American Power Abroad

America Has a Foreign Policy?

Torture (Oops!)
So there are still countries that can't stomach torture, and they're backing away from the United States like it's a leper over our admission that we, err, pour waterinto peoples' lungs for sport, or whatever reason they give this weeek.

Copeland said the Canadian government's decision to drop claims about Harkat and Charkaoui that came from the CIA's interrogations of Abu Zubaydah indicates "the government of Canada, or at least the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, has concluded that everything that came from Abu Zubaydah was obtained by torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Asked why the statements from Zubaydah had been dropped from the dossiers against Harkat and Charkaoui, Bernard Beckhoff, a spokesman for Canada's public safety ministry, which oversees CSIS, said he could not comment on developments in either case because they are both still before the courts. But he then added, pointedly: "The CSIS director has stated publicly that torture is morally repugnant and not particularly reliable. CSIS does not knowingly use information which has been obtained through torture."

That's right, Canada is throwing out all the evidence we gave them that we got through torturing Zubaydah. Because they still pretend to have souls up there.

Meanwhile, look at all the great evidence they have left after they toss out the stuff we obtained from a guy under duress. Almost makes you wonder if it was all made up, doesn't it?

At least part of the case against the Canadian suspects was derived from the CIA-supplied statements of Zubaydah, the suspected Al Qaeda logistics chief who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and became the first high-value detainee subjected to waterboarding. A Canadian government dossier filed with the courts after Harkat's arrest, for example, stated that "a foreign agency" (an apparent reference to the CIA) "advised the Service [CSIS] in March 2003 that Abu Zubaida [sic] was able to identify the respondent [Harkat] by his physical description, including that he operated a guest house in Peshawar, Pakistan in the mid 1990s for mujahadeen travelling to Chechnya."

But last month, the CSIS filed a revised version of the dossier on Harkat as part of its case to deport the suspect. The new version deleted the detailed information from "the foreign agency" about Abu Zubaydah's identification of Harkat. Instead, in the new dossier, dated Feb. 22, 2008, the CSIS said simply that, "Based on its investigation, the Service concludes that HARKAT [sic] has associated with Abu Zubaydah [sic], one of [Osama] bin Laden's top lieutenants since the early 1990s." A footnote in the dossier attributes this information to news articles from the British press and to a counter terrorism newsletter published by a Chicago think tank.

I've done far better research for 2 page busywork papers for freshman classwork as an undergrad. This is shamefully ridiculous.

Source: Newsweek

Nitpicking
So a Rupert Murdoch propaganda outfit in Australia has been water-carrying for the Aussie government, saying that a man we tortured the crap out of was lying about it. (By 'We' I mean the Bush axis of various puppet states and what's left of America).

Apparently you can get away with it too, by nitpicking the precise details of how a person was abused.

A judge ruled Friday that claims by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate that he was tortured could not be fully believed because his testimony was inconsistent and may have been exaggerated to try to help him win a defamation lawsuit.

But Mamdouh Habib almost certainly was mistreated during his three years of detention without trial in four countries after being arrested in Pakistan in late 2001, during which he suffered extreme stress and trauma, the judge found.

...

Habib told the court he had been beaten and electrocuted by his captors while he was in Pakistan and Egypt, kept drugged and shackled, had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested.

He claimed that Australian officials were present during parts of his ordeal.

Habib said that while at Guantanamo he was regularly beaten before interrogation sessions, kept shackled and often naked, and had his cell sprayed with pepper spray.

In his ruling, McClellan said he could not accept a lot of Habib's evidence because it was inconsistent with previous statements he had made. The judge also found Habib was "prone to exaggerate," and "evasive" when pressed on details.

"I have no difficulty in accepting that the experiences which Mr. Habib suffered were traumatic" and were an "extraordinarily stressful experience," McClellan said.

"I also have little doubt that from time to time he was mistreated," he said, citing electric shocks, kicks and the use of hot and cold water as included in the likely abuse.

Oh, is that all? Water torture and electrocution? Pfft. What a whiner!

Source: Raw Story

Operation Merlin
It seems the CIA has been doing their usual bangup job overseas.

The Bush administration is prolonging the hunting season against journalists. The latest victim is James Risen, The New York Times reporter for national security and intelligence affairs. About three months ago, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena against him, ordering Risen to give evidence in court. A heavy blackout has been imposed on the affair, with the only hint being that it has to do with sensitive matters of "national security."

But conversations with several sources who are familiar with the affair indicate that Risen has been asked to testify as part of an investigation aimed at revealing who leaked apparently confidential information about the planning of secret Central Intelligence Agency and Mossad missions concerning Iran's nuclear program.

Risen included this information in his book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," which was published in 2006. In the book, he discusses a number of ideas which he says were thought up jointly by CIA and Mossad operatives to sabotage Iran's nuclear capabilities.

One of these ideas was to build electromagnetic devices, smuggling them inside Iran to sabotage electricity lines leading to the country's central nuclear sites. According to the plan, the operation was supposed to cause a series of chain reactions which would damage extremely powerful short circuits in the electrical supply that would have led to failures of the super computers of Iran's nuclear sites.

According to the book, the Mossad planners proposed that they would be responsible for getting the electromagnetic facilities into Iran with the aid of their agents in Iran. However, a series of technical problems prevented the plan's execution.

Right, right. Magic EMP bombs will be snuck into Iran!

Nevermind the physics, we can power them with pixie dust!

Naturally, it doesn't stop there.

Another of the book's important revelations, which made the administration's blood boil about James Risen, appeared in a chapter describing what was known as Operation Merlin, the code name for another CIA operation supposed to penetrate the heart of Iran's nuclear activity, collect information about it and eventually disrupt it.

Operation Merlin

The CIA counter proliferation department hired a Soviet nuclear engineer who had previously, in the 1990s, defected to the United States and revealed secrets from the Soviet Union's nuclear program. His speciality was in the field of what is called weaponization, the final stage of assembling a nuclear bomb.

The scientist was equipped with blueprints for assembling a nuclear bomb in which, without his knowledge, false drawings and information blueprints were planted about a nuclear warhead that was supposedly manufactured in the Soviet Union. The plan's details had been fabricated by CIA experts, and so while they appeared authentic, they had no engineering or technological value.

The intention was to fool the scientist and send him to make contact with the Iranians to whom he would offer his services and blueprints. The American plot was aimed at getting the Iranians to invest a great deal of effort in studying the plans and to attempt to assemble a faulty warhead. But when the time came, they would not have a nuclear bomb but rather a dud.

However, Operation Merlin, which was so creative and original, failed because of CIA bungled planning. The false information inserted into the blueprints were too obvious and too easily detected and the Russian engineer discovered them. As planned, he made contact with the Iranian delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and handed over to them, also as planned, the blueprints.

But contrary to the CIA's intention, he added a letter to the blueprints in which he pointed out the mistakes. He did not do this with ill intent or out of a desire to disrupt the operation and harm his operators. On the contrary, he did so out of a deep sense of mission and in order to satisfy his American operators. He hoped that in this way he would simply increase the Iranians' trust in him and encourage them to make contact with him for the good, of course, of his American operators.

