Finally, a weekend with something to look forward to – the “about freakin’ time” debut of the Marc Maron Show, and the return of all our old friends from the MS. Ten ’til midnight should be a great time to hear these guys. I only wish it was 10 – 12 where I’m at, and, damn it, did they have to start it on a Tuesday, when I can’t (or shouldn’t) stay up and listen to the first show live? Well, I’m not gonna whine. It’ll just be good to get these guys back on the air. Otherwise, it’s a cold weekend with way too much stuff to get done before Monday rolls around, so I suppose I’d better get started.
Well, you sheeple keep posting other peoples articles, so I’m goin’ post one. Read it NOW…You know, if you want to.
Saving Democracy
by Bill Moyers
I will leave to Jon Stewart the rich threads of humor to pluck from the hunting incident in Texas. All of us are relieved that the Vice President’s friend has survived. I can accept Dick Cheney’s word that the accident was one of the worst moments of his life. What intrigues me as a journalist now is the rare glimpse we have serendipitously been offered into the tightly knit world of the elites who govern today.
The Vice President was hunting on a 50-thousand acre ranch owned by a lobbyist friend who is the heiress to a family fortune of land, cattle, banking and oil (ah, yes, the quickest and surest way to the American dream remains to choose your parents well.)
The circumstances of the hunt and the identity of the hunters provoked a lament from The Economist. The most influential pro-business magazine in the world is concerned that hunting in America is becoming a matter of class: the rich are doing more, the working stiffs, less. The annual loss of 1.5 millions of acres of wildlife habitat and 1 million acres of farm and ranchland to development and sprawl has come “at the expense of ‘The Deer Hunter’ crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the rednecks of the south and the cowboys of the west.” Their places, says The Economist, are being taken by the affluent who pay plenty for such conveniences as being driven to where the covey cooperatively awaits. The magazine (hardly a Marxist rag, remember) describes Mr. Cheney’s own expedition as “a lot closer to ‘Gosford Park’ than ‘The Deer Hunter’ – a group of fat old toffs waiting for wildlife to be flushed towards them at huge expense.”
At the heart of this story is a metaphor of power. The Vice President turned his host, the lobbyist who is also the ranch owner, into his de facto news manager. She would disclose the shooting only when Cheney was ready and only on his terms. Sure enough, nothing was made public for almost 20 hours until she finally leaked the authorized version to the local newspaper. Ms. Armstrong suggested the blame lay with the victim, who, she indicated, had failed to inform the Vice President of his whereabouts and walked into a hail of friendly fire. Three days later Cheney revised the story and apologized. Don’t you wonder what went back and forth with the White House that long night of trying to agree on the official line?
We do know someone from the hunting party was in touch with Karl Rove at the White House. For certain Rove’s the kind of fellow you want on the other end of the line when great concoctions are being hatched, especially if you wish the victim to hang for the crime committed against him.
Watching these people work is a study of the inner circle at the top of American politics. The journalist Sidney Blumenthal, writing on Salon.com, reminds us of the relationship between the Armstrong dynasty and the Bush family and its retainers. Armstrong’s father invested in Rove’s political consulting firm that managed George W. Bush’s election as governor of Texas and as president. Her mother, Anne Armstrong, is a longtime Republican activist and donor. Ronald Reagan appointed her to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board after her tenure as Ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Ford, whose chief of staff was a young Dick Cheney. Anne Armstrong served on the board of directors of Halliburton that hired Cheney to run the company. Her daughter, Katherine Armstrong, host of the hunting party, was once a lobbyist for the powerful Houston law firm founded by the family of James A. Baker III, who was chief of staff to Reagan, Secretary of State under the first George Bush, and the man designated by the Bush family to make sure the younger Bush was named President in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. According to Blumenthal, one of her more recent lobbying jobs was with a large construction firm with contracts in Iraq.
It is a Dick Cheney world out there – a world where politicians and lobbyists hunt together, dine together, drink together, play together, pray together and prey together, all the while carving up the world according to their own interests
Read on…
Too much reading. I think I’m going to be sick:barf:
Morning! Boy, I woke up way too early but you sure can get some reading done then. Do we know how many shows a week we get? One Nightly? One Weekly?
