Monthly Archives: December 2009

“Scientific” Academies Need A Taste Of RICO Too

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Alan Caruba , a conservative writer and reviewer:

“Consider a letter dated October 21, 2009 and signed by the presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Association of Ecosystem Research Center, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society of Agronomy, the American Statistical Association,

And the Botanical Society of America, the Crop Science Society of America, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Soil Science Society of America, the Ecological Society of America, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Together, they asserted that “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.” It went on to repeat all the usual scary scenarios of rising sea levels, urban heat weaves, wildfires, and other climate-related events.

In a footnote, the letter to U.S. Senators said, “The conclusions in this paragraph reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.”

We now know that the “science” being cited by these two entities was, at least in the case of the IPCC, totally rigged, but the presidents of these alleged science-based organizations took it on face value despite ample scientific evidence it was false. The revelations of emails exchanged between the perpetrators of the hoax have demonstrated the deceptions…….

In light of this, who can trust these organizations? And who can trust the “science” produced by NASA and other U.S. agencies that have benefited from billions in grants directed at so-called climate, i.e. global warming research?”

Sad SAC: Reuters Spikes Hedge Story On Complaints From Steve Cohen

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Via Finalternatives:

“Reuters opted against running a story about alleged insider-trading on the part of SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen after Cohen himself complained about the news agency’s coverage, a journalism blog reports.

Cohen repeatedly called Devin Wenig, CEO of Thompson Reuters Markets Division and the second-in-command at Reuters parent Thomson Reuters, according to Talking Biz News. The hedge fund boss reportedly complained that the story, which the University of North Carolina blog reports would have been an “incremental” advance in the story of alleged insider-trading more than 20 years ago, was part of a pattern of persecution on the part of Reuters.

Wenig forwarded Cohen’s complaints to Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, who in turn referred the story to editors. Those editors debated the story, written by Matthew Goldstein, before deciding to kill it after three days.

“We make decisions on whether or not to run stories purely on journalistic grounds,” a Reuters spokesman told Talking Biz News.

Goldstein was the first reporter to cite the unsealed court documents that include explosive allegations against SAC and former SAC portfolio manager Ping Jiang. Cohen’s ex-wife, Patricia, last week sued him for $300 million, accusing him of insider-trading, perjury and hiding assets from her and from the authorities.”

My Comment

Looks like more confirmation of the Deep Capture thesis – that major newspapers are bending over backwards…and forwards….for the big hedge funds.

I notice that Hedge World has picked this story up….as well it should, it’s a big one… and very kindly links this blog, as well as the ever-alert zerohedge – the only MSM-touted blog I truly dig, mainly because I dig the characters on it.

Earlier, I blogged that Steven Cohen was also having problems with a militant ex-missus, who has gone public with allegations that he perjured himself, hid money from the government (here we are on Stevie’s side), and did other sorts of naughty things, like insider trading, that reclusive billionaires really shouldn’t do, not if they want to stay either reclusive or billionaires.

We have much more sympathy for Mr. Cohen, of course, than we do for the self-important twits and petty tyrants who fly their bylines at major newspapers with little respect for the body politic. At least, we understand simple greed. But the weedy vanity of the pen-pushing mob needs to be exposed for what it is. 

Now comes Mr. Goldstein, who clearly suffers from the delusion that his job is to break important stories, no matter how exalted the net worth of the subjects. That didn’t sit well with his boss, and now the dirty laundry is out in the open.

Meanwhile, as if irate Sith ladies and spiked stories weren’t enough, there’s also a forced oral sex- cross-dressing- cum- sexual-harassment suit coming back from the past to haunt Sad SAC.

Who knew you could have so much fun without getting naked (shorted)?

Krugman Watch: Some Effigies Are More Equal Than Other Effigies

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Matt Welch at Reason:

“Last week, you’ll recall, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman began his column by saying: “A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy,” which was in seeming contradiction to his alarmed observation four months prior that “congressmen hanged in effigy” by Tea Partiers represented “something new and ugly” in American politics. Well, yesterday, the Krugger issued one of the better non-apology apologies you’ll read this week:

(Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn’t endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.)”

