Feb 22 2011

Reporting the Revolution: Early Morning 22.2.1011

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

class=”BrightcoveExperience”>From mishima‘s Ignoring Asia: Libyan Uprising Live Blog

This is The Guardian Live Blog from Libya.

It is early morning in North Africa and the Middle East, the main news focus is on Libya and much has happened since yesterday. During the day Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, made a 15 minute appearance on state TV denying he had not fled the country to Venezuela and called exiles and expatriates attacking him as al-kelab eddalla, “lost dogs.” Charming.

Let me say here the difference between Egypt and Libya is where Mubarak went fairly quietly into the night, Gaddafi is a psychopathic madman who will spill the blood of every Libyan man, woman and child to the last bullet. I believe him.

One last point, we should not forget what started this, Wikileaks and Anonymous. When it was revealed through leaked diplomatic cables just how corrupt the Tunisian regime under Ben Ali was, the Tunisian youth took to the streets. It was a revolution that sprang from the cyber-age of texting, Twitter and Facebook. The youth were joined by the unemployed and under paid that took down a government and it spread to Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and more. Now the repressive dictatorship of Libya is on the brink of extinction. These are not Islamic radicals that so many in the West fear to the point of irrationality. No, they are not religious. They want what the same thing that the youth of Europe and America want, education, jobs and most of all a say in the way they are governed. Yes, Democracy.

Up Date 1430 hrs EST:Gaddafi again took to TV giving an hour long, defiant speech stating that he would not step down and would die in Libya. Pounding his fists and shouting the US was to blame and drugged had caused the violence. He called for called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters.

“You men and women who love Gaddafi …get out of your homes and fill the streets,” he said. “Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs … Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them.”

Gaddafi said “peaceful protests is one thing, but armed rebellion is another”.

“From tonight to tomorrow, all the young men should form local committees for popular security,” he said, telling them to wear a green armband to identify themselves. “The Libyan people and the popular revolution will control Libya.”

The UN Security Council met behind closed doors this morning at the request of Libyan Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, who along with most of the UN mission had denounced Gaddafi and called for his resignation. Dabbahi requested a “no-fly” zone over Libya but that would require a formal resolution. There was some confusion when the Ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgham arrived at the end of the meeting stating he stood with Gaddafi and would appeal for the end of the violence against the demonstrators. Shalgham was not in NYC on Monday and did not sign onto the anti-Gaddafi statement issued by Dabbashi and others.

A popular Egyptian Imam, the Muslim version of a televangelist, Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, has called for a Fatwah against Gaddafi. Along with a group of Islamic scholars, he called for the Libyan army to kill Gaddafi.

The price of a barrel of oil rose and stocks fell as the unrest continued. There were also fears of increased food prices as the revolts that started in Tunisia spread.

The latest reports from the region:

This may be a problem.

Two Iranian warships ‘enter Suez Canal’

Two Iranian warships have entered the Suez Canal to make a passage to the Mediterranean Sea, canal officials say.

Iranian officials have said the warships are headed to Syria for training, a mission Israel has described as a “provocation”.

“They entered the canal at 0545 (0345 GMT),” Suez Canal officials said.

It is believed to be the first time since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iranian warships have passed through the Suez Canal.

Iran’s request stated the vessels would have no military equipment, nuclear materials or chemicals on board, the Egyptian defence ministry is quoted as saying.

The ships involved are the frigate Alvand and a supply vessel, the Kharg.

Muammar Gaddafi lashes out as power slips away

Muammar Gaddafi lashes out as power slips away

Libyan security forces fired on crowds of protesters in Tripoli as Muammar Gaddafi struggled desperately to hold on to power in what has become the bloodiest crackdown yet on pro-democracy protesters in the Arab world.

With diplomats resigning en masse and two senior fighter pilots defecting to Malta after refusing to attack demonstrators, the Libyan leader looked beleaguered at home and unwelcome anywhere abroad.

“What’s going on in Libya is a real genocide,” said the country’s deputy UN ambassador, Ibrahim al-Dabashi.

One Tripoli resident told al-Jazeera TV: “Death is everywhere,” as he described air attacks on the terrified city. “Why is the world silent?”

Gaddafi appeared briefly on Libyan state TV to deny reports that he had fled the country. “I want to show that I’m in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs,” he said, reported by the station as speaking outside his house. He was holding an umbrella in the rain and leaning out of a vehicle.

“I wanted to say something to the youths at the Green Square [in Tripoli] and stay up late with them but it started raining. Thank God, it’s a good thing,” Gaddafi said in a 22-second appearance.

Libyan state TV earlier said military operations were under way against “terrorist nests” and there were predictions of a bloodbath by a desperate regime which feels the end approaching.

[http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011221222542234651.html Libyan pilots and diplomats defect

Group of army officers have also issued a statement urging fellow soldiers to “join the people” and help remove Gaddafi]

Diplomats resign and air force officers defect as Gaddafi government resorts to shooting and bombing to crush uprising.

Two Libyan air force jets landed in Malta on Monday and their pilots have asked for political asylum.

The pilots claimed to have defected after refusing to follow orders to attack civilians protesting in Benghazi in Libya.

The pilots, who said they were colonels in the Libyan air force, were being questioned by authorities in an attempt to verify their identities.

Meanwhile, a group of Libyan army officers have issued a statement urging fellow soldiers to “join the people” and help remove Muammar Gaddafi.

The officers urged the rest of the Libyan army to march to Tripoli.

Diplomats side with protesters

Libya’s ambassadors at several stations, including the US and the UN, have said that they are siding with protesters and have called for Gaddafi to quit.

Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to the United States, became the latest diplomat to call for the Libyan leader’s resignation, telling the Associated Press news agency on Monday night that Gaddafi must step down and give Libyans a chance “to make their future”.

He said he was not resigning, as he worked for the Libyan people.

Also late on Monday, A.H. Elimam, Libya’s ambassador to Bangladesh, resigned to protest against the killing of his family members by government soldiers.

Earlier on Monday, diplomats at Libya’s mission to the United Nations sided with the revolt against their country’s leader and called on the Libyan army to help overthrow “the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi.”

In a statement issued as protests erupted across Libya, the mission’s deputy chief and other staff said they were serving the Libyan people, demanded “the removal of the regime immediately” and urged other Libyan embassies to follow suit.

UN council to discuss Libya

An extraordinary meeting of the Arab League will also take place on Tuesday as leaders express alarm over crackdown.

The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Libya, diplomats said.

They said the meeting, known as consultations, had been requested by Libyan deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi and would start at 1400 GMT.

Dabbashi and other diplomats at Libya’s mission to the UN announced on Monday that they had sided with protesters in Libya and were calling for the overthrow of long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, called for an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League to take place on Tuesday.

The aim is to discuss the current crisis in Libya and to put additional “pressure” on the government, Al-Thani told Al Jazeera.

With reports of a large-scale crackdown on protesters under way in Tripoli, a spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon said the UN chief held extensive discussions with Muammar Gaddafi on Monday.

Ban condemned the escalating violence in Libya and told Gaddafi that it “must stop immediately”.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her part said it was “time to stop this unnacceptable bloodshed” in Libya.

Egypt gears up to evacuate citizens

Army sets up field hospitals on Libyan border to receive returning Egyptians.

Egypt’s army has set up two field hospitals on the border with Libya near the Salloum border-crossing town to receive returning Egyptians.

Libyan guards have withdrawn from their side of the boundary following anti-government protests, the army said on its Facebook page on Monday.

Hossam Zaki, Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman, said at least one million Egyptians reside in Libya where increasingly bloody battles between Libyan security forces and protesters have been taking place.

At  least 100 buses carrying Egyptians are making their way to the Libya-Egyptian border, Zaki said.

Egypt’s Leaders Signal Commitment to Civilian Rule

CAIRO – The military and civilian leadership controlling Egypt in the wake of a popular revolution took several high-profile steps on Monday to reassure Egyptians that it shared their fervor for change and to signal to foreign leaders that the move to full civilian rule would be rapid.

The prime minister of Britain, David Cameron, held talks here with the leaders, becoming the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Egypt since the longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, was ousted after 18 days of widespread protests.

At the same time, the country’s top prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, said he would request that the Foreign Ministry ask governments to freeze any assets of Mr. Mubarak, his family and a handful of top associates. The Associated Press, citing unnamed security officials, said Mr. Mubarak’s local assets were frozen as soon as his government fell.

Feb 22 2011

DocuDharma Digest

Regular Features-

Featured Essays for February 21, 2011-

DocuDharma

Feb 22 2011

My Little Town 20110221: Gene and Katy

(Bumped from 6 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

This is an installment of an extremely irregular series that I write when I begin to remember people from my childhood.  I grew up, for the most part, in Hackett, Arkansas, just about nine miles south of Fort Smith, Arkansas, almost on the border with Oklahoma.  This was quite the “redneck” part of the nation.

Hackett, when I was little, still had a sunset law on the books.  Those of you not from the South may not be familiar with such a law, but they were real (and likely still are on many books, but obviously not enforceable any more).  Essentially, a sunset law dictated that any black person (NOT the term used at the time) could not remain in the town after sunset, to prevent black families from moving into the town.

The penalty was, at least in my town, that being black and there after sunset was not just an offense, but a shooting cause, both by citizens and law enforcement.  I report this not to titillate, but just to illustrate how many southern jurisdictions were run until recently, and some still are.

Gene and Katy, surname Pittman, were store owners cattycornered around the street from my parents’ house.  They were very nice folks, and lived just south of town on the hill east, Pittman Road.  Like many of us, they had lots of relatives that lived close by.

Their store was the bottom floor of an ancient (well to me, built in about 1875) rock building.  As an aside, the sandstone produced even now in west central Arkansas is in great demand for both exterior and interior use.  It is water and ice resistant, making it excellent for exterior use, and choice stone has a beautiful range of colors, making it very decorative.  But I digress.

Katy was like an aunt to me, and Gene was my “buddy”.  Here is how stores in that day were run.  The era was from around 1964 to, say, 1975 or so, when the big boxes took over.  By that time they were quite old, anyway, so could not really run the store very well.

There were two doors.  The main one was a massive oaken and glass one that opened into Main Street.  The back door was a sheet metal one that Gene would open early if the weather was warm, but kept closed when it was cold.  When I was a kid there and then, it got COLD in the winter.

