the support staff at Goldman Sachs got this year: NYT
Goldman Sachs paid Lloyd C. Blankfein, its chairman and chief executive, a bonus of $53.4 million in 2006, the highest ever for a Wall Street chief executive.
Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman made $38 million last year.
Added to his $600,000 salary, the bonus means that Mr. Blankfein will make $54 million this year, up from $38 million last year. The bank’s compensation committee awarded him $27.3 million in cash, $15.7 million in restricted stock and options to buy Goldman stock valued at $10.5 million.
The payout comes a week after Goldman reported a record profit of $9.5 billion, or $19.69 per diluted share, in 2006. Its stock price is up almost 60 percent for the year, and the firm’s market capitalization is nearly $90 billion, more than triple its value when it went public in May 1999.
Somehow, I doubt it was anywhere near a 40%+ increase over last year’s salary…disgusting.
A Libyan court on Tuesday again sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to be shot by a firing squad for deliberately infecting more than 400 children with H.I.V., more than 50 of whom have died. The decision complicates Libya’s efforts to improve relations with the West…
…The episode began in February 1998 when the nurses arrived to take up jobs at Al Fateh Children’s Hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second largest city. By August that year, children at the hospital began testing positive for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Health authorities soon realized they had a major problem.
An investigation concluded that the infections came from the wards where the Bulgarian nurses had been assigned. Dozens of Bulgarian medical workers were arrested, and vials of H.I.V.-tainted blood were found in a videotaped search of one nurse’s apartment.
According to a Libyan intelligence report submitted to the court, that nurse, Kristiyana Vulcheva, later confessed that the vials had been given to her by a British friend who was working in Libya. She said she and her colleagues had used the vials to infect the children.
Colonel Qaddafi subsequently charged that the health care workers had acted on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad.
A Benghazi court eventually convicted five nurses and a Palestinian doctor of deliberately injecting the children with the virus. But Ms. Vulcheva and another nurse said they were tortured into confessing, and international AIDS experts — including Luc Montagnier, the French virologist and a co-discoverer of H.I.V. — concluded that the virus predated the nurses’ arrival and was probably spread by contaminated needles.
Is the re-use of IV needles a common practice in Bulgaria?
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The guilty verdict was a necessity in order to be able to compensate the family of the children infected bij the HIV virus. There appears to be an agreement in the making between Libya (Gadaffi), Bulgaria and the EU. There will be no executions, what cannot be said of Bush’s young democracy in Iraq.
BENGAZI, Lybia (AP) 15 min. ago — Luc Montagnier — the French doctor who co-discovered HIV — testified in the first trial that the virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998.
More evidence for that argument surfaced on Dec. 6 — too late to be submitted in court — when Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children.
Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a “molecular clock,” the analysts concluded that the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.
Idriss Lagha, the president of a group representing the victims, rejected the Nature article, telling a news conference in London that the nurses had infected the children with a “genetically engineered” virus. He accused them as doing so for research on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies.
In testimony last month, the defendants denied intentionally infecting children.
And the analysts were hired by…? As if scientists are any different from politicians or any other occupation. Humans can be bought off, compromised, and, all too often, motivated by money.
I don’t know if that’s what happened. But I do know that DOES happen and wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case here. Because if this was a deliberate test of some sort – who would want to brook an investigation for that?
I had the same reaction as Qaddafi. Seemed like a field trial when I first heard this story. Horrific, but not exactly unusual, given our history.
In my files, I have a Time Magazine issue from 1959 where the magazine, without blush, discussed the injection of prisoners in America with cancer cells. It was a test to see if you could give someone cancer by injection. I would hope today such a story would bring a firestorm of outrage. But in 1959, I guess it didn’t…
…I’ve got a feeling about how we can begin to change this process and I want to pass it by you. Children grow up in our country — many by the way, under conditions of extreme poverty — and are told from a very early age “You will be accountable!” “With freedom, comes responsibility!” And so the lecture goes…Democratic and Republican alike. Lie-cheat-steal, and there will be consequences! Theft will be punished. Actions that cause the deaths of others will be severely punished. The message, from leaders in Washington, news media, mom, dad, and church is clear. Criminals MUST be held accountable.
Now, there’s been a lot of talk lately on Capitol Hill about how impeachment should be “off the table.” We’re told that it’s time to look ahead – not back…
Can you imagine how far that argument would go for the defense at an arraignment on charges of grand larceny, or large-scale distribution of methamphetamines? How about the arranging of a contract killing on a pregnant mother? “Indictment should be off the table.” Or “Let’s look forward, not backward.” Or “We can’t afford another failed defendant.”
