December 25, 2013

Mining giant Rio Tinto may pull out of Pebble project in Alaska

http://www.adn.com/2013/12/23/3244171/mining-giant-rio-tinto-may-pull.html



To transport ore and equipment, the gold and copper Pebble Mine would require a 104-mile road along Alaska's Pedro Bay

Mining giant Rio Tinto may pull out of Pebble project in Alaska
By Sean Cockerham
Anchorage
December 23, 2013

WASHINGTON — Global mining giant Rio Tinto said Monday it is considering dumping its stake in Alaska’s Pebble Mine, a huge open pit mine planned for the best remaining wild salmon stronghold on Earth.

Rio Tinto’s statement comes just four days after the chief financial officers of California and New York City wrote the London-based mining company and urged it to pull out of the Pebble project. New York City Comptroller John Liu and California State Controller John Chiang said they oversee pension funds that are substantial, long-term shareowners in Rio Tinto.

The officials from California and New York told Rio Tinto it was risking its reputation through involvement with Pebble, given the risk to the wild salmon of Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

“Any association with Pebble Mine could result in substantial adverse public relations and potential customer and investor backlash,” they wrote to Sam Walsh, Rio Tinto’s chief executive.

December 25, 2013

A New Twist in International Relations: The Corporate Keep-My-Data-Out-of-the-U.S. Clause

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-24/a-new-twist-in-international-relations-the-corporate-keep-my-data-out-of-the-u-s-clause.html



A New Twist in International Relations: The Corporate Keep-My-Data-Out-of-the-U.S. Clause
By Jordan Robertson 2013-12-24T11:45:43Z

By now, we've heard from tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Cisco Systems that the National Security Agency's spying poses a threat to their international business and, in Cisco's case, is already hurting it. So what does that threat look like, exactly, at ground level?

Some companies are apparently so concerned about the NSA snooping on their data that they're requiring - in writing - that their technology suppliers store their data outside the U.S.

In Canada, a pharmaceutical company and government agency have now both added language to that effect to their contracts with suppliers, as did a grocery chain in the U.K., according to J.J. Thompson, chief executive officer of Rook Consulting, an Indianapolis, Indiana-based security-consulting firm. He declined to name the companies, which are using Rook to manage the segmentation and keep the data out of the U.S.

Thompson said the language began appearing in contracts over the past couple weeks, and could be an early indicator of things to come as businesses adapt to a landscape altered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks. Documents leaked by Snowden indicate that the NSA has tapped fiber-optic cables abroad, circumvented or cracked encryption and is massively collecting telephone records and Internet traffic. Facebook, Google, Apple and Yahoo were among 15 technology companies that asked President Barack Obama Dec. 17 to restrain the spy programs. Cisco said Nov. 13 that NSA spying has caused delays to networking equipment orders.

December 25, 2013

More Hunger for the Poorest Americans

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/opinion/more-hunger-for-the-poorest-americans.html?hpw&rref=opinion

More Hunger for the Poorest Americans
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: December 24, 2013

This is a harsh season for Americans struggling to afford food. Last month, the long lines at food pantries across the country grew longer with the expiration of the boost to food stamp benefit levels included in the 2009 economic stimulus plan. Those lines are apt to grow even longer thanks to the refusal of House Republicans to renew extended unemployment benefits as part of the recent budget deal.

And if that isn’t sufficient pain for the neediest, Congress is getting ready to make another big cut to nutrition aid when it returns in early January.

Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat of Michigan and the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Representative Frank Lucas, a Republican of Oklahoma who leads the House Agriculture Committee, are close to a deal on a farm bill that is said to include an increase in crop insurance subsidies for farmers and a more than $8 billion cut in food stamp benefits for the poor over the next 10 years.

That cut, about double the one contained in the Senate version of the farm bill, is more modest than the devastating $40 billion reduction in the farm bill passed by House Republicans that would have denied benefits to about 3.8 million people in 2014, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The House bill would also impose drug-testing, work requirements and other conditions, which are not expected to be included in the compromise bill. Still, the compromise deal, driven by the Republican obsession with cutting the food stamps program, will leave many Americans worse off than before.



unhappycamper comment: And the US Navy floats its $5+ billion dollar USS Zumwalt stealth destroyer:



Just to show how out of balance our 'toy' procurement is, we could have bought 50+ Iowa-class battleships for $5 billion.