The result was disastrous. Not only did the CIA fail to prevent the Iranians in their efforts to enhance their nuclear program, this operation may also have made it possible for them to get their hands on a plan for assembling a nuclear warhead.

So the CIA thought they could fool an ex-Soviet expert on nuclear weapon assembly by fudging the details on some paperwork and sending him overseas without his knowledge. Nevermind that the man risked his life to betray the USSR when the KGB would have moved heaven and earth to rub him out; we can't trust him.

Lolz.

Thank you CIA, for giving Iran the bomb know-how!

Source: Haaretz

Bush Torture
El Presidente sure loves him some depravity.

WASHINGTON — Despite Congressional efforts to force a change in course, President Bush further cemented his legacy of establishing strong executive powers Saturday, giving the Central Intelligence Agency broad latitude to use harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists that are prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the agency from using such interrogation methods, which include waterboarding, a technique that suffocates a restrained prisoner and has been the subject of intense criticism at home and abroad.

So *this* is what it feels like to live in a dying empire that will resort to anything no matter how sickening in an attempt, however feeble, to hold onto power for a few more years.

Huh. No wonder the Soviets drank so much.

Source: Firedoglake (from NYTimes)

KBR Brand Poison Water
So the former subsidiary of Halliburtion, KBR, that landed all those juicy no-bid contracts, has been caught screwing over American soldiers.

Again.

WASHINGTON: Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."

...

The inspector general's study confirmed AP reports on the contaminated water in early 2006 and provided additional details on the scope of the problem at the Iraq bases. In January that year, interviews and internal company documents disclosed the problems at Ar Ramadi and showed that KBR employees could not get the company to inform base residents.

Halliburton Co., then KBR's parent company, disputed the allegations even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails. In March 2006, the AP obtained an internal Halliburton report that, in one instance, the company missed contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death" at Ar Ramadi.

The report said the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's reverse osmosis units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities.

...

Medical records for troops at Camp Q-West indicated 38 cases of illnesses commonly attributed to problem water. These include skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections and diarrhea. Doctors diagnosed 24 of the cases in January and February 2006, the same period when medical officials warned of a rise in bacterial infections at the base.

In addition, military medical records — tied to no particular base in Iraq — showed 26 cases of food and waterborne diseases, including hepatitis, giardiasis and typhoid fever.

Ahh, Republicans sure know how to support the troops.

I mean, do you know how hard it is to give people typhoid these days?

Source: International Herald Tribune

Aha
Here's that policy statement I was looking for at the start of this entry!

Knew I had it around here somewhere.

Source: Glumbert

Super Tuesday: The Dems

Clinton vs. Obama vs. McCain vs. Romney vs. Huckabee vs. My Near-Complete Lack of Interest

So it's Super Tuesday, or Monster Tuesday, or whatever term the cable news people will come up with next. Can you feel the excitement?

Wow.

Gradually the primary process has done its job, acting as a perverse gatekeeper to drain all the time, money and enthusiasm, along with qualified ideologically motivated candidates, or alternately, genuine whackos, out of the race, leaving us with bland, lowest common denominator gruel on the Democratic side, and sort of middle of the road crazy Republicans, instead of the truly inventive crazy Republicans.

It's an exciting time to be alive!

On the Republican side, you've lost your open race-baiters like Tancredo, who actually ran an ad saying that Mexicans were going to team up with Al-Queda to put nuclear bombs in your local mall. You lost Ghouliani, whose campaign was brilliantly summed up by otherwise useless tool Joe Biden as 'a noun, a verb, and 9/11'. You lost Fred Thompson, the first man to ever try to sleepwalk his way into the White House.

On the Democratic side, meanwhile, Bill Richardson, who was stupid enough to say that being gay is a 'choice' at a GLBT debate, fell on his sword. Chris Dodd, who's fought the good fight for many long, hard months to protect us from warrantless mass-searches and wiretaps, along with immunity for corporate lawbreakers, bowed out, as did John Edwards, a man who's spent his entire career fighting for the poor, the victimized, the blood that greases our mighty economic engine's cogs.

So, what are we left with?

Not counting Ron Paul (hahahaha.... loser), you have McCain, a man most of his own party hates, Romney, a man most of his own party claims to love, but secretly hate (because he's a Mormon, or because he only claims to believe what they want him to believe to get votes... take your pick), Huckabee, a corrupt Southern caricature, Clinton and Obama.

Gah. Our collective wrists are ready to be laid bare if this is the best we can do.

But the worst of it, the very worst thing, is the inability of most people to ACKNOWLEDGE how lousy our choices are, that we're stuck with the lesser of the lesser of several evils now. Instead you get foaming at the mouth partisans raving about how, if you don't vote for THEIR candidate, you're some kind of anti-American whacko.

Case in point: two Washington Post op-eds by an Obama supporter, and a Clinton supporter, that could leave you tearing your hair out in frustration.

First up, Michael Chabon, author, about how if you don't vote for Obama you're against hope and puppies:

There are many reasons not to support Barack Obama's candidacy for president, but every one of them is bad for the same reason.

It's nice that Chabon was given the gift of omniscience. Could he please tell me where I put my keys?

Because I have come out publicly for the senator from Illinois, I am often called upon to listen as people offer up -- with wistfulness and regret, or with a pundit's show of certainty, or with a well-earned but useless skepticism -- their bad reasons for not giving Obama their support. For a long time now, I have listened to these people with forbearance and with a sense of duty -- not to some principle of open debate or of the inherent merit in the free exchange of even meritless ideas, but rather out of obligation to the candidate whose cause I champion.

Oh, how he suffers for our sins. Like Jesus on a cross, he reads the newspapers and turns on his teevee, every day.

Because Obama appears to be a patient, forbearing man with a gift for listening, I figured I owed it to him to play the thing his way. So I have nodded and looked into their eyes and hummed sympathetically as people gave their reasons and made their excuses and generally offered up, as if they were golden ingots of profound wisdom, the handful of two-penny nails with which they plan to board up the windows of their hopes for themselves, their families, their country and the world.

Yes, that's precisely what those of us who are critical of Obama want to do. We want to take nails that are not made of gold and use them to board up a nonsensical metaphor, thus destroying America.

But now, with everything seeming to come down, at last, to the first Tuesday in February, and in the wake of an all-out, months-long push by the cynicism industry to cook up an entire line of bad reasons ready to heat and serve, I admit that I'm getting tired of listening to rationales from people who know that Obama is a remarkable, even an extraordinary politician, the kind who comes along, in this era of snakes and empty smiles, no more than once a generation.

Ok, see, you can't use four metaphors in two paragraphs and still call yourself an author. You are now officially a hack.

