Month: January 2013

Remember El Salvador?

Back in the 80’s and the Reagan admin there was much delight over El Salvador…….it was a proxy war for the US in their attempt to block the influence of Nicaragua, with its Marxist leader, from extending the “revolution” beyond its borders……I know I am old but I recall this situation vividly…….these were the CONTRAS….remember now?

But all the drama that went with our support and it played out….it played out in reality and in the media…..we had a couple of hearings that were just as humorous as they are today…..and then the 90’s appeared and a new direction……GLOBALIZATION……..the Clinton admin went into a frenzy to get all those free trade agreements passed…..for the jobs and the wealth and the (insert whatever you choose here)……..we can talk about that disaster at a later date…….

But in the 21st century the US is still interfering in the doings in El Salvador……….some things seldom change………

It seems the the US government is doing all they can to promote the privatization of industries in El Salvador…….

Unions in El Salvador are fighting a bill that would auction off everything from highways, ports, and airports to municipal services and higher education to private companies—mainly foreign multinationals.

The United States government, which helped draft the bill, is pushing hard for its passage. If the Public-Private Partnership, or P3, law is approved, workers in those areas will be vulnerable to the massive layoffs, wage cuts, and anti-union persecution that already.

According to economist and National University professor Raul Moreno, the increased foreign investment and privatization promoted under earlier U.S.-backed administrations have only worsened labor conditions and sent profits overseas. P3s, says Moreno, are part of a model that has already “demonstrated its failure in El Salvador and throughout the world.”

At the heart of opposition to the proposed P3 law are El Salvador’s public sector unions, who have been on the frontlines of the country’s labor movement for decades. In the face of a 2003 attempt to privatize health care, for example, 200,000 public health care workers and supporters poured into the streets and forced the government to abandon the effort.

Privatizations at the ports and airports in 2001 had similar results. Security, cargo, and cleaning services at the airport were all privatized. Today, those workers earn about $240 a month, while the unionized airport workers, a principal target of the proposed P3 law, have a minimum salary of $552 a month. At the Acajutla port, nearly 1,000 workers were laid off. Longshoremen’s daily wages dropped 90 percent, and their union was dismantled too.

The U.S. government is exerting ferocious pressure on the Salvadoran legislature to approve the law. Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte has even publicly threatened to withhold a multimillion-dollar development aid project if P3 is not passed.  (So much for the Obama Admin hates corporations)……….

This massive attack on infrastructure will do little to help El Salvador…..it will make some wealthy people more wealthy….and could lead to a massive upheaval like Chile in the 70’s……….or maybe that is the idea the whole time………after all we will have lots of military hardware laying around once we leave Afghanistan…….I know a stretch…..but ……….

Is Mali Next?

The news is that we, The US, will be pulling our troops out of Afghanistan starting this Spring……and that will bring an end of this chapter in American history, our longest war……….but what will that do to our effectiveness to cease terrorists from attacking our shores?

We will still be using the drones to do the work of our soldiers….in Pakistan….in Yemen….and any where else they may be needed…..with that said, will we ever use our troops in a ground war again?  My ansdwer is….you can bet on it.  But where?  Iran?  How about Syria?  If not these then where?

Personally, I expect to see our soldiers used in Mali.  Why?  You may ask.

Mali is quickly becoming a stronghold for AQ……..yes there are some in Syria but the sheer force of the group is growing in strength as it did in Sudan and the Afghanistan……..it has worried the West, though not much has been in the press about it…..and the French took it upon themselves……

(Newser) – France’s foreign minister is optimistic about the campaign it started in Mali Friday, saying it will be over within “weeks.” He rejected a comparison to the Afghanistan war, adding, “we have no intention of staying forever,” the BBC reports. The country’s defense minister was also positive, saying the mission is “developing favorably,” even as Islamist fighters today seized Diabaly, a government-controlled territory 250 miles from the capital of Bamako. A Malian intelligence agent tells the AP that French pilots launched a raid near Diabaly this morning, which marks an expansion of the conflict—until now, raids were occurring in the distant north.

