Governments constrict, restrict, compel, commandeer, conscript and corrupt their citizens as 'the price of freedom'. The medical industry extorts, experiments and tortures patients, expecting from them not only crippling and sometimes impossible fees, but thanks and reverence. BANKS supposedly exist primarily to hold safe the money and valuables of those who use them, taking in exchange a chance to use this massed lucre to play it prudently in low-risk, high-earning ventures, sharing profits with those whose money they hold. But now they hold YOUR money hostage, gamble wildly with it, and make you pay ruthless ransom to release any of it back to you -and take the taxes you paid for the ostensible services of your government (even if they are foreign or super-national) to 'save' them as of unquestionably, untouchably vital to the world.
Click here: Clinton Townsend's ATM Fee Fix: Watch Ads Instead Of Paying Charge
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
B of A: Family Wrongly Booted From Home Returns To Wreckage
Click here: Family Wrongly Booted From Home Returns To Wreckage
AOL Real Estate By Teke Wiggin Posted Dec 1st 2011 10:20AM ~~~Click on above to access other links within article.
Amid the avalanche of foreclosure proceedings unleashed by the housing crisis, thousands of families may have been illegally booted from their homes.
The story of the King family, recently reported by WLUK FOX 11, offers a nightmare scenario of the hardship a family may be forced to endure because of such practices.
The Kings returned this fall to their old home in the town of Clayton, Wis., to find it in utter ruin: The basement was flooded in eight feet of water, the walls covered with mold and the kitchen littered with mouse droppings.
Their ill-fated home had sat unoccupied for more than a year, after the family succumbed to pressure from Bank of America, who notified them that their home would be subject to foreclosure because they had missed a mortgage payment. The Kings, who have eight children, knew that they had actually made their payments but gave in to the bank in order to shelter their children from the rocky proceedings.
"We didn't want to further traumatize our children by having a sheriff show up," Christina King told WLUK.
Originally, in 2009, the family had applied for the Home Affordable Modification Program, an initiative launched by the Obama administration that allows qualified borrowers to receive interest rate reductions on their mortgages. The program, which was recently modified so that it could reach more beleaguered homeowners, would have provided significant relief to the Kings by reducing their rate from 10 percent to 4 percent.
But after a year of cooperating with the bank under the terms of the program, the Kings were informed that they had missed a payment during the program's trial period. Then a steady tide of foreclosure notices arrived, prompting the family to move into a rental property.
Fast forward by about a year, to when the family receives a notice from Bank of America.
"In a previous letter to you, we told you that ... you missed a Trial Period Plan Payment. However, this was incorrect," it reads, according to WLUK. The letter also reportedly informs the family that their mortgage actually was approved for HARP.
The Kings return home, perhaps thinking that their long streak of misfortune may finally have come to an end. Not so. They find a house that has fallen into such disrepair that a contractor estimates that the cost of fixing it exceeds its value.
"It's really awful, it's really awful what was done to us," King told WLUK.
Unfortunately, the story of the Kings is only one of many examples of families who have suffered unjustly at the hands of mortgage lenders.
The practice of "robosigning," which refers to a range of foreclosure paperwork abuses, has launched various probes around the country, including an investigation led by a broad coalition of state attorneys general which reportedly could end up costing banks upward of $20 billion in a settlement. Setting a precedent, Nevada recently filed criminal charges for robosigning by indicting two staffers at a mortgage company for directing employees to falsely notarize foreclosure documents and forge signatures.
And these proceedings have had a very real impact on homeowners. One homeowner in Pittsburgh had her home -- and her parrot -- mistakenly seized by Bank of America, while another family in Houston faced foreclosure simply because their property title wasn't properly transferred.
Victims of Robo-Signing: Fight the Machine!
Foreclosure Mill That Mocked Homeless Going Out of Business
Fed Cracks Down on Online Mortgage Scams As Probe Widens
AOL Real Estate By Teke Wiggin Posted Dec 1st 2011 10:20AM ~~~Click on above to access other links within article.
Amid the avalanche of foreclosure proceedings unleashed by the housing crisis, thousands of families may have been illegally booted from their homes.
The story of the King family, recently reported by WLUK FOX 11, offers a nightmare scenario of the hardship a family may be forced to endure because of such practices.
The Kings returned this fall to their old home in the town of Clayton, Wis., to find it in utter ruin: The basement was flooded in eight feet of water, the walls covered with mold and the kitchen littered with mouse droppings.
Their ill-fated home had sat unoccupied for more than a year, after the family succumbed to pressure from Bank of America, who notified them that their home would be subject to foreclosure because they had missed a mortgage payment. The Kings, who have eight children, knew that they had actually made their payments but gave in to the bank in order to shelter their children from the rocky proceedings.
"We didn't want to further traumatize our children by having a sheriff show up," Christina King told WLUK.
Originally, in 2009, the family had applied for the Home Affordable Modification Program, an initiative launched by the Obama administration that allows qualified borrowers to receive interest rate reductions on their mortgages. The program, which was recently modified so that it could reach more beleaguered homeowners, would have provided significant relief to the Kings by reducing their rate from 10 percent to 4 percent.
But after a year of cooperating with the bank under the terms of the program, the Kings were informed that they had missed a payment during the program's trial period. Then a steady tide of foreclosure notices arrived, prompting the family to move into a rental property.
Fast forward by about a year, to when the family receives a notice from Bank of America.
"In a previous letter to you, we told you that ... you missed a Trial Period Plan Payment. However, this was incorrect," it reads, according to WLUK. The letter also reportedly informs the family that their mortgage actually was approved for HARP.
The Kings return home, perhaps thinking that their long streak of misfortune may finally have come to an end. Not so. They find a house that has fallen into such disrepair that a contractor estimates that the cost of fixing it exceeds its value.
