Never have I been so grateful to have been so wrong.
... and ...
We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a worldview defined by a singular tragedy.
From an op-ed of considered hope, by one of my heroes, Edward J. Snowden.
As you probably know, I've been yammering about this for what feels like forever.
After years of mounting concerns that the antibacterial chemicals that go into everyday items like soap and toothpaste are doing more harm than good, the Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that it was requiring soap manufacturers to demonstrate that the substances were safe or to take them out of the products altogether.
The proposal was applauded by public health experts, who for years have urged the agency to regulate antimicrobial chemicals, warning that they risk scrambling hormones in children and promoting drug-resistant infections, among other things.
Actually, I did not know about the hormone thing. My beef has always been about the latter worry.
[Added] My message, now with authoritah!
The agency also said there was no evidence that the substances were any more effective in preventing infection than plain soap and water.
Rhetorical question: how much luck have you had trying to buy plain soap lately?
... but Rick Perlstein's Baffler piece from a few months ago, "The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism" is an enjoyable read, in a faintly horrifying way.
Lotta money to be made out there, if only you didn't have a conscience.
(h/t: Julian Sanchez)
To have that kind of money, I mean.
The military headquarters responsible for computer-network warfare, the United States Cyber Command, will grow by 4,000 personnel with an additional investment of $23 billion, ...
The creation of jerbs! With no hint of scolding from the deficit scolds!
Does it get better? Oh, it gets better:
... General Dempsey said. (Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are led by the same officer, Gen. Keith B. Alexander.)
Uh huh.
“We are doing all of this not to address run-of-the mill cyberintrusions, but to stop attacks of significant consequence — those that threaten life, limb and the country’s core economic functioning,” General Dempsey said.
I for one feel safer already!
The news coming out of Milwaukee reminds me of a time about a decade ago, when I was in a convenience store. While waiting my turn, I noticed a small sign next to a pile of handouts, which were offered to explain to customers that just because the store owner wore a turban, and so forth.
This was in the People's Republic of Northampton, for godsake. (If you know anything about that town, you know it is second to none in valuing diversity.) And yet, the proprietor felt compelled, there, to inform everyone who stepped into his store that Sikhs aren't Muslims.
Not that it should matter, in any case, but I think you get my point.
Well, metaphorically. And not by name. And in a sloppy reading monotone kind of way. And, as Rebecca Schoenkopf notes, this, sadly, amounts lately to "one of his biannual decency jags."
But still, he deserves props for doing it. It's not like anyone else in his party would, after all. So take a few minutes to listen.
Update
2022-08-25 Video no longer available. Sorry.
Maybe! From an article about a terrorism trial currently underway, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, NY:
“As you apply a law enforcement model to these cases, people always cooperate,” said Anthony S. Barkow, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in terrorism cases and now works in private practice. “It took a long time in organized crime; it is taking less time with national security.”
[...]
“The federal courts are not just about providing due process and protecting defendants’ rights,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who focuses on national security. “There is an information-producing function that allows the public to see how terrorists act and how the government acts to prosecute these terrorists.”
He added, “That’s something that we lose when we deal with more secretive processes like military commissions.”
Micah Zenko and Michael Cohen have a longish piece up on Foreign Affairs on the problem of threat inflation. Here's the article summary:
U.S. officials and national security experts chronically exaggerate foreign threats, suggesting that the world is scarier and more dangerous than ever. But that is just not true. From the U.S. perspective, at least, the world today is remarkably secure, and Washington needs a foreign policy that reflects that reality.
If you're not already a subscriber, you'll have to register to read the article. But that's free, and painless.
Of course, given the reality of our political system's utter ownership by the military-industrial complex, it's hard to imagine that this article will do much more than get people like me to nod with approval. But you never know, and you gotta start somewhere, and maybe at least, it'll make it easier to keep at least some pressure on the brakes.
(h/t: Foreign Entanglements)
Or ...
HAS MEGYN KELLY DYED HER HAIR A DIFFERENT COLOR?
I don't know if you'll be able to make it through seven minutes of Erin Burnett (I failed to make it through two), but it's definitely worth seeing what Taibbi has to say.
Thanks again, liberal media!
(h/t: Jim Newell)
It's no accident that American Exceptionalism joins Islam and Christianity as the holy trinity of systems whose Absolute and Unshakable Universal Moral Certitudes can be shattered if someone happens to frown in their direction.
-- Doghouse Riley
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[Added] A comment I would have left under that post, had not Blogger gone all 503 on me:
The only thing better than Rudy Giuliani winning the Ed Meese Award was Atlas Shrugged, The Movie, "Part 1," winning the Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Award.
It's hard out there for a Republican preznidential candidate!
