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Monday, June 23rd, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 1:48a |
Monsieur McCain's holiday
Jean Claude Le McCain joins a lengthy list of Scottish pretenders and mercenaries languishing in Languedoc, admiring the outcrops of Brittany, drowning their angst in the Auvergne, gnashing their teeth in Normandy, buggering wild boar in Burgundy before pining under the Pyrenees with nothing more Toulouse. Trouble in paradise...Isikoff in Newsweek ...
'...One of John McCain's most celebrated achievements in recent years was his crusade to block a Pentagon contract with Boeing for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. Incensed over what he denounced as a taxpayer "rip-off," McCain launched a Senate probe that uncovered cozy relations between top Air Force officials and Boeing execs. A top Air Force officer and Boeing's CFO ended up in prison. Most significantly, the Air Force was forced to cancel the contract--saving taxpayers more than $6 billion, McCain asserted.
But last week, McCain's subsequent effort to redo the tanker deal was dealt a setback. Government auditors ruled that the Air Force made "significant errors" when it rebid the contract and awarded the $35 billion project to Boeing's chief rival, partners European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (or EADS) and Northrop Grumman. It's likely the Air Force will have to redo the bid yet again, which analysts say will delay the replacement of the fleet's 1950s-era refueling tankers. The auditors' ruling has also cast light on an overlooked aspect of McCain's crusade: five of his campaign's top advisers and fund-raisers--including Tom Loeffler, who resigned last month as his finance co-chairman, and Susan Nelson, his finance director--were registered lobbyists for EADS...'
I guess freedom fries are back on the menu | | 2:42a |
Mick Armstrongs dead
SYDNEY'S Marxist community is reeling following the bizarre death of one its leaders.
Mick Armstrong, a Commissar at 'Socialist Alternative', was found by his distraught wife bound and unconscious at his home in Greystanes on Thursday.
Police are not treating the death as suspicious. An autopsy will be held to determine the cause of death but police sources said Mr Armstrong may have died while attempting an act of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Chief executive officer of Stalinist sect Community Services Bob Gould confirmed detectives had seized a computer from Mr Armstrong's home.
"Whether it has shed any light on the situation, I do not know," he said.
"This has come as a tremendous shock, not just to the Comintern but the local Neo-Stalinistic community in which Mick was so highly regarded. My thoughts are with his family and his congregation."
Police confirmed that at 4.30pm on Thursday officers went to a house at Burra Place, Greystanes, where ambulance officers were trying to revive a man who was tied up. It is understood a knife was lying nearby.
Next door neighbour Pamela Stevenson said: "It all happened very quickly.
"Police cordoned off the area. We asked what was going on but they were very cagey about what had actually happened."
Ms Stevenson described Mr Armstrong as "polite" and "very politically correct".
"He, his wife and their young daughter have been in the street for around five years. They keep themselves to themselves."
Ashfield SA apparatchik John Morrison said he was "stunned" when he received a phone call from Mr Armstrong's wife, Ether, on Friday morning.
"She rang to say Mick had died. She said she had arrived home from work to find him dead. I asked 'How?' and she said it was a suspected heart attack. There was no indication from her that there was anything untoward or suspicious about his passing."
He added: "It's come as a great shock to everyone who knew him. He was a wonderful guy, a devoted central-committee man."
Apart from his Communist duties, Mr Armstrong was heavily involved with Ashfield's Stalinoid Friendship Group. Friend and group member Chely Polonsky described Mr Armstrong as a "Chekist role model".
"This is horrible, terrible news," Ms Polonsky said. "He was such a wonderful man. Nothing was too much trouble for him. If someone in the community had political problems, he was there to help torture them."
She added: "I knew something was wrong on Friday because he hadn't turned up to our regular meeting. It wasn't like him. Then, an hour later, the reverend Chuck0 called up and said 'He is dead.' " | | 3:36a |
Ledeen the brave
Condi Goes to War [Michael Ledeen]
Condi gave a speech at the U.N. yesterday on the incredible barbarism imposed on Zimbabwe by its lunatic dictator, Robert Mugabe. I suppose by the standards of current American diplomacy, the secretary of state was pretty tough:
"We have reached the point where broader, stronger international action is needed," said Miss Rice at a meeting of U.N. Security Council nations and countries on Southern African Development Commission.
She said the council demands that political violence end immediately, and that Mr. Mugabe's government accept international election monitors.
