Six lobbyists per lawmaker enough on health care?

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Want to know why they're having trouble getting health care reform passed in Washington? Consider this: There are six…. count 'em — six, lobbyists for each of the 535 members of Congress.

This translates to 3,300 lobbyists working on health care — or three times the number who lobby on defense. These groups reportedly spent more than $263 million on lobbying during the first six months of this year — with drug makers alone spending more than $134 million.

One expert tells Bloomberg news: "The sheer quantity of money that's sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them."

And let's talk about that money for a minute. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, health-related companies gave almost $170 million to federal lawmakers in 2007 and 2008.

Max Baucus — chairman of the Senate Finance Committee — got $3 million from the health and insurance industries from 2003 – 2008.

The ranking Republican on that committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, took in more than $2 million since 2003.

Over in the House — Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel received $1.6 million from the health sector and its employees in the last two years. And ranking Republican Dave Camp received almost $1 million in that time.

And this is just a few of them.

Here's my question to you: When it comes to health care reform, are six lobbyists for each member of Congress enough?

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/03/six-lobbyists-per-lawmaker-enough-on-health-care/

Al Franken Talks Down Angry Mob

Diebold sells Premiere Election Solutions to competitor ES&S

By Stephen C. Webster

Diebold, maker of touch-screen voting systems that have brought controversy after controversy upon the company, said Thursday that it will sell off most of it's elections-related business, calling it a losing investment and a persistent "distraction."

The Ohio-based company said it told Texas-based Premiere Election Solutions to former rival vote machine manufacturer Election Systems & Software for just $5 million. Diebold purchased the company for $31 million in 2001, noted Ohio newspaper The Canton Rep. The company said its sale will force a pretax loss between $45 and $55 million.

"For the last couple of years the elections business has been a distraction," a spokeswoman told the Rep.

"Diebold retains certain existing liabilities, including an ongoing lawsuit involving the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and shares with ES&S other liabilities in connection with the elections systems business," added The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"Diebold was the industry's biggest maker of electronic voting machines heading into the 2004 elections," noted The Wall Street Journal. "Security concerns have dogged electronic voting. The company in early 2006 decided to seek options for the U.S. elections business, including a potential sale. Diebold essentially separated the company from the rest of Diebold in August 2007, having no direct operational involvement in the business."

Included in the deal, Diebold said it would also collect 70 percent of Premiere's accounts payable, added Reuters.

The sale concludes Diebold's involvement in North American elections, either in the U.S. or Canada. It does not, however, affect its operations in Brazil, where its ATM's are growing in popularity with the nation's largest bank.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/03/diebold-sells-premiere-election-solutions-to-competitor-ess/

Geoengineering May Be Mandatory, Royal Society Says

by Jeff St. John

The Royal Society says grand-scale geoengineering schemes, like massive tree-planting campaigns or shooting sulfur into the atmosphere to block sunlight, may be needed to stop global warming.

Geoengineering may not be a last resort to fight global warming any longer – that is, if us humans can't get our act together to reduce the carbon dioxide we're pumping into the atmosphere.

That's the warning that emerged from a Royal Society report published Tuesday. Grand, expensive and uncertain engineering projects – think installing carbon-scrubbing devices across continents or shooting aerosols into the atmosphere to block sunlight – may be humankind's only shot at slowing man-made global warming, the report's authors warn.

That's because current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions aren't going far enough, the report's authors contend.

The world needs to cut atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to half of what they were in 1990 by 2050, but right now, "Global efforts to reduce emissions have not yet been sufficiently successful to provide confidence that the reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change will be achieved," the report states.

"It is hoped that post-2012 emission reduction targets will stimulate greater action through more effective mechanisms," the report went on, referring to the upcoming United Nations talks in Copenhagen to craft a carbon-reduction agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol (see The Copenhagen Call: Biz Leaders Back GHG Reduction Efforts).

"But there is a serious risk that sufficient mitigation actions will not be introduced in time, despite the fact that the technologies required are both available and affordable," the report stated.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/geoengineering-may-be-mandatory-royal-society-says/

Crosswalk Sign Hacks

by jason eppink

Make sure you read the instructions carefully next time you're about to press the button at a crosswalk. Total Crisis Panic Button was installed all over Los Angeles by Jason Eppink. That project inspired the second two, put up by Ryan Laughlin in New Haven, CT.

http://urbanprankster.com/2009/08/crosswalk-sign-hacks/

First Genetic Link Between Reptile And Human Heart Evolution Found

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles.

The research, published in the September 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how a specific protein that turns on genes is involved in heart formation in turtles, lizards and humans.

"This is the first genetic link to the evolution of two, rather than one, pumping chamber in the heart, which is a key event in the evolution of becoming warm-blooded," said Gladstone investigator Benoit Bruneau, PhD, who led the study. "The gene involved, Tbx5, is also implicated in human congenital heart disease, so our results also bring insight into human disease."

From an evolutionary standpoint, the reptiles occupy a critical point in heart evolution.

While bird and mammalian hearts have four chambers, frogs and other amphibians have three. "How did hearts evolve from three to four chambers?" Bruneau said. "The different reptiles offer a sort of continuum from three to four chambers. By examining them, we learned a lot about how the human heart chambers normally form."

He explained that with four chambers—two atria and two ventricles—humans and all other mammals have completely separate blood flows to the lungs and to the rest of the body, which is essential for us to be warm-blooded.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090902133629.htm

A raw deal on Darwin in the NY Times

by Simon Maloy

The New York Times featured an op-ed yesterday by Robert Wright of the New America Foundation proposing "A Grand Bargain Over Evolution," whereby two warring groups -- the "intensely religious" and the "militantly atheistic" -- might find a scrap of common ground concerning Darwin's theories and "learn to get along." The proposal is wrapped in scientific jargon and relies heavily on intellectual history and high-minded philosophizing. There's just one problem.

