Venezuela v Columbia (and sadly not at football either)

And guess who Chavez is blaming…  yep, evil Uncle Sam.  Full article at the Telegraph but I’ll highlight the best bits here.

Hugo Chavez tells Venezuela’s military to prepare for possible conflict with Colombia

President Hugo Chavez has ordered Venezuela’s military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying his country’s soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbours.

Mr Chavez said Venezuela could end up going to war with Colombia as tensions between them rise, and he warned that if a conflict broke out “it could extend throughout the whole continent”.

“The best way to avoid war is preparing for it,” Mr Chavez told military officers during his weekly television and radio program. Venezuela’s socialist leader has also cited a recent deal between Bogota and Washington giving US troops greater access to military bases as a threat to regional stability.

There was no immediate reaction from either the Colombian or US government, but in the past they have denied intentions to start a war with Venezuela and said the base deal is needed to fight the war on drugs and insurgents in Colombia, which is a major cocaine producer struggling with a decades-old internal conflict.

Tensions along the Venezuela-Colombia border have been exacerbated in recent weeks by a series of shootings and slayings.

Four men on motorcycles shot and killed two Venezuelan National Guard troops at a checkpoint near the border in Venezuela’s western Tachira state last week, prompting Chavez’s government to temporarily close some border crossings.

And last month, Venezuelan authorities arrested at least 10 people in Tachira alleging involvement in paramilitary groups. The bullet-ridden bodies of 11 men, nine of them Colombians, were also found last month in Tachira after being abducted from a soccer field.

The violence prompted Venezuela to send 15,000 soldiers to the border with Colombia on Thursday. Officials said the build-up was necessary to increase security along the border.

Scary shit huh?  War on drugs, another multi-billion $cam, another reason to hike up the tax bill and fill up prisons.  All these different wars our Governments create, Terror, Drugs, Crime and even smoking and eating for Christ sake, all it does is create more oppotuinities for us to be ripped off.  Thieving bastards, at least Dick Turpin met you half-way and made an effort, these modern day crooks force us to hand over our readies through fear of imprisonment.

If a battle commences in South America, it’ll be bloody, that is for sure.  They don’t fuck about and then there is the Cartels in the mix, and some of those groups are armed to the teeth.  Seems everywhere on the planet is on edge at the moment, can’t Richard Branson hurry up with the Spaceship to get me off this crazy rock!?!

Moment 22 - en logisk reaktion?

För den som funderar på underliga beteenden i samband med krig kan läsa Moment 22 av Joseph Heller.

Efter en stunds läsande av denna bok ter det sig plötsligt mer rimligt att sitta naken i ett träd än att delta i krig.

Kan det på samma vis ha blivit mer logiskt att meja ner de amerikanska soldaterna som frivilligt gett sig ut för att mörda för pengar i arabiskt land?

Kan soldaterna ha retat upp honom med rasistiska ord som “rag head” och “sand nigger”?

Ville han undvika lidande för soldaterna, iraks folk och sig själv samtidigt?

Läs även andra bloggares intressanta åsikter om saker som är värda att ges en knuff upp i bloggportalerna

Exp Exp2 Sydsv Dagen VG VG2
VG: Kontrabeskjed etter Texas-massakre: – Drapsmistenkt er likevel i live

http://rodamalmo.blogspot.com/2009/11/det-sjuka-usa.html

http://aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article6075872.ab

http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/artikel_3759187.svd

DN – Vårdade hemvändande soldater – kallades själv in.

DN – Tolv ihjälskjutna på militärbas i USA.

USD Edges Up Ahead of Jobs

The dollar was higher by the afternoon Thursday session as traders took to the sidelines ahead of tomorrow’s key US labor report.

The greenback rebounded from a near one-week low against the euro around 1.4917 to bounce toward the 1.48-figure.

The economic reports released this morning included weekly jobless claims, Q3 productivity and Q3 labor costs.

The weekly jobless claims improved to 512k versus an upwardly revised 532k in the previous week.

Meanwhile, Q3 productivity blew away consensus estimates for a decline to 6.4%, instead surging to 9.5% from 6.9% in the previous quarter – its highest level in the third quarter since 2003.

The preliminary reading for labor costs in Q3 declined by more than expected, falling by 5.2% compared with a 6.1% drop in the previous quarter.

 

Mots clés Technorati : American Economy,Employment,fvtaiwan

STS-129 : Generalprobe des Countdown

Die Astronauten der STS-129 Mission haben ihre Generalprobe der Coutdownprozeduren im Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida beendet und sind an Bord eines NASA-Flugzeuges nach Houston ins Johnson Space Center zurückgekehrt.

