I know there’s some football games tonight, but you’re gonna have to fill in the details yourselves.
Anne Laurie has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2009.
Long Read: “60 Words And A War Without End”
Gregory D. Johnsen, in Buzzfeed, on “The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History”:
… At the heart of the AUMF is a single 60-word sentence, which has formed the legal foundation for nearly every counterterrorism operation the U.S. has conducted since Sept. 11, from Guantanamo Bay and drone strikes to secret renditions and SEAL raids. Everything rests on those 60 words.
Unbound by time and unlimited by geography, the sentence has been stretched and expanded over the past decade, sprouting new meanings and interpretations as two successive administrations have each attempted to keep pace with an evolving threat while simultaneously maintaining the security of the homeland. In the process, what was initially thought to authorize force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan has now been used to justify operations in several countries across multiple continents and, at least theoretically, could allow the president — any president — to strike anywhere at anytime. What was written in a few days of fear has now come to govern years of action.
Culled from interviews with former and current members of Congress, as well as staffers and attorneys who served in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, this is the story of how those 60 words came to be, the lone objector to their implementation, and their continuing power in the world today. The story, like most modern ones of America at war, begins in the shadow of 9/11 with a lawyer and Word document…
… Twelve years after 9/11, who exactly is the U.S. at war with?
When I contacted the Pentagon to get an answer, a spokeswoman emailed back: “The list is classified and not for public release.”…
Long Read: “60 Words And A War Without End”Post + Comments (163)
Sochi: Putin ‘Can’t Feel Weak’
(via Charles P. Pierce)
So much beauty, so much joy. And then…
Kirit Radia, ABC News:
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed his government “will do whatever it takes” to prevent a terror attack during next month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“If we allow ourselves to be weak, feel weak, let our fear to be seen, by doing that we’ll assist those terrorists in achieving their goals,” Putin said.
“Our job, needless to say, the job of the Olympics host, is to ensure security of the participants in the Olympics and visitors to this festival of sports and we will do whatever it takes,” he said.
Putin added, “We would try and make sure that security measures were not be in your face, did not put pressure on the athletes and visitors or reporters. At the same time we’ll do everything within our power to make sure those measures are efficient.”…
“There is also a moral dimension to it,” Putin said speaking frankly about the mood of the Russian people. “I’ll tell you about it openly. There is nothing to hide or be embarrassed by here. Following the collapse of the USSR, following hard and, let’s put it bluntly, blood-soaked developments in the Caucasus, the overall state society was depressing and pessimistic. We need to cheer up, we need to understand and feel that we are capable of pulling off major, large-scale projects and do so on schedule and with good quality.”…
From CNN, Putin says gays ‘can feel safe’ at Sochi:
Russia’s Vladimir Putin again sought to downplay fears that gay visitors will be discriminated against as he paid a visit to the Sochi area Friday, exactly three weeks before the Winter Olympics get underway.
Putin’s remarks came as he met with volunteers for the games, the state-run Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The president said Russia, unlike some other countries, does not criminalize homosexual relationships.
“We don’t outlaw anything and don’t nab anyone,” Putin said.
“That’s why you can feel safe and free here, but please leave our children in peace,” he added…
There’s a video clip at the link of a gay family that feels so ‘safe’, their faces have to be blurred out.
Friday Recipe Exchange: Pastas and Sauces
From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
Last year I did a recipe exchange on meatballs (here) but was surprised to see I had never done one specifically on sauces. Now sauces can be risky and start a great debate, because every family has their version. So hit the comments with your favorite pasta sauce recipe, and for that matter, pastas, because there are so many choices. Like many things, I’m not all that concerned about the right pasta for the right sauce, I say, use what you enjoy and ignore the purists.
Food should be fun. For that matter, so should wine, beer and scotch.
So let’s start out with JeffreyW’s Awesome Sauce (here) because, well, it’s awesome.
Want something a little simpler and quicker? How about his San Marzano Sauce, here.
And his Shrimp & Pasta Formaggio (here) is quick and easy, also.
When everything is in season, I like to make my sauce with fresh ingredients, so I have a Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce (recipe here) that’s lighter and fresher than tonight’s featured recipe.
When it comes to pastas, I favor two options, a nice spiral (fusilli or rotini) or a quick cooking Angel Hair (capellini), but if I can get it fresh from the farmer’s market, I’ll take what I can get, which is usually a linguine. It’s all tasty.