The "bargain" stinks.

Here's how Wright sees things -- the atheists "insist that any form of god-talk, any notion of higher purpose, is incompatible with a scientific worldview," whereas the religious refuse to believe that natural selection is capable of producing creatures as complex and morally attuned as Homo sapiens, which means God "had to step in and provide special ingredients at some point." Both these viewpoints are "wrong," according to Wright, and are in need of some tweaking. For the religious, Wright proposes that they accept that God "initiat[ed] natural selection with some confidence that it would lead to a morally rich and reflective species." For the atheists, Wright prescribes that they accept that "any god whose creative role ends with the beginning of natural selection is, strictly speaking, logically compatible with Darwinism," and that "natural selection's intrinsic creative power ... adds at least an iota of plausibility to this remotely creative god." Voila -- amity achieved.

But this doesn't seem like much of a "bargain." He's asking believers in God to continue believing in God, but to also believe in natural selection as one of God's works. But for the atheists, he's essentially asking that they toss out their beliefs. Being an atheist in predicated upon one principle idea -- that there is no "higher power" at work in the universe. To ask an atheist to acknowledge, in Wright's words, "at least an iota of plausibility to this remotely creative god" is to ask that atheist to stop being an atheist. He's asking one group to merely alter their belief structure, and another group to completely undermine the basic tenet of theirs. Some "bargain" ...

And as you might expect, the "militant atheist" scientists are mightily unimpressed with Wright's teleological wheeling and dealing.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200908240130

I want my country back, too!

Idiot in Idaho

 

GOP gubernatorial candidate talks of "hunting" Obama

by Yobie Benjamin

America elected an African-American president and an Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidate "joked" about issuing $11.50 tags to hunt down the president.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell's repeated "jokes" about hunting President Barack Obama has received national play in the mainstream media and on the Web that included praises in right wing and racist blogs.

Rammell a Rexburg, Idaho resident, made the sick comment Tuesday at a Republican barbecue in Twin Falls during talk about Idaho selling its first $11.50 hunting tags for wolves this fall. Someone shouted "Obama tags," and Rammell said, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those."

Not content with one sick jab at the president, Rammell repeated yesterday in a news release and on Twitter: "Anyone who understands the law, knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington, D.C." He has refused to apologize but said he doesn't advocate assassinating Obama.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=46481#ixzz0Q4AFP4N9

Auto-Tune the News #8: dragons. geese. Michael Vick. (ft. T-Pain)

Don't let Murdoch smash this jewel. The BBC must act to save itself

Rupert's son is bent on continuing the war his father started. But he'll find Auntie matches the NHS in public affection

 

by Jonathan Freedland

Credit where it's due: the free-market right is nothing if not brave. Fainter-hearted souls would have spotted the imminent first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman brothers that started the global financial crisis and decided that now was not the moment to trumpet the case for unfettered private enterprise, free of meddling regulation. But the evangelists for turbo-charged capitalism are made of sterner stuff. With the American conservative assault on Britain's "Nazi" and "Orwellian" National Health Service still fresh in the memory, a leading US free marketeer has trained his sights on another British institution: the BBC.

He is James Murdoch whose weekend MacTaggart lecture was a 39-minute plea for comprehensive deregulation, warning of the dangers of state interference in the "natural diversity" of the media industry. Of the recent history of deregulation, with its catastrophic consequences for the world's economy, there was not a mention.

Nor did he detain his audience at the Edinburgh television festival, sponsored by the Guardian, with a declaration of his own interest in the subject. He spoke as if he were a mere policy wonk, rather than the heir to a broadcasting empire that would make billions if he had his way and the BBC were cut down to size. This was like a fox arguing that the henhouse doors be thrown wide open – not for his own sake, you understand, but for the good of society.

So Murdoch showed some brass neck. But he made some sharp points, too. He is probably right that Ofcom is bloated, poking its nose too often into areas where it's not needed. Right, too, to note that the old distinction between the press (where no rules on impartiality apply) and the broadcasters (obliged to be neutral) makes less sense when the two are rapidly converging, forming "an all-media market" where, say, the Guardian and the BBC both run websites that include text, audio and video. These days, we're a bit like a broadcaster and they're a bit like a newspaper, and the rules probably ought to reflect that. (Though if that means dropping the impartiality obligation on the TV networks there are two words to give us pause: Fox News.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/01/bbc-james-murdoch-new-media

Earth is the place to be

http://www.sptnk.org/#/transmission/9/

Sibel Edmonds' Deposition Disclosures: Congressional Bribery, Blackmail and Espionage

By Brad Friedman

 

Breaking down the formerly-gagged FBI whistleblower's sworn testimony...

It has now been over a week since the video tape and transcript from the remarkable 8/8/09 deposition of former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was publicly released. Previously, the Bush Administration invoked the so-called "state secrets privilege" in order to gag Edmonds, in attempting to keep such information from becoming public.

The under-oath, detailed allegations include bribery, blackmail, espionage and infiltration of the U.S. government of, and by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and agents of the government of Turkey. The broad criminal conspiracy is said to have resulted in, among other things, the sale of nuclear weapons technology to black market interests including Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Libya and others.

Even as many of these allegations had been previously corroborated to varying extents, by a number of official government reports, documents and independent media outlets (largely overseas), not a single major mainstream media outlet in the U.S. has picked up on Edmonds' startling claims since her deposition has been made fully available.

Granted, last week was a busy news week, with the death of Ted Kennedy, the release of the CIA Inspector General's report on torture, and the announcement that Michael Jackson's death was ruled a homicide. And, it's true, a 4-hour deposition and/or 241-page transcript [PDF] is a lot of material to review, particularly given the wide scope of the charges being made here. Still, given the serious national security issues at stake, said to have the been among the most important matters of the past 8 years, one would think someone in the corporate MSM might have taken the time to go through the material, and report on it. Particularly as Edmonds' claims have previously been found "credible" "serious" and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review," by the DoJ Inspector General, and confirmed as such, on several occasions, by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and many many others.

