Buck Naked Politics

The Guardian: Fox News Exposed! (Subject: The bleeding obvious)

Posted by Damozel | Michael Tomasky of The Guardian thinks that Fox News---which, he'd like his fellow Brits to know, isn't really all that "fair and balanced"---is about to be exposed as  "a lock, stock and barrel servant of the Republican party, devoted first and foremost to electing Republicans and defeating Democrats." (Guardian via Memeorandum)     It's so sweet that he thinks this will matter.  He also says---this is so precious---"Fox News's status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction."  At last?  I love that, don't you?  Because, seriously, what "status as a politically impartial channel"?

US Military & Intelligence Officials Weigh in on Torture Issue (Deaf Ears Dept)

Posted by Cockney Robin | Two dozen military and intelligence officials, diplomats, and law enforcement officials have written to the Senate asking that the Senate Judiciary Committee hold the nomination of Michael Mukasey to attorney general until such time as he has gained sufficient information on waterboarding to determine his position. In a letter addressed to Senators Specter and Leahy, they wrote:

Values that are extremely important to us as former intelligence officers are at stake in your committee’s confirmation deliberations on Judge Michael Mukasey. With hundreds of years of service in sensitive national security activities behind us, we are deeply concerned that your committee may move his nomination to the full Senate without insisting that Mukasey declare himself on whether he believes the practice of waterboarding is legal.

We feel this more acutely than most others, for in our careers we have frequently had to navigate the delicate balance between morality and expediency, all the while doing our best to abide by the values the vast majority of Americans hold in common. We therefore believe we have a particular moral obligation to speak out. We can say it no better than four retired judge advocates general (two admirals and two generals) who wrote you over the weekend, saying: “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.” (quoted in No Quarter)

Hello?  Is anyone listening?  In the previous few weeks, a number of people who know what they are talking about---including one former instructor at SERE----have weighed in on the issue of waterboarding and every one of them has made exactly the same point:  waterboarding---i.e., "simulated death by drowning"---is torture and illegal.  How can any sane person go on saying that there isn't enough information to reach a reasoned conclusion on this score?  (And why---given that it is illegal among civilised nations elsewhere in the world---was the question ever in doubt?)

Brit Perspective: Minette Marrin's Attack on Michael Moore

Cockney Robin | In The Times Online, columnist  Minette Martin spouts off about Michael Moore, denouncing him for misleading the American public by painting (in his film "Sicko") a deceptively rosy picture the British National Health System.   You would think from reading her angry diatribe  that the central theme of the film is the superiority of the NHS to the American system rather than the mind-boggling (to a Brit) cost of citizen access to the American system, the role of insurance companies in limiting access even by people who can afford insurance, and the stress and grief endured by citizens who are neither poor enough to have free access to needed treatment nor wealthy enough to afford it.   

In fact, the NHS segment is simply part of a detour in which Moore presented---with considerable and obvious humorous hyperbole, I'd have said---the alternative arrangements by which other nations provide care to their citizens.

American conservatives will---and doubtless already have---latched on to Marrin's indictment of Sick and of the NHS as "evidence" in favour of a privatised system.  In fact, in the midst of attacking Moore's admittedly glossy portrayal of the NHS, Ms Marrin acknowledges:...

Brit Perspective---Under the Big Top: Right v. Far Right

Posted by Cockney Robin |   How big a big tent is too big if you're a Republican?  Are you okay standing shoulder to shoulder with people whose authoritarian ideals and notions of conservatism are fueled by very different values than those of your own version?

It seems that an organisation of students at Michigan State University ("Young Americans for Freedom") invited British Nationalist Party's Nick Griffin to share some cosy anti-Islam sentiments round their autumn bonfires.  The author of  the distinguished conservative blog "Little Green Footballs" was most distressed, assuming---at first---that the invitation to the "flat-out racist and Holocaust denier" was simply a "boneheaded" move by young freedom-lovers made in honour of  the "Islamo-fascist Awareness Week" that featured so prominently is last week's conservative (American) blogs.  "It’s not clear from the article whether this was part of Islamofascism Awareness Week or not, but if it was, the Young Americans for Freedom have just handed the enemy a huge gift on a platter, tied up with a lovely white supremacist bow," she  fretted.  Later she realised that the move had been a conscious one and that the YAFfers, so called, had invited Griffin because of his views.

