August 2011 archive

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour a cup of your favorite morning beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

August 17 is the 229th day of the year (230th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 136 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Dakota War of 1862 (also known as the Sioux Uprising, Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 or Little Crow’s War) was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux or Dakota which began on August 17, 1862, along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota. It ended with a mass execution of 38 Dakota men on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota.

Throughout the late 1850s, treaty violations by the United States and late or unfair annuity payments by Indian agents caused increasing hunger and hardship among the Dakota. Traders with the Dakota previously had demanded that the government give the annuity payments directly to them (introducing the possibility of unfair dealing between the agents and the traders to the exclusion of the Dakota). In mid-1862 the Dakota demanded the annuities directly from their agent, Thomas J. Galbraith. The traders refused to provide any more supplies on credit under those conditions, and negotiations reached an impasse.

On August 17, 1862, four Dakota killed five American settlers while on a hunting expedition. That night a council of Dakota decided to attack settlements throughout the Minnesota River valley to try to drive whites out of the area. There has never been an official report on the number of settlers killed, but estimates range from 400 to 800. It is said that until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the civilian wartime toll from the Dakota conflict was the highest in U.S. history (excluding those of the Civil War).

Over the next several months, continued battles between the Dakota against settlers and later, the United States Army, ended with the surrender of most of the Dakota bands. By late December 1862, soldiers had taken captive more than a thousand Dakota, who were interned in jails in Minnesota. After trials and sentencing, 38 Dakota were hanged on December 26, 1862, in the largest one-day execution in American history. In April 1863 the rest of the Dakota were expelled from Minnesota to Nebraska and South Dakota. The United States Congress abolished their reservations.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 10 years after 9/11, did bin Laden or America win?

By Stephen Collinson, AFP

8 hrs ago

Oh my yes.  You remember Silverstone don’t you?

Things are not happy in the Formula One Teams Association, there’s also the fact the Concorde Agreement has expired and is extended only through a letter, not a contract, through 2012 following a heated dispute that led many teams to threaten to go CART.  While nominally guided by Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren and Ross Brawn of Mercedes the FOTA is widely viewed as a tool of Bernie Ecclestone who has a distinct conflict of interest and a hazy history of influence on the FIA itself with his cozy relationship to Max Mosley the fifth columnist Nazi’s son who got the boot for his sexcapades. Interestingly enough this was the scoop of the recently deceased and unlamented News of the World who published sick Nazi Sex Orgy by Neville Thurlbeck so who knows what to think?

Well, Neville’s in trouble again-

Rupertgate Friday – “For Neville”

By Gordonskene, Crooks&Liars

July 22, 2011 03:58 PM

As was reported yesterday, there are now growing questions over the honesty of the testimony given by James Murdoch during the Inquiry hearings on Tuesday. One centers around Neville Thurlbeck, who was a registered unpaid Police informant and has been a key suspect in the phone hacking scandal and an e-mail and attached file that carefully listed transcribed hacked messages. Murdoch denies any knowledge of the e-mail, however former NoTW editor Colin Myler and former head of legal affairs for News Of The World Tom Crone claim the younger Murdoch had full knowledge of the “For Neville” e-mail and file and has been lying to the Commission. If this winds up being true, and Murdoch is found to be lying, it tosses an enormous question mark over the entire testimony on Tuesday and puts James Murdoch in the position of being arrested and held for further questioning.

Well today…

Former NOTW Employees: James Murdoch Knew Another Reporter Was Involved In Phone Hacking

Jillian Rayfield, TPMMuckraker

August 16, 2011, 12:56PM

The e-mail, from 2005, contained transcripts of 35 hacked phone messages from Taylor’s phone, and identified them as “the transcript for Neville.” The Guardian identified “Neville” as News Of The World reporter Neville Thurlbeck.

According to (James) Murdoch’s testimony to Parliament, he gave the go-ahead for the settlement without knowing about the “for Neville” e-mail, and believed the phone hacking to be limited to “rogue reporter” Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who had both already been convicted.

But Crone and Myler allege that in a June 2008 meeting, they told Murdoch of the e-mail. Crone, who wrote the letter to Parliament, said that he does not have any notes from his meeting with Murdoch at the time, but the “sole reason” for the meeting was to explain the reason for settling — which was the e-mail. “My invariable practice when seeking authority for settlements would be to take a file of the relevant documents with me to such meetings so that, if asked or if necessary, I could illustrate whatever I was saying by reference to something in writing,” Crone wrote.

Letter Suggests Hacking ‘Widely Discussed’ at News of the World

By PAUL SONNE, JEANNE WHALEN and BRUCE ORWALL, The Wall Street Journal

AUGUST 16, 2011, 12:41 P.M. ET

LONDON-News Corp. came under fresh attack Tuesday as new, written evidence submitted to a U.K. parliament committee suggested that voice-mail interception was “widely discussed” at its News of the World tabloid and showed several former executives bluntly contradicting recent testimony by Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch.

