Friday, September 27, 2013

See, the world can speak to each other to find common ground and peace.


27 September 2013 Last updated at 21:07 ET
Syria chemical weapons: UN adopts binding resolution (click here)

At a session in New York, the 15-member body backed the draft document agreed earlier by Russia and the US.The deal breaks a two-and-a-half year deadlock in the UN over Syria, where fighting between government forces and rebels rages on.The vote came after the international chemical watchdog agreed on a plan to destroy Syria's stockpile by mid-2014.....
 


Excellent. We have come such a long distance in such a short period of time; the peace must have been a priority for the entire time. 

This conversation between two Presidents may be viewed as decades a part, however, this is the very first time they have spoken in recognition of a Shi'ite lead nation. It is a first. This has been an absolutely an amazing day. 

Obama, Iran’s president discuss nuclear deal (click here)


By Nedra Pickler and Lara Jakes
Associated Press 
September 27, 2013 

WASHINGTON — Breaking a third-of-a-century diplomatic freeze, President Barack Obama and new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone on Friday and, in a historic shift from years of unwavering animosity, agreed to work toward resolving their deep dispute over Tehran’s nuclear efforts.
Rouhani, who earlier in the day called the United States a ‘‘great’’ nation, reached out to arrange the 15-minute call. The last direct conversation between the leaders of the two countries was in 1979 before the Iranian Revolution toppled the pro-U.S. shah and brought Islamic militants to power.
Obama said the long break ‘‘underscores the deep mistrust between our countries, but it also indicates the prospect of moving beyond that difficult history.’’

‘‘While there will surely be important obstacles to moving forward, and success is by no means guaranteed, I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution,’’ Obama told reporters at the White House. Iran’s nuclear program has been a major concern not only to the United States but to other Middle Eastern nations — especially Israel — and to the world at large....
    

There is a tropical storm in the Atlantic. Just thought I'd mention it.

Approximately 30 north latitude and -75 longitude.

The way I see it.

The trick to downsizing banks is to increase availability to personal and small business interests without losing asset and liquidity in the market.

Increasing the number of autonomous small banks with credit lines to large banks will increase the capital to small businesses and increase employment.

Putting a large fine in the USA Treasury will serve a noble purpose, but, it will also remove asset value and liquidity out of the market. A market hard pressed to create jobs.

Healthier housing market sparks bank layoffs by the thousands: report (click here)

By Ed Beeson/The Star-Ledger 
August 26, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated August 26, 2013 at 6:06 AM

Who’s hurt by a strengthening housing market?
Bank employees, that’s who.
Large lenders around the country are starting to shed workers by the thousands now that fewer homeowners are tardy on their mortgages and interest rates are starting to rise, the L.A. Times has reported.
Wells Fargo, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, last week said it would eliminate the jobs of 2,300 workers who processed refinance applications, or 3 percent of its 70,000-person consumer lending group, the newspaper said.
Likewise, JPMorgan Chase said this month it would eliminate 3,000 mortgage jobs, all a part of previously announced plan to cut the lending unit by a total of 15,000 jobs by the end of next year.
And in July, Bank of America said it had reduced headcount at its Legacy Asset Servicing division by of 20,000 over the past year. This division was set up to handle troubled mortgages the bank inherited from Countrywide Financial during the 2008 takeover, the Times noted....

Let's say JP Morgan instead of paying a fine was to take $11 billion in assets and liquidity to establish a free standing bank to service 'the little people' while having a guaranteed line of credit for it's growth. Now, $11 billion is not a huge bank, but, it is not exactly a small one if it is located in the USA where such an institutions is needed the most AND where it will also grow to establish other lending sites. There is no reason to put a bank on the back forty only to have it fail. It should go perhaps to Wichita where small family farmers can grow the bank into more locations.

If such a bank was established with government fines it would maintain the assets and liquidity in the market while serving a vital service to assist the nation to grow. Such a bank would not be directly competitive with JP Morgan, but, in time there is a real possibility it would grow and other larger banks would be finding they can downsize without doing any economy damage.

Basically, these employees now unemployed or underemployed would have a new job market with re-establishing smaller banks. We lost a lot of small banks in the USA when 2008 occurred. In downsizing the larger banks by establishing free standing banks with lines of credit will maintain the integrity of the market while shifting focus to local economies.

Call me crazy and it might be too late, but, rather than a fine why doesn't the USA downsize JP Morgan.












The Guardian
 

Bank's Jamie Dimon (click here) may have to settle on record $11bn penalty following recent $920m fine over 'London Whale' incident

The boss of America's biggest bank, JP Morgan, was on Thursdaypersonally negotiating a new financial settlement with US regulators over allegations stemming from the way the bank sold sub-prime mortgage bonds before the banking crisis. The settlement could reach a record $11bn (£7bn)
Jamie Dimon, one of the few bankers still at the helm of a big bank following the 2008 financial meltdown, turned up for face-to-face talks with the US attorney general, Eric Holder, at the department of justice in Washington. The negotiations prompted fresh speculation that Dimon will be forced to agree to a payout bigger than the $4.5bn paid by BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
There are suggestions JP Morgan could be forced to make $4bn of payments to consumers and $7bn of penalties to cover losses incurred from the way mortgages were packaged by JP Morgan as the financial crisis took hold....

