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February 28, 2005
Homeland Security Depot?
Who could forget that reassuring feeling we all got when Homeland Security Spokesbot, Tom Ridge, advised America to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting? Certainly not one of America's pre-eminent places to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting!Last Thurday, February 24th, Home Depot announced that former punchline Tom Ridge, will be joining their board of directors. I couldn't make this up.
So run out and buy some drywall to stop terrorism. Home Depot shares dropped 13 cents on the news.
Whoohoo! Post 500! 500 more posts and we get a free pup-tent!
Posted by at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2005
Gannongate: Where's The Outrage?
We know "Where's the Beef?" Eric Boehlert is offering a review of the non-coverage of the Jeff Gannon story.
On Feb. 17, "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams introduced a report on controversial White House correspondent James Guckert by informing viewers that the saga was "the talk of Washington." Nine days later the mysterious tale of an amateur, partisan journalist who slipped into the White House under false pretenses remains the buzz of the Beltway. Yet most mainstream reporters have opted not to cover the story. Two of the television networks, as well as scores of major metropolitan newspapers around the country, have completely ignored it."It's stunning to me that there are questions about the independent press being undermined and the mainstream press doesn't seem that interested in it," says Joe Lockhart, who served as press secretary during President Clinton's second term. "People in the mainstream press have shrugged their shoulders and said, 'It's a whole lot of nothing.'"
"It's difficult to explain," adds John Aravosis, who publishes Americablog.com, which has been instrumental in breaking news on "Gannongate." "What more do we need for this story to be reported on seriously? It's everything Washington loves in a story. But the response is literally, 'Ew, we can't touch this.'" (The story itself refuses to die. On Thursday, while Guckert's former employer Talon News was going dark, Guckert relaunched his Web site, complete with a request for donations to "fight back against the well funded attack machine on the Left.")
Ordinarily, revelations that a former male prostitute, using an alias (Jeff Gannon) and working for a phony news organization, was ushered into the White House -- without undergoing a full-blown security background check -- in order to pose softball questions to administration officials would qualify as news by any recent Beltway standard. Yet as of Thursday, ABC News, which produces "Good Morning America," "World News Tonight With Peter Jennings," "Nightline," "This Week," "20/20" and "Primetime Live," has not reported one word about the three-week-running scandal. Neither has CBS News ("The Early Show," "The CBS Evening News," "60 Minutes," "60 Minutes Wednesday" and "Face the Nation"). NBC and its entire family of morning, evening and weekend news programs have addressed the story only three times. Asked about the lack of coverage, spokeswomen for both ABC and CBS said executives were unavailable to discuss their networks' coverage.
The Daily Show has offered more, and better, coverage than the national press on this story. And it is a story -- not about a male prostitute in the White House Press Room, but rather, a stunningly blantant attempt by Karl Rove to influence the coverage of the President that ran roughshod over the security apparatus of the White House.
Who gave Guckert access to the White House? For that matter, who outted Valerie Plame? All events point to Rove and his cache of "dirty tricks".
Posted by Steven at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2005
Canada Rejects Missile Shield
Perhaps the Great White North really is a "no-spin zone" afterall. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has gotten off the fence and rejected the U.S. "Missile Defense Shield" that recently failed yet another rigged test.
Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday that Canada would opt out of the contentious U.S. missile defense program, a move that will further strain brittle relations between the neighbors but please Canadians who fear it could lead to an international arms race.Martin, ending nearly two years of debate over whether Canada should participate in the development or operation of the multibillion-dollar program, said Ottawa would remain a close ally of Washington in the fight against global terrorism and continental security.
He said he intended to talk to President Bush later Thursday and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been informed of the decision earlier this week.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had been informed beforehand of the decision, adding that Washington expects that cooperation with Canada will continue on a wide variety of issues.
Why should Canada opt in to a system that won't work, will drain billions, and will only reinvigorate the arms race (the real reason for the system)? The only "Star Wars" Canada is waiting for is Episode Three.
Posted by Steven at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
One of the Real Reasons We're at War
What happens in Bushville stays in Bushville. The Independent reports on the real beneficiaries of the Iraq War.
President Bush's uncle, William "Bucky" Bush, who serves on the board of a U.S. defense contractor with over $100 million in business in Iraq, recently cashed in on some of that lucrative work.
The good fortune of Uncle Bucky, as he is known within America's ruling family, has been to hold a seat on the board of Engineered Support Systems Incorporated (ESSI), a St Louis-based company that has flourished mightily as a military contractor to the Pentagon.Last month, ESSI shares hit a record $60.39 apiece -- more or less exactly the moment the presidential uncle chose to sell 8,438 options worth around $450,000, ...
Dan Kreher, vice president of industrial relations for ESSI, assures us that "the fact [Bush's] nephew is in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Bush being on our board or with our stock having gone up 1,000 percent in the past five years either," though Kreher has separately commented about Bucky's placement on the board that "having a Bush doesn't hurt."
Posted by at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
Oil Back To $50/bbl.
How much is that in real money? The U.S. dollar, showing remarkable flabbiness from eating too much at McDebits these last four years, is suffering further from the virtual inflation that energy is experiencing. This is, of course, nothing compare to when OPEC switches to the euro for oil.
The price of a barrel of US oil has hit $50.Traders say fears about political unrest in Nigeria's oil producing region have put pressure on prices, as well as the slow return of US output after Hurricane Ivan, low US stocks and concerns about Iraqi supply.
Posted by Steven at 03:27 PM | Comments (1)
Dollar Sagging
The incredible sinking currency. The dollar is sagging against world currencies. World banks are threatening to lower their dollar reserves in the coming weeks, futher eroding the dollar's value against the yen and euro.
The US dollar has dropped against major currencies on concerns that central banks may cut the amount of dollars they hold in their foreign reserves.Comments by South Korea's central bank at the end of last week have sparked the recent round of dollar declines.
South Korea, which has about $200bn in foreign reserves, said it plans instead to boost holdings of currencies such as the Australian and Canadian dollar.
Analysts reckon that other nations may follow suit and now ditch the dollar.
At 1930 GMT, one euro was worth $1.325, up 1.46% on the day.
The British pound had added 0.76% to reach $1.91, while the dollar had fallen by 1.25% against the Japanese yen to trade at 104.2 yen.
Posted by Steven at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)
Born Again
Jim Kunstler has another good blog entry today.
"...people who explicitly and programmatically don't believe in the future have no business running a government, the chief task of which is safeguarding the future."
