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Tuesday Reads

Posted: January 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Democratic Politics, executive orders, Gitmo, indefinite detention, investment banking, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , |34 Comments
Good Morning!

The first week of the New Year continues to bring College Football bowls and weird news.

The BBC thinks that Arkansas bird mystery may be solved. You may have heard that thousands of birds fell out of the sky on New Year’s Eve in the small town of Beebe.  Poison was ruled out since many of them wound up as midnight snacks for local cats and dogs that didn’t get sick. Now, investigators believe that fireworks may have caused the birds to panic and fly into each other and other things.

Initial laboratory reports said the birds had died from trauma, the AGFC said.

Residents reported hearing loud fireworks just before the birds started raining from the sky.

“They started going crazy, flying into one another,” said AGFC spokesman Keith Stephens.

The birds also hit homes, cars, trees and other objects, and some could have flown hard into the ground.

“The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level” to avoid explosions above, said Ms Rowe, an ornithologist.

“Blackbirds have poor eyesight, and they started colliding with things.”

Here’s an interesting thing at The Economist on the PornoScans used by the TSA.    Evidently, they efficiently humiliate us, but terrorist find them pushovers.  They’re expensive, offensive, and they don’t work.

BOINGBOING’s brilliant Cory Doctorow has dug up a paper (published in the Journal of Transportation Security) outlining how easy it would be for terrorists to beat the new backscatter “full-body” imaging scanners that are being installed at major airports worldwide. Leon Kaufman and Joseph W. Carlson, two professors at the University of California, San Francisco, submitted their paper, “An evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image characteristics” ( PDF) on October 27, way before the John Tyner/”Don’t touch my junk” incident pushed the controversy over airport security rules into the cultural mainstream. The findings are pretty clear-cut: a smart terrorist could defeat backscatter units (or “pornoscanners,” as Mr Doctorow dubs them) with relative ease …

Here’s a story from NPR that should bring more shame to the Texas justice system that imprisons and kills people at an unbelievably high rate. Where’s the DOJ when you need them to investigate violations of civil rights on things like this?

Prosecutors declared a Texas man innocent Monday of a rape and robbery that put him in prison for 30 years, more than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

DNA test results that came back barely a week after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was paroled in July excluded him as the person who attacked a Dallas woman in 1979, prosecutors said Monday. Dupree was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980.

Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any DNA exoneree in Texas, which has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001   more than any other state.

“Our Conviction Integrity Unit thoroughly reinvestigated this case, tested the biological evidence and based on the results, concluded Cornelius Dupree did not commit this crime,” Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.

Dupree is expected to have his aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon conviction overturned Tuesday at an exoneration hearing in a Dallas court.

There have been 21 DNA exonerations in Dallas since 2001, more than any other county in the nation. Only two states — Illinois and New York — have freed more of the wrongly convicted through DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center representing Dupree that specializes in wrongful conviction cases.

I’ve been posting some links down thread on some of the names floating around for the people on the probable list to replace Rahm and Summers at the White House.  Their main qualifications appear to be working for Investment Banking firms.  Leading contender for Rahm’s replacement as White House Chief of Staff is J.P Morgan’s William Daley.  Former Economic Adviser Larry Summer may be replaced by a Goldman Sach’s  beneficiary Lawyer Gene Sperling whose been an adviser to Timothy Geithner. Yes, that’s right; a lawyer for an economic adviser.  You’d think our economics-disabled POTUS would want an actual economist.  It seems, however, that Obama is highly worried that Big Business and Wall Street don’t like him.  Oh dear, we wouldn’t want any donations to dry up to the re-election campaign, would we?  Daley is close to Axelrod and Chicago’s Mayor Daley.  Feel all better now?

Antonin Scalia provided yet another reason why we need to reconsider resurrecting the ERA.  He just gave an interview and said women don’t have constitutional protection under the 14th amendment. He said this last September also.  There are lots of feminist blogs writing on this and you can find their links on Memeorandum.

Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, called the justice’s comments “shocking” and said he was essentially saying that if the government sanctions discrimination against women, the judiciary offers no recourse.

“In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that’s up to them,” she said. “But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there’s nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them. And that’s a pretty shocking position to take in 2011. It’s especially shocking in light of the decades of precedents and the numbers of justices who have agreed that there is protection in the 14th Amendment against sex discrimination, and struck down many, many laws in many, many areas on the basis of that protection.”

Greenberger added that under Scalia’s doctrine, women could be legally barred from juries, paid less by the government, receive fewer benefits in the armed forces, and be excluded from state-run schools — all things that have happened in the past, before their rights to equal protection were enforced.

Republicans are once again using Islamphobic slams to motivate the base and set ground for their continuing radical assault on constitutional rights.  We should be so lucky to have Shari’a compliant finance and banking.  Think no usurious interest and fees.   Also, the aim of investing in Shari’a compliant finance is ethical and moral investing and hoarding is prohibited.  Money must be used for the good of the community.   Plus some revenues must be set aside to take care of widows and orphans.  The most outrageous thing about some of these lies is that Orthodox Jews in places like New York have similar laws and practices already in place.  You don’t hear complaints about that though, do you?

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a newly-elected member who has loudly scapegoated Muslims and campaigned on a promise to oppose religious diversity, appeared on Frank Gaffney’s radio program last week. Gaffney, who routinely says that Obama is both a secret Muslim and a member of the “Muslim Brotherhood,” asked West about how the new Republican Congress plans to “take on Sharia as the enemy threat doctrine?” West said that, although he has not spoken with all of the new members, he hoped that Congress would focus on the “infiltration of the Sharia practice into all of our operating systems in our country as well as across Western civilization.” He explained that targeting Sharia should be part of America’s “national security strategy” and that a response to Sharia would somehow include “tailor[ing]” American “security systems, our political systems, economic systems, our cultural and educational systems, so that we can thwart this”

Propublica reports that Obama is trying to expand his options on Guantanamo.  The problem is that they also expand executive power in a way that would give a pretty good hard on to Dick Cheney.  Obama may use a signing statement.

Obama has issued a number of signing statements taking issue with more than a dozen legislative provisions and has come under some criticism for it from both Republicans and Democrats. Shortly after he took office, Obama promised to use them with less frequency than former President Bush, noting in a presidential memorandum in March 2009: “I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded.”Bush established Guantanamo through executive order and issued over 150 signing statements, more than any other president. The practice was especially controversial when Bush applied it to legislation dealing with detainee treatment.

The American Bar Association issued a report in 2006 that called signing statements “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.” The report was signed by a number of legal scholars including Harold Koh, who was then dean at Yale Law School and is today the top lawyer at the State Department and one of several advisers involved in the administration’s Guantanamo policy.

It seems that deceit webs–once woven–keep entangling the rule of law.

Robert Reich calls Obama and the Democrats enablers of Republicans and Their BIG Lie on his latest blog thread.

Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.

The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.

The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)

But instead of telling the truth, Obama has legitimized the Big Lie by freezing non-defense discretionary spending, freezing federal pay, touting his deficit commission co-chairs’ recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, and agreeing to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Will Obama stand up to the Big Lie? Will he use his State of the Union address to rebut it and tell the truth?

No and No.  Robert, you should know by now that Obama believes The Big Lie and that Democrats won’t stop him.  Raise your hand if you think The Big Question will be how long into the State of the Union Adress will it take before Obama tries to sell us The Big Lie and tells us we need to hand over and cut our Social Security?

We don’t appear to be the only group of liberals worried about Obama betraying the Democratic position on Social Security according to The Hill.

Maria Freese of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said she thinks Social Security is “more at risk than it was in 2005,” when President George W. Bush proposed far-reaching changes to the program, including personal accounts. The plan was vigorously opposed by Democrats and liberal groups and never came up for a vote in Congress.

Now, with Social Security coming to the forefront once again, liberal groups are preparing a campaign to oppose any “backroom” deals on retirement benefits.

