Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
In the summer of 2003 I visited Georgia. I spent almost a week in Tbilisi. One of the most interesting visits I had there was meeting Alex Rondeli. I also met with a young man named Timur Iakobashvilli. The meeting with Rondeli was quite fascinating. He is wise to world in ways that Iakobashvilli was not. Iakobashvilli went on to work in Saakashvilli's foreign ministry. Rondeli, from what I recall of the conversation knew that Georgia had to find a way to live with their giant neighbor to the north, whereas Iakobashvilla was all about closer and closer relations with the US, as a way of keeping the Russians out of the Caucasus and thumbing their nose at them as well. He was enthralled by the US invasion of Iraq and spoke glowingly of American powers of expeditionary warfare. He went so far as to give me a lecture--as a professor would lecture an ignorant student--about how important and dominating the US role in the world was and would continue to be and how essential it was for Georgia to become a part of NATO and the EU.
I told him point blank, at one point, "don't trust us. We will abandon you."
"That's impossible, Georgia and the pipeline are too important to US interests."
"No, they are not. They are not vital interests. But Georgia is vital to Russian interests. I advise you make your peace with them. They are permanent. We are not. Find a modus vivendi as soon as practicable."
As I read this story in Time I am reminded of that conversation. And I cannot help but to ask Misha the current Georgian president, "allies? Really? Or was it a marriage of convenience at the time for the US?"
Putin's Long Chess Game, as I called it back in 2005, is now coming to fruition. Patient. Plodding. Often awkward. But so far, successful. The Georgians must be feeling very isolated right now. They have no one but their leaders to blame.
I enjoyed Sterling Newberry's excellent article of April 19, Liberal Democrats on the Verge of Historic Takedown. The numbers were certainly there for a Nick Clegg - Liberal Democrat stampede if only Clegg had the ability to finish off the old parties, as he refers to Labour and the Conservatives.
Last night's party leaders debate was a must win. Clegg had to differentiate himself by showing that he was more than just another of the hallow men who occupy so many positions of power in the new millennium.
He had the momentum but did he have the substance and skill to close the door on Labour and the Conservatives?
Facebook has changed its privacy settings. Be aware. Then again, as I have said before: if you have any kind of presence on the web you really should have no expectation of privacy.
There is a prison in Texas where 15.7% of the inmates were raped in the preceding year alone. Think about that for a second. One in six inmates were raped either by other inmates or those charged with guarding them--which in that prison alone means there were 470 victims of sexual violence in a 12-month period. In any country that likes to think of itself as a beacon of freedom, this is outrageous and and must be put to an end.
Things might get a little wonky here over the next two or three days. We're moving servers and it is almost complete. After that is complete and the software we are currently running is stable we'll begin the software upgrade. Hopefully within the next two weeks.
After that we'll begin a re-design of the site from a visual perspective, perhaps adding features and removing others that no one currently uses. We'll also be removing the Kontera code form the site, so no more of those annoying pop-ups.
That being said, we will be adding some new advertising sources. None, however, will be obtrusive.
However, we would really appreciate it if you might consider turning off your ad-blockers for The Agonist. Your viewing of ads impacts our ability to keep this site up and running. We've made it through the worst of the advertising drop-off, at least we hope, but still: your support is appreciated.
The subject line is not alarmist, it's descriptive. The anti immigrant legislation passed in Arizona, about to be signed by the governor, makes Arizona a police state. Police are given extraordinary powers to stop individuals, detain them, and transport them to jails.
From the Arizona Legislatures explanation of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 -
5. Allows a law enforcement officer, without a warrant, to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the U.S. Full Bill SB 1070
"without a warrant" tied to "probable cause" for committing "any public offense" gives the police total latitude to stop anyone who "looks like" an illegal alien. That's an absurdly broad class.
The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.
They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.
If you've been comatose for the past few weeks and this is the first thing you read upon awakening, you might not be aware that today is the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day. Otherwise, I should suspect at some point you've been reminded.
As a born, bred and raised New Yorker, environmental issues are second nature to me. You don't live five people in a four room apartment without developing a sense of how quickly trash can build up, how even the tiniest pollutant in one room can affect the entire apartment, and how hard it is to balance supplies with available space to put things in.
I am proud that I was among the many who participated in environmental issues from the get-go. My Boy Scout troop helped developed and run one of the first recycling programs in America, for which we were designated what would now be called "Green Troop". I still have my green ecology flag patch with green and white stripes and the Greek letter theta in place of the stars. We wore those proudly to Jamborees.
The timing of these two stories is suspect, but either story certainly merits attention:
Item 1 - New York State Senator Pedro Espada, a Democrat, is under investigation by the FBI and IRS for siphoning $14 million from a government-funded health clinic.
Item 2 - Florida Republicans have had their party American Express records seized by the FBI and the IRS (there they are again!) for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unrelated personal charges.
