May 31, 2003
Why I link to the Guardian so much.
As you may have noticed, I link a lot to stories from the
Guardian and
Observer family of newspapers in the UK. I do so because I think they're good newspapers, it's increasingly difficult to get accurate and objective reporting from the so-called American media, they don't require registration, and, most importantly, and they don't hide their stories behind a "pay wall", at least at the moment, and so the links should remain valid.
I also like the
The Scotsman for the same reasons. All of these sites are quite large and I always find something of interest.
This does not mean that I don't link to sites, such as the
NY Times, the
LA Times and the
Moscow Times that do hide their stuff or require registration. For one thing, it's always hard to tell what their policies are, especially since they seem to be constantly changing. For another, if the article is important, I feel it should be pointed out. And at least I can quote the most important part.
I'm still feeling my way in this blogging thing. Hopefully I'll start commenting more and quoting less. But with the sad state of the American media these days I think it's imporant to get as much news out as possible, so I don't feel too bad about quoting.
Powell and Straw had serious doubts about Iraq's WMDs.
The
Guardian reports that back in February, Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has serious misgivings about the validity of the intelligence they'd been given.
Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.
Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5.
The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation.
Tensions at the G8 summit.
The
Guardian reports on the strains at the G8 summit in Evian, France.
George Bush was making noises of reconciliation yesterday, suggesting that it was time to move on following the deep rift over Iraq. But none of those close to the talks believed that this means the White House has forgiven or forgotten what it sees as French treachery in the weeks leading up to the start of hostilities.
... This year, despite the brave noises coming out of Paris and Washington, the personal chemistry is dreadful. Nothing that has happened since the falling out over Iraq has changed minds either in the United States or in what Donald Rumsfeld called "old Europe". Mr Bush feels vindicated by the toppling of Saddam and the ease with which the war was won, Mr Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schröder by the chaos that has followed and the failure to unearth weapons of mass destruction.
As a result, the meeting will be split between those countries that supported the war - Mr Bush, Tony Blair, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and Japan's Junichiro Koizumi - and those who opposed it - Mr Chirac, Mr Schröder, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Canada's Jean Chrétien.
Mr Bush's stay in Evian has been cut short to little more than a flying visit. He will arrive for tomorrow night's dinner and fly out after lunch on Monday for the start of the Middle East peace talks in Egypt. The importance both the US and Europe attaches to making progress on the "road map" means that the early departure can be dressed up as diplomatic necessity rather than rudeness. But it is a snub, nonetheless.
Beyond the disagreements over Iraq, there is a deep and growing divide over economic issues.
There is a suspicion in Europe that the Americans are deliberately driving down the dollar in order to make US exports cheaper on world markets, thereby deepening economic woes in the eurozone.
Mr Bush and his advisers are urging the Europeans to grow their economies more rapidly; the Europeans say the Americans should put their house in order by reducing their trade and budget deficits before handing out advice.
The
Guardian has a
special section on the G8 summit. The G8 is important because these eight nations are attempting to act as a de facto world government, but one without democracy, judicial oversight or any other safeguards. They are clearly living in the past, but still don't seem to realize it. (Or maybe they do and are just trying to maintain power by force.)
One of the stories is on the extraordinary security in place around Evian, which they describe as an "
idyllic lakeside town encircled by wall of steel."
Evian, the idyllic spot on the shores of Lake Geneva where the leaders of the world's richest countries meet this weekend, is about to become one of the most heavily protected towns in the world, sealed off under a massive Swiss-French security operation against the double threat of terrorist attacks and demonstrations by anti-globalisation protesters.
Access routes to the tiny town are heavily guarded and at least 15,000 police are being deployed across the Swiss and French sides of the lake to keep protesters at a safe distance. Switzerland has had to borrow 1,000 German police to boost the security effort.
Flights over Evian have been banned since yesterday and combat aircraft and helicopter gunships, as well as unmanned drone aircraft, will be patrolling the airspace above the border area where as many as 250,000 anti-globalisation activists are expected to gather.
Surface-to-air missile batteries and radar warning systems have been set up near Evian to bring down any unauthorised aircraft.
May 30, 2003
Global property a "house of cards"?
The
Economist offers up a
comprehensive overview of global investment in private property. "In many countries the stockmarket bubble has been replaced by a property-price bubble. Sooner or later it will burst," says Pam Woodall, the economics editor. The article links to several more specific ones.
Many property analysts scoff at the suggestion that another bubble is in the making. House prices may have fallen after previous booms, but ©¯this time is different©—, they insist. That is precisely what equity analysts said when share prices soared in the late 1990s. They were proved wrong. Will the property experts suffer the same fate?
This survey will examine investors' current love affair with both residential and commercial property (or real estate, as Americans call it). It will explore the latest trends in property prices around the globe and consider different methods of estimating fair value in order to assess whether there is a bubble. This may well be the single most important question currently hanging over the world economy. Given the fragile state of many economies, the bursting of a housing bubble could easily drag them into recession.
Property is probably the biggest business in the world. By one estimate, construction, the buying, selling and renting of properties and the imputed benefits to owner-occupiers account for around 15% of rich countries'GDP. Property also makes up around two-thirds of the tangible capital stock in most economies. Most important of all, property is by far the world's biggest single asset class. Investors have much more money tied up in property than in shares or bonds.
The conclusion they come to is a bit daunting.
This survey will conclude that the latest housing boom has inflated bubbles in several countries, notably America, Australia, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. Within the next year or so those bubbles are likely to burst, leading to falls in average real house prices of 15-20% in America and 30% or more elsewhere over the next few years, in line with average price declines during past housing-market busts. This time, however, with inflation so low, house prices will fall more sharply in money terms than they did in the past. In Britain as a whole, for example, average nominal house prices are likely to drop by 20-25%, and in London by much more. Significant numbers of owners may be left with homes worth less than their mortgagesÐespecially as the proportion of owner-occupiers with mortgages exceeding 80% of the value of their homes is higher now than it was in the previous bust in the early 1990s.
