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12:34:24 02/03/12
Louisiana Tech Tyrone Duplessis Found Dead
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:34:24 02/03/12
I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. This is the Sports Corner. Tyrone Duplessis, a running back for Louisiana Tech, was found dead yesterday at his off-campus apartment. According to Patrick Walsh, the athletic department's associate media relations director, the 21-year-old's cause of the death is unknown pending an autopsy. Yesterday morning, Duplessis' teammates were informed and grief counseling was being made available to the players. In a statement, Louisiana Tech President Dan Reneau said, "We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Tyrone Duplessis this morning. Tyrone was not only a valuable member of our football program, but much more importantly, he was a valued member of the Tech Family. This is a painful loss for our campus community and our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family." Head coach Sonny Dykes said, "Tyrone was a valuable part of this football family. This is a tragic, senseless loss, but he made a lasting impact on this team, university and everyone that knew him." And to all the Giants and Patriots fans, good luck at Superbowl 46. I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. ********************************* The Views and Opinions expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article.
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03:31:18 02/03/12
Sony Gets New CEO and Madden Picks Super Bowl Winner - Press Pause Daily
[LESS INFO] 8 VIEWS | ADDED 03:31:18 02/03/12
Sony gets a new CEO and we have the winner of this weekend’s super bowl...well according to Madden.
SHOW NOTES:
Story 1:
After a lot of rumor and speculation, it was announced on Wednesday that current Sony Executive President Kazuo Hirai would become the President and CEO of the whole of Sony Corporation, starting April 1st.
Kaz joined Sony’s music division back in 1984, but his star really began to shine when he moved over to Sony Computer Entertainment. He was instrumental in turning around the Playstation division, and has a long legacy of managing the successful Playstation brand.
Kaz said in the announcement that "I am grateful to Sir Howard and to the Board for their confidence in me, and I look forward to working with everyone at Sony more closely than ever before to build a strong future for our customers, shareholders, partners and employees."
Kaz will replace current President and CEO Sir Howard Stringer, who is in line to become Chairman of Sony’s Board of Directors starting in June.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/72255/kaz-hirai-becomes-sony-president-on-april-1
Stor y 2:
We end this week with a bit of fun news. The Super Bowl is this coming Sunday, and as with every year EA Sports has predicted the winner using it’s own Madden football game. And this year the winner is.....
Well, according them, the winner of Super Bowl 46 will be the NY Giants. When EA Sports ran the game through last year’s edition of the Madden game series, the outcome had the Giants squeaking out a win with a score of 27-24.
According to the story on ShackNews, the game ended in dramatic fashion, with Lawrence Tynes kicking a last minute 40-yard field goal for the win. The in game MVP for the game was Eli Manning, with 25 completed passed out of 39, 3 touchdowns, and one interception.
So there ya go....you now know who will win this Sunday, but before you head out to make a last minute bet, you should probably know something. While Madden has been pretty good at picking the winner of the game, it doesn’t quite get the point spread right. Something to consider.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/72219/madden-nfl-12-predicts-giants-for-super-bowl-win
That will do it for your daily dose of Press Pause. You can always find all our episodes over at presspause.mevio.com . You can also check them out over at our Youtube channel: youtube.com/presspausemevio .
