Politics, Music, Sounds, and Sanity: Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Found at Michelle Malkin's post(no link, you don't want to go there) about Sen. Kennedy's brain cancer:
I will pray for Senator Kennedy. Dying from a brain tumor must be awful. I can’t think of anything worse except perhaps suffocating at the bottom of a tidal pool in a ‘68 Oldsmobile. Alone and scared. At 25 years old.
and:
Prayers for the woman he left to die, Mary Jo Kopechne. Ted Kennedy has already received all the breaks in the world. He got away with vehicular homicide and afterwards has spent his life showing no mercy to and villifying Republcans. I cry for the millions of aborted babies and the rest of the victims of Liberal insanity like his.
While much posted there was more like this one:
Senator Kennedy and his family have my and my families prayers. Cancer is not political. May God Bless, he and his family.
The majority seemed more like this:
While I vehemently disagree with Senator Kennedy on his politics, I have much sympathy for him and his family. I hope he’s able to get through this. I wouldn’t wish death upon anyone serving this country, even if I disagree with his methods.
Many comments brought up Chappaquiddick and Mary Jo Kopechne. That was a really sad, ugly incident in Kennedy's life, and ruined any chance he may have had of running for President. And many commentors at MM's site also mentioned the "millions of aborted babies and the rest of the victims of Liberal insanity like his".
Apparently lots of Right-wingers feel compassion for Ms. Kopechne. Too bad they don't feel that way about Michael Douglas:
Michael Dutton Douglas, 17, had driven only half a mile before America’s Black Widow of the Night deliberately ran the stop sign at high speed, striking the small car with such ferocity that her boyfriend was ejected from the car and into the dirt.
Nothing else to add except the observation that when a Democrat is responsible for someone's death, they should die in pain and burn in Hell. But when a Republican is responsible, they will likely get a Presidential Freedom Award.
The painting in question, a student project completed in 2003, adorns a wall in the corridor leading to the Bastrop High School gym. It depicts the sometimes unpleasant history of the town, showing scenes of a Mexican and Comanche raid and slaves working in a cotton field, as well as unifying visions of children of different ethnicities reaching out to one another. [...] Patty Green, the art teacher who coordinated the project, said she doesn't understand why the issue is coming up now. Austin muralist Raul Valdez organized a group of Bastrop students to paint the mural using a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bastrop Association for the Arts.
"It sat up there for five years, and nobody had a problem with it," said Green, the head of the Bastrop association.
Bastrop resident Lauren Hansell, who made the original complaint, homeschools her children but visits the school on Fridays to pray with students at the flagpole.
A Christian, Hansell said she wants the mural removed because of the war and slavery scenes and depictions of Buddha and ancient gods. [...] Among the images on the mural are an Aztec sun, ancient Egypt's King Tutankhamen, Buddha and Shiva, a Hindu deity, dancing on a demon of ignorance.
Hansell, who at first interpreted Shiva's dance as a message in favor of abortion, said laws that bar Christian symbols from public schools should apply to the mural.
The First Amendment, which bans government-sponsored religious activities even as it protects religious expression from government interference, allows students to pray during school in informal settings, according to U.S. Department of Education guidelines.
So after 5 years of the mural being displayed a woman who has nothing to do with the school except for proselytizing every week on school grounds complains and engenders a controversy.
Nope. Not me. Ah'm not allowed to even touch the button.
(edited to include this necessary pic)
Unka Dick is going to do it.
WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday denied a published report in Israel that said President Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term in January. A story in the Jerusalem Post quoted a "senior official" there as saying that Bush plans to attack Iran in the coming months. The story says the unidentified official claimed that a "senior member" of Bush's traveling entourage made the statement about attacking Iran in a closed meeting. Bush was in Israel last week.
The article also says the unnamed Bush official said that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "were of the opinion that military action were called for."
[snip]
Perino said the "president of the United States should never take options off the table, but our preference and our actions for dealing with this matter remain through peaceful diplomatic means. Nothing has changed in that regard."
Diplomacy? Isn't that appeasement to Georgie? I think this means we're going to attack Iran before the year is out.
