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Longwood Gardens. May, 2013. Photo by: joanneleon
Longwood Gardens. May, 2013. Photo by: joanneleon
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Woodstock
News & Opinion
Lots of news lately (and that's a bit of an understatement).
Uh oh. I thought all of these governments were okay with our drone strikes in their countries! Sounds like their courts and their people don't agree. Another country and the UN calling it war crimes? 26 CIA agents have already been convicted in an Italian court and the ruling was upheld in the highest court in the land in Italy just a few months ago (is that why they won't reveal names of candidates for high level positions in the CIA anymore?) I think this ruling involves that jirga I keep talking about (and keep getting called names and accused of conspiracy theorism, hate speech for). Go read this whole post by Jim White who has done an impeccable job excerpting parts of the ruling, which, as he says, are going to "leave a mark" on John Brennan, and others, IMHO. This is a major deal.
Peshawar High Court Rules US Drone Strikes in Pakistan Are Illegal, Comprise War Crimes
In a remarkable ruling (pdf), the Peshawar High Court has ruled that US drone strikes carried out within Pakistan are illegal, that they are war crimes and that they must be stopped immediately. The court also directed Pakistan’s military to intervene should drones enter Pakistan air space.
As described by Alice Ross at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, this ruling comes in a case brought by the son of one of the tribal elders killed in the March 17, 2011 drone strike that killed as many as 40 innocent elders gathered to discuss mineral rights:
The judgment applies to a lengthy case against the CIA brought by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights on behalf of Noor Khan, a tribesman whose father was among dozens of civilians killed in a drone strike on a gathering of tribal elders on March 17 2011. Last year, Noor Khan also attempted to bring legal action against the UK government for providing information that could lead to deaths in drone strikes, in a case backed by legal charity Reprieve. The attempt was refused but he is appealing.
Lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who argued the Peshawar case, said: ‘It is a landmark judgment: drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This ruling will also prove to be a test for the new government as if drones continue and government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court.’
Looks like Karzai let the cat out of the bag about the SOFA agreement being negotiated and it leaves troops on nine US bases after 2014, some of them near the Iranian border. US Embassy won't confirm. Karzai is in the dog house for letting the cat out of the bag. Not that we haven't said this a gazillion times before and excuse my French but can we get the fvck out of Afghanistan yesterday?
Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai reveals US will retain nine bases after withdrawal
President strikes conciliatory tone about larger-than-expected continuing deployment, despite frequent criticism of US forces
"We are trying to ensure the interests of both countries are satisfied in this agreement," Karzai told students and dignitaries gathered to celebrate the university's 80th anniversary. "We want roads, electricity, hydropower dams, and strengthening of the Afghan government."
He may nonetheless have annoyed American officials by revealing details about strategic planning on future commitments to Afghanistan that had been kept under tight wraps.
[...]
The places in which the US wants to keep troops include the capital, Kabul, the sprawling Bagram airbase, which has been the heart of operations in the east, the restive southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, and Shindand in the west, where Nato is training the Afghan airforce, Karzai said.
The other bases are in the northern hub of Mazar-i-Sharif, the western city of Herat, near the Iranian border, and eastern Gardez and Jalalabad, which is a key gateway to Pakistan and a base for drones.
This author calls this insane, terrifying and uncontrollable, and it is, especially when it turns into inexplicable "flash crashes" which we never find out the reasons for. I look at it and think, if they are going to keep doing this, and you can bet they are, take that to the bank, (pun intended), I'm seeing a little fraction of a penny Robin Hood tax on every one of those dots and their milliseconds.
This Video Of One Half-Second Of High Frequency Trading Is Insane, Terrifying
You have no idea just how bonkers high-frequency trading is making the stock market until you actually see it in action.
A terrifying new video by the research firm Nanex offers just such an opportunity: It shows one half-second of trading in just one stock, boring old Johnson & Johnson, on May 2. The video slows down the trades so that the milliseconds -- thousandths of a second -- tick slowly by, and so that human eyes can comprehend what's happening.
What you see is trading gone haywire, hopelessly beyond the control of any regulators that might want to make sure all of these trades are legitimate. This flood of trading confuses even other machines, creating mismatches in orders that high-speed traders can exploit, millisecond by millisecond.
[YouTube video description]
1/2 second of trading activity in Johnson & Johnson (symbol JNJ) on May 2, 2013
This video was featured at Wired Business Conference (watch it now: http://fora.tv/....)
Set to lowest resolution for an "artistic rendering", or highest resolution for science.
The bottom box (SIP) shows the National Best Bid and Offer. Watch how much it changes in the blink of an eye.
