Friday, January 4, 2013

Outserve-SLDN tells Chuck Hagel to put up or shut up

Here's what OutServe-SLDN's Allyson Robinson said to Buzzfeed:
Senator Hagel clearly has the military credentials and experience to do the job of running our nation’s Defense Department — at OutServe-SLDN, we have no doubt about that — and we appreciate his apology for the anti-gay remarks he made in 1998 and the commitment he expressed to LGBT service members and their families. It will now be incumbent upon him during the nomination and confirmation process to lay out demonstrable actions he will take to support that commitment.
Senator Hagel has said he is ‘committed to LGBT military families,’ so, if nominated and confirmed, he should immediately extend, via secretarial directive, all benefits available to married same-sex military couples and families while the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is still on the books. He said he is ‘fully supportive of open service,’ so he should extend military equal opportunity and nondiscrimination policies so that all qualified Americans who wish to serve this nation in uniform may do so without fear of harassment or discrimination. Steps such as these would do a great deal to allay the concerns many in our community have expressed over the last several weeks. I look forward in the weeks ahead to discussing these and other issues important to LGBT service members and their families with Senator Hagel and his designees.

Pentagon's Iron Curtain uses Blue Coat software to censor Democratic and gay sites, while allowing access to GOP, right wing, hate group and antigay sites

Giant message plowed into field in front of Offutt Air
Force Base outside Omaha by Chris Shotton and paid for
by a Walmart Supercenter in neighboring Bellevue. The
US Air Force is engaged in large-scale, unconstitutionally
partisan Internet censorship affecting servicemembers
UPDATE: The Pentagon says it's looking into the issues raised by AmeriBlog.
     John Aravosis at Ameriblog has discovered that the Pentagon (especially the US Air Force, if the screencaps are any indication) is still engaged in large-scale (but piecemeal) blackouts of gay and liberal websites. Complaints documenting this practice are at least six months old but haven't been addressed, evidently. Some samples provided by Aravosis' research:

Blue Coat Internet-blocking software, purchased by the DoD,
has a special, preprogrammed "LGBT" category. Aravosis
notes that Blue Coat does not offer "Latino," "Jewish,"
or "African-American" categories.
Gay sites banned:
Towleroad
Good As You
Bilerico
Pam's House Blend
Human Rights Campaign blog
Gay Ameriblog
Josh Seefried's web site (Seefried is a cofounder of OutServe, which helped get DADT repealed)

SPLC-certified antigay/hate groups allowed:
American Family Association, National Organization for Marriage

Right Wing sites allowed:
Red State, Breitbart, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter

Left Wing Sites banned:
Daily KOS

Springfield, Illinois Bishop Paprocki, who employed bondage priest, says he's worried marriage equality might force him to hire gay-married teacher


In the good old days, the Catholic Church
didn't need to worry about threats to "religious
liberty." Here you see a woodcut of anal torture
practiced during the Inquisition. The victim
was slowly rotated on a sharp point until he
died. Pope John Paul II, now on the church's
fast track to sainthood, observed, “The
Church never imposes, she only proposes.

Bishop Paprocki has been a busy guy lately. First, he finally granted a leave of absence to one of his priests after said cleric, in November, had to call 911 to come to the rectory to get him out of handcuffs and to remove a gag from his mouth (If you think this is funny, then try saying "2119 North 20th...St. Aloysius" and "Come to the 'ront door" with a mouth gag.)
     Then Paprocki had to testify to the Illinois Senate yesterday about how marriage equality, under considera­tion in the Land of Lincoln, might threaten his religious freedom. Then he had to dispatch a letter to be read at all Catholic Churches in his diocese letting parishioners know that legalizing gay couples is a lethal threat to Catholic morality. Such a week!

Government uses 'state secrets' ruse to prevent courts from ruling warrentless wiretapping unconstitutional



Wikipedia: US Air Force got its bogus 'state Secrets' dodge recognized by courts in 1953

The privilege was first officially recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953). A military airplane, a B-29 Superfortress bomber, crashed. The widows of three civilian crew members sought accident reports on the crash but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber's top-secret mission. The court held that only the government can claim or waive the privilege, but that it “is not to be lightly invoked” and that there “must be a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer.” The court stressed that the decision to withhold evidence is to be made by the presiding judge and not the executive.
     In 2000, the accident reports were declassified and released, and it was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force's case. Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in this landmark case.

