Apr 15 2011
Regular Features-
Featured Essays for April 14, 2011-
Apr 15 2011
(8 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Those of you that read this irregular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile of so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
I never write about living people except with their express permission, but since the topic is me, I hereby give myself permission to tell this story. I am guessing that it happened either in 1961 or 1962, when I when I was either four or five years old. I know that it was before I started school.
We lived in North Little Rock in 1962, because my father got transferred. Interestingly, we lived across the street and three houses up from the Fischer Honey plant, quite a thing, but a topic for another time.
I am sorry to post after 9:00 PM, but worked outside until almost dark, and then Elmer and I resat our mailboxes that ground heave had loosened during the winter. It was after dark then, and there there connectivity problems. Not an excuse, just the reasons.
What I remember for sure is that is was in the springtime. It could have been any weekend in 1961, but if it were 1962 it would most likely have been Easter weekend since we would not normally make the 220 mile trip every weekend. I also remember that my Aunt Joanne and Uncle David were there, and of course my parents. We were at my grandmum’s house, about a quarter of a mile up the street from my house.
Ma was big on spring cleaning, and the adults had pitched in to work on her yard. They cut vines, picked up sticks, trimmed (long before line trimmers existed, so they used hand shears or slings), and generally got her yard in shape for the warm weather to come. Of course, all of that debris had to go somewhere, so they stacked a pile and set it alit. They all stayed around until it burnt down enough to be safe, and as I recall, we went inside and had lunch (“dinner”, in that part of the country).
Being just little, I did not have to do much as far as cleanup went, so I went back outside. It was cool, not cold, but I do remember that I was wearing a pair of corduroy pants, brown ones. They were too long for me, so my mum had rolled up the cuffs so that I was not stepping on them. I played here and there for a while, and then went to look at the burn pile.
For those of you who have read my posts, not in this series, but on Pique the Geek, you likely have noticed that I have a large interest in combustion of all types. A few of you know that I used to work for the Army, directing a pyrotechnics development facility (I loved that job!). This interest in combustion is, I guess, innate for me, because I loved watching that burn pile. I stood there for what now seem to be hours (probably only a few minutes for a little kid), watching the colors of the coals change, the smoke rise, and it shifting as the fuel towards the bottom turned to ash thus allowing the material on top to settle, then flare up once again.
I was mesmerized! The look of the fire, the scent of the smell (all plant material, no trash, so it was sweet), and the sheer fascination with how the fire consumed the pile completely enveloped me. That may be part of the reason why I became a scientist. Perhaps I was born a scientist, and that it was a manifestation of that which generated my interest in combustion. Who can say what the causality was?
In any event, I was so absorbed watching the burn pile that I did not notice that some of it had shifted and was impinging onto one of my legs (I do not remember which one). Even though my mum had rolled up the cuffs, they were still low enough to provide thermal insulation so that I did not feel the heat on my shoe. After a while, I did notice something hot, and looked down to see my pant cuff on fire!
It was actually not aflame, but it WAS smoldering and glowing. If I had been thinking (a tall order for a little kid), I would have gone to the house and asked for help. But I panicked, in fear of both being burnt to death and also for getting in trouble for being around the burn pile. While I do not remember explicitly any directive from my family to stay away from it, in retrospect I am sure that Ma, the worrying type, had admonished me to keep away from it. That makes sense for my sense of panic about “being caught” disobeying an elder.
So I did what most panicked little kids did. I started running and screaming! But not towards the house. Generally, it was just undirected running and screaming, hither and yon. It was cool enough that the doors and windows in the house were closed, so they could not hear me screaming.
I do not know how long that I continued this fruitless process, but before long Uncle David ran over to me and caught me. I can only assume that he had seen me running, screaming, and my pant leg smoking from a window. By that time, the cotton in the pants had become ablaze due to the oxygen supply from the running. He quickly pushed me to the ground and smothered the flames with earth. We got up, and it was still smoldering, but by that time the others had come to my rescue with water, and they snuffed the embers with alacrity.
Physically, I had an extremely minor first degree burn (about two inches long and half an inch wide) just above my ankle, so minor that Carbolated Vaseline was good enough a treatment. I shall talk about this product a bit more later, but first the rest of the tale.
The burn hurt a little, but the “talking to” that I got hurt more. Everyone scolded me for not coming to them when I realized that I was in trouble. I tried to explain that I was scared to do so, but they were adamant that my real mistake was not to come to them. Of course, they were right. I have always had a bit of rebelliousness in me, and I guess that it manifested itself early. But I did learn from it, and other times when I was hurt or otherwise in a difficult place, I most often did come to them.
The pants were ruined, because the burn went above the rolled up cuffs (it was the single layer of cloth smoldering that burnt me), and I caught heck for that, too. My parents were not poor, but part of the reason for them not being poor was that they never wasted anything, and considered the damage to those trousers as a waste. I remember that lesson better than most.
All in all, it was really pretty much of a nonevent, but it was really frightening for me at the time. I was banned from the burn pile unless an adult was with me, but they realized how much I enjoyed watching it combust that I was able to see it a couple of more times until it finally consumed itself, with one or more of them being an escort.
This is the most traumatic of my very early memories, but looking back to it as an adult, it was not really something that major. However, events like these in early life have long lasting consequences, and even though I have always loved the combustion process, I became much more careful in dealing with it.
Now about Carbolated Vaseline, which was (and might still be, although I have not seen it in years), a marvelous product. My understanding is that is no longer produced by the original manufacturer, but that knockoffs are available. The original formulation was regular Vaseline with about 1.5% phenol added. Phenol is an excellent antiseptic, and also has a fairly profound local anesthetic action. Once that material goes onto a superficial burn, the pain stops in just a few minutes. Now, phenol is fairly toxic, but at 1.5% on only a small area is safe. If you were to rub it all over your body, that might be different.
I believe that there was a later product, called Medicated Vaseline, that used a chlorinated derivative of phenol that did essentially the same thing. Neither really helped healing that much, except to kill germs where it was applied, but the local anesthetic properties certainly helped to ease the pain. That brings me to my last subject of the night, because this is getting too Geeky.
Some sore throat remedies, notably the Chloroseptic brand (and some store brands) contain phenol, or its sodium salt, sodium phenolate, as the local anesthetic. You have to look at the label. I would recommend the phenol containing products for both sore throats and for minor burns, since the phenol actually does act as a fair antiseptic, as well as easing the pain. Just limit it to small amounts of skin.
If you have memories of early memories growing up, please post them in the comments. Please do not tell us what you did today, unless it directly relates and produces a piece about what you remember from when you were 16 years old, give of take.
I am seriously thinking about making this a regular series, with the day of the week yet to be determined. I have written one per week for the last several, so I just need to settle on the day. Any suggestions? Friday and Sunday are out, because they are occupied by Popular Culture and Pique the Geek, respectively. I also disfavor Monday, because that is Review Time for Pique the Geek. Lots also has to do with my fellows it several sites.
Tomorrow evening, Popular Culture will focus on TeeVee, in particular on the show Freaks and Geeks. Those of who who read many of my series might suspect that I used that title as a model for my scientific one. I did not, but will not deny that I was a bit influenced by it. That was a wonderful program.
Warmest regards,
Doc
Apr 15 2011
(midnight. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
This is an Open Thread
Essays Featured Thursday the 14th of April:
Fun, Fun, Fun starts the day in Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs
Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!
Six Days a Week!!! at Six in the Morning!!!!
Thursday Open Thoughts from mplo are More on the movie “The Town”; No sympathy for Doug or Claire:
Cornucopia Thursday, a weekly feature from Ed Tracey brings a delightful collection of items and ….well, just plain whimsy…..
in todays Perfect Conversation Gabriel D asks What Are You Reading?
