TGIFriday Reads

Posted: October 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs, Global Financial Crisis, morning reads, New Orleans, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Good Morning!

Wow!  It’s Friday!  The week has sort’ve whizzed by for me and I have to admit to feeling like the days are blending together.  The weather is great down here right now.  October in New Orleans is usually a nice blend of perfect weather and no real surge in tourists so that’s a good change.  We had an Occupy New Orleans march–I didn’t make it–that seemed well attended and non-eventful.  I had a lot of friends that showed up and they took a lot of pictures.  I think we all should try to share the events in our individual cities if we get a chance. I’m really hoping this movement doesn’t get captured by the political establishment.

Taking its cues from the New York protest, Occupy New Orleans makes all its decisions through “general assembly,” a series of votes that aims to reflect the views of everyone involved. The process can be lengthy — simply selecting the march’s route took three hours for the group of about 100 to decide.

That’s one reason the group has not made a list of concrete goals, though it intends to in the upcoming weeks, said participant Michael Martin, 25. The movement also has no leader or spokesperson — each member is allowed one vote. The resultant lack of a coherent message has drawn skepticism even from would-be sympathizers.

Organizers of the New Orleans protest say they expect hundreds to participate; the group has more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and more than 4,100 fans on Facebook. The group received permits Wednesday allowing them to march, according to New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Remi Braden.

In light of 700 protestors’ arrests in New York City on Saturday, Occupy New Orleans held a training session for legal observers Tuesday that drew 20 people, mainly law students.

We really need to have a huge conversation about the idea that a “secret panel” can put an American citizen on a kill list without actual due process in the courts.  Here’s a start at that discussion from Reuters.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama’s toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki’s killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush’s expansive use of executive power in his “war on terrorism,” is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

Yeah, that’s the word I’m thinking …. ironic… not!!  I am very much attuned to the situation in Europe.  The banks have pretty much done it to us again and it looks like there will be more bail outs coming.  There’s a lot of talk that it could be worse than 2007-2008.  Here’s ZeroHedge’s take on a BBC insider interview with an IMF advisor that says: “In The Absence Of A Credible Plan We Will Have A Global Financial Meltdown In Two To Three Weeks”.  The interview is posted there if you’re more curious.

A week after the BBC exploded Alessio Rastani to the stage, it has just done it all over again. In an interview with IMF advisor Robert Shapiro, the bailout expert has pretty much said what, once again, is on everyone’s mind: “If they can not address [the financial crisis] in a credible way I believe within perhaps 2 to 3 weeks we will have a meltdown in sovereign debt which will produce a meltdown across the European banking system. We are not just talking about a relatively small Belgian bank, we are talking about the largest banks in the world, the largest banks in Germany, the largest banks in France, that will spread to the United Kingdom, it will spread everywhere because the global financial system is so interconnected. All those banks are counterparties to every significant bank in the United States, and in Britain, and in Japan, and around the world. This would be a crisis that would be in my view more serious than the crisis in 2008…. What we don’t know the state of credit default swaps held by banks against sovereign debt and against European banks, nor do we know the state of CDS held by British banks, nor are we certain of how certain the exposure of British banks is to the Ireland sovereign debt problems.”

But no, Morgan Stanley does, or so they swear an unlimited number of times each day. And they say not to worry about anything because, you see, it is not like they have any upside in telling anyone the truth. Which is why for everyone hung up on the latest rumor of a plan about a plan about a plan spread by a newspaper whose very viability is tied in with that of the banks that pay for its advertising revenue, we have one thing to ask: “show us the actual plan please.” Because it is easy to say “recapitalize” this, and “bad bank” that. In practice, it is next to impossible. So yes, ladies and gentlemen, enjoy this brief relief rally driven by the fact that China is offline for the week and that the persistent source of overnight selling on Chinese “hard/crash landing” concerns has been gone simply due to an extended national holiday. Well, that holiday is coming to an end.

Some of the weaker Spanish banks have been nationalized.  It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this.

Austrailia's Status of Women Minister, Kate Ellis

 Australia’s Status of Women Minister, Kate Ellis says that “mindless bias” holds women back in her country.  She’s been making the rounds arguing about a report that shows that gender differences in salary and position cannot be explained away by either occupational choices or other factors. Can you imagine Valerie Jarret holding US corporations to account for not promoting and hiring women? Oh, wait, the Prime Minister’s name is Julia … hmmmmm.

”We are saying very clearly to corporate Australia, we want to work in partnership with you to change this – and it’s an offer that I hope corporate Australia will take that up and we don’t have to take that conversation any further.”

Asked yesterday about the portrayal of women in the media, Ms Ellis said there was sometimes unequal treatment ”handed out”, and said the treatment of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was ”a case study before our eyes”.

”I think there’s a really interesting issue, where often I will be encouraging people where if you see unfair treatment, if you see discrimination you should stand up and call it out for what it is,” she said.

”In politics, there’s often the opposite pressure, where if you do that constantly it looks like female politicians are whingeing and they’re not tough enough to handle the environment.”

She said her office was collating examples of the media dealing with gender issues in ways that were not ”acceptable”.

According to the government’s latest census of women in leadership, last year females made up just 8.4 per cent of directors and 8 per cent of executive managers in ASX200 companies.

The report calls for companies to adopt a range of reforms, including making their workplaces more flexible and setting targets for gender diversity.

The Guardian has a killer interview up with retired US General McChrystal who says the US is only about 1/2 done with the war in Afghanistan.  That means 10 more years if he’s right.

The US began the war in Afghanistan with a “frighteningly simplistic” view of the country and even 10 years later lacks the knowledge that could help bring the conflict to a successful end, a former top commander has said.

