brainiac conspiracy

Pandemics We Can Believe In

Via Tristero today, shocking news: some people in Big Farma the agricultural community are offended by the term "swine flu":

The North American Meat Processors Association, the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute all issued statements asking the media to pick up on the phrase "North American flu" or other, accurate references to the hybrid A/H1N1 flu strain that is the culprit in the ongoing outbreak.

As Tristero notes, there's mighty good reason for this objection. Both the Times Online and the Guardian have filed reports, and Grist fills in some details:

Clarifying details about respiratory ailments in the Perote area of Vera Cruz State---where U.S. pork behemoth Smithfield Foods raises nearly a million hogs a year in large confinement buildings, under a subsidiary called Granjas Carroll---have emerged. In my original post on this topic, I didn't fully understand that the outbreak of a virulent respiratory condition in the town of La Gloria---located near Smithfield's farming operations---wasn't initially identified as swine flu. The disease emerged as early as February and infected 60 percent of the town's 1,800 inhabitants, according to the widely cited blog Biosurveillance, run by the U.S. disease-tracking consultancy Veratract (which claims the CDC, the World Health Organization, and the Pan-American Health Organization as clients). Three children died during the outbreak, Veratract reports. Residents blamed the Granjas Carroll confinements for the outbreak; and local authorities evidently agreed. "Health workers soon intervened, sealing off the town and spraying chemicals to kill the flies [which grew in swarms on Granjas Caroll's manure lagoons] that were reportedly swarming through people's homes" . . .

There was evidently much confusion about the cause of the disease. "According to residents, the [Granjas Carroll] denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to 'flu,' "; Veratract reports. And "State health officials also implemented a vaccination campaign against influenza." However, "physicians ruled out influenza as the cause of the outbreak." Yet the symptoms experienced in La Gloria closely resemble those that would later be diagnosed as swine flu, according to several accounts. The Guardian quotes a La Gloria resident:

The symptoms were exactly like the ones they talk about now [with swine flu] .... High fevers, pain in the muscles and the joints, terrible headaches, some vomiting and diarrhoea. The illness came on very quickly and whole families were laid up.

Naturally, the pork producers claim immunity (pun intended) since, after all, it is virtually impossible to contract Smithfield Disease swine flu by eating thoroughly cooked meat. But there are other ways to spread a virus besides simple meat consumption:

Animal biosolids contain a range of pathogens that may include influenza viruses, which can persist for extended periods of time in the absence of specific treatment . . .

Do the words "Hanta virus" ring a bell? But despite the potential health hazards, animal biowastes are largely unregulated:

Apart from some use in animal feeds and aquaculture, poultry and swine wastes are almost entirely managed by land disposal. Pathogens can survive in untreated and land-disposed wastes from food animals for extended periods of time---between two and 12 months for bacteria and between three and six months for viruses.

And the problem, taken on a global scale, is . . . dare we say, pandemic?

The volume of animal wastes is significant, reflecting the considerable expansion of food animal production globally. In the U.S., it is estimated that 238,000 CAFOs produce 314 million metric tons of waste per year, which is 100 times as much biosolids produced by treating human wastewater. Global estimates suggest that 140 million metric tons of poultry litter and 460 million metric tons of swine waste were produced in 2003, based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

And we have only scratched the surface here, since workers in the US have already come down with antibiotic-resistant (and potentially life-threatening) staph infections from simply handling pork products. And this disease makes garden-variety swine flu look like a bad case of sniffles:

We know that some strains of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are extremely dangerous. Dr. Monina Klevens, of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined the cases of the disease reported in hospitals, schools and prisons in one year and extrapolated that "94,360 invasive MRSA infections occurred in the United States in 2005; these infections were associated with death in 18,650 cases."

At this point, I only have one observation: This shit is happening in our own backyard. So why do I need to consult a paper in the UK to get the straight story, and to the blogs of Angry Liberals™ for context?

