Clipmarks | ratilfar's clips

There's No There There: IAEA Inspects Iran Nuclear Site; Finds "Nothing To Be Worried About"

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:19:00 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

What happens after all the fear mongering that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons bunker turns out to be bunk?

U.N. inspectors found "nothing to be worried about" in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the International Atomic Energy chief said in remarks published Thursday.

Mohamed ElBaradei also told the New York Times that he was examining possible compromises to unblock a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and three major powers that has foundered over Iranian objections.

The nuclear site, which Iran revealed in September three years after diplomats said Western spies first detected it, added to Western fears of covert Iranian efforts to develop atom bombs. Iran says it is enriching uranium only for electricity.

"It's a hole in a mountain," he said.

Tags: iran, nukes, iaea, inspections, news

Tom Tancredo Walks Off MSNBC Set Because Of Markos Moulitas

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:09:14 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "You're not going to do that. You're not going to try to insult me that way and then pretend like we're just going on and talk about that. You either apologize ..." When Moulitas did not apologize, Tancredo simply took out his earpiece and walked away.

As a Republican student activist, Tancredo spoke out in favor of the Vietnam War but did not serve.

After graduating from college in June 1969, he became eligible to serve in Vietnam. Tancredo said he went for his physical, telling doctors he'd been treated for depression, and eventually got a deferment.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

On MSNBC Friday night, David Shuster (filling in for Ed Shultz) addressed hateful signs at Thursday's Capitol Hill "House call" against health care reform. But the discussion escalated into a fight that led a Republican guest to walk off the set.

Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo refused to criticize Republican leaders for participating in the event, saying there were equally offensive signs at anti-Bush rallies in the past. He said they should talk about the policy, not the signs.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitas defended health care reform, pointing out that the military uses government-run health care. Tancredo said veterans complained about their health care and would much rather have a private choice.

"Tom, I'm a veteran. Okay?" Moulitas responded. "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight a war I supported in Vietnam. I'm a veteran. They want a more effective V.A. ..."

Tags: tancredo, chicken$#@!, gop, republicans, dkos, healthcare

Caturday: Cats Make Look Easy Edition

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:56:37 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: icanhascheezburger.com

Tags: caturday, cats, kittens, lol, lolz, locats, humor, meme, internet

A few useful and informative graphs.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:45:54 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: They are really helpful.

Clip Source: graphjam.com

Tags: graphs, lol, lolz, pics, humor, internet, meme

Hated Roosevelt, Hate Obama: Paleoconservative Persuasions

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:22:22 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Nock saw the state as “them,” not “us,” and “them” really came to mean Roosevelt. You must know that Roosevelt was hated by many during the Great Depression. Not disliked, hated. The laissez faire crowd saw every move toward government relief of intolerable conditions as government self-aggrandizement—Nock’s term, not mine. Despite the fact that people were desperate in the streets, extreme-sport capitalists saw only usurpation of the powers of the church (as the precursor to the modern social relief agency) and the individual—that old fall-back, the rugged individual—Nock’s term, not mine.

Professor Nock pulls no punches. With a Beckian flourish he proclaims, “This regime was established by a coup d'État of a new and unusual kind, practicable only in a rich country.” Yup. A coup d’etat. You almost want to ask for Mr. Roosevelt’s birth certificate.

Nock’s antipathy to Roosevelt knew few boundaries. Perversely, Nock saw in the New Deal, “the erection of po

Clip Source: open.salon.com

In the crusade against Obama administration efforts on behalf of economic recovery and health care reform, we encounter lies, damn lies, and Republican talking points. Touchstones like: “government takeover,” “government-run,” “profligate spending,” “usurpation of power”—where did they all come from? Well, in a word, they all came from this guy named Albert Jay Nock.

Albert Jay Nock was one of the most virulent critics of President Roosevelt and his administration’s efforts to extract the nation from the Great Depression. Nock’s opus, Our Enemy, the State, published in 1935, attacked the New Deal in terms that, well, you’d have to listen to Glen Beck to replicate. Or Michele Bachmann. Or Rush. It is the source code for anti-Obama talking points.

Tags: history, reality, yesterday, today, tomorrow?

Carrie Prejean Goes Down. Literally!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:02:18 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Of course, all of this should have little effect on her career. If anything it will add fuel to it with the way Americans are infatuated with hypocrites and fallen angels. Vivid Entertainment Group, which specializes in adult films, made an offer of a million dollars to Prejean back in May to make a movie for them. Seems she might be a natural. This could only raise her value in the porn market. Practice makes perfect.

I'm curious as to how all the rightwing Prejean backers will spin this and find a way to blame this on everyone but Prejean. I might even turn on Fox News to check it out. With Prejean's looks and attitude, she may end up with her own show over there since credibility isn't a factor in Fox's hiring practices.

And for those of you who don’t remember who actually won the Miss California Pageant, her name is Tami Ferrell from Malibu. How soon we forget those with actual morals.

Clip Source: open.salon.com

Former Miss California runner-up, Carrie Prejean had her day in court yesterday, though it didn’t turn out quite the way she had hoped. The Beauty Pageant almost Queen was suing the Miss California Pageant officials for a litany of charges including public ridicule, anxiety, depression and loss of sleep stemming from the official’s handling of her career.

