Second thoughts on Charlie Wilson's War
By Chalmers Johnson  - Asia Times Online

I have some personal knowledge of Congressmen like Charlie Wilson (Democrat - 2nd District, Texas, 1973-1996) because, for close to 20 years, my representative in the 50th Congressional District of California was Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now serving an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for soliciting and receiving bribes from defense contractors.

Wilson and Cunningham held exactly the same plummy committee assignments in the House of Representatives - the Defense Appropriations Sub-committee plus the Intelligence Oversight Committee - from which they could dole out large sums

Both men flagrantly abused their positions - but with radically different consequences. Cunningham went to jail because he was too stupid to know how to game the system - retire and become a lobbyist - whereas Wilson received the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Clandestine Service's first "honored colleague" award ever given to an outsider and went on to become a US$360,000 per annum lobbyist for Pakistan.

From the same album: Aldebaran:

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Victoria Beckham: Worst dressed of year

Johnny Depp to Play Stalin in a Documentary

Sacha Baron Cohen to take on Abbie Hoffman for Spielberg


"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

Instead I'm heading back to court to argue with the Prosecution about some kid's transgressions.  Shoulda been a piano player at a whorehouse or something else respectable.

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Lights in the Old City of Jerusalem will be turned off before dawn this week so visiting US President George W. Bush can get a better view of the sun rising over its ancient walls.

Bush, who arrives in the Middle East on Wednesday for a visit lasting more than a week, had made a request to watch the sun rise over the Old City from his suite at the King David Hotel, a municipal spokesman said on Tuesday.

To make the scene more dramatic, the authorities have decided to turn off the lights illuminating the limestone walls before dawn on Thursday and Friday, the spokesman told reporters.

The gesture is just one of several that Bush's Israeli hosts will extend to the president of their main ally during his landmark three-day visit this week -- the first by a sitting US president to Israel and the Palestinian territories in nine years.

I've been asked to advise strategy on this bill for soem people involved with tryign to get a clause taken out that would remove reproductive freedom of deaf people... but I'm confused about the process. I'm only really familiar with dealing with MP's and not so much with the Lords. It appears to be going through the House of Lords according to the chart (but doesn't show that it has been through Commons first).

My query around the stage it is at (about to go to report stage if I understand correctly) is whether we are writing to the Lords to ask them to put forward/support an amendment or if it is too late for that and we have to ask them to reject the whole thing.  

Any advice?

<sigh>

Sarkozy proposes companies pay a third of profits to employees

PARIS (AFP) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed on Wednesday that a third of company profits should go to employees, with the same amount reserved for shareholders and investment.

"A system in which a third of the profits of a company would be for shareholders, a third for employees and a third for investment is a system ... that would have a certain coherence and logic," he told parliamentarians.

"Those that think it is too much should say it's too much and above all why," he added.

Nicolas Sarkozy endorses Tony Blair in EU job

Tony Blair is to return to the front line of European politics in Paris this weekend - amid growing signs of a campaign to install him as the European Union's first fully fledged president.

Mr Blair has agreed to speak alongside Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, who is actively promoting the former prime minister for a role that would make him the most influential figure in EU affairs.

Mr Sarkozy told The Daily Telegraph he held talks with Mr Blair over Christmas while both were holidaying in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Sarkozy says no plans to abolish 35-hour work week

PARIS, Jan 9 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy denied on Wednesday that the government planned to scrap the 35 hour working week but said he wanted to move ahead with reforming the system.

"Yes, in 2008, I want to go much further in reforming the 35 hours," he told parliamentarians in a news year's address.

"But it is not the government's intention to abolish the legal working limit because it's the base point for calculating overtime," he said.

Nicolas Sarkozy's ex puts spotlight on Bruni

Cecilia Ciganer-Albéniz - Sarkozy until their divorce last October - told two French journalists that while she respected her husband's choice of partner, she does not think that "Carla Bruni is necessarily the one who will make him forget her in a hurry".

(...)

glossy weekly Gala published photos of Italian-born Miss Bruni wearing a showy pink, heart-shaped diamond engagement ring by Dior.

It is one of two jewel-encrusted rings she has received from Mr Sarkozy in recent days.

In all, the paper said, the couple had spent 80,000 euros on gifts for each other since they started dating late November.

(...)

In the second book out this week, the authors reveal that Mr Sarkozy was briefly hospitalised in secret in October for treatment of an abscess in his throat.

The revelation is potentially embarrassing, as Mr Sarkozy had promised to break with a presidential tradition of hushing up any medical problems - such as predecessor Jacques Chirac's stroke or the late François Mitterrand's prostate cancer, which his doctor lied about for 11 years.

And can anyone tell me if Ms Bruni offered Nicolas a Piaget or a Patek Philippe watch. I can't bear not knowing.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

That's the euro against the pound sterling.

Very strange moves.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

It looks like I'm going to run another piece on the Atlantic Review and Atlantic Community.

The lede on the draft (written by the, ah, editors) starts with "Nanne xxx of the European Tribune is critical of"

I'm not entirely comfortable with that.

McCain talks up his ability to fight "big pharmaceutical companies", and when Romney told him in a Saturday candidates' debate that those companies weren't "bad guys", McCain pushed back: "They are."

Romney lost that argument. His business background simply didn't sell here. At his overflowing rallies in this state, where he'd never been expected to do well, Huckabee mocked Romney's real-world successes like a matador dancing around a bull. He can understand the audience's worries, he said, and Romney can't. High gas prices "won't affect where they [meaning the rich] go on vacation. It won't affect the way they live." His final anti-Romney line was a killer: "Maybe people want a president who looks like the guy you work with and not the guy who laid you off."

Police detained dozens of Nashi activists at an unauthorized rally outside the European Commission's offices in Moscow on Wednesday, in a rare instance of the pro-Kremlin youth group running afoul of the law.

Some 700 activists gathered at the delegation's office at 14/1 Kadashevskaya Naberezhnaya in central Moscow to protest the imprisonment of a fellow activist in Lithuania, which is an EU member.

The rally was not sanctioned, and police dispersed it, rounding up 50 activists and new Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov, Nashi spokeswoman Kristina Potupchik said, Interfax reported.

Police said the detainees were taken in for questioning on possible charges of illegally gathering for a protest.

The rally was meant to protest the jailing of Konstantin Goloskokov, who was sentenced to two months in prison on charges of illegally crossing the border earlier this month. Goloskokov was traveling to Estonia to participate in a Nashi picket at the former site of a Soviet memorial.

Don't hold your breath waiting to read about this in the WSJ...

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

In this three-part documentary series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever: that the material world is made up of atoms.

Eighteen British service personnel are being tested amid fears they may have been given contaminated blood while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The troops are being screened for a range of diseases including HIV, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

The blood transfusions were given to personnel serving in the two countries after 2001 from American supplies.

The MoD said the risk of infection was low and that the troops could have died without receiving the blood.

The personnel are being tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and C, HTLV - a virus similar to HIV, Chagas - a tropical parasitic disease which occurs in the Americas - and the sexually-transmitted infection syphilis.