Update: Oh, and thank you, Chuck Grassley, Midwest Moderate®, for threatening to torpedo the nomination of an administration appointee who might actually give a shit about fixing this disaster.

--Vitelius

Triumph of the Grille: Pancreatic Edition

Me and my big mouth.

---Vitelius

GOP or Dem, A Specter is Still a Ghoul

While it's all been fun and games watching the Republicans going ballistic over Arlen's defection to Democrats today, let's not forget that the architect of the Single Bullet Theory (does anyone still really believe this?) is also the same clown who was perfectly happy to hand Clarence Thomas a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench. And trash an honest woman in the process.

Obama had better leverage this snake for all that he's worth: Vote for EFCA, or we primary you with a vengeance. Just a suggestion.

Update (4/29): Glennzilla nails it.

---Vitelius

Tuesday Food Blogging: Triumph of the Grille

As a way of a preface, my father passed away a few days ago, which largely explains the relative inactivity on this site of late. (No tears, please---he was 81 years old, his health had been deteriorating for several years, his checked himself into the hospital to be put on morphine and allowed to die with dignity, and if he were still around, he'd get mighty cranky at the thought of anyone getting dewy-eyed and sentimental over him.) Anyway, I've spent a few days sorting through his possessions, and I came across a brand-new All-Clad grille pan, unused and still in the box. (Someone must have given it to him as a gift and he never got around to breaking it out.) Now I dig the taste of grilled foods, but like most apartment dwellers, I don't have a dedicated grille on my stove, or ready access to a backyard barbecue, so I thought I'd take the thing home and give it a whirl. And while it's not quite the same as cooking outdoors on an open flame, the results you get from it are pretty darned good. And if you're worried about smoking out your kitchen this way, don't. If you keep the burner at a reasonable (medium) heat, it doesn't throw off any more smoke than typical pan-frying or sauteeing does. I'll be experimenting further, but so far, I've found that asparagus cooks up nicely in about five minutes, a hunk of spring onions in about 10, and both the slab of zucchini and the flank steak pictured take around 12 to 15 minutes to reach the proper level of doneness. So thanks, Pop---this meal's, and this blog's, in your memory. As will be many others, I am sure. (Marinade recipe for the flank steak beneath the pic.)

BARON'S BEST WET RED-MEAT MARINADE
(for 1 lb flank steak, cut into 4 serving pieces)

2 cups dry red wine
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1 medium blood orange
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp New Mexico, Ancho, or other smoky chile powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup tawny port
1 tsp unsalted butter, softened

Add all of the ingredients except the port and butter in a bowl big enough to contain all the steaks. Stir to combine. Add the steaks and allow to marinade at room temperature, turning occasionally, for 2 hours before cooking.

Five minutes before the steaks are done, add 1 cup of the marinade to a small saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil and continue cooking over high heat, until reduced by half, approximately 3 minutes. Add the port and continue to cook until the sauce has turned very dark and has reached the consistency of a thick sauce, about three minutes more. When the steaks are plated and rested, give each filet a couple of spoonfuls of the sauce.

---Vitelius

Beyond Wankerhood

Latest rationale against prosecuting torturers: It might upset Republicans.

"When you get one administration prosecuting its predecessor, you start creating the conditions of a banana republic," said Philip Heymann, a law professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton. "Every Republican in the country would think this was a dangerous attack on the two-party system."

Let me see if I've got this straight: Deciding to prosecute interrogation policies that are most frequently associated with banana-republic-style dictatorships runs the risk of turning the United States into . . . a banana republic. Or maybe Sean Hannity's definition of a banana republic, who knows.

This is just foolishness. The question has nothing to do with the integrity of the two-party system. It has everything to do with the simple question of whether or not the executive branch of the Federal government is bound under the Constitution to act within the confines of laws enacted, and treaties approved, by Congress, or whether it is free to re-interpret and re-write any laws or treaties as it sees fit in the total absence of any Constitutional authority to do so. It is a simple question, really, and it has an equally simple answer, and one need not have worked as a professor of law at Harvard University (!) to be able to figure it out.

