Latest onslaught on Libyan rebel strongholds comes amid growing signs of splits in international community Muammar Gaddafi’s armed forces are continuing to attack Libyan towns and cities despite three nights of western air strikes and another day of missile strikes. Gaddafi’s troops shelled rebels regrouping in the desert dunes outside the strategic eastern town of Ajdabiya, as well as civilians in the rebel-held western city of Misurata. The onslaught came amid further wrangling over who should spearhead the western air campaign and the news that a US fighter jet had crashed in Libya , apparently because of mechanical failure. People in Misurata said four children had been killed when the car they were travelling in was hit, bringing the death toll in the city to at least 44 in the last two days. Residents painted a grim picture of the situation in the city, which Gaddafi loyalists have besieged for weeks , saying doctors were operating on people with bullet and shrapnel wounds in hospital corridors, and tanks were in the city centre. “The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town this morning,” a resident called Muhammad told Reuters by telephone from outside the city’s hospital, adding: “Snipers are taking part in the operation, too. A civilian car was destroyed, killing four children on board. The oldest is aged 13 years.” Al-Jazeera reported that Gaddafi’s forces were trying to seize the western rebel-held town of Zintan, near the Tunisian border, in an attack using heavy weapons. Residents had already fled the town centre to seek shelter in mountain caves. Rebels in eastern Libya were positioned just outside Ajdabiya, making no further advance on the town despite the continuing air strikes. At the frontline, in desert scrub about three miles outside the town, which marks the gateway to the rebel-held east, rebels said air strikes were helping cripple Gaddafi’s heavy armour. But there was no sign of a swift drive forward. When asked why rebel units had not advanced towards their objective – which is, eventually, Tripoli – Ahmed al-Aroufi, a rebel fighter at the frontline, told Reuters: “Gaddafi has tanks and trucks with missiles.” Meanwhile, two US airmen were forced to eject from their F-15E fighter jet over Libya on Monday night after an apparent mechanical failure, the US military said. The wreckage of their F-15E Strike Eagle jet was found near Benghazi, and both men were safely retrieved. A Marine Corps Osprey search-and-rescue aircraft picked up the pilot, while the second crew member, a weapons officer, was recovered by rebel forces and is now in US hands. Vince Crawley, a spokesman for the Africa Command, said the crash was likely to have been caused by mechanical failure rather than hostile fire. It has also emerged that US and British submarines have launched 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan command-and-control sites in the last 24 hours, bringing to 160 the total number of Tomahawk strikes. With anti-Gaddafi rebels struggling to create a command structure that can capitalise on the air strikes, western nations have still to decide who will take over command once Washington pulls back. The US will cede control within days, President Obama said, even as divisions in Europe fuelled speculation that Washington would be forced to retain leadership of air patrols that will replace the initial bombardment. “We anticipate this transition to take place in a matter of days and not in a matter of weeks,” Obama told a news conference while on a visit to Chile. The British prime minister, David Cameron, said the intention was to transfer command to Nato, but France said Arab countries did not want the US-led alliance in charge of the operation . Nato officials resumed talks in Brussels after failing to reach agreement at heated talks yesterday. Underlining the differences in the anti-Gaddafi coalition, Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said if agreement were not reached on a Nato command, Italy would resume control of the seven airbases it has made available to allied air forces. A Nato role would require political support from all the 28 states. The Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a Nato member, said today the UN should be the umbrella for a solely humanitarian operation in Libya. In a speech in parliament, Erdogan said: “Turkey will never, ever be a side pointing weapons at the Libyan people.” Rifts are also growing in the world community over the UN resolution, with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, comparing the mandate to a call for “medieval crusades”. China and Brazil have also urged a ceasefire amid fears of civilian casualties, while the Algerian foreign minister, Mourad Medelci, described the western military intervention as “disproportionate” and called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities and foreign intervention”. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest United Nations Middle East Sam Jones guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …War on Pensions California Edition: Costa Mesa Lays off Employees, Citing Pension Costs
