Daily Topics - Tuesday - April 6th 2010
By louisehartmann
Hour One - How do you prevent collateral murder in war? Beau Grosscup, author of "Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment" www.zedbooks.co.uk Plus...How much blood was shed so Don Blankenship could make his $16 million? Jeff Biggers, author "Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland" http://jeffrbiggers.com
Hour Two - "Everything You Know is Wrong" Rick Smith "Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things" http://slowdeathbyrubberduck.com "Labor Segment" Doug Cunningham www.laborradio.org ungag the nurses!!
Hour Three - How do we stop the oil wars?
Comments
#2
I also listened to a few minutes of Tiger Woods’ press conference yesterday; he apparently didn’t satisfy Fox “Sports,” which claimed he “slipped” through the “hard” questions by not going into greater “detail.” There were other people more interested than me in what he had to say: the porn “star” and that lurid bloodhound Gloria Allred, always sniffing around to get her female clients (and herself, of course) no matter how disreputable a bundle of money off some dumb guy. Allred managed to get a few million off Woods into the bank account of Rachel Uchitel to keep quiet, although Woods should sue to get his money back since she has since spilled the beans like everyone else did. I’m not sure what angle Allred is going to use to justify a similar pay-out to the porn star, who after the press conference claimed that Woods “lied” about the “nature” of their relationship, and wanted an “apology.” Loverly.
Oh, and that game last night reminded me of the Villanova-Robert Morris game; Butler’s five was playing against Duke’s five-plus-three. What a BS game. Everyone commenting on a live blog I was following who wasn’t a Duke homer or a CBS announcer saw it too. Butler’s low field goal percentage was misleading because of so many uncalled fouls; Zoubek should have fouled out in the first half. This was the kind of game that makes you sick to your stomach because you know that the “favored” team only won because it had to be “helped” to the finish line. A great story was allowed to end without a proper finish. It was a credit to Butler’s resiliency that they still had a shot, against all odds, of winning the game at the end. At least Coach K showed a modicum of humility after the game.
#3
Stranger and stranger..a while ago, I posted on the live blog, I was the only one there. Now I return, mine is gone, and 2 are here. Did I post on tomorrows live blog? Guess I'll have to wait to find out.
#4
Today (4-6-10) I received a great email from PDA. I will share two articles from this email.
#5
Everyday I have tears in my eyes for our massmurders and war crimes.
#6
My tears will never stop for the sins of my country.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0405/The-Iraq-war-still-a-massive-mistake
#7
How do we stop the oil wars?
Innovate until oil is obsolete.
#8
Collateral damage equals profit. www.pahrumplife.org writes:
Historical/Satirical Truth
Well folks, Thomson Illinois Gitmo Wannabe looks like the tip of the iceberg called “America the Taxpayer-Funded, Private Dungeon Slave Capital of the World.” Many in the corporate world would greedily and wantonly like to see the United States become pervasively a world of prisons, court cases, half-way houses, HUD houses, prison supply warehouses (Wal-Mart?), cheap or free labor, prison developers, prison trained-warriors etc. And this is America.
Let’s see. Who can we round up for $100 per diem per prison bed? Where can we start the next war? Hmm where are there still tribes of happy people living as they were made to live off the land and content with their cultures close to the Great Mystery, having little or no crime, gorgeous land and sea, indigenous food delights, athletics, diversions, music, art, cherished livelihoods, love and each other? What lands and people are ripe for the picking? How can we get them angry? Maybe we could dump oil sludge in their water, or poison their water, slash and burn their sacred and bountiful lands. When they are most pliable, after getting them dependent on drugs and thereby limited in living up to their ancient ways because they are now addicts living for a fix, we could steal their children and point fingers at their neighbor tribes. One vengeful raid could follow another and become a way of life for years. Sometimes it takes time to profitably fulfill a plan. We could sell to them - or trade for land and other favors - weapons from years ago (automatic weapons for bows and arrows) and after they’ve almost wiped each other out we could find a reason in our bag of reasons to hit them with our state of the art weapons killing many but leaving some to face war criminal charges. Where can we send front people with whiskey and drugs to ply our future enemy combatant warlords and devastated and vindictive masses because of kidnappings of babies, wives and mothers, slayings, massacres, human slavery - sex and otherwise? And what are the most conducive and best growing drugs for their regions? We could trade favors and land for drugs and grow and harvest and make them locally to get more bang for our buck and save having to cross borders. We could even make the drugs illegal in order to gather more prisoners. You know like all of this happened to the Native Americans and now in the Amazon Jungle and throughout the Middle East and Africa and Indonesia and Asia? There are many more places with resources for advancing, even if unwanted, industries in the world, but maybe we can save those places for later.
