Thursday February 4th, 2010
Meanwhile please
tell ten people to tell ten people to tell ten people...
World
& National News
Google
to
enlist NSA to fight cyberattacks
The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most
powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the
name of cybersecurity.
Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security
Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack
that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer
networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter.
The objective is to better defend Google -- and its users -- from
future attack.
Police want
backdoor to private data
Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside
it if they have a paper search warrant.
But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional
methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents.
They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking
police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so
requests can be sent and received electronically.
Justice Defends Ruling
on Finance
In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence
Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent
campaign finance decision.
And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union
addresses — he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the
occasion last week to criticize the court’s decision — because the
gatherings had turned so partisan.
Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson
University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign
finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a
5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last
month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to
support or oppose political candidates.
China
warns
Iran sanctions will derail diplomacy
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi warned Thursday that threatening
more sanctions against Iran will derail diplomatic efforts to resolve
the dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.
"This talk of sanctions at this moment will complicate the situation
and stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution," Yang told a
gathering at a French think-tank.
Obama
warns
against 'erosion of civility'
President Obama bemoaned the "erosion of civility" in the nation's
political debate Thursday, telling an audience at the National Prayer
Breakfast that there is a growing sense that "something is broken" in
Washington.
"Those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we
should," Obama said. "At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to
one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate."
Mr.
Brown's
next stop
The upset election of Scott P. Brown to the US Senate was officially
certified this morning in a brief procedural hearing at the State
House, clearing the way for the Republican to take the oath of office
this evening in Washington.
The independently elected Governor's Council voted 6-0 to accept the
official results, which showed that Brown won last month's special
election by 107,317 votes. Nearly two dozen reporters and six
television cameras crowded the cramped Governor's Council Chamber for
the unanimous vote, which concluded when Governor Deval Patrick slammed
down his gavel.
"Motion carried," Patrick said "Done."
Brown is scheduled to be given the oath of office by Vice President
Joseph Biden at 5 p.m. today.
Afghans
prepare for NATAO assault on Taliban
The biggest military operation of U.S. President Barack Obama's new
Afghan surge will be a test not just for American troops, but also for
the Afghan authorities expected to rush with them into the breach.
U.S. Marines are planning a massive operation within days to take
Marjah, a warren of canals that forms the last big Taliban enclave in
the southern part of Helmand, in the first major show of force since
Obama ordered 30,000 extra troops.
Ahmadinejad
plays
cat-and-mouse with West
President Ahmadinejad demonstrated yesterday that he has become a
master of playing cat and mouse with the West — and this time the mouse
was real.
Once again, the Iranian leader offered a last-minute concession to head
off the West’s drive for new sanctions against the Islamic republic. At
the same time, Iran thumbed its nose at UN restrictions on its
ballistic missiles programme by sending a rocket into space carrying a
mouse, two turtles and some worms.
House
Dems
Trasy Obama Plan
Some rank and file Democrats in the House are trashing President Barack
Obama's plan to give businesses that add workers a new $5,000 tax
credit for each job they create.
Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California said businesses won't hire
new employees unless they have work for them to do.
Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said companies that have
struggled to keep workers would lose out while those that got rid of
workers could get the credit by replacing them.
Gates:
Don't
Rush to Lift Ban n Gays in Military
The United States should not rush into a change as large as repealing
the ban on gays serving openly in the military without making sure the
people it affects are on board, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said
Wednesday.
Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said an 11-month study into the effects of lifting the ban will examine
practical questions such as how the change would affect the numbers of
people who decide to remain in the service when their terms expire.
Justice
Inspector
Stripped of Probing Power
In a terse letter to a Republican lawmaker who requested an
investigation of the dismissal of complaints against the New Black
Panther Party, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said
he should be able to do so, but was powerless because Congress had
stripped him of that authority.
In a four-page response to Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, who had
requested that the IG's office investigate what he called the
complaint's "unfounded dismissal," Mr. Fine said that unlike all other
inspectors general who have unlimited jurisdiction to investigate all
claims of wrongdoing inside their agencies, his office does not.
President's
GOP
Outreach Too Little Too Late
A photo-op is not the same as
compromising on policy.
Last Friday, President Obama met with House Republicans in Baltimore.
He took questions, parried criticisms, and allowed all of it to be put
on television.
Framed as an opportunity for the president to hear from the other side,
Mr. Obama's real aim was to portray Republicans as obstructionist and
boost his own public standing in the process.
Afterward, Gallup found that Mr. Obama's approval hit 51%, up from 47%
after the State of the Union address two days earlier. But in winning
that small victory, Mr. Obama also further poisoned his relationship
with Republicans by repeatedly saying things that are demonstrably not
true.
