Good morning, I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

On this day in history, October 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, prohibiting the placing of weapons of mass destruction on the moon or elsewhere in space, went into effect.

Some links to go with your morning coffee:

~Iran admits espionage
at its nuclear facilities which probably means it’s much worse than they are letting on. And I guess that Stuxnet computer virus/worm did some real damage to their infrastructure including possibly their nuclear sites.

~Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife started a new right wing organization that keeps the source of its donations secret and some have said this could create the perception of impropriety with respect to Justice Thomas, as he likely knows who the large contributors are. The concern is more about businesses and organization contributions than individual ones with respect to conflicts of interest that might arise if one of the companies had a case before the Court. Given how Thomas has made his political views very apparent in various speeches, I am going to go out on a limb and assume he could care less about any perception of impropriety. Kind of like Scalia duck hunting with Cheney.

~Violent homophobia on the rise? This story of the torture of two gay gang members is horrific.

~~ China is very, very angry. The best part is China’s massive censorship crack-down immediately following the announcement that Liu Xiaobo deservedly won the Nobel Prize, simply proves the point the Nobel committee was trying to make- China is an oppressive, freedom-hating, rights-violating communist regime. I understand that China is our banker, but if we don’t speak out against human rights abuses with more consistency, then we will lose all credibility- we can’t just speak out against countries like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela because it’s politically expedient, and popular, to do so. A better test of our commitment to human rights is our willingness (or not) to speak out when countries with whom have strong diplomatic ties, violate international norms.

~ Could somebody please explain to me why top Obama officials, including Cabinet members, were so willing to talk crap about each other to Bob Woodward, knowing that he was going to write a controversial tell-all book, like he always does? For the life of me, I can’t understand it. Did they think he was their therapist? Or their confessor? What did they think would happen when the book was published and all the embarrassing stories come out. Not to mention the fact that many of them come across as a ship of fools with all the infighting and backstabbing. I just started reading the book, but I am pretty amazed at the information I am seeing, assuming it’s true. Over at Salon, they have an idea how Woodward does it.

~Remember John Edwards? The Feds do.

~Tea Party favorite in Ohio, Rich Iott, has a thing for dressing up in Nazi SS uniforms and taking part in reenactments. Color me shocked.

~The Arab League agreed to essentially give the US one more month to make the Israeli settlement problem disappear. A cynical observer might see this as a victory for Israel, as it can continue to build settlements all the while Dennis Ross works on new rewards for Israel in exchange for a 60 day extension on settlements. You can read about some of the alleged rewards here. You know it’s bad when even former US ambassadors to Israel can’t believe what Ross and Obama have offered in exchange for almost nothing.

~Linda Norgrove, a British aid worker in Afghanistan, was killed during a botched rescue attempt by NATO and Afghan forces.

~Pakistan is going to reopen a key border crossing into Afghanistan after a 10-day blockade which saw the targeted destruction of upwards of 150 fuel supply trucks by insurgent groups including the Pakistani Taliban.

~ Have you seen this viral video? It’s really cool.

~The Center for Constitutional Rights is demanding to know what the U.S. is planning to do about the killing [at point-blank range] of American citizen Furkhan Dogan at the hands of Israeli commandos aboard the Mavi Marmara, now that autopsy results have been made public via the recently released, and subsequently ignored, UN report. So far, the State Dept. has nothing to say about Dogan’s death and the U.S. media have helped ensure, through their silence, that the U.S. government can continue to remain silent.

~Ann Coulter is trying to become relevant now that the Tea Party Crazies have stolen her racist, homophobic, mean-spirited, thunder. Have you ever noticed that all these right wingers who make a career of claiming there is a vast left-wing media conspiracy, get endless promotion and attention from said media?

~In a galling display of corporate cronyism, the Washington Post and NY Times have casually swept aside claims that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is subverting our democracy by using foreign donations to channel money to the GOP. Lets not forget one important factor- the NYT and the Washington Post are corporate entities. ‘Nuff said.

~It’s a sad day for the Washington Post when they have Dinesh D’Souza spewing his misinformed, paranoid, racist nonsense on their opinion pages. Yeah, I get that it’s an “opinon” but at this point, do they have any standards at all when it comes to filling up editorial space? Oh, that’s right, Fred Hiatt is in charge of dumpster diving filling that space. Never mind.

~Now that the economy has been in the tanker for a while and midterms are coming up, both democrats and republicans are pointing fingers at each other in campaign ads, alleging that their opponents have supported the outsourcing of jobs to China. Nice try. Both parties have helped ensure our economic loss is China’s gain.

~ The NYT has an interesting editorial about the legality/potential for abuse of Obama’s targeted assassination program. They are a little late to the game, don’t you think? Also, am I really supposed to believe, as the NYT claims (based on government assurances) that only 10 civilians have been killed as “collateral damage” in drone attacks this year? I have a feeling both Afghanistan and Pakistan would beg to differ. One of the problems with top secret programs which vest expansive power to the Executive, is that, well, they are top secret. We are left to simply take the government’s word for it when it comes to potential abuses. Speaking of which, the editorial also casually claims that it doesn’t seem like Obama has abused his authority under this program as of yet. How exactly do they know that? Once again, the NYT is trying to play both sides- tough on terrorism while pretending to care about civil liberties.

~The Senate puts Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on notice that if Mideast peace negotiations fall apart, it’s all the Palestinians’ fault. It’s going to be hard for the administration to be a legitimate mediator when the U.S. Congress is carrying Bibi Netanyahu’s water. But of course, there is no excuse for Barack Obama not realizing this prior to initiating these negotiations.

~The government was repeatedly warned about the foreclosure crisis, but did little to avert or even curb it.

~Apparently if you are an Arab-American college student, that alone warrants the FBI putting a GPS tracking device on your car, then showing up at your home after you find it and post the photos on the internet. Then, it’s apparently ok for the FBI to act like a bunch of goons as though ordinary laws don’t apply to them. Because apparently after the PATRIOT Act, they don’t.

The End.