Though Oscar nominations have yet to be announced, one 119-year-old contender has already won a statuette

Cook Optics, which has made lenses for the movies since 1893 (and has a letter from Thomas Edison to prove it) will receive a technical Oscar this year. The "Cooke Look" is sought after by cinematographers. Talkies put the Leicester, England company on the map when noisy arc lights had to be abandoned in favor of dimmer (but quiet) incandescents, necessitating the use of the kind of fast lenses that the company was known for. Here's an interview with the company president talking about his firm's history.

Glenn Greenwald vs. Piers Morgan vs. Andrew Sullivan


Les Mis is the disease, but the New Yorker has the cure

In a tweet, Roger Ebert noted that David Denby really, really doesn't like Les Miserables:
How awkward the staging was? How strange to have actors singing right into the camera, a normally benign recording instrument, which seems, in scene after scene, bent on performing a tonsillectomy? 
...Listen to any score by Richard Rodgers or Leonard Bernstein or Fritz Loewe if you want to hear genuine melodic invention.
     I was so upset by the banality of the music that I felt like hiring a hall and staging a nationalist rally. “My fellow-countrymen, we are the people of Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin! Cole Porter and George Gershwin, Frank Loesser and Burton Lane! We taught the world what popular melody was! What rhythmic inventiveness was! Let us unite to overthrow the banality of these French hacks!” (And the British hacks, too, for that matter.) Alas, the hall is filled with people weeping over “Les Mis.” Is it sacrilege to point out that the Victor Hugo novel, stripped of its social detail and reduced to its melodramatic elements, no longer makes much sense?
But Denby has prescribed treatment for those smitten with the musical:
...Cure No, 2. “Les Mis,” as everyone knows, is sung all the way through, like an opera. It’s an opera, however, with music not worth listening to. But if you enjoy the convention of an entirely sung play, I suggest listening to another successful piece of musical theatre based on a work by Victor Hugo—Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” which has been running continuously more or less everywhere since 1851. Read more.

Grassley extends warrantless wiretapping of your email and phone calls; complete Senate vote on H.R. 5949: FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012

Tom Harkin voted to defend your privacy from warrantless government snooping. Charles Grassley voted to fund it with your taxes. The ACLU explains several ways that this law mocks the constitution. Here are the senators who voted to extend by another five years, H.R. 5949: the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012.

Below is a good overview of the kind of surveillance state that Sen. Charles Grassley and others are enabling with billions of federal dollars. (The lecture is in English; only the intro is in German.)

Cops can't pull you over for flipping them off

Well, theoretically, anyway.

"...Nearly universal recognition that this gesture
is an insult deprives such an interpretation
of reasonableness."

     That was a judge's response to officer Richard Insogna's claim that he pulled over John Swartz and his wife because he thought Swartz was "trying to get my attention for some reason."
     Swartz flipped off the officer, who was using radar in St. Johnsville, NY, and subsequently was subsequently charged with disorderly conduct.
     In a 14-page ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit opined that the "ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity."

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Video: Columbus, Ohio gay buds and pizza truck vendor talk about group pushback to homophobe

Gay friends Ethan White and Joel Diaz talk about the 'phobe who trash-talked them while they were on line at a Mikey's Late Night Slice pizza truck. The jerk got pushback from them, from straight people around them, and from the counterman himself, who finally kicked them out of line. Later the company proclaimed on its facebook page, "No more slut sauce for you, Mr. Homophobe."


Al Jazeera buys Current TV for $400-500 million; Time-Warner Cable immediately blocks the channel

Al-Jazeera, the Pan-Arab news channel owned by the government of Qatar, has paid (according to analysts) up to $500 million for Current TV, started in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. Al-Jazeera is seen in only about 4.7 million households.
     Almost immediately, Time Warner Cable Inc., the nation's #2 cable provider, announced it is dropping Current TV due to the deal.
Time-Warner CEO Glenn A Britt
TWC
     "Our agreement with Current has been terminated and we will no longer be carrying the service. We are removing the service as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.
     Before Al-Jazeera's purchase, Current TV was in 60 million homes. Barring further defections, it will now be seen in 40 million homes.
     The Huffington Post notes:
     Al Jazeera America will be separate from Al Jazeera English, although roughly 40 percent of the new network's programming is expected to come from the English-language channel, which is based in Doha, Qatar.
     New York Times reporter Brian Stelter reported that Time Warner Cable had warned it might drop Current due to low ratings. On Twitter, Stelter noted that Al Jazeera will acquire Current's carriage deals with other cable providers, including DirecTV, Comcast, Dish, Verizon and AT&T.
     Qatar, the new owner of Current TV, is an oppresively antigay Islamic country ruled by Sharia Law. From Wikipedia:
Article 296 of the new "in force" penal code (Law 11/2004)[2] stipulate imprisonment between 1 and 5 years for sodomy.
     In 1995 an American citizen visiting Qatar was sentenced to six months in prison and 90 lashes, for homosexual activity.
     In the 1990s, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration informed Philippine workers that gay workers were prohibited in Qatar. This was in response to several mass arrests and deportations of Philippine workers in Qatar, for homosexuality.
     In 2002, protests arose concerning the new Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. Human rights critics expressed concern that LGBT medical students might face trouble with the law for their sexual orientation.
     Qatar's record on LGBT rights became a source of debate again, with gay rights groups criticizing FIFA for choosing to host the event in a country where homosexuality is illegal.
     Richard de Mos, a member of the Dutch Parliament for the Freedom Party (PVV), has proposed that the Dutch football team play in pink, instead of the country's national colour, orange, to protest the gay rights situation in Qatar.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Think Charlie Sheen's gay slur was bad? Nah, watch Gilbert Gottfried put a highly amused George Takei through the wringer

