Amazon: We're Going to Lose

Macmillan E-books - kindle Discussion Forum

Dear Customers:

Macmillan, one of the "big six" publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.

Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!

Thank you for being a customer.

What can I say other than "Bitch, please."

A mission? Give me a fucking break. If Amazon was on a mission to do anything, it was a mission to make publishers their bitches and tell them what they could charge for their product. Which, in the long run, affects the writers' bottom line, because most of our royalties are based on sale price.

I believe that e-books should be priced lower. I don't think that price should be dictated by a single retailer.

Torture Works...Well, Maybe Not So Much

Latest Newspaper Column:

Unless you're a real hard-core news geek, the name John Kiriakou probably doesn't ring any bells with you.

Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's "intelligence analysis and operational directorates," is not, to put it mildly, one of the better-known figures in the whole debate over national security and the fight against terrorists. But I'm willing to bet you've heard about a statement he's made, because it's one of those statements that's been woven indelibly into the wingnut tapestry of talking points on the subject of torture.

Back in December 2007, Kiriakou (hereinafter referred to as "Mr. K") gave an interview to ABC's Brian Ross (one of the Right's most reliable water-carriers in the so-called "liberal media").

In that interview, Mr. K asserted that Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda commander, had cracked under a single short session of the torture technique known as "waterboarding." Further, said Mr. K., "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

That statement was all that the torture fans of Wingnut Nation like Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan needed to hear. Torture works, Limbaugh crowed while reporting on the ABC interview. "Thirty to 35 seconds, and he was done."

Except, as it turns out, Mr. K. didn't really know what he said he knew. In his recent memoir, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror," Mr. K admits that he wasn't there when the interrogation took place. "Instead," he said, "I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time."

And, he goes on to say, the information he got may have been part of a disinformation campaign within the CIA itself: "In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own."

Further, Mr. K. reiterated an assertion that had come out since his interview: Zubaydah wasn't just waterboarded once; he was tortured 83 times in one month - "raising questions," Mr. K admits, "about how much useful information he actually supplied."

So to sum up, the guy who told everyone that torture works, and that torturing a top al-Qaeda commander saved lives, now says, "Well, maybe not so much." But, as we've seen over and over, once a talking point gets woven into that tapestry, it's almost impossible to pull it out.

Within a few days after the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner by a poorly trained teenager who botched the job, Buchanan went on CNN to demand that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab be tortured.

"We need to deny him his pain medication," Buchanan insisted, his voice rising hysterically until I began to wonder if soon only dogs would be able to hear him. "We need to subject him to harsh interrogation!"

Even the information that Mutallab was -apparently fully cooperating with the investigation didn't assuage Buchanan's lust to see him tortured, because, he asserted, we've "proved" that torture works.

Except we haven't. But the American Right seems determined to follow the words of St. Ronald Reagan, who famously said, "Facts are stupid things." They're aided in carrying out that belief by the so-called "liberal" media. ABC, for example, after heavily promoting Mr. K's interview back in 2007, has now conveniently buried his recantation deep in the back pages of its Web site.

The Right loves torture. They love it so much that, as Buchanan's rant shows, they want to torture people who are already talking. They don't really care if it works or not, because it's really not about gathering information. It's about taking out their rage and fear on someone, preferably someone who looks different from them. And they'll seize on any so-called justification for that, whether that justification turns out to be true or not.

So please, don't confuse them with the facts. And don't expect the "liberal" media to set the record straight when those "facts" turn out not to be facts at all.

Amazon Pulls All McMillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement

Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement -NYTimes.com:

To make a long story short, Amazon decided to play hardball with McMillan in negotiations over e-book pricing, so you now cannot buy from them ANY books, e- or otherwise, which are published by McMillan or its imprints. Those imprints include my publisher, St. Martin's Minotaur.

So...

Powell's Books

Park Road Books

Murder By the Book

Barnes & Noble

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Quote of the Day

From the New Yorker profile of writer Neil Gaiman:

If he had not been a writer, he says, he would have wanted to design religions. “I’d have a little shop, and people would phone up or come into the shop and they’d say, ‘I’d like a religion,’ ” he said. “And I’d say, ‘Cool, O.K. Where do you stand on guilt, and how do you want to fund it? And would you like sort of a belief in the universe as a huge beneficent organ? Or would you like something more complex?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, we’d like God to be really big on guilt.’ And I’d say, ‘O.K., how does Wednesday sound to you as a sacred day?’ ”

You gotta love this guy.

