I can't imagine the thinking behind this. We lend them the money and then let them pay it back - before we've fixed the problems that lead to the crash in the first place? And it won't do much for consumers, since half of them are investment banks.
Elizabeth Warren is skeptical, and wants to hear the terms of repayment. She also warns that the stress tests were not as strong as they should have been. Stay tuned:
... The decision to allow the banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, also ushered in a new, and potentially risky, phase of the banking crisis. Letting the lenders out now — earlier than many had envisioned, and without the industry reforms some consider necessary to prevent future crises — raises many sobering questions for policy makers, bankers and taxpayers.
The program was aimed at purchasing assets and equity from banks to strengthen them and encourage them to expand lending during a tightening credit squeeze. But after banks return the TARP money, the administration will forfeit much of its leverage over them. With that loss goes a rare opportunity to overhaul the industry. The administration's ability to push institutions to purge themselves quickly of bad assets and do more to help hard-pressed homeowners will be diminished.
Of even deeper concern is the running trouble inside the banking industry. Despite tentative signs of revival, many banks remain fragile. Four of the nation's five largest lenders, including Citigroup and Bank of America, were not allowed to return their bailout funds.
Some analysts worry that financial institutions that repay bailout money now may turn to Washington again if the economy worsens and losses overwhelm banks. One of the most vexing problems of the credit crisis — how to rid banks of their troubled mortgage investments — remains unresolved.
Which, of course, is why so many experts were urging the administration to nationalize the banks. Those bad mortgages have to be dealt with sooner or later, and the bailout program simply postponed the day of reckoning.
Bob Barr on Troy Davis. A death penalty supporter, ex-Congressman Barr lives to regret a bill he co-wrote that blocks appeals and gets down to the killing. Under this law courts are refusing to hear witnesses who now recant their testimony. In this recent Times column he mourns the foolish application of this bill in the rush to execution of Davis, very probably an innocent man. As a result the state of Georgia can schedule his execution at any time now.
By BOB BARR Published: May 31, 2009
THERE is no abuse of government power more egregious than executing an innocent man. But that is exactly what may happen if the United States Supreme Court fails to intervene on behalf of Troy Davis.
Mr. Davis is facing execution for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Ga., even though seven of the nine witnesses have recanted their testimony against him. Many of these witnesses now say they were pressured into testifying falsely against him by police officers who were understandably eager to convict someone for killing a comrade. No court has ever heard the evidence of Mr. Davis's innocence.
After the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit barred Mr. Davis from raising his claims of innocence, his attorneys last month petitioned the Supreme Court for an original writ of habeas corpus. This would be an extraordinary procedure — provided for by the Constitution but granted only a handful of times since 1900. However, absent this, Mr. Davis faces an extraordinary and obviously final injustice.
This threat of injustice has come about because the lower courts have misread the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a law I helped write when I was in Congress. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, I wanted to stop the unfounded and abusive delays in capital cases that tend to undermine our criminal justice system.
With the effective death penalty act, Congress limited the number of habeas corpus petitions that a defendant could file, and set a time after which those petitions could no longer be filed. But nothing in the statute should have left the courts with the impression that they were barred from hearing claims of actual innocence like Troy Davis's.
It would seem in everyone's interest to find out as best we can what really happened that night 20 years ago in a dim parking lot where Officer Mark MacPhail was shot dead. With no murder weapon, surveillance videotape or DNA evidence left behind, the jury that judged Mr. Davis had to weigh the conflicting testimony of several eyewitnesses to sift out the gunman from the onlookers who had nothing to do with the heinous crime.
A litany of affidavits from prosecution witnesses now tell of an investigation that was focused not on scrutinizing all suspects, but on building a case against Mr. Davis. One witness, for instance, has said she testified against Mr. Davis because she was on parole and was afraid the police would send her back to prison if she did not cooperate.
So far, the federal courts have said it is enough that the state courts reviewed the affidavits of the witnesses who recanted their testimony. This reasoning is misplaced in a capital case. Reading an affidavit is a far cry from seeing a witness testify in open court.
Because Mr. Davis's claim of innocence has never been heard in a court, the Supreme Court should remand his case to a federal district court and order an evidentiary hearing. (I was among those who signed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Davis.) Only a hearing where witnesses are subject to cross-examination will put this case to rest.
Although the Supreme Court issued a stay of execution last fall, the court declined to review the case itself, and its intervention still has not provided an opportunity for Mr. Davis to have a hearing on new evidence. This has become a matter of no small urgency: Georgia could set an execution date at any time.
I am a firm believer in the death penalty, but I am an equally firm believer in the rights and protections guaranteed by the Constitution. To execute Troy Davis without having a court hear the evidence of his innocence would be unconscionable and unconstitutional.
Faces five years for legally operating a dispensary in California
Charlie Lynch is the medical marijuana dispensary owner whose business, fully legal under California state law, was raided by federal agents in 2007.
At his federal trial last year, Lynch was not allowed to mention the legal status of medical marijuana under California state law while conducting his defense. The predictable—and outrageous—verdict? Lynch was found guilty of distributing pot and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
After several delays, Lynch's sentencing is scheduled for 10A.M. Pacific Time on Thursday, June 11.
Will justice be served? Or will an innocent man pay for the crimes of a government that is out of control? President Barack Obama has said he will stop federal raids against dispensaries in states that have made medical marijuana legal. Will that pledge make a difference in Lynch's sentencing?
Reason.tv has been covering the Lynch saga since it began. For more videos and information on the case, go here now.
This video was edited by Alexander Manning; additional footage provided by Rick Ray.
Approximately 3.20 minutes. Scroll down for audio, iPod, and HD versions.
The song "Whipping Boy" was written and performed by Chris Darrow. Courtesy of Everloving Music.
Go here for Reason's extensive and continuing coverage of Lynch's case.
