So, What’s It Going To Be? Aug 28, 2013 By Bashar Al-Assad Well, here we are. It’s been two years of fighting, over 100,000 people are dead, there are no signs of this war ending, and a week ago I used chemical weapons on my own people. If you don’t do anything about it, thousands of Syrians are going to … Read More
Legal Rationale for Surveillance
I haven't been writing much about the telephony surveillance "scandal" because unlike many liberals I know, I'm not that upset by it. I do not consider the mass collection of metadata to be an invasion of my privacy. Collection is not the same thing as searching or prying, to my mind. Anyway, the Obama Administration released a white paper which … Read More
12 Years Ago Today
12 years ago today was the infamous August 6 PDB (or Presidential Daily Briefing) which said, in really big letters: BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN U.S. After listening to the briefer who told him this on Bush's ranch, Bush reportedly replied, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." We know what happened a month later. Which led to a war … Read More
XKeyscore: Greenwald Hypes The Scare
Yesterday, in The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald (the journalistic associate of NSA-leaker Edward Snowden) revealed another big reveal. This time it was something called XKeyscore, a top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to document leaked by Snowden. Boom! … Read More
Here’s Why The NSA Surveillance Now Is Better Than The Way It Was Under Bush
Chart On Surveillance Oversight Prepared By Nancy Pelosi For Democratic house Members by tpmdocs
US Majority Backs NSA Surveillance
A new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found that 56% of Americans consider the NSA's accessing of telephone call records of millions of Americans through secret court orders "acceptable." A 62% majority believe it's more important for the government to investigate terrorist threats, even if those investigations intrude on personal privacy. Support drops when it comes to government monitoring of emails, but even here, the … Read More
NRA’s New President
NRA proudly announced a new president: James Porter, a man who, among other things, refers to Barack Obama as a "fake President"; apparently thinks the Civil War was a great example of an armed citizenry resisting Northern tyranny; and advocates training all civilians in the use of standard military firearms so "they're ready to fight tyranny" yet again. Fellow Southerner Ed … Read More
What The Hell Is He Talking About?
From Politico: Former Rep. Ron Paul said the police response to the Boston Marathon bombings was scarier than the bombing itself, which killed three and wounded more than 250. “The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” Paul, a Texas Republican, wrote … Read More
Confronting The Bombing Conspiracy Theorists
The guy behind the camera hurls some pretty harsh language, but he's right. A "reporter" from Infowars, the Alex Jones site that insists that the Boston Marathon bombing was done by the FBI as part of a "false flag" operation, has nothing to say, because he's an idiot.
9/11 Landing Gear Found
Wow. More than eleven years after the fact, surveyors found part of the landing gear of the one of the planes which crashed into the World Trade Center. It was wedged between two buildings.
FCC Gives David Ortiz A Pass
During the nationally broadcast pre-game ceremonies last week — the one where the Boston Red Sox had their first home game following the Boston Marathon bombing — Red Sox player David Ortiz took to the microphone and spoke from the heart, uttering these words: “This is our fucking city, and nobody’s going to dictate our freedom.” Now remember, the Second … Read More
Muslims Aren’t Inherently Evil
They're not. Some of them get that way when they are bombed, their nations are invaded, and they live under dictators which the United States supports. That's the gist of this thoughtful article by Glenn Greenwald, excerpted here: First, some leading American opinion-makers love to delude themselves and mislead others into believing that the US is attacked despite the fact … Read More
‘Sweet Caroline’ Sales Up 597%
Well, that's not surprising.
Explanation Please
The Boston Marathon bombing suspect is being charged in civilian court with, among other things, conspiring to use a "weapon of mass destruction" against people. I'd like to know how a pressure cooker bomb which kills three people is a "weapon of mass destruction" but a semi-automatic rifle which kills 20 kids isn't. [UPDATE: Or killing four people with a … Read More
All Over But For The Finger-pointing
I'm not sure how much I want to blog about the Boston bombers. I hate this part of the cycle. It's full-on recrimination time in the right blogosphere. You can almost here them cry: Who shall we hate? Chechnians? Muslims? Please please PLEASE give us a group that we can hate. Or let's just hate ALL immigrants. I think the … Read More