By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - Ice volume around the Arctic region hit the lowest level ever recorded this year as climate extremes brought death and devastation to many parts of the world, the U.N. weather agency WMO said on Tuesday.
Although the world's average temperature in 2008 was, at 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by a fraction of a degree the coolest so far this century, the direction toward a warmer climate remained steady, it reported.
"What is happening in the Arctic is one of the key indicators of global warming," Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said. "The overall trend is still upwards."
A report presented by Jarraud at a news conference showed Arctic ice cover dropping to its second lowest extent during this year's melt season since satellite measuring began in 1979.
However, the Geneva-based agency said, "because ice was thinner in 2008, overall ice volume was less than in any other year." It added: "The season strongly reinforced the 30-year downward trend in the extent of Arctic Sea ice."
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BF31120081216
BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–The mind of a fool. Is he that dumb to not know? He's beyond cognitive dissonance.
RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.
BUSH: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand.
In this guest essay, Brent Budowsky examines how secrecy has contributed to the crisis – and is now threatening a resolution:
The public is angry – and that anger is rising.
The dangers to our economy are escalating while confidence, trust and credibility are collapsing for both government and business institutions.
Whatever else Wednesday's mammoth action by the Fed suggests, we know this: After $8 trillion of support for financial institutions by multiple federal agencies, the Federal Reserve Board has concluded that the program has not worked, and much more is needed.
I emphasize this: I do not oppose bailouts; I oppose bailouts that are poorly managed, poorly structured and, far too often, conducted with secrecy.
I have warned since 2007 about the cascading financial crisis that would spread from sector to sector, bank to bank, and consumer to consumer. I have called, repeatedly, for direct action to benefit real people such as a temporary freeze on foreclosures.
What I continue to most strongly oppose are top-down bailouts, where $8 trillion goes to financial institutions that continue to raise their interest rates and cut credit lines for even their most creditworthy consumer and business customers.
As for disclosure, the banks and investment houses must be far more direct, comprehensive and honest in disclosing information to Congress, to regulators, to the public, and to investors.
In olden days, markets were based on prices applied to entities with ascertained value and trading was done as the value of those very ascertainable assets would rise and fall.
Today we have a new, and in my view vile, phenomenon: the securitization of everything, where clusters of mortgages, credit card accounts, etc. are bunched together and traded like Nasdaq stocks.
This removes the value proposition and makes these securitized instruments impossible to value, and they are traded based on whims, rumors and mindless speculation until some dumb slob is the last guy buying overvalued and bubbled assets.
This last guy is the slob holding the bag at the end, and now the bag is being handed to taxpayers.
Even as the auto industry teeters on collapse, union-bashing continues as the mainstay of a GOP propaganda war against organized labor. With three million jobs at stake, potentially costing taxpayers $150 billion in unemployment insurance, Medicaid, other aid and lost tax revenues, unions remain the primary targets of the GOP blame game for the troubled auto industry and the failed bailout deal. The Bush Administration, while dithering over the scope of any bailout with federal funds, has faced mounting pressure from Republicans to impose the same sort of union-wrecking conditions that scuttled a deal in the Senate last week.
The hostile response to a bailout, even though some form of rescue package is still likely this week, is doubtless fueled by recent polls confirming that a majority of the public is opposed to an auto industry bailout and doesn't believe that its collapse would significantly hurt the economy.
So far, it's right-wing demagoguery 1, progressives zero in the battle over the bailout. Public support was further harmed, of course, by the plutocratic PR blunders of the auto industry executives' initial jet-setting appeal to Congress. In fact, the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll reveals, the conservative propaganda campaign against an auto bailout has even hoodwinked some union members: "Union households are no more apt than those without a union member to favor the plan, 44 percent compared with 42 percent. However, the union householders who support the plan are more likely to be strongly behind the bailout, " the Washington Post reports.
All this should serve as a wake-up call for all unions, the broader progressive movement and allied media outlets: Will they be able to launch a truly effective counterattack against the propaganda blitz, ads and misinformation spread by conservatives, corporate-funded front groups and the mainstream media? Meanwhile, right-wingers are using the bailout mess to lay the groundwork to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) needed to secure organizing rights and allow the American middle class to grow.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/is-gop-risking-the-econom_b_151326.html
About 20 people have protested the war in Iraq by tossing shoes at a fellow demonstrator wearing a prison uniform and mask of President George W. Bush outside the White House.
