EU Threatens Italy with Legal Action Over Immigration Package | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 24.09.2008

Italy drew the ire of the European Commission over its decree which would allow the automatic expulsion of other European Union citizens condemned to more than two years of jail there.

The Commission on Tuesday, Sept. 23, threatened Italy with legal action if it did not change the decree, which was part of a controversial package of measures against illegal immigrants and crime agreed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet in May.

The security package included making illegal immigration an offense carrying a prison sentence and making the use of minors to beg for money a crime punishable with up to three years in jail -- a measure which appeared to be aimed at Roma people.

Berlusconi's cabinet announced the package after backlashes against illegal Roma camps depicted by right-wingers in the prime minister's new government as dens of criminality.

Channel Islands democracy row spreads to Guernsey - Telegraph

Guernsey has become the latest of the Channel Islands to become embroiled in a row over an alleged lack of democracy.

Critics of the island's ancient legal system claim the office of HM Procureur, the equivalent of an attorney general, has too much power because the same person is responsible for drafting legislation, interpreting it and deciding who should be prosecuted.

Now a committee which oversees the work of the Procureur is being urged to put the work of his department under greater scrutiny amid accusations that it has too much power.

John Gollop, chairman of Guernsey's Legislation Select Committee, which scrutinises the work of HM Procureur, has promised to review the powers of the committee, but because it reports to the Procureur, it has little scope to challenge him.

The island's newspaper, the Guernsey Press, voiced the concerns of many islanders when it said in an editorial: "There is no effective external, independent or expert review of any proposed law and no challenge to its scope or purpose.

Merkel joins side of Volkswagen workers in clash with EU court - EUobserver

German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed on Tuesday (23 September) the so-called Volkswagen Law, despite criticism from the European Commission and a ruling of the European Court of Justice last year to scrap the legislation protecting domestic control of the company.

"The VW law will stay,'' Mrs Merkel said to a cheering crowd of about 15,000 staff and management at Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Bloomberg reports. "We will maintain this position in talks with the EU Commission with all rigor and clarity.''

Chancellor Merkel stands firm against the EU on car maker regulations

Last year, the European Court of Justice (EJC) ruled that the 48-year-old law aiming to protect the German car manufacturer from hostile takeovers was "in breach of the free movement of capital" in the EU.

The law stipulated that no single shareholder can hold more than 20 percent of the voting rights in the company and that Germany and the region of Lower Saxony are each entitled to appoint two members to the firm's supervisory board.

Greenland's Inuits Blast EU Plans to Ban Seal Skin Products | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 24.09.2008

Greenland's indigeneous Inuits fear that the European Union's latest proposal to ban imports of seal skins could repeat one of the most crippling economic episodes in recent memory.

Twenty years ago, the native Inuits saw one of their major sources of income hit by international boycotts on seal products.

"This is a war against us and we can't accept that," Aqqaluk Lynge, who heads up the Greenlandic branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), told reporters.

Despite assurances that seal products certified to result from humane hunting techniques or from traditional hunting by Inuits across the Arctic region would be excluded from the proposed ban, the indigenous people of Greenland still have major concerns that their livelihoods will once again be at stake.

UN urges EU to host more Iraqi refugees - The Irish Times - Wed, Sep 24, 2008

The European Union should host more Iraqi refugees and rethink its official stance focusing on helping displaced Iraqis return home, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said.

Iraq is not safe enough for the 2 million Iraqis who escaped war and insurgent fighting in recent years by fleeing to neighbouring Syria, Jordan, and other countries, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said yesterday.

"UNHCR hopes that the majority of Iraqi refugees will be able to return home in safety once the necessary conditions of stability and security are established. However, these conditions are not yet present," he told a news briefing in Geneva.

"We hope that the ministers of justice and home affairs will commit the European Union to participation in organised resettlement efforts," he added ahead of a Thursday meeting of ministers from the EU's 27 member states.

Europe handing out patents like candy, strikers says -  EUobserver

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Employees at the European Patent Office (EPO) are striking to defend the quality of European patents, accusing the EPO of granting as many patents as they can for financial benefit while the patent-granting system suffers.

