greek governance exceedingly fluid about now...,

Video - Greek military and police had joined riots earlier this summer.

AthensNews | Tuesday's changes in top roles of the country's military had been scheduled since early October, were not extraordinary and were based on objective criteria, the defence minister said on Wednesday, responding to intense opposition party criticism.

Opposition parties had reacted with outrage to the sacking of the country's military chiefs, calling it a bid to stack the armed forces with party loyalists before a possible government collapse over the country's debt crisis.

Speaking to an Athens radio station, Panos Beglitis said that the army, navy and air force chiefs of staff and the chief of the general staff had completed their term in their individual posts and were thus replaced.

He also underlined that the procedure could have taken place in August but was postponed as a result of the crisis in the southeastern Mediterranean, referring to Turkey's threats against Cyprus over the latter's decision to begin drilling for hydrocarbons.

Beglitis accused opposition parties of hypocrisy and petty party politicking.

He also pointed out that the outgoing military leadership was appointed in August 2009 by the previous New Democracy government, just before the Octover 4 general elections, in what he said was a move unprecedented in the country’s postwar history.

In a surprise move, on Tuesday evening the defence minister replaced the country’s top brass. An extraordinary meeting of the Government Council of Foreign Affairs and Defence (Kysea), which comprises the prime minister and other key cabinet members, accepted Defence Minister Panos Beglitis' proposal that the following changes be made to army, navy and air force and the general staff:

* General Ioannis Giagkos, chief of the Greek National Defence General Staff, to be replaced by Lieutenant General Michalis Kostarakos
* Lieutenant General Fragkos Fragkoulis, chief of the Greek Army General Staff, to be replaced by lieutenant general Konstantinos Zazias
* Lieutenant General Vasilios Klokozas, chief of the Greek Air Force, to be replaced by air marshal Antonis Tsantirakis
* Vice-Admiral Dimitrios Elefsiniotis, chief of the Greek Navy General Staff, to be replaced by Rear-Admiral Kosmas Christidis

Governments have exerted tight control over the armed forces since the collapse of the junta in 1974. Army chiefs are often selected on the basis of party loyalty as part of a deeply-entrenched system of political patronage.

The move to replace the military chiefs may have also been hastened by a Greek protest at austerity measures that halted a major national parade last week.

The annual military parade in the northern city of Thessaloniki is one of the most symbolic events in Greece's political calendar and it was the first time it had been cancelled.

Opposition reactions

The decison drew strong reaction from opposition parties. Main opposition New Democracy (ND) defence spokesman Margaritis Tzimas spoke of "an undemocratic act which is directed against national interest", adding that "at the time when the Pasok government is collapsing, it is proceeding with ... changes in the leadership of the country's armed forces". He said that his party would not accept the decisions.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) called on the minister and the government to give clear explanations to the people on why they replaced the armed forces leadership under these conditions.

The Popular Orthodox Rally (Laos) termed the appointments "politically indecent and morally unacceptable" and added that "a few hours before the government's fall, the leadership of the armed forces has been broken up in its entirety."

Lastly, a Radical Left Coalition (Syriza) official said it was unacceptable for the defence minister to decide on such an important issue at a time when the government is facing collapse.

children being taken to the street

NYTimes | MALKA LUBELSKI marched for economic justice last Sunday dressed as Minnie Mouse.

In a pink costume with white polka dots and black mouse ears, she circled Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street protests, carrying a homemade sign that read, “From the very young, the very old, we are the 99%.”

It would have been one more bit of street theater, except that Malka is 4, an age when girls are generally thought to be more interested in Disney characters than protest marches.

While her father, Abraham Lubelski, publisher of NY Arts magazine, talked about his decision to take Malka and her 1 1/2-year-old sister, Josepha, to the scene so they could “see real human needs,” Malka concerned herself with the more mundane needs of her baby sister, who had been sitting in her stroller munching contentedly on a vanilla ice cream cone till the ice cream tumbled onto her sweater.

“Dad,” Malka interrupted, pointing to her younger sibling.

And so it goes in the second month of Occupy Wall Street, where children are becoming an increasing presence as parents try to seize a “teachable moment” to enlighten them on matters ranging from income inequality to the right to protest.

The park’s makeshift collective library has a children’s section, complete with a copy of “Harry Potter,” Beverly Cleary titles and Meg Cabot’s “Holiday Princess.” A group called Parents for Occupy Wall Street, headed by Kirby Desmarais, a Brooklyn mother and record label owner, even organized a sleepover at the park for more than 80 parents and children on a recent weekend night. (The families had to be moved at dawn to make way for new police lines and barricades.) Spin-off parent groups have sprung up in other cities like Denver and Seattle.

But most mothers and fathers bring their children on their own. Some recall marching in antiwar protests in the 1960s and ’70s, and say they would like to show their children what it means to be part of a large movement advocating for social change. Those with babies and toddlers admit that the children are unlikely to remember anything of their time at Zuccotti Park, but that they believe the children will one day appreciate that they were present.

“When he’s older, I want him to know we cared enough to bring him down,” said David McClelland, a resident of Clinton Hill in Brooklyn who came with his son, Franklin, 2.

