You're a good man, Fareed Zakaria

Five years ago, Fareed Zakaria was given a "Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize" by the Anti-Defamation League. In an open letter published a couple of days ago on Newsweek's site, he says, in part:

I cannot in good conscience hold onto the award or the honorarium that came with it and am returning both.

You should read the whole thing, as well as the posts which referred me to it, from Steve Benen and Greg Sargent (via).

By the way? That honorarium, Benen says, was $10,000. This is confirmed by Zakaria's related column.

(previously)

Krugman Follow-Up

You already read that column, right? Good.

A tweet I tweeted:

#wingnuts are claiming Tax Policy Center refudiates™ Krugman, "defends" Ryan. Don't believe them: http://is.gd/e6XBw Read past headline #p2

That link (expanded here) will lead you to some discussion on the PK column and the inevitable kneejerk response by certain of those in the hand-tightenable threaded fastener community.

Also, two posts on the PK blog: "How To Spot A Flimflammer" and earlier, "Ryan Predictions." Sorry, Prof. K, but it would be irresponsible NOT to steal your closing lines from the latter:

So I think we can expect some world-class obfuscation.

Oh, and let me make another prediction: not one of the self-proclaimed centrists who have hailed Ryan for his truthtelling will admit that they were taken for a ride.

OH LIGHTEN UP BRENDAN IT'S CATURDAY, you say?

A'ight:

The Ultimate Compliment

Digby:

I am definitely naming my next cat after Paul Krugman. And the first mouse he brings in will be named Paul Ryan.

Oh, yes. You remember. He's a cat-blogger, too, in addition to all his other fine qualities.

Wingnut Dilemma: Churchill Apparently Part of JournoList!!!1!

You wanna talk Shaping The Message???

The BBC reports on what "newly-released files show."

The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent "mass panic".

X Files

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.

"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.

"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

Oh, wait, I forgot. Wingnuts are perfectly happy with government cover-ups, as long as they're being conducted by conservative governments.

(h/t: Jack Stuef)

Hey, you know what I forgot to mention about "Honorable" John McCain?

Earlier, when I noted his latest idiocy concerning fiscal responsibamility, I mean?

John McCain used to make fun of spending money to study grizzly bears.

I wonder why he doesn't do that anymore.

Damn. Where does a quarter-century go?

We were talking about this guy elsewhere, last night and earlier, and though it's not quite as sweltering as it was then, I am going to repost this, because it's cocktail hour, and because it suddenly occurred to me how time flies and how the things you love can go away, just like that.

I turned down free tickets to see this man more than once, believe it or not, because I was in the biz back then, didn't want to take the night off from work, and thought, "Eh.* Great as he is? He'll be around forever."

'Nuff maudlinin'. Play loud. And thank the FSM we at least have ways to record such moments.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Say What! (Montreux '85)

(alt. video link)

__________

* [Added] Actually, given that at the time of said offers I was living in the Biggest Little State in the Union, it is more likely that instead of saying Eh I said Aaaayyyyyyyyy.

"... the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party"

Especially if you're still laboring under the misapprehension that the Washington Post is part of the Liberal Media, and thus took their recent tongue bath of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) at face value, you probably ought to read Paul Krugman on "The Flimflam Man."

If you haven't already, I mean. Nice to see this column is #1 on the Most Emailed List. Glad someone out there is paying attention to The Shrill One. He tends to be right about these things, y'know.

John McCain thinks we only have to worry about $72,000 of our national debt!

Okay, not exactly. But seriously? This is even dumber than his earmark fetish of a few years ago.

Finally! Congrats to our newest Justice of the Supreme Court!

Jim Newell passes along the good news: Elena Kagan has been approved by the Senate, 63-37.

Looking around for the roll call, I found this from the AP:

A "yes" vote is a vote to confirm the nomination.

Voting yes were 56 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 2 independents.

Voting no were 1 Democrat and 36 Republicans.