Last Thursday, the Staff Union of the European Patent Office, SUEPO, held a one-day strike and coached into Brussels some 300 staff members from the patent offices in Berlin, the Hague, Munich and Vienna to protest outside the Berlaymont building - the European Commission headquarters.

Filippo Brunelleschi: received the world's first patent for invention in 1421. He created a method of transporting marble more cheaply via paddleboat

The workers accuse management, their administrative council, which is composed of representatives from national patent offices, of issuing the most patents they can for the sake of making more money.

"Since many of the national offices are financially dependent on the fees resulting from the work of the EPO, decisions taken by the EPO Administrative Council are influenced by the interests of the national patent offices," said the union in a statement explaining their actions, "and the desire for as many patents to be granted as possible."

EU funds could sponsor Italian football team - EUobserver

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission confirmed on Wednesday (24 September) that the Italian region of Calabria has earmarked EU funds worth €1.8 million for sponsoring the national football team, as part of a tourism promotion plan.

"It is correct that Calabria is proposing to sponsor the national Italian football team in the run-up to the next World Cup. It does that as part of its tourism promotion. The European Commission has however asked Calabria for certain clarifications about this particular investment," commission spokesman Dennis Abbott said during a press conference.

The money was meant to aid the poor, Italian MEP Donnici says

Mr Abbott told EUobserver that the amount at stake - €1.8 million, earmarked to sponsor the national team in 2008-2010 - is part of the Calabrian regional government's €6 million budget allocated for tourism promotion, of which €3 million is EU regional fund cash.

The commission has requested more information from the Calabrian government by 29 September, while stressing that another proposal -to pay €500,000 to a footballer's charity - is "clearly ineligible." The charity in question belongs to Gennaro "Rino" Gattuso, who plays for the AC Milan football club and is of Calabrian origin.

Orthodox patriarch blesses Turkish EU entry - EUobserver

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Despite ongoing disputes over Christian and other religious minorities in Turkey, the world's leading Orthodox prelate, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, has endorsed Turkey's bid to join the European Union and appealed to Brussels not to make religious or cultural differences an obstacle to membership.

"Europe needs to bring Turkey into its project," Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I told the European Parliament.

"We must not exclude from the European family somebody who simply has a different belief from us," the Istanbul-based cleric told MEP's in the European parliament on Wednesday (24 September).

"Europe should not see any religion that is tolerant of others as alien to itself. The great religions, like the European project, can be a force that transcends nationalism and can even transcend nihilism and fundamentalism by focusing their faithful on what unites us as human beings, and by fostering a dialogue about what divides us," the white-bearded clergyman told MEPs.

"What I and the majority of the people of Turkey wish is full integration, full membership of the European Union, on condition that the criteria and preconditions that apply to all candidates are abided by," he later told journalists in Brussels.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Working Lunch | Portugal embraces wave power

Suddenly a lonely spot on the Portuguese coast has become the centre of the wave power industry.

The beach at Agucadoura, just north of Porto, is where electricity from the world's first wave farm is being cabled ashore. Five kilometres out to sea a Pelamis wave machine is gently riding the Atlantic swell, generating power for the Portuguese grid.

The wave farm has just been officially launched after a frustrating delay of more than a year. "We had an issue with the underwater connections", explains engineering manager, Ross Henderson. He is sitting with me in the beachfront substation which takes in the power. "I can't believe such a small thing cost the project a whole year."

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson rejected Gordon Brown meeting - Telegraph

Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, is understood to have rejected a request for a meeting with Gordon Brown, delivering a snub to the Prime Minister during his visit to America.

Mr Brown announced in his Labour Party conference speech that he would be meeting "financial and Government leaders in New York" in a bid to resolve the financial crisis gripping world economies but he is actually now expected to meet only a handful of American financiers. He has also pledged to "rebuild the world financial system".

George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, expressed surprise over the apparent snub. "I cannot believe that after telling us yesterday that he's the man to sort out the international crisis, Gordon Brown is flying all the way to the US and not meeting the man at the centre of resolving that crisis," he said.

The American Treasury Secretary is currently attempting to establish a $700 billion (£377 billion) bail-out find to take on bad banking debts. He is putting intense pressure on other countries, including Britain, to contribute tens of billions of pounds into the scheme - or to set up similar funds.

