Posts from — May 2009

Via the Agonist and others this Gentlemen’s Quarterly [GQ] slideshow of covers from the daily briefings that Rumsfeld had created for the very top officials.

If you think the torture pictures would be a problem for the troops in Muslim countries, how do you think even moderate Muslims will react to these gems? Anyone who doesn’t believe these are going to be used to justify the claim that the US is conducting a Christian Crusade against Muslim nations is hiding their heads in the sand.

These sorts of things are absolutely, positively, totally, and unequivocally in violation of hundreds of years of US military rules, policies, and procedures.

Millions of people in the streets protesting the possibility of the Iraq War doesn’t even get a yawn from the media.

For a week solid they have been covering the few dozen people protesting a commencement address by the President at a Catholic university best known for its sports teams. He’s going to receive an honorary degree which is a pretty cheap price for all of the media attention.

You would have thought it was a missing blond teenage girl, or the arrest of a celebrity for DWI [extra coverage for blond female celebrities arrested for DWI].

And these people have the gall to blame the ‘Net for their declining revenues.

I have never really taking a shine to Nancy Pelosi and certainly don’t like her results as leader of the House and failure to whip the Blue Dogs into shape, but I see no reason to put up with the lies being pushed by the GOP and CIA to cover their butts.

Ignore Nancy Pelosi and her statements, and look at what my former Governor and Senator, Bob Graham has to say about CIA records and recollections concerning members of Congress. He was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee from 2001 until 2003, the period in question, and he says the CIA records are wrong.

Bob Graham has a few unusual habits.

One is Workdays, when he works at someone else’s job for a complete 8-hour shift. He has been a busboy, baggage handler, cop, teacher, etc. to give him a feeling for what workers go through. He started doing this while a member of the Florida Senate, and never stopped.

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Pat Rice on the Local Puppy Trainer heard rumors that Charlie Crist might be gay and is quick to add a variation of “not that there’s anything wrong with that”.

The Pensacola New Journal notes that Fierce 2010 races shaping up in Florida

Marian Johnson, vice president for political strategies for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, said the demographic trends are friendlier for the Democrats. The party always outnumbered the GOP but with the surge in voter registration last year, she said, more new voters signed up as independents and no party voters than as Republicans.

“One of the problems for the Republicans is the voter who is registering is typically a young woman and they’re very interested in what’s going on,” said Johnson. “They are paying attention now.”

Yes, folks, Florida has always been a majority Democratic state, but the national party for years has siphoned off all of the political money, and a backlash against incumbents led to a redistricting that gave two-thirds of the state and Federal legislative offices to the Republicans.

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Susie Madrak has a video of Elizabeth Warren explaining about bankruptcy and medical insurance – central point: 75% of those whose bankruptcy filing is related to medical bills have insurance. This is the same insurance that many in Congress think should be protected from single-payer.

You may remember Elizabeth Warren from a Daily Show segment where she explained the financial meltdown to John Stewart. She is the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the TARP program.

Here’s a Frontline interview from 2004 on credit cards. She has a rather low opinion of credit card terms.

She is also on the Sicko DVD as one of the extra interviews.

She is a professor of law at Harvard, teaching contract and bankruptcy law. She is a wonderful teacher because she knows her subject matter so well that she can explain it clearly to a general audience. She really wants you to understand it.

She is someone who should be listened to, because she knows what she is talking about and isn’t political.

Mustang Bobby covers the Charles Krauthammer ticking time-bomb scenario, that is supposed to justify the use of torture.

The WaPo’s resident neocon apologist uses the case of the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Nachshon Mordechai Wachsman. While it is true that the Israelis claim to have gotten their suspect to reveal Wachsman’s location, it is also true that Wachsman and another Israeli soldier died in the rescue attempt.

What happened was the equivalent of locating the bomb and having it go off when there was an attempt to defuse it, which is not the desired result. Further, it is quite possible that the terrorists expected the Israelis to locate them, and it was a suicide mission from the beginning. The exchange was three terrorists for two Israeli commandos, which is not a sustainable outcome from the Israeli point of view.

CNN has a slide show of Hubble’s greatest hits, and the CBC has a gallery of the Hubble mission and other space news.

The new camera has been installed, the gyros have been replaced, and one of the battery packs has been swapped out. Things haven’t been trouble free, but they are getting done. It’s kind of like working on your car under water while wearing oven mitts.

According to the BBC history widget on my sidebar, on this day in 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued the Papal bull, Ad extirpanda, which “explicitly authorized (and defined the appropriate circumstances for) the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics.”

In one of the earliest known instances of “plausible deniability”, the members of Church did not, themselves, do the torturing, that was left to the local secular authorities who were reimbursed for their troubles by receiving part of the estates of the “accused”. The property could only be seized if the accused confessed, so nothing has really changed on the torture front.

Senator Lindsey “Grahamcracker” wondered why torture has been used for 500 years if it didn’t work. It is a good deal older than 500 years and it is still effective at eliciting false confessions for show trials which is why sadistic bastards and the governments they support have always used it.

Apparently having a helicopter make a forced landing in a local parking lot at 8PM isn’t news around here.

The pilot did a good job as the engine sounded like it was eating itself. I have no idea how they are going to get it out of where it landed without taking it apart and loading it on flatbed trailers, but I was more concerned that for a while it looked like it was going to come down on my head, and I had to wait to see which way to run.

If you have an interest in the roots of the financial meltdown and the time to spare, listen to this interview with Gillian Tett on Fresh Air from WHYY, May 14, 2009. She is a reporter for the Financial Times in Britain and has just written a book, Fool’s Gold, about the beginnings of it in the 1990s.

She is a cultural anthropologist by training, and looked at the financial sector the same way she was trained to look at any society. She knew something was wrong in 2004, and was a lonely voice of alarm among financial writers beginning in 2005 for FT. She was one of the few people who were looking at the credit markets.

There’s an excerpt of her book at the link.

Pointing the Way?

I’m coming.

[Editor: More greeting ritual with Tonto moving to join the Lone Ranger and Young Jack in face rubbing.]

Friday Ark

The Miami Herald reports on the weekend events in Dade County: Anti-gay church to protest here

A small, radical Midwestern church that has made headlines for picketing Iraq War veterans’ funerals plans to protest an America it believes has gone pro-gay and anti-God with demonstrations in South Florida beginning this weekend.

Yes, the Wicked Whackoes of Westboro are headed for South Florida to annoy people. Fred and the Phelpes are planning to start their tour in Key West and then move North with their pathetic street theater performance.

This CNN opinion piece pretty much summarizes reality in its head line: Social Security healthier than your 401(k).

The writer, Alicia H. Munnell, is the Peter F. Drucker professor of management sciences at Boston College and director of the Center for Retirement Research, but don’t let her years of education and research sway you when you can listen to the options of the financial whizkids who gave us the GOPression that has impacted the Social Security system slightly and wiped out the retirements of people who were counting on their stock portfolios.

Single-payer will solve most of the Medicare/Medicaid problems, and minor tweaks to the existing Social Security system, which are nothing compared to the doubling of the tax rate that Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, solve the problems that are decades away.

People are “entitled” to these payments, because they have been paying for them their entire working lives.

When I saw the announcement on MSNBC about Dell Computers launching a new web site for women called Della, before I even clicked to read the story something told me “It’s going to be pink”. It’s pink.

Laptops as a fashion accessory ?!?

Yo, dudes, most of the women in this business would trend to steampunk, not pink.

Michael Dell has come a long way from his days of selling computers from his dorm room in Texas, too bad his social sensibilities never made it beyond the frat house. Seriously, man, PINK?!?!