Filed under: Advice, Health, Healthy Eating, 30-Day Nutrition Challenge
The official start day of the 30 Day Nutrition Challenge is April 12th! That being said, you can start your own challenge at any time. Just make sure you give yourself 30 days to remove these foods from your diet.
Before you start there are a few … Read more
Confronting the Occupation: Haiti, Neo-liberalism, and the US Occupation
Written by Kali Akuno
National Organizer, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The three-month marker for the earthquake that devastated Haiti is now upon us. The significance of this marker is not one determined by the Haitian people, but rather by the enemies of the Haitian people and peoples’ movements throughout the world.
According to Milton Friedman and the intellectual guru’s of neo-liberalism there are critical timelines and stages that must be strictly adhered by to successfully capitalize on a catastrophe and transform a society. The three month marker is one of these critical timelines, and in the words of Friedman himself “ a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not seize the opportunity to act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity.” Based on experiences in Iraq, Sri Lanka, and New Orleans over the past ten years several things must be in place at the three-month marker in order for the catastrophe to be fully exploited. These include: sufficient military force to contain the population, the dispersal and fragmentation of the affected population to limit its ability to mobilize resistance, and the legislation and implementation of a new policy regime that seeks to privatize nearly everything and eliminate all financial controls.
One of the central enemies of the Haitian people is the guru’s of the ideology of neo-liberalism. These guru’s are the neo-liberal theoreticians and policy hacks who control Wall Street, the US Federal Reserve, the Bretton Woods institutions – the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, and most of the central banks of the world since the 1990’s. These gurus, most particularly the theoreticians, created a script in the 1970’s to exploit catastrophes, natural and human created, not only for material gain but radically regressive social transformation.
After waging an incessant ideological war against socialism and communism the theoreticians won critical support amongst the commanders of government and the captains of capital by the early 1980’s and were able to start fully unleashing their fury on the world after the test run of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile during the 1970’s. This neo-liberal script is a form of what Karl Marx termed “primitive accumulation”, and what David Harvey calls “accumulation by dispossession”, and is becoming popularly known via the works of Naomi Klein as “disaster capitalism” and the “shock doctrine”.
A key ideological and strategic tool of this neo-liberal script is the concept of “humanitarian interventionism.” Despite how well intentioned this concept sounds, it is a tool developed through the auspices of NATO, under the guiding hand of the US government, to be executed through the UN to allow the imperialist powers to legally and morally interfere in the domestic affairs of weaker nations.
Stated plainly, it is colonialism dressed in fine linen. As a practice it gained legitimacy after the imperialist induced atrocities in Rwanda, Burundi, and the former Yugoslav republic in the 1990’s to allegedly put an end to crimes against humanity such as ethnic cleansing and genocide. In the wake of these atrocities the UN under the direction of the US and its European allies has executed the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in all of the aforementioned countries and the Congo, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti.
The latest imposition of humanitarian interventionism in Haiti was in 2004, after the US overthrow of President Aristide and the Lavalas government, allegedly to restore order and maintain peace. But, this cut was just a deeper penetration of the affliction of neo-liberalism imposed upon Haiti by US imperialism with the willing aid of Haiti’s own decadent ruling class beginning in the 1980’s under the regime of “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude Duvalier.
The current US occupation (the third since 1915) of Haiti removes the mask of the UN occupation in place since 2004, and is promoted and (sadly) widely unquestioned, in the US and throughout the world, as a “humanitarian operation” allegedly to stabilize the situation in Haiti in order to provide quake relief – which is nothing more than a perpetuation of the long standing racist view of the US government that the Haitian people are incapable of adequately presiding over their own affairs.
The fact is, with the advancements and refinements in the application of the “shock doctrine” stemming from the occupation of Iraq, the political transformation of Sri Lanka following the Tsunami of 2004, and the social and demographic transformation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the US government and transnational capital are seeking to apply a “coup de grace” on the people’s movement in Haiti in order to clear the way to remake it as a neo-liberal paradise.
Stakes is High
The stakes at play in the US occupation couldn’t be much higher for the people’s movement and the working and peasant masses of Haiti. Under US military rule the overwhelming bulk of the international relief aid (materials and finances) is centrally controlled by a handful of relief agencies hand picked by the US and the UN, who along with elements of the Haitian elite, control who gets anything and when, and thus turned relief aid into a weapon of social and political control. The major ports of entry into the country and its main transportation arteries are under tight US control restricting people’s ability to organize and mobilize under the ongoing dire circumstances.