On Open-Source Entertainment, Or, Today, Jon Kyl Meets Twitter from fake consultant
The touching tail of Kiva A Pootie Gets A Chance, from Wendys Wink, republished with permission.
from Timbuk3: The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time!
Tonight #82
join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….
Apr 15 2011
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 IMF, WBank warn on high food prices, joblessness
by Paul Handley, AFP
2 hrs 41 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The IMF and World Bank chiefs Thursday warned that high food prices and joblessness remain dangerous barriers to the world’s economic and social stability despite global macroeconomic gains.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick cited soaring food prices as “the biggest threat to the poor around the world.” “We are in a danger zone because prices have already gone up; stocks for many commodities are relatively low,” Zoellick said in a news conference opening the annual World Bank-International Monetary Fund spring meetings. |
2 NATO calls for Kadhafi ouster as bombs hit Tripoli
by Laurent Thomet, AFP
1 hr 19 mins ago
| BERLIN (AFP) – NATO on Thursday threw its weight behind growing calls for Moamer Kadhafi to quit, as rebels fighting to topple the veteran Libyan strongman reported an intensive blitz by alliance warplanes and as loud blasts were heard in Tripoli.
The port area of Libya’s besieged third city Misrata came under heavy attack by Kadhafi’s forces, who fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells that killed at least 13 people and wounded 50, a rebel spokesman said. The key crossroads town of Ajdabiya on the front line between the rebel-held east and the mainly government-held west, recaptured from loyalist forces at the weekend, came under renewed assault, an AFP correspondent reported. |
3 NATO allies meet as Libya rebels report bombings
by Laurent Thomet, AFP
Thu Apr 14, 11:20 am ET
| BERLIN (AFP) – NATO allies met in Berlin on Thursday seeking to bridge differences over their campaign in Libya, as rebels fighting to topple Moamer Kadhafi reported an intensive bombing blitz by alliance warplanes.
The port area of Libya’s third city Misrata, meanwhile, came under heavy attack on Thursday by Kadhafi’s forces, who fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells which killed at least 13 people and injured 50, a rebel spokesman said. In Cairo, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a “political” solution and immediate ceasefire to the conflict in Libya, at an international conference hosted by the Arab League. |
4 Emerging nations against use of force in Libya
by Marianne Barriaux, AFP
Thu Apr 14, 8:59 am ET
| SANYA, China (AFP) – Leaders of five of the world’s major emerging powers said Thursday the use of force in Libya and the Arab world should be avoided, at a summit intended to showcase their growing global clout.
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also warned in a joint statement that volatile commodity prices could slow the global economic recovery and that huge capital flows could hurt the developing world. Chinese President Hu Jintao chaired the wide-ranging morning talks in the southern China resort city Sanya with South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. |
5 Ouattara takes charge after Ivory Coast victory
by Thomas Morfin, AFP
28 mins ago
| ABIDJAN (AFP) – President Alassane Ouattara stamped his new authority on Ivory Coast on Thursday, as troops formerly loyal to his ousted rival Laurent Gbagbo flocked to his banner despite ongoing violence.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told reporters in New York however there was still fighting and “quite a lot of looting” despite Ouattara’s victory over Gbagbo’s attempt to cling to power. “There are still people with arms, it is still dangerous but there are no more blockades,” he said, as UN peacekeepers and French troops worked with the new government to restore order in the port city of Abidjan. |
6 Japan police find 10 bodies in nuclear zone
by Hiroshi Hiyama, AFP
Thu Apr 14, 10:16 am ET
| TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese police on Thursday found the bodies of 10 tsunami victims in the first search of a 10-kilometre (six-mile) zone around an atomic plant, as emergency crews battled to contain a nuclear crisis.
Hundreds of police wearing white protective suits and face masks scoured rubble-strewn neighbourhoods near the plant for victims of the giant wave that smashed into Japan’s northeast coast more than a month ago. Some of the remains were found inside cars and others were “buried in debris, so that the sight of just a foot or other body part would lead to the discovery of a whole body,” a Fukushima police spokesman told AFP. |
7 Clinton warns against hasty Afghan withdrawal
by Shaun Tandon, AFP
2 hrs 36 mins ago
| BERLIN (AFP) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday backed away from a US timeline to start pulling troops from Afghanistan in July, warning “political expediency” would benefit the Taliban.
Speaking at a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Berlin, Clinton also warned of a “violent spring fighting season” in Afghanistan as the Taliban try to exert themselves in areas where Afghan forces are due to assume control. “We have to steel ourselves and our publics for the possibility that the Taliban will resort to the most destructive and sensational attacks we have seen,” she said. |
8 BP feels fishermen’s fury over Gulf oil spill
by Philippe Valat, AFP
18 mins ago
| LONDON (AFP) – BP faced protests from angry fishermen and disgruntled shareholders on Thursday at its first annual general meeting since the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The meeting took place almost a year since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and caused millions of gallons of oil to gush into the sea. Diane Wilson, a shrimp farmer from the Texas Gulf Coast smeared her face and hands with a dark syrup resembling oil as she protested outside the annual general meeting (AGM) venue in east London. |
9 Europeans lead the pack in race for Cannes’ top honour
by Robert MacPherson, AFP
59 mins ago
| PARIS (AFP) – European directors are many, Asians are few and South Americans non-existent on the list of 19 films in the running for the coveted Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, announced on Thursday.
Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, Denmark’s Lars Von Trier and Belgium’s Dardenne brothers are among those whose latest projects will be in the limelight when the world’s premier film festival opens on May 11 on the French Riviera. No fewer than 1,715 films — some for the first time submitted via the Internet — were considered for the 64th edition of the event, festival director Thierry Fremaux told a press conference in Paris. |
10 Home run king Bonds ‘guilty of obstruction’
by Stephanie Rice, AFP
Wed Apr 13, 10:18 pm ET
| SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – US baseball’s home run king Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice for his misleading and evasive testimony in a 2003 steroid probe.
US District Judge Susan Illston on Wednesday declared a mistrial on three further counts of perjury after jurors were unable to reach a verdict on them. Prosecutors did not immediately indicate whether they will seek to retry Bonds on any of those counts, in which Bonds was accused of lying to a grand jury when he said he never knowingly used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone or received injections from his personal trainer. |
11 India, Pakistan to resume cricket ties: reports
AFP
Thu Apr 14, 6:38 am ET
| NEW DELHI (AFP) – India and Pakistan have agreed to resume direct sporting ties, reports said on Thursday, and an Indian cricket tour of its neighbour could be on the cards.
The decision comes two weeks after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani watched together as their teams played in the semi-final of the Cricket World Cup in northwest India. Several Indian newspapers cited unidentified government sources as saying the question of precisely when and where the first cricket series between the rivals might take place would be decided by the two national cricket boards. |
12 Senate panel slams Goldman in scathing crisis report
By Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 9:15 am ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system.
Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Capitol Hill’s most feared panels, has a history with Goldman Sachs. He clashed publicly with its Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis. |
13 G20 eyes anti-crisis plan, mulls recovery risks
By Daniel Flynn and Gernot Heller, Reuter
1 hr 27 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States tried to instill confidence on Thursday that the global recovery was not at risk as global finance chiefs gathered to advance a plan to prevent future economic crises.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 rich and emerging countries, and the smaller Group of Seven developed nations, later on Thursday will weigh the impact of high oil prices, huge government debts and Japan’s disasters. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking at a conference on the global economy, said the recovery from the 2007-2009 financial crisis was intact and that investment and hiring were starting to pick up. |
14 U.S., allies see Libyan rebels in hopeless disarray
By Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart, Reuters
2 hrs 13 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Too little is known about Libya’s rebels and they remain too fragmented for the United States to get seriously involved in organizing or training them, let alone arming them, U.S. and European officials say.