"It's really awful, it's really awful what was done to us," King told WLUK.
Unfortunately, the story of the Kings is only one of many examples of families who have suffered unjustly at the hands of mortgage lenders.
The practice of "robosigning," which refers to a range of foreclosure paperwork abuses, has launched various probes around the country, including an investigation led by a broad coalition of state attorneys general which reportedly could end up costing banks upward of $20 billion in a settlement. Setting a precedent, Nevada recently filed criminal charges for robosigning by indicting two staffers at a mortgage company for directing employees to falsely notarize foreclosure documents and forge signatures.
And these proceedings have had a very real impact on homeowners. One homeowner in Pittsburgh had her home -- and her parrot -- mistakenly seized by Bank of America, while another family in Houston faced foreclosure simply because their property title wasn't properly transferred.
Victims of Robo-Signing: Fight the Machine!
Foreclosure Mill That Mocked Homeless Going Out of Business
Fed Cracks Down on Online Mortgage Scams As Probe Widens
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Another DRAGGED BY ONE'S OWN SEATBELT Death
Click here: North Carolina Teen Charged In Student's Dragging Death
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. -- A 16-year-old high school student in North Carolina is being charged with murder in the dragging death of another teenager.
Elizabeth City deputies say the student assaulted James Edward Holley Jr., pushed him out of a car and then drove away with the 17-year-old Holley hanging on the outside of the car by a seat belt. The car eventually crashed into a ditch.
Sheriff Randy Cartwright says deputies received a call just before 5 p.m. Sunday about a traffic accident southwest of Elizabeth City, which is in the northeast part of the state.
*****************
Horrible but familiar. These stories of carjacked people being pulled out of their vehicles while still entangled in their seat belts by barbarous robbers, who then take the driver's seat and peel out on a mad careen, mangling their victims, have been around a long time. Ever since they came out with seatbelt laws - & kids' car seats, air bags, etc. - (and yes, I am obedient), I've wondered if anyone was keeping track of the stats in which people came to grief because they were trammeled by these 'protective restraints'.
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. -- A 16-year-old high school student in North Carolina is being charged with murder in the dragging death of another teenager.
Elizabeth City deputies say the student assaulted James Edward Holley Jr., pushed him out of a car and then drove away with the 17-year-old Holley hanging on the outside of the car by a seat belt. The car eventually crashed into a ditch.
Sheriff Randy Cartwright says deputies received a call just before 5 p.m. Sunday about a traffic accident southwest of Elizabeth City, which is in the northeast part of the state.
*****************
Horrible but familiar. These stories of carjacked people being pulled out of their vehicles while still entangled in their seat belts by barbarous robbers, who then take the driver's seat and peel out on a mad careen, mangling their victims, have been around a long time. Ever since they came out with seatbelt laws - & kids' car seats, air bags, etc. - (and yes, I am obedient), I've wondered if anyone was keeping track of the stats in which people came to grief because they were trammeled by these 'protective restraints'.
Police Brutality Atrocities on the March
Baby dies, but story has twin with the absolute hosing of absolutely docile, sitting-in-by-Constitutional-rights protesters at U.C. Davis with pepper spray.
Have you ever seen pepper spray used on Dog, the Bounty Hunter? The Dog Team only use it in ultra-dangerous situations, and reluctantly, then, partly because the awful stuff mists about in actual necessary hands-on apprehension of violent fugitives. It's hard for those tough guys (who hav such decency that they usually water-douse the 'skip's' eyes before their own) to bear even second hand capsicum vapor.
Keeping that in mind, the U.C. Davis toxic hosing is at least every bit as vicious and painful as the brutalities inflicted on 60s civil rights protestors. I've been bruised, dog-bit and water-blasted. Burning is worse. And pepper spray burning is a minor sting compared to tazering, and major volt-injury can mess you up very cruelly in a host of ways for the rest of your life.
Click here: Pregnant Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed
The Raw Story
By David Edwards Tuesday, November 22, 2011
A woman who was pepper sprayed during during a raid on Occupy Seattle last week is blaming police after she miscarried Sunday.
Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park. She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday.
“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’”
She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her. It wasn’t clear if either of those incidents were intentional.
“Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” Fox said.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer Joshua Trujillo snapped a picture of Fox in apparent agony as another activist carried her to an ambulance.
Seattle fire department spokesman Kyle Moore told The Washington Post that a 19-year-old pregnant woman was among those that were examined by paramedics.
While doctors at Harborview Medical Center didn’t see any problems at the time, things took a turn for the worst Sunday.
“Everything was going okay until yesterday, when I started getting sick, cramps started, and I felt like I was going to pass out,” she explained.
When Fox arrived at the hospital, doctors told her that the baby had no heartbeat.
“They diagnosed that I was having a miscarriage. They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too,” she said.
“I was worried about it [when I joined the protests], but I didn’t know it would be this bad. I didn’t know that a cop would murder a baby that’s not born yet… I am trying to get lawyers.”
The Scoville heat chart indicates that U.S. grade pepper spray is ten times more painful than the blistering hot habanero pepper, according to Scientific American. While law enforcement officials regularly claim that the spray is safe, researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University found that it could “produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”
and~
Fox News host Megyn Kelly calls pepper spray ‘a food product’
'Better than ketchup, keep kids warm without heating schools' is what I expect these hellions to say next!.
Have you ever seen pepper spray used on Dog, the Bounty Hunter? The Dog Team only use it in ultra-dangerous situations, and reluctantly, then, partly because the awful stuff mists about in actual necessary hands-on apprehension of violent fugitives. It's hard for those tough guys (who hav such decency that they usually water-douse the 'skip's' eyes before their own) to bear even second hand capsicum vapor.
