Archive: November 2nd, 2007
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 10:12 pm
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Red Allen (1958)
“Wild Man Blues”
Henry “Red” Allen (January 7, 1906 or 1908 - April 17, 1967) was a jazz trumpeter.
Henry James Allen was born in the Algiers neigborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of the noted bandleader Henry Allen. He took early trumpet lessons from Peter Bocage and Manuel Manetta; some of his lessons from Manetta were taken together with another promising young trumpeter, Emmett Hardy.
Allen was playing professionally by 1924, playing with the Excelsior Brass Band and the jazz dance bands of Sam Morgan, George Lewis and John Casimir. After playing on riverboats on the Mississippi River, he went to New York City in 1927 to join King Oliver’s band. At this time he also made recordings on the side in the band of Clarence Williams. After returning briefly to New Orleans where he worked with the bands of Fate Marable and Fats Pichon, he was offered a recording contract with Victor Records and returned to New York, where he also joined the Luis Russell band, which was fronted by Louis Armstrong in the late 1930’s.
Red Allen’s trumpet style has been said by some critics to be the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong and then go beyond Armstrong. Allen’s recordings received much favorable attention.
From 1929 on Allen joined Luis Russell’s Orchestra where he was a featured soloist until he joined Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra in 1934. He also made a series of recordings in late 1931 with Don Redman, and played with Lucky Millinder’s band from 1934 to 1937, when he returned to Luis Russell for three more years at a time when this orchestra was often fronted by Louis Armstrong. Allen continued making many recordings under his own name, as well as recording with Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton as well as accompanying vocalists including Victoria Spivey and Billie Holliday. After a short stint with Goodman, Allen started leading his own band at The Famous Door in Manhattan. He then toured with his band around the USA into the late 1950s. Allen’s versatility is shown by his winning of Down Beat awards in both the traditional jazz and the modern jazz categories. In 1959 he joined Kid Ory’s band, with whom Allen made his first tour of Europe.
Allen then returned to working under his own name making more tours of the USA and Europe until his death on April 17, 1967 in New York City.
In this session in 1958 he is leading a band with Hawkins tenor sax, Pee Wee Russell clarinet, Vic Dickenson trombone, Rex Stewart cornet, Milt Hinton bass and Jo Jones on drums.
John McCain puts up the argument that his top rivals aren’t qualified to be president in wartime - (wait for it…) - because they never served in the military!
John, where the hell were you in 2004?
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02
Nov
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by Batocchio • 5:24 pm
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Shamanic at The News Hoggers has a good post on Uncle Jimbo as well (via Melissa at Shakesville). She focuses on a section of Jimbo’s post I didn’t cover in depth, and in the interests of fairness (and thoroughness) wanted to examine. Here’s the featured section, from the end of Jimbo’s post:
I will grant that the procedure is horrifying and repulsive, but that is part of it’s effectiveness. The fact that it causes no lasting damage at all is another reason to favor it’s use. But the number one reason to use it is because it works. It is the perfect answer to the lie that you cannot coerce useful information from bad guys. KSM broke very quickly and the info we got from him allowed us to scarf up dozens of AQ killers and saved countless lives. While other methods may have eventually procured this intelligence, the time spent doing so made it more likely his info would be out of date and we would miss the chance to capture or kill the terrorists. As awful as that makes me, I think that means we have an obligation to do it and I would consider it’s banning a blow to our security.
Points to Uncle Jimbo for acknowledging that waterboarding is indeed “horrifying and repulsive” and for being reasonably polite. I also believe that he and other Blackfive posters do care about the safety of our military personnel and citizenry, even if I’d say they’re mistaken in thinking that torture achieves that.
I left a response in the thread for Shamanic’s thoughtful post (her post features a great reductio ad absurdum, and is more witty than this piece shall be). You can read the response there, but I’ll adapt and expand on it somewhat here.
Read more »
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 4:41 pm
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My brother alerted me to this bill, HR1955. I haven’t read the bill yet, but here’s some information I’ve found on it, and a link to the bill itself.
Update: 5:24 p.m. The bill is now S1959 and is in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Guess who the chairman of this committee is? Joe Fucking Lieberman. The full committee list is: Joseph I. Lieberman Chairman (ID) (CT) Susan M. Collins Ranking Member (ME) Carl Levin (MI) Ted Stevens (AK) Daniel K. Akaka (HI) George V. Voinovich (OH)
Thomas R. Carper (DE) Norm Coleman (MN) Mark L. Pryor (AR) Tom Coburn (OK)
Mary L. Landrieu (LA) Pete V. Domenici (NM) Barack Obama (IL) John Warner (VA)
Claire McCaskill (MO) John E. Sununu (NH) Jon Tester (MT)
Doesn’t look good. I’d guess it will make it out of the committee.
From MYDD:
HR 1955 passed with 404 votes in the House. Sponsored by Jane Harmon aand co sponsored by Chris Carney and a host of others the bill is entitled Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.
Here is a link to read the bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext .xpd?bill=h110-1955
I am most troubled by this section of the bill:
(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
Will this section endanger Net Neutrality From Indybay:
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism.
When we override this irresponsible veto, perhaps the president will finally recognize that Congress is an equal branch of government and reconsider his many other reckless veto threats. More than two years after failing to respond to the devastation and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, he is refusing to fund important projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers that are essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region.
