Author: david

Why does the US resist direct talks with Iran and North Korea? This may be part of it: The Bush Doctrine had two basic tenets: Preemptive Force and Regime Change. The second has gotten relatively little notice, compared with the first. The idea behind regime change is that when a country poses a serious threat…

Bosnian Hill an Ancient Pyramid, AP [Note: Joke, hopefully, ensues] So, we have yet another example of the mysteriously universal practice of pyramid building, which took hold at a certain time in every ancient human civilization, in every corner of the world. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. There was certainly no possible route of human-to-human…

“Can we get Person A’s phone records, without a warrant?” No. “Can we get everybody’s phone records, including Person A’s, without a warrant?” Sure. No problem. Can it really be so simple? It’s hard to see why not.

“According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday, 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort.” Americans appear so far to have been soothed by government reassurances such as this: “The database… includ[es] called and calling…

No one knows exactly what “price gouging” is supposed to mean in a capitalist economy. Price fixing and collusion are a different matter, but that so far does not appear to be the issue currently with gasoline. There are some relevant things we do know. As traffic volume increases, private cars become less efficient: traffic…

This video “DearMr. President” is very powerful, insightful, and seriously moving. The singer, Pink, is a top-rank music star, and I think it will probably be playing on MTV. She opens it by saying, “This is the most important song I have ever written.” This second one, “I’m the Decider,” is just very clever, ingenious,…

LBJ liked to leak escalations, then deny them–two or three times over. When they actually occurred, it was already Old News. Such sequences can easily have a six-month or two-year time-line, if you wish to align them with elections. Is there an Iran strike in the pipeline? There is no good reason. It will be…

“The Smoking Quote”? In this item from ABC news, the wording of the quote they cite from President Bush decouples what he refers to as the “leak of classified information”– within this specific context –from the particular leak of Plame’s CIA identity: “He also spoke out after allegations surfaced that administration officials had leaked the…

I don’t think Bush is really qualified for that position, but the move does show some humility, and at least he wouldn’t be President anymore.

The Bush team has no difficulty infusing fresh blood; they generate it in vast quantities and on a global scale. But the political problem remains: they flame out when exposed to daylight, and they can’t see their own reflection in a mirror. Dead giveaway.

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up Associated Press “Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood…” DKo: Well, there’s always corporate Middle Management. They haven’t bled them completely dry just yet.

Washington Post “The Bush administration is asking Congress for $75 million…to promote democracy in Iran….The plan…includes fostering independent media inside Iran. “The final $15 million would go toward nongovernmental organizations and civic education on the lines of what the federally chartered National Endowment for Democracy carries out in a wide variety of countries.” DKo: This…

A growing number of people, having been duly convicted of heinously violent crimes, are now being released and put back on the street, based on newly fashionable legal technicalities such as DNA mismatches. We hear the predictable chorus of soft-on-crime lobbies, running on ad nauseum about the precious civil rights of misidentified convicts–even when the…

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement that Cunningham’s sentence “should send a strong message that no one is above breaking our nation’s laws, including the Members of Congress who make them.”

Farewell to… –Like a broken record –Carbon copy –Trick photography Kind of sad. So far, we have replacements for two: Clone. Special effects (though with Special morphing to oblivion). We’ll have to get to work on Broken record.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/fastforward_fortune/index.htm Gore’s speech enumerates well-documented scientific evidence that the global climate is changing significantly — and fast. Here are a few data points: Global CO2 levels are way outside what have been historical norms over several hundred thousand years. All ten of the hottest years on record, globally, have occurred in the last 15 years.…

The Click That Broke a Government’s Grip, Washington Post The government has sought to control what people read and write on the Web, employing a bureaucracy of censors and one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated systems of filters. DKo: Only when the government has determined there is a danger to national security. If you…

In 2004, “radical Shiite Muslim cleric” Muqtada Sadr took control of the holy places in Kerbala and led a bloody, extended anti-US uprising there. In the end, the US military was compelled by Shiite leaders to allow Sadr’s Mahdi Army to leave the city under the protection of a cease fire. However, the US still…

Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran, Washington Post “…including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders….'[W]e are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,’ Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…”…

“In civilized Europe [i.e., the USA of his day], with its highly developed machine industry, its rich, multiform culture and its constitutions, a point of history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund, and medieval …” (V. I.…