P. J. O’Rourke On Santa And God

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P. J. O’Rourke via Samizdata:

“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. His nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”

Military Detention Ruling Legalizes Torture And Non-Person Status

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From Chris Floyd

“While we were all out doing our Christmas shopping, the highest court in the land quietly put the kibosh on a few more of the remaining shards of human liberty.

It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also centuries of agonizing effort to lift civilization a few inches out of the blood-soaked mire that is our common human legacy. They just had to write a single sentence.

Here’s how the bad deal went down. After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever — save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.”

Honest Environmentalist Contradicts Climatistas

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David Crowe at Lew Rockwell:

“There is a lot of evidence that the activity often called science, and the scientists who practice this activity (as opposed to those few who have a monk-like dedication to the scientific method), are not trustworthy. Peer review is a bankrupt process, for example. It is lousy at detecting fraud but very good at suppressing innovative thought. Financial conflicts of interest are frequent and rarely disclosed. Scientists often fall into the trap of focusing on their next grant rather than what important questions need to be asked (including questioning their own assumptions and biases). The prejudices of the system are amplified in this way. Those who conform are rewarded with grants which inform the granters that this is a subject of great interest.

“The proof of this is that there have been many scientific errors that have survived for decades – Piltdown Man, Radical Mastectomy, (opposition to) continental drift, irradiation of the thymus, the germ theories of scurvy, pellagra and SMON. We, like all generations before us, falsely believe that all false beliefs lie in the past.

“The ClimateGate scandal illustrated this problem well. Without access to data scientists cannot fully evaluate the work of others. Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, at the center of this scandal, said, Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” That is exactly why the data should be released. If it can pass scrutiny from a skeptical, critical, cynical scientist then our confidence in the data and interpretations drawn from it will be much higher. It is a waste of time to give data to a scientist whose intention is to prove that previous interpretations are correct.”

Social Media Machinations Of the Financial Press

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A piece of Orwellian obfuscation by one Tom Sykes at Daily Kos *(see note at the bottom of this post) goes into the file, rip-roaring propaganda:

“I want to be clear on something up front. I think hedge-funds are a menace and should be outlawed. I think Goldman Sachs is a criminal conspiracy and its whole leadership should be indicted.

There are plenty of commentators, like Paul Krugman in the New York Times today and Matt Taibbi in his article in Rolling Stone, that have done great reporting on Goldman and on hedge funds.

But what we’re seeing is how a really odious character named Patrick Byrne is trying to hijack this issue…”

My Comment:

Byrne hijacked Taibbi? The liberals busted Goldman Sachs and naked short-selling and the hedge funds?

Aren’t Goldman Sachs and the hedge-funds the money men who funded the whole left-establishment..and wasn’t it people on the right libertarian side who busted them, and in fact called the whole financial crisis?

The libs were on the case only in 2008 when everyone was on the case and you’d have to have been blind not to notice.

This kind of revisionism makes me question the impetus behind the Rip Van Winkle awakening  of the MSM on the financial crisis.

Either it shows that the MSM can’t see what’s going on in front of its collective nose, which argues that its working hypotheses are wrong (the kinder interpretation), or it shows rank dishonesty (the truer interpretation, likely).

I’d go with the first interpretation, only the hatchet job the press keeps doing on anyone from the other side of the political spectrum suggests that the second interpretation is the right one.

As I’ve repeated ad nauseum, Taibbi seems to have lifted my Goldman Sachs piece of 2006 (Money Week) as well as a bunch of other articles written in 2007-2008 (see ABOUT) . You can read it on the net and then go back and see what Taibbi wrote, only about three years after I did. (He probably pinched stuff from at least one other person as well). You will also see that I wrote more than half-a-dozen articles on Goldman after that in 2006 and 2007 (check this site). In 2008, everyone began writing about Goldman. I figure someone at Rolling Stone got worried that the population was beginning to wake up to which side really had the goods, and decided to co-opt the issue before their intellectual ineptness was too evident.

