Suez Canal Pipeline Attacked
Posted: February 5, 2011 Filed under: Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Israel, Jordan, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Egypt, israel, Jordan, sabatage, Suez Canal 29 CommentsUnknown attackers have blown up a pipeline that runs through El-Arish area of Egypt’s north Sinai area and supplies gas to Jordan and Israel, according to Egypt’s state television.
[….]
The explosive material was placed inside or adjacent to the control station of the gas supply line. There were no immediate reports of any casualties as a result of the blast.
“Saboteurs took advantage of the security situation and blew up the gas pipeline,” a state television correspondent reported, saying there was a big explosion.
State TV quoted an official as saying that the “situation is very dangerous and explosions were continuing from one spot to another” along the pipeline.
Forbes reports that Egypt has been forced to cut off gas supplies to Israel and Jordan.
There were conflicting reports out of Egypt as to the cause of the explosion, with the state-run Middle East News Agency saying the work was done by “subversive elements.” Oil Minister Samah Fahmy reportedly said it could take up to two weeks to repair the damage.
The pipeline is the third most strategically important piece of energy infrastructure in Egypt after the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline. But it is the most important one to Israel, delivering 40% of Israeli natural gas supplies. The Israeli government said this afternoon that it did not expect any interruption of electricity supplies as the country has gas in storage and can also switch to other fuels like oil and diesel. Israel started receiving gas from the pipeline in 2008.
Assuming for a moment that this was not an accident, it represents a serious escalation of the crisis in Egypt.
Jitters about the impact of the unrest on the economy of both Egypt and the region were not eased yesterday when an explosion ripped through a gas terminal in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula, setting off a massive fire that was contained by shutting off the flow of gas to neighbouring Jordan and Israel. Supplies are expected to be hit for at least a week. While Israel has other sources of power, and Jordan is believed to have substantial reserves, the sense that Egypt’s fragility can reach beyond its borders will add to the anxieties.
Traders are worried that the unrest might spread to oil-producing countries in the region and even affect shipments through the Suez Canal. Egypt is not a major oil producer, but it controls the canal and a nearby pipeline. Together these carry about two million barrels of oil a day from the Middle East to customers in Europe and the United States. Several large Egyptian refineries near the canal have been the site of recent protests.
We can use this as a live blog to discuss the situation in Egypt. I’ll continue to add updates if I learn any more about the cause of the pipeline blast.
The Latest “Culture of Life” Bill Would Allow Hospitals to Let Women Die
Posted: February 5, 2011 Filed under: U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: abortion, culture of misogyny, Rep. Joe Pitts, Sexism 5 CommentsTalking Points Memo has the details:
The bill, known currently as H.R. 358 or the “Protect Life Act,” would amend the 2010 health care reform law that would modify the way Obamacare deals with abortion coverage. Much of its language is modeled on the so-called Stupak Amendment, an anti-abortion provision pro-life Democrats attempted to insert into the reform law during the health care debate last year. But critics say a new language inserted into the bill just this week would go far beyond Stupak, allowing hospitals that receive federal funds but are opposed to abortions to turn away women in need of emergency pregnancy termination to save their lives.
Dead Presidents
Posted: February 5, 2011 Filed under: Surreality, the blogosphere, The Media SUCKS, the villagers, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance | Tags: Rewriting History, Ronald Reagan 19 Comments
Comic Book Reagan
It’s only fitting that some one who completely mangles American history, world geography, and the English language gets to deliver yet another eulogy on Reagan. We come not to bury Caesar, but to completely reinvent the guy into something we want him to be because we have no better narrative. Many liberal sites are rightly pointing out that we knew Ronald Reagan and he was not the Ronald Reagan we’re hearing about now. Here’s a good list of ‘10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want you to now about Ronald Reagan’. I’ll hit the top four because,well, I’m an economist and these four things resonate with me the most.
1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.
So, in the real world, Ronald Reagan was the archetype for the Republican much hated “tax and spend Keynesian” if there ever was one. Reagan’s former Budget Director David Stockman has said as much. His former economic adviser Bruce Bartlett has changed his tiger stripes too. Now, compare that to this tripe in a speech completely missing the facts and the history. Oh, and it’s kind’ve stolen from the Gipper yet heavily revised to meet today’s modern propaganda needs.
“He saw our nation at a critical turning point. We could choose one direction or the other. Socialism or freedom and free markets. Collectivism or individualism. In his words, we can choose ‘the swamp’ or ‘the stars.'”