Our country has a legal system, not of men and women, but of laws. Why then are we so willing to put inconvenient provisions of the U.S. constitution and federal law “off the table?” Our greatest concern right now should be what to put ON the table. Unless we’re going to have one set of laws for the powerful and another set for those who can’t afford fancy lawyers, then truth matters to everyone. And accountability is a matter of human and legal principle. If we’re going to continue wagging our fingers at the disadvantaged transgressors, then I suggest we be consistent. If truth and accountability can be stretched into sham concepts, we may as well open the gates of all our jails and prisons, where, by the way, there are more people behind bars than any other country in the world. One in every 32 American adults is behind bars, on probation, or on parole as we stand here tonight.
Which is to say that, globally, the United States is number one at demanding accountability and backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former secretary of defense…this insistence on accountability vanishes. All of a sudden, what’s past is prologue. And we’re just “forward-looking.” But some people can’t just look forward. Men and women stationed in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war. And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers (probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate the push for an invasion in Iraq.
I’m sure many people who I met in Baghdad, both in my trips prior to and during the occupation, now similarly cannot just look forward. With lives so entirely shattered by a violence of occupation – an ongoing U.S. war effort and the civil war that it has catalyzed. All on the back of a crumbled infrastructure, following eleven years of devastating U.N. sanctions.
And, where is the accountability on behalf of the American dead and wounded, their families, their friends, and the people of the United States who have seen their country become a world pariah. These events have been enabled by people named Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice, as they continue to perpetuate a massive fraud on American democracy and decency….
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Bush established U.S. bases in Somalia to fight Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Bush & co just lost that battle and the Islamists have grabbed power and are gaining support. The next terror state! News on Somalia
The air could be teeming with more than 1,800 types of bacteria, according to a first-of-its-kind census of airborne microbes. The study serves two purposes: It paves the way for regional bacterial censuses that will help a Department of Homeland Security bioterrorism surveillance program differentiate between normal and suspicious fluctuations in airborne pathogens. It will also help scientists establish a baseline of airborne microbes, which they can use to track how climate change affects bacterial populations.
An abundance of vitamin D seems to help prevent multiple sclerosis, according to a study in more than 7 million people. The research found that white members of the U.S. military with the highest blood levels of vitamin D were 62 percent less likely to develop multiple sclerosis than people with low levels. There was no such connection in blacks or Hispanics, possibly because there were so few in the group studied. Also, the body makes vitamin D from sunlight, and the pigmented skin of blacks and other dark-skinned ethnic groups doesn’t absorb sunlight as easily as pale skin.
DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video tape aired early Wednesday that Palestinian elections would not free Palestinian land and would deal a blow to holy war against Israeli occupation.
“Those who are trying to free Islamic land through elections that are based on secular constitutions … will not free a grain of Palestinian sand, but will choke jihad,” he said in the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera television.
Summer is not the only time that is dangerous. Our temps dipped into the mid/upper-20s last night, making exposure a likely threat
The body of a Mexican citizen was found Saturday afternoon in rugged terrain south of Sierra Vista, according to information released by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department Monday.
When sheriff’s deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents found the body — later identified as 39-year-old Braulio Huitron Mayen — it appeared to have been in the location for at least two weeks. – linkage
Let’s see. Congress drags its feet to enact meaningful legislation while people continue to die. Sounds like a familiar pattern to me (Iraq).
Top General in Middle East Quits “Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq.
Abizaid gets out while the getting is good. I’m so sick and tired of seeing this from our military officers. They supported the “conquest asshole and friends”, they knew honor, victory, and glory would find them and spread blessings and further esteem on their careers. They never stopped to ask themselves though if what they were being told to do was legal, moral, or inhumane….all they could think about was having their moment to cement their names and military careers in history. They were going to win and they were going to write it. Now their own beliefs and personal agendas will be critiqued as the insanity of what we have done becomes more and more apparent each day. You are right Abizaid, it is better to leave before your name becomes unforgettable but you are no officer sir……you are a coward and you are deserting your 19 year olds on the ground in the middle of this. You see the writing clearly on the wall and you are too cowardly to stick this out and fight for what is right, you have abandoned your troops! You will bow out now and the vacuum you leave will suck in some other fucking idiot with visions of sugar plums dancing in their head and they will stand up before the cameras and tell inspiring tales of their goals that they will achieve because they are so great and incredible that they can’t help but achieve them and a brand new idiot will have to be beaten to a pulp with more and more troops and Iraqis dead before they too finally have their come to Jesus moment! It may not turn out that way but because you can’t take the heat you helped to create it is more of a gamble now than if you STAYED THE COURSE! FUCK YOU ABIZAID! History will forget you because you have done nothing of merit and you are choosing to leave at the only time anybody in your clothing could do anything of merit in all of this so don’t let the door hit you in the ass!
