Greenspan's Body Count: Judy "Renee" Petersen

Today's episode of Greenspan's Body Count comes from Greene, Iowa, where the names have changed but the story will be familiar.

According to the Sheriff’s office, 36 year-old Judy Renee Petersen was found murdered around 9:00 p.m. in her home in Greene.

Judy’s husband, 39 year-old Thomas Petersen is the suspected killer and drove off with the couple’s two-year-old child Jacob issuing an Amber Alert.

That's one talented toddler! I've got my high school diploma and I wouldn't have a clue how to go about issuing an Amber Alert.

What was the source of problems in Thomas and Judy's lives? Loyal GBC readers already know.

No motive has been found for the murder, but online court records show Judy and Thomas had previously been in court over their mortgage payment.

Greenspan's Body Count stands at 170.

Syria continues massacring protesters, Obama keeps bombing Libya

NYT:

Syrian tanks took up positions outside the city of Hama on Saturday, where tens of thousands of people took to the streets to mourn the deaths of at least 65 protesters gunned down by security forces there the day before.

The government’s violent crackdown against a three-month-old popular uprising continued, with helicopter gunships killing 10 people in a neighboring province and residents of Hama bracing for a military assault that would be the first on the city since the government bombed it in 1982, killing at least 10,000 people.

Meanwhile, it's been a month and a half since Obama condemned Syria for killing demonstrators.

Obama has yet to explain why attacking Libya without Congressional authorization is OK, but attacking Syria is not.

Does Obama play eenie-meenie-minie-moe to decide what countries to attack?

The Cove

I just watched The Cove about the annual slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. Please watch it. It's the story of a group of rogue environmentalists waging a guerrilla campaign in enemy territory to expose Japan's dirty little secret.

I used to think this South Park episode (full episode at link, relevant clip below) was a joke, or at least overstated. It's not.

Whale Whores
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Taiji was hit to a small extent by the tsunami, but none of the dolphin killers' boats was destroyed and the slaughter is expected to resume this fall.

You can donate to Save Japan Dolphins here.

GD II update

Truly horrible economic data this morning, extending and worsening the string of bad data we've had the last few weeks.

* May Nonfarm Payrolls 54K vs 169K consensus; prior revised to 232K from 244K

* May Nonfarm Private Payroll 83K vs 180K consensus

* March Nonfarm payrolls revised to 194K from 235K

* May Average Workweek 33.6 vs 34.3 consensus

Fascism's not working, folks. We're only digging ourselves deeper into debt making the future pain worse, and even that's not making anything any better today.

Moody's slams Obama request for no-strings debt ceiling increase, threatens downgrade

Wow. The normally reserved Moody's is letting it rip:

Moody's had previously indicated that its stable outlook on the Aaa rating was based on the assumption that meaningful progress would be made within the next eighteen months in adopting measures to reverse the country's upward debt trajectory. The debt limit negotiations represent a real near-term opportunity for agreement on a plan for fiscal consolidation. If this current opportunity passes, Moody's believes that the likelihood of anything significant being accomplished before the next presidential election is reduced, in part because the two parties each hopes to capture both a congressional majority and the presidency in the 2012 election, after which the winning party could achieve its own agenda. Therefore, failure to reach an agreement as part of the current negotiations would increase the likelihood of a negative outlook in the near term, because the upward debt trajectory would still be in place. At present, this appears the most likely outcome, in Moody's opinion.

Quite contrary to Timmy the Tax Cheat's threats that unless he gets a blank check the markets will freak out, Moody's is saying the markets will freak out if you give him a blank check.

Right, left unite against Obama's illegal war on Libya

And Boehner blocks a vote:

A group of both liberals and conservatives — defying the leaders of both parties — threw their support behind a bill to pull the U.S. military out of the Libya operation. That prospect led GOP leaders to shelve the bill before it came to a vote.

That episode signaled how abruptly the politics of U.S. warmaking have changed, as the intervention in Libya follows a bloody, weary decade in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, a Democratic president has asked the country to support a new military action and missed a legal deadline that required him to get Congress’s authorization.

In response, an antiwar movement has appeared in an unlikely place: a House dominated by the Republican right.

“We are in control in the House, and we want something on the floor,” said Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), one of a number of conservatives who called Wednesday for a showdown with Obama. “Put a resolution up, and let us express . . . to the president that ‘you no longer have the authority of this Congress to conduct military operations in that country.’ ”

Since the beginning of the Libyan operation, congressional leaders have been quietly supportive of Obama — but mostly just quiet. In the Senate, a resolution in support of the president is still waiting for a vote.

In the House, GOP leaders had said little on the subject, even after Obama missed a deadline set in the 1973 War Powers Resolution. That law required him to obtain congressional permission within 60 days, a deadline that passed last month.

“His intention is not to undermine the commander in chief, at a time when we have troops in harm’s way,” Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said Wednesday.

Ruling Class: Euro edition

The Europeans, you see, are not so different from us.

While imposing austerity to the point of riots on the little people, here is how Europe's Ruling Class lives.

From tomorrow's Telegraph (and no, I won't tell you the race results or the stock prices):

THE European Commission has spent more than £8 million on private jet travel, holiday resorts and cocktail parties, an investigation has found.

Commissioners travelled in limousines, stayed in five-star hotels and bought gifts including Tiffany jewellery as their governments faced savage budget cuts and rising EU taxes.

An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism into spending by the EU executive has shown that more than €7.5 million (£6.6 million) was used on private jet travel for commissioners between 2006 and last year.

Commissioners stayed at resorts in locations as far-flung as Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Vietnam and spent €300,000 on cocktail parties, including an event in Amsterdam costing €75,000 which was described as "a night filled with wonder like no other".

The Commission spent thousands hiring orchestras to play at parties, while guest speakers at its events were presented with expensive gifts, including cufflinks, fountain pens and jewellery.

A further £118,000 was paid for limousines to chauffeur commissioners between official engagements.

Conservative ministers and MEPs said the commission was acting "like a medieval monarchy", days after it demanded a budget increase of 4.9 per cent which would cost Britons £3 billion a year.

HT: JF