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11:57:20 01/30/12
The Dalit Massacre of Paramakudi
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 11:57:20 01/30/12
Tamil Nadu Police uses teargas, lathi and guns on unarmed dalit protesters. 11th September, 2011 was the day Paramakudi resident Valiswamy’s wife Gayatri gave birth to their first child. He was a dalit while she was from an upper caste family. In a caste sensitive area like Paramakuddi, inter-caste marriages are rare and they have to survive immense social pressure to come together. Valiswamy and Gayatri had fought hard and negotiated a truce with these forces. He was on his way to the hospital when he was caught in the Paramakudi firings, a widely reported incident in which the Tamil Nadu police opened fire on a group of unarmed dalits who were staging a peaceful protest. Valiswamy would not survive to see his newborn. “The families of the bereaved have received their compensations from the government but other than that, nothing has happened. The perpetrators are scot free. In fact, the chief minister has since been effusive in her praise for the state police. And the dalits are continuing to live in a stifling atmosphere of violence and fear. The incident has been a backlash to dalit morale in Tamil Nadu.” Dalit activist and IndiaUnheard Community Correspondent Mani M. aka Makkal Sevakan sounds angry and weary as he describes the situation in Paramakudi 5 months after the police’s attempts to disband a peaceful protest against the incarceration of popular dalit leader John Pandian resulted in the murder of 6 dalits and injuring many others. The incident caused uproar in the country. Dalit and Human Rights Organizations from across the nation condemned the attack and called for investigation. The media covered the incident extensively. The fact finding team set up to probe the incident made a strong case against the actions of the police but still as Mani puts it ‘nothing has happened.’ 54 years ago, Paramakudi was witness to one of the biggest caste riots in the country, a skirmish that cost the life of dalit iconoclast and leader, Immanuel Sekaran who was amongst the first Tamil Nadu dalits to advocate for dalit empowerment and rights against 3000 years of upper caste oppression. On 11th September, John Pandian was scheduled to arrive to pay his respects at Sekaran’s memorial. But using the sensitive atmosphere caused by recent murder of a dalit high school boy for allegedly writing offensive graffiti against the upper castes as a pretext, the police pre-emptively arrested him. When the crowd gathered to receive Pandian heard news of the arrest, they protested by peacefully occupying the road. The police’s diplomatic response was teargas and a lathi charge. The mood soured and the crowd turned unruly. A few protestors began pelting stones against the police. The police responded with gunfire. “It is not like the police could not handle the situation. There is an upper caste festival in Paramakudi each year that goes smoothly without the need to resort to pre-emptive arrests and lathi and gunfire. But the first time the dalits try to get together and organize a festival, it ends in tragedy,” says Mani. Mani was in Chennai on the fateful day when he heard of the Paramakudi firings. He immediately got on the first train. When he arrived, he saw a wasteland of police barricades, empty streets and burning vehicles. Some of Mani’s friends who had been part of the protest had managed to record footage of the police bashing in the heads of the people and shooting at unarmed civilians. The footage, which offers a birds eye view of the incident, justifies the statements of the fact finding group but there has been similar footage before and witness accounts and reports and photographs and yet, ‘nothing has happened.’ Of all the cases filed in the Tamil Nadu Courts under the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes Protection Act, 95% are acquitted. It is a disturbing figure that makes the atrocities seem insignificant or routine. In the 1969 Kilvenmani massacre, 44 landless dalit labourers were burnt alive for demanding better wages. In 1997, the dalit panchayat president and others were murdered in Melavalau. In September 2002, at Kaundampatti in Dindigul district, a dalit worker was forced to drink urine for having lodged a complaint of trespass with the police. In May 2002, two dalits were forced to eat human excreta in Thinniyam village in Tiruchi district. In 2011, on the 54th anniversary of a dalit massacre and the subsequent murder of Immanuel Sekaran, 6 dalits are killed in broad daylight by the state police. And not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice. Almost as if nothing had happened. ——————————————- For a brief account of the dalit struggle in Tamil Nadu, read http://www.pragoti.in/node/3947
2 Views
22:54:11 01/26/12
CCP Leader Xi Jinping to Visit the US in February
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 22:54:11 01/26/12
CCP Leader Xi Jinping to Visit the US in February
For more news and videos visit ☛ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ☛ http Add us on Facebook ☛ on.fb.me The head of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping will visit the United States on February 14th. The visit comes as strained ties between the world's two largest economies has received attention during the 2012 US election race. We talked to Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng about the issues involved with the visit. On Monday, US Vice President Joe Biden's office announced that the appointed Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping would visit the United States on February 14th. The visit comes eight months after Biden's visit to China. With the 2012 US election coming up, US relations with China is one of the issues on the agenda for debate. We talked to Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng in Washington, DC to get his thoughts on the matter. [Wei Jingsheng, Democracy Activist]: "Because of domestic pressure, the Obama administration will definitely want to obtain some trade concessions from China in this year's election. Including (adjustment of) the yuan exchange rate, or in the human rights aspect, these are all bargaining chips, and especially now America is reasonably strong. On the other hand, China will hold the 18th Party Congress. The infighting will be pretty severe. I think in this conflict with the United States, everyone will pass the baton to Xi Jinping. This matter is very difficult, if you take care of it, no matter how ... From: NTDTV Views: 56 4 ratings Time: 02:40 More in News & Politics