Retired US army general Stanley McChrystal said in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations that the US and its Nato allies were only “a little better than” 50% of the way to reaching their war goals.

Of the remaining tasks to be accomplished, he said, the most difficult may be to create a legitimate government that ordinary Afghans could believe in and that could serve as a counterweight to the Taliban.

McChrystal, who commanded coalition forces in 2009-10 and was forced to resign in a flap over a magazine article, said the US entered Afghanistan in October 2001 with too little knowledge of Afghan culture.

“We didn’t know enough and we still don’t know enough,” he said. “Most of us, me included, had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years.”

US forces did not know the country’s languages and did not make “an effective effort” to learn them, he said.

McChrystal said the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq less than two years after entering Afghanistan made the Afghan effort more difficult.

Well, that’s some depressing things to think about which is about what’s on my mind today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list?

Tuesday Reads: Occupy Boston, Occupy Wall Street, and a Modern Day Whisky Rebellion

Posted: October 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economy, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

Good Morning!! Today I want to focus on articles about Occupy Wall Street protests, which despite the critiques of those on both the right and left, are still going on in NYC and many other U.S. cities, including Boston, I’m happy to say. The Boston Phoenix has a blog to document the protests. On September 28, Chris Faraone wrote:

At this early juncture it’s already safe to say that Occupy Wall Street has succeeded. I’m not being sarcastic. Yesterday I wrote about the media storm that’s showered their protests from early on, and that’s rained down even harder since the New York Police Department began brutalizing demonstrators. And after last night’s Occupy Boston meeting on the Common, I’m convinced that the hordes have achieved something even greater than attracting press: regardless of what they actually accomplish in the end, Occupy has already become the hottest protest franchise since the Tea Party. Which is why it makes sense that contrarian Boston is emerging as the first city to strike while the brand is hot.

Last night’s kickoff meeting was at least a testament to the popularity of this movement. People have been angry for some time, but for many it was Occupy that motivated them – not the countless other protests that take place every week around here. Roughly 300 showed –with a significant number of reporters on the scene documenting –despite the event having been announced less than a day ahead of time, and almost exclusively through social media (Steve Annear, who you should follow on Twitter if you’re keeping tabs on the actions, also broke the story in the Metro). By a show of hands, a few dozen folks on the Common got their feet wet in Liberty Square during the first stretch of Occupy Wall Street. But for the most part, these were people – mostly young, but overall from a mix of backgrounds, ages, and ethnicities – who’d become interested by what they’d seen online and in the news.

Occupy Boston meeting on Boston Common

The Guardian even published an article about the Boston organization:

There were socialists, anti-poverty campaigners, students, anarchists, computer hackers, the unemployed, and workers ranging from a vet to an accountant.

And, numbering around 200 and meeting to plot until late in the night, a group of Bostonians have decided to recreate the anti-Wall Street protests that are gripping New York.

Unlike previous attempts, such as a march that fizzled out in Chicago with just 20 people, the people behind Occupy Boston showed a strong dose of media savvy and organisational skill on Monday night, as they drew a committed crowd of volunteers to their cause: to occupy a slice of the city. Local TV crews were in attendance at the evening mass planning meeting, and it had been flagged on the front pages of Boston’s newspapers.

The move raises the first serious prospect of the Wall Street protests spreading beyond New York and comes as other events are also being planned in Los Angeles and Washington.

Noam Chomsky even made a youtube video of support.

This thing is really growing. Could it be that the young people of this country are really going to stand up and fight? I sure hope so. Is this happening where you live? If so, please share what you know. I’m starting to get excited about this!

Getting back to the New York protests, Emptywheel had a post today on the NYPD and their history of violations of civil liberties. I’m not going to excerpt from it, because you really need to read the whole thing–it’s not very long.

At FDL, David Dayen has a post about Van Jones’s Take Back the American Dream organization and how it is “building off #Occupy Wall Street.”

The Campaign for America’s Future expected their conference to be a launching pad for an American Dream Movement that would be a counterpart to the Tea Party, a left populist movement that would branch out across the country. And that movement has built itself up over the past couple months, and was in part responsible for the invisible town hall revolution over August.

But CAF found itself caught by an organic protest movement, a disparate movement organized by a simple theme, an expression of the feeling of mass injustice. Nobody on the left was totally prepared for #OccupyWallStreet, which sprung up on its own. But the groups that have been organizing in similar ways and with a similar theme were more than prepared to support it.

The spirit of #OccupyWallStreet has given a booster shot to this Take Back the American Dream Conference, which last year was completely moribund. The first session at the conference was a paean to #OccupyWallStreet, with video from New York City (the live feed crashed, unfortunately) and even one organizer who camped out in Zuccotti Park speaking. “If we demand something from Wall Street, we’re telling them that they have the power, but we do,” said the organizer from the Working Families Party in New York.

“They went down there to the scene of the crime against our future,” said Van Jones at his keynote address, in admiration of the #OccupyWallStreet protesters. “They’ve been beaten, they’ve been pepper sprayed, they’ve been falsely arrested, but they never broke their discipline. They told the police officers who were arresting them, we are the 99%, we’re fighting for you, we’re fighting for your pensions too.”

“Something’s happening in America. Don’t you give up on this movement!” Jones concluded.

Yes, something is finally happening. Will it continue to grow? I sure hope so!

