http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090925/ap_on_re_us/us_marine_guantanamo
EXCERPTS:
Lehnert, 58, was commander of Joint Task Force 160 when it was assigned to build prison cells in 2001 at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to hold designated "enemy combatants" from Afghanistan and elsewhere.
He said he was given little guidance from the Pentagon, but he did have his staff read the Geneva Convention, the international agreement governing treatment of prisoners.
"I wanted to run it close to Geneva Convention rules," Lehnert said. "Our job was to take them out of the fight, and once we had done that, I felt we had a moral responsibility to take care of them."
However, another task force was put in charge of interrogating detainees, and there were disagreements over their treatment, Lehnert said.
"I think it is extraordinarily important how we treat prisoners," he said. "Obviously, there were other views."
"I came to the conclusion very soon that this probably wasn't the right way to go," said Lehnert, who served just 100 days at the base.
"Probably before I left Guantanamo, I was of the opinion it needed to go away as soon as possible," he said.
The general said he didn't feel the U.S. would get much useful information by using the techniques.
"I think we lost the moral high ground," he said.
President Barack Obama has ordered the prison to close by January 2010, but it's unclear where about 200 remaining prisoners would go.
Friday, September 25, 2009
US banks made $5.2B trading [financial weapons of mass destruction] derivatives in 2Q
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2817995.stm
Derivatives are "financial weapons of mass destruction."
--Warren Buffett
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-banks-made-52B-trading-apf-2860531496.html?x=0&.v=3&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
EXCERPTS:
Derivatives, traded in an unregulated $600 trillion market, were partly blamed for the financial crisis that ignited a year ago. The value of derivatives hinges on an underlying investment or commodity -- such as currency rates, oil futures or interest rates. The derivative is designed to reduce the risk of loss from the underlying asset. Derivatives trading is dominated by about 20 big banks worldwide....
Credit default swaps, a form of insurance against loan defaults, account for an estimated $60 trillion of the over-the-counter derivatives market. The collapse of the swaps brought the downfall of Wall Street banking house Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. about a year ago and nearly toppled American International Group Inc., prompting the government to support the insurance conglomerate with more than $180 billion in aid....
Congress is weighing legislation to impose broad new oversight on derivatives. The Obama administration's proposal, part of its plan for overhauling U.S. financial rules, would subject the banks that trade derivatives to requirements for holding capital reserves against risk and other rules. A new network of clearinghouses would be established to provide transparency for derivatives trades.
US banks made $5.2B trading [financial weapons of
mass destruction] derivatives in 2Q
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
On Friday September 25, 2009, 12:48 pm EDT
Derivatives are "financial weapons of mass destruction."
--Warren Buffett
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-banks-made-52B-trading-apf-2860531496.html?x=0&.v=3&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
EXCERPTS:
Derivatives, traded in an unregulated $600 trillion market, were partly blamed for the financial crisis that ignited a year ago. The value of derivatives hinges on an underlying investment or commodity -- such as currency rates, oil futures or interest rates. The derivative is designed to reduce the risk of loss from the underlying asset. Derivatives trading is dominated by about 20 big banks worldwide....
Credit default swaps, a form of insurance against loan defaults, account for an estimated $60 trillion of the over-the-counter derivatives market. The collapse of the swaps brought the downfall of Wall Street banking house Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. about a year ago and nearly toppled American International Group Inc., prompting the government to support the insurance conglomerate with more than $180 billion in aid....
Congress is weighing legislation to impose broad new oversight on derivatives. The Obama administration's proposal, part of its plan for overhauling U.S. financial rules, would subject the banks that trade derivatives to requirements for holding capital reserves against risk and other rules. A new network of clearinghouses would be established to provide transparency for derivatives trades.
US banks made $5.2B trading [financial weapons of
mass destruction] derivatives in 2Q
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
On Friday September 25, 2009, 12:48 pm EDT
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Cande from Qaddafi at the U.N. General Assembly
Fande = Fact & Evidence; Cande = Conjecture & Exaggeration
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/24nations.html?hp
* If Qaddafi didn't speak with so much hyperbole on almost every other topic of discussion he might have more credibility decrying wars.
