We are the Whirled, We are the Children

Everyday, I shake my head at some bit of news. Yesterday, it was this:

February 5, 2009
Obama Calls for ‘Common Sense’ on Executive Pay
By STEPHEN LABATON and VIKAS BAJAJ

WASHINGTON — In announcing executive pay limits on Wednesday, President Obama is trying to hold the financial industry accountable to taxpayers while aiming to change an entrenched corporate culture that endorses outsize bonuses and perks that often bear little relationship to corporate performance.

Mr. Obama also needs to deflect a growing populist outrage over sky-high pay among the banks and other companies now on the public dole. His announcement comes just days before the administration is expected to unveil a new strategy — and possibly request more money from Congress — to guarantee or buy outright hundreds of billions of dollars in bad assets held by banks.

The new rules would set a $500,000 cap on cash compensation for the most senior executives, curtail severance pay when top executives left a company, restricting cashing in on stock incentives until government assistance was repaid and prod corporate boards to closely scrutinize luxury perquisites like private jets and country club memberships. To read the rest

My first reaction to this story was, "That's Socialism!" Whatever it is, these days, I hear way too much talk about "the death of capitalism..." To hear the President of the United States dictating corporate salaries is too much for my tinnitus plagued ears but I shouldn't be surprised by anything. Lately, it seems to have been revealed that our so-called experts and betters are actually either "empty suits or animated mannequins."

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Life gets more surreal by the day.

Help, I fallen through the looking glass and can't get back.

Obama searches for an honest man (or so it appears) and because he is being advised by the status quo, inside the beltway Democrats, he seems to be having a hard time finding one. The daily news is about one nominee after the other with tax problems.

Well, I'm sure that is something we can all identify with. Tax evasion seems to be the thread that binds us. Isn't it warm and fuzzy to learn that underneath it all, no matter what our political stripe, we are all the same. We do not like paying the tax man, but together, yes, we can.
All together now...

We are the Whirled,
We are the children.
We are the ones to make a brighter day,
so let's start giving.

As The Whirled Turns

While Drudge splashes the news that 90% of the US is under a freeze warning tonight, the new US Energy Secretary issues a diametrically opposed warning.

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California farms, vineyards in peril from warming, U.S. energy secretary warns.

'We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California,' Steven Chu says. He sees education as a means to combat threat.

By Jim Tankersley, Los Angeles Times

February 4, 2009

Reporting from Washington — California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said Tuesday.

In his first interview since taking office last month, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist offered some of the starkest comments yet on how seriously President Obama's cabinet views the threat of climate change, along with a detailed assessment of the administration's plans to combat it.

Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation's leading agricultural producer.

In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.

"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either.

A pair of recent studies raise similar warnings. One, published in January in the journal Science, raised the specter of worldwide crop shortages as temperatures rise. Another, penned by UC Berkeley researchers last year, estimated California has about $2.5 trillion in real estate assets -- including agriculture -- endangered by warming.

Chu is not a climate scientist. He won his Nobel for work trapping atoms with laser light. He taught at Stanford University and directed the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he reoriented researchers to pursue "clean energy" technologies to help reduce the use of greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels in the U.S., before Obama tapped him to head the Energy Department.

He stressed the threat of climate change in his Senate confirmation hearings and in a video clip posted on Obama's transition website, but not as bluntly, nor in as dire terms, as he did Tuesday.

In the course of a half-hour interview, Chu made clear that he sees public education as a key part of the administration's strategy to fight global warming -- along with billions of dollars for alternative energy research and infrastructure, a national standard for electricity from renewable sources and cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the threat of warming is keeping policymakers focused on alternatives to fossil fuel, even though gasoline prices have fallen over the last six months from historic highs. But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.

"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.

Environmentalists welcomed the comments as a sharp break from the Bush administration, which often minimized research about global warming.

"To say the least, it's a breath of fresh air," said Bernadette Del Chiaro, who directs the clean air and global warming program for Environment California. "We've been worried about the impacts of global warming for years, even decades. He's absolutely right -- California stands to lose so much in our way of life."

Global warming skeptics were not swayed. "I am hopeful Secretary Chu will take note of the real-world data, new studies and the growing chorus of international scientists that question his climate claims," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement. "Computer model predictions of the year 2100 are simply not evidence of a looming climate catastrophe."

Send This Bitch to Hell, Slowly

Iraqi woman 'recruited more than 80 female suicide bombers'
Telegraph

The woman – who was identified as Samira Ahmed Jassim or by her nickname "Umm al-Mumineen", which means the mother of believers – was shown confessing in a video played for reporters at a press conference in Baghdad.

