solitary confinement is punishment plain and simple

Video - Virgil Hilts the real Cooler King.

TheRawStory | A psychologists' group has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to "rectify the inhumane, harmful, and counterproductive treatment" of the Army private accused of being WikiLeaks' source for the US State Department cables.

In a letter dated Monday, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) argued that PFC Bradley Manning, who has been held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico for the past five months, may be the victim of political retribution. The group also suggested that the psychological damage Manning may be suffering from spending 23 hours a day alone may ruin his bid for a fair trial.

"History suggests that solitary confinement, rather than being a rational response to a risk, is more often used as a punishment for someone who is considered to be a member of a despised or 'dangerous' group," the letter stated. "In any case, PFC Manning has not been convicted of a crime and, under our system of justice, is at this point presumed to be innocent."

Manning is alleged to have been the source of the 250,000 US State Department cables that WikiLeaks began publishing in late November. He is also alleged to have been the source of the "collateral murder" video that showed civilians and two Reuters reporters being killed in a 2007 US air raid in Baghdad.

Manning's treatment came to light in an article by Salon's Glenn Greenwald last month, prompting many activist groups to speak out in favor of the Army private who has become a folk hero to some and an enemy of the state to others.

According to his lawyer, Manning is not allowed to have personal items in his cell, has no contact with other prisoners, has no access to sheets or a pillow, and is allowed to "exercise" one hour a day, meaning he is allowed to go for a walk. It's all part of a "prevention of injury" order placed on Manning that his defenders say is unnecessary, as he has shown no signs of violent behavior or suicidal tendencies.

While brig officials have defended Manning's treatment as necessary because he is seen as a national security risk, PsySR argued in its letter than "no such putative risk can justify keeping someone not convicted of a crime in conditions likely to cause serious harm to his mental health."

The group cited a long history of research showing that prolonged exposure to solitary confinement can lead to mental breakdown and even suicide.

PsySR also subtly hinted at an ulterior motive for Manning's detention, suggesting that the solitary confinement may be meant to break Manning's spirit so that he agrees to give "false testimony."

royal hunt of julian assange

Video - highlights from the lincolnshire show..,

IsraelShamir | The "Swedish media" to which Brown refers is the notorious Expressen, the Swedish version of British Sun, and it just happens to be the newspaper that triggered the Assange witch-hunt. Normally you'd look for a more legitimate news source, but when the game is afoot perhaps passion overrides prudence. Thus begins The Guardian's Royal Hunt of Julian Assange.

I have never seen simple facts more twisted and distorted than in the article published by The Guardian on December 18th - and I've seen some beauties. This is trial by media in the best tradition of Pravda 1937. The article's author Nick Davies wrote years ago in his Flat Earth News that the practice of journalism in the UK is "bent"; now he has proven it beyond a doubt by his own writing.

His bias is as subtle as a blow to the head. There is no room for doubt: Assange never committed rape. The day after the alleged rape, the alleged victim boasted to her friends in a twitter that she had a wonderful time with the alleged rapist. The complete story has all been published and is available with a simple Internet search. Nick Davies clearly performed a cruel hatchet job. But was publishing the article a simple case of bad judgement by The Guardian, or the beginning of a smear campaign?

Two days later, we noted The Guardian's second attack. So, Mr Assange, why won't you go back to Sweden now? The answer is not so very hard to find. As Ms. Bennett surmises, Julian has nothing to fear from Sweden. Here is a question for Ms. Bennett. If Swedish authorities were primarily concerned about prosecuting Julian for rape, why have they attached a special condition to their demands of extradition, specifically reserving the right to pass him on to US authorities? You see Ms. Bennett, the US has invented a special treat called Extraordinary Rendition, and this is not something I would wish upon even Andrew Brown.

I'll count the Brown attempt to smear Julian by association with me as a third attack. "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action", as James Bond in Goldfinger put it neatly.

Has American patriotism infected the trenches of The Guardian, or are these reporters simply following orders? The answer can found be on amazon.co.uk. It seems that The Guardian has decided to destroy Wikileaks once it is has been squeezed dry. The Moor has done his work, the Moor may go. Understanding full well that the Wikileaks crew cannot be tamed or subverted, The Guardian is accepting pre-orders for a book called The Rise and Fall of Wikileaks. It's not quite released yet; they have still to arrange for the fall.

Suddenly the smear campaign acquires a rude economic logic. But it doesn't end there.

The Guardian has accepted the US State Department cables. They have agreed to analyze and publish them. Yet they have turned their Wikileaks-based reports into a source of misinformation. The headlines often declare that Wikileaks is the source of the rumour! For instance, one of the headlines, published on December 18, 2010 said:

you have to be asleep to believe it...,

Video - George Carlin The American Dream

why haven't we seen these headlines?

