The best way to rob a bank is to be a banker

An excellent interview at Democracy Now with William Black :

As Foreclosures Hit All-Time High, Wall Street on Pace to Hand Out Record $140B in Employee Bonuses

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped 10,000 for the first time in a year, as JPMorgan Chase reported massive profits in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that major US banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year—a record high.

But on Main Street, foreclosures are also at record levels, and the official unemployment rate is expected to top ten percent.

The record bonuses come less than a year after taxpayers bailed out many of those same financial institutions.

Black :

But in fact, foreclosures, relative to delinquencies, are quite low compared to historical ratios. In other words, banks have tons of folks who are not paying their mortgages on time, and they’re not foreclosing. And the reason they’re not foreclosing is, once you foreclose, you have to recognize losses under the accounting rules. And the banks gimmicked the accounting rules. They put pressure on Congress, and Congress put pressure on the accounting profession to gimmick the accounting rules now about a year ago.

Now, these bonuses, of course, are paid compared to alleged profits. What happens if you understate your losses dramatically? You report much higher profits and much higher bonuses. So this is a web of fraud, in which they are getting as much as they can before the place goes to hell in a handbasket again.

East German Jokes

DER SPIEGEL  has an article by Hans-Ulrich Stoldt and Klaus Wiegrefe, about "East German Jokes Collected by West German Spies". Fun.

"What would happen
if the desert became communist?

Nothing for a while,
and then there would be
a sand shortage."

repuglican "Must Have" Aps . . . .

Harper denies seeing Afghan torture reports

Looking more like Dick all the time, Steve.


Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now joined then Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter MacKay and then Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor in denying he ever saw any of the 16 reports from the political director at the Canadian-run Afghan reconstruction base in 2006 warning that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees handed over by Canadian forces.

Yesterday Murray Brewster at CP described those reports from Richard Colvin, now deputy head of intelligence at the Canadian embassy in Washington, as "circulated widely throughout the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments and also shared with senior military commanders in Ottawa and Afghanistan."

Yet somehow they escaped the collective notice of MacKay, O'Connor, and Harper :

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday that he did not see reports in 2006 that suggested there was evidence detainees had been tortured after they were handed over to Afghan prisons by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
Harper said he didn't see the reports "at the time."
"There were allegations of Canadian troops involved in torture. We’ve been very clear that's not the case," the prime minister said."

"At the time"? There were 16 reports from May to December. When exactly was "at the time"?

And "allegations Canadian troops involved"?
No. Not at all. Don't pretend to be protecting the troops. This was never about the troops.
This was about you putting those troops in the appalling position of transferring their prisoners to certain abuse.
The "allegations" now are that you are covering it up .

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, "at the time": "Torture continues to take place as a routine part of police procedures. The AIHRC has found torture to occur particularly at the investigation stage in order to extort confessions from detainees."

Louise Arbour, the Canadian UN rep who you summarily dismissed, and the U.S. freakin' State Department, "at the time": "Afghan local authorities "routinely" torture detainees".

Peter Van Loan, Con house leader "at the time", called all this "allegations by the Taliban"

Me, "at the time" : "Canada is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. We simply don't have time to go back and re-fight and re-argue all the battles for some semblance of civilization that we have already won. And we certainly don't have time for any government that hasn't figured this out yet."

More : Boris, POGGE, Thwap, Impolitical, A Creative Revolution

Circum(cised)stantial Evidence ? ? ? ?

And I thought all the whackos lived in Florida. Look what we've got right here in BC, via CBC News:

Home circumcision of 4-year-old ends in conviction

Friday, October 16, 2009 | CBC News

A Vancouver-area father has been found guilty of negligence causing bodily harm after botching a home-circumcision attempt on his four-year-old son as part of a spiritual quest to make things right with God.

The bizarre case centred on a battle over the religious freedoms of the former Jehovah's Witness, who was trying to follow a literal interpretation of the Bible after a series of misfortunes hit his family.

