Categories
Open Thread

The Pirate King

While the world has been watching the rise of the left – from Obama’s ascendancy to the reorganisation of political parties across South America, another game has been in play – the ascendency of the Pirate King.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.

While Johnny Depp brought smiles to our faces though the Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s the Somali Pirates who are writing the script in 2009. On the 7th April this year hijackers off Somalia’s coast seized five ships in 48 hours. The pirates eluded the armada of warships from more than a dozen nations patrolling Somalia’s seas.

According to Wikipedia piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of Somalia’s civil war in the early 1990s. Since 2005, many international organisations, including the International Maritime Organization and the World Food Programme, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy. Piracy has contributed to a rise in shipping costs and impeded the delivery of food aid shipments. Ninety percent of the World Food Programme’s shipments arrive by sea, and ships have required a military escort. According to the Kenyan foreign minister, Somali pirates have received over US$150 million during the 12 months prior to November 2008.

Where things get interesting is in the analysis of cause and effect. According to an article over on the New York Times Somali officials said piracy started about 10 to 15 years ago as a response to illegal fishing. The country’s tuna-rich waters were plundered by commercial fishing fleets soon after its government collapsed in 1991. Somali fishermen turned into armed vigilantes, confronting fishing boats and demanding they pay a tax. In 2008, more than 120 pirate attacks occurred in the Gulf of Aden, far more than in any other year in recent memory. Experts said the Somali pirates netted more than $100 million, an astronomical sum for a war-racked country whose economy is in tatters.

UPDATE: 12 April 2009
Rachel Maddow provides a roundup on the Meet the Press.

UPDATE: 13 April 2009
John J. Kruzel of the American Forces Press Service reports Hostage Captain Was in ‘Imminent Danger’ at Time of Rescue

1,477 replies on “The Pirate King”

Good article Catrina. Although I’m not sure what they are going to do about it short term, apart from sending in the navy. Long term, it’s the same issue as everywhere. It’s the economy. Fix the economy and add infrastructure. The answer is simple how to get there is a lot harder.

Pressure Mounts on Notre Dame to Pull the Plug on President Obama’s Address.
Ten priests from the order that founded the University of Notre Dame are asking the school to reconsider its invitation to President Obama to speak at next month’s commencement. The priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross say the school is risking what they call its true soul, by giving an honorary doctorate to a person whose policies on abortion and stem cell research clash with those of the Catholic Church. The group says failure to rescind the invitation, “will damage the integrity of the institution.”

And in an effort to strike at the school’s funding, The American Life League is calling for Notre Dame to be removed from the official list of Catholic institutions. The pro-life group’s president, Judith Brown, says they interviewed students and, “found a tragic attitude at the university… apathy, if not hostility, toward the faith. The university is backing away from the Catholic Church.”

More on Fox News

While i do not have a problem with the Somali fishermen protecting their fishing rights they have obviously overstepped the mark in seizing ships on the high seas and demanding huge ransoms.
Having been paid out on several occasions they obviously now have an acquired taste for the rewards of their labour.
This has been going on for a number of years now and IMHO it is absolutely laughable, that with modern technology and superior weapons systems available today, they are able to seize a large ship so far out to sea with a high speed large dinghy and such inferior weapons.
I am not for one moment advocating killing them but there are plenty of methods available with which to deter them.
It would certainly help if their country could be given aid to help minimizze their desparation for infrastructure, jobs and food.

The next few days will prove very interesting now that the pirates have a US Captain as hostage adrift in a lifeboat out in the wild blue yonder and surrounded by the grey funnel line.

Sex V Dancing..
A modern Orthodox Jewish couple, preparing for a religious wedding, meets with their rabbi for counselling.
The rabbi asks if they have any last questions before they leave.
The man asks,”Rabbi, we realize it’s tradition for men to dance with men, and women to dance with women at the reception. But, we’d like your permission to dance together.”
“Absolutely not,” says the rabbi. “It’s immodest. Men and women always dance separately.”
“So after the ceremony I can’t even dance with my own wife?”
“No,” answered the rabbi. “It’s forbidden.”
“Well, okay,” says the man, “What about sex? Can we finally have (he spells it out) s e x?”
“Of course!” replies the rabbi. Then he spells out the s e x is a mitzvah within marriage, to have children!”
“What about different positions?” asks the man.
“No problem,” says the rabbi. “It’s a mitzvah!”
“Woman on top?” the man asks.
“Sure,” says the rabbi. “Go for it! It’s a mitzvah!”
“On the kitchen table?”
“Yes, yes! A mitzvah!”
“Can we do it on rubber sheets with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, a leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porno video?”
“You may indeed. It’s all a mitzvah!”
“Can we do it standing up?”
“NO, NO, NO!” cries the rabbi.
“Why not?” asks the man.
“Could lead to dancing.”

