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Foliehatt Friday


This week’s foliehatt goes to: Jennifer Rubin

Is Palin-mania A Liberal Plot?

Apparently PDS is bipartisan.


From Seward’s Folly:

Murkowski certified Senate election winner
Sen. Lisa Murkowski was officially named the winner of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Thursday, following a legal battle that lasted longer than the write-in campaign she waged to keep her job.

Oh goody, instead of another Republican in the Senate we get . . . a Republican.


China keeps building walls:

China makes Skype illegal
China on Thursday announced that it had made illegal the use of Skype, the popular internet telephony service, as the country continues to shut itself off from the rest of the world.

Oh, well. There wasn’t anybody there I wanted to talk to anyway.


Paul is shrill today:

The New Voodoo
Hypocrisy never goes out of style, but, even so, 2010 was something special. For it was the year of budget doubletalk — the year of arsonists posing as firemen, of people railing against deficits while doing everything they could to make those deficits bigger.

I think it’s terrible the way people want to defame a perfectly good religion by associating it with economics.


Speaking of which:

Academic Economists to Consider Ethics Code
Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago — adopting a code of ethical standards.

I thought one of the defining characteristics of a profession was a code of ethics. Now if only bloggers would get one.


All good things must end:

Stanford women end UConn’s winning streak at 90

The Streak ended here.

Finally, after 90 games and more than 32 months of non-stop winning, top-ranked Connecticut lost Thursday night. Jeanette Pohlen scored 31 points as Stanford jumped ahead early and rolled merrily away to win 71-59 before a raucous capacity crowd at Maples Pavilion.

It was a convincing and historic outcome. UConn’s run of 90 consecutive victories counted as the longest winning streak in NCAA basketball history, men or women.

Thanks to Title IX the girls get to play too. Predictions of the ruin and destruction of college sports turned out to be wrong.


Apparently you right coast types had a few snowflakes recently:

NYC mayor to probe claims that workers delayed snow cleanup

Four days after a monster blizzard blanketed much of the northeastern U.S., New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he will investigate whether sanitation workers intentionally delayed cleanup efforts over frustrations regarding citywide budget cuts.

Cuz you know it couldn’t have been the mayor’s fault, right?


Peachy-keen news from Obama’s Good War:

US military investigates ‘death squad’ accused of murdering Afghans

Brigadier general to conduct review of 5th Stryker brigade as evidence emerges of widespread complicity in deaths

If you kill them, their hearts and minds will follow.


Transocean questions CSB’s power to probe oil spill: report
Transocean Ltd has written to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), challenging the federal agency’s authority to investigate April’s deep-water drilling accident, Bloomberg said.

Under federal law, floating rigs are exempt from oversight by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Rachel Clingman, an attorney for Transocean, said in a letter to the agency, Bloomberg reported.

Where did all that oil go, anyway?


Today in History:

1967 Oakland Raiders beat Houston Oilers 40-7 in AFL championship game
1962 “Match Game” debuts on NBC with host Gene Rayburn
1935 Charles Darrow patents Monopoly

Birthdays today:

1959 Bebe Neuwirth
1959 Val Kilmer
1948 Donna Summer
1943 John Denver
1937 Anthony Hopkins

Deaths:

1999 Elliot Richardson
1985 Rick Nelson
1972 Roberto Clemente


The #1 movie in the country:


76 Responses

  1. About your #1 movie, a tweet comes to mind: “The Robert de Niro from Taxi would have shot the one from The Little Fockers”
    And bringing my snow news from downstairs

    Tabloids: Mike and the snow job – part 3

  2. Ruh-roh, Sarah’s in trouble now:

    Snooki knocks Sarah Palin’s new show

    Will Snooki get punched in the nose again this season?

  3. Having read the Rubin article – she is not all together wrong.
    Remember when Obama pretty much said it directly “Make Rush the face of the GOP?”
    It’s been done with Palin ever since 2008 – whether she was right or wrong on things.
    And while I agree with the Rubin inconsistencies you highlighted, I also remember her being right many times – especially during the D primaries, on Hillary.