But cheer up. For people like me, who _don't_ own real estate, this is very good news. That's the problem with a global economy: whatever hurts someone, helps someone else. And if governments try to prop prices up they may encounter some unexpected opposition.
Chlorine in pools linked to children's asthma.
The
Scotsman reports on a
new study.
Chlorine used to disinfect indoor swimming pools could be behind the surge in childhood asthma, researchers said today.
A new study, led by Dr Alfred Barnard, of the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, found regular attendance at indoor pools was linked with a destruction of the cell barriers that protect the deep lungs. And among children who swam the most frequently, the effects were equivalent to the damage found in the lungs of smokers.
UK soldier took photos of torture in Iraq.
The
Scotsman reports that a British soldier was arrested after dropping off pictures of Iraqi torture at his local drugstore. And just as Mr. Blair was in Iraq congratulating his troops.
The Ministry of Defence has arrested a Gulf War soldier and launched an investigation into claims he took sickening photographs of Iraqi prisoners of war being tortured.
The alert came after the soldier from the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (part of the famous Desert Rats 7th Armoured Brigade) took a roll of film to his local photo shop to be developed.
... One of the photographs shows the prisoner of war dangling upside down and probably alive from a forklift truck. The PoW was bound and gagged and held in netting, and the truck was being driven by a British soldier. Other photographs allegedly show soldiers committing indecent acts near captured Iraqis.
... The revelation came as Mr Blair thanked British troops for their "huge, mighty and momentous" role in ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein.
It took some of the shine off his address to 400 members of the Desert Rats and Paras in Basra where he praised their "extraordinary" winning of the war and "remarkable" building of the peace.
Allegations of British troops torturing Iraqi PoWs undermines the image of UK soldiers as being more restrained and humane than American counterparts.
One has to assume that the very worst incidents were not photographed, and that precautions were taken to make sure there were no witnesses. Fortunately, in a world of video cameras and internet blogs, the truth will emerge. Sooner or later.
Tech support reminder: details matter.
As you may have noticed, no posts from yesterday. This is because I switched to a new dial-up account from Verizon, and spent all day trying to get it to work. After three calls to knowledgeable and very helpful tech support, hours backing up, reinstalling this and that, learning more than I ever wanted to know about keychains and passwords on OSX and how their fancy voice activated help system works (pretty well actually), and all sorts of fun, the fourth tech finally told me that I needed to put a "VZ/" before my user id so the local phone number would recognize it as a Verizon account. That was it. Live and learn. ;)
Is There Anything Left That Matters?
Benedictine Sister Of Erie Joan Chittister, OSB,
wants to know. A sobering reflection. Well, Sister, there is at least one thing left that matters, and that's people like you. :) Lots of them in fact. As Ted Turner says down below, "This isn't over."
Bill Moyers warns of rising national deficits.
Also via
Common Dreams. Bill Moyers says current budget plans and tax cuts are getting us
Deep in a Black Hole of Red Ink. He also tells us that the tax credit for eleven million children that was trumpeted as part of the tax cut was quietly eliminated before it was signed.
Where's that money coming from to make the rich richer? Some of it's coming from the working poor.
Remember that $400 per child tax credit that was in the tax bill? We have now learned that at the very last minute, behind closed doors, the Republican leaders in Congress pulled a bait-and-switch. They eliminated from the bill that $400 child credit for families who make just above the minimum wage. They will use that money to pay for the cut on dividend taxes. Eleven million children in families with incomes roughly between ten thousand and twenty six thousand dollars a year won't be getting the check that was supposed to be in the mail this summer. Eleven million children punished for being poor, even as the rich are rewarded for being rich.
Nothing was said about cutting out the working poor from this tax credit as Mr. Bush signed his tax bill. Nor was anything said when the President closed the door to his office and quietly put his signature on another bill, this one raising the debt ceiling to its highest level in history. No sooner had this happened than it was revealed by the Financial Times - a British newspaper by the way - that the White House withheld a Treasury department study showing that the country faces chronic deficits totaling over $44 trillion dollars. They kept it secret lest it throw the fear of God into Congress and the financial markets and cost them the tax cut for the rich.
Ted Turner says new media rules would have kept him from founding CNN.
Via
Common Dreams. In an article
Monopoly or Democracy? highly experienced media magnate Ted Turner expresses his opposition to the FCC's new rules on media ownership.
On Monday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to adopt dramatic rule changes that will extend the market dominance of the five media corporations that control most of what Americans read, see and hear. I am a major shareholder in the largest of those five corporations, yet -- speaking only for myself, and not for AOL Time Warner -- I oppose these rules. They will stifle debate, inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, 10 years later, to launch CNN.
Even more amazing, he announces his intention to continue to fight this regardless of the FCC's decision.
Our democracy needs a broader dialogue. As Justice Hugo Black wrote in a 1945 opinion: "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." Safeguarding the welfare of the public cannot be the first concern of large publicly traded media companies. Their job is to seek profits. But if the government writes the rules in a certain way, companies will seek profits in a way that serves the public interest.
If, on Monday, the FCC decides to go the other way, that should not be the end of it. Powerful public groups across the political spectrum oppose these new rules and are angry about their lack of input in the process. People who can't make their voices heard in one arena often find ways to make them heard in others. Congress has the power to amend the rule changes. Members from both parties oppose the new rules. This isn't over.
May 28, 2003
Media concentration a life and death matter.
