The Best War Ever

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The tv ate my brain

Ok I dont normally post crap news stories here (though I'm sure many would disagree) but this one is from one of those tabloids you look at everytime you're at the grocery store and you KNOW its like a Springer episode, you watch JUST to see the crash.

From the SUN

AIRHEAD Paris Hilton has revealed she did not know LONDON was in the United Kingdom. The daft blonde blurted out the admission in a statement for a £5.7million US libel case. Her catalogue of dumb answers in the witness box gave a fascinating insight into the tiny mind of the hotel heiress, who stands to inherit £30million.Paris revealed she can’t NAME some of her friends, and thinks everyone in Europe speaks FRENCH.The American It-girl is accused of planting a false story in the New York Post. It suggested Zeta Graff started a row with her in a London club last June and was thrown out. Graff, 35, once dated Ms Hilton’s former boyfriend Paris Latsis, 26. Ms Hilton was asked if the story appeared in the UK. She replied: “No. There is stuff in London.” When informed by her lawyer London was in the UK, Paris said: “Right. UK. Whatever.”She told a pre-trial hearing she was in Europe last summer and did not know if the story appeared there, because “all there is, like, French”.


Ok now if you've read anything I've written over the last say ...... 2 years, you understand that stupid people are the bane of my existence. Now, this comes with a disclaimer, if you are offended by the word stupid, may I suggest, daft, dim witted, thick, mentally under-developped or in other words ... American. The idiots that we have splashed across movie or tv screen world wide show the world just what we are. From being a bully on the battleground, to being retards in the classroom. We are truly now the Paper tiger that people have said we are. I had promised a while ago to write about what I like to call "disposable" celebrities and without a doubt I can say that Ms. Hilton should just quit her day job and do what she does best, sleep with men who find her vapidness intoxicating. Now while this whole rant may appear to be VERY vitrolic, understand that I do have my warm and fuzzy side too. People like Paris, the SIMPson sisters (my emphasis for obvious reasons) Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears and that Cletus K-Fed, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, the ENTIRE cast of American Idol, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, The ENTIRE Fox news staff (regular contributors INCLUDING Anne Coulter inclusive) piss me off and so should they YOU. Understand that I'm not saying that every American is dumb, but every person who garners more than 15 minutes of fame whos propped up on some bullshit reality program, I can leave them but what does that show the world? Do you see anyone from China that becomes a celebrity doing the same things? Or how about from Ireland (excluding Collin Farrell, hes allowed to be an ass, its a celtic thing.) It just seems that truly the bottom line is what we're seeking and not only are we racing to catch it but we're running so fast towards it that we dont see how close to it we are. Comments are welcome but dont give me crap about how angry I am OR how many of these peoples names I know .... remember we live in a media SATURATED society.

Yes its that time of the year again

Its time for the Presidents State of the Union Address, and liberals the country over will be sighing, feeling uncomfortable, laughing at his demeanor and yes DRINKING. Here are two ways to play the game:

Chug one Here for the Union

Or you can try this

# Every time W says "September 11" or "9-11" take a sip.
# Every time W says "hard work" take a drink.
# Every time he says "evil" take a gulp.
# Every time he says something to make the Republicans clap but not the Democrats, take a swig.
# Every time the President says "pray" drink half your glass.
# Every time the Commander in Chief makes an error of pronunciation or grammar, finish your drink.
# Every time the Leader of the Free World says "Trent Lott's house" drink the whole bottle.

And remember in no time .... you'll feel right as rain.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Mishandling Funds in Iraq ..... say its not so

(From the NY Times)

A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.

The audit, released yesterday by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, expands on its previous findings of fraud, incompetence and confusion as the American occupation poured money into training and rebuilding programs in 2003 and 2004. The audit uncovers problems in an area that includes half the land mass in Iraq, with new findings in the southern and central provinces of Anbar, Karbala, Najaf, Wasit, Babil, and Qadisiya. The special inspector reports to the secretary of defense and the secretary of state.

Agents from the inspector general's office found that the living and working quarters of American occupation officials were awash in shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills, colloquially known as bricks.

One official kept $2 million in a bathroom safe, another more than half a million dollars in an unlocked footlocker. One contractor received more than $100,000 to completely refurbish an Olympic pool but only polished the pumps; even so, local American officials certified the work as completed. More than 2,000 contracts ranging in value from a few thousand dollars to more than half a million, some $88 million in all, were examined by agents from the inspector general's office. The report says that in some cases the agents found clear indications of potential fraud and that investigations into those cases are continuing.

Some of those cases are expected to intersect with the investigations of four Americans who have been arrested on bribery, theft, weapons and conspiracy charges for what federal prosecutors say was a scheme to steer reconstruction projects to an American contractor working out of the southern city of Hilla, which served as a kind of provincial capital for a vast swath of Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority.

But much of the material in the latest audit is new, and the portrait it paints of abandoned rebuilding projects, nonexistent paperwork and cash routinely taken from the main vault in Hilla without even a log to keep track of the transactions is likely to raise major new questions about how the provisional authority did its business and accounted for huge expenditures of Iraqi and American money.

