Blowback’s a b!+ch.

End story.

by Michel Chossudovsky

Hat tip:Global Research, June 1, 2010

Following Israel’s criminal raid in international waters on May 31st, the Rachel Corrie MV continues to sail towards the Gaza coastline in defiance of Israeli threats.

In an act of tremendous courage, the Rachel Corrie MV is determined to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

At noon today, I received the following message from Christopher Chang and Ram Kardigasu, on behalf of the Malaysian and Irish peace activists, who are on board the Rachel Corrie:

RACHEL CORRIE: MV Rachel Corrie is now the sole ship on the international freedom flotilla moving towards Gaza.

The Malaysian and Irish peace and humanitarian activists aboard share their deepest grief and sense of lost with the loved ones of those killed and injured in the illegal action undertaken by Israel on Monday 31st May 2010 in the international waters of the Mediterranean.

By Paul Craig Roberts
Hat tip: global research
June 1, 2010

As I write at 5pm on Monday, May 31, all day has passed since the early morning reports of the Israeli commando attack on the unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and there has been no response from President Obama except to say that he needed to learn “all the facts about this morning’s tragic events” and that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had canceled his plans to meet with him at the White House.

Thus has Obama made America complicit once again in Israel’s barbaric war crimes. Just as the US Congress voted to deep-six Judge Goldstone’s report on Israel’s war crimes committed in Israel’s January 2009 invasion of Gaza, Obama has deep-sixed Israel’s latest act of barbarism by pretending that he doesn’t know what has happened.

No one in the world will believe that Israel attacked ships in international waters carrying Israeli citizens, a Nobel Laureate, elected politicians, and noted humanitarians bringing medicines and building materials to Palestinians in Gaza, who have been living in the rubble of their homes without repairs or medicines since January 2009, without first clearing the crime with its American protector. Without America’s protection, Israel, a totally artificial state, could not exist.

May 3rd, 2010
hat tip: PhilaLawyer

“[I]t takes two to lie – one to lie and one to listen.” – Homer Simpson, “Colonel Homer” (1992)

Unless you’ve been in a coma, you’ve probably seen some snippet of the Senate grilling of Goldman Sachs’ executives. I won’t bother characterizing that embarrassment here. My earlier post on Twitter suffices:

The Goldman Senate Hearings. For the non-red light district crowd who’d otherwise never see a prostitute argue with a bookie.

But viewing that awful spectacle – watching a hopelessly out-of-her-depth lifetime government employee like Clare McCaskill attempt to cross examine a guy like Lloyd Blankfein on reconciliation of derivatives – an interesting question hit me.

Insider trading’s rampant, everyone knows that. A number of economists and policy wonks have suggested in the past the market might be more transparent if we admitted that fact and legalized the practice. In that same vein of thinking – in light of the obvious fact that humans will always commit frauds, more frequently the more money’s in play – I have to ask… Why not allow bankers to lie to one another?

by Ellen Brown,
August 9^th, 2007
hat tip: Web of Debt

“We were not foolish enough to try to make a currency [backed by] gold of which we had none, but for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced. . . .we laugh at the time our national financiers held the view that the value of a currency is regulated by the gold and securities lying in the vaults of a state bank.”

- Adolf Hitler, quoted in “Hitler’s Monetary System,” www.rense.com, citing C. C. Veith, Citadels of
Chaos (Meador, 1949)

Guernsey wasn’t the only government to solve its infrastructure problems by issuing its own money. (See E. Brown, “Waking Up on a Minnesota Bridge,” www.webofdebt.com/articles/infrastructure-crisis.php, August 4, 2007.) A more notorious model is found in post-World War I Germany. When Hitler came to power, the country was completely, hopelessly broke. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations payments on the German people, who were expected to reimburse the costs of the war for all participants — costs totaling three times the value of all the property in the country. Speculation in the German mark had caused it to plummet, precipitating one of the worst runaway inflations in modern times. At its peak, a wheelbarrow full of 100 billion-mark banknotes could not buy a loaf of bread. The national treasury was empty, and huge numbers of homes and farms had been lost to the banks and speculators. People were living in hovels and starving. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before – the total destruction of the national currency, wiping out people’s savings, their businesses, and the economy generally. Making matters worse, at the end of the decade global depression hit. Germany had no choice but to succumb to debt slavery to international lenders.