Airbus making headway as Boeing sits idle - International Herald Tribune

TOULOUSE, France: Ten thousand job cuts are expected. Entire plants are being sold or split off. Union members are getting a pay rise of only 1.5 percent for this year, and managers are working to send more jobs abroad.

Yet European workers at Airbus are not out on the picket lines. They are working round the clock to rewire at least 6 A380 superjumbos by hand to meet a target for completing 12 of them this year. Meanwhile, in developments that turn national stereotypes on their head, American workers at Boeing, worried about job security, have been on strike for almost three weeks, despite an offer of an 11 percent pay increase over three years. The strike is further delaying production and costing the company $100 million a day in lost revenue.

Ah, national stereotypes, that old chestnut...
And good labor relations as a competitive advantage? That's unfair... Europe.Is.Doomed...

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

Gangland violence divides a Paris neighborhood - International Herald Tribune

PARIS: The fashion among young Muslims and blacks in the 19th Arrondissement is low jeans, sunglasses and hoodies, often with a kaffiyeh knotted carefully around the neck, and sometimes, now, guns.

There is a large Jewish community, too, many of them Lubavitcher, with kosher butchers and delicatessens, a large religious school and synagogue, close to the Medina Hammam Center and African grill restaurants like Le Marcory.

The 19th is one of the most fascinating and complicated districts of Paris - one of the largest, youngest, poorest, most racially diverse - and the most criminal.

The size of the French cities of Grenoble or Reims, with nearly 190,000 people, the district, on the northeast edge of Paris, is split into at least three territories, with at least two large mini-ghettos, or cités, run by their own gangs of youths, who spar along the borders and sometimes clash with the Jews. And it borders some of Paris's poorest suburbs.
[...]
"It's less about anti-Semitism than fights among gangs of youths, who create alliances of one district against another," Chahrine said, noting the influence of American movies on the styles and habits of the gangs.

"This idea of identity of territory starts with economic reasons. This is the youngest and poorest arrondissement in Paris, with a lot of unemployment, and that explains a lot."
[...]
The atmosphere is especially delicate because of the beating in June of a young Jew, Rudy Haddad, 17, who was put into a coma by a gang of black and Arab youths. President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed shock that a boy could be attacked for wearing a skullcap and there has been debate about what Rabbi Haim Nisenbaum, of the Beth Hanna synagogue and school, calls "diffuse anti-Semitism."

"We have a new problem," he said. "It's not anti-Semitism like before World War II. No one says, 'Kill all the Jews' or even 'We're against the Jews."'

"The problem is first social and cultural," he said, with the resentment of poor Arabs from northern Africa and blacks from Mali and Congo who have not been integrated into the French state, aimed at better-off Jews, many also originating from northern Africa, who consider themselves integrated.

The 19th district is just next door to the 18th where we had dinner last Saturday at Chez Pradel.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

Ganley ignored - Thank you, Mr President

PRESIDENT BUSH ends his presidency as one of the least popular American presidents of all time but we can be thankful that he ignored advice offered by Libertas founder and anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley.

In a previously unpublished paper, given to a conference at the University of Limerick to discuss global security issues, Mr Ganley said that Iraq and Iran could only be "tamed" through a second world war-type effort involving drafts, rationing and sacrifice.

Chickens - eggs - not yet hatched: Bush has three months left.

See also: Go to war to tame Iran: Ganley

Kelly's exit reignites Labour's civil war | Politics | The Guardian

Gordon Brown was struggling to keep the lid on a smouldering civil war in the Labour party last night as the leak of Ruth Kelly's intention to resign from the cabinet prompted bitter recriminations.

While the prime minister flew to the UN in New York, senior party critics accused Downing Street of deliberately leaking news of Kelly's resignation, to undermine a potential rebel.

"We have given Gordon a lot of space this week to make his speech claiming to be the big man to fix the economy," one cabinet level source said. "But they are so small-minded and paranoid that they ruin their own day by briefing this stuff."

Downing Street said no senior figure had leaked news of Kelly's resignation plan. But one source said a junior No 10 official may have been indiscreet in the bars of the Labour conference.

[...]

