The latest leaked document to garner outrage at WikiLeaks is a "long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security."
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says this is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation.
...The geographical range of the document on installations is extraordinary, our correspondent says.
If the US sees itself as waging a "global war on terror" then this represents a global directory of the key installations and facilities - many of them medical or industrial - that are seen as being of vital importance to Washington.
...The critical question is whether this really is a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist, our correspondent says.
The cable contains a simple listing. In many cases towns are noted as the location but not actual street addresses, although this is unlikely to stop anyone with access to the internet from locating them.
There are also no details of security measures at any of the listed sites.
What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets, especially given that the US authorities classify them as being so important.
It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development, our correspondent says.
"An unhelpful development" is a really good way of describing it, IMO. The release of this list doesn't strike me as quite warranting profound alarm, if only because most of the sites on the list would be evident targets for disruption even if they hadn't been officially sanctioned by this document as important to US interests. And terrorists aren't stupid. "World Trade Center" didn't need to be on a list to be a target.
On the other hand, it doesn't seem particularly necessary to hand this list to people who might be interested in causing maximum chaos and/or destruction, nor particularly scandalous if the document had been kept concealed.
So. Unhelpful development. Yeah.
Meanwhile, the
New York Times has
the latest on the campaign to keep WikiLeaks leakin'.
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[Trigger warning for disablism, gender essentialism, gender policing.]
Six things men say that signal trouble.
I am particularly fond of the first "Story Highlight" bulletpoint (which you know I love anyway): "There's a limit to how much a woman can tolerate seemingly unmanly behaviors."
So much lolsob.
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The Senate is reportedly close to a deal that will extend expired unemployment benefits. Republicans negotiated a compromise that will garner their votes to keep unemployed workers from falling off the edge in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts, even to the wealthiest USians.
Democratic Senators first proposed excluding tax cuts for people making over $250,000, which Republicans shot down. They then proposed excluding tax cuts for people making over $1 million, which Republicans also shot down.
So in order to provide a safety net to working people, Democrats had to agree to extend tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the nation, even as the national debt continues to explode.
Senator and former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry called out this bullshit for what it is:
"I hope Americans will understand how craven and empty and hollow and contradictory the Republican position is," veteran Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, told CNN.
..."What we've seen is a Republican Party that's absolutely prepared to deny unemployment insurance to people who have been laid off, who can't pay their bills, who want to, you know, put food on the table for their families," Kerry said. "They (Republicans) have said, "No, we're willing to hold that hostage so we can give the wealthiest people in the country a bonus tax cut."
In other news, 100,000 more workers just got laid off from the bootstrap factory.
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"We treat each other with respect or we find another place to work. Period."—Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on there being "no gray area" about how servicemembers should conduct themselves with regard to a repeal of DADT. I totally agree.
Also: Adm. Mullen rulez.
[Via scatx.]
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Yikes. The monthly jobs report for November was Not Good.
New York Times—Disappointing Job Growth in U.S. as Jobless Rate Hits 9.8%:
In a jolting surprise to the economic recovery and market expectations, the United States economy added just 39,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, according to the Department of Labor.
November's numbers were far below the consensus forecast of close to 150,000 jobs added and an unchanged unemployment rate of 9.6 percent.
More than 15 million people remained out of work last month, and 6.3 million of them have been unemployed for six months or longer.
Wall Street Journal—
Economy Added Fewer Jobs Than Expected in November: "The weaker-than-expected data caused the dollar to weaken against the yen and euro and other major currencies. Treasurys rallied on the report. The U.S. unemployment rate has now been above 9% since May 2009, or 19 months. That matches the longest stretch at such an elevated level since World War II."
New York Times—
Unemployed, and Likely to Stay That Way: "This country has some of the highest levels of long-term unemployment — out of work longer than six months — it has ever recorded."
Steve Benen: "The awful monthly jobs report should wake up Washington."
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Misty is in town visiting for the weekend, so posting is going to be light from me today. (And from Misty, heh.) We have lots of sitting on the couch talking about stuff to do!
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Sure:
NEW YORK (AP) — Christine O'Donnell has lost an election, but gained a book deal.
The Delaware Republican and Tea Party favorite, defeated in last month's voting for the U.S. Senate, will offer her take on the campaign and her "frustrations" with the political process, St. Martin's Press announced Thursday.
The most valuable thing Christine O'Donnell could write—a feminist piece about
being the target of a
literal witch-hunt in the year 2010—is the last thing she'd actually write. It's just going to be a bunch more Tea Party nonsense, intended to show the supposed power of the Tea Party.
(
Oops!)
St. Martin's Press is just hoping to capitalize on the fact that Tea Partiers are bound to buy something as unremarkable (and otherwise ignorable) just to show that the Tea Party can rank high in book sales. Which is a reason to publish a book, but I'm not sure it's a very good one.
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What is the best gift you've never gotten? By that I don't mean the most expensive, indulgent luxury item you can imagine, but some little thing that any old friend or lover could buy you without much trouble or unreasonable expense, which would be perfect for you, but no one's ever thought to buy it.
The first time we did this question, my answer was "a set of really good knives," which my mom has since bought for me and I love dearly. She also recently bought me a mandolin slicer that I adore.