Oh, sure, most of these people tell me they would like to see Obama become president. No question, he comes off as at once brilliant and sensible, vibrant and measured, engaged and engaging, talented, forthright, quick-witted, passionate, thoughtful and, as with all remarkable people whom experience has taught both the extent and the bitter limits of their gifts, reasonably humble.

I'm honestly surprised you could type all that out with Obama's cock in your mouth. I guess Chabon has a wireless keyboard.

Things are so bad we just can't afford to waste our votes, people tell me, on some fantasy super-president with magical powers. We need someone electable, someone, as I have been told repeatedly in the past year, who can win.

Well, I for one AM against Superman being President. It's dubiously Constitutional, and he's a dick. I'll admit that. On the other hand: how could he not win? Is Batman running?

The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.

Yes, Bush, and his minions (do they have wings and little organ grinder costumes like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz?), the big lobbies, the media, etc, they're all blameless. It's OUR fault. Michael Chabon gives out indulgences now, too!

Since I started talking and writing about Obama I have come to see that this ruling fear, and nothing else, lies at the back of every objection or reservation people raise or harbor regarding the man and his candidacy.

Really? Huh. Here I thought I disliked a crass political opportunist who changes his positions to suit whatever wind is blowing, a man with ties to corrupt developers and criminals, a man with an empty, silly, outright stupid message of 'bipartisanship' that is sure to lead to more gridlock and less progress for Americans. But silly me. I'm a coward! Thank you Michael Chabon for showing me the error of my ways!

But the most pitiable fear of all is the fear of disappointment, of having our hearts broken and our hopes dashed by this radiant, humane politician who seems not just with his words but with every step he takes, simply by the fact of his running at all, to promise so much for our country, for our future and for the eventual state of our national soul.

Dude, no matter how many times you repeat it in one article, 'phobocracy' is not a word. It's just too stupid to tolerate.

Also, he's radiant? His every step is divine? For the last time, OBAMA IS NOT JESUS

Meanwhile, they run another op-ed by a Clinton supporter in much the same vein.

"Look, the only people for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic establishment and white women," said Bill Kristol yesterday on Fox News Sunday, one of the many "news" outlets to expose Kristol's reliable sexism. "The Democratic establishment would be crazy to follow an establishment that led it to defeat year after year," Kristol continued in his woolly, repetitive style. "White women are a problem, you know. We all live with that."

Bill Kristol has been much criticized for his war mongering, arrogance, poor writing and lack of fact checking. But at least the guy is honest. He considers women a problem -- especially white women. And he feels confident enough as an alpha male to be open about it. "I shouldn't have said that," he demurred. But he can say anything he likes and still fall eternally upward. He's a white man, lord of all he surveys -- including Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I'm lord of all I survey? SWEET. I can survey a LOT!

I'm hardly the only woman who sees my life mirrored in hers. She's always worked twice as hard to get half as far as the men around her. She endured a demanding Republican father she could seldom please and a brilliant, straying husband who played around with bimbos. She was clearly his intellectual soul mate, but the women he chased were dumb and dumber.

Ahh, this is that feminist 'solidarity' I hear so much about. Charming! Could we get a criticism of their fashion sense next?

Nothing she did was ever enough to stop her detractors. Supporting a politician husband by being a successful lawyer, raising a terrific daughter, saving her marriage when the love of her life publicly humiliated her -- these are things that would be considered enormously admirable in most politicians and public figures. But because she's a white woman, she's been pilloried for them.

She's had to endure nutcrackers made in her image, insults about the shape of her ankles and nasty cracks from mediocrities in the media like Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews and Kristol.

Oh no, a nutcracker made in her image! SHE MUST IN FACT BE JESUS!

Nor are poisonous women pundits any more kind. Maureen Dowd regularly gives her a drubbing. And "progressives" from Susan Brownmiller to Oprah Winfrey sport Obama buttons.

If you're a woman and you don't support a woman, you're a sex-traitor. Apparently.

I, too, was a bluestocking from a woman's college, straight-A student, Phi Beta Kappa, who found my voice as a writer while exiled to the boonies with a husband who cheated. With every book I published, I saw more clearly how uneven was the playing field for women. We were let into the literary world on sufferance. Unless we wrote unreadable academic tracts that nobody bought, or mysteries or romances or something called "chick lit" (whatever that is), or biographies of Great Men, we were booed off the stage.

I'm so glad this election is about YOU.

She cannot have enjoyed her husband's playing around. She certainly never condoned it. But he was clever enough for her, he supported her dreams, and they both loved their smart and beautiful daughter.

Besides, what does anyone know about anyone else's marriage?

Well, apparently you know about how she feels about Bill, his adultery, and their daughter, so, some people know quite a lot...DID YOU NOT READ WHAT YOU JUST WROTE?

As a senator she has learned compromise and negotiation. She has gotten to know red America as well as blue. If she could win over the rednecks in upstate New York, she can win over any American. She knows this country is full of "security" moms as well as soccer moms. Since she is a woman, she has to show she's ready to be commander in chief. Hence her "triangulation" on Iraq and her signing the absurd Lieberman-Kyl resolution, which calls on our government to use "military instruments" to "combat, contain and [stop]" Iran's meddling in Iraq.

Good of her to win over the 'rednecks', and good of her to show her bold leadership by caving left and right. Is that what you're saying?

You will point to Hillary's complicity. You will quote crazy-like-a-fox Ann Coulter, who claims to be voting for her.

You will also quote left-wing bloggers who love Barack Obama, and MoveOn.org peaceniks (I am one) who see no evil in him (nor do I). But I see little experience either. Obama is smart and attractive. Maybe he'll be president someday.

Yes, I quote Ann Coulter, a lot. I base my views almost entirely on what she says.

Also, I'm glad you find Obama 'attactive'.

He was lucky enough not to be in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was floated after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about WMDs. That was the true tragedy of race: a black man lying for a corrupt white administration that was using him as a token, much as they use Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now.

Obama is also a token -- of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension.

Alternately, the true tragedy of race could be when a national newspaper runs an op-ed calling a credible black candidate for President a 'token'. Either/or.

I understand my hopeful friends who think an Obama button will change America. But I'm sticking with Hillary. I trust her because all her life, her pro bono work has been for mothers and children. And mothers and children -- of all colors -- are the most oppressed group in our country. I trust her to speak for our children and grandchildren -- and for us. She always has.

Her for profit work was for Wal-Mart, amongst others, but when she wasn't busy cashing Sam Walton's checks, or triangulating to protect her image, why, she spoke for our... well, your... children and grandchildren.

This is why reading the paper can drive you to drink.

Sources: WaPo on Obama (Literal Title: Obama vs. the Phobocracy)

WaPo on Clinton (Literal Title: Clinton vs. the Patriarchy) You cannot make these titles up. They're like episodes of The Tick.

Random

Varied Stuff

More Ledgermania
More effects from Heath Ledger's sudden and, ahem, unexpected death. This time in the world of marketing.

First, in an official entry for All Time Most Crass Store Promotion, a Best Buy employee set up a little shrine of Heath Ledger movies as soon as the news came out, in order to sell some extra copies.