And come back here on June 11 for an immediate report on the Lynch sentencing.
A robot snake, capable of recording video and sound on the battlefield, is on the way to join the the IDF's hi-tech arsenal.
According to a Channel 2 report - click here to watch the clip - the spying robot, which is about two meters long and covered in military camouflage, mimics the movements and appearance of real snakes, slithering around through caves, tunnels, cracks and buildings, while at the same time sending images and sound back to a soldier who controls the device through a laptop computer.
Able to bend its joints so well that it can squeeze through very tight spaces, the new device will be used to find people buried under collapsed buildings. The snake is also able to arch its body, allowing it to see over obstacles through its head camera.
Researchers studied the movements of live snakes in order to create the most natural and realistic robotic version.
The snake's cost has yet to be determined, as it is still being developed; however, according to Channel 2, the IDF plans to provide combat units with these devices.
Besides recording multimedia, the snake may also be used to carry explosives.
An Afghan senator in charge of an investigation into the bomb blast that left three Afghan civilians dead says US troops were behind the explosion.
Senator Saleh Mohammad made the remarks a day after an explosion among a crowd of people around a US military convoy in Kunar province left 58 civilians wounded.
"I went to the hospital, I spoke to the wounded, I went to the site and spoke to the witnesses and now can say that the bomb was not thrown by the opposition but it was thrown by American forces," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
However, the US military denied the allegation, releasing a video to prove its troops were not responsible for the blast.
The US military also issued a statement, claiming that the blast was caused by a Russian-made grenade, a type of grenade the US forces do not use.
The Afghan official, however, said he had seen the video but "couldn't believe it".
Afghans are outraged at repeated US air strikes which have so far killed hundreds of civilians.
Last month, an air raid by US forces killed 140 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks since foreign troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
Admitting its forces failed to follow procedures, the US claims that the toll was only 20-30 civilians.
An investigation is underway over the murder of Afghan civilians by US troops.
From William Randolph Hearst's ginned up hysterical stories about marijuana to the "10-cent plague" comic book scare of the 1950s to The New York Times warning of "cocaine-crazed Negroes" raping white women across the Southern countryside, the media has always whipped up anxiety and increased readership via thinly sourced exposes of the next great threat to the American way of life.
And since the British sociologist Stanley Cohen defined the moral panic phenomenon in the early 1970s as hysterical overreactions to imagined threats to social order, no publication has done a better (by which we mean worse) job of scaring the crap out of post-baby boomer America than Time, the top-selling newsweekly that's dropping subscribers like the mythical meth mouth drops teeth. (Hot tip to Time: If you're looking for a cutting-edge panic to get those ad rates up again, we hear people have been freaking out about "sexting" lately.)
As a service to future historians of the long, slow death of the newsweekly, Reason offers this Top 10 list of the most horrifying, silly, irresponsible, or downright ridiculous Time cover panics from the past 40 years.
Why So Worried? Time warns that bizarre occult rituals involving black-draped altars, flashes of fire, and "goat-shaped images superimposed on purple pentagram[s]" are "being re-enacted all across the U.S. nowadays." The article describes "sex clubs that embellish their orgies with Satanist rituals," takes note of the Satanic followers of Charles Manson, and recounts two anecdotal news stories about a grave robbery and an alleged stabbing inspired by Lucifer.
Cue Ominous Music: "There is a danger...in taking the Devil too lightly, for in doing so man might take evil too lightly as well. Recent history has shown terrifyingly enough that the demonic lies barely beneath the surface, ready to catch men unawares with new and more horrible manifestations."
Oh, Just Settle Down: Time's warning that devil worship was sweeping the country was short on supporting evidence. While exact figures are difficult to come by, most estimates put America's Satanist population in the range of 10,000-20,000 people. The 1980s saw an explosion not of Wiccans and sorcerers, but of evangelical Protestants. But that only fueled the fear of Mephistopheles, as the decade saw America overcome by scares over the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Satanic messages inscribed backward on heavy metal albums, and the persistent urban legend about the satanist origins of Procter & Gamble's corporate logo. In the early 1980s, a "Satanic ritual abuse" (SRA) panic swept America and Europe, during which Christian fundamentalists and repressed memory psychiatrists claimed Satanist cults were subjecting children to animal sacrifice, scatology, sexual abuse, and murder. Dozens of questionable prosecutions followed, including the infamous 1984 McMartin preschool molestation trials, in which seven people were charged with 321 counts of child abuse based only on questionable memories psychiatrists claimed to have recovered from children who attended the school. Subsequent studies showed the SRA phenomenon to be without merit.
Why So Worried? Porn, Time says, is sweeping the country, leaving our deflowered Puritan sensibilities in its wake. "The First Amendment may safeguard the rights of pornographers and their audience," the magazine posits, "but surely the majority of Americans who find porn objectionable have rights as well. Must they and their children be under constant assault by the hucksters of porn?"
Cue Ominous Music: The article quotes U.C.L.A. psychiatrist Robert J. Stoller, author of Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred, who warns that porn "'disperses rage' that might tear society apart, but also threatens society by serving as propaganda for the unleashing of sexual hostility."
Oh, Just Settle Down: Time was right about the increase in production and availability of pornography in the 1970s, it was just wrong about the effects. Two years after this cover appeared, the number of reported rapes in the U.S. began a 30-year free-fall, a period over which pornography became increasingly easier to obtain. Today, porn is more abundant and ubiquitous than ever, while incidence of rape in the U.S. is at its lowest rate since the government started keeping statistics.
Why So Worried? Using an upcoming U.N. conference in Mexico City as its hook, Time engages in some Paul Ehrlich-style doom-mongering about overpopulation.
