Category: Stupid

What Republican Government Gets You

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Only, unlike New Orleans, they are not drowning the city in a bathtub, they are burining it in a furnace.

The LA Times has a fascinating interview with the former Fire Chief of San Diego.

Some Tidbits:

  • He quit as fire chief because they did not quitting over staffing and resource issues, what the author of the article calls, “San Diego’s long, [Republican] proud culture of skimping on services to keep taxes low”.
  • San Diego has 975 firefighters for 330 square miles and 1.3 million residents, while San Francisco 1,600 firefighters for 60 square miles and 850,000 people.

As UC San Diego professor Steve Erie puts it:

“It’s paradise plundered,” which happens to be the title of a book he’s finishing “about how developers run this town.”

Erie says that “developers own most of the city councils. In Poway, in Escondido, what they do is put homeowners in harm’s way. They’re able to control zoning processes, and they’re frequently behind initiatives that say no new taxes, no new fire services. It’s insanity.”

It’s not insanity. It’s how Republicans run society, by eating our seed corn.

Rampant Torture Makes Cases Against Real Terrorists Impossible

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It now turns out that the CIA was so torture happy that the FBI is finding it difficult to make cases against major Al Queida operatives, and they are scrambling to find alternate evidence.

The FBI is quietly reconstructing the cases against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and 14 other accused Al Qaeda leaders being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, spurred in part by U.S. concerns that years of CIA interrogation have yielded evidence that is inadmissible or too controversial to present at their upcoming war crimes tribunals, government officials familiar with the probes said.

The process is an embarrassment for the Bush administration, which for years held the men incommunicado overseas and allowed the CIA to use coercive means to extract information from them that would not be admissible in a U.S. court of law — and might not be allowed in their military commissions, some former officials and legal experts said. Even if the information from the CIA interrogations is allowed, they said, it would probably risk focusing the trials on the actions of the agency and not the accused.

We are talking about folks like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is so guilty that it boggles the mind, but Bush and His Evil Minions™ are so enamored with torture that they tainted the evidence.

I thought that it would be impossible for Bush to screw up a prosecution worse than that of Saddam Hussein, but they are now on a path to do so with KSM.

Gantry-Gate

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It appears that there is a major scandal at Oral Sex Roberts university.

Richard Roberts, Oral’s son, has taken a leave of absence pending an investigation.

Among the allegations:

  • remodeled their home 11 times in 14 years
  • used the university jet for personal trips
  • forced members of the university to play an active role in a political campaign
  • retaliation against whistle blowers
  • Richard Roberts’ wife, Lindsay, spent the night in the ORU guest house with an underage male “on nine separate occasions
  • Lindsay was photographed 29 times with an underage male in her sports car

Many people, when they see self-righteous professions of faith, assume that at the bottom of everything is corruption. Episodes like this show why.

Shailagh Murray is a Tool and an Idiot

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Dodd Makes Play on FISA Legislation
Her analysis:

Whenever that big day comes, Dodd — as the keeper of the “hold” — must return from the campaign trail to officially block debate on the bill. That entails standing around on the Senate floor, forcing procedural votes, avoiding the furious glares of colleagues who don’t share the same concerns. The standard duration of such showdowns is about a week — time that Dodd, who is trailing badly in early primary polls, can scarcely afford.

Of course, there is the reality, with facts, as opposed to bloviating:

Chris Dodd: The Netroots Show the Love

Senator Dodd’s campaign communications director Hari Sevugan tells me that $150,000 in small contributions have poured into Dodd’s campaign in the past 24 hours, since his announcement that he will put a hold on–and may even filibuster–a foreign intelligence surveillance bill approved yesterday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Dodd objects to a provision that would grant immunity to the telecommunications companies that turned over their customers’ phone and e-mail records to the government’s warrantless surveillance program. The companies have been hit with 40 pending lawsuits charging them with privacy violation.

You have a 3rd tier candidate for president who has just raised $150K in about 24 hours, and is probably in the 2nd tier (with Bill Richardson) as a result of his stand.

He’s on every bloggers lips right now, but according to Shailagh Murray his move is somehow a really bad idea.

My guess is that the lead levels in DC water are higher than they are letting on.

What Happens When Authorities Use Criminal Methods

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It appears that researchers at Canegie Mellon are working on schemes to disrupt WaReZ, virus, and hacking markets.

One tactic involves bad mouthing buyers or sellers in order to eliminate their verified status, discouraging others from engaging in trades with them. The other attacks the effectiveness of the markets themselves by undermining the cybercrooks’ verification or reputation system, creating a deceptive sales environment.

One technique developed by the team involves establishing fake verified-status identities that are difficult to distinguish from other-verified status sellers, making it hard for buyers to identify “honest” verified-status sellers from “dishonest” verified-status sellers.

“Just like you need to verify that individuals are honest on eBay, online criminals need to verify that they are dealing with ‘honest’ criminals,” explained Jason Franklin, a PhD student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon.

Ummmm….You want to develop this stuff, and you don’t expect it to fall into the hands of the black hats?

You know, the guys who have compromised a few million network computers that could be used for password cracks to infiltrate a place like eBay?

