Top Diaries

They really do love you when you fly regularly. I'm a million miler with (used-to-be-Continental) United, but since I only fly a few times a year these days, I can't even begin to tell you how much they don't give a damn about me. Oh, how I hate to fly.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 03:29:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

So, finally, 25 years too late, the British Establishment finally admit that the Liverpool fans were not to blame for their own deaths at Hillsborough.

Even Kelvin McKenzie, the scum sucking editor of the Sun which printed the most vile lies about the fans under the banner headline "The Truth" and who has traded on the notoriety he gained from it, sneeringly deriding anyone who challenges him over it, has finally admitted he was wrong. No sorry, he says he was misled. Yea right.

No doubt at some point in the near future, Campbell and Blair will admit the Iraq dossier was a pack of lies.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 01:30:19 PM EST

The Murdoch media empire cannot fail. It can only be failed by people outside the Murdoch media empire.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

by ATinNM on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 01:31:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Helen:

Campbell and Blair will ~~admit the Iraq dossier was a pack of lies~~ say they were misled.

Fixed.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:23:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

so on the current timeline we should puncil that in for about 2026

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:28:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wednesday Open Thread (4.00 / 2)

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:47:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wednesday Open Thread (4.00 / 4)

Week 2 of the new tutoring term ... have 2 biochem students at noon . And so it goes. Got an email from Megan ... former chem student turned registered nurse in San Diego. Told her to stop by if she's in the area and I'll order pizza (like the olden days). She said fine but the pizza is on her since she is "earning the big bucks now". For a tutor, in these economic times, music to my ears. I hadn't contacted her for 1 -2 years and did so now to get an update for a current pre-nursing student. Here's a quote from Megan's email:

"don't tell her there are way more crazy people out there than she will ever realize along with mostly everyone has some sort of personality disorder.. Except for me of course :D "

Megan ... great kid turned nurse.

I have a t-shirt with that on it. And whatever you do, DON'T BLINK!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 01:34:39 PM EST

Re: Wednesday Open Thread (4.00 / 2)

P.S. Got to put on my new STANFORD pullover for the coming tutoring session ... gift from my spring term high school student now at Stanford.

I have a t-shirt with that on it. And whatever you do, DON'T BLINK!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 01:41:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/12/500_days_author_kurt_eichenwalds_new

Recommended book list for the course included some extremely expensive books.

Still, I've been punting around on amazon and got some bargains in the secondhand list. A £200 book for a penny, that's really £0.01 folks. A £110 for £1. But I've had to buy a couple of the more important books at pretty much full price.

Lots to read once they start arriving.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 01:49:51 PM EST

For Helen (none / 0)

TREASON!

I have a t-shirt with that on it. And whatever you do, DON'T BLINK!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:12:48 PM EST

But as Nixon and his oppo Cheney demonstrated, if the President does it, it's legal.

Bush as President was the personification of the State. So, as he cannot commit treason against himself, therefore it wasn't treason.

Now, if you want to argue that this is not a Constitutional argument, then you'd better get a better set of politicians than the current ones cos they're still buying it.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:55:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Not my point. My point is ... they KNEW it was coming and they MILITARILY let it happen! We're not talking incompetence ... we're talking a coup against democracy. And if Willard gets in the WH, expect another, probably involving "ties to IRAN!" Once this place is attacked again, goodbye all freedoms forever, hello police state.

I have a t-shirt with that on it. And whatever you do, DON'T BLINK!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 06:47:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

No, it would be significant if that were true, but I deal with this point in my reply to Migeru.

Although this "conspiracy" is less bonkers than that of the truthers, it's a suggestion gifting far too much competence to the Bush/cheney administration. They were vicious and cynical war mongering psychopaths, definitely. They just weren't imaginative enough to have thought this up, let alone bright enough to pull it off and keep it secret until now

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 07:57:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: For Helen (4.00 / 3)

I'm still open to the possibility.

The reality is there is nothing - nothing - that Bush/Cheney didn't lie about. And 9/11 was always their keystone.