Keeping that in mind, the U.C. Davis toxic hosing is at least every bit as vicious and painful as the brutalities inflicted on 60s civil rights protestors. I've been bruised, dog-bit and water-blasted. Burning is worse. And pepper spray burning is a minor sting compared to tazering, and major volt-injury can mess you up very cruelly in a host of ways for the rest of your life.
Click here: Pregnant Seattle protester miscarries after being kicked, pepper sprayed
The Raw Story
By David Edwards Tuesday, November 22, 2011
A woman who was pepper sprayed during during a raid on Occupy Seattle last week is blaming police after she miscarried Sunday.
Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park. She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday.
“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Fox recalled. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’”
She claimed that police hit her in the stomach twice before pepper spraying her. One officer struck her with his foot and another pushed his bicycle into her. It wasn’t clear if either of those incidents were intentional.
“Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” Fox said.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer Joshua Trujillo snapped a picture of Fox in apparent agony as another activist carried her to an ambulance.
Seattle fire department spokesman Kyle Moore told The Washington Post that a 19-year-old pregnant woman was among those that were examined by paramedics.
While doctors at Harborview Medical Center didn’t see any problems at the time, things took a turn for the worst Sunday.
“Everything was going okay until yesterday, when I started getting sick, cramps started, and I felt like I was going to pass out,” she explained.
When Fox arrived at the hospital, doctors told her that the baby had no heartbeat.
“They diagnosed that I was having a miscarriage. They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too,” she said.
“I was worried about it [when I joined the protests], but I didn’t know it would be this bad. I didn’t know that a cop would murder a baby that’s not born yet… I am trying to get lawyers.”
The Scoville heat chart indicates that U.S. grade pepper spray is ten times more painful than the blistering hot habanero pepper, according to Scientific American. While law enforcement officials regularly claim that the spray is safe, researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University found that it could “produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.”
and~
Fox News host Megyn Kelly calls pepper spray ‘a food product’
'Better than ketchup, keep kids warm without heating schools' is what I expect these hellions to say next!.
Repubs Un-Zombot for National Security Debate
Click here: Tonight’s CNN Debate Winner « The Thompsonian Times
I wrote:)
Tonight's show was rather a wow. Almost didn't watch it, since they all had become little more than set pieces of wind-up talking points dolls who would 'stay the course' by ignoring the questions given them to mindlessly repeat slams and slogans that would get rises out of the more Pavlovian Tea Party and neocon audience members.
What broke the brain-freeze ice, I wonder? Was it some eminence gris, a cabal of AEI and Heritage Foundation intellectuals; the Ghost of Nixon Past? They were THINKING and shining tonight! They had JUICE! They understood questions and answered them pretty darn intelligently - one has to admit, even when one disagreed with them.
Were the 12 unconstitutional archons of the soopadoopa Debt Committee exercising their little grey cells as well, or did they stick fingers in ears and butts in cement (as so many expected)?
There's some hope here, even for a Marcy Kapture / Michael Moore fan like me. The candidates sounded like AMERICANS (ADULT Americans, too -not a lot of that around anymore!) Real debating that could usefully feed the Discussion instead of bullying, insatiable attempts to bend the Narrative to zombot partisan dogma.
Goodness, how those 'behind' stepped up - and often over the frontrunners. Bachmann amazed me: From glazed-eyed Stepford queen to sharp as a tack on MidEast strategy (and more!). How did THAT happen?
I wrote:)
Tonight's show was rather a wow. Almost didn't watch it, since they all had become little more than set pieces of wind-up talking points dolls who would 'stay the course' by ignoring the questions given them to mindlessly repeat slams and slogans that would get rises out of the more Pavlovian Tea Party and neocon audience members.
What broke the brain-freeze ice, I wonder? Was it some eminence gris, a cabal of AEI and Heritage Foundation intellectuals; the Ghost of Nixon Past? They were THINKING and shining tonight! They had JUICE! They understood questions and answered them pretty darn intelligently - one has to admit, even when one disagreed with them.
Were the 12 unconstitutional archons of the soopadoopa Debt Committee exercising their little grey cells as well, or did they stick fingers in ears and butts in cement (as so many expected)?
There's some hope here, even for a Marcy Kapture / Michael Moore fan like me. The candidates sounded like AMERICANS (ADULT Americans, too -not a lot of that around anymore!) Real debating that could usefully feed the Discussion instead of bullying, insatiable attempts to bend the Narrative to zombot partisan dogma.
Goodness, how those 'behind' stepped up - and often over the frontrunners. Bachmann amazed me: From glazed-eyed Stepford queen to sharp as a tack on MidEast strategy (and more!). How did THAT happen?
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Domino Theory Resurrection
I wish our government would send a humanitarian mission to the San Gabriel Valley, the Monterey & Puente Hills, Cerritos, Glendale, etc. to free the army of Asian slaves... But that would be counterproductive to the grand progress made by the plutonomy for their model future: You just might have to free the wageless workers from the mesoamericanos living in Xe-guarded moving van trailers working without protection on Gulf Coast toxic cleanups, to kidnapped Ukrainian 'human traffic' harlots, to media hopefuls carrot-and-sticked to working free for 'exposure', to 'wrong' religion -&/or ethnicity African little kids drudging like Cinderellas-sans-fairy-godmothers for abusive rich arms-&-porn foreign traders.
Click here: Obama: China Must Play By The Rules
CANBERRA, Australia — Signaling a determination to counter a rising China, President Barack Obama vowed Thursday to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in that part of the world even as he reduces defense spending and winds down two wars.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.
Obama's bullish speech came several hours after announcing he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the U.S. is not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.
China immediately questioned the U.S. move and said it deserved further scrutiny.