March 22, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Uber-conservative Costa Mesa politicians have laid off half their public workers, citing pension costs as a “crisis”. They’re not. Costa Mesa is one of the most affluent communities in Orange County, but it is a deep Republican stronghold where politicians feel free to advance the national conservative wars on employees and their benefits whenever possible. Jim Righeimer appeared on Fox News this morning to assure their viewers of the depth of the pension crisis and how absolutely necessary it is to make the shift from defined benefit plans for public employees to 401k/defined contribution models. This is, of course, a Republican favorite theme from the days of Reagan until now. OC Progressive at Calitics has the counternarrative : As documented at Pacific Progressive and in local Costa Mesa blog, A Bubbling Cauldron , Costa Mesa is at the bloody tip of the spear in California Republicans’ war against public employees. Newly-elected Council Member Jim Righeimer and recently-appointed Council Member Steve Mensinger are leading the ideologically-driven jihad, with an agenda item to give notice to 250 Costa Mesa employees that their jobs will be outsourced. This represents a third of the city’s public employees in a wide range of departments. Without any study of the problem, Righeimer has also used local columnist Frank Mickadeit, to float an ill-conceived idea to privatize paramedic service in this column. Their notice fails to take into account the opinion of Costa Mesa’s City Attorney, which required that notice be given after a decision has been made to outsource, not based on a vague idea to study outsourcing. But, in a move that some see as directly related to the direction of the new City Council, the City Attorney has resigned and the City Manager abruptly retired. As in Wisconsin, Republicans are battling a phantom “budget crisis” which is disappearing after Costa Mesa residents approved an increase in the hotel tax in November to protect public services and as revenues from sales taxes return. A massive phantom gap in future pension costs for public employees is forecast, although the cost to the city has been flat for years as public employee unions have picked up part of the cost. Oh, in case you don’t know who Jim Righeimer is, here’s an intro: You may not recognize Jim Righeimer’s name, but he has been one of the movers of Republican politics in Orange County for decades, managing Dana Rohrabacher’s Congressional campaign in 2008, as a founding member of the Education Alliance, and as a co-author of prop 226. Righeimer and his brother-in-law Mark Bucher have led movement conservatives through groups like the Family Action PAC. Support by Riggy and his regressive allies helped elect wacky movement conservative Don Wagner (R-Irvine), Assembly leader of the Taxpayer Caucus. Remember the name. He has no remorse for this man , who committed suicide after receiving one of those layoff notices. Let’s count Huy Pham as the first death in the Republican war on pensions. I’m certain there will be others, since part of the layoffs may include either paramedics or the fire department. Evidently Righeimer and Co. think they can outsource the fire department and save money. Lives don’t really matter to these idiots. Just money. It’s always about money.
Continue reading …War on Pensions California Edition: Costa Mesa Lays off Employees, Citing Pension Costs
March 22, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Uber-conservative Costa Mesa politicians have laid off half their public workers, citing pension costs as a “crisis”. They’re not. Costa Mesa is one of the most affluent communities in Orange County, but it is a deep Republican stronghold where politicians feel free to advance the national conservative wars on employees and their benefits whenever possible. Jim Righeimer appeared on Fox News this morning to assure their viewers of the depth of the pension crisis and how absolutely necessary it is to make the shift from defined benefit plans for public employees to 401k/defined contribution models. This is, of course, a Republican favorite theme from the days of Reagan until now. OC Progressive at Calitics has the counternarrative : As documented at Pacific Progressive and in local Costa Mesa blog, A Bubbling Cauldron , Costa Mesa is at the bloody tip of the spear in California Republicans’ war against public employees. Newly-elected Council Member Jim Righeimer and recently-appointed Council Member Steve Mensinger are leading the ideologically-driven jihad, with an agenda item to give notice to 250 Costa Mesa employees that their jobs will be outsourced. This represents a third of the city’s public employees in a wide range of departments. Without any study of the problem, Righeimer has also used local columnist Frank Mickadeit, to float an ill-conceived idea to privatize paramedic service in this column. Their notice fails to take into account the opinion of Costa Mesa’s City Attorney, which required that notice be given after a decision has been made to outsource, not based on a vague idea to study outsourcing. But, in a move that some see as directly related to the direction of the new City Council, the City Attorney has resigned and the City Manager abruptly retired. As in Wisconsin, Republicans are battling a phantom “budget crisis” which is disappearing after Costa Mesa residents approved an increase in the hotel tax in November to protect public services and as revenues from sales taxes return. A massive phantom gap in future pension costs for public employees is forecast, although the cost to the city has been flat for years as public employee unions have picked up part of the cost. Oh, in case you don’t know who Jim Righeimer is, here’s an intro: You may not recognize Jim Righeimer’s name, but he has been one of the movers of Republican politics in Orange County for decades, managing Dana Rohrabacher’s Congressional campaign in 2008, as a founding member of the Education Alliance, and as a co-author of prop 226. Righeimer and his brother-in-law Mark Bucher have led movement conservatives through groups like the Family Action PAC. Support by Riggy and his regressive allies helped elect wacky movement conservative Don Wagner (R-Irvine), Assembly leader of the Taxpayer Caucus. Remember the name. He has no remorse for this man , who committed suicide after receiving one of those layoff notices. Let’s count Huy Pham as the first death in the Republican war on pensions. I’m certain there will be others, since part of the layoffs may include either paramedics or the fire department. Evidently Righeimer and Co. think they can outsource the fire department and save money. Lives don’t really matter to these idiots. Just money. It’s always about money.
