Observations on current events

Israel - Gaza:

Robert Fisk: Leaders Lie, Civilians Die, and Lessons of History are Ignored
"We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more - providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs - who, as we all know, only understand force.
Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis - just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist 'death wagon' will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be 'liberated'. And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise 'restraint' - as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course..."

Energy:

NY Times: The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’
"...The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.
And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses..."


The Bush Agenda:

Bob Herbert: Op-Ed Columnist - Add Up the Damage
"...When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country..."


Economics:

Paul Krugman: Fifty Herbert Hoovers
"No modern American president would repeat the fiscal mistake of 1932, in which the federal government tried to balance its budget in the face of a severe recession. The Obama administration will put deficit concerns on hold while it fights the economic crisis.
But even as Washington tries to rescue the economy, the nation will be reeling from the actions of 50 Herbert Hoovers — state governors who are slashing spending in a time of recession, often at the expense both of their most vulnerable constituents and of the nation’s economic future..."

Economics:

Giving money to people will spend it most readily (the poor and the unemployed) just makes sense.

The Nation: Stimulus From Below


Energy:

Maan News Agency: Gazan invents alternative to cooking gas
"Gazan resident Abd Ar-Rahman Farajallah revealed an alternative to cooking gas that he developed at a press conference on Thursday.
Cooking gas is in extremely short supply in the Gaza Strip due to the continued border closures imposed by Israel.
Farajallah explained that he invented a device using chemical substances available in Gaza, which burn when mixed and brought into contact with oxygen. He added that his concoction can be stored in medium-sized metal containers and used in homes, restaurants and bakeries as an alternative to cooking gas, since Israel has prevented deliveries of cooking gas to Gaza.
Farajallah spent three months developing the heating and cooking device, which consists of three parts. The first component is a metal filter that controls the interaction between 40% of the oxygen in the surrounding air, the inflammable substance and some other substances. He refused to reveal the exact substances used, fearing that they will not be allowed into the Gaza Strip..."

Iraq:

Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about Iraq, 2008


The So-Called Unitary Executive:

Andy Worthington: The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney (Parts I and II)


Gaza:

While Israel's retalliation against Gaza is severe, expecting occupied people NOT to resist decades-long illegal occupation is absurd.

Covering Up Election Fraud?

This is far too odd of a set of circumstances to be mere coincidence.

Democracy Now! - Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash
"A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count in Ohio and his access to Karl Rove’s email files and how they went missing..."


The Environment:

The Tennessean: Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike
"HARRIMAN, Tenn. — Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years.
About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry — enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools — rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.
The ash slide, which began just before 1 a.m., covered as many as 400 acres as deep as 6 feet. The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and ruptured a gas line. It damaged 12 homes, and one person had to be rescued, though no one was seriously hurt.
Much remains to be determined, including why this happened, said Tom Kilgore, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
'I fully suspect that the amount of rain we've had in the last eight to 10 days, plus the freezing weather … might have had something to do with this,' he said in a news conference Monday on the site.
The area received almost 5 inches of rain this month, compared with the usual 2.8 inches. Freeze and thaw cycles may have undermined the sides of the pond. The last formal report on the condition of the 40-acre pond — an unlined, earthen structure — was issued in January and was unavailable Monday, officials said.
Neighbors Don and Jil Smith, who have lived near the pond for eight years, said that nearly every year TVA has cleaned up what they termed 'baby blowouts.'
Ashen liquid similar to that seen on a much larger scale in Monday's disaster came from the dike, they said..."

The So-Called Unitary Executive:

If past behavior is any guide, Bush will pardon our criminal VP.

NY Times Editorial: The World According to Cheney
"Vice President Dick Cheney has a parting message for Americans: They should quit whining about all the things he and President Bush did to undermine the rule of law, erode the balance of powers between the White House and Congress, abuse prisoners and spy illegally on Americans. After all, he said, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln did worse than that..."

On Torture:

David Rose's excellent article in 'Vanity Fair' Tortured Reasoning offers a well-reasoned deconstruction of the Bush administration's often-used justifications for violating detainees' human rights. The ticking-time-bomb scenario is utter nonsense, intelligence officials admit. Torture ultimately exists for its own sake, none other.

Environmental Non-violent Direct Action:

The Bush administration crammed in an oil- and gas-lease sale before the next administration takes over, until one brave man threw a wrench in things...

