All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Holiday season Movie revenues lowest in three years. Past two weekends took in less money than the weekends after September 11, 2001

‘Hollywood’ isn’t merry this holiday season. That’s ’cause the past two weekends have seen the least amount of revenues since the two weekends after September 11, 2001.

Also, this past weekend (December 10-11) was the lowest money making weekend since Labor Day in 2008.

The past two weekends combined saw only 19.8 million customers! To put it in perspective; the past two weekends saw the same amount of movie goers for all the movies that were playing, as that 19+ million people who saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 on it’s opening weekend!

Happy Holidays, Hollywood!

International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3 & Government Incompetence: Stealth drone incident reveals diplomatic impotence of the United States

“We have asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”-Barack Obama, President of the United States

“I don’t expect that that will happen.”-Leon Panetta, U.S. Secretary of Defense

“We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment as we would in any situation to any government around the world.”-Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State

“There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane, who can surely analyze this plane’s system…In any case, now we have this spy plane.”-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Comments out of Korea and Europe cast strong doubt on any EU recovery

“The leaders have not yet proposed fundamental solutions such as euro bond issuance or the European Central Bank’s intervention.”-Kwon Hyouk-se, Financial Supervisory Service, South Korea 

“The EU summit was widely seen as a new step in the right direction, but the summit deal has many obvious flaws and lacks operational details in many areas. It looks more like a comprehensive fix to the next crisis, rather than a final resolution to the current one.”-Luca Jellinek, Credit Agricole, France

International, U.S.

World War 3: U.S. Congress refuses Japan’s demand to get U.S. Marines off Okinawa

The U.S. Senate and House have rejected funding for moving the USMC off Okinawa and onto Guam.

For decades the people on Okinawa have complained of criminal activity by U.S. Marines, including rape and murder. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2012 does not include the needed $150 million for the move.

U.S. and Japanese officials tried to convince Okinawans to allow the U.S. Marines to move from Futenma, Okinawa, to Nago, Okinawa.  Okinawans basically said Hell No!  They want the USMC off Okinawa, no more compromise.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3: Canada pulls out of Kyoto environmental pact, blames U.S. & China. Durban Deal a failure? Japan may be forced to follow Canada’s lead.

“The Kyoto Protocol does not include the world’s two largest emitters, the United States and China, therefore it can not work!”-Peter Kent, Environment Minister of Canada

Canada is the first country to officially exit from the Kyoto environmental protocols.  This follows the end of the second round of ‘Kyoto’ (aka COP 17) talks in South Africa.

The COP 17 talks acknowledged that the goals set at Kyoto would most likely not be met, and they extended the deadline for those goals to 2018.  This latest round of talks is being referred to as the ‘Durban Deal’.

Edna Molewa, UN Water and Environmental Affairs Minister, called the Durban deal a “watershed” moment.  However, Canada is raining on that moment, and Japan has been warning of leaving the Kyoto Protocol as well.

“The Kyoto Protocol is not the right path.”-Masahiko Horie, envoy from Japan

Japan can no longer meet all the agreed upon goals because of the fact that 85% of their nuclear plants are shut down, or damaged.  Even before the loss of so many nuclear plants (for various reasons) Japan was still the number 5 polluter in the world!  Think what will happen as they switch back to electricity generated by coal and petroleum fueled power plants.

The following countries either refuse to take part, have quit, or are threatening to quit the Kyoto Protocol: Brazil, India, New Zealand, Russia, Japan, Canada, China (number 1 polluter) and the United States (number 2 polluter).

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

World War 3 & United Police States of America: Obama to sign into law the very National Defense Authorization Act he said he would veto. People of the U.S. you are now enemies of your own state, welcome to NAZI-land.

“…the [Obama] administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”-Carl Levin, U.S. Senator from Michigan

There is now speculation that President Barack Obama will sign into law S.1253.RS, a bill he said he would veto. The reasoning behind that is based on statements from Senator Carl Levin, who stressed many times that it was the Obama administration that cut any language from the bill, that would protect U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely.

Watch Senator Levin’s statements from cspan2 here.

President Obama could sign the bill into law as soon as December 13. Happy Holidays!

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

OWS, What Economic Recovery? As promised, Occupiers shutting down busy U.S. West Coast shipping ports. Watch out, media reporting there are undercover cops amongst your ranks!

A video stream from the Port of Long Beach, in California, shows that it’s raining, and you can also hear what Occupiers say are police helicopters circling low.

California media reporting that Occupiers have moved onto several important shipping port; Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Portland in Oregon and Seattle in Washington.

Occupiers were hoping the port labor unions would join in, but one union official said there was not enough support from union members.

Bloomberg media says Goldman Sachs is the main target of the Occupiers.  Goldman Sachs owns the country’s largest port cargo operator: SSA Marine.

