Archive - Feb 13, 2010

Kiss The Girl from The Little Mermaid.

Bella Notte from Lady And The Tramp.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Human rights group slams Israel's probe of Gaza conflict | CNN

An international human rights organization on Sunday faulted Israel's investigation into alleged war crimes last year in Gaza.

Israel has not demonstrated that it will conduct thorough and objective investigations, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

"An independent investigation is crucial to understand why so many civilians died and to bring justice for the victims of unlawful attacks," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director for the New York-based organization. Read more.

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US: Adopt Anti-Corruption Proposals | Human Rights Watch
Senators’ Investigation Follows the Hidden Money Trail from Foreign Kleptocrats

Human Rights Watch documented that between 2004 and 2006, the president’s son spent almost $44 million on luxury houses and cars in the US and South Africa, while the entire education budget of the country was $43 million in 2005.

The Obama administration should adopt recommendations in a report issued today to help stop the flow of stolen money into the United States, Human Rights Watch said. The report is the result of a detailed investigation by Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn into corruption in abusive, resource-rich states and the “enablers” that allow officials to funnel money out of their impoverished countries to spend lavishly abroad.

The 330-page report “Keeping Foreign Corruption out of the United States: Four Case Histories,” details how officials in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria funneled millions of dollars into the US with the help of a network of facilitators, including lawyers, realtors, banks, and other individuals and institutions. The Senate investigation exposed the infrastructure that allows corrupt officials to steal their countries’ wealth, denying their populations vital resources that should be used to secure basic rights, Human Rights Watch said.

“It’s time for the US to stop allowing corrupt officials to use their countries as personal ATMs and the US as a shopping mall,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Kleptocrats need to know that the US is not open for business.” Read more.

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Federal Lobbying Climbs in 2009 as Lawmakers Execute Aggressive Congressional Agenda | Open Secrets
Efforts by Health, Business Industries Help Push Influence Peddling to New Heights

At nearly $266.8 million, the pharmaceutical and health products industry’s federal lobbying expenditures not only outpaced all other business industries and special interest areas in 2009, but stand as the greatest amount ever spent on lobbying efforts by a single industry for one year....In 2009, this sector spent nearly $544 million on federal lobbying efforts, up almost 12 percent from its 2008 total of about $487 million.

The economy stunk. Corporations slashed jobs. And some firms, once juggernauts of American industry, simply ceased to exist.

But for federal lobbyists, 2009 proved to be a year of riches unlike any other, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.

In all, federal lobbyists’ clients spent more than $3.47 billion last year, often driven to Washington, D.C.’s power centers and halls of influence by political issues central to the age: health care reform, financial reform, energy policy.

That figure represents a more than 5 percent increase over $3.3 billion worth of federal lobbying recorded in 2008, the previous all-time annual high for lobbying expenditures. And it comes in a year when a recession persisted, the dollar’s value against major foreign currencies declined and joblessness rates increased....

To explore the Center for Responsive Politics' full lobbying database, go here.

The database now includes a new feature, available at here, which allows users to easily see how lobbying activity among sectors and industries has changed from quarter to quarter. Read more.

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If there was any question as to how far disconnected from reality the DC press corps is, "Dean" David Broder's column this Thursday offered the definitive answer.

On the very same day that Broder was busy eating out of the palm of Palin's hand, praising her folksiness on The Washington Post op-ed pages, the paper's news pages were reporting on a poll which found her to be totally fucking unqualified for President.

But that poll doesn't really matter because the mainstream media loves Palin and can't get enough of her.

The rest of us, not so much.

From the Telegraph:

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation.

The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith, apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith.

The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers.

The lines read out by the DJ included: “One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother.”

The presenter on Genesis TV, a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films.

[Read more at the Telegraph]

From Alternet:

The military’s largest contractor is trying to avoid liability for health risks associated with burn pits to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the truth is emerging.