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17:47:48 01/20/12
France suspends Afghan training as four soldiers are killed
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:47:48 01/20/12
France suspends Afghan training as four soldiers are killed
www.euronews.net France is suspending military operations in Afghanistan, and may accelerate its planned troop withdrawal after the killing of four French soldiers. The shootings were the latest of several in which western soldiers have been killed by members of the Afghan security forces they are helping to train. President Nicolas Sarcozy said he has sent the defence minister and the head of the armed forces to Afghanistan, and until they arrive all training operations and combat help from French forces will be halted. From: Euronews Views: 176 0 ratings Time: 01:00 More in News & Politics
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17:47:48 01/20/12
France suspends Afghan training as four soldiers are killed
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:47:48 01/20/12
France suspends Afghan training as four soldiers are killed
www.euronews.net France is suspending military operations in Afghanistan, and may accelerate its planned troop withdrawal after the killing of four French soldiers. The shootings were the latest of several in which western soldiers have been killed by members of the Afghan security forces they are helping to train. President Nicolas Sarcozy said he has sent the defence minister and the head of the armed forces to Afghanistan, and until they arrive all training operations and combat help from French forces will be halted. From: Euronews Views: 288 1 ratings Time: 01:00 More in News & Politics
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12:18:59 01/04/12
Torre Resigns From MLB to Try Ownership of Dodgers
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:18:59 01/04/12
I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. This is the Sports Corner. Major League Baseball's executive vice president for baseball operations, Joe Torre resigned Wednesday to join a group trying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers who he managed from 2008 - 2010. Torre then retired and joined Major League Baseball last February as a top aide to Commissioner Bud Selig. Now, he is joining a group headed by real estate developer Rick Caruso. In a statement concerning this matter, Torre said, "I have made this decision because of a unique chance to join a group that plans to bid for the Dodgers. After leaving the field, this job was an incredible experience, one that I enjoyed very much." Thank you for joining me and stay with us for all your sports updates. I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. ********************************* The Views and Opinions expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article.
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12:18:59 01/04/12
Torre Resigns From MLB to Try Ownership of Dodgers
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 12:18:59 01/04/12
I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. This is the Sports Corner. Major League Baseball's executive vice president for baseball operations, Joe Torre resigned Wednesday to join a group trying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers who he managed from 2008 - 2010. Torre then retired and joined Major League Baseball last February as a top aide to Commissioner Bud Selig. Now, he is joining a group headed by real estate developer Rick Caruso. In a statement concerning this matter, Torre said, "I have made this decision because of a unique chance to join a group that plans to bid for the Dodgers. After leaving the field, this job was an incredible experience, one that I enjoyed very much." Thank you for joining me and stay with us for all your sports updates. I'm Lynn Lumpkin CRWENewswire Sports Commentator. ********************************* The Views and Opinions expressed by the author are his or her opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of this Web-Site or its agents, affiliates, officers, directors, staff, or contractors. The author at the time of this article did not own any shares or receive any consideration financial or otherwise from any company or person mentioned or referred to in the article.
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00:00:42 01/03/12
Last-Place Bachmann: 'I Intend To Be America's Iron Lady'
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:42 01/03/12
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Michelle Bachmann's appearance yesterday on This Week with Jake Tapper was one of her more cringe-inducing performances. Not because she isn't someone incapable of delivering lines and staying on message, but because the content of her message is so obviously boilerplate campaignspeak from someone who's so clearly sliding too far down, too fast to win. Instead, she's promising a "miracle:" >
TAPPER: My next guest sounds just as confident, but her path forward is a lot more murky. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann joins me from Des Moines.
Congresswoman, thanks for joining us, and happy new year.