"What's sad about it is that, considering the destruction in the country, with looting and so on, we needed every dollar for reconstruction," said Wayne White, a former State Department official whose responsibilities included Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and who is now at the Middle East Institute, a research organization.

Instead, Mr. White said, large amounts of that money may have been wasted or stolen, with strong indications that the chaos in Hilla might have been repeated at other provisional authority outposts.

Others had a similar reaction. "It does not surprise me at all," said a Defense Department official who worked in Hilla and other parts of the country, who spoke anonymously because he said he feared retribution from the Bush administration. He predicted that similar problems would turn up in the major southern city of Basra and elsewhere in the dangerous desert wasteland of Anbar province. "It's a disaster," the official said of problems with contracting in Anbar.

No records were kept as money came and went from the main vault at the Hilla compound, and inside it was often stashed haphazardly in a filing cabinet.

That casual arrangement led to a dispute when one official for the provisional authority, while clearing his accounts on his way out of Iraq, grabbed $100,000 from another official's stack of cash, according to the report. Whether unintentional or not, the move might never have been discovered except that the second official "had to make a disbursement that day and realized that he was short cash," the report says.

Outside the vault, money seemed to be stuffed into every nook and cranny in the compound. "One contracting officer kept approximately $2 million in cash in a safe in his office bathroom, while a paying agent kept approximately $678,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker in his office," the report says.

The money, most from Iraqi oil proceeds and cash seized from Saddam Hussein's government, also easily found its way out of the compound and the country. In one case, an American soldier assigned as an assistant to the Iraqi Olympic boxing team was given huge amounts of cash for a trip to the Philippines, where the soldier gambled away somewhere between $20,000 and $60,000 of the money. Exactly how much has not been determined, the report says, because no one kept track of how much money he received in the first place.

In another connection to Iraq's Olympic effort, a $108,140 contract to completely refurbish the Hilla Olympic swimming pool, including the replacement of pumps and pipes, came to nothing when the contractor simply polished some of the hardware to make it appear as if new equipment had been installed. Local officials for the provisional authority signed paperwork stating that all the work had been completed properly and paid the contractor in full, the report says.

The pool never reopened, and when agents from the inspector general's office arrived to try out the equipment, "the water came out a murky brown due to the accumulated dirt and grime in the old pumps," the report says.

Sometimes the consequences of such loose controls were deadly. A contract for $662,800 in civil, electrical, and mechanical work to rehabilitate the Hilla General Hospital was paid in full by an American official in June 2004 even though the work was not finished, the report says. But instead of replacing a central elevator bank, as called for in the scope of work, the contractor tinkered with an unsuccessful rehabilitation.

The report continues, narrating the observation of the inspector general's agents who visited the hospital on Sept. 18, 2004: "The hospital administrator immediately escorted us to the site of the elevators. The administrator said that just a couple days prior to our arrival the elevator crashed and killed three people."

More on the A Hole Bill

The Bill can be found here

It seems that this bill is yet another one that based on the ignorance of the American public, this bill will simply go unopposed and pass like so many others. While I havent read all of the bill, I simply think that as citizens (and I really have to start using that term more as an insult rather than a catch-all) that we need to be aware of what kinds of things are flying just under our noses. Had it not been some crafty reporting, we wouldnt know about the NSA and the wiretapping that are now causing the Bush White House into a whirling dirvish frenzy. Quite honestly, I think the bill will pass, and people will still wonder "why" when they have no freedoms left.

Dissent .... Its whats for Viewing

This is a story I found on boingboing

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner, written on a sheet.Fortunately for him, it was a brief speech... followed by a panel discussion that basically ripped his argument a new asshole.

And, as one of the people on the panel said,

"When you're a law student, they tell you if say that if you can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either, apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over again "it's lawful", and to think that the American people will somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience that was shown here today."
- David Cole, Georgetown University Law Professor

It was a good day for dissent.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

the A Hole bill

If the controversial Analog Hole bill makes it into law, US technologists will have to obey a law whose most important details are a trade-secret.

The entertainment industry, always a bastion of media savvy, has proposed its "A-Hole" bill as a legal means of limiting the conversion of analog music and video to digital files. Under the bill, every maker of a device that can convert analog signals to digital ones (like iPods, camcorders, and PCs) would be required by law to be built with a detector for a proprietary watermarking technology called VEIL (the use of free/open source in these technologies would be outlawed to prevent the removal of VEIL detectors).

The idea is that any time you attempted to make a digital recording, your device would seek out the VEIL watermark and respond to any special instructions (e.g., "No recording allowed") it discovered there.

But what the hell is VEIL? No one really knows. The sole commercial deployment of this technology to date has been in a Batman toy (why this makes it fit to be included by law into every American recording device is beyond me).