For The Flashman Fans

Flashman's Retreat provides a daily meditation from the pen of Brigadier General Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, (aka Flash Harry), George McDonald Fraser's beloved anti-hero. A typical selection:

I know these beauties, you see, and it don’t matter whether they’re queens or commoners, when they start to play the cool, mocking grande dame it’s a sure sign that they’re wondering what kind of mount you’ll make.

And:

I told him I had ambitions, too – to live as I please, love as I please and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that , I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that…“Courage – and shuffle the cards”.

No Principles Whatsoever

Talking Points Memo

...every Senate Republican today voted against reestablishing "pay-as-you-go" budgeting rules that mandate that any new spending must be paid for. The rule passed on a 60-40 party line vote.

So when Senate republicans talk about being worried about the deficit, they don't really mean it.

...And I Feel Fine

I'm blogging today over at Murderati about e-books, cavemen, and why the sky is not falling. Y'all come!

Why We Fight

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Poor to 'Stray Animals' - Sphere News

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," he told an audience in the town of Fountain Inn on Friday. "You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

You want to know why I'm so hard on Republicans? It's shit like this. Comparing poor people to stray animals who shouldn't be fed, lest they breed.

These people are vicious, thuggish assholes, and they want to rule the country again.

Jesus, is every SC politician out of his damn mind?

A Fine Tribute

There's an online wake of sorts going on for Robert B. Parker over at The Rap Sheet. It's as fine a set of tributes from as fine a set of writers as you're likely to find, notwithstanding the presence of Yours Truly.

Do drop by and add your own reminiscences.

To the Congressional Democrats: MAN UP!

Latest Newspaper Column:

After Republican Scott Brown's recent win in Massachusetts over Democrat Martha Coakley for the Senate seat held by Teddy Kennedy for 47 years, the liberal Village Voice ran a headline: "Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate."

The Voice is not, it should be noted, mathematically challenged. It's merely engaging in a little dig at the way the congressional Democrats seem to have reacted to the news. In fact, Senate Democratic leaders circulated a set of talking points after Brown's victory that contained the eye-popping sentence: "It is mathematically impossible for Democrats to pass legislation on our own."

Say what? I'm no math whiz, but last time I checked, 59-41 was still a majority. And majorities can get stuff done if they're willing to use their votes. As numerous pundits have pointed out, even at their high-water mark, the Republicans never had the presidency, 59 votes in the Senate and 59 percent of the House.

And not once do I recall them circulating a flier that claimed they couldn't get anything done and begging the Democrats for votes. Heck, in the 1998 midterm, they lost seats in the House and pressed ahead with impeaching the president anyway, despite polls telling them how unpopular the move was among the electorate.

The problem, of course, is the Senate, whose archaic rules allow not just a minority but a single senator to hold things up indefinitely, not only through the filibuster, but through a variety of other arcane rules.

One of these is the "hold," like the one South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint put on President Obama's nominee for the head of the Transportation Safety Administration. DeMint, who's been one of the most terror-stricken of the panic-mongers in the wake of the Christmas Undiebomber, would still apparently rather see the TSA go leaderless than take the risk they might unionize.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempted attack, DeMint said in trying to justify his obstructionism, "is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA."

Get that? If the TSA unionizes, it won't be able to stop terrorist attacks. We're so dedicated to this principle, we're going to render the TSA leaderless. The fact that there was an attempted terrorist attack during this leaderless period just proves our point, even though the TSA was not, at the time of the attempt, unionized. And we let people like this have effective veto power over the majority.

Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. The Democrats could grow a spine and start calling bluffs. If Holy Joe Lieberman threatened to filibuster a health-care bill, despite the fact that he'd gotten changes he'd previously demanded, they could say, "Fine, Joe. Knock yourself out. We'll give your Homeland Security chairmanship to someone else while you run your mouth."

Then, while he's reading the phone book on the Senate floor, they could run ads 24/7 with Joe's mug up on the screen and a voice-over saying, "This is the guy who wants you to lose your health insurance if you get sick. This is the guy who wants you to be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. Call him now."

