The frightening Taliban invasion of the Afghan capital Kabul, courtesy of Al Jazeera's Todd Baer. Compare the CNN and Al Jazeera stories.
Bailout? If by accident of birth, you were in Kabul yesterday, you'd be dying to bail out. You would have been running for your life while crazed Taliban stormed major government buildings and blew themselves up. A score of non-Taliban people were killed and fourscore wounded yesterday in Afghanistan's capital in the ominous assault.
Not to worry: Hell is on the way. U.S. troops, led by New York's 10th Mountain Division, are returning to Central Asia after being unjustifiably diverted from Uzbekistan (where they named their camp's muddy streets after the L.I.E., Fifth Avenue, and so on) to Iraq a few years ago to be blown up by Iraqi rebels. Bad news, everybody: There's a spring offensive coming against the Taliban, and it won't be like the relatively bloodless capture of Baghdad. It'll be like what happened afterGeorge W. Bush declared, "Mission accomplished!"
So, prepare yourselves for depressing news this spring of a non-financial variety: The expected sudden rise of U.S. deaths in Afghanistan will shove at least some of the Wall Street-inspired news off the front pages.
After all, if by the grace of Darwin or God you happen to live in the U.S., you may very well lose your home or job, but you probably won't be blown up. Unless you've been brainwashed by the government's ad campaigns and have joined the military. In which case, you, too, might find yourself in beautiful downtown Kabul trying to stamp out the Muslim fanatics.
It was only 25 years ago that Ronald Reagan hosted the Taliban in the White House, praised them as heroic "freedom fighters," and drummed up money for them. And Texas oilmen feted the creepily fundamentalist Taliban leaders with backyard barbecues.
Now the Taliban are returning the favor by trying to barbecue Americans. They no longer need a stimulus from the White House.
You need one, so have another cup of coffee and click on these headlines...
The Taliban conduct a night ambush against U.S. troops on January 24. A commenter on this YouTube video wrote: "holy cow, tracer rounds are so cool!" Yeah, really cool.
What a Sunday in sports and terror: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer fought to the death in a Grand Slam final, and so did the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals. Best Super Bowl I've ever seen. Best display of tennis skills I've ever seen.
Now that those matches are over, let the real games begin.
Sorry, Cardinal fans, but the worst news Sunday was the latest fight to the death in Afghanistan — yet another suicide bombing by the Taliban:
A man wrapped in explosives walked into a compound filled with Afghan police officers Monday morning and detonated his payload, killing 21 officers and himself, the Interior Ministry said.
The attacker struck in Tirin Kot, the capital of Oruzgan Province, a mountainous area where the government's authority is being contested by the Taliban. Oruzgan is the birthplace of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the founder of the Taliban movement.
This is ominous news, and not because of the location. Here's some context missing from the New York Times story quoted above. The BBC (yes, it uses a different spelling for the Taliban) explains:
The Taleban have changed tactics since facing foreign troops in open battles two years ago, says the BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul.
The tactics of insurgents in Iraq are being duplicated, with more suicide bombings, roadside bombs and hit-and-run ambushes, our correspondent says.
Just another reason to rue the Bush regime's unjustified invasion of Iraq. Taliban fanatics were able to hone their killing skills by adopting a strategy perfected by other fanatics in Iraq. Once again, we're reminded of George W. Bush's most enduring legacy, his accidentally truth-telling words from 2004:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
One could argue that the scary increase in suicide bombings in Afghanistan probably wouldn't be happening if not for the Bush-Cheney regime's vital contribution of spreading the "war on terror" to Iraq and thus giving fanatics the chance to think of new ways to commit suicide/homicide.
Question: what happens if you lose vast amounts of other people's money? Answer: you get a big gift from the federal government -- but the president says some very harsh things about you before forking over the cash.
Am I being unfair? I hope so. But right now that's what seems to be happening.
Just to be clear, I'm not talking about the Obama administration's plan to support jobs and output with a large, temporary rise in federal spending, which is very much the right thing to do. I'm talking, instead, about the administration's plans for a banking system rescue -- plans that are shaping up as a classic exercise in "lemon socialism": taxpayers bear the cost if things go wrong, but stockholders and executives get the benefits if things go right.
When I read recent remarks on financial policy by top Obama administration officials, I feel as if I've entered a time warp -- as if it's still 2005, Alan Greenspan is still the Maestro, and bankers are still heroes of capitalism.
The White House is expected to impose tougher restrictions on executive compensation at firms that get substantial government aid, as part of an effort to improve public perception of the $700 billion financial bailout.
President Obama watched last night's Super Bowl with a few political pals - and a couple of foes.
