Thanks for the memories

And the lawyers' fees...

The New York Times and Kristol Meth

Distributorcap NY writes the most amazing letter to the Old Gray Lady over the hiring of William Kristol, neocon extraordinaire.

That one hell of a hammer of smiting, DCap!

Blackwater refuses to play by the rules

And leaves the mercenary clubhouse in a huff:

Via Eli of Multi Medium (who has an hilarious video), Matt Stoller of Open Left:

The International Peace Operations Association, which is the trade association for mercenaries inspired by the efforts of mercenary group Executive Outcomes to end the Sierra Leone Civil War, has parted ways with Blackwater. Apparently Blackwater doesn't want to follow the group's conduct code, the "set of ethical and professional guidelines for companies in the peace and stability operations industry." Initially Blackwater, a member in good standing since 2004, agreed to be reviewed by the group after the accusations that the company killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month. Now they don't want to be reviewed.

How strange. They don't like being held accountable.

Bhutto was shot

Via JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie, the horrible video of the shooting with two different perspectives.

And via Chet Scoville of Vanity Press, the fact that Bhutto's group was begging the US State Department for more security detail for months before the assassination.

So, what are we going to do about this?

Based on previous actions, absolutely nothing.

Musharraf supports democracy and respects our freedoms and liberties and stuff.... and also has socked away about 10 billion dollars of our foreign aid.



Update: Via Avedon Carol of Sideshow, Charles of Through the Looking Glass shows the history of Bhutto and her family 'dynasty'.

Your passport will betray you

And will talk readily to strangers without you knowing:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Passport cards for Americans who travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean will be equipped with technology that allows information on the card to be read from a distance.

The technology was approved Monday by the State Department and privacy advocates were quick to criticize the department for not doing more to protect information on the card, which can be used by U.S. citizens instead of a passport when traveling to other countries in the western hemisphere.

The technology would allow the cards to be read from up to 20 feet away. This process only takes one or two seconds, said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department. The card would not have to be physically swiped through a reader, as is the current process with passports.

The technology is "inherently insecure and poses threats to personal privacy, including identity theft," Ari Schwartz, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement. Schwartz said this specific technology, called "vicinity read," is better suited for tracking inventory, not people.

The State Department said privacy protections will be built into the card. The chip on the card will not contain biographical information, Barrett said.

And the card vendor - which has yet to be decided - will also provide sleeves for the cards that will prevent them from being read from afar, she said.

Oh, I can hardly wait to find out which Bush crony will get the card vendor business!

Conscience of a Liberal

Thank god for Paul Krugman.

Bush's legacy

Will be the decades of cleanup, firing of loyal Bushies and Neocons still lurking in the government, and reparations. Not exactly what he had in mind:

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush's final-year agenda is a stripped-down list of what he can realistically hope to get done, since the clout he once touted is fading away.

Bush will venture to four other continents, get more involved than ever in trying to forge Middle East peace, and continue to command two wars that assure his relevancy to the end. As Iraq improves, he must now deal with renewed violence in Afghanistan and upheaval in Pakistan.

At home, Bush will try to extend two domestic achievements that are dear to his legacy - the No Child Left Behind education law, and tax cuts that otherwise expire in 2010.

Long gone are the big ideas of Social Security and immigration reform, which collapsed on Capitol Hill. His final State of the Union speech in late January is expected to reflect today's policy reality, eschewing new initiatives in favor of unfinished proposals.

Bush's legacy of peace? Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Iran, North Korea? Peace? Are you kidding me?

Bush's legacy of No Child Left Behind? Education broken and children left behind.

Bush's legacy of trying to break Social Security?

Bush's legacy of tax cuts? For the poor poor rich? The really poor? Forget it. They're just lazy.

Bush's legacy of working hard? Just how many days did he take for vacations, anyway?

Bush's legacy is the biggest shitpile we have ever seen in the White House. We are going to be coping with his ruinous legacy for decades.

And it's all his.

Secret library of hope

12 books that can help face the new year. Rebecca Solnit's list is discussed in Asia Times Online:

Rebecca Solnit's secret library of hope
Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People.
Aung San Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope.
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves.
Charles Wilkinson, Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations.
Richard Walker, The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us.
William Morris, News from Nowhere.
News from Nowhere Collective, We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism.
Marina Sitrin, Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina.
Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, The Speed of Dreams: Selected Writings 2001-2007.
Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All.
Jonathan Isham and Sissel Waage, editors (introduction Bill McKibben), Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement.

Rebecca Solnit blurbed a lot of books this year, wrote the foreword for Marisa Handler's Loyal to the Sky, and provided editorial services on another book of her brother's, this time with conscientious objector Aimee Allison: the counter-recruitment manual Army of None. Her own book for 2007 is Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics, a collection of 36 essays including several that first appeared as Tomdispatches. She is the author of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

Just in time for the next preznit

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush on Monday signed a bill aimed at giving the public and the media greater access to information about what the government is doing. The new law toughens the Freedom of Information Act, the first such makeover to the signature public-access law in a decade. It amounts to a congressional pushback against the Bush administration's movement to greater secrecy since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Bush signed the bill without comment in one of his final decisions of the year.

The legislation creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their FOIA requests. It establishes a hot line service for all federal agencies to deal with problems and an ombudsman to provide an alternative to litigation in disclosure disputes.

The law also restores a presumption of a standard that orders government agencies to release information on request unless there is a finding that disclosure could do harm.

It's going to take years to clean up the messes and broken laws left by the Bush administration. All part of Bush's legacy that we shall never let anyone forget.

Life in 2007

Ten top consumer product stories including lead in toys, poisonous pet food, the trials of getting a passport, the dropping of the US dollar.

The most alert store clerk ever: 42" plasma tv stolen during store hours.

100 things we've learned in this last year.