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Krauthammer: “Fox News Created an Alternate Reality”
On Tuesday Charles Krauthammer received the NY Posts’ Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, and in his acceptance speech went wildly off-message to provide a glimpse into the twisted psyche of a Fox News commentator.
“What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.
A few years ago, I was on a radio show with a well-known political reporter who lamented the loss of a pristine past in which the whole country could agree on what the facts were, even if they disagreed on how to interpret and act upon them. All that was gone now. The country had become so fractured we couldn’t even agree on what reality was.
That’s why Fox News is so resented. It altered the intellectual and ideological landscape of America. It gave not only voice but also legitimacy to a worldview that had been utterly excluded from the mainstream…
Zombie Neurobiology Finally Explained
io9.com: In Night of the Living Dead, zombies are brought back from the dead by a “mysterious force” that allows their brains to continue functioning. But how exactly does a zombie brain function? Finally, a Harvard psychiatrist has the answers.
Dr. Steven C. Schlozman is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a lecturer at the Harvard School of Education. He is also an avid sci-fi and horror fan — and has drafted a fake medical journal article on the zombie plague, which he calls Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, or ANSD (the article has five authors: one living, three “deceased” and one “humanoid infected”).
According to Dr. Steven C. Schlozman, this is your brain on zombies.
Congress, Obama Supporting Expanded Secrecy Law
Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com:
The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.” As long as the Defense Secretary certifies — with no review possible — that disclosure would “endanger” American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.
What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than…
BART Police: Resist and We Will Kill You
Officer Domenici is the one who, just after her colleague fatally shot Oscar Grant in the back, began trying to steal cellphones and cameras from bystanders. These video’s show Grant lying face down on the concrete. Domenici doesn’t explain how someone can resist orders while on their stomach with a policemans knee in their back.
SF Chronicle: “If they would have followed orders, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Officer Marysol Domenici.
Domenici said she did not see Mehserle shoot Grant because she had been facing the other direction. Immediately after the shot was fired, she said, some train riders were so angry that she started thinking about using her gun.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, if I have to, I’m going to have to kill somebody,’ ” Domenici said.
Outside court, Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, said she was disturbed by Domenici’s testimony – particularly her assertion that she would not have done anything…
General David Petraeus on Closing Gitmo: The ‘New Great Game’ in Asia
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
RFE/RL: In your view, does the closing of “Gitmo” and the abandonment of those techniques complicate the U.S. mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the overall struggle against violent transnational extremist groups or does it help it?
Petraeus: Doing that, [closing the prison at Guantanamo,] in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.
RFE/RL: The Central Asian states all agree that the region’s biggest security problems right now emanate from Afghanistan. Given that, why, in your opinion, has it been so difficult for some of them to commit more firmly to helping the U.S. and NATO efforts?
Petraeus: What might be most beneficial for all of the countries — including my own and Russia and the other great powers of the world — would…
General David Petraeus on Closing Gitmo, The “New Great Game” in Asia
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
RFE/RL:In your view, does the closing of “Gitmo” and the abandonment of those techniques complicate the U.S. mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the overall struggle against violent transnational extremist groups or does it help it?
Petraeus: Doing that, [closing the prison at Guantanamo,] in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.
RFE/RL: The Central Asian states all agree that the region’s biggest security problems right now emanate from Afghanistan. Given that, why, in your opinion, has it been so difficult for some of them to commit more firmly to helping the U.S. and NATO efforts?
Petraeus: What might be most beneficial for all of the countries — including my own and Russia and the other great powers of the world — would…
Gen. Petraeus: Closing Gitmo Sends “Important Message to The World”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
RFE/RL:In your view, does the closing of “Gitmo” and the abandonment of those techniques complicate the U.S. mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the overall struggle against violent transnational extremist groups or does it help it?
Petraeus: Doing that, [closing the prison at Guantanamo,] in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.
RFE/RL: The Central Asian states all agree that the region’s biggest security problems right now emanate from Afghanistan. Given that, why, in your opinion, has it been so difficult for some of them to commit more firmly to helping the U.S. and NATO efforts?
Petraeus: What might be most beneficial for all of the countries — including my own and Russia and the other great powers of the world — indeed…
Robot Scientist Becomes First Machine to Discover New Scientific Knowledge
File under: Benign Now, Destroy Us Later.
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council: Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have created a Robot Scientist which the researchers believe is the first machine to have independently discovered new scientific knowledge. The robot, called Adam, is a computer system that fully automates the scientific process.
Using artificial intelligence, Adam hypothesised that certain genes in baker’s yeast code for specific enzymes which catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast. The robot then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle.
Even Mercedes Is into Steampunk
Good Magazine: Mercedes has lost its mind. And I think I likey.
According to a press release, the F-CELL Roadster (shown beside the 1886 Benz Patent Motor Car) is “fitted with a 1.2 kW hybrid drive—one that allows the F-CELL to reach a top speed of 15 mph and achieve an operating range of 217 miles.” It also “draws its inspiration from a diverse variety of automotive eras.” Clearly.
It looks sharper than a golf cart — that much is certain — and it seems like a bizarrely awesome way to get around town … if you’re an eccentric billionaire who’s mad into hi-tech anachronism. Check out some of the pics below and let us know if you’d give one a spin. No word yet on price.
Full press release and cool pictures found here.
Despite Obama’s Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq
Democracy Now!: Nearly four weeks ago President Obama declared that U.S. combat operations would end in Iraq by August 2010.
Under President Obama’s plan, all combat troops will be pulled from Iraq but a transition force of up to 50,000 will remain after August 2010.