“What I am really afraid of is another deal behind closed doors,” said Nancy Altman, the co-director of Social Security Works. “At least with President Bush, he went around the country on a tour and presented his plan, and people didn’t like it.”

This is such a true statement.  We saw that Obama was more than willing to sell us out–behind close doors–to big Pharma interests during health care reform.  We witnessed Obama dropping a public option so  quickly–despite campaign promises–that it must  been prearranged.   There’s got to be a connection to all these Investment Banker people showing up in the West Wing and that big pool of  money and investments in Treasury Bills out there that are pledged to those of us that have paid into the program since our first day of work.

Whats on your reading and blogging list today?

34 Comments on “Tuesday Reads”

  1. minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
    January 4, 2011 at 6:38 am

    Morning and thanks for all those links Dak, I have lots to read! I wanted to post this however:

    Rove Suspected of Role In Swedish WikiLeaks Probe | Connecticut Watchdog

    The possibility that the Republican Rove might have hidden influence in Swedish and the United States law enforcement is inherently hard to prove because of the secrecy of proceedings. So, I refrained until now from writing about it for Connecticut Watchdog, especially because Rove himself has so far failed to respond to my invitation to comment. Instead, I recently published the relevant information as a political opinion column on the Huffington Post.

    But the consumer stakes of potential WikiLeaks prosecutions are too important not to mention to this audience. In fact, underlying relationships between key figures in politics, law enforcement and the news media hold significant dangers for the public in restricting Net and web-based communications even if no improper action by Rove is ever established.

    • Woman Voter's avatar Woman Voter says:
      January 4, 2011 at 10:50 am

      Shuler, a pioneer in covering the federal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, wrote about Rove’s Swedish work in his Dec. 14 column, “Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?”

      Those of us investigating such complex matters build upon one another’s work. In an Atlantic article entitled, “Karl Rove in a Corner,” writer Joshua Green wrote in 2004, “Anyone who takes an honest look at his history will come away awed by Rove’s power, when challenged, to draw on an animal ferocity that far exceeds the chest-thumping bravado common to professional political operatives.”

      Shuler is an expert on how Rove-era prosecutors imprisoned Siegelman, his state’s leading Democrat, on trumped-up corruption charges. The Justice Department prosecution has become the most notorious U.S. political prosecution of the decade, and an international human rights disgrace fostered by the Obama administration in bipartisan fashion. But the prosecution had the benefit to Republicans of altering that state’s politics and improving business opportunities for companies wel-connected to Bush, Rove and their state GOP supporters.

      For me the scary thing about this article is that after the primaries, Donna Brazile went to the Republican event where she got maced and that is how we learned she was with Rove and she didn’t press charges and just moved inside. Chummy buddies Rove/Brazile and all the irregularities that went on during the primaries!?!

      Sheeesh, makes one do a lot of wondering…

      • Rikke's avatar Sima says:
        January 5, 2011 at 4:16 pm

        More proof that they are all the same, all on the same side. Very few of them are for ‘us’, the little people who pave the roads of gold upon which Rove and Brazile and their ilk trod.

  2. fiscalliberal's avatar fiscalliberal says:
    January 4, 2011 at 7:13 am

    Very interesting article from Huffington : Holly Petraeus To Be Elizabeth Warren’s Pick For Top Post In New Consumer Protection Agency (EXCLUSIVE)

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/holly-petraeus-to-be-eliz_n_803995.html

    Could be a very smart move given her experience and marriage to Patraeus

    Interview:
    http://www.kvue.com/news/Interview–Holly-Patraeus-85189157.html

    Key will be aggressive support staff

    • cwaltz's avatar cwaltz says:
      January 4, 2011 at 12:03 pm

      I have mixed feelings on the appointment. I feel there are already enough ” advocates” of our military in our government. I’d prefer somebody not connected to the massive defense industry. It would be nice if the rest of us could get some representation. Military members already have tons of rules drafted to protect them, the largest problem being they are widely unknown by younger sailors and soldiers who are targeted. (In short, it’s the dissemination of information problem). Furthermore, these soldiers and sailors have a whole entire subset of people to help sort things out in addition to the traditional avenues(social services) through MWR(Morale, Welfare, Recreation). I get though that this is a political game rather than a matter of life and death to Washington DC. It’s just a darn shame.

