Corporate State, The F Word

In the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side — a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation’s top-level intelligence talent, POLITICO has learned.

In one case, these active-duty officers moonlighted at a hedge-fund consulting firm that wanted to tap their expertise in “deception detection,” the highly specialized art of telling when executives may be lying based on clues in a conversation.

The never-before-revealed policy comes to light as the CIA and other intelligence agencies are once again under fire for failing to “connect the dots,” this time in the Christmas Day bombing plot on Northwest Flight 253.

But sources familiar with the CIA’s moonlighting policy defend it as a vital tool to prevent brain-drain at Langley, which has seen an exodus of highly trained, badly needed intelligence officers to the private sector, where they can easily double or even triple their government salaries. The policy gives agents a chance to earn more while still staying on the government payroll.

Bhopal

BHOPAL, India (AFP) – Survivors of the Bhopal gas leak in India on Thursday marked 25 years since the world’s worst industrial accident with rallies demanding those to blame for thousands of deaths finally face justice. Residents and activists capped a week of commemorations with a march to the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, where on December 3, 1984 a cloud of methyl isocyanate killed up to 10,000 people in three days.

Studies released earlier this week showed the shanty towns surrounding the site were still laced with lethal chemicals that are polluting groundwater and soil, causing birth defects and a range of chronic illnesses. “The survivors of the tragedy, through these protests, are venting their ire against the state government for its inaction in clearing the toxic waste,” said Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group of Information and Action.

Research by the Indian Council for Medical Research showed 25,000 people had died from the consequences of exposure since 1984. After those studies concluded, government statistics said 100,000 people were chronically sick, with more than 30,000 people living in areas around the factory where water was contaminated.

Criminal cases against former Union Carbide executives are pending in various Indian and US courts which hold them and Dow liable for the catastrophe. Amnesty International called on Dow to “cooperate fully in the ongoing legal proceedings in order to ensure that those responsible are held accountable”.

The Bigger Picture

While some US liberals are rejoicing at the findings of this Pew poll that Fox news is seen as the most ideological network,

A larger point may be being missed, therefore I have helpfully added a corrective-

Forest, trees, you get the picture. Gotta love the ‘Neither’ answers.

Royal Mail Is Lying

London Review of Books, Diary by Roy Mayall:- The truth is that the figures aren’t down at all. We have proof of this. The Royal Mail have been fiddling the figures. This is how it is being done.

Mail is delivered to the offices in grey boxes. These are a standard size, big enough to carry a few hundred letters. The mail is sorted from these boxes, put into pigeon-holes representing the separate walks, and from there carried over to the frames. This is what is called ‘internal sorting’ and it is the job of the full-timers, who come into work early to do it. In the past, the volume of mail was estimated by weighing the boxes. These days it is done by averages. There is an estimate for the number of letters that each box contains, decided on by national agreement between the management and the union. That number is 208. This is how the volume of mail passing through each office is worked out: 208 letters per box times the number of boxes. However, within the last year Royal Mail has arbitrarily, and without consultation, reduced the estimate for the number of letters in each box. It was 208: now they say it is 150. This arbitrary reduction more than accounts for the 10 per cent reduction that the Royal Mail claims is happening nationwide.

Doubting the accuracy of these numbers, the union ordered a random manual count to be undertaken over a two-week period in a number of offices across the region. Our office was one of them. On average, those boxes which the Royal Mail claims contain only 150 letters, actually carry 267 items of mail. This, then, explains how the Royal Mail can say that the figures are down, although every postman knows that volume is up. The figures are down all right, but only because they have been manipulated.

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Back In The Old Country

What an icy wave of spiteful nostalgia this Cameron interview is, impeccable fundamentalist neoliberalism (Thatcherism is you wish), refusing to answer how wealthy he really is, which is really admirable, being a shifty lying creep even before you are elected shows confidence. And seriously it is not the Tories who will win, it will be New Labour who have lost because they did what globalised capital wanted and not what the people wanted, what their supporters wanted, that and being a 51st state poodle aiding and abetting war crimes, it really isn’t that difficult to understand. It doesn’t take a Compass conference to figure it out. In a race between two brands from the same manufacturer (Ariel or Daz!) please excuse my lack of excitement, and anyway I’m in Wales, I can vote nationalist to get a different style of disappointment.

