Friday, December 29, 2006
Things Change
One of the things I think we overlook in America is the tendencies of capitalism, to acquire more capital, is in and of itself morally and ethically neutral until there is a collision of interests. Basically the same things squirrels do with their nuts, and so that’s what most people here endeavor to do do with capital, acquire more, which they spend on stuff for wealth creation, as I suppose they do everywhere else that isn’t in a thousand mile radius of here. And this is just human nature, it’s what people do.
I’ve never meet two people who have ever agreed on what is right and wrong all the time either. Somewhere in the minds of every individual their religion or philosophy helps judge every conflict of interest to their own individual satisfaction, per the squirrels and capitalists above. Some people use self interest more than religion, philosophy, or the lack thereof, than others.
When it comes to politics I am observing a tendency to be quite a bit more towards the skeptical side during the months prior to an election, whence I revert to cynicism afterwards as things change from promise to reality. I tend to go off on elected people in ways that I don’t really think are conducive to opening a dialog with them, because they know I know they can’t deliver any campaign promise what they don’t get tribal approval in some sort of way, (so grifters and graft are going to move opinion in ways that religion and philosophies of public opinion can only pretend to,) and so I always have something to put them on the defensive with politically, just as many other people do to. New and improved better human being? Nah.
People are the most interesting thing in the world for observation, even if they are deadwood in someone else’s estimation, because they are for the most part, and conspicuous so online, revealing of human nature. That’s why a lot of presenters got in trouble during the election and use paper, my bad, because human nature can be so humorous if the common humanity of the butt of the joke is acknowledged by the butty. Snark is like that but different, what would Miss Debrorah say?, tone, oh no no, I said that, hmmm. Oh yeah she didn’t mean that either.
All this I think has a lot to do with the new Manufactured Media starting to say things like wanker, and intertubes and such. (I read intertubes in some comments the other day and it had spelunking written all over it.) That is one enduring characteristic of the American people, they all like to be cool, so there’s always a new fad. “From Chords to Condos”, ought to be a Neil Young song. Yep, get in the Winnebago and go work on the Indian Reservation when I retire, see Murica.
So now we will get a whole new Manufactured Media called big brother, because the network will want to know what your doing like the NSA, so they can snarf your ideas, and cop that peepers pleasure watching you pick at your nostril, just as much as the three letter boys of America, and that M1 MI 56 or whatever there mate, the other four English speaking countries call their spooks and snoops. Orwell’s television is a natural development for fads and control. Someday you may even see yourself on TV watching TV, citizen hero.
Before I go on tour however I will try to find at least ten nice things to say about all the people I’ve zinged over the years and work them into some unread tome discovered by evolved earthworms in the nuclear winter. We will be contributing to the future of life in unimaginable ways together.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Billmon
So long, boy, you can take my place
I got my papers, I got my pay
So pack my bags and I’ll be on my way, to Yellow River
Put my gun down, the war is won
Fill my glass high, the time has come
I’m goin’ back to the place that I love, Yellow River
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my blood, it’s the place I love
Got no time for explanations, got no time to lose
Tomorrow night you’ll find me sleepin’ underneath the moon
And Yellow River
Cannon fire lingers in my mind
I’m so glad that I’m still alive
And I’ve been gone for such a long time, from Yellow River
I remember the nights were cool
I can still see the water pool
And I remember the girl that I knew, from Yellow River
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my blood, it’s the place I love
Got no time for explanations, got no time to lose
Tomorrow night you’ll find me sleepin’ underneath the moon
And Yellow River
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow River, Yellow River, is in my blood, it’s the place I love
Oh Oh Oh, Hairy Christmas
Here comes hax a box
Here comes hax a box
Hax a box boxing day
May as read this on the redundancy of intertubes;
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
A Most Overlooked Blog
Arms and influence –The political uses of violence, for good or bad.
Check out the Core topic links on the left. Who knows you might actually learn something.
The Hypocrisy of Pro-life Christianity
ne of the lost concepts of Christianity is that of the resurrection of the dead, which is a tenet of the Creeds, and which modern Christians recite almost every Sunday, and upon death they then magically separate their soul from the body and the soul floats away to heaven to do who knows what, all the while not noticing the contradiction between their speech of recitation and thoughts of the Pearly Gates. From these I am to draw spiritual guidance?
When the Apostles write of those sleeping in death, then we must take that as a literal understanding of early Church’s position, which follows from the Scriptures themselves;
Ecc 9:1-12 For all this I gave to heart, even to explain all this, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. Whether love or hatred, man does not know all that is before them. All happens alike to all; one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him who sacrifices, and to him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who swears is as he that fears an oath.