For the featured recipe, I went with my traditional family sauce, the one I grew up with, but with a few tweaks. Now, even in my family, half of which are Italian, even the most basic sauce has as many different variations as there are cooks, so this is just a place to start, add your own touches to make it your family tradition. This is a hearty sauce and my go-to in the colder months when fresh ingredients are not readily available. I always double this and freeze half for a later dinner.
Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce
Friday Recipe Exchange: Pastas and SaucesPost + Comments (40)
Friday Evening Open Thread: Comix Relief
(via the Atlantic)
.
For all us Wonder Women fans, especially LAMH36. I do believe that 1970 WW comic at 2:01 was the issue that got me into collecting, back in the day. (I later sold off my collection to tide me over between college and my first ‘real’ job, which means I got a better financial return than most of my friends did for their college indulgences… )
While I work on transferring this week’s Recipe Exchange, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
Friday Evening Open Thread: Comix ReliefPost + Comments (28)
Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law Struck Down
Good news on a Friday, for once. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
HARRISBURG — A Pennsylvania judge has found the state’s voter ID law unconstitutional.
According to the ruling from Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley, the requirement to present an acceptable form of identification when voting in person “unreasonably burdens the right to vote.”…
A group of state Senate Democrats hailed the ruling as a victory for fair elections and said they hoped the Corbett administration would not fight the decision through appeals.
“They’ve gone beyond where they already should have gone on this in terms of using resources,” said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills. “They shouldn’t spend another penny on this.”…
In his ruling, Judge McGinley wrote that the law poses “a substantial threat” to hundreds of thousands of qualified voters.
“Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election; the Voter ID Law does not further this goal,” the decision reads…
From Dave Weigel, who was reporting on this during the last election:
Pennsylvania’s commonwealth court has found the photo requirement of the 2012 voter ID law “invalid and unconstitutional on its face.” So, a total victory for the plaintiffs, a collection of people who lacked proof of identity, defended by civil liberties groups. “The only fraud uncovered in this case is the ID law itself,” crowed Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, “which is exposed as a voter suppression tool adopted to game elections.”…
It’s not all bad for defenders of the law. Really, it isn’t—as Rick Hasen first spotted, the judgment excuses GOP leader Mike Turzai’s extremely ill-advised brag that the law would help win Pennsylvania for Romney. “The House Majority Leader’s unfortunate comments notwithstanding,” writes Judge Bernard McGinley, “there is no evidence that the purpose behind the Voter ID Law was to disenfrancise minorities or persons who, along party lines, may be more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates.” That undermines an argument that had been taken from Pennsylvania onto the airwaves of MSNBC, that’s not bad for the state as it looks to rescue the law at the next level, the state Supreme Court.
Friday Morning Open Thread: “The Joy of Unfollowing”
Best response I’ve seen yet to Bill & Emma Keller using their high-profile media platforms to sniff at a cancer patients’ tweets (“Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience?”) comes from Maureen O’Connor at NYMag:
… In the age of social media, when cell phones come with camera lenses optimized for selfies, that last question gets asked regularly. So I am going to answer it, once and for all: No. There is no such thing as TMI on the Internet. We are living in a post-TMI age, and everyone needs to deal with it. Preferably by using the “unfollow” button.
There is such a thing as too much information for you. There is such a thing as information the speaker will later regret. But if an audience is willingly and pleasurably consuming the information, then by definition, that is the right amount of information for them…. If you continually recoil at TMI, it’s because you lack the willpower to stop consuming (or foresight to avoid) the information in question. That’s your fault.
Modern media consumption — particularly digital media consumption — is personalized. This is sometimes to our detriment; it is very easy to surround yourself with the voices of only those who agree with you. As consumers of social media, we are all the programmers of our own personal line-ups, featuring a hand-selected set of soap operas, news sources, and other amusements. If a particular soap opera becomes boring, you click “unfollow” — or maybe you hate it so much that you block it. You can download browser extensions that will turn words you do not want to see into a big black bars, or prevent you from loading web pages that contain material that offends. For instance, if I never want to see or think about Bill or Emma Keller, I could install a content filter like Blocksi and set it to block or limit the amount of time I spend on web pages where the term Keller appears. Or I could set it simply to warn me about incoming Kellers, so that I can summon a third party to preview the material for me…
… In the age of micro-audience — when everyone is famous not for fifteen minutes, but to fifteen people — there is a consumer for everything. No exceptions….
My emphasis. I hadn’t realized there were so many tech-enabled ways to avoid seeing stuff I don’t like, but then, I find the scroll-down option sufficient for my unexacting needs.
Friday Morning Open Thread: “The Joy of Unfollowing”Post + Comments (52)