Die Besatzung kehrt erst wieder nach Cape Canaveral ins KSC zurück wenn der endgültige Coutdown für den Start beginnt. Nach Plan wird in dies in knapp zwei Wochen so weit sein, wenn die Raumfähre Atlantis zu ihrer Mission in Richtung Internationale Raumstation aufbricht. Die Generalprobe vom Dienstag, die in der NASA-Terminologie Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) genannt wird, ist eine der regulären Standardprozeduren für die Shuttle-Crews im Rahmen ihrer Startvorbereitungen.  Das Training des kompletten Countdownablaufes mit der Besatzung, ermöglicht dem beteiligten Startteam, die komplexen Abläufe während des Starttages durchzuspielen und versetzt die Astronauten gleichzeitig in die Lage,  ihre Fluchtprozeduren von der Sartrampe zu proben, die sie im Falle einer Notsituation in den letzten Momenten vor dem realen Start abwickeln müssten.

Der gesamte Test war – entgegen dem üblichen Prozedere – diesmal in zwei Trainingsabschnitte aufgesplittet worden, um dem Startteam in der vergangenen Woche etwas Luft in Hinblick auf den Ares 1-X-Start zu verschaffen.

The STS-129 astronauts concluded their countdown dress rehearsal Tuesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and headed back to Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard NASA aircraft. The crew will return to Kennedy when the real countdown begins in about two weeks to launch space shuttle Atlantis on a mission to the International Space Station. Tuesday’s dress rehearsal is a standard procedure for shuttle crews known as the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test. It gives the launch team a chance to practice the intricacies of launch day and affords the astronauts an opportunity to run through their escape process in the unlikely event that an emergency develops in the last moments before a real launch.

Für weitere Informationen : for further informations

www.raumfahrtzeitung.de

source : NASA

photo credit : NASA/ Kim Shiflett

Election Day 10

It was a cool morning today as I voted down at the local fire station. Turnout was massively lower than last year. Last year people were coming out of the woodwork to vote for O or against him (in our district anyway). There were long lines and boisterous attitudes. Today there were two other voters.

The Democrats didn’t even bother to field a volunteer today handing out sample ballots! That surprised me, it was a first. The GOP was there with one guy, and he looked lonely. So all the enthusiasm is out of the season now that George Bush, the sacrificial victim has been driven out and we are back to the norm, which is dysfunction, debt and war with no one to blame. It isn’t yet the fault of the Chosen One, but it will be by 12. He’s looking more like LBJ and Carter by the minute.

I expect Deeds to lose in a blowout. Let’s hope this is a glimmer of good news for the unborn.

Correspondant 17.

ARTE – 20h45 – lundi 2/11    film d’A. Hitchcock avec J. McCrea, L. Day, H. Marshall,

Début 1939. Le directeur du New York Globe peste contre ses correspondants en Europe qui ne lui envoient que des nouvelles insignifiantes à l’heure où Hitler se fait de plus en plus menaçant. Pour obtenir des informations plus précises sur les graves événements qui, selon lui, se préparent, il dépêche sur place le téméraire reporter John Jones…

Rediffusions :
04.11.2009 à 14:45

www.arte.tv

 

Dirty money: Singapore scores well in "harmful tax haven" test

Just when Mr. T thought that the fuss over Singapore as a tax haven would just die quietly and leave him alone, the US Tax Justice Network makes him work hard for his money by, yet again, raising Singapore’s world-class ranking for promoting financial secrecy that is culpable for illicit fund flows:

From FT “Leading economies blamed for fiscal secrecy”:

Leading economic centres including the US, UK and Singapore are among the countries most to blame for promoting international financial secrecy, according to a new index comparing the harm allegedly done by tax havens and rich nations.

The research – which comes ahead of the Group of 20 finance ministers’ meeting in Scotland next week – is an unusual attempt to measure whether powerful countries are as culpable over illicit fund flows as the offshore centres they have attacked since the financial crisis.

John Christensen, Tax Justice Network director, said the index outlined “a much more intricate story than has been told in the past about how financial markets have secrecy at their core”.

He said: “We like to think that liberalised financial markets are transparent. But when you dig deep into their arrangements, you find transparency is something of a chimera.”

The rankings are made by giving each of 60 onshore and offshore financial centres an “opacity score”, which is then weighted according to the jurisdiction’s significance in the world financial system.

The tax havens hardly escape unscathed, with hedge fund centre Cayman ranked fourth and Bermuda, a leading base for insurers, coming in seventh. European nations fare badly, with Belgium and Ireland making it five entries for the Continent in the top 10.

Singapore’s eighth place reflects longstanding criticism from overseas investigators, who allege it is uncooperative despite its highly sophisticated financial system.

The question of the degree of blame attached to rich nations and tax havens for failings in financial transparency has become highly political in the wake of the credit crunch.