Year: 2007

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??? Obama and Cheney are Cousins?????

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So, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are 8th cousins. There’s not much that I can say to add to that, but there is something that I can sing (to the tune of the Patty Duke Show Theme Song):

Meet Barack, who’s lived as you can see,
From Jakarta to Hawaii.
But Dickey’s only seen the sight.
A goon can see while avoiding sunlight
What a crazy pair!

But they’re cousins,
Identical cousins all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.

Where Barack adores a good debate,
True equality, and fighting hate,
Our Dickey loves to play the troll,
And babies blood makes him lose control —
What a wild duet!

Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike —

You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind.

Kausgoat Scandal!!!!!

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Yep, the latest scandal is that Mickey Kaus orally sodomizes goats.

It first showed up in the comments of a Matthew Yglesias post about how bone headed (pun not intended*) Kaus was about claiming that some dumb ass phony rumors of a John Edwards affair:

Mickey Kaus’ long post here about John Edwards’ alleged affair with Rielle Hunter is almost self-refuting. Basically, we have an anonymous source saying Hunter said she had an affair with Edwards, versus Hunter, on the record, saying that’s not the case. Then there’s Edwards, also saying it’s not the case. But Kaus initially deems Edwards’ denial too vague and non-specific.

Then someone posted something about Mickey Kaus having carnal knowledge of a goat, which soon escalated into oral sodomy with said ruminant.

It should that Mr. Kaus has issued no denial, so we must assume that this is true.

In any case, it soon found its way to Atrios, and then to his Wikipedia entry.

It’s also been mentioned on Wonkette , Sadly No, Oliver Willis, Kos, The Group News Blog, and many others.

I wouldn’t mention it, but Mickey Kaus has STILL not offered a denial, so by the standards of…Mickey Kaus…Mickey Kaus blows goats.

Yes, I know that this is irresponsible, and that I should feel bad about this, but piling on a wanker is fun sometimes.

*OK, the pun was intended, and I’m glad.

SWIFT Pulling Payment Processing Out of US Due to Security Concerns

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SWIFT, the international payments processing body, is pulling the processing EU banking data from the US because its presence in the US required it to provide data to the US state security apparatus in violation of EU laws.

Given the general lawlessness in the US with regards to civil rights and privacy these days, it’s the only prudent thing to do. Right now, banking transaction data is probably more secure in the People’s Republic of China than it is in the US.

George Bush: Objectively Pro Crime

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George bush wants to chop more than $1.5 billion from the COPS program and other policing initiatives.

That’s what, like 46 hours of Iraq?

But safe streets, competent and well equipped police officers, locating missing children, rehabilitation programs, that’s bad, because it’s the “evil gummint”.

If George Bush had his way, there would be no public peace officers or firefighters. His model of a society is Blackwater in Iraq.

Nobel Economics Winner Says that Markets Can’t Do Everything

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As strange as it may sound, he is actually in the minority with this moderate common sense idea.

Nobel economics winner says market forces flawed
By Jon Hurdle

PRINCETON, New Jersey (Reuters) – Societies should not rely on market forces to protect the environment or provide quality health care for all citizens, a winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for economics said on Monday.

…

He goes on to explain that things like the environment and healthcare are nt private goods, but public ones, and that pure market theory screws them up.

No Syrian Nukes

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Some analysis on GlobalSecurity.org and Phoenix Woman’s blog do a pretty good job of evicerating the claims of nuclear weapons activity.

So, if it’s not nukes, what did Israel hit? It hit weapons destined to Hamas in Lebanon.

Why would they do this? To regain credibility after the debacle in Lebanon.

On to the debunking.

First, my analysis:

Syria is not even close to have the basic nuclear infrastructure that could begin to construct nuclear weapons infrastructure. They have little in the way of Uranium, no smelting facilities, no enrichment or other purification facilities, and very little of the human capital necessary.

Second, Phoenix Woman:

A 5 MW reactor is big. From the satellite photo, once can see that the Yongbyon site is 4500 x 2500 m, or roughly 2.5 mi x 1.5 mi. The reactor building is very roughly 250 x 450 m. It consumes massive amounts of fuel: 110 tons of spent fuel per year. John Pike’s GlocalSecurity thinks that the satellite imagery of a uranium enrichment facility might be missed. In my opinion, the large amount of ore required would not be, especially considering that Syria doesn’t have good ore sources (it does have a site which extracts uranium from phosphate at Homs, but the uranium is a contaminant; see Glocal Security below).

In other words, it’s just too damn big to hide from the very earliest stages of site preparation.

