Bakestar wrote:File Under: "No $#@!, Sherlock."

The grand jury traced a sketchy line between Cheney's influence over the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency, which oversees the county's federal immigrant detention center, and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.

Combining those interests, the grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because the more the prison companies were paid to hold inmates, the better he did financially.

...

The indictment accuses Gonzales of stopping an investigation into abuses at the federal detention center.

Werthless wrote:Vanguard Group... aren't they pretty diversified? Like, don't they have a lot of different holdings?

Bucky wrote:In this day and age, isn't state government pretty much useless overhead and arbitrary groupings of persons? I mean, I have a lot more commonality in governmental needs with someone from Cherry Hill than I do from, say, Erie. Wouldn't it be rad to consolidate federal and state governments? Think of all the overhead that could be eliminated....

Bucky wrote:Wouldn't it be rad to consolidate federal and state governments?

Bucky wrote:In this day and age, isn't state government pretty much useless overhead and arbitrary groupings of persons? I mean, I have a lot more commonality in governmental needs with someone from Cherry Hill than I do from, say, Erie. Wouldn't it be rad to consolidate federal and state governments? Think of all the overhead that could be eliminated....

NBC executives are closing in on a decision about who will take over "Meet the Press," its venerable Sunday morning political talk show, with the announcement coming possibly on Dec. 7.

Barring a last-minute surprise, network insiders and television news observers expect the new moderator -- or moderators -- will be drawn from a short list of candidates that include NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC political director Chuck Todd. Dark horses include CBS anchor Katie Couric, whose name was floated in internal discussions, according to two sources, but is apparently not interested.

gr wrote:replacing russert with couric would be like replacing cole hamels with adam eaton.

steagles wrote:

gr wrote:replacing russert with couric would be like replacing cole hamels with adam eaton.

in that case, or with gwen ifill, i think it would be more like adding jamie moyer for a pair of minor leaguers. you'd be adding outside talent without really giving up anything or losing anything.

i do agree that couric = eaton, though.

Bucky wrote:In this day and age, isn't state government pretty much useless overhead and arbitrary groupings of persons? I mean, I have a lot more commonality in governmental needs with someone from Cherry Hill than I do from, say, Erie. Wouldn't it be rad to consolidate federal and state governments? Think of all the overhead that could be eliminated....

Using boats to attack is certainly original and rare – though al-Qaida used boat bombs against the USS Cole in 2000. Hostage taking is also not a usual feature of core al-Qaida attacks. There was the instance of the Chechen group holding a cinema and audience captive in Moscow of course but they were not an "al-Qaida" group whatever the Kremlin may have said at the time. The mass irregular infantry assault has been seen before – in Saudi Arabia in Khobar in 2004 but again by a group acting semi-autonomously from the al-Qaida hardcore. Indeed, the guns and grenade style is more reminiscent of the operations of militant groups in Kashmir (and elsewhere in India), Afghanistan or even in the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Tourist industry has also been targeted elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and in Egypt during the late 80s.