Guantanamo Whistleblower Condemns Proceedings

Posted by Cockney Robin   | According to The Independent, an American military lawyer (name withheld) has spoken out against the process used by secret military tribunals at Guantanamo for determining whether detainees are "enemy combatants."  The whistleblower is an army major who is stepping forward to protest the detention of Sudanese hospital administrator, Adel Hamad. The British lawyer who is representing Mr Hamad, who has been held for five years, says that after talking with doctors who worked with Hamad at an Afghan Hospital, he is certain of Hamad's innocence.  "Mr Hamad is an innocent man, and he is not the only one in Guantanamo," he said.(Independent)   Combatant status review tribunals for 558 detainees were held in 2004 and 2005.  Of all of those, only 38 were found not to be "enemy combatants."(Independent   Those classified as enemy combatants could be held indefinitely without charges and without access to a lawyer.(Independent) 

The army major (name redacted), whose testimony will be the "centrepiece" of a December 5 hearing before the US Supreme Court, has taken part in 49 review panels..(Independent)   He is, of course, not the first participant to speak out against the proceedings at  Guantanamo.   

House Passes Revised Children's Health Care Bill Against Unedifying Backdrop of Partisan Politics

Posted by Damozel    | The House has passed yet another version of the children's health bill, "after hours of partisan warfare."  (Washington Post) Sadly, the Democrats still haven't been able to draw in enough Republicans to override the promised veto by the always consistent President Bush. (Washington Post)  And, as always, W is the living proof that Emerson was right:  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.  On the other hand, he is reliable.  You always know where he is going to plant his tattered, shrunken, faded little "red states only" version of the American flag.

Scientist Withdraws Paper to Prevent Misuse by Creationists

Posted by Cockney Robin | 52 years after its publication, a former chemistry professor has retracted a 1955 scientific paper to prevent its misuse by creationists.(NYT)  At the age of 84, Dr Homer Jacobson discovered in an idle moment's google search that he has attained a sort of fame he neither sought nor could accept:  his paper, 'Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life' has become a popular resource for creationists who want to prove that life could not have begun on earth without divine intervention.(NYT)

Jacobson described the revelation as 'hideous.'  One publication,  "Darwinismrefuted.com, for example, says that Dr. Jacobson’s paper “undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident.” Another creationist site, Evolution-facts.org, says his findings mean that “within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water,” an impossible feat without a supernatural hand."(NYT)  (He also, and incidentally, discovered a number of substantive problems which fueled his desire to retract it.)    While he has no objection to religion, he objects to being made the enabler of 'malignant' denunciations of Darwin.(NYT) 

Elsewhere in the World: Russia's "Chessboard Killer"

Posted by Cockney Robin |  Look at this picture. This is the face of the Russian serial killer, Alexander Pichushkin. He is called "the chessboard killer" because he recorded each exploit by placing a bottlecap on a chessboard. (BBC News)   His crimes continued for a period of 14 years

He did all his killing in a suburban park. (BBC News) He began his career drowning his victims in the sewer.  Later, he began shooting them in the head with a homemade gun. (BBC News) Finally, he moved on to more violent methods:  beating them to death with a hammer.  His victims were elderly people (mostly elderly men), drug addicts, sick, or homeless.  He got them to accompany him by luring them with vodka, poor sods. (BBC News) When they were drunk enough, he struck.   He didn't bother to dispose of the bodies and in some cases disfigured them by sticking  the bottles into their smashed skull. (BBC News)

At the age of 33, he has been charged with 49 murders and 3 attempted murders, though he boasts that he killed 61(BBC News)  His mum thinks it was because he was dropped on his head (well, something like that) as an infant .(BBC News)  

British Nobel Laureates: Stripping the Gilt off Gore's Win? (Updated)

Posted by Cockney Robin  (photo by Tim Ereneta) |  Poor Al Gore.  At this rate, soon there will be no gleam left on that Nobel prize, to the delight of envious sods everywhere. And--sadly, because I like and admire the man---the spoilers have in every instance emanated from my country's storied isles.

First, and on the very weekend of his win, there was all that abject  nonsense centering around a British judge's remarks concerning Gore's film.  Last week, British geneticist and acknowledged scientific genius Dr James Watson stepped right in it by placing on firmly racialist grounds both the woes of the entire African continent and the ordinary tensions of the British workplace.  Because he is a geneticist, his comments definitely seemed to weigh more than those of other elderly gentlemen who might entertain similar views in a strictly personal capacity. They did not endear him to the American left (among others). 

Now 88 year old Doris Lessing (winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, bless her little cotton socks), has created alarm and consternation on the American Right (though not only on the Right, as you shall see) by suggesting that the Americans are simply making too much of 9/11.  Here's what she said: 

Albus Dumbledore's Outing (Updated!)

Posted by Cockney Robin | According to this article in My Way News (discovered through Memeorandum) J.K. Rowling seems to have decided that it was time to haul beloved Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore "out of the [broom] closet".

Had anyone suspected?  Damozel, reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," picked up on the gay vibe straightaway and shared her speculations with me.  "Could it be....could Dumbledore be....could Rowling possibly have intended....?"  But being unsure, she didn't bring the matter up in her review of the book. 