Obama, a Steeler fan, had 11 Democrats and four Republicans over -- including Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, who once warned electing Obama would spark "dancing in the streets among the terrorists of the world."
Here's a bottom line to keep you up at night: The economy is falling faster than Washington can get moving. President Obama says his stimulus plan will save or create four million jobs in two years. In the last four months of 2008 alone, employment fell by 1.9 million. Do the math....
What are Americans still buying? Big Macs, Campbell's soup, Hershey's chocolate and Spam -- the four food groups of the apocalypse.
As the Obama administration prepares its strategy to rescue the nation's banks by buying or guaranteeing troubled assets on their books, it confronts one central problem: How should they be valued?
Not just billions, but hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake.
Just when it started to look as if The New York Times Co. had found a way to dig itself out from under its massive debt load, the beleaguered newspaper company may be on the verge of getting knocked down again.
The cash-strapped publisher last week reported that its pension plan was facing a $625 million shortfall at the end of 2008, compared with a deficit of $48 million a year earlier....
More than $1 billion in debt is looming over the ad-starved company, which was forced to get a $250 million loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at a steep 14 percent interest rate, to put its stake in the Boston Red Sox up for sale and to negotiate the sale of part of its brand-new Eighth Avenue headquarters.
Now, the company is getting socked again by the financial crisis and subsequent market turmoil as it wreaks havoc on its pension plan. To be sure, the Times doesn't owe billions in retirement benefits like the Big Three automakers, but it's one of hundreds of US companies suffering from a severe pension squeeze.
Last week was a painful one for magazines, as Condé Nast decided to shutter Domino and Readers Digest's parent laid off a chunk of its staff. While advertising pages are down across the board, there are a number of mags that are fighting for their survival.
A group of angry Bank of America shareholders plans to demand that Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ken Lewis get the boot at the bank's upcoming annual meeting.
The Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps quickly acknowledged his poor judgment after a photograph showing him inhaling from a marijuana pipe was published Sunday in a British newspaper. Although his admission is unlikely to effect his swimming eligibility, it could affect the millions of dollars he has secured in endorsement deals....
Since his record-breaking performance in Beijing, Phelps has added Kellogg's, Mazda and Subway, among others, to an endorsement portfolio that already included Visa and AT&T. In a 60 Minutes interview that aired in December, Phelps's agent...said that Phelps could earn more than $100 million over his lifetime.
On his weekly radio show this just-past Motzoei Shabbos, Assemblyman Dov Hikind revealed that according to his information, [confirmed by VIN News] another victim has come forward with allegations that he was abused by the disgraced former principal of Elite High School of Brooklyn.
On the show, Mr. Hikind also discussed the accused principal's admission of guilt.
Most significantly, Hikind announced a major yom tefilah to be held on March 1, 2009 in front of the Borough Park "Y" on 48th Street to demonstrate a communal request for forgiveness from Hashem for not doing enough to protect our children from, and inform our community of, heinous crimes that have been occurring over the past decades in which we turned a blind eye to abuse victims.
Mr. Hikind said that he would continue his crusade, and said "those who are upset with what I do, I ask them: 'Take over what I do.' I even offered one of the biggest Chasidic institutions many months ago, when they were upset at my work, to take over--and I never heard back from them."
From the conservative, Jewish-establishment magazine Commentary:
...Perhaps this will set off a war of scarcity between Jewish groups fighting over the money of those who are still giving, but the initial indications are that cooperation may prevail over chaos.
Representatives of thirty-five of the largest Jewish foundations in the country met in New York on December 23, 2008, to coordinate their responses to the crisis and agreed to offer millions of dollars in loans to not-for-profits victimized by Madoff--a heartening display of a community banding together in a time of crisis.
But the real problem facing specifically Jewish charitable organizations is not a scarcity of dollars to be spread among rival Jewish causes, but rather competition from secular groups that have also been injured by the economic crisis.
An assimilated Jewish donor who feels the charitable impulse but has fewer dollars to contribute might feel a greater sense of affinity and cause with an environmentalist group or an arts organization, and focus his reduced power on them instead. Just as the openness of American society has made it less likely for Jews to marry other Jews, so, too, it is less likely that Jews will give primarily to Jewish causes....
The long-term threat for Jewish philanthropy, then, isn't Bernard Madoff but rather the overall threat facing the larger Jewish community in the United States--what came to be known, nearly two decades ago, as the "continuity crisis."
When the 1990 National Jewish Population Study reported alarming rates of intermarriage, numbers that offered the terrifying prospect of the eventual withering away of the Jewish population in the United States, a debate began in the organized Jewish world about how to address the approaching demographic disaster.
