Month: June 2008

Steny’s Telco Deal: Time for Obama to Step Up and Stop It

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There is a deal for telco immunity going that Steny Hoyer is shepherding through congress, and as American Civil Liberties Union says, it stinks.

The court review consists of only verifying that the telcos got a letter from Bush and His Evil Minions™. Glenn Greenwald has the skinny on what is going on, and it’s Hoyer who is at the center of passing a law that will cover up for the Bush’s illegal wire tapping (and probably spying on political opponents).

If you want to do something, check out the Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity, which has raised about $180K in the past 24 hours to target someone.

This betrayal goes beyond party politics, so if you live in Hoyer’s district, MD-5, don’t vote for him in the general election.

One bit of bright news in all this is that the New York Times came out against the Telco immunity deal today. What’s more they called for Obama to do something more than just vote against it.

Word up on that. Obama is now the de facto leader of the Democratic party, and he needs to make it clear that this deal is not good for the country.

[Update] I just checked Greewald’s latest, and it now appears that Hoyer is trying to pretend that he hasn’t been working for this for months, but instead it’s all those Bush Blue Dogs that are making him do it.

Bull sh$@!

FWIW, we now know that the targets of the campaign, and the nearly two hundred thousand dollars raised for it, will be Steny Hoyer, Chris Carney, and John Barrow, the latter two having been the most prominent of the Vichy Democrats on this issue.

Note that the primary for Barrow is not until July, and he has an opponent with a lot more progressive cred, Regina Thomas, who I have added to my act blue page so money spent against him could defeat him in July.

No surprise, all of them are big recipients of telco largess by way of campaign contributions.

Your best place for updates is Glenn Greenwald’s blog.

More F$#@ed Up Real Estate Press Coverage

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So, the real estate market in Manhattan is finally softening, and what lead article from blithering idiot Leslie P. Norton?

Signs of cracks in Manhattan’s property market could mean the rest of the country is on the road to recovery, since New York tends to feel the effects of a slowing economy later than the nation does. One segment still in the stratosphere: luxury condos and co-ops in exclusive buildings.

So, it could mean that the market is turning around…..or it could mean that that space aliens have abducted you and replaced you with a robot.

What it means that prices are dropping in Manhattan, which indicates a down market in Manhattan.

How does that saying go, ahhh…yes:

For example, given the premise, “all fish live underwater” and “all mackerel are fish”, my wife will conclude, not that “all mackerel live underwater”, but that “if she buys kippers it will not rain”, or that “trout live in trees”, or even that “I do not love her any more.” This she calls “using her intuition”. I call it “crap”….

And it gets me very irritated too.

We Hid Prisoners from the Red Cross

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Hey, if it’s not illegal torture, why was so much effort spent covering it up?

The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.

“We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques,” Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a military lawyer who’s since retired, said during an October 2002 meeting at the Guantanamo Bay prison to discuss employing interrogation techniques that some have equated with torture. Her comments were recorded in minutes of the meeting that were made public Tuesday. At that same meeting, Beaver also appeared to confirm that U.S. officials at another detention facility — Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan — were using sleep deprivation to “break” detainees well before then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved that technique. “True, but officially it is not happening,” she is quoted as having said.

…

These people need to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

A Counter-Intuitive Point on the Food Criss

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George Monbiot notes that smaller farms actually produced more food per acre than large ones.

He notes that he agrees with Robert Mugabe is right, that land reform is crucial in agricultural production and food security, and then further notes:

Of course the old bastard has done just the opposite. He has evicted his opponents and given land to his supporters. He has failed to support the new settlements with credit or expertise, with the result that farming in Zimbabwe has collapsed. The country was in desperate need of land reform when Mugabe became president. It remains in desperate need of land reform today.

Which is, of course, completely true.

In his extensively footnoted essay, which also appeared in the The Grauniad*, he notes that in nearly every case where it has been examined, smaller farms outperform larger ones.

Of course, the developed world is working against this reality:

Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production; by developing plants which either won’t breed true or which don’t reproduce at all, it ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate. As it captures both the wholesale and retail markets, it seeks to reduce its transaction costs by engaging only with major sellers. If you think that supermarkets are giving farmers in the UK a hard time, you should see what they are doing to growers in the poor world. As developing countries sweep away street markets and hawkers’ stalls and replace them with superstores and glossy malls, the most productive farmers lose their customers and are forced to sell up. The rich nations support this process by demanding access for their companies. Their agricultural subsidies still help their own, large farmers to compete unfairly with the small producers of the poor world.

