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Links 12/9/11

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EPA blames fracking for Wyoming pollution Financial Times. Mirabile dictu! Or is the EPA to be roused from its somnolence for show through the November elections?

The Future of Nano-Electric Power Generation TED (hat tip reader furzy mouse)

Entrepreneur: Capitalism Will Save World from Climate Crisis to Preserve Markets for iPads, Coke Democracy Now (hat tip reader Aquifer). This is the position of the Milken Institute too, FWIW.

Cameron faces showdown with Sarkozy Financial Times

European Treaty Agreement Fails to Reassure Investors New York Times. Duh!

EU Leaders Drop Demands for Investor Write-Offs in Bailouts Bloomberg

Market rout as ECB dashes bond hopes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph

The only real solution to the European debt crisis is credit writedowns Credit Writedowns

Gingrich slots MEK terrorists’ supporter John Bolton for State Juan Cole

Santorum: We Don’t Need Food Stamps Because Obesity Rates Are So High ThinkProgress (hat tip reader sock puppet)

All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos Paul Krugman, New York Times

Knives Come Out Against Martha Coakley, Who Dares Try to Hold Banks Accountable Dave Dayen, Firedoglake. The Fiscal Times? If this is where this sort of story is running, Coakley has nothing to worry about.

December 9: From Peddler to Investment Pirate Jewish Currents (hat tip reader nathan). I’m not sure how Goldman would feel about the modern day Goldman. I know the Weinberg family is distraught.

Americans Got Much Poorer Last Quarter New York Times

Landmark foreclosure ruling upheld Kennebec Journal (hat tip Lambert Strether)

On Corzine – MFG in the fog of war Bruce Krasting (hat tip reader bob). His story about what happened to a buddy with an MF Global account is astonishing.

CFTC Issues A Clear Statement: MF Global Customers Have Priority In This Bankruptcy Jesse (hat tip reader Scott)

VIDEO: OWS Occupies Movie-Set Replica Of Itself, for Real Mother Jones (hat tip Lambert Strether)

My Occupy LA Arrest Patrick Meighan. Today’s must read.

Antidote du jour:

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88 comments

  1. bob

    Bolton as secretary of state?

    And where has the uproar over Newt taking 1.5 million from Fannie gone? Is that to come out again later, at newt’s request?

    Who, honestly, wants to be prez? The republicans have much more to gain, politically, by not winning. They lit the fire called palin during the last campaign which destroyed their chances. They didn’t want it, they wanted to be able to yell at it.

    Obummer, here’s your chance to appoint Bill Ayres to Homsec.

    1. psychohistorian

      In talking with a locally connected Democrat party friend yesterday about The Newt I think I understand the 2012 strategy a bit more. When you understand that the Democrat and Republican parties are almost one party then you can easily see that the importance of positioning someone against our current fascist in chief that is obscene in one way or another to many Americans is a sure lock on the failure of any potential 3rd party candidate.

      2. Jim Haygood

        Ditto squared.

        From the first article linked in Juan Cole’s blog:

        “Newt Gingrich received a standing ovation from the audience at a Republican Jewish Coalition meeting on Wednesday for promising to appoint John Bolton to be secretary of state if elected president.”

        Nice. In fact, it rhymes with then-candidate Obama telling the audience of a Washington D.C. Jewish organization in August 2008 that there were 30 or 40 or 50 thousand American-hating militants in the middle east who needed to be taken out … and that Iraq was the wrong war; it was really Afghanistan where the US should be fighting.

        As good as his word, Obama as president tripled US troops in Afghanistan from 35,000 to 100,000, deepening the quagmire which continues to this day.

        All we need now to complete the analogy is for Newt to tell us that Afghanistan is the wrong war; rather, it’s really IRAN where the US should be seeking a decisive victory. Bolton has already made this case.

        This is the end state of 150 years of unbroken Depublicrat rule: you get to vote for the War Pig of your choice. And if you’re poor, perhaps see your son or daughter sent home in a flag-draped box.