Salt Lake Tribune: Impostor disrupts lands bid
"He didn't pour sugar into a bulldozer's gas tank. He didn't spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder's paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won't be opened to drilling anytime soon.
Tim DeChristopher, 27, faces possible federal charges after winning bids totaling about $1.8 million on more than 10 lease parcels that he admits he has neither the intention nor the money to buy -- and he's not sorry.
'I decided I could be much more effective by an act of civil disobedience,' he said during an impromptu streetside news conference during an afternoon blizzard. 'There comes a time to take a stand.'
The Sugar House resident -- questioned and released after disrupting a U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease auction of 149,000 acres of public land in scenic southern and eastern Utah -- said he came to the BLM's state office in Salt Lake City to join about 200 other activists in a peaceful protest outside the building Friday morning. But then he registered with the BLM as representing himself and went to the auction room..."


The Bankster Bailout:

I have to agree with Bernie Sanders: 'If an institution is too large to fail, it's too big to exist'...

Frank Rich: Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire?
"...The question in the aftermath of the Madoff calamity is this: Why do we keep ignoring what we learn from the black boxes being retrieved from crash after crash in our economic meltdown? The lesson could not be more elemental. If there's a mysterious financial model producing miraculous returns, odds are it's a sham - whether it's an outright fraud, as it apparently is in Madoff's case, or nominally legal, as is the case with the Wall Street giants that have fallen this year.
Wall Street's black boxes contained derivatives created out of whole cloth, deriving their value from often worthless subprime mortgages. The enormity of the gamble went undetected not only by investors but by the big brains at the top of the firms, many of whom either escaped (Merrill Lynch's E. Stanley O'Neal) or remain in place (Citigroup's Robert Rubin) after receiving obscene compensation for their illusory short-term profits and long-term ignorance.
There has been no punishment for many of those who failed to heed this repeated lesson. Quite the contrary. The business magazine Portfolio, writing in mid-September about one of the world's biggest insurance companies, observed that 'now that A.I.G is battling to survive, it is its black box that may save it yet.' That box - stuffed with 'accounting or investments so complex and arcane that they remain unknown to most investors' - was so huge that Washington might deem it 'too big to fail.'
Sure enough - and unlike its immediate predecessor in collapse, Lehman Brothers - A.I.G. was soon bailed out to the tune of $123 billion. Most of that also disappeared by the end of October. But not before A.I.G. executives were caught spending $442,000 on a weeklong retreat to a California beach resort.
There are more black boxes still to be pried open, whether at private outfits like Madoff's or at publicly traded companies like General Electric, parent of the opaque GE Capital Corporation, the financial services unit that has been the single biggest contributor to the G.E. bottom line in recent years. But have we yet learned anything? Incredibly enough, as we careen into 2009, the very government operation tasked with repairing the damage caused by Wall Street's black boxes is itself a black box of secrecy and impenetrability.
Last week ABC News asked 16 of the banks that have received handouts from the Treasury Department's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program the same two direct questions: How have you used that money, and how much have you spent on bonuses this year? Most refused to answer..."

The Bankster Bailout:

AP: AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs
"Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe 'to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.
'Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can,' said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. 'We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!'

The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:

_The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.

_Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million..."


The So-Called Unitary Executive:

The Raw Story: Cheney claims power to decide his own case
"I am the law.
That's the message Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to send in a little-noticed court filing last week, in which his lawyers asserted that the vice president alone has the authority to determine which records are turned over to the National Archives after he leaves office. But the law exempts 'personal and partisan' records, which Cheney's lawyers said he will be the sole decider upon.
'The vice president alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records, how his records will be created, maintained, managed and disposed, and are all actions that are committed to his discretion by law,' according to a filing by Cheney's office with the court hearing the case Dec. 8, noted by the AP's Pamela Hess.
'National Archives officials have said records of Cheney's dealings with the Republican National Committee would not require preservation under the law,' Hess notes. 'As of November, it had not made a final determination on the status of Cheney's records produced when he acts as president of the Senate, which he says are exempt,'..."

Financial (Non-)Regulation:

Andrew Clark: Light touch, laissez-faire - or simply 'anything goes'?
"The failure of America's financial supervisor, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to spot the Bernie Madoff scandal is another blow to the embattled regulator after a year of criticism. Time and again US regulators have been accused of being asleep at the wheel.
Guided by a laissez-faire economic philosophy, the Bush administration has favoured a relatively light touch in its oversight of Wall Street. Critics wonder whether this has tipped towards an era of 'anything goes,'..."


