Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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• Some dang fine reporters aren't really reporters, in the eyes of Congress and, soon, the law. To be a journalist under the "shield" legislation working its way through Congress, one must be working for wages, so there'll be no shield for amateurs, zinesters, and bloggers. • The Obama administration is unable to find documents that would reveal details of the Bush-Cheney administration's torture programs. But are they looking? "A Justice Department that takes its responsibilities seriously would open an internal probe into how these documents came be to “missing.” Considering all the public interest surrounding them, the likelihood that their destruction was innocent is infinitesimally small. An investigation has to take into account the consistent, unpunished pattern of destruction of evidence that clearly constitutes obstruction of justice." It becomes more and more obvious that the Justice Department under Eric Holder is as corrupt as the Justice Department under John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Mukasey. • The Nation scales down the $17.5-trillion Wall Street bailout, turning it into an almost amusing allegory in which similarly stupid bailout mechanism are applied to save a floundering household budget. It doesn't work, either in the allegory or as an allegory, but it's
• Jesse Trentadue has spent years trying to get access to surveillance video from Oklahoma City on the day when the Murrah Building was blown to smithereens. Would you be surprised to learn that when Trentadue was finally allowed to see the video, he found "a blank spot in the minutes before the blast — eliminating imagery of the truck carrying the bomb and people in the vehicle". Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. • In the summer of 2009, to worldwide raised eyebrows and guffaws, the government of Egypt ordered all pigs in the country slaughtered to stop the spread of swine flu. Unsurprisingly, this has led to adverse consequences. • Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS News has been dismissed. His lawyer says he'll appeal. Lots of good progressives have been rooting for Rather, and there's an undeniable appeal in seeing CBS executives squirm a little, but the news here makes me shrug. It's hard to give a damn about the affront to one man's ego that spawned this court case. Rather was never a good reporter, but for decades he was very, very well-paid to do work that a bright 10th-grader could have done better. • Keith Knight's new cartoon is considered controversial, but it's brilliant, as Knight's work often is.
• If you're sued for piracy by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it's wiser to ignore the lawsuit than to actually show up in court. • The Roman Catholic Church is proudly bragging that as many as 19 out of 20 priests aren't raping altar boys. • I thought Andy Williams and his sweaters had been buried years ago, but to my surprise he's not dead, just stupid. • Does President Obama hate white people? • You might not know about Johns Hopkins, benefactor of the hospital and university that bears his name. • A tip o' the hat to JR Mooneyham, horsesass.org, Suburban Guerrilla, Photography is Not a Crime, Hominid Views, Harold's Left, Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, mystery links, and the right-wing's calls to violence.
• As expected, the police in Pittsburgh beat the hell out of the First Amendment during last week's G20 meetings. It's shameful, routine, and un-American if you believe in the principles publicly espoused as "American", but of course nothing could be more all-American if you live in the real world. Cops at G20 deployed a military weapon on peaceful protesters and anyone who just happened to be there, blasting the streets with upwards of 150 decibels of noise (more than enough to cause permanent hearing damage) through "sound cannons". Wig says: Don't they have excessive sound laws in Pittsburgh? "No matter where you went, there was no way to leave..." If you've been to more than a few protests, you learn to see this cop tactic coming. The crowd is boxed in by a wall of police officers dressed like stormtroopers maneuvering into planned positions, and once the wall has everyone enclosed and there’s nowhere to go, cops give the order to “disperse” and begin arresting everyone, since, of course, it’s impossible to disperse. "A lot of people were saying, I'm just trying to leave." Yup. This is routine police work, like making sure the handcuffs are too tight and always eyeballing black folks extra close. The reports go on, pretty much as you'd expect if you're aware of the police response to protests in America. "He threw me to the ground. He kept smashing my face into the ground. Then about two or three other cops came over. They jumped on me." It's been this way for as long as I can remember, but as recently as perhaps ten years ago I had the impression that it was something that at least embarrassed police departments. Nowadays cops and their commanders are just plain proud of what they do. Here's Pittsburgh cops posing for a group photo with what appears to be a trophy — an arrested person on his or her knees. • Israel's leadership is, of course, urging the United States to overthrow "the mad regime of Tehran", though there's no evidence that Iran presents any danger to Israel or anyone else beyond its borders, and no evidence that America needs prodding to make stupid wars. Wig says: So we are to invade Iran to find the "weapons of mass destruction" we charged into Iraq to find? Remind me how we found those "weapons" in Iraq. BTW, wasn't it
