Jeremy Scahill

Damn those ungrateful Pakistanis. After U.S. drone attacks killed more than 600 of their people since 2006—most of them civilians—it seems they think they have some right to say they don’t want the U.S. flying its “aid” planes to Swat and other “tribal areas.” The New York Times reports that “the Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American workers or planes to distribute the aid in the camps for displaced people.”

The paper reports:

Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan — and so far, the Islamists are in the lead.

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Matt Taibbi

The Greatest Non-Apology of All Time

“While we regret that we participated in the market euphoria and failed to raise a responsible voice, we are proud of the way our firm managed the risk it assumed on behalf of our client before and during the financial crisis,” he said. (via Goldman Regrets ‘Market Euphoria’ That Led to Crisis - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com.)

Anyone else out there find himself doubled over laughing after reading Goldman, Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein’s “apology” for his bank’s behavior leading up to the financial crisis? Has an act of contrition ever in history been more worthless and insincere? Even Gary Ridgway did a better job of sounding genuinely sorry at his sentencing hearing — and he was a guy who had sex with dead prostitutes because it was cheaper than paying live ones.

Looking at Blankfein’s one-sentence apology, I’m struck in particular by a couple of phrases:

While we regret that we participated in the market euphoria…Really, Lloyd?

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Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

Humans have certain capacities to perceive any kind of feelings and reactions, and thus specific strategies to cope with each feeling perceived either form environment or from the experiences they pass through. However, when these feelings are more extensive than other types of feeling, it will conquer the mind and the soul of its host, and will squirt out slowly to affect all the behaviors and reactions of this person. The balance kept between both the negative and positive feelings is the key to a normal and healthy life.

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