The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative is seeking to create an international safe haven for journalism. it's an amazing project that could have an international ripple effect on journalism.

The New york Times is just going to hell in hand basket - the reporting is getting so shoddy...why bother? NY Times article tonight on a recent ruling finding no wrong doing by ACORN staff.

Advice to Fake Pimp Was No Crime, Prosecutor Says

By Andy Newman, New York Times, March 1, 2010

The Acorn employees in Brooklyn who were captured on a hidden camera seeming to offer conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute creative advice on how to get a mortgage have been cleared of wrongdoing by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. [...]

Last summer, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited Acorn offices in several cities using the pimp and prostitute tale and asked for help in getting a mortgage, saying that their lack of on-the-books income would make it hard for them to get a conventional bank loan.

No where in the short article does it mention that O'Keefe, arrested on March 25 for entering federal property under false pretenses, is facing possible felony charges for tampering with the phone of a US Senator.

It's not like the New York Times isn't aware of this fact.

Less than a week after the discovery of online video footage of an American Iraqi hostage, Issa Salomi, 250 former Blackwater security guards have been formally asked to leave Iraq (Iraq orders former Blackwater security guards out Washington Post, By Qassim Abdul-Zahra, February 11, 2010). One of the kidnappers' demands, as presented by Salomi in the online video, was "the expulsion of former Blackwater security guards."

That's an uncomfortably strange coincidence.

Iraq expels 250 ex-Blackwater staff

Al Jazeera, February 12, 2010

Making the announcement on Thursday, Jawad Bolani, the interior minister, said: "We have sent an order to 250 former Blackwater employees, who today are working with other security companies in Iraq, to leave the country in seven days and we have confiscated their residence permits.

"All of those concerned were notified four days ago and so they have three days to leave. This decision was made in connection with the crime that took place at Nisur Square."

Bolani was referring to an incident at the busy Baghdad square in September 2007, when five guards employed by Blackwater were accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in a gun and grenade attack, and wounding 18 others.

Bumped and promoted. Originally posted this morning at 4 am EST (2010-01-22 04:28:19 -0500). -- GH

It's been a very busy year in Iceland. It's a bit like a soap opera at times.

Eva Joly was appointed as a special adviser to investigate the financial collapse in Iceland. The people of Iceland love her. The politicians in power, not so much it seems.

The Icelandic inquiry is examining whether market manipulation helped inflate the balance sheets of three banks, Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki, while, as the FT put it, “the clique who ran them doled out cheap credit to some of their biggest shareholders and favoured foreign clients”.

After three months in the job, Joly showed she was not shy about flexing her muscles. In an interview on Icelandic television last June, she raised concern about the potential conflict of interest represented by Iceland’s state prosecutor, Valtyr Sigurdsson, whose son was chief executive of Exista – the major shareholder in Kaupthing.

As a result, Ragna Árnadóttir, Iceland’s justice minister, began drafting a law to create another state prosecutor and Sigurdsson has declared that he would not participate in the banking investigation.

Joly also criticised a lack of political will in the government to bring to justice anyone who has committed economic crimes.

Parliament tried to push through a law committing Icelanders to an enormous debt at approximately $12,000 US per man, woman and child. President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson essentially vetoed the bill after 1/5 of the voting population signed a petition asking Grimsson not to sign.

I'm told this is only the second time in Iceland's history of independence that the President refused to sign a passed by Parliament.

The Supreme Court handed down a decision regarding financing from corporations and unions. I can't see how this is good for American politics - unless of course, you are very very rich. (Any decent accountant will encourage an individual who makes over $125,000 a year to register as a corporation for the tax benefits.)

Justices Reject Campaign Finance Limits

New York Times, January 21, 2010

Back in March of 2007, ePluribus Media published the first article in a three-part series which I wrote, Iraq, Contingency Contracting and the Defense Base Act. In part, the article highlighted the situation of the von Ackermann family and the lack of insurance benefits they received after Kirk von Ackermann, a civilian contractor, disappeared in Iraq in October of 2003. (Kirk von Ackermann is now the longest missing American in Iraq today.)

Von Ackermann's employer at the time, Ultra Services of Istanbul Turkey, did not carry Defense Base Act insurance, similar to workman's compensation for overseas contractors. The Defense Base Act pays benefits if a contractor is killed, injured or missing. Claims under the Defense Base Act are administered by the Department of Labor.

As a result of that series, an attorney retired from the Department of Labor contacted me with questions about the article and in particular, the plight of the von Ackermann family. I pointed him to the Missing in Iraq blog and as Megan has noted at her blog, he went on to eventually take on their case. 

I've been trying to figure out why the Obama administration has been working so hard to conceal the "torture" photos in contradiction to its vocal support of the Freedom of Information Act.

