GroupThinkTank
Revolutionizing the world, one "I agree" at a time
Sunday, October 30, 2005
David Bernat, 7:29 PM:
An Increment of Badness
A while ago Eric struck Third Eye Blind as the standard smallest increment of good in rock music. Along a similar vein, I'd like us to create a smallest increment of bad for political administration. It'd probably be something like throwing out the first pitch in game one and failing to reach the plate.
I ask because I'm a deeply rooted cynic, and I'm finding it hard to believe that the Bush party expected Harriet Meirs to be taken seriously as a judicial nominee. There are only so many inches above the fold, and I don't know, but her twenty-four days just coincides too well with Scooter Libby's indictment (who I have never seen photographed without crutches).
Sunday, October 23, 2005
stephen, 8:17 PM:
Short memory.
Senator Hutchison said she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."
*scoff*
Thursday, October 20, 2005
X-Pub, 6:10 PM:
Tom DeLay is a Scary Looking Man
I am reminded of a series of descriptions in the Illuminatis Trilogy about the heads of state in the US, USSR and PRC as being hyper-paranoid, crazy people hopped up on uppers to keep them going on a day to day basis. In any event:
it's Tom DeLay looking like he's about to crack. And if you click again, you get his arrest report. Yeah. I guess I'm gloating.
By the way, is there a way to prevent people from posting. To be clear, I am totally cool with strangers leaving comments. But the whole blogspam (hereby called "blam") stuff that we've filtered is kinda annoying.
Also, I am one postage length away from becomming a card-carrying member of the ACLU. I saw that they were involved in Monkeys v. Fundamentalists II and finally had to give in to the dark side. I was a bit disappointed in their website dealing with issues in a paranoid, unintelligent way. But oh well.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Mark Dixon, 11:28 AM:
Australia "moving toward police state"
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald said that Australia is "moving towards a police state with harsh anti-terrorism laws that could be pushed through Parliament too quickly." The laws are due to be introduced in Parliament on October 31, but the Senate will only be allowed one week to investigate them and make up their mind (shades of the USA Patriot Act, which was rushed through Congress and voted on before many members had even had a chance to read it.)
- Suspects can be held in secret preventive detention, including people "thought to have knowledge" of a terrorist act.
- Five years' jail if suspects held without charge reveal that they are in custody.
- Five years' jail for a relative of a person held in custody if the relative finds out and tells someone else.
- Contact between lawyers and suspects monitored by police.
- House arrest for "suspicious persons" for up to one year.
- Electronic tagging of suspects.
- Seven years' jail for encouraging overthrow of the government.
- Seven years' jail for encouraging someone to fight for the enemy.
- Seven years' jail for supporting insurgents.
- Seven years' jail for promoting feelings of ill will or hostility between different groups that would threaten peace.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Tom Fletcher, 10:55 PM:
Mike Russo, 12:16 AM:
No to Torture
Don't know how closely you guys are following this stuff, but a couple hours ago, the Senate voted, 90-9, to approve an amendment to the defense authorization act which would make the Army Field Manual on Interrogations binding policy for all military personnel (i.e., no torture or CID, no matter who the detainee is and no matter where you are). It's not perfect -- CIA still get to do whatever the hell they want, and DoD interpretations on what's CID are a bit, uh, narrow -- and the bill hasn't passed yet (Bush's threatened a veto). But it's still a major step in the right direction, as it's Congress getting back in the game and standing up to the Executive. It also puts people on the spot as voting for or against torture -- Frist, for example, was working behind the scenes to kill this off, but when it came to the vote, he went along. Likewise, if Bush does exercise his first-ever veto, that's some political capital he's bleeding (both for killing the amendment, but more importantly for spiking the full appropriations bill, which is a much bigger deal than the authorization act).
So I'm pretty happy -- and I can't resist saying that while I haven't actually worked on any of this stuff, some other guys from my office did a lot, behind the scenes, to make this happen.
AP story
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Tom Fletcher, 6:54 PM:
