What a monster of a human being:
Q: But Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4,500 Americans have died, at least 100,000 Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that?
CHENEY: I think so.
It’s a shame he’s already had a long and prosperous life. He deserves the fate of those he condemned to death so early in life.
Financial manager Marcus Schrenker, who officials say tried to fake his own death by parachuting out of a plane while over Alabama, was found late Tuesday at a campsite near Quincy, Florida.
And this song:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HohEh4PGLc[/youtube]
For D.B. Cooper and the money he took . . .
Now that things are hitting a little closer to home for newspapers, maybe we’ll get some real journalism on the impact of outsourcing on American jobs:
On Wednesday, the Sun-Times Media Group, at a meeting in the Sun-Times led by CEO Cyrus Freidheim Jr., told their unions they needed to cut their overall wage and benefit packages by 7 percent; they asked the unions to come up with ways to do it.
[ . . . ]
Sure to be on the agenda too is an idea the company floated Friday afternoon at the Sun-Times. It’s to eliminate 25 to 30 jobs — about a fifth of the editorial jobs remaining at that paper — by outsourcing the copy editing and layout functions, possibly to India.
[ . . . ]
The Sun-Times Media Group would have to be in terrible shape to consider such an idea. To turn copy over to editors on the other side of the world whose idiomatic English is so different is to guarantee constant aggravation and frustration, not to mention published howlers.
They must mean different published howlers.
It’s so not fair, that people keep implying that racism lies behind the Bush DOJ’s actions:
In that incident in August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Schlozman asking Schlozman to bring coffee for him to a meeting both were scheduled to attend. Schlozman replied asking Tanner how he liked his coffee. Tanner’s response was, “Mary Frances Berry style – black and bitter.” Berry is an African-American who was the Chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from November 1993 until late 2004. Schlozman forwarded the e-mail chain to several Department officials (including Principal DAAG Bradshaw) but not Acosta, with the comment, “Y’all will appreciate Tanner’s response.”
Just the sort of people you want in charge of Justice, no?
Looks like Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) letter paid off:
The [Smithsonian’s new portrait of George W. Bush’s] caption, describing the Bush era, originally said that the 9/11 attacks “led to” the war in Iraq. After Sanders pointed out the obvious flaw in that causal correlation — Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 — Sullivan replied: “Our intention was to remind viewers of the portrait that the listed events were defining moments in the Bush presidency, within the limited space of an object label. I appreciate your concern, however, about the words ‘led to.’ We will revise the label and delete the words ‘led to.'”
That this is noteworthy says much about the state of the country. But it’s an encouraging start.
This morning’s This Week contains a clue as to whether Obama is taking seriously the rule of law in the United States. In response to Stephanopolous raising the appointment of a special prosecutor to independently investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration (e.g., torture and warrantless wiretapping), Obama said:
We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation’s going to be to move forward.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, let me just press that one more time. You’re not ruling out prosecution, but will you tell your Justice Department to investigate these cases and follow the evidence wherever it leads?
OBAMA: What I — I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is he is the people’s lawyer. Eric Holder’s been nominated. His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people, not to be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So, ultimately, he’s going to be making some calls, but my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past.
This is simply wrong. You’re not going to know how to get things right in the future if you don’t know what and how you got it wrong in the past.  I understand that it would be a politically unpopular thing to do. But Obama wasn’t elected just to do popular things. He was elected to do a job. His job, as I noted the other day, is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. You don’t do that by ignoring the people who have turned the Federal government into a vehicle for destroying it. You don’t do that by providing clear evidence that there are no consequences for breaking the law. You have Cheney out there essentially daring Congress and the incoming administration to do anything about his actions, and this is Obama’s response?
The saddest part? Is that we’ve seen this happen before. And following instincts like Obama’s here is a large part of what made the Bush Administration possible.
Which one should write a song about this?
I can’t believe that I’m quoting Jay Leno, but this bit from a recent monologue involving the Senate not seating Burris is perfect:
“Actually, it looks like Roland Burris will get his Senate seat, but Senate leaders said not until his certificate is signed by the Illinois secretary of state. They say this has been the rule since 1884. They’ve never, ever wavered from this. Of course, over the past eight years, they’ve waived rules against, y’know, torture and spying on Americans and violating the Constitution, but never the little signature.”
Priorities.
Lessig takes his battle for intelligent public policy to the Stephen Colbert Show:
From the interview:
Colbert: You say our copyright laws are turning our kids into criminals, because they’re keeping kids from doing all the remixing they want of pre-existing art and copywritten material, right?
Isn’t that like saying that arson laws are turning our kids into pyromaniacs?? They’re breaking the law! You can’t just throw the law out the window!
Lessig: “Totally failed war.” Is that familiar to you?
Colbert: No. No. You’re saying we need a surge?
Like many, I’m fairly cynical about blogs in most of my conversations about them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see enormous value and potential there. This video reminded me that I should say that more often.
Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.
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