Transcript

So Super Softs and Mediums.  1.5 Seconds between them.  Hardly anything else really matters.

BTW Massa has retired.  Raikkonen is in at the Scuderia.  Big News?  We’ll see next year if Alonso is as good (.5 seconds a lap) as I think he is because Raikkonen is no slouch.

I’d rather focus on how fucked up the TV coverage is (you know, because it screws up my sleep schedule and I get really cranky).  Qualifying at 1 am after a day of college throwball?  I’ve gone on strike for less.

I’m at 6es and 7s about how to handle the Winter Olympics.  There is no doubt that Russia is engaged in a progrom on LGBTs and I’m conflicted because it’s a big part of my blogging history and I really like curling.  Shuffle board on ice, what’s not to like?

But there is no denying that Putin is playing the Russian Orthodox Church on the social issues card and it’s killing people.  This is something our president deals away to prove how “liberal” he is and I feel bad about disagreeing with John Aravosis on this issue because I’m not gay, but I don’t think it’s a substitute for how he’s killing brown people in Yemen with drones or brown people in Detroit with SNAP cuts.

Oh, you just think he’ll stand fast.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  And I choose Detroit for irony.

So not back to Formula One.  In other races where billionaires spend billions Larry Ellison is but a single race away from losing the America’s Cup.

As Atrios frequently says, things are fucked up and shit.

It’s The Mind-

I can’t believe I voted for this guy.

Guilty! UN Report on Syria Does Not Say What John Kerry Says It Said

By: Peter Van Buren, Firedog Lake

Friday September 20, 2013 5:52 pm

The UN released its report on chemical weapons use in Syria. You can read it here. It’s not that long, just some forty pages including legal appendices. John Kerry says it confirms that the Assad regime fired the gas rockets. Unfortunately, that is not what the actual report says. In a court, Kerry’s case might be seen as circumstantial at best, certainly not enough for a jury to return a guilty verdict in a murder trial.

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The problem is that the report does not confirm anything other than chemical weapons were used. I can’t give you a quote because the report simply does not say- anywhere- that the Syria Army, or the rebels, or anyone by name- used the weapons. But don’t believe me. Unlike Kerry, I provide links, so check the full text of the report. If you don’t care to read it all, skip to page five, “Conclusions.” It just isn’t there. No one is named as the culprit.

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Who shot the gas rockets? Could they have been fired by rogue military elements not acting under Assad’s orders? Could the Syrian army have lost control of some rockets which were picked up by the rebels (Vladimir Putin has made that very claim, that the rebels themselves fired the gas rockets in an attempt to draw the United States into the conflict)? Could a third party have supplied such rockets to the rebels to create a pretext for war? As there is no evidence in the UN report that the trigger was pulled by the Syrian Army under Assad’s orders, there is no evidence that the rebels pulled it and no evidence that someone else did. That’s why the UN report does not draw a conclusion of guilt- there’s no evidence on which to base such a conclusion.

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The U.S. is wholly misrepresenting facts in favor of another Middle East war. Unlike a fictional murder trial where one man’s life is on the line, should the U.S. attack Syria many, many people will lose their lives.

I could probably do one of these every day.

Anthony Badalamenti, Former Halliburton Employee, Charged With Destroying Gulf Oil Spill Evidence

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Huffington Post

09/19/13 05:12 PM ET ED

A former Halliburton manager was charged Thursday with destroying evidence following BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a case that coincides with a guilty plea to a related charge by the Houston-based oilfield services company.

Anthony Badalamenti, who had been the cementing technology director for Halliburton Energy Services Inc., was charged in federal court with instructing two other employees to delete data during a post-spill review of the cement job on BP’s blown-out well.

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Also on Thursday, a federal judge accepted a plea agreement that calls for Halliburton to pay a $200,000 fine for a misdemeanor stemming from Badalamenti’s alleged conduct.

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The plea deal has its critics, however. Allison Fisher, an outreach director for the Public Citizen nonprofit advocacy group, called it a “travesty.”

“Rather than rubber stamp the plea agreement,” she said in a statement, “the court should have rejected the bargain-basement deal because it fails to hold the corporation accountable for its criminal acts and will not deter future corporate crime.”

Unlike BP and rig owner Transocean Ltd., Halliburton was not charged with a crime related to the causes of the disaster. The fine Halliburton agreed to pay is the statutory maximum for the misdemeanor charge of unauthorized destruction of evidence.

The deal announced in July also calls for Halliburton to be on probation for three years and to make a $55 million contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, but that payment was not a condition of the deal.

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BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine await a trial next year on manslaughter charges stemming from the rig workers’ deaths. Prosecutors claim they botched a key safety test and disregarded abnormally high pressure readings that were glaring signs of trouble before the well blowout.

