6 May 2008
News and Comments - 05/06/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: Uncategorized; What's News .
IF EVERYTHING SEEMS TO BE GOING WELL, YOU HAVE OBVIOUSLY OVERLOOKED SOMETHING.
And usually it comes up from behind you.
7 Comments so far...
Cameron Says:
6 May 2008 at 7:59 am.
2 killed as troops fire into Somali riot over food prices
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer Mon May 5, 3:26 PM ET
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Troops fired into tens of thousands of rioting Somalis on Monday, killing two people in the latest eruption of violence over soaring food prices around the world.
Wielding thick sticks and hurling stones that smashed the windshields of several cars and buses, the rioters jammed the narrow streets of the Somali capital, screaming, “Down with those suffocating us!”
In Mogadishu, protesters including women and children marched against the refusal of traders to accept old 1,000-shilling notes, blaming them and a growing number of counterfeiters for rising food costs.
Within an hour, a reporter for The Associated Press watched their ranks swell to tens of thousands, and the riot spread to all 13 districts of the capital. Some threw rocks at shops and chaos erupted at the capital’s main Bakara market.
Hundreds of shops and restaurants in southern Mogadishu closed for fear of looting. At least four other people were wounded in the violence, witnesses said.
The price of rice and other staples has risen more than 40 percent since mid-2007, leading to protests and riots in other nations, including Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon and Burkina Faso.
The Asian Development Bank said Monday that a billion poor people in Asia need food aid to help cope with the skyrocketing prices. And the president of Senegal said the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization should be dismantled, calling it a “money pit” and blaming it for the food crisis.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_af/somalia
Benjamin Says:
6 May 2008 at 11:26 am.
What are people suppose to do when they have no food?
Pretty strong statement by the president of Senegal and he is probably right from past inefficient actions of the UN. I’ve notice in article lately some UN officials saying 50 milllion people may be going hungry. The Asian Development Bank said it is a billion in Asia alone and that doesn’t count Africa or any country in the Americas etc. They are trying to keep a lid on how serious and widespread this problem really is so as not to spook Wall Street among other reasons. This is getting ridiculous. Biofuels have to go.
Joy Bischoff Says:
6 May 2008 at 11:42 am.
Peter Anderson sent this to me and I thought we should all see it so those of us who would like to could contact our representatives and tell them how we feel about this:
Take Action Now: Academic Bill of Rights Threatens Higher ED
NEA members proudly work and teach in what is widely acknowledged as the best higher education system in the world. But that system is now under attack from a proposal that would stifle debate and silence controversial views on college campuses.
The so-called ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ movement seeks to amend the Higher Education Act under the guise of protecting students whose political views differ from those of their professors. But the federal legislation is a solution in search of a problem. Colleges and universities have, in fact, developed significant policies and procedures to guarantee the rights of students and faculty—including academic freedom tenure policies, student rights and responsibilities policies, and student grievance procedures.
The proposal sets a terrible precedent of promoting federal standards for how colleges and universities make academic decisions. Proponents are asking the U.S. Congress to reach into matters of college curriculum and teaching – a move that is neither necessary nor appropriate.
Tell Congress: Reject the ‘Academic Bill of Rights’
Don’t let this misleading legislation undermine our system’s richly deserved reputation. Protect the free and open exchange of ideas on our college and university campuses.
Concerned American Says:
6 May 2008 at 11:54 am.
151 Congressmen Derive Financial Profit From War
Blood money stains the hands of more than 25% of members of the U.S. House and Senate
By Ralph Forbes
Who profits from the Iraq war? More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.
According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close to a quarter-billion in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMBWatch.
Congressmen gave themselves a loophole so they only have to report their assets in broad ranges. Thus, they can be off as much as 160 percent. (Try giving the IRS an estimate like that.) In 2004, the first full year after the present Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers—both hawks and doves—invested between $74.9 million and $161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. In 2006 Democrats had at least $3.7 million invested in the defense sector alone, compared to the Republicans’ “only” $577,500. As the war raged on, so did the billions of profits—and personal investments by Congress members in war contractors, which increased 5 percent from 2004 to 2006.
