… founded in 1992 by women organized to protect Clarence Thomas from Anita Hill

Bunch of hoarders, they are. No billionaire’s dollars left behind.

Hahahahaha. That’s great, prostratedragon.

I love the Moonbows

Yosemite really is magical — I guess we’ll never know what we drowned out when we flooded sister valley Hetch Hetchy

Has the US been buying Iranian oil for the Afghan army?

The Pentagon is claiming ignorance, which is not difficult. Of course it’s buying Iran oil when it purchases petroleum from Afghan vendors. Afghanistan meets almost 30 percent of its oil needs though Iran and the remainder through the Central Asian countries. Afghanistan has a close relationship with Iran and majority of the fuel is imported via Iran and the implementation of the sanctions will be very difficult for Afghanistan.

The Islamic Republic of Iran exported 172 million tons of oil products to Afghanistan and Iraq in 2010, and it’s increased since then. In fact, during the last 10 years most of Iran’s non-oil exported goods went to Afghanistan.

Iran will become even more influential in Iran as the U.S. pulls out. Iran spends $100 million a year in Afghanistan, much of it on the media, civil society projects and religious schools.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) … all got in their licks

Naughty, naughty, f. .

Lol, allan, you be the naughty one.

I figure Hagel might have been sitting there thinking thoughts along these lines.

They are truly beautiful, aren’t they, Elliott?

As to the Chuck Hagel hearing, Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian has an interesting take. It doesn’t seem to be on the internet yet, but what he told al-Jazeera TV tonight is: Hagel’s problem in getting confirmed is that he has to deny some heterodox positions he has taken in the past, on the U.S. throwing its weight around too much and so on, in order to satisfy the orthodoxy that prevails on the Hill, whereas you can’t make a forceful case for yourself when you are denying what you believe.

To be sure, unlike Greenwald, many of us could care less if Hagel is rejected.

(Written before @ 5 and @ 6 had appeared.)

“Pakistan to build $1.5bn Iran pipeline”. This “essential pipeline” cannot be delayed, according to a Pakistani official, regardless of “stiff US opposition”.

We’ll see. Pakistan badly needs the energy. A shortage of energy causes factory shutdowns and a lot of hardship in Pakistan. But every time Pakistan makes a move to get natural gas from Iran, a next-door country which has an abundance of gas, the U.S. steps on Pakistan’s neck and says NO.

Recently China and then Russia have been mentioned in news reports as financing the “IP” – Iran-Pakistan – pipeline. (it used to be the IPI pipeline – Iran, Pakistan, India pipeline,because India needs energy also, but the U.S. stepped on India’s neck.) Apparently they were not realized.

Iran has completed its portion of the pipeline, but the Pakistan portion needs to be done. A recent news report from Iran:

Despite threats by Richard Olson, US ambassador to Pakistan on possibility of putting sanctions on Islamabad if the country abides by the gas import contract with Iran, Iranian contractors have traveled to Pakistan to start building a gas pipeline in Pakistan on Tehran and Islamabad agreement.

“According to proposed plans, Iranian and Pakistani contractors will establish joint investment company to finance building of gas pipeline in Pakistan,” he added.

“According to gas transfer agreements between Tehran and Islamabad, Iran will export 21.5M cubic meters daily, and 7.8b cubic meters annually to Pakistan, starting late March 2014,” he explained.

“Pakistan will build 700km of pipeline in its soil, and Iran will connect South Pars to Iranshahr and from there to Pakistan borders in Chabahar, with building 300km line,” he added.

We’ll see.

Went and looked, E. F. Beall, and couldn’t find his comments, either, You sure got my curiosity going. Maybe they’ll be out there tomorrow. Thnx ever so much.

(And I can’t believe the link in comment #6 would have the slightest bit of impact on your comment–though I trust it might bring a smile or two.)

The US Treasury Dept and Dept of Health & Human Services have released proposed Affordable Care Act regulations, including exemptions from the individual mandate. Here is their “Fact Sheet on Proposed Affordable Care Act Regulations“.

Business should love this.

When an employer doesn’t offer health insurance

If the employer does not offer coverage, and at least one full-time employee receives a premium tax credit or cost-sharing reductions, the business must pay $2,000 for each full-time employee, not counting the first 30 employees.

Example:

An employer with 51 employees who doesn’t offer health insurance and has one employee who receives an individual tax credit or cost-sharing reductions will be assessed $42,000 ($2,000 multiplied by 21).