Ah, fuck, I hate leaving out words, especially on the first post. :doh: I’m going to sleep. Later :sheep:le
:peace:
Someone needs to write an editorial on this port sale deal. The sheeple are obviously confused.
The issue is not really that George sold the ports its just that for the last thirty years we have let corporations buy and/or run the American commons. The only things that are mostly still owned by the public are the Interstate Highway system and as Limpprick would say “and we are working on that”. The ports may have originally been built by the cities but RayGun allowed the container shipping companies to build the container terminals to load and unload their ships in the 1980’s. Containers have become the primary shipping method so the container companies have assumed more and more of the operations of the facilities. With globalization the corporations are now just based some where other than in the US. You can see why they would be reluctant to inspect every container. The cost of shipping something is a large part of the price we pay. Coal for instance costs about 6 dollars a ton at the mine portal but your utility pays the railroad about 30 dollars a ton to move it to your power plant. The cost to move a 120 ton box car from LA to Denver is around 7,000 dollars. The railroad can and will charge you a fuel surcharge on top of that. Sean probably gets more like 5-7 cents per ton per mile to ship things by road. ( Sean gets it there in a day the railroad gets it there sometime this month). If each Container was inspected it would probably add 500 bucks to the shipping costs. It just makes that Chinese toaster at Walmart cost more.
Brilliant move on Maron getting that late evening time slot. Even though we are morning seditionists, some of us get by needing very little sleep. I listen to the Franken rebroadcast at midnight of XM and my local AAR affiliate station, but they really need to get Maron’s show on that slot, especially XM.
And get the show on podcasting, too. One of the great mysteries is how Ricky Gervais’s podcast got billed as the world’s top downloaded podcast. Even though I love that program, and have appreciation of all UK cultural references and slang due to close relatives living there, I don’t understand how it gained its popularity other than a faddish affinity to Karl Pilkington.
Anybody heard the phrase “I could eat a knob at night”?
In any case, Maron’s crew has a million possible Karl Pilkingtons to spring on us. Can’t wait for the show next week. I was in England the past few weeks and thought I missed the intial broadcast, but now I get to hear it in real time!
Here’s the statement released by AAR about Marc’s new show, in case anyone missd it.
Sounds great! I have this bad feeling that I’m going to be waking myself up in the middle of the night to tune in. Not good for my sleep habits….
Travis, thank you for that article by Bill Moyers. I am going to take my time reading it over my morning coffee. Thanks.
Is Marc’s new show going to be the radio version of Letterman and Conan??
Maron, the King of Radio. Has a nice ring to it!
The Marc Maron show at 5 pm on Wednesday! Am getting good with the international time thing! The Ricky Gervais show was funny, even hilarious at times. But now will be for paid subscription only? Seems to be whats happening now. If I sent money to everyone has that aksed, for money, I’d be be starving to death
Yes I too heard they will start asking for money on the Gervais podcast. So far they have only had 12 podcasts, about 1/2 hour each until they recently went on hiatus. If you think about it, that amounted to the equivalent of only 3 Morning Sedition shows!
I expect the fee to start when they resume weekly podcasting.
I kind of figured out how Gervais got such a running start in popularity. In fact, he had a radio show on XFM in England for a few years featuring the same cast of characters, including Karl. I think a lot of the old fan base was just waiting to hear his show again. And then like a lot of things British, it quickly caught on over in the states.
Go to this Wiki page if you want the essence of the humor of the show:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pilkington
thx for the moyers post, travis.
Aha! well that explains alot, thanks for the info WHT
From Robert Greenwald (looks like Wal-Mart might have a tough time breaking into Europe):
It says “The Marc Maron Show” will air from 10:00-12:00 am PST out of KTLK 1150 AM in Los Angeles and will be syndicated through Air America Syndications. The program is a NIGHTLY Los Angeles variety show,
I hope that means mon-fri???
Mishna’s nasty male dirt cat, Boomer :billcat:
Mishna’s cat has been very mean to Monkey, and now that his friend the grey and white female has gone out and seen the world and is probably too sophisticated for him, the poor guy is all alone.
egotils – if marc is going to be on at 3 p.m. here (not the best time for me) and 5 p.m. where you are, you’ve got me wondering: where are you?
