4-30-09

4-30-09—According to restructuring plans proposed this week, [UAW] will have more than half the stock in Chrysler and a third of GM, meaning it will have tremendous influence, along with the government, in determining the future of the companies. ... “We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders ...” a group of GM bondholders said ... NYT B1

4-29-09

4-29-09—Phoenix has the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first major city where home prices have fallen by half since 2006. NYT A1, B1

--US high school students haven’t made significant gains in reading or math since the early 1970s a report said. WSJ A, A5

--[Prof. Christopher Blakesley, former friend of torture memo signer and now federal appeallate court judge Jay Bybee] said that while he liked Judge Bybee, “he has some basic flaws about including being very naïve about leaders.” “He has too much respect for authority and will avoid a confrontation no matter what.” NYT A12

4-28-2009

4-28-09—[On Dec. 10, 2007] John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who had participated in the capture of suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly. M. Zubaydah started to co-operate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told ABC’s Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.” His claims—unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers—have been sharply contrasted by a newly classified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.” NYT A1

--Today the United States stands tenth, along with Australia, Spain, and Sweden, behind Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, Ireland, Norway Denmark and France in the percentage of its young people (ages 24-34) who have earned a post-secondary degree. Since secondary education abroad is often stronger than in the United States, the comparative educational attainment of Americans is probably even worse than these rankings suggest. Among adults in the age 55-64, we still lead the world in the percentage who are college graduates—which means not only that over the past three decades many nations have surpassed us, but that, in the aggregate, younger Americans are less well educated than their elders. –NYRB, May 14, 2009, p. 38.

weekend update April 25/26, 2009

4-26-09—[The Senate Armed Services Committee report released last week] found that Maj. Paul Burney, a US Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantanamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce that intelligence. In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a ear resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. –Frank Rich, NYT WK 14

4-26-09—Mr. Siggfusson [53 year old Left-Green Party leader and former truck driver] was finance minister in [Iceland’s] caretaker government, a position he is expected to keep after the election, and he tells interviewers he wants to free Iceland from the consequences of embracing the unrestrained free-marketing that had its origins in the United States. “What are the people of the United States made about now?” he said in a recent interview. “It is the same poisonous philosophy that we had here, based on a lack of moral awareness and greed, and people who thought nothing of flying Elton John into Iceland fo their 50th birthday and paying him 70 million Icelandic kronors,” or roughly $600,000. NYT A8

4-25-06—In a confidence game that made a mockery of the US military’s most secure compound in Iraq, a ring of Americans posing as contractors and their Nepalese truck drivers used tanker trucks, forged documents and sheer brazenness to steal at least $40 million worth of jet and diesel fuel from an Army depot... NYT A6

4-24-09

4-24-09—[Even as the Global Climate Commission, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels] worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted. NYT A1

--23 [Notre Dame student] groups endorse ... decision to invite President Barack Obama as this year’s commencement speaker. SBT A1

4-22-08

4-22-09—The top [Bush] officials which [GWB CIA Director Tenet] did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the US in war crimes trials after World War II and was a sell-documented favorite of despotic government since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia. NYT A1

--Record demand among faculty seeking tickets to the May 17 commencement ceremony featuring Barack Obama means not all University of Notre Dame professors who want to be there will be able to attend. SBT A1

i'll take half a loaf, then...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama left the door open on Tuesday to prosecuting some U.S. officials who laid the legal groundwork for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

USA! USA!

4-26-09—The US prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War II for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the [CIA] memos. NYT A1

--Today’s [USA] populism has prompted no large-scale protests in the US. That isn’t the case overseas. Close to one million French demonstrators on March 19 protested the government’s handling of the crisis, and thousands blocked London streets on April 1 during a G-20 meeting, events that dwarfed any protests in the US. WSJ A9

--[French union leader Pierre Piccarreta said] “I’m fighting against this economic system that makes men, women and entire families suffer. Everyone realizes this now. This system is starting to explode; it should no longer exist. It makes the entire world suffer, it enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor.” NYT A11’

1952

1952—Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
--We might be tempted to bring the whole of modern history to a tragic conclusion by one final and mighty effort to overcome its frustrations. The political term for such an effort is “preventative war.” It is not an immediate temptation; but it could become so in the next decade or two. A democracy can not, of course, engage in an explicit preventative war...
--The lip service which the whole culture pays to the principles of laissez-faire makes for tardiness in dealing with the instability of a free economy ... Some believe that .. a recurrence of such a catastrophe [the Great Depression] is impossible; but it is not altogether certain that this is true...
--This tendency is accentuated in our own day by the humorless idealism of our culture with its simply moral distinctions between good and bad nations, the good nations being those which are devoted to “liberty.”
--One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay that leads to death has already begun.