        Dying for Newt is as glorious as dying for LBJ or Nixon or Obama was, comrades! I don’t give a damn, my next stop is Viet Nam …

        1. EH

          It would be interesting to diagram which election promises were made to who, and which promises were kept.

      3. Rex

        I think you’ve said that the clown circus of republican candidates makes it harder for a 3rd party candidate to have a chance. I don’t follow the math on that. If I got your meaning right, can you explain how that works?

        1. psychohistorian

          Rex,

          Look back to Nader and Ross Perot. I don’t know where you were during and after those electoral events but many were castigated for voting for either because it “tipped” the election…at least in many folks mind.

          The same is going to happen in 2012. The Rs will run some gawdawful candidate and the Ds will scream to everyone that a vote for some viable 3rd party candidate will insure election of the Rs puppet who will take us down some horrible road that fascist in chief Obama won’t…..of course the truth is only about how good we will feel about getting screwed marginally slower by Obama if his first 3 years are any example.

          Am I jaded, yep. I keep waiting for Obama to break away from his puppet masters but my hopium has run out. I can’t even refer to him as President given his military and socio-economic failures….do I have to make a list?

          I hope I answered your question.

          2. Procopius

            I did not think after Reagan that I might ever vote for a Republican for President again, but I have to seriously consider the possibility now. True, every possible Republican candidate is either a loathsome monster or a horrifying looming disaster, but if he gets back into office without a pending election to check his actions I fear Obama. He has shown that he would prefer to destroy Social Security, and he has set aside the rule of law completely, to the point where he arrogates to the President the right to kill or imprison anyone anywhere with the only restriction being that at least one of his subordinates says that person is in some way connected to an organization that somehow supports terrorists.He’s not very good on economics, either. Any person who thinks we have millions of people out of work because the ones who still have jobs are too productive is dangerous.

    2. curlydan

      Rich repubs are well served by Obama while poor repubs whose support is needed for any electoral victory demand either a libertarian on taxes and/or a Christian fundamentalist on social issues. Hence, we’ve gotten the parade of repub crazies that the Obama administration must love. The Newt factor will wear off again and he’ll fall from grace once all are reminded of his insanity.

      If the repubs could go back in time and somehow get the repub crazy base to nominate Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George HW Bush, or even Dole, then Obama would be toast next November.

      1. Amateur Socialist

        It’s an interesting perspective. Today’s GOP can be resurrected by… the losers of elections past (most of whom are dead). Really?

  2. bob

    There still hasn’t been any call for anyone (gov’t, gas companies) to document water quality BEFORE they start drilling. It would have to be a very large sample, with a very large cost.

    Otherwise, “we found it like this” is going to be the standard retort.

      1. Dale

        Add to that the British Petroleum Corexit in the sediment at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and there may be famine
        in the land.

      2. ambrit

        Dear rjs;
        Add to that the new oil leaks from the Macondo field and you get massive ecological degradation all around the Golfo de Mexico, plus, if the currents are right, around the tip of Florida and up the Atlantic Seaboard. Just another example of regulatory capture at work.

      1. Sock Puppet

        The water at my former NJ address for example has been over the health limit in 10 or more contaminants every year, and over the legal limit in at least one contaminant in three of the last five years. I used a three stage water filter before I would drink it (or make beer with it). And this is without fracking…

    3. Praedor

      If someone attempts to poison you, they are committing a crime and, if need be, you can act in self-defense to stop it or react to it. Since corporations are “people”, if a corporation attempts to poison you, or DOES poison you (by contaminating your drinking water with toxins) then you have the same right of self-defense.

      If some company comes a-frackin’ and poisons your water (rendering your property virtually worthless and sticking you with huge expenses henceforth to acquire clean water again) then it is incumbent upon you to act in self-defense. The right of self-defense is a universal, inalienable right.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Is that a code word for those who throw their lives away by living on the rabbit lane?

  4. MDBill

    Steve Keen has made the new edition of his book Debunking Economics available under the Amazon Prime Lending Library program. This is a good opportunity for AP subscribers to read the book in view of the fact that the Kindle edition sells for over $25. Apparently, authors willing to participate in this program are compensated from a pool of money based on how many times their book is borrowed.