So for the benefit of the U.S. media, and other readers, who may find it helpful for this large body of newly-available information to be culled down into more digestible pieces, I will attempt to break down the deposition, a bit, into some of its subject matter-based component parts. I will try to go through the major disclosures from the deposition, one-by-one, in a series of pieces which might help others to further report and/or investigate these breathtaking disclosures from a former FBI official who, following 9/11, listened to and translated wiretap recordings made from 1996 through 2002, in the FBI's counterintelligence and counterterrorism departments, under top-secret clearance.

In this first break-down article, we'll look at the answers given by Edmonds during her deposition in regard to bribery and blackmail of current and former members of the U.S. Congress, including Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA, deceased) and an unnamed, currently-serving, married Democratic Congresswoman said to have been video-taped in a Lesbian affair by Turkish agents for blackmail purposes.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7387

The life lessons of Burning Man

Is there anything you *can't* learn from the insane desert art festival?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

As I've been lured back to the sweltering, dusty sexed-up madness that is Burning Man again this year -- my sixth time -- by a gaggle of delicious friends, I am hereby reminded of a few hundred truths, half-truths, outright lies and astonishing epiphanies offered up by the world-famous, Christian-feared, beautifully debauched, sensory overloaded, impossible-to-describe art-survivalist-camping-rave megaspectacle now underway in the remote Nevada desert.

If you've ever wondered at the appeal, the urge, the drive to attend such a thing, if you've heard wisps of the mythology and the mystery and the epic weirdness or even seen a few pictures and wondered, you know, WTF, maybe these tidbits can help.

Then again, maybe not. With something like Burning Man, there really is only one way to know for sure.

You are not who you thought you were

Countless are the tales and numerous are the personal friends who were once to be found hovering near the far end of the overly anxious, tightly wound, frenetic Type-A personality scale, who attended BM for the first time and wandered out on the playa at sundown and just so happened to stumble upon, say, Serpent Mother, or the giant goddesses, or one of David Best's breathtaking temples or any of a thousand other unearthly spectacles and suddenly felt their skull crack open and their eyes spin around in their sockets and their brain fold back in on itself.

Right there and forevermore, their worldview shifted. Their id swallowed its own tongue. Possibility opened its legs wide and went, ahhh. In short, they lightened the hell up. It's rather astonishing how often this happens, and not just to the uptight and the pushy. This is one of the most powerful aspects of the event: It almost matters not from which angle you approach it -- Burning Man is an equal opportunity soul exploder.

You are not alone

In your wild dissatisfaction with how things are. In your frustration with socially and politically imposed limitations. In your conviction that there simply must be more to this tertiary experience than work and traffic and hostility, grind and paunch and slump. In your need to fly your freak flag high, cut more loose than you thought possible, test your limits. In your admiration for boy shorts and leather vests and body paint and oral sex in public places.

In short, BM reminds you that you are far from alone in your understanding that this is one hugely painful, incredibly difficult, unbearably gorgeous, terrifying, excruciatingly short life experience and sometimes the best you can hope for is to dress in fake fur and mount the dragon and scream from atop the roof of a dusty RV of your ravenous desire to lick the moon.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/08/28/notes082809.DTL

You Didn’t Plagiarize, Your Unconscious Did

Is cryptomnesia—copying the work of others without being aware of it—to blame for journalism's ultimate sin? Um, maybe not.

By Russ Juskalian

The charge of plagiarism carries a special sort of shame. Take the case of Kaavya Viswanathan, the young writer whose 2006 debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, contained so many passages lifted from other books that her writing career was over by her junior year at Harvard. For those whose literary taste is at the opposite end of the spectrum from chick lit, consider Dante: he put the fraudulent in an even deeper circle of hell than the violent.

But could some alleged plagiarists—like Maureen Dowd, Chris Anderson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and even Viswanathan, who all either deny the charge, or blame their copying on unconscious mistakes—be guilty of psychological sloppiness rather than fraud? Could the real offense be disregard for the mind's subliminal kleptomania? And if it is real, is unconscious copying (or "cryptomnesia" to those who study the phenomenon) preventable? Or, seeing as Nietzsche ripped off a passage of Thus Spoke Zarathustra from something he'd read as a child, and former Beatle George Harrison was found guilty, in court, of unconsciously copying the music for his hit song, "My Sweet Lord"—is cryptomnesia both unavoidable, and the perfect excuse?

"Clearly all of us, referring to journalists, probably appropriate phrases or ideas, on occasion, without realizing it," said Howard Schneider, dean of the School of Journalism at New York's Stony Brook University, and former Newsday editor. But intent and degree count, he said, and journalists should be held to a particularly high standard when it comes to plagiarism. Schneider, who helped set up the News Literacy Center at Stony Brook, teaches his students about the brain's susceptibility to certain psychological pitfalls, such as: seeing a political commercial between TV newscasts, and then a week later attributing the information in the commercial to the newscast itself. He believes that journalists are susceptible to similar influences.

According to Richard L. Marsh, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Georgia and a leading cryptomnesia researcher, Schneider is on the right track. "When people engage in creative activity, they are so involved in generating or coming up with something new or novel that they fail to protect against what they previously experienced," said Marsh. Over the last 20 years, Marsh has designed numerous models for studying cryptomnesia in the lab. An early study involved asking subjects to work with an unseen "partner" (actually a computer) to find unique words in a square array of letters, similar to the game Boggle. A short while after completing this task, the researchers asked each participant to recall the words they had personally found, and to generate new words neither the participant nor the participant's partner had previously been able to find.