Or, in the alternative, they could vote to change the rules. But that would require the aforementioned spine.

Back when I first started writing this column, in the days before the GOP started screaming "traitor" at everyone who didn't think George W. Bush was the greatest thing since sliced bread and drove me into the Democratic Party, I was proud to call myself an independent (you can look it up).

Back in those days, I was fond of quoting Jay Leno: "Every time I think I'm going to join the Republicans, they do something greedy; every time I think of becoming a Democrat, they do something stupid." To this I would add, "Or they wimp out."

You're not going to win seats, or even keep them, by allowing the other side to make you look weak. Quit worrying about what Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh's going to call you. They're going to hate you no matter what you do.

C'mon, guys, man up!

Not So Wild About Harry (Updated)

Latest Newspaper Column (Director's Cut):

I find myself in a somewhat strange position when writing about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his recent "gaffe."

In case you hadn't heard, a recent tell-all book about the 2008 presidential campaign quotes Reid as saying that Barack Obama could be elected president because he is a "light-skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Republicans immediately jumped on the statement, started clutching their pearls, and began having attacks of the vapors as only they can.

They acted as if Reid had appeared in blackface at the Democratic National Convention and made jokes about stealing watermelons. Every Republican from RNC Chairman Michael Steele on down demanded, at the very least, Reid's immediate resignation.

This puts me in an odd situation, because, you see, I've never had a whole lot of use for Harry Reid. He's one of those Democrats that I describe as 'Republican Lite." He's anti-choice and thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned. He voted in 2003 for Dubbya's War. Anyone who'd call Harry Reid a "liberal" can immediately be dismissed as an ignoramus.

I hadn't thought anyone could be more useless and spineless as Reid was as minority leader, until he became majority leader, where he continues to act as if he's afraid of the Republicans, even though his party has the majority. When I read a few weeks ago that Reid might be having trouble holding on to his seat, my first reaction was, "Good. Let's get a majority leader with a backbone."

But when this started becoming the scandal du jour, I found myself in the same position that I was in during the presidential election in regards to Hillary Clinton. As you may remember, I had little use for Mrs. Clinton then, but some of the attacks on her, like the whole brouhaha over whether she left a tip at a diner or the fretting about whether she showed too much cleavage at some campaign function, were just too silly not to make fun of.

Here, likewise, there are plenty of reasons I'd like to see Harry Reid gone, but this is just silly.

The thing is, I haven't heard from a single black person, even Michael Steele, who's said they're personally offended by Reid's statement. President Obama (whom Reid supported during the election) accepted Reid's apology and has said he considers the matter closed. Dear Lord, even Al Sharpton hasn't gotten indignant, and he gets indignant about everything.

No, the entire Republican argument is based on that most cherished of Republican values: payback.

The argument, such as it is, goes that Reid should step down because Trent Lott had to step down for his own racial remarks back in 2002. Lott, you may remember, was majority leader back in the days when the GOP brain trust was smugly looking forward to a "permanent Republican majority."

At a 100th birthday party given for South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, Lott crowed that "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years!"

Now, people had a problem with this because Thurmond's presidential campaign was explicitly based on white supremacy and opposition to desegregation and civil rights. Lott was nostalgically endorsing a campaign in which Thurmond gave a speech saying, "There's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

That's the sort of "problem" Lott was saying we could have avoided had we only voted Strom in. And remember, it wasn't just Democrats criticizing Lott. Even President George Dubbya Bush called Lott's comments "offensive and wrong." That, more than anything else, is what sealed Lott's fate.

Certainly what Reid said was boneheaded and insensitive, not to mention archaic (does anyone even use the word "Negro" seriously anymore?) But it's not a double standard to distinguish between saying, "You know, that guy doesn't sound black" and saying, "Doggone, wouldn't things have been a lot better if we'd elected a president who'd have vetoed civil rights legislation for black people and kept them out of the theaters, swimming pools, and churches?"

I wouldn't mind seeing Harry Reid return to Nevada. But not for this.