  3. Fannie's avatar Fannie says:
    January 4, 2011 at 7:32 am

    I recently stated that our schools are unhealthy, and here’s proof of Obama supporting
    sub standards for the poor in our schools

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/02/MNM61H0KT1.DTL

  4. Branjor's avatar Branjor says:
    January 4, 2011 at 9:01 am

    Since we were talking about empirical evidence and scientific proof, here is an interesting article from the New Yorker, on the ‘decline effect’ and how even well established, confirmed findings seem to be less and less true as time goes on.

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all

    • purplefinn's avatar purplefinn says:
      January 4, 2011 at 9:33 am

      Fascinating! The human element skewing “truth.” I’m still going to walk each day, ………….but those vitamins I’m popping?

      Jennions, similarly, argues that the decline effect is largely a product of publication bias, or the tendency of scientists and scientific journals to prefer positive data over null results, which is what happens when no effect is found.

      [snip]

      Palmer emphasizes that selective reporting is not the same as scientific fraud. Rather, the problem seems to be one of subtle omissions and unconscious misperceptions, as researchers struggle to make sense of their results.

      [snip]

      The problem of selective reporting is rooted in a fundamental cognitive flaw, which is that we like proving ourselves right and hate being wrong. “It feels good to validate a hypothesis,” Ioannidis said. “It feels even better when you’ve got a financial interest in the idea or your career depends upon it. And that’s why, even after a claim has been systematically disproven”—he cites, for instance, the early work on hormone replacement therapy, or claims involving various vitamins—“you still see some stubborn researchers citing the first few studies that show a strong effect. They really want to believe that it’s true.”

      Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1A53CeuGI

    • janicen's avatar janicen says:
      January 4, 2011 at 10:11 am

      Fascinating article, Branjor. Thank you for the link. It really makes one think twice about all of those studies and “evidence” that we tend to make life decisions around. It’s especially frightening when the studies involve medical treatment and drug efficacy.

    • cwaltz's avatar cwaltz says:
      January 4, 2011 at 11:29 am

      And this is where I sheepishly admit that I LOLed when someone made the statement “science explains everything.” Science is a wonderful thing. However, it spends much time contradicting itself and sometimes we’ll go YEARS believing something only to be given evidence we were absolutely wrong all along. We should absolutely continue to search for answers but the idea that we might be able to explain everything from science is millenias away(if it ever occurs)from happening. No, I feel confident in saying that the only thing I’m certain of, is uncertainty.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        January 4, 2011 at 11:36 am

        I’m not sure I’d call what goes on in some labs–especially those associated with for profit companies–science. You have to read the fine print and find out who funded the ‘science’. What comes out of those labs can completely contradict what’s taught in public universities. Remember, there’s a whole group of people out there that label a mythology “creation” science too. Finding who funds the ‘study’ has a lot to do with determining the pseudoscience. Especially on things that have a high market value like drugs and food.

        • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
          January 4, 2011 at 11:41 am

          Can’t you just see the $$$ signs all over this?

          But the data presented at the Brussels meeting made it clear that something strange was happening: the therapeutic power of the drugs appeared to be steadily waning. A recent study showed an effect that was less than half of that documented in the first trials, in the early nineteen-nineties. Many researchers began to argue that the expensive pharmaceuticals weren’t any better than first-generation antipsychotics, which have been in use since the fifties. “In fact, sometimes they now look even worse,” John Davis, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told me.

          Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1A5bYMpLE

          Thanks for the link Branjor!!!

          • cwaltz's avatar cwaltz says:
            January 4, 2011 at 12:36 pm

            Now the question is though is it the drugs or is it humanity since we know there have been some changes that have occurred to humans? For example, there has been evidence suggesting our brains have been getting smaller. Might that influence something like a drug that works on neurotransmitters in the brain? We have seen greater evidences of autism. Is that the result of the disorders range being expanded to include more functional and information being made more available or is it the result of our environment or is it a little of both? Since each individual has a unique blueprint it makes things superdifficult when judging results oriented data.

            I do agree that proft is a very motivating factor in the pharmacoloigy field. I definitely am not a fan of the whole entire throw the drug out there fast track system that initially was created for dire circumstances like AIDS but is utilized for other stuff. That being said I am equally astounded when something like Darvocet which was on the market for 25 years before being pulled for efficacy.

        • cwaltz's avatar cwaltz says:
          January 4, 2011 at 12:08 pm

          Creationists make me giggle too. Okay you disproved evolution. Guess what? That doesn’t PROVE creation. It just disproves evolution.

          Faith is something that belongs being treated like philosophy not science. Belief sets are wonderous things but they shouldn’t be treated as evidenciary when there are such broad ranges and no one has proof that theirs and theirs alone is the “right” set for humankind.

          • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
            January 4, 2011 at 12:15 pm

            That’s why you have to rely heavily on peer reviews and publishing in top journals. Even then, there’s politics and conventional thinking that sometimes prevail in those. But, otherwise, it’s a grab bag. The molecular biology findings are just blowing a lot of these folks right out of their potted plant status; with or without degrees. But the problem exists when some determined, moneyed interest wants to prove something. Money shrieks in science and every where! It’s why we can’t get rid of VooDoo economics too. You can’t publish crap like that in a peer reviewed Journal unless you and the echo chamber produce your own (like Mises “institute” and American Enterprise “institute”. But, you can get airplay, magazine time, and talking head status. Makes me want to scream.

  5. Delphyne's avatar Delphyne says:
    January 4, 2011 at 11:50 am

    A commenter over at Uppity’s place posted this – more dead birds, but now in Louisiana:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/another-large-bird-kill-reported-this-time-in-louisiana

    Something’s just not right with these deaths…

  6. Fannie's avatar Fannie says:
    January 4, 2011 at 11:52 am

    I’ve read the New Yorker article, and couldn’t help but think of Dr. Moskowitz who has found a cure for diabetics and kidney disease, and has published his findings but they want him to test 100,000 people. Then I can’t help but think of pompe disease and the Harrison Ford movie.

    You might find this an interesting read, 2 trillion a year market:

    http://www.genomed.com

  7. paper doll's avatar paper doll says:
    January 4, 2011 at 1:13 pm

    great round up!!

    It seems, however, that Obama is highly worried that Big Business and Wall Street don’t like him.

    That’s all he cares about…does the cold father like him or not? He cannot care about those in greater need tham himself …it. does. not. compute.

    Maria Freese of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said that Bush’s 2005 plan was vigorously opposed by Democrats and liberal groups ? That’s not how I remember it…I remember Dems, as ever , ready to wring their hands as they caved in …but the PUBLIC wouldn’t stand for it…what we said still sort of mattered… and every time Bush opened his mouth, the public liked his smash and grab plan for Social Security even less….”You can start wars based on lies, but do not F with my check ” was the basic message from the public seems to me…Once that message got though, and was accepted by the upper crust ( for the time being ) some Dems got on the bandwagon….but it was the public that stopped the theft then. So some history rewriting going on there, by a friend of Social Security no less.

    Keep dreaming Maria: Dems were not ready to fight Bush on that or anything else…they sure as hell will not be fighting for Social Security now…it will be up to the public…however the powers that be have learned something since 2005…and that is : Don’t ask the public: Just do it over a weekend , public be damned.

  8. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    January 4, 2011 at 1:29 pm

    Judith Miller clutches pearls when called out for hypocrisy. She’s also aglow over her fall to NewsMax saying Fox and NewsMax “value political independence”. Yes, I threw up a little while typing this. Now, for the hysterical laughter ….