  5. Francois T

    Speaking of the EPA, remember how far backward they bent over for Yves’s corporate best friend (evil grin) Monsanto?

    Check out the outcome of this acrobatic maneuver:

    Back in August—as I reported here—something strange began to happen in isolated Iowa corn fields: Otherwise healthy corn plants were falling over, their roots devastated by a ravenous insect called the corn rootworm.

    The weird part wasn’t pest outbreaks in vast corn fields; farmers know that when you plant a huge amount of land with a single crop, you’re also providing a friendly habitat for insects that like to eat that crop. The odd part was that the fields were planted with seed engineered by Monsanto precisely to kill the corn rootworm. Monsanto’s product—known as Bt corn—had failed; rootworms were developing resistance to it.

    At the time, the EPA—which is responsible for registering pesticide-containing crops like Monsanto’s—maintained an icy silence on the matter. But last week, the agency released a report (PDF) that, in calm bureaucratese, rebuked Monsanto for its “inadequate” system for monitoring. It’s one of those delectable reports written not by political appointees or higher-ups, but rather by staff scientists reporting what they see. The document offers a fascinating glimpse into the way the agency conducts business with Monsanto.

    The report confirmed that resistant rootworms had risen up in four states (Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and Nebraska) and suspected in three others (Colorado, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). Now, everyone—Monsanto, the EPA, ag scientists—have known all along that resistance was a danger with Monsanto’s rootworm-targeting Bt corn. To avoid resistance, the EPA decreed back in 2003 that farmers using the product had to plant a “refuge” crop of non-Bt corn alongside their Bt corn, so that rootworms that had developed Bt resistance would mate with peers that had not been exposed to it, diluting the resistant trait and keeping it under control.

    The question was, how large a refuge? Monsanto, hot to move as much product as possible, wanted to keep it small. In this post from early September, I laid out the whole tangled history of how back in 2003, Monsanto strong-armed the EPA into accepting a 20 percent refuge requirement, even after an independent scientific panel convened by the agency had recommended a 50 percent buffer. In a Nature article from the time, available here, scientists involved in the panel express rage at the EPA’s cave-in.

    With this document, the agency is tacitly acknowledging that its independent advisory panel was right, and Monsanto was wrong. What happens now? The Center for Food Safety’s Bill Freese points to research from University of Illinois crop scientist Michael Gray suggesting that in some Illinois farm counties, 40 percent of farmers lack access to high-quality non-Bt corn seed. That same problem likely affects farmers throughout the corn belt. Just as farmers have responded to the collapse of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready weed-killing technology by dousing their fields with “herbicide cocktails,” we’ll likely see farmers respond to superinsects with increased doses of toxic insecticides. Beyond that, here are the two takeaways of the EPA’s recent bombshell.

    Advertise on MotherJones.com

    • The EPA has been relying on Monsanto to monitor the development of rootworm resistance, and—surprise!—Monsanto has been doing a lousy job of it. When Monsanto hears reports from farmers and seed dealers about possible resistance outbreaks, it’s supposed to investigate them. The company’s monitoring plan is “inadequate and likely to miss early resistance events,” the document states. A less polite but more accurate assessment might be “inadequate and designed to miss early resistance events.”

    The document lists no fewer than five major problems with Monsanto’s monitoring program. The agency notes that when Monsanto gets a report of possibly resistant rootworms, it collects samples of them “within 1-2 miles from neighboring sites of failed fields.” That’s like a police dispatcher receiving a report of a crime in progress, and sending a cop car within one to two miles of the address. The EPA dryly notes:

    Since the majority of adult corn rootworm may not disperse long distances, the greatest probability of capture of resistant genotypes should be in the problem fields, possibly in adjacent fields, but less likely in fields 2 miles away during that particular year.

    The document also chides Monsanto for setting the threshold of root damage too high before an an investigation is triggered, and thus missing possible early-stage resistance outbreaks that can later break out into large ones.

