Hacked By Iran

So here's something I hope somebody on our side's been working on really hard.

From Empty Wheel:

I’ve been saying for some time that America’s hubris about drones will end as soon as one of our antagonists figures out how to hack them.

Which is why it’s interesting that Iran has updated its claims to have “shot down” an American drone to suggest they had “brought it down.” (Note, I found this statement on the Mehr website, but not the Fars one.)

And won't it be interesting in a few years (maybe a lot sooner) when we start to hear about the need to build a defensive shield capable of shooting down enemy drones which could be launched from any seemingly innocuous vessel from a few miles off the shores of Virginia or New York or or or.

I've been worried that "our enemies" would develop a way to deliver an EMP device into the general vicinity of over-flying American aircraft, which would disable the avionics (for even a short time), which would result in our planes falling from the sky in large numbers.
Now I see we have a fuckload more to worry about.  Ain't that just won-fuckin'-derful?

It's the dawning of a New Golden Age of Paranoid Isolation in America.

(hat tip = The Agonist)

Can You Say, "Surrender Monkey"?

Sad, but the fact that the guy (apparently) speaks French pretty well will prob'ly hurt him with some of the GOP Faithful who'll have to vote for him if he's gonna win in the primaries. Of course, it's always fun to watch the rubes struggle with a little cognitive dissonance - so there's that. Yeah. (hat tip = The Agonist)

The Tyranny Of Capitalism

Separation of Powers was the great new idea that made the US Constitution one of the best things ever.  Here's a pretty good look at how easy it is to slide back into a system that has always ended up having to be overthrown by violent rebellion.

Part 1(at about 5:30 - the main point): Part 2 isn't up yet. Watch for it at The Real News.

WTF, Mr Holder?

Hey, rednecks.  You guys are always goin' on about how the death penalty is a good idea, and a useful tool for preventing crime - how 'bout we hang a few of these Bankster pricks and see what kinda hurry their shit gets straight.

60 Minutes via YouTube - part 1   part 2

Occupy Our Homes

via Crooks and Liars

#OCCUPYOURHOMES #DECEMBER6TH #D6- "Homeowners Speak Out" - Mimi Pierre Johnson & Jean Sassine from Rhodes Pictures on Vimeo.

Pot Cracks

I didn't know you could be fired for "personal views that were contrary..."

From newser.com: Cops Fired For Opposing War On Drugs

The whole concept of Loyal Opposition seems lost in this country.  It's more than just possible for a guy to be against The Policy you've told him to implement, AND be able to execute the plan as if was his own.  It happens every day in every organization you can name.  In this case, it's the people wearing the badges - the ones who're at the broken end of the bottle every day - who know the most about how The Policy translates out in the real world.  We need to be listening to them very closely - not firing them for telling us the truth.

And one other minor point: Something you really DON'T want in an organization that's armed to the teeth and authorized to use deadly force, is a bunch of gung-ho gonzo goons runnin' around lookin' for an excuse to go off on somebody.

Newt, Inc

   

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

OWS Evolves

Maddow is way too "lefty" for me on lotsa things, but she's about the smartest there is when it comes to spotting and then connecting the dots; and articulating the politics of it all.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A Variation On Double-Think

Today's Pix

Sounds Kinda Important, Actually

via Balloon Juice yesterday:

Today is the day that a significant part of the Affordable Care Act took effect. Today is the day that companies that sell and provide health insurance have to start spending 80% to 85% of their income from insurance premiums actually delivering the services for which they charge their customers. Overhead like office space and supplies, marketing expenses, salaries, and yes, profits have to come out of the remaining 15-20%. The rule is called the the medical loss ratio, and in an important decision recently by the Department of Health and Human Services, the insurance companies cannot count the sales commissions that they give out to the people who sell you your insurance plan against the medical loss ratio.

So lemme see - Repubs are promising to "repeal ObamaCare", which (so far) means:

• they want 4,000,000 small businesses to lose their tax breaks
• they want state governments to lose federal help in meeting their Medicaid obligations
• they want the feds to stop cracking down on Medicare fraud
• they want people taking early retirement to lose their Gap Coverage
• they want 4,000,000 seniors to lose the donut hole discounts on Brand Name meds
• they want the 15,000,000 young adults who can now stay covered by their parents' insurance to lose their coverage
• they want insurance companies to go back to using tricks and traps to justify rescinding coverage; and they don't want any way for a patient to appeal rescission. 
• they want the 20,000,000 Americans who used to be subject to denial of coverage due to "pre-existing conditions" to lose their coverage
• they want the insurance companies to arbitrate payouts according to business considerations instead of clinical evaluation.
• they want 20,000,000 low-income Americans to lose access to Community Health Centers
• they want Americans living in (mostly rural) underserved ares to lose support for the docs and nurses who want to stay in those places, but can't afford it

