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http://ajc.newsinc.com/index.html?PID=1176&CID=…

Now I just gotta wait 'til next Wednesday and I'll have my internet back (not having to use my cell anymore)

Or does Ed need to go back on his meds?

Somali pirates who have kidnapped a British couple have issued a ransom demand of $7m (£4.3m) in a call to the BBC.

Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, were taken hostage by gunmen in the Indian Ocean in the early hours of 23 October.

They had been travelling to Tanzania from the Seychelles and their yacht was later found in international waters.

The caller said: “If they do not harm us, we will not harm them.”

He added: “We only need a little amount of $7m.”

He said the couple had been captured by “our brothers who patrol the coast”.

Explaining the decision to set the ransom at $7m, the caller said: “Nato operations had a lot of negative impact here.

“They have destroyed a lot of equipment belonging to the poor local fishermen.

“They arrest fishermen and destroy their equipment.

The couple's yacht, the Lynn Rival
The couple's empty yacht was found during counter-piracy operations

“In defiance to our local administrations, they illegally transfer the fishermen to their own prisons and prisons of other countries.

“So when you consider the damage and all the people affected we say the amount is not big.”

The BBC's East Africa Correspondent Will Ross said the pirates had held talks for several hours in Haredere on the Somali coast.

He said they were trying to agree how much money they wanted for the release of the pair.

He added that in previous cases pirates had begun negotiating with an extremely high figure, and then settled for far less.

Earlier, Somali premier Omar Sharmarke said government officials were trying to explain to the pirates the couple could offer no commercial reward and they only had their boat.

He said the government was doing what it could for the hostages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent…

by Steven D
Fri Oct 30th, 2009 at 01:33:52 PM EST
Just go. Any Democratic leadership with any guts would kick Lieberman out of the caucus for this latest stunt.

“I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the election in 2010. I'm going to call them as I see them,” Lieberman said in an ABC News “Subway Series” interview aboard the U.S. Capitol Subway System. [...]

Jim Manley, the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefeld that his boss is more concerned about the health care push then Lieberman's latest quips.

“Senator Lieberman may call them as he see's them, but for Senator Reid, the only thing that he is focused on right now is delivering on the president's promise of comprehensive health care reform,” Manley said.

Connecticut is a blue state. We don't need to appease Lieberman in the same way we need to understand and work around the concerns of Democrats elected in traditionally conservative states. In 2012 a progressive candidate will be the Democratic nominee, no matter what Joe says or does. He isn't voting for health care reform no matter what the Democrats offer him because he's been bought by the Insurance Industry, and he's an obstructionist as a chairperson on the committees he does head up in the Senate, so what's the purpose for paying footsie with the guy who always kicks you in the shins? Where's the benefit to letting Harry Reid play Curly to Joe's Moe? Really. Kick him out now.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/10/30/1…

http://ajc.newsinc.com/index.html?PID=1176&CID=…

But the apologists for the TBTFs are now arguing that breaking up the beached whales … er, giant banks … will harm America's ability to compete with foreign banks.

Joshua Rosner (managing director of an independent financial services research firm), has written an important essay debunking this argument:

Those who argue against a more proactive reduction in risk and size of TBTF institutions will, as always, revert to an argument that strikes a natural chord in every American’s heart: ‘Doing so would create an unleveled international playing field for our institutions relative to their international competitors’. Level playing fields are a worthy goal, but this is not a relevant argument. Instead, this tired bromide must be resoundingly dismissed on several counts:

* Those countries with the largest banks as a percentage of GDP (Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland) demonstrated that a concentration of banking power can cause significant sovereign risk and tilt global economic playing fields away from that country.

* The likely breakups of ING, Lloyds and KBC suggest that it is we who seek to support an unlevel playing field where we subsidize our TBTF banks while other nations recognize the policy failures of moral hazard. If we continue down this path we will likely be at risk of violating international fair trade regimes.