Ben Nelson (Nebraska) was the lone Dem "no." The five Rep "yes" votes were from Lugar (Indiana), Collins and Snowe (Maine), Gregg (New Hampshire), and Graham (South Carolina).

(x-posted)

"Confessions of a Tea Party Casualty"

Excerpts from a recent piece by David Corn:

It was the middle of a tough primary contest, and Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) had convened a small meeting with donors who had contributed thousands of dollars to his previous campaigns. But this year, as Inglis faced a challenge from tea party-backed Republican candidates claiming Inglis wasn't sufficiently conservative, these donors hadn't ponied up. Inglis' task: Get them back on the team. "They were upset with me," Inglis recalls. "They are all Glenn Beck watchers." About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, "They say, 'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'" Inglis didn't know how to respond.

As he tells this story, the veteran lawmaker is sitting in his congressional office, which he will have to vacate in a few months. On June 22, he was defeated in the primary runoff by Spartanburg County 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who had assailed Inglis for supposedly straying from his conservative roots, pointing to his vote for the bank bailout and against George W. Bush's surge in Iraq. Inglis, who served six years in Congress during the 1990s as a conservative firebrand before being reelected to the House in 2004, had also ticked off right-wingers in the state's 4th Congressional District by urging tea-party activists to "turn Glenn Beck off" and by calling on Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) to apologize for shouting "You lie!" at Obama during the president's State of the Union address. For this, Inglis, who boasts (literally) a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, received the wrath of the tea party, losing to Gowdy 71 to 29 percent. In the weeks since, Inglis has criticized Republican House leaders for acquiescing to a poisonous, tea party-driven "demagoguery" that he believes will undermine the GOP's long-term credibility. And he's freely recounting his frustrating interactions with tea party types, while noting that Republican leaders are pushing rhetoric tainted with racism, that conservative activists are dabbling in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense, and that Sarah Palin celebrates ignorance.

During his primary campaign, Inglis repeatedly encountered enraged conservatives whom he couldn't—or wouldn't—satisfy. Shortly before the runoff primary election, Inglis met with about a dozen tea party activists at the modest ranch-style home of one of them. Here's what took place:

I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks. I have this look like, "What the heck are you talking about?" I'm trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, "You don't know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don't know this?!" And I said, "Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things." And then of course, it turned into something about the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers and all that stuff. And now you have the feeling of anti-Semitism here coming in, mixing in. Wow.

For Inglis, this is the crux of the dilemma: Republican members of Congress know "deep down" that they need to deliver conservative solutions like his tax swap. Yet, he adds, "We're being driven as herd by these hot microphones—which are like flame throwers—that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd." Inglis says that it's hard for Republicans in Congress to "summon the courage" to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. "When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation...we're failing the conservative movement," he says. "We're failing the country." Yet, he notes, Boehner and House minority whip Eric Cantor have one primary strategic calculation: Play to the tea party crowd. "It's a dangerous strategy," he contends, "to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible."

Read the whole thing.

(h/t: Jim Newell | x-posted)

Feelin' Minnesota

Report from District 6:

(h/t: uncle ebeneezer, via PZ)

Activist Judge, FTW! Death to Prop H8!

Court Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Ban in California

We haven't won yet -- the judge ("Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, who heard the case without a jury") immediately placed a stay on his own ruling, pending appeals, and the NYT says it "seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court."

Still. Chip away, chip away at the stone.

(alt. video link)

[Added] Nice pic:

Congratulations, A-Rod!

I don't care what they say about you; you're all right with me. And this is a magnificent milestone.

Here is THE all-time list, for those who mysteriously have yet to memorize it.

(h/t: KK, via shout)

[Added] Great baseball-nerd porn here.

Anyone here think there's any chance this WON'T ...

... make it to #1 on the NYT's Most Emailed list?

Article here.

I'll wait until Ken Kesey signs off on it to say for sure, but ...

... this new thing on the drawing boards in China looks pretty cool. At first, it struck me as a little Rube Goldbergian, but after another moment's thought, it seemed pretty darned clever. No need to do massive construction -- at least not to the extent of big footprint changes in the existing infrastructure, and the claim is, it will get most of its power from the sun.

