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Good evening!
International Developments
❖ “The [Rumsfeld-era] Pentagon sent a US veteran [James Steele] of the ‘dirty wars’ in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq”. Results: secret detention and torture sites, “some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation, [accelerating] the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.” Petraeus. Wikileaks.
❖ “James Steele: America’s mystery man in Iraq”.
❖ Final report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: “the U.S. has spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.” $60 billion in reconstruction grants, $767 billion since the beginning (another estimate is $811 billion). Typical list of outrageous Pentagon expenditures.
❖ “The ill-treatment of Palestinian minors held within the Israeli military detension system is ‘widespread, systematic and institutionalised,’” according to UNICEF.
❖ “One million Syrian refugees. Intensifying violence and a huge gap in aid funding [impede helping] Syrian children.”
❖ “[Possibly 20] UN peacekeepers captured by Syrian rebels in Golan Heights.”
❖ “UK to send armoured vehicles to Syrian opposition . . . ‘to help save lives’”.
❖ “Tensions boil over in Egyptian port city: On Wednesday, Military police were deployed to Port Said, where demonstrators have been camped out for weeks”.
❖ “An Egyptian administrative court on Wednesday ordered the suspension of parliamentary elections scheduled to begin next month” due to “complaints questioning the legality of the law organizing the elections.”
❖ “U.N. partially lifts arms embargo on Somalia for a year”, so they can purchase “light weapons to . . . fight al Qaeda-linked Islamists.”
❖ The story that won’t go away: “[Israeli-Australia national] Prisoner X was working for Israeli government, Australia confirms; Evidence suggests Ben Zygier, who died in Israeli prison [in mysterious circumstances], worked for the Mossad”.
International Finance
❖ Retiring from the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King has called for the Royal Bank of Scotland “to be broken up.”
❖ Microsoft has been fined $733 million by the European Union “for breaking a pledge to offer personal computer users a choice of Internet browsers”.
Money Matters USA
❖ It was just too difficult to build up any enthusiasm for yesterday’s news item about the Dow going over 14,000. Robert Reich couldn’t either, and explains why.
❖ Eric Holder, in under-oath testimony: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions [banks] becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them”. If you can’t stand the heat . . .
❖ Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. admitted it “likely” violated the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. While the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating, there are protests in Spain against his building a huge casino near Madrid.
❖ Nice kick to the teeth of the working person: “Politicians backed by conservative group [ALEC] have introduced 67 laws in 25 states aimed at reducing minimum wage levels.”
❖ “FAA says 173 air traffic control towers will close on April 7.”
❖ No objection by the Dept of Justice, so the T-Mobile and MetroPCS merger is on. Unions did object over fear of loss of jobs.
Politics USA
❖ Finally, an excuse: “winter storm brings Washington to a halt.”
❖ This should be interesting: “Holder says Obama plans to explain drone policy”.
❖ The Cave, developing: “House Dems back down from strongly opposing GOP spending bill.” Republican leaders are praising Obama for “reaching out directly to rank-and-file GOP lawmakers in an early effort to build momentum for a grand bargain”. Obama’s even going to break bread with them at the White House.
❖ Piling on to block the nomination of James Brennan to head the CIA: Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Marco Rubio (D-FL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Pat Toomey (R-PA).
❖ Want to unlock your cellphone? You may soon be able to since that seems to be one bandwagon most DC denizens like. The bill.
❖ 8 former heads of the Drug Enforcement Agency to President Obama “crack down on . . . marijuana [legalization] in Oregon and Washington.” Rep Steve Cohen (D-TN) : “The federal government should concentrate on shutting down meth labs–not the laboratories of Democracy.” More.
❖ MD’s state senate has voted to repeal the death penalty. There are sufficient votes in the state house to pass it, apparently.
❖ Republicans are continuing to block the appointment of Caitlin Halligan for the US Court of Appeals, District of Columbia.
Women & Children
❖ To no one’s surprise, and to their shame, the AR state senate has overridden Gov. Mike Beebe (D)’s veto of a bill banning abortion “at 12 weeks of pregnancy”. Now they’re fighting over whether the law goes into effect immediately.