U.S. and allied intelligence agencies believe NATO’s no-fly zone and air strikes will be effective in stopping Muammar Gaddafi’s forces from killing civilians and dislodging rebels from strongholds like Benghazi, the officials say. But the more the intelligence agencies learn about rebel forces, the more they appear to be hopelessly disorganized and incapable of coalescing in the foreseeable future. |
15 NATO states buck French, British call over Libya
By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom, Reuters
2 hrs 11 mins ago
| BERLIN (Reuters) – The United States and European NATO allies rebuffed on Thursday French and British calls to contribute more actively to the air war in Libya despite fears of a military stalemate.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NATO ministers meeting in Berlin it was vital for the alliance to maintain “resolve and unity” against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. But she gave no indication Washington was prepared to fully re-engage in ground strikes. As they met, a spokesman for the anti-Gaddafi rebels besieged in the western city of Misrata warned of an impending “massacre” unless NATO intervened more decisively. The rebels said 23 civilians were killed in a rocket attack on a residential zone near Misrata port on Thursday. |
16 Elite detainees in Cairo prison after tables turn
By Shaimaa Fayed, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 7:40 am ET
| CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s former ruling elite is having a taste of what they meted out to their enemies.
The pillars of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime and his two sons are now locked up in prison in an unprecedented settling of accounts with the former autocrat’s government. Mubarak, overthrown in a popular uprising on February 11, would have joined the string of VIP detainees except that the health of the 82-year-old former president is reckoned too precarious. |
17 Egypt’s Mubarak detained, army wins protest respite
By Marwa Awad and Sarah Mikhail, Reuters
Wed Apr 13, 6:54 pm ET
| CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt ordered ousted President Hosni Mubarak detained for 15 days on Wednesday for questioning into accusations he abused power during his 30-year rule, embezzled funds and had protesters killed.
State television said Mubarak, 82, and his sons Gamal and Alaa would appear before a Cairo judge next Tuesday for questioning after the public prosecutor ordered their detention. News of the detentions won the country’s ruling generals a respite from demonstrators, who have demanded punishment for Mubarak, whose rule was brought to an end on February 11 by an 18-day mass uprising in which more than 380 protesters died. |
18 Calls grow for Japan PM to quit in wake of quake
By Linda Sieg and Mayumi Negishi, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 9:25 am ET
| TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s fragile post-disaster political truce unraveled on Thursday as the head of the main opposition party called on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit over his handling of the country’s natural calamities and a nuclear crisis.
At the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in the northeast of the country, engineers were struggling to find a new way to cool one of the six crippled reactors and Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it was now “highly likely” there was a hole in the suppression unit of the reactor. Kan, whose public support stands at about 30 percent, had sought a grand coalition to help the country recover from its worst ever natural disaster and enact bills to pay for the country’s biggest reconstruction project since World War Two. |
19 Glencore turns to familiar names for board roles
By Quentin Webb and Eric Onstad, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 10:49 am ET
| LONDON (Reuters) – Glencore, the Swiss commodity trader, named former BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward to lead a five-strong team of independent directors, as it launched a flotation that could top $12 billion.
Investors considering backing what could be London’s largest-ever listing are likely to scrutinize the directors’ experience and ability to stand up to an executive team used to running a tight-knit partnership with little outside influence. However, several directors have close links to Glencore. They include a former classmate of CEO Ivan Glasenberg, a former chairman of a Glencore subsidiary and a holder of the trading and mining giant’s convertible bonds. |
20 Report says Goldman duped clients on CDO prices
By Lauren Tara LaCapra, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 9:08 am ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a frenzy to protect its interests at the start of the credit crisis, Goldman Sachs Group Inc sold mortgage-linked derivatives to clients at inflated prices and misrepresented the nature of the deals, according to documents released by a Senate subcommittee.
Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told a press briefing on Wednesday that Goldman had “exploited” clients and that top executives had lied to Congress during testimony in 2010. “They gained at the expense of their clients and they used abusive practices to do it,” said Levin, adding there was still time for regulatory agencies to take action against Wall Street. |
21 Special report: In cyberspy vs. cyberspy, China has the edge
By Brian Grow and Mark Hosenball, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 8:15 am ET
| ATLANTA (Reuters) – As America and China grow more economically and financially intertwined, the two nations have also stepped up spying on each other. Today, most of that is done electronically, with computers rather than listening devices in chandeliers or human moles in tuxedos.
And at the moment, many experts believe China may have gained the upper hand. Though it is difficult to ascertain the true extent of America’s own capabilities and activities in this arena, a series of secret diplomatic cables as well as interviews with experts suggest that when it comes to cyber-espionage, China has leaped ahead of the United States. |
22 BRICS demand global monetary shake-up, greater influence
By Abhijit Neogy and Alexei Anishchuk, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 7:32 am ET
| SANYA, China (Reuters) – The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure on Thursday for a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the dollar and for a louder voice in international financial institutions.
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy. Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin. |
23 China FX reserves soar past $3 trillion, add to inflation
By Kevin Yao and Langi Chiang, Reuters
Thu Apr 14, 7:15 am ET
| BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s foreign exchange reserves soared to a record of more than $3 trillion by end-March, while its money supply growth blew past forecasts, threatening to aggravate the nation’s inflation woes and trigger more policy tightening.
Chinese banks extended 679.4 billion yuan ($104 billion) in new local currency loans in March, while the broad M2 measure of money supply rose 16.6 percent from a year earlier, both above market expectations. Tapping the brakes on money and lending growth has been a crucial part of Beijing’s campaign to rein in inflation, which probably hit a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in the year to March, according to local media reports. |
24 Barry Bonds convicted of obstructing justice
By Laird Harrison, Reuters
Wed Apr 13, 9:29 pm ET
| SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. jury convicted Barry Bonds on Wednesday of one count of obstructing justice but deadlocked on other charges that baseball’s home run king lied to a grand jury about whether he knowingly used steroids.
Bonds sat impassively as the jury was dismissed after four days of deliberations in the three-week perjury trial. His attorney, Allen Ruby, said he would file a motion to dismiss the conviction. Bonds faces up to 10 years in prison on the obstruction conviction but would likely receive far less. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said the government would decide “as soon as possible” whether to seek a retrial on the three deadlocked counts. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston called a conference for May 20 to discuss the next moves in the case. |
25 Gadhafi forces shell besieged Libyan city, 13 dead
By KARIN LAUB and MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press
14 mins ago
| TRIPOLI, Libya – Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi shelled a besieged western city Thursday, killing at least 13 people, and new NATO airstrikes shook Tripoli as the U.S. told a meeting the alliance must intensify its mission to isolate the Libyan leader and “bring about his departure.”
After the explosions in Tripoli, one resident of a western suburb of the capital said anti-aircraft guns returned fire, apparently at NATO warplanes. “A lot of gunfire followed the explosions,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared government retaliation. A column of smoke rose in a southeastern part of the city. |
26 NATO struggles to resolve dispute over Libya fight
By GEIR MOULSON and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 12:04 pm ET
| BERLIN – NATO nations struggled Thursday to overcome deep differences over the military campaign in Libya, failing to find new ground-attack aircraft for the fight despite French and British calls for more intense airstrikes against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces.
Alliance members agreed that Gadhafi must leave power but insisted the military mission remain focused on its declared goals of enforcing an arms embargo, protecting civilians and forcing the withdrawal of Gadhafi forces from cities they have entered. The limitations of NATO’s aims have been tested by the Libyan rebels’ inability to make progress against Gadhafi’s stronger and better organized forces, who have camouflaged themselves and hidden in populated areas to avoid Western airstrikes now in their third week. As a result, Britain and France have been calling for more strikes by their NATO allies, particularly the U.S., with its sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems. The U.S. says it sees no need to change what it calls a supporting role in the campaign – even though it has still been flying a third of the missions – and many other NATO nations have rules preventing them from striking Gadhafi’s forces except in self-defense. |
27 Egypt army reconsiders cases of jailed protesters
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 12:28 pm ET
| CAIRO – Egypt’s military rulers promised Thursday to review the cases of young protesters jailed in the aftermath of Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, a gesture aimed at easing spiraling tension between the pro-reform movement and the generals overseeing the country’s transition.