They had run the store since, I guess now, around 1946 or so, and it looked old.  But you could find almost anything that you needed there!  They had a refrigeration unit for fresh vegetables, you could get lettuce (expensive, at 15 cents a head), carrots, milk, cream, and other common materials.  They had a “pop machine”, acutally a refrigerated glass bottle, dime activated soft drink vending machine, that I often bought Nesbitt cream soda, root beer, and strawberry soda.

Gene was also quite the meatcutter.  He had a huge (for a kid) walk in cooler in which he kept whole cuts of meat.  When you went to Gene’s store and asked for a piece of round steak, he would go into the cooler, heft up the WHOLE leg of beef, and take it to his huge, one piece sycamore log cutting table.  All you had to do was tell him how thick you wanted it, and his butcher’s knife soon found the steel sharpener, usually for half a minute or so.  He would expertly slice all around the bone, showing me how to do it all of the time, and then get the bone saw to free it.

Paper on the scale, he would weigh it and mark down the price so that Katy could get me to pay for it.  He was very quick with his actions, and I think that he was probably a trained butcher.

For pork chops, he would bring out an entire rack, and ask what we wanted.  I was too little to know about them, but on pork chop night my mum would walk over to identify the ones that she wanted.  Gene would cut out the chops in only a stroke or two for each, then take his cleaver and split it from the backbone.

That really impressed me!  I loved hearing the THUMP of the cleaver cutting through the pork chop and becoming lodged into the chopping block, but Gene actually never embedded it.  He was good at what he did, and always just barely penetrated the rack.

Then he would take it back into the walk in cooler, and I as a mischievous little kid, would get to work.  I would run up and slam the door whislt he was in there!  I do not know what I was thinking, but somehow I wanted him in that cooler!

Of course, he had an emergency release protocol, and he would always come out of it feigning shivering and always said, “You almost got me that time!”  What a good guy!

They also had canned goods, and around Thanksgiving, my mum would have me go to get a couple of cans of oysters for the dressing.  Again, most folks from the north do not realize that southern dressing (“stuffing” in the north) often used, but not that often does not now, canned oysters.  I  promise what I am about to say is NOT made up, but it also has to do with societal evolution.

When I first went over to get them, they were labeled Niggerhead Oysters.  There was a horrible image of a black man eating one on the label.  This must have been around 1964.  Later, they were relabeled Negro Head Oysters, with a more conventional image of a black man cooking them.  There are images on lots of Tube sites showing those labels.

Now, this might just be a bit of youthful fantasy, but I keep thinking that they were finally labeled Black Head Oysters, but I do not remember for sure.  Any comments pro or con would be welcomed.

My family ran a tab with them.  Katy would write down (on what was called a “ticket”) what I bought, or any family member for that matter, and every month my mum would go over and Katy would pull out all of the tickets, and my mum would write a check for the total.  Then Katy would give my mum the tickets.  There was a lot of trust there.  No one ever tried to shaft anyone.  It was more like friendship than business.

Oh, before I forget!  My mum at one time smoked Salem cigarettes.  Not wanting my father to know, she always gave me the money run and buy them.  I remember when they went from 25 cents to 35 cents per pack!  Katy would take the coins and give me, at around eight years old, the pack of cigarettes!  Today she would be put in jail for it!

Well, this is just a piece of growing up in My Little Town.  Have any of you other tales to tell?  If I get enough interest, I might make this a regular feature.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Antemedius.com, Dailykos.com, and Docudharma.com

Feb 22 2011

Feed The Wisconsin Demonstrators Pizza!!

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Photobucket

I just ordered 2 pizzas to be delivered to demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin.  Rachel Maddow has the story:


You’re probably already familiar with ordering take-out food online. Some restaurants let you do it directly and others use a middle man service, but the idea is that you log on, place your order, plug in your credit card info and tell it where to deliver the food. But there’s nothing that says you have to have the food delivered to yourself. In fact, there’s nothing that says you have to even be in the same country as the food you’ve just ordered.

And so we arrive at Ian’s Pizza by the Slice where donations literally from around the world are coming into their State Street store in the form of online pizza orders to feed Wisconsin protesters. As Politico reports, “On Saturday alone, Ian’s gave away 1,057 free slices in their store and delivered more than 300 pizzas to the Capitol itself.”

You get it.  I got it.  I sent 2 20″ 3 topping pizzas to the assembled democracy demonstrators.  Join me.  It’s easy.  You go to badgerbites.com and order a pie for the demonstrators.  You know how to order for yourself.  It’s just as easy to order for others.  Go for it.  It will make you smile.

And by the way.  This does not mean that my allegiance to Pizza Bob’s in Ann Arbor has been violated in any regard.  The way I see it, when in Madison, you do like the Badgers.

simulposted at The Dream Antilles

Feb 22 2011

Prime Time

Lots of premiers.  "Television is a vast wasteland".

Gozer the Gozerian… good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Later-

Hey. Does this pole still work? Wow. This place is great. When can we move in? You gotta try this pole. I’m gonna get my stuff. Hey. We should stay here. Tonight. Sleep here. You know, to try it out.

Dave hosts War Criminal Donald Rumsfeld, also Cobie Smulders and Adele.  Jon has Lisa Ling, Stephen Eugene Jarecki.  Alton does breakfast and buns.  Conan hosts Ed Helms, Carmelo Anthony, and Chromeo.

I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft!

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Feb 22 2011

Ten Influential Presidents

Happy President’s Day. Some of you have a day off and you are not quite sure why. I know why I have the day off — 9 percent unemployment. On a personal note, things are looking up for me. But that’s not today’s point.

This is a subjective list of the ten most influential presidents in US history. To be clear, a president doesn’t have to be a good person to be influential. Indeed, some presidents on this list will make the liberal blood boil. So be it. A measure of influence is how much we feel the effects of the administration.

Read on. You might learn something.

1. George Washington



Sure, it’s a bit of a cop out to list George at the top of a list like this.Consider this, though. The constitution is extremely vague on exactly what the president has the power to do. Washington shaped the presidency and set important precedents. While the Constitution allows the president to form a cabinet, it does not specify the secretaries. Washington appointed Secretaries of State (Thomas Jefferson), War (Henry Knox) and Treasury (Alexander Hamilton) as well as an attorney general (Edmund Jennings Randolph). We still have all of those positions, though Secretary of War is now Secretary of Defense.

Moreover, Washington exercised restraint in wielding power, largely allowing Congress to take the lead on most matters — a precedent that most presidents followed through the about the 1930s.

In the simplest terms, Washington had a chance to shape the presidency and fail miserably. Had he failed, the Constitution itself may have failed. The Constitution was the second attempt at a frame of government and one has to wonder if the early Americans would have tolerated a third attempt before breaking into 13 separate countries.

Washington also declined a third term, informally setting American precedent for presidents to only serve two terms.

2. Abraham Lincoln

Again, this is a huge cop out. Indeed, any course of action Lincoln had taken would have had effects lasting decades and perhaps centuries. The Civil War produced deep social, regional and racial divisions that the country still faces today. Had Mr. Lincoln not fought or had he lost the war, “America” might mean anything north of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers.

Even with the actual outcome, a significant number of right-wingers still yearn for the days of the old Confederacy and this forms the basis for 10thers, secessionist, and even lingering racism. Nixon and Reagan exploited these divisions with their “southern strategy” and this even affected the Democratic Party, which for decades thought they could only win the presidency with a Southern governor.

3. Chester A. Arthur

Finally, an obscure president with a legacy that long outlived him.

Arthur was appointed to Collector of the Port of New York in 1872 by Ulysses S. Grant and later removed by Rutherford B. Hayes. This was a political appointment and a potentially very personally lucrative position. This  spoils system has been a key part of politics since the beginnings of government, but entered the popular imagination with the election of Andrew Jackson. Jackson quite openly advocated rewarding his supporters with cushy government jobs ripe for corruption.

Arthur campaigned hard for the vice presidential nomination with James Garfield in 1880. Garfield was not particularly thrilled with his running mate. Indeed, after the election, there is evidence that Garfield would not allow his vice president in his home. At the time, the Republican party was caught up in the debate between spoils/cronyism/Stalwarts and civil service.

An assassin, extreme Stalwart Charles J. Guiteau, elevated Arthur to the presidency. His party lost seats in Congress to the Democrats in 1882, partly over the Stalwarts-civil service debates (and you thought it was a new thing that the GOP doled out favors to their campaign donors). Arthur signed the Democrat’s  Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, an early attempt to replace political appointments with merit hiring and promotion.

So the next time you take a civil service exam or apply for a government job, remember that it is better than the way we used to do it.

4. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Another obvious choice here. FDR gave us pulled us out of the Depression, created the social safety net, and led the nation most of the way through World War II. He also gave us Keynesian economics. Indeed, there is a reason why the “drown government in the bathtub” crowd hates FDR.

The Depression, WWII and social security should be enough of a legacy, but  Keynesian economics  deserves a brief discussion. In the briefest and most simplistic terms, Keynes argued for some government spending to addressed market “failures” — that is meeting public needs that the private sector cannot or will not meet. During recessions, Keynes suggests stimulus spending until the economy recovers. The right wing may not realize it, but when they argue for less spending, they are really arguing that the private market would better supply things like higher education, roads and bridges, space exploration, green energy research and development, and possibly national and homeland security.

Indeed, if you look at the stimulus spending, much of it is on critical infrastructure projects that one really would not the private market to provide. FDR gave us new state and national parks through CCC. Ike gave us the interstate highway system. Obama is fixing the roads.

Arguably, recessions are great news for infrastructure.

5. Ronald Reagan-George HW Bush

I think of this as one long administration since the two men had similar conservative policies and similar levels of cluelessness.

Click on this link then come back.

Reagan and Bush presided over the end of the Cold War. The very important right-wing pundits and even a lot of historians like to attribute the end of the Cold War to the increased defense spending and the build up of the nuclear stockpile. The argument goes that the free market could afford the build-up while the command economy could not. That’s a fine argument and has some merit, but it overlooks the Soviet war against  Afghanistan. Where Vietnam arguably made the United States stronger, Afghanistan hastened the demise of the USSR. And all for the price of a few surface-to-air missiles.