Take a quick look at the source of the cribbed statement and notice the difference. It seems that not one of our political spokesmodels can originate thoughts these days. We have a rip-it-off-then-mangle-it pol culture these days.
“We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening,” Reagan said.
The most dangerous enemy we have ever faced is ignorance. The face of ignorance is the modern day Know Nothing Wing of the Republican Party. The old Known Nothing party was rooted in nativism and anti-Catholicism. This one is rooted in similar phobias and bigotry. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography”.
Friday Reads
Posted: February 4, 2011 Filed under: Feminists, Festivities, fetus fetishists, Food, morning reads, Reproductive Rights, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: Ben Bernanke, fat Americans, Free and cheap Birth Control, GDP forcible rape HR3, lunar new year, quantitative easing, Trade, unemployment, year of metal rabbit 18 Comments
Good Morning and Happy Lunar New Year
The Egyptian revolution continues to be the top story around the world. We will continue to run live blog updates to give you the latest reliable news sources on the subject. There’s a few stories on the economy that I’d like to share this morning beyond that topic.
First, Happy Lunar New Year!!
2011 is the Year of the Metal Rabbit.
Chinese astrologer Alvin Ang of Bazi Destiny foresees “the global situation may be affected by serious political change and global calamities.”
Hong Kong-based feng shui master Joseph Wong gives a different take. “This coming year everything will be better than last year,” he told CNN’s Pauline Chiou. “They will see business go upwards mostly, but take care with the shares and stocks. There will be some fluctuations in August and September.”
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke gave a speech at the National Press Club yesterday that indicated continuing concern about the ability of the current recovery to sustain any reasonable decrease in the unemployment rate. He also indicated the need for a long term plan to deal with the Federal deficit. There were a few mentions of the continuing need for QE and statements that the monetary policy to date had worked given the recovery of the equity markets. He did sound a bit more upbeat than the last time we heard from him and while he acted like the recovery was slower than any one would wish, he did state that he felt it was becoming ‘self-sustaining’.
Here’s some analysis on our unemployment vis a vis the Bernanke Statements from The Economist.
The Fed’s forecast range for the unemployment rate in 2012 is 7.7% to 8.2%, and the Congressional Budget Office forecasts an unemployment rate of 8.4% (this forecast dates to after the announcement of QE2, but isn’t meaningfully different from its forecasts from the summer of 2010). This would suggest that with QE2 in place, American unemployment is likely to be between 6% and 7% in 2012. That’s not full employment, but it’s pretty close. You can argue that more needs to be done (indeed, I think the Fed itself could do more). But it is worth noting that the Fed has put the American economy on a substantially better recovery path than it faced before (Scott Sumner would say it has returned the economy to the path off which it previously led it).A big risk is that the Fed will back away from its policy too quickly, thinking all is going well and worrying premptively about inflation. As Karl Smith says, today’s speech is somewhat reassuring on that front.
The NYT had an op ed up on Trade indicating that Republicans are trying to remove some provisions that now help workers retrain should they lose their jobs to overseas locations. It’s worth reading just to see how truly Dickensian the Republicans seem to be these days.
Most Republican lawmakers claim they are pro-trade. Their principled position is evidently no match for parochialism and politics. Last month, a conflict over imported sleeping bags between a company in Alabama and a rival in Kentucky led Senate Republicans to block the extension of the Generalized System of Preferences, or G.S.P., which has granted preferential access to some $20 billion worth of imports from developing countries.
Now Senator Jon Kyl and his colleagues in the Finance Committee are threatening to block the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides income and training for American workers whose employers can’t compete with rising imports. It is due to expire on Feb. 12, and Mr. Kyl and company are refusing to extend it unless the White House promises to advance the long-pending trade deal with Colombia.
Speaking of Dickensian Republican policy, the GOP dropped the ‘forcible rape’ language from HR3. The Hyde Amendment has long entertained the idiocy of letting one loud and obnoxious group of zealots deny Federal funding of their personal pet peeve while the rest of us continue to fund all kinds of abominable projects. Tops on my opt out list are renditions for torture and bail outs of Investment banks. But, American Fetus Fetishists get special treatment. At least this attempt at narrowing rape definitions is gone now.
House Republicans plan to sidestep a charged debate over the distinction between “forcible rape” and “rape” by altering the language of a bill banning taxpayer subsidies for abortions.
