LinkBlog Latest items

Bob Herbert: Yes We Can

07-20-08

Actually about Al Gore, not Senator Obama, in case you're wondering.

Paul Krugman: L-ish Economic Prospects

07-19-08

Pay particular attention to the letter Krugman has chosen. It is an L not a V or even a U.

CNN: U.S. aims to reduce cluster bomb casualties

07-17-08

Will change to reduce delayed explosion of bomblets. But not until 2018. Report ignores the fact that cluster bombs are inherently evil in our increasingly crowded world, and should be designated as WMDs. In a few years our nation went from trying to kill Osama bin Laden with cluster bombs in remote mountains (which was good) to selling them to Israel when we knew they were using them in populated areas, which was very bad. Maybe they should be banned altogether since some leaders will use them to push war, even for poll numbers.

Reuters: U.S. still flunks healthcare test, group says

07-17-08

The McCain campaign falsely claims that Obama voted to raise income taxes on individuals earning "as little as $32,000 per year."

07-14-08

Notice how the McCain camp repeats false rebuttals in an attempt to squash this report

Frank Rich: The Real-Life ‘24’ of Summer 2008

07-14-08

Excerpt: Red Cross investigators flatly told the C.I.A. last year that America was practicing torture and vulnerable to war-crimes charges. Top Bush hands are starting to get sweaty about where they left their fingerprints. a major incentive for Mr. Cheney’s descent into the dark side was to cover up for the Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002, told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all preventable.”

New York Daily News: New Yorker Magazine Raises Ruckus with Cover Illustration Showing Terrorist Obamas in Oval Office

07-14-08

Magazine staff says putting all elements of stories about Obama's together in 'satire' exposes the 'caricature' the right has tried to insert as an actual depiction of the pair, but the Obama campaign believes the picture is "tasteless and offensive". I agree with both sides. But isn't this a little more Mad's type of stuff? Picture of New Yorker cover at linked site. (Warning graphic depiction of 'fist bump'. Please make sure that sensitive individuals are out of room before viewing. /sarcasm)

AlterNet -- Gareth Porter: With Unexpected Iraqi Withdrawal Demand, Bush Has Lost the War

07-13-08

Porter explains the growing rift between the US and the people who control all that oil.

Errol Louis: Gramm's words were an outrage; his actions have been worse

07-13-08

FactChecker-- McCain Two Pinnochios: Says He's For Equal Pay For Equal Work, but Doesn't Back Bill To Ensure Equality

07-12-08

FactCheck.org: An RNC ad claims Obama has "no new solutions" to the energy problem, when he actually proposes $150 billion worth.

07-12-08

Remember this is the kind of ad that Senator Obama warned about, which makes an end run around the public financing system and therefore is 'gaming' the system.

Bob Herbert: Feeling No Pain

07-12-08

Herbert notes the lack of empathy from the McCain campaign with Phil Gramm's comments old and new, and then asks the Democratic candidates to raise holy hell to be different than the Republicans. Sorry, Mr. H., like many of us you chose to be a little lazy and blame our candidates. Who need to raise holy hell is you and me and all us rank and file liberals, even undecideds who are decided that our nation is going down the drain. We need to stop being lazy and/or timid and remind our friends and family just what really is at stake in our nation. Then our candidates can be bolder. We are the ones that let us down. We are the ones that can fix it.

Harold Myerson: Why Were We in Vietnam?

07-12-08

We fought the Vietnam war to keep it from being communist. Yet, now business wants to take production to Vietnam instead of Thailand (both cheaper than China now) specifically because it's communist and has great control of its workers. Myerson may be making implications about getting what we want from Iraq war.

Court tosses White House appeal on visitor logs

07-11-08

I knew I like this guy -- Harold Myerson on one of my favorite subjects, Zellow Journalism:

07-09-08

Excerpt: Zell, for those of you fortunate enough not to follow news of the newspaper business, is the Chicago real estate magnate who last year purchased the Tribune Co., which owns the Times, the Chicago Tribune and a number of smaller papers. At the rate he's going, he's well on his way to accomplishing a feat that McNamara didn't even contemplate: destroying the L.A. Times.

