RockNRolla

Wow! Has Guy Ritchie finally made a good movie again?

The Rape of Alaska

With the Supreme Court's decision to stike down the DC gun ban grabbing the headlines today, I think it's important to highlight the fact that the Court is having an all-star week. Yesterday, they cut the damages paid by Exxon Mobil to Alaskan victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill from $5 billion to $500 million. Unfortunately, the Times article does not quite capture the gravity of this decison. If you do the math, that's a 90% reduction. It would also have been helpful for the Times to have noted that just a few months ago Exxon Mobil posted record profits. In fact, Exxon Mobil's annual profit for 2007 ($40.6 billion), is the largest annual profit ever recorded in US history! Needless to say, Exxon Mobil has plenty of resources at its disposal that could go a long way towards assuaging the anguish suffered by residents of the Alaskan coastline. I'll end with this excerpt from Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent:

In light of Exxon’s decision to permit a lapsed alcoholic to command a supertanker carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil [through] the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound, thereby endangering all of the individuals who depended upon the sound for their livelihoods...the jury could reasonably have given expression to its moral condemnation of Exxon’s conduct in the form of this award.

Photo used courtesy of Flickr user, jimbrickett March 23, 2008

The Smiths - Girlfriend in a Coma

Probably, the most underrated band of the 20th century.

The Police State

Julian Sanchez has perhaps the best round-up of the FISA bill passed by the House this week, and currently pending in the Senate. It seems that Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd are going to attempt to filibuster the bill. Let's hope they are successful. Certainly, if Barack Obama were to step on this issue, siginificant progress could be made. I don't really have anything to add to Sanchez's article. Read it and weep.

The Fool King of Maverick

Via Ezra Klein, I discovered that when queried by a Fortune reporter as to "what the greatest threat to the American economy" was; John McCain responded that it was Islamic extremism. Wait, what!?! That doesn't even make any sense! Islamic extremism? That's like me saying that pepperonni pizza is my favorite candy bar. Klien is right to point out, not only does McCain not know anything about the economy, he doesn't even really care about the economy. He's completely uninterested in anything other than foreign policy. It should also be noted, that he only really cares about foreign policy when it involves threatening the use of the U.S. military. Then again, John McCain is to mavericky for economics. The fact that this man might be the next president of the United States is very unsettling.

It's All About the Oil

I don't have much to add to this article by Andrew Kramer appearing in the New York Times. It seems that adding additional commentary would take away from what is already apparent. If you find this surprising, read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine for an in-depth look at the often fatal intersection of war and the free market.

Photo used courtesy of Flickr user BenLikesPictures September 9, 2007

Oh, Snap!

Via Ezra Klein, I came across this nifty article from the Washington Post by Anne Kornblut and Karen DeYoung. Kornblut and DeYoung provide a great summary of yesterday's scrap between Obama and the Mack over terrorism. For those of you that are not already aware, McCain criticized Obama for his support of last week's Supreme Court decision that restored the right of habeus corpus to detainees at Guantanomo Bay. Using traditional Republican fear mongering tactics, angry John accussed Obama of being naive and possessing a September 10, 2001 mindset. Like John Kerry before him, Obama identifies terrorism as an issue that relates primary to the fields of intelligence and law enforcement. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, and the King of Maverick all believe that terrorism is a military issue. In essence, they believe that we should meet the forces of terrorism on a battlefield somewhere and annihilate them. Now, in and ideal world, that would be great! I'm all for killing the bastards. But that's not how terrorism works. Terrorists rarerly assemble in force and fight against a standing army. What would they accomplish? They'd literally be defeated in minutes. Again, in an ideal world, this is how things would work. Unfortunately, however, in the real world terrorists aren't that stupid. That is why well trained, properly funded intelligence services and law enforcement are the keys to preventing attacks and tracking down terrorists. Center the to debate, is the role of civilian courts, or standard military courts, versus the military tribunal system set up by the Bush Administration. Here's a key quote from Obama, bringing up the 1993 attack on the WTC:

In the ABC interview, Obama said the perpetrators of the 1993 bombing are proof that the existing justice system can handle terrorism cases. "They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated," he said. "And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' "

In response, James Woolsey, whom as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, lobbied for Con Man-in-Chief, Ahmad Chalabi; and John Lehman had this:

Tuesday, the McCain team drew a direct line between the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying that submitting the bombers to the criminal justice system was, in the words of former Navy secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman, "a material cause" of the 2001 attacks. Lehman participated in the McCain conference call.

Huh? The terrorists attacked us on 9/11 because their comrades were tried in civilian court? Am I the only one that doesn't think that makes any sense?

Anyways, it's good to see that the Obama campaign is not shying away from this debate. It appears that the Democrats are starting to realize that conceeding this territory to the Repulicans is no longer necessary (not that it ever was!). Terrorism really is best left to the CIA, FBI, and various other intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Occupying Muslim countries swells the ranks of groups like al-Qeada and Hamas. As I've discussed previously on this blog, it's no secret that John McCain believes the state of war is good for the country. War is an end in itself, as opposed to a tool utilized towards a certain objective (i.e. war is the objective!). This highlights two disturbing themes in St. John's candidacy, McCain is the one who is naive, and he displays a fundamental lack of understanding (i.e. dumb as a rock) for the national security issues that are of the utmost concern.

P.S. Kudos to Anne Kornblut and Karen DeYoung for writing this insightful article. I always accused Kornblut of being in the tank for McCain, clearly I spoke to soon. I regret the error and I hope to see much more of this.

Photo used courtesy of Flickr user Chief Joseph March 26, 2008