During the trial, the B.C. Supreme Court heard that after a bad motorcycle accident in 2002 left both the man and his wife with brain injuries, he began the religious quest that eventually led him to believe that both he and son needed to be circumcised to celebrate Passover.

_______________


I'll spare you the graphic details of the attempt as you can view them in the original piece should you be so inclined.

_______________

Religious freedom argued

In court, the man's lawyer, Douglas Christie, argued the man's desire to fulfil his religious duty negated any criminal intent.

And in her ruling issued on Wednesday, Judge Marion Allan found the man not guilty on charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, saying the man did not seriously harm the boy and the razor blade was not used as a weapon.

But the judge also ruled the child could not have consented to the operation and the father should have known he needed a trained professional to perform it — especially given his own first-hand experience — and found him guilty of negligence causing bodily harm.

"Indeed his motivations could be characterized as selfish or even deluded insofar as he believed that he was unable to live in his home at Passover with any uncircumcised male, including his four-year-old son," wrote the judge in her ruling.

The man's lawyer is reportedly considering an appeal on constitutional grounds, and a sentence has yet to be handed down.

Amazing.

Freakin' amazing . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Sweet and Sour . . .

THE LA TIMES has an opinion piece worthy of your consideration. Titled "China's class ceiling" by Ian Buruma, it points out that all is not well in the Workers' Wonderland, and that things are getting worse.

China is the only ancient civilization in human history to have reemerged as a major force in the world. And Chinese are rightly proud of this. So why rock the boat? It is better to be ruled by boring technocrats like Hu who will keep things nice and steady.

This is not the story one might hear from unemployed workers in the rust belts of northeastern China, or from rioting farmers in Guangdong province who have been pushed off the land by greedy developers working in tandem with corrupt party officials. Nor is this view necessarily shared by the brave lawyers willing to take on some of those corrupt officials, or intellectual dissidents who still get arrested for arguing that Chinese should be entitled to basic democratic rights.

But it is the common line taken by people who benefit most from the current wave of fun, fashion and prosperity -- the new urban elite, some of whom are pampered children of Communist Party bosses. None are communist ideologues. All have taken the late leader Deng Xiaoping's "To Get Rich is Glorious" slogan seriously. And not a few of them, now in their 40s, were among the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 who demanded democratic freedoms and an end to corruption.

One pokes into this contradiction at one's peril, especially if one is a foreigner.

Why should you care? Well, planning on assumption can be risky. And assuming a future monolithic stability for China . . .  rotsa ruck.

Obviously, the couple who complained are the real racists

If you are a clergyman, you can pick and chose the people for whom you are willing to perform wedding ceremonies. If a couple comes to you and you don't think they should get married you are well within your right to refuse to perform the service or give the couple the blessing of your church, temple, mosque, shrine, coven or soltice circle. Catholics are under no obligation to allow gays or non-Catholics to marry in their church. Orthodox Rabbis can refuse to marry goyim. Druids can decline invitations to sanctify the handfasting of one of their congregation to a Republican. Churches are private organizations and can do what ever they want as long as it doesn't involve human sacrifice or annoying me in my home.
Government officials do not have that luxury. If someone meets the legal criteria for marrying - that is to say, they are of legal age and not obviously insane or under duress or siblings - you have to give them the licence, no matter what your personal feelings are.
So this dimwitted clown doesn't have a leg to stand on when he tries to defend his refusal to grant marriage licences to interracial couples. He should not be allowed to resign, he should be removed from office, yesterday. Naturally though, he claims not to be a racist, he's just thinking of the children:

However, [Justice of the Peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward Keith] Bardwell told the Hammond’s Daily Star that he was concerned for the children who may be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don’t last.
“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell told the newspaper. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.” Bardwell, stressing he couldn’t personally endorse the marriage, referred the couple to another justice of the peace.

