Posted by seumasach on February 3, 2009
3rd February, 2009
See also:
Election monitors give vote of no confidence to results of 3 May polls
Open Rights Group May 2007 election report
The SNP demanded an inquiry today after it emerged that a record of everyone who voted in last year’s Glenrothes by-election has gone missing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: electoral fraud, fraudulent Scottish elections | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 3, 2009
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Posted by seumasach on February 1, 2009
Link Muslims
24th Janaury, 2009
United States is continuing its missile attacks into Pakistan’s tribal area bordering Afghanistan even after Barack Obama has swarn in as US new president. The latest attack on Friday 23, 2009 killed 22 people in different incidents of ’suspected’ US missile strikes by drones in northwest tribal area of Pakistan.
More than 30 of such attacks by unmanned US planes have taken place in tribal areas since August 2008.
Pakistani leaders complain publicly that the stepped-up missile strikes violate the country’s sovereignty and undermine the government’s own efforts to tackle rising extremists violence in the country.
Such attacks may increase the deaths of some extremists along with innocent children and women fueling anger against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and making it easier for exteremists to recruite more people for their activities. It is only increasing difficulties for Pakistan which is fighting war against terrorism for US.
Source: The Canadian Press
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: "War on Terror", bombing Pakistan. Obama foreign policy, Obama, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
“The plan would satisfy two conditions set by Peer Steinbrück, finance minister: that it should not involve any new financial commitments by the government; and that the banks, not the taxpayer, should ultimately continue to carry the risks associated with toxic assets”
This looks somewhat like the plans of some of our own more enlightened economists who want avoid simply pouring endless money into a bottomless black hole.
30th January, 2009
The toxic assets of troubled German banks will be spun off into separate “bad banks” under a new government plan, the Financial Times has learnt.
Instead of setting up a national “bad bank”, the German government wants banks to set up individual vehicles to hold their illiquid assets
These would be issued with state guarantees by the government’s existing bank rescue fund. Once rid of these assets, the banks could apply to the fund for fresh capital.
Angela Merkel, German chancellor, has come under pressure to modify the government’s October rescue package for the sector, which has failed to shore up confidence in the banks. With its latest plan, Berlin hopes to stop the spiral of asset writedowns eating into balance sheets and forcing banks to hoard capital.
Coalition officials agreed on the outline of the plan on Friday at a closed-door meeting in parliament, participants told the FT. There had been only minor differences between the finance ministry and representatives of Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, they said.
The finance ministry refused to comment.
Berlin aims to finalise the scheme by the beginning of March, too late to have an impact on last year’s balance sheet but in time for the publication of most banks’ annual reports and general meetings. Officials said they did not know whether the sector would support the plan.
The government’s original €500bn bank rescue package included €400bn in credit guarantees for new bank debt as well as fresh capital for cash-strapped lenders. The package is distinct from the €50bn fiscal stimulus adopted by the government this month to support consumption and protect jobs.
Under the proposal, the “bad banks” could use German accounting rules, allowing them to price assets at book value instead of “marking to market”. The international standard has forced banks to undertake continuous writedowns and raised their need for capital.
The coalition is also considering extending the life of the guarantees issued by Soffin, the state body that runs the bank rescue fund, from three to five years. This would require approval by the European Commission.
The proposals of the finance ministry definitely go in the right direction,” Albert Rupprecht, chairman of the parliamentary committee that oversees Soffin, told the FT. Mr Rupprecht, a Merkel ally, said minor differences remained between the CDU and the ministry over the timing of the plan and the type of assistance Soffin could grant both “good” and “bad” banks.The plan would satisfy two conditions set by Peer Steinbrück, finance minister: that it should not involve any new financial commitments by the government; and that the banks, not the taxpayer, should ultimately continue to carry the risks associated with toxic assets.
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Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
30th January, 2009
This op-ed, by Yossi Sarid, appeared on the Haaretz English-language website earlier today. It doesn’t seem to be on their main page any more, so here it is in its entirely, in case you missed it.
(Recall, among other things, that Yisrael Beiteinu is proposing a measure to strip “disloyal” Arab citizens of their citizenship, something that has as its model a 1935 Nazi law).
