Another Dubai port deal?

Asia Times

In a deal similar to one that led to the Dubai ports furor in the US earlier this year, Dubai International Capital has purchased for US$1.24 billion Doncasters Group Ltd, a private British aerospace manufacturer that works on sensitive weapons programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

The administration of US President George W Bush is conducting a security review of the takeover, and then it will present its findings to Congress...

Read the rest of this post...

Religious right Republicans threaten to sue Massachusetts school for mentioning "marriage" in school

Actually, the marriage discussion was about gay people getting married. Sounds controversial discussing it in grade school? Not when gays are permitted to marry in the state of Massachusetts, and when its the exact same marriage straight people get. It is normal, because it simply is. You can't sue the school for mentioning marriage, and claiming that marriage is discussing "sex" in school - in that case, any time they send a permission slip home to mommy, they're discussing sex.

The religious right Republicans are still fighting a culture war in Massachusetts.

Newsflash. You already lost. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

What's up? Read the rest of this post...

Almighty-based foreign policy

It's god's fault Iraq is such a disaster. Bush is just his vessel:

Later, Bush said: "I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free."

Bush gets more frightening by the day. Read the rest of this post...

A really low new low for Bush

Wolf just reported in the "Situation Room" that CNN's latest puts Bush's approval rating at 32% -- with a 60% disapproval.

John proposes that we all pop champagne when he breaks 30%...have small parties, some light snacks. Take pictures and we'll post them. The way things are going for the Prez, start chilling the bubbly.

UPDATE: Link to the CNN poll story. It's clear to Americans that Bush sucks. Read the rest of this post...

Congress may give the Internet away to big business

Not kidding. This is serious, and it's happening now. And it could put the blogs out of business.

More here. And more later. Read the rest of this post...

More idiotic unnamed Democratic strategists

Will these so-called Democratic strategists ever learn to shut up? The latest absurdity? Saying that the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire somehow show that the Democratic party is racist. Why? Because, according to the unnamed strategist, "you're basically saying only white people's votes count in those early states."

Uh huh.

Well, newsflash. I don't see a very large gay or Latino or Jewish or Muslim or Asian population in those states either. So that makes Democrats homophobolatinojudaiomusulmanoasiaticophobic too, right? So maybe we should make east LA and San Francisco states and hold the first primaries there so we can suck up to the cumbaya chorus?

Sure, that would be saying the votes of white people don't count, but somehow that calculus never seems to matter when you're intent on finding some harm when there is none.

And we wonder why Democrats never win the majority in the election. I'd like to see these Democratic strategists have the nerve to actually discuss their complaints publicly, by name, then let's talk. But at this point, it's hard to take someone seriously who doesn't even have the courage of their own convictions. Read the rest of this post...

Blog loading slowly today because Blogger is melting down

They know it, and they're working on it. Sorry. Read the rest of this post...

AT&T; refusing to deny that it let the NSA spy on its customers' emails and phone calls, now implies it got a court order

Well, this is interesting. AT&T; is now claiming, in responses to customers concerned about a recent lawsuit claiming AT&T; permitted the government to spy on every single email and phone call you ever made, that AT&T; was obeying a court order if and when it helped the government spy on its customers.

Note that the AT&T; rep refuses to deny the charge, that they let the US government spy on its own customers (and I'm told lots of OTHER traffic goes through AT&T;'s servers).

The following email was received from AT&T; by an AMERICAblog reader who complained:

Dear Mr. xxxxx,

This letter will stand as a response to your inquiry regarding AT&T;'s practice with wiretapping requests. It is AT&T;'s policy to comply with court orders that have been issued through an authorized law enforcement agency according to federal laws.

Very truly yours,
Donna C. Norman
Manager – Regulatory Relations
310 Orange Street
New Haven CT 06510

This is particularly interesting since the lawsuit against AT&T; alleges that AT&T; did this without being served warrants to spy on individual customers:

AT&T; provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T; worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T; communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T; violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T; customers without warrants.

The article, however, is vague, and it's not clear if AT&T; was served with a court order requiring it to let the government spy. Though, the way the AT&T; response is worded, it's also not clear whether it was a real court, or whether a federal agency has the power to issue the court order (does it in these circumstances?).

Again, either way, AT&T; is refusing to deny the charge that it helped the government spy on EVERY SINGLE ONE of its customers' emails and phone calls and Web sites they visited and instant messages and online chats and online video calls. You get the picture. It's time to leave AT&T.; (Question: Does this mean that if we have cingular cell phones, that was included in this?)

Don't miss a great NYT editorial calling on AT&T; to come clean. Read the rest of this post...

Promoting hate in the name of God

Here we go again. Bastards:

About 50 prominent religious leaders, including seven Roman Catholic cardinals and about a half-dozen archbishops, have signed a petition in support of a constitutional amendment blocking same-sex marriage.

Fostering hatred and discrimination -- and enshrining it in the constitution. Because really, what else would the religious community in America -- especially the Catholics -- have to worry about?

This is so much bigger than gay marriage. The GOP and the theocrats are going after gays now. But, they really want to invade the privacy of all Americans. Read the rest of this post...

Dems. call White House on their leak hypocrisy

Even John Kerry can articulate the Bush team's hypocritical double standard:

Then drawing a parallel to the Plame case, Kerry said that with McCarthy, "you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, D.C."

Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Let's get it started.... Read the rest of this post...

Human trafficking and US contractors in Iraq

It was reported almost from the beginning of the occupation that US contractors were transporting in tens of thousands of foreign workers to Iraq, an idea that made no sense to me then and is just as puzzling to me today. There has always been something fundamentally wrong with the US approach that allowed contractors to fly poor workers into a poor country. With unemployment in Iraq already high, why in the hell did the US allow this practice to go on for so long and how could they not have know about these abuses?

I realize that the standards have lowered considerably under this administration but shouldn't there already be something in place to safeguard workers human rights in these situations? Secondly, can someone please explain why we are not doing more to help employment for regular Iraqis? You can't tell me that Iraqis would not want jobs and that boosting employment would not benefit the rebuilding of the country. Read the rest of this post...

April on course to be deadliest month this year in Iraq

All because of lies by the administration. Read the rest of this post...