• Mail scott.murray@guardian.co.uk in the electronic fashion • Follow the rest of the day’s goals as they go in • Press F5 for the latest, or switch on the auto-refresh 37 min: Suarez slashes a shot from a tight angle on the left straight across goal. Before a red shirt can poke home, Martin hacks clear. Liverpool have stepped it up a bit again, without looking as quite dangerous as they were during the opening 20 minutes. “There are stats for everything these days,” writes Gary Naylor, “so does anyone know if there is a midfielder in the PL who gives the opposition possession more often than Steven Gerrard?” 36 min: Another corner for Liverpool, Downing winning it down the right. He takes the set piece himself, Johnson winning a header but sending it high into the Kop. 34 min: Tierney is booked for clipping Downing’s ankles, a couple of yards outside the Norwich area on the right. The free kick’s in a very dangerous position. Adam tries to pass it into the left-hand corner, but only finds the wall. He bangs the rebound as hard as he can, but only into a thicket of yellow shirts again. Eventually the ball’s swung in from the right by Downing, but it floats over the bar. 31 min: Jose Enrique tries to find Bellamy down the left. Barnett slides the ball out for a corner. Bellamy’s dead ball is met by the head of Kuyt at the near post, but easily cleared. Liverpool haven’t started playing badly, but their sparkle has disappeared. 29 min: Liverpool are showing their first signs of frustration. First an over-eager Bellamy needlessly gets himself flagged offside when presented with a pass in acres down the left, then Kuyt goes ballistic at the linesman when narrowly caught ahead of play himself. 26 min: The passes aren’t quite sticking for Liverpool now. First Kuyt puts a stop to his own player’s gallop, rolling a dreadful pass behind a flying Bellamy down the left. Then Adam hits a ball far too strongly down the right for Johnson, who had room in which to scamper. The crowd haven’t got anxious yet, but Anfield has seen sweet starts turn sour on more than one occasion this season already. Norwich will be pleased with their efforts in the last ten minutes; they’re certainly seeing more of the ball. 24 min: Up the other end, Gerrard tries to free Suarez down the inside-right channel, but just as the striker looks to control and shoot from just inside the area, Barnett slides over to clear. 23 min: Bennett rides a couple of tackles in the centre, just outside the area, and slaps a shot goalwards. Norwich are right in this game now. 21 min: Norwich ping the ball around hither and yon. They must have put nearly 20 passes together then. They slowly edge up the pitch, Bennett finally swinging a cross into the Liverpool area from the right; with Pilkington making a nuisance of himself at the far post, the Carragher is forced to concede a corner on the left. Which Morison meets, eight yards out, level with the far post, arrowing the ball towards the top right. Reina is behind it all the way to claim. That was delightful play from Norwich, who appear to be settling now. 19 min: No chance at either end for nearly 40 seconds now. 18 min: Tierney swings a ball across the edge of the Liverpool area from deep on the left; Morison can’t direct the ball goalwards. 17 min: Level with the right-hand post, Suarez turns and drags a shot across the face of goal, the ball sailing just wide right. This is breathless. 16 min: Skrtl Bcknbrs upfield and finds Downing down the right. The winger cuts inside and tries to find Suarez on the far post, but the cross is too high. Suddenly Norwich hit a long ball upfield, and Hoolahan is clear down the inside-left channel! After all that Liverpool pressure, is this a sucker punch? No: Hoolahan gets his effort on target at the near post, but Reina parries clear with his chest. What an open game this is. 14 min: Adam bustles inside from the right and feeds Suarez, who tries to chip Ruddy from 25 yards. Now now. The keeper’s behind it all the way, and the ball floats over the bar in any case. 11 min: What a goal this would have been. Adam sprays a long ball down the left for Bellamy, who takes it in his stride at full pelt, reaches the byline, and cuts a low ball back into the centre for Suarez. The striker, level with the left-hand post, opens his body and hits a first-time sidefoot at high pace towards goal. Ruddy manages to get fingertips to it, though, and diverts the ball onto the right-hand post and out. Downing picks up the ball, but panics and snatches a dismal shot miles wide right. 10 min: Pilkington looks a real handful down the left. He’s this close to diddling Johnson with a clever back heel and turn, but the full back stands firm and wins a goal kick. 8 min: Johnson skitters down the inside-right channel, into the area, and sends a low cross into the middle towards Suarez. Martin slides in to intercept. Norwich are struggling to keep hold of the ball, and Liverpool are relentless in returning it down their end of the pitch. 7 min: A long ball down the inside-left channel by Gerrard finds Suarez, who turns again on the edge of the area. Once more Barnett is all at sea, but this time he recovers well before Suarez can break clear, and gets a clearing challenge in. Liverpool have started very strongly here – but then they’ve a habit of doing this, only to fall away as the game progresses. 5 min: A throw-in for Liverpool down the left. Suarez takes up possession with his back to goal, on the corner of the box. He whips round through 180 degrees in an instant, a split-second turn, flummoxing Barnett. He’s clear on goal, albeit at an angle down the inside-left channel, but shoots wide left. A world-class turn, a dunce-class miss. Liverpool could easily be two goals up already. 2 min: The returning Glen Johnson has already seen plenty of the ball down the right. His incessant probing finds Suarez, who wins a corner. Adam sends a flat ball towards the near post, Skrtel glancing a header off the bar. Norwich clear, but only out for a corner on the other side. Suarez tries to meet the set piece, coming in from the left, but Norwich clear again. A strong start by the home side. A massive mosaic displayed on the Kop: Justice for the 96. Then the cards flip down in time for kick off. Liverpool get the ball rolling, and they’ll be kicking towards the Kop in this first half, never their preference. The teams are out! Liverpool are wearing their trademark all-red outfit, Norwich their equally distinguishing yellow shirts and green shorts. It’s a crisp, dry evening at Anfield. “Am delighted to see Bellamy start up front today (first time in the league this year, I believe),” writes David Horn. “I can’t think of two forwards more likely to annoy opponents, referees, managers, grannies, or anybody, anywhere at any time over the last 20 years, than these two. If there has been a more obnoxious strike partnership since the Premiership began, I’d like to hear of it.” OLD-SCHOOL SONGBOOK PT 2. On the