Cue Ominous Music: "The consequences of a failure to bring the world's population growth under control are frightening. They could include widespread hunger and joblessness, accompanied by environmental devastation and cancerous urban growth. Politically, the outcome could be heightened global instability, violence and authoritarianism."
Oh, Just Settle Down: Since Time's 1984 cover story, the world's population has increased from 4.75 billion to 6.78 billion people. This year, the World Bank's Poverty Analysis reported, "Living standards have risen dramatically over the last decades. The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty...has fallen from 52 percent in 1981 to 26 percent in 2005.... Infant mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries have fallen from 87 per 1,000 live births in 1980 to 54 in 2006. Life expectancy in [low and middle-income] countries has risen from 60 to 66 between 1980 and 2006." According to the peace advocacy group Ploughshares, the number of armed conflicts across the globe has generally been in decline since the mid-1990s (PDF). As for "authoritarianism," with the fall of the Soviet empire, a far greater percentage of the global population lived under such regimes in 1984 than do today. Even the massive population in China is freer (if not actually "free") than it was in 1984.
Why So Worried? This Time cover story simultaneously fans the flames of drug war hysteria while acknowledging it may not be all it's...er...cracked up to be. The article admits that a vanishingly small number of people actually die of cocaine overdoses (just 563 in 1983, out of tens of millions of users), yet still refers to the drug as a "taker of lives." After suggesting that the country might be overreacting to drug use and acknowledging the drug war causes far more problems than it helps, the article concludes, "If Americans are willing to say clearly—to their workmates and schoolmates, to their neighbors and friends, to their communities and to themselves—that drug use is not acceptable...then even all the hype and excess may in retrospect be worthwhile." No, Time, it wasn't.
Cue Ominous Music: "To a nation that espouses self-reliance, drug dependence has emerged as the dark side of the American character, the price of freedom to fail. It is as if America, so vain and self-consciously fit, has looked upon itself and suddenly seen the hideously consumptive portrait of Dorian Gray. The country, it seems, is awash with drugs. Fine white powder pours past the border patrol like sand through a sieve. On busy street corners and in urban parks, pushers murmur, 'Crack it up, crack it up,' like some kind of evil incantation, bewitching susceptible kids and threatening society's sense of order and security."
Oh, Just Settle down: Overall use of illicit drugs has largely remained constant over the years, though individual drugs go in and out of vogue. Crack in particular was singled out in the late '80s; Time called it "the most virulent" form of drug abuse, while one expert quoted in a similar Newsweek article called it "the most addictive drug known to man." As Reason's Jacob Sullum explains in his book Saying Yes, studies show that the vast majority of crack users never went on to become addicts. One 1994 survey, for example, showed that 93 percent of respondents who had admitted to trying crack weren't using the allegedly instantaneously addictive drug as much as once a month when the survey was taken. Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman even theorzied in the Wall Street Journal that it's actually the prohibition of cocaine that gave us drugs like crack, likening the intoxicant to the bathtub gin that soaked the black market during alcohol prohibition.
More to the point, drug scare stories like this one—and Timehas run a number of them over the years (see, for example, this one about Ecstasy, also mostly overblown)—have contributed to mass public panics that gave us the nation's odious drug laws, which while producing mass collateral damage, have had little effect on the actual drug supply.
Why So Worried? Citing gangsta rap and heavy metal lyrics, raunchy comedians, and radio shock jocks, Time worries that American pop culture has grown too vulgar. The "new crude," Time frets, is different from the old crude of people like Lenny Bruce, because the new crude has no redeeming social message. "Today's sex talk...is almost exclusively from the male-pig viewpoint," the magazine scolds, and it features ample helpings of racism, homophobia, and other bigotry.
Cue Ominous Music: Time quotes a woman who says that after sitting through a comedy routine by Andrew "Dice" Clay, "she felt like a Jew at the 1934 Nuremberg rally."
Oh, Just Settle Down: The Time story offered no actual data that America was getting cruder, much less that it's anything to worry about. Andrew "Dice" Clay, the article's main bogeyman, was last seen getting tossed from Donald Trump's reality show for D-list celebrities. That doesn't mean American society has gone PG. But it's hard to argue that pop culture's comfort with bad language is anything to fret about. Since the Time article ran in 1990, nearly every measurable social indicator has been moving in the right direction, from youth crime to sex crime to teen pregnancy. America has largely grown more tolerant, too, even as ethnic, sexist, and homophobic jokes are widely available on iTunes, the Internet, and basic cable, most notably via Comedy Central's airing of Friars Club roasts. Time would return to the "vulgar culture" theme in 1999, with the cover story, "Are Movies and Music Killing America's Soul?" (Conclusion: Maybe!)
The Senate and House may be on a major collision course over the possible release of those photographs of detainee interrogations.
In an incendiary joint statement, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are threatening to use any means possible — including a filibuster — to block the House from overturning their amendment blocking the release of detainee interrogation photos.
Some House Dems were incensed when the pair — with the backing of the White House — inserted a three-year ban on Freedom of Information Act releases of the pictures without notifying them.
After initially saying she'd back the ban, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is apparently wavering under pressure from the left wing of her party.
Word that Pelosi was on the fence prompted Graham and Lieberman to blast away, according to a snior Senate Democratic aide.
Calling the release of the so-called torture pics tantamount to a "death sentence" for some U.S. operatives working in hostile countries, Lieberman and Graham took the unusual step of vowing to attach their ban to every piece of legislation passed in the upper chamber if their amendment is removed from the war supplamental.
Their statement:
"We will employ all the legislative means available to us including opposing the supplemental war spending bill and attaching this amendment, which was unanimously adopted by the Senate, to every piece of legislation the Senate considers, to be sure the President has the authority he needs not to release these photos and any others that would jeopardize the safety and security of our troops.
