tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72535194209304631022024-03-08T04:03:10.391-08:00Views from the Left CoastA native New Yorker analyzes politics from a California perspectiveNatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.comBlogger944125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-50230529690166519002010-11-05T21:48:00.000-07:002011-05-01T21:52:19.188-07:00Dead and dying coral reefs in Gulf of Mexico blamed on April oil spillNews that large swaths of dying coral reefs have been found southwest of the wrecked oil rig responsible for the largest offshore spill in U.S. history should come as no surprise to anyone. Logic dictates that the effects of the colossal April 20 blowout and spill will be far-reaching and catastrophic, the protests of oil and fishing interests in the Gulf of Mexico notwithstanding. Scientists studying the spill's aftermath said the damage to the reefs was almost certainly due to exposure to toxic chemicals like oil, according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/science/earth/06coral.html">New York Times</a>. “I think that we have a smoking gun,” said Charles Fisher, a marine biologist from Pennsylvania State University heading a U.S. government-sponsored scientific mission to the Gulf. “The circumstantial evidence is very strong that it’s linked to the spill.” The damaged coral was found Tuesday by the government expedition, which launched a submersible robot to view the coral and obtain samples. Scientists expect to return to the Gulf floor in December using a Navy submersible that can carry three people to depths of 15,000 feet, the newspaper said. An estimated 5 million barrels of crude flowed into the Gulf for months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April, killing 11 workers.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-75932402659892923772010-11-03T20:58:00.005-07:002011-04-04T23:35:18.349-07:00Obama blames economy for election losses but misses the pointU.S. President Barack Obama's statement yesterday that the majority Democrats had taken a "shellacking" in Tuesday's election because of the tepid economic recovery was shocking. Sure, if in the two years since Barack Obama took office with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the U.S. economy had completely turned around and U.S. industries were crying for more workers, the opposition Republicans probably would not have won 60 seats to control the House of Representatives. Economic success would most likely have enabled the Democrats to retain a portion of the popularity they achieved in 2008, when Obama led his party back into the White House on a wave of public disgust over the performance of the Bush administration. But for all his vaunted political skills, Obama has repeatedly misread the American public since taking office. U.S. voters did not turn the Republicans out of the White House merely because the economy had been disastrously mishandled by his predecessor, they elected the first black president to repudiate the seemingly gleeful lawlessness of the Bush administration. The George W. Bush presidency broke a long list of the country's most-cherished legal principles and traditions -- eviscerating the constitutional separation of powers, overruling the U.S. Bill of Rights, disrespecting the sovereignty of other nations, ignoring the Geneva Conventions. For all the good Obama has been able to accomplish in reforming the way the country regulates itself, he has decidedly failed to address the biggest problem -- the one that has left the United States unsure of how to function. Bush and other officials in his administration, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, must be called to answer for their abuses of power. An investigation doesn't necessarily mean anybody is guilty of anything, although it seems so, it just means the United States is not afraid to examine its conduct and make corrections when warranted. The Congress should set up a commission, with the power to compel witnesses to testify, to figure out what went wrong during the Bush administration and how to prevent it from happening again. That is the only way for the United States to regain its footing as an international leader and for Obama to redeem his presidency.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-36391526360493408192010-10-20T21:50:00.000-07:002011-03-15T15:38:56.571-07:00Blackwater still swirling in aftermath of Iraq invasionWord from Washington that the Justice Department decided Monday not to charge a Blackwater Worldwide employee with murder for a killing in Baghdad that he admitted appears to spell the end of U.S. efforts to address the some of the excesses that have come, sadly, to characterize the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The decision followed a line of failures in high-profile cases brought against employees of companies that were armed contractors for the U.S. State Department in Iraq, a still-questionable arrangement with dire constitutional implications that still have not been adequately examined. The most notable prosecution that failed, of course, resulted in the acquittal of five former Blackwater guards who opened fire on civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, killing 17, according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/21contractors.html">New York Times</a>. The Justice Department decision came in a case involving Andrew Moonen of Seattle, who killed a guard protecting Iraq's vice president on Christmas Eve in 2006. The case was complicated by a blanket grant of immunity to State Department contractors, like Blackwater, but not to Defense Department contractors, immunity granted to Andrew Moonen, the Blackwater employee, by a U.S. Embassy official and by Moonen's claim of self-defense. The Justice Department has investigated the case for four years, and already paid damages to Moonen's family. But the murky legal environment that finally prompted Justice to drop the case is no accident. The government of George W. Bush went to war on dubious evidence and corrupted longstanding legal and constitutional principles along the way. The only real surprises here are that is has taken so long for these cases to be dismissed and the subsequent Obama administration's refusal to investigate misconduct by his predecessor. It will take decades to repair the damage to the legal system of the United States, and may take even longer for the country to regain its moral footing unless such an investigation is undertaken. The issue is not whether anyone will have to prison, although it may come to that. The future of the United States is on the line here -- the sooner the reckoning begins, the better for everyone.