Yes, I'm quite sure he has nothing against black people, he even allows them into his very own home. I'm sure he has a vast collection of Fats Domino records and thinks Tiger Woods is a credit to his people, some of his best friends yadda yadda yadda...

Which, of course is all bullshit. He is refusing to comply with the law and denying people a civil right on the basis of race. Despite his protestations to the contrary, this makes Justice of the Peace Crackerpants McCracker a racist.
I'm sure 200 years ago his ancestors were singing the same song - They were not racists, but they just could not support abolition because "what would happen to the poor children of the freed slaves without a white master to look out them? why they'd probably start stealing watermelons and the next thing they'd want to learn to read and before you knew it they'd be leering a white women and then where would they be? No, slavery was the only way to ensure those poor children didn't go wrong and get uppity and get themselves in trouble."
"Its for their own good," they'd say.

Bardwell's concern for the children of interracial couples is actually very touching, since the offspring of such relationships so often go wrong.

BC Ferries keeps on truckin' those coincidences

RossK at The Gazetteer may be on to something here :

Starting Wednesday (Oct 14th), B.C. Ferries will reduce the Horseshoe Bay/Departure Bay sailings Monday through Thursday evenings.

Deborah Marshall with the corporation explains it will include the 7 p.m. sailing exiting Departure Bay, and the corresponding 9 p.m. sailing from Horseshoe Bay.

and then he links to Sean Holman at Public Eye :

"A Delta-based company that ships tractor trailers between Vancouver Island and the Mainland appears to have hired the premier's former special advisor Ken Dobell to lobby the province. But the firm is tight-lipped about whether that lobbying has to do with increased competition from British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. The government-owned private company got into the same business this year, letting truck drivers drop their trailers off at its Tsawwassen, Duke Point and Swartz Bay terminals. Those trailers are then loaded onto the ferry for pickup on the other side of the route."

So Seaspan appears to have hired Ken Dobell, Gordo's special advisor and former deputy minister, to lobby Gordo about competition from BC Ferries, and now some sailings have been cut back.

Huh.

Braidwood Inquiry : Taser slams "junk science"

A lawyer for Taser Int. told the Braidwood Inquiry yesterday that medical testimony linking the death of Robert Dziekanski to his being tasered five times is "junk science". Or, as amusingly reported twice by the Winnipeg Sun in their version of the story before they fixed it : "jump science".

"... there was no evidence that "the Taser device caused or contributed to his death."

"We say it is time this uninformed speculation about the role the Taser device may have had in this case be dispelled and the attack on Taser’s reputation ended."

Taser Int. filed an application in B.C. Supreme Court in August to quash all 19 of Justice Braidwood's recommendations in his report Restoring Public Confidence: Restricting the Use of Conducted Energy Weapons in British Columbia despite Braidwood's advocacy for the weapon. Taser Int. prefers to lay all the blame on the mysterious "sudden death during restraint" due to "delirium".

You know, Taser, I think a simple test here would help clear up all this "uninformed speculation".

The problem is that we see people being tasered and then dropping dead - in that order. The RCMP has hundreds of recorded examples of drawing their TASER™ device and then not using it. If, as you contend, people die of delirium during restraint and not from being tasered, then all you have to do is produce the RCMP body of evidence that just as many delirious people drop dead before they are tasered as after.

Jump science. Hope this helps.

Mexican Gravestones

Owelympics - Going for the gold in gagging

A four day old story at CBC about Gordo's latest attempt to stifle Owelympic protest has garnered over 900 comments and counting.

.

Can't say I'm seeing much support over there for BC legislation enabling Vancouver, Richmond, and Whistler to pass laws enabling municipal workers to enter your home without your consent and confiscate signs they consider to be insufficiently celebratory as long as they leave you a little note 24 hours ahead of time first. The possible $10,000-a-day fine and 6 month jail term - also not too popular.

.

Yeah, I know the gov said the bill is really aimed at businesses who might use the games logo without having paid for the rights. That would certainly account for that separate section just on removing unauthorized graffiti from your home.

