intheav.com Blogs - Ray Cunneff - Ray's Rants

Religious Nuts

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:36:54 +0000

They protest the funerals of American soldiers, they protest the funerals of gays and lesbians. But that's not enough... Members of the Westboro Baptist Church have been called to picket actor Sage Stallone's funeral on account of his "adulterous dad," Sylvester Stallone. After it was announced that the 36-year-old actor had died on July 13, Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro leader Fred Phelps, tweeted to her 5,600 followers, urging them to picket Stallone's funeral. "Thrice-married rebel taught his son to mock God. ‪#picketfuneral‬," Phelps first tweeted on July 13. The Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for its organized pickets at military funerals as part of its anti-gay agenda, is apparently targeting Sage because of his father's previous relationships. "Adulterous dad brought wrath of God on son. ‪#BloodOnDadsHands‬ ‪#picketfuneral‬ ‪#woe‬," Phelps tweeted, adding, "Tell @TheSlyStallone to mourn for his sins, not pimp out son's dead body to more proud sin!" Sylvester Stallone has been married three times and Sage was his first child with his first wife, Sasha Czack, to whom he was married from 1975 to 1985, according to MTV. Stallone has asked that his family's privacy be respected during this difficult time.

Questions for the 'God Particle'

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:49:25 +0000

5 Questions for the Higgs Boson Particle An Exclusive Interview NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) � The Higgs boson particle has been everywhere these days � on TV, in newspapers and magazines, courtside at the NBA Finals with Kanye West. We caught up with him as he took a breather for the 4th of July, at his home in East Hampton. Q: First of all � and I have to ask this � �God particle?� Really? Who started that? A: I have gotten so much shit for that! (laughs) I don�t know where that started. Probably TMZ or somewhere! Look, if people want to call me that because they like what I do� well, I�m humbled. It�s cool to know that what you do makes people happy. I love my fans. But God particle? I don�t think so! I can�t even get my iPhone to sync. (laughs) Q: Speaking of what you do� what do you do, exactly? A: Probably what I�m best known for, for better or worse, is making atomic particles have mass. But I don�t want to be pigeonholed as that, because I don�t want to put limits on what I plan to do in the future. Like, right now I�m doing a lot of things that don�t involve atomic particles or mass or anything like that. For example, my menswear line. It�s a joint venture between me and Hugo Boss. It�s going to be called either Higgs Boss or Hugo Boson. Or we may go a whole different way and call it H. Biggy. My branding team is into it right now. I haven't been this excited about something I've been involved in since I created the universe. Also, there's gonna be a fragrance. Q: There�s been a lot written about tension in your relationship with Peter Higgs, one of the scientists who discovered you. Any truth to the rumors? A. Peter and I are both very passionate about what we do, and when you put a passionate human being and a passionate subatomic particle together there�s bound to be friction. We fight like brothers sometimes, but it�s only because we care so deeply about what we�re doing and we want to make it perfect. But as far as what happened in the club last week, no, I did not throw a bottle at his head. Q: Okay, be honest, and no false modesty here: is there anything the Higgs boson can�t do? A: Honest answer? I want to be considered the Michael Jordan of subatomic particles. By that I mean, Michael Jordan might not have been the most physically gifted player in the history of the NBA, but nobody worked harder at his game than he did. That�s what I�m all about. Whether it�s giving mass to matter, breaking electroweak symmetry or explaining the origin of the universe and whatnot, I believe I can do it all. Q: Could you have kept Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise together? A: Shit no! (laughs)