Peter Madoff's role in the scam, if any, remains unclear. But timing of the homestead exemption requests raises questions as to who knew what and when....
CBS News has learned that [Bernard] Madoff and his brother, along with their wives, took steps two years ago -- around the time that federal regulators started probing Madoff's business activities -- that could help prevent their Florida homes from being taken away from them, something possible under Florida state law.
"Florida has very unique laws and has been described by some as a debtor's haven," said John Pankauski, a Florida estate attorney. "People who may want to protect their property will seek the protection of Florida laws."
Florida's "homestead" laws, which are unlike what any other state has, in part allow homeowners facing legal judgments (or other financial issues) to protect their primary residence fully -- keeping it out of the hands of potential creditors. One of the key steps in qualifying for the home-protection is seeking "homestead exemption," which provides homeowners with a tax break.
On May 10, 2001, Peter Madoff bought the home at 200 Algoma Road in Palm Beach, Fla., along with his wife Marion. Both were listed as owners at the time.
Five years later, on Nov. 8, 2006, Peter transferred the title to Marion making her the sole legal owner of the home....
A bumbling New York Post reporter was busted Saturday after he tried to sweet-talk his way into Bernie Madoff's upper East Side penthouse, police said.
Josh Saul, 25, claimed to be a real-estate broker when he entered the Ponzi scheme swindler's building at 133 E. 64th St. around 1 p.m., police said. "He misrepresented himself," a police source said.
Saul was escorted upstairs by a doorman and was near the front door of the $50 billion scam artist's $7 million duplex when he was unmasked, cops said.
The hapless hack's weekend at Bernie's did not end with the exclusive interview he was angling for. Instead, he was arrested, charged with trespassing and issued a summons.
Saul, 25, of Greenwich Village, has been working at the Post for about a year. He is also the dubious star of a Web site that includes photos of him dancing in his underwear, chugging beer from a keg, wearing a woman's wig and balancing objects on his head.
Reached Saturday night, he referred all questions to his newspaper.
Post spokesman Howard Rubinstein declined to comment.
The fact-challenged tabloid quoted an anonymous source on Friday as saying that brokers have been invited by the trustee of Madoff's firm to assess the disgraced investor's apartment.
Hard times force hard choices on everyone. But that does not require bad decisions too. At Brandeis University, President Jehuda Reinharz has made hard times worse by deciding to close the university's Rose Art Museum and sell off more than 6,000 works in its collection....
The Madoff scandal and its effects on some of Brandeis's major donors have made new fund-raising possibilities especially bleak.
Selling the university's art collection would help plug its financial gap, but it would create a gaping hole in Brandeis's mission and its reputation. It would default on one of the great collections of contemporary art in New England, one built early on with extraordinary artistic acumen. The core works were acquired by the museum's founding director from such young artists (at young artist prices) as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
In "Taliban resurgence pushes troops to change tack,"Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing joins U.S. troops on the frontline in Afghanistan. Watch this and then ask yourself: Why isn't this as freely available on your cable as CNN or Fox News? And yes, you've heard Rushing's name; he's the former Marine flack during the Iraq invasion who was featured in the documentary Control Room and then defied the Pentagon by talking about his experiences with Al Jazeera. Now he works for Al Jazeera.
Unlike Wall Street's short-sellers, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but capitalism is not dead, despite the moaning and groaning from Davos to D.C.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will come to "a virtual halt." No, not yet and not for everybody. For evidence, see "What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses" in the Times:
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.
That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
On the other hand, you can say that capitalism is in trouble, judging by the surprisingly cynical, lively tone of Ben White's above story.
Yes, the fact that the bonuses sharply fell indicates trouble on Wall Street. But the main thing it indicates is that the bonuses in past years have been staggeringly unconscionable and are now falling back to being merely unconscionable.
In any case, Barack Obama, the nation's first Kenyan-Kansan president, has already used his bully pulpit to preach social responsibility and rail against greed. Looks as if he might have to summon these Wall Street gangsters to the basketball court and posterize them. You know, add them to his In-Your-Facebook.
And you can just ignore the caterwauling by Capitol Hill's Republicans about Obama's stimulus plan. Even the Wall Street Journalreports that corporate types look favorably on Obama's package.
For those of us accident victims bleeding after being run over on Wall Street or gasping for breath at the foot of Capitol Hill, that stimulus package can't come too soon. The depression is finally hitting home: I almost dropped my laptop when I heard that profits earned by my Sony baby daddy dropped by 95 percent. Poor little laptop overheats as it is.
If yours still works (and if you're reading this, it is), click on these items...