"By its actions, the Mugabe regime has given up any pretense that the June 27 elections will be allowed to proceed in a free and fair manner," she said, noting that opposition supporters have been killed and thousands injured in recent weeks.
This is Darfur all over again. And Iran all over again. And Syria all over again. Stern language, with the threat of even sterner language if the recipient doesn't behave better.
It's an embarrassment. Once upon a time, we had leaders who supported freedom and did everything possible to bring down tyrants. But not today. Today we give feel-good speeches full of politically correct slogans, wrapped in the mantle of multiculturalism and multilateralism. Even her words are feeble. Mugabe is committing mass murder, and has proclaimed that he won't accept the results of the election if it goes against him. So her call for "free and fair" elections is beside the point. It's just like the bad old days when the League of Nations fought fascism...while innocents are slaughtered.
06/20 10:20 AM - The Corner
Ledeen is pretty brave dissing a women isn't he. And so, just as everything he says about her applies double to her boss ( Sear Burma, Bush ultimatum) I guess we may soon expect to see this squalid little fascist arsehole to doubly diss Bush. Ledeen being so brave and all over there in the corner. | | 4:32a |
First and final warning
'...the FISA framework, which is already an extraordinarily pro-Executive instrument that vests vast eavesdropping powers in the President, in order to empower the President to spy on large parts of our international communications with no warrants at all. This was all done by invoking the scary spectre of Terrorism -- "you must give up your privacy and constitutional rights to us if you want us to keep you safe" -- and it is Obama's willingness to embrace that rancid framework, the defining mindset of the Bush years, that is most deserving of intense criticism here...' - KOS
Congressman,
Please don’t insult my intelligence with this talking point nonsense. You know and I know that there was no legal need whatsoever to do anything to FISA at this time. It could easily have waited until a new administration was in place. The law had served well since 1976 and was more than adequate to serve without modification for another 6 months without compromising national security. Why do I care? Hunter sums it up better than I can.
The only reasons to have gotten this done now was either to cover up for crimes that the democratic leadership was complicit in or because Obama wanted the ability to continue to have the ability to spy on his own citizens—should he get elected.
You write:
First and foremost, I believe that ensuring national security for the American people is the number one responsibility of Congress and the President.
No, the number one responsibility of Congress and the President is protecting the rights of the American people as set forth in the Constitution. Period.
Here is your oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
It does not say support or defend the American people against all enemies foreign and domestic. That is a HUGE distinction.
In case you might have forgotten, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights passed Dec. 15, 1791 reads:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Please tell me how data mining complies with the Fourth Amendment.
The “oversight” you describe at length below is laughable. This government is going to appoint an IG that is going to investigate and hold it accountable for its misuse of the FISA law? Preposterous. There has not been one scintilla of oversight performed by the Democratic congress other than toothless hearings and sternly worded letters. You can’t even get a subpoena complied with! The requirement that a court review the past practices of the administration is another joke. All that needs to happen there is that the court see that the President told the telcos that what they were doing was legal—whether it was or not. If the President and his hack lawyers say it’s legal, well all right then. I’m sorry, that is not acceptable. And you know it.
I will not even begin to express my outrage about the torture scandals that the congress has taken no action over other than toothless hearings and sternly worded letters—window dressing. I do not recognize this country. Neither does the rest of the world. And the buck falls to you and your compatriots in congress since the Administration is the branch that has committed war crimes beyond measure and you have not held them accountable.
As you know I am not a lawyer. Should you wish to know more about what you just voted for, I will be glad to send you links to the information written by many lawyers, some of them constitutional scholars. It is reading you might have done before the vote. But I know how busy you are. But here’s one anyway.
There is a line in one of my favorite movies, The American President, that says “I was so busy trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job.” Either this is true, or you don’t know what your job is. You know I have not been happy with your votes to continue to fund the war even though you were elected on a platform that you would try to put an end to the war. I recognize your personal need to make sure the military is equipped to do their jobs and have not joined in with the pickets at your office nor have I bad mouthed you to anyone over it. But this takes betrayal to a whole new level. I actually thought you were better than that. You, sir, have violated your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as far as I’m concerned. You have lost my respect, my support and possibly my vote as well. And I’m far from alone in this.