The news of Kelly's resignation dominated the final day of the Labour conference and overshadowed favourable coverage of Brown's speech which was regarded by friend and foe as one of the best of his career. Senior ministers, who had been prepared to give Brown the benefit of the doubt after a successful conference, appeared to have hardened their views against him overnight.

"Let's face it, the speech was boring," one senior ministerial figure said. Another was more generous, describing it as one of Brown's finest. But he added: "The overnight events mean that he is now back to square one. He will be toast by Christmas."

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Anybody planning to travel in Italy in the near future should watch carefully the announced train strikes and try to plan around them. After a long period with relatively infrequent strikes, they are starting up again. The government has banned tomorrow's 8-hour strike, but strikes are currently planned for

• Sep 30 (local public transport, 4 hours)

• 24 hours, starting Oct 12, 9pm (trains)

• All day Oct 13 (local public transport)

• 8 hours, starting 9am, Oct 17 (trains)

• 8 hours, starting 9am, Oct 29 (trains)

The major labour unions have signed a protocol  of agreement this afternoon (13:53) with the group of Italian impresarios (CAI) who intend to relaunch Alitalia Light. The group has accepted some of the conditions of the unions that had previously refused to sign.

Berlusconi has partially given in to pressure and declares he will accept foreign partners if they are in minority. His stalling and past refusal appear to violate EU and Italian law.

Air France has expressed interest in buying in 10-25%. Lufthansa and Venzuela have also expressed interest.

As pointed out by commentators for la Repubblica it is likely that within three years Air France will buy up the lion's share- without having to pay Alitalia's debts.

Bolivia strengthens relations with Russia after US fall-out - Telegraph

Bolivia may look towards Russia for funding if the United States decides to withdraw its £14 million in annual aid.

Relations between America and the South American state are at an all-time low after Bolivia expelled the US ambassador amid civil unrest which has left more than 30 dead.

Whilst long range Russian bombers now streak across the skies of the Caribbean from a base in Venezuela, and Moscow seeks to strengthen relations with its old ally Cuba, Bolivia may be the latest recruit in expanding Russian influence in Washington's "back yard".

Last week the US ambassador to La Paz was expelled accused of fomenting civil unrest and Washington swiftly reciprocated with the ejection of the Bolivian ambassador.

Now Evo Morales is looking to get help, military and antinarcotics, to make up the shortfall if and when the US cuts off aid.

Iran Escapes Scrutiny as US-Russian Bickering Continues | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 24.09.2008

The international community won't be able to pressure Iran for details about its nuclear program after Moscow scrapped a meeting planned for later in the week at the UN, German Foreign Minister Steinmeier said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday, Sept. 23, that world powers would find it "difficult" to influence Tehran after Russia cancelled a ministers' meeting slated for Thursday.

 

"There is no question that without such a meeting, which we urgently need in the current situation, it will be more difficult to bring the necessary international pressure to bear," he told reporters.

 

"I hope and expect that this is not the end of the 3+3 Group's efforts," Steinmeier said, referring to attempts by Britain, France, Germany, the United States, China and Russia to convince Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

The Daily Star - Opinion Articles - Will Livni be another horror show?

In Israel today, the curtain opens on the new political performance of Tzipi Livni, who last week was elected leader of the Kadima Party. It is not clear if Livni will dazzle or disappoint; if she will generate historic change or just another hour of horror. I am chromosomally optimistic about the world, so I hope for the best. I have immense, interminable faith in the goodness of the human spirit, among Israelis and Arabs alike, which is only slightly and momentarily tempered by the gross incompetence and occasional criminality of Arab and Israeli political leaders. Arab leaderships and strategic policies rarely change, and transitions are usually from father to son, or great leader to trusted cousin, or one colonel or security chief to another. More frequent leadership changes in Israel are often accompanied by choruses of expectations and exhortations.

Livni will try to forge a ruling coalition, and if she fails the country will hold general elections, which the Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to win. Many in the Arab world argue that there is no difference between any of the Israeli parties insofar as peacemaking and coexistence with the Arabs are concerned. Indeed, Labor, Likud, Kadima and coalitions of all of them with many smaller Israeli parties have all perpetuated much the same policies for four decades now.

