Cassini

The probe Cassini will be reaching Saturn today and no doubt will send some truly amazing photos (here’s to hoping everything works right) this afternoon. Check out the official NASA site, which already sports some jaw-dropping images:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

Faithless, but far from senseless

One of my favorite bands is the U.K. hard-to-classify group Faithless. Apparently they put out an EP titled “Mass Destruction.” Here’s the chorus:

Whether Halliburton or Enron or anyone
Greed is a weapon of mass destruction

We need to find courage, overcome
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

Damn straight.

Moore isn?t moot

?… the most interesting thing about this movie is how worked up Bush supporters are getting about it.?
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Gay Pride does not cause a stir

The media coverage of the Gay Pride Parade held in St. Petersburg over the weekend did not draw much controversy, a sign that the gay lifestyle may be becoming more accepted in the Bay area.
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torturous humor

One of the 257 pages releases yesterday by the White House detailed the decision that submitting prisoners into “stress positions,” including having prisoners stand for four hours. The page is also particularly interesting as it has this hand written note by Rumsfeld on it:

“However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

You just can’t make this stuff up. (In case you don’t believe me, the pdf of the full page is here: link

Hiking up ticket prices will lead consumers to consider alternatives

The move of the movie industry to continually raise ticket prices to compensate for the increase of film piracy will not only cause consumers to seek entertainment elsewhere, but it won?t discourage the use of illegal downloads.
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Gorilla campaign tactics

?I never said there was a 400-pound gorilla loose on the USF campus, but you can draw the conclusion.?
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?Ladies night? controversy asking the wrong question

To ask whether alcohol-promoting events are sexist is beside the point, as they condone an addictive activity.
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Holy weapon of mass destruction, Batman!

A friend just send me this image via email. I have no idea who created it, but it’s damn funny.

Bush administration wrongly touting Saddam-9/11 connection

Even after the connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks was proven as non-existent, the administration keeps using it as an argument for the war in Iraq.
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Tenet/Rumsfeld ordered Iraqi detainees to be hidden

Continuing the saga about mistreatment of Iraqi prosoners, tomorrow’s New York Times has this twist:

“Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison’s rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

This prisoner and other “ghost detainees” were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment and conditions, officials said.” link

Could this get any worse? Sure can:

“Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him,” a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. “The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn’t.”

So they hide this guy because he has important information, then lose him because they hid him. How efficient.

Bush Senior leaping out of Reagan?s shadow

One day after Ronald Reagan?s weeklong memorial services concluded, former President George H. W. Bush leapt out of a plane. All kidding about the former President?s death wish aside, his parachute jump Saturday did reflect on the Reagan state affairs in an interesting way.
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Your vote counts - no matter what you think

A survey suggests voter apathy among students is at new heights, even though the issues at stake affect students more than ever.
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Veep-O-Matic

It seems somebody at The Washington Post has a twisted sense of humor. This Veep-O-Matic is on their main Web site today: Veep-O-Matic

In other news, AP is reporting McCain shot Kerry’s offer to be his VP down before it could even formally be issued. link

pseudo green

A BBC report about the electric cars that the G8 Summit leaders are driving around really cracked me up. The BBC says Bush supplied the cars to overcome his “Toxic Texan” image and to get the point across that the event was “green” and ecologically sound.

Well, the electricity to run these cars has to be produced somewhere, so thats really not a “green.” Who knows how the electricity is produced? It could be coming from the worst coal burning power plant since those are still common in the U.S.

But the funny part is that , as the BBC puts it, “although he has used his frequently, Mr Bush’s attempts to establish his green credentials have been slightly undermined by secret service agents following him everywhere in powerful black SUVs.” link

Saudi-Bin-Laden Express

In the St. Pete Times:

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation’s air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.

The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

The odyssey of the small LearJet 35 is part of a larger controversy over the hasty exodus from the United States in the days immediately after 9/11 of members of the Saudi royal family and relatives of Osama bin Laden.

The terrorism panel, better known as the 9/11 Commission, said in April that it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people aboard, mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and 24, 2001. But it has said nothing about the Tampa flight.

…

“They got the approval somewhere,” Perez is quoted as telling Unger. “It must have come from the highest levels of government.” link

So two days after the Sept. 11 Attacks Bin Laden’s family is escorted out of the country in secrecy, using tax payers money, without interrogating or even screening them, while the rest of the countries planes are still grounded and U.S. citizens are arrested. The White House denies the incident even occurred.

Nothing to see here… move along… Oh, and don’t forget to vote for Bush on the way out.

Corporate might does not help define USF

My university opened its second Starbucks on its campus today…
The second Starbucks on campus is just one of the corporate venues that compound USF’s identity crisis.
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We didn’t torture, but we asked lawyers if we could

Today’s Washington Post has this story:

In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad “may be justified,” and that international laws against torture “may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted in President Bush’s war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo. link

So the U.S. government asked if it was legal for them to torture. Yet it still claims the Abu Ghraib incidents were committed by “a few bad apples” and that there is not truth to the allegations of mistreatment in Guantanamo Bay. I cannot help but feel a tad suspicious about that.

Gorbachev on Reagan

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Ronald Reagan’s passing in today’s New York Times:

“True, Reagan was a man of the right. But, while adhering to his convictions, with which one could agree or disagree, he was not dogmatic; he was looking for negotiations and cooperation. And this was the most important thing to me: he had the trust of the American people.” link

This is not only a fair assessment of Reagan’s presidency, it also makes you wonder what international leaders will have to say about George W. Bush some day.

Inside the bubble

“… the person being protected is always actively trying not to lose touch with the people they are representing. This phenomenon is generally referred to as living ‘in the bubble.’”
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D-Day ceremonies overshadowed by far-fetched comparison

By comparing WWII with the war on terror, the Bush administration is further eroding its credibility in Europe.
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BBC’s Frank Gardner attacked

This hit surprisingly close to home: The BBC reports their correspondent Frank Gardner, along with a cameramen who sadly did not survive the incident, was shot at in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is now in intensive care. link

I’ve been following Gardner’s coverage over the last several years, so it was the first time that a journalist was attacked that I actually knew. Scary world out there. Being a member of the press does not seem to protect you from anything anymore, it actually seems to make you a target. (Don’t worry, Mom, I have no intention to go to Saudi Arabia in the near future.)

detention of UK journalist coming to the U.S.

This article in The Guardian scared the shit out of me: link

It’s the first hand account of a UK journalist who was flying to Los Angeles to do some interviews for an article she was writing for the British paper The Guardian. Because she did not have a journalist visa (!) she was detained, strip searched, and held for hours in a prison cell before being send back to London.

This article had me alternate between fuming over the civic injustice of what was being done to this member of the press, to being scared out of my wits. This is “the land of the free?” How can we say this with a straight face if we detain people from our strongest ally because they are reporters? Or detain reporters, period? What would we say if Britain did this to our journalists?

I am absolutely speechless.

No Problem…

I have been a long time fan of Tom Burka’s “Opinions You Should Have” because he routinely manages to nail things like this. It’s hard to be truthful and funny at the same time, definitely should go check it out.