We Correct No Error

Before it’s TIME.

Initially, note that Time has refused to correct its blatantly false claim that WikiLeaks has published “thousands of classified State Department cables” and posted “thousands of secret diplomatic cables” when, in reality, they’ve posted only 1,269 of the more than 250,000 cables they possess: less than 1/2 of 1 %. It’s true that they provided roughly 251,000 cables to five newspapers, but they have only “posted” and “published” roughly 1,200 of them. Time just decided to leave that statement standing even knowing it is factually false.

It’s OK if we do it,

There is an enormous amount of hypocrisy in those who are defending the government’s right to over-classify and deny access to the information that has been used to justify going to war, among other crimes. Insiders in government have no qualms about abusing classified information as long as it suits their purposes. Dick Cheney used insider secret information to “out” CIA officer Valerie Plame to punish her husband. The White House leaked intelligence that turned out to be bogus to Judith Miller at the New York Times to make the case for going to war against Iraq. George Tenet, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote a book called In the Eye of the Storm, which earned him in excess of $4 million. He worked in a SCIF (which stands for sensitive compartmented information facility) run by the defense and intelligence contractor SAIC and had access to all of his classified “papers” to help him write the book. Bear in mind that he was retired, with no official status at the time, was writing something for profit, and was using freely provided government resources to turn a buck. There was apparently no problem in his using classified material.

I don’t know much…I don’t know too much, but I know this…

Homeless For The Holidays

Fraud that is.

Been Doing That Here For Years

We don’t need no stinkin’ scientific inquiries,

The coalition government is ditching the requirement to seek scientific advice before setting drugs policy.

As part of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 government must take, or at least listen to, advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That committee needed to have at least six scientists on it.

We call it the Misuse of Government Acts. Others call it the touchy feely approach to mismanagement and tyranny.

Update: Rush read this first.

Speaking Of Pimps

Jokeline rots again,

How about the multiple journalists and other human beings whom the U.S. Government imprisoned (and continues to imprison) for years without charges — and tortured — including many whom the Government knew were completely innocent, while Klein assured the world that wasn’t happening? How about those responsible for the war in Afghanistan (which Klein supports) with its checkpoint shootings of an “amazing number” of innocent Afghans and civilian slaughtering air strikes, or the use of cluster bombs in Yemen, or the civilian killing drones in Pakistan? Are those responsible for the sky-high corpses of innocent people from these actions also “criminals who should be in jail”?

Of course anarchy is a dish best served on government platters, eh Joe, and Joe?

Meanwhile, in the real world (as opposed to the world of speculation, fantasy, and fear-mongering) there is no evidence — zero — that the WikiLeaks disclosures have harmed a single person. As McClatchy reported, they have exercised increasing levels of caution to protect innocent people. Even Robert Gates disdained hysterical warnings about the damage caused as “significantly overwrought.” But look at what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world:

Stacks up pretty well next to all the dead Iraqis and Afghans, but at this point why trouble the Village People and Very Serious People about morals and ethics? After all, stenography is a job, not a calling.

Stay Out Of Small Airplanes

Like the voting equipment that can’t be verified?

“It’s all rigged,” Bennet said (clip below). “I mean the whole conversation is rigged. The conversation, the fact that we don’t get a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck. It’s just rigged. This stuff’s rigged.”

Of course it takes a hot mic or a traitorist to do what the media informs me it is doing.

Like Counter IntelPro?

I would be shocked. With 6% of the documents being labelled “Secret”?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: It’s not a question of worry. It’s, rather, a question of whether WikiLeaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments, because some of these items that are being emphasized and have surfaced are very pointed.

And your role sir?

If I were a journalist I would get confirmation before I wrote something up as fact, and if I were a national security expert I would only believe half of what I read in the newspapers.

Since I’m a blogger, I just pass it on unfiltered to you.

The Banker In The Bathtub

The Pentangeli effect.

According to this interview with Assange in Forbes magazine, Wikileaks will soon be releasing a trove of documents relating to a major US bank:

President Orders Troops Out Of Iraq

Describing it as part of a “broad sacrifice” necessary to help cut the deficit the President also ordered withdrawal from Afghanistan, cut his own salary to 300K a year, and asks Congress to return 25% of the graft they have pocketed, noting that without it the federal government would not be able to send $10 billion to Israel, or corresponding amounts to other assorted and various leeches on the American taxpayers arses.

The Ends Justify The Means

About all I’ve learned from the Wikileaks releases, or the bank bailouts, Iraqi war, etc. etc. So there is nothing new under the sun. There are some interesting details, but nothing one couldn’t have discovered or deduced from reading the tubez.

JMHO, but I think in the end the theft of public funds for failed banks is a far bigger crime, and also one that is greatly under reported by the corporate medias, and far more important than discovering that Saudi Arabia wants to protect its’ oil fields from Iran and its’ own minority population. If one were to notice, they wish us to do that for them even as they finance terrorists, which really isn’t anything new, historically speaking.

There are drawbacks to empire besides the corrupting of democratic institutions, but if you are really interested in how Rome fell, read the newspapers. Solomon’s Ashtoreth pole is in your head, and whither your head is, so shall the pole be found to be.

Just Say NO2XYZ

The UK government wants its’ publishers not to release WikiLeaks next barrage,

The news came to light in two Tweets from WikiLeaks one of which said, “UK Government has issued a “D-notice” warning to all UK news editors, asking to be briefed on upcoming WikiLeaks stories.” the follow up pointed out that the notices were “Type 1” which relates to “Military Operations Plans and Capabilities”, and “Type 5” which relates to “United Kingdom Security and Intelligence Special Services.”

Busy week in DC too.

This one is going to sting if what I’ve heard so far is accurate, such as US support for the PKK which would aggravate the Turks and the Iranians, but I would think both of them are aware of the support already. Israel isn’t in Kurdistan without a lot of BS going on, so the details bedeviling the public figures isn’t going to be that big of a surprise.

To some extent a lot of the opinions will be just that, opinions of diplomatic workers that actually work for the State Department, along with assorted opinions of the various three letter boys using it for cover, and where the rubber really meets the toad.

How badly it hurts the empire is anyone’s guess at this point, but empires have a lot of secrets to keep, and they are secret for a reason, mostly because the public wouldn’t approve of the activities that their government is involved in in their good name. The moralizing has already begun, with the Chairman of JCoS already talking about his concern for the lives of the innocent, which is ironic.

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