Of course, the post title -- "3D Express Coach (PICTURES): China Plans Huge Buses That Can DRIVE OVER Cars" -- might lead to a little initial disappointment, if you're a product of the same monster truck culture that I am. (I was envisioning huge pillowy tires.) But go have a look anyway.

(h/t: TC, via email)

(alt. video link)

The Least Surprising Sentence of the last Eighty-Seven Months, at Least

If you read no further, know this: RedState supports the Anti-Defamation League in its opposition to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.”

Okay! No need to read any further!

P.S. Go DIAF, wingnut. And take all your anti-American allies with you. In my country, we have a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion, and it doesn't just apply to those who worship Republican Jesus.

(h/t: Riley Waggaman)

__________

P.P.S. Shoutout to Mike Bloomberg. I don't agree with him on everything, but on this? That's how a real America's Mayor acts.

"The two-sigma blues" ...

... is a term to remember. Here, it is used in the context of an essay by Dennis Overbye, "Rumors in Astrophysics Spread at Light Speed." It's a good read.

Nearby, you might also have a look at "Tracing Oil Reserves to Their Tiny Origins," by William J. Broad. Probably you didn't really still think that oil was put there by Jesus, 6000 years ago comes from dead dinosaurs, but it's nice to have the story told as well as this one does.

(x-posted)

FBI pwned by DFHs at Wikipedia!

Okay, not really that exciting. But any victory over The Man, amirite?

The letter (PDF) from Mike Godwin, General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation, is worth reading -- it's a marvel of understatement, back-handed compliments, and dry wit. If you spend time arguing online (not that I would know anything about this), it's a pleasing contrast to the sort of rebuttal you usually encounter.

"Tea Party movement funding"

Interesting and useful reference page on Sourcewatch, describing the bankrolling of the teabaggers, as well as other forms of support.

If you're at all aware of the Astroturfing and opportunism running rampant in this arena, the general ideas will not surprise you, but it is nice to have the documentation and the links in one place. And also, since Sourcewatch is a wiki (like Wikipedia, I mean), you can jump in and help out.

Thanks for the link to Roy Edroso, whose coverage of the threatened coming revolution is a must-read. I'm still laughing over this part …

… a wave of conservative interest in the Constitution -- often expressed in drives to repeal its Amendments …"

… and this:

If you can accept the idea that people like Sarah Palin and Jonah Goldberg are the modern equivalent of Sam Adams and Patrick Henry, you may also accept Christian's and Robbins' argument that, even if Congress goes Republican, a "wounded rampaging" Obama may, by "executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats," thwart the will of the People, and even steal the 2012 Presidential election. The authors cleverly avoided prescribing a remedy for this anticipated tyranny, but it clearly involves muskets, fifes and drums.

Thanks, @Dlvrit_support!

Appreciate the rapid response time and the clear explanation.

Testing dlvr.it

This post (its title and a link to it, I mean) should show up on my Twitter feed within the next fifteen minutes, assuming I did things correctly. Same for new posts from here on out.

Can you feel the excitement???

From now on, instead of saying "pathetic," I'm gonna say "Blago"

Move over, Twinkie Defense!

The lawyer for Rod R. Blagojevich urged jurors last week to acquit his client of corruption charges, in part because Mr. Blagojevich, the chatty former governor of Illinois, was simply too dull to carry out the devious schemes of which he stands accused.

No one would say he is “the sharpest knife in the drawer,” his lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., told jurors during closing arguments.

Bookends of his life

Frank Rich compares the Pentagon Papers with the Wikileaks/Afghanistan story. Quite good.

(x-posted)

Oh Snap

Johnny Zhivago, on the occasion and celebration of a certain marriage you may have heard about?

It’s not a festive wedding without a celebratory Predator Drone attack, though.

(related)

Deep Thought

Were I to own my saloon, I think I would call it 12 Blues Bar.

Further News from your Police State

Following up from the previous post, here's a related note.

