Instahoglets May 10th 2008

By Cernig

Something for the weekend:

- SteveJ at Radimisto notes that a federal judge has ruled that Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal advisor to the Gitmo military tribunals, should have no further part in the first trial because he is too closely tied to prosecutors.

- It appears Myanmar is beginning to accept UN and US aid after all ( and was doing so from other nations and aid agencies all along) - which means neoliberal and neoconservative interventionists may have to look somewhere else for their next "humanitarian" war of choice. But don't let the fact that invasions usually create more problems than they solve hold you back, guys.

- Armchair Generalist wonders why Homeland Security is planning to spend far more money on nuke and bio-terrorism prevention than on chemical or explosive threats - despite the latter two being the ones terrorists have shown expertise at. Simple, AG, the fear factor.

- Glenn Greenwald is still fighting the good fight in trying to get mainstream media giants to cover their own stenography. Today, he's pricking their pride by recounting how the Pentagon described its pet analysts, given widespread exposure by all parts of the media machine, as "those that we can count on to carry our water."

- Shaun Mullen's "Quotes from around yon blogosphere" feature really does deserve wider exposure as an excellent collection of the day-to-day bloggy zeitgeist.

- Kathy and Chief have moved Liberty Street to a new home on Wordpress.

- Steve M : Bill C lost the white male vote too. Which leads Maha to ask "Do the Clintonistas seriously think their candidate would do better with white, less educated, working-class men than John McCain will do in November?"

- Doesn't it just fit the Bush Years to a T that a top expert on Al Qaeda got the boot in a budget cutting exercise?

- A veteran author, three years out of the regular army, has been called up again. He wonders "What if there were a war and none of the veterans who were called up showed up?" and Brandon Friedman angrily describes the process as a back door draft which lets the warmongers keep their war going without actually having to draft-dodge themselves