The provision in question, written as an exemption from the ban for women who become pregnant as a result of “forcible rape,” touched off a firestorm of criticism from women’s groups, and it gained enough attention to become the subject of a satirical segment on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
But a spokesman for the bill’s author, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), says the modifier “forcible” will be dropped so that the exemption covers all forms of rape, as well as cases of incest and the endangerment of the life of the mother.“The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment,” Smith spokesman Jeff Sagnip told POLITICO, referring to the long-standing ban on direct use of taxpayer dollars for abortion services.
A real Democratic congress and president would’ve gotten rid of this stupid provision by now. However, here is something that if true will make me do the Snoopy dance.
The Obama administration is examining whether the new health care law can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge.
Such a requirement could remove cost as a barrier to birth control, a longtime goal of advocates for women’s rights and experts on women’s health. But it is likely to reignite debate over the federal role in health care, especially reproductive health, at a time when Republicans in Congress have vowed to repeal the law or dismantle it piece by piece. It is also raising objections from the Roman Catholic Church and is expected to generate a robust debate about privacy.
The law says insurers must cover “preventive health services” and cannot charge for them. The administration has asked a panel of outside experts to help identify the specific preventive services that must be covered for women.
Administration officials said they expected the list to include contraception and family planning because a large body of scientific evidence showed the effectiveness of those services. But the officials said they preferred to have the panel of independent experts make the initial recommendations so the public would see them as based on science, not politics.
Many obstetricians, gynecologists, pediatricians and public health experts have called for coverage of family planning services, including contraceptives, without co-payments, deductibles or other cost-sharing requirements.
Will the Cult of the Angry Sky God get the ultimate veto on this too?
Well, back to the exercise equipment folks! Bloomberg.com says ‘American Waistlines Expand Fastest Among Rich Nations’,
Americans grew fatter at a faster pace than residents of any other wealthy nation since 1980, during a period when obesity worldwide nearly doubled, researchers found.
Almost 10 percent of the world’s population was obese in 2008, according to studies published today by the medical journal The Lancet. The percentage of people with uncontrolled hypertension, or high blood pressure, fell, with high-income countries showing a larger drop. Cholesterol levels declined in North America, Australia and Europe, but increased in East and Southeast Asia as well as the Pacific region, researchers said.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
BREAKING: US Negotiating Resignation of Mubarak
Posted: February 3, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, John Birch Society in Charge, Middle East, right wing hate grouups, Surreality, Team Obama, the internet, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: Egypt, Egyptian State attacks on Journalists, Hosni Mubarak, human rights violations, right wing propaganda, violence 29 CommentsLatest: White House, Egypt Discuss Plan for Mubarak’s Exit
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.
President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and State Department spokesman PJ Crowly all took time on TV today to express American concern for use of overt use of violence, suppression, and intimidation of reporters, legitimate protest, and human rights groups. Reporters have been beaten and ‘disappeared’. Green Vans belonging to the State Police were caught speeding up, then running over protesters on their way to the Square. (WARNING: Video below shows this.)There is increasing evidence that the pro-Mubarak protesters are themselves state police and paid thugs.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the violence was carried out by “elements close to the government or ruling party.”
“I don’t think we have a sense of how far up the chain it went,” he noted.
There are no images coming out of journalists in Egypt. Nile TV–the government propaganda channel–has been 
blaming foreign forces for the protests which is leading to attacks on nonEgyptians all over Egypt. Nile TV journalist Shahira Amin has quit. She’s joined the protesters.
There are increasing calls from the International Community to the Government of Egypt for restraint. Here’s a link to an article from, of all places, China.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday condemned the violence, saying attacks on peaceful demonstrators are unacceptable and must stop.
“We call upon the government of Egypt to take steps to ensure that its citizens are free to demonstrate safely,” Rudd said in a statement.
“The disturbing events in Tahrir Square underline the urgent need for a negotiated and peaceful solution to this political crisis.”
UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who was on a visit to Britain, Wednesday urged all sides to show restraint during the unprecedented nine-day-old movement.
“I am deeply concerned by the continuing violence in Egypt. I once again urge restraint to all the sides,” Ban said after a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Ban also said that any attack on peaceful demonstrators in Egypt was unacceptable and that he strongly condemns it.
In Athens, Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas called on Egyptians to exercise restraint.
Egyptian protesters continue to pour onto the streets. Friday protests are being characterized as a “final” Friday indicating the hope that Friday will be the day Mubarak will quit.