Continue reading …Networks Stressed Importance of Congressional Approval Before Iraq War; Now Barely Notice Obama’s Bypassing of Congress
March 22, 2011 No Comment
The Obama administration launched its air war against Moammar Qaddafi’s Libya after a vote of the UN Security Council, but without any congressional authorization — and apparently not even very much consultation with congressional leaders. A review of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from Friday night through Monday night finds virtually no network interest in Obama’s bypassing of Congress — an attitude in stark contrast to their approach to the Bush administration during the run-up to the Iraq war in late 2002. (Video montage below jump.) With Libya, only the NBC Nightly News has even mentioned the controversy over the Obama administration’s decision to cut Congress out of the decision-making. On the March 20 Nightly News, White House correspondent Chuck Todd offered one sentence taking note of John Boehner’s objections in a laundry list of other congressional complaints: You've seen a lot of members of Congress go out today and the President's been criticized, both left and right, some because — arguing that he's taken too long. Speaker Boehner is upset that he hasn't done enough consultation with Congress. And, of course, some of the liberal members of the president's own party are upset that he's started yet another military campaign. Todd revisited the issue on Monday’s Nightly News, relaying the White House line that the real problem was that Obama was on foreign trip and could not easily meet one-on-one with members of Congress. “Yes, they [White House officials] were able to let them [congressional leaders] know on the Friday before they left what they were going to do,” Todd argued before admitting, “but there wasn’t real consultation.” On Monday’s World News, ABC’s Jake Tapper offered a story summarizing the White House response to several congressional criticisms, but not the lack of consultation/authorization. (Tapper did emphasize the lack of consultation question on Tuesday’s Good Morning America, however.) Eight years ago, MRC’s Geoff Dickens discovered in a review, the networks were deeply concerned over whether the Bush administration might launch military action against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship without congressional approval (a much higher threshold than mere consultation). ABC’s Peter Jennings opened the August 29, 2002 World News Tonight by wondering, “ Could the President, would the President go ahead without Congressional approval? ” Three days later on CBS’s Face the Nation, fill-in host John Roberts hit Democratic moneyman Terry McAuliffe with the same question: “House Minority Leader Gephardt said last week that ‘It's got to come to a vote, some kind of a vote.’ Do you believe that the President needs to go to Congress? ” McAuliffe was emphatic: “ Well, I think the President should. I think he needs to get a mandate from the American public and from Congress. ” That same day, on ABC’s This Week (then co-hosted by Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts), ABC correspondent Claire Shipman made the same point during the roundtable: “ Obviously the White House will go to Congress. They would be crazy not to. “ Bush administration officials at the time made public statements indicating that congressional approval was not necessary, strictly speaking, because Saddam Hussein's regime was in violation of the 1991 resolutions that certified the first Iraq war. But both the media and congressional Democrats insisted that such a major new commitment of U.S. military resources needed its own approval, which was forthcoming in October 2002 (by lopsided votes in both the House and the Senate). In this case, the Obama administration seems to be resting its legal authorization solely on the United Nations, a point NBC’s Todd alluded to on Saturday’s Nightly News: “He’s [President Obama is] always going to want these multilateral coalitions; and not just a group of countries, but getting it legally, basically getting the legal justification from institutions like the United Nations and the Arab League, both of which we saw today.” It’s unclear if the United Nations, let alone the Arab League, can “legally” authorize any activity by the U.S. military. The President can certainly take pre-emptive action without immediate congressional approval to protect U.S. lives and interests, but Obama refused to harshly condemn the Qaddafi regime until U.S. citizens had been evacuated from Libya. A news story in today’s New York Times (page A12) does, however, include a graph noting candidate Obama’s rhetoric from 2007: “‘The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,’ Mr. Obama told the Boston Globe in 2007.’”
