The scariest article I've ever read....

If you do one thing today...read this. It is an article talking about a billion dollar criminal underworld on the internet, open and free for all to see, selling all of our personal information for pennies on the dollar. And people think I'm crazy for canceling all my credit cards. Yeah, crazy like a fox.

Money quotes:

I still don't know why my card was replaced, but I have a hunch: a massive electronic heist at a New Jersey-based company called Heartland Payment Systems. Heartland acts as a middleman between retailers and credit card companies, and processes about 100 million transactions every month. At some point in March 2008, a group of hackers is believed to have broken through the firm's cyber-defences. They installed software that, for about four months, secretly relayed credit and debit card details to an external computer. It is likely that tens of millions of cards were hacked.
...
Retail systems like Heartland's do not generally contain personal information, but hackers find it surprisingly easy to dupe people into handing it over. "Netter is almost certainly getting his information by phishing," says Gundert. He's referring to scams that direct users to websites that look almost identical to those operated by major banks. In reality, the sites are run by criminals, who use them to trick people into giving away the kind of information that netter is selling.
...
Law enforcement experts, such as the cyber-security team run by the FBI, have more sophisticated methods for locating chatroom servers, but the trail often leads to countries such as China or Russia, where foreign agencies can find it time-consuming to collaborate with the police. Security experts say better international cooperation is producing results, such as last year's arrest of two prominent Turkish hackers. There will always be some governments, however, that will not work with authorities in the west, where most victims of cybercrime live.

The Greatest Open Thread in History

Let us put our thoughts in you...

As the healthcare debate heats up....

Remember this....we need a credible public option that the private market must compete with. This will ensure that the uninsured have insurance, as well as control costs. We will start seeing commercials which slam a public plan, paid for by the private insurance companies. Just think about it after the last 20 years of private insurance...if the insurance companies are against it, shouldn't we be for it? If Obama scraps a public plan, everything he says is a joke and cannot be trusted.

General Petraeus: The United States has "violated the Geneva Conventions "

When even General Petraeus goes on Fox News (!) and states that our so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, aka TORTURE, of prisoners and detainees violate the Geneva Conventions, you must take some pause. This HuffPo post has more details.

Here's a new video out by VoteVets.org:


Money quote, which pretty much sums up the point I was trying to make in the Morning Whiskey thread: "The Unites States can't be a beacon of freedom and human rights and the value of law while we ignore international law."

Banning the bulb

Edison's incandescent light bulb will be banned in 2014. Here is an article explaining why. The gist is that the light bulbs create 90% heat and only 10% light, and consumers won't stop buying them.

President Obama on Cyber Security

Obama talks about the need for a department of cyber security, and even makes a little news, saying that his campaign website was repeatedly hacked during the campaign......26 minutes:

Thought of the day.....

All the words Kavya Shivashankar had to spell in yesterday's spelling bee were easier than spelling her name. No wonder she won. Also, the spelling bee is the dumbest event in history. No one uses said words. It should be turned into an MTV show where drinking is involved before each word and extra drinks if you get the word wrong. But also, a betting portion where you can bet your other contestants drinks if you choose from the more difficult categories of words. So, say a category was "Spelling Bee Championship Last Names", you could bet each of your competitors more drinks than say "Words you can't even spell on cable".

You still use brainiacs, but now they are over 21, can bet, and have to drink.

Morning Whiskey - 05/29/2009

1. [GEORGE BUSH ON TORTURE] - CNN - George W. Bush came out yesterday and defended Dick Cheney's assertions about torture in a speech to south western Michigan. Specifically citing how torturing KSM almost 200 times led to the saving of lives. Apparently throwing up a guy who was tortured in the Hanoi Hilton using these same techniques doesn't allow you to browbeat Democrats during a presidential election, so now they must have this debate.
2. [CYBERWAR] - NYTs - President Obama plans to announce a new effort to combat cyber threats at the Pentagon.
3. [NORTH KOREA] - Fox News - North Korea fires another short range missile. It is the 6th missile they have fired since the nuclear test on Monday.
4. [IRAN BOMBING] - BBC - The leader of the province in Iran where yesterday's mosque bombing occured accused the U.S. of being behind the bombing that killed 19 people and wounded 60, but when pretty much anything goes wrong in Iran, it is our fault.
5. [20,000 DEAD] - CNN - Sri Lanka, an island nation off of India, and in the final months of their civil war, over 20,000 people died.
6. [HEALTHCARE NOW OR NEVER] - Breitbart - Yesterday, on the phone with his Organizing for America political organization, Obama said that healthcare changes must come this year or they won't come at all.
7. [ISRAELI PROBLEM] - WSJ - President Obama said Israel must stop the expansion of settlements in Palestinian lands, and was told by Israel they were going ahead with them anyway, defying his call for peace. Looks like hope doesn't solve all problems. The crazy settlers also called Obama a racist. I think the Holocaust card is about as used up as the race card.
8. [LEADING ALL COMERS] - Politico - The House Minority Leader, John Boner(sp?), submitted the current number 1 suggestion on Obama's open government website....it is to have Congress wait 72 hours before voting on major spending bills. What is major?
9. [BEATS YOU NEED] - Shinyribs - Bolshevik Sugarcane

The Greatest Open Thread in History....

Let us put our thoughts into you.....

The other shoe drops....

12% of all homeowners are either in foreclosure or behind on their payments, and for the first time fixed mortgages in foreclosure are greater than the number of sub prime mortgages....i.e....the perfect family with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever probably bought 1000 too many square feet:

At least it wasn't a little boy.....

Documenting the downfall of "Father Oprah", the Spanish speaking priest who got caught, literally, with his hands down a woman's bikini on a Florida beach. Yes, ladies, his name actually is Cutie, and better yet, he is available now that he left the church.

Taliban promises more attacks....

Pakistan allowed Saudi Arabia in the 80s to fund madrassas, READ: terrorist factories, along it's western border to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. After the Soviets pulled out and to this day, Pakistan still allows Muslim 'charities' to fund these schools to train young males the ways of jihad. This mountainous region left back in the 7th century is where the Taliban finds it's fighters and it's ideology. Now, these fighters are turning on Pakistan, bombing civilians and issuing new threats daily. Why fight the Americans in Afghanistan when you can fight the Pakistanis and their ill-equipped army? To these Taliban/Al Qaeda type radicals, regular Muslims are just as bad as the American soldiers in the neighboring country. They believe we all have to be killed to bring about their radical Islamic state. Pakistan was fine when these radicals were killing Soviets in the 80s and Americans over the last few years, but now they're reaping what they've sown. This is a deal that all Muslim governments have made with their local radicals: focus your energies on hating the Jews and the Americans, and we'll leave you be. But now, all of the radicals are going after the governments themselves. It is going to be an interesting decade.

A widening war....

