Raven-23 vs. a Nine-year-old Boy

Jeremy Scahill is on a mission to demonize the Blackwater corporation. He's got a book, and never misses an opportunity to portray them as murderous bunch of criminals.

So, you could question his objectivity.

But it's hard to see some of Blackwater's actions as anything less than demonic:

One of the Blackwater shooters was on top of an armored vehicle firing an automatic weapon, he says. "Every time he would finish his clip, he would throw it on the ground and would load another one in and would start shooting again, and finish the new one and replace it with another." One young Iraqi man got out of his car to run, and as he fled, the Blackwater shooter gunned him down and continued firing into his body as it lay on the pavement, Mohammed says. "He was on the ground bleeding, and they're shooting nonstop, and it wasn't single bullets."

The Blackwater shooter, he says, would fire at other Iraqis and cars and then return to pump more bullets into the dead man on the ground. "He sank in his own blood, and every minute the [Blackwater shooter] would shoot left and right and then go back to shoot the dead man, and I could see that his body would shake with every bullet. He was already dead, but his body was still reacting to the bullets. [The shooter] would fire at someone else and then go back to shoot at this dead man." Shaking his head slowly, Mohammed says somberly, "The guy is dead in a pool of blood. Why would you continue shooting him?"

That would be the Nisour square massacre, where a Blackwater unit called Raven-23 went all kinds of crazy on Iraqi commuters. It didn't make sense then - and it still doesn't.

The criminal case against the Blackwater operators has been dismissed, and all the victims families have accepted cash payments in exchange for waiving their legal claims against the mercenaries.

All but one.

A man named Mohammed Kinani, who used to be the father of four. His nine year old son, Ali was the youngest victim at Nisour square. Ali was shot in the head, in front of his entire family.

Nine f#ing years old.

Kinani was offered a deal:

"We want to give you $20,000," Mohammed recalls the Blackwater manager saying.

"I'm not taking a penny from you," Mohammed told him. "I want no money."

Mohammed asked for a blank piece of paper and a pen. "Look I have the paper and I can sign and waive all my [legal] rights. All my rights, I will sign away now, but under one condition: I want the owner of Blackwater to apologize to me publicly in America and say, 'We killed your son, and we're sorry.' That's all I want."

I cannot believe the odds are with this man - or that he will ever get even a breath of what he is asking for.

But I hope to God he gets it.

Read the whole article.

(H/t Steve Hynd)

You Are So Full of It

(Via Felix Salmon again)

Cracked has published a list of the 6 most statistically full of sh!t professions.

Here's just a sample:

#5. Wine Tasters

One thing we all can be sure about is that people that make their living writing about wine must be able to sniff out differences between wines much better than us plain ordinary folk.

Sure, Joe Consumer actually likes cheaper wines better, but that's because Joe Consumer is a stupid Philistine. The experts can tell the difference between a 2006 and 2007 Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon in their sleep because everyone knows 2006 was a pedestrian year for Napa Valley reds.

Hell, they are so good they can tell the difference between two bottles of the same wine. In one experiment, wine experts were given two bottles of the same wine, only one was labeled a "vin de table" (France's version of "Night Train") and one was labeled a "grand cru" (top-rated vineyard since 1855). Want to guess what happened?

According to the article: "Whereas the tasters found the wine from the first bottle 'simple,' 'unbalanced,' and 'weak,' they found the wine from the second 'complex,' 'balanced,' and 'full.'" Not only were their tasting skills put to shame, it didn't even occur to them that nobody buys a $40-plus bottle of wine for a university experiment.

Not only can professional wine tasters be convinced that the same bottle of wine was both award-winning and hobo juice, but they could even be convinced that the same bottle was both red and white with the cunning use of food coloring.

Hilarious. The other listings (while not completely discredited) richly deserve the beating they get.

I Pay You Nothing

(Via Felix Salmon)

I love this.

5th Pillar...has a unique initiative to mobilize citizens to fight corruption. In India, petty corruption is pervasive – people often face situations where they are asked to pay bribes for public services that should be provided free. 5th Pillar distributes zero rupee notes in the hopes that ordinary Indians can use these notes as a means to protest demands for bribes by public officials.

In other words, if an official asks you to pay a bribe - you give them this:

Brilliant!

Yet another novel way to fight corruption.

Emails From a Nut

If you've ever seen Letters From a Nut, you'll appreciate this email wind up of BlockBuster, courtesy of David Thorne.

It begins with a letter:

...and just gets better from there.

