War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Rain still a-coming here this late afternoon on California’s drenched northern coast — seems not as windy, though. Straight-up comment off the ‘CIA Torture Report,’ this from David Simon, creator of “The Wire,” on his blog yesterday: Fuck writing reports. Fuck arguing about reports. For the very soul of the country, some people must go…
The word “blowback” was invented by the CIA to put a name on their ‘unintended’ fuck-ups — one sliver of ‘blowback’ already off the ‘CIA Torture Report’ concerns the real-big lie. From McClatchy: ‘CIA Director John Brennan, under fire over the Senate report on the CIA’s use of torture, is facing new heat over his…
As the now-infamous ‘CIA Torture Report’ continues to wedge down the digestive tract, some upshots — one, how effective Sen. Mark Udall’s outrage speech this morning on the floor of the Senate:’““One disturbing finding: [CIA] Director Brennan and the CIA are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. In other…
Thickly-overcast and gloomy this Tuesday evening here on this little stretch of California’s north coast — rain a-coming big-time. Today is also torture-awareness day (via The Daily Beast): ‘Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold,…
Way-wet and chilly this early Friday on California’s north coast, but nothing unexpected as we’re on the first-strike, forefront of a big storm set to roll across the state the next couple of days. Our region could get three to four inches of rain, further south, maybe up to seven inches between now and Sunday/Monday…
Clear sunshine and chilly temperatures this early Tuesday on California’s north coast — beautiful weather for the year. Not so beautiful anywhere else, though. Tip-top news story story this morning comes from Ferguson, MO — grand jury returns without an indictment against Darren Wilson, the cop who shot and killed Michael Brown last August. And…
Sunshine, high, fluffy clouds and a cool breeze this Saturday afternoon on California’s north coast — we’re supposed to have comparable conditions the next couple of days, but weather’s still weather, especially this close to the shoreline. A chance of rain by Tuesday. Along with the gut-wrenching, flinging bad shit into a high-tempered fan last…
Bright shiny sunshine this afternoon, and a nice warm breeze, too. In the quaking and shuddering over the midterms, one item just a week or so ago seemed to pass without much notice — the US Marines handed over control (the keys) to Camp Leatherneck, the huge military installation in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, to the Afghans.…
Last paragraph yesterday from a story by Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian about how NSA people do as they please with government technology: Compounding the potential financial conflicts at the NSA, Buzzfeed News reported that the home of chief of its Signals Intelligence Directorate, Teresa Shea, has a signals-intelligence consulting firm operating out of it.…
One of the sadly-prolific and ironically-evolving tragedies of these modern times has to be Iraq. The invasion 11 years ago could-be most-easily “the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” but for sure, that one single event also marked day one of a fucked-up, immoral, man-made calamity. Flashback dream at right: A frightened child flees Basra,…