The defense minister says Islamists are retreating in the east, but still causing France difficulty in the west. Aides to French President Francois Hollande say they are better trained and better armed than had been expected. More from the conflict:

  • Mali rebels have sworn to take revenge; one leader for al-Qaeda offshoot Mujao tells AFP, “France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France.” French authorities are on high alert for retaliatory attacks on home soil.
  • The European Union will send military trainers to the Malian army late next month or early in March, Reuters reports, but the EU does not plan for those trainers to have any combat role in the country.
  • And NATO says France has not asked it for any help, Reuters adds. A spokesperson says the organization is “concerned” about the situation in Mali and welcomes France’s efforts, but “there has been no request, no discussion [within NATO] on the situation in Mali, the alliance as such is not involved in this crisis.”
  • Hollande is holding a cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis today, and the UN Security Council will also meet today at France’s request.
  • The New York Times takes an extensive look at the crisis and its background, noting that the US for years attempted to stop the Islamic militants from gaining a foothold in the region. But last year, many of the commanders trained by America defected. “It was a disaster,” says a senior Malian officer. It was also an American-trained officer who led the coup that eventually overthrew Mali’s elected government.

Meanwhile, a west African intervention force is putting together the promised troops who will be sent to Mali though it’s not clear when they will arrive.

The French are a bold bunch….but I do not think that it will be as easy as they would have us believe……..why do I say it?

Newser) – The US is reportedly going to provide more tactical help to French troops trying to keep Islamist rebels from overtaking Mali, and a former US ambassador to the country says it can’t come too soon. Helping France succeed is “in our national interest,” argues Vicki Huddleston in the New York Times. The rebels in Mali have ties to the notorious Boko Haram group, as well as to Ansar al-Sharia, the militia thought to be behind the Benghazi attack that killed ambassador Chris Stevens.

“Until the French stepped in, the near-collapse of the military had threatened to turn Mali, a landlocked, desperately poor country, into a desert stronghold for jihadists,” writes Huddleston. The US is spread thin in Afghanistan and elsewhere, so ground troops are off the table. But providing intelligence, money, and training—along with pressure on other African nations to intervene—is a necessary investment. If the US doesn’t want Mali to “become a launchpad for terrorism,” it “must not dither in doing its share.” Click for Huddleston’s full column.

And there we have it…….the US will be providing some support to the French in their operation in Mali…..now how many times has the US been sucked into more trouble spots by offering to support our friends……

Any thoughts?

Proper Treatment Of Mass Killers

We have heard all the stuff about Sandy hook or Columbine or Aurora….or about a hundred other shootings…….and now we will be subjected to all the caring about the guns involved in most of these shootings…….what about the shooters?  Most kill themselves…a cowards way out….some are apprehended by the cops…….how should the media handle these people?

(Newser) – You know the name of the Sandy Hook shooter. And the Aurora shooter. And likely many more. “It’s appalling, but one way to achieve fame in America is through acts of infamy,” observes author Vicki Leon in the LA Times. “What if that weren’t so?” What if the media instead took a page from the ancient Greeks? In 365 BC, an arsonist burned down the temple to Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. His stated motive? To make his name immortal.

The Ephesians executed the man, but not before passing a law making it a crime, punishable by death, to utter his name. And for centuries historians have mostly refrained from naming him. Nor are the Greeks alone; the Egyptians and Romans instituted similar penalties. Such bans probably wouldn’t work in the modern world, “but infamy should not be rewarded with headlines,” Leon argues. “We have surrendered to shabbier motives, such as selling newspapers or winning TV ratings.” Click for her full column, or to read the latest on the unnamed California school shooter.

Not a bad idea…….do not give these cowards the notoriety that they crave…..

Burning Down The House

Nope not the song from the 80’s by the Talking Heads…..but rather that iconic photo of the Nazis throwing books onto the roaring fire in Nuremberg (I believe)……they were burning books that they thought were destroying the German society….you know those books like philosophy and such……those damn intellectuals will destroy the nation and all the good work that the leader has accomplished….

