Monday, September 29, 2008

Blueprint for Modern Warsocialism

NSC-68 or National Security Council Report 68 was a 58 page classified report issued in the United States on April 14, 1950 during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. Written in the formative stages of the Cold War, it has become one of the classic historical documents of the Cold War. NSC-68 would shape government actions in the Cold War for the next 20 years and has subsequently been labeled its "blueprint." Truman officially signed NSC-68 on September 30, 1950. It was declassified in 1975.

The document outlined the de facto national security strategy of the United States for that time (though it was not an official NSS in the form we know today) and analyzed the capabilities of the Soviet Union and of the United States of America from military, economic, political, and psychological standpoints.

This document is critical to an understanding of the Cold War, its legacy on similar national security documents, such as the National Security Strategy March 2005, also provides insight on current US foreign policy. The implementation of NSC-68, although the proposal was initially refused, shows to what extent it marked a 'shift' in US policy not only towards the USSR but indeed all other communist governments. The signing of the document showed the clear defined and coherent US policy that to some extent did not exist until 1950 under the Truman administration. Furthermore, it can be argued that this document proposed by the security council solved Truman's problem from attack from the American right just after the 'reds in the beds' scare and the Alger Hiss case. Although not made public, it did show up on the surface as an increase in both conventional and nuclear capabilities of the USA, and indeed provided the USA with a greater financial burden.

Original document here.

He Tried to Tell You....,

Politically assassinated former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer tried to break it down for you last February. See what it got him?

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime - How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers - By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A25
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
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What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
Are there any questions as to why Eliot Spitzer had to be clipped before he morphed into a full on Elliot Ness? Short memories and even shorter attention spans can be counted on not to put two and two together......,

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The People Will Demand Blood.....,

We humbly yield the floor to the Hypertiger who now spells out what will next transpire.

First the bailout
Momentary appearance of economic reprieve
An act of war
Bailout appears to be subverted
World War III begins in earnest.
War is great cover for the collapse of the global trade system...Sorry people we must accept these austerity measures...

maybe they need the 700 billion to put the finishing touches on the scapegoat...

It's like this...spread some money around which will cause a very short term prosperity fooling people into thinking the bailout worked and that the economy is onto the road to recovery...then all you need to do is cause the war before the prosperity ends...

Then say dang...everything was going great...but then (Insert name of culprit here) caused (insert incident) and the economy is imploding...and we have to institute all these austerity measuries...what a rip...

The population will fall for it and demand blood...basically a replay of the solution to the 1929-1933 collapse of the global trade system.
I've not previously encountered a more neat, reat, and complete tying up of all the prevailing political and economic narratives. Not only do we have the historical precedent upon which to draw, but also all the world's pressing problems that can be resolved by only one means currently and clearly at TPTB's disposal.

Bailout Blues....,

Richard Heinberg at the Post Carbon Institute writes;
King Henry waltzes in, announces that the bankers have gotten themselves into a bit of a bind as a result of their own greed and stupidity, and insists that each American taxpayer immediately take out a loan for over $2,500 so that he can distribute the funds secretly, with no oversight, to a bunch of financial wizards who typically make several thousand a minute in salaries and bonuses--wizards who introduced us to the wonders of derivatives and adjustable-rate mortgages.

Sounds like a great plan to me. Why would anyone balk? Just think of the futility of spending a few billion of that treasure on things like building bridges or railroads, projects that might actually hire real workers, when we can instead buy up mountains of toxic debt from a bunch of bankrupt hucksters. Now that’s a real investment in our future!

Sorry for the sarcasm. It’s hard to resist. I’ll try to ratchet it down as I explain just what $700 billion means in terms of our nation’s energy infrastructure. America has about 130 million private homes, so that’s about $5,400 per home—not quite enough to put a one-kilowatt photovoltaic system on every roof. I use that as a standard, because that’s what my wife and I have on our own house, and it basically zeros out our electricity bill for the year.