WASHINGTON D.C. (AFP) — In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Samarrai ridiculed security at the Green Zone and said he had slipped aboard a flight at the Baghdad International Airport.
“Those suckers who are sitting in the Green Zone, they cannot go out and see the people they are governing?” he asked when told Iraqi officials did not believe he had left the country. When asked how he pulled off the escape, Samarrai laughed, then told the Times: “The Chicago way” — a reference to 1930s gangster Al Capone.
In a separate interview with the Chicago Tribune, Samarrai said he was “now in a very safe place. They cannot touch me anymore.” He also sent an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times and others saying, “Hi, I am OK and out of their reach.” Samarrai, who lives in the Chicago area, told the Tribune that a “multinational” group that included Iraqis and men of other nationalities helped him escape, fleeing in multiple cars.
at Baghdad International? There really isn’t a Baghdad International Airport yet. It isn’t like United is flying in and out of Baghdad. Baghdad International is United States Military International Airport right now and nobody slips aboard shit there right now. What in the hell is the deal with this guy? Who are his friends? Who owes him and who owns him because there is some major bullshit going on here and that isn’t even going into the whole Security Contractor Jailbreak Bullshit.
“Virtually every athlete at the club has physical or mental scars inflicted by Saddam Hussein’s older son, Uday, who took control of Iraq’s Olympic Committee in 1984 and began a terrifying campaign of torture and humiliation. Many fled the country, including Mr. Samarrai….
“‘The system of the regime started in primary school,’ said Mr. Samarrai, who defected on a trip to Switzerland in 1983 and returned here after the war. ‘It was exactly like the Nazis in the 30’s.’…
May, 2004 — However, it is still doubtful that in this case such erroneous attacks could occur so frequently. That is why, there can be a different aim of such attacks, for example to edge Russia out of Iraq. Moreover, earlier the representatives of the coalition made statements that Moscow, as well as Paris and Berlin, which did not support the armed operation in Iraq, must not hope for any share in the division of the Iraqi pie.
No doubt, Iraqis are reacting very nervously to the departure of Russian specialists. For example, Iraqi energy minister Ayham Samarrai says that these events may bring about the most negative consequences for the Iraqi economy.
KHARTOUM, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Attacks on Darfur aid workers’ compounds in Gereida town have forced the evacuation of 71 staff and severely restricted humanitarian aid reaching the region’s largest population of war victims, officials said on Wednesday.
Around 20 armed men launched a coordinated attack in the South Darfur town on Monday night, seizing a dozen vehicles and communications equipment and almost paralysing aid operations.
It was the biggest single attack on the Darfur aid operation, the world’s largest, since it began helping 3 million victims of the conflict in remote western Sudan in early 2004.
“It’s massive and hugely destructive and has severely disrupted aid operations,” said Alun McDonald, spokesman for the British aid organisation Oxfam, which had five vehicles stolen and whose compound was fired on during the attack.
the support staff at Goldman Sachs got this year: NYT
Somehow, I doubt it was anywhere near a 40%+ increase over last year’s salary…disgusting.
not to mention did pension funds, mutual funds give the little guys’ and gals’ accounts anywhere near 8% for the year?
story: NYT
Is the re-use of IV needles a common practice in Bulgaria?
.
The guilty verdict was a necessity in order to be able to compensate the family of the children infected bij the HIV virus. There appears to be an agreement in the making between Libya (Gadaffi), Bulgaria and the EU. There will be no executions, what cannot be said of Bush’s young democracy in Iraq.
BENGAZI, Lybia (AP) 15 min. ago — Luc Montagnier — the French doctor who co-discovered HIV — testified in the first trial that the virus was active in the hospital before the Bulgarian nurses began their contracts there in 1998.
More evidence for that argument surfaced on Dec. 6 — too late to be submitted in court — when Nature magazine published an analysis of HIV and hepatitis virus samples from the children.
Using changes in the genetic information of HIV over time as a “molecular clock,” the analysts concluded that the virus was contracted before the six defendants arrived at the hospital — perhaps even three years before.
