Bryan Burrough | Sept 1

Vanity Fair Exclusive - : Conrad Black on Life in Prison, Maintaining His Innocence, and Why He Blames Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. for His Legal Woes

“The myth is that the price war put so much pressure on our profits that I was forced to steal money to maintain my opulent lifestyle,” Conrad Black tells Vanity Fair’s Bryan Burrough. “It’s part of the whole News Corp. mythmaking apparatus,” he explains. “It was Rupert, you know. He originated that one. He certainly parroted it. Rupert always says reasonably nice things about me, but then he throws in something like that for effect. I don’t really blame Rupert. He’s not a non-friend. Rupert is just Darwinian.”

Black opens up to Burrough about every aspect of his experience in jail at Coleman Federal Correction Complex where he served for over two years and where he is likely to return this fall. “I’m not embarrassed in the least bit I was in prison—not the slightest,” he says. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You can’t talk to Martha Stewart about it, or Alfred Taubman. They didn’t see it as I did, as a nightmarish change in careers. I see it as a temporary vocation.”

“I quickly developed alliances with the Mafia people,” Black says, “then the Cubans. I was friendly with the ‘good ol’ boys’ and the African-Americans. They all understood I had fought the system, and I do believe I earned their respect for that. Everyone got along,” he says, “except with the child-molesters. There was the occasional scuffle there, I heard.” He recalls the welcome he received from a senior member of the Genovese crime family: “No one will bother you here. If you catch a cold, we will find out who you got it from. You know, we have much in common .… We are industrialists.” read more at link

Ben Arnoldy | Washington | September 1

CSM - Wartime contracting is more prone to waste than in-house spending because it is harder to keep tabs on the money and motives of the private contracting firms, says a bipartisan legislative commission.

The US government’s over-reliance on wartime contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in as much as $60 billion in waste and fraud – and it’s likely to worsen without reform.

That's the main message coming out of a new report from the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting. The report suggests that contracting is more prone to waste than in-house spending because of the greater difficulty in overseeing the spending and the profit motive of the private contracting firms. (See the pdf of the report here).

Moreover, a different set of commitments tend to bring a contractor versus a soldier or State Department official into a conflict zone. In general, it's a little less for country, a little more for wallet.

. . . Wikileaks is the problem. Nothing new here.

. . . the confidence fairies immigrated to Iceland.

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

Rolling Stone, By Ari Berman, August 30

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century," says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

. . . not free to manage their own reproduction as they see fit are not free in any meaningful sense.

. . . Journal is reporting that the Iranians are banning water fights and water guns. Of course, they'd never tell you that the organizers of a water fight in the United Kingdom are being prosecuted as well.

Ahh, freedom!

"People who fear disorder more than injustice will only produce more of both."

~William Sloane Coffin

The trouble with hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels is the energy needed to cull hydrogen usually exceeds the energy drawn out of it, which means that use of conventional energy sources like fossil fuels would actually increase in a hydrogen-energy scheme.

If only there was a way to harness a free energy source...

Now scientists from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville have found an inexpensive semiconductor material that can split water solely using sunlight as its energy source. Their findings were published in the journal Physical Review B.

By Michael Collins

Monday was the day we heard that the "US believes al-Qa'ida is on the verge of defeat after deputy leader's death" as The Independent headlined the story. It stood out as a sequel to the recent United States action in Pakistan, which brought us the news (but not the body) of a dead Osama bin Laden. It appears that a US operated drone killed Al Qaeda's top deputy, one Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a Libyan citizen. After decades as a jihadist, Rahman is no more. But is that the end of al Qaeda?

On Tuesday, foreign affairs columnist for the Asia Times, Pepe Escobar, published a remarkable column outlining the command structure of the victorious NATO backed military leaders. Abdelhakim Belhaj, the lead commander of the rebels and the next two commanders, in terms of power, were once affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LGIF). In fact, commander Belhaj was once the subject of a US led extraordinary rendition (aka torture) in Thailand. About the time the US planned to send Belhaj to Guantanamo Bay, the Libyan government of Gaddafi requested his return to Libya.