The announcement followed Wednesday’s stunning detention of the ex-president and his two powerful sons in an investigation into corruption, abuse of power and the killing of protesters, acting on the central demand of the protest camp since Mubarak was toppled on Feb. 11. The military council that took control of the country from Mubarak after 18 days of massive protests is using greater and more frequent concessions to try to reverse the discord and mistrust between it and the groups pushing for a genuine transition to democracy. |
28 Japan emperor makes first trip to disaster zone
By MARI YAMAGUCHI and TOMOKO HOSAKA, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 12:59 pm ET
| TOKYO – Japan’s respected emperor visited the country’s earthquake- and tsunami-ravaged disaster zone for the first time Thursday as frustration rose over the nation’s inability to gain control over a crisis at a nuclear plant crippled by the twin disasters.
Even as the month-old emergency dragged on, radiation levels dropped enough for police sealed in white protective suits, goggles and blue gloves to begin searching for bodies amid the muddy debris inside a six-mile (10-kilometer) radius around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant that had been off-limits. Authorities believe up to 1,000 bodies are lodged in the debris. Overall, the bodies of only about 13,500 of the more than 26,000 people believed killed in the March 11 disaster have been recovered. |
29 Spring fighting season to test gains in Afghan war
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
1 hr 1 min ago
| KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s fighting season will begin in full force by the end of this month as the trees bud and the last of the snows melt off the mountain tops – and with it, a chance to measure the success of NATO efforts to turn back the Taliban.
The ferocity of the Taliban’s widely expected spring offensive to regain lost territory and execute suicide attacks and assassinations will influence President Barack Obama’s decision about how many of the nearly 100,000 U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan can start going home in July. The extent to which the Taliban return to the fight will also help determine whether the surge of more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops that Obama announced in December 2009 succeeded in arresting the insurgency. |
30 UN: 34 killed in Iraqi raid on Iranian exile camp
By LARA JAKES and FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press
22 mins ago
| BAGHDAD – An Iraqi army raid last week on Camp Ashraf left 34 Iranian exiles dead, according to a U.N. spokesman who on Thursday offered the first independent death toll for the attack that drew sharp rebukes from Baghdad’s Western allies.
The April 8 raid targeted the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Iran’s clerical leaders. The group won refuge at Camp Ashraf years ago during the regime of Saddam Hussein, who saw them as a convenient ally against Iran. But since then, the exiles have become an irritant to Iraq’s new Shiite-led government, which is trying to bolster ties with Iran. The attack was the climax of days of building tensions between the Iraqi army and the Ashraf residents, who feared they were about to be attacked after nervously watching soldiers bulk up their forces outside the camp. The Iraqi general who led the raid said it was in response to Ashraf residents pelting his troops with rocks and throwing themselves in front of military cars. |
31 FAA official resigns after sleeping controllers
By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press
17 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – The official who oversees the nation’s air traffic system resigned Thursday and the Federal Aviation Administration began a “top to bottom” review of the entire system following disclosures of four instances of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job.
FAA chief Randy Babbitt said in a statement that Hank Krakowski, the head of the agency’s Air Traffic Organization, had submitted his resignation. He said David Grizzle, FAA’s chief counsel, will temporarily take over for Krakowski while the agency searches for a replacement. Babbitt moved on Wednesday to add a second overnight air traffic controller at more than two dozen airports around the country. The controllers were added hours after a medical flight was unable to raise a lone controller working at 2 a.m. at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. FAA said the Reno controller, who was out of communication for 16 minutes, was sleeping. The plane landed safely with assistance from controllers at a regional radar facility in Northern California. |
32 Census: Hispanics surpass blacks in most US metros
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press
18 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans for the first time in most U.S. metropolitan areas, shifting the political and racial dynamics in cities once dominated by whites and blacks.
Census figures released Thursday highlight the growing diversity of the nation’s 366 metro areas, which were home to a record 83.7 percent share of the U.S. population. The numbers from the 2010 count are already having a big effect on redistricting in many states, where district boundary lines are being redrawn based on population size and racial makeup. Hispanics became the largest minority group in 191 metropolitan areas last year, their population lifted higher as blacks left many economically hard-hit cities in the North for the South and new Latino immigrants spread to different parts of the country. That’s up from 159 metro areas when the previous Census was taken in 2000, when Hispanics were most commonly found in Southwest border states. |
33 Attorney general: Indict Israeli foreign minister
By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press
59 mins ago
| JERUSALEM – Israel’s attorney general announced Wednesday that he plans to indict the foreign minister on corruption charges but will allow him a standard final hearing before a charge sheet is issued.
If Avigdor Lieberman is indicted, it would likely force him to resign, badly shaking the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, possibly forcing an election and putting already stalled Israel-Palestinian peace efforts off for many months. Lieberman denied the allegations. |
34 AP source: MLB leans toward extra replay for 2012
By BEN WALKER, AP Baseball Writer
1 hr 31 mins ago
| NEW YORK – Shane Victorino charges hard from center field, chasing a sinking line drive. His glove, the ball and the grass all smack together at the same time. What’s the call? Next year, it well could be: Let’s look at the replay!
Major League Baseball is leaning toward expanding replay for the 2012 season to include trapped balls and fair-or-foul rulings down the lines, a person familiar with the talks tells The Associated Press. Commissioner Bud Selig and a group of umpires discussed the extra video review at spring training and were in agreement, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is still being discussed. |
35 Moderate Dems face tough health care vote
By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press
3 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Tough re-election campaigns looming, a handful of moderate Senate Democrats on Thursday choose between voting to cut off funds for President Barack Obama’s health care law or showing their continued their support for the increasingly unpopular law.
The deal on the spending bill struck by Obama, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., requires a separate vote on cutting off money for the year-old health care overhaul. The effort is expected to fall short in the Senate, but it will put lawmakers on record – a prospect Republicans looking ahead to 2012 relish. Moderate Democrats such as Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska stood with Obama and Democratic leaders in endorsing the health care law. Abandoning it now would draw charges of flip-flopping while voting to keep the cash flowing could engender voters’ wrath. |
36 Scuffles, protests mar BP shareholder meeting
By JANE WARDELL, AP Business Writer
14 mins ago
| LONDON – Scuffles between protesters and security guards marred BP’s first annual shareholder meeting since the Gulf oil spill, with shrimpers blocked from entering Thursday’s meeting to demand more compensation.
The protesters included five Gulf Coast residents who had planned to tell investors about the loss of their livelihoods and health problems after the spill. Outside the building, separate groups demonstrated over BP’s polluting tar sands project in Canada and labor disputes in Britain. Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman from Seadrift, Texas, was arrested after evading security to enter the foyer of the building, where she covered herself in a dark syrup to represent oil. |
37 AP Enterprise: Experts fear another oil disaster
By HARRY R. WEBER and HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press
2 hrs 8 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS – With everything Big Oil and the government have learned in the year since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, could it happen again? Absolutely, according to an Associated Press examination of the industry and interviews with experts on the perils of deep-sea drilling.
The government has given the OK for oil exploration in treacherously deep waters to resume, saying it is confident such drilling can be done safely. The industry has given similar assurances. But there are still serious questions in some quarters about whether the lessons of the BP oil spill have been applied. The industry “is ill-prepared at the least,” said Charles Perrow, a Yale University professor specializing in accidents involving high-risk technologies. “I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill. I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents.” |
38 Now arriving in Alabama: Your lost luggage
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ, AP Airlines Writer
Thu Apr 14, 12:27 pm ET
| SCOTTSBORO, Ala. – Welcome to the final resting place for lost luggage.
