John Sidney McCain III is known among many of his Vietnam flight buddies as "Ace" McCain. This title has not
been bestowed upon McCain because he destroyed five enemy aircraft. On the contrary: It was five on our side --
in fact, five of his own. Since throwing his hat into the presidential ring, the fact that McCain was graduated
from the U.S. Naval Academy nearly at the bottom of his class has been publicized. His star-crossed flying, on
the other hand, remains unknown to most.
...
There's not much I can add to that. Another quote from the same article:
"John McCain," says another Navy pilot and acquaintance of that era, "was the kind of guy you wanted to room
with -- not fly with. He was reckless, and that's critical when you start thinking about who's going to be the
president," [t]he old pilot laughs, and then continues: "But the Navy accident rate was cut in half the day John
McCain was shot down."
There is no requirement that a president be a pilot at all, let alone an excellent one. But McCain persists in
running on his service record from several decades ago, so it is important that we see all of it... especially
any aspects that reflect on whether he might be (ahem) "unfit for command."
David Corn at Mother Jones notes that John McCain has a "spiritual adviser," Reverend Rod Parsley, a pastor at a
megachurch in Ohio, whose extreme statements can match anything said by John Hagee, who is, um, well, he's
another McCain adviser,
demonstrably anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. McCain voluntarily continues to associate with these extremists.
He could, of course, at least disavow and reject their statements, as Barack Obama has done regarding
Louis Farrakhan's unsolicited endorsement
("I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan," said Obama)
and that of his own admittedly nut-case pastor,
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
But no... instead, McCain throws a bone to the radical religious base of the GOP. So much for Mr. Moderate
Maverick.
McCain claims he has never, ever, cross-his-fingers-behind-his-back-'n'-hope-to-die, requested an earmark. This
comes from the man who might as well have sponsored a (purely hypothetical)
Lobbyists Full Employment Act,
implementing its provisions by hiring more lobbyists in his own campaign than any other presidential candidate.
Of course that is by no means all that is wrong with McCain. But I know you haven't got all day, and neither
have I. I'll save some McCain-related items for later posts.
(CORRECTION: changed "unfit to command" to "unfit for command." Hey, I don't read obscene
books like that.)
When I first saw this sign, I read it as "bad dog food," leading me to assume that, depending on how you parse
the expression, either it came from China and contains melamine, or else it contains some psychoactive
ingredient to settle your mean-tempered pooch. Or both.
OK, I screwed up in the previous post, and of course I don't want the screw-up sitting at the top of the page
all day. Oh, hey, look at the pretty clouds at sunset!
This was taken on the day the International Space Station was supposed to have been visible from here. Some
people saw it; I wasn't so fortunate. But the sunset was magnificent anyway.
NOTE: this entire post was based on an article linked from TPM that turned out to be from 12/19 of last year.
Apparently they linked it as background to another more recent article about an alleged lack of depth in
Clinton's pursuit of children's healthcare. The YDD very much regrets having posted a screed based on an out-of-
date article. The post was up for only a few minutes before I noticed the problem. I can only plead inattention,
and assure you I will be more attentive to article dates in the future.
Steve
Bush Whacks Ozone Regs
In my personal opinion,
this
is the kind of thing for which Bush should be impeached, even though he has less than a year left in his term:
Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest
EPA Scrambles To Justify Action
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 14, 2008; Page A01
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual
last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as
required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had
proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the
documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a
decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke,
clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a
conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted
the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a
consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.
...
That rewriting of regulations to avoid conflict with earlier EPA statements... did they assign
Winston Smith
to the job?
You might think this is the act of an old Texas oilman. I wouldn't say you're wrong... I've known a few, and
some of them are indifferent to the state of the environment, to put it politely. But it's much more than that:
this is the act of a man who clearly believes that he, as president, has unlimited, one might even say
dictatorial, powers to override the law. Even if that were true, he cannot override the science. I do wonder
what he thinks his daughters will be breathing in a few years.
When the entire family is on the patio love seat, it isn't easy to take the picture. Extending my right arm
and shooting left across myself, I can just barely get all the ladies in the picture. This time, it was Stella
who anticipated the flash and blinked.
About the post title: Stella is credentialed as a psychotherapist, and she collects, among many other things,
ceramic, glass, wood, metal, fabric or pottery cats. While the living ladies often go outdoors, most of these
ceramic cats live inside. I may feature others from her collection in later posts. This white-footed gray cat
(pottery, I think, though I'm not sure) reminds me of a long-departed cat from my college days whose human named
him Gandalf.
So... what is a "psychoceramic"? Oh... a crackpot, of course!
Report Criticizes FDA Over Spinach Packers
Serious Sanitation Problems Are Cited
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 13, 2008; Page A04
Since 2001, nearly half of all federal inspections of facilities that package fresh spinach revealed serious
sanitary problems, but the Food and Drug Administration did not take "meaningful" enforcement action, a House
committee report released yesterday found.
The most common problems uncovered by FDA inspections of 67 facilities included inadequate restroom sanitation,
litter piles and indoor condensation posing a risk of food contamination by microorganisms. Inspectors also
found buildings vulnerable to rodent infestation and workers with uncovered hair and poor hygiene.
Twenty serious outbreaks of E. coli have been traced to fresh lettuce or spinach since 1995. One of the
most troublesome was a 2006 outbreak in bagged spinach processed by California-based Natural Selection Foods
that sickened more than 200 people and was linked to three deaths.
The FDA acknowledged gaps in its food safety efforts after that episode. But the report by the House Oversight
and Government Reform Committee says the problems were worse: It showed that spinach facilities were
inspected about once every 2.4 years despite federal guidelines that say most should have been visited at least
annually.