Former BP executive David Rainey is charged with concealing information from Congress about the amount of oil that was spewing from the blown-out well in 2010. Former BP engineer Kurt Mix is charged with deleting text messages and voicemails about the company’s response to the spill.

DOJ Gives Halliburton A Pass On Destroying Evidence In BP Oil Spill

By: DSWright, Firedog Lake

Friday September 20, 2013 8:06 am

Halliburton Inc. will not be held accountable for criminal acts committed by its employees under a plea agreement with the Department of Justice now accepted by a judge – the firm will pay a fine for a misdemeanor.

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Weak does not even begin to describe this deal. Not only was Halliburton instrumental in causing the disaster, the firm then destroyed evidence of their involvement in helping cause the spill.

But in a move reminiscent of the Fabrice Tourre and Goldman Sachs case – where a small fish stands in for the big fish that got away – one of Halliburton’s employees will face prosecution.

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Another pathetic prosecution under Eric Holder’s Justice Department where no matter how horrendous the crime the big players get to walk away unscathed. But if the PR is bad enough a small time fall guy can be found. Which of course means there is no disincentive for further criminal conduct by the big players who know they will never be held accountable.

This is what happens when you make a corporate lackey Attorney General. PR prosecutions and no justice.

It’s good to be the King.  No Justice?  No Peace!

JPMorgan Agrees to Pay $920 Million in Fines Over Trading Loss

By BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG, The New York Times

September 19, 2013, 9:23 am

Extracting the fines and a rare admission of wrongdoing from JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, regulators in Washington and London took aim at a pervasive breakdown in controls and leadership at the bank. The deal resolves investigations from four regulators: the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the Financial Conduct Authority in London.

But the bank has struggled to settle with another regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is investigating whether the bank’s trading manipulated the market for financial contracts known as derivatives. JPMorgan Chase disclosed on Thursday that the agency’s enforcement staff had recommended the filing of an enforcement action.

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Under the deal with the S.E.C., which also brought civil cases against the traders, JPMorgan took the unusual step of acknowledging that it violated federal securities laws. That concession reverses a decade-long policy at the S.E.C. to allow banks to “neither admit nor deny” wrongdoing. It may also expose JPMorgan to private litigation from investors who will seize on the bank’s admissions.

For now, the bank agreed to pay $300 million to the comptroller’s office, and about $200 million to the S.E.C. and each of the other agencies. The comptroller’s office also cited the bank on Thursday for separate failings in the way it collected overdue bills from consumers and military members.

The fines, while collectively steep, fall in between what other banks have paid when settling with multiple regulators. And the fines can be seen as a reasonable trade-off for a bank seeking to move past the trading losses.

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Even with the settlement on Thursday, JPMorgan’s regulatory headaches are far from over. On Thursday, both the comptroller’s office and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau levied fines against the bank for its credit-card practices, including how the bank pursues customers who have fallen behind on their bills.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $80 million in fines to regulators over accusations that the bank duped its credit card customers into buying products pitched as a way to shield them from identity theft. Those products, regulators said, never materialized.

“Put simply, Chase was charging consumers for services that they did not receive,” said Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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The regulators also faulted JPMorgan for how the bank collects debt from its customers. The federal actions stem from an investigation into debt-collection lawsuits the bank filed against its credit card customers from 2009 to 2011. As JPMorgan churned through a glut of overdue credit card bills and other loans, authorities said, the bank relied on faulty documentation to substantiate the amount owed by consumers. Often, the bank relied on outside law firms without double-checking their work.

The questionable debt-collection practices evoked some of the same tactics banks used to foreclose on homes during the mortgage crisis. Those problems – like robo-signing, where bank employees and outside lawyers churned through mountains of foreclosure documents without vetting them for errors – were at the center of a sweeping deal between the nation’s biggest banks and the comptroller’s office.

On Thursday, the regulators took aim at the lawsuits JPMorgan filed to recover money on unpaid bills. According to the comptroller’s office, JPMorgan relied on sworn legal documents that had not been reviewed for accuracy. The bank also flouted a federal law that governs how lenders collect overdue bills from military members, the comptroller’s office said.

JPMorgan Pays Small Fine For Lying To Regulators And Manipulating Market

By: DSWright, Firedog Lake

Thursday September 19, 2013 8:58 am

You had to see this coming. After lying to regulators, manipulating the market, and putting out fraudulent documents JPMorgan will pay a relatively small fine and move on. Because when the powerful repeatedly break the law the consequences are never very severe. If we stopped these Wall Street banksters from making criminal profits they might stop making criminal profits – then where would our economy be?