Posted by at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
Consumer Confidence Slips in February
The Bush Administration is constantly announcing that "we've turned" a corner — and that's usually a cue to cover your ass. Although the economy is showing some marginal improvement, the rank and file in America don't seem to be drinking the cool-aid.E-Commerce Times posted this cheerful AP Newswire story about a recent independent study.
Even with their worsening expectations about business conditions, consumers' views on labor conditions improved slightly in February. Those saying that jobs were hard to get fell to 22.6 percent from 24.3 percent, while those saying jobs were plentiful was essentially unchanged at 20.9 percent.Go Bush!
Posted by at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
Marriage Bought My Home
Money magazine reports that a Zurich economist team has calculated the benefit of marriage: $100,000. Hey, that's what I paid for my house! I tend to agree with the conservative analysis ... marriage provides "basic insurance against adverse life events and allows gains from economies of scale and specialization within the family".
Turns out the old song is right: If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make an ugly woman your wife. Gorgeous women work too, as do (on the other side of the aisle) husbands of varying aesthetic quality.Yep, while most of us devote much of our waking lives to careers we may or may not love, the true secret to a wonderful life may be as close as that ring on your finger. Wedded bliss (or a rough approximation of it) is a much better predictor of happiness than cold, hard cash.
The moral: Find that special someone, and then hang on for dear life.
Who can we thank for this insight? The unromantic souls populating the economics departments of the world.
An ever-growing body of research shows that most of us adapt quickly to improvements in our finances; we simply learn to covet a higher class of goods. But the happiness-inducing qualities of a solid marriage last and last. Granted, economists don't quite understand why this is, and the explanations they offer aren't exactly eloquent.
According to a paper by two University of Zurich economists, getting hitched provides "basic insurance against adverse life events and allows gains from economies of scale and specialization within the family." (Try putting this sort of thing on a valentine: "Dearest Wife, I treasure the opportunities you've given me to maximize my utility.")
How much money would it take to make you as happy as a married couple in love? No one can offer a precise number, of course, but that hasn't stopped economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald from trying.
They figure a happy marriage is worth $100,000 a year.
But no matter how much you love money, it won't ever love you back. A survey by economists Ed Diener and Shigehiro Oishi reveals that those who place high importance on money are far more likely to be unsatisfied with their lives than those who love love. (While there's evidence that married people are happier because happier people marry more, marriage increases happiness even for the grumpy. The jury's still out on whether unwedded couples get the same benefits from lasting love.)
Now, love is messy, and love can be cruel (for details, consult the oeuvre of Tammy Wynette). D-I-V-O-R-C-E instantly erases the benefits of marriage, and then some, leaving ex-spouses considerably less happy than not only their married friends but also those who never married in the first place.
In other words, a seemingly overpriced Valentine's Day bouquet may be a better long-term investment than anything a hot stock picker can come up with.
Now if only gays could experience this without terror or harrasment.
Posted by Steven at 10:52 AM | Comments (1)
February 21, 2005
Can I Have a Bazooka With My MegaSUV?
Penis Too Small To See Without Instruments Dept. Guess what's coming down the road soon? A Mega SUV that dwarfs the Hummer. If your prick is too small to see without expensive microscopes, we have the car for you! Most dissappointingly, the vehicle is being manufactured near Dallas, Texas, the silicone implant capital of the Red States of Jesus. Is there any wonder?
For some drivers, even a Hummer may not be enough [Who the hell is this idiot, I have to ask?]. At a curb weight of more than 3.5 tons, the Humvee-inspired Hummer H1 is no skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face. But the Bad Boy Heavy Muscle Truck, a dressed-up military vehicle more than twice as heavy, is being billed as bigger, badder and more bodacious. ["Bodacious? Isn't that a large breast reference? Sheesh, and I thought this was a penis replacement.]"It's the rugged Bubba," said Daniel Ayres, president and CEO of Homeland Defense Vehicles LLC and its division Bad Boy Trucks.
The East Texas company aims to market the machine to civilians with disposable cash and a hankering for more protection from the outside world. A $379,000 version made its public debut in January at the Dallas Safari Club convention.
For a base price of $225,000 — nearly twice the Hummer H1 wagon's base price of $117,508 — consumers can get a basic version of the 10-foot-tall Bad Boy that can drive through five feet of water, climb a 60-degree grade, tow six tons and keep rolling even with a quarter-sized hole in the tire's sidewall.
This capability is so that the quarter-sized hole in your head won't prevent you from driving.
Posted by Steven at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
Nation of Swine
In case you're a Republican and don't have access to basic facts, "Gonzo journalist" and author Hunter S. Thompson was killed yesterday by a crazy, gun-nut, recluse. On the bright side, the crazy, gun-nut, recluse was also killed, being that they were both Hunter S. Thompson. | Often dismissed as a Nixon-era artifact — admittedly the period of his best work — Thompson nevertheless maintained a steady stream of biting commentary aimed at the hypocritical and corrupt power elite spawned by the post-war Republican party. I saw Thompson speak in 1988 and found him as relevant as ever.
It was the tail end of the Reagan Years and recreational drugs — a favorite pasttime of Thompson's — were a hot topic. Borrowing a page from Thompson's greatest literary target, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan's administration financed an illegal war using the proceeds from drugs smuggled into the United States and sold to its citizens primarily in minority communities. The Reagan's insultingly facile response to an explosion in cocaine abuse was the blithering "Just Say No!" campaign. An audience member asked Thompson about his own drug use in light of the visible destruction suffered by addicts and their communities. "I guess I'll just retreat behind elitism; some people can't do drugs. I can." |
A steady undercurrent of Thompson's commentary was the dumbing down of American society to accomodate the lowest common denominator within it. From eye-roll-inducing "P.C." catchphrases to our current president, Thompson (and his like-minded fans) saw a growing trend of militant mediocrity. Thompson capped his career with the upcoming anthology Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk (Thompson remained a sports writer of sorts throughout his career).
Of his career as a journalist, Thompson said this:
I have spent half my life trying to get away from journalism, but I am still mired in it - a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures.
It is not known why he killed himself, but Hunter S. Thompson will be missed. He was 67.
Other Obits:
Posted by at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2005
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Science!
From MSNBC:
WASHINGTON - The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting.Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don’t support policy positions.
The speakers also said that Bush’s proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation’s future scientists.
The nation's future scientists? What nation are they talking about?
Posted by at 10:14 PM | Comments (1)
February 19, 2005
Finally, A Fish I Would Put On My Car
Calling All Fishtians. After viewing my one billionth shiny, metalic "fish" emblem on the back of yet another "Empty at Rapture" Lexus, it occurred to me that I would be willing to put a Darwin fish on my car, but it had to be butt-fucking the Xtian one. And the next day, a miracle occurred:
As the 70's bumper sticker proclaimed, "I found it!" Hallelujah! Get yours here.
