Today's earlier-than-usual, holiday edition of quick hits:
* You won't want to miss "Hubris: Selling the Iraq War," hosted by Rachel Maddow and based on David Corn's and Michael Isikoff's brilliant book, which airs tonight at 9 p.m. (ET).
* Iraq: "A wave of attacks in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad killed at least 21 people and wounded 125 on Sunday, a security official said."
* Syria: "The United Nations Security Council should refer Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prosecute those responsible for war crimes and other abuses committed in nearly two years of conflict, Carla del Ponte, a United Nations human rights investigator, said on Monday."
* "Restricted airspace" isn't a suggestion: "F-16 fighter jets intercepted two aircraft after they entered temporarily restricted airspace near the Florida club where President Barack Obama was spending the long President's Day weekend."
* Skeptical about the need for a minimum-wage increase? Read Krugman. That is all.
* Menendez's troubles: "A team of FBI agents has been conducting interviews in recent weeks in the Dominican Republic and the United States, looking into allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) patronized prostitutes in the Caribbean nation, but has found no evidence to support the claim, according to two people familiar with the investigation."
* Remember last month, when a certain former half-term Alaska governor said high-profile conservatives need to stop preaching to the choir? Today, she announced she's headed to CPAC. You can almost hear those hoping to "rebrand" the GOP gnashing their teeth.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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I can't wait for tonights show!!!
I'd be excited, too, if I thought it was anything more than preaching to the choir. You can present all the facts you like, but some people will just never believe it. Over 4,400 killed and over 31,000 wounded in Iraq -- countless lives ruined -- and those who lied us into that war will pay no price for it.
Must See T.V!
To even think about it breaks my heart. What a waste. GW should pay for what he did. Guilty pig. Does that man have a soul?
A better question might be, does he have a brain? Especially now that Slithy Rove AKA Turdblossom is otherwise occupied.
If we had divided Iraq into 3 countries, 2 of those countries would have loved us.
I can't wait for tonight's show either Marty. I want a debate with Republicans about whether or not the Iraq war was a good war, and specifically if the surge was a good thing that cannot be questioned, as John McCain says.
Every one of us lived through the surge, and we all had strong opinions one way or another.
Chuck Hagel is being held up as Secretary of Defense mostly because he was "wrong" about Iraq.
Counter factuals are interesting, but I can't see how even the most idological Neocon can make the case that Iraq today would be in worse shape without the surge.
We bribed the combatants to stop, and our forces were allowed to withdraw without being ambushed. We withdrew with "honor". That honor cost an additional 1200 lives, as Chuck Hagel pointed out in his testimony.
It does'nt matter what party you belong to. Jackson, and if he is found guilty, Menendez should be sentenced. Since one is black, one hispanic and niether is a Wall St. CEO that may happen.
Menendez was just cleared by the FBI. If the feds cannot find any evidence to support the anonymous allegations, they need to move on. There are other cases to investigate.
Jackson is mentally ill, in treatment, and taking responsibility for his actions. Do we really need to pay more than $30k a year to house him? And which drug dealer shall we parole to make room in prison for Mr. Jackson?
I fully support Paul Krugman's defense of raising the minimum wage, which is long overdue! Paul has refuted all the neo-con attacks on the idea.
"Don't fall for the mindless assertion that "markets" know best. Markets are human creations, requiring human beings to decide how they are structured and maintained."
In 1968, I held a minimum wage job: $1.60/hour.
According to the BLS, as of yesterday, that translated into $10.53 in today's dollars.
Doesn't get any simpler than that.
Instead of raising the cost of living, why not lower it first. We're living from paycheck to paycheck, with no insurance that we are able to actually survive, we may be surviving now, no vacations, no fancy dinner dates, we're wearing hand-me-downs, we're saving seeds to grow our own food. I know someone who is trying to save the chickens by building extra chicken coupes. Little does this person know that they are metaphorically trying to save all of the chickens. We are all chickens because we can't fight city hall. We are working just to pay the bills and nothing more. Is this the American freedom that we are pretending to have?
The Obama airspace story linked to a story about Palin.
NBCNew story
Huffpo reports 3, not 2 aircraft: the lancair 320, a cessna, and an helicopter (r44).
All these guys were flying without their radios on and didn't hear air traffic warnings? Jeez is Florida suffering from an overpopulation of the stupidly wealthy?
I suppose there is a metaphor here. Maybe the solution to the wealth disparity is to bring the high fliers down to earth.
Yep, the Secret Service should impound their very expensive toy airplanes for the duration of the President's term.
That will get their attention.
But... but... Freedom™! Nobody tells *me* when to fly and where!