Last month the birds were segregated after they were caught placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs.
But angry visitors to Polar Land in Harbin, northern China, complained it wasn't fair to stop the couple from becoming surrogate fathers and urged zoo bosses to give them a chance.
Who's the daddy? The segregated penguin couple, right, are seen here in their own enclosure quarrelling with another male over stolen eggs
In response, zookeepers gave the pair two eggs laid by an inexperienced first-time mother.
'We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they've turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,' said one of the keepers.
'It's very encouraging and if this works out well we will try to arrange for them to become real parents themselves with artificial insemination.'
Wildlife experts at the park explain that despite being gay the three-year-old male birds are still driven by an urge to be fathers.
'One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite the fact that they can't have eggs naturally, it does not take away their biological drive to be a parent,' said one.
Mumbai's terrorist outrage of November 26 has found a response truly matching it in madness. A call for a nuclear war - and nothing less - has come as the culmination of warped and warlike reactions to the traumatizing tragedy, which has claimed a toll of 200 lives.
The demented call, which still cannot, unfortunately, be dismissed as inconsequential, is not only a regional war of the said, scary description. It is also one for a global conflict of the kind.
Fittingly, the call has emanated from the real fuehrer of India's far right. He may be relatively unknown to the outside world, and less known even in his country than political leaders of the "parivar," as the far-right "family" labels itself. But Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan is the supremo of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the misleading name meaning the National Volunteers' Association.
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military operations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have cost $904 billion since 2001 and could top $1.7 trillion by 2018, even with big cuts in overseas troop deployments, a report said on Monday.
A new study released by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, or CSBA, said the Iraq conflict's $687 billion price tag alone now exceeds the cost of every past U.S. war except for World War II, when expenditures are adjusted for inflation.
With another $184 billion in spending for Afghanistan included, the two conflicts surpass the cost of the Vietnam War by about 50 percent, the report said.
CSBA said U.S. military operations have already reached $904 billion since 2001, including the two wars as well as stepped-up military security activities at home and the payout in war-related veterans' benefits. The estimate includes allocated spending into 2009.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4BE6LN20081216
But this is Dubya we're talking about. Worst. President. Ever. Surely he deserves better. Surely he deserves something a bit more ... thoughtful? Profound? Ironic? After all, while a shoe is nice, it's also terribly cliched. Boring, even.
Of course, I officially endorse none of the following far more appropriate, delightfully hurl-able options. Do not ever throw anything at President Bush, because you could get shot or perhaps go to jail for a very long time, which, despite how you'd be hailed a hero worldwide forevermore, would just be no fun at all. Don't do it. Throwing is wrong. OK?
1) Rainbow flag
Obvious, but effective. What better way to say, "Thanks for keeping the last fundamental civil right in hateful lockdown for another 20 years by kowtowing to the sexually ignorant and the religiously malformed, you sad lump of homophobic lint."
Bonus suggestion: Attach small photo of Bush's new son-in-law and Rove sycophant, Henry Hager, to the flag. Implied rumor: Henry's secretly gay! Just like half the GOP and all televangelists and John Travolta! The AP photogs will eat it up.
Note: Be sure to fold flag tightly for ideal trajectory, lest it unravel mid-flight and accidentally land on the head of the Saudi Arabian reporter, inducing horrified screams and spontaneous combustion. No one wants a scene.
2) Book about science
Clever! Something this president has actually never seen before: A real book full of complex ideas written by people who actually understand that humans didn't ride on the backs of dinosaurs, the Earth is not a giant litter box made of Cheez-Whiz and Jesus spittle, and that the Bible is basically a violent little children's fable. Amazing. Make it a soft paperback, because those hardbacks are a bitch and you don't want to hurt anyone. Remember, science is your friend.
3) Birth control pills
Turns out those little pink plastic saucer things actually soar quite well when hurled like little Frisbees o' Female Empowerment. It's a nice way to thank Bush for sucking the sour teat of the sexist religious right and Catholic church, front-loading the nation's courts with misogynist judges and stabbing at the heart of women's rights for nearly a decade.