Afghanistan is landlocked, the reason being Sunni Pakistan and Shia Iran sharing a border. Today, a bombing in a Iranian mosque along that border killed 15 people. Is there any coincidence that on the day that the Taliban warns all Pakistanis to leave the big cities because the Taliban is planning more attacks, that a blast rocks Pakistan and a blast hits a Shia mosque? The attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and most likely this attack in Iran all share one thread, they come from the lawless region that borders, and is part of, all three countries. It is a like a festering sore that threatens to destabilize two of the three countries. It seems to me that the Taliban is trying to draw Iran into a war with Pakistan.

Morning Whiskey - 05/28/2009

1. [REGULATOR...MOUNT UP] - WaPo - One of the ways business skirts regulations is simply because there are 16 agencies performing similar regulating functions but not talking to each other. The Obama Administration is looking to put all those separate agencies under one roof in one big agency. BYN - Warren G - Regulate. RIP Nate Dogg.
2. [ABORTION UNEASE] - NYTs - Abortion rights advocates aren't sold on Obama's Supreme Court nominee, because she has rulings against pro-choice cases, another reason why the pick is sure political geniusObama is just daring Republicans to battle him on this.
3. [NEIGHBOR v. NEIGHBOR] - CNN - Local Iraqis talk about how their neighbors turned on them and beheaded their son. Then, they held his body ransom, and after the family paid $10,000 to get it back, their one time neighbors still wouldn't give the body up. The way I read the article, it sounds to me like Iran(Shia) is paying $10,000 for every Iraqi Sunni body in an effort to keep the civil war in Iraq going.
4. [CHENEY'S LIES] - HuffPost - A former American interrogator in Iraq points out Cheney's lies and distortions
5. [ISRAEL DEFYING U.S.] - BBC - Israel's favorite way to incite the Palestinians and the greater Arab world is to build settlements. Basically, they steal Palestinian land, build walled compounds, and put armed Israeli settlers, religious fanatics, there. The position of the Obama Administration is against settlements, and we've told Israel accordingly, but the Israelis are going ahead with new settlements anyway.
6. [HOUSEHOLD HAZARDS] - CNN - Common household hazards that we often overlook. Must read if you have kids, or if you are slow.
7. [RECOVERING OIL] - Bloomberg - OPEC, oil terrorists, aren't cutting production because they see an increase in worldwide oil demand. Hopefully, this is a sign that the worst of our economic troubles are over. But it also means that we are going to be paying $3 to $4 a gallon again.
8. [GM BANKRUPTCY] - Time - GM is going to go into bankruptcy by Monday. They paid all their employees 3 days early this week. Can the government fix GM? We are already in the hole for $20 Billion. It may cost the government $30-$50 Billion more.
9. [ROBERT GATES] - Time - Joe Klein profiles Bob Gates, and gets that the Secretary of Defense under Bush, who Obama asked to stay on and trusts most on National Security, was just going to be a placeholder for a year, but it looks like gates is going to stay on for a while under President Obama. I think that is a testament to both men. Must read stuff.

Gates seems uncomfortable talking about military intellectual stuff like counterinsurgency doctrine. He insists that logic, not doctrine, has driven everything he has done as Secretary of Defense. The highest priority was supporting the troops. "He resourced the important bureaucratic knife fights," said one senior Army officer. "He sided with us on MRAPs [mine-resistant vehicles] and unmanned drones, and increased intelligence, and more helicopters. Those should have been no-brainers, but it had been a real struggle to fund them before Gates." A military intelligence officer who was an Iraq specialist told me he had been pleading for more resources throughout the Rumsfeld years: "Iraq was Rumsfeld's fourth highest priority, after China, North Korea and Iran," he said. "But Gates called me in and asked, 'What do you need?' And he gave us everything we requested." Senior combatant commanders say these decisions, no less than the new tactics and increase in troops, helped change the course in Iraq.

10. [KOREAN ALERT] - NYTs - American soldiers in South Korea go on the highest alert level. North Korea has been marching towards war ever since their leader had a stroke a few months ago.

Morning(Evening) Whiskey - 05/27/2009

1. [SOTOMAYOR THE RACIST] - ABC - The RNC, Rush, Newt, and Cheney have decided that the best way to attack Obama's Supreme Court nominee is to call her a racist
2. [MEXICAN BUSINESS] - WSJ - How companies are affected by Mexican drug running, where trucks filled with everyday goods are packed with 'additional cargo'.
3. [PAKISTAN BOMBING] - BBC - The Taliban attacks Lahore, Pakistan with a suicide bombing to show they can hit anywhere anytime
4. [BILL CLINTON'S NEW LIFE] - NYTs - A long but detailed read on Bill Clinton's travels during an Obama presidency. I wonder what him and Putin talked about....
5. [WAR ON POLICE] - WSJ - The Taliban has opened a new front in it's war on Pakistan by attacking local police forces.
6. [RUSSIAN PARENTING] - BBC - Jungle Book in Siberia
7. [SUSAN BOYLE] - The Sun - Susan Boyle freaked out today, and apparently has quite a mouth
8. [RAPING IRAQIS] - Telegraph - Some of the images President Obama is trying to prevent from being released show at least two instances of soldiers raping prisoners.
9. [NORTH KOREA] - WSJ - North Korea is quickly headed down a dangerous path. They are repealing treaties, launching missiles, and testing nukes. The UN wants 'sanctions' while it appears North Korea is preparing for war.
10. [ROLAND BURRIS] - Hardball - Chris Matthews interviews Roland Burris about the brewing pay to play scandal. Simply fascinating:

Report: Sestak to challenge Specter in 2010

Talking Points Memo is reporting that Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA) intends to challenge newly-switched "Democratic" Senator Arlen Specter in a Democratic primary in 2010. Apparently, Pennsylvania Democrats are saying they're with Specter. But it's hard to pick Specter, who voted against President Obama's budget and all but threatens that he won't be a 'loyal Democrat', over a man who voted with his party 97.8% of the time.

COUNTDOWN: Mancow talks torture

Conservative radio talk show host talks about his experience being waterboarded. He went into it thinking it was a joke, and came out saying it was torture. The interesting part is his call with Sean Hannity:

Rush Limbaugh on Obama's Nominee

Obama and Sotomayor are reverse racists....it is going to be an ugly summer.

Obama's Supreme Court Nominee

I'm sorry for the lack of discussion regarding Obama's supreme court selection. Its just that I don't care. I think the 'activist judge' argument pushed by the Republicans is the biggest straw man ever created. The woman is extensively qualified, smart as hell(top student at Princeton), and has a decorated record as a judge. President Obama is daring the Republicans to fight this battle, and they will be the ones that will end up hurt after they fight. Not only will she win the nomination, but the Republicans will lose hispanics and women after they try and tear her down.

The politics of this are very interesting, and it could be a further death blow to the Republicans if they do what they are gearing up to do. The interesting part of the pick is that the left isn't happy about this, and the Republicans are still going to fight like she is the anti-christ. I mean, Mike Huckabee was so rushed in attacking her that he sent out a memo with her name as 'Maria' when it is Sonia. Anyone who cares enough about judicial nominees to picket, protest, or slander someone with a distinguished career should be punched in the face. As long as she doesn't have any scandals and she is qualified, good for her.