Wither Posse Comitatus?

Steve Watson & Paul Watson: Army 'Strategic Shock' Report Says Troops May Be Needed To Quell U.S. Civil Unrest
"A recent report produced by the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Institute warns that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it has termed 'strategic shock.'
The report, titled Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development, also suggests that the military may have to be used to quell domestic disorder.
'Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,' the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, reads.
'Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock.' it continues..."


Never-ending War:

Every current and future dollar of the trillions we spend on the replacement the Military Industrial Complex found for Communism is money that will not be available for education, infrastructure, public health, etc.

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: New Study Tracks War Costs, Funding Mechanism
"On December 15, 2008, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments released a new report (PDF) Cost of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Other Military Operations Through 2008 and Beyond.
In this report, Steven Kosiak, Vice President for Budget Studies at CSBA offers a comprehensive picture of the direct budgetary costs of US military operations conducted since 2001. The report also discusses the means used to budget for and finance these operations, and includes projections of how much more these operations might cost over the coming decade..."


Agriculture:

Organic Consumers.org - Six Reasons Why Obama Appointing Monsanto's Buddy, Former Iowa Governor Vilsack, for USDA Head Would be a Terrible Idea

I wrote to a national so-called 'liberal' talk radio host after he had Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin as a guest on his show yesterday. The host and the Senator were gushing over the choice for head of the USDA. Not a single mention of the nominee's promotion of the biotech/Monsanto/Cargill/GMO-crops/pharma-crops agenda and hostility toward sustainible/organic farming. The host's answer was: 'Gmo....is the future ...' Eyes wide shut, it seems.

Iraq:

NY Times: "...Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent for Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: 'This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!' He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it.
As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, 'This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!'..."

BBC News: Bush shoe-ing worst Arab insult
"Around the Arab world, if you want to escalate a situation, by saying for example 'I'm going to thump you', add the words 'with a shoe' and you're adding serious insult to the threat of possible injury.
It's that cultural significance that has added real sting to the assault by an Iraqi journalist against US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference.
In Arab culture it's considered rude even to display the sole of one's shoe to a fellow human being.
Certainly, crossing one's legs ankle-on-knee style should never be done in a public place for fear of offending the person next to you.
The sensitivity is related to the fact shoes are considered ritually unclean in the Muslim faith.
In addition to ritual ablutions before prayer, Muslims must take off their shoes to pray, and wearing shoes inside a mosque is forbidden.
Shoes should either be left at the door of the mosque, or carried (preferably in the left hand with the soles pressed together).
But beyond the Islamic significance, the dirty and degrading implication of the sole of a shoe crosses all religious boundaries in the Middle East..."

Ian Williams: President Bush should answer for his crimes
"News organisations have to feign surprise to make news. In reality, it is of course no surprise that Bush would be greeted in Baghdad with all the warmth and approbation of fraudster Bernie Madoff dropping by the Palm Beach Country Club, nor that Iraq's physical infrastructure, $69bn later, is still in a worse state than before 2003.
In Arab culture, dogs and the soles of shoes are two very potent demonstrations of detestation and the intemperate. Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi's lobbing of two well-aimed shoes at the president is a belated make-up for all the softballs thrown at him in Washington.Zeidi has clearly epitomised Iraqi feelings across the board, with protests on the streets and support messages from Arab journalists. Ironically, many of them, including Zeidi's own TV station, are comparing his arrest with the brisk way that the Baathists had with dissent. This is a little unfair – he is still alive as far as we know, which is more than could be said for anyone who would have done that to Saddam.
But it does raise the question of how the White House managed to tame the major media in the US even without the implicit threat of shooting journalists and their families.
With a few notable exceptions like Helen Thomas, Bush's press conferences have not generated the indignation he so richly deserves from a largely quiescent White House press corps that needs government inspectors and Congressmen to tell it when it can be surprised and even occasionally indignant..."


The Bankster Bailout:

A convenient loophole emerges...

Washington Post: Limits on Executive Pay May Prove Toothless
"Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.
But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.
Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives..."


Illegal Spying On Americans:

Michael Isikoff: The Fed Who Blew the Whistle
"...In the spring of 2004, Tamm had just finished a yearlong stint at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies—a unit so sensitive that employees are required to put their hands through a biometric scanner to check their fingerprints upon entering. While there, Tamm stumbled upon the existence of a highly classified National Security Agency program that seemed to be eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. The unit had special rules that appeared to be hiding the NSA activities from a panel of federal judges who are required to approve such surveillance. When Tamm started asking questions, his supervisors told him to drop the subject. He says one volunteered that 'the program' (as it was commonly called within the office) was 'probably illegal.'
Tamm agonized over what to do. He tried to raise the issue with a former colleague working for the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the friend, wary of discussing what sounded like government secrets, shut down their conversation.
For weeks, Tamm couldn't sleep. The idea of lawlessness at the Justice Department angered him. Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near the U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro maps. Tamm had been eyeing the phone booths on his way to work in the morning. Now, as he slipped through the parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone and called The New York Times.
That one call began a series of events that would engulf Washington—and upend Tamm's life. Eighteen months after he first disclosed what he knew, the Times reported that President George W. Bush had secretly authorized the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails of individuals inside the United States without judicial warrants. The drama followed a quiet, separate rebellion within the highest ranks of the Justice Department concerning the same program. (James Comey, then the deputy attorney general, together with FBI head Robert Mueller and several other senior Justice officials, threatened to resign,)..."

Abu Ghraib Abuse NOT Simply 'a few bad apples' On The Night Shift:

These people had orders that started at the highest levels: from the SecDef himself.

Reuters: Senate Report Ties Rumsfeld to Abu Ghraib Torture
"Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to portions of a report released on Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The report's executive summary, made public by the committee's Democratic chairman Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and its top Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Rumsfeld contributed to the abuse by authorizing aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay on December 2, 2002.
He rescinded the authorization six weeks later. But the report said word of his approval continued to spread within U.S. military circles and encouraged the use of harsh techniques as far away as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The report concluded that Rumsfeld's actions were 'a direct cause of detainee abuse' at Guantanamo and 'influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques ... in Afghanistan and Iraq,'..."

Energy:

EurekaAlert! - Waste coffee grounds offer new source of biodiesel fuel
"Researchers in Nevada are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks. Their study has been published online in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.
In the new study, Mano Misra, Susanta Mohapatra, and Narasimharao Kondamudi note that the major barrier to wider use of biodiesel fuel is lack of a low-cost, high quality source, or feedstock, for producing that new energy source. Spent coffee grounds contain between 11 and 20 percent oil by weight. That's about as much as traditional biodiesel feedstocks such as rapeseed, palm, and soybean oil.
Growers produce more than 16 billion pounds of coffee around the world each year. The used or 'spent' grounds remaining from production of espresso, cappuccino, and plain old-fashioned cups of java, often wind up in the trash or find use as soil conditioner. The scientists estimated, however, that spent coffee grounds can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply..."

Inhabitat: Old Coal Mines Adapted to Generate Geothermal Energy
"Recently the town of Heerlen in the Netherlands repurposed an old abandoned coal mine into a brilliant source of geothermal energy. The project takes advantage of flooded underground mine shafts, using their thermal energy to power a large-scale district heating system. Dubbed the Minewater Project, the new system recently went online and provides 350 homes and businesses in the town with hot water and heating in the winter and cool water in the summer..."

Inhabitat: The World’s First Energy-Generating Revolving Door
"Harvesting the kinetic energy generated by crowds of people is one of our favorite approaches to renewable energy. Recently Netherlands-based Natuurcafé La Port installed an energy generator in a rotating door, so every time someone walks in for a cup of coffee, they give just a little bit of their energy back to the coffee shop. We keep saying that solving the problem of global warming will require that we open up new doors in the field of renewable energy, but we must admit that we never expected to mean it literally!
The door was part of the refurbishment of the Driebergen-Zeist railway station designed out by architecture firm RAU and built by Boon Edam. The door is expected to generate around 4600 kwh of energy each year, which may not sound like much - but every little bit helps. To enhance the design, the team decided to include a transparent ceiling to show how the system works, and LEDs display the amount of energy that it is generated each time someone walks in the door..."