"Nobody tells *me* when to fly and where!"
awe yes sounds like Inhofe.
These VIP TFR's have proliferated since 9/11. Their utility remains unclear. Many pilots belong to flying clubs which make flying relatively cheap. No disagreement here with the "stupid," though.
Yes, but they can tell you where you can get shot down. Correct me if I am wrong, but the days of expecting any kind of slack when flying in restricted airspace ended on 9/11/01.
Nothing to correct, but that's my point. Americans weren't in danger of being shot down by their countrymen before 9/11. Grounding and even criminal charges, but not lethal force. And there are many more TFR's now.
Soon after 9/11, Disney got a permanent no-fly zone over their California theme park. Because Disneyland is vital to national security.
Also because Disneyland is filled with thousands of people on any given day. If one wants to crash a commercial jet into a famous place and kill thousands, it is an obvious target.
No other civilian "obvious targets" have permanent no fly zones.
From How these Disney TFRs got started
Gun control is to blame- again. At the bank, we have guns to guard the money, and at Fort Knox we have a division of troops to defend the gold. So with what do we defend the Happiest Place on Earth and our most precious treasures?
Disneyland is defenseless only because the jack booted thugs at the ATF told Goofy he couldn't have any Stinger missiles to defend the children.
Good one, JM. I can envision all the cartoon character actors walking around packing while posing with kids.
Will Hubris be available for online viewing?
Please please please make it available on-line.
I would like to see Rachel and Richard Engel go back to the Emerald City and report about the 15,500 State Dept. employees who are still in Iraq, and what they are doing. Is there electricity and water today?
Is it safe for American's to walk the streets today? I loved last year when Rachel and Richard walked around Baghdad. Have things improved for the citizens in the last year?
The sad truth about this documentary is the fact that the Obama administration, with clear evidence of War crimes having been comitted and ilegal spying and wiretaping of the American people having taken place...
Decided to give the Bush administration a free get out of jail card !...
And as we are seeing with the "Drone Program" at the C.I.A...
It's back to business as usual !.. No accountability, Killings taking place with the push of a button and no one held to account...
Barack Obama has only continued the Bush doctrine of kill first ask questions later !.
Barack Obama has set a very dangerous precedent at letting not only war criminals get away with their crimes but also "Too big to fail" banks and their CORRUPT C.E.O.'S..
Just today there is a report on Goldman Sacks being investigated for insider trading, Getting their customers to dump Heins shares by giving the shares a "14% Sell" marking, only to turn around and buy them after the dump in order to profit from the Heins deal...
Only in America kids ! Only in America !...
No, not just in America but also in many dictatorships and communist countries. Remember the republicans rebel yell---this is a republic not a democracy! Like China,Russia,Cuba and other places that prefer the title republic the republicans despise any hint of democracy.
I know there's lot is air space in Sarah Palin's head, but I did not think we would be dispatching F-16's to perform reconnaissance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/02/18/sarah-palin-will-speak-at-cpac/
Could the link be off or has Russia been spotted.
Wow! you missed two of the biggest mini reports of the day, both made NBC tonight. 1) Michelle Obama's reason for changing her hair and 2) the media complaining that they could not watch two of the most self absorbed liars play a round of golf.....wonder what that event cost the taxpayers.
NYT Op-Ed Columnist, Raise That Wage, By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: February 17, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/opinion/krugman-raise-that-wage.html
Metaphor: Big fish, swallowing smaller fish only to be swallowed by even larger fish. No food for small fishes, the ultimately rest go hungry. If the numbers of small fish in our standard economic aquarium aren't increasing or being bred fast enough or have run out of food needed to multiply this leaves only the largest fish to feed on big fish. This would leave the economic aquarium emptied except for one worried looking fish.
The fat of the aquarium economy winds up in the belly of largest fish, that before the decline, looks remarkably healthy can live on that fat for a while.
But it is a mind blowing realization that alleged leaders cannot see that a food supply is needed for those small fish, the more of which are needed for big fish, and thus the more big fishes needed for the larger fish. If we view the economy as a species of living breathing life then we have to understand that it is the lowest forms of life that feeds all other forms of life.
This series converges on a special number that represents the natural growth constant that is seem in all natural systems, an economy based on natural systems would not fail within the abundant natural limits we have available to us.
(1.1)^10
(1.01)^100
(1.001)^1000
(1.0001)^10000
(1.00001)^100000
(1.000001)^1000000
(1.0000001)^10000000
(1.00000001)^100000000
(1.000000001)^1000000000
(1.0000000001)^10000000000
(1.00000000001)^100000000000
(1.000000000001)^1000000000000
(1.0000000000001)^10000000000000
(1.00000000000001)^100000000000000
The number is not given, if you calculate it, and don't recognize it, you might have ask someone without business experience.