December 25, 2013

Dronesplain, Verb: Whose 4-Year-Old Gets Killed? ***graphic pic***

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/12/24-1

Dronesplain, Verb: Whose 4-Year-Old Gets Killed?
by Abby Zimet
12.24.13 - 12:46 PM



Amidst the ongoing uproar over the latest disaster wrought by U.S. drones - the Yemen wedding party and the surreal gift of weapons to the families of its victims - a young journalist and son of Afghan refugees is creating a website to list the thousands of innocent victims and thus "give them a voice." Likewise moved, artist Katie Miranda has created the graphic novel "Tear Gas In The Morning" and graphic testimony to the insane things pundits actually say in the form of "dronesplain" - the act of "condescendingly excusing or justifying drone strikes on impoverished areas of the 3rd world (usually followed by an abdication of responsibility for civilian deaths and/or the gift of blood money or weapons to the victims' family."

"The bottom line in the end is - whose four-year-old gets killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that four-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror." - Joe Klein, Time Magazine columnist.

December 25, 2013

Cruelty, Corporations, Congress, and Christmas: Unhappy Holidays for the Poor & Unemployed

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/24-0



Cruelty, Corporations, Congress, and Christmas: Unhappy Holidays for the Poor & Unemployed
-Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, December 24, 2013 by Common Dreams

It's the holiday season in the United States and members of Congress and corporate executives are home with their families.

Meanwhile, in a year that Congress decided to slash funds for the federal food stamp program while also refusing to extend unemployment benefits to millions of people still suffering from a financial crisis created by large banks and a corrupted government, working people and the nation's most vulnerable have been left to fend for themselves.

~snip~

Mother Jones reporting also looks at the discrepancy between those at the top of the economy and those at the bottom: "Real corporate profits after taxes have grown 30 percent since 2007, while the number of jobs is still below its pre-recession level."

~snip~

Merry Christmas, Congress. Happy New Year, Corporate America.



unhappycamper comment:



The problem: 57% of discretionary funding goes to the military,
My solution: Cut military spending by one third AND take care of veterans before you ever buy another toy.

December 25, 2013

Mystery Oil Spill Turns Miles of Trinidad's Beaches Black

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/20819-mystery-oil-spill-turns-miles-of-trinidads-beaches-black



Mystery Oil Spill Turns Miles of Trinidad's Beaches Black
Tuesday, 24 December 2013 10:34
By Peter Richards, Inter Press Service | Report

Port of Spain, December 23 2013 - Whether it is a case of sabotage or simply poor management practices by the state-owned PETROTRIN, as the union claims, a mysterious oil spill in south Trinidad is wreaking havoc on homes and wildlife in the area.

PETROTRIN claims it has no idea as to the source of the spills, and Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine, who toured La Brea and other affected areas on Sunday, said “the mystery remains where this oil is coming from.”

The Environmental Management Authority also said it had been unable to ascertain the source and that its immediate concern was the protection of life and the environment.

Gary Aboud, president of Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, told IPS that the only solution was to shut down all oil production in the area.




unhappycamper comment: Perhaps the EPA should ask the NSA to look at emails to find the polluter.

December 25, 2013

Conscientious Objectors Needed Now More Than Ever

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20827-conscientious-objectors-needed-now-more-than-ever

Conscientious Objectors Needed Now More Than Ever
Tuesday, 24 December 2013 11:43
By Ken Butigan, Waging Nonviolence | Op-Ed

In our present age of permanent war, it is almost impossible to recall a time when armed conflicts clearly began and ended. In that ancient, bygone era — say, before 2003 — one could judiciously ruminate on an impending war before it got rolling and make a choice about it. Most people, even then, didn’t see it that way — for them there was no choice. If the government said, “War — jump to it,” invariably most of us said, “How high?” whether that meant picking up a gun, plunking down our taxes, or throwing our full spiritual and political weight behind it. It seemed automatic and inevitable and foreordained. Choice, it seemed, had nothing to do with it at all.