…

Mr. Murdoch said Messrs. Crone and Myler briefed him on the case during a meeting on June 10, 2008. He said he doesn’t recall receiving any briefing before this date, and doesn’t recall either Mr. Crone or Mr. Myler showing him any documents during the meeting. He said the executives recommended settling the case because “there was evidence” that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, “had carried out this interception on behalf of the News of the World.”

“Let me reiterate that I have no recollection of any mention of ‘Thurlbeck’ or a ‘for Neville’ email. Neither Mr. Myler nor Mr. Crone told me that wrongdoing extended beyond Mr. Goodman or Mr. Mulcaire,” a private investigator on the tabloid’s payroll, Mr. Murdoch said.

…

The new evidence comes as the latest twist in a scandal over allegations that the News of the World tabloid paid bribes to police and intercepted the voice mails of celebrities, politicians and crime victims. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: Downgrade of US Credit Rating Is Baseless – ­and Outrageous

Standard & Poor’s has gone ahead with the threatened downgrade of the United States’ credit rating. It’s a strange situation.

On one hand, there is a case to be made that the madness of the right has made America a fundamentally unsound nation. And yes, it is the madness of the right: If not for the extremism of anti-tax Republicans, we would have no trouble reaching an agreement that would ensure long-run solvency.

On the other hand, it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies.

The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really?

Dean Baker: President Obama Joins the Cult of Economics Deniers

President Obama has abandoned evidence-based economics to return the US to growth in favor of the politics of deficit-cutting

A front page story in Sunday’s New York Times gave the country the bad news. President Obama is no longer paying attention to economists and economics in designing economic policy. Instead, he will do what his campaign people tell him will get him re-elected, presumably by getting lots of money from Wall Street.

The article said that President Obama intends to focus on reducing government spending and cutting programs like social security and Medicare. This is in spite of the fact that: “A wide range of economists say the administration should call for a new round of stimulus spending, as prescribed by mainstream economic theory, to create jobs and promote growth.”

In other words, President Obama intends to ignore the path for getting the economy back to full employment that most economists advocate. Instead, he is going to cut government spending – because his chief of staff and former JP Morgan vice president Bill Daley and his top campaign adviser David Plouffe both say this is a good idea.

The robust economy of Germany is starting to feel the effects of the economic crisis of its partner nations in the Eurozone and is showing signs of drastic slowing

Growth in the German economy slowed sharply between April and June and was weaker at the start of the year than previously thought, figures show.

The (German) economy grew by just 0.1% in the quarter, according to figures from the national statistics office. Growth in the eurozone as a whole also slowed.

Germany had been driving the economic recovery in the eurozone.

The figures come as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy begin crunch talks.

The two leaders are discussing ways to solve the eurozone debt crisis that has threatened to engulf Italy and Spain and has sparked turmoil on global stock markets.

Figures also released on Tuesday showed that eurozone economic growth slowed to 0.2% in the second quarter, down from 0.8% in the previous three months.

The slow down has had its effect on markets in Europe and early trading in the US:

The news led European indexes lower. Germany’s DAX fell 2.6 percent, the FTSE in Britain was 1.3 percent lower, and in France the CAC 40 was down 1.9 percent.

In early trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 80.68 points, or 0.70 percent, at 11,402.22. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 11.02 points, or 0.91 percent, at 1,193.47, and the Nasdaq composite index was down 26.38 points, or 1.03 percent, at 2,528.82.

“German G.D.P. data is the catalyst this morning that got us off to a bad start,” said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vt.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France were to meet later Tuesday to discuss measures to contain Europe’s fiscal crisis. A joint news conference was scheduled at noon E.D.T.

Another component of the down turn is the idea of issuing bonds backed by all Eurozone nations to ease the crisis has been poo-pooed by both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy but they may have no other choice:

The euro bond concept is gaining traction among economists and other outside experts like George Soros, the billionaire investor, as a way of preventing borrowing costs for Italy and Spain from rising so much that the countries become insolvent, an event that could destroy the common currency.

Debt issued and backed by all 17 members of the euro zone, euro bond proponents say, would be regarded as ultrasafe by investors and could rival the market for United States Treasury securities. The weaker euro members would benefit from the good standing of countries like Germany or Finland and pay lower interest rates to borrow than if left to face investors on their own.

“It may well be in order to calm markets right now,” said Jakob von Weizsäcker, an economist for the German state of Thuringia who has proposed a way to structure euro bonds so that countries would be encouraged to reduce their debt.

On the “bright side”, there is Nouriel Roubini:

.Karl Marx was right that globalization, financial intermediation, and income redistribution could lead capitalism to self-destruct

Now a combination of high oil and commodity prices, turmoil in the Middle East, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, eurozone debt crises, and America’s fiscal problems (and now its rating downgrade) have led to a massive increase in risk aversion. Economically, the United States, the eurozone, the United Kingdom, and Japan are all idling. Even fast-growing emerging markets (China, emerging Asia, and Latin America), and export-oriented economies that rely on these markets (Germany and resource-rich Australia), are experiencing sharp slowdowns.

Until last year, policymakers could always produce a new rabbit from their hat to reflate asset prices and trigger economic recovery. Fiscal stimulus, near-zero interest rates, two rounds of “quantitative easing,” ring-fencing of bad debt, and trillions of dollars in bailouts and liquidity provision for banks and financial institutions-officials tried them all. Now they have run out of rabbits.

