Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[nichi]

A new law has been passed in the US wherein the gov't can now wiretap and read the emails of "ordinary citizens" who have communication internationally -- without a warrant.


I have nothing to hide, and I pity whoever might be reading mine ... boring stuff! Is a way around that through these forums? (Though I suppose installing one of those keystroke-hack-measuring-thingies is always a possibility for them.)

At any rate, now is not the time for political jokes, t'would seem.

[erik]

At any rate, now is not the time for political jokes, t'would seem.

...or you should emigrate to stay sane. 

[Zamurito]

...or you should emigrate to stay sane. 

...but, where to go?

Seems a good deal of 'opportunities' of other countries out there, but many have their own 'issues' as well....seems just trading one program for another. 

That being said, responsibilities keep me where I'm at

z

[nichi]

Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Ireland ... those come to mind for me, not that such a move would be easy or even possible at the moment.
Could always work on it, though...

[erik]

...but, where to go?

You'll realise the difference between the US and the rest of the world only when you see the US from outside.

[Michael]

don't count on Australia just yet - wait till after the next election.
Julie and I want to move to India.

[erik]

Now that's interesting...

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 1:48am BST 08/08/2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina107a.xml

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.

The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decicions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".

She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.

Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.

"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.

The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.

Henry Paulson, the US Tresury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".

Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.

[erik]

Travellers from US face EU crackdown

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f490402c-4518-11dc-82f5-0000779fd2ac.html

By Tobias Buck in Brussels and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: August 7 2007 22:56 | Last updated: August 7 2007 22:56

US business travellers and tourists flying to the European Union are facing the threat of the same laborious registration requirements that Washington has demanded of Europeans in the latest US security crackdown.

In its first reaction to the new US visa law, the European Commission said it was “considering” a so-called electronic traveller authorisation scheme – similar to the American plan – that would require foreigners heading to the EU to give notice of their travel plans before departure.

The threat has been conveyed to senior US officials and lawmakers, with one letter sent last month stressing that a European system would “of course operate on a reciprocal basis”.

A spokesman for the EU executive said no final decision had been taken, but the idea had received “new impetus” by the adoption of a US counter-terrorism bill last week that requires travellers to give US authorities at least 48 hours’ notice of their plans to visit the country.

George W. Bush, US president, signed the law last Friday in spite of repeated appeals by the Commission and European business groups to reconsider the measures. The law will tighten scrutiny of travellers from the 26 developed countries whose citizens do not at present require visas to enter the US, including Britain, France, German and most other western European countries.

Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the US was “comfortable” with the EU having a reciprocal system. “It would lend itself to increasing baseline security for air travel throughout the west,” he said.

European business groups voiced sharp criticism of the US law. Carlos González, an international relations adviser at Business Europe, a pan-European federation that lobbies on behalf of more than 16m companies, said: “This measure is a setback for business travellers and we are concerned about it. Business travel to the US is a very regular activity.” The law demands the screening of all air and sea freight at foreign ports before being shipped to the US.

The German Industry Federation, BDI, hit out at the screening requirements enshrined in the law. “We are following with concern the tightening of security measures in the US, which impose a burden that is not justified by the benefits,” said the BDI’s Carsten Kreklau.

The federation added that the law “contradicted all existing customs security initiatives, which are based on targeted risk analysis”. According to BDI data, it takes about 10 minutes to scan each container – meaning that the screening of a large cargo ship “could easily result in an additional delay of 1,600 hours [nearly 70 days]”.

The spokesman for Franco Frattini, EU commissioner for justice and home affairs, said Brussels had asked the US for more information about the details of its plans – some of which have been left open in the legislation.

[tommy2]

I wonder about all this.  Has the U.S. started a cause for more fear of the bad guys in the world or just raised awareness levels of the potential threats?  Is keeping our guard up worth any price or has the U.S. just imagined it all, as a lot of the media posed, so that U.S. control in the world can be enhanced?  Or am I just misunderstanding the whole lot?  i.e., has the U.S. thrown petrol on the once-small fire of the bad guys? 

Then I laugh here and wonder if the "bad guys" is a concept us warmongers, polluters and wasters here in the U.S. just use to cover up our sins of glut and destruction? 

I personally feel my country is slowly yet steadily falling from within and a couple generations down the proverbial road are in deep do-do.

