It's my birthday today (too old to count, not old enough to be in the way). We're not planning anything very exciting, so I thought I'd just say a little something about my husband the Perennial Presidential Candidate, and why he's NOT running this year. For a change. Because Barack Obama is there instead.

After we left an unsatisfactory past-life in science, my hubby went into professional clowning. I went into journalism, but still managed to make the costumes, keep the props, build the puppets, and write the skits. Very soon he'd enlisted our son and daughter into the act - son was the Best Juggler anybody'd ever seen, daughter has a degree in theater tech and is a heckuva set designer and puppet builder. It quickly became a family business, and we've done pretty well with it over the years.

One of the things I've learned in my life about the artificial value of money is that people with a lot of it view it - and issues surrounding it - much differently than people with little money do. If you're never "food insecure" [i.e., hungry, not knowing where your next meal will come from], eating less volume of food, eating better quality of food, and avoiding whole classifications of food is mostly a matter of what's 'food hip' today per the lifestyle and high-level consumerist media sources such people use to determine what's hip today. If going vegetarian is hip this season, you'll find the yacht club denizens swearing off red meat (for awhile, anyway) en masse. If eating expensive artisan multi-grain breads is hip for the tennis and golf crowd, expensive artisan multi-grain breads will appear on the shelves in abundance. If eating organically grown produce and drinking organic, shade-grown coffee or high-priced herbal tea blends is hip, the rich will lead the way on getting these commodities onto store shelves.

Been watching Keith's interview with Scotty, and that's pretty much all there is to say. There is impeachable offense here.

Where is Congress? Lordy. I don't have anything more to say than WOW.

Am I imagining things? Did Scotty just say what I heard him say per Plame? That's High Treason. I think Scotty knows it. OMG. They're very much concerned about upcoming war in Iran. Is this enough lead time to stop it?

Please, this up-front admittedly less-than comment diary is an open thread. What the Hell?!!!

My $.02 on shit. Please ignore and let it scroll on off, I'm just venting.

Wow. What a day... after! Barack Obama is looking very strong after 55% in the South Carolina primary and with endorsements from both Ted and Caroline Kennedy, we could be looking at not just America's first black President, but a wholly inspiring President with a real chance to unite instead of divide. That's called "Kicking Ass and Taking Names."

So I'm going to wade into the meta-wars and say something that needs saying...

I consider health care to be the #1 concern for the future viability of this nation, though oil wars/energy independence, revamped ag policies top to bottom, economic justice and regulatory housecleaning across the board are all important issues as well.

Under the heading of energy policies, I'm going to have to weigh in on the whole renewed "nuclear option" horsehockey disguising itself as a cure for global warming and a means to energy independence in the 21st century. Nuclear power is a pig not even in its poke anymore - it's fat and ugly, it's voraciously greedy, it's arrogant of its filth, and it can't even fly. Hogzilla Unleashed.

We tried to leash it, honest. Succeeded for more than a quarter of a century, too. But they think we're all dead now, or maybe just so old we've forgotten. We have not.

Unmasking the Puppet Master ...hiding in plain sight

[cross-posted from People First Politics]

Many years ago during the worst of the paranoid breakdown of "Tricky Dick" before his forced resignation, and again during the sneaky, behind-the-scenes horrors being brought to light in those infamous Iran-Contra hearings that made Ollie North such a wingnut hero, I used to console myself with the thought...

"As long as Frank Zappa is running around free, this is still America!"

The right wing blogosphere has been abuzz since the Newsweek Story this past weekend about an FBI raid on the home of former DoJ lawyer Thomas Tamm, almost as if they desperately wish to paint Tamm as being the recently notorious internet pseud (mostly anonymous) who's been asking some pointed - and apparently knowledgeable - questions on TPM, DU and other Dem/progressive sites. Questions about the legality of the Bush administration's in-house and sub-contracted wiretapping of American citizens as well as his apparent problems keeping all this data-mining within the legal per the FISA court.