Or so it seemed. Hitler and the National Socialists, who came to power in 1933, thwarted the international banking cartel by issuing their own money. In this they took their cue from Abraham Lincoln, who funded the American Civil War with government-issued paper money called “Greenbacks.” Hitler began his national credit program by devising a plan of public works. Projects earmarked for funding included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new buildings, roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. The projected cost of the various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency. One billion non-inflationary bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates, were then issued against this cost. Millions of people were put to work on these projects, and the workers were paid with the Treasury Certificates. This government-issued money wasn’t backed by gold, but it was backed by something of real value. It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government. Hitler said, “for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced.” The workers then spent the Certificates on other goods and services, creating more jobs for more people.

hat tip: AmericansWhoTellTheTruth.org

Major General Smedley Butler Biography
War Hero, Antiwar Activist (1881-1940)

“I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I am sure of it.”

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, also known as “The Fighting Quaker.” At the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in US history, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two separate military actions. He was also an unrelenting voice against the business of war.

Raised by prominent Quaker parents, Smedley Butler defied his pacifist lineage by joining the Marines just before his 17th birthday. He served in Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Haiti (earning his Medals of Honor in the latter two places). He served and distinguished himself in World War I, although he was not stationed on the front lines for combat. Butler was known for his leadership and commitment to the welfare of the men under his command. He rose quickly through the ranks to become one of the youngest major generals at age 48.

Butler was very vocal against what he saw as a rise in admiration for Fascism and Mussolini. He told an unfavorable story about Mussolini for which he was court-martialed. Rather than recant and apologize, Butler retired from the military in 1931. By then, he had also begun questioning US involvement in foreign conflicts. Butler saw the US as being imperialistic, that war (in particular WWI) was really a profitable business for the few at the expense of thousands of lives, and that he himself was a cog in the war machine. In a booklet titled War is a Racket, Butler wrote, “In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War….How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?….The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill?….Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds….For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.” War is a Racket grew out of a series of speeches Butler gave to whatever group wanted to hear his views. Veterans, groups with Communist leanings – it did not matter to him. This often drew criticism against Butler, but he was steadfast in his beliefs about war, US imperialism, and a growing Pro-Fascist movement. He spoke frankly and honestly about his experiences and opinions, and was very popular with the American public.

hat tip: Mises Economics blog

Hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry, a fan of Jesus Huerta de Soto, takes on Jeffrey Sachs. He makes a strong case for purging the system. Sachs is not pleased.

hat tip: The Daily Bell
May 28, 2010

by Staff Report

Is Europe heading for a meltdown? … This financial crisis is worse than the sub-prime crash of 2008 because the sums are so much bigger and it is governments that are in dire straits. Edmund Conway explains the dangers. Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor, summed it up best: “Dealing with a banking crisis was difficult enough,” he said the other week, “but at least there were public-sector balance sheets on to which the problems could be moved. Once you move into sovereign debt, there is no answer; there’s no backstop.” In other words, were this a computer game, the politicians would be down to their last life. Any mistake now and it really is Game Over. Or to pick a slightly more traditional game, it is rather like a session of pass-the-parcel which is fast approaching the end of the line. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: The wise men of Brussels and the courageous citizens of the EU will muddle through.

Free-Market Analysis: As the money crisis seems to grow worse in Europe, we have begun to wonder if there are parallels to the 1907 financial panic in the United States that gave rise to the Federal Reserve. The dominant social theme way back then (assuming an active power elite, and we do) was along the lines of “The US banking system is too fragmented and a lender of last resort is badly needed.” JP Morgan assembled his rich friends in the library of his exquisite New York mansion and bailed out the market, but only six years later, the Federal Reserve was born, the bastard child of false market-insolvency rumors and a knobby-nosed father (Morgan, himself).

There is, in fact, still speculation today that Morgan’s camp planted the initial rumors of instability that swept the market and triggered the crash of 1907. Why on earth would he do such a thing? To generate the eventual result: the creation of the Federal Reserve and its passage by the US Congress. This is one perspective, anyway, the “paranoid one” that you will not find in most mainstream history books or college texts.

by Gary North
hat tip: GaryNorth.com
May 28, 2010

The six words are: Public Law 111-148 is hereby repealed.

Public Law 111-148 is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This is the compulsory health insurance law that Democrats rammed through Congress and Obama signed.