I also want to call your attention to an interesting piece at Salon by William Hogeland, author of three books on the revolutionary period in American history. Hogeland compares the Occupy Wall Street movement to the so-called Whisky Rebellion. Hogeland writes about radical protests movements against our founding fathers, who were, after all, the elites of their day. Here’s just a sample:

The difficulty in dealing with our founding battle for democratic economics arises in part because the movement was not against England but against the very American banking and trading elites who dominated the resistance to England. That complicates our founding myth, possibly unpleasantly. Also, it was a generally losing battle. With ratification of the Constitution, Hamiltonian finance triumphed, and people looking to Jefferson and Madison for finance and economic alternatives to Hamilton are barking up the wrong tree, since what those men knew, or even really cared, about finance could be written on a dime. (Anyway, in pushing for creating a nation, Madison supported Hamiltonian finance down the line. Their differences came later.) When Occupy Wall Street protesters say “It’s We the People!” they’re actually referring to a preamble, intending no hint of economic democracy, to a document that was framed specifically to push down democratic finance and concentrate American wealth for national purposes. Not very edifying, but there it is.

The Tea Party, meanwhile, has taken up founding economic issues from a right-wing point of view, associating itself with the upper-middle-class Boston patriots (often mistaken for populist democrats) who led a movement against overrreaching British trade acts in the 1760′s and were important to the impulse toward American independence. I’ve written fairly extensively about where and how I think the Tea Party goes wrong on the history of the founding period. But at least they’re framing their objections to current policy, and framing the historical roots of their ideas, not mainly in cultural but in economic terms.

Like it or not, though, it is Occupy Wall Street that has the most in common, ideologically, not with those Boston merchants and their supporters but with the less well-known, less comfortably acknowledged people who, throughout the founding period, cogently proposed and vigorously agitated for an entirely different approach to finance and monetary policy than that carried forward by the famous founders. Amid horrible depressions and foreclosure crises, from the 1750′s through the 1790′s, ordinary people closed debt courts, rescued debt prisoners, waylaid process servers, boycotted foreclosure actions, etc. (More on that here and here.) They were legally barred from voting and holding office, since they didn’t have enough property, so they used their power of intimidation to pressure their legislatures for debt relief and popular monetary policies. Their few leaders in legit politics included the visionary preacher Herman Husband, the weaver William Findley, and the farmer Robert Whitehill.

I found this article absolutely fascinating!

At the LA Times, there’s an editorial about the “message” of the “Occupy” protests along with a photo of protesters at LA City Hall.

The political left has been searching for the last couple of years to find an answer to the tea party. Some hoped last year’s rally in Washington led by TV comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, a response to right-wing rallies attended by such conservative media celebrities as Glenn Beck, would spark a national movement. That didn’t happen. Now they’re pinning their hopes on Occupy Wall Street, which in many ways is a mirror image of the tea party. Both groups are motivated by frustration over the rotten economy and are vague about causes and solutions, though if their positions could be summed up in a one-line manifesto, it might be: The tea party, dominated by elderly conservatives, blames government overspending and overreach for our economic problems and would therefore like to cut federal spending, while Occupy Wall Street, dominated by young liberals, blames corporate greed and would therefore like to tax the rich and decrease corporate political power.

It is, of course, far too early to suggest that Occupy Wall Street represents a resurgence of the left. But we do seem to recall that in its initial days the tea party was similarly dismissed by pundits, especially those on the left who preferred to see the protesters as kooks rather than the vanguard of a political shift. What matters isn’t the size of the protest, the attire of the demonstrators or the misspellings on their signs; it’s whether the relatively tiny number of people who can be bothered to show up and march can inspire and energize other like-minded people enough to get them to the polls.

Finally, at Huffpo, there’s a piece by Judith Samuelson: A Baby Boomer’s Advice to the Millennials Occupying Wall Street

Whether their disgust with Wall Street is fueled by a lack of jobs or a more complex analysis was not apparent to me, but I trust we will be hearing more from the Millennials. Scholars are suggesting they will be a force to be reckoned with. In fact, you might already be experiencing their tendency to want to be heard in the workplace, in the classroom or at the dinner table, for example.

There are a lot of them; 90 million by some count, comprising the largest generation in our history. They are the most racially diverse generation ever, and they have been, and are being, shaped by remarkable events such as 9/11 and the ongoing global recession; by their parents — the boomers of yore; and, of course by technology — the first generation to take instant communications for granted. I believe that Millennials will shape our response to issues that bedevil us — through their passion about social issues, their facility with technology and social networking, and through their continued willingness to vote — as they did in big numbers in the last Presidential election.

Many of them will go to business school — or are already there. A quarter of post-graduate degrees are in business, and 20 percent of undergraduates are pursuing business degrees. Even at liberal arts colleges that may not offer “business” as a major, students flock to economics instead, or as close as they can get to the subject. This may be the result of parental pressure to exit school with some hope of finding a job (unlike baby boomers, Millennials are close to their parents and apparently even listen to them) but it is also in pursuit of the skills, language and heroes they have grown up with — more Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg than Bob Dylan and Robert Redford.

The question I have been thinking about is how they will bridge these two worlds — passion for social issues, and comfort with technology and business. I know from experience that real change is hard; that to influence business, and Wall Street, requires people skills as well as analytics, patience, and multiple approaches to gain the attention and commitment of the power brokers who set the rules and design the reward systems. Protest is a not an insignificant part of the puzzle, however, and always has been; just ask Walmart, Nike or Nestle.

In the spirit of Baby Boomers’ sharing their experience, strength, and hope with the Millennials, here’s a boomer anthem that might be appropriate:

What are you reading and blogging about today? Please share!

Monday Morning Reads

Posted: October 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Good Morning!