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-91329036655586619422010-10-16T02:43:00.003-07:002011-03-06T23:05:51.541-08:00Clinton: U.S. wants to increase help for Mexico's fight against drug cartelsCan the United States really help Mexico succeed in its battle against drug cartels that have expanded their influence farther and farther south from the border between the two countries? From the safety of Northern California, hundreds of miles from Tijuana, it used to look as if the Mexican government was forced to fight corruption it its own police forces before it could engage the drug traffickers that had turned even peaceful cities into dangerous places. But years of unabated violence have made the lines of power a lot easier to understand. That's why U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the other day that the powerful Mexican drug cartels were behaving a lot like political insurgent groups than mere gangs. "This is one of the most difficult fights that any country faces today," Clinton told San Francisco's nonpartisan Commonwealth Club in a speech Friday, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/16/clinton.drug.cartels/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. "We are watching drug traffickers undermine and corrupt governments in Central America, and we are watching the brutality and barbarity of their assaults on governors and mayors, the press, as well as each other, in Mexico." Clinton said the United States could help Mexico rebuild its criminal justice system and retrain its police forces to fight the cartels, which she said were acting like terrorists. "For the first time, they are using car bombings," she said. "You see them being much more organized in a kind of paramilitary way." Clinton's comments were no doubt a reference to U.S. efforts to find the body of David Hartley, a U.S. resident believed to have been shot by drug traffickers on Mexico's border with Texas, CNN said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-56853042540534122142010-10-07T15:12:00.001-07:002011-02-25T23:49:21.160-08:00French ban on Islamic face coverings ruled constitutionalSo, is it merely nervy or something worse that France has made it a crime for women to wear Islamic face coverings in public? The county's top legal authority, the French Constitutional Council, decided Thursday that the so-called burqa ban, approved overwhelmingly by the legislature earlier this year, was legal under the country's constitution. Councilmembers ruled that the ban, which makes the wearing of the burqa full-body covering or the nigab face-covering punishable by a fine, was constitutional because it did not prevent the free practice of religion in a place of worship, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/10/07/france.burqa.ban/index.html?iref=NS1">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. How could this happen in a place as modern and aware as France, which had the wisdom to oppose the United States' occupation of Iraq from the outset? Easily, it turns out. More than 80 percent of the country supported the ban in a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project earlier this year, CNN said. Residents of Germany, England and Spain also backed the ban by large majorities but those countries have not imposed one, CNN said. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. residents oppose such a ban. The French government, which backed the ban, called the wearing of Islamic head coverings by women "a new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil." France barred the wearing of all overt religious symbols, including Islamic headscarves, in the nation's public schools in 2004. CNN said 3.5 million Muslims -- 6 percent of the population -- live in France.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-85354621736215893802010-09-30T20:25:00.003-07:002011-02-23T13:10:42.694-08:00Passage of NASA funding bill highlights doubts about space programCongressional approval of a $19 billion reauthorization bill for NASA on Wednesday would be a lot better news if the space agency were not proceeding with planned layoffs on Friday nor with President Barack Obama's plans to focus future efforts on commercial endeavors. Much of the $19 billion will be used for a last shuttle mission in June, to extend the life of the space station five more years and to build a new launch vehicle, according to <a href=" http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/30/congress.nasa/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)on</a>. That's okay on the surface, but not beyond that. Overtly focusing the program toward commercial development is troubling, because that is a corruption of the space agency's purpose and what has repeatedly gotten NASA into trouble before. "We want to thank Congress for NASA's future," Lori Garver, NASA's deputy administrator, said on Thursday. "It puts NASA programs on a more sustainable future." That is disingenuous at best, because it is classic bureaucrat-speak. NASA gets into trouble, and astronauts die, when it thinks of itself as a business geared toward profit and not as an agency using public resources to advance scientific exploration. In the past, NASA generated huge public support because people were willing to use the nation's financial resources in quest of cosmic understanding. The first person on the moon, the first teacher in space -- these developments were embraced by the public in the interest of knowledge, not profits. And when things occasionally went tragically wrong, like when Apollo 13 burned on the launchpad in 1967 or the shuttles Challenger and Colombia were destroyed in 1986 and 2008, the entire nation mourned the loss. But the new NASA, trying to generate income by hiring itself out to major companies instead of advancing science, has managed to generate primarily indifference from the public. The shuttles blew up in flight because inspectors missed things or made bad decisions -- were these errors mere bad luck or at least partially the result of time pressure felt by NASA managers trying to complete no-gravity experiments being funded by U.S. or overseas corporations? We'll never know, because we allow federal bureaucrats nearly total immunity for bad decisions and their agencies try harder to protect their annual budget allocations than serve the public that pays for them. What is needed is a reordering of priorities that puts commercial applications at the bottom, not the top of the list. Commercial applications are fine, but they must be studiously kept behind safety and science -- and anyone, even senior government officials -- should be fired if they ever forget that again.