Deborah Mero
P.S. Oh, and make sure to get a copy of the Washington Post on Thursday. It is the beginning, only the beginning of a campaign for accountability. | | 5:00a |
The stain on solidarity Taking as our benchmark, Mark Steyn's reported solidarity with assaulted real journalists here... http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001602A self-loathing multiculturalist gets his due. by fatuous fascist fraud MARK STEYN '...You'd have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter...' It seems we still have some way to go yet - Canada faster please! | | 2:14p |
Blowback
War on the backburner
Reason given for war on the backburner
Domestic human and civil rights on the backburner
Hey - don't blame me when something blows up in yr stupid jackass democrat party face. | | 3:32p |
The native American criminal class
Together we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-entertainment complex.
The Bill of Rights is a firewall to tyranny - and the firewall is on fire. The Fourth Amendment has been getting pounded for decades, since the beginning of the drug war. All of the tools of the war on drugs--paramilitary SWAT teams kicking in doors in the middle of the night, highway check lanes, random traffic stops, urine testing, all have led to the weakening of this basic right.
Of course, no one listened when it was just a bunch of dirty hippies who wanted to smoke some weed...
What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq? Bush knew how to get out of Vietnam.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed assassins can change the world.
The democrats are more evil than the repubs
A good repub will tell you to your face that they're going to screw you.
Dem's take the cowards way. With Barack Obama as President, the GOP will suddenly find Congress' true role and will surely impeach him for over-reaching and abuse of power.
Or, as Atrios put it:
As I've written before, Democrats will regret embracing the expansion of executive power because a President Obama will find his administration undone by an "abuse of power" scandal. All of those powers which were necessary to prevent the instant destruction of the country will instantly become impeachable offenses. If you can't imagine how such a pivot can take place then you haven't been paying attention.
The answer given by Ben Franklin was, "A Republic, if you can keep it."
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can. - What Is Man?
...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes. - Letter fragment, 1891
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain, a Biography
Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man. - Notebook #14, 11/1877 - 7/1878
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity. - Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
It is the foreign element that commits our crimes. There is no native criminal class except Congress. - More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues. - Notebook, 1868
...I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman. - "Foster's Case", New York Tribune, 3/10/1873 | | 4:26p |
Defending our co-ops anarchistically
Should any anarchist bookstore or bar or co-op come under attack by cowardly thugs and goons then its hard to call the police. But here's something we can do as well as call the fucking pigs. Read Jim Bells 10 page essay ' Assassination politics'. Then re-read the page dealing with car-thieves. Now is this an anarchistic voluntary way of dealing with illegal aggression?
The rapid spread of the net makes it look even better ten years later.
We know a small number of extreme anti-social males commit most crimes - so if we can minimize this group we can demonstrate practical anarchy for the poorest of the poor. I see one immediate spin-off being the encouragement of more women in libertarian socialist politics. As for Celine Dion...is she really a women?
' Best $10 I ever spent' | | 8:16p |
The big heat http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/23/hansens-long-view/#more-6552'...Disintegration and consequent sea level rise can occur at frighteningly rapid rates, as in the ‘Meltwater pulse 1A’ event of 14,000 years ago. ( chart) At that time the sea rose on average one metre every 20 years for 400 years. It happened perhaps a quarter way in the ice sheet melt. We don’t know whether such an accelerated event will happen this time or when it would start if it did. We don’t know how long the remaining ice sheets would take to melt, but it seems likely that it would be considerably less than 6000 years. But Hansen and mates found that 5C of warming would produce an ice-sheet free world, which involves sea level rise of about 75 metres...' Bliss was is in that dawn to be old - but to be dying of a dodgy liver was very heaven! http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/Global warming to spark increase in US wildfires The north-western US wilderness is already a tinderbox, but thanks to global warming, the area burned every year could double by 2080 News - 21 June 2008 I think its safe to say the Infoshop server could go out again and New Orleans could get flooded again. Also Alex Cockburn is a such goose no thinking human would have anything to do with it. | | 9:08p |
Barry the bum
Can't come up with a campaign song...comes up with a Nazi looking seal instead. Whoopty-fucking-doo Bazza.