lawyers save Notre Dame

4-14-09—“...canon lawyers ... advised us that, by definition, only Catholics who implicitly recognize the authority of Church teaching can act in “’defiance’ of it,” [wrote Notre Dame Pres. Rev. Jenkins in regard to ND’s invitation to Obama].... “Moreover, fellow university presidents have told me that their bishops have told them that in fact it is only Catholic politicians who are referred to in [“Catholics in Political Life,” a statement passed in 2004 by US bishops. SBT A1

weekend update April 10-11, 2009

--4-12-09—The Canadian Supreme Court [Justice Ginsburg] said, is “probably cited more than the US Supreme Court.” ... “Can he police use torture to extract that information [where and when a bomb is going to go off]? And in an eloquent decision by Aharon Barak, then the chief justice of Israel, the court said” “Torture? Never.” NYT A14
--Seeking Arrangements 38 year old founder and chief executive [Brandon Wade says] “We ask people to really think about what they want in a relationship...” The site now claims more than 300,000 registered members ... Sugar babies outnumber daddies 10 to 1, Wade says, providing what one sugar daddy called “the best fishing hole I ever fished in.” ... Other women on the site would happily forfeit conspicuous prizes and go for cash instead, especially for tuition. NYTM40

---4-11-09-Millions of dollars worth of work associated with the new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and Mets was performed by companies that NYC avoids doing business with because of prior allegations of corruption and ties to organized crime. –NYT A1
--Obama’s round of spring events will culminate in appearances at graduation ceremonies in Notre Dame (where the local bishop is ticked off about the abortion thing) and Arizona State University where he is not going to receive an honorary degree. A spokeswoman for the university explained that it was withholding the honor from the president becase it was withholding that honor from the president because “his body of work is yet to come.” Tough standards, ASU! NYT A15
--Vince LaBarbara, spokesman for [Notre Dame’s bishop] urged Catholics not to attend an anti-Notre Dame, anti-Obama rally that was scheduled for 10 am Friday near the Allen County Courthouse ... The protest was organized by followers of anti-abortion advocate Randall Terry, who has set up an office in South Bend. LaBarbera called the event poorly timed, noting it was set for Good Friday ..... Friday afternoon ... the protest initially drew five local particpants, then Terry’s assistant and three other demonstrators showed up after 11 a.m. SBT A1

4-8-09

China, India, Brazil, and others into central, permanent roles in deciding the world economy’s course, even if that made the decision-making unwieldly. NYT A11
--Cyberspies have penetrated the US electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system... The spies came from China, Russia, and other countries... WSJA1
--When French foes of capitalism want to mount an effective protest, they phone Xavier Renou. As one of France’s top protest consultants, Mr. Renou teaches activists how to chain themselves to trees, damage genetically modified crops and withstanding police interrogations. These days, his phone is ringing off the hook... WSJ A1
---Niles [Michigan] YMCA expands family definitions. It’s now two adults who occupy same household, regardless of sex. “Our definition only fit 24% of the families in the US”—SBT A1

vive la France

Tue Apr 7, 2009 10:47am EDT
PARIS (Reuters) - Almost half of French people believe it is acceptable for workers facing layoffs to lock up their bosses, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.

Staff at French plants run by Sony, 3M and Caterpillar have held managers inside the factories overnight, in three separate incidents, to demand better layoff terms -- a new form of labor action dubbed "bossnapping" by the media.

A poll by the CSA institute for Le Parisien newspaper found 50 percent of French people surveyed disapproved of such acts, but 45 percent thought they were acceptable.

"They are not in the majority ... but 45 percent is an enormous percentage and it demonstrates the extent of exasperation among the public at this time of economic crisis," Le Parisien said.

weekend update

--4-6-09—Threatened protests of [Obama’s commencement] visit by some conservative groups on campus have left liberal students ... bringing over what they say is the portrayal of Notre Dame as insulated and narrow-minded.
4-4/5-09—“He’s the first black president,” [said a 16 year old student from Alsace]. “He’s a symbol of freedom, justice and equality between black and white and he’s not a Republican.” -- WSJ A6
—4-3-09—The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured. NYT A13

4-2-2009

--April 2, 2009—[Hedge fund criminal] defendants, with assets frozen, find it tough to hire attorneys.---WSJ A15

--Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina ... has told the Obama administration that he would not accept some $577 million in educational stimulus money for South Carolina unless he could use it to pay down state debt. [Secretary of Education] Duncan unleashed a barrage of dismal statistics about the South Carolina schools, noting that only 15% of the state’s black students are proficient in math and that the state has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates. NYT A15

--The simplistic dictum of more markets and less government ... has failed on a momentous scale. –Rasmussen, president of European Socialist Party and former Prime Minister of Demarl WSJ A19

April 1

April fools----Anarchists organize to spread the word ...Still anarchy in the UK isn’t what it used to be. Former Sex Pistols singer ... Johnny Rotten... recently appears in ads for Country Life butter. WSJ A8

--Employees surrounded [French tycoon Pinault’s] car as he left a meeting in Paris early Tuesday evening and refused to let him leave for nearly an hour... Separately, workers facing layoffs at a Catterpillar Inc. factory in the French Alps detained four of their bosses Tuesday in a bid to secure better severance packages. WSJ B1

--...cartoonist Robert Crumb has finished his long-awaited work ... a comic book re-telling of the Book of Genesis. NYT C3-- Bachmann to represent morally edifying Young Charles in copyright infringement lawsuit...