Otherwise, I’m hard pressed to explain why they don’t think they need to source and attribute correctly. They can’t all be such intellectual charlatans? Right?

As for naked short selling, Byrne has been waging that campaign since 2005.…and some others on the right, even before him. Even people who don’t think there’s an NSS hedge-fund-media conspiracy involved have long ago conceded that NSS is a problem (see this Motley Fool piece from 2005), and that it’s difficult to figure out what’s really going on, because the DTC/SEC, for example, won’t/can’t release the figures needed to assess the situation.

(Now, why would anyone think conspiracy when there’s stone-walling going on…)

Matt Taibbi basically borrowed Byrne’s argument. And having taken the argument, the establishment is now trying to discredit the person who made it first (see Ritholtz here and here, even before the Facebook brouhaha).

It’s not irrelevant that in coming to his conclusions, Ritholtz cites only the very same journalists whose credibility is shot by the evidence of their collusion with hedge-funds. That is certainly a bizarre way to report on a topic.

Mind you, this should not be taken to be an endorsement on my part of Byrne’s business practices or accounting, about which I know only what I have read. And that of course has mostly been written by his critics and critics of the NSS thesis, like Dow Jones reporter, Carol Remond.

But Remond, despite her reputation as a respected reporter on penny-stock scams, is seriously compromised in her reporting on this issue because of alleged collusion with hedge funds.

I say alleged, to be on the safe side, but to my eyes the evidence is convincing.

On the other hand, Overstock has repeated accounting problems that its foes argue are the real reason for its NSS campaign.

How serious these problems are is hard to say.

Of the two accountants who routinely denounce Byrne’s business practices in multiple postings that take up a remarkably (and suggestively) disproportionate space on their blogs, one, Sam Antar, has been convicted of one of the most extensive cases of embezzlement in recent history. Antar also claims the mantle of reformed felon without any evidence that restitution of the embezzled funds took place. He escaped prosecution only by turning in his own family. This is not a confidence-builder. Actually, there’s some evidence of further wrong-doing involving one Barry Minkow that’s also posted on the Deep Capture blog. Antar and Mankiw are practicing greenmail, according to this piece.

(Its author uses the term loosely. Greenmail, in recent US financial history, is what Michael Milken is infamous for – a type of corporate raid. And Milken is one of the central villains in the Deep Capture story of the corruption of Wall Street. Since I researched this period for a book I was planning to write on Goldman Sachs, I’m conversant enough with the subject to say with some confidence that Byrne is on the right track on this).

The other accountant who criticizes Byrne, Tracy Coenan, seems to be another ally of  Antar and equally over- concerned with the accounting problems of Overstock, to the neglect of other companies.

Yet these are the only two accounting experts I see cited by Weiss.

Could there be other things wrong with Overstock?

Perhaps.

I have no way of knowing. But what I do know doesn’t so far make me think the problems are related in any way to the thesis of Deep Capture. The accounting errors don’t seem especially egregious, compared to the rest of what is going on in the market that the reform movement that Byrne spearheads is trying to tackle.

So is Deep Capture’s work discredited because of Byrne’s alleged and real problems?

No.

Overstock could very well be mismanaged and Byrne could be guilty of accounting shenanigans. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the extensive, indeed, mind-boggling, ties between supposedly neutral financial reporters and the hedge-funds that Deep Capture report on. The evidence the site has collected is shocking and undercuts any defense of the neutrality of the reporters in question (Bethany McLean, Remond, Weiss, Herb Greenberg, Roddy Boyd, etc).

To return to the media manipulation story.

After Taibbi put the two stories on Rolling Stone, Goldman and Penson came out and shot them down.

Taibbi, strangely, for a supposed target of Goldman and for all his righteous indignation over NSS, vanishes on the latter subject (NSS) and retracts parts of the former.

