Archive for January, 2009
It was while reading Gareth Porter’s latest piece at IPS News, Israel Rejected Hamas Ceasefire Offer in December — Israel at its peremptory best — that it occurred to us. Porter wrote:
In the first days after the ceasefire took effect [in June 2008], Islamic Jihad fired nine rockets. … In August another eight rockets were fired by various groups [and] only one rocket was launched from Gaza in September and one in October.
Contrary to Israel’s argument that it was forced to [retaliate] against Gaza in order to stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in mid-December to return to the original. . . ceasefire arrangement.
Porter adds that Hamas even tried to make other Palestinian groups abide by the ceasefire, detaining and confiscating the weapons of those in violation. But on November 4. . . Full story »
I don’t normally get all giddy over gadgetry, but this, THIS is just ridiculous. Gloriously, fantabulously ridiculous. Full story »
Updates will be in reverse chronological order below.
Update: The Sierra Club has a press release on their site that says, among other things:
According to media reports, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management inspected all of the coal ash facilities in the state after the Kingston spill last week and pronounced them safe.
It’s too early to say whether the gypsum release at the Widows Creek plant qualifies as “toxic” as the Sierra Club claims in the release. But it’s certainly fair to say that the inspections either a) were insufficiently detailed or b) didn’t include gypsum ponds since they’re not technically “fly ash containment.”
Update: There are reports of a third spill as well, this as a result of problems repairing a TVA dam on the Ocoee River. It’s unclear from the Tennessean link above whether it’s toxic coal sludge or “just” sediments that had collected behind the dam. What is clear, however, is that there are a lot of people watching the TVA’s activities throughout the Tennessee River valley very closely right now, and when they spot something, they’re telling reporters (and often Anne Paine of the Tennessean). Full story »
 I’m not a real photographer like Dawn, but I had to offer this one up. Full story »
In an interview at Aviation Week (following a Danger Room link), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reiterated his support for the reliable replacement warhead. On the other hand, he provides room for hope. . .
. . . Gates will also be at the helm of the Pentagon during negotiations leading up to a renewal of the Start I nuclear arms reduction treaty. These discussions will take place during a tense period for U.S.-Russian relations. . . . Still, Gates says common ground can be reached on the Start negotiations. “There is a real possibility of going down below the 1,700-2,200 deployed warheads now,” Gates tells Aviation Week. Full story »
The final installment in a five-part series examining the impacts of NY State’s recent tax hike on cigarettes
by Alex Cole
photo by Talbot Eckweiler Rick Johnson smoked a pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights each and every day for 30 years.
He spent well over $40,000 on smoking in his lifetime. That’s not including the money he spent trying to kick the habit. And it was all for an addiction he couldn’t quite understand.
“It’s very stupid to spend money on something that might kill you,” he admits.
Rick’s third craving kicks in around 5 o’clock at night. He usually has four of these “moments” throughout the day, and they’re never predictable. Full story »
Karl Rove today wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “Mythmaking is in full swing as the Bush administration prepares to leave town.” He claims that the Bush Administration tried to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that these two government sponsored enterprises were responsible for the housing bubble. Further, Rove says “[t]he housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government privilege.” He’s right, but almost everything you need to know about who’s making myths here and who was the benefit of government privilege can be said with two numbers:
| Fannie/Freddie Bailout Amount |
TARP Bailout Amount1 |
| $200 billion |
$700 billion
|
| 1Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bailout program for all the other financial bodies who supported the bubble. |
Full story »
 I haven’t waited tables in over 20 years, but I still get the nightmares.
It usually goes something like this. I show up for work a few minutes early. The hostess greets me at the door. “I just double-seated you,” she says. Wonderful. So I haul ass, get my apron on, clock in, and by the time I get to the first table – they’ve already been waiting on me for five minutes – I see the hostess plopping yet another table down in my section. By the time I get back to table one with their drink order a fourth, and sometimes a fifth, table has been seated. I appear to have an entire section of the restaurant to myself tonight, a section that would normally be manned by three or four of us. And it just keeps snowballing. Full story »
During Monday’s State Department press briefing, Associated Press State Department Correspondent Matthew Lee posed the most pointed question about the conflict in Gaza and the Bush administration’s position: “What’s wrong with an immediate cease-fire that doesn’t have to be sustainable and durable if, during the pause that you get from an immediate cease-fire, something longer-term can be negotiated?” Lee didn’t tread lightly either when Deputy Secretary of State Sean McCormack failed to provide a sufficient answer and continued to challenge McCormack on the same point in Tuesday’s press briefing.
Yet a funny thing happened on the way to print: the substance of these exchanges never made it into Lee’s corresponding articles. Full story »
According to today’s NYTimes, President-elect Barack Obama is digging in his heels about giving up his BlackBerry. Good for him! I understand that there are security and legal concerns – cell phones can be tracked via GPS and cell towers and they can be turned on remotely by the service providers, and presidential emails are not privileged and private, they’re documented and archived and have been since email had the post-Watergate documentation rules applied to them.
