US

The US had said that they were against the coup in Honduras, but they aren’t showing they care all that much. It is now less than two weeks until the election, Zelaya is still not back in power, and yet the US is hinting that they will support the election. This type of show is good [...]

Web sites to avoid

Well now, it seems that some web sites are very sleazy (via here via KD):
In general, the customers of these companies have no idea that they’re customers until they discover mysterious charges on their credit-card bills. When they investigate further, they find that during the checkout process at reputable websites like priceline.com or 1800flowers.com, they [...]

Terrorists to be tried in NY City

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others are going to be tried for their crime in New York City. It seems to me that this is a simple proposition: a crime was committed in the US, so the perpetrators of the crime should be tried in the US. Given that, we need to follow the rules of [...]

But it’s a state secret

Via KD, it seems the CIA lied about ’state secrets’ and the court found out. The judge was not happy:
The judge also criticized CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying he’s given conflicting accounts about what should be revealed in the case. The ruling led to the unsealing Monday of more than 200 unclassified versions of classified [...]

Superfreakonomics and global warming

I’m a little slow getting to this, but it seems that the new book by Levitt and Dubner has a chapter on global warming (you can see an excerpt here). As usual, I leave most of the arguments to the experts (see here, here, and here for example). Instead, I’ll look at one of the responses [...]

The NRA and arms treaties

So, the UN is trying to write a law to help prevent illegal arms transfers. The main purpose is to try to stop the flow of arms to private armies in mostly lawless countries like Somalia and the DR Congo and to stop arms from getting to regimes like Zimbabwe that use them against their [...]

Rape, arbitration, and Republicans

An amendment by Senator Franken to stop funding for defense contractors who mandate arbitration for certain things (like sexual assault) passed the Senate 68-30. Democrats have started to use the fact that 30 Republicans voted against a proposal to rectify a situation where a woman gang raped and then imprisoned in a metal container was [...]

More healthcare stuff

This postby Steve Benen shows why liberals and progressives are so upset at the prospect of losing the public option in the healthcare bill:
I continue to think these are not exactly effective negotiating techniques. Republicans say, “We want explicit language in the bill that would restrict coverage for illegal immigrants.” The White House responds, “You [...]

Overdraft ‘protection’

Hmm, maybe I should look at this:
Ralph Tornes, who lives in Florida, is pursuing a lawsuit against Bank of America for charging him nearly $500 in overdraft fees in 2008 after it rearranged his purchases from largest to smallest. In May 2008, for instance, Mr. Tornes had $195 in his account when he made two [...]

Jacoby: Class warfare only ok for rich

Jeff Jacoby has an article about possible tax increases on the wealthy:
President Obama, who said last year that he would use the presidency to “spread the wealth around,’’ is seeking to raise the top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and to collect even more tax revenue by limiting the deductions [...]

Krauthammer concerned

Charles Krauthammer is doing a bit of concern trolling in his column today:
(1) Forget the public option. Whatever the merits, and they are few, it is political poison.  …
(2) Jettison any reference to end-of-life counseling. People see (correctly) such Medicare-paid advice as subtle encouragement to voluntarily refuse treatment. …
(3) Soft-pedal the idea of government committees [...]

LaRouche: an entertaining crazy

I remember back in the 1980 election watching 30 minute specials put on by Lyndon LaRouche. They were entertaining in short intervals, he would swing from some coherent point to a crazy point. The crazy point usually involved the Queen of England, Kissinger, or Rockefeller (who were leaders in the international drug trade–it seems that [...]

Abortion providers

Here’s what the pro-life contingent wanted (via here):
For thirty-six years, Warren Hern has been one of the few doctors in America to specialize in late abortions. George Tiller was another. And when Dr. Tiller was murdered that Sunday in church, Warren Hern became the only one left.
There is one doctor in the US who will [...]

Rep. Broun says ‘I’m an idiot’

Ok, he didn’t actually say that. He wrote:
Obama has created a new $2 billion federal bureaucracy — a national health care rationing board — that will decide if the medical care you need is “cost efficient.”
And if these federal bureaucrats decide that your treatment is not “Government Approved,” then your doctor will be ordered to [...]

Republicans want uninsured to die

Ok, I don’t really believe my headline. It’s just hard not to get angry and frustrated when the other side makes ludicrous claims (see here for example). And this isn’t fringe elements, the Republican candidate for VP claims that the legislation includes death panels that would not have allowed her baby to be born (and then [...]

End of life conversation=euthanasia?

As usual, there’s a lot of crazy talk from some rightwingers about healthcare (via Pandagon). One of the craziest is that the new healthcare plans will lead to euthanasia of the elderly. This would be a joke except it’s being pushed by people in Congress–here’s a statement from Reps Boehner and McCotter:
Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation [...]

Senator DeMint a bit confused

Last night Senator DeMint at the National Press Club:
 Part of what we’re trying to do in “Saving Freedom” is just show that where we are, we’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in [...]

Jacoby and Global Warming

Jeff Jacoby has another article downplaying/denying global warming which seems to be almost wholly based on this article in the Wall Street Journal.
I’m not a scientist in this field, so I’m going to farm out a lot of the rebuttals:

Much of the denialist information is based on a book by Ian Plimer, which is discussed here.
Some [...]

Almost non-fiction

The person who wrote ‘Bringing Down the House’, Ben Mezrich, is now writing a book about the start of Facebook. ‘Bringing Down the House’ is a bit nototious for its ‘literary license’ with truth and it seems the new book won’t be any different. I really like the way he responded to critics:
Last year, presented [...]

Ibuprofen strip search not ok

I had a post on the girl who was strip searched because it was believed that she had a prescription strength ibuprofen tablet. The case made its way to the Supreme Court who ruled today that the search was illegal but the school officials were not liable for the ensuing lawsuit (they did not rule whether the [...]