Ungrateful

It comes to something when corporations feel so entitled they reject huge wads of government welfare because it isn’t enough-

Wales’ deputy first minister has questioned the commitment of Anglesey Aluminium’s owners to stay on the island. Anglesey assembly member Ieuan Wyn Jones said he was disappointed the company had not accepted offer of UK and Welsh Assembly Government aid. The firm has rejected financial support of £48m over four years saying it was generous but not enough. The firm has offered 140 staff voluntary redundancy. Cheap power for Anglesey Aluminium has been supplied by the nearby Wylfa nuclear plant for the last 10 years. Talks are continuing to try to strike a new deal for cheap power, which has been supplied by the nearby Wylfa nuclear plant for the last 10 years.

There are many rumours on the island that surround the cheap electricity deal they have with Wylfa, I hope to get to the bottom of them and give AA a chance to respond but…ungrateful ain’t the half of it if they are true.

In The Guardian’s Shell Like

At the end of this Independent on Sunday story- Secret papers ’show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’, Documents seen by The IoS support claims energy giant enlisted help of country’s military government

There is this nugget-

Shell ‘lobbied’ Guardian to soften its Nigeria stance

Confidential internal documents reveal how the oil giant lobbied The Guardian newspaper to reduce its support for Saro-Wiwa. In an assessment of the political and security situation, a Shell executive noted: “The Guardian newspaper ran a much more balanced article on the Ogoni issue, with their position moving from apparent support for Saro-Wiwa to the middle ground. There is a slight possibility that this may have been influenced by the meeting we had with The Guardian’s editor the week before.”

Peter Preston, The Guardian’s editor from 1975 to 1995, said yesterday that he could not remember a meeting with Shell. “I have absolutely no memory of one. And Nigerian politics was never one of my interests.”

‘Guns have no place at all in our community’

Note the police (who us H&K firearms) tried to silence media coverage-

Interestingly, local media also came under pressure; Trent FM, who had shown some enthusiasm about reporting these demos, received a word in their ear from both H&K’s press office as well as the police, warning hacks that it would be ‘irresponsible’ to publish the fact that H&K has a warehouse full of weapons in Nottingham, as it may prompt criminals to try and steal them. 

In response the campaigners pointed out to the radio station that H&K’s address was published at Company House, as well as in several business directories. About the radio station being leaned on, the campaigners said that “If the security policy of H&K and Notts police relies on no-one finding out the company’s location, then clearly it is they who are irresponsible, not our campaign and not the media. A large warehouse stocked with high-power assault rifles and submachine guns with inadequate security to prevent a robbery is clearly a significant danger to the public, and publicisng such a danger is very much in the public interest.” 

The H&K warehouse, located at Easter Park, Lenton Lane, Nottingham, is next to the ‘Trent Vineyard’, an evangelist church that held the funeral of Danielle Beccan, a 14 year old girl who was killed in a drive-by shooting. At her funeral service the then mayor of Nottingham said, “Guns have no place at all in our community – not in Nottingham, not in my city nor any other city in Britain.” 

It Could Be Worse, We Could Have Made a Loss

Your Culture on Capitalism: Billionaire Charges Homeless Rent

Nine months after homeless families won the right to shelter in New York City, the city is having the last laugh. According to a New York Times article, “The Bloomberg administration has quietly begun charging rent to homeless families who live in publicly run shelters but have income from jobs.”

“They are taking money from them that could otherwise be used to help themselves get out of the shelter system,” Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, told the Times. “We’re dealing with the poorest people, the people who are the most in need, and we’re asking them to pay for a shelter of last resort. As a city and a state that has a history of social and economic justice, I think we can do better than that.”

And it might also be said capitalism makes you short, mean and stupid-

Here are the US rankings out of the 30 OECD countries (1 is best; 30 is worst — worst as in Somalia-like). The names of the countries even more Somalian than the US appear in parens.

Infant Deaths: 28 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey).

Life Expectancy: 24 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Czech & Slovak Republics).

Health Expenditures: 1 out of 30.

Poverty Rates: 28 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey).

Child Poverty: 27 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Poland).

Income Inequality: 27 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Portugal).

Obesity: 30 out of 30.

Incarceration: 30 out of 30.

Work Hours (ranked in ascending order): 30 out of 30.

Height (women): 25 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Korea, Portugal, Japan).

Height (men): 24 out of 30 (Italy, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Korea, Japan).

Amazing, corporate healthcare for profit gives you the highest price with the worst outcomes, no wait the other word- Predictable, to anyone with an ounce of sense and not covering for their own wealth accumulation scam. Hmm I see single payer reform is being frozen out of the debate…

Welsh Fucking Water! (Well United Utilities)

And now… some light ranty relief:-

Here in sunny, ok rainy at present North Wales you get used to the fact that Welsh Water, the privatised water providing monopoly is incapable of providing clean fucking drinking water on a reliable basis! And here we go again-

About 70,000 households and businesses in two north Wales counties are being advised to boil their drinking water after bacteria were found in supplies. Customers in areas of Flintshire and Denbighshire supplied by the Alwen treatment works are affected.