RWR's Morning in America is Now Blackout in America. We Should Have Kept Carter. Richard Cohen (WP Columnist) Explains

07-08-08

GOP Looks To Redistrict Itself Back Into Power

07-08-08

Huffington Post: Companies Begin Quest For Oil And Gas Off Florida Coast

07-08-08

About Dancing Matt

07-08-08

The Times Did a Report on Matt Harding (the dancing guy whose video I had up for a while. I even learned more than I did from the interview (available on You Tube)

McCain and the RNC Scamming of the Public Financing System is Beginning

07-08-08

Just a couple of weeks ago the Republicans cried foul when Barack Obama refused to go along with the broken public financing system in which a candidate had allies spend overwhelming amounts of money while he collected taxpayer dollars in a supposedly pristine environment. Now we see the dirty donors that will overwhelmingly enhance McCains virginal public funds.

Paul Krugman: Behind the Bush Bust

07-08-08

Plenty of blame to go around for lousy economy of the new millennial period, but Republicans share most of it.

Tell Congress That A Change Is Needed: Employers use federal law to deny benefits

07-06-08

Heck tell your friends, lovers, and relatives too. Help them to contact their federal representatives and Senators. The last thing we need is to let the problems exposed in this report continue.

Bob Herbert: Cause For Alarm

07-05-08

Excerpt: We can build spectacular new stadiums for football and baseball teams (the Yanks, the Mets, the Giants and the Jets are all getting ready to move into staggeringly expensive new homes) but we can’t rebuild New Orleans or reconstruct the World Trade Center site destroyed almost seven years ago. This year’s presidential election is the perfect opportunity to place the truth before the American public in the form of a realistic examination of the state of the nation, and an honest consideration of creative ideas for moving forward. Instead, we’re getting hour after hour and day after day of trivia: Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s patriotic? Who’s not?

Paul Krugman: Rove’s Third Term

07-05-08

Excerpts:... the Clark affair did reveal something important — not about General Clark, but about Mr. McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove. ...the McCain campaign went beyond condemning General Clark’s remarks; it went out of its way to distort them.

CJR: How the press let the White House craft the narrative about [Iranian] nukes

07-03-08

CJR: “Attacking” McCain’s Military Record. What Wesley Clark really said and how the press missed it.

07-02-08

Proof, that in mainstream reports the press tends to run to the safe right wing side. And it doesn't hurt to make such a big deal of something that it begins to have scandal qualities. The press loves scandals because they boost their ratings. The Rs know this and play the fourth estate like a fiddle.

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

07-01-08

Produced by phenomenon that creates auroras. Could be heard by anyone out there. Earth also hums.

Willian Pfaff: The Illusion of Saving Nations From Themselves

07-01-08

A very erudite treatise on why we should not continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, and points to what may happen if we stay.

Truth Dig hosting Steven Colbert's "Make John McCain Exciting" Contest Results

06-30-08

Yeah, I could have ripped off the video (it has a share option) with just a hat tip, but I have the sexy "African animals being mellow video up and Truth Dig is a good low bandwidth site.

McCain Aide Created 'Enron Loophole'

06-29-08

OBAMA CALLS FOR CLOSING 'ENRON LOOPHOLE'

06-29-08

Time: Is Dobson's Obama Hit Backfiring?

06-28-08

Family Sues KBR Over Electrocution of Soldier in Shower

« H E » Middle East :: Nation :: email

posted 03-20-08

In their grief they first got no information on the death and then were told he died because he took a small electrical appliance into shower.

Story now is that faulty pump was installed before KBR took over maintenance of the military building where the electrocution happened.

So, of course, KBR couldn't be bothered to check things out, right?

And there had been prior problems.

Excerpt report linked below:

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and costs, alleges that KBR allowed U.S. troops to continue using electrical systems "which KBR knew to be dangerous and knew had caused prior instances of electrocution."

Report also mentions that 11 other electrocutions in Iraq are being investigated as well.

Looking for a way to absolve KBR, I suppose.

Read report at CNN "Panel probes troops' electrocution deaths in Iraq ".

tags: iraq war kbr electricity military troop deaths

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