The Death of the Credit Card Economy

Car leases, student loans, no-money-down mortgages, and high credit limits are vanishing.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Saturday, Aug. 30, 2008, at 6:39 AM ET

The most revolutionary notion in commerce today is one of the oldest. If you want to buy something, you may actually have to pay for it. We are reverting from a "borrow and buy" economy to the "cash and carry" model of our grandparents.

The Olesons may have extended store credit to Ma and Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, but widespread consumer credit is a very recent phenomenon. It began in the 1920s, when expensive consumer durables—cars, refrigerators—were first produced in mass quantities. It wasn't until Bank of America began carpet-bombing California with credit-card applications in the 1960s that the debt wave started in earnest.

Bush quietly seeks to make war powers permanent, by declaring indefinite state of war

As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain's choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.

Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention -- and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and "associated organizations."

The truth about GM

Colin Tudge
Published 28 August 2008

Will GM technology feed the world - or destroy farming, and human health, in the name of corporate profit? How can we tell, when the science is up for sale?

Genetically modified crops might once have proved useful. In the early days, in the 1980s, scientists I spoke to in India hoped to transfer genes from groundnuts (which are very resistant to heat and drought) into sorghum, the staple cereal of the Sahel, which is also drought-resistant but succumbs in the worst years. In California, there were advanced plans to produce barley that could thrive in brackish water of the kind that is spreading worldwide in the wake of overzealous irrigation. In Brazil, just a few years ago, I found GM being used to make disease-resistant papaya - which grows everywhere in the tropics and is an instant, free source of succulence, energy and Vitamin A. I was all for it.

Support the Employee Free Choice Act

By Terrance Heath
August 29th, 2008 - 12:17pm ET

---

Sign the petition to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and make America work for working families again.

Labor Day is here, yet working families in America are having more trouble than ever before making ends meet. Rising fuel and food prices, along with health care costs, take bigger and bigger bites out of stagnant wages. Meanwhile, the same conservative movement and philosophy that gave us the economy that's devastating so many working families has undermined the rights of working Americans, and undermine the collective bargaining that once helped working Americans fight for fair and safe workplaces.

Simple fertilizer technique promises to feed Africa's hungry

A simple and cheap technique of applying fertilizer in small doses at the right time can double wheat crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa and feed millions of people, agronomists said in a report.

A four-year experiment with the technique in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger has boosted sorghum and millet production by 44 to 120 percent, and family incomes by 50 to 130 percent, said an International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) report published Thursday.

July incomes drop by largest amount in 3 years

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Personal incomes plunged in July while consumer spending slowed significantly as the impact of billions of dollars in government rebate checks began to wane.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that personal incomes fell by 0.7 percent in July, the biggest drop in nearly three years and a far larger decline than the 0.1 percent decrease that analysts had expected.

Breaking harmful bonds

Brandeis scientists convert the mighty C-F bond

Waltham, MA—Everybody loves the way breakfast eggs conveniently slide off of Teflon without leaving any pesky pieces of egg in the pan. Indeed, the carbon-fluorine bond at the heart of Teflon cookware is so helpful we also use it in clothing, lubricants, refrigerants, anesthetics, semiconductors, and even blood substitutes. But the very strength of the C-F bond that makes it useful in so many applications also gives it formidable greenhouse gas effects that persist in nature. In a groundbreaking study this week in Science, Brandeis scientists report they have identified a catalyst that efficiently breaks the C-F bond and converts it to a carbon-hydrogen bond, rendering it harmless to the environment.

No One Should Have to Stand in Line for 10 Hours to Vote

By ADAM COHEN

Everyone complains that young people don’t vote, but consider the experience of students at Kenyon College in Ohio in the 2004 election. Officials in Knox County, Ohio, provided just two voting machines for the school’s 1,300 voters. Some students waited in line for 10 hours, and the last bleary-eyed voter did not cast a ballot until nearly 4 a.m.