Now this doesn’t affect me…yet, but for all those tired of this bullshit year in year out I ask- Is drinking water somehow beyond our scientific abilities? I’m sure I’ve heard of other places where amazingly you can drink the water and not get ill, ooh it must be like some futuristic dreamscape! Has the concept of potable water become an impossible riddle to even the greatest of minds?

No, it is just an impossibility to the neoliberal mind. Now enjoy the hilarious farce that is Welsh Water’s post privatisation history (thanks Conservatives!)-

Welsh Water Authority was privatised by stock market flotation in 1989, along with the other nine regional water authorities, which provided the company with a substantial cash surplus for some years, which it used to diversify in a wide range of sectors including leisure (Hotels, Fishing etc.).

Yeah that’s what I want from a water provider, a good range of hotels and a keen interest in angling. Oh no, what I meant was the other thing, what I like in a water provider is clean fucking drinking water! (I may have already mentioned that -clean fucking drinking water- but y’know repetition might make it sink in, in between the suits looking at new car brochures and second home buying).

It renamed itself Hyder in 1996 after taking over a local electricity company (SWALEC) and becoming a water and electricity multi-utility.

What could possibly go wrong, water and electricity mix so well!

However, in 1999/2000, following the windfall tax on utility profits and the 1999 Ofwat price review, Hyder got into financial difficulties which led to its breakup following a takeover battle.

Who could of foreseen their huge profits might get taxed and their business practices were so criminal Ofwat would force a change? They’re not mind readers…Oh these things took some years to happen and there were months of warning, erm…maybe they were otherwise engaged on what colour the hotels should be painted or which celebrity to advertise their fishing business, was Noel Edmonds busy, did Roger Daltrey turn them down?

Western Power Distribution purchased Hyder on 15 September 2000 with a view to acquiring its electricity distribution business, and rapidly sold off Hyder’s other assets. Welsh Water was sold by WPD to Glas Cymru for £1,

A pound? That explains it, they found a babbling tramp in a Cardiff street and swapped the company for a half can of special brew. Wait they didn’t? So what can explain it? Neoliberal MBA managerialism that couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery? Financiers who make money with every transaction regardless of the consequences to those who actually use the service? Like that could ever go wrong, CDO’s all round!

along with £1.85 billion of Hyder debt. Under the terms of its licence Glas Cymru may not operate in sectors other than water.

Imagine, a water providing monopoly actually dedicated to providing water and not using its monopoly (which makes it an industry manifestly unsuitable for privatisation even free market theoreticians could figure that out… or not apparently). But as it’s a monopoly, how about we own it (y’know, like we did), so it runs at cost and no one exploits the need for the most essential substance for life on planet Earth- water.

Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water (Dŵr Cymru means Welsh Water in Welsh) is owned by Glas Cymru, a company limited by guarantee. Most of Welsh Water’s activities are outsourced to other companies.

So really Welsh Water is a contracting body which passes on the work and …the responsibility?

KWS Wales operate waste water in the south and United Utilities operate clean water for the whole of Wales and waste water in the north.

Hey here’s an idea, keep the two separate! There you can have that for free, you see maybe your consultants haven’t told you this but sewage and drinking water…not the same thing, m’kay? But what was that again?

clean water for the whole of Wales.

Whoa there- United Utilities operate clean water for the whole of Wales– they do? Can we have some of this clean water? Where can you get it? Because it certainly doesn’t come out of the fucking taps!

CIA & Friendly Hacks Pro-Torture Propaganda

The thing is a journo is meant to be a cynical sceptical mofo but in the corporate mode they are yes men climbing the greasy pole, hence their journalism becomes the antithesis of the role we expect, yet for many people they have not twigged this dynamic. Just as they covered up their role in war pimping they happily believed what Bush regime and CIA officials fed them, to call them saps would be extremely charitable, shills is nearer the mark. And at base we have to conclude it reflected their personal beliefs and politics, they too believe in Empire Americana and the war crimes it commits to instil fear and maintain dominance. Anyway Glenn Greenwald has it all, excerpt-

In The New York Times this morning, Brian Stelter documents how a widely-cited 2007 report by ABC News’ Brian Ross — amplifying the claim by former CIA agent John Kiriakou that Abu Zubaydah lasted only 30-35 seconds on the waterboard before confessing numerous Terrorist plots to the CIA — permeated media discussions and was uncritically repeated over and over, even though we know now the claim was absolutely false, as Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times. Below I document (a) just how pervasive that “Zubayduh-confessed-after-30-seconds” myth became and — more importantly — (b) how obvious it was to real journalists that Kiriakou’s claim required serious sketpicism and doubt.

