January 5, 2013

Martina Navratilova.....lefty tweeter

I was on the espn tennis home page, checking out some stories in advance of the upcoming Australian Open. They run various and sundry tweets from ESPN's tennis columnists, players and other people associated with the sport. Surprisingly, they displayed Martina's tweets, none of which had anything to do with tennis:



http://espn.go.com/tennis/

Martina !!!!

January 5, 2013

White House Objects To Whistleblower Protections In NDAA, Surprising Key Backer

WASHINGTON -- The White House did not inform a key Senate backer of whistleblower protections ahead of time that President Barack Obama would issue a signing statement circumventing those provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, according to the senator's office.

The protections for federal government contractors had been pushed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) during the drafting of the NDAA over the last several months. After Obama signed the bill into law on Wednesday, he issued a signing statement objecting to those sections without having alerted McCaskill, her office told The Huffington Post.

The signing statement is yet another chapter in the president's ongoing clash with whistleblower advocates. Obama, who has come under fire for his administration's aggressive prosecution of leak cases, issued the statement despite the fact that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had already removed from the bill protections for contractors working in the intelligence community.

The whistleblower language backed by McCaskill and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was designed to extend protections to 12 million employees of federal contractors if they disclosed information they reasonably believed would expose illegality, gross waste or gross mismanagement within the federal procurement system. The nonprofit Government Accountability Project, which lobbied for the measures, said they would apply to Defense Department contractors, subcontractors and grant recipients permanently and to all civilian federal agency contractors under a four-year pilot program. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/obama-whistleblower-protections-claire-mccaskill_n_2403248.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

January 5, 2013

Noam Chomsky on The Gravest Threat to World Peace

AlterNet / By Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: The Gravest Threat to World Peace
Americans are kept in the dark about consequences of a possible nuclear-armed Mideast, and the US's potential role.

January 4, 2013 |


Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that "the only country mentioned more (than Israel) was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region."

The two candidates agreed that a nuclear Iran is the gravest threat to the region, if not the world, as Romney explicitly maintained, reiterating a conventional view.

On Israel, the candidates vied in declaring their devotion to it, but Israeli officials were nevertheless unsatisfied. They had "hoped for more 'aggressive' language from Mr. Romney," according to the reporters. It was not enough that Romney demanded that Iran not be permitted to "reach a point of nuclear capability."

Arabs were dissatisfied too, because Arab fears about Iran were "debated through the lens of Israeli security instead of the region's," while Arab concerns were largely ignored – again the conventional treatment. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/world/noam-chomsky-gravest-threat-world-peace

January 4, 2013

Donald Kaul: How a Bit of Satire Earned Me Round-the-Clock Abuse & Threats of Violence from Gun Nuts

OtherWords / By Donald Kaul

How a Bit of Satire Earned Me Round-the-Clock Abuse and Threats of Violence from Gun-Nuts
I may now be closer to believing the NRA is an organization of terrorists.

January 4, 2013 |


I think I hit a nerve.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a thoughtful, well-reasoned column suggesting ways to cut down on gun violence in our ever more violent society. It proposed, among other things:

* Repealing the Second Amendment and with it the right to buy assault weapons at will.
* Declaring the National Rifle Association a terrorist organization and making membership illegal.
* Confiscating all assault, semi-automatic, and other military-style weapons designed to kill large numbers of people very quickly.

As I said, thoughtful, well reasoned.

I also proposed, satirically and more in sorrow than in anger, tying House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to the back of a pickup truck and dragging them around until they agreed to exert some control over guns.

Well, you would have thought I’d suggesting selling Sarah Palin to the Taliban. The Internet exploded in outrage and emails by the hundreds — hundreds! — came flooding in. My phone started ringing incessantly too. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/how-bit-satire-earned-me-round-clock-abuse-and-threats-violence-gun-nuts

January 4, 2013

Workers love to write off their Starbucks; Coffee chain is the most expensed restaurant in the US

from the NY Daily News:



When it comes to business expenses in the US, it seems that Starbucks is the most popular fueling station for employees, according to a travel and expense management company.