That same day in Columbus, voters in black neighborhoods waited as long as four hours, often in the rain. Many voters there and in other urban areas — including Toledo and Youngstown — left their overcrowded polling places in disgust, or because they could not wait any longer, without casting a ballot. In many of Ohio’s white-majority suburbs, the lines were far shorter.

Evidence of Extremist Infiltration of Military Grows

The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He’d just enlisted in the United States Army.

“Sieg Heil, I will do us proud,” he wrote. It was a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which “Sobibor’s SS,” who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II).

About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor’s SS bragged in another post to Forum 14 that he’d specifically requested and been assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D. MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That’s because they’re specially trained in disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) like the infamous roadside bombs that are killing and maiming so many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, a part of learning how to disarm an IED is learning how to make one.

Obama Assassination Plot Investigated, No Credible Threat Found

***UPDATE 8/26, 6:30 PM***

Following the press conference, the Associated Press reports that the men were no "true" threat to Obama.

U.S. Attorney Troy Eid (EYED) describes the men as "meth heads" who weren't capable of such an attack.

The investigation was triggered after police in the Denver suburb of Aurora stopped a truck that was swerving erratically early Sunday. Police say they found two high-powered rifles, two wigs, camouflage clothing, a bulletproof vest and two walkie-talkies in the truck. They say they also found three IDs in other people's names and what they believe to be methamphetamine.

The three men arrested Sunday face drug and gun counts.

McCain taps Alaska governor for VP

By LIZ SIDOTI and BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 7 minutes ago

DAYTON, Ohio - Republican John McCain introduced first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate Friday, a stunning selection of a little-known conservative newcomer who relishes fighting the establishment.

"She's exactly who I need. She's exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington politics of 'Me first and country second,' " McCain declared as the pair stood together for the first time at a boisterous rally in Ohio just days before the opening of the party's national convention.

The Election of Our Lives

By Theda Skocpol - August 28, 2008, 11:50AM

Tonight at Mile High will be extraordinary, I am sure; and I am so pleased that my twenty-year-old son Michael, heading the Brown Daily Herald news team, will be there to witness Obama's acceptance speech. But for me personally it would be hard to top last night at the Democratic Convention, listening to Bill Clinton and Joe Biden set the stage for Obama and bring the nation and the Democratic Party to the brink of the most important political watershed in the past four decades.

As Michigan State college students in 1966 and 1967, my hustand-to-become Bill and I met while working on a Civil Rights project in Mississippi. We participated in a small way in the fight for American fulfillment through the enfranchisement of blacks and in the repudiation of racial segregation that our generation helped to junp-start. Then, in 1968, we cried with millions of others when the hopes of the era took a dark turn after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

Glenn Greenwald: What's Missing From the Democratic Convention?

As one would expect them to be, virtually all of the prime-time speeches at the Democratic Convention have been -- from a rhetorical perspective -- very well-crafted and well-delivered. Bill Clinton's speech, in particular, deserves all the plaudits it is receiving, both in terms of content and delivery. But as competent, well-executed and even dramatic as the Convention has been, at least as striking is what has been missing.

First, there is almost no mention of, let alone focus on, the sheer radicalism and extremism of the last eight years. During that time, our Government has systematically tortured people using sadistic techniques ordered by the White House; illegally and secretly spied on its own citizens; broken more laws than can be counted based on the twisted theory that the President has that power; asserted the authority to arrest and detain even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them for years without charges; abolished habeas corpus; created secret prisons in Eastern Europe and a black hole of lawlessness in Guantanamo; and explicitly abandoned and destroyed virtually every political value the U.S. has long claimed to embrace.

Convention as Psychodrama

How to Achieve Catharsis in a Charged Environment

By Harry Shearer
8/28/08 10:40 AM

So the Democratic convention has been about catharsis.

We’ve been told that this was what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband, former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton delegates were seeking — what they came to the Mile High City to get. As if the Pepsi Center needed to be fitted out with more than a thousand analysts’ couches — in addition to Arianna Huffington’s meditation-and-yoga oasis just outside the hall.

