BOZO THE CLOWN: Larry Harmon dead -- chicagotribune.com: "LOS ANGELES _ Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday at his home of congestive heart failure, his publicist told The Associated Press. He was 83."
Reader Adam writes in to let us know his relative found a working Dell computer in the dumpster at his office complex. It appeared to be in functional condition, so he took it home. Sure enough, it took only a bit of tweaking before it was back to working order—as a Curves Fitness employee and customer information smorgasbord.
Adam dug around a little bit on the computer and found employee phone numbers, customer addresses, and credit card info. The Curves in question is located on 134th Street in Vancouver, WA. Adam called to let them know what happened, here was their response:
Before I posted this I tried twice to talk to the manager of the offending Curves… both times I called they were "busy" or "out". No one offered to take a message so I never left one.
I'm not sure if it's that they are not used to men calling (Curves is a women's club) or if their customer service is just as crappy as their data destruction policy. In any case, as I said in the post, I contacted the corporate office. After I made this post I did call again and got voice mail; so I left a message inviting the manager to [read this post].
Adam also contacted Curves corporate before contacting the local franchise. They told him that, although each franchise is responsible for its own IT and privacy policies, they agreed that this franchise's actions were inappropriate and they'd get in touch with the franchise.
Dear Curves, Respect Your Client and Employee
The Budgets and Finance meeting is a good place to fight - Shutdown Corner - NFL - Yahoo! Sports
The NFL's rookie symposium is designed to teach 1st-year players life skills, so that they can behave in a way that won't damage their future.
Naturally, this is the place where Buccaneers rookies Cory Boyd and Aqib Talib chose to brawl with each other.
Pro Football Talk is reporting that Talib, the Bucs' 1st-round pick, and Boyd, the Bucs 7th-round pick, had been exchanging words all day, and they finally got down to the fisticuffs in the "budgets and finance" meeting.
Whatever kind of creepy counter-culture stunt this couple with the skin masks are performing, it's getting London a little worried.
Tomorrow at Wimbledon, keep an eye out for the two weirdos wandering around, freaking people out. Wimbledon isn't the first time the skin-faced duo has popped up at a high-profile event (they were also spotted at Elton John's White Tie ball, and a store opening with Kim Cattrall. Cattrall actually gave the faceless dude a hummer...) , but the reason behind their facelessness is still unknown. The Daily Mail offers up these possibilities:
Theories include the possibilities that they are limelight-seeking pranksters, performance artists or that they are at the centre of a viral marketing campaign for an as-yet unknown product of forthcoming horror film.
Faceless 'aliens' spotted in crowd at Wimbledon [Daily Mail]
Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season | Media | guardian.co.uk
Channel 4 has painstakingly recreated the set of Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining, complete with look-a-likes of the crew and cast members including Shelley Duvall, for a TV ad to promote a More 4 season of the director's films.
The 65-second promotional spot has been filmed as a one-take tracking shot through the recreation of The Shining.
US military: Iran couldn't disrupt Hormuz for long - Los Angeles Times: "WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military's top officer warned Wednesday that an Israeli airstrike against Iran would make the Middle East more unstable and could add to the stress on overworked American forces in the region.
The comments by Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came days after he visited Israel and amid growing international concern that Jerusalem is actively considering such an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."
Toxicity in FEMA Trailers Blamed on Cheap Materials, Low Construction Standards - washingtonpost.com: "High levels of formaldehyde found in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina evacuees on the Gulf Coast probably resulted from cheap wood and poor ventilation in designs used by manufacturers under permissive government standards, federal scientists reported yesterday."
Climate Scorecard ranks U.S. last among largest economies - USATODAY.com: "BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. has done the least among the world's eight biggest economies to address global warming, a study released Thursday found.
The G8 Climate Scorecards 2008, released Thursday ahead of next week's gathering of the Group of Eight on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, also found that none of the eight countries are making improvements large enough to prevent temperature increases that scientists think would cause catastrophic climate changes."
The Associated Press: AP IMPACT: Race profiling eyed for terror probes: "The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups."
Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal - NYTimes.com: "Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded."
American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU Releases Navy Files On Civilian Casualties In Iraq War: "'At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,' said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. 'Our democracy depends on an informed public and that is why it is so important that the American people see these documents. These documents will help to fill the information void around the issue of civilian casualties in Iraq and will lead to a more complete understanding of the prosecution of the war.'"
Wonk Room » Stephen Johnson, The Environment’s Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales brought disgrace to the Department of Justice as Attorney General, putting loyalty to the President above duty to the country, until the weight of numerous scandals forced his resignation in August 2007. As the New York Times described, he left “a Justice Department that has been tainted by political influence, depleted by the departures of top officials and weakened by sapped morale.”
Now all eyes are turning to Stephen L. Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — set up by President Nixon in 1970 to be an independent watchdog for the health of the environment and the American people. It has become clear that Johnson has subverted that mission, in contravention of science, ethics, and the law. What Gonzales did to Justice, Johnson is doing to the EPA.
On February 27, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) compared Johnson to Gonzales after a shameful performance before Congress. Two days later, unions representing more than 10,000 EPA career staff suspended their relationship with Johnson, citing his “failure to engage in good faith.” Yesterday, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a survey of staff scientists documenting widespread political interference during his tenure.
The most prominent examples of Johnson’s malfeasance are under investigation by Congress — the blatant disregard of the Supreme Court mandate to regulate greenhouse gases and allow states to do so as well, and the overruling of scientific recommendations on smog standards at the behest of President Bush.
However, there are numerous further acts exposed by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) that are running below the radar:
– Refusing to enforce the agency’s “Principles of Scientific Integrity” involving fluoride drinking water standards, organophosphate pesticide registration, and control of mercury emissions from power plants.
– The shuttering of EPA’s network of technical libraries without waiting for Congressional approval in 2006 — to be reopened only with documents that undergo a political review.
– The abandonment of proposed rules protecting children and workers from lead paint in 2004 — rectified this March after years of lawsuits.
– Violating the Endangered Species Act in failing to consider the harmful effects of pesticides on Chinook salmon.
The common thread behind all these actions is service to corporate polluters above public health. PEER has also exposed increasing corporate influence on pesticide labelling, scientific research, assessement of the health risks of new chemicals, and even the drafting of rules to allow testing pesticides on children.
In December, EPA staff privately urged Johnson to resign if he denied the California waiver petition to regulate greenhouse gases. Last month, Sierra Club president Carl Pope called for the resignation of Johnson because “he is entirely a creature of the whim of the President, the vice president, and other White House officials.” Three weeks ago, Friends of the Earth followed suit.
Yesterday, Rep. Waxman sent a letter to Johnson about the UCS report, asking him to “be prepared to respond to its findings” in an Oversight Committee hearing in May.
UPDATE: Rep. Markey has replied to the EPA’s refusal to obey a Global Warming Committee subpoena. In his letter, Markey says the committee is willing to keep confidential any documents turned over until June 21. If the EPA does not agree to this accomodation by 6 PM tomorrow, the “Committee is prepared to proceed with all its legal rights,” including “a vote of contempt” for Johnson.
Wonk Room » White House Pretended EPA Email Outlining ‘Unequivocal’ Global Warming Threat Was Spam
The New York Times revealed yesterday that the White House’s global warming denial reached levels of absurdity that would be hilarious if the stakes weren’t so high. Last December, senior EPA officials tell the Times, White House officials literally refused to open the e-mail from the EPA that concluded that “greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled.” The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin fills in more details:
And upon learning that EPA had hit the “send” button just minutes earlier, the White House called again to demand that the e-mail be recalled. The EPA official who forwarded the e-mail, Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett, refused, said the sources, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.
That fateful December confrontation — Burnett “sent the e-mail to the White House Office of Management and Budget at 2:17 p.m. Dec. 5 and received the call warning him to hold off at 2:25 p.m.” — was the culmination of months of effort by the EPA following April’s Supreme Court mandate to take action on global warming pollution. As documents shown to the House Global Warming Committee under threat of subpoena revealed, “EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson determined that man-made global warming is unequivocal, the evidence is both compelling and robust, and the administration must act to prevent harm rather than wait for harm to occur before acting.”
Instead, the administration acted to prevent the EPA from following its legal and moral duty. After the White House rejected the EPA’s efforts, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson reversed his decision to allow California to regulate tailpipe greenhouse emissions. All work at the EPA on global warming ceased, and in May Burnett announced his resignation.
Today, Johnson’s EPA is expected to unveil a censored version of the report it submitted to the White House in December, as an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” asking for new round of comments on whether global warming represents a threat to human health and whether it should take action. This administration knows full well that global warming represents a very present threat to our health and security, as reports issued this month by its scientific and intelligence agencies reveal. Of course, Bush impeded those reports as well. The scientific assessment was submitted under court order, four years after its legal deadline, and the intelligence assessment was classified despite being based on public information.
Burnett — who came to the EPA with an anti-regulatory background — is now telling reporters he resigned because the White House threw away his efforts to confront the threat of global warming. In an email to the Post, he wrote:
The White House made it clear they did not want to address the ramifications of that finding and have decided to leave the challenge to the next administration. Some [at the White House] thought that EPA had mistakenly concluded that climate change endangers the public. It was no mistake.
Last Friday, Bush asserted executive privilege to prevent the House Oversight Committee from investigating his involvement in this gross dereliction of duty.
UPDATE: At Dot Earth, Andy Revkin reminds us the Bush stonewalling of the EPA on global warming began “just two months into his first term to abandon his campaign pledge in 2000 to restrict carbon dioxide from power plants.” A March 7, 2001 memorandum from the EPA to the White House recommended that the carbon dioxide pledge be kept, but a group of non-scientists rejected the plea. Among the cabal of right-wing officials with industry ties who blocked action in 2001 was the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Marcus Peacock, now the number-two official at the EPA.
WASHINGTON -- The White House is trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., said people close to the matter.
The fight over the document is the latest development in a long-running conflict between the EPA and the White House over climate-change policy. It will likely intensify ongoing Congressional investigations into the Bush administration's involvement in the agency's policymaking.
The draft document, which has been viewed by The Wall Street Journal, outlines how the government, under the Clean Air Act, could regulate greenhouse-gas emissions ...
Wonk Room » Bush Hiding Truth: Global Warming Regulations Worth $2 Trillion Benefit
Reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal write that an “intense private battle” has broken out between officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Environmental Protection Agency over “the publication of a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy.” The portions of the document obtained by the Wonk Room reveal why the White House has been suppressing it since December of last year.
Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution “would have crippling effects on our entire economy.” In fact, after spending all of 2007 working with the Departments of Transportation and Energy to model the effects of motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations, the EPA found the exact opposite:
Assuming gas prices in the range of $3.50 per gallon, “the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion” through 2040:
With higher gasoline prices, the benefits of high carbon-dioxide standards would be even greater. The EPA’s findings, completed last year, raise serious questions about whether Bush’s statements to the American public were made in good faith, and why he is now asserting executive privilege to block the Congressional investigation.
Following a Supreme Court mandate to take action, the EPA submitted the original version of this document to the White House last December — but OMB officials refused to open the email. Since then, the document has been recrafted as an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” — a draft version with a request for further rounds of public comment, delaying any action to the next administration.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified before Congress on May 20 that he would issue this rulemaking draft by the end of spring — yet in a long line of deadlines Johnson has failed to make. According to published reports, the political appointee in charge of the plan, Jason K. Burnett, stepped down because of this “collision course between the agency and the OMB.”
The first 150 pages of EPA’s draft plan from May 30 can be downloaded in two parts from the Wonk Room: Part I and Part II.
I did a whole series of posts on how Chiquita Banana paid off a right wing (and before that, a left wing) terrorist group in Colombia rather than pull out of the country. Here's a good summary post, that shows that:
Which is just another way of saying that Chiquita is just as corrupt a company as it has been for the last century.
Today HuffPo points out that not only was Chiquita a very Republican company, the CEO of that company from 1984 to 2001, Carl Lindner, happens to be a big McCain donor.
The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Lindner must like McCain slightly more than he likes those Right Wing Death Squads: whereas he oversaw $1.7 million in payments to the AUC, he oversaw $2 million in payments to McCain from just one recent fundraiser.
Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.
Maybe Lindner is more generous with McCain because the Senator has done political favors for Lindner in the past:
However, in the past, McCain has done favors on Lindner's behalf. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in the late 1990s, McCain "promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates."
McCain's down in Colombia today, talking up Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's anti-Venezuela plots anti-terrorist initiatives. Maybe he'd be better off if he simply stopped accepting the money of people who got rich(er) by supporting terrorists, huh?
Protesters are storming Barack Obama's website. But they all support Obama.
A grassroots group of activists has been organizing on MyBo, Obama's official social networking portal, to protest the Senator's recent decision to back controversial legislation granting the President more spying powers. The effort hit a big milestone on Tuesday afternoon: It is now the largest self-organized group on Obama's website, topping networks that were launched over a year ago. The spying protest, "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right," launched last week. (See Obama Network Organizes and Revolts Over Spying, The Nation.)
Membership spiked to about 8,900 people on Tuesday, edging out a student group with roughly 8,600 members, and one organizer estimated that the growth rate reached a rapid four percent during the daytime. The group initially spread through the Obama network, since the site's platform instantly connects members through a dedicated email listserve. On Monday, for example, over 200 emails shot across the wire, reaching the roughly 2,300 members who opted to receive individual messages. The exchanges ranged from policy debates, like whether immunity was acceptable if the telephone companies acted in good faith, to organizing strategies, such as promoting the group on sharing sites like Digg. Then some activists open-sourced the project, creating a wiki-hub for additional actions — from calling Obama's office to urging Keith Olbermann to promote the group — and launched partner groups on other sites like Facebook.
"To reach number one, we're going to need all of us to start talking to - and emailing - their family and friends," wrote blogger Mike Stark in a missive to the group at 3:46am on Monday. "[Obama] said he'd open up government and respond to the people instead of the special interests," he added, "so let's force him to respond."
You can join the Sen. Obama, Please Vote Against FISA Telecom Immunity here.
Kennedy presses for bipartisan support before new president takes office.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office has begun convening a series of meetings involving a wide array of healthcare specialists to begin laying the groundwork for a new attempt to provide universal healthcare, according to participants.
John McCain is nothing like George W. Bush. He just has the same people running his campaign. Nothing wrong with that.
Steve Schmidt is taking over the day-to-day operation of John McCain's campaign, according to multiple campaign sources.
McCain sources say Schmidt, who ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign and was a top communications aide in Bush-Cheney '04, will coordinate the campaign's daily pro-McCain and anti-Obama message but also will have an increased role in shaping most every facet of the organization including scheduling, policy, coalitions and surrogates.
So McSame moves from a lobbyist with Charlie Black to one of Dick Cheney's team–from K Street to Dirty Tricks. Nice move. Remember, this isn't the first major shakeup of the McCain campaign team. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out for him.
I, like a lot of you, grew up on Sesame Street and the Muppets. But do you ever stop to wonder where they came from? Some of the characters we know and love today were recycled from other T.V. shows and commercials Jim Henson worked on and others were invented by using whatever materials were around. Be prepared for a little nostalgia for today's Q10. And don't be offended if I left out some of your favorites (I know, Big Bird?!) – not all of the characters have interesting background stories. But if you know the story behind one that I left out, share with us in the comments!
1. Cookie Monster. Jim Henson drew some monsters eating various snacks for a General Foods commercial in 1966. The commercial was never used, but Henson recycled one of the monsters (the "Wheel-Stealer") for an IBM training video in 1967 and again for a Fritos commercial in 1969. By this time, he started working on Sesame Street and decided this monster would have a home there.
2. Elmo. The way it's described by a Sesame Street writer, apparently this extra red puppet was just lying around. People would pick him up and try to do something with him, but nothing really panned out. In 1984, puppeteer Kevin Clash picked up the red puppet and started doing the voice and the personality and it clicked – thus, Elmo was born.
3. Telly Monster was originally the Television Monster when he debuted in 1979. He was obsessed with T.V. and his eves would whirl around as if hypnotized whenever he was in front of a set. After a while, producers started worrying about his influence on youngsters, so they changed him to make him the chronic worrier he is now.
4. Count von Count made his first appearance in 1972 and was made out of an Anything Muppet pattern – a blank Muppet head that could have features added to it to make various characters. He used to be more sinister – he was able to hypnotize and stun people and he laughed in typical scary-villain-type fashion after completing a count of something and thunder and lightning would occur. He was quickly made more appealing to little kids, though. He is apparently quite the ladies' man – he has been linked to Countess von Backward, who loves to count backward; Countess Dahling von Dahling and Lady Two.
5. Kermit was "born" in 1955 and first showed up on Sam and Friends, a five-minute puppet show by Jim Henson. The first Kermit was made out of Henson's mom's coat and some ping pong balls. At the time, he was more lizard-like than frog-like. By the time he showed up on Sesame Street in 1969, though, he had made the transition to frog. There are rumors that he got the name Kermit from a childhood friend of Henson's or a puppeteer from the early days of the Muppets, but Henson always refuted both of those rumors.
6. Real Swedish Chef Lars "Kuprik" Bรคckman claims he was the inspiration for the Swedish Chef. He was on Good Morning America, he says, and caught Jim Henson's eye. Henson supposedly bought the rights to the Good Morning America recording and created the Swedish Chef (who DOES have a real name, but it's not understandable). One of the Muppet writers, Jerry Juhl, says that in all of the years of working with Jim Henson on the Swedish Chef, he never heard that the character was based on a real person.
7. Animal - Everyone's favorite member of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem may have been inspired by Keith Moon of The Who. This is speculation, but people who support this theory will point out that Jim Henson named one of the Fraggle Rock characters "Wembley", which is the town Moon was born in.
8. Miss Piggy is apparently from Iowa. Makes sense. Anyway, she started as a minor character on The Muppet Show, but anyone who knows Miss Piggy can see that she wouldn't settle for anything "minor". Her first T.V. appearance was actually on an Herb Alpert special. It wasn't until 1976, when The Muppet Show premiered, that she became the glamorous blonde with a penchant for frog that we know and love today. Frank Oz once said that Miss Piggy grew up in Iowa; her dad died when she was young and her mother was mean. She had to enter beauty contests to make money.
9. Rowlf the dog, surprise, surprise, was first made in 1962 for a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials. He went on to claim fame as Jimmy Dean's sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show and was on every single episode from 1963 to 1966. Jimmy Dean said Rowlf got about 2,000 letters from fans every week. He was considered for Sesame Street but ended up becoming a regular on The Muppet Show in 1976.
10. Oscar the Grouch is performed by the same guy who does Big Bird, Carroll Spinney. Spinney said he based Oscar's cranky voice on a particular NYC cab driver he once had the pleasure of riding with. He was originally an alarming shade of orange. In Pakistan, his name is Akhtar and he lives in an oil barrel. In Turkey, he is Kirpik and lives in a basket. And in Israel, it's not Oscar at all – it's his cousin, Moishe Oofnik, who lives in an old car.
According to Chris Mortensen on ESPN's NFL Live, Brett Favre is seriously considering coming back to the NFL for one more season. Mortensen said Favre told Packers' coach Mike McCarthy that he has the "itch to play again." ESPN's NFL Live broke the news exclusively at the 4 p.m. hour. Packers' conrerback Al Harris reiterates. "He's got the itch."
If he does come back to the Packers, it would probably make Aaron Rodgers feel even more stupid than he already does.
Developing...
t r u t h o u t | Understanding Rape in India: "'Of late, crime against women in general and rape in particular is on the increase. It is an irony that while we are celebrating woman's rights in all spheres, we show little or no concern for her honour. It is a sad reflection on the attitude of indifference of the society towards the violation of human dignity of the victims of sex crimes. We must remember that a rapist not only violates the victim's privacy and personal integrity, but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm in the process. Rape is not merely a physical assault - it is often destructive of the whole personality of the victim. A murderer destroys the physical body of his victim, a rapist degrades the very soul of the helpless female. The Courts, therefore, shoulder a great responsibility while trying an accused on charges of rape. They must deal with such cases with utmost sensitivity.'
Unfortunately, and following old patterns, the court has not defined what should be understood by 'great responsibility' or 'sensitivity.'"
t r u t h o u t | Understanding Rape in India: "'Of late, crime against women in general and rape in particular is on the increase. It is an irony that while we are celebrating woman's rights in all spheres, we show little or no concern for her honour. It is a sad reflection on the attitude of indifference of the society towards the violation of human dignity of the victims of sex crimes. We must remember that a rapist not only violates the victim's privacy and personal integrity, but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm in the process. Rape is not merely a physical assault - it is often destructive of the whole personality of the victim. A murderer destroys the physical body of his victim, a rapist degrades the very soul of the helpless female. The Courts, therefore, shoulder a great responsibility while trying an accused on charges of rape. They must deal with such cases with utmost sensitivity.'