The FDA did not refer any of the problem facilities to its internal enforcement authorities, nor did the
agency send warning letters or seek injunctions. It did refer one inspection to state authorities, the
report said.
...
Emphasis mine (much good it does anyone). The FDA fails to inspect with even minimal frequency, and when they
do inspect, and find problems, they do nothing to respond to the problems.
And so another federal agency charged with protecting public health is eviscerated by a presidential
administration that just doesn't care if you and I die of what we eat. It is beyond imagining that a McCain FDA
would differ at all from Bush's. It is time we ousted these antisocial people from the halls of power.
If you actually remember the TV show alluded to in the post title, you are really old. Never mind. This was one
heckuva day...
Hot air:
We intended to start our mini-trip to places in and near Houston at 9:00am. That was not to be. A tire on
Stella's vehicle lost air about a block into the trip. The cause was later determined to be some earlier
overheating which weakened part of the sidewall. The upshot was that we finally got underway about noon.
Nirvana:
Who knew that one can reach Nirvana by driving west on Memorial Dr. in Houston:
Stella's friend who recommended the place deserves our thanks. The buffet was excellent, and had more different
vegetarian dishes that I believe I've ever seen before on one Indian buffet at one time. Not cheap... but
highly recommended nonetheless.
Across the street from Nirvana is, of course, an excellent small independent bookstore called Blue Willow. How
could a supremely enlightened state not be associated with at least one such bookstore! Stella found two new
popup books of the sort she collects.
(Madam Monk,
eat your heart out!) I bought nothing, but enjoyed the atmosphere of a true community bookstore: despite its
location in one of those typical large suburban strip centers, it was clearly a part of the local community of
readers: the walls were adorned with signatures (and occasionally entertaining witticisms) of famous authors
who had appeared there, and the regulars welcomed us into a friendly and active discussion of books, both popup
books and fiction, as well as food, Indian and otherwise. Such experiences are the stuff of joy. And of course
Stella is never happier than when she has expanded her already excellent collection of popup books. (Well, OK, I
believe she bought one professional book as well.)
Harris County has so many parks that we have by no means visited even half of them. This one, new to us, was a
particularly family-friendly park, with a pool, a hike-and-bike trail filled with cyclists, walkers, joggers and
mothers (mostly mothers; occasionally a father) pushing strollers or leading small children, a gazebo, a set of
stones that allegedly functioned as a sundial, and some benches for old folks like me to observe all the
activity. We had intended to find a nearby nature park mentioned in the guidebook, but decided to defer that for
another occasion. As ordinary parks go, Terry Hershey Park proved very pleasant, and the weather couldn't have
been better.
Adventures in technology:
As you may have discovered, the YDD was down for a while this evening. That turns out to have been due to some
additional server failures which were a consequence of the catastrophic power outage a couple of days ago. The
host has some new hardware scheduled to arrive tonight, hardware which should address problems due to the
sheer quantity of requests hitting the server. I don't know if there will be an outage later tonight as a
result of the addition of the hardware; I'll try to keep you regular commenters posted at the usual place.
Sooner or later, I'll get back to politics. At the moment, later feels just fine.
House Steers Its Own Path on Wiretaps
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: March 11, 2008
WASHINGTON — In continued defiance of the White House, House Democratic leaders are readying a proposal that
would reject giving legal protection to the phone companies that helped in the National Security Agency’s
program of wiretapping without warrants after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congressional officials said Monday.
Instead of blanket immunity, the tentative proposal would give the federal courts special authorization to hear
classified evidence and decide whether the phone companies should be held liable. House Democrats have been
working out the details of their proposal in the last few days, officials said, and expect to take it to the
House floor for a vote on Thursday.
The Democrats’ proposal would fall far short of what the White House has been seeking.
...
The tentative proposal worked out by House Democratic leaders, officials said, has three main elements.
It would impose tougher restrictions on National Security Agency eavesdropping than the Senate version does by
requiring court approval before the agency’s wiretapping procedures, instead of approval after the fact. It
would also reject retroactive immunity for the phone carriers.
The proposal would also create a bipartisan Congressional commission with subpoena power to issue a report on
the surveillance programs, including the one approved by Mr. Bush to monitor some Americans’ international
communications without warrants.
The commission would seek to find out how the program was actually run. Some Democrats complain that even now,
more than two years after the program was first publicly disclosed, many questions about its operations remain
unanswered.
...
Who knows if this means what it appears to mean. The rumors lately have been pretty bad, and I don't discount
the possibility that the House Dems could still screw this up, possibly by allowing Bush's tame members of
Congress to pull some sort of last-minute switcheroo. Personally, I think lawsuits against the telecoms should
be allowed to proceed, but that's almost certainly not going to happen. Is this the best we can get? I don't
know; what do you think?
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S.
invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al
Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided
some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However,
his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he
considered enemies of his regime.
...
Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof"
evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February
2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every
one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.
As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. "The same people that
attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and
children, many of whom are Muslims," he said.
...
Well, then. So much for their credibility. I wonder when the self-serving bastards will stop lying about it...
perhaps when Texas freezes over in mid-July.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour is on its way to the International Space Station, carrying part of a large Japanese
module and a Canadian robot. This is mission STS-123, and so far, it was as easy as that: everything went very
smoothly in the launch itself. I followed the launch on NASA's
launch blog
(now deactivated) and watched the launch live on a small TV in my office. (I could not immediately find a source
online that worked with my current set of plugins. Nothing is ever simple!)
