Persona Non Grata

Wow!: Queen Annuls Bankster's Knighthood

2012-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Queen Elizabeth ratified the stripping of Sir (former) Fred Goodwin's knighthood. Goodwin was the head of the Royal Bank of Scotland which insolvency started the worst recession in Britain since WW2. The head of British Civil Service notified Goodwin of the action yesterday. The government said his prominent role in the 2008 Panic made him an "exceptional case" while some Labour ministers said the annulment was a bow to the mob given some people have been to prison and still have their knighthoods. Members of the House of Lords, for example, cannot have their honors removed (e.g., Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare) The Cabinet Office said Goodwin's knighthood was removed because it brought the honours system into disrepute. Are they serious? The Royal Bank of Scotland was rescued at ₤45.5bn ratepayer expense by the government to prevent even more damage to the country's banking system. Goodwin resigned under pressure as the bank's CEO and took early retirement in October 2008. Goodwin was knighted in 2004 for his services to banking. His knighthood was history when Prime Minister David Cameron called for it to be removed. Goodwin joins spies Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby, and dictators Nicolae Ceausescu, Robert Mugabe, and Benito Mussolini in the club of the disreputable. Mr. Obama, you should check this box ◻.

Bat Death Toll Will Go Higher

2012-02-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Myotis lucifugus

Biologists are gearing up for the winter bat count, but they expect more bad news as the "white nose syndrome" continues to spread through North America's bat colonies. The cause has been isolated,a fungus (Geomayces destructans)that lives in cave soil, but no effective means have been developed to stop the virus from killing more beneficial bats. The state of Wisconsin considers the fungus to be an invasive species, perhaps transplanted to New World hibernacula by peripatetic spelunkers. Estimates of the death toll are between 5.7 and 6.7 million. Mortality rates in some caves reach 100%. 70-80% is common. Congress directed the Department of Interior to dedicate $4 million of the Department's 2012 appropriations to fund research and response. One of the problems facing researchers is the lack of population data on common species such as the little brown bat. Endangered species like the Indiana brown bat are more closely inventoried, but both species are dying from the disease. Six species of North America's 45 species of bat are affected; all of the affected hibernate in winter. A spokesperson for Bat Conservation International characterized the disease as a potential extinction event on the order of the passenger pigeon or bison. Reports that natural resistance to the virus is increasing among decimated northeastern colonies where the diseases was first detected in the Andirondacks, but that may only be wishful thinking. European bats seem to be immune to the disease, and may offer some clues as to how to combat the deadly infection before it wipes out bats worth $3.7 billion annually in insect control.

Peace Prize Winner Sells Guns to Bahrain in Secret

2012-01-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

AP: Humvee & M113 near Pearl Roundabout

Readers may remember that the kingdom of Bahrain used Saudi troops to help quash protesting citizens during the "Arab Spring" uprising [photo]. But the oppressive character of the country's government does not stop the Obama administration from selling it advanced weaponry in secret. Fearful that public arms sales to Bahrain would met with widespread condemnation during an election cycle, the Obama State Department is using a legal loophole to secretly sell 44 armored Humvees and over 300 advanced missles (TOW) to Bahrain. A planned $53 million arms sale was blocked by congressional opposition. State did not release details of the new sale, but only briefed a few chosen congressional offices. The US government can sell less than $1 million in arms to a foreign government without listing the sale publicly on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency website. So the Obama administration is treating the transaction as multiple sales of under $1 million to avoid publicity or objections. State claims the weapons are only for "external defense" not for use against Bahrainis, But when the first sale was being processed a video popped up on the Web showing the Bahraini military using US manufactured equipment (M113 personnel carriers) to suppress civilian dissent, making a liar out of the State Department, again. An official of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights commented to the Cable blog that selling arms to the Bahraini regime sends the wrong message to the whole Arab world and is exactly similar to Russia selling arms to Syria. He said, "Bahrain has become the United States' test on how serious they are about standing against human rights violations, and they are failing miserably." Congressional opponents of arms sales to Bahrain have introduced legislation in both chambers to prevent the secret sale being consummated.

Chevron Hit with Criminal Charges

2012-01-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

Brazil intends to charge Chevron with criminal acts related to the 2,400 barrel oil spill off the Brazil coast in the Campos basin in November of last year. As many as 12 Chevron officials may be indicted for taking irresponsible risks in the Frade field. Although the Gulf Oil Spill was over 1,000 times larger than the Frade spill, British Petroleum has had no criminal charges filed against it, and the federal civil court judge handling claims against BP has ruled out punitive damages or civil fines as a result of these suits. Last summer Judge Carl Barber dismissed a consolidated racketeering suit arising out of the Gulf oil spill. The US Justice Department said in June it would investigate whether any criminal laws were broken by BP. The Clean Water Act contains criminal penalties, but environmental protection laws are only as good as the enforcement as Brazil is demonstrating.

Europe's Second Tier

2012-01-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

The ECB's cheap money deluge is relieving the crisis for some countries who are able to borrow at lower rates, like Italy and Spain, but the policy of exchanging 1% loans for bad collateral--similar to what the Fed did in the US--is in danger of creating a permanent debtor class of countries like Greece who will never be able to pay off its euro denominated debt bomb and will be eternally begging for mo' money from rich countries of the EU like Germany and Sweden. The situation in Greece is getting worse, not better, as the entire EU is headed for another recession, reducing government revenues and putting more and more Greeks into poverty, further reducing revenues. There are simply not enough antiques to sell to make the loan payments. European banks are getting plenty of liquidity from the ECB emergency lending operations, but the banks are only parking the money with the ECB to facilitate their own de-leveraging and meet the new reserve requirements--also similar to what happened with the TARP funds in the US. Greece's only hope of preventing future financial feudalism is to follow Iceland into repudiation, exit the zone, and pay back debts in drachmas. Of course this will drive the big banks crazy with losses, and there may be blood, but Greece is confronting its survival. This chart shows what the Baltic Index, a widely followed leading index of bulk shipping rates, shows about the near economic future for Europe:

The chart below shows the 'double dip' recession the UK is sliding into compared to its previous recession cycles while its sovereign debt total is on a parabola off the chart:

The red line is the current UK recession. It is the worst on record which does not bode well for the rest of Europe.

Weekend Edition: Snowy Owls Head South

2012-01-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

Audubon's Snowy Owls

In a rare event called an "irruption" thousands of beautiful snowy owls {Bubo scandiacus} are migrating south. Usually the large owls stay year round in their circumpolar tundra, but occasionally some do migrate south, but the numbers this year are unprecedented. Scientists are scratching their head for an explanation. Some think it may be due to the more than normally severe winter weather or increased competition from a boom in owl populations, but no one knows for sure. The migration is a rare treat for birdwatchers on both coasts and in the midwest as the all white owls with five foot wingspans soar overhead or roost on rooftops. Snowy owls have been seen as far south as Oklahoma. An owl expert called the event the most significant for wildlife in two decades. A plethora of lemmings last year caused the snowy owl population to increase too. Some breeding pairs hatched as many as seven offspring compared to the usual one or two. The increase in owl sightings has brought human enthusiasts out to see the fascinating sight. The gawking has contributed to local economies, but the migration has a dark side too. There are accounts of emaciated owls weighing only a third of their normal weight and the usual lethal collisions with man's civilization.

'Toontime: the Sorry State of the Union

2012-01-27T00:10:00.000-08:00

[credit: Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner]

And your option is....

[credit: Daryl Cagle, The Cagle Post]

But thanks to mo' money ($5million) from casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Newt is turning the Florida primary into a deadheat. Newt is shooting at Romney with both barrels, blasting Romney for investing in Goldman Sachs' Strategic Income Fund, 24% of which is in mortgage backed securities including adjustable rate mortgages from defunct lenders like Bear Stearns, Countrywide, Indy Mac and Washington Mutual. All of these were leading players in the sub-prime market which collapsed in the 2008 panic. Countrywide ranked first and Washington Mutual ranked fifth. About 5,000 foreclosure cases were filed in 2010 for Miami-Dade County alone (about 13% of Florida's population) on loans originated by these lenders. Nothing to get hung about; its capitalism...or maybe the curse of Cain!

Hope For Rhinos in Nepal

2012-01-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

WWF says in a press release that zero rhinos were poached during 2011 in Nepal. Conservation organizations working with the Nepalese government recognized the achievement of six different enforcement agencies with awards on January 7th. One female rhino was presumed poached from Manas National Park, but park staff and enforcement officials searched on foot for two weeks for the rhino whose radio collar ceased to give off a signal. She was eventually found wallowing in a pond inside the park boundaries. Two other one-horned Asia rhinos were translocated to Manas in January to join the eight living there since 2008, part of the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 joint project of the government of Assam, WWF, US Fish & Wildlife Services and the International Rhino Foundation [photo]. The rhinos are considered vulnerable by the IUCN because of habitat loss and ivory poaching. About 2900 are believed to still exist in India and Nepal. GREEN KUDOS to Nepal!

Living Up to Their Rep

2012-01-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

Their case undermined by sympathetic testimony that portrayed the last Hadditha massacre marine as just following his training, prosecutors allowed Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich to plead to a lesser charge of dereliction of duty. All other charges, including voluntary manslaughter were dropped {"And Then There Were None"}. The plea agreement is the last sad chapter in a Marine white wash of the killing 24 Iraqi civilians in which Wuterich allegedly told his squad to 'shoot first and ask questions later' after a fellow marine was killed by an IED. Ten women and children were killed as the enraged marines went house to house spraying the residences with automatic weapon fire and grenades. Seven other marines were charged with various crimes related to the incident; six were cases were dismissed, one marine was acquitted. An official 2007 investigation of the Hadditha massacre by US Army Major General Eldon Bargewell concluded there was "serious misconduct" at all levels of the chain of command.

Local Alaskans Vote Against Pebble Mine

2012-01-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

The proposed open pit mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay was voted down by locals in a ballot initiative. At risk are the largest sockeye salmon runs in the world. Residents of Lake and Peninsula Borough where the huge mine would be operated by Anglo-American Mining Co. voted in October against any large scale mining despite an intense public relations campaign by a consortium of mining interests named Pebble Partnership. The miners also resorted to legal action to block the initiative but a state court ruled against them. The mine would generate an estimated 10 billion tons of waste material that would have to be stored indefinitely on top of an active earthquake zone. The salmon industry, worth $450 million in economic activity, is overwhelmingly against the mine proposal. Mine pollution also threatens the survival of the last 340 beluga whales living in Cook Inlet. Despite the initiative results and a statement by its CEO that the mine would not be excavated if locals are against it, Anglo-American has returned to court to invalidate the results. It claims it has a legal right to pollute salmon streams with contaminated mining wastes, and end a sustainable way of life that has existed for thousands of years. The fight is not yet over; go to StopPebble.org.

Who Needs Due Process?

2012-01-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

Here's what Senate leader Lindsey Graham (R) thinks of due process rights for US citizens suspected of terrorist activities or sympathies:

"If you are an American citizen and you betray your country, you're going to be questioned about what you know...and you are not going to be given a lawyer if our national security interests dictate that you not be given a lawyer and go into the criminal justice system, because we're not fighting crime, we're fighting a war."

The NDAA (National Defense Authorization Bill) of 2012 in sectinos 1031, 1032, 1033-35 gives the president the authority to indefinitely detain anyone, anywhere in the world as an "unlawful combatant"--a black hole category invented by the Charlatan's legal goons to circumvent the Geneva Conventions--if he merely suspects someone of being a terrorist, having terrorist sympathies, or substantially supports "associated forces". These vague but elastic descriptions are not defined in the bill. So theoretically, you or someone you love who volunteers for the ACLU which blew the whistle on the NDAA provisions could be taken away in the dead of night and subjected to rendition, enhanced interrogation, or imprisonment without trial. No proof is required, just mere presidential paranoia. Sound impossible or simply is a bad joke by a TV clown? No, it is real and pending before the United State's Congress now. Section 1031 et seq is a recodification of the infamous Authorization to Use Military Force passed by voice vote of Congress in the hysterical aftermath of the terror attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Not since the days of the Red Scare has the United States government gone so far to strip way the civil rights of its citizens. Defenders say the NDAA forbids detention of US citizens, but the language of the bill clearly makes military detention of a US citizen in the United States an option available to the executive branch. Ask the seven senators who voted against the bill if it categorically forbids military detention of US citizens. (Coburn, Harkin, Lee, Merkley, Paul, Sanders, and Wyden) It is way past time to end the national nightmare of eternal war before America becomes the next Third Reich. Then it will be too late. Tell the constitutional scholar occupying the White House to condemn this fascist bill to the trash heap of history.

Chart of the Week: Frac You

2012-01-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

source: marketoracle.co.uk

This chart allegedly shows the chemical composition of typical gas shale fracking fluid. The article containing the chart is an apologia for the industry, but US Person asks, would you want any of these things--like "surfactant", "gelling agent" or "acid"--in your drinking water?

Weekend Edition: Russia's Spring or American Meddling?

2012-01-22T00:02:00.000-08:00

Posted previously was the unusual story of large scale demonstrations in Moscow {12.12.11} protesting fraud in the parliamentary elections, and Vladimir Putin's move to resume the presidency of the Russian Federation after handing off the office to his protege, Medvedev, to skirt constitutional term limits. Putin cried foul when Secretary of State Clinton publicly said the December 4th elections were unfair even before international election monitors transmitted their reports. Putin claimed to know that many of the youthful protesters and their organizations received funding from the United States. This claim was largely discounted by western media as the rhetoric of a politician and former KGB agent shaken by an uncharacteristic show of domestic dissatisfaction. But F. William Engdahl author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order" writes that there may be more to Putin's claim of active interference in internal Russian politics than the United States is willing to admit. The innocuously named National Endowment for Democracy was created during the Reagan years by CIA director Bill Casey. Casey saw the non-profit foundation as a means to advance Washington's global agenda other than by direct CIA action which was often ineffective or counterproductive. The majority of funds for NED comes from US taxpayers, and as one founder put it to Washington Post's David Ignatius, "a lot of what we do today [1991] was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." Members of its board are drawn from Washington's military-intelligence community. The current chairman of NED is John Bohn, former CEO of the Moody's bond rating agency.

NED can be found operating all over Russia according to Engdahl. It operates a high profile press center in Moscow that other international NGOs can use as a resource and conference space. It funds numerous youth advocacy programs and legislative workshops to assist youth engaging in political activities. In 2010, the latest year for which figures are published, it officially spent $2,783,000 on such programs across Russia. In a country not accustomed to 'pay for play' politics conducted largely through expensive mass media, that is lot of money solely devoted to political action. NED is also critically involved in funding 'independent' polling by the Levada Center and election monitoring. Without such monitoring, there would be no ability to claim election fraud. It finances in part the Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties (GOLOS) intended to monitor the press, political agitation, and the activity of electoral commissions.

NED also hosted Washington conferences featuring high profile opposition leaders like Boris Nemtsov. Duma member Nemtsov co-created the Russian protest organization Solidarnost which is leading the anti-corruption campaign focused on Putin. But he is far from being clean himself, having been involved in shady business dealings and using his influence to help business associates charged with crimes. Yet Obama favored Nemtsov with a personal meeting in 2009 and an invitation to speak at the influential foreign policy club, the New York Council on Foreign Relations. Obama also met former chess champion and Solidarnost co-founder Garry Kasparov, a member of a neo-conservative Washington think tank focusing on security issues. Yale educated blogger Alexi Navalny is the current poster boy of the Russian opposition for western media, but he admits being on the payroll of NED in 2007-08. Nemtzov, Navalny, and Putin's former finance minister Alexei Kudrin were all involved in organizing the December 25th Moscow rally that drew perhaps 120,000 protesters.

The question of the existence of real democracy in Russia aside, would Americans be sanguine about an foreign non-profit organization with ties to the Russian Federal Security Service funding Occupy Wall Street, hosting conferences for candidates, organizing political protests, or monitoring the voting in any state of the Union? US Person seriously doubts that type of foreign influence would be tolerated here. Despite all the money and activity, the State Department still incredibly claims the United States has "zero interest" in influencing Russian domestic politics. Perhaps Prime Minister Putin doth not protest too much when he tells the US to back off its attempt at full-spectrum dominance of the "new world order".

'Toontime: Imagine all the Newt

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Wackydoodle sez: Give 'em enough money, he'll make ya disappear!

The return of the Newt in South Carolina is like Romney's worst nightmare, and this time he's jet fueled with cash from zionist billionaire Sheldon Adelson thanks to the crack-brained decision in Citizens United. South Carolina is awash in Gingrich attack ads because Adelson, the 16th richest person in the world, plunked down $13 million for Gingrich's on and off campaign for president. That is enough money for the ethically challenged former Speaker to declare Palestinians "an invented people". The ridiculous rhetoric is red meat for Adelson; his widely read Israeli newspaper has been pounding the war drums for an attack on Iran and he takes a very dim view of negotiating with Palestine. Only Mitt's tax returns could do "15%" Romney more damage than Newt who is the doughboy made of kryptonite. Gingrich's campaign was also aided by Gov. Rick Perry dropping out and giving him his endorsement. Silly season rolls on.

Washington State Tallies 27 Wolves

2012-01-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

Good news: The state's Department of Fish & Wildlife completed an end of year survey that shows at least 27 wolves in five packs are now living in Washington. The population includes three successful breeding pairs defined as an adult male and female with at least two pups that survive until the end of a calendar year. Fifteen breeding pairs documented for three consecutive years is the goal of the state's recently adopted wolf management plan. The grey wolf is protected by the state throughout Washington and federally listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of the state.

Bad news: Florida panthers continue to die at an alarming rate. Three critically endangered panthers have been killed already in 2012. The state Conservation Commission confirmed that two were killed by vehicle collisions in Collier County, where the largest concentration of panthers live, and a third panther killed in a fight with another panther. Cats will fight to defend territory, but drivers account for the largest number of dead panthers. In 2011, nine of the confirmed deaths out of 24 were due to collisions. Estimates are now that 100 to 160 panthers remain alive, an unsustainable number, but up from the nadir of 30 in the 1970's. State wildlife authorities continue to work to increase habitat, a crucial requirement if panthers are to survive in Florida. Consideration should also be given to building safe wildlife crossings in areas of known high panther activity to reduce the number of panther fatalities due to careless drivers.

Keystone XL Derailed

2012-01-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

The controversial Keystone XL pipeline application should be rejected until new environmental studies are completed, the State Department is expected to announce today. Congress had sought to expedite a decision from the administration by including a provision in the payroll tax bill requiring a decision on the project by mid-February. The State Department says that deadline is unrealistic given the complex issues of economics, safety and environmental impact, so it will recommend rejecting the project until the studies are completed. The administration came under intense pressure to stop the project from environmentalists who consider it another huge potential source of greenhouse gas emissions and toxic oil spills. Conservative supporters claim the project will generate thousands of jobs. Two dozen Democratic legislators wrote to the President urging him to disapprove the project as not in the national interest. Activist Bill McKibben who went to jail along with hundreds of others to protest the pipeline said the expected decision was a "brave call" by a conciliatory president in the face of Big Oil's threats to exact political consequences.