The subjects plagiarized their partners roughly 32 percent of the time when trying to recall their own words, and up to 28 percent of the time when attempting to find previously unidentified words in the puzzle. Not only was plagiarism rampant, many subjects who plagiarized also checked a box indicating they were "positive" their answers had not previously been given by their partners.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/205560/output/print

Free Torture Trading Cards!

By Michael Mechanic

It was only a matter of time. Remember those Operation Enduring Freedom trading cards that Topps put out in 2001? And who could forget those Iraq's Most Wanted trading cards released by the Pentagon back in the halcyon days of 2003. There's a card for everything nowadays. During the Clinton years, I even wrote a little piece for Mother Jones on colorful infectious disease trading cards the CDC was handing out to children—ebola, plague, meningitis and all of that fun stuff. (Sorry, it's not online.) So it comes as little surprise that the Center for Constitutional Rights has come up with its own Torture Team collectibles.

You can order up hard copies of the Torture Team cards—10 for free; all 20 for $5—but if you're just browsing, CCR has created a neat Flash widget to display them online. Check out George W. and Condi, along with Cheney and his evil sidekick David "the Shadow" Addington, arguably the most ruthless driver of Bush-era torture policies and, according to a media quote on the card, "the most powerful man you've never heard of." Don't forget White House legal pariahs like John Yoo and Jay Bybee. Or the brass—former Pentagon top dogs like Don Rumsfeld, Guantanamo CO Geoffrey Miller (who helped involve doctors in torture) and the Iraq-bungling Douglas Feith. You can click to flip the cards and reveal each player's basic stats, along with fun tidbits and quotes in their own words. (Feith: "Removal of clothing doesn't mean naked.")

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/hey-kids-free-torture-trading-cards

Offbeat Traveler: Ithaa Undersea restaurant at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island

Ithaa Undersea restaurant at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island in the Maldives

 

Ithaa Undersea restaurant sits 16 feet below sea level at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, a hotel resort in Hilton's luxury brand that occupies two islands. Maldives is a country of almost 1,200 islands about 300 miles from the southernmost points of India and Sri Lanka.

 

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-offbeattraveler7-pg,0,6549249.photogallery

"Penn and Teller: Bullsh!t" take On The Vatican over gay issues

by Ed Kennedy

11th Commandment: Beware of editors bearing story ideas.

I admit to not being a regular viewer of Showtime's Penn & Teller: Bullsh!t, so when the boss asked for a volunteer to write up the season finale, I raised my hand like someone who hadn't been in the military (I was, and so should know better). I thought Penn & Teller did magic tricks, not attack what is arguably the most powerful person on earth who doesn't have access to nuclear weapons.

As the opening credits show, the irascible duo don't just go after conservatives, but take on sacred cows of the liberals as well: taxes, stress, video games and organic foods have all been targets of their commentary. I won't call what they do comedy exactly, because they're really too angry to be funny. Think Lewis Black without the facial expressions.

"If your morality is governed by anything personal, ethical, rational, or humanitarian, then The Vatican is bullsh!t!"

That's the basic principle the show starts with, and then goes on to rationally build the case that the Vatican and the Pope are responsible for much of the suffering in the world, as well as gross abuses of power — especially when it comes to gay people. And that the church actively covers up their sins. To quote Penn's rather pointed translation of policy:

"That's Vatican for 'Shut your fu**king mouth, or go to hell!'"

Which things do they lay at the feet of the church throughout history? The Crusades, the Inquisition, condoning slavery, denying the Holocaust, as well as the oppression or outright persecution of Muslims, Jews, gays, women, Africans, children, the poor, and nonbelievers. No punches are pulled, and little hyperbole is used.

A brief history of the oppressed. 

A lot of time is given to subjects such as birth control, sexual abuse by the clergy, and wealth hoarding. But the two things that stood out for us though were the current pope's opposition to condom distribution in Africa to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, and his decision to oppose decriminalization of homosexuality at the United Nations last year.

Condoms are from the Dark Side. Sex should only make babies.

That issue came up when the French introduced a U.N. resolution making homosexuality legal worldwide since we're still illegal in 81 countries, and punishable by death in seven of those. Even many who dislike the Pope were surprised when the Vatican — which espouses treating gays with "respect and dignity" — opposed the resolution because it might somehow lead to gay marriage.

Better we let countries lock up gays for being gay than risk some countries letting them get married!

http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2009/8/penn-teller-vatican-bullshit

42% Say People Randomly Selected from Phone Book Better Than Current Congress

Forty-two percent (42%) of U.S. voters say a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that an identical number (42%) disagree, but 16% are not sure.

Last fall, just 33% thought the random group could do as good a job.

Today, Republicans by a two-to-one margin believe that the phone book sample would be better than the current Democratic-controlled Congress. Democrats, by a similar margin, have the opposite view. A slight plurality of those not affiliated with either major party say the randomly selected group would do a better job.

http://mikechamberslive.com/?p=535

Deleting the Bush Personality Cult from history

by Glenn Greenwald

National Review's Jay Nordlinger -- and others at that magazine -- are upset that a school is showing a year-old video in which various celebrities spout feel-good platitudes about public service, and -- for a fleeting second -- Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher vow to "be of service to the President."  This sentiment -- a desire to serve the President -- is something conservatives would never adopt, apparently:

When I read about that celebrity video where they say, "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama," I thought that the people do not deserve to be American citizens, because they have no idea what America or a liberal republic is. . . . Also, it strikes me that "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama" is the product of a thoroughly secular mind, which is another marker of contemporary America. . . . Did conservatives ever say "I pledge to be of service to Ronald Reagan"? I never heard it -- and the notion is preposterous.

