Tag: NPR

Conflict TBI: Cognitive Rehab. Therapy Not Covered

Billions have been spent on these Wars of choice! With those Billions spent Billions were made by many, new multi-millionaires with connections were produced as well as a high priced merc private army and more. Directly and indirectly over the decade of these ongoing conflicts!  

Good Riddance, Juan Williams

Good riddance to bad rubbish.  

For years (literally) I’ve noted what a cretinous NPR’s Juan Williams is. If the asscranks over at Orange Admin haven’t erased/deleted all my archived Diaries, you’ll be able to find plenty of writings that back up this assertion.  Williams has always been unimpressive, at the least:  a shallow and superficial interviewer whose “insights” and “analysis” were mere dabblings in either the obvious or recapitulations of Right Wing spinning points.  Over at Orange I noted many times over the degree to which Juan Williams just about peed himself with simpering and worshipful excitement when he “interviewed” (read:  fawned over) Dick Cheney about 5 or 6 years ago.  

Well, finally, finally, this poseur, this underwhelmer, this poster child for much of what’s wrong with so-called “journalism” in today’s America, got his comeuppance:  NPR’s fired Juan Williams for over-the-top and, well, just dumbass proclamations (confessions of TeaKKism) about Muslims.  TeaKKism.  Yeh, I know that Williams is a person of color.  That’s part of the irony.

.

NPR Fires Juan Williams for Muslim Remarks on Fox  

“On Monday, O’Reilly asked Williams if there is a “Muslim dilemma” in the United States. The NPR analyst and longtime Fox News contributor agreed with O’Reilly that such a thing exists, and added that “political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.”

“‘I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,’ Williams continued. ‘You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.’ . . .”

You know that there’s a racist or like-kind remark coming whenever someone starts off a sentence with, “Well, you know I’m not a bigot/prejudiced, but . . .”

Of course, he’s got his buddies and his sinecure at Fox to comfort him.  This jerk will never worry about having to pay a bill.  These foul people take care of their own.

My only beef with NPR is that they kept this narrow-minded panderer to the Right Wing on its payroll for as long as it did.

.

Brain Injury Investigation: Army Responds

After the first part of the report by Danny Zwerdling and T. Christian Miller of NPR and ProPublica there was the following, before the second part, that aired on the NPR show ‘Talk of the Nation’.

Army Responds To Brain Injury Investigation


Guests Danny Zwerdling, NPR national desk correspondent and Gen. Peter Chiarelli, U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff

June 9, 2010 An NPR investigation found that the U.S. military often fails to diagnose traumatic brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The investigation also revealed that many soldiers receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems after suffering brain injuries.

NPR Player to stream discussion

Investigative Journalism into Combat Traumatic Brain Injuries

Daniel Zwerdling {link takes you to a page of his reports}, of NPR, has been doing stellar investigative reporting on PTSD and TBI, now for a number of years, as the two occupations we’re engaged in continued on. It took the media a few years to finally grasp what was already known as to the results of War on the soldiers we send. Even with the some four decades of many of us Vietnam Veterans, as well as other Veterans, and the Civilians who recognized those results and have been speaking out about. Like everything else the public either ignored or certainly didn’t want to hear. We didn’t have the present day technology and sadly it’s taking two more long occupations for the realities to finally speak of what happens and reach more and more people who now can’t ignore. The media to finally started reporting on the results of war, not recognized before, as well as the understanding that same happens within the civilian populations, wars are not the only cause. Traumatic Brain Injuries have been known about and treated in the public but even those are being looked at and re-studied, as there is much more now known in needing to understand and bring new treatments for or advance the treatments used.

The Creative Math of BP’s 20, no 40%, Containment

BP has claimed that the new 4 inch Pipe inserted into the 21 Riser pipe is siphoning off 20% of the leaking oil. And then they updated that figure to 40% the next day.  

Sounds good on the Morning News, but how did they get those numbers?

I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out the cross-sectional area of a 4″ Pipe vs the cross-sectional area of a 21″ Riser Pipe (minus its reported .812″ wall thickness)

And those calcs ended up: roughly 4.4% of the larger [inner] area would be covered by the smaller [outer] area — BUT all that was just a Red Herring — it turns out due to this BP picture (and its large rubber gaskets)

Looks good on Paper. Could the insert pipe with its many rubber stoppers actually be blocking up to 40% of the leaking oil from the larger pipe?

Yet one wonders, where did that 40% number come from, especially since BP is not all that keen on measuring and monitoring?

Deep Water Engineer explains how to Stop the Gushers — Updated with BP info

I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR yesterday,

when I heard this Oil Rig Engineer call in

and explain a “common sense” way to put a halt to the Oil Gusher in the Gulf.