This is going to be a busy week or so for me.  If you don’t see me around, just know I’m off doing things to put me on a new and hopefully higher path.  I’m defending my dissertation on the 13th, doing paper presentation on the 21st, and sending out CV packets all over the globe.  I love New Orleans but I’m headed to hopefully greener pastures.  I can’t take the war on Higher Education here any more.  Youngest daughter graduates from LSU in the spring and we’re both headed to places that aren’t dedicated to reinstating Plantation economies.  I’m cutting my losses before it gets any worse.

So, I had to bring this to the top of the links this morning.  Minx posted it down thread last night as I was actually reading it.  We have to find a way of cutting the Koch Brothers off the federal teat.  They pay small sums to loot our national resources and then they defy our national security priorities on the side.  They’ve been found getting rich off of secret sales to Iran and also bribing folks for contracts.  Thank goodness for whistle blowers!  It’s time to close them down.  This is from Bloomberg.

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination.

Every time I read about one of these things I think about the vast number of times I could’ve whistle blown on almost all the private sector companies I’ve ever worked for at one time or another.  It just makes me wonder what else is out there going unreported. The Federal government should make sure that they get severely fined, taken to court, and banned from accessing federal resources. But, given the lessons of GE, I doubt that will happen.   However, please boycott these brands owned by the Koch brothers: Stainmaster, Brawny, Dixie Cups, and Quilted Northern.

The Hill reports that Republicans are getting restless and eating their young  yet again.  It’s the blame game and the election season rolled into one!  I will pass out some popcorn if you need it!

GOP lawmakers told The Hill that redistricting pitting incumbents versus incumbents, coupled with the threat of Tea Party primary opponents, has sparked a lot of anxiety among House Republicans.

At separate closed-door conference meetings held last month as GOP leaders scrambled for votes on the appropriations bill that would ultimately fail, the topic of primaries and uncertain political futures ranked high among members’ complaints.

A freshman GOP member attributed the initial failure of the bill to assumptions on the part of the leadership. There were expectations, the member said, that enough Democrats would vote yes and that Republicans who backed the debt-reduction deal this summer would also approve of the stopgap appropriations bill. Yet, only 6 Democrats voted yes and 15 Republicans who embraced the debt deal — that set the baseline funding level — rejected the spending bill that fell 195-230.

“It was assumptions being made, not understanding the political landscape, Republicans running against Republicans in primaries and it not being a conservative position that we believe in. Continuing resolutions are not the way to run a government,” the lawmaker explained.

Other GOP lawmakers told The Hill, on the condition of anonymity, that redistricting and the threat of tough primary battles will cause problems for GOP leaders as they seek to round up votes on politically difficult budget bills.

One senior GOP lawmaker said, “[Speaker John] Boehner’s (R-Ohio) starting to have a problem internally because redistricting is pitting Republican versus Republican.”

Just wanted to let you know that it is likely that the Maconda Well is likely leaking again and you’re probably not hearing about it unless you read and watch AJ or live around here. A sheen has been reported since August and throughout September.  Some folks say the oil sheen has been around since March.

Fresh oil has been washing ashore in many areas which took a direct hit from last year’s disaster, including the Chandeleur Islands, Ship Island, Breton Island and the north part of Barataria Bay, Louisiana. AJE reports BP has reactivated clean-up operations with its Vessels of Opportunity program. Some suggest the oil is coming from natural seeps, which always occur in the Gulf. Others note oil could be leaking from the broken riser pipe, still on the ocean floor, which connected the Deepwater Horizon rig to the well. Another possibility, the most serious, is oil could be leaking at the seafloor beneath the capped wellhead, making it impossible to control.

On  September 27th, the Coast Guard said the oil sheen in Gulf could be sign of release from riser pipe and not the Macondo well not itself.  I guess that beats the natural leakage from shale formations we keeping hearing from BP.   Meanwhile, I still have serious questions about Gulf Seafood which is a horrible thing to have to say.  Here’s some information on research on Marsh Fish that are still showing signs of oil effects written up in the Miami Herald.  I’ve personally had some friends in the shrimping business tell me they’ve been hauling up shrimp with no eyes.  Meanwhile, there’s more drilling afoot and I bet you’re not hearing any of this where you live.

“The message that seafood is safe to eat doesn’t necessarily mean that the animals are out of the woods,” said Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of biology at Louisiana State University and a lead researcher in the study, which was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers measured cellular responses in the liver tissue that showed which genes were being turned on and off. Those patterns allowed researchers to predict problems of health and reproduction.

The responses were detected even though the water was clean and only very low or non-detectable concentrations of oil components showed up in fish tissues.

“Where’s the oil? It’s in the sediments,” Whitehead said. Scientists assume that fish can be exposed when waves and storms stir sediments..

The study found the same kind of cellular responses in killifish as were observed in herring, salmon and other animals that later had large population losses as a result of the Exxon Valdez spill, Whitehead said.

It will take several years before it will be known whether the population of Louisiana killifish, an important food for other fish, declines, Whitehead said.

“Ultimately, that’s what we’re interested in – the population consequences over the long term,” he said.

The researchers found that when they exposed developing fish embryos to the same water and sediment in the lab, they showed the same cellular responses.

They also found that the gill tissues weren’t healthy. The gills are important for helping the fish compensate for changes in its environment such as shifts in temperature and levels of salt and oxygen in the water, Whitehead said.

Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, said the killifish, also known as the bull minnow or cacahoe, was an important part of the food chain.

“This study is alarming because similar health effects seen in fish, sea otters and harlequin ducks following the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska were predictive of population impacts, from decline to outright collapse,” he said in a written statement.

So, we’ll leave those living with dispersant and oil toxins alone awhile and move to Georgia where there’s a radioactive leak of “unknown size”.  Minxy, you might want to get a Geiger counter and buy bottled water.  Tritium is said to be 200x over the EPA limit right now.

Radioactive water found beneath Georgia nuclear Plant Hatch, Associated Press, September 30, 2011:

[Emphasis added]

Radioactive water has been found underneath [Hatch nuclear power plant]  in southeast Georgia […]

[The operator] identified radioactive tritium in two test wells about 25 feet below the ground, said Dennis Madison, a utility vice president who oversees the plant. […]

How much is leaking?

  • While the size of the leak was unknown, it was enough to raise the water table in the wells about five feet.
  • “We really don’t know what the rate is,” Madison said. “We know it’s more than a drip.”

How concentrated is the leakage?

The maximum concentrations of tritium reported inside the wells was more than 200 times the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water […]

So, here’s some quotes about the health of the economy from people you should know (i.e. Wall Street insiders) that was sent to me by one of our readers.

#1George Soros: “Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation.”

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: “These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy.”

#3Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy’s largest bank): “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”

#4Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany’s Institute for Public Finance: “The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable.”

#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: “I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine.”

As I’m writing this, the Hong Kong exchange is down to its May lows.  The global markets and finance gods are not happy.  Frankly, I’m still thinking a coffee can buried in your back yard may be your best investment for awhile. I have no idea how President Obama is going to get reelected if this keeps up.  His message and policies just don’t stand up to current events.  But, hey, look over there.  Another Islamic Terrorist is toast, feel safer? Frankly, I’m not too worried that Al Qaeda will be after me and my bags and my grocery cart with my fat cat Miles in the kiddie sit.

Oh, here’s my personal favorite.  Try not to panic.

Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: “It’s over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.”

If you’re curious about what the difference is between Operation Twist and QE2--no, they are not recreational activities–from the FED here’s a post that might interest you. Doubt it will make much difference because treasuries are still the place to be and we’re still at the zero bound, but at least some one’s doing something.  Basically, the FED’s trying to twist the yield curve and if you’ve had macroeconomics 101, here’s the exact moves.

Is this different from quantitative easing? QE2 was equivalent to the combination of two open market operations:

  • (1) Buying short-term Treasuries with newly created money.
  • (2) Swapping short-term Treasuries for longer-maturity ones.

The Fed’s new policy is just operation (2), disconnected from (1). Operation Twist is less effective than a potential QE3, therefore, to precisely the extent that operation (1) makes a difference.

Does it? First, let’s be even more precise, breaking down (1) into two smaller components:

  • (1A) Buying T-bills (extremely short term Treasuries with duration less than a year) with newly created money.
  • (1B) Swapping T-bills for a broader mix of short-term Treasuries (e.g. those with remaining maturity “3 years or less”).
  • (2) Swapping short-term Treasuries for longer-maturity ones.

You should be able to see that it’s just basically rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.  It’s an asset swap. But, there’s all this wishful thinking that it will send a message to the markets that the FED is serious and tame the deficit hawks a little. Remember that herd I wrote about last weekend?  That’s kind of what the Fed is betting on. Plus, they’re hoping that the twist will stop Perry from threatening their Chairman with bodily harm.

Nice to know that our health and national security is of no concern to our corporate overlords, isn’t it? So, there’s what’s on my mind today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Friday Reads

Posted: September 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Catfood Commission, collective bargaining, Congress, financial institutions, Health care reform, Labor unions, morning reads, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, SCOTUS | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Good Morning!

I can hardly believe we’re headed into the last quarter of 2011.  Such  a year we’ve had!

So, the GOP is going after some of the things for which I will happily contribute tax dollars.  They’ve got some pretty whacked values as far as I’m concerned.

Setting a collision course with Democrats that could drag out for months, House Republicans on Thursday unveiled plans to cut federal money for job training, heating subsidies and grants to better-performing schools.

The draft measure for labor, health and education programs also seeks to block implementation of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, cut off federal funds for National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood, and reduce eligibility for grants for low-income college students.

Democrats and tea party Republicans opposed the bill, blocking it from advancing through even the easy initial steps of the appropriations process on Capitol Hill. Instead of moving through the Appropriations Committee and the House as a whole, the $153 billion measure is instead expected to be wrapped into a larger omnibus spending bill this fall or winter that would fund the day-to-day operating budgets of Cabinet agencies.

Negotiations between Republicans controlling the House, the Democratic Senate and the White House are sure to be arduous. The measure is laced with conservative policy “riders” opposed by Democrats that would affect worker protections under federal labor laws and block the Education Department from enforcing rules on for-profit colleges that are often criticized for pushing students to take on too much debt.

“It looks like we’re in for a long, difficult process,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said excessive and wasteful spending over the years had put many programs and agencies on “an irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal path.”

Actually all of those Dubya Tax cuts and wars and letting Wall Street Run amok with speculation instead of investment is what put us on that “irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal path” and most of them voted for all of it.  I’m not willing to bail out any more of their donor base with my hard earned dollars by defunding the future of our children.  What on earth can we do about these evil people and the feckless dems that won’t fight them?

The court fights over the new health care law have been stepped up and SCOTUS has come into play in a big way.  Which of the justices are likely to uphold AEIcare-cum-ChafeeCare-cum-DoleCare-cum-RomneyCare-cum-Obamacare?