Ball, City (1902): Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage / Keep it low, a splendid rush, bravo, win or die / On the ball, City, never mind the danger / Steady on, now’s your chance / Hurrah! We’ve scored a goal! OLD-SCHOOL SONGBOOK PT 1. Hurrah for the Reds (1907): Hurrah for the boys to play the game / Hurrah for the Reds! / Hurrah for the boys there’s none can tame / Hurrah for the Reds! / There’s Hewitt and Mac to lead the attack / With Hardy to hold the fort, boys / There’s Goddard and Cox, and Raisbeck the fox / And more of the good old sort, boys / Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah / Hurrah for the Reds! Referee: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire) Norwich City name an unchanged side: Ruddy, Naughton, Barnett, Russell Martin, Tierney, Bennett, Fox, Johnson, Pilkington, Hoolahan, Morison. Subs: Rudd, Crofts, Holt, Jackson, Surman, Wilbraham, De Laet. Liverpool replace Martin Kelly with the returning Glen Johnson: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Skrtel, Jose Enrique, Kuyt, Gerrard, Adam, Downing, Suarez, Bellamy. Subs: Doni, Agger, Carroll, Maxi, Henderson, Spearing, Flanagan. Kick off: 5.30pm. More pertinent, of course, is the recent form. Liverpool are unbeaten since that shellacking at Spurs a month ago, and looked promising in patches against Manchester United last time round. Norwich meanwhile have been properly impressive: a run of three wins in four, plus a defeat at Old Trafford which, had the ball bounced another way, could easily have been a victory. United, being the champions, are a fair enough litmus test: both teams will fancy their chances here. “We’ll give it a go,” says Norwich boss Paul Lambert. His opposite number Kenny Dalglish will doubtless have a similar mindset, so hopefully we’ll have a decent game on our hands here. Entertainment, please! All of that, of course, has little bearing on reality today. I don’t know why I mentioned it. City’s recent record at Anfield isn’t otherwise much to write home about. A 3-0 loss in 2004. A 4-0 defeat in 1995. A 4-1 tonking in 1992. Losses of 3-0 and 2-1 in 1991. A 3-1 FA Cup defeat in 1990. And then you’re into the Eighties, which featured whippings of 6-2, 5-0 and 4-0, a couple of goalless draws – and a 1-0 win for the Canaries in December 1988, a season which saw Liverpool lose the league on goal difference. Slim pickings, then, but when Norwich win, Liverpool certainly feel the reverberations. Norwich City haven’t won at Anfield since Jeremy Goss scored the last goal in front of the Kop at the tail end of the 1993/94 season. It was a well-deserved 1-0 victory for the Canaries: Steve Nicol hooked the ball against his own bar on 15 minutes, Jeremy Goss hammered home the only goal of the game at the Kop end on 35, Efan Ekoku missed a one-on-one with David James just before half time, and Bryan Gunn became the last keeper to shut Liverpool out in front of their famous old terrace, Rob Jones putting the ball past him only to see his shot cleared off the line. “You’re supposed to let us win,” was the Kop’s dry response, as a Liverpool team featuring Ian Rush, John Barnes, Ronnie Whelan, Robbie Fowler and, er, Julian Dicks flailed around helplessly. Premier League Liverpool Norwich City Scott Murray guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Mail scott.murray@guardian.co.uk in the electronic fashion • Follow the rest of the day’s goals as they go in • Press F5 for the latest, or switch on the auto-refresh 37 min: Suarez slashes a shot from a tight angle on the left straight across goal. Before a red shirt can poke home, Martin hacks clear. Liverpool have stepped it up a bit again, without looking as quite dangerous as they were during the opening 20 minutes. “There are stats for everything these days,” writes Gary Naylor, “so does anyone know if there is a midfielder in the PL who gives the opposition possession more often than Steven Gerrard?” 36 min: Another corner for Liverpool, Downing winning it down the right. He takes the set piece himself, Johnson winning a header but sending it high into the Kop. 34 min: Tierney is booked for clipping Downing’s ankles, a couple of yards outside the Norwich area on the right. The free kick’s in a very dangerous position. Adam tries to pass it into the left-hand corner, but only finds the wall. He bangs the rebound as hard as he can, but only into a thicket of yellow shirts again. Eventually the ball’s swung in from the right by Downing, but it floats over the bar. 31 min: Jose Enrique tries to find Bellamy down the left. Barnett slides the ball out for a corner. Bellamy’s dead ball is met by the head of Kuyt at the near post, but easily cleared. Liverpool haven’t started playing badly, but their sparkle has disappeared. 29 min: Liverpool are showing their first signs of frustration. First an over-eager Bellamy needlessly gets himself flagged offside when presented with a pass in acres down the left, then Kuyt goes ballistic at the linesman when narrowly caught ahead of play himself. 26 min: The passes aren’t quite sticking for Liverpool now. First Kuyt puts a stop to his own player’s gallop, rolling a dreadful pass behind a flying Bellamy down the left. Then Adam hits a ball far too strongly down the right for Johnson, who had room in which to scamper. The crowd haven’t got anxious yet, but Anfield has seen sweet starts turn sour on more than one occasion this season already. Norwich will be pleased with their efforts in the last ten minutes; they’re certainly seeing more of the ball. 24 min: Up the other end, Gerrard tries to free Suarez down the inside-right channel, but just as the striker looks to control and shoot from just inside the area, Barnett slides over to clear. 23 min: Bennett rides a couple of tackles in the centre, just outside the area, and slaps a shot goalwards. Norwich are right in this game now. 21 min: Norwich ping the ball around hither and yon. They must have put nearly 20 passes together then. They slowly edge up the pitch, Bennett finally swinging a cross into the Liverpool area from the right; with Pilkington making a nuisance of himself at the far post, the Carragher is forced to concede a corner on the left. Which Morison meets, eight yards out, level with the far post, arrowing the ball towards the top right. Reina is behind it all the way to claim. That was delightful play from Norwich, who appear to be settling now. 19 min: No chance at either end for nearly 40 seconds now. 18 min: Tierney swings a ball across the edge of the Liverpool area from deep on the left; Morison can’t direct the ball goalwards. 17 min: Level with the right-hand post, Suarez turns and drags a shot across the face of goal, the ball sailing just wide right. This is breathless. 