I'm always amazed -- even though I know I shouldn't be -- at people's capacity simply to block out events, literally refuse to acknowledge them, when they are inconsistent with their desire to believe things.  Do Nordlinger and the other National Review political experts really not know about this episode, obviously much more consequential than some admittedly creepy though entirely trivial moment in a celebrity "pledge" video:

According to the [Justice Department] OIG report released today, Angela Williamson, a deputy to Monica Goodling at the [Bush] DOJ, was intimately involved in her bosses' scurrilous hiring practices, attending interviews and often conducting interviews herself.  Here's a sampling of the same questions that Goodling:

After Goodling resigned, Williamson typed from memory the list of questions Goodling asked as a guide for future interviews. Among other questions, the list included the following:

Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.

[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.

Prior to Goodling herself testifying before the House Judiciary Committee about her screening of prospective DOJ hires to make certain they were sufficiently devoted to serving George Bush, she shared with a Justice Department official this vow:  "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president."  And she didn't have a "secular mind."  Even as Attorney General, Alberto Gonazles actually thought his "client" was the President.  The entire DOJ was structured to ensure that its employees, including prosecutors required to act with apolitical independence, were what they called "loyal Bushies."  Pledging "to be of service to George W. Bush" was the prime mandate of the Justice Department, which is why it was headed for his second term by Bush's most loyal servant.

Beyond the DOJ, huge swaths of the right-wing movement were devoted to an unprecedented veneration of George Bush.  A whole industry on the Right was created to convert him into a warrior-deity, including truly creepy reverence books by National Review writers (see here for various illustrations).  Some on the Right actually speculated that God intervened in our elections because he had hand-picked Bush to be our leader.  Even Bill Kristol admitted that the GOP had turned into little more than a Bush-centered personality cult, telling the New York Times:  "Bush was the movement and the cause."  More than any single, discrete issue, what motivated me to begin writing about political issues was the warped climate of hero worship constructed -- by the Right and the media -- around George Bush as a "War President."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/02/bush/index.html

Ahmadinejad's Imam: Islam Allows Raping, Torturing Prisoners

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) A highly influential Shi'a religious leader, with whom Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly consults, apparently told followers last month that coercion by means of rape, torture and drugs is acceptable against all opponents of the Islamic regime.
The gathered crowd heard from Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad.

Warning: The imam's question-and-answer session, partially reproduced here, contains disturbing descriptions of the sanctioned brutality.

In the wake of a series of publications worldwide regarding the rape and torture of dissident prisoners in Iran's jails, supporters of Ahmadinejad gathered with him in Jamkaran, a popular pilgrimage site for Shi'ite Muslims on the outskirts of Qom, on August 11, 2009. According to Iranian pro-democracy sources, the gathered crowd heard from Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad himself regarding the issue.

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an independent Israeli intelligence analysis organization, Mesbah-Yazdi is considered Ahmadinejad's personal spiritual guide. A radical totalitarian even in Iranian terms, he holds messianic views, supports increasing Islamization, calls for violent suppression of domestic political opponents, and, according to the ITIC, "declared that obeying a president supported by the Supreme Leader was tantamount to obeying God."

At the Jamkaran gathering, Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad answered questions about the rape and torture charges. The following text is from a transcript alleged by Iranian dissidents to be a series of questions and answers exchanged between the ayatollah and some of his supporters.

Asked if a confession obtained "by applying psychological, emotional and physical pressure" was "valid and considered credible according to Islam," Mesbah-Yazdi replied: "Getting a confession from any person who is against the Velayat-e Faqih ("Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists", or the regime of Iran's mullahs) is permissible under any condition." The ayatollah gave the identical answer when asked about confessions obtained through drugging the prisoner with opiates or addictive substances.

"Can an interrogator rape the prisoner in order to obtain a confession?" was the follow-up question posed to the Islamic cleric.

Mesbah-Yazdi answered: "The necessary precaution is for the interrogator to perform a ritual washing first and say prayers while raping the prisoner. If the prisoner is female, it is permissible to rape through the vagina or anus. It is better not to have a witness present. If it is a male prisoner, then it's acceptable for someone else to watch while the rape is committed."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133214

Registered Republican

Ain't stupid

Animal House in Afghanistan

By Daniel Schulman

Drunken brawls, prostitutes, hazing and humiliation, taking vodka shots out of buttcracks— no, the perpetrators of these Animal House-like antics aren't some depraved frat brothers. They are the private security contractors guarding the US embassy compound in Kabul.

These allegations, and many more, are contained in a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight, which has been investigating the embassy security contract held by ArmorGroup North America (a subsidiary of Wackenhut, which is in turn owned by the security behemoth G4S). The contractor was the subject of a congressional probe earlier this summer that found serious lapses in the company's handling of the embassy security contract, which internal State Department documents said left the embassy compound "in jeopardy." Nevertheless, the government opted to extend the company's 5-year, $189 million contract for another year. 

Underscoring the scope of the problems within ArmorGroup's Afghanistan operation, POGO says that nearly a tenth of the company's 450-man embassy security force contacted the watchdog group to "express concerns about and provide evidence of a pattern of blatant, longstanding violations of the security contract, and of a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale."

In the letter to Clinton, POGO executive director Danielle Brian writes:

This environment has resulted in chronic turnover by U.S./ex-pat guards. According to the State Department, "nearly 90% of the incumbent US/Expats left within the first six months of contract performance." According to POGO sources, the U.S./ex-pat guard turnover may be as high as 100 percent annually. This untenable turnover prevents the guard force from developing team cohesion, and requires constant training for new replacement recruits. The guards have come to POGO because they say they believe strongly in the mission, but are concerned that many good guards are quitting out of frustration or being fired for refusing to participate in the misconduct, and that those responsible for the misconduct are not being held accountable.

Brian's letter suggests that Wackenhut Vice President Sam Brinkley, who testified before a Senate panel in June about ArmorGroup's performance of the embassy contract, may have misled Congress.

