McCain Throws a Bit Wide

Republicans and the McCain camp has been in an uproar over these statements by General Clark:
“In the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done [...]

AT&T

Via Majikthise (who links to Boingboing), AT&T has an ad (titled Ms. Suspicious has nothing to hide) assuring their customers that they don’t have to worry about their data being stolen. Of course, AT&T has no problem allowing the government to look at it even without a warrant.

Congo and Coltan

Via here, I notice that Senators Brownback and Durbin have introduced legislation to certify Coltan mined from DR Congo (the text of the bill is here). Senator Brownback also has a good summary of the situation in the DR Congo here:

I wish to show a picture to my colleagues, many of whom I think probably [...]

Mugabe Wins ‘Vote’

In one of the least unexpected results in history, Mugabe won the run-off vote (it took two days to count as opposed to the few weeks in the original). About the only part that wasn’t sure was the size of the victory, would they go with a close vote so that could pretend it was [...]

Pillows Are Dangerous

Umm:
“I have a 3-year-old son who sleeps in the bed with my wife and me,” Inge said. “I was trying to push the pillow down behind his head (two nights ago), and when I did … I repopped (the strained muscle).
There are links to other weird sports injuries here. And there are longer lists here:
John [...]

Study Needed for Solar?

The Bureau of Land Management has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public lands:
The land agency’s manager of energy policy, Ray Brady, said the moratorium on new applications was necessary to “ensure that we are doing an adequate level of analysis of the impacts.”
That sounds good. The projects would occupy a large amount [...]

It’s Friday, Time For a Poem

One day as I was sawing off my third arm, I noticed that I didn’t have a third arm. So, I broke into a little song and dance number.
Anyway here is my Friday random (duo) 10:
Mexican Moon Concrete Blonde
Suburban Home Descendents
I Wanna Learn a Love Song Harry Chapin
And She Was Talking Heads
You Still Believe In Me The Beach Boys
21st Century [...]

The Supreme Court Rules for Individual Gun Rights

The Supreme Court has ruled that the second amendment is an individual right with limitations:
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law [...]

Diveroli and Privatization

Via Majikthise (who has written a fair amount about this), this editorial in the Wall Street Journal looks at how Diveroli, a 22 year old, got a $300 million contract from the Pentagon. He doesn’t have the answer, but does talk about how the climate for similar things came about:

How could a kid barely able to [...]

Abu Ghraib and the Congo, Mark Twain and Joseph Conrad

It’s always interesting to follow links and ideas to see where they lead. I started here where Philip Gourevitch talks about his book about torture and Abu Ghraib, noticing that Mark Twain had noticed 100 years ago that photographs could make the difference when talking about atrocities.
Thus linking Iraq and the Congo under King Leopold II [...]

Poverty in the US

The Sabin Institute has a paper out about Neglected Diseases of Poverty (which I found via this). Here’s a bit from the press release:
Hotez notes that the common features of these neglected infections are their: 1) Highly disproportionate health impact on people of color and people living in poverty; 2) Chronic, largely insidious, and disabling features; [...]

Zimbabwe and Burma

Things are getting a bit weird (yeah, I know, these countries have been weird for a long time) in Burma and Zimbabwe:

the ruling generals have built a new capitol for Burma:

The bamboo forests and sugar cane fields that once covered the gently sloping hills here have been replaced by hulking government buildings, roads so long [...]

Another Fred Story

One of the reasons I started a blog was to have somewhere to put all my stupid stories and poems. I’ve been pretty good about the poems, but I haven’t put up a story for quite awhile. To rectify that, here’s an artichoke heart … umm, anyway:
The roar of the sea couldn’t be heard over the [...]

More About Diveroli

Efraim Diveroli, the 22 year old president of a major supplier of arms to Afghanistan, has been indicted. I agree with David Kurtz that a one sentence summary works here, but I’m going with Senator Waxman’s:
The Oversight Committee has received evidence that the U.S. Embassy in Albania approved an effort to conceal the illegal Chinese origins [...]

More FISA and Habeas Corpus

I have concentrated on the retoactive immunity given to telecoms in the FISA bill passed by the House, but there are other reasons to dislike it. Kevin Drum has a good post about it and David Kris looks at some of the technical bits.
Via Majikthise, it seems that one of the people that was illegally [...]

Tsvangirai Out?

Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will drop out and has now taken refuge in the Dutch embassy. He left
saying he could neither participate in “this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” nor ask his voters to risk their lives in the face of threats from forces backing President Robert Mugabe.
Mr. Tsvangirai told a [...]

Saturn Pictures

Ok, I don’t really have a good reason for this post. These are older pictures of Saturn, but they’re pretty cool and so here they are:
this first is a picture of Saturn in ultraviolet taken in 2003 (Image Credit: NASA and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)
 
the second is also Saturn in ultraviolet, this one taken by [...]

‘Bloated’ Pay

David Tuerck has an article in the Boston Globe about traffic details. Massachusetts is the only state where police are the only ones who can be traffic flaggers at work sites. I’m actually not sure where I stand on this, but let’s look at the last bit:
Maine has a prevailing wage law. In the Portland [...]

Music and Buses and a Poem

Slow down you might just miss (bam!), umm never mind. I guess slowing down to watch the buses come at you isn’t what you want to do.
Anyway, 10 duo random:
Gravity Talks Green On Red
Lookin’ Out My Back Door Creedence Clearwater Revival
Hammering In My Head Garbage (a good live version)
Hells Bells AC/DC
Sand In My Shoes Dido
Suedehead Morrissey
Too Drunk To Fuck Dead Kennedys (not [...]

US and EU Compete

The US and EU seem to be competing in the ‘how badly can we treat immigrants’ game. The US wins in the abuse of artists with bits like these:
Consider the case of the French group Fancy, which tried this past March to play with Justice on the MySpace Music Tour. Three of the members got [...]