Political Bloviation

USATODAY.com - U.S. stands apart from other nations on maternity leave
out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
That’s some fine company we’re keeping there. If anyone is interested in backing [...]

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
Basically: borrow around a trilllion from the Chinese to give Iran a new client state next door, occupy it for the next thirty years, and still keep oil at $106 a gallon barrel. Yes: lots to debate.
Death, strategic and financial disaster, way to go Bushie.

Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis
Compared to other industrial nations the good old US of A ranks 19, out of 19, in preventable deaths. Way to show all those nasty socialist countries that we don’t need their stinking commie health care delivery systems!!!

Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007
The US (not surprisingly)  receives the worst rating. We’re right up there with Russia and China.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/13/2007 | House votes to outlaw waterboarding by CIA
The GOP has taken obstruction and raised it to a high art. If something as basic and simple as “we shouldn’t torture” dooms a bill to failure something has gone horribly wrong. When the republicans held the majority they threatened changes to senate [...]

CIA still peddling the lie that low-level crazy man proves waterboarding is a good thing - AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth
So we tortured the al-Qaeda village idiot, then claimed a great victory against a high level operative. Despite being briefed about the real value of the poor fool by the CIA, Bush went [...]

Ezra Klein: “Time to Talk to Iran”
A salivating ultra-hawk admits that the recent Iran NIE makes the chances of a strike against Iran extremely unlikely. Thank God.

US: Iran halted weapons program in 2003 - Yahoo! News
Wow that’s good news. I guess the president will have to back off the bellicose saber rattling directed at Iran, right?
No so much:
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that Iran remains a danger despite a U.S. intelligence report that Tehran halted its atomic weapons program [...]

Some Guy With a Website by August J. Pollak - 12/3/2007 - The Japanese flying monkey
Nothing logically inconsistent with prosecuting Japanese soliders for exactly the same behavior the blow dried one seems to think is really cool, is there? Maybe he should be waterboarded until he admits it’s torture?

Iran wants Western “apology” after IAEA report - Yahoo! News
Iran called on its Western foes on Friday to apologize to the Islamic Republic after the release of a U.N. nuclear agency report which Tehran said showed it had been telling the truth about its atomic plans, according to state media.
I think the past shows that [...]

‘Hidden Costs’ Double Price Of Two Wars, Democrats Say - washingtonpost.com
Did $1.5 trillion get us more secure? Buy an awe-inspiring display of American military might? Cheaper oil? A sound dollar? Exactly what did we purchase for so high a price? A generation of hatred? Worldwide disdain? A near total loss of moral authority on the [...]

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
As I watched event in Pakistan over the weekend I noted that a huge number of lawyers put their careers, bodies and lives on the line in protest of an obvious usurpation of power. I keep thinking that we’d never see a similar spectacle in the US. Not that [...]

Keith on the significance of the Daniel Levin story. It was revealed that Levin, an Assistant Attorney General had himself water boarded to determine that it was ethically, legally and morally torture:
The presidency of George W. Bush is a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.
Levin was fired for daring to not [...]

Rice Says U.S. Will Review Aid To Pakistan - washingtonpost.com
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that the United States would review its $150 million-a-month assistance program to Pakistan in response to the declaration of emergency rule by the president, Gen. Pervez Mushar.
Pakistan has long been a safe harbor for terrorists in the area along [...]

I can’t see how we will ever succeed using these tactics.
Glenn Greenwald - Political Blogs and Opinions - Salon
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted “counterinsurgency” doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has [...]

Blast at Mall Kills 8 in Philippines - New York Times
Eight people were killed and as many as 130 others wounded Friday when a powerful explosion ripped through a shopping mall in Makati City, the Philippine capital’s financial district.
Wow, that’s frightening. My wife and I have been to that mall many times. It one block [...]

Attacks cross Iraq-Turkey border - CNN.com
Turkish troops shelled farmland around a half-dozen villages in northern Iraq from across the tense border, an Iraqi Kurdish official said Sunday, in what the Turkish military called retaliation for weekend attacks by Kurdish rebels.
Also, looks like US forces will be forced out of Incirlik Airbase by the Turks:
[...]

This makes the argument that telcos should be exempted from lawsuits arising from their extra-legal cooperation with NSA spying because they were patriotically trying to help protect the nation after 9-11 specious.
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm - washingtonpost.com
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the [...]

A few excerpts from Frank Rich at the Times:
The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us - New York Times
…As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to [...]

This is why I love Jon Stewart, slashing social and political commentary made funny:
AlterNet: Blogs: Video: The Daily Show Comes Clean On Torture, Since The White House Won’t [VIDEO]