Video - Archie and Edith sing All in the Family opening theme.

DeclineoftheEmpire | The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released their year-end survey on December 15, 2010. Their pollling revealed that for the public, a tough year ended on a down note.

Consistent with the mood of the nation all year, 2010 is closing on a down note. Fully 72% are dissatisfied with national conditions, 89% rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor, and majorities or pluralities think the country is losing ground on nine of 12 major issues.

Pew's survey results are not surprising, and I would cover them in depth if it weren't for some rather important information that was buried in the next to last paragraph.

The survey finds that a majority of the public (57%) says it is very difficult or difficult to afford things they really want. About the same percentage said this two years ago (55%). And for many Americans, affording basic necessities remains a struggle – 51% say it is difficult to afford health care, 48% say the same about their home heating and electric bills, and 29% say it is difficult to afford food.

I just quoted Pew, and you read the quote, but I want to make sure all of us truly absorbed what it says. So let me repeat the information as a series of bullet points.

• Affording basic necessities remains a struggle.


• 51% say it is difficult to afford health care.


• 48% say the same about their home heating and electric bills.


• 29% say it is difficult to afford food.

Why isn't this information Front Page News? Can you see the headline? I can see it, splashed across the top of the front page of the New York Times—

29% of Americans Say It's Difficult To Afford Food

Why haven't we seen this headline? Or this one?

48% of Americans Say It's Hard to Pay Their Heating And Electric Bills

just like in the "good old days"

NYTimes | In February, after being evicted from their Gainesville apartment, Holly, James, Madison and their good-natured pit bull, Caley, moved into a cramped bedroom in the house where Holly grew up. Neither of Madison’s parents had been able to find work for more than a year.

Of the myriad ways the Great Recession has altered the country’s social fabric, the surge in households like the Maggis’, where relatives and friends have moved in together as a last resort, is one of the most concrete, yet underexplored, demographic shifts.

Census Bureau data released in September showed that the number of multifamily households jumped 11.7 percent from 2008 to 2010, reaching 15.5 million, or 13.2 percent of all households. It is the highest proportion since at least 1968, accounting for 54 million people.

Even that figure, however, is undoubtedly an undercount of the phenomenon social service providers call “doubling up,” which has ballooned in the recession and anemic recovery. The census’ multifamily household figures, for example, do not include such situations as when a single brother and a single sister move in together, or when a childless adult goes to live with his or her parents.

For many, the arrangements represent their last best option, the only way to stave off entering a homeless shelter or sleeping in their cars. In fact, nearly half of the people in shelters in 2009 who had not previously been homeless had been staying with family members or friends, according to a recent report, making clear that the arrangements are frequently a final way station on the way to homelessness.

A New York Times analysis of census “microdata,” prepared by the University of Minnesota’s state population center, found that the average income of multifamily households in the records fell by more than 5 percent from 2009 to 2010, twice as much as households over all, suggesting that many who are living in such arrangements are under financial siege. Fist tap Nana.

america the predictable

Freedom Guerilla | The complexity of society is very simple to break. Just add a lot of snow in a short amount of time and watch people freak out.

So when McDonald’s at JFK airport announced there was no more food, people reacted poorly. When the “A” train sat on the track for 8 hours overnight at 34th St., people really didn’t know what to do. When Anne O’Daley sprained her ankle in Brooklyn, she waited 30 hours for an ambulance.

This is what happens for complex societies — they become just as predictably vulnerable as impoverished societies during times of extreme condition.

These stories for the most part are merely annoyances, but what happens if you add another layer of crisis like an extended grid down scenario? A severe financial crisis? A quarantine outbreak of viral disease? Because, all of these things have happened within the last few years — just not all at once.

When the predictable crisis happens, we’re still shocked because we have never experienced it personally. We become conditioned to believing “it’s somebody’s job.” We expect government to always be there, and complain when it’s not.

Here’s the thing — in 2011 your government will become completely overwhelmed and will not solve your hunger, pain, or suffering. Only you can do that, and no amount of shouting into the wind is going to change it. Perhaps 2011 is the year of awakening when we stop talking and start organizing, fixing, and putting up a larder for hard times.

It’s not possible to do it alone.

allstate goes in on BoA

Video - Allstate Haysbert Nothing to Fear commercial

LATimes | But a lawsuit filed last week provides a pointed reminder that the bubble would never have happened had it not been for irresponsible lenders and the feckless investors who kept them awash in cash.