Along a country road next to a muffler shop and a cemetery is a 40,000-square-foot store filled with all the items that never made it home from vacation. Shoes, samurai swords, iPods, even lingerie, all available for 20 to 80 percent off. When airlines can’t determine who owns a bag, they sell it for a few bucks to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a warehouse-sized facility that would put your local PTA garage sale to shame. |
39 Ford expands recall of F-150 pickup to nearly 1.2M
By TOM KRISHER, AP Auto Writer
Thu Apr 14, 1:05 pm ET
| DETROIT – Under pressure from government safety regulators, Ford Motor Co. is expanding a recall of the popular F-150 pickup truck to include nearly 1.2 million vehicles that may have defective air bags.
The wider recall, announced Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, covers all F-150s built for the 2004 and 2005 model years, as well as part of the 2006 model year. Also included are 16,000 2006 Lincoln LT pickups. An electrical short can cause the air bags to deploy unexpectedly, in some cases injuring drivers. |
40 Review: BlackBerry PlayBook strong, well-priced
By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer
Thu Apr 14, 10:09 am ET
| SAN FRANCISCO – You need three things to compete with Apple’s iPad tablet computer: A gorgeous, easy-to-use device that people will love, a bustling app store and an attractive price tag.
Nobody has been able to match the iPad thus far. But the PlayBook, the first effort from BlackBerry smartphone maker Research In Motion, has emerged as one of the strongest contenders. On the surface, the PlayBook looks similar to other iPad competitors: Its slick touch screen measures 7 inches diagonally, smaller than the iPad’s but comparable with those of others. It has front and rear cameras for snapping photos and video conferencing and a black rubberized plastic back and sides. |
41 Analysis: Obama tiptoes on proposed tax hikes
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 6:29 am ET
| WASHINGTON – With his striking choice of words, President Barack Obama clearly outlined the greatest perils for Republicans – and for Democrats – in the nation’s high-stakes debate over spending and social programs.
Obama used vivid, populist language in a forceful speech Wednesday to denounce the GOP plan for cutting spending and revamping Medicare and Medicaid. The Republicans, he said, have concluded that “even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.” But the president’s language was tortured and opaque when it came to one element of his own proposal: raising taxes for certain Americans, mostly high earners. Obama said he wants “to reduce spending in the tax code.” That code, he said, is “loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions.” |
42 Watchdog: Treasury risks overpaying law firms
By DANIEL WAGNER, AP Business Writer
Thu Apr 14, 6:29 am ET
| WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department paid out more than $27 million to law firms overseeing the financial bailouts without requiring detailed bills or questioning the incomplete records that the lawyers provided, a government watchdog says.
Treasury’s “current contracts and fee bill review practices create an unacceptable risk that Treasury, and therefore the American taxpayer, is overpaying for legal services,” the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said in a report issued Thursday. Treasury could not have adequately gauged whether the fees were reasonable because the records are so sparse, the report says. |
43 AP-GfK Poll: Are your taxes fair? Most say yes
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 6:29 am ET
| WASHINGTON – For all the complaining this time of year, most Americans actually think the taxes they pay are fair.
Not that they’re cheering. Fewer people expect refunds this year than in previous years, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. But as Monday’s filing deadline approaches, the poll shows that 54 percent believe their tax bills are either somewhat fair or very fair, compared with 46 percent who say they are unfair. Should taxes be raised to eat into huge federal deficits? Among the public, 62 percent say they favor cutting government services to sop up the red ink. Just 29 percent say raise taxes. |
44 Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice
By RONALD BLUM, AP Sports Writer
Thu Apr 14, 6:29 am ET
| SAN FRANCISCO – Barry Bonds stepped outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building for the first time as a convicted felon, and a school bus went by. The home-run king flashed a victory sign with two fingers.
After a 12-day trial and four days of deliberation, a jury had deadlocked on three charges he lied under oath. But Bonds was convicted on one count of obstruction of justice. “Are you celebrating tonight?” one fan asked. |
45 Majority of GOP freshmen vote for spending bill
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press
9 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Most of the 87 House Republican freshmen who came to Washington promising not to give ground to the establishment swallowed hard Thursday and voted for the compromise worked out by Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama on keeping the government running for the next six months.
“I’m going to take it, saddle up again tomorrow and get more,” said Rep. Rob Woodall of Georgia. While the $38 billion in cuts in the current budget year may be inadequate, “nothing is worthwhile until the president signs it into law,” he said. The freshmen have been in the forefront in demanding that the Democratic-led Senate go along with a House bill requiring deeper cuts of $61 billion for the budget year ending Sept. 30. |
46 Mo. lawmakers overhaul law aimed at puppy mills
By CHRIS BLANK, Associated Press
22 mins ago
| JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Months after Missouri voters approved a measure cracking down on some of the nation’s most notorious puppy mills, lawmakers have voted to repeal much of the law because they say it’s too costly and punishes legitimate dog-breeders who generate an estimated $1 billion annually in the state.
Animal advocates complain elected officials have essentially overruled the will of the people and some are prepared to put the issue on the ballot again next year. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said public confidence is undercut when about 100 lawmakers change a law backed by about 1 million voters. “The effort in Jefferson City is a piece-by-piece dismantling of every core provision,” Pacelle said. “It suggests to me that this is an industry that wants deregulation. They want to do things that they want and to heck with the people who care about dogs or consumers as long as there are enough dogs purchased.” |
47 Texas panel issues no ruling in execution case
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press
32 mins ago
| AUSTIN, Texas – A state panel looking into the case of an executed Texas inmate issued its initial report Thursday but took no immediate position on whether investigators correctly determined that the 1991 fire that killed his three children was intentionally set.
Death penalty opponents have argued that the case of Cameron Todd Willingham could be the first instance of a person wrongly executed in the U.S. since capital punishment resumed more than three decades ago. The New York-based Innocence Project first raised questions about the case in 2006, two years after Willingham was executed for the deadly home fire. The Texas Forensic Science Commission noted that 20 years have passed and insisted that nothing in its report “constitutes a comment upon the guilt or innocence of any individual.” The panel determines whether forensic science in such cases was sound, though it doesn’t have the power to exonerate Willingham or reopen his case. |
48 Congress measure against wolves seen as precedent
By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press
42 mins ago
| BILLINGS, Mont. – The White House is poised to accept a budget bill that includes an unprecedented end-run around Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in five Western states – the first time Congress has targeted a species protected under the 37-year-old law.
Lawmakers describe the provision in the spending bill as a necessary intervention in a wildlife dilemma that some say has spun out of control. Sixty-six wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies from Canada in the mid-1990s; there are now at least 1,650. But legal experts warn the administration’s support of lifting protections for the animals opens the door to future meddling by lawmakers catering to anti-wildlife interests. |
49 Got prom dibs? Girls use Facebook to claim dress
By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL, AP Fashion Writer
52 mins ago
| NEW YORK – Teenage girls largely live in a lookalike culture, wearing the same styles that they got in the same stores as their friends. On prom night, though, the idea is to stand out, making sure no one arrives to the big dance in the same outfit.
To ensure their uniqueness – after they’ve shopped in faraway malls and tapped into store registries – girls are using social media to claim dibs on their dresses. A photo of Ashley McGowan’s floor-length black gown is on the prom Facebook page for her school in suburban Somers, N.Y. She’s relieved that only one other classmate has posted a black frock. |
50 Small towns struggle to find enough candidates
By TAMMY WEBBER, Associated Press
1 hr 50 mins ago
| CEDAR POINT, Ill. – Michael Mahar was the big winner in this month’s village election, but it had nothing to do with his popularity. He was the only candidate on the ballot.