So what happens?

The entire Goldman argument gets reduced to “Goldman corrupted the regulators,” which works very well if you want more government and more regulators (and we are not fundamentalists on either subject). The good part of that from the point of view of the MSM is that that lets them displace the outrage on one or two figures (Rubin, for example), while using GS as a whipping-boy to funnel off popular rage from any effective overhaul/criminal prosecution, as well as to deflect it from the evidence of conspiratorial criminal activity.

(Yes, there are conspiracies, Virginia, and often the ones protesting loudly that they don’t exist are part of them…unwittingly or not).

Take this piece at Business Insider by Ritholtz, which sets up the boundaries of establishment discourse, with Taibbi and Gasparino at either end. What it does is to  come down roughly “midway”  between the two in a way  that conveniently does nothing to change the centrist liberal establishment discourse.

(At least, that’s my take).

Now, Taibbi comes from a well-established media background, with a father who was an NBC TV man.

It’s hard to believe he doesn’t know the ethics and etiquette of sourcing. In fact, it’s downright impossible.

We’d have to conclude that

1. He was tasked with co-opting the stories for political or national security reasons.

2. Or lacks journalistic integrity, a deficiency fairly rampant these days….

3. Or wants to protect the left-liberal establishment on the issue….

4. Or some combination of the above.

Note:

*Tom Sykes is apparently a sock-puppet created by Gary Weiss, the former Forbes and Business Week reporter, at least, according to the considerable evidence amassed at Deep Capture.

Note: I have sent several mob/corruption-related articles to the Deep Capture team and consider myself a supporter of their research, which I’ve tried to link and forward to others, as well as to more generally publicize. I don’t think that prevents me from assessing the merits of their claims objectively. I don’t, for example, condone any social engineering attacks on social media sites like facebook, no matter what the legal status of such attacks is. Frankly, the work Deep Capture is doing on market/media corruption is too important for its members to get into such unworthy activities. Nor do I think bringing in personalities, family members, or even private networks of journalists is particularly important or even necessary. The point is not whether a journalist talks to or is friendly with another journalist….or even hedge-fund. The point is whether their work is significantly biased by the friendship and whether they disclose the friendship and attempt to correct for it. I appreciate a number of left and liberal writers, even when I disagree with them, because I find them intellectually honest and reasonably objective (complete objectivity being impossible as well as unnecessary). That’s not a very high standard to demand now, is it?

Weapon Of Resistance: The AK-47

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C. J. Maloney in Lew Rockwell:

“Who says that God has no sense of humor, if a rather dark one, when He gives for us the ironic fact that of all the forms of political organization that humans herd themselves into there has been none more reactionary, bloodthirsty, or political than Stalinism, and that’s the one which gave us the cheap to produce, lethal, and amazingly low maintenance AK-47. Besides corpses and vodka, the AK-47 was the only thing communist Russia was ever able to mass-produce.

“A guerilla army in today’s world needs little more than an ample supply of AK-47s, something to believe in, and the support of those around them to be unconquerable. That’s all. And Mikhail Kalashnikov, God bless him, has put that ability in the hands of people from one end of the earth to the other.

“Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 29 that should the federal government ever turn despotic it “can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms.” If every American family had an AK-47 hanging on the wall over the 46″ wide-screen plasma, that’d force enough to give any army pause.

“So next May Day, assuming you remember it at all, take a moment to honor the memory of the millions slaughtered over the lethally stupid idea of communism, but give a nod to God’s great mercy, to His mysterious way that willed that very same idea to birth the AK-47. It gave to the working masses the ability to defend themselves from the more virulent strain of politicians; it is the sword of the common man. Of all the firearms yet dreamed up by mankind, it is the automatic for the people.”