Fourth of July Message From NRDC

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:02:57 +0000

From the Natural Resources Defense Council: July 2, 2012 Getting ready for the 4th of July? Before you head to the grocery store to shop for the big barbeque, there's something you should know: 51.8% of tested chicken breasts at grocery stores are contaminated with antibiotic-resistant E.coli. This dangerous superbug has no place in our food supply but our nation's livestock industry is breeding E.coli and other dangerous drug-resistant bacteria by needlessly dosing healthy animals with antibiotics. The Food and Drug Administration has the authority to stop this reckless practice and it's accepting comments from the public right now. People need antibiotics when they get sick, but right now 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are fed to livestock, and the vast majority are used on animals that do not need the drugs. These animals are dosed anyway to promote faster weight gain and to compensate for crowded and unsanitary conditions. It's like taking antibiotics to avoid getting sick, instead of just washing your hands. Superbugs can easily make their way out of the farm and spread to humans through infected food and water. Just one kind of superbug is estimated to kill more Americans each year than HIV/AIDS. And so far, the FDA has done little to protect our health beyond releasing voluntary guidelines, mere suggestions that the food and pharmaceutical industries can choose to follow or ignore entirely. We need to send a clear message to the agency charged with protecting human health: this empty gesture is not enough. Will you help pressure the FDA to finally end the dangerous misuse of antibiotics on livestock by sending a letter by July 10th? FDA decision makers are shutting down public comments in just over a week, so we have to act quickly to send as many letters as possible. NRDC Activist Alert Message sent to: Dr. William T. Flynn, Deputy Director for Science Policy, Food and Drug Administration Subject: FDA-2011-D-0889 SAMPLE TEXT Dear Dr. Flynn, The FDA's Guidance 209 and proposed Guidance 213 are not sufficient to protect public health. The practice of routinely administering low doses of antibiotics to entire herds and flocks is a critical driver in the rising problem of antibiotic resistance, which compromises the effectiveness of these essential medicines, and could once again make common illnesses debilitating or fatal. The health risks posed by the widespread use of these medicines in animal agriculture are recognized by the nation's leading scientists, health organizations and the FDA itself. The FDA's preferred approach of voluntary measures, which allows industry to choose whether to act, has serious flaws, including that it does not require drug manufacturers or livestock producers to change practices; it allows many of the same dangerous low-dose uses of antibiotics at a herd-wide or flock-wide level to continue under a different name (i.e. "disease prevention" instead of "growth promotion"); and it lacks any provisions to monitor antibiotic use and resistance patterns to ensure that its plan will actually lead to a meaningful decrease in the use of these drugs in animal agriculture. Instead of relying on a voluntary approach, the FDA should: 1) Comply with recent court orders directing the agency to move forward with the process for binding regulations to stop the use in animal agriculture of all antibiotics important for human medicine, unless those uses can be proven safe. 2) If it chooses to continue in parallel with its voluntary approach, revise its guidance to eliminate loopholes that would allow livestock operators to continue the practice of administering herd-wide or flock-wide doses of antibiotics to animals that are not sick, even if operators call this practice "disease prevention." 3) Establish a monitoring program to collect the information from industry needed to evaluate antibiotic use trends, prevalence of high risk practices and incidence of drug resistance. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

A New List

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 02:47:42 +0000

When things get a bit grim on this website, it's usually time to lighten up with a new "list". But when it comes to movie comedies, the list poses something of a dilemma. There is a real difference between "best" and "funniest". Do you look for the big laughs or for the best films? Some very funny movies you would not consider "great" films; some great film comedies are not always laugh-out-loud funny. For example, "The Graduate" is a great film but not among the funniest. "The Apartment" was a comedy but hardly a laugh riot. And where does "Breakfast at Tiffany's" belong? As I started putting my own favorites list together, I was really looking for a combination of both great and funny but my list was already over one hundred titles. So I'll start with my top twenty... Airplane! (1980) Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975) Dr Strangelove... (1964) This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Young Frankenstein (1974) Some Like It Hot (1959) M*A*S*H (1970) Heaven Can Wait (1978) My Favorite Year (1982) Ghostbusters (1984) The Producers (1968) Life of Brian (1979) A Shot In The Dark (1964) Raising Arizona (1987) Animal House (1978) Dogma (1999) Beetlejuice (1988) There's Something About Mary (1998) Sleeper (1973) A Thousand Clowns (1965)

Ray Bradbury R.I.P.

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:41:53 +0000

At the suggestion of another blogger, I'm posting an exchange yesterday between myself and Lee Pfeiffer, editor of Cinema Retro concerning the death at 91 of Ray Bradbury: 6/6/12 11:55 am Lee, Ray Bradbury was a very kind and generous man, generous with him time, generous with his advice. We met several times at various Writers Guild functions over the years, particularly during the 1988 strike for which I was co-chair of the Strike Committee. He was especially helpful to other writers who, like myself, explored the 'science fiction' genre. He always had a mischievous twinkle in his eye, never took himself too seriously and had little patience with those who fawned over him. And was generous in his praise for others who followed similar paths. All said, another great creative mind we've lost. Ray 6/6/12 8:49 pm Ray, It's sad news, indeed...he was a giant. At least he had a long, productive life and lived to see his work reach a new generation of fans. Lee Here's an excerpt from an excellent Associated Press obit by John Rogers: Ray Bradbury imagined the future, and didn't always like what he saw. In his books, the science fiction-fantasy master conjured a dark, depressing future where the government used fire departments to burn books ("Fahrenheit 451") in order to hold its people in ignorance and where racial hatred was so pervasive that some people left Earth for other planets. At the same time, his work, just like the author himself, could also be joyful, whimsical and nostalgic, as when he was describing the magic of a Midwestern summer or the innocence and fearlessness of a boy who befriends a houseful of ghosts. Bradbury died Tuesday at age 91. He said often that all of his stories, no matter how fantastic or frightening they might be, were metaphors for everyday life and everything it entailed. And they all came from his childhood. "The great thing about my life is that everything I've done is a result of what I was when I was 12 or 13," he said in 1982. For more than 70 years, Bradbury spun tales that appeared in books and magazines, in the movie theater and on the television screen, firing the imaginations of generations of children, college kids and grown-ups across the world. Years later, the sheer volume and quality of his work would surprise even him. "I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say: 'My God, did I write that? Did I write that?' Because it's still a surprise," he said in 2000. In many ways, he was always that 12-year-old boy who was inspired to become a writer after a chance meeting with a carnival magician called Mr. Electrico who, to Bradbury's delight, tapped him with his sword and said: "Live forever!" "I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard," Bradbury said later. "I started writing every day. I never stopped."