Copyfighting Princeton Prof Ed Felten called the company that makes VEIL to find out how the technology works. Their answer? They'll tell Ed how VEIL works only if he pays them $10,000 and signs a non-disclosure agreement. And they'll only tell him how the decoder works -- there's no price you can pay to find out how VEIL encoding works.

As Ed points out, this should be a deal-breaker for even considering the A-Hole bill (of course, there are lots of other deal-breakers in that bill, but this is a big one). How can the American public and its lawmakers determine whether this is a fit technology to mandate if its workings are a secret?

Oppose the bill and write your Congressperson here

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

who knows ... maybe this is real

Bush wants to create the new criminal of "disruptor" who can be jailed for the crime of "disruptive behavior." A "little-noticed provision" in the latest version of the Patriot Act will empower Secret Service to charge protesters with a new crime of "disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics." Secret Service would also be empowered to charge persons with "breaching security" and to charge for "entering a restricted area" which is "where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting." In short, be sure to stay in those wired, fenced containments or free speech zones.

Who is the "disruptor"?

Bush Team history tells us the disruptor is an American citizen with the audacity to attend Bush events wearing a T-shirt that criticizes Bush; or a member of civil rights, environmental, anti-war or counter-recruiting groups who protest Bush policies; or a person who invades Bush's bubble by criticizing his policies. A disruptor is also a person who interferes in someone else's activity, such as interrupting Bush when he is speaking at a press conference or during an interview.

What are the parameters of the crime of "disruptive behavior"?

The dictionary defines "disruptive" as "characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination." The American Medical Association defines disruptive behavior as a "style of interaction" with people that interferes with patient care, and can include behavior such as "foul language; rude, loud or offensive comments; and intimidation of patients and family members."

What are the rules of engagement for "disruptors"?

Some Bush Team history of their treatment of disruptors provide some clues on how this administration will treat disruptors in the future...

(1) People perceived as disruptors may be preemptively ejected from events before engaging in any disruptive conduct.

In the beginning of this war against disruptors, Americans were ejected from taxpayer funded events where Bush was speaking. At first the events were campaign rallies during the election, and then the disruptor ejectment policy was expanded to include Bush's post election campaign-style events on public policy issues on his agenda, such as informing the public on medicare reform and the like. If people drove to the event in a car with a bumper sticker that criticized Bush's policies or wore T-shirts with similar criticism, they were disruptors who could be ejected from the taxpayer event even before they engaged in any disruptive behavior. White House press secretary McClellan defended such ejectments as a proper preemptive strike against persons who may disrupt an event: "If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave."

(2) Bush Team may check its vast array of databanks to cull out those persons who it deems having "disruptor" potential and then blacklist those persons from events.

The White House even has a list of persons it deems could be "disruptive" to an eventand then blacklists those persons from attending taxpayer funded events where Bush speaks. Sounds like Bush not only has the power to unilaterally designate people as "enemy combatants" in the global "war on terror," but to unilaterally designate Americans as "disruptive" in the domestic war against free speech.

(3) The use of surveillance, monitoring and legal actions against disruptors.

Bush's war against disruptors was then elevated to surveillance, monitoring, and legal actions against disruptor organizations. The FBI conducts political surveillance and obtains intelligence filed in its database on Bush administration critics , such as civil rights groups (e.g., ACLU), antiwar protest groups (e.g., United for Peace and Justice) and environmental groups (e.g., Greenpeace).

This surveillance of American citizens exercising their constitutional rights has been done under the pretext of counterterrorism activities surrounding protests of the Iraq war and the Republican National Convention. The FBI maintains it does not have the intent to monitor political activities and that its surveillance and intelligence gathering is "intended to prevent disruptive and criminal activity at demonstrations, not to quell free speech."

Surveillance of potential disruptors then graduated to legal actions as a preemptive strike against potential disruptive behavior at public events. In addition to monitoring and surveillance of legal groups and legal activities, the FBI issued subpoenas for members to appear before grand juries based on the FBI's "intent" to prevent "disruptive convention protests." The Justice Dept. opened a criminal investigation and subpoenaed records of Internet messages posted by Bush's critics. And, the Justice Dept. even indicted Greenpeace for a protest that was so lame the federal judge threw out the case.

So now the Patriot Act, which was argued before enactment as a measure to fight foreign terrorists, is being amended to make clear that it also applies to American citizens who have the audacity to disrupt President Bush wherever his bubble may travel. If this provision is enacted into law, then Bush will have a law upon which to expand the type of people who constitute disruptors and the type of activities that constitute disruptive activities. And, then throw them all in jail.