Emphasizing that a U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region is a top priority of his administration, Obama stressed that any reductions in U.S. defense spending will not come at the expense of that goal.
"Let there be no doubt: in the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in," he said.
For Obama, Asia represents both a security challenge and an economic opportunity. Speaking in broad geopolitical terms, the president asserted: "With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress."
Virtually everything Obama is doing on his nine-day trip across the Asia-Pacific region has a Chinese subtext, underscoring a relationship that is at once cooperative and marked by tensions over currency, human rights and military might.
China's military spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year, and its military recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier. A congressional advisory panel on Wednesday urged the White House and Congress to look more closely at China's military expansion and pressed for a tougher stance against what it called anticompetitive Chinese trade policies.
The expanded basing agreement with Australia is just one of several initiatives Obama has taken that is likely to set Beijing on edge at a tricky time. The U.S. is China's second largest trading partner, and the economies are deeply intertwined. Chinese leaders don't want the economy disrupted when global growth is shaky and they are preparing to transfer power to a new leadership next year.
Over the weekend while playing host to Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Pacific rim leaders at a summit in Hawaii, Obama said the U.S. would join a new regional free trade group that so far has excluded China. That added an economic dimension to what some Chinese commentators have called a new U.S. containment policy that features reinvigorated defense ties with nations along China's perimeter, from traditional allies Japan and the Philippines to former enemy Vietnam, all of whom are anxious about growing Chinese power.
China was immediately leery of the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence in Australia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said there should be discussion as to whether the plan was in line with the common interests of the international community.
Responding to questions at a news conference Wednesday with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Obama sought to downplay tension between the world powers. "The notion that we fear China is mistaken," he said.
Obama avoided a confrontational tone with China in his speech to the Australian parliament, praising Beijing as a partner in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and preventing proliferation.
"We'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation," he said.
In a note of caution, however, he added: "We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly with Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese people."
With military bases and tens of thousands of troops in Japan and South Korea, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in Asia for decades. Australia lies about 5,500 miles south of China, and its northern shores would give the U.S. easier access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial route.
The plan outlined by Obama will allow the United States to keep a sustained force on Australian bases and position equipment and supplies there, giving the U.S. ability to train with allies in the region and respond more quickly to humanitarian or other crises. U.S. officials said the pact was not an attempt to create a permanent American military presence in Australia.
About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force of 2,500 military personnel staffing up over the next several years. The United States will bear the cost of the deployment and the troops will be shifted from other deployments around the world. Having ruled out military reductions in Asia and the Pacific, the Obama administration has three main areas where it could cut troop strength: Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
All U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year, and a drawdown in Afghanistan is underway. But the Pentagon has said recently that the U.S. will maintain a major presence in the greater Middle East as a hedge against Iranian aggression and influence. A more likely area for troop reductions is Europe, although no decisions have been announced.
The debate over defense budgets is just one aspect of a broader political fight over fixing the nation's debt problem during a presidential election season. Already, the Pentagon is facing $450 billion in cuts over ten years, as part of a budget deal approved last summer. And if a special congressional committee can't agree on $1.2 trillion in more long-term cuts or Congress rejects its plan, then cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in, with half coming from defense.
Australia's Gillard said, "We are a region that is growing economically. But stability is important for economic growth, too." She said that "our alliance has been a bedrock of stability in our region."
Obama's visit is intended to show the tightness of that relationship and he hailed the long ties between the United States and Australia, two nations far away that have spilled blood together
"From the trenches of the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan_Aussies and Americans have stood together, fought together and given their lives together in every single major conflict of the past hundred years. Every single one," he said.
Obama had a packed day-and-a-half in Australia, his first trip here as president after canceling two previous tries. After addressing Parliament, Obama was flying to the northern city of Darwin, where some of the Marines deploying to Australia next year will be based.
___
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Rod McGuirk in Canberra and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
Click here: Obama: China Must Play By The Rules
CANBERRA, Australia — Signaling a determination to counter a rising China, President Barack Obama vowed Thursday to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in that part of the world even as he reduces defense spending and winds down two wars.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.
Obama's bullish speech came several hours after announcing he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the U.S. is not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.
China immediately questioned the U.S. move and said it deserved further scrutiny.
Emphasizing that a U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region is a top priority of his administration, Obama stressed that any reductions in U.S. defense spending will not come at the expense of that goal.
"Let there be no doubt: in the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in," he said.
For Obama, Asia represents both a security challenge and an economic opportunity. Speaking in broad geopolitical terms, the president asserted: "With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human progress."
Virtually everything Obama is doing on his nine-day trip across the Asia-Pacific region has a Chinese subtext, underscoring a relationship that is at once cooperative and marked by tensions over currency, human rights and military might.
China's military spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year, and its military recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier. A congressional advisory panel on Wednesday urged the White House and Congress to look more closely at China's military expansion and pressed for a tougher stance against what it called anticompetitive Chinese trade policies.
The expanded basing agreement with Australia is just one of several initiatives Obama has taken that is likely to set Beijing on edge at a tricky time. The U.S. is China's second largest trading partner, and the economies are deeply intertwined. Chinese leaders don't want the economy disrupted when global growth is shaky and they are preparing to transfer power to a new leadership next year.
Over the weekend while playing host to Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Pacific rim leaders at a summit in Hawaii, Obama said the U.S. would join a new regional free trade group that so far has excluded China. That added an economic dimension to what some Chinese commentators have called a new U.S. containment policy that features reinvigorated defense ties with nations along China's perimeter, from traditional allies Japan and the Philippines to former enemy Vietnam, all of whom are anxious about growing Chinese power.
China was immediately leery of the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence in Australia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said there should be discussion as to whether the plan was in line with the common interests of the international community.