This is the first night launch I've watched, and the first shuttle launch of any sort I've watched in a very
long time. Forget the fact that I listened to the very first American space launch on a classroom radio
(yes, children, you read that correctly) and have followed quite a few of the missions since then... my heart is
in my throat every single time, to this very day. Um, night. Whatever. The mission lasts 16 days; we wish the
crew the very best of success in their Endeavour.
In his initial statement, he did not address the issue of whether he would resign as Governor. I find it no
surprise that any male politician you care to name has something on the side, for a fee or otherwise, but in
Spitzer's case his apparent action seems particularly hypocritical, considering that in his career he has
prosecuted prostitution rings.
Of course this is a political prosecution; need you even ask? From the linked article:
Federal prosecutors rarely charge clients in prostitution cases, which are generally seen as state crimes. But
the Mann Act, passed by Congress in 1910 to address prostitution, human trafficking and what was viewed at the
time as immorality in general, makes it a crime to transport someone between states for the purpose of
prostitution. The four defendants charged in the case unsealed last week were all charged with that crime, along
with several others.
I have to wonder about the wiretap that allegedly caught Spitzer arranging the meeting with the prostitute. Was
there a warrant? And what kind of times do we live in, if I even have to ask that question?
UPDATE: apparently the answer,
provided us by
Paul Kiel of TPMMuckraker,
is yes, they did have a warrant, as part of an extensive investigation of the high-dollar prostitution ring
called The Emperors Club. (Sic... I suppose it's spelled according to the same rule as Caesars Palace
in Las Vegas.) Kiel:
The feds intercepted more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages used by the company's alleged
managers and 6,000 emails in the course of their investigation. The wiretaps lasted from January 8th
through February 7th, when it expired, and then were renewed on Februrary 11th.
No doubt there will be further details. After all, in this day of international terrorism and multiple wars,
there is no better use of more than a month's worth of FBI and DoJ resources than seeking out just who paid whom
how much for what kind of sex. With such priorities, I am confident of the safety of our nation.
UPDATE about 7pm CT Monday:
ABC News
says it was large money transfers that led IRS and FBI agents to believe Spitzer was hiding illegal
contributions or bribes. OK. Once they found out the payments weren't bribes but rather for, ahem, "services,"
why did agents continue to pursue nailing Spitzer? From the linked article:
"We had no interest at all in the prostitution ring until the thing with Spitzer led us to learn about it," said
one Justice Department official.
Spitzer, who made his name by bringing high-profile cases against many of New York's financial giants, is likely
to be prosecuted under a relatively obscure statute called "structuring," according to a Justice Department
official.
Structuring involves creating a series of financial movements designed to obscure the true purpose of the
payments.
Your assignment: write the script that would be playing out if Spitzer had an "R" after his name.
A lot of us are consuming them.
A lot more of us don't know whether we are or are not consuming them. Houston is among the places that haven't
tested for tiny amounts of prescription and other drugs in their water supply, and a lot of providers simply
aren't telling their customers. Here's a report of the AP study linked above:
AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water
By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD – 9 hours ago
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones —
have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press
investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or
trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen
— in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human
health.
...
Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example,
the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the
information" and might be unduly alarmed.
......
Please read the rest of the AP article for details on how this happens. Your first guess is probably the correct
one.
And it's
much nastier
than the "drunken pilot" story Exxon popularized. Read of Exxon's internally acknowledged intentions of
out-waiting the locals in Valdez, lawyering the Alaskans' claims until they died... which has happened now in
some of the Exxon Valdez cases.
As I age, I am beginning to see that the rise of large corporations, coupled with the legal concept of
"corporate personhood," is among the most pernicious things America has created in the short span of its
existence. I've worked for the damned things for much of my career, including oil companies (never Exxon, but
that's just by chance, and I do not see them as materially different from one another), and sometimes, when I
read stories like this, I feel I have much to answer for. I know, at least, that Exxon has much to answer for.
Oh, did I mention that the story refers to (wince) McCain?
Greg Palast's book,
Armed Madhouse,
has a section on just how the GOP is going to steal the 2008 presidential election in November. It's really
pretty simple, because it consists of extensions of several techniques used to steal sElection 2000 and
sElection 2004: caging, challenges and the "disappearing" of votes, not by the hundreds as we thought in 2000,
but by the millions. Whose votes get "lost"? Why, of course, they're not all African Americans' votes... just
most of 'em. Many of the rest are the votes of elderly Jewish voters.
Who benefits? Palast's title reflects a line from a poem by his teacher, the late Allen Ginsberg: "The soul
should not die ungodly in an armed madhouse." How prophetic. But today's neocons and corporate whores are
interested, not in prophets, but in profits. Spend all the money, all the efforts, all the reputation of the
United States of America on endless war, unceasing for a hundred years or more as McCain instructs us, and you
visit the corporate whore defense contractors in their armed cathouse. It is my opinion that America's soul
should not die ungodly in the Bushists' armed cathouse.
Please read Robert Dreyfuss's article,
Hothead McCain,
in The Nation, about John McCain's quick temper, his world-view and his utter obsession with war as a
primary implement of foreign policy. Even his fellow Republicans dislike his constant angry demeanor, and some
of them fear a possible McCain presidency. You might want to take a few deep breaths, or even a nice glass of wine,
before you read it: it is one of the scariest things I've read in this presidential election year. If you
thought McCain was exaggerating for effect about U.S. troops being in Iraq for 100 or even 1,000 years, this
article should disabuse you of that notion: McCain is making plans right now for more preemptive wars.
The YDD site was unavailable from some unknown time in the wee hours until some unknown time in the past couple
of hours. Apologies for the inconvenience; thanks for coming back.
