Eideard

Taking fingerprints of one of the dead attackers
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The top U.S. military officer accused Pakistani intelligence on Thursday of backing violence against U.S. targets including the American Embassy in Afghanistan…

Admiral Mike Mullen said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) played a role in the September 13 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, supporting militants known as the Haqqani network. That network, he said, is a “veritable arm” of the ISI.

The embassy attack was the latest in a series of violent episodes that were a blow to U.S. efforts to bring the Afghan war to a peaceful close.

Pakistan’s interior minister rejected the U.S. accusations of Islamabad’s links to the Haqqanis, one of the most feared insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan. The minister, Rehman Malik, also warned against a unilateral U.S. ground attack on the Haqqanis, who are based in Pakistan’s ungoverned tribal territories…

A complete break between the United States and Pakistan — sometimes friends, often adversaries — seems unlikely, if only because the United States depends on Pakistan as a route to supply U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and as a base for unmanned U.S. drones…

But support in the U.S. Congress for curbing assistance or making conditions on aid more stringent is rising rapidly. And Mullen, CIA Director David Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have all met their Pakistani counterparts in recent days to demand Islamabad rein in militants.

Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA analyst with close ties to the Obama White House, which he once advised, told Reuters administration officials have told him that militants who attacked the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul on September 13 phoned individuals connected with the ISI before and during the attack.

Following the attacks, Riedel said, U.S. security forces collected cell phones the attackers had used. These are expected to provide further evidence linking militants to ISI.

RTFA for beaucoup details.

Yes, I know all the history and have my own opinion about how things got this way. But, between no legal structure encompassing tribal bandits and apparently little or no inclination to divest backwards elements inside portions of the military and ISI, Pakistan will remain a well-armed and therefore more dangerous variation on the gangster turf which lies between Afghanistan and India. That adds nothing to the future of the people of Pakistan.

We condemned the Nazis for the same kind of medical experiments

U.S. government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.

Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study.

About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are expected to offer extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service…

The episode raises inevitable comparisons to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, the Alabama study where hundreds of African-American men were told they were being treated for syphilis, but in fact were denied treatment. That U.S. government study lasted from 1932 until press reports revealed it in 1972.

The Guatemala experiments…were discovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College, and was posted on her website [.pdf].

According to Reverby’s report, the Guatemalan project was co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the NIH, the Pan-American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization) and the Guatemalan government.

Reverby, who has written extensively about the Tuskegee experiments, found the evidence while conducting further research on the Alabama syphilis study.

The policies of the United States government have always been founded on the arrogant presumption that if our government feels something is beneficial to their corporate bosses, then they have the right to do whatever they wish. International law, the laws of our own land, ethics and decency are out of the equation.

My first thought on these revelations? What will be exposed, say, in 2070 about what our politicians are doing to exploit ordinary folks today?

Audi keeps on growing its e-tron family. The automaker pulled a fast one by unveiling yet another electrified monster at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, only this time, the low-slung hybrid came sans-top. The concept is powered by two electric motors and a 300-horsepower twin-turbo TDI V6 that comes to the fight with 479 pound-feet of torque. Audi says that despite the hefty 9.1 kilowatt-hour battery mounted up front, it managed to keep the weight low and distribute the pounds evenly across the chassis. As a result, this e-tron should be plenty flingable if it ever makes it off of the stage and onto a public road.

Audi says the e-tron Spyder hits the scales at 3,196 pounds and that the drivetrain can be driver-controlled to operate on electric power only at speeds up to 37 mph for a total of 31 miles. The manufacturer says that in city driving, the capability is more than enough to hang with traffic. If not, there’s always that juicy diesel V6 to play with…

That’s a twin-turbo V6 diesel that gets up to 102 mpg. Plus – you add in the electric drive.

“OK. We’ll get back to the important stuff, next week”
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

The Justice Department has reached an agreement with six major Silicon Valley companies to settle allegations that they colluded to stifle competition for employees by restricting the way they could poach workers from each other.

The settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Friday, names Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe Systems, Intuit and Walt Disney Corp.’s Pixar Animation Studios.