Potential routes of refuge to the US via the sea and the Dominican Republic via land have been effectively closed and legally barred. And the political repression unleashed after the liquidation of the Lavalas government in 2004 by the Haitian ruling class, former military and Tonton Macoute forces, and MINUSTA (the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti) is intensifying, particularly with the ongoing banning of the Fanmi Lavalas Party from running in upcoming elections. And the hunting down by the US military and mercenary forces of political prisoners associated with the Lavalas movement and government, who were liberated by the collapse of several prison facilities during the January 12th earthquake.
To top it all off, the Hurricane season is approaching rapidly, and no one, not the US military, the UN and NGO relief agencies, or the Haitian government is prepared to face it and the potential calamities it could bring, particularly as it relates to further displacement, the deepening of food insecurity, and the spread of infectious diseases.
And these are just the short-term issues posed by the US occupation and the militarization of the relief and reconstruction effort. The long-term issue is the suppression of the people’s movement for self-determination and the imposition of permanent structures of dependency and subservience that the US government and the transnational ruling class are seeking to impose via a prolonged occupation. US imperialism is seeking to do no less to Haiti than it did with the occupation of 1915 – 1934, and that is to remove the threat of social revolution in Haiti and rebuild the Haitian military to serve as a repressive instrument against it in the service of transnational capital.
The US occupation of Haiti is not just a singular containment initiative. It is also an initiative to further the rollback of progressive social transformation that has swept large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean since the late 1990’s. The first major rollback initiative under Obama’s command was the Honduran coup that successfully ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The second, albeit with far less US intervention, was the election of a right wing government in Chile, under the leadership of billionaire President Sebastian Pinera. The occupation of Haiti is the third and by far the most deeply penetrating of these rollback initiatives.
With it US imperialism is seeking to contain initiatives like ALBA, which in English translates into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, initiated and principally led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an alternative of the FTAA. ALBA, through the solidarity initiatives of the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, was making significant headway in Haiti prior to the earthquake with the creation of rural hospitals and schools and the provisioning of subsidized oil and low-interest development loans. Under the US occupation these initiatives are being stunted and contained in their growth. The greatest rollback threat however, is the occupation itself. It is a stark reminder to the aspiring progressive governments and social movements in Latin American and the Caribbean that as far as US imperialism is concerned the Monroe Doctrine is still in full effect over its historically claimed “backyard”, and that there are limits to the progressive reforms it is willing to tolerate.
Solidarity and Joint Struggle: What is to be done?
The US occupation is not just a problem for Haitians, and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is and must be understood as a problem for the progressive social movement within the US itself. Sadly, the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) has been divided and largely demobilized in relation to Haiti since the 2004 coup, in large part due to differences over how to view, understand, and relate to Fanmi Lavalas and President Aristide. Many have succumbed to accepting the grave distortions and outright lies perpetuated by the US government and right wing and ultra-left Haitian forces against President Aristide, Fanmi Lavalas and the Lavalas Movement.
This position ignores the popular will of the Haitian masses and distorts the significant contributions of the Lavalas movement and government towards the realization of a participatory democracy and a people-centered path of economic and social development as an alternative to neo-liberalism. Similar dynamics have also occurred within Caribbean and Latino social movements within the US. And for the most part Haiti and the UN, and now, US occupations hardly register at all within the largely white dominated anti-war movement (gaining even less attention than the ongoing occupation of Palestine). Undoubtedly, racism, particularly the long-standing specter of the Black hoards of Haiti, is at play in this sad scenario.
This situation must change, and the varied forces of the Black Liberation Movement must lead the way. The Haitian masses and popular movement without question are and will continue to fight valiantly to end the US occupation, but they cannot be left to fight on their own. It is incumbent upon the forces of the Black Liberation Movement to organize a multi-national and/or racial anti-imperialist initiative and coalition within the US that fights for the immediate end of the US occupation and the neo-liberal impositions it seeks to impose.