We know there were plans to attack Iraq before 9/11. In fact we know there was a plan to occupy the entire non-Saudi middle east. (The Saudis, who were always at least as bad as Saddam, and Islamists too, were always on the same side as Washington. They were hardly going to argue with plans to take our their major local oil-producing competitors.)

We know there were business links between the Bush and Bin-Laden families, and that a plane with most of the Bin-Laden clan was given a special presidential dispensation to leave the US immediately after a timely 9/11 visit.

We know that 9/11 was the date of a counter-terrorism exercise, and that either Bush or Cheney would have been the ones giving the order to shoot down the planes.

Since Bush was busy reading a story to kids, and apparently no one bothered to tell him anything untoward was happening, that leaves Cheney. Who never did.

So a vast cast of participants wouldn't have been necessary. It could have happened simply because Cheney allowed it to.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest Bush and Cheney simply found the intelligence convenient and had no intention of doing anything about it.

The truther nonsense about nukes and drones and holograms is unnecessary.

As for incompetence - their cronies made vast piles of cash from the wars. I don't think that's incidental.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 08:50:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: For Helen (none / 1)

Democracy Now: "500 Days": Author Kurt Eichenwald's New Account of How Bush Admin Ignored Warnings Before 9/11 (September 12, 2012)

KURT EICHENWALD: Well, actually, that is the way to look at this, is sort of backwards. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission hearings were coming down and saying, "We want to see these presidential daily briefs." And the Bush administration fought releasing them. They finally released the August 6th one, which had the now-infamous headline, "Bin Laden determined to strike U.S." And in her testimony, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said this was merely a historical document. It was a review of, you know, bin Laden and al-Qaeda and their intents and what they've done. And actually, when you read it, that is what it was. And it was also a red herring, because--I can't say that's why they released it, but it certainly was convenient, because that document was the only one of the many that had gone out over the previous few months that was historical. All the others were: "There is an attack coming," "There's an attack coming that's going to be devastating. There are going to be mass casualties," "There is a terrorist cell in the United States that is plotting to strike," I mean, with a great deal of table pounding. And there was--and I don't want to keep picking on Secretary Rice, but she did--in that, she did testify, "If we had been made aware that there was an attack coming, we would have done something." Well, they were made aware. And, you know, in the end, what these documents show is that the Bush administration was not at that point prepared to consider al-Qaeda and these kind of non-state terrorist organizations as being a significant threat.
...
But what we also know is, now that these documents are out, the CIA did a spectacular job in developing the evidence and bringing it to the White House, and the White House didn't listen. And so, what you had from almost the get-go was the White House and members of the administration saying, "Well, the intelligence wasn't good enough," and "Oh, if we had only had something else." And they get to the point of saying, "Well, we weren't given a place and a time," as if, you know, we're talking about an invitation to a birthday party. I mean, the way intelligence works, you don't say, "On Tuesday, March--you know, September 11th, there will be an attack here." If you have that much information, it would simply be: "We've arrested these people."
...
KURT EICHENWALD: And they're going to be blamed for it. And the senior fellow in the room says -- this is a scene in 500 Days -- senior fellow in the room says, "There's nobody more qualified than us to ride this thing down. They're not going to be able to get people in here who are qualified, and we are going to be the ones here holding the bag," and, you know, which is exactly what happened. They're sitting there saying, not, you know, "Oh, what's the next thing we can do?" They're saying, "We've done everything we can do. They won't act. It's going to happen. It's going to be bad. We're going to be blamed." And all the--the only thing they failed to do was to get the White House off the dime, and that wasn't their responsibility.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 07:09:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Welcome to the EHA website!

what these documents show is that the Bush administration was not at that point prepared to consider al-Qaeda and these kind of non-state terrorist organizations as being a significant threat.

I think that's significant. They were a group of Cold War warriors who believed that, while terrorists might blow up a building and kill people up to and possibly exceeding the Oklahoma State bombing, you needed the resources of a nation state to threaten the USA as a country. They simply could not conceive of a terrorist organisation hurting America.

They continued to think like this post-911 when, firstly they genuinely went looking for the country for which al-Qaeda was the "front" and then, during the occupation of Iraq, they refused to believe that IEDs could be made by a bunch of ragheads but must be using munitions supplied by Iran/N Korea...whoever.

