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FAA let Southwest Airlines skip safety checks for years, say inspectors| |
Excerpt: FAA officials overseeing Southwest Airlines ignored safety violations, leaked sensitive data to the carrier and tried to intimidate two inspectors to head off investigations, according to previously undisclosed allegations by those inspectors.
Memos from FAA inspector C. Bobby Boutris and another FAA whistle-blower, Douglas Peters, said that others in the office objected to their attempts to enforce basic safety standards at Southwest. Boutris and Peters say FAA officials overseeing enforcement were too close to Southwest managers.
Boutris wrote in a memo to Congress last fall that only after congressional investigators began inquiring about the matter did the agency tighten oversight at Southwest.
The underlying safety concern -- that the airline was unable to keep up with mandatory inspections -- had been raised as early as 2003, one charged. |
Big Brother Bush is watching you (and the Democrats approve)
House surveillance bill axes telecom immunity, "state secrets" defense| |
Excerpt: As the New York Times reports this morning, the House leadership's draft proposal for a surveillance bill contains a provision that would reject giving retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Instead, it would give the courts authorization to hear the classified material at issue in the case -- in essence disposing with the administration's claim of the state secrets privilege. I had a senior House aide walk me through the proposal, which is sure to infuriate the administration.
House passes spy bill and rejects phone/Bush immunity
Excerpt: "It is time to reject the scare tactics of the Bush administration and enact this carefully crafted legislation," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat.
Comment: Too many times I've seen Democrats talk the talk while walking the other way, but this is an encouraging indicator. If Democrats find the backbone to stand firm, block "telecom immunity" (read: Bush immunity) and kill the oft-told lie of "state secrets", well, we'll be amazed and impressed -- and we'll install a donation box on our front page for the re-election of whatever Democrat leads the way. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
NSA domestic spying revives "Total Information Awareness"| |
Excerpt: "Congress shut down [Total Information Awareness] because it represented a massive and unjustified governmental intrusion into the personal lives of Americans," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. "Now we find out that the security agencies are pushing ahead with the program anyway, despite that clear congressional prohibition. The program described by current and former intelligence officials in Monday's Wall Street Journal could be modeled on Orwell's Big Brother." |
FBI is still illegally spying on Americans| |
Excerpt: The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of US citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released yesterday.
FBI tried to cover PATRIOT Act abuses with flawed, retroactive subpoenas
Excerpt: FBI headquarters officials sought to cover their informal and possibly illegal acquisition of phone records on thousands of Americans from 2003 to 2005 by issuing 11 improper, retroactive "blanket" administrative subpoenas in 2006 to three phone companies that are under contract to the FBI, according to an audit released Thursday. |
Bush executive order guts espionage oversight| |
Excerpt: Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority.
The White House did not say why it was necessary to change the rules governing the board when it issued Bush's order late last month. But critics say Bush's order is consistent with a pattern of steps by the administration that have systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms.
"It's quite clear that the Bush administration officials who were around in the 1970s are settling old scores now," said Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. "Here they are even preventing oversight within the executive branch. They have closed the books on the post-Watergate era." |
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Rigged trials underway at Guantanamo| |
Excerpt: "I've been tortured. I'm a human being. I have not violated any law," Afghan prisoner Mohammed Jawad said in his first hearing on charges of attempted murder and causing great bodily injury. ...
"The fact that you don't want this hearing and you say it's unfair is not going to change the fact that this proceeding is going to be conducted," the judge said.
Lawyer: Evidence altered in Guantanamo case
Excerpt: Based on the re-write, Kuebler said, it appeared that "the government manufactured evidence to make it look like Omar was guilty." |
The melting economy
Feds bailout reinforces crony capitalism
by Dean Baker, The American Prospect| |
Excerpt: Can't the media find any economists who don't think that handing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the big banks and the incredibly rich people who own and manage them is a good idea? Apparently not, given the coverage so far to the Fed's proposal to lend $200 billion to the banks using mortgage backed securities as collateral. ...
