Saturday, December 20, 2014
Who's The Boss
If the CIA will do this, they'll do anything.
WASHINGTON — A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency’s search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.’s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials.
The panel will make that recommendation after the five C.I.A. officials who were singled out by the agency’s inspector general this year for improperly ordering and carrying out the computer searches staunchly defended their actions, saying that they were lawful and in some cases done at the behest of John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director.
Why Is Cuba So Special
I get that there are still a few exiles dreaming of getting their riches back. But just why is that so many elite Villagers accepted that we made nice with China, Vietnam, and Russia (though obviously there are some cracks in that relationship now), not to mention plenty of truly awful regimes, but doing so with Cuba is just unpossible?
Are they just mad that Fidel won a 50 year pissing match they somehow imagine they were involved in?
Are they just mad that Fidel won a 50 year pissing match they somehow imagine they were involved in?
Morning Thread
Our friend, Digby is holding her annual fundraiser. If anyone has been good and should get a Christmas present, it is she.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Happy Hour
I'm glad Obama had some fun at his presser today, calling on only women to ask questions. The past six years would have been infinitely more enjoyable if he had been doing these kinds of things all along.
Our BFFs, Saudi Arabia
I don't want to litigate just how evil the Castro governments have been in Cuba. But it would be nice if every now and then a journalist would ask people who think it's unpossible to normalize our relationship with Cuba because they are "human rights violators" just why we're so nice to Saudi Arabia.
I don't expect real answers, but even asking the question can have some value.
I don't expect real answers, but even asking the question can have some value.
BREAKING POLITICO MUST CREDIT POLITICO
Apparently Obama's Cuban moves have caused a bunch of conservative Republican fundraisers to continue fundraising for conservative Republican candidates.
You can find the link yourself..
You can find the link yourself..
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Grimmy
I haven't watched Colbert all that much recently. Not because I'm not a fan, just because after a day of paying attention to the bullshit I'm not always that interested in a recap - even a funny one! - of the bullshit.
Still one minor observation I'll make as the show ends is that while people are marveling that he managed to stay in character, I think he stopped trying all that hard over the last couple of years. I mean, he stayed in character in the sense of acting like "Stephen Colbert" instead of being himself, but in the early days of the show I think they worked much harder to make a liberal point through the mouth of a conservative blowhard. More recently I think they tended to just say, ah, screw it, we'll just let this conservative blowhard of a guy make a liberal point even if we throw in a screaming eagle and some flags.
That's not a criticism. I didn't mind.
Still one minor observation I'll make as the show ends is that while people are marveling that he managed to stay in character, I think he stopped trying all that hard over the last couple of years. I mean, he stayed in character in the sense of acting like "Stephen Colbert" instead of being himself, but in the early days of the show I think they worked much harder to make a liberal point through the mouth of a conservative blowhard. More recently I think they tended to just say, ah, screw it, we'll just let this conservative blowhard of a guy make a liberal point even if we throw in a screaming eagle and some flags.
That's not a criticism. I didn't mind.
Thursday Crass Commercialism
Running out of time to buy all of those holiday gifts!
Amazon commissions are actually my favorite way to earn money on this site. It takes money from Jeff Bezos and gives it to me. Their commissions are actually pretty generous (vary, but roughly 7%), and all you have to do is occasionally remember to click on one of the amazon links on the site before you buy something. I've never figured out exactly how they do things, but pretty sure if you click on a link from this site and then purchase something within some time frame they credit me.
Don't like Amazon, don't use it! But for those who do, it's a costless way to make Jeff Bezos give me my Christmas bonus.
Amazon commissions are actually my favorite way to earn money on this site. It takes money from Jeff Bezos and gives it to me. Their commissions are actually pretty generous (vary, but roughly 7%), and all you have to do is occasionally remember to click on one of the amazon links on the site before you buy something. I've never figured out exactly how they do things, but pretty sure if you click on a link from this site and then purchase something within some time frame they credit me.
