December 18, 2009 archive

When I first moved to Columbia County, New York, about 25 miles southeast of Albany, in the foothills of the Berkshires, evening sunsets were spectacular.  And there were dozens of bats zooming through the dim light feasting on insects.  There were two primary kinds of bats: big brown bats ones and little brown bats.  I considered putting up a bat house, but never did.  The bats seemed to be thriving quite well without one, thank you.  But in the summer of 2007 I began to notice that there were fewer bats.  And in summer, 2008 even fewer.  And this past summer hardly any.  What I was witnessing was the bat population dying out.  It was being ravaged by disease.

Today, the Times Union brought the details of this bad news about the bats:

Barack Obama’s speech disappoints and fuels frustration at Copenhagen

US president offers no further commitment on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries

Suzanne Goldenberg and Allegra Stratton in Copenhagen

guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009 12.53 GMT

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act “boldly and decisively” on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort – and a 10-day meeting – from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

CIA working with Palestinian security agents

US agency co-operating with Palestinian counterparts who allegedly torture Hamas supporters in West Bank

Ian Cobain in Ramallah

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December 2009 18.16 GMT

Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.

Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.

The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organisation (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians’ work.

Tweety hates DFHs on the blogs.  They aren’t real Democrats!   So without further ado…… Chris Lieberman Mathews on the Netroots.  

This is short, but the video speaks for itself.  

Open Thread

“You have to begin somewhere” I remember somebody telling me that when I first started lifting weights in a gym. (Not much weight on the bar, you see. IIRC, there was actually no weight on the bar.) However, it’s true in a lot of areas – like all of them.

So, even though I’m not a Democrat, I’m trying to help jeffroby get the ‘Full Court Press’ going for Dems. (I expect I’ll try and help Republicans get their version  going, if I can find any Republican-leaning citizens who are interested). Because we all have to start somewhere, and complaining in the blogosphere and petitioning those in power don’t seem very effective, we need to truly dump sellout Congress critters.

Chris Bowers has wisely advised us to do things correctly, legally speaking, so I sent an email to a lawyer I had retained, who I knew was a Democrat and seemed like a very good guy, overall. What follows is a modified, de-personalized version, that has a lot of links which will be useful for telling friend, family, and even strangers about the new group.

Chief executives of the largest U.S. banks acknowledged Monday the “disconnect” between their expressed support for re-regulating financial markets and the work of their lobbyists to weaken any new rules.

In later comments, one CEO elaborated as follows:

There’s a yawning chasm between what we say and what we do.  It’s unconscionable.

How big is this disconnect?  Well, say you had a choice between measuring it in angstroms or light years…take a guess!

It’s absolute, two-faced hypocrisy.

Let me give you an example: On one hand I’ve got Barney Frank’s balls in a vise, which I guess is why he’s always raising his eyebrows at everything we say, and on the other I’m drawing upon every inch of will power not to burst out laughing in the President’s face when he asks us to comply with greater lending and restraining our bonuses.  I mean, he can’t be serious.  And we know he’s not.  That’s what makes it so hard not to laugh.  Remember how Tim Conway used to crack-up Harvey Korman when he’d go off script?  God forbid that Lloyd Blankfein starts busting up, because it’s contagious, ya know?  That man is a riot.  The White House publicly said Blankfein showed contempt for the President in refusing to come to the last meeting, but privately they asked him not to come because of that comment about “doing God’s work.”  He even had the President laughing his guts out with that one.  And the President knows that’s no way to run a meeting to dress down us “fat cat bankers.”  I loved how the Wall Street journal played up the meeting as a no amenities, all business and brass tacks sort of thing: “The executives were served glasses of water — and nothing else -” as if we’re not milking it for all it’s worth, but that’s just Axelrod’s attention to detail. The President himself is damned good at keeping a straight face, but I’ve $300 million bucks that says we’re gonna make him laugh again, with or without Lloyd.