Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own

The moral arguments here are straight from Asimov.

Ecuador and the Dollar

As the Tsunami of world economic collapse moves steadily toward Ecuador, the government appears about to abandon the dollar.

Here's an article from Bloomberg:

By Lester Pimentel

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador is increasingly likely to drop the U.S. dollar as its currency this year after the government’s debt default, according to Bulltick Securities Inc.

The likelihood of Ecuador abandoning the dollar has risen to more than 70 percent from less than 10 to 20 percent a year ago, Alberto Bernal, head of fixed-income research at Bulltick Securities in Miami, said in a report.

President Rafael Correa’s decision to default on international bonds in December and a plunge in crude oil, Ecuador’s biggest export, have spurred capital flight, Bernal said. Ecuador adopted the dollar in 2000 to help curb inflation after the sucre tumbled 73 percent against the dollar and the government defaulted on $6.5 billion of foreign debt.

“The bottom line here is that if Ecuador is forced to leave dollarization at some point in the next few months, the likely collapse on economic activity in the country could become very significant,” Bernal said. “We continue to think that the days of the dollar in Ecuador are numbered.”

Read the rest here.

Letter from Ramsey Clark

A message from Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark:
'Why indictment is a must.'

Dear Steven,

I am writing to you as a long-time supporter of the ImpeachBush movement. More than a million people came forward to demand the impeachment of Bush and other high-ranking officials in the Bush administration.

I am appealing to you to make a donation to a growing new movement for the indictment and prosecution of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other high officials of the Bush administration who engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

Please make an urgently needed donation today to help the IndictBush movement grow by clicking this link.

The greatest danger arising from impunity for President Bush and his cohorts would be that all subsequent officials will feel secure in committing the same crimes and the people, having failed to compel impeachment for such open, notorious and egregious crimes, will feel even more helpless to prevent them. Ultimately the power and the responsibility to prevent criminal acts by government is with the people.

The movement for accountability is sweeping the country. The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, and the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, are both proposing to launch investigations into the possibilities of criminal conduct by high officials in the Bush Administration.

Now is the time for massive outreach and publicity. This requires organizing national call-in days to pressure Congressional representatives, intensive media work, and providing literature for people of conscience to distribute in cities and towns across the country.

Please consider taking a moment right now to make a donation to this new movement for the indictment of Bush. There is no time to spare. The time to act is now and we will.

The crimes of the Bush administration must be proclaimed, acknowledged and remembered because their disastrous human consequences, dictatorial tendencies, subversion of Constitutional government and violation of the rights and dignity of humanity. They include wars of aggression, the crime against peace and the "Supreme International Crime," war crimes, and crimes against humanity, genocide by military violence "with intent to destroy in whole, or in part, a national... or religious group," authorizing and condoning massive violations of the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and other Amendments, international treaties including the U.N. Charter, Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Convention Against Torture, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions.

The clear duty of the American people and their elected representatives -- on which the changes in U.S. government policies essential to achieve a peaceful, decent and humane future depend -- is the vigorous pursuit of the indictment of former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other high officials who have participated in their crimes, followed by rigorous criminal prosecution wherever the evidence, having been fully and fairly presented to a federal grand jury, results in their indictment.

The indictment of George W. Bush and other high officials is the challenge facing 'We, the People.' Will we rise to meet it? This is not a matter of politics or partisanship. It is the defense of the basic tenets of the Constitution. Please consider making a donation so we can get this movement off the ground and into the streets.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark,
Former U.S. Attorney General

p.s. Please be sure to tell your friends to go to IndictBushNow.org to sign the referendum!

Keep Your Dirty Money

In his weekly television address yesterday, President Rafael Correa ordered his minister to expel US envoy Armando Astorga within 48 hours. Correa read from a letter written by Astorga that threatened to cut off US funding to the Ecuadorian police unless the US were allowed to continue to appoint high level Ecuadorian police officials.

In a flash of temper, Correa also ordered the police to return funds and equipment received from the US.

"Mr. Astorga, keep your dirty money. We don't need it. We have dignity in this country," Correa said.

Here's an article in the Irish Times.

Que se vayan todos

Published on Friday, February 6, 2009 by The Nation

Tide of Anger

by Naomi Klein

Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles in 2002: "You are Enron. We are Argentina."
Its message was simple enough. You--politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit--are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We--the rabble outside--are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model--this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism.


It's taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment.

Read the rest.

Robin Williams on Obama’s Election--Thanks to Morgan

Liberal Barack?

Two weeks ago a Miami television new's show host asked me, "Is Camelot back?" The world (I included) was amazed and overjoyed that Obama had been elected, that reason and dignity and intelligence would return to the White House. The press was talking about Caroline Kennedy for the United Nations, Robert Kennedy, Jr for the Environmental Protection Agency. We were dizzy about the possibility of bright, good people representing the people of the United States. And we were still stunned that the Reign of Terror would soon be over.

That same week, Michael Moore, also jubilant, nonetheless darkened the horizon, recalling Obama's call for more troops to Afghanistan and his bizarre stay-the-wrong-course views on the Middle East, noting that the best we could hope for was that Obama would break most of his campaign promises in the tradition of all presidents.

Now it seems, for the time being at least, that Obama is yet another Clinton-style Republocrat. His cabinet even includes Bush's Secretary of Defense and his followers are crying foul.

Here's a paragraph from Peter Baker's December 8th article the New York Times:

Liberals Wonder When Obama’s Team Will Reflect Them

"CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama’s appointments have tilted so much to the political center that they have drawn praise from the likes of Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh. That alone would seem enough to set off a revolt in his liberal base. But a month into Mr. Obama’s transition, many on the political left are trying to hold their tongues."

Here's a link to the rest of the article.

So much for Camelot, at least for now.

What Will Become of the Torturers?

There are petitions circulating on the internet, urging politicians to preempt the President's certain and upcoming preemptive pardoning of all his criminal lackeys. The list of crimes and criminals (including the President) is long. Bush, it seems, has the authority to pardon everyone: the torturers, the renditioners, the eaves-droppers (those blessed souls who have read my emails so carefully) and the water-boarders.

But now that intelligence and reason seems to have reappeared (after how long?) in US politics, I wonder if there is hope.

Here's a bit from a recent article in The Progressive:

One of Barack Obama’s first acts as president should be to instruct his attorney general to appoint an independent prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation of former Bush Administration officials who gave the green light to torture.

At Obama’s press conference on Dec. 1, he spoke of upholding America’s highest values as he introduced Eric Holder as his choice for attorney general. Holder insisted there was no tension between protecting the people of the United States and adhering to our Constitution.

A few months ago, Holder was even more explicit. “Our government authorized the use of torture, approved of secret electronic surveillance against American citizens, secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution,” he said. “We owe the American people a reckoning.”

For the rest, click here. After that, you might want to read Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Bless the Yes Men

Sorry about the graphics, but this is such good news.

Check out the site: http://www.nytimes-se.com/

And the whole story: http://laughingsquid.com/the-yes-men-distribute-fake-new-york-times-iraq-war-ends/

And if you've never heard of the Yes Men, rent the movie.

abrazos.

Cucos

From Democracy Now

Check out Amy Goodman's superb interview with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

The blurb says:

"In the late stages of the presidential race, no other name was used more by the McCain-Palin campaign against Barack Obama than Bill Ayers. Ayers is a respected Chicago professor who was a member of the 1960s militant antiwar group the Weather Underground. In their first joint television interview, Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn discuss the McCain campaign attacks, President-elect Obama, the Weather Underground, the legacy of 1960s social justice movements, and more."

You can hear the interview at the best news site in the US: Democracynow.org