This is before they have even tasted it.

Just 53 Percent Say Capitalism Is Preferable To Socialism.
Here’s a new Rasmussen Reports poll that could mean nightmares for Joe The Plumber: According to Rasmussen, just 53 percent of those asked say capitalism is a better system than socialism.

read the rest of the info on CBS News

GWV Thanks for that. Although I’m not sure what his point was. Apart from caution. As it hadn’t been done before.

Just a note to show how ineffective Conroy’s firewall would be. A pedophile site that has 50,000 members. Would have a membership list. It gets banned. Traffic slows. Five minutes later, a new site. Email goes out. Traffic comes back. Six months to a year before it gets banned again. If that quick. So they may have lost half a days worth of traffic. If that. They will return in he next couple of days. Net loss probably ZERO.

Somalia, another place the US walked away from, (after a very messy incident with a helicopter) and somehow supposed would just repair itself. It didn’t. When you don’t have a government for decades, and your scarce resources get plundered by opportunists, well, just what do you expect?

Nation building was never their forte, was it? And if we think Somalia and Afghanistan were bad outcome, I’m just dreading what Iraq will look like when Obama pulls out the troops. (If you think it’ll be a new blooming of the hanging gardens of Babylon, I’ve got some disappointing news for you).

Upping the ante on the high seas is clearly not the solution. Bigger guns will not solve anything if the only foreign exchange they can muster is ransom money. Nup, it’s gotta be on the ground wholesale aid and reconstruction, or nothing.

What’s the bet it ends up being bigger guns?

Sigh.

Just some back of the envelope calculations …

The per capita GDP in Somalia is about $600 USD. A successful ransom brings in USD$ 1-2 million. Assuming 50% of that goes to back-channels, 25% for the pirate captain, and the remaining 25% distributed amongst the Somalia variant of the dirty dozen, and assuming just one successful hit a year – the potential for one of the dirty dozen on a $1 million hit – is $20,833 (tax free). To put that number into perspective, it’s 34.7 x your-annual-salary. If your earning AUD $100,000 a year, that’s equivalent to a retirement bundle of about AUD$ 3.5 million.

gaffhook at 3

While i do not have a problem with the Somali fishermen protecting their fishing rights they have obviously overstepped the mark in seizing ships on the high seas and demanding huge ransoms.

After doing some more digging it seems that fishing isn’t the only thing that is pissing of the locals. From that wikipedia link in the post is the following historical background:

Piracy emerged following the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. With the government gone Somali warlords “received large payments from Swiss and Italian firms” to allow the dumping of toxic waste into the ocean off the Somali coast. Following the massive tsunami of December 2004, there have also emerged allegations that after the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in the late 1980s, Somalia’s long, remote shoreline was used as a dump site for the disposal of toxic waste. The huge waves which battered northern Somalia after the tsunami are believed by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to have stirred up tonnes of toxic waste that was illegally dumped in the country by certain European firms. The European Green Party presented before the press and the European Parliament in Strasbourg copies of contracts signed by two European companies — the Italian Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso — and representatives of the warlords then in power, to accept 10 million tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million (then about £60 million). According to reports by the UNEP, the waste has resulted in far higher than normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal haemorrhages and unusual skin infections among many inhabitants of the areas around the northeastern towns of Hobbio and Benadir on the Indian Ocean coast. UNEP continues that the current situation along the Somali coastline poses a very serious environmental hazard not only in Somalia but also in the eastern Africa sub-region. At the same time, illegal trawlers began fishing Somalia’s seas with an estimated $300 million of tuna, shrimp, and lobster being taken each year depleting stocks previously available to local fishermen. Through interception with speedboats, Somali fishermen tried to either dissuade the dumpers and trawlers or levy a “tax” on them as compensation. In an interview, Sugule Ali, one of the pirate leaders explained “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits (to be) those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.” Peter Lehr, a Somalia piracy expert at the University of St. Andrews says “It’s almost like a resource swap, Somalis collect up to $100 million a year from pirate ransoms off their coasts and the Europeans and Asians poach around $300 million a year in fish from Somali waters.”

