side note: Another reason to peer over at the righty in the cubicle next to your and just shake your head in disgust, especially if they voted for that monkey in 2004. This is what happens when your vote is based on abortion, gay marriage…or whichever social issue is the hot button topic for all those religious nutties out there. Maybe, just maybe, if we had voted based on the illegal war, or on the tax cuts for the rich, or the fact when oil men took over the county, the price of our gas skyrocketed……or torture, or illegal wiretapping…or the raping of the Justice Department…..maybe we wouldn’t be in such a pickle of a mess. (it’s always great when you get squeeze in the word “pickle”)!
Noam Scheiber
The New Republic

What went wrong at AIG? Since the uproar over the firm’s bonuses, it’s become fashionable to distinguish between the masters of the universe at AIG Financial Products, the subsidiary that nearly torched the global economy, and the working stiffs at the rest of the company. So compelling is this dichotomy, in fact, that even the AIG basher-in-chief has invoked it. “You’ve got a company, AIG, which used to be just a regular old insurance company,” President Obama explained during his recent “Tonight Show” appearance. “Then they decided–some smart person decided–let’s put a hedge fund on top of the insurance company and let’s sell these derivative products to banks all around the world.”

There’s clearly something to this. At the very least, the marriage between the two was hardly a natural fit. The derivatives-meisters worked in lavish digs, had Ph.D.s from prestigious universities, and made gobs of money using powerful computer models. The insurance men hailed from no-name schools and prided themselves on paying less in claims then they collected in premiums. “It was different. That’s why we never had them in the building,” recalls Hank Greenberg, who ran AIG for more than 35 years before resigning in 2005.

But, these differences notwithstanding, it actually was pretty smart to put a hedge fund on top of an insurance company–at least for a while. For more than 15 years, the arrangement racked up big profits for AIG without exposing it to excessive losses. The real problem was more fundamental: Companies that deal in risk have a natural tendency to take on too much of it, whether they’re arranging homeowner’s policies or elaborate arbitrages. Over time, a steady march of profits desensitizes them to the dangers they once sweated; even institutional checks begin to weaken.

Which is why the difference between a successful risk enterprise and an unsuccessful one often has less to do with the complexity of its schemes than with its leaders’ fanaticism about discipline. It was, among other things, the lack of such leadership at AIG in recent years that made the company a ward of the state.

AIG Financial Products began life in the mind of Howard Sosin, a Stanford-trained Ph.D. who once worked with junk-bond king Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert. In the mid-1980s, Sosin dreamt of leaving Drexel to start a company that would accept risk from people looking to unload it in exchange for a hefty fee. For example, a state government might pay Sosin’s hypothetical firm to lock in an interest rate so as to avoid a potential increase down the road. (The contract, known as a “swap,” would obligate Sosin to offset a higher interest payment, but allow him to pocket the difference if the interest payment fell.) Sosin would then turn around and unload the risk himself using a series of contracts called hedges, so that he would make money regardless of which way interest rates moved. (more…)

side note: I’m glad this is getting more headlines…..we need to know where are food came from, and if it’s an animal product, how that animal was raised, what it was fed…etc. Especially after all the food scares recently…..spinach, peanuts, and I heard this morning on NPR that we should be eating pistachios right now.

by Bill Niman and Nicolette Hahn Niman
The Atlantic

Certain buzzwords catch on for a while in food industry marketing, many soon fading from use. Yesterday, it all seemed to be about lycopenes, today it’s trans fats. The word “natural” has had more longevity, but does it have any real meaning when it appears on food labels?

We’ve been particularly troubled by the abuse of the word in meat marketing. A few years back, I (Nicolette) was strolling down a sidewalk in Manhattan and paused to read a poster in a supermarket window advertising “natural pork” for a mere $1.49 per pound. Upon closer examination, I realized it was just industrially produced pork. Yet the government allows factory-farmed pork to be sold as “natural” because it requires only that “natural” meat be “minimally processed.” In other words, the conditions in which the animal is raised are deemed irrelevant. Amazingly, pigs raised in a crowded, windowless metal building with concrete floors and fed drug-laced feed can be (and are!) the source of pork labeled and sold as “natural.” (more…)

side note: Gonna try and find the Atlantic article that is referenced in Krugman’s article. Also…after thinking about the front-runners for the Presidency, there’s no one I’d like in there more then Obama. McCain, Edwards, Hillary and most of the others don’t have the presence to demand what Obama is asking. Which should give him an edge is getting what he needs/wants. We’ll have to wait and see if it work…..