"The release of the photos will serve as propaganda and recruiting tool for terrorists who seek to attack American citizens at home and abroad. We should strive to have as open a government as possible, but the behavior depicted in the photos has been prohibited and is being investigated. The photos do not depict anything that is not already known. Transparency, and in this case needless transparency, should not be paid for with the lives of American citizens, let alone the lives of our men and women in uniform fighting on our behalf in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
"Let it clearly be understood that without this legislation the photos in question are likely to be released. Such a release would be tantamount to a death sentence to some who are serving our nation in the most dangerous and difficult spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is this certain knowledge of these consequences of having the photos released that will cause us to vote against the supplemental and continue our push to turn our important amendment into law."
Jamie Leigh Jones, in the foreground, and another former Halliburton employee, Tracy Barker, participated in a news conference on Capitol Hill in December 2007. Jones, who says she was raped repeatedly by co-workers, has become one of the nation's leading arbitration reform advocates. Getty Images
All Things Considered,June 9, 2009 · Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old Halliburton employee in 2005 when she was sent to work in Iraq. She'd been there just four days when she joined a small group of Halliburton firefighters outside her barracks at the end of the day. One of them gave her a drink. She took two sips, and Jones says that was the last thing she remembered.
"I woke up inside the barracks," she says. "It was actually inside my barrack room, and that's when I noticed I had been severely beaten and was actually naked."
Jones had been raped, repeatedly. By how many men, she's not sure. But she says one man was still naked and asleep in the room when she came to.
"Apparently, he knew he was beyond the reach of any jurisdiction, so he was still brazen enough to be there," she says.
Jones was escorted by security to the company clinic for a rape examination. When the rape kit examination was done, the evidence was turned over to Halliburton security.
The young woman's breasts were so badly mauled that she is permanently disfigured. It has been four years since the attack, and despite the physical and circumstantial evidence, the Department of Justice has declined to investigate.
According to the world's peak health body more than 28,000 cases of influenza A (H1N1) have been reported globally and over 141 confirmed deaths.
In at least two regions of the world the virus is spreading, with rising cases being seen in the UK, Australia, Japan and Chile.
One factor which prompted the move to a level six pandemic was that in the southern hemisphere, the virus seems to be crowding out normal seasonal influenza.
Influenza A(H1N1) first emerged in Mexico in April and has since spread to 74 countries.
WHO chiefs said the move did not mean the virus was causing more severe illness or more deaths, but the global nature of the outbreak, transmission and rate of infection is fulfilling the requirements of a pandemic.
Experts from the WHO say the current pandemic is moderate and causing mild illness in most people.
At least three US federal laws should concern all Americans and suggest what may be coming - mandatory vaccinations for hyped, non-existant threats, like H1N1 (Swine Flu). Vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu endanger human health but are hugely profitable to drug company manufacturers.
The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) became law on July 21, 2004 "to provide protections and countermeasures against chemical, radiological, or nuclear agents that may be used in a terrorist attack against the United States by giving the National Institutes of Health contracting flexibility, infrastructure improvements, and expediting the scientific peer review process, and streamlining the Food and Drug Administration approval process of countermeasures."
In other words, the FDA may now recklessly approve inadequately tested, potentially dangerous vaccines and other drugs if ever the Secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) or Defense (DOD) declare a national emergency, whether or not one exists and regardless of whether treatments available are safe and effective. Around $6 billion or more will be spent to develop, produce, and stockpile vaccines and other drugs to counteract claimed bioterror agents.
The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act slipped under the radar when George Bush signed it into law as part of the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863). It lets the HHS Secretary declare any disease an epidemic or national emergency requiring mandatory vaccinations. Nothing in the Act lists criteria that warrant a threat. Also potential penalties aren't specified for those who balk, but very likely they'd include quarantine and possible fines.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.
Douglass Jacobs, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources, found that American chestnuts grow much faster and larger than other hardwood species, allowing them to sequester more carbon than other trees over the same period. And since American chestnut trees are more often used for high-quality hardwood products such as furniture, they hold the carbon longer than wood used for paper or other low-grade materials.
"Maintaining or increasing forest cover has been identified as an important way to slow climate change," said Jacobs, whose paper was published in the June issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management. "The American chestnut is an incredibly fast-growing tree. Generally the faster a tree grows, the more carbon it is able to sequester. And when these trees are harvested and processed, the carbon can be stored in the hardwood products for decades, maybe longer."
At the beginning of the last century, the chestnut blight, caused by a fungus, rapidly spread throughout the American chestnut's natural range, which extended from southern New England and New York southwest to Alabama. About 50 years ago, the species was nearly gone.
New efforts to hybridize remaining American chestnuts with blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts have resulted in a species that is about 94 percent American chestnut with the protection found in the Chinese species. Jacobs said those new trees could be ready to plant in the next decade, either in existing forests or former agricultural fields that are being returned to forested land.
"We're really quite close to having a blight-resistant hybrid that can be reintroduced into eastern forests," Jacobs said. "But because American chestnut has been absent from our forests for so long now, we really don't know much about the species at all."
Jacobs studied four sites in southwestern Wisconsin that were unaffected by the blight because they are so far from the tree's natural range. He compared the American chestnut directly against black walnut and northern red oak at several different ages, and also cross-referenced his results to other studies using quaking aspen, red pine and white pine in the same region.
In each case the American chestnut grew faster, having as much as three times more aboveground biomass than other species at the same point of development. American chestnut also sequestered more carbon than all the others. The only exception was black walnut on one site, but the American chestnut absorbed more carbon on the other study sites.
"Each tree has about the same percentage of its biomass made up of carbon, but the fact that the American chestnut grows faster and larger means it stores more carbon in a shorter amount of time," Jacobs said.
Jacobs said trees absorb about one-sixth of the carbon emitted globally each year. Increasing the amount that can be absorbed annually could make a considerable difference in slowing climate change, he said.