For Stephen Belber, a screenwriter who is adapting Dana Spiotta’s novel of 1970s left-wing activism gone awry, “Eat the Document,” Occupy Wall Street presents a unique opportunity to discuss his work with his two children, Clementine, 7, and Tobi, 11.

Clementine had questions. “Are the people who are sleeping here poor?” she asked, pointing to the tents and sleeping bags.

“They choose to be here,” her father replied. “They are upset because there are a few rich people and so many more poor people.”

Occupy Wall Street is hardly the first protest movement to include children. They were often present at civil rights marches, and more recently, boys and girls (complete with placards) have become a familiar presence at Tea Party events. There were children at Tahrir Square in Cairo, as well as at many other events that marked the Arab Spring.

the basic truth of the great-many-versus-very-few protest narrative

RollingStone | Anyway, if you listen to the whole Rush segment, you can hear frustration and croaking, bullfroggish anxiety in his voice at the fact of so many different politicians capitulating, at least verbally, to OWS. He’s sensing that politicians are seeing danger in the “99%” concept, and he's expressing dismay that everyone from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama is now trying hard to position himself as not being in the 1%.

This isn't evidence that mainstream politicians are caving to the movement, of course, but what it does show is that those same politicians are endorsing OWS rhetoric, and by extension tacitly admitting the basic truth of the great-many-versus-very-few protest narrative.

Rush chalks this up to a media deception, a mirage of TV images and “media-Democrat-industrial complex” manipulations designed to con the country into believing in the existence of a mass movement.

The reality, of course, is that people like Rush, Romney and Obama are all becoming cognizant of the deep frustrations that exist across the political spectrum and are growing desperate to prevent the powder keg from blowing completely – hence the intense effort to describe OWS as a top-down manipulation.

Of course the notion that this is all a media fabrication is ludicrous. Dylan Ratigan didn’t invent four million people in foreclosure, he didn’t invent ten trillion dollars in bailouts, and he didn’t invent Wall Street’s $160 billion bonus pool the year after the crash of its own creation.

People out there do not need media figures to tell them how fucked things are, or how pissed they should be that the same bankers who caused the crash are now enjoying state-supported bonuses in the billions, while everyone else gets squeezed. As someone who has been covering this stuff for three years, I can say with confidence that people across the country don’t need a push to be angry. They’re already there, and have been there for years. Rush should go hang out outside a foreclosure court in his home state of Florida for a few hours, if he wants to see where the rising heat under these protests is coming from.

Anyway, the hysterical responses from the Rushes of the world are just more signs that these protests are working. I never thought I’d see it, but some of the dukes and earls high up in America’s Great Tower of Bullshit are starting to blink a little bit. They seem genuinely freaked out that OWS doesn’t have leaders or a single set of demands, which in addition to being very encouraging is quite funny.

frame yourself before others frame you?

Video - Bill Maher New Rules on Occupy Wall Street

truthout | I was asked weeks ago by some in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement to make suggestions for how to frame the movement. I have hesitated so far because I think the movement should be framing itself. It's a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you - the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends. I have so far hesitated to offer suggestions. But the movement appears to be maturing and entering a critical time when small framing errors could have large negative consequences. So, I thought it might be helpful to accept the invitation and start a discussion of how the movement might think about framing itself.

About framing: It's normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act.

In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says do what I say because it's wrong! Or because it doesn't matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda.

Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics
Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this moral system itself, which goes beyond Wall Street and the economy to other arenas: family life, social life, religion, foreign policy and especially government. Conservative "democracy" is seen as a system of governance and elections that fits this model.

Though OWS concerns go well beyond financial issues, your target is right: the application of these principles in Wall Street is central, since that is where the money comes from for elections, for media and for right-wing policy-making institutions of all sorts on all issues.

The alternative view of democracy is progressive: Democracy starts with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that sense of care, taking responsibility both for oneself and for one's family, community, country, people in general and the planet. The role of government is to protect and empower all citizens equally via The Public: public infrastructure, laws and enforcement, health, education, scientific research, protection, public lands, transportation, resources, art and culture, trade policies, safety nets, and on and on. Nobody makes it one their own. If you got wealthy, you depended on The Public and you have a responsibility to contribute significantly to The Public so that others can benefit in the future. Moreover, the wealthy depend on those who work and who deserve a fair return for their contribution to our national life. Corporations exist to make life better for most people. Their reason for existing is as public as it is private.

economics has met the enemy, and it's economics...,

GlobeandMail | After Thomas Sargent learned on Monday morning that he and colleague Christopher Sims had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2011, the 68-year-old New York University professor struck an aw-shucks tone with an interviewer from the official Nobel website: “We're just bookish types that look at numbers and try to figure out what's going on.”

But no one who'd followed Prof. Sargent's long, distinguished career would have been fooled by his attempt at modesty. He'd won for his part in developing one of economists' main models of cause and effect: How can we expect people to respond to changes in prices, for example, or interest rates? According to the laureates' theories, they'll do whatever's most beneficial to them, and they'll do it every time. They don't need governments to instruct them; they figure it out for themselves. Economists call this the “rational expectations” model. And it's not just an abstraction: Bankers and policy-makers apply these formulae in the real world, so bad models lead to bad policy.