16 min: Skrtl Bcknbrs upfield and finds Downing down the right. The winger cuts inside and tries to find Suarez on the far post, but the cross is too high. Suddenly Norwich hit a long ball upfield, and Hoolahan is clear down the inside-left channel! After all that Liverpool pressure, is this a sucker punch? No: Hoolahan gets his effort on target at the near post, but Reina parries clear with his chest. What an open game this is. 14 min: Adam bustles inside from the right and feeds Suarez, who tries to chip Ruddy from 25 yards. Now now. The keeper’s behind it all the way, and the ball floats over the bar in any case. 11 min: What a goal this would have been. Adam sprays a long ball down the left for Bellamy, who takes it in his stride at full pelt, reaches the byline, and cuts a low ball back into the centre for Suarez. The striker, level with the left-hand post, opens his body and hits a first-time sidefoot at high pace towards goal. Ruddy manages to get fingertips to it, though, and diverts the ball onto the right-hand post and out. Downing picks up the ball, but panics and snatches a dismal shot miles wide right. 10 min: Pilkington looks a real handful down the left. He’s this close to diddling Johnson with a clever back heel and turn, but the full back stands firm and wins a goal kick. 8 min: Johnson skitters down the inside-right channel, into the area, and sends a low cross into the middle towards Suarez. Martin slides in to intercept. Norwich are struggling to keep hold of the ball, and Liverpool are relentless in returning it down their end of the pitch. 7 min: A long ball down the inside-left channel by Gerrard finds Suarez, who turns again on the edge of the area. Once more Barnett is all at sea, but this time he recovers well before Suarez can break clear, and gets a clearing challenge in. Liverpool have started very strongly here – but then they’ve a habit of doing this, only to fall away as the game progresses. 5 min: A throw-in for Liverpool down the left. Suarez takes up possession with his back to goal, on the corner of the box. He whips round through 180 degrees in an instant, a split-second turn, flummoxing Barnett. He’s clear on goal, albeit at an angle down the inside-left channel, but shoots wide left. A world-class turn, a dunce-class miss. Liverpool could easily be two goals up already. 2 min: The returning Glen Johnson has already seen plenty of the ball down the right. His incessant probing finds Suarez, who wins a corner. Adam sends a flat ball towards the near post, Skrtel glancing a header off the bar. Norwich clear, but only out for a corner on the other side. Suarez tries to meet the set piece, coming in from the left, but Norwich clear again. A strong start by the home side. A massive mosaic displayed on the Kop: Justice for the 96. Then the cards flip down in time for kick off. Liverpool get the ball rolling, and they’ll be kicking towards the Kop in this first half, never their preference. The teams are out! Liverpool are wearing their trademark all-red outfit, Norwich their equally distinguishing yellow shirts and green shorts. It’s a crisp, dry evening at Anfield. “Am delighted to see Bellamy start up front today (first time in the league this year, I believe),” writes David Horn. “I can’t think of two forwards more likely to annoy opponents, referees, managers, grannies, or anybody, anywhere at any time over the last 20 years, than these two. If there has been a more obnoxious strike partnership since the Premiership began, I’d like to hear of it.” OLD-SCHOOL SONGBOOK PT 2. On the Ball, City (1902): Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage / Keep it low, a splendid rush, bravo, win or die / On the ball, City, never mind the danger / Steady on, now’s your chance / Hurrah! We’ve scored a goal! OLD-SCHOOL SONGBOOK PT 1. Hurrah for the Reds (1907): Hurrah for the boys to play the game / Hurrah for the Reds! / Hurrah for the boys there’s none can tame / Hurrah for the Reds! / There’s Hewitt and Mac to lead the attack / With Hardy to hold the fort, boys / There’s Goddard and Cox, and Raisbeck the fox / And more of the good old sort, boys / Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah / Hurrah for the Reds! Referee: Peter Walton (Northamptonshire) Norwich City name an unchanged side: Ruddy, Naughton, Barnett, Russell Martin, Tierney, Bennett, Fox, Johnson, Pilkington, Hoolahan, Morison. Subs: Rudd, Crofts, Holt, Jackson, Surman, Wilbraham, De Laet. Liverpool replace Martin Kelly with the returning Glen Johnson: Reina, Johnson, Carragher, Skrtel, Jose Enrique, Kuyt, Gerrard, Adam, Downing, Suarez, Bellamy. Subs: Doni, Agger, Carroll, Maxi, Henderson, Spearing, Flanagan. Kick off: 5.30pm. More pertinent, of course, is the recent form. Liverpool are unbeaten since that shellacking at Spurs a month ago, and looked promising in patches against Manchester United last time round. Norwich meanwhile have been properly impressive: a run of three wins in four, plus a defeat at Old Trafford which, had the ball bounced another way, could easily have been a victory. United, being the champions, are a fair enough litmus test: both teams will fancy their chances here. “We’ll give it a go,” says Norwich boss Paul Lambert. His opposite number Kenny Dalglish will doubtless have a similar mindset, so hopefully we’ll have a decent game on our hands here. Entertainment, please! All of that, of course, has little bearing on reality today. I don’t know why I mentioned it. City’s recent record at Anfield isn’t otherwise much to write home about. A 3-0 loss in 2004. A 4-0 defeat in 1995. A 4-1 tonking in 1992. Losses of 3-0 and 2-1 in 1991. A 3-1 FA Cup defeat in 1990. And then you’re into the Eighties, which featured whippings of 6-2, 5-0 and 4-0, a couple of goalless draws – and a 1-0 win for the Canaries in December 1988, a season which saw Liverpool lose the league on goal difference. Slim pickings, then, but when Norwich win, Liverpool certainly feel the reverberations. Norwich City haven’t won at Anfield since Jeremy Goss scored the last goal in front of the Kop at the tail end of the 1993/94 season. It was a well-deserved 1-0 victory for the Canaries: Steve Nicol hooked the ball against his own bar on 15 minutes, Jeremy Goss hammered home the only goal of the game at the Kop end on 35, Efan Ekoku missed a one-on-one with David James just before half time, and Bryan Gunn became the last keeper to shut Liverpool out in front of their famous old terrace, Rob Jones putting the ball past him only to see his shot cleared off the line. “You’re supposed to let us win,” was the Kop’s dry response, as a Liverpool team featuring Ian Rush, John Barnes, Ronnie Whelan, Robbie Fowler and, er, Julian Dicks flailed around helplessly. Premier League Liverpool Norwich City Scott Murray guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