Arabs see successive Israeli governments Judaizing all of Jerusalem; building more settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights; using military force against Hamas and Fatah militants and others who fight Israel with guns and rockets; waging war against Hizbullah in Lebanon; and subjecting all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to collective punishment, travel restrictions, land confiscations, mass imprisonment, and other policies that make their life miserable.

Berlin's Ambassador to Baghdad: 'Where Are the Germans?' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Hanns H. Schumacher, 59, was the German ambassador to Iraq until mid-August. Before rotating to Thailand in the fall, he talks to SPIEGEL about security in Iraq, Germany's role in the nation's reconstruction and the surprising success of Prime Minister al-Maliki.

"People are on the streets, families are going out" -- Iraq is not stable, but life is returning to normal, says Ambassador Hanns Schumacher. SPIEGEL: Mr. Ambassador, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to withdraw US troops from Iraq by mid-2010, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki envisions a withdrawal by 2011. Is the government already capable of providing security and stability on its own?

Schumacher: Although I believe that Washington's assessment that al-Qaida has been "defeated" here in Iraq is exaggerated, it is certainly my personal impression that daily life has normalized. People are on the streets, families are going out, the flow of refugees has stopped and, according to the United Nations, 10,000 refugees are returning each month. The relationship with neighboring countries also seems to have improved. For some time now, I have not heard -- not even from Americans -- claims that, for example, terrorists are entering the country across the Syrian border or accusations that Tehran is supporting militant groups in Iraq. This leads me to conclude that both neighbors are interested in the stabilization of Iraq.

The Bailout: Public Anger, Private Talks - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Congress has one eye on angry voters, but behind the scenes a compromise appears to be in the works to rescue Wall Street.

 Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (left) and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke testify before the Senate Banking Committee about credit market turmoil and the government economic bailout plan on Capitol Hill Tuesday. With public sentiment casting the Bush Administration's plan to resolve the financial crisis as a bailout for the firms that caused it, Senate Banking Committee members took turns grilling Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke at a hearing on Sept. 23. Behind the scenes, however, many expected nuts-and-bolts negotiation to yield a compromise bill, perhaps over the weekend if not by Friday's scheduled adjournment. Agreement was already coalescing to require some restrictions on executive pay at companies that sell toxic assets to the Treasury, one financial industry official said.

The theater playing out on Capitol Hill on Tuesday reflected deeply held positions on the role of government and the economy, but with an eye toward how events would play out politically. Polls failed to give a clear picture of just how much support there is for Congress to act: Support ranged from 25 percent to 56 percent in different polls.

Capitalism must be more regulated, says Sarkozy -EUobserver

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, on Tuesday (23 September) called for an international summit to tackle the global finance crisis and its consequences, saying that capitalism should be more "regulated" and less "opaque."

"Let us build a capitalism where ratings agencies will be subject to controls and punished when necessary, where transparency of transactions will replace opaqueness. The opaqueness is such today that we have difficulty understanding even what is happening," Mr Sarkozy said in a speech to the UN General Assembly, Reuters reports.

Mr Sarkozy denounced "a crazy system which has been our system for years."

"I am told 'We don't know who is responsible.' Oh yeah? Well let me tell you that when things were going well, we knew who got bonuses. What a strange system," he also told journalists, denouncing "a crazy system which has been our system for years."

Mr Sarkozy hopes to see an international meeting to discuss the crisis, the worst the world has seen, he said, since the Great Depression.

Man Succumbs To 7-Year Battle With Health Insurance

DENVER--After years of battling crippling premiums and agonizing deductibles, local resident Michael Haige finally succumbed this week to the health insurance policy that had ravaged his adult life.

....

"I miss Michael every single day, but at least he can finally rest now," said Sheila Haige, who watched as insurance rates ate away at her husband over time. "What Michael went through, the humiliating forms, the invasive background checks, the complete loss of dignity and hope--I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone."

Once a healthy and happy father of two, Haige saw his life forever change seven years ago when health insurance professionals diagnosed him with a preexisting condition. As months passed and his line of credit continued to deteriorate, the former high school football coach would experience excruciating headaches and bouts of nausea every time another hospital bill arrived.

....

