All of us that voted for Obama know that the state of the economy left by 8 years of the Republican Bush administration cannot be fixed in 4 years even IF Republicans work with him. The NYT should be ashamed of itself reporting innuendos and assumptions. But then again they should have been ashamed for hiring Judy Kneepads Miller and continuing to keep Bill Kristol on.
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Unusually large US weapons shipment to Israel: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20090111&articleId=11743
I wonder if they're getting the white phosphorus from us too?
This letter of attorneys and academics appeared in the Times of London on Sunday states that Israel's bombardment of Gaza is not self defence - it's a war crime. It is a succinct and cogent refutation of the reigning right-Zionist talking points that have dominated American media reporting on this atrocity.
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Paul Krugman to Obama: you asked for ideas on a solid stimulus plan from me, so here they are: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion
My message to Obama: Stop being so politically timid and scared of a minority of renegade Republican senators and listen to Krugman. You won a mandate for change, not a vote for appeasement.
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How do our troops like being under Iraqi rule?
"We've got to walk on eggshells," said Spec. Cory Armer, 23, of Lake Charles, La. "I understand you can't go out and shoot everyone and play Rambo. But war is war. We shouldn't be falling under the jurisdiction of a country we're at war with."
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An Australian surfer punched a five-metre (16 foot) shark in the head as he rescued his 13-year-old cousin who had been bitten on the leg and dragged beneath the water in the latest of a wave of shark attacks to hit the country. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1112563/Surfer-punches-shark-head-rescue-cousin-13-Australia-faces-wave-terror-shark-attacks.html
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Glenn Greenwald gives a thorough review of Obama as a centrist. And his conformity to the Village mindset of how every Dem leader has acted for the past quarter century: like a follower.
I'd take it a whole lot further.
There is no leftist political ideology in US politics. It exists only in the imaginations of people who've never been exposed to it as anything more refined than the certainty so passionately defended by college sophomores. Liberalism in DC was killed in 1968, a victim of racists and warmongers. So only folks 50 or older have any experience with that bad ol' bogeyman. And some of them confuse it with hippies, LSD and the Weather Underground.
The Village insists we never experience the fearsome dodo bird long after that 'raptor' met its extinction.
All that's new is that Obama plans to engage in typical Demowishwashy fashion while Black, I helped elect him because he said he'd get us out of Iraq. Nobody else promised even that since last February.
If he accomplishes anything else liberal, I'll consider that an unexpected bonus. After all, ever since the telecom immunity vote, I've made it clear to my readers that Obama's potential as a progressive has yet to progress beyond wishful thinking.
And while he clearly idolizes Lincoln, the times require an FDR. Typical logic for a centrist, which isn't even an ideology. It's a long, slow, tingling ass kiss.
I'd be happy if Obama proves me wrong but I have my own ideology, as a realist.
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Tommy Chong went to prison for selling bongs
Judge rules that economic terrorist Bernie Madoff can remain free on bail Monday, in spite of the fact that after his arrest he mailed more than $1 million in jewelry to family and friends over the holidays. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/12/bernie-madoff-jail-hearin_n_157049.html
Thank you, Judge Ronald L. Ellis.
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You ungrateful curs
This is by Ross Mackenzie, retired editor of the editorial page at the Richmond Times Dispatch. I know you will feel, as I did after reading it through, deeply ashamed.
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Newspaper industry on verge of collapse
At least twelve major big-city dailies expected to collapse within the next year.
The problem with the newspaper biz is that they're not selling a product the public wants. Newspapers view their biz as selling advertisements. The rest of the newspaper exists only to sell ads. As a result, what passes for journalism in a typical daily newspaper is "he said she said" stenography that is calculated to not offend advertisers (not that this is handed down from the management, this is what's taught as "reporting" by schools of journalism). But the product that the general public wants is truth. If politician A says that a new Medicare drug benefit will cost $1 trillion per year, and politician B says no the new drug benefit will only cost $200 billion per year, the public wants to know who is telling the truth. But newspapers don't tell people that. Newspapers only regurgitate politician A and politician B's words, and refuse to tell people which of these two politicians is telling the truth because that would be "analysis" rather than "reporting". So people turn to alternate sources to try to find truth, whether it's talk radio, the Internet, Faux News, or whatever, eventually cancel their newspaper subscription because if they're getting their truth elsewhere why bother with the newspaper, and newspaper circulation is down 20% since 1990, to the point where fewer Americans read the newspaper today than did when JFK was elected. Which is a shame, because none of these alternative sources have the track record of journalistic integrity that newspapers traditionally had, but if newspapers refuse to give people what they're looking for...
So I'm not seeing much good ahead for the newspaper industry. But this isn't really a problem caused by the economy (except that the economy is causing a reduction in ad spending and thus newspapers don't need as much content to sell the fewer ads that they're getting), and more a problem with an industry losing its way, much like the U.S. auto industry lost its way. My advice to new journalism school grads today: Learn how to blog, and figure that your job is going to be much like a musician's in the future, where there's a few superstars who make a living at it and everybody else has to work a "day job" to make ends meet.