Posted by Steven at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
GAO Warns Bush Admin Not to Make Fake News Videos
Hey, that's The Daily Show's job. The Government Accounting Office has warned the Bush Administration to not make anymore fake news videos.
Twice in the last two years, agencies of the federal government have been caught distributing prepackaged television programs that used paid spokesmen acting as newscasters and, in violation of federal law, failed to disclose the administration's role in developing and financing them.And those were not isolated incidents, David M. Walker, the comptroller general, said in a letter dated Thursday that put all agency heads on notice about the practice.
In fact, it has become increasingly common for federal agencies to adopt the public relations tactic of producing "video news releases" that look indistinguishable from authentic newscasts and, as ready-made and cost-free reports, are sometimes picked up by local news programs. It is illegal for the government to produce or distribute such publicity material domestically without disclosing its own role.
Mr. Walker, who as comptroller general is chief of the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm, said in his letter: "While agencies generally have the right to disseminate information about their policies and activities, agencies may not use appropriated funds to produce or distribute prepackaged news stories intended to be viewed by television audiences that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials."
"It is not enough," he added, "that the contents of an agency's communication may be unobjectionable."
What's missing from this annoucement is how the GAO can punish the White House for continuing to do this. Does anyone know what authority, if any, the GAO has?
Posted by Steven at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2005
Reach Out And Crush Someone
This is just a long spouting of Karl Rove's usual bullshit (has there ever been a Karl-with-a-k in history that humanity in general looks back upon fondly?), but he makes two errors in this statement:
“The next time one of your smarty-pants liberal friends says to you, ‘Well, he didn’t have a mandate,’ you tell him of this delicious fact: This president got a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic candidate for president since 1964,” Rove said.
First, grammatical: the proper verb is doesn't, Karl.
Second, tactical: conservatives have no liberal friends. It simply is Not Done in 2005. So Karl is giving useless advice, which does seem to be a habit (and a career) of his.
He screws up the entire mandate concept as well, but let's just let that go....
If you've been following Propagannon on AmericaBlog or other sites, you know by now that mountebank "reporter" Jeff Gannon, aka James Guckert, was granted far more access to the White House and the preznit than any real reporter could hope for, and reading between the lines, to have achieved this must have had some high-powered patron within the White House itself. Given his second job (hard working American that he is) as a male escort, it may even be a former (or current) client of his personal services business.
I know it's distasteful, but there's a compelling salaciousness in trying to guess which person (or persons) inside the White House is GannonGuckert's patron (or client). It could be the modern-day equivalent of "Who Shot J.R.?" Let's note that "delicious", even when used properly, isn't the sort of red-blooded, manly adjective that a hyperconservative, senior operative would typically bandy about for attribution.
Posted by at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)
Bush Propoganda Machine Review
Frank Rich scores again today with an insightful, if some what confusing review of the Bush Administration's illegal (and certainly immoral) use of phony reporters to promote its agenda.
On "Countdown," a nightly news hour on MSNBC, the anchor, Keith Olbermann, led off with a classic "Daily Show"-style bit: a rapid-fire montage of sharply edited video bites illustrating the apparent idiocy of those in Washington. In this case, the eight clips stretched over a year in the White House briefing room - from February 2004 to late last month - and all featured a reporter named "Jeff." In most of them, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, says "Go ahead, Jeff," and "Jeff" responds with a softball question intended not to elicit information but to boost President Bush and smear his political opponents. In the last clip, "Jeff" is quizzing the president himself, in his first post-inaugural press conference of Jan. 26. Referring to Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, "Jeff" asks, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"If we did not live in a time when the news culture itself is divorced from reality, the story might end there: "Jeff," you'd assume, was a lapdog reporter from a legitimate, if right-wing, news organization like Fox, and you'd get some predictable yuks from watching a compressed video anthology of his kissing up to power. But as Mr. Olbermann explained, "Jeff Gannon," the star of the montage, was a newsman no more real than a "Senior White House Correspondent" like Stephen Colbert on "The Daily Show" and he worked for a news organization no more real than The Onion. Yet the video broadcast by Mr. Olbermann was not fake. "Jeff" was in the real White House, and he did have those exchanges with the real Mr. McClellan and the real Mr. Bush.
"Jeff Gannon's" real name is James D. Guckert. His employer was a Web site called Talon News, staffed mostly by volunteer Republican activists. Media Matters for America, the liberal press monitor that has done the most exhaustive research into the case, discovered that Talon's "news" often consists of recycled Republican National Committee and White House press releases, and its content frequently overlaps with another partisan site, GOPUSA, with which it shares its owner, a Texas delegate to the 2000 Republican convention. Nonetheless, for nearly two years the White House press office had credentialed Mr. Guckert, even though, as Dana Milbank of The Washington Post explained on Mr. Olbermann's show, he "was representing a phony media company that doesn't really have any such thing as circulation or readership."
How this happened is a mystery that has yet to be solved. "Jeff" has now quit Talon News not because he and it have been exposed as fakes but because of other embarrassing blogosphere revelations linking him to sites like hotmilitarystud.com and to an apparently promising career as an X-rated $200-per-hour "escort." If Mr. Guckert, the author of Talon News exclusives like "Kerry Could Become First Gay President," is yet another link in the boundless network of homophobic Republican closet cases, that's not without interest. But it shouldn't distract from the real question - that is, the real news - of how this fake newsman might be connected to a White House propaganda machine that grows curiouser by the day. Though Mr. McClellan told Editor & Publisher magazine that he didn't know until recently that Mr. Guckert was using an alias, Bruce Bartlett, a White House veteran of the Reagan-Bush I era, wrote on the nonpartisan journalism Web site Romenesko, that "if Gannon was using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover." (Otherwise, it would be a rather amazing post-9/11 security breach.)
By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news. Of these six, two have been syndicated newspaper columnists paid by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the administration's "marriage" initiatives. The other four have played real newsmen on TV. Before Mr. Guckert and Armstrong Williams, the talking head paid $240,000 by the Department of Education, there were Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia. Let us not forget these pioneers - the Woodward and Bernstein of fake news. They starred in bogus reports ("In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting," went the script) pretending to "sort through the details" of the administration's Medicare prescription-drug plan in 2004. Such "reports," some of which found their way into news packages distributed to local stations by CNN, appeared in more than 50 news broadcasts around the country and have now been deemed illegal "covert propaganda" by the Government Accountability Office.
Soon all news will resemble The Daily Show, by which time Jon Stewart really will host the CBS Evening News.