Hey, Tom, how was soccer today?
Democrats do not have a message on the key issues of our time. Or, more precisely, they have several mutually exclusive messages. Why is this?
The Democrats need a message and a new way of communicating that message to a mass audience. They have neither.
Read the rest, on BBC’s “From our own correspondent”, by Justin Webb.
hey pj – whadda we doin’ some kinda routine here? socca wuz good. it’s always good. (read with joyzey accent – and i say that with affection – i’m a hobokenite, ya know).
speaking of hoboken – did anyone go to the live MS show at maxwell’s last october? what was that like? i was actually thinking about making the trip “home” to be there. i can’t imagine what maxwell’s has become, but it was a really cool place to hang out “back in the day”.
Good Morning. The Moyers piece was good but I couldn’t finish it.
tom t
Am in lovely Melbourne. Victoria, Austailia, and you?
egotils – i’m in somewhat-less-than-lovely tokyo. in the burbs, no less.
wow, have heard from quite afew people that workng and living there is quite the experinece, how are you doing?
SOUTH DAKOTA :fu::fu::fu::fu::fu:
egotils – not much to report: i’m a soccer dad every weekend (still haven’t really figured out the rules), lurk on this blog virtually 24/7, and spend time finding any excuse to not actually sit down and make new music.
but living in tokyo is easy in that no one gives you any grief.
how’s life in melbourne?
Hey everybody!
I expect that Gervais wont be #1 when he starts charging, unless they make it really cheap.
This charge per podcast is gonna depend on how much is offered…If you can get XM with a zillion channels and a player that saves shows for $12/mo then they have to offer more content in these podcasts. The market is just being tested in this thing and right now they are going to see people signing up under duress to catch their favorite shows, but those same people are gonna jump ship as soon as they figure out a better way to go, like Replay or whatever. Shows that are made for podcast will be more compelling because they will only be available for pay…
This is a whole new world and I think that the shows that will make it will have a very low price point and a very large, devoted audience. Thats gonna mean that the broadcasters have to cater to the audience…and that is a new thing. This is beyond a contest or a bumper sticker. I think we’re into a whole new world of broadcasting.
Its fun!…as long as Maron is in it!
I wrote XM and asked them to carry his show and I think everyone else should too.
You dont have to be a current subscriber to write them and if youre not you can suggest that you might become one if they broadcast it. I think that getting on XM would be great for Marc. You never know when they look at someone and throw them 50 mil and a channel….why not? You only need a dollar and a dream!
note: if you are an XM subscriber they want your account number or your radio ID which on the MyFi is under the battery door. I spent an inordinant amount of time stumbling around trying to get that last night in my haze of sickness.
Oh yeah…and iTunes is premiering a new TV show called Convicted or something like that. It starts on TV next week bit is available for free on iTunes now. If you dont have a player you can play it on your computer. This is the first time in history that this has been done apparently….I think we are a hell of alot closer to the TV and MOvie (and probably radio) biz’s being turned on their heads with movies getting released om theaters, on computer/TV, and on DVD at the same time….and much more promo fun for the audience in order to cultivate a loyal following.
An Amish boy and his father were in a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and then slide back together again.
The boy asked, “What is that, Father?”
The father, never having seen an elevator, responded, “Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don’t know what it is.” While the two were watching with amazement, a fat old lady in a wheelchair approached the two moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room.
The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small circular numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number and then the numbers began to light in the reverse order. Finally the walls opened up again and a gorgeous 24-year-old blonde stepped out. The father said quietly…
“Son, go get your mother.”
Was a soccer mom mmmm years ago, enough about that!
Guess what folks, you think it’s only American ports being sold? Nope, seems the major ones here (australia) are managed by the same company, P&O. Soon to be taken over by Dubai Ports World?
:rofl2: That’s good Citkahn!
I just finished watching the ACLU Freedom Files show “Dissent.” Very well done, and more than worth watching, if you haven’t seen it already. A lot of it will be familiar to those of us here, but it sure would be nice to get the folks who don’t know about this stuff to watch it. Unfortunately, a lot of them will agree that you shouldn’t wear anti-Bush t-shirts, and that you deserve to be shot with wood bullets.