Which is perhaps why, by the end of that interview on Monday, Prof. Sargent was adopting a more realistic tone: “We experiment with our models,” he explained, “before we wreck the world.”

Rational-expectations theory and its corollary, the efficient-market hypothesis, have been central to mainstream economics for more than 40 years. And while they may not have “wrecked the world,” some critics argue these models have blinded economists to reality: Certain the universe was unfolding as it should, they failed both to anticipate the financial crisis of 2008 and to chart an effective path to recovery.

The economic crisis has produced a crisis in the study of economics – a growing realization that if the field is going to offer meaningful solutions, greater attention must be paid to what is happening in university lecture halls and seminar rooms.

While the protesters occupying Wall Street are not carrying signs denouncing rational-expectations and efficient-market modelling, perhaps they should be.

They wouldn't be the first young dissenters to call economics to account. In June of 2000, a small group of elite graduate students at some of France's most prestigious universities declared war on the economic establishment. This was an unlikely group of student radicals, whose degrees could be expected to lead them to lucrative careers in finance, business or government if they didn't rock the boat. Instead, they protested – not about tuition or workloads, but that too much of what they studied bore no relation to what was happening outside the classroom walls.

They launched an online petition demanding greater realism in economics teaching, less reliance on mathematics “as an end in itself” and more space for approaches beyond the dominant neoclassical model, including input from other disciplines, such as psychology, history and sociology. Their conclusion was that economics had become an “autistic science,” lost in “imaginary worlds.” They called their movement Autisme-economie.

specious application of game mechanics...,

TechnologyReview | The world is in the midst of a gamification revolution—a mad dash to incorporate points, levels, and achievement badges into nearly every online and mobile experience. According to the hype, these "game mechanics" are a magic potion that can motivate anyone to do anything—purchase brand-name clothing, publicly share location information, or adopt healthy behaviors. Yet like many Internet revolutions, this one is tinged with irrational exuberance. Truly understanding what game mechanics can do requires significantly more nuance.

The intuitive idea is simple and appealing. Games are engaging, so making anything more gamelike should make it more engaging too. The scientific justification seems equally straightforward. Game mechanics invoke reinforcement learning; like B. F. Skinner's rats, we are repeatedly rewarded to produce the desired behavior.

Although behaviorist psychology is sound science, however, it is insufficient to justify gamification. Skinner's rats pressed a lever to get a morsel of food, and there is little debate about whether that constituted a reward. For human beings, what counts as a reward is much less clear. Points, levels, or badges are not inherently rewarding. The reward, when there is one, comes from underlying psychological phenomena such as social status, reputation, and group identification. Very little quality research has been done to show how game mechanics invoke these phenomena, and what the effects may be when they do.

When we look at game mechanics this way, it also becomes clear that they are unlikely to affect everyone in the same way. Some people actively seek status in the eyes of others, for example; other people are actually status-averse. Offering one-size-fits-all rewards may motivate certain people while putting others off. We need to understand more about the types of people who are motivated by specific gamelike rewards.

Another risk is that the extrinsic motivations supplied by game dynamics could crowd out motivations that are intrinsic to an activity. The most active Wikipedia editors, for example, are motivated by a shared investment in activities, interests, and beliefs that form a genuine connection among community members. The same is true in many online systems. Game dynamics, on the other hand, offer rewards that can be comparatively superficial and short-term. We know little about how gamification can undermine or support deeper, long-term motivation.

the people running britain had no idea how desperate things had become..,

PennyRed | There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re paying attention now.

Tonight in London, social order and the rule of law have broken down entirely. The city has been brought to a standstill; it is not safe to go out onto the streets, and where I am in Holloway, the violence is coming closer. As I write, the looting and arson attacks have spread to at least fifty different areas across the UK, including dozens in London, and communities are now turning on each other, with the Guardian reporting on rival gangs forming battle lines. It has become clear to the disenfranchised young people of Britain, who feel that they have no stake in society and nothing to lose, that they can do what they like tonight, and the police are utterly unable to stop them. That is what riots are all about.

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

Noone expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.

I’m stuck in the house, now, with rioting going on just down the road in Chalk Farm. Ealing and Clapham and Dalston are being trashed. Journalists are being mugged and beaten in the streets, and the riot cops are in retreat where they have appeared at all. Police stations are being set alight all over the country. This morning, as the smoke begins to clear, those of us who can sleep will wake up to a country in chaos. We will wake up to fear, and to racism, and to condemnation on left and right, none of which will stop this happening again, as the prospect of a second stock market clash teeters terrifyingly at the bottom of the news reports. Now is the time when we make our choices. Now is the time when we decide whether to descend into hate, or to put prejudice aside and work together. Now is the time when we decide what sort of country it is that we want to live in. Follow the #riotcleanup hashtag on Twitter. And take care of one another.

republican internecine conflict

Video - Rick Perry's states rights speech

DailyBeast | Karl Rove and his operatives appear to have launched a campaign to derail Rick Perry’s 2012 bid, beginning with criticisms that he is 'unpresidential.' For years, Rove has made it a hobby of sorts to deflate conservatives more popular with the base than he is. Like any good bully, he has tended to focus on easy targets, such as Sarah Palin and Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, piling on them as if he were hoping for a time slot next to Al Sharpton on MSNBC. So far he has (mostly) gotten away with this.