And McBush apparently doesn't give a fuck who is actually in charge in Iran:
Yesterday, the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) often incorrectly portrays Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as if Ahmadinejad has a significant role in formulating Iranian foreign policy. He doesn’t. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iran’s National Security Council set Iran’s foreign policy.
Yesterday, Time’s Joe Klein pressed McCain on the issue, but McCain refused to concede he was wrong, saying he disagreed that Khamenei runs Iranian policy behind the scenes. McCain added that because the “average American” thinks Ahmadinejad is Iran’s leader, that’s good enough for him:
MCCAIN: I mean, the fact is [Ahmadinejad’s] the acknowledged leader of that country and you may disagree, but that’s a uh, that’s your right to do so, but I think if you asked any average American who the leader of Iran is, I think they’d know.
Ahmadinejad? Khamenei? What does it matter if we're going to nuke the place anyway?
OK, now that I have your attention, let's talk about race ... and sex.
In a kinda sorta follow up to SteveAudio's post about the racist Curious George T-shirt and in light of the comments on that post, I'd just like to say: Misogyny is terrible, racism is worse.
Let me re-phrase: Misogynists are terrible, racists are worse. I suggest you read the post and read the comments, and read the links to the comments on other sites. I'll wait ...
... ... ...
Yep, those were awful, sexist, misogynist comments about Hillary.
And that's really bad, but racism is about both men and women. Men and women that were kidnapped and stolen from Africa and auctioned off as chattel in our country. Men and women that were considered as property, and even enshrined in the Constitution as 3/5ths of a person so that Southern states were equally represented in Congress.
There aren't groups in our country that want to kill women just for being women but there are groups in our country that want to kill black people, just for being black.
And if I were to put on my cynical hat I would say that Hillary should take the VP job, if offered, because Obama being assassinated, (and if he's elected I put the odds of that at 50/50), is the best chance she has of being President.
And that's why misogyny is terrible, racism is worse.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
(Video by Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films)
There are some folks we call dead-enders. They will follow The Party no matter what. If they saw GWBush, John W. McCain, Dick Cheney, and Grover Norquist gang-raping their child on TV, they would still vote for anyone with an "R" after their name, including the aforementioned McCain.
It always cracks me up when a supposed 'thoughtful' Right-wing pundit criticizes a Democratic candidate, thoughtfully, as if they would ever vote for said candidate, or even consider him anything but a traitor willing to sell us all down the river into Islamofascist slavery:
The fact that everyone knows who Bush was referring to and the fact that the substance contained in the remark reflects the widely held belief of a very large percentage of voters should have given Obama an opening to retract the remark and share his thoughts on engaging Iran, Syria, and other terrorist supporting nations in a useful dialogue.
Instead, Obama and the Democrats hit the ceiling, calling Bush every name in the book and whining about their hurt feelings. Their reaction reminded me of a line from the movie All The Presidents Men where the Washington Post has published an article accusing the White House of wrongdoing and the reaction to that article from the Nixonites. Ben Bradleee observes “They doubt our ancestry, but they don’t say the story isn’t accurate.”
Obama called Bush’s words “an appalling attack,” “dishonest,” divisive, “fear-peddling,” fear-mongering,” but for some reason, never got around to responding to the substance of Bush’s charge; that Obama and the Democrats cannot be trusted with running American foreign policy because their outlook on the world is is based on false assumptions about, our friends, our allies, our role in the world, and most of all our deadly enemies.
Bush actually did Obama a favor. He gave him a golden opportunity to lay out his “realistic” ideas on American foreign policy so that it would get the widest possible hearing. The problem, as Obama and the Democrats well know, is one of perception – a perception they try their best to finesse rather than tackling head on. It’s not about talking tough and making threats. It is about calling our enemies, well, enemies . They could try that for starters.
Right. Problem is, any idea Obama lays out as realistic will be ridiculed by this guy and his crowd. Yet he seems so reasonable. But often so do most sycophants and supporters of totalitarian regimes.
What could possibly be wrong with 75,000 people attending a political rally?
Admittedly, not much on the surface. And perhaps if the times weren’t so perilous and the candidate who was the beneficiary of that huge crowd wasn’t so problematic, we could really celebrate such an outpouring of support, free from the nagging doubts that plague many of us about Barack Obama and his past associations and present ideological beliefs.
Except my republican soul (note the small “r”) is a little frightened at this mob scene. Politicians should be plebeian in their appeal – being one of us and not standing above us, Caesar-like in their beguilement of the masses. Truman and Eisenhower were plebes; modest in their habits and with no illusions regarding their own failings. There is something to be said for such solid republican values in a presidential candidate and when someone such as a Kennedy or Obama rises above the masses, presenting themselves as perhaps something more than a servant of the people, we are bound to look in askance at such a phenomenon.
The anti-populist elitism, the sniff of "dirty masses" from an ivory tower conservative psuedo-intellectual is almost enough to make the spirit of Bill Buckley smile up from Hell. The fear of the people revolting, trying to further their own best interests, has been a touchstone in conservative politics since long before the Cold War.
And in case he forgot, there's never been a more anti-plebian President than GWBush, with the possible exception of Poppy Bush, who really took his elitism as a life style, and didn't try to hid it with a phony rancho in Texas.
Moran finishes his anti-Obama whine thusly:
But dangerous he is – for his beliefs, not for his personality or the character of this mass movement he has inspired. So when I see 75,000 people screaming his name with the kind of abandon reserved for rock stars or religious figures, I worry more that the candidate won’t be able to live up to the lofty expectations he has engendered in his legions than he would use such a movement for nefarious purposes.
And given his incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done, I would guess that if he is elected he would generate more disappointment among his followers than any other president in memory.
Dude, that's rich in unintended irony. He worries, poor concern troll he is, that Obama won't live up to the Left's expectations, that he has an "incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done", and will "generate more disappointment" blah blah blah.
Like, you know, George W. "28%" Bush has done.
The real reason for all this pearl-clutching and hand-wringing is in the video at the top, and rests on the heads of the Republican collective, the "dirty unwashed masses" who voted for McCain, once a pariah in Republican top circles, now their candidate. Weak as Wally Cox with the flu, ethically challenged as Ferdinand Marcos, anti-intellectual as GWBush, and flip-flopping more than a trout in the bottom of a boat, McCain's star is the one they have hitched their wagons to. So Moran instead carps and whines about Obama's mis-perceived problems, and pronounces him a bad candidate.
During a speech to the Israeli parliament yesterday morning, President Bush attacked Barack Obama, comparing him to Nazi appeasers for the Illinois senator's willingness to hold discussions with Iran.
One problem: Bush's speech came just hours after The Washington Postreported that Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, said that the United States needs to "sit down and talk with" Iran. Not only that, Gates added, "We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander."
Oops.
Naturally, then, a media firestorm erupted, with the Bush administration and its political allies questioned all day about whether Bush has any idea what he is talking about, whether he has lost control over the Pentagon, whether Gates will be fired, what Gates thinks about Bush's comparison of those (like Gates) who advocate dialogue between the United States and Iran to appeasers of Adolf Hitler, and whether the fiasco will remind voters that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been marked by incompetence and dishonesty, thus doing irreparable electoral damage to John McCain and other Republican candidates.
Sorry -- what was I thinking? That didn't happen.
Instead, much of the news media got busy pretending the Post article didn't exist and that Gates had not undermined Bush's political attack on Obama. Instead, many news outlets simply rushed to repeat Bush's assault over and over again, as though it had merit.
Just like this guy... who had no clue what Neville Chamberlain had done and what appeasement actually means:
to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.
One apocryphal bit of business surrounding the 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler...' quote, used 'liberally' without attribution by various conservative writers and attributed to Senator William Borah, the 'lion of Idaho', bears mentioning.
Borah was linked quite often in the papers of the times as a compatriot to his fellow Republican Senator, Gerald P. Nye (R-North Dakota), who during his time in office was the chairman of a special Senate committee tasked with investigating the munitions industry’s connections with World War I.
Essentially, the committee found some rather striking degrees of conviviality between the American government of the time under Woodrow Wilson, and various arms manufacturers and sellers, including Samuel P. Bush, who at the time was tasked by Bernard Baruch to head the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board, a post for which as a 'railroad man' he showed scant previous experience, save for his very amicable relations with such social luminaries as Percy Rockefeller, owner of Remington Arms, and Averill Harriman, later Senior Partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Both captains of industry later took it kindly upon themselves to recommend young Prescott Bush to Yale's Skull and Bones fraternity in 1916, along with Averill's brother 'Bunny' Harriman.
