ides of July 2008

July 15, 2008—The dollar traded near its record low against the euro.. WSJ C8

--By this point in the credit crisis, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox could have made a name for himself by promoting bold initiatives to stabilize the US brokerages under his regulation. So what did the SEC do after another gruesome week for the financials? It announced moves to prevent the spreading of false rumors to manipulate securities prices... WSJ C14

--The House [of Representatives] declared Monday that any flag flown on federal property should be made in the USA. SBT A6

--[Sampson, an IUPUI janitor’s] troubles began last year when a co-worker complained about him reading a book titled “Notre Dame v. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan.” Sampson, a 58-year old white janitor and student majoring in communications, said he tried to explain that the book was a historical account written by a Notre Dame graduate....Sampson says his union official likened the book to bringing pornography to work, and the school’s affirmative action officer in November told Sampson his conduct constituted racial harassment... [The book[ recounts a 1924 riot between Notre Dame students and the Klan in which the students from the Catholic university prevailed.-- SBT B6

--In the court and in the automobile federation meeting , Mr. Mosley said The News of the World had manufactured its claim that his five hour session in the Chelsea flat had a Nazi theme. In court last week, he said the use of an Luftwaffe jacket by one of the women, guttural commands in German during spanking sessions, and other features of the afternoon were part of a generic prison scenario, and not an attempt to recreate the conditions of a Nazi concentrati0n camp, as the newspaper contended. NYT A12

other crimes

July 13, 2008—So hot is the speculation that war crimes trials will eventually follow in foreign or international courts that Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, has publicly advised Mr. Feith, Mr. Addington and Alberto Gonzales to “never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel.” NYT WK12

weekend July 12

July 12/13, 2008--The discussions at Treasury highlight the dilemma created by the financial crisis gripping the us: some institutions are considered too big to fail, but propping them up could erode the market’s incentive to properly judge risk by offering investors a false sense of security. –WSJ A1

--…a [French] court has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that she practices a radical form of Islam the prevented her from assimilating French culture. WSJ, A6

--The [issue at stake in] contrasting Danish and Dutch responses [to Islamic cartoons] … is whether democracy protects the right to offend or embraces religious taboos so that “citizens have a right not to be offended. WSJ W6

--7-12-2008—Three days after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the USA to host a tracking radar for an antiballistic missile system that Russia vehemently opposes, the authorities in Prague said the flow of Russian oil to their country was beginning to dwindle. NYT A5

--So how did Mr. Leahy [in cameo BATMAN role] find his character’s motivation? Was he thinking of Dick Cheney, who in 2004 used profanity to curse Mr. Leahy on the Senate floor? “No, I wasn’t visualizing Dick Cheney,” Mr. Leahy said. “They can’t use that dialogue in a PG-13 movie.” NYT A9

--7-11-08—Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the CIA’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes…--NYTA9

yesterday and today

7-10-08—The global commodities boom and the dollar’s decline have unleashed a wave of big money buys of prized American assets by newly flush foreign investors. NYT C1

7-9-08—Two hard-charging political operatives [Karen Hughes, Bush, Mark Penn, Clinton] are teaming up to create a bipartisan consulting organization to advise corporations in crisis... WSJ A6

--How to Rein in the Imperial CEO WSJ A15

oil vey!

7-8-08—High oil prices are producing a massive transfer of wealth from US pocketbooks into the hands of bad actors around the world, most notable Iran, Venezuela and Russia. ... Between 2004 and 2007, the report notes, foreigners bought 80% of all newly issued [US] Treasury bills.... Oil-producing countries are accumulating piles of excess cash that they can use—and are using—to buy pieces of American companies. WSJ A2

holiday weekend

7-7-08—Oil’s rapid rise is lending weight to predictions that prices could hit $200 a barrel this year.—WSJ A1

--“All I got left is a headful of memories/And a thought of my upcoming death”—“Don’t Need

This Body,” John Mellencamp [age 56] –NYT B3

7-3-08—Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that runs ounter to American policy and under cuts Iraq’s central government...NYTA1

--Declaring that there will not be “another colonization of Iraq,” Iraq’s foreign minister raised the possibility on Wednesday that a full security agreement with the US might not be reached this year, and that if one was, it would be a short term pact.—NYT A6

--Russia’s new president ... said in an interview than an American in “essentially a depression” was in no position to lecture other countries on how to conduct their foreign affairs. ... My Medvedev made his comments on Tuesday in a meeting ... a day after the American treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., appealed in Moscow for Russian investment in the United States. –NYTA9

--The United Steelworkers signed a merger agreement on Wednesday with the largest labor organization in Britain and Ireland to create what union leaders said would be the world’s first global union. NYT A15

Year 2008. Part II, begins

July 1, 2008—In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.

With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.

The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

--The Pentagon has ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR, a major military contractor, after several electrocutions of several US service members. NYT A10.