The case pits insurer Allstate against Bank of America and Countrywide, the giant mortgage lender that Bank of America bought in 2008. The suit claims that Countrywide misrepresented the risks posed by the bundles of mortgages it sold to investors such as Allstate, which sank $700 million into the securities from 2005 to 2007. After the housing bubble burst, the mortgages in those securities started defaulting at a torrid pace, causing the value of the securities to plummet.

The complaint presents only one side of the dispute, of course. A Bank of America spokesman suggested that Allstate was "a sophisticated investor … looking for someone to blame." But Allstate's examination of a sample of the mortgages in each bundle found that Countrywide's disclosures consistently understated such important indicators as the percentage of mortgages with low down payments or with no proof of the borrower's income (so-called liar loans). And by Allstate's analysis, Countrywide's disclosures weren't off by a little bit. For example, in 11 securities that were supposedly free of "underwater" mortgages, up to 14% of the loans turned out to be larger than the value of the house.

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It's true that lenders across the industry threw caution to the winds during the housing boom — how else to explain the existence of liar loans and mortgages that went belly up as soon as housing prices turned down? But that was just part of the problem. As Bank of America observed, Allstate and other buyers of mortgage-backed securities were often sophisticated investors. Yet they don't seem to have bothered with a rigorous risk analysis until after they lost their shirts.

Instead, they relied on credit rating agencies — which were paid by the sellers of the securities, not the buyers — to protect them from bad investments. Given that most of the securities Allstate bought were given pristine AAA ratings, it's clear that the rating agencies involved also failed to do the research needed to spot the discrepancies between Countrywide's claims and the actual risks.

neighbor goes in on neighbor...,

WSJ | Few things agitate Sid Schulman, who often shoots the breeze with other retirees and flirts with women friends at their condominium complex here.

But it galls him when neighbors stop paying their mortgages and maintenance fees, and leave the cost of community upkeep to others. "I am paying for these guys," said the 75-year-old sitting poolside, a diamond stud in his left ear.

Last year, he took matters into his own hands. Near the mailbox of each condo building he posted a list of residents delinquent on their maintenance fees, with the message "Pay up or move out" and the same in Spanish, Pague O Mudese. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to get the cable company to cut off service to nonpayers.

The public shaming angered some of those named. "You know where I live—come and tell me that to me face," said Lorena Garcia, 36, who lost her job and ability to pay.

The storm that struck the housing market has strewn many casualties—lenders, builders, real-estate agents, mortgage-bond investors.

Add to the list the comity of certain communities where residents live close together, some of them paying their mortgages and homeowner-association fees, and some not.

As banks slow foreclosures amid concerns about sloppy record keeping, some delinquent homeowners get to stay put even longer without paying. The delays are further inflaming some neighbors who consider that unfair.

6 "myths" about oil

FoxNews | Every American consumes an average of three gallons of oil a day. Republicans and Democrats call this reliance on oil an “addiction”—an irrational, self-destructive habit that must be broken as soon as possible. This year's BP oil spill disaster is only making the chorus to “end our addiction to oil” louder. But if we examine the most common arguments for this idea, we see that they are myths. Oil is a vital, viable, and desirable part of our energy future.

Economic freedom, not climate, is the fundamental determiner of human well-being. Left free to discover and harness energy, human beings can adapt to any change in weather. But there is no adapting to a mass, government-created drought of energy. There are already 1.5 billion people in the world who live without electricity. What they need is not a stagnant average global temperature; they need capitalism, including cheap, affordable fossil fuels.

The 6 myths about oil all count on the fact that we have not been taught to truly value or understand oil, the oil industry, and the capitalist system that have made them so prominent.

How often do we hear that oil is a source of incredible value to human life, past, present, and future? How often do we hear about of the forward-looking ingenuity of the oil industry and other energy industries to keep finding new and better ways to harness raw materials from the earth. How often do we hear about the great benefits of international trade in energy? Almost never.

It’s time to start talking about these positives and talk about liberating, not restricting, oil production. Otherwise, in the name of being “clean” and “green” we will adopt policies that will sentence ourselves and our children to energy poverty.

gasoline fuels myth that spending is on the rise

NYPost | My question is simple: When you and your children opened presents on Christmas morning, was gasoline among the loot? Raise your hands if you got a gallon or two.

I suspect there isn't a single hand raised. Santa may give out coal to bad boys and girls, but he doesn't give out petroleum-based products. (Too heavy, I suppose, for the sleigh.)

There's a reason for this preposterous question.

