OK, I'm convinced. Christopher Hitchens is unremittingly wasted.
31 January 2005
gitmo detainees 'have rights', so says US Judge Joyce Hens Green
NYTimes: U.S. Denies Guantánamo Inmates' Rights, Judge Says Reuters: U.S. Judge: Guantanamo Suspects Have Rights TalkLeft: Guantanamo Detainees Entitled to Court Review Intel Dump: Second judge rules Gitmo tribunals unlawfulI really do hate saying "I told you so".
Iraq is not Vietnam!!!!!!
from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Flashback
"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting." (New York Times, September 4, 1967)
And Billmon's Whiskey Bar (which is again open for business after a month of healing following the election), has this nugget to compare and contrast:
And then there's always Dick Cheney's own words:Signs of the Times"Quagmire," "attrition," "credibility gap," "Iraqification" - a listener to the debate over the situation in Iraq might think that it truly is Vietnam all over again . . . But Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2003 is not 1975 or 1968.New York Times November 9, 2003
The difficulties of achieving [U.S.] objectives, then and now, have led a range of military experts, historians and politicians to consider the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq . . . Nearly two years after the American invasion of Iraq, such comparisons are no longer dismissed in mainstream political discourse as facile and flawed, but are instead bubbling to the top.New York Times January 29, 2005
In a 1991 speech, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney argued, "I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force… And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place… it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."And in case you're wondering, yes, the casualty count to this point in Operation Clusterfuck has exceeded that of the War in Vietnam.
Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport?
Sounds good. I like it.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Baltimore-Washington International Airport may soon become the Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport if a bill introduced by a Baltimore County Democrat to honor the former Supreme Court justice passes.
Delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr. said it was important to recognize Marshall as "the greatest civil rights hero of our time."
Thurgood Marshall, born in Baltimore in 1908, served as legal director for the NAACP from 1940 to 1961 during the crucial period of school desegregation, culminating in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregation of public schools illegal. He was named to the Supreme Court in 1967. He died in 1993.
The state honored Marshall in 1996 with a statue in front of the Maryland State House in Lawyers' Mall.
"He did more legally to bring America back to its true meaning than anyone else. What better way to honor him than to put his name on an airport," Burns said.
He noted that Marshall's wife, who also works for the NAACP, is excited about it.
"It's now time for blacks to be honored in the way others have been honored," Burns said, noting airports named after Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and former New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
"It will give Thurgood Marshall international recognition. If I check my bags in Beijing, China, the person ticketing them will see Thurgood Marshall on the ticket."
things that make my brain hurt
The universe is destined to end. Before it does, could an advanced civilisation escape via a "wormhole" into a parallel universe? The idea seems like science fiction, but it is consistent with the laws of physics and biology. Here's how to do it: more
30 January 2005
A well-spent $24.95, available now at 29 January 2005
catch up time
I've been falling behind with blogging again lately, reducing my chances of winning a Bloggie this year.... :) So, now seems like a good time to purge the backlog of articles that I've read and saved over the past couple of weeks. So, in no particular order, here ya go:
Bad news for Democrats. RFK, Jr has decided not to run against Andrew Cuomo (his brother in law) for Eliot Spitzer's vacant AG position in New York.
The Buffalo Beast has this hilarious list of 2004's most loathsome people. Check it out, it's definitely worth reading from top to bottom. Also check out their list of top 10 Hacks of the 2004 Presidential election.
Slate has this piece on Why Bush's foreign policy hawks are driving Priuses?
Josh Marshall offers this first hand account of Frank Luntz' diabolic wordsmithing on Social Security.
Independent Media Television has this piece on Bush's 3 profiteering brothers. Check it out. They're also running this story on Bush's entirely-too-cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.
The Washington Post has an editorial today about the ongoing suffering in Darfur. ['For the Triumph of Evil'].
The crazy crackheaded ex-mayor of DC apparently studied chemistry in college, and last week he got the opportunity to show off his big brain to the students at Ballou High School. This is the same school where students broke in the chemistry lab last year and proceeded to contaminate the school and what seemed like most of the Washington Metro region, forcing Ballou to close it's doors for nearly a month.
Need a rocket launcher?
Bids are at $16k now at E-Bay.
Larry Greenmeier at the Information Week blog had an awesome entry this week which puts the reality of homeland security into perspective (finally). Naturally, it took a cop to state the completely obvious point that has seems to have eluded the Bush administration.
"The next attack will be thwarted not by some supercomputer that spits out some formula, but by some cop on the beat whose suspicion is aroused by some tidbit of information,"
Senator Frist is a fear-mongering whacko. Here's proof. Scared yet? So is President Crisis... who was in West Virginia scaring old people into giving their grandchildren's retirement money to Merrill Lynch.
"'The administration is once again manufacturing a crisis,' Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) said at the Capitol Hill event. 'It is not accurate to say, as the president did just the other day,' that Social Security will be 'flat bust, bankrupt' when retirement time arrives for workers now in their twenties, he said."
Reuters also has this: [Bush Accused of Scaring Public on Social Security]
Mother Jones has this [What Kind of Freedom? An Interview with Christian Parenti] , a reporter's first hand account of Operation Total Clusterfuck, more commonly known as the US's current occupation of Iraq.
Google is running a BETA of their new Video Search, allowing users to search for recent television programming and archived video footage.
How to Create Terrorists: Part MLXXIV
Joyce McGreevey has an excellent alternate version of Bush's inaugural address here: [Bush's inaugural address exposed]
Bush's group of shillers for hire grows to 3... [HHS says it paid columnist for help]
and last... but certainly not least: ABC's People of the Year for 2004...... ? Bloggers
27 January 2005
26 January 2005
19 January 2005
BINGO
Sorry no blogging lately... but I have a feeling that's about to change a lot as we move into George's 2nd term as Warmonger in Chief. This piece [President of Fabricated Crises] from the Washington Post is about a week old... and I just got a chance to read it. What a homerun! It focuses on the current assault on Social Security and how it fits into the larger picture of contemporary Republican governance. If you're interested in following this more closely, I highly recommend keeping an eye on Josh Marshall, who has the market cornered on saving Social Security from the fear-mongering ideologues who want it to die a slow death. In the end I don't expect them to be successful, but then again I didn't think there was a snowball's chance in hell that Bush would beat Kerry either, and that didn't pan out. But I'm not alone in this belief... as Senate and House members work to buttress their case either for or against the President's proposals, many are seeing that the solvency of Social Security is real, and that the politics of fear and ideology are guiding this. I hope for my sake and the sake of my (yet to be born) children that rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, they instead find a way to ensure that future generations of Americans are able to yield the benefits that Social Security's creators intended. I don't want to work until I'm dead... and I don't want my retirement funds subjected to Wall Street's propensity for rewarding greed and fraud. I refuse to invest my retirement funds so that George and his pals can fatten the wallets of Wall Street's fund managers. You should refuse this risk also. Email your representative and let them know how you feel.
15 January 2005
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