Dressed in an all-encompassing black Islamic robe, she described how she would persuade the women to be bombers, then escort them to an orchard for insurgent training and finally pick them up and lead them to their targets.
She said she was acting on behalf of insurgents based in the volatile Diyala province, north of Baghdad.

Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi said the suspect had recruited more than 80 women willing to carry out attacks and had admitted masterminding 28 bombings in different areas.

The American and Iraqi militaries have made past claims about efforts by insurgents to recruit vulnerable women and children as attackers, but have provided little evidence. Statements that two women who blew themselves up last year in Baghdad had Down's syndrome that later proved to be exaggerated.

Al-Moussawi said Jassim's arrest was the result of tips and produced the video to lend credence to the allegations.

The number of bombings carried out by women has spiked even as overall violence has declined, and US commanders have warned insurgents are actively trying to find more recruits.

At least 36 female suicide bombers attempted or successfully carried out 32 suicide attacks last year, compared with eight in 2007, according to American military figures.
The military said it couldn't provide information on the number of female suicide bombers so far this year, but on Jan 4, a woman who blew herself up in the midst of Iranian pilgrims in Baghdad killed more than three dozen people.

This M80, applied properly, would appropriately send this woman on her journey.

The use of female suicide bombers is part of a shift in insurgent tactics to avoid detection at US-Iraqi military checkpoints that have become ubiquitous in Iraq as part of increased security measures.

Iraqi women often are allowed to pass through male-guarded checkpoints without being searched, and they traditionally wear flowing black robes that make it easier to hide explosives belts.

To counter the threat, the American military has stepped up efforts to recruit women for the Iraqi security forces.

Jassim was arrested by Iraqi security forces acting on tips on Jan 21 and is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group, al-Moussawi said.

The spokesman would not say where Jassim was arrested because the investigation was ongoing. But he said the recruits had been from Baghdad and Diyala province. He also said she had contact with a pair of recently detained insurgent brothers.
In the video, Jassim said she had to talk to one elderly woman several times before persuading her to blow herself up at a bus station.

It also took Jassim two weeks to recruit another woman who was a teacher and had problems with her husband and his family, according to the confession. That woman eventually attacked members of government-backed Sunni groups in Diyala province, the suspect said.

"Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."

Fruit salad alley.

Pentagon brass chafes at Obama's Iraq pullout plan
By Inter Press Service

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Gareth Porter Lebanon Daily Star

WASHINGTON: CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus, supported by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to pullout all US combat troops from Iraq within 18 months at an Oval Office meeting on January 21, sources have said.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama's decision to override Petraeus' recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including General Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilizing public opinion against Obama's decision.

Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying: "Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."

Petraeus, Gates and Odierno had hoped to sell Obama on a plan that they formulated in the final months of the Bush administration that aimed at getting around a key provision of the US-Iraqi withdrawal agreement by re-categorizing large numbers of combat troops as support troops. That subterfuge was formulated by the United States last November while ostensibly allowing Obama to deliver on his campaign promise.

Gates and Mullen had discussed the relabeling scheme with Obama as part of the Petraeus-Odierno plan for withdrawal they had presented to him in mid-December, according to a December 18 New York Times story.

Obama decided against making any public reference to his order to the military to draft a detailed 16-month combat-troop withdrawal policy, apparently so that he can announce his decision only after consulting with his field commanders and the Pentagon.

The first clear indication of the intention of Petraeus, Odierno and their allies to try to get Obama to amend his decision came on January 29 when the New York Times published an interview with Odierno, ostensibly based on the premise that Obama had indicated that he was "open to alternatives."

The Times reported that Odierno had "developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama's campaign timetable" and had suggested in an interview "it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly."

The opening argument by the Petraeus-Odierno faction against Obama's withdrawal policy was revealed the evening of the January 21 meeting when retired army General Jack Keane, one of the authors of the Bush troop-surge policy and a close political ally and mentor of Petraeus, appeared on the "Lehrer News Hour" to comment on Obama's pledge on Iraq combat troop withdrawal.

Keane, who had certainly been briefed by Petraeus on the outcome of the Oval Office meeting, argued that implementing such a withdrawal of combat troops would "increase the risk rather dramatically over the 16 months."

He asserted that it would jeopardize the "stable political situation in Iraq" and called that risk "not acceptable."

The assertion that Obama's withdrawal policy threatens the gains allegedly won by the Bush troop surge and Petraeus' strategy in Iraq will apparently be the theme of the campaign that military opponents are now planning.


Keane, the army vice chief of staff from 1999-03, has ties to a network of active and retired four-star army generals, and since Obama's January 21 order on the 16-month withdrawal plan, some of the retired four-star generals in that network have begun discussing a campaign to blame Obama's troop withdrawal from Iraq for the ultimate collapse of the political "stability" that they expect to follow the US withdrawal, according to a military source familiar with the network's plans.