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-26979717058058818842010-09-25T03:01:00.001-07:002011-02-19T17:21:18.135-08:00Obama government retreats to Bush-era state secrets dishonestyJust how important is it that the United States, with the world's most powerful military and the world's most enduring democracy, engage in conduct overseas that would be patently illegal within its own borders? That question arose again yesterday, as it has repeatedly in the rather disturbingly slow dismantling of widely discredited George W. Bush-era policies, when the Obama administration invoked the state secrets doctrine in an effort to convince a federal judge in Washington to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the military of trying to kill a U.S. citizen in Yemen. According to the <a href=" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/25awlaki.html">New York Times</a>, the New Mexico-born citizen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, is living in Yemen and is associated with al-Qaida, the radical Islamic terrorist group blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. that killed thousands. His father, Nasser al-Awlaki, filed the lawsuit seeking an injunction to block the U.S. government from killing the son, the Times said. U.S. government lawyers completed a legal brief Friday contending the lawsuit should be dismissed because litigating the could result in the disclosure of confidential information -- the so-called state secrets -- and other grounds. The doctrine was invoked successfully numerous times during the last administration to short-circuit claims against the government for allegedly illegal activities in the war on terror. No one seriously questions whether the government has the right to keep secrets when disclosures would put innocent lives at risk. But that does not give the government the right to maintain secrecy when it wants merely to escape consequences for illegal activity. What we saw during the last administration, when the federal government eviscerated long-established constitutional principles to advance a dubious political agenda, should give everyone pause. There has to be a serious accounting. The Obama administration's most serious mistake so far was its refusal to review the previous government and to bring alleged lawbreakers to trial. Everything that happens now, including the Al-Awlaki case, is built upon that miscalculation. This time, the Times said, Obama-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved invoking the state-secrets defense. “It strains credulity to argue that our laws require the government to disclose to an active, operational terrorist any information about how, when and where we fight terrorism,” said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. That's logical, but only in the abstract, and it's a bad mistake to invoke it merely to justify other bad mistakes. If this is going to continue to be a government of laws, those laws are going to have to be enforced -- even if it means some well-known government officials will have to stand trial.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-1825301835222054992010-09-21T17:28:00.000-07:002011-02-15T17:31:12.556-08:00FDA seems willing to gamble on introducing gene-altered animalsNews that U.S. food safety regulators were preparing to authorize the introduction of genetically altered salmon into the nation's food supply is another obvious failure on the part of the deteriorating Obama administration. Rather than order the Food and Drug Administration to be sensible and undertake an exhaustive examination of risks posed by the new science of altering animals genetically, the Obama administration apparently plans to sit this one out, too. FDA officials have scheduled a hearing Monday on the application by AquAdvantage Salmon to produce salmon injected with growth hormones that mature twice as fast as salmon without the hormones, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/20/genetic.engineered.salmon.hearing/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. The altered salmon would grow faster and mature earlier than wild or farmed salmon. "The food from AquAdvantage Salmon that is the subject of this application is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon and that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from the consumption of food from this animal," FDA officials concluded, CNN said. But let's think for a minute. Even if what the FDA says is true, is a "reasonable certainty" justification enough to gamble the future of the ecosystem that supports life? That's crazy thinking, right? The executive director of the nonprofit Food and Water Watch called the decision "rushed" and said the FDA can't even protect the safety of the food supply without adding gene-altered foods to its already overcrowded agenda. "It's impossible to talk about the risks other than saying they haven't been properly assessed, other than process has been rushed and we don't know," Wenonah Hauter told CNN. Hauter also said the FDA based its decision on information provided by AquAdvantage and should be thoroughly checking the data instead of simply accepting it. That doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request, considering what's at risk if anyone makes a mistake.