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Good Morning!
Hydrangea. June, 2012 by joanneleon
As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change.
~Al Gore
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News
Pro Publica helps with understanding this:
Beyond Barclays: Laying out the Libor Investigations
Settlements filed by government regulators in the U.S. and the U.K. show this manipulation happened in two ways: first, Barclays’ traders attempted to steer rates up or down in order to benefit trades they had made to profit off of those rates. Separately, the filings show that during the financial crisis, Barclays tried to counter reports that it had financial troubles by changing the interest rate it reported.
If you’re just catching up to this, here’s some background on the scandal, and how we’ll likely see government action on other banks besides Barclays.
A lot of people keep pointing out that this was the crime of the century (probably longer than that) but no Wall Street execs are in jail, and look how the Senators treated Jamie Dimon. And people wonder why we have waves of "throw the bums out" elections?
Crime of the Century
Forget Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay—they were mere amateurs in financial crime. The current Libor interest rate scandal, involving hundreds of trillions in international derivatives trade, shows how the really big boys play. And these guys will most likely not do the time because their kind rewrites the law before committing the crime.
Modern international bankers form a class of thieves the likes of which the world has never before seen. Or, indeed, imagined. The scandal over Libor—short for London interbank offered rate—has resulted in a huge fine for Barclays Bank and threatens to ensnare some of the world’s top financers. It reveals that behind the world’s financial edifice lies a reeking cesspool of unprecedented corruption. The modern-day robber barons pillage with a destructive abandon totally unfettered by law or conscience and on a scale that is almost impossible to comprehend.
Brian Cox: Bank bailout costlier than UK science 'since Jesus'
Prof Brian Cox claimed the UK has spent more on saving banks in a year than it had on science "since Jesus".
He also appeared to reject Alastair Campbell's suggestion to stand as an MP - claiming only the prime minister has any real power and nothing much happens in Parliament.
Crossposted from TomDispatch.com to HuffPo:
The Lessons Washington Can't Draw From the Failure of the Military Option
Americans may feel more distant from war than at any time since World War II began. Certainly, a smaller percentage of us -- less than 1 percent -- serves in the military in this all-volunteer era of ours and, on the face of it, Washington’s constant warring in distant lands seems barely to touch the lives of most Americans.
And yet the militarization of the United States and the strengthening of the National Security Complex continues to accelerate. The Pentagon is, by now, a world unto itself, with a staggering budget at a moment when no other power or combination of powers comes near to challenging this country’s might.
In the post-9/11 era, the military-industrial complex has been thoroughly mobilized under the rubric of “privatization” and now goes to war with the Pentagon. With its $80 billion-plus budget, the intelligence bureaucracy has simply exploded. There are so many competing agencies and outfits, surrounded by a universe of private intelligence contractors, all enswathed in a penumbra of secrecy, and they have grown so large, mainly under the Pentagon’s aegis, that you could say intelligence is now a ruling way of life in Washington -- and it, too, is being thoroughly militarized. Even the once-civilian CIA has undergone a process of para-militarization and now runs its own “covert” drone wars in Pakistan and elsewhere. Its director, a widely hailed retired four-star general, was previously the U.S. war commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan, just as the National Intelligence Director who oversees the whole intelligence labyrinth is a retired Air Force lieutenant general.
Libyans vote in first election since Gaddafi's downfall
Voters turn out in droves but joy tempered by boycott calls, ballot-burnings and violence in unsettled east
"I have a strange but beautiful feeling today," said Adam Thabet, a dentist, waiting outside a polling centre. "We are free at last after years of fear. We knew this day was coming, but we were afraid it could take long to come."
After casting his ballot in a station in the capital, the prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, said: "We are celebrating today and we want the whole world to celebrate with us."
[ ... ]
Libya's intense regional, tribal and ideological divisions have cast a shadow over the vote, however. In the oil-rich east there is a thriving pro-autonomy movement fuelled by widespread resentment at what is perceived as domination by Tripoli.
[ ... ]
Nouri al-Abar, the head of the election commission, told a news conference that 94% of polling centres nationwide were open but acknowledged that "security conditions" had prevented ballots from reaching some polling centres in some cases, and that ballots had been destroyed in other cases. He did not provide further details on how the ballots had been destroyed.
For 3,700 candidates in Libyan election, winning means standing out in crowd
On Saturday, Baker will experience an overdose of democracy during Libya’s first election in more than 50 years. He is one of 158 candidates for three seats in a district of 300,000 people. Baker is one of 3,700 candidates vying for 200 parliamentary seats.
His job for the last month as a candidate has not been to sell his views or his vision for Libya, but to stand out in the crowd.
With so many candidates running in such a short election cycle, a vote slated to redefine Libyan politics in the post-Gadhafi era has very little to do with political vision. The winning candidates will largely consist of those with the most posters, the largest tribes, the best social network or the most number of friends, Baker and other parliamentary candidates said.
Occupy movement center of new art exhibit
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Occupy movement has become an art exhibit. "Occupy Bay Area" goes on display on Saturday in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
The political posters that originated at the beginning of the Occupy movement are striking -- bold, bright and big.
Twenty-five Bay Area artists are showing in the exhibit. Director of visual arts Betti-Sue Hertz first looked at images online because the gallery works with the Internet a lot. She chose 80 designs then narrowed them down to 50 for the show.
Moscow Warns West of ‘Big War’ in Syria
Moscow lashed out on Thursday at the Western position on Syria, saying it could aggravate the situation to the point of war.
“Their [Western] position is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Baird announces new sanctions on Syria, takes aim at Russia
Canada joined the U.S. in launching a diplomatic salvo against Russia on Friday, accusing the nation of standing in the way of a solution to the ongoing violence in Syria.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird attended a meeting of the Friends of Syria in Paris on Friday, then hosted a teleconference in which he said Ottawa is introducing new sanctions against the regime.
Baird said Canada is "horrified" by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
But he called on Russia, Syria's closest ally, as well as China, to stop protecting the Assad regime.
"I think we all acknowledge that Russia is the significant obstacle here," Baird told a teleconference.
Arafat's widow calls for body to be exhumed
A nine-month investigation suggests that the late Palestinian leader may have been poisoned with polonium.
Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.
A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.
Blog Posts of Interest
The Evening Blues - 7-6-12 on DailyKos by KBO
California Legislature Passes High Speed Rail Bond Issue, Moving Project Forward on FDL News by David Dayen
Imagine… an exciting new independent blog and news site with a focus on a better future, waging peace, battling ignorance and greed.
“Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, something you do , something you are, and something you give away.” ― John Lennon
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