Current Affairs

MAJ. Andrew Olmsted On Gays In The Military

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by Gary Farber.

Major Olmsted is no longer with us; he died a hero.

Doctor Science wrote a superb post in the last week of December on DADT and Rape Culture, which didn’t get remotely the attention it deserved, because, of course, it was just after Christmas, and before New Year’s, in America, according to the majority calendar.

Spirited debate did result in comments, and the debate, while tedious and understandably offensive to many, nonetheless had many comments I thought worthwhile.  Open debate is something we try to aim for at Obsidian Wings, though like all bloggers, we have our personal views and prejudices.

I’m extremely grateful to long time and valued commenter Mike Schilling, who has been writing smart stuff online at least since the Nineties on Usenet, for reminding us, and me in particular, of the late Major Andrew Olmsted’s, former co-blogger here on Obsidian Wings and elsewhere (see our upper right sidebar, please), first under his own name, and then under the pseudonym of “G’Kar,” from his beloved Babylon 5, which was one of the best serial space operas yet made for American television, words and views about gays in the military, written December 21, 2007 in a post entitled Military Musings.

Andy started off talking about the M4 carbine, and then moved onto this, which I’ll quote, because he isn’t here to do so himself:

[…] Now, on to other topics, like heterosexism in the military and the breaking of the Army. While I am sure that what OCSteve recalls as the situation extant in his unit when he served prior to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) may have been the case in his unit, I find it less plausible that a similar situation obtained across the entire military. As Jesurgislac points out, the military was discharging people vigorously for their sexuality throughout the 1980s; DADT may have made matters worse for gays and lesbians, but they were far from accepted before that policy arrived. I have nothing but contempt for a policy that permits convicted criminals to serve while asking people to leave simply because their sexuality or gender does not fit neatly into society’s binary system.

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Don’t Fear The Reaper

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by Gary Farber

We must talk about the the War Logs of Wikileaks.

The amount of data is staggering.  Key stories abound. 

Let us start with death.

The Guardian's breakdowns include a breakdown of lethal casualties of the Iraq war.  (The New York Times approach is here; we'll get to that.)

America caused this.  It's a map of every Iraqi war-related death documented by the Coalition.

Hooray for freedom.

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Uh, Oh, You May Be Wearing Muslim Garb!

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by Gary Farber What it looks like:  I, for one, won't soon forget King Abudullah's Muslim garb:   But, seriously, view the many rest.  Former ObWier Lindsay Beyerstein wrote on Facebook: The phrase "Muslim garb" drives me crazy. A) It's meaningless. B) It's like the speaker's trying to recast Muslims as D&D characters. Also, a … Read more

Don’t Do The Cybercrime If You Can’t Do The Time

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by Gary Farber

Except that who is responsible for Stuxnet is a mystery. 

What we know is that it's incredibly dangerous.  And it's at least possible it was targeted at Iran's nuclear program, perhaps the enrichment centrifuges in Natanz.

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

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Which Came First: The Regulation Or The Egg?

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by Gary Farber

"One big 20-year experiment" has been conducted on what happens when you leave egg safety to lax federal regulation, spotty state regulation, and the market, and the results aren't pretty.

On a July night in 1987, scores of elderly and chronically ill patients at Bird S. Coler Memorial Hospital in New York City began to fall violently sick with food poisoning from eggs tainted with salmonella.

“It was like a war zone,” said Dr. Philippe Tassy, the doctor on call as the sickness started to rage through the hospital. By the time the outbreak ended more than two weeks later, nine people had died and about 500 people had become sick. It remains the deadliest outbreak in this country attributed to eggs infected with the bacteria known as Salmonella enteritidis.

If someone murdered nine people, and wounded five hundred, with a gun, we Americans would have paid as much attention to this as we did the Columbine high school massacre, or Nidal Malik Hassan, or Charles Whitman.

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So Gross And Notorious An Act Of Despotism

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by guest poster Gary Farber.

To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate,
without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of
despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the
whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him
to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less
public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of
arbitrary government. …

— 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 132-133 (1765)

I am not a lawyer; I'm just a guy who has cared passionately about civil liberties and our Constitution all his life, and who has read a lot of court decisions.

I'm quoting Blackstone, above, from a specific court decision, in fact: Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. 

I'm quoting Justice Scalia quoting Blackstone, with whom Justice Stevens joined in dissenting. 

Which brings to yesterday's decision, Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Waste Not, Want Not

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by guest poster Gary Farber.

How much is $50 billion? 