Of course, that wouldn’t be the most practical energy use of the money: not every house is appropriate for solar. So throw in a few hundred wind turbines instead, along with a few billion dollars for research into energy storage technologies. One way or another, the country would be well on its way toward ending its dependence on fossil fuels.

Realistically, another few trillion would be needed to finish the job by rebuilding the grid (which desperately needs it) as well as the transport infrastructure. But most or all of that larger installment would come from industry, given the appropriate incentives and regulatory structures.

Everyone who understands energy, who grasps that oil is in its final days and that other fossil fuels are dribbling away too, who sees the vital necessity of ending carbon emissions given the climate cataclysm we face, or who worries about the ongoing geopolitical turmoil generated by competition for access to increasingly expensive oil and gas, agrees that the energy transition away from fossil fuels is the highest survival priority for our species at this moment in our history. But evidently there are those who see a greater need elsewhere.

Oh well, it’s only money.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Palin’s American Exception

Roger Cohen writing in the NYTimes;
Behind Palinism lies anger. It’s been growing as America’s relative decline has become more manifest in falling incomes, imploding markets, massive debt and rising new centers of wealth and power from Shanghai to Dubai.

The damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage of that America has sharpened as U.S. exceptionalism has become harder to square with the 21st-century world’s interconnectedness. How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?

Very exceptional, insists Palin, and so does John McCain by choosing her. (He has said: “I do believe in American exceptionalism. We are the only nation I know that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal.”)

America is distinct. Its habits and attitudes with respect to religion, patriotism, voting and the death penalty, for example, differ from much of the rest of the developed world. It is more ideological than other countries, believing still in its manifest destiny. At its noblest, it inspires still.

But, let’s face it, from Baghdad to Bear Stearns the last eight years have been a lesson in the price of exceptionalism run amok.

To persist with a philosophy grounded in America’s separateness, rather than its connectedness, would be devastating at a time when the country faces two wars, a financial collapse unseen since 1929, commodity inflation, a huge transfer of resources to the Middle East, and the imperative to develop new sources of energy.

Enough is enough.

Multicultural ideal 'terrible' for UK - Tories

In today's UK Guardian Shadow minister issues controversial warning;
In the name of trying to prepare people for some new multicultural society we've encouraged people, particularly the sort of long-term inhabitants, to say 'well your cultural background isn't really very important'." He adds: "In this vacuum the BNP rise and Hizb ut-Tahrir rises. They're two very similar phenomena of people who are experiencing a form of cultural despair about themselves, their identity. And it's terribly easy to latch on to confrontational and aggressive variants of their cultural background as being the only way to sort of reassure themselves that they can survive and have an identity."

The shadow home secretary said multiculturalism was inspired by the "understandable" desire to make people feel comfortable. But he added: "The idea behind it was [to] create the melting pot. But the melting pot needs the ingredients of people's confidence in themselves as they come together. And if it isn't there I think we've done ourselves huge damage."

He also raises fears that "fundamental Islam" is restricting debate. "Our country has adapted because people have been tolerant which has often required a lot of forbearance and acceptance of things they didn't like. We all have to accept things we don't like. That is how Britain has evolved. When I go and address an Islamic audience I always point this out."

An Anglican, Grieve praises the contribution all the major religions have made to Britain. But he says that people should not forget Britain's Christian heritage. "The role of Christianity is really rather important. It can't just be magicked out of the script. It colours many of the fundamental viewpoints of British people, including many who've never been in a church."

Gas shortage may crimp weekend fun

The Atlanta Journal Constitution:
With all that’s going on this weekend within what ordinarily would be easy driving range, Georgia’s gas shortage could complicate many people’s plans.

The University of Georgia home game against Top-10 rival Alabama. The 20th anniversary of the Atlanta Football Classic. The North Georgia State Fair in Marietta. The PGA Tour Championship. Auburn at home versus Tennessee.

These are just a few of the major events within a day’s drive of metro Atlanta planned for today through Sunday. But with North Georgia gas supplies spotty, will everyone be able to get where they’re going?