MSNBC: The campaign against Chuck Hagel



Below: Hagel vs. Joe Lieberman, disparagingly called "the Senator from Tel Aviv," on Meet The Press in 2007.

Barney Frank blasts Chuck Hagel

In a statement issued on his last day in the House of Representatives, Barney Frank excoriated Hagel's 14-year-old attack on gay US Ambassador James Hormel and Hagel's antigay voting record:
'Then-Senator Hagel’s aggressively bigoted opposition to President Clinton’s naming the first openly gay Ambassador in U.S. history was not, as Sen. Hagel now claims, an aberration,' Frank said in a statement. 'He voted consistently against fairness for LGBT people and there does not seem to be any evidence prior to his effort to become Secretary of Defense of any apology or retraction of his attack on James Hormel.  And to those of us who admire and respect Mr. Hormel, Sen. Hagel’s description of him as aggressive can only mean that the Senator strongly objected to Hormel’s reasoned, civil advocacy for LGBT people.'
Added Frank: 'I cannot think of any other minority group in the US today where such a negative statement and action made in 1998 would not be an obstacle to a major Presidential appointment.'

Monday, December 31, 2012

Congress extends warrantless wiretapping, kills sensible oversight amendments to FISA

Netflix spent $400,000 lobbying House, Senate to let them tell Facebook what you watch

(And ThinkProgress says Facebook spent $1.6 million on this.) The new bill has already been adopted by the House, and is now on its way to President Obama’s desk. Adam Serwer at Mother Jones has the latest:
Netflix's Reed Hastings
soon can disclose
your viewing habits
(Photo: Wikipedia)
Netflix: 1-866-579-7172

Last Tuesday, the Senate quietly altered a key privacy law, making it much easier for video streaming services like Netflix to share your viewing habits. How quietly? The Senate didn’t even hold a recorded vote: The bill was approved by unanimous consent. (Joe Mullin of Ars Technica was among the first to note the vote.) [...] Video streaming companies that want to share your data now only need to ask for your permission once. After that, they can broadcast your video-watching habits far and wide for up to two years before having to ask again.

Log Cabin Republicans won't say who paid for their anti-Hagel NYT ad; in NE, a pro-Hagel ad paid for by Jewish son of a Buffett Berkshire-Hathaway millionaire

"Bobby" Eisenberg placed a four-column, below-the-fold
ad in last Saturday's Omaha World-Herald supporting
the nomination of former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel.
Eisenberg's parents were early Warren Buffett investors.
(A $10,000 1956 preBerkshire-Hathaway investment
in
Buffett Associates, Ltd is now worth about half a
billion dollars..
Gay journalist Glenn Greenwald, writing for the Manchester Guardian, tried to find out who is using the Log Cabin Republicans to take down a possible Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense nomination. LCR wouldn't tell Greenwald who paid for their full-page NYT ad, which reputedly cost in excess of $140,000, money that evidently the LCR doesn't have lying around.
I posed several questions to LCR about the funding and motive behind this ad.
     In response, the group's Executive Director, R. Clark Cooper, confirmed that LCR did not pay for the ad out of its existing funds. Rather, he said, the ad campaign "is being funded by a number of donors". But he not only refused to identify any of those donors, but also has thus far refused to say whether those "donors" are from the self-proclaimed "pro-Israel" community and/or are first-time donors to LCR: in other words, whether these donors are simply exploiting gay issues and the LCR to advance an entirely unrelated agenda as a means of attacking Hagel.
     As for why LCR would suddenly object to the anti-gay record of Hagel despite a history of supporting more virulently anti-gay Republicans, Cooper claimed that "LCR is particularly concerned about Chuck Hagel as a potential Defense Secretary because of the role he would play in continuing to oversee the implementation of open service of the military." But he did not respond to my follow-up inquiry about why, then, LCR endorsed Mitt Romney - who has long supported Don't Ask, Don't Tell and other anti-gay measures - as President.
     Why would this group be so moved by concerns about a possible Defense Secretary's anti-gay record that they take out a full-page ad against him in the New York Times, but just three months ago endorsed someone who is at least as anti-gay for the position of Commander-in-Chief, which obviously has far more influence on such policies than a Defense Secretary?
     What makes this all the more inexplicable is that, a couple of weeks before the LCR ad was placed, the very same R. Clark Cooper spoke out in praise of Hagel to the Gay City News:


