The Israeli military has charged two of its soldiers with endangering the life of a Palestinian boy during Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The army said the soldiers, who had been searching a building, had instructed the nine-year-old to open bags they suspected were booby-trapped. This practice, banned by the Israeli military, is known as using someone as a human shield. Use of civilians as human shields is widely considered a war crime.
The spring newsletter from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government reports on a simulation game played in late November 2009. The game's purpose was to "illuminate the possible evolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis over the next year," and the players were high-ranking current and former government officials and scholars. The result: Iran won.
Mother Jones: The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending. Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it's virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it's spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well. read more
Earlier this week, a new poll and accompanying "strategic analysis" was released by Democracy Corps (the Democratic firm founded by James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Bob Shrum), co-sponsored by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner ("GQR") and the "centrist" Third Way. It spat out decades-old, warmed-over, fear-driven conventional wisdom: Democrats were in danger of being seen as Weak on National Security and Terrorism, etc. etc., and specifically warned of the dangers from abandoning Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies (while suggesting ways for Democrats to appear Strong).
A Senate committee has taken steps to blacklist the Drudge Report on Capitol Hill computers over concerns that the site may be distributing malware in ads on the site. Late Monday night, the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works sent out a letter urging employees to steer clear of the highly-trafficked news aggregating web site as well as whitepages.org after a wave of virus attacks. "Please avoid using these sites until the Senate resolves this issue," a committee e-mail read.
It's hard to sell a new riding mower to the Buddha.
If you meet the Buddha on the road and he's driving a riding mower, kill him.
Be Well.
Did Krugman just make the argument that costs are going to go up more or less unhindered whether we enact reform or not, so we might as well figure out a way to get the uninsured in the boat along with the rest of us?
An on yopic post?
wOOt!
The Reforms are aimed at two main things.
First, finding a way to restrain the sky rocketing costs and second, to insure the millions of currently uninsured people many of them children.
Krugman talks about this when discussing the second myth.
A 1 percent rise in order to insure an extra 34 million people in a day and age when HC costs rise by double digits annually is a good deal.
Be Well.