Obviously, as he concludes, the moves of people to buy into “fair trade” agricultural practices do more than lift small farmers out of abject poverty. They actually produce more food for everyone in the end.

It is remarkable just how destructive, and just plain evil the agricultural practices of the Western World are.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

Mexico Revamps Justice System

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Mexico has completely revamped its justice system, the high points are:

  • The presumption of innocence (I guess they must have continued the Code Napoléon from their brief time as a French posession).
  • Public trials.
  • Allowing lawyers to argue orally before judges (it was all written briefs before).
  • Improvements to the public defender system.
  • Gives state and local police departments the power to investigate their own corruption, which had previously been an exclusively federal purview.

All in all, it looks like major improvements, though considering the starting point, this is not difficult.

I agree with the civil libertarians who are concerned about the 80 days detention without charge though.

Mugabe Calls on Opposition to Stop Breaking Batons With Their Skulls

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Also, I believe that he objects at the opposition’s attempts to stain perfectly good steel toed boots with their blood.

I am, of course, speaking metaphorically. He’s actually threatening to arrest members of the opposition because he claims that they are instigating violence.

I actually find it reassuring. We in the US don’t have the most shameless leader in the world.

People Who Need to Get a Life, Or At Least a Sense of Humor

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The American Medical Association (AMA):

Last week, the advocacy arm of the powerful physicians’ group unleashed a tsk-tsk campaign against “The Incredible Hulk,” a Marvel film that opened on Friday and is distributed by Universal Pictures. The complaint was of “gratuitous depictions of smoking.”

In the movie, which drew a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, General Thunderbolt Ross, a bad guy played by William Hurt, is rarely seen without a smoke-spewing cigar. (Presumably, the physicians’ association worries that children who identify with the authoritarian general — who wants to annihilate the Hulk, played by Edward Norton — may be tempted to pick up the habit.)

Dianne Fenyk, president of the advocacy group, AMA Alliance, is particularly infuriated because General Ross did not smoke in “Hulk,” the 2003 film directed by Ang Lee, though he always smoked in the comic books. …..

Dianne Fenyk is arguably the 2nd most overemployed induhvidual in the United States.

Senate Polling

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  • SurveyUSA: Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 50%; Bruce Lunsford (D-MN) 46%: I’m surprised that it’s this close now. McConnell is still at the magic 50% number, but he’s the minority leader of the Senate.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Ted Stephens (R-AK) 46%; Mark Begich (D-AK) 44%: Stevens is in real trouble. One of the truisms of politics are that undecideds break against the incumbent by at least 2:1.
  • SurveyUSA: Norm Coleman (R-MN) 52%; Al Franken (D-MN), if Jesse Ventura enters the race as an independent, it becomes (R)41%-(D)31%-(I)23%: This as me bumming. I hate that smarmy bastard Coleman. One hopes that the race will become more about Norm Coleman, and less about Al Franken.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Mark Warner (D-VA) 60%; Jim Gilmore (R-VA) 33%: Virginia will have two Democratic Senators.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Pat Roberts (R-KS) 48%; Jim Slattery (D-KS) 39%: The fact that the incumbent Republican in Kansas is below 50% is simply stunning. I think that this is unlikely Dem pickup, but the idea that a Democrat has a non-insane shot at this, Roberts is below 50%, is stunning.

Can We Impeach Him Now?

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Well, we now have the definitive word on when Bush knew that there was no Iraq-al Queida link, and that he continued to claim such a link

In October 2002, a few weeks before Congress voted to authorize the Iraq invasion, Bush told a crowd in Cincinnati: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.”

Problem is, it wasn’t true. More importantly, a lot of people at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency knew it probably wasn’t true. That’s one of the interesting revelations inside the Senate’s recent 171-page Phase II report on whether White House statements were backed up by prewar intelligence.

He knew. He knew since February 2002.

It turns out that their source was one guy, who had most of the information tortured out of him, and none of whose claims ever panned out.

Impeach Dick Cheney today. Impeach George W. Bush tomorrow.

Surprise, Torture and Abuse Readicalizes Non-Terrorists

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We discover, to our surprise, that people with no connection with al Queida, following imprisonment and abuse by the United States, they become they tend to find common cause with terrorists.

It’s not just our torture that does it, it’s also that the innocent people in these prisons mix with real terrorists, and they learn from their inmates.