A New 'Best' List

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:02:29 +0000

We had some fun a while ago with the 'Best TV series' list, which morphed into westerns and science fiction. Well, while watching a movie on HBO this weekend, I got to thinking about the 'Best Baseball Movies'. Oddly enough, there are only about a half-dozen films that immediately come to mind and then you're left with "The Bad News Bears". So here's my top six (in order): "Bull Durham" "Moneyball" "The Natural" "Field of Dreams" "Eight Men Out" "Bang the Drum Slowly" Many will probably include "The Pride of the Yankees", but I haven't seen it in decades. "A League of Their Own" might also qualify just for Tom Hanks' "There's no crying in baseball!"

A Change Of Pace For The Weekend

Fri, 25 May 2012 18:03:26 +0000

The Writers Guild of America has sent ballots to all its members to nominate the best-written television shows of all time. Although they are looking for the 101 best, individual members can only list our "Top 20". I've already put my list together and it's a lot more than twenty and I've undoubtedly neglected some that should be considered. (I have many more than twenty just in the comedy category.) When considering more than sixty years of television, the task of paring it down to twenty is formidable. I've decided to stay with only American TV, eliminating all that great BBC stuff. (Too bad, "I, Claudius" and "Monty Python's Flying Circus" just to name a couple.) Anyway, before I edit my list to a final twenty, it would be interesting to get some additional input. Please list your nominees for best written TV shows of all time, comedy, drama, whatever...

The Big Warm

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:29:54 +0000

From the Associated Press: WASHINGTON (AP) � It�s been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records weren't just broken, they were deep-fried. Temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months of the year, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That far exceeds the old records. The magnitude of how unusual the year has been in the U.S. has alarmed some meteorologists who have warned about global warming. One climate scientist said it�s the weather equivalent of a baseball player on steroids, with old records obliterated. �Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good,� said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist who specializes in extreme weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. �It�s a guilty pleasure. You�re out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it�s not a good thing.� It�s not just March. �It�s been ongoing for several months,� said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at NOAA�s National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, N.C. Meteorologists say an unusual confluence of several weather patterns, including La Nina, was the direct cause of the warm start to 2012. While individual events can�t be blamed on global warming, Couch said this is like the extremes that are supposed to get more frequent because of man-made climate change from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. It�s important to note that this unusual winter heat is mostly a North America phenomenon. Much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere has been cold, said NOAA meteorologist Martin Hoerling. The first quarter of 2012 broke the January-March record by 1.4 degrees. Usually records are broken by just one- or two-tenths of a degree. U.S. temperature records date to 1895. The atypical heat goes back even further. The U.S. winter of 2010-2011 was slightly cooler than normal and one of the snowiest in recent years, but after that things started heating up. The summer of 2011 was the second warmest summer on record. The winter that just ended, which in some places was called the year without winter, was the fourth warmest on record. Since last April, it�s been the hottest 12-month stretch on record, Crouch said. But the month where the warmth turned especially weird was March. Normally, March averages 42.5 degrees across the country. This year, the average was 51.1, which is closer to the average for April. Only one other time � in January 2006 � was the country as a whole that much hotter than normal for an entire month. The �icebox of America,� International Falls, Minn., saw temperatures in the 70s for five days in March, and there were only three days of below zero temperatures all month. In March, at least 7,775 weather stations across the nation broke daily high temperature records and another 7,517 broke records for night-time heat. Combined, that�s more high temperature records broken in one month than ever before, Crouch said. �When you look at what�s happened in March this year, it�s beyond unbelievable,� said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver. NOAA climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi compared the increase in weather extremes to baseball players on steroids: You can�t say an individual homer is because of steroids, but they are hit more often and the long-held records for home runs fall. They seem to be falling far more often because of global warming, said NASA top climate scientist James Hansen. In a paper he submitted to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and posted on a physics research archive, Hansen shows that heat extremes aren't just increasing but happening far more often than scientists thought. What used to be a 1-in-400 hot temperature record is now a 1 in 10 occurrence, essentially 40 times more likely, said Hansen. The warmth in March is an ideal illustration of this, said Hansen, who also has become an activist in fighting fossil fuels. Weaver, who reviewed the Hansen paper, called it �one of the most stunning examples of evidence of global warming.� ---------------------------------------- Personally, I've always felt the term "global warming" was a misnomer, in the sense that it misleads people to believe that the effects of climate change on weather are uniform. They are not. People often confuse climate and weather. As the article points out, other parts of the northern hemisphere have experienced record cold this year. Only a week ago, it was snowing in places in southern Europe that had never seen snow at any time of the year. Clearly, we are experiencing a climate instability that leads to extreme weather, such as the recent tornadoes in places rarely seen and in unusual times of year. As with all complex systems, the global climate will attempt to self-regulate over decades, hundreds even thousands of years. But the "new normal" may seem anything but to us.

