This is a copy of the official termination form of some assistant manager from a Domino's in Whoknows, Orcares, USA. The important part is, I happen to know it's one of you. So, yeah – go ahead and fess up (also, try using your old employee-discount to order me an extra-large with mushrooms and banana peppers). Still, I think we can all agree this is entirely Domino's loss. THIS MAN HAS "DELIVERY DRIVER" WRITTEN ALL OVER HIM! Literally – probably in pepperonis.
Thomas Bodström is a lawyer for the two women accusing Assange of sexual misconduct. Bodström is a former justice minister. In Sweden the justice minister is the head of the Ministry of Justice. (Imagine if, after retiring as head of the US Dept. of Justice, Eric Holder's next career move was to take on a case representing two women re- charges of unprotected sex.)
While serving as justice minister, Bodström is said to have used CIA agents to have two terror suspects (Agiza and Alzery) deported from Sweden and "rendered" to Egypt, where they claim to have been tortured. The two eventually had their deportations overturned and were awarded damages against the Swedish state.
Bodström has denied having known how the deportations were carried out. But some wonder whether he involved himself in the proceedings against Assange in an effort to prevent Wikileaks from revealing the truth about his ties to the CIA and torture.
Claes Borgstrom, the interviewee in the video below, is Bodström's is a close personal friend and law partner.
A few notable items since my last updates:1. At DU, links to info re- "CIA torture theorist working for KIPP charter schools": former American Psychological Association (APA) President Martin Seligman originated a theory re- "learned helplessness" which, if I understand correctly, involves breaking down individuals' autonomy and replacing it with uncritical compliance with authority. Seligman actively assisted in the development of the CIA’s torture techniques, and now his theories are apparently being used on students in charter schools. More at the link and at Schools Matter.
2. At The Fiscal Times, "Billions of Dollars 'Vanish' in Afghanistan." "The United States has spent more than $55 billion trying to rebuild war-torn Afganistan and win the confidence of the people, but most of that money can’t be accounted for or has been wasted on failed projects." More at the link.
3. At HuffPo, "FCC breaks Obama's promise, allows corporate censorship online with fake Net Neutrality"; more at the link.
4. The FCC and Department of Justice may be about to approve a proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. Below, Al Franken explains why this would be disastrous for the rest of us and how you can help stop it.
To create For Heaven's Sake, Hirst reportedly made a mold of a baby skull from a 19th century pathology collection he'd acquired, cast the form in platinum, and encrusted it with 8,000 diamonds.
Previous posts on Hirst here.
UPDATE: At right, competition (from Obvious Winner, via Geekology and Boing Boing; thanks Ben!):
(I'll have a piece in the corridor.)
A group video show curated by John Pomara and Dean Terry.
Opening reception this Sat., Jan. 15, 6 - 8PM
CentralTrak Gallery(Click on the image at right for a larger version and more info.)
800 Exposition Ave. (betw. 500X + Fair Park)
Dallas, TX
Free parking on streets + in the lot across Ash from CentralTrak.
In case you hadn't heard . . . .
These efforts on the part of our Fearless Leaders (call them "FLs") to close the barn door after the horse was gone struck a lot of observers as ludicrous. We can't stop the rest of the world from reading the stuff, but dang it, we've got to blindfold somebody, so we'll just blindfold our own! At first glance, "[i]t's like kids covering their eyes and thinking that this keeps other people from seeing them" (quoting Curt Cloninger in an entirely different context).
But additional inferences are worth teasing out.
1. If our FLs' main concern were to carry out their mission of furthering the US's welfare, surely they would want their (our) own employees and contractors to be fully aware of whatever the rest of the world knows, rather than being handicapped by ignorance. If you're a company, and your competitors and customers got hold of info about all the glitches in your product, would you send your sales force out without any preparation for the questions and challenges they'd likely face? If you're playing football, do you want to be in a situation where the other side knows your team's strategy, but your own players have no clue? Of course not.
I'm not among those who believe our FLs are simply stupid. So, what else might motivate our FLs to order their own people to keep themselves in the dark?
(a) To the extent the secrets are embarrassing to other countries – ok, those countries might stop sharing their secrets with us; but will keeping US employees and contractors ignorant of what everyone else knows likely fix that problem? Like, yeah, the world knows that secret I told you last week, but I'll trust you with a new one if you make your servants promise not to read the old one? I don't think so.
(b) To the extent the secrets are embarrassing to our own FLs – aye, there's a motive that makes sense. Because the FLs' employees and contractors might stop obeying them, if they realize the extent to which the purpose of the secrecy is merely to hide crimes and corruption. Our FLs certainly don't want more Bradley Mannings.
(c) The rationale for the ban actually stated by our FLs is that the documents are classified, and the fact that they've been leaked doesn't automatically declassify them – i.e., it's the principle of the thing. Note that upholding the principle, even at the risk of handicapping our own people, does accomplish one thing: it sends the message that unquestioning obedience to the secrecy rules is required, even when it's senseless or even harmful. (Too bad our FLs aren't so concerned to make this point when it comes to the rules applicable to banks et al.) (UPDATE: I didn't bother disputing another, even flimsier pretext given for the policy, that info downloaded from WL might contain malware. And now the Pentagon's issued a memo confirming that Dept. of Defense "employees who downloaded classified documents from Wikileaks . . . may delete them without further 'sanitizing' their systems or taking any other remedial measures" {via Secrecy News}.)
In sum, the explanation for the ban that makes the most sense is that it is motivated by our FLs' desire to maintain their own control over those beneath them and thus their power over all of us – and that that goal is more important to our FLs than the goal of furthering our welfare through diplomacy, etc. (which would be better served by making sure our employees and contractors were fully informed about all relevant info).
2. Assange's strategy of provoking FLs with too many of the wrong kind of secrets to tighten security, thus degrading their own organizational I.Q. and possibly hastening their own demise, may be working. (For more about Assange's overall strategy, which few others seem yet to have discerned, see my earlier post here, among others.)
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For more info about how your tax dollars are allocated, see the National Priorities Project.
Coalition military deaths in Iraq since March, 2003: 4,766 (as of April 22, 2011; click here to update). At least 467 contractors have also died, based on only partial information. Total U.S. military wounded as of as of January 14, 2010: 31,882.
Coalition military deaths in Afghanistan since October, 2001: 2,416 (as of April 22, 2011; click here to update.
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