Protesters denied access to attorneys, forced to march in leg shackles, ACLU charges

The ACLU issued a stinging rebuke to the Denver Police Department Wednesday, alleging that the department may have violated laws and constitutional rights of protesters arrested outside the Democratic National Convention.

In the letter, obtained by RAW STORY, the ACLU revealed that the police refused those arrested access to attorneys. Police did not let detainees use phones unless they posted their own bonds, and even failed to provide shoes, in one case marching a protester into court in bare feet and leg shackles, according the ACLU.

Social factors key to ill health

Social factors - rather than genetics - are to blame for huge variations in ill health and life expectancy around the world, a report concludes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has carried out a three-year analysis of the "social determinants" of health.

The report concludes "social injustice is killing people on a grand scale".

Bill Clinton hails Barack Obama

Former President Bill Clinton has given unequivocal backing to US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, saying he "is ready to lead America".

He was the man to restore US leadership in the world, Mr Clinton told Democrats gathered at their convention in Denver.

Arctic ice 'is at tipping point'

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.

Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.

What a McCain Victory Could Mean: No Money for Health Care and the End of Our Volunteer Army

By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on August 28, 2008, Printed on August 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96687/

In judging the shape of a future John McCain presidency, there are already plenty of dots that are easy to connect. They reveal an image of a war-like Empire so full of hubris that it could take the world into a cascade of crises, while extinguishing what is left of the noble American Republic.

McCain has made clear he would continue and even escalate George W. Bush's open-ended global war on Islamic radicals. McCain buys into the neoconservative vision of expending U.S. treasure and troops to kill as many Muslim militants as possible.

If Obama Wins, Who Will Be in His Cabinet -- And Who Should Be?

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on August 28, 2008, Printed on August 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96142/

There'll be a crush of cameras at the front door of the White House on Jan. 20 as scores of media outlets scramble to record the moment when the new president walks in. But wait -- who will be sliding in quietly behind him? They're the ones who will spend the next four years whispering in the president's ear, sitting in strategy sessions, running presidential councils, filling agency slots and pulling the levers of executive power. They'll make up "the administration," and they'll affect everything from economic policies to war, so it's worth getting a sense of them in advance of the election.

For a clue as to what kinds of people either McCain or Obama would carry into office, look at the top campaign advisers, fundraisers and staffers already around them, for they're likely to move right along with their man. These people both reflect and shape a president's agenda, sometimes wielding the influence to alter both the overall direction and the specific substance of a presidency.

And the prudent shall survive

By John Browne

Though few may have noticed, the past few weeks may be regarded as a global economic turning point. Evidence is mounting that the United States is entering a recession, with increasing signs that it could morph into a depression. While the George W Bush administration appears resigned to bail out or nationalize large tracts of American commerce, the presidential candidates drift towards Great Society era spending proposals. At the same time, America's principal economic rivals appear to be charting courses that are not in line with US interests.

The Russian invasion of Georgia has revived tensions that have not been seen since the most frigid periods of the Cold War. With the Olympic Games over, China can relax and now exert its muscle without risking any politically motivated boycotts. Between them, these global players hold well over US$1 trillion, or 10%, of US government debt, which they can use as leverage in any strategic, economic or political confrontation with the US

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

If it ain't broke, don't fix it
By Hazel Smith

The current progress towards possible resolution of the long-lasting nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula is the result of the quite unlikely, somewhat unexpected, and very definitely unsung American foreign policy success that is the George W Bush administration's present strategy on North Korea.

After more than five decades of security crises, this bold new approach is unraveling tension and (hopefully) building peace in one of the world's most volatile hot spots.

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors

Asa Eslocker Was Investigating the Role of Lobbyists and Top Donors at the Convention

By BRIAN ROSS

Aug. 27, 2008—

DENVER--Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

Bayer on defensive in bee deaths

German authorities look into allegation that RTP maker's pesticide harms environment

Sabine Vollmer, Staff Writer

Bayer CropScience is facing scrutiny because of the effect one of its best-selling pesticides has had on honeybees.