Everything was going fine until the defendants started playing an extremely graphic homemade sex tape starring none other than Miss Prejean, herself.

It’s been reported that it only took about fifteen seconds of playing the tape before Prejean decided to drop her lawsuit. If all litigation could only end so quickly.

How fast and far can one star fall.

Naturally there was a book deal for Prejean announced in July with a launch date slated for mid-November. The title, “Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks” may need a little work. I’ll leave it to you to come up with a new title.

Tags: miss california, almost, carrie prejean, far right, homophobia, gay, marriage, civil rights, hypocrisy

A media orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:07:13 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: It's worth focusing on what the major media did last night, and one can use the Hot Air compilation to examine that. I understand that in the early stages of significant and complex news stories, it's to be expected that journalists will have incomplete and even inaccurate information. It's unreasonable to expect them to avoid errors entirely. The inherently confusing nature of a mass shooting like this, combined with the need to rely on second-hand or otherwise unreliable sources (including, sometimes, official ones), will mean that even conscientious reporters end up with inaccurate information in cases like this. That's all understandable and inevitable.

But shouldn't there be some standards governing what gets reported and what is held back? Particularly in a case like this -- which, for obvious reasons, has the potential to be quite inflammatory on a number of levels -- having the major media "report" completely false assertions as fact can be quite harmful. It's often th

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Last night, right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds promoted this media analysis from right-wing blogger (and Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney) Patterico regarding coverage of the Fort Hood shootings. Patterico wrote: "Whenever there is breaking news, it’s good to keep a few things in mind: . . . Always follow Allahpundit" -- referring to one of the two bloggers at Michelle Malkin's Hot Air site.

Upon reading that, I went to Hot Air to read what he had written, and it's actually quite revealing -- not in terms of what it reveals about Hot Air (that topic wouldn't warrant a post) but, rather, what it reveals about major media coverage of these sorts of events. Allahpundit's post consists of a very thorough, contemporaneous, and -- at times -- appropriately skeptical chronicling of what major media outlets were reporting about the Fort Hood attack,

Tags: msm, media, shootings, breaking news, 24h news cycle, salon, glenn greenwald

Lowes Gambles That Employees Are Fox Viewers

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:56:06 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Corporate propaganda aimed at its own captive audience, I mean, employees.

Just Great!

Clip Source: patriotboy.blogspot.com

I love the smell of chutzpah in the morning. It smells like a moldy Malcolm Forbes.

After hearing that his company paid a $29.5 million settlement for forcing workers to work off the clock, a Lowes employee found this sign hanging in his store's break room. That, my friends, is the kind of righteous arrogance that's made our beloved corporate board rooms the most powerful forces in politics today.

A helmet tip to reader Chris.

Tags: lowes, unions, workers, rights, patriotboy, jesus' general

Oscar the Grouch Sings The Internationale

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:53:41 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: patriotboy.blogspot.com

How did we lose PBS? The network that once exiled gay-friendly bunnies, fired politically-suspect children's show hosts, and provided endless hours of aircraft carrier war porn on it's science show, Nova, is now allowing muppets to deride the most ideologically correct news network in the world.

Yes, it's come to that. Oscar the Grouch now dates a puppet who openly mocks Fox News. No wonder some of America's finest patriots are soiling their cod pieces. It's treason. Worse yet, it's treason committed by a ball of yarn who cavorts with someone who belongs to Fox's prime demographic: an angry old man who treasures garbage and can't make a move until someone shoves a hand up his ass. If we lose Oscar the Grouch, we lose America. It'll be NY-23 all over again.

[Video]

Tags: jesus' general, pbs, faux news, sesame street, big bird, commies

The Opinuary Column: Freedom isn't Free (or Alive)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:52:03 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: It fought its addiction to Crystal Meth (Cheaper Than Coke But Still Not Free) and Tobacco (the first carton for soldiers was Free, but after that, not so much) with grit and determination, which it had in buckets (buckets that were Free but had to be returned when it was done with them).

In the weeks before its death, the Opinion was often observed meditating on a litany of uncomfortable realizations: it had discovered that its apartment wasn't Free, its bar tab wasn't Free, its groceries weren't Free and, having failed to appear in court on misdemeanor charges, it suffered the additonal ignominy of facing the fact that indeed, not even its DUI was Free ($250.00 just to post bail!). Its only words to the judge were these: "In the bastardized yet immortal phrasings of Kris Kristofferson: Freedom's just another word for something that isn't free..."

Family of the deceased Opinion are asking that, in lieu of flowers (which aren't free) that each and every one of us do our part to d

Clip Source: patriotboy.blogspot.com

The Opinion "Freedom isn't free" has died after a brief illness, owing in large part to its inability to pay for badly needed medical treatment. Having spent its early years being invoked to shut up dirty fucking hippies, its later years degraded into increasingly violent confrontations with health insurance companies and their motto "Health Care Isn't Free, It Isn't Even Health Care." With no more Free Time on its hands, it joined the ranks of the approximately 45,000 Americans who die every year because, well, you already know why.

