Saturday Nite Video Flashback: Chain of Fools

Aretha and Mariah live...

Don't Rip Off Hackers

Don't screw with hackers - even the white hats (good guys). They don't like that.

Case in point: When an insurance company run by a guy named Stephen Sills, who donated money to Joe Lieberman last election ('nuff said about that) decides to use the dataloss rss feed of a site like attrition.org whose members spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours scouring for news about personal data lost by the government, corporations and individuals without the site's permission there are going to be consequences.

Voila: All attrition.org had to do was add a story about that very violation to its rss feed to make it show up on the offender's site:

Darwin Professional Underwriters / Tech-404.com data loss circa 2007/04/14
Darwin Professional Underwriters is ripping off Attrition.org's Data Loss RSS feed without permission

You can see a screen capture here.

Darwin has apparently been promoting this new service of theirs via press releases and has been asked repeatedly by attrition.org to cease using the feed. I wonder if they underwrite insurance for pompous asses, because that's exactly how Sills' company is behaving.

It is survival of the fittest out there, as Darwin's name implies, and you'd think that a company with such a damn huge balance sheet could actually hire someone of their own to research dataloss instead of ripping off the volunteers at attrition.org if they thought that service was so valuable (which it is).

Then again, who ever said the insurance industry was ethical?

Bad form. Very bad form.
 

Bloody Saturday Indeed

Via antiwar.com: 168 Iraqis Killed, 180 Injured, 26 Kidnapped

Via Reuters:

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded scores at a crowded bus station near a Shi'ite shrine in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala on Saturday, police and hospital sources said.

In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people and setting fire to cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the past three days.

Television footage of the aftermath of the Kerbala explosion showed a distraught man cradling the charred body of a small child, and witnesses said the blast sent body parts flying into the air. Ambulances rushed to the scene.

"I suddenly heard a horrifying explosion. I had never expected that Kerbala would see an explosion of that size because it is a safe city," said Ali Mussawi, 30, a store owner who was 50 meters (yards) from the blast.

Not anymore.

Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney continue their whinefest because no one's letting them get their way, although they may certainly get their demands met when it comes to Iran - thanks to the Democrats.

Back to Iraq though...

And, while Bush keeps insisting that he is guided by the commanders on the ground, it seems more than a bit odd that General Petraeus, according to the Army Times, was "surprised" by the announcement of troop extensions by Gates this past week.

The Pentagon was forced to announce the shift, which includes extending the deployment of every active Army unit already in Iraq to 15 months, “a couple of days” earlier than planned because the information had been leaked to the news media, the senior military official said.

The Pentagon had planned to send news of the pending announcement down through official channels so that military personnel and their families would have advance notice, the official said. “Somebody in the Pentagon leaked it, [and] that forced [the Office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates] to go early,” the official said.

Right. Like we're supposed to believe what some unnamed military official says. The MSM has been more than willing to sit on stories much more important than this one when they've been asked to by the government in the past.

Saber-rattling Turkey is still threatening to cross the Iraq border to attack the Kurds and since al Maliki has obviously failed to gain control of his country, it remains to be seen how he can possibly handle another incursion. The EU Commission is the intermediary in that dispute. Where's Condi?

And I have some good news...and some bad news...:

BAGHDAD - Iraqi civilian deaths have fallen in Baghdad in the two months since the Feb. 14 start of the U.S.-led offensive, according to an Associated Press tally.

Outside the capital, however, civilian deaths are up as Sunni and Shiite extremists shift their operations to avoid the crackdown.

And the sweeps have taken a heavy toll on U.S. forces: Deaths among American soldiers climbed 21 percent in Baghdad compared with the previous two months. [ed. the US death toll is inching close to 3,300].
[...]
Figures compiled by the AP from Iraqi police reports show that 1,586 civilians were killed in Baghdad between the start of the offensive and Thursday.

That represents a sharp drop from the 2,871 civilians who died violently in the capital during the two months that preceded the security crackdown.

Outside the capital, 1,504 civilians were killed between Feb. 14 and Thursday, April 12 compared with 1,009 deaths during the two previous months, the AP figures show.

The insurgents have adjusted and the so-called coalition of the surging has yet to catch up.

As Joseph Galloway writes:

It will be costly and painful to prolong the war in Iraq for another 21 months so that those who started it can hand off the harder decision of how to end it to the next occupant of the White House.

President Bush isn't extending and expanding the war in a search for victory. His dream of victory in Iraq cannot be achieved. Not by sending 30,000 more American troops. Not by making parts of Baghdad temporarily safer by billeting American troops in violent neighborhoods and pushing the slaughter into the northern and southern suburbs - or into the Green Zone where U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work.

Not by letting American soldiers bear the brunt of combat, targeted not only by our enemies, the Sunni Muslim insurgents but also by our supposed allies, the Shiite majority and the murderous militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In March, more American troops died in Iraq than Iraqi soldiers.

This is a search for a fig leaf to cover the emperor’s nakedness - a way for Bush to go home to Texas with a ringing but hollow declaration that "Iraq wasn't lost on my watch."