First minister says ‘days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over’ Alex Salmond has launched a fierce attack on the UK government, saying the future of Scotland will not be determined by Westminster. The Scottish first minister used his speech to the Scottish National party annual conference in Inverness to send the Westminster a stark message. “The days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over,” he said. “The Scottish people will set the agenda for the future.” Salmond declared: “No politician, and certainly no London politician, will determine the future of the Scottish nation. “The prime minister should hear this loud and clear. “The people of Scotland – the sovereign people of Scotland – are now in the driving seat.” The conference is the SNP’s first since the party’s landslide victory in May’s Holyrood elections, when the nationalists became the first ever party to secure an overall majority in the Scottish parliament. Salmond said that win had given his party the “greatest ever mandate of the devolution era”. That election victory means a referendum will be held on Scottish independence. While no date for such a vote has yet been set, Nationalists have pledged it will take place in the second half of the Scottish parliament’s five-year term. The speech by Salmond marked the start of the SNP’s campaign ahead of that referendum. Ahead of the referendum, Salmond said that next month he would ask MSPs at Holyrood to endorse Scotland’s Claim of Right. The original Claim of Right dates back to 1988 and declared the “sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs”. Nationalists believe that by endorsing this, MSPs will emphasise that a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future is something for the Scottish parliament to deliver. The Scottish government has previously declared its willingness to consider having an option of Scotland gaining further short of independence on the ballot paper in the referendum. Salmond said that this “devo-max” option was a “legitimate proposal”, and that fiscal responsibility and enhanced economic powers could “allow us to control our own resources, introduce competitive business tax and fair personal taxation”. But he still described this option as being “not good enough”, adding: “Even with economic powers trident nuclear missiles would still be on the river Clyde, we could still be forced to spill blood in illegal wars like Iraq, and Scotland would still be excluded from the Councils of Europe and the world.” While Westminster has proposed further powers for the devolved Holyrood administration in its Scotland bill, Salmond said this was “unloved, uninspiring, not even understood by its own proponents”. And he claimed the coalition “hadn’t even gone through the motions of considering the views of the Scottish government” and others north of the border on the bill. After David Cameron promised to govern Scotland with respect, Salmond claimed that respect agenda now “lies dead in their throats”. He said: “This is Westminster’s agenda of disrespect – not of disrespect to the SNP but a fundamental disrespect for Scotland.” Almost 1,600 party members packed the main hall at the Eden Court theatre conference venue, and also filled five overspill rooms for Salmond’s keynote addresse. They heard the first minister launch a fresh attack on the UK government over its decision to abandon plans for the UK’s first coal-fired power plant with technology to capture and store carbon emissions at Longannet in Fife. Salmond accused Westminster of having “betrayed the future of Longannet”.He also made a renewed claim for Scotland to have control over energy and its revenues, saying that Westminster had “coined in” £300bn from North Sea oil and gas over the last 40 years. Salmond told the conference the North Sea would continue to yield oil and gas for the next four decades “at least” and added: “London has had its turn out of Scottish oil and gas. Let the next 40 years be for the people of Scotland.” Scottish National party (SNP) Scottish politics Alex Salmond Scotland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …First minister says ‘days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over’ Alex Salmond has launched a fierce attack on the UK government, saying the future of Scotland will not be determined by Westminster. The Scottish first minister used his speech to the Scottish National party annual conference in Inverness to send the Westminster a stark message. “The days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over,” he said. “The Scottish people will set the agenda for the future.” Salmond declared: “No politician, and certainly no London politician, will determine the future of the Scottish nation. “The prime minister should hear this loud and clear. “The people of Scotland – the sovereign people of Scotland – are now in the driving seat.” The conference is the SNP’s first since the party’s landslide victory in May’s Holyrood elections, when the nationalists became the first ever party to secure an overall majority in the Scottish parliament. Salmond said that win had given his party the “greatest ever mandate of the devolution era”. That election victory means a referendum will be held on Scottish independence. While no date for such a vote has yet been set, Nationalists have pledged it will take place in the second half of the Scottish parliament’s five-year term. The speech by Salmond marked the start of the SNP’s campaign ahead of that referendum. Ahead of the referendum, Salmond said that next month he would ask MSPs at Holyrood to endorse Scotland’s Claim of Right. The original Claim of Right dates back to 1988 and declared the “sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs”. Nationalists believe that by endorsing this, MSPs will emphasise that a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future is something for the Scottish parliament to deliver. The Scottish government has previously declared its willingness to consider having an option of Scotland gaining further short of independence on the ballot paper in the referendum. Salmond said that this “devo-max” option was a “legitimate proposal”, and that fiscal responsibility and enhanced economic powers could “allow us to control our own resources, introduce competitive business tax and fair personal taxation”. But he still described this option as being “not good enough”, adding: “Even with economic powers trident nuclear missiles would still be on the river Clyde, we could still be forced to spill blood in illegal wars like Iraq, and Scotland would still be excluded from the Councils of Europe and the world.” While Westminster has proposed further powers for the devolved Holyrood administration in its Scotland bill, Salmond said this was “unloved, uninspiring, not even understood by its own proponents”. And he claimed the coalition “hadn’t even gone through the motions of considering the views of the Scottish government” and others north of the border on the bill. After David Cameron promised to govern Scotland with respect, Salmond claimed that respect agenda now “lies dead in their throats”. He said: “This is Westminster’s agenda of disrespect – not of disrespect to the SNP but a fundamental disrespect for Scotland.” Almost 1,600 party members packed the main hall at the Eden Court theatre conference