2011 Sets Record for Illegal Ivory

2012-01-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

The international monitoring organization, TRAFFIC, says 2011 set a global record for large seizures of illegal ivory, reflecting the sharp increase in the illegal ivory trade since 2007. In 2011 there were at least 13 seizures over 800 kgs, representing the deaths of more than 2500 elephants. Hopefully, these seizures also indicate an increase in effectiveness of enforcement efforts. Recent seizures were at the port of Mombasa, Kenya where 727 pieces of ivory were discovered on December 21st in a container destined for Asia. Malaysian customs officials [photo] seized close to half a ton of ivory exported from Cape Town, South Africa on January 9th. This was the third ivory seizure at Port Klang, Malaysia in just over six months. Most of the illegal ivory comes from Africa and is shipped to Thailand and China. TRAFFIC has been keeping records on the ivory trade for the CITIES convention for twenty-three years. Rising demand for ivory and the involvement of criminal gangs with international connections are responsible for the rising deaths of elephants for their ivory. Once final figures have been tallied to include smaller ivory seizures, 2011 could be the worst year on record for elephants.

In a related development, Kenya Wildlife Service rangers are hunting the suspects of the killing of a community ranger, Abdullahi Mohammed, during a shoot out on the Rukinga Ranch occurring on January 13th. Another ranger was seriously injured in the exchange. Rangers were following the bloody trail of an injured elephant and human footprints when they were ambushed by the poachers. The poachers were equipped with an AK-47 and two clips of ammunition found stashed under a bush on an adjoining ranch. Rukinga ranch is part of the Kasigau Corridor forest restoration project area that allows animals to travel between Tsavo East and West National Parks. The owner of Rukinga ranch, Wildlife Works, employs local people in a garment factory as well as rangers to protect the wildlife. The project is part of the UN's REDD program (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries)

Russia Criticizes US For Guantanamo Gulag

2012-01-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

More: A French judge, Sophie Clement, has requested access to information from Guantanamo Bay justifying the detention and transfer of three French citizens to the gulag. The men were detained at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2001. The French citizens have made allegations of torture, and the Convention on Torture of which the US is a signatory permits universal jurisdiction to investigate torture claims of citizens by other countries. Nizar Sassi, Mourad Benchellali, and Khaled Ben Mustapha say they were subjected to sexual abuse, beatings and sleep deprivation. The men were returned to France in 2005 where they were sentenced to one year in prison on terrorism charges in 2011.

{17.01.12}Operating from a position of intimate familiarity with gulags, the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the US human rights record in a report. The twenty pages addressing the US record said the continued existence of the Guantanamo detention center was the main human rights problem, but also mentioned "longstanding systematic problems" such as racial discrimination, corruption, and a "flawed electoral system". Russia has been criticized for similar human rights failures by international bodies such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

On a more cooperative note, the Russian tanker Renda began delivering fuel to Nome, Alaska after being escorted through the pack ice by an American breaker. Nome would have been without fuel until break up in April without the Renda coming to the city's aid. Normal fuel delivery was cancelled by rough weather in a particularly severe storm season.

Chart of the Week: Same Ol' Euro Blues

2012-01-16T00:04:00.000-08:00

The financial news from Europe is not getting any better, as the technocrats continue to muddle through the debt crisis. France lost its AAA credit rating last week in the latest round of credit downgrades. The Greeks are on strike again to protest the destruction of their economy at the hands of banksters otherwise known as "austerity". The Greek government needs €14.5 billion in March just to keep its debts current. Talks between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Greek government have hit an impasse over the size of investor losses. The dire situation has some financial pundits predicting a Greek default will occur. More than $75 billion has left the country already as people move their savings abroad, and there are grave doubts the country has the political will to stay the painful course set for it by "the troika"--ECB, IMF and the EU. If the country implodes, it could loose up to 60% of its GDP. This chart shows why there is turmoil in Euroland:

If the current crisis can be boiled down to one cause, it is the existence of too much debt compared to economic growth, or to put it another way, economic growth based on credit expansion and not actual production of goods. France has been borrowing money since the 1970's to pay for current operating budgets.

The chart below shows an interesting dilemma of our times in the US:

Is it the chicken or the egg? Companies need increased revenues to hire additional workers without cutting their profits. Sales are surely highly correlated to employment, but without wages only the rich can consume conspicuously. One can only buy so many Picasso's before one becomes simply tasteless. Meanwhile the 99% go to jail without passing "Go".

'Toontime: Romney, the Job Killer

2012-01-13T00:06:00.000-08:00

[credit: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Now we know the whole truth about 1%er Mitt Romney. Not only does he wear special underwear, speak out of both sides of his mouth, but he kills jobs to boot. As the CEO of the private equity firm Bain Capital, Inc. he specialized in vulture capitalism: buying and taking apart failing companies and selling them for the price of their assets. In these raids the work force is usually an expense to be eliminated. That's why he loves firing people. He said so himself. If he incidentally created some jobs while making Bain money off the corporate take-overs, it was with the aid of corporate welfare. Twenty-two percent of the companies Bain took over eventually went bankrupt.

On the other side of the political carousel we have an incumbent who never created a job in his life, married to an angry scourge so ruthless she pushed charity cases out the door of the University of Chicago Medical Center when she was the hospital's VP for Community Affairs.
Michelle Obama created, along with Obama friend Valerie Jarrett, a "South Side Health Collaborative" program that redirected welfare patients away from the medical center to community hospitals and clinics so the medical center could offer it's beds to patients who had the ability to pay for profitable procedures. President of the American College of Emergency Physicians called the program dangerously close to "patient dumping", an illegal practice since the passage of the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act, and a blatant effort to prefer wealthy patients over poor ones to enhance revenue. The program used counselors whose job it was to convince poor patients to seek treatment elsewhere. It even provided bus service to shuttle the unwanted poor to other facilities. The program was so successful in generating more income for the medical center she hired Obama political adviser David Axelrod to conduct a public relations campaign under the benign title of "Urban Health Initiative" to sell the program to the public and other health care providers; the profit motive driving the campaign was pure Machiavellian. With a for-profit medicine advocate like her at the President's ear, the public option did not stand a chance.

Creature Feature: Smallest Frog Discovered

2012-01-12T12:02:00.000-08:00

Science Journal PLoS ONE reports that a tiny, tiny frog was discovered in the tropical rainforest of Papua, New Guinea. It should be emphasized that this frog is small, only 7.7 mm (.303 inches) in length. It could crawl into the barrel of your .30-06 and never be seen again, or sit on a dime and give you change. Paedophryne amauensis was discovered by Chris Austin of Louisiana State University, who admitted the frog was hard to find on the rainforest floor among the leaf litter. It is colored dark brown and sounds like an insect when it calls. The diminutive hopper occupies a unique niche in the forest ecosystem, and is more evidence of nature's amazing evolutionary profundity.

War With Iran Looms Closer

2012-01-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

A nuclear scientist working at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility was assassinated in Tehran today. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan died when a motorcyclist stuck a magnetic mine on the side of his Peugeot 406 in traffic. Fingers will be pointed at Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency which has a long history of successful extra-territorial assassinations. Israel expects Iran will have a workable nuclear weapon by the end of 2012*. According to Iran it has achieved the uranium enrichment level of 20% at a new underground facility outside Qom that it says is invulnerable to the most sophisticated ground penetrating bombs. This latest ratchet in the war of nerves between Iran and the West is ominous as both sides seemingly move toward a military confrontation. A few days ago Iran said it would impose the death penalty on a US spy, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former marine with dual citizenship. Economic sanctions are having some effect on the regime in Tehran as the rial has dropped to a new low on currency exchanges and the government has begun to stockpile oil against the US threat to cut off imports of Iranian oil. These developments may all be bluster and posturing, but given the stakes and the narrow confines of the Straits of Hormuz, there is little room for error. By a well known symbolic action reminiscent of the Cold War, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists [image] moved the Doomsday Clock one minute closer to midnight, now set at five minutes before catastrophe, citing the failure of nations to control nuclear proliferation. The last time the hands were moved was in January 2010 when it was pushed back one minute to six minutes before the hour. The clock was initially set in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight.

*Leon Panetta, now Secretary of Defense, slipped on the Face the Nation interview program by saying that Iran is not pursuing the development of an atomic bomb, but rather "nuclear capability". That assessment is contrary to the broadcast jingoism of war hawks in Washington. The International Atomic Agency (IAEA) made statements last year suggesting that Iran was getting closer to building a nuclear weapon, but former agency personnel disputed that inference as misleading. Scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko firmly denied on Radio Free Europe that a containment chamber for hydrodynamic testing of trigger devices had been built with his participation at the Parchan military complex in 2000. Robert Kelly, a former inspector for the agency and nuclear engineer also said the claim was misleading. Testing of explosive initiation devices is customarily done outdoors for safety reasons. Danilenko is known for his work with the explosive synthesis of nanodiamonds, a process that uses a containment chamber. In 2008 an IAEA member state handed in a purported Iranian document describing a 2003 test of a possible implosion system for a nuclear weapon. The member state is believed by informed sources to be Israel. We have been here before. {"Niger Documents"}

Creature Feature: Homeless Leopard Attacks

2012-01-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

This female leopard mauled two people and killed a third in the town of Guwahati in Assam, India. Wild animal attacks are common in India because out of control human development is taking living space from wildlife. To the Indians credit, and perhaps because of religious scruples, they did not destroy this wayward leopard; but tranquilized her, treated her wounds, and sent her back to the remaining forest [below]. In the United States she would have been summarily destroyed as a dangerous nuisance. Just recently, two malnourished cougars that were seen close to human settlement at John Day, Oregon were shot without any injuries to humans. The cougars were hunted for six hours before being located and killed. Notice the man's partially detached scalp; he was treated at hospital and released.

[credit: theweek.co.uk]

Chart of the Week: Occupy Your Home

2012-01-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Now is not the time to sell your home as prices are still deflating. The widely followed Schiller Index fell 3.4% for the year. Only Washington, DC home of the perpetually employed, and economically devastated Detroit saw price increases:

Last Haditha Massacre Defendant Goes On Trial

2012-01-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is the last Marine to go to trial in connection with the 2005 murder of 24 Iraqis including an old man in a wheel chair and small children living in the Euphrates River town of {Haditha}. Jury selection began Friday from among a panel of combat veterans. To date none of the eight Marines charged in connection with the killings has been convicted of a crime. That fact was the deal breaker for Iraqi officials faced with American demands for legal immunity before the Pentagon would leave troops behind to bolster the fragile Iraqi government. Wuterich was the squad leader of marines which shot five unarmed Iraqi men then cleared houses with automatic gunfire and grenades after a IED killed a fellow marine in the convoy. Since the court martial process began--stalled for years by legal arguments over the admissibility of his CBS News "60 Minutes" interview--Wuterich has been manning a desk at the 1st Marine HQ, Camp Pendleton, awaiting trial.

What was recently found in an Iraqi dump has shed more light on American forces' treatment of Iraqi civilians during the nine year occupation of Iraq. A resourceful New York Times reporter shifting through the debris left by departing American troops found four hundred pages of interrogation of American military personnel in a junkyard outside Baghdad. The attendant was using the supposedly classified secret documents as fuel to cook his dinner. The papers appear to be official investigation into the Haditha atrocity, but the US military refused to confirm that fact, claiming the papers were still classified despite being found discarded in a junkyard. What the Q and As show is Iraqi civilians were being killed regularly during the war. In the transcripts, a US major general described the killings as "the cost of doing business". Soldiers and marines, unsurprisingly, became either paralyzed or dehumanized as the violence escalated. Bodies piled up as troops began to fire on civilians indiscriminately while some of their comrades took pictures. Clearly, the Americans did not understand or appreciate the foreign culture they had invaded. Consequently, the Haditha killings were considered by the Americans to be unremarkable. Then Anbar Province commander, General Johnson, did not examine the Haditha deaths because "it [civilian casualties] happened all the time...throughout the country". Anbar Province, where Haditha is located, was the epicenter of the Sunni insurgency; 1335 Americans were killed in Anbar alone.

Anbar is also the location of Fallujah, the site of the most violent engagements of the war. After Blackwater mercenaries where dragged through the streets and their bodies burned and hanged from a Euphrates River bridge, the American military loosed havoc on Fallujah in 2004. Residents still have not forgotten or forgiven Americans for the brutal destruction of their town. In two major battles American marines struggled to control the city. The urban warfare left it pulverized and hundreds of Iraqi civilians dead. The majority of destroyed homes have been rebuilt, but many factories are still shuttered. Apartment buildings lie in heaps of rubble. The US trained Iraqi army still controls the Sunni bastion, fueling local resentment. Given the lack of accountability of the US military in Iraq, it is no wonder Iraqi politicians found it politically impossible to grant legal immunity to American military personnel.

Weekend Edition: Hawaiian Monk Seals Killed

2012-01-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

credit: Kauai Monk Seal Watch

An outbreak of endangered monk seal slaughter has erupted on the Hawaiian Islands. Two {monk seals} were found clubbed to death on a remote shore of Molokai, and another carcass found on Kauai. Another possible killing on rural Molokai is being investigated. There is no known motive, but resentment among fishermen of the protected fish eating seals is well known, and there is an erroneous belief among locals that the monk seals are not native to Hawaii. The population of monk seals is plummeting. Current estimates are around 1100 and at the current rate of mortality the seal will be extinct in 50-100 years.

NOAA has made two proposals to save the seal from rapid extinction. One is to relocate monk seals from the remote atolls of the northwest where survival rates of pups are at an unsustainable level of 20% to the waters around the more populated islands where their are fewer sharks and large fish competitors. Only 80 to 100 seals are believed to inhabit the waters around the main islands. The other proposal is to expand federally protected critical habitat for the seals to parts of the main islands. Locals, unhappy with the federal rules protecting the state mammal, believe the federal government is again improperly dictating to Hawaiians. Some respected elder islanders claim the monk seal was not present when they were growing up, but archeological digs show bones in middens dated as far back as the 15th century. The native creation chant, which names all the creatures known to Hawaiians, mentions a creature like the monk seal. Monk seals appear to be congregating around Molokai during the past few years. The beautiful rural island with stunning, sheer sea cliffs is inhabited by only 7,000 humans, many of whom hunt, fish and gather their food (unemployment on the island is over 15%). The seals are coming in conflict with human subsistence fishing, and the federal proposal to designate main island critical habitat is making the situation more acute according to islanders. Nevertheless, the state government is preparing a reward for information leading to the conviction of monk seal killers. The last person to be convicted killed a pregnant monk seal which had the temerity to sun on the Kauai resident's favorite fishing beach in 2009. He was sentenced to only 90 days and a $25 fine. In 2010 a state law was passed making it a class C felony for anyone killing the state marine mammal. Federal law provides for fines of up to $50,000 and five years in prison.

'Toontime: Who is that Fat Kid in the Window?

2012-01-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

[credit: Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle]

Nice try, Stephan Colbert (Stə-FON KOL-burt)but his goat is still in the barn, says US Person. US liked the sombrero, but in return he offers an unambiguous 'toon to keep his readers amused as we come to the end of Christmas and the beginning of political silly season. As one person said in response to a question at the airport about who won the Iowa Caucuses, she replied, "I don't know, it's politics". Must be a football fan!

Iowa Caucus Special: Ron Paul, Racist?

2011-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

US Person is still on holiday, but he has agreed to post for the benefit of Iowa Caucus participants. It is apparent that Congressman Ron Paul is anti-fascist, anti-war, pro-civil liberties, and an adherent of the Austrian School. If he wins the Iowa Caucuses, he will emerge from the periphery of American politics to present a viable option to the duopoly of the major parties. Not since Ross Perot have Americans been so willing to endorse a third-party candidate to break the moribund strangle hold of the two-party system. Consequently, Paul is being attacked by the corporate mass media and rival campaigners as the latest alternative to the plutocrats' front man, Mitt Romney.

The attackers have seized on newsletters from the 8o's and 90's published under Paul's name, allegedly revealing his racist attitudes. Paul has publicly disavowed the newsletters as not his own writing. Calculated to appeal to red state fringe voters, the publications did generate income for the candidate. More revealing is the "politically correct" thinking of his current critics. Quotes often cited as showing his bigotry are more correctly characterized as harsh or blunt assessments of American reality. His newsletter described Martin Luther King as "a world class adulterer", a character flaw Hoover's FBI took pains in verifying. Later, Paul's "Survival Report" worried about the "disappearing white majority", an undeniable demographic fact that will affect the social and political life of the United States. While it may be weak to fear all black men, it is not irrational for some to react with fear to the fact that the majority of criminal defendants in urban centers are black. That condition may be the result of economic oppression and police profiling, but it is reality, as is the fact that most fleet NFL running backs are black. Other examples of calculated political overreaction to Paul's provocative prose can be offered. What can be gleaned from all this falderal is that politicians confined to the shadows of fringe party politics often resort to extreme rhetoric to gain a following. The very nature of the political duopoly makes unorthodoxy a necessity. Ron Paul is no exception. As he moved away from libertarian politics to rejoin the Republican party, he disavowed the crank rhetoric. He took responsibility for the newsletters' content in his run for Congress in 1996.

US Person is not a Repugnant or a Libertarian, but Ron Paul is bringing to the forefront issues such as the failed war on drugs, the domination of American politics by the Federal Reserve, the undue influence of the Israel lobby in foreign policy, the deleterious effect of the anti-terror war on our civil rights, and the draining of our national wealth by our military empire that are deliberately ignored or understated by the so-called "mainstream" politicians. US Person for one is glad Ron Paul is in the presidential race, and so are a lot of Iowans who are looking at conditions in their nation from ground level, not 40,000 feet.

2011-12-20T00:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays from Persona Non Grata

US PERSON is taking a break for the holidays. Return to this cyberspace for more high impact blog in the new year.

Snow Leopards In Siberia

2011-12-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

For the first time snow leopards (Panthera uncia) have been photographed in Siberia. Ten camera traps were set up by researchers studying Argali sheep, the world's largest wild sheep and a favorite target of trophy hunters. Fresh scat and scrapes were found that is evidence of snow leopard presence so cameras traps were emplaced. Photos were taken in October at the Chikhachyova Ridge in the Altai Republic of Southern Russia. The NPO, Panthera, granted $20,000 to supply the high tech cameras. Cameras also caught images of the rare Pallas' cat, a domestic cat sized feline with thick fur similar to a Persian cat. The researchers were accompanied by staff from the Arkhar and Altalsky State Biosphere Reserve. Plans are to track the snow leopards during the winter to evaluate the health and size of the population. Snow leopards like most big wild cats are threatened by habitat loss and human predation. They live mostly solitary, crepuscular lives above tree line, so sightings are truly noteworthy.

Chart of the Week: Why Daivd Cameron Told Europe, 'Forgetabboutit'

2011-12-19T00:10:00.000-08:00

Prime Minister David Cameron refused to join a greater Europe, and some Tory backbenchers are heralding him as a British version of Joan d'Arc. But here is the real reason the Prime Minister said "Non":

His decision to set sail alone may backfire if the euro does not collapse and some financial observers think the euro may be "to big to fail". The British have paid the most in Europe for rescuing profligate banks in 2008, £1.8 trillion, and their ruling plutocrats have responded accordingly. "The City" is now the Conservative Party's largest donor.

Iranian Hacks Down US Spy Drone

2011-12-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

The top secret, high-tech RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone that made an unscheduled landing in Iran earlier this month was downed by Iranian cyber specialists exploiting a known navigational weakness. In an exclusive interview with the Christian Science Monitor[video], an engineer now working to reverse engineer the US drone said electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications to the aircraft and guide it to a landing in Iran. Using information gleaned from less sophisticated US drones shot down, the engineers confused the GPS system with jamming causing the 'bird' to go into autopilot mode, then communicated alternative navigational information. The craft landed safely in Iran rather than Afghanistan at about the same altitude. A few meters difference in altitude at the landing location caused damage to the drone's undercarriage. A US Navy electronic warfare specialist interviewed said even combat grade GPS systems are susceptible to manipulation. A general in the Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Iran has gone beyond mere jamming of signals to deception of "aggressive systems" including guided missiles flying at much greater speed than a drone. European intelligence sources say Iran shocked the West when it blinded a CIA spy satellite with an accurately aimed laser burst. Iran called the capture of the equipment "a great epic", and it indeed is a propaganda coup against the technological prestige of the United States. It is not Francis Gary Powers, but it is close. By the way,US Person thinks that as soon as the Iranians are done recreating "the beast", you can have the original back, Mr. Obama.

Are the United States and its allies the only nations on Earth legitimately allowed to defend themselves with advance technology? Apparently so, as this timeline of saber rattling against Iran's "unacceptable" nuclear program since 1979 shows.

Weekend Edition: Fukushima+9

2011-12-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

Cherenkov Radiation, v>.75c

Nine months after a tsunami crippled the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station, the Japanese government claims it has achieved a "cold shut-down" of the station's badly damaged reactors. Experts are not sanguine about the claim. Hiroaki Koide, a professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute, says there is no such condition at Fukushima and that the battle to contain radiation from the plant will be "a long battle of epic proportions, and by the time it is really over, most of us will be long dead." Kyodo News says the demolition of the reactors could take 40 years. The warning comes amid fears of re-criticality in some of the reactor cores where melted fuel could threaten groundwater. A water sample from reactor No. 1 reportedly contained high levels of Cl38. Tepco later denied the reading saying it was due to an error. A blue light beam was also reported. Spent fuel rods in No.4 reactor building are believed to have damaged the reactor building, the foundation of which is the last barrier before the slag hits earth. The Japanese government announcement is seen as a public relations effort to pacify the public.

A former senior operator of US nuclear plants says the situation at Fukushima is no better than in June. It took thirty months for officials at Three Mile Island to get inside the single reactor that partially melted down. At Fukushima, hydrogen explosions blew apart the No.1, and 3 reactor housings, and damaged No.2. Fires in No. 4 spent fuel pool damaged the reactor building. Fairwinds chief nuclear engineer, Arnie Gunderson, said in a video interview that the industry use of the term "cold shutdown" is misleading. Molten fuel is still above 100℃, steam is coming from inside Nos. 2 and 3 indicating a breach of containment, and there are radioactive hotspots in the area. Gunderson also said the exaggeration by the Japanese government would "blow up in their face" and further erode public confidence in government's ability to regulate the nuclear power industry.

'Toontime: Europe United, Inc.

2011-12-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

[credit: Martyn Turner, Irish Times]

Doubts about the political settlement of the European Union's financial crisis are already beginning to remerge only one week after the summit in which all the nations except the UK agreed in principle to closer fiscal coordination. Moody's said the summit "offers few new measures, and does not change our view that risks to cohesion of the euro area continue to rise". Those risks were reflected in the bond market, as the cost of borrowing continued to rise. The ECB is apparently willing to use its cruel leverage to force austerity on the so-called profligate Mediterranean countries by slashing bond purchases. The hard money policies of the Anglo-saxons means the end of the euro zone, eventually. Some observers see the beginning of a bank run in Europe as investors remove their funds to safer ground, and banks begin paying "through the nose" for dollars from corporate sources.

Killing Wolves in Idaho

2011-12-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

"Killer Bee": thewildlifenews.com

This is one service for which you pay your federal taxes: aerial extermination of wolves. The photo of the "Killer Bee" was first posted on The Wildlife News blog and the story expanded in the LA Times. Look closely and you will see the number of "kills" pasted--fifty-eight--on the plane's engine cowling. You think these Department of Agriculture employees were fighter aces, not akin to the the guy who comes over to kill your cockroaches. The stickers were removed in 2009 in response to complaints about the attitude they represent. That year the misnamed Wildlife Service, an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, removed 480 wolves. Because elk numbers are down in the Lolo region of Idaho, state officials are considering calling in the federal exterminators again. But conservationists insist that wolves are not totally to blame for fewer elk. Elk populations were declining due to lost habitat before wolves were reintroduced. Idahoans are unapologetic about their hatred of the wolf and say no apology from the agency was necessary. They just want the wolves dead.

Ecuador's Antisana Volcano Preserved

2011-12-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

A private foundation, World Land Trust, has purchased 264,000 acres of land around the Antisana volcano for preservation. The Equadorian government created an ecological reserve there in 1993 but it was mostly privately owned and managed for cattle ranching, resulting in conflicts between use and conservation of species such as the Andean condor and spectacled bear [photo:wildlifeextra.com] The area features a succession of habitats from high altitude grasslands to cloud forests on the slopes descending into the Amazon basin. World Land Trust was joined by the Environmental Ministry and Quito's municipal water authority which purchased two haciendas, representing the largest land purchase for conservation by the Ecuadorian government. Because of the long history of cattle grazing, Antisana's habitats are significantly degraded, but the preservation purchases create an opportunity to restore the natural systems. Andean cloud forests are considered one of the richest habitats on the planet for biodiversity with many endemic species from rare orchids to endangered frogs. The paramo, or steppe region, is home to migratory shorebirds, waterfowl, puma and wolf.

Congress Passes Indefinite Detention

2011-12-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

Update: Did you really think Obamatron would stiff the Pentagon? He signed indefinite detention into law, as expected. Regarding Ron Paul's rise in the Iowa polls: Fox Spews is so blatantly partisan that the moderator of the next "debate", Chris Wallace suggested "Iowa won't count" if Ron Paul should win the state caucuses in January because "most of the Republican establishment thinks he's not going to end up as the nominee". Perhaps we should simply forego the preliminaries and proceed by anointing?

{14.12.11}The Obamatron has threatened to veto the defense appropriation bill that contains the most significant abridgement of civil rights since Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War. Whether he has the courage to actually strike at the sacred bull looming across the river in its five-sided temple of doom remains to be seen because Congress passed the appropriations bill without deleting the provision that makes indefinite detention in military custody of merely suspected terrorists legal. Congressman Ron Paul, running 1 point behind Newt Gringrich in Iowa, said on the Alex Jones show that the defense bill literally "legalizes martial law" in America and is an example of the administration's "arrogance". Paul said at one point the administration tried to push through a provision that even if a detainee were found innocent, the government could still detain the captive indefinitely. Fortunately that provision was voted down on a voice vote. Commentators have said that the opposition of the adminsitration to indefinite military detention is not grounded on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but is based on practical considerations and protecting presidential authority in the 'war on terror'. This latest example of the erosion of civil rights begun under the last regime is perhaps the worst. As Ron Paul said in his interview, "This is big."

The President marked the formal end of American military operations in Iraq with a visit from the Iraqi Prime Minister this week. He had the good taste not to claim victory in his remarks or mention the phantom WMDs foisted on the American people so they would accept an unnecessary war of executive choice. Only history will judge the correctness of the original decision to invade Iraq, intoned the President. But most Americans do not need to await the judgement of history. The toppling of a distant dictator was not the worth the dead and maimed or the money wasted. The war is over, but the assault on our civil liberties in the name of national security goes on.

Atlantic Sturgeon, Victim of Good Taste

2011-12-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

It looks like a fish caught in a time warp at the bottom of the sea, but its antediluvian form does not put off gourmets from enjoying its flesh and eggs. Few fish are more ancient than the sturgeon. A throwback to the Triassic when dinosaurs were just gettting started, the sturgeon of today looks much as it did 85 million years ago. Evolutionary prowess does not guarantee survival in the age of the naked ape. Sturgeon is critically endangered by pollution in rivers, lakes, and estuaries, and by the deliciousness of its roe. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists 18 species worldwide as endangered, 16 critically. One of those is the Atlantic sturgeon, Acipenser oyxrinchus oxyrinchus, but when the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposed adding the species to the endangered list in 2010, it did not include the Atlantic sturgeon. Despite a 1998 ban on sport and commercial fishing, many populations have not shown appreciable recovery according to NMFS. There is little dispute the Atlantic sturgeon is suffering from intense pollution of coastal waters. The Delaware Bay and River were once the venue for great aggregations of spawning sturgeon, now sightings of juveniles or spawning adults are rare. Nevertheless, there is not a lot of consensus among ichthyologists about an inscrutable fish that lives most of its life in the dark depths out of the sight of man, and the lack of data is hindering legal protection of the fish.

Atlantic sturgeon can live for more than sixty years and weigh 600 pounds. It is superbly adapted to survive on bottom-dwelling mollusks, worms, crustaceans and insects. It breeds slowly however, not reaching maturity until 11 to 24 years old, depending on the population. Younger females carry fewer eggs. Sturgeon migrate between fresh and salt water like salmon, but unlike salmon, sturgeon may stay at sea for a decade where they often travel great distances. A tagged Delaware River sturgeon was tracked to Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, a journey of 1,000 miles in 53 days. Until more sturgeon are implanted with telemetry, their aquatic wanderings will confound scientists trying to help them avoid extinction. Sturgeon flesh was not considered a tasty consumable by European settlers. For native Americans it was an important source of food and oil. Sturgeon eggs, processed as caviar, became a delicacy after the Civil War when railroad shipment of preserved roe was possible. Within twenty years there were thousands of fishermen seeking sturgeon on the east coast and the harvest was more than 7 million pounds. By 1899 a keg of roe cost $105, reflecting the carnage that depleted the prey. The great sturgeon migrations up the major east coast rivers ceased, probably for all time.

Canada Quits Kyoto Protocol

2011-12-13T14:12:00.000-08:00

The conservative premier of Canada announced that his country will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol the only international agreement so far reached to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Admittedly the Kyoto agreement is adequate to reduce global warming by 2℃, a goal climate scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change, but it represents the only legal contract to actually reduced emissions since 1997 when it was signed by Canada. The Canadian environment minister justified the decision saying Canada would risk $14 billion in penalties if it remained a signatory to the Protocol. Premier Stephen Harper said the accord was "an obstacle", not a solution to global climate change since it does not cover the two largest polluters, the United States and China, and it was an error for the liberal government at the time to have signed. Under the terms of agreement Canada would had to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% of its 1990 levels. When Harper became premier in 2006, he rejected those goals as unattainable and substituted a reduction of 17% of 2005 emissions by 2020. None of these goals are enough to avoid catastrophic climate change according to ecologists. At the Durban, South Africa conference which ended Sunday, delegates from 190 nations agreed to extend the effect of the Kyoto accord to 2017 in the absence of a new international agreement. But Harper's government claims a new agreement covering all countries that permits some economic growth is the way forward. Canada is an economy that relies heavily on exploitation of natural resources, such as the ecologically disastrous mining of the Alberta tar sands. Harper's decision to exit Kyoto was denounced by his parliamentary opposition.

Chart of the Week: Russian Politics, American Style

2011-12-12T00:07:00.000-08:00

This scatter chart shows an interesting relationship which would not be unusual for an American political party where a Congress members performance is often judged by how many federal projects the member brings home.

This election in Russia was a troubling one for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. A relationship between the number of votes for United Russia and the amount of government subsidies an area receives still holds for the 2011 election, but the vote totals for his bloc is down. The consensus of election observers is there were widespread irregularities including ballot stuffing, but the fraud was not enough to give Putin's party more than half of the parliamentary seats, down from its previous 70% ruling majority. The Communist Party was the surprise winner in the election filling 92 seats in the Duma; some Russians believe "grandma" would have beaten United Russia but for the tampering.

Election fraud on December 4th has brought middle-class Russians out into Moscow's streets in a cold version of the Arab Spring demonstrations [photo: Le Monde]. On Saturday, 50 to 80 thousand demonstrated their displeasure with the Putin regime by four hours of critical speeches, capping a week of street demonstrations. The BBC reports 600 arrests in Moscow alone including the well known political blogger Alexey Navalny. Uncharacteristically, state controlled mass media covered the protests in a neutral manner. Protesters are upset with the election process and want the results investigated by the Central Electoral Commission, but its final report on the election was signed last Friday and is unlikely to be changed. Since the end of Soviet rule, Russians have been politically quiescent except for widespread approval of Vladimir Putin. During his previous time in office he consolidated state control and curbed civil rights. That unquestioning love affair seems to be at an end now, but it is unlikely Prime Minister Putin will be defeated for his third six year term as president of Russia.

Nevertheless, Mr. Putin seems perturbed about the unexpected flowering of grass roots democracy. He resorted to blaming US Secretary of State Clinton for stirring up trouble by her critical comments on parliamentary politics, saying "she set the tone for some act[ivists] and gave them a signal. They heard the signal and with the support of the US State Department began active work." Secretary Clinton in Lithuania last week said the Russian elections were "neither free nor fair". Protesters derided Putin's allegation of US intrigue as ridiculous. The United States does fund programs which it claims are only intended to support a more transparent and fair Russian electoral process. Russia does not actively fund similar programs in the US, for example, to improve the voting process in Florida or Wisconsin or discourage the passage of onerous voter eligibility laws. The blogosphere, as it has in the Arab protests, played a central role in disseminating information and mobilizing young voters. Many young Russians acted as unofficial election observers, some posting videos of authorities bribing or cajoling subordinates to vote for United Russia.

Weekend Edition: Durbin Disappoints

2011-12-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

This time around the countries of planet Earth agreed to do something about anthropogenic climate change, but what it was can be categorized as "too little, too late". The Durbin climate talks ended with an agreement to do very little to reduce global warming until 2020. The text adopted Sunday by 190 nations does not contain binding obligations or new promises to reduce the levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Le Monde calls it an "accord minimal". After ten days of round the clock disscussions the participants agreed to establish a global accord for the reduction of emissions beginning in 2015, but which does go into full effect until 2020. Despite the lead up time given for compliance the proposed document will not have the effect of a binding contract on signatories, a demand made by Europeans at Durban. In the end the EU settled for language that gives the proposed pact legal force, but what exact form the agreement will take was deliberately left vague. In the interim the nations agreed to extend the only international agreement on climate, the Kyoto Protocol, until 2017, bridging a legal gap left open when the Cancun conference failed to reach accord on a replacement treaty. Small island states who are in danger of begin swamped by rising sea levels and extreme storms are alarmed by the meager results of the conference. South Africa's leadership of the summit was criticized by small and large countries alike, but that didn't stop madam chairperson [photo] from claiming "history has been made" as she gaveled the proceedings to a close. Perhaps the UN should issue life jackets.

Chart of the Week: Greece's Impossible Debt

2011-12-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

Update: The United Kingdom is the only country among the 27 nations of the European Union not to accept a Franco-German proposal for closer fiscal coordination and budget discipline. Prime Minister David Cameron is widely seen as adhering to the demands of his Conservative party anti-unionists, and the City of London financial district. According to President Sarkozy, "David Cameron a demandé, ce que nous avons considéré tous comme inacceptable, un protocle dans le traité permettant d'exonérer le Royaume-Uni certain nombre de réglementations sur les services financiers". Although Germany succeeded in gaining concessions from the the other countries of the Union for tighter fiscal control, it still refused to allow the ECB to issue euro-obligations to pay off some of the debt of nations in crisis. The proposed treaty changes came after a marathon negotiating session that began Thursday evening. If the treaty is signed into law, and that is not a done deal since some governments will require parliamentary approval and even referendums, member nations will have to submit their budgets to the European Commission for review and bring their budgets into balance. Deficits above 0.5 of national GDPs will automatically engage an unspecified "correction mechanism". The European leaders also agreed to bolster the IMF which is making emergency loans to ailing countries by €200 billion. Markets reacted positively to the outcome of the summit that saw twenty-six sovereign nations agree to give up some control over their fiscal policy to continue the union. What is not yet clear is how the UK will be treated by a European Union it has excluded itself from for the sake of lax financial regulation.

{9.05.11}It all started with Greece, the European financial meltdown, that is. When traders began to notice the size of Greece's sovereign debt compared to its tax base they began to flee the Greek market. This chart courtesy of Gary Dorsch at Market Oracle sums up the impossible:

With a shrinking economy and dissolving tax revenues, any Greek government will find it impossible to pay back its creditors in full. Nevermind that Greeks were not overly enthusiastic about paying their taxes to a corrupt government to begin with. No private lenders want to lend Greece more money. The EU is keeping the country from defaulting with emergency loans that the rest of Europe's taxpayers will pay for eventually. Greece's unemployment rate hit 18.4% in August, and the economy contracted at an annual rate of 5.5%. The country cannot survive financially under current debt terms. A write off of some debt (default) is necessary and that is what Athens is demanding now. Otherwise, it will be forced to drop out of the eurozone, and return to the drachma which will certainly cause hyperinflation because the national currency is so devalued. That in turn will bankrupt Greek banks and pension funds which have loaned the government about €75 billion. It is European fiscal union or bust, and that is what Ms. Merkle will be peddling at the upcoming summit on December 9th.