I confess it is nice to see Iceland getting back at the bankers in the UK and the Netherlands with their volcanoes and whatnot. So, here's a song for 'em.
"If you want to talk material omissions, to charge Goldman but not charge Paulson is pretty darn material. If what Goldman was selling was fraudulent, it can only be because what Paulson manufactured for sale was fraudulent. The two were in cahoots. If what Paulson did was perfectly lawful, Goldman can't be legally culpable for helping him do it."
Look, Paulson might be guilty of something, but rule 10b-5 is pretty clear about Goldman's role in the fraud: the suit isn't about Paulson, it's about what Goldman didn't do. It is about what Goldman omitted. Barry also backs me up:
It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange,
(a) To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,
(b) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or
(c) To engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person,
in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.”
But one cannot expect professional GOP hacks like McCarthy to know anything about securities law, or to have ever taken the Series-7. Then again, I've forgotten more than that tool knows about the markets and finance.
As Iceland’s erupting volcano strands thousands of air travelers across Europe and worldwide, a less publicized but arguably more costly catastrophe is mounting 15,000 miles away: piles of gourmet produce and cut flowers, some of Kenya’s chief exports, are rotting in limbo. Meant to be shipped to upscale grocery stores throughout Europe, lilies, roses, carnations, carrots, onions, baby sweet corn, and sugar snap peas are going bad in heaps, on the vine, and in the ground because airport warehouses are already full and there’s no local market for the expensive produce in a country where half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.
As food prices continue to rise worldwide, reducing food waste will be a critical element in alleviating hunger and poverty worldwide. Already, Nourishing the Planet has highlighted the many ways that growing indigenous vegetables for local markets and improving storage techniques can help to both reduce food waste and improve access to food, in Kenya and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:
1. Comment on our daily posts-we check comments everyday and look forward to a regular ongoing discussion with you.
2. Receive weekly updates-Sign up for our "Nourishing the Planet" weekly newsletter at the blog by clicking here and receive regular blog and travel updates.
THE DEPROLIFERATOR -- Many Americans believe that, since the end of the Cold War, nuclear war is no longer a threat. Besides, isn't President Obama tying up loose nuclear ends with his flurry of policy reviews and treaty signings? Others are die-hards for deterrence, understandable since (as I've written) it's the most difficult argument in the world to refute.
The disarmament establishment, meanwhile, dedicates itself to influencing policy but disdains reaching out to the public in any meaningful way. That war is left to latter-day peaceniks, whose campaigns, as fruity as they are fruitless, only turn off the public because they do little to address the fears that drive Americans into outstretched nuclear arms.
Stock deals are rigged for insiders. Big money runs Congress. And we've gone to war based on a series of calculated lies.
Are you willing to accept the fact that our elections are subject to the same type of corruption?
If you are, then Proving Election Fraud by Richard Charnin pulls back the curtain and exposes the pattern of election fraud over the past four decades. It's not a mystery when your look at the numbers and check them against multiple public sources. The information is all there - if the experts care to look.
Charnin is the widely known internet poster using the name TruthIsAll. He was the first to discover the glaring discrepancies in the 2004 election results shortly after the polls closed. His internet posts on the mathematical impossibility of a Bush victory were critical in fueling the doubts about that election and those that followed.
He has the same take as the numbers I ran: at 38% the Libs start ripping seats in large numbers, and somewhere after 40, are elected outright. He then points to the following poll question:
What is more, far fewer people are deterred by the prospect of a Lib Dem government. We asked people whether they would be delighted or dismayed by different election outcomes – or whether they wouldn’t mind.
The Republicans are twisting themselves up into all kind of unimaginable knots trying to derail financial reform. Exhibit #2 (after the Luntz memo) is here. If I can add something here, it's this kind of attack, being broadcast all over Drudge that will follow soon on Fox and CNN, etc . . . because it has the kind of faux-savvy political theatrics (and is totally without substance) that the media loves, which makes it very hard for an already overly cautious President Obama to smash down reform with the big hammer. I'd do it much differently, but I'm not president.
On the other hand, here's some bad news for Goldman, potentially very, very bad news. Here and here.
Sure, it ain't an admission of guilt. And of course, we all know Goldman did nothing wrong. Nonetheless, they've deregistered 'Fab' Fabrice Tourre in the UK. Which is interesting. Had they done so in the US it might have pushed tEh Fab into the arms of the regulators, then again, it may do just that with regulators in the UK. But hell, I'm not a lawyer. Interesting development, regardless. More speculation here.
Time To Put An End The Disgrace Of Prison Rape
How Green Was My Alley?
As Iceland’s erupting volcano strands thousands of air travelers across Europe and worldwide, a less publicized but arguably more costly catastrophe is mounting 15,000 miles away: piles of 