August 2009 archive

Good Democratic operative Leon Panetta comes before us to say that the CIA and the Bush administration should be excused for all of their crimes because it was to be expected that they would behave like frightened children after the 9/11 attacks. This is the “reality of 9/11” to which Panetta refers. This is a bold attempt at normalizing incompetence and shoddy behavior in America’s leadership.

A stupid, ignorant thug, or a terrified young child, would lash out blindly and break the rules, so why should this standard not apply to the President of the United States and his underlings? This is the final argument of the head of the CIA to protect his agency from repercussions for torturing human beings to extract false confessions to serve the White House.

What is being attempted here is nothing less than the overthrow of our Constitution and laws in favor of the supposedly superior principle of impulsive decision making driven by fear and confusion. The American Founders would be horrified by claims like this. The main purpose of government is to subdue and control the wild impulses of humanity and curb the worst insticts of powerful leaders. But Panetta tells us that the highest principle is to trust the gut decsions of frightened men.

Is our nation truly so debased and dishonored that it will tolerate such offensive nonsense? How low have we sunk if we allow such sophistry to destroy our Constitution? What is to prevent the next rogue President from playing the fear card to inflict even greater outrages on our people? Don’t ask Leon Panetta. He is too busy protecting the frightened children who used to lead our government.

Crossposted at daily kos

   I think of my mother and my sister, and the mothers and sisters of others, and I hang my head in shame.

   I apologize for speaking without knowing what it is like to be the other person. I apologize for the assumption that I may speak in judgement of others without pity. The uniqueness that seperates men from women is a divine one, yet seperate us it does. It blinds us, casting our differences first, and making us judge one another as men and women, and not humans first. We are all brothers and sisters. We are all as one. I presumed to think that I am better than another. I was wrong, and am ashamed.

   I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt apology to the daughters of this community and America and the world on behalf of my own words and deeds, and that of my fellow brothers. I hope you can forgive me.

New Detainee Site In U.S. Considered

Facility Would Contain Courtrooms, House Some Guantanamo Prisoners

By Peter Finn and Scott Wilson

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, August 3, 2009

The administration is considering whether to transfer some detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a facility in the United States that would contain courtrooms to hold federal criminal trials and military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects, administration officials said Sunday.

The maximum-security facility would be jointly run by the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, with each assuming responsibility for different sets of inmates. Officials said such a facility could also house prisoners held in indefinite detention and those cleared for release but who have no country willing to accept them. Those convicted in federal court or military commissions could serve their terms there.

Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast

Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Monday, 3 August 2009

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an “oil crunch” within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

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