Category — Uncategorized

After Jimmy Carter’s latest trip to the Middle East I fully expect to hear Republicans bringing up the law about private citizens not conducting foreign policy. For the edification of my readers here is the actual law: Logan Act

1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799
Codified as Title 18 U.S. Code § 953 (2004).

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

May as well “nip this in the bud”, as my favorite deputy used to say.

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What do you get when you combine 10 litres of wine and a black plastic garbage bag?

In Wales you get: Drunk Darth Vader’s Jedi assault.

Just so no one can accuse me of trying to hide it, I have had links to the Weather Underground for years. Actually there are three links right on this page. There’s the little graphic down in the Local Interest section of the left side bar, and then there are the two links under the Hurricanes portion of the blogroll.

I would hate to have anyone think I’m hiding my connections.

Oh, I don’t own a flag pin, just a few badges and medals and stuff, as well as a couple of actual flags for flying, when appropriate under the Flag Code.

It’s a good thing I’m not running for President.

😈

Juan Cole on the Secretary of State playing “the dozens” with al Sadr:

Rice has her ‘bring’em on moment’ in Iraq, talking trash to the Mahdi Army and calling Muqtada al-Sadr a ‘coward.’ Muqtada al-Sadr eluded Saddam Hussein for 4 years after Saddam killed his father and two elder brothers; and in 2004 he twice took on the US military. He may be a lot of things, but he is not a coward. Has Rice ever said anything about Iraq that was true or useful? Even as she was talking up ‘improved security’ in Baghdad, mortar shells were falling about her in the Green Zone.

These people keep woofing, and they aren’t impressing anyone. They let their ‘gator mouths get them into situations their canary butts can’t handle. She just added thousands of people to the al Sadr movement with her statements, and made Maliki look like even more of a loser. Throwing insults is not very effective against people who lob mortars in response.

It takes time for the plates to adjust: Another quake shakes southern Illinois

(CNN) — A 4.5-magnitude earthquake shook southern Illinois early Monday, the latest in a string of quakes that have rattled the region since last week, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake — the 18th since a magnitude 5.2 hit the area Friday morning — was centered about six miles below ground and about 37 miles (60 km) north-northwest of Evansville, Indiana, or about 131 miles (211 km) east of St. Louis.

It struck at 12:38 a.m. local time (1:38 a.m. ET). There were no immediate reports of damage.

Until the Hedgemony decides no one really cares about such things and abolishes it, you can get more information at the USGS Earthquake Center.

These are probably a series of aftershocks, but occasionally the release of pressure at one location over-stresses another fault and you have a separate quake. The veteran ‘quake people don’t get too excited about these “minor” events, forgetting the first time they realized that the ground wasn’t as solid as they had believed all their lives.

CNN is reporting that the Colorado Party has lost: Former bishop claims Paraguay election

(CNN) — Six decades of single-party rule in Paraguay came to an end on Sunday after Colorado Party candidate Blanca Ovelar conceded a loss to former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, who claimed the historic win on his promise to help the poor.

With more than half of the 14,000 precincts reporting, Lugo, backed by the Patriotic Alliance for Change, claimed 41 percent of the votes, according to the preliminary results reported by the government’s election department.

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Jerome Doolittle at Bad Attitudes finds some good news of a sort in his piece, …and Privatization Scores Again!

The money quote: “Despite aggressive collection tactics, the contractors have brought in only $49 million in revenue, little more than half of what it has cost the IRS to implement the program.”

Paul Krugman wrote about this practice a while back and correctly identified it as tax farming, one of the many practices that led to the French Revolution.

I’ve been on the planet more than six decades, and I’m still waiting to see a successful privatization of government services. I’ve seen dozens of attempts all over the country, and they all end up more expensive than when the service was provided by public employees. The government ends up spending more money for less service than they had before privatization. It’s like tax cuts, no matter how often the concept is proven to be a failure, Republicans just have to try it again.

One of the joys of everyone “packing heat” in Florida: Gun Accidentally Fires, Hits Chili’s Customer

MELBOURNE, Fla. — A gun belonging to a customer inside a Chili’s restaurant in Melbourne accidentally discharged, hitting a nearby person eating dinner, according to police.

Police said officers were called to the restaurant at 955 Wickham Road just after 11:30 p.m. Friday.

When officers arrived, they found the victim had suffered a gunshot wound to the lower leg in a dining area of the restaurant.

That’s why guns should be left in the hands of the people with training, like the military…or, maybe not: Misfired artillery crashes into girl’s bed

JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (AP) — A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home miles away Friday and injured a young girl’s cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.

No people were injured when the two-pound piece hit the Jefferson Township home about two-and-a- half miles from the Picatinny Arsenal and landed in the girl’s bed, said Peter Rowland, arsenal spokesman. She wasn’t home, but her cat was sleeping on the bed.

Your mileage may vary.

Sue Sturgis at Facing South writes about Project Vulcan, a Federal program to map CO₂ emissions in the US.

If you click on the map you will get a larger version from Purdue University, home of the project, so you can see how your area is doing. While I expected that the cities would stand out, one of the things that struck me is that the Interstates also stand out from the surrounding landscape. This is a powerful argument for decreasing automobile emissions, as the map clearly shows their effect.

So Texas law enforcement and and child welfare have raided the rural compound of a splinter religious group based on reports of child abuse.

This sounds awfully familiar.

We can certainly hope that this ends more peacefully, but given the reality of those in charge of what we laughingly call the “American Criminal Justice System”, the real question becomes: is Jerry Boykin involved in anyway?

Laura Rozen points to The Green Light, an article by Phillippe Sands in the May issue of Vanity Fair that beings up some interesting possibilities. By granting people immunity from prosecution for violation of US laws in the Military Commissions Act, the way is open for the rest of the world to prosecute them.

A stumbling block in war crime prosecutions by outside countries is that they have to wait and establish that the individuals can not or will not be prosecuted for their crimes in their own countries. The immunity granted by the Military Commissions Act clears that obstacle to foreign prosecution.

People involved with this administration may as well forget about foreign travel, or there could be a side-trip to the Hague arranged for them.

Professor Cole has more inside Iraq coverage of what went wrong with the assault on the Mahdi Army.

The short version is that thousands of members of the Iraqi Army refused to attack other Iraqis in a political dispute. Al Malaki has had to “draft” the Badr Brigade and the Da’wa militia to fill out the “Iraqi” army. This, of course, makes the American ideal of a non-political Iraqi Army a total joke – it’s an extension of a few Shi’ia political parties. This move will obviously anger the Sunnis and the Kurds.

The US is in the position of training and equipping a partisan militia in a country in the middle of a civil war.

Elayne Riggs highlights the best April Fool’s ad, which, as usual is from the BBC.

While it isn’t on the scale of the 1957 entry, The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest , it is clever.

to the Royal Air Force