It should be noted that Remington Arms became preeminent in small arms and ammunition contracts for American and Allied powers during this time, supplying by one estimate '...machine guns and Colt automatic pistols; millions of rifles to Czarist Russia; over half of the small-arms ammunition used by the Anglo-American allies in World War I; and 69 percent of the rifles used by the United States in that conflict' ...No doubt, merely incidental to the close personal relationships being formed by these elite members of American society.
Although the final findings of the committee were somewhat ambiguous, in a similar fashion to the determinations of the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee (tasked to examine the 'businessman's putsch' of 1933), numerous Neutrality acts were reactively authored and passed as an indirect result of the investigation.
It would be illuminating to reflect upon the larger role that Samuel P. Bush might have played in facilitating such amicable relationships in the Great Game of the time, but unfortunately most of the records detailing his activities in this matter were burned by the National Archives at an unspecified date, purportedly in order to 'save space'.
Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in the Army until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines, today publicly announced his intention to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.
Resisting the backdoor draft or as I see it, involuntary servitude.
IVAW's post finishes with a request for donations:
To donate to IVAW’s Legal Fund to support Matthis and other servicemembers who are refusing to support the occupation of Iraq, use our online donation form and select “Legal Fund” under special projects.
GOP leaders sought yesterday to "re-brand" the party with a new slogan and renewed pledges of fiscal rectitude and limited government. But the slogan -- "The Change You Deserve" -- came under mocking fire, because it parallels Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama's "Change We Can Believe In" motto and it mirrors the advertising slogan for the antidepressant Effexor. [ED: Take for depression, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. Common side effects include apathy, irritable bowel syndrome and sexual dysfunction. Take only if you are a republican.]
In a speech to Israel's Knesset, Bush said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."
"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Of course, his loyal minions claim he wasn't trying to smear Obama:
The White House said Bush's comment wasn't a reference to Obama.
"It is not," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Israel. "I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case."
Sure. That's why it was done in the Knesset; Bush can claim that Republicans are better defenderers of Israel. And it's bullshit on so many levels. And who was the genius speechwriter that came up with this? We can't blame Frum for this, I don't think he's that stupid.
Harry Reid has a pretty good take on it:
“Not surprisingly, the engineer of the worst foreign policy in our nation’s history has fired yet another reckless and reprehensible round. More than seven years into his Presidency and in the sixth year of the directionless Iraq war, President Bush has yet to learn that his brand of divisive partisan rhetoric is precisely what has made America and our allies less secure. And for the President to make this statement before the government of our closest ally as it celebrates a remarkable milestone demeans this historic moment with partisan politics.
“President Bush’s own actions demonstrate that he believes negotiations – at the right moment, under the right conditions and with the right leaders – can both show strength and produce results. He has relied on negotiations with North Korea and Libya, two state sponsors of terror. And by conducting discussions with Russia, China, Libya, North Korea and Iran in recent years, President Bush has demonstrated his belief that negotiations can be a tool to advance America and Israel’s national security interests. I call on the President to explain the inconsistency between his Administration’s actions and his words today.”
Over in Israel today, George Bush got right down to business and compared Democrats to the Hitler appeasers who sold out Czechoslovakia just before World War II. Barack Obama shot back that this was a "false political attack" and that Bush was a liar.
. . . I still think I would have preferred something like a Reaganesque shake of his head followed by "It's always Munich with these guys, isn't it?" There are times when mockery is the best policy.
And as proof that GWBush's statement is sheer partisan hackery, here's his SecDef just yesterday in the WaPo:
The United States should construct a combination of incentives and pressure to engage Iran, and may have missed earlier opportunities to begin a useful dialogue with Tehran, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.
Does this mean he will be reprimanded by Bush? McCain, of course, fellatessupports Bush:
Senator John McCain, who has been critical of President Bush on the environment and other policies this week, on Thursday morning wholeheartedly endorsed Mr. Bush’s veiled rebuke in the Israeli Knesset of Senator Barack Obama that talking to “terrorists and radicals'’ was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis.