Responding to questions at a news conference Wednesday with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Obama sought to downplay tension between the world powers. "The notion that we fear China is mistaken," he said.
Obama avoided a confrontational tone with China in his speech to the Australian parliament, praising Beijing as a partner in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and preventing proliferation.
"We'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation," he said.
In a note of caution, however, he added: "We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly with Beijing about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese people."
With military bases and tens of thousands of troops in Japan and South Korea, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in Asia for decades. Australia lies about 5,500 miles south of China, and its northern shores would give the U.S. easier access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial route.
The plan outlined by Obama will allow the United States to keep a sustained force on Australian bases and position equipment and supplies there, giving the U.S. ability to train with allies in the region and respond more quickly to humanitarian or other crises. U.S. officials said the pact was not an attempt to create a permanent American military presence in Australia.
About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force of 2,500 military personnel staffing up over the next several years. The United States will bear the cost of the deployment and the troops will be shifted from other deployments around the world. Having ruled out military reductions in Asia and the Pacific, the Obama administration has three main areas where it could cut troop strength: Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
All U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year, and a drawdown in Afghanistan is underway. But the Pentagon has said recently that the U.S. will maintain a major presence in the greater Middle East as a hedge against Iranian aggression and influence. A more likely area for troop reductions is Europe, although no decisions have been announced.
The debate over defense budgets is just one aspect of a broader political fight over fixing the nation's debt problem during a presidential election season. Already, the Pentagon is facing $450 billion in cuts over ten years, as part of a budget deal approved last summer. And if a special congressional committee can't agree on $1.2 trillion in more long-term cuts or Congress rejects its plan, then cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in, with half coming from defense.
Australia's Gillard said, "We are a region that is growing economically. But stability is important for economic growth, too." She said that "our alliance has been a bedrock of stability in our region."
Obama's visit is intended to show the tightness of that relationship and he hailed the long ties between the United States and Australia, two nations far away that have spilled blood together
"From the trenches of the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan_Aussies and Americans have stood together, fought together and given their lives together in every single major conflict of the past hundred years. Every single one," he said.
Obama had a packed day-and-a-half in Australia, his first trip here as president after canceling two previous tries. After addressing Parliament, Obama was flying to the northern city of Darwin, where some of the Marines deploying to Australia next year will be based.
___
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Rod McGuirk in Canberra and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
Civilization Jettisoned: Libraries Junked, But...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/can-the-american-library-_n_1096484.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl20%7Csec1_lnk3%7C113415 < load to get other links.
By Lucas Kavner lucas.kavner@huffingtonpost.com
Library Budget Cuts Threaten Community Services Across Country
This is part of our new ongoing series, Libraries in Crisis. To read more about the series, click here.
At the Gilpin County Public Library in Colorado, which serves a community of less than 6,000 people, a sign on the roadside advertises "Free coffee, internet, notary, phone, smiles, restrooms and ideas" to all who enter.
Indeed, all libraries, with their familiar rows of bookshelves and busy, helpful librarians, have remained reliably stable, as ubiquitous in towns throughout the U.S as the local firehouse or the post office. But it is perhaps this familiarity that makes the American library as an institution more vulnerable than ever, and has many wondering: What is in store for its future?
These days, the library's very existence is a question mark, and they face some of the steepest budget cuts in history. According to a Harris/Reader's Digest Poll from late 2010, nearly 40 percent of American mayors plan to reduce hours, shed employees or make other cutbacks in the coming months, while many county libraries have already eliminated branches entirely.
The South Branch Library in Evanston, Illinois, had been open since 1917. One Evanston resident, Barbara Lewis, told Patch that she had originally moved to the neighborhood only so she could walk to her local library. It closed last February.
In Dearborn, Michigan, one of four library branches was forced to close in September; an administrative librarian there said he didn't really believe it would close until it was actually happening. In Fenton-High Ridge, Missouri, they've lost 33 percent of library staff to attrition over the past five years, and a "self-checkout" system was recently put into place to control costs.
"Our interest income has also deteriorated, and that used to give us a bit of a cushion," said Pam Klipsch, the director of Missouri's Jefferson County Library system, which includes the Fenton-High Ridge branches. "We've been very hard hit by this whole recession, and we've had to cut back and cut back and cut back, so when staff leave us now, they just don't get replaced."
In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently proposed a budget that would eliminate "268 currently vacant positions and lay off about 284 employees" from the library system. He was met by hundreds of protesters of all ages, including a group of fist-pumping pre-schoolers. The resulting "Save Chicago Public Libraries and Librarian Jobs" Facebook group now boasts over 2,000 members, but as of today the cuts are still looming.
In Detroit, public library officials, union members and commissioners have deadlocked in a battle over whether to close four of Detroit's 23 public library branches. Though Detroit's Public Library Commissioner, Russell Bellant, supports the closures, administrators and union officials are hanging on for dear life, hoping to save their libraries and the hundreds of jobs they stand to lose.
Though 91 percent of those surveyed for the same Harris Poll said that their local library "improves the quality of life" in their community, the institution remains under attack across the country and worldwide.
Who exactly is to blame, the communities or the libraries themselves? And what will be lost if the library fades into obsolescence?
A MODERN LIBRARY'S ROLE
Maureen Sullivan, president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library nonprofit in the world, said people don't realize how essential their local public library is until it's too late. When it comes to making budget decisions -- "Should we cut funds from the police department or the library?" -- local lawmakers are putting the library at the bottom of the totem poll, and state governments are not stepping in to save them.
"I hear people on a regular basis talking about how the library is the most trusted organization in the community and it being such a public good," Sullivan said. "But many people in our communities have simply taken the library for granted."