April the First

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:56:44 +0000

Flying Penguins On April 1, 2008, the BBC played footage of a colony of flying penguins that it claimed had just been discovered on King George Island near Antarctica. In the "mockumentary," former Monty Python star Terry Jones played the David Attenborough-esque guide. "We'd been watching the penguins and filming them for days, without a hint of what was to come," Jones said. "But then the weather took a turn for the worse. It was quite amazing. Rather than getting together in a huddle to protect themselves from the cold, they did something quite unexpected, that no other penguins can do." Scientists and science journals seem an unlikely source for April Fools pranks, which is the reason they are often so successful. Discovering the bigon In April 1996, Discover Magazine reported that physicists had discovered a new fundamental particle of matter: the bigon. Like other recent particle finds, the bigon flutters in and out of existence in mere millionths of a second, they explained. But unlike the others, this one is the size of a bowling ball. Physicist Albert Manque (not a real person) and his colleagues at the Centre de l'�tude des Choses Assez Minuscules in Paris (not a real institute) supposedly found the particle by accident, when a computer connected to one of their vacuum-tube experiments exploded. "The physicists set up a video camera and repeated the experiment with the same explosive results," Discover journalist Tim Folger wrote. "In one of the video frames a black bowling-ball-sized object hovered above the wreckage of the computer. In the next frame it was gone." Discover's parody of science-speak was truly impressive: "The researchers believe that the electric field in the vacuum tube somehow altered the energy state of the vacuum inside the cathode-ray tube in the nearby computer monitor. The physicists believe that they accidentally generated an electric field of just the right size in the computer to nudge a new particle, a bigon, into being," Folger wrote. Despite the claims that the bigon might be responsible for a host of unexplained phenomena such as ball lightning , sinking souffles, and spontaneous human combustion, and despite the April 1 publication date, the fake story generated a huge response from readers. Swiss spaghetti On April 1, 1957, the BBC decided to pull a prank on its audience by airing a story on the fragile Swiss spaghetti crop, a food source that was having a bumper year. Along with footage of peasants plucking strands of pasta from trees, the BBC advised viewers on how to grow their own spaghetti garden. Hilarity ensued. The Museum of Hoaxes curator called this British prank the best of all time. "I think it shows absurdity in a gentle way," Boese said. "It highlights how easily we can be fooled, but in a fairly harmless way. And above all, it doesn't hurt anybody." Left-handed burgers In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today saying people could get a Whopper specially created for left-handed people . Its condiments, the ad claimed, were designed to drip out of the right side. According to sources, not only did customers order the new burgers, but some burger-eaters specifically requested the "old" right-handed artery-smasher. The Taco Liberty Bell In 1996, the Taco Bell Corp. announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. The announcement caused much consternation among citizens, who started calling the National Historic Park in Philadelphia to protest the corporate name-change. Hours later, Taco Bell let the word slip that it was all a practical joke. Telepathic tweeting The April 1999 edition of Red Herring Magazine, then a successful tech/business publication, included an article about a revolutionary new technology that allowed users to compose and send email messages of up to 240 characters... telepathically. The article attributed the new development to computer genius Yuri Maldini, who had supposedly created it as a spinoff of the encrypted communications systems he developed for the U.S. Army during the Gulf War. The article even describes an incident when Maldini answered his interviewer's question telepathically, via email. Red Herring received numerous letters from fooled readers. Dragons In Nature In 1998, the online edition of Nature pulled what may be the most cerebral April Fools' Day prank in history. In an article discussing the debate over the origin of birds, the writer refers to the discovery of "a near-complete skeleton of a theropod [T. rex-like] dinosaur in North Dakota." Dubbed Smaugia volans, paleontologists believe the dino "could have flown." The skeleton, including rib and neck bones that showed signs of frequent exposure to fire, was supposedly discovered by Randy Sepulchrave of the Museum of the University of Southern North Dakota. There is no University of Southern North Dakota. That clue-in is straightforward enough, but the other two are more obscure: First, Smaug was the name of the dragon in JRR Tolkien's �The Hobbit.� Secondly, Sepulchrave was the 76th Earl of Groan in Mervyn Peake's "Titus Groan". The earl believed that he was an owl, and leapt to his death from a high tower. He discovered too late that he could not fly. Auspicious alignments On the first morning in April 1976, BBC Radio 2 astronomer Patrick Moore announced the approach of a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. At 9:47 a.m., Moore said, the planet Pluto would pass directly behind Jupiter, and at that moment their gravitational alignment would counteract and thus lessen the pull of Earth's gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of this planetary alignment, they would experience a strange floating sensation. At 9:48, callers flooded the lines of BBC 2 with stories of their brief buoyant experiences. Google's Topeka Name Change Bright and early this April Fools' morning, Google announced it was changing its name...to Topeka. The gag comes one month after the real Topeka decided to temporarily change its name to Google. Topeka's mayor signed a proclamation to help convince Google his city was the best place for its soon-to-be-launched broadband network. Google fired back, replacing its standard home page logo with the word "Topeka." A photo showed the Google headquarters with a freshly updated sign. And a placard was even provided to help you learn the proper way to use the new name in conversation. "Before our blind date I Topeka'd him" TiSP Google's broadband initiative may be the real deal, but back in 2007, the G-team joked that it was launching a wireless broadband service that'd run through the sewers. TiSP, short for Toilet Internet Service Provider, was described as a "self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a Wi-Fi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system." To use the service, all you had to do was flush a fiber-optic cable down the john and connect the other end to a specially provided router. MentalPlex One of Google's earliest April Fools' pranks, MentalPlex was presented in the year 2000 as a cutting-edge new way to search by brainwave. Just stare into a swirling circle, project a mental image of what you want to find, and MentalPlex would do the work. "MentalPlex is the only search engine that accurately returns results without requiring you enter a query," a FAQ created specially for the joke explained. "Google's CEO and co-founder Larry Page calls MentalPlex 'a quantum leap in finding what you are looking for on the Internet. Typing in queries is so 1999.'" Instructions: � Remove hat and glasses � Peer into MentalPlex circle. DO NOT MOVE YOUR HEAD � Project mental image of what you want to find. � Click or visualize clicking within MentalPlex circle. Pi gets rewritten In 2008, an executive with the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments posted on his personal blog an updated value for pi. The hoax claimed that Microsoft Research had determined the true-up value of pi to be a definitive 3.141999, or as expressed in company literature, "Three easy payments of 1.047333". Which is fairly hilarious. This 2008 prank harked back to an older spoof. In 1998, a researcher published an article suggesting that Alabama's state legislature had rounded the value of pi to the "Biblical value of 3". Some pranks come around again and again. Nixon again?! It's not just corporations that can jump on the bandwagon of hoaxes. In 1992, National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" program announced Richard Nixon, who in 1974 became the only U.S. president to resign from office, was running for president again. According to NPR, Nixon's new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." NPR even ginned up audio clips of Nixon's candidacy speech, causing much angst from listeners. NPR gave up the joke after a few minutes.