Safe, Expensive & Stupid

FRI's babatim has a new post about Jalalabad's current status as a "white," or dangerous, city.

babatim doesn't have a lot of faith in the idea of locking down a city - and even less in the reasons for why the city was locked down. Here's his awesome run down of why this was a bad idea:

So today Jalalabad was on lock down to the international community. Declared a “white city” by [the United Nations Department of Safety & Security] due to two factors; a report of “five female BBIED (Body Borne Improvised Explosive Device) bombers who are looking to strike important targets” and reporting by various international security agencies of “spectacular attacks,” while President Karzai is in London attending an international conference. There has never been a female suicide bomber in Afghanistan to the best of my knowledge and there is no historical correlation to President Karzai attending international meetings and “spectacular” attacks. The (smart) military intelligence analysts dismissed the female suicide bomber story out of hand – they had seen similar reporting weeks ago and found nothing to substantiate them.

The smaller reconstruction projects which The Bot and I consult for ignored the White City and carried on with our daily routine. International reconstruction specialists cost the taxpayers of America over $1000 per day, so locking them down for no reason is a very expensive mistake. The military knew the principal threat spooking the UN security people was bogus, but they don’t talk to each other much. Both the UN and the military are operating inside huge bureaucratic closed loops – neither organization has the capacity to get into the local environment to conduct real time assessments. Only the small fries in the reconstruction business: JICA, CADG, CHF, etc… pay attention to White Information because they have to in order to operate. The large bureaucracies react to bogus intel which flows around the closed, insulated loops – their analysts deal with emails not people. They have the money which allows them to spend day after day on “lockdown” due to “threat warnings” generated by people who lack local access and situational awareness.

The military is even worse – everyday several times a day they fly people between the Jalalabad PRT and the army base at the Jalalabad airport. That is a trip of no more than 400 meters. You could walk it in 15 minutes – you could run shuttle buses between the camps all day every day for maybe 50 dollars a day. Do you know how much it costs for one flight hour in a military helicopter? Does the military honestly believe that the 200 meters of route one separating their bases is so dangerous that it warrants flying helicopters between them? Of course not – but flying in helicopters is easier than running four vehicle MRAP convoys and every time a soldier drives outside the front gate of a base he has to be in a four vehicle convoy with at least 16 riflemen. Who the hell can afford to spend money this way? Helicopter crashes in Afghanistan routinely kill two to three times more military members than the Taliban has ever been able to kill even when they mass their best fighters against isolated positions held by only a handful of Americans. Why is flying in a helicopter safer than a 15 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride? In large bureaucracies cost efficiency and common sense are not part of the operational paradigm.

Murder is Murder

...and thankfully, the law doesn't recognize a political exception.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

WICHITA, Kan. - The judge in the trial of a man accused of murdering an abortion doctor dealt the defense a severe setback yesterday, ruling that the jury cannot consider a lesser charge of manslaughter.

The ruling came hours after Scott Roeder took the stand in his defense and admitted killing Dr. George Tiller, saying he acted to save the lives of unborn children.

...

Roeder testified that he considered elaborate schemes to stop the doctor, including chopping off his hands, crashing a car into him, or sneaking into his home to kill him.

But in the end, Roeder told jurors, the easiest way was to walk into Tiller's church, put a gun to the man's forehead, and pull the trigger.

Roeder calmly repeated his public admission of months ago - that he killed Tiller to save unborn children.

...

After Roeder's testimony, District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled that the jury would not be permitted to consider the manslaughter charge because abortion, including late-term abortion, is legal in Kansas and because Tiller did not pose an imminent threat.

"There is no immediate danger in the back of a church," the judge said. He also ruled out a second-degree murder conviction, which does not involve premeditation, because it was clear Roeder planned the killing.

Late edit: Guilty on all counts. Damn right.

The Vampire Squid Connection

(Via CJR's Ryan Chittum)

Oh, this is too precious. Gawker's John Cook proves you can't say Goldman Sachs doesn't take care of their own:

Wall Street is cutting back on cash bonuses, which means paper-rich banksters are forced to choose between preschool tuition and new wine cellars until their restricted shares mature. Goldman Sachs is lending a hand by offering mortgages to its staff.

According to the Journal, Goldman Sachs has let "a small number of employees" take out loans, but the bank claims that they carry normal interest rates and must be paid back. We took a look at New York City property records to see if, like Condé Nast, Goldman ever sweetens its compensation packages with no-hassle mortgages for employees. The answer is yes, for a few people at least. And from what we can tell, it seems that Goldman began the practice right around the time the economy began collapsing and nobody in the world could get a mortgage.

The home run element of this story was their turning up mortgage papers for one Rodney O. Martin. Goldman provided a sweetheart mortgage on a $4 million dollar Central Park apartment - at 4.8% (sweet!). Goldman's chief credit officer executed the mortgage.

That's kinda special treatment, but then Rodney's a special guy:

He's the COO of AIG's life insurance unit.

Zing!

Kick Them When They're Down - Then Run Them Over

If you've recovered from learning about banks making loan mods that increase homeowner debt, here's more proof that banks are unaffected by inhibiting factors like decency - or shame:

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- When John King stopped making payments on his home in Coral Gables, Florida, two years ago, he assumed the foreclosure ended his mortgage contract, he said. Last month, a Miami-Dade County court gave collectors permission to pursue him for $44,000 stemming from the default.

King is among a rising number of borrowers who are learning that they can be on the hook for years after losing their homes. Amid a crisis that stripped $6.4 trillion, or 28 percent, from the value of U.S. residential real estate since the 2006 peak, lenders are exercising their rights to pursue unpaid mortgage balances. To get their money, they can seize wages, tap bank accounts and put liens on other assets held by debtors.

So people who have been foreclosed on, are being pursued for back payments by the banks. You're average homeowner is going to think the bank taking the house closes the deal -but it doesn't have to. The banks aren't using new law - but their use of them now stems from the changed economic landscape. Used to be, a bank could expect to sell the foreclosed house for more money than the original loan. With more homes underwater - banks are dusting off the brass knuckles to get every last dime they can.

That's not the worst of it:

It’s not just foreclosures that can trigger debt collections. Short sales also may lead to deficiency judgments years after former homeowners have moved on, according to Hillard, the attorney in Largo. In a short sale, lenders agree to let borrowers sell a home for less than the mortgage balance.

“Banks are being very careful to preserve their rights, either outright in the short sale agreement or by using vague language that leaves that door open,” Hillard said. About 90 percent of people who do a short sale think they are “off the hook.”

That was the case when two of his clients, Brigitte and John Howard, sold their home in New Port Richey, Florida, almost two years ago without using a lawyer to check the bank’s short- sale agreement.

“We got a call out of the blue saying we owed $20,000,” said Brigitte Howard, 45. “It was a shock. There was no mention in the short-sale contract that the bank might come after us for the difference.”

This, from an industry that is blowing their budget on payroll. Nice.

(H/t CJR, natch)

Yes, Your Loan Has Been Modified, But...

...not in the way you might have wanted.

Here's Mike Konczal of Rortybomb describing something I can scarcely believe.

You'll recall that foreclosures in the country are up. That a staggering number of American homeowners are underwater in their loans. There's this idea that banks are being pressured/incentivized/begged to modify loans so that foreclosures are reduced. Banks keep getting paid, homeowners stay in their homes - this is something that is, arguably a good goal.

You'll also recall that attempts to make banks actually modify loans have been less than successful. Pres. Obama's target of millions of homeowwners has yet to affect even one hundred thousand.

But here's the kicker: Most of the loan modifications are actually increasing the total amount owed to the banks.

Here's Konczal:

I’ve seen a lot of bad things during this financial crisis, but this is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen so far. At a time when one out of four homeowners are underwater, banks are using a mortgage modification program to pile on more debt on these loans. They do this even when it’s well known the correlation between the level of being underwater and default.

How? From the report: “Servicers routinely capitalize delinquent interest, corporate advances, escrow advances and attorney fees and other foreclosure-related fees and expenses into the loan balance when completing a loan modification.” So fees allow them to make it look like they are doing their clients a favor, while all they are really doing is running them in a big circle.

...

These are [homeowners] who, instead of walking away from their responsibilities, are burning time, money and energy to credible signal to the bank: “I’m in over my head with this mortgage but I want to do right by it because it’s an obligation I made to you. Instead of simply walking away or trying to short sell, is there any way we can work this out so I can still pay you whatever I can? I gave you my word and that means something to me.” And the bank uses their signal that they want to do the right thing to fuck these borrowers the hardest, piling on as much debt as possible on these guys as they can get away with. The borrowers are trying to come up from the pool to get a breath of air, and the bank grabs them by the head and pushes them as far underwater as they can get them. And we are subsidizing this.

(H/t Felix Salmon)

Oh...You Mean THIS Schedule A!