I figured it was safe to post that joke on a blog since not too many Amish folks will be reading it!
Kahn: That joke might apply equally well to folks in a lot of red states too. A lot of them seem to be out of touch with 21st century as well.
Dream
I had a strange dream last night. Interesting cast of characters. Al Franken, Malloy, even Dick Cheney. Set in some coastal town. I’ll describe it later.:rofl2:
good joke citizenkahn! :banana:
Bobwhite Family Values
Quail in War and Peace
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
“Levitan the painter and I went out to the woodcock mating are yesterday evening. He fired at a woodcock and the bird, wounded in the wing, fell in a puddle. I picked it up. It had a long beak, large black eyes, and magnificent plumage. It looked at us in wonder. What were we to do with it? Levitan closed his eyes and begged me, “Please, smash its head in with the rifle.” I said I couldn’t. Levitan kept twitching his head and begging me. And the woodcock kept looking on in wonder. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. And then two idiots went home and sat down to dinner leaving one less beautiful, adored creature in the world.”
Anton Chekhov in a Letter to his friend Suvorin, April 8, 1892.
Perhaps Cheney should have whacked Whittington’s skull in as the wounded lawyer looked up at him in wonder, while the covey of bobwhite quail rejoiced at the happy chance of Mr Whittington’s head and upper chest intercepting the vice president’s salvo from his 28-gauge shotgun.
Even so, the bobwhite and scaled quail have little to cheer about these days. Quality-of-life indicators for the bird have been on a steady downward tangent ever since the late nineteenth century.
When the early settlers came, quail were abundant, flourishing where natural grasslands were interspersed with forests. Indian burn policies helped too. By the mid nineteenth century you could buy a dozen quail for 25 cents. A single hunter could kill a hundred, even two hundred in a day, sometimes in a single haul if he used nets.
Fields in those days weren’t “clean farmed”, and the topsoil was so rich that quail could forage from an extravagant menu of weeds, grasses and crops. Progress, as so often, spelled doom for creatures caught in its path, not least the quail which require very specific habitat in which to flourish, or even survive: nesting and screening cover, bushy overhead to stop the hawks, yet open at ground level for spotting terrestial marauders. Quail literally live on the edge, where different kinds of cover come together. As Frank Edminster puts it in his `1954 classic American Game Birds of Field and Forest,this relationship of convenience in types of cover is absolutely necessary, “for the quail must feed, rest, roost, dust-bathe, nest, court, escape enemies and avoid heat, cold and wind to a considerable extent concurrently.”
Cheney is never far from his ambulance…:omg:
http://www.counterpunch.com
melina, i followed up on your suggestion, got my xm subscriber number out of a file folder, and sent a letter to xm asking them to carry marc’s new show. hope hope hope they carry it because otherwise i’ll have a tough time getting the show. maybe marc will become a big star for xm. he already was a big star for aar.
Privatizing US Ports
Snow Job
By DAVID STOCKER
Yet again, as we stare uncomprehending into the abysmal state of world affairs, we ask “Why must we now learn about Dubai?”
We are told by the Bush Administration that this deal was checked out thoroughly and that it would be wrong to discredit an Arab buyer, Dubai Ports World (DPW). Thus, we are exhorted by the same government that has brought us jihad in a half dozen Arab lands to believe that if we disapprove of this multibillion dollar contract, we are being unfair to the good Arab folks. Whenever the words “multibillion dollar deal” and “the Bush Administration” occur in the same paragraph, good folks everywhere should pay close attention.
By all reports, Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is a rowdy seaport. Liken it to the picture of Casablanca in the famous movie of the same name. There is little regulation and no taxes!!![…]
http://www.counterpunch.com
What Crime Did Ken Livingstone Commit?
In Support of My Mayor
By GILAD ATZMON
London.
Ken Livingstone was suspended on full salary as London mayor for a month yesterday for likening a Jewish newspaper reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard. Once again, some basic human elementary liberties are sacrificed in defence of Jewish dignity. And the question to be asked is why do we surrender our elementary rights so easily? Why did a UK governmental watchdog suspend the adorable Mayor of London just for hurting the feelings of a journalist, who happens to be a Jew?