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The New York Times

Ten years ago the cover of Time magazine featured Robert Rubin, then Treasury secretary, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary. Time dubbed the three “the committee to save the world,” crediting them with leading the global financial system through a crisis that seemed terrifying at the time, although it was a small blip compared with what we’re going through now.

All the men on that cover were Americans, but nobody considered that odd. After all, in 1999 the United States was the unquestioned leader of the global crisis response. That leadership role was only partly based on American wealth; it also, to an important degree, reflected America’s stature as a role model. The United States, everyone thought, was the country that knew how to do finance right.

How times have changed.

Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness — claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways — have proved hollow.

Indeed, these days America is looking like the Bernie Madoff of economies: for many years it was held in respect, even awe, but it turns out to have been a fraud all along. (more…)

side note: huge opportunity here. I hope everyone can take time and email their congressperson or even better call them. and please forward to as many people as you know.

Earlier today, the Senate Public Health Committee passed SB 1381 with a 6-3 vote. This bill, sponsored by former three-term state’s attorney Sen. Bill Haine (D-Alton), would allow seriously ill patients with certain debilitating conditions to use medical marijuana upon the recommendation of their physicians. The House Human Services Committee approved a companion bill — HB 2514 — on March 4.

Both bills are now poised for a full vote on the floor of their respective chambers, but they do not yet have enough committed “yes” votes to be sent to the governor for approval. Patients urgently need your help to make sure these bills pass. Please send your lawmakers an e-mail urging them to vote “yes” on these bills when the time comes.

If you’ve already written your legislators, please follow up with a call.

You can help influence legislators by forwarding this alert to others in Illinois who might like to help patients by taking action themselves.

The House has never voted on a modern medical marijuana bill before, and a similar bill was narrowly defeated in the Senate two years ago. Illinois could very well become the 14th state to enact an effective medical marijuana law, but we need as many people as possible taking action in order to make this a reality. Find out what else you can do to help end the senseless and cruel policy of criminalizing sick and dying patients. (more…)

side note: This is one of the many reasons I left the Dem party years and years ago. Repubs and Dem politicians both have their hands extended to mostly the same industries…..saying: “gimmee, gimmee gimmee. This is why it’s important to keep up on the happenings in DC….you have to know the backgrounds of these dirty SOB’s so we can keep tabs on them. There’s a great website you can reference called Open Secrets, they are a research group that tracks money in DC.

Dave Jamieson
The New Republic
Mad Money

Last week, lawmakers dashed to the podiums of Capitol Hill to condemn AIG and the rest of those bonus-loving scoundrels on Wall Street. But not long before that, some of those same members had been dashing to fundraisers with the very financial bogeymen they were now skewering. Indeed, the line between friend and target is a fine one in Washington, and often the line moves from month to month. Now that the AIG bonus scandal has started to wane–many of the payouts have been returned, and it appears the House legislation designed to tax away the bonuses won’t be taken up by the Senate until mid-April, if at all–it’s time to ask whether the most indignant lawmakers (Democrats, mostly) stand to pay a political price. Here’s a look at those who’ve bashed AIG and Wall Street with one hand after taking with the other.

Representative Charles Rangel

The Harlem Democrat, who’s had a long relationship with AIG, initially tried to cool his pitchfork-wielding colleagues on the bonus issue, cautioning that taxes shouldn’t be used as a “political weapon.” Later, he seemed to do an about-face when he introduced the tax bill on the House floor.

Money Quote: “Dreams have been shattered and homes have been lost because a small group of executives were motivated by greed rather than preserving a system that America and the world depend upon.”

Money Trail: Rangel may have decided he needed a little distance between himself and the insurance giant. As The New York Times has reported, Rangel was pursuing AIG for a $10 million donation toward a school named in his honor as recently as last year. And since 1989 he’s received more than $50,000 in campaign money from the company, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (As with the other campaign figures quoted here, the money came from the company’s political action committee and its employees, not from the company itself.). Three of Rangel’s five biggest donors these days are Citigroup, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan Chase.