Unfortunately, and following old patterns, the court has not defined what should be understood by 'great responsibility' or 'sensitivity.'"
We're not IT experts or anything, but when Chase writes that "all your account information is protected by 128-bit encryption to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of your data," shouldn't that mean a little lock icon on the browser window, and an https address? Update: Not necessarily, according to our commenters, although the lack of an https login screen does pose other security risks.
A reader named Ben writes,
Chase.com doesn't know how to protect their customers passwords. Their login page does not use a secure connection
(see attached). It uses http instead of https. That means that your password is not encrypted when submitted, which is pretty bad for a financial site. (However, they do care enough to include a meaningless, fake "secure" lock icon next to the login form.) I spoke with them a month ago, but they haven't changed anything.
Once you've logged in, everything is encrypted, but that initial password transmission on the home page isn't. Fortunately, if you're a Chase customer you can change the address manually to https (just add an "s" to the end of the "http" and hit your enter key) to trigger the encryption.
Note: A couple of initial comments were lost from this post, but we thought this one from beavis88 was good to know:
As long as the target of the form is an https url (and it is), the data will be encrypted. This is bad form, no question, but they are not total and complete idiots at least.
In the August issue of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens gets waterboarded and comes away deciding that, yup, it's torture. You can read his piece about the experience ("You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it "simulates" the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning...") or watch video of him, black-hooded and fettered in what looks like a suburban garage, undergo the procedure. Creepiest of all may be the New Age soundtrack the trained Special Forces agents play in the background while instructing the Hitch that his safety word is "red." The look on his face after it's done could also suggest that Henry Kissinger tried to pour him a glass of wine while quoting the Bible.
Apparently, Graydon Carter made him do it, which raises the question: Who was responsible for the two-part series on day spa makeovers?
[Vanity Fair]
[Video]
abc7chicago.com: Does airline baggage fee violate city rules? 7/02/08: "Jackson says the fees are discriminatory, because they do not apply to business-class, first-class or international travelers."
Chicagoist: Man Sentenced for Stealing, Blowing Marijuana Smoke at Puppy: "Emanuel Lopez, 19, was sentenced to 60 days in jail today for stealing a 2-pound Pomeranian puppy and then blowing marijuana smoke in the dog's face until the animal 'passed out.' Judge John Kinsella said the behavior was 'the bottom rung of humanity.'"
Review: Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - Cinematical: "At times merely conventional, the film truly finds its groove upon confronting Thompson's '72 reporting on the Oval Office race, in which his low profile - no one in political circles had a clue who he was - aided his journalistic coverage for Rolling Stone. A lifelong liberal, Thompson's mixture of fact and fiction sparked controversy (specifically with regards to fanciful comments about candidate Edmund Muskie's substance abuse). But his freewheeling, uncensored, pro-McGovern reportage had a fierce bluntness that Gonzo argues was incendiary and enlivening, even when (as Gary Hart comments) it was driven by infantile idealism. Gibney goes on to present Thompson's slow decline into hermit solitude at his Woody Creek, Colorado home, the debauchery that destroyed his first marriage, and his prophetic comments about the nation's future penned days after September 11. Yet ultimately, it was Thompson's coverage of McGovern's bid for the White House -- initially supportive and then, after the miscue of selecting Thomas Eagleton as a running mate, full of nasty criticism -- that epitomized the man, a literary iconoclast and less-than-stellar husband and father whose unbridled, go-for-broke excessiveness was both his greatest attribute and flaw."
Think Progress » Oversight Committee: Despite Denials, Administration Knew About Bush Donor’s Oil Contracts: "The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed that it plays no part in contract negotiations between Western oil companies and Iraq. But the New York Times reported last week that the State Department actually had an “integral role” in the awarding of no-bid contracts to develop Iraq’s oil fields.
Today, the administration received another blow to its credibility, as the House Oversight Committee released documents further connecting it to Iraqi oil deals, this time through Dallas-based Hunt Oil. Hunt Oil is owned by Ray L. Hunt, a former Halliburton board member who has donated $35 million to the Bush presidential library."
TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Waxman Says White House Knew About Hunt Oil Deal In Iraq
House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman says the Bush Administration knew about the September 2007 deal that Texas-based Hunt Oil struck with Kurdish officials in Iraq.
That contradicts what President Bush said at the time.
Most Awesomely Bad Military Acronyms | Danger Room from Wired.com
The U.S military comes up with an acronym for everything. Some of them are cute. Some are obtuse. Some are a mouthful. And some are just ... bad. Awesomely, awesomely bad.
Take, for example, the Pentagon's latest collection of Small Business Innovation Research grants. It's chock-full of some of the most agonizingly, amazingly awful amalgamations you've ever eyeballed. Imagine your uncle reaching deep into his book of puns to name scientific studies, and you'll get the idea. Here's a sample -- many of which, oddly enough, have a food theme:
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather)
Heather created this mash up of the respective coverage of Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and Richard Engel of MSNBC of the news that Iraqi's oil fields would be opened up to foreign countries, under the guidance of US advisors:
The New York Times reports a group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest oil fields in Iraq. The disclosure marks the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq's oil to commercial development. The Times recently reported the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company—Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP— as well as Chevron, are on the verge of getting no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest oil fields. In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts.
Makes clear the motive for going into Iraq, doesn't it? And the idiots on the MSNBC report still insist that the oil will pay for the war and that it will lower gas prices someday. Yeah, right. With companies like Exxon Mobil posting the record quarterly profits, if you buy that, I have a bridge to sell you–cheap.
I don't think there's a more clear example of the influence of the corporate media to disinform the general public. In fact, I would hazard a guess that if the major news outlets actually informed the public the way that Democracy Now! does consistently, we would have an approval rating for the Bush administration in the single digits.
t r u t h o u t | It Was Oil, All Along: "Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil."
JULY 2--A Kentucky woman is facing prostitution charges for allegedly trading sex for gasoline. Angela Eversole, 34, was nabbed last weekend during a police stakeout at a Days Inn, where she allegedly trysted with customer Kenneth Nowak. According to court records, Nowak admitted paying for Eversole's services, in part, with a $100 Speedway gas card. Eversole was hit with a prostitution rap and also charged with doing business without an occupational license. Nowak was charged with promoting prostitution. Eversole and Nowak are pictured below in mug shots snapped following their June 27 arrests. A local prosecutor noted that it was sad to see someone selling their body for gas, in this case about 25 gallons worth. (3 pages)
WallStreetFighter: Government Stimulus Checks Spent On Porn
An independent research group that analyzes "adult internet sites" found that the issuance of gov't stimulus checks correlated with an increase in internet porn sales.
Corey Lorinsky from Clusterstock explains that it was previously assumed that only Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, and grocery stores were benefiting from the stimulus checks, but that simply isn't the case.
Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren't. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren't always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth," to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don't always find their way into our shopping carts. Here's his advice.
You can find more details and recipes on the Men's Health Web site, which published the original version of the list last year.
In my own house, I only have two of these items — pumpkin seeds, which I often roast and put on salads, and frozen blueberries, which I mix with milk, yogurt and other fruits for morning smoothies. How about you? Have any of these foods found their way into your shopping cart?
Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency
Thx: Mike Smith
The cost of Bush's war on Iraq war has surpassed one trillion dollars but there is no evidence of it benefiting the US economy. It is time to drive a stake through the heart of the malicious lie that wars are good for the economy. Only the Military/Industrial complex benefits from war and what is good for the MIC is NOT good for the country.One of the most pernicious economic myths is the idea that war helps the economy. In reality, war is destructive and it always results in economic retrogression and misery.The US economy didn't really recover until 1946, when the immediate postwar period witnessed the dismantling of the command economy in favor of a much more liberalized market economy. Peace brought military demobilization, deregulation, and perhaps most importantly, a seventy-five percent reduction in government spending. This was a genuine peace dividend and it set the stage for America's legendary post-war economic boom. --War and Economic DeclineThe idea that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy is sold and promoted. In fact, new studies now confirm what I have always believed and what Gore Vidal had stated in his classic: The Decline and Fall of th American Empire.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has blamed the Iraq war for sending the United States into a recession. On Wednesday, he told a London think tank that the war caused the credit crunch and the housing crisis that are propelling the current economic downturn. Testifying before the Senate's Joint Economic Committee the following day, he said our involvement in Iraq has long been "weakening the American economy" and "a day of reckoning" has finally arrived.--Is the Economy a Casualty of War?Now --war critics have the economic data and models proving that military spending 'diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.' This thesis is likewise confirmed in a paper by Thomas E. Woods at: http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/woods2.pdfThe obvious lies about the war have been exposed. Not enough attention has been focused on the one of the biggest con jobs of them all ---right up there with WMD.
White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was the exception to the rule, offering an "upper bound" estimate of $100 billion to $200 billion in a September 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal. That figure raised eyebrows at the time, although Lindsey argued the cost was small, adding, "The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy."--Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillionThe US has been in a state of near perpetual war since the so-called Spanish-American war made of this nation an empire. But it was, specifically, according to Gore Vidal in The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, the moment at which the US became a net debtor nation that the US empire ceased to be an 'empire'. Americans are led to believe that the US can simply 'war' its way out of economic disaster. In fact, the US has been fighting wars with monies it doesn't have. The Iraq war may, indeed, finish us off before Bush even has a chance to compound his idiocy against Iran.
America's ruling elite have found nirvana --a war which need never end, a war in which victory is impossible to define and would not be recognized if it occurred. But --have they killed the goose that laid the golden egg? A war in which victory is, in fact, impossible. A war which achieves precisely what it was intended to achieve: the enrichment of a tiny ruling elite for whom your rights mean absolutely nothing. It is to this elite that wealth flowed profusely. It did NOT trickle to you.For Immediate Release: May 1, 2007
Contact: Lynn Erskine, 202-293-5380 x115
Washington, DC: The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a report today estimating the economic impact of increased US military spending comparable to the spending on the Iraq war. The report, presenting the results of a simulation from the economic forecasting company Global Insight, shows the increased level of military spending leads to fewer jobs and slower economic growth.
For the report, The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending, by economist Dean Baker, CEPR commissioned Global Insight to run a simulation with its macmacroeconomic del. Global Insight's model was selected for this analysis because it is a commonly used and widely respected model. It estimated the impact of an increase in annual US military spending equal to 1 percent of GDP (approximately equal to the military spending increase compared with pre-September 11th baseline).
