Posts from — November 2007

This is yet another story of the Catch-22 thinking that the Gulf Coast must endure when dealing with FEMA and the incredibly obtuse people they have working for them.

The Associated Press reports that New Orleans aquarium denied FEMA funding

NEW ORLEANS – In what some see as another bureaucratic absurdity after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA is refusing to pick up the cost of restocking New Orleans’ aquarium because of how the new fish were obtained: straight from the sea. [Read more →]

You do your part in helping the police and do you get any appreciation?

An individual fleeing the police enters your property and you stop him. Do they give you a medal, an appreciation dinner? No, they arrest you and you’re facing execution.

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Despite what you haven’t heard or seen from the legacy media™ the Writers Guild of America is still on strike.

Stuart Levine, a managing editor at Variety, has an opinion piece up at MSNBC, Showrunners turn strike into a show stopper, about the issues and the reason it lead to the shut down of so many shows so quickly.

John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey, member of the WGA and veteran scriptwriter, provides more industry background in The Albatross.

And over at United Hollywood Michael “Mose” Schur, a producer of “The Office” has a Modest Proposal: CEOs Go First, suggesting that if the industry is in such dire straits, maybe the media CEOs to should take the same pay cut they are offering writers.

With a little more than a year left and Rove gone from the White House, can the Shrubbery manage to stage photo ops as the two remaining members of the Village People that he has missed: the leather guy and the Native American?

What a bunch of self-serving garbage: Intelligence deputy to America: Rethink privacy

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

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Christy Hardin Smith at Fire Dog Lake notes that some in the legacy media™ are wondering about their political coverage.

In particular Deborah Howell, ombudscritter for the Washington Post wrote on Sizing Up the Politics Coverage

A perennial complaint is that the media cover politics too much as a horse race instead of reporting more on the candidates’ backgrounds, where they stand on issues and how they would lead the nation. But is it true? I intend to find out — at least at The Post — and report back to readers.

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Few people bother with truth about the Hedgemony’s support for veterans.

Senator Edward Kennedy and former Senator Max Cleland guest posting at Danger Room ask that companies Stop Messing with Vets’ Jobs

It’s a disgrace that tens of thousands of National Guard troops and Reservists return home and find they’ve been laid off, demoted, or denied salary and benefit increases they should have received. It’s wrong for employers to turn their backs on those who risk their lives for our country.
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On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns fell silent. The Great War, The War to End All Wars, was over…for a couple of decades.

The red poppies of Flanders fields became a symbol of that war and the veterans that returned from it. Known as Remembrance Day in much of the world, the poppies will be in evidence. Remembrance Day observances have more in common with the American Memorial Day as day to honor those who have died in war.

First called Armistice Day in the United States, the name was changed to Veterans Day, and its purpose changed to honoring those who are serving, or have served in the military. The change was made to avoid a conflict with the existing Memorial Day observance that goes back to the Civil War era.

A heart felt salute to everyone who managed to survive basic training. We can hope that sooner, rather than later, there will be no need for another generation to put on uniforms.

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

Torture is a disease, not a cure. It is a disease of sociopathic, sadistic cowards, not an interrogation technique. The only thing that is reliably produced by torture is a false confession. The studies and literature are consistent on this point and the data goes back centuries. Many of these studies are not academic treatises, but hands on experiments by the military and the police in many different countries, at various times.

Ellroon at Rants from the Rookery posts about Dershowitz claiming that torture worked because the Nazis used it effectively against the French Resistance. Dershowitz needs to read some real, authoritative histories of Vichy France to understand how the Resistance was, on occasion, penetrated by authorities. With a careful reading he might understand how many people who had absolutely no ties of any kind to the Resistance were arrested and often executed based on their relationship to someone who “confessed” under torture.

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As reported by the Associated Press, another classic liar-side chat™ [Saturday radio address] in which he lies about the work Congress is doing, but this time the AP writer calls him on it: Bush urges Congress to OK veterans bill

“Congressional leaders let the fiscal year end without passing this bill they know our veterans need,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “The time to act is running out. … The best way members of Congress can give thanks to our veterans is to send me a clean bill that I can sign into law.”

Bush’s dig at Democrats didn’t tell the whole story.

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I knew this wasn’t the first time Harry had screwed a Democratic Senator while making a “deal” with Repubs, so I went looking and found the information at Blue Oregon: on October 31^st Harry Reid ignores Ron Wyden’s hold on Bush nominee for Interior; outrage ensues

But on Monday, while Wyden was at OHSU with his wife and their brand-new baby twins, Senator Harry Reid brought the nomination of Laverty to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Without Wyden on the floor to muster an objection to the unanimous consent request, Laverty was approved by voice vote.

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United States Marine Corps

1775

Via Holden at First Draft, the Associated Press reports Bill Easing Tax Clears House

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Friday pushed through an $80 billion bill to block the spread of a dreaded tax on middle-income people. The White House and Republicans, protesting tax increases in the bill affecting mainly investment fund managers, maintained that it would never become law.

The 216-193 vote to ”patch” the alternative minimum tax for a year sends the issue to the Senate, where its prospects are at best uncertain. Not one House Republican voted for it.

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