But two years before Ross disseminated that Zubaydah falsehood, he was responsible for injecting into our discourse a separate claim that was equally false and at least equally damaging: namely, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed impressed his CIA interrogators by lasting an astonishingly long two-and-a-half minutes before “begging to confess.” Citing nothing but anonymous CIA sources without a molecule of critical thought, this is what Ross “reported” on November 18, 2005:

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.On March 15, 2007, this is what Ross said on World News Tonight about Mohammed and waterboarding:

It’s a technique used by the CIA with the President’s approval where the person is put upside down, water is poured on their head. They have a sense they’re drowning and it creates a gag-like reflex. He lasted the longest under waterboarding, we’re told, before he broke, between two and two and a half minutes, and then he caved and told all.We now know that this claim, too, was patently false, as Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month alone. Yet two years before the Zubayduh falsehood examined this morning by Stelter, this false “fact” — that waterboarding works almost immediately in saving Americans lives as demonstrated by how quickly it broke Mohammed — was repeated over and over to argue that waterboarding is both highly effective and, given how quickly it works, cannot possibly constitute torture.

This might partially explain (although wider cultural issues of an entitled imperial populace are relevant too) why America remains by a majority pro-torture-And the comparative poll [PDF or hosted onblog wpo_torture_jun08_packet] shows the land of the free home of the brave is less civilised than Mexico, Spain, France, Poland, Ukraine, Palestine, Azerbaijan, Egypt, China, Indonesia for example. As for the UK well we do well except today Craig Murray gave evidence and so far, 1 google news result and that is a pre report from a UN source. So as usual the poodle looks to its guides in Washington perhaps.

PBS is Sicko

Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World. Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all – UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan – to learn about how they do it. Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common – none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.

Frontline then said to Reid – okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around the America. So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives. The documentary that resulted – Sick Around America – aired Monday night on PBS.

But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week. And the film didn’t present Reid’s bottom line for health care reform – don’t let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.

[Read the rest]

How Corporate Media Works

A report in Playboy that was later pulled suggested that Santelli’s rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange may have been planned and coordinated with right-wing group FreedomWorks. Online reporters Mark Ames and Yasha Levine offered an explanation:

“There has been a lot of speculation as to why Playboy removed our original article from its site. Let us put it this way: When you look at the fallout from our article — FreedomWorks admits its role in the teaparty, Santelli issues a giant lawyer-penned opus about how he loves Obama, and CNBC (whose parent company is the megaconglomerate General Electric) frightens a bunch of Astroturfing Web sites into dropping Santelli’s name and into revealing their own PAC sponsors — then it’s clear we hit the bull’s-eye and stirred up the wrath of a very scary monster.

“Given all of this, it would not be unreasonable for one to consider the possibility (as many have) that the multigazilliondollar megabeast GE threatened the much smaller independent media company Playboy with a terrifying and expensive lawsuit, which, given the current financial crisis, is not something anyone but another GE-sized megabeast could cope with. ‘Nuf said on that.”

I’m Laughin’ Just To Keep From Cryin’

Hahahahahahaha Privatisation and reducing entitlement, hahahahahahaha one party-consensus-bipartisan- bullsheet baby! Hahahahahahahahah Neoliberalism rather than wither under the crisis it caused will cement its fundamentalism with further shocks. Hahahahahahaha and your choice is have it done by New Labour or the Tories. Hahahahaha, democracy! Hahahahahahahahaha y’know choice, as in do you want to get stabbed in the face or guts first. C’mon now tell me Nulabour shills how are you different from the Tories, apart from a few minor points here and there, like srsly dudes- I will implement these proposals with slightly less enthusiasm than the tories- does not actually constitute a fucking difference, just going further to betray your base is not something to get excited about, speaking of which, Trade Unions, take the fucking money and give it to actual, y’know, leftists! There are even a tiny few in Labour, give them the dosh instead of the conservatives that run the ‘party’.

And here’s the kicker, name three groups who caused the crisis- Politicians, economists, bankers.

Now guess who’s privatising welfare- Politicians, economists, bankers. Hahahahahahahaha! And even better, it’s the same guy in both parties!!!!! Suckers!