In a recently released report from Certify, employees expensed nearly 21,000 transactions at the coffee shop retailer with the green and white logo, with bills averaging $7.54.

While Starbucks fueled many a business meeting with assorted caffeinated products and snacks, the next most popular dining destination for employees was none other than McDonald’s, which raked in about 12,420 transactions averaging $6.73, followed by Subway, which recorded 8,627 transactions.

Average bills there clocked in at $11.88. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/starbucks-expensed-restaurant-article-1.1232326#ixzz2H1OnrYPt

January 4, 2013

John Nichols: Congress Will Be Diminished by the Departure of Dennis Kucinch

from The Nation:


Congress Will Be Diminished by the Departure of Dennis Kucinch
John Nichols on January 3, 2013 - 10:12 AM ET


Dennis Kucinich has had many political lives. Elected to the Cleveland City Council in 1969 at age 23, he was in 1977 elected as that great American city’s “boy mayor.” Kucinich’s refusal to bend to the demands of the downtown banks and the utility corporations that wanted him to privatize public services led to a withering electoral assault that would eventually force him from office.

For much of the 1980s, Kucinich was a political pariah, running and losing races in his native Ohio and slowly fading from the national limelight he had once enjoyed.

Then, in the “Republican revolution” year of 1994, Kucinich stunned local and state (and even a few natrional) observers by emerging as one of only a handful of Democratic legislative candidates to upset a sitting Republican state senator. Two years later, he ran for Congress against one of Newt Gingrich’s Republican lieutenants and won a Cleveland-area House seat.

The Kucinich who came to Congress in the 1990s was every bit as incorruptible and uncompromising on principle as the “boy mayor” who fought Cleveland’s crony capitalists in the 1970s. He opposed trade deals, deregulation schemes and, most notably, the wars of whim of Democratic and Republican presidents. By 2000, he was arguing that Democrats should include in their platform a proposal for a “Department of Peace” that would use diplomacy, development aid and environmental initiatives rather than drones, occupations and crackdowns on basic liberties to create real security for the United States and the planet. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/172003/congress-will-be-diminished-departure-dennis-kucinch

January 4, 2013

How “public-private parternships” extract private profit from public infrastructure projects

from Dollars & Sense:


By DARWIN BONDGRAHAM | November/December 2012


In 1995, California granted a private company the right to construct express toll lanes along the State Route 91 freeway in Orange County, a region inhabited by millions, with some of the heaviest traffic flows in the nation. This was the first modern privatized highway in the United States. The California Private Transportation Company (CPTC), a partnership of three corporations—Level 3 Communications, Granite Construction, Inc., and the French toll operator Cofiroute SA—completed the project with $130 million in mostly privately sourced money. To recoup this expense, and to make a profit, CPTC was given a 35-year concession to operate the toll route. State leaders promised that the private company would provide greater efficiency and savings, and that the public would benefit from clear and safe roads, even during a time of government budget constraints.

It did not take long for things to unravel. The SR-91 toll lanes did not unclog what local traffic reporters referred to as the “Corona Crawl,” so state and local officials sought to expand nearby highways to ease worsening congestion and improve safety. When transportation offices announced the improvement plans, CPTC unexpectedly filed a lawsuit, citing a non-compete clause in their contract to build and operate the toll lanes. The people of California were legally blocked from improving their highways because it could reduce private profits. In 2003, the Orange County Transportation Authority was forced to purchase the SR-91 toll lanes for $208 million to put an end to the fiasco.

In 2004, California’s state legislature halted the experiment in privatizing highways. But that did not stop other states from pushing forward with privatization. In Virginia and Texas, several major privatized freeways were built in the 2000s. Then, in 2009, things came full circle. California once again authorized so-called public-private partnerships to procure highways and other public goods. Although privatization of transportation projects has a tarnished record, owing much to California’s costly experiments over a decade ago, all across the United States major highway and other infrastructure upgrades are once again being handed over to private investors, now under the moniker of “public-private partnerships,” or P3.