The projections show the following:
-- After an initial demand stimulus, the effect of increased military spending turns negative around the sixth year. After 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in the baseline scenario with lower defense spending.
-- Inflation and interest rates are considerably higher. After 5 years, the interest rate on 10-Year Treasury notes is projected to be 0.7 percentage points higher than in the baseline scenario. After 10 years, the gap would rise to 0.9 percentage points.
-- Higher interest rates lead to reduced demand in the interest-sensitive sectors of the economy. After 5 years, annual car and truck sales are projected to go down by 192,200 in the high military spending scenario. After 10 years, the drop is projected to be 323,300 and after 20 years annual sales are projected to be down 731,400.
-- Construction and manufacturing are the sectors that are projected to experience the largest shares of the job loss.
"It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy," said Baker. "In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."
The report recommends that Congress request the Congressional Budget Office produce its own projections of the economic impact of a sustained increase in defense spending. If wars are disastrous for the economy, then why does government insist upon fighting them when clearly 'national security' is simply not at risk?--Report Shows Increased US Military Spending Slows Economy
For big government we now have "The Perfect War," everywhere and nowhere, secret and interminable. The war will justify ever expanding police powers, higher taxes, and more controls over the citizenry. You can see easily how Washington thrives on war. Since Sept 11th, there have been no nasty challenges to government spending and waste, no tedious debates over things like social security "lockboxes," nor "political" attacks upon the Presidency. Congressmen and Think Tank experts get lots of TV time and most everyone jumps to obey government orders and support more regulations. Any groups opposed to American military interventions overseas appear unpatriotic and are marginalized, while press coverage of the war is restricted, using the last Gulf War as a model. Big Government, as Orwell wrote, thrives from unwinnable wars; it doesn't get any better than this. --John Basil Utley, Alternative to Unending War, Ludwig von Mises InstituteWar is no longer waged by nations but by huge multi-national corporations hijacking the apparatus of state for the purposes and aims of war. Simply, the big corporations make their 'living' killing people. The most obvious beneficiaries are gun and armament manufacturers and the hired killers of Blackwater, Bush's Praetorian Guard. The manner in which John McCain has whored himself out to various huge corporation --all benefiting from Iraq --is a case worthy of careful study. The amount of money that McCain has raised by selling out to the war lobbies and profiteers is enough to make true patriots puke.
If you're a CEO of one of America's largest corporations and have enjoyed the Presidency of George W. Bush, a contribution to the McCain campaign is looking like a pretty good investment.A new report from the Center For American Progress Action Fund finds that a key piece of John McCain's tax plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% — would cut taxes by almost $45 billion every year for America's 200 largest corporations as identified by Fortune Magazine.The fact that the MIC is enriched by a war that depresses, in fact, destroys the economy is the picture of a parasite which kills its host! It's also the very image of tyranny.Eight companies — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Bank ??of America Corp., AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft Corp. — would each receive over $1 billion a year.
The following table shows the tax savings to America's five largest firms. See a full list of all 200 companies and their savings under McCain here:These giveaways are just one part of McCain's doubling of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which would create the largest deficits in 25 years and drive the United States into the deepest deficits since World War II.
A recent analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund found that John McCain's campaign has received $5.6 million from the PACs and executives of the Fortune 200.Over the past eight years, under George W. Bush, American workers have seen their wages stagnate as corporate profits have skyrocketed. John McCain's misguided priorities show he's more of the same: the same $45 billion in tax cuts for America's 200 largest companies could be used to lift over 9 million Americans out of poverty
--NEW REPORT: McCain Would Give America's 200 Largest Corporations $45 Billion In Tax Breaks»
A tyrant is a single ruler holding vast, if not absolute power through a state or in an organization. The term carries connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who place their own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which they govern or control. This mode of rule is referred to as tyranny. Many individual rulers or government officials get accused of tyranny, with the label almost always a matter of controversy.One is reminded of John Maynard Keynes' prescription for full employment.- Tyranny
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.Certainly --there are more productive, meaningful and creative ways of keeping the genius and labor of good people employed for the greater good of our species and the precious earth we live on. Keynes was correct, however, when he proposes that just 'digging' up bank notes in a landfill is preferable to the destructive and insidious 'industry of war'!
(Image credit: www.barrysternberg.com)
Whoa!
According to this Business Journal report:
A new payroll report shows that nearly 80,000 private-sector jobs were lost across the country in June.
The National Employment Report from Automatic Data Processing showed a loss of 76,000 jobs among goods-producing businesses, the 19th consecutive monthly decline. That number included 44,000 manufacturing positions. The report also showed a decline of 3,000 jobs in the services sector.
Economists polled by Briefing.com had expected jobs to decline by 20,000 in June.
That's a lot of people.
Most jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector. If the whole sector is in the gutter, and nobody's interesting in additional services due to the recession, where are these people going to go? I'm going to follow news developments to test out a couple of hypotheses:
–When a blue-collar labor force gets hit hard like that, they migrate to where jobs are. Like Australia.
–America, after the election, is going to wise up and rebuild its infrastructure, giving laid-off employees a new place to work.
–Crime will rise.
What do you think? Any other outcomes? 80,000 lay-offs in a month is a lot.
What do you do if you need a passport in less than three weeks? Don't shell out for one of those passport expediters, call your Member of Congress. They have these things called constituent liaisons, whose whole reason for existence is prodding other executive agencies. This is the number one way to get a passport quickly. Call the district office for your Congress Critter, which is the number that doesn't start with 202. A list of Members of Congress can be found here. Another thing to try is paying the extra $60 at the USPS for expedited passport service. The best thing to do is, of course, apply early, but if for some reason that hasn't happened, getting a hold of a constituent liaison is the way to go.
RELATED: How To Get Your Passport On Time
(Photo: Maulleigh)
Happy couples have affairs: research :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation: "Relationship researchers are finding evidence that may be unsettling to many married couples: Sexual affairs aren’t limited to those in unhappy unions.
Among findings:
Couples who report ‘‘pretty happy’’ marriages are twice as likely to have had an affair as those who have ‘‘very happy’’ marriages, says a study in May’s ‘‘Journal of Marriage and Family. ’’"
JPMorgan Chase: JPMorgan Chase Accidentally Breaks Into Your House And Steals Everything You Own
Bobo and Joy Dickson bought a house had been headed for foreclosure, but JPMorgan Chase apparently didn't get the message that the former owners had moved out and the new owners were in residence. So, naturally, they hired a firm to drill the Dickson's locks and take everything they owned, including their food. Now JPMorgan Chase is "taking it seriously."
"We take this very seriously, and we are working with EMC [a mortgage company JPMorgan Chase owns] and the family's attorney to make this right," said Tom Kelly, a JPMorgan spokesman.
After the Dickson's bought the house back in May, the foreclosure proceedings were supposed to have been stopped. They weren't. That's when the former owner's mortgage company (owned by JPMorgan Chase) hired "Field Asset Services Inc." to drill the locks and "empty the house," according to the Austin American-Statesmen. Field Asset Services claims that the Dickson's possessions were given to area thrift stores, but they have been unable to locate them.
Ordinarily, when personal possessions are left in a foreclosed home a court order is needed to remove the items and the owners are given the opportunity to reclaim them within 24 hours. JPMorgan Chase says its not sure if there was a court order in this case.
Elizabeth Bradburn, the Dicksons' real estate agent, is organizing an effort to collect donations for the family. She said gift cards to furniture and household goods stores are preferred and may be sent to the Dicksons' business address: 9800 N. Lamar Blvd.,
No. 315, Austin TX 78753.
"It's been awesome to see people mobilize and want to help out," Hance [Dicksons' attorney] said. "The Dicksons are, of course, very grateful and touched by the outpouring of support from the community."
Cedar Park couple sues Austin company in foreclosure mix-up [American-Statesmen](Thanks, Ron!)
Wal-Mart violated Minnesota labor laws, could pay billions in damages - BloggingStocks: "A Minnesota state judge has ruled that Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) violated state laws involving rest breaks and wage-related issues two million times and could face $2 billion in damages. The judge is threatening to impose a fine of $1,000 for each offense. He also ruled that the company pay current and former employees $6.5 million in compensation for contractual violations."
Video shows woman dying on psych floor :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation: "NEW YORK — City hospital officials promised reforms at a Brooklyn psychiatric ward where surveillance footage captured a woman falling from her chair, writhing on the floor and dying as workers watched without helping for more than an hour.
Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, falling face down on the floor."
Pixar's new movie Wall-E is about a crass consumer culture that eventually ruins the planet by completely covering it with pointless garbage. Humanity, unable to consume itself out of an environmental crisis, moves to space, where it endlessly vacations on giant cruise-ship like habitats. The planet is governed by a huge Walmart-esque mega-store called "Buy 'N Large." In order to celebrate this anti-consumption message, Disney has apparently been giving out cheap plastic watches, and has launched a "Buy 'N Large" website where you can buy movie merchandise. [Slog]
Today is basic math day at CrunchGear where we discovered that if 160 bytes of SMS data costs twenty cents then 1MB (1,048,576 bytes) of data would cost 131,072 cents, or $1,310.72.
Check out the prices for a text message plan on AT&T, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone 3G in the United States. AT&T wants twenty cents ($0.20) per text message if you don't sign up for a plan. A text message is nothing more than 160 bytes of data. The max is 160 characters, and one character equals one byte of data. Great.
In other words, if AT&T charged data downloads at the rate they charge text messages downloading 1MB of data would cost you $1,310.72.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
So the Dutch, ever attuned to ruffling feathers and then giving the finger to the duck, have produced a documentary on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby." You might remember that thesis, originally circulated in the London Review of Books, for its argument that American Zionist groups, namely AIPAC, and various evangelical backers of Israel, who believe the holy land is the return depot of the Son of Man, control U.S. foreign policy. How much so? Well, the word "strangle-hold" was used, until the authors wisely decided to drop it. And we apparently went to war in Iraq as a personal favor to Ariel Sharon ("One for the road, Bulldozer.")
You might also remember "The Israel Lobby" from its expanded version as an eponymous book with the aesthetics of the Israeli and American flags interwoven and which drew universally hostile reviews on both the left and the right (when's the last time you can remember the Nation sort of agreeing with Commentary?), as well from both the neoconservative and "realist" schools of foreign policy. Those who didn't speculate as to Mearsheimer and Walt's tenebrous motives concluded that their scholarship was mostly fifth-rate, and that their reasoning was just as good.