My web host had a massive power failure in a building located in another state. Yes, someone at the building
actually pulled the switch, disabling both the main power and its backup, catching many critical servers in the
middle of a disk write, damaging so many hard disks that not only did the RAID arrays no longer work, but it was
difficult for my host to find enough replacement equipment. Due to some sort of miscommunication, my hosting
company was never informed of what apparently was a scheduled power outage. Though they were too diplomatic to
say so outright, the man who runs my host left the strong impression that the miscommunication was not on his
part, though he took full responsibility for the time-to-repair.
The YDD site appears, at a glance, to have been restored intact. Let's hope this doesn't happen again for a
long, long time.
Who are they? They were running for
Denny Hastert's old seat.
Here's what Eric Kleefeld of TPM (link above) has to say:
Democrats Win Dennis Hastert's House Seat!
By Eric Kleefeld - March 8, 2008, 9:59PM
In an amazing upset, the Democrats have won the special election for the House seat of former Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-IL), a district that has long been in Republican hands and voted 55%-44% for President Bush in 2004.
With 99% reporting, Democrat Bill Foster, a physicist and businessman, leads Republican businessman and
perennial candidate Jim Oberweis by 52%-48%, and has been projected the winner by the Associated Press.
Prediction: The Obama campaign will shop this around to uncommitted super-delegates, as evidence that they can
expand the electoral playing field. One thing that helped Foster greatly was a well-organized get out the vote
machine that the state party had organized to beef up Obama's totals in the Super Tuesday primary, and Obama
himself took the time to cut an ad for Foster's campaign.
...
Say what you will about the relative merits of Obama and Clinton as presidential material, Obama has clearly
built a better organization and run a better campaign. And that's got to be good for the Democratic Party. And
that, in turn, has got to be good for the country, whatever you may think of the party at the moment.
I'm not sure... was it Will Rogers who coined the phrase "consider the alternative"? Well, nobody needs to ask
who sang, "For the times, they are a-changin' ..."
Anyone who has ever worked in a bookstore or a library can understand the necessity, but it's rare to find a
bookstore so accommodating of its employees' needs...
And he wins it big,
58%-41%. Yeah, I know; Wyoming probably doesn't mean much. But Obama's still got the mo...
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton (presumably with Hillary's approval, though one can never be sure)
floats the idea
of a Hillary/Obama ticket. And Obama says
"no way."
Forgive me for saying that this makes Hillary sound a bit desperate. Bill may be right about the ticket, but he
is probably wrong about the prez/veep order if maximum voter enthusiasm is the goal.
(AP) President George W. Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh
interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that
have prevented attacks.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Mr. Bush said
in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it."
...
(I am pretty sure this is
H.R. 2082,
the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.)
That's about the size of it. To Bush, the best way to end terrorism is to terrorize people. (Don't forget the
degree to which
McCain lines up with Bush
on this issue.)
Can anyone point to any documented incident in which torture prevented even one terrorist act? America has been
doing this evil deed for a long time now, to no good effect. It is antithetical to everything America has stood
for, at least in theory, for more than two centuries.
Note: the ACLU has issued a prompt
condemnation
of Bush's veto.
Afterthought: how much does Bush have control of GOP members of Congress? view the
House
and
Senate
votes. To those GOPers, this is all just partisan stuff... no moral issues involved.
UPDATE:Dan Froomkin,
reflecting on Bush's claim that we should be grateful to him because his draconian, privacy-invading policies
have prevented any further terrorist attacks since 9/11/2001 (acknowledging, of course, that that statement is
on its face not true, because there have been other terrorist acts, e.g., the anthrax attacks, which were
neither thwarted nor solved):
...
Yesterday, encouraging homeland security employees to "take enormous pride in the accomplishments of this
department," Bush declared that the government has prevented "numerous" attacks. But he only cited two --
neither of which support his argument one bit.
"We've disrupted numerous planned attacks -- including a plot to fly an airplane into the tallest building on
the West Coast, and another to blow up passenger jets headed for America across the Atlantic Ocean," he said.
The first of those, generally referred to as the Library Tower plot, should sound familiar. Bush has cited it in
defense of his warantless surveillance program (see, for instance, this Feb, 9, 2006 speech) and the CIA's use
of interrogation techniques most would consider torture (see, for instance, this Oct. 23, 2007 speech.)
But after the 2006 speech, it quickly became clear that he had overstated the gravity of that alleged plot. As
Peter Baker and Dan Eggen of The Washington Post wrote, "several U.S. intelligence officials played down the
relative importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush's speech to politics. The officials,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to publicly criticize the White House, said
there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the Library Tower scheme
and whether it was ever much more than talk.
"One intelligence official . . . attributed the move to the administration's desire to justify its efforts in
the face of criticism of the domestic surveillance program, which has no connection to the incident."
As for the trans-Altantic airplane plot, Bush was referring to the break-up in November 2006 of an alleged plot
in Britain to blow up as many as 10 U.S.-bound passenger jets with liquid explosives. But doubts have been
raised about whether the plotters were anywhere close to execution. Some apparently didn't have airline
reservations, two didn't even have passports, and it's not clear that they were technically capable of
assembling the devices in question.
...
Please read the rest; Froomkin has useful links as well.
Surely, Bush's postpresidential autobiography should be titled, "Convenient Lies." There is still no credible
basis for asserting that any of the torture perpetrated by agents of the U.S. has had anything to do with even
the most minimal successes claimed in interdicting terrorism. Our nation survived more than 200 years of attacks
equally worthy of the name "terrorism" without resorting to torturing... terrorizing... individuals who, by and
large, have had nothing whatsoever to do with the plots against us.