And Speaking of Hate Crimes�

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:07:34 +0000

A story from the San Diego area that�s gotten very little attention locally, a 32-year-old Iraqi woman who was found severely beaten next to a threatening note saying "go back to your country, you terrorist" died on Saturday (3-24). Shaima Alawadi's 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in a pool of blood Wednesday morning in the dining room of their house in El Cajon, northeast of San Diego. Her mother had been repeatedly beaten on the head with a tire iron, the note found beside her. They had received a similar note earlier this month but the family did not report it to authorities. The attack apparently occurred while Alawadi's husband took their younger children to school. The family has lived in the U.S. since the mid-1990�s but had lived in the house in San Diego County for only a few weeks, after moving from Michigan. El Cajon is home to some 40,000 Iraqi immigrants, the second largest such community in the U.S. after Detroit. Alawadi's husband had previously worked in San Diego as private contractors for the U.S. Army, serving as a cultural adviser to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East.

Osama vs.Obama

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:12:30 +0000

From Joe Conason... Documents retrieved from Osama bin Laden�s final Pakistani hideout show that during his final months, the late Al Qaeda chief conspired with his associates to kill President Barack Obama. That discovery lends a satisfying touch of irony to Bin Laden�s own demise at the hands of a Navy SEAL team sent by the president. But the frustrated assassination plot, also puts the lie to several streams of Republican agitprop. Al Qaeda had to eliminate Obama, wrote bin Laden in a 2010 memo first reported on Friday in a Washington Post exclusive, because he is �the head of infidelity� � an assertion that should authoritatively silence the right-wing paranoids who claim that the president is not a Christian, as he professes, but a secret Muslim. More to the point, if Obama were the weak, ineffectual appeaser of Republican mythology, why would he have become the target of a plan to shoot down Air Force One? Administration officials told the Post that the plot was never a serious threat to the President because Al Qaeda lacked the capacity to fulfill it. Yet that didn't quell bin Laden's determination, expressed in demands that a terrorist named Ilyas Kashmiri "send me the steps he has taken into that work." In a few words dispatched to his associates, bin Laden sinks the fundamental assumption of every foreign policy speech by Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. It is possible to argue with the military and diplomatic approach of the Obama White House, from drone strikes to the Afghan surge to the Arab Spring, but bin Laden�s own writings show that by 2010, he feared the ruin of his jihad � and blamed a combination of Al Qaeda�s �mistakes� and American strategy. Obama�s intensified drone barrage had wiped out many jihadi �brothers,� lamented bin Laden � and despite the resulting plague of civilian casualties, he fretted far more about the damage done to Al Qaeda�s �brand� by its own history of depredations against innocents. According to bin Laden, the propaganda tactics of the Obama administration were succeeding against Al Qaeda. Those tactics worked, he believed, because U.S. officials �have largely stopped using the phrase �the war on terror� in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims,� while prosecuting a war on Al Qaeda instead. So alienated were most Muslims from Al Qaeda that bin Laden wanted to abandon the tainted brand and rename his organization. In those same memos, bin Laden paid the compliment of a death threat to General David Petraeus, because the then-commander of allied forces in Afghanistan was the �man of the hour� � and killing him might alter the course of the war. He also seemed to assume, strangely, that Vice President Joe Biden would be �totally unprepared� to succeed an assassinated Obama, leading the United States into chaos. When the full trove of documents found in bin Laden's Abbottabad lair is released, there will no doubt be many such peculiar remarks among its pages. What will remain central in the coming debate over Obama�s national security policy, however, is that American forces finally killed the leader of Al Qaeda, rather than the other way around. And one of the most powerful endorsements of that policy � proving it was anything but ineffectual over the past three years � can be quoted in the words of the vanquished enemy.

