ZEDDERS!

Howdy, Attaturk!

Well, the comments are coming too fast and furious for me, I shall bid ya’ll a fond adieu! Aloha Oe!!!

ct - this is just about my speed prior to morning coffee.

[Whew!] That is truly good news, and not a minute too soon for Mr. Hussein and his family and friends, I’m sure. A toast to them later this evening.

280!

may this be just the beginning of the release of many more.

woo hoo! can’t believe i didn’t hear this from ET first…

scott horton of antiwar.com interviews diane benson.

from calculated risk:

wsj:Russian output fell for the first time in a decade in the first three months of this year, according to the International Energy Agency

cnn: Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world’s attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

“This is the world’s big story,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

“The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend,” he said on CNN’s “American Morning,” in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. “There are riots all over the world in the poor countries … and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States.”

Does Malkin know that she isn’t a white woman? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

Good morning, pups. It’s that tool Bobo and Mr. Herbert in the NYT today. Bobo thinks Sen. Obama gave a “Speech About Nothing,” and says that Barack Obama’s speech on Monday on the economy put him in the no-man’s land between Lou Dobbs-style populism and Bill Clinton-style free trade. Bobo, what does St. McSame have to say on the economy? Oh, I forgot… He doesn’t know thing one about it, by his own admission. Mr. Herbert gives us “Some Perspective on ‘Bitter’,” and says Barack Obama should be advised to meet as often as possible with skeptical, and even hostile, working people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got blueberry muffins. I’ve had a cup of tea, and now I’m considering some hot chocolate because it’s 42 degrees and feels like winter again. (Sorry, I know, I know… that must grate on those of you with 10 feet of snow, but we make up for it by living in a blast furnace all summer long…)

Blast furnaces are dry.

Good morning all.

and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States.”

Not just the poor. Those of us that are not “poor” but are borderline and on fixed income are being forced to cut back on “luxuries”. No going out to dinner once a month, no vacation planned for this year and the 11 year old car is going to have to be a 12 year old car and of course other cut backs in everyday living. This country is fucked.

Blast furnaces are dry.

and warm

sachs is an idiot. a well meaning, compassionate idiot, but an idiot all the same.

I got that part, it’s not quite as humid in Athens but it’s still intense.

Oh, if only…! Okay, we boil in a cauldron all summer?

so when bilal is released and interviewed, what do you think he is going to say?

it is hard to believe bilal would be released if he were tortured, they would not be able allow the information made public so I don’t think we’re going to get a relevation like that, on the other hand, they might not have been able to “disapear” bilat since he was such a high profile captive

me personally thinks teh shit hits the fan and I can’t wait to see which corporate market carries the interview

now off topic, sorry

raw story is reporting that according to the new york times there are going to be thousands of stores closing due to the weak buying market, the weak dollar and too much pressure on loan aquisition

A growing number of bankruptcies among US retailers is set to prompt thousands of store closings, the New York Times will report on the front page of its Tuesday edition.

“The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets are triggering a wave of bankruptcies in American retailing,” with ensuing store closures “expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country,” writes Michael Barbaro for the Times.

but, they say the store closings will be chain stores

as far as I am conserned, except for the immidiate labor problem, people getting layed off, this might be the beginning of the turn around where we finally get the local stores back into communities

this country needs to go back to the era of taxation before reagan gave all our money and assets to the wealthiest people on the planet

we can even call this a “tax decrease”

we will be lowering everyone’s taxes and the giveaways to the wealthy will be reclaimed

I really like this idea, not only returning us to the tax structure before the reagan era, but actually call the program tax reduction

that would drive the neo cons batty

Nicely done. Hot n’ a mofo works for me.

Okay, we boil in a cauldron all summer?

Would you like a visit from the WH this summer……

Go out for dinner? What’s that? I have distant memories of doing such a thing… Every single time I’m in the supermarket I’m appalled at what the prices are. 75 cents for a lime? Milk costs more than gas, and certain things are just completely off our menu.

as far as I am conserned, except for the immidiate labor problem, people getting layed off, this might be the beginning of the turn around where we finally get the local stores back into communities

You mean local stores we can actually walk to? You mean local stores that will keep the money in the community and not send it to Arkansas? What are you some kind of liberal elitist commie?