“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’
Note the obligatory Reagan idolatry. But oft-sensible conservative Andrew Sullivan thinks:
This is manna for the Obama campaign, sent straight from Heaven. Who wouldn't want to run against this president this November? By conflating Bush and McCain on this, the White House has done the Democrats a massive favor.
Part of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was due to the fact that the Reagan administration was feeding billions of dollars in arms to Afghanistan's Islamic resistance. Reagan and, even more, his intensely ideological CIA director, William Casey, saw the battle for Afghanistan as a titanic struggle in the war between Eastern tyranny and Western freedom.
. . . After the last Soviet troops departed, Afghanistan fell off the American radar screen. Over the next few years, Shevardnadze's worst nightmares came true. The Taliban rose to power and in 1996 gave refuge to the—by then—much-hunted Bin Laden.
Oh yeah, those were our terrorists. So Reagan was doing his presidential duty by talking with those terrorists, as well as creating Iran-Contra, but now Bush and McSame won't talk to anybody?
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court — one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing — has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously.
Faced with an unfriendly Congress, the Bush administration has found another, quieter way to make it more difficult for consumers to sue businesses over faulty products. It's rewriting the bureaucratic rulebook.
Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority. [...] Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers. [...] Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound.
[...] The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune“, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students. [...] While the United States is one of only two countries — the other being Somalia — to have never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making it binding under U.S., as well as international, law. [...] The army’s own Recruiting Programme Handbook, for example, instructs its more than 10,600 recruiters to approach high school students as early as possible, and explicitly before their senior year, which, for most students, starts at age 17. “Remember, first to contact, first to contract…that doesn’t just mean seniors or grads…,” according to an excerpt quoted in the report. “If you wait until they’re seniors, it’s probably too late.”
Once recruiters are inside their assigned high schools, the Army’s Recruiting Command instructs them to “effectively penetrate the school market” and “(b)e so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand”, with the goal of “school ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army enlistments.” That includes volunteering to serve as coaches for high school sports teams, involvement with the local Boy Scouts, attending as many all school functions and assemblies, and even “eating lunch in the school cafeteria several times each month”.
The report documents a number of specific cases, mostly in New York and California — the two most populous states with the largest number of minority high school students — in which recruiters clearly followed these instructions. In a survey of nearly 1,000 children, aged 14 to 17, enrolled in New York City high schools, the ACLU New York affiliate found that more than one five respondents — equally distributed among the different grades — reported the use of class time by military recruiters, and 35 percent said military recruiters had access to multiple locations in their schools where they could meet students.
The report also noted that the Pentagon’s central recruitment database systematically collected information on 16-year-olds and, in some cases even 15-year-olds, including their name, home address and telephones, email addresses, grade point averages, height and weight information, and racial and ethnic data obtained from a variety of public and private sources. The explicit purpose of the database is to assist the military in its “direct marketing recruiting efforts”. As the result of a 2006 ACLU lawsuit, the Pentagon agreed to stop collecting data about students younger than 16.
But recruitment efforts even dip below 15-year-olds, according to the report, which found that the Pentagon’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which operate at more than 3,000 junior high schools, middle schools, and high schools across the country, target children as young as 14 for recruitment. The report cited recent studies that found that enrollment in some JROTC programmes was involuntary.
JROTC “cadets”, of whom there were nearly 300,000 in 2005, receive military uniforms and conduct military drills and marches, handle real and wooden rifles, and learn military history, according to the report, which noted that the programme is explicitly designed to “enhance recruiting efforts”. African American and Latin students make up 54 percent of JROTC programmes.
JROTC also oversees the Middle School Cadet Corps (MSCC), in which children ages 11 to 14 can participate, according to the report. Florida, Texas, and Chicago schools offer military-run after-school MSCC programmes in which children take part in drills with wooden rifles and military chants, learn first-aid, civics, military history and, in some cases, wear uniforms to school for inspection once a week.
The Army also uses an online video game, called “America’s Army”, to attract potential recruits as young as 13, train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions. Launched in 2002, the video game had attracted 7.5 million registered users by September 2006.