Now he and his henchmen are undertaking their most serious gamble. Rick Perry managed to shine in Texas without Rove's permission, and now threatens to become the current Republican frontrunner without Rove’s blessing. This, Rove has decreed, must be stopped, even if his party is destroyed in the process.

The origins of the Rove grudge against Perry really matter only to a handful of people. Suffice it to say it stems from some decade-old feud over power and money. And Rove has lassoed the entire Bush family in on it. The former presidents Bush have made it a great point not to comment on the actions of their successors—Clinton and Obama, respectively. They think there is a nobility to staying out of the fray and not making things more difficult for the next commander in chief. Yet the Bushes have shown no compunction about doing just that to a fellow Republican and fellow Texan (though Perry is the only one of them actually born in the state).

While in the White House, Bush 2 and his aides regularly scoffed at Perry for reasons that were never fully clear, making fun of his syntax and intellectual prowess without any sense of irony. In 2010 the Bush family, along with Rove and Karen Hughes, undertook an unprecedented effort to kick him out of the governor’s chair, handing a crowbar to Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom they judged more "electable." Perry walloped her in the GOP primary, then went on to win a historic third term in the general election by a double-digit margin. So much for electability.

police there to be against them rather than to protect them...,

Video - Malcolm X We are living in a police state.

CNN | Officers from Operation Trident -- the Metropolitan Police unit that deals with gun crime in London's black communities -- stopped the cab in the working-class, predominantly Afro-Caribbean district of Tottenham during an attempted arrest, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said. Soon after, shots were fired and Duggan, a father of four, was killed. Shooting deaths are rare in England.

The IPCC said Tuesday an illegal firearm had been found at the scene, with a "bulleted cartridge" in the magazine, but there was "no evidence" it was fired during the incident.

A bullet that lodged in a radio carried by an officer was police issue, the IPCC said.

"A post-mortem examination concluded that Mr. Duggan was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest. He also received a second gunshot wound to his right bicep," the IPCC said, without saying who fired the bullets nor why police had stopped the cab.
Violence and looting across London

The man's family and friends, who blamed police for the death, had gathered peacefully Saturday outside the Tottenham police station to protest.

The protest soon devolved into violence as demonstrators -- whose numbers included whites and blacks -- tossed petrol bombs, looted stores and burned police cars.

Violence continued in isolated pockets on Sunday, spread Monday to other parts of the nation and continued Tuesday.

Metropolitan Police and Duggan's family have appealed for calm. Police said they were stretched thin as they tried to respond to emergency calls -- which were up nearly 400% Tuesday.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's vow of action to quell rioting in Britain's cities was backed up by an increased police presence -- about 16,000 officers were set to be on London's streets Tuesday night -- twice the number on Monday night.

"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and make them safe for the law-abiding," said Cameron, who called the events "criminality, pure and simple."

The trouble -- described by police as "'copycat criminal activity" -- takes place against a backdrop of austerity measures and budget cuts that have led to high rates of unemployment, particularly among the nation's youth.

Some 685 people have been arrested in London since the violence began, police said late Tuesday. With Metropolitan Police detention cells full, authorities were taking those they arrested to facilities belonging to surrounding police forces.

too much information too fast?

Video - Russia Today interviews Stephen Lendman about Norway attacks.

SJLendman | Who gains and loses from every terror incident must also be asked, certainly not suspects charged, convicted and imprisoned. Geopolitical interests are central. This time Western and Israeli ones are key.

On July 22, New York Times writers Elisha Mala and J. David Goodman were in battle mode headlining, "At Least 80 Dead in Norway Shooting," saying:

"A lone political extremist bombed the government center here on Friday, killing 7 people....before heading to an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party and killing at least 80 people."

A July 23 follow-up headlined, "Death Toll Rises to 91 in Norway Attacks," saying:

"The Norwegian police charged a 32-year-old man (Anders Behring Breivik, identified as) a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing connections, over the bombing of a government center here and a shooting attack on a nearby island that together left at least 91 people dead."

Police didn't know if he was part of a greater conspiracy. "What we do know," said police official Roger Andresen, "is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist." Oslo police chief of staff Johan Fredriksen said he wasn't surprised that a blond, blue-eyed man was involved. He likely would have made a harsher statement if a Muslim was charged, homegrown or otherwise.

Police also said very likely the two incidents were connected. No evidence proves it despite claims of explosives found on Utoya island where the shootings occurred.

An anonymous police official said that "it seems that this is not linked to any international terrorist organizations," adding it's "probably more Norway's Oklahoma City than (its) World Trade Center."

Reuters said Breivik belonged to Norway's Progress Party, the second largest in Parliament, was a member from 2004 - 2006, and in its youth party from 1997 - 2007. Progress leader Siv Jensen indicated he left the party, wanting to disassociate it from anyone charged with terror attacks.