Astroland Park's popular Rocket won't be blasting out of Coney Island after all. City officials confirmed yesterday that the park's longtime operator, the Albert family, has donated...
Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval for an $819 billion economic plan as Democrats sought to temper their own differences.
It takes a special kind of thief to get Morgy this mad. Manhattan's gentlemanly district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, yesterday needed a pair of profanities to describe a big-shot...
The seven defendants in the deadly assault on Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, are accused of assaulting or attempting to assault a total of eight other Latino men.
The wealthy Upper West Side woman charged with bilking $80 million from Fortune 500 firms is complaining that she can't live without her Rolex, Warhol and MontBlancs...
George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai's ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.
The impact of the $819 billion economic stimulus package will be felt within weeks once the final version becomes law, but estimating its effectiveness is far more complex.
...the bank suddenly began pulling its millions out of [funds that invested with Madoff] in early autumn, months before Mr. Madoff was arrested, according to accounts from Europe and New York that were subsequently confirmed by the bank. The bank did not notify investors of its move, and several of them are furious that it protected itself but left them holding notes that the bank itself now says are probably worthless.
Bernie Madoff is whining to anyone who'll listen that he's being held captive in his palatial penthouse and unable to traipse around the Big Apple as he did before being busted for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, a source familiar with the scam artist told the Post.
"I'm a prisoner in my own house!" Madoff fumed. "I can't go anywhere! I'm stuck here all day!"...
In recent days, The Post has learned, private contractors have been moving at the request of federal authorities to install wiretaps on Madoff's apartment phones and computers.
"If he surfs the Web or makes a call, it's going to be tracked," a source said.
Almost all newspapers have existed primarily to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that because journalists can function very well when their companies are profitable, even if the profits aren't shared equitably, which they never are.
Now, though, newspapers don't make nearly the profits that they once made. You really can get through your day without reading one. So the panicky dead-tree companies no longer consider you readers. You're "customers."
The award for the worst newspaper deal in recent memory goes to real-estate mogul Sam Zell's doomed and debt-laden purchase of the Tribune Co. less than two years ago.
Note the passive voice. Note the dullness, the stupor. This should inspire confidence in its "customers."
Hunter's publicists still inserted some journalism into the embarrassing item: the hackneyed phrase "perfect storm," which is the 21st century version of "mistakes were made":
We have experienced the perfect storm — a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy has coupled with a credit crisis, making it extremely difficult to support our debt.
This is something that happened to the Tribune Co.? Even that aside, the story has the stink of death. And you could consider it suicide. As the Wall Street Journal's consistently sharp Heidi N. Moorepointed out yesterday afternoon:
No one thought the buyout of Tribune Co. would work — and it didn't.
The fact that Tribune Co. has hired Lazard as its adviser for a potential Chapter 11 filing ranks among the least surprising potential bankruptcies ever.
This was a storm that Zell created for himself by taking on mountainous debt to purchase the long-ailing and mismanaged multimedia company.
At first blush, it looks as if Newsday lucked out. Only a short time ago, the Tribune unloaded Newsday to Charlie Dolan's Cablevision monopoly, which outbid Rupert Murdoch.
You know the economy and the newspaper industry are in the toilet when it's a good thing that Charlie Dolan is your owner.
The recession is accelerating a disturbing trend in which more kids have early diabetes, hypertension and other health problems previously confined to adults. The number of children under 6 who sometimes are forced to go hungry has doubled in recent years to 8 percent of all youngsters.
In a note sent to the presiding judge, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants declared that they wished to confess to planning the 2001 assault on New York and Washington. ...
"We don't want to waste time," he told the judge.
According to the note, the five men do not trust their lawyers — appointed by the US military — and want to withdraw any pending motions filed on their behalf.
But with US President-elect Barack Obama opposed to the military trials — known as commissions — the case is unlikely to survive the new year.
Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone estrogen.
The males of species including fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles have been feminised by exposure to sex hormone disrupting chemicals and have been found to be abnormally making egg yolk protein, normally made by females, according to the report by Chem Trust, environmental group.
Convinced 32 unmarked graves at the Florida School for Boys are the bodies of boys abused and killed decades ago, four former residents of the school are demanding the governor and state and federal attorneys investigate. The men learned of the graves six weeks ago when they were invited to dedicate a plaque at the school.
Canada's housing sector is entering what RBC Economics calls a "cyclical downtown," but says the risk of a U.S.-style meltdown is remote.
RBC senior economist Robert Hogue says many factors that triggered the U.S. housing collapse are either absent or of much lower significance in Canada.
He says the housing market is expected to hold up even as a sluggish economy threatens income growth and erodes consumer confidence.
