Archive for November 30, 2010
Bravo to WikiLeaks for Restoring Distrust in the U.S. Government
Bravo to WikiLeaks for restoring distrust in the U.S.government:
International scandals—such as the one precipitated by this week’s WikiLeaks cable dump—serve us by illustrating how our governments work. Better than any civics textbook, revisionist history, political speech, bumper sticker, or five-part investigative series, an international scandal unmasks presidents and kings, military commanders and buck privates, cabinet secretaries and diplomats, corporate leaders and bankers, and arms-makers and arms-merchants as the bunglers, liars, and double-dealers they are.
[...]
As the Economist put it yesterday, “secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy.” But it “is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents.”
Assange and WikiLeaks, while not perfect, have punctured the prerogative of secrecy with their recent revelations. The untold story is that while doing the United States’ allies, adversaries, and enemies a favor with his leaks, he’s doing the United States the biggest favor by holding it accountable.
Moral of the story? Never, ever, trust what the government tells you. (Listen up Tea Partiers.)
143 House Republicans Vote Against Extending Unemployment Benefits
800,000 Americans will lose their unemployment benefits at midnight tonight because 142 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted not to extend their benefits.
237 Democrats and 21 Republicans voted in favor of the bill.
15 chickenshit Republicans and 7 chickenshit Democrats didn’t vote.
I volunteer at a food bank. Looks like we’re going to have more clients than ever (we’re already overwhelmed): Food Banks Bracing For End of Extended Unemployment Benefits.
Thanks, you heartless assholes. You have ice in your veins.
Perfect timing: How the Grinch Stole Christmas is going to be on the teevee tonight.
Deconstructing the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”
Check out the insanely cool deconstruction of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” (from the Let it Bleed album) over at Dangerous Minds — separate tracks for vocals (perfection), the drums and Keith Richards’ kick ass rhythm guitar track.
Amazing.
Glenn Beck Doesn’t Understand the Difference Between Wikipedia and WikiLeaks
Oh dear God. There is no connection whatsoever between Wikipedia and WikiLeaks but Professor Glenn Beck doesn’t seem to grasp that. Hey, they sound the same so they must be the same, right?
I know being stupid is in vogue on the right these days but sometimes you know, it isn’t all that impressive.
(While I was blogging at the Newhounds, Fox defenders would troll the pages and jump on me (and all of us) if I so much as misplaced a comma. Yes, they were sticklers for perfection, claiming that any mistake showed how dumb I was. If I misplaced a comma then I was surely totally sloppy about the facts too so nothing I wrote could be believed. But heh, if Glenn Beck doesn’t know the difference between two huge websites, no problem.)
Karl Rove Has No Business Talking About Who’s Weak in the Face of Leaks
Karl Rove tweets that the Obama administration is weak in the face of WikiLeaks:
Yep. This is the same guy who outed Valerie Plame, a top CIA agent, and got away with it. Didn’t hear him complaining how weak the Bush administration was in the face of that.
WikiLeaks: Who’s Putting Lives at Risk?
Don’t miss this cartoon by the Guardian‘s Steve Bell.
Tea Party Nation Wants Julian Assange to Die
Found this email from the Tea Party Nation in my inbox this morning:
I know the text is tiny — can’t make it any bigger — this is what it says:
Subject: No Mr. Assange, I expect you to die
A message to all members of Tea Party Nation
Everyone remembers the famous scene in the James Bond movie, “Goldfinger.” 007′s nemesis has captured him,tied him down and a laser is cutting its way through metal, between Bond’s legs, where it will eventually cut him in half.
007 says, “Do you expect me to talk?” And Goldfinger responds, “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”
Isn’t it about time we sent that message to Jullian [sic] Assange?
Seems to me one could take this as a formal death threat.