While family members refused to look at Haige's insurance plan as a death sentence, it soon became clear that their loved one was facing the biggest fight of his life. Countless visits to doctors, claims adjusters, and loan officers proved futile, with Haige being told at every turn that his case was hopeless.

"They said there was nothing they could do for him, that modern medicine was powerless against this monster," Sheila Haige said. "Still, Michael never gave up. He kept saying that he was going to beat the odds, that he was going to find some way to get coverage."

According to an independent study released last month by the Mayo Clinic, health insurance is the nation's No. 2 cause of death, claiming the lives of some 400,000 Americans each year. A silent killer, health insurance often strikes without warning, its harmful and profit-based policies avoiding detection until it is far too late. Although the cruel bureaucratic disorder does not discriminate, statistics have shown that senior citizens, young dependents, and those woefully underemployed are most at risk.

"I can't tell you the number of patients I've had to deliver the bad news to over the years," said Haige's longtime family physician, Dr. Howard Silverman. "It's never easy to look someone in the eye and tell them it's going to have to be out-of-pocket. For most of these poor people, prayer is the only hope."

....

The foreign press is gradually picking up the stories about what is going on in Kiryat Ha'yovel in Jerusalem. In one newspaper report I think that a secular man, hopefully tongue-in-cheek, claims that 50 years from now, the Jerusalem zoo will have some secular Jews on display, and the Orthodox will point to them, claiming that that is how people lived in the past.

En af gæsterne, Rafi Kobi, der er sælger og sekulær til fingerspidserne, svarer igen i en opgivende tone.

- Ja, med den fart i ortodokse overtager vores nabolag, vil vi sekulære ende med at blive en af attraktionerne i byens zoologiske have. Om 50 år vil Jerusalems ortodokse familier vise deres børn de indespærrede sekulære, og fortælle dem, at der engang også boede sådan en slags mennesker i byen, siger Rafi Kobi.

Did I decipher this correctly?

Bringing Down Wall Street as Ratings Let Loose Subprime Scourge

By Elliot Blair Smith
More Photos/Details

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Frank Raiter says his former employer, Standard & Poor's, placed a ``For Sale'' sign on its reputation on March 20, 2001. That day, a member of an S&P executive committee ordered him, the company's top mortgage official, to grade a real estate investment he'd never reviewed.

S&P was competing for fees on a $484 million deal called Pinstripe I CDO Ltd., Raiter says. Pinstripe was one of the new structured-finance products driving Wall Street's growth. It would buy mortgage securities that only an S&P competitor had analyzed; piggybacking on the rating violated company policy, according to internal e-mails reviewed by Bloomberg.

``I refused to go along with some of this stuff, and how they got around it, I don't know,'' says Raiter, 61, a former S&P managing director whose business unit rated 85 percent of all residential mortgage deals at the time. ``They thought they had discovered a machine for making money that would spread the risks so far that nobody would ever get hurt.''

Relying on a competitor's analysis was one of a series of shortcuts that undermined credit grades issued by S&P and rival Moody's Corp., according to Raiter. Flawed AAA ratings on mortgage-backed securities that turned to junk now lie at the root of the world financial system's biggest crisis since the Great Depression, according to Raiter and more than 50 former ratings professionals, investment bankers, academics and consultants.

Well, isn't that a ringing endorsement of private rating agencies?

If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

Wind Farm Site Considered 10 Miles From Queens Shore

Has the economic or political climate changed for wind power on Long Island? The Long Island Power Authority hopes so.

A year after the authority withdrew its proposal to build an $800 million offshore wind farm near Jones Beach, it said Tuesday that it would look into building a potentially larger wind farm 10 miles off the south shore of Queens.

Bail-out fears hit money markets

Money markets seized up once more on Wednesday amid deepening uncertainty about whether Congress would approve the Bush administration's $700bn financial rescue plan and whether revised proposals would succeed in restoring confidence.

The rates that banks charge each other soared as investors sought the safety of short-dated US government debt - and US officials struggled to address mounting objections to the rescue plan in Congress and beyond.

(...)

The flight to safety drove the yield on three-month Treasury bills below 0.5 per cent, down from 1.45 per cent just two days before. The benchmark three-month London interbank offered rate jumped 26.5 basis points to 3.476 per cent.