Would you like a visit from the WH this summer……

I wouldn’t mind seeing the WH if it wants to hop on a flatbed truck and come on down. However, what on earth have we done to you that you would wish the Current Occupant on us? I’m more than willing to send him for an extended stay at our cooler neighborhood to the south. You may know that neighborhood by its common name, “hell.”

anyone see raw story this morning?

mccain not only shows how little he knows about the military, how little he knows about this war, but he also shows he is going to be a brown nose and if a general tells him to jump off that cliff, that is exactly what mccain is going to do;

“I would not do that unless General Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that.”

But as the Army Times points out, Petraeus has nothing to do with the decision to move troops to Afghanistan:

it looks like the army times is trying to make certain a democrat takes office this cycle

Go out for dinner? What’s that? I have distant memories of doing such a thing

Our last was by a gift certificate in Feb. Pretty soon though, once the snow is finally off the ground, we can go outside on the deck to dinner!

would wish the Current Occupant on us?

It was that boiling cauldron that got me thinking.

Good morning Attaturk! That sure is great news! Knowing the Neocon Nutcase Extraordinaire will be bullshit about this release is another cause to celebrate.

we really have to get back to the tax structure that built this country into what she became

but in an epiphane last night I realised going back to that tax structure can actually be called a tax reduction

it’s genious and I want to get in touch with ian welch to see if he can put together one of his great pieces with that theme

me goes for a work out, see all alter

In reading this article I wondered if it’s easier for a corporation to declare bankruptcy under the new rules than it is for a real, flesh and blood person? My cynical guess would be that it is…

from the rootless cosmopolitan:

The reason for this food crisis is the current structure of global inequality (as someone noted recently, the rich demand fuel for their SUVs, turning farmland to biofuel production at the expense of food needed by the poor) combined with the basic Malthusian reality of scarcity: The very spread of capitalism in previously closed economies such as India and China has spurred rapacious demand for oil and natural gas (whose price rises have an inflationary effect on food prices), and the emergence of a middle class pretty much the same size as America’s, who are not only seeking cars and appliances, but are also eating more meat — and producing a single calorie of meat protein takes seven to 12 calories of grain, which has dramatically increased inflationary pressure on grain prices.

The interesting thing, though, is that solving this particular crisis will require that the World Bank and IMF abandon the economic orthodoxy that they imposed globally during the 1990s — the “Washington consensus,” that frowns on things like government spending on feeding the poor.

Good Morning, this is wonderful news about Bilal Hussein! Yay.

.
Here’s what’s coming up on Washington Journal

7:30 am - Marilyn Geewax, Cox Newspapers, National Economics Reporter

8:00 am - Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA)

8:30 am - Joseph Sinnott, Mayor of Erie, PA (D)

8:50 am - Jacob Rouch, Erie Regional Chamber, V.P. for Economic Growth

9:10 am - David Bielski, Northwest PA AFL-CIO, Sec.-Treas.

9:40 am - John Dineen, GE Transportation, President & CEO

That would be the optimistic version.
The pessimistic version would be evidenced in Detroit where there closed stores are boarded up and one has to drive or take public transportation 2 miles to buy a quart of milk from a national chain drug store.
The factors which drove local merchants out of business were not just the advent of big boxes.
The entire distribution system ‘evolved’ in a manner to make independents inviable.
There is much further to sink before the whole model is destroyed and can re-evolve.
An anarchist would say that is the only way to bring about change.
Me, I am hopeful that the solution need not be so drastic.

thank you elliott!

and here’s my reminder of some of the many congressional committee hearings scheduled for today:

9:30 am – House Armed Services
Building Partnership Capacity and Development of the Interagency Process.
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
Michael G. Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

1 pm - House Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
Hearing on H.R. 3189, the “National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007”
as reported by the ACLU, witnesses will include:
Glenn Fine, DOJ Inspector General
Valerie Caproni, FBI General Counsel
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project

2:30 pm - Senate Foreign Relations
To hold hearings to examine protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949….
John B. Bellinger, Legal Adviser, Department of State
Charles A. Allen, Deputy General Counsel, International Affairs, Department of Defense
Brigadier General Michelle D. Johnson, Deputy Director for the War on Terrorism and Global Effects, J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, Joint Staff

At least 50 dead in a bombing in Iraq today.

