Today's Krugman column on social security, The Final Insult, is a gem. A small taste:
But Mr. Bush isn't calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he's calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now – which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.
What columnist is more deserving of a Pulitzer?
Wayne Madsen has another NSA leak that I really hope isn't true: NSA intercepts for Bolton masked as 'training missions':
According to National Security Agency insiders, outgoing NSA Director General Michael Hayden approved special communications intercepts of phone conversations made by past and present U.S. government officials. The intercepts are at the height of the current controversy surrounding the nomination of Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
It was revealed by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) during Bolton's Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing that Bolton requested transcripts of 10 NSA intercepts of conversations between named U.S. government officials and foreign persons. However, NSA insiders report that Hayden approved special intercept operations on behalf of Bolton and had them masked as “training missions” in order to get around internal NSA regulations that normally prohibit such eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.
Is it easier to believe that life is imitating “Enemy of the State,” or that NSA sources are workig to discredit Madsen by feeding him false info?
That Al-Queda #3 man captured the other day? He's enjoying the gentle ministrations of the Pakistani intelligence services. But the interrogation, allegedly, isn't going that well:
Intelligence officials who have been questioning Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the senior al-Qa'eda suspect arrested last week, have cast doubt over claims by the Pakistani prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, that the interrogation is “proceeding well”.
The officials say that al-Libbi, who is believed to be al-Qaeda's number three, has defied efforts to make him reveal valuable intelligence about its senior hierarchy, despite coming under “physical pressure” to do so.
More than a dozen low-key al-Qa'eda targets were arrested in Pakistan last week thanks to information stored on al-Libbi's satellite telephone. Yet early hopes among both American and Pakistani intelligence officials that he would tell them the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawihiri, were dashed.
One senior intelligence official told The Telegraph: “So far he has not told us anything solid that could lead to the high-value targets. It is too early to judge whether he is a hard nut to crack, or simply that he doesn't know more than he has told us.”
Al-Libbi had been beaten and injected with the so-called “truth drug”, sodium pentothal, said the official. “They have tried all possible methods, from the 'third degree' to injecting him with a truth serum but it is hard to break him,” he said.
I have to say “allegedly” because this is the sort of disinformation you'd expect an on-the-ball intelligence agency to spread if the guy had in fact spilled his guts.
Drinking malt whisky may help prevent cancer, a scientific conference has been told.
The medicinal properties of antioxidants in red wine are well known, but delegates at a biochemistry conference were told that whisky offered “even greater health benefits”.
Dr Jim Swan, a consultant to the drinks industry, said: “There has been much in the news about the health benefits of antioxidants in red wine. By contrast, very little has been said about malt whisky distillery science.
“However, research has shown that there are even greater health benefits to people who drink single malt whiskies. Why? Single malt whiskies have more ellagic acid than red wine.”
But is there more ellagic acid in a small whisky or a large glass of red wine?
And does that I mean I can deduct the Laphroaig if I just drink it for, um, medicinal purposes? Especially given what it's selling for these days.
And, of course, there's always a killjoy somewhere:
However, Dr Lesley Walker of Cancer Research UK, pointed out that the same acid was found in fruit, and said she was “very concerned” that whisky was being promoted as a cancer prevention agent without data to support the claim.
“On the contrary, there is considerable data documenting the link between drinking excess alcohol and the increased risk of a number of cancers, particularly in smokers,” she said.
I don't smoke, so that should be no obstacle.
If the tax break thing doesn't work out, maybe I'll just eat more raspberries.
Former Clinton Counsel Lloyd Cutler Dies at 87
When I worked for Wilmer, Cutler in London I had the privilege of working for “Lloyd” as he wanted to be called (not that we younguns ever quite did) on a pro-bono matter. Lloyd Cutler had drafted the firm to help him in connection with an international project to advise Czechoslovakia, which was trying to draft a new constitution. (We were too late — they cut the deal that doomed them to split two days before we made our presentations.) I found a very impressive and decent man, with a dash of the Washington fixer.The Washington Post quotes its former ombudsman as describing him as “a corporate godfather by day and Sister Theresa by night.” Sounds about right.
Lloyd Cutler worked on many good causes, and as one of the US’s equivalent of the ‘great and the good’ performed many public services. His greatest achievement may be the institution he left behind. I don’t know whether it’s still as true today, but the Wilmer, Cutler I worked in was an impressive and highly decent place, a Washington institution, a litigation powerhouse at once intellectual and moral, with an intense commitment to public service. Not many firms manage that. Not many people can help create something like that — and then let go at the right time.
I last saw him here in Miami in January 2003, when the National Research Council’s CSTB Committee on “Privacy in the Information Age,” which he chaired, held a meeting here. He was older, and moved less surely, but the fire (and the growl) was still there, undiminished.
A followup to Three is a Convenient Number to State, in which I noted how the US was trumpeting the capture of yet another third-in-command Al-Qaeda leader — the British and world press are reporting that Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of ‘mistaken identity’:
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.
As yet there is no sign of this story in the US media, at least not in the sources covered by news.google.com.
Recent Bluessky Posts
Jotwell Blenderlaw