«« click on pic to enlargeDefence lawyers say the children already hadthe virus which causes Aids
Idriss Lagha, the president of a group representing the victims, rejected the Nature article, telling a news conference in London that the nurses had infected the children with a “genetically engineered” virus. He accused them as doing so for research on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies.
In testimony last month, the defendants denied intentionally infecting children.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."And the analysts were hired by…? As if scientists are any different from politicians or any other occupation. Humans can be bought off, compromised, and, all too often, motivated by money.
I don’t know if that’s what happened. But I do know that DOES happen and wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case here. Because if this was a deliberate test of some sort – who would want to brook an investigation for that?
I had the same reaction as Qaddafi. Seemed like a field trial when I first heard this story. Horrific, but not exactly unusual, given our history.
In my files, I have a Time Magazine issue from 1959 where the magazine, without blush, discussed the injection of prisoners in America with cancer cells. It was a test to see if you could give someone cancer by injection. I would hope today such a story would bring a firestorm of outrage. But in 1959, I guess it didn’t…
on impeachment: afterdowningstreet.org
(Just in case anoyone missed it yesterday.)
here’s a great video to start your day. Probably THE best political video to date.
That is an excellent video!
I sure loved it and thought you all would too. Nice way to start the day.
Have a Happy Holiday CabinGirl!
I will – you too!
I sent it to everyone in my family 😉
Fantastic!! I put that on my Real History Blog today!
A nice holiday story, via Susie.
Heavy fighting erupts in Somalia
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Bush established U.S. bases in Somalia to fight Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Bush & co just lost that battle and the Islamists have grabbed power and are gaining support. The next terror state! News on Somalia
BBC News (2001) – US targets Somali group
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The air could be teeming with more than 1,800 types of bacteria, according to a first-of-its-kind census of airborne microbes. The study serves two purposes: It paves the way for regional bacterial censuses that will help a Department of Homeland Security bioterrorism surveillance program differentiate between normal and suspicious fluctuations in airborne pathogens. It will also help scientists establish a baseline of airborne microbes, which they can use to track how climate change affects bacterial populations.
An anti-allergy drug in use for more than 40 years significantly reduced tumor growth in animal models of human pancreatic cancer and also increased the effectiveness of standard chemotherapy, say researchers. The drug is cromolyn. Pancreatic cancer is believed to be the most lethal of all cancers. More than 95 percent of patients diagnosed with the disease die from it, and half of those deaths occur in the first six months after diagnosis.
Britain’s barnacles, limpets and seaweeds are moving north and east in response to climate change. A four-year research project, funded by a number of government agencies, mapped 57 species across the British Isles. Comparing current sightings with data from 50 years ago shows that many have moved, some by over 100 miles (150km). Closer to home, a warming climate in the Washington, D.C. area is beginning to affect the area’s trees, with cold-loving species finding the capital’s weather less welcoming and southern transplants thriving. New plant hardiness zone maps show that D.C. is the new North Carolina; Philly is the new D.C., etc.
After a hard day running lab mazes in the rat race, rats also dream, reinforcing the things they learned during the day, researchers have found.
An abundance of vitamin D seems to help prevent multiple sclerosis, according to a study in more than 7 million people. The research found that white members of the U.S. military with the highest blood levels of vitamin D were 62 percent less likely to develop multiple sclerosis than people with low levels. There was no such connection in blacks or Hispanics, possibly because there were so few in the group studied. Also, the body makes vitamin D from sunlight, and the pigmented skin of blacks and other dark-skinned ethnic groups doesn’t absorb sunlight as easily as pale skin.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday it was withdrawing plans to periodically close 2,500 square miles of the Great Lakes for live machine-gun firing exercises. The plan had been criticized by several U.S. and Canadian mayors, business leaders and environmentalists who said it could be unsafe and disruptive. Environmentalists also said they worried about the consequences of lead ammunition being deposited in the Great Lakes.
That is great news about cromolyn enhancing the activity of gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer. Thanks,
Knox!
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DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video tape aired early Wednesday that Palestinian elections would not free Palestinian land and would deal a blow to holy war against Israeli occupation.
“Those who are trying to free Islamic land through elections that are based on secular constitutions … will not free a grain of Palestinian sand, but will choke jihad,” he said in the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera television.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Bush just encouraged us all to shop even more in his news conference.
What a moron he is. And what does that make me for listening? 😉
Your choice of quotes today was…….
It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.
– Garrison Keillor
A page from the Giuliani playbook, obviously.