Inhabitat: Energy-Generating Floors to Power Tokyo Subways
"When the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) decided to invest in alternative energy sources, it only had to look to its users for the perfect source of energy. Recently the company decided to update their Tokyo Station with a revolutionary new piezoelectric energy generating floor. The system will harvest the kinetic energy generated by crowds to power ticket gates and display systems!
Piezoelectric flooring is a technology with a wide range of applications that is slowly being adopted in the race to develop alternative energy sources. After all, human power is readily available in pretty much any area with heavy foot traffic, such as a dancefloor, or a tourist attractions. Naturally, we were excited to hear that JR East will be installing these systems in the floor of one of busiest subway stations on the planet.
JR East has been trialing these systems for the past year. They have recently improved and expanded the system by changing the floor covering from rubber to stone tiles, and have improved the layout of the mechanisms to improve energy generation. The total amount of floor-space will add up to around 25 square meters, and they expect to obtain over 1,400kw per day - more than enough to power their systems..."

Fingerprints of Bush's Deregulation Agenda:

Washington Post: House Probe of FCC Finds 'Egregious Abuses of Power'
"A year-long Congressional investigation of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin found 'egregious abuses of power,' though it was unclear whether the nation's top telecommunications regulator broke any rules or laws during his leadership.
The report released today on the probe, titled 'Deception and Distrust' and led by Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, found Martin suppressed information and manipulated data to serve his agenda.
'Any of these findings, individually, are cause for concern,' said Dingell. 'Together, the findings suggest that, in recent years, the FCC has operated in a dysfunctional manner and Commission business has suffered as a result. It is my hope that the new FCC Chairman will find this report instructive and that it will prove useful in helping the Commission avoid making the same mistakes.'
Martin has been criticized by FCC staff members for pushing his proposals to loosen media ownership rules and requirements for a la carte pricing of cable television through such tactics as suppressing agency studies that do not support his agenda..."

Energy Efficiency:

Sadly, at $1.65/gal. for RUG few will pay attention to what is possible where people pay a lot more for fuel...

AutoBlogGreen: Audi puts 2.0L TDI in high efficiency version of the 44.4 mpg large A6 - AutoblogGreen
"Audi is now offering a TDI e version of its large A6 sedan with the same 2.0L diesel engine that is being installed in the Jetta TDI here in the US market. In the A6, the engine is rated at 134 hp, slightly less than 140 hp available in the Jetta...
...Britain's What What Car? magazine had a chance to drive the A6 TDI e, which is rated at 44.4 mpg (US) on the EU combined cycle, and found it handles well and is quiet, but the sport suspension is somewhat stiff and acceleration is leisurely due to the small engine and tall gearing..."

"We're sorry for pushing 5,000 lb. 1950's technology as daily commuters for the decades since Uncle Ronnie got the government off our back, now how about a loan..."

AutoblogGreen: GM apologizes for 'betraying' American consumers, focusing on gas guzzlers
"GM's done it. The General has apologized to America in an ad today in Automotive News (and available all over the place, including after the jump). The stated self-flagellations are for:

* Vehicles that were 'below industry standards'
* 'Lackluster' designs
* Commitments to compensation plans that are now 'unsustainable'
* Too many brands and dealers, and
* 'We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs.'..."


Human Rights:

As a friend said to me: 'Why, again, did the world reward these people with the Olympics?'

The Guardian (UK) - Chinese petitioners forced into mental asylums, claims report
"Local officials in China have been accused of using forcible psychiatric treatment to silence critics, it emerged yesterday, amid reports that at least 18 people bringing complaints against authorities were held in a mental hospital in Shandong province against their will.
Authorities in Xintai district committed people who had pursued grievances ranging from police brutality to property disputes, according to the Beijing News. Some were force-fed drugs.
'Until the early 1990s, the practice of police forcibly sending people to mental asylums without justification was mainly carried out against political dissidents,' said Robin Munro, author of China's Psychiatric Inquisition: Dissent, Psychiatry and the Law in Post-1949 China. 'Since then we have seen a very different trend - fewer are of that variety, and more and more are petitioners or whistleblowers exposing corruption, or simply persistent complainants.
'It's a covert way to silence people ... There is no accountability or oversight. The person disappears, effectively; and with them, whatever evidence they have compiled against officials,'..."