Word to the regents in Cambridge: Fire this idiot. Do it now. And did I mention today that it's time to appoint a special prosecutor?

---Vitelius

Straight From The Source

Whether or not to prosecute torturers? The votes are in, and it's unanimous!

Today, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States declares its strong solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.

Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools such regimes use to terrorize their own citizens. These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice....

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. (Emphasis added.)

George W. Bush,
Official proclamation,
July 26, 2003

Time to appoint a special prosecutor. (H/t Sullivan.)

---Vitelius

Hitting Applying Blunt Force to the Trifecta

For those of you keeping score at home: Torture not only doesn't work, it isn't even necessary; it was overseen by incompetents; and its defenders are still lying about it.

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn't been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn't, or couldn't have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions---all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh's capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don't add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him. (Emphasis added.)

Time to appoint a special prosecutor.

--Vitelius

Hump Day Mini-Thread

• If you haven't yet read Doug Blackman's magnificent opus Slavery by Another Name, by all means do so. Blackman, who writes for the Atlanta desk of the Wall Street Journal, uses an old-school journalist's feature-writing technique to describe the corrosive effects of the Jim Crow Era through the eyes of a single black family in north Alabama, and his writing is nuanced, insightful, and often poetic. What distinguishes Slavery from other works on this subject, though, is its emphasis not on the often-told political and legal injustices of Jim Crow but on the economies of the era---namely, the coal mines, lumber camps, and steel and paper mills that were worked, for decades, by hundreds of thousands of black males who were conscripted, against their will, into government-sanctioned forced labor camps created by for-profit corporations, and who labored in unspeakably obscene conditions which even many antebellum slaveowners would have likely found offensive. What makes this sorrowful tale still relevant in our time is that many of these companies, or their various corporate offshoots, are still in existence today, living reminders of a place and time when government and industry worked as one indistinguishable entity, forming synergies of forced labor and money, to build an industrial state on a sea of captive labor: An American gulag, in other words. In all, it's a sobering read, but I thought it was well worth the effort. So too, apparently, did the Pulitzer Committee, which awarded it this year's Nonfiction prize.

• And it should go without saying that this year's Pulitzer winner in Music was, ahem, years overdue for the honor.

• It was certainly a shock to read this morning of the apparent suicide of the new head of Freddie Mac. One only hopes that developments like this played no role in it. It's a bad omen either way.

• Before we pronounce dead-tree journalism dead in the water, we should stop to salute great reportage when we see it:

U.S.counterterrorism officials are reacting angrily to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that waterboarding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times was a "success" that produced actionable intelligence.

"Cheney is full of crap," one intelligence source with decades of experience said Tuesday.

And that, my friends, is journalism we can believe in.

---Vitelius

Origins of the Torture Regime

Two days after the Pulitzers were handed out, Jonathan Landay at McClatchy makes a strong argument for an award next year. These Bush people were simply going to have their war with Saddam, no matter what, now, weren't they?

It has been getting a little harder with each passing day for Obama to evade the subject of war crimes investigations. With the release of this information---and this, and now this as well---one would think it is damn near impossible now.

And for the historically minded, we have been here before, as Sullivan reminds us. Only, once upon a time, we were actually prosecuting torturers, not making up excuses for them in the name of "looking forward".

---Vitelius

Question of The Day

Is Marcy Winogrand available to primary this sellout again in 2010? If so, I'm in for a Franklin. Anyone else?

---Vitelius

Exeunt Omnes: The Salonen Era

Well, the Baron had the good fortune to catch Salonen’s final performance with the Philharmonic yesterday, and while I don’t have much to add beyond what’s already been (far more eloquently) written by others, the program itself, with its themes of death, resurrection and redemption, gave me pause to reflect on the man’s career in LA. It’s been one amazing ride, and I certainly consider myself fortunate to have been around to have grown up (and old) with it. Those last ecstatic Laudates from yesterday’s breathtaking performance of Symphony of Psalms will certainly resonate long in memory.