A truthiness Notice to Bush
Yesterday, Bush proposed increasing the size of the Army by 50,000-70,000 troops. However back in 2004,
via Thinkprogress FLASHBACK: Bush Said Kerry Proposal to Increase Size of Military Would Make The Country `Less Safe’
Summer is not the only time that is dangerous. Our temps dipped into the mid/upper-20s last night, making exposure a likely threat
Let’s see. Congress drags its feet to enact meaningful legislation while people continue to die. Sounds like a familiar pattern to me (Iraq).
Top General in Middle East Quits “Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq.
“The ICG Report: After Baker Hamilton, what to do in Iraq
The Highway men cometh: Why you could soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish builders for the privilege of driving on American roads. By Daniel Schulman with James Ridgeway, January 1, 2007- MotherJones
Abizaid gets out while the getting is good. I’m so sick and tired of seeing this from our military officers. They supported the “conquest asshole and friends”, they knew honor, victory, and glory would find them and spread blessings and further esteem on their careers. They never stopped to ask themselves though if what they were being told to do was legal, moral, or inhumane….all they could think about was having their moment to cement their names and military careers in history. They were going to win and they were going to write it. Now their own beliefs and personal agendas will be critiqued as the insanity of what we have done becomes more and more apparent each day. You are right Abizaid, it is better to leave before your name becomes unforgettable but you are no officer sir……you are a coward and you are deserting your 19 year olds on the ground in the middle of this. You see the writing clearly on the wall and you are too cowardly to stick this out and fight for what is right, you have abandoned your troops! You will bow out now and the vacuum you leave will suck in some other fucking idiot with visions of sugar plums dancing in their head and they will stand up before the cameras and tell inspiring tales of their goals that they will achieve because they are so great and incredible that they can’t help but achieve them and a brand new idiot will have to be beaten to a pulp with more and more troops and Iraqis dead before they too finally have their come to Jesus moment! It may not turn out that way but because you can’t take the heat you helped to create it is more of a gamble now than if you STAYED THE COURSE! FUCK YOU ABIZAID! History will forget you because you have done nothing of merit and you are choosing to leave at the only time anybody in your clothing could do anything of merit in all of this so don’t let the door hit you in the ass!
.
WASHINGTON D.C. (AFP) — In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Samarrai ridiculed security at the Green Zone and said he had slipped aboard a flight at the Baghdad International Airport.
“Those suckers who are sitting in the Green Zone, they cannot go out and see the people they are governing?” he asked when told Iraqi officials did not believe he had left the country. When asked how he pulled off the escape, Samarrai laughed, then told the Times: “The Chicago way” — a reference to 1930s gangster Al Capone.
In a separate interview with the Chicago Tribune, Samarrai said he was “now in a very safe place. They cannot touch me anymore.” He also sent an e-mail to the Chicago Sun-Times and others saying, “Hi, I am OK and out of their reach.” Samarrai, who lives in the Chicago area, told the Tribune that a “multinational” group that included Iraqis and men of other nationalities helped him escape, fleeing in multiple cars.
See my diary: U.S. Security Contractors Pull Off Jail Break in Green Zone
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Oh, dear. Is this one of those happy stories from Iraq that Laura Bush keeps telling us we’re missing?
at Baghdad International? There really isn’t a Baghdad International Airport yet. It isn’t like United is flying in and out of Baghdad. Baghdad International is United States Military International Airport right now and nobody slips aboard shit there right now. What in the hell is the deal with this guy? Who are his friends? Who owes him and who owns him because there is some major bullshit going on here and that isn’t even going into the whole Security Contractor Jailbreak Bullshit.
.
$ 2,500,000,000 gives you a lot of respect to get out of the Green Zone and Baghdad the “Chicago Way …”.
“Virtually every athlete at the club has physical or mental scars inflicted by Saddam Hussein’s older son, Uday, who took control of Iraq’s Olympic Committee in 1984 and began a terrifying campaign of torture and humiliation. Many fled the country, including Mr. Samarrai….
“‘The system of the regime started in primary school,’ said Mr. Samarrai, who defected on a trip to Switzerland in 1983 and returned here after the war. ‘It was exactly like the Nazis in the 30’s.’…
No doubt, Iraqis are reacting very nervously to the departure of Russian specialists. For example, Iraqi energy minister Ayham Samarrai says that these events may bring about the most negative consequences for the Iraqi economy.
Wikipedia: Ayham al-Samarie
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."his patrons were.
And the nature of his real job in Iraq.
As electricity minister he oversaw the destruction of the grid. And that is just the part that is public.
Attacks force 71 aid staff to evacuate Darfur town
U.N. council backs hybrid Darfur force