Iraqi PM Says "We're Good"

"Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki assured visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday that his country’s security will be unaffected by the planned American troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities.

“We don’t need big numbers of (US) military forces inside the cities after we get control of them,” Maliki said in a statement after talks with the top US lawmaker, who arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit.

“The responsible withdrawal (of US troops) will not affect the security situation,” Maliki added.

A fierce critic of the 2003-US invasion ordered by former president George W. Bush, Pelosi’s one-day visit came as US troops prepare to withdraw from Iraq’s urban areas by the end of next month despite a spike in violence.

The withdrawal is a key part of a military accord signed by Baghdad and Washington last November that will also see US troops leave the country by the end of 2011.

Maliki said Iraq’s military efforts were now concentrated on improving its intelligence services.

The US Congress, for its part, should try to develop bilateral relations focused on the scientific and economic agreements signed by the two countries, he said.

“Under stability, we are seeking to develop our economy, especially the oil industry, after multinationals have already come to work and invest in the sector,” he said.

Pelosi said that Washington would stick to its part of the agreement on troop withdrawals."--Iraqi PM tells Pelosi: We don’t need US troops in our cities - The Raw Story


Seems it would make sense to have the UN provide some police activity and training for the Iraqis. At the same time the US should be working on ensuring Iraqi economic stability so as to prevent blowback. We saw what the Reagan did to Afghanistan and we are still living with his failures today.

Swine Flu....Update

Swine Flu Outbreak Could Be Linked to Smithfield Factory Farms
"The outbreak of a new flu strain-a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses-has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels......"

"Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak."

"De acuerdo con uno de los habitantes de la comunidad, Eli Ferrer Cortés, los desechos fecales y orgánicos que produce Granjas Carroll no son tratados adecuadamente, lo que genera contaminación del agua y del viento en la region."



Any questionss?

Do Republicans Know What "Legal" Means?

Again......the argument is that the intelligence provided by using torture worked.

I do not think the question is whether or not it "worked" but rather it's legal or not.

The Bush Admin broke the law and put our US troops in harms way by opening the door for other countries to use the same techniques.--Where 'Those Methods' Lead

Swin Flu Outbreak and American Pork Producer.....

Courtesy of Grist

"The outbreak of a new flu strain—a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses—has infected 1000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels.

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web sit.

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):--Swine-flu outbreak linked to Smithfield factory farms

Legalizing Drugs Can Work......In Some Countries

The Portuguese Experiment: Did Legalizing Drugs Work?

"Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)

Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.

"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries."--The Portuguese Experiment

A Cure for Blindness? Of Course from Stem Cells....

"BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

This week Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.

The treatment will tackle age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness. It affects more than 500,000 Britons and the number is forecast to increase significantly as people live longer. The disease involves the loss of eye cells."--Blind to be cured with stem cells

This is truly great news if it turns out to be true. I wonder if this will be enough to shut the religious right up about being "pro-life". We all know they could care less about a fellow human once you are born.


"Boy, these Conservatives are really something. They're all in favor of the unborn, they will do anything for the unborn, but once you're born you're on your own!"--George Carlin

Let Them Eat War - More Poor to fill the Army's Ranks

"The Army last month stopped accepting felons and recent drug abusers into its ranks as the nation's economic downturn helped its recruiting, allowing it to reverse a decline in recruiting standards that had alarmed some officers.

While shunning those with criminal backgrounds, the Army is also attracting better-educated recruits. It is on track this year to meet, for the first time since 2004, the Pentagon's goal of ensuring that 90 percent of recruits have high school diplomas.

The developments mark a welcome turnaround for the Army, which has the military's biggest annual recruiting quota and had in recent years issued more waivers for recruits with criminal records. That, coupled with unprecedented strains from repeated deployments, led some senior officers to voice concerns that wartime pressures threatened to break the all-volunteer force.

Now, though, rising unemployment, security gains in Iraq and other factors have helped make military service more attractive and have allowed recruiters to be more choosy, according to military officials and Pentagon data."

Continued.....

Above all, the economic crisis has increased unemployment and reduced job opportunities -- particularly in sectors that tend to employ young people, said Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon's top recruiting official.