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Greg – it is not too late to spare your blushes. Work with us and let’s fix this case study in how not to amend policy The shambolic handling of the solar power review by government has sadly demonstrated a shocking level of ministerial incompetence. Caught red-handed in the act of sabotaging the fledgling feed-in-tariffs that pay people for producing solar energy , climate minister Greg Barker has thrashed around wildly for someone to blame it on. “It was them, guv’nor!” he says , pointing a shaking finger at the previous government, or poor economic modelling (ie the civil servants), or the nasty capitalist solar park developers. The minister justifies his shock treatment of the sector by “put[ting] a stop to the threat of larger scale solar soaking up the cash”. Yet he hasn’t only stopped what he initially fingered as the villains in the piece (the very large solar parks on greenfield sites). He hasn’t just stopped larger industrial installations on supermarkets or huge industrial buildings. He has also jeopardised medium-sized installations above 50 kw – including many schools, hospitals, churches and community facilities – which would have dramatically scaled up the jobs in manufacturing and installation and servicing, and helped reduce carbon emissions. There is an unedifying arrogance to this so-called “greenest government ever” which is beginning to worry the wider renewables sector. Rather than try and fix a problem by working with and consulting with the solar sector and with the green groups who supported the feed-in tariff, the government has provided a case-study in how not to amend policy: • First, put uncertainty into the market by signalling an earlier than expected review of a sector that is only just beginning to bloom. Later, justify that uncertainty by background briefing from a former Cameron aide, who explains it was a deliberate ruse to take steam out of the sector, adding insult to injury. This isn’t Machiavellian politics … it’s Captain Mainwaring. • Secondly, in discussions with industry during the autumn, signal to them that the adjustments would be carefully considered to deal with the identified problem: suggest that the megawatt capacity may be reduced, maybe to as low as 2MW, or even 1 MW; that greenfield sites may be completely ruled out. But stress that you’re going to be careful not to cut the legs off the scheme. • Lastly, cut the legs off the scheme. Shock everyone by going way beyond what you’ve indicated to them in private meetings, destroying their belief in anything you say, and in so doing destroying your credibility with renewables investors and green organisations. And yes minister, the ripples from this fiasco go beyond the solar sector, as the renewables sector and the related investment community are a small and intimately connected bunch. To top it all, then tell everyone how they can trust this government with future reviews of the feed-in-tariffs (as the laughter begins) and the Renewable Heat Incentive (laughter rises); that the Green Investment Bank is safe in their hands (now deafening laughter); and that investors can trust this government to provide a stable platform for renewables investment in the UK (stop there, you’re killing me!). So we now have until May to persuade ministers to start listening to people like Ray Noble of the Renewable Energy Association who have said: “It’s an absolute disaster … no new projects will start after this [the review changes] comes into effect,” adding “this industry has been strangled at birth”. Or Barbara Hammon, chair of West Oxford Community Renewables – the very sort of social enterprise the government says it wants to support – who complains: “This government came in saying they are all about the ‘big society’, but this is big government writ large.” Or Andrew Lee of Sharp Solar, who employs 1,100 in manufacturing in Wrexham, who describes this as: “Terrible news for the renewable energy sector – the steep rise in job creation will stop and morale within the industry will drop as a result of this remarkable U-turn.” Or Friends of the Earth, or the Solar Trade Association, or the Micropower Council … I could go on. The voices are legion, and very angry because of this shameful betrayal. So, minister, a helpful word from the opposition benches. From someone who recently wrote to you offering help in extricating yourself from this mess. Work with us and green groups and the solar sector to get this right by May. Your temporary embarrassment can be eased by swallowing some humble pie, and listening to wise counsel. More importantly, we can rescue the situation and put confidence back in the renewables sector overall, grow our green jobs again, and hit our carbon reduction targets. PS. Minister, by the way, talking about uncertainty: already I’m hearing murmurings of discontent over your decision to delay the domestic tariff on the Renewable Heat Incentive . This looks like a worrying pattern … another coalition day, another coalition delay? • Huw Irranca-Davies is the shadow energy minister Feed-in tariffs Energy Renewable energy Solar power Energy bills Green politics guardian.co.uk