Despite Wackenhut Vice President Sam Brinkley's sworn Senate testimony that "…the Kabul contract has been fully-staffed since January 2009…" the truth is that chronic understaffing of the guard force continues to be a major problem. And evidence suggests Mr. Brinkley knew that. Around March, according to numerous participants, he was confronted by some 50 guards at Camp Sullivan who complained to him directly about a severe, ongoing guard shortage. Then, in an April 2009 memo to a State Department official, U.S. Embassy Kabul guard force Commander Werner Ilic reported that guard shortages had caused chronic sleep deprivation among his men. He described a situation in which guards habitually face 14-hour-day work cycles extending for as many as eight weeks in a row, frequently alternating between day and night shifts. He concluded that "this ultimately diminishes the LGF's [Local Guard Force's] ability to provide security." The contract with the State Department specifies that guards may not be on duty for longer than 12 consecutive hours. Interviewees and documents reveal that short-staffing frequently results in the denial of contractually guaranteed leave and vacation, and that those who do not comply are threatened with termination or actually fired.

But criticisms of failing to meet manpower obligations are nothing compared to the bacchanalian activities ArmorGroup's personnel were allegedly engaged in.

Guards have come to POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates. Witnesses report that the highest levels of AGNA management in Kabul are aware of and have personally observed—or even engaged in—these activities, but have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, management has condoned this misconduct, declining to take disciplinary action against those responsible and allowing two of the worst offending supervisors to resign and allegedly move on to work on other U.S. contracts. The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command, compromising security.

Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a Lord of the Flies environment. One email from a current guard describes scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…." Photograph after photograph shows guards—including supervisors—at parties in various stages of nudity, sometimes fondling each other. These parties take place just a few yards from the housing of other supervisors.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/animal-house-afghanistan

From Russia Today: Cindy Sheehan: America needs to wake up

Don't Criticize Israel, You Anti-Semite

by Joharah Baker

 

"Isn't it about time people see though the smokescreen? The history of the Jews is full of misfortune and suffering. But so is the history of so many other peoples, including the Palestinians, who have been made to pay the ultimate price for the Jews' persecution. Pulling out the anti-Semitism card whenever Israel is pushed into a corner, rather than examine its own lack of morality in dealing with the Palestinians, should be a losing strategy, simply because it is such a shaky argument. However, guilt-tripping the world into apologizing yet again to the Jews for the sins of the past has worked for Israel for many years, unlike other peoples whose injustices have gone unrecognized. It has been able to maintain a military occupation, build illegal settlements and subjugate an entire people all in the name of its own security and as a safeguard from further persecution."

 

---

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the definition of anti-Semitism is, "hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group." This should strike everyone as odd, since Jews are hardly the only Semitic people roaming this earth. Most oddly enough, we Arabs are also a Semitic people who speak a Semitic language, unlike many Jews who do not.

Still, over the years, for whatever reason, the term "anti-Semitic" has been reserved exclusively for attacks on Jews, the range of which has become dangerously broad. While this is an age-old issue, so to speak, the recent Swedish-Israeli crisis has brought it back to the fore like never before.

It all started with a seemingly innocuous yet human interest story in a large Swedish newspaper. The author, Donald Bostrum, entitled his back-page article "They plunder the organs of our sons" in reference to Palestinian claims that as far back as 1992, the Israeli army has been harvesting the organs of young Palestinians it killed. Bostrum gives testimonies from Palestinians and some first hand accounts from when he was in Palestine of young men killed by the Israeli army, their bodies returned to the families days later cut open and stitched back from stomach to neck.

The details of the article are unimportant at this point. The gist of the piece is that there are those out there who believe their sons' organs were taken for harvesting without their consent.

Whether the claims are true, accurate or biased is secondary to this argument. This was an article in a newspaper, written by a journalist who took full responsibility for what he said and what he wrote. Israelis, who were clearly outraged, could have easily done what most of us do when we are unhappy with something in the media – we write to the editor or the author airing our complaints. We may even get our comments published and read, thus making our grievances clear to all those interested.

But, in traditional Israeli custom, instead of approaching this issue with professionalism and appropriate criticism, protests and screams of anti-Semitism and blood libel were heard around the world. Israel, which unsurprisingly, did not react to Bostrum's first mention of the issue in his 2001 book, "Inshallah: The conflict between Israel and Palestine", went into a tirade of accusations against the article, the newspaper, the writer and, yes, the Swedish government for not immediately condemning the article. Swedish government sources maintained that freedom of expression was an inalienable right in Sweden, which could not be compromised.

That was certainly not the answer Israel wanted to hear. Its Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Sweden of not intervening in "the blood libel against Jews." In true Israeli form, the past was dredged up as a means of putting others on the defensive. "The affair is reminiscent of the state's [Sweden] stand during World War II, when it also did not intervene," Lieberman charged

The crisis only heightened with Sweden's continued refusal to condemn the article publicly and what Israel viewed as its failure to denounce the article's clearly anti-Semitic messages. Sweden, on the other hand, said it was a fierce defender of its constitutional rights and would not trample on the freedom of expression and freedom of speech regardless of government officials' personal opinions.

What is so amazing really, is the fact that Israel gets away with this stuff time and again. The hackneyed Israeli litany of anti-Semitism seems to hook the world no matter how ridiculous the claim. The article in mention may or may not have been accurate, but how many thousands of articles out there each day do we read and then question their credibility? Countless. Besides, Bostrum's article was not attacking Jews. He was questioning foul play by a "democratic" country's army, which so happens to be Israel. It was not a criticism of Jews, their past, their history or their religion. If it were, if Bostrum had made glaring racist comments against the "Jews" in the Israeli army, perhaps the accusation of anti-Semitism or blood libel or whatever else Lieberman could think of, would be a bit closer to the truth.