The Republican Party voted unanimously to oppose it. Most of them did this for low-risk grandstanding reasons. Had George W. Bush proposed the bill, they would have voted for it, just as they voted for his prescription drug law.

Ron Paul can force their hands in November. By introducing the bill, he will guarantee that the Democrats will never let it get out of committee. That is to be expected.

Once it is bottled up in committee, it becomes politically active. At that point, Tea Party voters can ask their Republican candidates, “Do you promise to vote for Ron Paul’s bill to repeal Obama’s health insurance package if the Democrats lose in November? Do you also promise to vote for it without any amendments or any other modifications until it is signed into law by a Republican President, no matter what?”

That will put the fire under them. At that point, they will begin to mumble. They will say that Obama will veto it. Answer: “That’s true. Kiss Obama’s chances goodbye in 2012.”

Next, they will say that the timing is wrong. Answer: “The timing is never wrong to repeal government-controlled medical care.”

Next, they will say that . . . well, who knows what they will say? They are wafflers. Do not vote for them if they waffle.

The Tea Party people can run a rival candidate in the Republican primary. If the local primary is over, they can run a write-in candidate or an independent. It does not matter how they do it; they must see to it that the waffler is defeated in November. Then, in 2012, Tea Party candidates can run. They can run on a promise to repeal Obama’s health insurance law.

hat tip: abc6.com
May 21, 2010

Video Gallery [click on photos to go to abc6.com to watch videos]

Part 1 – Analyst Gerald Celente’s Forecast 4:24

Part 2 – Professor Lardaro Weighs In 4:35

ABC6 News Anchor John DeLuca sat down with two prominent economists, with two drastically different outlooks for the nation’s economy.

Gerald Celente, Director of the Trends Research Institute, sees a very bleak future for the United States, and a major collapse coming soon for the entire nation, maybe the entire world.

URI Economics Professor Leonard Lardaro admits some serious problems in today’s economy, and that of the future, but thinks Celente’s ‘doomsday’ scenarios are too dire, and a little much.

End story.

Hat tip: guardian.co.uk
Thursday 27 May 2010

Bill abolishing ID cards and national identity register will be first piece of legislation introduced to [British] parliament by the new government, says Theresa May

The timetable for dismantling the national identity card scheme was spelled out today by the home secretary, Theresa May. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

The £4.5bn national identity card scheme is to be scrapped within 100 days, the home secretary, Theresa May, announced today.

The 15,000 identity cards already issued are to be cancelled without any refund of the £30 fee to holders within a month of the legislation reaching the statute book.

Abolishing the cards and associated register will be the first piece of legislation introduced to parliament by the new government. May said the identity documents bill will invalidate all existing cards.

The role of the identity commissioner, created in an effort to prevent data blunders and leaks, will be abolished.

The government said the move will save £86m over four years and avoid £800m in costs over the next 10 years that would have been raised by increased charges. An allied decision to cancel the next generation of biometric fingerprint passports will save a further £134m over four years. Savings to the public under the whole package will total £1bn.

DEMOCRAT

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.

REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST

You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST

You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

An interview with Jordan Flaherty

By Angola 3 News

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine, and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and audiences around the world have seen the television reports he’s produced for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, GritTV, and Democracy Now.

Flaherty’s most recent articles have tackled a variety of important stories. His article, Jena Sheriff Seeks Revenge for Civil Rights Protests, follows up on the Jena Six story and exposes a wave of post-Jena 6 arrests directed at activists and the Black community in general. New Complaints of Police Violence in New Orleans, reports that “New Orleans’ Black and transgender community members and advocates complain of rampant and systemic harassment and discrimination from the city’s police force, including sexual violence and arrest without cause,” and then the article provides a voice to the activists who are fighting back. Did a White Sheriff and District Attorney Orchestrate a Race-Based Coup in a Northern Louisiana Town? focuses on a town called Waterproof, where “the African American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an illegal coup carried out by an alliance of white politicians and their followers.”

This summer, Haymarket Books will release his new book, FLOODLINES: Stories of Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, and this fall he will be touring with the Community and Resistance Tour. Contact him at neworleans@leftturn.org. For more information on the book and tour, please see floodlines.org.

by Kurt Nimmo
hat tip: Infowars.com
May 21, 2010

On Thursday, two police officers were fatally shot and two wounded. “Two police officers in West Memphis, Ark., were killed at a traffic stop. The two suspects later died in a shootout with law enforcement in a Walmart parking lot. The Crittenden County sheriff and his top deputy were wounded,” USA Today reported yesterday afternoon. “The suspects, who have not been identified, were killed about an hour later after being spotted at the Walmart Superstore in West Memphis, across the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tenn.”