The initiative must also take a committed stand in support of the demands of the Haitian popular movement that call for the return of Aristide, freedom for political prisoners, reparations and restitution (particularly from France for the brutal Indemnity imposed in 1824), and the cancellation of foreign debt and the negation of their structural adjustment conditionalities. In short, we must seize the opportunity to create our own script to counter neo-liberalism and humanitarian interventionism in support of the people’s struggle for self-determination and sovereignty in Haiti.
This initiative must be conceived as one of joint struggle. One that is clear on the mutual and reinforcing self-interests of the social movement in Haiti, with its peasant and working class base, and the social movements in the US, and their multi-national, working class base, in the context of the ever increasing interrelated and interdependent capitalist world-system we live in.
Our actions should not be contingent on charity or (worse) pity. But a firm grasps that as the social movement in Haiti goes, so goes the potential for the social movement in the US, for the allowance of one tyranny is the spawn of a hundred more. As we gather our forces to support the resistance of the Haitian people, and join with it in common struggle against imperialism, we will appear as a new defiant spirit and a force to be reckoned with.
Kali Akuno is based in Atlanta, GA and works as the Director of Education, Training and Field Operations at the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) and is in the process of writing a book about his experiences organizing in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina tentatively called “Witness to a Cleansing”.
Filed under: Advice, Healthy Eating, 30-Day Nutrition Challenge
So where can one look for recipes that adhere to the tenets of our 30-Day Nutrition Challenge? I’ve already told you what you can and cannot eat. And given some advice on how to ween yourself off coffee, sugar and the other off-limit foods of this … Read more
Ever since the first sundial cast its shadow we’ve been looking for new and inventive ways to tell the time. Timepieces that talk to you, use LED lights instead of numbers and spell out the time in words are just some of the results, and although the Reflectius concept from Art Lebedev Studio (think Optimus keyboard) uses a standard digital readout as the display, the way it achieves this is anything but standard. ..
Tags: Art Lebedev,
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Last week Bergamot Station in Santa Monica had a series of openings. I was especially excited to see two very different SoCal artists.
Mike Watt, 
punk pioneer, Minutemen, Secondmen, super session bass-man, plays with Iggy, jams econo, lives in Pedro (San Pedro, our local South Bay port town–which as Watt once showed me on a tour that include the WPA mural at the post office–has north, south, east and west facing beaches!) now exhibiting his photographs of the hometown at Track 16; and
Craig Kaufman–a Los Angeles artist now based in the Philippines, 
part of the New Cool movement here in the 60s and 70s, who forms luminescent acrylic sculptures–at Frank Lloyd. Both men revel in nature, using different mediums and expressions to show their reverence.
Next week I take off for Baja California to see what promises to be an incredible, color saturated art show, Virgins Warriors & Dreamers at La Casa de la Tunel in Tijuana, featuring Clark V Fox, Elizabeth Conroy Benati and Peggy Reavey.
In his current series, Fox–who founded The Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. and continued its development for 14 years–explores the history of Native Americans 
and the vibrant culture buried by the white man’s assumptions and sensibility using pop culture iconography.
Clark is an amazing man, a real champion of contemporary art, and a wonderful painter. The two other artists are old and good friends of his, well-respected and fine painters.
Reavey’s mixed media artworks engage history, re-imagining familiar figures from Anne Frank to Meriwether Lewis and Sacagawea, altering outcomes while Benati’s works of social realism are inspired by her love of Venezuela, its people, and the intensity of the noonday Caribbean sun.
Plus I want to see who is showing up as subjects of paintings on velvet. For while Bart Simpson was everywhere, plus a some renderings of Jim Morrison, but very few portraits of Elvis…
More photos of the art work on La Figa
Viadeo, the social network for business, has added five applications built on Google’s OpenSocial platform. These apps are Twitter, YouTube, PollDaddy, a doc sharer called Ayos iShare and Google Presentation.
iShare will allow users to upload any file up to 100 MB and post it for download on their account. The Twitter app will allow a user to post their Tweet automatically on their Viadeo page. The Google Presentation function will allow them to convert Powerpoint presentations to Google and share them.
Sponsor
Viadeo is down in the ranks. Compete.com gives LinkedIn over 14 million visitors a month compared to 157,000 for Xing and 96,000 for Viadeo. Certainly, the ability of users to branch out and back with these apps should make it more appealing.