That's how much the president proposes we spend:

[…] It calls for a quick infusion of $50 billion in government spending that
White House officials said could spur job growth as early as next year —
if Congress approves. […]  Central to the plan is the president’s call for an “infrastructure
bank,” which would be run by the government but would pool tax dollars
with private investment, the White House says. […] Specifically, the president wants to rebuild 150,000 miles of road, lay
and maintain 4,000 miles of rail track, restore 150 miles of runways and
advance a next-generation air-traffic control system.

[…]

The White House did not offer a price tag for the full measure or say
how many jobs it would create. If Congress simply reauthorized the
expired transportation bill and accounted for inflation, the new measure
would cost about $350 billion over the next six years. But Mr. Obama
wants to “frontload” the new bill with an additional $50 billion in
initial investment to generate jobs, and vowed it would be “fully paid
for.” The White House is proposing to offset the $50 billion by
eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

After months of campaigning on the theme that the president’s $787 billion stimulus package was wasteful, Republicans sought Monday to tag the new plan with the stimulus label. The Republican National Committee called it “stimulus déjà vu,” and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, characterized it as “yet another government stimulus effort.”

Which sounds good to me, if not to you, but we can all agree that we don't want to "waste" money.

Even before the announcement Monday, Republicans were expressing caution.

“It’s important to keep in mind that increased spending — no matter the
method of delivery — is not free,” said Representative Pat Tiberi, an
Ohio Republican who is on a Ways and Means subcommittee that held
hearings on the bank this year. He warned that “federally guaranteed
borrowing and lending could place taxpayers on the hook should the
proposed bank fail.”

Such concern might have come earlier: 

Rebuild iraq money

  • The Department of Defense is unable to account for the use of $8.7
    billion of the $9.1 billion it spent on reconstruction in Iraq.
  • Source: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (PDF).

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Things I don’t understand

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–by Sebastian I don't have much to say on this.  I'm mostly just drawing attention to something that I had assumed had stopped under the Obama administration, but apparently hasn't. They are still using sensory deprivation during transport of the Gitmo prisoners:  cite Omar Khadr’s pre-trial hearing this morning experienced an unexplained hour-long delay. Court … Read more

Confederate History Month, The Conclusion (?)

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by Robert R. Mackey crossposted from the Huffington Post This is the third, and unless there is a major gaffe tonight from Richmond, the final part of my writing on the serious problems with Confederate Heritage Month in Virginia. In the first entry, I noted the slight "omission" by Governor McDonnell of the institution of … Read more

Confederate Heritage, Part II

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by Robert R. Mackey Yesterday, I wrote on the subject of Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell's proclamation of "Confederate History Month" and the misuse of history.  In response, the Governor's office issued a statement noting that "a major omission" in the original proclamation.  That oversight? That there were actual slaves in Virginia in 1861.  And that they … Read more

Confederate ‘Heritage’ and the Suppression of Truth

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by Robert R. Mackey (cross-posted from Huffington Post) I opened this morning's Washington Post to find that the governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, has determined that the state's tourism demands requires a renewal of "Confederate History Month," which has lain dormant for the past eight years. Ok, I get it. The state needs money and the … Read more

Anti-ACORN “pimp” O’Keefe arrested in attempted bugging of senator’s office

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James O'Keefe, the conservative filmmaker who dressed as a pimp to sting the activist group ACORN, has been arrested for allegedly assisting in the attempted wiretapping of the office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu: The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, … Read more

How not to spy, by your friends in Al Qaeda

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by Robert Mackey Mark Mazetti's newest article on the suicide bombing that killed CIA agents in Afghanistan, "U.S. Saw a Path to Qaeda Chiefs Before Bombing, " has this interesting tidbit worth considering: "Mr. Balawi proved to be one of the oddest double agents in the history of espionage, choosing to kill his American contacts at … Read more

Secrets, Iran and a Healthy Skepticism

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by Robert Mackey First, a quick introduction and greeting. My name is Robert R. Mackey (not to be confused with the Lede author) and I'm an historian and retired US Army officer.  My specialty, oddly enough, is a strange mix of American Civil War history, history of intelligence, and counter-terrorism.  In the past, I've worked … Read more

Copenhagen: A Death Panel for Countries like Tuvalu

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by Lindsay Beyerstein  The tiny nation of Tuvalu has taken center stage in Copenhagen.  "I woke up this morning crying, and that's not easy for a grown man to admit," Tuvalu's chief climate negotiator, Ian Fry, told hundreds of delegates in the Bella Center in Copenhagen on Saturday. "The fate of my country rests in … Read more

OSHA: Nevada is a Good Place to be a Bad Boss

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) last week issued a scathing indictment of Nevada’s OSHA program. Nevada has a well-deserved reputation for being a dangerous place to work. Last year, a spate of construction deaths on the Las Vegas Strip prompted a congressional hearing. The Las Vegas Sun won this year’s public service Pulitzer for exposing the carnage. Nevada inspectors told federal investigators that their superiors pressured them not to write up employers for willful violations of safety laws.