Kirribilli Removals at 14

Upping the ante on the high seas is clearly not the solution. Bigger guns will not solve anything if the only foreign exchange they can muster is ransom money. Nup, it’s gotta be on the ground wholesale aid and reconstruction, or nothing.

I agree. Your talking about responsibly addressing an underlying illness. For the moment I don’t see the economic cost of of Piracy driving a solutions any time soon.

What’s the bet it ends up being bigger guns?

Probably not bigger guns on the target ships (although I could imagine individual operators going down that path). I figure a much more likely scenario is maritime law catching up with digital communications, wireless technology, international adoption of common authentication strategies, improvements to intruder detection technologies and alert mechanisms (majority of occasions the first thing a captain knows about the presence of a pirate is the guy standing on the bridge behind him with a revolver in his hand). But all of this is economics related – a USD$ 1 million penalty here and there is not so much, and the pirates seem to have a rather good track record on the humanitarian front (at least for now).

What is interesting here is the proportional attention. Iraq is costing the US government $694 billion (estimate to end 2009) while the Pirates of Somalia are costing $100-150 million a year. I.e. 0.021% this year and perhaps 0.05% for the same period (i.e. one twentieth of one percent) but spread across the international community. That suggest that this is nothing more than storm in a teacup – but let’s see how this plays out.

By Post Author

13 GhostWhoVotes No. Thanks for that. Updated information is appreciated. It was just posted on Whirlpool. Along with other articles that weren’t as informative.

A lot of people a talking about it on Whirlpool. But not much information is forth coming on the Australian connection to it. Which their apparently is.

Or is going to be. We do have a new cable going to Guam. So that may be where the link will be.

The hostage situation is over. Snipers shot and killed 3 pirates. The 4th has been captured. The Captain is OK.

Tea Party Insanity: “Burn The Books!” (VIDEO).
Big bucks are pouring in to the tea party movement. Fox News reports that organizers are making a fortune in merchandise sales — the online store for the Tax Day Tea Party website has already lodged over $48,000 in sales, according to tea partier Eric Odom.

But the big bucks aren’t only in T-shirts with pithy slogans – Fox’s Glenn Beck said on his radio show that he plans to attend a $500 dollar-a-plate fundraiser for the tea party movement.

One wonders how much that fundraiser will resemble the scene in this video of a small event organized by the 9-12 Project, in which a man rouses the rabble with a conspiracy-alleging rant.

More of this insanity on The Huffington Post.

I certainly hope the CIA are infiltrating this bunch of Looney Tunes.

22 These loonies are the reason we should be quickly prosecuting the Bush administration. To help take away any shred of credibility. They would be seen as wanting to help a corrupt administration. Not that, that would stop them.

Conservatives now officially hate puppies.
The American public has always had a fascination with White House pets; FDR’s Fala, LBJ’s beagles, Jerry Ford’s Liberty, and George W. Bush’s Jeff Gannon. So today word gets out on the Obama’s puppy selection and while most of the world is “awwwwwing” wingnuts choose to “arrgh”.

Don Surber flails about and wonders why everyone is paying attention to the puppy and not the fact that Caroline Kennedy is totally not invited to play reindeer games with the Pope. News travels slow to Poca, WV.

Read the whole article on Fire Dog Lake.

Could N. Carolina end up with 2 Democratic U.S. senators?

Republican Sen. Richard Burr says he has little doubt that this is the calm before the storm and that next year North Carolina once again will be the focus of a national battle for control of the U.S Senate.

“With the bull’s-eye that organizations have put on North Carolina Republicans’ backs, there is going to be more money spent in North Carolina than anybody can ever fathom in the next election cycle,” he says.

Two statewide polls show Burr’s approval rating in the mid-30 percent range, regarded as a dangerously low number for an incumbent.