And there's no guarantee that whoever occupies the White House next will end the Iraq war anytime soon either.
 

Quote du Jour: Condi on Racist/Sexist Comments

Asked how she handled racist, sexist comments directed her way, Rice laughed and replied: "I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. And I really don't care because, you know, I'm a mature woman."
link

Let me translate that for you, Condi:

"I'm a big girl. [A bigger girl than those women at Rutgers who Imus insulted, apparently.] I can take care of myself. [Which is why I am surrounded by the secret service 24/7 who track down thugs who utter threats against me so I don't have to deal with them]. And I really don't care because, you know, [I don't even hear about threats made against me because my "people" take care of them so I don't have to worry about them. Did I mention they have guns?] I'm a mature woman. [And obviously I'm much more "mature" than those Rutgers women and every other person who thinks this is all such a big deal.]

Look. I have about this much credibility left and I intend to try to use it, damnit.

Friday Nite Video Flashbacks: Network (1976)

"That is the natural order of things today."
 

Random News & Views Roundup

Busy day here so just enough time for a quick roundup...

- It may just be a bit easier for ET to phone home in 2009. Introducing Iris.

- The DND has missed a court deadline and has asked for a 3 month extension in the lawsuit filed by the BC Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International about the plight of detainees in Afghanistan.

Mr. Champ said the government's letter asked the groups to support the request for an extension. The letter says the Defence Department is currently busy with multiple investigations into allegations of detainee abuse, and that it is difficult to get documents from Kandahar, where the Canadian army is waging counterinsurgency operations against Taliban militants.

How difficult can it be? They have fax machines, don't they?

- It's a conspiracy:

The Liberals and the Green party on Friday confirmed they have agreed to work together to try to oust Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay from his riding in the next federal election.
[...]
Dion, who said the move shows his party is serious about addressing climate change, said the Liberals will not run a candidate in the riding where May intends to seek her party's first federal seat.

In exchange, the Greens have agreed not to run a candidate in Dion's Montreal riding.

Layton had to chime in, of course:

Earlier Friday, NDP Leader Jack Layton said the deal was undemocratic and denied Canadians the right to choose who will represent them in Parliament.

Get over it, Jack. Do you want Mackay gone or not? This is politics. Deals happen - all the time. You, of all people, should know that. Predictably, the tories are whining as well because they never ever ever make such deals, as we all know.

- This is interesting: Females outnumber males online in U.S., study finds

An estimated 97.2 million females aged 3 and older will be online in 2007, or 51.7 per cent of the total online population in the U.S., according to a report by eMarketer.
[...]
A Statistics Canada study of adults conducted in 2005 found a minuscule difference in usage between the sexes, with 68 per cent of men versus 67.8 per cent of women counting as internet users.

By the way, we online women are not "geeks". I prefer to think of myself as "technologically-enlightened".

- When you read stories about prison abuse in the US like this one, you can't help but remember that convicted Abu Ghraib torturer Charles Graner was a former US prison guard as well - perfect for the job in Iraq, obviously.

- Bombings, gunbattles on rise in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the German defence minister declares No signs of Taliban "spring offensive". Maybe he doesn't follow the news...

- Let's just broaden the Iraq war, shall we? Turkish Army Seeks OK for Iraq Raids:

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkey's military asked the government Thursday to approve attacks on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, signaling growing frustration over a lack of action against the guerrillas by Iraqi and U.S. forces.

Such action could put an overstretched U.S. military in the middle of a fight between two crucial partners, the Turks and the Iraqi Kurds, and Washington urged Turkish restraint. A recent surge in Kurdish attacks in southeastern Turkey has increased the pressure on Turkey's military to act.

When WH press briefing sockpuppet Dana Perino was asked about this development on Thursday, she said she would have to brush up on the happenings in the region. I suggest she do that PDQ.
 

Mr Shock and Awe One of DC Madam's Clients?

The alleged DC madam is starting to name names. First up is Harlan K Ullman, the neocon author of the "shock and awe" stategery:

McLEAN, Va. (AP) -- A woman charged with running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, listing a military strategist known for his "shock and awe" combat theories as a regular customer in court documents Thursday.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is acting as her own attorney, said Harlan K. Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "is only one of dozens of such officials" who will be exposed as she prepares her defense.

Ullman declined to talk about the claim in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press Thursday night, saying "the allegations are beneath the dignity of a comment."

Just how much more will ABC reveal on her behalf next month?

Palfrey said she has 46 pounds of phone records that could expose thousands of clients. Her civil attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said he gave those records to ABC so it could assist in identifying clients who could testify on her behalf.

ABC said it plans to air a story on Palfrey on its prime-time news program "20/20" next month.

Stay tuned. The DC lawyers are going to be busy.
 