UPDATE:

Frank Rich's Op_Ed at the NYT sheds some light on what might be Steele's real motivation:

On Jan. 9 The Washington Post ran a front-page article headlined “Frustrations With Steele Leaving G.O.P. in a Bind,” reporting, among other embarrassments, that the party had spent $90 million during Steele’s brief reign while raising just $84 million. Enter “Game Change,” right in the nick of time for Steele to pull off his own cunning game change. On Jan. 10 he stormed “Fox News Sunday” and “Meet the Press” to demand Reid’s head. There has been hardly a mention of Steele’s sins since. He can laugh all the way to the bank.

His behavior is not anomalous. Steele is representative of a fascinating but little noted development on the right: the rise of buckrakers who are exploiting the party’s anarchic confusion and divisions to cash in for their own private gain. In this cause, Steele is emulating no one if not Sarah Palin, whose hunger for celebrity and money outstrips even his own.

Moronic Question of the Week

"Firefly' Actor Adam Baldwin (adamsbaldwin) on Twitter, referring to Haiti relief efforts:

Exit Q: how much of O's own $cash$ did O 'sacrifice'/send?

I've heard some stupid shit lately from conservatives, but this has to be in the top 5.

Gee, Adam, I dunno. How much of Dubbya's own pocket money did he send to Katrina victims? How much did Clinton send to victims of the Oklahoma City bombing?

Jesus H. Christ. Are conservatives really so desperate for something to slam Obama with that they're reduced to THIS? I guess playing a thuggish, moronic asshole on FIREFLY wasn't that much of an acting stretch.

The Story No One Wants You To Hear: We're Winning

Taliban and Al Quaeda leaders are being killed at an increasing rate. Civilian casualties are down. Recruitment of Afghans to defend their country from terrorists is up. Al Quaeda's strike attempts are growing smaller, sloppier and more amateurish.

We're winning. I don't expect the Republicans to admit it, because, in contrast to what they claimed about liberals, they really DO want us to lose so they can regain the power they pissed away so badly. I don't expect the mainstream "liberal" media to admit it, because they're terrified Republican Brownshirts like Liz Cheney will claim they're biased or that they're downplaying the threat.

But why the hell aren't the Democrats pushing this story? If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama go on TV and said, "we're not out of the woods yet, but we're making real progress," what the hell are Liz n' Dick Cheney and Pat Buchanan going to say? "No, we're losing?" Good luck with that message.

An Open Letter to Netflix

Dear Netflix:

I'm doing this as an "open letter" because you don't seem to have any way via e-mail to address this complaint, nor does your "contact by phone" number offer any help.

When I first started using your service, I thought it was fantastic. Movies delivered to my mailbox, no late fees, and most importantly, new releases available on the date of release or at least very soon after. When I saw the previews for the DVD release of a movie I'd been wanting to see, I'd often go right to the computer and put it on the queue. It was so great and so convenient that I told all my friends about Netflix.

Now, however, service has dropped off badly. THE HANGOVER has been listed as a "very long wait" for weeks. I finally took FOUR CHRISTMASES off the queue when it was still a "very long wait" after New Year's. Now I see The HURT LOCKER, which I'd really been looking forward to, is going to be a "long wait."

Here's my question: if I'm going to end up going to Movie Gallery anyway to rent the new movies I really want to see, why the heck am I paying you?

As I noted above, when I like something a lot, I tell all my friends. The same is true when something disappoints me.

Jerry D. Rhoades, Jr.

Readers: anyone else having this problem?

Hype

We're discussing the movie PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and the question "Hype: Blessing or Curse?" today at Murderati.com. Stop by!

I'm Almost Afraid To Ask

As you may have noticed, when I re-enabled comment moderation, I also turned off the annoying word verification feature. Word verification is used to make sure that there's a human commenting and not some robot spam-posting program. I figured that, if I was going to be approving comments anyway, I'd just discard the spam manually and save y'all the trouble of trying to decipher the wavy letters and such.

Well, that's exposed me to some of the spam that's out there, and let me tell you, the Internet has gotten stranger than even I imagined. One site whose 'bots keep trying to sneak a link into my comment stream is apparently one that features videos of women giving birth. I haven't dared click through because frankly, seeing that twice (three times if you count the video in Lamaze class) is enough for one lifetime, thank you.

But WTF? Is this, like a fetish or something? If so, may i just say EEEEEUUUUUUUW!