The loud and angry chorus quietened to a murmuring panel discussion after Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations came to the cool-headed determination: "Their use of evidence is uneven. At the level of geopolitics, their handling of the complex realities and crosscurrents of the Middle East fails to establish either the incontestable definition of the national interest that their argument requires or the superiority they claim for the policies they propose."
But Mearsheimer and Walt's biggest problem was a category one: They depicted the "lobby" as encompassing every strain of opinion with respect to Israel, thus nullifying its definition as an undifferentiated, monomaniacal force. Had they written a book entitled Jews Argue, they'd have sold fewer copies but made much the same underlying point. As Mead put it: "Since virtually every possible policy position is supported by some element of this lobby, the lobby never loses no matter what happens in Washington — like the man who always 'wins' at roulette because he puts a chip on every square."
Of course, the only real "lobby" the pair wound up calling attention to was the self-martyrdom one run by simpering intellectuals. Dare criticize the Jewish state, goes a certain kind of reverse messianic logic, and you'll never work in this town again. Not many reviewers denounced Mearsheimer and Walt as anti-Semites, at least not in public; Mead said they stupidly trafficked in all the wrong tropes, but probably out of illiteracy and ignorance—they certainly weren't aware of much Middle Eastern and American history, so this rationale didn't seem willfully naive. Yet those who did denounce them as Jew-haters were held up as proof of one part of their shoddy grievance; namely, that a contingent of powerful and influential Jews and Christians are always standing guard to protect not only the sanctity of the American-Israeli special relationship, but to deny that such a protection even exists.
Strange, then, that even the putative "victims" of AIPAC don't seem all that victimized. Mearsheimer and Walt are both still gainfully employed academics, and the fact that the present documentary isn't airing on U.S. television owes to how irrelevant and old the controversy has become, which fact hasn't stopped the inevitable whispers about a backroom censorship campaign. Was it censorship when the essay and book were being blogged and written about ad nauseum in every magazine and newspaper in the country?
Tony Judt, one of Mearsheimer and Walt's more mainstream boosters, who whether by accident or design looks more and more like Isaac Babel, parlayed his defense of them into an occasion for a good headline-grabbing whine. An invitation issued to him to speak at the Polish consulate in New York was rescinded after Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League placed a hectoring phone call to the little sliver of Warsaw on the Hudson and reminded whoever was in charge that Judt had some provocative ideas about the future of Israel. Yet that same Polish government, as Judt indicates in this documentary, is "not very attractive" and therefore prone to take decisions he would not agree with—like informing Tony Judt that his speaking services are no longer required. He now discloses that when the New York Times commissioned him to write an op-ed on the original London Review article, the paper forced him to acknowledge in print that he was Jewish. Judt might have declined to do that on principle and instead shopped his piece around elsewhere, but he didn't. Is his point that no one gets away clean from the tentacular reaches of the lobby, which is still not a "conspiracy," as his editorial plangently announced in its title?
As for Foxman, his campaign to stifle the introduction of a House resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide –- because he was afraid it'd piss off Turkey, Israel's only military ally in the Levant –- failed. They don't make Zionist praetorians like they used to, I guess. (I should probably add here that, in my capacity as associate editor of Jewcy magazine, I helped coordinate two Manhattan rallies against Foxman and the ADL for their shameful agitation. It still wasn't enough to take me off their fucking mailing list.)
Then there is the more recent case of Joe Klein. On Time's Swampland blog last week, he composed a post entitled "Surge Protection," which made some mundane observations about the state of security in Iraq (it's better), but then ended with this hiccup:
The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives—people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary—plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.
The little diddums. Klein must have known that would call down the Hebraic thunder, and it did. As best I can tell, he was doing what he's been doing since he learned how to blog and read virulent comments, many of which routinely brand him a neocon warmonger — he was pandering. Not that there aren't prominent Jewish neoconservatives who plumped for war, mind you. But it was the crankish types who keep track of such tribal affiliations that "raised the question of divided loyalties."
The curious thing about Klein, though is, as Mickey Kaus noted, "It's now a week later, and as far as I can tell [he] still has his job. He's still blogging (wondering 'why Lieberman is so fixated on Iran'). He hasn't been publically rebuked by his employer. He hasn't been forced to issue a groveling apology."
Mary McCarthy once wrote an eloquent and vigorous defense of Hannah Arendt, and described the effect of being one of the few Gentiles in conversation with Jews where the topic was Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt's molten treatment of the "banality of evil" that burned its way through the salons of the Upper West Side in the early 60's. McCarthy said it was "like [being] a child with a reading defect in a class of normal readers."
You can be Jewish and sometimes feel that way, too.
Coldplay and their record label are giving undiscovered bands the chance to 'open' for the group in San Jose, Chicago, Philly, Hartford, Washington D.C. and Boston by entering an online contest.
To enter, bands need to submit an original song performance via YouTube.
For those of you who are considering the contest — read the contest rules and fine print closely.
You could see your YouTube performance being used in ways you're not happy with and you won't be able to do anything about it!
There's even a line in the rules that says that Coldplay's record company can place your band's song on a compilation album and they wouldn't be required to pay up for usage.
It gets worse.
By submitting your bands' performance of an original song, Coldplay's record people have the exclusive option to sign your band to what appears to be a crappy record deal.
Is playing with Coldplay really worth giving up even an ounce of control over your original material?
Think about it hard!
[Image via WENN.]
An anti-sweatshop organization says the State of Illinois "does business with companies that are linked to sweatshops." That's in violation of an executive order.
The full report from SweatFree Communities outlines the ways tax dollars "increase the downward pressure on labor rights, wages, and working conditions." Illinois buys uniforms and apparel from Fechheimer, Dickies and Blauer, companies SweatFree says violate their workers' rights. SweatFree says workers at Fechheimer's factory in Honduras are forced to work overtime, are paid below minimum wage, work in unsafe conditions, and female employees are subject to pregnancy test and are fired if they're pregnant. The report says at Dickies's factories in Pakistan, workers earn less than a living wage and worker organizing is forbidden, and that Blauer's factories in China use child labor. According to the Sun-Times, "A state official said the companies are in compliance with multiple anti-sweatshop efforts." [S-T]
As we noted last month, the New Village Academy is a private school in Calabasas set to open its doors Sept. 3, founded by Will Smith and wife/appearances-upholder Jada Pinkett Smith. It has become a source of much controversy for having several Scientologists on its staff, who espouse a number of L. Ron Hubbard-advanced learning concepts in the curriculum: among them, the meaninglessly designated "study technology" programme for effective and complete child mind-absorption. The Smiths—still not public with their Scientology affiliations—claim to only be committed to creating "an ideal educational environment." But Carnegie Mellon University professor David S. Touretzky, who has dissected study technology like a rusty E-meter and found it to be about as useful, warns parents away from this particular learning institution, lest they want to find themselves helping with homework essays entitled, "What I Did on My Billion-Years of Servitude Vacation." From the LAT:
Touretzky said many phrases and concepts on the school's website are specific to Scientology. For example, the school lists a "Director of Qualifications" and another teacher who is an assistant in the "Qual" department. The "Qual," said Touretzky, is where people who have completed a Scientology counseling, or "auditing," session or a course in the Church of Scientology are tested by a qualifications teacher.
"There is no reputable educator anywhere who endorses [study technology]," said Touretzky, a critic of Scientology. "What happens is that children are inculcated with Scientology jargon and are led to regard L.R. Hubbard as an authority figure. They are laying the groundwork for later bringing people into Scientology."
Certainly, these fringe educational techniques should give any parent cause for concern—as should the enrollment procedure, which involves the whisking away of potential students "for testing" by a pair navy-blazered school officials. Several weeks later, a letter comes in the mail alerting the anxious parents that not only did their child "pass our rigorous admissions process with flying colors," but that they could "actually come visit your son or daughter floating in our Subaqueous I.Q.-Infusion Tanks" at mid-semester break.
Broom sales are booming in Chicago for the second straight week after the White Sox completed the three-game sweep of the Cubs at U.S. Cellular Field this weekend, a week after the Cubs did the same thing at Wrigley.
The fireworks began early on Friday afternoon, when Nick Swisher's grand slam capped a seven-run third inning as the Sox demolished the Cubs 10-3 in the series opener.
In Saturday's contest, the Sox jumped out to another lead before relinquishing it and then coming from behind to win 6-5. The Sox's revamped bullpen held the Cubs scoreless for 4 2/3 innings while Carlos Quinten supplied the game-winning homer in the seventh.
Home runs fueled the Sox's sweep-clinching 5-1 victory on Sunday, too: Quentin, Brian Anderson and Jim Thome all went yard.
With the Red Line rivalry finished for the year—unless they meet again in October—both teams' fans can hold their heads up equally high. Both teams defended their home turf all three times, and the all-time Cubs-Sox series is tied 33-33. If our two teams should cross paths again in the post-season, we're in for a real treat if these series were any indication.
AP Photo/Brian Kersey, AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
The evidence collected from rape victims after they've been assaulted goes into something called a rape kit. It's the product of a lengthy and uncomfortable examination process that, according to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, far too often leads to nothing. Some 400,000 rape kits are sitting in storage, untested, right now.
Los Angeles Times:
The National Institute of Justice estimates that at least 400,000 rape kits are sitting untested in police stations and crime labs across the country. In the city of Los Angeles alone, more than 7,000 sit in refrigerated storage in a city warehouse facility and a trailer behind police headquarters. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department likely has its own backlog, but the sheriff has never disclosed its size.
Law enforcement officials blame a lack of resources—for starters, they need more crime lab staff. But it's hard not to surmise that the problem is, in reality, a matter of priorities. Among L.A. City Council members, only Jack Weiss has insisted on budget increases to address the rape kit backlog. This year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa rejected the LAPD's funding request to hire more crime lab staff.
If I were a rape victim, I might never know whether my rape kit was opened. I might assume that silence from the police meant that the crime lab just didn't find any DNA, or none that identified my assailant. Although not every tested rape kit yields a database match, when New York City processed all its backlogged rape kits in 2003, the effort led to about 2,000 hits.
On Sept. 4, 21-year-old Joshua Pomier will have served nearly four years in a detention center near San Bernardino, Calif. Pomier is charged with multiple counts of car theft and robbery. There are two deeply troubling problems with the amount of time he has spent behind bars. One, he has not been convicted of any of the crimes he's charged with. He had barely turned 18 years old when he and another juvenile were arrested for the crimes in September 2004. Pomier and family members vehemently protest his innocence. The even more tormenting problem is not Pomier's guilt or innocence, but the absurdly long length of time that he has been jailed awaiting disposition, any disposition, of the charges leveled against him.