Why wouldn't we want the banks to be forced to come clean and eat their losses? This is always the policy that the economists advocate when the parties in question are not the big New York banks. Does anyone remember the East Asian financial crisis when the media was full of condemnations of crony capitalism and the IMF insisted imposed stringent conditions on South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia as a condition of getting bailed out? At that time, everyone insisted on transparency. Aren't there any economists who still have this perspective? If so, why aren't their views appearing anywhere in the news? |
Wal-Mart innovates to more efficiently ruin local economies| |
Excerpt: Faten Saad knew she wasn't in a typical Wal-Mart when she saw an end-of-the-aisle display featuring Mamool.
Boxes of the date-filled, whole wheat cookie from the Middle East welcomed the 21-year-old Lebanon native into the international aisle of the new Wal-Mart store in this Detroit suburb known as the capital of Arab America. ...
The Dearborn Wal-Mart is part of a two-year-old corporate effort to help sales by tailoring stores to local demographics, said spokeswoman Amy Wyatt-Moore at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. It targeted six groups: Hispanics, blacks, empty-nesters/boomers, affluent, suburban and rural shoppers. |
Fed and rival bail out "too big to fail" Bear Stearns
Fed takes new steps hoping to avert economic catastrophe| |
Comment: Of course, all their "new steps" are aimed at making it possible for criminally mismanaged financial institutions to survive, and none of it has diddlysquat to do with helping the victims of these financial institutions save their homes. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
White House Press Spokeswoman says she's "under
strict instructions to not talk about the dollar"
Hedge funds on the brink
Carlyle subsidiary teeters near bankruptcy
US dollar still sinking
American gas prices rise to new record
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Brits to ship Iraqi refugees back to "safe" Iraq| |
Excerpt: More than 1,400 rejected Iraqi asylum seekers are to be told they must go home or face destitution in Britain as the government considers Iraq safe enough to return them, according to leaked Home Office correspondence seen by the Guardian.
The Iraqis involved are to be told that unless they sign up for a voluntary return program to Iraq within three weeks, they face being made homeless and losing state support. They will also be asked to sign a waiver agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraqi territory. |
Life in liberated Afghanistan & Iraq
Winter Soldier: In Iraq occupation, rules of engagement have been 'thrown out the window'| |
Excerpt: The panel on the "Rules of Engagement" (ROE) during the first full day of the gathering, named "Winter Soldier" to honor a similar gathering 30 years ago of veterans of the Vietnam War, was held in front of a visibly moved audience of several hundred, including veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Winter soldiers, according to US founding father Thomas Paine, are the people who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours. ...
As other panelists nodded in agreement, [US Marine Vincent] Emmanuel spoke of abusing prisoners who he knew were innocent, adding, "We took it upon ourselves to harass them, and took them to the desert to throw them out of our Humvees, while kicking and punching them when we threw them out."
Two other soldiers testified about planting weapons or shovels on civilians they had accidentally shot, to justify the killings by implying the dead were fighters or people attempting to plant roadside bombs.
Winter Soldier testimonials:
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Bush says he's 'envious' of troops' 'romantic' work in Afghanistan| |
Excerpt: "I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said. |
Bush to sidestep Congress on Iraq pact | |
Excerpt: The administration plans to bypass Congress to forge a status of forces agreement (SOFA) that would grant US forces an unlimited permit to continue engaging in military action in Iraq, according to statements by the State Department's Coordinator for Iraq, David Satterfield, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week.
Comment: I keep reading about this, and it keeps making no sense to me: Bush is negotiating something that looks, smells, and supposedly acts like a treaty, but it bypasses Congressional approval -- so it ain't a treaty. I think it’s the Iraqis, and not us, who are expected to be bound by it. When has George W. agreed to be bound by anything? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
US gov't continues bribing Iraqi locals not to kill Americans| |
Excerpt: On Friday, [Army Staff Sgt. and "Sheik" Dale Horn] stepped off a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected combat vehicle carrying a nondescript nylon briefcase. It might have been a cheap bag, but it carried more than $340,000 in bundles of crisp, newly minted hundred dollar bills. It was pay day for the Sunnis, and Horn was the money man. ...
