Because we have Nelson Mandela on our no fly list.
I wonder what other Nobel prize winners are on the list.
Category: Evil
No Synergy of Evil
It would appear that Cerberus has decided that Blackwater is just too evil to invest in.
Because Dick Cheney Likes Death
Dick Cheney is a busy, busy man.
In addition to outing a CIA agent, authoring torture policy, selling out the nation to oil companies, shooting people in the face, and taking payments from Halliburton, it’s nice to know that he can still taking time out to kill whales:
Another internal document shows that the officials working for the Vice President also raised spurious objections to the science. According to this document, the Vice President’s staff “contends that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of ‘large ships’ will actually make a difference. NOAA rejected these objections, writing that both a statistical analysis of ship strike records and the peer-reviewed literature justified the final rule. In its response to the objections from the Vice President’s staff, NOAA reported that there is “no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales.
Is there even the smallest bit of evil that is done by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade has to have Cheney’s finger prints all over this?
I feel like stunned like that cow that just stepped on it’s own udder.
Heady Brew
It appears that the hedge fund Cerberus is looking to buy mercenary outfit Blackwater.
Hedge funds and mercenaries, working together.
The sheer synergy of evil present in this concept just buggers the mind.
At least, there is symmetry.
Microsoft to Customers: Drop Dead, DRM Edition
Once upon a time, there was a company called Microsoft, and it was a bad company.
One day, they created a music shop, called MSN music, which was even worse.
Then the bad people at Microsoft created the the Zune* store, anddecided to Dump MSN Music.
So, effective August 31, 2008, Microsoft is pulling the DRM keys on the music:
MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”
This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.
So you bought it, you paid† for it, and now you have nothing.
This isn’t just Microflaccid, this is what the music and movie industries want to be their business model.
You buy the music, and then they change the rules, and make you buy it again.
*Yes, this was bad too.
†And probably overpaid for it.
Bush and His Evil Minions™ Break the Law….Again
Why am I not surprised.
This time though, it wasn’t to spy on political opponents find terrorists, and it wasn’t to torture children gain important intelligence.
This time, it was to make sure that children did not get medical care, because the insurance companies contribute to Republicans.
The Bush administration’s limits on expansions of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are unlawful, according to Congress’s investigative arm.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unlawfully bypassed congressional review when it issued a directive to states in August alerting them that federal authorities would seek to restrict raising the income eligibility level for the program, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in a report issued Thursday.
**Sigh**
Bush Directly Approved Torture Techniques
He knew that his advisers were discussing this, and he approved their activities:
“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”
He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail
This is UnAmerican and Repulsive Behavior
Democratic Illinois State Representative Monique Davis is cancer on the body politic, and next primary season, she needs to be excised:
Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–
Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?
Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—
Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
While context is frequently important, in this case it’s minor. There was some sort of political payoff to a Baptist Church going through the legislature, and Mr. Sherman, and atheist activist, was opposed.
But in this case, the the context does not matter. This person should be be permanently removed from the public sphere, whether that be through the primary process, or by convincing Mayor Daley (the younger) to pull his support.
I have not heard this vile outburst of bigotry since I was an adult.
The Illinois primary is over, but there is 2010.
What the Hell Happened to Childhood?
Some recent news on how we raise our children. First is a news story about a mother who let her 9 year old son ride alone on the subway. There is nothing wrong with the story, except for the fact that it qualifies as news. Kids have been taking mass transit on their own at that age for years, but in this plan-every-minute soccer mom stamp-out-independent-thought culture we have, it gets a significant amount of media play.
We are raising kids who will never have the smallest adventure, nor the smallest sense of responsibility.
Kudos New York Sun Columnist* and mom, Lenore Skenazy for not buying into the toxic waste paranoia of the phony missing child hysteria of the mid-1980s.
On the darker side, we have a six year old kid who is labeled a sexual harasser for smacking a girl on the butt.
The police were called, and his school record now lists him as a sexual harasser.
This is insane. Did the kid do something wrong, of course he did, and his parents should have been called in, and he should have gotten a few days detention, but it’s not sexual harassment.
We was 6 years old, not 13.
Then we have an 8 year old child suspended because he is alleged to have sniffed line from a marker on his shirt. School administrators are suggesting that he was “trying to get high”, aka “huffing”.
There are two problems with all of this, the first is that we are allowing people who are clearly psychopaths abuse their authority, and the second is that increasingly, there are policies in place to support these psychopaths.
Osama bin Laden does not have to destroy America, we are doing it through what we do to the next generation.
*When I say the phrase “Kudos to NY Sun Columnist”, something is very, very, wrong with reality.
Debbie Stabenow’s Husband in Prostitution Sting
She’s the Governor of Michigan, and the details are here.
Obviously there are political ramifications, but I want to talk about what I see as the real issue:
Troy police Lt. Gerard Scherlinck said Troy’s undercover officers focus their efforts on breaking up prostitution rings about four times a year, depending upon manpower. During the stings they arrest only the prostitutes.
“(Detectives) stop people coming and going and interview them. If they have a cooperative witness, they will use that person to testify against the ring rather than arrest them. That’s what happened in this case,” Scherlinck said.
If the case goes to trial, Athans would be called as a witness to testify and positively identify the woman, he said.
Let me get this, the rich pig who who makes the illegal buy gets off scott free, but the woman, generally poor, possibly with a substance abuse problem, sometimes a single parent, gets prosecuted?
I believe that prostitution should be legal and tightly regulated. But, if it is illegal, going after the people at the bottom of the pyramid, frequently people who are doing this because they lack other alternatives, is evil.
Madonna To Remake Casablanca… In Iraq
Great googly moogly…..NO!!!!!!!!!
Wall-Mart Caves
Brain damaged woman gets to keep her settlement.
Thanks Keith.
Parents Putting Children, and the Community at Risk
The facts are quite clear, there is no tie between vaccines and Autism*, and this has been conclusively proven.
The doctor who came up with this cockamamie theory had his ticket yanked. The removal of Thimerisol (which was an independent good regardless of the non link to Autism) made no difference in the trajectory of the disease.
Vaccines represent the greatest success in public health in the history of…well..history.
When we see reports like this one the Neanderthal† anti-vaccination movement, the basic points which need to be made are as follows:
- There is no evidence that vaccines are listed are linked to any disease.
- The idea that there is a link to Autism is false and has been completely disproven.
- This puts the entire community at risk, because unvaccinated children spread the disease.
- It puts holes in herd immunity.
These basic points were not made in this article, though it was hinted at when the writer quoted Sybil “I’m a Moron” Carlson saying that vaccines caused “immunology”.
Let’s be clear. Vaccines do have risks, I know someone who is in a wheelchair because of a vaccine induced case of polio, and my mother had an allergic reaction to the horse serum used in the tetanus vaccine, but they are less than that of not being vaccinated, and they are acute, not chronic.
The anti-vaccine movement is based on two things, stupidity and ignorance involving the science, and a blithe disregard for for the effects of society.
That’s why we are getting outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough. Because these people are creating reservoirs of disease out of their children, and it affects the vaccinated too, because no vaccine is 100%, and some vaccinated children are put at risk.
*Full disclosure, my son is on the spectrum, diagnosed with Aspergers.
†In deference to the GEICO cavemen, I wish to apoliogize for any offense to true Neanderthals.
Bear Stearns Employees Already Financially Raped, Now Possibly Enslaved – Business on The Huffington Post
Jill Brooke is reporting that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is now calling Wall Street firms and threatening them if they attempt to hire away curretn Bear Stearns employees. (The hed, btw is Ms. Brooke’s not mine).
He’s claiming that it’s “unpatriotic” to poach people before he fires them, and he also, “threatened to cut counter-party credit lines to firms that poach Bear stars before the transaction is completed”.
If I were on the jury, I would vote to acquit his murderer.
On a slightly more law abiding note, I believe that the Bear employees might have grounds for one hell of a class action lawsuit.
People Who Should Be First Up Against the Wall When the Revolution Comes
Landlords, and banks who have foreclosed, who instead of going through a formal foreclosure, where the tenants have rights, they simply refuse to pay the water bill to force the tenants out when the water is cut off.
Water, It’s the New War Profiteering
Yep. It appears that with, “As liquidity is drained from credit and money markets and pours into oil and gold, another asset class that could offer long-term returns to the discerning investor is water”, or at least so say the contemptible capitalist/terrorists who want to extract people’s wealth to line their own pockets.
This isn’t cell phones, it’s not electricity. This is water.
No water, you die. No clean water, your kids die. Get it.
We need to stop this before it gets rolling, and they start hiring lobbyists.
Shorter Alan Greenspan
He is unhappy because people are blaming him for the upcoming catastrophe.
As I’ve said before, the idea that the noble entrepreneur must be allowed to innovate, no matter how many people it hurts, is simply delusional Randroid bull#$it.
Ayn Rand was a person to whom great evil was done, by a thoroughly evil and corrupt, much like Leo Strauss. Rand by the Bolsheviks, Strauss by the Nazis.
Their response was to create, and aggressively promote their own personal sort of evil, and both have proved, and will continue to prove disastrous.
Speaking as an Existentialist Jew, and yes they are compatible, when you create philosophies in which people are made unpeople, and in which the concept of personal responsibility for the world one creates is an anathema, you create another template for evil.
Of course, you could read his article in the Financial Times, but there may be some side effects:
Monsanto Wants to Ban “rBST Free” Labels
Monsanto has created an astroturf group that is lobbying to prohibit rBST and BGH free labels. They argue that it is “too confusing to consumers”.
I understand that Monsanto wants to market its industrial waste as widely as possible, but I object to their attempt to keep me, and the rest of the general public in the dark about it.
This is not confusing at all. I don’t their crap in my kid’s milk. Period, full stop.
William J. Haynes is Out at White House
He is the defense department general council who said that we “had to” get convictions, and he authorized torture.
He is “returning to private life”, which is nicer than Bush’s desire to make him an appellate court federal judge.
Don Siegelman Political Prosecution Update: Rove Organized Penis Patrol
According to Jill Simpson, a former Republican party campaign worker, Rove asked her to take pictures of Governor Siegelman in a compromising position with an aide.
Delightful folks, those Republicans.