Sharia-compliant financing is a growing industry, particularly when it comes to mortgages. "Traditional secular, money lending banks are setting up Sharia-compliant products because they make money," says Abed Awad, an attorney who specializes in Islamic law. Companies like Citigroup and Visa have tried their hand at Sharia-compliant products. Usually companies structure the payments in a sort of house-buying layaway plan. "It's a major moneymaker for banks." Shariah compliant mortgages allow observant Muslims like Lakhani to buy homes, where previously they were stuck renting to avoid interest payments.
There's nothing sinister about the growth of Sharia-compliant finance. It is just capitalism at work, an emerging market in which firms are meeting demand for a particular kind of product. But a decision by one 2012 Republican hopeful, Tim Pawlenty, may come back to haunt him in the GOP presidential primary, where any association with Sharia-compliant finance could be toxic.
[...]
Pawlenty's effort to increase minority homeownership by encouraging companies to offer Sharia-compliant mortgages was entirely in keeping with his reputation as a "Sam's Club Republican" concerned with helping "regular people." But in the 2012 race, he'll be up against competitors who may try to use it against him.
"Who may." That Adam Serwer is a funny guy.
Of course, Ben Smith won the morning obediently rushed to type up the new Pawlenty position.
But a Pawlenty spokesman told me that the governor has no intention of defending the program -- and that in fact, he shut it down himself as soon as he learned of it.
(h/t: Jack Stuef | x-posted)
Even considering that it's coming from a mind that sees crescents everywhere, this reaction to the Libya situation is just amazing:
What I find particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Qaddafi Precedent will be used in the not-to-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.
(h/t: @azjayhawk47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Say what you will about him. I'm not denying he has his flaws. But when he's on, he is on.
Say it again: Deliberately Black.
So good.
Swiped from C&L. Thanks, as always, to RM.
As you may or may not know, Sen. Joseph McCarthy Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is planning to hold hearings, starting 7 March, on how hard we should freak out about the supposed threat from "radicalized" American Muslims and their plans to murder the rest of us. According to PRR's survey, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they haven't heard anything about this. However, of those who say "Fox is their most trusted news source," 40% have.
Further:
• Republicans who say Fox News is their most trusted news source are more likely than Republicans who trust a different news source [Such people actually exist? --ed.] to say they are well-informed about Islam (53% to 34%). They are also more likely than Republicans who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (82% to 60%).
• White evangelicals who most trust Fox News are much more likely than those who trust a different news source to say they feel informed about Islam than those who trust other sources of news (70% to 37%). This same group of evangelicals is also more likely than their counterparts who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (84% to 60%).
• More than three-quarters (76%) of those who most trust Fox News say it is a good idea [to hold the hearings] compared to only 45% of those who most trust CNN and 28% of those who most trust Public television.
• Those who most trust Fox News are twice as likely as those who most trust Broadcast news and about four times as likely those who most trust public television to believe ["Muslims want to establish Shari’a law as law of the land"] (35%, 18% and 9%)
Further observations from Pareene.
Move over, Louie Gohmert. There's a new top bedwetter in town: Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana).
But how do we know what THE TERRORISTS will use it for?"
Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert says his office is drafting a measure to allow members of Congress to carry guns in the District of Columbia, including in the Capitol and on the House floor.
[...]
He said there were times during the health care debate last year that he felt afraid …
(h/t: @jamisonfoser | x-posted)
__________
[Update 2011-01-13 04:59] Not possible, you say? Au contraire! Gomer Gohmert said something even stupider.
Frank Gaffney, shown at right with his mental health counselor, has discovered another conspiracy so immense, and who better to report on it than WingNutDaily?
Now look who else is infiltrating CPAC
[...]
... Frank Gaffney, a leader of the conservative movement for the last 30 years, charges that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.
Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and co-author of the new book "Shariah: The Threat to America." He told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.
[...]
Gaffney also accuses another ACU board member, leading conservative political organizer Grover Norquist, of helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence in the nation's capital.
Gaffney told WND that Norquist got Khan into the Bush White House.
CPAC, you might recall, is the Conservative Political Action Conference. It is an annual gathering of loudmouths from the far right, sponsored by groups like Citizens United, the Heritage Foundation, and the John Birch Society. It gathers annually to provide lulz to Wonkette to crack the rightward whip on Republicans and to give the sufficiently pure among themselves awards named after Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston.
To illustrate, here's the top of the announcement for this year's gathering:
Dhimmis all, eh?
On the other hand, CPAC did give Coulter a timeout back in 2008, and this year, they have invited back Teh Ghey (and may even allow them to speak this time?). And it turns out Gaffney has been uninvited from CPAC for a few years now.
So, progress! At this rate, within another century or two, CPAC will be mere middle-of-the-road wingnuts.
(h/t: @sarahposner, r/t by @jccherry | pic. source)