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Well, as long as they learned their lesson. Never mind that JPMorgan reported $6.5 billion in profits last quarter. So of course a fine significantly less than 3 months profit will really make them shudder. It’s all about incentives people.

The one regulator that hasn’t taken a dive so far is the CFTC which has refused to settle unless JPMorgan admits market manipulation. Lets hope they don’t cave. Though it seems their regulatory colleagues just left them alone in the desert.

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(W)hat is the penalty for that crime for 99% of Americans? Someone audits you or your business and you “fail to turn over significant information” to an auditor? I’ll give you a hint, it wouldn’t be a relatively small fine. Actually it would be a very large fine and possibly a government mandated visit to a correctional facility. But that’s what you get for not being rich enough to bribe Congress.

Ahoy mateys.  It be Cap’n Hank Bloodbeard hijacking your blog ag’in.  Since the establishin’ of International Talk Like a Pirate Day in 1995, the number of Pirates has increased gratifyin’ly thereby proving the success of our Pastafarian Pirate Recruitin’ Program and confirmin’ the link between increased piracy and declinin’ Global Warmin’.

But wait ye say, Global Warmin’ has gotten worse and Pastafarianism is a made up religion contrived out of equal measures of ennui, ignorance and Rum!

WHY IS THERE NEVER ANY RUM!  Oh, that’s why.

Ye scurvy dog, them be fightin’ wards.  Ye’ll walk the plank. I’ll keelhaul ye.  I’ll see your black hearted soul in Davey Jones Locker (the one ‘e shares w’ Peter Toth).

We used to worry about that too until we took up w’ a crew o’ Freshwater Pirates from the Chicago School who explained that it doesn’t matter how consistently and thoroughly wrong ye are if ye suck up to rich people enough and parrot their prejudices, beat down the po’ folk until morale improves, and kiss their ass long and hard.  Take what ye can, give nothin’ back, yo ho.

Polly want a grant?

E’en on these shores Cap’n Bloodbeard (aside from really enjoyin’ referin’ to hisself in the thard person) be known for ‘is trail of terror and carnage and really bad puns.

• 2007 DocuDharma

• 2008 DocuDharma
• 2008 Daily Kos

• 2010 The Stars Hollow Gazette

• 2011 DocuDharma
• 2011 The Stars Hollow Gazette

• 2012 DocuDharma
• 2012 The Stars Hollow Gazette

I generally celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day by telling the 3 Pirate Jokes.  There are only 3, all the others are just variations.  As Cap’n Slappy says:

Thar be only three pirate jokes in the world. The biggest one is the one that ends with someone usin’ “Arrr” in the punchline. Oh, sure, thar be plenty o’ these, but they’re all the same damn joke.

“What’s the pirate movie rated? – Arrr!” “What kind o’ socks does a pirate wear? – Arrrrgyle!” “What’s the problem with the way a pirate speaks? – Arrrrticulation!” …and so forth.

The second joke is the one wear the pirate walks into the bar with a ships wheel attached to the front o’ his trousers. The bartender asks, “What the hell is that ships wheel for?” The pirate says, “I don’t know, but it’s drivin’ me nuts!”

And finally. A little boy is trick or treatin’ on Halloween by himself. He is dressed as a pirate. At one house, a friendly man asks him, “Where are your buccaneers?” The little boy responds, “On either side o’ me ‘buccan’ head!”

And there ye have it. A symposium on pirate humor that’ll last ye a lifetime – so long as life is violent and short.

If ye steer a course to the official website of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye may wish to read the FAQ, to help ye splice the mainbrace proper like.  Then ye’ll be ready to talk like a pirate.

Talking like a pirate, however, doesn’t just mean running through the hallways yelling “yarr!” at everyone. To get more in touch with one’s inner pirate, here is a short list of useful terms that may help readers throughout their day of pillaging and searching for buried treasure.

I also spend this day in Worship at Church and emulate the manners, customs, and language o’ me Pirate forbearers (I have the good fortune to be 1/4 full blooded Pirate through my Viking ancestors, indeed Viking is a verb which means ‘Pirate’) and singing some Pirate Carols.

There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.

I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.

The Crunchy Center

Sheer Accumulation of Breathless Wrongness

How large is this building?  What about that one?

The Best F#@king News Team Ever

NYPD Undercover Spying Unit Revealed As Extensive, Far-Reaching

Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Democracy Now: With CIA Help, New York Police Secretly Monitored Mosques, Muslim Communities Post-9/11

8/25/11

Democracy Now: Spying on Campus: New York Police Caught Monitoring Muslim Student Groups Throughout Northeast

2/21/12

Democracy Now: From Mosques to Soccer Leagues: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spy Unit Targeting Muslims, Activists

9/17/13