Morning Whiskey - 05/26/2009

1. [DRONE WARS] - New Republic - A must read detailed piece about the arguments for and against the U.S. drone program in Pakistan, where we kill Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, as well as civilians, with pilotless drone attacks. The program is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, because we are killing 'civilians', but has been escalated by Obama. His military commanders argue for more strikes, while others in the country are arguing that the strikes don't work. Here is a part of the article noting a major shift in Pakistan. I find the part about suicide bombing striking. I mean, if you even have to ask the question, your country is backward:

In fact, future historians may record the Taliban's decision to move from the Swat Valley into Buner District, only 60 miles from Islamabad, as the tipping point that finally galvanized the sclerotic Pakistani state to confront the fact that the jihadist monster it had spawned was now trying to swallow its creator. Indeed, lost in all the disturbing pictures of the Taliban advancing on Islamabad are three seismic shifts in the Pakistani political landscape whose importance is rarely discussed today in the U.S. press. First is the lawyers' movement, which lies outside of the control of Pakistan's traditional hidebound party system and was instrumental in pushing dictator General Pervez Musharraf out of power last year. Second is the explosion in independent Pakistani TV stations, which are largely pro-democratic and secular. Third, the alliance of pro-Taliban religious parties known as the MMA was trounced in the 2008 election, earning a miserable 2 percent of the vote, while support for suicide bombing among Pakistanis has plummeted from 33 percent in 2002 to 5 percent in 2008.

2. [NUCLEAR IRAN] - AP - Bolivia and Venezuela are supplying Iran with uranium for it's nuclear program according to Israel
3. [NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA] - BBC - As the UN tries to act important, North Korea fires two more missiles to show it can strike South Korea, presumably, with it's recently tested Hiroshima sized nuclear weapons.
4. [INTERNET VOTE] - AP - Honolulu holds the first internet vote in the history of the nation
5. [ISRAEL'S COVERT WAR] - Telegraph - Israel has launched a covert war inside of Iran to disrupt Iran's weapons program using front companies and assassinations
6. [THE HUM] - BBC - Have you heard it?
7. [NERD ALERT] - WaPo - President Obama is going to create a cybersecurity czar position to protect our country's computer networks. READ: from the Chinese military hacker teams.
8. [TALIBAN MOMENTUM] - WSJ - Defense Secretary Gates says that the Taliban have the momentum in Afghanistan
9. [OVERHAULING FINANCIAL REGS] - Politico - Geithner is set to overhaul the way disseparate agencies regulate the financial markets
10. [SUPREME COURT PICK] - NYTs - President Obama's list of supreme court candidates is narrowed to four women.

Beats you need....

Shinyribs - Buy you a drink (T-Pain cover):

Meet the Press - Gingrich v. Durbin

North Korea Tests Nuke

North Korea says that it has successfully tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion

Powell blasts Cheney on Face the Nation

This is in response to Vice President Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh saying that Powell isn't a Republican...

Clinton and Obama are brilliant

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are about to announce a new policy that confers all the benefits married people and their families receive to same sex families of American diplomats. While a small change at the federal level, it is huge symbolically in saying that the U.S. State Department , a federal agency, is not going to discriminate. Now, if this plays out as it should, Republicans will have to justify, not why gays shouldn't marry, but why they shouldn't get health insurance, death benefits, 401k benefits, visitation rights, etc. A small step, but a necessary one to move the debate forward.

President Obama CSPAN Interview - 30 minutes

Obama discusses his upcoming Supreme Court pick, probably coming Tuesday. Reiterates his 'empathy' argument, which I think falls flat. He is right to say that a justice should understand how the law affects the public, but empathy is a weak argument. Says he thinks the confirmation process will take 60 to 90 days. Whoever Obama chooses, they will be compared to Satan by the Republicans. He then moves on to healthcare and other issues facing his administration, with an extended portion about the auto industry and the possibility of bailing out the states, which he says he has no plans on doing.

Morning Whiskey - 05/22/2009

Morning Whiskey is an open thread today because of the holiday. Liberals, don't spit on any soldiers this weekend. Obviously, I am kidding you sensitive bastards.

I can't resist one story....soldier rushes into battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan in pink boxers and flip flops

President Obama's speech on combatting terrorism

51 minutes long....Obama basically says that he will continue to move forward with closing GITMO, a mess created by the previous administration, and that America doesn't torture. The drive by media is hyping this as Obama v. Cheney, but I don't understand why Obama is picking this fight now. The White House doesn't even have any good talking points on this subject. They're just allowing the opposition to level charges without any evidence. My only guess is that Obama is using this torture debate so he can push all of his domestic stuff through Congress:

Morning Whiskey - 05/21/2009

1. [NEW YORK TERROR PLOT] - AP - After a year long investigation, the FBI has charged four men with planning to blow up a NYC synagogue, as well as planning to blow up planes with surface to air missiles. The men wanted to commit jihad.
2. [PALIN HACKER] - Wired - The kid who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account during the presidential election is using an interesting legal strategy....that the emails were public record despite this being a Yahoo account
3. [WHY RELEASE ANY?] - NYTs - A secret government report shows that 1 in 7 detainees released from GITMO rejoins militant or terrorist activities.
4. [VALARIE PLAME] - Obama sides with Bush again, this time against Valarie Plame and Joe Wilson in their lawsuit against former Bush Administation officials....generally, I think Obama is siding with Bush on these liberal pet projects because he isn't going to waste his political capital on liberal wet dreams
5. [PAKISTAN & INDIA] - WSJ - The U.S. is convincing India and Pakistan, enemies over the last half century, to share intelligence information. It is straight out of Obama's stump speeches....they share a similar threat in Pakistan based terrorist groups. The plan is for India to stand down on Pakistan's eastern border so they can move more troops to fight the Taliban in the west, there by putting pressure on Al Qaeda safe havens.
6. [OBAMA v. CHENEY] - CNN - Dick Cheney and Barack Obama will hold dueling speeches today on terrorism and keeping America safe. Cheney's speech has been scheduled for awhile, so Obama holding his today steps on Cheney deliberately
7. [MINNESOTA SENATE] - NBC - Senate Republicans committed to paying $750,000 to help Norm Coleman continue his legal fight to keep Al Franken out of the Senate.
8. [RICHARD WOLFFE] - Fox News - Richard Wolffe's new book on the Obama presidency comes out in the next week or so and it appears to shed light on Obama's displeasure with Joe Biden's attempts at humor. Nothing worse than someone who thinks they are funny but they really aren't.
9. [SNOUTBREAK] - WSJ - Older adults may be immune to swine flu
10. [CRAIGSLIST] - The Daily Beast - A woman gets a tantric massage on craigslist to show how easy it still is to get erotic services on the newly monitored craigslist area

The Greatest Open Thread in History - 05/20/2009

What did we learn today?

I learned that pig farms are a great way to dispose of bodies

• that one of the dangers our soldiers face in Afghanistan is poisonous snakes like cobras and pit vipers
• that John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, was discovered among 600 captured Taliban soldiers being held in a centuries old fortress built out of mud
• that Obama signed into law a credit card bill, which is really a big pat on the back for Washington without any real impact. So people are going to get less fine print, it doesn't fundamentally change whether people will or will not use their credit cards. Really, all Obama did was make interest rates lower so people will have more credit to use
• that the Democrats are a complete sham, as today, they stripped out a portion of the bill because it contained an amendment that will allow guns to be carried in the national parks just so liberal democrats wouldn't have to vote for it. So they knew it would pass, but they held another vote just so liberals won't have a gun vote on their records. Can we get any honest leaders?
• that Michael Steele today said liberalism will kill you
• that the only way I would buy Elizabeth Edwards's book is if it came with a free "PUNCH ELIZABETH IN THE FACE" coupon
  

First Al Qaeda Trial

The Obama Administration is going to try the first detainee from GITMO in New York. The terrorist is a Tanzanian Al Qaeda member who is responsible for the 1998 coordinated attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa that killed over 200 people. President Obama, or Robert Gibbs, will most likely announce this tomorrow.

The New RNC Strategy

Hardball: Chris Matthews talks about the RNC's new strategy to deal with their lagging brand ID and the President Obama machine:

Betting on Obama to fail....

Yesterday, Republican chairman Michael Steele said that they were going to attack President Obama much more forcefully, but he failed to say what the Republicans stand for. After watching his speech, more than ever, the Republicans only stand for opposing Obama. This isn't necessarily a bad strategy, as history shows that presidents always have high approval ratings in the beginning, and then fall back to earth. The Republicans are going with history, opposing everything Obama proposes, and positioning themselves so if/when President Obama starts to falter, the public will flock to them.

Blinded by their hate, the Republican Party continues to underestimate Obama. The Republicans NEED the economy to fail; the stock market not to recover; unemployment to stay high; and for everyone to hate universal healthcare. They are positioning their entire political future on the country, and President Obama, failing. The problem with this strategy is that Obama has the ball. He controls everything. The Republicans are at the mercy of his Democratic majorities, and his ability to govern, i.e. solve the problem the Republicans created over the last 8 years.

Chucky T's First Read....

Asks one of the best questions to date about the GITMO detainee argument:

*** Just askin’: By the way, we have this one question for the GOP straw-man argument on Gitmo: So is living near a prison with CONVICTED rapists or murderers safer than living next to a prison with SUSPECTED terrorists? Discuss.

Michael Vick is back....

Hide your dogs, Michael Vick is out of prison

Morning Whiskey - 05/20/2009

1. [GM ASSETS] - Reuters - The U.S. government is going to buy GM's healthy assets, which will create a new company, while the remaining assets are in bankruptcy. All of this is aimed at customers who don't want to buy from a company that is bankrupt.
2. [CREDIT CARDS] - WSJ - The senate voted 90-5 yesterday to curb certain credit card practices starting in 2010, an effort President Obama outlined last week. It all seems pretty sensible, and most of it is just forcing the credit card companies to disclose how much they are charging people in interest and fees on monthly statements.
3. [IRANIAN MISSILE] - Fox News - Iran test fired a missile that it says is capable of hitting Israel and Europe.
4. [BURNED BIBLES] - CNN - A church sent bibles to Afghanistan printed in the two most common Afghan languages. The U.S. military burned them out of fear they would be used to try and convert the Afghans, and lead to attacks on U.S. soldiers. The bibles were thrown out, and U.S. personnel are required to burn their trash.
5. [BLOCKING GITMO] - NYTs - Senate Democrats are blocking Obama's efforts to close GITMO, and have stripped $80 million in funding because he doesn't have a clear plan.
6. [SISTER IDA] - LiveScience - A fossil, 47 million years old, is being hailed as a possible missing link in the evolution of humans.
7. [SNOUTBREAK] - WaPo - New evidence is emerging that Swine Flu is targeting the obese
8. [AFGHANISTAN] - NYTs - Arms we are sending to Afghan militias to fight the Taliban may be given/sold to the Taliban and used against us
9. [PAKISTAN] - BBC - Pakistan is having trouble in their offensive against the Taliban in Buner province
10. [BLUE CROSS DOUBLE CROSS] - WaPo - Blue Cross & Blue Shield is planning on double crossing Obama's healthcare efforts. This isn't unexpected. The private insurance industry HATES Obama's plan to include a government option that all of us can buy into if we don't like the private plans because the government, with it's size and reach, will be able to negotiate lower rates. The lower rates help us, the consumer, immensely, but they screw over the private insurance companies, which I call poetic justice. I mean, at this point, if a major corporation tells you to be against something, shouldn't you be for it?

Jesse Ventura on Hannity

Must watch TV:

One Man Led to Palin's Pick

John McCain was poised to select Joe Lieberman all the way, until his aide's infatuation with Sarah Palin led him to choose the governor of Alaska. The lesson? Ladies, with the right glasses, knee high FM boots, and suggestive outfits, you could be president.

McCain/Lieberman v. Obama/Biden would have been much closer, and the Democrats would certainly not have the same majorities. I bet Rick Davis thinks strippers like him too.

Hell is going to drop a few degrees today.....

Today, the governor of North Carolina, Beverly Perdue (D), is set to sign a smoking ban into law. It will go into effect in 2010 and applies to restaurants and bars. People around here are, of course, freaking out.

Not surprising with a state that has such an incredibly deep history with tobacco that goes back more than 400 years. North Carolina continues to be the number one producer of tobacco in the US. and Winston-Salem (a town whose name itself represents two different cigarette brands) is home to RJ Reynolds tobacco company, the second largest of its kind. Tobacco money and influence runs through everything in this town, from schools and hospitals (!) to road names and restaurants. When I moved here, I was a smoker and incredibly excited by how cheap my Camel Lights were. However, when I decided to quit smoking almost two years ago (when the hospital went against the wishes of its large contributor RJR and went smoke-free), I can't wait for this ban to go into effect. It should be interesting to see how this state takes the transition.

Morning Whiskey - 05/19/2009

1. [35.5 FEDERAL MPG STANDARD] - WSJ - President Obama will announce a new automobile standard today. It will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil by 2016. The auto companies as well as environmentalists both applauded the effort. The fuel efficiency for the entire national fleet will most likely double, and when thinking of that in terms of the family budget, all American families will be spending half as much on gasoline each month, which means that this effort by Obama will be a major growth engine for our economy as people will be spending less on energy, and more on other goods.
2. [SWINE FLU] - Reuters - The Mexican swine flu snoutbreak isn't over. The CDC says 100,000 people are likely infected with the new strain of influenza.
3. [PAPAL PRAISE] - AP - The Vatican says Obama's Notre Dame speech seeks to find 'common ground' on abortion
4. [PALIN GAMES] - Politico - Sarah Palin considered paying off all of Hillary's campaign debt as a way to ingratiate herself with the former first lady & president, stoke drive by media coverage, and drive a wedge through the Democratic party, which would weaken Obama's chances for reelection
5. [LAS VEGAS] - Fox - The governor of Nevada is slamming Obama for refusing to meet with him. The governor has been pissed at Obama for weeks after Obama said companies shouldn't be using tax payer dollars to take junkets and retreats to Las Vegas. Apparently the governor disagrees. Do you want your tax dollars being used so AIG and Citigroup executives can chase hookers on the Vegas strip?
6. [MEETING OF THE MINDS] - CNBC - In case you missed it, CNBC had a round table last night featuring many players from Wall Street. The notables, former GE master of the universe Jack Welsh, as well as Citigroup's and Blackrock's CEOs. Check your local listings to watch the rerun, or watch highlights at the promotional site. Jack Welsh dominated the discussion and generally kept everyone in line. Blackrock's CEO was kind of a prick, while Citigroup's CEO was contrite. Mark Morial had no business being there.
7. [FEDERAL STASH] - CNN - Profiling the federal government's only marijuana growing operation in Louisana. Who would have thought we have armed gaurds patrolling fields of marijuana around the clock?
8. [IRANIAN ELECTIONS] - La Times - The spiritual leader of Iran warns the public against voting for a pro-western candidate in next month's presidential election
9. [CHECKING ILLEGALS] - WaPo - This will become the most underreported story of Obama's first few months. He is going to deport 10 times the illegals as Bush, by checking all prisoners in local jails for immigration violations. This is huge. I think it is a cover your ass policy to prevent another terrorist attack. Just the very chance that we are holding some guy on a petty crime at the local level must be explored, and can only be done at the federal level. We'll see if Obama actually follows through on deporting these criminals. All the talk is right, and the Democrats seem to be relishing in deporting illegals who commit crimes as a way to show how serious they are about this.
10. [60 MINUTES] - On Sunday, 60 Minutes had two great segments(out of 3), one on Defense Secretary Gates and one on AIG.

What did we learn today?

I learned....

• that some of my readers shave their eyebrows on the regular
• that not only does Chris Webber choke on the basketball court, but on the golf course as well
  
• that the stock market went up 3 percent today
• that there is no way Barkley is giving up the game of golf
• that Sarah Palin eyed paying off Hillary's debt as a way to get close to the Clintons...and split the Democratic party
• that former President Clinton is going to be a U.N. envoy to Haiti
• that some rapper from Hotlanta was killed even before he could get his 'thug life' tattoo
• that koi love Beneful dog food
• that the chief strategist for the Republican challenger Obama just Shaghai'd says that the GOP is headed for a blowout in 2012 as long as Palin and Limbaugh dominate
• that Obama is going to mandate a federal standard for car emissions favored by 13 states, but that Bush opposed
• that I can't figure if the stock market rallied 3 percent today because of or in spite of this announcement

MUST READ of the day

Continuing the theme of Obama at Notre Dame, Amy Sullivan of Time breaks down all of the various interest groups Obama was speaking to. My favorite so far is how the media and the Republicans hyped Obama's speech, which meant we would all see it and talk about it. The number one rule in politics/business is that if you are going to hype something, make sure it lives up to it. Well, the Republicans hyped Obama as though he was performing abortions all day long on the White House lawn. It was a classic overreach.

Excerpts:

What Democrat, well-aware that Catholics make up one-quarter of the electorate, would pass up the chance to speak to a top-notch Catholic university? Michael Dukakis, for one. In 1988, his campaign made the decision to turn down all invitations to speak at Catholic institutions. The memory of 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro spent much of the campaign defending her support of abortion rights from the criticism of Catholic leaders, was fresh in their minds. Dukakis' advisors figured that any speech before a Catholic audience ran the risk of becoming all about abortion and that was a fight they didn't want to have. John Kerry's senior advisors made the same calculation in 2004, turning down the opportunity for their candidate to give a speech about his faith at John Carroll University, a Jesuit school outside Cleveland. They worried that protestors might disrupt the event or that someone might ask a question about the senator's position on abortion.
.....
The danger in caricaturing your opponent is that the reality rarely matches the outsized monster you've constructed. Catholics who tuned in to hear Barack "Baby Killer" Obama, the "most pro-abortion president ever," heard this: "Let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term." And this: "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away."
.....
Obama's emphasis on finding common ground is often dismissed as the moral relativism of a man who wants to be excused for holding positions some of his supporters find troubling. On Sunday, he did two things to challenge that judgment. First, instead of his traditional focus solely on all the things we have in common, Obama acknowledged that barriers can prevent us from overcoming differences: "Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved."

HARDBALL: Obama outsmarts the competition at Notre Dame

Chris Matthews manages to have a civil conversation about President Obama's core arguments about abortion on Sunday:

The ranks of the Republican party continue to dwindle

An extremely striking new Gallup poll shows the mounting losses the Republican party continues to endure in the number of people identifying with their party.

The only demographic where they don't lose? Bible-toting, avid churchgoers.

Question of the night....

After learning of Obama's miles per gallon standard increase, did the Sierra Club really put out a women on national TV to represent their viewpoint with a mustache to applaud the new policy? Liberals, do you ever understand why you lose? Click on the image to see her pencil thin mustache. Those of you who don't think this stuff matters from a public relations perspective are naive. There is a simple reason all Republicans look the same: The American public trust those in suits & ties. In an HD world, your personal appearance matters more than ever, regardless of your personal beliefs.

Ventura vs. Hasselbeck on The View

A pretty interesting discussion about torture and waterboarding between former Navy member Jesse Ventura and teenybopping, conservative shill Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View. Must-see video here.

Somehow, I don't think this issue is going to die anytime soon. The Republicans feel they have an opening for a kind of resurgence with the Nancy Pelosi angle and won't let it die, and Democrats won't let it die because the Bush administration broke the law and further weakened our reputation and standing in the world by breaking the law. The absurdity that the Republicans are choosing to focus on Nancy Pelosi is amazing when the overarching issue is that Bush and Cheney implemented a program for TORTURE. I mean, seriously? And again, if the Republicans are claiming that it isn't torture, but 'enhanced interrogation techiniques', then why does it matter if Nancy Pelosi knew about it?

Better Late than Never

President Obama is going to announce a federal fuel efficiency standard tomorrow of 35 MPG by no later than 2016. He had wanted this in place earlier, but had to back it up to get agreement from all the stakeholders. It is still a major step in the right direction, I just think it should have been 40 or higher. This means we will use about half as much gasoline as a country, and we won't need to import oil from nations that harbor Muslim terrorists, unless of course Canada is Talibanized over that time.

Morning Whiskey - 05/18/2009

1. [AL QAEDA HAVENS] -Times - Pakistan is going to hit the Taliban in a region considered to be Osama bin Laden's lair in Pakistan
2. [ABORTION DEBATE] - WSJ - President Obama tells Notre Dame yesterday that America's views on abortion are irreconcilable, so the debate must become about how to reduce them
3. [MAUREEN DOWD] - Politico - Maureen Dowd plagiarized
4. [DICK CHENEY] - Hulu - Will Ferrell's Dick Cheney & George W. Bush opening skit from Saturday Night Live
5. [PAKI NUKES] - NYTs - Pakistan is rapidly adding to its Nuclear weapon arsenal
6. [PAKI OFFENSIVE] - Time - Pakistan's war against the Taliban is going to be a short lived affair because of political concerns
7. [ISRAELI MEETING] - Fox News - President Obama is meeting with the Israeli prime minister for the first time. Last week, Obama apparently sent message to Bibi that Israel better not attack Iran without notifying us first
8. [BIBLICAL WAR] - ABC/GQ - Donald Rumsfeld used to produce, and hand deliver, a war assessment to the president, as seen in this must read GQ story. It was often littered with biblical references, and the Pentagon, as well as other Bush White House operatives, worried that if evidence of this report leaked, it would be as bad as Abu Grahib. Now, knowing my way around MS Powerpoint, this thing looks like something done by a high school student at the last minute, which is highly disappointing. But also, if this thing was so explosive, why are forming Bush Administration officials leaking it 3 months into Obama's highly successful, so far, administration, right before the summer fighting seasons start in Iraq and Afghanistan? View it here(.pdf)
9. [REPUBLICANS SALUTING] - WashTimes - Lindsay Graham praises Obama's approach to the war on terrorism, while using the point to attack Nancy Pelosi
10. [MEET THE PRESS] - Watch the debate between Kaine & Steele. Steele's go to move is saying that he isn't going to judge the opinions of others whenever he is pressed about specifics or contradictions:

President Obama at Notre Dame

The president's commencement address is below. The drive by media and the Republicans have been pushing this as a huge controversy because Obama is pro-choice and the Catholic church is pro-life. Obama said what no other politician is willing to say, that the positions on abortion are irreconcilable, so why argue? Lets just reduce the number.

Presidential Weekly Address - 05/16/2009

President Obama talks about energy and healthcare reform:

Republicans trying to cast gay marriage as financial issue

Wow, just wow. Michael Steele, RNC chairman, is telling members to say that gay marriage rights would hurt small businesses because employers will have to spend more on benefits. In the process of developing their new argument, I think the Republicans just undercut it. If benefits hurt companies, shouldn't we all have our benefits taken away? Is this the financial strategy the Republicans are pushing for? Is that how they are going revive the economy, by denying everyone who doesn't fit the Republican mold benefits?

I think the gay marriage issue always worked for Republicans when it was a moral issue. Moral issues can't really be argued and can be batted back and forth for ages. But when you attach a financial figure to it, you now add a whole new dimension to the debate. Now, people like me are going to say that Republicans are willing to be bigots for X amount of money. If X is reduced, then the entire argument falls on its face. For example, when President Obama passes universal healthcare later this year, one of the biggest benefit arguments is removed. Republicans just put a price on their morality, which vastly weakens their position. For people who belief this is a civil right issue, and that same sex couples should have the same rights/opportunities as the rest of us, it isn't about money. Republicans just revealed themselves as complete frauds. They don't really believe this is a biblical issue. They really don't believe anything on this issue. They're just homophobes and want to legislate away something that bothers them. How did the party that was supposed to believe in personal freedoms become communist China on social issues?

My other question is now on taxes. If Republicans don't want the benefits we all enjoy, and guaranteed by the federal government, extended to same sex couples, then why should the gays pay taxes to fund said government? Are Republicans now saying that gay people shouldn't pay taxes? Would any of us continue to pay for a product that didn't give us the promised rights and guarantees in its advertisements? No we wouldn't.

I've never seen a political party be so exlusionary. That isn't how you build a lasting majority. I truly believe that the Republican party thrives on hate, be it gays, Democrats, the French, the media, science, or Muslims.

What did we learn today?

What did we learn today?

YES WE CAN (but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to)

Great video from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart discussing Obama's reversal on releasing images of torture AND repealing don't ask/don't tell. Sadly, it seems Stewart feels there is enough material to allow resurrection of the popular Bush-era jokes of Candidate vs. President, but now it's with Obama. How quickly all those campaign promises evaporate.......

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Moral Kombat
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

MUST READ of the day

A profile of my favorite TV personality, Susie Orman, CNBC's financial goddess. Seriously, she'll change your life.

Excerpts:

The career of any financial adviser thrives on worry, and Orman, already the best-known financial adviser in the country, has hit the worry motherlode. In January, “Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan,” a guide to the economic crisis, made the best-seller list. Around the same time, Oprah Winfrey began giving the book away free in digital form on her Web site. (After Winfrey announced the offer, the book was downloaded more than two million times in one week.) Overall viewership on “The Suze Orman Show” is up 22 percent from this time last year, and the urgency of the calls has increased, too. Instead of asking about what kind of mortgage makes the most sense, her viewers are calling with questions of survival like, If I have to default on one of my various lines of debt, which one should I abandon first?
.....
Indirectly, sexual politics also played a part in Orman’s collaboration with the F.D.I.C. Orman first got in touch with Sheila Bair at the F.D.I.C. not to talk about a public-service announcement but because Orman had fielded questions from a viewer about how trusts were insured by the F.D.I.C., and in the course of researching the topic, she concluded that the rules discriminated against people who are gay. She made her case to Bair, who told me that over the course of her conversations with Orman, she agreed that it was a freedom-of-choice issue and the rules needed to be changed, including a restriction on the trust insurance that required that you be a “qualifying” family member for protection. “She asked, ‘Why do you dictate who people are going to leave their money to, whether it’s a gay partner or niece or close family friend?’ ” Bair said. “People should be able to make those decisions on their own.” The F.D.I.C. simplified the rules.
.....
Saveyourself.com, TD Ameritrade will give you $100 if you save $50 a month for 12 months.
.....
Even as she stresses the legitimacy of her own financial self-interest, Orman takes seriously her unique position as the people’s financial planner. Sheila Bair at the F.D.I.C. told me that Orman donated hours of her own time working on a new Web site that the F.D.I.C. was creating to deliver easy information about what funds are protected. Orman regularly talks off air with callers who need more help than she is able to give them on air. Orman pressed her publisher, Grau says, to give away her “2009 Action Plan” free of charge; they compromised on charging for it after the first two weeks. She sometimes sends financial aid to people who have reached out to her, and regularly donates her time at U.S. bases overseas to advise military families on their finances.
.....
Orman has strong opinions in general. She won’t speak before many doctors’ groups, because they get on her nerves (doctors always think they know better, she says). Until recently, she didn’t like to speak at universities, because they generally don’t charge students to attend her lectures, and she says that people don’t value things they haven’t paid for.
.....
On the morning she first told me that she believed her father killed himself, I thought I might somehow have been misremembering the story in the book — and wasn’t sure what to say. I remarked awkwardly that she had had an unusually intense life. Her response suggested that she managed to find an equally compelling, inspirational narrative from the sadder, presumably true, version of her father’s history: “Thank God,” she said. “It’s made me the person I am.”

9/11 Mastermind First Questioned About Iraq

The Bush Administration waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, not to ask him about impending terrorist attacks, but to question about a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. So now, does the failure of the last 8 years, from 9/11 happening in the first place, to our failure in Afghanistan, to our invading Iraq in the first place, to rainstorm Katrina, to the financial collapse....do they all make sense now? Not only did the Bush Administration lie its way into Iraq, they tried to torture people, terrorists no doubt, to get them to say Saddam planned 9/11. My opinion? Pass healthcare reform, fix the economy, get us on a path to energy independence, get reelected, and then put the entire Bush Administration, all 8 years and everyone involved on trial. Who knew what, when, and who authorized it.

Beats you need.....

Black Kids - Youtube - I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend

Actions have consequences....

Last weekend, former VP Dick Cheney came out and said that he would rather have Rush Limbaugh in the Republican party instead of his former White House coworker Colin Powell, even going as far to say that Colin Powell, who wasn't a draft dodger like Cheney, wasn't a Republican any longer. Bubbling below the surface, was Cheney trying to pimp his case that torture worked. Today, Colin Powell's top aide came out and said the only reason Cheney created the torture program was to try and tie Al Qaeda to Iraq. The one terrorist suspect who claimed a link under waterboarding torture, but later recanted, just mysteriously killed himself. Does anyone else think that if Dick Cheney would have just kept his mouth shut he and the former Bushites would have just rode off into the sunset without any of these details coming out? I certainly do. Now they're out there just asking for people to leak what really happened.

Morning Whiskey - 05/15/2009

1. [IT IS THAT BAD] - MSNBC - Chucky T pens an amazing article on the problems of the Republicans in what will be a often discussed narrative after the summer when the 2010 election season heats up and Republicans plot their comeback. I can't wait for Chuck Todd's weekend show. (h/t reader Adam) Money quote:

The excuses sound awfully familiar, like those we’ve been hearing from the financial sectors on the current economic crisis. No one is stepping up and accepting any responsibility. The public only sees a bunch of cowards afraid to take responsibility.

2. [NO MORE MEXICANS] - NYTs - The recession has vastly cut the number of illegals coming to America according to the Mexican government. Is this true or a marketing attempt by the Mexican government?
3. [OLD FAITHFUL] - Yellowstone - 2 workers are fired after pissing in Old Faithful.
4. [GLOBAL LYING] - BBC - Scientists revise their estimates for how much the collapse of a major ice shelf would raise the oceans. They were off by about half.
5. [MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD] - WSJ - The Islamic terrorist movement that spawned Al Qaeda and Hamas, but has also become much more politically active around the Muslim world, is faltering in the Arab world's most populace country. Is there any coincidence President Obama chose Cairo, Egypt as his first speech to the Arab world?
6. [JAMES DOBSON] - U.S. News - James Dobson, founder of hate factory Focus on the Family, feels hopeless because his hate, and the hate of his listeners, has no audience. Americans have moved on from gay marriage and abortion. They just want jobs, healthcare, and no terrorist attacks.
7. [THE 25 PERCENT] - NYTs - Chrysler is shuttering 1 in 4 of it's dealerships. I think they should shutter 3 in 4 as no one wants to buy a Chryser. Sucks being a car company that doesn't know how to make cars.
8. [MILITARY TRIALS] - BBC - President Obama is going to revive military trials for a select number of detainees in GITMO. He had been sharply critical of the tribunals, but more legal freedoms have been added to the process, which allow the detainees a more fair trial. Even so, for the second time this week, Obama has sided with Bush on national security:

They are reported to include restrictions on hearsay evidence; a ban on evidence obtained by cruel treatment; giving detainees more leeway to choose their own lawyers; and protecting detainees who refuse to testify.

9. [DO NOT BOMB IRAN] - Times London - Leon Panetta, President Obama's CIA chief, was sent to Israel to tell them not to bomb Iran's nuclear plant without telling us first. Currently, this is being touted by the right as Obama forbidding Israel from doing it, when really, all we are asking for is a heads up. But if Israel does this, telling us beforehand or not, they are not a good ally, and it is pretty much just a dick move. We have almost 200,000 troops in countries neighboring Iran, and they will feel the brunt of the fallout. Israel bombing Iran's nuclear facility will cost many American lives, vastly complicate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ultimately lead to us staying in both of those hell foresaken lands much much longer. This stuff is why I can't stand the Republican party. They say revealing torture techniques or photos endangers American lives, but then support Israel's right to ensure Americans get killed. Hypocrites.
10. [BUY AMERICAN] - WaPo - Foreign governments are pissed at Obama's buy American provisions in the stimulus bill. Apparently we are the only country in the world not allowed to be protectionist.
11. [COUNTDOWN] - Cheney authorized waterboarding to justify Iraq link....conveniently, the one guy who was tortured and provided bad information under waterboarding has 'killed himself':

What did we learn today?

What did we learn today?

MUST READ of the day

In a long, but must read article, a New York Times financial reporter bears all about his financial life: how a man who covers the financial world, skeptically, ended up a knowing victim in America's financial collapse. He lists his salary, his alimony, his wife's salary, and all of his expenses, as well as the process in buying a home he couldn't afford. How a family can make $180,000 a year and have any financial trouble at all is beyond me, and exactly what people in the country have a huge problem with in terms of these bailouts. It wasn't poor people who brought this country to it's knees, it was yuppies with money and banks that wouldn't tell them no. Everyone should be pissed that people who ran up their credit destroyed our country with the banks as willing accomplices.

Excerpts:

Bob’s original plan was to write two mortgages, one for 80 percent of the purchase price and a piggyback loan for 10 percent. I would kick in the final 10 percent, cashing out a chunk of New York Times stock — my last. If I had been a normal borrower, the whole deal would have sailed through at a low interest rate. My $120,000 base salary and my assets were easy to document. But given my actual income after alimony and child support, I couldn’t possibly have qualified for a standard mortgage. Bob’s plan was to write a “stated-income loan,” or “liar’s loan,” so that I wouldn’t have to give the game away by producing paychecks or tax returns.
.....
Despite the obvious red flag of applying for a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell loan, I wasn’t paying that much for the money. The rate on my primary mortgage of $333,700 was a remarkably low 5.625 percent for the first five years, though my monthly payments would probably jump substantially after the fifth year. On top of that, I was paying a much higher rate of 8.5 percent on my “piggyback” loan for $80,300. Even so, I would be paying slightly more than $2,500 a month for the first five years. It would get expensive eventually, but I could worry about that later.
.....
I felt like a crack addict calling up my dealer. It was April 2006, and I had just reached Bob Andrews, our once and future mortgage broker, on his cellphone.
.....
I took a certain pride that I outlasted two of my three mortgage lenders. American Home, my original lender, collapsed overnight when the financial markets first froze up in August 2007. Fremont, my second lender, was forced out of the mortgage business by federal regulators. That left me with JPMorgan Chase, one of the few big banks smart enough to sell off most of the subprime loans it financed. It still serviced my loan, but it wasn’t on the hook if I defaulted.
......
I was actually beginning to feel sorry for Chase. It seemed to be so flooded with defaulting borrowers that it didn’t have time to foreclose on my house. Eight months after my last payment to the bank, I am still waiting for the ax to fall.

President Obama's New Mexico Town Hall - 50 minutes - 05/14/2009

Free Viagra

Pfizer Inc. is launching a program that gives away 70 of their most popular medications for free for up to a year to those that have lost their jobby jobs in 2009, and were previous users. If you've got a problem down there, and are unemployed, get your little blue pill here(.pdf application form).

President Obama Meets the UNC Tar Heels

Rumsfeld called out at WHCD

This is by no means an attempt to re-ignite the discussion/debate on the utility of protesting, and nor do I care what you think about protesters or the anti-war group Code Pink. However, any time one of the main masterminds behind the failed policy in Iraq is denounced publicly as a war criminal, it should be widely disseminated to the American public he helped dupe into an illegal war. A war, by the way, that has now cost the American taxpayers over $700 billion dollars (those taxday protesters should put THAT number on their teabags and suck it). To determine how much this translates in tax money for your state or even Congressional district specifically, you can go to this site.

Video of the spectacle here. While it links to HuffPo, all you people who will say "see, it's just liberal BS" should read the post that goes along with it which agrees with the response you have brewing right now.

Morning Whiskey - 05/14/2009

1. [WAR ON DRUGS] - WSJ - The Obama Administration is looking to end the 'war on drugs'. After reading the article, I don't think they'll be much change. Seems they're going to do nothing but just not call it a war on drugs.
2. [INDEFINITE DETENTION] - WSJ - Obama continues to be more like Bush in national security that most of his supporters are probably comfortable with. He is considering detaining terrorism suspects on U.S. soil indefinitely without charges. Daily Kos is freaking out right now.
3. [TALIBANISTAN] - WSJ - To accomodate the influx of new troops this summer, we had to expand certain bases in Afghanistan. One such effort caused quite a stir.
4. [DIRTY PICTURES] - Time - Joe Klein makes the essential point about the release of the torture pictures....the literacy rate in Afghanistan/Pakistan is almost non-existent
5. [TORTURE] - WSJ - Karl Rove continues to fight a losing effort against the Democrats, accusing them of knowing about torture while the entire Republican party is trying to say the Bush Administration didn't torture.
6. [DERIVATIVES] - WaPo - The Obama Administration is planning on regulating the part of the markets that led to the downfall of the world economy
7. [OBAMA'S WAR] - NYTs - What Obama has inherited in Afghanistan. A must read story from an isolated outpost in Talibanistan. Let's hope the insurgents never learn how to aim.
8. [GETTING RID OF CHENEY] - WaPo - Republican strategists are struggling to silence Cheney, who the White House is happy to fight with.
9. [EXPANDING HOUSING] - Time - The Obama Administration is planning to expand its help for homeowners struggling in this economy. Why should you read it? Because there might be a way for you to get some help that you don't know about or even need. If it frees up your cash you'll spend it somewhere else and create jobby jobs.
10. [DEFEATOCRATS] - NYTs - The Democrats in Congress are trying to prevent Obama from fixing Afghanistan, as well as his other national security policies. They already yanked his money designated to close GITMO. So they bitch and complain about Bush torturing people in Cuba, then Obama steps up and fulfills his promise to close GITMO, and the Democrats yank the funding. WTF???

What did we learn today?

What did you learn today?

Don't mess with Robert Gibbs

MUST READ of the day

I mentioned Outliers in my last post for a reason....I've been reading this 3 part email exchange between ESPN.com's Bill Simmons, who apparently is still alive, and the author of Outliers, Malcom Gladwell. Seriously, don't miss it. The links to the whole exchange with funny excerpts that give you a feel for Gladwell's style. I don't quote dead people, so Bill Simmons is out of luck:

Part 1

I'm not buying Holmes, though. One of the big reasons boxing was in such a slump during Larry Holmes' peak was the fact that the dominant boxer during Larry Holmes' peak was … Larry Holmes. I'm sure he was a nice guy and all. But this is a man who spent almost all of his boxing winnings acquiring real estate in Easton, Pa. Think about this. You have just made gazillions of dollars. You can buy houses anywhere in the world. And you chose Easton? This is a sport entirely dependent upon the charisma of its champions, and Holmes didn't have any. (This reminds me of the police corruption scandal in the NYPD in the early 1990s, when this police officer in Brooklyn was found to be stealing millions of dollars in cash from the drug dealers he was busting. When he got caught, it was discovered he owned a fleet of cars and boats and multiple homes in … Long Island.) You skim a million in cash off some crack dealer, and you splurge by buying a split-level in Hicksville to go with the bungalow you already own in Smithtown. Is there anything more depressing than people with money but no imagination?

Part 2

Let's set the record straight on Jennifer Aniston. She was not hitting on me. I think she was bored because her friends hadn't arrived yet. She just wanted to make conversation. And what was my excuse? I don't really have one. I was trying to work, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, and who on earth thinks Jennifer Aniston is going to sit down next to them in some random cafe in Miami and start chatting away? So I gave her that don't-bother-me glare, and then about five minutes passed and I thought to myself, "You know, she was really cute." And another five minutes passed and I thought, "You know, she looks really familiar." And another five minutes passed and I thought, "You idiot." And by then it was too late, of course. The window of opportunity for a woman like that is 45 seconds, max. By the time I got the check, I think she'd already started dating John Mayer. Sigh.

Part 3

Or how about eliminating the draft altogether? I'm at least half-serious here. Think about it. Suppose we let every college player apply for and receive job offers in the same way that, oh, every other human being on the planet does. That doesn't mean that everyone goes to L.A. and New York, because you still have the constraints of the cap. It does mean, though, that both players and teams would have to make an affirmative case for each other's services. So you trade for Steve Nash or Jason Kidd, because they make you instantly attractive to every mobile big man coming out of college. Instead of asking the boring question -- which team is going to be lucky enough to draft Derrick Rose? -- we ask the far more interesting question: Which team, out of every team in the league, should Derrick Rose play for? Or suppose you're the T-Wolves, and you've been a doormat for years. You could say, "From now on we're a clean-living, Christian organization. We have prayer meetings before every game. We are home by 11. We never do drugs." Then you'd have the inside track on every clean-living college basketball player in the country. Are there enough quality religious players out there to win a championship? There must be! (By the way, why has no one ever put together the all-time clean-living starting five? And how great a name for a franchise is the "Minnesota Christians?")

All this for $16,000 a year?

The 24 year old female co-pilot on the commuter plane that crashed in Buffalo killing 50 people made only $7.69 an hour based on a real work schedule, or just $16,000 per year. She lived with her parents, and because of the low pay, she would sleep in the airport in between flights. The company in question seemed to be asking for a catastrophe, and my guess is that this is extremely common in the airline industry, which means I am never flying again. Read the book Outliers and you'll never use an Asian or South American airliner. Never thought I'd have to say that about the United States.