In retrospect he leaves behind a Promethean legacy: Salonen came to Los Angeles in 1992 as a fresh face inheriting a franchise long in atrophy, and leaves as a cultural force virtually unrivaled in this city over the past two decades, and who leaves behind an ensemble that, for the depth and breadth of its repertoire and the passion of its playing, is arguably the world's finest symphony orchestra. As much as anyone else in the city, he was responsible for willing into being our world-class concert hall with the Mickey Mouse name. He dragged our local orchestra not only across the street into a futuristic building but into the messy postwar world of compositional music, conducting (and commissioning) dozens of examples of postmodern works typically mislabeled “avant-garde” or “atonal”---some grating and trivial, but most of them memorable---that the Philharmonic had become legendarily famous for avoiding. In doing so he helped to popularize New Music in general, such that our Green Umbrella concerts, once the province of a couple hundred adventurous souls at the Japan America Theatre, are now routine sell-outs at Disney Hall.

And most amazing of all, he made classical music not only hip and relevant to a new generation of concertgoers, but a desirable and even essential component of the entire L.A. cultural experience---something I frankly would not have thought possible in a town where pop music, blockbuster filmmaking and dispose-a-matic TV programming have reigned supreme for decades. He did it all without Mehta-esque showboating or pandering to the masses; he treated the orchestra, and us loyal listeners, as intelligent and inquisitive adults. And by challenging the orchestra---and those of us in the audience---to accustom ourselves to the sometimes jarring juxtaposition of familiar old crowd-pleasers and brand-new works---to connect the dots between Liszt and Lutoslawski---he reminded us that what we vaguely call “classical” music is not some 19th-century museum piece gathering varnish, but is, like painting and sculpture, a continuously evolving art form: A living, breathing organism which may morph and modulate in context and meaning over the passing of centuries, but which still has as many secrets to reveal about our culture, and our inner lives, as it did in Beethoven’s time. Have we really had it so good the past 17 years? Yep, and let's long hold onto and cherish dear the memories.

Update: KUSC-FM, our last radio bastion of the classical canon in LA, broadcast yesterday's concert live, and will re-broadcast it later this summer. you can click here to find out more.

---Vitelius

Change We Can Never Believe In

Let this all sink in for a moment: It's 2005. The President of the United States has been running an illegal covert intelligence-gathering operation for years. Two Attorneys General and most senior officials in the Justice Department have been involved in the crime, and key members of Congress have been briefed on it, are fully aware of it, and hence are complicit in serial violations of federal law. The degree of lawlessness is so pervasive among multiple branches of government, and the sense of impunity among the lawbreakers so pervasive, that the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee actually volunteers to lend the weight of her office to possibly derail a lawful investigation of espionage---the betrayal of state secrets to a foreign power---and who is in turn rescued by an Attorney General who views her as a useful tool to provide cover for his own lawbreaking.

In this environment, is it really any wonder the Bradbury memos of 2005 were written, or that the kinds of torture described by them were carried out? Having granted themselves total immunity from any legal repercussions for any kind of behavior---even acts that could jeopardize the security of the Republic---why shouldn’t these people have done what they did? Who was ever going to stop them?

And this is why Obama’s decision---if true---not to instigate any criminal investigations into the possibility of war crimes is a serious, serious mistake. For Obama to simply give the Bush administration policymakers who cultured and spread the corrosive virus of corruption and lawbreaking that infected the entire executive and legislative branches, and which bequeathed us a legacy of wars launched under false pretenses, politicization of government agencies, and wholesale violations of the most basic human rights, is to effectively put his own seal of approval on what was the single unifying theory behind Bush administration governance.