That’s why Democrats, fresh off defeating Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole last November, are now looking to bump off Burr in November 2010 and gain a filibuster-proof Senate for President Barack Obama.

Read the entire article on the Miami Herald.

It’s in the front line of seats likely to fall.
http://www.electoral-vote.com

26 Catrina Spot on. The Internet. Subverting the dominant paradigm©. Just in case any company likes it. 😈

Meanwhile those rollicking buccaneers, who have been friggin in the riggin, have been called out by Krugman.

Krugman Calls Out GOP Hypocrisy On Job Creation And Defense Cuts;

KRUGMAN: What’s so wonderful is watching Republican congressmen saying, “But this will cost jobs!” The very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus, saying government spending never creates jobs, but cutting defense spending costs jobs. It’s wonderful.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/12/krugman-defense/

George Bush: Where’s me buccaneers?
George they’re on ya buccanhead!

Paul Sheehan reviews Ian Plimer’s latest book of recycled climate change denial arguments, but of course, fails to test even one of its more egregious errors. (today’s SMH)

Let’s just note here, Plimer is a reputable scientist, but his arguments against AGW, are, to put it bluntly, of the cult variety. Most of his claims are readily dismissed in peer reviewed articles by specialists in the relevant field.

If Plimer was to argue that aspartame is the cause of 92 serious health problems, would anyone here be quoting him without checking the best available science?

(Just a thought.)

But Sheehan is doing precisely that, regarding Plimer’s credentials as some sort of guarantee that he’s not capable of publishing straight falsehoods, like, for example, that volcanoes produce more CO2 than human activities.

Guess what? They don’t.

Or that geothermal undersea releases account for large energy inputs. Once again, they don’t.

Interesting, but one shouldn’t ‘believe’ everything a ‘scientist’ says without checking what the consensus of all the other ones has to say. Likewise, a ‘Dr’ Martini, or whoever.

29 Or the alternate saying, “The Internet bringing stupid people into your house since 1992”.
Present company excepted.

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
H. L. Mencken

26

Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site

Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.

The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website.

Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled “Facts about Goldman Sachs” – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com – just a few weeks ago.

30
Wonderful stuff Cat. 🙂
Somehow, over all these years, I’ve managed to miss that gem.
How gloriously apt for today’s world.

Obama Lifting Cuba Travel Restrictions.
President Barack Obama is allowing Americans to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba and easing other restrictions Monday, ushering in a new era of openness toward the island nation ruled by communists for 50 years.

The formal announcement was made by presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs and, in Spanish, by Dan Restrepo, the president’s top aide on Latin American policy.

“The president would like to see greater freedom for the Cuban people. There are actions that he can and has taken today to open up the flow of information to provide some important steps to help that,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said Obama is only one part of the equation, with the White House calling on Cuba to do more as well.

Read the entire article on The Huffington Post

Here’s one for Hussienworm.

Legal left cools toward Obama.
It’s not just Paul Krugman anymore.

A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.

“Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Obama has been pilloried by a liberal TV icon who was one of President George W. Bush’s most vociferous critics, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

“During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, argued strongly against the Bush administration’s use of executive authority, including its self-justification, its rationalization of the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens,” Olbermann said on his show last week. “That was then. This is now. … Welcome to change you cannot believe in — or sue over.”

More on Politico

Has Cheney been Murdering Americans?
Madison, WI (OpEdNews) April 12, 2009 –The stunning revelation from our nation’s premiere investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, that Vice President Dick Cheney was running an “executive assassination ring” directly under his control and outside of the normal chain of command has raised the specter that the Vice President of the United States may have been murdering Americans. As a scholar who has invested a considerable effort in the investigation of the death of US Senator Paul Wellstone, this comes as no surprise. I and other experts with whom I have collaborated long since concluded that the crash that took his life and those of his wife, daughter, three aides and two pilots was brought about deliberately, where Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove are the principal suspects. Other cases in which assassination appears all too probable include those of NFL star Pat Tillman and of 9/11 activist Beverly Eckert.

Read the whole article on Op Ed News.

‘Directed energy weapon’.

Uh huh.