Since arriving in Iraq in August, Horn's unit, Fires Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, has handed out more than $2.7 million under what's known as the Commander's Emergency Response Program, a discretionary fund used by units across Iraq to pay for Sons of Iraq checkpoints and infrastructure projects. If his projections hold, by the end of the deployment Horn will have handled about $6 million. |
Only one-quarter of Americans know US death toll in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Fewer people know how many US troops have died in the war in Iraq, a poll showed Wednesday. Only 28 percent correctly said that about 4,000 Americans have died in the war, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
That’s down from last August, when 54 percent gave the accurate casualty figure, which was about 3,500 dead at the time. In previous Pew surveys dating to 2004, about half have correctly given the rough figure for the approximate number of deaths at the time. |
US blocks UN inspection of prisons in Iraq
Violence in Iraq keeps surging
Petraeus debates himself
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President Bush intervened to roll back smog rules| |
Excerpt: "Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief's expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt," said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. "It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference." |
Waxman calls for investigations of Blackwater tax dodge| |
Excerpt: It was a pretty neat trick. Because Blackwater classified its guards in Iraq as independent contractors, the company saved possibly "tens of millions" of dollars in taxes. ...
Because Blackwater had many fewer "employees," for example, it made out with a number of contracts reserved for so-called small businesses: "at least 100 small business set-aside contracts worth over $144 million, that have been awarded to Blackwater since 2000." |
California town shuts down plans
for Blackwater fortress in US| |
Excerpt: Blackwater Worldwide dropped its plans yesterday to build a military and law enforcement training camp in East County, ending a storm of controversy over the security contractor's presence in the county.
Opponents gathered petitions for a recall election targeting those who had voted in favor of the project. In December, five members of the Potrero planning group were recalled and replaced with candidates who opposed Blackwater's plans. Carl Meyer, the newly elected chairman of the group, said they had planned to discuss a resolution against the project at their next meeting. |
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is
nabbed hiring hookers in IRS & FBI wiretaps| |
Excerpt: The investigators working out of the three-story office building, which faces Veterans Highway, typically review such reports, the officials said. But this was not typical: transactions by a governor who appeared to be trying to conceal the source, destination or purpose of the movement of thousands of dollars in cash, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Comment: Can I have a show of hands, please: How many people believe it was just ordinary and completely non-partisan law enforcement work that happened to snag Eliot Spitzer, a high-ranking and popular Democrat office-holder, in a hooker scandal? (I kinda doubt that anyone reading our blog is dumb enough to raise a hand...)
And from a different aspect, does the name David Vitter ring a bell? He's the Senator who last summer admitted to paying the so-called D.C. Madam to hook him up with prostitutes. He said he was sorry, and that ended the matter -- he's been neither prosecuted nor even investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee or US Justice Department, because after all, he's a Republican. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
Some questions about the Spitzer incident
Excerpt: All kinds of questions arise here:
1. Why would the bank tell the IRS and not Spitzer himself if there was a suspicious transfer? Spitzer is a longtime client, a rich guy and the governor. We're talking thousands of dollars here, not millions. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they spotted a "suspicious transfer" made by the governor, and that this is how things began. It's possible it was just ordinary paperwork the bank had to file with the government whenever some particular flag was raised, but if that's the case, why did the DoJ go to DefCon 3?
2. What is a [US Attorney] doing prosecuting a prostitution case? This isn't normally what the feds spend their time with.
3. Mike Garcia is a Chertoff crony. Sources familiar with the investigation say that he sent a prosecution memo to DC two months ago asking for authority to indict a public figure (Spitzer). Which means they had their case made long before the wire tap of February 13. Why did they then include this line from that conversation in the complaint?
Spitzer charges are intimately linked to
$200 billion bail-out for predator banks
Excerpt: This week, [Ben] Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer. |
Chinese kill dozens of protesters in Tibet| |
Excerpt: China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetans and possibly as many as 100. ...
China blocks YouTube as
videos of protests are posted
Excerpt: The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.
US drops China from list of 10 worst rights violators
Excerpt: The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders denounced the move. "This decision was announced even as it was learned that some 100 Tibetan monks have been arrested and Chinese authorities are refusing to release activist Hu Jia and dozens of other freedom of expression advocates," the organization said in a statement. "US authorities are depriving themselves of yet another effective way to pressure China, without having achieved any good-will gesture from Beijing."