The gas shortage extends beyond the metro area, but has hit hardest in Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., and the Carolinas, including the Charlotte area and the mountain towns to the west. For days it has closed civic offices, cut short workdays and even canceled community college classes.

The result is that many who initially intended to visit Atlanta this weekend have changed their plans.

“I didn’t want to come down there and be dealing with the same problems in an area I’m not that familiar with,” said Spencer Rawlings, a Nashville resident who regularly makes the four-hour drive for the Atlanta Football Classic.

“In Atlanta on a weekend like this, you’ll be sitting around in traffic, only burning up gas. I’ll eat the cost of my ticket.”
Dopamine and lack of gasoline can't, don't, and won't mix....,

Friday, September 26, 2008

Her Weakness...,

Russia and 580 Billion Arctic Barrels...,

In Pravda;

Russia is determined to make decisive and successive decisions to anchor its rights for the oil and gas-rich water area of the Arctic Ocean. The secretary of the Russian Security Council, the former director of the Federal Security Bureau, Nikolai Patrushev, said yesterday that President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government to develop a detailed plan of Russia’s state policy in the Arctic region before December 1, 2008. “We must ensure Russia’s national interests in the Arctic region for a long-term perspective,” Medvedev said at the meeting of the council. “Our first and fundamental goal is to turn the Arctic into Russia’s resource base of the 21st century. “We must defend our interests, although we realize that Arctic states – Canada , Norway, Denmark and the USA – will also be defending their interests,” Mr. Patrushev said. “First and foremost, Russia must designate the borderline in the Arctic south. We name the number of 18 percent of our territory and say that 20,000 kilometers is the state border in this region,” the Secretary of the Security Council said. “There are many problems here. It is not about coming to the Arctic to find natural resources there only,” the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Osipov said. “All these resources will be very hard to extract. The traditions of Russia ’s presence in the Arctic zone were formed long ago, so the future development of the territory must have the scientific platform involved,” he added. Russian polar explorers give the government credit for its interest in the problems of the northern region. However, many of them have serious questions to ask. “Judging upon the experience of our expeditions, I know that the protection of the Russian state borders leaves much to be desired,” the chief of the Marine Arctic Complex Expedition, Pyotr Boyarsky told The Vremya Novostei newspaper. The scientist and his colleagues believe that Russia should create a ring of specially protected territories in the Arctic, which will help Russia defend its rights on the Arctic . “The international community treats the status of such territories with great respect. Their appearance in the Russian Arctic sector will be a much more important argument than political or economic claims, Mr. Boyarsky said. German daily Die Zeit wrote that the struggle for the Arctic may become the zone, where world’s leading superpowers will collide.

WaMu Is Seized, Sold Off

Wall Street Journal this morning;
In what is by far the largest bank failure in U.S. history, federal regulators seized Washington Mutual Inc. and struck a deal to sell the bulk of its operations to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The collapse of the Seattle thrift, which was triggered by a wave of deposit withdrawals, marks a new low point in the country's financial crisis. But the deal, as constructed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., could hold some glimmers of hope for the beleaguered banking system because it averts any hit to the bank-insurance fund.

Instead, J.P. Morgan agreed to pay $1.9 billion to the government for WaMu's banking operations and will assume the loan portfolio of the thrift, which has $307 billion in assets. The full cost to J.P. Morgan will be much higher, because it plans to write down about $31 billion of the bad loans and raise $8 billion in new capital. All WaMu depositors will have access to their cash, but holders of more than $30 billion in debt and preferred stock will likely see little if any recovery. The deal will vault J.P. Morgan into first place in nationwide deposits and greatly expand its franchise.

The seizure was another watershed event in a frenetic period for the U.S. banking system, and came while members of Congress wrangled over the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout package. The tally of U.S. financial giants that have either been seized by the government or sold themselves off to stronger firms in recent weeks includes mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurer American International Group Inc., and Wall Street firms Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co.