Geek Alert: Also for the truly observant, the very next iteration beyond that shown, show a tiny failure of not just technology, but the failure to communicate, If you cut/past this to Excel, and add the next in the sequence, then replace all "(" with "=(" the result for the last one is 1. But of you suffer through the details in reply below this particular answer is wrong occurring with one result using formulas evaluated differently.
Of course at the lowest end of the series, we can make out, the idea of 10% growth compounded for ten periods.
These are just the simplest of relationship underlying a return on investment, or a decline of investment for negative growth, and for periods of time no matter how long or how very short, and for all magnitudes. You do see that we have always plenty of numbers, more that universe to live in.
So we need to see the limits closer to home than the universe, choosing the Sun is too large by a few 2.2 billion, then the Sun light on Earth that makes all the food and every bit of fossil fuel and their by you are dragged out of your car to refuel and feed the economy.
So by all means feed the small fish, and bigger fish will eat and of course the largest fish will be worth keeping around.
Copy this as text to Excel (Cell (a1)), Parse Text->Columns specifying a semi-colon ';' delimiter, finally Ctrl Replace "=" by "=' to activate the formulas. (Note exotic error in E16).
;Period;Growth Expected;Expressed as Fraction;Growth Limit;Expressed as Text
1; 10 ;=B2+1;=C2/B2;=D2^B2;="("&D2&")^"&B2
=A2+1; =B2*B$2 ;=B3+1;=C3/B3;=D3^B3;="("&D3&")^"&B3
=A3+1; =B3*B$2 ;=B4+1;=C4/B4;=D4^B4;="("&D4&")^"&B4
=A4+1; =B4*B$2 ;=B5+1;=C5/B5;=D5^B5;="("&D5&")^"&B5
=A5+1; =B5*B$2 ;=B6+1;=C6/B6;=D6^B6;="("&D6&")^"&B6
=A6+1; =B6*B$2 ;=B7+1;=C7/B7;=D7^B7;="("&D7&")^"&B7
=A7+1; =B7*B$2 ;=B8+1;=C8/B8;=D8^B8;="("&D8&")^"&B8
=A8+1; =B8*B$2 ;=B9+1;=C9/B9;=D9^B9;="("&D9&")^"&B9
=A9+1; =B9*B$2 ;=B10+1;=C10/B10;=D10^B10;="("&D10&")^"&B10
=A10+1; =B10*B$2 ;=B11+1;=C11/B11;=D11^B11;="("&D11&")^"&B11
=A11+1; =B11*B$2 ;=B12+1;=C12/B12;=D12^B12;="("&D12&")^"&B12
=A12+1; =B12*B$2 ;=B13+1;=C13/B13;=D13^B13;="("&D13&")^"&B13
=A13+1; =B13*B$2 ;=B14+1;=C14/B14;=D14^B14;="("&D14&")^"&B14
=A14+1; =B14*B$2 ;=B15+1;=C15/B15;=D15^B15;="("&D15&")^"&B15
=A15+1; =B15*B$2 ;=B16+1;=C16/B16;=D16^B16;="("&D16&")^"&B16
=A16+1; =B16*B$2 ;=B17+1;=C17/B17;=D17^B17;="("&D17&")^"&B17
=A17+1; =B17*B$2 ;=B18+1;=C18/B18;=D18^B18;="("&D18&")^"&B18
=A18+1; =B18*B$2 ;=B19+1;=C19/B19;=D19^B19;="("&D19&")^"&B19
=A19+1; =B19*B$2 ;=B20+1;=C20/B20;=D20^B20;="("&D20&")^"&B20
;;;;=EXP(1);
Just finished watching "Hubris." One of the greatest travesties of justice is that Mssrs. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are still walking on the earth as free men. They should have been arrested and tried in the Hague for war crimes.
http://0sec.org/ebooks/684355-hubris-the-inside-story-of-spin-scandal-and-the-selling-of-the-iraq-war.html
Dear All,
An interesting question is "Who forged the yellowcake documents?"
The obvious possibility is that Berlusconi and Italian Intelligence forged
them in response to a request from Cheney and Bush.
Ever yours
Bob Eisenberg
Is there going to be a podcast download for "Hubris"? Or some other download option that won't get me DMCA'd?
Jets scrambled over golf course after snooper mic on news helicopter picks up Tiger Woods giving Prez dating tips.
thank you, Rachel, for keeping the oven on! Life is worth living if only for the chance Cheney will be tried and convicted of purjery and treason and do Life in a cold dark cell.