This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event to all. Yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they are alive, and after that they go to those who died. For one who is chosen to be among all the living, there is hope. For a living dog is better than a dead lion.
For the living know that they shall die; but the dead do not know anything; nor do they have any more a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has now perished; nor do they any longer have a part forever in all that is done under the sun.
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God now is pleased with your works. Let your garments be white at every time; and let your head lack no ointment. Look on life with the wife whom you love all the days of the life of your vanity, which He gave you under the sun, all the days of your vanity. For that is your share in this life, and in your labor which you as a laborer do under the sun.All that your hand finds to do, do it with your strength. For there is no work, or planning, or knowledge, or wisdom, in Sheol, there where you go. I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the mighty; nor even bread to the wise; nor even riches to the men of discernment; nor even favor to knowing men. For time and occurrence happen to them all. For man also does not know his time. As the fish that are taken in the evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the trap, like them are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.
I have highlighted a very important thing here. When you die, YOU cease to be. It is in the resurrection of the dead, those who have fallen asleep in death, that we can see the implications of the Divine name, the causative of “to be”.
The rub then, as I see it, is at what point does the fetus come to be an image of the living God? I do not know, and neither does anyone else either. Jeremiah wrote that from the time he was conceived he was known by God, so that the more conservative interpretation is given validity in Scripture.
One of the major weaknesses of using the Old Testament as a basis for Christian living is that it has already been proven to be an impossibility for man to conform completely with the commands. The other is that we are not under the Law covenant, but a new and better covenant, one of love. Given the proclivity of the wars amongst the Christians then one must also surmise that it is impossible to adhere to all the tenets of love as well.
If we as Christians cannot comply with our own commandments to love as we wished to be loved, then we cannot demand or insist that those who do not share our faith should conform to our demands. Remove the beam from your own eyes, then you will be able to more clearly how to remove the splinter from your neighbors eye.
If we are to insist that life is a right, then we cannot support wars, or executions, of any sort.
This is not the position of the Christian Churches, who follow Augustine’s Just War lies, and so they themselves, as judges of the non believers, judge their own selves as non believers, because they subvert the Commandments of God through Christ, so as to impose their laws on believers as well as nonbelievers and they become judges of laws not doers of law.
Given the history of the Church which very few Christians even know, much less the Scriptures, we stand condemned by the world of hypocrisy. Look around you for God’s sake!
The richest nation in the world filled with Christians proclaims its’ faith with its’ racism, poverty, exploitation and wars. If we are to condemn abortion then let us also condemn these other things that are the outworking of the flesh as well. If we are to remain silent on these others, then we should remain silent on abortion as well.
Until then, non believers will note our hypocrisy, and in our so doing, we are turning the non believers away from the Christ. Is it any wonder then that Jesus was found to be amongst the tax collectors, harlots and sinners of his day, and not those who were considered righteous by the world of his day? I would surmise that things have not changed one iota.
If one then believe in the resurrection and holds to life beginning at conception, then one must also hold out a hope for the resurrection of these ones also. If they are to be alive in the new age then they have not died at all, but are sleeping in death with all the others that have passed before, and will pass after them.
If we believe that there is an age to come, then this age is not the reality, and “where is your sting now death?” Do not become heated up at unrighteousness;
Col 3:1-7 If, then, you were raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is sitting at the right of God; Psa. 110:1 mind the things above, not the things on the earth. For you died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. Whenever Christ our life is revealed, then also you will be revealed with Him in glory.
Then put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and covetousness, which is idolatry; on account of which things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience, among whom you also walked at one time, when you were living in these.
Well let’s start the top ten countdowns
The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006
10. Hackable Passports
This is a good start as is pointed out in the article, and the fix? Smash the chip with a hammer.
As Cory Doctorow points out, this is potentially a way to reap the benefits of RFID without paying the cost:
Up until now, the standard answer to privacy concerns with RFIDs is to just kill them — put your new US Passport in a microwave for a few minutes to nuke the chip. But with an RFID firewall, it might be possible to reap the benefits of RFID without the cost.
Of course there are firewalkers too, so YMMV.
Looking at Global Healthcare
The Challenge of Global Health
The fact that the world is now short well over four million health-care workers, moreover, is all too often ignored. As the populations of the developed countries are aging and coming to require ever more medical attention, they are sucking away local health talent from developing countries. Already, one out of five practicing physicians in the United States is foreign-trained, and a study recently published in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that if current trends continue, by 2020 the United States could face a shortage of up to 800,000 nurses and 200,000 doctors…
One of the most overlooked problems with health care in America is the lack of an alternative dumping ground for the elderly and mentally challenged patient that family and friends to not wish to deal with during the holidays. ER Clogs. I used dumping ground because that is what has happened, and is happening.