venue, and also filled five overspill rooms for Salmond’s keynote addresse. They heard the first minister launch a fresh attack on the UK government over its decision to abandon plans for the UK’s first coal-fired power plant with technology to capture and store carbon emissions at Longannet in Fife. Salmond accused Westminster of having “betrayed the future of Longannet”.He also made a renewed claim for Scotland to have control over energy and its revenues, saying that Westminster had “coined in” £300bn from North Sea oil and gas over the last 40 years. Salmond told the conference the North Sea would continue to yield oil and gas for the next four decades “at least” and added: “London has had its turn out of Scottish oil and gas. Let the next 40 years be for the people of Scotland.” Scottish National party (SNP) Scottish politics Alex Salmond Scotland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …There’s a reason a big majority of the country approves of the Occupy Wall Street folks in spite of all the media derision and right-wing attacks, and a reason that demonstrators all over the country and world are organizing in their wake. The reason is that most people know what too many politicians in Washington don’t: that the big banks on Wall Street have a corrupt business model that recklessly assumes taxpayers will bail them out if their bets don’t pan out, and that their political juice will get them out of trouble if they violate laws and slide around regulations. There are three things in the news that remind us of this sorry story once again, and the American people need to raise holy hell about all of them: another sweetheart deal for Citibank on fraud charges, a new Bank of America maneuver that could turn into the biggest taxpayer bailout of all time, and a faction in the administration trying to ram through a new deal for all the big banks to have their legal issues related to foreclosure wiped away. First case in point: the astonishing (and so far mostly unnoticed) little slight-of-hand that Bank of America pulled when it switched over its Merrill Lynch-derived toxic assets to a federally insured program. Read this and weep: Bank of America is moving $75 trillion of highly risky derivative contracts “from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits.” The FDIC, which is the government agency that insures bank deposits, is screaming bloody murder, but the Federal Reserve wants to let them do it. This is a big f’ing deal, friends. Maybe the biggest swindle ever, certainly the biggest government bailout by far if the ship goes down. It makes TARP and Federal Reserve bailouts so far look like chump change. Remember, the Fed bailed out banks to the tune of a mere $16 trillion in 2008, and TARP threw in less than $1 trillion on top of that. Seventy-five trillion dollars is almost 5 times as much. Now, we don’t know how much of the $75 trillion us taxpayers would be responsible for in the end, because we don’t have access to Bank of America’s books, and the company hasn’t failed yet. But to allow taxpayers to be on the hook for this kind of exposure to even some part of a bank’s risky bets is an obscenity beyond belief. Then there is the latest Citibank settlement. Citibank agreed to pay $285 million to settle charges it defrauded investors in a billion-dollar mortgage security deal, and Citibank didn’t have to admit any wrongdoing. This kind of settlement happens all the time , and is yet another example of a corrupted system: mega-banks pay modest fines on massively fraudulent behavior; no one goes to jail, loses their jobs, or even has to admit wrongdoing. Breaking the law — stealing from and defrauding people— and then having your company stockholders pay one of these modest fines if you do get caught is just business as usual for these huge banks. And everyone in the industry knows it. When Hank Paulson, who was generally a great friend of the big banks as the Bush Treasury Secretary, wanted to force Wall Street banks to do something he considered urgent during the 2008 financial crisis, all he needed to do was to say he was going to have the FBI look at the banks’ books and emails. They would agree to anything he asked them to do, because they knew they all had plenty to hide. Bank of America and Citi are the two most wobbly banks of the Too Big to Fail crowd. The argument from 2008-on by Tim Geithner and other pro-Wall Street government officials is that we can’t do anything tough to these banks because it would cause system-wide risk. In fact, they say, we have to keep bailing them out, letting them off the hook for their legal transgressions, not be too tough on regulating them, not break them up, etc. because otherwise we will have another financial panic. But continuing to let them drain us dry isn’t working, and as Europe has discovered, at some point the bailouts get too big to take on. A $75 trillion bailout is too big a bailout number even for the U.S. government to contemplate dealing with, but Bank of America is trying to slide such a deal under our noses. Fortunately, Dodd-Frank did actually give us clear resolution authority for the Too Big to Fail banks. Banks have recapitalized themselves; the stress tests at least in theory gave government officials more knowledge of the banks’ asset holdings. Based on what Geithner himself has said, we should be in no danger of having to bail out Too Big to Fail banks. If they get in trouble, we can take them over just like the FDIC does, sell off their assets, and wind them down. And yet, we keep doing the bailing, as well as the winking and nodding at their fraudulent behavior. The BoA $75 trillion transfer to a federally insured subsidiary is the most egregious bailout yet. The Citibank wink and nod is the latest in a long line of letting crooks off the hook. And we may be on the verge of yet another massive sweetheart deal for the big banks, a deal that if it gets rammed through will not only absolve the biggest banks of all their legal violations, but a deal that would completely undercut any administration political claims that they are willing to take on Wall Street. Check this out : US state and federal officials plan to give the country’s largest mortgage servicers wider protection against legal claims in exchange for refinancing help for existing borrowers, as talks on a $25bn settlement of alleged foreclosure improprieties advance. The proposed agreement would settle allegations that Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial engaged in faulty mortgage practices, including employing so-called “robosigners” – agents who processed foreclosure filings en masse without examining the underlying paperwork – that abused homeowners’ rights and led to wrongful home seizures. The banks declined to comment. Now of course, reporters sometimes get things wrong, and I haven’t heard from the White House whether this story is accurate. What I suspect, in fact, is that there are two factions in the administration, one mostly