CIA's Secret Dungeon Uncovered

2011-12-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

credit: AP

In a shady residential side street of Bucharest there is an ordinary government building beside a train track. The building serves as storage space for NATO and EU classified information. Anonymous on the outside, but in the basement the CIA ran a secret prison. The AP and German public television in an exclusive story tells the known details of the dungeon codenamed BRIGHT LIGHT. From 2003 to 2006 the facility was used for detention and interrogation of high value suspected terrorists before they being sent to the Cuban gulag of Guantanamo Bay. What horrors took place there in the name of national security are not fully known, but one weird detail emerged from anonymous interviews of US officials with knowledge. The six cells were mounted on springs so that they swayed. It is a method to keep a captive disoriented for long periods of time. Truly the dungeon is something out of the mind of Reinhard Heydrich, or someone who read too much Edgar Allen Poe as a child. Maybe Jack was right when his crazy Marine colonel character said, "You can't handle the truth."

'Toontime: Tongue of Snake

2011-12-09T00:09:00.000-08:00

[credit: Michael Ramirez, Business Daily]
Wackydoodle axes: Any hair of th' Donald in that thar pond?

Obamatron did his TR imitation this week, but the show has been stolen by the return of the Newt. Anyone who knows anything about US history knows TR, a card carrying 1%er, carried a big rhetorical stick but favored big business. On second thought perhaps Obama's impression is not so bad:

[credit: Bob Gorrell]

The Other Carbon Problem

2011-12-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

One of the positive assets of the American northwest is the availability of fresh seafood. US Person's favorite watery delicacy are raw oysters on the half shell with a piquant salsa perhaps made of habanero chilies. Not too much! A gourmet does not want to obscure the wonderful freshness of the sea inherent in oysters. Oysters are raised on the Pacific coast from Washington to Oregon. Netarts Bay, Oregon is one locus of the oyster business. The natural Netart oysters craved by San Francisco dinners of the 19th century are gone, but oysters are now farmed in the Bay. Netarts Bay provides oyster seed to other West Coast farmers. The industry is valued at $73million a year. with a larger economic impact estimated at $207 million and 3,000. That is a big deal in economically depressed coastal communities. But Oyster farmers are confronting a new problem. Larvae are dying at alarming rates of 70 to 80%. The first suspected culprit were bacteria in the water, but testing of the bay water by Oregon State University showed high amounts of dissolved CO₂ making the sea water acidic. For the past six years wild oysters in Willapa Bay, Washington have failed to produce successfully because acidic seawater have prevented larvae from forming their carboniferous shells Other wild beds on the coast have also experienced losses attributed to the acidification of the ocean.

Ocean acidification is the other carbon emissions problem that does not get as much attention as climate change. It is, however, an equally serious symptom of greenhouse effect. Researchers affiliated with NOAA have been studying the problem for more than three decades. The world's oceans have absorbed about 50% of the CO₂ released from the burning of fossil fuels. This absorption results in lower seawater pH due to 30% more hydrogen ions.[chart]. Acidic seawater slows the rate at which corals build their carboniferous skeletons as well as retarding shell growth in shellfish and zooplankton, a major food source for many marine species. Reefs are the most prolific life zone of the ocean providing habitat and sustenance for fish, shellfish and crustacean. Reef building rates could diminish to a point in the future (2100 CE) that no reefs exist in any of the world's oceans. The United States is the third largest seafood consumer in the world, spending $60 billion per year on fish and shellfish.

The acidic water at Netarts Bay is old, cold, deep water brought to the Pacific shallows by long period ocean circulation patterns and prevailing winds. It absorbed CO₂ from the atmosphere fifty to sixty years ago. Ocean acidification is a phenomenon as old as man's industrial revolution. But carbon emissions have been rising dramatically in recent decades. Last year contained the highest level of global carbon emissions recorded to date. If current emission rates continue the oceans could be 150% more acidic by 2100 or more acidic than they have been for 20 million years. The marine food chain would undoubtably collapse and some humans will starve as a consequence. The oyster farmers at Netarts Bay are now monitoring seawater acidity and buffering it with chemistry. Federal funds are helping the industry to adapt (another example of the free market at work), but it would make more cents and more oysters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Peruvian Indigenous Win Victory for Rainforest

2011-12-08T00:02:00.000-08:00

Brazilian construction company Odebrecht is withdrawing plans for a dam that threatened 73,000 hectares of Peruvian rainforest and farmland to "respect the opinion of local populations". To convince the developer to call off the plans, the tribal people invited officials of Odebrecht to meet in traditional community assemblies. Fourteen thousand indigenous people of the Asháninka communities opposed the dams on the Tambo and Ene Rivers. Three other companies confirmed the suspension of the Tambo 60, Mainique 1 and Paquitzapango projects. One of the dams planned by Electrobras, the Brazilian electrical utility company, Inambari, is in development stages and has the support of Peru's government. The dams are being built to supply Brazil burgeoning industrial economy. The four cancelled or suspended dams would have produced about 6,000 megawatts of electricity as part of an energy export agreement between Peru and Brazil signed in June 2010. Most of the energy is expected to come from hydroelectric projects located in the Peruvian Amazon, a region of huge biodiversity.

Will the Mammoth Live Again?

2011-12-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

Ever since the smash movie "Jurassic Park" implanted the idea of genetic resurrection of extinct species in the modern popular consciousness--the gothic novel Frankenstein was the first popular treatment of the subject of reanimation--efforts to find sufficient DNA material to allow an attempt at cloning an extinct animal back into existence have accelerated. The once science fiction feat is closer to reality as more well-preserved mammoth carcasses (Mammuthus primigenius) are being found in Siberia because of melting perma-frost. The last wooly mammoths survived as a dwarf race into the 1700s BC, but most of the kind were extinct by the end of the Pleistocene Era, 10,000 BC. Scientists think that the mammoth succumbed to a combination of climate change and early human predation. It is closely related to the Indian elephant according to studies of the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Mammuthus primigenius One possible way to clone a mammoth would be to implant intact mammoth DNA into an unfertilized Indian elephant egg, and then implant the egg into a female elephant for development.

Mammoth gravé de La Grotte des Combarelles

Scientific teams from Sakha Republic's mammoth museum and Japan's Kirki University will launch a project to create a mammoth after a well preserved thigh bone was discovered in August. Well preserved bone marrow cells are necessary for the nuclei implantation technique to work. Japanese scientists have found vital DNA in mice that have been frozen for 16 years. In 2009 Spanish researchers succeeded in cloning an extinct Pyrenean ibex, but the animal died shortly after birth. American and Australian researchers are making progress on sequencing the genome of the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger, a carnivorous marsupial that was hunted into extinction in the 1930s. Scientists say it is only a matter of time before an extinct animal is brought back from the dead, and most likely it will be a wooly mammoth not a T. Rex. However, the ethics of reincarnating an extinct animal are not as well developed as the bioengineering.

Cook Inlet's Beluga Whales Still Protected

2011-12-06T00:09:00.000-08:00

Last month the chief judge for the US District Court for DC, Judge Lamberth, decided that Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga whales should remain endangered citing a spree of native subsistence hunting that nearly wiped them out between 1994 and 1998. He rejected the state of Alaska's bid to overturn the endangered listing by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Conservation organizations intervened in the suit on the federal government's side. More than a decade after the legislative moratorium on hunting the whales, the population has not shown any appreciable recovery.

Native hunters killed half of the remaining population of 650 whales in only four years, using modern technology. Thirty years ago the population exceeded 1300. Cook Inlet belugas were listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2008. Then Governor Sarah Palin promised she would sue to remove the whales from protection but left office in mid-term to run for the presidency. Her replacement carried out the stated intent to block the endangered designation and the designation of 3,016 square miles of Cook Inlet as critical habitat for the whales [map]. The Cook Inlet whales are genetically unique from other belugas and face a 70% chance of extinction in the next 300 years according to the most realistic population model. Beluga whales are also protected under the US Marine Mammal Act and are listed on the "Red List" of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. An Alaskan wildlife conservationist called the state's "war on wildlife" a loosing battle that is "wasting taxpayer money on frivolous [legal] challenges".

It Isn't Over Yet in Iraq

2011-12-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Vice President Joe Biden was in Iraq for 'grip and grin' ceremonies this week to mark the end of US occupation. But busy little war elves (or are they gnomes?) deep in the Washington swamp are working their little hands to the bone trying to find a way to keep some US troops in a nation ripped by factional violence. Instead of US troops these neoimperialists are attempting to negotiate NATO troops to stay behind, ostensibly for training purposes. Regardless of the label one attaches to the military presence, the problem remains one of legal immunity under Iraqi law for foreign military personnel. This is a highly unpopular demand with Iraqi politicians, as well it should be. Civilian deaths at the hands of US forces were enormous during the ten years of operations. Some of those deaths, the exact number will probably never be known, constitute war crimes. The most flagrant examples were the massacre at Hadditha, the massacre at Nisoor Square, and the deaths during interrogation at the infamous prison of Abu Ghraib. According to the US ambassador to NATO, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants military trainers to remain until 2013. There are members of the Iraq Council of Representatives, which must give approval for such immunity, who oppose the concession of sovereignty. In addition, all 28 members of NATO must agree to terms. Time is running out for the western militarists as December 31st is the drop dead date. Peace lovers can hope the game whistle blows first.

'Toontme: "Dirty Hippies" Loose Again

2011-12-02T06:08:00.000-08:00

[credit: Cameron Cardow, Ottawa Citizen]

Wackydoodle axes: Didn't I see that flyin' monkey before?

Its up to the the 99%ers to try and figure out an effective alternative means of protest now that they have been evicted and public parks surrounded with chain link fence in the name of sanitation. Rest assured that the guys in the towers have not missed a beat as their game continues. Worldwide central banks released more dollar liquidity to prop up crumbling European banks and their interconnected US counterparts. Moody's was ready to downgrade 87 European banks, and Germany was proving to be unbearably recalcitrant in bailing out Europe when Bernanke unleashed the flood of cheap dollars (interbank dollar loans were reduced by 50 basis points and foreign currencyswap lines extended into February 2013 to stave off another liquidity crisis) that flushed the Ponzi (stock) market to its biggest rally of the year. It is interesting to note that Goldman Sachs, Secretary Timothy Geitner's former employer, has 537 times more in derivatives exposure than assets. And if that is not enough to demonstrate the power of the Plutocracy, the US Senate just voted to allow suspected terrorists including those captured inside the United States to be held indefinitely without trial in the custody of the US military. Damn the Constitution and full speed ahead, Mr. Mussolini.

Jaguar Encounter Confirmed in AZ

2011-12-01T00:50:00.000-08:00

via LA Times on-line

US Person posted previously on the death of "Macho B", the last known jaguar inhabiting the United States in 2009. There have been five confirmed sightings of jaguars along the desert border with Mexico, but this latest sighting is the first since Macho B was euthanized. The sighting in Cochise County by a responsible hunting guide was of an adult male in good condition, weighing approximately 200 lbs. The New World's biggest cat was temporarily treed by the hunter's dogs. He was able to photograph and video the jaguar, after which he removed his dogs and himself from the immediate area. He reported the sighting to authorities by telephone. The guide reportedly found the annoyed jaguar's roaring to be "quite unreal"; it is the only American feline that roars. Later Arizona Fish & Game collected hair samples for testing. Biologists will attempt to compare the cat's fur rosettes with others that have been photographed in the past to determine his identity. The rare jaguar is protected under the Endangered Species Act, and once ranged from South America into the southern United States. Biologists believe jaguars spotted in Arizona are occasional visitors from a resident population living in Sonora, Mexico. A 2006 US Fish & Wildlife report says there is regular, intermittent use of borderlands by wide ranging males, but no evidence of females or cubs.

Iran's Nuclear Facilities Under Covert Attack

2011-11-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

The Times of London reports that a large blast occurred at Iran's Isfahan uranium conversion facility, twenty-four hours before the British embassy was trashed [photo] in a government instigated riot. The powerful explosion shook buildings in the city. On November 12 a large explosion took place at the Bid Ganeh missile base on the outskirts of Tehran. Thirty Revolutionary Guard members were killed in that blast including General Hassan Moghaddam, head of Iran's missile program. The Times was told by a confidential Israeli intelligence source that "no doubt" the blasts were deliberate. The latest explosion damaged uranium storage facilities.

These were not the first covert attacks against Iran's nuclear program. It is widely believed by experts that the Stuxnet software "worm" that severely disrupted Iran's computer network was a joint US-Israeli sabotage. The software security company Symantec said in July that 60,000 systems in Iran are infected with the worm. The self-contained program enters a network via a USB stick where it replicates and specifically attacks Siemens designed software used to monitor and control industrial processes such as nuclear plant operations and uranium enrichment facilities. The worm contains coded references to biblical events hinting at the malware's origin and target[1]. Further clues to its origin can be gathered from the program's sophistication--it exploits four vulnerabilities in Window architecture--lack of profitability, and virulence. All of these characteristics point to a government sponsor since many man hours and tremendous computer resources, including access to highly specialized Siemen's software, had to be devoted to its "amazing" creation according to software experts. Stuxnet is probably the world's first known example of a state cyber-weapon attack.

Observers suggest Mossad is behind the attacks on Iran's nuclear program that Israel considers life-threatening, including a 2010 strike against a base at Khoramabad which killed 18 Guards. Probably not by mere coincidence, four 122mm Katyusha rockets exploded in northern Galilee a few hours after the Isfahan blast. Hezzbolah, a proxy of Iran, controls southern Lebanon across the Israeli border, and used rocket attacks against nearby Israeli towns to great effect in the 2006 conflict. Although Iran continues to deny it has a nuclear weapons program, the IAEA concluded in its latest report that the Islamic government may be developing nuclear weapon capacity. Of course, Israel has had a nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it for decades thanks to western military assistance [photo], but it too denies the possession of nuclear weapons. The authoritative newspaper Ha'aretz reported recently that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is attempting to sway a divided cabinet to approve an airstrke against Iran. Israeli air force units are currently training for such a long range mission. In 2009 the Obamatron agreed to deliver 55 specialized GBU-28 "bunker buster" bombs to the Israeli air force.[2] Those bombs may simply be large fireworks now, since Iran has moved its enrichment centrifuges to near Qom where they are protected in a NORAD style installation beneath a mountain.

[1]Stuxnet contains the word "guava", a member of the myrtle family, and the number "19790509". The Hebrew name for myrtle is hadassah also the name of the biblical Queen Esther who saved Persian Jews from genocide. The number maybe a date reference on which a Persian Jew was executed in Iran.
[2] Russia delivered its versatile S-300 radar system to Iran which can track multiple 'bogies' and engage ten targets with mobile "Favorit"interceptor missiles simultaneously. The system was delivered and installed in 2007. Greece allowed Israeli air units to train against a version of the S-300 it bought from Russia this summer. Israel recently acquired the latest western jet aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II which is stealthy and VSTOL capable. The Cold War still lives in the Middle East, except it is much more likely to turn hot very quickly.

Swiss Rave Party Kills Two Dolphins

2011-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

The selfish insanity of humans knows no political or ideological boundaries. Even the most progressive of human societies, such as Norway or Switzerland experience moments of almost indescribable, selfish stupidity. The last remaining dolphin tank in Switzerland at the Connyland theme park was the scene of a two day, non-stop rave party. Veterinarians say that ear-splitting sound and drugs thrown into their tank killed the two dolphins. The highly intelligent mammals died excruciating deaths, seizing and foaming at the mouth. Connyland ignored protests by local activists who warned a rave held a few yards from their tank would endanger the dolphins. Eight dolphins have died at Connyland in the past three years. An investigation is still pending while the health of the remaining dolphin inmates is slowly deterioriating due to illness, posioning, and claustrophobia that results in severe depression and self-abuse. The time to stop this insanity and sae the remaining dolphins is now. The weight of world opinion can be enough to motivate Swiss officials to shut down the park. So go to http://www.change.org/petitions/dolphins-die-after-rave-at-connyland
and sign the petition to shut down the extreme abuse at Connyland.

Chart of the Week II: Downhill Since Nixon

2011-11-29T06:23:00.000-08:00

While the European Union totters on the edge of financial dissolution, US Person gives equal attention to the facts bringing impoverished American youth into the streets:

When weekly wages are adjusted for inflation, American workers are making 12% less than they did in 1971. Using statistics not adjusted by the government, that figure is actually 30% less. Again, using unmanipulated statistics the current unemployment rate is reaching Great Depression levels of 23%:

The mass unemployment is reflected in the fastest growing welfare program, food stamps, in which participation has increased 43% in the past 3 years. 14.7% of the US population now use food stamps. It is no coincidence that JP Morgan Chase makes millions administering the program:

One usually associates depressions with falling prices. But the current reality is that some prices fall while other rise. At the playground of plutocrats, the stock market and other financial markets, prices are bid up using inexpensive leverage while housing prices, the traditional major investment of the 99%er, are down due to weak demand and oversupply. Commodity prices including food are also higher:

All of these charts support the same basic fact of life in 21st Century Amerika. The middle and working classes are becoming increasingly impoverished, not just in body, but in mind and spirit. So get out your pepper spray and elbow your way to that wide screen TV made in Asia. Watch your favorite pixels delivered to your eyeballs at light speed by Madison Avenue while the Plutocracy mugs you. The TV promises it won't hurt; but if you complain, they will libel you a terrorist. God help you then.

Chart of the Week: The European Debt Quagmire

2011-11-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

This week's chart focuses on the European debt crisis again because it remains unresolved:

The countries in crisis (PIIGS) need to refinance €1.5trillion in debt over the next three years. That is a near impossible task given the projected levels of economic activity and the existing (aging) tax base in these countries. The following is a chart showing Europe's falling GDP and leading indicators:

The 'kick the can' approach used to date by the tag team of Merkle-Sarkozy has failed to convince European bond buyers. If the euro union is to be saved it is becoming unavoidable that the Bundesbank allow the European Central Bank to essentially print more euros, so weak member nations can pay their debts. This is the route taken by the US Federal Reserve to avoid a crisis meltdown of the financial markets in 2008. The other alternative is to allow (perhaps the verb should be "force") Greece and other financially weak countries to leave the union to face national bankruptcy on their own with disastrous 'knock-on' effects for over leveraged European banks:

A common currency trading zone led by Germany could be reistablished with countries willing to enforce fiscal stability on themselves. For Germans who still remember the thousands of Weimar marks it once took to buy a loaf of bread or lump of coal, it is a bitter choice either way.

Weekend Edition: Just Say No to Peace

2011-11-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

credit: Johnson's Russia List

The Obamatron's major foreign policy accomplishment, besides the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, is the renewal of the strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia. But that accomplishment, achieved against the determined opposition of war mongers in Congress, is in danger of being unraveled. President Medvedev said last week that Russia would target proposed European missile defense installations. The statement undoubtably gave some NATO member countries pause. What apparently prompted the Cold war sentiment was the collapse of negotiations with the United States over what kind of missile defense could be installed in Europe that would be acceptable to Russia. The sticking point remains that Russia wants more than repeated assurances from the United States that the system is intended to counteract a nuclear armed Iran, a possibility that is becoming more likely according to the UN's latest assessment of Iran's mostly secret nuclear program.