Read the official reports. The pilots were known to be not that good. And this is complete bullshit:

” I began to ask myself the probability that two pilots would neglect their air speed, their altitude, and their azimuth. If we assume that these are independent events that might happen, say, one time in a hundred—an absurdly high frequency—then for one pilot to neglect all three would be equal to 1/100 x 1/100 x 1/100 = 1/1,000,000 or one time in a million. And there had been two of them, where the probability that they would both neglect those factors was equal to 1/1,000,000 x 1/1,000,000, a very small number.”

If a pilot is not a good one, the chances are that he will fly badly. This ‘flying badly’ will encompass *all* flight parameters. They are *not* independent events because *the pilot* is the common factor. D’uh! This is so obvious that for someone to even bother to write the above indicates either breathtaking stupidity or calculated deception.

Indeed, this kind of thing is so particular to junk science – whether it be climate change denial, 911 conspiracy theories, creationism or anything else – that it is basically a huge neon sign saying ‘This is all nonsense.’

I have been running some rainfall numbers for south-east Australia through the graphing tools attached to Excel. By my calculations, by 2045 at the latest, this part of Australia will meet the technical definition of ‘desert’, with it averaging under 250 mm of rainfall per year.

There are numerous caveats here, of course – it could be that the last 20 years of rainfall data are some kind of anomaly and that the trendline will turn upwards at some point in the near future.

But the rainfall data for this part of Australia is almost perfectly negatively correlated with temperature. As such, if the rate of warming is not arrested in the next couple of decades, it is difficult to see how this desert condition will be avoided.

And, given that it is imo basically impossible to arrest the rate of warming in such a short time frame …

Regarding pirates, a few years ago it was conclusively proved that global warming was caused by a lack of pirates. The inverse correlation between the number of pirates operating and temperature was clear. Thus, any rise in pirate activity is to be encouraged.

Hansen was warning about the consequences of increasing CO2 emissions in the 1980s. The fact that we have done nothing in over 20 years – well, we haven’t done *nothing*: we have increased CO2 emissions *dramatically*, to the point where we have emitted more CO2 since 1980 than we did in the previous 230 years – is criminal.

KR at 32,

If that review is an accurate reflection on what is in the book, then it makes some huge logical errors.

This seems to be the most obvious one:
P1.) It has been warmer in the past.
P2. ) This warmth was not caused by humans.
C.) Thus, the current warming is not caused by humans.

And to claim that scientists are ignoring the sun’s influence and other influences and attributing everything to CO2 is simply a lie.

Scientists can write as much drivel as journalists …

Well, if fewer cars are built, that might help a little. Tough for those who lose their jobs, though.

tough is right David…

“Earlier this year Toyota, the world’s No.1 car maker and Australian market leader, accepted a $35 million federal government grant to build a hybrid version of its four-cylinder Camry sedan in Melbourne from 2010.

But Mr Matthew-Wilson said the money is a waste.

‘Globally, there’s a glut of new cars at bargain prices, yet Australia, which produces a small number of high cost cars, is trying to compete with countries like China, which produces ten million cars a year and pays its car workers as little as one dollar per hour.

‘The Australian government can throw $6 billion or $600 billion at these car plants, but they still won’t be economically feasible,’ he said.

‘Australia’s car plants are losing money faster than a drunk at a casino and there’s no feasible way of turning this around.

‘The Australian car industry can re-focus on small cars, green cars, blue cars or red cars. None of this will make the slightest difference.’

Mr Matthew-Wilson believes the government money would have been better spent by giving it to the affected car workers.”

And Qantas has just announced 1500 jobs to go.

Take off and explore the world with BigPond Travel

Take off and explore the world with BigPond Travel

That wasn’t meant to be there- ironic, huh?

David.

The NTSB pinned responsibility for the crash on the pilots. The principal pilot, Richard Conry, however, had some 5,200 hours of experience, an Air Transport Pilots certification–which is the highest civilian qualification short of astronaut—and had passed his FAA “flight check” just two days before the fatal flight. His co-pilot, Michael Guess, was not as highly qualified, but he was a competent pilot for a plane that did not require two.

More on Op Ed News
I can hear The Existentialist Cowboy riding over the hill on his horse.

I read that. However, if you read the statements of people who knew Conry, you will discover that he was *not* a responsible pilot. Read the NTSB report, not some idiot who has no understanding of statistics – or someone who lies about statistics in order to try and invent some conspiracy talking point.