from Treasury trying to get this done as quickly and quietly as they can, and one among the political staff at the White House who understand how insane it would be politically to give the banks yet another sweetheart deal after the President praised Occupy Wall Street and after David Plouffe told the Washington Post that they will be running against Wall Street in 2012. Understand that what’s spelled out in the Nasiripour story in terms of the legal release for the big banks sounds worse than what Tom Miller was trying to negotiate with them. Once again, big banks would get off with no legal accountability whatsoever for the crimes they committed, and the money they pocketed on fraudulent activities. And while $25 billion sounds like a lot of money, it is a mere fraction of what they made on activities that were clearly not legal, and it is an even smaller fraction of what is actually needed to help underwater homeowners maybe 5 percent of what is needed. Remember how bad HAMP was : this $25 billion program would be politically far worse, because administering a fund that inadequate to the problem would be a nightmare, and for every homeowner you helped, 19 would be ticked off because once again there was nothing to help them. This is a deal that I can absolutely guarantee to my friends in the administration will blow up in their faces badly if they go through with it. All those Occupy Wall Street demonstrators all across the country will be demonstrating against the White House. Labor unions and all the community groups doing bank actions will go crazy. Every economist and consumer group who has been working on the financial reform issue will react very badly. For Obama to run against Wall Street while handing the big banks another sweetheart deal, and getting the negative reaction it would cause, would be untenable. For all these reasons, I don’t think the President will go along with this deal. But as we know from the Suskind book , there are people in his administration who have a track record of acting on their own. Tim Geithner could well be (and from what some sources tell me, is) trying to ram this deal through while the President is dealing with getting our troops out of Iraq (thank you, Mr. President), and fighting with Republicans on taxing millionaires and billionaires. The RED ALERT in my headline is for the President as well as activists who care about this issue. We need to start reining in the big banks’ power to wreck our economy, and we can start by not giving them more sweetheart deals and bailouts.
Continue reading …There’s a reason a big majority of the country approves of the Occupy Wall Street folks in spite of all the media derision and right-wing attacks, and a reason that demonstrators all over the country and world are organizing in their wake. The reason is that most people know what too many politicians in Washington don’t: that the big banks on Wall Street have a corrupt business model that recklessly assumes taxpayers will bail them out if their bets don’t pan out, and that their political juice will get them out of trouble if they violate laws and slide around regulations. There are three things in the news that remind us of this sorry story once again, and the American people need to raise holy hell about all of them: another sweetheart deal for Citibank on fraud charges, a new Bank of America maneuver that could turn into the biggest taxpayer bailout of all time, and a faction in the administration trying to ram through a new deal for all the big banks to have their legal issues related to foreclosure wiped away. First case in point: the astonishing (and so far mostly unnoticed) little slight-of-hand that Bank of America pulled when it switched over its Merrill Lynch-derived toxic assets to a federally insured program. Read this and weep: Bank of America is moving $75 trillion of highly risky derivative contracts “from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits.” The FDIC, which is the government agency that insures bank deposits, is screaming bloody murder, but the Federal Reserve wants to let them do it. This is a big f’ing deal, friends. Maybe the biggest swindle ever, certainly the biggest government bailout by far if the ship goes down. It makes TARP and Federal Reserve bailouts so far look like chump change. Remember, the Fed bailed out banks to the tune of a mere $16 trillion in 2008, and TARP threw in less than $1 trillion on top of that. Seventy-five trillion dollars is almost 5 times as much. Now, we don’t know how much of the $75 trillion us taxpayers would be responsible for in the end, because we don’t have access to Bank of America’s books, and the company hasn’t failed yet. But to allow taxpayers to be on the hook for this kind of exposure to even some part of a bank’s risky bets is an obscenity beyond belief. Then there is the latest Citibank settlement. Citibank agreed to pay $285 million to settle charges it defrauded investors in a billion-dollar mortgage security deal, and Citibank didn’t have to admit any wrongdoing. This kind of settlement happens all the time , and is yet another example of a corrupted system: mega-banks pay modest fines on massively fraudulent behavior; no one goes to jail, loses their jobs, or even has to admit wrongdoing. Breaking the law — stealing from and defrauding people— and then having your company stockholders pay one of these modest fines if you do get caught is just business as usual for these huge banks. And everyone in the industry knows it. When Hank Paulson, who was generally a great friend of the big banks as the Bush Treasury Secretary, wanted to force Wall Street banks to do something he considered urgent during the 2008 financial crisis, all he needed to do was to say he was going to have the FBI look at the banks’ books and emails. They would agree to anything he asked them to do, because they knew they all had plenty to hide. Bank of America and Citi are the two most wobbly banks of the Too Big to Fail crowd. The argument from 2008-on by Tim Geithner and other pro-Wall Street government officials is that we can’t do anything tough to these banks because it would cause system-wide risk. In fact, they say, we have to keep bailing them out, letting them off the hook for their legal transgressions, not be too tough on regulating them, not break them up, etc. because otherwise we will have another financial panic. But continuing to let them drain us dry isn’t working, and as Europe has discovered, at some point the bailouts get too big to take on. A $75 trillion bailout is too big a bailout number even for the U.S. government to contemplate dealing with, but Bank of America is trying to slide such a deal under our noses. Fortunately, Dodd-Frank did actually give us clear resolution authority for the Too Big to Fail banks. Banks have recapitalized themselves; the stress tests at least in theory gave government officials more knowledge of the banks’ asset holdings. Based on what Geithner himself has