news that caught my eye

i’ve not been posting much, cuz i’ve suddenly been *swamped* with things to do.  (more on that in a bit).

these were things that caught mah eye over the past month:

Profit found in jailing immigrants for feds

SAN ANTONIO — As federal officials begin an overhaul of the widely criticized system used to incarcerate immigrants awaiting hearings and deportation, their challenge includes a deep inconsistency in the amount paid to a hastily assembled network of private prisons and local jails that hold thousands of such detainees.

Contracts obtained by the Associated Press illustrate the problem in paper-heavy detail, and not all of the discrepancies can be explained by geography or differences in the cost of living. For example, a suburban Atlanta county is paid less than $43 per day to house an illegal immigrant, while a rural New Mexico county gets $97 a day — just a few dollars shy of the amount paid for a bed in Los Angeles.

Some county jails charge only the actual cost of housing an immigrant, while others acknowledge partnering with private prison companies to profit from the system.

Last week, the Obama administration announced a series of “major reforms” in the detention of illegal immigrants, including placing federal employees inside the largest facilities to monitor detainee treatment. In doing so, John Morton, the new director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, acknowledged the current system is both inconsistent and lacks oversight.

“There isn’t a uniform rhyme or reason to it,” he said.

there’s no real uniform rhyme or reason to our immigration policy as a whole.  why should detention be any different?  society seems geared towards profiting off of other people’s misery, so maybe that’s the “consistency”.

$3 billion buys not-so-green vehicles

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the nation’s top car salesman in recent weeks, has cited the Obama administration’s best-seller list of mostly smaller, fuel-saving cars like the Ford Focus to describe the success of the Cash for Clunkers rebate program.

But what LaHood and other administration officials usually don’t mention is that some trucks and sport-utility vehicles that get less than 20 miles per gallon, like the Ford F-150 truck and one version of the Cadillac SRX Crossover, also are being purchased with the new government subsidies. Both are bulky vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds when loaded that boast at least 248 horsepower.

Just how many consumers used the federal rebates to buy these larger, not-so-green vehicles is unclear. The Obama administration has declined so far to release detailed records of purchases under the program being compiled by the Transportation Department, listing every clunker deal requesting rebates. The Associated Press requested the data July 31.

The Transportation Department distributes regular summaries of sales from the clunkers program and has used the electronic sales information from dealers to bolster arguments that Americans are dumping gas guzzlers for gas savers. But its failure to release detailed records means the public can’t verify those claims.

ahhh.  it’s so nice to have transparency back in the federal gov’t….................................................oh.  nvm.

Expert blasts fire investigation that led to execution

Key testimony that sent a Corsicana auto mechanic to the execution chamber for setting a house fire that killed three young children was based on faulty investigations that ignored eyewitness reports and failed to follow accepted scientific procedures, an expert review of the case concludes.

While the 51-page report by nationally known fire scientist Craig Beyler stops short of charging that Cameron Willingham wrongfully was sent to his death, it dismisses as slipshod the investigations by Deputy State Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez and Corsicana Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg. Willingham maintained his innocence until his execution in 2004.

“The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man — convicted of a crime I did not commit,” Willingham said from the death house gurney.

The men’s investigations into the December 1991 blaze at Willingham’s residence failed to meet current standards of the National Fire Prevention Association or even standards that were in place at the time of the fire, Beyler wrote.

Some of the testimony Vasquez offered to support his claim that the fire was set to kill Willingham’s 1-year-old twins and 2-year-old stepdaughter, Beyler contended, was “hardly consistent with a scientific mind-set and is more characteristic of mystics or psychics.”

the wheels of justice don’t just move slowly, they get bogged down and go entirely flat all too often.

also, see:

Books That Counter Our “Training” To Make War By John Pilger

great list of books.  i’ve to add a couple ot my “must reads” list.

Blue Cross and Blue Dog Democrats: Reflections on “Health Reform” Under “The Unelected Dictatorship of Money” by Paul Street

democrats can kvetch about republicans blocking healthcare reform all they like, but seriously, get a grip.  republicans are going to try to block healthcare reform.  if for no other reason than because democrats support it.  the *real* problem, lies not with the other party who were going to balk ~anyway~, but with those within your own party that are balking and fighting against meaningful reform.

Blogged, Current Events, Comments (2)
Tagged as: war,news,obama,healthcare,otherpeoplesexpense,injusticesystem August 26, 2009 @ 11:28 am

support the troops!!!... er.

New evidence suggests that white supremacists are taking advantage of lowered recruiting standards to enter the armed services.

from Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military for the Chance to ‘Kill a Brown’

Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists were taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives.

Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale investigation and implement a zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacists in the military. “Military extremists present an elevated threat to both their fellow service members and the public,” U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, wrote in a separate open letter to Rumsfeld. “We witnessed with Timothy McVeigh that today’s racist extremist may become tomorrow’s domestic terrorist.”

But neither Rumsfeld nor his successor, Robert Gates, launched any sort of systemic investigation or crackdown. Military and Defense Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent active white supremacists from joining the armed forces or to weed out those already in uniform.

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Tagged as: politics,war,culture,bigotry,military December 28, 2008 @ 06:49 pm

war is a failure.

i have no real point with this post, other than “war is a failure” came up in a conversation, which then led me on a rather rambling trip through the internet.  most interesting site of the day: history is a weapon - really very interesting site. 

i still adhere to the idea that war represents failure.  that we, as a species, are lazy.  we look to militaristic solutions, violence, aggression, rather than utilizing imagination and creativity to come up with alternatives.  the framing isn’t “violence” vs “do nothing”, there are other alternatives many times.  tho sometimes, doing nothing is one of the most effective things you can do.  not the easiest, but the most effective.  bullies bully precisely because they want a reaction from their chosen victim.  they want that power.  the power to make their chosen victim react.  sometimes the most effective means in dealing with a bully?  stand there and don’t react.  take the wind out of their sails.  not much fun to pick on someone who just looks at them.  will that work in ever bullying situation?  of course not.  each situation requires it’s own solution.

things which caught my attention…

Continue Reading...

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Tagged as: politics,quotes,war,culture,links July 28, 2008 @ 08:35 am

priorities, people, priorities.

from cnn, Iraqi TV: Bush apologizes for soldier’s Quran desecration:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN)—President Bush has apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over the shooting of a Quran by an American soldier, Iraqi state TV reported on Tuesday.

An American staff sergeant—a sniper section leader—had used a Quran for target practice.

The U.S. commander in Baghdad issued a formal apology Saturday and read a letter of apology by the shooter.

you think any of them are aware that PEOPLE are being shot in iraq?  i mean.  just saying.

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Tagged as: war,bush,news,iraq May 20, 2008 @ 06:08 am

nato and us empire building

great article, the anti-empire report

“The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything. At least they vote that way on election day.” - Eugene Debs, American socialist leader, early 20th century

Why was the primary vote for former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich so small when anti-Iraq war sentiment in the United States is supposedly so high, and Kucinich was easily the leading anti-war candidate in the Democratic race, indeed the only genuine one after former Senator Mike Gravel withdrew? Even allowing for his being cut out of several debates, Kucinich’s showing was remarkably poor. In Michigan, on January 15, it was only Kucinich and Clinton running. Clinton got 56% of the vote, the “uncommitted” vote (for candidates who had withdrawn but whose names were still on the ballot) was 39%, and Kucinich received but 4%. And Clinton, remember, has been the leading pro-war hawk of all the Democratic candidates.

I think much of the answer lies in the fact that the majority of the American people—like the majority of people all over the world—aren’t very sophisticated politically, and many of them aren’t against the war for very cerebral reasons. Their opposition perhaps stems mainly from the large number of American soldiers who’ve lost their lives, or because the United States is not “winning”, or because America’s reputation in the world is being soiled, or because a majority of other Americans express their opposition to the war, or because of George W.‘s multiple character defects, or because of a number of other reasons you couldn’t even guess at. Not much especially perceptive or learned in this collection.

I think there are all kinds of intelligence in this world: musical, scientific, mathematical, artistic, academic, literary, mechanical, and so on. Then there’s political intelligence, which I would define as the ability to see through the bullshit which the leaders and politicians of every society, past, present and future, feed their citizens from birth on to win elections and assure continuance of the prevailing ideology.

to further clarify that, he goes on to point out what the “liberal” media has said about iraq…

“This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. ... it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.”—Thomas Friedman, much-acclaimed New York Times foreign-affairs analyst, November 2003[7]

“President Bush has placed human rights at the center of his foreign policy agenda in unprecedented ways.”—Michael Gerson, columnist for the Washington Post, 2007[8]

The war in Iraq “is one of the noblest endeavors the United States, or any great power, has ever undertaken.”—David Brooks, New York Times columnist and National Public Radio (NPR) commentator (2007)[9]

If this is what leading American public intellectuals believe and impart to their audiences, is it any wonder that the media can short circuit people’s critical faculties altogether? It should as well be noted that these three journalists are all with “liberal” media.

And when Hillary Clinton says in the January 31 debate with Barack Obama: “We bombed them [Iraq] for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors,” and the fact is that the UN withdrew its weapons inspectors because the Clinton administration had made it clear that it was about to start bombing Iraq ...

give it a read.  interesting stuff.

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Tagged as: politics,war,bush,elections2008 February 29, 2008 @ 06:48 am