And then, just when it looked like the United States could cut the military, Bush got the country into Iraq for the first time. For an alternative take on the war, check out  this 22 minute video. With the costs of the second Iraq war, we will be feeling the effects here for a long time to come.

On the home front, Reagan ignored the scourge of AIDS for years. What did he care? It wasn’t his constituency dying. Mrs. Reagan rekindled the bogus war on drugs, which sent numerous young men and women — many of them black and Latino — to prison for long sentences. Mourning in America.

6. Lyndon B. Johnson

Here is a president who could have been ranked as one of the “great” presidents and perhaps even overshadowed his more famous predecessor, John F. Kennedy.

On the positive side, Johnson declared war on poverty and signed the  Civil Rights Act  and the  Voting Rights Act. These acts finally fulfilled the promises of Lincoln. Obviously, laws don’t kill racism. That takes a changes in hearts and minds. What laws can do is take a step toward erase institutionalized racism. LBJ used his overwhelming presence and Legislative experience to get these laws passed over the objections of the Dixie-crats and in the process, “lost the South for a Generation.”

On the negative side, Johnson was itching for a fight with the Reds. Vietnam seemed like a fight that would not get us nuked. He lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident just as surely as George W. Bush lied about WMDs and got us into the fight. The war would kill 58,000 Americans, physically and mentally damage many more, kill untold millions of Vietnamese and Cambodian citizens and fundamentally change the country.

7. James Monroe

The Doctrine  is In!

On one hand, the Monroe Doctrine was incredible. It warned Europe not to colonize the Americas. Indeed, other than French Guiana and a few small islands, Europe has been out of the Western Hemisphere since the early 19th century.

On the other hand, the doctrine has been a convenient excuse for  dozens of American “interventions” in Latin America. You won’t learn about most of these events in high school history. They have not been the country’s proudest moments. Of course, some positives like the Panama Canal have come from US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. But for every canal, there are dozens of low points like the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the 1973 coup in Chile.

8. Harry S. Truman

Truman is an under-appreciated president for several reasons. First, he dropped The Bomb. The Soviets were both intrigued and frightened and arguably this accelerated the nuclear arms race by decades. Arguably, had he not demonstrated the power of the bomb, the Soviets may not have taken the idea seriously.

Second he desegregated the military, setting the precedent for eliminating Jim Crow.

Third he rebuilt Europe via the  Marshall Plan . Without the Marshall Plan, Western Europe may have been seduced by the command economy and subsequent political repression that Moscow offered. The Marshall plan also served as the groundwork for a number of  regional treaties  that later became the European Union.

Finally, he got the country into the Korean War, setting the policy of containment of communism by force if necessary. The United States still maintains a military presence on the peninsula, costing the country millions of dollars a year. If North Korea invades again before the regime falls apart, Truman could rocket up this list.

9. Richard Nixon

The president we love to hate.

Between the Pentagon Papers affair and the Watergate scandal, Nixon managed to destroy public trust in the government. Nixon was paranoid in the extreme. Perhaps he would have been less paranoid had Dwight Eisenhower not doomed Nixon’s 1960 run at the presidency  with the quip, “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t remember.” A healthy does of skepticism in government is good for democracy. A complete lack of trust is dangerous. (see: Obama’s birth certificate.)

There’s also the old Vulcan proverb, “Only Nixon could go to China.” Nixon’s visit to China opened trade with China, for better or worse — usually worse when you can easily get articles on how to outsource your business operations to China. However, China has also been a key partner in reigning in North Korea’s more egregious sabre rattling.

However, Nixon also gave us Medicare and the  Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA. For these things, he was a dirty, dirty hippie and possibly a rotten socialist in addition to being a prick.

And there was also Nixon’s profound influence on Hunter S. Thompson, FWIW.

10. Barack Obama

President Obama could either solidify his position on such a list or drop off entirely. Since a list of influential presidents necessarily requires hindsight, this is a very preliminary ranking and requires some speculation.

Obama broke the race barrier in the presidency as surely as Kennedy broke the religion barrier and Hillary Clinton could have broken the gender barrier. Of course, we have yet to have another Catholic president or any female presidents. But these three people have proven that one does not have to be a white, male Protestant to be president.

Obama’s other legacy will be the health insurance reform. The actual reform is not the critical part. Certainly making sure poor people can see a doctor is important, but the debate revealed the very real wealth divide in the United States. People have been going bankrupt over illnesses for decades, but the health care debate put that reality squarely on the national agenda. One has to wonder if the super-wealthy will be shamed into actually letting some of that wealth trickle down or if we really are heading for a class war. Remember, it’s only class warfare when we fight back.

And that doesn’t even include any future initiatives a second-term Obama could make.

Honorable mentions:

Teddy Roosevelt: National Parks, creating the bully pulpit

Woodrow Wilson: Perfecting the bully pulpit, giving the state of the union as a speech rather than a report

John F. Kennedy: Bringing the presidency to television, inspiring a nation

James Madison: Saving the country from re-colonization, writing many of the Federalist Papers long before his inauguration

George W. Bush: Running the debt to unsustainable levels, destroying American standing in the world

That’s my list. Your thoughts?

Feb 21 2011

from firefly-dreaming 21.2.11

(midnight. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Regular Daily Features:

  • starts the day in Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs
  • Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! at Six in the Morning!!!

Essays Featured Monday, February 21st:

join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….

Feb 21 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 41 Top Stories.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Libyans attack regime pillars, ‘control cities’

AFP

1 hr 18 mins ago

CAIRO (AFP) – Protesters Monday overran several Libyan cities and regime stalwarts began defecting as the pillars of Moamer Kadhafi’s hardline rule were targeted in Tripoli amid reports he had fled the country.

Cities including Benghazi in the east had fallen to demonstrators opposing Kadhafi’s 41-year-old regime after military units deserted, said the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR).

With gunfire crackling in the streets of Tripoli, protesters also attacked police stations and the offices of the state broadcaster, Kadhafi’s mouthpiece, as well as setting government buildings ablaze.

AFP

2 Libyan uprising a ‘foreign plot’: Kadhafi son

AFP

Sun Feb 20, 7:18 pm ET

CAIRO (AFP) – Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, the son of strongman Moamer Kadhafi, said Monday that Libya was on the verge of civil war and branded the unprecedented protests against his father’s rule a foreign plot.

Blaming Arab and African expatriates of fomenting unrest in the country, he said the violence was aimed at installing Islamist rule, in a speech on television.

“At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi,” Libya’s second city and an epicentre of the unprecedented protests against Moamer Kadhafi’s iron-fisted rule for nearly 42 years.

3 Libya shockwaves hit Italian businesses

AFP

Mon Feb 21, 9:26 am ET

MILAN (AFP) – Shockwaves from the unrest in Libya on Monday hit its former colonial overlord Italy — a top foreign investor in Libya and a country in which the North African state has also invested billions.

Libyan authorities and veteran ruler Moamer Kadhafi’s family own stakes in Italy’s biggest bank UniCredit, defence and industry giant Finmeccanica, as well as in the Juventus football club.

Shares in UniCredit plunged 3.08 percent on the Milan stock exchange in afternoon trading. Industry giant Impregilo, which has some major contracts in Libya, saw its share price plummet by 5.60 percent.

4 Yemen president vows not to quit amid protests

by Hammoud Mounassar and Jamal al-Jaberi, AFP

2 hrs 27 mins ago

SANAA (AFP) – Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed on Monday not to quit under popular pressure as demonstrations demanding his ouster spread across the country and the death toll in protests rose to 12.

Saleh, whose long reign makes him one of the Middle East’s great survivors, said the protests were “not new” and accused his opponents of fuelling the demonstrations.

“If they want me to quit, I will only leave through the ballot box,” he told a news conference as vast crowds of protesters, among them opposition MPs, gathered outside Sanaa University to demand he step down.

5 Bahrain Grand Prix cancelled after deadly protests

AFP

2 hrs 1 min ago

MANAMA (AFP) – The season-opening Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, due to be staged on March 13, was cancelled on Monday due to the deadly political unrest in the Gulf state, organisers announced.

The widely anticipated move was confirmed in an official statement shortly after reports emerged that F1 teams had decided not to go ahead with a scheduled testing session at the circuit next week.

Bahrain Crown Prince HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa said: “At the present time the country’s entire attention is focused on building a new national dialogue for Bahrain.

6 Taliban bomber kills 31 at Afghan office

by Gul Rahim, AFP

Mon Feb 21, 9:11 am ET

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – A Taliban suicide bomber struck an Afghan government office on Monday, killing 31 people and raising to more than 100 the death toll from a surge in high-profile bomb attacks.

A string of insurgent attacks has targeted civilians and government forces over the last three weeks, just a few months before limited withdrawals of US-led NATO forces are due to start in July.

Monday’s attack took place as people queued outside a district office in Imam Sahib in the northern province of Kunduz to collect new identity cards and other paperwork.

7 Deadly clashes in Ivory Coast as mediators arrive

by Evelyne Aka, AFP

Mon Feb 21, 10:59 am ET

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Fresh clashes erupted between supporters of the Ivory Coast’s rival presidents Monday, with a man shot dead in army gunfire, as four African leaders launched a new bid to break the impasse.

At least a dozen people were also injured in clashes in Abidjan between forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to concede defeat after a November 28 election, and his rival Alassane Ouattara, witnesses said.

Three Ouattara supporters were killed in violence in the city on Saturday while security forces loyal Gbagbo announced Monday they had lost three men in the unrest in the past two weeks.

8 BP, India’s Reliance in $20 bn energy tie-up

AFP

2 hrs 20 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – British energy giant BP and India’s Reliance Industries announced Monday a large investment deal which could be worth up to $20 billion, with later investment in key Indian oil and gas assets.

BP said it will pay $7.2 billion (5.3 billion euros) to Reliance for a 30-percent stake in 23 Indian oil and gas blocks, unveiling another major foreign venture as it seeks to move on from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Last month, the embattled group joined forces with Russia’s Rosneft in what could be another transforming deal to explore for oil in the Arctic region.

9 Limbless singer gives voice to India’s rural poor

by Beatrice Le Bohec, AFP

Mon Feb 21, 11:05 am ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Bant Singh, a scarred survivor of class violence in rural India, has an indisputable claim to be a voice for India’s impoverished and muted millions.