And we could put all of the war criminals here in America where we can certainly use the labor force and we wouldn’t have to pay those shipping charges from the sweat shops overseas. And if we don’t give these war criminal prisoners any rights we can keep them maybe forever. And we can still do it as private corporations on the taxpayers. It’s a win win win win situation at least for a few of us in America.
Rhetorically, why do some cheer on the situation? Why do some put up with it without a mumblin’ word? Is the above really what you want to happen and to continue to happen? I didn’t think so. Now is the time, if ever, to get active in your government’s ongoing business, or else it will, in all probability, continue developing as is.
#9
Whole loads of these chemicals are coming from CHINA made crapola!!! Hooray wholly unregulated Free Trade!
#10
Yesterday you wrote:
“If President Obama wants to energize HIS base, prior to the mid-term congressional elections, he needs to disassociate himself from certain of his cabinet members -
1) Rahm Emmanuel
2) Tim Geithner
3) Ben Bernanke
He should forget about all the bi-partisan crap, about trying to "win over" the haters, and concentrate on "Winning BACK" those Americans who see him as having sold the left downriver over the past 2 years. Dropping Rahm and the Goldman boys would be an excellent first step down that road.”
Great sentiment but Our Great and Grand DLC Driven President is far more interested in disassociating him and the White House from the demo portion of democracy.
#11
A bomber's jacket does not cover blood.
http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/2010-03-29-08-32-45-news.php
#12
"I've learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me." - monica lewenski
#13
I would like to share with you my April 3, 2010 evening experience. We went to the 8:30 evening Mass. This Mass is the longest Mass during the year, about 2 and one half hours. There are several readings during the Mass and we redo our baptismal vows as a Christian.
After Mass we arrived home and I wanted to see what was on television. All that seemed of significance was on the History Channel. The program was God versus Satan. God, Satan, and the anti-Christ would have the battle of all battles before the Final Judgment.
Most pundits depict the anti-Christ as a person. I do not see the anti-Christ as a person. The anti-Christ is a nation, the United States of Hell. I give our nation the nod for the anti-Christ because we are a prodigal nation that refuses to return to God; we consider ourselves above God and the law; we refuse to repent for our evil ways in the killing of God’s children; we have historically chosen false prophets to follow; and we are a nation where mass murders and war crimes are glorified.
Make no mistake, the United States of Hell is the anti-Christ with its diet of gorging on human blood and a mouth filled with a shit-eating grin.
#14
This is a rare opportunity for Americans to actually to do something about needless government secrecy. The 1992 JFK Act was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress, and while that level of cooperation seems unimaginable today, it' s hard to think of any legitimate reason why a member of Congress wouldn't want to co-sponsor the new King Act. From: Threats, Violence Against Congress Show Urgent Need for King Records Act by Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/05-1
Needless government secrecy? It would be needless if this were a functioning democracy, and a well-informed citizenry capable of informed decision making was the idea. It is not.
This is a national security state. An informed populus would only get in the way. Congress can no longer control the purse strings of the intelligence community, nor even peer into the black box of those expenditures. Legal justification for extrajudicial killings and torture have been regularly produced, now by Mr. Koh of the Obama Administration for the use of drones, as by Yoo and Bybee for torture.
Obama will not disassociate from Bernanke, Geittner, Emanuel, et al., he would sooner disassociate with the remnants of the veneer of the consent of the governed.
#15
Rahm Kills Siegelman Investigation
Boss Rahm decides who is a worthy Democrat
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
(WMR) -- WMR has learned from sources close to ousted White House chief counsel Greg Craig that it was not President Obama’s top legal adviser who balked at ordering the Justice Department to review the politically-motivated criminal cases brought by the Bush administration against three top Democrats in the South, but it was White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who made the decision to nix any White House backing for new trials for the southern Democratic officials involved -- former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, former Georgia state Senate leader Charles Walker, and Mississippi attorney Paul Minor.
Walker and Minor are currently incarcerated in federal prisons while Siegelman was freed from prison pending an appeal of his conviction in a trial headed by a corrupt Bush-appointed federal judge and former Republican operative, Mark Fuller.