The failure of WaMu eclipsed what had long been America's largest bank bust on record, the 1984 collapse of Continental Illinois, which had $40 billion in assets.

The fact that no bank was willing to buy WaMu until it failed shows how badly confidence has eroded in a banking system awash with record profits just a few years ago.

China banks told to halt lending to US banks

BEIJING, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Chinese regulators have told domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

The Hong Kong newspaper cited unidentified industry sources as saying the instruction from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) applied to interbank lending of all currencies to U.S. banks but not to banks from other countries.

"The decree appears to be Beijing's first attempt to erect defences against the deepening U.S. financial meltdown after the mainland's major lenders reported billions of U.S. dollars in exposure to the credit crisis," the SCMP said.

The methane time bomb

In the Independent;
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Irrational Exuberance


The euphoria Wall Street displayed upon the announcement by the Bush Administration that the government’s balance sheet would be used to park illiquid securities was spectacular. On Thursday and Friday, the Dow gained approximately 780 points, after losing as much in the beginning of the week on the news Lehman Brothers was insolvent and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were seeking suitors/mergers.

The rally over the last two trading days of the week can be appropriately characterized as irrational exuberance, a term coined by the chief architect of this credit bubble we are experiencing. To explain this position, it is essential that we ask three questions: 1) What measures are being taken; 2) What are the intended consequences; and 3) How do we protect ourselves from the failure of another rescue effort by a compromised and beleaguered Administration? Let’s address these questions seriatim. Lloyd Wynn breaks it down and provides crucial advice you should heed in today's issue of BlackCommentator.

McCain's Chicken Comes Home to Roost

The deregulation of the financial industry is the primary cause of the latest Wall Street crash, an economic debacle that has befallen not only our nation, but European and Asian markets as well.

John McCain bears grave responsibility for the financial anarchy of our times. For twenty-seven years, through debt-producing Reagonomics - especially deregulation - he promoted corporate permissiveness, a culture that included risky speculation, debt-financed mergers, leveraged buy-outs, export of American jobs, quick profit-taking, and the inevitable cry from Wall Street for public bailouts when the casino goes broke.

From the beginning of his political career as an orthodox Republican, McCain has denigrated the wise teachings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: that unregulated free markets are inherently rapacious and unstable, that war ultimately means higher taxes, and that excessive unpaid debt becomes a balloon so inflated it eventually explodes.

The unfettered free market - the economic Frankenstein that stalks our land today - was conceived in the test tube of Reaganomics in the early ‘80s. John McCain helped to destroy one of the greatest economic achievements in American history, the savings and loan system established during the New Deal. Paul Rockwell recounts McCain's direct involvement in the breakdown of the American economy in today's Black Commentator.

Understanding the Georgia Invasion

Speaking of oil pipelines, here's a timely opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post;
Georgia, located next to powerful Russia, committed a grave mistake in its foreign policy this August. Tbilisi ignored the main virtue advocated by the great practitioners of international relations from Niccolo Machiavelli to Henry Kissinger - prudence - by attempting to regain military control of a seceding region which was supported by Moscow.

Russia exploited the Georgian miscalculation to strike back and to remind everybody that Russia will flex its military muscles in areas considered to be its backyard. Moscow views with trepidation the expansion of NATO, of which it is not a member, toward its borders. Georgian accession to NATO is simply unbearable from a Russian perspective. Russia is threatened by the Western security architecture and will oppose encroachment on areas once Russian-controlled.

Yet this understandable aspect of Russian behavior hides a more ambitious foreign policy goal of controlling the global energy sector, and using such leverage to challenge America in world affairs. The immediate goal of Moscow's military intervention in Georgia was to intimidate the energy-producing countries once part of the Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, to return to the Russian sphere of influence. The Finlandization of the Caucasus and Central Asia will allow Russia, a great oil producer itself, greater influence over the world's energy.