Medvedev told Russians last Wednesday that negotiations with the United States over a missile defense system located in Europe were over. He said Russia would withdraw from the new START treaty if the impasse over missile defense continues to deteriorate, and promised to install mobile Iskander tactical nuclear missiles [image] in the European enclave of Kaliningrad as part of his military's countermeasures to a missile system which his government believes could be used against Russia nuclear deterrent. President Medvedv implied that conservative legislators in Congress were responsible for the inability to reach agreement, saying "legislators in some countries openly state the whole system is against Russia". Russia views the US led missile defense program as a "fait accompli" that could in "6 to 8 years weaken our nuclear deterrent." War mongers in Congress categorically refuse to allow a legal pledge from the United States to Russia that it would not use a missile defense system in Europe to cloak its own offensive nuclear weapons, or engage in a cooperative system of sector defense as proposed by President Medvedev. They called the effort to provide missile data to Russia and consultations on the building process "was never realistic" since the Russians "seek to limit US missile defense by any means." The Unites States pledged not to limit its deployment plans for a European missile shield despite President Medvedev's statement. It announced a new radar site in Turkey that can detect low trajectory missile launches from Iran (Shahab-3) as well as southern Russia in September. US espionage efforts to counter the Iranian program were seriously knocked back by Iran's rolling up of US informant networks.

Toontime: Occupy This!

2011-11-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

[credit: Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune]
Wackydoodle sez: She'll show y'all a real good time!

Steve Kroft of the venerable 60 Minutes news program reported about the use of insider information by Congressmen to trade stocks. A pending bill in the House outlawing the practice (already considered unethical under House rules) only had nine cosponsors before the airing of the program. Afterwards, politically vulnerable members scrambled to sign on bringing the number to 92. The STOCK bill (it is absurd how fond Washington politicians are of acronyms with double meanings) was first introduced in 2006 and reintroduced every Congress since then, but never got out of committee.

Keystone XL Off the Radar Now, But Not Down

2011-11-24T00:14:00.000-08:00

Environmentalists are thankful for the delayed Keystone XL decision, but the battle to stop more tar sand crude from coming south is not over. Production of bitumen at the northern Alberta site is backing up due to tight pipeline capacity. Syncrude Canada, Ltd. produces 350,000 barrels a day, but has had to delay shipments due to lack of space. Kinder Morgan's 300,000bpd Trans Mountain pipeline was oversubscribed by 24% in December 2010. Consequently the search is on for alternative routes to refineries. The state of Nebraska will finance a supplemental environmental impact study of an alternate route through the state for Keystone XL, bypassing the Sandhills. Many of the objections to the original route that crosses the critical Ogallala aquifer came from politically connected Nebraskan ranchers who are not categorically opposed to the pipeline. The first Keystone pipeline already crosses the state, and it began carrying tar sand last year. In a state with a declining population, the prospect of an extra 150 million a year in property taxes paid by TransCanada Corp. is hard for impoverished local governments to resist. The US State Department has said that the supplemental study is necessary before it can make the "national interest" determination, perhaps signaling that an alternate route which avoids the acquirer may be sufficient for a second term administration to make a positive finding.

Despite the setback to the XL, Canadian firms are actively looking for ways to flow tar sand oil south in greater quantities. Recently Canadians bought up thousands of miles of existing pipelines in the Midwest to accommodate the large amount of product coming from the strip mining operation in Alberta. It is considered an interim workaround solution, with not enough capacity to carry future production. An alternative solution to the US midwest route is to carry the bitumen westward over the Rockies to Canada's Pacific coast where it could be transshipped to California refineries which have spare capacity and have been recently upgraded to handle heavier (dirtier) crude oil. Sources of crude from Alaska and within the state are dwindling. The western route involves two pipelines, expanding the existing Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain and the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway. Either way, the ultimate consumer is the Chinese dragon that has an increasing appetite for oil. Because of the intense energy required to process bitumen into fuel, it has a carbon footprint of 10-20% larger than light oil, so bitumen as a fuel is not congruent with California's plan for a green energy future.

There are objections to the Pacific route too. The possibility of increased oil tanker traffic at Vancouver, British Columbia already has local environmentalists alarmed and their cell phones sounding off. The Wilderness Committee based in Vancouver is providing oil tanker alerts to cell phone users. The service alerts when a tanker is preparing to fill up at Kinder Morgan's Westbridge terminal to the Trans Mountain pipeline system. According to the Wilderness Committee the alerts are intended to make residents aware of the risks of an oil spill and climate change due to expansion of oil exports. Tanker traffic could increase from two a week to nearly one tanker a day in 2016 if Kinder Morgan is allowed to expand its pipeline. Kinder Morgan has plans to dredge the Second Narrows channel to allow access by super tankers that can carry one million barrels of crude oil, four times what was spilled by the drunken captain of the Exxon Valdez. Canadian environmentalists say they are determined to prevent the B.C. coast from becoming another Gulf Coast.

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is even more problematic for environmentalists. Enbridge's plan is to send as many as 220 super tankers a year through the narrow, serpentine passages of the Great Bear Rainforest, North America's largest temperate rainforest. The Northern Gateway would stretch 700 miles from northern Alberta over the Rockies to the port of Kitimat. From there there the dirty crude would be shipped south to California. NRDC says the plan is "one of the most reckless and potentially catastrophic proposals" ever considered. Clear cutting would be required to create a right of way and it would cross thousands of salmon steams and the headwaters of major rivers like the Fraser. The sea passages involved are even more difficult to navigate than Prince William Sound. The British Columbia coast is no stranger to environmental protests. It was the locus for protracted disputes over industrial logging. Conservationists succeeded in protecting more than five million acres of rainforest with a landmark agreement between the British Columbia government and First Nations in 2006. The white variant brown bear or "spirit bear" [photo] was adopted as the campaign's symbol. Already more than 70 First Nations along the proposed pipeline and tanker route have indicated their opposition to the plan, and so another fight begins.

End Corporate Personhood

2011-11-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

When the putative Republican nominee publicly claims that corporations are persons, you know something is terribly wrong with our nation's political system. When a 99%er is struck by police so hard she miscarries her baby in the street or peaceful protesters are deliberately sprayed with a toxic "food product", it is time to act*. The 100 year legal fiction that corporations are 'persons' entitled to the same civil rights as citizens was reinforced by the horrendous decision in Citizens United vs. FEC in which the conservative majority struck down campaign contribution rules previously upheld by the Court. A constitutional amendment is needed to settle the issue once and for all. Corporations are NOT humans "entitled to certain inalienable rights among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The founders never intended such an absurdity, and it took one hundred years of increasing capital concentration for the doctrine to be enshrined in American jurisprudence. Corporate political speech can and should be regulated if the Republic is not to degenerate into a fascist police state. US Person is asking his readers to visit ReverseCitizensUnited.com and sign the petition to amend the Constitution so Congress and states can pass laws allowing campaign finance reforms that will withstand corporatist legal challenges. Do a "mic check" with this petition and get your friends and acquaintances to sign too. Protection of our civil right to organize and petition government is just one reason your fellow citizens are risking their personal safety in the streets.

*on the Scoville Scale police pepper spray is just below pure Capsicum, the irritant contained in chili peppers and is therefore considered poisonous. At least corporate paid talking heads should do some research before they open their vacuous mouths on the public airwaves.

Egypt at the Crossroads.

2011-11-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

Tahrir Square, Cairo

US Person suggested in previous posts concerning the "Arab Spring" that the acid test of the Egyptian revolution would be whether the military, which so dominates Egyptian society that it is a government and economy onto itself, would actually give up power once the dictator Murbarak, himself a product of the military, was removed from power. The Tahrir Square rebellion embraced the military as allies, knowing instinctively perhaps that the military's tacit support would help the rebellion end Mubarak's thirty year dictatorship. Now, that tacit alliance appears to be broken because civilian demonstrators have returned to the Square [photo: AFP]to protest the junta's foot dragging over a constitution and a presidential election. A parliamentary election is scheduled to take place in a week, but some commentators have suggested that even that election could be delayed in the face of renewed unrest.

After three days of protest and bowing to protesters demands the interim civilian counsel, appointed by the ruling military junta, submitted their resignations en masse. The protests have not been peaceful. The Health Ministry said twenty-three people have died in the demonstrations--some said to have been killed by live ammunition--and 1500 have been seriously injured. Protesters are being gassed with American made tear gas according to The Guardian. The powerful Muslim Brotherhood said it would not take part in a rally scheduled for Tuesday to avoid delaying parliamentary elections while other groups have decided to join it. It may be the largest demonstration against military rule so far. A member of the ruling military junta visited the Square Monday for a news conference. When asked about alleged deaths due to live ammunition being used against demonstrators, he blamed "an invisible hand in the Square causing a rift between the army and the people." US Person thought only Newt Gingrich believed in the "invisible hand", but apparently Egyptian generals do too.

'Toontime: American Plutocracy Evicts the 99%

2011-11-21T11:16:00.000-08:00

[credit: Aislin, Montreal Gazette]

Update: The National Lawyers Guild has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all information the federal law enforcement agencies have concerning the orchestrated response to peaceful Occupy encampments by riot-equipped police. Defense lawyers have asked for expedited treatment of the request for information. An answer from the agencies should be forthcoming within twenty days, unless the agencies withhold the information on ground of "national security". Would that be ironic or what?

{18.11.11}Despite beatings, midnight raids, tear gas, rubber bullets, percussion grenades, and mass arrests the 99% alliance is not giving up. The similarity in police tactics against the overwhelmingly peaceful protesters and the legal pretexts employed to justify the use of force indicates there is some coordination among local officials. There was at least one conference call among 18 city mayors and leaders from as many as forty cities confirmed by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan in a radio interview. A Quan legal adviser resigned in disgust after Oakland police and law thugs from surrounding jurisdictions drove out occupiers with brutality in the early hours of November 14th. Quan says the phone conference took place while she was in Washington DC. Shortly thereafter on October 25th she authorized the first forceful eviction of Occupy Oakland. The mayor's former adviser strongly suspects the recently established federal anti-terror "fusion centers" are involved, especially after the protesters shut down the Port of Oakland for a day. The Port is no doubt considered to be a national security site by federal officials. The centers were created after analysis of the terror attacks showed a lack of coordination and information sharing between and among the many national, state and local layers of law enforcement apparatus in Amerika. Homeland Secretary Napolitano said in Kansas City in 2009, that "we know that it's not just the 9/11 type incidents but many, many other types of incidents that can benefit from having fusion centers that share information and product and analysis upwards and horizontally", One of those "types of incidents" is surely domestic civil unrest and mass protest. So in the post 9/11 world, the legitimate exercise of constitutionally protected rights of free speech and assembly are categorized as a national security threat by an increasingly secretive, reactionary and authoritarian national government. Lawyers representing the protesters agree there is no legal justification for anti-terror forces to be used against legitimate, peaceful citizen protesters.The Cop-in-Chief has a lot of explaining to do if federal anti-terror resources are being used to supress a peaceful protest movement against the Plutocracy.

Chart of the Week: Corporate Tax Dodgers

2011-11-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

It is the beginning of a new week and time to get the economic stuff out of the way more charts! Yes, the US has a high corporate tax rate (35%) compared to other countries, but no CFO worth his bonus money would allow his or her company to pay that:

As a percentage of total corporate profits, corporate income tax paid has been going down since the early 50s. The same trend is visible when corporate taxes are compared to total GDP:

In 2009 Bank of America, actually got a net tax benefit of $2.3 billion while General Electric received $3.2 billion despite profits of over $14 billion; just two examples of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the biggest companies in the nation. Thanks to an unfair tax code corporations kept $222.7 billion in federal tax revenue from 2008 to 2010. Corporatists and TEA party extremists want to blame the federal government for causing the financial panic of 2008 by inflating the real estate market with a lot of deadbeat buyers. But the truth is [video @13:00] the United States real estate market was no more inflated than other countries:

No argument that Freddie and Fannie guaranteed bad loans, but it was because the banking industry wanted it that way. One of the few Washington lobbyists that paid his dues in jail, Jack Abramoff, says, "During my years as a lobbyist, I saw scores of congressional staff members become the willing vassals of K Street firms before soon decamping to K Street employment themselves. It was a dirty little secret, And it is a source of major corruption in Congress." He should know, right?

Weekend Edition: Transboundary Conservation

2011-11-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

US Person has posted before about the critical concept of transboundary conservation in which ecosystems are preserved intact regardless of their location in two or more nations. To preserve migratory animals or those using large hunting territories, national boundaries must give way to the natural landscape. Elephants are the epitome of an animal that lives large. Historically, elephants wandered across the entire African continent on ancient routes to water and food. Those days are no more. However, the presidents of five southern African nations have taken an unprecedented and historic preservation step. The nations of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe signed a treaty establishing the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in August of this year. The 109 million acre Area is within the borders of those nations and encompasses the famed Okavango inland delta[photo], a unique ecosystem of exceptional wildlife richness. It is the home of an estimated 325,000 elephants or 44% of the remaining African elephant population [photo]. The Area is larger than the state of New Mexico, and will allow elephants and the wild creatures that live with them to live on the land in a more natural way. The Conservation Area will allow sustainable development with emphasis on creating a world class tourist destination. Local human inhabitants will benefit from the increased economic activity. WWF intends that its positive experience with Namibia's community based natural resource management will be applied to provide technical training and assistance to local communities. In Namibia, about 12% of the population have the right to manage and economically benefit from wildlife. The goal in the world's largest transnational conservation area is to promote a peaceful human culture of shared resources while at the same time preserving the landscape's biological integrity for future generations of humans and wild creatures. GREEN KUDOS!

Police Beat: America, the Oppressed

2011-11-19T11:37:00.000-08:00

This video says it all: the deliberate use of excessive force by paid thugs of the Plutocracy against peaceful protesters. The brutality occurred at UC Davis:

Last Ice Refuge

2011-11-17T00:03:00.000-08:00

Scientists have projected based on computer simulations that the Canadian high Arctic Archipelago will be the last area of ice in the warmer world to come. This remnant of persistent ice will be the refuge for those polar bears that survive rapid global warming. The region in Canada and Greenland is about 500,000 square miles, or twice the size of Texas.{map 14.5.2011}The World Wildlife Fund has been working to preserve Arctic wildlife since 1992 and is now focusing efforts on developing a management plan for the polar bear's last refuge. WWF brought the Coca-Cola, Inc. chairman and CEO to Hudson's Bay to observe the impact of global warming on the bears and the threat it poses to sensitive Arctic ecology. Readers no doubt know that Coca-Cola has been using the polar bear in its advertisements during the holiday season for years [image]. As a result of this visit, and the available scientific evidence, the Coca-Cola company decided to support WWF's efforts to save a home on this planet for such an iconic species. It will donate $2 million over the next five years to begin the important development plan work. Coca-Cola's "Arctic Home" campaign is a first step to raising public awareness of the polar bear's plight and providing the necessary financial resources. The company will match public donations up to $1,000,000. US Person does not endorse products, but believes that business corporations willing to help preserve nature and not destroy it should receive consumer support for their cooperation. Look for the white cans and bottle caps--the first ones in 125 years--if you buy Coke this holiday season. Give a polar bear a home for Christmas by making a donation. (Discliamer: There is no scientific evidence that polar bears enjoy Coca-Cola.)

Rio Grande's Big Bend Headed For International Park

2011-11-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

The US already shares an international park with Canada, and if the vision of Franklin Roosevelt and Manuel Camacho is realized, the United States and Mexico will one day establish a transnational park along the shores of the Rio Grande in the Big Bend region. Big Bend National Park was established on June 12, 1944, and at that time Roosevelt wrote the Mexican President that the undertaking would not be complete until the protected areas on both sides of the Rio Grande "forms one great international park". Today, Mexico and the US are working to restore the desert river region's diverse eco-system, control invasive species, preserve wildlife, and manage wildfires. In October wildlife officials from both sides released endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows into the river as part of these efforts. Silvery minnow, once common, have vanished from this stretch of the river since the 1960s. The first reintroduction occurred in 2008 [photo]. Mexican wildlife officials also released hawks and owls in the border state of Chihuahua. At the fish release, Secretary Salazar said both governments "share a commitment towards the conservation vision proposed over 60 years ago." The possibility of a peaceful, beautiful and healthy transnational park is a far cry from the specter of barbed wire, guard towers, searchlights, and concrete walls often touted as solutions by reactionary nationalists in the United States. As the Ambassador to Mexico put it, "the seamless flow of nature across both banks of the river is far stronger and far more enduring than what divides us." The cooperative plan to restore the Big Bend/Rio Bravo region was developed by the US National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Geological Survey, the Mexican National Commission of Natural Protected Areas and other partners. It was signed into action by Secretary Ken Salazar and Secretary Juan Elvira on October 24, 2011.

If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

2011-11-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

The paid thugs of the plutocracy have evicted Occupiers all across the nation. The latest sweep was in Zuccotti (formerly known as Liberty) Park in downtown Manhattan, the epicenter of the movement. But evicting protesters will simply create more supporters who will occupy other public spaces in order to make their collective voice heard. Exhibit One is this human banner on the beach at San Francisco. To find statistics on the worldwide 1% go to the Paris School of Economics website. Here are a few pertinent ones from The Progress Report:

The top 1 percet of Americans still own 40 percent of our country’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent owns only 7 percent;
The richest 1 percent earned one out of every four dollars in 2007. Thirty years earlier, the richest only made one out of every 11 dollars;
One in four millionaires pays a lower tax rate than 10 million middle-income Americans;
Fourteen million Americans are unemployed (the actual figure is higher);
Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash – more cash than at any time in nearly a half century – instead of hiring more employees.