He soon had to start calling friends and neighbors in this northern Illinois hamlet of about 260 to find anyone willing to accept an appointment to the other four village commission seats, including mayor. “It kind of surprised me a little bit” that nobody else ran, said Mahar, who was appointed to the commission two years ago and sees potential in this speck of a place with two taverns, a post office that’s slated for closure and no stoplights. “I love this little town and the people here.” |
51 Disgraced official’s downfall symbol of NY scandal
By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 1:15 pm ET
| NEW YORK – Alan Hevesi groomed himself to be a model politician, a lawmaker with the expertise of a political scientist and the energy to take on difficult issues.
And for decades, the Democratic college professor enjoyed respect and increasing visibility as his career took him from state assemblyman to New York City and state comptroller. Two of his sons followed him into the state Legislature. But now Hevesi faces the possibility of prison after a twofold downfall that stands out as a symbol of scandal even in a state that’s rife with it. Forced from office in 2006 after admitting he had a state employee chauffeur his wife, Hevesi has now pleaded guilty to a second felony charge for partaking in a feast of influence-peddling at the giant state pension fund he oversaw. |
52 Obama team hopes to coax back online donors
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press
Thu Apr 14, 3:07 am ET
| NEW YORK – If the grass-roots energy that fueled President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign proves hard to duplicate as he seeks re-election, so too could the Internet-powered small donor base that helped him shatter all fundraising records.
The weak economy, lack of a Democratic primary challenger and no clear front-runner in the Republican field may delay or prevent small donors from opening their wallets, strategists say, forcing a greater dependence on wealthy contributors for a re-election campaign that could cost more than $1 billion. Many Web-based activists also contend that Obama has let them down, from extending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy to breaking his pledge to close the U.S. military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That’s dampened the ardor of many online donors, says Peter Daou, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Internet director in her 2008 presidential campaign but now backs Obama. |
Apr 14 2011
“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”
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Obama’s deficit speech: Worthy of a president
President Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation’s budget debate.
After months of mixed signals about what he was willing to fight for, Obama finally laid out his purposes and his principles. His approach has difficulties of its own, and much will depend on execution. But the president was unequivocal in arguing that the roots of our fiscal problems lie in the tax cuts of the past decade that we could not afford. And he raised the stakes in our politics to something more fundamental than dry numbers on a page or computer screen.
Robert Reich:Mr. President: Why Medicare Isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution
I hope when he tells America how he aims to tame future budget deficits the President doesn’t accept conventional Wasington wisdom that the biggest problem in the federal budget is Medicare (and its poor cousin Medicaid).
Medicare isn’t the problem. It’s the solution.
The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They’re costs all of us are bearing in the form of soaring premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.
President Obama in his speech on Wednesday confronted a topic that is harder to address seriously in public than sex or flatulence: America needs higher taxes.
That ugly truth looms over today’s budget battles, but politicians have mostly preferred to run from reality. Mr. Obama’s speech was excellent not only for its content but also because he didn’t insult our intelligence.
There is no single reason for today’s budget mess, but it’s worth remembering that the last time our budget was in the black was in the Clinton administration. That’s a broad hint that one sensible way to overcome our difficulties would be to revert to tax rates more or less as they were under President Clinton. That single step would solve three-quarters of the deficit for the next five years or so.
Greg Sargent: Obama made the moral case for what it means to be a Democrat
For some time now, a bunch of us have been wondering when – or whether – Obama would step up and make a strong case for an expansive vision of Democratic governance. With Republicans initiating what may be the most consequential argument over the proper role of government in decades – a debate over the legacy of the great liberal achievements of the 20th Century – we’ve all been wondering whether Obama would respond with a level of ambition and seriousness of purpose that he’s shown when taking on other big arguments.
By this standard – in rhetorical terms – it’s fair to say Obama delivered. Sure, the speech trafficked a bit in the usual “speaking hard truths to both sides” positioning. And speeches are the easy part: Obama’s words jarred against recent actions, and what Obama actually does in the months to come will be what either ratifies today’s promises or renders them meaningless. But Obama did offer perhaps the most ambitious defense he may have ever attempted of American liberalism and of what it means to be a Democrat.
Richard (RJ) Escow: The President’s Deficit Speech: Time to Keep Up the Pressure
The President speech on the Federal deficit marked a brilliant return to what might be called his “holographic” style. Like a hologram, the President’s speech was beautiful and evocative and shimmered with light. But like a hologram, what you see depends on where you stand.
Many progressives will hear a brilliant defense of government’s role in the economy, and of the role that progressive taxation plays in a fair-minded economic system. Conservatives(those who aren’t absolutely nuts) will hear a ringing endorsement of a plan that would downsize government and benefit the wealthy. And they’ll love the President’s “debt triggers,” which could force the government to enact drastic cuts if targets aren’t met.
This holographic quality, the ability to present himself as all things to all people, is the President’s unique gift – unless, in the end, it turns out not to have been a gift at all.
Laura Flanders: When Will It Be Time to Cut Military Spending?
On Tuesday, April 12, people in more than 35 countries, as well as Columbus, Dallas, Kansas City and dozens of other cities throughout the United States participated in the first Global Day of Action on Military Spending.
In DC, they most definitely are sitting this one out.
In fact, after weeks of budget brinksmanship, Congress emerged with a tentative so-called compromise that was unable to get a single cut made to spending on the US military.
Christopher Hellman at TomDispatch recently added up all the hidden military-related spending in the budget and came to a startling number for fiscal year 2012. Something like $1.2 trillion dollars. That’s trillion with a T. In this year’s budget they admit to $670 billion or so, plus another $41 billion for Homeland Security and $76.6 billion for “military construction” and Veterans Affairs–an INCREASE over last year.
Robert Sheer The False Debate on the Debt
In the ever-so-smug company of the rich and powerful it is a given that there is never to be any expression of remorse or other acknowledgement of the pain they have inflicted on the lesser mortals they so cavalierly plunder. It’s convenient for them that the media and the politicians, which they happen to own, rarely connect the dots between the scams that made the rich so rich and the alarming rise in the federal debt that is crushing this nation.
The result of this purchased public myopia is that we are left with an absurd debate over how deeply to cut teachers’ pensions and seniors’ medical benefits while preserving tax breaks for the superrich and their large corporations. At a time when 10 million American families will have lost their homes by year’s end, when $5.6 trillion in home equity has been wiped out, when most Americans face steep unemployment rates and stagnant wages, a Democratic president is likely to compromise with Republican ideologues who insist that further cuts in taxes for the rich is the way to bring back jobs.
Jonathan Capehsrt: Boehner plays an expensive, ‘crazy’ game of chicken with debt ceiling
If I’ve learned anything from my obsession with raising the debt ceiling, it’s that playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States is a very dangerous game. And yet there is a report today that one of the adults on Capitol Hill – yeah, I’m talking about you, Speaker Boehner – is seeking a way out of the rules of the game.
According to an exclusive report from Ben Smith at Politico, the Ohio Republican “has been reaching out to top Wall Street players asking how close Congress can get to the May 16th deadline (or July 8th drop-dead date) for raising the debt limit without seriously unnerving financial markets.” Needless to say, Boehner’s inquiry is unnerving big guns on Wall Street. “They don’t seem to understand that you can’t put everything back in the box,” one executive told Smith. “Once that fear of default is in the markets, it doesn’t just go away. We’ll be paying the price for years in higher rates.”
Apr 14 2011
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.
April 14 is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 261 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning.
The assassination of President of the United States Abraham Lincoln took place as the American Civil War was drawing to a close, just five days after the surrender of the commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered [Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated, though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson in 1835.
The assassination was planned and carried out by well-known actor John Wilkes Booth as part of a larger conspiracy intended to rally the remaining Confederate troops to continue fighting. Booth plotted with Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson as well.
Lincoln was shot while watching the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln . He died the next morning. The rest of the plot failed. Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt, Johnson’s would-be assassin, lost his nerve and fled.
