Thursday, June 18, 2009
June 18 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Lets Talk 'Selective Mayhem' Ie.Selective War On Specific People
"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." June 18 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Lets Talk 'Selective Mayhem' Ie.Selective War On Specific People, While Keeping In Mind The People We've 'Selected' Can Do That TooPrefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [192kbps VBR 13:37 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Twitter This Commentary |
Spring is also worldwide assassination season: In Somalia, the Transitional Federal Government Defense Minister was blown up along with part of the hotel he was staying in as Somalia's "president" says al-Qaida (Meaning the ICU government the CIA tried to overthrow) is behind attack while a right wing leader in Albania has been killed by a bomb. More about this trend towards selective mayhem in the commentary.
The media wants you to know (so you keep believing the US financial system isn't in it death throes)that $68 billion dollars has been repaid so far by US banks and financial institutions bailed out over the last year or so.
Yesterday the president signed onto equal benefits for gay federal employees, but it's a patchwork of allowances because of DOMA, which requires congressional approval for the main issues such as health care for same-sex partners.
President Obama also spoke on (the text of his remarks) the new regulations for financial firms... and the foxes will undoubtedly end up watching over the henhouse.
Two from Da' Buffalo's Tweets: From a basic DoD online anti-terror training program for many employees - "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity? Correct answer: "protests."
...and from my OMFG! files, AKA stupid international diplomacy tricks: US Envoy to Afghanistan Richard C. Holbrooke to a Pashtun father: “Your daughter is beautiful,”.
Luckily “That’s not my daughter,” was the reply... "...that’s what you should do, tell rural Pashtun men that you’d like to take their daughter for a test drive,"
In regard to the commentary, Word... From Da' Buffalo. It's EASY to find people to do your dirty work for you when a Desperate US Army Recruits Neo-Nazis and other people who LUV to hate (and who, like most of the nutcase 'Right' have no agenda or political belief that isn't purely reactionary behavior or self-serving opportunism making for perfect mindless militarily trained murderers) The US military loosened regulations, issuing "moral waivers" in many cases for these people.
Speaking of Neo-Nazis working for Western governments to sway world events(Guardian.uk):
"Germany's most notorious postwar neo-Nazi party was led by an intelligence agent working for the British, according to both published and unpublished German sources.
The alleged agent - the late Adolf von Thadden - came closer than anyone to giving the far-right real influence over postwar German politics.
Under his leadership, the National Democratic party (NPD) made a string of impressive showings in regional elections in the late 60s, and there were widespread fears that it would gain representation in the federal parliament.
.
.
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The question also arises of whether MI6 was seeking help from the neo-Nazi movement when far-left militancy was sweeping Europe after the uprising of May 1968 in Paris." [In Full]
[After the commentary Warren Zevon haunts our conscience with the help of Roland, the headless Thompson gunner. Courtesy of the respective artists and KPIG radio Freedom California Earth.]
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Recorded & transcribed by Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Simple Phrases "Diplomats" Can Say To Ensure Endless War
H/t: Abu Muqawama
("Your daughter is beautiful" and other things you should not say to a rural Pashtun)
Just call this the OMFG! Story Of The Day:
Holbrooke to Pashtun father: “I would like to dishonor your daughter”
Nice work Holbrooke. Via WaPo, h/t BruceR:U.S. envoy Richard C. Holbrooke, red-faced and sweaty, sat on the dirt floor of a stifling tent as Aslam Khan, a 38-year-old laborer, spoke haltingly of his family’s panicked flight from a Pakistani army offensive against Taliban forces in their mountain village, three hours north of here.Yeah that’s what you should do, tell rural Pashtun men that you’d like to take their daughter for a test drive,"
Holbrooke asked some questions about the Taliban but got few answers. “Are these all your children?” he asked with a smile. Yes, Khan said, he had nine.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” Holbrooke continued, nodding toward a young woman who sat quietly at the edge of the family. Her head was covered in a royal-blue scarf that revealed only her stunningly dark eyes.
“That’s not my daughter,” Khan said abruptly.
[In Full @ Ghosts Of Alexander]
DoD anti-terror training program question - "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity? Correct answer: " protests."
FireFox users might also want this add-on
Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course — an annual training requirement for all DOD personnel that is fulfilled through Web-based instruction — the department asks the following: "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?"To answer correctly, the examinee must select "protests." [In Full]
Peace Out, Luv Duv, and don't forget to take it easy...
Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves, "low-level terrorist"
June 17 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Stepping Back For A Historic Perspective On Presidential Agendas
| "All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now."June 17 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Stepping Back For A Historic Perspective On Presidential Agendas - What One President CAN DO In A Given Time Period Compared To What President Obama Has Set Out To Do Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [192kbps VBR 8:59 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Twitter This Commentary |
From the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
Obama Plan Improves Regulatory Structure but Doesn’t Address Accountability
By Dean Baker
June 17, 2009
There are many useful features of President Obama’s proposals for the reform of the regulatory system. Most notably, the plan to establish an agency to ensure that financial products are fair and transparent to consumers is a big step forward. Such an agency might have prevented many of the worst abuses in the subprime market.
The proposal to provide regulatory authorities with resolution powers for non-bank financial institutions is also a useful reform. Such powers would have greatly facilitated regulators’ efforts to deal with the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.
This plan should also go far toward eliminating the sort of regulatory arbitrage that allowed firms to seek out the weakest regulators. It would have been desirable to have also included some sort of national consolidation of regulation of insurers, but that would have faced enormous political opposition. [In Full]
The Space Shuttle Endevour launch has been scrubbed until the middle of July due to continuing problems with Hydrogen leaks.
Only (Gasp!)$108 BILLION dollars to fund the Iraqistan wars till September. The House votes for more war as the supplemental spending bill passes 226-202 despite the anti-war Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters amongst others, who voted against it, and Republicans who disliked other legislation funding the IMF tacked on to it. "...the defense part (of the bill) was over four billion dollars more then asked for..." and includes funding for allegedly IED and mine resistant MRAPs
This MRAP was destroyed by a conventional IED
Iran's election will be recounted in contested provinces, and there are other moderate members of the Iranian power elite who are looking for change overall in Iran's leadership.
In response to the turmoil, the powerful Guardian Council - Iran's highest legislative body - has said it will to order a recount of votes cast in the country's disputed presidential election if it finds irregularities.A rehash from the other day, Juan Cole on Class Vs Culture wars in Iran:
Can the Guardian Council bring the country back together? If the vote recount goes ahead, will Mousavi's supporters accept the new result? [In Full, with a 23 minute video news analysis @ al Jazeera]
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian Elections: Rejecting Charges of a North Tehran Fallacy
Some comentators have suggested that the reason Western reporters were shocked when Ahmadinejad won was that they are based in opulent North Tehran, whereas the farmers and workers of Iran, the majority, are enthusiastic for Ahmadinejad. That is, we fell victim once again to upper middle class reporting and expectations in a working class country of the global south.
While such dynamics may have existed, this analysis is flawed in the case of Iran because it pays too much attention to class and material factors and not enough to Iranian culture wars. [In Full] (see his more recent posts for updates on the Iranian election)
Travus T. Hipp's Commentary Archive Is [ Here]
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Recorded & transcribed by Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves
Related @ IceRocket: Travus T. Hipp, Cabale News Service, KPIG, Politics, News, Alternative News, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Domestic Policy, Breaking Politics News, Realpolitik, Republican Family Values, Social Justice
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
June 16 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: A Travus T. Hipp TeeVee Tip - Watch The US House of Representatives Debate War Spending
| "All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now."June 16 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: A Travus T. Hipp TeeVee Tip - Watch The US House of Representatives Debate The Supplemental War Funding Bill... It Could Be Quite Entertaining To Watch BOTH US Political Parties Engage In A Flaming Funding Cage Match Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [192kbps VBR 10:44 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Twitter This Commentary |
South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak is in Washington for meetings with president Obama about North Korea and other issues of mutual regional concern, and today the US Navy will begin inspecting North Korean ships... ostensibly for nuclear materials, but the method of inspection is as of yet unknown... The New York Times headline says it quite succinctly "U.S. to Confront, Not Board, North Korean Ships".
Meanwhile, North Korea threatens another type of confrontation. Nuclear war...
The deadline for removal of US troops from Iraqi cities is two weeks away and the commanders on the ground are saying that it's proceeding on schedule.
Anti-war.com, with their take on what 'troop withdrawal' means:
Just last week, within a 48-hour news period, readers were treated to two diametrically opposed headlines, one touting "U.S. Forces Out of Iraqi Cities by June 30," the other, the very next day, "U.S. Wants Sadr City Base Open After Deadline." Both quote U.S. military brass directly, albeit two different generals, but the whipsawing here suggests someone up top is taking it for granted that Americans – particularly that flighty media – aren’t paying much attention to Iraq at all.