This is a one-D-ten-T problem (spell it out with the numbers).

Kausgoat Scandal!!!!!

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Yep, the latest scandal is that Mickey Kaus orally sodomizes goats.

It first showed up in the comments of a Matthew Yglesias post about how bone headed (pun not intended*) Kaus was about claiming that some dumb ass phony rumors of a John Edwards affair:

Mickey Kaus’ long post here about John Edwards’ alleged affair with Rielle Hunter is almost self-refuting. Basically, we have an anonymous source saying Hunter said she had an affair with Edwards, versus Hunter, on the record, saying that’s not the case. Then there’s Edwards, also saying it’s not the case. But Kaus initially deems Edwards’ denial too vague and non-specific.

Then someone posted something about Mickey Kaus having carnal knowledge of a goat, which soon escalated into oral sodomy with said ruminant.

It should that Mr. Kaus has issued no denial, so we must assume that this is true.

In any case, it soon found its way to Atrios, and then to his Wikipedia entry.

It’s also been mentioned on Wonkette , Sadly No, Oliver Willis, Kos, The Group News Blog, and many others.

I wouldn’t mention it, but Mickey Kaus has STILL not offered a denial, so by the standards of…Mickey Kaus…Mickey Kaus blows goats.

Yes, I know that this is irresponsible, and that I should feel bad about this, but piling on a wanker is fun sometimes.

*OK, the pun was intended, and I’m glad.

Joel Kovel Specifically, and US Greens Generally are Idiots

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Joel Kovel ran against Hillary Clinton for Senate as a Green, and he typifies the smug, sanctimonious, and ineffective mindset that is the US Green Party.

I concur with Brad Delong. Where was Kovel when Al Gore was proposing a BTU tax to reduce carbon emissions in 1993.

People like Kovel are personally comfortable with the status quo, but want to feel virtuous, so they set the bar so high that it can never be attained, while they can still feel smug, superior, and sanctimonious.

Charles Krauthammer Endorses Hillary Clinton

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Seeing as how this guy is wrong about everything, it does not bode well for Hillary’s possibilities. She will be unable to make the economic changes necessary to fix our economy, and she will not stand up to the “very serious people” in DC who think that we should use our military whenever possible.

As an aside, he also makes the comment, that her savings proposalss are “the perfect vehicle for a future conservative administration to use for shifting from the current, unsustainable government-controlled program to a privatized system such as the one in Chile.”

For those of you who don’t know, the privatized system in Chile is a disaster, which is why the military is still in a public one. Similar efforts in Argentina were the single largest cause of the collapse there.

Moron.

What Dan Said

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In this case, Dan Fleshler, when he says that the Jewish Neocons are dead wrong, not disloyal.

I would add terminally stupid, and that they have actually done significant damage to Israel’s negotiating position and security because of their idiocy in Iraq.

I could see at the start of the invasion that this would end badly for Israel, with pressures coming for a quick settlement in the hope that a vain hope that it will calm things down in Iraq.

These folks honestly believed that they would create something like Norway by invading. It just goes to show you that, as the Japanese say, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”*.

*There is no medicine for stupidity.

Democrats Sell Out on Fund Manager Tax Loophole.

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Harry Reid has assured the brokerage people that their commissions will continue to be treated as capital gains, reality be damned.

Reid is apparently arguing that he cannot get it past the Republicans, but making the ‘Phants vote for a ludicrous tax break for people percieved as hyper-rich cheats is a winning political strategy.

Stupid.

One wonders when how long it’s going to take until the voting public demands real reform from the Democrats.

My, guess is that it will be a while, as nary a week passes without some Republicans getting caught soliciting sex, taking bribes, molesting children, etc.

Yet More of the Freddie Thompson Clown Show

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The gift that keeps on giving. This time, he
forgets who controlled Congress before 2007.

“The president called me up and asked me to help shepherd judge John Roberts’ nomination through the Senate confirmation process. I was honored that I got that call. I was honored that he thought I had enough friends on the Democratic side that they wouldn’t run me out of town!

“We fought hard against each other, but I always thought that we had mutual respect. And that’s what it takes.
“Even though the other party controlled the Judiciary committee, we got some votes there. For a good, sound, what I would call conservative justice.”

This is particularly egregious because he was the Bush point man for getting Roberts through confirmation.

There really seems to be no “there” there.

“I hate all Iranians”, Says the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defense Secretary Robert Gates

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This is scary.

I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPs
By SIMON WALTERS

Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America’s stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush’s senior women officials: “I hate all Iranians.”

And she also accused Britain of “dismantling” the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon.

The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.

…..

The MPs say that at one point she said: “In any case, I hate all Iranians.”

Although it was an aside, it was not out of keeping with her general demeanour.

“She seemed more keen on saying she didn’t like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran,” said one MP. “She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words.”

Another MP said: “I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming.”

…

The Pentagon denied Ms Cagan said she “hated” Iranians.

“She doesn’t speak that way,” said an official.

But when The Mail on Sunday spoke to four of the six MPs, three confirmed privately that she made the remark and one declined to comment. The other two could not be contacted.

She’s scary too:

Yikes!!!!

And no, this is not a photoshop job.