The O RLY? Factor

Latest Newspaper Column:

The kids on the Internet have a saying, or as it's known, a "meme." Whenever an Internet discussion gives rise to a claim that's patently absurd, someone is likely to respond with "O RLY?"

Pronounced "Oh, really?" it's a response that indicates anything from mild skepticism to outright scorn. For some reason, it's often paired with a goofy picture of a quizzical looking owl.

Well, you know me, always hip to what's happenin' now with the youths on the webs, there. So, without further ado, we bring you a column we call The O RLY? Factor:

First, there's hysteric-in-chief Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who got his knickers in a bunch when the failed Christmas Day attack on an American airliner was described as an "attempt." Hoekstra took to his Twitter account to try and raise the fear level: "It was a terrorist attack!" he tweeted. "Just not as successful as they (AQ) planned."

O RLY? Well, perhaps Rep. Hoekstra was so eager to politicize the incident that he didn't exactly think through the implications of what he was saying. See, it's a wingnut article of faith that "Thanks to George W. Bush, America wasn't attacked after 9/11."

If, however, you've changed the rules so that even an attempt counts as an attack, then that talking point goes right out the window, because there was a nearly identical failed attack by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. And therefore, all of Bush's waterboarding, wiretapping, renditions and "black sites" didn't keep us that safe after all, now did they?

Unless, of course, you attempt to rewrite history even further, like former White House mouthpiece Dana Perino, who asserted on TV, apparently with a straight face, that "We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

O RLY? I seem to remember that Dubbya was inaugurated in January 2001 and that the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred in September of that year. Now, I'm no fancy political consultant like Ms. Perino, but I do have a nifty little device called a "calendar" that tells me that Sept. 11, 2001, was during President Bush's term.

Ms. Perino went on to insist that the terrible massacre at Fort Hood must be described as a terrorist attack. "We owe it to the American people to call it what it is," Perino said.

O RLY? Because so far, no one has developed any evidence that I know of that Nidal Malik Hasan was anything but a lone Muslim nutball who thought he was killing in the name of Allah.

But if we're going to call attacks by lone Muslim nutballs "terrorist attacks," then, as we've mentioned before in this column, you have to include DC sniper John Allan Muhammad, who was, according to his partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, engaged in "jihad."

You have to include Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who drove his SUV into a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to, in his words, "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world" and follow in the steps of his hero, 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta. And so, we're back to attacks on our country during Bush's term.

The star of today's O RLY? Factor, however, is former Vice President Dick "Shooter" Cheney, who's broken with years of tradition and decorum to try and undermine the president. (I remember when this was called "treason," but that's a rant for another day.) President Obama, Cheney sneered, "pretends we're not at war" with terrorists.

O RLY? This might come as a surprise to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, or his deputy Khwaz Ali Mehsud, or to the top Al Quaeda official in Somalia, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. It might come as a surprise to Al Quaeda trainers Mufti Noor Wali and Abdullah Hamas al Filistini, not to mention senior Al Quaeda commander Zuhaib al Zahibi.

It might come as a surprise to them, that is, if they weren't all dead, just a few of the many terrorists killed by American forces in the past year.

It would definitely come as a surprise to those same forces who are still being deployed in the fight against Al Qaeda and their sponsors in the Taliban. Guess Shooter forgot about them.

This has been the O RLY? Factor. We report, you deride.

And just remember: The wingnuts only think they can get away with these outrageous lies because they think you're too stupid to know the difference.

RLY.

The Right Profiling

The Toronto Star has in interesting article on Israeli airport security and what we might learn from it. You've got to admit, they've been pretty effective in recent years.

The approach, in a nutshell, is centered around looking at people, not just their bags or their shoes or their toiletries. There's profiling, sure, but it's profiling based on behavior:

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," [transportation security consultant Rafi] Sela said. Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" — behavioural profiling.

And as you get deeper into the airport, personnel continue to check you out for signs that you might be about to do something nutty:

You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side? "The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds,"

When you finally get to the luggage check:

"First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."

And here's the kicker: It's faster.

The goal at Ben-Gurion airport is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

So why don't we do it this way? The article cites bureaucratic inertia and resistance to change, which is certainly part of it. But I think there's something more going on.

