Here is an an amusing blog post on how Lockheed got the $265 million that it is now returning, in the form of the top 10 list.
Based on my experience with DoD congracts, I’ll go with number 4, “Funding to graphics design firm for making eight new power point slides for JSF quarterly update meeting.”
It’s always the PowerPoint slides.
Karl Rove has handed in his resignation, effective the end of August.
That’s not a whole bunch of notice, so one wonders what the back story is.
He is suggesting that he wants to spend more time with his family, which is such a cliché that no one with half a brain believes this.
I see three possibilities:
I find this very unlikely. The Washington press loves him, and if this were the case, it would have been around the time that Libby was convicted.
Likely, and I believe that this dispute might very well be spelled Alberto Gonzalez. I believe that his continued presence is coming from Bush, and not the people around him.
I hope so. It would have to be big, and shattering…but I think that I want this too much to discuss this in an objective matter.
Most likely alternative.
[on edit]There is also the possibility that he’s leaving to join a presidential campaign.
This is interesting, it appears that the British operating in Southern Afghanistan want the US to stop operations in their area.
A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.
ther British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.
An American military spokesman denied that the request for American forces to leave was ever made, either formally or otherwise, or that they had caused most of the casualties. But the episode underlines differences of opinion among NATO and American military forces in Afghanistan on tactics for fighting Taliban insurgents, and concerns among soldiers about the consequences of the high level of civilians being killed in fighting.
The US military has a culture that is disastrous in a counter-insurgency situation.
There is a general disregard for civilian casualties, and an understanding of these consequences that I believe comes from an unwillingness to ascribe basic human motives to the indigenous population, along with an over-reliance on air-power.
This racism (and what else can you call dehumanizing someone in this way) is disastrous in a counter-insurgency situation, and the British are calling the US on this.
I understand the difficulties of dealing with a situation where the insurgents blend into the population, but if a police force were to, as a matter of policy, shoot hostages, there would be justified outrage.
This is worse than wrong, it’s aiding the enemy.
Seriously…It has to…Because I cannot tell the difference between White House press releases and the Onion.
Bush and his Evil Minions™ have decided to send someone to Iraq to help their legal system.
I guess that they need someone there, “To help fashion the country’s legal system”. Who could it be?
I can’t recall.
What name leaps to mind.
I can’t recall.
Oh, yes, I remember, it’s Alberto “Abu” Gonzzlez.
Seriously, this is too far from reality for The Onion’s writers to have dreamed this up.
Impeach them all now.
I said that this would happen, and I was right. Boeing has delayed the first flight of the 787.
While I don’t think that it is going to slip as much as the Airbus A380, it won’t come in on time.
The company won’t have its existance threatened, but we will see Wall St. analysts wring their hands on cable TV and a dip in stock price.
It will mean nothing in the long term, but stock brokers don’t make money on buy and hold, they make it on churn and burn.
This is kind of neat. It’s an MP3 Player that converts into a CD player.
It looks like an MP3 player:
And it plays CDs:
If it can rip MP3s this way, that would be particularly neat
So now the blithering idiots who think that copyright is property want to apply copyright to designer fashion.
Let’s get this straight: It’s for the useful arts and sciences. Says so in the constitution.
What’s more, there is plenty of fashion (most of it sucky) being made out there. There is no need to encourage production of more tacky handbags.
IP is about encouraging production of beneficial things, inventions, arts, etc. It’s not about allowing people to print their own money so that they can make bigger campaign donations to you, senator butthead Schumer.
Philadelphia Inquirer columnistStu Bykofsky just asked Osama bin Ladin to attack America Again.
On 911, when a columnist correctly said that Bush was running from place to place like a scared rabbit, he was fired.
This jerk needs to be flipping burgers for a living, but he’s a right winger, so all will be forgiven.jour
Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal
So, today the monetary base in the North Atlantic economies is 7% higher than it was yesterday–an annualized growth rate of 2100% per year.
This is indeed a significant liquidity event…
Oh
my
God!!!!!
AT&T censored anti-Bush lyrics on a webcast by Pearl Jam. This is why we want to put net neutrality into law.
Note: I am quoting the press release in its entirety, because permission is implied by posting a press release.
LOLLAPALOOZA WEBCAST: SPONSORED/CENSORED BY AT&T?
08.08.07After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the “Blue Room” Live Lollapalooza Webcast.When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.
During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:
– “George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and
– “George Bush find yourself another home.”
This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.
AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.
Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of “NetNeutrality.” Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.
Most telecommunications companies oppose “net neutrality” and argue that the public can trust them not to censor..
Even the ex-head of AT&T, CEO Edward Whitacre, whose company sponsored our troubled webcast, stated just last March that fears his company and other big network providers would block traffic on their networks are overblown..
“Any provider that blocks access to content is inviting customers to find another provider.” (Marguerite Reardon, Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: March 21, 2006, 2:23 PM PST).
But what if there is only one provider from which to choose?
If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance -not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations – fans have little choice but to watch the censored version.
What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.
The complete version of “Daughter” from the Lollapalooza performance will be posted here soon for any of you who missed it. We apologize to our fans who were watching the webcast and got shortchanged. In the future, we will work even harder to ensure that our live broadcasts or webcasts are free from arbitrary edits.
If you have examples of AT&T censoring artist performances around political content, it’s a good thing for everyone to know about. Feel free to post examples on the official Pearl Jam Message Pit.
Kansas????
Yes, Kansas. The State GOP there has formed loyalty committee.
TOPEKA – The state Republican Party is forming a loyalty committee so that it can punish officers who endorse or contribute to Democrats.
…
The state committee’s actions struck a sour note for some Republicans, particularly moderates on issues such as abortion. Bob Beatty, a Washburn University political scientist, suggested the loyalty committee could prove a “public relations disaster.”
“Ironically, it smacks most of the Communist Party,” Beatty said Monday. “That’s the kind of public irony that most parties try to avoid — the party of freedom telling people they have no freedom.”
Gee. You think????? Josef Stalin is laughing in hell.
And, Kobach said, the grounds for removing someone from office are fairly narrow: They must publicly endorse or contribute to a non-Republican running in Kansas.
“This rule will operate primarily as a deterrent,” Kobach said. “My anticipation is that once the rule is in effect, you won’t see too many elected party leaders engaging in this kind of behavior.”
Vee must all Goose schtep in unison.*
But Andy Wollen, president of the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority, a moderate group, mused about the GOP creating a “grand high inquisitor.”
“When you hear the term loyalty committee, what runs through your mind?” he said. “Joseph McCarthy. George Orwell.”
Cloud supports the loyalty committee, even though he has run afoul of conservatives who dominate the party leadership.
He earned their public criticism for signing a fundraising letter for Wollen’s group in March, criticizing the party’s leadership and suggesting people give to the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority.
You know, in America, people are supposed to have the right to call their party leaders right wing nutcase wackjobs, particularly when they are right wing nutcase wackjobs.
If they could hook a dynamo to George Orwell’s grave, we’d power all of California.
*Yes, I know, mixing Nazis and Communist is a very mixed metaphor thing.
Home sales tumble in response to credit crunch. Just so you know, that’s what the National Association of Realtors is saying, so that’s the sunniest possible outlook.
Stocks tanked yesterday because a French Bank said that it had to freeze funds for lack of liquidity. Basically the meltdown is going global, and the securities that they hold are illiquid. They are not normally bought and sold, so there is no market for them.
When Bear Stearns funds went out for sale, they were getting less than 10 cents on the dollar as offers.
The European Currency Board (ECB) and the Federal Reserve have injected billions in liquidity to prevent a collapse. While this is not an extraordinary action for the Fed, this resembles things like the LTCM bailout, it is for the ECB.
The ECB’s scope is far narrower than that of the Fed. They are not charged with anything but controlling inflation, at German insistence (there are still a few Germans alive remember needing a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread).
Brian Beutler found soome actual journalism the other day. He found an Agence France Presse story that not only says that Bush is not telling the truth, but it’s the lede.
Bush levels dubious Iran nuclear arms charge
Mon Aug 6, 5:18 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons — an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.
…
I’m not sure whether I should be heartened that this got reported and was in the first para, or whether I should be depressed because I find this remarkable.
This story about South Korea draws up code of ethics for robots is interesting.
Given that they already have autonomous robots patrolling the DMZ, and they are looking at the robotic equivalent of watch dogs, this makes sense.
The author however, is wrong when he states, “South Korea is writing a code of ethics for robots for the first time in the world as part of efforts to lift the robot industry.“
Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the seminal work in this area, is well over 50 years old.
It’s interesting, because if they break the Federal Reserve, and they can, they lose too, because they have lost their biggest market.
At this point, I’d like to see them use their power to keep us from striking Iran.
Well, it looks like Bloomberg is going to have to turn over their records on the most likely illegal spying on peaceful demonstrators at the 2004 Republithug convention.
I think that we are about to discover that he is only marginally less unpleasant than Rudy.
About a week ago, I blogged on the rumored sale 250 Sukhoi Su-30 multi role fighters to Iran.
Well now it appears that the US is going to be selling a s$@% load of military hardware in the region in order to provide a counterweight to rumored Iranian deal.
Maybe I’m being a cynic, but I’m beginning to think that Boeing, Lockheed, and Sukhoi are the ones spreading this rumor, as they all stand to gain a lot from the ensuing orgy of weapons procurement.
I started stationary bicycling last Monday.
Here it is, 11 days later, and I’ve gained 8 pounds.
He comments on the fact that Democratic investigations in the House and Senate have had the side effect of slowing the approvals of Bush Judicial Nominees.
However, an article on the front page of Wednesday’s Washington Post penned by Jerry Markon perhaps adds to the case that the investigations into Gonzales and the administration, more broadly, are bringing benefits — tangentially related, but related nonetheless — both to the Democratic Party and to the progressive movement. Specifically, as the Senate Judiciary Committee works on these and other investigations, it is not taking up potential judicial nominees sent to Capitol Hill by President Bush.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, long considered one of the nation’s most conservative appellate courts, is shifting to a moderate direction with the balance up for grabs. A growing list of vacancies — now five — has left the court evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees.
With an election year approaching, experts predict the court will tilt decisively to the left if Democrats keep control of Congress and reclaim the White House.
“There is a very good chance that this court will be solidly Democratic for many, many years,” said Arthur D. Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor. He said the current 5-5 split — which began July 17 when Judge H. Emory Widener Jr., a Republican appointee, took semi-retirement — is “tremendously significant.”
To clarify, I’m not arguing that the Democrats pursue investigations of spurrious charges in order to slow the confirmation of ultra-conservative jurists. Far from it. But at the same time, the positive consequences that have come out of the fact that the Congress has been holding the Bush administration’s feet to the fire are not limited to a few subpoenas here and there, a few resignations here and there, and the truth beginning to come out. And if, as a result of these investigations appellate courts around the country do not shift to the right — or even shift to the left, as this article seems to indicate is the case with the fourth circuit — that’s not necessarily a bad thin.
Well said.