"City officials have said the law is intended to clamp down on so-called ambush marketing, and it includes an exception for celebratory signs, which are defined as those that celebrate the 2010 Winter Games and create or add to the festive atmosphere."

I don't know about you but I'm definitely starting to feel pretty fucking festive.

Maybe it's because two of the RCMP who presided over the death of Robert Dziekanski two years ago were reassigned to Owelympic detail, or the fact that they will be joined by 4,500 Canadian military troops - twice the number Canada has in Afghanistan, or perhaps it's just the participation of US military forces in what has ballooned into a $1-billion security price tag to bully dissenters and the homeless, but I'm thinking one way we could celebrate is to send a festive little note along to the official Owelympic sponsors : Visa, Royal Bank, Coca Cola, General Electric -partner to Plutonic Power in BC ruin-of-river projects, and Epcor - the water privatization people.

.

If you're not sure what to say - well, there's lots of material in those CBC comments.

"Take Off the Pajamas," You Lefties . . . .

Ya'll got all excited 'bout the prez comin' to the HRC dinner and makin' promises, didn't ya'?

Well, since you're part of what one White House advisor refers to as the "internet left fringe" ya' might wanna put the champagne and noisemakers away for a bit:

Partial transcript of Harwood:

Sure but If you look at the polling, Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the “internet left fringe” Lester. And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.

No word as to who the "White House advisor" is, but perhaps he also advises stevie harper on fringe groups . . . . .

Glenn Greenwald has more.

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

The Blob in your future

THERE COULD BE A BLOB in your future. Blob-existance is a perceived problem, according to the National Geographic's report by Christine Dell'Amore, "Giant, Mucus-Like Sea Blobs on the Rise, Pose Danger".

Giant? Mucus-like? We're talking considerable blobbage, here:

As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says 

Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer

124 miles long? Like the dude says, that's a big twinkie.

Maybe Winter is useful, after all

THE NATIONAL is an interesting site out of Abu Dhabi, with a report by Tom Scocca about the "Bites of passage", the progressive world-wide spread of the Asian tiger mosquito.

In the past few decades, the Asian tiger mosquito has travelled from its natural home in Southeast Asia to the ends of the earth, becoming one of the world’s most invasive species.

Over the course of the past two or three decades, however, the Asian tiger mosquito has become considerably, prodigiously more mobile. It has circled the planet, emerging in Trinidad in 1983; Mexico in 1988; France in 1999; Cameroon in 2000; Nicaragua, Greece, Israel and Switzerland in 2003. It has colonised North and South America, Africa, and Europe, until it has become a great nuisance in Brazil, Albania, Nigeria, Mexico and Italy – “the most invasive mosquito in the world”, a team of researchers wrote in 2007, in the journal Vector-Borne Zoonotic Disease. The mosquito from the Southeast Asian jungle is also now a great nuisance in Trenton, New Jersey – the greatest present-day mosquito nuisance in a wetland state whose history is written in waves of mosquito infestation.

Living things evolved to settle into this new niche, whether humans had invited them or not: the house mouse and the house sparrow, the bedbug and cockroach, the dust mite, the housefly, the Norway rat and the pigeon. With them came their own predators, parasites and diseases. Humanity has not subdued nature so much as been infiltrated by it, co-opted to generate food and water and shelter to an entire roving ecosystem.

For the Asian tiger mosquito, the benefits of human settlement include a near-limitless supply of cavities and containers of every shape and material, all of them possible breeding reservoirs: styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, metal roof gutters, ceramic saucers.

Ah, packaging. As Walt Kelly observed, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

Canwest, Natty Post, CBC ... and Goldman Sachs

Canada's largest media company, Canwest Global Communications, aka AsperMedia, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in a deal that essentially would hand control to its US creditors :

"Canwest reached a deal with a key group of lenders - mainly U.S. and foreign distressed funds that own most of the company's bonds - which will give them control of most of the restructured media company. Current shareholders would own just 2.3 per cent of the shares of the new Canwest, effectively wiping out most of their value."