The truth however, is that Israel has created a backup defense for those times when its arguments are not based on solid ground, or simply when all other arguments fail. In this case, instead of the Israeli government demanding there be a thorough investigation into these grave allegations, it has turned its wrath on Sweden. Even IKEA has been dealt a blow, with a petition reportedly circulating in Israel to boycott the Swedish furniture giant.

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/65888

LA fires from space

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/09/01/article-1210417-063FA394000005DC-155_964x696.jpg

Groovy artifacts from 1960s Marin County commune sorted

By Susan Ferriss

NOVATO – The '60s aren't dead. They're in an archaeological site north of San Francisco.

An old commune where the Grateful Dead and other bands used to romp is being excavated and items catalogued by state park archaeologists at Olompali State Historic Park.

Among the artifacts: the classic hippie beads, a marijuana "roach clip," fragments of tie-dyed clothes, and a reel-to-reel tape a Marin County studio technician has promised to try to restore.

They are the stuff of memories for Noelle Olompali-Barton, who was 16 when she and her showbiz mom plunged into California's new counterculture, retreating to this once-private ranch north of San Francisco to establish one of the first hippie communes.

The teenager baked bread to give away in Golden Gate Park. She sat with the Grateful Dead under an oak tree for a famous 1969 album photo.

For two intense, often drug-laced years, the commune nourished utopian dreams – and some bad trips, too, she said.

But never in her wildest hallucinations did the teen imagine that more than 40 years later, she would assist an archaeologist in identifying macramé headbands, old records and other commune artifacts retrieved from the abandoned ruins of her former home.

"You know you're old when you're pictured in Archaeology magazine," chuckled Olompali-Barton, now 58, who was profiled in that journal in July along with California state parks archaeologist E. Breck Parkman.

Sitting under oaks outside the park's visitor center, Parkman laughed along with Olompali-Barton, who has been using the ranch's name as her own since she lived here.

The state of California bought Olompali in 1977, and opened a park on its 700 acres of oak-studded rolling hills.

Parkman knows some might scoff at his project to catalog and display the artifacts of an era many alive remember well – or not so well if they were especially indulgent.

But the commune, he said, is as much a part of Olompali as the rest of its history, stretching back thousands of years.

"I see the commune as part of the Cold War," he said. "If we hadn't had the Cold War, we wouldn't have had Vietnam, and if we hadn't had Vietnam, we wouldn't have had the commune. It was one of the reactions to the war."

The years the commune existed, late 1967 to 1969, were some of the most tumultuous and divisive in modern American history, Parkman said.

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2154527.html

From the Mount Wilson towercam

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/images/towercam+large.gif

The Yes Men: How to Hack Corporate Culture

yes-man (noun, plural -men): someone who agrees with everything the boss says, even if it's demented, cruel, absurd, or just stupid.

The Yes Men: A group of people who target bosses they don't work for, then agree so hard with their targets that their audiences should sit up and take notice …

We call ourselves the Yes Men, and our goal is to fix the world. We even have a new film, coming out in theaters on October 22, that we've called The Yes Men Fix the World.

We'll give away the ending: we don't actually make everything better. And worse, we're now spending so much time on the distribution of this damn film that we don't even have time to do our own silly antics anymore. So: please do it for us. Steal our secrets.

What we do—and what you can do too—is impersonate captains of industry, infiltrate corporate events, give absurd and revealing presentations, and then escape to tell the story in the press, hopefully to the great embarrassment of the target.

You don't have to be a James Bond for this. You can be a bad actor, clumsy, absent minded, and even have stage fright. But what you might need a fake email address and a business card. For example, if you're representing Exxon as Luella Arschenfleck, buy a domain like exxon-corporate.com and use an address like arschl@exxon-corporate.com. (Note: a company like Go Daddy might cancel your domain name just because it contains a well-known corporate name, so you might want to use an off-beat, less stockholder-oriented domain name company.)

Then go to a conference web site, find the page called "speaking opportunities," and sign up. If they ask for money, stall and tell them you need to pay at the door. Come up with an excuse once you're there. In Calgary, Alberta, we decided we wanted to speak as Exxon at a big oil conference, so "Gus" (gus@hillknowlton.com—a domain we happened to own for a while, until PR powerhouse Hill & Knowlton used strong-arm tactics to get it back) wrote to the conference and told them he would get them Lee Raymond, the former chair of Exxon Mobil, who happened to be going hunting near Calgary and was interested in speaking at the conference.

Not noticing there are no forests near Calgary, the conference jumped at the chance. On the day of the event, Raymond was taken with flu, and some "assistants" showed up in his place.

The problem with promising to deliver someone famous is obvious: everyone knows who they are. So we explained that for security reasons, the conference was not allowed to say anything about him on their promotional material: we "embargoed" the information—and that's a word you can use too.

So suppose you've done it: you've secured a spot as the star speaker at a big important conference. You're all set. All you have to do is craft a talk that will shock the pants off your audience and enlighten them at the same time—or (if they just sit there and applaud, the way they always have with us) at least show the rest of the world that something is terribly wrong with the picture.

http://www.good.is/post/the-yes-men-how-to-hack-corporate-culture/

Waiting for the End of the World

Posted by Richard Ross

Self-preservation is something that most humans take quite seriously, and that a few take to extremes. Faced with the real or imagined threat of attacks levied by nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry, some people opt to head 25 feet underground, surrounded by concrete and complex air-filtration systems, surviving off rations and waiting, so to speak, for the end of the world.