[erik]

There is a bit of everything, Tom. Exaggerated fear of terrorists exists as do terrorists plotting acts of terror. Yet the basis of the US approach to enhancing its security is: 'Every man for himself!' Some guys in the US government sincerely believe that some strange 'Fortress America' could exist in our interdependent, integrated world. Instead of cooperation with other countries they throw up more distrust, more checks, more spying, more infringements on various rights. They think their fear is external and can be conquered by exterminating its external source.

[tommy2]

Yep, that's what we've grown to know because of the 2 World Wars we placed ourselves in.  Our might has been for the good, in the past, at least.  The Intent is there but how our gov't is structured, the leaders are elected by popularity and not always by extent of experience.  But, as the educated ones here have always said, we may have a messed up gov't but show me one that is better and will still fight even if the consequences are dire.  A kinda, damned if you do or damned if you don't secenario, yet I am far, far from being a global expert on anything, man.  I just know that the bad guys are out there, alive and well, even if in the extreme minority, and want to do harm for seemingly senseless reasons.  Maybe, wayyyyy off into the future, we'll have some kinda Star Trek thing, a world council with sensible power, I dunno.  It ain't gonna happen anytime soon, though, that's for sure.  It's just that I really don't know if there's anyone in our gov't that I can really trust, whatever THAT means.  So, I watch my own health, help others when I can and keep my moral and spiritual strengths and sight in line as much as I can.  May the Great Spirit help us all somehow maintain our global balance before we poison ourselves to a point of non-reversal.  t

[Zamurito]

Very true words, Juhani.

I've been fortunate to travel a great deal, and having spent years outside the U.S. in other countries I've seen how other's view the U.S.  My view has changed as well....

Thanks again for the reminder!

z

You'll realise the difference between the US and the rest of the world only when you see the US from outside.

[Michael]

I personally feel my country is slowly yet steadily falling from within and a couple generations down the proverbial road are in deep do-do.

interesting point tom. there is an issue here of, has the US changed in the last 20 years? I certainly feel Australia has changed.

The point is that we grow older somehow believing our country is still the same as what we knew in our formative years. We want to believe that, plus any change happens slowly. We cling to a belief that 'underneath' the spirit of a country is still the same. That is being questioned by observers more qualified than I, certainly to do with the USA.

In Australia, I still look to the gum trees, the natural world, and turn away when I see clear-felled slabs of country. But I am slowly coming around to seeing that Australians are not the people I used to know.

This is hard to qualify, but more and more I feel uncomfortable in my own country. One reason I like India is that they still resist being 'proper'. I see a quality there that I recall from the wider Aust country, if not the city dwellers. An easy going distaste for authority and more than anything, a spontaneous friendliness. However, India is also changing.

I don't buy the argument that I am just an old fogey, who can't change with the times. The times are going downhill, and I am not so stupid to realise the quality of mind in my country is dropping.

I heard the other day, a younger person criticising us who always say this is not how it used to be - she said, its current, it what's happening now - forget the past and live in the now!

Well, it's impoverished. That is obvious to me. All I can do is to keep alive the love of inner wealth and ramshackle beauty, in my own little space. I know I am not alone! There are still many, of all ages, who can tell real wealth from sham facade.

I expect it has always been thus.

from my little ramshackle life...

[erik]

I've been in a few nightclubs, and the sentiment is quite familiar.
Is that the future?

Nightclubs are hell. What's cool or fun about a thumping, sweaty dungeon full of posing idiots?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2147663,00.html

Charlie Brooker
Monday August 13, 2007
The Guardian

I went to a fashionable London nightclub on Saturday. Not the sort of sentence I get to write very often, because I enjoy nightclubs less than I enjoy eating wool. But a glamorous friend of mine was there to "do a PA", and she'd invited me and some curious friends along because we wanted to see precisely what "doing a PA" consists of. Turns out doing a public appearance largely entails sitting around drinking free champagne and generally just "being there".

Obviously, at 36, I was more than a decade older than almost everyone else, and subsequently may as well have been smeared head to toe with pus. People regarded me with a combination of pity and disgust. To complete the circuit, I spent the night wearing the expression of a man waking up to Christmas in a prison cell.

"I'm too old to enjoy this," I thought. And then remembered I've always felt this way about clubs. And I mean all clubs - from the cheesiest downmarket sickbucket to the coolest cutting-edge hark-at-us poncehole. I hated them when I was 19 and I hate them today. I just don't have to pretend any more.

I'm convinced no one actually likes clubs. It's a conspiracy. We've been told they're cool and fun; that only "saddoes" dislike them. And no one in our pathetic little pre-apocalyptic timebubble wants to be labelled "sad" - it's like being officially declared worthless by the state. So we muster a grin and go out on the town in our millions.