Mr. Hogue says the sub-prime business remains marginal, banks are stable and households are generally not overstretched financially.
Congress and the White House inched toward a financial rescue of the Big Three auto makers, negotiating legislation that would give the U.S. government a substantial ownership stake in the industry.
The full-court press by Detroit Three auto lobbyists for taxpayer money has fostered strong feelings across our country. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell staked out his province's position that massive job losses in the forestry sector merit government help just as much as Ontario's auto sector. Fearing for their own jobs, Canadians employed in the services, retail, construction and other sectors ask why workers who earn much more than they do should be subsidized - and why mismanaging bosses should be bailed out. ...
Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G8 country and is the only member going into the global meltdown without a structural deficit. Despite the gloom and doom espoused by panicky politicians, our economy is performing relatively well, so we haven't been forced into the desperate ad-hoc measures seen in the United States. While our country does have the financial capacity for well-placed temporary fiscal stimulus, spending taxpayer money in the wrong places will weaken rather than strengthen the economic future of Canadians.
As unlikely as it sounds, the Big Three Detroit auto makers might look to Romania for inspiration on how to reinvent themselves.
Romania is a struggling Eastern European country that gets little attention in the rest of Europe, or anywhere else. The country's industrial base is in rough shape, though slowly improving as it creeps into the European Union fold. But it has one industry that stands out as an international success story - car making.
Romania's Automobile Dacia is one of the few high-growth car businesses in the otherwise ailing global auto industry. The brand's French owner, Renault, couldn't be happier. The Dacia is a genuine low-cost car that rolls out of the factory near Bucharest with a fat profit margin.
The machine sells well throughout Europe, and elsewhere, because it is not a jalopy pieced together with 40-year-old parts from Warsaw Pact trucks. The Dacia's engineering and drivability, if not visual appeal, come close to the standards of the latest Renault cars.
You can only pray that Tuesday's election won't be bollixed too severely by ridiculous voter-ID rules and other GOP-driven schemes designed to thwart democracy.
That is voter fraud, not the "voter fraud" that Republican operatives are braying about.
Medical science has learned a great deal about the causes of pain and ways to relieve it, pain experts say, but for a host of reasons, the treatment of pain and suffering has improved hardly at all in recent years.
John Seffrin, the president of the American Cancer Society, calls this "a national health-care crisis of under-treated pain."
Expectations of a record voter turnout Tuesday are being tempered by concerns about the accuracy of new registrations and whether local election officials are doing all they can to encourage voting.
The "accuracy of new registrations"? Some reporters mistakenly assume that the GOP-driven "fraud" propaganda points to a huge problem, but the second part — whether local election officials are doing all they can to encourage voting — is the real concern.
Meanwhile, some people even fear an assassination attempt on Barack Obama (cf. Martin Luther King Jr.). Paul G. Buchanan's essay — "Campaign Rhetoric As An Invitation To Violence" — via the New Zealand news site Scoop may be bloviated claptrap, but it's interesting bloviated claptrap:
" . . . The subject is ugly, unthinkable in polite society, and impolitic to mention. That is the possibility of political assassination, specifically that of Barack Obama. Let us discuss it here. . . .
"In their negative campaigning, in the tone of their vitriol, in the repetition of false accusations and smears that lead their followers to believe that Obama is un-American, treasonous (for which the penalty under US federal statutes includes death, particularly in wartime), that he is a closet Arab, disguised Muslim, foreign born, etc., what the Republican campaign managers and their media surrogates are doing is something much more dangerous than trying to win an election.
"Elementary discursive analysis reveals the not-to-subtle cues to direct action embedded in the Republican campaign rhetoric. Put bluntly: by demonising Barack Obama, it is a subliminal invitation to murder. . . ."
Speaking of the devils, the Presidential Prayer Team — given God's well-known sense of humor, He/She definitely does not listen to entreaties from this donation-hungry crew — reminds us:
As we count down to the presidential election on 11/4, pray for God’s will to be done in our nation through the votes of citizens — that each one will consider the profound privilege and blessing of their vote and will cast it in a way that honors God.
Don't get off your knees yet:
As dedicated intercessors gather at courthouses and public areas across the country for solemn assemblies and prayer gatherings on Sunday and Monday, Election Eve, pray for them as they meet, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct. Pray for safety for every gathering, for the powerful presence of God to graciously visit each one, and for many to be strengthened in their efforts. Are you aware of an election-oriented prayer gathering?