Indeed the Mayor was absolutely correct when expressing his outrage, “This decision strikes at the heart of democracy. Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law,” and went on to say, “Three members of a body that no-one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners.” My dearest Mayor, you are probably right, those three individuals do not express the will of the people. British Democracy indeed suffered a massive slam. Yet, as you should have learned by now, Jewish interests and sensitivities are ex-judicial. Moreover, they stand far above any recognised democratic order.
Seemingly, the Mayor was pretty good in his job. . .
http://www.counterpunch.com
Later!:omg:
Goooood afternoon, seditionisti!
I’m rehearsing for once Marc’s show starts and I’ll be saying evening.
Travis, thanks for the article. I needed a perspective alignment this morning.
NickiRose, what scares me is I think you and I had the same dream. Which coastal town? Malloy wasn’t in mine, though. Ariana Huffington was. And not in bed with Franken.
I posted a short chapter of my episodic dream, the part with Cheney, but nothing happened. Does that motherfucker’s control reach blog postings, too?
:omg:
White House ‘Discovers’ 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Friday 24 February 2006
The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.
The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said. . .
http://www.truthout.org
Check this out:
Feb 24, 2006 4:48 PM
Subject: PORTLAND be in a Mudhoney video this sunday! free beer!!
Body: So Mudhoney are doing a small shoot this Sunday
the 26th at Voo Doo Doughnuts in Portland (just off of burnside at 22 SW 3rd Ave) at 7:30 p.m. sharp. They need everyone and anyone they can get grandmas, punks, fatso’s, or whoever; this is the big finish to the video and should be a killer time. It will be about an hour long shoot starting at 7:30 and there will be free beer and doughnuts for everyone (over it21). Come have fun and be in this Mudhoney Video.
If you have any questions, get ahold of the director at thewhitey@comcast.net
Foggy- Great! I hope that we hear back soon…it only makes sense that they carry Marc…since they have 3 or 4 comedy channels maybe they would consider him for that too! They always need content!…for that matter I dont know why they only have one Lefty channel!
Al Franken: Don’t call me racist.
Mark Luther: I wasn’t calling you racist.
Dubai port issue. “If Bush is for it, Al, you are against it.”
Please! I am NOT Mark Luther!:omg::omg:
6% of containers are inspected. Federalize the ports! Stop privatizing. Highway system. Taxpayers pay, and when it becomes profitable, it is sold off to private interests (businesses). This is the American way. You know, The Pentagon S
ystem:omg::omg::rant1::omg:
I do not mean to offend! No regular blogger on this site is a racist! (Lurkers?)
Gotta go! :fist::omg::rofl2::nixon::jesus::peace:
Radio Maron reminds you: Go to the Church of Your Choice:!:
:rabbi::jesus::sheep::sheep::sheep::rofl2::nixon::omg::sheep:
Warr-iy-ors! Come out and Play-ay-ay!
Warr-iy-ors! Come out and Play-ay-ay!
:rofl2::omg::nixon:
NickiRose, I’ve been looking and you’re right, your dream didn’t get posted. I’m afraid it may have been sprayed with birdshot.
The Cheney episode was that I was sitting on a sofa in the basement of a house. My uncle, whose house it may have been, was playfully shooting people with a low-powered BB pistol. Shot me in the leg. I jumped up, and then
plopped back down on the sofa, and said something like, “That was nothing. Think of that guy who got sprayed by Cheney’s shotgun.”
Guess who was sirring on another sofa to my right?
I jump up, and say, while shaking his hand, “I meant nothing by that statement beyond noting the differences in the pain level.” Cheney took it all in stride.
I can’t believe that I am such a kiss ass.:bow: How disturbing is that!
Gotta go. I came out much better in The Franken dream episode. :omg::rofl2:
I wrote XM and asked them to carry his show and I think everyone else should too.
You know I had that same thought. When I posted here earlier, I thought if I have enough energy to post to the MS blog, I might as well send a message to XM, and my local AAR station at the same time. Cool.
Some of the XM channels have emails for their programming managers. One fellow I had an email exchange with was very interesting and highly informative. These guys take special pride in their own channels. Unfortunately, I don’t think the AAR channel has a programming manager and therefore you get all the problems with stale, out-of-date announcements.
