Quickies

I see the wingnuts are all up in arms over the alleged security risk of publishing info about Rumsfeld and Cheney's summer homes in the travel section of the NY Times. Some have gone so far as to publish the names and addresses of the Times photographers. How did they get that info? How about they took the time to Google, which is what David Weigel of Reason magazine did with Cheney and Rumsfeld and it took him all of "20 seconds" to come up with maps and pictures. Reason published an issue years ago that featured a picture of each subscriber's home on the cover. So much for privacy. Some wingnuts are apparently using the word "treasonous" regarding the Times story and also suggesting it was in retaliation for the Administration's protests regarding the SWIFT articles (tracing monetary transactions in order to find terrorists). Articles such as the one on Cheney's and Rumsfeld's homes take weeks of planning to set up and are done with the aid of the staff of these people and the knowledge of the parties involved. The timing was coincidental. Besides, as an article that the Times did on the Clinton's home a few years back showed, Cheney and Rumsfeld have a LOT of Secret Service assistance for security. I'll bet that those Times photographers have none of that.

So, what to make of this? The wingnuts are not just living up to the "nuts" portion of their title. They are also changing the subject and hoping to whip up patriotic fervor in both their base as well as sane people. Like the flag burning amendment, there's nothing to this story. Some of the wingnuts have gone on to advocate following the reporter's children and other horrifying suggestions. Cheney and Rumsfeld should step forward and calm these idiots down, but they won't. They are more interested in politics than the safety of Americans - even American children - and they've proven that time and again through their decisions.

I'm sure the wingnuts will be going after the New York Post next since they published the name of a website that the Pentagon is monitoring for it's ties to terrorists.

The Washington Post has an article on farm subsidies and how the system is broken. Willie Nelson could have explained it to them years ago as he's been pointing to the vanishing family farmer for decades. The article doesn't mention that, though. It talks about wealthy family farms for the most part and doesn't even suggest that there should be means testing on such subsidies if they are offered at all. It also doesn't even go near industrial farming by corporations such as Archer Daniel Midlands which take the lion's share of such windfalls. That would have been a useful focus because only companies of that size can protect such issues within Congress.

Speaking of farming and buying Congress, Alexander Cockburn has a good column online suggesting that if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation really wanted to help the people of the African continent, then they would buy off Congress and get rid of the cotton subsidies that corporations receive in the U.S. Seems reasonable since it would cost the foundation less and benefit the poor people more.

Hacker attacks are increasing at the Pentagon. The agency, whose new security paradigms were due to be in place last year, now suggests that it won't begin implementing the security measures until 2012 and won't be done until 2018. During that time, their equipment will continue to fall behind in keeping it safe from attack and the attacks will be increasingly sophisticated. Thank goodness the Administration and the Congress are overseeing this venture to protect our national secrets.

Speaking of Congress, if you haven't read Ted Stevens' (R-Alaska) words on how the Internet functions made during the net neutrality bill debate last week, then you owe yourself a good laugh. A snippet of them:

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

If, after reading that, your Internet hasn't sprung a leak, check out the fine offerings from PCL Linkdump. The compilations of tunes that they are offering (9 of them!) are extraordinary in the range of material, the goofy kitsch, and the just plain wacky.