59 Katielou Excellent article. My worry is the Republicans will get back in power without any prosecutions taking place. That will give them carte blanche.

CNN Poll: Obama not making U.S. less safe.
A new poll indicates Americans don’t agree with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent assertion that President Barack Obama’s actions have increased the chances of a terrorist attack against the United States.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also suggests that most people support the president’s plans in Afghanistan — up to a point.

Seventy-two percent of those questioned in the poll released Monday disagree with Cheney’s view that some of Obama’s actions have put the country at greater risk, with 26 percent agreeing with the former vice president.

Cheney is another good one to keep around for as long as possible. The longer he keeps telling everyone it’s black when 72% of people can see it’s white, the better.
read more of this article on CNN News

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo. By Scott Horton.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

Both Washington and Madrid appear determined not to allow the pending criminal investigation to get in the way of improved relations.

There are so many left leaning blogs now it’s hard to keep track of them.
More on The Daily Beast.

BBC: Paraguay leader admits love-child

Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo has admitted he is the father of a child who was conceived when he was still a Roman Catholic bishop.

Mr Lugo, who took office last August, made a televised address accepting paternity of the one-year-old boy.

He admitted having an intimate relationship with 26-year-old Viviana Carrillo, the child’s mother.

Mr Lugo had received permission from the Pope to leave the priesthood and run for political office.

“I assume all responsibilities having to do with the fact that I had a relationship with (the mother of the child), and I recognize paternity,” said Mr Lugo.

He said he would not comment further on the matter, adding that he wanted to protect the privacy of the boy.

The leftist leader, 57, resigned as bishop of the San Pedro province in 2004, and announced he would run for the presidency two years later.

He was registered as a bishop until last year when Pope Benedict XVI relieved him from his vows of chastity.

Empire and Latin America in the Obama Era.
Barack Obama’s rise to the U.S. presidency has left most Latin Americans suspended between skepticism and hope. That’s bound to make the V Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, to be held on April 18 and 19, especially interesting.

A promising sign of meaningful change in U.S. foreign policy toward the hemisphere would be the official demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, whose apparent failure none of the three governments so far have dared to acknowledge. This creature of Bush’s imperial presidency was agreed to and announced with great fanfare by the U.S., Canadian and Mexican presidents in 2005. Since then, it has been an obscure process in which the executive powers of the governments, along with the CEOs of 30 of the largest corporations in the three countries — many of them military contractors — have extended the security perimeter of the United States to “ensure that North America is the safest and best place to live and do business.”

The strongest sign that this trinational militaristic and deregulation project is dead may be that some of its strongest proponents, including Robert Pastor in the United States and Tomas D’Aquino in Canada, have declared it so. A close second may be that during Obama’s meetings with President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper the SPP was not mentioned once.

Why did it fail? It rapidly became evident that the SPP wasn’t going to perform as advertised to provide more security and prosperity to “North American” people. What better proof of this than the failed war on drugs in Mexico that took about 6,200 lives in 2008 alone? The SPP has failed also thanks to the opposition of a wide array of civil society groups in the three countries — Canada, the United States, and Mexico — that denounced its secret dealings.

read the entire article on Upside Down World

69 GWV 😈
Father Ted – Bishop Brennan’s hidden family.
Watch this video on You Tube.

This episode was banned in Ireland. It was a bit close to the truth. BUT! The Irish recorded it from satellite TV on video and passed it around to their friends. Ah, censorship. Now days we have You Tube. 😆

Obama Flick Coming to a Theater Near You.
Quick—someone buy Rush Limbaugh advance tickets: Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group (otherwise known as SPWAG) has bought limited rights to the documentary “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama,” produced by Edward Norton’s Class 5 Films. HBO Documentary Films will be releasing the movie in U.S. theaters.

read more on Truth Dig

Pelosi’s Balancing Act.
I give Republicans credit for this: They vote the way they believe. … I think that they vote with more integrity than they get credit for.”

That review of Republican motivations and commitments comes not courtesy of a partisan blog but from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House.

During an interview at the Capitol shortly after Congress broke for its recess, Pelosi spoke a simple truth too often ignored in the tiresome laments about the loss of bipartisanship in Washington. “If you can’t find common ground, that doesn’t mean you’re partisan,” she said. “It just means you believe two different things.”