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-37004990134739739932010-09-19T19:03:00.000-07:002011-02-10T13:12:01.479-08:00U.S. officials say BP oil well in Gulf of Mexico has finally been pluggedFinally, there's some good news from the Gulf of Mexico. After a nearly five-month nightmare of uncertainty, the U.S. Interior Department has confirmed that the BP oil well that spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into coastal waters has been permanently plugged, according to the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/19/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T2">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. The largest oil spill in U.S. history devastated one of the richest fishing and tourism regions in the United States, and years of even more uncertainty remain over whether Gulf wildlife and the area's fishing industry will ever recover. "We can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead," said former Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the U.S. response to the disaster. The spill began April 20 with an explosion on the BP-leased oil rig Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 workers. BP, the international oil company formerly known as British Petroleum, has agreed to pay the costs of capping the well, cleaning up the environment and compensating the thousands of people and businesses whose livelihood depended on the Gulf. BP put up $20 billion to compensate individuals and companies in the region at the request of U.S. officials, but the final cost of the spill and resulting damage has been estimated at $32 billion. Of course, the economic cost of the disaster is not the only cost to the United States. The spill exposed gaping holes in U.S. regulation of offshore drilling, the effects of which will likely reverberate in the industry for decades. Investigations into the cause of the disaster and the federal government's response are ongoing by members of Congress and at least two U.S. agencies, and lawsuits seeking damages are likely to be in court for years.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-91433065025518545762010-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:002011-02-07T20:21:43.828-08:00Iran releases one of three U.S. hikers allegedly captured across borderTehran insisted this week's release of U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd, imprisoned for more than a year after she and two friends allegedly crossed the border from Iraq illegally, reflected Iran's respect for women and was not an attempt to elicit favorable treatment from the United States. "We have no expectations," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state-run television, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/17/iran.ahmadinejad.hiker/index.html?hpt=T2">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. But there is reason to doubt. More likely, Iran is trying again to tweak "the Great Satan," like the leader of the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, used to call the United States. That would be typical of Ahmadinejad, who came to power and has stayed in power despite his embarrassingly self-serving and contradictory views. In fact, Ahmadinejad also said, "naturally, morally, the expectation would be that the U.S. government would take a step to release a number of Iranians they took from other countries." Hmmm, that sure sounds like a quid pro quo, doesn't it? Not only that, Ahmadinejad said Shourd had been released after more than a year in prison without trial because Iranians had "a very special respect for women." That would be preposterous if it wasn't so serious. Iran has held Shourd for more than a year out of respect? Ahmadinejad also said he had given U.S. officials a list of Iranians behind held in U.S. prisons, and expected them to be released. That's just what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about the two other hikers arrested with Shourd in July 2009. "It would be a very significant humanitarian gesture for the Iranians to release them as well," Clinton said in Washington.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-63991831590362388382010-09-12T10:33:00.001-07:002011-01-30T21:31:59.828-08:00Protests threaten Greece's financial stability plansGreeks took to the streets again yesterday after Prime Minister George Papandreou announced new austerity measures designed to keep Greece from defaulting on its international obligations, which include a new 110 billion euro loan from other European Union countries. The unrest appeared to be led by the country's powerful labor unions, which feel under threat from proposals to end their control of some of Greece's most vital professions. "The battle we are waging is for the survival of Greece," Papandreou said in the northern city of Thessaloniki, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/11/greece.austerity.measures/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. "This is not a battle that the prime minister or his government will win or lose. This battle, we will either all win it together or we will all sink together." Greece's huge civil servant union, ADEDY, called a nationwide strike Monday to protest the latest austerity measures, which include thousands of layoffs at the national rail company, OSE, CNN said. "Unions don't agree with the social and economic politics of the government," said Spyros Papaspyrou, ADEDY's leader, CNN said. Other measures put forth by Papandreou include cuts in corporate income taxes aimed at halting the decline of the Greek economy, which is expected to contract by 4 percent in 2010 and 2 1/2 percent next year. As a condition of the EU loan, Greece is obligated to bring its massive budget deficit, now around 14 percent of its gross national product, down to the European Union limit of 3 percent by 2014, CNN said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-25936952881761351972010-09-09T20:45:00.004-07:002011-01-26T14:05:29.714-08:00Florida pastor cancels Koran burning after call from PentagonNews from Florida that a Christian pastor had canceled a planned Koran-burning spectacle on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that had attracted worldwide attention should give everyone pause. Sure, it's great that this obviously outrageously provocative and disrespectful act did not go forward, even if it took a call from the Pentagon to stop it, according to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68709M20100909">Reuters international news service</a>. The very justification for the creation of the United States was and is religious tolerance -- and that is how we became a worldwide symbol of freedom and why we became rich and powerful. Why change our basic understandings because there are people who don't like us? And it's not as simple as that Muslims don't like us, since there are millions of Muslims who live in the United States and other countries who don't bear us any ill will or, if they do, are able to put those feelings into proper context. The simple truth is that all religions think they're correct and, by logical extension, think other religions are not. Why would anybody follow sometimes inexplicable traditions and practices if they thought they were wrong? Maybe the problem is that people like Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, have grown accustomed to looking only at the surface of things and have forgotten that everything really has meaning. On the surface, yes, a group of Muslim radicals destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. But the real problem is much, much deeper. The al-Qaeda operatives were men -- does that mean all men destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of people? Of course not. They were religious zealots -- does that mean all religious zealots destroyed the buildings? Of course not. Let's not be stupid about this. The United States has proven that human beings can form democratic societies based not on ethnicity or religion or even proximity, but on shared desires and values. We exist as a country because we wanted to, and continue to want to. But let's not sacrifice the very things that made us great out of some misguided and poorly considered lurch toward self-preservation. We're a lot better than that, and have always been.