ROME – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi urged the world Thursday to understand what motivates terrorists, and likened the 1986 U.S. strikes on Libya to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks.
Gadhafi, who was long accused of sponsoring terrorism, struck a provocative tone as he addressed Italian lawmakers on the second day of a trip to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler. He said there should be no interference from the West over the governments chosen by other countries.
The speech got tepid applause and was likely to add to the controversy that has surrounded this rare visit by Libya's strongman to a Western democracy.
"It is not very intelligent to chase terrorists down the Afghan mountains or central Asia," Gadhafi said in the hour-long speech. "That's impossible. We must look at their reasons."
Gadhafi said he condemned terrorism, al-Qaida and bin Laden. But he said he was being intentionally provocative "to try and understand acts of terrorism."
He said that terrorists, in explaining their motives, might argue they are defending themselves from humiliations suffered at the hands of the West and from the depletion of their riches. He called for dialogue with terrorists, saying, "One must talk to the devil, if it brings about a solution."
Sarcastically, he asked, "What's the difference between the U.S. airstrikes on our homes and bin Laden's actions?" If anything, he said, bin Laden is an outlaw, while the United States is a country that should abide by international law.
Former President Ronald Reagan ordered airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986 after an attack on a disco in Germany killed three people, including two U.S. servicemen. The Libyans say the retaliatory attacks killed 41 people, including Gadhafi's adopted daughter, and injured 226 others.
Gadhafi had long been ostracized by the West for sponsoring terrorism, but in recent years sought to emerge from his pariah status by abandoning weapons of mass destruction and renouncing terrorism in 2003.
This is a personal letter from filmmaker William Lewis.
FEMA Camps In The United States
As many of you may already be aware, our next project is an investigation into the dark arena of FEMA camps.We have the legislation.We have interviews with experts in the field.We even have a state level representative who has gained us access to facilities that are rumored to be American internment camps.We need your participation, as well.
Your mission
Bridgestone Media Group is currently seeking individuals who have shot footage of alleged or confirmed FEMA facilities in their area.
Should you decide to accept this mission
If you're the Alex Jones type who plans to head out to the woods with a camera, canteen, and some bug spray - please note that we are not advising anyone to take any unnecessary risks to acquire the requested footage.Please be careful on your mission and we humbly ask that you not break the law.With that little disclaimer out of the way, you all know what to do.
Footage should be mailed to the following address along with a personal release permitting us to use the footage in our next production entitled, "Camp FEMA" and any potential follow-ups:
Our Mailing Address:
BSMG / Footage Submissions P.O. Box 30576 Columbia, MO 65205-0576
FOOTAGE SUBMISSION: Please submit your footage in one of the following formats
(1.) Mini-DV tapes are preferred. (2.) DVD
(3.) Other accepted media types:VHS, Super VHS, S-VHS
ScienceDaily (June 8, 2009) — Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry. But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous.
Cracks permeate the dried-out desert ground, the landscape bears testimony to the lack of water. But even here, where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent – in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.
Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart working in conjunction with their colleagues from the company Logos Innovationen have found a way of converting this air humidity autonomously and decentrally into drinkable water. "The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy sources such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure," says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine – saline solution which absorbs moisture – runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed.
There's been talk that George W. Bush was so inept that he should trademark the phrase "Worst President Ever," though some historians would bestow that title on pre-Civil War President James Buchanan. Still, a case could be made for putting Ronald Reagan in the competition.
Granted, the very idea of rating Reagan as one of the worst presidents ever will infuriate his many right-wing acolytes and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.
But there's a growing realization that the starting point for many of the catastrophes confronting the United States today can be traced to Reagan's presidency. There's also a grudging reassessment that the "failed" presidents of the 1970s – Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter – may deserve more credit for trying to grapple with the problems that now beset the country.
Nixon, Ford and Carter won scant praise for addressing the systemic challenges of America's oil dependence, environmental degradation, the arms race, and nuclear proliferation – all issues that Reagan essentially ignored and that now threaten America's future.
Nixon helped create the Environmental Protection Agency; he imposed energy-conservation measures; he opened the diplomatic door to communist China. Nixon's administration also detected the growing weakness in the Soviet Union and advocated a policy of détente (a plan for bringing the Cold War to an end or at least curbing its most dangerous excesses).
After Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal, Ford continued many of Nixon's policies, particularly trying to wind down the Cold War with Moscow. However, confronting a rebellion from Reagan's Republican Right in 1976, Ford abandoned "détente."
Ford also let hard-line Cold Warriors (and a first wave of young intellectuals who became known as neoconservatives) pressure the CIA's analytical division, and he brought in a new generation of hard-liners, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
After defeating Ford in 1976, Carter injected more respect for human rights into U.S. foreign policy, a move some scholars believe put an important nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union, leaving it hard-pressed to justify the repressive internal practices of the East Bloc. Carter also emphasized the need to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, especially in unstable countries like Pakistan.
Domestically, Carter pushed a comprehensive energy policy and warned Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a national security threat, what he famously called "the moral equivalent of war."
However, powerful vested interests – both domestic and foreign – managed to exploit the shortcomings of these three presidents to sabotage any sustained progress. By 1980, Reagan had become a pied piper luring the American people away from the tough choices that Nixon, Ford and Carter had defined.
Cruelty with a Smile
With his superficially sunny disposition – and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments – Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government.
In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
When it came to cutting back on America's energy use, Reagan's message could be boiled down to the old reggae lyric, "Don't worry, be happy." Rather than pressing Detroit to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars, Reagan made clear that the auto industry could manufacture gas-guzzlers without much nagging from Washington.