Terrorist Rehab, Libyan Style

At this point, you may be thinking, "Good grief, that's when the real torture started!" Au contraire! The request for repatriation came from none other than Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libya's former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Saif, and others in the Gaddafi government, began a bold program of repatriating and rehabilitating individuals belonging to LGIF and other jihadist groups. Many fled Libya for Afghanistan where they fought with al Qaeda against the Soviet Union and then the United States Afghan effort. The LGIF had engaged in violent resistance to the Gaddafi regime. A large contingent of the LGIF fought the US in Iraq. According to reports, they "officially joined al Qaeda" in November 2007.

Here's the thing: I've never espoused a world view that war is tEh bad, evil thing all the time, no matter the circumstances. There are more times than progressives are willing to admit that war is necessary. There are many, many fewer that aren't that conservatives won't admit. I've also never espoused the idea of precipitously bugging out of any war. Turning your back on enemies when they are shooting is unwise.

Of course, I certainly criticized getting into new ones, because there is a whole fucking lot of historical evidence out there that ill thought out and even well thought out wars go very, very badly. You know, Barbarossa was a pretty good fucking plan, with some of the best field officers ever. (Zhukov, like Grant, was stylistically boring, but in the end more effective.)

If I err, I err on the side of prudence in statesmanship. Maybe realistically balancing priorities with capabilities is a better strategy than freedom bombing the whole world?

And when I point out that more Americans died by dogbite in 2010 than by the big boogey-man of Osama bin whatever his name is I'm not saying Al Qaeda isn't a real threat. I'm pointing out in a very historically informed way--albeit sarcastically--that nations and foreign policies need priorities. Maybe throwing several hundred billion dollars into a semi-arid, hostile, feudal nation isn't the best investment, or even the wisest. Maybe, you know, there might be a more cost effective way of forcing our enemies into some sort of modus vivendi?

This is all very basic Clausewitz and Sun Tzu 101 stuff. First rule: don't be stupid. Second: don't believe your own hype. Third: know your enemy.

And no, this stuff isn't easy. Just read a history book and see. However, it's really simple. Don't confuse the two.

. . . take on on AfPak policy I highly recommend listening to George's most recent podcast: "Where's The Strategy."

Yes, I know I snark a lot, use a great deal of sarcasm and generally don't take much of anything remotely seriously anymore. I'm not sure how much of that is a function of the fact that I've been blogging nine years, or that I'm older, or that I've seen enough of the world to realize that real change starts from the bottom. All that being said, this podcast is excellent and thought provoking. What is our strategy in AfPak? What should it be? And most importantly how do we make better policy choices? Like George, I don't agree with many of the things his interviewee says, but they are compelling and forced to me to look at AfPak in a different context.

It's because of asshats like this:

[John] Taylor is the chairman and CEO of FX Concepts, a hedge fund that specializes in currency speculation. It's the largest hedge fund of its kind worldwide, which is why Taylor is held partly responsible for the crash of the euro. Critics accuse Taylor and others like him of having exacerbated the government crisis in Greece and accelerated the collapse in Ireland.

People like Taylor are "like a pack of wolves" that seeks to tear entire countries to pieces, said Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg. For that reason, they should be fought "without mercy," French President Nicolas Sarkozy raged. Andrew Cuomo, the former attorney general and current governor of New York, once likened short-sellers to "looters after a hurricane."

The drought is wreaking havoc on the Texas food chain, listen here.

This is what the Frio River looked like in June. Imagine what it looks like three months of 100* plus heat and no rain later.

Great work and admirable character often don't go together. By many accounts, Miles Davis was a jerk even as his bands created a de facto university for soon-to-be-great musicians. Pablo Picasso was a philanderer. Elia Kazan ratted out his alleged former communist colleagues in the McCarthy Hearings. And the poet I feature today, Gertrude Stein, despicably curried favor with the Nazis. I don't buy the effete claim that "only the work matters," as if the work doesn't bear the marks of its creator. Nor am I willing to necessarily banish an artist who behaves abominably, although when I learned that Eric Clapton drunkenly ranted to an audience to "keep Britain white" it, uh, altered my opinion of the man. In Stein's case, it sounds to me as if she felt selfishly entitled, as a celebrated intellectual, to do whatever she damn well pleased. I personally find some of her poems to be self-indulgent muck. But this one I like:

A Long Dress

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current. What is the wind, what is it.

Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.