New data showed existing home prices suffered a record drop in August, weakening the US dollar and deepening concern over a rising tide of home foreclosures and loan defaults.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Small-Scale Contractors Benefit From Interest in Solar Power - NYTimes.com

Solar power is in the midst of a boom in the United States. High energy costs are one reason. But what may be more important are generous state and power company incentives and rebates, as well as tax credits that make solar systems affordable to many more people and businesses.

This surge has, in turn, created hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses, mostly contractors and installers.

<...>

While industry groups and experts are not predicting a bust, they are raising concerns that growth is about to be tempered. The solar power industry is experiencing growing pains over how power is financed and distributed. In the end, larger companies may gain the upper hand, and the incentives could decrease or even disappear.

"I think probably what we're going to see is the gradual disappearance of the very small one-, two-, three-person company that does everything," said Dave Ljungquist, associate director of project development at the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.

<...>

What may also determine whether small businesses will continue to dominate the industry are the so-called power purchase agreements. Those agreements are much like leasing a car. Instead of owning a solar system, a homeowner or business essentially leases power from a system on its property that is owned by another company. Such arrangements may be best managed by large companies, and there is already evidence that they are becoming popular alternatives, especially for commercial projects, when the initial cost is a stumbling block.

The article also mentions the "solar hot-water boom and bust of the mid-1980s" which many people in the solar industry remember and which makes them cautious about the possibility of a replay.

Still the article ends on a postive note:

Even if the credits expire, no one thinks the industry will disappear. The energy landscape is much changed and quality control much improved since the solar thermal debacle.

<...>

Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, which provides contractor listings, said he received calls almost daily from companies that wanted to be added. "This is the very beginning of what I think will be a very rapidly expanding market," he said. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

McCain was scheduled to appear on the Dave Letterman show tonight. (It tapes in the afternoon on CBS.)  His campaign decided to make this big "The economy is cratering!  We are suspending the campaign to put the country first so I can go back to Washington and get (this bail out?) passed.  And, Oh, we need to reschedule the 1st Debate that is scheduled for Friday night!" pitch.  McCain calls Letterman personally and tells him he has to go back to Washington.  Letterman says ok.

But it turns out that instead of going back to Washington, and at the same time that Letterman is taping his show, McCain is being taped in an interview with Katie Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News in the same building, same network and at the same time.  Few do scathing sarcasm better than Letterman and he was on fire.  His whole show was devoted to excoriating McCain.

"Suspend the Campaign!  You don't suspend the campaign.  If he is elected and has a crisis what is he going to do?  Suspend his presidency?  Now if the Senators had to go back to Washington for a vote, both Senator Obama and Senator Biden would have to go back.  They're both senators.  But McCain's running mate is Sara Palin, the Governor of Alaska.  There is no crisis in Alaska.  If McCain has to go back to Washington, why not send in the second stringer.  Send Palin to do the interview!  Why not?"

He invited Kieth Olberman to fill in for McCain and while Olberman was on they ran a live clip of McCain and Couric with McCain having make-up applied.  Dave said: "Well, we have a live feed, perhaps I can ask a question.  Senator McCain!  Do you need a ride to the airport?"  I don't think McCain will be back on Letterman any time soon.  Instead of getting free TV and being able to influence the message, McCain got almost an hour of vituperative ridicule from Letterman.  He would have been much better off doing the interview.

See the show: http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/

If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

Bush Officials Linked to Debate on Interrogation Methods for Detainees - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON -- Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.

In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret C.I.A. prisons overseas, the documents show. The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.

The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the C.I.A.'s detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed.

[...]

The new documents do not specify dates for the White House meetings. Current and former officials have said that the C.I.A. began using harsh interrogation methods on Mr. Zubaydah in Thailand weeks before the Justice Department formally authorized the interrogation program in a secret memo dated Aug. 1, 2002.

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Western Lawyers Say Iraq Discarded Due Process in Hussein Trial - NYTimes.com

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Nearly two years after an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein to death, new disclosures by Western lawyers who helped guide the court have given fresh ammunition to critics who contend that he was railroaded to the gallows by vengeful officials in Iraq's new government.