The question remains, however, not which business-focused social networks have the most features, or the most users, but the most utility. In that respect, I fear they are neck and neck. After years on the service, and over a year on unemployment, all I got, even with an old supervisor firing me job ads via LinkedIn, was a quick phone interview that went nowhere. That’s a guy with some experience, at some high-profile companies, actively searching, with friends on the look-out.
ReadWriteWeb has theorized before that part of the limitations of LinkedIn, in particular, is the fact that it’s a walled system. If its API opened up, it would benefit the social web as a whole, perhaps. But would it help the job seeker? The hiring manager? The sales or biz dev person looking for contacts? I am not sure.
But one person’s experience could be anomalous. So let me ask you, the ReadWriteWeb reader: What difference has your membership in a business-oriented social network like LinkedIn, Xing or Viadeo made in your career in the last year?
This past week at a special interactive showcase in New York City, we got a chance to see some of the latest innovations utilizing Intel’s technologies, as well as what Intel is currently working on in their research labs. The event highlighted 16 different pieces of technology for the home, healthcare, fashion, social media, and transportation spaces. However, we will be focusing on the ones that especially caught our eye.
For the Home
Lighting Fast Movie Downloads – The public’s insatiable need for instant gratification only reinforces how important it is for companies to deliver content to our computers, cell phones, and mobile devices at a faster rate. Developed by Intel with the codename Light Peak, there will be new high speed optical cable shipping in 2010. These thin pieces of optical fiber measure about the width of a human hair, and they will enable ‘Light Peak’ to transfer data over thin flexible wires and deliver download speeds we could only dreamed of five years ago. A good example that Intel is using to explain why this technology is so incredible, is that the library of Congress currently contains over 10 terabytes of information. Using Light Peak technology which downloads data at a speed of 10 billion bits per second, you could theoretically download the entire Library of Congress in 17 minutes.
Intel Intelligent Home Energy Management Proof of Concept – More than ever, monitoring energy consumption is an important variable in our day to day lives. The Intel Intelligent Home Energy Management Proof of Concept will be powered by the atom processor and lets you monitor thermostat temperature, turn off appliances, and it can even shut off home security systems that are all connected through a home network. It will also give suggestions for better energy management and conservation. You can check out the video demo here.
Fashion & Shopping
3D Scanning with a Digital Camera – With the public’s thirst for anything 3D growing at a monster rate, Intel is busy at researching how photography could be used in the future to allow amateurs to create 3D visual content, without the budget of Avatar or years of education. Intel also hopes to bring to the masses the ability to make life-like avatars from real life images created without any special equipment – just your average digital camera and PC. Currently this research is being conducted in Intel’s China labs.
Virtual Worlds for Fashion – Have you ever considered the waste that goes into fashion designing? Yards of material goes wasted after that haute couture gown is completed, and the scraps can’t be used for anything else. Well Intel and the Fashion Research Institute are looking to change all that by using fashion-specific 3D virtual worlds which will offer a platform for designing apparel with accuracy and detail, without requiring 3D CAD tools. You will be able to recreate prototypes over and over again, thus eliminating waste of materials and this will also allow designers to collaborate and share ideas with fellow designers across the country.
In order to bring this concept into a reality, Shenlei Winkler, CEO of the Fashion Research Institute has enlisted a group of students to create a virtual runway which includes four ‘model bots.’ FRI will be providing technical fashion expertise to engineer the technical aspects, while the students will be developing their real-life collections for the model bots on the virtual runway. So soon enough, actual human models may be the thing of the past.
Hands Free Technology
The 48 Core Processor – The 48 Core Processor is currently being researched and tested at Intel labs, and if all goes well, it could soon let us interact with our gear in a totally new way. This powerful system could possibly lead a computer to have the same ‘vision’ as its human counterpart. Basically, the chip could allow you to interact with a computer on a more human level. The need for mice, keyboards, or any type of peripheral device may be a thing of the past if this technology goes as far as it plans too by letting the computer know what you are thinking without even pointing or clicking.
Understand Me – So you think the iPhone or Andriod phones are so cool? Well what if these phones were just in their infancy in regards to intelligence. Understand Me is a project that aims to make phones understand their owner, through the use of sensors, movements, heart rates, and device usage. What this will do is enable the cellphone to help us in real world situations, transforming your phone into your own personal travel adviser or secretary. The possibilities could be endless, unfortunately that does mean if you lose your phone, you really are screwed.