Yesterday I wrote
an entry about Howard Dean's letter to the FCC. There has been much discussion recently of the problems caused by a few corporations owning all of the media. But there's one thing he says that needs to be emphasized. That is where he mentions the case of a small town which found that it was unable to broadcast emergency information to the community, because the local radio station was piped in from out of state. The implications of this are obvious. In the event of a terrorist attack, or other emergency, there would be no way to inform the people.
Peru declares state of emergency.
The
NY Times reports that the President of Peru has declared a state of emergency.
Unpopular President Alejandro Toledo on Tuesday declared a state of emergency across Peru, promising to send out the armed forces to help rein in a wave of violent strikes that has crippled transit and public services in a new challenge to a stormy presidency.
``We have decided to declare a national state of emergency for 30 days so that people can exercise their personal liberties and travel freely,'' Toledo said in a televised address.
``The country cannot be shut down. Democracy with order and without authority is not democracy,'' said Toledo, elected in 2001 on promises he would restore transparency and true democracy to Peru following the corrupt, authoritarian regime of ex-President Alberto Fujimori.
But the U.S.-educated leader's presidency has been far from rosy as social unrest mounts from poor Peruvians who complain he has not delivered on campaign promises. Toledo's approval rating now stands at an all-time low of 14 percent.
This week, thousands of farmers and health workers joined teachers who have taken to the streets, marching angrily through the capital, occupying state buildings in provincial cities, stranding passenger buses and trucks loaded with food as they block key highways with rocks and burning tires.
Millions of children have been barred from classrooms for more than two weeks, while patients stayed away on Tuesday from state hospitals as the strikes, which seek a raft of demands like salary hikes and tax cuts for farm goods, drag on.
Toledo also said he would send out armed forces and police to resume order and would reopen schools shut by striking teachers who are asking for a raise of $60 to their average monthly wage of $200.
But the government, which hails headline growth that has made Peru the fastest growing economy in Latin America, says it does not have the cash to meet that and other demands without endangering International Monetary Fund-endorsed pledges of fiscal discipline. It has offered teachers 100 soles ($29).
Once again, human needs are sacrificed to the IMF and World Bank policies, and without any evidence that so-called "fiscal discipline" will solve the problem. The "fastest growing economy in Latin America?" That's not saying much.
Even officials admit that despite a strong economy, people have yet to feel growth where it counts -- in their wallets.
It sounds in fact as though people are doing worse, not better. But I'll bet the American bankers behind the IMF and the World Bank are making money off of them. Just a guess. And even if there is short term growth, if the schools are closed, then that means that the long term prospects are bad. Education is the foundation of any modern economy.
Amnesty International says the war on terror tramples human rights.
The
Guardian reports that the war on terror has left people feeling more scared than ever.
The "war on terror" has left people around the world feeling more scared than at any time since the cold war ended, Amnesty International claimed today.
The organisation's annual report also said that the fight against terrorism was being used by countries including the US and Britain as an excuse to trample on human rights.
People around the world were feeling more insecure than they had for decades despite the huge sums being spent to fight terrorism following the September 11 attacks on the US, Amnesty said.
The campaigning group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, said: "What would have been unacceptable on September 10 2001, is now becoming almost the norm."
She added: "In the name of security, politics and profit, human rights were trampled the world over by governments, armed groups and corporate activity."
Ms Khan said that what would have been an outrage in western countries during the cold war - torture, detention without trial, truncated justice - was now readily accepted in some countries today for some people.
Passion for Peace.
In a
NY Times editorial, Thomas Friedman wonders about the Bush administration's genuine desire for peace.
For years I believed that when it came to Middle East peacemaking, America couldn't want peace more than the parties themselves. I no longer believe that. In fact, I now believe just the opposite. For there to be any progress, America must want peace more than the parties themselves Ð in Israel and the West Bank, and in Iraq. And the question I have going forward is whether that will be the case with President Bush.
First a word about Mr. Bush. He deserves a tip of the hat for having his principles right. His conviction that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was necessary to build a different Iraq and a different Middle East Ð which are both critical for drying up terrorism Ð was right. And his convictions that the Palestinians had to move beyond Yasir Arafat to a responsible leadership and that the Israelis had to come to terms with the inevitability of a Palestinian state and an end to settlements, if there was to be any progress toward peace, are also right.
But Ð you knew there was a "but" coming Ð the question I always have about members of the Bush team is, How good are they at translating principles into practice? When it comes to breaking things they are very, very good Ð whether it is the ABM treaty, the Kyoto accord, Afghanistan, Iraq or the old way of Arab-Israeli peacemaking. The Bush people believe in power and are not afraid to wield the wrecking ball. But how good are they with a hammer and a nail? How good are they at the detail work of building real alternatives Ð to Kyoto, Saddam or the Arab-Israel peace process? This is still the most important unanswered question about this administration. Can it reap the harvest of the principles it has sown?
May 27, 2003
Howard Dean's letter to the FCC.
Governor Dean has written the FCC regarding its recent decisions on media ownership. Follow the latest on his
official weblog.
DEAN TO FCC: CEASE AND DESIST
Howard Dean today wrote to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, urging the FCC to avoid further deregulation of the American media. The text of the letter:
Dear Chairman Powell,
Americans cherish the freedom of the press -- and the diversity of the press that ensures they can get access to the truth and to the information they need. The Bush Administration may not appreciate that freedom and diversity, but they should not tamper with it.
On June 2nd, the Federal Communications Commission should decide against allowing a single company to own multiple television stations, radio stations, and newspapers in a single town. The Bush Administration has urged the FCC to remove regulations that protect every Americans' right to a free press. This latest attempt by the Bush Administration to undermine the American ideals enshrined in our Constitution is wrong.