P3 is at least three things:



A New Kind of Privatization

To understand the P3 privatization model, it is best to start with the basics of the traditional public model of infrastructure development. In the United States, this is known as the “design-bid-build” process. Take, for example, a state highway. State engineers usually design a project, sometimes by contracting out work to engineering firms. With blueprints ready, the state department of transportation allows companies to bid against one another for the construction contract. Meanwhile, the state borrows money by selling bonds, usually at low cost, because banks compete to serve as underwriters. The state then uses the bond proceeds to pay the lowest-bidding construction company to build the project. Bond holders are paid back over a longer period, usually from gasoline taxes or other tax revenues dedicated to infrastructure funding. The entire process is characterized by the monopoly power of the state (assumed to be acting in the public interest) forcing private companies to compete against one another, and so to drive down costs. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2012/1112bondgraham.html

January 4, 2013

Japan's Growing Sovereign Debt Time Bomb

from Der Spiegel:


The eyes of the financial world are on Greece and other heavily indebted euro-zone countries. But Japan is in even worse shape. The country's debt load is immense and growing, to the point that a quarter of its budget goes to servicing it. The government in Tokyo has done little to change things.

Today's Tokyo has become a permanent mecca of consumption, its boroughs seemingly divided according to target markets. The city's Sugamo district, for example, is dominated by the elderly. Escalators in the subway station there go extra slow, while the stores along the Jizo Dori shopping street offer items such as canes, anti-aging cream and tea for sore joints. The Hurajuku neighborhood, on the other hand, is teeming with fashionistas made up to look like Manga characters.

This world of glitter, however, is but an illusion. For years, the world's third-largest economy has been unapologetically living on borrowed cash, more so than any other country in the world. In recent decades, Japanese governments have piled up debts worth some €11 trillion ($14.6 trillion). This corresponds to 230 percent of annual gross domestic product, a debt level that is far higher than Greece's 165 percent.

Such profligate spending has turned Japan into a ticking time bomb -- and an example that Europe can learn from as it seeks to tackle its own sovereign debt crisis. Japan, the postwar economic miracle, has never managed to recover from the stock market crash and real estate crisis that convulsed the country in the 1990s. The government had to bail out banks; insurance companies went bust. Since then, annual growth rates have often been paltry and tax revenues don't even cover half of government expenditures. Indeed, the country has gotten trapped in an inescapable spiral of deficit spending. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/massive-japanese-sovereign-debt-could-become-global-problem-a-875641.html

January 4, 2013

Connecticut Town to Burn Violent Video Games as Sandy Hook Returns to School

from the Guardian UK, via AlterNet:



A Connecticut community is to hold an amnesty of violent video gamesin the wake of last month's mass shooting in Newtown.

Organisers Southington SOS plan to offer gift certificates in exchange for donated games, which will be burned. The group, a coalition of local organisations, says its actions do not assert that video games were the cause of the killings in nearby Newtown, but argues that violent games and films desensitize children to "acts of violence".

Pupils from Sandy Hook elementary school, where 26 people were killed on 17 December, returned to classes for the first time on Thursday in the neighbouring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook elementary is still being treated as a crime scene and it is unclear if it will ever reopen.

The video game amnesty will take place on 12 January in Southington, a 30-minute drive east from Newtown. The town of Southington has provided a dumpster, organisers said, where violent video games, CDs or DVDs will be collected. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/connecticut-town-burn-violent-video-games-sandy-hook-returns-school

January 4, 2013

Cash only @ the Holy See

from the Detroit Free Press:



Tourists visiting Vatican City this week have experienced something decidedly non-heavenly -- they cannot use credit cards. It's cash only.

The reason? No bank will process credit card transactions from the small city-state. Apparently the Vatican has not complied with European Union banking regulations that safeguard against money laundering.

The Associated Press reported today that Italy's central bank blocked the electronic payments as of Dec. 31. Italian banks are not authorized to operate at the Vatican. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20130103/FEATURES07/130103046/Cash-only-Vatican-City-no-credit-cards?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p