The most effective online diplomat in the world, bar none, is husain haqqani
- Marc Ambinder
- Marc Ambinder
(HH is the Pakistani Ambassador to the US.)
Monday, June 20, 2011
'We The People' can Compel You to Take a Lie Detector Test?
ANYTHING GOES!
That's what it looks like:
Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search databases without making a record about it. Once an assessment has started, agents will be permitted to conduct lie detector tests and search people’s trash as part of evaluating a potential informant. No factual basis for suspecting them of wrongdoing will be necessary.
I wonder if that is like jury duty and you get $8.00 for lunch from the FBI (assuming that "Joe McCarthy" is never confirmed to run the FBI...).
Republicans Flush American Constitutionalism
AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT USED TO STAND
GOP-Tea have decided that advice and consent now applies to wholesale rejection of even lawfully created positions and lawfully appointed nominees.
Senators have long exercised their constitutional prerogative to derail nominations. And, for just as long, the party in the White House has accused its opponents of abusing that power. But several of the current standoffs differ in at least one respect: Republicans have said they are not opposing a particular nominee but rather any nominee, whoever it may be. - NYT
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Day of Outrage
Looks like we'll be scheduled for a day of outrage against Pakistan, led by the far right.
Consider this: If Mexico started to conduct cross-border operations to interdict the guns trade in the U.S., since Bush's GOP let the ban on assault weapons expire, would we just shrug our shoulders?
Or, would we let known Israeli spies continue to "operate" inside the U.S.? (okay, don't answer that one ...).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Question of the Day
So, why didn't Congressman Anthony Weiner just follow Rush Limbaugh's lead and auction off his photos on eBay "for charity"?
I mean, I think I know why, but recall that Rush did an auction with the blessing of the CEO of Clearchannel.
Sort of makes you think for a moment about who has the moral ground here, still.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Honey, I shrunk the Church
I keep telling those waving their "conservative exegesis" in public that they don't understand the risks they are running.
But, it appears that they are willing to pay the penalty or are in so deep they don't know how to pivot.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Since when is a closed mind open for debate?
The rightwing Family "Research" Council apparently hates the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center finally nailed them, and others, for years of spewing factless, anti-gay rhetoric and more.
Now I read that the FRC is trying to build a coalition to fight back by pretending that they want to "debate" not "hate", taking out full page ads.
This was written for something else, but I'll reproduce it here:
We cannot have a "civil debate" until these groups and signatories admit that they do and have tortured thier own kids and rained spiritual violence on them, by sponsoring parochial "research" and promoting groups and ideas that raise false, deeply damaging, and unnecessary hopes for changing sexual orientation.
We cannot have a "civil debate" while the streets are populated with their throw-away children, while their courtroom seats are empty of cross-examined defenses and they fill the airwaves with their deceits, while their politicians vote discrimination in silence and seek to hide their malice with claims they are weak, victims themselves under attack, and that they seek 'debate'.
We cannot have a "civil debate" with the strictly doctrinaire, who cannot and will not believe, even hypothetically, that homosexuality is a fact, a normal varient, a "left handedness".
We cannot have a "civil debate" with people who insist as a debasing precondition that all gays accept that their civil rights are up for a vote of the people and not a birthright.
We cannot have a "civil debate" with those who make it plain by declaration in Manhattan that they brazenly withdraw from civil society on the issue and encourage others to lawlessness before they accept that they might be wrong or that a society, with goodwill, can be fashioned in which gay and nongay are not irreconilable truths.
[that's just a list off the top of the head]
Tweet of the Day
"Boehner fiddles with Weiner while Rome burns".
I honestly think that is the general sentiment about D.C.'s circle of madness.
Celebrate
A bit of a sophomoric view behind this hackneyed cover.
I wonder what parades Andrew would really attend with gusto. How about a small town Veterans Day Parade in America? Right kind of "identity" there? AS would identify with the bake-sale women and the high school band and the local Knights of Columbus, the local fire department volunteers, local business boosters, and so forth? All those groups? (I suspect no parades...).
How tenable is the elitist view, "I love humanity, I just don't like those people, they are so gay, or stereotypical, or cravenly "memetic"?
I sense that this rejection has less to do with the high minded notions offered and more to do with a resentment or discouragement or anxiety or dissonance over a kind of forced association. And, while sexuality might be just one thing, it's hardly just one among equals (that is, you can't just downplay it for this set of circumstances).