Obama's support for the FISA "compromise" (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
In the past 24 hours, specifically beginning with the moment Barack Obama announced that he now supports the Cheney/Rockefeller/ Hoyer House bill, there have magically arisen -- in places where one would never have expected to find them -- all sorts of claims about why this FISA "compromise" isn't really so bad after all. People who spent the week railing against Steny Hoyer as an evil, craven enabler of the Bush administration -- or who spent the last several months identically railing against Jay Rockefeller -- suddenly changed their minds completely when Barack Obama announced that he would do the same thing as they did… Accompanying those claims are a whole array of factually false statements about the bill, deployed in service of defending Obama's indefensible -- and deeply unprincipled -- support for this "compromise. "…
It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this "compromise" bill is the telecom amnesty part… The ACLU specifically identifies the ways in which this bill destroys meaningful limits on the President's power to spy on our international calls and emails. Sen. Russ Feingold condemned the bill… [W]hat Obama did [Friday] is in clear tension with an emphatic promise that he made just months ago… [N]o good comes from lending uncritical support to a political leader, or cheering them on when they do bad and destructive things, or using twisted rationalizations to justify their full-scale assault on your core political values. - MAKETHEMACCOUNTABLE | | 9:22p |
Another Kerry
Another 2004. Better another John Flipper Barry than reward this scumsucking democrat party
FISA Capitulation: Bad Policy, Bad Politics (by Tim Lee at the Technology Liberation Front)
The fact that [Obama is] committing himself to support the overall bill whether or not it comes with immunity is proof that he doesn’t really care about getting rid of immunity… Not only have Hoyer, Reid, and company sold out our civil liberties, but they’ve angered their core supporters as well… But I think the even worse problem, from Obama, Reid, and Pelosi’s perspective, is that this means the return of the narrative of Democratic weakness on national security issues… We are, in other words, right back to the narrative where being “strong” on national security means trashing the constitution. - MTA
Better an honest fascist arsehole in power than a lying poltroon and a coward. Fuck Barry White and all who sail in him. | | 9:27p |
The good Judenrat
People who can't remember a few years back won't get this but the Holocaust was very much a self-managed repression. In many places the Nazi's relied on leaders among the Jews ( Judenrat) to provide quota's and lists for them. You can even see some protests at this practice in the documentary of Eichmann's trial. Now as the filthy democrat party rats just blew off the best chance to shut down the Bush regime this week I will be amazed if there's not full blown Mugabe style fascism by the end of this year. Two drunk drivers and no brakes...fasten yr seat belts.
Compromising Our Rights (by Anglachel)
The problem with Democratic compromises is that they are over things that should never be bargained away, such as privacy, a social safety net, transparent government responsive to the citizenry, and other fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Compromises are for making choices between acceptable outcomes, but where one may be more to the liking of one party than the other choices. Our rights, such as freedom from unlawful search and seizure, are not on the table. - MTA
Gallup: Congress earns ‘worst rating’ in 35-year history of poll
“Gallup’s annual update on confidence in institutions finds just 12% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress, the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question,” the polling firm just reported. - MTA | | 9:53p |
Here's the goal
Barrys just another bubble
Obama could win vote, lose election (by Harry Siegel at Politico)
Here’s the scenario: Obama racks up huge margins among the increasingly affluent, highly educated and liberal coastal states, while a significant increase in turnout among black voters allows him to compete — but not to win — in the South. Meanwhile, McCain wins solidly Republican states such as Texas and Georgia by significantly smaller margins than Bush’s in 2004 and ekes out narrow victories in places such as North Carolina, which Bush won by 12 points but Rasmussen presently shows as a tossup, and Indiana, which Bush won by 21 points but McCain presently leads by just 11. One possible result: Even as the national mood moves left, the 2004 map largely holds. Obama’s 32 new electoral votes from Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia are offset by 21 new electoral votes for McCain in Michigan and New Hampshire — and despite a 2- or 3-point popular vote victory for Obama, America wakes up on Jan. 20 to a President McCain. - MTA
Operation bubblebuster - overall result is great for the increased rapid diminution of all Amerikkkan good-will and soft-power. Then we hit them with another 9-11 along with a massive DDoS attack on first responders. Run them into the fucking ground. | | 10:04p |