The story got out, and Best Buy seems fairly embarassed.

Eh. It's not so much that they did it, as that it was so crass, what with the laserjet rush to the printer little flyer, and the completely random selection of dvds they wanted to push (Dogtown? BEST PERFORMANCES?).

Still, that's capitalism for ya.

Source: The Consumerist

I also saw this story somewhere else earlier, will try to dig up the link.

Sangria-ville
So Virginia has an idiot immediate post-prohibition law still on the books, saying that you can't mix liquor into anything else to drink until a customer immediately asks.

Why this was thought to be of benefit to anyone, I'll never know.

It does however make Sangria, traditionally mixed in large volumes and allowed to seep for flavoring, illegal in Virginia... and they actually enforce this 1930s era law, with fines and everything.

Gah. I hate Blue Laws.

Source: Raw Story

Web History 101
Josh from The Comics Curmudgeon has an article up at ITworld.com about the odd history of the early web. It's pretty entertaining.

Source: ITworld.com

Pregnancy Dreams
Yet another reason pregnancy is gross, I think: it apparently causes (relative to the person) weird dreams.

Here are a couple in comics form from the artist who does a comic Brian Clevinger recommended recently. It's a Euro comic, so, gasp, there are nekkid people in them and such.

First, Gabe from Penny-Arcade on the secrets of Photoshop.
Then, a Lovecraftian vision of childbirth (which coincides with my own fairly well)

Carnivorous Plants
No matter how much love and attention I gave it, my carnivorous plant died recently. I think it needed a terrarium. Which is odd, as it lives in a wide range of naturally chilly climates in the wild.

Anyway, here is a newly discovered pitcher plant big enough to eat small rats, in Australia.

A rare new species of plant that eats small rats has been discovered at the tip of Cape York.

Pitcher plants, otherwise known as flesh-eating plants, grow throughout Cape York but now a new, larger species that grows like a vine has been discovered.

The new species has been called "Tenax".

They're coming for us. Next it's the pods.

Source: ABC.net.au

Entropy Advances

Sometimes There's Nothing You Can Do; Sometimes It All Just Falls Apart


Nuclear Secrets for Sale
So BradBlog and the Sunday Times in jolly old England have been pushing a fairly explosive, no pun intended, story on nuclear proliferation.

It seems that a former translator working on our intercepts from Turkey stumbled on something she wasn't supposed to know; that high ranking US government reps in the Bush administration were selling out our nuclear secrets -- to Turkey, and through them, to half the Islamic world.

The paper now reports that they are able to corroborate an apparent FBI cover-up of documents detailing an investigation of the theft and sale of nuclear secrets to agents working for Turkey and Israel, who in turn shared the secrets with Pakistan, who in turn may have shared those secrets with Iran, North Korea, Libya, and possibly even al-Qaeda.

As The BRAD BLOG reported along with the Times two weeks ago, the operation also includes allegations that high-ranking U.S. officials --- such as Marc Grossman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, who served as the #3 official in the State Department under Colin Powell and Richard Armitage from 2001 to 2005 --- were involved in the sale of those secrets and may have accepted pay-offs from agents in the black market network in the bargain.

Naturally, the informant in question is under a gag order to prevent her from spilling her guts on precisely who in the Bush administration committed bald-faced treason.

We've also just spoken to Edmonds, who has been under an unprecedented 5-year-long gag order by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DoJ has threatened Edmonds with prosecution under the so-called "State Secrets Privilege." The threat of prison has kept her from speaking publicly about details related to the case, which she claims to have heard while translating wiretaps for the FBI in 2001 and 2002. She has spent many years encouraging members of Congress to hold hearings and a public investigation into the case. Despite public support from senators such as Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and a promise for investigations from members of Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office, who have been briefed on the details, no such investigation has been carried out to date.

It gets even better of course. It turns out that Valerie Plame was betrayed yet again by the Bush administration, and our counter-proliferation efforts shot in the back.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to [Pakistan's] ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the [American Turkish Council].

Meanwhile, the American media, unlike some blogs and the British papers, is eerily silent on this whole sordid mess.

In response to that story, the top newspapers from Turkey to Pakistan to India to Israel picked up on the report. But in the United States, incredibly enough, absolutely nothing. Not a single major American media outlet covered the explosive and disturbing allegations.

Ahh, the American press. How little we can rely upon them.

Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame has published an op-ed on the subject that I need to read. Though from what I've seen it didn't get much play either.

Source: The BRAD BLOG

NATO Staff Asserts Right to Use Nukes As First-Strike
Cold War all over again. Sigh.

The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.

In other words, prominent NATO officials believe that nuclear war is an acceptable tactic in response to terrorism, global warming, regional conflicts and humanitarian crises.

Just great.

Source: The Guardian

What's Good for the Goose...
Putin's Russia also recently stated its willingness to blow the living daylights out of the landscape on rather spurious justification.

Russia's military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky's comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes with the West over security issues, it may have been meant as a warning that Russia is prepared to use its nuclear might.

"We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand ... that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Baluyevsky said at a military conference in a remark broadcast on state-run cable channel Vesti-24.

...

The military doctrine adopted in 2000 says Russia may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that poses a critical risk to Russia's security.

Note that the conventional attack doesn't have to be on Russia, or Russia's allies... or anything in particular really. That's a lot of wiggle room for a nuclear holocaust, to my mind.

Source: Raw Story

Bush is the New Hoover
Only without the compassion and human decency.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A shock U.S. interest rate cut failed to halt a stock market rout on Tuesday as fears of a U.S. recession forced policymakers in Europe and Japan to issue rapid reassurances about the health of their economies.

The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent, its biggest in more than 23 years. But markets paused only momentarily before the selling wave renewed as investors seem fixated on the idea that the U.S. will drag the world economy down.

...

Outside North America, politicians and central bankers said the market selloff looked excessive. But they had their work cut out to convince as people like billionaire investor George Soros, who said the world faced a financial crisis worse than any since World War Two.

Meanwhile, the Europeans are already looking to a future where they can't rely on the United States to exist as a viable economic entity:

The message sounded more strident in Europe than Japan but the common theme was: don't panic.

"There are no signs of a recession in Germany and that's also the case for Europe," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

In an interview with German TV to be broadcast later, she called Europe an "anchor of stability" in the world.

France sought to put a possible recession in the United States into perspective, saying Europe trades just as much with other parts of the world, above all with the countries of the euro zone and 27-country European Union.

"Even if the United States goes into recession ... it's not a tragedy in itself," Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said.

She and other European finance ministers meeting in Brussels said Europe's economy was fundamentally sound and should in no way be grouped with the U.S. economy, hit by a housing slump and a debt default crisis in the subprime mortgage market.

"We feel comfortable with our economic situation at the moment. The economic situation in Europe seems to be uncoupled from the situation in the U.S.," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs meetings of euro zone finance ministers and acts as their chief spokesman.