  4. I get mail:

    Dear myiq2xu,

    You know what we do. Firedoglake serves some of the best stuff in politics: effective advocacy, fiercely independent reporting, and unique opportunities you won’t get anywhere else.

    And we get results. We won an audit of the Federal Reserve. We beat back the banks from profiting off of student loans. We won safety protections for BP oil disaster cleanup workers. We reported on foreclosure fraud before anyone else. We saved Social Security from the Catfood Commission.

    That’s not even half of what we did together in 2010. It’s truly incredible. Thank you.

    Now we have a new chapter for 2011: a new non-profit organization dedicated to supporting new writers and authors who cover issues like financial reform, health care, drug policy, and more.

    Please, if you can, make a 100% tax deductible contribution to start strong in 2011. Even $15 will go a long way to supporting this new chapter for FDL.

    Thank you again for all you do.

    Jane Hamsher
    Firedoglake.com

    Gee Jane, I don’t know what to say, considering that you guys BANNED ME!

    • They do need a records keeper! And they’ll get one too, with your generous donation of $5!
      As for Krugman’s piece, my favorite part was the “Obama-McConnell tax deal. Nice ring to it!

    • A “……new chapter for 2011” for FDL?

      Chapter 11, please.

    • Your money is welcome; your opinion is not.
      Kinda weird actually. I rarely, RARELY go to FDL anymore and as far as I know, my account is still active. But there’s nothing there I want to read. Ad soon as the CDS starts up, I have to leave. The gratuitous attacks on Clinton turn me off to everything that comes after. When they stop blaming her for their own stupid choices, maybe I’ll read again.

  5. With so many achievements under her belt, Ms Hamsher should take wind energy on; with several dozen posts we will stop imported foreign oil.

    Don’t make fun of the right coast and its snow while you guys on the left coast are all wet and it continues.

  6. That’s a picture of the Swedish king!

    Sniff! Why do you hate Swedes?

  7. About skype, I have a lot of Chinese colleagues who have family back in china. They may be very upset by this news. Let’s not get too flippant.

    • As the leaders grow more and more paranoid look for more draconian measures to control their population.

      If I were on the board of certain multinational corporations, I’d keep a bottle of aspirin handy for news like this.

      If China were to seize the assets of foreign
      manufacturers what could they do?

      Get the U S to start a war?

    • I once had to stay after school and write “I will not be flippant in class” in the board 100 times.

      I think that old battle axe Mrs. Magillicuddy wanted it to say “I will not be a smart-ass” but I was only in the 4th grade and they had rules about cussing.

      In 7th grade I had to go see the principal when Miss Ballbricker told me “Don’t be a smart ass” and I replied “It’s better than being a dumbass”

      Yes, I was the class clown.

  8. Re: the shrill one. I’ve been reading a lot on nazi Germany. Wait, there’s some blog law about invoking Nazi stuff right? Can’t help it. The Nazi ruse to power was very well documented.
    Over and over again, Germans were snookered into thinking the Nazis were going to make their lives better. They voluntarily gave up their freedoms. In fact, giving up their rights was one of the desired outcomes. Everybody wanted security and a stable economy.
    And then there were people who just went along. They didn’t say, WTF? until it was too late. Or they tried to make lemonade out of what they initially thought were just spoiled lemons until they realized the fruit was rotten from the beginning.
    That left the people who always thought the Nazis were batshit crazy without allies during the beginning of the movement. By the time the conciliators woke up and smelled the burned books, the Nazis were already in the midst of eliminating all opposition.
    The time to oppose was during the primaries, Paul.
    And that goes for all the other feckless lefty bloggers who went along with it when they should have said NO in the most emphatic way possible.
    The bad guys got everything they wanted and now we are stuck.
    But don’t despair, the Nazis only lasted 12 years in power.