Obama's initial reaction stoked war on terror fears, saying:

"It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring, and that we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks," implying Islamic involvement to justify America's imperial aggression.

It's much too early to know or draw conclusions about Oslo. Yesterday on Russia Today television, this writer told viewers to be wary of official accounts, especially early ones later proved false. Red flags were also mentioned, notably when accusations are made quickly, naming names, followed by arrests.

Police work takes time. Often weeks or months are needed to solve crimes. In fact, many end up unsolved in closed case files. Quick conclusions should make everyone wary.

corps general in jefferson city...,

Video - General John McMahon on Missouri river flooding.

OzarksFirst | The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' commander for the Missouri River basin came to the state capital Monday and stayed on script before an audience best described as skeptical.

Brigadier General John McMahon answered questions in front of an audience of about 40 people at Jefferson City's city hall Monday for about 20 minutes, before meeting with business owners at a private lunch and finally touring the city's northern river front.

For weeks, the corps has been saying its management plan for releasing water from the upper Missouri River basin through it's series of reservoirs and dams was on schedule until heavy rains struck Montana in May.

Farmer Terry Hilgedick from nearby Hartsburg, an area prone to flooding, questioned McMahon about the corps' policy of releasing water at a relatively slow rate, despite record snowfall and snow-pack in Montana and the Dakotas.

"You knew that you had a larger snow -pack and even larger projections than even last year, which was the second highest (snow fall and snow-pack) in a year," said Hilgedick.

"We had everything in place to accommodate the snow-pack," said McMahon. "What we didn't have in place was this unprecedented amount of rain in the upper basin states that took away our flexibility."

The general's comments echo the corps' position on the reasoning behind its record releases of water over the last month or so. As of Monday, the dams along the upper Missouri, including the final dam, Gavins Point near Yankton South Dakota, continue to pump out a record volume of 150,000 cubic feet per second.

The Gavins Point Dam began pumping that full volume of water on June 14. The first of that surge is just now reaching Kansas City. McMahon said it would be at least another week before river levels came up in Jefferson City, and another three days or so beyond that before the surge reaches St. Charles and the confluence with the Mississippi River.

Already, levees are being overtopped and breached in northwest Missouri where residents of the town of Big Lake have evacuated. The river reached an all time record level at Rulo Nebraska earlier Monday, and officials in southwest Iowa continue to eye flood waters that are lapping at a new flood wall built to protect the south end of the community of Hamburg. McMahon said the corps will continue running water at Gavins Point and its other dams at their current volume until at least the middle of July, and could go longer if rain continues over the northern basin. And McMahon said the reservoirs continue to take in more water than they are pumping out.

McMahon and Kansas City corps commander, Col. Anthony Hoffmann came to Jefferson City at the request of Ninth District Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer and Fourth District congresswoman Vicky Hartzler.

"There's a lot of questions out there about how the corps arrived at the decisions they have," said Rep. Hartzler. "This is a precarious situation."

europe is running a giant ponzi scheme

Financial Times | One of the pillars upon which the euro was established was the principle of “no bail-out”. When the sovereign debt crisis hit the eurozone this principle was ditched. As Greece, Ireland and Portugal were unable to service their unsustainable levels of debt, a mechanism was instituted to supply them with the financing necessary to service their obligations. This financing was provided, supposedly, in exchange for their implementing measures that would make their, now higher, debt burdens sustainable in the future. Yet the mode adopted to resolve the debt problems of countries in peripheral Europe is, apparently, to increase their level of debt. A case in point is the €78bn ($116bn) loan to Portugal. It is equivalent to more than 47 per cent of its gross domestic product in 2010, possibly increasing Portugal’s public debt to about 120 per cent of GDP.

It could be claimed that this mechanism is helping the countries involved since the official loans, although onerous, carry better conditions than the ones that need to be serviced. But the countries’ debts will increase (as a percentage of GDP the debts of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are expected to be higher by the end of 2012 than at the start of the crisis). The share of debt owed to the official sector will also increase (in addition to the bond purchases by the European Central Bank, which reportedly owns 17 per cent of these countries’ bonds with a much higher percentage held as collateral).

Is this ongoing piling of debt an indication of imminent defaults? Probably, but not necessarily. An immediate default could result in major market commotion, given the high exposure of European banks to peripheral debt. Therefore, European governments are finding it more convenient to postpone the day of reckoning and continue throwing money into the peripheral countries, rather than face domestic financial disruption. Consequently, as long as European and international money (through the International Monetary Fund’s generous financing) is available, the game could go on.

It is based on the fiction that this is just a temporary liquidity problem and that the official financing helps the countries involved to make the reforms that will allow them to return to the voluntary market in normal conditions. In other words, the narrative is that the recipient countries could and would outgrow their debt. To “prove” this scenario is feasible several debt sustainability exercises are being dreamt up. But the fact is that this situation is only sustainable as long as additional amounts of money are available to continue the pretence.

