Oct 25 2008
If Robert Fisk’s reporting, and the files they are holding, are believable, apparently we had another of those Evil Terrorists People on our payroll, working and spying for us.
It wouldn’t surprise me.
Things never seem to change especially when the names and faces of long time inner Washington keep popping up!
I caught this Report: Notorious Palestinian Mercenary Was Hired by U.S. to Find Link Between Saddam and Al-Qaeda over at Alternet.
Oct 25 2008
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD and GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writers
2 hrs 1 min ago
| ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment – a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 – emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence. “We’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets,” Palin said during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate. |
Oct 25 2008
The Obama Test: Personnel is Policy
Forget the election. With November 4 just days away and Barack Obama positioned to become the nation’s first African American president, the question has begun to turn to: Who gets what?
While I don’t think we should forget the election just yet, I do agree that “who is going to get what” is a looming question on the minds of many.
Oct 25 2008
Can we stop pretending now?
Can we stop pretending that the Republican Party has become a haven for racists? Can we stop pretending that the today’s Republican Party represents more than two ideas, greed and racism?
If you have been paying attention, you have seen the racists, the just plain ignorant and in the case of this latest hoax, the truly malicious aspects of those who identify as Republicans….
…. come out of the woodwork as their Real America is, in their little closed minds, threatened. This IS the Republican base. Though I hasten to add that not all Republicans share these views and traits.
But it is time to stop pretending that these people don’t exist, and that they don’t have a huge influence on the Republican Party and American politics in general.
Oct 25 2008
I’ve been feeling mournful of late. Can’t say why. Well I could but you don’t have all day. Let’s just say things are catching up with me: torture, war, theft, lies, fraud, corruption, joblessness, homelessness and doing nothing in the face of ecological disaster.
What a shame that we remain at war without reason. Shame on us.
And what a shame that we continue to blunder down the path to biospheric disaster defying all logic and denying all science.
What is wrong with us?
There are at least two wars ongoing that our government could stop, and would, if they had an ounce of moral fiber…or a lick of sense.
Oct 25 2008
In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
Over the last few weeks I have grown increasingly interested in the community organizing aspects of the Obama campaign’s ground game. I have no idea how history will record what has happened in communities all over this country over the last couple of years, but it seems to me that it is as responsible as anything else for the success of the campaign. But like most things that are new and don’t involve the rich and powerful, it’s happening under the radar of the MSM and pundit class.
Of course, alot of this comes from Obama’s history as a community organizer. But relatively speaking, that was only for a short period of his life. The person who has brought the skill and experience to this aspect of the campaign more than anyone else is a man by the name of Marshall Ganz. Here’s a short video where Ganz ties his previous work to that of the Obama campaign.
Oct 25 2008
Original article, by Joe Mowrey and sub-titled Which Candidate Supports Petraeus, the Bailout, the Death Penalty, Nuclear Power, the Occupation, the Cuban Embargo …, via counterpunch.com.
Ooooh…a guessing game. I wonder who it could be? Hmmmm? Let’s find out below the fold!
Oct 25 2008
This very brief essay that might be about hypocrisy. Or it might be that that McPalin campaign is giving you and me and all the other people who care about Global Warming a raised middle digit. You decide.
These are polar bears:
In May, 2008, before she was a VP candidate, the Great Huntress decided that polar bears shouldn’t be on the endangered species list, where Bushco had put them. The Anchorage Daily News wrote:
The State of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday.
She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state’s northern and northwestern coasts.
Palin argued there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.
Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, Palin said.
The announcement drew a strong response from the primary author of the listing petition.
“She’s either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Alaska deserves better.”
Put simply, Palin is a hard-core global warming denier:
Q: What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
A: A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
But you already knew all of that. You’ve already ranted and banged on the table about this and cursed a blue streak at the screens on your television and monitor. This is nothing new.
Then, last night, on Keith, I thought I saw Sarah Palin wearing on her right lapel a polar bear pin. Just like this:
I was paying special attention, because I wanted to see whether she was still wearing the RNC purchased and soon to be donated to charity designer threads. Normally, I don’t pay much attention. Last night I was paying attention because I wanted to see if she had gotten, well, more frumpy. That didn’t happen. To put it mildly, I was surprised by the pin. Maybe I’m easily surprised.
There is no really satisfactory explanation for this. Are they hypocrites of the first degree? Is the McPalin campaign that clueless? Maybe after the last eight years, they think cluelessness, for which they have voted 90% of the time, is a qualification for running the nation. But then I had a darker thought. Maybe she’s wearing the pin to “energize the base,” and it’s a gigantic FU to anyone who cares about the environment.
You choose. Either way, I wish McPalin would be gone.
Oct 25 2008
October 25, 2008 – about 13 minutes
Guns or butter? Howard Zinn: New president must choose between continued militarism and domestic well-being
Oct 25 2008
The Steam Shovel Of Stupidity
Continues To Run At Full Tilt For
The McCain Campaign
Around the World, the Signs Of Slowdown Spiral Outward
By Steven Mufson and Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 25, 2008; Page A01
Pessimism about the global economy deepened yesterday as fresh evidence of a worldwide slowdown showed up in feeble corporate profit reports from Asia, sinking commodities prices, and a scramble by emerging economies to prop up their sagging currencies and avert credit defaults.The signs of trouble popped up around the globe. Japanese giants Sony and Toyota, as well as South Korea’s Samsung, the world’s largest maker of memory chips, flat-screen televisions and liquid crystal displays, posted weakened profits and sales outlooks. Toyota’s quarterly sales fell for the first time in seven years. Britain reported its first economic contraction since 1992.
Japan’s Papers, Doomed but Going Strong
Loyal, Older Subscribers Allow Industry To Delay Demographic, Internet Effects
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 25, 2008; Page A10
TOKYO, Oct. 24 — Due to a shrinking population and an expanding Internet, the decline and fall of newspapers in Japan is all but guaranteed.“I am in a dying industry,” laments Kenichi Miyata, a senior editor and writer at the Asahi newspaper, a national daily with a circulation of 8 million. “Young people do not read newspapers, and our population is getting very old very rapidly.”
But something unexpected is happening en route to the ink-stained graveyard.
USA
Guantanamo tribunals overseer under investigation
Thomas Hartmann, an Air Force brigadier general, is accused of improperly influencing prosecutions.
By Josh Meyer
October 25, 2008Reporting from Washington — A Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals is the subject of two investigations into his conduct, including one wide-ranging ethics examination into whether he abused his power and improperly influenced the prosecutions of enemy combatants.
An internal Air Force investigation into the activities of Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann appears to be the more significant of the two probes because it was launched only after a preliminary inquiry found sufficient grounds to move forward, military officials said.
evidence despite prosecutors’ objections.It also is looking into allegations that Hartmann made intentionally misleading statements, both in public and during the Guantanamo tribunal proceedings, in an effort to downplay the direct role that he played in the overall prosecution effort and in several cases, according to interviews with military lawyers.
Oct 25 2008
While everyone has been focused on the presidential race, I think state and local races are at least as important. Sometimes I think these races are even more important . . .
cross-posted at Daily Kos and at Wild Wild Left