Insanity Today
FOLLOW THE BOUNCING THEFT OF PRIVATE INFORMATION
Let's see.
Someone accessed Weiner photos, by hacking or whatever.
Then, Breitbart hijacks Weiner's tell-all presser, by getting up and grabbing the mike before it started.
Now, Breitbart himself has been stolen from. Anthony and Opie (and friends) reportedly used surveillance cameras to steal the most explicit photo (unconfirmed) from Breitbart.
That might be all the rings to this circus.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
June 7, 2001, A Day That Will Live in Infamy
We are at the ten year anniversary of the first Bush-43 tax cuts (he put another round through just before his swiftboat re-election).You probably didn't realize it, but June 7, 2011, is a momentous day in US history. It marks the 10-year anniversary of the signing into law of the Bush tax cuts, a day when President George W. Bush helped replace an unprecedented federal budget surplus with a mountain of debt in order to slash taxes for rich people (including dead ones). The anniversary of the cuts comes at a particularly fortuitous moment, with the political classes deep in debate over the increase in the federal deficit. Now is a good time to take a look back to see just how well those tax cuts have worked out for the country. Some highlights, with data from the Economic Policy Institute
Just a reminder: Al Gore, whatever his problems, promisd a "lock box" for Social Security receipts and for continuation of Clinton era policies and all kinds of new green initiatives. In other words, a stronger Republic. Yet, people keep coming back to the GOP like they have some kind of brand-credibility or something.
Why Fallows is Wrong
There are at least three constants:
- 1. As we learned in Minority Report, when they come to arrest you, "everybody runs".
- 2. Once they are caught (or targeted), even the most vociferously opposed to the very concept of 'human rights' suddenly, ardently start yelling about their human rights.
and last: - 3. Everyone lies about "sex". Whether little, big, harmful, not-so-harmful, there are lies. It's because sex and sexual desire are considered (and should be considered) private and because sex, in so many ways, is simply irrational and crazy.
So, no, as of now, no crippling breach of trust. Just bad judgment.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
WaPo Publishes Military Porn
I mean, what else can you call this air-filled story about 'Who Exactly Shot UBL' (as if it mattered) but soft porn?
He was probably a high school or college athlete, Smith says, a physical specimen who combines strength, speed and agility. “They call themselves ‘tactical athletes,’ ” says Smith, who works with many prospective SEALs in his Heroes of Tomorrow training program in Severna Park. “It’s getting very scientific.”Marcinko puts it in more conventional terms: “He’ll be ripped,” says the author of the best-selling autobiography “ Rogue Warrior .” “He’s got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin waist. Flat tummy.”
Monday, June 6, 2011
Daily Downer
We forget so much in our own, often petty-looking "culture war":
According to statistics from the United Nations Population Fund, one out of every four girls in Cameroon is a victim of breast ironing. That’s 3.8 million girls.
The practice is most prevalent in the Christian and animist south of the country, where in some regions, half of the female population is subject to breast ironing.
The damaging effects of this form of body mutilation by far outweigh any reasoning behind the practice. Fertilized by the culture of silence, breast ironing has made it right up to this age of scientific advancement.
Many women have seen the benefits of educating their girl children. They are ready to do anything to prevent their daughters from teenage pregnancy and early marriage that would bring an end to their daughters' education. This mutilation has proven to be futile when it comes to deterring teenage sexual activity and many of the girls still end up disfigured with teenage pregnancies.
-link
The practice is most prevalent in the Christian and animist south of the country, where in some regions, half of the female population is subject to breast ironing.
The damaging effects of this form of body mutilation by far outweigh any reasoning behind the practice. Fertilized by the culture of silence, breast ironing has made it right up to this age of scientific advancement.
Many women have seen the benefits of educating their girl children. They are ready to do anything to prevent their daughters from teenage pregnancy and early marriage that would bring an end to their daughters' education. This mutilation has proven to be futile when it comes to deterring teenage sexual activity and many of the girls still end up disfigured with teenage pregnancies.
-link
Saturday, June 4, 2011
This week in new D.C. whores
David and Dick together forever.
(This is maybe why the Muslims believe that everyone should have a ... er, field of study, so you don't find that all you know how to do for a living is whore the public purse, or whatever.)
Friday, June 3, 2011
Double, double, toil and trouble
Arab spring could be more like hot springs. A weakened Yemin seems worse than lawless Mogadishu...
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