(Via CJR)

Remember the AIG backdoor bailout?

This would be the bailout where AIG promised to pay a bunch of banks billions if their investments tanked.
Then the investments tanked, hard, and AIG didn't have the money.
So the Fed stepped into save AIG, which in turn saved a bunch of banks - with the public attention focused on bad, bad, AIG.

Over and above the billions in direct and indirect cash payments to AIG and the banks - they benefitted by having the Fed's newly created entity, Maiden Lane III solve all their problems.

Maiden Lane bought the bank's crap CDOs, so the banks were off the hook.
And the now all-but-nationalized AIG held IOUs for bad investments held by the Fed's Maiden Lane III.
AIG then cancelled the IOUs (the credit default swaps) and now it was off the hook.

All the crap CDOs were now on the Fed's hook.

Everybody was happy, even taxpayers, since they weren't allowed to know the details of the deal.

Until now.

AIG's formerly secret Schedule A has been released - and it shows a few interesting facts:

• AIG was selling credit default swaps after 2005.
• Goldman and Societe General got most of the swaps, and therefore the lion's share of the money funneled through AIG. (More of a confirmation rather than a revelation)
• The securities involved were not A rated (average rating of a high C), yet the Fed accepted them as collateral on loans. As Zero hedge puts it 'Bernanke will allow any toxic crap to be eligible collateral, likely at par'

Wiser heads are still pouring through the document - so perhaps more will be revealed.

Reuters has a great quote from a derivatives consultant: “If all of this had come out in the public domain in late 2008, Goldman Sachs and Merrill would have been deeply embarassed and the Federal Reserve wou[ld] have been questioned."

Lawful Stupid

(Via Above The Law)

This just in - the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that prisoners can be barred from playing role playing games while in prison.

For security reasons. Because role-playing-games promote an alternate hierarchy that competes with the established order of the prison. They (and I'm quoting here) 'mimic the organization of gangs' in that they have a Dungeon Master in a leadership position.

I about fell off my chair laughing when I read that. But I thought, no- that cannot be their position. There's some legal nuance that does not translate well. So I read the decision (Singer v Raemisch, No. 07-3400 PDF)-

-and that's really what they are saying:

The sole evidence the prison officials have submitted on this point is the affidavit of Captain Muraski, the gang specialist. Muraski testified that Waupun’s prohibition on role-playing and fantasy games was intended to serve two purposes.

The first aim Muraski cited was the maintenance of prison security. He explained that the policy was intended to promote prison security because co-operative games can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to the actual development thereof.

Muraski elaborated that during D&D games, one player is denoted the “Dungeon Master.” The Dungeon Master is tasked with giving directions to other players, which Muraski testified mimics the organization of a gang. At bottom, his testimony about this policy aim highlighted Waupun’s worries about cooperative activity among inmates, particularly that carried out in an organized, hierarchical fashion. Muraski’s second asserted governmental interest in the D&D ban was inmate rehabilitation.

He testified that D&D can “foster an inmate’s obsession with escaping from the real life, correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior,” which in turn “can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming but also endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution."

Speaking as an experience game master, allow me to respond:

Captain Muraski, you may know a lot about prison security - but when it comes to D&D - you have a lot to learn. The DM, or GM doesn't give directions - they provide a setting and enforce the rules. There may be legitimate reasons you might want to prevent inmates from gathering (or prevent particular inmates from gathering) in a social setting - but those reasons are pastime neutral. The idea that D&D somehow adds a new element of risk to inmate behavior is just comical.

Grown men sitting around a table rolling dice and telling stories... ye gods.

Elie Mystal nails it. This isn't about D&D at all...

...this is about...punishment. It’s not about rehabilitation, it’s not about security, it’s about old-school vengeance carried out by state actors. He killed somebody, and we as a society found something else he liked that we can take away. So we’re going to take it away. It’s Christopher Lloyd ...telling Kirk he won’t beam up Spock “because you wish it.”

So, to all of those reading this who participated in one of my games, I must apologize for my lackadaisical leadership over this past decade. I will now re-assert my natural rights and powers invested in me as your gang leader. In turn, I will forgive your lackluster performance as my willing minions over this same period. The past is the past.

Without further ado... ahem....

     *cue melodramatic music*

Go now! Rise up and cast aside those who cling to the establishment! Arise in fire and earthquake! Lay waste to the land, slay all who oppose you! This... your GM commands!!!!

     *sound of a needle scratching a record*

Aw, hey....c'mon now... do us a favor....just a little uprising? Old times..?