Anyway this a long article worth the read for those who may wonder how money, like oxygen must be in the right proportions or it is a poison.
Boinking the Budget
Avoiding the Budgetary Bait and Switch
Medicare is the biggest worry, no disagreement there. But before we begin using the deficit as a reason to begin slashing valuable social programs, remember that we’ve had higher debt to GDP ratios in the past and survived. The worry is the future and very specifically, as noted above, Medicare payments are the biggest concern. Thus, getting our health care costs under control is an essential step in bringing the budget into balance.
Like the war, Medicare;
Yet these figures still understate the budgetary damage caused by the Bush administration because it leaves out changes in the budgetary status of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. …
Over the next 75 years, these two programs have an unfunded liability of $44 trillion — $15 trillion for Social Security and another $29 trillion for Medicare.
More Republican’t governmen.
The Culture war is BSers
The Culture War Is About the Authority of a Book
I do not ask this about “the Bible” as a whole because the one book that is regarded as having divine authority by believing Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Mormons, among others, is not the entire Bible, but the Torah. Religious Jews do not believe in the New Testament and generally confine divine revelation even within the Old Testament to the Torah and to verses where God is cited by the prophets, for example. But “Bible-believing” Christians and Jews do believe in the divinity of the Torah.
Apparently Mr. Prager is unfamiliar Islam, which also holds the Torah as revealed by Moses, (One of the anointed of God,) as being of Divine revelation. They also acknowledge Jesus as an anointed one of God.
For the Left, such beliefs are irrational, absurd and immoral.
You do not speak for me, or my friends, sir. One would hope that you might improve your understandings of the faiths, and failing to do that, American politics. If this is not new information for you to consider then, why do bear false witness? If you are a Christian why do promote division?
ht JM
Update: Digby has a few thoughts on these issues as well.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Not in Vain
This is about the third or fourth article that I’ve read that links the WTC and Iraqi death tolls which is about the same as comparing the WTC or War to end all wars in Iraq to any other events not linked in any way to each other, other than having occurred on the planet Earth, The only linkage is in Bush’s brain, they are two very different national security failures.
I am in that camp that does believe that no greater sacrifice can be made then that a man should give his life for his friends, and while it springs from Scripture and has a deeper implication, it is a universal feeling among the armed forces, American or otherwise.
I think one of the Presidents weaknesses is trying to make a philosophical point, without having an intellectual argument. It is an emotional appeal not a logical one. Unfortunately emotional appeals are very effective, when the general population wants to believe its’ leaders, and out of place when they do not. The war is George W. Bush’s vanity, as much as America’s of four years ago.
I would hope that the relatives of the casualties will take comfort in their losses and tribulations as did those of the family of the Christ, that these deaths are for a purpose greater than our own times and concerns. We cannot peer into the future to see the outworking of their sacrifices, the lessons we will have to learn. While the following was written years ago for an individual killed in the line of duty, the sentiment of myself, my family, and my political friends on the left, theAmerican people as I understand them, goes out to all those families who have suffered in solitude these much publicized deaths.
With the resolution of lightning
thundering through the night sky,
the vanguard of our nation
fuses valor to Semper Fi.
In the sculptured halls of courage
although no man stands alone
God grants few to be the cutting edge
that he strikes against the stone.
Today the scabbard hangs empty
another eagle has paid his pledge
while the high gloss polish of honor
is applied to the cutting edge.
Then, within the missing man formation,
where the cutting edge strikes the sky
an honor gaurd of Angels cut a path
to the Lord of Semper Fi.
Update: needed some editing
The Two Percenters
Report: DOD recovered $1.9 billion in fraud cases
RAF MILDENHALL, England — The Defense Criminal Investigative Service recently completed a record-setting year of recoveries as a result of scores of investigations worldwide.
The announcement of the record $1.9 billion returned to the government was published as part of the Department of Defense inspector general’s biannual report to Congress.
Why England?
Tenet Healthcare Corporation agreed to pay the government $900 million to settle allegations it filed false claims to Tricare, Medicare and other government health programs. The settlement was the largest filed in the 150-year history of the False Claims Act.”
Hmmmmm.
Bloggers standing in the gap?
Anonymous Liberal has an interesting observation on consumer laws and ignorant voters.
For reasons that I don’t understand, our mainstream journalists and media figures always seem to operate under the assumption that the average person is capable of sorting through all the political information they’re bombarded with and reaching an informed decision. This despite the fact that half of our laws are premised on the exact opposite assumption, i.e., that people are easily misinformed by those with an incentive to do so.
