Rest In Peace

post from Cafe Politico on 29 December 2007 07:51:15 AM. © Cafe Politico

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto runs the risk of igniting continued riots that will deteriorate to possible civil war. Now they (the powers that be) are saying Al Queda had a hand in it despite no concrete proof that I am aware of. Also, Al Queda is extremely patient - they will take [...]

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LTH Person of the Year, Leland Melvin

post from African American Opinion on 29 December 2007 07:51:00 AM. © African American Opinion

Hi everyone I am proud to announce the Let's Talk Honestly Person of the year ( www.letstalkhonestly.com ). Astronaut Leland D. Melvin.

Leland Melvin will be on the next shuttle mission STS 122 in 2008. Mr Melvin is a former NFL player, a chemist and an astronaut.

I picked Mr. Melvin because he is a great example of what a education can do for African American children when it's stressed in the household. He also is showing black kids they can succeed in something other than sports and entertainment. Leland Melvin has traveled across the country, talking to thousands of students and teachers about space exploration, and inspiring them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Congratulations to Leland Melvin on being selected the inaugural LTH Person of the Year for not only setting a great example but for encouraging others to follow it.Learn more about Mr. Melvin here: http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/LTHpersonoftheyear.htmlGeorge Cook www.letstalkhonestly.com

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The day the NYT died

post from The Newshoggers on 29 December 2007 07:30:00 AM. © The Newshoggers

By Libby

I had to look twice to make sure that it wasn't a New Year's joke by The Onion, but no, the NYT really gave Krazy Kristol a gig as a regular columnist. Billy Kristol, a pundit so pointlessly ponderous and profoundly wrong about everything, and whose inane bleatings are so poorly written, if we didn't already have the word banal in the dictionary, we would have had to invent it to describe his diatribes, has just been given the deed to a prime piece of media real estate.

Kristol!?! A pundit so embarrassing that Time magazine, who continues to keep clueless Joe Klein on the roster, fired him, and he gets his own soapbox at the former newspaper of record? If the NYT's goal was to destroy their credibility and become the laughingstock of the media industry, they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

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Pakistan's Hope Still Under House Arrest

post from The Newshoggers on 29 December 2007 07:12:00 AM. © The Newshoggers

By Cernig

Mona Eltahawy writes at the Washington Post's "Post Global" today, in a "warts and all" personal recollection of Benazir Bhutto, that the real alternative to military rule or Islamist unrest may be:

Iftikhar Chaudhry, chief justice of Pakistan?s Supreme Court, who has been under house arrest since November 3rd. Musharraf imprisoned dozens of judges and lawyers when he declared Emergency Law in late October because they represent a potent liberal opposition that is not tainted by corruption charges and do not have an Islamist bogeyman among them to obligingly frighten his western allies, who seem to believe he really is leading the War on Terror.

Chaudhry and the lawyers are Pakistan?s best hope. Pakistan needs them, as does a Muslim world hungry for a different kind of leadership ? one that Bhutto seemed to represent in those early days of promise.

As the Pakistani government tries to spin the narrative from "who killed Bhutto" into "how did Bhutto die" with some muddying of the evidentiary waters - with a high pressure hose - it's worth trying to keep our eyes on the actual problem.

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Isn't it nice to know that in the end Harry Dent,
architect of the GOP "Southern strategy," sort of took it back Never mind, Harry!

post from DownWithTyranny! on 29 December 2007 07:07:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

I think we're all familiar with the "Southern strategy," the concept by which Republicans took full advantage of Southern white resentment at the civil rights revolution and the minimal empowerment of blacks. It's what got Richard Nixon the GOP nomination for president in 1968 and then put him in the White House, and it was then used to turn the South into the Republican bastion it remains to this day.

I think too that anyone with memories of the Nixon White House knows the name of Harry Dent (seen above in 1969 with President Nixon in the background, back to the camera, talking to Rep. George H. W. Bush), a key Nixon adviser. But I for one didn't appreciate how the South Carolinian Dent and the Southern strategy intersected. Harry Dent was, more or less, the architect and living embodiment of the Southern strategy.

In the New York Times Magazine's annual "The Lives They Lived" issue, out tomorrow, our friend Rick Perlstein has a terrific piece on Dent and his role as the chief conceptualist and enforcer of the Southern strategy--first as right-hand man to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond (he was, it seems, the man who persuaded Strom to bolt the Democratic Party for the GOP in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater's candidacy) and later as Nixon's "Southern strategist."

The funniest touch is Rick's tribute to Dent's "gift for soothing the egos of powerful men": "On the Nixon Oval Office tapes you can hear him agreeing with whatever the president says almost before he's through saying it." The rest isn't funny at all.

Of Dent's White House service, Rick writes:

Most of Dent's days were spent working the back channels, assuring Southerners that the administration would stonewall federal court desegregation decisions. After Nixon's first Supreme Court nominee, South Carolina's Clement Haynsworth, withdrew under a cloud of corruption allegations, the president ordered Dent to "find a good federal judge further South and further to the right." Dent obliged him with G. Harrold Carswell, who once campaigned for the Georgia State Legislature with the credo, "I believe that segregation of the races is proper and the ONLY practical and correct way of life in our states." Nixon, following Dent's example, argued that the opposition to Carswell's nomination was mere regional bigotry against the South. Liberals, not without reason, regarded Dent, Time reported, as "a Southern-fried Rasputin in the Nixon administration."