Alternative: Load individual RU-486 pills into a large straw and blast them at Bush's head like Divine Spitwads of Cervical Righteousness. It's more sustained fun, and might get you in less trouble overall. Don't forget to aim a few at Jenna, in the honest hope she will never, ever breed. Hey, it's for her own good. Didn't you know her husband is secretly gay? I swear I just read that somewhere.
4) Crayons
Back in the early days of the Worst Presidency Ever, Bush used mostly Burnt Sienna with the occasional Purple Pizzazz. But lately Dubya's been turning to Mango Tango and Beaver, with a bit of Neon Carrot -- saying that one aloud always makes him giggle -- to sign all those laws, last-minute enviro rollbacks, sweetheart deals to Big Oil, final bitch-slaps and FUs to the conscious and the hopeful.
Did you know the Crayola company officially replaced Teal Blue with a color called "Wild Blue Yonder"? That makes George feel proud to be an American. He says to himself, "You think that damn Al Qaeda would ever use a color like that? You're gul-dang right they wouldn't! They're use some stupid America-hating color like Terrorism Turquoise or Suicide Bomber Sepia. Jerks!"
5) Dick Cheney
Cheney, thought to be made up entirely of black tar, razor blades and cold, glowering evil, certainly looks like he weighs as much as a tumescent water buffalo, and therefore would be just impossibly difficult to raise over your head and heave at Bush with any sort of accuracy or distance.
Turns out, however, that Dick is merely a phantasm, a collective nightmare, a little smear of something slimy and gray and unidentifiable, like you find on a dark road after it rains. Deeply unpleasant, but also nearly weightless. Easy to fling, after all! Warning: Do not to get any on your fingers or anywhere near your eyes or other mucus membranes. He may be an ephemeral hellbeast, but he's still one enormously toxic Dick
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/17/notes121708.DTL
Mohamed Makhafa, a retired school teacher, says he considers the size 10s a 'medal of freedom and more valuable than everything he owns', Al Jazeera news channel reported.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who became famous overnight in the Arab world, had thrown his shoes at President Bush during a joint press conference of the US leader with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad.
"It is more precious than all my property. I will bequeath it to my children and display it in a museum and call it the Medal of Freedom," Makhafa told AlArabiya.net.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Saudi-man-bids--10-mn-for-shoes-hurled-at-Bush/399684/
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They hate us for our shoes. Somewhere in what passes for the deeper regions of President Bush's mind might come that reassuring giggle of a thought as he once again rationalizes away Iraqi ingratitude for the benevolence he has bestowed upon them. Ever at peace with himself, despite many obvious reasons not to be, Bush quipped, "I didn't know what the guy said but I saw his sole." But the lame jokes no longer work.
The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist is now a venerated celebrity throughout the Mideast, and his words to the president - "this is the farewell kiss, you dog" - will stand as the enduring epitaph in the region on Bush's folly, which is the reality of his claimed legacy of success in the war on terror. That and the shoe-thrower's devastating follow-up as he threw his second shoe, "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," a reminder that we have used much deadlier force than a shoe in the shock-and-awe invasion once celebrated in the American media as a means of building respect for democracy.
This was more than a presidential photo-op gone wildly awry. One might suspect that the weekend event was designed originally to draw attention from the Friday release of the long awaited Senate Armed Services Committee's report on Bush's torture policy. A report that unanimously concluded that it was the White House and not a few bad apples that "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." The report, endorsed by all Republican senators on the committee, including ranking minority member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cited former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora's testimony that "the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq - as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat - are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Not only has the Bush administration subverted the image of the United States' commitment to the rule of law and justice, but it has done similar damage to our reputation for economic efficiency. On Sunday, the New York Times reported on an unpublished 513-page federal history of the Iraq reconstruction that it termed "a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure."
This invasion, which according to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, was supposed to be financed by Iraqi oil money, but instead has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The results, as the Times' account of the report put it, are abysmal: "The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed."
