Puppet MastersS


Better Earth

Best of the Web: Rouhani surfs the new WAVE

Hasan Rouhani
© AP Photo/Brendan McDermid, PoolHasan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 68th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Tuesday.
He came. He listened. And he surfed.
"I listened carefully to the statement made by President Obama today at the General Assembly... [I'm] hoping that they will refrain from following the short-sighted interests of warmongering pressure groups and we can arrive at a framework to managing our differences."
Then he outlined what has always been the official Iranian position: "Talks can happen; equal footing and mutual respect should govern the talks."

Then he addressed the expectation (actually, the world's): "Of course, we expect to hear a consistent voice from Washington. The dominant voice in recent years has been for a military option."

But now he had another idea. So he sets the stage for the punch line: It's WAVE time. WAVE as in World Against Violence and Extremism. Not in Farsi, lost in translation; in English.
"I propose as a starting step... I invite all states... to undertake a new effort to guide the world in this direction ... we should start thinking about a coalition for peace all across the globe instead of the ineffective coalitions for war."
So the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has just invited the whole planet to join the WAVE. How come no "coalition of the willing" leader ever thought about that?

Bad Guys

Small firms seek to move in on Afghanistan's vast mineral wealth

Kabul - Few companies showed up to Afghanistan's fresh appeal for investment in its vast mineral wealth on Sunday, apparently deterred by trouble plaguing two of its largest projects and allowing small firms to emerge as the main contenders.

The Mines Ministry pleaded to a handful of local and foreign firms to bid on a near billion dollar cement tender, luring interest with attractive terms like free currency conversions and 100 percent capital repatriation.

Hopes are pinned on Afghanistan's trillion dollar wealth in resources weaning the country off international aid, but early attempts to unlock its potential have hit serious setbacks.

These appeared to have deterred major international firms from attending - leaving the path open to small investors with unconventional backgrounds, prepared to take on deteriorating security and uncertainty ahead of next year's election.

Afghanistan has been at war for decades. It is now trying to inject life into attempts to negotiate an end to an Islamist Taliban insurgency as most NATO combat troops prepare to pull out by the end of 2014, leaving the country to handle its own security.

"Too many big international companies are too afraid about what is going to happen after 2014,"said Tom Watts, a director at SJH Group and former British paratrooper who served in Iraq.

Dollars

The mystery of $600 million traded in the blink of an eye

Computer Trading
© Richard Drew/APA television monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the decision the Federal Reserve made on Sept. 18, 2013.
Here's a mystery involving physics, technology and the markets that meant the difference between nothing and millions of dollars.

Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced it would not be tapering its bond buying program at 2 p.m. ET. The news takes seven milliseconds - about the speed of light - to reach Chicago. But before the seven milliseconds was up, a few huge orders based on the Fed's decision were placed on Chicago exchanges. CNBC broke the story:
"According to trading data reviewed by CNBC, they began buying in Chicago-traded assets just before others in that city could possibly have been aware of the Fed's decision. By one estimate, as much as $600 million in assets changed hands in the milliseconds before most other traders in Chicago could learn of the Fed's September surprise - a sharp contrast to the very low volume of trading ahead of the Fed's decision."
How did this happen? Right now, we don't know. But in high-speed trading, where computer algorithms fed by data make trades based on pre-programmed strategies, the difference between trading at seven milliseconds after the news and two milliseconds after the news can be worth millions.

Dollar

AIG CEO compares bonus criticism to lynch mobs

Robert Benmosche
© Gianluca Colla/Bloomberg via Getty Images Robert Benmosche, CEO of AIG.
AIG has a lengthy history of producing some of the biggest tools on Wall Street. Former CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg was considered one of the world's preeminent unapologetic narcissists even before he sued the government for providing an insufficiently generous bailout. Joe Cassano, former chief of AIG's financial products division, was another: first he arrogantly blew off the accountants who warned him his portfolio of hundreds of billions in uncollateralized bets might destroy the world, then told clients pre-crash his portfolio wouldn't lose a dollar, and then after it all went kablooey, tiptoed back to D.C. (after first being assured of not being prosecuted, mind you) from his lavish four-story townhouse in London just long enough to tell the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he had absolutely nothing to be sorry about and they could bite him and his hundreds of millions in earnings if they disagreed.

Now a third AIG executive enters the pantheon of tone-deaf AIG bigwigs: CEO Robert Benmosche, who just told the Wall Street Journal that the post-crash public outcry over the use of bailout money to pay bonuses to executives in Cassano's Financial Products unit was comparable to - get this - lynchings in the deep south. From reporter Leslie Scism's interview:
The uproar over bonuses "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that - sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong."
For sheer "Let them eat cake"-ness, this ranks right up there with Lloyd Blankfein's "I'm doing God's work" riff and Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charlie Munger's line about how it was proper to bail out Wall Street, but people in foreclosure should "suck it in and cope."