Watch High Frequency Traders (HFT) at the millisecond level jam thousands of quotes in the stock of Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) through our financial networks on May 2, 2013. Video shows 1/2 second of time. If any of the connections are not running perfectly, High Frequency Traders can profit from the price discrepancies that result. There is no economic justification for this abusive behavior.
Each box represents one exchange. The SIP (CQS in this case) is the box at 6 o'clock. It shows the National Best Bid/Offer. Watch how much it changes in a fraction of a second. The shapes represent quote changes which are the result of a change to the top of the book at each exchange. The time at the bottom of the screen is Eastern Time HH:MM:SS:mmm (mmm = millisecond). We slow time down so you can see what goes on at the millisecond level. A millisecond (ms) is 1/1000th of a second.
Note how every exchange must process every quote from the others -- for proper trade through price protection. This complex web of technology must run flawlessly every millisecond of the trading day, or arbitrage (HFT profit) opportunities will appear. It is easy for HFTs to cause delays in one or more of the connections between each exchange.
Probably won't hear much about this in US corporate media.
European Governments Take Steps to Label Products of Israeli Colonies
Michael Deas: European governments have so far failed the laws of the European Commission to distinguish between Israeli and colony products, but several governments have made public calls to change that policy - May 9, 13
I read a number of things yesterday about this situation with Hawking.
Stephen Hawking Confirms Support of Israel Boycott
Phyllis Bennis: Hawking's boycott of Israel will shake Israeli public the way sports boycott affected South Africa - May 9, 13
PHYLLIS BENNIS, FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Great to be with you, Paul.
JAY: So Stephen Hawking's announced he will not attend a conference in Israel. What's that about? And how significant is that?
BENNIS: This is an extraordinary move on his part. This is probably the highest profile participant in the longstanding academic and cultural boycott that's part of the global movement for what is known as BDS, boycott, divestment, and sanctions, a Palestinian civil society call that came out in 2005 urging people to bring nonviolent economic and social and cultural pressure to bear on Israel until it stops its violations of international law and human rights.
For someone of Stephen Hawking's stature to make a decision like this and be very clear that this was not because of ill health, it was specifically because of, as he put it in a statement, what he knows about Palestine and the recommendations that he sought from his Palestinian academic colleagues, this is huge. This was not really an academic conference.
Oh my god, what a low blow. If you read the article, Intel does not stand by this statement and their CTO says they want to continue working with Hawking to improve his communication system.
Stephen Hawking accused of hypocrisy over Israel conference boycott
Scientist's critics say he should stop using Israeli technology in computer equipment that allows him to communicate
"Hawking's decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his whole intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet," said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin.
[...]
• This article was amended on 9 May 2013 to remove a reference to Intel being an Israeli firm. It is a US multinational with bases in Israel.
Glenn Greenwald, apparently traveling this week, writes about the Hawking situation, the Manning trial, and some other issues in a combined post.
Attacks on Stephen Hawking, transparency for Manning, Obama's new lobbyist chief
Debates over Israel and activism in defense of transparency and journalism heat up this week
(1) As the Guardian was the first to report, the physicist Stephen Hawking withdrew from "a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians." The resulting attacks on Hawking were instant and predictable.
[...]
As any writer well knows, nothing guarantees more vicious, personalized, or sustained attacks than criticizing the Israeli government: it's one of the reasons so many people refrain from doing so. Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston this morning references just a few of the despicable attacks on Hawking (he notes that Israeli professor Steven Plaut wrote of the wheelchair-bound physicist: "I suggest that the people of Israel send Hawking for a free trip on the Achille Lauro!!") and calls on everyone to stand up to these sorts of bullying campaigns and smear tactics. Meanwhile, one writer tries here to depict Hawking as a hypocrite for having visited Iran and China, but that claim is quickly and thoroughly destroyed by commenters in the comment section: one of the things about the internet I love most.
[...]
(2) The US military has done its best to erect a wall of secrecy around the court-martial trial of Bradley Manning, easily one of the most important trials on whistleblowers and espionage laws in many years. This week, the military judge not only permitted numerous witnesses to testify in secret but also ordered a "dry run" of parts of the trial to be held in secret as well, a move even military prosecutors acknowledged was "unprecedented". Legal proceedings demanding greater transparency brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of several journalists and activists (including myself) have been rejected by military courts.
Underneath all the right-wing craziness, the story has legs at least in the case of the whistleblower statements, but the right-wing has used it as a political weapon for so long now that I wonder if any beneficial "lessons learned" can even come out of it. This is tragic, IMHO, because we've obviously got other personnel in Libya and other embassies and consulates in dangerous places, and the covert wars continue in those places and the risks remain. Because of the way the right has handled this, the left does not seem to want to listen to any of the facts and just wants to treat all of it as a big partisan opportunity to do the usual stuff. Having read the ebook by two former special ops guys who lost a friend in the Benghazi attack, the whistleblower testimony was not a surprise to me.