Marcia Warner, president of the Public Library Association, a division of the ALA, added that many citizens only start paying attention when libraries begin "cutting branches or cutting hours." Then suddenly they become aware of the problem.
"But it's too late then," Warner said.
Klipsch, the Jefferson County Library system director, thinks a lot of people are confused about how libraries are actually funded, and that's part of a larger issue. "We get people who think all the books are donated by publishers and all the staff are volunteers," she said, laughing a little at the idea. "They have no idea we have to buy books and pay staff, and that librarians don't just sit around all day and occasionally put books back on a shelf."
But the library is serving multiple roles, especially during hard times. For those who cannot afford to sit at a coffee shop and buy a "four-dollar latte" to use their computer on somebody else's Wi-Fi, Warner says, the library provides "the whole shebang": a quiet location to work in private, a staff member willing to answer in-depth questions (about everything from applying for unemployment benefits to where one might learn more about beekeeping), and a meeting place for the community, not to mention those free film and book rentals and an increasingly long list of e-book and digital reading options.
According to the most recent Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study (PLFTAS), libraries and librarians provide essential services that are found scarcely anywhere else, especially to citizens who are struggling economically. Seventy percent of libraries indicated that their Internet services increased in 2010, and 65 percent report that they provide the only source of free public access to computers in their community. Eighty-one percent of Americans who have been "economically impacted" by the recession have a library card today, as supposed to 68 percent of Americans who have not been affected, according to a 2010 study from the Online Computer Library Center.
In Jefferson County, a new program eliminates overdue book fines in exchange for canned food donations. "We forgive the fines, and then provide cans to local food pantries," said library director Klipsch. "We have people who come in, they're literally living in their cars. We give them a safe place to park. It's going on three years and things are not getting any better."
Not only are libraries being used more than ever before, in more ways than ever, but modern librarians have also lengthened their reach, spanning the range of technological and social changes that have taken place in their field over the past ten years.
THE LIBRARIAN ADAPTS
Erin Schreiner, who recently received her Masters in Library Science from Long Island University, with a concentration in rare books and special collections, doesn't think the general public realizes what services are provided by their local libraries these days. She believes that if more people were aware of these services, they might visit their local library more often.
When a friend of Schreiner's was looking to research some of her long-lost Jewish relatives in Calcutta, she started the same way most of us would, with a simple Google search, but she came up empty. Schreiner suggested that her friend head to the New York Public library, home to one of the most expansive Judaica collections in the world. There, she could consult a specialist trained in genealogical queries.
"My friend was like, 'I could just go do that? It's free?'" Schreiner remembers. "People don't realize that their library is this incredible provider of specific information. We shouldn't have to remind them."
The modern librarian is a social networking guru as well as a research specialist. Like many of us, they've grown up with Google and Wikipedia and every blog and online journal in existence, so they know how to navigate the online world, while also providing the services the library has always offered.
"Certain [librarians] used to be able to sit in a room and catalogue books and never have to interact with the public," said Schreiner. "But now if you're working in a library, you're expected to collaborate and be a part of a living organism, to help real people. There's a lot of focus now on the personal side of librarianship and helping people in a more specialized way."
Marilyn Johnson, author of "This Book is Overdue!," wrote that the modern librarian is indeed technologically savvy but also respects a patron's privacy -- and that distinction is important. "A profession dedicated to privacy in charge of our public computers? That's brilliant," she wrote in the LA Times last year. "[Librarians] represent the best civic value out there, an army of resourceful workers that can help us compete in the world."
Still, no matter how successful libraries are at serving their current purpose, it doesn't seem to matter, and they remain at risk. The country's largest circulating library, in Queens, N.Y., was named the best system in the U.S. by Library Journal in 2009, Johnson pointed out, yet its budget was due to shrink by a third. Since most libraries receive the majority of their funding from local and state governments, they remain at the mercy of a struggling economy and are looking at many other options.
THE LASTING RAMIFICATIONS
What can libraries do?
Warner of the Public Library Association admitted that all local services are being threatened -- libraries aren't unique in that regard -- but library directors need to "toot their own horn" a bit more than they have been. She suggested that leaders step up in the community and let their voices be heard, embracing the library's essential role as a "community convener."
While most libraries are still funded locally, and others, like the Jefferson County Library system in Missouri, are levied by the voting public (if the value of appraised property goes up, the library "rolls back the levy" to compensate), Warner also recommends that libraries establish private foundations to offset budget cuts. ALA president-elect Sullivan points to these nonprofits as positive examples, and the ALA itself has received many generous donations from the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. A Rhode Island library received a $10,000 donation from Alec Baldwin after he read an article in the New York Times about its potential demise, and other volunteers have stepped in to keep libraries running.
Klipsch, director of the Jefferson County system, recently set up a private foundation so her branches could receive outside funding, but these things take time to initiate and get going, she said, and it could be a while before libraries reap the benefits of these funds.
"We're working on it, but in the meantime, we can't pretend that the cuts aren't affecting us. We have to be really up front, and we're trying to be. But everybody around here is hurting, so we need to take all the steps we can."
Indeed, libraries have the potential to be leaders at the forefront of this Age of Information, in addition to serving as community centers and book lenders and places where one can sit and spend a quiet afternoon. But without the necessary technological and staff-related improvements -- and the funds to implement them -- libraries, especially those in rural and suburban areas, will languish.
Can they survive this current economy, with so much -- and so many lawmakers -- against them?