One man, a 30-year-old lawyer named Tareq Hussein Ali, whose sweatshirt was so bloodied it looked like a red-brown bib, ventured his analysis. “Egypt will never be as it used to be,” he said.
…
“Last night showed that the government is at the last of their options,” Ali said Thursday afternoon, sitting on a grass patch in the middle of Tahrir – which means “liberation” – where dozens of protesters were resting under anti-government banners.
Tahrir on Thursday resembled a bustling open-air triage center. With businesses locked up long ago, young women in head scarves served water to demonstrators from inside a Hardee’s while weary-looking men sporting bandages dozed on the doorsteps of travel agencies, too many to count.
At every entrance to the square, protesters had set up security cordons backed up by neatly arranged lines of stones, in case of another attack. As in previous days, the Egyptian army presence was thin, just a few dozen soldiers looking on, and no uniformed police were in sight.
In a back alley, volunteers set up an emergency medical clinic, where doctors in dirtied white coats re-dressed wounds from the previous night. Hussein Dawood, a physician, said that more than 3,000 people had been injured, a figure that far exceeded the government’s count.
“We want the whole world to know that the Egyptian president organized an operation against his own people,” Ali said, “as if he was in a war.”
When Ali left his Cairo home Jan. 25 to join the first day of the protests, he told his parents: “I will come home victorious, or you will receive my dead body.” Late Wednesday night, after nearly 10 hours of running battles in and around the square, he was on the front lines near the museum alongside scores of young male demonstrators.
After days of watching the coverage I think I can safely say that there are very few people left standing that support Mubarak with the exception of Fox News, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and others representing the extremely right wing element in the US. It’s pretty obvious that instead of looking for communists under the bed that we are now to look for stylized, extremist ‘Islamists’. In fact, we’re now seeing some weirdish melting of Islam, Shari’a, socialism, leftists and communism. How desperately deluded to you have to be to push that one?
“Any honest assessment on 9/11 this year, ten years after the attack, I think will have to conclude that we’re slowly losing the war,” Gingrich said. “We’re losing the war because there are madrassahs around the planet teaching hatred. We’re losing the war because the network of terrorists is bigger, not smaller.”
Gingrich pointed to the unrest in Egypt as posing a potential new threat to American security.
“There’s a real possibility in a few weeks, if we’re unfortunate, that Egypt will join Iran, and join Lebanon, and join Gaza, and join the things that are happening that are extraordinarily dangerous to us,” Gingrich said.
The right wing buzz word of the day is “Muslim Brotherhood” which is now seen to have tentacles that reach–according to professional wacko Glenn Beck–to some unknown place in US Democratic Circles. Here is an example from right wing extremist Frank Gaffney on Sean Hannity, professional bully.
The Muslim Brotherhood is often a target of right-wing pundits like anti-sharia crusader Frank Gaffney, who last month claimed the group had infiltrated CPAC. And as the single largest organized opposition group in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as a target for the right as the protests continue.
On Hannity last night, Gaffney argued that “the Obama Administration’s policies are being viewed through, and actually articulated and implemented through influence operations that the Muslim Brotherhood itself is running in our own country.”
“You cannot possibly get your strategy right, you cannot execute it effectively if you don’t know that the enemy is actually giving you advice on how to proceed,” he said.
I mentioned this earlier, but I’m personally having to de-friend people on Facebook from people perpetuating this obvious right wing paranoia and hatred. I’m not sure how any one could be following the coverage these last days and not realize that Mubarak’s behavior is unacceptable and that these are legitimate calls for democratic change from widespread and mainstream elements in Egypt. I have to admit that most of these people have also been serious Sarah Palin apologists also. We had removed blogs links from these people earlier this month for some of that behavior. I’ve had to completely remove contact with them after the posting of some really hateful right wing posts to FaceBook.
There are legitimate concerns about the treatment of women by all fundamentalist religions. However, it is becoming increasingly clear to most of us that these groups have jumped the shark and are motivated by ignorance and bigotry. The complaints and shout outs I have seen recently for the Beck idea that some “caliphate” takeover is happening is clearly rooted in racism and extremist views of Islam. Many of these are aimed not only at Egyptians but the President of the United States. This does not reflect well for the values traditionally held by this country. I personally find it deeply disturbing and frightening that these people are supporting a military dictatorship that is disappearing and brutalizing US journalists (more than 70), human rights activists, diplomats, and–as BB pointed out today–US academics.
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