I would rather see diplomacy than war. But I want to see an honest, rational debate based on fact & evidence (Fande). Qaddafi offers the same, old, tired dogma (assertion without proof) and demagoguery (appeals to emotional biases) that have dominated geo-politics for far too long. With his form of language we get more confusion than clarity.
"An hour into his address, Colonel Qaddafi began calling for investigations into each of the major wars since the United Nations was founded: the Korean War, the war over the Suez Canal, the Vietnam War and the United States’ two wars in Iraq, which he called 'the mother of all evils.' "
Cande from Qaddafi...
EXCERPTS via the NY Times:
“We are not committed to obeying or adhering to resolutions by the Security Council in its composition right now,” he said, adding that the Security Council should be renamed the “Terror Council.”
Ali Abdussalam Treki, the Libyan diplomat who now holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, introduced him as the “leader of the revolution, president of the African Union, King of Kings of Africa.”
At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab, and he intimated that an Israeli hand was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi called Israteen, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it was wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/24nations.html?hp
* If Qaddafi didn't speak with so much hyperbole on almost every other topic of discussion he might have more credibility decrying wars.
I would rather see diplomacy than war. But I want to see an honest, rational debate based on fact & evidence (Fande). Qaddafi offers the same, old, tired dogma (assertion without proof) and demagoguery (appeals to emotional biases) that have dominated geo-politics for far too long. With his form of language we get more confusion than clarity.
"An hour into his address, Colonel Qaddafi began calling for investigations into each of the major wars since the United Nations was founded: the Korean War, the war over the Suez Canal, the Vietnam War and the United States’ two wars in Iraq, which he called 'the mother of all evils.' "
Cande from Qaddafi...
EXCERPTS via the NY Times:
“We are not committed to obeying or adhering to resolutions by the Security Council in its composition right now,” he said, adding that the Security Council should be renamed the “Terror Council.”
Ali Abdussalam Treki, the Libyan diplomat who now holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, introduced him as the “leader of the revolution, president of the African Union, King of Kings of Africa.”
At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab, and he intimated that an Israeli hand was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi called Israteen, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it was wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Electricity rates in San Francisco keep going up, and up, and up...
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf
* Yes, the more electricity you use the more you get charged.
Prices as of September, 22 2009...
Total Energy Rates ($ per kWh, or kilowatt hour)
Tier 1 = 12 cents per kWh
(Baseline Usage)
Tier 2 = 13 cents per kWh
(101% - 130% of Baseline)
Tier 3 = 26 cents per kWh
(131% - 200% of Baseline)
Tier 4 = 38 cents per kWh
(201% - 300% of Baseline)
Tier 5 = 44 cents per kWh
(Over 300% of Baseline)
* Yes, the more electricity you use the more you get charged.
Prices as of September, 22 2009...
Total Energy Rates ($ per kWh, or kilowatt hour)
Tier 1 = 12 cents per kWh
(Baseline Usage)
Tier 2 = 13 cents per kWh
(101% - 130% of Baseline)
Tier 3 = 26 cents per kWh
(131% - 200% of Baseline)
Tier 4 = 38 cents per kWh
(201% - 300% of Baseline)
Tier 5 = 44 cents per kWh
(Over 300% of Baseline)
The Statue of Liberty
http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm
Statue of Liberty National Monument
"The New Colossus"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet
within the pedestal on which the statue stands.
Statue of Liberty National Monument
"The New Colossus"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet
within the pedestal on which the statue stands.
This is not fiction...
America. My God, the word means so much. We were a beacon of hope…a shining example to the downtrodden masses around the globe who dreamed and yearned for this land where hard work got you a house in a safe neighborhood and two working cars (and freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to shop at the mall). Then Bush came along and disgraced our country by recreating the Vietnam War in Iraq.
At the time of writing, the Iraq War costs us approximately $700 billion…which also happens to be the same price-tag Paulson put on the first bailout for his banker buddies.
‘Cause none of those greenbacks made it to the people on Main Street when the subprime jack-in-the-box sprung up on Wall Street. Those MFs had pension plans, 401ks and home values all rolled into one ball of wax, and then they bet it all on “subprime” lendees’ abilities to pay back the loans on houses they couldn’t afford.