"This country is where it is today because of our heritage -- and the library has had a whole range of cultural and educational effects," Sullivan said. But if funding continues to decrease, "we really have to think about what the lasting ramifications will be."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sez I: Totally and desperately on board with saving libraries -and BOOKS, too, but there's something huuuuuuuuuge that needs to be budget-cut: Totally wasteful, massively costly, unneeded 'makeovers' - like H&G Network's renovs, these are also usually less functional / user-friendly / safe, and are really UGLY. But the important thing for the politician-Cof C bunch (local, and, in Californicatia, by-the-rules-of-the-State-giving-back-revenues-they-commandeered-from-the-locals) is that they (1) get to give pain to the people (taxpayers) who actually use and work in and most need the libraries, and (b) make a big killin' in gimme-aggrandizement land by giving the job -and a place with them on the big bronze glory-be-to-we entry plaque - to their favorite crony contractors... So often foreigners employing foreigners, legal or (our business-friendly community will of course give you and all your relatives amnesty, and will never be so un-multicultural as to question if you might be a multigenrational debt-slave back in the Old Country, with your employer taking all you have and making you crib with other slaves in your 'job-creator's garage/basement/warehouse/whorehouse, etc.) otherwise. Amnestia! Your opportunity (and debt to us!) Work hard for us, become a citizen: If you promise to vote for us, you won't have to go back 'home' and eat rats and bamboo. Then your citizen kids can be just like ours, with no jobs available outside of crime and cannon fodder.
That's the way it is, now (and has been for decades): But those revenues could have been and could be used for genuine public and environmental services and improvements. Wotta concept!
By Lucas Kavner lucas.kavner@huffingtonpost.com
Library Budget Cuts Threaten Community Services Across Country
This is part of our new ongoing series, Libraries in Crisis. To read more about the series, click here.
At the Gilpin County Public Library in Colorado, which serves a community of less than 6,000 people, a sign on the roadside advertises "Free coffee, internet, notary, phone, smiles, restrooms and ideas" to all who enter.
Indeed, all libraries, with their familiar rows of bookshelves and busy, helpful librarians, have remained reliably stable, as ubiquitous in towns throughout the U.S as the local firehouse or the post office. But it is perhaps this familiarity that makes the American library as an institution more vulnerable than ever, and has many wondering: What is in store for its future?
These days, the library's very existence is a question mark, and they face some of the steepest budget cuts in history. According to a Harris/Reader's Digest Poll from late 2010, nearly 40 percent of American mayors plan to reduce hours, shed employees or make other cutbacks in the coming months, while many county libraries have already eliminated branches entirely.
The South Branch Library in Evanston, Illinois, had been open since 1917. One Evanston resident, Barbara Lewis, told Patch that she had originally moved to the neighborhood only so she could walk to her local library. It closed last February.
In Dearborn, Michigan, one of four library branches was forced to close in September; an administrative librarian there said he didn't really believe it would close until it was actually happening. In Fenton-High Ridge, Missouri, they've lost 33 percent of library staff to attrition over the past five years, and a "self-checkout" system was recently put into place to control costs.
"Our interest income has also deteriorated, and that used to give us a bit of a cushion," said Pam Klipsch, the director of Missouri's Jefferson County Library system, which includes the Fenton-High Ridge branches. "We've been very hard hit by this whole recession, and we've had to cut back and cut back and cut back, so when staff leave us now, they just don't get replaced."
In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently proposed a budget that would eliminate "268 currently vacant positions and lay off about 284 employees" from the library system. He was met by hundreds of protesters of all ages, including a group of fist-pumping pre-schoolers. The resulting "Save Chicago Public Libraries and Librarian Jobs" Facebook group now boasts over 2,000 members, but as of today the cuts are still looming.
In Detroit, public library officials, union members and commissioners have deadlocked in a battle over whether to close four of Detroit's 23 public library branches. Though Detroit's Public Library Commissioner, Russell Bellant, supports the closures, administrators and union officials are hanging on for dear life, hoping to save their libraries and the hundreds of jobs they stand to lose.
Though 91 percent of those surveyed for the same Harris Poll said that their local library "improves the quality of life" in their community, the institution remains under attack across the country and worldwide.
Who exactly is to blame, the communities or the libraries themselves? And what will be lost if the library fades into obsolescence?
A MODERN LIBRARY'S ROLE
Maureen Sullivan, president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library nonprofit in the world, said people don't realize how essential their local public library is until it's too late. When it comes to making budget decisions -- "Should we cut funds from the police department or the library?" -- local lawmakers are putting the library at the bottom of the totem poll, and state governments are not stepping in to save them.
"I hear people on a regular basis talking about how the library is the most trusted organization in the community and it being such a public good," Sullivan said. "But many people in our communities have simply taken the library for granted."
Marcia Warner, president of the Public Library Association, a division of the ALA, added that many citizens only start paying attention when libraries begin "cutting branches or cutting hours." Then suddenly they become aware of the problem.
"But it's too late then," Warner said.
Klipsch, the Jefferson County Library system director, thinks a lot of people are confused about how libraries are actually funded, and that's part of a larger issue. "We get people who think all the books are donated by publishers and all the staff are volunteers," she said, laughing a little at the idea. "They have no idea we have to buy books and pay staff, and that librarians don't just sit around all day and occasionally put books back on a shelf."
But the library is serving multiple roles, especially during hard times. For those who cannot afford to sit at a coffee shop and buy a "four-dollar latte" to use their computer on somebody else's Wi-Fi, Warner says, the library provides "the whole shebang": a quiet location to work in private, a staff member willing to answer in-depth questions (about everything from applying for unemployment benefits to where one might learn more about beekeeping), and a meeting place for the community, not to mention those free film and book rentals and an increasingly long list of e-book and digital reading options.
According to the most recent Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study (PLFTAS), libraries and librarians provide essential services that are found scarcely anywhere else, especially to citizens who are struggling economically. Seventy percent of libraries indicated that their Internet services increased in 2010, and 65 percent report that they provide the only source of free public access to computers in their community. Eighty-one percent of Americans who have been "economically impacted" by the recession have a library card today, as supposed to 68 percent of Americans who have not been affected, according to a 2010 study from the Online Computer Library Center.