     *sounds of malevolent hand gestures*

Don't be like that... I just... How about spotting me some pizza money?-No? How about saying you would...?

     *door slamming*

Nah, it's cool... I... I'm...ah... still full from lunch anyway.

iPads for $499

Like I needed to see that...

Cripes.

(My inner UI-guy wonders how the touchpad typing compares to the real thing. People are used to schlock with those tiny pads - but give them a full size keyboard and they'll make the obvious comparison.)

Still - the price point is impressive. The $1000 estimates going around in the press miss the obvious goal of getting more than one device in a single household.

Add to that: month to month pricing from AT&T for data transfer. Anything close to consumer freedom when your dealing with a Telco is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

(H/t endgadget)

A.I.G. Deal = (NY Fed + S.E.C) - Transparency

(Via CJR and Barry)

The AP is reporting that while filing the paperwork for the A.I.G. bailout, the NY Fed asked the S.E.C. to keep the documents secret.

The S.E.C., in its role as defender of the people's market, tried to accomodate the request - and buried the AIG paperwork.

Then journalists started filing Freedom of Information Act requests. Here's CJR's Ryan Chittum:

...the Geithner New York Fed reacted to a FOIA not by releasing the information, but by making more information secret—in order to prevent other meddlesome reporters (or lawyers) from filing FOIAs!

Nice. Yet another reason to believe that the Fed should be entrusted with regulatory powers to protect consumers.

Wide Open

The NYT has a jaw dropping article about fatal mistakes in radiation treatment.

Mr. Jerome-Parks died...in 2007. He was 43.

A New York City hospital treating him for tongue cancer had failed to detect a computer error that directed a linear accelerator to blast his brain stem and neck with errant beams of radiation. Not once, but on three consecutive days.

The accompanying graphics do a first rate job of laying out the situation and resulting mistakes.

I won't even try to summarize - it's worth a read.

Crayola's Law

Okay, this is one of the more amusing proofs that pictures speak louder than words.

The number of Crayola crayon colors doubles every 28 years:

(H/t Marginal Revolution)

Tyson vs. UFOs

Great video showing Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson answering (off the cuff) the question "Do you believe in UFOs?"



I especially like his comments about what to do if you are abducted by aliens.

(H/t Good Experience)

Earthquake? Yeah, There's an App For That

(Via Wired's Gadget Blog)

You can't buy press this good:

Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive

After being crushed by a pile of rubble, Woolley used his digital SLR [camera] to illuminate his surroundings and snap photos of the wreckage in search of a safe place to dwell. He took refuge in an elevator shaft, where he followed instructions from an iPhone first-aid app to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound,

The app even warned Woolley not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cellphone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes. Sixty-five hours later, a French rescue team saved him.

And You Didn't Like His Hair?

John Edwards just keeps on imploding, long after we're all tired of knowing he was running for president. So, not only was he lying when he said hadn't fathered a love-child during an extramarital affair - he's only coming out to admit it because a former staffer, Andrew Young is about to release a book that would expose his lie.

Mr. Young would be the married father of three who Edwards somehow convinced to pretend that he, not Edwards, fathered the child in question.

Like they say - the politician is always willing to admit any sin at which have been caught red handed.

I remember thinking an Obama/Edwards ticket would have been a good one.

What a douchebag.

What a Difference 0.3% Makes

"It wasn't 100%, it was only 99.7%"

That's the New York Fed trying to minimize the revelation that (contrary to its earlier statements) it did not have to pay foreign banks 100% of their investments.

As in:

Bloomberg: You paid French banks 100% of the value of their investments when you bailed them out with our money. Why did you do this?

NY Fed: Because French banks were barred by French law from accepting less.

Bloomberg: No they weren't. In fact one of them, Societe Generale, accepted a 30% settlement on a separate deal with Ambac in the same month you bailed out SG's trades at 100%.

NY Fed: Well, our bailout only paid the French banks 99.7%

Bloomberg: That's less than 100% and it directly contradicts your previous statement.

NY Fed: Well... shut up.

Bravo Bloomberg! Nail these idiots to the wall. I hope Geithner gets eviscerated on the hill.

(Via CJR)

Oh Sh!t

Corporations are not people - and are not invested with rights.

But they have something better: money. Corporate money can buy rights.
And it just did.

The Supremes have decided that restricting corporate financed issue ads bribery is unconstitutional.

That sound you hear? It's the sound of corporate cash flooding into Washington.