U.S. Dollar Could Break Down to Test All Time Low
March 22nd, 2011WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
My guess is that the failure of this giant bearish triangle is going to result in the breakdown of the support at 74.170. If 74.170 gets taken out, there’s a good chance that it will make a try for the all time low of 70.792 set back in 2008.
U.S. Dollar Index, Monthly Interval
Outside It’s America
March 22nd, 2011Woman Killed by Monster Truck at Dallas Strip Club
38 Percent of Americans Fail U.S. Citizenship Test
Fed Must Release Loan Data as High Court Rejects Appeal
March 21st, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
The Federal Reserve will disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view.
The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by Bloomberg News’s parent company, Bloomberg LP. The Clearing House Association LLC, a group of the nation’s largest commercial banks, had asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“The board will fully comply with the court’s decision and is preparing to make the information available,” said David Skidmore, a spokesman for the Fed.
Home Sales Dive, Prices Near 9-Year Low
March 21st, 2011Via: Reuters:
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes plunged in February and prices hit their lowest level in nearly nine years, implying a housing market recovery was still a long way off.
The National Association of Realtors said on Monday sales fell 9.6 percent month over month to an annual rate of 4.88 million units, snapping three straight months of gains. The percentage decline was the largest since July.
Japan: Monitoring Radiation Levels
March 21st, 2011A reader asked if I had any suggestions for monitoring radiation levels in Japan. I have no idea how accurate any of this is, but here are the sites I’ve been watching:
http://www.stubbytour.com/nuc/index_en.asp
Tokyo only: http://park30.wakwak.com/~weather/geiger_index.html (mirror)
Obama Creates Indefinite Detention System for Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
March 21st, 2011From March 8.
Via: Washington Post:
President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there.
The announcements, coming more than two years after Obama vowed in another executive order to close the detention center, all but cements Guantanamo Bay’s continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.
Administration officials said the president is still committed to closing the prison, although he made no mention of that goal in a short statement Monday.
U.S. Army ‘Kill Team’ in Afghanistan Posed for ‘Trophy’ Photos with Murdered Civilians
March 21st, 2011Via: Guardian:
Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.
Senior officials at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.
They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
Of Arms and the Man: War-Profiteers and Progressives Make Common Cause for Obama
March 21st, 2011Via: Empire Burlesque:
Yet even now, the “progressive blogosphere” is ablaze with partisan fervor bent toward a single goal: the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012. Because if Obama is not re-elected, we might get a president who … kowtows to Wall Street, tortures Americans, kills innocent people — that is, who actually, literally, physically has children torn into splatters and shreds of viscera and bone — and sells arms to tyrants. And if we don’t support this, if we don’t “stop bitching and get to work” making sure that this continues, then we could end up with a Republican president who kowtows to Wall Street, tortures Americans, shreds innocent children into viscera and sells arms to tyrants. And that would be just terrible.
Related: Obama Consults with General Flustercluck Thanks, TJR.
IBM Bribes in Asia
March 21st, 2011Via: Wall Street Journal:
U.S. regulators accused International Business Machines Corp. of a decade-long campaign of bribery in Asia, saying employees handed over shopping bags stuffed with cash in South Korea and arranged junkets for government officials in China in exchange for millions of dollars in contracts.
The Armonk, N.Y., technology giant agreed to pay $10 million to settle the civil charges, which allege “widespread” payment of bribes by more than 100 employees of IBM subsidiaries and a joint venture from 1998 to 2009. In exchange for the payments, the Securities and Exchange Commission said, IBM received contracts for computer gear.
Switzerland Moves Embassy from Tokyo to Osaka
March 21st, 2011Via: Swiss Info:
Switzerland has announced that its embassy in Tokyo has been transferred to Osaka, 600 km south of the Japanese capital.
A foreign ministry statement said the temporary move had been made because of the “uncertain situation” in Tokyo, and in particular around the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.
The ministry said the embassy would continue to support those Swiss who wanted to leave the country, after the massive quake and resulting tsunami nine days ago.
It added that it was continuing to advise Swiss to leave Tokyo and the northeast of the country.