said, we should be in no danger of having to bail out Too Big to Fail banks. If they get in trouble, we can take them over just like the FDIC does, sell off their assets, and wind them down. And yet, we keep doing the bailing, as well as the winking and nodding at their fraudulent behavior. The BoA $75 trillion transfer to a federally insured subsidiary is the most egregious bailout yet. The Citibank wink and nod is the latest in a long line of letting crooks off the hook. And we may be on the verge of yet another massive sweetheart deal for the big banks, a deal that if it gets rammed through will not only absolve the biggest banks of all their legal violations, but a deal that would completely undercut any administration political claims that they are willing to take on Wall Street. Check this out : US state and federal officials plan to give the country’s largest mortgage servicers wider protection against legal claims in exchange for refinancing help for existing borrowers, as talks on a $25bn settlement of alleged foreclosure improprieties advance. The proposed agreement would settle allegations that Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial engaged in faulty mortgage practices, including employing so-called “robosigners” – agents who processed foreclosure filings en masse without examining the underlying paperwork – that abused homeowners’ rights and led to wrongful home seizures. The banks declined to comment. Now of course, reporters sometimes get things wrong, and I haven’t heard from the White House whether this story is accurate. What I suspect, in fact, is that there are two factions in the administration, one mostly from Treasury trying to get this done as quickly and quietly as they can, and one among the political staff at the White House who understand how insane it would be politically to give the banks yet another sweetheart deal after the President praised Occupy Wall Street and after David Plouffe told the Washington Post that they will be running against Wall Street in 2012. Understand that what’s spelled out in the Nasiripour story in terms of the legal release for the big banks sounds worse than what Tom Miller was trying to negotiate with them. Once again, big banks would get off with no legal accountability whatsoever for the crimes they committed, and the money they pocketed on fraudulent activities. And while $25 billion sounds like a lot of money, it is a mere fraction of what they made on activities that were clearly not legal, and it is an even smaller fraction of what is actually needed to help underwater homeowners maybe 5 percent of what is needed. Remember how bad HAMP was : this $25 billion program would be politically far worse, because administering a fund that inadequate to the problem would be a nightmare, and for every homeowner you helped, 19 would be ticked off because once again there was nothing to help them. This is a deal that I can absolutely guarantee to my friends in the administration will blow up in their faces badly if they go through with it. All those Occupy Wall Street demonstrators all across the country will be demonstrating against the White House. Labor unions and all the community groups doing bank actions will go crazy. Every economist and consumer group who has been working on the financial reform issue will react very badly. For Obama to run against Wall Street while handing the big banks another sweetheart deal, and getting the negative reaction it would cause, would be untenable. For all these reasons, I don’t think the President will go along with this deal. But as we know from the Suskind book , there are people in his administration who have a track record of acting on their own. Tim Geithner could well be (and from what some sources tell me, is) trying to ram this deal through while the President is dealing with getting our troops out of Iraq (thank you, Mr. President), and fighting with Republicans on taxing millionaires and billionaires. The RED ALERT in my headline is for the President as well as activists who care about this issue. We need to start reining in the big banks’ power to wreck our economy, and we can start by not giving them more sweetheart deals and bailouts.
Continue reading …OWS protests (OCTET-STREAM – 172.9 KB) Unfortunately, decades of hate talk AM radio beginning with Rush Limbaugh, followed up by the creation of Fox News by Roger Ailes, have up to this point irrevocably damaged our political discourse and cultural lines that have defined the many faces of America’s past. I grew up in Astoria, Queens, a city that was dominated by an influx of Greek immigrants. If you make it down to Ditmars Blvd ., you can grab some of the best Greek food America has to offer. Latinos, Polish, Irish, Italian, African Americans, German and many other cultural backgrounds filled out the neighborhood. There were many different religions represented as well along with others that didn’t really pay much attention to it. It was the quintessential melting pot as they say of different cultures and beliefs that shared tight living quarters and for the most part lived together in harmony. Obviously it was far from perfect, but there wasn’t this toxic political divide between the groups–pitting right vs left, conservatives against liberals–that existed after the great right wing transmissions began, fueled by corporate interests and political and right wing religious operatives. In the Bush decade, conservatives have been thoroughly conditioned by an endless drone of conservative voices to not only hate liberals, but to also wish them to be exterminated from the two party system. Deleted , one might say in today’s techo-daze. A good example of what I’m talking about is the differences that you see by the OWS protesters and the tea party operatives and how they have been portrayed by the MSM, CNBC and Fox. The tea party has sided with Wall Street as epitomized by CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s rant on the stock exchange floor , which blamed the loser homeowners rather than the Wall Street excesses and cons that caused the collapse of the global financial markets, which in turn has ruined the world economies. And that means grief and hardship for the working class while the financial elites make huge profits. David Cay Johnson explains: First Look At US Pay Data, It’d Awful: There were fewer jobs and they paid less last year, except at the very top where, the number of people making more than $1 million increased by 20 percent over 2009. Digby wrote an excellent op-ed for al-Jazeera in which she discusses the two groups and how different and deep the divide is. T ea Partiers: The self-hating 99 per cent . Although the Tea Party and Occupy movement share surface similarities, they represent opposite world views. They should be with us at this moment in time, screaming for income and economic equality, but we’re the enemy. Rush Limbaugh, Billo, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck say so.