Dent was apparently touchy about charges that his career was built on race-baiting, cultivating and politically exploiting racial animus. He seems to have been capable of great indignation at such imputations. But in the end, in a twist that falls somewhere between touching and stomach-turning, "he came clean," as Rick puts it:

The lay preacher in Dent suffered from a guilty conscience. In his 1978 memoir, "The Prodigal South Returns to Power," Dent wrote that his politics were never racist. "The aim of the Southern strategy," he claimed, was merely "to have the South treated just like any other section of the U.S.A." Three years later, when he retired from law to preach the Gospel full time, he came clean. Yes, he admitted, of course he had exploited race to aggrandize Southern power. "When I look back," he said, "my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people."

Well, thanks for setting the record straight, Harry. I guess, sort of like the late Gilda Radner's SNL Emily Litella character and her addlepated "Never mind," that's supposed to make it all okay.

[P.S.: Would you believe that there's a Wikipedia entry for "Never mind"?]
#

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Isn't it nice to know that in the end Harry Dent,
architect of the GOP "Southern strategy," sort of took it back Never mind, Harry

post from DownWithTyranny! on 29 December 2007 07:07:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

I think we're all familiar with the "Southern strategy," the concept by which Republicans took full advantage of Southern white resentment at the civil rights revolution and the minimal empowerment of blacks. It's what got Richard Nixon the GOP nomination for president in 1968 and then put him in the White House, and it was then used to turn the South into the Republican bastion it remains to this day.

I think too that anyone with memories of the Nixon White House knows the name of Harry Dent (seen above in 1969 with President Nixon in the background, back to the camera, talking to Rep. George H. W. Bush), a key Nixon adviser. But I for one didn't appreciate how the South Carolinian Dent and the Southern strategy intersected. Harry Dent was, more or less, the architect and living embodiment of the Southern strategy.

In the New York Times Magazine's annual "The Lives They Lived" issue, out tomorrow, our friend Rick Perlstein has a terrific piece on Dent and his role as the chief conceptualist and enforcer of the Southern strategy--first as right-hand man to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond (he was, it seems, the man who persuaded Strom to bolt the Democratic Party for the GOP in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater's candidacy) and later as Nixon's "Southern strategist."

The funniest touch is Rick's tribute to Dent's "gift for soothing the egos of powerful men": "On the Nixon Oval Office tapes you can hear him agreeing with whatever the president says almost before he's through saying it." The rest isn't funny at all.

Of Dent's White House service, Rick writes:

Most of Dent's days were spent working the back channels, assuring Southerners that the administration would stonewall federal court desegregation decisions. After Nixon's first Supreme Court nominee, South Carolina's Clement Haynsworth, withdrew under a cloud of corruption allegations, the president ordered Dent to "find a good federal judge further South and further to the right." Dent obliged him with G. Harrold Carswell, who once campaigned for the Georgia State Legislature with the credo, "I believe that segregation of the races is proper and the ONLY practical and correct way of life in our states." Nixon, following Dent's example, argued that the opposition to Carswell's nomination was mere regional bigotry against the South. Liberals, not without reason, regarded Dent, Time reported, as "a Southern-fried Rasputin in the Nixon administration."

Dent was apparently touchy about charges that his career was built on race-baiting, cultivating and politically exploiting racial animus. He seems to have been capable of great indignation at such imputations. But in the end, in a twist that falls somewhere between touching and stomach-turning, "he came clean," as Rick puts it:

The lay preacher in Dent suffered from a guilty conscience. In his 1978 memoir, "The Prodigal South Returns to Power," Dent wrote that his politics were never racist. "The aim of the Southern strategy," he claimed, was merely "to have the South treated just like any other section of the U.S.A." Three years later, when he retired from law to preach the Gospel full time, he came clean. Yes, he admitted, of course he had exploited race to aggrandize Southern power. "When I look back," he said, "my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people."

Well, thanks for setting the record straight, Harry. I guess, sort of like the late Gilda Radner's SNL Emily Litella character and her addlepated "Never mind," that's supposed to make it all okay.

[P.S.: Would you believe that there's a Wikipedia entry for "Never mind"?]
#

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Dick Cheney Confession: The Continuing Story of
"The Fall Of The House Of Bush"

post from Edgeing on 29 December 2007 06:53:00 AM. © Edgeing

During an interview with Craig Unger about his new book "The Fall Of The House Of Bush" Amy Goodman of Democracy Now (transcript here) refers to comments made by Dick Cheney in September 1992 after the first Gulf War, in a speech at the Economic Club of Detroit explaining why the George H. W. Bush administration did not go on to Baghdad after Saddam then. Cheney's comments in the speech show clearly that they knew irrefutably in 2003 before the invasion, not only that Saddam Hussein was no threat militarily to any country, much less to the United States, but that they also knew exactly what the conditions in Iraq likely to be produced by an invasion would be, and that they did it with eyes wide open, with conscious and full intention of producing the humanitarian crisis and chaos and death that has followed.