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Spring festival programme including six feature films and nine shorts will be available to online subscribers Tribeca, the film festival launched by Robert De Niro in 2001 to support growth and culture in Manhattan following the September 11 terrorist attacks, is to open up its programme to online viewers for the first time. Six feature films and nine short movies from the 2011 festival will be streamed over the internet live to subscribers at the same time as they are shown at the event, which runs from 20 April to 1 May. A further nine short-film “favourites” from past events will be available to view, and organisers are also promising coverage from the event’s star-studded red carpet, its opening press conference and its awards show, all in real-time. A spokesperson said: “In addition, the online festival will host the Tribeca Q&A, which will offer online audiences the opportunity to engage with not only each other, but industry experts including Brian Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, film-makers David Gordon Green and Zach Braff, in addition to Tribeca’s Jane Rosenthal, Geoff Gilmore, and Nancy Schafer; and many more. This interactive experience will bring never-before content directly to a participating public.” “Seats” for online Tribeca screenings can be reserved at tribecaonline.com from 18 April (or 12 April for those with American Express cards). Other content is already available on the site from today. Movies that will be available to view include Donor Unknown, the documentary tale of a woman conceived via artificial insemination who goes in search of her real father, and Flowers of Evil, described as a rootless story of young love between Gecko, an Algerian-French hotel bellman and parkourer, and Anahita, an Iranian student forced to leave her country for her own safety after the controversial elections in 2009. Highlights of the main festival programme include a directorial debut from Vera Farmiga , which was greeted warmly at its premiere in Sundance, documentaries on the lives of Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne, and a comic western which counts as the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time. Festivals Robert De Niro Internet New York Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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A global gathering of scientists in rural France is trying to pin down the commonest – almost undetectable – nuclear particle In the Ardennes hills near Givet, in eastern France, stands Chooz nuclear power station, with its twin concrete cooling towers spewing steam. Here scientists may soon catch some neutrinos and break one of the most enigmatic secrets of the universe. Chooz is best known for its two 1,450 MW nuclear reactors, commissioned in the late 90s. They are precursors of the second-most recent generation of French reactors. But there is also an international laboratory, which pools 35 research teams from eight countries. They are hosted by the French Centre for Scientific Research ( CNRS ) and the Atomic and Alternative Energies Commission ( CEA ). The scientists have installed an ultra-sophisticated neutrino detector in a cavern under a layer of rock 150 metres thick, which acts as a screen against cosmic rays. The detector rests at the bottom of a pit seven metres deep and as many wide. It is very difficult to catch neutrinos, despite the fact that they are the commonest elementary particles in the universe. They may even have served as building blocks for all the matter that surrounds us. But they are nevertheless almost undetectable: in just one second several tens of billions of neutrinos pass through every square centimetre of our bodies without us ever noticing. As their name – “little neutral one” in Italian– suggests, they are electrically neutral. No magnetic field diverts them from their course, shooting straight ahead at almost the speed of light. Above all, having nearly zero mass, they very rarely encounter any obstacles. Almost nothing stops them. Only if they happen to collide with an atom does a flash of energy reveal their passing. The physicists in the cave at Chooz are on the lookout for collisions of this sort, or more exactly a possible lack of collisions. “There are many sources of neutrinos in nature,” says Thierry Lasserre, the head of the experiment at CEA. “The cosmos, the sun, exploding stars and active galaxy cores all produce vast quantities of them. Nuclear reactors also release enormous amounts of electron neutrinos … or more exactly antineutrinos, with properties and characteristics considered to be identical.” The two reactors at Chooz each produce 10 26 antineutrinos a day, which hare off in all directions. Given the detector’s volume (10 cubic metres) and its distance from