That's the subject of Richard Ross's Waiting for the End of the World, originally published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2004, for which Ross spent five years traveling over three continents, photographing the interiors of bomb shelters. "I'm a child of the late 1950s," he says. "I grew up in an era of duck-and-cover drills, where we always had to be acquainted with the idea of The Bomb." The exploration took Ross into a series of survivalist spaces, offering a visual index of the lengths to which people will go when they feel abused or threatened. "I ended up photographing an underground bomb shelter in Livermore, California, looking straight up [toward the entry from the surface], and the light was very divine and was essentially apocalyptic," he says. "Some of these people thought they were going to be the new inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. I can't believe that. But when you think back to the illogic of the Bush/Cheney administration, and the world around you is so devolved, the idea of going underground doesn't seem so crazy."

Public shelter near Zurich, Switzerland. Major external air filters in communal shelter.

The discs produced in this factory near Zurich are the tops of air filters.

Doors of the public shelter near Zurich. Building code defines the specifications that are required of the shelters, though color schemes are optional. The entire population can be put underground in two hours. Bridges and tunnels throughout Switzerland are set with explosives to be blown in the face of an advancing enemy.

The proud owner of a new single-family residence in Switzerland shows off his shelter. He is standing in front of his Andair-manufactured air filtration system with the escape hatch on the right.

Charlie Hull Shelter, Emigrant, Montana. Bedroom. This 90-family "co-op shelter" was for members of the Elizabeth Clare Prophet Church, which predicted Doomsday on March 15, 1990. That day, the shelter was full; everyone emerged on March 16th and went home. The shelter has fallen out of favor and is maintained only by Charlie Hull and a few assistants.

Charlie Hull Shelter. The chalkboard is there to make sure no one is accidentally locked in.

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-waiting-for-the-end-of-the-world/

You Have to Be Kidding Me

by John Cole

Joe Klein on why Glenn Greenwald is not a serious person:

For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully. During that time, I have never seen him write a positive sentence about the US military, which has transformed itself dramatically for the better since Rumsfeld's departure (indeed, he ridiculed me when I reported that the situation in Anbar Province was turning around in 2007). I have never seen him acknowledge that the work of the clandestine service—performed disgracefully by the CIA during the early Bush years—is an absolute necessity in a world where terrorists have the capability to attack us at any time, in almost any place. Nor have I seen [him] acknowledge that such a threat exists, nor make a single positive suggestion about how to confront that threat in ways that might conform to his views. Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.

You have to love the sheer beauty of that baby, don't you? Read it a second time. Klein is condemning Greenwald for what he HASN'T said. How awesome is that? I mean, if you get to condemn people for things they haven't said, you can just make up any old shit and then smear someone. Why, I bet Greenwald has not recently stated that he loves the Humane Society. In Jokeline's world, that is clear evidence that Glenn cares not a whit about animals. Even better, Greenwald may have even said all the things that Jokeline arbitrarily has decided he needs to say, but if Klein hasn't seen them, well, the accusation still stands.

Additionally, how awesome is it that in order to prove you care about national security, you have to fellate the military, the CIA, and whenever a similar topic arises, gravely announce in a serious voice that you are very, very, serious about national security. Pretty weak, Joe. Pretty weak. This is the kind of crap that certain folks throw at Joe when they call him a self-hating Jew. You'd think Klein would recognize this kind of nonsense for what it is.

And the real reason Klein hates Greenwald is because Greenwald pointed out that he had no idea what he was talking about regarding FISA. \

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=26240

Monsters

New browser red-flags disputed facts on the web

 

by James Keller

Developers of new web browsing software that flags questionable claims or outright lies on the web hope it will become a valuable tool to deal with the misinformation that litters the Internet.

But observers say Dispute Finder, an experimental browser extension developed by Intel, and the many websites that already aim to debunk online rumours and falsehoods face an enormous task. It isn't as easy as simply telling someone they're wrong.

Once installed, Dispute Finder highlights in red what it determines are disputed claims on websites, then offers users links to alternative points of view and evidence to back them up.

"It's important to be aware when something you're reading is not the only opinion, when there is another point of view worth paying attention to," says California-based Intel researcher Rob Ennals.

"The real problem is, when you don't realize something is disputed, you don't realize there are other points of view and you might not be aware you've wandered into a dispute."

The current version of the software relies entirely on users to identify disputed claims, provide evidence and point the software to other instances of that claim on the web, so right now there's still not much content being highlighted.

Eventually, Ennals says users who input claims will be able to train the software to seek out examples and continue to flag new content as it's posted. And, as the software becomes more popular, more claims will be catalogued.

He says real people are in a better position to determine whether a claim is in dispute than any computer and he brushes aside suggestions that doing so might just provide another forum for bogus assertions.

"The good thing is that if something is disputed enough that people will care, the chances are that someone is going to care enough to mark it as disputed," says Ennals.

http://thespec.com/News/Business/article/626011

Government!

Quotes

"I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me is we had a track record of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaeda..."

- Cheney, proud that Team Bush froze on 9-11, Link

 

"After John Wilkes Booth, there were no other successful assassinations of President Lincoln."

- Lincoln's Secret Service detail

 

"Cheney thinks it was a sterling success when it came to national security and counter-terrorism. Perhaps there's something to this. After all, except for the catastrophic events of 9/11, and the anthrax attacks against Americans, and terrorist attacks against U.S. allies, and the terrorist attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush's inability to capture those responsible for 9/11, and waging an unnecessary war that inspired more terrorists, and the success terrorists had in exploiting Bush's international unpopularity, the Bush/Cheney record on counter-terrorism was awesome. After the previous administration established a record like that, President Obama didn't ask Cheney for tips? The nerve."

- Steve Benen, Link

 

"Bush and Cheney sent thousands of America's bravest halfway around the world to be sacrificed to the 'terrorism gods' at the rate of half a dozen per week. Bush/Cheney didn't keep Al Qaeda from attacking us. They just saved them the fucking plane fare."

- Steve T

 

http://www.bartcop.com/

"Mission Accomplished" sculpture garden