Monday, February 26, 2007

Sy does it again

Here's the new Seymour Hersh piece, out yesterday, which will probably continue getting some attention overr the next few days. Apparently U.S. forces have been operating in Iran and the administration is making plans such that it could attack Iran asap if it decides to.

And with Seymour Hersh articles, he tends to be right.

In a CNN interview on Sunday, he said: "My own instinct is, Wolf, that this president is not going to leave office without doing something about Iran."

the good old days

Remember back when Atticus was still Atticus? You could go at the end of the night and get free bread, usually. I was there once, and perhaps benefited from the free bread a couple other times. You could do the same at their shop in New Haven (which is still Atticus). Well, that's old news to half of you, but this weekend the NYTimes caught up on the news.

couscous

Newsweek online decides that Kucinich is a real candidate.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

mooooooooooo...

Shoot, we should really stop eating meat. Anyhow, it's fascinating to read the debates of the movement:

In Satya magazine, from last year, animal rights advocates debate whether to embrace more 'humane' treatment of animals and encouraging incremental progress, or to stick to advocating only veganism. Peter Singer accepts moderate reforms -- endorsing an initiative by Whole Foods that will apparently create a somewhat meaningful standard for animal treatment -- while James LaVeck gives a strong argument that any such moves represent the co-optation of a movement by the industry. Lee Hall critiques animal welfare reform and militant action as two wrong directions.

intelligence, inshmelligence

From the LATimes:
U.N. calls U.S. data on Iran's nuclear aims unreliable

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Does Obama need Fox?

Following Fox News Channel's airing of the report (originally in Insight Magazine, whatever that is) that Obama attended a madrassah, the Obama campaign apparently froze out Fox of access for a while. The quesiton is, could they just freeze out Fox all the way? Doesn't Fox just get some of their legitimacy because people feel they have to go on to get their message out, and then, the next candidate has to go on too because the first one did? What if all the major Democratic candidates made a pact not to give them access?

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

dirty ads

Ok, so the deal, as advertised in the paper, is that if you spend $250 at Saks Fifth Avenue, you get a gift card for $25. If you spend more, you get a bigger gift card, etc. But does the headline of their ad really have to be: "spend$ome; get$ome" ??? Dude, prostitution isn't even legal in this state.

Monday, February 19, 2007

The gentleman from Massachusetts says

Mr. CAPUANO: I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I don't have prepared remarks. I have been listening
to this debate for the last couple of days, and everything that can be
said on both sides has been said repeatedly. And thus far the only
thoughtful argument I have heard to not vote for this resolution is
that somehow it will demoralize the troops. That pretends that the
troops live in a bubble and don't know what is going on and just never
think. Everybody who has done any discussions or any polling of the
troops know they already know that this war is over. It's not a
military defeat. To put it that way is ridiculous. No one can defeat
our military. It is absolutely undefeatable. It is a political defeat.
We cannot win, which I am not even sure what that means, this war.
This escalation will do nothing but delay the inevitable. America
knows it.

To listen to the discussion I have heard in the last couple of
days, all I can say to myself, if we had this attitude in the
seventies, we would still be in Vietnam. For what? For what? We have
done what we could do, and we may have to go back someday, and I may
vote for it under the right circumstances. To never say never is
ridiculous. We don't know where the cards are going to be played. We
do know one thing: that today Iraq is engaged in a civil war. One of
the leaders of that civil war isn't even in Iraq. He is in Iran. We
are only delaying the inevitable at the cost of our young men and
women. And I am not talking about money, because if this was the right
war, a moral war, money wouldn't be the issue.

This war is over. We need to recognize that. We need to stop trying
to play politics with it. Bring our troops home and prepare them for
the next battle that we might all join in if it's the right place and
the right time.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Plan B on Darfur

Back on Nov 20 of last year, Andrew Natsios, president Bush's envoy on Darfur, said that should Sudan not consent by Jan 1 to a peacekeeping force that included UN troops, the U.S. would go to "Plan B". When pressed for details, he didn't specify.

January 1 came and went, and nothing happened. It's been unclear if the U.S. has been doing nothing, or if they've at least been doing something behind the scenes.

Wednesday's Washington Post reveals some info on this, finally. Apparently we're going to block bank transactions connected to Sudan's government, and we've already placed four army observers on the Sudan-Chad border. Are these steps significant?
"Treasury's plan to block commercial bank transactions connected to the Khartoum regime, even those involving oil revenues, will be only a minor, short-term inconvenience," said Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College, who noted that Khartoum has already violated the three triggers since the start of the year. "This element of Plan B only reveals more fully its vacuous nature."

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Regarding Israel's Right to Exist

On the op-ed page of the Christian Science Monitor, John Whitbeck neatly dissects how absurd and manipulative a phrase it is.

Monday, February 05, 2007

To escalate or not to escalate

Think Progress is keeping track of where all the members of congress stand.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Aramark shown the door

Aramark will be replaced at Wes by Bon Appetit, the university announced this past week. The Argus reports:
"One of the things that was amazing about this process was that Bon Appétit was so clearly the top choice," said Annie Fox '07. "By the time we got through the interviews, the question wasn't, 'Who is our first choice?' but, 'When do we announce?'"
The article also checks in on the labor angle:
In his recent campus-wide e-mail announcing the dining service selection, Vice President for Finance and Administration John Meerts confirmed that Bon Appétit would keep the same number of employees. However, some apprehensions remain about the transition. Sue Silvestro, vice president of union chapter Local 217 and a campus dining worker for 19 years, expressed concern about some changes that could take place.

"One of our concerns was that the new service also maintain the same number of full-time positions and benefits," Silvestro said. "We were also told in meetings with administrators that working hours could be different. Right now no one knows for sure."
In other news, the new dean is already leaving.