He was a shocked by BP’s incompetent, “shotgun” approach —

to contain the mess, as most of us have been.

Here’s the eye-opening clip, with my transcript of Engineer Henry’s simple advice to BP.

The Gulf Coast Oil Spill and the Future of Offshore Drilling

May 13, 2010

Diane Rehm Show Audio

“Oil Rig Henry” starts his Engineering lesson, at Time Mark 40:20

My transcript of the his Engineering insights, and simple containment and shut-off recommendations, follows next:

Republican Calls Waterboarding “Torture”, Still Likes It

Last night on Hardball, when discussing why he was opposed to bringing Gitmo detainees over to a supermax prison in Thomson, Illinois, freshman Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) defended the use of waterboarding on detainees — with a slight twist.

Schock: “I would not limit our intelligence agencies’ ability to get information from people.  If they have a ticking time-bomb or some critical piece of information that can save American lives, I don’t believe that we should limit waterboarding or quite frankly any other alternative torture technique, if it means saving Americans’ lives.”

For the moment, leaving aside Schock’s boilerplate right-wing justifications for why he believes waterboarding is a good thing, I will give him a small, small modicum of credit for admitting what Dick Cheney will not — that waterboarding does, in fact, constitute torture.  I would even argue that Schock went one step further than even NPR, whose ombudsman Alicia Shepherd explicitly banned the use of the word “torture” when referring to waterboarding or other brutal interrogation methods authorized by the Bush Administration.

That said, Schock still has no idea what the hell he’s talking about, and calling it torture instead of “enhanced interrogation techniques” is mostly a cosmetic change when he’s still advocating for a reprehensible method of interrogating detainees.  He engages in the same denialism that Cheney does by stating earlier in the interview that “there have been no torture techniques, no alternative interrogation techniques, nothing negative in a bad way has happened at Guantanamo Bay,” despite the evidence from multiple reports that say otherwise.  He also justifies the use of torture with the “ticking time bomb” theory, even though counterterrorism experts have roundly debunked that scenario as a myth, and the fact that torture does not yield accurate or reliable information anyway (to say nothing of the evil and moral repugnance of the practice itself).

Still, while I doubt this young Republican’s admission will have any appreciable effect on the public’s opinion of torture (which, sadly, is supported either “often” or “sometimes” by a majority of Americans, including 47% of Democrats), Schock’s words do clearly illuminate exactly what right-wingers are cheerleading.  If only every major media outlet would muster up the same honesty to call torture precisely what it is and the courage to unequivocally condemn anyone who supports it.

************************************

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

Matthew Hoh: “I wish people would refute what I’m saying.”

On October 29th 2009 the PBS News Hour had a discussion with Matthew Hoh the State Department Official who resigned over the Afghan War.

Ex-State Department Official Explains Exit Over Afghan War Strategy

A few of Matthews points made during their discussion and the video of same:

Max Cleland: Helping Soldiers Heal

Yesterday, the fifth of October, I posted up a Parade Magazine article I found on Max Cleland and his new book {on my site and a few open threads etc.}. This morning I heard a short, but real good, interview on NPR’s Morning Edition {below with links}, that should be added to the Parade article. This, while short, was a pretty good interview as Max hit’s on a number of issues but unable to delve deeper. Here’s hoping as he has started to promote the book that we get to hear and see longer more in depth interviews, I for one hope so, not only because of the brotherhood of us ‘Nam Vets and the whole Veterans community, but because Max doesn’t hold back, never did, and speaks with feeling and conviction.

Krakauer Explores Pat Tillman’s Death And Cover-Up

I did a post the other day about Jon Krakauer and his new book: “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman” with a video report from ABC’s Good Morning America and from the ABC World News Tonight.

He’s since been on at least two NPR shows one being All Things Considered which is about a seven minute discussion of the book and the Pat Tillman military service story that was propagandized by both the cheney/bush administration, the pentagon and the military!

Army Trains For Battle For Mental Health

Sunday, NPR Morning Edition, 08.23.09 {4min 5sec.}

Daniel  Zwerdling, of NPR, continues his outstanding research into and reporting on the Army’s, and the Military’s, care of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD and other possible mental problems developed as to serving in these wars and occupations.

Bob Dylan’s ‘Tell Tale Signs’: The Bootlegs

Thought folks might enjoy this, wether a Dylan fan or not, some good stuff and a free listen as well as downloads

It comes from the NPR Music Notes – All Songs Considered newsletter and site.

Exclusive Preview: Bob Dylan’s ‘Tell Tale Signs’

Load more