Because we have Nelson Mandela on our no fly list.
I wonder what other Nobel prize winners are on the list.
Month: May 2008
Adventures in Unfortunate Names
You see a story from the Philippines discussing necociations between the government and the Moro Islamic MILF blames govt for crisis in peace talksiberation Front, only the headline says, “MILF blames govt for crisis in peace talks”.
So they are MILFs????? Lol!
Well, Maybe This Poll, for the Ponies
It’s not a presidential campaign poll, it’s a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey showing a disapproval rating of 71%, “No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark”.
No Synergy of Evil
It would appear that Cerberus has decided that Blackwater is just too evil to invest in.
Telco Immunity Update
Well, first it appears that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are coordinating with the Telcos to lobby, and are trying to move heaven and earth to make it so.
I can only conclude that in addition to evidence of illegal wiretaps, that the telcos have information of something much worse, my guess would be that there was specific spying done on political opponents.
If they mutter terrorism to a jury, it is unlikely that a jury would convict them, or that a judge would give them anything more than a slap on the wrist, but if, and there are indications of this, that there is evidence of spying on their opponents, it becomes a whole new ballgame.
If it is discovered that Bush, Cheney, and Rove were spying on Democrats communications, we just might see that impeachment that is “not on the table”, or serious prosecutions starting in 2009.
There have always been rumors that they wiretapped Kerry’s senior adviser for national security affairs, James Rubin, by surveilling his wife CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour for “national security reasons”, and using the inevitable of intercepts of him for political purposes.
My guess is that these activities were far broader and deeper than just one reporter or one candidate.
The Democrats victory in 2006 may very well have been helped along by the NY Times finally breaking the story on the wiretapping, and the telcos getting skittish enough to stop asking “how high” when Bush asked them to jump.
It may all be moot however, as Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller appear to be doing their level best to create full immunity for the phone companies, which would prevent the real story from coming out. Ever.
I’m simply not clear on why Hoyer and Rockefeller are so gung ho about this, unless, of course they were in some way criminally complicit with the program.
What is interesting is that, for now at least, the Vichy Blue Dog Democrats have been remarkably uninterested in getting immunity passed.
As I’ve said before, I think that they headed home after it did not pass the house, and instead of the storm of criticism they expected, they got high fives from the voters, which gave them some backbone.
DC Madame, Deboroh Jean Palfrey Dean in “Suicide”
All I will note is that Palfrey said in at least one interview that if she was found a suicide, it was murder.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Bummer of a Birth Mark, Hal: Microsoft Edition
Bummer for Steve Ballmer not only has the XP SP3 update been delayed because it breaks an obscure piece of Microsoft software, but it also delayed Vista SP1.
What’s more, Dell, HP, and Lenovo will be offering a free “downgrade” to XP on their systems.
I can’t remember a product that was more of a disaster than Vista.
What’s more, in addition to issues with Norway, it now appears that the high court in the UK has decided to review the British Standard Institution’s decision to vote for OOXML as an ISO standard.
Because Dick Cheney Likes Death
Dick Cheney is a busy, busy man.
In addition to outing a CIA agent, authoring torture policy, selling out the nation to oil companies, shooting people in the face, and taking payments from Halliburton, it’s nice to know that he can still taking time out to kill whales:
Another internal document shows that the officials working for the Vice President also raised spurious objections to the science. According to this document, the Vice President’s staff “contends that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of ‘large ships’ will actually make a difference. NOAA rejected these objections, writing that both a statistical analysis of ship strike records and the peer-reviewed literature justified the final rule. In its response to the objections from the Vice President’s staff, NOAA reported that there is “no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales.
Is there even the smallest bit of evil that is done by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade has to have Cheney’s finger prints all over this?
I feel like stunned like that cow that just stepped on it’s own udder.
Economics Update
First, initial unemployment insurance claims increase, ba by 35K to 380K. Note that this is an inherently noisy figure, but it’s been bad for over a month, which indicates a trend.
Becasue of the Fed’s signals regarding future rate cuts, as na ga na do it, the dollar has strengthened, and oil has fallen a bit.
That being said, the Euro zone appears to be under increasing stress from the different economic trajectories of its members.
Citi appears to need more money, so it’s raising it through a $4½ billion stock offering, further diluting its stock holders equity.
Seriously, it’s like a dog chasing its own tail…down the drain.
We have a number out of San Diego, with house prices off dropping 19.2% since February 2007.
This means that if someone bought a 30 year fixed mortgage, with 20% down, that they would be under water on the loan if closing and broker costs are included.
Na Ga Na Dol It. Wouldn’t be Prudent
Presidential Polls….I look at them, but don’t have anything to add, so I suggest Talking Points Memo’s Poll Tracker.
Well, I might comment on a trend, but my attempt at using Google Spreadsheets to deep a list of polls on my site gave my reader(s) nothing, and me a headache.