News and Politics // Current

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15 hours ago

London university accused of £36m student scam

The London Metropolitan university has been order to pay back a whopping £36.5 million in funding that it wrongly claimed,... more

richjm
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Lib dems keep £2.4 Million donation

The elections watchdog has ruled that the Liberal Democrats can keep £2.4m in donations which it had been suggested came... more

CarolineS
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Trashed Britain! - biggest drinkers in Europe!

British boozers down more alcohol than their European counterparts and consume some of the strongest drinks More than 27 per cent... more

CarolineS
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Thousands of weird creatures of the deep discovered in underwater 'twilight zone'

Thousands of incredible-looking sea creatures which live in permanent darkness miles below the surface of the world's oceans... more

richjm
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To Kill a Pig: Swine flu is an ironic disease

Swine flu is an ironic disease, for it makes the infected crave human meat instead of pig. The infected will attempt to eat the... more

CarolynGillis
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Thierry Henry: I nearly quit after Ireland handball incident

Thierry Henry has admitted he considered giving up on international football after the worldwide backlash against his... more

richjm
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Large Hadron Collider ready to restart - The Big Picture

No, it's not going to destroy the world. But this collection of photos of the LHC at the Big Picture is a great reminder that... more

pjacobs51
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Intel wants brain implants in its customers' heads by 2020

If the idea of turning consumers into true cyborgs sounds creepy, don't tell Intel researchers. Intel's Pittsburgh lab... more

pjacobs51
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Climate change skeptics use hacked emails as propaganda

Climate change skeptics are using hacked emails as propaganda in their campaign to suppress and deny knowledge of anthropogenic... more

locutus
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Plane misses runway, lands in lava

Hudson River water landings? Those are so yesterday, man. Somewhere in the Congo today there's a pilot who, after a slight,... more

pjacobs51
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Russian scientists prepare for Mars mission

In a car park not so far away ... It is a big brother experiment like no other, an experiment which will boldly go where few have... more

slagface
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John & Edward voted off 'The X Factor'

"John & Edward have become the seventh act to be voted off The X Factor. The twins found themselves in the bottom two... more

pcs007
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iPodge - FoodWatcher Fights Flab

A gadet which sort of looks like an iPod claims to "curb your appetite" by sending electrical pulses to the brain has... more

bigredkev
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Dr. Tim Ball on the Hacked Climate Change Emails

"Not only a smoking gun, but a battery of machine guns."

Jenime
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Unborn children for sale in S Korea

"The illegal sale of children makes up more than half of all the cases of human trafficking around the world, according to... more

pcs007
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Swine Flu Hysteria of 1976 Repeating Itself

CBS "60 Minutes" documentary on the swine flu epidemics of 1976 in the U.S. It went on air only once and was never shown... more

TheEmpireGuy
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Sarah Palin now pissing off everyone

Evil Twin-spawning Sarah Palin isn't catching any easy breaks lately. Should she? Better ask her fans who, oh wait, are now... more

pjacobs51
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U.N. Warns Gaza at Risk From Winter Elements

A senior U.N. official said this past week that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza made homeless by Israel’s invasion nine... more

The_Global_Report
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Things could get ugly fast. With the Democrats backing-off on a second round of stimulus, the Fed signaling an end to quantitative easing, and Obama moaning about rising deficits; there's a good chance that the stumbling recovery could turn into another sharp plunge. Bank lending is shrinking, consumers spending is off, housing prices are falling, unemployment is soaring and the wholesale credit markets are in a shambles. This isn't the time to slash government support in the name of "fiscal responsibility". Obama needs to ignore the gloomsters and alarmists and pay attention to the Nobel laureates like Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. They're the guys who know how to steer the ship to safe water.

But there are troubling signs that Obama has joined the ranks of the deficit hawks and is planning a policy-reversal that will pitch the economy into a nosedive. Here's what he said on his tour through Asia:

"I think it is important to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

So it's true. Obama has aligned himself with the faux-prophets and dollar demagogues who think that the end is nigh. But trimming the deficits now (when they should be expanding) will lead to a viscous cycle of debt deflation that will push-down asset prices, increase defaults, force more layoffs, slow consumer spending, lower earnings and send the economy into a downward spiral. The president is paving the way to a double-dip recession, a slump that could be worse than the first.