Third, GlobalSecurity.org:

“dramatic satellite imagery” – the types of activity associated with nuclear weapons development, particularly at the early stages of the program, are precisely the sorts of things that are not going to produce dramatic satellite imagery, which is why North Korea’s uranium program is so vexing for the United States.
“primarily from Israel” – the reliance on such liasion sourced intelligence that could not be independently verified was one of the central problems with the Iraq WMD intelligence failure, and either evidence is “primarily from Israel” [ie, HUMINT] or it is independtly knowable by the United States based on “dramatic satellite imagery” but it is difficult to comprehend how both statements could be true.
“restricted to a few senior officials” – this part of the story is designed to explain to other reporters why their sources are unable to confirm any of the details of this report
“arrival at the Syrian port of Tartus” – this is not a large facility, and this news story would have us believe that Israeli intelligence has intimate knowledge of unloading activities at this port, a collection capability that was willingly compromised here
“labeled as cement” — cement is normally transported as a bulk powder, and less frequently in recent decades in bags — neither form of transport would usefully conceal nuclear related components, and labeling some other means of transport [eg, standard 40-foot containters] as cement would be so patently false as to immediately draw suspicion to the shipment.
“on the Euphrates River, close to the Turkish border” — the implication, though not over assertion, is that over the course of three days Israeli intelligence was able to track the shipment as it travelled half-way across Syria, or that Israeli surveillance of Syria is so comprehensive that the shipment was detected upon arrival — either of which is very impressive and hard to believe.
“using it to extract uranium from phosphates” – Syria has a phosphate industry, which supports the production of fertilizer and phosphoric acid. Between 1996 and 2001 Syria operated a pilot plant at Homs for the purification of phosphoric acid, in order to remove the uranium contanmination so that the phosphoric acid could be used for food processing. This project was financed by the UN Developement Program, supported by the IAEA, and not bombed by Israel.

And if that is not enough, we have John “The Mustache of Doom” Bolton as one of the sources for the press.

On 16 September 2007 former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said “it will be very unusual for Israel to conduct such a military operation inside Syria other (than) for a very high value target and certainly a Syrian effort in nuclear weapon area will qualify. … I think this is a clear message not only to Syria, this is a clear message to Iran as well that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered…” Bolton never claims direct knowledge of the facts of the matter, only that a strike against Syrian nuclear capabilities would be in the interest of Israel.

John Bolton has never let the truth stop him from making baseless accusations, but even HE is not willing to claim that there is a nuke facility.

White House to Give Senate Intel Committee SOME Surveillance Program Documents

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Well, it appears that the White House willgive the Senate Intelligence Committee SOME documents from their surveillance program. It appears that the Democrats saying that there would be no retroactive surveillance got Bush and His Evil Minions™ to back down.

The question is why such a paranoid and secrecy obsessed group of people would cave over the possibility of some telephone companies being in legal jeopardy.

The only conclusion is that Bush and his people are concerned that the telcos will cut a deal, with disclosure of what they did, and who they targeted, and that this would do profound damage to Bush.

Let’s connect the dots:

  • Former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio said that he was asked to participate in this surveillance program on February 27, 2001, almost 7 months before 911.
  • The Bush Administration was largely unconcerned about terrorism prior to 911, Condi Rice going as far as saying that the real area of concern would be a resurgent Russia asserting itself on the world stage*.
  • We have the 911 commission report confirming that the political appointees in the Bush Admin were unconcerned with terrorism.
  • We have a large number of former Bush administration officials, starting with John Dilulio, who have said that there was no policy apparatus in the whitehouse, just a political one, and that all decisions were made on the basis of political expediency.

So there is no reason for such a program except for a surveillance fetish, and spying on political enemies.

Misusing the state security apparatus for this purpose is an impeachable offence, period, full stop.

*Nice to know that your work as head of the NSC and as Secretary of State has prevented that. Heck of a job there Condi.

U.S. Assets Dumped by Foreign Investors in August

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The US had net sales of minus $69.3 billion in August, a positive sales of $60 billion. To put this in perspective, the last time that net sales of long-term securities such as bonds, notes and equities was this bad was when Russia defaulted on its debt.

The dollar is near ist historic low versus the Euro, and the weakness of the dollar is also driving higher oil prices.

This will place further upward pressure on interest rates, to pull the money back, which could make the current situation even more precarious.

Pot. Kettle Black

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It appears that Condoleeza Rice told Russian officials that she is concerned with weapons sales by the Russia to a number of countries.In an interview with ABC News, Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice expressed concern about Russia’s increasing military assertiveness.

This from the woman representing the biggest arms dealer in history, not to mentionthe most gonzo* administration in US history.

*I mean this in a bad way, no association with Hunter S. Thompson is intended.