The four more liberal justices on the court — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — should have no trouble reading the Constitution as bestowing broad powers on the federal government to regulate all manner of commerce. Although the court in recent years has pinched back congressional efforts to use the Commerce Clause to promulgate laws prohibiting guns near schools and those targeting violence against women, these were clearly non-commercial activities and quite different from the health-care law and its regulation of the medical insurance marketplace. Stronger and more directly applicable precedents remain, in which the court blessed the government’s regulation of wheat and marijuana production because these activities had an impact on interstate commerce.

The marijuana case (known formally as Gonzales v. Raich) may be particularly important because two of the more conservative justices — Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy — joined with their more liberal colleagues to uphold the law under the government’s Commerce Clause powers.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito — both George W. Bush appointees — shouldn’t be counted out either. Roberts and Alito joined an opinion in 2010 that recognized the government’s “broad authority” to enact a civil detention scheme for sexual predators under a different constitutional provision. This provision allows federal lawmakers “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” to uphold the powers assigned to Congress — including the power to regulate interstate commerce.

Michelle Bachmann’s campaign is running out of cash.  Even the NY Post thinks she may not make it to the Iowa Caucuses.

Will Michele Bachmann make it to Iowa? Insiders are whispering that the Tea Party darling’s financials are grim and she may be out of the race before she makes it to the Iowa caucus in February, even though she has a strong base in the state. Sources tell us say Bachmann’s skeletal staff are holding their collective breath until the deadline to disclose her fundraising report on Oct. 15. Meanwhile, we hear a computer vendor has called her campaign headquarters threatening to shut down the power due to an outstanding bill. Sources say she had about $400,000 at the beginning of September, but also stacks of bills. “She does not like to ask for money. She should have been focusing on big donors about three months ago,” a source said. “She’s only cultivated low dollar donors with direct mailings and that’s hurt her.” But at a rally in Virginia yesterday, Bachmann declared that she does not intend to back out of the race. “We intend to be the comeback kid in this race,” she said. Her rep said, “None of that is true.”

There’s a two part series at Bloomberg written by Collin Woodard on how the U.S. is really a country of regions.  Part One is here.   Part Two is here.  It’s a really interest read and something I have thought about for some time as I’ve tried to find some place in this country where I can live in peace.  For one, I’m trying to leave any region that’s described as bible buckle, bible belt, or bible anything!

Forget the state boundaries. Arbitrarily chosen, they often slash through cohesive cultures, creating massive cultural fissures in states like Maryland, Oregon and New York. Equally burdensome are the regional designations with which we try to analyze national politics — the Northeast, West, Midwest and South. They’re illusions masking the real forces driving the affairs of our sprawling continent: the 11 regional cultures of North America.

These 11 nations — Yankeedom, Tidewater, New Netherland, New France, Deep South, Greater Appalachia, the Midlands, First Nation, the Far West, the Left Coast, El Norte — have been hiding in plain sight throughout our history. You see them outlined on linguists’ dialect maps, cultural anthropologists’ maps of material culture regions, cultural geographers’ maps of religious regions, campaign strategists’ maps of political geography and historians’ maps of the patterns of settlement across the continent. I’m not the first person to have recognized the importance of these regional cultures. In 1969, Kevin Phillips, then a Republican campaign strategist, identified the distinct boundaries and values of several of these nations and used them to accurately prophesize the Reagan Revolution in his “Emerging Republican Majority,” a political cult classic.

More and more groups are joining the move to take on and occupy Wall Street. The New York Transportation Workers are the latest to announce they will join the protest today.

Occupy Wall Street has been picking up some decent support from unions in the past few days. Yesterday we reported that the Teamsters Union declared their support for protestors, and we also found out that the United Pilots Union had members at the protest demonstrating in uniform.

Today we learned the Industrial Workers of the World put a message of support on their website as well.

UPDATE: Verizon union workers have joined the protestors in NYC.

McClatchy reports that mortgage modification are still a mess even after four years. Quelle surprise!

Today there are at least 4.2 million homeowners who, like Palomo, are late on their mortgage payments or somewhere in the delinquency and foreclosure process. The first wave of foreclosures came during the 2008 financial crisis as subprime mortgages given to weak borrowers imploded. Now the subsequent economic downturn and high unemployment keep housing depressed.

The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama both offered incentives for lenders to help homeowners modify their mortgages. Those efforts haven’t achieved much.

And four years into the housing crisis, banks and their bill collectors, known as mortgage servicers, are still under fire for their response to troubled borrowers.

“I would say they are somewhat better than they were three years ago, but still woefully inadequate to meet the demand, given the still remarkably high levels of distressed borrowers they are attempting to deal with,” said Paul Leonard, director of the California office of the Center for Responsible Lending, a Durham, N.C.-based advocacy group.

From December 2009 through June, more than 1.6 million government-backed mortgage modifications had been started, but only 791,000 became permanent. These numbers remain well below the goal of 4 million modifications that the Obama administration set for itself.

That should give you a few juicy bits to chew on with some coffee!! What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Thursday Reads: Obama and CBC, Judging Protesters, Net Neutrality, SCOTUS, and Sly Stone

Posted: September 29, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Black Agenda Report, Health care reform, Human Rights, Media, morning reads, net-neutrality, SCOTUS, the blogosphere, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

Good Morning!! Let’s start out with a little fire and brimstone. Glen Ford had a rousing rant at the Black Agenda Report about Obama’s disgusting treatment of the CBC last weekend. Here’s just a sample:

…in the same week that he bowed down to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the assembled nations of the world, in New York City, Obama took his church voice to the Congressional Black Caucus annual awards dinner to very pointedly demand that Blacks stop bugging their president about the economic catastrophe that has befallen them, and his own role in it. “Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama hectored. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

Black Caucus chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver had earlier told reporters, “If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this [Black unemployment] problem, we probably would be marching on the White House.” But Obama came to lay down the law: any marching that you might do will be for my re-election.

