Six prisoners in British jails have applied to have children with their partners following a landmark European court ruling that their human rights would be breached if they are prevented from becoming fathers.
Why not just set them free?
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Category Archives: Politics
Rant of the Week: 2/8/09-2/14/09
The clip from showcasing Milton Friedman beating up on Phil Donahue demonstrates the best and the worst of Friedman. The worst is the beginning of the clip where Friedman idolizes the free market. The best is the latter part of the clip where Friedman challenges Donahue’s own idols.
Must Be Iran Reads Congressional Reports
But there is another reason American military and national security officials are so worried: in at least two earlier ballistic missile launches, the Iranians launched in ways that “appear they were designed to optimize an EMP burst,” according to a Pentagon source with detailed knowledge of the Iranian’s efforts and of space technology.
I wonder if Iran read this report and decided that they would get more bang for their buck by setting off the big one in low orbit as opposed to nuking some city. If the hype is in any way correct, the vaporizing of one city would be easier for the US to recover from then one successful EMP attack.
If this is what amateurs can do, what could professionals accomplish?
This from the Telegraph….
French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims.
Another story from the Telegraph details what another hacker was able to do to US computers without really trying.
These stories are nothing by themselves. But they make you wonder what a bunch of disciplined professionals working with the backing of a national government could accomplish via computer hacking if they put their mind to it.
The nationalist cyber mob that Russia throws at nations that annoy it does not count as professional in my book.
Russian Games
So now it’s official: Kyrgyzstan ain’t bluffing. On Tuesday, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev caught the Pentagon off guard, saying his country planned to close Manas Air Base, a major logistics hub for supporting U.S. operations in Afghanistan.
A defense official tells the Wall Street Journal: “Frankly, we thought it was a negotiating tactic, and we were ready to call their bluff … But it’s becoming clearer that, no kidding, they want us out.”
Fingers are now pointing at Moscow. The New York Times reports that the State Department and the Pentagon have concluded that Kyrgyzstan was doing the Kremlin’s bidding by kicking out the Americans.
Yet there is this from The Nation…..
Russia granted transit rights to non-lethal U.S. military supplies headed to Afghanistan but only after apparently pressuring a former Soviet state to close an air base leased to the Americans. The signal from Moscow: Russia is willing to help on Afghanistan, but only on the Kremlin’s terms.
The bottom line seems to be that Russia is not trying to force the US out of Afghanistan at the moment. But they want the supply lines to depend entirely on their good pleasure.
By the way, non-lethal supplies is all the US really needs to ship in by truck. Ammunition and the like can easily be flown in by air as those are only a tiny part of the total supply needs. But fuel, concrete, and other such supplies really need to be shipped in by truck. It is just too expensive to fly those things in and in any case the US does not have enough cargo planes to support a large fighting force in the field.
Losing The Mandate From Heaven?
The worst drought in half a century has parched fields across eight provinces in northern China and left nearly four million people without proper drinking water.
Not a drop of rain has fallen on Beijing for more than 100 days, the longest dry spell for 38 years in a city known for its arid climate.
And from later on in the article….
The drought could hardly have come at a worse time for the leadership, which is already gearing for possible social instability with some 20 million rural migrants now out of work after losing their jobs in coastal factories and in cities. Many have returned to work their farms while they wait for the economic climate to improve but may now find they are unable to grow a harvest with no water for irrigation.
“The duration, scope and impact of the drought are rare,” said Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration.
Among the worst hit provinces is central Henan, the most populous in China and source of the highest number of migrant workers. No rain has fallen in the province for 105 days, state media said today.
If you don’t know what the Mandate From Heaven is read about it here. Drought was one of the tradtional ways in which it became apparent that the Mandate From Heaven was lost. But I will bet that economic depressions help the idea along as well.
If I was a Chinese ruler I would be on my best behavior just in case. It has a better chance of working than their weather control technology.
How to get rich
Pirates have released a Ukrainian arms ship carrying dozens of Soviet-era tanks after reportedly being paid £2.2 million, the largest ever ransom for a vessel hijacked off the Somali coast.
The moral of this story is that it pays better to seize a ship full of arms then a ship full of Saudi oil.
I guess he won't be getting a job anytime soon
General Jim Jones offered Zinni the Baghdad post. But a week later, Zinni was still twisting in the wind. We now know he was passed over in favor of Christopher Hill, leading the New Republic to describe the final exchange thusly:
an Obama appointment gone awry, which concludes with a respected general suggesting the national security advisor perform an anatomically difficult feat.
Not very nice perhaps. But we have to agree with Charlie. That was a good euphemism.
Shock!
Media reports suggest Senate Republicans have become a key focus of stimulus talks, an acknowledgement that they appear to hold the balance of power in that chamber despite having only 41 seats to the Democrats’ 58. The Washington Post reports on the front page that Senate Democratic leaders “conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy.” Moderate Republicans are “trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion.”
This is not really a Republican vs Democratic thing. Rather it is an east and west coast against middle American thing. Still, I am surprised that Democrats could not hold together long enough to pass this law.
Edit: If this is true, Obama may just be using the Republicans as a stick to clean up some of the junk he does not like in the bill. (h/t The Common Room)