Comment: Like the US-issued list of countries sponsoring terrorism (see below), this has everything to do with politics and economics, and nothing to do with whatever the list is purportedly about. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Threatened with placement on list
of nations that sponsor terrorism,
Venezuela's Chavez tells Bush to shove it| |
Excerpt: US lawmakers including Reps. Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans, have called for the State Department to add Venezuela to its list of terror sponsors, which includes North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. They have expressed concerns about what they call Chavez's close ties to Colombia's leftist rebels.
"Let them make that list and shove it in their pocket," Chavez said in a televised speech. |
One year after recall of contaminated
pet food, nothing has changed| |
Excerpt: None of the changes that might prevent a repeat of last year's pet food recall have been implemented. There have been no improved inspections of pet food plants, no comprehensive overhaul of the patchwork of state, federal and industry manufacturing standards and regulations, no increased transparency and accountability -- not even something as simple as printing the name and contact information of the actual manufacturer on pet food labels -- and no revisions to pet food labeling laws. The Food and Drug Administration still does not have the authority to issue mandatory recalls. |
Defying Mukasey, Congress sues Bolten, Miers| |
Excerpt: On Monday, House Democrats filed a lawsuit against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, after Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused last week to enforce Congressional subpoenas.
"I do not take this step lightly," said John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "It is extremely rare that Congress must litigate in order to enforce subpoenas and no compromise can be reached. Unfortunately, this administration simply will not negotiate towards a compromise resolution so we must proceed."
Comment: Sounds impressive, but like most of what Conyers says and does, it's more about posture than actually accomplishing anything. The House of Representatives has and should use the power of inherent contempt [pdf link]:| |
"Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court as inextricably related to Congress's constitutionally-based power to investigate. Between 1795 and 1934 the House and Senate utilized the inherent contempt power over 85 times, in most instances to obtain (successfully) testimony and/or documents. The inherent contempt power has not been exercised by either House in over 70 years. This appears to be because it has been considered too cumbersome and time-consuming to hold contempt trials at the bar of the offended chamber. Moreover, some have argued that the procedure is ineffective because punishment can not extend beyond Congress's adjournment date." |
If Conyers had the backbone to match his bluster, Bolten and Miers could be arrested and jailed immediately. There are cells in the basement of the House building, built long ago for this very purpose. But instead, Conyers and the Democrats will roll the dice in front of a judge who'll probably be a Bush-appointee. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
RIGGED ELECTIONS: Even police chief doesn't
know who wrote "official" police report
calling for voter suppression in Wisconsin| |
Excerpt: When a report by the Special Investigations Unit of the Milwaukee Police Department jumped into a partisan political debate by siding with Republicans to recommend elimination of Election Day voter registration and requiring photo IDs at the polls, Gov. Jim Doyle wanted to know why the Milwaukee police should be dictating who can vote in Wisconsin.
The governor wasn't the only one. Milwaukee's new Police Chief Edward Flynn wanted to know the same thing.
In fact, Flynn immediately began his own internal investigation into who wrote and released the report to restrict voting without giving him, as head of the Police Department, any chance to review the recommendations.
Flynn said the report was placed on his desk in its bound, final form hours before it was released to the news media.
The report is unsigned. The report doesn't identify the Police Department "investigators" who made the radical recommendations for sweeping changes in state voting laws that have encouraged widespread voter participation in Wisconsin for decades.
Like the previous investigations by the US Attorney's Office and district attorney into Republican allegations of vote fraud, the report finds no evidence of any organized vote fraud.
Then, curiously, after finding nothing to back up the Republican claims of vote fraud, anonymous Police Department "investigators" join Republicans in calling for the scrapping of Election Day voter registration and requiring photo IDs at the polls, which would create obstacles to voting for the poor and the elderly.
Comment: Observe this small sliver of what Hillary Clinton called, accurately, the vast right-wing conspiracy -- in this case, a conspiracy to suppress and deny the Democratic vote. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
House votes to create independent ethics office| |
Excerpt: The House voted Tuesday to create an outside ethics office with the authority to investigate perceived ethical misconduct by its members. The 229-182 vote creates the Office of Congressional Ethics, composed of three members appointed by the speaker and three appointed by the minority leader.
