Just heard this on the news while I was cooking dinner, so I decided to check it out, and sure enough, it is true:
On leaving office this year, Howard Dean sealed his gubernatorial papers for 10 years
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Just heard this on the news while I was cooking dinner, so I decided to check it out, and sure enough, it is true:
On leaving office this year, Howard Dean sealed his gubernatorial papers for 10 years
by John Cole| 8 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Let’s watch the rats squirm now:
The Bush administration Tuesday threatened to veto the fiscal 2004 supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan if a Senate-approved loan provision is accepted. “If this provision is not removed, the president’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill,” OMB Director Josh Bolten said in a letter sent Tuesday to House and Senate Appropriations Committee leaders.
The Senate approved the amendment, despite vigorous White House and GOP leadership lobbying, to convert $10 billion of the Iraq reconstruction funds into a loan unless other nations forgive 90 percent of Iraq’s prewar debt. GOP lawmakers and aides said the provision would likely be removed in conference, as the House bill would provide its entire $18.65 billion Iraq aid package in the form of a grant. “The House will hold firm in support of the president and, in the end, I expect the conference report will drop the loan provision,” House Appropriations Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., said.
Good for Bush.
by John Cole| 3 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
Stupid is as stupid does:
You saw it first on News 4! A man is behind bars after he survived a daring jump over the mighty Niagara Falls.
Witnesses watched in horror Monday as the man took the dangerous plunge. But he somehow got the the bottom alive and managed to crawl to safety.
Police are not releasing his name, only that he is a U.S. citizen. No word yet on what charges he’ll face.
Investigators are also questioning the man’s friend who videotaped the whole thing.
This is the first known instance that someone has survived a plunge over the falls with no safety devices.
Groan.
by John Cole| 12 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®
An interesting read from Deroy Murdock.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Brian Mulroney in the WSJ:
Although the reality of pre-emptive action is new, so was the terrorist strike on America. What is also new is the suggestion that Security Council approval is–and has been–a sacrosanct precondition to action against a hostile state. The historical record is to the contrary. In any event, I would never have agreed to subcontract Canada’s international security decisions and our national interest to 15 members of the Security Council. This would be a surrender of national sovereignty to which I’d never consent.
In fact, a coalition of nations–including France, Germany and Canada–mounted a massive air war against Serbia a few years ago without Security Council authorization, under President Clinton’s leadership. There was no “imminence” of attack on any allied nation, nor did Serbia represent a threat to anyone outside her own borders. Why the reversal of policy when Iraq was involved, with the same nations piously insisting that Security Council approval had to be obtained before any military action could be initiated–and that the absence of any such approval had rendered illegitimate any military action against Saddam Hussein?
Read the whole thing.
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
If you haven’t already, go donate to Chief Wiggles worthy cause.
by John Cole| 12 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
So the Department of Homeland Security has been around for a year- two years, ah who the hell cares, and this is all that I can tell they have done:
1.) Provided a platform for Tom Ridge to fall far beneath everyone’s expectations regarding his abilities.
2.) Reneged or failed to follow through on most or all airline security measures that everyone agrees are necessary.
3.) ‘Streamlined’ our intelligence services into a large, new, multi-layered agency which appears to be more inept than the FBI, more secretive than the Justice Department, and more expensive than the CIA. The make-up is so damn confusing I don’t even know who to yell at anymore.
4.) Provided us with this pretty chart which means who the hell knows what:
Sure is pretty, though. Look at the use of color and the symmetry!
5.) Completely ruined the life of Dr. Thomas Campbell Butler, the Texas Tech scientist who is being screwed by the FBI and now no longer is able to continue his important work designing a cure for the Bubonic Plague. If you missed the damning 60 Minutes report last night, make sure you go here and read about it.
But don’t you worry! Our intrepid bureaucrats seem to be making some progress, and by way of the British press, I see that they finally have made us all a little safer:
A college student who told authorities he placed box cutters and other banned items aboard two airliners to test security was charged Monday with taking a dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft and was released without bail.
Nathaniel Heatwole, 20, told federal agents he went through normal security procedures at airports in Baltimore and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Once aboard, he said he hid the banned items in compartments in the planes’ rear lavatories.
What is the word, I am looking for, here. Oh yeah, it is “Whistleblower.”
The charge against Heatwole, a junior at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Discovery of the items Thursday aboard Southwest planes that landed in New Orleans and Houston triggered stepped-up inspections of the entire U.S. commercial air fleet – roughly 7,000 planes. But after consulting with the FBI, the Transportation Security Administration rescinded the inspection order and no other suspicious bags were found.
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale said Monday’s court action “makes clear that renegade acts to probe airport security for whatever reason will not be tolerated, pure and simple.”
“Amateur testing of our systems do not show us in any way our flaws,” McHale said. “We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them … This does not help.”
Then there are those of us who politely disagree with McHale. Some of us actually think you could FUCKING ASK HEATWOLE HOW HE DID IT, AND THEN PUT STEPS INTO PLACE SO IT DOES NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. When 20 year old poly sci students are a step ahead of you, most agencies would allot a little work time to some reflection and introspection, rather than trying to put a whistleblower’s head on a pike.
This kid does not deserve jail time. He deserves a medal.
In other news- this is a nice development:
The United States has won agreement from governments across Asia and the Pacific Rim to sharply restrict the use and transfer of shoulder-fired missiles that could be used by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to shoot down passenger planes, senior Bush administration officials said Monday.
They said the United States was pressing to have the restrictions on the missiles, like the American-made Stinger and the Russian-made SA-7, written into the final statement that will be issued at this week’s meeting in Bangkok of President Bush and his counterparts from Asian and Pacific nations.
Good news, I guess. This is probably more important:
While resisting calls on Capitol Hill for a multibillion-dollar program to install antimissile technology on American passenger planes, the Bush administration has taken several steps in recent months to deal with the missile threat.
Last month, the administration disclosed that it had decided to commit $100 million to the first phase of development of an antimissile system for passenger planes, a much larger research investment than it had discussed publicly.