Oil and gas constitute a strategic commodity that is different from coffee or refrigerators. Control of this commodity bestows considerable political influence. The Russians understand that such leverage can be effective against the energy-hungry European states who are already dependent to various degrees on Russian energy. By its actions in August, Russia decided to challenge America. Vladimir Putin seeks to create a wedge between the US and Europe by further increasing the European dependency upon Russian-controlled oil.

GEORGIA IN itself does not produce oil, but hosts several pipelines transferring oil from Azerbaijan in the Caspian Basin. The Georgian territory helps bypass Russian land and prevents Russia from having a greater handle on moving oil from the Caspian to the West. Therefore, following the invasion, Russian troops took control of the Baku-Supsa pipeline (ending on the Black Sea), which runs close to present Russian military lines. The Russians also threatened control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (ending on the Turkish Mediterranean shore) by attacking its vicinity from the air. If the Russians remain in Georgia, they maintain control over great amounts of oil slated for the West that hitherto were unaffected by Russian preferences.

Gasoline Shortages

Where is our gasoline and diesel supply headed? Even before Ike hit, quite a few areas of the US were starting to see gasoline shortages. The impact of Ike could only make shortages worse. Most likely, it will take refineries at least a week or two to get production back to normal levels after a storm of this type, considering the impacts of electrical outages and flooding. In this article, I will examine some of the issues that seem to be involved. Based on my analysis, fuel supply shortages are likely to last well into October, and are likely to get considerably worse before they get better.
Until Colonial pipeline is back to carrying full capacity of gasoline, diesel, and other refined products, there are likely to be shortages along the gulf coast and the Southeast. The Northeast may also begin to see shortages.

Other major outages have also been reported. Explorer pipeline, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of petroleum products from Texas/LA to Indiana, is completely shut down. Plantation pipeline, carrying 600,000 barrels a day of petroleum products from Louisiana to Virginia, is operating at reduced rates. Implications of a ten day refinery outage.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same. Don't forget that Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, is still riding the wave of success from its offshore drilling campaign, "Drill Here, Drill Now!" Just four months ago, offshore drilling was not even on the political radar and now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed supportive legislation. Gingrich is holding an event this Saturday, September 27 that will be broadcast on satellite television to shore up public support for these controversial policies.

What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" -- even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.

Naomi Klein - Now is the time to resist Wall St.'s shock doctrine.

The Iraq war cost US its financial system

The US government last weekend decided it could no longer risk taxpayers’ money by supporting Lehman Brothers and on Monday that bank filed for bankruptcy. In assessing the wisdom or otherwise of this decision one fact should be kept in mind: the International Monetary Fund estimates that the total cost to banks of losses stemming from the subprime crisis will amount to $1,000bn; the cost of the war in Iraq, according to other estimates, particularly one by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, will come to $3,000bn.

The US has shot its financial bolt in Iraq, which may cost the country its financial system. It quite simply no longer has the money to stop a run on banks. Seen in this light, the war in Iraq brings to mind the ruinous decision on the part of the French ancien régime to finance Lafayette’s campaign during the American revolution.

John M. Coates, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Office Space Redux....,

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts.

It is understood that Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than a hundred former employees who had been dismissed after an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant. He wanted to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

A police spokesman said: “Only a few people were called inside. About 150 people were waiting outside when they heard someone from inside shout for help. They rushed in and the two sides clashed. The company staff were heavily outnumbered.”

In the Times Online - CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers

Solar Panels are Vanishing...,

Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves.

Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again.

“I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow,” Ms. Hoffman said.

Police departments in California — the biggest market for solar power, with more than 33,000 installations — are seeing a rash of such burglaries, though nobody compiles overall statistics.

Investigators do not believe the thieves are acting out of concern for their carbon footprints. Rather, authorities assume that many panels make their way to unwitting homeowners, sometimes via the Internet. In the NYTimes - Solar Panels Are Vanishing, Only to Reappear on the Internet

Fuck Robert Kagan And Would He Please Now Just Go Quietly Burn In Hell?

politico | The Washington Post on Friday announced it will no longer endorse presidential candidates, breaking decades of tradition in a...