This deregulation, like so many actions pushed for by the Bush administration, would benefit a few at the expense of the rest of us. Modifying the ban in most cities on cross-ownership of television and radio stations and newspapers will have serious repercussions for every American. A similar deregulation of radio, through the 1996 Telecommunications Act, has resulted in a 30% decline of independently-owned radio stations in the United States. This decline has reduced Americans' access to local news via radio. According to a May 27 Bloomberg story, in at least one instance local authorities were delayed in broadcasting important emergency information to the local populace because the "local" radio station was broadcast from out-of-state. Accelerating the disappearance of independent local media by further deregulating television and newspaper ownership is the wrong direction for this country.
In my travels around the country, I have discovered that this proposed deregulation is one of the foremost issues on peoples' minds. I am asked about it everywhere--in small towns in New Hampshire, and in major cities across the nation. The American people are concerned about the future of their media, and the effect this decision will have on them. Thousands of Americans have written the FCC to oppose this rule, and members of Congress from both parties have voiced their protest and requested that you testify before them on the matter. Yet the FCC appears poised to ignore the interests of regular Americans by allowing a few massive conglomerates to gobble up our local news sources.
Therefore, I urge you to take the following actions:
1) Delay the June 2nd vote by the FCC.
2) Testify before Congress so that the Representatives of the American people can have the opportunity to question the representatives of the Bush Administration.
3) Allow for, and consider, additional public input. The FCC must provide sufficient opportunity for public input on a decision that effects every American.
I appreciate your consideration.
Sincerely,
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Hmmn, I don't recall ever hearing about a state governor issuing a direct cease and desist order to a branch of the federal government. What a great idea. Don't ask, tell. I could get behind somebody who does things like that. :)
View this blog with wood borders, or not.
This site is designed so you can view the pages
in their own window, or with various framesets. Try this simple one with
wood and colored borders, that's my favorite.
There are also sets with links in a separate frame on the
left, or on the
right. There's not much in the side panels right now, but eventually it'll have archives links, blogroll and who knows what.
Note: if you're reading this in one of the archive pages, it will go back to the home page. One of these days I'll do the Javascript thingie to make it open with the current page.
I usually set the default to the blog page itself, since you get so much flack for using frames from the bozos in the web world, but it could be different when you read this. You can bookmark any frame set you want. View choices are usually at the
bottom of pages, sometimes at the top.
The framesets can also be shared by the other sites in this so-called Galileo community of mine.
You can get out of any frameset by selecting
no frames at the
top or
bottom of most pages. Or by using your browser's popup menu, control or right-click, to 'Open Frame in New Window'.
The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
Paul Krugman of the NY Times latest editorial,
Stating the Obvious not only criticizes the recent tax cuts, but goes so far as to say it's a deliberate attempt to destabilise the American economy.
The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid
Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill. Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.
But then maybe that's the point. The Financial Times suggests that "more extreme Republicans" actually want a fiscal train wreck: "Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door."
Good for The Financial Times. It seems that stating the obvious has now, finally, become respectable.
It's no secret that right-wing ideologues want to abolish programs Americans take for granted. But not long ago, to suggest that the Bush administration's policies might actually be driven by those ideologues Ð that the administration was deliberately setting the country up for a fiscal crisis in which popular social programs could be sharply cut Ð was to be accused of spouting conspiracy theories.
Yet by pushing through another huge tax cut in the face of record deficits, the administration clearly demonstrates either that it is completely feckless, or that it actually wants a fiscal crisis. (Or maybe both.)
Why would someone want to do that, you wonder? Because they know that effective opposition to them requires money, and they're trying to cut off the posse at the pass. And if it all collapses then they can go around and pick up all the pieces for a song, that's why. It's a giant sting operation designed to steal the whole country, maybe the whole world. These guys would steal your face off your head.
Hey, maybe we could run a counter sting, I'll bet Paul Newman'd be up for it. I know he doesn't like these people. I shouldn't make jokes though. It's a serious business.
... The Financial Times suggests this is deliberate (and I agree): "For them," it says of those extreme Republicans, "undermining the multilateral international order is not enough; long-held views on income distribution also require radical revision."
How can this be happening? Most people, even most liberals, are complacent. They don't realize how dire the fiscal outlook really is, and they don't read what the ideologues write. They imagine that the Bush administration, like the Reagan administration, will modify our system only at the edges, that it won't destroy the social safety net built up over the past 70 years.
But the people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need. The Financial Times, it seems, now understands what's going on, but when will the public wake up?
What Mr. Krugman, and the folks at the Financial Times, either don't know or don't want to admit because it's served _them_ well, is that the system that we have has not served _most_ people well, and hasn't for quite a while. So they're ready to let it collapse, knowing that putting the past behind is the first step towards creating something new. They may not realize this consciously but they can feel it.
And the other thing that Mr. Krugman and the Financial Times and others of their class don't want to acknowledge is that they don't really care about the people either. What they really care about is their own lifestyles and comforts, and preserving the status quo. And again, that's something they may not realize consciously.
What the radical Republicans are doing is nothing new; it's not a difference of kind from what the Democrats have been doing, just a difference of degree. Real wages for working people in America have been declining for thirty years -- where has the Financial Times been? Why, recommending people invest in corporations that downsize and cut wages, that's where.
Corporate adjustments to Euro's success.
Stumbled onto an
article from Reuters giving short summaries of various corporate reactions around the world to the Euro's increasing value.
While there are some problems, the Europeans all seem rather glad they have the Euro, and that all in all, they're adjusting rather well. One executive makes a pertinent observation.
(Chairman of the Belgian group Solway) Janssen declared himself mighty relieved that the euro had been launched and said that life was much better without 12 currencies fluctuating wildly against each other at shocks like the Iraq war or the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"I could not imagine the nightmare we would have had to have lived through in the last four years," he said.
And the Moscow Times reports that
"The Weakening Dollar Makes Russia Stronger."
Update on Russian oil and oil pipelines.
The
Moscow Times on the latest developments in the Russian oil industry,
A National Energy Plan Fit for Caligula. What a title.
Last week, the government approved its national energy strategy up to 2020. That is a long way off, and the government heaved a sigh of relief as it resolved that oil production by 2020 would rise to between 480 million and 520 million tons. However, had the government focused on issues closer to home such as its energy strategy between now and next year's presidential election, the picture would not have been quite so unclouded.
Let's take, for example, oil pipelines -- an important element of the energy strategy. The country's pipelines are on their last legs. If new ones aren't built, we won't have much to export oil through. The authorities, however, won't allow the construction of privately owned pipelines for fear of losing a lever of control over Russian oil companies.
What really struck me though were these final paragraphs, making comparisons to Caligula, and pointing out that bribes are generating more income than the oil industry. Ha.
"Let them hate us, so long as they fear us," was a favorite saying of emperor Caligula's. "Let them go under, so long as they are dependent" -- that's what the state's energy strategy amounts to.
Which national energy plan prevails will determine the main areas of growth in the economy between now and 2020: Will it be oil production (which last year was 380 million tons) or the market for bribes, which experts at the INDEM think tank estimate at $38 billion per year?
Japanese banks report huge losses.
Following the continuing problems in the Japanese economy, the
Guardian reports that the largest bank in Japan, and the largest in the world in terms of assets, has reported an astounding $20 billion dollar loss.
Mizuho Holdings, the world's largest bank in assets terms, posted the heftiest loss in Japanese corporate history yesterday, dealing a fierce blow to hopes that bigger would prove better for the country's unstable financial system.
The 2.4 trillion yen ($20.4bn or £12.4bn) tide of red ink at Mizuho arrived amid wider news of negative results at Japan's mega-banks - formed through a series of mergers aimed at stabilising a system that has lurched from one crisis to another in recent years.
Coming after last week's government bailout of Resona Bank, the country's fifth biggest institution, yesterday's figures for the year to March 31 suggest the financial giants still have giant problems.
Bad loans, deflation and a nose-diving stock market punched a ¥4.6 trillion hole in the balance sheets of the seven biggest banks. That combined loss was more than 10% worse than last year, when the institutions insisted they had hit the bottom of a slump dating back to the collapse of the bubble economy in 1989.
And, despite no real evidence of any significant changes, they continue to insist that this is the end, and that "next year" will bring enormous profits. We shall see. What's needed, IMHO, is for the government to stop bailing these giants out, take the hit, and allow the Japanese people to rebuild on a solid base. But what do I know?
Myth of 'One Afghanistan' shattered.
The
LA Times reports that things in Afghanistan are not going well, and that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are beginning to reemerge.
At the end of 2001, the Taliban and Al Qaeda were broken and in utter confusion. Today, they are growing stronger and more active. They have reemerged forcefully in their base in the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan, challenging the Kabul administration of President Hamid Karzai. And American policy is partly at fault.
The U.S. believed that establishing a democracy in Afghanistan would prevent its reversion to an extremist, terrorist state, and so it looked to the standard democratic model of a highly centralized state run by an elected government. But this model ignored the complex regional and ethnic divides within Afghanistan.
In focusing on finding a single leader it could work with and building a centralized state, policymakers have ignored a basic precondition for a peaceful society in Afghanistan: building trust and goodwill among the different tribes, ethnic groups and regions. This is especially necessary after decades of war and a century of brutal ethnic and religious persecution.
Instead, the U.S. and United Nations have focused on building national institutions and providing strong support to Karzai, a Pushtun whose family is originally from Kandahar. They continue to hope that this approach will have a unifying effect on the country, but it has had the opposite result.
What a mess. Boy, this is going to go on for years.
Palestinians back out of road map to peace.
The Israelis have a saying about the Palestinians: "They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." And now they've done it again. The
Guardian reported today that the new Palestinian Prime Minister has, for some reason, decided to back out of scheduled peace talks with Mr. Sharon. This despite Mr. Sharon's fighting vigorous opposition within his own party, and getting his cabinet to approve the latest so-called "road map" to peace.
The Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, has pulled out of Israeli-Palestinian talks on the US-driven "road map" announced earlier today by his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon.
Mr Abbas cited "scheduling difficulties", but the cancellation of the meeting, which was to be held tomorrow, was interpreted as an indication that the Palestinian leader does not see any value in meeting Mr Sharon.
"As far as Mr Abbas is concerned, Sharon does not deliver anything," the Guardian's Middle East correspondent, Chris McGreal, told Guardian Unlimited. "The Palestinians think Sharon uses them for propaganda, then all he does is harangue them about terror."
Unbelievable. I can't find any sense in their actions. Apparently, they want the war to end before they begin the talks necessary to end the war, an endless circle leading nowhere. The fact remains that they don't want peace with Israel. They remain committed not to peaceful coexistence, but the entire elimination of Israel, exactly as is stated in the PLO's charter. (Just one man's opinion.)
AOL-Time-Warner may split up.
The
NY Times reports that Stephen Case, the founder of AOL, wants his company back. Unfortunately, you can't always go back.
Stephen M. Case, mastermind of America Online's record-breaking acquisition of Time Warner, has begun to talk favorably of undoing the deal by spinning off AOL, according to two senior company officials who have spoken with him.
Mr. Case's opinions may have little effect on AOL Time Warner's future, however, because of his waning power at the company. His views may even reflect his own frustration with his changing status.
... In the latest step down from Mr. Case's peak as the chairman of AOL Time Warner, the board has quietly eliminated its strategy committee; Mr. Case and the chief executive, Richard D. Parsons, had been co-chairmen of that body.
... Now Mr. Case, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his generation and a founding father of the online medium, is effectively excluded from the management of the business he built.
May 26, 2003
Sharon embraces new peace efforts.
The
NY Times reports that the Israeli Prime Minister is ready to give the latest peace plan a serious try, including the approval of a Palestinian state, despite concerted opposition from his own party and the continued attacks by Palestinian terrorists.
In the face of withering criticism from his own right-wing party, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon staunchly defended his support for the latest Mideast peace effort today, declaring that "ruling three and a half million Palestinians cannot go on indefinitely."
A lifelong hawk, Mr. Sharon hit back at critics in his own Likud Party with language that sounded as if it were coming from Israel's liberal "peace camp."
"You may not like the word, but what's happening is occupation," Mr. Sharon told Likud members of Parliament. "Holding 3.5 million Palestinians is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy. We have to end this subject without risking our security."
This is encouraging. Hopefully the Palestinians will respond in kind, although with Arafat still controlling the armed forces I have to be skeptical. But nothing lasts forever. Like I said before, the fighting will stop when both sides simply get sick and tired of it all, and care more about peace than anything else.
The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, met today with Yasir Arafat, ignoring Israel's call to boycott the Palestinian leader, who despite Mr. Abbas's new post as Palestinian prime minister remains the head of the governing Palestinian Authority.
"Israel has to stop military operations, settlement activities, withdraw its forces and release prisoners," said Mr. de Villepin, who also held talks with Mr. Abbas. "It is important for the Palestinians to stop any kind of violence."
Mr. Arafat, speaking from his badly damaged compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said he welcomed Israel's support for the road map. But he added that the reservations Israel listed "raises question marks about this acceptance."
Mr. Sharon is refusing to see diplomats who meet Mr. Arafat, and Mr. de Villepin was not invited to meet the Israeli leader.
According to a poll published today in Yediot Ahronot, a leading daily, 56 percent of Israelis believe that the country should support the road map, compared with 34 percent who are opposed.
However, when asked if the peace plan would lead to a comprehensive Mideast agreement, 51 percent thought it would not, and only 43 percent thought it would.
Disclaimer: Since this is a new blog and I'm just jumping into the fray, I have to say that I'm Jewish and a strong supporter of both Israel in general and Mr. Sharon in particular. I personally think the Palestinians are entirely responsible for the problems, and that only by their changing their position can anything else change. I don't see the possibility of peace while Arafat is at large, but maybe even he's had enough by now. I have much more to say on this, but I'll have to work into it gradually.
Thanks for the memories.
Bob Hope's 100th birthday is Wednesday, May 29th. The LA Times begins the celebration with an affectionate memoir,
It's Been a Century of Hope and Laughter, by Larry Gelbart, one of his former writers.
A Hope writer, admittedly well paid, was correspondingly well worked. His staff of six cobbled together his weekly radio program (39 a year), his television "specials" (one every couple months or so), material for his personal appearances (numerous enough to splinter an abacus) and "punched up" two or three of his movie scripts every year, inserting enough jokes to sink the Bismarck (and occasionally the movie).
But, by God, you learned to turn the stuff out Ð thousands of one- liners, some witty, some only half so; a monologue here, some dialogue there; guest spots, sketches, blackouts, rewrites Ð working in tony suites at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome or in tinny Quonset huts in Nome. All the while, sharing the company of probably the most delightful man I've ever known.
Equally entertaining off-mike or off-camera, frequently even more so, Hope enjoyed making his writers laugh. Their approval meant a good deal to him.
US preparing to overthrow the Iranian government.
The
Washington Post reports that the US is taking moves to begin destablilizing the Iranian government.
The Bush administration, alarmed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said.
Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said.
The State Department, which had encouraged some form of engagement with the Iranians, appears inclined to accept such a policy, especially if Iran does not take any visible steps to deal with the suspected al Qaeda operatives before Tuesday, officials said. But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran.
In any case, the Saudi Arabia bombings have ended the tentative signs of engagement between Iran and the United States that had emerged during the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is also
an article in the Scotsman on the same issue.They also discuss the conflict between the reformist and conservative factions there, and how American intransigence is hurting the efforts of the reformers. It's always useful to get a foreign perspective on American actions.
The American argument is that Iran is supporting, or at least tolerating, Al Qaeda forces. In fact, they're not just claiming it, they're stating it as a fact, with the same certainty with which they claimed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Seems to me that this is just another attempt to divert attention from the real problems. Go to war in Iraq to distract attention from the failures to capture Osama and the problems in Afghanistan, then go to war in Iran to distract attention from the failures to capture Saddam and the problems in Iraq. And after Iran, I suppose Korea is next, or maybe Syria. All of course, to distract attention from the
growing domestic problems inside the US. What's next, declare
Howard Dean to be a terrorist and attack Vermont?
More: Bob Harris over at
This Modern World gives a
nice roundup of various articles on this subject. (Picked up from Craig over at
Booknotes, who says it's his birthday. Happy Birthday, and keep up the good work.)
Britain told to choose between Europe and the US.
Scotsman article. In more on the EU's growing pains, former French president Giscard d©–Estaing said that it's time the UK make up its mind on where it wants to be.
One issue that he discusses, which I hadn't considered before, is whether an expanded EU will be able to retain both of its seats on the Security Council, currently held by the UK and France. Apparently, he claims that they can have it both ways: have a single union, with a single foreign policy, while continuing to pretend that they don't whenever that's convenient.
US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists.
And one more from the Guardian is a report that
Uzbekistan is stepping up its repression of dissidents.
Abdulkhalil was arrested in the fields of Uzbekistan's Ferghana valley in August last year. The 28-year-old farmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison for "trying to overthrow the constitutional structures".
Last week his father saw him for the first time since that day on a stretcher in a prison hospital. His head was battered and his tongue was so swollen that he could only say that he had "been kept in water for a long time".