Has Obama perused the jobless figures lately? Has he noticed the Fed shoving more than a $1 trillion under the collapsing housing market with no sign of improvement? Has anyone told our blinkered accountant-in-chief that the entire financial system is propped-up with $11.4 trillion of dodgy scaffolding that could buckle in the first big gust?

Obama has either taken leave of his senses or he's spending too much time listening to the cheerless Jeremiahs on the Internet. He needs break their spell and seek the counsel of the experts who get paid to crunch the numbers---real economists. Cutting government spending and raising taxes--the two ways that deficits are paid off--is the fast-track to disaster. Don't go there.

If Obama needs more proof that the economy is still flatlining, he should thumb through Fed chair Ben Bernanke's speech to the Economic Club of New York which was delivered on Tuesday. The presentation was a sobering snapshot of lingering depression with precious few glimmers of light. Here's an excerpt:

"The flow of credit remains constrained, economic activity weak, and unemployment much too high. Future setbacks are possible....How the economy will evolve in 2010 and beyond is less certain....

Access to credit remains strained for borrowers who are particularly dependent on banks, such as households and small businesses. Bank lending has contracted sharply this year, and the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officers Opinion Survey shows that banks continue to tighten the terms on which they extend credit for most kinds of loans...

Household debt has declined in recent quarters for the first time since 1951. For their part, many small businesses have seen their bank credit lines reduced or eliminated, or they have been able to obtain credit only on significantly more restrictive terms. The fraction of small businesses reporting difficulty in obtaining credit is near a record high, and many of these businesses expect credit conditions to tighten further.Things could get ugly fast. With the Democrats backing-off on a second round of stimulus, the Fed signaling an end to quantitative... more

Ihatethemall
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2 days ago

Blackwater Protects Obama and Hillary in Afghanistan

During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy mercenaries was an easy crowd pleaser – particularly after the September 2006 Nisoor Square incident and a subsequent congressional report that stated the company’s use of force was “frequent and extensive”.

Hillary Clinton announced she was sponsoring legislation banning the use of private security contractors. Barack Obama didn’t sign up to this and would not rule out using Blackwater and its ilk. But he made clear his disdain for the outfit, trumpeting in Iowa City last October his proposal for “tougher government reforms than any other candidate in this race – reforms that would eliminate the kind of no-bid contracts that this administration has given to Blackwater”.

He added: “Most contractors act as if the law doesn’t apply to them. Under my plan, if contractors break the law, they will be prosecuted.”

In Pennsylvania in March he stated that “we have to crack down on private contractors like Blackwater, because I don’t believe they should be able to run amok and put our own troops in danger and get paid three or four times or ten times what our soldiers are getting paid”.

So who do you think protected Obama and his fellow senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel during their recent and much ballyhooed congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan? Yep, that’s right – Blackwater.

In his Washington Whispers column, the well-connected Paul Bedard reports that Obama was overheard saying that “Blackwater is getting a bad rap”. A fairly startling alleged observation given his previous utterances about the company – though perhaps unsurprising given he was in a war zone and his life was in the hands of Blackwater guards.

A tight-lipped Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for Blackwater, said she could neither confirm nor deny that the company had been involved in the visits by the senators to Afghanistan or Iraq. My request to Bill Burton, Obama’s national spokesman, for comment on the Bedard story – including whether the alleged quote or its sentiment was genuine – went unanswered.

But a source familiar with Obama’s security arrangements told me that Blackwater, along with the Secret Service, did pull security for the three senators in Afghanistan, though not Iraq.

Deceiver describes this as Obama’s “Rosie O’Donnell moment” That’s maybe a tad harsh but it will be interesting to see whether Obama’s public position on Blackwater changes as a result of his up-close time with their personnel in Afghanistan.During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy... more