Feds Claim Right to Kill US Citizens on US Soil if Suspected of "Terrorism" -- Seriously

Per ABC News, "The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat . . ." (emphasis supplied; full story at the foregoing link).

To repeat: The U.S. government has arrogated to itself the right to deprive you of your life (let alone liberty or property) without due process of law, if an unidentified authority says they think you "present" a "terrorist" threat.

They are not talking about a situation in which you are actually, presently threatening anyone – e.g., if you were actually pointing a weapon at someone, or holding someone hostage – because in that case, they would have the right to kill you anyway.

No, they are talking about assassinating you ahead of time, because someone says they think you're planning something like that.

So, the entirety of the U.S. is apparently now a Constitution-free zone.

"Trinity River Design District"

(Dallas), by Justin Terveen (click on the image for a somewhat larger version):

Much cooler, gigantic version of the same photo here. More on Justin Terveen's Flickr page. (Thanks, Julie!)

Modern Ruin

"On . . . September 25, 2008 the U.S. Government took over Washington Mutual, selling most of it to JPMorgan Chase.

"Roughly a year earlier, at the height of a frenzied economic bubble, Washington Mutual began building a new $1 million branch at 5030 Greenville Ave., just south of Lovers Lane [Dallas, TX]. Just after its completion, the government seized WaMu, and JPMorgan Chase decided not to occupy the building.

"The new building was never opened, never used, and has sat as an empty shell for more than a year.

"On February 20, 2010, Modern Ruin – an exhibition organized by Christina Rees and Thomas Feulmer – will open. The two-day exhibition will be the only use for the million-dollar building before the demolition process begins the following week.

* * * * *

"15 artists will create work inspired by and in dialogue with the building . . . ."

including Frances Bagley, Tim Best, Michael Corris, Thomas Feulmer, Annette Lawrence, M, Margaret Meehan, Tom Orr, Richard Patterson, Cam Schoepp, Noah Simblist, Christoph Trendel, Terri Thornton, Kevin Todora, Jeff Zilm. There's a "reception/intervention" Sat., Feb. 20, 8-11pm, and the exhibition will otherwise be open only Sat. and Sun. Feb. 20 and 21, 12-5pm.

In a related story today, indianexpress.com reports, "JPMorgan Chase & Co said it is cutting up to 14,000 jobs, more than previously disclosed . . . . JPMorgan expects $2.75 billion of savings from Washington Mutual . . . . by the end of 2009, sooner than originally thought."

Dallas Contemporary Opens

with a fine installation by James Gilbert. More on the Contemporary here.

Dallas Art Fair 2010

The second annual Fair opened today at the Fashion Industry Gallery (at 1807 Ross Ave.; see the Dallas Art Fair or my previous post for hours, etc.). It's like an Armory you can actually absorb, with more than 50 exhibitors from the US, UK, and Canada and lots of great contemporary work, much of it by big-name artists (Ed Ruscha, Richard Patterson, Yue Minjun, Henry Darger, Nic Nicosia, Erick Swenson, Vernon Fisher, Anish Kapoor, Judy Pfaff, Marilyn Minter, Kim Joon, Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Robert Ryman, Chuck Close, etc.). Plan to spend a full day if you can.

The visuals within this post are of: Ed Ruscha, The Mighty Ones (1993), John Berggruen Gallery; Chris Doyle, Apocalypse Management Panorama (2009) (detail), Andrew Edlin Gallery; Susan Hauptman, Self Portrait (2009) (charcoal and 3D postcard on paper), Forum Gallery; Kim Joon, Bird Land-Breitling (2008) (detail), Sundaram Tagore Gallery; Graciela Iturbide, Mujer Ángel, Sonora Desert, Mexico (1979) (note the hair and the boombox), Peter Fetterman Gallery; Yue Minjun, Hat No. 2 (2004), Pan American Projects; and Fahamu Pecou, Role Model Citizen (2009), Conduit Gallery.

Many more photos here. (Caveats: pics of the artist, title, and gallery info appear after the the works to which they relate; no judgment should be inferred from whether or not I included a particular work {some were skipped merely 'cuz I couldn't get a clear shot or for some other random reason, while others were included merely 'cuz illustrative of some point I might some day make}; and apologies for the reflections, dim lighting, etc., which are difficult to eliminate in the art fair setting.)

Prize for Perseverance

"The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed . . . . [that] during a 17-day period, he received about 1,880 'access denials,' wherein the computer system blocked his attempts to view Web sites that were deemed pornographic."

More at The Washington Times.

"Taqwacore": the Birth of Punk Islam

I want to see this:



(Thanks, Julie!)

Great Article on How Timmeh Blew It,

here. A few choice 'graphs (if you're not quite sure why it's the credit derivatives that mattered [and still matter] most [as opposed to, say, excessive bonuses or sub-prime mortgages], you might want to see my previous posts here and here):

It was mid-2008 and a little-noticed wrangle was taking place . . . . On one side . . . stood a group of banks that included Merrill Lynch of the US and France’s Société Générale. On the other: Security Capital Assurance (SCA), a Bermuda-based bond insurer that had run into difficulties as the US subprime mortgage market imploded. At stake was how much money the banks should receive on insurance contracts that SCA provided for complex pools of mortgage securities known as collateralised debt obligations, or CDOs.

Among other reasons, the banks had bought the insurance – called credit default swaps, or CDSs – to protect themselves against a panic just like the one sweeping the markets at that time. But SCA lacked sufficient capital to pay the claims in full and the banks feared that if the insurer went under, they would receive nothing.

Something had to give. After heated talks, Merrill agreed that July to cancel its CDS contracts for a pay-out of 14 cents on the dollar – a severe “haircut,” in market parlance. The other banks also reduced their original claims. At the conclusion of talks that dragged on until May 2009, not a single lender was paid in full.

That is potentially awkward for Mr. Geithner, who before joining the administration of President Barack Obama, was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most important regional component of the US central banking system. . . . [D]id the government, though collusion or mistake . . . take billions of dollars from the taxpayers’ purse and put them into the coffers of some of the world’s largest banks without forcing them to accept much lower payments? Why, in other words, did the counterparties of AIG [who, thanks to Mr. Geithner, received 100 cents on the dollar for their CDS's] wind up with so much better a deal than those of SCA did – some of which were the same banks?

The whole piece is well worth reading; and there's another great, related article at HuffPo discussing "documents showing that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke covered up the fact that his staff recommended he not bail out AIG" (emphasis supplied).