Clubs are despicable. Cramped, overpriced furnaces with sticky walls and the latest idiot theme tunes thumping through the humid air so loud you can't hold a conversation, just bellow inanities at megaphone-level. And since the smoking ban, the masking aroma of cigarette smoke has been replaced by the overbearing stench of crotch sweat and hair wax.

Clubs are such insufferable dungeons of misery, the inmates have to take mood-altering substances to make their ordeal seem halfway tolerable. This leads them to believe they "enjoy" clubbing. They don't. No one does. They just enjoy drugs.

Drugs render location meaningless. Neck enough ketamine and you could have the best night of your life squatting in a shed rolling corks across the floor. And no one's going to search you on the way in. Why bother with clubs?

"Because you might get a shag," is the usual response. Really? If that's the only way you can find a partner - preening and jigging about like a desperate animal - you shouldn't be attempting to breed in the first place. What's your next trick? Inventing fire? People like you are going to spin civilisation into reverse. You're a moron, and so is that haircut you're trying to impress. Any offspring you eventually blast out should be drowned in a pan before they can do any harm. Or open any more nightclubs.

Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn't it a lot of hard work for very little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of it. It'll be more fun than a club.

Anyway, back to Saturday night, and apart from the age gap, two other things stuck me. Firstly, everyone had clearly spent far too long perfecting their appearance. I used to feel intimidated by people like this; now I see them as walking insecurity beacons, slaves to the perceived judgment of others, trapped within a self- perpetuating circle of crushing status anxiety. I'd still secretly like to be them, of course, but at least these days I can temporarily erect a veneer of defensive, sneering superiority. I've progressed that far.

The second thing that struck me was frightening. They were all photographing themselves. In fact, that's all they seemed to be doing. Standing around in expensive clothes, snapping away with phones and cameras. One pose after another, as though they needed to prove their own existence, right there, in the moment. Crucially, this seemed to be the reason they were there in the first place. There was very little dancing. Just pouting and flashbulbs.

Surely this is a new development. Clubs have always been vapid and awful and boring and blah - but I can't remember clubbers documenting their every moment before. Not to this demented extent. It's not enough to pretend you're having fun in the club any more - you've got to pretend you're having fun in your Flickr gallery, and your friends' Flickr galleries. An unending exhibition in which a million terrified, try-too-hard imbeciles attempt to out-cool each other.

Mind you, since in about 20 years' time these same people will be standing waist-deep in skeletons, in an arid post-nuclear wasteland, clubbing each other to death in a fight for the last remaining glass of water, perhaps they're wise to enjoy these carefree moments while they last. Even if they're only pretending.

[nichi]

Dean strengthens to Category 3 Hurricane

Dean strengthens to category 3 'major' hurricane
31 minutes ago


MIAMI (AFP) - Hurricane Dean intensified and developed into a category three hurricane Friday with winds reaching 200 kilometers (125 miles) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center announced.

The massive storm plowed through the eastern Caribbean on a direct course for Jamaica and the tourist-heavy tip of the Yucatan peninsula after battering the Lesser Antilles before dawn Friday with heavy rains and winds gusting over 170 kilometers (105 miles) per hour, according to reports from Martinique.

"Dean strengthens into a major hurricane with 125 mph winds," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in a special bulletin.

At 1745 GMT Dean, the first hurricane of the nearly three-month old Atlantic tropical storm season, was located 280 kilometers (175 miles) west of Martinique and 480 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The storm is moving toward the west at 35 kilometers (22 miles) per hour and is expected to cross Jamaica Sunday.

The prime minister of Jamaica was holding an emergency meeting of the disaster preparedness committee Friday to prepare for the hurricane, which could disrupt general elections scheduled for August 27.

Earlier Friday in numerous parts of Martinique violent winds blew off roofs, smashed windows and tore billboards from their posts, local media reports said.

It dumped rain backed by heavy winds in Antigua at the northern end of the Lesser Antilles.

"Right now it's very windy, but it's okay," Lisa, a decorator, told AFP by telephone.

"People are watching the news and buying supplies, or just waiting in hurricane shelters," she said, declining to give her last name.

"We appreciate this rain," she added. "Because it was very dry and we need water for agriculture and drinking water as well."

Rains reaching 13 centimeters (five inches) were predicted for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and the center warned they could cause dangerous flash floods and mudslides.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070817/ts_alt_afp/usweatherhurricane_10