A mindset of which Obama is also guilty, even if to a lesser extent. The anti-Iran missile shield, even if a Bush-era hangover, is simply laughably wrong-headed whilst the drone war is a dangerous escalation of exactly the wrong tactic.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 07:51:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: For Helen (none / 1)

They simply could not conceive of a terrorist organisation hurting America.

There's some of that in the interview:

KURT EICHENWALD: Well, there, you just sort of have to understand the shift that took place in that period. The Republicans had been out of the White House since '92. When they left, the nation state was the enemy--you know, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, whoever you wanted to pick. And Saddam was, you know, the center of the war. They leave. And during the time from '92 through 2000, the detached threat, the non-nation-state threat, develops. Al-Qaeda develops. We hadn't heard of al-Qaeda before that time. And so, when they get--when the Republicans get back into office, they have spent the last year on the outside, you know, rattling the "We have to take down Iraq, and Clinton isn't taking down Iraq" saber. And they get back in, and the Clinton people tell them, "The most important thing you're going to deal with over the next few years is bin Laden." But they haven't adapted to that. This is a new world. And it's, "No, Iraq is the most important." So they're still in that old mindset. And unfortunately, facts started being shoved into that mindset. If you had a piece of information come up, "Well, how does that relate to Iraq? What did bin Laden say? Well, how does that relate to Iraq? What's for breakfast today? Well, how does that relate to Iraq?"

But there's more later

And the thing to bear in mind--I'll throw one more little fact out. The only other time you had a series of threat alerts on the scale of what you had on the summer of 2001 was in December of 1999. And it was: bin Laden is about to strike. I mean, same thing, very, very similar. And the entire government went on high alert. You had, you know, the Counterterrorism Center in their terrace--Counterterrorist Center at the CIA was told, "Don't worry about your budget." And they blew through their first nine months of the year budget in 15 days. And, you know, this--yes, I mean, it's--this was a full-court-press "we're going to stop them." And they picked up terrorists around the world. You know, the one people know about is the fellow who was planning to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. But there were people picked up in Indonesia, there were people picked up in Pakistan, who were going to attack American interests there. And so, that was very, very successful. And it was successful because the government has the ability and the capacity to go on high alert. What the Bush administration did was say, "This is very concerning. Let's have a meeting, you know, and let's put out notices to our embassies and put out notices to our military: you know, be particularly careful." But it's not the same thing.

December'99 is still the Clinton administration.

They don't talk about why the USS Cole attack wasn't stopped (that was with Clinton as interim), but the Kenyan embassy bombing wasn't either. So you not always manage to stop everything, but at least you can try.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 09:02:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

weeeeeeeee (4.00 / 4)

US median income lowest since 1995
The median income of American households dropped to its lowest level since 1995 last year, extending its decline during President Barack Obama's tenure and highlighting the depth of the damage to the middle class inflicted by the recession and weak recovery.
According to annual data from the Census Bureau, real median income adjusted for inflation - a closely watched measure of the financial health of average Americans - fell to $50,054 in 2011, or 1.5 per cent below its 2010 level and 4.1 per cent below its score when Mr Obama took office in 2009.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:22:02 PM EST

Re: weeeeeeeee (4.00 / 2)

Rich-Poor Gap Widens to Most Since 1967 as Income Falls
The income gap between rich and poor Americans grew to the widest in more than 40 years in 2011 as the poverty rate remained at almost a two-decade high.
The U.S. Census Bureau released figures today that showed median household income fell, underscoring a sputtering economic recovery and struggling middle-class that are at the center of the presidential campaign.
The proportion of people living in poverty was 15 percent in 2011, little changed from 15.1 percent in 2010, while median household income dropped 1.5 percent. The 46.2 million people living in poverty remained at the highest level in the 53 years since the Census Bureau has been collecting that statistic.
"The gains from economic growth in 2011 were quite unevenly shared as household income fell in the middle and rose at the top," Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, said on a conference call with reporters.
Average incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of earners and rose for the top 20 percent, highlighting the need for "those at the top to share," as the nation looks to reduce its budget deficit, Greenstein said.
The top 1 percent of households experienced about a 6 percent increase in income, said David Johnson, chief of the social, economic and housing division at the Census Bureau.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 05:12:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Migraine action day Open Thread (4.00 / 2)