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-55853677893789063262010-09-08T10:07:00.001-07:002011-01-24T21:32:29.052-08:00Oh no -- Castro says Cuba's government control of economy no longer worksCould it be? Has the world's foremost nonconformist thrown in the red towel? That's certainly what it seemed like this week with news that Fidel Castro, the former ruler of Cuba whose 1959 revolution toppled a U.S.-backed dictator and whose Communist government proved a thorn in the side of every U.S. president since Eisenhower, said his country's economic model would have to be changed. Castro, who ceded power to his brother, Raul Castro, in 2006 because of failing health, made the statements to a reporter from The Atlantic magazine, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/08/cuba.castro.communism/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Castro said in the interview, CNN said. The 84-year-old Castro's remarks might be an endorsement of changes undertaken by his brother, who has expanded private enterprise for farmers and barbers in Cuba and has warned his citizenry that they should work harder and expect less from the government. Cuba's centrally controlled economy pays workers around $20 a day but guarantees free health care and education, and nearly free housing and transportation.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-40866614892433527252010-09-05T19:21:00.000-07:002010-12-29T19:24:08.402-08:00U.S. taxpayers could lose money on General Motors stock offeringReports from New York that insiders say U.S. taxpayers stand to lose money on the bailout of General Motors should come as no surprise to anyone. In agreeing to refinance the largest U.S. automaker back in 2009, albeit accepting a majority of the common stock of the bankrupt company, the federal government was obviously taking a huge risk and entering uncharted economic waters. But preparations for the expected return of General Motors shares to public trading later this year reveals a long list of unanswered questions that really should have been anticipated long before now. U.S. taxpayers still have more than $40 billion invested in the automaker, according to the <a href=" http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68102G20100903">Reuters international news service</a>. Should shares in the revamped GM be sold at a discount to early investors in ordinary Wall Street practice, even though taxpayer money is at risk? Should shares in GM be pulled from trading if they fall to below the break-even point for taxpayers? If not, and shares fall, how much money should the government be willing to lose on the stock before halting trading? GM was able to eliminate $40 billion in debt and other obligations in bankruptcy, including its most unprofitable car lines, Reuters said, but still owes $26 billion to its employee pension fund. The new company needs to have a capitalization of at least $70 billion after its first public offering for taxpayers to recoup all of their investment, the news service said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-35022307051299575182010-08-29T03:28:00.004-07:002010-12-27T14:43:14.992-08:00New Israeli-Palestinian talks are doomed to failureNothing constructive is likely to emerge from the latest talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas because both leaders are too weak and the two sides are too far apart. Netanyahu cannot maintain his majority in Israel's parliament without the support of conservative settler parties that oppose further territorial concessions, and Abbas does not even have authority over all the territory he expects to make part of the Palestininan-dominated new country to emerge from a comprehensive peace agreement. The talks, which would not have even been scheduled without diplomatic pressure from the United States, have started just in time to resolve the still widely misunderstood issue of Israeli settlements when Israel's freeze on such construction expires Sept. 26, according to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67S05220100829">Reuters international news service</a>. The Abbas-led Palestinian Authority considers a freeze extension to be a necessary condition of its continued participation in the talks; Israel insists on continuing to build housing for its population, and obviously considers such construction to be its prerogative as a conquering power. But these people have been over this same issue for decades. It should be obvious to everyone involved that somebody is going to have to blink first. But whom? It doesn't help, of course, that both sides think they have already blinked numerous times with questionable results. Israel has maintained its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for more than 40 years, and the Palestinians -- people who did not even exist as a people until they were disowned by their Arab brethren after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- have a functioning government and observer status at the United Nations. Complicating matters is the breakaway Hamas government in Gaza, which broke off from the West Bank government in 2007 to protest the PA's moves toward settlement with Israel. In the midst of the pessimism is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said recently that her view is that the issues could be settled within one year. Good luck with that.