As a Texan, I have experienced Bush's hand on the helm for six years longer than most of you, and I assert it
again... Bush is a bully, a simple, arrogant, mean man, and the meanness goes to his core. The same Bush who as
a child used firecrackers to blow up frogs is still around inside the man who occupies the Oval Office.
From a post by Mark Silva on the
Baltimore Sun's
political blog, The Swamp:
...
McCain, who faces the challenge of convincing his own party’s conservative base that they can count on him, says
this isn’t the only constituency that he must court.
“We have to reach out to independents and the old Reagan Democrats that won elections for former President
Reagan,’’ McCain says. “ “But I'm very confident that a liberal Democrat versus a conservative Republican, and
that would be whatever Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton articulate, that I can win that debate. Because I think
America's a right-of-center nation. So I'm confident.”
Well,
no. It has often been observed that
Americans may call themselves conservative, but on the whole they voice mostly unmistakably progressive
positions. McCain is just plain wrong about this. What else is new.
McCain has some other interesting fantasies as well, to be revealed on a 60 Minutes interview
Sunday:
Pressed about his stance on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, McCain says this in the interview: “I can't
give you specific dates. But I can tell you that if we continue to reduce the casualties…the way we've
succeeded in just the last eight or nine months, that, eight or nine months from now, we could be in pretty good
shape to make further reductions.”
Do you have family in the military? What do you think of the "success" of the increasingly misnamed "surge"?
What do you think of the undeniable fact that about
4,000Americans
have been killed in Iraq to date, with no real end in sight? How does McCain's we'll-get-around-to-it
attitude strike you?
And there's this:
Pressed on the question of undocumented immigrants becoming citizens, he says: “I think some millions… if they
complied with some very stringent and rigid requirements, they could find themselves on a path to citizenship.”
That includes “getting at the end of the immigration line, paying a fine, learning English and having a
job.’’
Um, Senator, have a clue for free... undocumented immigrants are here BECAUSE they have jobs here.
And there you have John McCain: the "right off-center" candidate.
Tabitha: "What? What's that you say, Samantha? No! You're not going to vote for a GOP candidate, surely?
Remember, even if he's out of office, that's the party of 'Cat Killer' Frist!"
Starting from an Obama commercial that even I, a Hillary supporter for the moment, find inspiring, Greenwald
shows both the cult of personality that has surrounded Bush, and the emptiness of Bush and those who idolize
him compared to the hopes of Obama's supporters. They damned well better be scared. No wonder Rush Limbaugh
and Ann Coulter would rather run against Hillary: whatever else he has or doesn't have, Obama has the magic.
Grits for Breakfast tells us that "Lubbock discontinues red light cameras after accidents increase 52%":
Why am I not surprised. People react one of two ways when they approach a light that turns yellow: they either
stomp on the brakes, or they stomp on the accelerator. In a situation in which all parties know there may be a
camera monitoring their actions, with the company that manufactures the camera evaluating the photos it takes
(come on, can you spell "conflict of interest," children? I knew you could!), every time you have a brake
stomper in front of an accelerator stomper, you have an accident... an accident that would probably never have
happened, but for the knowledge of the red-light camera. Red-light cameras are IMHO flat-out dangerous, and
especially in Texas. After all, even our eponymous university wears burnt orange as its color...
Parents of girl with autism win federal funds in thimerosal claim absent clear scientific evidence:
This is a bit strange. Any time someone receives much-needed government support for the treatment of a child
with any severe disorder, I stand up and cheer. But these federal funds are directed at people who are victims
of pharmaceuticals later determined to be dangerous, and to this point, the information I have seen minimizes
the likelihood that thimerosal in childhood vaccines directly causes autism. You know, if we had a single-payer
universal healthcare coverage system, this would not be an issue. I'm just sayin'.
UPDATE:Bryan of Why Now? offers the following in the comment thread to this post:
The case involving the young girl and the vaccines is not what is being reported. She has a singular genetic
condition that has been aggravated by vaccines and the process of giving them.
The father is a neurologist and went into a bit of detail that isn't in most of the reporting. Apparently there
were several factors including an individual susceptibility to vaccines and the government requirement that she
receive them. The media is trying to make it about thimerosal and autism, but it isn't, which is why they won.
This isn't a precedent, it is a one-off situation with a very low probability of being repeated.
It might delay the initial vaccination of children, so that doctors have time to discover problems that would
tell them not to do it.
Sounds right to me. Apologies for any confusion based on my understanding of the original news article.
UPDATE: Bryan provides a link to an
AP report on CNN
detailing the complexities of this particular case.
This is technology so too-cool-for-words that I did not know from the headline alone what they were talking
about:
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a device that could allow people to feel textures and
shapes of 3-D designs created on computers -- without awkward mechanical gear.
The university announced Tuesday that it could soon be possible to feel objects created on computers through a
touch-based, or haptic, interface, without using gloves, similar equipment, or force feedback. One lightweight
moving part floats on magnetic fields and simulates various sensations people experience when they touch real
objects.
"We believe this device provides the most realistic sense of touch of any haptic interface in the world today,"
Ralph Hollis, a research professor in Carnegie Mellon's robotics institute, said in a news announcement.
...
Don't you know the pr0n industry is salivating, so to speak...
The Supreme Court ruled last April that EPA had both the authority and the obligation to act on greenhouse gas
emissions, including those regarding which California requested an exception to allow the state to require
stronger emissions standards than the national standards. Fuck that, says Johnson. Johnson, called before a
congressional committee, babbles, evades and obfuscates, but never for a moment indicates his intention to obey
the court order. Bush certainly knows how to pick 'em.