12th of September being the Migraine action day, I figured I'll quote from the fairly recently composed Madrid Manifesto:

The European Headache Alliance [EHA] launched it's Madrid Manifesto on Migraine/Headache Disorders on Monday, May 24^th in the Spanish Parliament, Madrid.
The Manifesto is a call to governments and health policy makers across Europe to recognise that the failure of healthcare systems to provide effective treatments to migraine sufferers is causing an unnecessary socio-economic burden.
The World Health Organization places migraine as the 12th leading cause of disability worldwide in women and 19th overall. The condition affects 12-15% of the population and costs the EU economy approximately € 27 Billion annually in reduced productivity and lost workdays.
The Madrid Manifesto aims to lift this burden by meeting a set of agreed targets - approved by leading experts in the field of headache - over the next five years.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:22:05 PM EST

Interactive Map of Eutrophication & Hypoxia

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:22:42 PM EST

Ayman al-Zawahiri confirms death of Al-Qaeda deputy - NY Daily News

Depressing. Sigh.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 03:23:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Romney / Egypt & Libya attachs (none / 0)

So can someone summarize what actually happened?

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:23:25 PM EST

Re: Romney / Egypt & Libya attachs (none / 1)

A right wing film maker connected to Pastor Jones (the Book Burning one) made a film about Islam, last week it got translated into Arabic, and got noticed
it appears a militia group in Benghazi waited for a protest to happen and used the opportunity to attack the Benghazi consular compound. in the process the Ambassador was kiled along with at least Eight Libyan government security staff who fought back against the militia.

Romney gave a press conference accusing Obama of siding with the people who attacked and killed our embassy officials in Libya, and then managed to get filmed smiling as he left the podium

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:43:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt &amp; Libya attachs (none / 0)

Said militia group might have motives stemming from Zawahirir declaring that the US had killed al-Libi. Killing the US ambassador to Libya being retaliation for the US killing their Libyan.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has released a video coinciding with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, confirming for the first time the death of his deputy, US monitors said.
The 42-minute video is Zawahiri's first release in three months, and confirms that Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan's Waziristan tribal area on June 4, according to SITE and IntelCenter.

Or maybe not.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 03:11:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt & Libya attachs (none / 1)

Islamophobian arseholes made a hate film in order to offend and humiliate Muslims and hoping for a violent reaction. Salafists obligingly showed a violent reaction and murdered 4 Americans in their consulate in Libya. Not quite concidentally this happened on the day when Americans conmemorated the WTC murders and Arabs conmemorated the murders in revenge that the US committed and millions conmemorated the coup in Chile. And the town was Benghazi, whose plight used to be the justification Nato used for their criminal war against Libya. The heavy weapons the militia in this failed state used for their attack on the US consulate most likely was supplied by the US or another Nato country.

Romney finds with this abundance of hatred there should be a big portion of it for Barack Hussein Obama.

by Katrin on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:44:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt &amp; Libya attachs (none / 0)

And the ambassador killed was probably the one securing the funding for the militias back then.

U.S. envoy arrives in Libya to help opposition fighters - The Washington Post

Chris Stevens, a former U.S. Embassy official in Tripoli and the highest-ranking U.S. representative to travel to Libya since the uprising began, will explore ways to open the funding spigots for an opposition movement that is desperately short of cash and supplies, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 03:14:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt &amp;amp; Libya attachs (none / 0)

I just don't get how they could expect anything else. Will they ever learn?

by Katrin on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 03:11:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt &amp;amp;amp; (none / 0)

They just don't care. It might even be a golden opportunity.