    Perhaps most devastatingly of all, EPA reveals that that Monsanto has been receiving reports of possible resistance since 2004—the year after the product’s release—when it got 21 such complaints nationwide. The number of reports ballooned to 94 in 2006 and have been hovering at at around 100 per year since. And guess what? “Monsanto reported that none of their follow-up investigations resulted…in finding resistant populations [of rootworms].”

    In other words, to hear Monsanto tell it, resistance isn’t a problem at all! And since Monsanto is responsible for monitoring it, the public would not know about the problem if an independent scientist, Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann, hadn’t published a paper documenting four cases of it in Iowa in August, prompting a major story in the Wall Street Journal.

    Monsanto responded to Grossman’s findings with brazen denial: “We don’t have any demonstrated field resistance,” a Monsanto official insisted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when asked about the study. As recently as last week, in the wake of the EPA document’s release, Monsanto officials continued to assert that there had been no scientific confirmation of resistance to its Bt corn, Bloomberg reported. The response calls to mind the old Groucho Marx joke about the man pleading with his wife after being caught in flagrante with another woman: “Who are you going to believe: me, or your lying eyes?”
    Monsanto’s denial calls to mind the old joke about the man caught in flagrante by his wife: “Who are you going to believe: me, or your lying eyes?”

    • Monsanto is already peddling a solution to the problem it generated—and it, too, looks vulnerable to resistance. Now, even though Monsanto has so far refused to acknowledge the resistance problem, the company has not shied away from promoting a its new “Smartstax” corn seeds, which contain the current failing Bt toxin plus another that it has licensed from its rival, Dow, as a remedy. Bloomberg reports:

    Farmers with root damage in their fields should consider changing practices to “stay ahead of this insect,” Monsanto said in a statement. That could include rotating corn with soybeans or using a product such as Monsanto’s SmartStax corn, which kills rootworms with two types of Bt, the company said.

    Because it contains two separate rootworm-attacking pesticides, Monsanto insists that Smartstax is less prone to cause resistance and thus needs an even smaller refuge area. The company has persuaded the EPA to require only a 5 percent refuge for Smartstax, leaving the other 95 percent open for Monsanto’s business.

    But in its memo from last week, EPA scientists bluntly question the wisdom of that approach. With one of its Bt toxins having already lost effectiveness, the report notes, Smartstax will be “substantially less durable” when planted with just a 5 percent refuge, and it “could ultimately compromise the second unrelated toxin used to control the pest.” In other words, the debut of Smartstax will likely delay, but not stop, the march of Bt-resistant superinsects. But putting off problems by forever rolling out profitable new “solutions” is precisely the agrichemical industry’s business model.

    The question now is, will the EPA’s decision makers heed this bombshell of a report and start actually subjecting Monsanto to independent oversight? Of course, as for those ravenous corn rootworms squirming around the Midwest, the solution is simple: The Union of Concerned Scientist’s Doug Gurian-Sherman has said it before and he said it again this week: Just stop growing so much damn corn. Simple biodiversity in farm fields, it turns out, trumps the latest patented geegaw conjured up by Monsanto. And it also makes for a healthier food supply.

    1. Sock Puppet

      I90 through MN and SD passes through nothing but corn, almost all for animal feed or ethanol. Commodity export crops supplanting local agriculture leaving the locals impoverished and reliant on imported food and aid. Just like a banana republic.

      2. Sufferin' Succotash

        Don’t worry. The impoverished locals can be relied upon to blame their problems on illegal immigrants and gays. We’re well past the time when Mary Ellen Lease could gain a mass following by calling on Midwesterners to raise less corn and more hell.

      3. LeonovaBalletRusse

        FrancoisT & Sock Puppet, thanks for the report.

        No surprise here. The barons of Monsanto, DuPont, Dow were right there in Colonial Louisiana during the first European occupation for spoils. They carry the .01%/1% DNA (some believe this DNA is “the mark of the beast”).

        We ARE a “banana republic,” on the “GRET STET of Louisiana” model. Can we imagine they care about the 99%, We the People, the Citizens “ordinary” of the United States?

        As George Carlin averred: “They don’t give a F!!! about you; they don’t care about you AT ALL! at all, at all.” At least he is beyond their reach now, his duty to us done.

