[Mr. Mechanical]

So wait, a guy shot at police who then shot him. And people are rioting over it? Is there really nothing more going on here? Because if it's really just people in Britain not used to gun violence then that kind of blows my mind.

Then again, if you're going to riot over something it might as well be something like gun violence. Americans only seem to riot when their basketball team loses.

There was a very similar incident that happened a couple months ago not more than 20 or so miles from where I live where a guy got shot and killed by police after a shootout. It made the nightly news but nobody got super upset about it. Even the guy's family was like "yeah we're upset but what was he thinking". I mean I think there's a huge, systemic problem in America with police brutality and etc. but I find it hard to fault any police for shooting back when fired upon. What were the Brits expecting the police to do in that situation?
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Thanks. That does change the context substantially.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

http://www.alternet.org/story/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_dont_fight_back_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance?page=entire

Spoilers:

[Mr. Mechanical]

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[Mr. Mechanical]

http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/

Pretty good site that's keeping track of all the activity going on in London right now.

http://birminghamriots2011.tumblr.com/ <- this one also has live updates

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/08/london_riots.html <- pictures

Stay safe SB Londoners!
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism is one three columnists guest-blogging for Greenwald while he's on vacation this week and has an excellent post up on why the banks that caused the crisis are getting off scot-free.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

It is high time to describe the Obama Administration by its proper name: corrupt.

Admittedly, corruption among our elites generally and in Washington in particular has become so widespread and blatant as to fall into the “dog bites man” category. But the nauseating gap between the Administration’s propaganda and the many and varied ways it sells out average Americans on behalf of its favored backers, in this case the too big to fail banks, has become so noisome that it has become impossible to ignore the fetid smell.

The Administration has now taken to pressuring parties that are not part of the machinery reporting to the President to fall in and do his bidding. We’ve gotten so used to the US attorney general being conveniently missing in action that we have forgotten that regulators and the AG are supposed to be independent. As one correspondent noted by e-mail, “When officials allegiances are to El Supremo rather than the Constitution, you walk the path to fascism.”

Revealingly, one of the Administration’s allies said: “Wall Street is our Main Street.” And the worst is that this remark may not be a cynical Ministry of Truth pronouncement. Team Obama bears all the hallmarks of being so close to banks and big corporations that it has lost all contact with and understanding of mainstream America.

The latest example is its heavy-handed campaign to convert New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman to a card carrying member of the “be nice to our lords and masters the banksters” club. Schneiderman was the first to take issue with the sham of the so-called 50 state attorney general mortgage settlement. As far as the Administration is concerned, its goal is to give banks a talking point and prove to them that Team Obama is protecting their backs in a way that the chump public hopefully won’t notice.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

CIA using NYPD to spy on mosques in NYC
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Joining Wilkerson and Goodman to discuss Cheney’s new book “In My Time,” Salon’s Glenn Greenwald said that it was disturbing to see the former vice president treated simply as an “elder statesman.”

“The evidence is overwhelming… that Dick Cheney is not just a political figure with controversial views, but is an actual criminal, that he was centrally involved in a whole variety not just of war crimes in Iraq, but of domestic crimes, as well, including the authorization of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens in violation of FISA, which says that you go to jail for five years for each offense, as well as the authorization and implementation of a worldwide torture regime that, according to General Barry McCaffrey, resulted in the murder — his word — of dozens of detainees, far beyond just the three or four cases of waterboarding that media figures typically ask Cheney about,” Greenwald explained.

“And as a result, Dick Cheney goes around the country profiting off of this, you know, sleazy, sensationalistic, self-serving book, basically profiting from his crimes, and at the same time normalizing the idea that these kind of policies, though maybe in the view of some wrongheaded, are perfectly legitimate political choices to make. And I think that’s the really damaging legacy from all of this.”

“Colonel Wilkerson, do you think the Bush administration officials should be held accountable in the way that Glenn Greenwald is talking about?” Goodman asked.

“I certainly do,” Wilkerson replied. “And I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due. And I have to say, I agree with almost everything [Greenwald] just said. And I think that explains the aggressiveness, to a large extent, of the Cheney attack and of the words like ‘exploding heads all over Washington.’ This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will ‘Pinochet’ Dick Cheney.”

Wilkerson was referring to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was arrested in London in 1998 after being indicted for crimes against humanity. It was the first time the principle of universal jurisdiction had been applied to a former foreign head of state.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

The Black Hole of 9/11

As we assess the legacy of the 10th anniversary of America's seminal terrorist attack, it's worth looking at 10 events from the past decade that have actually been more important.

[Mr. Mechanical]

(Reuters) - The attorney-general of the Syrian city of Hama said in a video posted on YouTube on Wednesday he had resigned in protest at the crackdown on pro-democracy protests, but authorities said he had been kidnapped.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Greenwald had a pretty good summary of the whole affair: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/02/wikileaks/index.html

[Mr. Mechanical]

That was a good and satisfying read but one guy leaving doesn't really mean much. Would be nice if we started seeing more of the not-insane members of the GOP get out in the same manner though.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

No idea how real this guy is about running for President or whatever but his video is another good and satisfying thing to consume.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

My name is... Joe Mason.. M.D. I'm a country doctor... and I want... to talk to you.... about getting an art degree.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

justice system more like injustice system
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Apparently there are some protests going down on Wall Street for a few days now. First I'm hearing about it.

http://anonops.blogspot.com/
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[Mr. Mechanical]

So, Libya.