Honestly, the fact that the perennially ossified EU, with its constant bickering and infighting, can do this to us is a sign of just how badly Bush runs the US Government. It reminds me of the famous Churchill quote on democracy; the EU can only seem like an idyllic paradise if you live in hell.

Source: Reuters

Meanwhile, In the Festering Wound That is Iraq
The other day on the Daily Show, Fareed Zakaria, strike-breaking scum that he is appearing on a show with a picket against it, said something that really summed up US foreign policy to me brilliantly, in a crystal-clear, concise phrase that could really be the substitute for a lot of classwork in poli-sci at the undergrad level:

"We like Democracy in strategically irrelevant countries." -- Fareed Zakaria

How can someone say something that bright one moment, and this dumb the next?

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to "ending the war" and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

Nevermind the obvious logical problem with that statement, that a war has largely ended because we're mired inside of it; what planet is this guy on? Would he care for a vacation package to sunny downtown Baghdad, since he's so sure the war is over?

As Yglesisas notes while discussing the ever-improving tactics of the insurgency:

Obviously, though, this improvement in the tactics and doctrine of anti-American fighters in Iraq can't be a big deal since the war is largely over. If the war were still happening, this kind of thing might illustrate the illusory nature of tactical improvements in the face of a bleak strategic situation. But since the war is "largely" over already there's probably no problem here.

Yeah. It's all sunshine and lollipops over there. Yglesias' post comes on the heels of the news that the Army's latest, greatest, most bomb resistant troop transport technology, designed to put us ahead of the insurgents in the IED war, has been beaten for the first time.

What's so special about these new vehicles, called MRAPs, you ask?

The vehicles have distinctive, armored V-shaped hulls that are designed to deflect the force of the explosion from roadside bombs out and away from the vehicle, sparing the occupants in the compartment.

The underbody sits about 36 inches off the ground, higher than the Humvees that have proved susceptible to roadside bombs despite the additional armor added to many of them in combat zones.

The vehicles are much bigger than Humvees, standing 12 feet high, weighing up to 18 tons, and carrying 6 to 10 soldiers, depending on the model. There are more than 1,500 of them in Iraq now, and the military plans to purchase more than 15,000 of them at a cost of $22.4 billion.

Apparently the geniuses at the Pentagon have been unable to come up with a single design, so they're buying basically anything, from any contractor, that is thrown at them claiming to solve this problem. See this Wikipedia article on the sheer variety of vehicles they're trying out now under the MRAP banner.

The anti-armor weapon that took it out? Basically the same thing Timothy McVeigh utilized: a fertilizer bomb.

Several vehicles in the convoy had already passed over the same spot, but failed to set off what officers say they was a deeply buried, homemade bomb, which the military calls an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D., made from about 300 pounds of fertilizer and set off with a pressure device.

We are well and truly hosed, trying to fight an insurgency campaign with technology. You can't win; it's the fundamental nature of the universe that order loses out to degeneracy, entropy increases, and it all falls apart. It will always be easier to destroy than to create; you can't fight that, it's not an ethos, it's physical reality. The only way to build and protect a society is to keep it cohesive and safe from the inside out, and fight a never-ending war, one that ultimately all life is doomed to lose, against the ravages of time.

Ultimately, it will all just fall apart. It's up to us to slow the decay, to use the time we've been given, and lately, we've been miserable failures.

Sources: The New York Times
Matthew Yglesias
Wikipedia

Newsy Politicy Stuff

Politics of the Day

Stories to Chew On

Obama is a Moron
Want a reason why? OK, let's start with idolizing Reagan for 'changing' the country. Changing it into what?

Well, for one thing, he destroyed the economy and saddled the next four or five generations with debt.

Source: The Huffington Post

Pot Meet Kettle
So Chuck Norris, Huckabee supporter extraordinaire, has come out saying that St. John McCain is too old to be President.

So we have a washed-out, retiree 'action' star who can't manage a roundhouse kick telling us that a Senator is too old to be President.

Maybe McCain can hire a younger black man to do all the physical work, just like you did, Chuck!

Source: CNN.com

Time to Take a Stand
Do you want a national set of ID papers, required to do everything from go to court to fly on a plane to get a job to God knows what else?

If not, then you should support Governor Schweitzer of Montana, because he's making a Dodd-esque stand for our fading civil liberties at this very moment.

Montana governor Brian Schweitzer (D) declared independence Friday from federal identification rules and called on governors of 17 other states to join him in forcing a showdown with the federal government which says it will not accept the driver's licenses of rebel states' citizens starting May 11.

If that showdown comes to pass, a resident of a non-complying state could not use a driver's license to enter a federal courthouse or a Social Security Administration building nor could he board a plane without undergoing a pat-down search, possibly creating massive backlogs at the nation's airports and almost certainly leading to a flurry of federal lawsuits.

States have until May 11 to request extensions to the Real ID rules that were released last Friday. They require states to make all current identification holders under the age of 50 to apply again with certified birth and marriage certificates. The rules also standardize license formats, require states to interlink their DMV databases and require DMV employee to undergo background checks.

Yeesh, people, this is NOT the Soviet Union yet! We shouldn't have to have official papers to go to court, fly, travel and the like.

What is WRONG with you, America?

Source: Wired

Nothing to See Here, Move Along
Speaking of Big Brother, New York's police want to ban the ownership of devices that measure air quality.

I'm not making this up. They want to ban devices to measure pollution. Private citizens could go to jail for detecting that the air they're breathing is bad. You're not allowed to know what's in your air, if this goes through, unless the Party tells you that you can check.

Gee, I wonder why they would want to ban independent air quality checks....

Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, claimed that under this law, the West Virginia air-quality experts who tested the air after 9/11 would have been a bunch of criminals.

See, disagreeing with the government is wrong. Having facts on your side is WORSE. Stay ignorant and breathe deep, America.

Source: The Village Voice

Texas Republicans
Republican Judge indicted for arson. Republican prosecutor asks judge to dismiss case rather than go ahead.

Color me shocked.

Source: DallasNews.com

Science Update

Clearing Some Tabs

Hilarious News
A Creationist museum is going under financially, due in part to some legal dispute over acquiring a perfectly good dinosaur skeleton so they could claim it was on the Ark or some nonsense. Now they're being forced to auction off their stuff to avoid complete insolvency, and the prize of their collection, a gorgeous Mastodon skull, is on the block.

Huzzah.

Source: CNN.com

Seems Like Someone Should Organize These Archives
So the Library of Congress recently found 3 new photos of Lincoln's second Inaugural, which previously had something in the neighborhood of one photograph on record. I guess from the CNN labeling, the photographic glass plates were mislabeled and so lost to history until now.

They're not particularly interesting visually, but still, more history being discovered in the back room of a museum. First a giant rat, now some glass negatives. Will wonders never cease?

Source: CNN.com

Another Nidoking Story
So some researchers at Rice University have made the blackest substance yet, a material that absorbs 99.9 something percent of visible light. This beats the old record used as the 'official' black by the National Standards people by three times, apparently.

