It’s a baroque classical Oratorio. Falafel and Violins, I guess.
Year: 2007
John Roberts, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Hospitalized After Seizure
John Robert’s seizure may not have any particular significance in the course of the court. It appears at this time that he is fine and suffering no ill effects.
He has had a prior seizure, in 1993, but there are no indications of anything that would prevent him serving, though having a second seizure, even after a 14 year interval might indicate a need for him to go on some prophylactic anti-seizure medication.
My diagnosis is that he had an attack of conscience, about once every 14 years for that sounds about right for a Republican, but I’m an engineer, not a doctor, dammit!*
*Man…I just love it when I can go all “reverse Doctor McCoy”!!!!
Inslee to push to impeach Abu Gonzales
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is submitting a motion to impeach Alberto Gonzalez.
It reads as follows:
Resolved: That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Alberto Gonzales for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Truth be told, I’d much rather see a motion that inserts “for lying to congressional committees and investigators in violation of applicable laws, and” right after his name.
It’s clear that he’s lying. It’s clear that he has lied for Bush since his days in Texas.
Impeach Gonzalez now. Impeach Cheney tomorrow. Impeach Bush the day after.
Feds Raid Ted Stevens’ Home
Mr. “Internet Tubes” appears to be on his way to an indictment, and hopefully jail.
If you want to see the effect of oil on governance, one only has to look at Alaska. When I left, in 1969, this sort of stuff was unheard of.
Found money is corrupting.
The Supreme Court Patent Decision is Making a Difference
A patent troll’s request for an injunction has been denied by a federal court.
The new standards put in place when the supreme court slapped down the patent court over it’s “enjoin everything and everything is novel” standards are starting to have an effect.
It now appears that the patent troll’s suit against ebay over “buy it now” is one of the first impacted by the new standards.>
Ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit whether an injunction is necessary in the long-running spat, U.S. District Judge Jerome Friedman in Norfolk, Va., ruled Friday that awarding monetary damages alone to MercExchange is enough to compensate any harms it experienced as a result of eBay’s infringement.
That’s in large part because the two-man Virginia company has shown public willingness to license its patents to eBay before, during and after the trial, suggesting money is its primary motive, Friedman wrote.
“MercExchange’s modus operandi appears to be to seek out companies that are already market participants that are infringing, or potentially infringing, on MercExchange’s patents and negotiate to maximize the value of a license, entered into as a settlement to, or avoidance of, litigation,” Friedman wrote.
He also added that the firm “has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market-share, reputation, goodwill, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these.”
I love that little slam against MercExchange when the judge says it has no reputation or goodwill.
It’s nice to see a bit of sanity returning to IP. Folks like MercExchange are pirates in the old school sense that they sit across trade routes and steal from people who take them.
The US Tortured British Agent for 4 Years
It turns out that a major source for MI5 was rendered, and tortured by the CIA in one of their gulags.
An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider’s account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal ‘torture flight’ under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.
One of the items of significance is just how much MI5 were the poodles of the CIA.
A report by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee last week disclosed that, although the Americans warned MI5 it planned to render al-Rawi in advance, in breach of international law, the British did not intervene on the grounds he did not have a UK passport. The government claimed he was the responsibility of Iraq, which he fled as a teenager when his father was tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
This had to come from 10 Downings street. Once again, Blair is Bush’s poodle.
Disgraceful.
Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto Met in Secret
I’m not sure what to make of this news, but the fact that Musharraf and Bhutto have met in secret is significant.
I think that more than anything else, it is an indication of how profoundly weak Pres. Musharraf has become.
Pakistan, due to extensive meddling in the area by the US and USSR, have created a nuclear armed entity that is in many ways close to a failed state where government fails to reach into much of the country, particularly the oft mentioned “tribal areas”.
A Light Sabre to Make You Vomit
Well, it appears that Department of Homeland Security has come up with another means of enforcing tyrrany controlling unruly crowds, a vomit inducing strobe light.
Enough to Make You Sick
Its inventors call it the LED Incapacitator(L-E-D, as in light-emitting diode). Weapons buffs call it a nonlethal weapon. But test subjects who have buckled and reeled from its nauseating strobe call it other names—none printable.
A later version of the LED Incapacitator, featuring a trimmer head. A flashlight designed to make you nauseatingly ill? What fiendish minds would invent such a tool? The minds of Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov, president and senior scientist of Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., a small R&D company in Torrance, CA. Under a multiphase contract from the S&T Directorate’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office, with technical direction from S&T program manager Gerald Kirwin, the two physicists are refining an ultra-bright, multicolored, pulsing “lightsaber” that’s more disorienting, dazzling, and dizzying—though a tad less dangerous—than disco. It’s enough to make you sick. And that, Lieberman says, is not always a bad thing.
How does the LED Incapacitator incapacitate? By simultaneously overwhelming the subject both physiologically (temporarily blinding him) and psychophysically (disorienting him). A built-in rangefinder measures the distance to the nearest pair of eyeballs. Then, a “governor” sets the output and pulse train (a series of pulses and rests) to a level, frequency, and duration that are effective, but safe. The colors and pulses continuously change, leaving no time for the brain or eyes to adapt. After a few minutes, the effects wear off.
The light could be used to make a bad guy turn away or shut his eyes, giving authorities enough time to tackle the suspect and apply the
cuffs … all while sparing the lives of passersby, hostages, or airline passengers.
An animated cross section shows how red, green, and blue LEDs are focused through an optical plate. “There are often confrontations at border crossings with suspected illegal aliens or drug runners,” Lieberman says. “You don’t want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody. With this,” he smiles, “they don’t need to know English to comply.”
Output and size can easily be scaled up to fit the need; immobilizing a mob, for instance, might call for a wide-angle “bazooka” version. Scaling down is more difficult. At
15 inches long by4 inches wide, the current prototype is more transportable than portable. The next-generation weapon must be as short and svelte as aD-cell Maglite, designed to fit on a duty belt.“Phase 3 will be our shrink phase,” Lieberman says.This fall, in
Phase 2, researchers at Pennsylvania State University will test the LED Incapacitator on volunteers at the school’s Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology. Intelligent Optical Systems will use the test results to evaluate design features and tweak the strobe’s pattern and colors. “There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.” Further tests are scheduled for the fall, and production could begin by December. By 2010, the LED Incapacitator could be in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents, and National Guardsmen.
Not to mention enterprising criminals, and private security companies…delightful.
Will No One Rid Me of This Meddlesome Spammer?
It appears that MySpace has gotten a court injunction to keep Sanford Wallace out of their service.
The preliminary injunction came in a lawsuit MySpace filed in March. It claims Wallace created more than 11,000 MySpace profiles that churned out private messages, comments and bulletins that directed users to spoofed MySpace pages seeking their login information.
The ruse allowed him to hijack at least 320,000 accounts, which he used to send 400,000 private messages and post 890,000 comments, both of which redirected MySpace users to the sites freevegasclubs.com and realvegas-sins.com. The sites are owned by Feeble Minded Productions, an aptly-titled firm affiliated with Wallace.
He’s not going to change. Can someone just send him to Gitmo or something?
It looks like he is covered under CAN-SPAM, and the least the judge thought it was likely enough that he granted the injunction, and there is potential jail time ther.
Favorite comment of the piece:
We were unable to find a phone number for Wallace and were reluctant to email him.
I gotta go clean my screen now.
Ha Ha!!!!!!!
My heart bleeds borscht for this muthaf#$@&^!
Subprime hedge fund manager forced to put yacht up for sale – Jul. 30, 2007
…..
John Devaney, the CEO of United Capital Markets, a fund that specializes in buying and selling bonds that are backed by the mortgage payments, particularly adjustable rate subprime mortgages, has put his 142-foot yacht “Positive Carry” up for sale, according to a yacht broker’s Web site.
Devaney’s fund has run into trouble lately. A spokesman for the firm told Reuters on July 3 that it had stopped honoring request from some of its investors for redemptions, or withdrawal, of investments.
…..Devaney told Money magazine this spring that despite problems that the loans cause for borrowers, the assets backed by them provided a good return for his fund.
“The consumer has to be an idiot to take on those loans,” he said. “But it has been one of our best-performing investments.”
I hope he gets cancer.
According to the yacht broker’s listing, the yacht has accommodations for 10 passengers in its five staterooms, along with space for a crew of seven. Its amenities include his and her baths in the master suite, and four guest bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs and showers and cherry wood interior throughout.
It has two 2,250-horsepower engines and a range of 3,500 nautical miles.
The New York Post reported Monday that Devaney is also seeking to sell a home in Aspen for $16.5 million.
The Aspen Times reported in November that he bought that house, for $16.25 million, and that property includes a 16,000-square-foot main house and carriage house which include 16 bedrooms, 18 full bathrooms, two fireplaces, three kitchens and two caretaker bedrooms with bathrooms.
Unfortunately, this #$@&ing vulture is still rich.
Soldier denies Tillman berated him – Military Affairs – MSNBC.com
Once again, it appears that part of the military’s account of Tillman’s death is a lie.
As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman’s side started praying.
“I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me,” Sgt. Bryan O’Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. “He said something like, ’Hey, O’Neal, why are you praying? God can’t help us now.”’
Tillman’s intent, O’Neal said, was to “more or less put my mind straight about what was going on at the moment.”