• Children’s Tylenol is being recalled due to a possible bacterial contamination. • Three more long-term prisoners at Guantanamo have been released. Again, they weren't "the worst of the worst, they were innocent. Two are going to Ireland, one's headed to Yemen. • 75 more prisoners at Guantanamo have been “cleared for release”. 75 more innocent victims of American lawlessness. Will they receive an apology, or will they be flown home in irons with burlap bags over their heads, like the recently released? • First Lt. Ehren Watada, the Army officer who refused to deploy to Iraq on moral and legal objections to that war, will be allowed to quit the military with a less than honorable discharge. His court-martial in 2007 ended in a mistrial. Smells like victory. • The ruling junta in post-coup Honduras has suspended civil rights and shut down opposition TV and radio stations. • In Spain, the socialist government plans to loosen abortion laws, allowing women as young as 16 to receive an abortion without parental permission. Women deserve more rights than a clump of cells? What a concept! • Paul Krugman has turned his reliably clear thinking toward global climate change and the lies swirling around the semi-green Waxman-Markey Act. • Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki is cutting through the red tape that’s kept veterans from getting college tuition benefits. On Shinseki’s say-so, vets who’ve been waiting for benefits approval will be handed a check for $3,000 if they show up at a VA office with ID and proof of enrollment. This is righteous. • Michael Moore always seems to have something interesting to say, especially when he's in the same room with Wolf Blitzer.
• At last weekend's wingnuts' convention in St Louis, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee called on America to quit the United Nations, and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota) warned of a one-world currency, and Congressman Trent Franks (R-Arizona) informed the audience that President Obama is an "enemy of humanity". • To keep America's youth safe from witchcraft, the Bush-Cheney administration made sure J.K. Rowling didn't get some worthless award (the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was worthless during the Bush-Cheney era). • James O'Keefe, the right-wing activist who made those silly but widely-hyped videos posing as a pimp at Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) offices, has always said he's "absolutely independent" and funded his excursions himself. Of course, that was a lie, a revelation that's hardly a surprise. • The racists and Republicans (but I repeat myself) behind the birther movement are now running infomercials on late-night TV in seven states. You can show your support for only $30, and that's less than the price of a Kaboom! shower tub and tile cleaner on the next channel. • Jerry Falwell has been inducted into the Christian Hall of Fame. • You might not know about Abner Kneeland, preacher of blasphemy. • A tip o' the hat to Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our daily dialogue, and mystery links.
• The recent hubbub of shock at Iran's disclosure of its uranium enrichment facility sure fits well with America's long-term commitment to escalating tensions with Iran. The outrage seems out of proportion to what Iran has announced, which isn't much and which is actually early, an announcement well before it's required by the international agreements Iran has signed onto. Marie K. explains this in detail and rather well. What concerns me most is not the disclosure or even the ridiculous over-reaction, but the presence of several big-name progressives on the shocked and worried bandwagon. • The Obama administration has quiet announced that it intends to circumvent law and continue holding prisoners ("detainees", in bipartisan lie-speak) without trials, without charges, without any givin'-a-dang about the Constitution or anything. Also, senior administration officials say that the President's pledge to close Guantanamo by January will probably be broken. I'm sure the prisoners are enjoying all the Obama "change". • "The general public, who never understood the global financial crisis in the first place, have been hoodwinked into thinking it’s over. It’s not." This piece is dark, ominous and foreboding... and basically correct. • Big banks are doing everything in their power to block any meaningful regulatory reform. As you've probably noticed, everything in the bank's power is nothing to sneeze or sniffle at, and invariably trumps just about any opposition. • The FBI has paid $250,000 to Abdallah Higazy, an Egyptian man who was imprisoned for more than a month in the aftermath of And should we accept the latest arrests of terrorists at face value, considering past experience with FBI and Homeland Security Department accusations? • Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3° Fahrenheit by the end of the century, even if the world's leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges. Georgia, meanwhile, is swimming under a a "once in 500 years flood", but of course, we're going to need new terminology for the new era — soon enough we'll be calling this a "once in ten years flood". • Houston has a bad blight of out-of-control cops, but police and jailers indistinguishable from thugs and killers ain't specific to Houston. It's everywhere. The only workable solution is oversight by ordinary citizens, and I'll wager that in Houston the oversight is minimal. (Full disclosure: The author is a friend, but I'd recommend reading this even if I'd never heard of him.)
