Being in the cool club

The end of 2007 saw the only two anti-war candidates blocked out of I think the last debates before the 'kick-off' of the primaries starts in Iowa and NH. It looks like Ron Paul, the only anti-war Republican candidate, possibly isn't going to be invited to a debate in early Jan. Earlier in Iowa, the Des Moines Register excluded Dennis Kucinich, the only anti-war Democratic candidate (as opposed to anti-Bush's war), from its debate.
Meanwhile in newspaper land, after getting canned from Time, Bill Kristol is seemingly going to write for the NYT soon. Actually about a week.

Don't mess with Texas, or how I learned to love the rifle sqaud

2007 was the first year that Texas had over half the executions in the US. Other states like New Jersey have gotten rid of capital punishment by law or practice, joining the most recent country to abolish it: Rwanda. At the same time, the UN just fairly overwhelmingly passed a death penalty moratorium; non-binding of course. Rome marked the occasion, with a somewhat new tradition, by lighting up the Colosseum. For the curious, here's the numbers from '06:

As in previous years, the vast majority of executions worldwide were carried out in a small handful of countries. In 2006, 91 per cent of all known executions took place in six countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA. Kuwait had the highest number of executions per capita of population, followed by Iran.

Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed in China during the year, although these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. Credible sources suggest that between 7,500 to 8,000 people were executed in 2006. The official statistics remain a state secret, making monitoring and analysis problematic.

Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82 and Iraq and Sudan each at least 65. There were 53 executions in 12 states in the USA.

An Update: Thomas Cahill talks about the death penalty on Moyer's Journal

Master Debaters

I don't have anything to say about the movie, I just couldn't resist making a post with that title.

Chistmas Music

Guinness Worthy

The current republican congressional minority party has broken the record for the number of filibusters in a 2-year senate session, in 1 year. And, I found someone who agrees with me.

Hillary Clinton: Keeping us safe from animated sex

Thank goodness someone is watching out for my children, god knows that I can't and risk them finding out who I am. It's good to see a candidate finally talking about the important issues that confront us today. Sex and adult content has no place in video games. I don't want my kids being subjected to blatantly sexual content while they are killing cops and pedestrians, and picking up hookers and then killing them in good fun. Why must these game studios ruin perfectly good shooting games with hidden pornography?

He said what?

George W Bush claims he spends his days spreading goodwill, freedom, and peace.

"Stuff happens"- D. Rumsfeld

There was a hearing today in the judiciary comittee on a KBR/Halliburton rape case from Iraq.







DOJ doesnt show up

Energy Bill

The last week before the winter recess was a busy one. An energy bill, "omnibus spending" bill, and a showdown over a surveillance bill. There was an investigation started about destroyed CIA interrogation tapes, and hearings about a KBR gang rape case from Iraq. There was an AMT fix too.

The biggest news on the energy bill was the first increase in fuel economy standards since the 70's. It also started out with renewable energy requirements for utilities and a canceling of tax breaks for oil & gas companies from a few years ago. Luckily with the aid of multiple veto threats from Bush the Senate's republicans were able to get these out of the bill. They were opposed to it since it could be considered raising taxes, and might mean higher prices at the pump. It might be ironic that Bush is opposed to eliminating tax breaks he claimed to be opposed to when they were first proposed. It would seem convenient to oppose them when there was a republican congress that was sure to pass them, then apparently when there is a chance they may actually get taken away, the story changes. Lest you get confused this wasn't related to the unpaid royalties that no one is collecting, it also wasn't about the royalty reductions from Bill Clinton's years.

Bush also threatened to veto the energy bill unless it assigned the DOT the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions instead of the EPA. On a related note, the EPA just told California and 16 other states that they can't regulate it at all themselves, and Arnold promised to sue.

Tips

Some advice on blogging from the real blog-father, no offense chopper.

Overrated

How helpful is it to have online documents? Flash memory is cheap small and easy to use, so is does it help that much to access your documents over the internets? is it good to store your stuff on a server where you can't get at it without internet access?