It is composed of carbon nano-tubes, tiny tubes of tightly rolled carbon that are 400 hundred times smaller than the diameter of a strand of hair. The carbon helps absorb some of the light.

These tubes are standing on end, much like a patch of grass. This arrangement traps light in the tiny gaps between the "blades."

The researchers have also made the surface of this carbon nano-tube carpet irregular and rough to cut down on reflectivity.

"Such a nano-tube array not only reflects light weakly, but also absorbs light strongly," said Shawn-Yu Lin, a professor of physics at Rensselaer, who helped make the substance.

Source: Reuters
H/T to Nidoking

Nobel Prize Means Nothing to High School
So one of the climate scientists from the UN panel that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore last year was scheduled to speak at a Montana high school, when the idiot school board pressured the principal to bring in an opposing view, because they thought that Global Warming as a theory is 'anti-agriculture'.

Ahem. Fuck you, you fucking nitwit farmer fucks.

So the principal canceled the event of a nobel laureate rather than find some moron to debate him. Which is better than giving the flat earth crowd another dog and pony show I suppose.

Americans just want to be ignorant, that's the only conclusion I can reach.

Source: Raw Story

Sums It Up Nicely
Clicky

I Hate People So Much

So I went out to get taco bell tonight and wanted to listen to something on my cd player.

It wasn't there.

I had noticed that the cassette adapter wasn't plugged in earlier today, but didn't think anything of it. Now I looked through the car more thoroughly... it's gone.

I have no idea why they took the ten year old cd player except that by being plugged into an adapter maybe they thought it was of value.

This makes me sick. It was undoubtedly one of the useless morons who live in this rotten neighborhood, or their drunken friends who come every Saturday night, ten cars deep, for a raging party. That, or the worthless teenage slut next door looking for a little petty revenge. God knows she likes her music.

That CD player had enormous sentimental value to me, and now it looks like it's gone forever. If it doesn't by some chance turn up I'm going to be completely heartbroken. That thing got me through a miserable, lonely high school, it's served me so well for a decade, through college, road trips, you name it, taking constant beating without complaint. And now some asshole has probably swiped it thinking it must be worth something if it's plugged in. They left all the cds, but took the player.

I hate people so much.

Tase the World

Edison Would Be So Proud

Our Electrified World

First, a bit of light tech news out of the Consumer Electronics Show, because you wouldn't want to have to kill and torture helpless people without a soundtrack.

Today at CES, Taser International introduced the Taser MPH -- the first combination hand-held music player and Taser.

The player, which has a 1-GB capacity that can hold about 150 songs, is embedded in a holster that slips on your belt. Feel the need to zap someone and you can unholster the Taser, use the built-in laser pointer to aim, and blam -- a couple of darts carrying 50,000 volts hits your victim.

And you don't have to miss a beat.

Guffaw, guffaw, don't have to miss a beat. Hilarious.

Not like these things have any negative consequenc--what's that?

A man in his 20s died after a Coral Gables police officer used a Taser stun gun to subdue him Friday morning.

..

Miami-Dade police said Jones displayed ''aggressive and combative behavior'' so a police officer used a Taser stun gun to restrain him.

After the discharge, Jones became unresponsive, and paramedics took him to Doctor's Hospital in Coral Gables, where he was pronounced dead.

What about something with a little 'local flavor'?

After an ambulance had been dispatched to Borden's Bedford home last Nov. 6, he was transported to the jail for violating house arrest. Borden was disabled and a diabetic. While in the jail, he was observed talking to inanimate objects.

In trying to subdue Borden, as he lay handcuffed on the floor, jailers shocked him three times with a Taser, which delivers a 50,000-volt shock. Borden's pants were around his ankles at the time he was shocked.

The county coroner ruled Borden's death a heart attack brought on by electric shock, an enlarged heart and pharmaceutical drugs in his body.

Ah, the highlights of our own local Bloomington police using tasers. In that case, they took a mentally ill man with an enlarged heart out of the back of an ambulance and then tasered him to death. "Oops."

But surely that's an isolated incident, and the police don't routinely use tasers to torture or dominate people... oh geez.

But, Andrews points out, using the TASER to bring down a threatening suspect isn't always the way the gun is used.

In Glendale, Colo., Glen Leyba was on his apartment floor, thrashing violently. A police officer, hoping to control him, stunned him three times, before he died. While the coroner blamed a drug overdose, the family blames multiple, unnecessary electric shocks, Andrews reports.

Shelly Leyba, Glen's sister, says, "Glen was in a medical emergency, down on the ground, no threat."

..

On Long Island, David Glowczenski was suffering a mental breakdown, so his family called police for help.

His sister, Jean Griffin, says, "We called them for safety because he was disoriented. …And an hour later he was dead."

Glowzenski died after a confrontation in which an officer stunned him nine times with a TASER, and he wasn't on drugs or alcohol, Andrews notes. "He committed no crime; he didn't do anything wrong," Griffin says.

I'm not even going to go into the whole 'Don't Tase Me Bro' thing, where a peaceful political event was turned into a ghoulish freakshow as a student who simply asked one too many questions was himself put to the question, so to speak, by overzealous cops.

Despite the speaker he was interrogating asking him to be allowed to finish.

Sigh.

Americans have a fascination with military technology. We, as Jon Stewart said this week on A Daily Show in his GW voice, 'love the boomy-boomy'.

It's one of our greatest failings that we believe not only that we CAN solve almost any problem with the application of grotesque amounts of force, but that we're right to do so; more than justified, *called* to put the world to order at the end of a gun, the blast of a thermobaric bomb, or the barbs of a Taser.

Look folks, here's how this works. A taser sends 50,000 volts down two long fires with barbed fishooks at the end, which puncture the victim's skin and pump about 1000+ volts of that into their nervous system. Waves of excruciating pain and paralysis pass through them, and they fall to the ground.

That's if all goes according to plan. Often, the police then proceed to Taser them. Again. And again. And again.

Then, perhaps, they die. But so what if they don't?

Lately we've seen a lot of argument about these new, meticulously designed torture methods, Tasers, waterboarding, and the like, that don't kill, at least most of the time, because of precise engineering. If they live, the Conservatives ask, what's the harm?

We no longer live in a world where it's crazy to ask if you can torture someone as long as they live.

This substitution of precise bio-physical engineering for ethics is happening across the entire spectrum of US executive power. The Army is developing their so-called 'Agony Ray', a microwave gun that heats the nerves in your skin so that you feel like you're on fire. They can blast an entire crowd of people at once with this, and there's only a SLIGHT risk that it will boil your eyeballs and blind you. Which makes it ok.

The CIA has famously been deploying waterboarding, but they have many other nasty tools, often engineered at one point or another by our lovely German friends, to wrack the body and mind. The 20th Century didn't just see advances in guns and planes and cannon, it also saw a quantum leap in inquisitions.

Of course, in a move that would have pinhead Thomas Friedman giddy with glee, we're outsourcing much of these torture sessions overseas. Cuts down on overhead, what without courts, lawyers, or civil rights getting in the way of the bottom line.