The filing covers Global TV and the National Post but thus far not Canwest LP - Canwest's major daily newspapers across Canada - or its 15 money-making tv specialty channels whose profit rose 41% to $53-million in the most recent quarter over last year.

In January 2007, Goldman Sachs - this Goldman Sachs - bankrolled 64% of Leonard Asper's purchase of of 13 Alliance Atlantis specialty TV channels :

"a level far above Canadian foreign media ownership limits. However the CRTC approved the deal after the partners persuaded it that Canwest - not its giant Wall Street financial partner - would have effective operating control of the TV channels."

On the other hand, as the G&M Investor blog Streetwise reported yesterday (italics mine):

"Financiers working with Goldman said that over the past year, the investment bank put forward programming ideas for the TV networks, and offered strategic advice on restructuring, but was ignored by CanWest management and its creditors.

One concept that’s been tossed around, but couldn’t move forward until CanWest recapitalization was set, would see Goldman Sachs provide programming and financial support to the conventional television network as part of a larger deal that reworks the entire ownership structure to more closely align all the TV holdings.

There are three hedge funds driving the CanWest restructuring, and two of them are U.S. money managers: GoldenTree Asset Management, Beach Point Capital Management, along with Toronto-based West Face Capital Inc. ... These funds are also Goldman Sachs clients."

So, CRTC, you still good with this?
Goldman Sachs was not supposed to interfere with the programming of the Food Network but now expects to "provide programming and financial support" to local TV news stations?

More complications : The National Post - which never misses a chance to slag the CBC - and the CBC are now sharing content :

"The Post [will] republish CBC sports stories in the online National Post and sometimes in the newspaper. The CBC will run daily financial stories and podcasts from the Financial Post in cbc.ca’s Money section."

Translation : the publicly funded CBC will move further right as promised to run corporate news daily, while the privately owned Natty Post will now be partly funded by our tax dollars.

And those remaining 12 national and 26 community Canwest papers?
Paul Godfrey, CEO of the National Post, says he has found backers for a buyout of them.

Who will own what we think now?

Cross-posted at Creekside

An armed society is a polite society?

Another couple of responsible gun owners killed.
I suppose we should be grateful it happened at home and not at one the kids soccer games to which Mom regularly brought a sidearm.
How long before the firearms fetishist choir declares "she'd still be alive if she'd spent more time on the range practicing her quick draw" or "if the kids had been packing too, they could have stopped Dad!"

crossposted from the Woodshed

Squid TV Coming to Your Tube ? ? ? ?

Are there no depths Goldman Sachs - or as Matt Taibbi refers to them: "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" - will not go in the pursuit of power and $$$?

Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge has the story of GS' involvement in CanWest via financial and programming decisions. Amazing, but true:

Why Is Goldman Advising CanWest On Its Programming Line Up?

_______________

(Quoting from a Globe and Mail article):

Goldman Sachs sees no reason to revisit its arrangement with CanWest, which has been blessed by Canadian regulators, according to several sources close to the investment dealer.

To date, Goldman executives have not been invited into restructuring talks, a subject of considerable frustration at the investment bank, sources say. Financiers working with Goldman said that over the past year, the investment bank put forward programming ideas for the TV networks, and offered strategic advice on restructuring, but was ignored by CanWest management and its creditors.

One concept that’s been tossed around, but couldn’t move forward until CanWest recapitalization was set, would see Goldman Sachs provide programming and financial support to the conventional television network as part of a larger deal that reworks the entire ownership structure to more closely align all the TV holdings.

_______________


Earmuff time: why the fuck is Goldman even considered to provide "programming ideas and support?" Granted this is a case where the firm obviously has extensive and deep tentacle reach, however it is the biggest Canadian media company. And if Goldman can act with impunity to determine what the channel line up and who can and who can't be on TV, does this not raise a huge ethical problem straight out of modern version of "1984"? Although CNBC anchors can rest assured that if the Comcast deal does work out and they all end up jobless, there will be a willing home for them to spin their propaganda.