The congressional break comes at a moment when one cliché about Pelosi should be disposed of for good—that a San Francisco liberal was imposing her agenda on our pragmatic new president.

How many times earlier this year did you hear a variation on “Obama let Pelosi write the stimulus”? As Pelosi noted, “Anybody who knows Barack Obama knows that he’s going to have the recovery package that he wants.”

More of this article on Truth Dig

Good to see you Katielou, and Krugman serves the GOPper diaspora a nice bit of well deserved what for too.

Catrina, on the thread topic of pirates; great background re “theft” of their traditional fishing areas and its use as a toxic waste dump. ‘Spose they’ll next be burning their boats as happened to the fisheman of Roti, much of whose traditional grounds were “commandeered” by Timor Gap oil companies thus forcing the fishermen further afield in attempts to feed their families.
Recall some “rogue” Iberian fishing vessel being marinally raused into Antarctic waters by our Navy not so long ago for poaching Patagonian toothfish that frolicked in our Zone.
Pity the Somalis didn’t have a Navy to enforce suchlike off their coast.

Oh……and venturing some creative capital a while back in Crimson Permanent was one of the canniest investments in sanity I’ve ever made. For without Python, Pynchon would have been initially less accessible.
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/69250

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20090413_american_pi/

Apr 13:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/bensargent;_ylt=Aq63kwBM54ssSbfVArzlEAYXvTYC

Apr13:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=AluGhtilBmNvhtd01xyPHRHX.sgF

Apr13:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tedrall;_ylt=AgXDZke7GqueEQ1YRWDx1uLV.i8C

Apr 14:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=AiAzTBPaseK5.HzC2824wX0xvTYC

EC
Hope you had a good break down at Hippsville and not too mopping up when you got home.

Kirri,

What have you made of Ian Verrender’s column today:

http://business.smh.com.au/business/financial-engineers-tarred-and-feathered-but-still-seeking-fees-on-road-to-oblivion-20090413-a4r7.html

In particular

“In the past decade, infrastructure became the fodder for a Ponzi scheme – an elaborately constructed and complex one, but a Ponzi scheme just the same. BrisConnections was merely one of the last and more brazen, and the one to implode most spectacularly.”

(I haven’t figured out how to paste a quote)

I suspect Mac B’s lawyers are busy over the article but won’t want to enrage Mr V (The CEO of Newcrest).

I wonder too whether ASIC will stick its nose into BrisConnection and the bloke who pocketed millions by playing poker with Mac B et al in court proceedings:

“The motion was put forward today by key stakeholder Australian Style Investments (ASI), but the company sold its voting rights to the road’s construction contractor Thiess John Holland for $4.5 million, and it voted against the resolution.

Victorian investor and ASI owner Nicholas Bolton netted $4.5 million from the deal, angering other investors who did not know about it.”

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.
Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.
Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.
There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans – by an 11-to-1 margin – favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism. As for those not affiliated with either major political party, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.
The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism.
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/04/09

Cardster, I think it represents the age old conflict of private versus public ownership of utilities, and probably the truth of the matter is that despite the convoluted ‘financial engineering’ (exemplified by Macca Bank), much of this infrastructure cannot be made to return any kind of profit these types are after eg bloated fees based on bloated numbers.

The private sector is now discovering the real risk of massive debt at a time of asset deflation. Of course none of this ever figured in their rosy risk models, but hey, guess what? They were wrong.

So that leaves us with the somewhat antiquated notion that collective goods, as in public utilities, will need to be paid for with public money, with all the attendant risks of pork barreling and corruption that entails, but hey, what is the alternative? The days of PPP (Public Private Partnership) are all but numbered and the model it was based on is kaput.

Everything old is new again.

Bring back the PMG! (Post Master General for those too young to remember!)

Hi y’all,
Have just returned after some time in Melbourne….drove down to be welcomed by hailstones this time instead of the 45* heat of my last trip.
And there are still some out there who deny climate change? 🙂

Am inclined to agree with you re the ‘PMG’, Kirri….it is interesting to note that while much of northern Europe are liberal re their social policies, they tend to be hard-headed/conservative re economic/monetary issues, more sceptical re fast-buck Charlies.
There has been too much breathless lauding of people who eventually turn out to be ‘snakes in the grass’, people who use loops in the system for personal gain. The ‘Brisconnections’ fiasco on the surface looks like gullibilty, in trusting some 27yr old as a ‘wunderkind’ -we don’t seem to have learnt many lessons since Bond, Skase,et al , hived off with our millions.