No wonder then that we are perceived as blundering bullies by so many in the region that we claimed to be interested in modernizing. That an Iraqi journalist, whose family had been victimized by Saddam Hussein and who was kidnapped by insurgents while attempting to work as a journalist, came to so loathe the American president, as does much of the world, should serve as the final grade on the Bush administration. It should also serve as a caution to President-elect Barack Obama, as he seeks to triangulate withdrawal from Iraq with an escalation of the far more treacherous attempt to conquer Afghanistan.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/16/EDHB14OLK5.DTL
The man who chucked a shoe at President Bush missed -- twice! -- but Press Secretary Dana Perino wasn't so lucky. She got a black eye when Secret Service agents scrambled to stop the angry Iraqi journalist -- and she was smacked with a microphone! Perino showed off her shiner at today's White House briefing and joked, "The shoe check-in and check-out policy will begin tomorrow."
http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2008/12/bush_gets_boot_shoe_throwing_b.php
BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- President George W. Bush's trip to Baghdad was supposed to underscore recent progress in Iraq, and mark the conclusion of a long-term security deal between the United States and Iraq. But with a well-aimed pair of loafers, an Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi managed to upstage the president's tightly scripted visit.The shoe-heard-around-the-world is particularly ironic, because of the absolutely massive security operation surrounding Bush's trip here. On the day of the president's visit, U.S. and Iraqi troops were out in force, and patrols were stepped up in Baghdad's Sadr City to block any potential attacks against the International Zone, where the president and his entourage would visit.
Earlier this year, Sadr City served as the launching point for a wave of rocket and mortar attacks against the IZ (a.k.a. the Green Zone). U.S. and Iraqi forces reclaimed the southern quadrant of Sadr City in a brutal street-by-street fight; while that battle raged, combat engineers built a concrete security wall that effectively pushed insurgent rocket teams beyond the range of the Green Zone. After a cease-fire was concluded, Iraqi Army units were able to take up checkpoints inside the rest of Sadr City.
Still, forces were on high alert. I accompanied Lt. Col. Michael Pemrick, deputy commander of the Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, as he inspected the Iraqi Army checkpoints near the security wall. He also stopped outside a few shops to chat with some young men hanging out on the sidewalk: How's security in the neighborhood? Do you have any community workers around here? Did you watch the game last night -- Barcelona-Madrid?
"You used to hear a lot of noises around Sadr City -- a lot of stuff blowing up," he told them. "You don't hear that anymore."
COSTA DO SAUIPE, Brazil (AP) — President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that an Iraqi journalist was acting for his country's people when he tossed his shoes at President George W. Bush.
Chavez said he doesn't favor throwing shoes at anybody, but that the incident could be called "the shoe toss of a people's dignity."
"One must remember that Bush has not thrown shoes at the people of Iraq — but bombs, death, destruction," he said.
Earlier, Chavez had a more jovial response to the incident — laughing and calling it "funny." Referring to the shoe-tosser, he said, "What courage!"
The leftist Venezuelan leader then hedged those remarks, however, adding: "At least it didn't hit him."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hz7R0j3P4KG158DF1rOnEWwlpJLQD9543MI00
Durgham al-Zaidi said he had been told his brother, Muntazer, 29, had appeared privately in the high security Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad.
"That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear his appearance could trigger anger at the court," he said.
It was not clear whether Mr al-Zaidi had been allowed any legal representation at the hearing.
Although he has not yet been formally charged it is expected he will face trial for "offending the head of a foreign state".
But legal experts disagreed on the length of sentence allowed under Iraqi law for the crime. One source said the maximum sentence was two years while another suggested is could be as much as seven.
Mr al-Zaidi has not been seen in public since he was manhandled out of the press conference where he threw both his shoes at President Bush while cursing.
Durgham said his brother was so badly beaten he had to be taken to the Ibn Sina hospital within the Green Zone for treatment broken ribs, a broken arm and facial injuries.
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- The United States would have condemned the beating of Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist who hurled shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush if that happened, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said on Tuesday.
"Obviously, we condemn any kind of unnecessary force used against the reporter. I don't know that that happened," Wood told a news briefing when asked to comment on the allegations.
"But, certainly, if that did take place, we would condemn that," the spokesman said.
Zaidi, 29, was immediately tackled by security guards on Sunday night after throwing his shoes on Bush at a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant against Zaidi for "committing a misdemeanor for throwing his shoes on President Bush."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/17/content_10515440.htm
The cartoon-like toy, which stands six-inches tall, is giving the likes of the popular Tickle Me Elmo doll a run for its money.
