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jollyroger's picture

Lily Ledbetter got her act. Shouldn't Edward Snowden?

There has been extensive back and forth (not excluding here at the Dag) focussed on the proper way to characterterize Edward Snowden. The polar entries are traitor or full blown patriot/ Ellsberg redux.
More focussed deconstruction debated " "whistleblower" vs. irresponsible publicity seeker unwilling to follow the logical mandate that civil disobeyers must surrender to, rather than flee from, "justice". ( fear quotes purposely used for intended irony...)

jollyroger's picture

impunity bites

There are few occasions for international irritation more abrasive than the refusal by one sovereign to honor the request of another that a fugitive from justice be surrendered to the tribunals if the aggrieved nation.

Recall that the proximate casus belli for the longest war in American history was the refusal by the Taliban rump Afghan government to extradite Osama Bin Laden.

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Free market risk assessment says Wayne La Pierre is full of shit.

You don't need an MBA on staff to have access to exquisitely sophisticated risk management tools. Thanks to the miracle of competing insurance companies, underwriting expertise is constantly available to reduce to a fungible figure all the imponderable interacting risks that attend any activity.

 

This figure, of course is your annual premium.

 

jollyroger's picture

"Enemies of human decency..."

Even a broken clock is right twice a day....

Nino has it right, if perversely so.

Opponents of marriage equality are enemies of human decency.

Was there ever any doubt of this?

!

Any who hold to the contrary, ooze your slimy low-life way to the microphone and make your filthy Yahwist superstition ridden case.

jollyroger's picture

Mayor Rob Ford, Toronto, Too Fat to Smoke Rock

I have become famous amongst my friends for my florid contempt for cocaine.

So much so that when "chopping it up old school" they don't even bother to put out a line or two for me.

It is overpriced and underpowered.

I have snorted the red pharmaceutical ye-yo,  and I have smoked free base with Phaedra Grant (NSFW!!!) 

jollyroger's picture

If John McCain thinks it's a good idea...

Never one to leave a press release lacking his name, John McCain (R, Getoffmylawnville) is free lancing foreign policy again. As usual, he gives guidance to the thoughtful: "Caution, this way lies madness".

McCain, last seen in a Baghdad market touting our prior venture into Sunni-Shia sectarianism ( that one went well...) now urges " arm the anti-Assad rebels...what could go wrong?"

Hint: Think The Thirty Years War.

jollyroger's picture

The voice of that woman is worth listening to

I have seen the better angel of Obama's nature, and her name is Medea Benjamin.

 

The odd applause line from yesterday's seminal speech which may ( we humbly pray) in future times be cited as the start of sanity's triumph over societal paranoia. By the time Prez elicited audience approval for his concession, the redoubtable Code Pink founder had been forcibly ejected (not for the first time),

jollyroger's picture

New Jersey Transit explains half billion Sandy damage with fully blacked out document, because, security.

Although my sister lives in New Jersey, I have been blissfully unaware of the post Sandy travails besetting New Jersey Transit due to some demonstrably poor pre-storm planning (must visit more)

Leaving aside the substance of the matter, we learn this amusing if alarming detail:

When asked by the Bergen Record for a copy of their prestorm planning documents (New York City's Transit Authority has a 5 volume treatise) the responsive document, entitled "New Jersey Rail Operations Hurricane Plan” required only 3-1/2 pages.

jollyroger's picture

Your surveillance dollars are not well spent!

Zacarias Moussaoui in August, 2001, attracted FBI attention yet eluded investigation despite floridly odd public behavior.

Tamerlan Tzarnaev, ten years and trillions of anti terror dollars later, attracts FBI attention, then maintains a floridly pro jihad ( public) YouTube channel , yet eludes further investigation.

Obviously, our security apparatus is overworked in the war on terror.

(I suggest triage: withdraw funds from the war on drug users.)

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