Wolves Come Home to Germany

2011-11-15T00:24:00.000-08:00

Johan Geiler von Kaisersberg (1516)

Wolves were exterminated in Germany in the 19th century, but a new study by the German federal government finds that wolves are recolonizing Germany from Poland. Six wolves in Saxony were collared with tracking devices to find out when young wolves leave their parental pack and where they go. It is the first study undertaken in central Europe of wolf movements. Scientists found that wolves can travel large distances, up to 70km (43.5 miles) a day. The study shows males tend to roam farther afield. One young male left his Belarus pack at 12 months old and travelled an amazing 1,550kms (963miles) Wolves are very adaptable animals and can live near humans. Some young wolves in the study made a home in several caves just 500 meters from a busy road. The first pack that migrated from Poland was discovered in Germany about 11 years ago. Since then wildlife officials believe 12 packs, several pairs and a few lone wolves now make their home in Germany. Twenty wolves have been counted roaming the Lusatia region of eastern Germany. With the wolves' return comes fear mongering by anti-wolf groups and Germans are no exception. An anti-wolf association claimed in the mass circulation daily Bild that once wolves become numerous they will pose a threat to humans, and hunting groups in Saxony want permission to shoot them. Computer modelings indicate sufficient lowland habitat to theoretically support approximately 440 wolf packs with more room in the Alps. The average territory size was found to be 172km² (66.4mi²)

Chart of the Week: Europe at the Edge

2011-11-14T00:08:00.000-08:00

The players change to give the illusion of progress, but Europe's debt problem, actually the western world's debt problem, is still there like the sword of Damocles (or is it Madame Guillotine?) hanging over the heads of the European Union. The EU technocrats have taken over the Greek and Italian governments. Their so-called solution is to leverage Europe even more to buy more debt that governments will have to issue to avoid default. But the debt pile is now toxic to economic growth:

This table in a Bank of International Settlements working paper shows that western nations are in debt beyond what is economically sustainable (Threshold). According to Oliver Sarkozy, the half-brother of France's president, institutional funding has an average 3 year life. Therefore European banks need to raise $800bn each month just to keep current on their borrowing obligations. As Europe slows down under the crushing weight of its debt costs, these debts will become even more onerous. Greece's economy is on emergency life support, and is essentially "brain dead" as one commentator put it. The latest European summit told Greece to sell another €16bn in national assets on top of the €50bn already ordered. Spain's unemployment reached its highest level in 15 years. Portugal's M1 deposits, considered a leading economic indicator, have fallen at an annual rate of 21% over the past six months. Even Germany, on which the fate of the EU rests, is heavily indebted, and the spreads on French debt is widening:

Occupy Wall Street has manifested because the 99% know they are in the grip of an international financial cartel that acts like a bunch of drunken sailors willing to hazard their ships of state if they can keep the plunder coming. Wall Street paid itself $60billion in bonuses between 2008-10 for pumping the stock market up 84% from its 2009 lows. Ms. Merkel is right, the whole shebang hinges on "confidence" as in bunko, facilitated by nanosecond computer algorithms and "voluntary" bond haircuts that do not trigger credit default contracts. Only the millennial guy shivering in his tent gets caught holding the debt bag:

Its widely thought that Italy's pensioners will be the target of EU austerity programmers as they attempt to reduce Italy's €1.9trillion debt, massive youth unemployment, and poor productivity. Clearly, the days of 'bunga-bunga' sonno volati. Is Social Security next?

Bitumen Bags Another Species

2011-11-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

credit: National Geographic

More: The White House has delayed its decision on the proposed pipeline to beyond the November election, raising the probability that a Repugnant president will approve the pipeline should the current occupant fail. The delay is reportedly to allow the State Department to study an alternative route for the international project that avoids crossing the environmentally sensitive Nebraska Sand Hills and Ogallala Aquifer. Nebraska politicians, lead by the state governor, have been vocal about their opposition to the current route. US Department officials acknowledged the outpouring of concern from the state and the nation about the environmental risks of a pipeline that would carry a hot slurry of toxic bitumen. The State Department's Inspector General has announced it will investigate allegations of conflict of interest and improper political influence in preparation of the project's environmental impact statement. Two large demonstrations have taken place in sight of the White House opposing the project. At least a thousand protesters have been arrested.

{10.11.11}Readers of this space know {"Keystone XL"} that the bitumen development in northern Alberta is ripping up the boreal forest [photo], home to numerous species including the woodland caribou. Humans like to eat woodland caribou (a type of elk) and their dwindling numbers are causing concern among Canadian wildlife officials. Rather than blame the lost of caribou habitat to human development, Canadian officials are exterminating the historical culprit, the grey wolf. Five hundred wolves in Alberta's Smoky River region have been poisoned in a mind-bogglingly misguided attempt* to save the caribou. Ed Struzik, a Canadian who has written extensively on the Arctic and the environment, says $1 million has been spent extermination wolves with strychnine and aerial gunning in Alberta. Two caribou herds are being squeezed by the massive open pit mining operation to remove tar sands. Their plight is typical of caribou herds worldwide. Thirty-four of the forty-three major herds scientists have studied are in decline. Numbers have been reduced by 57% from historical peaks, and scientists say the declines are directly attributable to human exploitation of resources in the far north and global warming. Hunting plays only a minor role in depleting beleaguered populations. Caribou or reindeer have inhabited the far north for 1.6 million years and their evolutionary adaptation has made them well suited to cold conditions, even to the extent of endowing them with ultraviolet sight that allows them to spot predators against a blinding white backdrop of snow. But rapid global warming is disrupting the animal's ability to survive.

Rangifer tarandus caribou

Added to this existential threat is the unprecedented upheaval of the boreal forest to feed Americans' inability to see beyond their SUVs. The tar sands extend over an area the size of New York state. If the entire area is developed, as oil companies would like, the woodland caribou is certain to disappear. The Alberta Caribou Committee, dedicated to preserving the caribou, says three of the provinces 18 herds are in danger of vanishing because of loss of habitat. Wildlife officials engaged in the wolf extermination admit habitat protection is absolutely essential, yet wolves still take the brunt of man's mismanagement of natural resources. In Alberta's old growth forests, prime habitat for caribou and wolves, there are according to Struzik 34,773 wells, 66,489 kilometers of seismic lines, 11,591 kilometers of pipeline and 12,283 kilometers of roads. Vast areas have also been logged. All of this human disturbance favors other herbavore species who rely on open areas for browse and increases the number of predatory wolves. Canadian biologists have been warning for years about the effects of fracturing the boreal forest, but the warnings have gone unheeded by a government faced with the prospect of billions in oil revenue.

*Canadians are not alone in their biological delusions. The depleted salmon runs of the American northwest are primarily due to human develop of hydropower on the region's once prolific spawning rivers. Yet state wildlife officials and commercial fishing interests want to cull protected sea lions that are observed having the audacity to eat one of man's favorite sea foods below the dams he built which prevent the fish from reproducing in historic numbers. Damn removals have been too few and far between to have significant ameliorative effect.

'Toontime: American Spring Turns to Winter

2011-11-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

[credit: Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune]

With the temperatures dropping, and local politicians loosing their patience, the encampments of 99% protesters are perhaps beginning to realize the enormity of their undertaking. Corporate mass media is content to broadcast the near meaningless sound byte line-up ludicrously termed "debates", and report candidate Herman Cain's latest denial of sexual harassment allegations. Pop music has given way to pop politics in America, sandwiched between the scandals seemingly errupting daily in the big business that is major college sports. Money counts most in 21st century America.

Chart of Week: Greeks Against the Wall

2011-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

More: The European debt crisis has claimed its latest victim, Silvio 'BungaBunga' Berlusconi. The Italian PM lost his parliamentary support and he agreed to resign after austerity budget measures are passed. Proving once again that bond prices are stronger than a lot of sex. Italy's cost of borrowing reached a sky high 7.3% and the Dow meter sank 3.7% indicating plutocrats are not convinced that Italy can revive its moribund economy, and expressing doubts that the EU is big enough to bail out #3 Italy. But Italy is not Greece since its debt ratio to domestic product is more in line with Great Britain's and it could withstand higher interest payments for a longer period of time. France is the next domino in line, holding the most Italian debt of about $100 billion. French bond yields rose over 3% on Wednesday while French big bank shares went down more than 2%. Two big French banks, Societe General and BNP Paribas are derivative players with US counterparts. ♫♩"The leg bone is connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone is connected....♪♬"

{7.11.11}Papandreou is out as the Greek government scrambles to deal with the stark reality of years of painful economic relapse or national insolvency. He won a confidence vote Friday night, but was continually under pressure to resign by his parliamentary opposition. Leaders agreed to a coalition government of national unity yesterday, but the Prime Minister must step aside, possibly in favor of the Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos who supported the European bailout in the face of Papandreou's surprise call for a referendum on the bailout which comes with onerous austerity strings. The chart below shows what the Greek government is up against in terms of upcoming debt payments:

Most financial observers believe Greece will run out of money in December without additional loan money from the EU. That money has been cut off until Greece sees its way clear to ratifying the terms of the agreement reached last month. Greece's chaotic political gyrations has roiled the financial markets and the nation has come under huge pressure from worldwide financial interests to resolve the crisis:

The dilemma facing European governments is that the fiscal austerity demanded by international finance is dampening economic growth, making their debt overhang more difficult, not easier to pay down. The other major problem is that the deep pocket countries, mainly Germany, are not willing to allow the ECB to issue more debt such as Eurobonds to prop-up the already debt ridden PIIGS. Germany, however, does not have clean hands in the crisis. Germany violated the fiscal stability rules it demanded at the creation of the monetary union with impunity in 2002-05 by borrowing more than 3% of its GDP. A forensic study of Greek economic and budgetary data from the time of its admission in 2000 indicates that its data was manipulated to insure entry.

Americans may be viewing the European financial difficulties with wry amusement and feelings of smug superiority. They would be wise to think not. Besides the indisputable financial connection of American banks 'too big to fail' with European banks in a liquidity crisis, there is the spectacle of a impotent U.S. Congress unable to agree on austerity measures of its own. The super-committee of budget negotiators created to circumvent partisan deadlock is itself deadlocked over a deficit reduction plan. Under the debt ceiling-budget deal between the President and Congress the negotiating committee has until November 23rd to propose ways to cut the budget by $1.2 trillion. The only issue widely agreed on is that the automatic defense cuts of 5% (termed "sequestration") in the absence of a bipartisan deficit reduction plan should not be allowed to occur. In other words to cut federal spending the federal government's largest spending category, national defense, should not be reduced. Only in Washington would such an inversion of common sense make perfect sense to politicians beholding to the plutocracy for his or her elite status. The political farce in Washington makes the Greeks look positively stoic.

Pacific Humpback Whales Recovering

2011-11-09T00:11:00.001-08:00

credit: Animal Planet

NOAA scientists report that the Pacific humpback whale population is recovering. According to their paper in Marine Mammal Science there are 1,000 more humpbacks in the North Pacific Ocean than previously estimated. That number is now pegged at 21,000 whales. When commercial whaling ended in 1966, only 1400 whales were estimated to survive. The SPLASH survey involved hundreds of scientists from several Pacific rim nations over a three year period in an attempt to make a systematic survey of the ocean's humpback population, its structure, and genetic makeup. Individual humpbacks are identified by photographic comparison of an animal's flukes in the northern feeding grounds and tropical breeding areas 3,000 miles away. Other whale species have yet to recover from centuries of hunting, such as the sperm, wright, and blue whales, but the singing humpbacks are doing all right according to researchers.

Keystone XL Pipeline: Jobs for a Few

2011-11-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

credit: Think Progress

As the Keystone XL pipeline decision is forthcoming, it is important for opponents of the bad idea from Big Oil to refute the usual arguments made to foist development projects that ruin the landscape on the unsuspecting public. TransCanada, the proposed pipeline builder, admitted that the number of jobs created by the project has been grossly oversold. The Chamber of Commerce claimed at one point over 250,000 permanent jobs would be created by the pipeline project. The American Petroleum Institute pulled an even bigger number out of its ten gallon hat, claiming that oil sands development would create nearly half a million jobs by 2035. Pipe dreams. The only independent study of the project's jobs impact concluded that any jobs coming from the project (TransCanada now claims 20,000 calculated at one year's employment for one person) would be outweighed by environmental damage and higher fossil fuel costs in the Midwest. Are you listening, Mr. Obama?

'Toontime: A Bridge Too Far

2011-11-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

[credit: Riber Hansson, Svenska Dagbladet]
Wackydoodle axes: Does a monkey wrench come with that?

Backed up by his cabinet, Prime Minister Papandreou set the Greek referendum for December 4th or 5th. A disturbed German Chancellor Merkel said the referendum was about whether Greece should stay in the currency union. But at the end of the day the Greek Prime Minister bowed to outside pressure to call the referendum off. Betting was that the Greek people would opt out, if given the chance to vote. Some observers believe Papandreou is engaged in a high risk game of brinksmanship to get parliamentary opponents to endorse the EU bailout. If Greece becomes insolvent, Italy will be extremely hard hit. It has extended the most credit to Greece and its banks are already on life support. The ECB has been pumping funds into Italy on the condition that it pass austerity measures, but Prime Minister Berlusconi failed to pass measures demanded by the EU prior to the G-20 summit in Cannes.

The Gorilla War

2011-11-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Gorilla poaching is rampant in the Congo Basin and weak local governments are admittedly powerless to stop it. In Cameroon a forest ranger was killed and another seriously wounded in a violent clash with poachers outside Lobeke National Park near the border with the Central African Republic. The ranger, Zomedei Pierre Achille, was killed September 27th. He and his partner were on patrol when they discovered two western lowland gorilla carcasses in a poacher's camp. They concealed themselves to wait for the poachers to return. Six poachers open fired on the two unarmed rangers when they were spotted. His stripped body was found later tied to a tree and showed evidence that he did not die immediately. A WWF spokesman said poachers are waging a war for control of Cameroon's forests. Achille left behind a family of five children.

Poachers not only hunt for gorilla body parts, but also to capture baby gorillas. An infant can fetch as much as £25,000 on the black market. In April and June, lowland babies were rescued from poachers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In August, a mountain infant was rescued when poachers attempted to smuggle the baby into Rwanda.{"Gorillas"}. The most recent rescue [photo] was the result of a sting operation near the western boarder of Virunga National Park. Poachers agreed to sell an eighteen month old Grauer's (lowland) gorilla to rangers in civilian clothes. Christian Shamavu, who led the operation, said it was likely the infant's family had been killed. Often the captured infants are injured or sick from contact with human captors carrying communicable diseases. They are usually extremely stressed. The rescued infant called Shamavu for the ranger who saved him is doing well after veterinarian care and feeding. Most likely he will be sent to the GRACE Center, a gorilla orphan sanctuary in eastern DRC.

Feds Finally File for Fraud

2011-11-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

It must be the first big case of fraud* arising from the real estate bubble of the previous decade. The case against Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corporation of Houston, Texas accuses the company of defrauding the federal government of at least $834 million, but it took years of warnings and sanctions from the feds before they took court action. The suit seeks triple damages and civil penalties which could total $2.5billion. The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development suspended the company from issuing new mortgages backed by the FHA or the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae). Between 2001 and 2010 Allied originated 112, 324 home mortgages insured by FHA. 32% went into default resulting in the $834 million in insurance claims by Allied. In 2006 and 2007 the company's default rate was a staggering 55%. According to a Justice Department spokesman, Allied played a mortgage industry game of "heads I win, tales you loose". Allied bills itself as the nation's largest privately held mortgage broker/lender with 200 branches. The fact that it took the government this long to finally file suit against a serial abuser is indicative of the overall lack of fraud enforcement against the banking industry.

*Citigroup settled a billion dollar fraud case with a consent decree and a fine of $258 million, but it did not have to admit to being guilty of fraudulent derivatives trading. The federal judge overseeing the settlement is now asking how such a large fraud cannot be the result of willful and knowing actions.

Corporate Class Warfare Revealed

2011-11-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

Watch this video by Al-Jazeera that reveals the pivotal role of the Birchers, David and Charles Koch, in taking over the majority in the House of Representatives using the TEA Party front:

But Koch money can only go so far in distorting reality. A Berkeley study of climate change funded by the Koch Brothers, the so-called BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature) study confirms the consensus conclusion among climate researchers that global warming is high and accelerating:.

*HadCRU denotes University of Anglia climate study

Greece DOA

2011-11-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

Update: In a move that caught European officials, the Germans, and even his own finance minister by surprise, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced a referendum on whether Greece should accept the latest eurozone deal to prevent Greek bankruptcy and a meltdown of the euro currency union. Wall Street markets dropped with news of the referendum call. Papandreou said in response to the turmoil caused by his announcement on Monday, that he needs the support of the Greek people to impose more austerity measures. Measures imposed so far by the EU and IMF have proved extremely unpopular with most Greeks, who have taken to the streets to protest what they see as the sale of their nation's sovereignty to rescue corrupt banks and plutocrats. The austerity measures have hit the public sector in Greece hardest. There are dramatic cuts in wages, bonuses and pensions. Thirty thousand public employees have been suspended on partial pay for one year and then will be laid off. Collective bargaining has also been suspended. Overall the plan calls for €14.32bn in public sector cuts while raising €14.09bn in new taxes. Papandreou has called for a vote of confidence in his government for Friday. His parliamentary majority is down to two following the resignation of one his party's MPs. The Prime Minister will meet with the French and German heads of state at the G20 meeting in Cannes this week. A former German economic minister said that the referendum risks the insolvency of the Greek state since, "Europe will have to consider turning off the flow of money which is keeping Greece afloat." Public opinion in the cradle of democracy now is better insolvent than slave.

Update: {27.10.11}After a weekend of talks that stretched into Wednesday night, Germany and France have managed to put a finger in the EU dike. As expected Greece will technically default on its soverign debt obligations to the tune of a 50% 'haircut' on its bonds. That means bondholders will be asked to accept a 50% loss on the Greek bonds they hold. The Institute of International Finance has begun the process of negotiating the terms, but bondholders will have little choice but to accept the terms imposed by the European Union. Greece will be the first euro country to be rated as defaulting on its debt. The fifty percent cut in value equals a contribution to Greece's debt problem of $139 billion. So far, Greece has been kept a going concern on two rescue loans of $150 billion from the 17 countries in the eurozone. In the new agreement Greece will be given another tranche of loans worth $139 billion, and $30 billion in bond guarantees. To shore up the European Financial Stability fund, it will be leveraged to around $1.39 trillion. Banks have been asked to increase their capital reserves by $48 billion by June. Financial markets have reacted positively to the agreement.

{21.10.11} Greece is headed for default. The numbers do not add up and the Greek people have had enough. A forty-eight hour national strike this week closed the country down, and socialist legislators are beginning to balk at more austerity measures. The Greek economy is suffering under the measures imposed by the EU and IMF causing their national deficit to increase and tax revenues to fall. A Greek default will affect US banks because they are widely believed to be directly exposed by $41 billion to Greece. The $600 trillion derivates market will also be affected by a default and just four Wall Street banks hold 96% of derivatives in the United States. They will have to come up with huge amounts of cash to cover their positions, a situation similar to the Lehman Brothers collapse that triggered the liquidity Panic of 2008. The EU leadership is meeting this weekend to discuss what to do about Greece. There is no agreement among member nations as yet. Greece has about €350 in outstanding debt. 75% of that is held by weak banks in the other nations in crisis: Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain. They cannot afford to have their Greek bonds devalued. Greek long bonds are trading at 30 cents on the Euro, implying a 70% haircut. The ripples of Greece's default will spread outward, swamping other European financial institutions. Dexia Bank in Belgium is an example of what will happen. It was nationalized and the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg put up €90 billion to cover the yet undisclosed losses. Dexia's balance sheet of about €518 billion is about the size of the entire banking system of Greece and larger than the combined assets of the Irish financial institutions previously bailed out at taxpayer expense. Allegedly it was the safest bank in the European "stress tests". The European Financial Stability Fund is authorized to issue bonds up to only €440 billion. That is hardly enough if a Greek default results in 30 or so Dexia-size banks becoming insolvent. Where are the brave, rich investors going to get the money to buy these Euro bonds? From their banks, of course.

