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Today's Stories September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z         Subscribe Online

September 21, 2007 Who Will Buy My House? What the Sale of the Carlyle Group Tells Us About the Collapse of the Housing Market By ALAN FARAGO Would someone from Dubai or China please come to Miami and buy my home? This seems a reasonable plea, given this morning's news that the big private equity firm, (in which President George HW Bush made his fortune after leaving the White House)-the Carlyle Group--sold 7.5 percent of itself to the United Arab Emirates. 19.9 percent of NASDAQ is being sold to Dubai, that couldn't get our ports but getting the platform on which US equities trade. China, discontent with the value of its foreign currency investments, has set up its own fund to invest directly, not just in US debt, the value of which is declining to record lows against other currencies. Since no one else is going to buy my house, I invite foreign economic ministers to spend a few nights with me in Miami -we'll put you up, give you the keys to the Toyota hybrid so you can drive around and see the value we've created from the sunshine state. The national rate for home foreclosures has doubled in the past year: in Miami, it has doubled beyond that, according to the desultory vultures at county mortgage auctions, crossing off one property after another on the thick list of foreclosures because the banks aren't quite ready to let them go. The Miami Herald reported today a crowd of more than three hundred people who packed a Marriott hotel ballroom to bid on 20 units at Platinum Condominiums. "In May a one-bedroom on the 14th floor closed for $360,000. But Thursday night, two one-bedroom condos on the tower's 16th and 18th floors couldn't crack $220,000." Of the auction, real estate advisor Lew Goodkin said "better bargains should come in 2008 when the market is even softer." It's a creepy fun-house hall of mirrors economy that is unfolding in the aftermath of serial financial bubbles: first the dot.com stocks and now housing. Combine these with the decadal loss of American manufacturing capacity through role reversals in the global economy, the only way political leaders could massage the impacts was to deny, literally, meaning. In the paid advertisement real estate section of The Miami Herald, it's put another way by homebuilder, Pride Homes, announcing another blowout inventory sale: "The builder has listened to what home buyers want in today's marketplace, and are responding to their needs." It is line that if you say often enough, becomes even less true. Today, it doesn't matter if real value is created when subdivisions are pressed into landscapes like Florida's in the shape of cookies cut from a sheet of pre-mixed dough. What matters is the notion of value. In the late stage of the building boom, Florida's homebuilders were building into a vacuum, caused by a massive proliferation of liquidity. No one cared. Glad-handing local politicians acted as zoning authorities and petty despots at the bidding of campaign contributors who must be right because, well, they made so much money. That worked for a while, first as homeowners threw used their home as a piggy bank for personal consumption, and later, as American suburbs became self-fulfilling sumps for over-stressed workers who reversed Tim Leary's admonition to "turn on, tune in, and drop out" to simply tune out. Here are the people whose needs were being responded to, by over-building: Wall Street investment bankers who figured out how to take a construction loan, ordinary mortgage, whatever-bundle them like campaign contributions and then take bonuses as a percentage of underwriting fees after they multiplied the value of the underlying asset 10X, 20X, 100X. This was called diversification of risk, a net benefit to the world economy. In Miami today, local politicians and builders and lobbyists are testing each other's handshakes with shrugs, persuaded that their hangovers from the housing bubble will go away and everything will return to normal good times, just put a little more of yesterday's vodka into this morning's orange juice, pass just one more zoning measure, approve one more lane widening or rail link into farmland, another interchange where insiders own property, another platted subdivision or strip mall where the only local business doing well is the one printing "for sale" signs. It is happening again in Miami, where the periodic assault against an urban development boundary (intended to protect the Everglades and taxpayers from the costs of suburban sprawl) has been joined once again by a chorus of lobbyists and land speculators-many of whom paid outlandish prices, tens of millions of dollars, for property that has no intrinsic value absent a zoning change today and a market revival tomorrow. There's the rock mining industry, in Miami Dade, owned by corporations in Australia and Mexico-sending trucks and employees and lawyers and lobbyists to protest a federal judge's decision to stop the billionaires from ruining the water supply that millions of South Floridians depend on. Is it really so unreasonable to want to sell my Miami house to the Chinese? "We're out to make deals and sales at all cost, no matter what," says the spokesperson for Pride Homes. "No matter what" is driving Florida Power and Light, one of the nation's largest power producers, to seek permitting for two new nuclear power reactors with a couple of thousand megawatts at sea-level and a stone's throw from Pride's homes starting at $200K, to accommodate Florida's growth that a Miami Herald editorial actually wrote yesterday, "shows few signs of abating". For such "responding to the needs of people", sea level rise from global warming looks like a future to bank on. Alan Farago of Coral Gables, who writes about the environment and the politics of South Florida, can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com. Your Ad Here

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