Transportation
Connected Car – Intel and Visteon demoed what could be the latest addition to your vehicle that allows you to connect to the internet, GPS, weather, content streaming, and so much more. The Connected Car is essentially a console system for your car that will also work with an iPod, it has USB and Bluetooth support, and basically encourages you to never to leave your car, if only for a bathroom break.
Communication and Social Media
Dispute Finder – Wikipedia is great but is it always accurate? Not really, especially when it relies heavily on user inputted data, which at times could be skewed. Dispute Finder is a project that works as a cross check when comparing data on the internet. It will take the information you are currently searching for, and find if infact it is being disputed by another source. Dispute Finder is currently available as an extension for Firefox in the Intel Labs that reads the text of every page that the browser finds, and then highlights the disputed content for easy accessibility. What triggers the Dispute Finder into action are statements like “Falsely claimed that X” and “experts no longer believe that.” I can only imagine that in the end the Dispute Finder will find that just about everything is disputed on the internet…
So there you have it, a look into some of the pinnacle innovations from Intel Labs and the devices utilizing Intel research and technologies. What this means for us is that Intel has many new projects in the works that will influence our lives in the not too distant future.
Q1 earnings are officially set to begin.
Things will get off to a slow start, but Alcoa (AA) is big, and that comes tomorrow afternoon.
For some perspective on the overall earnings challenge, here’s Mike O’Rourke of BTIG:
Although spring is not generally the season to be jolly, most investors are hoping it will be this year. Over the course of the next three weeks, 315 companies or 63% of the S&P 500 are expected to report earnings. Going into Q1 earnings season, the 2010 earnings estimates is $78.12, indicating that as of Friday’s close, the S&P 500 is trading 15.3x expected earnings. That is a very slight discount to the historic long term multiple of 15.9x. Current 2011 estimates are an aggressive $93.55.
How aggressive is that?
If the $78 number is achieved, S&P 500 earnings will need to grow 20% year over year to achieve the 2011 estimate. Even just 6 months ago, we would have been enthused to have the confidence to believe $78 for 2010 could be a done deal. Likewise, without even having Q1 2010 earnings in the books, 2011’s $93 are a long way away. To put these numbers in perspective, peak earnings were registered in 2006 at $87.72, followed by $82.54 in 2007 and $49.51 in 2008. Last year’s earnings were $56.86. As it stands now, 2010’s $78 is looking pretty good. The broad economy appears to be entering a sweet spot from a sentiment perspective which will likely provide enough momentum to keep the recovery on or ahead of schedule over the next 6 months.
20% over a snapback year would be pretty startling, and the idea of earnings surpassing 2007 is equally amazing.
We’ll come back to this subject a lot, we imagine, over the next several weeks (and of course the coming quarters). But we thought this was a nice taste of what the market is expecting right now.
Join the conversation about this story »
No big surprise here. The euro is moving up sharply on news of the official not-quite-a-bailout of Greece.
Equity futures are also up, vindicating the traders who piled into stocks on Friday, pushing is briefly over 11,000.
The only question is: will shorts use this opportunity to load up and put more pressure on the ECB, or will they ease of for awhile.
Join the conversation about this story »
Idea
lly you should use a reusable cup rather than a disposable cup. I try to …. how about you?
Some coffee places even reward you for using your own cup. Starbucks gives a 10 cent / cup discount when you bring your own cup.
But sometimes you just need to use a disposable cup … but rather than toss it when the coffee is done — can you find another use for it?
"58 billion paper coffee cups are thrown in the trash each year. … teamed up with the betacup to bring you the Coffee Cup Challenge! … Enter your awesome idea for a paper cup reuse and win a solar-powered Voltaic backpack!"
For the rules see the link at the bottom of this post …
Via: Instructables LINK
American Idol is headed to Springfield.
Next month’s season finale of The Simpsons will feature voiceover cameos by all four Idol judges — Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi, and Ellen DeGeneres — and A.I. host Ryan Seacrest as Moe the Bartender joins the judges’ panel on TV’s No. 1 talent show!
The episode, entitled “Judge Me Tender,” airs May 23 on FOX!
Everyone has seen trucks idling when they seem to be "just waiting" at a truck or rest stop. Many drivers keep the engine running to allow for heating / cooling and even to run appliances in their sleeper cab.