Qaddafi Family to File War Crimes Complaint against NATO

2011-11-01T11:55:00.000-07:00

More: NATO's allies in the vicious Libyan civil war, rebel militias, are torturing the residents of the "loyalist" village of Tawergha near Misrata. Human Rights Watch released a report on Sunday saying Misrata militia are terrorising the town apparently in retaliation for the civilian deaths and abuse caused by Qaddafi forces during the seige of Misrata between March and May. Witnesses interviewed by the independent human rights organization say detainees have been raped and beaten to death. One mentally ill man was beaten with a horse whip for 45 minutes while his mouth and hands were taped. He died within the space of two hours.

{28.10.11}As the shaky cell phone video linked here showed, Muammar al-Qaddafi was alive and bleeding when captured by rebel forces in Sirte. Apparently, Qaddafi's escape convoy was stopped by a NATO helicopter strike and the former dictator injured by the strafing. He fled to a roadside drainpipe where he was cornered by rebels. He surrendered. [Warning: graphic video] Before he was shot in the head, he was displayed to a frantic rebel mob on the hood of a truck and abused. All of these rebel actions, including the exhibition of his corpse in a meat locker at Misrata, constitute war crimes if proven to be true. A French lawyer for the Qaddafi family told a French radio station he will file a complaint with the International Criminal Court that has jursidiction over war crimes. The lawyer also mentioned the bombing of a Qaddafi son's private residence by NATO as a possible war crime. The United Nations, Amnesty International, and the Libyan interim governing council have all called for a full investigation into the circumstances of Qaddifi's death.

Javan Rhinoceros Declared Extinct in Vietnam

2011-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

WWF: empty Rhino wallow in Cat Tien NP

The Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinocerous sondaicus) was officially declared extinct by the government of Vietnam at a press conference in Hanoi last week. Two of the single horned rhinos clinged tenaciously to life until about 2006. Since then only one survived and it was killed by poachers. Found dead in April 2010, a recent field survey funded by the World Wildlife Foundation and the International Rhino Foundation covered 10,000 hectares but located no rhinos. Genetic analysis of dung samples confirmed that the dung belonged to a single rhinoceros living in Cat Tien National Park and the DNA isolated from the samples matched that taken from the carcass. Despite living in a protected area, the rhino was killed for its horn. Lax law enforcement, a problem all over Asia, allowed the last Vietnamese rhino to be snuffed out for superstition. Habitat loss also played a role since the extremely shy animals were restricted to only 6500 hectares of habitat in the park because dirt bike roads crisscrossing the area between human villages. WWF's rhino program director concluded that reintroduction of the Javan rhino is not feasible. Vietnam is experiencing an epidemic of poaching and habitat loss that will lead to a cascade of species extinctions. The rhino was unfortunately the first, but not the last. There are now only 44 Javan rhinos in the wild, all of which live in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park. Only three to five breeding females are believed to be among the population. Poaching has been prevented for sixteen years by rhino protection units funded by the International Foundation for Rhinos. Conservation groups including WWF and local partners are working to expand rhino habitat in the park. There is hope for the survival of the Javan rhinoceros through aggressive management of habitat, expanding available habitat and increasing the population as fast as possible. All of this takes human commitment and money to preserve the species. You can join US Person and contribute to the effort by donating at www.javanrhinohope.org.

Chart of the Week: Fukushima Radiation Twice Reported Amount

2011-10-31T00:37:00.000-07:00

credit: naturenews.com

The radioactivity released by the melted Fukushima reactors is almost double the amount reported by the Japanese government according to a new report by the Norwegian Institute of Air Research. The report used data from radiation monitoring stations in Japan and around the world as well as global meteorological data. It focused on two isotopes, ¹³³Xe and ¹³⁷Cs that have different release characteristics and behavior in the atmosphere. Although the radioactive cesium release was only 42% of the Chernobyl disaster (35.8PBq), the radioactive xenon gas release was the largest in history not associated with bomb testing. Nobel xenon gas poses a much less serious health risk to humans or the environment since it is not absorbed. Cesium, with a half-life of thirty years, is absorbed. About 19% of the estimated total fallout was deposited on Japanese soil with most of the rest falling on the North Pacific Ocean. Radioactive cesium releases peaked three to four days after the earthquake and tsunami as shown in the the chart. Contrary to Japanese claims, the spent fuel pool of #4 reactor contributed significantly to the cesium release as did the melting cores of the other damaged reactors. The Norwegian scientists say the latest estimates of radioactive fallout are attributable to the larger data set used in their study. Japanese estimates did not consider the quantities of radioactivity that drifted out over the Pacific Ocean and eventually reached North American and Europe.

'Toontime: Talent Scout

2011-10-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

[credit: Lee Judge, Kansas City Star]
Wackydoodle axes: But can he do the math?

A new report out tells us what we already know: the plutocrats are getting richer faster than ever. They hang on to their riches by stashing it offshore*; Their lackeys in Congress are standing in line to help them bring it home tax free. Seventy-three of the 'people's representatives' from both parties are co-sponsors of a bill to give cash cow corporations another tax holiday. The proposal would cost the Treasury $40-80 billion in revenue. Of course these tax scofflaws are selling the measure as a way to create jobs, but the last tax holiday granted the corporatists in 2004 ended up a giveaway to corporate shareholders and executives. That tax break allowed U.S. firms to bring home billions in offshore profits at a tax rate of 5.25%. Its time to tax speculators and dodgers, not reward them. The tax holiday proposal shows how deep in the plutocracy's pocket our so-called representatives really are.

*havens include Netherlands, Switzerland, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, Cayman and British Virgin Islands.

Marshall Islands Creates Shark Sanctuary

2011-10-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

The Republic of the Marshall Islands established the world's largest shark sanctuary this month. Legislation passed by the Marshall's parliament unanimously ends commercial shark fishing in all of the nation's 768,547 square miles of ocean. Sharks and rays are under increasing threat from commercial fishing. Sharks are hunted primarily for their fins, considered a delicacy in Asia. A bowl of shark fin soup can cost as much as $100. Some species of shark such as the hammerhead and white tip have lost 98% of their population. Because sharks grow slowly and produce few young, they are particularly vulnerable to slaughter. An estimated 73 million sharks are killed annually in the fin trade according to Pew Environment Group that is working to establish shark sanctuaries. Sharks suffer a brutal death by defining. Unable to swim without fins, they drown or die slowly from loss of blood.

credit: oceanfilmfest

The extent of the problem was made gruesomely clear when two Russian sport divers report seeing the ocean floor littered with mutilated shark carcasses in the Malpelo Wildlife Sanctuary off the Columbia coast. The divers reported seeing ten illegal fishing boats flying Costa Rican flags near the massacre last week. Some 2,000 hammerhead, Galapagos and whale sharks are estimated by wildlife officials to have killed illegally with their fins hacked off. Divers are attracted to the World Heritage sanctuary by the schooling of hammerheads and other sharks in the area. Columbia's navy only patrols the area sporadically. When the report of the massacre came in, it dispatched a ship to the area which seized an Ecuadorian fishing boat. It was caught with 300kgs of illegal catch including sharks. Three of the Costa Rica vessels were identified by name: Marco Antonio, Jefferson and Papante.

The lesson for the Marshall Islands is that creation of a protected zone is an admirable and valuable commitment to preserving biodiversity, but enforcement of fishing restrictions is essential. That is a major hurdle for a small island nation with limited means. The new sanctuary law prohibits long lining with wire leaders, transfers of catch at sea, and landing all catch. Large fines are imposed for anyone possessing shark fins or found fishing for sharks. As a top marine predator, the shark must survive in the wild to preserve the oceans' ecological balance. Rich nations must be willing to help less fortunate ones willing to preserve habitat. The United States enjoys territorial rights for defense purposes in the islands under the 1986 compact granting sovereignty. It should be the first nation to offer aid to the Marshalls to protect its new marine reserve.

End the Fed II

2011-10-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

More: You knew it had to happen given the police state in which we live. Just as the anti-war movement was martyred at Kent State, so now the first blood has been drawn in Oakland. The victim of repression happens to be a young, patriotic Marine who lies in hospital with a severe concussion. He is currently listed in fair condition with brain swelling. City officials nationwide are loosing their cool over the 99% Alliance. Police have been ordered to remove protestors from their encampments. That is what the Oakland police were doing Tuesday night [video] when the peaceable Marine was apparently hit in the head with a gas canister at close range. More than 100 people were arrested in the melee. Certainly ranks of vigils and marches planned for this weekend will swell in response to the violent tactics employed against citizens exercising their constitutional rights of peaceable assembly and free speech. Real change never comes cheap.

credit: Alex Schaefer

{26.10.11} Even Nobel prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank, thinks the Federal Reserve is corrupt because it is infected with plutocratic self-dealing. Stiglitz said, "If we [the World Bank] had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance; this is a corrupt governing structure." Well said Mr. Stiglitz. Notice he says that the problem with the Federal Reserve is structural, not incidental. That is so because the Fed's directors come from big corporations and banks like General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and others. The latest example of what commentator Mike Whitney says is "just plain evil" is the Fed's backing of teetering Bank of America's move to thrust the risk of its rotten derivatives portfolio onto a subsidiary depository institution that is FDIC insured. Of course the FDIC objected to the move because it puts taxpayers at risk of picking up the tab for B of A's counterparties. Under the amended bankruptcy rules of 2005 derivative counterparties are first in the line of creditors to take assets of a defaulting bank. So B of A's transfer amounts to another TARP-like extortion of taxpayers to save depositors. What politician is going to vote against depositors of a federally insured institution? Answer: none.

The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, recently completed its second audit of the Federal Reserve. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was responsible for the amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill allowing the GAO to audit the heretofore secret central bank, and has posted a summary of the GAO report on-line. The GAO found significant conflict of interests. GAO identified 18 former and current members of the Fed's board affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans during the financial crisis of 2008. The policy that allows the banking industry to elect and serve on the supposed independent Federal Reserve board creates in the circumspect phraseology of bureaucrats the "appearance of a conflict of interest". The reality is more than an appearance. Many of the directors work directly for supervised or regulated banks or own stock in them. They supervise the Federal Reserve's operations including personnel and salary decisions. They also decide how much interest to charge banks receiving loans from the Fed, and whether to extend credit to a bank at all.

'Old Hickory' slays the Second Bank

Perhaps the most blatant example of this insidious nexus between private bankers and a supposedly independent agency of government is that of Stephen Friedman. During the 2008 Panic the New York Federal Reserve Bank approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company which would allow it to receive near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve system. This move was made possible by the repeal of the 1933 Glass- Steagall law which prohibited investment banks from entering commercial banking and established the FDIC. Chairman Friedman at the time also sat on the Goldman board, and owned shares in Goldman. Friedman received a waiver of the Fed's conflict of interest rules. After receiving the waiver the opportunistic Friedman continued to purchase Goldman stock. There are others examples of this incestuous self-serving by Federal Reserve members: Jeffry Immelt, CEO of General Electric, received $16 million in financing during the Panic at the time he was a director of the Federal Reserve; Jamie Dimon was on the NY Fed board when his bank, also serving in its traditional role of clearinghouse for Fed lending programs, received $30 billion in financing to acquire failing Bear Sterns. There are more such instances of insider dealing. The bailout of banks "too big to fail" shows the Federal Reserve as it is presently constituted does not serve the national interest. It has degenerated into a private banker's club with the soverign power to create money. Only eleven of the 202 directors in the period 2006-2010 represented labor and consumer interests despite a congressional mandate for a Federal Reserve board consisting of experts in labor, consumer protection, agriculture and industry. Presidents Jefferson's and Jackson's darkest fears that the Democracy would be strangled by the Money Power have come to fruition. It is time to end the Fed.

Rare Hawaiian Bird Returned to Laysan

2011-10-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Laysan Island in the northwest (leeward) Hawaiian Islands is known for its albatross colonies, but other birds also make the island their home such as the endangered Laysan Finch and Laysan Duck. One, the Nihoa Millerbird (Acrocephalus familiaris kingi), has been absent for over a century, but thanks to the collaborative efforts of the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the American Bird Conservancy, Millerbirds were returned to Laysan in September. Twenty-four of the insectivorous songbirds were released in the Papahanaumokuakea National Monument {"Papahanaumokuakea"} as part of the overall project to restore Laysan's ecosystem that has been disrupted by guano mining, introduced species and floating garbage. Biologist also hope to insure the survival of the subspecies by establishing a separate population from its home on tiny Nihoa Island were it is severely endangered, thus solving two issues with one bird. The little brown birds (LBBs) seem to be adjusting well to their new, old home. Biologists are following them with the aid of radio tracking and will remain on the island for a year to monitor their movements and first nesting attempts. Individual birds are identified by the sequence of colored leg bands on both legs[photo].

Chart of the Week: When the Middle Crumbles II

2011-10-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

The chart puts it all together and shows how it has been "all downhill since Nixon" in terms of income in the United States of Inequality. With the loss of union scale jobs and declining bargaining power, the middle class has dropped to below half of aggregate income while top 1% incomes have increased disproportionately. In terms of wealth concentration the United States is behind only ultra-capitalist Switzerland in the share of total wealth owned by the top 10%. According to 2000 figures the top 10% own 70% of the wealth in the US.

This chart compares CEO incomes as a multiple of the average worker's:

As you can see CEO pay took off under the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton. The AFL/CIO publishes the latest information on CEO pay at its website. The median compensation for a CEO in all industries in early 2010 was $3.9 million while the median figure for an industrial worker is about $36,000. According to the AFL/CIO top executive median pay is now 343 times workers'. CEOs effectively set their own salaries because of interlocking directorates and compliant "outside compensation experts" who get wind of what the CEO thinks he deserves to maintain face with his peers and blowback that information to the board. Satisfied, the CEO will hire the "expert" again for future compensation reviews or recommend his services to a colleague. Round and round it goes, and with each pass the executives grab the golden ring. The process is not controlled by value of services rendered or company performance.

Finally, don't let anyone convince you that the rich are "taxed enough already":

Weekend Edition: The End of the Long War

2011-10-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

The imperial war mongers in Washington tried their best to leave boots on the ground in Iraq. In the end they made one demand the Iraqis refused to meet: legal immunity for United States military personnel. The demand speaks volumes about the arrogance of Washington's professional warriors. How a country that has experienced almost a decade of horrendous bloodletting in a civil war while occupied by a foreign power could consent to such an abrogation of sovereignty without appearing to be a neocolonial possession was completely lost on the war hawks. Of course the White House put the best spin it could on the failure of the high level negotiations for a security arrangement: Obamatron is fulfilling a promise to end the war he made in 2008. But that promise keeping appears to be almost an unintended consequence considering his Defense Secretary was pressing the Iraqis to allow as many as 20,000 US troops to stay behind as late as this month. At one point Secretary Panetta chided Iraqi leaders, saying "Damn it, make a decision." Iraqi politics was against the Pentagon getting its way on the issue. The main opposition party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi linked the immunity issue to choosing the defense minister from his party, something current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was never going to do, and Maiki's position is too weak to ignore his opposition when dealing with the Americans on such a symbolically important concession.

So the long war that never needed to be fought will end sooner, not because of ordinary Americans' desires to see their soldiers come home after 4,400 dead and billions of wasted dollars, but because the Iraqis decided they want to be treated as a sovereign nation in control of events within their borders. Some security experts believe that Iraq is not ready to maintain internal peace and defend its interests against stronger neighbors. Perhaps what is really concerning these imperialists is that Iran will end up being more influential in the region than the United States which spent so much blood and treasure there. Even without a status of forces agreement {"SOFA"}, Americans will still be in Iraq as mercenaries, contractors, embassy personnel and spies. But Iraq's future is now clearly up to its people which is the only proper conclusion to such a wasteful misadventure in "regime change". Bravo, Iraq, good luck, and if you find any WMDs be sure to let us know.

'Toontime: American Spring III

2011-10-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

[credit: Mike Keefe, Denver Post]
Wackydoodle sez, Put some cheese on it!

Demos want to capitalize on discontent expressed by the 99% movement--we dare call it the Peoples' Alliance--but do not want to endorse a genuine grass-roots protest that may harbor anti-capitalist sentiments: witness actor Alec Baldwin visiting the protesters in New York (For which office is he not running? Stop by anytime, Alec, for an explanation of capital flows. This country operated with a decentralized banking system for the first 2 centuries of its existence. The short answer is, with computerized accounting systems in place, the capital flows would adjust just fine. BATTABING!), but President Obama is coming nowhere close. That seems a little odd to US Person considering he is running for re-election and the crowd is bound to contain a few voters. Even 'Tricky' Dick Nixon visited anti-war protesters camped at the Lincoln Memorial. Obama is photographed campaigning at fire stations. Is the subtext property is more important than people? Or perhaps he is banking on killing enough foreign terrorists to be forgiven his mismanagement of the American economy [video @ 4:22] while presiding over as little real change as possible*. As the cartoon shows, the Repugnants certainly are not about to eat their peas.

*Barack Obama took an oath of office to uphold the laws of the United States before he occupied the White House. Countrywide Financial committed outright fraud as their own internal investigators found. The company cut and pasted appraisals in order to justify mortgage loans, and inflated credit scores and incomes to sell securitized mortgages. The company Executive Vice President in charge of the internal investigation was fired after Bank of America took over the company. Such criminal activity was not limited to a single mortgage company or bank. Yet only a single Wall Street banker, and a minor player at that, has been prosecuted for criminal fraud, not "immoral" or "inappropriate" business practices, that resulted in the Panic of 2008 which in turn crashed the US economy. One thousand S&L insiders went to jail in the last massive bank fraud of the 1980's. Citi Group is the latest Wall Street bank to get away with only a fine for fraudulent practices.

