Point Lookout
Musings from the hillside

A Washington Post Article merely confirms what critics warned about USA PATRIOT Act and friends. The title”FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data”, a report from an internal depeartment auditor, merely reports what you’d expect. The rules and procedures are inadequate and the FBI (among others) routinely violates citizens’ civil rights.

What a surprise. So when Mr. Self-Righteous Hatch (R-UT) got righteously indignant that We The People didn’t trust the FBI (government as a whole) to respect the laws and protect our legal rights, he was wrong. What a surprise. What a hypocrite.

Now, he’ll ignore this on his way to the next step of implementing the Republican Party’s much-desired police state. Wonder who the Party’s benevolent dictator will be next.

Not feeling any better about the Democrats. They seem generally in agreement with all this. No hew, cry, or even a pompous expression of mild concern.

First Matt Simmons, now Ali Bakhtiari, in EnergyBulletin.net’s Peak Oil News Clearinghouse article, he calls Peak Oil passing in 2006 and Bakhtiari’s artice (linked to in this article) is quite explicit and concerned.

An article by Aijaz Ahmad in the Monthly Review. Not just an opinion but a collection of useful information as well.

It’s a negative viewpoint but a strong one.

Scotto Horton reminds us that a Pulitzer Prize Winning Photojournalist Completes One Year in U.S. Military Custody in Iraq. He makes the Kafka (The Trial) reference.

We should be using the Kafka reference more frequently and very regularly. It lacks the horror of torture that has been added by these latter-day adherents to the philosophy. But Kafka, like Orwell, saw it coming.

Hmmm, do I have a copy around?

FT.com reports that, facing rising complaints from within, India is having to give in and open up enterprise tax free zones. They’re not doing as well as China and some segment of the population is getting restless.

For some reason, the folk in West Bengal got upset about the government displacing some smallish number of folk to clear land for a small zone. The money guys want big zones. It’s a story with a hole in the middle and that’s where the information is.

Tom Whipple’s take on both the report and the reaction, in a Falls Church News-Press article. Pretty amusing stuff, actually. How to report a cataclysmic disaster and get ignored. Unfortunately, it doesn’t link to the report … but the PDF can be downloaded from here.

In an article in Indiana’s The News and Tribune Our economy is changing. What about our leadership?, there are some interesting bureau of labor statistics data. More to be depressed about.

Counterpunch runs aPatrick Cockburn article US’s Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran’s Top Spook Prompted Hostage Taking. Who’da thunk it?

Amazing that Cockburn has to be the first to mention the obvious. Or not.

In an article for in The Guardian (pre-dated), there’s an interesting discussion of how the dollar trade in oil is actually a hidden US tax on the world. Interesting stuff.

The Home Page for a weather prediction experiment.

I wonder if they can be talked into sharing the code? It could be huge fun to run a prediction market or seven.