His bail was set at nearly a half million dollars, and there have been several delayed court dates. During that time, he has been relentlessly pressured to accept a plea bargain that will require him to serve a lengthy prison sentence. Pomier has refused, and continues to protest his innocence.
Pomier is African American, and his dragged out incarceration without being convicted of anything is not unusual. In fact, he's a near textbook example of how thousands of mostly black and Latino young adults and juveniles languish for months, even years, in America's jails with high or no bail, receive shoddy or non-existent legal counsel, and are browbeaten and even threatened by harried, overworked, and often indifferent public defenders and prosecutors to accept deals.
The Coalition for Juvenile Justice estimates that on any given day, nearly 30,000 youth between the ages of 14 and 18 years old are locked down in juvenile detention centers nationally for interminably long periods awaiting disposition of their cases. Even with the plunge in juvenile and adult crime, the numbers of youth and young adults incarcerated for lengthy pre-detention jail time nearly doubled in the 1990s. During the same time, the rates of excessive pre-trial detention time dropped for white youth.
The young adult defendants are nearly always faced with excessively high bail, and for juveniles, no bail. In the juvenile system, most states do not permit bail. Juveniles are considered wards of the court, and pretrial release is solely at the discretion of the judge. High bail, or lack of bail, clog court calendars, and overcrowded jails virtually ensure that defendants such as Pomier get lost in the system without any disposition of their case. In one study, the Sentencing Project found that blacks on average were held for a year or more without any action on their case.
American Axle CEO's reward for slashing wages--$8.5 million bonus
American Axle CEO Richard Dauch was awarded an $8.5 million bonus for defeating the three-month strike by 3,650 auto workers and successfully imposing deep wage and benefit cuts on the company’s hourly workforce, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Friday.
In addition to the bonus Dauch received $1.5 million salary, stock awards and other compensation, which brought his total to $18.7 million in 2007, more than double his compensation in 2006. Dauch, one of the highest paid auto industry executives, has pocketed over $300 million since leading a group of private investors who took over several auto parts factories from General Motors in 1994.
Auto workers in Michigan and New York went on strike last February to oppose wage cuts of up to 50 percent. The bitter 87-day walkout was isolated and betrayed by the United Auto Workers bureaucracy, which had agreed to substantial rollbacks even before the strike began.
The new contract cut wages from $28 an hour to $14.50 and to as low as $10 an hour at the company’s Three Rivers, Michigan plant. In addition, the company is closing two plants and eliminating 2,000 of 3,650 jobs, including 1,100 in Detroit.
In its SEC filing, the company noted that its board of directors had delayed its decision on bonuses pending the outcome of the strike. It boasted that the new agreement had achieved “numerous changes that will structurally and permanently reduce AAM’s U.S. labor cost structure, improve AAM’s operating flexibility and increase capacity utilization.”
The board’s compensation committee—made up of fellow millionaires, including auto executives and Wall Street investors—decided to award higher bonus payments to “reward AAM’s leadership team for their accomplishments and commitment during a period of significant change in our industry and to motivate them.”
Due to the “successful resolution of our negotiations with the UAW,” the statement read, the compensation committee had scrapped its plans to give executives a 4 percent increase based on the company’s posting of a $37 million profit last year. Instead the top executives were given increases of from 44 to 200 percent.
These included Vice Chairman & Chief Technology Officer Yogendra N. Rahangdale, who received $1.58 million in compensation; Dauch’s son and newly appointed president and chief operating officer, David Dauch, who was paid $1.27 million; and Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer & Secretary Patrick S. Lancaster, who got $1.03 million.
During the course of the strike Dauch repeatedly insisted the company could not afford to pay wages of $28 an hour. He insisted that such wages were not “market competitive” and that it was necessary to eliminate “the Detroit entitlement mentality,” by which he meant the belief that workers should be able to make a decent wage and have certain benefits.
Under the terms of his compensation package Dauch earned approximately $9,000 an hour or $360,000 a week last year, between 500 and 900 times more than American Axle workers will make under the new contract.
There is no question that there exists an entitlement mentality within the top echelons of Detroit’s auto executives, who are reaping vast rewards even as their companies teeter on the brink of financial ruin and are wiping out tens of thousands of jobs. In large measure the payoffs are the direct result of the massive cost savings achieved by the historic concession contracts signed by the UAW and the further downsizing of the industry, which continued with Monday’s announcement that Chrysler will shut one of its St. Louis plants, eliminating another 1,500 jobs.
GM, which recently announced the closing of four North American plants at a cost of 8,000 jobs and has seen its stock value plunge to record lows, almost doubled Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner’s compensation package, from $5.5 million last year to $10.2 million this year.
Alan Mulally, Ford president and chief executive officer, was paid a total 2007 compensation of $21.67 million. Visteon’s CEO Michael Johnston, who oversaw the company going from a $163 million loss in 2006 to a $372 million loss in 2007, earned $10,783,136, according to the company’s latest SEC filing.
The announcement of Dauch’s bonus was met with disgust and anger among American Axle workers, who suffered devastating economic consequences due to the strike.
John, a skilled worker at the Detroit plant, said, “This is an insult. It demonstrates that the person who owns the big toys makes the rules. Dauch can whipsaw workers against each other, seeing who will work for less, in order to benefit himself.
“The company is now going to be closing additional facilities in Detroit, in addition to the shutdown of the Detroit Forge plant accepted in the contract. Operations have already been halted in plants three and six, which produce truck and automotive axles. We think they plan to re-tool those plants and open them up under another name and pay even less.
“The production has been shifting to the Three Rivers, Michigan plant. The workers at that plant—which was originally going to be closed—saw their wages beaten down to keep it open.
“The protections we enjoyed in the past with union rules don’t exist anymore. There is no representation. The reps walk through the plants with their tails tied behind their legs.
“Dauch played a good game and paid good money to their financial advisors on how to do this to us. They were successful and now they expect to be rewarded.
“What’s my reward? I probably have to take a buyout because if I stay they will abuse me until they get me and other higher-paid workers to leave. The market is not very good to find another job, but I have no choice.”
See Also:
The political lessons of the American Axle strike
[31 May 2008]
New Geography, a new site "devoted to analyzing and discussing the places where we live and work," is feature Chicago stories this week, and they're really interesting.
"Our focus on Chicago shows that this spirit of opportunistic boosterism has not been lost," according to one essay.
It is this more gilded, elegant Chicago – home of arguably the nation's and even the world's greatest collection of 20th Century high-rise structures – that foreshadows the current city. The success of Millennium Park, the powerful if now fading condo boom, the city's newfound celebratory culture (think Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama), its growth in fine restaurants, nightclubs and other entertainments has persuaded some observers like the University of Chicago's Terry Nichols Clark to declare that Chicago is indeed the model city of the future.
Well, not so fast. According to another essay, "By any traditional performance standards Chicago has failed."
Chicago's political elite love to give speeches about the importance of public education, but not for their children. Mayor Daley sent his children to private schools. Deborah Lynch, the former head of the Chicago Teacher's Union, sent her kids to private schools. America's newest political superstar, Barack Obama, sends his kids to private schools. With the exodus of the rich from Chicago's public schools, 69 percent of the children in the Chicago Public School system are poor.
The horrible public schools, high taxes, and crime have driven families out of Chicago. The city's job base cannot compete with anti-union places like Houston and Phoenix.
The fight between longtime Bridgeport staple Jimbo's lounge and landlords Ray and Donna DeGrazia took an unexpected twist when recent court filings indicated that the DeGrazias had reached an oral agreement to replace Jimbo's with a John Barleycorn. Barleycorn owner Sam Sanchez eventually backed out of the deal due to the continuing court battles and twists involving Jimbo's protracted eviction, which even owners Jimbo and Joyce Levato admitted is ultimately an academic conclusion.
Still, even the thought of a John Barleycorn at the corner of 33rd and Wells is enough to give one douche chills and believe in the saying "Hell freezes over." Understandably, Bridgeport residents interviewed in the story weren't pleased to hear that a Barleycorn was what the DeGrazias had in store for the space. You would think that lifelong Bridgeport residents like the DeGrazias would have their fingers on the pulse of the neighborhood.
Nice of the Sun-Times to wait until the Crosstown Classic shifts to Sox Park today to run with the article, as well. We're trying to prevent fist fights from breaking out this afternoon, Bright One. We must admit to having some curiosity about being within walking distance of one of the world's best beer bars.
An article in today's New York Times travel section focuses on our city's thriving Hispanic culture, Pilsen in particular, calling it "Chicago's fashionable Latino neighborhood." It's no secret that we here at Chicagoist are fans of the plentiful eats there. But, as the article points out, Pilsen is more than just food -- it is where the epicenter of Mexican culture and energy is in Chicago.
"It's happening so fast," said Carlos Tortolero, who came to Chicago from Mexico at age 3 and, as a 28-year-old school teacher in 1982, started what would become the National Museum of Mexican Art, the city's leading Latino cultural organization. "It's becoming a very Mexican city."
The museum made a name for itself in 2006 when it opened an exhibition about the influence of Africans in Mexico. In a city known for its racial separation, blacks flocked to Pilsen for the show. This summer, the museum will insert itself into the national political debate with an exhibition opening on the Fourth of July — "A Declaration of Immigration" — that will go beyond painting and sculpture to present data to argue that point. "It is pro-American to be pro-immigrant," Mr. Tortolero said.
As it's a travel article, the piece doesn't go into the gentrification issues that concern many within the neighborhood, only briefly referring to the "Anglo newcomers" that have moved in.
"Right now we're co-existing," said Sylvia Rivera, general manager of a youth-programmed radio station, WRTE-FM (www.wrte.org), based in Pilsen and owned by the National Museum of Mexican Art. "Hopefully, we'll be able to do that and share, as well."
Such a heartening sight, seeing Cubs and White Sox fans come together to stomp the shit out of a bothersome fan in their midst. But what could elicit such solidarity? Busted Coverage had the report and video:
The Sox fan near the pole was talking trash from the beginning, so in the 4th inning he started talking about the guy in the Thome Jersey's "family"…then an old guy stepped up and off they went…
A good minute goes by with no security, the guy gets owned by a bunch of cubs and sox fans.
he still fights the security…continues struggling, as his eye is black and swelling shut, they handcuff him throw his shirt over his head and get him out of there.
Sounds like he had it coming. Next time you'll think twice about messing with JI
JIM THOME.