"I recall working with Senator Chuck Hagel and his staff during the Bush administration and he was certainly not shy about expressing his criticisms. But despite his criticisms, Hagel voted with us most of the time and there was no question he was committed to advancing America's interests abroad. As for his nomination to be secretary of defense, it is well worth noting that Senator Hagel is a combat veteran who has hands-on experience in the field. The battlefield is not just theory for him."
At some point thereafter, LCR decided not only that Hagel must be publicly smeared as anti-gay and anti-Israel, but that the group just had to take an extraordinary and incredibly expensive step - a full-page ad in the New York Times - to do so. And then magically, the substantial funding for that anti-Hagel ad materialized.
     While I agree with those who insist that a Hagel nomination would not meaningfully change administration policy, the goal of the anti-Hagel smear campaign is to ensure that there can be no debate and no diversity of views on Israel when it comes to top government officials.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Charlie Sheen goes damage controlling to TMZ:
'I meant to say maggot but I have a lisp'


This weekend, Charlie Sheen hosted the opening of his hotel bar in Cabo, Mexico, El Ganzo, where he cheerfully hurled a homophobic slur at a not-especially-gay audience, specifically saying, "How we doing? ... Lying bunch of f**got a**holes, how we doing?"
     AKSARBENT is running this because we think it A) his excuse is funny as hell, B) we don't think Sheen even thinks about homosexuality long enough to disapprove and C) even if he does, he ceased long ago to be responsible for anything that comes out of his mouth.
     Martin Sheen's unruly son offered TMZ another, alternative explanation, just in case they didn't like the first: "I meant no ill will and intended to hurt no one and I apologize if I offended anyone."


Friday, December 28, 2012

Jack Klugman on how he and Tony Randall gaybaited ABC execs; Randall on how one Odd Couple gay-censored script became his favorite episode

Jack Klugman intro to first video below:
You're going to see Tony and me hugging and kissing a lot. We did this to irritate the network executives. You see, they thought two guys living together... people will think we're gay, and in those days it would bring the ratings down. That's why they brought in the Pigeon Sisters and that stupid beginning about how our wives left us. Today, you cannot have a successful series unless you have a gay person on it.

@5:47, Tony Randall to Jack Klugman, in his underwear: "Don't let your thing show like that!"
@5:56, a series of clips showing Klugman and Randall gay-baiting ABC and Paramount;
@6:04, Tony Randall to Klugman: "Wanna have some F-U-N?
@6:54, a spit-take exchange between Tony Randall and Al Molinaro (in front of a studio audience):
Randall: I understand your wife is pregnant.
Al: I understand you've been fooling around with her.
Randall: Oh, I heard it was Oscar.
Al: I thought Oscar was a fag.
Randall: No, I heard that you were.
Al: I thought you'd never ask.


Randall on casting Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison: "We were sitting in the office of an agent named Milton Goldman, and we were racking our brains to think of who in the world could do it [Jack Klugman initially turned down the role]. We didn't have anyone and we were due to shoot, and he said, 'I've got it! Shelley Winters!' That's what you go into show business for — the laughs... Finally they convinced Jack to do it.