A
Short
History of American Populism
Andrew Jackson argued that government
interference in the economy would inevitably favor the well-connected.
It was a "populist night," Yale Law School professor and longtime New
York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse wrote of Barack Obama's State of
the Union address. The president denounced "bad behavior on Wall
Street" and called for "a fee on the biggest banks." He said he wanted
to take "$30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid" and
give it to community banks. He denounced CEOs who reward themselves for
failure and bankers who put the rest of us at risk for their own
selfish gain. He denounced "insurance company abuses." He called for
higher taxes on "oil ...
Waiting for Godot
The Obama Years
by Geoff Metcalf
"The
whole
problem
with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-- Bertrand Russell
Reasonable people can (or should be able to) reasonably disagree if or
when they honestly consider facts that may contradict their
preconceived opinions and prejudices. However, unfortunately,
especially in the partisan environment of politics, reason, honest
analysis and fairness too quickly become victims of the “us versus
them” thing. Politics has become a blood sport where the only
golden
rule is “the team with the gold makes the rules”.
Politicians who were elected to represent the best interests, wants and
desires of their constituents, morph into petty, agenda driven
competitors quick to eschew reason for partisanship. Sadly, this
axiomatic reality is universal and not exclusive to any one party.
Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise. However,
increasingly, politics is a blood sport personifying the absolute worse
elements of abuse of power under the color of authority.
President Barack Obama, a year after promising "change" and a Kumbaya
tsunami of bi-partisan cooperation, now reluctantly admits he has not
succeeded in bringing the country together. In a recent People magazine
interview, the president begrudgingly acknowledged an atmosphere
of
divisiveness that has washed away the lofty national feeling
surrounding his inauguration a year ago. 'That's what's been lost this
year ... that whole sense of changing how Washington works,'
Obama
said.
"What I haven't been able to do in the midst of this crisis is bring
the country together in a way that we had done in the Inauguration," he
said, referring to last January 20 when hundreds of thousands flooded
into Washington to see him sworn in as America's first black
president...before reality and buyer's remorse.
The simple reality is Obama has failed because he and his party's
leadership (or critics will argue LACK of leadership) have
failed...failed to do what they said they would do...and failed to do
anything the "way" they promised.
Notwithstanding lofty eloquance, concensus and "unity' cannot be
mandated by imperial decree. Partisan acrimony is not and cannot be
bridled by harangue, bullying or bludgeon. Politics is the art of
compromise and the facts in evidence demonstrate that this
administration and this Democrat led congress has not been disposed to
engage in compromise. Rather the democrats have embraced a hamfisted
"our way or the highway" forced imposition of their will.
Now, in the wake of spelunking poll numbers, rampant buyers
remorse,
and a previously unimagined nostalgia for the Carter administration,
democrats seem shocked, amazed and confused that over half the country
does not approve of not only what they are trying to do, but how they
are doing it. Blaming the dark sky and coming ice age on Bush (or
Reagan or Nixon or Eisenhower or Lincoln) is a worn out dog that flat
out ain't gonna hunt.
When Mr. Cool was promising "change" little did ANYone assume that
change might result in a republican winning Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat.
It is a sad reality that at the same time our military has
significantly improved the quality of the U.S. Troops who serve, the
civilian leadership and politicians have regressed to a level
reminisent of uneducated fuedal bullies. The military is smarter, more
fit, better equipped, and as committed as any generation from Valley
Forge to Iwo Jima or Pleiku to Bosnia. We have an all-volunteer
military that is dedicated to protecting YOU. Conversely, the political
arena is littered with disingenuous, duplicitous partisans who long
since have abadoned their constituents for the next political victory
(and/or pork laden earmark).
I have recently re-read Dr. Robert Humphrey's
'Living Values for a New Millenium' in preparation for an
upcoming February
seminar.
In a 1997 speech before he passed away, Dr. Humphrey said, top
leadership, in both our civilian or military government, is afraid even
to discuss this apparent decisive need for new thinking both at home
and overseas. It was 13 years ago he observed, the news media and
public opinion polls advise, "The people sense a moral bankruptcy in
Washington" with a bickering inability in government to face these
deeper problems.
Wherever you go, you are little bit safer because of the military and
yet more at risk because of the coat room schenanigans of congress.
Wherever the military sets a boot EVERYONE has a friend, a defender and
a champion. However politicians seem more concerned about the next PAC
contribution than the wants, needs or well being of the very people
they were elected to represent.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard once wrote,“Moral relativism has set in so
deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning
right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by
journalists. Life is one great moral mush—sophistry washed down with
Chardonnay.”