Investments in these contractors yielded Congress members between $15.8 million and $62 million in personal income from 2004 through 2006, through dividends, capital gains, royalties and interest. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who are two of Congress’s wealthiest members, were among the lawmakers who garnered the most income from war contractors between 2004 and 2006: Sensenbrenner got at least $3.2 million and Kerry reaped at least $2.6 million.
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts.
War hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (IConn.), chairman of the defense-related
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had at least $51,000 invested in these companies in 2006.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies, such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold the stock in May 2007.
Of the 151 members whose investments are tied to the “defense” (war)
industry, as far as we know, not one of them offered to donate their bloodstained profits to the national treasury to offset the terrible debt they have imposed. Has one of them even offered to donate one cent of their war profits to lessen the debt that increases more than $1 million a minute?
When our boys and girls are wounded the government bills them to return their reenlistment bonus. They have to return any pay they received while they were hospitalized. They have to pay for their helmets and uniforms that are destroyed in the hell of war. But they keep on fighting for these politicians’ right to keep their war profits.
• Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) $3,001,006 to $5,015,001
• Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) $250,001 to $500,000
• Rep. Kenny Ewell Marchant (R-Tex.) $162,074 to $162,074
• Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) $115,002 to $300,000
• Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) $115,002 to $300,000
• Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) $100,870 to $100,870
• Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) $65,646 to $65,646
• Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) $50,008 to $227,000
• Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) $50,001 to $100,000
• Rep. Stephen Ira Cohen (D-Tenn.) $45,003 to $150,000
Matt Says:
6 May 2008 at 12:06 pm.
Aid workers fear Burma cyclone deaths will top 50,000
Foreign aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people died in Saturday’s cyclone, and two to three million are homeless, in a disaster on a scale comparable with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The official death count after Cyclone Nargis stood at just under half that by 1300 GMT today, at around 22,500 people dead plus a further 41,000 missing.
But due to the incompleteness of the information from the stricken delta of the Irrawaddy river, UN and charity workers in the city of Rangoon privately believe that the number will eventually be double that.
“We are looking at 50,000 dead and millions homeless,” Andrew Kirkwood, country director of the British charity Save The Children, told The Times.
“I’d characterise it as unprecedented in the history of Myanmar and on an order of magnitude with the effect of the tsunami on individual countries. It might well be more dead than the tsunami caused in Sri Lanka.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3879492.ece
Carrie Says:
6 May 2008 at 12:23 pm.
Things are slow at work so I’ve been reading all morning. I read all about Myanmar and it is horrible. The pictures make me so sad. They were almost ready to harvest there rice and they were the rice bowl for them and surrounding countries. It all got wiped out. They are saying there is going to be a lot of disease and starvation. Those poor people.
Benjamin Says:
6 May 2008 at 10:50 pm.
Obama team talking points memo on Tuesday election. A Limbaugh scheme?
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—Here’s the official Obama team spin on what is shaping up as a likely Indiana loss: “There really has never been any question that Senator Clinton would win Indiana,” said a Obama talking points memo out Tuesday. Team Obama also blames Rush Limbaugh for urging Republicans to infiltrate the primary and vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
full memo, click below…
Talking points on Limbaugh Crossovers
Limbaugh has been urging right-wingers to vote against Obama
* There really has never been any question that Senator Clinton would win Indiana, where she has the support of Senator Evan Bayh’s political operation and the demographics heavily favor her. But we saw today that perhaps her strongest asset was that Republicans believe she’ll be an easier opponent to beat in November.
* Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary in Indiana to help Clinton’s chances at becoming the nominee.
* Reports from Indiana polling places confirmed that record numbers of Republicans were taking Democratic ballots to vote against Obama. And Limbaugh himself bragged about the success of his effort on his radio show today.
Republicans are desperate to face Clinton, because they know Obama will be harder to beat
* Let’s be very clear: the Republicans want to face Senator Clinton in November, because they know that Senator Obama will be a stronger nominee for the Democrats, and will help Democratic candidates down the ballot. Republicans are so scared of Obama that they’re actually skipping their own primary to vote against him.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/05/obama_team_talking_points_memo.html
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