Craig announced his resignation as chief counsel last November. Although press reports indicated that Craig was forced out by Emanuel over Craig’s determination to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison and to release Bush administration Justice Department memos on harsh interrogation techniques, the new information suggests that Craig and Emanuel also differed over Bush-era Justice Department prosecutions of Siegelman, Walker, and Minor, with Craig favoring a Justice Department review of the cases and possible new trials.
The involvement of Emanuel in blocking Justice Department review of the cases against Siegelman, Walker, and Minor is the first evidence that ties Obama’s chief of staff to the continuation of the political prosecutions of a number of Democrats that was brought about largely by President Bush’s top political adviser Karl Rove.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5718.shtml
#16
There are also coal mines in western Pennsylvania; I know, because my mother's father died in a coal mining accident there when I was very young.
#17
Why did you leave out Lawrence Summers?
Rahm DEFINITELY has to go. If Obama had taken his advice, health insurance reform would have died. He keeps counseling Obama to move to the right. And he's killed an investigation into Don Siegelman's case. He's worthless.
#18
In the days of sail, empires such as Russia and Britain went to war over cannabis...If you question this, know that canvas is a Dutch word derived from cannabis...the "b" and the "v" being linguistically equivilent.
#19
Cheney's FIRST job was to find Bush a Vice-President, and he did. Himself!
#20
The oil in Iraq was earmarked for China.The direct route for pipelines powering China's manufacturing is through Iran and Afghanistan, hence the continued interest in these two soverign nations.
#21
Listen up people. Last Friday while posting here a little before the third hour, I discovered that I had been "hacked". I checked an email and discovered that all my wife's most sensitive data had been sent to me from where she works. This had been prompted by an email sent from my computer to her work. The problem is that not only didn't I send this email. It was an email sent by my wife two years ago and long deleted. On Saturday I was called by a gubernatorial campaign on which I work. They had been receiving emails from two months ago from me. I have spoken to the FBI, MN State Attorney's Office, Sherriff's Cyber Crime Unit, and a private cyber crime expert. The athorities are not interested until I have lost money. The private technician told me that a "worm" was remotely placed on my computer. He said that it was almost assuredly done because my name went out to 125 plus news agencies the day before, connected to Bachmann/Palin. The perpetrators having pinged the other campaign connections indicates the political motives of their cyber attacks. He said this can be done but requires great sophistication. The cost to me thus far? My laptop that was hacked will need about $500 of work to clean it and forensically preserve evidence. Tracking that evidence will cost between 5k and go up from there. I cannot use my new computer. All of my and my wife's private information is comprimised. And the cops are too busy chasing pedophiles to bother. This RATPAC deal is proving to be more costly and damaging than I ever imagined. This is why I dropped out suddenly last Friday, and why it will be problematic to write here for a while. I am using an old borrowed, (and real slow!) computer to write this. Tommorrow is the Palin Bachmann event. I'll be there handing out RATPAC goodies and info. I had bumper stickers made up that show Bachmann and Palin with the words "Dumb meets Dumber" April7th The Dumb Summit. I also have some with the same pictures which say: Michele! Sarah! "The Mother Ship is calling" (You have violated the prime directive). So folks...what do you think? Shades of "Water Gate"? Whomever did this had money and sophistication. And they came after a little guy like me who blogs here sometimes. Scarey stuff. What if I could trace this to Alaska? BTW I use Trend Micro Systems Security. It didn't even detect the breach. I might have never detected it if it wasn't for my wife's work sending another follow up email inquiring about the previous bogus emails. The RATPAC is back on it's heals with this blow.
#22
Anyway to get away from resource wars, we must insist that wars of aggression for resources are illegal, and that to start such an endeavor will land the perpetrator in the Hague, without exception.
This will never happen in this national security state. The only way to get around the lies and secrecy is to expose the deeply rooted hidden histories, and Thom and Lamar are to be commended for their efforts in this area. When we start pulling on the threads of the JFK, MLK assassinations, we start, but the thread runs far into the drug trafficking spheres, the banking and insurance spheres...
from: http://madcowprod.com/03082010.htm
An investigation into suspicious circumstances surrounding the sale of the former Huffman Aviation has unearthed an explosive secret at the heart of an otherwise unremarkable aviation facility.