No kidding. Even Blind Freddie could have seen that.

Homeland Security Report Warns Of Rising Right-Wing Extremism.
If you think the conservative “Tea Party” movement is daunting, take a look at a new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security that says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.

In the report (a full copy of which is below), officials warn that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit new members to their cause.

In the intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week, Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an attack from right-wing extremists in the works.

The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit new members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past.

In November, law enforcement officials were seeing more threats and unusual interest against then- President-elect Barack Obama than ever before.

read the entire article on The Huffington Post

Ebony: Record number of African-Americans covering Obama.
Two days after the election, I wrote that historically there hasn’t been a large presence of African-American journalists in the White House press corps, “but as news organizations put the finishing touches on their White House teams and black-oriented publications look to ramp up their coverage of the first black president, that dynamic is poised to reverse.

It appears there’s been a change. In the May issue of Ebony, senior editor Kevin Chappell — who got a question during Obama’s last prime-time presser — writes that there “are a record number of African-Americans who intensely cover the most watched president ever.”

More on Politico
If this huge amount of coverage in the black press continues up to the 2010 election, could it have a big bearing on the result?

Let’s say a turn out similar to 2006 plus a much higher turn out for the black vote could make huge changes to the result. The black vote MAY be more motivated than ever.

Apr 14: Newtie and RushBo I make, any clues on who’s the suit in the hey diddle?
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/patoliphant;_ylt=AkZOghdFU5D7SR_OY0vaPlfX.sgF

Present serial began on April 13: (strictly Company business)
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20090413/cx_db_uc/db20090413

Apr 15: How can we ever thank you enough, President Obama?
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=AqDsGrGhaCItG7DvGOR8ux40vTYC
(backstory)

To recap: Obama files a brief saying he agrees in full with the Bush/Cheney position. He’s arguing that the President has the power to abduct, transport and imprison people in Bagram indefinitely with no charges of any kind. He’s telling courts that they have no authority to “second-guess” his decisions when it comes to war powers. But this is all totally different than what Bush did, and anyone who says otherwise is a reckless, ill-motivated hysteric who just wants to sell books and get on TV.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/index.html

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/04/14/tomo/

Gaffy, it was great to come home to a hot bath and a cosy, comfy, companionable bed after three days of musical water rats. But we had fun; mission accomplished.

Cardster,
This might help with C&P depending on your set up,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_and_paste
your next big cyber- thrill might be to get the boss quote font happening…it’s great fun.

..

Tres vroom-voom.

Immediately before your cut, copied and pasted quote write;

1/ the symbol for “is less than” ie.

At the end of your quote, again without a space, type exactly what you did at the quote start BUT, insert a “forward slash” ie. / between < and blockquote

Like this:
🙂

Megan, the derivatives fiasco (as it will no doubt come to be known) was largely a product of Wall Street with the connivance of Washington who under loud criticism of one lone woman, legislated against any regulation of them. (Her name, should you be interested, is Brooksley Born chair, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 1996-1999 and Greenspan and ‘the boys’ eventually squashed her push to get control over these cowboy contracts. Read up on the story, it’s a salutary lesson in just how the Washington/Wall Street nexus was a closed shop of blokes who ‘knew best’! A gold statue of Born should be erected near the famous Bull as a reminder of just how wrong “animal spirits” can be! LOL).

Europe got sucked in, especially London’s city types, with the approval of one Gordon Brown, who now pretends to be the arch regulator!

Wherever squillions and stupidity get to party together, you can be sure they’ll trash everything in sight.

GWV, except now that the gun bunnies have shut down the judiciary, the reserve bank and the media, how long before the tourists decide it’s not a likely location for a carefree holiday?

I’ll give it weeks at most.

Wonder how many minutes it will take for Fielding to roll over on Alco-pops rather than risk a DD which would see him out of a job and back in the pulpit. 😈

Kirri@95,
Excellent overview- thanks for that.
When I referred to Europe, I meant the non-anglo part across the Channel.

Comments are closed.