Obama may be an ethical man who won’t countenance such behaviors from members of his own administration, and history will be charitable enough to him for this tender mercy. But he won’t be president forever, and someone needs to remind him that his inaction to draw a line in the sand now is tantamount to giving President Palin, or President Boehner, or some other Republican dingbat executive in the year 2018 a green light to do the same exact things, time and again, free from worry that any future administration will ever hold them accountable for their actions. That’s the lesson to be learned from Watergate, from Iran-Contra, and from eight years of the Bush crime syndicate---the way to stop lawbreaking in our executive branch is not with pardons, clemencies, and get-out-of-jail cards issued under the guise of "looking forward"; it’s with grand juries, subpoenas, testimony, jury trials and, if necessary, jail time for the guilty parties. Simply allowing this kind of felonious behavior to escape any semblance of accountability only invites it to reoccur in the future---and if the last 40 years of American history have been any guide, the chances are it probably will.

Update (4/21): Looks as though the White House is keeping its options open after all. Good for them.

---Vitelius

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Strontium 90

As one might expect, things are seldom as simple as they might appear. From a recent article in the Independent:

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since---and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury---you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation---and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

It is even worse than that---a veritable cornucopia of environmental worst practices:

Somali fishermen in various regions of the country also complained to the international community about the illegal foreign fishing, stealing the livelihoods of poor fishermen, waste dumping and other ecological disasters, including the indiscriminate use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing all "endangered species" like sea-turtles, orca, sharks, baby whales, etc. as well as destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea . . .

"They are not only taking and robbing us of our fish, but they are also trying to stop us from fishing," said Jeylani Shaykh Abdi, a fisherman in Merca, 100 km south of Mogadishu. "They have rammed our boats and cut our nets", he added. Another Merca fisherman, Mohamed Hussein, said [Our] existence depends on the fish. He accused the international community of "talking only about the piracy problem in Somalia, but not about the destruction of our coast and our lives by these foreign ships." Jeylani noted that the number of foreign ships had increased over time. "It is now normal to see them on a daily basis, a few miles off our shores."

Well, it's just a few bad actors, right?

Illegal foreign fishing trawlers which have being fishing in Somalia since 1991 are mostly owned by EU and Asian fishing companies---Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and many others. Illegal vessels captured on the Somali coast by Somali fishermen during 1991 and 1999 included Taiwanese trawlers Yue Fa No. 3 and Chian Yuein No.232, FV Shuen Kuo No.11; MV Airone, MV De Giosa Giuseppe and MV Antonietta, all 3 Italian vessels registered in Italy; MV Bahari Hindi, Kenyan registered but owned and managed by Marship Co. of Mombasa. A number of Italian registered SHIFCO vessels, Korean and Ukrainian trawlers, Indian, Egyptian and Yemeni boats were also captured by fishermen and ransoms of different sizes paid for their release. Many Spanish seiners, frequent violators of the Somali fishing grounds, managed to evade capture at various times.

Jonathan Hari again:

This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia---and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".

Funny how you don't hear much about this crap in the US media. Thankfully, there are a few alternatives:

It really is amazing how selective we can be in our outrage. Hell, in this country, a bunch of people start threatening to secede from the Union because the President wants to raise the top marginal income-tax rate by three percent, and they are treated with deference and respect by their local government officials. But when people with funny names and dark skin on the other side of the world take umbrage with foreign cartels befouling their waters and starving their people, nothing short of a team of Navy SEALS will do to solve the problem. Jonathan Hari sums up:

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters---especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas" . . .

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes---the only sane solution to this problem---but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

---Vitelius

Friday Night Mini-Thread

• Plenty of predictable blowback over Obama's decision over the CIA torture memos today. On the whole, I think it was a prudent compromise---the field agents who simply believed they were doing their jobs escape prosecution, and the memos get released, virtually unredacted, without protest from the spooks in return---but it does point to much bigger, more pressing issue: if Obama really wants to improve relations with the Muslim world, he'd better be willing to give a green light, however tacitly, to some criminal investigations of the higher-ups who authored and approved the heinous behavior depicted in yesterday's memos. This shit simply went beyond the pale, and no amount of "looking forward instead of looking back" palaver can ever justify inaction against the members of the BushCo brain trust who labored so strenuously to craft such vile and debasing policies. This has nothing to do with politics or parties. Andy Sullivan, eloquent as always on matters of human rights, lays it all out precisely today: this is how democracies die.

