January 2008 archive

Cross-posted on the Daily Kos under betson08

First of all, I want to express my deepest gratitude to all the Kossacks and other members of the netroots community for your commitment to the survival of the Pretty Bird Woman House.  Helping this shelter has been one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever done, and some of that has to do with the outpouring of caring and compassion that I witnessed while I was doing this project.

This morning I received an email informing me that the McLaughlin City Council had unanimously approved the shelter’s petition to operate in the house it wants to purchase. This was a wonderful accomplishment given some initial misgivings that some of the City Council Members had expressed.

A complete update on that and the fundraiser is below the fold.

So when I’m a blank slate and my mind needs to reset I go play some TankBall or Mahjong or sharpen my skills at Big Jump Challenge.  I tried the Campaign Game but Edwards always seemed to lose. YoudaCamper is a cute distraction, you have to create and manage a small campground.  

I haven’t found an MMORPG I like yet but maybe you will. Other time wasters include CNN, FoxNews, CBS, ABC, NBC, TWC, etc…

This brain fart sponsored by GE™

What’s your favorite waster?

The following is a Video report from CBS as a Lead In to a Report, now online but to be printed in tomorrows Washington Post from Dana Priest.

A Soldier’s Cry For Help – CBS News Video

Many of us (though, sadly, not all) know by now that the damage to New Orleans was not caused by a natural disaster but by human error — the errors of the Army Corps of Engineers.

That’s why back in February of 2007, New Orleans federal court judge Stanwood Duvall ruled the ACOE couldn’t claim immunity:

The Army Corps of Engineers can’t assert immunity in a lawsuit over the catastrophic flooding following Hurricane Katrina, because of the plaintiffs’ claim that flooding stemmed from the agency’s negligence in fixing defects in the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet navigation project that it had known of for years, a New Orleans federal court judge ruled Friday.

Well, now that JE has dropped out, on the Democratic side we’re down to HRC, BO and MG (!) (yes, he even outlasted JE).  So, I guess we do really have a choice amongst the Democrats right now, but I’ll continue on the basis that Mike is not going to get the nomination.  On the Republican side, we’re pretty much down to MR, JMcC and MH (unless RP does much better next week, which he probably won’t), with McCain holding the mantle of front runner, which he probably will be able to manage to win the nomination from.

Imagine.

What?

I don’t know.  You choose.

Okay.  I imagine…a loose tooth.

1. The New York Times reports the FBI opens subprime inquiry. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the troubled mortgage industry… The F.B.I. [is] looking into possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with loans made to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit.” ABC News quotes Neil Power, chief of the FBI’s Economic Crimes Unit, as saying: “There are some irregularities we are looking at… [this is] good old-fashioned greed.” This investigation will likely not bare fruit until the next administration, but perhaps it is a good omen of things to come. Imagine what a progressive Attorney General would do with these predatory lenders.

2. The Washington Post reports the obvious: U.S. economy has ground to a virtual standstill. “The U.S. economy virtually stalled at the end of 2007… From October to December, gross domestic product grew by just 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted annual basis… This was a marked slowdown from the 4.9 percent growth posted in the three preceding months… The dip was greater than expected.“

   While the Los Angeles Times makes the other obvious observation, there’s High anxiety for 401(k) investors.

   As Americans increasingly link their well-being to financial markets, the possibility of recession and a slump on Wall Street has taken on new meaning for the middle class, including baby boomers who are approaching retirement age.

   Some 50 million workers now participate in 401(k)-type savings plans, a number that has shot up since 2000 as employers increasingly stop offering traditional pensions. Similarly, 46 million households hold a stake in the tax-advantaged savings plans known as individual retirement accounts, according to the Investment Company Institute.

   The result is a historic linkage between the fortunes of the public and Wall Street, just as older baby boomers — now past 60 — focus more seriously on the living standards that await in their post-work years.

3. Here’s the latest attack against Net Neutrality. Steven Levy of the Washington Post writes Time Warner Cable moving to pay-per-gigabyte metered Internet access. Time Warner has selected Beaumont, Texas for a pricing experiment where users of their Road Runner Internet service will have “consumption-based billing”. “Cable giant Comcast says it’s also evaluating the concept, but other broadband providers aren’t indicating they’ll adopt the scheme… There is… a net neutrality angle to the Time Warner Cable experiment… An increasingly important component of that business is distributing video on demand. TW’s competitors in that arena are Internet companies that intend to do the same thing. The TW plan tilts the field in its own favor. Let’s say I want to watch the indie film ‘Waitress.’ I may have the choice to order it on my cable box or rent it from iTunes. Each might cost me $3. But if I’m metered, renting it from iTunes might mean that I exceed my monthly limit, perhaps incurring a penalty that’s more than renting the movie.”

4. The Independent reports on the discovery that a Hummingbird sings through its tail feathers. “A small hummingbird has been found to “sing” through its tail feathers rather than its voice-box in the same way a wind musician plays a note on a clarinet. Scientists have found that the Anna’s hummingbird of the American south-west makes a “chirping” sound by dive-bombing at speeds of 50mph to cause wind to rush through its splayed tail feathers. The feathers quiver in the same way that the reed of a clarinet vibrates when a musician plays the instrument to produce a musical note. In this way, the bird is able to produce a noise that is louder than anything its own tiny voice-box can make.” You can hear the Anna’s Hummingbird’s chirp by following the link above and you can go to BBC News and see the hummingbird flying and chirping.

There’s a poll below the fold… why don’tcha vote in it. Okay?

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Invictus

I know there is another diary on Mukasey and waterboarding up, by BarbinMD. I recommend it. But this is not a duplicate diary. It covers today’s hearing (still in process as I write), and calls for Mukasey’s impeachment, giving the reasons why. It also goes into some detail on the legal points involved.

Actually, what Michael B. Mukasey said today at his Senate oversight hearing was that waterboarding, under non-specific certain circumstances, is not torture. Of course, he couldn’t say that outright; he said in legalese. In the obscurity of U.S. law, torture is defined as something that “shocks the conscience.” And Mukasey, squirming before Sen. Dick Durbin’s questioning, feels that after extensive review, piles of documents and opinions, the question of waterboarding is — sometimes — “unresolved.”

Here’s some of the testimony between Durbin and Mukasey (thanks to Firedoglake):