She also at one time briefly suspected the doughty, pawky Scots transfiguration teacher (McGonagall), though of course the spinster-lady-with-cat or even the spinster-leady-who-is-cat (McGonagall is an Animagus) is a stock character in British fiction:  she might be a widow or disappointed in love and neither I nor Damozel has sufficiently mastered the Potter trivia to remember if we ever had a hint.  But surely there could be no doubt whatsoever about the intended orientation of that jolly, virile, pipe-smoking  lady,  

Elderly Nobel Laureate Demonstrates Selective Nature of Intelligence.

 Posted by Cockney Robin |  Not many scientists seem prepared to concede this point, but being a scientist, and even a genius, doesn't necessarily mean you're good at logic, and specifically at spotting the flaws in your own thinking processes.  Dr James Watson, the 79 year old Nobel laureate helped unravel the double helix, and earned his place in the history of science and for that we are, and must continue to be, profoundly grateful, 

But knowing all there is to know within his specialty doesn't mean he can't be as wrong-headed as the next person when he holds forth on matters outside it----though, like many scientists, he appears not to understand where his area of expertise leaves off.  So now, prompted by Christ knows what conviction that he had a useful "truth" to impart, he has expressed an opinion which---though merely an elderly man's personal opinion---will or might or could easily be taken and exploited by certain ill-intentioned people as a legitimate conclusion of Capital-S Science.... 

According to The Independent, Watson became "embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that 'equal powers of reason' were shared across racial groups was a delusion."(Independent)  Or, more specifically,...

Twice-Told Tale: One New Orleans Family's Double Helping of Loss (and a Chance to Help).

 Posted by Cockney Robin | Bill Kavanaugh, one of our internet mates, has called our attention to the continuing tragic plight of a family of nine from the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, who lost their home not once, but twice, in what he rightly calls "an incredibly cruel twist of fate."   (Bring Miracle Home— A Plea for Help)  Katrina filled the Joseph family's house with 10 feet of water and crushed it under a massive tree. (Kavanaugh)   They used their insurance money to rebuild their house, but after the house was 80% complete, someone set light to a stolen car that was parked nearby, and the whole structure burned to the ground.  They do not have the means to rebuild again.  You can read a news story here.

Fortunately for the Josephs and for humankind generally, some very fine people banded together to raise money to help them rebuild.  Those good people have organised a website on behalf of the Josephs where you---and we---can donate to the cause of restoring this family's home. You can visit the website here.  A recent note about the progress of the cause is here.  And we hope that you will find your way to this page, where you can make a donation (online or offline).    

Brit Perspective: How a 12-Year Old Injured Child Became 'Fair Game' for America's So-Called 'Right'

Posted by Cockney Robin | Were you taken aback by the thoroughgoingness, viciousness, and fury of the attacks on an injured 12 year old kid called  Graeme Frost by American right wing so-called pundits and conservative bloggers? I was, but Damozel wasn't. "Don't you remember how they treated Chelsea Clinton?" she asked.  I didn't, but now I can very easily imagine.  The following is from TIME Magazine:

If you listen closely to the two-minute radio address that 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered last week for the Democrats, you can hear the lingering effects of the 2004 car crash that put him into a coma for a week and left one of his vocal cords paralyzed. "Most kids my age probably haven't heard of CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program," he says in a voice that sounds weak and stressed. "But I know all about it, because if it weren't for CHIP, I might not be here today."

Graeme, whose sister suffered worse brain injuries when their family SUV hit a patch of black ice, was making an appeal for President Bush to reconsider his veto of legislation that would have expanded the program designed to provide health coverage to children of the working poor — those who are too rich to qualify for Medicaid but unable to afford private insurance.

UK Senior Police Official: 'Legalise All Drugs.'

 Posted by Cockney Robin |  Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales and one of the UK's most senior police officers, will call for an end to "UK drug policy based on "prohibition"."(The Independent)  His position:

If policy on drugs is in future to be pragmatic not moralistic,   driven by ethics not dogma, then the current prohibitionist stance will have   to be swept away as both unworkable and immoral, to be replaced with an   evidence-based unified system (specifically including tobacco and alcohol) aimed at minimisation of harms to society (The Independent)

This pragmatic view isn't likely to be popular with Gordon Brown or the Tories generally, though The Independent points out that there are 'persuasive voices' that will support Brunstrom's arguments. (The Independent).