BACHMANN: Happy new year to you. Great to be on with you this morning, Jake.
TAPPER: So the last time you and I spoke, you had just won the Iowa straw poll. The Des Moines Register poll had you tied for first place with Mitt Romney with 22 percent of the vote. Now that same poll has you with 7 percent of the vote. What happened to your campaign?
BACHMANN: Well, we've had a very good campaign. And I think what's happened is, a lot of candidates have come in, and Iowa voters and national voters have taken a look at all of the other candidates. But we have done I think what no other candidate has done, and that is, after the last debate, we've gone across all of Iowa, all 99 counties, and we've actually done heavy, heavy retail politics where we've gone into cafes and into living rooms of Iowans, and we've made a very strong connection with a lot of people.
And if you look at the polls, it's upwards of 40 percent to 50 percent of Iowans haven't made their decision yet. And I think the polls, what they're reflecting will be very different from what we're seeing on Tuesday night, because people make their decision, quite honestly, in the caucus room. Iowa is very different. People gather in living rooms. They gather in elementary schools and churches, and they make their decision on the spot with their neighbors. And we have done, like I said, what no other candidate has done the last two weeks. We've put over -- almost 7,000 miles on our bus, and we've literally gone from town to town to town meeting with people directly. And we saw thousands of people switch their vote just in the last couple of weeks, so we think there's going to be a very profound shift that people see on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: Well, one of the -- one of the dilemmas that you've had is that a lot of the voters that you are competing for, conservative voters, Christian evangelicals in some cases, are also being wooed by Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. And Santorum has momentum right now. He is at third place in the Des Moines Register poll. And if you look at the last two days, he's in second place. He has strong social conservative credentials. He's fluent in foreign affairs. He won statewide twice in a key swing state, Pennsylvania. So why should voters go for you and not him?
BACHMANN: Well, because I'm the strongest core conservative in this race. There is no comparison with all of the other candidates and my credentials. No other candidate has current national security experience in the race. I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. I am daily involved with the issue of national security. No other candidate is.
And as what we -- what we are seeing happening with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, that will be a formidable issue immediately with the next commander-in-chief. I'm ready. No other candidate is currently ready in that issue.
Gee, Michelle, I know it makes me feel better that you'll lie about Iran "obtaining" a nuke. It shows you'll say anything at all to win - always a great quality in a president. >
Also, I'm the only federal tax litigation attorney in this race. When it comes to dealing with the number-one issue that's on voters' minds, which is out-of-control spending, I have that credential in spades over any other candidate, because no other candidate was leading on this issue in the halls of Congress or in Washington or nationally. I'm the one that called for saying "no" to letting Barack Obama increase the national credit card limit.
Psst, Michelle honey? Try not to say things like that around sane people. It doesn't help. >
And when it comes to social issues, there's no one who can -- who can compare with my record. I'm a mother of five, a foster mother to 23 children that we've raised, and also I have an unassailable record on life, on marriage, on religious liberty. So when it comes to values and issues, there is no one who comes close to where I am on those issues.
But I think even more so, I'm the one that's been proven and tested in the fires of Washington, and that's why I think you saw people vote for me in the Iowa straw poll, but also it's what we have done on the ground. No other candidate has done more retail campaigning on the ground.
TAPPER: But...
BACHMANN: And I think we'll bear the fruit of that on Tuesday night.
TAPPER: But with all due respect, Congresswoman, this is the same pitch you've been making all summer and all fall and -- and up until today, and you're in last place, according to the polls. And -- and somebody that has similar credentials to you and a similar appeal to you, Rick Santorum, is showing huge momentum. Why you over him?
BACHMANN: Well, again, I think the polls take a few days to catch up. And -- and we have made that incredible deposit of going in every single county. We've drawn 300 people at a stop, 250 people at a stop, and I think a lot of that isn't yet reflected in the polls. And the main thing will be on Tuesday night.
We're looking forward. We're not looking in the rear-view mirror. And what we're seeing going forward, especially with the tremendous outpouring of young people that are coming out to work on our phone banks and to go lit dropping and door-to-door is nothing short of amazing. We're -- we're number-one in the category of enthusiasm. If you look at all of the candidates, which candidate has the most enthusiasm among their supporters, I'm that candidate. I'm number-one with the 18- to 29-year-old voters, which are highly motivated, and they're doing all of the work.
So I think that if you look at my past races, and polling data showed me actually losing and 8 points behind in previous races that I've had when I've run for Congress, and yet I -- I win by 8 and 13 points. So polls don't -- are -- sometimes belie the truth on the ground, and that's what we see. This isn't just about polling. This is about what we're seeing in reality, and I think Tuesday night people are going to see a miracle.
TAPPER: In the last week, your campaign has gotten involved in a big kerfuffle about one of your top supporters, your chairman in Iowa defecting and going to the Ron Paul campaign. I don't want to get into the weeds on that debate. There was a back-and-forth about whether or not he was paid off. He denied that you accused him of doing that. But this is not the first time you've made a charge like this. You've also said this about other supporters with Newt Gingrich in Georgia, with Rick Santorum.
Don't you risk -- making these charges, doesn't that risk voters seeing you as making a final gasp of desperation?
BACHMANN: Oh, for Heaven's sake. Of course not. What this shows is the tremendous momentum that we have out of the last debate. From person after person, they said that I won the last debate in Sioux City, Iowa. And the reason why is because, when Ron Paul made his very dangerous statements, which is he was just fine with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, or with Newt Gingrich taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac and he was unable to defend that, I -- I took it to them.
And what people saw during the last debate is that I have the ability, of all of the candidates on the stage, I have the best ability to take it to Barack Obama in the debate and hold him accountable. We had tremendous momentum coming out of the last debate, and we saw it in county after county in our 99-county tour, where people were just appalled by Ron Paul's position. They thought it was dangerous.
That's why we saw literally thousands of people switching their decision on the spot, and that's what you saw, was this crush of momentum. And so we saw some different actions coming out of the Ron Paul campaign. And I think that people will be very surprised at the results on Tuesday night, because I think people will see a lot of defections away from Ron Paul because they see -- especially with the aggressive nature of the actions on the part of Iran in the Straits of Hormuz, people are seeing how important it is that we have a commander-in-chief who is conversant, prepared, knowledgeable, and has good judgment on foreign affairs. And of all of the candidates in the race, I'm best suited for that -- that portion of being commander-in- chief.
TAPPER: Congresswoman, we only have a little bit of time left, so last question. In the interests of candor and being based in reality, positing that you feel that you're going to have a very good night on Tuesday and that all the polls are wrong and you're going to do well, but assuming that the polls are right, isn't that, practically speaking, the end of your campaign if you come in last on Tuesday?
BACHMANN: Well, we've bought tickets to head off to South Carolina. And we are looking forward to the debates. January is a very full month. We're here for the -- for the long -- for the long race. This is a 50-state race. And we intend to participate not only in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, but to go all the way, because I intend to be the Republican nominee and defeat Barack Obama in 2012, because America needs a candidate that will be in the legacy of a Ronald Reagan and of a Margaret Thatcher. That's what I intend to do, is to be America's iron lady.
TAPPER: All right. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, good luck on Tuesday. And hope you have a wonderful 2012.
BACHMANN: Thank you. Same to you and your listeners.
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17:15:35 01/01/12
C&L's Top 50 Videos of 2011: #8 Sarah Palin's Unconventional Route To The Presidency
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:15:35 01/01/12
Click here to view this media
I know, you all are shaking your head and asking why this is on the top list of videos when Sarah Palin isn't running for President. At least, she's not "officially" running for President like the others, who are fiercely engaged in nattering with each other in far too many ridiculous televised debates.
The video begins to answer the question, as does this post by Dave Neiwert earlier this year, but here's the short version: Sarah Palin believes she has been called by God to be President of the United States. She believes God works in unconventional ways, and she is therefore not bound by conventional means.
Sarah Palin's fondest hope is that the Republican party will cry out to her to save them from the current crop of front-runners. This is already surfacing a bit in Iowa, where her supporters are mounting a campaign to show up at the caucuses and " vote rogue ."
Here's the ad: > "Are you unhappy with the current GOP field?" says a narrator in a radio ad. "Let me tell you something, you are not alone. Join thousands of Iowans as we vote rogue. It's the caucus for Sarah Palin on January 3. Let Iowa and the entire country know we want real leadership and real reform in DC. So come on Iowa, vote rogue on January 3!"
If the GOP nomination goes to a brokered convention or an outright floor fight, look for Palin to try and ride in on her white horse. She longs for it.
0 Views
17:15:35 01/01/12
C&L's Top 50 Videos of 2011: #8 Sarah Palin's Unconventional Route To The Presidency
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 17:15:35 01/01/12
Click here to view this media
I know, you all are shaking your head and asking why this is on the top list of videos when Sarah Palin isn't running for President. At least, she's not "officially" running for President like the others, who are fiercely engaged in nattering with each other in far too many ridiculous televised debates.
The video begins to answer the question, as does this post by Dave Neiwert earlier this year, but here's the short version: Sarah Palin believes she has been called by God to be President of the United States. She believes God works in unconventional ways, and she is therefore not bound by conventional means.
Sarah Palin's fondest hope is that the Republican party will cry out to her to save them from the current crop of front-runners. This is already surfacing a bit in Iowa, where her supporters are mounting a campaign to show up at the caucuses and " vote rogue ."
Here's the ad: > "Are you unhappy with the current GOP field?" says a narrator in a radio ad. "Let me tell you something, you are not alone. Join thousands of Iowans as we vote rogue. It's the caucus for Sarah Palin on January 3. Let Iowa and the entire country know we want real leadership and real reform in DC. So come on Iowa, vote rogue on January 3!"
If the GOP nomination goes to a brokered convention or an outright floor fight, look for Palin to try and ride in on her white horse. She longs for it.
1 Views
19:00:30 12/28/11
Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964
This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy.
One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality.
But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night.
Why Austerity?
"Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth.
But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s.
It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled.
Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels.
For a one-percenter, what's not to love?
Austerity Comes of Age
The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades.
But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform.
It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term.
With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd.
The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine
That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: >
Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation.
And the British love it.
What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States.
And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: >
"Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings."
Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists
The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend.
That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments?
The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better.
But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip.
Death of a Delusion
And then something else came into the picture: Reality.
Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century.
Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare.
As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough.
And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed.
That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all.
The Afterlife
President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays.
Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works.
Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge.
Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.
5 Views
19:00:30 12/28/11
Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964
This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy.
One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality.
But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night.
Why Austerity?
"Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth.
But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s.
It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled.
Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels.
For a one-percenter, what's not to love?
Austerity Comes of Age
The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades.
But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform.
It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term.
With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd.
The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine
That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: >
Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation.
And the British love it.
What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States.
And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: >
"Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings."
Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists
The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend.
That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments?
The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better.
But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip.
Death of a Delusion
And then something else came into the picture: Reality.
Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century.
Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare.
As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough.
And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed.
That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all.
The Afterlife
President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays.
Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works.
Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge.
Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.
0 Views
09:37:24 12/21/11
Kazakh Oil Workers Protest Killing of Colleagues
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 09:37:24 12/21/11
Kazakh Oil Workers Protest Killing of Colleagues
For more news and videos visit ☛ english.ntdtv.com Follow us on Twitter ☛ http Add us on Facebook ☛ on.fb.me Sacked oil workers in western Kazakhstan demand to know why police fired on protesters during recent clashes in which at least 15 people were killed. Experts say the growing unrest is putting pressure on the country's leader. Oil workers in Kazakhstan took to the streets on Tuesday, demanding to know who ordered police to fire on protesters during clashes over the past few days. [Kenzhegali Suyeov, Head of the Kazakh Independent Trade Union]: "The workers' demands as of today - the workers aren't making demands on salaries. They are asking to pull out the troops, to stop shooting and to open criminal cases in all of the people who died, in each death, and to conduct an investigation to find out why every person died, who gave the permission to shoot at people? Those are the demands, they're in no way connected to economic demands." About 100 demonstrators confronted dozens of riot police in Aktau, capital of the western, oil-producing Mangistau region where protests in two nearby towns have turned into bloody clashes. The clashes have not spread beyond the region, but experts say the protests suggest that broader public pressure is mounting for President Nazarbayev to relax the authoritarian system he has built up since Soviet times. From: NTDTV Views: 5 0 ratings Time: 01:29 More in News & Politics
5 Views
20:00:00 12/19/11
Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 12/19/11
Former President Havel addresses a European cultural congress on the economics of culture
On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes.
The President of Czechoslovakia wasn't reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer's sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state.
Václav Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. "We're not rock musicians," Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. "We're electronic social workers." The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" ("Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind .")
We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost.
Today we're told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel's words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred."
Think of that as the Velvet Revolution's "one demand."
Portrait of the President as a Young Freak
As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence.
The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel's movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves "freaks" to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan.
And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy's drum circles seem like a children's choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans.
Words
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ...
Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power: >
I ... live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies ... a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television.
Havel had been burned by language, too: >
The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays ... true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps.
And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates: >
The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable.
Control
In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There's more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today: >
The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens.
Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure.
"Everyone has something to lose," observed Havel.
Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own: >
The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an 'outward' direction, the more one's energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, 'inwards.'"
People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives.
Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'"
Ambition
Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák: >
If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism.
It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record.
From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does: >
Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.
Technocracy
It's a historical irony that those who claim they'll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by "technocrats' who'll govern without messy "ideologies."
That's a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the "process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation."
Washington's technocratic "bipartisans" dream of a world where, in Havel's words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the 'innocent' tool of an 'innocent' anonymous power ... legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway: >
States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success.
Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature: >
(It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend ... the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation.
"The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is," Havel wrote, "deeply pessimistic."
Responsibility
"I favor 'antipolitical politics,'" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them." >
I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.
None of us--as an individual--can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so.
Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries: >
Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated ... Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia.
Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that's all the world remembered.
Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That's the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere.
"Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?" he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power.
At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it's our turn.
24 Views
04:00:00 12/15/11
Microsoft To Make TV and Free 3DS WiFI - Press Pause Daily
[LESS INFO] 24 VIEWS | ADDED 04:00:00 12/15/11
Microsoft is looking to start creating television content for Xbox Live and you'll be to get free WiFi at some airports during your holiday travels.
SHOW NOTES:
Story 1:
According to a story on Bloomberg, Microsoft is looking to hire a TV executive to help the company produce original television content for the Xbox 360. As stated in the story, the company has apparently approached two former NBC executives: Marc Graboff and Jeff Gaspin. Gaspin was the head of NBC Universal Entertainment, but stepped down after the merger with Comcast, and Graboff is currently president of West Coast business operations, but recently announced plans to leave.
We all know that Microsoft is really fighting to become the king of your living room, and creating original programming would be a good way for them to stand out above the PS3, as well as Google TV, and the like.
Hey, if they can come up with some good programming, I’m in.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/microsoft-said-to-seek-tv-executive-to-develop-shows-for-xbox-live-service.html
Story 2:
So, Christmas will soon be upon us, and that means that a lot of people will be travelling to see their loved ones. And, or course, that usually means a lot of time waiting at the airport. Well if you own a 3DS, then you got no worries.
A recent system update to Nintendo’s handheld added free wifi access to all airport hotspots from service provider Boingo. the company operates hotspots in 42 airports across North America, and the company thought that with the load of families travelling this holiday season, it just made sense.
Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business development Colby Goff said “With the holiday season approaching, more leisure travelers and families with children will fill our airports and have access to our hotspots.”
Which is probably code for “If you want your kid to shut up when your flight gets delayed, let ‘em play a game.” Works for me.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208005296/en/Boingo-Nintendo-Team-Connect-Nintendo-3DS-Users
That will do it for your daily dose of Press Pause. You can always find all our episodes over at presspause.mevio.com . You can also check them out over at our Youtube channel: youtube.com/presspausemevio .