Commonsense Sam Bowles argues in Science June 20 that economics will get it wrong then, sometimes badly so. He points to new experimental evidence that people do often act against their own personal self-interest in favor of the common good, and they do so in predictable, understandable ways. Poorly-designed economic institutions fail to take advantage of intrinsic moral behavior and often undermine it. . Take this example: Six day care centers imposed a fine on parents who picked their children up late. The effect? Tardiness doubled, and it stayed high even when the fine was removed. Parents, it seems, stopped seeing lateness as an imposition on teachers, and instead saw it as something that could be purchased with no moral failing. Another example is a study this year which showed that women donated blood less frequently when they were paid for it than when it was an act of charity. These examples show that economists ignore human altruism at their peril. Standard economic theory assumes that incentives that appeal to self-interest won't affect any natural altruism that may exist, but that assumption is clearly wrong. Bowles discusses the research to date that helps to explain when and why that assumption breaks down. As the world becomes more interconnected and the resulting challenges to humanity increase, learning to harness these altruistic impulses becomes even more important, Bowles says. So the economists' "holy grail," to learn to design institutions and policies to direct the selfish impulses of individuals to public ends, "will be necessary but insufficient," Bowles says. "The moral nature of humans must also be recognized, cultivated, and empowered." - FROM http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/sfi-teo061608.php | | 10:35p |
Orwell Burnham style managerialism again '...Large size did not grow from the superior efficiency of large-scale organization; rather, the techniques of large-scale management were adopted as the least inefficient alternative given the large size which already existed as a result of artificially large market areas. No doubt some Gosplan apparatchiks also performed superhuman feats in making an inherently over-centralized and inefficient process as manageable as possible, given the impossible situation in which they were placed by the starting assumptions of a planned economy. As Chandler himself admitted, the greater "efficiency" of national wholesale organizations lay in their "even more effective exploitation of the existing railroad and telegraph systems." [p. 215] That is, they were more efficient parasites. But the "efficiencies" of a parasite are usually of a zero-sum nature...' - FROM http://mutualist.blogspot.com/Speaking of cockroach capitalist parasites... http://marxwords.blogspot.com/ | | 11:10p |
| | 11:14p |
Growin' the pie
CD Sales Fall Faster Than Digital Music Sales Rise. Or Do They? (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
I’m reading a report published by the International Herald Tribune about the decline of music sales on physical media such as CDs and DVDs, and I’m not sure what the record industry is whining about. Here’s a quote that boggles me: “In 2007… Physical sales of CDs and DVDs fell 13 percent to $15.9 billion. Sales of downloaded songs and mobile-phone ringtones rose 34 percent to $2.9 billion.“ Yes, I agree: looking at these numbers alone, the industry is not earning as much money as they did before. But take notice of the percentages. Physical sales = down 13 percent; digital sales = up 34 percent. At this exact rate of growth, in five years the revenue from digital sales will be 12.5 billion. At the exact rate of decline, physical sales will be down to 7.9 billion in five years. Add the two numbers together, and you get around 20.5 billion in overall revenue. Currently, this number is 18.8 billion. - MTA | | 11:42p |
Fuck the army RoyceChristian Posts: 33 Joined: 16-03-08 Location: Australia 19 June, 2008 - 10:51 There is a very objective basis for opposition to the military and the police. The Military is a trained mob of killers and murderers whole sole purpose is to obey orders and kill those they're told to. How can you excuse the nature of their job? Granted, they are often recruited from the 'working class', but they are also formed of people who want the army to pay for their further education as well as another minority who do it 'for their country'. Army training replaces the family as the base unit with a soldiers squad. Killing becomes justified, ever heard the excuse, "we were just following orders"? Cops on the other hand enforce the specific, narrow, moral code of a minority and if you don't comply they take the fruits of your labour, imprison you or worst case scenario, kill you. The entire purpose of their job is to enforce conformity to the particular views of whomever is in power. This brings into the question of what is a crime, as most people who are arrested are jailed for actions that would should not be considered criminal - tax fraud, drug dealing, prostitution, drug addiction, speeding, drink driving - and when they are jailed they often come out with a predisposition to actual crimes. Real crimes (murder, rape and the like) are rarely prevented by cops, who simply role up after the event happened, which doesn't help much once you're dead. Even if they find the perpetrator(s), they take them to court, lock them up and the victim - assuming they're still alive - is forced to pay for their attacker to stay in prison for the next x amount of years. However, it is fair enough to discuss the provision of security (through neighbourhood watches, patrols or other organised requested, operated and held accountable by the community/individuals) but both the military and cops are thugs in the employ of the state. You cannot excuse them. http://libcom.org/forums/theory/why-double-standard-16062008 | | 11:50p |
Much loved George
Sadly missed
'...Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr.
Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been
driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society.
"Scratch any cynic," he said, "and you'll find a disappointed idealist."
Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept
into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of
complaints and grievances. "I don't have pet peeves," he said, correcting
the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, "I have
major, psychotic hatreds..." - NYT Obit |
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