Research firms attempting to track the amount of money consumers spent this Christmas don't bother to distinguish between the iPad you bought for your brother Luke and the gas that Luke purchased on Dec. 23 to fill his truck.

Both the gas and the iPad are retail sales. They are equal in most surveys of Christmas shopping. Yet, the iPad means someone intentionally increased his hoard of gadgets. It's what economists call a discretionary purchase, which people make mostly when they are feeling good.

This would be good news for the economy.

The gasoline? Not only is it a necessity of life, but any increase in the dollar amount of gasoline sales was caused by rising prices and not because a driver -- caught up in the holiday spirit -- purposely bought, say, 1.1 gallons instead of just a gallon.

Worse, the rising price of gasoline likely caused people to cut back on their holiday purchases, or go deeper into debt than they would have to buy those gifts.

So we don't know how much of Christmas sales were really wasted on the inflated prices of products that would have been purchased anyway -- gasoline but also food and especially clothing, which has been jumping in price along with the price of cotton.

But it's clear that energy costs chugged higher in December, so the impact is likely to be substantial. The Energy Department says gas prices went from a nationwide average of $2.91 a gallon in mid-November to $3.05 a gallon around Christmas time.

That's a 4.8-percent increase and indicates that a lot of this holiday's spending wasn't for the purpose of joyful gift- giving but rather went toward filling Luke's pickup.

You've probably heard that consumer spending makes up 70 percent of the US economy. So what people did during Christmas is terribly important, not only for the economy but also for the stock market and the general mood of our country.

Washington has been wildly unsuccessful in creating jobs, as the steady-as-you-go 9.8 percent unemployment rate proves. Without job growth, the experts are re ally hoping for some mira cle pickup in consumer spending -- a spontane ous combustion of the urge to own that over whelmed fear and lack of cash.

Can this miracle hap pen?

whatever became of this?

Video - World Without Oil Game Project

WWO | It was the world's first serious alternate reality game, a cooperative pre-imagining of a global oil crisis. Over 1900 players collaborated in May 2007 to chronicle the oil crisis with their own personal blog posts, videos, images and voicemails. The game ended after simulating the first 32 weeks of the oil shock, but its effects continue, as game designers analyze its unique gameplay and we all watch the continuing drama with global oil prices and supply.

food in a world without oil...,

Video - Royal Society Panel Discussion of Food in a World Without Oil

meetings with remarkable men

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 1 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 2 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 3 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 4 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 5 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 6 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 7 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 8 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 9 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 10 of 11)

Video - Meetings With Remarkable Men (Part 11 of 11)

"The Flower Duet (Lakmé)" - Léo Delibes.

Audio - "The Flower Duet (Lakmé)" - Léo Delibes.

gurdjieff's mission

Video - Gurdjieff's Mission.

Video - Gurdjieff Chants Hymns and Dances.

in search of the miraculous

Video - In Search of the Miraculous Part 1.

Video - In Search of the Miraculous Part 2.

Video - In Search of the Miraculous Part 3.

Video - In Search of the Miraculous Part 4.

Video - In Search of the Miraculous Part 5.

A film directed by Zivko Nicolic, script adaptation by Milan Peters based on the 1949 book by P.D.Ouspensky. Sidney:Fairway Films in association with Znak Productions Belgrade, 1998, 42 min. black & white. Thoughtfully telescopes Ouspensky's book and glimpses of the teaching he received from Gurdjieff, interspersed with archival footage of the Russia Revolution.

glimpses of a fragment

Video - As above so below..a fusion of impressions celebrating great natures design from the sub atomic to the Galactic.

2011 will bring more decriminalization of elite financial fraud

HuffPo | The role of the criminal justice system with regard to financial fraud by elite bankers in 2011 is likely to reprise its role last decade -- de facto decriminalization. The Galleon investigation of insider trading at hedge funds will take much of the FBI's and the Department of Justice's (DOJ) focus.

The state attorneys general investigations of foreclosure fraud do focus on the major players such as the Bank of America (BoA), but they are unlikely to lead to criminal liability for any senior bank officials. It is most likely that they will lead to financial settlements that include new funding for loan modifications.

The FBI and the DOJ remain unlikely to prosecute the elite bank officers that ran the enormous "accounting control frauds" that drove the financial crisis. While over 1000 elites were convicted of felonies arising from the savings and loan (S&L) debacle, there are no convictions of controlling officers of the large nonprime lenders. The only indictment of controlling officers of a far smaller nonprime lender arose not from an investigation of the nonprime loans but rather from the lender's alleged efforts to defraud the federal government's TARP bailout program.

What has gone so catastrophically wrong with DOJ, and why has it continued so long? The fundamental flaw is that DOJ's senior leadership cannot conceive of elite bankers as criminals.