Senator Chris Dodd

After it was revealed he played a role in the legislative changes that authorized the AIG bonuses, the Connecticut Democrat spent the latter half of last week on the defensive. In a press release clarifying his position, Dodd cast himself as a staunch crusader against fat bonuses and golden parachutes. (more…)

side note: THIS IS A NEVADATHUNDER MUST READ! We’ve posted a few other Taibbi articles in the past and they have well researched, well written, and in general, he has been someone who has laid out exactly what is going on in this county, and how we arrived at this point. Please pass this article around…..if we are to get out of this mess, we have to have an educated public.

MATT TAIBBI
Rollingstone.com
The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country’s heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That’s $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG’s 2008 losses).

So it’s time to admit it: We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company’s CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: “The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now,” he said. “When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too.” In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being “consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet’s investment portfolio down.”

Liddy made AIG sound like an orphan begging in a soup line, hungry and sick from being left out in someone else’s financial weather. He conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its “pneumonia” was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn’t have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

I. PATIENT ZERO

The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders — people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground — and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people’s money would make his dick bigger. (more…)

side note: Ya…go Bernie! This is why I rank the Dems slightly ahead of the Repubs. (yes, I know Senator Sanders is an Independent, but he votes with the Dems most of the time). The Dems at least have a few people who will stray the company line when they feel they have to. The Repubs on the other hand just don’t give a shit….the most important thing to them is to make sure they stick together….no matter what. Just take a gander at the last 8 years……not one of those whiny, piece-of-shit GOP members would stand up to Bush and his disastrous policies.

By Ken Silverstein
Harpers.org

I reported back in February on the case of Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs employee and derivatives cheerleader who President Obama nominated to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Gensler’s nomination sailed through the Senate Agricultural Committee but Senator Bernie Sanders has placed a hold on the nomination (as has a second senator who is as yet unnamed). A statement from Sanders’s office said:

While Mr. Gensler is clearly an intelligent and knowledgeable person, I cannot support his nomination. Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. He supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which allowed banks like Citigroup to become “too big to fail.” He worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron and the spike in energy prices. At this moment in our history, we need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.

original article

side note: we have a real opportunity to try and either make marijuana legal for people who need it because they’re sick, or to finally treat it like Tobacco and Alcohol, regulate and tax it.

Ten years ago yesterday, the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its landmark report that forever changed the public debate on medical marijuana.

In November 1996, California became the first state to pass a medical marijuana ballot initiative. The following month, the Clinton administration struck back, threatening doctors if they recommended medical marijuana to patients. But the American Medical Association and the American public responded with outrage and condemnation, throwing the Clinton administration off-balance. The next month, in January 1997, the White House drug czar’s office attempted to deflect attention by awarding $1 million in taxpayer money to the Institute of Medicine to conduct a two-year study of medical marijuana.

In 1997 and 1998, MPP brought dozens of patients to a series of IOM hearings to testify about their fear of being arrested. Indeed, many of the patients had already been arrested and/or incarcerated for using medical marijuana.

Then, on March 17, 1999, the Institute of Medicine finally released a report that was not at all what the drug czar’s office had hoped for. The report contradicted the claims of the drug czar and other federals officials on a number of fronts:

1. It showed there is scientific evidence indicating that marijuana has medical uses.

2. It recommended that people with AIDS, cancer, and chronic pain who have an urgent need for marijuana be provided with immediate legal protection while further research is done on marijuana’s medical uses.

3. It debunked the “gateway theory,” saying that there is no evidence that using marijuana will “lead” someone to use cocaine and other drugs.

4. It said there is no evidence that allowing sick people to use medical marijuana will cause an increase in the recreational use of marijuana. (more…)

side note: this truly is a new era. the important thing is that we keep this momentum going. call your representatives, talk to your friends and family and please, stop being so scared to even talk about it. people use use marijuana, for whatever reason, need to know that science is on their side. if you’re not sure about how to talk clearly about marijuana, go read about it, or begin to talk about it with your friends who also participate. Your next session, make a point to talk about the benefits and the drawbacks. get familiar with the arguments. it’s the only way you’ll be able to talk confidently about it. good luck!