Though I am not socialist

This story about Eugene Debs is pretty incredible ..... if you dont know who he is .... read on:
(written by Howard Zinn)

We are always in need of radicals who are also lovable, and so we would do well to remember Eugene Victor Debs. Ninety years ago, at the time The Progressive was born, Debs was nationally famous as leader of the Socialist Party, and the poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote of him:
"As warm a heart as ever beat Betwixt here and the Judgment Seat."
Debs was what every socialist or anarchist or radical should be: fierce in his convictions, kind and compassionate in his personal relations. Sam Moore, a fellow inmate of the Atlanta penitentiary, where Debs was imprisoned for opposing the First World War, remembered how he felt as Debs was about to be released on Christmas Day, 1921: "As miserable as I was, I would defy fate with all its cruelty as long as Debs held my hand, and I was the most miserably happiest man on Earth when I knew he was going home Christmas."
Debs had won the hearts of his fellow prisoners in Atlanta. He had fought for them in a hundred ways and refused any special privileges for himself. On the day of his release, the warden ignored prison regulations and opened every cell-block to allow more than 2,000 inmates to gather in front of the main jail building to say good-bye to Eugene Debs. As he started down the walkway from the prison, a roar went up and he turned, tears streaming down his face, and stretched out his arms to the other prisoners.
This was not his first prison experience. In 1894, not yet a socialist but an organizer for the American Railway Union, he had led a nationwide boycott of the railroads in support of the striking workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company. They tied up the railroad system, burned hundreds of railway cars, and were met with the full force of the capitalist state: Attorney General Richard Olney, a former railroad lawyer, got a court injunction to prohibit blocking trains. President Cleveland called out the army, which used bayonets and rifle fire on a crowd of 5,000 strike sympathizers in Chicago. Seven hundred were arrested. Thirteen were shot to death.
Debs was jailed for violating an injunction prohibiting him from doing or saying anything to carry on the strike. In court, he denied he was a socialist, but during his six months in prison he read socialist literature, and the events of the strike took on a deeper meaning. He wrote later: "I was to be baptized in socialism in the roar of conflict.... In the gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle was revealed."
From then on, Debs devoted his life to the cause of working people and the dream of a socialist society. He stood on the platform with Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood in 1905 at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was a magnificent speaker, his long body leaning forward from the podium, his arm raised dramatically. Thousands came to hear him talk all over the country.
With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 and the build-up of war fever against Germany, some socialists succumbed to the talk of "preparedness," but Debs was adamantly opposed. When President Wilson and Congress brought the nation into the war in 1917, speech was no longer free. The Espionage Act made it a crime to say anything that would discourage enlistment in the armed forces.
Soon, close to 1,000 people were in prison for protesting the war. The producer of a movie called The Spirit of '76, about the American revolution, was sentenced to ten years in prison for promoting anti-British feeling at a time when England and the United States were allies. The case was officially labeled The US. v. The Spirit of '76.
Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio, in support of the men and women in jail for opposing the war. He told his listeners: "Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.... And that is war, in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." He was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison by a judge who denounced those "who would strike the sword from the hand of this nation while she is engaged in defending herself against a foreign and brutal power."
In court, Debs refused to call any witnesses, declaring: "I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. I abhor war. I would oppose war if I stood alone." Before sentencing, Debs spoke to judge and jury, uttering perhaps his most famous words. I was in his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, recently, among 200 people gathered to honor his memory, and we began the evening by reciting those words-words that moved me deeply when I first read them and move me deeply still: "While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
The "liberal" Oliver Wendell Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, upheld the verdict, on the ground that Debs's speech was intended to obstruct military recruiting. When the war was over, the "liberal" Woodrow Wilson turned down his Attorney General's recommendation that Debs be released, even though he was sixty-five and in poor health. Debs was in prison for thirty-two months. Finally, in 1921, the Republican Warren Harding ordered him freed on Christmas Day.
Today, when capitalism, "the free market," and "private enterprise" are being hailed as triumphant in the world, it is a good time to remember Debs and to rekindle the idea of socialism.
To see the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a sign of the failure of socialism is to mistake the monstrous tyranny created by Stalin for the vision of an egalitarian and democratic society that has inspired enormous numbers of people all over the world. Indeed, the removal of the Soviet Union as the false surrogate for the idea of socialism creates a great opportunity. We can now reintroduce genuine socialism to a world feeling the sickness of capitalism- its nationalist hatreds, its perpetual warfare, riches for a small number of people in a small number of countries, and hunger, homelessness, insecurity for everyone else.
Here in the United States we should recall that enthusiasm for socialism-production for use instead of profit, economic and social equality, solidarity with our brothers and sisters all over the world- was at its height before the Soviet Union came into being.
In the era of Debs, the first seventeen years of the twentieth century-until war created an opportunity to crush the movement-millions of Americans declared their adherence to the principles of socialism. Those were years of bitter labor struggles, the great walkouts of women garment workers in New York, the victorious multiethnic strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the unbelievable courage of coal miners in Colorado, defying the power and wealth of the Rockefellers. The I.W.W. was born-revolutionary, militant, demanding "one big union" for everyone, skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native-born and foreign-born.
More than a million people read Appeal to Reason and other socialist newspapers. In proportion to population, it would be as if today more than three million Americans read a socialist press. The party had 100,000 members, and 1,200 office-holders in 340 municipalities. Socialism was especially strong in the Southwest, among tenant farmers, railroad workers, coal miners, lumberjacks. Oklahoma had 12,000 dues-paying members in 1914 and more than 100 socialists in local offices. It was the home of the fiery Kate Richards O'Hare. Jailed for opposing the war, she once hurled a book through a skylight to bring fresh air into the foul-smelling jail block, bringing cheers from her fellow inmates.
The point of recalling all this is to remind us of the powerful appeal of the socialist idea to people alienated from the political system and aware of the growing stark disparities in income and wealth-as so many Americans are today. The word itself-"socialism"-may still carry the distortions of recent experience in bad places usurping the name. But anyone who goes around the country, or reads carefully the public opinion surveys over the past decade, can see that huge numbers of Americans agree on what should be the fundamental elements of a decent society: guaranteed food, housing, medical care for everyone; bread and butter as better guarantees of "national security" than guns and bombs; democratic control of corporate power; equal rights for all races, genders, and sexual orientations; a recognition of the rights of immigrants as the unrecognized counterparts of our parents and grandparents; the rejection of war and violence as solutions for tyranny and injustice.
There are people fearful of the word, all along the political spectrum. What is important, I think, is not the word, but a determination to hold up before a troubled public those ideas that are both bold and inviting-the more bold, the more inviting. That's what remembering Debs and the socialist idea can do for use.