More FBI Privacy Violations Confirmed
By LARA JAKES JORDAN – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans' telephone records, credit
reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from
investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.
The breach occurred before the FBI enacted broad new reforms in March 2007 to prevent future lapses, FBI
Director Robert Mueller said. And it was caused, in part, by banks, telecommunication companies and other
private businesses giving the FBI more personal client data than was requested.
Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mueller raised the issue of the FBI's controversial use
of so-called national security letters in reference to an upcoming report on the topic by the Justice
Department's inspector general.
...
The FBI has an institutional history of spying on Americans suspected of nothing more than dissenting
from the prevailing political majority, or protesting in public, or discomfiting the FBI director. As far as I'm
concerned, the FBI is presumptively guilty, and must prove to us that it is no longer spying on us. (Fat
chance.)
The details involve a WSJ article and the fall of the dollar's purchasing power relative to 26 other
currencies around the world, but the bottom line is that poor people are 30 percent poorer in ways they
manifestly can't afford. This is quite literally "Bush's legacy": it happened not only on his watch, but as
a result of his just not giving a damn, his fundamental belief that poor people are lazy.
ellroon,
from her own investigation, has quite a bit to add on Bush's thinking (if that's the right word) about poverty.
Also please do not miss this post on
Texas
by our regular commenter Carl (aka Sofarsogoo), inspired in part by our discussion of the Texas primary and
caucus.
Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At
By Brandon Keim ... 03.05.08 | 6:40 PM
Tell me what you see.
On second thought, don't: A computer will soon be able to do it, simply by analyzing the activity of your brain.
That's the promise of a decoding system unveiled this week in Nature by neuroscientists from the University of
California at Berkeley.
The scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine -- a real-time brain scanner -- to record
the mental activity of a person looking at thousands of random pictures: people, animals, landscapes, objects,
the stuff of everyday visual life. With those recordings the researchers built a computational model for
predicting the mental patterns elicited by looking at any other photograph. When tested with neurological
readouts generated by a different set of pictures, the decoder passed with flying colors, identifying the images
seen with unprecedented accuracy.
"No one that I know would ever have guessed our decoder would do this well," study co-author Jack Gallant said.
...
Read the rest. Or I suppose you could just read Mr. Keim's mind.
I have a colander that resembles the one
Arondelle
(who comments here as Anya) wears, or at least her avatar does. Perhaps I should retire my colander from
kitchen duty; it's bound to work better than tinfoil in deflecting brain scans.
Speaking of blowin' in the wind (below), I've been thinking of McLame's constant use of "my friend" in his
speeches, and his claim that it doesn't matter if American troops are in the Middle East for a hundred years.
Oh, and of course his parody of a Beach Boys song.
To all questions, McShame has one answer:
Blowin' Up Iran
How many troops must a preznit make dead,
Before he believes he's a man?
Yes, 'n' how many nations must John-boy invade,
Before Humvees quit from the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many rotations must everyone serve
Before we've caught on to the scam?
His answer, "my friend," is blowin' up Iran;
His answer is blowin' up Iran.
How many times must a woman throw up,
Before all her heaves are dry?
Yes, 'n' how many tears must one man shed,
Before he says "no more must die"?
Yes, 'n' how many phone calls must John intercept,
Before he's sufficiently spied?
His answer, "my friend," is blowin' up Iran;
His answer is blowin' up Iran.
How many times must a fascist be prez,
Before we're all drowned in the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years must Americans wait,
Before we're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times will we all turn our heads,
Pretending we just don't see?
His answer, "my friend," is blowin' up Iran;
His answer is blowin' up Iran.
Steve Bates
(Sincere thanks to Bob Dylan, for writing the original when it really counted.)
You've had the good and the bad of the Democratic primaries to date... for all the proclamations of Hillary's
victories last night, the delegate count is scarcely changed... and now, in that other political abomination
known as the Democratic congressional leadership, we are apparently about to face the truly ugly.
Fallenmonk
points us to a
WaPo article
stating that a compromise is in the works on the FISA changes, including the one that would give the telecoms
amnesty for any illegal acts of warrantless surveillance of American citizens over the past few years:
House and Senate Democratic leaders are headed into talks today that they say could lead to a breakthrough on
legislation to revamp domestic surveillance powers and grant phone companies some form of immunity for their
role in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
A senior House Democratic aide said a bill could be sent to President Bush as early as next week. But
significant issues remain, including those surrounding immunity, said Wyndee R. Parker, general counsel of the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Parker, who said she hopes the House can take up the compromise legislation as early as this week, said a
resolution has been delayed partly by the need for all members of the House Judiciary Committee to gain access
to the letters and other relevant documents sent to the phone companies by the administration requesting their
assistance.
House Democratic leaders demanded such access before they would contemplate immunity, and the administration
granted full access last week. Parker spoke at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the American Bar Association
yesterday.
...
Ah, yes. The Bushists granted full access, as if it were a privilege rather than a congressional right.
I don't know where this is going (or whether it already has been decided this morning), but I'm sure it's
nowhere I want to be.
Please understand that the telcoms didn't ask for immunity for their own sake; they are most likely indemnified
by the federal government against their costs from any lost lawsuits. No, that's not what this is about. This
is about protecting the Bushists' sorry asses from subsequent impeachment and/or criminal trials if the full
details of the program were to become public. If I were you, I wouldn't hold your breath for that.
The ACLU says to call your Representative now, as action may take place today. My alleged Representative is John
Culberson, DeLay's personal protege; I'm not going to waste my time. But perhaps your Representative is more,
um, representative.