If not, you can do this from home:
Pray for First Lady Laura Bush as she celebrates her 62nd birthday with the President this weekend at Camp David; this year, her birthday falls on Election Day, 11/4. Pray for God’s richest blessings on her as she prepares for the next chapter of her life, giving thanks for the profound impact she has had for the past eight years, serving the nation and the world with strength, grace and dignity.
Yes, best wishes, Laura. Now get outta here. Seriously. Leave.
N.Y. Post: 'FDNY WIFE "TOO BLITZED" '
"A Staten Island mom accused of killing her fire-marshal husband was so drunk after the shooting that statements she made to a EMS captain should be thrown out, her lawyer told a judge yesterday."
Hurriyet (Turkey): 'U.S. embassy in Syria shut over demo threat'
"The U.S. embassy in Damascus said it will be closed on Thursday due to the threat of demonstrations over a deadly American helicopter raid on a village near the Iraqi border."
"Hedge funds, and the thorny question of where they decide to do business over the coming months, could mark a turning point in the delicate balance of power between the two market capitals.
"Despite widespread fears that hundreds of funds are poised to collapse, any shake-out in the industry will still leave hundreds of healthy firms with billions to invest."
BBC: 'Blind S Korea masseurs win case'
"A South Korean law which states that only the visually impaired can be licensed masseurs has been upheld in the country's Constitutional Court."
It turns out that Hurricane Katrina — at least the Bush regime's late reaction to it — wasn't a once-in-a-century event.
After the administration let the economy and various wars veer out of control, the administration is wading into Wall Street to rescue bankers and thinking about rescuing homeowners. Now it's even considering negotiating to rescue our troops from Afghanistan.
The U.S. is actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban, the armed Islamist group that once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al Qaeda, in a major policy shift that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.
But until late summer 2001, the Bush regime was muddling along in a generally uncontroversial way when the unthinkable (not to the regime) happened on 9/11. That tragedy unleashed the Bush regime on the world. So far, his administration has wrecked Iraq, made a bad situation in Afghanistan worse, and presided over a historic Wall Street crash that threatens the entire world economy.
That's three exhibits right there for the new George W. Bush Presidential Libary being erected in Dallas. It would be nice if the libary put those three exhibits in the same hall, next to the Pet Goat Reading Room, which would display the August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing with the same kind of reverence that real libraries afford the U.S. Constitution.
Bush's job as president is almost finished; there are no more worlds to conquer us. Unless, as Mike Bloomberg has done in New York City, Bush's handlers try to undemocratically erase term limits so he can serve a third term.
Is there a groundswell for abolishing presidential term limits? While you're being pinned to the ground by current events, listen for one. . . .
Wall Street Journal: 'Post-Enron Crackdown Comes Up Woefully Short'
". . . Today's financial crisis has shown what a real debacle looks like. And it has made clear that executives' duties to public companies have, if anything, been loosened, not reinforced. What is worse, the post-Enron crackdown appears not only to have failed to stop flagrant corporate risk-taking, but to have lulled Washington to sleep."
Slate: 'Countdown to the Obama Rapture: Watch as the press corps battles its performance anxiety!' (Jack Shafer)
". . . if Obama wins, these scribes know that they'll be facing the toughest assignment of their careers. They've all oversubscribed to the notion that Obama's candidacy is momentous, without parallel, and earth-shattering, so they can't file garden-variety pieces about the 'winds of change' blowing through Washington."
Dawn (Pakistan): 'Barbaric killing of teenager unfolds'
". . . was first thrown before hungry dogs and when she was mauled by them and in the jaws of death, she was riddled with bullets."
Guardian (U.K.): 'BP smashes forecasts as profits soar 148 percent'
"Oil giant BP has reaped the benefits of this summer's record oil prices, smashing all forecasts with a 148 percent rise in third-quarter profits. The figures are likely to spark fresh protests from motorists and businesses that have been hit hard by higher petrol prices."
It's not just newspapers that are dying; it's newspaper reporters — and not the old, crusty variety. Here's just another reason not to go to J-school: A student journalist in Afghanistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy. And this is under the "good guys" — the Karzai regime, which we're supporting to the tune of billions of dollars.
But the good news is that the sentence of Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh (left) has now been reduced to only 20 years in prison.
What did this 24-year-old student do? The Guardian (U.K.) explains:
[Kambakhsh] was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for local newspapers when he was arrested in October 2007.
Prosecutors alleged that Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. They said he illegally distributed an article that suggested the Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women.
In January this year, a lower court in Mazar-i-Sharif sentenced Kambakhsh to death after a trial that took place without a lawyer to represent him. . . .
After Kambaksh was sentenced to death in January, Muslim clerics welcomed the decision and there were public demonstrations against him.
In the West, the decision was seen as showing Afghanistan's slide towards an ultra-conservative view on religious and individual freedoms.