Continue reading …OWS protests (OCTET-STREAM – 172.9 KB) Unfortunately, decades of hate talk AM radio beginning with Rush Limbaugh, followed up by the creation of Fox News by Roger Ailes, have up to this point irrevocably damaged our political discourse and cultural lines that have defined the many faces of America’s past. I grew up in Astoria, Queens, a city that was dominated by an influx of Greek immigrants. If you make it down to Ditmars Blvd ., you can grab some of the best Greek food America has to offer. Latinos, Polish, Irish, Italian, African Americans, German and many other cultural backgrounds filled out the neighborhood. There were many different religions represented as well along with others that didn’t really pay much attention to it. It was the quintessential melting pot as they say of different cultures and beliefs that shared tight living quarters and for the most part lived together in harmony. Obviously it was far from perfect, but there wasn’t this toxic political divide between the groups–pitting right vs left, conservatives against liberals–that existed after the great right wing transmissions began, fueled by corporate interests and political and right wing religious operatives. In the Bush decade, conservatives have been thoroughly conditioned by an endless drone of conservative voices to not only hate liberals, but to also wish them to be exterminated from the two party system. Deleted , one might say in today’s techo-daze. A good example of what I’m talking about is the differences that you see by the OWS protesters and the tea party operatives and how they have been portrayed by the MSM, CNBC and Fox. The tea party has sided with Wall Street as epitomized by CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s rant on the stock exchange floor , which blamed the loser homeowners rather than the Wall Street excesses and cons that caused the collapse of the global financial markets, which in turn has ruined the world economies. And that means grief and hardship for the working class while the financial elites make huge profits. David Cay Johnson explains: First Look At US Pay Data, It’d Awful: There were fewer jobs and they paid less last year, except at the very top where, the number of people making more than $1 million increased by 20 percent over 2009. Digby wrote an excellent op-ed for al-Jazeera in which she discusses the two groups and how different and deep the divide is. T ea Partiers: The self-hating 99 per cent . Although the Tea Party and Occupy movement share surface similarities, they represent opposite world views. They should be with us at this moment in time, screaming for income and economic equality, but we’re the enemy. Rush Limbaugh, Billo, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck say so.
Continue reading …Terry Thompson, Ohio Man Who Freed Exotic Animals, Was Deep In Debt, Took In Unwanted Pets
October 22, 2011 No Comment
ZANESVILLE, Ohio — The exotic-animal owner who killed himself after turning loose dozens of lions, tigers and other beasts was deep in debt, and a fellow big-cat enthusiast said Thursday that he had taken in so many creatures he was “in over his head.” A day after sheriff’s deputies with high-powered rifles killed nearly 50 animals set free by Terry Thompson, the sheriff refused to speculate why he did it. Many neighbors, meanwhile, were puzzled as to why Thompson – a man who seemed to like animals more than people – would lash out in a way that would doom his pets. However, court records show that he and his wife owed at least $68,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS and the county, and he had two federal tax liens filed against him last year. He had just gotten out of federal prison last month for possessing unregistered weapons. Kenny Hetrick, who has six tigers and other animals on his property outside Toledo, said he used to see Thompson at exotic-animal auctions a few times a year in Ohio. Many of Thompson’s tigers had been donated to him by people who bought baby animals that they no longer wanted once they started to grow, Hetrick said. “He really had more there than what he could do,” Hetrick said. “I don’t know what his deal was, but he was in over his head.” [Text continues below photos.] On Tuesday, Thompson, 62, threw open the cages at his animal preserve and committed suicide. His body was found near the empty cages with a bite on the head that appeared to have been inflicted by a big cat shortly after Thompson shot himself, Sheriff Matt Lutz said. It appeared his body had been dragged a short distance, Lutz said. Deputies killed 48 animals – including 18 rare Bengal tigers, 17 lions and eight bears – in a hunt across the Ohio countryside that lasted nearly 24 hours. Only a monkey was still missing, and it was probably killed by one of the big cats, Lutz said. Thompson had run-ins with his neighbors and the law over escaped animals and conditions at his preserve. But whether he acted out of desperation or vengeance in setting the animals loose was unclear. “I know how much he cared for them, and he would know that they would be killed,” said Judy Hatfield, a family friend who visited the farm many times and said it wasn’t unusual to have a monkey jump on her lap. “I don’t know what happened. I’m sure some horrible thing happened to him yesterday to make him do this or allow him to lose focus for a moment and do it. But I don’t know what it is, and we may never know.” The sheriff said Thompson’s intentions were not part of the investigation. “To take your own life, Mr. Thompson was not in the right state of mind,” Lutz said. “And to speculate on why he did this would be a belittlement, I guess, by me, to do that, and I’m not going to do that.” Thompson and his wife spent much of their time and money caring for their menagerie, neighbors said. Most of the big cats and bears were declawed and had been bottle-fed by the couple, Hatfield said. Thompson also kept them fed by picking up roadkill and collecting spoiled meat from grocery stores, said another neighbor, Fred Polk. The sheriff said that he spoke with Thompson’s wife and that she was distraught over the loss of her husband and the animals. “You have to understand these animals were like kids to her,” Lutz said. “She probably spent more time with these animals than some parents do spend with their kids.” Thompson’s Muskingum County Animal Farm was not open to visitors, but he would occasionally take some of the smaller animals to nearby pet shows or nursing homes. He also provided a big cat for a photo shoot with supermodel Heidi Klum and appeared on the “Rachael Ray Show” in 2008 as an animal handler for a zoologist guest. As for how he may have covered the costs of taking care of his animals, friends said he had a pilot’s license and sometimes picked up extra cash flying people on his private plane. Neighbors also said he and wife gave horse-riding lessons on their farm. The Vietnam veteran once owned a motorcycle shop, friends said. “When he came back from Vietnam, he was a little bit different. He was kind of a loner after he came back,” said Polk, whose property is about 100 yards from Thompson’s house. “He liked animals more than he did people. He really did.” Since 2004, Thompson had been charged by local authorities with cruelty to animals, allowing his animals to run free and improperly disposing of dead animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also received two complaints about the farm in 2008 and 2009, involving such things as pens that may have been unsafe, animals that were too skinny and dead animals on the property, said Dave Sacks, a USDA spokesman. But the agency decided it had no authority to act. Federal officials said the government had no jurisdiction over the farm under either the Animal Welfare Act or the Endangered Species Act since the animals were held as private property and were not exhibited or being used for other commercial purposes. ___ Sanner reported from Columbus. Associated Press writer Doug Whiteman in Columbus also contributed to this report.
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