Protests in DC at The FCC, Noam Says No to 911 Conspiracy Theories
October 31st, 2007 - by: danny
YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!
BREAKING…. BALTIMORE — AP: A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.
FED CUTS RATE BUT WHAT WILL THAT DO FOR CREDIT CRUNCH?
CUBA SI, BUSH NO
NOAM CHOMSKY HAS HIS OWN “9ll TRUTH”
CNN: Fed cuts rates to 4.5%
Citing turmoil in the housing market, Bernanke and Co. lower a key short-term rate by a quarter of a point to keep the economy on track. But the central bank also said it’s worried about inflation – news that spooked the markets.
Bloomberg News noted:
“The second reduction in as many months should help the U.S. economy withstand the fallout from August’s credit collapse, the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement after meeting today in Washington. “After this action, the upside risks to inflation roughly balance the downside risks to growth.”
The language “has all the sublety of a sledgehammer,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut. “The FOMC has just stated unequivocally that `we think we are done easing.’ Whether they are or not remains to be seen, but the message is loud and clear.”
Hours earlier, the Commerce Department reported that economic growth accelerated to an annual pace of 3.9 percent in the third quarter, the fastest in more than a year. The Fed statement also warned that higher energy and commodity prices may spur faster inflation.”
INFLATION, YOU BET—OIL IS UP, UP AND AWAY
The excerpts below from an article in the WSJ summarizes the supply issues for crude oil. Assuming no severe economic downturn that would reduce the demand for oil, supply will continue to be the primary constraint in the market. This coupled with a falling dollar basically means that prices in excess of $100/barrel will be in the norm in the near future. People have done all sorts of predictions about what “Peak Oil” looks like, well this is what if looks like….. Several leading oil experts, gathered here yesterday for an annual energy conference, sketched a near-term future in which mounting global demand and shrinking supplies push oil prices well past the $100-a-barrel mark.
GREENSPAN WARNS AGAINST FEAR
And that’s because fear is pervasive on Wall Street. The former Fed chairman is worried because you may be worried, really worried.
Closing his discussion, Mr. Greenspan added that the markets are subject to emotion, not rationale, so exuberance can give way to “primordial” fear.
“Will we have another crash? Yes. Will we have another credit crisis? Yes. Can we do anything about it? No,” he said.
UNDERNEWS: GIULIANI STILL WORKING AT FIRM HE PROMISED TO LEAVE
JOHN SOLOMON, WASHINGTON POST – Ten months into his presidential bid, Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work part time at the security consulting firm he promised to leave this past spring to focus on his pursuit of the Republican nomination.
Giuliani’s continuing involvement with a firm catering to corporate clients makes him unique among Republican contenders. It also complicates the task of separating his firm’s assets from his campaign spending.
Rudolph W. Giuliani said in April that he would leave his consulting firm to concentrate on his campaign. Several of the firm’s employees do volunteer work for his campaign. And Giuliani did not decide until mid-June, six months after he entered the race, to bill his campaign for the cost of the security detail traveling with him on campaign trips; before then, the firm paid the expense. . . Last year, Giuliani earned about $4.1 million.
CUBA RESPONDS TO LATEST BUSH THREAT: THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CUBA MUST BE RESPECTED
In the face of President George W. Bush’s escalation of threats against the sovereignty of Cuba only days before the UN General Assembly’s vote for the sixteenth consecutive year against the inhuman and unjustifiable 47-year-old US economic blockade of Cuba, and in the world context of Bush’s recent threats of a nuclear “World War III,” we issue this call to US intellectuals and artists to join us in calling for a permanent dialogue and cultural exchange between the peoples of the United States and Cuba.
We also call for making public the secret annex to the latest declaration of the “Commission for Assistance to a free Cuba,” presided over by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Ominously, the Department of State has emphasized that the plan includes measures that will remain secret “for reasons of national security” and to assure its “effective implementation”. It is not difficult to imagine the character of such measures if one considers the militarization of the foreign policy of the Bush administration and its performance in Iraq.
Because of this increasing threat against the integrity of a nation and the peace and security of Latin America and the world, demand that the government of the United States respect the sovereignty of Cuba. We must prevent a new aggression at all costs.