Dr. Charles Leale, a young Army surgeon on liberty for the night and attending the play, made his way through the crowd to the door at the rear of the Presidential box. It would not open. Finally Rathbone saw a notch carved in the door and a wooden brace jammed there to hold the door shut. Booth had carved the notch there earlier in the day and noiselessly put the brace up against the door after entering the box. Rathbone shouted to Leale, who stepped back from the door, allowing Rathbone to remove the brace and open the door.
Leale entered the box to find Rathbone bleeding profusely from a deep gash that ran the length of his upper left arm. Nonetheless, he passed Rathbone by and stepped forward to find Lincoln slumped forward in his chair, held up by Mary, who was sobbing. Lincoln had no pulse and Leale believed him to be dead. Leale lowered the President to the floor. A second doctor in the audience, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box. Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln’s blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of the head by the left ear. Leale removed a clot of blood in the wound and Lincoln’s breathing improved. Still, Leale knew it made no difference: “His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover”.
Leale, Taft, and another doctor from the audience, Dr. Albert King, quickly consulted and decided that while the President must be moved, a bumpy carriage ride across town to the White House was out of the question. After briefly considering Peter Taltavull‘s Star Saloon next door, they chose to carry Lincoln across the street and find a house. The three doctors and some soldiers who had been in the audience carried the President out the front entrance of Ford’s. Across the street, a man was holding a lantern and calling “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” The man was Henry Safford, a boarder at William Petersen’s boarding house opposite Ford’s. The men carried Lincoln into the boarding house and into the first-floor bedroom, where they laid him diagonally on the bed because he was too tall to lie straight.
A vigil began at the Petersen House. The three physicians were joined by Surgeon General of the United States Army Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, Dr. Charles Henry Crane, Dr. Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Dr. Robert K. Stone. Crane was a major and Barnes’ assistant. Stone was Lincoln’s personal physician. Robert Lincoln, home at the White House that evening, arrived at the Petersen House after being told of the shooting at about midnight. Tad Lincoln, who had attended Grover’s Theater to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, was not allowed to go to the Peterson House.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge of the scene. Mary Lincoln was so unhinged by the experience of the assassination that Stanton ordered her out of the room by shouting, “Take that woman out of here and do not let her in here again!” While Mary Lincoln sobbed in the front parlor, Stanton set up shop in the rear parlor, effectively running the United States government for several hours, sending and receiving telegrams, taking reports from witnesses, and issuing orders for the pursuit of Booth.
Nothing more could be done for President Lincoln. At 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865, he died. He was 56 years old. Mary Lincoln was not present at the time of his death. The crowd around the bed knelt for a prayer, and when they were finished, Stanton said, “Now he belongs to the ages”. There is some disagreement among historians as to Stanton’s words after Lincoln died. All agree that he began “Now he belongs to the…” with some stating he said “ages” while others believe he said “angels”
43 BC – Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, who is wounded.
69 – Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.
70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, surrounds the Jewish capital, with four Roman legions.
966 – After his marriage to the Christian Dobrawa of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
1028 – Henry III, son of Conrad, is elected king of the Germans.
1205 – Battle of Adrianople between Bulgarians and Crusaders.
1294 – Temur, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong.
1341 – Sack of Saluzzo (Italy) by Italian-Angevine troops under Manfred V of Saluzzo.
1434 – The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France is laid.
1471 – In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.
1699 – Khalsa: Birth of Khalsa, the
brotherhood of the Sikh religion, in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.
1775 – The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
1816 – Bussa, a slave in Barbados, leads a slave rebellion and is killed. For this, he is remembered as the first national hero of Barbados.
1828 – Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
1860 – The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.
1865 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.
1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight is fought in El Paso, Texas.
1890 – The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington, D.C.
1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opened in New York City using ten Kinetoscopes, a device for peep-show viewing of films.
1909 – A massacre was orgaized by Ottoman Empire against Armenian population of Cilicia.
1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 11:40pm. The ship sinks the following morning with the loss of 1,517 lives.
1927 – The first Volvo car premieres in Gothenburg, Sweden.
1931 – Spanish Cortes depose King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the 2nd Spanish Republic.
1935 – “Black Sunday Storm”, the worst dust storm of the U.S. Dust Bowl.
1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press.
1940 – World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later.
1941 – World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organization is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the Axis Operation 25 invasion.
Rommel attacks Tobruk.
1944 – Bombay Explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.
1945 – Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation.
1956 – In Chicago, Illinois, videotape is first demonstrated.
1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.
1969 – At the U.S. Academy Awards there is a tie for the Academy Award for Best Actress between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.
1978 – 1978 Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
1981 – STS-1 – The first operational space shuttle, Columbia (OV-102) completes its first test flight.
1986 – In retaliation for the April 5 bombing in West Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen, U.S. president Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.
1986 – 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will.
1988 – In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
1994 – In a U.S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
1999 – NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees – Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.
1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
2002 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.
2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
2003 – U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
2005 – The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
2007 – At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey protest against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
2010 – Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai, China.
* Ambedkar Jayanti (India)
* Black Day (South Korea)
* Christian Feast Day:
Bènézet
Domnina of Terni
Lidwina
Peter Gonzalez
April 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Day of the Georgian language (Georgia)
* Day of Mologa (Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia)
* N’Ko Alphabet Day (Mande speakers)
* New Year festivals in South and Southeast Asian cultures, celebrated on the sidereal vernal equinox:
Assamese New Year, or Rongali Bihu (India’s Assam Valley)
Bengali New Year, or Pohela Boishakh (Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal state)
Burmese New Year, or Thingyan (Burma)
Hindu and Sikh New Year, or Vaisakhi (Punjab region)
Khmer New Year, or Chol Chnam Thmey, most commonly celebrated on April 13 (Cambodia)
Lao New Year, or Songkan / Pi Mai Lao, generally celebrated from 13 to 15 April (Laos)
Malayali New Year, or Vishu (India’s Kerala state)
Nepali New Year, or Bikram Samwat / Vaishak Ek (Nepal)
Oriya New Year, or Maha Visuba Sankranthi (India’s Orissa state)
Sinhalese New Year, or Aluth Avurudhu (Sri Lanka)
Tamil New Year, or Puthandu (India’s Tamil Nadu state, Sri Lanka)
Thai New Year, or Songkran, celebrated from 13 to 15 April (Thailand)
Tuluva New Year, or Bisu (India’s Karnataka state)
* The first day of Takayama Spring Festival (Takayama, Gifu, Japan)
* Youth Day (Angola)
Apr 14 2011
(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Oh, wouldn’t this be lovely? Now lets see if Timmy and Bill can convince Eric that there is nothing to see here.
Goldman Sachs Misled Congress After Duping Clients, Levin Says
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) misled clients and Congress about the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market, the chairman of the U.S. Senate panel that investigated the causes of the financial crisis said.
Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry yesterday, said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt obligations without knowing the firm would benefit if they fell in value.
The Michigan Democrat also said federal prosecutors should review whether to bring perjury charges against Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and other current and former employees who testified in Congress last year. Levin said they denied under oath that Goldman Sachs took a financial position against the mortgage market solely for its own profit, statements the senator said were untrue.
Goldman criticised in US Senate report
By Tom Braithwaite in Washington and Francesco Guerrera and Justin Baer in New York,
Financial Times
April 14 2011 00:15 | Last updated: April 14 2011 00:15
US Senate investigators probing the financial crisis will refer evidence about Wall Street institutions including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank to the justice department for possible criminal investigations, officials said on Wednesday.
Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the powerful Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, said a two-year probe found that banks mis-sold mortgage-backed securities and misled investors and lawmakers.
“We will be referring this matter to the justice department and to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission),” he said. “In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled Congress.”
Last year, Goldman paid $550m to settle SEC allegations that it defrauded investors in Abacus, a complex security linked to subprime mortgages.
