November 28, 2010
— Open Blogger When an American soldier is badly wounded or injured in Afghanistan or Iraq, our nation will move heaven and earth to ensure they receive the best treatment possible. An entire infrastructure has been built to give that wounded soldier every advantage in the fight for his life.
The Washington Post has a moving in-depth article showing what the journey from battlefield to definitive hospital is like, and shows the men and women who dedicate themselves to providing care and comfort to our Wounded Warriors.
Found at the indispensible War News Updates.
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03:02 PM
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— Open Blogger A lovely Spanish women by the name of Angeles Duran is now the registered owner of the Sun.
It seems this woman has found a loophole:
There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added."There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first."
Not stupid indeed. Before you congratulate her new aquisition you really should read the fine print.
Duran, who lives in the town of Salvaterra do Mino, said she now wants to slap a fee on everyone who uses the sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government and 20 percent to the nation's pension fund.She would dedicate another 10 percent to research, another 10 percent to ending world hunger -- and would keep the remaining 10 percent herself.
10%? Not too bad given todays economy. Hey, a crazy woman's gotta eat, right?
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02:52 PM
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— DrewM The SOBs at WikiLeaks are back and along with their willing accomplices in the media they are revealing internal State Department communications. So far most of the stuff seems likely to cause some mild embarrassment and discomfort.
Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”
...
As he left Zimbabwe in 2007 after three years as ambassador, Christopher W. Dell wrote a sardonic account of Robert Mugabe, that country’s aging and erratic leader. The cable called Mr. Mugabe “a brilliant tactician” but mocked “his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics).”
Hopefully Obama will read that last report, he might learn something.
It'll take awhile to parse all of this out as various WikiLeaks media 'partners' (in crime), roll out their stories.
Der Spiegel has a preview of their planned stories, including the revelation that the US was apparently getting some inside information as Germany built their coalition government and some unflattering assessments of the new German Foreign Minister.
Mostly they seem really surprised that the US isn't thrilled with Turkey's lurch towards Islamic fundamentalism.
Mostly it seems this is a story about they hyper-empowerment of individuals and small groups in the modern world. How in the world does an Army PFC get access to this material. Why can't the US government shut down a cartoonish 'international man of mystery' like Julian Assange?
It seems the most likely danger is that individuals will be afraid to share information with US officials out of fear that they will show up in the next batch of WikiLeaks. In some parts of the world that will get you dead right quick. Of course Assange doesn't care about that.
Personally, I think it would be kind of fun if Assange could get a hold of some European or Asian government files and see what they think about Obama and Madame Clinton.
Added: Via Andy Levy....Blake Hounshell, the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine is "live tweeting" as he reads through the cables. He's already found some interesting nuggets.
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10:41 AM
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— Geoff Many have complained that the President's prioritization of jobs as his #1 concern still didn't manage to bump it ahead of health care, energy, the environment, immigration, and stumping for his party's candidates. But occasionally, probably on a day when the weather's too sucky for golfing, the President actually sits down for a substantive discussion about the economy. So what happens when you bring Obama's "laser-like focus" together with his team of theoreticians?
The day before his party's shellacking in this month's elections, President Obama sat down with his economic team to examine the single most important issue for voters across the country: jobs.Yes, folks, when Obama tells you that he's going to bring his mighty intellect to bear on jobs, this is what he means. He's going to hang out with his Ivory Tower pals and have a BS session on economic matters arcane.But the question on the agenda was not how to accelerate the recovery or target job creation to the depressed Rust Belt. It wasn't even the challenge of how to persuade corporations to spend their cash piles on investments and jobs — although both have been extensively debated for many months. The president had called the meeting to grapple with what he and his propeller-head economists have been debating for some time: the wonkish question of whether today's high unemployment rate is structural or cyclical.
Get your act together, Mr. President. Do it now.
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09:33 AM
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— Open Blogger Well sportsfans, it's another Sunday and that means more football. Hope you all remembered to put in your choices in the Moron Pick 'Em Leagues.
Some good matchups today and frankly, some snoozer's but hey, what else are gonna to do today? Put up some lights? Go shopping?
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07:00 AM
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— Monty I'm not sure if it was my fondness for bluegrass music that led me to trains (all the train songs, you see), or my fondness for trains that led me to bluegrass (ditto). I especially loved the old cowboy-era coal-burners; in my hometown, the historical society had placed an old locomotive in the city park where kids could climb on it and tourists could get their picture taken in front of it. I loved that train -- I would sit up on the cab and imagine I was driving a mile-long line of freight and passenger cars along the prairie.
So it's probably not surprising that I was drawn to a book by Stephen Ambrose called Nothing Like It In The World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. That was an era of almost limitless optimism and drive in America, and the book really brings that out. (Unlike now, when it takes us a decade, a leaning tower of permits and plans, and hundreds of millions of dollars to build a mile of highway.) In many ways, the intercontinental railroad was the Manhattan Project or Apollo moon program of the day, and it was accomplished by private industry -- all those evil, profit-seeking "robber barons" you may have heard of.
It's good to have somebackground on what America was all about during that time, which is why What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 is a good companion volume. The Civil War era is a well-trodden piece of ground, but it was really our formative years between the War of 1812 and the Mexican War that built the essential American character (both good and bad).
What are y'all reading this week?
more...
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05:16 AM
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— Open Blogger Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because sheÂ’s losing. Well I say, hard cheese!
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03:34 AM
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November 27, 2010
— CAC A moron in the last art thread asked if and when I will bring up Dada. So to open tonight's thread, Brian Eno and David Byrne give us (part of) a Hugo Ball poem, Gadji beri bimba, with I Zimbra:
On the subject of early 20th century art, tonight's Super Serious work from the world of art is an oldie courtesy of the lovely Meret Oppenheim:
Posted by: CAC at
07:37 PM
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— Open Blogger Well Moron Nation, I spent half a day in blogger retirement and I got the emergency call to fill in for Genghis. I promised to keep it on the down low but it would seem Maet is in Mexico trying spring Genghis from a Tijuana jail. He wouldn't tell me what he's in jail for but I'm sure we can have fun speculating!
Well let's get this Caturday started. How about a little musical ditty?
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05:36 PM
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— Open Blogger The Obama Administration may finally be moved to act decisively against Julian Assange: WikiLeaks is moving beyond the mere jeopardizing of American troops and allied foreign nationals, and is about to reveal to the world what Obama really thinks of them.
With some 2.7 million communications from the US State Department about to be published online, Mr Obama is bracing himself for revelations that would not only be embarrassing but could also seriously damage his foreign policy.Thousands of these documents are believed to be diplomatic cables from Washington to the US Embassy in London, including brutal assessments of Gordon Brown's personality and cold-eyed judgements of David Cameron's capabilities.
The ramifications for Mr Obama could be enormous. With his popularity flagging at home, one of his remaining political strengths has been his high standing abroad - assiduously cultivated in a series of speeches in which he apologised for past US actions and promised a kinder, gentler America.
This could really ruin Barack's reputation. Assange and all the other mean girls at WikLeaks can be soooo cruel.
(But as bad as it will be for American foreign policy to have these diplomatic messages on display to the world, it will be fascinating to see whether Obama is as obsequious in private to all the world leaders he's bowed to in public.)
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04:39 PM
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