So, through the din, lazy heads fix upon the first, less controversial of the two contradictory headlines, which affirms what the president wants to the world to hear: that the U.S. is getting out of Iraqi cities by the end of the month.
Except it isn’t entirely true. For those following bread crumbs like an abandoned Hansel or Gretel, it is difficult not to see that.
[In full with linkage]
In Iran the protests in regard to the national elections continue. People who live on the main streets in Tehran are leaving their gates ajar to allow demonstrators to escape the militias who have been attacking the demonstrators, of whom a number have been killed by gunfire and many more injured.
OTOH... a militia base was sieged by protestors:
...and a number of people have compared current events in Iran with the 1979 "Tehran Spring" revolution, including Pepe Escobar of Asia Times:THE ROVING EYE
The meaning of the Tehran spring
By Pepe Escobar
It is 1979 in Tehran all over again. From Saturday to Sunday, the deafening sound deep in the night across Tehran's rooftops was a roaring, ubiquitous "Allah-u Akbar" (God is great). Then, in 1979, to hail the Islamic revolution; now, in 2009, to signify what appears to be the hijacking of the Islamic revolution. Then, the revolution was not televised; it was via (Ruhollah Khomeini) radio. Now, it is being broadcast all across the world.
Let's cut to the chase: what Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi qualified as "this dangerous charade" and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "the sweetness of the election", or better yet, a "divine assessment", has all the non-divine markings of intervention by the Iranian Republican Guards Corps (IRGC). This follows President Mahmud Ahmadinejad officially gaining 64% of the vote in defeating Mousavi in what in the days before Friday's vote had widely been called as a very close race.
Scores of protesters equating Ahmadinejad with Augusto Pinochet in 1973's Chile might not be that far off the mark. Call it the ultra-right wing, military dictatorship of the mullahtariat.
[In Full]
The California legislature is working on a new budget, and it may pass for something resembling 'balanced'... after cutting everything even more than now... Everything but the PRISON BUDGET (By reclassifying 'low-level' felons and more). Nuff said.
Here's something you might want to try... try to wipe out California's $24 billion deficit without wiping out assistance for the poor, crippling education, or raising taxes, at the LA Times Interactive Budget Balancer:
C'mon! If you can balance a checkbook (and most US college grads can't, so Da' Buffalo IS assuming alot), you can save the late great state of California.One last thing to throw on EVERYONE'S economic balance beam in the not-too-distant future... it's Official! The Era Of Cheap Oil Is Over. US DOE predicts a sharp drop in projected world oil output.
Travus T. Hipp's Commentary Archive Is [ Here]
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Recorded & transcribed by Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves
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Monday, June 15, 2009
Timeless Fashion For The Corporatist In Every Man
You've seen it, now read about it @ Foreign Policy Passport
June 15 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: June 15 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Obama Visits The Doctors, The AMA, Today
| "All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now."June 15 2009 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Obama Visits The Doctors, The AMA, Today - Will America Be The Last Industrialized Nation To Supply Nationalized Health Care For It's Citizens? Don't Blame The Doctors... But DO Hold Them Responsible! Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [192kbps VBR 11:24 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Twitter This Commentary |
NASA is scrambling to get the Space Shuttle Endeavor of the ground by Wednesday due to scubbed launch Saturday because of Hydrogen leaks around the fuel tanks, or else the mission will be scrubbed till the end of July due to conditions necessary for accomplishment of their plan.
Protests in Iran over their national election results continue, with most of the media coverage coming from the capitol Tehran with the situation in the rest of the country pretty much unknown. The Western media continues to hype the violence even as the country's parliamentary and religious leaders call for an investigation.
Juan Cole on the Iranian elections (and he IS the Persian historian in Da' Buffalo's pasture... so pay attention when he discusses Class Vs Culture wars in Iran):
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian Elections:
Rejecting Charges of a North Tehran Fallacy
Some comentators have suggested that the reason Western reporters were shocked when Ahmadinejad won was that they are based in opulent North Tehran, whereas the farmers and workers of Iran, the majority, are enthusiastic for Ahmadinejad. That is, we fell victim once again to upper middle class reporting and expectations in a working class country of the global south.
While such dynamics may have existed, this analysis is flawed in the case of Iran because it pays too much attention to class and material factors and not enough to Iranian culture wars. [In Full]
If only Americans had this much 'spunk' when they feel their elections are being stolen or rigged:
(Hmmmn, I seem to remember once upon a time, we did... Must be the fluorides in the water.)