      1. Sock Puppet

        Elaborating from a better keyboard, EWG’s farm subsidies database is broken down by state, county, and *congressional district*.

        Sad thing is, folks who live in the midwest farm states have become so dependent on the subsidies that they’ll vote for anyone who keeps them coming, not realizing that most of the money goes to big ag to grow commmodity crops, and that that is who is keeping them downtrodden. Talk about welfare dependency…

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          Those who aren’t on Meth (see book: “METHLAND”). The Overlords have thought of everything.

    4. Praedor

      Apparently Monsanto is conducting full-fledged warfare against farmers an humanity in general. They send their drones into farmer’s fields to check to see if they have any “illegal” Monsanto GM corn or beans growing, if they find it they sue the crap out of the farmer. It doesn’t matter if the corn/beans are spillover/contamination from someone else’s field and the farmer in question never planted such crap, the farmer with the contamination gets the shaft. This is a particularly-enjoyed tactic by Monsanto to go after organic growers who might take a nip out of Monsanto’s profits.

      Then there’s Monsanto’s patenting of mixing herbicides. See, I never ever had to read a single Monsanto “study” claiming that Bt corn or “Roundup Ready” crops would not suffer from loss of effectiveness to know that this was nonsense. Evolution happens. End of story. It is/was inevitable that there would evolve Bt-resistant insects. It is/was inevitable that there would evolve roundup-resistant weeds. First, evolution cannot be stopped and second, it is stone-cold fact that genes transfer horizontally from species to species and that anything you put in corn or beans WILL end up in non-target plants too. Inevitable. So…farmers start doing what they have to do when they start running into Roundup resistance issues with weeds: they mix it up and use a combination of different herbicides to try and get around the resistant weeds. Oh wait! Monsanto has a patent out on the mixing of various herbicides to get around resistance so they go after the farmers for doing this!

      Here’s a nice little tidbit too: cattle have died after consuming GM corn. The same vector used to transduce genes into plants (Agrobacteria) is capable of transfering genes into NONPLANTS TOO (including humans). Plant viruses have been acting as a natural vector for alien gene transfer between plant species as well for as long as there have been plants and viruses to infect them.

      1. Susan the other

        Monsanto must be as aware as the rest of the world that they are orchestrating the end of agriculture. In their greed they got way too far ahead of reality and the consequences of their pseudo seed science are already our of their control. The only way to put Monsanto down is for farmers to cooperate and produce their own seeds. They will never voluntarily come to Jesus.

      2. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Praedor, this is the CorporateState1%Monopoly Feudal system in action. The farmers are but serfs, at the tender mercies of the Feudal Lords, obeisant to Popes of all *religions* and to Kings/Queens *uber alles*.

  7. bmeisen

    The LAPD’s approach to Occupy LA contrasts sharply with what I’ve experienced at Occupy Frankfurt. I cannot recall seeing a Frankfurt police officer in numerous visits to the site. There are lots of street people hanging out with the protesters, lots of alcohol and some cannibis consumption, on Saturday nights it’s the coolest club in Frankfurt with DJs spinning until the wee hours of the morning. The partying goes too far for my taste and the polizei are invisible. I suspect there are undercover cops present and there may well be a confrontation in the future.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Who needs police, when citizens castrate themselves voluntarily with weed, speed, ecstasy, DJ’s for lobotomies?

          2. Skippy

            I drink to make other people interesting – Ernest Hemmingway

            A woman drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her – W.C. Fields

            When I read about the evils of drink, I gave up reading – Henny Youngman

            You’re not drunk if you can lie on the ground without holding on – Dean Martin

            Winston you’re drunk – Bessie Braddock – Madam, you’re ugly, tomorrow, however, I shall be sober – Winston Churchill

            I like to have a martini,
            Two at the very most.
            After three I’m under the table,
            after four I’m under my host. – Dorothy Parker

            You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think. – Dorothy Parker

            If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. – Dorothy Parker

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr-kn0JG5p4

            Skippy… 5:38 AM and more rain here… what a start to the day!

