Saturday, June 13, 2009

Headlines - Saturday

 
###
 
Greenwald: Should the US also Suppress Evidence of Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan? http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/12-3

Ummmm. No.

###

Fifteen Months After Bloodbath in Iraq, Young Veteran Takes His Life
Cynthia Hubert | The Sacramento Bee

On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield.

"I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay.

That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom.

"My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright."

But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old.

The rest:
http://www.truthout.org/061209K

###

 
 
###
 
STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — The Sunday school teacher accused of murdering an 8-year-old friend of her daughters and then stuffing her inside a suitcase has plead not guilty.
###

It took Bush eight years to screw up the economy so bad all his trained ideologues could no longer cover it up but as far as Ed Gillespie is concerned, five months and it's now time for Obama to take the responsibility. This is, of course, dutifully reported by NYT tool Peter Baker as if it was some kind of, you know, news.

"I think they've got till summer" until these issues become fully vested with Mr. Obama, said Ed Gillespie, a former White House counselor to Mr. Bush. "But the novelty's already starting to wear off."

Like many other former Bush aides, Mr. Gillespie bristles at the fingers pointed at his onetime boss. "Blaming Bush just is not going to resonate" soon, he said. "And it's not what people are looking for in their president. They're looking for somebody who's not blaming somebody but is going to solve problems."

This from the guy who last year was blaming Clinton for the mortgage crisis. Eight years into Bush's disastrous presidency but it was still Clinton's fault. Five months into Obama's and it's now all BO.

http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/06/nyts-baker-helps-ed-gillespie-cook-up-propaganda-by-rewriting-some-history.html#more

###

Max Blumenthal - Israelis to Obama: Save us from ourselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prxMJ4EzPEw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatriotboy%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

Beautiful.

###

Conscious suffering, without fear: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014169.php

###

Morford - A Troubling Lack of Pure Evil: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/06/12/notes061209.DTL

###

A doctor in Nebraska, Dr. Leroy Carhart, has stepped forward and said he will train his staff to take over the important role lost when George Tiller was murdered. That's courage, and I applaud what he is doing. I hope more doctors take on this essential task.

That's the good news. The bad news? Look at what Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, a fellow who is obligated by his position to support the law, had to say.

"I'm disgusted and I'm saddened, and I hate it that he's here in Nebraska and I hate it that he's in America," Bruning said. "I mean, this guy is one sick individual."

I hate it that the people who enable murder can be found in positions where they are supposed to promote justice.

Sad fact: Bush's (politicized) Dept of Justice failed to enforce federal law protecting abortion providers from anti-abortion extremists. In fact, criminal enforcement of the federal law had declined by more than 75 percent over the last eight years.

###

While "Food, Inc." may tread some of the same soil as those books (Ominvore's Dilema and Fast Food Nation), it does so in an entertaining way that safely skirts the edge of stridence. It also gives us plenty of real, human victims of the various broken links of the food system. The farming faces are particularly haunting: chief among them the resigned, regretful Maryland poultry farmer Carole Morison, who is about to terminate her contract with Purdue. She lets the crew film her inside her poultry house, where the chickens can barely walk, thanks to their overdeveloped breasts and brittle bones. Despite the antibiotics in their feed — which have made Morison allergic to all antibiotics, she says — a dozen or so die every day from the crowded living conditions.

"This isn't farming," Morison says. "This is mass production, like an assembly line in a factory." In a Q&A with Kenner after a screening, Kenner says that Morison's poultry houses were later burned to the ground, possibly in retaliation for her participation in the film. -
The Ethicurean. 

Here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2sgaO44_1c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fxnerg%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

###

Who ever would have guessed? It's all very shocking news about the Big Oil president, really.
Bush administration officials pushed aside the National Park Service and sought to lease public lands for drilling on the borders of Utah's most famous redrock parks during their final days in power, a special report to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says.

Salazar was condemned by the oil industry for scrapping 77 of the leases weeks after taking office, but all of the drilling parcels had already been delayed by a federal lawsuit that still hasn't been resolved.

Salazar defended his decision in a telephone interview Thursday, saying that leasing parcels on or near borders of national parks is highly unusual.
###
 
New York State politics and the Letterman fatwa—just collided spectacularly:
 
New York State Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, a Republican, is calling on the CEO of CBS to fire David Letterman for crude comments he made about Sarah Palin and her daughter.
 
###
 
If you want to have computer privacy, you cannot have a connection to the internet. You cannot have a computer which is networked to another computer which is connected to the Internet. You might get away with just having a dial-up modem and only connecting for the purposes of sending and receiving e-mail, but even that is not certain.

The Pentagon and the NSA are setting up new "cyberwar" structures. There is little doubt that Federal law enforcement will do the same, if they not already are. State and even local law enforcement will piggyback along and they will do their snooping of people's computer systems under the guise of "national security."

Before you dismiss this as "the concerns of another Moonbat", consider this: The FBI has had to repeatedly admit that their agents grossly misused the "National Security Letters" to obtain information from banks and other entities which should have been the subject of warrants. The FBI did this because NSLs are not subject to judicial review and warrants are, of course, issued by judges. Second, back when the American Fascist USA Patriot Act was enacted, the Federal cops promised over and over that the expanded powers they were getting would only be used in anti-terrorism cases, yet the first time they used those powers, it was on a fraud case out in Vegas.

One newer rule: The Internet and privacy do not mix. That seems to be clearer and clearer as time goes on.

One very old rule: Never trust the government, especially law enforcement, to respect your rights on their own volition. They will not. History is replete with examples.

We need an independent "cyber-watchdog" to keep a very close watch on these people.
 
###
 
Part time vigilance
 
"We must remain vigilant against ... prejudice in all its forms," Obama said Wednesday.
Except, of course, when it is the job of the government to defend prejudice:
 
Gay rights groups expressed dismay with the Obama administration Friday over its championing of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law the president pledged to try to repeal while on the campaign trail.

The government filed a motion late Thursday to dismiss the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, who are challenging the 1996 federal act. The law prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.

I'm sure glad that we didn't have this current Department of Justice around in the 1960s, otherwise they'd have been in front of the Supreme Court to argue that the miscegenation laws were appropriate.
 
###
 
 
###
 
Patriotic bipartisan senator Jon Kyl is threatening a boycott of Sotomayor's confirmation hearing.  
 
###
 
 
###
 
4,312 soldiers killed in Iraq that we know of; 704 in Afghanistan.
 
###
 
John Boehner's attempt to score points at home over bringing Gitmo detainees into the US probably did more to encourage terrorism than discourage it. Thanks, jerkwad.

When the perpetually sobbing, perpetually tanned House Minority Leader whined earlier this week that bringing a detainee into the US for trial is "the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America," he made us look like frightened pantywaists. You know, a lot like John Boehner.
 
Boehner's comment signals to international audiences, particularly, say, disaffected men in the Middle East: Americans are scared to death of terrorists. Just sitting in Guantanamo can make you "one of the world's most dangerous men" to U.S. political leaders. Swathe yourself with the Al Qaeda brand and you can become a global menace.

Boehner's fear of terrorists
encourages opponents of the US to adopt terrorism as a tool against us.

Over the long haul, exhibiting bravery in the face of terrorism will tend to discourage it. Being brave is desirable and politically popular. Minority Leader Boehner has Republicans looking weak and scared in the face of terrorism and - having been ignored by Obama - politically weak too.
 
Why does John Boner hate America??
 
###
 
Rush Limbaugh hates America ... and everyone else
 
###
 
America's newest crime: medical identity theft!
 
 

No comments: