Did I Say Bear Hunting?
I haven’t seen any bears. I found a few beers, though.
Here’s a quick hits list of things I may return to on Wednesday, when I resume normal blogging.
- The Pats beat the Colts … ugly.
- Shane Harris reveals that the rationale for asking Qwest to break the law before 9/11 was hackers. Hackers, terrorists … same difference I guess. Though given the Administration’s troubled history with cyber-security czars, I’d like to consider the implications that their early excuses for violating our privacy pertain to cyber-security. John Conyers has finally asked for more details on the Qwest allegations.
- Our consumer product safety czar has been doing some swank traveling, courtesy of those we are paying her to protect us from.
- Orange County’s Republican Sheriff has been indicted. He has featured in some stories we’ve tracked earlier in this blog. And one wonders whether he was protected in the past by Bush’s USAs?
- The judge in the AIPAC case has approved the defense scheme to call Condi et al to testify about how they leak information through lobbyists. I’m actually more optimistic than most that something might come of this. Not to mention, I’m rather interested by the complete list of those who have been called to testify.
- Two minutes of blog hate goes permanent. The weirdest thing about this venture is that it is largely funded by International Studies entities, but every other post appears to deal with US political blogs. Which suggests 1) an ignorance about the whole range of blogging, and 2) a really bad investment for the International Studies set. Unless the serious foreign policy set is doing this because Atrios and Glenn Greenwald were mean to them. As is predictable, they don’t like pseudonymity anonymity and don’t know the difference between the two.
- In a move that will only surprise Matt Bai and Governor Mark Warner, Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s Constitution. Don’t worry–I’m sure this won’t distract Dick from his Iran fetish in the least.
- Both Merrill Lynch and Citibank are in some deep doo-doo for their investments in crappy mortgage loans.
- DiFi and Schumer, as expected, will support Mukasey to be AG. I guess Schumer’s ego really is more important to him than the Constitution and the rule of law. Meanwhile, the Administration purged a former Acting Assistant AG when he opposed their waterboarding fetish. No wonder Mukasey won’t say he’s opposed to it. I think these details on the Levin purge fill in an important hole in the timeline of the politicization of DOJ.
- The US was the lone country, of 172, voting against a UN resolution calling for peace in space. Even our stalwart Israel felt obliged to at least abstain rather than vote against this no-brainer resolution.
- Whistleblowers continue to be treated like crap in this country. But the press will tell you that it’s more important to have a journalist shield law than to fix our whistleblower protections. You know–because free speech is best when it has to go through a gatekeeper.
- Bandar Bush bin Sultan has now made his second claim that Saudi Arabia had the goods on the terrorists aiming to strike at the US and UK. I thought he made the claim about the UK terrorist plot to discredit Gordon Brown–perhaps as a favor to the Tories. But that doesn’t make sense, if he’s saying the same thing about the 9/11 terrorists. What’s he doing?
The WiFi gods are bound to be really mad at me for the Pats win, so I may not check back in until Wednesday.
Regarding Bandar’s comments, I sent an email to Larry Johnson to get his take:
Larry,
Followed your writing for a long time and want to thank you for the
service that you are doing all of us in the reality-based world.
What do you think about the Bandar bombshell about the Saudi foreknowledge
of 9/11: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/2/04358/5877
Seems right up your alley
Cheers!
Mark
blogging as Markinsanfran at dailykos
He replied:
Mark,
Thanks. I think Bandar is blowing a bit of smoke. Remember that in 2003 and 2004
they got hit in Saudi Arabia by Al Qaeda ops as well. They didn’t prevent those
either. His broader point about US clumsiness on the diplomatic front is correct.
LJ
Regarding Bandar’s comments, I sent an email to Larry Johnson to get his take:
Larry,
Followed your writing for a long time and want to thank you for the
service that you are doing all of us in the reality-based world.
What do you think about the Bandar bombshell about the Saudi foreknowledge
of 9/11: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/2/04358/5877
Seems right up your alley
Cheers!
Mark
blogging as Markinsanfran at dailykos
He replied:
Mark,
Thanks. I think Bandar is blowing a bit of smoke. Remember that in 2003 and 2004
they got hit in Saudi Arabia by Al Qaeda ops as well. They didn’t prevent those
either. His broader point about US clumsiness on the diplomatic front is correct.
LJ
I dropped this in the comments of an earlier thread, but in the AIPAC case there were references to two other un-named Gov Officials also giving info to the loggyists and there has been a lot of spec that Satterfield is one of the two. Since all the uproar, he has been pulled in closer and tighter to Rice, given a senior advisor posting.
Also – see the Nat Journal article on spying and the final paragraph, confirming your often stated position that these guys did not see collecting and using metadata as prohibited.
That NJ article is really important. It confirms what I’ve suspected all along about the Nacchio documents. The whole â€foreign to foreign†FISA controversy stems from the fact that they’re pulling stuff into the U.S. that wouldn’t normally have been routed through here. I sure wish there were some Dem Congressional staffers who had a technical clue.
WO – I don’t have any technical clues either, so I very much appreciate what you and others have shared.
Whoever heard of a pseudonym? Perhaps I’ll dip into one of Samuel Clemens Mark Twain’s novels just to see whether I can find any pseudoyms; are they large, hairy beasts? Or are they merely small, furry ones? Are they in the same genus as hooeyhooeynyms or heffalumps? Can you provide clues? (Animals? Plants? or Minerals?)
WO, the Dems don’t seem to have many (if any??) techie Congressional Aides.
Ciphering the basics of ’metadata’ would require a trip to the O’Reilly shelves at any decent bookstore, or simply a click at wikipedia. Or a swing by the Microsoft or Adobe websites… but really, who has the time?
It’s worrying, but near as I can tell, the Dems are clueless about acronymns related to wireless apps: SOAP, XML, WML… which means we’re at the mercy of lobbyists, and the Mafia. As usual.
Raimondo has a nice summary piece about the AIPAC case in case you’ve not been made aware of it:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11856
He’s not as hopeful as you about the wheels of justice grinding in our favor . . . I’m not either. The wheels of justice fell off our Republic’s bus long ago, it seems . . . . GO Patroits!
ESPN College GameDay will be broadcast from… here Saturday.
Congrats Wolverines on the comback win over the cross-state rival.
Congrats Pakers on their comeback win over the Chiefs.
Congrats Patriots on their two-drive comeback win over the Colts.
The Pats played nickel defense on most downs in the fist half to take away the Colts passing game. Three starters played out of position in the lineup to accomodate the game plan. While the Colts ran right, left and center, they were within scoring distance in the fourth.
Did you notice how loud the Colts fans were when the Pats had the ball and how quiet they were when Colts did? Then, toward the end of the game, the entire crowd skipped like a CD with a scratch in it. Ponder that.
I didn’t know the Vikes would win – I pulled that outa my arse. How about the rookie setting the NFL single game rushing record?!
you Neil, Adrian Peterson is from Oklahoma
we always get there SOONER, don’tchaknow
so wilkes is guilty on all counts, and now geragos says he’s gonna appeal, and the appeal will prove that wilkes is innocent
maybe I’ve got too much memory here
wasn’t the dukstir supposed to prove wilkes’ innocence ???
guess that one didn’t work
has anybody but me figured out that geragos smears a bunch of shit around and calls in a piece of art ???
your client is a piece of shit. your star witness is such a piece of shit that you didn’t even call him to the stand. all of your arguments have been vetted by a jury and found to be pieces of shit
it’s time to face reality geragos
you got a lot a shit on your hands and NOBODY believes you â€art dealer†hustle
we all KNOW it’s shit mr geragos
why not save the people of the state of california the trouble of telling you ONCE AGAIN that tou got a hand full of shit, not an actionable legal argument
the choice is yours garagos
Yo Adrian! freepatriot, how I loved the way the SOONERS ran the triple option back in the day and the ok state cowboys of the Barry Sanders years. Sanders was 5’8†and averaged 4.9 ypc in the NFL.
Dick Thornburgh, former AG , made a rather inconvincing appearance on Washington Journal this morning to advocate for telecom amnesty.
He compared as similar the impending civil action and more to the point judgments as having a chilling effect on the future cooperation of corporate American (with secret government programs of dubious legality) as similar to the code of silence some crime eyewitnesses follow.
Have at it.
Link to video
Link to WSJ op-ed
None of the people who called in were buying what he was selling.
Maybe Bandar is saying that they knew where all their Saudi citizens were but didn’t know they were terrorists, they needed US intel for that?
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A majority of Americans consider waterboarding a form of torture, but some of those say it’s OK for the U.S. government to use the technique, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Asked whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture, more than two-thirds of respondents, or 69 percent, said yes; 29 percent said no.
Asked whether they think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, 58 percent said no; 40 percent said yes.
I just want to thank Michelle Malkin for her stellar coverage of Dennis Kucinich’s house bill HR 333 to impeach Cheney here.
WOckh, Though still searching the local archive for the notice, I thought I would summarize based only on memory, re: your plaitive about CongressStaffPersontechCluelessness. In the wrangling over the sort criteria for the millions of offsite email server messages congress was bent upon subpoenaeing, there was a microsecond of barter between Fielding and Leahy, the upshot of which, as I recall, was each would have their tech person meet to decide what missives would have their existence admitted. As close as I can set the date is June 2007, but I am engaged in other projects too time consuming to narrow that further. It is clear from the hearings questions you are right; in fact, I would have wrangled with internetHiway FritzHollings in his day, as some of even his positions were very imprecisely stated. The whole incident concerning the offsite millions of emails probably is diverted by clamping secrecy mandates upon the national archive, a tenuous but transitorily workable strategy. But it stil has the flavor of an administration admitting congress’ accusations are correct but in several contentious issues production of documents is going to be blocked by the Fielding strategy: you might get some redacted version of one out of each ten emails that exist. So Leahy picks a knowledgeable tech person to elicit a more precise definition, off the record, of which emails and in which pocked condition RNC et all server farmers might send to congress. sub poena castigationis, indeed; ah, there is the razor of truth or is it tech demitruth.
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY WISHBONE
the triple option offense rules
it’s the only offensive formation I like, did I ever mention I’m a defense person ???
BOOMER SOONERS
yo Neil, thanks for that small bit of nostalgia
oh, and did I mention that Barry Sanders is the greatest ever
and a really great person too
cept for being a OSU Cowboy, Barry is perfect
quiet, humble, caring and faithful
Barry’s a Mench
had to be said …
I really like that…
Bandar Bush bin Sultan.
GFS