No Comment

A Day Late and an ICBM short

After 7 years of inaction and counterproductive actions, George Bush decided to try for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at Annapolis, well... more accurately to try to start negotiations that may one day lead to a peace deal. 'Peace in the Holy Land is possible,' he says, I think sounding more like a crazy fundie than a president. Two weeks later Israel is still busy invading Gaza. But, he has been negotiating with North Korea about their nuclear program, even sending them a letter. He has been talking more about Iran's nuclear plans than about Iraq. After past grand statements like i will leave it to the history books to judge me on iraq, it looks like he is trying to hedge his bets and give diplomacy a chance as a fallback in case the whole spreading democracy through the mideast through Iraq doesn't work out as was planned. Going from you're either with us or against us, and you have 24 hours to surrender or we invade, to a slightly more tactful style has won him some half admirers. There was even a TIME magazine article called 'Geoge W. Bush: Diplomat'

Never one to change his mind on his principled stands, this apparent reversal could actually get some important things accomplished, had it come 6 years ago. If the goal is to be remembered as an anti nuclear proliferation crusader, it certainly didn't help to have declared your intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It would also be smart also to actually follow the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the treaty that he has criticized other countries for not following. Maybe selling all that nuclear technology to India might not have been the best idea either, seeing as they didn't sign that treaty, as Israel and Pakistan also have not, and the NPT specifically prohibits doing that. Or perhaps it wasn't wise to try and upgrade our nuclear arsenal, replace old warheads, and try to develop new 'bunker buster' nukes. Maybe we shouldn't have resurrected REagan's star wars missile defense program. Maybe it isn't helpful to threaten or invade other countries and scare them in to wanting the bomb

Maybe if he had taken this approach earlier, Russia would not be considering re-starting the cold war. Bush's focus lately has been on Iran's nuclear research and "preventing WWIII'. Unfortunately a last-minute attempt to repair the nuclear problems of the world won't make up for years and years of doing nothing or making it worse.

Mike Ditka is not a financial wizard

Mike Ditka failed to take da financial and philanthropy worlds by storm with his Hall of Fame Assistance Trust Fund. Out of da $1.3 million it collected over 3 years about $57K was given out, although Ditka says it was $160K. He said about $600K is still left in it. If you use his numbers that's about $540,00.00 that was spent on....hey at least we were trying to do something good-that counts, doesn't it?

Sunday Bloody Sunday

I'ts the End of the World as Know it, and I feel Fine

Some more videos for ed

Fun with........?

http://view.break.com/411110 - Watch more free videos

Buh Bye

Resigning today was Howard 'Cookie' Krongard, the Inspector General of the State Dept. He had been the subject of complaints from State Dept. employees and then had an embarrasing hearing in Congress with some confusion about his brother Alvin 'Buzzy' being on blackwaters board while he was investigating them.

More Antarctica than you ever wanted

NASA's new high-res map

Because 9/11 changed everything

Videotapes of 2002 CIA interrogations destroyed.

"CIA Director Michael Hayden said the CIA began taping the interrogations as an internal check on the program after President Bush authorized the use of harsh questioning methods. The methods included waterboarding, which simulates drowning, government officials said."

This news comes the same week the Supreme Court heard arguments about prisoners in Guantanamo's right to challenge their imprisonment, otherwise known as habeus-corpus. Most of whom have been there 6 years now.

The newly coined term unlawful enemy combatant is what the administration uses to describe the people there, it does not call them POW's since that term carries with it certain rights from the 'quaint' Geneva Conventions. Though sometimes it does compare them to POW's, arguing that in a war, POW's can be held without charges or trial until the end of hostilities. With the seemingly endless 'War on Terror' this amounts to a de-facto life sentence.

The advantage to holding them at Guantanamo is it allows the administration to claim US law does not apply since they are not on US soil, an argument refuted by the Supreme Court, much like the other prisoners at the various CIA black sites scattered around the world, and the 'extraordinary rendition' program.

After failing to convince the Supreme Court of the legality of the imprisonment system in earlier cases, the previous Republican Congress passed the Military Commissions Act to specifically take away the habeus protection, trying slowly to make the tribunal system appear legal. Some things allowed in the Combatant status review tribunals - CSRT's: secret evidence, evidence and confessions obtained through 'coercion'; not allowed: lawyers, introducing evidence for the defense.