16 year old Joe Kane dead at the scene. Note the missing license plate on the vehicle.

On the surface, the story seems like yet another instance of meaningless violence that resulted in the murder of cops and armed suspects.

However, there is something fishy about the story most of the corporate media is not reporting.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Dr. Ron Paul

Congress, with its insatiable appetite for spending, is set to pass yet another “supplemental” appropriations bill in the next two weeks. So-called supplemental bills allow Congress to spend beyond even the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. These are akin to a family that consistently outspends its budget, and therefore needs to use a credit card to make it through the end of the month.

If the American people want Congress to spend less, putting an end to supplemental appropriations bills would be a start. The 13 “regular” appropriations bills fund every branch, department, agency, and program of the federal government. Congress should place every dollar in plain view among those 13 bills. Instead, supplemental spending bills serve as a sneaky way for Congress to spend extra money that was not projected in budget forecasts. Once rare, they have become commonplace vehicles for deficit spending.

The latest supplemental bill is touted as an “emergency” war spending bill, needed to fund our ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The emergencies never seem to end, however, and Congress passes one military supplemental bill after another as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on.

Many of my colleagues argue that Congress cannot put a price on our sacred national security, and I agree that the strong, unequivocal defense of our country is a top priority. There comes a time, however, when we must take stock of what our blank checks to the military industrial complex accomplish for us, and where the true threats to American citizens lie.

The smokescreen debate over earmarks demonstrates how we have lost perspective when it comes to military spending. Earmarks constitute about $11 billion of the latest budget. This sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $708 billion spent by the Pentagon this year to expand our worldwide military presence. The total expenditures to maintain our world empire is approximately $1 trillion annually, which is roughly what the entire federal budget was in 1990!

We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined, and far more than we spent during the Cold War. These expenditures in many cases foment resentment that does not make us safer, but instead makes us a target. We referee and arm conflicts the world over, and have troops in some 140 countries with over 700 military bases.

Submerging Execs Could Be ‘Win-Win’

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – At a conference of oil leak experts in Washington today, attendees proposed plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with executives of BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic spill.

“We’ve tried containment domes, rubber tires, and even golf balls,” said William Cathermeyer of the National Oil Leakage Institute, a leading consultancy in the field of oil leaks. “Now it’s time to shove some BP executives down there and hope for the best.”

Submerging the oil company executives thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface could be a “win-win” situation, Mr. Cathermeyer said.

“Best-case scenario, they plug the leak,” he said. “And at the very least, they’ll shut the f**k up.”

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

In their new book, Nullifying Tyranny: Creating Moral Communities in an Immoral Society, James and Walter Kennedy address the case for nullifying unconstitutional federal legislation to “fellow Christians who . . . understand that the government . . . has been slowly taken over. . . by an anti-Christian secular humanist element . . .” It is, in essence, an attempt to wake Christians up to the fact that the “god” of democracy results in a situation where immoral people can force everyone to comply with their edicts. “Government, even when sanctified by a majority vote, cannot turn an otherwise immoral act into a moral act.”

Amen.

Government under democracy is nothing more than legalized theft on a massive scale, the Kennedy brothers say in their Rothbardian analysis of the state. Whether it is monarchy or democracy, government steals private property (through taxation, mostly) “in order to pay for the loyalty of . . . supporters those close to the source of power who have a natural interest in maintaining the status quo.” Moreover, “A loyal court, a loyal police and military, and a loyal religious establishment” all “lead parasitic lives. The cost is paid by the productive who must labor to earn enough for the king” (or the state in general, under democracy).

Many Christians misread Jesus’s command, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are Gods,” they write. What Jesus said was NOT to obey ALL of Caesar’s commands, but only to “render unto Caesar things that belong to the realm of government, obey [only] legitimate laws enacted by government . . .” For “the larger the government the greater harm it will eventually do to society’s morals . . . . the only way to maintain a moral community is to keep the corrosive power of government at a minimum.”

by Michael Collins
hat tip: Economic Populist
05/23/2010

This analysis looks behind the scenes at how the ban on offshore drilling was lifted and what that had to do with the ultimate prize for big oil, the American Power Act. It focuses on the current administration. That in no way implies that the problem originated in January 2009. The out sized and destructive influence of the oil monopoly has been with us for since the 1870’s.