Russia Threatens to Ditch INF Treaty

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As a result of a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Russia and the US, Russia is threatening to leave the INF missile treaty.

Not a big surprise, you locate a missile defense site that is clearly targeted against Russia, and they don’t trust us. Go figure.

The original treaty only happened because we had missiles in Europe that could hit their homeland. This time, if the Russians do breakout from the treaty, there will be no US Pershings of Tomohawks. Public opinion in Europe will not allow it.

Putin knows the score, and as Lowermanhattanite says at the group news blog, never confuse a poseur (Bush, Cheney, Rice) with the real gangsta (Putin, former KGB, Clinton called him the “Coldest SOB I’ve ever Met”).

Conservative in Maryland Finds That His S-Chip Vote is Not Playing Well

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Out in Western and Northern Maryland (Maryland has seriously Gerrymandered districts), the Congressman is Rosco G. (the Neanderthal) Bartlett, who is generally (he’s a realist on global warming) to the right of Atilla the Hun.

This is a rather conservative region in Maryland, and so when he voted against S-Chip, I rather imagine that he thought that it would play well there. It appears that he was wrong

“The war does not divide Roscoe from this district,” said Ms. Dougherty, a Democrat who was the mayor of Frederick from 2002 to 2006. “But S-chip is a Main Street issue. It affects family after family — our family health, our family’s pocketbook, and our grandchildren. All politics is local, and this is a local issue.”

If you live in Bartlett’s district, call his office, and tell him to vote for the override.

I might that you look at Andrew Duck for Congress. He ran against Bartlett in the last cycle, and he did reasonably well with absolutely no support from the DCCC or other national Democratic orgs.

There May be No Winner in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Wars

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I’ve been posting off and on (here, here, here, and here) about the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars, and I have not really covered what might be an increasingly likely outcome, that both formats may lose.

While I think that HD-DVD may do better in the long fun, given Sony’s (and not Disney’s) anal retentive and counter productive licensing and marketing strategies, it may very well be that these will be irrelevant in a home entertainment context, though they might still duke it out in areas like backup formats and software distribution.

Given technologies out there, I got FIOS a month ago, and one of the side benefits is a digital TV tuner which allows for on-demand content, which is about the same price as going to the Video store, I’m wondering whether online high definition will be the eventual winner.

Given that the additional resolution is hard to notice on a typical TV, and that much of the motivation for the higher definition DVD formats is content control, which from an end user perspective is basically screwing the consumer, perhaps these two formats will simply be bumps on the road to digital distribution.

While there are a lot of people on without online access, or on dialup, who have DVDs, the overwhelming majority of those who would go with a high def DVD format already have broadband, so why bother with media at all. One can go with a digital library.

Are Blackwater and Other Mercenaries Security Contractors Unlawful Combatants?

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There are a number of who think so.

The designation of lawful and unlawful combatants is set out in the Geneva Convention.Lawful combatants are nonmilitary personnel who operate under their military’s chain of command. Others may carry weapons in a war zone but may not use offensive force. Under the international agreements, they may only defend themselves.

The amount of force being used in Iraq by security firms like Blackwater has raised questions.

I would also add that under the UN convention on mercenaries (see my posts here and here), some of the activities, like protecting military supply convoys in a war zone are clearly illegal.

While the US hass not ratified the convention (Neither has the UK) the position of one of the many countries that has might very well be to treat these folks as common criminals, or worse.

Some readings Islamic law call for the prompt execution of mercenaries.

Top Air Force Procurement Official Dies in Apparent Suicide

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I don’t recall if I’ve written of this matter before, but while waiting for his white house clearance, Charles D. Riechers, was paid $13,400 a month by a private contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, while he awaited clearance from the White House for his selection as principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. He was paid for no work at all, which sounds suspiciously like a birbe

The Commonwealth Research Institute and it’s Parent, Concurrent Technologies Corp. are tax exempt, but their primary business is defense contracting, which is odd.

This is freaky, and CRI and CTC are Jack Murtha’s best buddies, as Will Bunch notes. Frequently, Murhta’s press releases sounding as ife they were written by CTC PR flacks.

Mr. Bunch has repeatedly warned folks about Murtha, and it appears that this may be hitting the news shortly. Dead bodies have a way of getting journalists looking into things.

Hillary Clinton Pledges to End War “Immediately” When Taking Office

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She appears to have made that statement at a fund raising meeting of the Eleanor Roosevelt’s Legacy Committee.

There were no cameras, or recorders at the event, which is odd for such a significant statement.

Also, what does “ending the war immediately” mean? My guess is that her commitment to this is about the same as Bill’s to Gays serving honorably and openly in the military.

When she does the gasbag circuit, and explains what it means, I’ll believe her.