I'm surprised no one's ever bought me a subscription to People magazine. It is, of course, a total garbage nightmare, but it's always in my bathroom, because it's perfect toilet reading: Mindless bullshit in short chunks. And I always get teased for buying it, but everyone loves reading it when they poop at my house!
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by Shaker Esme, a law student at Washington University St. Louis, who is taking a short break from studying for finals to bring you this special message. She is both fat AND bisexual, and is sure that the combination of those two characteristics just blew your mind!
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, body policing, and homophobia.]
Via Facebook, Pam Spalding of Pam's House Blend shared this article from Mother Jones: Army Kicks Out More Gays Than Fat Soldiers. The article takes the tone that kicking gays, lesbians, and bisexuals out of the Army is somehow far worse than kicking someone out for being fat (ignoring, of course, the existence of GLB folk who are fat).
As Congress prepares—again—to debate Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Mother Jones has unearthed data showing the Army in recent years has been tougher on purging gays from the ranks than soldiers who are physically unfit for duty.”
I completely agree that Don't Ask Don't Tell is a terrible thing, and something that should have ended a long time ago. It's absolutely ridiculous that it's still going on, in the face of all the evidence that it's a harmful, discriminatory policy. But fighting for LGBT rights doesn't give you carte blanche to get mad that the Army isn't discriminating enough against fat people. And make no mistake, this article is not about the Army needing to discharge soldiers for failure to pass fitness tests. This is an article about the Army needing to discharge fat people. For being fat.
But the Army's recent discharge statistics given to MoJo by a government source, suggest that the service has been far more concerned about its soldiers' sexual orientation than their waistlines, muscular endurance, or cardiovascular ability. In fiscal 2007 and 2008, the Army brass threw out 592 enlisted members for violating DADT—more soldiers than it ejected for excessive body fat or fitness-test failures combined. (emphasis original)
Yeah! How dare the army not worry about soldiers' waist lines! I know that when my country needs defending, it's important to me what size pants my defenders are wearing.
The service's response was to ease its fitness standards and make it harder for commanders to discharge overweight or underperforming soldiers. (emphasis mine)
That's an or right there. In other words, the author feels that someone who is overweight but not underperforming should be discharged. As in OH NOES THEY AREN'T KICKING OUT THE FATTIES WHO PERFORM UP TO THE STANDARD
And of course, what would a fat-hatin' article be without a little humor.
"In '08-09 it was so bad that I had a warrant officer who demanded we get him XXXL flight uniforms," one active Army officer tells Mother Jones. "He couldn't wear the new [camouflage] pattern ones because they didn't make them for a guy who was 313 lbs." The officer added, "Some people really are too big to fail, I guess."
Yes, the officer demanded a uniform that fit. What an ungrateful asshole. It's almost like he wanted to be clothed while he does his job in service to our country. Silly fat people, clothing, respect, and honor are for skinny people!
Some people really are too big to fail, I guess.
This is the line that really pisses me off. This author is honestly comparing this officer's desire to serve his country with a massive bailout of corporations that have engaged in all kinds of reckless and awful behavior, and helping to drive our country into a recession. This guy's fatness is, apparently, equivalent to destroying the economy.
I hate crap like this. I hate that the liberal bastions that are supposedly a haven for us hate us, and will publish tripe like this, without so much as even considering the possibility that being fat doesn't necessarily preclude one from being in the military. And so, Mother Jones, I wish to inform you that skinny doesn't mean fit, and fat doesn't mean incompetent. I can heartily assure you that when I was in the “healthy” weight ranges of the BMI, I couldn't run a mile in under 15 minutes.
"If military bases and military schools become focal points for advancement of the gay agenda, we can expect serious repercussions among the families of the volunteers who make up our armed forces," the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins wrote in an op-ed Monday.
His editorial never addressed the advancement of a fat agenda in the military.
Yes, we're not kicking fat people out of the army because of the fat agenda. You caught us. Here we are, wielding all this power in society, us fatties. It's a shame that hate groups like the FRC aren't hating on enough categories of people to satisfy Mother Jones.
The table of statistics is similarly awful.
Would Mother Jones be happier with Don't Ask Don't Tell if the Army was also kicking out more fat people for being fat? And people of color for not being white? And women for not being men? They are advocating discrimination, provided that the discrimination is against the right bogeyman for their tastes. This table shows that individuals are already being discharged from the military solely on the grounds that their body fat is too high, without evidence that they cannot meet fitness standards. The military is already kicking out fat people for the sake of fatness. But apparently, the Army is just not discriminating enough for Mother Jones. In fact, if one looks at the spreadsheet of all the statistics, the Army wasn't even keeping track of people kicked out for failing the fitness tests until 1994, only those kicked out on the basis of body fat.
To top all of this off, though, is the aggravation I get from reading the statistics included in the article. There's no information to indicate whether there are more people who can't meet fitness standards in the Army than there are gay people in the army. There are no statistics here, like if you're gay, you have a n% chance of being kicked out, and if you don't meet the fitness standards, you have a n-1% chance of being discharged. There's just raw numbers with none of the necessary context.
Trust me on this one, you don't want to read the comments. We're talking fat hate, homophobia, and all kinds of other assholery.
This post is not about comparing the oppression of gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals and the treatment of fat individuals. This is entirely about Mother Jones' argument that fat necessarily disqualifies one from being considered capable.
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