While diesels are efficient they are polluting … and use fuel at the rate of a gallon / hour at idle.
TSE – Truck Stop Electrification "… helps drivers, their trucks and our planet rest a bit easier. Supported by Carbonfund.org … reduces tailpipe emissions … system consists of an in-cab service module … that heats, cools, and powers the interior of the truck … without forcing the engine to burn diesel while saving about a gallon of diesel per hour. … over one hundred locations throughout the United States."
Via: CarbonFund.org Blog LINK
Her antics last month protesting the US’s continued fighting of the war in Afghanistan launched her back into the spotlight. The media crowded around Cindy last month when she criticized Obama and they continue to help Cindy regain her presence by covering every book-signing and little speech she gives.
Last week Cindy was in Scranton, Pennsylvania where she spoke to a tiny crowd about peace but one media report reveals that her speech was riddled with anti-American sentiment and contempt for our veterans and their legacy.
Cindy has absolutely no respect for the veterans of past wars who fought to free this nation, to keep it free and strong, and to make sure America led the world. She looks at the memorials built to honor our brave veterans who gave their lives to defend this country, to save American lives, and she trashes their actions.
Cindy is bringing her anti-American, anti-military message to Oregon next week to protest drone aircraft manufacturer Insitu. MAF will be there ON THE SCENE to lead a pro-troop counter offensive with a positive message for our troops to see.
We cannot simply IGNORE this woman! She has the media on her side, and she gets coverage everywhere she goes. The WORST thing we can do is ignore her and not have a presence or response.
Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Videos
The Hennessey Venom GT was out testing on track, and while the minute of footage tends toward the Zapruder end of ‘gotcha’ videos, there are still some pretty clear sights and sounds of the stretched and steroided Elise with the giant badonkadonk.
We’re going to guess this is the base, 725-horsepower version and what can be heard of it sounds pretty compelling. If nothing else, maybe this will help you dole out the $600K necessary to do some track time in one of your own. Follow the jump for the video. Hat tip to Mikespeed95
[Source: YouTube]
Continue reading Video: Hennessey Venom GT hits the track
Video: Hennessey Venom GT hits the track originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Kim Kardashian’s single and ready to mingle — on a network reality series?
Kardashian split from New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush in the midst of an infidelity scandal last month, but it seems the small screen stunner is making the most of her singledom. Tattling tipsters say Kim has been “quietly pitching” the idea of a dating reality show to help her find Mr. Right. We hear the striking socialite, now 29, is trying to convince family friend Ryan Seacrest — who produces E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians – to say on to produce the proposed series.
Would you watch a dating show starring Kim Kardashian?
US Special Forces night-time “commando raids” and “targeted airstrikes” have been a persistent cause of large numbers of civilian casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
While most attention recently has been focused on Afghanistan, there was news this week that while Obama’s plan calls for the withdrawal of “all combat troops,” US Special Forces will not be withdrawn.
U.S. Navy Adm. Eric Olson, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, that his forces would stay active in Iraq.
“The special operations forces are not experiencing a drawdown in Iraq,” he said. “Supporting them is a continuing mission of the rest of the force.”
… Olson said the 4,500 Special Forces personnel, however, would stay behind.
In Afghanistan, the recent reports about the coverup of the murder of three women and two men by Special Forces in February has been followed quickly by the latest McChrystal spin that he is now “taking control” of Special Forces operating in Afghanistan.
But the story of command of those Special Forces is not so simple. Last year Gareth Porter, pointing out that control of these forces seemed to be a “hot potato” given their responsibility for civilian casualties, traced the command of the Special Forces from 2004 on:
The U.S. command in Afghanistan has not always been so tolerant of killing of innocent civilians by Special Operations forces commando raids and airstrikes as it is now. The commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, Gen. David Barno, imposed day-to-day control over Special Forces raids and ended targeted airstrikes altogether.
In 2005, Gen. Karl Eikenberry replaced Barno and reinstituted the use of airstrikes. Eikenberry is now the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, appointed by Pres. Obama.
During both General’s command, US Special Forces were under the “day-to-day” command of these generals.
In 2006, when US forces came under NATO control, command of the special forces reverted JSOC at Centcom, under Gen. Petraeus.
