Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens. February, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
Pete Seeger - "Forever Young"
News and Opinion
NY Times.
Two Afghan Boys Accidentally Killed by NATO Helicopter
The victims, Toor Jan, 11, and Andul Wodood, 12, were brothers and had been walking behind their donkeys in the Shahed-e-Hasas district of Oruzgan Province when the helicopter fired on them, according to Afghan officials in the district. The two donkeys were killed as well.
[...]
General Dunford said that coalition forces had opened fire on what they thought were insurgent forces, and killed the boys by accident. “I offer my personal apology and condolences to the family of the boys who were killed,” General Dunford said. “We take full responsibility for this tragedy.”
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The episode was the second airstrike to kill civilians since General Dunford assumed command in February. In Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan, up to 11 civilians were killed, including 5 children, when airstrikes were used to destroy two homes.
Australian news agency. Different details. Seven and eight-years old and the soldiers were on the ground. When you are on the ground, seven and eight-year olds standing next to their donkeys are very obviously very small people. How could they be mistaken for insurgents?
Diggers accused of killing two Afghan children
The governor of Uruzgan province says Australian troops accidentally shot dead two boys aged seven and eight during a clash with Taliban insurgents last week.
"The children were killed by Australian troops, it was a mistaken incident, not a deliberate one," Uruzgan provincial governor Amir Mohammad Akhundzada told AFP, adding that insurgents had first shot at a helicopter carrying the Australian soldiers.
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Defence chief General David Hurley acknowledged the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was responsible for the deaths, but he says it is premature to say exactly who is to blame.
He confirmed Australian soldiers from the Special Operations Task Group were on the ground conducting a routine liaison patrol when the incident occurred.
Same date, two years ago. March 2, 2011.
Nine Afghan Boys Collecting Firewood Killed by NATO Helicopters
The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived.
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“We were almost done collecting the wood when suddenly we saw the helicopters come,” said Hemad, who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “There were two of them. The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting. They fired a rocket which landed on a tree. The tree branches fell over me and shrapnel hit my right hand and my side.”
The tree, Hemad said, saved his life by covering him so that he could not be seen by the helicopters, which, he said, “shot the boys one after another.”
July, 2007, in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad.
Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq
Take Action News. "News & analysis by @DavidShuster" Slogan at the top of the site is: "We have your government surrounded". Watch this video! It's only a few minutes. Watch it.
Increase Social Security for Young
This is a must read.
Bernanke’s Credibility on ‘Too Big to Fail’
In testimony to the Senate Banking Committee this week, Ben Bernanke made a clear statement acknowledging that very large American banks receive implicit subsidies because the market believes they are too big to fail. This was one of the most forthright public statements on this topic by a top Fed official, and Mr. Bernanke should be congratulated for being honest and direct on this important point.
Unfortunately, when it came to discussing how to bring down this subsidy – and addressing the problem of “too big to fail” financial institutions – Mr. Bernanke’s answers were disappointing.
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There is a growing chorus of Wall Street “deniers,” claiming that big banks do not actually receive any funding advantage. This is a bizarre and indefensible position.
The G.A.O. is expected to report in detail on banking subsidies soon – we should thank Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and Senator Vitter for pushing them in this direction. [...]
Unfortunately, Mr. Bernanke seems to be in denial [...] Mr. Bernanke’s view, as stated in the hearing, is that the market is wrong – there will be no bailouts. Market participants understand all too well that Mr. Bernanke’s promises are probably not time-consistent – meaning that he can say what he wants now, but in the next systemic financial crisis he would feel compelled by his legal mandate to provide an effective backstop to asset values and to many institutions.
CEPR on the article above.
Simon Johnson's Latest on Bernanke and Too Big to Fail
Just to remind folks that may have forgotten, a bloated financial sector is a drain on the economy in the same way as that huge government department of waste, fraud, and abuse that everyone in Washington is looking for. It also is a source of instability and a major generator of inequality.
Now, let's talk about that $83 billion annual subsidy to TBTF banks.
Elizabeth Warren's Q&A of Ben Bernanke at Senate Banking Committee Hearing (clip)
The Political Importance of Elizabeth Warren
The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 may turn out to be a framework for effective regulation, or it might become another set of empty promises. So far, implementation has been slow.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphImplementation depends on regulators – some of whom are very good, while others remain in thrall to the big Wall Street banks. The issues are detailed and technical, and the financial lobby has deployed a small army of highly paid experts on a mission of delay, dilution, and diversion. The process is still subject to political supervision, but many politicians are easily bamboozled when the conversation really gets into the weeds.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThis is why newly elected Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is already proving so effective. Warren has worked hard on financial-sector issues over many years. She had the key ideas that led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she helped get that agency on its feet. But she has also been engaged with all of the other practical details of financial reform for as long as anyone – in part due to her experience as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphWarren is now bringing this expertise to bear where it is needed most – directly on senior regulators.
Financial Regulators’ Global Variety Show
PARIS – In the early phases of the financial crisis, it was fashionable to argue that the United States’ system of regulation needed a fundamental structural overhaul.
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Little has come of these arguments. The Dodd-Frank Act did succeed in putting the OTS out of its misery, but jealous congressional oversight committees have prevented a merger of the SEC and CFTC, and nothing has been done to rationalize banking supervision. So the American system looks remarkably similar to the one that turned a collective blind eye to the rise of fatal tensions in the early 2000’s.