Ok so I lied

Yes, I have in fact been busy lately. I've been working on some web stuff and trying to find a new job in Austin so I havent had the opportunity to review and revise the blog. I do still want to write about the "disposable media icons" but I just havent had a chance to form a lot of derisive text yet. I will be gone for a few days and then hopefully upon my return I can in fact do to this blog what needs to be done and also to sit down and cull some stories or something that I'm sure will amaze and delight all who read it. Dont be upset and keep coming back to read. I promise in the next few months I'll try to make this something that you wouldnt mind showing your mother.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

NSA

Russell Tice, a longtime insider at the National Security Agency, is now a whistleblower the agency would like to keep quiet.

For 20 years, Tice worked in the shadows as he helped the United States spy on other people's conversations around the world.

"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations."

But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.

"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said.

Tracking Calls

Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use.

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."

According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.

Tice Admits Being a Source for The New York Times

President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.

But Tice disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.

"That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," Tice said.

The same day The New York Times broke the story of the NSA eavesdropping without warrants, Tice surfaced as a whistleblower in the agency. He told ABC News that he was a source for the Times' reporters. But Tice maintains that his conscience is clear.

"As far as I'm concerned, as long as I don't say anything that's classified, I'm not worried," he said. "We need to clean up the intelligence community. We've had abuses, and they need to be addressed."

The NSA revoked Tice's security clearance in May of last year based on what it called psychological concerns and later dismissed him. Tice calls that bunk and says that's the way the NSA deals with troublemakers and whistleblowers. Today the NSA said it had "no information to provide."

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Thats armor class 4 to you

A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.

For the first time, the study by the military's medical examiner shows the cost in lost lives from inadequate armor, even as the Pentagon continues to publicly defend its protection of the troops. Officials have said they are shipping the best armor to Iraq as quickly as possible. At the same time, they have maintained that it is impossible to shield forces from the increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices used by insurgents. Yet the Pentagon's own study reveals the equally lethal threat of bullets.

The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until this September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine Corps officials acknowledge.

The Army, which has the largest force in Iraq, is still deciding what to purchase, according to Army procurement officials. They said the Army is deciding between various sizes of plates to give its 130,000 soldiers; the officials said they hope to issue contracts this month.

Additional forensic studies by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's unit that were obtained by The Times indicate that about 340 American troops have died solely from torso wounds.

Military officials said they had originally decided against using the extra plates because they were concerned they added too much weight to the vests or constricted the movement of soldiers. Marine Corps officials said the findings of the Pentagon study caused field commanders to override those concerns in the interest of greater protection.

"As the information became more prevalent and aware to everybody that in fact these were casualty sites that they needed to be worried about, then people were much more willing to accept that weight on their body," said Major Wendell Leimbach, a body armor specialist with Marine Corps Systems Command, the marine procurement unit.

The Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since the beginning of the war in part to determine the effectiveness of body armor. The military's medical examiner, Craig T. Mallak, told a military panel in 2003 that the information "screams to be published." But it would take nearly two years.

The Marine Corps said it asked for the data in August 2004; but it needed to pay the medical examiner $107,000 to have the data analyzed. Marine officials said funding and other delays resulted in the work not starting until December 2004. It finally began receiving the information by June 2005. The shortfalls in bulletproof vests are just one of the armor problems the Pentagon continues to struggle with as the war in Iraq approaches the three-year mark, The Times has found in an ongoing examination of the military procurement system.

The production of a new armored truck called the Cougar, which military officials said has thus far withstood every insurgent attack, has fallen three months behind schedule. The small company making the truck has been beset by a host of production and legal problems.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is still relying on another small factory in Ohio to armor all of the military's principal transport truck, the Humvee, and it remains backlogged with orders. The facility, owned by Armor Holdings, increased production in December after reports in The Times about delays drew criticism from Congress. But the Marine Corps said it is still waiting for about 2,000 of these vehicles to replace other Humvees in Iraq that are more lightly armored, and does not expect final delivery until June.