Pistol

Kenya Americans and Briton 'among mall attackers', says Kenyan foreign minister

 Westgate mall
© Boniface Muthoni/CorbisSmoke rises from the Westgate mall on Monday.
Amina Mohamed says Briton who has 'done this many times before' was involved in attack with 'two or three' Americans


A British woman who has allegedly taken part in terrorist activity "many times before" was among the attackers who laid siege to a Kenyan shopping mall, the country's foreign minister has said.

Amina Mohamed said the militant acted alongside "two or three" Americans during the atrocity in Nairobi which has killed at least 62 people, including six Britons.

The announcement will fuel speculation that the British terrorism suspect Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to the 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, was involved.

Stop

Shutdown countdown: What the next eight days could bring

White House
© The Washington Post
On Friday, the House passed a measure that would keep the government running through mid-December. But it came with what Democrats consider a poison pill: It defunds President Obama's signature health-care law, known as Obamacare. There is no way whatsoever - think pigs flying - that the Senate will agree to the House plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the House bill was "dead," then for emphasis added: "Dead." ¶ That sets up eight days of brinkmanship between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and White House, leading to midnight Sept. 30, when much of the government will shut down if there's no deal. ¶ Leaders on Capitol Hill expect the face-off to go right up to the deadline, if not beyond. Below is a day-by-day look at how it's all likely to play out - with the caveat that events can change quickly.

Monday: The Senate will convene briefly, with just a few members on hand. Reid is expected to call up the House bill, known as a continuing resolution, and file a motion that sets up initial votes on the measure. Under Senate rules, there will be two votes just to determine whether the chamber gets to a vote on final passage of the bill. These are the "cloture" votes, which require 60 ayes to choke off a filibuster; Reid will file a motion one day, then there must be an intervening day of debate, then the filibuster-busting vote comes. Reid will file the first of these Monday, setting up a vote Wednesday.

The House is not in session.

Pumpkin

The Federal Reserve Bank taper hoax


In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, discuss the US Federal Reserve Bank as 'the greatest hedge fund' in history and ask whether or not their quantitative easing policy is like trying to pass pork off as a prime cut of beef. In the second half, Max interviews precious metals trader, Andrew Maguire, about JPMorgan whistleblowers and the Federal Reserve Bank taper hoax.

Question

Nationalities of Kenya shopping mall gunmen unknown

Image
© Jonathan Kalan/AP Civilians who had been hiding in the Westgate mall in Nairobi are led to safety by armed police.
One of the Islamist militants wore a white turban, witnesses said, while others wore black head scarves. Most were in civilian clothes, but a few wore camouflage fatigues. Some carried sophisticated machine guns, and others wielded the AK-47 rifles widely used by African insurgents. Most of the extremists who seized the upscale Nairobi mall were young and barked orders in English.

By Monday evening, Kenyan security forces said they controlled much of the Westgate Premier Shopping Mall, although several militants from al-Shabab, a group allied with al-Qaeda, appeared dug in, determined to fight to the death.

With the standoff apparently drawing to a close after three days, there was a growing focus on the identity of the militants and how they could pull off a sophisticated assault that killed at least 62 people and kept security forces at bay for three days. Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said Monday that "two or three Americans" and "one Brit" were among the perpetrators of the attack.

USA

Coincidence? Pressure piles on Obama to strike Shabaab

Image
© ReutersSome lawmakers and analysts in the United States are urging President Obama to launch strikes against al-Shabaab with the aim of preventing more terror attacks in Kenya and possibly the United States.
Some lawmakers and analysts in the United States are urging President Obama to launch strikes against al-Shabaab with the aim of preventing more terror attacks in Kenya and possibly the United States.

''We're talking about very significant terrorist groups here which are showing a capacity to attack outside of their borders and actually recruit people from here in the United States," Republican Congressman Peter King, a member of the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee, said on US television on Sunday.

"They're not on the decline," added Senator Tom Coburn, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. ''They're on the rise, as you can see from Nairobi."

US counter-terrorism officials warn that Shabaab's sophistication and reach are increasing due to connections the Somalia group has made with al-Qa'ida forces in Yemen and with Boko Haram militants in Nigeria.

Black Magic

Congressional Nazi Mike Rogers wants to "kill all whistle blowers"

Rep. Mike Rogers
© AFP Photo/Mandel NganRep. Mike Rogers(R-Michigan)
A look back...

Here's an idiot Congressman and former FBI agent calling for the state murder of Bradley Manning.

What did Bradley Manning do?

He released video that documented a war crime.

Let's remember what happened here. A helicopter attack ship hovered over a group of unarmed men, including journalists, and gunned them down in cold blood.

How did this video put "soldiers in the field" at risk? The killers in this case were obviously long gone and, as far as I know, they were never identified.