Reuters has confirmed that Los Angeles police sent in undercover officers prior to mass arrests last month.  The LA police said they used the info they got from spying on the occupiers to make the arrests.

 

International, Technology, U.S.

World War 3 & United Police States of America: Farming Family in North Dakota first in the U.S. to be arrested after being hunted down by Predator UAV. It happened months ago. U.S. Congresswoman resigns, warns the U.S. is becoming NAZI-land

“…in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis.”-Michael C. Kostelnik, retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the use of UAVs

It has been revealed that police in North Dakota have been using Predator UAVs since June 2011.  Now three men, who are accused of threatening a sheriff’s life, have become the first U.S. arrest victims of the drone.

It’s already been reported that the FBI and Border Patrol are using drones, but now local police!  Law enforcement officials in North Dakota admit they use them at least twice per month.

The men, supposedly from the same family, that were arrested are suspected of stealing cows.  The Nelson County Sheriff says his life was threatened by the family when he went on their property looking for the cows.  The sheriff responded by calling in an army of police and a Predator drone based at Grand Forks air base (the UAV officially being used by the Border Patrol).

It’s now December 12, the event is just now being reported in the U.S. media. It took place at the end of June!  I wonder if the family has also been accused of being terrorists.  Sure seems like a lot of taxpayer money was spent to arrest suspected cattle rustlers.

The use of UAVs against U.S. citizens caused one member of Congress to resign back in February.  Jane Harman, of California, who sat on the House Homeland Security Intelligence subcommittee from 2007 until she resigned, said no one ever discussed using Predators to help local police.

She also gave a dire warning: “There is no question that this could become something that people will regret.”

Harman’s father is a survivor of the NAZI concentration camps in World War 2.  Harman should know from her father’s first hand accounts what NAZI-land looks like!

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: Still no decontamination efforts in Fukushima!

Just days after the the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunamis, several Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors went critical, melted down, and some even exploded.  But to date (11 December 2011) no decontamination efforts have been carried out by the prefectural or national governments!

A couple of cities, and even neighborhood committees have attempted decontamination of their immediate surroundings, but nothing on the large scale that’s needed.  This is because no one in higher authority thought such a nuclear disaster would ever happen.

Testimony by many Japanese officials (and Tokyo Electric Power Company officials) say representatives from General Electric (and other U.S. nuclear power companies), and the U.S. government, had claimed the U.S. designed disaster reactors were the safest in the world.  Japanese officials thought there was no justification for such preparations as the U.S. designed nuke plants were so safe.

As a result of the March nuclear disaster (which is still ongoing) officials in the national and prefectural governments have been scrambling to learn everything they can about how to deal with the situation (that included a trip to Chernobyl, albeit very late in the game).

But learning everything they could in a short time wasn’t enough.  The Japanese national government had to pass a law ordering the large scale decontamination!

The Japanese Environment Ministry says they will begin decontamination of roads and other infrastructure in late January 2012.  They do not expect to be able to start decontaminating residences until March 2012!  And that’s for areas contaminated with less than 20 millisieverts of radiation. Japanese officials admit they still don’t know how to deal with areas contaminated with more than 20 millisieverts of radiation!

The Environment Ministry says they are conducting new studies to see how best to handle decontamination in areas with more than 20 millisieverts of radiation, with a focus on protecting the workers.

Business/Economics, Idaho, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Idaho Governor finally admits economy sucks, tax revenues continue to crash, not enough jobs

“This recent string of sub-par showings has raised concerns whether the sales tax will be able to recover enough to meet its targets during the important holiday shopping season.”-Derek Santos, Chief Economist for Idaho

After years of being ‘optimistic’ in his rhetoric regarding the local economy, Idaho’s Butch Otter is finally sounding more realistic: “…for both fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013 to be years of limited growth that will require us to be very selective in the authorization of new general fund spending.”-Clement Leroy ‘Butch’ Otter, Governor of Idaho

If times were bad when he was being optimistic, what’s really gonna happen now?

The reason why Governor Otter is turning down his optimism is that month after month State tax revenues have been much lower than hoped for.  November was no different.  Derek Santos, Idaho’s Chief Economist, says November 2011’s tax returns were 4.1% lower than November 2010.  And last year’s tax returns were down as well.

In fact, sales tax revenues for the first half of fiscal 2012 are already $19 million below what was hoped for!  Income taxes are $6.7 million below expectations!

Idaho’s fiscal 2012 year runs from July 2011 to June 2012.

Economic analysts hope that Idaho will end fiscal 2012 with a surplus of $130 million.  But realize that the State has run through $395 million in reserves since 2009!  Now add to that the fact that analysts also expect tax revenues to continue to drop.  One report said that State leaders did not have a “plan B” for when they run out of surplus money.

The only way that tax revenues will go back up is if a lot of good paying jobs are created. I guess that would be part of any “plan B” that our exalted leaders have failed to come up with.