– Gertrude Stein

Bad Mom:

Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for "bad mothering" that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, "haggling" over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.

Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother’s conduct was "extreme or outrageous." To rule in favor of her children, the court found, "could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

. . . Americans than terrorism.

I, for one, believe it is time to freedom bomb the American Kennel Club.

"It's not a free country if you are not allowed to document the activities of the police in the course of their duties." Period.

This is one area where technology and social networks are a powerful check against those in power who would abuse said power. This time the good guys won a round.

. . . really re-asess shutting down social networks and mobile networks during times of unrest and/or protest. But not for the reasons you think:

His conclusion was, not so smart, but not for the reasons you might think. “Full connectivity in a social network sometimes can hinder collective action,” he writes.

To put it another way, all the Twitter posting, texting and Facebook wall-posting is great for organizing and spreading a message of protest, but it can also spread a message of caution, delay, confusion or, I don’t have time for all this politics, did you see what Lady Gaga is wearing?

In an interview, he described “the strange darkness” that takes place in a society deprived of media outlets. “We become more normal when we actually know what is going on — we are more unpredictable when we don’t — on a mass scale that has interesting implications,” he said.

Makes sense to me. The lesson here seems to be to make the internet less useful, not blacked out:

Sophisticated governments will realize that “shutting down radicalizes things,” he said in a phone interview. What is more useful to governments, he said, was “bandwidth throttling,” recognizing that “Internet is something you can meter out.” This “metering out” is meant to make the experience less reliable and responsive, he said, so that video streaming is hesitant and Web pages are slow to load.

This is a strategy that Evgeny Morozov discusses at length in his book, "The Net Delusion," a tome I highly recommend and one that goes a long way toward demolishing the idea that the net will deliver us to some sort of technological utopia. In my nine years of blogging I've seen blogging in the US go from being a useful insurgent force to seeing prominent so called progressives get co-opted.

Anyway, there is a lot to digest, I recommend the story highly.

. . . of thirty things we didn't know before the latest Wikileaks dump.

As I look back on the last two years I cannot but help to think that so very much of what we now know we would not know were it not for Wikileaks. How many of the most major stories came from Wikileaks? And how many of them do we owe to Bradley Manning, as well? I doubt we'll never know. I do, however, know this: none of the major stories from the last two years would have been reported by the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Sit and ponder that for a while.

Shorter...no, verbatim Chafets: "We're all Cheneyites now."

President Obama has largely adopted the Cheney playbook on combating terrorism, from keeping Gitmo open to trying suspected enemies of the state in military tribunals. Obama’s drone war, which has quadrupled the number of attacks in the past two years, reflects Cheney’s whatever-it-takes approach. The leftist wrath once trained on Bush’s veep is aimed at the Democratic incumbent these days. Even the Bush-Cheney pro-democracy doctrine, born as a substitute rationale for the Iraq War after the failure to find WMD, is bearing fruit, toppling dictators from Cairo to Tripoli. The dirty little secret of the last few years is that the man George Bush called “Big Time” won. We’re all Cheneyites now.

If you find yourself wondering how it was you missed the whole 4th season of Walker, Texas Ranger, while forcing yourself to attend Lamaze classes with your significant other. If on cool, crisp days the aforementioned tragedy causes you to wistfully wonder how to fill the emptiness inside - let me introduce you to the Rick Perry for President Campaign.

Perry, who has seemingly been Governor of Texas since around the time when remaining at The Alamo began to look like a questionable career move, is now ready to throw his 10-gallon hat, frothy intellect and custom-made cowboy boots into the national political ring.

Like most Americans, I watched news of Hurricane Irene’s soiree along the East Coast. While I am sure there was damage done with her passing, I need not look further than out my front door to watch a much more devastating but less newsworthy catastrophe unfold. The drought I refer to is not as spectacular as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and the like, but I assure you, it has proved a more lethal, silent, and effective killer than any of the above this year.

As I type, an accurate thermometer registers 111 degrees from the shade of my front porch. We have suffered days, weeks, even months in sweltering heat with no rain. The ground is parched and cracked, the grass dead; desert termites encase the last of grass carcasses with mud tubes, adding insult to injury to those that might have saved a pasture for grazing.

_{(courtesy NASA)}

"To be, or not to be, that is the question"

_{(older newsthread on Irene here)}