Dancing In The Dark

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Guest post by Gary Farber.  Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there.

[Eric Martin: My friend Gary is going to be pitching in for a couple of days as I adjust to the enhanced parenting techniques that my son is submitting me too.  And yes, sleep deprivation is torture.]

On December 31, 2009, three provisions of "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001," aka the "PATRIOT Act,"  sunset and expire.

Bills to reauthorize or amend these three provisions have been moving through the Congressional Judiciary Committees in the past two months.

The three sections are:  

SEC. 206. ROVING SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978. Section 105(c)(2)(B) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1805(c)(2)(B)) is amended by inserting 'or in circumstances where the Court finds that the actions of the target of the application may have the effect of thwarting the identification of a specified person, such other persons,' after 'specified person'.

This is also known as "the John Doe" provision.

SEC. 215. ACCESS TO RECORDS AND OTHER ITEMS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT.

Also known as the section dealing with "national security letters," by which:

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities [….]

The third is:

SEC. 805. MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM.

What are these about, and why should we care?, you ask. As the ACLU explains:

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Pelosi Goes “All In” On Public Option

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By Lindsay Beyerstein Nancy Pelosi is going all in to support a public option that would hold down costs by setting reimbursement rates at Medicare plus 5%. The CBO's latest cost estimates for various House health care reform options have galvanized Pelosi in favor of a Med+5 public option, Brian Beutler reports.  Pelosi has always … Read more

Hey, Joe, Where You Going With That Gun In Your Hand? Pt. II

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Guest post by Gary Farber.  Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there.

[Eric Martin: My friend Gary is going to be pitching in for a couple of days as I adjust to the enhanced parenting techniques that my son is submitting me too.  And yes, sleep deprivation is torture.]

Part I of this two-part post is here.

Pt. II:

First we have to distinguish between the Taliban and al Qaeda. Then we have to analyze what threat either actually presents. And then we have to do a cost-benefit analysis of what's the best course of action. The essential war with al Qaeda, both insofar as al Qaeda remains any kind of organization, and, more importantly, insofar as it remains an inspiration to jihadists, is an ideological war, not a military war. The Taliban now have tried a YouTube channel for propaganda. The best way to fight al Qaeda is to fight their ideology, and we're doing okay at that. From 2008:

[…] These new critics, in concert with mainstream Muslim leaders, have created a powerful coalition countering Al Qaeda's ideology. According to Pew polls, support for Al Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in recent years. The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank. Following a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan in the past year, support for suicide operations amongst Pakistanis has dropped to 9 percent (it was 33 percent five years ago), while favorable views of bin Laden in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, around where he is believed to be hiding, have plummeted to 4 percent from 70 percent since August 2007.

We can continue presenting an alternative. Many play up contemporary al Qaeda-Taliban ties, but that's highly questionable, as Gareth Porter writes:

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Hey, Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand? Pt. I.

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Guest post by Gary Farber (thanks to Eric Martin, who understandably is busy!  And double congrats to Eric for all that family-makin' stuff he's been doin'!)

Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there.

[Eric Martin: My friend Gary is going to be pitching in for a couple of days as I adjust to the enhanced parenting techniques that my son is submitting me too.  And yes, sleep deprivation is torture.]

A post in two parts.  Part I:

On Friday night's PBS Newshour, Tom Bearden gave the following report from Fort Carson: 

 (Audio-only, if you have bandwidth issues.  Click the above link for a transcript.)

I was struck cold.

I've been to that chapel.

I've seen the upended rifle with the soldier's own helmet atop it, and boots beside it.

I've been there for the chilling sound and sight of the honor guards' rifle-shot salute.

I've listened to the bagpipes, and seen the faces of the family and friends, just as we see and hear in this video.

Then it was one soldier's boots and rifle. 

On Friday, it was six at once.

This is the cost of our Long War in Afghanistan.

This is the price our families, and sons and daughters, and parents, are paying.

It's been eight years and a week since American forces began combat in Afghanistan.