…
As I’ve observed before, when it comes to covering politics, journalists today are much more like play-by-play announcers than referees. They no longer see it as their job to step in and call fouls, i.e., to call a lie a lie. This is a pity because–for the reasons explained above–it is in the arena of politics where we are most in need of referees; it is in the arena of politics where the normal referees (government officials, judges, private litigants) cannot operate effectively.
Some Good News Too
Israeli PM Orders Checkpoints Dismantled
Israel’s prime minister on Monday ordered the military to dismantle more than two dozen of the West Bank checkpoints that have disrupted Palestinian travel, as part of a package of gestures Israel hopes will boost Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
After meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, top security officials agreed to remove 27 roadblocks of the hundreds that dot the West Bank, but did not say which would come down.
This really is good news for the Palestinian population, which like the population in America, is responsible for their individual feelings about government policies beyond their control, not the policy of those leaders.
It will be a cold day in July when that distinction is made in our own consciences, which is what the war mongers depend on.
Taking the Great Game over a cliff
The Great Game on a razor’s edge By M K Bhadrakumar
There is no denying that Uzbekistan is a key country in Central Asia. In the Soviet era, everyone from Josef Stalin down knew the axiom that Uzbekistan was the hub of the geopolitics of the region. True, the US put out several feelers to Tashkent through intermediaries for reconciliation, and lately even the European Union lent a hand, but Tashkent wouldn’t budge. The laceration of Uzbek national pride by the US over Andizhan opened such painful wounds that forgiveness may take much time coming and will extract sincere repentance on the part of Washington for its role in the Andizhan uprising. Meanwhile, the US has been left with no option but to watch Russian and Chinese influence in Tashkent expanding by leaps and bounds.
In a similar fashion, but in an even more fundamental sense, US diplomacy in Central Asia is seriously hobbled by Washington’s alienation from Iran. Ten years have gone by since the famous article by Zbigniew Brzezinski in Foreign Affairs magazine calling for unconditional abandonment of the US policy of containment of Iran. Brzezinski had brilliantly argued the case (which most US career diplomats assigned to the region then also believed) that for US regional diplomacy to be anywhere near optimal in the Caucasus, in the Caspian region and in Central Asia, it must befriend Tehran. But Washington’s mental block over Iran persists.
Meanwhile, the “Greater Central Asia” strategy unveiled by Washington last April with so much elan has already fizzled out. The strategy was avowedly intended to roll back Russian and Chinese influence in the region. Testifying before the US Congress that month, a senior State Department official said, “A lot of what we do here is to give the countries of the region the opportunities to make choices … and keep them from being bottled up between two great powers, Russia and China.”
Another Neocon disaster.
Slow Day in the Blogoshire
In what is effectively one of the world’s largest ever share buybacks, News Corp will take back and cancel Mr Malone’s 16.3 per cent stake in the company, in return for ceding to Mr Malone’s Liberty Media control of its US satellite TV provider DirecTV.
Mr Murdoch, 75, is also throwing in $US550 million in cash and three US regional sports TV networks, the inclusion of which will cut the capital gains tax bill on the deal by billions of dollars.
The Simplistic Veiw
From the NY Times
Mr. Bush has shrugged off suggestions by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that he enlist the help of Iran and Syria in the effort to stabilize Iraq. Countering suggestions that he begin thinking of bringing troops home, he has engaged in deliberations over whether to send more. And he has adjusted the voters’ message away from Iraq, saying on Wednesday, “I thought the election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation.”
Well of course,
“This is all background noise for the American people right now,” a senior administration official said. “Most people are going to wait and see exactly what the president’s going to say.”
Background noise is a nice way of saying racket. I will leave you to define racket.
Have the alarm clocks quit working in EST?
Think Progress points out that in 1999, Governor George W. Bush criticized then President Clinton for declining to set a withdrawal timetable for Kosovo, saying “Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
via Informed Comment
Monday, December 25, 2006
You are the lights of the World
“The Darkest Night”
1975 Space Songs Ltd.
The darkest night, can seem so bright
My love for you, will see me through
Into your eyes, I see your love return – to me
Though we’re apart, you’re in my heart
No need to cry – I will get by
By my side, my moonlight way is clear – to me
Though I’ve traveled down life’s highways
I’ve never been this way before
And now I see that love, can turn the key to any door
The darkest night, can seem so bright
My love for you, will see me through
Into your eyes, I see your love return – to me
Alvin Lee
And So This is Christmas…
Al-Zaman reports that “The Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad appeared almost deserted on Christmas Eve. Christian celebrations of Christmas were limited to private homes. Iraqi Christians had announced last week that they would suspend official celebration, out of solidarity with the tragedy of the Iraqi people.” Iraqi Christians, who had enjoyed relative freedom under the regime of Saddam Hussein, now face fear of attacks by powerful Islamic groups or Shiite militias. Few are making any use of the Christmas lights and decorations of yesteryear. There were some 600,000 Iraqi Christians in a population of 27 million, but some say the number is now less than 450,000. Thousands have been forced to flee to Syria.