the source (1km), about 10 21 of these particles pass through it every day. According to probability calculations, only 70 of them should actually hit the detector. Odd as it may seem, the physicists are hoping there will be fewer hits than predicted, as this would mean that on their way some antineutrinos have morphed, enabling them to slip through the net. Neutrinos are remarkably tricky customers. There are three types or flavours: electron, muon and tau neutrinos, named after three other particles to which they give rise when they collide with an atom. The flavours correspond to the three families of elementary particle. “To produce all ordinary matter, just one of these families would suffice. So why did nature create three families? It is one of the great mysteries of physics,” says Hervé de Kerret, the CNRS project leader. To complicate matters further, the various types of neutrino do not occur in isolation. As they propagate through space they may oscillate between the three available flavours, shifting from one particle family to another. This gift for transformation has already been measured for two forms of mixture: the third has yet to be assessed. This is the goal set for the Double Chooz experiment. It will seek to determine how many electron antineutrinos, out of the 70 predicted, fail to show, indicating that they have morphed in transit. To be absolutely certain, the instrument, currently being calibrated, will be duplicated. Between now and 2012 a second detector will be installed only 400 metres from the two reactors, its role being to gauge the initial stream of particles very precisely. If this can be achieved, it should lead to a leap in our understanding of these intriguing particles. Costing $21m and tipped to beat similar projects in China and in South Korea, Double Chooz will operate for five years, in order to collate sufficient data. Designing and installing the dual system has been a huge undertaking, requiring amazing attention to detail, says Patrick Perrin, the CEA operations manager. “The detectors,” he explains, “are like Russian nesting dolls, with a series of superimposed containments, filled with a glittering liquid: mineral oil enriched with the heavy metal gadolinium. When a neutrino collides with a hydrogen nucleus it produces two flashes of purple light, which in turn are converted into electrical signals by 400 photo-sensitive detectors.” The scientists can barely contain their excitement. “The standard model of [particle] physics describes the structure of the universe with 12 elementary particles and four force carriers. But this involves too many parameters,” De Kerret and Lasserre explain. “We need to invent a different model, simpler yet more comprehensive.” In particular, the standard model does not explain the mass of neutrinos and their oscillation, so it needs to be amended. But that is not all. Neutrinos could clarify another mystery. In theory the Big Bang created equal quantities of matter and antimatter, but (fortunately) matter has become predominant in the universe. Just after the original bang, neutrinos may have disintegrated into particles of matter and antimatter, but with very slight asymmetry in favour of matter. If Double Chooz discovers such asymmetry in the behaviour of its neutrinos and antineutrinos, it would support this hypothesis. This article originally appeared in Le Monde Physics Particle physics France guardian.co.uk
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Postmortem on four-year-old polar bear who collapsed and died showed ‘significant changes to the brain’ Brain problems apparently caused the early death of Knut, Germany’s four-year-old celebrity polar bear, Berlin zoo has said. Initial findings from a postmortem performed by an institute in the German capital showed “significant changes to the brain, which can be viewed as a reason for the polar bear’s sudden death”, the zoo said in a statement. Pathologists found no changes to any other organs, the zoo said, adding that it would take several days to produce a final result. Further planned tests include bacteriological and histological, or tissue, examinations. Knut died on Saturday in front of visitors at the zoo, turning around several times and then falling into the water in his enclosure. Polar bears usually live 15 to 20 years in the wild and longer in captivity. Knut, who was born in December 2006 at the zoo, rose to celebrity status as a cub. He was rejected by his mother at birth, along with his twin brother, who only survived a couple of days. He attracted attention when his main keeper, Thomas Doerflein, camped out at the zoo to give Knut his bottle every two hours. Knut went on to appear on magazine covers, in a film and on mountains of merchandise. Doerflein died in 2008 of a heart attack. Knut Animals Germany guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media John Bolton’s little game of “If I were the President” is a dangerous one, especially since he’s signaling that he might just have