From September 2003 until June 2008, Gen. Stanley McChrystal was Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Commander.
In March 2009, Petraeus placed the Special Forces under “tactical control” of then Afghan commander David McKiernan:
An order issued Tuesday at the direction of CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus gives McKiernan authority over all operations by Special Operations units stationed in the country, as Col. Gregory Julian, McKiernan’s spokesperson, confirmed in an e-mail to IPS. The order, which has not been made public, modifies previous command arrangements which had excluded U.S. Special Operations forces from McKiernan’s command authority.
Although the order follows a period of rising Afghan protests against Special Operations raids, there is no indication that Petraeus intends for the change in command arrangements to bring about any fundamental change in such raids.
Nevertheless, it appears that those raids have become a political hot potato, which Petraeus prefers to be in McKiernan’s hands rather than his own, particularly as Afghanistan heads into a politically charged period leading up to a presidential election in August.
When Gen. Stanley McChrystal replaced McKiernan we were told that McChrystal was bringing a new approach to Afghanistan, one that would be concerned with protecting civilians as part of his COIN strategy. This was always surprising to some of us given McChrystal’s command of JSOC during a period when they were known for extensive abuses and in particular his command of the unit running Camp Nama which was so far outside the pale that even other military intelligence units withdrew from cooperation with them.
After all, McChrystal’s reputation was not so promising:
McChrystal was known as Rumsfeld’s man and a favourite of Dick Cheney, Bush’s vice-president. Early in 2003 he had conducted nationally televised Pentagon press briefings on US operations in Iraq. One of his units, Task Force 6-26, became well known for its interrogation methods, notably at Camp Nama, where it was accused of abusing detainees. After the scandal over prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, 34 members of the taskforce were disciplined. In 2008 the affair threatened to stall his appointment as director of the joint staff, but after a private meeting in the Senate his promotion was confirmed.
We were told though that “McChrystal had recanted his earlier views” and since his appointment, we’ve heard over and over again about McChrystal’s directives to minimize civilian casualties (directives which seem to always follow yet another incident where civilians are killed – and the killings are covered up by McChrystal’s team until the real story comes out.)
So has Rumsfeld and Cheney’s man really changed? And have these horrific incidents been outside his control?
Recently, we’ve heard a lot about McChrystal’s directives to minimize civilian casualties and at least from available reports, the use of air strikes seems to have been more controlled though another one killed “four civilians including two women and a child” just last week. But for all his public pronouncements, the use of night raids – the other primary cause of civilian casualties – has increased under McChrystal, as Gareth Porter reported last week,
Since he took over as top commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal has not only refused to curb those raids but has increased them dramatically…
After becoming commander of NATO and U.S. forces last May, he approved a more than fourfold increase in those operations, from 20 in May to 90 in November, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times Dec. 16. One of McChrystal’s spokesmen, Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, acknowledged to IPS that the level of night raids during that period has reflected McChrystal’s guidance…
As a result of McChrystal’s decisions, civilian deaths from night raids have spiked, even as those from air strikes were being reduced. According to United Nations and Afghan government estimates, night raids caused more than half of the nearly 600 civilian deaths attributable to coalition forces in 2009…
In late January, a new directive was announced to the press addressing the night raids issue… Another night raid on Feb. 12, soon after the new directive had been issued, showed clearly that the directive had not changed anything.
This of course is the horrific night raid which we are now learning was covered up by SOF and McChrystal’s PR machine.
The reports of that raid led me to wonder what had happened to that “hot potato” of tactical control of SOC that Petreaus passed to McKiernan. Did it somehow vanish when McChrystal took over. After all, we’ve just recently heard a lot of talk about how McChrystal was finally getting control of all – or almost all – US forces in Afghanistan including SOC. Look for example at Spencer Ackerman’s report on this. He first notes that:
Over the past several months, though, it appeared as if JSOC was still doing its own thing, as prominent incidents of civilian casualties implicating special forces accumulated, contradicting McChrystal’s most important strategic directives.
And then goes on to point to:
The New York Times reports today that McChrystal has finally consolidated control of Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan.