To hold hearings to examine protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949….

Are they going to try to get “enhanced interrogation techniques” added?

Mornin’ all!

Wow. I’m surprised Stone admitted that Hussein is not a risk:

A statement by Multinational Forces-Iraq said Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, commander of coalition detention facilities in Iraq, signed the release order after confirming the Iraqi committee’s decision to grant Hussein amnesty — a ruling that drops legal proceedings but does not assume or determine guilt or innocence.

Hussein — who had been held since April, 12, 2006 — was never brought to trial.

“After the action by the Iraqi judicial committees, we reviewed the circumstances of Hussein’s detention and determined that he no longer presents an imperative threat to security,” Stone said in the statement.

I’m confused, though. I don’t see anything in the coverage suggesting he already has been freed. Call me a skeptic, but I won’t breathe easier until I see confirmation he is out of custody and has left Iraq.

a real flesh and blood person no longer enjoys the protection of bankruptcy so you are right marion

Thank you selise!

Should be interesting hearing on torture. I hope the questions are hard hitting. And the Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, too.

Are they going to try to get “enhanced interrogation techniques” added?

Let’s hope so. Here is the agenda for the hearing and it looks the same as it was yesterday when selise first pointed out the hearing in another thread:

1. Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War (Protocol V)
to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions
on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons
Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious
or To Have Indiscriminate Effects, done at Geneva
on November 28, 2003 (Treaty Doc. 109-10)
2. Amendment of Article 1 of the Convention
on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of
Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be
Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious or To Have
Indiscriminate Effects, done at Geneva
December 21, 2001 (Treaty Doc. 109-10)
3. Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property in the Event of Armed Conflict signed by the
United States on May 14, 1954 (Treaty Doc. 106-1)
4. Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions
on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III)
Additional to the Convention of October 10, 1980
on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain
Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To
Be Excessively Injurious or To Have Indiscriminate
Effects, done at Geneva October 10, 1980
(Treaty Doc. 105-1)
5. Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (Protocol IV)
Additional to the Convention on October 10, 1980
on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain
Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To
Be Excessively Injurious or To Have Indiscriminate
Effects, done at Vienna on October 13, 1995
(Treaty Doc. 105-1)

The witnesses:

+The Honorable John B. Bellinger
Legal Adviser
Department of State
Washington, DC

+Mr. Charles A. Allen
Deputy General Counsel
International Affairs
Department of Defense
Washington, DC

+Brigadier General Michelle D. Johnson
Deputy Director for the War on Terrorism
and Global Effects
J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate
Joint Staff
Washington, DC

mack, the envirnment that made locals inviable was the tax structure and failure to charge countries that don’t pay their own bills producing product when they import to the sates

when a manufacturer is allowed to externalised it’s expenses, getting the working class to pay the manufacturers bills, like cleaning the crap they dump in the air, like the roads and water works, like the health of it’s labor force

when they are allowed to produce their product without paying those bills and export to here at a price that looks lower then our product, the businesses that do pay their own bills will go out of bussiness

now, franchises and big business buy in bulk from these countries that externalise their expenses and small business is forced out

what has to happen, a tariff placed on any product that comes from a country that does not provide for collective bargaining and does not pay their other bills, thus, creating what is REALLY “free trade”, thus creating “fair trade” which is far more free then the deregulated principles promonted by corporate america

also, our taxes have to be reduced to the point before reagan raised those taxes

and in order to lower our taxes to those levels, the tax burden must be redistributed to the same metric that applied before reagan raised our taxes

notice my last paragraph, that is the way democrats have to talk when discussing raising infrastructure revenue

Morning, Marion - at my house this morning, in Upstate New York, it was 19 degrees - I think my 19 = your 42. Must be a Canadian high or something.

You want humid, come to Florida. Yankees come down for the winter when there’s no humidity, then buy a home and retire. Their first summer kills ‘em. They stay in the a/c all summer and come out in November, in time to have the kids and grandkids for Thanxgiver. And they spend all that time with the family bitchin’ about how hot it is in the summer. I just wish they’d go back to wherever they came from.