Matt Rousch @0:08 of second video: I'd like to focus on a few individual episodes of the Odd Couple that stand out, one being the episode "Fear of Flying" because it seems like there were some changes required by the network...
Randall: Yes. That happened twice. We had very good script. It began with me by happenstance finding something on Oscar's desk, an article in his typewriter he was working on. He was working on 'Homosexuality in Sports'  and I misunderstood it and thought it was a confessional and I said "Gee, you'd think if either one of us was, it would be me." ...That whole show was never made. You couldn't touch that subject. So, in the 'Fear of Flying' — which is my favorite of all the episodes; it was the funniest, I think — we end up taking a chartered flight. It turns out the chartered flight is a gay group, a chartered plane. They wouldn't let us do that.
     So at the last minute Gary [Marshall] rewrote it. Gary under pressure is unbeatable. He made them a parachute jumping club... It was responsible for, I think, the funniest joke I've ever come up with, because that was my line, I don't mind telling you. Before they jump, I go to the bathroom. And when I come back, the plane's empty. We never could get the line out. I just kept looking around. The line was: 'Weren't there a lot of people here?' The audience was laughing so hard you couldn't say the line.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Fox News war on atheists: Bill O'Reilly now says Christianity is a 'philosophy' not a religion


Israel First lobby now worried that Chuck Hagel would treat the Jewish state 'just like anyone else'

If you ever doubted the sense of entitlement that AIPAC, Israel, and its supporters have in respect of meddling in US policy to effect preferential treatment of an "ally" which did not send troops to fight with those of this country in either Gulf War I or Vietnam even though dozens of other countries (from Spain to Poland) did, then you need read no further than the brazen quote below from an undisclosed "Jewish Nebraskan" that we found here.
     Another politically active Jewish Nebraskan who claims to have known Hagel for “almost 20 years, politically and non-politically,” spoke to The Algemeiner on condition of anonymity. “I was alarmed with his views about Israel,” said the source.
     As Secretary of Defense, “He would treat Israel just like anyone else, no special treatment […] of course it would be damaging to Israel.”
Meanwhile, the Log Cabin Republicans have suddenly become outraged at Hagel's 14-year-old anti-gay remarks and have taken out a full page ad in the New York Times to ruin his prospects of being named Secretary of Defense.

Should names and addresses of gun owners be published?

One could easily make the same "my children's safety" argument that people use to justify the publication of the identity and location of pedophiles. Why wouldn't you want to know whether an alcoholic neighbor with an anger management problem has a gun permit and, likely, a firearm? Or whether your child is having a sleepover at a house in which assault rifles are likely to be kept? Or attending a graduation party / beer bust there?
     The Journal-News Media Group, owned by USA Today's parent company, Gannett, published a database of gun permit owners in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland, New York counties recently, eliciting much indignation from gun owners. But the story also aroused sentiment from people who don't own firearms, such as a neighbor of Richard V. Wilson, who, in May approached a female neighbor on the street and shot her in the back of the head. Said neighbor, reacting to the news that Wilson, a mentally disturbed 77-year-old man had amassed a cache of weapons, said this:
“Would I have bought this house knowing somebody (close by) had an arsenal of weapons? No, I would not have.”
Local authorities seem to have arbitrarily limited information provided the Journal-News:
...the state’s top public records expert told The Journal News last week that he thinks the law does not bar the release of other details. But officials in county clerk’s offices in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam maintain the public does not have a right to see such things as the specific permits an individual has been issued, the types of handguns a person possesses or the number of guns he or she owns — whether one or a dozen.
In a followup piece the paper wrote:
Hundreds of callers have complained, claiming publication of the database put their safety at risk or violated their privacy. Others claimed publication was illegal. Many of the callers were vitriolic and some threatened members of the newspaper staff.
     “New York residents have the right to own guns with a permit and they also have a right to access public information,” said Janet Hasson, president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Tim Tebow's bosses so desperate for talent they try out Norwegian kicker with awesome YouTube trick video who has never played American football

Now that Tebow is going to the Florida Panthers, the Jets may be going in a totally new direction, having tried out a kicker from the world's most atheist country, Norway, with a nonbeliever rate of up to 70%.


Jack Klugman dies at 90; was cast in 12 Angry Men

Klugman, best known as a costar of The Odd Couple and later, the lead in Quincy, did not get better with age as most actors do; instead he settled mostly into repetitive overacting.
     This was especially difficult to watch in The Odd Couple where, week after week, he diminished the comedic efforts of the inspired Tony Randall. Randall had a much better partner in Rock Hudson, against whom he played in all three Hudson/Day vehicles, to great effect.
     Here's a 1957 scene from 12 Angry Men in which Klugman (reputedly a charming and considerate man offscreen) showed Henry Fonda how to use a switchblade. Klugman was better before he was worse.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Zero Dark 30 torture depiction 'grossly inaccurate and misleading' say Sens. Feinstein (D-CA) and McCain (R-AZ) in letter to Sony Pictures; here's the letter

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai (left) and Zero Dark 30 director
Kathryn Bigelow
Filmmaker Alex Gibney took the film to task in a detailed article in the Huffington Post.