Comment: Sounds like a good idea, but actually it's a |
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Lightning round news |
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Election 2008
Clinton exaggerates her foreign policy experience| |
Excerpt: ... while it's impossible to know how much she conferred privately about such matters with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, when he was in power, public records and interviews with former Clinton administration officials and others strongly suggest that Clinton overstates her role. |
Former national editor at Arizona Republic describes "the McCain I know" as a weak bully| |
Excerpt: "Time and again on the campaign trail he emphasizes he knows "how to lead." Where's the evidence?
"McCain takes the road of expediency if he thinks it will garner him votes, first opposing Bush's tax cuts, now saying they should be permanent. He favored a bill allowing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, but now hardly mentions the "i" word because it doesn't play well to the conservatives he now is pandering to.
"The McCain I know is a short-tempered bully who would brook no criticism of his goals or means, who routinely dismissed or ignored legitimate inquiries from Republic reporters, and who felt no compunction about whining to the publisher over any perceived slight." |
Obama explains details of his relationship with Rezko| |
Excerpt: The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the [Chicago] Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did. |
McCain beats Obama, Clinton with Nader running, poll shows
14 more delegates switch to Obama
McCain travels abroad to raise campaign cash
Clinton benefits from uncertainty; Obama would benefit from Michigan and Florida re-votes
Poll: 13% of voters are fooled by Obama/Muslim smear
Olbermann takes on Clinton
McCain more hawkish than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq
Geraldine Ferraro makes racist remarks about Obama, then defends them
Sinbad says Clinton's account of Bosnia is bogus
TORTURE: McCain supports Bush's use of torture
McCain says America is "in a recession", then says economy is strong
McCain says Renzi -- indicted last month -- is finally off his campaign
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Study: One-third of Gulf War vets are sick from chemical
exposure ... or pills the military gave out as a "cure"| |
Excerpt: Nearly two decades after veterans of the 1991 Gulf War came home complaining of odd illnesses, enough evidence has been gathered to determine that many of them were sickened by chemical exposure, a study has concluded.
And some of the damage was likely caused by pills prescribed to protect against the use of nerve gas and pesticides used to control sand flies, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study linked exposure to the chemicals to Gulf War syndrome, a chronic health problem which affected between 26 and 32 percent of deployed troops. |
UN's Drug Czar says those who dispute him are "all on drugs!"| |
Excerpt: "I attended the meeting of the Drug Alliance [DPA] in New Orleans last December, 1200 participants, 1000 lunatics, 200 good people to talk to. The other ones obviously on drugs." |
Music industry wants $5 per month surcharge on
internet users to make up for revenue lost to piracy| |
Excerpt: Having failed to stop piracy by suing internet users, the music industry is for the first time seriously considering a file sharing surcharge that internet service providers would collect from users.
Comment: Hey, why not add a $5 per tank surcharge to gasoline, to support the horseshoe and carriage whip industries?
There's no reason for music to be an industry. I don't like manufactured music, I don't buy it, don't "pirate" it, and I'm not going to pay $5 a month for it. Music is art, and making it an "industry" serves no useful purpose except for profiteers. Robert M. PERMANENT LINK |
Yuma ponders moat to keep Mexicans out| |
Excerpt: Engineers plan to dig a "security channel" up to 10-feet (3 meters) deep and 60 feet wide through the problem area, which lies a short way inside the border. The dirt removed would be used to create a levee along the outside to give US Border Patrol agents an elevated patrol road overlooking the line.
The area would also be replanted with native sedges and rushes to provide habitat for threatened local species such as the Yuma Clapper Rail, a secretive marsh bird. Backers say it would also provide a space for residents of Yuma, a farming town popular with winter visitors, to walk and fish. |
Washington Post columnist gives AIPAC talks on how to help Israel in '08 election| |
Excerpt: According to the AIPAC website, tomorrow in New York, Peter Beinart, a columnist for Time and the Washington Post and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, will be giving a "briefing" to "discuss Jewish involvement in American politics. He will talk of the role that the pro-Israel community can play in the coming elections." Sounds like a pep talk.