Posted by Steven at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
Frank Rich on the New McCarthyism
We're going to keep repeating history until we get a passing grade. I urge one and all to read Frank Rich's essay The Year of Living Indecently.
On the first anniversary of the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction that shook the world, it's clear that just one was big enough to wreak havoc. The ensuing Washington indecency crusade has unleashed a wave of self-censorship on American television unrivaled since the McCarthy era, with everyone from the dying D-Day heroes in "Saving Private Ryan" to cuddly animated animals on daytime television getting the ax. Even NBC's presentation of the Olympics last summer, in which actors donned body suits to simulate "nude" ancient Greek statues, is currently under federal investigation.Public television is now so fearful of crossing its government patrons that it is flirting with self-immolation. Having disowned lesbians in the children's show "Postcards From Buster" and stripped suspect language from "Prime Suspect" on "Masterpiece Theater," PBS is editing its Feb. 23 broadcast of "Dirty War," the HBO-BBC film about a terrorist attack, to remove a glimpse of female nudity in a scene depicting nuclear detoxification. Next thing you know they'll be snipping lascivious flesh out of a documentary about Auschwitz.
This repressive cultural environment was officially ratified on Nov. 2, when Ms. Jackson's breast pulled off its greatest coup of all: the re-election of President Bush. Or so it was decreed by the media horde that retroactively declared "moral values" the campaign's decisive issue and the Super Bowl the blue states' Waterloo. The political bosses of "family" organizations, well aware that TV's collective wisdom becomes reality whether true or not, have been emboldened ever since. They are spending their political capital like drunken sailors, redoubling their demands that the Bush administration marginalize gay people, stamp out sex education and turn pop culture into a continuous loop of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
He points out the hypocracy of the main players, and ties together their political and socioeconomic self-interests. A very good read on the issue, and a warning of things to come.
Posted by Steven at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2005
The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree
Guess who's daughter has come out? Poor old Alan Keyes. Can't get a break. Got no respect. Beaten by Obama, a man with a real African name. And now ... now ... this:
The daughter of conservative Republican Alan Keyes referred to herself Monday as a "liberal queer" and urged support for gay and lesbian young people who have been deserted by their families.Maya Marcel-Keyes, 19, addressed a rally sponsored by the gay-rights group Equality Maryland, saying she was motivated to speak out because of her rocky relationship with her parents and the recent death of a friend who had fallen ill after being thrown out of the house by his family.
Marcel-Keyes told several hundred supporters that her sexuality had created a rift in her relationship with her parents.
"Things just came to a head. Liberal queer plus conservative Republican just doesn't mesh well," she said. "That was making my life a little bit turbulent."
Later, Marcel-Keyes told CNN her parents "were not too pleased" when they learned she was a lesbian, but she said she loves them "very much, and they love me. They can't support my activities."
Her father, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois last year, created a stir in August when he said during an interview that homosexuality was "selfish hedonism" and that Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was a sinner.
In a statement issued Monday night, Keyes said: "My daughter is an adult, and she is responsible for her own actions. What she chooses to do has nothing to do with my work or political activities."
Marcel-Keyes said she received an outpouring of support when disclosing her sexual orientation, but her friend did not.
"Like me, he grew up queer in a conservative household," she said. But where she got hundreds of e-mails, offers of a place to stay and a college scholarship, "he'd been out there two years and had gotten nothing."
"And the worst part is, he isn't the only one," Marcel-Keyes said.
Sucks to be you, Alan!
Posted by Steven at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)
Appeals Court Never Heard of First Amendment
You can go to jail for not revealing a source to an article you never published. So says "a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington". Two reporters who received the same information as Bob Novak (The Daily Show's Douchebag of Liberty), but who didn't reveal the information (in violation of Federal Law) are being prosecuted for not revealing their source, just like grown-up, real journalists do.
The obvious question is, why isn't Bob "Douchebag" Novak being threatened with jail? Two answers leap to mind: it's a political witchhunt, or he's squealed like a pig (and probably claimed that he's a op-ed writer and not a real journalist, just like the Bush Administration lackeys who have been shilling the "No Child Left Behind" bullshit).
In either case, this is a chilling ruling on the Press, and adds further creedence to the conspiracy theories about Bush, Cheney and Rove.
Two reporters who have refused to name their sources to a grand jury investigating the disclosure the identity of a covert C.I.A. agent should be jailed on contempt charges, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington ruled unanimously today.Citing a 1972 decision of the United States Supreme Court, the panel held that the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, have no First Amendment protection from a grand jury subpoena seeking to learn the identity of their sources. Under a 1982 law, it can be a crime for government officials to divulge the identities of covert agents.
The 1972 decision, Branzburg v. Hayes, considered four consolidated grand jury cases, including one in which a reporter witnessed illegal drugs being made. In today's opinion, the panel said the Supreme Court's "transparent and forceful" reasoning in that case applied to the two reporters before the appeals court now.
"In language as relevant to the alleged illegal disclosure of the identity of covert agents as it was to the alleged illegal processing of hashish," the panel wrote, "the court stated that it could not 'seriously entertain the notion that the First Amendment protects the newsman's agreement to conceal the criminal conduct of his source, or evidence thereof, on the theory that it is better to write about a crime than to do something about it.' "
"Today the Court of Appeals affirmed that reporters do not have a First Amendment privilege to refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena issued in good faith," the prosecutor said, asserting that there was a "critical need for the reporters to comply with the subpoenas in this case." He added that "we look forward to resuming our progress in this investigation and bringing it to a prompt conclusion."
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman of The Times Company and the publisher of The Times, said in a separate statement: "We are deeply dismayed at the U.S. Court of Appeals decision to affirm holding Judith Miller in contempt, and at what it means for the American public's right to know. If Judy is sent to jail for not revealing her confidential sources for an article that was never published, it would create a dangerous precedent that would erode the freedom of the press.
"The protection of confidential sources was critically important to many groundbreaking stories, such as Watergate, the health-threatening practices of the tobacco industry and police corruption. The Times will continue to fight for the ability of journalists to provide the people of this nation with the essential information they need to evaluate issues affecting our country and the world. And we will challenge today's decision and advocate for a federal shield law that will enable the public to continue to learn about matters that directly affect their lives."
Posted by Steven at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
Maybe It IS Rocket Science
Oops, there goes L.A. Yet another test of the "missile shield" resulting in a perfect score ... for the incoming drone missile. Every single one of them has launched correctly, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that our pooch is screwed if we really are attacked by the Russians (why anyone thinks North Korea will field an ICBM is beyond me). The money we've wasted on this #$@#$% missile shield would have bought a lot of diplomacy in Korea, instead.
The nation's fledgling missile defense system suffered its third straight test failure when an interceptor rocket failed to launch Sunday night from its base on an island, leaving the target rocket to splash into the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said Monday.The target rocket was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, at 9:22 p.m. Sunday (1:22 a.m. Monday, Eastern Standard Time), but the interceptor that was supposed to go up 15 minutes later remained on its pad in the Marshall Islands, the Missile Defense Agency at the Pentagon said. The target rocket fell into the ocean near Wake Island.
The agency took some consolation from indications that the launching failure was caused by a malfunction in ground-support equipment rather than in the interceptor missile itself, said Richard A. Lehner, a spokesman for the missile agency. "But it's a disappointment, in that we had a test planned and were unable to complete it," he said.
And the millions incinerated by the lack of actual defensive shielding ... well they're dissappointed, too.
Posted by Steven at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
When a Deficit Isn't a Crisis
From the Zen Koan Dept. of the GOP. Paul Glastris, blogging at The Washington Monthly points out yet another glaring hypocricy of the GOP.
Just a thought... Maybe a lot of people have made this point and I just missed it. Or maybe it's so obvious it doesn't need to be made. But...In 2018, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it takes in. This is what Dennis Hastert calls the "crisis point." But the entire federal government is paying out more money than it takes in right now. Indeed this has been the case for four years, thanks in no small measure to GOP tax-and-spending policies. And it will continue to be the case indefinitely under the president's own supposedly-tough budget. Why is it that a modest deficit in Social Security that won't begin for almost a decade and a half requires immediate radical action, while a vastly greater overall federal deficit occurring right now doesn't?
Posted by Steven at 12:27 AM | Comments (1)
February 14, 2005
A Philosopher's Look at the Bush Administration
From Penn and Teller to the White House. The New York Times has a review of a Princeton University scholar's study of the predominate paradigm of our times: BULLSHIT. While he takes a scholarly look at the issue, he also laments how it has morphed our culture into one both over-critical and under-examining as a result.
The opening paragraph of the 67-page essay is a model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by that single obscenity:"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry."
The essay goes on to lament that lack of inquiry, despite the universality of the phenomenon. "Even the most basic and preliminary questions about [bull] remain, after all," Mr. Frankfurt writes, "not only unanswered but unasked."
The balance of the work tries, with the help of Wittgenstein, Pound, St. Augustine and the spy novelist Eric Ambler, among others, to ask some of the preliminary questions - to define the nature of a thing recognized by all but understood by none.
What is [bull], after all? Mr. Frankfurt points out it is neither fish nor fowl. Those who produce it certainly aren't honest, but neither are they liars, given that the liar and the honest man are linked in their common, if not identical, regard for the truth.
"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth," Mr. Frankfurt writes. "A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it."
The bull artist, on the other hand, cares nothing for truth or falsehood. The only thing that matters to him is "getting away with what he says," Mr. Frankfurt writes. An advertiser or a politician or talk show host given to [bull] "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it," he writes. "He pays no attention to it at all."
And this makes him, Mr. Frankfurt says, potentially more harmful than any liar, because any culture and he means this culture rife with [bull] is one in danger of rejecting "the possibility of knowing how things truly are." It follows that any form of political argument or intellectual analysis or commercial appeal is only as legitimate, and true, as it is persuasive. There is no other court of appeal.
The reader is left to imagine a culture in which institutions, leaders, events, ethics feel improvised and lacking in substance. "All that is solid," as Marx once wrote, "melts into air."
This essay must be rife with examples from the Bush Administration. They BS so much that their backers in the proletariat must be psychotically delusional. They really have no idea of how the world works anymore nor of it's true state. The BS has overwhelmed them.
This is one case where I'll wager, scholars don't disagree.
Posted by Steven at 05:43 PM | Comments (0)
NY Times Editorial To Bush: Fix Deficit Now
Today's New York Times editorial takes a strong position on Bush's insane budget.
For all its talk of deficit reduction, President Bush's 2006 budget is a map of reckless economic policies and shows how they have backed the United States into a precarious position in the global financial markets.Mr. Bush needs to convince foreign investors that he's serious about cutting the budget deficit. Here's why: Each day, the United States must borrow billions of dollars from abroad to finance its enormous budget and trade deficits. Without a steady stream of huge loans, the country would face rising interest rates, higher inflation, a dropping dollar and slower economic growth. The lenders want to see less of a gap between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, because a lower budget deficit always eases a trade deficit. A lower trade deficit also implies a stronger dollar. And a stronger dollar would reassure foreign investors that dollar-based assets remain their best choice.
As it is, their belief is being sorely tested: in 2003, the European Central Bank lost $625 million to the weak dollar and reportedly stands to lose $1.3 billion for 2004. Japan's central bank, which has the world's largest foreign stash of dollars - some $715 billion - could lose an estimated $40 billion if the dollar weakened to around 95 yen, a level many analysts expect to see this year. No wonder that a week before Mr. Bush released his budget, Japan's finance minister said that Japan had to be careful in managing those dollar-filled foreign currency reserves.
It's not hard to see what brought the United States to this juncture. Mr. Bush's first-term tax cuts were too expensive and too skewed toward top earners to work as effective, self-correcting economic stimulus. Instead, predictably, they've driven the nation deep into the red. Having reduced tax revenue to a share of the economy not seen since 1959, the cuts are a huge factor in the swing from a budget surplus to a $412 billion deficit.
The administration also erred big in deciding to deal with the ballooning trade imbalance by letting the dollar slide. That might have been a winning gambit if it had been paired with a commitment to cut the deficit. Theoretically, a weakening dollar would have begun the process of easing the trade imbalance, while deficit reduction, which takes longer to bring about, would have addressed the gap in a more lasting way. Instead, Mr. Bush has unceasingly pursued deficit-financed tax cuts, even as the weak dollar has failed to fix the trade imbalance. The result is that the country's deficits - and borrowing needs - remain enormous even as dollar-based investments are becoming less attractive.
Lately, Mr. Bush has been talking the deficit reduction talk, but there's no sign that he is willing to walk the walk. In his 2006 budget, he pledges to slash spending, but largely in areas that would have only a small impact on the deficit and where cuts would be politically difficult, not to mention cruel, such as food stamps, veterans' medical care, child care and low-income housing. Meanwhile, he is pounding the table for more deficit-bloating measures - making his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a 10-year cost of as much as $2.1 trillion; putting into effect two high-income tax breaks that were enacted in 2001 but have been on hold, at a 10-year cost of $115 billion; and introducing new tax incentives to allow high earners to shift even more cash into tax shelters, at a cost that would ultimately work out to more than $30 billion a year when investors cashed in their accounts tax-free.