As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund's David Heath reports:

Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. Attorney who is actively prosecuting mortgage fraud cases in Sacramento, Calif., points out that banks lose money when a loan turns out to be fraudulent. An investor in loans who documents fraud can force a bank to buy the loan back. But convincing a jury that executives intended to make fraudulent loans, and thus should be held criminally responsible, may be too difficult of a hurdle for prosecutors. 'It doesn't make any sense to me that they would be deliberately defrauding themselves,' Wagner said."

Mr. Wagner is confused by his own pronouns: "It doesn't make any sense to me that they would be deliberately defrauding themselves." This direct quotation needs to be read in conjunction with the author's description of his position: "banks lose money" when loans "turn out to be fraudulent." Wagner was responding to a question about control fraud -- frauds led by the person controlling the seemingly legitimate entity who uses it as a "weapon." The relevant "they" is the person looting the bank -- the CEO. The word "themselves" refers not to the CEO, but rather to the bank. The CEO is not looting the CEO; he is looting the bank's creditors and shareholders. Two titles capture this well known fraud dynamic. The Nobel laureate in economics, George Akerlof, and Paul Romer co-authored >Looting: the Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit in 1993 and I wrote The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (2005). The CEO becomes wealthy by looting the bank. He uses accounting as his ammunition because, to quote Akerlof & Romer, it is "a sure thing." The firm fails (or in the modern era, is bailed out), but the CEO walks away wealthy.

Here is the four-part recipe for maximizing fraudulent accounting income in the short-term:

1. Grow extremely rapidly
2. By making bad loans at high yields
3. While employing extreme leverage, and
4. Providing only minimal loss reserves

A bank that follows this recipe is mathematically guaranteed to report record income in the near term. The first two ingredients in the recipe are linked. A bank in a reasonably competitive, mature market such as home mortgage lending cannot decide to grow extremely rapidly by making good loans. A bank can, however, guarantee its ability to grow rapidly -- and charge a premium yield -- if it lends to the tens of millions of people who cannot afford to own a home. Equally importantly, if many lenders follow the same recipe they will cause a financial bubble to hyper-inflate. Financial bubbles extend the lives of accounting control frauds by making it simple to refinance loans to those who cannot afford to purchase the asset. The longer that delinquencies and defaults can be delayed the more the CEO can loot the bank.

Note that the same recipe that maximizes short-term fictional income in the near term maximizes real losses in the longer term. Mr. Wagner is unable to understand that accounting control fraud represents the ultimate "agency" problem -- the unfaithful agent (the CEO) enriches himself at the expense of the principals he is supposed to serve and the firm's creditors. Agency problems are well known to white-collar criminologists, economists, lawyers that practice corporate, securities, or criminal law, and financial regulators. Yes, accounting control fraud causes the bank to suffer huge losses. The loans don't "turn out to be fraudulent" -- they are fraudulent when made. The recognition of the losses is delayed when an epidemic of accounting control fraud hyper-inflates a bubble, but the bubble will increase the ultimate losses. Sacramento, California is one of the epicenters of the mortgage fraud that drove the financial crisis, so Mr. Wagner's lack of understanding of fraud mechanisms is particularly harmful.

what, me care?

Scientific American | Humans are unlikely to win the animal kingdom’s prize for fastest, strongest or largest, but we are world champions at understanding one another. This interpersonal prowess is fueled, at least in part, by empathy: our tendency to care about and share other people’s emotional experiences. Empathy is a cornerstone of human behavior and has long been considered innate. A forthcoming study, however, challenges this assumption by demonstrating that empathy levels have been declining over the past 30 years.

The research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in Personality and Social Psychology Review, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

An individual’s empathy can be assessed in many ways, but one of the most popular is simply asking people what they think of themselves. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a well-known questionnaire, taps empathy by asking whether responders agree to statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.” People vary a great deal in how empathic they consider themselves. Moreover, research confirms that the people who say they are empathic actually demonstrate empathy in discernible ways, ranging from mimicking others’ postures to helping people in need (for example, offering to take notes for a sick fellow student).

Since the creation of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in 1979, tens of thousands of students have filled out this questionnaire while participating in studies examining everything from neural responses to others’ pain to levels of social conservatism. Konrath and her colleagues took advantage of this wealth of data by collating self-reported empathy scores of nearly 14,000 students. She then used a technique known as cross-temporal meta-analysis to measure whether scores have changed over the years. The results were startling: almost 75 percent of students today rate themselves as less empathic than the average student 30 years ago. Fist tap Dale.