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Live from the UN Summit on Climate Change

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By Lindsay Beyerstein I'm posting from the UN Summit on Climate Change at UN HQ in New York. I'm wearing one of those special plastic translation earpieces. World leaders are here to talk face-to-face before the big climate negotiations to be held in Copenhagen in December. President Obama is scheduled to address this morning's opening … Read more

The Demonstrably Racist Rush Limbaugh

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by publius Let me echo Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher and Conor Friedersdorf in condemning the utterly shameful and race-baiting exploitation of yesterday's school bus incident.  I'm not big on writing posts that start "Rush Limbaugh did outrageous thing X today…", but this is an exception. And it's not just Limbaugh.  It's also Malkin, and … Read more

Tea bagger bus company sued over blaze that killed 23 seniors

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By Lindsay Beyerstein

One of the featured corporate sponsors of the Tea Party Express had to pay millions of dollars to settle lawsuits for its role in a bus fire that killed 23 elderly nursing home residents fleeing Hurricane Rita in 2005.

The BusBank, a Chicago-based charter company, a "Tour Partner" of the Tea Party Express, a rolling protest sponsored by the Our Country Deserves Better PAC under the supervision of former Republican state legislator Howard Kaloogian, now a PR exec for the GOP-linked firm Russo, Marsh & Rogers.

BusBank is also arranging to ferry Tea Baggers to their 9/12 march on Washington to voice their demands for unfettered capitalism. (Update: A Majikthise commenter asked if there's a Dick Armey connection here. There is. Dick Armey's FreedomWorks Foundation is the premiere sponsor of the 9/12 march; and Kaloogian's OCDB PAC is a "Gold Co-Sponsor.")

In 2005, a bus carrying seniors fleeing Hurricane Rita burst into flame outside of Dallas, immolating 23 nursing home residents. Investigators later found that the bus was: driven by an undocumented migrant without a valid U.S. driver's license, lacking adequate fire extinguishers, and not licensed to operate in Texas. When the bus had mechanical problems before the crash, the driver took it to an unqualified mechanic who failed to notice the critical fault–an unlubricated axle that eventually melted and burst into flame.

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Read the News Today, Oh Boy

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by publius Pew released a new poll outlining a gap between scientists and the general public on various issues.  There's a lot to chew on, but these numbers in particular stood out: First thought — isn't 87% a bit low for scientists' belief in natural selection?  I would hope that number is close to 100%.  … Read more

My One and Only Sanford Post

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by publius Poor Mark Sanford – the skeletons keep spilling out of his closet.  And I suspect he’s not long for the Governor’s office. I can’t help but feel bad for him.  And I suppose this is inappropriate – but from a purely voyeuristic perspective, there’s something tragically beautiful about the whole thing in an … Read more

Quote That Man

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by publius Noted communist Michael Gerson spells out the case for emission regulation as succinctly as anyone I've read.  In particular, he notes that one of the underlying purposes of the regulation is to spur market innovation.  Take it away: Critics argue that carbon restrictions, even if fully implemented, would reduce global temperatures only by … Read more

The Great Susan Collins

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by publius Boy, this isn't going to age well (via Yglesias/Political Carnival).  Here's Susan Collins in a press conference on February 5, 2009: And these decisions are difficult. For example, I think everybody in the room is concerned about pandemic flu. Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? … Read more

Over One In Eight

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by hilzoy Brandon Friedman has a scary article in the Military Times (h/t): "The Army is in the midst of a disturbing trend that threatens not only our immediate goals in the current conflicts, but, more importantly, the long term health of the organization.  The fact is, while the Army has been lowering its entrance … Read more

Tennessee Environmental Disaster Update

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by hilzoy From the NYT, a few days ago: “In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The inventory, disclosed by … Read more

The Disaster In Tennessee

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by hilzoy I’m late to this story, but: what’s happening in Tennessee sounds horrific: “A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee … Read more

A Special Note Re: Senator Shelby

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by The Management*

Most readers know that the views expressed by Publius are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the institutional blog. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s Publius’s comments about Senator Shelby and the bailout. Shelby is a fine principled man, and he just paid all of us (except for Publius) $100. Therefore, we have a great deal of respect for his critical thinking and excellent, totally principled work product. Therefore, we are intruding and actually posting on this blog to let you know that we think Shelby is awesome. Senator — we emailed you our mailing address.

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Detroit and the Battle for Norms

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by publius So I’ve been reading Lessig’s new book Remix, which provides further examples of how idiotic our copyright policy is. I’ll write more later, but one of Lessig’s main goals is “norms” reform. That is, he wants to change what people conceive of as normal and accepted. For instance, it would be perceived as … Read more