See, in order to make a system like that work, you've got to hire smart people and you've got to train them well. And if you want people like that, you've got to pay them well.

A smart, trained workforce demanding a decent wage is the last thing people like Jim DeMint want...hell, they might do something worse than blowing up a plane. They might actually join a union.

You get what you pay for.

Wow, They're Not All Crazy

Republican Lugar Says Cheney’s Criticism of Obama Is ‘Unfair’ - Bloomberg.com

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended President Barack Obama’s handling of recent terrorism threats, taking issue with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism.

“It’s unfair,” Lugar said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “I think the president is focused.”

Cheney, who frequently has led Republican attacks on the Democratic president since leaving office a year ago, told Politico on Dec. 29 that Obama “is trying to pretend we are not at war” with a “low-key response” to the Dec. 25 attempt to ignite a bomb aboard a flight to Detroit.

To the contrary, Obama has demonstrated “firmness” and “decisiveness,” Lugar, who represents Indiana, said. “That’s been the antidote to the criticism.”

Still, the U.S. may be focusing too much on Afghanistan at a time when al-Qaeda is finding havens in other hot spots such as Yemen and Somalia, Lugar said. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian indicted in the Detroit plane plot, allegedly received his training in Yemen.

“I suspect that we will have to try to think through why we went to Afghanistan,” Lugar, 77, said.

Now see, this is how you do it. Reasoned criticism, credit where credit is due, some idea that we can have a rational debate. As opposed to hysterical demands that a suspect be tortured even though he's already cooperating, and lies about how the President Obama doesn't use the word "terrorism," or that he doesn't think we're at war?

How long you think it will be before some teabagger starts demanding the RNC cut off Lugar's campaigning funding for insufficient purity?

The Big Lie

The Washington Monthly:

The accusation that the president and his team decline to use the words "terror" or "terrorism" wasn't just some off-hand line uttered by a Fox News personality -- it was a charge levied repeatedly by Republican House members, senators, and a certain former vice president, all of whom insisted with a straight face that the Commander in Chief refuses to use a word that he's repeatedly over and over again throughout his presidency.

The entire basis for two weeks of GOP accusations is nothing but a pathetic lie. There's simply no other way to put it.

Push back with the facts. The so-called 'liberal" media isn't going to do it.

In Which I Actually Praise The Weekly Standard

Credit where credit is due: The Weekly Standard is apparently the only news outlet that's noticed this:

But the media is missing the bigger story in Yazid’s speech [praising the suicide bombers who killed CIA agents]...

Al Qaeda has confirmed that Abdullah Said al Libi the leader of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army, the terror group's military organization along the Afghan and Pakistani border was among those killed. Al Libi is one of al Qaeda’s most senior commanders and was behind al Qaeda most brazen and deadly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. For more on al Libi, his successor, Ilyas Kashmiri, and the Lashkar al Zil, see this report at The Long War Journal.

When US Fighters killed Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in World War II it was front page news. Time magazine opined that

When the name of the man who killed Admiral Yamamoto is released, the U.S. will have a new hero. Said one veteran of Pacific service: "The only better news would be a bullet through Hitler."

But our so-called "liberal" media--you know, the people who are supposedly "in the tank" for Obama--are apparently more interested in Crasher-gate, Tiger Woods' mistresses, and serving as stenographers for political opportunists like Hoekstra, DeMint and Cheney who are the real people trying to pretend that we're not at war...and furthermore, pretending we never score any victories.

Another One Bites the Dust

The Long War Journal: Al Qaeda has confirmed that the US killed the leader of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army, the terror group's military organization along the Afghan and Pakistani border.

Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, said that Abdullah Said al Libi was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan. Yazid confirmed that Al Libi was killed in a tape praising the suicide attack on the CIA base in Khost. Yazid also confirmed that Saleh al Somali, al Qaeda's former external operations chief, was also killed in a US attack.

Bet these guys don't think President Obama's "pretending we're not at war."

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/us_killed_al_qaedas.php#ixzz0bwoLwZJb

I've got to ask this hypothetical. If, during WW II, we'd confirmed that a US Airstrike had killed, say, Nazi Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, or Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, or someone of equal stature, wouldn't it be front page news?

