th anniversary of this day, but I could find nothing.
I was really too young to recognize the significance of this day when it happened. The day still resonates with many here at Duncaster. It also resonates with those of us who have been fortunate to visit the graves in Normandy and other areas of Europe.
How different have been our thoughts, knowledge and concern about our 21st century wars. As I've said before, just about everybody from kids like me to our grandparents knew we were at war and actively worked for this country. It feels as though that time and those events took place on a different planet, a planet where people cared about other people and worked to make the world a better place.
I was really too young to recognize the significance of this day when it happened. The day still resonates with many here at Duncaster. It also resonates with those of us who have been fortunate to visit the graves in Normandy and other areas of Europe.
How different have been our thoughts, knowledge and concern about our 21st century wars. As I've said before, just about everybody from kids like me to our grandparents knew we were at war and actively worked for this country. It feels as though that time and those events took place on a different planet, a planet where people cared about other people and worked to make the world a better place.
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
The GSA has problems
They like to have a good time as we saw. Now we see that they will pay bonuses to almost anyone, even those who are being investigated for misconduct. In the past four years they have paid more than $1,000,000 in bonuses to 84 employees who were being investigated. The average bonus was between $2,000 and $5,000. One got $76,000 over a five year period. Many received more than one bonus.
Bad Nuns!
Say it as though you were saying 'bad dog'. That seems to be the Vatican's attitude towards American nuns. It looks as though nuns are considered second to third class people who have to be instructed in what the men in the Vatican think is most important. Last month the Vatican wanted the major organization for nuns here to pay more attention to more important things, such as contraception. This video sums up the response.
Then,they started this month by denouncing a book by Sister Margaret Farley. The book gave a theological rationale for same-sex relationships, masturbation and remarriage after divorce.
Will Corzine be sued?
James Giddens, the bankruptcy for MF Global's US brokerage unit, is considering just that. He claims that Corzine breached his fiduciary duties and was negligent. In Giddens' view, MF Global suffered from a "lack of sufficient monitoring and systems, resulted in customer property being used during
the liquidity crisis to fund the extraordinary liquidity drains
elsewhere in the business."
Gee, they said 'no'
Admiral McRaven, head of Special Ops, wanted Congress and the State Department to change the rules. He wanted more autonomy to deploy his forces as he saw fit. Thus, he would be able to expand the presence of Special Ops in Asia, Africa and Latin America on his own say-so. Surprisingly, Congress, the White House and State said 'no'.
Here's an interesting quote from Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and low-intensity conflict (I wonder how intensity is defined), “We will need different authorities, we will need different types of
programs in order for us to engage with the range of countries, from
Libya down through Mali, which is obviously in the middle of chaos right
now, to Mauritania, all the way — and, quite frankly, all the way over
to Nigeria.” Policeman of the world?
I guess I should be thankful this refusal even made the news.
Monday, June 04, 2012
Times Have Changed
I've been taking a course on The History of Freedom. Today we discussed our Declaration of Independence, based on a reading of the document. The line that got me was the ending: "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." The professor referred to the authors of the document as "statesmen".
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