An initiative begun by the Pentagon nearly two years ago to speed up production by having additional firms armor new Humvees remains incomplete, Army officials said.

Body armor has gone through a succession of problems in Iraq. First, there were prolonged shortages of the plates that make the vests bulletproof. This year, the Pentagon began replacing the plates with a stronger model that is more resistant to certain insurgent attacks.

Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for additional protection to stop bullets from slicing through their sides. In the fall of 2003, when troops began hanging their crotch protectors under their arms, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several hundred plates to protect their sides and shoulders. Individual soldiers and units continued to buy their own sets.

The Army's former acting secretary, Les Brownlee, said in a recent interview that he was shown numerous designs for expanded body armor back in 2003, and instructed his staff to weigh their benefits against the perceived threat without losing sight of the main task: eliminating the shortages of plates for the chest and back.

Army procurement officials said that their efforts to purchase side ceramic plates have been encumbered by their much larger force, and that they wanted to provide manufacturers with detailed specifications. Also, they said their plates will be made to resist the stronger insurgent attacks.

The Marines said they opted to take the older version of ceramic to speed delivery. As of early last month, officials said marines in Iraq had received 2,200 of the more than 28,000 sets of plates that are being bought at a cost of about $260 each.

Marine officials said they have supplied troops with soft shoulder protection that can repel some shrapnel, but remain concerned that ceramic shoulder plates would be too restrictive. Similarly, they said they believe the chest and back plates are as large as they can be without unduly limiting the movement of troops.

The Times obtained the 3-page Pentagon report after a military advocacy group, Soldiers for the Truth, learned of its existence. The group posted an article about the report on its website earlier this week. The Times delayed publication of this article for more than a week until the Pentagon confirmed the veracity of its report. Pentagon officials declined to discuss details of the wound data, saying it would aid the enemy.

"Our preliminary research suggests that as many as 42 percent of the Marine casualties who died from isolated torso injuries could have been prevented with improved protection in the areas surrounding the plated areas of the vest," the study concludes. Another 23 percent might have been saved with side plates that extend below the arms, while 15 percent more could have benefited from shoulder plates, the report says. In all, 526 marines have been killed in combat in Iraq. A total of 1,706 American troops have died in combat.

The findings and other research by military pathologists suggests that an analysis of all combat deaths in Iraq, including those of Army personnel, would show that 300 or more lives might have been saved with improved body armor.

Military officials and defense contractors said the Pentagon's procurement troubles have stemmed in part from miscalculations that underestimated the strength of the insurgency, and from years of cost-cutting that left some armoring firms on the brink of collapse as they waited for new orders.

To help defeat roadside ambushes, the military in May 2005 contracted to buy 122 Cougars whose special V-shaped hull helps deflect roadside bombs, military officials said. But the Pentagon gave the job to a small firm in South Carolina, Force Protection, that had never mass-produced vehicles. Company officials said a string of blunders has pushed the completion date to June.

A dozen prototypes shipped to Iraq have been recalled from the field to replace a failing transmission. Steel was cut to the wrong size before the truck's design drawings were perfected. Several managers have left the firm.

Company officials said they also lost time in an inter-service skirmish. The Army, which is buying the bulk of the vehicles, asked for its trucks to be delivered before the Marine vehicles, and company officials said that move upended their production process until the Army agreed to get back in line behind the marines. "It is what it is, and we're running as fast as we can to change it," Gordon McGilton, the company's chief executive, said in an interview at its plant in Ladson, S.C.

On July 5, two former employees brought a federal false claims case that accuses Force Protection of falsifying records to cover up defective workmanship. They allege that the actions "compromise the immediate and long term integrity of the vehicles and result in a deficient product," according to legal documents filed under seal in the United States District Court in Charleston and obtained by The Times.

The legal claim also accuses the company of falsifying records to deceive the military into believing the firm could meet the production deadlines. The United States Attorney's office in South Carolina declined to comment on the case. The Marine Corps says the Justice Department did not notify it about the case until December.

Force Protection officials said they had not been made aware of the legal case. They acknowledged making mistakes in rushing to fill the order, but said there were multiple systems in place to monitor the quality of the trucks, and that they were not aware of any deficiencies that would jeopardize the troops.