Now, we are aware that our Democratic Congress chose to go on vacation after giving Bush 6 months' worth of waiver on having to obtain FISA warrants for these purposes, something many of us see as a blatant sell-out that looks more like a retroactive pass on past lawbreaking designed to cover Abu Gonzales' ass before our rollover Congress could get around to impeaching him. As if any of us actually expect THAT to happen... not.

For all of us who try to counter the industry propaganda we see so often in diaries here at DKos, there was an incident this week at the notorious federal reservation in Hanford, Washington involving high level nuclear waste. This from the nasty sludge left over from the Manhattan Project which was badly stored in the first place, during an evolution to transfer it to "safer" containment. Because it was leaking.

50 to 100 gallons of this highly radioactive "crunchy peanut butter" sludge got sent into a clean water line by a dumb decision on how to unclog pumps that simply weren't designed to pump chunky peanut butter. Duh. The clean water line sprung a leak, but none of those involved can figure out where that leak might be.

Newly registered Kos member [116859] GrySovCob - who calls himself "The nuclear ninja" - wrote a diary on Tuesday, July 24 that was aimed specifically at me. Entitled I Welcome the Nuclear Discussion, he begins with:

This started as a response to a diary entry, Joy Busey's take on the Japanese Earthquake, but I felt it was long enough to warrant being my first diary on DKos.

Perhaps I should be flattered that the pro-nuclear PR machine has taken notice of my opposition to their cash cow. I had mentioned in my diary that "there are a handful of pro-nuclear members of DKos who would very much like to stifle discussion" of the problems with nuclear power, which is true. A favorite tactic of these rudies is to tell participants to STFU - Shut The Fuck Up - whenever they express opposition to the cash cow. GrySovCob, however, says he is different.

I missed the diary when it was up, as I was busy reading the new Harry Potter book while it was here with my granddaughter, and didn't have much time. So this diary will have to serve as my response to being called out.

Government OK's IAEA check of quake-hit nuclear plant; Yomiuri Shimbun/AP 7-23-07.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the largest nuclear power facility in the world, boasting a total of 7 boiling water reactors and built smack dab atop seismic faults involved in an earthquake last Monday [7-16] measuring 6.8 and killing 10 people in Niiagata Prefecture in Northwest Japan.

Despite early reports indicating everything was hunky-dory at the K-K facility, as the days went forward more and more about the damage was released. Two days after the quake Tokyo Electric Power - operator of the plant - apologized for "delays and errors in announcing the extent of damage" from the quake. This included a transformer fire let burn due to broken water pipes disruption to "several hundred" barrels of radioactive waste stored at the facility (opening several dozen of those and releasing contents) as well as a leak from the spent fuel pool that was released into the Sea of Japan and continued releases of radioactive iodine from unit 7's vent stack.

Last night Jon Stewart hosted Jeremy Scahill, author of the book Blackwater. Stewart seemed not very impressed by Scahill's estimate of 120,000 mercenary troops (from a number of companies, designated as "private contractors") on the ground in Iraq, serving to nearly double American military presence, hide the true number of deaths and injuries, and able to operate with impunity.

Democracy Now! has an interview with Scahill up from January 26th, Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc. and Bush's Undeclared Surge that is worth reading. Again, it's not just Blackwater, they're just the most visible (and elite) mercenaries, who are also being used inside the US for various shady operations - like "security operations" in New Orleans after Katrina, where they were on the streets armed and on-the-job days before Bush allowed the National Guard into the city.

In what may turn out to be my last diary for DKos after watching the ugly takeover by 'Pug trolls and Dem cannibals following last year's elections, I'm going to address a situation most kossacks haven't noticed. This is the resident status of a handful of paid shills who aren't barking and biting for overeager Democratic candidates or promoting the self-destruction of the Democratic Party (though there are plenty of those too). These are shills for the infamous "Nuclear Mafia" in the form of pro-nuclear lobbying groups and PR firms being paid by our tax dollars through new (and increasing) subsidies to convince us that nuclear power generation is The Only Answer to global warming and oil-independence in the 21st century.