I suppose that I should point out that very few of the most vocal proponents of this war are avowed atheists or agnostics. This tribulation of the Iraqi Christian population is the direct result of, and the responsibility of those who advocated this war.
Those who are not Christians perhaps wonder at the silence from those who are, and so I will inform you that it is with the utmost difficulty that I do not do so, drawing from the lesson of the Christ on the road to death when James and John wished to call down fire on the Samaritan village, ” I did not come to destroy the world, but to save it.”
To all the brothers and sisters then, I urge a turning away from the works of the flesh, lest your works are turned upon your own heads, and who will save your soul then, oh son of man? Because the hour of inspection is upon you now, I write these things to you, not that I might say that I have told you so, but that you might not say that I have not.
The Blood and the Water
Saturday, December 23, 2006
update: I removed cyber for diverse reasons, obviously, one being the uncanny ability of some people to take the most inane things as seriously plausible, as per the first levitation.
This is Rich
3 Crises Face U.S., With Risky Options
A senior administration official acknowledged yesterday that diplomatic approaches taken by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on these three issues may have hit real roadblocks. “It doesn’t mean that you push aside what you have been doing,” he said, but that the administration at the same time will look for other ways to tackle the problems.
“A senior administration official” as in Dick Cheney’s office, which sent representatives along with Condi to make sure that the diplomatic approaches… may have hit real roadblocks.
If that wasn’t bad enough the article ends with;
Including Iraq, they have four real crises,” he said. “But they have less leverage and less capability and less credibility to deal with any in a diplomatic way.”
Oh well.
The Surge Is a Tsunami
I never claimed to be a foreign affairs expert, or political one for that matter, and I think there is some advantage to being a minor historian of no note, so I’m really going out on the limb here.
Given the developments with Saudi Arabia, and pointed out;
“Israel’s worst-kept diplomatic secret became public knowledge this week when its prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told his Cabinet that he was against taking up a dramatic new Syrian offer for peace talks — because doing so would undermine President Bush.” Forward
…
At the same time rumor runs in Washington that Bandar bin Sultan and Elliot Abrams are busy constructing a web of alliance and money that will seek to undermine Iranian allies wherever they are found.Weapons have been landed from Israeli ships on the Lebanese coast for the purpose of arming the enemies of Hizbullah.
I would conclude that we are going to witness a wider war escalation than what the definition of surge has entailed.
In my column on the Iraq Study Group, I neglected to mention the most objectionable aspect of the Baker-Hamilton report [.pdf], and that is the suggestion that it might be a good idea to inject a “surge” of U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and stabilize a regime that seems about to fall. The ISG averred that, although they rejected proposals to double U.S. forces,
“We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.”
What I read here is a reformation of Bush Sr.’s coalition, which W will get credit for.
Given the UN vote, I’d say adios Iran as we once knew it. It fits all our ME allies needs, and it will resurge the domestic neoconservatives in a big way. I’d love to think it would remain an American only operation as it would be a lot simpler to define it simply as what has gone on before, but I think this thing is probably come to head, and like all wars, were it goes nobody knows.
This is what I think may unfold.
And there are three outcomes, one it really is Biblical, (see Daniel,) two the whole thing goes nuclear and ten thousand years from now the descendants of the Bushmen discover the roots of their myths about lost civilizations, and debates about the existence PZ Meyers. Three I am gratefully wrong about the other two.
More fun than a barrel of monkees
Christy has this at Firedoglake.
– Bob Geiger has the Saturday funnies. For my money, it doesn’t get much better than the Ann Telnaes at the top of the stack…and then it does get better the further you read. We must all have some good editorial cartoon karma built up this week. (Do NOT miss the Dwane Powell one.)
If you’ll bookmark the site I won’t have to link it in the next revision.
M. I. C. K. E. Y. M.O.U.S.E
via A T R I O S
Update: This post is in no way meant to be offend friends or fans of Walt Disney, opiates, the Cartoon, astronomy, or any Incorporated news aggravators, aggregaters, parents and step children thereof, etc.
How I Won The Election for the Democrats and Changed the Face of America
I’d like to think that I’m the only person left in the world that still uses WordPro since it would make me unique, an individual that had grown beyond WordStar, but not so far as to not have latent emotional feelings that Microsoft is somehow the, “evil empire out to destroy the net,” as an old Netware User’s shirt once proclaimed, in the on going operating system wars that were going on at the time in both the mainframe/mini and PC worlds. Now , the evil empire has googely eyes everywhere and no one really seems to care, so long as someone else is ripped up or narced out by it’s data bases. I have a T-shirt with a googley eyed old wheezer ogling my crotch that says “google it, I’m sure it’s still there”, but I doubt I’ll take it commercial and watch it get hacked up. Anyway if anyone is also running WordPro let me know, I’ll reinstall Linux and run it in WINE.
Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’m just another wrench in the works, and more inclined to point out shortcomings in other people than actually address any of my own, not because I wouldn’t if I were aware of them, but like most people I’m a better talker than listener. As the observant have observed my personality doesn’t lend itself any better to business success than it seems to do for my interpersonal relationships either, but I’m working on it.(Finding the right business of course, not the adjustments others would prefer.)
The folks who rely on popularity are really good listeners, so politicians and such are always aware of we peps in the hinterlands of unknown gnomes and what we are saying. One of the interesting things about demographics is that there is a pattern in small towns showing a large drop in population of people eighteen and older, so one without to much trouble can figure out they’ve left and gone to the city, which puts the seven degrees of separation into the eternal rumor and innuendo machine. So some of us are known gnomes of a less than known gnomes path.
As for the title, I read the ideas and opinions of the people and businesses that are linked on the left, and many who are not, but will be, as this site is racing diligently to get out version 4.0 before dKos, and will include links to just about the entire internet.
Friday, December 22, 2006
DoJ Doh!
Outrage over US snub on Bashir case
THE US Attorney-General rebuffed a request from the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, to grant Indonesian police access to the terrorism mastermind Hambali, who could have been a key witness against the radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
Because we care,
Mr Keelty did get an agreement from Alberto Gonzales for Indonesian police to submit written questions to Hambali through US interrogators. However, the responses were not usable in the Bashir trial because Indonesian police could not be present when answers were given, according to Indonesian security sources.
The US’s failure to grant access to Hambali will outrage families of victims of the attacks. The US embassy in Canberra said yesterday it could not respond to the concerns or explain why access to Hambali was denied.
Republican’t Governmen at work.
Whizzzzzzzzz Bang
ASIO enlisted to join search for stolen army rockets
ASIO has been called in to help the Defence Force urgently review its security amid fears criminals have obtained shoulder-fired 66-millimetre rocket launchers from the army.
The army will stop distributing the rocket launchers, except for use in specifically authorised operations.
Well that’s certainly reassuring, meanwhile back at the armory,
In 1998 a joint police and army inquiry code-named Taskforce Majorca was conducted amid concerns that rocket launchers were among Defence Force weapons that could not be accounted for.
Bad news travels slow where people are upside down eh, blokes? Anyway,
The NSW Middle East Crime Squad is still trying to find eight of nine missing anti-armour weapons, which are similar to rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The one weapon recovered in a $50,000 NSW police buy-back from a member of the family of Sydney criminal Adnan “Eddie” Darwiche is now being forensically tested by federal police.
For fingerprints and such?
The Federal Opposition spokesman on homeland security, Arch Bevis, told the Herald last night that while he welcomed the Government announcement, important questions remained unanswered. “When did senior officers and the minister first become aware that high-powered weapons were unaccounted for or stolen?” Mr Bevis asked. “The prospect that terrorists could get their hands on these sorts of weapons represents a major threat to public safety.”
Last year the Australian Audit Office criticised poor record keeping in relation to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Defence equipment.
In 2004 the Federal Government admitted there was an investigation into missing military plastic explosives and ammunition.
Well, there you have it.
Oh the Humanity!
Ezra explores the decline and fall of the blogoshire as Marduk telegraphs with Time Magazine the surrounding of third Earth.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
This is Cool
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If you know what I mean.
Only in America
WASHINGTON – President Clinton’s national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday.
The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.
Speed of Light Now 5.8 kilometres per second
Scientists have used silicon crystals to trap light and slow it down to the lowest speed ever recorded in the material. The breakthrough is a step towards light-based storage for quantum computers.
Researchers at Japanese telco NTT used man-made photonic crystals, which contain nanoscale holes, to achieve the feat. The cavity which controlled the light was less than ten millionths of a metre long.
Good for computing, but there goes the universe.
Marines Charged in Haditha Slayings
Two US marines have been charged with murdering Iraqi civilians in Haditha last year, defence lawyers say.
The Consummate Billmon
If blogs in general, or this blog in particular, have ever served a useful purpose, it should have been then — when the consensus had overwhelmingly embraced a policy doomed to catastrophic failure, and mainstream dissent had been cowed almost into silence. But, of course, there were too few of us and our voices weren’t nearly loud enough to make a difference. Certainly not compared to the power and majesty of the corporate media.