Stupid Tuesday

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:59:45 +0000

Republicans in Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, and Oklahoma will all get their chance today have their say on whom the party should nominate. The media will once again play it like a horse race. Can Romney beat Santorum in Ohio? Will Newt survive if he can�t win his home state of Georgia? And will Ron Paul get a boost from Idaho, North Dakota and Alaska? Ohio is the race to watch and not just because of its 63 delegates. Ohio has become symbolic. No Republican nominee has ever become president without winning the state. Santorum and Romney are dead even in the latest polls and the outcome will almost certainly generate more media buzz than any other Super Tuesday contest. Newt Gingrich is pretty much finished if he loses in Georgia, the state he represented in the U.S. House for two decades. He hopes to win decisively there and pick up enough other delegates to re-launch his campaign, which has been mostly on life-support, thanks to Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, since he lost Florida in January. Santorum is pushing hard to capture the state's Christian conservative and tea party voters away from Gingrich. Romney remains a force, even if the state is outside his comfort zone. Georgia boasts the day's biggest cache of delegates: 76. So why is Georgia so obsessed with the Ten Commandments? While the Republican establishment, whatever remains of it (I would have said �left� of it but that might be misconstrued), squirms and frets over what might happen today with 419 delegates at stake and still no clear winner in sight, they are even more concerned about how social issues have overwhelmed any discussion of jobs and the economy. Republican strategists see this as a losing game plan but that hasn�t stopped their fanatic members from pressing a social and religious agenda right out of the 17th Century. Georgia doesn't seem to be worried about the economy. Instead, local lawmakers have been busy unanimously passing a bill that would post a copy of the Ten Commandments in all Georgia schools and government buildings. Supporters of the bill, which was introduced by Republican Rep. Tommy Benton, believe that it is appropriate because American law is largely based in the Christian and Jewish traditions. Opponents, such as Barry Lynn, a Christian minister and the executive director of Americans United For Separation Of Church and State, believe that the bill could violate the First Amendment. Lynn told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, "There's a faulty premise there and that is that The Ten Commandments has anything to do with the civil laws of the United States. It does not, of course." Lynn predicts that the debate won't give way to a discussion of economic issues any time soon; rather, he believes that a legal battle is coming. "We don't make it illegal to dishonor our mother and father. We don't have blasphemy laws. This is the kind of thing that raises a gigantic red flag, and on that flag are the words, �Sue us,'" he said. The Georgia legislature's priorities pale in comparison to Oklahoma's. Oklahoma, which is worth 40 delegates and which Rick Santorum has called the �ground zero of the conservative movement� is currently preoccupied with abortion. The �Personhood Bill� introduced by Republican State Senator Brian Crain, would grant legal status to embryos from the moment of fertilization. The bill, which could have the consequence of banning some forms of birth control, has led to protests which were highlighted by a female state senator carrying a sign proclaiming "If I wanted the government in my womb, I'd f*** a Senator." Another Oklahoma Senator, Constance Johnson, has responded to Crain's bill by attempting to add a �spilled semen� amendment in an effort to highlight the bill's absurdity and hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the absurdity was lost on several of the bill�s (male) supporters who did not seem to understand that it would make masturbation a crime. In their view, it seems every sperm really is sacred. Oklahoma and Georgia have the 7th and 14th highest poverty rates in the nation, respectively. But instead of focusing their efforts on economic growth, both states' governments have chosen to zero in on social issues. With priorities like this, it's not surprising that only 26 percent of respondents to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll said that the Republican Party does a good job of reaching out to those who aren't hardcore supporters.