Abdulkhalil was a victim of Uzbekistan's security service, the SNB. His detention and torture were part of a crackdown on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), an Islamist group.
Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death
The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11 rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the region.
The US is funding those it once condemned. Last year Washington gave Uzbekistan $500 million in aid. The police and intelligence services - which the state department's website says use "torture as a routine investigation technique" received $79m of this sum.
...
Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said: "The intense repression here combined with the inequality of wealth and absence of reform will create the Islamic fundamentalism that the regime is trying to quash."
Another senior western official said: "People have less freedom here than under Brezhnev. The irony is that the US Republican party is supporting the remnants of Brezhnevism as part of their fight against Islamic extremism."
Ah, our tax dollars at work. God bless America.
Manchester tops UK "bohemian' index.
The Guardian also reports that
Manchester is the most bohemian place in the UK.
Demos has discovered that the world's first industrial city has shed its outdated gritty image to become top of the Boho Britain index. It used three indices to reach its conclusion - the combination of its gay-friendliness, ethnic diversity, and the number of patent applications per head of population.
Manchester has an international reputation for its gay village, around Canal Street, made famous by Channel 4's Queer as Folk. The city will host Europride later this year, which is expected to attract more than one million visitors to the festival in August.
The regeneration of Manchester, since the city centre was virtually rebuilt following the IRA bomb seven years ago, has contributed to a surge in creativity. Last year's successful Commonwealth Games has also brought a new confidence to the city.
Manchester is also rich in architecture, with its neo-gothic town hall and university buildings and its old warehouses, some of which have been converted into loft apartments.
It has a large and thriving student population with three universities - the University of Manchester, Umist, and Manchester Metropolitan University. Next year, Umist and the University of Manchester will merge to create a "super university".
On the edge of the city, Rusholme's neon-lit "curry mile" is like the Las Vegas of the north-west. More than 10,000 people a week eat there.
According to the Boho Britain creative index, the next most creative cities in the UK are Leicester and London.
The report also indicates that there seems to be a correlation between a city's tolerance of gays, and the number of its patent applications. I'm not sure what to make of that, but it also seems to be true in the US. Consider the technological advances that have come out of San Francisco and the Bay area in the last few decades.
Blueprint for an EU president.
The Guardian reports that a
draft proposal for a new EU constitution has been released.
Plans were published today for a controversial new European constitution with an elected president and foreign minister.
The latest proposals from the convention on the future of Europe would also commit member states to "unreservedly" backing an EU common foreign policy, if approved unanimously at an intergovernmental conference.
The draft, unveiled in Brussels today, says the EU shall in future have "legal personality" and incorporates a legally binding charter of fundamental rights, including labour and social policies.
All reference to a federal Europe was dropped, however, after heated talks last week between the prime minister and former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who has been drawing up the new blueprint.
The idea of renaming the EU the "United States of Europe" has also been banished from the text.
There is a battle royal raging in Britain over all this, the EU in general, the form of the constitution, whether the UK will adopt the Euro, whether the British people will get to vote on it, and so on. It goes to the very heart of the nature of the United Kingdom, and even whether or not there will continue to be a United Kingdom.
There is a PDF of the proposed constitution
here. And the Guardian has a special section on European integration
here.
May 25, 2003
Efforts begin to limit lawyers' fees.
Hurray!!! The
NY Times reports that 13 states have begun efforts to place limits on legal fees.
Lawyers in 13 states have begun a coordinated campaign to limit the fees their colleagues collect in some lawsuits. They say it is unethical for plaintiffs' lawyers to routinely pocket one-third or more of the money they win for clients, no matter how long or hard they work on a case.
Ethical rules in many states already require lawyers, whether they are paid by the hour or by a percentage of the recovery, to charge only "reasonable fees."
In theory, this means fees should vary with the difficulty of the case, the expertise of the lawyer, the time required and the result obtained.
But in practice, the lawyers urging the change say, contingency fees are uniformly 33 percent in most places and 40 percent in others. They say that plaintiffs' lawyers charge such fees even when a big settlement is quick, fixed and certain.
The new proposal would limit contingency fees in many cases to 10 percent of the first $100,000 of a settlement, and 5 percent of anything more. Common Good, an advocacy group pushing for the change, has enlisted the help of some lawyers in filing petitions for the change with state supreme courts, bar associations or ethics commissions in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
...
Lester Brickman, a professor at Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, said the laws of supply and demand did not seem to apply to contingency-fee lawyers. He said that contingency-fee percentages had not dropped even as the number of lawyers had more than doubled in recent years. He estimated that contingency fees amounted to $22 billion a year, often at effective hourly rates of thousands of dollars.
"Legal fees are not competitive because lawyers have colluded to maintain a fixed 33 percent rate regardless of the nature or difficulty of the case," Professor Brickman said.
Yep, that's what I've been saying for years. Collusion implies a conscious conspiracy, and that is a violation of the RICO act. That's important, because under the RICO act you can confiscate not only the corporate assets, but the personal assets of the corporate officers as well. (It was designed for gangsters and drug dealers, but it can and should be used against organized corporate crime as well.)
But one thing at a time. First we focus on getting them to stop stealing more money, then we work on getting back the money and property they've already stolen. One state at a time is a hard row to hoe, but it'll work.
(To be fair, I have to point out that the article also quotes some experts who claim that the current system does work well. But it also shows some specific examples of how theory doesn't always work in practice.)
I myself didn't realize that the standard percentage demanded by lawyers is now up to 40 percent. That's an awful lot for just filling out some forms.
Power, Ever More Power.
The
LA Times has a surprisingly frank description of the Bush administration's efforts to destroy civil liberties. When the corporate media are using phrases such as "creepy" and "these proposals are assaults on the Constitution", you know we're in serious trouble. (Bold emphasis in these quotes is mine.)
