Massive military propaganda within U.S. revealed

A great piece in the NY TImes tells how the Pentagon and even Cheney himself recruited, informed, paid, and evaluated dozens of retired military officers to carpet bomb the media and the citizenry with bullshit. Oh, and by the way, it’s illegal.

Glenn Greenwald:

Having just watched more Sunday news shows than a human being should ever have to endure, it is striking — though unsurprising — that not a single one saw fit to mention this NYT story demonstrating that these news programs all fed government propaganda to their viewers. That they refuse to comment on this story and will now black it out says as much about what they really are, and what they really do, as the NYT story itself does.

Evernote: the potential for weirdness is large.

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well, yes, I suppose if you scan everything in your life into your computer, I guess you could “recall” it all. Mostly, you’d recall yourself spending all day scanning things into your computer.

Am I wrong?

the company’s servers extract meaning from the image data, rendering Libin’s memories searchable.

When he wants to recall the cut of your jib, the name of the sake he ordered last week, the flight number for his recent trip to Vegas, or anything else, Libin can scan his Evernote account by date or keyword. If he searches on “salon writer,” for instance, he’ll come up with my business card, which includes those words. Because Libin can do this anywhere — from his computer or his mobile phone — the software has become, for him, a kind of Google for the real world.

your prescription co-pays will be going way up.

Maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back… Americans have to demand that their taxes go to pay for health care instead of killing, maiming, and occupying.

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Film review: The Bank Job

This is an excellent action/suspense/good guy does bad things/true crime/keystone cops/stuffy Brits flick. Jason Statham has the leading role, and drags the action through the occasional dry spell. It’s a bit long, in part due to the repeated head shots of Saffron Burrows. I’m not saying it will win any awards, but it’s very entertaining. Just don’t ask yourself why they carried off the ledger.

The guy who stood up against torture

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Matthew Diaz served his country as a staff judge advocate at Guantánamo. He watched a shameless assault on America’s Constitution and commitment to the rule of law carried out by the Bush Administration. He watched the introduction of a system of cruel torture and abuse. He watched the shaming of the nation’s uniformed services, with their proud traditions that formed the very basis of the standards of humanitarian law, now torn asunder through the lawless acts of the Executive. Matthew Diaz found himself in a precarious position—as a uniformed officer, he was bound to follow his command. As a licensed and qualified attorney, he was bound to uphold the law. And these things were indubitably at odds.

Members of Congress have 196 million invested in Defense contractors.

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Members of the U.S.Congress have as much as $196 million (€126.2 million) collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group.

The review of lawmakers’ 2006 financial disclosure statements, by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, suggests that members’ holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending.

Doddering John McCain can’t keep things straight anymore

still confused about Iraq:

‘ SEN. MCCAIN: There are numerous threats to security in Iraq and the future of Iraq. Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?
GEN. PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was, say, 15 months ago.

SEN. MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites, all overall, or Sunnis or anybody else. ‘

Baseball: Jim Edmonds, RIP

A very nice player for a long time. I would even say a great player. A human highlight reel. I might even vote for a Hall of Fame berth, as irrational as that might seem. But he’s done.  I could see this spring that his bat speed is gone. He won’t hit .250 this year. His stats have been circling the drain for three years, and he went off to San Diego to die. And yesterday I saw it happen. If you ever wanted to see what it means to “lose a step”, this was it. Against the Dodgers, in centerfield, in a single inning, the human highlight reel played one ball into a triple and another into a double, while pitcher Jake Peavy asked for guidance from above. I wasn’t sure Edmonds was gonna get up after the second one. Not because he was hurt. But because he knew….

Time marches on. Jim Edmonds, at 38, reaches the end of the road.

U.S. manufacturers seeking total protection from lawsuits

NY Times today has the story of how US drug manufacturers are pushing for a Supreme Court decision that would protect all manufacturers of products certified by the government.

So, we want to be WORSE than the Chinese.

The current case is a drug which was approved by the FDA, but in practice was stronger than it was supposed to be, resulting in complications. The Bush administration, as always, is trying to protect corporate interests from the public instead of vice versa, and so is taking the side of the company. The doctrine is called pre-emption, and it could be employed in a variety of cases, not just drugs, and regardless of carelessness or dishonesty.

Obama plus Gore!!

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Barack Obama will give Gore a big part to play in his adminstration. Great news and a great move by Obama.

“I would,” Obama said. “Not only will I, but I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem. He’s somebody I talk to on a regular basis. I’m already consulting with him in terms of these issues, but climate change is real. It is something we have to deal with now, not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now.”