Fiscal policy currently is a drag on economic growth in both the eurozone and the United Kingdom. Even in the United States, state and local governments, and now the federal government, are cutting expenditure and reducing transfer payments. Soon enough, they will be raising taxes.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

On this day in 1896, Gold discovered in the Yukon.

While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.

Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim–Carmack’s brother-in-law–actually made the discovery.

The Beauty Platform and Sequential Art

First they came for the guys and gals

   with skeevy comic books.

But I don’t buy skeevy comic books,

   so I shut up and kept my head down.

Then they came for the guys and gals

   with graphically violent comic books.

But I don’t buy comic books with graphic violence^{1},

   so I shut up and kept my head down.

Then they came for the guys and gals;

   with “adult” gay and lesbian comic books.

But I don’t buy adult gay and lesbian^{1} comic books,

   so I shut up and kept my head down.

Then they came for the guys and gals

   with “excessively” adult comic books of any sorts.

But I don’t buy excessively adult adult  comic books of any sort,

   so I shut up and kept my head down.

Then they came for the guys and gals with politically and socially radical comic books.

And the legal precedent was already set, so it was an open and shut case.

And that’s what I’m in for.

……………………..

That is, in any event, the dystopian future scenario. Right now we are still in a position to push back against the “North American Taliban”, and that is what the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund aims to do.

{1. OK, ok, on some of these sites my sig says otherwise with respect to yuri manga, and some science fiction dystopian manga has some pretty graphic violence, but stick with me here for dramatic effect}

If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Gorbachev says Bush warned him of ’91 coup

AFP – 7 hrs ago

Somewhat flying under the radar even in Blogtopia (yes, Skippy invented that) and here in the People’s Republic of Left Blogistan is the big blowout at the Royal Dutch Shell Gannet Alpha Platform (one of 7 pumping oil from the Gannet Field which drills into the Eocene, Palaeocene and Jurassic period).

The story goes something like this-

Shell has been having cronic problems with breakdowns with its Brent (another oil field in the North Sea and namesake of the ‘Brent Crude’ financial benchmark) platforms that shut down all 4 of them after the discovery of severe maintenance problems including extensive gas leaks at the Brent Delta platform and actual factual chunks of the platform falling off into the Sea at Brent Bravo.

Indeed, on their very own official site an anonymous (though available for interview) expert says-

Experts damning comment on Shell North Sea Oil Spill

by John Donovan

Aug 13th, 2011

Comment from a Shell North Sea Platform Safety & Maintenance Expert on the current oil spill near the Gannet Alpha Platform

…another example of reactive maintenance regime, i.e. allowing, through neglect, equipment to fail and then reacting to the failure rather than, as the Safety Case for Gannet prescribes, preventing failure in the first instance by application of appropriate maintenance, inspection and monitoring.

(Expert in question may be available to the media for comment)

RELATED ARTICLES

• Hypocrisy of Shell CEO Peter Voser on BP Gulf of Mexico disaster
• Oil and gas spills in North Sea every week, papers reveal
• Collusion between Shell and HSE in Brent Bravo cover-up
• Bill Campbell quoted in Final Report on BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

What happened at Gannet Alpha was a leaky flow pipe which goes from the wellhead to the platform.  The problem is “under control” at the moment, they have shut off the well head and are undertaking repairs on thttps://thestarshollowgazette.com/he flow pipe.

Even though it it is dwarfed by the continuing disaster that is the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill which dumped about 5 Million Barrels into the Gulf of Mexico, Gannet Alpha has released over 1,300 Barrels making it the largest in the North Sea for a decade.

And 1,300 is the conservative estimate.

Additionally Shell is under fire for not promptly reporting the accident which was reported last Wednesday.

Now if you are inclined to believe Shell’s protestations that this was a relatively minor incident and even Aberdeen which is far, far away will not suffer much damage because the spill will break up naturally, let me remind you this is the very same company that recently received a conditional go ahead from the Obama Administration to drill three exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea “even though the Interior Department has not yet approved the company’s plan for responding to a catastrophic oil spill.”

The editorial published by the Los Angeles Times August 10th, 2011 and distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Services continues on to say–

Shell’s response plan contends that it can clean up 95 percent of spilled oil, an unprecedented percentage even in much less hostile environments. But the skimmers and booms that are usually employed to clean up spills don’t work effectively in waters with large amounts of floating ice. Nor is there any guarantee that Shell would be able to get disaster equipment to the wells. Canada’s National Energy Board recently reported that on one day out of five, conditions in the Arctic, including the Beaufort Sea, are too harsh to send out spill-response teams. Meanwhile, the nearest Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away, and the agency told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that it cannot be counted on to respond to spills off the North Slope.

Shell’s proposal must clear other hurdles before any drilling can take place. For example, the company must show other federal agencies that its activities would not harm polar bears or marine life. But the application shouldn’t have reached this point without a response plan that is realistic about the environmental dangers of seeking an energy future in the Arctic seas.