When it passed the USA Patriot Act in October 2001, giving law enforcement agents sweeping new powers, Congress unleashed a spying free-for-all that shows no sign of abating. Pentagon analysts are even trying to figure out if they can nab terrorists by watching how people walk Ð "gait recognition," it's called.
Now pushing for even broader authority, the Bush administration's operating principle seems to be if a lot of power is good, a lot more would be better.
Here is what's on the table now:
¤ "Patriot Act II," a hush-hush draft that would give the Justice Department more power to snoop and more leverage over suspects. This measure, formally known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, seeks to free the FBI from requirements that it get a judge's OK before prying into a person's phone, bank or credit records. It would expand government power to make secret arrests, like those of hundreds of people, mostly Middle Eastern nationals, after Sept. 11, 2001. The Justice Department largely refused to reveal the identities of those suspects, where they were detained or the reasons for their arrest. The draft measure would also allow the attorney general to strip Americans of their citizenship in some cases for donating to what they may have thought were legitimate nonprofit groups.
Although the measure doesn't officially exist, a copy was leaked this year. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has declined to brief Congress on his proposals.
¤ The CIA and the military are asking for authority to peruse phone records, credit card records and e-mail logs of people in the U.S. These agencies can ask the FBI for much of this, but the Bush administration believes that giving the CIA and the Pentagon direct authority would be more efficient. It would also mark an unprecedented expansion in the mission of the CIA and the military. Senate Democrats struck this program from a larger bill but it probably will return.
¤ The Defense Department wants permission from Congress to use a new high-powered computer system, costing billions to create, to paw through the private records of millions of Americans in search of patterns that might Ð might Ð lead to a terrorist. The architects of this creepy Terrorism Information Awareness initiative (previously Total Information Awareness) want access to health-care files, rental car receipts, employment and school records, credit histories, e-mail traffic and more.
Set against the broad Patriot Act powers already in place and the administration's continued refusal to release the House-Senate investigation into the 2001 terrorist attacks, these proposals are assaults on the Constitution.
Americans understand the need to temporarily relinquish some liberties in light of terrorist threats. But so far, neither the president nor Ashcroft has identified what specific intelligence weak spots remain and why the prosecutorial tools they have aren't enough. Until Congress hears compelling arguments, its answer should be no.
And the NY Times is running an article,
Buoyed by Resurgence, G.O.P. Strives for an Era of Dominance, on Republican plans to subvert American democracy and make this a one-party state controlled by them. They're not even trying to hide it any more. It's become a naked battle for power, with not even lip service being paid to respecting the rights of the minorities.
Republicans already hold the White House, expect to continue to control the House of Representatives and have a majority in the Senate. For the first time in 50 years, a majority of state legislators are Republicans. Almost as many Americans (30 percent) call themselves Republicans as call themselves Democrats (32 percent), the narrowest gap since pollsters began measuring party identification in the 1940's.
Note that even though they represent only 30 percent of the people, less than one-third, they feel they have the right to control everything and everyone. Also note that 30 percent Republicans and 32 percent Democrats adds up to 62 percent. Meaning there are substantially more Americans (38 percent) who do not belong to either party, but who apparently don't count at all. Are we going to stand by and let 30 percent of the people in this country establish a dictatorship?
Personally, I think there's an excellent chance that they may lose both Congress and the White House, and most of the states for that matter. They're making enemies all over the world every day. Everybody I know totally despises these people. And they have another year and a half of wars, recessions, school closings and such to come. At the current rate of change, there could be 80-100 million people without health care by then. Or close to it. It's already over 60 million, and increasing at over a million a month.
I think the Republicans are getting way ahead of themselves. They may get a sweep. On the other hand, their arrogance could be the Democrat's biggest asset. This could be the greatest Democratic sweep since FDR threw out the Republicans in 1932, at the depth of the Depression. It seems to me, with people like the LA Times and Warren Buffet against them, it's wide open at this point. But we shall see. It sure is going to be an interesting campaign year. A violent one too, I fear.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." -- Isaac Newton, the laws of energy.
Photo blogs become mainstream.
The NY Times has an article,
Prospecting for Gold Among the Photo Blogs, discussing this new type of blogging. Lots of good links, although for some reason they don't make them active links.
Click enough and you will be rewarded. On
www.slower.net, Eliot Shepard's site, you can find a glowing red portrait of Porky Pig in a fire hat and an abstract shot of a red, white and blue floor.
Www.fotolog.net/alphabet is devoted to found alphabets, objects resembling letters; it shows a toilet roll and holder that looks like a Q. On
www.hirmes.com/ice, the photographer travels to the center of spherical ice forms and sends back pictures that look like new galaxies.
I started my adventures in the land of the photo blogs at a Web site announcing the winners of an online contest: the 2003 Photobloggies, sponsored by
www.photojunkie.org. The 14 winners in 14 categories had all posted photo diaries on a regular basis in 2002.
Have you ever noticed that the major news sites rarely, if ever, put in active links to the sites they discuss? (I've added the links to the sites quoted. There are many more in the article.)
I don't know why this is. Could be the legal issues, but I suspect it's that they still simply don't "get" hypermedia. Probably the same reason most of them don't allow their articles to be searched by the search engines. I guess they still basically think of the web as just an electronic version of paper, not realizing that it's an entire different way of looking at things.
I've been thinking of adding a special section of photo blogs to my blogroll. One of these days.
Disarray in Iraq threatens U.S. Plans.
The
LA Times reports that things are not going very well in Iraq.
Across much of Iraq, the sense of desperation that has grown in more than six weeks of U.S. occupation is reaching crisis proportions. ... The hope for better times that greeted the demise of President Saddam Hussein's regime and the expectation that a country as powerful and efficient as the United States would quickly restore order have not been fulfilled.
End of entries. ( ) ( )