The book opens with a description of the basement of the Syrian secret police's "Palestine Branch" interrogation centre. It is called "The Grave"thanks to its coffin-like cells. with barely enough room to lie down.

The torture masters here employ a device called the "German chair", an empty metal frame used to stretch a prisoner's spine to near breaking point. Moroccan jailers allegedly used a scalpel to cut the genitals off Ethiopian student Binyam Mohamed. While incarcerated in Cairo, Mamdouh Habib was placed in a cell which filled with water until it reached his neck. Egyptian Abu Omar became incontinent after he was hung upside down and given electric shocks to his genitals. Worse still, there is evidence that some prisoners in Uzbekistan were boiled alive.

In this way, the US outsourced torture and gained intelligence through extreme methods its own agents were not able to use.

So it goes, as we indulge our bloodlust without getting our hands dirty, ever looking for the neater, cleaner, faster, whizzier way to induce human suffering. Whether it's handing our victims off to third world shops to do it in our name or using high technology to hide the scars of our work, the end result is the same. We have become a nation of torturers, sophisticated and cynical, unwilling to even sully ourselves while brutalizing others.

Finally, on the Taser front, Amnesty International, noting that more than 200 people have died after being Tasered, has called on the device to be severely restricted in use, treating it more like a gun than a fist. Ideally of course, it would be recalled entirely.

Instead, the Taser people are bundling mp3 players inside, so you can listen to your favorite songs while you protect the public from themselves and their freedom.

God Bless America.

Sources: The LA Times
Miami Herald
The Bloomington Alternative
CBS News
Amnesty International
The Courier-Mail
Engagdet

Autism Conspiracy Freaks: Shut the Fuck Up

So for the longest time, desperately searching for someone, anyone, to blame, a lot of parents of autistic children have been blaming the mercury based preservative thimersol for childhood autism.

Nevermind that every reputable, scientific study on the subject has said there is no link; nevermind that when the preservative was phased out in Europe, autism rates went UP, not down. Still they wail, they gnash their teeth, they moan, it MUST be the mercury.

Color me cynical, but perhaps this is a guilt crazed buck pass sort of deal, since the predominant theory in the medical community is that autism is a genetic disorder with an unknown environmental trigger or triggers. People never want to think it's THEM, because then it's their fault, even though in this case that's a bit silly too.

Well, thimerosol has been phased out in the US too, and the results are in from California: autism rates here, too, went UP.

Researchers from the state Department of Public Health found the autism rate in children rose continuously during the 12-year study period from 1995 to 2007. The preservative thimerosal hasn't been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, but is used in some flu shots.

Doctors say the latest study adds to existing evidence refuting a link between thimerosal exposure and autism risk and should reassure parents that the disorder is not caused by vaccinations. If there was a risk, they said, autism rates should have dropped between 2004 and 2007.

So all the crazy conspiracy nuts who claimed that it was a massive coverup by the CDC, that there was no doubt that it was thimersol, despite the fact that you get a far larger dose of mercury from coal power plants and seafood? Will they be apologizing soon, for their decade long crusade of insanity and threats against legitimate researchers?

Of course not. These doctors must be in on it too. They must be in with THEM.

Once again: I Hate Americans.

Source: Raw Story

It's Too Cold For News

Nevertheless, I brave the elements for you.

Interview with the Doctor and the Baron
Just so everyone can have a taste of what our Saturday Nights are like.

Source: Atomic Age Cinema (Youtube)

Gee, I Never Saw This One Coming
Whenever you hear the term 'voter fraud', in America, just substitute the words 'complete Republican fantasy'.

Simply put, there is no significant voter fraud in America. It doesn't exist on any scale to concern people. It's a phantasm of the Right, that hates the dark skinned people with such a passion that the thought that just ONE of them might vote without having registered first drives them into a blithering rage.

They always craft these laws to deny as many minority voters the right to, err, vote, as possible. It's a classic strategy to shave votes off the Democratic candidates.

Source: USAToday



Fundraising Oddities
The Polar Bears club swam off of New York in 42 degree water as part of a traditional New Years event/fundraiser for sick kids. All well and good.

It's not so much the swimming in icy water as the swimming in New York's icy water that shocks me, personally. Though the cold might help to lull the Lovecraftian horrors into a deeper sleep, and thus actually make it safer. Who knows.

Source: Raw Story

Being Religious Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
They're trying to make a big deal out of this story on the Right, I suppose. A woman was loudly reading the Bible to her kids on a public bus and was asked to, you know, be quiet so as not to disturb the other passengers. She refused, they threw her off for being disruptive.

She claims it's religious discrimination. Of course, if you were reading Harry Potter, she'd probably spit in your face and say you were trying to molest her kids.

Folks, don't be noisy on a public bus. It's not your right; it's rude. I don't care what you're reading.

Source: Some Local TV Thingummy

100th Post Take Two

Note the (hopefully) working new format, which makes linking to sub-sections easier. Wheee.

Fungi From Yuggoth

So it seems that there's a fungal infection, commonly called Valley Fever, that has long afflicted the Southwest, from Texas to California. The spores live in the soil, so it's best not to disturb the dusty, arid wastes if you can help it. Even so, the vast majority of people who catch it have no real problem, and then get lifelong immunity. For a couple percent, though, it's a pretty gruesome death.

However, things are a bit different in the 'Gee This Sounds Like a Horror Movie Locale' town of Pleasant Valley. There, the disease has always been rampant, and a prison in the area has been crippled with the fever.

(We discussed this a bit at Atomic Age with some friendly fellow down from Indy in search of a Rocky Horror show, who had stumbled upon our gathering instead. Basically, if you want certain death, you name your town something idyllic and peaceful. Pleasant Valley, Crystal Lake, you know the type. So we proposed that, in the name of public safety, you should name towns things like 'Reeks of Open Sewer', 'Pedophile Town', or the Pratchettian 'Don'tgonearthe Town')

At any rate, despite being a soil born illness, it's spreading and sickening larger numbers. Arizona had to declare it an epidemic, and the range overall is expanding. Nobody knows why, though new construction might be to blame.

So, yeah. The fungi from yuggoth are here to kill us all.

Source: The New York Times

50 Worst People

An interesting list of people to despise. Though I imagine they might get misunderstood for their item on 'The Troops'. From context it's pretty clear they mean the mythological, monolithic block that a Republican is always referring to... "We've got to make sure The Troops get what they need", "We've got to support The Troops", and the like.

The Republicans obviously don't mean real soldiers; if they did, we wouldn't be slashing their benefits, warehousing them in shitty barrack housing while they wait for VA care, denying them treatment for their mental illnesses after they get home, and the like. No, it's all for these Troop fellows, which I think is their point as well.

Whoever those jerks are, they should stop mooching from our Veterans.

Source: The Beast<

The Huckabeast
So Huckabee says that homosexuality is a 'choice', that his faith defines him, and that he'd be ok with atheists in his cabinet.