Iraq:

Scott Riter: For Bush - and Obama - a Gut Check
"George Bush's candid interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson has one moment of awful truth - when the president, asked if he'd have gone to war had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, stated: 'That's a do-over that I can't do.' If only he could.
More than 4,207 US service members, 314 coalition troops (including 176 British fatalities) and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis might be alive, including, of course, Saddam Hussein, the former ruler of Iraq whom Bush promised to disarm together with America's 'friends of freedom'. Saddam, Bush proclaimed in the weeks leading up to his decision to invade, and subsequently occupy, Iraq, was 'a dangerous, dangerous man with dangerous, dangerous weapons.' The Iraqi dictator was 'a danger to America and our friends and allies, and that is why the world has said 'disarm''.
Bush, in his revealing interview, claimed he wished 'that the intelligence had been different', but that was never really the point. Bush, like so many others, had made up his mind regarding Saddam independent of the facts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Try as he might to spread responsibility for his actions by pointing out that 'a lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein,' the fact is WMD was simply an excuse used by the president to fulfill his self-proclaimed destiny as a war-time president who would avenge his father's inability (or, more accurately, sage unwillingness) to finish the job back in 1991, in the aftermath of the first Gulf war,'..."

The Banksters' Influence:

AP: Feds ignored clear meltdown warnings
"The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents..."


Energy:

The Guardian (UK) - The 10 big energy myths
"There has never been a more important time to invest in green technologies, yet many of us believe these efforts are doomed to failure. What nonsense, writes Chris Goodall..."

War As A Profit Center:

NY Times: One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex
"...General McCaffrey, 66, has long been a force in Washington's power elite. A consummate networker, he cultivated politicians and journalists of all stripes as drug czar in the Clinton cabinet, and his ties run deep to a new generation of generals, some of whom he taught at West Point or commanded in the Persian Gulf war, when he rose to fame leading the 'left hook' assault on Iraqi forces.
But it was 9/11 that thrust General McCaffrey to the forefront of the national security debate. In the years since he has made nearly 1,000 appearances on NBC and its cable sisters, delivering crisp sound bites in a blunt, hyperbolic style. He commands up to $25,000 for speeches, his commentary regularly turns up in The Wall Street Journal, and he has been quoted or cited in thousands of news articles, including dozens in The New York Times.
His influence is such that President Bush and Congressional leaders from both parties have invited him for war consultations. His access is such that, despite a contentious relationship with former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Pentagon has arranged numerous trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and other hotspots solely for his benefit.
At the same time, General McCaffrey has immersed himself in businesses that have grown with the fight against terrorism..."


The Budget:

Obama has a tremendous opportunity, but his Cabinet choices seem to indicate that demotion of the budget priorities tied to the Military Industrial Complex shall not occur.
Half a trillion dollars a year shall continue to be poured into the Pentagon and its contract-seeking suitors. Make no mistake - the so-called War On Terror (how does one fight a 'war' against a tactic, rather than a clear opponent, anyway?) is about cashing in on government contracts.

Paul Krugman: Deficits and the Future
"Right now there’s intense debate about how aggressive the United States government should be in its attempts to turn the economy around. Many economists, myself included, are calling for a very large fiscal expansion to keep the economy from going into free fall. Others, however, worry about the burden that large budget deficits will place on future generations.
But the deficit worriers have it all wrong. Under current conditions, there’s no trade-off between what’s good in the short run and what’s good for the long run; strong fiscal expansion would actually enhance the economy’s long-run prospects.
The claim that budget deficits make the economy poorer in the long run is based on the belief that government borrowing 'crowds out' private investment — that the government, by issuing lots of debt, drives up interest rates, which makes businesses unwilling to spend on new plant and equipment, and that this in turn reduces the economy’s long-run rate of growth. Under normal circumstances there’s a lot to this argument.
But circumstances right now are anything but normal. Consider what would happen next year if the Obama administration gave in to the deficit hawks and scaled back its fiscal plans..."


Conflicts Of (Private) Interest Affecting Public Health:

NY Times Editorial: Expert or Shill?
"More evidence has emerged of appalling conflicts of interest that throw into doubt the advice rendered and the research performed by two prominent psychiatrists who have received substantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The revelations prove, once again, the need for universities and professional societies to crack down on conflicts of interest, and for Congress to pass legislation that will bring hidden conflicts into the open.
Earlier this year, Congressional investigators discovered that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a world-renowned child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, had failed to report to Harvard at least $1.4 million in income from drug companies, in violation of the university’s conflict-of-interest guidelines.
Now, internal drug company e-mail and documents that surfaced in a lawsuit have sketched out what looks like an unsavory collaboration between Dr. Biederman and Johnson & Johnson to generate and disseminate data that would support use of an antipsychotic drug, Risperdal, in children, a controversial target group..."