Oh, yes. Mr. Bush also wants to borrow some $4.5 trillion over two decades to privatize Social Security, which is a bad idea even without the borrowing and a horrendous one with it.
The global financial community won't be fooled. The dollar may have bouts of relative strength, as it has recently. But these are due largely to currency traders' focus on short-term advantages, like Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes, which are perceived as a positive for the dollar, or the appearance of profit-taking opportunities. Inevitably, the budget and trade deficits will reassert their drag on the dollar, and then on Washington's ability to comfortably borrow money from abroad.
Congress can avert this crisis-in-waiting by forcing Mr. Bush to be serious about deficit reduction. The first-term tax cuts should be allowed to lapse. Cuts that are not yet in effect should not be allowed to begin. And no new programs should be started that require megaborrowing. If the president doesn't see that he has more important tasks than cutting taxes for the rich and undermining Social Security, Congress should set him straight.
Posted by Steven at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
Frontline: House of Saud
 | Last week's Frontline "The House of Saud" is a two-hour tour de force exploring the first hundred years of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Visit the PBS site to see the program, and experience the extended interviews. |
Posted by Steven at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
"No Mullah Left Behind"
SUVs Funding Iran Nukes. Tom Friedman of The New York Times states in his editorial that the Bush Administration has inadvertantly funded the conservative Mullahs of Iran's nuclear weapons program with their unbridled oil price strategy.
The Wall Street Journal ran a very, very alarming article from Iran on its front page last Tuesday. The article explained how the mullahs in Tehran - who are now swimming in cash thanks to soaring oil prices - rather than begging foreign investors to come into Iran, are now shunning some of them. The article related how a Turkish mobile-phone operator, which had signed a deal with the Iranian government to launch Iran's first privately owned cellphone network, had the contract frozen by the mullahs in the Iranian Parliament because they were worried it might help the Turks and their foreign partners spy on Iran.The Journal quoted Ali Ansari, an Iran specialist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, as saying that for 10 years analysts had been writing about Iran's need for economic reform. "In actual fact, the scenario is worse now," said Mr. Ansari. "They have all this money with the high oil price, and they don't need to do anything about reforming the economy." Indeed, The Journal added, the conservative mullahs are feeling even more emboldened to argue that with high oil prices, Iran doesn't need Western investment capital and should feel "free to pursue its nuclear power program without interference."
This is a perfect example of the Bush energy policy at work, and the Bush energy policy is: "No Mullah Left Behind."
By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote. Now how smart is that?
Posted by Steven at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
Yet More Evidence of Torture
More information leaking out about Gitmo. As sickening as it is to say, the United States is now becoming one of the world's largest documented torture nations. We may not (I hope) hold a candle to most Middle East nations, but the fact remains that despite having laws, ethics and a Constitution that bans it, the Bush Administration has indulged in it to excesses that make me sick.
The New York Times is running a story about an Egyptian born Australian we worked over.
Mamdouh Habib still has a bruise on his lower back. He says it is a sign of the beatings he endured in a prison in Egypt. Interrogators there put out cigarettes on his chest, he says, and he lifts his shirt to show the marks. He says he got the dark spot on his forehead when Americans hit his head against the floor at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.After being arrested in Pakistan in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, he was held as a terror suspect by the Americans for 40 months. Back home now, Mr. Habib alleges that at every step of his detention - from Pakistan, to Egypt, to Afghanistan, to Guantánamo - he endured physical and psychological abuse.
The physical abuse, he said, ranged from a kick "that nearly killed me" to electric shocks administered through a wired helmet that he said interrogators told him could detect whether he was lying.
Speaking publicly for the first time since he was freed two weeks ago, Mr. Habib, a 49-year-old Australian citizen born in Egypt, also described psychological abuse that seemed intended to undermine his identity - as a husband, a father and a Muslim man. At Guantánamo, he said, he was sexually humiliated by a female interrogator who reached under her skirt and threw what appeared to be blood in his face. He also said he was forced to look at photographs of his wife's face superimposed on images of naked women next to Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Habib's claims of mistreatment and torture cannot be confirmed, yet many are in line with accounts from other former detainees, as well as from human rights reports and from some government agents involved in the detention system. In addition, Australian officials confirm Mr. Habib's movements during his confinement, including his imprisonment in Egypt, where his lawyers say the United States sent him for harsh interrogation through a process known as rendition.
Posted by Steven at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
It's Dean At The DNC
Deaniacs Rejoice. Kudos to Dr. Howard Dean for winning Presidency of the Democratic Party in the United States. If anyone can shake up the GOP, it's Dean.
Go kick ass!
Posted by Steven at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Another Unfunded Mandate
Pass the buck to the States, GOP-style The Congress has passed a bill that will require states to verify that individuals who are issued driver's licenses are legally in the United States. Claiming that this bill will prevent terrorists from getting licenses, its real goal is disrupting illegal aliens, forcing them to break the law in order to continue to participate in the economy.
In an interview Thursday, Mr. McCain said the drivers' license restrictions in the House bill "addressed significant portions of one aspect of the problem, but it does not address the overall solution to the problem" and he called the asylum system changes "more draconian.""We would like to examine what we do with the 8 to 13 million people who are already here illegally, because we think we need comprehensive immigration reform, as does the president," he said, adding that he "absolutely opposed" deporting them, as many House conservatives insist be done.
Mr. McCain said the president's proposed guest worker program would differ from an amnesty because illegal immigrants would be subject to fines and delays before eligibility for citizenship.
But Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said, "The president's guest worker program is not going anywhere, period." Mr. Lott added: "He needs to go ahead and accept it. We are not going to do anything that looks like, smells like or in anyway resembles amnesty, period."
Posted by Steven at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
Military Using Churches To Recruit
Step One in invading Iran: get more bodies. I was given a link to a blog entry that exposes an effort to recruit soldiers in the U.S. through a Christian church backed "dog and pony show" that uses the same pressure tactics that the churches employ to gain members.
This doesn't surprise me in the least, but the tactic is startlingly similar to those used by the Nationalists Socialists in ... yes, Germany during the 30's. The person who posted this was convinced this is the tactic now being employed to sucker millions of young Americans into signing up for service, so that we will have the body count necessary to invade Iran.
Posted by Steven at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
Heading South?
From the Nobody Reads the Polls Dept. After the November election I commented that "I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Bush at approval ratings below 40% in a couple of years". Well, it looks like it's time for some of the older folks to wake up and smell the cat food:
WASHINGTON - The public's confidence in President Bush's job performance and the nation's direction has slipped in the opening weeks of his second term, particularly among people 50 and older, according to an Associated Press poll.Adults were evenly divided on Bush's job performance in January, but now 54 percent disapprove and 45 percent approve. The number who think the country is headed down the wrong track increased from 51 percent to 58 percent in the past month.