Iran: The War We Postponed?

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:07:01 +0000

President Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Monday (3-5-12). In preparation for this meeting, both sides have ratcheted up the rhetoric of a possible military strike against Iran and its nuclear ambitions. The only thing that seems clear is that they both want Iran to believe that they are prepared to strike despite analyses that conclude that neither has the ability to knock out Iran�s nuclear program completely. In an interview with The Atlantic, Obama made his strongest statement yet that he will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb, saying the development would trigger an arms race that would spread throughout the Middle East. And he stressed that he will stand by Israel even as he tries to persuade Prime Minister not to strike the Tehran regime unilaterally. Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations with U.S. officials, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack. The U.S. has been working with the Israelis for months to convince them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program. Obama insisted that when he warned Iran against acquiring the bomb he wasn�t bluffing and made it clear that a military strike is an option. Yet the United States has no treaty obligation to Israel to support a unilateral strike against Iran. He told interviewer Jeffrey Goldberg, �The Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff. I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. Both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.� But do we, really mean what we say? Obama gave the 45-minute interview as he prepares to address AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, on Sunday and before he meets Netanyahu on Monday. His comments made it clear that he and Netanyahu have a complicated relationship and that he is closer to the position of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. When explaining how seriously his administration takes its friendship with Israel, he said. �I think that Ehud Barak understands it. I think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, hopefully will when he sees me next week, will understand it.� But what Obama cannot understand is how Republicans have been successful in painting him as anti-Israel? �Every single commitment I have made to the state of Israel and its security, I have kept," Obama said. �Why is it that despite me never failing to support Israel on every single problem that they've had over the last three years, that there are still questions about that?" (more to follow)

"Springtime for Hitler"

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:57:35 +0000

It seems that in our current political climate, with GOP candidates vying to see who can move the farthest to the right, contenders who not long ago would have been dismissed as total whack jobs are now being taken seriously. Consider Art Jones, a congressional candidate running as a Republican in the upcoming Illinois primary to take on Democratic Congressman Dan Lipinski in 3rd Congressional District. The district covers portions of Chicago's South Side and a large swath of the southern suburbs. Jones, 64, a Lyons, Illinois insurance salesman who in his spare time organizes "family-friendly" neo-Nazi events around Adolf Hitler�s birthday, is getting national attention after emphatically stating the �Holocaust never happened.� �As far as I�m concerned, the Holocaust is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews", he says. "It�s the blackest lie in history. Millions of dollars are being made by Jews telling this tale of woe and misfortune in books, movies, plays and TV". A member of the Nationalist Socialist Party in his younger days, Jones took part in the Nazis� march on Chicago�s Marquette Park in 1978. Whether he wore the Nazi uniform is unclear. While he doesn�t deny nor repudiate his �past affiliations,� he says he votes Republican �90 percent of the time.� Jones says, �Philosophically, I�m a National Socialist. Officially, I don�t belong to any party except my own, the America First Committee.� He hopes to win the Republican primary and go on to challenge Lipinski this November. Part of the reason he�s jumping in is what he describes as Lipinski�s affiliation with the American Israel Pro Israel Affairs Committee. (The committee) "was bragging on their website how he (Lipinski) is leading an effort in the House of Representatives with a Jewish congressman from Virginia named Frank Wolf�. (Wolf is actually Presbyterian.) Jones said, �The two are spearheading an effort in the House to get tough with Iran, including closing off any oil exports to China - that could lead to World War III.� Jones compares today's conditions in the United States to Germany following the end of World War I. �Our country is falling apart economically, politically, culturally, militarily,� he said. �We are going down.� A Vietnam veteran, he sees the same betrayal in the �so-called War on Terrorism.� He says, �These war-mongering fools in congress like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney... we can�t let Iran have one nuclear weapon but we let Israel have all the nuclear weapons they want,� Jones said. �This is ridiculous.� Jones is on the ballot against Jim Falvey and Richard Grabowski in a district that has sent a conservative Democrat to Congress for decades. The district includes sizable ethnic populations, primarily the descendants of Irish, German, Polish and Czech immigrants. Yet in spite of his seemingly repugnant philosophy, some well-heeled Illinois conservatives are rallying to his cause. These days, it seems, you cannot be too far to the right. In his candidate questionnaire, Jones submitted that he's not been convicted of a felony but has been arrested for "minor street skirmishes with Leftists."