One of the few prisoners to be charged with a crime reached a unique plea bargain, "the [US] government released Hicks on the condition that he not speak with reporters for one year, that he waive his rights to appeal or sue, and that he recant accusations of illegal treatment while in U.S. captivity."

If the one year period starts at his release, due at the end of this month, it will coincidentally end during Bush's last scheduled month in office.

Not likely to change much

The recent NIE that says Iran has stopped its newkyuler weapons program in 2003 probably won't change much. Bush has usually said, and is doing so almost exclusively after the report, that it is the newkyuler knowldge to make a bomb not the bombs themselves that Iran must be prevented from getting, with force if necessary according to Cheney and Lieberman, if we want to avoid WWIII. And not everbody believes the report.

Catsup? Ketchup? Catsup? Ketchup?

McDonald's and Taco Bell have agreed to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes after protests and boycotts forced their hands. The money will theoretically go directly to migrant workers who pick them, raising their pay to almost 80 cents a bucket. The deal has not gone into effect yet though, with the tomato growers association arguing that it would be a betrayal of free-market principles, saying it is “pretty much near un-American.” They have even threatened a fine to any farm that accepts the deal.

One other fast food chain....Burger King....is still reluctant to agree to such a deal.

Some people are worried that consumers will end up having to pay for the increase, which at a penny per pound would work out to maybe a nickel for about every 30 big macs you eat.

Encouraging the Incorrigible

If I were a major newspaper like the Washington Post, I would be incredibly embarrassed if I were to run a front page article like the one about the rumors Barack Obama might secretly be a Muslim. It's embarrassing on so many levels. For arguably one of the most prominent political newspapers to run a front page story that simply regurgitates blogs, internet rumors, and anonymous postings on websites is probably the epitome of laziness. There is barely a single original quote in the article, with most of the 2 or 3 of them buried at the very end. The writer appears to just have did a Google search on 'Obama' AND 'Muslim', surfed the internet for a while, made 1 phone call, and then summarized what he read and called it a front page expose'.

The writer appears not to have even made much of an effort to clearly lay out any facts before giving prime space to all the rumors. It almost seems like he is deliberately trying to confuse the issue. The article does little do distinguish between what it means to be a follower of a religion and having some exposure to a religion in your early childhood. For example, I went to church regularly as a child, was even baptized, yet amazingly I'm as much an authentic christian as Christopher Hitchins is an authentic atheist. Sidenote: I think Christopher Hitchens is an intellectually dishonest opportunistic bandwagon jumper of the worst kind.

Also interesting is what the article did not say. It didn't include very many quotes from Obama. It also didn't mention the part of a certain document about no religious test for public office. It gives lots of ink to the conspiracy theory of 'Muslims' trying to take over America from the inside out and Obama being a 'Muslim plant', but does nothing to address the truth or facts of it.
If I had an 'On Notice' list, the Washington Post would get added to it.

Working from home

More proof that just because Karl Rove physically left Washington doesn't mean he left in spirit. Many strange things have come out of the mouth of Karl Rove over the years, but his recent statements that back in 2002, it was Congress that was in a rush to vote to give Bush authorization to use force in Iraq, not Bush who was in a rush, must be by far the strangest that I have heard.

Especially taking into account Bush's common strategy of pressuring quick votes on dubious things to give lawmakers little time to review them, a fact alluded to in the most recent Democratic debate when Dennis Kucinich answered a question about why he voted against the patriot act by saying 'because I read it'.

One interesting thing is that Rove is actually saying it himself, where more often he'd just delegate the lying or half-truths to give himself plausible (in his mind) deniability (maybe a technique learned from Cheney who is infamous for not keeping written records of anything lest it be used against him at some point). Is it that Rove can't remember what happened and is trying to guess? Is he saying what he actually believes, maybe because of some ideological selective memory that makes him attribute bad things to people he doesn't like? Is he using the 'big lie' strategy again to rewrite history? The world may never know but with his exhaustive list of past dirty tricks it's not a good sign.

Update: Tom Daschle replies, here too.