November 2007 archive

Today’s Washington Post has more happy Blackwater news:

The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater Worldwide, has been building an operation that will sniff out intelligence about natural disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas regulations and global political developments for clients in industry and government.

The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks — high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence — that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency’s more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas.

Its chief executive is Robert Richer, a former CIA associate deputy director of operations who was heavily involved in running the agency’s role in the Iraq war.

Which begs the question: what role does this agency play in domestic spying? What role does it play in shaping international policy? Richer once headed the CIA’s Near East division. The CIA spent a fortune helping train Jordan’s intel service. Jordan now hires Blackwater. Nifty, huh?

As for the new spy unit:

While I was at work on Tuesday night the absolutely most fun thing happened. A gigantic pipe broke right near the new building. I happened to have my camera because I was there taking pictures of Halloween decorations. Somebody called and said,”You’re the supervisor go do something.” So I went out and asked the maintenance guys if they had called X and they said yeah we are waiting for X. I was a bit worried because the parking lot where patients and staff is adjacent to where the leak spurted up and had potential for problems if the water show went on for a long time, when I mentioned that they all looked at me as if it had never occurred to them. However, X arrived and it got taken care of.

I just wrote a piece for ePluribus Media that I think you’d like to check out. It has embedded video, multiple links in “Wikipedia” style, a few footnotes and a couple great images.

It was a lot of work.

I’m not going to repost the whole thing, but I am going to provide the punch-line — the spoilers, the ending — but it won’t ruin anything for you.

Trust me on this: you won’t mind reading the full piece over there, ‘cuz you’ll still be cheering the spoilers from over here.

Harrumph. Don’t have much to say for this pony party. I have a confession: I had a nasty thought yesterday after somebody shared some good news.

There is a nice young woman who “waxes” me for a pretty reasonable price. She cheerfully told me she is six weeks pregnant. I congratulated her, of course, but inside I was thinking, damn I am going to have to find a temporary replacement who will both be more expensive and a major drive away. OK, I suck….

Eighty percent of the Mexican state of Tabasco is under water, as is a significant portion of Chiapas, and there’s more rain on the way. 

President Calderon has compared the disaster to Katrina — but on a larger scale.  With over one million displaced, his oil industry crippled, his entire air force sent to the region and disease soon to follow, his claim may be valid, even though, by all evidence, his response to the crisis has been the opposite of Washington’s Katrina debacle.

Here’s The Environmentalist’s post on the floods, which includes a video sent from the region and information provided by colleagues working to track the storms’ paths.

More below the jump…

Did you ever meet someone you’d swear you’d never met before? Converse with them? Touch them? Know them? All in the first glancing contact of eyes, the first shake of hands the first exchange of words?

I ask this partly to answer a question for somebody else and partly for me. To see whether anybody else has ever experienced the strangest thing that ever happened to me.

Memo to Netroots: Now do you understand?

Democrats are caving on Mukasey, and they will next cave on telecom amnesty.  This comes on the heels of several other colossal capitulations.  I hope you get it now: Democrats are no longer on your side.  They no longer cooperate.

Via the Philadelphia Bulletin by Joe Murray: http://www.thebullet…