• Senate Republicans have announced that they and their staffs won't participate in an investigation of Bush-Cheney era torture being conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, so that whatever the investigation finds can be dismissed as a partisan attack by Democrats. A few readers have told me they think this is important, and it probably is, but it's good news, not bad. The Senate investigation is almost certainly a sham, since it's under the control of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California). If Republicans walk away, then we might get a partisan report that reveals 10% of truth and sweeps the rest under the rug, instead of a bipartisan report that reveals 2% and sweeps 98%. • Rachel Maddow does her usual top-notch work in this report from her Friday telecast, putting the overhyped and almost entirely fake scandals of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) into proper perspective. • Yosi Sergant, the NEA spokesman who was demoted a weeks ago, basically at the request of Glenn Beck, has now quit. • Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has again reiterated that he basically sees no separation between church and state in the Constitution. • I am routinely concerned about the growing fundamentalist Chistianization of the US military, in its "missions" to Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. Now, apparently, I'll also have to worry about the Christian ninjafication of the American military. • Nate Silver, the number-cruncher at fivethirtyeight.com, thinks the polls conducted by right-wing PR house Strategic Visions don't add up. Not that they're inaccurate, but that they're possibly simply faked. The American Association for Public Opinion Research, an industry group, also casts unanswered questions about Strategic Visions. • You might not know about Florence Kelley, activist for labor and women's, children's, and civil rights. • A tip o' the hat to Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our daily dialogue, and the right-wing's calls to violence.
• The New York Times reports that President Obama is reconsidering his decision to double down the quagmire in Afghanistan. That's like reconsidering a walk off a cliff. By all means, Mr President, do stop and think, pause and hesitate, and then, please, bring the troops home and let Afghanistan have its country, because it’s going to be theirs whether or not you increase the number of Americans being killed for nothing there. Meanwhile, General David Petraeus, who's inexplicably still commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, says he's an enthusiastic supporter of the war plan of General Stanley McChrystal, who's inexplicably still US commander of occupied Afghanistan. How very unsurprising. • Former Congressman and present TV conservative Joe Scarborough is not exactly a paragon of common sense, but by present-day standards of Republican insanity he's so close to rational he rarely shows up on my wingnut radar.
• Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) will send his own delegation to the upcoming conference on global climate change in Copenhagen, with a pretty-much stated mission of telling foreign representatives not to work with the Obama administration on any climate change initiatives. In addition to being Just Plain Stupid, which is what anyone would expect from Inhofe, it's another example of something we mentioned yesterday. It's considered treasonous when Democrats criticize an administration on foreign soil, but it's business as usual when Republicans do the same. Quick, off the top of you head, can you think of any sitting Democrats in Congress who sent a delegation to an international meeting to specifically oppose the policies of the United States of America during the Bush-Cheney administration? • Peet’s Coffee is, to my knowledge, the first company to do internet filtering right. They reconsidered and decided not to do internet filtering at all. • Eeeeew. A hotel reports that its rental sex toys are frequently stolen. Maybe I'm a germophobe but some things just aren't meant to be rented, no matter how they're cleaned after. • My father and brother attended the University of Washington, so I’m pleased to see that the school’s academic standards remain high, as evidenced by this intriguing study of the chickenness of chicken (pdf). • Some smart guy did the geography work, and figured out that anywhere in the continental United States, you’re never more than 107 miles from the nearest McDonald’s. We have golden arches and greasy food about three blocks from our apartment, but I haven't been inside a McDonald's since seeing Food, Inc a few months ago, and it's my intent to never be back. • Actor and evangelist Kirk Cameron is pushing a rewrite for Charles Darwin. • You might not know about A. Mitchell Palmer, and the "Palmer raids". • A tip o' the hat to Gerry Canavan, Informed Consent, The Sideshow, Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, it's been debunked, and mystery links.