Very interesting Friedman from the NY Times Select Op-ed 2 days ago….really great….
I put it on ripcoco for anyone who might be interested.
wrote kreeger about the xm issue got this in response
Sean,
That’s a good question. I’ll forward your question on to find out. Thanks for your interest.
Best,
Doug Kreeger
On 2/24/06 8:18 PM, “SEANIESEAN5@aol.com” wrote:
i hate to be a pain in the ass but i am a truck driver with an xm radio and i am writing you because i am wondering if the marc maron show is going to be on xm sattelite radio? they currently run al franken from 1 am est to 4 am est and since it is a rerun it would make sense to put that in there as a fresh show ok well im just curious since i am a huge maron fan and am concerned that i will not be able to hear him on my xm thx for taking the time out of your day to read my whiny poorly written hardly punctuated e-mail regarding maron
Sean from Buffalo
Sean, congratulations on the reply from Kreeger.
Glad you wrote him.
i wrote xm yesterday but have not heard back.
thanks for the sat joke, Kahn
Nikirose, i expected more from you in your dream, go back to sleep and try again.
egotils….your ports, too, huh? Are people having a hissy fit there, too?
THe jill carroll deadline is coming up.
oh, this is interesting:
Embed Who Ran Afoul of Military in Iraq This Month Reflects on His Experience, And War Coverage Today
Oh man Nicki! That’s worse than having one of those dreams where your kicking the shit out of someone and it isn’t fazing them at all.
I couldn’t link to that story Farmerkat.
Sad night. Don Knotts died. He was 81.
:-(:-( Oh man, that makes me sad. He was pretty brilliant as a comedian AND a spokesman for Quickcrete.
Don Knotts :gate:
Yeah, he was pretty damn funny. I wonder if they’l bury him with one bullet. More importantly, I wonder if there’ll be an Evening Remembrance for him this week.
Yeah, Don Knotts is ripe for a Morning Rememberance. Or, Evening Rememberance, as the case will be.
I have not told the Al Franken part of the dream. I think Malloy is in there somewhere too.
:omg::rofl2:
It’s the Corporation, Stupid
By Molly Ivins
AlterNet.org
Thursday 23 February 2006
The government is willing to outsource American jobs for the holy grail of free trade. Why is it surprising that national security is ditto?
So, aside from the fact that it’s politically idiotic and at least theoretically presents a national security risk, just what is wrong with the Dubai Ports deal?
As President George W. Bush actually said, “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I’m trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, we’ll treat you fairly.”
So, what’s wrong with that? There’s our only president standing up against discrimination and against tarring all Arabs with the same brush and all that good stuff. (The fact that it was Mr. Racial Profiling speaking, the man who has single-handedly created more Arab enemies for this country than anyone else ever dreamed of doing is just one of those ironies we regularly get whacked over the head with.)
OK, here’s for starters. We have already been warned that, should we back out of the DP deal, the United Arab Emirates may well take offense and not be so nice about helping us in the War on Terra – maybe even cut back its money, as well as its cooperation. This is a problem specific to the fact that we are dealing with a corporation owned by a country: A corporation only wants to make money, a corporation owned by a country has lots of motives.
Second, this is a corporation, consequently its only interest is in making money. A corporation is like a shark, designed to do two things: kill and eat. Thousands of years of evolution lie behind the shark, where as the corporation has only a few hundred. But it is still perfectly evolved for its purpose. That means a corporation that makes money running port facilities does not have a stake in national security. It’s not the corporation’s fault any more than it’s the shark’s.
The president is quite correct that a “Great British” corporation has no more or less interest in helping terrorists than an Arab corporation. It is not the corporation that is supposed to have other interests – it is government. But as Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, said, “We have to balance the paramount urgency of security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global trading system.”
“Balance” is the arresting word here – keep your eye on “balance.” We have an administration that is absolutely wedded to corporate interests, both American and global. It honestly believes that “free trade” is more important than the environment and more important than the people. It has repeatedly demonstrated it is willing to let both go in order to foster free trade.
There is no “balance” in its consideration on these issues, and now it turns out not much in “balancing” national security, either. The people running this country – and that includes most of the leaders of both parties – have proven again and again they are perfectly willing to outsource American jobs, American wage standards, and American health and safety standards all for the sacred, holy grail of free trade. Why would it surprise us that national security is ditto?