Don't like Amazon, don't use it! But for those who do, it's a costless way to make Jeff Bezos give me my Christmas bonus.
Friends Don't Let Friends Go To Law School
Or at least don't let them borrow obscene amounts of money to pay for it.
The whole student loan debt crisis wasn't "real" for me until I met a woman who was a couple of years out of law school, 200 grand in debt, and unable to get a job which could come close to servicing that debt and providing her with anything better than just above poverty lifestyle. Yes we all read the stats, but it's easier to comprehend when it's actually personal.
The whole student loan debt crisis wasn't "real" for me until I met a woman who was a couple of years out of law school, 200 grand in debt, and unable to get a job which could come close to servicing that debt and providing her with anything better than just above poverty lifestyle. Yes we all read the stats, but it's easier to comprehend when it's actually personal.
Mercury Fur
Jeebus
Police said today they are investigating whether members of a VIP Westminster paedophile ring murdered three young boys at 'abuse parties'.
Scotland Yard detectives are calling on witnesses to come forward if they know anything about boys being killed at Dolphin Square, a block of flats in Pimlico, London.
It is believed that every weekend in the late seventies and early eighties groups of vulnerable boys were smuggled to an address in the exclusive development by the Thames close to Parliament.
There, after being plied with alcohol, they suffered sickening sexual assaults, and one victim says some were killed during or afterwards.
Nice Work
Hopefully Larry Summers uses all of his money to continue his lifelong quest to improve the lives of middle class people.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
An Idea For A Movie
A couple of guys make a movie mocking North Korea and its dictator and end up starting WWIII.
Frack Off
Hey, Cuomo does the right thing, though presumably plummeting oil prices made that decision a bit easier to make...
It's Stupid And Pointless, So Let's Keep Doing It
Fantasies of Cuban exiles getting their property back should have ended decades ago, so our stupid treatment of Cuba was basically "we'll be mean...just because." We didn't bring down Castro and we contributed to the economic woes of the population, certainly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Still we'll get politicians bleating about our arbitrary human rights concerns because really we just cared deeply about the poor people of Cuba and their treatment by the government because that's always what motivates our policies.
Progress
We've made nice with China, Vietnam, and a bunch of horrible regimes around the world. I think we can make nice(r) with Cuba.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
All Charges
While basically a local story, my beloved readers might remember Philly's recent gaybashing case, in which a bunch of (presumably) drunk suburban yahoos out for the night in the urban theme park decided that their night wouldn't be complete without (allegedly) beating the crap out of someone.
Going to trial.
Going to trial.
Afternoon Thread
Yr Wonkette has given me all her money, and perhaps her soon to be born child, to put up the RSS feed on the right, so click all the links that make you tingly inside. Also, too, the amazon links, which actually might make more money for me if you click them.
Seattle Fustercluck
Dave Roberts explains it well.
In short: There is no plan to resolve the dispute over cost overruns, which are ubiquitous on projects like this; at $4.2 billion, it’s the most expensive transportation project in state history. The tunnel will have no exits — no ingress or egress — throughout the entire downtown core (which makes the support of downtown businesses all the more mystifying). It won’t allow transit, only cars. It will be tolled, highly enough, by the state’s own estimates, to drive nearly half its traffic onto the aforementioned side streets. It will be a precarious engineering feat, the widest deep-bore tunnel in history, digging right between a) Puget Sound and b) the oldest part of Seattle, with vulnerable buildings and God-knows-what buried infrastructure. Also: Pollution. Climate change. It’s the 21st f’ing century. On and on. People said all this and more, in real time, to no avail.
Grifters Gonna Grift
The charter system (#notallcharters) is a license to steal.
The district is concerned that ASPIRA is improperly shuffling money around those various subsidiaries and the parent organization. Thum said the district has many questions about the "management agreements" that guide the way money flows among these subsidiaries.
