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Sunday, January 29, 2006
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If you believe this, by God take the quiz....
(Via Brian Flemming.)
I got 18 out of 21.
6:55:26 PM 
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Short article in the NY Times: How to Outwit the World's Internet Censors. Excerpt:
Every day in China, [Berkman's John] Palfrey said, an underground economy of proxy server addresses comes alive — usually connecting to servers made available by volunteers around the globe. These addresses are passed along and traded, using elaborately coded language, on electronic bulletin board systems or chat channels.
Elsewhere on the Web, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) helps maintain Tor, a communications network that helps make Internet communications anonymous, and it appears to be accessible from within China. Peacefire.org offers a program called The Circumventor that lets anyone turn a Windows-based machine into a proxy, allowing others to use it to circumvent local Internet restrictions.
Even two small commercial companies, Dynamic Internet Technology and UltraReach Internet, offer software or Web services that try to poke holes in China's "great firewall." ...
No mention of darknets, oddly.
(Via New Media Musings.)
5:20:52 PM
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Like I had always thought, Brad figured it would be a big deal when we reached the point that the war in Iraq had killed more people than 9/11 had. It turns out we've already passed that number, for two pretty interesting reasons: more Americans have died in Iraq than the numbers we usually see reported, and fewer Americans died in 9/11.
5:18:57 PM
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On Fox News Sunday, Sen. John Thune (R-SC) said that the White House should release all records of contacts with Jack Abramoff:
WALLACE: Would you like to see the White House release records of all contacts, correspondence, phone calls, meetings, that Jack Abramoff had with people in the White House?
THUNE: Well, I’m one who believes that more is better, Chris, when it comes to disclosure and transparency. I’d be a big advocate for making records out there available.
Mike Pence (R-IN), appearing on Fox with Thune, agreed:
WALLACE: Congressman Pence, the same question I asked Senator Thune. Do you think that the White House should release all records? You talk about a crisis of confidence in Republican leadership. Should the White House release all records of contacts with Jack Abramoff?
PENCE: Absolutely. I think this president is a man of unimpeachable integrity. The American people have profound confidence in him, and as Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts.
Meanwhile, the White House describes people who want to these records released as “engage[d] in partisan attacks.” In fact, there is a growing, bipartisan consensus that this information should be released.
UPDATE: On ABC’s This Week Sen Chuck Hagel (R-NE) added his name to the growing bipartisan call for disclosure.
HAGEL: [M]y personal opinion on these things is just get it out. If you’ve got pictures, get the pictures out. My guess is, George, those pictures are going to come out. Why give — if you want to talk about it in strict political terms, why give the Democrats an opportunity, or the press to keep this story going? There are pictures of the president, and so on, and so on. Just release it. Disclose…
STEPHANOPOULOS: And meetings. Not just the pictures.
HAGEL: Get it out. Get it out. Come on. I mean, disclosure is the real issue. Whether it’s campaign finance issues, whether it’s ethics issues, whether it’s lobbying issues, disclosure is the best and most effective way to deal with all of these things.
(Via Think Progress.)
1:53:18 PM
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Frist on MTP:NSA-Stocks-Schiavo=distortion and untruths!  BIll Frist joined Tim Russert on MTP this morning and looked like a deer caught in the headlights for most of the show. Tim did do some follow up question for a change and at times did a good job, but he forgot to ask him about Ann Coulter's "rat poisoning" joke oddly enough.<snark> Frist clearly couldn't come up with a rational explanation about Bush's warrantless spying program and stammered his way through it also.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Video-WMP low res'Video-QT coming (MTP 'Transcript) MR. RUSSERT:' Do you regret going to the floor of the Senate and saying, "I watched the videotape and that's not a persistent vegetative state." SEN. FRIST:' No, I don't. I’m a physician. I was watching a board-certified neurologist... MR. RUSSERT:' Were you wrong? SEN. FRIST:' In terms of what?' In terms of di—no. To raise the question in order to pass a law that says, “Let’s give it more review”?' No. MR. RUSSERT:' Were you wrong in your diagnosis? SEN. FRIST:' I didn’t make the diagnosis. I raised the question of whether or not she’s in a persistent vegetative state. If I had been there, I would have said, “Let’s use technology today, like spectrometry, like PET scans to get the diagnosis right,” because the only reason you can remove that tube—the other thing... MR. RUSSERT:' No regrets? He looked like a fool over his video taped diagnosis of Terri's condition and he wouldn't admit to Russert that what he did was wrong and was completely politically motivated? (not to mention probably unethical being a doctor and all.) Tim could have had an Oprah moment with him and said " You lied because you did make a diagnosis on TV. " It was played over and over again. Please discuss his response to his stock scandal as well
(Via Crooks and Liars.)