So I checked with Gareth Porter who confirmed, via email that in fact, McChrystal has always had tactical control of these very forces: (via email)
The 2009 directive gave McKiernan “tactical control”, meaning control over the manner in which they operate where they are operating. The most more recent shift is to “operational control”, which means the commander can move the units wherever he wants them within the theater. The significance of this in regard to night raids is that McChrystal already had the control he needed to tell them how many there could be and how they should be run when he took over. Now he can move them wherever he likes.
So General McChrystal, it looks like that hot potato was in your hands all along.
State and local officials joined hundreds of people outside the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood on Sunday morning to kick off a national grass-roots campaign demanding equal Social Security benefits for same-sex couples.
The rally and march event–dubbed Rock for Equality–was put together by the center and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in coalition with the Aids Community Action Foundation, said Jim Key, a spokesman for the center.
At the rally, U.S. Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood), who is a member of the House Subcommittee on Social Security, announced that she would sponsor legislation to provide equal Social Security benefits for same-sex couples. " I don’t think it’s right that Americans should be treated differently by the country they love because of who they love,” Sanchez said, triggering thunderous applause and cheers from the crowd.
“Right now, same-sex marriage couples pay equally into a system that they don’t receive equal benefits from in return,. Shame on this country for allowing that to happen,” Sanchez said.
As of now, people in same-sex relationships are denied Social Security survivor benefits of their deceased partners because the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships as valid relationships.
Sanchez’s bill, however, would lead the Social Security Administration to recognize those civil unions or domestic partnerships as valid relationships for the purpose of dispensing survivor benefits that heterosexual couples with a marriage certificate get.
“I’m saying to the Social Security Administration, this must stop,” Sanchez said.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-El Monte), who also attended the event, offered to support the bill.
“In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act as a law to protect the elderly from poverty. It was a great moment, but the act wasn’t perfect,” Chu told the crowd.
“In 1966, members of the armed services were added, in 1983, federal employees were added, and in the year 2010, that will be the year people from the LGBT community will be added,” she said.
About 700 people attended the event, including Maria Garcia, 44, of North Hollywood who had arrived an hour early to the rally with her 23-year-old son, Philip Garrelts, who is gay. “Every mother should do this for her children,” Garcia said. “There should be equal rights for everyone.”
–Ruben Vives
Korean company Egoing has introduced MonkeyFly, a browser plugin that allows a user to customize their Twitter. For users who feel the abiding need for monkeying around (rimshot) with everything they use, this could come in handy.
Among the features the plugin powers are a grid-style interface, lightbox profile, link tracking and easy photo upload.
Sponsor
Currently MonkeyFly supports Firefox and Google Chrome. If you’re a Safari user, speak Korean. Otherwise you’re out of luck. 
The focus is both on providing a customizable experience but also setting all the functions of the application to hand, such as incoming Tweets and @ references.
For all the success that Japanese automakers have had in the U.S. market over the past thirty years, there remains one very important segment they’ve never really managed to break through: full-size trucks. The big pickups from Ford and General Motors have remained at the top of the sales charts for decades. While Toyota has made a minor dent in the segment with the Tundra, Nissan’s Titan has just never really caught fire.
Despite that, Nissan still wants a piece of the pie. The potential profit margins and volumes continue to make this market too attractive to abandon. After a deal to share the Dodge Ram platform was abandoned during the runup to Chrysler’s bankruptcy, it was decided to keep the current Titan alive for the foreseeable future.
While Nissan has not announced what direction it will take with the next Titan, we’d expect it to share a lot with the recently-introduced NV2500 commercial van. The NV2500 is built in the same Canton, Mississippi plant with the Titan and has an architecture that’s more like a pickup than a traditional van, which could make it a suitable starting point. The NV chassis has already been designed for heavy duty applications, so it’s possible that it could finally spawn an HD pickup as well to compete with similar models from Detroit.
[Source: Straightline]
Report: Nissan still committed to full-size pickups originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Fortysomething Pamela Anderson may be known for her buxom bust and curvy figure, but the producers of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars have presented the ’90s sex symbol with a lengthy dress code to ensure that none of her –er — ample assets make an unwelcome appearance while the cameras are rolling.
TV industry tattles tell Us Weekly that DWTS bosses are petrified that they could face hefty fines from the FCC if
the busty former Baywatch babe slips up and slips out on the show — and they aren’t taking any chances.
“They continue to tell Pam that she must make her costume designs more modest, or she has to wear a bra and pasties. They live in fear of a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.”