Naming Culprits in the Financial Crisis
By Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story
New York Times
A voluminous report on the financial crisis by the United States Senate – citing internal documents and private communications of bank executives, regulators, credit ratings agencies and investors – describes business practices that were rife with conflicts during the mortgage mania and reckless activities that were ignored inside the banks and among their federal regulators.
The 650-page report, “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse,” was released Wednesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations…
……The result of two years’ work, the report focuses on an array of institutions with central roles in the mortgage crisis: Washington Mutual, an aggressive mortgage lender that collapsed in 2008; the Office of Thrift Supervision, a regulator; the credit ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service; and the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
“The report pulls back the curtain on shoddy, risky, deceptive practices on the part of a lot of major financial institutions,” Mr. Levin said in an interview. “The overwhelming evidence is that those institutions deceived their clients and deceived the public, and they were aided and abetted by deferential regulators and credit ratings agencies who had conflicts of interest.”
Apr 14 2011
A Syrian plan to attack protesters?
Human rights activist says document lays out how to brutally suppress the opposition
By Michael Isikoff National investigative correspondent
WASHINGTON – A document purportedly drafted by senior Syrian intelligence officials details a chilling plan to infiltrate the ranks of anti-regime protesters, arrest and assassinate their leaders, and link anti-regime demonstrations to the work of “Zionist” and other outside agitators.
The document was circulated by Syrian opposition figures Wednesday and cited by dissidents as fresh evidence of the brutality of the regime of President Bashar Assad. “It is very scary – this is the work of a Mafia state,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a prominent Syrian human rights activist and visiting scholar at George Washington University, who said he obtained the document from sources inside Syria on Tuesday night.
While the Saudi elite looks nervously abroad, a revolution is happening
The gap between the Saudi regime’s conservative ideology and modern urban reality has fed discontent across society
Soumaya Ghannoushi
The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011
The Saudi regime is under siege. To the west, its heaviest regional ally, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, has been ousted. To its north, Syria and Jordan are gripped by a wave of protests which shows no sign of receding. On its southern border, unrest in Yemen and Oman rages on. And troops have been dispatched to Bahrain to salvage its influence over the tiny kingdom exerted through the Khalifa clan, and prevent the contagion from spreading to Saudi Arabia’s turbulent eastern provinces, the repository of both its biggest oil reserves and largest Shia population.
UK and France cajole coalition nations to join air raids on Gaddafi
Qatar meeting of foreign ministers exposes clash in strategies for dealing with the Libyan uprising
By Patrick Cockburn Thursday, 14 April 2011
Britain and France are asking other members of Nato to step up air strikes on Libyan government forces at a meeting of foreign ministers in Qatar that has underlined the radically different policies of the countries involved in the Libyan crisis.Divisions between the foreign ministers were also evident over issues such as using frozen Libyan state assets to fund the opposition in eastern Libya and the feasibility of arming the rebels. Germany expressed doubts about the legality of using money belonging to the Libyan government.
UN hails Palestinian Authority progress towards statehood
Isabel Kershner April 14, 2011
A United Nations report has praised Palestinian Authority efforts at strengthening its institutions, describing aspects of its administration as sufficient for an independent state.The endorsement came at a crucial time for the Palestinian Authority, which has set a September deadline for the completion of its state-building program and is working towards international recognition of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem that month.
September is also the target date set by Israel and the Palestinians to reach a negotiated agreement for a Palestinian state, but the latest round of peace talks has been stalled for six months.
Kashmiris defy Geelani’s boycott call, 1st phase J&K panchayat poll records 78% turnout
Randeep Singh Nandal, TNN | Apr 14, 2011, 01.26pm IST
SRINAGAR: First-time panchayat election contestant Farida Bano (40) was tense at the start of the polling on Wednesday morning. But her confidence grew as the number of voters swelled outside a polling booth in Budgam district’s Sheikhpura village. By 10 am 28% voters had voted.Farida is one of the four women contesting the first phase of the elections in the area. She said brisk voting awed her a little. “I am nervous but this is good. I want to serve my village and think I will do a good job if given a chance,” she said.
Kenya revives its colonial rail system to meet its modern needs
A private company sees the country’s dilapidated railways as an opportunity to make a profit and meet Kenyans needs for faster transportation.
By Mike Pflanz, Correspondent / April 13, 2011
ON THE 06:40am TO NAIROBI – We pull slowly out of Athi River station, leaving behind the run-down railroad shed that is now home to the Jesus Victory Center and a tinshack kindergarten.Ahead, an hour-long commute, through the Athi plains once swarming with wildlife, beneath final approach to the international airport, through the smoggy iron roof slums and the industrial area, and into the heart of Nairobi.
Apr 14 2011
Tepco Seeks to Start Reactor Idled in 2007 as Crews Battle Fukushima Leaks
By Tsuyoshi Inajima, Yuji Okada and Michio Nakayama, Bloomberg News
Apr 13, 2011 10:53 PM ET
Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to seek government approval to start a nuclear reactor shut after a 2007 earthquake to help ease power shortages, while the utility battles radiation leaks from its Fukushima Dai-Ichi station.
…
“This ‘operations first, safety second’ approach and the failure to learn the lessons from the 2007 quake was the cause of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear disaster,” said Philip White, international liaison officer at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. “How many more disasters will it take?”
…
Three of seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa station are closed while Tepco strengthens structures to improve their resistance to earthquakes. Work can continue at two units, while Unit 3 is restarted, Shimizu said yesterday.
Tepco Said to Plan for Three Months of Cooling at Fukushima
By Jason Clenfield, Bloomberg News
Apr 14, 2011 1:29 AM ET
Tokyo Electric Power Co. estimates the fight to stabilize its crippled Fukushima reactors will last through June, leaving the plant vulnerable to further earthquakes and radiation leaks, according to a person briefed by the utility on its recovery plan.
…
The primary danger at the plant is reactor No. 1, where temperatures and pressure are still high, the person said. Flooding the space between the pressure vessel and a surrounding containment with water would bring temperatures down in days rather than months, the person said.
…
While Tokyo Electric’s plan for ending the crisis says getting exposed fuel rods covered with water again is one measure of stabilization, according to the person briefed on the document, the utility’s data shows pumping efforts have failed to raise the water level more than 20 centimeters in the 35 days since the disaster started.
Apr 14 2011
(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The House and Senate will put the finishing touches on last week’s budget crisis over the budget for 2011. While the President and the Republicans were busy in front of the cameras praising themselves for “victory”, the Congressional Budget Office was counting the “beans”. Remember the much publicized $38.5 billion in cuts? Well, it will only reduce the deficit by $352 million. That is less than 1% in claimed savings:
The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending. […]
The CBO study confirms that the measure trims $38 billion in new spending authority, but many of the cuts come in slow-spending accounts like water-and-sewer grants that don’t have an immediate deficit impact.
As Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress notes budget cuts helped Obama save some programs from the worst cuts “the fact remains that the cuts will be harmful to the economy and to the people who depend on valuable social safety net programs that will have their budgets cut.”
There is also the damage by $8.4 billion cut from the State Department and foreign aid budgets, a 14% budget reduction, that will affect some “critical diplomatic tools”
[C]hopping off $122 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s operating expenses and more than $1.4 billion from the State Department’s Economic Support Fund may cost us the ability to help critical countries transition to democracy, including Egypt and Tunisia. Turning our back on such assistance now is particularly problematic given how vulnerable nascent democracies in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as elsewhere, are to upheaval and violence.
It leaves military budget nearly intact so that any saving are wiped out by inflated defense spending”. The budget deal was suppose to cut $18.1 billion but Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for at least $540 billion for FY2011 and this budget deal funds DOD “just north of $530 billion” a figure that includes military construction.
That’s some victory, Barack.
Recent Comments