Last night was EPIC. I had one of those movie experiences that only happens once in a long long time, where you leave the theater completely blown away by what you just experienced. Folks, this isn't hype - The Dark Knight is a movie will destroy your expectations.
Not only did I get to see The Dark Knight, but I got to see it with one of my favorite directors / one of my idols - Kevin Smith was my guest. How cool is that? I honestly didn't plan to name drop, but it seems like Smith talked about it in his latest blog entry. And as cool as that sounds, and was, Nolan was some how able to completely overshadow that fact with his new film. I'm under embargo not to review the movie until release (not that Warner Bros would shoot me over the completely glowing review I plan on posting), but Smith gives his breif spoiler free review which almost completely echos my own thoughts.
"Without giving anything away, this is an epic film (and trust me: based on the sheer size and scope of the visuals and storytelling, that's not an overstatement). It's the "Godfather II" of comic book films and three times more earnest than "Batman Begins" (and fuck, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn't so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I'm not the first to suggest this, but he'll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. Fucking flick's nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece."
Smith also released a new image from Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
The director says a theatrical poster and trailer are on the way as well. I'm guessing they will hit the first week of August with Pineapple Express.
Related Stories:
From Cajun Boy's blog comes the news that journeyman local news anchor Ron Hunter—who is thought by some to be the inspiration for Ron Burgundy in Anchorman—has passed away at the age of 70. "In his long career, Ron Hunter anchored top rated local news desks in New Orleans, Miami, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Chicago, where he shared the desk with the likes of Jane Pauley and Maury Povich." After jump, one of the late newsman's former colleagues remembers his ego-driven antics, er, fondly?
Ed Kilgore, who worked with Hunter in Buffalo, recalls:
Ron Hunter had THE biggest ego of any person male or female I've ever worked with, and it's not even close. It was actually quite incredible how much Ron valued his own opinions and appearance, and yet in a strange way, he made it seem natural; like, doesn't EVERYBODY think like I do? You want an example? Ok, for starters, when Ron began anchoring at Ch2 after moving to Buffalo from New Orleans, where he virtually owned the market, we didn't call it Ch2 News, or Action News, or even News news. We called it, "The Ron Hunter Report". Not only that, Ron had a special animated opening made up, which featured a likeness of Ron, with his big buffont hair-do, running around with a microphone as if he's out getting the scoop. The show then opens, with Ron leaning into the camera, and with a booming voice "I'm Ron Hunter, and the big story in Buffalo is....." The standing joke around the news room, of course, was that the next word would be "me".
Ron was the actor of our generation, and seemed proud of it. He often BECAME the story, which was ok if it helped the ratings, and it often did. Oh, so you want an example? Here's one, and forgive me for forgetting the names, but Ron once did a tear jerking story about a young girl of 9 or 10 years old who was dying, who gave a vital organ to a girl her age so that the ailing young girl could have a nice future. Ron did some amazing interviews with the parents of both girls, and then in the story, used closeup shots of both girls with appropriate, gut-wrenching music behind them as we dissolved back and forth between the two adorable young faces. Heck, I'm crying just thinking about it. Anyway, do we fade to black here? Are you KIDDING? Heck no. I hear Ron instruct the cameraman to zoom in very close when he wraps up the story, so we finally come out of the story, and there isn't a dry eye in the studio or newsroom, and Ron hesitates...one beat....two beats.....three beats....a big tear — a REAL tear I'm telling you — gushes down from one eye, as Ron actually whispers on camera, "we'll be right back". You can't make this stuff up. Ron Hunter WAS Ron Burgundy in Anchorman if ever there was somebody to base it on.
Yay! Even after the Sci-Fi Channel's space sock-hop Battlestar Galactica finishes its final season next year, there will still be more BSG for all—in movie form! Former Gawker Choire Sicha is reporting for the LA Times that the first of as many as three Battlestar made-for-TV movies has just gotten the go ahead. And he got it right from Pretty Asian Cyclon herself, Grace Park: "'I just heard about the first Battlestar movie being greenlit,' said Park [...] A TV movie, but still! But this—it's like, yeah, it's over but we're ready to move on but nobody's manager or agent has been called. It's supposed to start in August.'" And what can she tell us about the end of the series?
"The cast has so far seen most of the series' final episodes, which will air in (sigh!) 2009. 'There's one episode where everything is explained and I had to read it three times,' Park said. 'I had to sit down with [executive producer] Ron Moore and he had to break it down.'
"Among other tidbits (the interview with Park will run here on July 20), Park also confirmed the presence of a child actor on set—one of the toddlers who plays her character Sharon 'Athena' Agathon's daughter, the Cylon-human offspring Hera." [LAT]
Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.
MSNBC was covering John McCain's speech in front of a Latino conference this morning when he was interrupted by two anti-war protesters. (at about the 1:10 mark) MSNBC's Alex Witt, while speaking off the cuff during a live event, mischaracterized the women as "hecklers."
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Protester: "Your silence is consent to war crimes!"
McCain has been met with protest before in this campaign and it won't be last time he hears strong opposition from the American people on his war. He likes to talk about the freedoms our troops provide us, but on the Straight Talk Express, free speech is limited to those who agree with him and President Bush. Also note how McCain states that he didn't learn to love the United States until he went to Viet Nam.
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)
During a speech to the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials John McCain is asked what he would do to insure that all working and middle class Americans can realize the American dream of home ownership in an era of skyrocketing foreclosures and predatory sub-prime loan programs. For reasons that presumably make sense to him, he launches into a discussion of NCLB and education funding, holding up New York City and New Orleans as examples of Republican success stories in education. Successes, really? Talk about being McOut of Touch.
Your question comes to the heart of what Americans are sitting around the kitchen table tonight and saying "how are we going to afford our home loan mortgage payment," some of…many hundreds of thousands have suddenly and recently lost their jobs. Owning one's own home is part of the American dream. I made a proposal that people who are primary owners of primary residence can go down and get a FHA-guaranteed loan, a 30 year loan that's guaranteed by the FHA at the new value of their home, so they'd be able to make their payments. Now the legislation that was winding its way through the Congress and unfortunately, again, did not pass before the United States Senate went out of session. Again, incredible that Congress should go on vacation while Americans are trying to stay in their homes. That's why…I mean, they also re-authorized No Child Left Behind, with the lessons we learned in the intervening years since we passed it, in a bi-partisan fashion, I would fully fund those programs that have never been fully funded. But let me also say to you: choice and competition. I believe that every family in America should have the same choice that Cindy and I did. We chose to send our children to a Catholic school. That was because we were able to do so. So I believe that charter schools work. I believe that they're not much better than public education, but they provide competition. There are two examples I'd like to mention very briefly: New York City and New Orleans. If you missed it, there is now a dramatic uptick in the performance of school children in New York City, a place where a lot of experts thought there would never be improvement. We ought to go up there and see what Mr. Klein and Mayor Bloomberg and others have done and dedicated educators have done in New York City. New Orleans, they had to start at square one, as you know. There are now 30 charter schools in the city of New Orleans. Anyone will tell you that they're starting to see a dramatic improvement in the quality of education in the city of New Orleans. My friends, choice and competition, reward the teachers, God bless them, find bad teachers another line of work. Choice and competition.
I'll bet Mr. "Choice and Competition" has never seen this documentary.
In an interview with the Orange County Register during his swing through California this week, John McCain was asked, "When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?"
"Oh, I don't remember," McCain answered. "Now there's Secret Service protection. But I've done it for many, many years. I don't recall and frankly, I don't see how it matters."
Off the top, this would seem to indicate that McCain is out of touch with the concerns of regular Americans. The classic instance of this was in the 1992 campaign when George Bush Sr. appeared not to know what the optical scanner was in a supermarket checkout.
And while it's true that the price of gas doesn't matter to a guy like McCain, whose wife has $100 million in assets, it strains credulity that he doesn't know what gas costs.
The spike in gas prices has been one of the most-covered stories in the past few months. And we know he's aware of it because he did a 180-degree flipflop on offshore drilling this month for the sole purpose of addressing the rising price of oil.
And even if for some reason he didn't know he was recommending risking the natural beauty of the coasts of California, Florida and elsewhere for the sole reason that gasoline prices are going through the roof, is it possible he has failed to notice the signs at gas stations as he motors around the country in his chauffeured SUVs?
If he is not out of touch, the only other conclusion is that McCain was annoyed by the question and, on an impulse, he simply lied when he said he didn't know what gas costs.
If so, he really is just like George Bush Jr., for whom lying is an apparently irresistible impulse — a reflex.
What is also similar to Bush here (at least in his first term) is that whether McCain's answer was a gaffe that revealed him to be out of touch or whether it was a lie, the media will ignore it. As a writer at Newshogger put it, "[If] Obama had said it you would hear about nothing else on the Sunday talking heads shows and it would be on the front page of all the major papers. But St John gets a pass."
Same as it ever was.
A military official is quoted as saying Tehran would respond to a confrontation over its nuclear program.
Beirut - The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said the government might shut down vital oil lanes through the Persian Gulf if the country were attacked by the United States or Israel, according to a newspaper report Saturday.
The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership.
Is this someone's idea of fair and balanced? On the same Newsweek page as a story about how one of heiress Cindy McCain's seven properties — the one in ritzy La Jolla, Calif. — was in tax arrears is a photo gallery of, "A Maverick's Path: A look at John McCain's long and varied service to his country."
Puh-lease! Can the MSM not say the words "John McCain" without simultaneously throwing in, "maverick?" Can we come up with a new inaccurate cliche to apply to this guy? And what's it got to do with Cindy's taxes?
I also guarantee-damn-tee you that a story about how Michelle Obama neglected to pay taxes would not be listed under the heading, "Real Estate." I'm thinking you'd find it under "Politics," "National News," and "Oh Boy, We've Got Him Now!"
CNN's Late Edition dug from their archives this clip of John McCain in August of 1999:
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)
McCain: I think that we must go back to the party platform of 1980 and 1984 - we include people who have specific disagreements who share our same goals. Ultimately, I would like to see the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but to do it immediately, I think, would condemn young women to dangerous and illegal operations.
See, back in 1999, McCain was walking a tightrope by calling himself pro-life on a personal level while at the same time assuring pro-choice voters for pragmatic reasons that "in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade." Yet, today, McCain says bluntly right on his website that "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."