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We could see this as a controlled experiment to try to identify a preferred model. After all, financial systems are not so different from one another, particularly in OECD countries. But there is no sign of a considered assessment being prepared, which might at least help countries to make better-informed choices, even if it did not conclude that one model was unambiguously best. The G-20, under its current Russian presidency, is now in search of a role. Here is a useful practical task it might take on.
About that regulation...
Jonathan Alter waving the austerity flag. Cut the entitlements! Cut the entitlements! Cliff Schecter asked Sam Seder if the title of his article was "What do I have to write about Obama to get my next book deal?" What a craptastic article from Alter. He sounds exactly like Alan Simpson.
Jonathan Alter: Democrats must wise up about Social Security
In a season of depressing budget news, the worst may have been that a majority of U.S. House Democrats signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to oppose any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements. That's the last thing we need.
To hold the line on harmful cuts to discretionary spending, Obama and the Democrats must educate the public about the necessity of entitlement reform. Otherwise, the poor and needy -- largely spared by the automatic reductions under sequestration -- will get hit much harder down the road.
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Maybe there are better ideas for reforming social insurance. The point is, we better start talking about them. Otherwise, Grandpa and Grandma and their fellow Grateful Dead fans are going to eat all the food on the table.
I don't know wtf to make of this article.
Home Buyers Are Back, but Where Are the Houses?
The first official day of Spring may still be 20 days away, but the Spring housing market is already underway. Buyer traffic is rising along with home prices, but one traditional Spring phenomenon is sorely absent: rising supply. The raw number of homes for sale is now at its lowest level in over 13 years, according to the National Association of Realtors, and the numbers continue to fall.
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Nearly one third of all existing home sales in January were paid for in cash, and not just by investors, who are making up a shrinking share of the market. Fierce competition is forcing buyers to use every advantage, given that so many are going after so little.
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"The ticking time bomb of shadow supply has been diffused by a combination of foreclosure processing delays in judicial states, legislation slowing down the foreclosure process in non-judicial states, foreclosure prevention programs and initiatives encouraging short sales," said Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac. "Notably, in 2012, was the National Mortgage Settlement, which both encouraged foreclosure prevention and short sales as an alternative to foreclosure, and the loosening of short sale guidelines by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in November."
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"We are not seeing a flood of new listings, as I would have predicted in a rising market," said Steve Storti of Philadelphia-based Prudential Fox & Roach. "Sellers are wary and perhaps a little shell-shocked by having listed previously and not being successful. They also may be waiting for prices to rise."
Argo, sadly, just more CIA propaganda. They really must feel like damage control, reputation boost is needed.
Oscar Prints the Legend: Argo's Upcoming Academy Award and the Failure of Truth
Over the past 12 months, rarely a week - let alone month - went by without new predictions of an ever-imminent Iranian nuclear weapon and ever-looming threats of an American or Israeli military attack. Come October 2012, into the fray marched "Argo," a decontextualized, ahistorical "true story" of Orientalist proportion, subjecting audiences to two hours of American victimization and bearded barbarians, culminating in popped champagne corks and rippling stars-and-stripes celebrating our heroism and triumph and their frustration and defeat. Salon's Andrew O'Hehir aptly described the film as "a propaganda fable," explaining as others have that essentially none of its edge-of-your-seat thrills or most memorable moments ever happened. O'Hehir sums up:
The Americans never resisted the idea of playing a film crew, which is the source of much agitation in the movie. (In fact, the “house guests” chose that cover story themselves, from a group of three options the CIA had prepared.) They were not almost lynched by a mob of crazy Iranians in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, because they never went there. There was no last-minute cancellation, and then un-cancellation, of the group’s tickets by the Carter administration. (The wife of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor had personally gone to the airport and purchased tickets ahead of time, for three different outbound flights.) The group underwent no interrogation at the airport about their imaginary movie, nor were they detained at the gate while a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard telephoned their phony office back in Burbank. There was no last-second chase on the runway of Mehrabad Airport, with wild-eyed, bearded militants with Kalashnikovs trying to shoot out the tires of a Swissair jet.
Seriously. But when defense cuts were made, they automatically furloughed 80,000 employees.
Pentagon’s Scariest Robot Can Now Hurl Cinder Blocks Your Way
Chinese Hackers Drop U.S. Government from List of High-Value Targets
“We have to allocate our time and energy to hacking powerful organizations,” a spokesman for the hackers said. “Right now, calling the United States government an ‘organization’ would be a reach.”
He added that the hackers’ ultimate goal had been to hurl the U.S. government into a state of abject paralysis, “and they seem to have already taken care of that on their own.”
The spokesman acknowledged that despite years of compromising U.S. government computers, the hackers had obtained little of value, especially on the hard drives of congressional offices.
“Those computers did not appear to be used for anything work-related,” the spokesman said. “Basically all we found were restaurant reservations and porn.”
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
If Robert Reich Screams In The Forest . . .
"Social Security Won't Be There" - The GOP's Desperate Big Lie
What they don't tell you about FL sinkholes. In 2010 growers pumped a billion gallons a day
The LIE that just won't die
Clueless.
Evan Rachel Wood - "I'd Have You Anytime"