Via TPM,
MSNBC and Fox are calling the Texas primary for Hillary Clinton.
Remember, the delegates allocated by the caucuses (precinct conventions) have yet to be counted. Those, and
of course the superdelegates, may yet turn the state for Obama. But at this point, the victories in Ohio,
Texas and Rhode Island have clearly turned the momentum today: this is a day of victory for Hillary.
Some Democrats, even including DNC chair Howard Dean, may see defeat in November resulting from ongoing
confrontations between Hillary and Obama. Not I. I see democracy, the very thing Democrats are supposed to
favor more than Republicans, democracy, with all its imperfections, at work. And it is my current opinion that
either of our major candidates can beat John McLame. I mean, really, how many of that guy's moralizing, scarcely
cogent speeches can the voters stand? Where's the entertainment value, compared to a live contest between two
outstanding competitors, over some as-yet-undetermined part of the next eight months?
Stella and I and our octogenarian neighbor just attended our Democratic precinct convention (a.k.a. caucus).
Our precinct is mixed ethnically, religiously, in age and in income. The caucus,
which in past presidential years has fielded a dozen or two attendees, completely filled the elementary school
auditorium. I didn't get an official count, but I estimated two hundred (200) or more people: 12 rows of 15
people in the seats, plus another couple of dozen people standing in the back. As one might expect, the
convention attendees (the only requirement is that one vote in the Democratic primary) looked a lot like
America in their distribution. The numbers caucusing for Hillary and Obama were about equal, with perhaps a
slight advantage to Obama. Identity voting was strong... lots of women for Hillary and many blacks for Obama...
but by no means was either caucus monolithic. After we signed in and left (which we were allowed to do, as
none of us intended to be delegates to a higher-level convention), we had a brief conversation with an
African-American woman neighbor, who wanted to know what we would do if Obama prevails. "I'll be there with
bells on for Barack," I told her. Right answer, apparently.
But I was not thinking about which Democratic candidate prevails. I was thinking about those two hundred (200)
Democrats from our tiny precinct who cared enough to vote, turn out and caucus... literally 10 times the
typical turnout in presidential years I've lived here, from 1996 to 2004. Compared with previous years,
that's awesome. There may be hope for America yet.
Oh... Republicans? They were at the polling place for their convention... in much, much smaller numbers.
McClatchy
informs us that federal law enforcement agencies have been secretly profiling immigrants based on nationality:
Law enforcement officials secretly profiling immigrants
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2008
WASHINGTON — In the six and a half years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal law-enforcement agencies
have secretly established profiling techniques to screen immigrants based on their nationalities, protocols that
critics charge encourage the unjustified targeting of Muslims.
The profiling, described in a February 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo that McClatchy obtained,
shows that the government has relied more heavily on nationality as an indicator of security risks than was
previously known.
Federal agencies have created internal lists of countries that are of "special interest" for national security
reasons, wrote the memo's author, Ted Stark, supervisory special agent with the Office of Intelligence at ICE.
So many federal agencies have created different lists that U.S. officials contemplated adopting a single one to
streamline the process, Stark wrote.
...
That reminds me of questions about the no-fly list of American citizens. Is there just one? are there several?
could someone be on one, but not others? why couldn't federal agencies get their acts together?
So which countries are on the proposed unified list?
...
The proposed list, which officials said had yet to be adopted, includes 35 countries, most with significant
Muslim or Arab populations. Almost 20 percent of the world's countries — including some of the United States'
key allies, such as Jordan, Turkey and Egypt — are on the list.
In this case, with little or no oversight or public scrutiny, law enforcement officials have assumed flexible
and expansive discretion to make screening decisions based on where an immigrant was born.
...
That is precisely the point I wish to make. Now that agencies such as ICE, NSA, Customs etc. are no longer
independent of direct political control (thanks to the Bushists), these decisions are being made in secret, by
people unknown to us, people whose agendas we have good reason to question. If people have to be profiled...
and in my opinion, profiling accomplishes almost nothing toward prevention of terrorism or anything else...
shouldn't it be done in accordance with the will of the American people, as expressed through Congress? Why
is this process secret, and why are agency policies so chaotic?
It's a sunny, crisp, cool day in Houston. Democrats here have absolutely no excuse. Go do your duty, and don't
forget to show up at your precinct convention (caucus) tonight. Please regard this tiny post as an
election-related open thread.
(This post will float to the top today. Please look below for newer posts.)
Paul Krugman
provides much insight on our current election situation in a wide-ranging column touching on everything from
Obama's political inexperience (which is separate from any inexperience he may show in matters of governance),
to why the current polls mean little or nothing, to
Bob Somerby's
fear that Obama may be "Dukakised" by the media ... "treated as an alien, unsettling presence."
On a much more local, personal scale,
Avedon
points us to an article by the
Houston Press's Todd Spivak
about his past encounters with Obama, whom Spivak depicts as an aggressively ambitious man. Spivak nonetheless
appears to support Obama. (I meant to post this earlier: the article not only made it around the world to
Avedon's desk, but also to some local mailing lists in Houston.)
I've already mentioned I voted early for Hillary in the Texas Democratic primary. Tomorrow night is the caucus.
(By now you've all read about Texas's strange hybrid process.) After much thought, with more thought yet to
come, I have tentatively decided to caucus for Hillary as well. If Hillary had no chance, I would take a hit for
the party and switch my caucus vote in support of tipping the race for Obama and ending the confusion. I have
considerable respect for both candidates (and of course plenty of reservations about both of them), and my
caucus vote, like my recent primary vote, will be purely strategic.