It's really hard to overstate the audacity of those in the media who tried to make Obama's recent decision to opt out of public campaign financing out to be some colossal flip-flop without even mentioning the fact that McCain has now flip-flopped a gazillion times on almost every issue under the sun. To summarize just a few of Steve Benen's list of McCain flip-flops:
And that's not all. There's many many more. In fact, here's an even longer list. McCain has reversed his former positions to fall more in line with the Bush administration so many times now it's really hard to tell Bush and McCain apart (can you beat my 3 out of 5 on the first try?). It might actually be easier to list the issue(s) McCain hasn't (yet) flip-flopped on, although I can't think of a single one right offhand.
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Gee, ya think? The McLaughlin Group panel ponders the deep and abiding love the media has for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, affectionately known to him as "his base".
True love. The press has found it. Smitten by the Republican nominee, John McCain, maverick, here's a sampling of journalists saluting McCain in their own words in recent days:
Kind of like a Martin Luther [Chris Matthews - Hardball]
A man of unshakable character, willing to stand up for his convictions [R.W. Apple, NY Times]
An affable man of zealous, unbending beliefs [Richard Cohen, The Washington Post]
The hero who still does things his own way [Richard Cohen, The Washington Post]
Rises above the pack-eloquent, as only a prisoner of war can be [David Nyhan, The Boston Globe]
The perfect candidate to deal with what challenges we face as a country. [Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC]
Blunt, unyielding, deploying his principles, what he does do is what he's always done, play it as straight as possible. [Terry Moran, Nightline]
Wordly-wise and witty, determined to follow the facts to the exclusion of ideology. [Michael Hirsh, Newsweek]
Willing to defy his own party and forge compromise. [Michael Hirsh, Newsweek]
Pragmatic in the service of the national interest, rises to passion when he believes that America's best values are at stake. [Michael Hirsh, Newsweek]
The maverick candidate still. [Terry Moran, Nightline]
It's enough to make you lose your dinner, I tell you. Michelle Bernard claims that they are just as exultant over Obama, and Pat Buchanan insists the McCain Media love affair is "over. Done. Gone." I'm not sure I'm buying that just yet…
When it comes to religion and faith, everything is inherently subjective, not objective. Simply put, there is no way for the adherents of one faith to know objectively that they're faith is right and that another faith is wrong. Additionally, there's no method of determining an objective truth, and because most religions lack any ability to reconcile with the incompatible beliefs of other faiths, conflict becomes inevitable. Religion tells its adherents what the supposed truth about reality is, but can offer no objective proof thereof.
There exists a process that can determine, objectively and without the need for blind faith and revealed "truth", how reality really works. The name of that process is "science." It's because science claims to be able to discover how reality really functions, without the need for - and yet without demanding the lack of - religious dogma, that many believers have felt so threatened by science that they have sought to inject their creation stories into scientific classrooms. Unfortunately, the state of Louisiana has now become the next battlefield in the ongoing science vs. dogma and evolution vs. creationism conflict.
As I reported earlier this month, the Louisiana state legislature, with prodding from the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), had passed a controversial bill that promotes intelligent design, a form of Biblical creationism in pseudoscientific clothing. Unfortunately, the governor of Louisiana is a believer in intelligent design and has signed the bill into law.
This is a major legislative success for Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, with whom the LFF is strongly associated. And it's a legislative success for a fundamentalist Christian group that worked closely with the Discovery Institute (DI), the premier national organization working to shove creationism down the throats of science teachers nationwide.
If you're concerned about the teaching of religion and non-science in public schools, I urge you to look read the following excellent investigative article at Talk To Action: The Discovery Institute, the LA Family Forum, and the "LA Science Education Act". The author, Barbara Forest, dove deep into the connections between the DI, the LFF, and others, connecting them all together in ways that they probably wish they hadn't been. The most important reason to read her article is to familiarize yourself with tactics the DI, Focus on the Family, the FRC, and the other major fundamentalist Christian groups who are trying to manipulate legislatures around the country with phony academic freedom bills that attempt to make an absolute mockery of science education.
To quote Mad Eye Moody: "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Obama cited the threat of unregulated attack groups - called "527s" because they're authorized to raise unlimited cash under that section of the Internal Revenue Service code - to justify dropping his pledge to
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts' announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq's oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.
Without privitization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.But for another audience, he told a completely different story:
I'm not for, quote, privatize Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.His careless remarks of political expedience with regard to Social Security reveal him to be a typical 'authoritarian' conservative --a psychopath, utterly without empathy, a Republican, in other words. He doesn't really care about how the government misappropriates monies paid into SS or whether or not that money will be there when you are ready to retire. He will have enriched his cronies in the meantime at your expense. That's what 'privatization' is all about.
--Huffington Post
The picture "straight talk" John McCain has been painting of Iraq is one of success and harmony.McCain reminds one of Nixon who always liked to portray himself has having been abused by the mean ol' media. I have news for McCain and address the following observation to him personally: no one asked you to get into politics, John, unless, of course, it was a lobby group who wanted to own you! No one owes you! No one is obligated to you in any way. No one I know has a reason not to call you an lyin' asshole. There are, in fact, so many instances in which the shoe fits.
A place where westerners can walk the streets safely and the commander of the Multinational Force in Iraq can travel around in an unarmed Humvee.
Sounds like "Mission Accomplished", right? The only problem with that scenario is that John McCain's claims about Iraq are completely false.
The Republican Senator from Arizona who wants to be President in 2008 is carrying such a large load of lies that one has to be surprised that the wheels on the "Strait Talk Express" have not blown out as a consequence.
It started on Monday when McCain claimed to radio host Bill Bennett "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today,"
The lie continued on Tuesday when McCain spewed out on CNN that "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee." McCain then claimed that those who said it was unsafe for Americans to leave the heavily fortified "Green Zone" were "giving the old line of three months ago."--McCain Lies To Media, Calls Media "Jerks" After Lies Are Exposed
During an interview yesterday, Fox News's Carl Cameron asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) if it was a "mistake" for McCain to say he knows little about the economy. But McCain denied that he had made any such suggestion, arguing that his past comments were taken "out of context":Taken "out of context?" How many times can McCain be taken out of context? His lies have become the 'context' within which he operates. He is delusional.Watch it (beginning at 1:52):CAMERON: Realistically, was it a mistake for you to suggest that overall your attentiveness to the economy is subordinated by national security?
MCCAIN: As briefly as possible, when you're on the back of the bus for hours with the media if they want to take a phrase out of context thats fine, thats one of the penalties you pay.Aside from the fact that when viewed at face value, his comments speak for themselves, McCain has said he knows little about the economy on numerous occasions, as recently as last December:
In fact, McCain's interview with Cameron wasn't the first time he has denied claiming his economic knowledge is sub-par. NBC's Tim Russert asked him about his "I still need to be educated" on economics claim last January but McCain dodged, saying "I don't know where you got that quote." When Russert asked McCain about the same quote three days later, McCain acknowledged he said it, but never claimed he was taken out of context. McCain simply replied, "Am I, am I smart on economics? Yes."--McCain Claims Lack Of Economics Knowledge Comments Were Taken 'Out Of Context'– Seeking to explain his shift to the left on economic issues, McCain claimed: "I didn't pay nearly the attention to those issues in the past. I was probably a 'supply-sider' based on the fact that I really didn't jump into the issue." [Jan. 2000]
– "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." [Nov. 2005]
– "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," but "I've got Greenspan's book." [Dec. 2007]
John McCain is a recent convert to supply-side economics and still working on getting the talking points down. Speaking yesterday in South Carolina, the straight talker:The typical GOPPER will believe that tax cuts raise revenue because it makes them 'feel better' about themselves, phrase heard from the floor of the 1992 GOP National Convention in Houston, TX. Of course, it's not true. The opposite almost always happens; that misses the point. The point is not that ideology is believed simply because it's true but because: 1) it gives the elite base the cover it needs to escape taxation; 2) it makes crooks feel better about being crooks and liars about being liars; 3) it enriches the elite one percent with pretensions of 'intellectualism' in a party that, in general, disdains the intellectual but is in need of one to quote during a debate! Faux 'intellectuals' thus slanting, compromising their work for political ends are called 'party whores!' You will find lots of them throughout the media.proclaimed himself a believer in the notion that cutting taxes increases revenue for the government by spurring economic growth. "Don't listen to this siren song about cutting taxes," Mr. McCain told supporters gathered here under a tent in a driving rain. "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues."What? Every time? Okay, how about we go back and look at the last time taxes were raised -- 1993. It's true that conservatives predicted revenue would fall as a result of the tax hike. (Typical quote: "Higher taxes will shrink the tax base and reduce tax revenues" -- Newt Gingrich.) But it didn't exactly work out that way ... The amazing thing is that New York Times, which printed McCain's quote, made no effort whatsoever to ascertain the truth of his point.
Just the typical, "McCain says earth is flat, and meanwhile in other news..." stuff. I realize that campaign reporting is hard, and reporters don't usually have time to check on the truth of candidate's statements. (And yes, this is a huge flaw with reporting, but that's another story.)
But this claim is so obviously false it could have been refuted after maybe thirty seconds of research. Didn't the author (Michael Cooper) realize that tax hikes don't always, or even usually, lead to reduced revenue? Does he remember the 1990s? Is he aware that the federal government raised taxes and started collecting dramatically higher revenues during World War II? (Taxes were raised and revenues quintipled.)--The New Republic
In an interview posted on the website of the London Telegraph last week, John Bolton, one of the most belligerent of the neocon war hawks, predicted that Israel will attack Iran sometime after the U.S. presidential elections November 4 and January 21, the day George Bush and Dick Cheney leave office.
"An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy."
– Bolton
Bombing Iran has long been a neocon objective. Last February, New Yorker reporter revealed that Dick Cheney had secret plans for creating an "open confrontation" with Iran and that Pentagon was at ready to start bombing with 24 hours of a signal from the White House. One supposedly non-neocon pol who was on board then was John McCain. During a campaign stop in South Carolina in April 2007, McCain made a joke of bombing Iran by singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys song, "Barbara Ann."
But Bolton now believes Bush and his senior aides have succumbed to political reality and will not pursue the attack using U.S. forces. According to the Telegraph, Bolton said, "It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility… I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."
About his suggested timeframe of November to January, Bolton said, "The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defenses by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations.
"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgment is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."
Bolton suggests that Israel will attack Iran on Bush's watch because they fear that if Barack Obama is elected, he would stand in the way of such of an attack, because Obama has signaled he would seek negotiations with Iran before bombing. "An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," he said.
About the approach of John McCain, Bolton said, "With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran's side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development." Bolton is a McCain supporter.
Bush named Bolton as his UN ambassador as a recess appointment in 2005, but he only served a year because Democrats in the Senate refused to confirm him.
