Author: AliceDem

Re-branding PNAC

POLITICS-US:  Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.

I don’t have much to add, I just thought I would put this on everyone’s radar.

Iraq oil seen as long range opportunity

Bush officials originally said oil money could help pay for reconstruction. But with production lagging, these funds barely cover the cost of running the government.

A smattering of small foreign firms have signed contracts to pump oil in the country, mostly in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north. But until pipelines stop blowing up and a stable national government is in place, the big western firms like Exxon Mobil (Charts, Fortune 500), BP (Charts), Royal Dutch Shell (Charts) and Chevron (Charts, Fortune 500) – and the big money they could spend on exploration and infrastructure – will stay away.

“You would need a very stable, long-term legal environment” for the big western oil companies to invest the tens of billion of dollars needed to really ramp up production there, said Greg Priddy, a global energy analyst at the Eurasia group, a political risk consultancy. “Everyone sees this as a long-term opportunity, but they have to get the political situation sorted out first.”

Now we know why the Kurds get such an excellent press. As for opportunity, we need to ask, opportunity for who?

It would really be much cheaper to simply buy the oil from whichever Iraqi faction emerges as dominate. That and follow Al Gore’s advice to develop green energy.

Israel still taking stupid pills

Israel may abduct Ahmadinejad, Eichmann kidnapper hints

Former Mossad agent Rafi Eitan hinted in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that Israel may abduct Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in order to bring him before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Now granted that this is a former Mossad agent, and even I know you can’t just kidnap someone, plop them on the court’s door step and have them go on trial, it is still bizarre that this item found its way into print.

Technology jobs disappearing into the cloud

IBM launches four new cloud computing centers

IBM opened up cloud computing centers in four countries on Wednesday to let enterprises, universities and governments test Web-based services and applications.

The new cloud computing centers are in Bangalore, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Seoul, South Korea. The company now has 13 cloud computing centers worldwide.

Not one of these centers are to be located in the United States. Wunnerful.

Global Assault on Teaching

Teach for America is the US embodiment of a phenomenon that’s being carried all over the world

Briefly, TFA is the US embodiment of a phenomenon that’s being carried all over the world, virtually eliminating teacher education except for those people who will teach in schools serving children of the wealthy and powerful. Though it sounds like a conspiracy, it’s not, because the reasons for replacing career teachers with “fast track” candidates who have little or no preparation to teach were spelled out in World Bank documents at least ten years ago. The plans were imposed on developing countries as the political price for receiving loans and aid. So all over the world we see TFA equivalents. In El Salvador it’s a World Bank project called EDUCO that puts less educated teachers into rural schools. The World Bank cites Benin as a fine example of how a government can bring down the cost of teacher salaries: Fire teachers (civil service employees) when they ask for a salary increase, place an ad in the paper, and hire the folks who show up although they have no preparation to teach. All over the world, teachers and researchers tell the same story, which I document in my new book – see www.teachersolidarity.com

Teach for America teachers are encouraged to think of inner city students as stepping stones. Its recruitment sounds a lot like a cult.

Mortgage industry astroturf

Homeownership Preservation Foundation formed, funded, run by the Industry

Remember, HPF’s own statement about their counseling above: “Our credit counseling partners are neutral third party resources.”  It appears they admit they are a lender front, or they are bragging that the agencies they refer callers to have been compromised (i.e., the counselor is not on the borrower’s side).  Thus, the push for the national number — “call us, and we will send you to a group that we approve of.”

In addition to the support of the industry that has a bit of power in Washington and beyond, was it mentioned that Homeownership Preservation Foundation hires outside lobbyists?  They have spent more than $60k doing that so far this year with the law firm of Dykema Gossett.  Source.

It is safe to say the Homeownership Preservation Foundation was started by the mortgage industry, run by the mortgage industry, invested in the mortgage industry, and protects the mortgage industry.  They bought influence with some alleged consumer groups to go along (e.g., Neighborworks).  The mortgage industry already had the local, state and national governments in their pocket who repeat the mantra of their choosing.  The mortgage industry created this shell hotline that does little and then sends the callers to agencies they approve of, while collecting the stats and spinning them as they wish, but more on that tomorrow.

Not a lot to add to this. I am just keeping a running tab on it.

Because we didn’t learn anything from 3Mile Island

Nuclear Power On the Hill

Who says DC is sleepy in the summertime? With two nuclear energy-related hearings scheduled for 10:00 am, the Hill is a busy place this morning. Click on the links below to view webcasts of the testimony.

Financing for Clean Energy Technology
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Witness List:

    * John Denniston – Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
    * Jeffrey Eckel – President & CEO, Hannon Armstrong
    * Jeanine Hull – Counsel, Dykema Gossett PLLC
    * Alexander Karsner – Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
    * Dan Reicher – Director, Climate Change & Energy Initiatives, Google.Org

Not much to add to this, just want to track some of the mischief occurring under radar.

Domestic Spying

Domestic spying quietly goes on

But critics say the safeguards don’t always work. Some blunders in the use of such protections have become public. NewYorker writer Lawrence Wright wrote in January about one such experience. In 2002, while he was researching The Looming Tower, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaida, two members of an FBI terrorism task force arrived at his home. Why, they asked, had his daughter been speaking with someone in the United Kingdom who was in touch with suspected al-Qaida operatives?

It wasn’t his daughter, he told them flatly. Wright himself had made the calls. And the person he contacted was a British civil rights lawyer who had asked him not to speak with her clients, some of whom are relatives of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant.

“My daughter is no terrorist – she went to high school with the Bush twins,” Wright said. “I was taken aback. They were apparently monitoring my phones.”

I don’t have much to add to this. I just thought it would be useful to have a specific example of abuse of power.

Have you contacted your senator?