by Nicholas | Sailors and shipyard workers died aboard a Russian subdivision due sea trials. (BBC News 9-11-08) In addition to the 20 killed, 21 were injured. (Reuters) Apparently the accident resulted from the failure of a fire extinguishing system in the submarine's nose; the nuclear reactor in the stern was not affected.
The Captain said:
"I declare with full responsibility that the reactor compartment on the nuclear-powered submarine is working normally and the radiation background is normal," he said, quoted by Itar-Tass news agency.(BBC News 9-11-08)
by Nicholas | At The Raw Story, Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane have posted an article regarding certain possible irregularities in Ohio voting procedures in 2004.
A network security expert with high-level US government clearances, who is also a former McCain delegate, says the documents – server schematics which trace the architecture created for Ohio’s then-Republican Secretary of State and state election chief Kenneth Blackwell – raise troubling questions about the security of electronic voting and the integrity of the 2004 presidential election results.
Continue reading "A Theory of How the Ohio Vote Might Have Been Stolen in 2004?" »
By Nicholas (filling in for Damozel) | Yet another Republican intends to vote for Obama. He said to Fareed Zakaria:
"Well let's put it this way - I think Colin Powell's decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama."
Powell served as national security advisor to Reagan during Duberstein's tenure as chief of staff. (CNN)
Duberstein, like so many others, thinks Palin lacks the qualifications to be VP. Or, as Jed Lewison puts it, "he launched into a full-fledged assault on John McCain's judgment for selecting Sarah Palin." (video after the jump)
by Nicholas | When I was at school in London back in the Seventies I knew lots of socialists. In fact, I think more of my friends were socialists, or at least socialistically inclined, than were conservative or liberal. A few were even communists. It didn’t matter – we all hung out together and on one occasion I went with a friend of mine to a Communist Party rally in Trafalgar Square. It was a nice afternoon out and it was something to do, and I didn’t think the few thousand people there assembled presented much of a threat to the nation.
by Nicholas | Bob Lewis at The Huffington Post writes:
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin mistook some of her own fans for hecklers Monday at a rally that drew thousands....[S]cores of people on the outer periphery more than 100 yards from the stage could not hear.
"Louder! Louder!" they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin's left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased.
Continue reading "Palin Mistakes Followers for Hecklers; Administers Rebuke" »
by Nicholas | To his credit, John McCain has been seen trying to calm his supporters down as they shriek out their hatred of Obama (“He’s an Arab!” “He’s a terrorist!” etc. Where do these people come from?) it doesn’t seem that he is completely successful, to judge from the fact that he was booed by his own supporters for calling Obama a decent, family man. But kudos to him for trying. It’s just that once you start the fear train a-rolling (and his campaign did just that) it’s hard to put the brakes on.
Matters are not helped by his running mate, the winking harpy, who just yesterday accused Obama of being radical on the subject of abortion.
by Nicholas | I believe that it was John McCain who wanted this town hall meeting style of debate. In fact, I think he wanted all three debates to be like this, and I suspect right now he is thanking his lucky stars that they won’t be. If he thought he was going to ace last night’s debate by treating it like an intimate gathering of people who all know each other, then he was sadly mistaken. Because of course it wasn’t a town hall meeting – it was a debate between two men in front of the world. A few dozen “ordinary” people sitting on the debating floor in well-behaved, silent rows, a very few of whom could ask questions, did not this a town hall make.
by Nicholas | Discussing some economic policy difference or other, Obama said to McCain, " "The problem is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel." That's a good metaphor for their different approaches. My wife had a different one. According to her, the debate sounded like this:
McCain: Woof Woof Grrrrrr Senator Obama Woof Woof Woof and doesn't understand that Woof Woof Woof Snarrrrrrl SNAP SNAP Grrrrrr Woof
Obama: Senator McCain is right about Wonk Wonk Wonk, but as Senator McCain knows very well Wonk Wonk Wonk Wonk Wonk
She calls it a draw; I'm giving it to Obama---though only just.
Continue reading "The First Debate: The Hatchet Versus the Scalpel" »
by Damozel | Secretary Rice is proud ---PROUD, I TELL YOU! --- that the US invaded Iraq and, presumably, that she did her little all to assist. (Read more...) Arianna Huffington remarks on Rice's remarks at CNN (here)
Meanwhile, some GOP members think it might be best for everyone if Bush just doesn't go to the GOP Convention.
Damn, that's just sad. As The New York Times so poignantly puts it:
Posted by Nicholas | The new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, says that he is against torture but that he doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture or not. Well, gosh, yes, that is a tricky question. Let’s see if we can help him here. Now then, in the old days, if a regime wanted information, or to force a confession, they had a variety of inventive means at their disposal:
Posted by Nicholas | These truths we hold to be self evident. Seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere, or a least read it. It never impressed me that much because I thought in the main that it was just an easy way of not bothering to justify a belief. A rather pompous way of saying “If you have to ask, then you’ll never understand.” But not always. There are certain things that are, I believe, self evident. As an example, may I offer for your consideration the fact that there is no written law in Britain against murder. It is just an agreed fact that it is self-evidently wrong, and has been since time immemorial. Murder is wrong; no one can disagree about that. The written laws that exist there define murder, not its criminality, and set the penalty.
There is one matter which, I suggest, we all agree is simply wrong, and that is maltreatment of children. Not only the obvious ways of abusing them – violence and rape, for example – but unleashing on them the full majesty of the law that is normally reserved for adults. It is an abuse to take a child, an as yet undeveloped human being, pretend that he is an adult and, treat him like one. So that your eleven year old...
Continue reading "Child Care That Doesn't Care: On Criminal Children" »
Posted by Nicholas If you are in the mood to gasp at human credulity, go take a look at one of the articles featured at Memeorandum. Remember the last Pope, John-Paul II? Well we all thought he was dead, and so he is, but it seems that he has made a comeback. He appeared in a bonfire, or rather his flaming silhouette did, in Poland on the second anniversary of his death. Now, I would have thought that being the Pope, keeper of the keys, heir to St Peter and all that, would mean that you were pretty well connected. You’d have a special place Up There, travelling first class to the cloud of your choice. And, surely, if you wanted to appear to the living you could do better than a quick flash in a bonfire. Ordinary mortals, when they snuff it and cease to be mortal, may hover about as wraiths and shadows, but Popes should at least rate full fledged materialisations in front of thousands of people. I thought that Popes were just one step down from You-Know-Who. Surely they can do better than a quick flicker atop a bonfire....
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Posted by Nicholas. If you have a look at Midtopia you’ll see a very well thought out posting about healthcare in the USA. The usual arguments pro and against the current system contrasted with universal free healthcare. One thing you have to give the upholders of the status quo: they have done a brilliant scare job on a huge number of people. People who say “socialized medicine” with indrawn breath and McCarthyesque paranoia. People who think that the best guardians of the nation’s health are private companies that exist for the benefit of their shareholders, insurance companies who prosper best when they find the most excuses not to pay out to their clients. People who think it perfectly natural for the collection agency to be an integral part of the healthcare system. All of which makes me, as someone who has experienced both kinds of system, ask when American is going to grow up and join the rest of the civilized world with a healthcare system that doesn’t regard ability to pay as important, but need for treatment as the most vital consideration.
Posted by Nicholas. That saying by George Bernard Shaw that Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language has been pretty much done to death, and I am almost too embarrassed to quote it here. Almost, but not quite, obviously, because I have just done so. I was reminded of it by this article about how British soldiers currently in Iraq view their role and what they are doing.
There is a play running now in Los Angeles, and will shortly be opening gin new York, based on actual interviews with soldiers of the Black Watch, one of the oldest regiments in the British army, about what they are doing in Iraq. The performers may be actors, but the words are genuine sentiments. And they seem to surprise, even shock, the American audiences.
Posted by Nicholas | If the current situation in Burma reminds us of one thing, apart from what a despicable bunch of swine the current regime is, it is of how mind bogglingly useful in such times the internet is. Foreign correspondents are not allowed into Burma at the best of times, let alone during periods of unrest. One who had managed somehow to be in the country, a Japanese reporter, was shot dead in the street earlier this week.
In 1988, during a similar attempt at a popular rebellion, the Burmese army shot down hundreds of civilians. The world scarcely knew of it. The events of 2007 are different. We have the internet. We see film clips, some of very high quality, that Burmese people themselves have been able to take with camcorders and mobile phones, and post on the internet. We are finding out what is happening thanks to blogs, e-mail and YouTube.
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Continue reading "The Internet: a weapon in the Burmese rebels' armoury" »
Posted by Nicholas | Have you seen this article? I doubt it, because it wasn’t featured very prominently. I almost missed it myself. It was on the Daily Telegraph news site, where I frequently visit, but it was in the second string list of articles at the bottom. And yet this story, if it is true, is devastating. Think of it – we have always been told that it is impossible (not almost impossible or maybe impossible, but im-bloody-possible) for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. And that’s that, end of discussion. Then all of a sudden these two scientists announce that they have managed to make an object travel “instantaneously” between to points. That is to say, in no time at all. No time at all, of course, is faster than the speed of 186,000 miles per second that light takes to go from A to B.
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