Here is where this situation resembles a pyramid or a Ponzi scheme. Some of the original bondholders are being paid with the official loans that also finance the remaining primary deficits. When it turns out that countries cannot meet the austerity and structural conditions imposed on them, and therefore cannot return to the voluntary market, these loans will eventually be rolled over and enhanced by eurozone members and international organisations. This is Greece, not Chad: does anyone imagine the IMF will stop disbursing loans if performance criteria are not met? Moreover, this “public sector Ponzi scheme” is more flexible than a private one. In a private scheme, the pyramid collapses when you cannot find enough new investors willing to hand over their money so old investors can be paid. But in a public scheme such as this, the Ponzi scheme could, in theory, go on for ever. As long as it is financed with public money, the peripheral countries’ debt could continue to grow without a hypothetical limit.

But could it, really? The constraint is not financial, but political. We are starting to observe public opposition to financing this Ponzi scheme in its current form, but it could still have quite a way to go. It is apparent that, if not forced sooner by politics, the inevitable default will only be allowed to take place when the vast part of the European distressed debt is transferred from the private to the official sector. As in a pyramid scheme, it will be the last holder of the “asset” that takes the full loss. In this case, it will be the taxpayer that foots the bill, rather than the original bondholders that made the wrong investment decisions.

radiation readings at highest level since crisis began

Gundersen Postulates Unit 3 Explosion May Have Been Prompt Criticality in Fuel Pool from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Bloomberg | Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today. That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

Radiation from the station, where four of six reactors have been damaged by explosions, has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and contaminated farmland and drinking water. A plan to flood the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 with more water to speed up emergency cooling efforts announced yesterday by the utility known as Tepco may not be possible now.

“Tepco must figure out the source of high radiation,” said Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University. “If it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called water tomb may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation in the building.”

blowing green smoke...,

Kunstler | Blame Steven Chu, then, because when it comes to America's energy predicament, the president has been woefully misinformed. Mr. Obama pawned off a roster of notions and proposals already product-tested in the public meme-o-sphere. Almost everyone of these ideas is inconsistent with reality, based on faulty premises, or represents some kind of magical thinking. What they have in common is that they're ideas the public wants to hear, whether they are truthful or not, because we don't want to change the way we live.

The central idea in Mr. Obama's speech is that we will reduce our oil imports by one-third in a decade. This is a gross distortion of reality. The truth is that our oil imports will be reduced automatically, whether we like it or not. The process is already underway. The nations that export oil to us are using much more of their own oil even while their supplies have passed peak production and entered depletion. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico have some of the highest population growth-rates in the world. They sell gasoline to their own people for less than a dollar a gallon. At the same time China and India are driving more cars and importing a lot more of the world's declining supply. (China has perhaps the equivalent of a four-year supply of its own oil in the ground, and India has next-to-zero oil of its own).

One meme circulating around the Web these days is that the USA has the equivalent of "three Saudi Arabias" in the shale oil fields of North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. That is not true. A lot of this magical thinking focuses on the Bakken fields of Dakota. We're currently producing less than 400,000 barrels a day out of Bakken and the projected maximum ten years from now is around 800,000. We use 20 million barrels a day in the US running suburbia, Wal Mart, and the US military. By the way, Bakken shale oil requires extensive rock fracturing operations - "fracking" - which means a lot of horizontal drilling, which means a lot of steel pipe. It is not just a matter of sticking a steel straw in the ground like we did in Texas in 1932.

Note: much of the shale "oil" in other western states is not actually oil. It is kerogen, an organic precursor to oil, in effect organic polymers that have not been subjected to enough heat and pressure to turn into oil. If you want to turn it into oil, you have to cook it - which takes energy! That's after the mining operation to scoop it out of the ground. That takes energy too. Or, you can send machinery into the ground and cook it in place. That takes energy, too. We are not going to get oil out of there anytime soon - and perhaps never.

The "drill drill drill" gang is under the impression that North America has vast unexplored regions where oil is just begging to be discovered. This is not true. The New York Times reported after Obama's speech - in a disgracefully dumb story by Clifford Krauss - that the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast contain 3.8 billion barrels of oil. Really? Hello! The US uses over 7 billion barrels of oil every year. Does the Arctic National Wildlife refuge contain between 4 and 11 billion barrels (US gov estimate)? Great, that averages out to about a year or so of US supply. And I'm not even against drilling there, only against the idea that it represents a meaningful "solution" to our problem.

Meanwhile, the old standby Alaskan oil fields at Prudhoe Bay are depleting so remorselessly that there may not be enough flow in a year or so to move the oil through the famous pipeline.

How about Canada's tar sands? Well, first of all, they belong to Canada, not us, unless we want to change that - and that could be politically messy. The tar sands will never produce more than 3 million barrels a day. The operations are already too huge, costly, and damaging to the northern watershed. Canada is our number one source of imported oil, but China would also like to buy Canadian oil. Are we planning to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to prevent Canada from selling its oil to parties outside the Western Hemisphere? That could be messy, too.

japan has lost race to save fukushima..,

Guardian | The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.

Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors.

At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

"The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell," Lahey said. "I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released.

libya and the holy triumvirate

Video - Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich seek to defund Libya intervention.