Banning Offshore Drilling

In 1969 a Unocal oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara, California began leaking oil. The extent of the leak, damage to wildlife, and the shoreline caused considerable outrage. The state of California banned offshore drilling shortly after the leak. In 1980, Congress banned offshore drilling in most federally controlled waters. President George H.W. Bush reluctantly banned off shore drilling in 1990 for California, Florida, Oregon and Washington and in the North Atlantic.

End story.

by Doug French
hat tip: Mises Daily
Monday, May 24, 2010

Anyone who follows financial markets has to wonder at times, “What are people thinking? How did they come to make those decisions?”

It’s hard to imagine that John Muth and Robert Lucas came up with what’s known as the “rational-expectations theory,” wherein, as explained in Wikipedia,

it is assumed that outcomes that are being forecast do not differ systematically from the market equilibrium results. That is, it assumes that people do not make systematic errors when predicting the future, and deviations from perfect foresight are only random.

Muth and Lucas should watch daily programs on the financial channels like Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, which is supposedly to help individual investors, or CNBC’s Fast Money, a show clearly geared toward speculators. No viewer can watch these shows and walk away believing, “people do not make systematic errors when predicting the future.”

So while financial markets have been a series of speculative bubbles as the Federal Reserve creates money ad infinitum, rational-expectations economists Robert Flood and Robert Hodrick daringly conclude, “The current empirical tests for bubbles do not successfully establish the case that bubbles exist in asset prices.”

hat tip: The Daily Bell
Monday, May 24, 2010 – by Staff Report

Who owns America today? … Perhaps the greatest threat to … the tea party is that they appear to be arguing a case that, for all practical purposes, has already been settled for the majority of Americans. The America of the Founding Fathers roots – a modest, decentralized, and agrarian nation – is gone, or is at least being pushed to the demographic margins, inhabiting the great red swath of the country’s middle. Politically, the America of today is as much a product of Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson – of the sprawling government programs of Medicaid and Social Security as much as the Second Amendment and its provision for nongovernment militias. Though he was speaking of … the Civil Rights Act specifically, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s comment Sunday morning on “Fox News Sunday” appears to be broadly relevant to the tea party as a viable political movement: “The philosophy was misplaced in these times,” he said. “The philosophy got in the way of reality.” – Christian Science Monitor

Dominant Social Theme: It’s ovah! The blue states have won. Federal government activism is gloriously ascendant.

Free-Market Analysis: Working closely together, we Bell staffers have developed a most un-libertarian, hive-like mentality. These days, buzzing in our brains are recollections, often, of the compelling Claudius books by Robert Graves. What comes to mind, however, is not so much the pomp and decrepitude that Graves brought to life as the books’ over-riding, semi-tragic perspective that the Republic was gone and could not be brought back.

Indeed, the theme of Roman republicanism-now-lost hangs over these books and in our humble opinion lifts them into the realm of great art. Not only does Graves have an apparently thorough grasp of ancient times, but he is able to bring these times to life and to inhabit them with living, breathing creatures who are often among the most maleficent and fascinating since Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote his great character-driven plays (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, etc.).

By Tom Devine and Coleen Rowley
(Rowley is a Former FBI Special Agent)
hat tip: Huffington Post
Posted: May 22, 2010

One month before 9/11, instructors at a Minnesota flight school call the FBI. Among other suspicious happenings, the most unusual “student” they have ever encountered just plopped down thousands in cash to learn to fly a 747, claiming his only purpose was “ego-boosting.” Agents in the Minneapolis FBI Office immediately confirm the information and seek permission to search by warning FBI Headquarters in over 60 emails and frantic telephone calls that “this is a guy who could fly into the World Trade Center.” Although the ‘Director of Central Intelligence’ is briefed within days with a presentation titled “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly“, neither the FBI or CIA staff does anything until after 9/11. Right after the attacks, however, the officials quickly cover-up these pre 9/11 lapses — actions hastened by internal repression.

This wasn’t the first lapse. In the years before 9/11, an FAA “Red Team” warns that it breaches airport security 90 percent of the time, but is censored from writing its findings and banned from retesting. The same Logan Airport gate exploited by the 9/11 hijackers had flunked just months before. After the attacks, the government grounds and reassigns the Red Team leader (a whistleblower) to remedial duties.