ASPIRA of Pennsylvania "can dictate the content of those agreements, and the amount of money that flows to ASPIRA, and then what they do with that money," Thum said. "And we have concerns about how much money is being sent up to ASPIRA, and then our ability to effectively know what they do with those dollars."
In a letter sent to ASPIRA officials last July, the charter office's Peng Chao spelled out some of the district's concerns in detail. The five charters "cannot be operated as if they are subsidiaries," he wrote. The "intercompany" payments between schools are "not a permissible use of charter school funds," and the practice of using one school to guarantee a bank loan for another school is likewise "not permissible," he wrote.
That Sinking Feeling
Replacing a water main isn't that big of a deal, but what's causing it is...
In another snafu for the Highway 99 tunnel project, Seattle utility managers said Monday that soil settlement near the job site may force them to dig up First Avenue South and replace a water main at state expense.
The 16-inch-diameter line moves water through downtown along First Avenue South, where survey readings by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) showed the soil settled as much as 1.4 inches in November.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Assholes
I don't think most of us are torturers, but the great number of people who delight in simply being assholes is still disturbing.
Try being excellent to each other. Takes a bit of work, I know, but it isn't that hard.
Try being excellent to each other. Takes a bit of work, I know, but it isn't that hard.
Wow
I'm not exactly against the notion that the spook-industrial-complex uses its leverage in ways we wouldn't exactly be happy about, but I'm also pretty sure that if I'd made such accusations in the Bush era then the House would've voted to revoke my government funding about 76 times.*
*No I don't receive government funding. This is an ACORN joke.
*No I don't receive government funding. This is an ACORN joke.
President Admits To Liking Sports
I'd get it, if Obama said, "I watch ice dancing every morning." Not that there's anything wrong with watching ice dancing, just that it would legitimately clash with the right wing macho real man narrative which includes liking manly sports. They would freak out more if he said "I never watch ESPN" than they do when says he does watch it, but either way they freak out. It's a nice trick.
Internal Affairs
One trope from 80s-90s cop shows and movies was the all powerful Internal Affairs department. Sometimes they were the good guys, trying to take down bad cops. Sometimes they were the bad guys, meddling in the activities of good - or at least bad for the right reasons - cops.
But, in any case, there was this notion that if you crossed too many lines, Internal Affairs would get you.
quaint
But, in any case, there was this notion that if you crossed too many lines, Internal Affairs would get you.
quaint
Supply Side Jesus Is Coming
Tax cuts can only be failed.
Good luck, Kansas!
His response came this past week, as he offered his first proposal to steady the budget, at least in the short term. He suggested cutting more than $70 million in agency spending and transferring more than $200 million into the state general fund from various reserves to plug the gap through the fiscal year ending in June.
But the plan has only stoked more unease, even among Mr. Brownback’s Republican allies.
The state’s nonpartisan legislative research office released new data Thursday suggesting that the governor’s proposal, by relying more on balance transfers than spending cuts, was essentially kicking the can down the road, inflating the deficit to nearly $650 million for the next fiscal year beginning in July.
Good luck, Kansas!
Sunday, December 14, 2014
People Talking Through Your Speakers
I've enjoyed the Serial podcast so far. It has some flaws, but it's been compelling. I rarely listen to people talking on the radio as there aren't many activities that I can do simultaneously and still have enough concentration for both. Driving's the main one, but I don't do much of that.
Easy Steps
I really don't understand why the NFL players' union doesn't negotiate for a requirement that, say, that 25% of player salaries get invested into an annuity fund, which they manage, which starts paying out on retirement. Wouldn't solve all the problems, but would at least prevent players from being broke 3 days after they're done.
America's Worst Humans
Couldn't bring myself to watch, but I gather Dick Cheney's still down with the anal raping of innocent prisoners because freedom.
Just remembering the reverence with which our great 4th estate treated that man for so long.
Just remembering the reverence with which our great 4th estate treated that man for so long.
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