So how come it's left to obscure blogs to report victories in the war on al Quaeda?

Quote of the Day

Dana King, commenting at murderati.com:

I'm operating under King's Corollary to the Golden Rule:

I treat everyone as I would like to be treated myself, and grant all other the same privilege. Therefore, when I encounter someone who is an inconsiderate asshole, I can only assume that's how they would like to be treated in turn, and it would be impolite of me to treat them any other way.

The Chutzpah Mavens of Greater Wingnuttia

Latest Newspaper Column:

There's a word in Yiddish that's been on my mind a lot lately: chutzpah.

Leo Rosten's "The Joys of Yiddish" defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery." The classic illustration of the concept is the story of the boy who kills both parents and then asks the court for mercy because he's an orphan.

In the recent debate over health-care reform, the members of the Republican caucus are giving that fictional defendant a run for his money.

As you may remember, different proposals for health-care reform have been enacted in the House and the Senate. Not a single Republican voted "yes" to the Senate proposal, and only one voted for the House one. One reason given for the Rs' opposition was that the proposals were too big and too expensive, even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that the proposals will actually reduce the deficit in the long run.

Only one journalist in the so-called "liberal" media, Charles Babington of The AP, has dared ask the question: So how come you guys are so opposed to what you describe as a big, expensive government medical-care program when you voted for the huge, costly and deficit-expanding Medicare prescription drug benefit, which created a $9.4 trillion unfunded liability over the next 75 years (according to the Medicare trustees)?

The answers from Republican senators varied, but all were classic illustrations of chutzpah:

-- We Were All Wild and Free Back Then: Orrin Hatch of Utah claims, "We were concerned about it, because it certainly added to the deficit, no question." He then goes on to say, however, that "it was standard practice not to pay for things" in 2003. Geez, I wish I'd known that. I could have scarfed myself a new car.

-- Because Shut Up, That's Why: Olympia Snowe of Maine, an alleged moderate who the White House hoped in vain might provide a crucial swing vote, would apparently rather not talk about her own vote for an expensive government-run health-care plan. "Dredging up history is not the way to move forward," she said.

-- That Was Then, This Is Now: Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio admits that those who see hypocrisy "can legitimately raise that issue." But, he says, "the economy is in worse shape and Americans are more anxious." Well, geez, George, if you run around telling people the sky is falling, as your caucus has been doing for months, I guess it's not surprising that people are anxious. Not to mention the fact that the economy crashed at the end of eight years of Republicans in the White House.

Of course, mentioning that last fact is just like waving a red flag to the chutzpah mavens of Greater Wingnuttia, like former Dick Cheney staffer Mary Matalin.

Recently on CNN, Matalin bitterly complained that President Obama "never gives a speech where he doesn't explicitly or implicitly look backwards," then went on to say: "We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it."

I have to take a moment and just admire the sheer gall of that statement. First, there's the brazen effrontery involved in complaining about Obama mentioning that he inherited a bad economy from George Dubbya Bush, then, in the very next sentence, complaining that her bosses had inherited a bad economy from Bill Clinton. Then there's the fact that the recession Matalin claimed they "inherited" didn't begin until March of 2001.

But wait, there's more. Matalin claims that the Bush administration "inherited" a terrorist attack that occurred eight months into Dubbya's Reign of Error, eight months in which his top counterterrorism adviser was frantically trying to get a meeting on the threat, eight months during which Dubbya was handed a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S." and responded by dismissively telling the CIA officer who delivered it, "OK, now you've covered your ass."

But, you know, it's bad form to talk about the past, except when you're trying to blame a Democrat. It's just horrible and partisan to try and place blame for a terrorist attack, unless you're trying to pin it on Bill Clinton.

Why isn't this hypocrisy? Because shut up, that's why.

Now THAT's chutzpah.

So Obama's Not Treating Terrorism Seriously Enough, Eh?

U.S. Kills Top Qaeda Militant in Southern Somalia, September 14, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya — American commandos killed one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa in a daylight raid in southern Somalia on Monday, according to American and Somali officials, an indication of the Obama administration’s willingness to use combat troops strategically against Al Qaeda’s growing influence in the region.