Born during the era of The Vietnam War Isn't Free it was viewed as a comforting remonstration against anyone who ever pussifyingly questioned the rightness of our nation's bloody habit of killing brown people in far away lands.

Having married its childhood sweetheart (Sex Isn't Free) only to discover its mate wanted to keep its night job, it sought a divorce (that wasn't Free) and lived out the rest of its years as a Free Spirit.

Tags: freedom, opinion, jesus' general, healthcare

Army: 12 die, 31 wounded in Fort Hood shooting

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:32:33 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

AP – This still made from video shows a police officer and soldier blocking the road at the main gate of the …

FORT HOOD, Texas – A soldier opened fire at a U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas on Thursday, unleashing a stream of gunfire that left 12 people dead and 31 wounded. Authorities killed the gunman, and apprehended two other soldiers suspected in what appears to be the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base.

The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said at a news conference. He said all the casualties took place at the base's Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening.

"It's a terrible tragedy. It's stunning," Cone said.

Cone said the soldier used two handguns in the attack. It was not clear if the gunman had stopped to reload.

Tags: ft. hood, texas, army, shooting, violence

The Keyboard Commandos want Obama to be tough

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:20:18 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: To Brooks, the big question is whether Obama possesses "the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it." That is, whether the president is "a very manly, virile, manful person, and a firm believer in strict discipline, corporal punishment, and nude apartment wrestling."

Oops, never mind. That last bit was Captain Ned. But it does get old hearing this cohort of Ivy League toughs -- most of whom one suspects haven't had even a fistfight since third grade -- describe every U.S. foreign policy issue as a testosterone test. One suspects it may not be Obama's virility they're worried about.

Next came Cheney's devoted daughter. After President Obama paid a 4 a.m. visit to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to salute the flag-draped caskets of 18 American servicemen arriving home from Afghanistan, and to console their families, Liz Cheney appeared on -- where else? -- Fox News radio to suggest a cheap political stunt.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

President Obama participates in the dignified transfer of U.S. Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin at Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Oct. 29.

"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaida' in order to make generals race there, and we cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses -- without their achieving anything of note!" -- Osama bin Laden, November 2004

One sign of a movement that's lost touch with reality is its preference for political melodrama. Out on the ragged edges of America's misconceived "war on terror," events in Afghanistan daily dramatize the awful situation confronting President Obama. He appears to have no good options. To be sure, Obama invited trouble, telling an audience at a VFW convention last August, "This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity."

Tags: the (unmaly) men, want, obama, to, be tougher, than they

United States Pushing International, Mandatory Copyright Laws. Guilty Until Proven Innocent!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:12:53 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)"

Now that is a worriying development. Let see the Teabaggers chew on this. Nah, it's a pro-corporate treaty which enforces American will on the REST of the world, so it doesn't set off the NWO alarm bells.

Clip Source: crooksandliars.com

Via Boing Boing, some shocking news:

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

Tags: interent, isps, copyrights, treaty, rights, corporations, obama

Hillary Clinton: US Wants Israel To Stop Building West Bank Settlements 'Forever'

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:06:40 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: But Clinton has had to do a lot of explaining since last Saturday, when she stood with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and praised his offer to limit settlement construction without halting it.

Clinton has since tried to clarify the remarks, saying that the Israeli offer does not got far enough. Still, she has indicated that the Palestinians should resume negotiations with Israel without a full settlement halt as they demand.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

CAIRO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the U.S. stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever."

Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain – but not halt – construction represents "positive movement forward" toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt.

Egypt appeared reassured by Clinton's visit, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called for a resumption of negotiations.

Tags: israel, palestine, obama, clinton, foreing policy, settlers, peace, war, occupation, empire

Italy Convicts 23 Americans In CIA Terrorist Kidnapping Case

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:02:13 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: One of those convicted, former Milan consular official Sabrina De Sousa, accused Congress of turning a blind eye to the entire matter.

"No one has investigated the fact that the U.S. government allegedly conducted a rendition of an individual who now walks free and the operation of which was so bungled," she said, speaking through her lawyer Mark Zaid.

Despite the convictions capping the nearly three-year Italian trial, several Italian and American defendants – including the two alleged masterminds of the abduction – were acquitted due to either diplomatic immunity or because classified information was stricken by Italy's highest court.

The case has been politically charged from the beginning, with attempts to mislead investigators looking into the cleric's disappearance and derail the judicial proceedings once the trial was under way. But the Italian-American relationship, conditioned on such issues as participation in the Afghan campaign, is unlikely to be hurt by the convic

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

MILAN — An Italian judge found 23 Americans and two Italians guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect, delivering the first legal convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.

Human rights groups hailed the decision and pressed President Barack Obama to repudiate the Bush administration's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted. The American Civil Liberties Union said the verdicts were the first convictions stemming from the rendition program.

The Obama administration ended the CIA's interrogation program and shuttered its secret overseas jails in January but has opted to continue the practice of extraordinary renditions.

The Americans, who were tried in absentia, now cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long as the verdicts remains in place.

Tags: italy, cia, courts, justice, extraordinary renditions, convictions