Back in 2009, Glenn Greenwald had a typically scathing attack on the ruling classes taking care of their own and their progeny and the cozy relationship that has developed between the media and the families of those they supposedly cover.

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.

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The latest revelation from the Snowden documents is that the NSA “is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.”
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The White House and the CIA are still resisting calls to release even the 500-page Executive Summary and conclusions of the 6,300 page Senate torture report. It appears that while the full report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the US government’s torture practices has not been leaked (as yet anyway) elements of what it contains are coming out.
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You may recall my post earlier this week about the security flaw that was discovered in Mac operating systems. Apple issued a patch to fix the flaws for iPads and iPhones and now they have issued a fix for Mac computers too.
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What with one thing and another, I had been completely unaware that there are plans to build another canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to compete with the existing Panama Canal. This canal will be built by the Chinese and will go through Nicaragua. The graphic from McClatchy gives a good idea of the huge scale of the project. The engineering challenges are massive. [Read more…]

I am in bed with the flu and so blogging may be light or non-existent for the next couple of days except for monitoring the comments.

On the bright side, it gives me a good excuse for not going outside in what is expected to be a bitterly cold week.

I have commented before on the harsh personal terms in which Edward Snowden has been characterized by some in the media, being described as arrogant, conceited, grating, grandiose narcissistic, a clown, and so on. This has usually come from people who strongly disagree with what he did, but not exclusively so. [Read more…]

There once was an old man in a family who loved to tell the same hunting story over and over again. At family gatherings, the man would try to find some cue that would enable him to insert the story into the flow of talk. On one occasion, he became increasingly frustrated at the lack of an opening in the conversation so he finally took his walking stick and rapped the ground sharply. In the startled silence that followed, he said, “What was that? A gunshot? Talking of gunshots, that reminds of the time …” [Read more…]

Internet gremlins got into the blog servers and disabled my blog for much of the day. For those who were frustrated trying gain access or post comments, I hope it is some consolation that I too was shut out. We are very democratic here!

Normal blogging is back.