Again the reminder: This is taking place not under the Taliban but under the Taliban's foes, the puppet regime we're propping up.
This is what U.S. troops over there are fighting and dying to preserve and protect: the right of a repressive government to execute people for asking questions about women's rights.
Couldn't Karzai's increasingly conservative regime at least hold off on the executions or imprisonment of "blasphemous" people until we finally leave Afghanistan?
Under the media radar, an amazing but true development: "Preventive war" will now be prevented.
Six years too late, the neocons' grip on U.S. foreign policy has finally been broken — by the Pentagon itself.
A new U.S. Army field manual has officially put the kibosh on the Bush-Cheney regime's self-proclaimed "preventive war" doctrine that it used to justify the Iraq invasion.
As a major new guide for U.S. military officials, FM 3-07: "Stability Operations specifically changes policy by calling for embracing "joint effort" with the rest of the world.
FM 3-07 repudiates the Bush Doctrine of unilateral war-making.
This drastic change in policy — because that's what this new document represents — has been practically ignored by the press. Even if there were no Wall Street war, its import would probably have been ignored.
Remember all that White House/Pentagon prattle about "regime change"? Here's what the new manual says:
Repeating an Afghanistan or an Iraq —forced regime change followed by nation-building
under fire — probably is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Of course, this new, gentler Pentagon doesn't go so far as to announce the manual as a repudiation of the Bush Doctrine. But that's exactly what it is. (See the manual (PDF) and the Pentagon's press release.)
Here's a key passage in FM 3-07:
America’s future abroad is unlikely to resemble Afghanistan or Iraq, where we grapple with the burden of nation-building under fire. Instead, we will work through and with the community of nations to defeat insurgency, assist fragile states, and provide vital humanitarian aid to the suffering.
So, now we're going to "work through and with the community of nations"? That doesn't sound familiar. And we're officially not looking to do any more Afghanistans or Iraqs?
Next thing you know, we're going to start following the Geneva Conventions.
Officially, at least — and that really does mean something — the U.S. is rejecting bluster and embracing "soft power":
Achieving victory will assume new dimensions as we strengthen our ability to generate “soft” power to promote participation in government, spur economic development, and address the root causes of conflict among the disenfranchised populations of the world. At the heart of this effort is a comprehensive approach to stability operations that integrates the tools of statecraft with our military forces, international partners, humanitarian organizations, and the private sector.
Stop to consider the Army's even talking in one of its key guides for generals about trying to "address the root causes of conflict among the disenfranchised populations of the world." They're putting flowers in their own howitzers (OK, so maybe they're not quite doing that).
Another big shift: FM 3-07 gives "stability operations" equal rank with "offense" and "defense."
Such a rejection of the Bush regime's rigidly held preventive-war doctrine is an astonishing occurrence while Dick Cheney is still vice president. But these days, he's no doubt out of the loop. And as for the Wall Street war, it's doubtful that Cheney is even trying to whisper commands in Henry Paulson's ear. (Of course, maybe Cheney's busy trying to connive a McCain victory.)
The new field manual would have never happened while such hawks as Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith roamed the Pentagon hallways.
It even strongly implies that the government has learned something from its disastrous Iraq venture and increasingly scary Afghan war:
Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations, represents a milestone in Army doctrine. It is a roadmap from conflict to peace, a practical guidebook for adaptive, creative leadership at a critical time in our history. It institutionalizes the hard-won lessons of the past while charting a path for tomorrow.
Hard-won lessons, yes. That not to say that we have won either war. But this document should help rein in future White Houses from attempting invasions of future Iraqs.
The Pentagon finally concluded on Wednesday that U.S. troops did not kill seven Afghan civilians in an August air strike.
Actually, it was 33, including babies and toddlers, the U.S. Central Command finally acknowledged after being forced to investigate what it initially called a "successful" raid.
Oops. But the Pentagon got its mimeographs cranking almost immediately to try to contain the damage. An AP story carried by the BBC and other outlets reports:
A US military inquiry has found that an air strike on militants in western Afghanistan on 22 August killed many more civilians than first acknowledged.
US Central Command said 33 civilians, not seven, had died in the village of Azizabad in Herat province. While voicing regret, it said US forces had followed rules of engagement.
Afghan officials and the United Nations feared at the time that up to 90 people had died in the strike on Azizabad, including 60 children.
Video footage, apparently of the aftermath of the raid, showed some 40 dead bodies lined up under sheets and blankets inside a mosque.
The majority of the dead captured on the video were children, babies and toddlers, some burned so badly they were barely recognisable.