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-78883628866367839702010-08-21T00:23:00.001-07:002010-12-19T12:27:43.899-08:00Iran's first nuclear reactor caps decades of living dangerouslyWhat in the world is the West going to do about Iran? News that Iran had started loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr is a reminder of the limits of muscular foreign policy. Decades of confrontation with Tehran, including economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, have served only to get us where we are now: less control over events combined with deepening mistrust and growing animosity. "Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference on Iranian television as technicians prepared a fuel rod assembly at the plant, according to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE67K01D20100821">Reuters international news service</a>. Iran completed the plant with the help of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, over the objections of the United States. But a U.S. State Department spokesman said Washington did not consider the Bushehr reactor to be a proliferation threat because Russia would be providing fuel and taking back spent fuel rods for reprocessing. "Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful," spokesman Darby Holladay told Reuters. Russia backed a U.N. Security Council resolution in June that imposed a fourth round of economic sanctions on Iran to discourage Tehran from trying to develop nuclear weaponry. Construction of the reactor at Bushehr was started in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran and started what has now been more than 30 years of animosity between Tehran and Washington.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-55411104061020229792010-08-17T16:36:00.003-07:002010-12-16T07:03:45.464-08:00Billions earmarked for Haiti rebuilding projectsNews that an international commission announced $1.6 billion in projects to help build new homes, improve agriculture and rebuild schools in earthquake-ravaged Haiti is welcome, albeit late, news. The quake that killed 300,000 and reduced cities to rubble in the poor Caribbean nation was in January, after all, and hurricane season is approaching. The news was announced Tuesday during a meeting of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission in the nearly destroyed capital city of Port-au-Prince, according to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67G5P320100817">Reuters international news service</a>. The commission, chaired by Haiti's prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton is responsible for distributing more than $5 billion dollars in international aid pledged to the relief effort in the next two years. Foreign governments and nongovernmental aid agencies pledged a total of nearly $10 billion for Haiti's recovery in March, Reuters said. Projects approved Tuesday included $200 million to create 50,000 jobs in agriculture and increase production, a United Nations rubble-removal program and construction of a teaching hospital to train new doctors and nurses. More than 1.5 million people are still living in refugee camps in Port-au-Prince, Reuters said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-74336743102660267312010-08-13T15:06:00.000-07:002010-12-01T15:09:29.811-08:00Myanmar plans election for Nov. 7 but bars pro-democracy leaderDo the military rulers of Myanmar, the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma, really think the rest of the world thinks they have created a democracy? That's apparently the purpose of Friday's Myanmar National Radio announcement Friday that the country will hold general elections on Nov. 7 despite refusing to allow leading democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kui to participate. Suu Kui has been under house arrest for more than 14 of the past 20 years since her party won a landslide victory in the 1990 election that the ruling junta refused to recognize. "There is no illusion about freedom and fairness in this election," Aung Zaw, the Thailand-based editor of The Irrawaddy magazine told <a href=" http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/myanmar.elections/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, CNN said. Suu Kui's party, the National League for Democracy, decided not to compete in this year's election after she was barred from running for office. "Everything is just so convenient for the regime since the NLD is out, Suu Kyi is not running," Aung Zaw told CNN. "Plus USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party, the government-backed party) is the largest, strongest party in this country. There is no way any other political parties could compete with them." Members of NLD who formed another party, National Democratic Force, have been allowed to meet but have not been permitted to campaign, CNN said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-7996220453637966912010-08-10T16:19:00.000-07:002010-11-27T17:17:11.548-08:00Wonder of wonders -- Venezuela and Colombia still recognize each otherActually, the only surprise in what Venezuela does anymore is that its radical leftist leader, President Hugo Chavez, hasn't gotten into any new trouble internationally. To the contrary, Venezuela appears to have become a more-or-less responsible member of the South American community of nations. Case in point: Tuesday's agreement to restore full diplomatic relations with its oft-estranged neighbor, U.S. ally Colombia. Chavez was in Santa Marta for Tuesday's ceremony announcing the resumption of relations and agreement to form commissions for economic and security cooperation between the two countries, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/10/colombia.venezuela.meeting/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. "I think we've taken a step forward in re-establishing confidence, which is one of the basic tenets of any relationship," Colombia's newly elected president, Juan Manuel Santos, said at the announcement, CNN reported. The countries have been arguing for years over allegations by former President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring Marxist guerrillas seeking to overthrow Colombia's pro-U.S. government. Chavez was particularly aggrieved by Colombia's 2008 raid on rebel camps across the border in Ecuador, and by last year's military agreement between Colombia and the United States. Santos was Colombia's defense minister in the Uribe government. But both countries' leaders were all smiles Tuesday. "I came here to turn the page," Chavez said, according to CNN. There are billions of dollars in trade at stake. Bilateral trade between Caracas and Bogota reached $7.3 billion in 2008 but has fallen sharply since then as relations between the countries soured, CNN said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-4949722260428594542010-08-08T16:43:00.001-07:002010-11-21T20:30:02.923-08:00Not everything goes -- U.S. tobacco companies to pay $30 million for bribing officialsNews that two U.S. tobacco companies had agreed to settle charges that they bribed their way into overseas sales contracts is a timely reminder that laws against excessive avarice are an unfortunate necessity of a capitalist economic system. Competition works -- the best products and the best companies will prevail over lesser competitors -- but only when everybody is playing by the same rules. The two companies, Universal Corp. of Richmond, Va., and Alliance One International of Morrisville, N.C., are going to be paying nearly $30 million for violating this most-basic of capitalist principles, according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08tobacco.html">New York Times</a>. The two companies, which supply tobacco leaves to cigarette and cigar makers, agreed to pay to avoid a civil trial and criminal charges that they bribed officials in eight countries. Universal was accused of bribing government officials in Thailand, Malawi and Mozambique, and Alliance One with bribing officials in Thailand, China, Greece, Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan. Universal issued a statement saying that it had reported the misconduct to authorities and had cooperated with the investigation, the Times said. “We have absolutely no tolerance for this type of activity,” the chief executive, George C. Freeman III, said in the statement, the Times said. Universal said the U.S. Justice Department agreed not to prosecute the company any further if it follows the terms of the agreement for the next three years. Alliance One could not be reached for comment, the Times said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-57417054974842729272010-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:002010-11-09T09:50:34.993-08:00Isn't it time to give up on banning gay marriage?Does anyone really think life would not be worth living if gay people were allowed to marry? That seems to be just what anti-gay marriage partisans have been saying since a San Francisco federal court struck down California's Proposition 8, a ban on such unions approved by voters in 2008. “This is going to set off a groundswell of opposition,” prominent Prop. 8 backer Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., told the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/us/05prop.html">New York Times</a>. “It’s going to rally people that might have been silent.” The ruling applies only to the parts of Northern California included in Walker's district, and not to the rest of California nor to any other U.S. states that already have banned gay marriage. So, what's the big deal? It's not like the court is requiring people in Northern California to enter into gay unions, is it? No, the court simply said the government cannot make laws that extend benefits to some people while excluding them from others on the basis of who they love. “Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” highly respected Judge Vaughan Walker of the Northern District of California said in his ruling. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.” This is the kind of ruling we expect from our courts when the government does something outrageous, particularly when that something reflects the passion of the moment. We have rules that protect minorities precisely for this reason -- the government is barred from enacting discriminatory provisions. The disconnect here is that the opponents of gay marriage try to use the government to advance a religious-oriented agenda, not the other way around. Why did they even go to court in the first place? A rational judiciary could not decide this case any other way, and the fact that some courts have allowed states to ban gay marriage is both preposterous and insulting.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-59799338959967243822010-08-03T11:00:00.000-07:002010-11-04T11:02:52.224-07:00General Motors, Chrysler and Ford sales rise, perhapsCould it possibly be true that U.S. automobile companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are reporting sales gains and, assumedly, profits instead of more red ink?<br />
That is what U.S. automakers said Tuesday, even though many of the figures were adjusted to allow for corporate changes, like Ford's sale of its Volvo brand, and the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, according to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6723MX20100803">Reuters international news service</a>. The announcements were not well-received by stock market investors, who sent Ford shares down nearly 2 percent, even though normally buoyant Toyota and Honda sales fell in July. But the sales increases were met with enthusiasm by some industry analysts, who had feared the U.S. economy was facing a double-dip recession. "In June, you had the feeling that maybe the industry wasn't out of the woods, and there was a lot of talk of a double dip. But June really seems to have been a blip," Al Castignetti, the head of Nissan sales in the U.S. market, told Reuters. Yeah, maybe. The big problem is that auto industry players talk on and on but what they say may not have anything to do with what's really going on. GM and Chrysler have been allowed to take billions of dollars worth of debt off their balance sheets -- without paying the money back, of course, and eventually sticking the taxpayer with the bill -- and to re-enter the world of real companies even though the U.S. taxpayer owns major amounts of their shares. How can anyone ever trust company reports again? Ford did not take bailout money or file for bankruptcy but have shown little resiliency going forward. Where are the new U.S. car models? Where are the new head-turning designs? Doesn't anyone in the industry care that nobody talks about American cars anymore unless they work for the Justice Department? "We are certainly optimistic about our prospects for the third quarter," Ford's U.S. sales chief, Ken Czubay, told Reuters. Yeah, right.