Or, they may pick up the phone and call Outsourcing Inc. — to avoid all this government interference in their business.

“I can’t believe the link in comment #6 would have the slightest bit of impact on your comment.”

Sure it would. If Hagel were spending his thoughts wishing that Graham et al were gone so he could miss them, his brain might not have room for calculating how best to clothe the next lie.

But you’re right on the LOL.

Ah, yes, the Protean Corporate Model (from yesterday).

Fatster, let me also point out that there has been a meeting in Egypt between representatives of the opposition and the Muslim Brotherhood to discuss prospects for the future. This one event doesn’t seem to have resolved much, but one can only hope that the two principal forces in overthrowing the Mubarak regime keep the channels open.

Probably most people in the west outside Egypt also oppose the MB, but that is a short-sighted attitude. Islam is simply going to be a large presence in the Middle East for the foreseeable future, and better the MB than al-Qaeda.

Yes, many businesses will keep their employees under fifty in number and (if they don’t outsource to another country) make the rest independent contractors, who had better learn how to file their quarterly reports with the IRS or be fined. It’s Newton’s Third Law: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. Push me here, and I’ll push back there. Shapeshifters –

Like a protozoan single-cell organism, the protean corporation has the ability to “shape shift,” rapidly adapting to internal and external forces in the market and the company.

As with the Navaho

From the plains of the American West comes a story with a history as long as that of the Native Americans themselves: the skinwalkers. Witches, a class of outcast criminals who practiced black magic, were said to have the ability to shapeshift into any animal they chose.

Regarding Lanny Breuer. . .

“Parsimonious” is a great word. I think it’s most often taken as “stingy,” as in tight as a clam’s rear end.

Where I grew up in NJ it also indicated a skinflint, fraudster, so went a bit further. Just stingy here in Mass, though, and a bit more benign.

Very interesting, E. F. Beall and thanks so much for the link, too.

LOL, maa8722, I never knew that fact about clams.

And I have something for you, too.

What is an assault weapon.

Short version: mostly an ordinary rifle with a metal grip rather than a wooden one.

Obamacare, another step in deindustrializing U.S.

This is an eybrow raiser. Hollande is afraid of French army. Meyssan has contacts in DGSE (they say). Key paragraph:

The crisis of confidence has reached a point where the security service of the Elysée fears a military attempt on the life of the President of the Republic. Thus, January 9, at the President’s address to the French armed forces, at the 12th regiment of Cuirassiers d’Orléans base, the Elysée required the neutralization of weapons. The firing pins of assault rifles and machine guns were removed, and pistols were also incapacitated. Ammunition was confiscated and stored in sealed bags. Such a measure had not been taken since the Algerian crisis, sixty years prior.

Obamacare, another step in deindustrializing U.S

You got that right, but then you usually do.

Aloha, fatster…! Another excellent Roundup…! ;-)

It’s difficult to get the facts, but as I understand it France is using its ground force (Armee de Terre), its Special Forces and the French Foreign Legion in Mali, with the FFL making the airborne jumps.

There is restricted press coverage, aka censorship. Everything going on in Mali is clouded. Some things are obvious, like grab for resources. Here’s another insightful article on Mali, by Engdahl, who’s been on this geopolitics schtick for 6 decades.

Here are a few interesting paragraphs.

But there are strong indications the French agenda in Mali is anything but humanitarian. In a France 5 TV interview, Le Drian carelessly admitted, “The goal is the total reconquest of Mali. We will not leave any pockets.” And President Francois Hollande said French troops would remain in the region long enough “to defeat terrorism.” The United States, Canada, Britain, Belgium, Germany and Denmark have all said they would support the French operation against Mali. [5]

snip

According to usually reliable former US military experts with direct familiarity with the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, US and NATO Special Forces actually trained the same “terrorist” bands now justifying a neo-colonial US-backed invasion of Mali by France. The major question is why would Washington and Paris train the terrorists they are now acting to destroy in a “war on terror?” Were they really surprised at the lack of NATO loyalty from their trainees?

There are several other precious sections about AQ being like McDonald’s franchises.

I can’t remember if it’s in this article or somewhere else I read that France did not bother exploring Mali’s incredible resources when it was a French colony bc France wanted to keep it poor. Only when previously stable elected govt of Mali decided to investigate what it had underground did France, ahem, decide humanitarian bombing was de rigeur.