US forces had originally said seven civilians were killed in a "successful" US raid targeting a Taleban commander in Azizabad.
As a follow-on investigation into an operation by Afghan National Army and U.S. forces in western Afghanistan that claimed civilian lives nears completion, a senior defense official here emphasized the U.S. military's strong record of accountability and follow-through.
No doubt.
Working hard to stanch this gaping wound, U.S. military officials fire at will:
• Pentagon flack Bryan Whitman: "No other military in the world goes to a greater extent to prevent civilian casualties. This is something that we take very seriously, and when we have allegations of loss of innocent life, we investigate it."
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates: "We're very concerned about this; it's a high priority for us. We work at that hard, work at it harder, and then take another look to see what more we can do to limit innocent people who are killed when we go after our enemies."
• Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan: "That certainly is one of my top challenges, to try to make sure we have the right measures in place to minimize the possibility of civilian casualties."
OK, OK, we get the point. But would it kill you to at least use the words "sorry" or "regret"?
At least we know similar tragedies won't happen again, because at this moment, Gates is in Macedonia trying to drum up some troops for the increasingly grim Afghan War.
Macedonia has 135 troops in Afghanistan and 80 in Iraq. It also has participated in many NATO exercises, and is considering augmenting its presence in Afghanistan as its forces end their deployment to Iraq in December, U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Philip T. Reeker said.
Yes, if you want peacekeepers, you naturally turn to the Balkans.
Or maybe send the Balkans troops to Wall Street and investment bankers to Afghanistan. Nothing's working in either place.
What did he know? When did he know it? While Lehman was assuring everyone last year that it had everything under control and its share price hadn't started its final fall into oblivion, CEO Richard Fuld sold big chunks for big cash, according to SEC records.
Passing through the four stages of our grief with lightning speed, Wall Street became Fall Street, then Wail Street, and now Bail Street.
But there's never enough money to satisfy these self-proclaimed victims. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal's Robert Frank reported, in "Wealthy Are Afraid They'll Run Out of Money":
According to a new survey from American Express Publishing and the Harrison Group, nearly half of respondents with incomes of $250,000 or more agreed with the statement that "I worry that at some point I could run out of money." That's up from about a third in April.
Fully 69 percent agreed with the statement that "The recent real estate and banking crisis has affected my sense of financial security."
Of course, $250,000 is only "Obama wealthy." And running out of money "at some point" is a long time horizon. Yet the survey suggests that even high-income earners are cutting back their spending for fear of what the financial future might bring. Fully two-thirds say that they are "looking closely at every spending category to see where I can save."
Now it's time for others to look closely. Who will lose the blame game? Setting up today's scheduled grilling of ex-Lehman's ex-CEO Richard Fuld by Henry Waxman's House committee, this morning's Wall Street Journal peers into the what exactly happened at the bankrupt investment bank's HQ on Avenue of the Americas.
We were fooled, yes, but we won't get Fuld again — assuming he even shows up. As of late last week, Waxman was still stonewalled on his September 18 request for Fuld's and Lehman's e-mails and memos. Check out the PDF of Waxman's scathing September 26 letter to Fuld.
But others already have some details on who and what moved in Lehman's bowels.
That story's just a biopsy. There's enough blood and garbage on the Street to keep crime-scene investigators enthused for years. Is there a forensic proctologist in the house?
There's a big difference between money on paper and cash in the wallet. Yes, the value of Fuld's stock cache has bottomed out. But Fuld cashed in for more than $50 million during only two days of insider sales of Lehman stock before it began its last precipitous slide in 2007, according to SEC records (see illustration above).
Wonder if Waxman will bring up that profit-taking with Fuld later today. As Reuters noted yesterday:
Waxman has a reputation for raking high-profile corporate executives over the coals as cameras roll.
Fuld is scheduled to appear before the committee on Monday in what would be his first public appearance since Lehman filed for bankruptcy
Don't expect that hearing to be televised, so instead of browsing porn, watch Lehman's jerkoff CEO on the live stream on C-SPAN.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 'Chairman Waxman Announces Hearings on Financial Meltdown'
Oct. 6: Lehman bankruptcy and AIG bailout, Day One
Oct. 7: Lehman bankruptcy and AIG bailout, Day Two
Oct. 16: Regulation of hedge funds
Oct. 22: Breakdown of credit rating agencies
Oct. 23: Role of federal regulators
Bailout? If by accident of birth, you were in Kabul yesterday, you'd be dying to bail out. You would have been running for your life while crazed Taliban stormed major government buildings and blew themselves up. A score of non-Taliban people were killed and fourscore wounded yesterday in Afghanistan's capital in the ominous assault.
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