The same with the environment. Reagan intentionally staffed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department with officials who were hostile toward regulation aimed at protecting the environment. George W. Bush didn't invent Republican hostility toward scientific warnings of environmental calamities; he was just picking up where Reagan left off.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is sending additional 1,000 special operations forces and support staff to Afghanistan and changing the way commandoes fight the Taliban, Fox News reported on Saturday.
While much of the public focus has been on the 24,000 additional American troops moving into the country this year, United States Special Operations Command is quietly increasing its covert warriors in what could be a pivotal role.
Lt Gen Stanley McChrystal, a special operations officer who led successful manhunts in Iraq for Al Qaeda terrorists, is about to take command in Afghanistan.
McChrystal is expected to put more emphasis on using commandos in counter-insurgency operations and on killing key Taliban leaders.
Obama is challenging Israel's right-wing government to stop its settlements, which are killing prospects for peace -- let's raise a massive global chorus to help him overcome powerful opposition in Israel and the US:
West Bank settlement maps show how Palestinians are only allowed to live in small parts of their land:
President Obama just made a remarkable speech in Egypt, committing personally to building peace in the Middle East. Unexpectedly, his first move is to directly challenge the new right-wing government of America's ally Israel -- pressing them to stop their self-destructive policy of settlements (illegal colonies set up on territory recognized by the US and the world as Palestinian).
This is a moment of rare crisis and opportunity. Obama's bold strategy is facing powerful opposition, so he's going to need help around the world in the coming days and weeks to strengthen his resolve. Let's start right now -- by raising a massive global chorus behind Obama's statement that the settlements in occupied territory must stop.
We'll advertise the number of signatures in key newspapers in Israel, as well as in Washington DC (where some are trying to undermine Obama in the US Congress). Read Obama's words now and add your signature to them at the link below, then forward this email to friends and family so they can do the same:
There is broad agreement that the settlements are a significant barrier to peace, a view also shared by a silent majority of the Israeli public. Combined with a network of roadblocks and barriers, these colonies now blanket the West Bank, seizing territory and forcing Palestinians to live effectively as prisoners in smaller and smaller pockets (see map at right).
Until this problem is tackled, it seems impossible to build a viable Palestinian state or any kind of lasting peace. For Arab states deciding what more they themselves can do for peace, stopping the settlements has become a crucial test of Israel's seriousness.
We'll need to urge the other parties to take bold steps too. If we can help Obama to stay the course on settlements, shift Israeli policy and encourage the Palestinians and key Arab states also to stretch out their hands, a new beginning for the Middle East is possible.
But none of this will happen without a growing global movement of citizens taking action to support it. Read Obama's words, add your signature and spread the word today:
How do they do it? How do they maintain such a level of consistency while others flip and flop around between commercial hits/misses and critical dismissal? For many in the animation field, Pixar's unrealistic winning streak - 10 films, 10 classics or near classics (including the recently released gem, Up) - makes for a lot of scratched studio heads. While Shreks and Shark Tales come and go, racking up dollars but little masterpiece buzz, the minted kings of the bitmap own a winning streak that even parent company the House of Mouse can't compete with. In fact, in the history of any artform - the novel, television, music, the movies, etc. - only The Beatles can claim such reliability, and even they strayed from the perfectionist path every once in a while.
So, again, how do they do it? Can Pixar claim something that others - mainly Fox and Dreamworks - can't seem to find with infinitely more backing? The answers would seem obvious at first, but in looking at the situation more closely, Pixar may actually be in possession of something the rest of Hollywood can't locate with a litany of bean counters and a cadre of MBAs. If movies are indeed magic, then the San Francisco based production company contains nothing but wizards. That's right, Pixar probably maintains its amazing rate of success through means both pragmatic and paranormal. Anyone can fuse imagination to story and character and come up with something saleable. It takes a true conjurer to move all those elements into the realm of the flawless - and yet they manage to do so time and time again.
Granted, there is some technology involved. What many audiences don't understand is that, at least initially, Pixar's feature films were a means of capitalizing on the progress being made by the company's technicians. From the lush vistas of A Bug's Life to the fuzzball fur components of Monster's Inc. , the animators and their computer programming counterparts constantly pushed the envelope of the developing format, adding and tweaking until they got the level of depth and/or realism they were looking for. By latter efforts such as The Incredibles and Wall-E, an entire paintbox of possibilities lay before the Pixar crew. Of course, even the greatest scientific leaps must be controlled by someone with creative vision. How this company manages to corner the market on such Merlins is mindboggling.
As stated before, narrative and personality are also part of the picture, and no one micromanages either better than Pixar. While that may sound like an insult, let's look at the statement more closely. A film like Ratatouille doesn't just settle on a simple premise (rat wants to be a chef) to amuse. It fuses that foundation with several sweet subplots, a couple of old school subtexts, and enough twists and turns to expand and exercise the ideas within. By then end, not only are we rooting for our little pest protagonist, but we've seen the growth of the Gusteau's staff, the downfall of the arrogant Skinner, and the opening of food critic Anton Ego's narrow, critical mind. Even without the ample comedy and action slapstick, the movie easily manufactures its world and then puts us right into the center of it.
Maybe that's the key, a mandate that science fiction writers and other creatures of imaginative literature more or less live by. The easiest way to lose a reader - or in this case, a viewer - is to create a universe where the rules are cloudy and unclear (or worse, where the characters within ignore and flaunt them).
London, Jun.7 - ANI: The United States is planning to send an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan to neutralize the Taliban, but would never achieve its goals, claims a mentor of Taliban chief Mullah Omar.
Amir Sultan Tarar alias Colonel Imam said allied forces would not be able to overpower their enemies in Afghanistan.
He said the military offensive would only aggravate the situation, and therefore the allied forces should initiate talks with the Taliban to resolve the issues.
"You can never win the war in Afghanistan. I have worked with these people since the 1970s and I tell you they will never be defeated. Anyone who has come here, has got stuck. The more you kill, the more they will expand," he said.