Friday, January 06, 2006

The "war" wages on

I mentioned in a post a few days ago about the "fallout" the day after the O'Reilly-Letterman verbal slugfest and then when O'Reilly took to the pulpit again, how he declared that there was a "culture war" going on. Media Matters put the video of the salivating hounds at Fox defending O'Reilly here

Next week I hope to sit down for a minute (when work isnt trying to sap ALL my brain power) and write a few diatribes about "disposable" celebrities and why we seem to be so fascinated by them. I also hope to be doing some revisions to the blog and see if I can make it a bit more visually stimulating, with the help of a good friend. Anyway, until then, read and enjoy.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Let the "culture war" start

So if you havent heard, Bill O'Reilly was on Letterman last night (find the clip here) and pretty much beat O'Reilly with his own stick. Various blogs have said today that Bill would take Dave to task tonight on his show The Factor. Guess what? He is now saying that Letterman is part of a "cultural war" in this country and that people like celebrities and others who ask what I think are valid and important questions are now part of the PROBLEM. It seems like every time someone takes O'Reilly to the mat, that he starts saying that its some VAST left winged liberal agenda to slanderize him, to defame and denounce him. I personally think that it sounds like O'Reilly gets caught SO often opening his mouth and inserting his foot that hes crying wolf now. Not only that but on his show tonight they have a "liberal" media consultant and one of FN's own slathering media mutts, saying how 'Yes little Bill, there is a conspiracy and because the liberals of this country really want to just call you names, that you are most certainly right.' Jesus, someone give me a labotomy. I hope that people who read me often and what I post on here, understand, that I dont call myself a liberal because thats what I think I am. I get CALLED a liberal because thats how others SEE me.
Oh yes and here is some words from Michelle Malkin, all we're missing is that other uber patriotic American Anne Coulter and we'll have the holy trinity completed:

The best neocon defense of O’Reilly (so far) seems to come from the venom spewing Michelle Malkin:

Bill O’Reilly took on David Letterman last night. Advantage: O’Reilly. The Political Teen has video. Letterman recycled chickenhawk arguments, muttered “Honest to Christ!” when O’Reilly refused to back down from his criticism of Cindy Sheehan, and attacked O’Reilly’s show despite admitting he doesn’t watch it.

Here is the transcript of the O'Reilly vs Letterman bout:


Bill O’Reilly: “I think that the Iraq thing has been full of unintended consequences and it’s a vital thing for the country and it's brutal, it’s absolutely brutal. We should all take it very seriously. This simplistic stuff about hating Bush or he lied and all this stuff, does the country no good at all. We've got to win this thing. You have to win it. And even though it's a screw-up, giant, massive, all right, right now, for everybody's protection, it's best for the world to have a democracy in that country functioning and friendly to the West, is it not?”

David Letterman: “Yes, absolutely.”

O’Reilly: “Okay, so let's stop with the lying and the this and the that and the undermining and let's get him. That is putting us all in danger. So our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't. Robust debate is good. But we believe that the United States, particularly the military, are doing a noble thing, a noble thing. The soldiers and Marines are noble. They're not terrorists. And when people call them that, like Cindy Sheehan called the insurgents 'freedom fighters,’ we don't like that. It is a vitally important time in American history. And we should all take it very seriously. Be very careful with what we say.”

Letterman: “Well, and you should be very careful with what you say also.” [audience applause]

O’Reilly: “Give me an example.”

Letterman: “How can you possibly take exception with the motivation and the position of someone like Cindy Sheehan?”

O’Reilly: “Because I think she’s run by far-left elements in this country. I feel bad for the woman.”

Letterman: “Have you lost family members in armed conflict?”

O’Reilly: “No, I have not.”

Letterman: “Well, then you can hardly speak for her, can you?” [applause]

O’Reilly: “I’m not speaking for her. Let me ask you this question.”

Letterman, referring back to O’Reilly’s examples of a war on Christmas: “Let’s go back to your little red and green stories.”

O’Reilly: “This is important, this is important. Cindy Sheehan lost a son, a professional soldier in Iraq, correct? She has a right to grieve any way she wants, she has a right to say whatever she wants. When she says to the public that the insurgents and terrorists are 'freedom fighters,’ how do you think, David Letterman, that makes people who lost loved ones, by these people blowing the Hell out of them, how do you think they feel, waht about their feelings, sir?”

Letterman: “What about, why are we there in the first place? [applause] The President himself, less than a month ago said we are there because of a mistake made in intelligence. Well, whose intelligence? It was just somebody just get off a bus and handed it to him?”

Bill O’Reilly: “No.”

Letterman: “No, it was the intelligence gathered by his administration.”

O’Reilly: “By the CIA.”

Letterman: “Yeah, so why are we there in the first place? I agree to you, with you that we have to support the troops. They are there, they are the best and the brightest of this country. [audience applause] There’s no doubt about that. And I also agree that now we’re in it it’s going to take a long, long time. People who expect it’s going to be solved and wrapped up in a couple of years, unrealistic, it’s not going to happen. However, however, that does not eliminate the legitimate speculation and concern and questioning of ‘Why the Hell are we there to begin with?’”

O’Reilly: “If you want to question that, and then revamp an intelligence agency that’s obviously flawed, the CIA, okay. But remember, MI-6 in Britain said the same thing. Putin’s people in Russia said the same thing, and so did Mubarak’s intelligence agency in Egypt.”

Letterman: “Well then that makes it all right?”

O’Reilly: “No it doesn’t make it right.”

Letterman: “That intelligence agencies across the board makes it alright that we’re there?”

O’Reilly: “It doesn’t make it right.”