* When the “unlevel playing field” argument is cited, keep in mind this reasoning supports the disadvantaging of 8000+ community banks relative to our largest banks, all in the name of protecting big banks from governmentally- subsidized international competition.

* There is no longer any evidence that, beyond a cost of capital advantage that comes with implied government support, there are sustainable and tangible economies of scale arising from being the largest. The financial supermarket concept has been proven a failure. The only ones who benefit are the high-level executives.

* We must demand that our legislators no longer allow unelected officials at the independent Federal Reserve to sign international accords created by the TBTF banks through supra-national bodies like the Basel Committee.

* Are we to believe that if we did not have such large and globally dominant firms, US borrowers might be paying more that the 29% interest that several of the TBTF firms are now charging on their card accounts? Perhaps we should think about what advantage our population has gained as a result of our financial institutions being such a large part of our economy or being globally dominant.

* Since when did we accept a national strategy of following rather than leading? When we do what is right, others follow. As example, consider the bank secrecy havens – they made money for a bit. Now, even the Swiss and the Cayman authorities are coming around to our view.

* We are already at a disadvantage given that the largest foreign banks operate in the US without any tier one capital requirement and yet mostlarge foreign banks have not built a bricks and mortar presence here. Nobody screams about their undercapitalization nor has that undercapitalization caused deposits to migrate to foreign banks.

What fake excuse will the apologists for the TBTFs throw out next?

Breaking Up The Too Big to Fails Will NOT Harm America's Ability to Compete with Foreign Banks

The recipe is familiar: Start with an unfailingly tragic character, pile on the hardships, throw a few famous names on the credits, then sit back and watch the Oscar nominations roll in. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire could have been just another one film championing the underdog, but the powerful performances and unabashedly raw storytelling saves it from falling through the cracks.

…

There has already been considerable Oscar buzz surrounding both Mo’Nique and Sidibe, and the film has received numerous accolades, including the Grand Jury Prize for the Dramatic category at Sundance and the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The actors and director Lee Daniels deserve the praise they’ve received for making such a powerful movie.

But beneath the film was something that I found to be problematic: a reliance on the villainization of Black matriarch—rather than a mention of systemic race issues—to make the larger message of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” more palatable.

This is a problematic image to see in white media, but it’s even more disheartening to see in examples of Black media. What’s so problematic about Mary is that the woman is made into a monster with no redeemable qualities—a decision that isn’t only lazy on behalf of the filmmakers, but also wholly irresponsible to the African-American community.

But director Lee Daniels makes the critical mistake of ignoring the social and political reality that his characters inhabit. Besides a title card in the beginning of the film and some outdated hairstyles, we as the audience see little of the forces that compel Mary’s actions. To ignore 1987 Harlem as the foundation for the permanent Black underclass created by the Reagan Administration through its abhorrent social reform policies—including the War on Drugs and welfare reform—is to ignore a crucial aspect of his characters’ lives.

The political forces at work during the period operated in a much larger scope than the familial level portrayed in the film. And that’s why it was a grievous error for Daniels to paint a portrait of Mary as a one-dimensional demon, seemingly devoid of any ounce of compassion toward even her own offspring.

ColorLines Reviews Precious, Even If You're Not Going to See It

Though the Afghanistan “reintegration” initiative is only now getting off the ground, hundreds of insurgents have taken advantage of it, and many others are waiting for the Afghan government and the coalition to announce the specifics of the reintegration plan, said Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn, the director of intelligence for the International Security Assistance Force.

Flynn and other ISAF officials emphasize that they do not view the reintegration effort as a “silver bullet” that will bring a quick victory over the insurgency. Nevertheless, said British Lt. Gen. Jim Dutton, the deputy ISAF commander, “There is lots and lots of potential in this.”

The initiative is based on the strong belief at ISAF headquarters that most insurgents are not ideologically committed to their leaders’ aims and would be willing to quit fighting under the right conditions.

Allies turn Afghan insurgents into partners