The US cannot say that such things NEVER happened here……I recall back in the 60’s when the Beatles made an off the cuff statement about their popularity and the country went nuts burning their records in protest…..and then there was that whack-a-doodle preacher in Florida that was trying to gain some notoriety by having az Qur’an burning……so we are not strangers to this type of slow mentality……

After the mass killing in Newtown we heard all kinds of answers to curbing this type of violence…..from banning guns to armed vigilanbtes patrolling our schools….and all the blame….like music, bureaucracy and those damn video games……..but this is just f*cking silly!

Newser) – The Newtown shooting has America understandably on edge. “But are we really hoping to purge our collective soul by demolishing copies of Halo 4?” asks Liel Leibovitz at the New Republic. The town of Southington, Conn., plans to do just that on Saturday. Past cultural bête noires—from comic books to gangsta rap to television—have seen similar burnings, but video games are a unique case. They’re not consumed, they’re played. “The digital violence we witness on-screen comes from our own hands,” Leibovitz writes.

That may sound scary, but as all gamers know, the experience “has more to do with our thumbs than it does with our minds,” resembling contact sports more than watching TV. What’s more, it’s “not fundamentally different than what previous generations have done, when sticks served as swords or hands as pistols.” It’s play. Then, as ever, it helps people deal with intense experience in a safe, sublimated way. “By confiscating and burning their games, parents risk extinguishing a critical outlet—and creating the very problem they were trying to avoid,” he writes. Click for Leibovitz’s full column

I could go on and on and stir up all kinds of BS….there is an answer…you may not like it…..but there is an answer.  And this feat of stupidity is NOT IT!

Martian Life?

The weekend is here and time for my weekly sciencey stuff……..I get frustrated with the antics of our elected officials and so on the weekends I tried to give my brain a rest from manure…….

So after all the cash spent to go and explore Mars….what do we have for our investment?

(Newser) – So, can flowers grow at -65 Fahrenheit? That was apparently the belief of one website reader after the Curiosity rover sent back a photo of a hard-to-identify, light-colored object on Mars, Space.com reports. Noting its reflection of sunlight, “translucent appearance,” and “irregular confirmation (like pistils),” the reader on Above Top Secret dubbed it a “Martian Flower.” Other readers likened it to a crystal, quartz rock, “part of the rover,” and “the ring I lost years ago. I wondered where it had go to!”

So NBC’s Alan Boyle went to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for answers. He asked whether the “flower” might be a broken part of Curiosity, as was another tiny, bright object the rover spotted in October. “That appears to be part of the rock, not debris from the spacecraft,” said a spokesperson. That’s all for now—but Boyle concludes that if flowers really are growing on Mars, “you’ll know it’s time to cue up the ‘X-Files’ theme. Either way, the truth is out there.”

Could this be the beginning of many more such discoveries on Mars?

Earth 2?

Back on 01 January I did my annual prediction post and I said that Earth 2 would be discovered…….

Scientists this week announced at the 221st meeting of American Astronomical Society that the Kepler telescope has found a “super-Earth” whose radius is 1.5 times that of our own; it exists in the habitable zone, orbits a star similar to our sun, and possibly contains water. Space.com dubs it “the most Earth-like world yet detected” outside of our solar system. “This was very exciting because it’s our first habitable-zone super Earth around a sun-type star,” says a Kepler astronomer. The Earth-like planet orbits a G-type star, one that’s nearly as hot as our sun, once every 242 days. “It’s a big deal,” adds an astrophysicist of the planet named KOI 172.02. “It’s definitely a good candidate for life.” (The news comes just a couple of days after astronomers announced there were probably around 17 billion Earth-size planets around the Milky Way.)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nostradamus……looks like my predictions are off to a good start….the Oracle Of Delphi can kiss my butt……SCHOOLED!