Heads Up!
❖ According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of “anti-government ‘patriot’ groups, including paramilitary hate organizations, reached an all-time high in 2012.” Report is here.
❖ The ACLU is undertaking “a nationwide campaign to assess police militarization in the United States.” They’re sending “open records requests to hundreds of state and local police agencies”, concentrating on SWAT teams and drones, GPS devices, military equipment, etc.
❖ Was the “SCOTUS-Backed Surveillance Law Built on a Bush-Era Lie”?
Planet Earth News
❖ Wonderful video: “Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA”. Bravo!
❖ “Deutsche Bank just released new analyses concluding that global solar market will become sustainable on its own terms by the end of 2014, no longer needing subsidies to continue performing.”
❖ “Conoco Phillips CEO Ryan Lance gave a positive review to Ernest Moniz [the MIT physicist] that President Obama is nominating to run the Energy Department.”
Latin America
❖ Rep Jose Serrano (D-NY): “Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless. R.I.P. Mr. President.”
❖ “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle: The Venezuelan leader was often marginalized as a radical. But his brand of socialism achieved real economic gains.”
❖ Profile of Nicolas Madura, the “preferred successor” of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Mixed Bag
❖ Giant camels in the Arctic.
❖ Yawns.
❖ Pan-STARRS, revealed.
Break Time
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About FDL News Desk
Aloha, fatster…! Another excellent Roundup…! *g*
I just posted a new diary… AIPAC, Barak, Hagel, Kerry, and Mattis… Another grim read…! 8-(
Smart politics: the House’s spending bill Tells Postal Service to Keep Six-Day Delivery
But they only kicked the can further down the road…! 8-(
Good evening, fatster (and CTut and allan), I’m very glad to see your contribution tonight, since I’ve essentially spent the day twiddling my thumbs. Because:
“winter storm brings Washington to a halt.”
What a joke. When I awoke in said location this morning there was zilch on the ground. Some started falling around 8:30 AM, but it only lasted about an hour, with the result that grassy areas had some covering, sidewalks nothing for more than a few minutes before melting. For this they shut down the entire city, leaving me nowhere (such as a library) to go.
This is not the first time the fiasco has happened, of course. They always say that they err on the side of caution, but I suspect the real reason is that they don’t have to pay part-time workers for the day.
“Piling on to block the nomination … ”
What an irony that it takes a TP type like Rand Paul (for it has mostly been his show) to hold up the appointment of the latest Godfather for awhile, citing citizens’ rights under the Constitution.
“UN peacekeepers captured by Syrian rebels”
Another irony. This is the side of the civil war that the UN has favored.
And to follow up on Mali from yesterday:
So it goes.
Addendum
Rand Paul is still going (8:30 or so Eastern); see JSWright’s new post, with a link to C-Span.
Regarding the FAA closing 173 contracted towers. . .
The idea of contracting these facilities got a big boost beginning in 1981 under Reagan during PATCO’s demise. There were some heavy hitters in the mix, I recall Barton Aviation (the name must have changed since then) as being the biggest but there were others. I am surprised there are so many contract towers nowadays. It would be interesting to see how their numbers increased over the years when GOP hands were on the tiller.
The biggest impact closing these towers would be in efficiency. Weather conditions would be more strict, the acceptance rate (inbound and out bound traffic) would be reduced. I understand some air carriers do not allow their pilots to land at an airport without an operating tower.
Logically it would be contract towers which take a hit since they control less traffic than airports with FAA staffed towers. It will be interesting to watch the maneuvering over which ones remain on the closure list, and which are removed.
Aloha, CTuttle. Yes, it’s a “grim read” but we have to deal with what they’re doing and try to be as informed as possible. So, Mahalo for all your good efforts to keep us informed.
I love it. A “spending measure” which has no $ relief for the PO, but orders it to deliver the mail on Saturdays through ffy 2013.
I swear they’re “kicking the can” toward the “Privatization” goal line.
Thanks so mich, allan.