A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer's chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment.

Thrifts warned not to change terms of home equity loans

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — After a rash of consumer complaints, the federal agency charged with regulating savings and loan institutions issued guidance Tuesday warning lenders they could not arbitrarily change the terms of home equity loans.

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) issued a six-page letter of guidance to the institutions, called thrifts, spelling out their obligations on home equity lines of credit, better known as HELOCs.

Vast Amount of Arctic Carbon Could Be Released

As global warming thaws the frozen soils of the Arctic, more stored-up carbon could potentially be released into the atmosphere than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Much of the frigid Arctic's soil is permafrost, or permanently frozen ground.

Seasonal freeze-thaw cycles can mix up the soil layers, a process called cryoturbation, forcing organic (carbon-based) material into the subsurface layers and storing it in the permafrost.

Bloggers Bust Up Telecom Blue Dog Party in Denver

By Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake
Posted on August 25, 2008, Printed on August 27, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.firedoglake.com//96289/

Last night I was at a party with Matt Stoller when he found a notice in the paper announcing a party that AT&T was having that night for the Blue Dogs.

Glenn Greenwald instantly became a man with a mission: he wanted to go interview the guests and see how they felt about their telecom hosts and the retroactive immunity delivered to them by the Blue Dogs, at bargain basement prices.

The Christian Right's Got a New Stealth Tactic to Smuggle Creationism into Science Class

By Sandhya Bathija, Church & State Magazine
Posted on August 27, 2008, Printed on August 27, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96490/

In the 21 years Patsye Peebles taught biology in Louisiana public schools, she never received one complaint from parents for teaching evolution.

"The bottom line is that I never questioned their faith," she said.

Whenever she had a student who brought up creationism, she always made it clear that science is science, and religion is religion.

Hillary Electrifies: "Nothing Less Than the Fate of Our Nation ... Hangs in the Balance"

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on August 27, 2008, Printed on August 27, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96560/

Hillary Clinton urged her supporters to rally behind Barack Obama in a passionate and forceful address at the Democratic convention on Tuesday night that underscored her historic candidacy as the first woman to come within reach of a major political party's presidential nomination.

"I am so honored to be here tonight. I am here tonight as a proud mother, as a proud Democrat, as a proud senator from New York, a proud American and a proud supporter of Barack Obama," Clinton began, eliciting a rousing ovation. "My friends, it is time to take back the country we love, and whether you voted for me or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose."

The Villains of the Housing Crisis Are Denying All Responsibility

By Dean Baker, TruthOut.org
Posted on August 27, 2008, Printed on August 27, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96433/

The central bankers of the world gathered last weekend for their annual meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was an opportunity to talk about the major issues confronting the world economy, as well as an opportunity to spend some time in a very beautiful vacation spot.

When they met in Jackson Hole in 2005, the meetings were devoted to an Alan Greenspan retrospective, honoring his 18-year tenure as Federal Reserve Board chairman, which was due to end the following January. A number of papers were presented analyzing his record at the Fed, including one that raised the question of whether Mr. Greenspan was the greatest central banker of all time.

Thomas Frank: Obama Should Find His Inner Kansan

For a different perspective, I decided to make my way to the Democratic convention in Denver by driving for two days across Kansas, one of the reddest states of them all. Kansas is my state: I grew up in its suburbs; I went to its public schools; I like to think I absorbed its values, and that I remain true to them even though Kansas and I have parted ways politically.

Let me explain what I mean by relating a conversation I had on Saturday in the distinctly blue-collar city of Wichita, a lovable but slightly down-at-the-heels place that will probably never get to host the convention of a national political party. The man I talked to was state legislator Dale Swenson, who was swept into the statehouse in 1995 by one of the many Republican waves to crash over the heartland over the past few decades.

