Very short fiction (4 pages) that hits a little too close to home.
Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches… What if it controlled your life?
You’d be
SCROOGLED
By Cory Doctorow
I know, I know. Four pages is way too long to read. A quick scan of some of the visuals is enough for you:
Read the short story: From The Magazine : Radar Online : Cory Doctorow imagines a world in which Google is evil
Cory Doctorow – official website
Not George W.
Lost Voices – Why the deaths of Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora are particularly galling.
By Fred Kaplan in SLATE
On Monday, while Gen. David Petraeus prepared to testify before two House committees about the successes of the surge, seven of his soldiers died when their transport vehicle overturned in a highway accident west of Baghdad.
Two of those soldiers, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were part of another group of seven—the seven noncommissioned officers of the 82nd Airborne Division who wrote a brave, well-reasoned op-ed in the Aug. 19 New York Times, calling the prospect of victory “far-fetched” and appraisals of progress “surreal.”
One of the other NCOs, Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, was shot in the head during a firefight before the op-ed piece was published. (Rushed to a military hospital, he is alive but recovering slowly.)
It is sad and appalling that nearly half of the authors of that op-ed are now casualties of the war that they publicly criticized but more than willingly continued to fight. (The last paragraph of their piece read: “We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.”) …
The Iraq war claims two soldiers who wrote a critical op-ed. – By Fred Kaplan – Slate Magazine
Surprisingly, the man behind the terrific Dilbert Cartoon, Scott Adams, is one of the most infuriating bloggers I know.
Arrogant, sarcastic, thick-headed.
He makes me so mad … that I often read his posts.
News coverage of Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York was over-the-top antagonistic on American TV. Much more balanced on BBC.
His speech was such a long-winded muddle, it’s difficult to analyze. Why did the President of Iran come to the USA? Did he have no game plan at all?
Scott Adams conclusions are as logical as any I’ve heard:
And who was the smartest person involved in yesterday’s events? George Bush. Criticize him all you want, but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. He shrugged off the whole controversy about Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia and let the Iranian President shoot himself in the foot. Well played.
read the entire post – The Dilbert Blog: Penis Jokes
I believe in FREEDOM and FREEDOM OF SPEACH.
Even for a “raving lunatic”.
I think Ahmadinejad is a lot smarter than he looks. I want to see if he can be pinned down by the tough questions of the American media.
And I admire his guts. Walking into the lion’s den.
Saddam Hussein would never have had the courage.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama said it was wrong to invite Ahmadinejad. At the same time, Obama added: “We should never be afraid to confront the lies and rantings of dictators with the power of truth and the strength of our own values and beliefs.” …
Clinton and Obama are wrong. They are pandering to public opinion rather than doing the right thing. Hearing Ahmadinejad out. Shooting him down. Verbally rather than by force of arms, for a change.
If Ahmadinejad is insane, this media frenzy will confirm it.
Rocco asks …
Who said this referring to the first Gulf War in 1992:
I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We’d be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don’t think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn’t a cheap war.
And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.
If only the Bush administration had listened to this prescient genius.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Arriving in Alaska, I was surprised to be landing at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Surprised because Ted Stevens is a laughing stock amongst internet technorati.
Why did the Alaska Legislature rename the airport in 2000 for a living Senator?
Did they not realize that was risky? Why not wait until Ted was safely 6-feet-under?
Now it seems both father and son are crooks.
From the NY Times:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — Ben Stevens is often said by Alaskans to be the spitting image of his father, Senator Ted Stevens. They have the same broad forehead, wide-set eyes and compact physique. They share the same rough-hewn personality, seemingly always spoiling for a fight.
Now, father and son share a new, unwelcome distinction. Both are under investigation by the Justice Department over their ties to an Alaska businessman who has confessed to bribing public officials.
The Alaska home of Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was raided last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His son’s offices in the Alaska Legislature — he was a state senator until this year — were raided last summer.
Neither Ted Stevens, who is 83, nor Ben Stevens, 48, a fisherman turned politician and lobbyist who is the youngest of the senator’s three sons, has been charged with a crime. …
… The story of the Stevens family is central to the rough-and-tumble history of Alaska politics — the elder Stevens entered the Senate in 1968, a decade after Alaska was granted statehood — and the latest chapter has its elements of tortured family drama.
Many Alaskans have been left wondering whether it was a doting, fiercely ambitious father who brought the son under the suspicion of criminal investigators, or an intemperate, boastful son who entangled his aging father in the Justice Department’s fast-growing investigation. …
For the real brains behind the Republican Party, Bush is perfect.
A perfect fall guy.
A simplistic diversion distracting the general public from what’s really going on.
What’s “really going on”?
The rich are stuffing their pockets full of money taxpayers dollars while the getting is good. It won’t be as easy when the Democrats come in.
The best example I can cite is a wonderful 60 minutes expose:
Perhaps the greatest convergance of corrupt activities in Washington over the past few years occurred during the debate and passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.
The story in a nutshell is that lobbyists wrote a one thousand page bill that was introduced hours before congressmen voted on it. The vote was then held open for three hours – the longest vote in the history of the House of Representatives – instead of the normal and required 15 minutes.
During the open vote the Republican majority twisted arms and used threats and bribes to gain votes for the bill. (Later, Tom DeLay and other Republican congressmen would be admonished by the Ethics Committee for their actions.)
When the bill was passed and signed by the President all of the main actors who helped pass the bill went to work for the pharmaceutical industry.
Big Drugs literally “bought” U.S. Politicians with millions of dollars of cash.
This is the problem. Lobbyists run Washington.
Click here to watch the shocking video clip on Crooks and Liars: A Question of Corruption
GREAT podcast. I listened to it several times:
Lawrence Wright spent five years researching the history of the events leading to the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City.
His book about the subject, The Looming Tower won the 2007 Lionel Gelber Prize, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. In this public lecture, Wright analyses the forces that created Al-Qaeda, and adds to our understanding of what we must do to fight them.
Download File – 24.3 MB or Listen To This Podcast – CBC’s The Best of Ideas Podcast
Or if you have time and money to spare, get the book:
Go big, go long, or go home?
The worst part of this “liberation” for Iraquis is yet to come, I fear.
Going big — the “surge” — has not worked, so far as I can see.
Going long, like the 54-years-and-counting Korean American military presence is likely the best option.
I don’t think that will happen. Some American politician, sooner or later, will decide to Quit Iraq.
Going home. Long lines of American vehicles and tens of thousands of refugees moving slowly toward the Kuwait border. That’s the exit I expect.
Sound familiar?
Fall of Saigon
It will likely get bloody in Iraq as the Americans drive away. Strong men will fight it out to replace Saddam.
I was just as gloomy about South Africa when the ANC assumed power. But the anticipated blood bath did not occur.
Hopefully I’m just as wrong about Iraq.
It’s getting easier and easier to watch Colbert and Jon Stewart clips on the internet.
Newscloud.com is the best yet.
These are legal clips from Comedy Central.
Here’s a sample:
Bush Is Back! – The Colbert Report – NewsCloud.com
Rick McCharles 