Letterman: “See, I’m very concerned about people like yourself who don’t have nothing but endless sympathy for a woman like Cindy Sheehan. Honest to Christ.” [audience applause]

O’Reilly: “No, I’m sorry.”

Letterman: “Honest to Christ.”

“O’Reilly: “No way. [waits for applause to die down] No way you’re going to get me, no way that a terrorist who blows up women and children.”

Letterman: “Do you have children?”

O’Reilly: “Yes I do. I have a son the same age as yours. No way a terrorist who blows up women and children is going to be called a ‘freedom fighter’ on my program.” [mild audience applause]

Letterman: “I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. [audience laughter] But I don’t know that for a fact. [more audience applause]

Paul Shafer: “60 percent.”

Letterman: “60 percent. I'm just spit-balling here.”

O’Reilly: “Listen, I respect your opinion. You should respect mine.”

Letterman: “Well, ah, I, okay. But I think you’re-”

O’Reilly: “Our analysis is based on the best evidence we can get.”

Letterman: “Yeah, but I think there’s something, this fair and balanced. I'm not sure that it's, I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint.”

O’Reilly: “Well, you’re going to have to give me an example if you're going to make those claims.”

Letterman: “Well I don’t watch your show so that would be impossible.”

O’Reilly: “Then why would you come to that conclusion if you don't watch the program?”

Letterman: “Because of things that I’ve read, things that I know.”

O’Reilly: “Oh come on, you're going to take things that you've read. You know what say about you? Come on. Watch it for a couple, look, watch it for a half hour. You'll get addicted. You'll be a Factor fan, we'll send you a hat.”

Letterman: “You’ll send me a hat. Well, send Cindy Sheehan a hat”

O’Reilly: “I’ll be happy to.”

For more venom spewing see Howard Stern

NSA anyone?

US President George W.Bush has been forced into another defence of his National Security Agency's domestic spying program after revelations that a senior Justice Department official refused to give his sanction because of legal concerns.

Speaking at an army medical centre in the pro-military southern Texas city of San Antonio, Mr Bush said that, as commander-in-chief in a time of war, he had an obligation to "protect the American people." "It's a vital, necessary program," Mr Bush said. "We're at war with a bunch of cold-blooded killers who will kill on a moment's notice and I have a responsibility, obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing.

"Some say, well, maybe this isn't a war, maybe this is just a law-enforcement operation. I strongly disagree.

"We're at war with an enemy that wants to hurt us again, and the American people expect the commander-in-chief to protect them, and that's exactly what I intend to do."

But Mr Bush refused to address whether senior officials in his administration had opposed the program because it overrode the legal requirement for domestic spying operations to have a warrant issued by a secret intelligence court that was set up in 1978 to handle sensitive requests for surveillance.

The New York Times, which last month broke the story of how Mr Bush had authorised the NSA to intercept emails and phone calls without first obtaining warrants, reported that former deputy attorney-general James Comey refused to sign off on the recertification of the program in March 2004.

This prompted an emergency visit to then attorney-general John Ashcroft by White House chief of staff Andrew Card and Mr Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, the then White House counsel. Mr Ashcroft was in hospital, having undergone gallbladder surgery.

Their efforts to persuade Mr Ashcroft to give his authorisation, a requirement under White House procedures for the program, reportedly met more resistance, causing the NSA program to be shelved for several months.

The Justice Department is now conducting its own investigation into the leaking of the NSA program to the media. Mr Bush said the leaking had caused "great harm" to the US.

"The NSA program is one that listens to a few numbers, called from the outside of the United States and of known al-Qa'ida or affiliate people," Mr Bush said. "In other words, the enemy is calling somebody and we want to know who they're calling and why. And that seems to make sense to me."

The White House later put out a statement clarifying Mr Bush's remarks, saying only phone calls going to and originating from the US were being monitored.

The issue is now headed for congressional hearings. Many Democrats believe the administration will have a hard time arguing that powers vested in the office of president in the US constitution, combined with a post-9/11 resolution of Congress, give Mr Bush a legal power to override the courts.

If Congress finds the NSA program illegal, the question becomes whether Mr Bush has committed an impeachable offence.

Mr Bush's case is damaged by comments he made in Buffalo, New York, in 2004, two years after the NSA program started.

He said: "Any time you hear the US Government talking about wiretap, a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

Asked about this in San Antonio, Mr Bush said: "I was talking about roving wiretaps, I believe, involved in the Patriot Act. This is different from the NSA program."

New York Democrat Charles Schumer, speaking on Fox News, said the Justice Department investigation should explore the motivation of the person who leaked the information.

"Was this somebody who had an ill purpose, trying to hurt the US, or might it have been someone in the department who felt that this was wrong, legally wrong, that the law was being violated?" he asked.

Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said hearings into the NSA program will be his highest priority this year, but fellow Republican senator Mitch McConnell said any hearings should be heard in secret by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"We're already talking about this entirely too much out in public," Senator McConnell said. "It's endangering our efforts to make Americans more secure."

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