Sunday, March 8, 2009
Speculation to mount on AIG bailout cash.....
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Where, oh where, did AIG's bailout billions go? That question may reverberate even louder through the halls of U.S. government in the week ahead now that a partial list of beneficiaries has been published. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that about $50 billion (35.4 billion pounds) of more than $173 billion that the U.S. government has poured into American International Group Inc since last fall has been paid to at least two dozen U.S. and foreign financial institutions. The newspaper reported that some of the banks paid by AIG since the insurer started getting taxpayer funds were: Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, Calyon, Barclays Plc, Rabobank, Danske, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lloyds Banking Group....Link
Rep. Conyers wants science to be secret.......
There are some things science needs to survive, and to thrive: eager, hardworking scientists; a grasp of reality and a desire to understand it; and an open and clear atmosphere to communicate and discuss results. That last bit there seems to be having a problem. Communication is key to science; without it you are some nerd tinkering in your basement. With it, the world can learn about your work and build on it. Recently, government-sponsored agencies like NIH have moved toward open access of scientific findings. That is, the results are published where anyone can see them, and in fact (for the NIH) after 12 months the papers must be publicly accessible. This is, in my opinion (and that of a lot of others, including a pile of Nobel laureates) a good thing. Astronomers, for example, almost always post their papers on Astro-ph, a place where journal-accepted papers can be accessed before they are published. John Conyers (D-MI) apparently has a problem with this. He is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive. They can cost a fortune: The Astrophysical Journal costs over $2000/year, and they charge scientists to publish in them! So this bill would force scientists to spend money to publish, and force you to spend money to read them....Link
America: an apathetic union?
On Tuesday night former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appeared on Comedy Central's "The Today Show with Jon Stewart," to discuss her recent work. Since leaving the Supreme Court in 2006, O'Connor has dedicated her time to encouraging American youths to study civics. But it was about a minute and a half into the interview that O'Connor revealed the scary state of apathy that currently plagues our nation. "I thought that perhaps a lot of Americans had stopped understanding the three branches of government," the 78-year-old former justice told Stewart. "Actually, the Annenberg Foundation took some polls: only a third of Americans can even name the three branches of government, much less say what they do." One-third, that is roughly 103 million of 305 million Americans that can simply name the three branches of government: judicial, legislative and executive for those of you keeping score.
The Colonnade staff is shocked....Link
The Colonnade staff is shocked....Link
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next.......
An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, former US President George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list. The former prosecutor's assessment was echoed in some respect by United Nations General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, who said America's military occupation of Iraq has caused over a million deaths and should be probed by the United Nations. "David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects," reported the New Zealand Herald....Link
2009 Lollapalooza......................
Depeche Mode, the Beastie Boys and a reunited Jane’s Addiction are expected to headline the fifth annual Lollapalooza Aug. 7-9 in Grant Park. Though promoters would not confirm the information Friday, multiple sources inside the industry said the three headliners are a lock for the festival. Three more arena-level headliners are expected to be included when the complete lineup is announced next month. Depeche Mode is releasing its 12th album, “Sounds of the Universe,” on April 21. Though it has been a staple of alternative music since the early ‘80s, the British synth-pop band has not previously played Lollapalooza, which ran as a touring festival from 1991 through ’97 in its first incarnation. The Beastie Boys are also working on a studio album, tentatively titled “Tadlock’s Glasses,” for release this year. The New York hip-hop trio last played Lollapalooza in 1994. Their previous studio album, “The Mix-Up,” was an all-instrumental collection released in 2007. The original Jane’s lineup of Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery headlined the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991, only to break up soon after. There have been sporadic reunions since, but none included all four original members until some one-off gigs last year. A national tour was announced a few days ago, but a Chicago date was conspicuously absent....Link
Palestinian Prime Minister to Resign............
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- The Palestinian prime minister said Saturday he submitted his resignation in a move that could help usher in a power-sharing deal between Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas and his rivals in the militant group Hamas. Salam Fayyad's resignation was meant to be a goodwill gesture toward Hamas, but the group's officials dismissed the announcement, saying Fayyad's appointment and time in office has been unconstitutional. Abbas appointed Fayyad as Prime Minister after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The takeover effectively created two separate Palestinian administrations -- an internationally backed government in the West Bank led by Abbas and technocrat Fayyad, and a blockaded government in the coastal patch of Gaza run by Hamas....link
Obama Channels Cheney.............
The Obama Administration this week released its predecessor's post-9/11 legal memoranda in the name of "transparency," producing another round of feel-good Bush criticism. Anyone interested in President Obama's actual executive-power policies, however, should look at his position on warrantless wiretapping. Dick Cheney must be smiling. In a federal lawsuit, the Obama legal team is arguing that judges lack the authority to enforce their own rulings in classified matters of national security. The standoff concerns the Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi Arabian charity that was shut down in 2004 on evidence that it was financing al Qaeda. Al-Haramain sued the Bush Administration in 2005, claiming it had been illegally wiretapped....link
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