In October a class action suit combining 22 lawsuits from 43 states was filed in US District Court in Maryland against KBR, Halliburton, and other military contractors for damages to health from open air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to plaintiffs’ lawyers the military contracting giant had been paid millions of dollars to safely dispose of waste on bases but negligently burned refuse in open pits, spewing toxins, including known carcinogens, into the air. Last week, KBR sought to dismiss the charges. Their tack was not to deny that they burned lithium batteries, petroleum, asbestos, trucks, cars, paint, plastic, Styrofoam, medical waste including human limbs, and more, as the soldiers have charged, but to challenge their liability for any ensuing problems.  According to KBR’s press fact sheet on the suit, the Army, not KBR, decides if a burn pit or an incinerator will be used, where it will be built in relation to living and working facilities, and what it can burn. KBR insists it was and is still  just “performing under the direction and control of military commanders in the field.” In short, they were only following orders and the soldiers are going after the wrong guy.

[Read more at Alternet]

From Salon:

The Washington Post, today:

The case against Saeed Mohammed Saleh Hatim seemed ironclad.

The Justice Department alleged that Hatim, a detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, trained at an al-Qaeda military camp in Afghanistan, stayed at terrorist guesthouses and even fought in the battle of Tora Bora. . . .

But a federal judge reviewed the case and found the government’s evidence too weak to justify Hatim’s confinement. The judge ordered the detainee’s release, ruling that he could not rely on Hatim’s statements because they had been coerced. He also found that the government’s informer was “profoundly unreliable.”

The case is more the rule than the exception. Federal judges, acting under a landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling that grants Guantanamo Bay detainees the right to challenge their confinements, have ordered the government to free 32 prisoners and backed the detention of nine others. In their opinions, the judges have gutted allegations and questioned the reliability of statements by the prisoners during interrogations and by the informants. Even when ruling for the government, the judges have not always endorsed the Justice Department’s case. . . .

Legal scholars and outside experts who have studied the issue say the government is likely to suffer further losses because many cases appear to be built on the same kinds of evidence that have drawn such skepticism . . . .

In other words, if one hears only the Government’s unchallenged, untested accusations about detainees and others whom it labels Terrorists and Enemy Combatants, it semes clear and obvious that the person is an Evil, Dangerous and Bad Man.  But when those accusations are actually subjected to scrutiny by courts, it turns out that — in the overwhelming majority of cases — there is virtually no reliable evidence to support them.  Even beyond those cases, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, had access to detainee files and revealed that a huge number of Guantanamo detainees — constantly accused of being the Worst of the Worst — were, in fact, completely innocent, as even the Bush administration came to acknowledge.  It’s unsurprising that the Government would falsely accuse so many people:  unlike in traditional (i.e., real) wars, where POWs are captured in uniform, as part of an army and on a battlefield, most of the people accused of being Terrorists and Enemy Combatants are captured far away from any battlefield:  in their homes, walking on the street, at work, etc.  The potential for both error and abuse (and thus the need for real safegurads) is radically greater.

[Read more at Salon]

From BBC News:

An activist group that temporarily blocked access to key Australian government websites plans to continue its cyber attacks, the BBC has learned.

The group, known as Anonymous, was protesting against the Australian government’s proposals to apply filters to the internet in the country.

A man claiming to be a representative of the group said that around 500 people were involved in the attack.

The method they are using is known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).

DDoS is illegal in many countries including the United Kingdom. There is no indication that the attack was carried out from within Britain. DDoS attacks typically call on machines in many different nations, making them hard to trace.

The sites were intermittently blocked on 10 and 11 February. The action has been condemned by various bodies including the Systems Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and Electronic Frontiers Australia.

[Read more BBC News]

Betty Boyd Caroli speaks about her book, "The Roosevelt Women," a look at the lives of nine women of the Roosevelt family, from the mother of Theodore Roosevelt to the present generation. She also discusses various scandals and accomplishments of this historic American family.
Length:

Published: Today at 10am (ET)