Free mercury with your high fructose corn syrup
• High fructose corn syrup, the government-subsidized additive that's omnipresent in the processed foods that make up most of most Americans' diet, has mercury in it. High fructose corn syrup is quite unhealthy, and has been repeatedly (but very quietly) linked to the epidemic of diabetes that's been sweeping America in recent years. Mercury, of course, is also a rather unwholesome item to have on your menu thrice daily. All in all, I'm certainly relieved that we have efficient government agencies making sure that we're not being poisoned by our food (she said, sarcastically). • During the Bush-Cheney administration, police across the country stepped up their traditional antagonism of protesters. Over recent years we saw the First Amendment enthusiastically and intentionally disregarded in Miami, in New York City, in Minneapolis, etc. — every time a major political meeting has been held on American soil, protesters have been repeatedly harassed by cops before and during the event, for imaginary crimes, for zoning violations, for purported terrorist threats, for marching without a permit, for whatever the cops can make up out of whole cloth. Well, the "Group of 20" (or G20) nations holds its annual meetings in Pittsburgh beginning today, and the crackdown on the First Amendment is already well underway. Cops are trying to keep protesters miserable and protest impossible, with the full backing of judges and, presumably, the Justice Department, where nothing much has changed since Bush left office. Reading a local paper's coverage, it's just obviously police harassment, and Judge Gary Lancaster (Clinton 1993) gives cops his seal of approval to continue it. You can pretty much tell by the photo and the groups' names (Everybody's Kitchen, Three Rivers Climate Convergence, Seeds of Peace Collective ...) that these people are harmless, and you can almost hear the cops cracking hippie jokes and plotting the mass arrests that'll probably happen today or tomorrow.
• In Q-and-A about the blatantly unconstitutional "roving wiretaps" provided by the PATRIOT Act (the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001), Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) threw Assistant Attorney General David Kris for a loop and a half. Franken read from the Fourth Amendment, where it says “no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized". And then he asked Kris how the "roving warrants" could conceivably be legal. "This is surreal," was how Kris began sidestepping the question. Franken is starting to impress me. • The daily disappointment that is the Obama administration has issued its new guidelines on the State Secrets privilege, and guess what? It's pretty disappointing. "It seems intended to undercut and preempt legislation that would address the broader structural problem," with the State Secrets claim, said Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney ... • Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is suing those conservative activists over their clandestine video, which was illegal to make under Maryland law.
• In Arizona, loony sheriff Joe Arpiao says he's subpoenaed records from ACORN's office there. Before actually seeing these records, he's already told reporters that he expects the evidence will show that ACORN has illegally diverted federal funding for social services to pay for its advocacy against Arpaio. 'Cuz who needs detective work, when you can call a press conference and use government power to smear people? Sheriff Arpaio has been a burr in Arizona's butt for a lot of years, and he's always been a freak show. If he's ever brought down it'll be a hell of a plop, and cheers will go up all across America from people who (unlike the sheriff) give a damn about freedom and justice. • Cops are investigating the death of a census worker found hung from a tree in Kentucky, with the word "Fed" scrawled on his chest. Of course, AP doesn't mention it but an ordinary American might immediately remember the several anti-census statements from Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, a few months back. Any connection? Hope not, but we'll see. • You won't hear any serious criticism of former Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) over her speech blasting President Obama on foreign soil. The horror inherent in disputing the President or offering even the slightest criticism of America while on foreign soil is a recurring staple of phony right-wing histrionics, but of course, it's only offensive when the criticism on foreign soil comes from the left. • You might not know about Mary Anning, who sold seashells by the sea shore. • A tip o' the hat to Corrente, Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, it's been debunked, mystery links, and right wing calls to violence.
Insufficient evidence to prove diddlysquat • Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (Clinton 1997) has ordered the federal government to release long-time Guantanamo inmate Fouad al Rabia. Arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, the record of al Rabia's interrogation remains classified, which means he was tortured. • Five prisoners at Guantanamo get to continue rotting, as a military judge has postponed their 'trial' by another two months to give the Obama administration still more time to ponder what the heck to do. Again, if there was sufficient evidence to prove their guilt, these prisoners would've been tried and imprisoned years ago. There's insufficient evidence to prove diddlysquat, so they've been imprisoned for years without a trial — an injustice which says more about the people running America, and says it louder, than all the politicians' patriotic platitudes.
• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has of course been stretched thin by all the recent bank collapses, so there's a need to shore up FDIC's reserves. Instead of increasing FDIC's federal funding, though, regulators want FDIC to borrow billions of dollars from banks. Uncle Sam hands money to the banks so they will lend to consumers. But, the banks may lend money back to Sam (FDIC in this case) and make Sam pay interest on his own money. Now when consumers go to the banks to borrow, they will hear, "sorry, we have nothing to lend you. We lent it to the government." What morons we have running our country! • Here's another instance where an American judge has sentenced a defendant as if he'd been found guilty, when he wasn't. • Pacific Gas & Electric, the big California utility, has quit the US Chamber of Commerce over USCofC's global warming denial. • Some geese have stopped migrating southward for the winter, as their northern habitats have warmed. • AIG owes American taxpayers about $121,000,000,000, and for my share, no checks, please. • Jose Manuel Zelaya, the overthrown president of Honduras, has returned to his nation's capitol in hopes of negotiating a return to power. That's probably not something that can be negotiated, though I suppose the new government could negotiate something that looks like Zalaya's return to power. • I roll my eyes at the need to even address this again, but on the off chance that anyone reading this has any doubt, the smears and accusations against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) have been greatly exaggerated and even more greatly hyped. The right-wing's endless aggravation at ACORN isn't about corruption, it's about ACORN's relentless work registering and mobilizing minority voters. ACORN, in short, is the new way to say nigger.
President Obama is, of course, always willing and eager to say whatever he thinks will make right-wingers like him, so he's calling for an investigation into ACORN. And more comically, the legislation rushed through the House last week by faux furious Republicans and their Democratic enablers, intended to interrupt any federal funding for ACORN, is so clumsily written that it could cut off funding for any number of far more corrupt federal contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. • Congressman Mike Ross (D-Arkansas) sold some commercial property to drug chain USA Drug for substantially more than its appraised value. A big-box drug store sits there now, raising questions about Ross's integrity, as if there's anything to question. • Since shouting “You lie!” during President Obama's speech before Congress, Rep Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) has received more than $2-million in campaign contributions. And there's the photo again, so again I'll ask — how did the cameraman know the precise moment to point and click? • You might not know about Sylvester Graham, inventor of the graham cracker. • A tip o' the hat to Sherri B., Cassandra, Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, and mystery links.
Walk a mile in Muntazer al-Zaidi's shoes
• Shoe-tosser Muntazer al-Zaidi has written about what was in his mind on December 14 of last year as he threw his shoes at President George W Bush, and what's on his mind now that he's been released from prison. He's a true freedom-fighter, and if there's any justice (which is always an open question) his people will erect a statue in his honor in downtown Baghdad. Also, please note that al-Zaidi's piece ran in The Guardian, a widely-read newspaper in England, and ask yourself — is there a widely-read American newspaper that would let al-Zaidi have op-ed space? • A Kansas court has ruled that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), a leading company involved in the perpetual electronic swapping and reswapping of mortgages, has no standing to foreclose. The matter is (obviously) complex and a Kansas court's finding sets no precedent elsewhere, but still, this is a kick in the nuts for the finance industry, which needs more kicks in the nuts. What do you want to bet that such a decision will quickly get quashed under a mountain of paperwork and appeals? • The Rapture happened yesterday, and you're still here. • JR Mooneyham explains graphically, just how poor you are compared to the people who matter, the people who run this country: “If you were a US Senator or Representative who needs $MILLIONS on a regular basis to keep their job, who would matter the most
• The Obama administration is again arguing that gays don't deserve ordinary civil rights. • Teachers are the latest Democratic Party core group to be doublecrossed by the Obama administration, but the week is young. • Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, has noticed that Pakistan isn’t marching in lockstep with everything the US wants it to do to combat the dratted Taliban and al Qaida. Why, it’s almost as if Pakistan fancies itself an autonomous nation with its own political problems and considerations. The noive. • Iranians are still furious about their nation’s stolen election, and still making more of a ruckus than anyone in America made about ours in 2000 and 2004. • Gen Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US war on Afghanistan, wants more soldiers or (he says) America will lose that war. He's implying that victory in Afghanistan is possible, which is no different than if he'd called a press conference to announce that he's a fool or a liar or both. It's an un-winnable war and everyone knows it, probably including McChrystal. Also, police officials in Afghanistan have objected to McChrystal's plan because it would add to the perception that Afghanistan is being occupied by US forces. The perception. Sure, it's gallows humor, but you have to admit that's a knee-slapper. • This video shows a few people at the right-wing Values Voter Summit “heckling” a reporter, or at least that's how Rachel Maddow describes it, but she's wrong. The people chastising the reporter are entirely in the right, and they’re actually being quite reasonable about it. They’ve paid money to attend this event, and for reasons that make no sense to me, a jackass TV reporter is talking into a microphone at full volume, standing among the seats inside the auditorium while someone on the podium is delivering a speech. The people asking him to shut the heck up are being more polite about it than I’d be. • Betsy McCaughey, the right-wing liar who invented the “death panels” meme that Sarah Palin repeated and the media loved, was a liar on the tobacco industry’s payroll as Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to pass health care reform in 1994. It’s news because it's something that wasn't specifically known until now, but nobody can really be surprised. • Time has given Glenn Beck a profile that amounts to something between a wet kiss and a warm hug.