And as of 02-DEC-2011, they want the insurance companies to continue to have the option of jacking up your premiums in order to pay sales bonuses, and to pay out nice fat stock dividends, and, and, and - the law now requires the insurers to pay out 80% of their revenues to healthcare providers.  As much as I hate strict regulation on actual levels of profit and reward, I can't help but see this as a common-sense attempt to get us all to understand that healthcare is just one of the things that can't be shoehorned into the standard business school model.

Take a quick peek at the ObamaCare Timeline.

Crooks & Liars vs Naomi Wolf

C&L blogger Karoli is engaged in what I characterize as a cat fight with Naomi Wolf over Wolf's assertion that some city governments coordinated with DHS regarding the crackdown on OWS.

While I agree with a lot of the commenters that Karoli doesn't need to parse Wolf's statements quite so closely, I think Karoli is mostly right to remind us that intuition is important and should not be ignored, but real evidence is what we're supposed to be looking for - not suspicion and innuendo and assumption. 

Naomi Wolf Defends Herself By Ignoring Her Grand Conspiracy Theory

Oops - Herman Cain Could Be Out

So my prediction turns out to have been (apparently) totally wrong.  In a post from early November, I said the allegations of sexual impropriety would help Cain rather than hurt him.  Looks like I was way off on that one - and that should come as no big surprise to anybody.

Anyway, Herman says he'll be meeting with Mrs Cain this weekend, and should be making "a major announcement" about plans for his campaign.

Given that "sources close to the Cain family" have said Herm's marriage "never felt real", and that it seems he had to request a meeting with his wife to talk it over, everybody's calling this one done.

Christmas Lights

This is easily one of my absolute favorite times of the year.  I just get kinda jazzed about Christmas.  And one of the things that really gets me going is seeing the decorations go up - especially the ones that show a sense of the season that's a little (or a lot) skewed from "normal".

Coin-Operated Politicians

From the Ron Paul campaign (hat tip - BlueGal via facebook)

Somethin's Up

I'm not a big fan of either Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul, but when they're both singin' the same tune on a particular issue, I start to get the feeling I should pay a little more attention to what they're trying to say - at least on that one thing.

Cuz God Made It So

I repeat - I'm a capitalist because God's a capitalist.

But we have to do it better; we have to get back to an understanding that the system has to serve the people, not the other way around; and we have to adjust the model so it's comprised of interlocking closed loops, rather than a series of disconnected linear dead ends.  Unfortunately, we've been suckered (again) into believing that the only way to make it work is to continue removing the controls.  Well, guess what you get when the free market system is completely unfettered - you get exactly what Americans had to fight a revolutionary war to throw off in the 18th century.  Aristocracy and entitlement, despotism and cronyism, inequality and slavery - any crappy thing you care to name that one human can do to another human.

Lastly, we have to remember that capitalism is a lousy substitute for democracy.

Today's Pix

When Newt Was Bullish On The Individual Mandate

Where did this Gingrich go? Well, he had to hide because the rubes who're running the GOP now drank the KoolAid that he insisted they drink on a constant basis thru the 90's. And he knows he doesn't stand a chance if he doesn't completely abandon even the appearance of the kind of rationality he used to talk about. He doesn't even try to sound reasonable any more - the rubes won't let him. (hat tip - Little Green Footballs)

Keeping Score

Anybody with a living, functioning brain knows DumFux News is a sham.  When was the last time they won any of the several awards for any kind of journalism?

From Loose Live Stock in 2007: (*)

CBS News: 154
ABC News: 122
NBC News: 114
PBS: 42
CNN: 33
BBC News: 15
MSNBC: 3
CNBC: 3
Dumont: 1
Fox News Channel: 0

Fun Fact #1:  Dumont only survived for about 12 years, and has been off the air for 55 years - and they still have more awards than DumFux News.

Fun Fact #2: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is on Comedy Central for 30 minutes a night, 4 nights a week, about 40 weeks a year - Jon Stewart has won the Peabody more often than DumFux News.

Fun Fact #3: The only "awards" DumFux News has managed to win are the ones that have been made up by either former News Corp execs, or by the heavy hitters behind phony organizations like AEI and AFP.

(*) A quick turn thru Wiki and the awards sites indicates that the only thing that's changed is that everybody's won a couple of more times - except for Dumont and DumFux News.