It's Super, Double-Secret...

When it may cost the agencies some monies, and the Prez doesn't want to get even, I guess you can't say anything.

The wife of a former covert CIA operative is suing the federal government for claims of conduct that caused the woman and her family physical and mental suffering.

Because the government has ordered that neither the woman nor her husband can reveal to their caregivers what is causing the anxiety, and the government has not afforded them alternatives, the family is suing for unspecified damages. From the AP story:

The U.S. District Court lawsuit by the mother and three children asserts that they were victims of unlawful conduct, breaches of contract and broken promises by the CIA after the family suffered enormous strain living a “very, very covert life,” said plaintiff attorney Mark S. Zaid.

The family was not identified because the CIA has continued to label their relationship with the CIA as classified, Zaid said.

Defendants in the case are the CIA, the United States and an agency whose name is classified.

In the largely redacted lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, the wife reports that she “remains a virtual prisoner in her home” and is “constantly fearful of eventual detection” for a reason that is classified.

Federal lawyers claim that they should not have to reveal anything about the man's relationship for "national security" reasons, and that the lawsuit not be allowed to go forward.

In arguing that the lawsuit be rejected, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah S.] Normand cited a submission last month by CIA Director Porter Goss, who said state secrets would be divulged that could jeopardize national security if the lawsuit proceeded.

He said it needed to be so secret that the reasons for his assertion of the state secrets privilege cannot be released even to the plaintiffs or their lawyer.

To me this smells just like the case that set the precedent that allows the Federal government to block revelation of material facts -- and I remember that in that case, involving a military aircraft that crashed with civilian contractors aboard, the real reason for the government asserting "national security" was in order to hide incompetence and negligence on the part of the military, not to protect the nation.

It's All The Fault of Clinton! Uhh Zarqawi!

First we have right-wingnuts claiming that the retired generals who are calling for a different hand at the helm in Iraq is all Clinton's fault, but now Rummy himself is claiming that the "terrorists" are the reason that Mainstream Media reporters are declining being embedded -- that somehow Zarqawi and bin Laden have made the reporters stop.


Editor and Publisher has noted that that is exactly what Rumsfeld said during an "interview" on Rush Limbaugh's talk radio show. From the E&P story:

For one thing, Rumsfeld said it was important to "recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They're much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are."

//snip//

LIMBAUGH: Let me amend it. Let me ask you one final question. Somebody on my staff is curious to know what your opinion is of embedding reporters with the military. Has that worked? Has that worked as you had hoped?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it has. It worked during the Iraq conflict, and a lot of people who are reporters and journalists were able to work with our troops and see precisely how terrific they are, the wonderful job they do, the kinds of people they are, how professional they are -- and the rest of their lives they're going to have an impression of the American military that will be good for journalism, in my view. Furthermore, they were able, because they were embedded, to see and then give the world and the people of the United States a slice of what was actually happening, real reality, and it was a good thing. More recently, very few people had been being embedded. We're still offering that opportunity, but there have been far fewer journalists who have stepped up to become embedded.

LIMBAUGH: Why do you think that is?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it's a funny thing. I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, "Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side," argument. I think that's an inexcusable thought, and I don't know if that's the case.

LIMBAUGH: That's outrageous.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It is. (Laughing.)

RUSH: I can't believe that.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)

The reaction of the reporters simply couldn't have anything to do with the feeling that they are not getting the "real" story when they are only going around with heavily armed troops or stuck in the green zone.

And, of course, Rush is not going to ask any questions that are off-script. I wonder what it feels like to know that you are a pet kept on the lease by your masters the way Limbaugh is -- so tame that Rumsfeld and Cheney can feel secure that only the approved questions will be asked during the "candid interviews."

Enjoy the access, now, Rush -- you won't have the entree into the famous and influential forever, and then it will be back to pandering only to the ditto-heads.

O brave new world, That has such people in't!

With the recent New Yorker article pointing out the possibility of G.W. releasing nukes over Iran, I cannot but think back to the days of “duck and cover,” before planners realized (admitted?) that there was no such critter as a “limited nuclear exchange.”

Of course, with the assurances of G.W. that he Is Doing All He Can For A Peaceful Solution, I think the film clip that I’ve linked to here is quite appropriate a reminder about what may be involved, even when you are looking at capabilities from 5 decades ago.

This is a 41-second excerpt of a 30 minute film available at the website for the DOE’s Nevada Test Site, showcasing events with such unassuming catalog titles as Fox, Nancy, Badger, Encore and Climax.

Even though the film catalog description declares this to be “silent,” there actually is a disturbingly appropriate soundtrack.

Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office.

O brave new world, That has such people in't! (The Tempest, Act 5, scene 1)

I'd Like to Welcome...

... Straight, Not Narrow to the blogroll link-list.

Written by Jim Johnson of Rockville, MD, Straight Not Narrow is focused on "Advocating for GLBT equality in the church and politics," and is member of the Progressive Christian Blogger Network.

"Get It Out"

USNews.Com 'Lawyer: Bush Left Leak Details to Cheney'

"...Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House..."

Isaiah 32: 6-7
6. For a fool speaks nonsense,
And his heart inclines toward wickedness:
To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD,
To keep the hungry person unsatisfied
And to withhold drink from the thirsty.

7. As for a rogue, his weapons are evil;
He devises wicked schemes
To destroy the afflicted with slander,
Even though the needy one speaks what is right.

OK, So I'm A Geek,...

... But this video From Cornell is seriously cool.

Many thanks to Jazz at Running Scared

(Source article is here)

The Pain and the Glory of Public School

Over on Creek Running North Chris Clark has penned an article about how he is trying to cope with the distress that his wife copes with when every day in her professional life she is pushing Sisyphus’ damn rock to the top of that hill.  

What did she do to earn the ire of the gods of the underworld?  

Becky is a teacher in the public school system, and the stand-ins for Hades are anti-intellectuals who care naught about any but their own spawn and opportunists who don’t have to care about the demise of public schools because their children are in private schools with small class sizes and all their peers are formed with the same cookie-cutter.  

She didn’t do anything to earn that boulder, but her mischoice in agreeing to this task is offense enough to some.

As Chris so correctly puts it:

Public school teachers make up the largest, most accessible sector of the United States’ intellectual class.

They are the cannon fodder in the War on Thinking.

Public school teachers are the largest constituency that represents a government-funded social program.

They are the cannon fodder in the War to Starve Government.

Part of Becky’s frustration is the constant fight for materials for use in the classroom, and the ill-conceived notion that standardized norms are the only way to teach anything, and penalize the schools if the luck of the neighborhood draw means that a higher proportion of  students in one school, over a school in another address, are from families with parents absent because they work two or three jobs, or the children are from homes where there is not the wherewithal to afford a breakfast before school each day, or English is a 2nd or 3rd tongue, or any other of a host of circumstance.

Chris also notes that, the actual result of the flight of educational dollars away from “non-performing schools” is to realize in effect what Edward Stanly, military Governor of N. Carolina during part of the Civil War, tried to achieve when he sought to enforce slave-holder laws against teaching blacks to read and write when he closed the schools that were instructing former slaves towards literacy.

Looking through the comments for that article, I saw a number of supportive writers for Chris’ efforts to support his wife, but then the inevitable flies in the ointment whenever public education is discussed – the voucherist hawking “choice” and the lackwit so ready to repeat Mencken’s absurd saw about “those who can, do and those who can’t, teach.”

What the voucher supporter will do is provide a grant to those who can already afford the choice (and in the next breath those same voucherists will usually decry the money spent on subsidized school lunches as "unneeded welfare")

When the child is pulled from the school it isn't just the voucher amount that is withdrawn, it is the money that is no longer there to teach the children who don't have the choice to be on-offer.

The children whose parents don't have the car to get them to the other school.

Or who don't have the time in the day because of the work schedule to get them to that other school.

Or who don't have the money to make up the tuition at that other school beyond the cost of the voucher.

Or they are the student that the other school doesn't want to take:  the whirl-a-gig all day long without a one-on-one aide; or those so challenged that they cannot deal with schoolwork except at a grade level 3 or 4 behind their age peers; or are simply physically broken and need crutches or wheelchairs; or are trying to cope with the mental, emotional or physical scars of malnutrition, physical or emotional abuse or are so lonely that any attention given is reacted to as "inappropriate."

The fancy school doesn't want these kids because accommodating them will lower their pristine scores, and private schools (so far) don't have to take them.

And as for the moronic comment about "those who can't, teach," one truly wonders if the repeater of the saw ever attempted teaching.

Like the saying about the chicken and the egg, if those who can "do," how did they *learn" the skills to "do?"

Did those skills come full-blown into their existence, imparted by some relative of Narcissus?

No, seeing the effort that the public school teachers take for granted in their professional lives, and the compassion and grace that they bestow on their charges' behalf, I'm just surprised as the Devil that there are any of them who last long enough in the system before fleeing in abject terror.

I know I could never persist at that task for any period of time.  And my prayers go to those, like Becky, who do.