The source says the network, which includes senior active-duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama's withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy.

If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without US troops.

That line seems likely to appeal to reporters covering the Iraq troop-withdrawal issue. Ever since Obama's inauguration, media coverage of the issue has treated Obama's 16-month withdrawal proposal as a concession to anti-war sentiment which will have to be adjusted to the "realities" as defined by the advice to Obama from Gates, Petraeus and Odierno.

Ever since he began working on the troop surge, Keane has been the central figure manipulating policy in order to keep as many US troops in Iraq as possible. It was Keane who got Vice President Dick Cheney to push for Petraeus as top commander in Iraq in late 2006 when the existing commander, General George W. Casey, did not support the troop surge.

It was Keane who protected Petraeus' interests in ensuring the maximum number of troops in Iraq against the efforts by other military leaders to accelerate troop withdrawal in 2007 and 2008. As Bob Woodward reported in "The War Within," Keane persuaded Bush to override the concerns of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the stress of prolonged US occupation of Iraq on the US Army and Marine Corps as well as its impact on the worsening situation in Afghanistan.

Bush agreed in September 2007 to guarantee that Petraeus would have as many troops as he needed for as long as wanted, according to Woodward's account.

Keane had also prevailed on Gates in April 2008 to make Petraeus the new commander of CENTCOM. Keane argued that keeping Petraeus in the field was the best insurance against a Democratic administration reversing the Bush policy toward Iraq.

Keane had operated on the assumption that a Democratic president would probably not take the political risk of rejecting Petraeus' recommendation on the pace of troop withdrawal from Iraq. Woodward quotes Keane as telling Gates: "Let's assume we have a Democratic administration and they want to pull this thing out quickly, and now they have to deal with General Petraeus and General Odierno. There will be a price to be paid to override them."

Obama told Petraeus in Baghdad last July that if elected, he would regard the overall health of the US Army and Marine Corps and the situation in Afghanistan as more important than Petraeus' obvious interest in maximizing US troop strength in Iraq, according to Time magazine's Joe Klein.

But judging from Petraeus' shock at Obama's January 21 decision, he had not taken Obama's previous rejection of his arguments seriously. That miscalculation suggests that Petraeus had begun to accept Keane's assertion that a newly elected Democratic president would not dare to override his policy recommendation on troops in Iraq.

Mr. President, put on your coat and tie.

Obama without a coat and tie in the White House makes me nervous. I am beginning to feel that this is not going to end well. He comes across as a bit too sure of himself and I am getting a twitch.

At Davos The Whirled Turns Against US

What do they want from us? On one hand, the US consumers who have driven the world's long bull market are castigated for having done so. On the other hand, any talk of cutting them off from those consumers via protectionist trade policies are met with fighting talk. You can't win for losing.

International Herald Tribune
In time of crisis, looking to U.S. with wariness and hope
By Nelson D. Schwartz
Sunday, February 1, 2009

DAVOS, Switzerland: This was supposed to be the year the United States came in from the cold at the annual gathering of world leaders here. But instead of receiving a warm embrace, American policies were rebuked again and again in rhetoric that recalled the anger of the Bush years - except the ire this time was mostly directed at Washington's economic failings, rather than its diplomatic ones.

There is a deep reservoir of good will for President Barack Obama personally and the change in direction he represents. But his administration is about to discover that the rest of the world does not seem to be in a hurry to forgive and forget - and that it sees a new threat in the form of U.S. protectionism.

Despite the pledges to encourage international trade and economic cooperation that accompanied the closing sessions of the gathering, the World Economic Forum, on Sunday, there were clear signs that deep divisions between the United States and the rest of the world remained.

"There is such a level of concern, despair and anxiety that as welcome as the new president is, no one is inclined to cut the U.S. much slack," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Or as Niall Ferguson, the Harvard historian, put it, "If GM got a new CEO, does that mean people would suddenly want to buy their cars?"

The criticism did not come only from the usual suspects, like Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin of Russia and Wen Jiabao of China, who both decried a long pattern of excessive consumption, risky borrowing and inadequate regulation in the United States.

More significant, the brickbats also came from economic and political leaders of European allies like Germany and France.

Whether the issue was the recent bailout for the American auto industry or provisions favoring U.S. steel producers in the stimulus package now being debated on Capitol Hill, overseas observers warned that any move toward protectionism would have serious consequences for Washington and the rest of the world.

"We must not allow market forces to be completely distorted," Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, warned in a speech on Wednesday. "For instance, I am very wary of seeing subsidies injected into the U.S. auto industry. That could lead to distortion and protectionism."

By the weekend, as word of the "Buy American" proposal spread through Davos, the tone had become sharper.