France history in Mali

In 1893, in West Africa’s upper Niger River basin — what is now central Mali — the French army achieved a victory that had eluded it for almost 50 years: the destruction of the jihadist Tukulor Empire, one of the last great challenges to France’s rule in the region. The Tukulor Empire’s first important conquest had come decades earlier, in the early 1850s, when its fanatical founder, El Hajj Umar Tall, led Koranic students and hardened soldiers to topple the Bambara kingdoms along the banks of the Niger. Umar imposed a strict brand of Islamic law, reportedly enslaving or killing tens of thousands of non-believers over a half century. He is said to have personally smashed to pieces captured idols, and once told a French officer he encountered at a well guarded fort to “Go back to your own country, accursed man.” Umar traveled widely, prophesying the end of French rule and preaching about the paradise that awaits those who die by jihad. Killed in the explosion of a gunpowder cache in 1864, it still took almost three decades for the French to wrest control over the middle and upper reaches of the Niger River, including Timbuktu and much of the desert to the north.

Here are some of the internet sites that have picked up that story.

http://www.nyfirearms.com/forums/firearms-news/43794-france-s-president-francois-hollande-afraid-his-military-high-command.html

http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2013/01/hollande-is-afraid-of-his-armies-2488354.html
They even have an LaRouche article.

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/78979-frances-president-francois-hollande-is-afraid-of-his-military-high-command-security-services-fear-a-military-attempt-on-the-life-of-the-president

This David Icke is the one site about which some info actually exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
He’s into reptilian bloodlines, btw.

http://thecomingcrisis.blogspot.com/2013/01/hollande-is-afraid-of-his-armies.html

http://www.dailypaul.com/272402/france-s-president-francois-hollande-is-afraid-of-his-military-high-command
(Ron Paul)

Interesting.

I won’t register for FT so didn’t read the whole article you linked.

From the section you quoted, sounds ahistoric to my novice ear. For example, was the word “jihadist” used in the 1890s? What about

fanatical founder, El Hajj Umar Tall, led Koranic students and hardened soldiers to topple the Bambara kingdoms along the banks of the Niger.

Sounds like historiography to me, iow, projecting how we currently project back on a period of history when POV might have been diff.

I’m a history moron, esp when it comes to Mali, so I don’t know. Only saying this version sounds suspicious. Too many modern words. Maybe jihad as a concept did exist and was expressed as such in the 1890s and, if it did, wasn’t blowback from earlier deeds of colonizers, as lefties might think about it today.

A comment from a past association:
Why is this not being mentioned?

http://www.lanereport.com/18162/2013/01/medicaid-patients-above-poverty-level-co-payments/

Talk about behind the scenes skullduggery.

It’s late and I’m tired, so not going to investigate. Are your links derivative of Meyssan article or are they independent?

I’ve been following Meyssan for about 9 months. He has interesting & insightful ideas, sometimes is well in advance of the crowd, so always worth considering his reporting.

And BTW, he’s the only source on the death of Bandar Bush, who still hasn’t popped up in public or been commented on (since being put in charge of Saudi secrud service right bef Meyssan reported his death ca 7/30/12 after “something” assassinated 2 muckety mucks in Syrian secrud service).

Inquiring minds….

Hollande crassly alluded to the fact that a significant consideration in French policy is the use of Mali to demonstrate the destructive capabilities of France’s Rafale jets and boost their sales. After praising France’s “exceptional” deployment in Mali, he told a Rafale pilot, “Thank you for your double mission, both operational and, I was going to say, commercial!”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/16/mali-j16.html

Heh.

How long bef Fr is selling jets to Iran…

Well, hello, ubetchaiam! Long time, no see.

Sadly, yes, there is much to that story. The NYTimes had this to say:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/health/medicaid-patients-could-face-higher-fees-under-a-proposed-federal-policy.html?_r=0

Why is it so often about putting so much of the burden on the poor?

Re: #18 fatster. . .

Thanks for the link to EAF. My memory is very dated, having retired from USAF in 1990. I should have looked at Wiki awhile ago about this.

The EAF is quite large in that link. Still there some anomalies and plenty of important unknowns there.

In addition to F-16s from the US, EAF still flies some US F-4s and Soviet MIG-21s, which are really ancient. I wonder why in recent years EAF had been intent (for awhile) in updating the MIG-21s.