Thnx, E. F. Beall. I wonder how long it’ll be before they decide on who was/wasn’t killed in Mali. I’m still waiting for something definitive on that Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander who, for starters, had two distinct names, may have been killed in one of two countries, on who-knows-what-date and on and on.
Was there even enough snow for a single snow-ball?
:)
That contract history is very interesting, maa8722. Do you think there could be a relationship with this story (from a Roundup of a couple of days ago):
❖ Air traffic controller errors are indeed increasing, sharply.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/inspector-general-report-confirms-rise-in-air-traffic-control-errors/2013/03/04/bfb5862a-84da-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html
Many thnx!
Re: #10
That WaPo link is disturbing for sure. They don’t attempt to analyze the causes of increased ATC errors. Some increase in reporting may be plausible, pumping the stats upward a bit, yet there have been some hair raising incidents in recent years nonetheless.
I retired from the Air Force in 1990 and went on to banking for 19 years, so a lot has changed in aviation since I was flying. Some things don’t change, though. I think there is an over reliance on technology nowadays in the sense that it leads to complacency. I saw that trend just beginning from the cockpit some 30 years ago. A more recent outcome from that was the disastrous Air France crash into the Atlantic in 2009.
I did a four year stint at the FAA ’84 – ’88 while in USAF, and recall a lot of concern at FAA about the new, unseasoned contract towers which had recently come online. Ironically there were some fired, ex-PATCO controllers hired by Barton (the contractor), and I bet they were the best of all the controllers, the rest being inexperienced. There were also some ex-military controllers who went to Barton.
I worked at an FAA Regional office, though, for those four years and didn’t get into the ops end of things a lot. Still, I was aware that controllers were slowly becoming more like monitors than “airplane separators.” The increasing traffic and reliance on improving technology must have continued to make it more boring and mind numbing a job to this day.
Thanks for that overview, maa8722. It’s certainly distressing, the steep increase in errors. Let’s hope some good studies are done–and quickly.
Umm, I can think of one way to fix this problem.
need someone like….
“Theodore Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp.
He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved 40 monopolistic corporations as a “trust buster.” He took care, however, to show that he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle, but was only against their corrupt, illegal practices.
His “Square Deal” included regulation of railroad rates and pure foods and drugs; he saw it as a fair deal for both the average citizen and the businessmen. He avoided labor strife and negotiated a settlement to the great Coal Strike of 1902.
His great love was nature and he vigorously promoted the Conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. He dramatically expanded the system of national parks and national forests. After 1906, he moved left, attacking big business and suggesting the courts were biased against labor unions. ”
a Republican.
(wikipedia)
❖ “Deutsche Bank just released new analyses concluding that global solar market will become sustainable on its own terms by the end of 2014
Oil companies are run by incompetent people.
This is inevitable. They should be getting in while they can, instead of deviously blocking it at every turn.
Oil industry 1850 to 2050 RIP.
more good news, for someone
“Japan poised to join the Trans Pacific Partnership
Updated 6 March 2013, 21:43 AEST”
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/asia-pacific/japan-poised-to-join-the-trans-pacific-partnership/1097924
audio, from radio australia
thanks Fatster. when’s your holiday?
Good morning, fatster and all.
An update on the storm that wasn’t:
Today’s WaPo article on the fiasco yesterday says that what some people were calling the “snowquester” (only in Washington is such jargon raised to a principle) was hyped so much in advance that the “pressure” on decision makers forced them to shut down the government, the schools, etc., “for what turned out in much of the area to be light rain and a bit of a breeze.” To be sure, it cites some of these officials claiming that their decision was based solely on data provided by “the scientists” (weather forecasters). No one mentions the money they saved by not paying hourly workers.
On another subject, coming to the library this morning I saw this ad by AVAAZ.org against AIPAC posted prominently at the heavily-trafficked Union Station DC Metro stop. It is not easy to get anything radical advertised on Metro (trust me), so this is evidence of a shift in attitude in this town.
Saturdays, mafr. Such a luxury.
I do hope that 2050 date for the End of Oil ends up being too far out there, that the end will occur much quicker.
And . . . Good Morning!
Thnx so much for the update and the link to that ad, E. F. Beall. It’s certainly encouraging.