Once again, I am compelled to make the repeat the wisest thing that I’ve read this century:

But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:

  1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
  2. It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
  3. It wasn’t in some important way completely f#$@ed up during the execution.

Seriously, these people couldn’t screw up anything any more if they were an actual al Queida sleeper cell.

Economics Update

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We now have the Fed’s report on national industrial activity, and the may disappoints, with activity falling 0.2% when an 0.1% increase had been predicted by economists.

I’m not sure if it factors in inflation, but if it does not, then those numbers are absolutely horrific, as the producer price index rose 1.4% in May, which is grim….Over the last year, the PPI has gone up 7.2%.

Note that this is going on while housing starts fell 3.3%, which is the lowest rate since March of 1991, 17 years.

No wonder that the builders’ confidence survey just hit a record low, matching the record established in December of last year.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account that the National Association of Realtors isn’t getting the numbers that they report right. They claimed that NJ home sales were up 4% in the Q1 when they were down 30%….that’s a hell of a “mistake”.

It’s no wonder that Goldman Sachs is suggesting that banks may need to raise another $65 billion to cover mortgage losses.

It’s even less of a wonder that investors are waiting for more dividend cuts from banks. No profit should mean no dividends.

Of course, the Fed is continuing to let banks get free money for sh%$ pile assets, this time to the tune of $75 billion.

There is good news in energy though, with both oil and retail gasoline coming down a bit today.

The standard wisdom would suggest that this was because of a strengthening dollar, but the greenback fell today.

Torture Pushed Despite Legal Opinions

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The Senate Armed Services Committee has reviewed documents surrounding the treatment of prisoners, and it now appears that the orders for torture came from the top down, not from the bottom up, as Rumsfeld and the rest of his merry band of sadists had insisted.

They were aggressively soliciting tortures from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) community, which was created to help US soldiers resist torture, so it’s clear that they knew.

What’s more, the sort of torture that SERE was created to combat was torture that had our servicemen lying, not revealing secrets.

They did not care that torture creates lies. They were not interested in accurate information. They just wanted to torture, because it made them feel strong.

This even shocked the sensabilities of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), though I have little doubt that when push comes to shove, he’ll cover for Bush and His Evil Minions™:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the legal analysis from administration lawyers in 2002 will “go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation’s military and intelligence communities.”

….

In separate memos, the lawyers told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the techniques warranted further study and could be illegal.

Seriously, these people need to go to jail for the rest of their lives.

AP Goes RIAA Route

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Well, it looks like the Associated press has decided to try and go the route of the RIAA and MPAA, and create a new “property” right on their material which completely eschews the idea of fair use.

Specifically, they have gone after the Drudge Retort, asking them to take down 7 links, “ranging from 39 to 79 words”.

This places me in the unpleasant position of agreeing with Jeff Jarvis, Liebercrat extrordinaire, that they are stupid, or insane, or both.

According to Whiskey Fire, the AP now has a schedule of licensing fees which start at $12.50 for 5 words…I’m not joking here….Also, it appears to apply to blog comments too.

Interestingly enough, the terms of service are even more restrictive than that. According to Patrick Nielsen Hayden, they also want to prohibit you from criticizing the Associated Press, which means that all those folks following the hacktacular exploits of Nedra Pickler are simply out of luck, I guess.

As a result, TechCrunch, and some other bloggers, including me, will boycott AP stories for the foreseeable future.

Boycott link here.

Patti Solis Doyle Hired by Barack Obama

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She was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager until she was let go after February. In hindsight, Mark Penn should have been fired well before her.

In any case, she has now been hired by Barack Obama as the chief of staff for whoever his VP choice will be.

According to the cognoscenti in Washington, or at least one Hillary supporter, this is the, “biggest ‘f$#@ you’ I have ever seen in politics,” because she was rather unceremoniously dropped by Clinton, and they allegedly have not talked since then.

I really don’t know what is going on, though the Clinton Campaign has said the right thing:

Patti will be an asset and good addition to the Obama campaign. After nearly two decades in political life, she brings with her the ability to tap an extensive network that will be a huge asset to Senator Obama. As Senator Clinton has said, we’re all going to do our part to help elect Senator Obama as the next President of the United States.

I’m not sure what is going on, but I don’t see this as being a f$#@ you, it simply makes no sense to do so for that reason, particularly after Hillary’s speech endorsing Obama.

I don’t know what is going on, but either the hiring, or the reaction to the hiring, or (more likely) the press reaction to the hiring appears to be something out of high school.