Thoughtful – Global – Timely
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By Michael Collins, on March 20th, 2013
 IT’S UNANIMOUS McClatchy Washington Bureau 3/30 WASHINGTON — California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s effort to ban assault-style weapons fizzled Tuesday, as Majority Leader Harry Reid did not include the measure in a larger package of legislation to address gun violence.
Fascinating, isn’t it. We just had a slaughter, one of many, in Connecticut, that called for some sanity and consistency in gun regulation. It is reasonable to ban military ordinance from public use. It is reasonable to ban high capacity cartridges since they imply the intent to slaughter people or other living things. It is reasonable to have background checks for each and every gun purchaser.
Over a million people have been denied the purchase of weapons due to the Brady bill requirement for background checks. It’s not perfect but imagines this.
How many more crimes would have been committed by those million plus people denied the right to purchase a gun due to criminal or other disqualifying backgrounds?
How hard is for Congress to act?
Continue reading Reid screws Feinstein on gun legislation happing now
By Michael Collins, on March 19th, 2013 Chemical rocket hits Aleppo, mortars shower Damascus as Syrian opposition names PM for interim gov’t Xinhua, March 19
(Damascus, Xinhau) At least 25 people were killed and 130 others wounded Tuesday when armed men fired a rocket stuffed with chemical materials at the Khan al-Asal town in Aleppo, the state-media said, accusing the armed opposition fighters of being behind it. However, the rebels denied the accusations and turned the accusation finger against the government.
WHO sending supplies to Aleppo, can’t confirm chemical use (Reuters) March 19
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that it would send medical supplies to the Syrian city of Aleppo on Wednesday, but could not verify if chemical weapons or some other toxin had been used there.
“At this stage we cannot confirm the use of chemical weapons, nor what agent, if any, was used,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Reuters in Geneva.
Chemical weapons charges traded Associated Press
Posted: 03/19/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT Updated: 03/19/2013 10:10:24 PM CDT
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s government and rebels traded accusations Tuesday, March 19, of a chemical attack on a northern village for the first time in the civil war, although the U.S. said there was no evidence it had happened.
The use of such weapons would be a nightmare scenario in the 2-year-old conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people, and the competing claims showed a willingness by both sides to go to new levels to seek support from world powers. Continue reading Chemical weapons used in Aleppo Syria?
By actor212, on March 20th, 2013 What the hell is Harry Reid thinking?
Reid insisted yesterday that all of these measures deserved a vote — but that including some of them in the main legislative package brought to the Senate floor would sink the entire effort. The main bill that Reid will introduce will have to get at least 60 votes to get past a GOP-led filibuster, he explained. So by starting with a pared-down bill, Reid said he could at least get a gun control measure on the Senate floor. At that point, the assault weapons ban and other less popular measures could be voted on as amendments.
Now, if you’re telling me that this is a maneuver to avoid a filibuster on gun control legislation and the intent is, once past the blockade, amendments (which only need a simple majority to be included) can be added, then hey, that’s OK. The Dems have more than a simple majority and can easily tack on any number of amendments. Continue reading Assaulted Nuts
By steeleweed, on March 20th, 2013 
Time, they are a-changin’
Nothin’ I can do about it now
To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.
- William Blake: Auguries of Innocence.
I read blogs and articles and books which provide lots of information, yet there is always a little niggling thought lurking in the back of my mind: What does this have to do with my life? Here? Now? Objectively, I know it all does effect me, but it seems to be at arm’s length, almost abstract and I’ll always feel this way until I am personally the person unemployed, foreclosed, wounded, PTSD’d, imprisoned, etc. On the other hand, the biggest thing on my mind on a given day might be juggling work and two doctors’ appointments, which are important to me but register only a shrug to the other seven billion people on the planet.