The Justice Department had been investigating whether the companies pledged not to use “cold calls” to recruit each other’s employees, as part of partnership agreements. The government was concerned that such promises amounted to a form of collusion to avoid bidding wars for employees with specialized skills, and in turn hold down payroll expenses.

Which they probably didn’t.

These agreements, the Justice Department said, “eliminated a significant form of competition to attract highly skilled employees,” depriving employees of access to better job opportunities…

Amy Lambert, Google’s associate general counsel for employment, said in a blog post Friday that the company does not believe its “no cold call” policies hindered hiring or affected wages, and noted that Google hired hundreds of employees from partner companies named by the Justice Department even while these policies were in place.

Google nonetheless abandoned the policy in late 2009 once the Justice Department began its investigation, she said.

Everyone else said pretty much the same thing – or nothing.

Investigators for the Department of Justice began asking questions about Apple’s business practices involving digital music at least three weeks ago, multiple music industry sources told CNET.

DOJ investigators have interviewed numerous executives at record companies and digital music stores and according to those with knowledge of the discussions, it is clear that investigators are interested in learning whether Apple has employed anticompetitive tactics.

The sources said that the department’s inquiry is just in a fact-finding stage and that there is nothing to indicate investigators have found any wrongdoing or would file a complaint against Apple…

Apple has a history of throwing its weight around the music sector. Apple’s iTunes accounts for 70 percent of all digital song sales and wields huge power. Apple has often used that clout to dictate terms to suppliers — that is, the major labels.

Here are just a few examples: The major labels wanted variable pricing on songs and albums and for years Apple resisted. In 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the top recording companies were “getting greedy”after music execs considered a music price hike. Last year, Apple finally gave the labels some additional control over song pricing.

The big record companies wanted the ability to sell albums that were unbundled, meaning they wanted Apple to sell hot LPs as a full package and refrain from selling individual songs from these works. Again, on this issue Apple hasn’t given much ground.

To iTunes’ fans, Apple was a freedom fighter. The perception was that Apple was standing up for consumers.

Apple’s refusal to force customers to buy full albums saved them from having to shell out money for songs they didn’t want. To them, Apple’s reluctance to raise the 99 cent song price was another way the company kept music costs down. And the government never made a peep about these practices.

Regardless of papier mache whines like this, the DOJ isn’t about to investigate the MPAA or RIAA. They aren’t even prepared to come down on the side of consumers and protect Fair Use – which has been eroded every year by greedy entertainment giants, pliable bureaucrats and judges.

Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.

That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.

When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for tough, effective enforcement. “It sends a clear message” to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.

But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when they declared victory. It’s a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they break the laws intended to protect patients…

Pfizer said in court that “the company’s intent was pure”: to foster a legal exchange of scientific information among doctors. But an internal marketing plan called for training physicians “to serve as public relations spokespeople.”

According to Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “They pushed the envelope so far past any reasonable interpretation of the law that it’s simply outrageous…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Ireland’s police colluded with the Catholic church in covering up clerical child abuse in Dublin on a huge scale, according to a damning report on decades of sex crimes committed by priests.

The devastating report on the sexual and physical abuse of children by the clergy in Ireland’s capital from 1975 to 2004 accuses four former archbishops, a host of clergy and senior members of the Garda Síochána of a cover-up.

The three-volume report found that the “maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church and the preservation of its assets” was more important than justice for the victims…

Rather than investigate complaints from children, gardai simply reported the matter to the Dublin Catholic diocese, the report says. The Garda Síochána is accused of connivance with the church in stifling at least one complaint of abuse and letting the alleged perpetrator flee the country.

Irish justice minister, Dermot Ahern said there should be no hiding place for abusers. “The persons who committed these dreadful crimes will continue to be pursued. They must come to know that there is no hiding place. That justice – even where it may have been delayed – will not be denied,” he said…

The report states that senior clerical figures covered up the abuse over nearly 30 years and that the structures and rules of the church facilitated that cover-up. It says that state authorities facilitated the cover-up by allowing the church to be beyond the reach of the law.

How can you be assured a police body is doing their job – when you discover a whole body of criminal responsibility is corrupt? As corrupt as the pedophiles they should have been investigating.