When the recession hits the service sector, "everything from McDonald's to cutbacks at Best Buy and some of the more entry-level jobs . . . this impacts young people more. Those who are last hired tend to be first fired," Gilroy said. "They would then view the military option more favorably."

Another factor has been improved security in Iraq, officials said. "Casualties are way down, neighborhoods are safer, and that has proved a significant factor," Gilroy said.

American youth are increasingly likely to join the military, recent Pentagon polling has shown. Those ages 16 to 21 who said they would "definitely" or "probably" serve in the military in the next few years rose from 9 percent in December 2007 to 13 percent last December, according to Defense Department Youth Polls.

The gains in recruiting are leading the Army to cut its recruiting budget and scale back some bonuses and incentives. The service plans to cut 1,100 active-duty, Reserve and contract recruiters over the next two years, Anderson said."--Army More Selective as Economy Lags



The Bush Admin had so many problems getting willing people to fight their wars that they started to accept Category IV soldiers. Now that the wealth controllers of this country have done their best to purge the middle class they can now find more admirable and respectful people to serve....for what purpose it's hard to tell.

The military is being used as a stop gap for rising unemployment or people with no immediate opportunity straight out of high school....much like I went through when I finished high school. You can probably expect another military campaign in the near future in hopes that we can see post WWII 'prosperity' again.

How Somalia's Fishermen Became Pirates - Time Mag

"Amid the current media frenzy about Somali pirates, it's hard not to imagine them as characters in some dystopian Horn of Africa version of Waterworld. We see wily corsairs in ragged clothing swarming out of their elusive mother ships, chewing narcotic khat while thumbing GPS phones and grappling hooks. They are not desperate bandits, experts say, rather savvy opportunists in the most lawless corner of the planet. But the pirates have never been the only ones exploiting the vulnerabilities of this troubled failed state — and are, in part, a product of the rest of the world's neglect."

Continued......

"High-seas trawlers from countries as far flung as South Korea, Japan and Spain have operated down the Somali coast, often illegally and without licenses, for the better part of two decades, the U.N. says. They often fly flags of convenience from sea-faring friendly nations like Belize and Bahrain, which further helps the ships skirt international regulations and evade censure from their home countries. Tsuma Charo of the Nairobi-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, which monitors Somali pirate attacks and liaises with the hostage takers and the captured crews, says "illegal trawling has fed the piracy problem." In the early days of Somali piracy, those who seized trawlers without licenses could count on a quick ransom payment, since the boat owners and companies backing those vessels didn't want to draw attention to their violation of international maritime law. This, Charo reckons, allowed the pirates to build up their tactical networks and whetted their appetite for bigger spoils.

Beyond illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia's shores. A 2005 United Nations Environmental Program report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a rash of respiratory ailments and skin diseases breaking out in villages along the Somali coast. According to the U.N., at the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dump these types of materials off the Horn of Africa, as opposed to $250 per ton to dispose of them cleanly in Europe.

Monitoring and combating any of these misdeeds is next to impossible — Somalia's current government can barely find its feet in the wake of the 2006 U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion. And many Somalis, along with outside observers, suspect local officials in Mogadishu and in ports in semi-autonomous Puntland further north of accepting bribes from foreign fishermen as well as from pirate elders. U.N. monitors in 2005 and 2006 suggested an embargo on fish taken from Somali waters, but their proposals were shot down by members of the Security Council." -- How Somalia's Fishermen Became Pirates


--These people were not the 'Johnny Depp' pirates as most ignorant Americans would think. This is what many would call a naval militia. Formed to protect their immediate self-interests as the country's government cannot. I find it disturbing that we are yet again in the middle of encouraging countries to fail. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia are just the latest examples.....?

Mythology is Taking its Last Gasp? Maybe....

The End of Christian America

"The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking."

Maybe America can be defined by actual culture not a mainstream religion? How tolerant of a people can we be if we let one religion pervert an entire country?

Pitchforks?

Courtey of TG

"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."--Politico

FBI Warns America of Mortgage Fraud.....in 2004!