But there was a choice, and some took it seriously. And even today, when war is on a dizzying spin-cycle whirling with such tremendous velocity that it virtually disappears before our very eyes — and when the ever-expanding remote-control battlefield increasingly exceeds every horizon — we still have a choice. Groping our way back to such a decision-point is crucial. Though it will be different than before — a choice made in the midst of the 24/7 careening, never-ending centrifugal spin and not amid the more contemplative lull that we once were afforded before all hell would break loose — this choice must be rescued and learned and applied, given the Pentagon and the NSA’s monotonously relentless planning. What better teachers do we have than those who seized this opportunity in the past? Who better than those who chose?

History is chock full of conscientious objection, though it sometimes takes some hunting around to glimpse it. Violence and injustice — and what is more violent and unjust than war? — often prompts an equal and opposite reaction, from lone individual figures to whole communities, like those of the historical peace churches, including the Mennonites and the Quakers. In virtually no case is this easy. Pacifist religious groupings, where one can feel nurtured and supported in the scandalous belief that killing is wrong, ultimately prepare their members to “pay up,” as Daniel Berrigan — the Jesuit priest and activist who was imprisoned for his resistance to the Vietnam War and has been conscientiously objecting ever since — once pithily described it. To hold stubbornly to such a belief in a society where killing is a matter of policy means there are often bound to be consequences.

This is what happened on the eve of World War II. Some 37,000 men facing the first peacetime draft in U.S. history chose to become conscientious objectors, or COs. Many of them — though not all — were members of peace churches who, fearing what happened to their young men who faced torture in U.S. prisons when they resisted induction during the First World War, negotiated the creation of an alternative: Civilian Public Service, which came into being on Dec. 19, 1940 — 73 years ago today — virtually a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

December 25, 2013

Inequality: Government Is a Perp, Not a Bystander

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dean-baker/53336/inequality-government-is-a-perp-not-a-bystander

Inequality: Government Is a Perp, Not a Bystander
by Dean Baker | December 24, 2013 - 11:50am

In his speech on inequality earlier this month, President Obama proclaimed that the government could not be a bystander in the effort to reduce inequality, which he described as the defining moral issue of our time. This left millions convinced that Obama would do nothing to lessen inequality.

The problem is that President Obama wants the public to believe that inequality is something that just happened. It turns out that the forces of technology, globalization, and whatever else simply made some people very rich and left others working for low wages or out of work altogether. The president and other like-minded people feel a moral compulsion to reverse the resulting inequality. This story is 180 degrees at odds with the reality. Inequality did not just happen, it was deliberately engineered through a whole range of policies intended to redistribute income upward.

Trade is probably the best place to start just because it is so obvious. Trade deals like NAFTA were quite explicitly designed to place our manufacturing workers in direct competition with the lowest paid workers in the world. The text was written after consulting with top executives at major companies like General Electric. Our negotiators asked these executives what changes in Mexico's law would make it easier for them to set up factories in Mexico. The text was written accordingly.

When we saw factory workers losing their jobs to imports from Mexico and other developing countries, this was not an accident. In economic theory, the gains from these trade deals are the result of getting lower priced products due to lower cost labor. The loss of jobs in the United States and the downward pressure on the jobs that remain is a predicted outcome of the deal.

December 25, 2013

Live from Bethlehem: The Goldman Sachs 2013 Christmas Story

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-quigley/53339/live-from-bethlehem-the-goldman-sachs-2013-christmas-story

Live from Bethlehem: The Goldman Sachs 2013 Christmas Story
by Bill Quigley | December 24, 2013 - 12:01pm

Swaddled in Baby Gap, little Jesus appears to be crying. Mary tries to gently rock him in her hands, certainly a great moment to remind viewers that you are in good hands with Allstate. The carpenter Joseph is trying to protect Mary and Jesus, he could certainly use the system he just won from our sponsor ADT. The cow you see behind them is brought to you by ConAgra, the donkey by Halliburton. The angels on high in the sky, magnificent 3D computer generated imagery, are from Pixar. Walt Disney has remixed the angel songs so they sing praise to the shopping opportunities this event has created.

Earlier, there were reports of shepherds in the area but ICE agents stopped and frisked them and are now herding them on your right into the Fox News freedom of expression fenced off area. Some appear to be singing a protest song about peace on earth. Over on the left, a panel of MSNBC experts are talking about the shepherds and talking about the shepherds and talking about the shepherds.

In front of us you can see the Republicans, decked out in Brooks Brothers, who have brought gifts of big cutbacks in food stamps to make this couple and others like them more independent and self-reliant. Democrats, clad in casual elegance from Ralph Lauren, are doing their part tonight by firing drones all over the Middle East and Africa and snooping on the private communications of the family all the while assuring the family this is for their own protection.

Oh look, here come representatives of the rich and powerful! Both Republicans and Democrats are bowing down to them. They promise the next time Jesus is born they will provide a better site in Davos, Switzerland so he can get his message out to those who really matter.

December 24, 2013

USS Little Rock, From Light to Guided Missile Cruiser: Lessons For The Littoral Combat Ship

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/uss-little-rock-from-light-to-guided-missile-cruiser-lessons-for-the-littoral-combat-ship/



The Littoral Combat Ship has come under light fire from Congress because they worry especially about findings by operational testers that the ships cannot survive a firefight. Norman Friedman, a consultant at Gryphon Technologies with more than 30 military books to his name, argues in the following piece that critics need to consider that “change is at the core” of the LCS design, marking a welcome change in naval design. He believes LCS marks “the most fundamental change in warship design” in decades. Friedman compares the just-launched LCS ship USS Little Rock with the history of its predecessor, a light cruiser built near the end of World War II, mothballed a few years later and later rebuilt as a guided missile cruiser at considerable cost. Before critics dismiss Friedman’s argument, bear in mind that his book, “The Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War,” won the Royal United Services Institute’s Westminster Prize in 2001. The man knows his history, as well as the capabilities of the US Navy. Read on. The Editor.

USS Little Rock, From Light to Guided Missile Cruiser: Lessons For The Littoral Combat Ship
By Norman Friedman
on December 23, 2013 at 3:14 PM

Warships are built to last a long time, so when they are laid down they are in essence bets on the future. But legendary baseball great and sometime philosopher Yogi Berra had it right, “It’s tough making predictions… especially about the future!” The increasing cost of modern warships makes it even more important that these platforms are capable of changing as threats evolve or new breakthroughs in warfare emerge.

Lost in all the discussions and debate swirling around the design, engineering, construction, and introduction of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is the most fundamental change in warship design since the introduction of the Vertical Launching System or the AEGIS Weapon System decades ago, and that is the concept of modularity. One of the most important characteristics of the LCS program is its inherent modularity and how that will facilitate affordable and timely modernization of the LCS ships throughout its expected 30-year service life. As is often the case in these technical debates, a look at history is helpful in understanding and placing modularity into a 21st-Century context.

The history of the World War II-era light cruiser the USS Little Rock (CL-92) showed how right Yogi was; her life was full of operational and technical surprises. She was laid down in 1943 as one of a large number of light cruisers that were just showing how effective they could be in combat versus Japanese cruisers in murderous night gun battles in the Solomon Islands. By the time she was completed in June 1945, her mission had changed, and the same cruisers were now wanted primarily to protect aircraft carriers, the fleet’s main striking arm. The war ended, however, before Little Rock could see actual combat, and the world’s geo-strategic situation soon changed dramatically.

Amid the postwar political disorder, it mattered a great deal that the United States could deploy powerful cruisers. Little Rock spent the early postwar years patrolling the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas – regions where the new Cold War was brewing. By 1949, however, money for defense was short and many cruisers like Little Rock had to be laid up. In 1943, very few observers could have imagined a nuclear world in which the U.S. Navy’s main priorities would be strike carriers and anti-submarine warfare, while general-purpose gunships like cruisers would no longer be essential.