• The fear- and hate-mongering ads have barely begun, but five months after gays got the right to marry in Iowa, 92% of Iowans polled say it's had “no real change” on their lives. Because unless you're getting gay married, how does it change your life? • Julius Genachowski, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has issued a somewhat lukewarm but still welcome endorsement of net neutrality legislation. • Charles Dean Hood was prosecuted for murder by District Attorney Thomas S. O'Connell Jr., and sentenced to death by Judge Verla Sue Holland. The prosecutor and judge say they'd already broken up, after sleeping together for twenty years. • More than half of computer users use Firefox, the free and fabulous browser, though Microsoft's clunky, ad-friendly, and crash-prone Internet Explorer remains Number One due to sheer inertia. • Caterpillar is building its first green bulldozer. • Ayn Rand had great admiration for a serial killer. • J. R. R. Tolkien very briefly studied to be a spy. • You might not know about Charles Knowlton, an early advocate of birth control. • A tip o' the hat to Sherri B., Joe G., Joseph D., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, and mystery links.
There's your "change" from the Obama administration
• The CIA says its agents destroyed the videotapes of their torture of 14 prisoners at Guantanamo. The ACLU wants to know what happened, and sought access to transcripts in which the torture victims described what had been done to them. Under the Bush-Cheney administration the CIA refused to release those transcripts, and under the Obama administration they were released but useless, because all descriptions of the torture was redacted (and there's your "change" from the Obama administration). Now the ACLU is asking a judge to order the CIA to release the documents, but this time without allowing the redaction of information about the prisoners' torture. ACLU attorney Ben Wizner's logic is so sound I'm ready to bang my gavel right now: “While much is known about the Bush administration’s torture program, the CIA is continuing to censor the most important eyewitnesses — the torture victims themselves. The CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations in order to hide its crimes from the American public; the Obama administration should not prolong this cover-up by suppressing the victims’ firsthand accounts." And from Wizner's court filing: "No court has ever upheld the suppression of descriptions of government misconduct on the ground that those descriptions would inflame the nation’s enemies. To do so would enshrine into the [Freedom of Information Act] the fundamentally antidemocratic principle that the more egregious the government misconduct at issue, the more protected it would be from public disclosure." • Seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have signed a joint letter asking Attorney General Eric Holder to scuttle any investigations into torture beyond the "legal" bounds of torture. As I have yet to see any sign of integrity from Holder, nobody should be surprised if he complies. • Max at The Progressive Puppy found a "wanted for treason" poster [link now fixed] with a picture of John F Kennedy, at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Thousands of copies of the poster were distributed in Dallas in the days before Kennedy's 1963 visit. And Max wonders, is that where the right-wing's hatemongers and liars are leading us again? You probably know my answer to that question.
