Informant38

Wow, look at that, Hare said. Now, that...

A record number of felons are seeking presidential pardons or commutations as President George W. Bush enters the final months of his term, creating one of the largest backlogs in clemency applications in recent history.
Possible investigations into the Bush administration's interrogation and domestic surveillance policies have raised the theoretical question of whether Bush will attempt to grant a blanket, preemptive pardon to members of his administration.
More than 2,300 people applied for a pardon or commutation in fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, the largest number for any single year since at least 1900, according to Justice Department Statistics.

Michels/ABC/commondreams 17.Nov.08
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The September and October mass distribution of the anti-Muslim documentary, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, paid for by the mysterious Clarion Fund, has numerous links to the Orthodox Jewish organization Aish HaTorah.

Clifton/Lobelog 10.Nov.08
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AMY GOODMAN: “Criminal”? Explain.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, there’s a few elements now that are being described as illegal that we’re finding out. First of all, the equity deals that were negotiated with the largest banks and also some smaller banks, representing $250 billion worth of the bailout money, this is the deal to inject equity into the banks in—to inject capital into the banks in exchange for equity.
The idea was to address the so-called credit crunch to get banks lending again. The legislation that enabled this was quite explicit that it had to encourage lending.
 Barney Frank, who was one of the architects of that legislation, has said that it violates the act if the money is not going to that purpose and is instead going to bonuses, is instead going to dividends, going to salaries, going to mergers. He said that violates the acts, i.e. it’s illegal.
But what we know is that it’s going precisely to those purposes. It is going to bonuses. It is going to shareholders. And it is not going to lending.
The banks have been quite explicit about this. Citibank has talked about using the money to buy other banks.

Then there’s other aspects of this that are borderline illegal.

DemNow! 17.Nov.08
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Fishermen in the Gaza Strip say they are regularly being harassed and even shot at by the Israeli navy. A ceasefire agreed by Israel and Hamas militants last June has not led to any let up in the actions by the Israeli navy. If anything, say the fishermen, the harassment has only increased. Israel contends that it is simply trying to protect its people.

Beauchemin/RNW 17.Nov.08
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And on Thursday, the United Nations announced it had run out of the food essentials it supplies to 750,000 desperately needy Gazans. "This has become a blockade against the United Nations itself," a spokesman said.

In a further blow, Israel’s large Bank Hapoalim said it would refuse all transactions with Gaza by the end of the month, effectively imposing a financial blockade on an economy dependent on the Israeli shekel. Other banks are planning to follow suit, forced into a corner by Israel’s declaration in Sept 2007 of Gaza as an "enemy entity".

There are likely to be few witnesses to Gaza’s descent into a dark and hungry winter. In the past week, all journalists were refused access to Gaza, as were a group of senior European diplomats. Days earlier, dozens of academics and doctors due to attend a conference to assess the damage done to Gazans’ mental health were also turned back.

Israel has blamed the latest restrictions of aid and fuel to Gaza on Hamas’s violation of a five-month ceasefire by launching rockets out of the Strip. But Israel had a hand in shattering the agreement: as the world was distracted by the US presidential elections, the army invaded Gaza, killing six Palestinians and provoking the rocket fire.

Cook/National/uruknet 16.Nov.08
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John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq.

DemNow! 17.Nov.08
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“Wow, look at that,” Hare said. “Now, that man might be a psychopath. That was psychopathic behavior, certainly—to put others in the intersection in danger in order to realize your own goals.”
But the problem is that “psychopathic behavior”—egocentricity, for example, or lack of realistic long-term goals—is present in far more than one per cent of the adult male population. This blurriness in the psychopathic profile can make it possible to see psychopaths everywhere or nowhere.

Another hypothesis is that psychopaths lack fear of personal injury and, more important, moral fear—fear of punishment.

John Seabrook/New Yorker 10.Nov.08
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Order 17 is a document little-read today, yet it essentially granted to every foreigner in the country connected to the occupation enterprise the full freedom of the land, not to be interfered with in any way by Iraqis or any Iraqi political or legal institution. Foreigners--unless, of course, they were jihadis or Iranians--were to be "immune from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their Sending States," even though American and coalition forces were to be allowed the freedom to arrest and detain in prisons and detention camps of their own any Iraqis they designated worthy of that honor.

Tom Englehart/Juan Cole
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I receive many emails. A lot of them are pure crap. A lot of them preach to me about love and forgiveness. A lot of them are blaming the victim. A lot of them dictate to the victim what words, what feelings, what thoughts she must or must not have. A lot of them talk about the victim being an angry bitter hateful thing. But none of them, NONE of them acknowledge FULL responsibility. None.

Layla Anwar/ArabWomanBlues/uruknet 16.Nov.08
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Do not be seduced into thinking of torture as harsh interrogation. The hour is late and we must confront the torturers among us.

If you are the slightest bit concerned that we have crushed freedom here and in other lands in the name of freedom, be more concerned. We have.

Never forget or let your children forget that it was all a lie, told with purpose.

Marc Ash/truthout 17.Nov.08
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The Business Journal's fastest growing private business is Coding Source, which converts X-rays and other medical procedures into insurance codes so doctors and hospitals can get paid. The company had revenues last year of $18.5 million and a three-year growth rate of 417 percent.

LBO 17.Nov.08
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TiVo, Domino's to let subscribers order [pizza] through TV