KillingHope | Libya is engaged in a civil war. The United States and the European Union and NATO — The Holy Triumvirate — are intervening, bloodily, in a civil war. To overthrow Moammar Gaddafi. First The Holy Triumvirate spoke only of imposing a no-fly zone. After getting support from international bodies on that understanding they immediately began to wage war against Libyan military forces, and whoever was nearby, on a daily basis. In the world of commerce this is called "bait and switch".

Gaddafi's crime? He was never respectful enough of The Holy Triumvirate, which recognizes no higher power, and maneuvers the United Nations for its own purposes, depending on China and Russia to be as spineless and hypocritical as Barack Obama. The man the Triumvirate allows to replace Gaddafi will be more respectful.

So who are the good guys? The Libyan rebels, we're told. The ones who go around murdering and raping African blacks on the supposition that they're all mercenaries for Gaddafi. One or more of the victims may indeed have been members of a Libyan government military battalion; or may not have been. During the 1990s, in the name of pan-African unity, Gaddafi opened the borders to tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans to live and work in Libya. That, along with his earlier pan-Arab vision, did not win him points with The Holy Triumvirate. Corporate bosses have the same problem about their employees forming unions. Oh, and did I mention that Gaddafi is strongly anti-Zionist?

Does anyone know what kind of government the rebels would create? The Triumvirate has no idea. To what extent will the new government embody an Islamic influence as opposed to the present secular government? What jihadi forces might they unleash? (And these forces do indeed exist in eastern Libya, where the rebels are concentrated.) Will they do away with much of the welfare state that Gaddafi used his oil money to create? Will the state-dominated economy be privatized? Who will wind up owning Libya's oil? Will the new regime continue to invest Libyan oil revenues in sub-Saharan African development projects? Will they allow a US military base and NATO exercises? Will we find out before long that the "rebels" were instigated and armed by Holy Triumvirate intelligence services?

In the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was guilty of "crimes" similar to Gaddafi's. His country was commonly referred to as "the last communists of Europe". The Holy Triumvirate bombed him, arrested him, and let him die in prison. The Libyan government, it should be noted, refers to itself as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. American foreign policy is never far removed from the Cold War.

We must look closely at the no-fly zone set up for Iraq by the US and the UK (falsely claimed by them as being authorized by the United Nations) beginning in the early 1990s and lasting more than a decade. It was in actuality a license for very frequent bombing and killing of Iraqi citizens; softening up the country for the coming invasion. The no-fly zone-cum invasion force in Libya is killing people every day with no end in sight, softening up the country for regime change. Who in the universe can stand up to The Holy Triumvirate? Has the entire history of the world ever seen such power and such arrogance?

is you is or is you ain't fit'na tap?!?!?!

Reuters | White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on Sunday the Obama administration is considering tapping into the U.S. strategic oil reserve as one way to help ease soaring oil prices.

Speaking on NBC television's "Meet the Press," Daley said: "We are looking at the options. The issue of the reserves is one we are considering. ... All matters have to be on the table."

There has been support among Senate Democrats for tapping the reserves. Senator Jay Rockefeller on Thursday became the third Democrat to ask President Barack Obama to tap America's emergency oil supply to cool prices that have risen past $100 a barrel on the strife in Libya.

In a letter to Obama, Rockefeller said a "limited draw-down" from the nation's 727-million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve "can protect our national security by preventing or reducing the adverse impact of an oil shortage."

On Wednesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu ruled out releasing oil from the reserve, saying ramped up oil production in Saudi Arabia should lower the crude price.

"That's going to mitigate the price increase," he told reporters on Wednesday. "We're hoping market forces will take care of this."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday the United States and other major economies could tap strategic reserves to keep oil prices from derailing a global recovery.

Geithner said high food and oil prices were causing hardships in many parts of the world. But he said Americans were feeling less impact.

bahrain's crackdown threatens u.s. interests

Video - Ruling Sunni family cracks down hard on non-violent Shiite protesters

WaPo | FOR A DECADE, the ruling al-Khalifa family of Bahrain has been claiming to be leading the country toward democracy - an assertion frequently endorsed by the United States. On Thursday, the regime demolished that policy and any pretense about its real, autocratic nature. It dispatched its security forces to assault and violently disperse peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators who were camped in Manama's Pearl Square. At least four people were killed and 230 injured in the predawn raid.

The brutality is unlikely to restore stability to the Persian Gulf nation, even in the short term - and it poses a direct threat to vital interests of the United States. The U.S. 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain and plays an important role in providing security to the Gulf and in containing nearby Iran. Not only is the crackdown likely to weaken rather than strengthen an allied government, but the United States cannot afford to side with a regime that violently represses the surging Arab demand for greater political freedom.

Bahrain is the first of the Arab world's monarchies to experience major unrest in what is becoming a region-wide upheaval - and with good reason. The Khalifa family and ruling elite, who are Sunni, preside over a population that is 70 percent Shiite, and the majority is disenfranchised, excluded from leading roles in the government or security forces. Ten years ago, the ruling family launched a cautious reform process, instituting a parliament with limited powers. But in the last year it has moved in reverse. Last summer two dozen Shiite opposition leaders were arrested and charged under terrorism laws. Many other activists were rounded up, and a human rights group was taken over by the government.