But how often does a President demand that everyone around him relinquish their cell phones for security reasons? How hard would it be for the Secret Service to turn to the President and say “Your phone too, sir.” Seriously, when security provisions would be that strict, the Secret Service isn’t going to take no for an answer, even from the President.
And given that everything the President says and does is documented, how is archiving emails any different? Historians will know in a few decades when President Bush II called over to the East Wing and said he’d be late for dinner (if they care, anyway) – how is Obama’s emailing or texting Michelle any different? And popping the Presidential bubble is far too important, especially after eight years of a president who’s bubble was not only thick and stifling, but opaque too.
President-elect Obama, you were quoted as saying “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.” Good. Don’t let them.
You’ve probably heard this story by now. . .
From the Washington Post:
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children — emaciated but alive — in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days.
You think my subject line was sacrilegious? Paul Woodward didn’t pull any punches either at War in Context with the heading to his link to the WaPo story: “Israel provides Palestinians with snacks as it takes massacre rest breaks.” Full story »
The fourth in a five-part series examining the impacts of NY State’s recent tax hike on cigarettes
by Alex Cole
photo by Talbot Eckweiler New York State increased its cigarette tax this summer in an effort to save lives. But convenience stores across the state are resting in pieces as a result.
The Uni-Mart on West State Street in Olean was once a bustling center of commerce – a hotspot right across from St. Bonaventure University. Endless lines of cars entered and exited the parking lot. Travelers refilled fuel tanks and grabbed food for the road. Truckers saluted each other with horn honks and quick waves.
Kids bought candy and ice cream. Students bought cheap beer and mixers. Adults bought gasoline and cigarettes. All brought in plenty of profit.
But the Uni-Mart’s golden era slowly came to an end. Full story »
 Thanks to investigative journalist Gareth Porter we know that in January 2006, when Hamas won a 56 percent majority in the Palestinian parliamentary election, the Bush administration initiated actions to overturn the election results. It coerced the UN, the European Union and Russia into demanding that Hamas “disarm” before a political solution could be reached between Palestine and Israel.
This is a signal characteristic of administration’s behavior in foreign affairs: require the target to cede its bargaining chips as a precondition of negotiations. In the case of Iran, the “offer they must refuse” is the demand that they give up their UN guaranteed “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear development. The administration gave Hamas an ultimatum to bare its throat to an armed and U.S. backed Israel, a move that would have been suicidal. Given the overwhelming preponderance of the Israelis’ actions and rhetoric over the past three years, I see no way to avoid the conclusion that they consider genocide of a defenseless adversary to be a perfectly legitimate course of action.
And it looks like they can get away with it for at least as long as George W. Bush is in office. Full story »
Early today hackers launched an attack against the SoapBlox network, wreaking havoc with a significant number of progressive blogs (including Pam’s House Blend, My Left Wing and several state-focused sites). At one point it looked as though the whole network may have been trashed, although at this point it seems that some sites (like our friends at Square State) were mercifully unaffected (for the time being, anyway). Some that were initially taken down are now back up and running.
It’s not yet known who was behind the attack.
Paul Preston, who runs the network, was understandably at the point of despair early today, posting a note saying that the operation was dead. Fortunately his latest missive notes that things are stabilized and moving ahead, and for this we’re grateful. Full story »
 Gaza is now full blown. The US of A blocked the Security Council resolution…will wonders never cease? And still no word from the president to be, who’s now in D.C. and must have full knowledge of the situation. By “full knowledge” i mean the kind that you can’t read in the newspaper.
I’m either the best or worst type of commentator for this situation. I don’t have a dog in this fight. And while i can see some point to both sides being right, i mostly see both sides being terribly, terribly wrong. The more pressing issues are, as usual, buried under the weight of politics, punditry, and personal animosity.
Full story »
The third in a five-part series examining the impacts of NY State’s recent tax hike on cigarettes
by Alex Cole
photo by Talbot Eckweiler Driving onto the Allegany Indian Reservation from the west, Ron’s Smoke Shop makes an inviting first stop.
It’s just one tax-free tobacco shop on Seneca Nation territory. And with state cigarette taxes on the rise, more Southern Tier smokers are making the trip an Indian reservation.
“Everyone I know goes down there,” says Jill Smith, a smoker from Olean. “A lot of people do. I would almost say they have to with [smoking] being so expensive.” Full story »
John McCreary, editor of AFCEA Intelligence’s Nightwatch writes: “Haaretz reported on 5 January the Israel Air Force on Sunday struck and wounded Husam Hamdan, a senior Hamas militant responsible for the Qassam rocket infrastructure in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis and the firing of Grad rockets on Be’er Sheva and Ofakim. The attack also wounded. . . Mohammed Hilo and Mohammed Shalfuh. . . who helped supervise the construction and firing of [said] Qassams.”
McCreary maintains that this shows that Israel’s air targeting is the result of “detailed tactical intelligence [that's part of] a strategic mosaic of the rocket infrastructure, working backwards from each Israeli town hit by rockets.” He prefaces that with: “Israel is using a systemic approach to destroy the rocket threat, from weapons design to manufacture to targeting.” [Emphasis added] Full story »
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