Video: Leahy on the "lost" WH e-mails

Bonus: TPMmuckraker has a portion of a letter sent by the tireless Henry Waxman of the House Oversight committee to the so-called justice department in which he states:

According to Mr. Kelner, the RNC had a policy, which the RNC called a "document retention" policy, that purged all e-mails from RNC e-mail accounts and the RNC server that were more than 30 days old. Mr. Kelner said that as a result of unspecified legal inquiries, a "hold" was placed on this e-mail destruction policy for the accounts of White House officials in August 2004.
[...]
According to Mr. Kelner, although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove. Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner also explained that starting in 2005, the RNC began to treat Mr. Rove's emails in a special fashion. At some point in 2005, the RNC commenced an automatic archive policy for Mr. Rove, but not for any other White House officials. According to Mr. Kelner, this archive policy removed Mr. Rove's ability to personally delete his e-mails from the RNC server. Mr. Kelner did not provide many details about why this special policy was adopted for Mr. Rove. But he did indicate that one factor was the presence of investigative or discovery requests or other legal concerns. It was unclear from Mr. Kelner's briefing whether the special archiving policy for Mr. Rove was consistently in effect after 2005.

Dan Froomkin has more:

In an afternoon conference call with reporters, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said. "The oversight of that wasn't aggressive enough." And individual White House staffers "did not do a good enough job of following existing preservation policy -- or seeking guidance."

Said Stanzel: "I guess the bottom line is that our policy at the White House was not clear enough for employees."

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

Well, that sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

It's obvious the WH is drowning over this one:

Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered...

Maybe freedom from the Bush administration's lies really is on the march. Keep pushing, Waxman.

Oh, and here's another bonus:

So is anyone in trouble? Apparently not. Stanzel was careful to apportion blame widely and generically. "This issue is not the fault of one individual," he said. He refused even to acknowledge that it is the White House counsel's office that is responsible for the establishment and oversight of internal rules of conduct. The White House counsel during Bush's entire first term, of course, was Alberto Gonzales, now the embattled attorney general.

Can you feel that proverbial noose tightening around your neck there, Al? Starting to feel a bit tortured? That's nothing compared to what you've counseled this administration to do to "detainees" and so-called "terrorism suspects". Karma's a bitch, isn't it?
 

Neocon Democratic Theory & the Iraq Parliament Bombing

John Bolton on The Daily Show, March 21, 2007:

I would suggest that the president has a responsibility to be true to the people who voted for him.

Bush on the bombing of the Iraqi parliament which killed 8 people on Thursday:

The assembly is the place where people have come to respresent the 12 million people who voted.

So in the US, according to Bolton, the president only has the responsibility to be true to the people who voted for him - the rest of the citizens be damned. And in Iraq, elected representatives apparently only have a responsibility to serve the people who voted - the rest of the citizens be damned.

Yes, that's neocon democratic theory.

Related: Rice's response? "There are going to be good days and bad days." As I challenged Bush on the anniversary of the war when he used the same facile "good days, bad days" talking point, "Identify one "good day" in Iraq since this war began, Bush. I dare you." The same goes for you, Condi.

According to the International Red Cross, life for Iraqis is getting worse every day:

The report documents the alarming state of Iraqi health-care facilities suffering critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened. The report also underlines that much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition owing to lack of maintenance and because security constraints have impeded repair work.

"The suffering that Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable. Their lives and dignity are continuously under threat," said the ICRC's director of operations, Pierre Krähenbühl. "The ICRC calls on all those who can influence the situation on the ground to act now to ensure that the lives of ordinary people are spared and protected. This is an obligation under international humanitarian law for both States and non-State actors."

Iran: Arming Everybody and Their Dog, Apparently

Oh, come on now. Really.

BAGHDAD, April 11 — Arms that American military officials say appear to have been manufactured in Iran as recently as last year have turned up in the past week in a Sunni-majority area, the chief spokesman for the American military command in Iraq said Wednesday in a news conference.

The spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, [ed. the guy who held that faux Baghdad news conference about the EFPs] said that detainees in American custody had indicated that Iranian intelligence operatives had given support to Sunni insurgents and that surrogates for the Iranian intelligence service were training Shiite extremists in Iran. He gave no further description of the detainees and did not say why they would have that information.

Simple. One word: torture.

So now Iran is supplying Shiites and Sunnis? How enterprising of them.

“We have in fact found some cases recently where Iranian intelligence sources have provided to Sunni insurgent groups some support,” said General Caldwell, who sat near a table crowded with weapons that he said the military contended were largely of Iranian manufacture.

Caldwell luvs showing off teh weaponz.

The weapons were found in a mostly Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad, he said, a rare instance of the American military suggesting any link between Iran and the Sunni insurgency. They have recently suggested a link with Shiite militants in Iraq.

The accusation of a link between the Iranian intelligence service and Sunni Arab insurgents is new.

Well, yes because Iran is 89% Shiite. (It's also interesting to note that the CIA Factbook page on Iran reads: "Known as Persia until 1935, Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979 after the ruling monarchy was overthrown and the shah was forced into exile." Gee, no mention of Operation Ajax, the 1953 US-backed, oil-driven coup against PM Mohammed Mossadegh? Nothing like erasing history.)

Anyway, what's next? Will Iran be blamed for the US civil war once Caldwell magically unearths some musket shells in N Carolina that have Iranian markings on them too? Stay tuned. You just never know.

Bush should hire Caldwell as his war czar. No doubt the guy is delusional enough to take the job.