These lawyers say the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, forced the resignation of one of five judges in the trial only days before the court sentenced Mr. Hussein. The purpose, the lawyers say, was to avert the possibility that judges who were wavering would spare Mr. Hussein the death penalty and sentence him to life imprisonment instead.

The disclosures, made amid a steep decline in violence in Iraq, seem likely to raise fresh questions about the degree to which the Bush administration has succeeded in promoting democratic principles, including the rule of law, among Iraq's new leaders. Inevitably, they will also lend new momentum to die-hard Baathists who regard Mr. Hussein as a martyr.

Long before Mr. Hussein was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006, with supporters of Iraq's new Shiite-led government taunting him as the noose was tightened around his neck, a pattern of intervention by powerful Iraqi officials had been established. The court's first chief judge was dismissed under government pressure for giving Mr. Hussein too much leeway for his courtroom outbursts, and the associate judge named to succeed him was removed under government threats before he could take over.

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Grenade Attack in Mexico Breaks From Deadly Script - NYTimes.com

Mexico's drug violence seems to be spiraling out of control, with each mass killing followed by an even gorier one and innocents increasingly falling victim to traffickers' ruthlessness. Yet there is often a sinister order to the chaos, as killers in Mexico's drug war frequently leave a calling card with the bodies that spells out a motive for the massacre, or at least their version of it.

That is what has the authorities here puzzling over the two grenades that were hurled into a crowd of innocent revelers in Michoacán State on Independence Day last week, which killed eight people (a 13-year-old boy succumbed to his injuries on Saturday) and wounded more than 100 more. In this case, nobody has claimed responsibility for it. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. La Familia, a violent drug gang based in Michoacán that the authorities have suggested might be responsible, has gone to extraordinary lengths to distance itself from the unprecedented attack on innocents, which has long been considered ungentlemanly behavior among cartel killers.

After the Sept. 15 grenade attack, La Familia sent text messages to reporters disavowing involvement in the killings. The group pledged in pamphlets to strike back at those responsible for harming women and children. And in banners hung around Morelia, Michoacán's capital, La Familia pointed a finger at the Zetas, a paramilitary group linked to a rival gang.

[...]

But with no note by the killers to go on, the authorities consider the brazen attack to be a sign that all bets in the drug war may be off. The authorities detained three suspects last week in connection with the explosions but later released them. Mexico has a poor track record when it comes to catching and prosecuting killers, even in high-profile cases. What the Michoacán killing has laid bare is that there is no shortage of suspects who have access to military weaponry and the ruthlessness to aim it at a crowd.

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Bad News For The Bailout - Forbes.com

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Gasoline shortage in US Southeast prompts panic

NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Gasoline shortages in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and parts of Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ike have driven some consumers to desperate measures as they hunt for places to fill up.

"Some people are even following tankers to the station and then they descend upon the station," said Randy Bly, a spokesman for the AAA's Auto Club South Chapter which represents southeastern states.

Bly said the Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee metro areas have been particularly hard hit.
Hurricane Ike shut 15 refineries in the Gulf Coast's refinery row and shut several pipelines as well. The outages have driven U.S. gasoline inventories to their lowest levels since 1967, and refinery utilization rates have sunk to their lowest rates on record.
Supply distuptions could continue in some areas of the country for weeks, the U.S. government said on Wednesday.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Fast food hits Mediterranean and a diet succumbs - International Herald Tribune

KASTELI, Greece: Dr. Michalis Stagourakis has seen a transformation of his pediatric practice here over the past three years. The usual sniffles and stomachaches of childhood are now interspersed with far more serious conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. A changing diet, he says, has produced an epidemic of obesity and related maladies.

Small towns like this one in western Crete, considered the birthplace of the famously healthful Mediterranean diet -- emphasizing olive oil, fresh produce and fish -- are now overflowing with chocolate shops, pizza places, ice cream parlors, soda machines and fast-food joints.

The fact is that the Mediterranean diet, which has been associated with longer life spans and lower rates of heart disease and cancer, is in retreat in its home region. Today it is more likely to be found in the upscale restaurants of London and New York than among the young generation in places like Greece, where two-thirds of children are now overweight and the health effects are mounting, health officials say.

"This is a place where you'd see people who lived to 100, where people were all fit and trim," Stagourakis said. "No