Tarar had run a training programme for Afghans during the Soviet Unions invasion between 1979 and 1989, and played a vital role in forming the Taliban, The Times reports.
He claimed to have trained Mullah Omar in the 1980s.
Omar passed through the camp in 1985.He was a simple man, a small commander leading a maximum of 40 people and didn't have much weaponry, Tarar recalled.
He also lashed out at former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf for siding with the US after the 9/11 incident.
Tarar said Musharraf had severed ties with the Taliban under American pressure.
You cannot defeat these people, they are well trained, they have a lot of ammunition and the more you kill, the more supporters will come, Tarar recalled telling Musharraf.
He sees the current situation as a success for the extremists, and said allied forces would face the same fate as the Russians.
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers - a bunch of establishment-hating, drug-using, draft-dodging hippies - are definitely a product of their time, the late 1960s and early '70s. But somehow, they've managed to survive beyond that time, and remain in print even today. Gilbert Shelton, already known for Wonder Warthog, created the Freak Brothers (Fat Freddy, Freewheelin' Franklin, and Phineas Phreak) in 1968, when he was living in Austin, Texas.
Their first adventure appeared in Feds 'n' Heads, a counter-culture publication that is still reprinted from time to time.
Later, the trio turned up in Yellow Dog, Radical America Komiks, Zap Comix, and other underground comix, as well as in the Los Angeles Free Press, the East Village Other, and various other underground newspapers.
In 1969, Shelton and three college buddies, Jack Jackson, Dave Moriarty and Fred Todd, moved to San Francisco and founded Rip Off Press, which became one of the major comix publishers - and which is today one of the few still producing new comic books.
Most of Shelton's subsequent work has been published by Rip Off Press.
In 1971, Rip Off Press brought out the first collection of Freak Brothers adventures, gathering together stories and pages from over a dozen different sources and putting them between two covers for the first time.
Another collection appeared a year later, and a third in 1973.
That took care of most of the reprintable material, so the fourth issue, which came out in 1975, contained new stories.
That's when the series started to evolve from what has been called a "hippie sitcom" into fabulous, world-spanning, epic adventures.
Zadi Diaz interviewed Current TV correspondent Laura Ling for this episode of Rocketboom back in 2005. Ling and colleague Euna Lee were this week sentenced to 12 years hard labor by North Korea's high court, with no ability to appeal the ruling, and no direct diplomatic ties in place to help secure their release.
Here is an archive of Ling's work for Current. Some BB commenters have asked why no comment from the network, or its co-founder, Al Gore -- this Gawker post addresses the matter. My thoughts, and my most sincere hope for safety and release, go out to Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, and their families.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A $100 billion bill to fund U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rapidly accumulating extra items such as money for military aircraft the Pentagon doesn't want and possibly a scheme to jump-start sagging auto sales.
The cars and planes are not directly linked to the U.S. war effort. But they are typical of Congress' penchant for loading bills with unrelated spending in hopes the funds will sail through on the strength of the main legislation.
President Barack Obama originally sought $83.4 billion for the two wars and more foreign aid for countries like Pakistan.
But then he too sought more -- $4 billion extra to combat H1N1 swine flu and $5 billion to back credit lines to the International Monetary Fund, which is trying to help developing countries weather the global economic downturn.
The unrelated provisions have slowed the bill down, especially for the IMF because Republicans have argued the extra items should be vetted through the normal congressional process rather than jammed into an emergency spending bill.
Fights have also erupted about add-ons for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and an attempt to bar the release of photos of detainee abuse. While Republicans do not have the votes to block the bill, they have said they will oppose it and that forces Democrats to ensure most of their members back it.
"This supplemental was supposed to be about providing funding for our troops," one House Republican aide said. Instead, it has become a mish-mashed, taxpayer funded 'Christmas tree' bill that will propagate bad policies and unnecessary spending."
Thousands of everyday products and materials containing radioactive metals are surfacing across the United States and around the world.
Common kitchen cheese graters, reclining chairs, women's handbags and tableware manufactured with contaminated metals have been identified, some after having been in circulation for as long as a decade. So have fencing wire and fence posts, shovel blades, elevator buttons, airline parts and steel used in construction.
A Scripps Howard News Service investigation has found that -- because of haphazard screening, an absence of oversight and substantial disincentives for businesses to report contamination -- no one knows how many tainted goods are in circulation in the United States.
But thousands of consumer goods and millions of pounds of unfinished metal and its byproducts have been found to contain low levels of radiation, and experts think the true amount could be much higher, perhaps by a factor of 10.
Government records of cases of contamination, obtained through state and federal Freedom of Information Act requests, illustrate the problem.
In 2006 in Texas, for example, a recycling facility inadvertently created 500,000 pounds of radioactive steel byproducts after melting metal contaminated with Cesium-137, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records. In Florida in 2001, another recycler unintentionally did the same, and wound up with 1.4 million pounds of radioactive material. And in 1998, 430,000 pounds of steel laced with Cobalt-60 made it to the U.S. heartland from Brazil.
But an accounting of the magnitude of the problem is unknown because U.S. and state governments do not require scrap yards, recyclers and other businesses -- a primary line of defense against rogue radiation -- to screen metal goods and materials for radiation or report it when found. And no federal agency is responsible for oversight.
"Nobody's going to know -- nobody -- how much has been melted into consumer goods," said Ray Turner, an international expert on radiation with Fort Mitchell, Ky.-based River Metals Recycling. He has helped decontaminate seven metal-recycling facilities that unwittingly melted scrap containing radioactive isotopes.
