April 12, 2007

Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone? - "Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for."

US forces to 'wall off Baghdad streets' - "US FORCES in Baghdad are planning to seal off vast areas of the city with barricades, effectively imprisoning the inhabitants of neighbourhoods, according to The Independent." -- How does this mean that things are going well?

Officials' e-mail may be missing, White House says - "The White House said Wednesday that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators. The e-mails were considered potentially crucial evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys."

Neocon Lieutenant Colonel Blames Iraq’s Victims - "“Once again, the Arab people, within Iraq and without, have failed themselves horribly,” Peters tells Kengor. “Their pettiness, their embrace of corruption, their social structures and their taste for internecine feuds and religious intolerance all have led them to make a hash of this unprecedented opportunity to build one rule-of-law democracy in the Arab world. Arabs have an ineradicable genius for failing themselves.” In other words, the Iraqis have only themselves to blame for more than a decade of crippling and deadly sanctions in the wake of Bush Senior’s invasion, an illegal and immoral adventure that targeted water and sewage plants, civilian infrastructure, hospitals and homes. Even before Bush the Junior’s invasion, at least 500 children a day in Iraq died from disease, mostly cancer from depleted uranium." -- Idiot.

Presidential Candidate: U.S. In Danger of Dictatorship - "Presidential candidate Ron Paul has warned that the US is now at a crisis point because the people have been so neglectful of protecting their liberties and big government has been so effective in eroding them. He warned that the elite are prepared to concoct events to scare the American people and asserted that the 2008 Presidential election is a contest between the people who care about their freedoms and those who are willing to succumb to the temptations of dictatorship."

Spy chief wants expanded powers - "President Bush’s spy chief is pushing to expand the government’s surveillance authority at the same time the administration is under attack for stretching its domestic eavesdropping powers."

Blair blames spate of murders on black culture - "Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem."

The Imus Fallout: Who Can Say What? - "But we also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often—legitimately—considered brilliant comment, even art. Last year's most critically praised comedy, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, won Sacha Baron Cohen a Golden Globe for playing a Kazakh journalist who calls Alan Keyes a "genuine chocolate face" and asks a gun-shop owner to suggest a good piece for killing a Jew. Quentin Tarantino has made a career borrowing tropes from blaxploitation movies. In the critics-favorite sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program, the star sleeps with God, who is African American and who she assumes is "God's black friend." And the current season of South Park opened with an episode about a Michael Richards-esque controversy erupting when a character blurts the word niggers on Wheel of Fortune. (He answers a puzzle—N-GGERS—for which the clue is "People who annoy you"; the correct answer is "naggers.")"

'Imus Treatment' Ignored for Catholic Bashers - "Weighing in on the Don Imus controversy, Catholic League President Bill Donohue commented Wednesday on the way Catholic bashers are treated compared to the morning radio talk-show host."

Doomsday for the Greenback - "The American people are in La-la land. If they had any idea of what the Federal Reserve was up to they’d be out on the streets waving fists and pitchforks. Instead, we go our business like nothing is wrong. Are we really that stupid? What is it that people don’t understand about the trade deficit? It’s not rocket science. The Current Account Deficit is over $800 billion a year. That means that we are spending more than we are making and savaging the dollar in the process. Presently, we need more than $2 billion of foreign investment per day just to keep the wheels from coming off the cart."

Breaking the Army - ""My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling, and if we don't expend significant national energy to reverse that trend, sometime in the next two years we will break the Army just like we did during Vietnam," he added."

West Point grads exit service at high rate - "Recent graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point are choosing to leave active duty at the highest rate in more than three decades, a sign to many military specialists that repeated tours in Iraq are prematurely driving out some of the Army's top young officers."

History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada - "I cannot address all of the issues around the Watada case in a single letter. But I am especially concerned about Army attempts to suppress the right of our soldiers to speak in public, to participate in the political process. Originally "conduct unbecoming" referred to offenses like drunken behavior, rape, adultery. Now the Army seeks to make political speech a crime. Of course our troops are expected to follow legal orders in lawful wars. But when they agree to serve their country, they do not forfeit their political rights. The military has jurisdiction over military matters, not over political ideology of our soldiers."

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84 - "Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday." -- R.I.P.

Fuzzy Climate Math - "In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a "serious problem." Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness."

Turkey to block 'insulting' Web sites - "A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube."

Registry would treat gun owners like criminals - "If someone told you he had been forced to provide the Pennsylvania State Police with their fingerprints, photograph, Social Security number and a host of other personal information, you'd probably assume they were arrested and charged with a crime. Well, that kind of police ''booking'' process could be in store for Pennsylvania's roughly 3 million firearms owners if gun-control advocates in Harrisburg have their way."

Robobugs set to spy for Pentagon - "The Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency has sanctioned work on four 'robobugs' weighing less than 10g (0.3oz) each, and with a 7.5cm (3in) wingspan. It is hoped to have prototypes flying in 2008. The aim is for the bugs to carry tiny spy cameras. The bugs should be far more manoeuvrable than micro-sized conventional aircraft."

Gene mutations behind fidgety kids: German scientists - "Scientists in Germany said Thursday they have found compelling evidence of a genetic link to hyperactivity in children, identifying three mutations prevalent in fidgety youngsters."

Revolution in cancer treatment - "Cancer treatment could be on the brink of a revolution following a study showing that it may be possible significantly to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs without causing side effects."

Study: Cell phones are hazardous waste - " U.S. scientists have determined cellular telephones consumers discard by the millions each year qualify as hazardous waste."

Vista DRM could hide malware - "A security researcher has released a proof-of-concept program that hackers could use to exploit Windows Vista digital rights management processes to hide malware."

Windows XP to be phased out by year's end despite customer demand - "Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems. By early 2008, Microsoft's contracts with computer makers will require companies to only sell Vista-loaded machines. "The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January," said Frank Luburic, senior ThinkPad product manager for Lenovo. "At that point, they'll have no choice.""

Spirit-Crushing 'McJobs' Are Putting an End to Upward Mobility - "If we want to save the middle class, it's time to focus on what's happening in the low-wage labor market."

Study reveals "Robin Hood impulse" in human nature - ""In essence, what we found is that our taste for equality is one of the important reasons why we cooperate with each other, much more so than, say, other species of primates," Fowler said in a telephone interview." -- It seems some of us didn't get that gene.

Writers, Directors Fear 'Sci-Fi' Label Like an Attack From Mars - "Even when clearly appropriate, film studios and publishers avoid the phrase "science fiction." So do the novelists, film directors and editors in their employ. McCarthy's book, which is about to become a blockbuster -- Oprah Winfrey will tout it on an upcoming TV show as part of her book club -- is just another example of how the powers that be dodge the term, especially when it applies to "serious" fiction or cinema."




Quote of the Day
"So I am a man without a country."
~ Kurt Vonnegut