Continue reading Changes in Time and Place
By nymole, on March 19th, 2013 A blogger named Chris Deville’s view of 2013 SXSW:
Ostensibly, attending Austin’s logo-infused music (and movie, and tech) industry sprawl South By Southwest is expensive. Count on inflated airfare to Austin, $200 a night for a downtown hotel room and hundreds of dollars for food and drinks — oh, and $625 for a badge, assuming you buy it early before the cost balloons to almost $800. You could buy a wristband instead for $180, but then you’d be a second-class citizen who gets cut in line on the regular.
Sounds rich, right? Never fear, noble traveler: SXSW can be done on the cheap. There are so many free parties, and the best of them are stocked with the same buzz bands and music legends you’ll find at the official showcases. Many of them boast free food and/or alcohol too. This phenomenon began as an afternoon analog to night time’s official business, but over time it’s proliferated after dark as well. Throughout my years attending SXSW officially, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go guerilla. ….
more at the link
Anybody here go?, anybody’s uhm offspring?
By actor212, on March 19th, 2013 
Folks outside of New York – hell, folks outside of Queens – are probably not aware of the Flushing Meadow Park, except in snippets they’ve seen on the TeeVee during the US Open or perhaps NY Mets baseball games. It is the largest park in Queens, spanning nearly 1,300 acres, and is bordered by three highways. It was the site of the 1939 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs, and is most famous for the Unisphere (featured in more movies located in New York City than you can shake a stick at), a Cold War relic that celebrated the first Mercury flight to circle the globe.
Continue reading Nauseating Development
By Michael Collins, on March 19th, 2013 Michael Collins
Great Britain’s three political parties just made a deal to provide a degree of regulation for the British press. The deal produces a Royal Charter that establishes a press regulator at arms-length from the government plus a regulation regime that the major media companies can join.
The charter is an outgrowth of the Leveson Commission established to get to the bottom of the press abuses in the phone hacking scandal that resurfaced in 2011. Thousands of crime victims, celebrities, and lower profile citizens had their phone hacked by the press and private detectives working for the Murdoch papers and other media outlets. The London Metropolitan Police (the Met) colluded with the Murdoch papers both by ignoring obvious criminal behavior and by using police resources to track and snoop on the news targets of the tabloids.
Why would a news organization join the voluntary regulatory regime if it’s voluntary? Good question. It’s not exactly voluntary. Let’s say The Mirror tabloid failed to join the regulatory organization. Any court cases brought against that paper/company would be subject to extraordinary damages compared to a media outlet that committed the very same transgression but happened to be part of the self-regulatory regime.
Continue reading Leave the British Press Alone – No ‘Royal’ Charter, No Regulation
By Michael Collins, on March 18th, 2013 If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth? Desmond Tutu
 It’s official, well almost official. Tonight, the BBC’s Panorama will roll out yet more serious evidence that Tony Blair knew Saddam Hussein had NO weapons of mass destruction for months prior to the United States – British invasion of Iraq.
“Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.
“Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was active, growing and up and running.” Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, March 18
Specifically, according to Panorama, British intelligence had a critical meeting in Amman, Jordan three months before the invasion. The head of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency confirmed that there were no WMD. The British Dodgy Dossier was published days after this information was gathered. That Google generated fabrication pushed for war and conveniently left out the Amman intelligence. This is both fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. Continue reading Blair Cornered on War Crimes in Iraq
By actor212, on March 18th, 2013 Cypress, much like its neighbor Greece, is in a financial bind. Looking for a 10€ billion bailout package, it needs to show that it is taking steps necessary to balance its budget.
Now, you can go the austerity route, but indicators show that austerity is precisely the wrong message to send the markets these days: Euro Union countries who have tried that have ended up in deeper economic trouble than those who have managed to avoid trouble at all. So the alternative is to raise tax revenue somehow.
Income tax revenue raises would help, of course, but what if a country was to tax money that is taken out of the economy?
NICOSIA, Cyprus—Cyprus put off for another day a debate on a controversial bank deposit levy in the country’s parliament—a precondition to receiving a €10 billion bailout—even as it proposed a new plan to ease the burden of that tax on small savers in a bid to win votes for the measure.
Speaking to reporters, Cyprus Parliament speaker Yiannakis Omirou said Monday that the debate and vote would be pushed back to Tuesday—now two days behind schedule—a move that would likely require the country to extend a bank holiday on the island for at least one more day amid fears of a meltdown in the island’s financial system. Continue reading Novel Solutions
By Michael Collins, on March 17th, 2013
By Michael Collins, on March 16th, 2013 “Without the bailout, Cyprus would have defaulted.” Peter Sharp
“EU Bailout” video after the break.
Continue reading Banker Bailout Weekend – Cyprus
By Numerian, on March 16th, 2013  The next stage of the global financial collapse has now arrived.
In an announcement this weekend, the EU and the IMF have come to the rescue of Cyprus, at the request of the government, by offering Euro 10 billion in aid, in exchange for which the Cyprus government will impose a “one-off tax” on all private deposits in Cyprus banks. Depositors with Euro 100,000 or less in a bank account will be assessed a 6.75% tax, and deposits over this amount will be taxed at a rate of 9.9%
However politely this is described in press releases, this is nothing more than a confiscation of private property from people who did no wrong. The Cyprus banks prior to the 2008 financial collapse played a game similar to the Icelandic banks – offering lavish interest rates on deposits to attract hot money, and investing the money in a real estate bubble that has now collapsed and crippled the banks. Most of the money in Cyprus came from Russian business interests.
Iceland chose a different tack in dealing with its crisis. It essentially stiffed the IMF and the governments of the UK and The Netherlands, which were the source of hot money for Icelandic banks and which governments fully expected the Icelandic government to cover the losses. The Icelandic government refused, it allowed the banks to go under, it placed the losses on the the bank shareholders and bondholders, and it jailed the top bankers involved in the debacle. Iceland’s economy took a severe hit, but the pain was relatively short term and the economy has recovered nicely.
Continue reading Pay Attention! The EU and IMF confiscate private deposits
By Michael Collins, on March 16th, 2013  British Prime Minister David Cameron and pseudo socialist President Francois Hollande had a “better idea.” They would swagger forth into the fray to arm the Syrian rebels. Hollande was given the task of surfacing the idea at the European Union conference yesterday. But it was Cameron’s idea. (Image)
It didn’t take long to figure out who is on top in the EU. German Chancellor Andrea Merkel was clear and succinct
“We have a number of concerns,” said Merkel. “One has to ask if it does not fan the flames of the conflict.” March 15
It didn’t take long for the real Cameron to emerge. The Guardian’s Ian Traynor reported (March 15):
“The sudden Anglo-French move to overturn a European arms embargo on Syria in order to equip the rebels seeking to overthrow the Assad regime has run into a solid wall of resistance at an EU summit, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, dismissing the policy U-turn and others warning of a regional conflagration from which Iran would emerge the winner.
“Following the summit, the prime minister toned down his enthusiasm for arming the Syrian opposition, saying that he wanted the arms embargo lifted but did not necessarily want to deliver arms to anti-regime forces two years into the civil war.” Guardian, March 15
Continue reading Cameron feels the lash fom Merkel – rolls over and plays dead
By Raja, on March 16th, 2013
By adrena, on March 15th, 2013 In her book: “The Year of the Flood”, Margaret Atwood, the renowned Canadian author, “speculates that her futuristic tales – she calls them speculative fiction – showcase scenarios that spring from current realities: the creep of corporations into many aspects of society, environmental decay, high tech reproduction, the widening cleavage between haves and have-nots”.
I believe that future has arrived.
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, at the University of Toronto, focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media, global security, and human rights. Citizen Lab research has been tracking the dark market of computer network attack, censorship and surveillance – what some are referring to as the market for “digital arms.
Citizen lab highlights, for example, that U.S.-based Blue Coat Systems’ network monitoring devices were deployed in Syria and Burma and that Blue Coat Systems, Gamma International, and Hacking Team have all just made Reporters Without Borders’ 2013 Corporate Enemies of the Internet list, ranking alongside State Enemies of the Internet Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam.
Please read the article for a detailed account of the scope, scale, and character of this dark market.
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