A federal judge in New York has rejected a $33 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America, throwing into doubt the future of one of the government’s chief cases against a firm charged with wrongdoing in the financial crisis.

Using biting language, Judge Jed S. Rakoff accused the SEC, Wall Street’s top regulator, of trying to nab a quick victory against a big bank while concealing the true facts of the wrongdoing the agency alleges. He attacked Bank of America’s top executives for allegedly trying to protect themselves at the expense of the company’s shareholders. Most of all, Rakoff suggested that the SEC and Bank of America are working together to try to make the case go away even if it “victimizes” the shareholders who would be responsible for paying the $33 million settlement.

“This case suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the Bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators,” Rakoff wrote. “And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth…”

“It is not fair, first and foremost, because it does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality, in that it proposes that the shareholders who were the victims of the Bank’s alleged misconduct now pay the penalty for that misconduct,” Rakoff wrote.

Does anyone think they can find an honest person in the offices of the SEC? Especially among the leftovers from the days of Bush and Paulson? Obama may think the pattycake slaps he’s administered have been sufficient to restart responsible oversight. I sincerely doubt it.

We have one set of Wall Street lawyers negotiating with another set of Wall Street lawyers over the best way to cut their losses and have the shareholders pick up the tab. That’s not responsible behavior in my neck of the prairie.

A day in the life of corrupt political power struggles in the NY State Legislature. It has little to do with democracy. Nothing to do with representing the electorate.

Republicans used a mysterious set of keys to force their way into the Senate chamber for the first time since their leadership coup on Monday. Protesters chanted “Senate not for sale” and banged on the chamber’s windows while Republicans tried to convene. And the Republicans’ vow to resume the session fizzled after one of the two dissident Democrats they were depending on for a quorum, Hiram Monserrate of Queens, walked out of the chamber shortly after the proceedings began…

“The dysfunction and chaos in the Senate has wasted an entire week of the people’s business,” a clearly irritated Gov. David A. Paterson said in a statement released Thursday. He has been largely relegated to the sidelines during the dispute.

By day’s end, it was clear that the balance of power in the state’s upper house — and the very gears of state government — continued to rest in the hands of Mr. Monserrate, who was indicted in March on charges of slashing his female companion with a broken glass.

As he was leaving the Senate chamber, a Republican staff member dashed after him, pleading, “Senator, we need you back in there.” But Mr. Monserrate said he was committed to recruiting more Democrats to join the coalition and would be holding meetings all day in hopes of doing so, even as those Democrats were simultaneously trying to woo him back to their side.

“This chamber must not remain divided,” he said. “You can’t have coalition government with 2 Democrats and 30 Republicans.”

There were many other developments throughout the day.

Tales of the most reactionary trying to form a coalition with the ineffectual are nothing strange to folks out here in the Southwest. A few years back New Mexicans helped to house and hide Democrats who had to flee Texas under threat of arrest from the Republikan majority in their legislature. If you could call it that.

Meanwhile, the debacle in New York State continues. Tune in next week to see who’s appointed king.

A new round of documents out in the Vista “Junk PC” lawsuit shows that Intel bullied Microsoft into saying an Intel chipset could run Vista, when in fact, it couldn’t run the most vital parts of the new operating system, such as running Aero. Intel had billions of dollars at stake, and Microsoft, in the words of one exec, “caved” in to Intel.

At the heart of Intel’s pressure was its 915 chipset, which was incapable of running Vista’s Aero interface. Intel had a significant number of those chipsets on hand. Because the chipsets were incapable of running Vista, Intel wouldn’t be able to unload them. That’s why they pressured Microsoft into putting “Vista Capable” stickers on PCs with 915 chipsets, even though those PCs couldn’t run Aero or other parts of Vista.

The latest filings are part of a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for a marketing scheme in which people claim that Microsoft misled consumers into buying “Windows Vista Capable” PCs, even though the PCs couldn’t run the most important features of Vista.

The dirt comes out and it smells worse than many thought it would.

Read the details. If you’re supporting Windows, this costs you money and time.