"It's extremely preoccupying that one of the first acts of the new Obama administration could be a measure that is clearly protectionist and a distortion of competition," said Anne-Marie Idrac, the French trade minister.

She said it was a "very bad sign that goes against" earlier statements opposing protectionism by the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies.

Idrac demanded immediate action by Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization.

Lamy, also at Davos, declined to be drawn into the battle. "If there is a breach of the rules," he said, it would be dealt with by WTO member nations' bringing action against the United States under the trade group's rules.

"I am not that big cop," he added.

For all the global affection for Obama, Washington sent a relatively low-profile contingent to Davos, with Valerie Jarrett, a White House adviser, serving as the administration's headliner here.

Jarrett did not address the issue of protectionism directly in her brief speech on Thursday, preferring to stick with the big picture as well as Obama's connection to Chicago, her hometown.

Instead, the task of defending American economic policy fell to attendees like Representative Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington State, who has served in Congress for the last decade.

"The steel issue is vastly overplayed here," he said. "Even Adam Smith himself said certain key industries deserved to have protection."

Noting that his district is home to two steel plants - down from three a few years ago - he added, "Steel is one of those industries."

He suggested that this was not the time to push free-trade rhetoric on U.S. taxpayers already worried about surging levels of unemployment.

"If you want to kill the WTO, that would be the way to do it," he said.

Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, also took a pragmatic view.

"In order to pass a piece of legislation, items are added that are necessary to secure the votes," she said.

Davos has always stood for globalization, and the benefits of free trade are an article of faith at the meetings. But even Davos die-hards admit that national economic interests have come to the fore amid the global downturn, and voter support for easing trade barriers is at a low ebb.

To be sure, for all the foreign criticism over the help for the Detroit automakers, European countries including France, Britain and Sweden have offered up billions in aid for local auto manufacturers.

But beyond the public sparring over these and other specific concerns, many overseas observers are also privately concerned about how the U.S. government will pay for Obama's proposed stimulus package, which could ultimately cost $1 trillion.

A binge of new borrowing by Washington could effectively crowd out other borrowers by pushing interest rates higher over the long term, and would be especially painful for developing countries that rely on foreign capital.

At the same time, printing more dollars could undermine the value of both the dollar and the many currencies around the world pegged to it, stoking inflation when the global economy eventually begins to recover.

Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico who helped steer his country through a financial crisis in 1994, said developing countries were already finding it harder to raise capital without competing with increased U.S. borrowing.

And his country does not have the option of printing money, he noted, since the Mexican peso is not a global reserve currency like the dollar.

Meanwhile, the current Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, could not resist a swipe at the now-departed administration of George W. Bush. The global finance crisis started in the United States, he said, and coincided with a lack of leadership in that nation.

But for all the complaining from abroad, no other economic power - not Europe, not Japan and not China - seems ready to step up and fill the role traditionally played by the United States.

"The irony of the situation," said Haas, of the Council on Foreign Relations, "is that everyone is still looking to the U.S. for leadership to fix things or at least make things better."

Calderón made exactly that point alongside his criticism of U.S. economic policies.

"The new president has the opportunity to lead his nation and the world," he said.

Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting.
Correction:
Notes:
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2009 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

Michael Phelps and His Magic Bong Photo

Guaranteed to blow your mind and money.

The kid can swim , but is demonstrably a dumb shit, and hopefully not a business major. Here he is in his own words of course:

I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment," Phelps said in the statement released by one of his agents. "I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

The Trilion Dollar Question: Will China Keep Buying US Treasuries?

An interesting little clip, this is.

It is clever word crafting. It is a shot over the bow at the US Congress on free trade, Buy America, Chinese purchase of US securities, Chinese selling of US securities, a stable yuan (read: quit pressuring the Chinese to re-value the juan) and it is all encapsulated with a term the Chinese love to use "everyone's interests."

Speaking of everyone's interest, how about this?

It would be a very good time to approach the Chinese and suggest a joint US-Chinese development of a common jointly designed and produced nuclear power plants. By hook or crook, the Chinese have our technology plus their own. The Chinese could get their plants on line much faster than in the US and it could be made into a massive stimulus and investment program.

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Chinese Cautious on Treasury Notes


Published: January 31, 2009
LONDON (Reuters) —

China’s willingness to continue buying United States Treasury securities in large numbers will depend on its need to protect the value of its foreign investments, the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, said Saturday. He also said that a stable yuan is in everyone’s interests.

“Whether we will buy more U.S. Treasury bonds, and if so by how much — we should take that decision in accordance with China’s own need and also our aim to keep the security of our foreign reserves and the value of them,” Mr. Wen said.

His enigmatic remarks, made near the end of a visit to Europe, could raise new concerns about China’s commitment to continue purchasing United States government debt.