04 August 2006


(Reuters.)

War madness....

I just don't understand how Israel can commit premediated murder on such a horrific, coldblooded scale.
...He said Qana was exactly what I saw on TV. He kept referring to going through Srifa as being very difficult. "Very difficult" he kept saying. Nearly all of Srifa is destroyed. Limbs covered in powdered concrete emerge from between the ravages of collapsed buildings. No one has had the energy or courage to pull out the dead. The Red Cross and Civil Defense ambulances have been targeted relentlessly by Israel. When the guns will quiet, we will discover that Qana is small-time compared to Srifa. There is a pattern emerging now: Marwaheen, Srifa, Blida and Qana: terror to induce forced displacement (or pardon my French, "deportation"). Scorched earth and mass graves, this is how we achieve the New Middle East.

Maher said nearly 60% of Bint Jbeil has now become flat rubble. Most of its central area. There two limbs stick out of collapsed buildings, and the smell of death is everywhere. While rescue workers pulled out the dead from that shelter in Qana, the IDF was shelling the only functioning hospital in Bint Jbeil, a day prior to Maher's visit. That's how battered Bint Jbeil was, even its hospital the IDF decided was a Hezbollah stronghold and posed a grave security threat on the well-being of the children of Kiryat Shmona who prefer to go to school and not dwell in shelters after they have kissed the shells that their army will shower on Lebanon to implement UN Resolution 1559 and eradicate terror.

In the convoy to Bint Jbeil, journalists outnumbered the rescue workers, and they found a group of elderly men and women who were trapped in a shelter. They could not ambulate without assistance and had not eaten for four or five days. They were carried out and given some water and driven to places where they could receive the care they needed....
Please, MAKE IT STOP!

Originally in Nesweek, but excerpted from Red State Son.

(AP)

Blair delays vacation....
Tony Blair today decided to delay his summer holiday for a few days to help secure a United Nations resolution that would call for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Mr Blair's decision, following that of his foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, to delay her own break, came as attempts to secure a diplomatic solution at the United Nations in New York yesterday continued to prove elusive.
President Bush, however, hasn't seen fit to delay his "working vacation" for something as trivial as 900 dead Lebanese, 3,000 wounded Lebanese, 1 million displaced Lebanese (a quarter of the total population!) and 62 Israeli deaths.

And just who are the "terrorists" when the ratio of Lebanese to Israeli civilians killed is roughly 20 to one?

(Casualty figures here and here.

Complete story here.

Good news...!

...Fifteen Sierra Leonean women involved in female genital mutilation (FGM) made a collective public declaration at the weekend "completely" to abandon the practice, a local paper said.

The 15, who were not named by the Sierra News, are widely regarded as highly skilled in female circumcision in Lunsar, in Porto Loko district, 145 kilometres (90 miles) north of the capital, where the government estimates they were responsible for up to a third of the operations.

They pledged at a public ceremony to work now towards "safeguarding the health of women and girls," the state-owned newspaper said.
Now may the trend continue!

And while we're at it, let's look closer to home and eliminate the genital mutilation of intersexed infants in the US, Europe and other western countries.

Complete story here. And for more background, read this UN article.

02 August 2006


Petrodollar wars....

Once upon a time in 1974, the US and OPEC came to an agreement: all petroleum sales throughout the world would have to take place using US dollars.

According to William Clark, the particulars of this deal are revealed in The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets, (1999) by Dr. David Spiro. In short, the Nixon administration negotiated with Saudi Arabia (which has the largest oil reserves in the world) to price oil in dollars, then invest their surplus oil proceeds back into US Treasury Bills. In return, the US would protect the Saudi regime.

The phenomenon has become known as "petrodollar recycling.” With several notable recent exceptions (that I’ll get to) the agreement has held to this day. Any country—Britain, Israel, Brazil, France, India, China, Russia, you name it—that wants oil needs to pay in US dollars and purchase the oil through one of two bourses, in New York or London.

Naturally, since every modern economy runs on petroleum, this forces the world’s national banks to maintain substantial reserves of US dollars. Which, in turn, keeps the dollar’s price artificially high despite America’s huge foreign debt, massive budget deficits, and incessant printing of dollars--all of which would normally devalue the dollar.

In essence, the US dollar is backed by petroleum—black gold—in the way it used to be backed by gold. This situation is no conspiracy theory: it's well documented across the web. See here, here, and this excellent movie. Or Google the topic.

So, what about those notable exceptions? Can you guess which countries they were?

First, in November, 2000 (10 months before the attacks of 9/11), Saddam Hussein in Iraq—which some estimate to possess the second largest oil reserves in the world—switched its UN oil-for-food sales from dollars to Euros. At the time, one Euro cost 82 cents. By June, 2003, when the US began once more selling Iraqi oil in dollars, one Euro cost $1.17. The exchange rate has since hovered between $1.21 and $1.29 for the two years I've lived in Ireland.

By late August, 2002, Iran had also shifted the majority of its currency reserves from US dollars to Euros in preparation for its widely publicized plans to establish in Tehran an oil bourse to rival New York’s and London’s. The bourse's start date was to have been March, 2006, but not surprisingly it has been delayed.