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Non-lethal tasers keep killing people: this time a 130# drunk teenager.
As you know, 400 people have been killed with garden variety tasers since 2001.
Wait till you see what the good folks at Taser International have in store for you next. The Taser shotgun - because who wants a wimpy little hand held taser when you can have one that can zap a perp from 20 yards or more away?
I'll bet there are a lot of law enforcement officers that can't wait to use one of these. As often as they can. Against some smart ass little punk, for example, who weighs only 130 pounds but has a bad attitude and isn't showing them the proper respect. Or a person suffering from a diabetic seizure. Or someone whose home they bust into by mistake. Or a mentally ill person. Or an old lady at a nursing home. Or someone who just looks at them funny. Or some of them liberal hippie type protesters who cause so much trouble. Or a scared autistic runaway boy. Or anyone who's black.
The cool thing about these, is that if say the diabetic having a reaction is being tasered and tries to grab the barrel, the reflex engagement electrodes complete a circuit allowing TASER NMI to discharge from the nose, through the subject's body, out to the hand that grabbed the projectile. This reaction creates a significant spread that allows the XREP projectile pulses to affect a large body mass, causing overpowering NMI.
Bet that sends a tingle up the spine.
What could possibly go wrong?
Also, the nice folks at Taser International Inc. have designed a handy new holster that holds not only your stun gun but an MP3 player too!
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You would think by now we would be used to the lies, delusions and bullshit of George W. Asshole. I started watching his "final" press conference yesterday and had to turn it off. Even I, who can usually tolerate his crap for the comedic value couldn't stand listening to him lie and recite things that were written on Uranus (or in his Uranus).
When he got to the part about inheriting the recession, I almost choked. Then again, calling Abu Ghraib "a disappointment" and Mission Accomplished "a mistake" was good for spitting coffee out of my nose.
In a classless move, President Bush snubbed Helen Thomas, and refused to take a question from her as she sat in the front row, waving her hand to him.
She's covered more presidents than Bush has verbs in his vocabulary. The snub ran directly counter to the sentiments expressed in his opening remarks regarding the press:
Through it all, it's been -- I have respected you. Sometimes didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And I appreciate it.
I appreciate -- I do appreciate working with you. My friends say, what is it like to deal with the press corps? I said, these are just people trying to do the best they possibly can.
I guess he didn't appreciate working with her since she called him out for many of his policies. Maybe he just misunderestimated her too...
And fresh off of that press conference where all the things we dislike about him were put on display, Bush has decided saying goodbye once just is not enough. Now he has to step into the shoes of Eisenhower.
He's giving a "Farewell Address" in which he will whole-heartedly endorse "the military industrial complex". After all what did Dwight Eisenhower know about the military?
President George W. Bush will give a farewell address to the nation Thursday night, billed by the administration as a chance to reflect on his tenure and welcome Barack Obama without fighting old battles one last time.
Bush will deliver the speech, expected to run 10 to 15 minutes, from the ornate East Room of the White House. He will have a small audience of people in the room, chosen for their stories of personal courage.
The underlying message, once again, to emphasize just how "courageous" George Bush really is by surrounding him with the real deal.
One more week, people.
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This is what it was about the whole time: http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/01/this-is-what-it-was-about-the-whole-time.html
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Wanna smell like the Pope from 1746-1878 did? You can, with the Pope's Cologne.
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Yes, I am going to keep harping on this
From LWB:
Hamas and the desperate people of Palestine - a recent history
If anyone told me years ago that I would be writing a post defending an Islamic group like Hamas, I would have told them they were out of their mind. How things have changed. As the people of Gaza are being slaughtered by Apartheid Israel, Hamas seems to be getting a lot of bad press. I thought it might be useful to write a more recent history of Hamas. Rest assured you will never see this history provided in the American press. And I'm not going to go too far back, because if I do, I will have to mention not only Hamas' terrorist acts but those of the founders of Apartheid Israel in the creation of their stolen state and their never ending terrorism since. Of course no one wants to talk about that. That would be anti-Semitic.First of all, we hear alot about the Hamas credo, you know the destruction of Israel, setting up a Muslim state and all of that stuff. I imagine that if I had had my land stolen and had been subjected to Zion-fascist tyranny for decades, I probably would also have put together a rather strongly worded document to let my captors and others know my feelings. God forbid that I should in any way come across as hateful to those who had subjected me to endless humiliation and indignity.
I will start my recent history with the 2006 Hamas election victory. This victory followed the decades of political ineptness and corruption by it's chief rival Fatah. Here is what an Israeli newspaper reported as one of their first acts.
A few months after Hamas' 2006 election victory, leader Ismail Haniyeh tried to start a dialogue with U.S. President George W. Bush. Haaretz has obtained a written message from Haniyeh sent to Bush via an American professor who met with Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh asked Bush to lift the boycott of the Hamas government and pressure Israel to maintain stability in the region. On June 6, 2006, Haniyeh met Dr. Jerome Segal of the University of Maryland in the Gaza Strip.