Von überall könnte das Volk, Urbrut alles Undemokratischen, Zelle des Terrors, über die gewählten Hüter von Wachstum und Wohlstand® kommen. - flatter

by generic on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 05:03:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt &amp;amp;amp;amp; (none / 0)

It wasn't a golden opportunity for Mr Stevens. However, he was an expert. There is irony in that.

by Katrin on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 06:16:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt & Libya attachs (4.00 / 3)

Some do get it, for example this retired ambassador:

Middle East Policy Council | Nobody's Century: The American Prospect in Post-Imperial Times

The so-called "global war on terror" or "militant Islam," as so many now openly describe it, has become an endless run in a military squirrel cage that is generating no light but a lot of future anti-American terrorism. It turns out that all that is required to be hated is to do hateful things. Ironically, as we "search abroad for monsters to destroy," we are creating them - transforming our foreign detractors into terrorists, multiplying their numbers, intensifying their militancy, and fortifying their hatred of us.

But I think the US empire is a shark that has to keep moving and finding new enemies all the time. Similar to the Aztec empire, there is a strong internal need for new wars.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 05:06:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Romney / Egypt & Libya attachs (none / 1)

Well if you fancy Julian Asanges analysis

Twitter / jearle: If you don't believe Wikileaks ...

If you don't believe Wikileaks have firmly disappeared up their own arse yet, have a read of this monumental fuck up. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/245995149098885121 ...

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 05:50:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

It's all about Julian (none / 1)

Of course, he ended up taking it down. But some mean horrible whistleblower kept a copy:

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 05:11:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: It's all about Julian (none / 0)

and he claimed he deleted it as people might not understand the word tacit

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 11:41:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: It's all about Julian (none / 0)

well i'm darned if i do

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 11:48:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

and more oddness (none / 1)

'It Makes Me Sick': Actress in Muhammed Movie Says She Was Deceived, Had No Idea It Was About Islam

The story of the Muhammed movie which sparked deadly protests in Libya gets weirder. The actors who appeared in it had no idea they were starring in anti-Islam propaganda which depicts Muhammed as a child molester and thug. They were deceived by the film's director, believing they were appearing in a film about the life of a generic Egyptian 2,000 years ago.
Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress from Bakersfield, Calif., has a small role in the Muhammed movie as a woman whose young daughter is given to Muhammed to marry. But in a phone interview this afternoon, Garcia told us she had no idea she was participating in an offensive spoof on the life of Muhammed when she answered a casting call through an agency last summer and got the part.
The script she was given was titled simply Desert Warriors.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 05:55:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: and more oddness (4.00 / 3)

and weirder

As part of my search for more information about Sam Bacile, the alleged producer of the now-infamous anti-Muhammad film trailer "The Innocence of Muslims," I just called a man named Steve Klein -- a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, California (whose actual business, he said, is in selling "hard-to-place home insurance"), who has been described in multiple media accounts as a consultant to the film.
Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know "Bacile"'s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. "After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me."

Not that Klein sounds particularly reliable himself....

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 05:58:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wednesday Open Thread (4.00 / 6)

Wind turbine syndrome: a classic 'communicated' disease

At the beginning of this year I started collecting examples of health problems some people were attributing to wind turbine exposure. I had noticed a growing number of such claims on the internet and was curious about how many I could find. Within an hour or two I had found nearly 50 and today the number has grown to an astonishing 155.
I have worked in public health on three continents since the mid 1970s. In all this time, I have never encountered anything in the history of disease that is said to cause even a fraction of the list of problems I have collected.
The list of 155 problems includes "deaths, many deaths", none of which have ever been brought to the attention of a coroner. It includes several types of cancer, and both losing weight and gaining weight. You name it. Haemorrhoids have not yet been named, but nothing would surprise me.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 02:36:48 PM EST

Re: Wednesday Open Thread (4.00 / 3)

Wind turbine syndrome: a classic 'communicated' disease

One prominent opponent of wind farms says he can hear them 35km away. Others talk about electricity from the turbines "leaking" into the soil and causing deaths of hundreds of cattle and goats.

ET has fully documented the extinction of the one-horned goat as a result of wind-turbine exposure.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Sep 13th, 2012 at 05:34:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

It appears the Democratic Left is burning out of the Greek coalition government.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Sep 12th, 2012 at 03:04:09 PM EST