1:51:43 PM
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We can’t have any facts dirtying up our propaganda, says Team Bush
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
It’s sort of ironic that this perversion of science is coming out on the same day as the Challenger anniversary.
(Via Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite To Stupid.)
1:33:05 PM
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Man, history would be a bitch if Americans bothered to learn it.
(The following is copied wholesale from the Bulldog Manifesto's email at the Impeach Bush Coalition):
What Republicans Said About Impeaching Clinton:
Tom Delay (R-TX): "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.
No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That’s the principle that we all hold very dear in this country." Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.): "I suggest impeachment is like beauty: apparently in the eye of the beholder. But I hold a different view. And it's not a vengeful one, it's not vindictive, and it's not craven. It's just a concern for the Constitution and a high respect for the rule of law. ... as a lawyer and a legislator for most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human spirit.
The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door." James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI): "What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them."
Chuck Hagel (R-NB): "There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America--one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?"
Bill Frist (R-TN): "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail."
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas): "What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them."
(Via Ariadne's Labyrinth.)
1:32:38 PM
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Miss Molly:
Happily, the perfect news peg, as we say in the biz, for Media Accountability Day already exists—it’s Project Censored’s annual release of the 10 biggest stories ignored or under-covered by mainstream media. Project Censored is based at Sonoma State University, with both faculty and students involved in its preparation.
Of course, the stories are not actually “censored” by any authority, but they do not receive enough attention to enter the public’s consciousness, usually because corporate media tend to underreport stories about corporate misdeeds and government abuses.
1. Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government. "Gene Roberts, a great news editor, says we tend to miss the stories that seep and creep, the ones whose effects are cumulative, not abrupt. This administration has drastically changed the rules on Freedom of Information Act requests; has changed laws that restrict public access to federal records, mostly by expanding the national security classification; operates in secret under the Patriot Act; and consistently refuses to provide information to Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The cumulative total effect is horrifying."
2. Iraq Coverage. "...the two battles for Fallujah and the civilian death toll."
3. Distorted Election Coverage. "...the discrepancy between exit polls and the vote tally, and the still-contentious question of whether the vote in Ohio needed closer examination."
4. Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In. "...another seep ’n’ creep story..."
5. United States Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia.
6. The Real Oil for Food Scam. "The part that got little attention here was the extent to which we, the United States, were part of the scam."
7. Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood. "...stories about military policies that could improve the situation of those journalists who risk their lives."
8. Iraqi Farmers Threatened by Bremer’s Mandates. "It’s part of the untold story of the disastrous effort to make Iraq into a neo-con’s free-market dream."
9. Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency. "The effects of Iran’s switching from dollars to Euros in oil trading."
10. Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy. "...a practice so environmentally irresponsible it makes your hair hurt to think about it."
Tags: media, underreported stories
(Via No More Apples.)
1:10:28 PM
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Sometimes spreading freedom means taking innocent women and children hostage. It may take awhile--we've been doing it since at least 2003--but eventually the people of Iraq will cherish freedom as much as Our Leader does.
" Documents show US military in Iraq detain wives," ABC News, Jan 27, 2006:
U.S. forces in Iraq, in two instances described in military documents, took custody of the wives of men believed to be insurgents in an apparent attempt to pressure the suspects into giving themselves up.
Both incidents occurred in 2004. In one, members of a shadowy military task force seized a mother who had three young children, still nursing the youngest, "in order to leverage" her husband's surrender, according to an account by a civilian Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer.
In the other, an e-mail exchange includes a U.S. military officer asking "have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"
" We have your sons: CIA," The Age, March 10 2003:
Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.
Yousef al-Khalid, 9, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, 7, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.
Mohammed fled just hours before the raid but his sons and another senior al-Qaeda member were found cowering behind a wardrobe in the apartment.
The boys have been held by the Pakistani authorities but this weekend they were flown to America where they will be questioned about their father. CIA interrogators confirmed that the boys were staying at a secret address where they were being encouraged to talk about their father's activities. "We are handling them with kid gloves," said one official. "After all, they are only little children, but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of are."
" How do U.S. interrogators make a terrorist talk?" San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 2003:
U.S. authorities have an additional inducement to make Mr. Mohammed talk, even if he shares the suicidal commitment of the Sept. 11 hijackers: The Americans have access to two of his elementary-school-age children, the top law-enforcement official says. The children were captured in a September raid that netted one of Mr. Mohammed's top comrades, Ramzi Binalshibh.
" U.S. Adopts Aggressive Tactics on Iraqi Fighters Intensified Offensive Leads To Detentions, Intelligence," Washington Post, July 28, 2003:
Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry
Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.
" US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison," ITV, May 7, 2004:
He said: "They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her brother was a prisoner in the other cells.
"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us because she was just a child."
(Via Jesus' General.)
1:00:27 PM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 2/20/2006; 11:53:38 AM.
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