There was also the surprise of the mortgage with the escalating interest rate that could double and even triple in value. Meaning, a 4% interest rate could become 8%, and then 12%...and that’s when the “subprime” lendees threw the keys in their mailboxes, and abandoned the homes they couldn’t afford. Banks and lending offices were taking anybody who walked through the door, literally. No proof of job, no nothing. Just sign here and off you go to your patio in the back of your new 4-bedroom house, which may in the future lose 30% of its value when the Real Estate Boom goes…Bust!
The Dow lost over half its value, from a high of roughly 14,000 in October 2007 to roughly 6,600 in March 2009. Venerable financial firms crumbled like shale being drilled for oil.
“Down goes Lehman Brothers!” (You gotta do it in Howard Cossel’s voice for the full effect. It’s more fun that way.)
“Down goes Bear Stearns…oh, oh no!...Mer-awl L’nch is-on-the…ropes. But seemingly like a Deus-ex-Machina from the heavens, Bank of Am…eric-ah…steps in to claim the wayward bank.”
I mean, we saw the biggest bank failure in United States history (WaMu) and the biggest corporate collapse (AIG). General Motors also waved the white flag when they saw all the kingdom’s drivers not being able to afford the $3-4 a gallon gas the oil companies were ransoming. We people sure as hell weren’t going to buy an SUV that got 13 miles to the gallon. So Detroit (Ford and Chrysler, too) took a handout, from us taxpayers who couldn’t afford to drive their inefficient cars anymore.
The credit markets seized up, nobody was lending. Nobody. Nobody but the Federal Reserve…lending our tax dollars to the banks who put us in this mess. It ain’t right what happened, but I sure don’t want to see the whole thing come tumbling down. Prop up the banks until they can walk on their own, but once they can they should be lending the money back to the people who bailed the banks out in the first place.
Bush did more damage than hurricane Katrina. Worse yet, he didn’t clean up his own mess. He left it all for Barack Obama to sort out.
And that’s where we begin our story…
At the time of writing, the Iraq War costs us approximately $700 billion…which also happens to be the same price-tag Paulson put on the first bailout for his banker buddies.
‘Cause none of those greenbacks made it to the people on Main Street when the subprime jack-in-the-box sprung up on Wall Street. Those MFs had pension plans, 401ks and home values all rolled into one ball of wax, and then they bet it all on “subprime” lendees’ abilities to pay back the loans on houses they couldn’t afford.
There was also the surprise of the mortgage with the escalating interest rate that could double and even triple in value. Meaning, a 4% interest rate could become 8%, and then 12%...and that’s when the “subprime” lendees threw the keys in their mailboxes, and abandoned the homes they couldn’t afford. Banks and lending offices were taking anybody who walked through the door, literally. No proof of job, no nothing. Just sign here and off you go to your patio in the back of your new 4-bedroom house, which may in the future lose 30% of its value when the Real Estate Boom goes…Bust!
The Dow lost over half its value, from a high of roughly 14,000 in October 2007 to roughly 6,600 in March 2009. Venerable financial firms crumbled like shale being drilled for oil.
“Down goes Lehman Brothers!” (You gotta do it in Howard Cossel’s voice for the full effect. It’s more fun that way.)
“Down goes Bear Stearns…oh, oh no!...Mer-awl L’nch is-on-the…ropes. But seemingly like a Deus-ex-Machina from the heavens, Bank of Am…eric-ah…steps in to claim the wayward bank.”
I mean, we saw the biggest bank failure in United States history (WaMu) and the biggest corporate collapse (AIG). General Motors also waved the white flag when they saw all the kingdom’s drivers not being able to afford the $3-4 a gallon gas the oil companies were ransoming. We people sure as hell weren’t going to buy an SUV that got 13 miles to the gallon. So Detroit (Ford and Chrysler, too) took a handout, from us taxpayers who couldn’t afford to drive their inefficient cars anymore.
The credit markets seized up, nobody was lending. Nobody. Nobody but the Federal Reserve…lending our tax dollars to the banks who put us in this mess. It ain’t right what happened, but I sure don’t want to see the whole thing come tumbling down. Prop up the banks until they can walk on their own, but once they can they should be lending the money back to the people who bailed the banks out in the first place.
Bush did more damage than hurricane Katrina. Worse yet, he didn’t clean up his own mess. He left it all for Barack Obama to sort out.
And that’s where we begin our story…
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