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-31755112112576161202010-07-31T21:47:00.002-07:002010-10-12T00:42:19.647-07:00Florida church announces Quran burning eventMaybe the tea partiers have found a new hero. News that a Florida pastor was planning a Quran-burning event to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is typical of the kind of ignorant thinking that characterizes the tea party movement and its over-publicized icon, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. The announcement of the Islamic good book burning that Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, says is to remember the victims of attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., and to express outrage against that religion, has sparked cries of outrage from leaders of U.S. religious denominations, according to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/29/florida.burn.quran.day/index.html?hpt=Sbin">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>. As we all know, the 19 9-11 hijackers were Muslim and the United States blames the attack on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, also a Muslim. "We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Jones said on CNN this week. Jones is the author of a book entitled "Islam is of the Devil" and his church sells T-shirts and coffee mugs bearing the phrase. But many Muslim and Christian leaders urged Jones to call off his event because it would just aggravate tensions, Reuters said. "American Muslims and other people of conscience should support positive educational efforts to prevent the spread of Islamophobia," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Islam Relations. The CAIR called on Muslims and others to hold 'Share the Quran" dinners to educate the public during Ramadan, the month-long fast that begins in August, and began a campaign to distribute copies of the Quran to U.S. leaders, Reuters said. An evangelical Christian group issued a statement promoting "relationships of trust and respect" with members of other religions. "God created human beings in his image, and therefore all should be treated with dignity and respect," the statement said. But "dignity and respect" for others is not what the Dove World Outreach Center is selling. Tellingly, the group also said it was promoting a rally on Monday to protest as "godless" Gainesville's openly gay mayor, Craig Lowe. At least we know this group has nothing to offer. The planet seems always to have been overpopulated with people who claim to know precisely what god is thinking.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-55406002047340770682010-07-30T07:33:00.000-07:002010-10-09T22:03:49.081-07:00Arab League rhetoric ignores the factsThursday's declaration by the Arab League that it favored direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel whenever PA President Mahmoud Abbas agrees to participate is the height of arrogance. After all, the intransigence of the very 21 countries that make up the League of Arab States is responsible for the perpetually unsettled political situation in the Middle East and the political and economic isolation of the Palestinian people. Of course, the league is free to continue to blame the situation on Israel, but false rhetoric does not become truthful merely by how often or how vehemently it is repeated. The league issued its declaration after Abbas briefed members of its peace process committee at a meeting in Cairo, according to the <a href=" http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66S3G420100729">Reuters international news service</a>. League members agreed to send a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama outlining Palestinian concerns over the negotiating process with Israel in the face of that country's refusal to extend a 10-month partial ban on settlement construction after Sept. 25, Reuters said. "There is a green light from the Arabs to go to direct negotiations if we receive terms of reference (for the negotiations) in line with the letter," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior Abbas aide, told Reuters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants direct negotiations with Abbas to begin immediately, but his coalition is tied to pro-settler political parties that adamantly oppose extending the partial settlement freeze. The prospects for a breakthrough in such talks is, of course, unclear. But nobody should forget how the situation got to this point. Instead of accepting Palestinians and Jews as brothers and neighbors, which they clearly are, Arab states have chosen to keep Palestinians who fled the three wars they started in refugee camps for decades and to keep maintain a constant state of hostilities against Israel, first as warring enemies and now through radical proxy groups.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7253519420930463102.post-34174700105093193532010-07-26T11:20:00.005-07:002010-10-08T01:26:04.858-07:00BP's defense of Alaska pipeline safety is not reassuringAssurances from British Petroleum, owner of the largest stake in the Alyeska consortium that operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, that the 800-mile oil pipeline is not deteriorating dangerously have apparently not satisfied congressional investigators looking into reports of inadequate maintenance. After all, the consortium's managing partner is BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic oil spill caused when a deep-water drill rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, killing 11 workers. To its credit, BP has agreed to cover the cost of restitution and placed $20 billion in escrow for expected damage claims stemming from the Gulf spill. But BP has made no such offer for the deteriorating pipeline. According to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/25/alaska.pipeline.safety/index.html">Cable News Network (CNN)</a>, a little-reported spill of 5,000 gallons of oil on the ground near Delta Junction, Alaska, has reignited concerns about the safety of the pipeline. "There's incident after incident within the last six months (that) might seem like small things, but when you put them all together, in a relatively short period of time, it really tells you how poorly this pipeline is being maintained," Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, told CNN. The news service also said an unnamed source said deferred maintenance year after year was endangering the pipeline. Officials have refused to allow CNN to videotape near the site of the spill, the news service said. Alyeska's vice president of operations, Mike Joynor, told CNN that the pipeline was safe and said he was unaware of any incident involving a CNN news crew. Joynor said Alyeska was investigating the spill. He said Alyeska was developing rules to avoid such incidents in the future but that the rules would not be made public. "We stick to what our core values are: safety, integrity, environmental protection and protection of a safe workforce," Joyner said.NatetheGratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05234581449903909407noreply@blogger.com0