December 19, 2012

Mr. Michael Lynton
Chairman and CEO
Sony Pictures Entertainment
10202 W. Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232-3195

Dear Mr. Lynton:

We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie Zero Dark Thirty. We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden.

We understand that the film is fiction, but it opens with the words “based on first-hand accounts of actual events” and there has been significant media coverage of the CIA’s cooperation with the screenwriters. As you know, the film graphically depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees and then credits these detainees with providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the Usama Bin Laden. Regardless of what message the filmmakers intended to convey, the movie clearly implies that the CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for Usama Bin Laden. We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect.

Zero Dark Thirty is factually inaccurate, and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Usama Bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film’s fictional narrative.

Pursuant to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s recently-adopted Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program, Committee staff reviewed more than 6 million pages of records from the Intelligence Community. Based on that review, Senators Feinstein and Levin released the following information on April 30, 2012, regarding the Usama Bin Laden operation:
  • The CIA did not first learn about the existence of the Usama Bin Laden courier from CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques. Nor did the CIA discover the courier's identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques. No detainee reported on the courier’s full name or specific whereabouts, and no detainee identified the compound in which Usama Bin Laden was hidden. Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.
  • Information to support this operation was obtained from a wide variety of intelligence sources and methods. CIA officers and their colleagues throughout the Intelligence Community sifted through massive amounts of information, identified possible leads, tracked them down, and made considered judgments based on all of the available intelligence.
  • The CIA detainee who provided the most significant information about the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques.

In addition to the information above, former CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote Senator McCain in May 2011, stating:
“…no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier’s full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means.”
We are fans of many of your movies, and we understand the special role that movies play in our lives, but the fundamental problem is that people who see Zero Dark Thirty will believe that the events it portrays are facts. The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner. Recent public opinion polls suggest that a narrow majority of Americans believe that torture can be justified as an effective form of intelligence gathering. This is false. We know that cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners is an unreliable and highly ineffective means of gathering intelligence.

The use of torture should be banished from serious public discourse for these reasons alone, but more importantly, because it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, because it is an affront to America’s national honor, and because it is wrong. The use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America’s values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged. It remains a stain on our national conscience. We cannot afford to go back to these dark times, and with the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right.

Please consider correcting the impression that the CIA’s use of coercive interrogation techniques led to the operation against Usama Bin Laden. It did not.

Thank you for your assistance on this important matter.

Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein
Chairman
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Carl Levin
Chairman
Senate Armed Services Committee
Ex-Officio Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

John McCain
Ranking Member
Senate Armed Services Committee
Ex-Officio Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Sunday, December 23, 2012

New York Times blasts NRA, LaPierre anew

AKSARBENT doesn't ever recalling reading an editorial in the Times as pugnacious as this one or with as insulting a headline (slyly evoking comparisons between the gun group and Sadam Hussein). Published yesterday, it ripped the NRA and its president up one side and down the other. You really should read the piece in its entirety. Of course Wayne LaPierre is an easy target; he has been certifiable for a long time. Go here to see why George H.W. Bush quit the NRA in 1995 specifically because of a foaming piece by then executive vice president LaPierre.
     Here in Nebraska, Senator-elect Deb Fischer and Congressmen Adrian Smith, Jeff Fortenberry and Lee Terry are all endorsed by the NRA, and all have 92% ratings.
Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times as he said the killing was the fault of the media, songwriters and singers and the people who listen to them, movie and TV scriptwriters and the people who watch their work, advocates of gun control, video game makers and video game players.
      The N.R.A., which devotes itself to destroying compromise on guns, is blameless. So are unscrupulous and unlicensed dealers who sell guns to criminals, and gun makers who bankroll Mr. LaPierre so he can help them peddle ever-more-lethal, ever-more-efficient products, and politicians who kill even modest controls over guns.
      His solution to the proliferation of guns, including semiautomatic rifles designed to kill people as quickly as possible, is to put more guns in more places. Mr. LaPierre would put a police officer in every school and compel teachers and principals to become armed guards.
      ...We cannot imagine trying to turn the principals and teachers who care for our children every day into an armed mob... Any town officials or school principals who take up the N.R.A. on that offer should be fired.
      Mr. LaPierre said the Newtown killing spree “might” have been averted if the killer had been confronted by an armed security guard. It’s far more likely that there would have been a dead armed security guard...
      In the 62 mass-murder cases over 30 years examined recently by the magazine Mother Jones, not one was stopped by an armed civilian. We have known for many years that a sheriff’s deputy was at Columbine High School in 1999 and fired at one of the two killers while 11 of their 13 victims were still alive. He missed four times.
      People like Mr. LaPierre want us to believe that civilians can be trained to use lethal force with cold precision in moments of fear and crisis. That requires a willful ignorance about the facts... In August, New York City police officers opened fire on a gunman outside the Empire State Building. They killed him and wounded nine bystanders.

