links for 2009-12-08
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According to the standard narrative, the meltdown of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers largely wiped out the wealth of their top executives. Many – in the media, academia and the financial sector – have used this account to dismiss the view that pay structures caused excessive risk-taking and that reforming such structures is important. That standard narrative, however, turns out to be incorrect...
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The Obama administration was preparing to crack down on large greenhouse gas emitters on Monday by ruling that carbon dioxide and five other gases were a danger to human health, showing its determination to tackle climate change as an international summit opened in Copenhagen. The expected ruling from the Environmental Protection Agency will give President Barack Obama new authority when he heads to Copenhagen next week and will undercut much of the international criticism that Washington has been dragging its heels on climate change. But the decision to use regulation rather than legislation to cut carbon emissions will be controversial in the US, and big business and Republicans are already protesting that the decision is heavy-handed. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected on Monday afternoon to declare that greenhouse gases represent a danger to human health, a finding that would allow it to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial p
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The recent Senate Foreign relations report shows there was highly credible evidence from the Delta Force Commander code-named “Dalton Fury” on the ground that bin Laden was in Tora Bora. From on the ground CIA paramilitary commander Gary Bernstein, bin Laden was in Tora Bora. From Henry Crumpton, the CIA counter-terrorism operations chief, bin Laden was in Tora Bora. Even General Franks' own second in command General DeLong stated he believed from available intelligence at the time bin Laden was in Tora Bora. General DeLong stated that when the bombing campaign of Tora Bora started in late November, Secretary Rumsfeld called DeLong every day to ask “did we get him?” Cheney stated on November 29, 2001 and again on Meet the Press on December 9, 2001 that he believed bin Laden to be in the Tora Bora area. Thus, why would General Franks restrict the Tora Bora battle to about 90 Special Forces troops to go after an estimated 1,000 heavily armed and fortified al Qaeda troops and “leave the b