      2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        I imagine a Neanderthal would use these herbs for the good of their fellow Neanderthals, though he would probably be abstinate for a few days before and after each session, maybe even ablute himself, treating their shamanic use as something sacred and spiritual, not casual – something our modern recreational sophist doesn’t understand.

        1. ambrit

          Dear MLTPB;
          We have somehow allowed ourselves to forego ‘altered states’ of living for ‘neutered states’ of existence. What a shame when the sacral becomes the hedonal. See you on the other side.

  8. Dale

    If you think the Goldman family was interesting, try
    the Monsanto Family…

    As I understand it, expelled from Spain by the Catholic Kings, bought Papal indulgences, lived in Portugal,
    founded slave running operations from Angola to New
    Orleans and the Caribbean, relocated to America,
    bought cotton lands for pennies on the dollar as
    carpetbaggers, started making chemicals, later Agent
    Orange and now is splicing genes into the bacteria in
    your stomach through genetically modified food crops.

    There are markets everywhere for these folks.

  9. ohmyheck

    re: Bruce Krastings and the reverse wire-transfer…I hope he keeps pulling that thread. That is some very hinky goings-on there. I would be taking my personal banker to task for allowing this and not notifying me before the reverse transfer had transpired. (OK, I’d ripping the entire bank office a new one), and it will be very interesting to find out if this was an isolated incident, or happened on a larger scale.

  10. K Ackermann

    Bolton as SecState? Really?

    And Wolfowitz at treasury, Fieth as SecDef, Perle as Chief of Staff, Cheney at EPA, Rumsfeld as AG, Krystol as Press Sec, Norquist at OMB.

  11. Susan the other

    The Future of Energy. Nanocarbon electron capture. And just when I was getting clear on string theory! Well, not really. But after watching the last NOVA on it I was trying to understand the difference between an electron and a string and how one theory says its a tiny packet of spinning energy just at the edge of the heart of an atom and another says its a tiny vibrating string and it isn’t just buzzing around a proton and a neutron, it is everywhere; more like the” fabric of the universe.” So if nanocarbons can capture “electrons,” or whatever they really are, the abundance of energy could be accessed. Wish there were a tutorial on this on the net somewhere.

    1. Anonymous Jones

      The world is incredibly complex, isn’t it? I find it wonderful and endlessly fascinating. I could never run out of things to investigate and think about. Becoming bored is not an option.

      And as humans, we are so diverse. Many people just allow their ideas to fossilize, I guess out of fear of the unknown, a fear of the complexity, a fear of loss of a control they never had and never would be able to achieve.

      Life is just fascinating and wonderful. I am grateful for every minute of it.

  12. optimader

    I look at Oscar and sadly the first thing I think of is his being a metaphor for ben bernanke.. sorry Oscar

      1. hermanas

        My dream last night;
        Scene 1, The Oriental Princess is presented a kitten (Oskar)and leaves the scene. A merchant warlord storms the court demanding the valuable kitten (insight?)
        Scene 2, the M-W catches up with Princess and repeats the demand. No kitten, but the court magician says, “You sir, are a work of art.” draws a frame around him and tosses it/him out the window.
        Scene 3, The princess, now bohemean dressed is filming gangsters in an Eastern European city. “Not to worry”, she smiles, “the bullets are not real.”

  13. Susan the other

    EU Leaders Drop Demands for Investor Writeoffs, Bloomberg. Does this mean that the ECB will be the lender of last resort in spite of unregulated derivatives (CDSs)? Did they or didn’t they make CDSs illegal? Does it mean they were just kidding about the 50% haircut which wasn’t really a “default”? Does Greece still get its deal? And why is Cameron so angry at just a little transaction tax? Was there more to it than that? Is the ECB going to be in the bond buying business beginning next month? I hope we get Henry Liu back on this stuff. I like him because he uses less jargon and follows a thread of logic without too many jumps. I assume he knows what he is talking about.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Susan, these are good questions.

      Why doesn’t the European Union, in self defense against *Rogue States* write the RULE that *to be a member of the EU, each member state MUST adopt the Euro as its sole official currency and MUST comply with the financial restrictions imposed on States and Banks of the Member states equally*? The EU must FORSAKE all *Popes* religious and financial.