TalibanLeader In Pakistan Killed by Predator Strike, August 7, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American and Pakistani officials said Friday they were increasingly convinced that an American drone strike two days earlier had killed Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s enemy No.1 and the leader of its feared Taliban movement.

Terror Case Is Called One of the Most Serious in Years (September 24, 2009)

WASHINGTON — Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought.

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested Sept. 24, 2009, after authorities said he parked a vehicle laden with government-supplied fake explosives in the underground parking garage of Fountain Place, a 60-story tower in downtown Dallas.
The arrest was part of an FBI sting operation that began more than six months earlier, when an agent monitoring an online extremist Web site discovered Smadi espousing jihad against the United States.

Steve Benen over at Political Animal Summarizes it nicely:

President Obama hasn't just ordered predator-drone strikes to target terrorists, he's also used ground forces to capture and kill terrorist leaders. What's more, the administration has had great success in taking terrorist suspects into custody before they could launch their planned attacks, as the Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi incidents help demonstrate.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was quoted in the editorial as saying the entire Obama administration considers itself "first responders dealing with the aftermath of an attack," while Republicans "believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen."

Even the most rabid partisan should be able to notice that this is idiotic and the exact opposite of reality.

Guess Krauthammer, DeMint, Cheney, Hoekstra, King, et. al. must have just "forgotten" about the successes we've had this year. Or, they're, you know, lying.

Push back with the facts.

The WaPo's Charles Krauthammer Is Lying To You

The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer continues to perpetuate the lie that President Obama is weak on national security because he no longer uses the words "terrorism" or describes what's going on as a "War on Terror." This lie--and I will repeat the word a lot, because it's important to call it what it is--was also recently parroted by one of our anonymous trolls here at What Fresh Hell.

The fact is, Obama uses the word terrorism a lot, as you can see if you'd just take the time to read some of the transcripts on the White House Website. In fact, his last radio address uses the word or some variant of it six times in four minutes and fifty seconds. The page on the website that addresses Homeland Security uses the word terrorism four times. A search for the word "terrorism" on the Whitehouse.gov site turns up nine pages of hits.

As for the lie that 'he doesn't even call it  a war anymore" , here's a graf from the same address:

On that day I also made it very clear-our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred, and that we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country, even as we uphold the values that have always distinguished America among nations.

How much more often would the President have to use the word to satisfy people like Krauthammer? The answer is: none. They'll just keep lying. 

So arm yourselves with the facts for the next time some wingnut starts spreading the lie that "Obama doesn't even call it terrorism any more!"

I Second That (New Year's) Emotion

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books, and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art. Write, or draw, or build, or sing, or live, as only you can.

May your coming year be a wonderful thing, in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously. I hope you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it; that you will be loved, and you will be liked; and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now, I hope that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Neil Gaiman, January 1, 2010

video here.

Has the World Gone Mad?

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood was odd enough, but Brad Pitt as Professor Moriarty?

WTF?

Don't get me wrong, I loved the recent Sherlock Holmes movie. I'm apparently one of the few people who thinks the 'new" Holmes actually resurrects some of the long neglected facets of the original character as portrayed in the books and stories. The ass-kicking Holmes which some critics called a "re-invention" actually has its antecedents in the source material. It's mentioned in THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, for example, that Holmes had done a bit of boxing in his day, when he speaks with an ex-prizefighter:

"I don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember that amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back?"

"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's truth! how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy."

"You see, Watson, if all else fails me, I have still one of the scientific professions open to me," said Holmes, laughing. "Our friend won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure."

In THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE, Holmes describes how he bested Professor Moriarty:

When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water."

And let's not forget that Watson, so often portrayed as a portly, bumbling middle-aged man, was, in the stories, a recent veteran of the Afghan War, wounded in action.

Still I have a hard time seeing Brad Pitt like this:

He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his puckered eyes.

But, hey, I could be wrong. Pitt's a good actor. We'll see...

Happy New Year!

Yes, the blog has a new color scheme. I figured, since this is a new year and a new decade, and since I'm going to be trying, at least, to make some major changes in my life and in my way of dealing with it (e-mail if you want to be bored with them), a fresh look would be symbolic. Let me know if it causes any readability problems. I've tried for a more tranquil, easier-to-read effect. Let me know if it works.