Barack Obama: The Looks That Kill

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Insightful piece by Mary Rizzo in The Palestine Chronicle on the triumph of style over substance in the career of Barack Obama:

“In Afghanistan at least one hundred innocent civilians were killed by a few men flying US Air Force planes, and this was not an isolated attack, it is simply one that had been reported. This act, when done by the Republicans, was immediately condemned by those who consider themselves to be “anti-war”. The complaints never seemed to last longer than a few days and they had no practical efficacy whatsoever, but the feeling was that it was wrong, it was putting America in a worse position and that one should protest, not really for the Afghanis or Iraqis, but for the sake of the image of the USA. All of this has simply faded out because their man, the charming and attractive Obama is doing it, and his narrative of the Good War, they believe, is going to be enough to do the trick.

Certainly, there is nothing new about the utilisation of rhetoric and image to make effective propaganda. What would really be sad is if those who identify with Obama because of his attractive image identified with all the hypocrisy he represents, and the lack of awareness that he is as imperialistic and as warmongering as any president before him, none excluded. If looks could kill, they probably will.”

A Million Hits On Gaza

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From Ramzy Baroud:

Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press; Palgrave Mcmillan, 2010). The book is available at Pluto Press (UK) and Amazon

A Promotional Film about Gaza Launches New Book’s Worldwide Awareness Campaign

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

SEATTLE/TORONTO/LONDON – A promotional short film for a new book on Gaza is being released worldwide today, days before the official book launch in the U.K., to commemorate the first anniversary of the Gaza massacre – Israel’s so-called Operation Cast Lead, which killed and wounded thousands in Gaza a year ago.

Told from the perspectives of the refugees, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story is heralded as an incomparable chronicle of the history of the Gaza Strip, and has been endorsed by leading intellectuals and academics.

The book’s author, Ramzy Baroud, was born and raised in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He was witness to much of Gaza’s tumultuous history. “Gaza’s story is the most fascinating story there is, yet somehow it’s reduced to a few simple, redundant, and misleading clichés that barely grab attention anymore,” Baroud said. “I am determined to challenge and change that. Thanks to courageous publishers like Pluto Press, and the dedicated efforts of many talented individuals out there, we shall together change the ways the Gaza story is told.”

The short film, carrying the name of the book, is being released on YouTube, in both English and Arabic versions. The film will also be broadcast on a number of TV stations around the world. The filmmakers and book author are calling on readers and activists around the world to ensure the widest possible dissemination of Gaza’s untold story, by reading and helping to promote the book, and by encouraging others to watch the film at YouTube, through sharing the film with friends, family, and colleagues – with an aim to reach a million views at YouTube.

The “A Million Hits on Gaza” film-sharing movement at YouTube is just the beginning of a worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the book, and of Gaza’s untold stories and history, a campaign that will also include readings, book tours, the screen adaptation of the book into a feature film, and various educational, grassroots, community, and international film festival screenings of the completed feature film.

The promotional short film was created in a matter of days, with zero budget, by a team of artists in Canada and the U.K. that included filmmakers Paul Lee and Cathy Gulkin, editor and screenwriter George Kaltsounakis, composer and jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, and with the collaboration of writer and journalist Hani Yared (who helped with the translation and the preparation of the Arabic version of the film).

The book is now available through the Pluto Press website (www.plutobooks.com), and also through Amazon.com. Beginning March 2010, the book will be distributed in the United States by Palgrave Macmillan, which is promoting the book as a ‘trade title.”

To view the film in English, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K2VpARDkzw

To view the film in Arabic, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0NSpmrMZ4w

To purchase the book from Pluto Press, visit: www.plutobooks.com

Or click here:

http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745328812&

To purchase the book at Amazon, visit: www.amazon.com

Or click here:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Father-Was-Freedom-Fighter/dp/0745328814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260802483&sr=8-1

For more information, reviews, book tours, visit www.ramzybaroud.net, or e-mail: info@ramzybaroud.net



Check out this short film (in English and Arabic) about my latest book: My Father was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press; Palgrave Mcmillan, 2010). The book is available at Pluto Press (UK) and Amazon.