This was what Bush meant when he said 'No Child Left Behind.'
The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees. [...] The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or "OAT" team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies. [...] Brennan charges the State Department never responded to his team's report, which was retroactively classified because agency officials said it could hurt bilateral relations with Iraq. Other recommendations by the group also were kept secret, including a negative assessment of Iraq's Joint Anti-Corruption Committee, Brennan said.
In July 2007, the OAT team concluded that the committee's only purpose was to provide a forum for complaints against Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, a top anti-corruption official in Baghdad whom many U.S. officials have hailed as the most effective in exposing fraud and abuse.
After the 2003 Iraq invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer created a major anti-corruption ministry in Iraq, the Public Integrity Commission (CPI). Last October, former CPI commissioner Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who was appointed by Bremer and whose work has been praised by top U.S. officials, told Congress about the “rampant” corruption in Iraqi ministries that had cost Iraq as much as $18 billion.
Radhi’s gripping account detailed how Prime Minister Maliki tried to subvert his commission and how nearly four dozen of his staff members were killed. Subsequently, he was forced to seek asylum in the United States.
But today, Radhi is living as an undocumented immigrant in Virginia. [...] The State Department turned against Radhi, according to Mattil and Brennan. They “said a senior State Department official had ordered agency employees not to give al Radhi references or contact him” about the asylum. Radhi is “destitute” in his current situation, they noted.
Times are very tough now, for a proud white man to live
The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the right to free speech:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Marietta bar owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring a look-a-like of cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" underneath, are not meant to offend.
Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey,
"We're not living in the (19)40's," he said. "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears — he looks just like Curious George."
No, we're not living in the '40s. Black people can vote, and one is the likely Democratic candidate for President. But for some, especially in the South, it's still the '40s, and the Bull Connor '50s.
Mr. Norman, you know God-damned well that picture is offensive, and you don't care, because you're racist. No other conclusion can be drawn. You're not clever, you're not funny, you're infantile and prejudiced.
There is one essential difference between Clinton and Obama that hasn't been talked about. And that is, while there are some who feel women are not as good as men, no one in today's society, except for sociopaths, hates women.
Yet there are still those in this country who hate black people. As fellow blogger darkblack pointed out to me, Obama is in far more physical danger than Clinton, for that simple fact. We've come so far, yet sadly, not far enough. We still have racist jerks like Mr. Norman.
(Note: Title lyric from the awful RaHoWa, a White Power band. I post them so you don't have to go look them up. Mr. Norman may not subscribe to all their tenets, but he's in good company with them, no matter how hard he denies.)
Florida Teacher Accused Of Wizardry - Man Made Toothpick Vanish In Class
LAND 'O LAKES, Fla. -- A substitute teacher in Pasco County has lost his job after being accused of wizardry.
Teacher Jim Piculas does a magic trick where a toothpick disappears and then reappears.
Piculas recently did the 30-second trick in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes.
Piculas said he then got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he'd been accused of wizardry.
"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue, you can't take any more assignments you need to come in right away,'" he said.
Let's see if we understand this correctly...The year is 2008, and a sub does a magic trick involving a toothpick in front of a class - And he gets accused of wizardry, the charges taken credulously by the supervisor of teachers...?
It certainly is comforting to know that in these trying times, some Americans are steadfast in their opposition to the advances of the 8th century.
Perhaps pricking this magical miscreant with a pin to find a 'dead spot' upon his person might resolve the issue satisfactorily, and if found guilty (as he no doubt is in a place where predetermined conclusions based on towering ignorance reign supreme over mere trifles such as logic and reason), then mete he be punished in a maximal fashion for polluting precious bodily fluids with his warlockery most foul.
...and give that naughty Harry Potter a spin in the dunk tank while you're at it, too.
Jack Gilfoy passed away last week. If you're in any part of the industry you probably know who Jack was. If not, here's just a few of the gigs he had: Errol Garner Teddy Wilson Jim Cullum Doc Severinson Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey Nelson Riddle Al Cobine Henry Mancini The Four Preps Sonny & Sher Andy Williams Johnny Mathis Nancy Wilson Elvis Presley The Wright Brothers Bill Gaither Sandy Patti ... and almost every major symphony in the world.