And some New York stores report selling out of the likeness of the President-elect in the run up to Xmas.
An action figure we can believe in: This Barack Obama toy has become the unlikely Christmas hit among kids, say American retailers
Tickle Me Elmo was a runaway hit among children - until the launch of the Obama doll
"They are literally flying off the shelves," said one worker at the Scholastic Store in Manhattan's SoHo area.
"The kids see Obama, and they just want to grab him."
Store manager Denys Ramos said they have sold more than 200 of the $12.95 figurines, which features the future White House resident with oversized ears and fingers, since the beginning of the month.
"This holiday season Barack Obama has been our Tickle Me Elmo," Ramos told the New York Daily News.
"We did have the John McCain figure but we had to discount it."
Yes, I am blistered like many concerning the corruption that surrounds the Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich as I suspect many Americans are since they despise their elected officials acting badly. Not to support the governor in any way shape or form, one would think he committed acts of treason with the wall-to-wall coverage of this corruption case.
In listening to the coverage of this "Sad and sobering" event as expressed by President-elect Barack Obama, I did hear that the Illinois state legislature may begin impeachment proceedings against him. They are allegedly doing so to wrest the power from Blagojevich so he cannot appoint someone to the senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Obama.
As the media covered this event and where impeachment was brought up, I did not hear any laughs or negative comments made of those state officials, as was done when others brought up any impeachment process directed at President Bush. Both Cynthia McKinney and Congressman Dennis Kucinich have been marginalized in calling for Bush's impeachment. I guess everyone is on board when it comes to impeaching Blagojevich instead of Bush.
As I listened to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and others express their outrage directed at this governor, you would have thought his acts of corruption caused the deaths of American soldiers and innocent Iraqi victims.
As Fitzgerald bleeped out the precise words coming from Blagojevich because it would offend a sensitive listener, one must ask: Why isn't the media showing images of our dead soldiers and innocent Iraqis? They act as if foul language coming from an elected official is an assault upon us all instead of a war of lies that cost the lives of human beings.
BAGHDAD, Dec. 15 -- In hurling footwear and insults at President Bush, Muntadar al-Zaidi expressed what relatives said were his own frustrations with American policy in Iraq and made himself into an overnight celebrity in the Arab world.
"This incident made him very angry against the American forces," recalled Maithan al-Zaidi, 28, his brother.
On Monday, people across the Middle East applauded Zaidi for expressing their anger at the Bush administration. In cafes and online chat rooms, people joked about the incident with glee, releasing years of frustration with U.S. policies. Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in the streets demanding his release from Iraqi custody.
Iraqi authorities have not charged Zaidi, but they have arrested him for "his aggressive actions against an official and a visitor of the Iraqi government," Yaseen Majeed, a top media adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said in a statement. Majeed called Zaidi "a disgrace to journalism" and said he would be handed over to the Iraqi justice system for punishment.
Munqeth al-Faroon, an Iraqi court official, said Zaidi could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison for insulting the nation's leader. On Sunday, at a news conference held by Maliki and Bush, Zaidi threw his shoes, one after the other, at the U.S. president, shouting, "This is a farewell kiss!" As Iraqi security guards converged on Zaidi, he yelled: "Dog! Dog!"
U.S. officials said they would leave it to the Iraqi government to prosecute Zaidi.
The shoe assault turned Bush's trip to Iraq into a public relations fiasco, overshadowing the White House's message of impending victory in a long and unpopular war. The incident served as a bookend to Bush's flamboyant 2003 arrival aboard an aircraft carrier decorated with a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," which was meant as a declaration of victory but soon became a symbol of U.S. hubris as the war continued.
Bush responded to the shoe-throwing by quipping that the shoes were "size 10" and joking to reporters, "I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole."
He rejected suggestions that the incident symbolized wider Iraqi displeasure with his administration and the conduct of the war. "I don't think you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq," Bush told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving Baghdad. "You can try to do that if you want to. I don't think it would be accurate."
But many people are doing that -- in the blogosphere, on television, in editorials. Users of the Facebook networking Web site created groups in support of Zaidi, including one called "I'm a fan of the great hero who hit Bush with his shoes in Baghdad" that had more than 9,000 members Monday night.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/15/AR2008121500161.html?hpid=topnews
Just a few of the shoes that world leaders would like to throw at BushInternational leaders and commentators have called for the "harshest possible punishment" to be used against the man who failed to hit George W Bush in the fucking face with his shoes.