I emailed AIPAC about going to the event and Hila Stern, a "leadership" manager, called to say that the briefing is off the record. I imagine the same is true of Beinart's appearance at the Knoxville AIPAC next month. And I see that Beinart also spoke 2 weeks back in Philadelphia to AIPAC's "Senate club," people who give over $10,000 to the organization, where he also addressed "the role that the pro-Israel community can play in the coming elections." |
Writers strike at DailyKos| |
Excerpt: I've decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution. I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately. ... I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate -- a good and fine DEMOCRAT -- is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.
Comment: Unintentionally hilarious, for reasons too obvious to enumerate. Alexandra PERMANENT LINK |
Cult blogger "Civil Serf" identified and suspended from Whitehall| |
Excerpt: The 33-year-old from London, who launched a one-woman assault on Ministers and mandarins, has now been stripped of her Government laptop. Known by the pseudonym Civil Serf, she is a middle manager in the Department for Work and Pensions. Her activities began in November last year when she started posting excoriating insights into daily life in the civil service. She swiftly attracted a cult following -- and enraged her bosses. A source in the DWP said it was an extraordinary outlay of resources as the team was told to clear their desks of everything except their hunt for Civil Serf ...
Comment: Putting this in context, aren't these British bureaucracies the ones that managed to lose discs containing everyone's secret bank codes -- and then they lost the information about the addresses of all British children?
I am now preparing an assault on the Google database seeking more information about this digital Scarlet Pimpernel, this daring young woman whose valor and wit have inspired us all! H. Salt Esq. PERMANENT LINK |
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This week's commentary
One last heads-up on the US economy
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The fate of Western Civilization is at stake, and it is reasonable to suppose that Europe, and Japan at least, will come to our aid in this time of crisis. But the President has burned every bridge, and there are valid reasons to suppose that right-thinking allies see this as a perfect time to de-fang and defenestrate a hyper-powerful country that has turned fascist and gone horribly wrong! |
America's just desserts
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: When, as shortly will be demonstrated, America lapses into a condition of abject suffering, similar to what our government has helped impose on so many people of the world, no tears will be shed by the rest of the world in the telling of the tale.
We will be seen as suffering our just desserts -- first living high on crime and then reduced to the gutter by our excesses.
We will be lucky if we can scrape together the price of the drugs we feel we will need, to continue to self-treat our despair. |
People have just stopped giving a damn
by Chris D., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: From what I've witnessed, people have come to accept almost anything one human being says or does to another as normal behavior at first glance, and are too wrapped up in our own lives to stop and take another look.
You see people arguing, it's normal. Even as they start uttering threats, it's just a couple of people yelling at each other. It's normal. |
Liar, liar
by Don Nash, Unknown News
The fear card never goes away
by Rude One, The Rude Pundit| |
Excerpt: And then, eyes spinning in his head, pulling from random shit that he's said a thousand times before, the President went off the rails: "This war against these extremists and radicals who would do us harm is the great ideological struggle of our time. We're in a battle with evil men -- I call them evil because if you murder the innocent to achieve a political objective, you're evil. (Applause.) These folks have beliefs. They despise freedom. They despise the right for people to worship an Almighty the way he or she sees fit. They desire to subject millions to their brutal rule. Our enemies oppose every principle of humanity and decency that we hold dear. They kill innocent men and women all the time." You gotta love that applause there. Imagine it: an auditorium full of presumptive grownups clapping when another presumptive grownup says, more or less, "Mean people suck." |
Previous commentary
Dragon-free and peaceful
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: In a galaxy far, far away there was a nation that used some pet dragons to win a great war with evil. They pampered and fed these dragons in perpetual gratefulness for their survival. The dragons grew and multiplied until the upkeep of the dragons sapped the strength of that nation ... |
This train's called Economic Disaster
and it has no brakes
by Leon Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: After the smoke of the economic train wreck clears, we will see our hard fought for standard of living considerably diminished. |
On the verge of utter economic collapse:
A suspicion, a guess, a fear,
a hope and an idea