So while you may not have heard of Jack Gilfoy, you've heard him.
On a personal note; I got my studio start at what had been Gilfoy Studios and I was lucky enough to work with Jack over the years on 5 sessions and a few live gigs. In addition to being a 'drummist', (Jack's term), he was also a great engineer and an incredible teacher. From trap sets to tympani, from faders to tape, Jack was the consummate professional and a most gracious and caring teacher.
p.s. He was funny too!
* Apologies to SteveAudio for borrowing his 'Cause I can play' theme, but I'm thinking he gets it.
On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin, entitled 'The World According to Monsanto' (Le Monde selon Monsanto[1]). Starting from the Internet over a period of three years Robin has collected material for her documentary, going on to numerous interviews with people of very different backgrounds. She traveled widely, from Latin America, to Asia, through Europe and the United States, to personally interview farmers and people in influential positions.
As an example of pro-Monsanto interviews, she talked at length with Michael Taylor who has worked as a lawyer for Monsanto and also for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), where he had great influence on the legalization of the genetically modified bovine growth hormone (BGH). It also became FDA policy during Taylor's tenure that GM seeds are declared to be "substantially equivalent[2] to non-GM seeds, hence proclaiming proof of the harmlessness of GMs to be unnecessary. Michael Taylor[3] is a typical example of technocrats employed via 'the revolving door policy'. He is now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.
Besides flooding the land with pesticides, the crops don't yield as much:
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.
The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
By the way, ignore the development of superweeds:
ISAAA hails the GM explosion as a boon to humanity, ignoring serious evidence that genetically altered food presents health risks. The group also doesn't mention that the GM acreage is essentially limited to four massive crops: corn, soy, cotton, and canola. That means that a sizabale swath of the globe's arable land is planted from a startlingly narrow genetic base. Nor does it mention that a single company, Monsanto, dominates this huge and growing market. (It holds the patents on 91 percent of global GM soy, 97 percent of corn, 63 percent of cotton, and 59 percent of canola).
Finally, the report ignores the cascade of Roundup (glyphosate), Monsanto's flagship herbicide, that has accompanied the rise of GM. As the Center for Food Safety writes in a report released this week (PDF), the great bulk of GM crops -- covering four out of five GM acres planted -- are engineered to withstand lashings of Roundup.
In the U.S. alone, glyphosate use jumped by a factor of 15 between 1994 and 2005, CFS claims. And this herbicide gusher has given rise to a host of "superweeds" -- weeds that tolerate heavy doses glyphosate. How do farmers deal with superweeds? By jacking up the dose of glyphosate.
The trend of increased rate of glyphosate use is clear. For soybeans, per-acre applications of Monsanto's herbicide jumped by a factor of 2.5 between 1994 and 2006. Corn farmers didn't really embrace GMOs until 2002; accordingly, between 2002 and 2005, glyphosate use on corn "jumped from 0.71 to 0.96 lbs./acre/year, a hefty 35% increase in just three years."
Farmers of Roundup Ready crops appear to have entered a pesticide treadmill. They have to raise application rates to keep up with resistance; and every time they do, they create hardier and hardier weeds. Monsanto, which expects to rake in $1.4 billion in profit from Roundup sales alone this year, is evidently laughing its way to the bank.
Vanity Fair has an article:
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
[snip]
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.
A handful of the world's largest agricultural biotechnology companies are seeking hundreds of patents on gene-altered crops designed to withstand drought and other environmental stresses, part of a race for dominance in the potentially lucrative market for crops that can handle global warming, according to a report being released today.
Three companies -- BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis -- have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide, according to the report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, an activist organization that advocates for subsistence farmers.
The applications say that the new "climate ready" genes will help crops survive drought, flooding, saltwater incursions, high temperatures and increased ultraviolet radiation -- all of which are predicted to undermine food security in coming decades.
Company officials dismissed the report's contention that the applications amount to an intellectual-property "grab," countering that gene-altered plants will be crucial to solving world hunger but will never be developed without patent protections.
The report highlights the economic opportunities facing the biotechnology industry at a time of growing food insecurity, as well as the risks to its public image.
Because, of course, Monsanto is always looking out for people ... who will need to eat.