The well-oiled crowd cheered….

The Black Caucus, as a body, meekly murmured and mumbled as the administration transferred the equivalent of the U.S. gross domestic product to the banks while Black America disintegrated. Now, with Obama’s numbers falling, he has very publicly commanded them to shut up and perform what he believes is their only legitimate function: to get him re-elected. In the looming contest, he will again resort to Black-baiting whenever it is useful to shore up white support. In that – as with his foreign and domestic policies – Obama is no different than white corporate politicians. His one great distinction, is to have a core constituency that cares more for his security and dignity, than their own.

Sad but true.

In yesterday’s morning post, Minx highlighted the way so many “progressives” are criticizing Occupy Wall Street for all kinds of irrelevant reasons. Glenn Greenwald wrote a very good piece about it: What’s behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? But I especially liked Kevin Gosztola’s piece at FDL.

Traditional media have characterized the plurality of voices and the number of issues the occupation is seeking to challenge as a weakness. Establishment media has been openly condescending. Ginia Bellafante’s report in the New York Times has generated significant attention for her focus on the fact that some “half-naked woman” who looks like Joni Mitchell to her is the leader of this movement of “rightly frustrated young people.” Bellafante accuses the protesters of lacking “cohesion” and “pantomiming progressivism rather than practice it knowledgeably.” NPR reiterated NYT’s focus on the “scattered nature of the movement” in its coverage of the occupation (and tellingly used a photo of a man holding a sign that reads “Satan Controls Wall St”). Local press have treated the occupiers as if they are a tribe or a group of nomads focusing on occupiers’ behavior instead of trying to understand the real reason why people are in the park.

Liberals have shown scorn, too, suggesting the occupation is not a “Main Street production” or that the protesters aren’t dressed properly and should wear suits cause the civil rights movement would not have won if they hadn’t worn decent clothing.

The latest show of contempt from a liberal comes from Mother Jones magazine. Lauren Ellis claims that the action, which “says it stands for the 99 percent of us,” lacks traction. She outlines why she thinks Zuccotti Park isn’t America’s Tahrir Square. She chastises them for failing to have one demand. She claims without a unified message police brutality has stolen the spotlight. She suggests the presence of members of Anonymous is holding the organizers back writing, “It’s hard to be taken seriously as accountability-seeking populists when you’re donning Guy Fawkes masks.” And, she concludes as a result of failing to get a cross-section of America to come out in the streets, this movement has been for “dreamers,” not “middle class American trying to make ends meet.”

First off, nobody in the last week can claim to be reporting on Occupy Wall Street and genuinely claim it isn’t gaining traction. Ellis conveniently leaves out the fact that Occupy Wall Street is inspiring other cities to get organized and hold similar assemblies/occupations. Second, if the protesters did have one demand, does Ellis really think that would improve media coverage? Wouldn’t pundits then be casting doubt on whether the one demand was the appropriate singular demand to be making? Third, so-called members of Anonymous are citizens like Ellis and have a right to participate in the protest. It is elitist for Ellis to suggest Occupy Wall Street should not be all-inclusive. And, finally, there is no evidence that just “dreamers” are getting involved. A union at the City University of New York, the Industrial Workers of the World, construction workers, 9/11 responders and now a postal workers and teachers union have shown interest in the occupation.

Gosztola is a young guy who replaced Emptywheel after she left FDL. He focuses on human rights issues, and he does a nice job.

It’s interesting that the progs keep comparing the Occupy Wall Street protesters to those in Civil Rights Movement of the ’50s and ’60s, claiming that protesters should wear suits! Obviously these “very serious” yuppie bloggers don’t recall the ’60s anti-war movement. I can just imagine their shock at some of the outfits we wore in those days.

The New York Times published an odd interpretation of the world-wide protest phenomenon that minimized demonstrations: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe, by Nicholas Kulish. Kulish explains the protests as disillusionment with voting. And why shouldn’t we all be turned off by voting when it gets us nothing but a bunch of corrupt, greedy a$$holes who stab taxpayers in the back repeatedly and suck up to the top 1%?

Not surprisingly, there is only one reference to the anti-Wall Street protests, and the organizers, Occupy Wall Street aren’t mentioned at all. Also not mentioned are the supportive protests beginning in other U.S. cities. And Kulish never mentioned Wisconsin at all!

Last week the FCC announced new net neutrality rules, and now lawsuits from both sides of the issue are starting.

Verizon and Metro PCS, both wireless carriers, had already made clear their intention to sue and were widely expected to be the first to do so. Instead, they were beaten to court by the activist group Free Press—one of the strongest supporters of network neutrality.

Free Press has asked a federal appeals court to review the FCC’s rules—not because it finds them too strong, but because it finds them too weak. The group particularly objects to the way in which wireless companies are exempted from most of the meaningful anti-discrimination policies in the rules. While wireless operators can’t block Internet sites outright, and can’t simply ban apps that compete with their own services, they can do just about anything else; wired operators can’t.

Free Press complains about the “decision to adopt one set of rules for broadband access via mobile platforms and a different set of rules for broadband access via fixed platforms.” The distinction, it says, is “arbitrary and capricious” and it violates the law.

In a statement, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said, “Our challenge will show that there is no evidence in the record to justify this arbitrary distinction between wired and wireless Internet access. The disparity that the FCC’s rules create is unjust and unjustified. And it’s especially problematic because of the increasing popularity of wireless, along with its increasing importance for younger demographics and diverse populations who rely on mobile devices as their primary means for getting online.