Posted by at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)
The One Sure Way To Avoid Being Attacked By The U.S.
The mouse roared. North Korea has "nukes" afterall. They even used the English word "nukes" in the document announcing this.
What's the lesson? If we think you have nuclear weapons but don't, you get attacked (e.g. Iraq). If we aren't sure but you do, it's better to just fess up so we'll know better than to attack you (e.g. North Korea). Condi has promised not to attack North Korea, so we know that it won't happen. Besides, what bully would hit another kid who can rip his nuts off?
Posted by Steven at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
Jibjab Is Pro Bush
Fair and Balanced? The new JibJab cartoon is out. It gloats about Bush's "four more years" at the expense of the Europeans, Hollywood, and the Democrats. Bill Clinton is slapped by Hillary again. Bush is once again depicted as a buffoon, but clearly enjoying the power and lack of opposition. No doubt, he knows what absolute power feels like these days.
If you thought the digs on Kerry were harder than on Bush in the first two, you were right. JibJab is more pro-Bush bullshit.
Posted by Steven at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
Your RFID Thumbprint
You are what you wear. The BBC is running a story about consumer unawareness about RFID tags and the implications thereof. I have predicted that these tags will form the backbone of a totalitarian state where your every move is tracked with staggering precision. Consider ... the combination of the underwear, shirt and pants you use daily is a unique ID that you, and only you, have. Everytime the RFID scanners see this grouping (and not a load of other IDs from your other clothes dropped off at the cleaners), they know it's YOU. Walk into a retail store with this capability, and you will be deluged with service offers aimed at you ... or the police will be called because you are a suspected shoplifter. Either way, your privacy, as the Constitution knows it, is DEAD.
At least once consumer group - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) - has claimed that RFID chips could be used to secretly identify people and the things they are carrying or wearing.All kinds of personal belongings, including clothes, could constantly broadcast messages about their whereabouts and their owners, it warned.
Posted by Steven at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2005
Bush Proud of Screwing the Working Poor
Full employment, GOP style. I'm just going to quote this Drudge Report posting in its entirety:
BUSH: HOLDING THREE JOBS 'UNIQUELY AMERICAN' Tues Feb 8 2005 9:27:01 ETLast Friday when promoting social security reform with 'regular' citizens in Omaha, Nebraska, President Bush walked into an awkward unscripted moment in which he stated that carrying three jobs at a time is 'uniquely American.'
While talking with audience participants, the president met Mary Mornin, a woman in her late fifties who told the president she was a divorced mother of three, including a 'mentally challenged' son.
The President comforted Mornin on the security of social security stating that 'the promises made will be kept by the government.'
But without prompting Mornin began to elaborate on her life circumstances.
Begin transcript:
MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.
THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
Developing...
Filed By Matt Drudge...
What a dick (yes, Matt Drudge is a dick, but I'm talking about our Chief Expletive). I wonder how Bush sleeps at night (probably very well).
Posted by at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
Deep Throat to be Revealed Soon?
I'm waiting ... According to several sources (including the 18 1/2 Minute Gap), Woodward and Bernstein are going to reveal who "Deep Throat" is, as the individual is gravely ill and near death. This is the source they relied on to expose the Nixon White House connection to the "Plumbers", who broke into the Watergate Hotel and which lead to Nixon's resignation in the face of being impeached.
Synchronicity? According to CNN, the movie Deep Throat is being "re-released" in theaters on 2/18. Don't rush out to see it ... as pornos go, it was pretty typical for having a incredibly stupid and mysogynist plot.
Posted by Steven at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
Big Pickups Pickup in Sales
Yeh-hah, ride 'em cowboy. The New York Times is running a disturbing article about large pickup sales. Apparently, Americans, and Texans in particular, are buying the largest pickups instead of SUVs, in ever larger numbers. In effect, the "drove" turns out to be a Dodge RAM (e.g. "they're buying them in droves...").
S.U.V. sales continued to grow last year as buyers sought smaller-size models. But sales of larger S.U.V.'s like the Ford Explorer, Hummer H2 and Chevy Suburban appear to have reached a plateau.And for the first time in a decade, the sales growth of full-size pickup trucks outpaced the growth of S.U.V.'s over all, according to an analysis by the Ford Motor Company. Sales of full-size pickups rose 6.6 percent last year from 2003, compared with overall S.U.V. sales growth of 4.3 percent, Ward's AutoInfoBank data shows.
What is more, American buyers seem to want their big pickups bigger and more S.U.V.-like. They are mostly buying trucks with seating for the family, instead of the two-seat work trucks that were standard a decade ago. And while several automakers say that concern over high gasoline prices is starting to influence prospective purchasers of sport utility vehicles, pickup truck buyers generally want the biggest truck they can afford.
"How can I say it - guys will be guys," said George Pipas, Ford's chief industry sales analyst. "This is a guy thing. It's like N.F.L. football. That's why we advertise so much during N.F.L. games."
While environmentalists and safety advocates have long trained their ire on the S.U.V., the growth in popularity of the full-size pickup truck, which has risen to 15 percent of new vehicle sales in the last dozen years from 8.5 percent, has been another culprit in the nation's swelling dependence on foreign oil.
The average pickup truck has become 40 percent heavier in the last two decades and 11 percent less fuel-efficient, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Big pickup trucks are an even more formidable threat to people in cars than the largest S.U.V.'s, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fatality rates for the occupants of large pickup trucks are modestly higher than those for other family vehicles like large cars and minivans because of the trucks' increased rollover risk, a government crash study in 2003 indicated.
On Wednesday at the Chicago Auto Show, DaimlerChrysler is planning to introduce one of the largest passenger cabs yet as an option on its full-size pickup truck, the Dodge Ram. The new cabin, to be called the Mega Cab, is 20 inches longer than the largest Ram passenger cab now.
Weighing in at more than three tons unloaded, the Ram Mega Cab seats six and joins a group of new passenger trucks that are so heavy that they fall outside federal fuel economy regulations for most other passenger vehicles. The makers are not even required to post mileage figures on a window sticker.
Unlike some more exotic giant pickups, like the new 18-wheeler-size CXT from International Truck and Engine, the Dodge Ram Mega Cab will be positioned as a mass-market product. Chrysler executives estimate that they can sell 50,000 to 100,000 of them a year, according to a person close to the company's planning.