• It's been said before, but it bears repeating: only in a media world that has been hard-wired to recycle Republican talking points would an incident like this merit a headline and a stand-alone story from a leading wire service. In. Fucking. Credible.

• Things are tough all over. Even the Tommy Friedmans of the world get eated these days. (Apologies to Atrios.)

---Vitelius

Trains We Can Believe In

I don't know about any of you, but I am really stoked about this:

And it stokes my mojo even more to hear our President use language like this:

Now, all of you know this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. It is now. It is happening right now. It's been happening for decades. The problem is it's been happening elsewhere, not here.

In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations. In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined.

Dear God, it's the Europeanization of America! Who is going to stop this man?!?

Even so, my stokage is epitomized yet further with analogies like this:

You know, I've been speaking a lot lately about what we're doing to break free of our economic crisis so to put people back to work and move this nation from recession to recovery.  And one area in which we can make investments with impact both immediate and lasting is in America's infrastructure.

And that's why the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan we passed not two months ago included the most sweeping investment in our infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. (Emphasis added.)

Now, there's nothing really new or radical about this high-speed rail proposal. Take a look at the Obama map and compare it to this one here:

Population densities? Check. Heavily-trafficked commuter corridors? Check. It's even got the added benefit of pumping some much-needed infrastructure dough into some of the states, such as California, Michigan and South Carolina, that have been the hardest-hit by the current recession. No, what is truly radical about this proposal is that it is actually going to be implemented, in stages, over a number of years. Of course, the $8 billion outlay Obama mentioned today is merely seed money---it will cost tens of billions more to complete, and take upwards of a decade to construct, and a surly and uncooperative Congress could pull the plug on funding at virtually any time. And participating states are going to have to come up with some funding of their own, either via the floating of bonds, or tax increases, or a combination thereof, to keep the project rolling. Suffice to say, there are all sorts of of minefields that Obama will need to navigate here. But we are finally past the point of merely talking about high-speed rail in this country and starting to actually do something about it. That's the kind of change I voted for last November, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Oh, and could someone tell Governor Goodhair that funding for the San Antonio-Dallas-Tulsa line goes away if his state decides, you know, to secede from the Union? Yeah, like I said, there are lots minefields to tiptoe around, but it seems to me that if anyone can get this project off the ground successfully, it's Obama. If nothing else, he can send Joe Biden up to The Hill to harangue his fellow colleagues with hour after hour of heartwarming Amtrak commuter tales until they up and throw in the towel. He's a walking filibuster, that fella, and I can't think of a better way for Obama to put Joe and his God-given gift of gab to good use right now.

---Vitelius

What I Learned From Yesterday

Gonad sucking = good and patriotic. Buttfucking = bad bad very bad socialist. Coming to an airport men's room nearest you.

(H/t Phillybits via TPM.)

---Vitelius

The Musical Magical Food

Disclaimer: There are no teabags in the following recipe.

Legumes, a.k.a. beans, peas, lentils, et al are a terrific staple that are sadly underutilized in a lot of American kitchens. Beside being rich in proteins, they're also an integral part of sustainable farming for their legendary ability to replenish nitrogen levels in soil. So for those of us who'd like to support saner food policies, and save a little green as well (beans in bulk are a lot cheaper than any meat), here's my humble contribution to American Cuisine. It's a little Cajun, a little Caribbean, a little Tex-Mex, and a little Moroccan as well, of all things.