  9. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    January 4, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    Oh, and I don’t know how many of you ever heard of Boney M, but Bobby Farrell died … he was a trip to watch and I didn’t even like disco. (one of the reasons I turned to jazz in the late 1970s)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gNYVia2rg

  10. minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
    January 4, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    Trying to catch up on all these links and comments is amazing to me. So much info and discussion. I love it.

  11. minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    GOP Gears Up to Take Down Health Care Reform – Truthdig

    Okay, check out the photo in this post. Look at the expressions of the people around Obama. To me it says a lot…

    White House/Pete Souza
    Put up your dukes: President Barack Obama pumps his fists while talking with senior staff in the Outer Oval Office on July 13, 2009. From left his aides are: Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform, Peter Orszag, former director of Office of Management and Budget, Phil Schiliro, assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, and Larry Summers, former director of the National Economic Council.

    • minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
      January 4, 2011 at 2:40 pm

      Nancy Ann Deparle looks tired, and not amused. Peter Orszag is clutching the note pad like some sort of priceless object, and he has a sheepish smile on his face. Phil Schiliro looks like he is just there in body…not very engaged. And Larry Summers, is looking at Nancy Ann and smiling in agreement.

  12. minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    Pakistani Governor Assassinated After Twitter Post | Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

    This is another disturbing “incident” that has happened recently.

    “I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I’m the last man standing.” – Salman Taseer (via Twitter)
    Salman Taseer wouldn’t back down from saying a woman sentenced for blasphemy should be pardoned. He was adamantly opposed to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and it got him killed.
    Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the killer, identified as Mumtaz Husain Qadri, had confessed to the shooting and told police he was motivated by the governor’s outspoken opposition to Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, which are strongly backed by Islamist parties. – LA Times

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      January 4, 2011 at 4:04 pm

      Here’s an obit from Muslim Voices that includes his last interview.

      http://muslimvoices.org/pakistans-salman-taseer-dead-66/

      They’re definitely saying that it was hard line extremists that did this murder.

      Also, here from All Voices:

    • B Kilpatrick's avatar B Kilpatrick says:
      January 5, 2011 at 3:22 pm

      The Pakistani government spent years breeding this monster, with lots of help from the Saudis – using Islam as a tool to unite people against India and in favor of the military, ignoring the fact that their real educational system was going down the tubes while Saudi-sponsoring loony-toon madrassas churned out 20 or 30 times more half-educated clerics than the country could do anything with, and allowing the army to run virtually everything – and now it’s doubtful that ANYONE can fix this.

  13. minkoffminx's avatar Minkoff Minx says:
    January 4, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    ‘Huckleberry Finn’, Minus the ‘N’ Word – In the News – Truthdig

    This is ridiculous, to alter the words of Huckleberry Finn so that it is Politically Correct…Am I the only one bothered by this? What book will be next on the list?

    • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
      January 4, 2011 at 3:58 pm

      No. It bothers me too. There has to be a point at which stuff like this is seen in context of its time. Problem is there are still many people that suffer from ‘literal’ itis. That includes the idiots that go to that Creation Museum in Kentucky where dinosaurs, neanderthals and modern humans are posed in the Garden of Eden.

  14. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    January 4, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    Here’s some good news, just released from the ACLU:

    Government Display Of Mt. Soledad Cross War Memorial Declared Unconstitutional In ACLU Case On Behalf Of Veterans’ Group

    SAN DIEGO – A federal appeals court unanimously ruled today that the government’s display of a 43-foot-tall Latin cross on Mt. Soledad in California violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The federal display was challenged in a lawsuit by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America and several local residents, all of whom were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.

    “We are pleased that the court recognized the fundamental principle barring the government from playing favorites with religion,” said Daniel Mach, Director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Unlike religious symbols on individual headstones that appropriately reflect the personal faiths of fallen American soldiers, when the government displays a giant sectarian symbol as a national war memorial, it sends a divisive message valuing the sacrifices of some service members above all others.”

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