"There's overwhelming desire for it; there has been for several years now," said Hayden Elder, a Dodge dealer in Athens, Tex., near Dallas. "We could probably sell everything they can build just in Texas."
Yeah, that's most sickening thing about this article ... one quarter of all of these behomeths will be sold in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, to people who will drive them to work, typically in twenty-plus mile commutes, day after day. These vehicles will add vast quantities of pollution to the already filthy air of these cities, and crush and destroy (in accidents) who-knows how many passenger cars, all because of the endemically small penis size of the average Texan male.
Posted by Steven at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2005
More Unethical Behavior in the House Ethics Committee
The GOP replaced the House Ethics Committee chairman with someone guaranteed to protect Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (R-TX). They are appointing DeLay lackeys without even trying to give the appearance of ethics.
House Republican leaders tightened their control over the ethics committee yesterday by ousting its independent-minded chairman, appointing a replacement who is close to them and adding two new members who donated to the legal defense fund of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).Republican officials have spent months taking steps to ensure DeLay's political survival in case he is indicted by a Texas grand jury investigating political fundraising, and House leadership aides said they needed to have the ethics committee controlled by lawmakers they can trust.
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), who clashed with DeLay so often that they barely spoke and was considered wayward by other leaders, was replaced yesterday with Rep. Richard Hastings (R-Wash.). Hastings has carried out other sensitive leadership assignments and is known as a favorite of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who made the decision.
Hefley said in an interview yesterday that he believes he was removed because he was too independent. He said there is "a bad perception out there that there was a purge in the committee and that people were put in that would protect our side of the aisle better than I did."
"Nobody should be there to protect anybody," he said. "They should be there to protect the integrity of the institution."
The replacement of Hefley is the latest in a series of actions by GOP leaders to crack down on a rebellious ethics committee that posed a threat to DeLay and other Republicans.
How are these people different from the Soviets? Worst. Party. Ever.
Posted by Steven at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2005
Evolution Being Evolved Out of the Classroom
This New York Times story is all over the blogosphere, but I wanted to toss in my two cents.
Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Ala., recently when he met a young woman who had just begun work as a biology teacher in a small school district in the state. Their conversation turned to evolution."She confided that she simply ignored evolution because she knew she'd get in trouble with the principal if word got about that she was teaching it," he recalled. "She told me other teachers were doing the same thing."
Though the teaching of evolution makes the news when officials propose, as they did in Georgia, that evolution disclaimers be affixed to science textbooks, or that creationism be taught along with evolution in biology classes, stories like the one Dr. Frandsen tells are more common.
In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.
Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities.
"The most common remark I've heard from teachers was that the chapter on evolution was assigned as reading but that virtually no discussion in class was taken," said Dr. John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, an evangelical Christian and a member of Alabama's curriculum review board who advocates the teaching of evolution. Teachers are afraid to raise the issue, he said in an e-mail message, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.
Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public policy of the Alabama Academy of Science, said in an interview that this fear made it impossible to say precisely how many teachers avoid the topic.
"You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."
But he said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.
Evolution is a model of how life diversified on Earth. It makes a couple of claims that are pretty easy to handle if you accept that the Earth is four and one-half billion years old, and that matter can organize itself in some interesting ways over that time period. There's nothing there to alarm someone unless they've been told by a loud, authoritarian asshole that the Earth is only four thousand years old, and that some entity created all the diversity all at once.
So what's happening here? Well, it's evolution. Teachers who teach Evolution in public schools are being forced out of their environment, and thus are evolving into teachers who don't teach Evolution. In their own twisted, stupid way, the Red States are proving Evolution works and on short time scales at that!
Of course, the irony is utterly lost on these dipshits. My advice is to get your kids out of the Red States or suppliment their low intellectual academic diet at home. And when will these boneheads who fear Science give up all the truly magical things that it has brought them like electricity, longevity and bountiful food? The same people who brought you Evolution are behind those technologies, too.
Posted by Steven at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)
February 01, 2005
The Nine Billion Names of Corruption
Whose money is it, really? Nine billion U.S. dollars (worth less and less each day on the world currency markets) has gone "missing" in Iraq. Sounds like Saddam's at work again!
The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general.
The findings were released Sunday by Stuart Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Bowen issued several reports on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004.
The official who led the CPA, L. Paul Bremer III, submitted a blistering, written reply to the findings, saying the report had "many misconceptions and inaccuracies," and lacked professional judgment.
Where, oh where, is the outrage?
Posted by Steven at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
All Too Quiet on the Sunni Front
Don't believe everything Bush tells you. How many times do we have to repeat this mantra? Bush wants you to believe that "democracy" happened in Iraq, a nation we are occupying, and that we had an "election".
Riiiiiight.
Sure, the Kurds were excited, because they thought they were voting themselves "off the island" and the Shia are thrilled because they knew, going in, that they would overwhelm any simple majority vote and thus think that they'll be in charge soon. But it just isn't going to be that way.
We've already installed the next Saddam ... Allawi. He's already a proven murderer and the CIA hand-picked him. So regardless of the election's outcome, the system is jury-rigged so that we decide who wins.
Salon has a story today about the Sunni perspective on the vote, and it's not all roses.
At 9:00 a.m. on Jan. 30 in the Shiite town of Kanan near this provincial capital in the Sunni triangle, the only living things on the streets were hungry wild dogs. At the city's heavily-fortified polls -- which had been open for two hours -- Iraqi police stood smoking cigarettes behind concrete and barbed-wire barriers, waiting for the voters they knew would never come.Immediately after the Iraqi elections, conventional wisdom from media has called the voting an unqualified success because millions turned out despite attacks and threats. Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi declared the day's events a defeat for terrorists. But a closer look at towns like Kanan and Baqubah reveals underlying failures that will likely grow into serious problems in the near future. Chief among them: the Sunni turnout in the most volatile regions of Iraq was predictably low, perhaps as low as 30 percent versus more than 75 percent for Shiites and Kurds. And in some towns, there was no turnout at all, Sunni or otherwise.
In Kanan, there was a tension in the air, the kind of atmosphere veteran American soldiers recognize as a community bracing for an insurgent attack. The average Iraqi knows a lot more about the comings and goings of insurgents than most authorities let on. Before many attacks, people shutter their shops, close their drapes, and pull their children off the street.
The implications are grave. Iraq is increasingly fractured and decreasingly secure. Policing is handled almost entirely by Americans who are growing tired of back-to-back yearlong deployments. There will be a new Iraqi government. It will be Shiite, and it will eventually ask U.S. forces to leave. Who will keep order when Sunnis inevitably resist a government they see as illegitimate?
I ask the same question of Americans everything I see Bush on TV.
Posted by Steven at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)