The folk singer lost both arms and a leg in an attack five years ago after he dared to challenge high-caste landlords in his area of the northwestern state of Punjab who had raped his 17-year-old daughter.

Set upon by a gang armed with iron bars, he was beaten to a pulp and left for dead, but neither the assault nor the subsequent amputations broke his resolve to denounce oppression in India’s hinterlands.

10 Australia crush Zimbabwe at Cricket World Cup

by Manoj Vatsyayana, AFP

Mon Feb 21, 11:46 am ET

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) – Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait shared six wickets in a superb display of fast bowling to fire Australia to a crushing 91-run win over Zimbabwe in their opening World Cup match on Monday.

Johnson finished with 4-19 and Tait, bowling in short spells, took 2-34 as defending champions Australia dismissed Zimbabwe for 171 after scoring a challenging 262-6 in the day-night match.

There was no respite from pace for the hapless Zimbabwe as Brett Lee also tested the batsmen to finish with 1-34 as Australia racked up their 24th successive World Cup win.

11 Pakistan intelligence says US gunman is CIA

by Jennie Matthew, AFP

Mon Feb 21, 6:21 am ET

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – A Pakistani intelligence official said Monday that an American in custody for killing two men was an undercover CIA contractor, in remarks likely to inflame a crisis with the United States.

Washington insists that Raymond Davis, who says he acted in self-defence, is a member of its Islamabad embassy’s “administrative and technical staff” who has diplomatic immunity and should be released immediately.

But the unpopular government in Pakistan is under huge pressure from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Reuters

12 Gaddafi under threat as revolt hits Tripoli

AFP

21 mins ago

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fought an increasingly bloody battle to hang on to power on Monday when anti-government protests against his 41-year rule struck the capital Tripoli after days of violence in the east.

Residents reported gunfire in parts of Tripoli and one political activist said warplanes had bombed the city.

Forces loyal to Gaddafi had killed dozens of people across the country, human rights groups and witnesses said, prompting widespread condemnation from foreign governments.

13 Libya turmoil prompts oil surge, hits equities

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent

2 hrs 51 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices charged to fresh 2-1/2 year highs on Monday as traders reacted to increasing violence in major producer Libya, which fed investor fears about rising inflation and unsettled other markets.

Globally, equities were lower but U.S. markets were closed for a holiday.

European equities lost more than 1 percent on a combination of uncertainty over the future of the oil price, increasing signs that higher interest rates may be coming and more evidence of a surprisingly poor earnings season.

14 Unrest spreads to Libyan capital as Arab protests simmer

Sun Feb 20, 7:42 pm ET

TRIPOLI/MANAMA (Reuters) – Violent unrest against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi spread to the capital Tripoli on Sunday and his son vowed to fight until the “last man standing” after scores of protesters were killed in the east of the country.

Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam said in an address on state TV the army stood behind his father as a “leader of the battle in Tripoli” and would enforce security at any price. His comments were the first official reaction from the Libyan authorities since the unrest began.

As he spoke, police used tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters in Tripoli, where gunfire was heard, vehicles were on fire and protesters threw stones at billboards of Gaddafi, who is facing the most serious challenge to his four-decade rule.

15 EU condemns Libyan repression, worried on migrants

By David Brunnstrom and Justyna Pawlak, Reuters

1 hr 21 mins ago

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU foreign ministers condemned the killing of anti-government protesters in Libya on Monday and pledged to support democratic transition resulting from the unrest that has swept across North Africa and the Middle East.

At a meeting in Brussels, ministers expressed alarm at the violence and concern about the possibility of an influx of illegal migrants from North Africa after Libya’s threat last week to stop cooperation in stemming the flow.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called on the Libyan authorities to ensure proper protection for foreign nationals, including 3,500 Britons, and assistance for those trying to leave the country.

16 Libya isolation insulates rulers from outside pressure

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent, Reuters

2 hrs 52 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – Like Iran and Myanmar before it, Libya’s relative isolation gives its rulers much more diplomatic flexibility to mount a bloody crackdown than counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia or Bahrain — but that may not be enough.

Early on Monday, one of the sons of Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said his father would fight a popular revolt to the “last man standing.”

Rights groups estimate the death toll in Libya in recent days far outstrips anything seen during protests elsewhere in North Africa, but reporting restrictions and blocked communications have kept most events out of sight.

17 China calls for domestic unrest to be defused

By Chris Buckley, Reuters

Mon Feb 21, 7:37 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – China must find new ways to defuse unrest, the domestic security chief said, underscoring Beijing’s anxiety about control after police quashed calls for gatherings inspired by uprisings in the Middle East.

A Foreign Ministry official separately blamed the political violence sweeping the Middle East on too-slow growth and stunted efforts at reform.

Zhou Yongkang, the ruling Communist Party’s top law-and-order official, told cadres they had to “adapt to new trends and imperatives in economic and social development”, official newspapers reported on Monday.

18 BP partners Reliance in $7.2 billion Indian oil hunt

By Sarah Young and Jo Winterbottom, Reuters

2 hrs 47 mins ago

LONDON/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – BP lined up one of the biggest foreign direct investments in India to date with a $7.2 billion tie-up with the country’s Reliance Industries to explore for deepwater oil and gas.

This marks the second major deal under BP’s new chief executive Bob Dudley, who last month agreed a share swap with Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft to jointly explore the Arctic for offshore oil and gas.

BP said on Monday it would pay Reliance Industries $7.2 billion and performance payments of up to $1.8 billion if the tie-up leads to the development of commercial discoveries.

19 Wisconsin governor calls on Democrats to come home

By James Kelleher, Reuters

41 mins ago

MADISON, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Monday called for the return of the 14 Democratic state senators who left the state last week to avoid voting on a bill that that severely curbs state workers’ bargaining rights.

“They’ve got to come to Wisconsin, do the job that they were elected to do, do the job that they’re paid to do,” Walker said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“If they want to do that, we will sit down and talk to them. But the bottom line is we can’t negotiate over a budget because we are broke and we need the money.”

20 IMF chief steals Sarkozy’s thunder at French G20

By Laure Bretton and Brian Love, Reuters

1 hr 52 mins ago

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy hopes his stint at the helm of the G20 will boost his re-election chances in 2012, but it was a potential challenger who stole the show when finance ministers met at the weekend.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn — a former French finance minister who polls show would trounce Sarkozy if he ran — dominated the front pages in France after the G20 meeting in Paris briefly placed the rivals on the same stage.

In town for three days, Strauss-Kahn was impenetrably silent over whether he could run for the left in the 2012 election, where center-right Sarkozy is expected to try for a second term.

21 Government shutdown threat looms over budget fight

By Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters

Mon Feb 21, 7:33 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior Senate Democrats slammed Republicans on Sunday for a “reckless” threat to shut down the government amid deepening political posturing on both sides over federal spending and the budget deficit.

The House of Representatives voted on Saturday to cut federal spending by $61 billion through September. But the Republican measure will likely die because Democrats who control the Senate oppose it and President Barack Obama vowed to veto it.

Obama has outlined his own plan for less-severe spending cuts in 2012, and has warned that tightening the belt too much too soon could harm the slow economic recovery.

AP

22 Gadhafi’s hold on Libya weakens in protest wave

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press

23 mins ago

CAIRO – Deep cracks opened in Moammar Gadhafi’s regime Monday, with Libyan government officials at home and abroad resigning, air force pilots defecting and a major government building ablaze after clashes in the capital of Tripoli. Protesters called for another night of defiance against the Arab world’s longest-serving leader despite a crackdown.

At sunset, pro-Gadhafi militia drove around Tripoli with loudspeakers and told people not to leave their homes, witnesses said, as security forces sought to keep the unrest that swept eastern parts of the country – leaving the second-largest city of Benghazi in protesters’ control – from overwhelming the capital of 2 million people.

State TV said the military had “stormed the hideouts of saboteurs” and urged the public to back security forces. Protesters called for a new demonstration in Tripoli’s central Green Square and in front of Gadhafi’s residence.

23 Exiled opposition leader to return to Bahrain

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and BARBARA SURK, Associated Press

2 hrs 24 mins ago

MANAMA, Bahrain – A prominent opposition figure accused by Bahrain of plotting against the state plans to return from London, an aide said Monday, in a move that could bolster protesters and force authorities into difficult choices.

Hassan Meshaima, head of a group known as Haq, is scheduled to arrive late Tuesday as the embattled monarchy tries to engage demonstrators in talks aimed at easing the week-long series of clashes and marches that have deeply divided the strategic Gulf nation.

A rights activist and supporter, Abbas Omran, confirmed Meshaima’s plans, but gave no further details on his objections once he returns after eight months in self-exile.

24 Egypt freezes Mubarak’s assets

By SALAH NASRAWI and MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 1:38 pm ET

CAIRO – Egypt’s top prosecutor requested on Monday the freezing of the foreign assets of ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his family, announced state TV.

Security officials said that the prosecutor general asked the Foreign Ministry to contact countries around the world so they can freeze his assets abroad. The president’s domestic assets were frozen soon after he stepped down, they added.

The freeze applies to Mubarak, his wife, his two sons and two daughters-in-law, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press.

25 Analysis: Discontent, but no revolt in China – yet

By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 7:39 am ET

BEIJING – For those who rule out the possibility of a Middle East-style democracy revolution in China, consider the town of Xiangshui.

There, tens of thousands of farmers fled their homes this month in a middle-of-the-night panic on rumors that a nearby chemical plant with a bad safety record would explode. The chaos ensued despite appeals from officials that the rumors were unfounded. It left four people dead when a motorized three-wheel vehicle jammed with 20 people veered into a river.

China may have successfully squelched a mysterious call for protests Sunday, but people’s trust that the government will look after their interests runs shallow.

26 Arrested US official is actually CIA contractor

By ADAM GOLDMAN and KIMBERLY DOZIER, Associated Press

1 hr 22 mins ago

WASHINGTON – An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was secretly working for the CIA and scouting a neighborhood when he was arrested, a disclosure likely to further frustrate U.S. government efforts to free the man and strain relations between two countries partnered in a fragile alliance in the war on terror.

Raymond Allen Davis, 36, had been working as a CIA security contractor and living in a Lahore safe house, according to former and current U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about the incident.