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Posted by smeddum on January 29, 2009
The nation’s roads, bridges, levees, schools, water-supply and other infrastructure are in such bad shape that it would take $2.2 trillion over five years to bring them up to speed. But even that huge chunk of change would only raise their grade from a “D” average to a “B,” according to the latest “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure” released today by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
“We’ve been operating on a patch-and-pray system,” says ASCE President D. Wayne Klotz. That is, patch something and pray that it holds up – instead of providing regular improvements for aging facilities.
Like a car, he notes, if you keep skipping oil changes and ignoring the funny clanking noise, it’s going to be a lot more expensive to fix the major problems happen down the proverbial road. In fact, the current estimate of $2.2 trillion is 70 percent more than the $1.8 trillion the ASCE estimated it would cost to bring the U.S. infrastructure up to par four years ago. And the D grade has remained the same.
“It’s the kind of report card you would have expected on the eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire,” says Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank in New York. “It’s not the kind of grade you want to bring home to Mom.”
Flynn says a major problem is that we take the infrastructure for granted, which makes it difficult to generate awareness until there’s a major event, such as the 2007 fatal bridge collapse in Minneapolis or levee failures during deadly Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“There’s no sex appeal to invest in it, so we don’t,” he says.
Among those receiving D-minus grades: roads, levees, drinking water facilities (leaky water pipes lose about 7 billion gallons of clean water in the U.S. daily, according to the report) and inland waterways. Solid waste was at the top of the class, earning a C-plus – the same grade it received on the last report card – because about a third of the millions of tons of garbage generated in the U.S. annually is recycled or otherwise repurposed.
Klotz says the report card, issued every four years since 1998, was released two months earlier than usual this year in the hope that it might encourage lawmakers to fork over more federal funds (in the pending $825 billion stimulus package) to overhaul the near-failing system.
Following are the ASCE infrastructure grades, which were based on an analysis of government records by a panel of engineers.
Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks & Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
School D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
Overall: D
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: US infrastructure | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 28, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
25th January, 2009
“The evidence is sitting on the table. There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture.”
These are the words of Manfred Nowak, the UN official appointed by the Commission on Human Rights to examine cases of torture. Nowak has concluded that President Obama is legally obligated to prosecute former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now, By Scott Horton, Harper’s Magazine, January 21, 2009
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: lawless elites, Obama, Obama agenda, The Wild West | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 27, 2009
27th January, 2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) – The entire Icelandic government has become the first victim of the crisis in Europe.
Posted in Revolution in Iceland, Uncategorized | Tagged: Revolution in Iceland | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 27, 2009
Will Groves
January 27, 2009
Consider these events:
1. A president who started two aggressive wars, who bears responsibility for the loss of thousands of American lives along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives, leaves office as a free man without a felony record or any negative repercussions.
2. Meanwhile, the same populace that has intimate experience with lying politicians appears utterly smitten with a smooth-talking new president promising change and demanding sacrifice.
3. The Congress, which had an approval rate of 14% and which just passed a $700 billion bailout over the objections of a majority of Americans, had a re-election rate exceeding 95%.
4. Untold millions of Americans voice support of military troops as these very people are needlessly killed, injured, and separated from their families and productive work at home.
5. A general populace believed that buying unproductive assets, like housing, could make them wealthy, forever, without any coherent explanation why.
6. Researchers who pursue alternative explanations for AIDS and cancer get their funding cut and have the results of their research squelched, while others who try to improve life by providing healthful foods find themselves under attack.
Overt criminality by leaders and passive, unclear thinking by the proles have become the norm. The two go together, creating a symbiotic ecosystem of tyranny. Fraud, theft, and murder have become widespread, just as the scale of lies told and believed have reached new heights. Irresponsibility has become socialized while people in the honest pursuit of good get thwarted.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: pathocracy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on January 27, 2009
Obama: Regime Rotation
By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
January 26, 2009 “Information Clearinghouse“ — The arrival of the Obama administration will not fundamentally alter the course of military expansion accelerated during the Bush era. The origins of these policies do not lie uniquely in neoconservative ideology. While the election of President Obama may offer new opportunities for progressive forces to delimit the damage, their space for movement will ultimately be constrained by deep-seated structural pressures that will attempt to exploit Obama to rehabilitate American imperial hegemony, rather than transform it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: "War on Terror", Obama, Obama's foreign policy | 1 Comment »
Posted by smeddum on January 26, 2009
Last updated: 10:06 am
January 26, 2009
Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet – only this time, it’s the taxpayers who are getting screwed. Read the rest of this entry »
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In These New Times 