Here is a summary of the final FCC rules, from Connected Planet:

The FCC highlighted a total of four rules, which specify that:

— A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall publicly disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services sufficient for consumers to make informed choice regarding use of such services and for content, application, service and device providers to develop, market and maintain Internet offerings

— A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service . . . shall not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.

— A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service . . . shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service.

— A person engaged in the provision of mobile broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not block consumers from accessing lawful websites, subject to reasonable network management; nor shall such person block applications that compete with the provider’s voice or video telephony services, subject to reasonable network management.

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I’m sure you’ve heard that the Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the health care law ASAP. Dalia Lithwick at Slate had an interesting article on the case: The Supreme Court is less interested in ruling on Obama’s health care law than you think.

Apparently the Obama administration believes that 2012 will not be crazy enough already. That would explain why it has decided not to appeal a ruling from a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the individual mandate at the heart of its health reform law. Instead of asking the full, 11-member court to hear the case, the administration has voluntarily cleared the path toward the Supreme Court as early as this spring. That means there could be a ruling by the end of June, just a few months before the election.

Right now the individual mandate has been upheld, by a 2-1 margin by the Sixth Circuit and struck down 2-1 at the 11th Circuit, while the Virginia lawsuit challenging the act was dismissed on procedural grounds at the Fourth Circuit. This split between the federal appeals courts almost demands that the high court agree to hear the case, as does the fact that it’s the Justice Department filing the appeal.

Lithwick discusses the opinions of other writers on why the administration is doing this now. Then she offers her own assessment:

I remain unsure that there just are five justices at the high court eager to have the court itself become an election-year issue. I don’t think Chief Justice John Roberts wants to borrow that kind of partisan trouble again so soon after Citizens United, the campaign-finance case that turned into an Obama talking point. And I am not certain that the short-term gain of striking down some or part of the ACA (embarrassing President Obama even to the point of affecting the election) is the kind of judicial end-game this court really cares about. Certainly there are one or two justices who might see striking down the ACA as a historic blow for freedom. But the long game at the court is measured in decades of slow doctrinal progress—as witnessed in the fight over handguns and the Second Amendment—and not in reviving the stalled federalism revolution just to score a point.

That’s why I suspect that even if there are five justices who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional, there probably aren’t five votes to decide that question in this instant. Lyle Denniston over at Scotusblog reminds us that the court has a lot of options to forestall a showdown with the president. If the justices opt to consider the technical question raised at the Fourth Circuit—about who has legal standing to challenge the mandate in the first place—the court could dodge the constitutional question altogether until 2015, when the first penalties will be paid. It’s not so much a matter of the court having to decide whether to bring a gavel to a knife fight. It’s just that this isn’t really this court’s knife fight in the first place.

Roman Polanski is back in the news, because he supposedly “apologized” to the woman he raped when she was only 13.

In a documentary about his life, the Oscar-winning director, 78, admitted Samantha Geimer had been left scarred by his exploitation three decades ago. The Polish-French film maker publicly apologised for the first time for his “mistakes” that included the sexual attack on Mrs Geimer, now 47.

The director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown admitted she was a “double victim” after being caught up in the subsequent media storm, forcing her to move to Hawaii for privacy.

The married mother-of-three successfully sued him and accepted a private apology in 2009, saying she had been left more traumatised by ensuing legal battles to bring him to justice than the assault itself.

Finally, here’s another celebrity story: According to the New York Post, 1960s rock star Sly Stone is homeless, living in a van in L.A.

Today, Sly Stone — one of the greatest figures in soul-music history — is homeless, his fortune stolen by a lethal combination of excess, substance abuse and financial mismanagement. He lays his head inside a white camper van ironically stamped with the words “Pleasure Way” on the side. The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, the rough Los Angeles neighborhood where “Boyz n the Hood” was set. A retired couple makes sure he eats once a day, and Stone showers at their house. The couple’s son serves as his assistant and driver.

Inside the van, the former mastermind of Sly & the Family Stone, now 68, continues to record music with the help of a laptop computer.

“I like my small camper,” he says, his voice raspy with age and years of hard living. “I just do not want to return to a fixed home. I cannot stand being in one place. I must keep moving.”

It’s a pretty nice van, BTW. But the LA Times says if Stone is homeless, it’s his own choice.

If Sly Stone is homeless, it’s by choice and not necessity, according to sources close to the funk legend.

Stone’s attorney Robert Alan has supposedly rented a four-bedroom home in Woodland Hills for his client, one unnamed source told Showbiz411 exclusively. “He’s too paranoid to come inside,” another source told writer Roger Friedman. That person was described as a friend of the singer.

Though Alan wouldn’t comment on the rental house, Friedman said, the lawyer confirmed that Sly Stone documentarian Willem Alkema had paid the singer $5,000 upfront for a recent interview. (An additional $2,000, source unknown, was reportedly paid when the story was picked up.) Alkema, whom Friedman says is trying relaunch his documentary and could benefit from the publicity, co-wrote Sunday’s “Sly Stone Is Homeless and Living in a Van” article for the New York Post.

That’s not to say Stone hadn’t admitted struggling with drugs, nor that he isn’t in financial trouble of the maybe-a-$50-million-lawsuit-will-fix-it variety — he sued former manager Jerry Goldstein in early 2010, alleging fraud and the diversion of $20 million to $30 million in royalties.

I’m just glad to know that Sly is still with us. What a great band he had. I remember seeing Sly and the Family Stone at an outdoor concert at Harvard Stadium–I think it was in 1969. It was fabulous! So in honor of Sly and nostalgia…

So…. what are you reading and blogging about today?

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