We’re in a new era.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government will now defer to state governments on medical marijuana — a 180-degree reversal of the Bush administration’s anti-democratic policies.

The impact was immediate. On the day of Holder’s announcement, New Mexico announced that it had issued the first license that any state government has ever issued to a medical marijuana producer in any state. That first nonprofit provider will be able to grow and sell medical marijuana to card-carrying patients without being harassed or raided by local, state, or federal law enforcement officials. (more…)

side note: There are still some out-dated Dems in both the Senate and the House who didn’t get the damn memo in November: It’s time for CHANGE…we’re sick and tired of the same old bullshit in DC. Either support the people in your state, or you won’t represent us after the next election!

By Bernie Horn
OurFuture.org

Remember what happened to the President’s stimulus legislation? It was watered down through a series of amendments followed by a painful “deal” with three Republicans whose votes were needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. It is happening again with President Obama’s budget. But this time, Democrats are the ones threatening to ruin the legislation.

Over the past few weeks, many Democrats in Congress—especially in the Senate—have been speaking out and organizing against crucial elements of the Obama budget. They are trying to weaken or eliminate the most progressive initiatives, including his plans for health care for all, energy independence, and a shift of the tax burden from the middle class to the wealthy.

Activists need to speak up now, before it’s too late. Both the House and Senate Budget Committees are expected to vote on their respective budget resolutions late this week, and the budget battle will likely reach the House and Senate floors next week.

Here’s the short version of my appeal. Please click here [1]to go to a web page set up by the Campaign for America’s Future that makes it easy for you to contact “Blue Dog” conservative Democrats in the House and would-be Blue Dogs in the Senate. Tell them we elected Barack Obama to bring change to Washington—they should stop blocking the change we need.

Now, here’s the longer version.

President Obama is doing something unusual. He is trying to win preliminary approval for a sweeping range of reforms by putting them in the FY 2010 budget. As Paul Krugman [2] explains, “President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years.” Robert Reich [3] agrees, saying that through this budget “Obamanomics finally reverses and repudiates the economic philosophy that has dominated America since 1981…It’s revolutionary.”

It’s a gutsy strategy, and one that ought to succeed because Democrats control both the House and Senate. You see, Republicans can’t kill this budget—only Democrats can. The budget resolution operates under special rules [4], the most important being it’s not subject to filibuster. So the budget can easily pass both the House and Senate without a single Republican vote. In fact, right now it seems unlikely that any Republican will support Obama’s budget.

Unfortunately, the Obama budget is under intense attack from so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats. The Blue Dog Democrats [5]is a caucus of 47 U.S. Representatives who describe themselves as a “Coalition of Conservative Democrats.” Last week, Senator Evan Bayh announced [6]the creation of a similar group of 16 Democratic Senators (including Joe Lieberman).

Members of both groups have staked out positions against key budget provisions—opposing especially Obama’s health, energy, and tax reform initiatives. (more…)

side note: an insightful view on the current state of the music industry by someone who seen it all. What’s interesting about Mellencamp’s take is he has been front and center during the transformation of the music industry and his conclusion or answer if you will is not so much about music, as it is about all of us and how we live our lives.

John Mellencamp
via Huffingtonpost.com

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business, highlighted by finger-pointing and blame directed against record companies, artists, internet file sharing and any other theories for which a case could be made. We’ve read and heard about the “good old days” and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. After 35 years as an artist in the recording business, I feel somehow compelled, not inspired, to stand up for our fellow artists and tell that side of the story as I perceive it. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.

During the late 80s and early 90s the industry underwent a transformation and restructured, catalyzed by three distinct factors. Record companies no longer viewed themselves as conduits for music, but as functions of the manipulations of Wall Street. Companies were acquired, conglomerated, bought and sold; public stock offerings ensued, shareholders met. At this very same time, new Nielsen monitoring systems — BDS (Broadcast Data Systems) and SoundScan were employed to document record sales and radio airplay. Prior to 1991, the Billboard charts were done by manual research; radio stations and record stores across the country were polled to determine what was on their playlists and what the big sellers were. Thus, giving Oklahoma City, for example, an equivalent voice to Chicago’s in terms of potential impact on the music scene. BDS keeps track of gross impressions through an encoded system that counts the number of plays or “spins” that a song receives. That number is, thereafter, multiplied by the number of potential listeners. SoundScan was put in place at retail centers to track sales by monitoring scanned barcodes of units crossing the counter. A formula was devised whereby the charts were based 20% on the SoundScan number and 80% on BDS results. The system had changed from one that measured popularity to one that was driven by population. (more…)

side note: I just love the Netherlands! If you haven’t been, well, then it should be your next vacation destination. If you have been….it should still be your next vacation destination! Click on the “original article” link at the bottom to see additional photos.