Polar Bear Looses in Federal Court

2011-10-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

credit: Steven Kazlowski, Barter Island, ANWR

Ursus Maritimus lost in a ruling by the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The court ruled that the United States does not have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect the polar bears' arctic habitat from further global warming. However the court did find that the 4(d) rule under the Endangered Species Act, promulgated by the previous regime and continued by the current administration, which states "incidental takes from [human] activities that occur outside of the current range of the species is not a prohibited act under the ESA" violates the National Environmental Protect Act. The District Court previously ruled that the polar bear is a threatened species, but it is predicted that melting polar ice will kill 10,000 bears. This summer Arctic sea ice reached its second lowest extent on record. Conservation groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity that represented the polar bear in court vowed to continue to press the current administration to grant the great white bear endangered status and use the ESA to address greenhouse gas emissions. "The Obama is going to own this issue", said one conservationist for the National Resources Defense Council. By the court requiring a NEPA review of the rule, "the administration won't be able to hide behind a Bush-era policy on an issue the public clearly cares about."

Cleaning Up the Res and Town

2011-10-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

First Americans are doing their part by cleaning up abandoned mines on their reservations. A settlement was reached this month on cleanup of the Midnite Mine Superfund site on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Elevated levels of radioactivity posed a risk to human health and the environment. Members of the Spokane Tribe found uranium in 1954 and formed a company to obtain mining leases from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribal company joined with Newmont USA Ltd. to exploit the deposit. The mine operated from 1954 to 1964 and again from 1969 to 1981. Two open pit mines were created disturbing 350 acres of land. Clean up is expected to cost $193 million and take about ten years. EPA has already spent $25 million on the site.

The largest abandoned uranium mine on the Navajo Reservation, Northeast Church Rock Mine will be clean up according to a plan approved by the EPA. The 125 acre mine site which includes a 1800 shaft, waste piles and ponds, most of which is on tribal land, was operated by United Nuclear Corporation from 1967 to 1982. The multi-year clean up process will include the removal of 1.4 million tons of contaminated soil into a lined and capped depository that meets the strictest standards in the country. After the work is done, the tribe will have unrestricted use of the surface again. A high health risk is present at the site from contaminated dust and radon gas. Chronic exposure to elevated levels of radioactivity can result in anemia, cataracts, bone cancer and even death. The largest release of radioactivity in US history occurred at the mine site when an earthen dam failed in 1979 releasing radioactive tailings into the Puerco River. Environmentalists say that the spill and 20 years of untreated discharges have contributed to the the long-term contamination of the river in Arizona and New Mexico.

Albuquerque will get its first urban wildlife refuge of 570 acres along the Rio Grande River. Interior Secretary Salazar announced the designation on September 29th. The acreage is a former dairy farm and is one of the largest undeveloped tracts in metropolitan Albuquerque. It will provide habitat for the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher [photo] as well as provide urban dwellers healthy outdoor recreation opportunity and a chance to reconnect with nature. The US Fish & Wildlife Service will complete planning studies and begin purchasing the land from the private owner, estimated to cost $20 million. The project has the enthusiastic support of state and local government. The flycatcher has lost more than 90% of its habitat to human development.

Slaughter in Ohio

2011-10-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

Once again wild creatures pay the price for man's shocking selfishness. Forty-eight animals held in captivity near Zanesville, Ohio by a deranged man were shot and killed by sheriff's deputies. The man released lions, tigers, bears, cougars, wolves and leopards from his private menagerie before committing suicide. Concerned for public safety and approaching darkness, deputies were given orders to kill the captive wild animals in a slaughter than continued all night. Only three leopards, a grizzly bear and two monkeys survived. No humans were injured. The horrific incident drives home the extreme need to strictly regulate on a national level the captivity of endangered species. Eighteen Bengal tigers were killed by law enforcement officers. There are only about 1400 wild Bengal tigers in the entire world. Ohio has some of the most lax exotic animal laws in the United States and among the highest number of injuries and deaths involving wild animals in captivity. The Humane Society of the US has advocated increased restrictions on private ownership of potentially dangerous exotic animals. The animal welfare organization criticized the Ohio governor for allowing the state ban on selling or buying exotic animals to expire in April of this year. The man's motive for releasing his captives to face destruction is unknown, but a neighbor reported that "nobody much cared for him". He had been charged over the years with animal cruelty, neglect, and allowing animals to roam. In tragic hindsight the suicide victim was not an individual of sufficient character to be entrusted with the care of rare, beautiful animals that were totally depended on him for their survival.

Effective Malaria Vaccine Coming

2011-10-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

credit: Dennis Kunkel

The early results of a major clinical trial show that a malaria vaccine cut the risk of contracting the disease in children by half. The vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline's laboratory in Belgium and currently labeled RTS,S attempts to block the Plasmodium falciparum parasite [photo] transmitted by mosquitos which kills 800,000 people a year, mostly children. Ninety percent of cases are in sub-Saharan Africa. The phase III trial results were published on-line in the New England Journal of Medicine. Children aged 5 years to 17 months experienced a 56% lower risk of developing clinical malaria. Six thousand children were vaccinated and followed for 12 months after the vaccination. The vaccine is a medical milestone since it is the first vaccine targeting a parasitic microorganism rather than bacteria or viruses. While initial results are encouraging, scientists say more evaluation and research is needed, and there is some question of whether philanthropists will back a vaccine that is effective only about half the time. GlaxoSmithKline has spent $300 million to develop RTS,S but hopes to bring an effective low cost vaccine to Africa by 2015. Malaria has plagued man since since the beginning of civilization and is recognized as a disease commonly associated with poverty because its victims are unable to afford preventive medications, mosquito repellants or netting.

Chart of the Week: When the Middle Crumbles

2011-10-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

Why is fundamental financial reform needed? Why End the Fed? These charts help answer those questions:

After every previous recession manufacturing in this country accelerated [arrows]. The chart also shows the type and level of US economic activity changed at the end of the last century. American manufacturing jobs peaked in 1980 at about 19 million. That is why everything you now buy at Wal-Mart is made in China. The United States is a FIRE economy: finance, insurance, real estate and you could add healthcare. It was manufacturing that provided well paid middle class jobs, but that source of middle class income has disappeared overseas replaced by low wage rent-a-body jobs that are often temporary. This chart shows one effect of declining or no wages, less consumer spending:

Retail sales when adjusted for inflation and population [box inset] are at the same level of twelve years ago. Another effect is the increasing amount of government transfers to the 99% that is finding it increasing difficult to support itself by wage labor:

End the Fed

2011-10-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

The 99% protest is spreading to more cities in the United States which is a good thing, but the moment is arriving for a few focused themes to emerge for dissemination to the opposition which is the corporate mass media. US Person proposes to "End the Fed". The demand could be one of a select few so as not to confuse the distracted wider public. The demand has the beauty of brevity, and it clearly focuses on the core problem of our fiat money system: money creation, so necessary for businesses to expand and thereby hire more workers, has come under the domination of big bankers through their private club, the Federal Reserve Bank. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) advocates placing the Federal Reserve within the Treasury Department. This reform would probably create more accountability for what is now an publicly unaccountable bank with the power to deflate or inflate the economy and affect the life of every US citizen. However, the proposal falls short because it does not address the problem of the concentration of wealth able to procure lackeys in high public office.

US Person is something of a constitutional literalist, as is Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), so he proposes to eliminate the Federal Reserve system and give its two main functions to new, separate institutions of banking and monetary policy. The power to create money should be returned to whom the Constitution gave it at the founding, Congress. One of Congress' enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 is to "coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures." Pursuant to this explicit grant of power, a designated body of Congress should set monetary policy which directly "regulates the value" of all US money, not just coin. Granted this enumerated power has been historically interpreted to mean the power to mint coins. But in the age of computers where digital account entries expand and contract the nation's money supply, restricting the interpretation of the money clause to minting coins is nonsensical. United State Senators as the elected representatives of the people, should form a standing committee to set national monetary policy-- not a secretive, unaccountable group of private bankers who sit in the Federal Reserve as the Federal Open Market Committee. The Senate's Standing Committee on Monetary Policy, chaired by a member of the President's choosing, could then seek ratification of their decision by simple majority vote in Congress which would then direct the US Treasury to implement its policy decisions on money supply. The banking utility functions of the Federal Reserve should devolve to a system of state banks that might also include regional institutions to facilitate interstate and foreign transactions. A system of state banks existed in the United States before the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. North Dakota's banking needs in the middle of an energy boom are currently being met by a public bank with great success. Regulated state banks would be much more responsive to the business and consumer needs of their residents than a few behemoth banks in New York to big to fail or serve. The bankers of Wall Street that have such unwarranted power over our political system would be significantly reduced in their political influence, and unable to engage in extortion of the 99% that occurred in the Panic of 2008. Whatever the final shape of the fundamental bank reform, it is now clear even at street level, the current structure of the Federal Reserve is dysfunctional and needs to be replaced.

'Toontime: American Spring II

2011-10-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

[credit: Mike Lukovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Wackdoodle sez, "Shucks, Mr. Jamie done took ma other home."

Update: Operation Hose-Down has been postponed[vid] by the corporate owners.

The inevitable establishment reaction to "Occupy Wall Street" has begun as Mayor Bloomberg directed his rent-a-cop force to evict protestors that have occupied Zuccotti Park for a month. The development company that owns the park said it plans to power wash the park section by section beginning at 7am. The company said protestors would be allowed to return after the washing, but it plans to enforce regulations that have been ignored: no tarps, no sleeping bags, no camping. The nation has witnessed the use of city police officers on "paid detail" to private companies as violent enforcers against the primarily young, peaceful protesters. The NYPD said it will make arrests if the corporate owner of Zuccotti Park requests help to remove occupiers. Corporations pay an average of $37/hour to employ an NYPD officer while the City gets a 10% administrative fee on top. Some of the biggest names on the Street like Goldman, the Exchange and even Lehman Bros. have used paid detail cops. All that is missing are the brown shirts and the "T" word.

Clockwork Orange Terror

2011-10-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

It is just like clockwork. Need to boost public approval ratings? Need to distract from public protests and insurmountable economic problems? Announce yet another "terrorist plot" du jour and scare the public into the equivalent of a deer caught in the headlights. So the Obamatron, doing his best imitation of the Charlatan, threatens Iran with retaliation of unspecified sort for an alleged plot involving two Iranians allegedly connected to the Iranian regime, allegedly paying the other boogeymen nearer home, a Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, to put a hit on the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The next thing he will be saying is "either you are with us or against us", and have his U.N. ambassador hold up the check. The down side to this dubious public relations stunt is that once the claims are publicly made by a government, it cannot back down easily, even if the charges are puerile. Sorry Mr. Obama, that's one wolf too many, and a "pattern of behavior".

Real criminals, like BP, go unpunished because its executives write campaign finance checks. Readers may remember that a surplus Liberty ship converted to a barge named the {"Davy Crockett"} broke up and spilled thirty-three thousand gallons of fuel oil into the Columbia River after its financially stressed owner abandoned salvage attempts. Sure enough, that owner has been criminally indicted by the Federal District Attorney for Western Washington on two counts of unlawfully violating the Clean Water Act. The spill was made worse by the owner's failure to take action to protect the barge from further structural damage or report the spill. Clean up costs amounted to $20 million. So he had it coming. But a multinational company earning billions a year in profit need not worry about criminal charges coming out of the US Justice Department run by the politically sensitive Eric Holder despite the incredible damage to the Gulf ecosystem and fishing industry, eleven deaths on board the Deepwater Horizon, 4.7 million barrels of toxic crude oil spilled into the sea, and an official investigating commission conclusion that BP and its contractors are culpable in numerous ways for not preventing the disaster from occurring. Incredibly, BP is allowed to bid on new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. In Washington it is politically easier to start a war than reform an economy.

Keystone XL Pipeline: Stripped from the Land, Shipped Overseas

2011-10-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

More: The State Department has admitted that its favorable environmental impact assessment was produced by a consultant with economic ties to TransCanada, the proposed pipeline builder. Cardno Entrix the hired contractor describes TransCanada as a major client in its marketing materials. The study released in August found that the pipeline would have "limited adverse effects" on the environment if operated in accordance with regulations. It is common practice for companies wanting to build projects to be involved in assigning and paying for impact analysis, but legal experts say Cardno Entrix, which also provides spill response services, has a conflict of interest because of its financial interest in the decision outcome. TransCanada chief Washington lobbyist is Paul Elliot, a top official in Secretary Clinton's failed presidential bid. Environmentalists say the study understated the impact of a spill of corrosive, hot bitumen. A bitumen spill into the Kalamazoo River has posed an extremely difficult cleanup problem, running beyond budget and schedule. A thirty five mile stretch of river has been closed since July, and cleanup costs have run over $500 million. There are more than 100 significant spills per year from pipeline facilities, a record going back more than 20 years.

{6/10/11}A lot of the justification for building the XL pipeline across America's heartland to the Gulf Coast is faux patriot raving about making American "energy independent" by sourcing our oil from a dedicated ally, Canada. Turns out that big oil wants to build it to make mo' money from oil exports. The pipeline will not lessen American dependence on foreign oil. Oil Change International has published a report based on information gathered from the US Energy Department and Canada's National Energy Board. Corporate disclosures and analysis of the demands in the international oil market show Keystone XL is an export pipeline. Higher fuel economy standards and economic recession have slowed US domestic demand for fuels as domestic oil and gas production increases. The US has its own large oil shale and bitumen deposits. Recently a huge bitumen deposit has been located in North Dakota. Valero Energy, the major customer for dirty tar sand crude, has detailed its export strategy to investors. Valero's Port Arthur refinery is in a Foreign Trade Zone, so naturally the company is anxious to refine and export oil tax free to Europe and Latin America. Valero has contracted to take at least 100,000 barrels of crude from the pipeline a day until 2030, the only US customer of the six who have jointly committed to purchase 76% of the pipeline's initial capacity. The others, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total, Canadian producers, an international oil trading firm, and the Saudi government all intend to ship their share of dirty crude overseas. Oil is a fungible product and in this age it circulates globally. The only way to reduce America's dependence on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to reduce consumption of all fossil fuels, regardless of the ultimate source. That fact makes any argument that the sacrifice of the boreal forest and risking contamination of the Ogallala Aquifer is necessary for national security a red herring.

Nebraska's Sand Hills: bury me here!

Environmental groups sued the U.S. government yesterday to stop the construction of the pipeline. The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and the Western Nebraska Resources Council are asking the U.S. District Court for Nebraska to stop TransCanada from mowing the proposed right of way before it even has federal permission to begin construction. The company has responded that it was "implementing conservation measures" to protect the "American burying beetle" and that mowing does not constitute construction. In reality it is attempting to put the Obamatron in a corner with political momentum.

Chart of the Week: The Slice Gets Smaller for US

2011-10-10T00:39:00.000-07:00

[credit: G. Domhoff, UCSC]

The 99% people camping out in several U.S. cites may not know it, but the pie charts above show why they feel the way they do. These are based on 2007 figures, but the distribution of wealth has gotten even more skewed since the financial panic of 2008 caused the "too big to fail" bailouts for über-rich Wall Street bankers. In the first quarter of 2011, corporations boosted a 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes because of outsourcing to low tax rate countries. About 40% of the S&P 500 profits come from overseas operations. In 2010 CEO compensation rose by 30%. Preliminary figures indicate that as of April 2010 there has been a 36.1% drop in median household wealth compared to just 11.1% for the rich 1% as a result of the Second Great Depression.

The red slice shows that the rich, or top 1%, have three times the net worth of 80% of the population and six times the financial wealth. Financial wealth is defined as net worth minus owner-occupied housing since it is not easy to convert a home to cash in the near term. Most middle class wealth is in family homes (62%). The plutocrats--people in the top tenth of the top 1% or net worth of $24 million and above--do not earn their income from salaries. Either it is returns from financial investments, corporate stock compensation plans, real estate, business profit sharing, or inherited wealth. Their income is taxed at lower capital gains rates and sheltered in offshore tax havens compared to ordinary wage or salary income of the 99%. It is not unusual for these fortunate few to pay effective federal income tax rates of zero or borrow large sums of money at near zero interest. Politicians, dependent on private campaign financing, are servants to this cynical aristocracy of greed. That is why we have a leading presidential candidate who can stupidly claim "Corporations are people" and still get elected. {"Mitt Romney"} The plutocrats are truly powerful because the laws that burden the 99.9%, allow them to protect and increase their wealth through perpetual trusts and other legal means, while extending their influence over our government "of the people". When you think of power and wealth in America look at the back of the dollar bill. You will see the pyramid and the all-seeing eye perched at the top. That is not the eye of God.

'Toontime: American Spring

2011-10-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

[credit: Cameron Cardow, Ottawa Citizen]
Wackydoodle axes: Do they serve cake with that?

In scenes of policy brutality[video] not witnessed since the Days of Rage and other anti-Vietnam War protests, New York's finest wailed on Occupy Wall Street protestors with pepper spray and batons. If the enfeebled remnants of the American left and the labor movement can coalesce around the youthful avant guarde, lend organization, funding, and political coherence to a truly grass roots action against the corporatist state, then America will experience a springtime in which democracy is born again. Occupy Wall Street has been accused by the right of being incoherent, self-involved, and a toxic form of "free floating radicalism". All of these condemnations have been heard before since they were hurled at the anti-war movement of the Sixties and Seventies. They are equally inaccurate now. Occupy Wall Street, unlike the TaxedEnoughAlready party, is not a front organization for plutocrats. The ultra-right Koch Brothers, who are the ideological heirs of their father's extremist John Birch Society, are known to have funded and organized their less wealthy extremists. Relentlessly promoted by corporate propaganda organs like Fox Spews, the TEA party managed to rest control of the lower house of Congress proving once again that money wins elections. In contrast, a generation of marginalized Americans are relearning the responsibilities of citizenship in a real democracy on the streets of lower Manhattan, largely without corporate mass media coverage of the process. Give them some time and the demands will be made and perhaps their representatives elected. Their democratic instincts are true. As a first step they have listed their grievances in emulation of the American colonists who declared separation from the Crown of England. Those of us onlookers who are also fed up and can't take it anymore can at least provide the willing with blankets and food.

The moment is right for a new declaration of independence from banker oppression because the edifice of casino capitalism maybe crumbling. Former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce Robert Shapiro was interviewed by the BBC.[video]In it Shapiro said there is a "1 in 3 chance" that a financial meltdown occurs in Europe, which in his view "would be be significantly more serious" than the crisis in 2008, if the sovereign debt crisis is not addressed by a fundamental restructuring of the monetary union. His sentiments were echoed by Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, who said, "This is the most serious financial crisis we've seen, at least since 1930's, if not ever." The €440 billion bailout fund is already considered to small to handle the crisis, yet it is not even fully approved by European parliaments. And there is fierce opposition in Germany to the ECB using leverage to increase its impact. The Fitch rating agency has cut Italy's credit rating by one level (A+) and Spain's by two(AA-) with a negative outlook for both countries. No one really knows what the American bank exposure to European banks is in the murky world of derivative trading created by the orgy of financial deregulation at the end of the last century. But what is now becoming undeniable is that the Emperor of Finance wears no clothes.