      Why is the so-called UK considered to be a country of the EU if it will not adopt the currency common to the EU and will not comply with its rules and regulations? Should such a *Kingdom* not be *on its own*, to fend for itself alone?

      The same goes for other “EU countries” who will not conform to “European Union” identity.

      If Germany and France are leading the re-writing of the EU Charter, will they do it right this time? Is the EU *a man or a mouse?* Maybe St. Petersburg will lead the way for *European Russia* to join Germany, France, Italy, and other LEGITIMATE EU nations as a COMPLIANT European Union State?

      Let ART refresh the memory of the EU’s New Ship of State:

      “RUSSIAN ARK: A Film by Alexander Sokurov” – (2002: Egolli Tossell Film AktienGesellschaft & Hermitage Bridge Studio; 2003: WELLSPRING Media, Inc. – DVD # 7 20917 53822 8 — ISBN 0 7942-0378-7);

      “VALERY GERGIEV Conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” – Directed for Television and Video by Brian Large (2000: ORF/RM ASSOCIATES; Distributor: IMAGE Entertainment – DVD # 0 14381 – 3779-2 7);

      “HEIFETZ & PIATIGORSKY” – Historic Performance Film Footage (n.d., KULTUR (www.kultur.com), West Long Branch, NJ) – ISBN: 0-7697-7910-7 — DVD # 0 32031 11019.

      Why wouldn’t the United States be in favor of this? Do we not have a mind of our own, APART from the *AngloMother*?

      Madame Hillary, can you hear me?

      1. Stephen Nightingale

        LBR: Why is the so-called UK considered to be a country of the EU if it will not adopt the currency common to the EU and will not comply with its rules and regulations?

        Well the cross-investment between the US and the UK is rather more intricate than anything between the UK and Europe, so the pound moves more closely with the dollar than with the Euro. So you can expect the US to apply to become the 41st County anytime soon, and adopt Sterling.

    2. Stephen Nightingale

      Susan: And why is Cameron so angry at just a little transaction tax?

      Because Margaret Thatcher decreed that the economic future of Britain was to be ‘finance’. And now they no longer do anything in the country but buy and sell sh*t in the Square Mile.

  14. Max424

    Is Mr. Market suicidal?

    No, Mr. Market is not suicidal, He wants to live, and reap profit; but unfortunately, for Him and for us, Mr. Market is as blind as the kitten Oskar, and he’s driving humanity’s vehicle, and that vehicle is heading straight for a cliff.

    Will He heed our warning call, Mr. Market is not deaf after all. No, Mr. Market put His ear plugs in, years ago, and hasn’t listened to shit since.

    Is Mr. Market dumb, too, as in deaf, dumb and blind? Does He talk, so we at least know He’s thinking?

    Hell yeah, He talks. Non-stop. In fact, Mr. Market a babbling psychotic blowhard.

    “Look at me, everybody! I’m blind, I can’t hear a fucking thing, yet I’m driving at full speed, heading toward God knows what; because I can, because I know no fear, because I am, the ULTIMATE RISK TAKER!”

    “Live on the edge; or over it! What’s the diff? Follow meeeeeeee!!!”

  15. Walter Wit Man

    Amazing first hand report from Patrick Meighan about being arrested by the L.A.P.D.

    L.A. sent 1400 cops in riot gear to issue what amounted to 46 misdemeanor charges for failing to leave a park (and some unspecified number of resisting arrest charges–which I presume involves the linking of arms that Mr. Meighan describes). http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=8452209 (you can see the military strength zip ties in the picture).

    A single old fashioned ticket writer, no gun even needed, could write 46 tickets for 1/1000th of the cost. I bet most of the protesters would have willingly furnished their information and would probably have accepted their misdemeanor tickets and promises to appear without incident.

    According to this article, http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_19455113, those that didn’t have a previous record (187) were released without charge but evidently prosecutors chose to target people with previous charges? (they originally charged 19 but then added up to 46). They are not only singling out Occupy protesters for harsh prosecution and detention but singling out those with some sort of record for even greater punishment? I don’t see mention of any felonies charges, nor do I seen any mention of violence against the police or 3rd party property destruction.