What happens to the water when the ice cubes are all melted? Don't say the Climate Crisis is not this simple, because, it is.

Friday 27 September 2013
The findings (click here) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are frighteningly clear. Our environment is incontestably warming – each of the past three decades has been successively warmer than any since 1850 – and it is beyond reasonable doubt that human activities are the cause....



...The likelihood that temperature rises will stay below the 2C threshold, above which changes become catastrophic, looks less and less achievable. Indeed, we have already burned through 54 per cent of the “carbon budget” calculated to equate to a 2C spike....

...“This is yet another wake-up call: those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire,” the Secretary of State said, before going on to affirm that the US is “deeply committed to leading on climate change”....

So, the covert drone wars are now official and not just skepticism and suspicion by the public.

The Brits and the USA need to stop fighting the Zulu Wars.

This is Henry Bartle Frere's Statue on the Thames embankment. He was a great general according to British history. He would go on to become the Governor of Bombay and High Commissioner of South Africa. 

Hasn't The West terrified the world enough?

This mess of Western Superiority has gone on for centuries and it is high time the people of these nations become disgusted with it all. At one point, British Society was convinced they were of superior intellect because their heads were bigger. The truth was their genetics demanded a larger hat size and they has perfected the practice of an educational system. We have all had enough of this mess and this is disgusting.

MoD study on attitudes to risk (click here)
Read the MoD document that formulates strategy for making British involvement in wars more palatable to the public

These machines and their use covertly to hide legalized killing by a nation's military is an immoral concept. It only goes to prove how The West, primarily the USA, believes the citizens of their nations can be manipulated to ignore the deaths of other peoples for the benefit of their own affairs. This is not about national security or sovereignty, this is about taking what does not belong to us and allowing the military to be judge and jury to APPROPRIATE deaths in the world.

This is completely disgusting and I won't be a part of it! My government WILL NOT treat me as a child that needs to be protected from reality and kill at will simply because they can. 
Published time: September 27, 2013 01:05
Using more mercenaries, (click here) unmanned vehicles and elite forces could make the British public more willing to support future wars, given such losses do not rile the press as do deaths of regular soldiers, a strategic unit of the Ministry of Defence suggests.

In an internal discussion paper on how to sway “casualty averse” public opinion, the MoD development, concepts and doctrine centre (DCDC) also recommends lessening the public profile of repatriation ceremonies for war casualties.

The document, written in November 2012 and obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, regards how public opinion of wartime casualties can be manipulated. It also recommends the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have “a clear and constant information campaign in order to influence the major areas of press and public opinion.”...


There has always been a clear division when permited killing occurs with democracies. They believe some people are deserving of death. It occurs when thinking about Death Row Inmates, the Detainees at Gitmo, POWs, War Criminals and the enemy. It is a disconnect between what will happen to a citizen and what will happen to 'the bad guy.' The clear indication is when war occurs and a voluntary military is seen as heroic at all costs, "So long as it is someone else's family member" that has been killed in the heat of battle.

That disconnect carries a degree of morality as a person/a nation has a right to defend themselves, but, it also ALLOWS for a great deal of immorality and the possibility of becoming 'the bad guy' when a government turns on it's own people for the sake of sovereignty.

The immorality of the disconnect is right here. It is where technology takes away the moral conscience of a nation and allows the military to carry on without any cost to the country, except, for the military industrial complex budget.

This is about as immoral and disconnected as killing gets. The 'cyber-wars' are a prelude to a cyber-military that can kill according to a computer program. No conscience, no guilt, no thoughts about human frailties, only death by machine. How convenient to realize a government believes they have control over every aspect of life of a citizen. Disgusting only begins to describe the ideation.

How clever an idea it is to realize The Hague will not have to prosecute a computer programer.

Close Gitmo, the repairs are in the millions. No wonder the detainees are on a hunger strike.

It would seem as though the facility was never meant to hold detainees for decades of time and the place is disintegrating. So much for being a secure facility to protect from prisoner escapes so close to the homeland. The appropriate international agencies need to inspect the place again and structurally condemn it.

Plywood. The lousy place can go up in flames in a instant. The Right Wing Congress has another failed policy on their hands. 

Published time: September 27, 2013 01:56

A US military request for funding (click here) to renovate the prison base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was denied by Pentagon officials in the Obama administration who, while pledging to close the prison, have been consistently prevented from doing so by Congress.

General John F. Kelly, the chief of US Southern Command and the officer in charge of Guantanamo Bay, requested $195.7 million to update and modify the prison in March 2013. He told Congress that buildings at Gitmo, originally only designed to temporarily house inmates eleven years ago, are disintegrating and presenting problems for troops on the base. 

His request, according to the New York Times, included $99 million to build two new barracks buildings for guards, $12 million for a new cafeteria, and another $49 million to replace the notorious “Camp Seven,” where high-value inmates formerly in the custody of the CIA are held. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is currently held at Camp Seven. 

The budget proposal was denied at some point during the summer but the news was not disclosed until Tuesday, when Southern Command spokesman Army colonel Greg Julian told the Times the request was denied “because of a lack of Congressional support to use the overseas contingency funding that we sought to complete those projects. So now we are working on various measures to mitigate some of the conditions of the facilities.”