January 2009 archive

Swimmers Welcome

Shooting Shark – Blue Oyster Cult

Obama announced that he has chosen Dawn Johnsen to lead the Office of Legal Counsel, the same position once held by the infamous John Yoo.

In filling four senior Justice Department positions Monday, President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he intends to roll back Bush administration counter-terrorism policies authorizing harsh interrogation techniques, warrantless spying and indefinite detentions of terrorism suspects.

The most startling shift was Obama’s pick of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit that’s churned out the legal opinions that provided a foundation for expanding President George W. Bush’s national security powers.

Johnsen, who spent five years at the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration and served as its acting chief, has publicly assailed “Bush’s corruption of our American ideals.” Upon the release last spring of a secret Office of Legal Counsel memo that permitted the aggressive interrogations of terrorism suspects, she excoriated the unit’s lawyers for advising Bush “that in fighting the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted.”

The present, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 265 Posted – January 5, 2009, looks mighty interesting, especially reading the few documents they have linked there.

Details inconsistent policies and influence of foreign leaders

New Patrick Tyler book narrates: “A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East–from the Cold War to the War on Terror”

Over at Your Right Hand Thief, oyster links to a multi-leveled story about a government informant.

An abundance of moral dilemmas if you like that kind of thing.  Interesting, as well, that the story was written by a New York Times intern writing out of Texas:

-Renee Feltz is a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and an intern with the investigative unit at The New York Times.

The link is from the online page at the Texas Observer.

And a different kind of dilemma, captured in rant by the ever miraculous Gentilly Girl, whose fire burns bright:

Yet another example of outsiders coming in, smacking down $$$ for a home in an old neighborhood and then going bat-shit insane when they finally realize that the culture they were surrounded by wasn’t exactly their cup of tea. And then they attempt to stop our cultural expressions to suit their desires.

Open thread is open!

I don’t have any special source within inner Republican Party circles. Nor do I have any particular new insight into the dynamics of how the GOP works out their policy. What I do have is the statement of the Republican minority opinion on the Senate Armed Services Committee’s “supposedly bipartisan” report, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody. In the minority’s mix of apologia and attack, we see the outlines of the GOP game-plan for any investigations into Bush crimes under an Obama administration and a Democratic-majority Congress.

The minority statement is endorsed by only about half of the Republican Senators on the Armed Services committee: Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, James Inhofe, R-OK, Jeff Sessions, R-AL, John Cornyn, R-TX, John Thune, R-SD, and Mel Martinez, R-FL. As you read what follows, consider that all of the above voted for the unanimously released report. According to a Washington Post article at the time, the SASC report was originally “sent to the Pentagon with no dissenting views.”

In the beginning was the Void…and Uncertainty.

So there either was or was not.  Thus the Void was not void.  There was a bit.

It was a very small bang.

The first bit, together with Uncertainty, generated more bits.  SpaceTime erupted, a boil on the butt of perfect emptiness.  The Rainbow computer that is our universe existed.  Or exists.  Or will exist.  Or will have existed.

Tense often doesn’t matter that much in SpaceTime.

Thus were the bones of the the universe laid down, the warp threads of the Tapestry of Life.  This was the Way it was done, in as much as the Way can be described…which is not at all, of course.

The Greataway leapt into existence.

1. From the Washington Post comes news of Obama’s idea of economic stimulus. “Obama officials are advocating that Congress direct about $300 billion of the stimulus package, or about 40 percent, toward tax breaks.”

2. Meanwhile, the CS Monitor reports Obama is likely to retool Bush’s faith-based initiative. “Tackling the church-state issue head on, the Obama transition team has engaged a large advisory committee – involving people with differing perspectives on the most contentious issues – to help it design a government-neighborhood partnership.” That darn Constitution.

3. Another sign of no progress from Iraq. A Female suicide bomber kills 38 in Baghdad reports the LA Times. During a Shiite pilgrimage, a woman “detonated her explosives at a crowded checkpoint, killing as many as 38 people and wounding 72”. And as always: “it was one of the capital’s worst attacks in months”. It always is one of the worst.

   Oh and the NY Times reports the new, built by slave-labor, U.S. embassy opens in Baghdad.

4. What would the waning days of the Bush administration be without last minute regulation changes to destroy the environment? The Washington Post reports the Policy will allow paving roads on U.S. Forest Service land. The change will “make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.”

Empire is in the last throes. Dick Cheney taught us just because something is in the ‘last throes’ doesn’t mean something dies right away. Empire won’t morph into Democritown anytime soon. But there is no doubt the future is arriving quickly and the hoped-for happy-ever-after of humanity has nothing to do with trade, commerce, business, markets or money. It all comes down to you.