Exclusive Truth Wins Out interview with Thomas Maier
For decades, anti-gay organizations have gleefully pointed to Masters & Johnson's 1979 book, "Homosexuality in Perspective", that claimed to cure homosexuality. Indeed, Dr. William H. Masters and Virginal E. Johnson, the husband and wife sex research team, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, April 22, 1979, to discuss their finding that homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals. The book has since been used by the so-called "ex-gay" industry to "prove" gays could go straight, if they just tried hard enough.
In his groundbreaking new book, "Masters of Sex", author Thomas Maier discovered through investigative reporting that the results of Masters & Johnson's study were entirely fabricated. Virginia Johnson acknowledged that the results were fake. She had actually argued in 1978 that book should never have seen the light of day - but it was already to late in the publishing process to undo the damage.
One can not overstate the importance of Maier's findings. They undo the very underpinnings of the so-called "ex-gay" therapy movement, further showing that there is no scientific evidence or data to support the outdated idea that gay people can become heterosexual through therapy. Indeed, many people who have undergone such "treatment" claim the experience was harmful and that they were psychologically damaged. The American Psychiatric Association says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to "anxiety, depression and self-destructive behavior."
The transparency that online social networking imposes is something that takes getting used to. For many people, exposing yourself to a potentially immense and judgmental community can be new and scary. But many gay people love that function of Facebook because it makes one primary but traditionally fraught ritual of gay and lesbian life so much easier. That would be coming out. Facebook is like drive-thru coming out: quick, cheap and open all night.
Coming out used to be an exhausting process. You had to come out again and again and again to all your friends at different times. Nowadays, even with social networking, gays still have to come out, but one of the key differences between our pre-profile selves and our new online presentations is that now (finally!) the burden is also on our friends to discover and digest our identities. For the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, Facebook et al have finally leveled the identity field, and it's kinda nice.
I remember the apprehension I had prior to going to a high school reunion in the days before Facebook was popular. I didn't care who knew I was sapphically inclined. I just resented having to tell them. Fast forward to now. My long-lost buddy Jill from middle school (married to a guy and with two small children) recently found me on Facebook. She had responded to some posts on my page about the lesbian soap opera The L Word, so it was safe to assume that she had figured me out.
"I did know you were gay," she told me when I inquired about how she digested my profile. "Maybe even a hunch at 14 but pretty sure I may have heard it somewhere along the road as an adult, although I can't remember how or when. When I read your L Word write-ups, it only confirmed what I knew." Jill knew. Still, I didn't know she knew. But I didn't need to come out to her. Jill was covered when she friended me. (Check out a story about your Facebook relationship status.)
The system works within the community as well. When I last heard of my friend Harreld, he was well ensconced in a long-term relationship with a man. But when our paths crossed on Facebook earlier this year, I saw that he had been in a relationship with a woman for some time. I had no idea Harreld was a practicing bisexual.
The last days we and the world have been trying to digest the Obama Cairo Speech. Here's my two and a half cents.
I think it's been so hard for people to make out what happened because he did so many things they'd never in their lives seen before. Primarily, I think, it was the sight of the most powerful politician in the world conducting his nation's business with the premise that pure reason is his best argument. That an appeal to the ability of people involved in tribal, small-bore obsessions to can step back and see the large picture for long enough to actually change their behavior. At other times this can be foolhardy state-craft. The bet here is that the world has had enough of the old way and will give a new approach 5 good minutes. By crafting the speech as well as he did, he put the ray of light and heat on the world of Islamic, Iranian and Israeli resentment and reminded them that their worlds are interconnected. This would only be possible, perhaps, right now and with this president; a man who understands all these worlds, appearing on the barren landscape of the last 9 years. This could change the game. For Netanyahu, he no longer has a US cover for inertia. His government could fall if he deals, so he may calculate falling for a cause may be worth it. Besides who wants Avigdor Leiberman in your face all the time anyway? For Ahmadinejad, who faces a tough election, Obama removed the polarity, and therefore, perhaps, the oxygen for hate. He may have to go now too. And Bin Ladin perhaps, compared to Obama, starts to seem less real. In any case, his show is old and may not get the viewers he used to. I want to blog about the war in Afghanistan, the use of mercenaries and the murderous (and counterproductive) remote control bombs. It's time to nail Obama on that and other things. But for now, there must be an acknowledgement of this miracle. A president from the age of reason, telling truth to a candid world, in its own language. I really can't recall a president doing that (JFK comes close but would never mention that we have been about overthrowing governments. Well natch).
In this moment I have to say, as a citizen of Planet Earth I am very, very proud of him.
Worldwide spending on weapons has reached record levels amounting to well over $1tn last year, a leading research organisation reported today.
Global military expenditure has risen by 45% over the past decade to $1.46tn, according to the latest annual Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
Though the US accounts for more than half the total increase, China and Russia nearly tripled their military expenditure over the decade, with China now second only to the US in the military expenditure league table.
"China had both the largest absolute and the largest relative increase," says the Sipri report. The increase "has roughly paralleled its economic growth and is also linked to its major power aspirations," it adds.
Other regional powers, including India, Brazil and Algeria, also substantially increased their spending on arms, the report says.
A robot snake, capable of 
An emergency meeting of the 
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.
ROME – 
For decades, anti-gay organizations have gleefully pointed to Masters & Johnson's 1979 book, "Homosexuality in Perspective", that claimed to cure homosexuality. Indeed, Dr. William H. Masters and Virginal E. Johnson, the husband and wife sex research team, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, April 22, 1979, to discuss their finding that homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals. The book has since been used by the so-called "ex-gay" industry to "prove" gays could go straight, if they just tried hard enough.
The transparency that online social networking imposes is something that takes getting used to. For many people, exposing yourself to a potentially immense and judgmental community can be new and scary. But many gay people love that function of Facebook because it makes one primary but traditionally fraught ritual of gay and lesbian life so much easier. That would be coming out. Facebook is like drive-thru coming out: quick, cheap and open all night.
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