  9. Interesting article from Commentary Magazine. Yes, it has a slant,and yes the author contributes to National Reviwe, but I thought this was still interesting. Some of the theories may be a bit out there, but some good stuff nonetheless.

    http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/special-january-preview–the-wikileaks-war-on-america-15611

    Although WikiLeaks itself is too secretive to reveal the numbers or names of its staff, Assange has claimed that he has about 40 core volunteers and another 800 or so associates around the world who maintain the network of computer banks it needs to have a permanent presence on the Internet. It is not clear where all its funding comes from, though donors give it money via a variety of charitable foundations, and according to Wiki-Leaks, donors have included media organizations like the Los Angeles Times and the Hearst Corporation as well as individuals.

    Reportedly, the disillusioned WikiLeaks volunteers were disturbed by Assange’s ruthless insistence on publishing the Afghan War Logs without redacting names and other personal details to protect the lives of those mentioned in them, even after five major human rights organizations1 pleaded with him to do so in a joint e-mail. His response to this was to demand that the five organizations assist in the task of redaction. He also said that WikiLeaks would need $700,000 to go through remaining unpublished documents. By that point, 77,000 out of 92,000 documents had already been released, and despite Assange’s initial claim that names of Afghan informants had been redacted, newspapers like the New York Times found that this was often not the case.2 However, when Amnesty International suggested a conference call to discuss collaboration, Assange reportedly rebuffed the offer, saying on Twitter: “I’m very busy and have no time to deal with people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses.”

    Assange would not consider delaying publication, almost as if someone else had assigned a schedule for their release. The same was true of the subsequent, much bigger release of Iraq-war documents in the autumn. It was this decision—along with Assange’s decision to provide early and embargoed access to the documents to certain media outlets, in contravention of the organization’s “let everyone see everything” libertarian doctrine—that prompted a major internal revolt at WikiLeaks.

    According to reports in Wired (the publication with the best, most detailed coverage of WikiLeaks), the organization’s German spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, confronted Assange about his autocratic and secretive behavior, and “Assange responded by accusing Domscheit-Berg of leaking information about discontent within WikiLeaks to a columnist for Newsweek.”

    Apparently Assange is not so keen about transparency when it comes to his own organization. There it seems that secrecy is necessary for the greater good. That the irony of this escapes him was apparent in an e-mail exchange with Domscheit-Berg published on Wired.com.

    Convinced that Domscheit-Berg is the source of the leak to Newsweek, Assange says: “I am investigation (sic) a serious security breach. Are you refusing to answer?” Domscheit-Berg replies that everyone in the organization is concerned about the news that Assange might be charged with rape in Sweden, Assange’s insistence on claiming that the rape allegations are part of a dirty-tricks campaign against him, and also about another unspecified incident in 2007 (presumably of a sexual nature as well). He also presses Assange about the Iraq documents, at one point exclaiming, “You are not anyone’s king or god.”

    Assange replies: “You are suspended for one month, effective immediately. If you wish to appeal, you will be heard on Tuesday.”

    • sounds like he just pi**ed off the god-king…

      That whole story would be weird, if it were not all about Wikileaks and Assange – tales like these just sound like the norm anymore.

      Can any of this be taken seriously anymore? – I’m going with the old adage – ‘follow the money’, the truth (if there is an interesting truth) resides there.

      Cool story/link though… thanks.

    • To stand up against the forces of erasure, there is WikiLeaks—to which Assange often referred to as “I.”

  10. CNN:

    It appears the website WikiLeaks has few fans in the United States.

    A just-released CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds 77 percent of Americans disapprove of the online organization’s release of thousands of confidential U.S. government documents concerning U.S. diplomatic and military policies. Only 20 percent approved of the action.

    I think we can safely say that the 20 percent is on the left side of the political spectrum. If it’s not then that raises a lot of questions. But it’s not even a majority of the left.

  11. Martha Kunkle has come back to life.

    She died in 1995. Yet her signature later appeared on thousands of affidavits submitted by one of the nation’s largest debt collectors, Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., in lawsuits filed against borrowers.

    That reminds me of an old joke – What’s the difference between a lawyer and a hooker?

    Hookers quit screwing you after you’re dead.

  12. I need an appetizer recipe

Comments are closed.