In Jefferson County, a new program eliminates overdue book fines in exchange for canned food donations. "We forgive the fines, and then provide cans to local food pantries," said library director Klipsch. "We have people who come in, they're literally living in their cars. We give them a safe place to park. It's going on three years and things are not getting any better."
Not only are libraries being used more than ever before, in more ways than ever, but modern librarians have also lengthened their reach, spanning the range of technological and social changes that have taken place in their field over the past ten years.
THE LIBRARIAN ADAPTS
Erin Schreiner, who recently received her Masters in Library Science from Long Island University, with a concentration in rare books and special collections, doesn't think the general public realizes what services are provided by their local libraries these days. She believes that if more people were aware of these services, they might visit their local library more often.
When a friend of Schreiner's was looking to research some of her long-lost Jewish relatives in Calcutta, she started the same way most of us would, with a simple Google search, but she came up empty. Schreiner suggested that her friend head to the New York Public library, home to one of the most expansive Judaica collections in the world. There, she could consult a specialist trained in genealogical queries.
"My friend was like, 'I could just go do that? It's free?'" Schreiner remembers. "People don't realize that their library is this incredible provider of specific information. We shouldn't have to remind them."
The modern librarian is a social networking guru as well as a research specialist. Like many of us, they've grown up with Google and Wikipedia and every blog and online journal in existence, so they know how to navigate the online world, while also providing the services the library has always offered.
"Certain [librarians] used to be able to sit in a room and catalogue books and never have to interact with the public," said Schreiner. "But now if you're working in a library, you're expected to collaborate and be a part of a living organism, to help real people. There's a lot of focus now on the personal side of librarianship and helping people in a more specialized way."
Marilyn Johnson, author of "This Book is Overdue!," wrote that the modern librarian is indeed technologically savvy but also respects a patron's privacy -- and that distinction is important. "A profession dedicated to privacy in charge of our public computers? That's brilliant," she wrote in the LA Times last year. "[Librarians] represent the best civic value out there, an army of resourceful workers that can help us compete in the world."
Still, no matter how successful libraries are at serving their current purpose, it doesn't seem to matter, and they remain at risk. The country's largest circulating library, in Queens, N.Y., was named the best system in the U.S. by Library Journal in 2009, Johnson pointed out, yet its budget was due to shrink by a third. Since most libraries receive the majority of their funding from local and state governments, they remain at the mercy of a struggling economy and are looking at many other options.
THE LASTING RAMIFICATIONS
What can libraries do?
Warner of the Public Library Association admitted that all local services are being threatened -- libraries aren't unique in that regard -- but library directors need to "toot their own horn" a bit more than they have been. She suggested that leaders step up in the community and let their voices be heard, embracing the library's essential role as a "community convener."
While most libraries are still funded locally, and others, like the Jefferson County Library system in Missouri, are levied by the voting public (if the value of appraised property goes up, the library "rolls back the levy" to compensate), Warner also recommends that libraries establish private foundations to offset budget cuts. ALA president-elect Sullivan points to these nonprofits as positive examples, and the ALA itself has received many generous donations from the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. A Rhode Island library received a $10,000 donation from Alec Baldwin after he read an article in the New York Times about its potential demise, and other volunteers have stepped in to keep libraries running.
Klipsch, director of the Jefferson County system, recently set up a private foundation so her branches could receive outside funding, but these things take time to initiate and get going, she said, and it could be a while before libraries reap the benefits of these funds.
"We're working on it, but in the meantime, we can't pretend that the cuts aren't affecting us. We have to be really up front, and we're trying to be. But everybody around here is hurting, so we need to take all the steps we can."
Indeed, libraries have the potential to be leaders at the forefront of this Age of Information, in addition to serving as community centers and book lenders and places where one can sit and spend a quiet afternoon. But without the necessary technological and staff-related improvements -- and the funds to implement them -- libraries, especially those in rural and suburban areas, will languish.
Can they survive this current economy, with so much -- and so many lawmakers -- against them?
"This country is where it is today because of our heritage -- and the library has had a whole range of cultural and educational effects," Sullivan said. But if funding continues to decrease, "we really have to think about what the lasting ramifications will be."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sez I: Totally and desperately on board with saving libraries -and BOOKS, too, but there's something huuuuuuuuuge that needs to be budget-cut: Totally wasteful, massively costly, unneeded 'makeovers' - like H&G Network's renovs, these are also usually less functional / user-friendly / safe, and are really UGLY. But the important thing for the politician-Cof C bunch (local, and, in Californicatia, by-the-rules-of-the-State-giving-back-revenues-they-commandeered-from-the-locals) is that they (1) get to give pain to the people (taxpayers) who actually use and work in and most need the libraries, and (b) make a big killin' in gimme-aggrandizement land by giving the job -and a place with them on the big bronze glory-be-to-we entry plaque - to their favorite crony contractors... So often foreigners employing foreigners, legal or (our business-friendly community will of course give you and all your relatives amnesty, and will never be so un-multicultural as to question if you might be a multigenrational debt-slave back in the Old Country, with your employer taking all you have and making you crib with other slaves in your 'job-creator's garage/basement/warehouse/whorehouse, etc.) otherwise. Amnestia! Your opportunity (and debt to us!) Work hard for us, become a citizen: If you promise to vote for us, you won't have to go back 'home' and eat rats and bamboo. Then your citizen kids can be just like ours, with no jobs available outside of crime and cannon fodder.
That's the way it is, now (and has been for decades): But those revenues could have been and could be used for genuine public and environmental services and improvements. Wotta concept!
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