The EAF having their pilots fly F-4s and MIG-21s in combat would be pointless, foolhardy, even if they had no F-16s. I suppose the MIG-21 (about the size of our T-38 only with one engine) is used as a less expensive fighter trainer, i.e., a throw away airplane. The F-4, I don’t think would be used that way.

The link doesn’t say anything about the EAF pilots nowadays, unless I missed it. Their numbers versus the aircraft, training hours they fly, and experience are important.

All of this is our tax dollars at work. IMF’s money, the same, since it is untimately fungible as well. It’s ironic considering the poverty there. When the money’s spent, it’s gone with so little to show for it.

On jihad
Uthman Don Fadio led what became the most important jihad, starting in 1804. Uthman began his career as an itinerant mallam or religious scholar who condemned the petty Muslim rulers of the Hausa for unjust and illegal taxes, for confiscation’s of property, the enslavement of Muslims, for allowing the free socializing of men and women, as well as for permitting other customs he saw as contrary to Islamic law.

He found his principal constituency among the Fulani, a pastoral people scattered across West Africa. The wars that followed his declaration of jihad engulfed most of what is now northern Nigeria and the northern Cameroons. At the height of his influence, the Muslim regime Uthman founded, called the Caliphate of Sotoro, ruled all of Hausaland and extended into parts of Yorubaland in what is now southern Nigeria.

Some fifty years after Uthman’s jihad, al-Haji ‘Umar, a cleric from Senegal, began another. ‘Umar had been initiated into the Tijani religious order on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1826. He returned as the order’s khalifa. His jihad began in 1852 and established a state that lasted until 1893. Spreading east from Senegal, its power eventually extended as far as Timbuktu in northern Mali. Then at the very moment when masses of West Africans were being converted to Islam, Europe checked the Muslim expansion. The French took possession of the state founded by ‘Umar in 1893.
http://www.law.emory.edu/ifl/region/westafrica.html

“When the money’s spent, it’s gone with so little to show for it.” That’s pretty much the nature of military spending, isn’t it, maa8722. So much suffering all over the world, and so many countries armed to the teeth while their citizens starve.

“My memory is very dated”–but at least you have something to remember. I know very little about military hardware, as you’ve no doubt noticed. Tabula rasa and all that. :)

*heh* The F-4 is proof positive that even a brick would fly, if ya put big enough jet engine(s) on it…! ;-)

Joe Biden: Gun Laws Won’t ‘Guarantee’ End To Mass Shootings

And saving money won’t ‘guarantee’ that the healthcare industry won’t wipe you out if you get sick or that the financial services industry won’t screw you over in 18 different ways.

The French have always intervened in West and Saharan Africa, ever since they gave their colonies so-called ‘independence.’ There was some relaxation of this policy in the late 1990s, but it is nothing new. Libya was a different matter altogether. I think the business about Hollande being afraid of the army is pure blarny.

I was in Paris in the spring of 1962, when there was a real possibility of a coup. There were tanks and anti-aircraft crews at the Arc de Triomphe and military presence downtown was palpable.

If the crisis keeps up I’ll send in a report. I’m off next month to Paris to teach a course at PSE.

I noticed this in the los angeles times, at the article about petroglyphs

“California’s luxury housing market is booming.

In activity reminiscent of real estate’s bubble years, the number of homes statewide selling at more than $5 million reached an all-time high last year.”

There’s a good article at Arms Control Wonk about Mali, which is next door to Niger;

remember “significant quantities of uranium”?

French companies have “significant quantities of investment” in uranium mining in Niger.

Thanks Fatster, lots of interesting things as usual.

a post vanished.

Just so long as they aren’t decorated with petroglyphs, LOL.

Thnx for the heads-up re the Arms Control Wonk Mali article. Is this the correct one? It is quite interesting.

Apologies for the vanishing post. I’m at a loss to explain it. Don’t tell me it’s going to be a day of surprises.

And, . . . Good Morning!

“I’m a history moron, esp when it comes to Mali, so I don’t know.”

I recently discovered a website with a wealth of information about US involvement in Africa.

http://www.usinafrica.com/

Here is the section on Mali

http://www.usinafrica.com/#/mali-senegal/4562587824

hi, yes that’s the one, that is a great site, well written articles, often humorously written, by very knowledgeable people, including the people that comment.

The proprietor is a member of drinking liberally, as is Dave Dayen.

so, must be a good site.

good site thanks