But today, at the moment, you can find a poll to tell you whatever you want to hear: in Ohio, PPP, Rasmussen and
Quinnipiac show Hillary ahead, while Zogby says it's Obama. In Texas, SurveyUSA shows a dead heat, while PPP
shows Hillary leading in Texas. (All these are from
TPM.) So Hillary's run is not obviously at an end.
Texas Democrats, please go vote tomorrow if you have't already voted, and please do take the trouble to caucus
right after the polls close. Even if you have no interest in going to higher-level party conventions, the caucus
increases your direct influence on the makeup of a whole batch of delegates completely separate from the ones
chosen by your primary vote. Hey, who doesn't want to "vote twice" legally!
As most of you recall, the
House sent a Valentine
to White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, a contempt-of-Congress
citation for failure to produce documents or even to show up to testify before the House Judiciary Committee
regarding the U.S. Attorney firings scandal.
Yesterday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey
announced his refusal
to refer the contempt citations to a grand jury, declaring, in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "The department
will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute
Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers."
Even apart from constitutional checks and balances, there is specific statutory law on this matter. Mukasey is
legally obligated; it's not up to him. But of course the Bushists think the Executive is the only branch of
government with any authority... including the authority to ignore the law and ignore Congress when it suits
them. Mukasey, in response to two congressional contempt citations, is replacing the entire grand jury process
with... himself.
The Feb. 14 contempt citation should surprise no one. Think of this analogy: You are in an auto accident. You
know you are not at fault. The other party sues you, and you receive a subpoena from their counsel. But you
know you are not at fault, so you ignore it, and simply do not show up in court. How far do you think you will
get with that course of action?
Yet that is exactly analogous to what Mukasey is claiming: the AG, who is of course an Executive branch
official, shall decide whether there is any merit to Congress's claims in the two contempt citations. No legal
due process shall take place to evaluate the validity of the claims of the Congress of the United States. The
Executive branch deems the Executive branch to have committed no crime by ignoring congressional attempts at
oversight, declaring unilaterally that no crime occurred. This is the American way as interpreted by the
minions of the Bushist administration.
Pelosi threatens a lawsuit. The AP article above helpfully says such "[a] civil suit would drag out a
slow-motion crawl to a constitutional struggle between a Democratic-run Congress and a Republican White House
that has been simmering for more than a year." For one rare time, I agree with the increasingly GOP-partisan AP:
a civil suit is a poor substitute for articles of impeachment against (at least) Mukasey.
The AP article noted that "[i]n his letter, received by the House early Friday evening, Mukasey pointed out that
not only was Miers directed not to testify, she also was immune from congressional subpoenas and was right to
not show up to the hearing to which she had been summoned." This is a chilling statement: Mukasey is saying
that Congress has no oversight powers, or at least no mechanism for enforcing them, over Executive branch
officials.
Sorry, no. That's not how it is supposed to be. Bush may certainly order Miers and Bolten to plead executive
privilege, so that the matter will be determined through an appropriate adversarial process. But neither Bush
nor his officials may simply ignore a lawful order to appear before Congress.
Mukasey's defiant announcement of his intent to cut off congressional oversight is an unconstitutional and
illegal act on his part. Bolten and Miers should be arrested and compelled to appear. And Mukasey should be
impeached for ignoring the most fundamental principles of checks and balances.
Afterthought: I lived through the Nixon era. Nixon was neither better nor worse than Bush and his minions, but
congressional Republicans were a lot less tolerant of the clear intent of the Nixon administration to obstruct
justice and operate as that mythological entity the Bushists call a "unitary Executive" government. This
should not be a partisan matter: no one in Congress should be willing to support a clear attempt by the
Bushist administration to claim to be a law unto itself. There must be accountability, today as in the Nixon
era. I urge Republican members of Congress to think this through very carefully before they cast their lot with
the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the Bushist administration. It doesn't have to be that way. It
wasn't in the case of Nixon.
The Goode Company restaurants...
the authentic Texas restaurants developed by a Houstonian whose name really is Jim Goode, six restaurants in all
(plus a catering service), four within a few blocks near Kirby and Westpark, are the real deal, both in the
dishes and the atmosphere. Even I have dined at one of the Goode Company eateries, at breakfast of course (as I
do not partake of carrion), and based on breakfast alone, I attest that they are everything they are cracked up
to be. The food is good, greasy, good, hearty, good, prepared with an understanding of Texas tastes, and good...
in other words, Goode. This particular place is
Goode's Armadillo Palace,
which bears some resemblance to an icehouse (about the same way DisneyWorld bears
a resemblance to an amusement park):
THE SIGN AND THE 'DILLO
I'LL HAVE AN ARMADILLO ON THE ROCKS
THE EYES GLOW RED IN THE DARK
THE TEXAS GREAT LONGHORNED ARMADILLO
As the highway signs say, "Don't Mess with Texas" ... or this critter will visit you in the night, and not to
deliver BBQ!
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Better the occasional faults of a government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a
government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
- FDR
I belong to the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.
- Paul Wellstone
I am a Democrat without prefix, without suffix, and without apology.
- Sam Rayburn
When the entire family is on the patio love seat, it isn't easy to take the picture. Extending my right arm
and shooting left across myself, I can just barely get all the ladies in the picture. This time, it was Stella
who anticipated the flash and blinked.
About the post title: Stella is credentialed as a psychotherapist, and she collects, among many other things,
ceramic, glass, wood, metal, fabric or pottery cats. While the living ladies often go outdoors, most of these
ceramic cats live inside. I may feature others from her collection in later posts. This white-footed gray cat
(pottery, I think, though I'm not sure) reminds me of a long-departed cat from my college days whose human named
him Gandalf.