Of course, this may cause one or two progressives on this website devoted to Democratic politics, progressive policies and direct political action to wonder, "what the heck are THEY doing here?" As if no one here would notice, or identify them for what they obviously are: shills for the Nuclear Mafia. Follow me below the fold for my take and some backup from credible sources on what's going on...

As a multi-year participant in DailyKos, I feel it necessary - for me, not for any of you who may read this diary - to say something about what's happened to 'My Fave Site' since "we" took back the Congress last November.

Sure, there's lots of befuddling weirdness going on in those hallowed halls that seems absolutely designed to make us cynical about congresspersons of any variety, but as a long-time Will Rogers and Mark Twain fan, it's not like I didn't already know they're a bunch of cheap sell-outs. The only objectively criminal class and all. The let-down - of REASON why We The People voted as we did in such great numbers in that election - is palpable. They're not going to do a damned thing to stop the crippled duck-dick and his gun-happy puppeteer from doing exactly what they always planned to do in the ME. Something we just have to "live with," while our children and grandchildren get to die with it.

As the new century's propaganda push to re-invest in "clean, safe, too-cheap-to-meter" nuclear energy kicks into high gear, a new PR effort to address issues related to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island has also taken flight. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology held a 2-day seminar on January 22-23 entitled Three Mile Island - failure of science or spin?

The whole media flop and twist spasms about a grand Dem takeover reveals quite a bit, actually. As does the increasingly shrill war between the Dem establishment and Howard Dean's 50-State strategy. The way I parse this (analysis is my hobby) is:

1. The Dem establishment got together with the 'Pug establishment to divvy up some seats, so it would look like Dems came really close to taking the House, but not quite. The Senate was never on the table.

*This explains the "Heckuva job Rummy" charade, when Bush had actually already contracted Gates to take over upon the release of the Baker Group study. He was going to Stay the Course through the election, then say Dem gains in the House indicated people wanted a new direction, at which point Rummy's out and Gates was in. It was supposed to look like "statemanship," but all it really did was swing a lot more votes from angry citizens.

[Follow me below the fold for items 2 through 6...]

I keep reading diaries and posts claiming that torture and abuse of prisoners is not an "American Value." I keep seeing people moan and groan about the supposed loss of our "Moral Authority" in the world due to House and Senate approval of the so-called Torture Bill this past week. So I think it would be good to take an honest look at America's true morality regarding the treatment of prisoners right here in the good ol' US of A. I hope that by highlighting the FACT that we have no real moral standing on this issue, we can better develop policies that will address this lack of basic respect for human rights both at home and abroad.

Yes, it is wrong that we have carried our brutality into this latest 'War on Terror', but wars were never very civilized and never will be. If we truly want for America to better reflect the lofty rhetoric we use so often to fool ourselves into believing we're a lot 'nicer' than we really are, we need to pay some attention to the fact that we brutalize our own, every day, in every state. Under Color of Law...

Award-winning reporter Dave Lindorff has reproduced some of his article for The Nation, informing us that Bush's hinted-at "October Surprise" will be an attack on Iran. His diary's assertions about "War Signals" beg questions that I think we should consider carefully before assuming this information is correct.

The primary questions have to do with whether Bush would actually make good on the belligerent bluster he's been spouting for years against Iran (this round apparently timed to influence the midterm elections with his sole political asset of being a "wartime president"). Lindorff apparently believes from his military sources that an attack is likely to come as this election cycle's October Surprise. His focus is on the US Navy, citing recent Pentagon orders for a Naval carrier group (USS Eisenhower) to deploy off the west coast of Iran, and Time Magazine's report of Naval mine sweepers and deployment vessels to be ready for Persian Gulf deployment by October 1. Analysis below the fold...