by Mr. Chuckles, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: There will be blood on the streets as millionaires push and shove through the crowd to the dollar exit doors. There will probably be one final insane selling climax and then Fox/CNBC/MSNBC will shout "Fire!" That will be the sign that the rich people will soon be reversing the money flows to buy up US properties on the cheap -- like real estate, bonds and stocks that were abandoned during the hysterical rush to flee the burning theater. Naturally, Joe-Sixpack will be selling dollars at the precise, multi-decade bottom -- and will then hold fast waiting for a final collapse, which will not be allowed to occur by The Powers That Be. |
Conspiracies, secrecy, and radical honesty
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: In today's world, the rational person is forced to fly blind most of the time, and can have very little confidence in their perceptions of the day as they will likely be shown to be in error in light of future revelations. Consequently I believe with certainty very little of what I see, and not very much of what I think. |
Clinton's politics of personal destruction
by Mariah G., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Between the Who You Gonna Call At 3 AM ad, and her disparagement of Barack in favor off McCain's and her own grandiose foreign policy experience, etc., etc., Clinton has severely damaged her own party for the general elections. If she manages to get the nomination under these circumstances a lot of people will end up voting for McCain. |
A bull market in schadenfreude
by Granville's Hammer, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The newest bubble, aside from oil and gold, is Schadenfreude. You don't hear it much on CNBC or MSNBC, but the average person is delighted when informed of the horrors befalling their corporate tormentors. It is glorious to see bankers and financiers forced to beg for scraps. Payback is a bitch! And this isn't just any payback. This is Payback With Compounded Interest. |
The genocide goes on
by Ben Heine, Unknown News
America can't compete in even the simplest of industries
by Granville's Hammer, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Mostly, as far as I can tell, the rules, regulations and laws are used to punish enemies of the state and are applied only when there is an agenda in action (having nothing to do with food safety.) So I don't know what good it does for us to even have the USDA and FDA if they only regulate American producers. |
It all makes sense if you think like a sociopath
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: I can hardly wait for the dust to settle on this destructive process, since I hope to still be alive when the evildoers who control our country lose interest and leave for greener pastures or, hopefully, their just desserts. Left to ourselves, I believe we can institute real democracy and popular control and make a decent, if poor, life from the wreckage the sociopathic gangsters leave behind. |
This week in the Class War
by JS Magruder, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: If you've grown up in the era of celebrities performing public charity, it is difficult to translate that back down to a person-to-person level. Pretty soon we all think we should have a camera there to applaud us for our generosity-or a publicly displayed plaque, mention in a newsletter, and so on. |
A "threat" to pull out of NAFTA?
by Chris D., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: If you believe that bullshit about NAFTA being a mutually beneficial trilateral agreement to lower tariffs and facilitate fair competition with equal terms to all three countries, then you're sorely mistaken. |
Dollar disaster
by Arnie V., Unknown News| |
Excerpt: Unless the US government goes cold-turkey on currency debasement and resource squandering activities, the middle and lower-class people in the economic food chain are going to be making soup from shoe leather. |
Not all need drown as America sinks
by Kathy Fisher, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The lifeboats are few but the swimmers are strong. They will survive because they have a fight left in them. Small numbers will say no and they might die saying no -- but they will not go passively without some noise. Defiance is the birth pain of revolution. |
An open letter to Ehud Olmert
by Skulz Fontaine, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: How about you and Israel lay off the Palestinian people for a time, two times, and two and a half times? |
The blessings of diversity in the pursuit of liberty and survival
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The changes that we are about to be forced to deal with as a species will be sudden -- and catastrophic. The groups that survive will be those that retain the greatest degree of diversity of behavioral and perceptual styles, those most able to innovate in the face of change. |
Greed is the problem with US medical care
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The problems of medical care in the US are complex and hard to understand, but the cause is easy to identify: greed by the corporate influences that are picking over the corpse of US medical care. This is the reason why US medicine is falling rapidly behind all other industrialized countries and many poorer ones as well. |
Protecting children from the horror of giving a damn
by JS Magruder, Unknown News| |
Excerpt: The thing that will drive me to civil disobedience will be some smug son-of-a-bitch telling me I can't perform the Works of Mercy. That's where I get radicalized. I'm going to feed the hungry. I'm going to give drink to the thirsty. I'm going to clothe the naked. I'm going to visit the imprisoned. I'm going to care for the sick. I'm going to bury the dead. And if that's going to be civil disobedience, then fine, count me in. |
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