Hat tip: Tenth Amendment Center
by Rob Natelson
May 22, 2010

It is a document designed to protect our freedom by imposing law on those who wield political power. Without such law, Americans would be under the constant threat of tyranny.

The word “constitution” did not always refer to a particular document. The word is based on the Latin verb constituere, which means to arrange or decide. In its original English sense, a “constitution” was how a political system was set up. People spoke (and sometimes still speak) of the unwritten and evolving “constitutions” of Britain and of the ancient Roman republic.

As I explain in The Original Constitution, the American Founders acknowledged a huge debt to the British and Roman traditions, but they consciously rejected the British and Roman approach to constitutions. Specifically, they rejected the “evolutionary” and “unwritten” constitutional idea in favor of a written document that would lay out the rules in an clear and organized fashion.

There were only a few precedents for this approach: Sweden’s “Instrument of Government” was probably the first. Under Oliver Cromwell (1649-58), the English adopted a short-lived “Instrument of Government,” and then a short-lived “Humble Petition and Advice.” The name of the latter English constitution suggests how little those documents tempered Cromwell’s autocracy.

hat tip: Washington’s Blog
Sunday, May 23, 2010

The government failed to properly ensure that BP used adequate safety measures, BP and their contractors were criminally negligent for the oil spill, and BP has tried to cover up the problem. See this.

But why hasn’t BP stopped the leak?

Some people assume that BP hasn’t stopped the oil leak because it’s people are wholly incompetent.

Others have asked whether BP’s $75 million liability cap is motivating it to stall by taking half-hearted measures until it’s relief well drilling is complete.

But there is another possible explanation: the geology – as well the deepwater pressures – at the drilling site makes stopping the leak more difficult than we realize.

Does the Geology of the Spill Zone Make It Harder to Stop the Oil Spill?

We can’t understand the big picture behind the Gulf oil spill unless we know the underwater geology of the seabed and the underlying rocks.

For example, if there is solid rock beneath the leaking pipes, with channels leading to various underground chambers, then it might be possible to seal the leaking risers and blowout preventer, with the oil flowing somewhere harmless under the floor of the ocean.

by Prof James Petras
Global Research
May 22, 2010

Introduction

Latin America’s current relations with the US as well as its present political and economic configuration can best be understood in the context of large scale changes over the past twenty years and the relative stability of the past five years.

We will proceed by schematically highlighting the salient features leading to the rise and crises of neo-liberal regimes and policies and the emergence of diverse “post neo-liberal” regimes in the present period. We will analyze the nature and performance of the ‘post neo-liberal regimes’ to bring out their strengths and weaknesses in the context of world market conditions, as well as the emerging political and social contradictions and alternatives.

US Imperial Power and the Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Regimes

US imperial power and influence reached its maximum influence between 1976-1999. The military and civilian regimes throughout this period backed US international and regional positions and embraced “free market doctrines”. The neo-liberal rulers denationalized and privatized all strategic economic sectors, deregulated the banking and financial systems and submitted to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank. Nearly one trillion dollars in profits, interest and principle payments, rents and illegal funds were transferred to US and European banks and corporations.

The New American
by Joe Wolverton, II
Friday, 14 May 2010

Since the days when Mark Antony’s grandfather patrolled the coasts of the Mediterranean searching for the distinctive gilded-stemmed masts of their lightweight vessels, pirates from Cilicia (modern-day Cukorova, Turkey) had vexed Roman shipping lanes.

The pirates brigandry was particularly irksome for generations of Roman political leaders because the peace and stability of the massive Roman populace depended on the free, uninterrupted movement of goods from the other parts of their vast empire. Without this crucial supply of commodities, storehouses would empty, the people would go hungry, and riots would enflame the streets that run serpentine among the Seven Hills.

In 68 B.C., the Cilician pirates ratcheted their attacks on Roman interests up a notch. The bustling port at Ostia was their target. These brazen buccaneers sailed in and set the port on fire. The amber glow could be seen at night from the alleys and rooftops of Rome herself. The people were petrified with fear.

Rampant fear followed news of the assault: fear of famine, fear of death, fear of unsafe passage along the now-ancient roads connecting Italy’s coasts, rich with the bounty of the world, to the teeming interior, principally its capital — the Eternal City of Rome.