Graham + Lieberman + Obama...........

It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit's ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU. Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama's actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case. But now -- obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) -- Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself...Link

Conservatives Don't Know He's Joking.......

To use a word coined by Stephen Colbert, the writer and actor, there's a certain "truthiness" about Stephen Colbert, the character and host of Comedy Central's " The Colbert Report." Indeed, Colbert the character, a right-wing blowhard on a one-man mission to reeducate the ignorant, is convincing enough that a recent Ohio State University study found that a majority of conservatives polled believed Colbert the man was one of them. The irony couldn't please him more. "I'm thrilled by it!" he says, sitting in his New York office, a pack rat's homage to the show crammed with pictures and props and a "Lord of the Rings" pinball machine. "From the very beginning, I wanted to jump back and forth over the line of meaning what I say, and the truth of the matter is I'm not on anyone's side, I'm on my side," he says. "The important thing is that the audience laughs."...link

How The Fed Gained Its Bailout Authority.......

On the day before Thanksgiving in 1991, the U.S. Senate voted to vastly expand the emergency powers of the Federal Reserve. Almost no one noticed. The critical language was contained in a single, somewhat inscrutable sentence, and the only public explanation was offered during a final debate that began with a reminder that senators had airplanes to catch. Yet, in removing a long-standing prohibition on loans that supported financial speculation, the provision effectively allowed the Fed for the first time to lend money to Wall Street during a crisis...Link

Meet the new, government-owned GM..........

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- With General Motors having filed for bankruptcy, the question arises: What will the bankrupt company look like and how will it be different. The answer to the second part is "a lot." The answer to the first is nobody knows for sure, but it may not be pretty. At the outset, let's establish one fact: Assuming an entity called "General Motors" does emerge from bankruptcy, it will be a different company than the one that went in. Only the good bits will come out: Chevy, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC and the plants needed to make the parts and assemble the cars and trucks...Link

Iraq-born teen cracks maths puzzle........

In just four months, Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, the Dagens Nyheter daily said. Altoumaimi, who came to Sweden six years ago, said teachers at his high school in Falun, central Sweden were not convinced about his work at first...Link

Building and filling prisons must stop..........

Democrats in the U.S. Senate surrendered to Republican demagoguery on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and denied the Obama administration the funds to shut it down. The vote was 90-6. Maryland's senators were among those who voted with the majority. "We have to make sure that streets and neighborhoods don't think that they're going to be the repository of Guantanamo prisoners," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, sound-biting like one of the Republicans who raised the possibility of terrorists being moved to the U.S. and set free or escaping...Link

MTV Shows

The Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison is coming to an Xbox 360 and Windows PC near you in just a few short months. But, it's not what you think. This is the most initially-horrifying-but-not-really-that-bad news item I've come across since that curious chocolate-vanilla flavored, Obama-themed ice cream treat. The game, Rendition: Guantanamo, is being developed by Glasgow studio T-Enterprise, better known for Web-based flash games and topical, viral fare. (See: Puck Palin, Bush's Boot Camp.) Set in 2010 ("because that’s when we think the camp will be closed," studio executive Zarrar Chishti told Game Politics), the story is based on the experiences of Moazzam Begg, a British Muslim man who was captured by the CIA in Afghanistan, wrongfully sent to Guantanamo and held for years without charges. In the game's story, the United States has sold the prison to mercenaries calling themselves the very Bushian-sounding "Freedom Corp." The Freedom people then brought in scientists to experiment on the inmates. The main character, who does not bear Begg's likeness, is captured and brutally tortured, then shipped off to Guantanamo. Begg, whose wife gave birth to a son six months after he was imprisoned, did not meet his progeny until the boy was three years old. Similarly, in Rendition, the main character's driving pathos appears to be news that he's got a son on the outside.

So ... "It is time to fight back," declares the trailer...Link

Mini bomb today................

Link