Until this evening, it never occurred to me the photos might include physical evidence of genital mutilation.

British High Court rejects U.S./British cover-up of torture evidence

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, October 17, 2009

I keep stumbling on these news stories with a common theme: asset strippers hidden in the sheep's clothing of private equity firms. The stories rhyme a lot with what's been going on with the bank bail outs.

You probably first want to know, what exactly is an asset stripper? Pretty much what it sounds like - a buyer whose intent is to sell off assets for a profit. The buyer in this case is a private equity firm who relies on leverage buyouts in the hopes of selling the company for a profit. What's missing is an incentive for the long term survival of the original company.

The Chamber of Commerce has successfully managed to piss off members of the energy sector.

That's quite a feat.

Apple, other companies quit U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Philadelphia Business Journal - by Steven E.F. Brown Washington Business Journal, October 6, 2009

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has criticized proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation passed by the House of Representatives and due to come before the Senate.

Read more

A succinct account of just what ails our financial system from Janet Tavakoli. (via Jesse's Cafe Americain)

Wall Street’s Fraud and Solutions for Systemic Peril

By Janet Tavakoli

TSF Opinion Commentary – September 29, 2009

http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/Fraud.pdf

Last week I gave a presentation to members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) explaining the corrosive atmosphere that allowed the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the capital markets to flourish. The following is a brief summary.

Wall Street gave mortgage lenders large credit lines (similar to credit card debt) and packaged the loans into private‐label residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS). Most of the RMBS was rated “AAA,” since subordinated investors absorbed the risk of a pre‐agreed amount of loan losses. But many RMBSs were backed by portfolios comprising risky fraud‐riddled loans. Most of the “AAA” investment was imperiled, and subordinated “investment grade” components were worthless. Wall Street disguised these toxic “investments” with new value‐destroying securitizations and derivatives.1

Meanwhile, collapsing mortgage lenders paid high dividends to shareholders (old investors) and interest on credit lines to Wall Street (old investors) with money raised from new investors in doomed securities. New money allowed Wall Street to temporarily hide losses and pay enormous bonuses. This is a classic Ponzi scheme. More...

The paper is four pages long. It's perhaps one of the simplest explanations that I have seen to date.

Apparently some current and former folks at the CIA are under the false impression that it's ok to torture people to solicit false statements that support the predisposed conclusion of a White House administration.

Coincidentally, this story was in the Washington Post just in time for the Friday news dump. And on it goes....Abramoff's behavior almost looks quaint in comparison to the stuff bubbling up out of the sewers these days. But not quite. Making money as a lobbyist whose goal was to thwart the efforts to stop slave labor in sweat shops is pretty darn slimey.

Another Abramoff associate indicted

By Devlin Barrett, The Associated Press, August 21, 2009

A former top official for Voice of America was indicted Friday on corruption charges, accused of taking thousands of dollars in concert and sports tickets in exchange for favors to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Horace Cooper, who is also a one-time aide to former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is accused of defrauding the government after getting choice seats to see 'N Sync, the Dixie Chicks, and Bruce Springsteen, among others.

The indictment charges Cooper agreed to use his position at Voice of America - and his subsequent job at the Labor Department - to advance the interests of Abramoff and his clients.

Cross posted at the Missing Man

If you ask me, it's awfully convenient ... to pin the murder on a man who was dead. - Peter

The Abduction and Murder of Jim Kitterman

According to a security alert, on May 21, 2009, contractor Jim Kitterman, 60, was said to have been abducted just after leaving a shop in the International Zone in Baghdad. On the following day, May 22, Kitterman's body was found. He was reported as blindfolded with his hands bound, stabbed twice in the heart with his throat slit, his body "bundled in a plastic bag and dumped in a lot less than a mile from the contractors' residence" [1]. In contradiction, it was also reported he was found in his car.

It's worth noting that conflicting details of the basic who, what, where, when, and why are an ongoing theme in the reporting of the abduction and murder of Jim Kitterman.

The body of contractor Jim Kitterman, 60, of Houston, Texas, was found Friday in the Green Zone after being reported missing the evening before. According to news reports, he was found bound and blindfolded, stabbed multiple times, with his throat slit.

Below is a very strange passage taken from the Washington Post which leaves you wondering what is being left out:

Contractors Using Military Clinics
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post,

 MayMilitary clinics and field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan have supplied more than $1 million a month in health-care services to civilian contractors during the past two years without seeking reimbursement from their employers, as provided by law, according to a new audit by the Defense Department inspector general.
 7, 2009
The report, issued Monday, noted that all costs associated with both emergency and primary medical care are reimbursable to the government and are the responsibility of the contingency contractor personnel, their employer or their health insurance provider.

The United States desperately needs to overhaul its entire health care system and just provide care for everyone.