The Obama administration failed to react forcefully to those abuses, which set the stage for this week's uprising by thousands of demonstrators from both the Shiite and Sunni communities. In December, visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton heaped praise on the government for "the progress it is making on all fronts" and minimized the political prosecutions, describing "the glass as half full."

the spice must flow...,

Video - Call for Suez Canal workers to strike

zerohedge | And here we go:

Suez Canal Company workers from the cities of Suez, Port Said, and Ismailia began an open-ended sit in today. Disruptions to shipping movements, as well as disasterous econmic losses, are expected if the strike continues. Over 6000 protesters have agreed that they will not go home today once their shift is over and will continue their in front of the company's headquarters until their demands are met. They are protesting against poor wages and deteriorating health and working conditions.

And just to make sure that there is complete confusion, here's Bloomberg with an earlier comment:

Egypt’s Suez Canal shipping traffic is operating normally, Mohamed Motair, director of companies at the Suez Canal Authority, said by telephone today

Update from Reuters:

According to a senior canal official, Egypt's Suez Canal operating normally, strikes by companies owned by Suez Authority are not involved in Canal operations

Keep an eye on oil, which jumped on the news

flames and fighting on the nile

The Australian | It is hard to grasp the sheer size and weight of Egypt in the Arab identity: with 80 million people, it is the most populous nation, the fount of classical Arabic, an ancient centre of Sunni Muslim learning and a fertile source of newspapers, books, music, films and soap operas adored from Casablanca to the Gulf.

Yet an undercurrent of terrorism lurks on the fringes of Egyptian civilisation. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man who helped plan the September 11 attacks, was born in Cairo. Terrorists killed 58 Western tourists at Luxor in 1997 and at least 88 people died in a bomb attack at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort in 2005.

Egypt embodies the woes of other Arab nations: economic deprivation, an oppressive political system, a super-wealthy elite and a family that has ruled for decades.

Its armed forces, once the most powerful in the region, consume billions in American aid but 30 years of peace with Israel have left them indolent and riddled with corruption. They do, however, command patriotic prestige, an asset that could now become crucial.

So the warning signs were there. But none of President Hosni Mubarak's generals or secret policemen seems to have expected the torrent of events last week.

On Tuesday, thousands of mostly young men poured into the streets, taking the government by surprise and overwhelming the security forces, who broke ranks and ran.

On Wednesday, the authorities outlawed public gatherings and detained hundreds of demonstrators and political activists. The protesters held their nerve. Skirmishes ignited in the afternoon, with riot police chasing people to clear streets, beating some with bamboo staves and lengths of rubber hose.

In the northern city of Suez, protesters set fire to a provincial government office and a fire station. Satellite television relayed images to a restive Arab world. At that point, governments and markets across the globe took notice, because Suez commands the strategic canal that carries trade between Europe and the booming economies of the Far East.

Thursday was tense but quiet, except for a bizarre protest in Cairo by lawyers who started throwing rocks from inside the neo-classical building of their union at riot police on the streets outside.

In fact, the eerie calm of Thursday was just the sound of people regrouping, via Facebook, Twitter and mobile phone messages. They called for a day of rage on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

After prayers, the word went out to head for Tahrir Square at the heart of old Cairo, which had become the centre of the protests.

Few details were on Facebook, as it had become clear the authorities were monitoring the site. But, as it turned out, few details were needed.

As crowds spilled out of the mosques they scorned the anodyne sermons they had heard as proof that the clerics were in the pay of the government. "We must express our opinion as individual human beings without bloodshed or destruction of property," the speaker at the Fatih mosque said, telling the faithful that the leader should "be your guide".

The time had passed for that. The anger of the crowds was directed at Mubarak personally: his rigged elections, the corruption of his circle and his ceaseless grip on power. "Mubarak must go!" they chanted. Rasha el-Sayed, 36, said: "There are no jobs, and the prices are so high we cannot afford bread. The women are becoming spinsters and the men are sitting at home doing nothing."

Within half an hour the police started firing tear gas. Only a few brave young men stood their ground, throwing rocks and at one point hurling a tear-gas grenade back towards the police.

After that, protests swelled like the Nile in flood.

Buildings burned, cars were set ablaze, clouds of tear gas hung in the air and gunshots punctuated the chants of protest in towns and cities across the country.

By midnight on Friday, when a haggard Mubarak went on television to say he had listened to his people and sacked his government, pledging to make things better, Egypt was in flames.

The wind of change in the Arab world -- predicted by both bin Laden and George W. Bush--had come. So important is Egypt in the region that the future of the whole Middle East could now be forged on the streets of Cairo and Suez.

Western governments and Islamic revolutionaries from Tehran to Peshawar are holding their breath this weekend. There appear to be three possible outcomes: a transition to democracy; a new dictatorship, perhaps led by a general around whom the old guard would coalesce; or an Islamic state.

However, nowhere has technology combined with peaceful protest beaten a truly ruthless regime, as the Burmese could testify.

From Tehran there came predictions that Muslim fundamentalists would triumph in Tunis and Cairo, as they did over the liberal and leftist factions in the Iranian revolution.