THE $915 BILLION CREDIT CARD BOMB IN CONSUMERS’ WALLETS
MANY PARTS OF U.S. ECONOMY ARE IN A WORSE STATE THAN RECESSION
“The US economy is undoubtedly in recession,” he said. “Many parts of industry are actually in a state worse than recession. If it were not for Bernanke putting huge amounts of money into the market, the stock market would probably be down much more than it is.”
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Media: Protests Against Meda Concentration Outside The FCC
October 31st, 2007 - by: danny
FREE PRESS: PROTESTS AT FCC AGAINST SELLOUT TO BIG MEDIA
WASHINGTON — More than 150 citizens crowded the sidewalks outside Federal Communications Commission headquarters in a Halloween-morning rally against media consolidation.
The public event, held before the FCC’s Oct. 31 hearing on localism, was joined by elected officials, civil rights and labor leaders, consumer and media reform advocates, activists and even cheerleaders, who all came to urge the federal agency to vote against any rule changes that could result in more consolidation of ownership. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has proposed an expedited timeline for rule changes that could allow a company to own a newspaper and several radio and television stations in a single city.
“We are gravely concerned that Chairman Martin would try to secretly move on such a critical issue with such a short timetable,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, which coordinates the StopBigMedia.com Coalition. “The public is being shut out of the process so that Martin can move forward with his Big Media giveaway.”
Multichannel News:FCC DISSES CABLE
Dealing a major blow to Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other cable TV operators, the Federal Communications Commission voted Wednesday to ban operators from cutting exclusive deals with owners of apartment buildings, condominiums and other multiple dwelling units.
I WANT MEDIA.COM–RUPERT: BID FOR WORLD DOMINATION CONTINUES
News Corp to Expand in Former Soviet Union
News Corp. is acquiring television station Imedi in Georgia from billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili to expand in the former Soviet Union. Patarkatsishvili says he plans fund the country’s growing political opposition, which is working to bring down U.S.-educated president Mikheil Saakashvili.
ON CBS COVERAGE OF IRAN AND IRAQ
NEWSPAPER WEBSITE VISITS RISE
The number of people visiting U.S. newspaper Web sites rose 3.7 percent during the third quarter, according to an industry group, even as their print editions reported lower advertising sales. More than 59 million people, or 37.1 percent of all active Internet users, visited the papers’ Web sites during the quarter, up from 56.9 million a year ago, the Newspaper Association said, citing data supplied by Nielsen/NetRatings. The results, which the association plans to release on Wednesday, also show that Internet users spent an average about 43 minutes per month on newspaper Web sites, up 4 percent over the same period a year ago.
Reuters vi AEJC: Paparazzo offered Diana pictures from crash – court
A photographer rang a British newspaper from the Paris road tunnel where Princess Diana lay dying to offer exclusive pictures for GBP 300,000 (about EUR 430,000), a court was told on Tuesday. Two shots of Diana, showing her slumped on the floor of the car’s mangled wreckage, were sent to the picture desk of The Sun tabloid by Romuald Rat, one of the paparazzi pursuing her. Stephane Darmon, Rat’s motorcyclist on the night Diana was killed, said the photographer had tried to help at the crash scene on Aug. 31, 1997.
But in robust court exchanges, Darmon’s version was contested by Richard Keen, lawyer for chauffeur Henri Paul, who died in the crash along with Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed. ‘What Mr Rat was protecting was not the victims of this crash, but the 300,000 pound exclusive that he had just telephoned into the Sun from the tunnel,’ Keen told the London inquest probing the deaths of Diana and Dodi. Keen accused Rat and Darmon of offering versions of the event that were ‘self-serving lies’ designed to protect them from charges of manslaughter and failing to give assistance to people in distress. (Reuters)
WIKI MEDIA GOES TO AFRICA
St. Petersburg, FL – October 31, 2007 – The Wikimedia Foundation, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, announced today that it will host Wikipedia Academy workshops in various locations throughout South Africa on November 10 and 11, 2007.
“Wikipedia versions are currently available for only 250 of the world’s 7,000 languages. Establishing Wikipedias in more African languages will enable speakers of those languages to more actively participate in the global exchange of knowledge. Additionally, it may, in a small way, help to preserve those languages,” said Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia
TOWARD FREEDOM: I Want My Community TV: Public Access Television Faces Threats
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Noam Chomsky’s Verdict on 911: NO CONSPIRACY
October 31st, 2007 - by: danny
SARAH MYER: Is England is a better place without Blair?