GreenUpgrader.com

Ever found that you drink a little too much on holidays? Now you can sleep it off inside of a wine cask in these repurposed 14,500 litre casks turned into hotel rooms. The Hotel de Vrouwe van Stavoren in the Netherlands offers you the opportunity to choose from one of their four upcycled rooms that are amazingly comfortable looking considering their start in life.

The rooms offer two single beds as well as an attached sitting room and bathroom. These rooms have been pretty popular with tourists in the sleepy village of Stavoren. If you get tired of the in-room television and radio, you can rent a bicycle and travel along one of the many popular bike paths to see the old growth forests and beach. There is even a famous statue of “Lady van Stavoren” to keep an eye on the harbour as well as an eccentric local story to go along with it.

The wine casks are a great reuse as hotel rooms because of their ability to seal tightly. Visitors have stayed in the hotels four special recycled rooms from all over the world. Prices for the rooms range from approximately $150 USD a night to about $40 USD a night depending on the length of your stay and the season you go in. How can you afford not to?
Hotels are really getting in on the green movement with their repurposed hotels being made out of everything from airplanes, to shipping containers or even drain pipes. Who knows what else they’ll be making hotel rooms out of next?! These hotels are helping to show the world what can be done with “trash” and are helping to change people’s perceptions.

original article

side note: This is some scary stuff. As we have seen time and time again throughout the world….when religious zealots get control of a powerful military, bad things can take place. We had a religious nutjob in the White House the last 8 years and we started in effect a religious war in the Middle East, had the people in power try and slow down, if not completely stop the advancements of science. Then we can take a look at what happened on 9/11…..there were religious leaders who took advantage of poor, uneducated folks and literally brain-washed them. I don’t give a shit what side of the fence you’re on…..Christians, Muslims, Jews….etc. If you allow yourself to stray too far to one side……you then need to take a step back.

By ETHAN BRONNER
The New York Times

JERUSALEM — The publication late last week of eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers alleging acute mistreatment of Palestinian civilians in the recent Gaza fighting highlights a debate here about the rules of war. But it also exposes something else: the clash between secular liberals and religious nationalists for control over the army and society.

Several of the testimonies, published by an institute that runs a premilitary course and is affiliated with the left-leaning secular kibbutz movement, showed a distinct impatience with religious soldiers, portraying them as self-appointed holy warriors.

A soldier, identified by the pseudonym Ram, is quoted as saying that in Gaza, “the rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles and their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war.”

Dany Zamir, the director of the one-year premilitary course who solicited the testimonies and then leaked them, leading to a promise by the military to investigate, is quoted in the transcripts as expressing anguish over the growing religious nationalist elements of the military.

“If clerics are anointing us with oil and sticking holy books in our hands, and if the soldiers in these units aren’t representative of the whole spectrum of the Jewish people, but rather of certain segments of the population, what can we expect?” he said. “To whom do we complain?”

For the first four decades of Israel’s existence, the army — like many of the country’s institutions — was dominated by kibbutz members who saw themselves as secular, Western and educated. In the past decade or two, religious nationalists, including many from the settler movement in the West Bank, have moved into more and more positions of military responsibility. (In Israeli society, they are a growing force, distinct from, and more modern than, the black-garbed ultra-Orthodox, who are excused from military service.) (more…)

side note: We need for the President to be successful. I hope he is asking for outside help or advice at times……we need to make sure he doesn’t do what dubya did…isolate himself with yes men.

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The New York Times

Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administration’s bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy — specifically, the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.

After all, we’ve just been through the firestorm over the A.I.G. bonuses, during which administration officials claimed that they knew nothing, couldn’t do anything, and anyway it was someone else’s fault. Meanwhile, the administration has failed to quell the public’s doubts about what banks are doing with taxpayer money.

And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.

It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone. (more…)