“He said, ’I’ve got an idea to help get us out of this,”’ said O’Neal, who was an 18-year-old Army Ranger in Tillman’s unit when the former NFL player was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.
O’Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting “Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!” again and again when he was killed, O’Neal said.
A chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman’s death later described this exchange to investigators conducting a criminal probe of the incident. But O’Neal strongly disputes portions of the chaplain’s testimony, outlined in some 2,300 pages of transcripts released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
There is something of greater significance here. It is that a Chaplain lied about this.
Christian conservative Dominionists have had the infiltration of the military as a goal for some time, look at the discrimination as the Air Force academy, and Tillman was known to be an Atheist.
I think that this guy chose to lie to investigators to further that agenda.
al-Maliki Wants Gen Petraeus out
I appears that al-Maliki has asked George W. Bush to dump Petraeus.
Word is that he’s upset that the General is arming Sunni militias to fight the Jihadists.
My guess is that the real word is that it will be too difficult for him to do ethnic cleansing in Baghdad if these people get weapons.
SCIRI, al-Maliki’s base tortured Iraqi prisoners during the Iran-Iraq war. His security forces have been murdering and ethnically cleansing Sunnis.
The last thing he wants is something that gets in the way of this.
On the bright side, if he succeeds, I think that it will flip a number of Republicans who value their seats more than they fear Karl Rove, so maybe it will get us out.
This Won’t Translate into Balls, Because Bush Has Those in His Desk Drawer.
Well, it looks like Senator Specter criticized Abu Gonzalez on Air Force one.
Senator Arlen Specter violated both points of decorum on Thursday. He visited with reporters aboard the presidential airplane before it lifted off for Philadelphia and lambasted the attorney general.
Don’t think that this will mean that he’ll stand up to Bush though. He only votes against Bush when his vote does not count.
What Alan Said
As an aside, I rather imagine that Princes William and Harry would like to see the same thing with Paparazzi’s motor bikes.
Ground those TV choppers
The senseless death of four helicopter newsmen in Phoenix underscores the stupidity and wastefulness of broadcasters who squander their precious resources on cheap chopper chases instead of more worthy pursuits.This journalistically indefensible insanity must be stopped. If broadcasters won’t do it voluntarily, then the Federal Aviation Administration, acting on behalf of us innocents on the ground, ought to step in and do it for them.
So says Alan Mutter, and so say we all.
Helicopter footage of a car chase or a fire is not news, it’s porn masquerading as news.
Whiskey Foxtrot Tango??? Housing Bubble Bust in Anchorage??? Anchorage????
Well, it looks like the housing bubble is bursting in Anchorage Alaska.
That’s right Anchorage, which is pretty remote, unless you live in Ketchikan.
Time on market has more than doubled.
Same thing with Hawaii, which geographically is one of the most remote locations on earth.
This is not a real estate crash. This is an easy credit, blood the economy with liquidity crash. That’s why this is not local.
People don’t buy houses on price, they buy it on monthly payments, and mortgages are still about 3% lower than historical norms.
The difference from 2 years ago is that the low rates created a frenzy, where people were afraid that they would never own if they did not buy right now.
Now there are people who believe (correctly) that if they wait, they will get a better deal.
That’s why you are seeing this in places like Anchorage, Honolulu, Wichita, and Indiannapolis. It’s a nation wide phenomenon.
FDA Once Again Kowtows to Industry
An FDA task force is recommending that no notice be given to consumers about the use of nanotechnology in their food and drugs. Big surprise, Bush toadie and FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach said he endorsed the report and its recommendations.
The AG department has done the same thing with genetically modified organisms, and forbidden testing for Mad Cow in the US.
These organizations should be about protecting the consumer first, but nut in a Republithug administration.
Things I Really Hate
Number 773 on the list:
The fact that Coca Cola® has come out with a number of new flavors, New Coke, Cherry Coke, Lime Coke, Chocolate Coke, Beer Coke, etc. that have packaging almost identical to Coke Classic®.
I think that part of their marketing scheme is to get people to try the new varieties by mistake.
The special today came with a 20 oz bottle of Coke, and I just got a mouthful of something like Anchovie Coke®.
Blech.
What John Said
In this case, I mean John Edwards. His minute and a half talk on media is well worth a listen.
Bush Nominates Bigot to EEOC
Well, once again Orwell is spinning in his grave. Perhaps the Brits should try generating power from this.
It appears that Bush has nominated a bigot and sexual harasser to the EEOC. He has been accused of supporting religious discrimination, and firing a woman with whom he had had an affair.
Typical. Just like trying to make mobbed up guy Bernie Kerick head of DHS.
Boeing Increases 787 R&D Estimate Again
It apears that Boeing is going to have to significantly increase its research and development spending in order to “preserve the 787 schedule”.
My prediction of schedule slips seems to be more likely by the day.