WHY NOAM CHOMSKY IS SKEPTICAL OF 911
Adam Howard: While acknowledging that he may be out-of-step with many of his colleagues on the left, Chomsky talks about why he doesn’t believe that 9/11 was an “inside job.” Among other things he believes that some aspect of the plan would have leaked and too many events on that day were too elaborate to have been planned to perfection and therefore would not have been worth the risk for the Bush Administration. However, he also speaks of how the attacks were the best thing to ever happen to corrupt regimes throughout the world. Check out the video to your right for more.
Comments Jerry Policoff:
This is an amazing video. Chomsky goes on at length about how 911 conspiracy theories are ridiculous without bothering to rebut any of the arguments that have been advanced suggesting the opposite (I am an agnostic on the subject of a 911 conspiracy, but unlike Chomsky I do not dismiss evidence out of hand when it seems persuasive and I lack the expertise to dismiss it). Toward the end he drags the JFK assassination into it as well (and on this I am no agnostic. I know there was a conspiracy, and I know Chomsky’s efforts to suggest the opposite are intellectually dishonest). Then he goes completely off the deep end, suggesting that even if all the conspiracy theories are true, which he suggests is “extremely unlikely,” “who cares?” “What difference would it make?”
POPULAR KULTUR
U.S. CUSTOMS OFFICIALS ABUSE TOP FINNISH BAND
JEAN HOPFENSPERGER, STAR TRIBUNE – When three of Finland’s most popular musicians, including one described as that country’s Bruce Springsteen, arrived for a recent tour in Minnesota, they expected a quick trip through airport customs. Instead, immigration agents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport subjected them to more than two hours of interrogation that the musicians considered so harsh and demeaning that they filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki.
“It was almost three hours of screaming, door-slamming and accusations, according to the report I received,” said Marianne Wargelin, honorary Finnish consul for the Dakotas and most of Minnesota, which has the second largest Finnish-American population in the nation.
Erkki Maattanen, a filmmaker for Finnish Public Television who accompanied the musicians on the September trip, said his questioners seemed to think the entourage was smuggling drugs or intending to work without a permit. “I kept trying to tell them why we were here, but they’d just yell, ‘Shut up!”‘ he said. . .
“They threatened us with severe punishments if we talk to each other,” according to the complaint signed by musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen, “Through the walls, I can hear officers yelling, screaming. They ask about the purpose of our trip — except we are only allowed to give yes-or-no answers. I try to talk about our plans to meet with Finnish-American folk musicians. Nobody listens. They interrupt me constantly and they yell, ‘You are a liar!”‘. . .
The four were eventually released with no explanation and no apology, the complaint said.
I knew some of the members of HANOI ROCKS, an earlier Finnish Band that was also not so welcome in the USSA.
LETTER: GERRY CORBIN WRITES RE MY CALIFORNIA FIRE/SUBPRIME CRIME COMMENTARY
thank you for your interesting article. I would like to bring another angle to the bailout of all those not very honest lenders…. :
Supposed that you are in 2001, a central banker, the economy going down since a good time some say 1987 but lately after 2000 bubble internet, everything is down and no way up: what do you do? You call a war (even Greenspan was pushing for war in his book!)? You create a false flag operation or use a conspiracy one from someone else and let them do the dirty work and after implement a war on terror which in fact is not more than a Halloween party..with real victim(all the world)….and you deliver hundred of billions in subsidies to build arms not needed as Mr Reagan have done in the eighties? Give contract without bids to your acquainted firends? Limited any legislation that create obligation or regulation for companies? And cut taxes for two purpose: that your loot of war get not taxed and your friend and supporter really happy…
BROOKLYN IN DA HOUSE
Hope you had a happy Halloween. I am off to Boston…..Dave Degraw is in Germany….I will be speaking/peaching Sunday at the Brooklyn, Society for Ethical Culture on Prospect in Park Slope across from Prospect Park at ll AM. Screening at l of IN DEBT WE TRUST. Be there or be square.
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
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