AT&T Thanks the Blue Dog Democrats With a Lavish Party

by Glenn Greenwald

Last night in Denver, at the Mile High Station -- next to Invesco Stadium, where Barack Obama will address a crowd of 30,000 people on Thursday night -- AT&T threw a lavish, private party for Blue Dog House Democrats, virtually all of whom blindly support whatever legislation the telecom industry demands and who also, specifically, led the way this July in immunizing AT&T and other telecoms from the consequences for their illegal participation in the Bush administration's warrantless spying program. Matt Stoller has one of the listings for the party here.

Armed with full-scale Convention press credentials issued by the DNC, I went -- along with Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Stoller and others -- in order to cover the event, interview the attendees, and videotape the festivities. There was a wall of private security deployed around the building, and after asking where the press entrance was, we were told by the security officials, after they consulted with event organizers, that the press was barred from the event, and that only those with invitations could enter -- notwithstanding the fact that what was taking place in side was a meeting between one of the nation's largest corporations and the numerous members of the most influential elected faction in Congress. As a result, we stood in front of the entrance and began videotaping and trying to interview the parade of Blue Dog Representatives, AT&T executives, assorted lobbyists and delegates who pulled up in rented limousines, chauffeured cars, and SUVs in order to find out who was attending and why AT&T would be throwing such a lavish party for the Blue Dog members of Congress.

Pollutants cause birds to sing tainted love songs

12:54 26 August 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Ewen Callaway

Traces of a chemical once used by power plants leave birds looking fit, but singing another tune altogether.

Wild chickadees exposed to permitted levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can't keep a tune as well as other birds.

U.S. warships due to arrive in disputed Georgian port

By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

POTI, Georgia — Defying Russia, an American warship that brought humanitarian aid to Georgia was expected to arrive Wednesday in this nervous Black Sea port that's being watched over by Russian soldiers, Georgian officials said.

The move would put U.S. military assets within close range of Russian forces for the first time since the Georgian conflict began, potentially setting up a confrontation with Moscow, the dominant naval power in the Black Sea.

US cold-war waste irks Greenland

Pentagon refuses to clean up toxic military bases, saying it would set a bad precedent.

By Colin Woodard | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
August 22, 2008 edition

KANGERLUSSUAQ, Greenland

The former Sondrestrom US Air Force Base is now a busy community of 500, a midsized town by Greenland standards.

Runways built for heavy bombers and transports now accommodate wide-­bodied jetliners, which disgorge passengers connecting to Greenland’s many small airstrips. Tourists head out on musk ox safaris or join cruise ships at the base’s old supply dock, while locals enjoy Greenland’s only indoor swimming pool, originally built for US troops.

Here we go again

By Martin Hutchinson

The echoes of the 1930s in the current situation are not confined to foreign policy. Economically also, the parallels between the 1929-32 downturn and the current difficulties are becoming alarmingly apparent. It must be remembered: the Great Depression became such, as distinct from a garden-variety downturn, though egregious policy errors by decision-makers in a number of countries. Repetition of those errors, all of which would have appeared unthinkable a decade ago, is becoming increasingly likely and in some respects is already happening.

Tough love's fatal attraction

By Julian Delasantellis

One of the most popular programs on the American A&E cable television network is called Intervention, or as I like to call it, the Super Bawl. Every week a person with a different type of addiction, be it with narcotics, alcohol, gambling, shopping, chicken nuggets, blogging, whatever, is featured on the show.

[...]

One wonders just how close the United States Federal Reserve and Department of the Treasury are now to offering the financial markets just one last chance to shape themselves up, or, failing that, from being ineligible for any further assistance or rescue.

The Madness of Bankers

An Interview with Charles R. Morris.

Robert Bryce | August 22, 2008 | Features

Millions of words have been written about the ongoing financial disaster largely caused by the subprime mortgage mess. But the most concise and easiest to understand handbook on the issue is almost certainly Charles R. Morris’ The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash. The book, published in March, spent several weeks on The New York Times best-seller list, and for good reason: The book explains in clear language exactly what happened and why.