    The city is also harassing the protesters by making all of them post bond for these misdemeanor charges and of course doing tens of thousands of dollars of damage.

    Plus, they are being abused and Mr. Meicham should feel no shame in sharing with us that he was abused. Really, I know police brutality is routinely accepted in this country, but making people sit uncomfortably on concrete with zip ties through the night for 7 hours and then cramming them in cells is police brutality and shouldn’t just be one of those things one has to go through when one is arrested.

    And what a massive response for such little ‘wrongdoing.’ How much did this cost? Who is directing it? Was PERF involved? Any other private-public partnerships? Is the government treating these people as terrorists under the PATRIOT Act or the secret PATRIOT Act?

    I also wonder about the PR campaign rolling out this story of L.A. being different as they persecute this group.

    1. Glenn Condell

      Dig the contrast between the treatment of Corzine, emblematic of the sort of person who has destroyed America with financial fraud, with that of Meighan and those who protest this fraud and the failure to prosecute it.

      Two stories out of the UK today are similarly descriptive of the two sides of the coin, corrupt winners and noble losers.

      The nub is that the UK government’s tax body (HM Revenue and Customs) under its head Dave Hartnett has been letting big corporate players off scot free for misdeeds – most notably Vodaphone’s billion dollar avoidance a few years ago and recently a 10 million pound tax write-off for Goldman Sachs. A young Nigerian solicitor Otisi Mba working at HMRC believed the write-off was probably illegal and certainly not in the public interest. He blew the whistle and the issue became public.

      How life has unfolded since for Mba: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/08/goldman-sachs-whistleblower-threatened-sack?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

      And for Hartnett: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/09/revenue-chief-retires-goldman-sachs

      I wish I lived in less ‘interesting times’. In this increasingly Kafka-esque world, it is hard not to concur with one of the great man’s aphorisms – ‘There is hope, but not for us’.

      1. Walter Wit Man

        Interesting story.

        This model has been expanded across the Western world.

        The current injustices seem more egregious than even during the Great Depression.

  18. EmilianoZ

    For those interested by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, some videos from the hotel’s security cameras have been released:

    http://www.bfmtv.com/#!affaire-dsk-diallo/

    Nothing earth-shattering or conclusive. But you can see the celebration dance by the hotel employees. Apparently those guys don’t remember anymore what they were celebrating.

    The commentary is in French but you don’t lose much if you don’t understand it. It’s pro-DSK and only tries to bias your vision of the events.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        EmilianoZ, “la danse de joie” lacks only the football slammed to the ground as the *hero* makes the touchdown. Did you see it? “THE STING” has been accomplished.

  19. Thomas Barton, JD

    As to the knives come out for martha coakley, yes it is true she has nothing to worry about. She is the leading edge of 3 more years of creeping incrementalism being touted as a real threat and a real response to the Banksters. She was on Dylan Ratigan and he twice prodded her on filing criminal charges. She ignored the first and then when he persisted she said she was not ruling them out and then proceeded to voice her plan to get justice for the wrongfully foreclosed. Any AG can file a lawsuit and then let the wheels of lazy discovery and “crowded court dockets” doom the efficacy of his or her efforts. This effort by her and Beau Biden of Delaware are both highly touted and held up as exemplars of aggressive AG work but the reality is that they will simply putter along at idle speed for years.. Now if they were to indict someone far up the food chain from those pipsqueaks that the Nevada AG is pursuing then that would be saying and DOING something. I am very disappointed that Firedoglake is holding her up as a hard charger when in fact the only test of sincerity and aggression is to file criminal indictments against nationally known figures in the US Bankster Elites. I wonder if Bill Black has any thoughts on this.

  21. Aquifer

    Yves, re your comment on the EPA piece – my, my, you are more cynical than i thought – though i agree with you (i am getting more and more all the time …)

    Alas, as i have learned, it may well be true – no matter how cynical you are, it is never enough ….

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