$1,200,000,000,000 cover up

The Federal Reserved reached into public funds — about $1.2 trillion — to help bail out banks during the 2008 financial crisis, a new report reveals.

The Federal Reserve has refrained from disclosing info on the loans, which began in August 2007, and as one economics professor told Bloomberg, “was supposed to be secret and never revealed.” The Fed argued in court for two years that revealing the names and terms of borrowers and their loans would damage stocks, and some of the biggest banks involved asked the US Supreme Court last year to withhold some of the information. The Fed attested that revealing the secretive loans to the public, or even being disclosed to the Government Accountability Office, would expose the weakness of the American economy. Nonetheless, their appeal was declined and data released, at nearly 30,000 pages, shows 21,000 transactions occurring over the course of three years.
Now, at least, the world knows that long-standing secret that the economy was in trouble.
“These are all whopping numbers,” Robert Litan, a former Justice Department official, tells Bloomberg. “You’re talking about the aristocracy of American finance going down the tubes without the federal money"

source: Russia Today

Google's Libya revolution

Libya: How 'Green Square' Got Renamed 'Martyrs' Square' on Google Maps So Quickly: Courtesy Techland

"So how could such a change have occurred so quickly? Some bleary-eyed Google engineer up at all hours with his finger on the button?!!!
Not really.
Regular people have been able to edit Google Maps for a while now, so it's very possible that someone updated the map with the new (old) name and—boom—hello, Martyrs' Square."

Friends and Lovers-Incubus

The promise of a liberated Libya

From the UK Independent: "Gaddafi called us rats, but he is the one hiding in a hole" shouted Osama Mohammed Sattar, a leader of the Shabab youth volunteers, letting off a volley of shots from his Kalashnikov. "We shall hang all of them together when we catch him." But capital punishment has been abolished in Libya, I pointed out. "There are men's laws and God's law," came the answer with grim relish."

Time to press manage this victory methinks into something mandelaesque

Is violence driving America crazy?

An interesting article by Naomi Wolf titled, "Is Pornography Driving Men Crazy?" examines Pornography and the way in which it affects both natural sexual appetites, and mimics other addictions such as drugs and alcohol.

She asks, "Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses?"

Substitute pornography for violence, and men/male for American society and this very interesting article unlocks a deeper, and even more chilling truth.

More opinion about UK riots.

From the UK Guardian: UK riots were product of consumerism and will hit economy, says City broker. Analyst's report points to 'deeply flawed social ethos' and calls for a shift of emphasis 'from material to non-material values'

Deeply flawed social ethos is spot on, but shift from material to non-material values? In the UK? Good luck with that buddy.

Stephen M Walt on Libyan "victory", American decline.

Libya "mission accomplished"? Timely analysis from one of my favourite bloggers and academics Stephen M Walt of Harvard, and Foreign Policy mag. Also Scott Horton of AntiWar.com interviews Stephen Walt on his earlier FP article about the pinnacle and decline of the US empire.