Tales of Repression in Burma; First Lady Laura Bush Takes a Stand

Posted by Cockney Robin  | Notwithstanding Gordon Brown's warning to the Burmese generals that they could no longer act "with impunity," they are sufficiently unconcerned with the world's opinion to wreak revenge on their political enemies.  The Independent describes a "hidden crackdown...as methodical as it is brutal."(Independent)  It's already known that the police turned guns and truncheons on demonstrators and that at least 13 are dead as a result.  Reports smuggled out of the country provide some notion of the price that the demonstrators---including mere bystanders---are now paying.  According to The Independent's sources, one detained opponent of the regime, Win Shwe, has been tortured---or rather, 'interrogated'--- to death. (Independent)  Will other deaths follow?

Burmese officials are "scrutinising photographs and video footage to identify demonstrators and bystanders" and the people of Rangoon say they hear their neighbours being dragged off every night.  ""We all hear screams at night as they [the police] arrive to drag off a neighbour. We are torn between going to help them and hiding behind our doors. We hide behind our doors. We are ashamed. We are frightened.""(Independent)  And, as The Independent points out, "[f]or each story smuggled out to The Independent, someone has risked arrest and imprisonment."(Independent)

Another Adolescent Gunman Opens Fire in an American School....

 Posted by Cockney Robin | I don't mean to seem obsessed with guns or with violence, nor yet with gun violence, but perhaps I am a little.  I understand that the world is a dangerous place and that in many places (Burma) the baddies still have the upper hand.   But these American shootings by children are different, or ought to be.  Seriously, can you good people really not see that you need to come to grips with the problem?  And yes, I am willfully deaf to the arguments of Americans who tell me that there is nothing to be done, or that it is already too late to do anything, or that these incidents---the BBC has provided this helpful timeline in case you've forgotten any of them---are constitutionally inevitable. The phrase "latest school shooting" really shouldn't exist, should it?

Aussie Contractors Shoot Two Iraqi Women; P.W. Singer on Blackwater et al.

 Posted by Cockney Robin  | Meanwhile, in Iraq, employees of an Australian-run security firm have accidentally though also completely intentionally shot and killed two women.  That is to say, the shooting and killing part were intentional; that the targets turned out to be inoffensive ladies driving home from work (and also a small boy who fortunately wasn't killed) was the accidental part.  "The firm was employed by RTI International, a nonprofit organization that does governance work in Iraq on a contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to David Snider, a USAID spokesman in Washington."   (The Washington Post Ah, the contracts within contracts with which the road to hell is paved.

Here's what their car looked like afterward.

Mass Shooting in Wisconsin

 Posted by Cockney Robin  | At least six teenagers were shot during a party in Crandon Wisconsin.  This time it was a part-time copper who got into a row with his girlfriend.  The gunman, 20 year old Tyler Peterson, shot killed at least six people (The Telegraph says "as many as ten"), including two high school students two who had only recently graduated.  One of the murder victims was 14.

"Her mother, Jenny Stahl, said her daughter was staying at a friend's house. "I'm waiting for somebody to wake me up right now. This is a bad, bad dream," Mrs Stahl said. "All I heard, it was a jealous boyfriend and he went berserk. He took them all out," she added. (BBC News)

I know; I know.  Guns don't kill people.  Jealous 20 year old boys kill people.   In this instance,... 

T13 #13 | 13 Ways to Bring Even More Value to Thursday 13

Note to Thirteeners & Others: If you leave a comment with your URL, we'll list your link under our post (making it a proper link for Technorati and Google). To join Thursday 13, click on the badge.

 
Want to join BN-Politics' link-exchange? Add us to your blogroll and email us.

In Burma, the Resistance and Repression Carry On (updated)

  Posted by Cockney Robin |  If you're wondering about the dissidents of Burma/Myanmar, the BBC now says that about 4000 are being held at a disused racecourse and a technical college, as the government prepares to send them away to prisons in the north.(BBC News; BBC News) They've been disrobed and shackled, and---depending on which report you read----are either refusing to eat (BBC News) or are not being given adequate food and water, not that these possibilities are necessarily mutually exclusive.  The government admits that 9 or 10 people ---including, presumably, this monk photographed by the Democratic Voice of Burma----were killed; human rights organizations think it was certainly more.  Some say the dead are more likely to number 200 than 10 ; others estimate that it's more likely (so far) to be around 40. (BBC News)  

Given that the 1988 protests ended with an estimated 3000 killed by the junta, you can see why people feel that the "worst may be yet to come." (BBC News)  Though  "worst" is a relative term, and you can see from this smuggled CNN footage how bad things have already been.

An international aid worker who just left Burma told CNN of seeing bodies left lying in the street as a deliberate message to the crowd. "To see Burmese people display any kind of anger was incredible to me," she said. "These are people who are peaceful, gentle, turn-the-other-cheek people. ... It's difficult for a Westerner to grasp how significant that is. ... This is huge."(Raw Story)