Davis, a former Special Forces soldier who left the military in 2003, shot the men in what he described as an attempted armed robbery in the eastern city of Lahore as they approached him on a motorcycle. A third Pakistani, a bystander, died when a car rushing to help Davis struck him. Davis was carrying a Glock handgun, a pocket telescope and papers with different identifications.

27 Neither side budging in Wisconsin union fight

By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press

1 hr 12 mins ago

MADISON, Wis. – No resolution appeared imminent Monday to the stalemate over union rights in Wisconsin, leaving Senate Republicans resigned to forge ahead with less-controversial business such as tax breaks for dairy farmers and commending the Green Bay Packers on winning the Super Bowl.

As the standoff entered its second week, none of the major players offered any signs of backing down in a high-stakes game of political chicken that has riveted the nation and led to ongoing public protests that drew a high of 68,000 people on Saturday. Thousands more braved cold winds and temperatures in the 20s to march again on Monday, waving signs that said “Stop the attack on Wisconsin families” and “solidarity.”

The 14 Senate Democrats who skipped town Thursday to indefinitely delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s bill stripping most collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees remained missing in action for a fifth day.

28 Wis. budget plan may tilt political playing field

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press

1 hr 36 mins ago

MADISON, Wis. – The high-stakes fight in Wisconsin over union rights is about more than pay and benefits in the public sector. It could have far-reaching effects on electoral politics in this and other states by helping solidify Republican power for years, experts said Monday.

While Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to wipe out collective bargaining rights for most public employees has galvanized Democrats and union members in opposition, the GOP could benefit long-term by crippling a key source of campaign funding and volunteers for Democrats.

“It would be a huge landscape-altering type of action, and it would tilt the scales significantly in favor of the Republicans,” said Mike McCabe, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which has long tracked union involvement in Wisconsin elections. “This is a national push, and it’s being simultaneously pushed in a number of states. I think Wisconsin is moving the fastest and most aggressively so far.”

29 Afghan police: At least 30 killed in suicide blast

By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 10:52 am ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to an Afghan government office Monday, killing at least 30 people – many who were waiting in line to obtain government identification cards, police said.

The attack occurred around noon in Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan where there has been a sharp slide in security in recent months, said district police chief Abdul Qayum Ebrahimi. At least 40 people were wounded in the blast, he said.

“We were in a meeting. It was a very powerful explosion,” said Ebrahimi, who works in the district police office next door to the blast site. “People had gathered in the front of the department to get identification cards.”

30 Congo colonel gets 20 years after rape trial

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 12:52 pm ET

BARAKA, Congo – One by one, the rape survivors relived their attacks for a panel of judges: A newly married bride flung her torn, bloodied clothing onto the courtroom floor. A mother of six dropped to her knees, raised her arms to heaven and cried out for peace.

Nearly 50 women poured out their stories in a wave of anguish that ended Monday with the conviction of an army colonel for crimes against humanity – a landmark verdict in this Central African country where thousands are believed to be raped each year by soldiers and militia groups who often go unpunished.

It was the first time a commanding officer had been tried in such an attack.

31 Looking for a credit card? It pays to be rich

By CANDICE CHOI, AP Personal Finance Writer

1 hr 27 mins ago

NEW YORK – It pays to be rich if you need a credit card.

A year after sweeping credit card regulations upended the industry, banks are showering perks and rewards on big spenders with sterling credit scores. And they’re socking customers with spottier histories with higher interest rates, lower credit limits and new annual fees. In some cases the riskiest customers are being dropped altogether.

“When you look at the regulations, it’s a net positive for consumers,” says Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association. “But there have been some trade-offs.”

32 Trying brain pacemakers to zap psychiatric disease

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

Mon Feb 21, 1:47 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Call them brain pacemakers, tiny implants that hold promise for fighting tough psychiatric diseases – if scientists can figure out just where in all that gray matter to put them.

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has proved a powerful way to block the tremors of Parkinson’s disease. Blocking mental illness isn’t nearly as easy a task.

But a push is on to expand research into how well these brain stimulators tackle the most severe cases of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome – to know best how to use them before too many doctors and patients clamor to try.

33 Washington: the ‘blackest name’ in America

By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer

Mon Feb 21, 8:58 am ET

George Washington’s name is inseparable from America, and not only from the nation’s history. It identifies countless streets, buildings, mountains, bridges, monuments, cities – and people.

In a puzzling twist, most of these people are black. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name.

The story of how Washington became the “blackest name” begins with slavery and takes a sharp turn after the Civil War, when all blacks were allowed the dignity of a surname.

34 20-year-old Bayne wins the Daytona 500

BY JENNA FRYER, AP Auto Racing Writer

Mon Feb 21, 3:13 am ET

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Leading on the final lap of the Daytona 500, a pack of veterans baring down on his bumper, Trevor Bayne didn’t panic.

He figured it would be a cool story to tell someday, how he led a lap in NASCAR’s biggest show.

Somebody, maybe Tony Stewart, would pass him any moment and Bayne would dutifully push him to the win.

35 Educators seek out more minorities to study abroad

By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press

1 hr 1 min ago

PHILADELPHIA – When Sade Adeyina’s college roommate started bugging her about studying abroad together, she never thought she could afford a semester in Italy.

Yet the friendly peer pressure – combined with financial aid and timely academic advising – led Adeyina to say “Arrivederci!” to Temple University in Philadelphia and head overseas for the first time.

Educators want more minority students to follow the lead of Adeyina, an African-American graphic design major. Foreign study is seen as crucial to student development and even as a key to national security, yet minority participation badly lags their overall presence on college campuses.

36 AP Interview: Barbour sees no baggage on race

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press

1 hr 14 mins ago

DES MOINES, Iowa – Though he’s faced some criticism on such matters, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he carries no political baggage because of his positions on racial issues.

The issue flared as recently as last week, when Barbour declined to denounce an effort by a group pushing for a license plate in honor of confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Barbour says the proposal was never going anywhere.

“I said accurately this is not going to happen,” Barbour said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The bureaucracy denied it, the legislature won’t pass it and if the legislature passes it, it won’t become law because I won’t sign it.”

37 More US companies covering transgender surgery

LISA LEFF, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 1:31 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – When Gina Duncan decided to undergo the medical treatment that would make her a woman, she had plenty to fear. The reactions of her children, her professional colleagues and friends. How her body would respond to hours on the operating table. If, at the end of it, she would look female enough so strangers wouldn’t gawk.

What the Orlando mortgage banker didn’t have to be anxious about was how she would pay for two of her surgeries. Her employer of 10 years, Wells Fargo, included breast augmentation and genital reconstruction as coverable expenses under its employee health plan. Duncan was told the San Francisco-based bank already had had 16 other employees transition to new genders and assigned a benefits specialist to walk her through the process.

“They had a template in place, and it was surprisingly supporting and mentally encouraging,” said Duncan, 55, who four years later still works for Wells Fargo. “So much of what I’d heard involved people who ended up losing their job, losing their family, losing their friends, becoming destitute.”

38 INFLUENCE GAME: Aircraft titans spark lobby blitz

By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 12:44 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Even by Pentagon standards, it’s an eye-popping prize: a $35 billion contract to build nearly 200 giant airborne refueling tankers. And the decade-long brawl by two defense industry titans to win it has been just as epic.

In a matter of weeks – if not days – the Pentagon will announce whether Chicago-based Boeing Co. or European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) will build 179 new tankers to replace the Air Force’s Eisenhower-era KC-135 planes.

The competition is far more complex than a case of the U.S. against Europe. If Boeing wins, the air tanker would be built in Everett, Wash., Wichita, Kan., and several other states. If EADS wins, the tanker would be assembled in Mobile, Ala., at the former Brookley military base that was shuttered in the 1960s.

39 In Memphis, old strife heats up over schools, race

By ADRIAN SAINZ, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 10:33 am ET

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A bold bid by the struggling, majority-black Memphis City Schools system to force a merger with the majority-white, successful suburban district has fanned relatively routine fears over funding and student performance into accusations of full-blown racism.

The fight over the fate of 150,000 public school students has stirred long-festering emotions in Memphis and surrounding Shelby County, creating a drama that has spread beyond school board meetings to union rallies, the state Legislature and federal court.

On March 8, Memphis voters will decide whether to approve disbanding the city schools system and turning education over to the county district, which is earning good grades on its own and doing everything it can to stave off consolidation.

40 USDA, others invest $5M to grow broccoli in East

By STEVE SZKOTAK, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 3:15 am ET

RICHMOND, Va. – A cool microclimate in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains has allowed farmer James Light to grow broccoli in quantity enough to supply a small chain of supermarkets.

Along most of the East Coast, however, the broccoli piled up in produce crispers has traveled thousands of miles from the West Coast in refrigerated trucks, typically at a cost of $6,000 a tractor load.

A team of researchers and agricultural agents hopes to take a bite out of the West Coast’s $1 billion broccoli monopoly with new strains of the vegetable designed to withstand the East Coast’s heat and humidity. They’ve received a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and $1.7 million in matching private contributions to create a broccoli corridor running from northern Florida to Maine.

41 Report: Journalist died due to deputies’ mistakes

Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 1:08 am ET

LOS ANGELES – The daughter of a journalist killed 41 years ago by a tear gas missile fired by sheriff’s deputies said Sunday that a new report from a civilian watchdog agency “asks more questions than it answers” about Ruben Salazar’s death.

In death, Salazar’s name became a rallying point for Mexican-American civil rights activists protesting law enforcement’s treatment of Hispanics. Since then, parks, schools and even a U.S. Postal Service stamp have been named for him.

The report, the first outside examination of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s records of the killing, said that deputies made tactical mistakes that led to Salazar’s death, but that he was not targeted.

Feb 21 2011

Punting the Pundits

“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”

Democracy does not end on Election Day. That’s when it begins.  Citizens do not elect officials to rule them from one election to the next. Citizens elect officials to represent them, to respond to the will of the people as it evolves.

Paul Krugman: Wisconsin Power Play

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker – demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday – Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did – after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

Bob Herbert: The Human Cost of Budget Cutting

John Drew believes, quaintly, that we are our brother’s keeper.

President Obama does not seem to believe this quite as strongly. And, of course, many of the Republicans in Congress do not believe it at all.

Mr. Drew is the president of Boston’s antipoverty agency, called Action for Boston Community Development, which everyone calls ABCD. In today’s environment, people who work with the poor can be forgiven if they feel like hunted criminals. Government officials at all levels are homing in on them and disrupting their efforts, sometimes for legitimate budget reasons, sometimes not.

The results are often heartbreaking.

Robert Fisk: These Are Secular Popular Revolts – Yet Everyone is Blaming Religion

Our writer, who was in Cairo as the revolution took hold in Egypt, reports from Bahrain on why Islam has little to do with what is going on

Mubarak claimed that Islamists were behind the Egyptian revolution. Ben Ali said the same in Tunisia. King Abdullah of Jordan sees a dark and sinister hand – al-Qa’ida’s hand, the Muslim Brotherhood’s hand, an Islamist hand – behind the civil insurrection across the Arab world. Yesterday the Bahraini authorities discovered Hizbollah’s bloody hand behind the Shia uprising there. For Hizbollah, read Iran. How on earth do well-educated if singularly undemocratic men get this thing so wrong? Confronted by a series of secular explosions – Bahrain does not quite fit into this bracket – they blame radical Islam. The Shah made an identical mistake in reverse. Confronted by an obviously Islamic uprising, he blamed it on Communists.

Bobbysocks Obama and Clinton have managed an even weirder somersault. Having originally supported the “stable” dictatorships of the Middle East – when they should have stood by the forces of democracy – they decided to support civilian calls for democracy in the Arab world at a time when the Arabs were so utterly disenchanted with the West’s hypocrisy that they didn’t want America on their side. “The Americans interfered in our country for 30 years under Mubarak, supporting his regime, arming his soldiers,” an Egyptian student told me in Tahrir Square last week. “Now we would be grateful if they stopped interfering on our side.” At the end of the week, I heard identical voices in Bahrain. “We are getting shot by American weapons fired by American-trained Bahraini soldiers with American-made tanks,” a medical orderly told me on Friday. “And now Obama wants to be on our side?”

Silas House: My Polluted Kentucky Home

Berea, Ky. Last weekend I joined 19 other Kentuckians in a sit-in at the office of Gov. Steve Beshear. We were there to protest his support of mountaintop removal, a technique used by coal-mining companies that, as its name implies, involves blasting away the tops of mountains and hills to get at the coal seams beneath them.

Since it was first used in 1970, mountaintop removal has destroyed some 500 mountains and poisoned at least 1,200 miles of rivers and streams across the Appalachian coal-mining region. Yet Governor Beshear is so committed to the practice that he recently allied with the Kentucky Coal Association in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to block more stringent regulations of it. In court his administration’s lawyers referred to public opposition as simply “an unwarranted burden.”

The news media and the rest of the country typically think of mountaintop removal as an environmental problem. But it’s a human crisis as well, scraping away not just coal but also the freedoms of Appalachian residents, people who have always been told they are of less value than the resources they live above.

E. J. Dionne, Jr: The Tea Party is winning

They can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country’s dialogue.

Take five steps back and consider the nature of the political conversation in our nation’s capital. You would never know that it’s taking place at a moment when unemployment is still at 9 percent, when wages for so many people are stagnating at best and when the United States faces unprecedented challenges to its economic dominance.

No, Washington is acting as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit; the only test of leadership is whether the president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly; and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.

Take five more steps back and you realize how successful the Tea Party has been. No matter how much liberals may poke fun at them, Tea Party partisans can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country’s dialogue.

Robert Kuttner: Wisconsin’s Tunisia Moment

As events in Egypt showed, you never know what will set off mass protest.

Here at home, over-reaching by a novice Republican governor of Wisconsin has finally triggered the protest marches that have been eerily missing during the more than three years of an economic crisis that has savaged the middle and bottom and rewarded the top.

It’s not as if we lack a politics of class. As mega-investor Warren Buffett famously said, there is plenty of class warfare in America, but the billionaire class is winning.

This economic crisis, after all, was brought on by excesses on Wall Street. Yet with the rest of the economy still mired in high unemployment and fiscal crises of public services, Wall Street was first to be bailed out, the first to return to exorbitant profitability, and the last to be held accountable.

Month after month, progressives have been asking each other, where are the mass protests?

Robert Coniff: Species Seekers and Spies

There’s a scene early in the 2002 film “Die Another Day,” where James Bond poses as an ornithologist in Havana, with binoculars in hand and a book, “Birds of the West Indies,” tucked under one arm.  “Oh, I’m just here for the birds,” he ventures, when the fetching heroine, Jinx Johnson, played by Halle Berry, makes her notably unfeathered entrance.

It was an in-joke, of course.  That field guide had been written by the real-life James Bond, an American ornithologist who was neither dashing nor a womanizer, and certainly not a spy.  Bond’s name just happened to have the right bland and thoroughly British ring to it.  So the novelist Ian Fleming – himself a weekend birder in Jamaica – latched onto it when he first concocted his thriller spy series in the 1950s.

Feb 21 2011

Monday Business Edition

Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Business

1 China’s Alibaba bosses step down after fraud probe

by D’Arcy Doran, AFP

52 mins ago

SHANGHAI (AFP) – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com said Monday its chief executive and head of operations had resigned after a probe found fraudulent suppliers had used the site to cheat buyers.

David Wei and Elvis Lee resigned as chief executive officer and chief operating officer respectively, accepting responsibility for “systemic breakdowns” that allowed the fraud to happen, the company said in a statement.

“The investigation confirmed that Mr Wei and Mr Lee and other members of senior management were not involved in any of the activities that led to the claims by buyers against fraudulent suppliers,” the statement said.

AFP

2 Lawmakers downplay risk of US government shutdown

AFP

Sun Feb 20, 2:06 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – American lawmakers, battling over spending cuts, minimized the risk Sunday that the fierce debate between Republicans and Democrats would lead to a shutdown of the US government.

“We’re not looking for a government shutdown, but at the same time we’re also not looking at rubber stamping these really high elevated spending levels that Congress blew through the joint two years ago,” said Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House budget committee, told CBS News.

“We don’t want to accept these extremely high levels of spending while we negotiate how to continue funding the government.”

3 Iceland president calls referendum on new Icesave deal

by Agnes Valdimarsdottir, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 1:35 pm ET

REYKJAVIK (AFP) – Iceland’s president on Sunday called a referendum on a new deal reached with Britain and The Netherlands to repay money lost in the collapse of the Icesave bank.

“The citizens of Iceland will get to vote on these new Icesave contracts,” President Olafur Grimsson told reporters in Reykjavik.

His announcement came after Iceland’s parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted in favour of the new Icesave deal and voted down by a slim majority the idea of putting the issue to a referendum.

4 EADS stake decision could leave Berlin ‘in a bind’

by Estelle Peard and Aurelia End, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 12:09 am ET

FRANKFURT (AFP) – Torn between the need to save money and the desire to maintain German influence in the European aerospace group EADS, Berlin could be in a bind if automaker Daimler seeks to reduce its holding.

“We have to make a break from nationalisations, they were necessary during the crisis but only during the crisis,” Michael Fuchs, economic spokesman for the ruling conservative CDU/CSU parties, told the Berliner Zeitung daily on Friday.

Fuchs said a desire to maintain the shareholder balance in EADS between French and German interests did not justify the government taking a direct participation.

5 Gold rush means hard times in Portugal

by Thomas Cabral, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 6:39 pm ET

LISBON (AFP) – Portugal’s financial woes have triggered a gold rush of sorts, as the country’s debt-strapped population sells off family valuables to pay their monthly bills.

From capital Lisbon to the northern city of Porto, home of the famous fortified wine, appeals to trade second-hand gold jewellery for euros are mushrooming.

“We buy used gold for cash,” read posters plastered on street corners and shopping malls. The solicitations are also made in page-long newspaper advertisements and radio spots.

6 G20 deal on economic indicators after China compromise

by Francesco Fontemaggi, AFP

Sat Feb 19, 2:52 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – The G20 countries overcame initial Chinese opposition to clinch a deal Saturday on which economic indicators to use to evaluate and tackle the economic imbalances at the heart of the global crisis.

French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, who chaired the talks, said the accord marked the “first step” towards correcting these problems, thereby putting the global economy on track to more balanced growth and prosperity.

Lagarde told a press conference there had been a lengthy debate about the indicators, after reports that China, sensitive over its currency policy and trade balance, had held out to the last moment against a number of measures.

7 Big Greek bank plans stall as Alpha rejects NBG merger

by John Hadoulis, AFP

Fri Feb 18, 1:50 pm ET

ATHENS (AFP) – An attempted merger between Greece’s top two banks stalled Friday after Alpha Bank rejected an offer from National Bank to create the country’s best capitalised lender.

Hours after NBG unveiled a “friendly merger” proposal tabled on January 18, Alpha said the offer amounting to an “absorption” had been “unsolicited” and rejected it.

“The board of directors of Alpha Bank convened on 18 February 2011 and, following due consideration of the terms of the proposal, unanimously resolved to reject it, taking into account the uncertainties of the current environment, and the terms of the proposal itself, which were not deemed beneficial to the Alpha Bank shareholders,” Alpha said in a statement.

8 House budget cuts raise spectre of US govt shutdown

by Ken Maguire, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 6:25 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Historic spending cuts approved by the US House of Representatives face a grim future in the Senate, raising prospects of a government shutdown and ramping up the public relations blame game.

After a marathon floor debate running well past midnight, the Republican-controlled House voted Saturday to cut about $61 billion in government spending.

US President Barack Obama’s administration and leaders in the Senate, controlled by Democrats, immediately criticized the move.

9 Protest in US state over plan to bust public unions

by Mira Oberman, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 3:28 am ET

MADISON, Wisconsin (AFP) – Chanting “this is what democracy looks like,” 65,000 protestors descended on Wisconsin’s legislature in the fifth day of mass demonstrations against a Republican plan to bust public workers unions.

Demonstrators who have camped out in the capitol dome since Tuesday insisted that they will not give up the fight against what they see as a broad plan by Republicans to undermine working people and the Democratic Party they support.

At least nine other Republican governors are considering bills that would curtail or eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers.

10 Leaders wary of eurozone competitiveness pact

by Emmanuel Angleys, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 12:35 am ET

WARSAW (AFP) – Central European states have given a cool reception to a Franco-German proposal for a eurozone competitiveness pact, pointing to the risk of a two-speed Europe, even though few are in any rush to adopt the single currency.

Leaders of the 17-member eurozone will hold a special Brussels summit on March 11 on the proposed pact aimed at reinforcing policy coordination at a time when the bloc is battling a debt crisis.

The move has raised eyebrows among the 10 EU members who are not yet a part of the euro club and have not been invited to attend the summit.

11 Nabucco pipeline still in limbo

by Luc Andre, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 12:29 am ET

VIENNA (AFP) – With construction of the EU’s ambitious Nabucco gas pipeline slated to begin in less than a year, huge question marks remain over its financing and the actual supplies of gas it is supposed to transport.

The aim of Nabucco is to bring gas from central Asia to Europe, bypassing Russia and Ukraine where repeated squabbles over prices have in the past left the 27-nation European Union without vital supplies of gas, sometimes in mid-winter.

Nevertheless, the consortium that will build and operate the major new energy corridor has yet to sign a single contract with any of a number of potential supplier countries.

12 Draghi ‘needs Berlin boost’ to get ECB top job

by Mathieu Gorse, AFP

Sun Feb 20, 12:15 am ET

MILAN (AFP) – Italian central bank governor Mario Draghi may be the favourite to head the European Central Bank after Germany’s Axel Weber withdrew from the race, but experts say he still needs to convince Berlin.

“His chances have improved but it’s not in the bag yet,” Marco Valli, an economist at Italian banking giant UniCredit, told AFP, as the Jesuit-educated economist stepped up his campaign to take the top post in Frankfurt.

A columnist for the Financial Times daily was bullish this week, saying: “The ECB needs Draghi.” And The Economist said: “The next president of the world?s second-most-important central bank should be Mario Draghi.”

13 Bank scandal highlights Afghan corruption

by Katherine Haddon, AFP

Sat Feb 19, 9:29 pm ET

KABUL (AFP) – Featuring a world-class poker player, a brother of the president and a reported $900 million in missing cash, the poisonous scandal over Afghanistan’s Kabul Bank could be straight out of a thriller.

But the near-collapse of the impoverished war-torn country’s biggest commercial lender is very real, highlighting endemic corruption among Kabul’s elite and threatening major losses for thousands of ordinary people.

As President Hamid Karzai’s government and Western officials trade fresh accusations over the affair, it also underlines stormy relations between the two sides, five months before a limited withdrawal of international troops starts.

Reuters

14 Libya turmoil boosts oil, restrains equities

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent, Reuters

57 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices charged to a fresh 2-1/2 year high Monday as traders eyed increasing violence in major producer Libya, feeding fears about rising inflation and unsettling other markets.

European equities fell on a combination of uncertainty over the future of the oil price, increasing signs that higher interest rates may be coming and more evidence of a surprisingly poor earnings season.

Together, they overshadowed reports of solid economic growth. U.S. markets were closed for a national holiday.

15 ECB’s Bini Smaghi says inflation a concern

By Farah Master, Reuters

2 hrs 40 mins ago

HONG KONG (Reuters) – European Central Bank board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said on Monday the euro zone is enjoying better-than-expected economic growth, but warned inflation is becoming a concern and higher food and energy prices may be permanent.

“Things are better than expected in terms of growth (and) unemployment,” Bini Smaghi told a business lunch in Hong Kong.

In a speech that focused on the financial turmoil in Europe and prospects for the euro currency, he said there were concerns in the financial markets about euro zone’s higher-than-expected inflation and warned that higher energy and food prices may be something economies have to get used to.

16 G20 ministers fudge deal on imbalance indicators

By Louise Egan and Daniel Flynn, Reuters

Sat Feb 19, 2:04 pm ET

PARIS (Reuters) – Finance ministers of the world’s major economies reached a fudged accord on Saturday on how to measure imbalances in the global economy after China prevented the use of exchange rates and currency reserves as indicators.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who chaired the Group of 20 talks, said the deal nevertheless represented a significant step toward better coordination of economic policies worldwide to help prevent another financial crisis.

“It wasn’t simple. There were obviously divergent interests but we were able to reach a compromise on a text that seems to us to be both balanced and demanding in its implementation,” she told a news conference.

17 Iceland president forces new Icesave referendum

By Omar Valdimarsson, Reuters

Sun Feb 20, 1:14 pm ET

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) – Iceland’s president on Sunday triggered a referendum on an updated plan to repay $5 billion to Britain and the Netherlands for debts incurred in the financial crisis, renewing uncertainty over economic recovery.

Iceland, where the economy and financial system crashed in late 2008, owes Britain and the Netherlands money they used to bail out domestic savers who lost money in online “Icesave” accounts run by a failed Icelandic bank.

Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson said the new terms thrashed out over months of negotiation were better than the first deal, rejected by Icelanders last year.

18 Geithner points to China yuan spillover to others

By Glenn Somerville, Reuters

Sat Feb 19, 1:40 pm ET

PARIS (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Saturday pointed to the problems China’s tightly controlled currency poses for other developing economies and said Beijing still had further to go to let its currency rise.

Talks at a Group of 20 meeting in Paris centered round efforts, led by Germany and G20 presidents France, to persuade China to include its yawning current account surplus and undervalued currency in a list of measures aimed to start a process of rebalancing the global economy.

There was little public evidence that the United States itself had pushed Beijing hard on that issue, but Geithner reiterated that there was still some way to go in the steady appreciation of the yuan.

19 "Buy everything" sentiment continues

By Angela Moon, Reuters

Sun Feb 20, 11:40 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors will continue to ride the speediest rally in U.S. stocks since the Great Depression despite growing concerns that the market is overbought and due for a correction.

Wall Street posted its third consecutive week of gains with the S&P 500 now up 6.8 percent for the year and more than 20 percent in just six months.

“I’ve never seen a market like this,” said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont, a market watcher for 35 years.

20 Sweet spot in Mexico earns second look from investors

By Patrick Rucker, Reuters

Fri Feb 18, 8:25 pm ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s improving economic prospects, coupled with low inflation, are winning the country a second look from international investors and fund managers.

Investors see potential in Mexico’s services sector and in enticing more companies to market, and are also bullish about new financial tools which could send billions of dollars into infrastructure and private equity deals.

Expected economic growth of about 4 percent this year, combined with inflation of about 3.5 percent, compares well to regional peers, many of which are tightening monetary policy to fend off surging prices.

21 BATS buying Chi-X Europe, challenge national rivals

By Luke Jeffs and Jonathan Spicer, Reuters

Fri Feb 18, 6:15 pm ET

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – BATS Global Markets, the U.S.-based exchange operator, is taking over peer Chi-X Europe in a deal that could put even more pressure on the dominance of national bourses that themselves are banding together to survive.

The deal to create so-called BATS Chi-X Europe, announced on Friday, is the latest in a spate of merger plans rocking the world’s stock-trading market.

Dealer-owned BATS said it expects the combination should face little regulatory resistance, and should ultimately position it to expand into more profitable derivatives trading, and possibly a listings business.

22 "Flash crash" panel calls for market overhaul

By Roberta Rampton and Jonathan Spicer, Reuters

Fri Feb 18, 5:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Regulators should stem the growing tide of anonymous stock-trading and consider imposing fees on high-frequency traders, said a panel of experts advising how to avoid another “flash crash.”

The panel’s 14 recommendations for U.S. securities and futures regulators contained far-reaching ideas to overhaul the high-speed electronic market.

Yet many of the ideas issued on Friday called only for “consideration” or “further study” — potentially raising more questions as the first anniversary of the May 6 flash crash nears.

23 Citigroup sets exec bonuses, tied to profits

By Maria Aspan and Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

Fri Feb 18, 4:56 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc (C.N), recovering after a series of government bailouts, will pay some top executives millions of dollars of cash bonuses if its core operations earn at least $12 billion before taxes over the next two years.

The awards “are intended to sharpen the executives’ focus” on long-term performance without excess risk, and align their interests with those of stockholders, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets said in a regulatory filing on Friday.

John Havens, the bank’s chief operating officer and a longtime confidant of Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, could get a $5.2 million bonus under the plan, and the sum could grow significantly higher if the bank performs well.

24 Corporate America’s economic outlook

By Emily Kaiser, Reuters

Sun Feb 20, 3:01 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street and the U.S. government statisticians seem to have very different views on the state of the economy.

Earnings expectations have risen since October for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of big businesses, according to Thomson Reuters data. Lofty stock market indexes reflect that optimism.

Private surveys of manufacturers and small businesses show both confidence and hiring intentions improving.

AP

25 Libyan clashes hit stocks as oil prices surge

By PAN PYLAS, AP Business Writer

2 hrs 33 mins ago

LONDON – Fears that Libya is heading toward civil war weighed on stocks Monday and pushed oil prices sharply higher.

With reports suggesting that over 200 people have been killed in clashes across the country, which have spread to the capital of Tripoli, investors are getting increasingly worried about the escalating violence in one of Africa’s biggest oil producers.

Those concerns were heightened by a statement from Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libya’s longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi. Blaming everyone from drug addicts to the media for the current turmoil afflicting Libya, he warned that civil war was a real possibility and that his father would fight until “the last bullet.”

26 For compromise in Wis., 3 GOP senators are needed

By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 3:05 am ET

MADISON, Wis. – To end a high-stakes stalemate over union rights that has captured the nation’s attention, a handful of Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin might have to stand up to their new governor.

Gov. Scott Walker made clear Sunday he won’t back off his proposal to effectively eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public employees. Senate Democrats who fled the state last week to delay the plan vowed not to come back to allow it to pass – even if they have to miss votes on other bills Tuesday. And union leaders said they would not let up on protests that have consumed Wisconsin’s capital city for a week and made the state the center of a national debate over the role of public employees’ unions.

That dynamic means it might take Republicans in the Legislature who believe Walker is going too far to try to break the impasse. One idea that has been floated by GOP Sen. Dale Schultz would temporarily take away bargaining rights to get through the state’s next two-year budget, then immediately restore them.

27 Memories of 1995 haunt GOP as shutdown talk grows

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press

Mon Feb 21, 3:45 am ET

WASHINGTON – Few memories haunt Republicans more deeply than the 1995-96 partial shutdown of the federal government, which helped President Bill Clinton reverse his falling fortunes and recast House Republicans as stubborn partisans, not savvy insurgents.

Now, as Congress careens toward a budget impasse, government insiders wonder if another shutdown is imminent – and whether Republicans again would suffer the most blame.

Leaders of both parties say they are determined to avoid a shutdown. But they have not yielded on the amount of spending cuts they will demand or accept. Meanwhile, shutdown talk is rippling through Washington and beyond.

28 Gulf shares drop on Mideast unrest

By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer

Sun Feb 20, 3:52 pm ET

CAIRO – Stocks markets across the Gulf Arab states fell Sunday, with Dubai’s largest exchange registering the steepest drop as unrest in the Mideast lapped at the shores of oil kingpin Saudi Arabia.

The Dubai Financial Market closed down 3.66 percent, to 1,536 points, with developer Emaar Properties’ shares sliding 4.73 percent. The company was the force behind the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. In Kuwait, the benchmark index closed down 2.52 percent, to 6,394, and bringing its year-to-date losses to more than 8 percent.

The drops in the oil-rich Gulf region’s exchanges are largely linked to the unrest in Bahrain, where massive protests have roiled the island nation for more than a week as the Shiite majority presses the Sunni monarchy for greater rights and freedoms. Meanwhile, a bloody crackdown on protesters in Libya has further rattled markets as the unrest spilled over to the first major oil producer in the Middle East.

29 NATO disputes claims it killed 64 Afghan civilians

By DEB RIECHMANN and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press

Sun Feb 20, 3:10 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – Tribal elders in a remote part of northeastern Afghanistan claimed Sunday that NATO forces killed 64 civilians in air and ground strikes over the past four days. The international coalition denied the claim, saying video showed troops targeting and killing dozens of insurgents.

Coalition and Afghan officials plan to go to the Ghazi Abad district of Kunbar province, a hotbed of the insurgency, on Monday to investigate. Civilian casualties have been a constant source of friction between coalition troops and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Tribal elders told the provincial governor that air strikes hit a village in the area and that “women and children had been killed inside their houses,” said Nawrdin Safi, a member of the Kunar provincial council.

30 Banks reopen in Egypt after week closure

By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer

Sun Feb 20, 3:33 pm ET

CAIRO – Banks across Egypt threw open their doors Sunday, returning to business after an almost weeklong closure mandated by the central bank because of strikes and labor protests that have hampered efforts to reboot the nation’s economy.

It marked the second time in three weeks that Egypt’s banks have reopened after a state-ordered closure, highlighting the uncertainty that prevails in the country more than a week after mass demonstrations toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak. An earlier attempt to open the banks and establish a semblance of normalcy during the height of the anti-government protests lasted only a week before the lenders were ordered shut.

Reopening the banks is a critical step in returning to business as usual in a country where the sense of hope sparked by Mubarak’s ouster is tempered by the frustration that comes with crafting a new political framework while also trying to allow people to move on with their lives.

31 Fuzzy compromise threatens relevance of G-20

By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER and GREG KELLER, AP Business Writers

Sat Feb 19, 4:42 pm ET

PARIS – The world’s dominant economies on Saturday struck a watered down deal on how to smooth out trade and currency imbalances many say exacerbated the financial crisis, but the difficulty in getting vastly different economies like China and the United States on the same page doesn’t bode well for the Group of 20 rich and developing countries as a forum for global decision making.

G-20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Paris agreed on a list of technical indicators to track those imbalances – caused by some countries consuming more while others tend to hold on to their money – but left the more tricky questions of when those imbalances actually become dangerous and what to do to mitigate them for later.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, whose country holds the G-20 presidency this year, said the all-night talks had been “tense” at times, indicating the clash in national interests between countries that find themselves on completely divergent growth trajectories after the 2008 financial crisis that plunged the world into its worst economic recession in 70 years.

32 In Wyoming, push to mine rare earths in US forest

By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press

Sun Feb 20, 12:13 pm ET

SUNDANCE, Wyo. – A Canadian company hoping to compete with China’s near-monopoly of rare earth elements – metals critical for everything from U.S. military weaponry to wind turbines – wants to open a strip mine inside a national forest in northeast Wyoming.

Processing raw ore into rare earths is an intensive operation that has been associated with radioactive water spills. But with China slashing exports of rare earths and Washington concerned the U.S. military could face a shortage of materials for lasers, smart bombs, guided missiles, night-vision goggles and jet engines, Don Ranta is optimistic about his Black Hills National Forest mine proposal.

“Everything we’ve seen so far looks very, very bullish for it to be a commercial project,” said Ranta, CEO of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Rare Element Resources. If approved and if it goes into production, the mine would be located about 15 miles from Devils Tower National Monument, the nation’s first national monument.

33 Big names eye real estate in blighted SF downtown

By ROBIN HINDERY, Associated Press

Sat Feb 19, 1:35 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Josette Melchor spends much of her time devising ways to lure art lovers into the contemporary exhibition space she runs in downtown San Francisco, halfway between the city’s Civic Center and bustling Union Square.

She also spends time making sure other people stay out.

“We don’t have open doors, ever. They’re always locked,” said Melchor, whose Gray Area Foundation for the Arts sits at the convergence of the Tenderloin and Mid-Market, two of the city’s most downtrodden neighborhoods. “We must see 100 crimes every week out of these windows, and although the city wants it to change, it hasn’t happened.”

34 New Facebook status options applauded by gay users

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer

Fri Feb 18, 9:36 pm ET

NEW YORK – Jay Lassiter is no longer “in a relationship.”

Let’s clarify that: Lassiter, a media adviser for political campaigns who lives in Cherry Hill, N.J., is still with his partner of nearly eight years, Greg Lehmkuho. But since Thursday, when Facebook expanded its romantic-status options, Lassiter’s profile there echoes his relationship’s legal status: “Domestic partnership.”

It may not be a life-altering change. After all, you can call yourself anything you want on a social network. And Facebook is merely that.

35 Detroit Symphony suspends season amid strike

By DAVID RUNK, Associated Press

Sat Feb 19, 6:57 pm ET

DETROIT – The Detroit Symphony Orchestra on Saturday suspended the rest of its season after musicians voted to reject management’s latest contract offer, dashing hopes for an end to a contentious walkout that has dragged on for months.

The musicians said no further meetings with management had been scheduled, but both sides said they remained committed to talks to end the more than four-month strike. The musicians said the 3-year, $36 million proposal – dubbed a final offer by management – would have saddled them with unacceptably higher heath care deductibles and travel costs.

“Today’s decision reflects our deep disappointment at the inability of the executives to be upfront and honest with people,” Gordon Stump, president of the Detroit Federation of Musicians, said in a statement.

36 Regulators close 4 Ga., Calif. banks; 22 in 2011

By MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writer

Fri Feb 18, 10:59 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Regulators on Friday shut down two small banks in Georgia and two in California, boosting to 22 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after the weak economy and mounting bad debt brought down 157 banks in 2010.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday seized Habersham Bank, based in Clarkesville, Ga., with $387.6 million in assets; Citizens Bank of Effingham, based in Springfield, Ga., with $214.3 million in assets; Charter Oak Bank of Napa, Calif., with $120.8 million in assets; and San Luis Trust Bank, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., with $332.6 million in assets.

SCBT National Association, based in Orangeburg, S.C., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Habersham Bank. HeritageBank of the South, based in Albany, Ga., is acquiring the assets and deposits of Citizens Bank of Effingham.

37 Freshmen spur GOP-run House on big spending cuts

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

Sat Feb 19, 12:30 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The GOP-run House, jolted by freshmen determined to drive down the deficit, snatched $61 billion from hundreds of federal programs while shielding coal companies, oil refiners and farms from new federal regulations.

Passage early Saturday of the $1.2 trillion bill, covering every Cabinet agency through Sept. 30, when the current budget year ends, sent the measure to the Senate, where it faces longer odds, and defied a White House veto threat.

The largely party-line vote of 235-189 was the most striking victory to date for the 87 freshman Republicans elected last fall on a promise to attack the deficit and reduce the reach of government. Three Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the measure.

38 Ford plans to team with Sollers in Russia

By SHARON SILKE CARTY and NATALIYA VASILYEVA, Associated Press

Fri Feb 18, 9:26 pm ET

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. is teaming up with Russian automaker Sollers to make and distribute cars in Russia, one of the fastest growing auto markets.

Under a deal announced Friday, Sollers will build Fords at Russian plants, helping boost a struggling local industry. Ford will have access to a huge market that could bolster its revenues.

Financial details weren’t disclosed, but the automakers said they will have equal stakes in their joint venture called Ford Sollers. Ford declined to give production or sales targets for the venture.

39 Bernanke urges nations to help ease trade gaps

By GREG KELLER and JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Business Writers

Fri Feb 18, 1:13 pm ET

PARIS – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday urged countries with large trade surpluses like China to let their currencies rise in value to help prevent another global financial crisis.

He also called on nations with persistent trade deficits like the United States to narrow their budget shortfalls and save more.

Both steps would help balance trade and investment flows among countries, Bernanke said in a speech at a financial conference in Paris. Many countries worry about speculative money flooding their economies and inflating assets like real estate or stocks.

40 Campbell says sales, profit dip; cuts guidance

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

Fri Feb 18, 6:20 pm ET

PHILADELPHIA – The Campbell Soup Co. sold more cans of soup in its fiscal second quarter, but at such deep discounts it drove down the company’s profit.

The quarterly decline was expected, but it came with some other bad news from the food maker. The outlook for the rest of the year is cloudy enough that Campbell lowered its full-year earnings and revenue guidance for the second time in about three months.

The Camden, N.J., company said Friday that its income fell 8 percent and sales were down 1 percent.

41 Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo seizes 4 international banks

By MARCO CHOWN OVED, Associated Press

Fri Feb 18, 4:32 pm ET

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – Ivory Coast’s incumbent leader who is clinging to power seized four major international banks Friday that had closed their operations earlier this week, attempting to pay civil servants amid a deepening liquidity crisis.

The spokesman for the sitting president, Laurent Gbagbo, read a decree on state TV late Thursday saying that the banks closed without giving the three months notice required by Ivorian law.

Ahoua Don Mello said the government would take over the offices of Britain’s Standard Chartered, France’s BNP-Paribas and Societe Generale along with U.S. bank Citibank. He also said that the government was imposing a citywide curfew, as panic spread.

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