Prisons grow as rebels pursue their enemies and questions arise about the missing

Libya Rebels Dumping Hundreds of Bodies in ‘Pro-Gadhafi’ Cemetery

Libyan Rebels Rounding Up Black Migrants, Raped, Forced to Chant Allah Ackbar

Black Africans come under fire in Libya

Sharia Enshrined in Libyan Draft Constitution

But hey I guess it's worth it as long as companies are able to "exploit business opportunities [t]here". No way this whole situation could backfire down the road, right?
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[Mr. Mechanical]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Mr. Mechanical]

http://www.occupytogether.org/

Just found out about this and it turns out there's a meeting in OKC going on right now. I won't be making it tonight but I will definitely keep an eye out for when their next meeting is and go then. Even if it's just 20 people that's something to start with. Y'all should check it out and see if there's anything organizing in a city near you and if not, set something up! You might be surprised how many people show up.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

I wish you were upset about it too =/
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[Mr. Mechanical]

We’ve been saying for months that the 50 state attorney general settlement was not going to happen. Despite the vigorous efforts by people on the side of the Federal regulators involved in the negotiations and Tom Miller’s (the AG leading the negotiations’) office to make it seem as if the deal was moving forward, the content of the reports showed otherwise. There was a huge gap between the positions of the banks and even the bank friendly position of the state AGs at the table and the banking regulators. Like the Vietnam War, where negotiations of two fundamentally opposed dragged on till one side capitulated, there was not going to be a settlement that was anything other than an abject sellout with a 11 figure payoff to mask that fact. And there were too many attorneys general who were already troubled by the terms of the deal that Miller had put forward for that to happen.

Now that Kamala Harris, the California state attorney general, has officially abandoned the talks, they don’t mean much, at least from the state side. The departure of such a big state, in population, foreclosure exposure, and Electoral college terms, along with other states (New York, Delaware, Nevada, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Minnesota, likely Arizona) means any settlement has limited practical meaning from the state side and even less credibility. It also considerably raises the odds of other states bolting. And needless to say, this is a major repudiation of the Obama Adminstration “let’s sweep foreclosure fraud under the rug” strategy.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

[Mr. Mechanical]

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/10/03/marines-heading-to-wall-street-to-protect-protesters/

[Mr. Mechanical]

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/about_that_iraq_withdrawal/singleton/

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/21/how_the_obama_administration_bungled_the_iraq_withdrawal_negotiations

That aside, yeah, pretty good news.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

<br>More at The Real News<br>
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[Mr. Mechanical]

The FBI Announces Gangs Have Infiltrated Every Branch Of The Military

[Mr. Mechanical]

NEW YORK (Reuters)- For the small club of companies who trade the food, fuels and metals that keep the world running, the last decade has been sensational. Driven by the rise of Brazil, China, India and other fast-growing economies, the global commodities boom has turbocharged profits at the world's biggest trading houses.

They form an exclusive group, whose loosely regulated members are often based in such tax havens as Switzerland. Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world's freely traded commodities. The top five piled up $629 billion in revenues last year, just below the global top five financial companies and more than the combined sales of leading players in tech or telecoms. Many amass speculative positions worth billions in raw goods, or hoard commodities in warehouses and super-tankers during periods of tight supply.

U.S. and European regulators are cracking down on big banks and hedge funds that speculate in raw goods, but trading firms remain largely untouched. Many are unlisted or family run, and because they trade physical goods are largely impervious to financial regulators. Outside the commodities business, many of these quiet giants who broker the world's basic goods are little known.

Their reach is expanding. Big trading firms now own a growing number of the mines that produce many of our commodities, the ships and pipelines that carry them, and the warehouses, silos and ports where they are stored. With their connections and inside knowledge -- commodities markets are mostly free of insider-trading restrictions -- trading houses have become power brokers, especially in fast-developing Asia, Latin America and Africa. They are part of the food chain, yet help shape it, and the personal rewards can be huge. "The payout percentage of profits at the commodities houses can be double what Wall Street banks pay," says George Stein of New York headhunting firm Commodity Talent.

Switzerland-based Glencore, whose initial public offering (IPO) in May put trading houses in the spotlight, pays some traders yearly bonuses in the tens of millions. On paper, the partial float made boss Ivan Glasenberg $10 billion richer overnight.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that has been at the center of some of the world's most controversial news for the past 18 months, is facing dire economic times, largely, the website says, because Visa, MasterCard and PayPal have refused for more than 10 months to process donations made on its behalf.

The total financial cost of what WikiLeaks calls a blockade is uncertain, but the lack of resources mixed with turmoil that has surrounded the organization has kept the website from accepting new documents from would-be leakers for much of the year, its spokesman says.

WikiLeaks said Thursday on its Twitter feed that it would announce a new fundraising effort Monday, but how successful that can be without a lifting of the credit card barrier is an unknown. More than 90 percent of online transactions are handled through credit cards.

That means donors wishing to contribute to WikiLeaks must send money to two European bank accounts, a process that is both cumbersome and expensive. An online auction last month of WikiLeaks memorabilia raised "not a significant amount" of money, according to the spokesman, Kristinn Hrafnsson, a former television journalist in Iceland.

They announced today they will no longer be releasing any documents until they can raise enough funds to keep their operation going. Heard about it on NPR*.

*BTW email NPR to tell them they're a bunch of goons for dropping World of Opera because the host went to an Occupy rally and they couldn't figure out a good enough excuse to fire her: http://warisacrime.org/content/unable-get-simeone-fired-npr-drops-world-opera 202-513-2300 or mediarelations@npr.org
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[Mr. Mechanical]

So yeah, I won't be losing any money because I basically have no savings or investments so the "market" can crash all it wants to. However, fuel, food and other commodities seem to be increasing in cost so I'm basically getting squeezed from that angle. Someone tell me if and when commodities are going to go down again.
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