I am amused by Chertoff’s use of the word “balance.” Since the administration has done zip, nada, zilch about port security, it’s unclear what he’s trying to “balance.” In 2002, the Coast Guard estimated it would take $5.4 billion over 10 years to improve port security to the point mandated by the Maritime Transportation Security Act. Last year, Congress appropriated $175 million. The administration had requested $46 million, below 9-11 levels.
As David Sirota points out, the administration has been negotiating a free trade deal with the United Arab Emirates at the same time the port deal was being negotiated. This whole thing is about free trade and the lock big corporations have on our government to further free trade.
Sirota also points out you will see and hear almost no discussion of this fact in the corporate news media. I have no idea whether DP World represents a security threat, but US News & World Report said in December that Dubai was notorious for smuggling, money laundering and drug trafficking in support of terrorists. I suppose the same could be said of New York, but it doesn’t sound pleasant.
Dubai is believed to be the transfer port for the spread of nuclear technology by the Abdul Qadeer Khan network. David Sanborn, an executive who ran DP World’s European and Latin American operations, was chosen last month by Bush to head the US Maritime Administration, according to the New York Daily News. It’ll be interesting to see just how much power the free trade lobby has over the political establishment.
Right now, both Democrats and Republicans are yelling about what appears to be a dippy idea. Let’s see what hearing from their contributors brings about.
————————————————————————
Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.
Is it my computer, or is there something on at AAR website? I cannot access the site. A stripped down skeleton of a site is all I get.
:omg::nixon:
Going to a movie, you Maronites!:rabbi::omg:
Remember:Attend the Maronite church of your choice.:rofl2:
Hmm, a movie sounds good but I MUST go to the store and get some milk for my coffee.
But I think I will stay home and watch this movie my friend gave to me with Alec Guiness called The Horses Mouth. Looks good.
Oh my GOD! I have a big FAT piece of chocolate cake! :omg:
thx for the david axe link, farmerkat. scary stuff.
kristapea, read this if you want to feel better about your chocolate cake: link
:banana:
Oh yes Foggy, I already know about that one! :love: I don’t think my cake was dark chocolate though but it had dark chocolate flakes and it was so BIG i couldn’t even finish it! Maybe if I wake up in the middle of the night I will finish it but I haven’t been doing that much lately.
Isn’t it funny how we cleave to the studies that say chocolate and wine are really good for us. And then we use it as an excuse to be gluttonous about it! Oh yes, this wine is good for my heart and this gigantic chocolate cake is keeping me from getting blood clots so I’m gonna eat it every night with my wine!
:cake::40::bong:
I have a good rule about sweets. I don’t buy them when I do my grocery shopping. I have to get them when I want them and most of the time I am too lazy to go out and get it because I usually want it when I am all cozy at home. I’d say about 10% of the time I actually go out and get it.
One time when I had the gumption to go and get a pint of Ben and Jerry’s some one Hit and ran my car. The cops tried to break me and even searched my car under the pretense of looking for my insurance card. They were playing good cop bad cop. One said to the other, hey, do you smell pot. And he said no. I could tell, they were trying to shake me up but I was unshakeable because I was already shaken by the accident. Fuckin’ cops :fu:
Once a cop pulled me over and tried to interrogate me about my nephew, who was in the car. I was some sort of pedophile, according to the cop. Every answer to that fucking pig was more proof that I was a pedophile. Luckily torture is not legal in this country, unlike gitmo, for I may have copped a confession. I had control of the facts–nothing to hide. So the cop could not shake me. But the bastard was not interested in the truth. In his mind, I was guilty. Had I a cell phone at the time.
i just wanted to apologize for my embarrassingly pathetic posts earlier in this thread.
i hadn’t been that drunk nor that homesick in a long, long time. well, maybe that homesick.
in any case, it will not happen again.
Big thanks to isi for posting the press release for the Marc Maron show! I am SO glad to hear Lawton Smalls will be back. Hearing his voice (it’s so funny) just brings such a smile to my face. And in these times, we need all the smiles we can possibly get. Can’t wait till Tuesday!
:rabbi::omg:
:omg::rofl2: