Dubai company set to run U.S. ports has ties to administration

Duh. Big surprise, huh? From the New York Daily News via CentreDaily.

The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"It always raises flags" when administration officials have ties to a firm, Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., said, but insisted that stopping the deal was more important.

If they couldn't get a piece of the pie, you know damn well this administration wouldn't do it. To Hell with National Security as long as their friends and crony appointees get theirs.

Maybe Bush'll take another look at this idiocy after the Al Qaeda Maru goes up in a mushroom cloud at dockside. On the other hand, that would be the next Pearl Harbor he needs to implement the rest of his domestic takeover...

Pack yer bags or STFU, O'Reilly

Following up on my previous post, it looks like "put up or shut up (yeah, like that'll happen)" time for Bill O'Reilly. Editor & Publisher's got the goods:

In a postscript to his regular New York Times column on Tuesday, Nicholas Kristof reveals that he has raised almost three-quarters of a million dollars from readers to send Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to troubled Darfur.

Today he noted that President Bush now seemed more interested in Darfur, and Olympian Joey Cheek had donated cash from his medals to help Darfur survivors. "So come on, Bill--and Oprah, and the rest of you on the little screen--and visit the world's most awful place," he suggested.

Hear, hear. Those folks' plight needs to get out to the wide audience. That may be something we could help fix without pissin' off the world. Given this administration's incompetence and ineptitude, it's a big maybe, but we ought to try. At least the good christians...

As far as O'Reilly goes, I'd like to assure him that his chances of being eaten by a lion or a crocodile are really pretty small. There's a chance he'll get his ass blown to smithereens by the janjaweed - they've never heard of him, after all. He's just another white meddler to them. There's some diseases and stuff, but I'm sure he has a good medical plan. Unlike the people he's going to see, I'm sure he'll get enough food and clean water.

I did hear that room service at the Darfur Hilton is kinda slow. Rough it, Billy boy, rough it.

My personal wish is that he just gets bit by a tsetse fly and goes to sleep for a while - like 20 years maybe. I'm not the vindictive sort.

Actually, Oprah's the best bet. People like and listen to her.

233

This week's Top Ten Conservative Idiots. All your favorites and some cool photos.

Iraq=Quail

Tom Englehardt nails Cheney's (and therefore Bush's) mindset.

Here's the thing: Don't imagine for a second that there's anything idle or far-fetched about connecting the shooting at the Armstrong ranch to the invasion of Iraq: Militarily speaking, top Bush administration officials considered a war against Saddam's Iraq the equivalent of the sort of farm-raised "hunt" that Cheney (and, among others, Vice-Presidential pal and "cabal" partner Donald Rumsfeld) have engaged in for years.

George, Dick, and the rest of them are remarkably consistent in their modus operandi. Whether on a quail farm, in the White House, or in Iraq, they pump themselves up as hunters or warriors, while the catering goes on and the "outriders" flush the birds for them. They create fictional worlds, impose them on the rest of us, and, at least to some degree, come to believe in them themselves - and they take ultimate responsibility for nothing whatsoever. They are, in short, the quailhawks and, in the larger drama, we, I fear, are Whittington.

It looks like they cherry-picked a lot more than Intelligence, and now it's biting us all on the ass. You owe it to yourself to read this one.

Printable version at Truthout.

Recognition

I always liked Betty White, especially since about 10 years ago when I learned of all the great work she does in animal rescue and supporting zoos. Seems the folks in L.A. appreciate it too:

Actress Betty White, whose many TV roles included domestic guru Sue-Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the 1970s, was honored by the Los Angeles Zoo Monday for her commitment to animals.

The zoo made the Emmy-winning star an Ambassador to the Animals at a ceremony attended by about 50 people, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

A bronze plaque will be placed next to the zoo's gorilla exhibit, home to White's favorite animal.

...

Bravo from the Fixer household.

Bake sales

It's a great thing they're doing, don't get me wrong, but the world is seriously out of kilter when we have to run bake sales to buy body armor for the U.S. military. Am I the only one who sees the complete incongruity of it?

Standing up the Iraqis

Jeff Huber looks at how well the Iraqis are replacing U.S. units in the field:

...

"Only" a third of the troops in this operation were American forces, who merely came along to "observe and advise." The rest were "elite" Iraqi counterterrorism forces.

This supposedly indicates that the stand up/stand down plan is working. But having a third of a strike force go along to "observe and advise" indicates that the other two thirds still need entirely too much observing and advising.

In other words, they still suck.

...

Our ports

Froggy on the UAE port takeover deal. This is incredible. What they don't sell to the Chinese they sell to the Arabs. In fairness, a British company who held the contract (P&O) is selling to the Emirate corporation. I don't know if I like the idea of any foreign company operating the biggest ports in the U.S.

A little more on RFID

I got a terrific response to my questions in my previous post on how to disable an RFID chip. Mostly from The Disgruntled Chemist, whom you should all go read if you don't already. He knows a lot about beer and other stuff too.

While I was ponderin' all this technical shit, two things (almost at the same time!) popped into my head:

1) I guess in a pinch I can just carry the RFID-laced ID card in my tinfoil hat. "Curses! Tinfoiled again!", and

2) How do you detect an RFID whose presence in your pocket or in your head may not have been divulged by its sponsor?

I will now return you to Earth-based programming.

Good News

LATimes

VIENNA, Austria -- Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to charges of denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison after conceding he was wrong to say there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Will someone please buy Ahmadinejad a ticket to Austria?

A Question or 3 on RFID

First, this article in the LATimes:

When Congress rushed passage of the Real ID Act last spring, the idea was to foil terrorists.

States would be required to replace their current drivers' licenses with forgery-proof identification cards embedded with private information that government agents anywhere in the country could quickly scan to verify a person's identity.

he federal government has yet to draft regulations for the program that would dictate what kind of technology states must use. But privacy advocates are particularly concerned about one option being considered, Radio Frequency Identification Technology, in which an embedded microchip contains information that can be read with a scanner. The technology is widely used in government and business, for such things as package tracking and the Fastrak highway toll collection system.

The GAO report, meanwhile, noted that misuse of the data is not limited to criminals. For instance, the government could place scanners in public places to track movements of citizens. The report says the chip could also be used to create profiles that "ascertain something about the individual's habits, tastes or predilections."

The main gist of the article was about California's antiquated DMV computer system and the fact that there are few people left that understand its language. Runes?

Anyway, Here's the setup: We're eventually going to get RFID in our daily lives whether it's in our Driver's Licenses or our Prefrontal Lobes. Inquiring minds want to know, whether we like it or not. Privacy is in danger of becoming a thing of the past, that "goddam piece of paper" - the Constitution - be damned.

Here's the question: What's a good way to disable these things?

If it's in my Driver's License (Should I ever get one - it's a rhetorical question at this point), perhaps placing it in a bowl of water and ten minutes in the microwave. Maybe no water, but what would it do to the microwave? Could you smack it with a hammer without leaving a mark? How do you fry the sonofabitch and leave no trace?

Obviously, if it's implanted in your head, those methods won't work. Well, they might, but...

Tattoo needle, maybe? Lasik? Wha...?

C'mon, gang. Chemist? BadTux? One of you knowledgeable computer or electronics types? High explosives are not the answer I'm lookin' for, so chill, F-Man.

Rats . . . leaving

Or, he beat me to it again. Driftglass was reading my mind the other day and PSoTD does it today. I was gonna write a post about the Repubs distancing themselves from the Chimp but this is about right:

Many Kansans, including members of The Eagle editorial board, have long admired Sen. Pat Roberts for his plainspokenness and reputation for fair brokering of issues.

So it's troubling that Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is fast gaining the reputation in Washington, D.C., as a reliable partisan apologist for the Bush administration on intelligence and security controversies.

...

They're waking up out there in the heartland. Not the way I'd like, but I think they're beginning to realize the Chimp is anything but 'conservative'. Digby also notices this:

...

This was the cult of Bush. But, as with all modern Republican presidents who become unpopular, he will be ignominiously removed from the pantheon. They did it to Nixon, they did it to Bush Sr and they are now doing it to Churchill the second. It's always the same complaint. They failed not because of their conservatism, but because they were not conservative enough...

By the time it's all over Bush is going to be seen as a coke-sniffing, frat boy hippy by the movement conservatives. This is how they do it. And then they'll go back to doing the same things they always do --- whatever it takes to win.

...

The neverending cycle continues. Hopefully by '08 the Bush name will be shit with conservatives and we won't have to deal with Jebby. But they'll find another, just you wait. That's why we have to get 'em all out of Congress this year, and if we do get a majority, hound our Dem reps to actually do the right thing, stay honest, and maybe bring the nation around to a more progressive way of thinking as a whole in 20 years. Could you imagine if progressives were running the show for two decades? Think of where we'd be. It's possible. Call me naive, but this is still America and anything is possible. The day I stop believing that is the day I leave.

This just in...

Start the week with the Ironic Times:

Only 10 in 34,000 State Dept. Employees Fluent in Arabic
And eight of them work in the cafeteria.

Control of Six Major U.S. Ports
Sold to United Arab EmiratesCompany for $6.8 Billion
Cuts out the middleman in event of terrorist attack.

Proves you actually can make this shit up! If you have enought reality to work with...

History

Today in history, 26 years ago to be exact, at about this time in the morning, my dad dropped me off in front of the Air Force recruiter's office in Bay Shore, Long Island. On this day I took an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, external and internal. The Air Force and I parted ways 8 years later and I thought my job was over.

I was part of the 'real world', a civilian who, hopefully, would never have to pick up a weapon to protect this nation again. Never did I think I would have to fight once more, not as a soldier this time but as a messenger, bringing truthful information to the mis-, dis-, and under-informed. I never thought my own government would try to form a monarchy, never thought Americans, born and raised in this great and beautiful place, would try to undermine the rights and privileges codified by the iconic but fallible Founding Fathers.

They were real men, just as we are (and I use the term 'men' in the humankind way), most, I'm sure, never wanted to become revolutionaries and agitators. But they saw something wrong with the system, the Imperial system, in place at the time. Their King George stole their wealth and independence, just as ours is doing to us, and it's time to stand up again, just as they did then. It is time for ourage on a grand scale.

We have a long history of standing up for the American Principle, the intangible that makes us different from every other nation on Earth. We are truly a 'nation of the world' tracing our roots to a couple hundred different places, speaking a myriad of languages, with basically one thing in common. Our forebears came here in pursuit of the American Dream. As a first-generation American, it was a lesson I learned early in life. The lure of liberty for all and the chance at prosperity was far too sweet for millions over the past 230 years, and many found it.

Our society wasn't perfect, but we fought wars amongst ourselves to make it better for all, more equal for 'everyman', not just the landed aristocracy and we might have to fight another soon. The Founders knew we had to grow, in both land area and outlook, to be accepting of changes the future would bring and gave us the Constitution as a living, growing document. The people in power now are destroying it and it is depending on us for protection.

This November, we will see if the Founders actually did give us a system that is self-correcting. It is the reason we must educate those who are misinformed. It is why we must pressure our representatives to uphold the principles we believe in or vote them out (Lieberman and others). It has to be done this year because I feel our nation cannot stand two and a half more years of Bush and the Repuiblican crime family.

While we can't do much about the administration, the Rubber Stamp Congress must be removed, control wrested from them by those who put the good of the country before the good of the corporations. It is critical we regain control of Congress for gridlock would be far better then the Republican version of 'progress'. I will not live in a banana republic or a corporate nation and those seem to be the only two options at the end of this road they have mapped out for us.

Iwo Jima

Reposted from last year.

On 19 February, 1945, U.S. Marines assaulted the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima.

Go read the rest Below the Fold.

The Gasbag Gap

Expanding on Fixer's post, Eric Alterman has a few words about the Blow-viators in The Nation. Here's the tag:

Indeed, as far as critical commentary goes, with the occasional exception of E.J. Dionne, there's not a single unapologetic liberal on any of these shows, save perhaps an annual appearance as a kind of anthropological curiosity. Tune in to every show every week for a year, and you are unlikely to see Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Rick Hertzberg, Harold Meyerson or anyone associated with The Nation, The American Prospect, The Washington Monthly, The New York Review of Books, Salon, In These Times, Mother Jones or even the liberal remnant inside The New Republic.

When you think about it, it is a tribute to the American people that they remain as receptive to liberal arguments as they do, given how infrequently they hear them.

It's my own opinion that probably five or ten times as many people listen to the right-wing weekday radio gasbags as watch the big-time Sunday gasbags. It may have something to do with available programming on the AM radio in a pickup truck out in the boondocks. These folks think the programs we think to be right wing are full of Godless Liberal Hollywood Commies.

Po' little Snotty

So, Whoreward Kurtz has Ari Fleischer on to make excuses for Snot 'The Lyin' King' McClellan. Oh, poor little Snot, reporters hate the Vice President and they used him as a punching bag this week. He's just a victim of the press' anger. Sorry, but if you're Goebbels' Mouthpiece, you deserve it. The mesage I got from the show, since I haven't watched it in ages, is the Left thinks the press isn't tough enough, the Right thinks the press is too tough, so we're just gonna keep reporting the way we've been reporting and let the chips fall where they may. One question. Why does CNN feel the need for this show to exist in the first place if the status quo is going to continue, come Hell or high water?

I think he's done

The wonderful Neil Shakepeare has a series going called 'Cheney's Got A Gun'. So far there's 14 chapters. I was gonna link to 'em (there's so goddamn many of 'em though and I'm not sure he's finished) but just scroll down his page. And while I'm at it, I'm lifting one of his pieces because it talks to me.

Evolution - Neil Shakespeare

Mindset

I've had the idea for a post on the Repub mindset for a long time. Mainly because it boggles my mind how people can just suspend their disbelief so easily, for so long a period of time. Well, Driftglass wrote it for me.

...

But, there is an initial instant when the GOP squeezes out yet another lie smack in front of the whole world that's worth watching. That magical moment at the very beginning of the Republican Lie Cycle; when some High Ranking Bush flunky shambles onto the national dance floor, squats right down, and gives birth to another monster while the everyone watches.

And for a looong moment, the music stops, and a hush falls over the Party of Lincoln...because they quite simply do not know what to do.

...

Since they are unwilling or incapable of thinking for themselves -- many believing free and independent thought to be, in fact, a Snare set by the Devil -- when a glitch pops up, they return to their default setting of running in tight, panicked verbal circles, mindlessly screaming Liberals are LiarsLiarsLiars until they are told what to think and say and feel and blame by an Authorized Party Technician.

Which, in this case meant that Deadeye Dick had to sit still and at least pretend he was fielding real questions from a real reporter long enough to satisfy the minimum needs of the ritual. So that tomorrow or next week when Scotty Dog is "peppered" with questions from thirty yards away, he can say, "The Vice President already covered that" a million times.

...

If, by this time, they don't realize what is happening in this country, they deserve what the Chimp is doing to them. The thing is, the rest of us are getting screwed too and we see it happening before our eyes. 39% of this country is made up of delusional masochists and that scares the shit out of me.

Once more unto the breach... the 2006 Elections

Glenn Greenwald recognises that we are in for a long, hard slog in our fight to protect the Constitution of the United States from the current Imperial Administration which seems determined to destroy it; it is easy to become discouraged when the White House seems to successfully halt us on every front, but as Greenwald says, this will happen "only if Bush opponents internalize the notion that they will inevitably lose because everything is against them and there is no way to change that". So what can we do? We need to make our voices heard in the right place at the right time which means looking at the 2006 midterm elections. 33 Senators and 495 Members of the House of Representatives are standing for election this year, and there will be many state and local elections as well. The 2006 Primaries are well underway and it's time to see how many of the corrupt SOBs we can dump. So who is out there? Who has ideas, energy and focus?
Fighting Dems
Veterans' Alliance for Security and Democracy
Band of Brothers
Fighting Dems on AirAmerica
ActBlue Netroots Candidates
Progressive Patriots
Blue Force
Look them up, find out more about them. Help them out, too--Hillary doesn't need your money and Joe Lieberman doesn't deserve it. UPDATE: The NYT has an article about the Fighting Dems today; this is the time, one and all, "because it's on, motherf**kers"!

We must remind ourselves that all is not lost, and who better to tell us that than either Buffy or Shakespeare's Henry V? It's Shakespeare tonight. Yes, Henry chooses to attack France, but he is also the underdog in this battle of revanchist foreign conquest and he depends on his soldiers to win. It is their resolve to trust Henry and to do their duty well that makes England victorious. Henry knows how to lead and calls on nobleman and commoner alike to come together as a unit that can totally depend on each other and finally trust and admire each other as well. Henry makes a Band of Brothers, and this is our time to be of "that happy few".

(before Harfleur: III,i)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood...
...For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit...

(and before Agincourt, IV,iii)
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

And here's some theme music to keep your spirits up:
Wango Tango--Ted Nugent
Fight Song--Scott Stapp
I am Me--Ashlee Simpson
Eternal POD
Baby Got Back--Britney Spears

AS IF! This is the real music list:

Day after tomorrow--Tom Waits
War pigs--Black Sabbath or Faith No More
Two soldiers --Cowboy Junkies
Tugboat--British seapower
Am I demon--Danzig
Brothers in arms--Dire Straits
Unknown soldier--Doors
My hero--Foo Fighters
Fortunes of war--Iron Maiden
And the band played waltzing matilda--John Mcdermott or the Pogues