-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
About time a Bush veto got smacked down. So far, he’s been in complete control.
The article goes on to say that Bush “has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.” Gee… I wonder why that is? Could it be that, for most of his presidency, he’s been surrounded by his majority-wielding republican lapdogs?
Bush vetoes water projects bill
Decision comes even though Congress appears to have votes to override
WASHINGTON - An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him.
Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation.
This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.
Associated Press
MSNBC.com
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 4:31 pm
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I’ve wondered what was happening with this case. You never hear anything about it. I’m not real knowledgeable about legal matters. If the spies attorneys are the ones issuing the subpoenas, does this mean Rice and Hadley will be testifying in their behalf??
From Africasia.com:
A US judge ruled Friday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and other top officials can be subpoenaed to testify in a spying case against lobbyists for Israel.
Alexandria, Virginia federal court judge T.S. Ellis ruled to allow the request by lawyers for Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to subpoena Rice, Hadley and 13 other current and former top government officials to testify in the case, according to court documents.
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 3:02 pm
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Vanity Fair has a good article about Alan Grayson, an Orlando attorney who specializes in handling whistleblower cases and specifically cases against contractor fraud in Iraq, namely the Halliburton shootoff, KBR. He’s been working on whistleblower cases for 16 years. According to him, the fraud in Iraq is the “crime of the century.” I’d like to say there’s nothing new in the article, but for me there was. The overwhelming corruption that runs through our government is sickening. And what’s even more sickening is we not only have a justice department who refuses to prosecute these cases, we still have a congress who does nothing about it. Hearings hearings hearings and the contracts go on unchecked. The justice department either doesn’t prosecute, or they keep cases under seal so the extent of fraud isn’t truly known. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re able to read it online. Some exerpts from the article:
Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales has long’standing links with both Halliurton and its legal counsel, the veneralble Texas fir of Vinson & Elkins. All the qui tam suits Grayson has filed against Halliburton and KBR have been defended by attorneys from V&E. In 1982, it was V&E that gave Gonzales his first job as a lawyer. Nine years later he became one of the firm’s first minority partners…..a prootion that his biographer Billl Minutaglio would single out as “the defining moment of his life.”
Grayson states, ” Cuulatively, the amount that’s been spent on contractors in the four plus years of the war is now over $100 billion. Pick any number between 10 percent and 50 percent….I dont’ think you can seriously argue that the scale of the fraud is less than 10 percent. Either way, you’re talking cumulatively about something between $10 and $50 billion.”
KBR’s current military’support contract is known as the Logistics civil Augmentation Program, or Logcap. This is the contract’s third inccarnation, and like its predecessors, LOGCAP3 is a “cost plus” contract: whatever KBR spends, the government agrees to reimburse, with the addition of a fee of about 3 percent. The more the company spends, the more it akes, so it pays to be profligate. LOGCAP is also an “indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity” contract, which means that the Pentagon can go on commissioning whatever it wants from KBR whenever it wants. Instead of being subject to competitive bids, fresh items can be added to the contract at will: all officials have to do is issue a “task order.” These can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars—-even billions, in the case of Task Order 59, which put KBR in charge of supporting the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Read more »
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02
Nov
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by Buck • 10:30 am
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This is a blatant violation of the ethics code. The rules allow nonfederal sources to pay for trips, but not if you’re a private party with business pending before the agency.
-Craig Holman, with the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen
I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to bounce back from all of the corruption weaved throughout our government. Time to burn it all to the ground and start over.
Industries Paid for Top Regulators’ Travel
Two Heads of Product Safety Agency Accepted Trips From Manufacturer Groups
The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children’s furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.
The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency’s acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Notable among the trips — commonly described by officials as “gift travel” — was an 11-day visit to China and Hong Kong in 2004 by Stratton, then chairman. The $11,000 trip was paid for by the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory, an industry group based in an office suite in Bethesda whose only laboratories are in Asia.
Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 10:18 am
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Patrick J. Leahy
CHAIRMAN, D-VERMONT
Edward M. Kennedy
D-MASSACHUSETTS
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
D-DELAWARE
Dianne Feinstein
D-CALIFORNIA
Russell D. Feingold
D-WISCONSIN
Charles E. Schumer
D-NEW YORK
Richard J. Durbin
D-ILLINOIS
Benjamin L. Cardin
D-MARYLAND
Sheldon Whitehouse
D-RHODE ISLAND
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Arlen Specter
R-PENN. Ranking Member
Tom Coburn
R-OKLAHOMA
Orrin G. Hatch
R-UTAH
Charles E. Grassley
R- IOWA
Jon Kyl
R- ARIZONA
Jeff Sessions
R-ALABAMA
Lindsey Graham
R-SOUTH CAROLINA
John Cornyn
R- TEXAS
Sam Brownback
R-KANSAS
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Democratic Phone: (202) 224-7703
Democratic Fax: (202) 224-9516
Republican Phone: (202) 224-5225
Republican Fax: (202) 224-9102
That they are even considering confirming a man who can’t bring himself to state that waterboarding is torture is not acceptable. We don’t need more of the same. Let your voice be heard.
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02
Nov
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by QuestionGirl • 4:49 am
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From Yahoo News:
President Bush compared Congress’ Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.
George and I are in agreement on this one. They better do something soon to stop you George!
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