If I sometimes seem bitter to the point of blind rage at reporters like Tom Ricks or columists like David Ignatius, who now recite the ignorant mistakes and outright crimes that led us into this hellhole, it’s because they couldn’t see them while they were being committed — or, if they did see them, kept silent.
I think I’ve found a place to park until the BBC comes on TV.
A Note to George Will
There is a big disjunct between what I, as a singular blogologist do, and and say a what a non productive citizen such as yourself, does with our time that God has given us on this green earth.
I suppose my meager skills at writing and punctuation are on equal with your abilities to lay out and frame a house from the ground up, which were the tables turned I would encourage you along as you muddled through your “Time-Life” book with assists from Norm Abrams as you cobbled together something approximating a professional job, rather than pointing out that like most professional somethings you need to keep your day job, an aside which you may have already discovered isn’t to effective with some of us in the blogosphere, whom as you have noted may be punching holes in your logical, pompous articles even as we speak.
I think the last paragraph of this excerpt is especially poignant to your problem;
I still stand for participatory democracy, the original 1962 vision of the SDS, which grew from our generation’s experience in organizing among the excluded, from the Deep South to the Peace Corps. Students in those days were drafted for war, but considered too immature to vote. Southern blacks and Mexican immigrants could be sharecroppers in the fields, but not equal citizens in the ballot box. For us, democracy meant who had the most votes, not who controlled the most money. It meant the free flow of information, not suffocation under corporate advertising and media.
We have always wanted more than the right to choose between two candidates already vetted by the establishment. We wanted a more direct voice in the decisions that affected our lives. We wanted a democracy of participation, not a democracy regulated by secret societies. We wanted all the closets emptied.
We are a more open and democratic country as a result of the Sixties and earlier generations of radicals. We owe the Abolitionists, not merely Abraham Lincoln, for the end of slavery, the suffragettes for the right to vote, the populists for regulation of Wall Street, the industrial strikers for collective bargaining, the environmentalists for cleaner air and water. In this election, the anti-war and global justice movements have helped shape the agenda over Iraq and trade. And the gay-lesbian community is turning marriage into civil disobedience.
Yet, it remains the peculiar character of America’s elite to absorb reform from below while remaining atop the pyramids of power. When a majority of Americans still feel inferior to Ivy League candidates, or identify vicariously with their dramas, we do not live in a democracy psychologically. That must eventually change. Closeted dynasties should have no moral legitimacy in a democracy – which is why they have become increasingly secret.
True, it was noted by Mr. Hayden a couple of years ago, so it is in fact,”nothing to say, merely to add,” which pretty much sums up your work, and that that I am doing here.
But then, that is the point, sir. The differences between you and Thomas Paine are also quite remarkable I would note, as his genius did not lead to anything profitable to himself so much as to you. Thomas Paine will long be remembered, as will bloggers, but you sir are destined to be worse than forgotten, but ignored, because your work is all about you, and that is the why Time’s award fits you to a T.
I would be remiss not to
Who else would even think to find something like this?
It has been brought to my attention that the Pastafarians celebrate the winter solstice with a holiday that they call, simply, Holiday.
So, just to make Bill O’Reilly blow a few more fuses: Happy Holiday! And may His noodly appendage touch your heart. Ramen!
– Badtux the not-Pastafarian Penguin
So, Holiday is too a Holiday neener neener.
Farming the Food We Eat
The WaPo has some interesting farm stats in their story, (and George Will noticed last weeks news,);
The very policies touted by Congress as a way to save small family farms are instead helping to accelerate their demise, economists, analysts and farmers say. That’s because owners of large farms receive the largest share of government subsidies. They often use the money to acquire more land, pushing aside small and medium-size farms as well as young farmers starting out.
…
Large family farms, defined as those with revenue of more than $250,000, account for nearly 60 percent of all agricultural production but just 7 percent of all farms. They receive more than 54 percent of government subsidies. And their share of federal payments is growing — more than doubling over the past decade for the biggest farms.
Just some stats;
Large family farms, defined as those with revenue of more than $250,000, account for nearly 60 percent of all agricultural production but just 7 percent of all farms. They receive more than 54 percent of government subsidies.
….
Nevertheless, just last year the government paid out about $15 billion in income support or price guarantees, which increasingly are going to the largest farms — those with annual sales of $500,000 or more. Between 1989 and 2003, the share of federal payments for those farms jumped from 13 percent to 32 percent while the share going to small and medium-size farms — those with $250,000 or less in sales — dropped from 63 percent to 43 percent.
Anyway it is a lot less depressing than Iraq, which is more than I can say about George.