BARON'S BEST RED BEANS AND RICE

For the Spice Blend:
1 tbsp ancho or other dark chile powder
1 tbsp chipotle or New Mexico chile powder
1 tbsp best-quality paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp Jamaican curry powder (optional)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp allspice

For the Beans:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 slice tasso ham, aproximately 1/4 lb, cut into 1/2-inch dice (I use turkey kielbasa, but pork is more authentic)
1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 large green bell or Pasilla chile pepper, stemmed, cored and seeded, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 medium celery ribs, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
3 medium garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
1 tsp harissa paste (optional)
1 12-ounce can best-quality chopped tomatoes, liquid reserved
1 lb dried red or kidney beans, sorted and cleaned, soaked 8 to 10 hours or overnight, then rinsed and drained in a colander
1 cup dry white wine (use 1 cup amber beer if you want a more Southwestern flavor)
4 cups best quality chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste

For the Roux:
4 tbsp butter, warmed to room temperature
4 tbsp sifted white flour

Chopped green onion and/or jalapeno pepper for garnish

In a mixing bowl, combine all the dry spices and stir to combine. Set aside.

Add the olive oil to a Dutch oven or heavy stockpot over medium heat. Add the ham and cook until rendered, approximately 5 minutes. Add the onions, bell pepper and celery, stir to combine and cook until the onions appear translucent, approximately 5 minutes. Add the garlic, stir, and cook one minute more. Add the tomato paste and harissa; stir to combine. Sprinkle the spice mixture slowly into the pot, stirring to combine all the ingredients and allowing the spices to release their oils, approximately 2 minutes. Add the canned tomatoes, wine or beer, stock, and salt and pepper; stir to combine. Turn the heat up to high, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the beans are fork-tender. Reduce the heat to low and keep warm, covered.

To make the roux, place a cast iron skillet over high heat undisturbed for five minutes. Gradually add the butter and flour to the hot skillet, stirring continuously with a wire whisk to combine. Continue to whisk vigorously until the butter-flour mixture turns a deep chocolate-chestnut color, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Slowly pour the roux into the stockpot, using the wire whisk to combine with the beans and to scrape out the skillet (be careful here; the roux will spatter a bit when contacting the hot liquid). Bring the stockpot to a boil, stir, then reduce the heat to medium-low, adding more butter and flour as desired, or cooking down until the desired consistency is reached. Serve using a ladle in a broad-brimmed soup bowl over jasmine, basmati, or other long-grain rice. rice. Garnish with a sprinkle of green onions and/or jalapenos, and serve along with hot sauce if desired. Serves 4 to 6 as a main course.

---Vitelius

Media Insight of The Day

That bad ol' Barack Obama is a big meanie, isn't he.

---Vitelius

Monday Night One-Liners Thread

Things around the castle have been a bit hectic of late, hence precious little time for online blather, but:

• A brief respite from the usual snarks: who's not a sucker for an image like this?

• My first reaction to the Somali pirate takedown story was how long we'd have to wait for someone to tell us this was bad news for Obama and/or Democrats. The next Broder column?

• While we're waiting, here's a novel approach to the problem: To combat Somali pirates, let's just deed the ocean to another bunch of pirates instead. Simple, huh?

• And while I don't normally recommend wasting your time reading shit like this, you really should try to digest some of this transcript. It's a case study in compulsive-obsessive disorder. And did you know David Gergen's middle name was "Rodham"? I didn't either. Heck, I thought he was a Republican.

• Clarence Thomas thinks we have too many rights. I agree. Let's bring back slavery.

• As I've said before, Obama is an incrementalist by nature, but even so, the baby steps he took towards Cuba today are a positive sign.

• The Baron took in an afternoon of this diversion yesterday. I was going to write a review, but this fella here took the words right outta my processsor, so if you live in LA, go see it.

• My copy of The Eliminationists arived today. I'll review in a future post.

---Vitelius

Seventy-Five Years of Keynesianism Socialism

This really is amazing.

(H/t Ritholtz.)

---Vitelius