Morris, a lawyer and former banker who lives in Manhattan, has written 11 books. His articles have been published in myriad publications, including Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times and BusinessWeek. He exchanged e-mails with Observer contributing writer Robert Bryce in early August.

What We Stand For—In Twelve Words

By Bernie Horn
August 24th, 2008 - 3:58pm ET

There’s no doubt that George W. Bush’s administration has been a catastrophe, and that historians will one day rank him as one of our nation’s very worst presidents. We’ve got to take back America—now—before solutions to national and global problems slip away into the distant future.

Because Bush and his allies have failed, our fellow citizens are ready to consider the progressive message. But what is it? In simple terms that all Americans understand, what do we stand for?

It’s crucial for us to have a simple, compelling answer. Yes, we’re for change…and prosperity, and peace.

Bacteria Power: Future For Clean Energy Lies In 'Big Bang' Of Evolution

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) — Amid mounting agreement that future clean, "carbon-neutral", energy will rely on efficient conversion of the sun's light energy into fuels and electric power, attention is focusing on one of the most ancient groups of organism, the cyanobacteria.

Dramatic progress has been made over the last decade understanding the fundamental reaction of photosynthesis that evolved in cyanobacteria 3.7 billion years ago, which for the first time used water molecules as a source of electrons to transport energy derived from sunlight, while converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Tax loopholes seen costing billions annually

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tax and accounting loopholes that largely benefit rich taxpayers and companies cost the government $20 billion a year even as the pay gap between chief executives and employees has widened, two groups said on Monday.

The biggest loss comes from a "stock option accounting double standard" that allows corporations paying executives stock options to deduct more than their actual expenses, they said.

First mass U.S. crossing for hydrogen cars completed

By Bernie Woodall
Sun Aug 24, 6:16 PM ET

Hydrogen fuel cell cars from nine automakers completed a 13-day cross-country trip this weekend, in the first such mass U.S. crossing for vehicles powered by a zero-emission technology still in its infancy.

As firsts go, the event, which ran from Portland, Maine, to the Los Angeles Coliseum, probably would not qualify for the record books. There were stretches without hydrogen fueling stations when the vehicles were carried on flatbed trucks, the longest from Rolla, Missouri, to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

But then one of the goals of the "Hydrogen Road Tour '08" was to demonstrate the need to build more fueling stations if the nascent technology is to develop, said Paul Brubaker, administrator for research and innovative technology for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

FBI saw threat of mortgage crisis

A top official warned of widening loan fraud in 2004, but the agency focused its resources elsewhere.

By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 25, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible.

"It has the potential to be an epidemic," Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. "We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis," he said.

Wind turbines make bat lungs explode

17:00 25 August 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic

"Beware: exploding lungs" is not a sign one would expect to see at a wind farm. But a new study suggests this is the main reason bats die in large numbers around wind turbines.

The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. In fact, several studies have suggested the risk to bats is greater. In May 2007, the US National Research Council published the results of a survey of US wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60% of winged animals killed. Migrating birds, meanwhile, appear to steer clear of the turbines.

Bolivia split in two as the wealthy aim to defy the Morales revolution

Violent protests against President Evo Morales have shaken Bolivia and cut the Andean nation in half, with rebel provinces blocking government attempts to regain control and tensions running dangerously high between the country's Indian majority and inhabitants of the richer and whiter eastern provinces.

Militia groups armed with clubs and shields took to the streets last week to impose a strike which paralysed much of the eastern lowlands and deepened a political crisis. Youths opposed to Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous leader, beat up senior police commanders in front of television cameras, underlining the brazen challenge to central government authority.

In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

The president of Switzerland stepped to a podium in Bern last May and read a statement confirming rumors that had swirled through the capital for months. The government, he acknowledged, had indeed destroyed a huge trove of computer files and other material documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers suspected of helping smuggle nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.

The files were of particular interest not only to Swiss prosecutors but to international atomic inspectors working to unwind the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani bomb pioneer-turned-nuclear black marketeer. The Swiss engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, were accused of having deep associations with Dr. Khan, acting as middlemen in his dealings with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.