Also if this is true for CanWest, just where else does Goldman Sachs provide "programming idea" advice? Granted, the gullible audience does not care as it is brainwashed into the next massive paradigm, be it securitization part 2, or "buy, buy, buy any stock on the dips," in fact max out your credit cards just so you can own the next pets.com for the short period of time before even that is worth zero. After all, those fine TV people said so, compliments of Goldman's TV station content line up brigade.

My hope is that the Canadian public will pay attention to this chilling development in broadcasting. A friend of mine here whom I respect greatly in "all things Canadian" (and you know who you are) told me: "Unfortunately, Canadians have lived with media concentration for so long we take it for granted."

I hope that's not the case . . . .

H/T Joylene

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Why cops don't belong in schools

My only question about this incident is why it took so long to happen.

Teens question authority. It is what they do, its practically hardwired into the DNA. Putting an authority figure in their way for no good reason is just asking for trouble. If that authority figure is a coach or a teacher or a vice principal, even one with a chip on their shoulder, they are at least used to dealing with kids. A police officer may not be as experienced in dealing with kids. And one that decides to arrest a teenager for making "bacon" jokes or being a smart ass, is not someone who should be working in a school.

Who is the cop supposed to be protecting the students from? And who is protecting the students from the cops?

More cover-ups for the higher-ups

My guess would be that, as in most government scandals, the big problem here is not going to be the initial misconduct by some underling, but the subsequent bullshittery by the government in trying to hush the whole thing up.

Obviously, at some stage someone in the chain of command figured out a mistake had been made in handing over prisoners to the Afghans, and obviously they reported it to someone higher up who was eventually told it was not a problem, when it very much was a problem. The question is: Who was the amoral idiot who decided it wasn't a problem to hand prisoners over to be tortured, and how high up in the government ranks are they? Given the steps being taken to squelch this investigation, I think we can assume it was someone fairly senior, possibly Cabinet level.

The government is doing its best to delay things until they can appoint a new commissioner to the Military Police Complaints Tribunal when the current chairman, Peter Tinsley, reaches the end of his term in December. And they will probably manage to succeed and appoint some useful idiot to shut down the inquiry once and for all.

Which will probably lead the whistleblowers to take the case to the public in bigger and better ways. Eventually, even if it has to wait for a change of government, the truth will out, but it isn't going to set anybody free in this case, except in the sense that they will be free from being tied down to a government job anymore.

And the hits just keep on comin' . . .

THE LA TIMES has a marvellous report by Jeffrey Fleishman and Amro Hassan on something that maddens the mullahs. Titled, "Gadget to help women feign virginity angers many in Egypt", it gives an account of an enterprising Chinese company's Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit. Islamic cultures are the world's #1 female virginity freaks, and if anything will get the goat-faced hard-core  motoring, this is it. 

"No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back any time," states the website of Gigimo, a Chinese mail-order company that sells the kit and other sexual products, including sex dolls and bondage toys, worldwide. "Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable."

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls 20% of the seats in Egypt's parliament, have called for banning the kit and arresting anyone selling it on the black market. Cleric Abdul Moeti Bayoumi has issued a fatwa urging that peddlers of the $29.90 device be charged with banditry and punished for spreading immorality and sin.

"Having something like the virginity kit can cause complete mayhem within the Egyptian social life," said Farid Ismael, a member of parliament's health committee. "It can lead to the spreading of vice and the loss of all the good morals and values we had and that totally contradicts with our Islamic beliefs."

The kit -- like surgical repairs to the hymen that Middle Eastern women have relied upon for years -- is marketed to offer a sleight of hand. Such secrets keep prospective brides in the graces of their families and avoid what in rare cases are honor killings of women accused of promiscuity.