Almost since its inception, the specter of heroin trafficking has hung over the airfield which would later become the Venice Municipal Airport.
During World War II, when it was known as the Venice Army Air Field, it was home to the Stateside operations of a man widely and credibly accused of using proceeds from international heroin trafficking to prop up the war machine of a corrupt Chinese warlord whose army, even after its defeat, hung on to a lion's share of Southeast Asian real estate which became known as the Golden Triangle.
Does Huffman Aviation ring any bells for you? Think Mohamad Atta...
#23
good point. I knew it was the pipelines, but assumed the pipes would be coming west, not east.
#24
@radlof - Yesterday, _I_ wrote:
“If President Obama wants to energize HIS base, prior to the mid-term congressional elections, he needs to disassociate himself from certain of his cabinet members -
1) Rahm Emmanuel
2) Tim Geithner
3) Ben Bernanke
He should forget about all the bi-partisan crap, about trying to "win over" the haters, and concentrate on "Winning BACK" those Americans who see him as having sold the left downriver over the past 2 years. Dropping Rahm and the Goldman boys would be an excellent first step down that road.”
To which, _YOU_ replied
"Great sentiment but Our Great and Grand DLC Driven President is far more interested in disassociating him and the White House from the demo portion of democracy."
If that is indeed the case, then he'd better prepare for a MUCH more hostile Congress for his second two years in office - assuming he survives long enough to serve them ...
#25
@DuaneV - I left out Summers because I forgot about him - but yes, ALL the Goldman guys MUST GO!
#26
Ethics Complaint Alleges New Politicized Probe Involving Siegelman ProsecutorZachary Roth | April 5, 2010, 1:30PM
A U.S. attorney in Alabama whose close ties to local Republicans were at the heart of previous high-profile charges of politicized justice is drawing scrutiny again. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department received a formal complaint alleging that an investigation being run in part by U.S. attorney Leura Canary was intended to influence the vote on an upcoming bill in the statehouse, and asking that Canary be removed from the probe because of her "close political ties" to Governor Bob Riley.
This isn't the first time that Canary's ties to Riley and Alabama Republicans have generated controversy. Numerous observers have charged that the prosecution by Canary's office of former governor Don Siegelman, who in 2006 was convicted on corruption charges, was politically motivated. Canary's husband, Bill Canary, a top Alabama GOP political consultant and associate of Karl Rove, ran Riley's 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Siegelman, a Democrat.
So, why is Mrs. Canary still in office more than a year into the Obama administration?
#28
@DDay - Good work, my man ... obviously, RATPAC has become a threat to Bachman's horde, so they've launched an attack. Keep it up, and keep us posted.
#29
@ mstaggerlee Thanks friend. Can you imagine what this would mean if we could trace it to say....Alaska? This could be the Holy Grail. If only we had the money to trace it.
#30
There is another area that monopolistic behavior is taking advantage of the little guy. That is the area of contract cell phones. Verizon Wireless announced earlier this year that they will now require data packages for any phone with HTML capabilities, not just smart phones. Many of these phones have features that are useful for people that still do not want a data plan. They have better cameras and better keyboards for texting.
Verizon requires these plans even if you get your phone without a contract through a third party. This is taking advantage of the people locked into their service like me. I have a family share plan with varying contract end dates and so it is very difficult for me to switch services. I think that this type of behavior is not right and there should be a movement to make Congress to fix it. Here is a story about it:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Verizon-Wireless-demands-data-plans-for-nonsmartphones/1263579899
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
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Mark K: Yesterday there was the release of a video that appeared to show the deliberate targeting of Iraqi civilians (including children) by Apache helicopters in a 2007 incident. Employees for Reuters were among the casualties. Although this was not technically a “friendly fire” incident—the crews believed that the Iraqi men killed were the insurgents who had fired on troops earlier—it is interesting to note that the military has always been accused of grossly under-reporting “friendly fire” deaths not just of civilians, but more notoriously American and allied military. Estimates of friendly fire casualties during World War II vary wildly, from 2 to 21 percent; the high number would suggest over 80,000 American deaths from friendly fire, although the Pentagon itself puts the number at 21,000—still a rather high number. It is estimated that 8,000 died from friendly fire during the Vietnam War. When the field of battle turns red, a kind of madness appears to prevail during which the rules of engagement seems to take second place to ending the ability of a real—or imagined—enemy from taking your life.