At a press conference with Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki, an Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
Politicians around the world have expressed shock and awe that he missed the president's grinning face, and insisted that if they had been there, there would have smashed the bastard's nose right in.
Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain broke off from talks with union leaders to speak of his regret that Bush wasn't twatted in the chops. His Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd released a statement condemning the journalist for missing Bush's eyes and called for him to be tried at the Hague for "pissing away a perfect set up. "
http://thestupidtimes.blogspot.com/2008/12/world-condemns-man-for-missing-bushs.html
"Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which "Sobibor's SS," who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II).
About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor's SS bragged in another post to Forum 14 that he'd specifically requested and been assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D.
MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That's because they're specially trained in disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the infamous roadside bombs that are killing and maiming so many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, part of learning how to disarm an IED is learning how one is made.
"I have my own reasons for wanting this training but in fear of the government tracing me and me loosing [sic] my clearance I can't share them here," Sobibor's SS informed his fellow neo-Nazis.
One of his earlier posts indicated his reasons serve a darker purpose than defending America: "Once all the Jews are gone the world will start fixing itself."
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=971
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The Bush Administration inserted an eleventh-hour provision into the $750 billion bailout bill to protect executive bonuses, a single sentence that will torpedo efforts to reduce bonuses even as companies slash tens of thousands of jobs and use taxpayer money to gobble up other companies at fire-sale prices.
Pressured by constituents who worried that companies would take government aid and continue to pay their executives eye-popping bonuses, Congress inserted a provision that would penalize companies who took taxpayer money and shelled out outsized bonuses.
But at the last minute, Bush officials insisted on a one-sentence provision that stopped the measure in its tracks, according to congressional aides who spoke to the Washington Post.
The change stipulated that the sanction would only apply to firms that sold mortgage backed securities to the government at auction, which the Bush Treasury Department said would be the method they'd use to infuse troubled companies with bailout cash.
"Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts" who spoke to Post reporter Amit Paley. "In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_Administration_created_executive_pay_loophole_1215.html
Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
by Juan Cole
It turns out that they were prefectly happy to waste $50 billion in taxpayer money on reconstruction boondoggles in Iraq on explicity partisan grounds. A veteran Republican lobbyist, says the NYT, explicitly appealed to the then head of the Office of Management and Budget:
"To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President . . . His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt."
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
The "international community" is eagerly anticipating the incoming Obama administration's policy toward Israel. It is widely assumed that as soon as he comes into office, US President-elect Barack Obama will move quickly to place massive pressure on the next Israeli government to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the interests of advancing a "peace process" with the Palestinians and the Syrians.
Giving voice to these expectations this week was this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Martti Ahtisaari. The former Finnish prime minister used his prize ceremony to call on Obama to make contending with the Palestinian conflict with Israel his chief focus during his first year in office. This is the same Ahtisaari who recently demanded that the West recognize Hamas as a legitimate political movement.
People who have been in close contact with Obama's foreign policy transition team have privately acknowledged that the widespread belief that Obama will move swiftly to put the screws on Israel is fully justified. According to one source who has spent a great deal of time with the transition team since last month's US elections, Obama's people are "scope-locked" on Israel.
The source reports that Gen. Jim Jones, Obama's designated national security adviser, is Israel's most outspoken critic. The source, who held a two and a half hour meeting with Jones, told his associates that Jones is keen to deploy NATO forces, perhaps including US troops, to Judea and Samaria.
caroline@carolineglick.com
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The book details just what mischief the young newspaper reporter was up to when, while representing the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise beginning in 1862, he decided to bend or disregard the usual rules of journalism. Unsuspecting readers making their way through long columns of solemn legislature resolutions or mining claims would come upon sudden appearances of drunken dialect, or whoppers so ridiculous that readers found themselves dared to call the author's bluff.
Some did. When Clemens left Virginia City two years later, he was fleeing possible arrest for violating an anti-dueling statute, having challenged a rival editor. Clemens had been accused of "unmanly public journalism", which he considered to be fighting words.
