Archive for March, 2011
Outside It’s America
March 22nd, 2011Woman Killed by Monster Truck at Dallas Strip Club Man Went on Shooting Rampage After Price of Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito Increased from 99 Cents to $1.49 38 Percent of Americans Fail U.S. Citizenship Test
Fed Must Release Loan Data as High Court Rejects Appeal
March 21st, 2011Via: Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve will disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view. The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by […]
Home Sales Dive, Prices Near 9-Year Low
March 21st, 2011Via: Reuters: Sales of previously owned U.S. homes plunged in February and prices hit their lowest level in nearly nine years, implying a housing market recovery was still a long way off. The National Association of Realtors said on Monday sales fell 9.6 percent month over month to an annual rate of 4.88 million units, […]
Japan: Monitoring Radiation Levels
March 21st, 2011A reader asked if I had any suggestions for monitoring radiation levels in Japan. I have no idea how accurate any of this is, but here are the sites I’ve been watching: http://www.bousai.ne.jp/eng/ http://www.stubbytour.com/nuc/index_en.asp Tokyo only: http://park30.wakwak.com/~weather/geiger_index.html (mirror)
Obama Creates Indefinite Detention System for Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
March 21st, 2011From March 8. Via: Washington Post: President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials […]
U.S. Army ‘Kill Team’ in Afghanistan Posed for ‘Trophy’ Photos with Murdered Civilians
March 21st, 2011Via: Guardian: Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed. Senior officials at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly […]
Of Arms and the Man: War-Profiteers and Progressives Make Common Cause for Obama
March 21st, 2011Via: Empire Burlesque: Yet even now, the “progressive blogosphere” is ablaze with partisan fervor bent toward a single goal: the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012. Because if Obama is not re-elected, we might get a president who … kowtows to Wall Street, tortures Americans, kills innocent people — that is, who actually, literally, physically […]
IBM Bribes in Asia
March 21st, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal: U.S. regulators accused International Business Machines Corp. of a decade-long campaign of bribery in Asia, saying employees handed over shopping bags stuffed with cash in South Korea and arranged junkets for government officials in China in exchange for millions of dollars in contracts. The Armonk, N.Y., technology giant agreed to pay […]
Switzerland Moves Embassy from Tokyo to Osaka
March 21st, 2011Via: Swiss Info: Switzerland has announced that its embassy in Tokyo has been transferred to Osaka, 600 km south of the Japanese capital. A foreign ministry statement said the temporary move had been made because of the “uncertain situation” in Tokyo, and in particular around the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. The ministry said the embassy […]
Japan: Food Contamination Worse Than Previously Thought
March 21st, 2011I thought that the information out of Japan would get clearer as the days passed, but it just seems to be getting blurrier. So, it’s more of the familiar serious-not-dangerous shuffle. Via: Reuters: The World Health Organization said on Monday that the detection of radiation in food after an earthquake damaged a Japanese nuclear plant […]