UNL's 'right wing professor,' Gerard Harbison, gives some advice to Chuck Hagel (14 years too late) about how heterosexual supremacists should behave!

"He could have voted against Hormel
without opening his big mouth
and calling him 'openly, aggressively gay.' "

Does model-of-discretion Harbison understand that leading by example is the most effective way to teach? Let's find out, class! After all, Right Wing Professor has 140-character opinions on many other subjects, too, and he charitably lets a breathless world know, via twitter, dozens of times per month!

But first, more from Harbison's blog. Did you know that he really hates sprinkler restrictions? It's true! And somehow, fags are partially responsible for this:
And while they treat the perpetually whiny lesbian and gay activist community with kid gloves, going out of their way to make nice even while members of said community concoct hoax hate crimes, they are gung ho about busting taxpayers unfortunate enough to have malfunctioning sprinkler controls.  
AKSARBENT doesn't know what the learned, gun totin', UNL professor means by "they." Cops? The Democratic Political Machine? Tom Casady and one of the aforementioned? Were there really other hate crime hoaxes from the "gay activist community" apart from the Charlie Rogers imbroglio? Because no one except Harbison seems to know about this. Could you identify them, professor? Also, what is the "gay activist community?" Are those, like, queers who want legal relationships with their partners and the right to bury them and own property as tenants-in-entirety? Is that what you mean by "whiny"? So many questions, Professor Harbison.

Perhaps it is just better to move on. After all, Harbison has lots of other weighty and important pronouncements to think about.

A few selections from the twitter wit and wisdom
of University of Nebraska at Lincoln Chemistry
Professor Gerard Harbison

On growing up in Europe, not America, and subsequently holding forth expansively about the essence of the Cornhusker State:
I like to help out-of-staters with directions. it's the Nebraska way! (8/22/2012)
Here in Nebraska, we'd be inclined to use different adjectives: 'crude', 'unprofessional', 'vulgar', 'uncollegial' (8/27/2012)
You're from Rochester, NY. You've probably never even set foot in NE (7/27/2012)

On the historic 1986 Nebraska race between Democrat Helen Boosalis and Republican Kay Orr, the first time two US women ever vied for a governorship in a general election:

In 150 years, the Nebraska Democrats have never been able to find a single woman qualified to lead the ticket. Wow. Says it all.  (8/5/2012)

On professorial demeanor and enhancing UNL's academic reputation:

(David Burge) Let's load our magazine of activism with the hollow points of awareness, and blow a hole of understanding in the torso of intolerance.
(Gerard Harbison) But gently! (8/15/2012)
@ThatOtherChris so, do you think #harryreidisapederast ? (7/31/2012)
Please don't RT #harryreidisapederast , because every time you RT #harryreidisapederast , #harryreidisapederast trends higher! (7/31/2012)
A hooker I met in Nevada told me #harryreidisapederast But that might be because he stiffed her. And not in a good way. (7/31/2012)
I clicked on a button on Bob Kerrey's web site, and now I'm making a nuisance of myself here. Whee! Anyone got any meth? (7/29/2012)
The American Burying Beetle uses the rotting flesh of dead rodents to raise maggots. A fitting mascot for @boldnebraska! (8/2/2012)

On scientific investigation and drawing reasoned conclusions:
I don't know that #harryreidisapederast but that resemblance to the old pedophile on Family Guy surely can't be coincidence? Can it? (7/31/2012)

On the millions of dollars Chick-fil-A's company charity has donated to some of the nastiest antigay pressure groups in America, including SPLC hate group, the Family Research Council:
Wish we had a @Chick-Fil-A in #lnk. Good food and good cause today.
Retweeted by Gerard Harbison (8/1/2012)