But what might have looked like one more failed mineral prospector leaving the Comstock Lode district was, in fact, a young man who had struck it rich in a very specific way. He had discovered a literary alter-ego whose articles assumed the straight-faced appearance of traditional newspaper journalism yet somehow detailed highly unlikely frontier curiosities—petrified men, or bloody massacres committed by settlers holding worthless mining stocks.
Such stories were not that far removed from later tales, told by the same author, one of which involved a jumping frog.
With president-elect Barack Obama already taking command of the financial crisis, it's tempting to think that regime change in America is a done deal. But if George Bush has his way, the country will be ruled by his slash-and-burn ideology for a long time to come.In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of "midnight regulations" — de facto laws issued by the executive branch — designed to lock in Bush's legacy. Under the last- minute rules, which can be extremely difficult to overturn, loaded firearms would be allowed in national parks, uranium mining would be permitted near the Grand Canyon and many injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in state courts. Other rules would gut the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of wild lands to mining, restrict access to birth control and put local cops to work spying for the federal government.
"It's what we've seen for Bush's whole tenure, only accelerated," says Gary Bass, executive director of the nonpartisan group OMB Watch. "They're using regulation to cement their deregulatory mind-set, which puts corporate interests above public interests."
While every modern president has implemented last-minute regulations, Bush is rolling them out at a record pace — nearly twice as many as Clinton, and five times more than Reagan. "The administration is handing out final favors to its friends," says Véronique de Rugy, a scholar at George Mason University who has tracked six decades of midnight regulations. "They couldn't do it earlier — there would have been too many political repercussions. But with the Republicans having lost seats in Congress and the presidency changing parties, Bush has nothing left to lose."
The Senate's failure to pass the bailout of the U.S. auto industry strikes a big blow at one of labor's last stands in manufacturing in the U.S.
What's at stake? According to the bill: 355,000 workers in the U.S. directly employed by the automobile industry; 4,500,000 employed in related industries (the auto industry has the highest job creation multiplier effect of any industry); 1,000,000 retirees (with pensions and health care benefits).
Vice President Dick Cheney, mindful of his administration's economic legacy, reportedly pleaded to fellow Republicans in the Senate, "If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever."
Welcome to forever, Dick.
It's too late for Cheney, as his party and their think tank associates celebrated the opportunity of Detroit's woes to pin blame on their perennial target, labor unions. In September, the conservative Heritage Foundation, with a barely concealed smirk, was already spreading disinformation:
"There are plenty of auto industry jobs being created every day right here in America - and with no government help. Toyota recently opened a new plant in Texas, and is building another factory in Mississippi. Toyota already produces more than 1.5 million cars in America, and that number is set to soar as more factories like those in Texas and Mississippi come on line. Unlike the Detroit automakers, Toyota has a union-free workforce, which gives the company a huge competitive advantage. Toyota still pays good wages but its workforce is younger, not burdened by seniority rules, and the company has smarter and lower benefit costs."
Two contentions - that foreign automakers in the U.S. have received no government help, and that union workers are grossly overpaid-are either misleading or completely untrue.
First, let's start with government assistance. It's easy to forget that there are government subsidies other than the ones asked for in Congressional hearings. For foreign automakers such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, and BMW, the better way of wringing out public subsidies is to get Southern states to battle for your plants by offering a bevy of tax abatements, infrastructure projects, and even employee recruitment, screening and training. According to the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan, between 1998 and 2003, the Southern states paid out an average of $87,700 in "government help" per nonunion auto job created-an average of $143 million per facility-compared to $50,180 per job created in the haplessly unionized North.
The second contention - that the unionized autoworkers of the north are grossly overpaid - is misleading. In fact, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), one of the opponents of the bailout, encouraged the deception. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported the Senator "said the automakers pay their rank-and-file employees an average of $70 to $74 an hour, including benefits, while foreign automakers pay an average of $42 to $44 an hour." The quote, repeated nearly everywhere in the news media over the past few weeks, obscures the situation.
Only a very few news organizations - Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic and David Leonhardt at the New York Times, among the few-bothered to break it down. As it turns out, the base wages are fairly close - about $29 an hour for Detroit's three automakers, and about $26 for the foreign automakers in the U.S.
By Mark Morford