Between that and the fact that on this show, Cenk, David Sirota, Glenn Greenwald, and Michael Hastings are all in the same place, heads will explode, I guess.
Cenk's progressive power panel agrees the Obama administration lied about Benghazi
Oh.my.god. Look at this. The Obama admin's response to an ACLU freedom of information act request about the text messages that the government hoovers up. This is a PDF, but you have to see it. Open it up. BTW, "minimization" means the separation of the actual text messages from any identifying information about the sender and receiver. Well first of all, they aren't supposed to be hoovering up all of our electronic communications and storing it, but they do. There are exceptions for cell communications. But if they do, they are supposed to get a subpoena to actually read those text messages with the identifying information. Also, people in the intel orgs are not supposed to be able to just search data bases of communications by name, or whatever. This stuff is supposed to be "minimized". So when the ACLU asked a specific question about the minimization procedures about text messages, this is the answer they got.
Guidance for the Minimization of Text Messages over Dual-Function Cellular Telephones
This story is not surprising, given the enormous barrage of gunfire during this confrontation. Below I've posted the video (audio is the key thing) from a witness who was down the block when it was happening. What I do find to be surprising is that it wasn't mentioned until a witness came forward. I would have thought that ballistics information from the injured officer would have indicated where the bullets came from.
Was Boston a "War Zone" During Bomber Manhunt?
"In the ensuing 10 minutes, police officers fired what may be an unprecedented number of rounds in a single police incident in recent state history. They apparently wounded both suspects, but also sprayed the neighborhood. Shots fired in the battle left at least a dozen nearby houses pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes, including a second-floor bedroom where two children slept."
Among the casualties, according to the Globe, may have been MBTA Transit Police Officer Richard H. Donohue Jr., who "eyewitness accounts strongly suggest...was shot and nearly killed by a fellow officer."
I've listened to this video a lot of times. The Boston Globe published it very soon after it happened. There are five shots that sound different than all the rest. The vast majority of the shots (or maybe all) are from the police, right? At the end of the video there are an astounding number of shots fired at the two suspects (or perhaps at only one suspect as the younger brother was getting away in a car?) The reports about how many shots ended up in the walls of nearby homes, and in the wall of a second floor bedroom where children were sleeping -- it's really sheer luck that civilians were not hurt.
Eyewitness video of gunfire in Watertown
Witness: Friendly Fire May Have Hit Cop in Boston Bomber Shootout
She wrote in a statement to the Globe that Donohue was hit near the end of the shootout as 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev drove away from the area in a stolen SUV.
"It appeared to me that an individual at the corner [of the street] fell to the ground and had probably been hit in the gunfire," Dexter Avenue resident Jane Dyson wrote in a statement to the Globe. "I later learned that the individual who had been shot was Officer Richard Donohue."
Noam Sheizaf, Israeli leftist.
Stephen Hawking's message to Israeli elites: The occupation has a price
By choosing to avoid the Presidential Conference – an annual meeting of Israeli generals, politicians and business elites with their international fans, Prof. Hawking reminds that the occupation cannot be forgotten or avoided. A response to Haaretz’s Carlo Strenger.
Yet the thing that made Prof. Strenger jump is not “any action” but rather something very specific – the academic boycott. Personally, I think that his text mostly portrays a self-perception of innocence. Israel, according to Strenger, doesn’t deserve to be boycotted and the “liberal academics” – like himself – specifically, don’t deserve it because they “oppose the occupation.”
At this point in time, I think it’s impossible to make such distinctions. The occupation – which will celebrate 46 years next month – is obviously an Israeli project, to which all elements of society contribute and from which almost all benefit. The high-tech industry’s connection to the military has been widely discussed, the profit Israeli companies make exploiting West Bank resources is documented and the captive market for Israeli goods in the West Bank and Gaza is known. Strenger’s own university cooperates with the army in various programs, and thus contributes its own share to the national project.
[...]
But all this is beside the point right now. While I myself have never advocated a full boycott, I think that the least Israeli leftists can do is to not stand in the way of non-violent Palestinian efforts to end the occupation. It’s not only the moral thing to do, but also a smarter strategy because as long as Israelis don’t feel that the status quo is taking some toll on their lives, they will continue to avoid the unpleasant political choices which are necessary for terminating the occupation. Since the Israeli left is often unable to admit its own share in the occupation – and therefore acknowledge the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance – again and again it acts against its own stated goals.
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