...At the time of the meeting, Hamas was trying to establish its three-month-old government under an international boycott. The Quartet for Middle East peace had called on the organization to recognize Israel, disavow terror and honor existing agreements. At the end of the meeting, Haniyeh dictated a short message he asked Segal to transmit to President Bush. Haniyeh spoke Arabic and Youssuf translated his words into English. Segal took down the letter in his notebook and Haniyeh and Youssuf both signed it.
Haniyeh wrote in the missive, "We are an elected government which came through a democratic process." In the second paragraph, Haniyeh laid out the political platform he maintains to this day. "We are so concerned about stability and security in the area that we don't mind having a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and offering a truce for many years," he wrote.
Haniyeh called on Bush to launch a dialogue with the Hamas government. "We are not warmongers, we are peace makers and we call on the American government to have direct negotiations with the elected government," he wrote.
Haniyeh also urged the American government to act to end the international boycott "because the continuation of this situation will encourage violence and chaos in the whole region." Upon his return to the U.S. several days later, Segal gave State Department and NSC officials the original letter. In his own letter, Segal emphasized that a state within the 1967 borders and a truce for many years could be considered Hamas' de facto recognition of Israel. He noted that in a separate meeting, Youssuf suggested that the Palestinian Authority and Israel might exchange ambassadors during that truce period. This was not the only covert message from Hamas to senior Bush administration officials. However, Washington did not reply to these messages and maintained its boycott of the Hamas government.
Although Haaretz indicates Washington did not reply, it did respond, with its usual bad faith and treachery inspired by Israel's Zionist minions within the Bush Administration.
Shortly there after, Deputy National Security Advisor, Zion-fascist Ell
iott Abrams met with a group of Palestinian business men and discussed the violent overthrow of the the Hamas leadership with arms supplied by the United States. In the months that followed, the United States supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas was victorious in Gaza and its control reestablished. Thus another misadventure (and there were many) conceived by war criminal Elliot Abrams, turned to shit. And now not surprisingly everything that Haniyeh warned our Presidential Stooge about has come to pass.But America's fraudulent media did not report this either. Nor have they reported that since Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people that for the most part the Palestinians held their fire. They held their fire even after being imprisoned within their own borders, starved and denied humanitarian supplies while choked off from the rest of the world. That is the recent history of Hamas.
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Joe the Plumber displays his spectacular journalistic skills: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYCxj8KXjQ&eurl=http://pandagon.net/
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".....On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."
Someone needs to tell Obama that one of the greatest faults of the Bush administration is its failure to look backwards, its refusal to understand what happened and why. Screw this whole "move forwards" horseshit. That was the mantra of this White House. It's why they didn't even want a 9/11 commission. It's why they didn't want any real accounting of the Iraq War. When you're investigating crimes, you are always looking backwards. Stop damning us to repeat. You can be sure that, when they're no longer in office, there's a lot of White House officials who are gonna avoid going to most of Europe for fear of arrest.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has written to the Smithsonian raising questions about the caption that sits beneath its new portrait of George Bush. The current wording of the caption states that Bush's term was marked by "the attacks on September 11, 2001, that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." Sanders, bless his heart, points out that the 9/11 attacks -- all together, now -- had nothing to do with the Iraq war. - tpm election central
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AP: The Army has run out of non-obese people to recruit, and is considering starting a fat farm to transform chubby trainees into svelte soldiers.
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The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, when finally released after months of the Bush administration trying to get it changed without success, said that "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Since then every major Western media outlet and political leader, especially including Barack Obama, has done their level best to ignore that finding.
The IAEA's assessment to date is in full agreement with the NIE: that there "is no evidence that the weapons program continued after 2004." Given that's there's no evidence that Iran has a current nuclear weapons program, warmongers have been reduced to arguing that there's no proof positive that it doesn't. The inability to prove a negative, to prove "evidence of absence" was what got us into Iraq too, so they hope it serves again.
Unfortunately, Obama's recent statements would indicate that it will serve again. On Sunday he told George Stephanoupolis that "they are pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race."
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Because there's nothing else that needs to be investigated in this country right now
AP sources: Grand jury looking at Clemens case - Nearly a year after Roger Clemens told Congress he did not use performance-enhancing drugs, a federal grand jury is being asked to determine whether he should be indicted on charges of lying under oath.
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From the AP ...
The Central Elections Committee on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court.The ruling, made by the body that oversees the elections, reflected the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.
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When Olmert calls, the president of the US jumps:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush. "I said, 'Get me President Bush on the phone,' " Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now,' " Mr. Olmert continued. "He got off the podium and spoke to me." ...
Mr. Olmert claimed that once he made his case to Mr. Bush, the president called Ms. Rice and told her to abstain. "She was left pretty embarrassed," Mr. Olmert said, according to The A.P.
If you want a glimpse of how the government of Israel was treated unlike any other government in the Bush years, look no further.
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A Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington report has found that "17 of 24 former Bush Cabinet members have taken positions with at least 119 companies, including 65 firms that lobby the government and 40 that lobby the agencies they headed." The group's executive director said the report shows these officials "made a mint on the backs of American taxpayers."
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