• So whatever happened to the massive amounts of taxpayers' money that went out the door and into the black hole boondoggle called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Vanity Fair does a good job providing the complex and infuriating answer. Here's an excerpt, but the whole article is worth a read: "... Over the next three months, Treasury poured nearly $239 billion into 296 of the nation’s 8,000 banks. The money went to big banks. It went to small banks. It went to banks that desperately wanted the money. It went to banks that didn’t want the money at all but had been ordered by Treasury to take it anyway. It went to banks that were quite happy to accept the windfall, and used the money simply to buy other banks. Some banks received as much as $45 billion, others as little as $1.5 million. Sixty-seven percent went to eight institutions; 33 percent went to the rest. And that was just the money that went to banks. Tens of billions more went to other companies, all before Barack Obama took office. It was the largest single financial intervention by Treasury into the banking system in U.S. history. "But once the money left the building, the government lost all track of it. The Treasury Department knew where it had sent the money, but nothing about what was done with it. Did the money aid the recovery? Was it spent for the purposes Congress intended? Did it save banks from collapse? Paulson’s Treasury Department had no idea, and didn’t seem to care. It never required the banks to explain what they did with this unprecedented infusion of capital. ..." • The Obama administration is planning to tinker with but keep the Threat Level advisory system — you know, the much laughed-at color coded system where green means be a little scared, blue means be more scared, on up through yellow, orange, and red, which means be scared out of your pants and go running naked down the street. Even ignoring for the moment the overwhelming evidence that the Threat Level system has been rigged for political purposes, the system has never served any purpose except to keep Americans frightened, because there's never been any indication of what ordinary people or even police agencies are supposed to do when the alleged danger rises from yellow to orange. Except, of course, be more scared. If the Obama administration is unwilling to simply scuttle this relic from the totally politicized Bush-Cheney administration, it means (again and obviously) that the Obama administration isn't changing much of anything. • Of course, the Obama administration is changing things, just far too few and far too slowly for my tastes. But credit where credit is due: The day after the Obama administration announced that it wouldn't be constructing the Bush-Cheney administration's nutty missile shield in Eastern Europe, Russia announced that it's not going to follow through on its threat to place missiles near Poland. This coverage seems to poo-poo Russia's move as insignificant, and I'll concede that a working reporter with a Russian-sounding name probably knows a lot more about these matters than I do. • According to the ACLU, 188 people were cited in Pittsburgh from 2005-07 for "contempt of cop", i.e., giving a policeman lip, asking an impertinent question, or offering an officer an impolite finger. So Carlos Miller and the Constitution are right, you do have the right to flip off cops, but only if you have the time, the inclination, and the money to litigate it afterwards. • An Arizona couple is suing Wal-Mart and the state after the retail giant called the cops over utterly benign but — oh my god — nude photos of the couple's kids in the bathtub. Read the gruesome details here, but be advised that the link might not be safe for work. Or take a short cut to the moral of the story: If you're taking pictures that could conceivably offend anyone anywhere, don't have those pictures developed by the dweebs and automatons at Wal-Mart (or, sadly, the dweebs and automatons at pretty much any other retail outlet). • Some egghead at U-Cal Davis is working with pharma giant Roche to develop a drug to "reverse mental retardation". Insert your own jokes about Republicans and teabaggers, but I gotta say seriously, this sounds like an area where scientific meddling is weird and probably ill-advised. The brain is who we are, and that's not something to be messed with by taking a pill or a shot. See also Sven's comments about this, in which the above is enthusiastically disputed. • Republicans are outraged, panicked, terrified, et cetera, because Syracuse University is conducting a study that involves (brace yourself for the horror) surveying students about their sex lives. I'll pause here so that you can go wash your hands. • A mere two months ago, Congressman Joe "You Lie!" Wilson (R-South Carolina) introduced legislation to swiftly grant permanent resident status to an illegal immigrant. OMG! • I got a kick and a half out of Joe Armstrong's recollection of a wingnut teacher in light of our wingnut times. • Harry, your host at Unknown News, likes compact fluorescent light bulbs that save a little on the energy bill. Helen, your hostess, hates 'em, because they cast an ugly hospital-white light that makes everything in the room look pale and icky, as opposed to the slightly yellowish light cast by a traditional light bulb. So we turn to you, dear readers and friends — is there a brand of compact fluorescents that can light the room without turning Helen's stomach? • You might not know about William Mulholland, namesake of L.A.'s Mulholland Drive. • A tip o' the hat to Photography is Not a Crime, Jeremy D., Joe G., Joseph D., Sherri B., Lon Garm, Scott L., JR Mooneyham, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, the letter Z, and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous). Also updated today: Our bad cops page, daily dialogue, and mystery links.
Recommended sites for gathering unknown or underreported news: Media Matters Pro Publica ThinkProgress Washington Monthly TruthOut
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