FBI warns of mortgage fraud 'epidemic'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rampant fraud in the mortgage industry has increased so sharply that the FBI warned Friday of an "epidemic" of financial crimes which, if not curtailed, could become "the next S&L crisis."

Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker said the booming mortgage market, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, has attracted unscrupulous professionals and criminal groups whose fraudulent activities could cause multibillion-dollar losses to financial institutions.

"It has the potential to be an epidemic," said Swecker, who heads the Criminal Division at FBI headquarters in Washington. "We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis," he said.

In the 1980s, many Savings and Loans failed because of poor management, risky loans and investments, and in some cases, fraud. Taxpayers were left with a $132 billion tab to cover federal guarantees to S&L customers.

The FBI has dispatched undercover teams across the country in an urgent investigation into dealings by suspect mortgage brokers, appraisers, short-term investors, and loan officers, Swecker, flanked by FBI executives and Justice Department prosecutors, revealed.

"The Best Way to Rob a Bank, is to Own One"......

"William K. Black suspects that it was more than greed and incompetence that brought down the U.S. financial sector and plunged the economy in recession — it was fraud. And he would know. When it comes to financial shenanigans, William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, has seen pretty much everything.

Now an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, William K. Black tells Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that the tool at the very center of mortgage collapse, creating triple-A rated bonds out of "liars' loans" — loans issued without verifying income, assets or employment — was a fraud, and the banks knew it.

And while there is no law against liars' loans, Black points out that there are, "many laws against fraud, and liars' loans are fraudulent. [...] They involve deceit, which is the essence of fraud."

More about the Savings and Loan Crisis

Here is the video:William K. Black interview

*You know, I get so enraged that people openly vote for an ideology that believes man is inherently evil and then do nothing to prevent such evil. About 50% of Americans should be walking around with their noses cut off...to spite their face.*

I guess we have to purge the septic tank before we can fill it back up again?

1 Outta 10 Americans Need Food Stamps?

One in 10 Americans gets help to buy food

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A record 32.2 million people -- one in every 10 Americans -- received food stamps at the latest count, the government said on Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.

Food stamps, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, help poor people buy groceries. The average benefit was $112.82 per person in January.

The January figure marks the third time in five months that enrollment set a record.

"A weakened economy means that many more individuals are turning to SNAP/Food Stamps," said the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group, using the acronym for the renamed food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in February, the highest in 25 years. New claims for jobless benefits totaled 669,000 last week, the highest in 26 years, the government said on Thursday."

Ice shelf about to break away from Antarctic coast

This is probably not a good thing. I imagine we will probably be cooked to death once all the methane hydrates start releasing into the atmosphere......

"As the Wilkins Ice Shelf is at risk of breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula, ESA’s Envisat satellite is observing the area on a daily basis. The satellite acquisitions of the ice shelf are updated automatically on this website to monitor the developments immediately as they occur.

In late November 2008, new rifts developed on the ice shelf that scientists warn could lead to the opening of the ice bridge that connects the ice shelf to the Charcot island. If the ice bridge were to open, it could put the entire ice shelf at risk of further disintegrating."

This is great news for news

Huffington Post Launches Investigative Journalism Venture

"NEW YORK — The Huffington Post said Sunday that it will bankroll a group of investigative journalists, directing them at first to look at stories about the nation's economy.

The popular Web site is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said."

This is good stuff.....it will fill the massive void corporate newspapers have left in this country for the last few decades.

Investigate the crooks!

G.O.P = Got 0 Plans

BWAHAHAHA...actually a decent article:

"The Republicans are like an arsonist who complains that the fire department is wasting water. Obama is trying to handle an immediate crisis while also laying the foundation for long-term growth. The Republicans are doing neither. They have no plan to stop the loss of jobs or to get capital markets functioning properly -- and they certainly have no plans for health care, education or energy, which are the keys to both long-term economic growth and long-term deficit reduction.

All the energy -- indeed all debate -- is on the progressive side of the aisle. The Obama administration's only intellectual challengers are on the left, where economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and others are offering a vigorous critique and proposing alternative solutions. But where are the Republicans? Doing nothing but complaining. Unless and until they do offer an alternative, they really have no right to whine about the president. For now at least, GOP stands for "Got 0 Plans."

Newspapers closing up shop....good riddance! Next up...our local "5 o' clock news"

A lot of talk about the destruction of democracy etc etc with all these newspapers closing up shop. I believe BuffaloGeek said it best....

"The problem with newspapers is that we don’t need journalists to report, we need them to investigate. Reporting is a crowdsourced function done by millions of bloggers and TV/Radio reporters. There is little value in waiting for The Buffalo News to show up on my doorstep 18-24 hours after something happened with a basic 5 W rundown of an event or news item. I’ve already read it online, watched the pundits opine on it, heard talk show hosts dissect it and personally synthesized it by the time the ink is dry on the newsprint. Much of what I get in the daily paper are reprints of AP wire stories and articles featuring content I’ve already consumed in various other medium. What’s the added value?

I’m not breaking any new ground here, but I do think I have an idea for how newspapers shall remain relevant.

Stop reporting and start investigating."

As Lawrence would say from Office Space..

Backup plan, contigency plan, disaster recovery, fault tolerance? Que?

Courtesy of TP

This dude's optimism is great and all....but it would be nice to know that the guy who is responsible for bringing us out of this recession had a few backup plans....this guy is scaring the shit out of me

BTW....this BS rally in the market is obvious proof that the "investor class aka top 2%" is in total control and is leaning all over Geithner to please them.

I am glad I have not voted Rep/Dem since 1996.

O'reilly re-mix.....for old times sake.

Thanks to my buddy Joe for pointing this out.....

Bill O'reilly is reading from his novel...the only thing that comes to mind is, gross dude

Bill O'reilly is still on teevee? I guess so.....and advocating murder of people he doesn't like.

I was totally unaware that Sy Hersh was a "muckraker" as opposed to an investigative journo.

Courtesy of TP

" The other day, left-wing muckraker Seymour Hersh went on MSNBC and said he had information, provided by the usual anonymous sources, that Dick Cheney was running an assassination squad out of the White House.

I have but one simple observation: If Cheney really had such a crew, Hersh would have been dead a long time ago, and so would most everybody at MSNBC."

Timothy Geithner Uses Turbo Tax?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Change We Can Believe In?

-image from bizzyblog

Can someone please explain how Geithner's plan is any kind of change we can believe in? This bail out plan has gone so horrendously wrong that it's truly hard to see the bottom. The reason why it is now so hard to see bottom is we are so damn deep down the well that sunlight no longer reaches our eyes.

The Obama Admin has incredibly "misunderestimated" the complete and utter collapse of our economic system.

Note: When you play catch up, its because you didn't do your homework.

Obama asking for more oversight on executive pay....finally.

Obama has not accounted for credit debt defaults as well as all the mortgages with ARMs that reset at the end of 2009.

-ARMs reset end of 2009

-Credit Card Defaults Explode

Harry Reid....in trouble and it's a good thing.

If you are as pissed off as I am at the Dems in the Senate....here is some good news:

"WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid will command the biggest party majority of any Senate leader in a quarter century when the new Congress convenes in January. But the Nevada Democrat is already worried about his own re-election fight in 2010.

Sen. Reid, perhaps the most-vulnerable Democrat who will face re-election in a midterm race that is likely to favor his party once again, began interviewing campaign managers last week. The Senate majority leader also recently stepped up fund-raising.

Starting early could help Sen. Reid avoid the fate of his predecessor, Tom Daschle, who was Democratic leader for a decade before losing his re-election bid in South Dakota in 2004. The current Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, narrowly won re-election in Kentucky this year." --
Sen. Reid Hits the Ground Running in Uphill Re-Election Bid




Take the quiz: Daily Kos:Harry Reid sucks

NSA Creating Scary Lists These Days......

"On Wednesday night, when former NSA analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that the Bush administration's National Security Agency spied on everyone in the United States, specifically targeting journalists, the Countdown host was so flabbergasted that Tice was invited back for a second interview.

On Thursday, he returned to the airwaves with expanded allegations against the NSA, claiming the agency collected Americans' credit card records, and adding that he believes the massive, warrantless data vacuum to be the remnants of the Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003."--Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records

Will Obama change his tune on this?