Good luck finding one who'll work for you, bible-thump. Though some people can swallow almost anything for money; you might try to find an atheist streetwalker.

Source: Raw Story

Hungry in America
Here's a story to turn your stomach, no pun intended.

There's a little girl named Hannah Devane who is allergic to pretty much all food. She has a rare immune condition that causes part of her immune system to attack her esophagus whenever it detects food that she's allergic to. Which is unfortunately just about all food. The damage from these attacks is progressive and cumulative, so it's best to avoid any food that would cause them.

Fortunately there is a process, though agonizing, to find safe foods to eat. There is also a hypo-allergenic foodstuff/fluid that is safe for such people to eat in the meantime.

Unfortunately, her insurance won't cover it. They'd rather she starve.

But the insurance program that covers her family through her father's job as a New York City police lieutenant has stopped paying for the formula, which costs $1,200 a month. Food supplements and other over-the-counter items are not covered under the family's insurance, the prescription plan administrator said.

It's nice that a paper pusher gets to make our medical decisions for us, isn't it?

Dr. Barry Wershil, a pediatric gastroenterologist at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, doesn't hide his indignation over the insurance hurdle.

"This kid can't eat food," he said. "This formula is her only source of nutrition. The insurance (provider) saying they will not cover it is a travesty. It's like telling a diabetic they can't take insulin."

I say to you all: Hell is too good for these insurance people.

Source: Lower Hudson Online

Pink Floyd Was Right

So the Children's Minister in England has put out a report telling teachers to mellow out when little boys want to play with toy guns or lightsabers, that it's not the apocalypse if a kid wants to be a little rambunctious.

The teachers groups are responding with outrage at this assault on their never-ending battle to snuff out all joy and happiness in their charges.

Hey, teachers, leave them kids alone!

Source: The Guardian

Getting It Out of the Way

Gee, one big assassination and all the regular news goes on the back burner...

Let's try to go on with our news. It's, err, what she would have wanted.

With a Name Like Huckabee..
See, cause it sounds like Huckster... oh forget it.

Basically, Mike Huckabee is continuing to collect big money speaking fees while he's campaigning for President. This is generally seen as a big no-no, as it's both crass and potentially shady. I mean, are you paying to hear the guy speak, or The Guy Who Might Be President speak? A bit dodgy, which is why nobody does it. Well, except for the Huckster.

Compounding the issue is the fact that he gives most of his speeches on his 'signature issue' of personal weight loss. First of all, that's what our wannabe Preznit thinks is a pressing issue to deal with on the national stage at the moment. Secondly, his recipe of 'pray, exercise, and await miracles' for better health has struck more than a few doctors as suspicious.

In fact, it seems quite likely that his entire weight loss platform is a complete and total sham. There is a body of anecdotal evidence and medical conjecture, along with a suspicious timeline, to suggest that in fact his much vaunted weight loss had nothing to do with prayer, and everything to do with a Gastic Bypass surgery.

He then wrote a bestselling book and made a career out of fleecing people on how to lose weight the good old Baptist way. In other words, a classic snake-oil salesman.

Ahh, Republicans. Find a low, and they'll stoop to it.

Sources: Politico.com
Firedoglake

Ohio Again Innovates In Vote-Fraud
So Ohio has decided to remove their shame-of-the-nation touch screen voting machines. Good on them. Unfortunately, they plan to replace them with a system that takes hand-scored ballots to a central location and then optically scans then. Your ballot can't be read? They *say* it can't be read?

Too bad.

The ACLU is on this one, fortunately. If it was another state I might be less suspicious, but this is Ohio we're talking about here.

Source: Raw Story

What the Holy Fuck is Wrong With You People?
Sweeney Todd is fifth at the box office for the weekend, despite starting on Friday when I'm pretty sure some of the others only started on Christmas.

Seriously. More people by far went to see GODDAMNED NATIONAL TREASURE TWO than Sweeney.

What was it that turned you people off? The quality acting? The gorgeous cinematography? The classic story and musical adaptation?

Are people just that in love with Nicolas Cage's hamfisted acting? Is Family Friendly all that matters anymore?

I Am Legend did three times Sweeney's business, despite being a week old AND having terrible word of mouth. In a sure sign of the Apocalypse, ALVIN AND THE GOAT RAPING CHIPMUNKS did huge gross.

Even a little known political movie, admittedly staring Tom Hanks, did better money.

Sweeney only showed on half as many screens as some of the others and did a very nice per theatre take, but still. This is just wrong.

Source: The Associated Press

Bush Is a Complete Moron, Part 8930 of an Endless Series
I stole that title joke from The Rude Pundit. I'm in a hurry here, so call it an homage.

So anyway, it turns out that our national stem cell 'policy', the non-research research position that will surely slow medical progress and condemn millions to horrible premature deaths, was concocted after a right wing idiot read Bush a passage from a 1932 science fiction novel.

First, our 'President' has to have story time and be read to like a goddamned child. I wonder if he has a sippy box of juice on the floor of the Oval Office before naptime too.

Second, he's basing his real world science policy on decades old sci-fi. Admittedly, in this case it's A Brave New World, but still. Take a gander.

In a new piece in Commentary magazine, Jay Lefkowitz — who advised Bush on stem cells — reveals how the President formulated his 2001 policy. While Bush heard from a variety of groups on both sides of the issue, the turning point appeared to come when Lefkowitz read from Aldous Huxley’s fictional novel, Brave New World, and scared Bush:

A few days later, I brought into the Oval Office my copy of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s 1932 anti-utopian novel, and as I read passages aloud imagining a future in which humans would be bred in hatcheries, a chill came over the room.

“We’re tinkering with the boundaries of life here,” Bush said when I finished. “We’re on the edge of a cliff. And if we take a step off the cliff, there’s no going back. Perhaps we should only take one step at a time.”

It’s unclear what passage Lefkowitz read, but Brave New World opens with a scene at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where embryos are turned into full human beings — often dozens of pairs of “identical twins” to ensure “social stability.”

Which of course has nothing to do with what we're actually doing in the field of stem cell research. Clone armies are strictly confined to the Star Wars universe, you right-wing pinheads.

This story made me want to vomit in my mouth.

Source: Think Progress

PS: For a truly delightful interpretation one need only look to the first comment on that page.

Apparently no one has taken a copy of “1984″ into the oval office.

-G

Comment by GSD — December 26, 2007 @ 8:27 pm

Well said.

At Least They Look Nifty
So apparently the NYPD is looking to phase out their fossil fuel scooters in favor of an electric model. Quiet, sneaky and cleaner. All well and good, I suppose, if they work.

It took forever, but I found a site with pictures of the vehicle in question. Shockingly, it doesn't have the usual POS electric vehicle aesthetic. The photos look a tad touched up for dramatic effect though. Either a blur filter or someone has need of a tripod.

Then when I went to find the original story I found a CNN.com article with a picture. Sigh.

It turns out, not shabby at all, though.

Sources: Greener Machine
CNN.com