Despite Obama’s pledge, new evidence has emerged that the U.S. plans to keep combat brigades in Iraq but they will operate under a different name.
Investigative reporter Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service has revealed some of the Brigade Combat Teams currently in Iraq will stay beyond August 2010 and will be renamed so-called “advisory and assistance brigades.”
The Big Takeover
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: While the rest of America, and most of Congress, have been bugging out about the $700 billion bailout program called TARP, newly created organisms in the Federal Reserve zoo have quietly been pumping trillions of dollars into the hands of private companies (at least $3 trillion so far in loans, with as much as $5.7 trillion more in guarantees of private investments).
No one knows who’s getting that money or exactly how much of it is disappearing through these new holes in the hull of America’s credit rating.
By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to…
The Big Takeover
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.
The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a…
Obama/Geithner Plan: Private Profit, Socialized Debt
Paul Krugman, NYT: The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago.
The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank.
For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.
This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it…
Ron Paul, Stephen Baldwin Debate Marijuana
On the Larry King Live show March 13th, 2009 Rep. Ron Paul debated Stephen Baldwin on the subject of marijuana legalization. Amazingly (or not, if you’re familiar with these guys), its the republican congressman who is pro-legalization, and the Hollywood actor who once played the “Macguyver Stoner” arguing against.
Healthcare Enemy #1
Christopher Hayes, The Nation: Rick Scott is the man who best embodies the spirit of the current conservative opposition. Politico recently reported that the millionaire Republican would be heading up Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), a new group that plans to spend around $20 million to kill President Obama’s efforts at healthcare reform.
Having Scott lead the charge against healthcare reform is like tapping Bernie Madoff to campaign against tighter securities regulation. You see, the for-profit hospital chain Scott helped found — the one he ran and built his entire reputation on — was discovered to be in the habit of defrauding the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
But in Washington there’s no such thing as permanent disgrace, and as the healthcare debate heats up, Scott has established himself as a go-to source for reporters looking to hear from the opposition. He’s been quoted in the Wall Street Journal…
JetBlue Releases The CEO’s Guide to Jetting
An introduction to commercial air travel for CEOs only.
No minions, lackeys, or “regular” people allowed.
Treasury Officials’ Dishonest ‘Blame Dodd’ Scheme
Glenn Greenwald, Salon: There is a major push underway by Obama’s Treasury officials to blame Chris Dodd for the AIG bonus payments. That would be perfectly fine if it were true. But it’s completely false, and the scheme to heap the blame on him for the AIG bonus payments is based on demonstrable falsehoods.
It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted. And it was Dodd, not Obama officials, who wanted the prohibition applied to all compensation agreements, past and future. The provision which shielded already-promised bonus payments from the executive compensation limits ended up being inserted at the insistence of Geithner.
They’re just inventing a false history in order to blame the politically hapless Dodd for what Geithner and Summers did. And they’re being aided by a right-wing noise machine that knows Dodd is vulnerable and which views the opportunity to blame the AIG bonuses…
Top 12 Deregulatory Steps to Financial Meltdown
In a new report, Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor points to twelve deregulatory steps that led to the financial meltdown. It also does an analysis of the amount of money Wall Street poured into Washington in campaign contributions and lobbying over the last ten years. Their answer? A staggering $5.1 billion over the past decade.
Step 1: Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allows risky investment banks to merge with FDIC backed commercial banks
Step 2: Hiding toxic liabilities with off-Balance Sheet Accounting is allowed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board
Step 3: Greenspan/Rubin/Summers prevent the CFTC from regulating derivatives.
Step 4: Phill Gramm’s Commodities Futures Modernization Act signs into law derivative non-regulation
Step 5: The SEC (at the urging of Goldman Sachs & Hank Paulson) allows banks to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 6: The so-called Basel Standards allow banks all over the world to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 7: Federal regulators do nothing to stop obvious predatory lending
Step 8: The Federal…
Top 12 Deregulatory Steps to Financial Meltdown
In a new report, Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor points to twelve deregulatory steps that led to the financial meltdown. It also does an analysis of the amount of money Wall Street poured into Washington in campaign contributions and lobbying over the last ten years. Their answer? A staggering $5.1 billion over the past decade.
Step 1: Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allows risky investment banks to merge with FDIC backed commercial banks
Step 2: Hiding toxic liabilities with off-Balance Sheet Accounting is allowed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board
Step 3: Greenspan/Rubin/Summers prevent the CFTC from regulating derivatives.
Step 4: Phill Gramm’s Commodities Futures Modernization Act signs into law derivative non-regulation
Step 5: The SEC (at the urging of Goldman Sachs & Hank Paulson) allows banks to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 6: The so-called Basel Standards allow banks all over the world to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 7: Federal regulators do nothing…
Top 12 Deregulatory Steps to Financial Meltdown
In a new report, Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor points to twelve deregulatory steps that led to the financial meltdown. It also does an analysis of the amount of money Wall Street poured into Washington in campaign contributions and lobbying over the last ten years. Their answer? A staggering $5.1 billion over the past decade.
Step 1: Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allows risky investment banks to merge with FDIC backed commercial banks
Step 2: Hiding toxic liabilities with off-Balance Sheet Accounting is allowed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board
Step 3: Greenspan/Rubin/Summers prevent the CFTC from regulating derivatives.
Step 4: Phill Gramm’s Commodities Futures Modernization
Act signs into law derivative non-regulation
Step 5: The SEC (at the urging of Goldman Sachs & Hank Paulson) allows banks to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 6: The so-called Basel Standards allow banks all over the world to set their own debt-to-capital ratio
Step 7: Federal regulators do nothing to…