Wikileaks posts an Insurance policy

Wikileaks Afghanistan War Diary

It seems that Wikileaks has posted a massive (1.4 GB, 10x larger than all the other files on the page combined) heavily encrypted file on it's dedicated "Afghan War Diary" page labeled simply "Insurance". (See link above)

Possibly in response to the harsh rhetoric issuing from the US DoD regarding Wikileak's founder, Julian Assange (including the rumored price on his head), sometime last Sunday afternoon the new file was quietly uploaded with no explanation.

The Daily Beast is reporting the Pentagon has a manhunt currently underway for Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange.

The rest, from Antemedius.

My impression, based on occasional impressions formed over the past couple of years, is that Julian Assange is a bit of a drama queen. However, if the part about the "Pentagon manhunt" is true, that all by itself is enough to legitimately alarmed, I'd say.

(h/t: @BrianDegenhart | x-posted)

Welcome home, to your police state

Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing:

A volunteer for Wikileaks was detained by officials Thursday while entering the country at Newark International Airport.

Jacob Appelbaum, noted for his work with the Tor online security project, was searched and "interrogated" for three hours before being released, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous.

Wikileaks, a clearing house for information submitted by whistleblowers, released a trove of "War Logs" last Sunday relating to the conflict in Afghanistan. Appelbaum delivered a keynote speech at the recent HOPE conference in Wikileaks chief Julian Assange's place, and gave an interview to Boing Boing about the content of the logs.

According to the source, Appelbaum was stopped by customs officials and spoken to for at least three hours by a team that included a U.S. Army investigator. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning was named last week as a possible Wikileaks source in relation to the classified logs.

Appelbaum's interviewers demanded that he decrypt his laptop and other computer equipment, the source said. After his refusal to do so, they confiscated it, including three cellphones. The laptop was returned, apparently because it contained no storage drive that investigators could examine. He was also asked about his role in Wikileaks and informed that he was under surveillance.

The FBI also asked to speak to Appelbaum earlier today in Las Vegas after his talk at the annual DEFCON hacker conference. Mr. Appelbaum, the source said, had an attorney present who declined the request on his behalf.

Appelbaum, reached Saturday afternoon, said he was unable to comment.

Update: CNET has more details of the detainment.

From the CNET article, this just killed me:

Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Army then told him he was not under arrest but was being detained, …

The interview, conducted the day after the Wikileaks/Afghanistan story broke, is worth a look. I liked this line:

Boing Boing: The Department of Defense has called Wikileaks a "national security threat."

Jacob Appelbaum: Wikileaks is not a national security threat; we are an international security promise.

(h/t: siouxeeq via RT | x-posted | see also)

[Added] Follow-up.

Clickbait Fail: Reader Contribution

KK says, "I didn't read past the headline."

Which, it turns out, was:

Finding the Link Between Werewolves and Karaoke

No argument there.

Surprising Byline of the Day

Here's an assessment of where the GOP is at these days.

Four Deformations of the Apocalypse

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.

[...]

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

What shrill liberal is being shrill now?

David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan …

(previously)

(x-posted)

Something wrong with my cookies?

As in, was it a mistake to go over to the home of the RedState Trike Force to see the GHEMRotRSTF fluff his own book? And then to WingNutDaily, to check up on the Thirteenthers? So that I am now being tracked by the Party That Pretends To Care About Your Ideas And Will Even Embrace Them To The Extent That They Equate To Tax Cuts For The Rich And Fewer Regulations For Polluters?

Or have other people also been forced to look at Darling of the Teabaggers™ Marco Rubio on pretty much every web site they have visited the past day or two?

Let us in any case steal an(other) idea from the Dark Prince of alicublog and his minions.

Line of the Day: 2010-08-01

From last month, sorry to say, but hey, aging!

... you can use lean production and just-in-time methods to build anything from Toyotas to iPods, but the only way to get a barrel of 10 year old whisky is to start with a barrel of 9 year old whisky and wait.
    -- Daniel Davies