(It WAS a Tehran city bus)
For Twitter users, a couple of links to peruse:
Name Parham DoustdarAlso search the 'hashtag': #Iranelection (caveat emptor)
Location Tehran, Iran
Bio: An iranian, blind computer geek who makes an attempt to make his life intresting by holding on to his twitter account!
[Most recent (newest to older)]:
# However, if this has been the plan, it seems to have backfired on them. #IranElection half a minute ago from web
# Opinion: this might've all been a trick to get a lot of people to vote. Some people suspect this too. (Continued) #IranElection 1 minute ago from web
# The main door of the university is smashed by anti-riot forces holding clubs. God help them. #IranElection 10 minutes ago from web
# The anti-riot forces attacking those in tehran uni were smiling and saying, I like it when you get beaten. Reason is unknown #IranElection 15 minutes ago from web
# Fights have happened in Tehran, Yazd, Isfahan, Rasht, and Gorgan, in uni's. Anti-riot forces attacked those inside the uni. #IranElection1 6 minutes ago from web
# @10thSpeedWriter Very true. But as they say, The greater the change, the more the sacrifices. #IranElection 21 minutes ago from web
# Personal Opinion: if there was a determined and skilled leader, this could very easily turn into a revolution. #IranElection 30 minutes ago from web
# Thank you all for your heart-thrilling answers to me last night. I felt so happy when I read every one of them. Thank you. #IranElection 42 minutes ago from web
# Going to sleep. Sorry all. Will keep you posted after my exam tomorrow. Thanks for your support! #IranElection about 10 hours ago from web
http://twitter.com/parhamdoustdar
In the ten minutes Da' Buffalo spent on that 'hashtag' search page there were 418 new 'tweets' (count shown in an active ticker)
...and in the US Class Vs Culture wars, a chart from Moody's
"Household wealth declined in the first quarter, although the pace of decline moderated from the two preceding quarters. The net worth of U.S. households fell $1.3 trillion to $50.4 trillion. That followed a decline of $4.9 trillion in the fourth quarter, which was the largest decline on record on both a dollar and percentage basis. Wealth has now dropped nearly $14 trillion, or 22%, from its peak in the second quarter of 2007. Most assets on household balance sheets are falling, and these declines are swamping the modest reduction in debt...." [In Full]
An educational video lecture from March 2007 details the erosion/collapse of the American middle class @ BrassCheck TV
Today General Stanley McChrystal, JSOC 'special operator' di tutti capo, takes over the rapidly deteriorating situation for the US and other industrial nations in the Afghanistan War. Three more American soldiers were killed over the weekend.
How bad is it? AP- The US attacked an Afghan village due to false allegations in a blood feud with a neighboring community. 91 dead civilians
Today is also the day a ninety day moratorium on mortgage foreclosures in California begins, while the citizens of the state figure out if they CAN keep their mortgages.
Here's the state of the economy in Northern California. MY county is NUMERO UNO... in unemployment... 24%, and that's just the numbers for people who WERE eligible for benefits (in an area that runs most of it's year-round economy on part-time workers who can't receive benefits). Craigslist for Santa Cruz County is full of 'canvassing' work... "Make $500 a week saving the environment collecting signatures for GreenPeace", and such, but not much in the way of real employment.
Watsonville WAS the home to Seagate Technology(and Connor Disc Drives) in the 90s, who eventually moved their operations overseas, leaving a few janitors and security guards working their empty Scotts Valley world HQ, and Watsonville's machine shops which were re-instituted as Watsonville's new (earthquake resistant) hospital, but what really finished it was NAFTA, which allowed all the packing and canning companies like Green Giant a chance to increase their corporate profits by moving South to Mexico:
(Note from the USDA: This chart is for processed foods. U.S. authorities do not report similar statistics for production agriculture, mainly to protect the confidentiality of individual companies, but the stock of U.S. direct investment in Mexican crop and livestock production may run in the hundreds of millions of dollars). [In Full]
Travus T. Hipp's Commentary Archive Is [ Here]
Search the archive by topic [Here]
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Creative Commons Copyright
Cabale New Service, KPIG Radio and KVMR radio.
Listen to KPIG, Listen to KVMR
Recorded & transcribed by Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves
Related @ IceRocket: Travus T. Hipp, Cabale News Service, KPIG, Politics, News, Alternative News, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Domestic Policy, Breaking Politics News, Realpolitik, Republican Family Values, Social Justice
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