Next, North Korea shifted its trade from dollars to Euros in December, 2002, and the 'Axis of Evil" was complete. Kim Jong-il’s actions, however, including his dogged pursuit of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them, have so far failed to really get Bush's attention.

No oil reserves in North Korea.

Finally, Hugo Chavez--target of the failed CIA-backed coup in April, 2002--has been steadily removing large parts of Venezuela’s oil trade (world’s fourth largest producer) from the orbit of the US dollar. Ongoing US-backed attempts to remove him from power seem likely.

In sum, as William Clark says, while a collective switch by OPEC from the US dollar to the Euro appears extremely unlikely, a gradual shift seems plausible. With potentially devastating consequences for the US economy.

Combine this with the fact that the world has either reached or is close to reaching peak oil reserves, meaning the remaining oil will be increasingly more difficult and expensive to extract and refine, and the US invasion and permanent occupation of Iraq makes sense in a depraved "real-politic," imperial sort of way.

Far more sense than a mythical search for non-existent WMD.

01 August 2006


Capitalism blows....

At 5:00 p.m., one of the highly paid executives I provide administrative support for at a small investment bank showed up for the first time today.

Not just one of the highly paid executives, but the highly paid executive whom everyone at the bank loathes. The one who can’t communicate to save his life beyond discussing golf, rugby, or football. The one who, 6-foot-something and weighing in at 300 pounds, pesters me like a 5-year-old tugging at his mommy’s skirts.

“Brynn?...Brynn!!” If I don’t immediately drop whatever I’m in the middle of and jump! “Brynn: can you do me a favour?”

How I've come to hate that phrasing. As if I have a choice! The boring, menial tasks he demands to have done at light-speed usually require the transformation of his ungrammatical chicken scratch into a professional memo, letter or (even!) email, as this guy is pathetically computer illiterate. Couldn’t attach a document to an email and forward it if the fate of the free world and his entire bonus besides rested in the balance!

To make matters disgustingly worse, he’s slovenly in his personal habits and grooming. Clothing wrinkled and disheveled, suit-coat off, tie-loose, shirt-tails partially tucked. Not the greatest body odour or breath. Chews food with his mouth wide open.

And. The. Very. Worst. ...He sheds skin, hair and other visible bodily detritus onto his desk top.

Eeeewwww!! The very thought makes me recoil!

No One wants to be this man’s personal assistant. His previous left on sick-leave around 14 months ago and never came back. My assuming the role was to have been temporary. Ha!

In addition to C, I’m primary support for the bank’s second-in-command who, while exhibiting better grooming and not so loutish, is still no joy to work for. Both men have the habit of dumping large, time-consuming projects on me at the end of the day and expecting me to stay and finish them, no matter how long they take—and mind you, I’m salaried, no overtime. Moreover, neither knows how to show gratitude.

So all this would be distasteful enough were I well paid. Which, sadly, is not the case. I started my position on September 9, 2004, at what would be a low salary for a PA in New York (equivalent cost-of-living as Dublin, believe it or not). I accepted that, thinking I’d have to prove myself, especially as an immigrant.

Which I proceeded to do: took only two sick days in nearly two years. Arrived early or on time everyday, and stayed overtime anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours everyday. Expanded the role, introducing digital document handling and signatures; scanning; various computer graphics, including Flash animation; and digital photography. I mastered a new program that handles company secretarial duties, which I took over for our 13 companies, including all the electronic filing of annual reports; appointments and resignations of directors; business name-changes, and so forth. Moreover, I'm the resident MS Office expert everyone comes to when they're stumped.

How was I rewarded in my second year, a year when the bank registered record multi-million Euro profits? Well. My annual raise equaled the paltry amount C files for in expenses for one two-day business trip to London. And my bonus was the same amount they’d offered me, unproven, to sign for the first year.

In other words, they pissed on me for all my hard work.

Consequently, this evening when C waltzed in at 5:00 p.m., conversing on his cell phone and five minutes later, after I’d signed out on my computer, asked me if I could stay and draft a letter for him, I lied. Said I was meeting someone and had to leave.

I’m done busting my butt for absolutely no return, no appreciation and no greater world good.

31 July 2006


(Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

Emotional overload....

The carnage in Lebanon has left me at a total loss for words and struggling against depression the past several days.

It's not just the ruthless, deliberate targeting which has left more than 750 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians (versus 18 Israeli civilian casualties) but the utter lack of remorse on the part of US and Israeli leaders.

We may have a ceasefire by the end of the week (!) according to Secretary of State "We Haven't Killed Enough Arabs Yet" Condi Rice. Her boss, President "Moment of Opportunity for Broader Change in the Region" Bush as of this morning still refused to call for a cease-fire, opting instead to support a watered-down UN resolution calling for Hezbollah to lay down arms (nothing about Israel!) and allow an international peace-keeping force in to help the Lebanese Army.

If a just God exists, which I seriously doubt, there will be a special place in hell for Rice, Bush, Cheney and their aiders and abetters.

In the meantime, I took a sick day today, went to see an escapist film and hung out with a friend. Let capitalism and investment banking struggle on without me temporarily.