The Acts of Gog
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that half of Baghdad was without electricity on Tuesday. The report says that some districts, such as Bayya`, have been in the dark for days. The Ministry of Electricity has not given any explanation for the lack of service, and it isn’t clear what the cause is (though sabotage by guerrillas is high on the list.) The low in Baghdad today was 42 degrees Fahrenheit (5 C.), and Sunday the low will be 35 (1 C.). Not having electricity in such temperatures is not comfortable, and for some (the young, sick or elderly) could actually be dangerous.
Yeah, that and poor water, sanitation, food. Gasoline?
Does, “Reality Check” sound about right?
More Neocon blowback
Indonesia overturns terror conviction in Bali bombings
via The Houston Chronicle
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia overturned a terror conviction today against the militant Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who served 2 1/2 years for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people.
…
Bashir has always denied any wrongdoing, but admits having known several Southeast Asian militants in the 1980s and 1990s who went to Afghanistan and trained there at al-Qaida-run camps.
Since his release, he has preached in towns across the country, espousing fiercely anti-American and anti-Jewish views and promoting his campaign to transform Indonesia’s secular state into an Islamic one.
(Emphasis mine)
This seems to be part of pattern which, apart from Mr. Bashir’s guilt or innocence, inflames the war on terror as much as blowing up families. That is why it cannot succeed militarily, or from a criminal justice perspective of s.w.a.t. teams. It is hard to impossible to PR wrongful imprisonment with abuse, or flattening towns without rhyme or reason.
Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune
Who’d be a Lennonist?
After he had taken up residence in the Dakota building with a specially-chilled room full of fur coats and a personal astrologer, what remained of all this? In the end, only a hopelessly vague and distinctly narcissistic rag-bag of platitudes, recurrently summed up in the claim that – oh yes – all he was saying was give peace a chance, whatever that means. He became, I suppose, the focus of a myth that warmed the hearts of a generation who turned out to be less a mass of revolutionaries than a bumper crop of small businesspeople (as Charles Shaar Murray once pointed out, “the line from hippie to yuppie is not nearly as convoluted as some people would like to believe”).
As with all biographical pieces the box cannot even contain the humanity, much less the human.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Little Help on the Left, Please
Dear Santa
by digby
Last year I asked my readers to put a little change in the kitty if they had it to spare and many of you did. It was a wonderful affirmation of what I do and I’m still basking in its glow. Well, it’s that time of the year again, and while we are all counting our blessings and fighting the war on Christmas and freedom, I’m here once again, stocking in hand, to ask that if you have your credit card out and it isn’t maxed, you might send a little Christmas cheer my way once again.
Well, I’m not familiar with Digby’s work habits, but he does good work.
No, Sean, only you guys
Sean asks;
I figure we can’t be the only people who talk this way. Professional actors or musicians (I’m guessing, and would love to hear confirmation/refutation) might think of themselves as being distinct from “the real world,” as might people serving in the military, or working in politics.
Seriously this is an interesting post too;
What We Know, and Don’t, and Why
Today, of course, we’re dealing with an analogous problem, given that 25% of the universe is apparently some kind of dark matter that doesn’t fit into the Standard Model of particle physics, and 70% is some kind of dark energy that is even more mysterious. Modified gravity might be at work here as well, and I talked about the prospects.
Which brings us back to the Pioneers, Still off Course, Like W’s, ‘cept different.
“Shrink that Army Down Mr. Rumsfeld.” Oh, Yeah and let’s invade Iraq.
Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006: Blitzer Show Interview- 19 December 2006
BLITZER: Because Rumsfeld opposed?
LANG: Yes, I think that’s right, essentially.
BLITZER: His notion when he came in, the U.S. can do a lot of this supposedly on the cheap with a smaller, meaner military machine. You don’t need the overwhelming strength that Colin Powell and other commanders thought was required?
LANG: Secretary Rumsfeld’s idea of how big the army and the Marine Corps need to be, especially the army, was very, very small and very reliant on light forces and fancy weapons, things like this. As a matter of fact, he’s been planning to build the army down even farther after the current warfare stops.
And this kind of theory with regard to war has been pretty much disproven in Iraq where you need a lot of people, you know, a lot of weapons and tanks, you need all these things. You don’t want to have a fair fight, ever, you always want it to be an unfair fight in your favor.
Of course you are still free to move around the ranch, just don’t shoot anyone in the face.
I got your number
I also hear that this is kicking up some controversy within Brookings itself. So maybe some of the friends on the inside there can drop me a line and let me know what they’re hearing.
— Josh Marshall
From the ‘Lectric Law Library’s stacks
Marijuana
America’s #1 Cash Crop
Which in no way implies that Mr. Kagan is a dirty hippy, but it would make it a lot easier to understand if he were a farmer of sorts and di the QA,
Terraformed 