On Willie Nelson having settled with the IRS almost 20 years ago, in 1993, after discovering that his accounting firm, Price Waterhouse, which he sued, hadn't been paying his taxes:
With the millions of unpaid taxes he owes, shouldn't Willie Nelson be writing a check to the US Treasury, and not @kerreybob? (8/9/2012)
@kerreybob re: milking taxpayers, will you press Willie Nelson to pay the $$$m he still owes the IRS, when he fundraises for you? (8/6/2012)

On the oppression of the white race, which can never catch a break, especially with a black man in the White House:
Obama campaigns today in Charlotteville VA. Plaquemines parish, LA, being socked by Isaac. 70% white, so drownings are of no consequence. (8/29/2012)
Being called racist is merely a testimony to one's debating skills. (7/27/2012)

On finally being banned from sending further comments to the Nebraska Democrats twitter feed:
O noes! Blocked by the @NebraskaDems ! I must have made them cry! I'm so sorry, little guys! I didn't know you were sensitive! (8/23/12)

On safe computing practices:
If anyone got a DM from me in the last 6 hours, don't click on the link. It's the koobface Twitter/Facebook virus. Yes, I'm a moron. (8/21/2012)

On being a selfish pig during an historic drought:

The city fails to provide the citizens with an adequate supply of water. Justice therefore requires that the citizens be fined. #LNK (8/19/2012)

On kneejerk fanboy adulation of reactionary politicians:

Paul Ryan rocked. (8/29/2012)
Chris Christie seriously rocked. (8/28/2012)

On steadfast family values and domestic violence:
Main reason both my wives have been American: Irish women punch too darn hard. (8/9/2012)

Windows 8 war on Linux: how "secure boot" stops you from running Linux on some new PCs

CNET reports that a new feature included in the operating system in the name of security may also effectively make it impossible to load Linux on officially Windows 8-certified hardware.
The problem derives from Microsoft's decision to use a hardware-based secure boot protocol known as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in Windows 8 rather than the traditional BIOS we're all familiar with...  
     Essentially, the technology is designed to protect against rootkits and other low-level attacks by preventing executables and drivers from being loaded unless they bear a cryptographic signature conferred by a dedicated UEFI signing key.
     “There is no centralised signing authority for these UEFI keys,” Garrett explained. “If a vendor key is installed on a machine, the only way to get code signed with that key is to get the vendor to perform the signing. A machine may have several keys installed, but if you are unable to get any of them to sign your binary then it won't be installable.”     Microsoft has said it will require that Windows 8 logo machines ship with secure boot enabled.
Microsoft claims that Linux infringes 235 of its patents and has recently made Casio obtain licenses to run the open source operating system.
In the last four years, the software giant has been quietly threatening legal action for any Linux-using company that refuses to sign patent deals with it. Amazon, Novell, Linspire, TurboLinux and Xandros have all put their X on the dotted line. Others, like satnav maker TomTom, ended up in court, but eventually settled.
     Microsoft has also used the Linux-related patents, among others, to target Google's Android, already succeeding in getting HTC, Acer, Viewsonic and two small hardware manufacturers – Onkyo and Velocity Micro – into licensing agreements.
Brad Linder of Liliputing explains how PC buyers should shop for a Windows 8-certified PC to keep their Linux options open:
Before a computer boots Windows, OS X, Linux, or any other operating system it loads system-level firmware. For the past few decades most PCs have used something called BIOS to recognize your hardware and load the appropriate operating system. But there’s a new kid in town called UEFI, (which is what Macs have been using for the past few years)...
     In fact, in order to qualify for the Windows Certification program, a computer will have to use UEFI 2.3.1 or newer and have “secure boot” enabled by default. This feature is designed to prevent malware from infecting your bootloader by preventing unuathorized code from running when you first boot your computer.
     ...If the feature is turned on you may not be able to replace Windows 8 with the operating system of your choice or create a dual boot setup.
     ...In order to slap a Windows logo on a Windows 8 PC, hardware makers will have to ensure that secure boot is turned on by default. But there’s absolutely nothing preventing PC makers from giving customers the option to turn off that setting.
     Of course, there’s also nothing requiring them to do so… and so it’s possible that some companies won’t bother to make sure the UEFI included with their prebuilt computer systems include an option to disable secure boot... we won’t really know if there’s a problem for Linux users until Windows 8 computers start to ship — or you can just build a computer yourself using components that are known to work with the operating system you choose to use.

Belgian newspapers go after competing media
— with a clever video


(Via Towleroad)

Betty Bowers nails it again

Because it's not really about the Westboro Baptist Church, it's about the other religions for which the "God Hates Fags" crowd provides cover.


(Via JoeMyGod, Towelroad, et al., see Bloglist)

ShareThis