Paul Krugman: Accentuate the Negative

So the Obama campaign has turned to the politics of personal destruction, attempting to make a campaign issue out of John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he has. And the turn comes not a moment too soon.

Over the past month or so many Democrats have had the sick feeling that once again their candidate brought a knife to a gunfight. Barack Obama’s campaign, inexplicably, was unprepared for the inevitable Republican attack on the candidate’s character. By the middle of last week, Mr. Obama’s once formidable lead, both in national polls and in electoral college projections based on state-level polls, had virtually evaporated.

American Legion Immigration Report Replete With Falsehoods

By Sonia Scherr, Southern Poverty Law Center
Posted on August 20, 2008, Printed on August 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/95695/

Since its founding nearly 90 years ago, the American Legion has been a fixture of community life. It has hosted Memorial Day parades to remember those who died in America's wars. It has held bingo nights and dances at its 14,000-plus posts worldwide. It has supported thousands of Boy Scout groups, sponsored a baseball program that's produced numerous professional players, and helped children living in poverty or with special needs. From World War II to the war in Iraq, the legion has fought to improve benefits for veterans and their families.

Now, America's largest veterans organization has launched another campaign -- a hard-line attack on undocumented immigrants that's at odds with the legion's mainstream image. As part of this effort, the legion, which purports to speak for 2.7 million members, recently issued a booklet that regurgitates discredited and often completely false information about how "illegals" are bringing crime, disease, and terrorism to this country, even as they wreck the economy for natives.

Exposing the CIA's 'most secret place'

By Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH - It was known as the "secret war", a covert operation waged by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the 1960s and early 1970s against communist guerrillas in Laos. The most secret location in this clandestine conflict was the former CIA air base of Long Chen, in central Laos, which remains off limits even today. A film exploring this little known conflict, The Most Secret Place on Earth, will be released in cinemas across Europe this year.

The film, which was previewed in Phnom Penh in mid-August, includes images of Long Chen shot by the first Western camera crew to enter the base since the communists took control of the country in 1975.

Warning on voting machines reveals oversight failure

By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers
Sun Aug 24, 5:37 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Disclosure of an election computer glitch that could drop ballot totals for entire precincts is stirring new worries that an unofficial laboratory testing system failed for years to detect an array of flaws in $1.5 billion worth of voting equipment sold nationwide since 2003.

Texas -based Premier Elections Solutions last week alerted at least 1,750 jurisdictions across the country that special precautions are needed to address the problem in tabulation software affecting all 19 of its models dating back a decade.

Voting experts reacted skeptically to the company's assertion that election workers' routine crosschecks of ballot totals would have spotted any instances where its servers failed to register some precinct vote totals when receiving data from multiple memory cards.

Dems seek peace in party as Obama convention opens

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
11 minutes ago

Democrats opened their national convention on Monday, seeking peace in the family as they pursue victory in the fall for Barack Obama and his historic quest for the White House.

An appearance by the ailing, aging Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and a primetime speech by Obama's wife, Michelle, headlined the convention's first night.

In excerpts released in advance, the would-be first lady said she and her husband were raised with solid American values: "that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them."

Biden and "Plagiarism"

In 1988, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) was considered a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination during the year leading up to the Iowa caucuses. On the campaign trail, Biden often paraphrased a speech by eloquent British Labour politician Neil Kinnock:

KINNOCK: Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn't get what we had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.

The Veep’s Pipeline Push

By Michael Isikoff and Tony Hopfinger | NEWSWEEK

Published Aug 23, 2008

From the magazine issue dated Sep 1, 2008

A two-year-old letter by Vice President Dick Cheney that pushed a controversial Alaska natural-gas pipeline bill is getting renewed scrutiny because of recently disclosed evidence in the Justice Department's corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens. In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006, Stevens discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits.

Frank Rich: Last Call for Change We Can Believe In

AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.

This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.