a gander at the 2012 GOP nomination for President. He took time out of his busy bloviating schedule to visit with Bill Hemmer and talk about how he would have handled things. He thinks the US should have moved on Libya a month ago, unilaterally. If we had, according to Bolton, we’d be done and out of there. Oh really? This is the same John Bolton who said this in 2003 : JOHN BOLTON: I think we already see evidence, substantial evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs and I think we’re going to see more. I think the question of imminent threat is a matter when you have a regime like Saddam Hussein’s that has a proven record of using chemical weapons against Iran, against its own people, that’s plenty imminent enough for me. That’s why our policy in the United States on a bipartisan basis for several years had been we have to change the regime in Baghdad because the possession of weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs was integral to the regime itself and, as long as that regime stayed in power, the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction was more imminent than I would be willing to risk. March 20, 2011 was the eighth anniversary of the Iraq war. We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction, of course. Iraq was unilateral. If that’s Bolton’s idea of being “done and out of there”, I think we know how the Libya course of action would have turned out. Not content to only meddle in Iraq, Bolton also powered and ginned up the arguments that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, despite reports to the contrary. He saber-rattled at will with regard to Iran , and would have gladly sent US troops in there too if he could have without bringing Congress and the rest of the world down on his head. Of course, none of this matters to Fox News. The only thing that matters to them is that John Bolton is a snarky guy with a resume who can warmonger while calling the President weak. Oh, by the way, that’s the Fox News theme o’ the week. Hillary Clinton is strong because she wanted the US in Libya, the President is weak because he held back until a full international coalition had formed. All guests on all shows are required to make reference to, or otherwise tout this theme, whether directly or via snide remarks.
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Kindle lending community site has its API access revoked by Amazon The new ebook lending community site Lendle , set up last month to take advantage of Amazon’s free Kindle ebook loan facility , has gone off-line after having its API access revoked by Amazon. The site’s homepage now warns users the service is “unavailable indefinitely”. Lendle co-founder Jeff Croft, who launched the site six weeks ago, expressed “pure surprise” at the development, saying in an online statement: “The letter we received from Amazon states that the reason our API and Amazon Associates accounts have been revoked is that Lendle does not ‘serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site’. We take issue with this, as Lendle was built from the ground up to ensure that it would be beneficial to authors, publishers and Amazon.” Lendle, like other ebook lending sites, makes it possible for Kindle ebook readers in the US to lend out their ebooks to another member of the site – on a single occasion and for a limited time period of 14 days – and be permitted to borrow someone else’s ebook for free in exchange. Some authors have expressed concern that the sites open up an ebook free-for-all. Crime writer David Hewson this month cited such loan sites as one of the factors, alongside piracy on torrent sites, that are currently “chipping away” at authors’ slender incomes . Croft speculated that “skittish” publishers anxious about the site’s effect on sales might have put pressure on Amazon, but admitted that “really, we don’t know”. He maintained the site does not discourage book buying, saying: “Our site requires that you be willing to lend books before you can borrow them. Our philosophy is: you can’t borrow if you don’t lend, and you can’t lend if you don’t buy. The entire system we built is centered around the idea of encouraging people to buy books.” The site had engaged with a “passionate, loyal and vocal community many, many thousands of book-lovers strong,” he added. Lendle members voiced anger at Amazon on Twitter today, with this comment from @CleaveLands a typical one. “Good job @amazon,” he complained. “Way to kill @lendleapp when they were driving sales of ebooks for your site.” On Twitter, @lendleapp said the owners of other community lending sites had indicated that they too had had API addresses revoked by Amazon. “Lendle has not been singled out,” the site tweeted. However, a second ebook loan site, Book Lending , said it was carrying on with “business as usual” today. Amazon has not responded to requests for comment. Ebooks Kindle Amazon.com E-readers Benedicte Page guardian.co.uk
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