Ron Paul & Rebuilding the Old Right

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:40:12 +0000

Politics has long been known for creating strange bedfellows, following the principle that �the enemy of my enemy is my friend�. But in today�s hyperkinetic political climate many of our long-held definitions and assumptions break down completely. While we may believe we have a grasp of positions on issues that define left, right and center, it now begins to dawn on us that everything (we think) we know may be wrong. Witness the odd alliance between the Ron Paul campaign and Llewellyn Rockwell. You�ve never heard of Rockwell? He heads the Ludwig Von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama which has worked for thirty years to defeat neo-conservatives and competing versions of libertarianism in order to resurrect the Old Right. And the vehicle that may have finally lent legitimacy and momentum to his efforts is the candidacy of Ron Paul for President of the United States. The Old Right emerged in the 1930s in opposition to President Roosevelt�s New Deal and America�s entry into World War II, a war that cost the life of Rockwell�s older brother and that he describes as FDR�s �deliberate war�. An unabashed admirer of Senator Robert Taft for his anti-union positions and non-interventionist foreign policy, Rockwell refers to himself as a �paleo-libertarian� who has worked to undo most of the advances in human and civil rights since 1929. The Old Right largely collapsed after World War II with the rise of Communism when conservatism�s new ideological guiding lights, such as William F. Buckley, declared its America-First isolationism anathema in the Cold War reality. As a result, Rockwell and parallel isolationist organizations, including the John Birch Society, were purged from mainstream conservatism. In 1990, Rockwell wrote, �With the breakdown of Communism, the Old Right is back.� At that time, Rockwell counted on his alliance with Pat Buchanan�s adherents at the Rockford Institute and his own followers at Von Mises to bring about a �re-alignment of the right� to raise the Old Right from near-obscurity. But its gradual re-emergence is most closely tied to Rockwell�s long, close association with Ron Paul. Rockwell served as Paul�s Washington-based chief of staff in Congress from 1978 to 1982. When Paul ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988, Rockwell became vice chairman of the campaign. Rockwell also worked in various editorial capacities for the Ron Paul Investment Letter. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rockwell served as vice-president of Ron Paul & Associates, which published two additional newsletters. Because of the unrepentant bigotry and racism found in those publications, they briefly became a campaign issue. Both Paul and Rockwell have denied having written the offensive material, although Paul at one point admitted that he was �morally responsible� for what appeared under his name. Rockwell and Paul have also shared longtime connections with White Nationalist, militia and conspiracy organizations, including the John Birch Society, which has enjoyed a re-birth as part of the Tea Party movement. Rockwell served as a contributing editor of the Bircher magazine, The New American, for most of the 1990s, while Paul was listed as a contributing editor in 1987. Paul has often reaffirmed his admiration for the John Birch Society, giving a congratulatory speech at their Texas regional conference in August, 2009. Yet while there are many parallels between Ron Paul�s positions and Rockwell�s Von Mises agenda, there are also some curious contradictions. Paul�s campaign to end �foreign entanglements�, get tough on immigration, disband the Federal Reserve and abolish birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment all reflect Rockwell�s �paleo-libertarian� ethos, however his free market and states-rights positions appear in direct opposition. The stated goal of Rockwell�s Ludwig Von Mises Institute is to �undermine statism in all its forms� and to oppose �free-marketeers� who accept both federal and state government oversight. While that may seem a distinction without a difference for anti-government factions who most want to purge the lingering vestiges of Reagan�s New Right, as well as the Bush Neo-Cons from conservative thinking, it does reflect their determination to restore, at any cost, the pre-eminence of the Old Right.