And knew that the responsibility for it would be theirs.

Cheney's speech begins at about 3 min 50 sec into this Democracy Now Craig Unger interview video:

video details and more

Parts two and three of the Democracy Now Craig Unger interview follow here:

video details and more

video details and more

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Open Science Thread

The Institute for Creation Research has apparently completed moving their HQ from San Diego to Dallas -- sorry Texas. And this isn’t some watered down, pansy-assed Intelligent Design babble designed to obscure the underlying religious motive, they’re completely upfront about who they are: ICR is an honest to goodness old time, Young Earth Creationist ministry. The ICR Faculty, students, and I assume the staff believe that most or all the geological evidence for an ancient earth is a misinterpreted sign of the Great Flood; all methods of radiometric dating are hopelessly inaccurate; speciation can only occur within the boundaries of a kind as described in Genesis; distant starlight that would threaten the young universe paradigm is either perfectly faked or slowed down significantly in transit, and on and on and on. Of course they’re already pestering the state government organelles of the Texas Educational System for accreditation, so that any degrees they grant will count as the real thing.

chron.com-- The institute is seeking state approval to grant an online master's degree in science education to prepare teachers to "understand the universe within the integrating framework of Biblical creationism," according to the school's mission statement ... "It's just the latest trick," said James Bower, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio who has publicly debated creationists. "They have no interest in teaching science. They are hostile to science and fundamentally have a religious objective."...

Speaking of science that religious fundamentalism is uneasy with, this photo and essay piece "Greenland Melting" from Chaotic Utopia is both an excellent intro into a range of climate topics and kind of poetic.

The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2007 has more than a dash or two of political incorrectness and probably should not be seen by anyone for any reason, most especially anyone who absolutely knows that their candidate or party are tops, while the other guy’s a pathological lying, homicidal maniac.

If the list is too snarky and you want some better thought-food, The Year in the Environment at Salon is a highly recommended read. (Non-subscribers to Salon must watch a brief ad, about 30 seconds I believe, to get a free day pass for the site).

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Iraq: from Tyranny to Slavery

Iraq’s Kurdish north is viewed by our government as the one area of Iraq reasonably stable and economically advancing. The trouble is, imported workers face indentured servitude and outright slavery due to too little oversight.This is democracy? Or the success of Bush’s war escalation? Maybe it’s free market capitalism.It is classism and bigotry, fraught with [...]

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Huckabee's Nose Grows

Presidential GOP candidate Mike Huckabee said of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan that we send "our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan" and referred to the "continuing" martial law there.

By his recent statement, GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has once again demonstrated not only his lack of understanding of Middle Eastern affairs, but his "slick" side.

This glib preacher who has delivered numerous sermons and consoled the grieving said he misspoke..... that he meant to say "sympathies" not "apologies" and had a long explanation for why he thought that the martial law had not been lifted by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf when in fact it had.

The truth, something with which Huckabee seems to only have a nodding acquaintance, is that he is weak on foreign affairs, although he tries mightily to flim-flam.

In his rush to capitalize on the tragedy and divert the discussion to the safer waters of domestic affairs, Huckabee linked the Pakistan situation to the dangers of illegal immigration in the United States, arguing Friday that "we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border."

When pressed on the numbers.... looking like a deer caught in the headlights.... Huckabee fumbled around asserting that he thought they were CIA or immigration numbers. Actually, Homeland Security reports for 2006 show that many more illegal immigrants living in the United States came from India, Korea, China and Vietnam than Pakistan.

And, while on the subject of Huckabee's tough campaign stand on illegal immigration, let's take a look at his record.

The Washington Times ran an article by Stephen Dinan in which he said in the first paragraph: "Mike Huckabee is overselling his record of cracking down on illegal aliens as governor, claiming he ordered his state police to arrest illegal aliens when in fact he never signed the agreement with federal authorities that would have allowed it."

Huckabee's web site, however, boldly twists the facts.... "As governor, I ordered my state troopers to work with the Department of Homeland security to arrest illegals and enforce federal immigration laws." But he never signed an agreement with Homeland Security that would secure the training needed before federal immigration laws can be enforced by state police.

When called on this inaccuracy, his excuse was that he just ran out of time to get the agreement with Homeland Security.... the dog ate his Homeland Security agreement so to speak.

Yet, Huckabee had more than 20 months left in office to work out an agreement with Homeland Security for training, something his successor undertook in 12 months.

Huckabee at campaign rallies in Iowa exhorts voters to caucus for him.... "do something different that would utterly confound the political ruling class in this country"... deliver a "seismic shock."

An Iowa caucus win for Huckabee would be more like shock and horror.

Haven't we had enough talking the talk, but not walking the walk? Hopefully the Republican voters will examine Huckabee's record and deliver their shock to the huckstering Huckabee campaign on January 3.

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