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November 8, 2004
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Some interesting logistical problem for the US in Iraq: Tanker keeps Suez Canal blocked
EGYPT’S Suez Canal remained blocked today and shipping could be disrupted for at least two more days after a Liberian-flagged oil tanker broke down in the middle of the strategic waterway, shipping sources said.
Shipping came to a standstill late on Saturday when the Liberian-flagged 154,000-tonne vessel, Tropic Brilliance, broke down while passing through the canal.
Port sources said about 104 vessels inside and outside the canal were waiting to pass through the waterway.
A Suez Canal Authority official said attempts using eight tug boats to shift the vessel had failed so far. “Navigation in the canal will remain halted for at least two more days,” the official told Reuters.
Posted by: b | Nov 8 2004 18:29 utc | 1
B, I wonder if you think the same thing about this Suez thing as I do? Pretty smart isn’t it.
Then there is this here: is it let the game begin?
Dollar expected to fall amid China’s rumoured selling
The dollar sell-off has resumed amid fears among traders that Mr Bush’s victory will bring four more years of widening US budget and current account deficits, heightened geopolitical risks and a policy of “benign neglect” of the dollar.
Many currency traders were taken aback on Friday when the greenback fell in spite of bullish data showing the US economy created 337,000 jobs in October.
…
Speculative traders in Chicago last week racked up the highest number of long-euro, short-dollar contracts on record. Options traders have reported brisk business in euro calls – contracts to buy the euro at a pre-determined rate.
However, the market has been rife with rumours that the latest wave of selling has been led by foreign governments seeking to cut their exposure to US assets.
India and Russia have reportedly been selling US assets, as well as petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern investors.
China, which has $515bn of reserves, was also said to be selling dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi’s dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. Any re-allocation could push the dollar sharply lower and Treasury yields markedly higher.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 8 2004 18:47 utc | 2
There is change in the air! Holy cows don’t seem to be as holy anymore! Can even be talked about.
From the Guardian: Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded – Our security doesn’t depend on the US; we should free up our thinking
What Americans share with Europeans are not values, but institutions. The distinction is crucial. Like us, they have a separation of powers between executive and legislature, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. But the American majority’s social and moral values differ enormously from those which guide most Europeans.
Its dangerous ignorance of the world, a mixture of intellectual isolationism and imperial intervention abroad, is equally alien. In the United States more people have guns than have passports. Is there one European nation of which the same is true?
…
We must go all the way, up to the termination of Nato. An alliance which should have wound up when the Soviet Union collapsed now serves almost entirely as a device for giving the US an unfair and unreciprocated droit de regard over European foreign policy.
As long as we are officially embedded as America’s allies, the default option is that we have to support America and respect its “leadership”. This makes it harder for European governments to break ranks, for fear of being attacked as disloyal. The default option should be that we, like they, have our interests. Sometimes they will coincide. Sometimes they will differ. But that is normal.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 8 2004 19:06 utc | 3
yikes
it finally looks like we’re getting a little coverage from the mainstream media on our rotten vote fraud. last night i was googling
diebold/ carlyle (why not??) and guess what i came up with, learn something new everyday.
Posted by: annie | Nov 8 2004 19:11 utc | 4
The last paragraph of Jon Steele’s Guardian art. Fran linked.
But Europeans must reach their decisions from a position of genuine independence. The US has always based its approach to Europe on a calculation of interest rather than from sentimental motives. Europe should do no less. We can and, for the most part, should be America’s friends. Allies, no longer.
Very painful stuff to read for those of us trapped in Bush’s America. Is the next step an EU military?
The financial ramifications are Very Encouraging. If Grave Economic Implications can be manifest immediately, maybe the real powers that be in US will be ready to call vote rigging by it’s proper name. So, hopefully Neocons will immediately start threatening Iran also…..Go Baby Go. I’m not resigned to 4 more yrs. Please world help Pres-elect John Forbes-Heinz///Kerry assume the Presidency he won in a landslide. In fact, why aren’t they commenting on How Crooked it was. That would be REALLY HELPFUL.
Speaking of helpful, I don’t recall if it was linked here, but Haaretz had wonderful article calling Bu$hCo An Enemy of Israel. For the NYT of Israel to say that is to kick AIPAC in the face – Thank Goddess. This was helped along by a long art. in 11/8 New Yorker, Amos Oz’s Israel, on the eve of Am. publication of his new memoir. He’s a moderate Israeli and supports a 2-state sol’n along ’67 borders. But, interestingly, agrees that the wall was unfortunately necessary, But Built Along ’67 Borders. That will really help us here.
So Europe, China, Everyone, before the rigged election is set in stone, turn up the heat, please.
Posted by: jj | Nov 8 2004 19:45 utc | 5
Kerry could not denouce voter fraud, despite Edward’s short speech and the reportedly hundreds of lawyers waiting to act (Gore couldn’t do it either) because doing so would put paid to the myth of American democracy and wake up all the dissenters, the dissatisfied, the suspicious…
Neither Kerry, Bush, Clinton, nor any of them could be putting up with that.
Move on, nothing to see here..
Early (??) exit polls are incongruous? So what:
…That faded through the night as exit polls were adjusted to reflect official vote tallies.
From the respectable “The Day” in CT, in an article entitled “Rove Says Early Exit Polls Made Him Ill”
Link
Rigth in yo face!
Posted by: Blackie | Nov 8 2004 19:51 utc | 6
Steve Gillard comes on pretty strong, but I think it is worth reading. Maybe he has not the answer, however I think he has some points and some of them should be pondered.
And for our first act of secession, Arios announces The Tax Fairness Act of 2005 :
“I suggest the Democrats first major legislative proposal, complete with press conferences, laser show, hunger strike, whatever, is the “Tax Fairness Act of 2005.” This Act would mandate that, within some reasonable margin of error, your state should get as much back from the feds as is sent to them in taxes. It’s time to end this kind of geographic welfare!”
We have the money. We have the skills. We have the knowledge and science and art and decency. We have the money. Blue state taxes go to red states.
…
Michael Moore thinks that if he just educates them–if he shows the beautiful young soldier with his limbs blown off, in the inescapable horror of morphine addiction; if he shows endless lists of the names of the young working-class people who died so horribly for a lie; if he shows Iraqi children flying kites; if he makes them watch an Iraqi elder get sexually molested and then mocked for it–if they just see it, they’ll understand.
He’s wrong. Michael Moore’s the one that doesn’t understand. They do see it. They do know it. They are fully aware. They understand just fine. They like it. And god help anyone that gets in their way.
If they can make someone else suffer–suffer more than they do, even a little bit more (a lot more, that’s a bonus) even if they have to increase their own suffering to make sure someone else suffers–they will do it–they’ll do whatever it takes. Someone’s suffering, somewhere in the world? Small child getting limbs blown off? Rape, torture, murder? Children behind barbed wire? Two adults who love each other can’t get married–are second-class citizens–so it’s all good. I made someone somewhere suffer: it’s a good day.
…
Stop enabling them. Stop fighting for them. Stop trying to give them something they don’t want. Just stop. Stop not telling the truth because it’ll hurt their feelings and cause unpleasantness. They’re bigots. They are going to change the Constitution to make you a second-class citizen.
They are going to keep carpet-bombing cities full of civilians. They are going to continue to disappear American citizens, keep putting innocent people in our concentration camp in Cuba, keep on encouraging and allowing terrorist acts on blue state cities, continue to rape and torture and murder and complain about how immoral liberals are.
And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, except starve them out.
Start now.
There is a lot more.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 8 2004 20:15 utc | 7
URGENT CALL FOR HELP FROM BEV HARRIS
BBV: Help America Audit — 5 Things You Can Do Immediately
Posted by BevHarris
I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2. Even the journalists are pretty horrified. My source said they’ve also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time, and he was calling from somewhere else. He was trying to figure out how to get the real news out on vote fraud.
This is a person I’ve worked with off and on for nearly two years, and the voice was so somber it really bothered me.
At any rate — and perhaps, especially important due to the tipoff above, there are things you can do to take back America.
Please head over to DU or blackboxvoting.org.
Posted by: jj | Nov 8 2004 20:43 utc | 8
That is remarkable JJ, that the news has been locked down. Not surprising perhaps, since we have been seeing this for quite a long while now.
The difference now as I see it is that this election theft was/is a blatant in-your-face move of desperation. The perps no longer have the comfort of hiding their means and motives. Must go to brute force now as the secrets are leaking like a boat with no bottom.
Now what do you think they could have on this friend of yours to keep him and his associates quiet? Other than threat of being suicided I mean.
Very interesting tip JJ — thanks for sharing it.
Posted by: rapt | Nov 8 2004 22:07 utc | 9
There are still judges in Prussia: U.S. Judge Halts Military Trial of Qaeda Suspect at Guantánamo
A federal judge today halted the Guantánamo Bay trial of a Yemeni prisoner suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda, ruling that the special military tribunals like the one the suspect is facing at the naval base in Cuba are contrary to principles of American justice.
The ruling, handed down this afternoon by Judge James Robertson of Federal District Court in Washington, halted the trial of the suspect, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the moment news of it reached the military authorities at the base.
Judge Robertson sharply rebuked the Bush administration for its position that because the several hundred Guantánamo detainees have been classified as “enemy combatants,” they are not entitled to the protections normally given to prisoners of war.
“The government has asserted a position starkly different from the positions and behavior of the United States in previous conflicts, one that can only weaken the United States’ own ability to demand application of the Geneva Conventions to Americans captured during armed conflicts abroad,” the judge wrote in his 47-page opinion.
…
Posted by: b | Nov 8 2004 22:26 utc | 10
Vote fraud 2000: I believed it. Vote fraud 2004: I don’t believe it.
We all heard the stories prior to the election of repub activists ripping up Dem registration forms, challenging the right of registered Dems and hispanics to vote, plastering African American neighborhoods with flyers telling residents to ‘remember to vote nov 3rd’ and claiming that they shouldn’t vote if they had outstanding arrest warrants or overdue bills. Yes, it happened and it is wrong.
But it didn’t cost us the election.
Face it guys: we were outnumbered by 3.5 million votes. So it’s worse than fraud: half our fellow voters are deluded and the half that aren’t deluded don’t know how to organize and win a presidential campaign.
Posted by: gylangirl | Nov 8 2004 23:57 utc | 11
Hospitals = propaganda centers Un-fucking believable even ..more Here WAR CRIMINALS!!!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 9 2004 0:02 utc | 12
deanander
i don’t know if it was the great german materiolist philosopher luwig fueurbach or the Low Muslim or Very Very Very High Southern Baptist Godfather of Soul, james brown who said ; “i must have been out of my cottin’ pickin’ mind
but
i have just read cover to cover the atlantic & i’m in dire need of mouth to mouth resucitation or at least post to post ressurection
i do not know what i detest the worst the thuggery of foxnews or the soft pornography of atlantic in its anti muslim issue – atricle after article of mind numbing stupidity dressed up in ersatz esquire or worse something like low period penthouse
article for article – its soft pedalling of the worst types of hatred dressed up in the drag of some perverse synthesis of bret easton ellis & early kirk douglass mixed with late victor mature
a letter section i wouldn’t send to my mother if it was the only communication i could have. a mindless meditation on losing & elections. then quickly on to a quick class analysis of journalism & soldiers that could have been written by someone in short pants who read….. what johhny & jill do
then on to a slimy, creepy hommage to a journalist on al jazeera who sticks to its fellow arabs – “well we torture too” then rapidly an excerpt form that cynical piece of shit p j o’rourke who is not so different from the other o’reilly except he nods off during dinner into his veal
& then, then…an article on forensic theology or mullah profiling as the boys down in washington dc prefer to call it – how detection will lead to discovery will lead to denoument – so it says – give me the needle watson, give me the needle now watson – of course holmes
then we have a legal expert tell us that the problem with the supreme court is not that its full of nutcases who should be placed in some asylum – guantanomo maybe – no there problem according to a certain mt wittes is that its too bland. well tell the lads in rikers island that – unbelievable nonsense
i’ll jump a little between articles or what passes for them & whats passing me is close to bile – no we get to the faux maître langewiesche who under the guise of a soft critique of the occupation authority really does the opposite – glorifies their ineptitude – after all its americans fellah & they just wanna have fun – the arab appears here close to not at all or as some fellow wandering the cities of his own country with a knife gun bazooka rpg koran etc – they hate arabs
its unbelieveable arabaphobia is too much to take
then a small celebration of satan himself, karl rove also written as ‘critique’ but is in fact a geewhiz love of his power & cruelty
then if that’s not enough you have two articles by the two new cold war warriors christopher hitchens & clive james on wodehouse & roth respectively – & respect is about the last thing i would render to their pissant pieces of pomp that might have been alright for some fifties mens club in idaho but today gentlemen – really
& to finish it all up with an ‘investigative’ journalist a certain ms lauren sandler – who without much proof at all & the most schematic evidence & again filled with arab archetypes that would have delighted julius streicher at der stürmer – it breathtakingly says the americans didn’t destroy iraq’s culture – who did – the iraquis of course – it is not for nothing ali baba is set in baghdad
for fucks sake who writes this shit – i must have been in some insulin induced coma to read it & if that passes for informed comment – then hand me the stinger please svp
ô deanander or b
provide breath
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 0:06 utc | 13
uncle$cam
that is exactly what they are. common murderers. war criminals
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 0:10 utc | 14
RG@7:06 PM:
They’ve just never experienced America or the world.
Or reality much either.
About 30-35% of America,in both Red and Blue states is still, for all intents and purposes, living on the Tobacco Road(black,white,or whatever versions thereof).
Then we have our educated “elites” and our journalists.
To be truly educated, it seems to me, you have to step into shit–the real world–occasionally.
Problem is, those great writers at the Atlantic wouldn’t know it if they stepped in it.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 9 2004 0:35 utc | 15
Hospitals as propaganda centers. It’s doublespeak. I have to train my ear to listen. They don’t like the truth so they re-label it propaganda. And wherever truth is spoken [liberals, hospitals, foreign press, UN, US officials who leak or whistleblow, etc.] becomes a propaganda center.
My husband repeated the hospital-as-propaganda garbage in earnest to me at lunch today. At the time I gave him an earful about war criminals. Now I know where he was getting the propaganda terminology: the MainStreamMedia.
God this country is sick.
Posted by: gylangirl | Nov 9 2004 0:37 utc | 16
Fran-thanks for the exerpt from Gillard.
It’s interesting to see the world re-aligning, both in the United States and Europe.
Here, as I posted over at Steve’s blog, the states and cities are the levels at which government will matter for people. If people are able, a good strategy would be to move to a blue state and help to create an alternative to the talibornagain influence.
rather than trying to change their pov (you won’t), you can create “safe areas” for reality-based people.
Two years ago, my ex and I were talking about the likely fact that Russia would align with western europe and provide the military back up that the U.S. once did.
This U.S. doesn’t want to maintain its bases in Europe at any appreciable level (beyond being able to exert pressure by threatening to leave), I would imagine, because they’ll want to staff those bases in Iraq and have staging areas for more wars in the middle east.
At least that’s my speculation.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 9 2004 0:48 utc | 18
For some reason, I can’t link the site but…
What You Can Do?
Home
Cuyahoga County Precincts
Sign/Forward Petition
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Diebold – What IS their history?
Evidence
Article Links
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Breaking News
Additional Sources
What You Can Do
Make Contact
Wondering – so, what the heck can I do?
Sample letter for contacting media and other potential resources
You can:
Contribute to Blackboxvoting.org
They are launching one of the largest freedom of information requests in history and need money to pay for this.
Email blackboxvoting and let them know if you’re willing to help with their effort. Tell them where you live and ask how they can use your help. You might get no reply, but then again, you might be very useful in the most important time in our history.
If you’re a statistician, programmer, lawyer, or other related professional or thinker, you can volunteer your talents.
If you’re thinking – “well, I can’t do either.” Make some noise! Raise a stink about all this. Email all your local papers, tv stations, and contact your democratic state reps (be careful of which ones). We worked together to beat the republican influx for online polls, tv polls, and paper editorials, we can do the same now.
Email Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader (he wants a recount of 33 states – fax to: 202-265-0092), Professors of colleges (Johns Hopkins did a study and discredited Diebold), and other credible people.
If you know people and have contacts who are trusted – use them.
Any thing helps… we owe it to our country. Heck if we can “spred freedom” to Afghanistan and Iraq – we should at least maintain it here.
email feedback and additional information to:
nohometown@yahoo.com
All links and information herein contained have been provided through online research by a group of concerned citizens of the USA and other countries.
Posted by: beq | Nov 9 2004 0:50 utc | 19
ô the eternal war
the bbc think its the beginning of the end – i hate to tell them it has not even started avise a rapid reading of karl marx’s theory of surplus value interspersed with elements from ot especially ezeikel
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 0:52 utc | 20
I’ve been working on this simple metaphor:
This country is a big traditional, dysfunctional family with an abusive father. Mom has had a series of abusive husbands, always seems to go for the strong but troubled type. Everyone knows that dad, an insecure salesman who hasn’t been very successful lately, is in need of help but no one in the family wants the neighbors to find out. (Of course the neighbors know and have reported it, but the cops never show up.)
The family doesn’t mind the money and goods dad is buying on credit, and they don’t care to see most of the bills piling up. Last year dad was drunk when he went out with his pal Blair and crashed into a car full of people. A few died, but the car still ran, just needed a few more bills to fix up.
Of course dad doesn’t help with the kids homework or take the kids to the doctor, but mom seems to hold things together for now. The latest pills help her alot. Church and the occasional parties keep her occupied.
and on and on…
It may be trite but it seems to fit.
Posted by: biklett | Nov 9 2004 0:53 utc | 21
great screed, rgiap.
can a bunch of poorly trained kids with ratty keds sneakers, circa 1975 Cabela hunting vests and a kalashnikov beat the best military on the planet?
What a fucking horrible question. both answers, just horrible.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 9 2004 1:41 utc | 23
“Hospitals=Propaganda Centers” translates into English as Dare Not Let Anyone Know How Many USgov troops slaughter.
Have 2 French journalists captured in Iraq months ago been released yet? I haven’t heard of their freedom.
If not, put together w/the more recent kidnapping of the Anglo nationalized Iraqi Aid worker recently captured, I’m starting to think these were actions by Western/ME Intelligence Agencies to suppress presence of European press & Int’l Aid Workers so slaughter in Fallujah could be conducted w/out the bad press they got last time. Obviously, the Am. scribes are rapidly mutating into propagandists for the state, so no worry there.
Posted by: jj | Nov 9 2004 1:51 utc | 24
I find this confusion, apprently lots of voters voted for Bush despite desagreeng with his agends.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1346642,00.html
American voters’ priorities differ substantially from those set out by President Bush in the immediate aftermath of his victory, polls suggest.
An Associated Press poll showed voters support, by a huge majority, cutting the country’s enormous deficit rather than slashing taxes.
By a narrow margin, voters also back the nomination of a supreme court judge who will preserve abortion rights.
More than 25% of the respondents, who were questioned in the three days after the election, listed Iraq as the top priority for Mr Bush’s second term, ahead of terrorism, the economy and healthcare in that order. Seven out of 10, including a majority of Democrats, said they would prefer US troops to stay in Iraq until the country is stable.
I guess the old adage ‘you reap what you sow’ still holds true.
‘We are not here to liberate Iraq, we’re here to fight the infidels’
“We are here for one of two things – victory or martyrdom, and both are great,” he said.
“The most important thing is our religion, not Falluja and not the occupation. If the American solders came to me and converted to Islam, I won’t fight them. We are here not because we want to liberate Iraq, we are here to fight the infidels and to make victorious the name of Islam.”
He continued to explain his jihad theories: “They call us terrorists because we resist them. If defending the truth is terrorism, then we are terrorists.”
Posted by: Fran | Nov 9 2004 6:11 utc | 25
Hospitals reporting casualty figures are propaganda centers!?
There are two reason the U.S. is still not universally regarded as a pariah nation. Great fear, and inertia. With the USSR, all the empires have vanished, and there are few countries left that have any great need to support the racism that our leaders use to justify stealing elections and massacreing Iraqis. This will not be swept under the rug as so many things were in the past. This time we are declaring war on everyone.
Only a pariah would violate the Geneva Convention to kill all the men in sight.
Only a pariah decides to be the last (?) nation standing outside the Kyoto Accords.
Only a pariah calls a country an ally at the same time its express policy is to kill the country’s male nationals between the ages of 15 and 60.
We are insane. I feel like Lu Xun in early 20th century China. The people of the United States are like children locked in an iron room, all sleeping. If I try to wake them, they could awaken, but there seems no way for them to escape. But if I do not wake them, then there will be no chance for them at all, only death.
But I share Lu Xun’s fate, and there is no escape for me either. He did not escape China, he went back from Tokyo to try somehow to wake up his people. I think he must have had to do this or knew he would never wake up himself. I am still sleeping… and the only way for me is to try to wake them up too.
so… little.. air…
and it was such a lovely dream.
Posted by: Citizen | Nov 9 2004 6:37 utc | 26
@Rgiap after due consideration I think I can refute these allegations of Right Menshevism 🙂 since this isn’t a conflict between two imperialist powers but between an imperialist and an oppressed nation, I think I can be a revolutionary defeatist and remain a good Leninist, no? unless we think that the Resistance in Iraq is orchestrated by the bourgeoisie, which is imho unlikely — though I’m sure they’re participating, I’m betting this qualifies as anti-imperialist action rather than inter-imperialist conflict… and my next position paper will elucidate these points formally and at excruciatingly tedious length, with ample footnotes and fawning references to whatever the members of the CC have most recently published 🙂
(actually, I’m a right Deviationist mate, no fear!)
RAMADI, Iraq (AFP) – Insurgents took control of the centre of the flashpoint Iraqi city of Ramadi after 24 hours of clashes with US forces, an AFP correspondent said.
The US military could not immediately be contacted for comment.
US forces withdrew Tuesday around 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) from Ramadi’s main streets to their bases east and west of the city, the correspondent said.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 9 2004 13:30 utc | 28
Citizen – apart from the US, I think only Australia has refused to ratify Kyoto.
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 9 2004 15:22 utc | 29
@CP
1. U.S. troops face unexpectedly light resistance in Fallujah fighting
2. US faces stiff resistance in Fallujah
My take that 1. is right and 2. is propaganda. The guerilla caravan has moved on to Ramadi and elsewhere and the US war machine concentrated at Falluja and light everywhere else is bombing the hell out of some rats and a few locals defending their homes.
4th generation wars take decades, not years or month or weeks.
Posted by: b | Nov 9 2004 16:15 utc | 30
does anyone know exactly how the optical scan voting machines work?
Posted by: onzaga | Nov 9 2004 16:38 utc | 31
@b
RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 21 -The American military and the interim Iraqi government are quickly losing control of this provincial capital, which is larger and strategically more important than its sister city of Falluja, say local officials, clerics, tribal sheiks and officers with the United States Marines.
Link
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 9 2004 17:01 utc | 32
Uncle $cam et al…
Apparently hospitals are not enough.
Now, they are going after first-aid stations.
B: What if the resistance was now so big that they could do both? Beside, if they managed to get the plans of attack, thanks to that Kurdish officer, they may have chosen to focus on a few chokepoints to slow the US advance with maximum efficiency.
We’ll see at the end of the week the extent of the US progress.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 9 2004 17:27 utc | 34
@CJ – possible
Another save-house of Zarqawi bombed by precious guided ammunition: US air raid on Fallujah clinic kills dozens: witnesses
Posted by: b | Nov 9 2004 17:32 utc | 35
via Andrew Sullivan
Stratfor (subscription only):
No Iraqi army or national guard unit fought in Al Fallujah, sources close to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) say. Iraqi national guard units reportedly have refused to attack guerrilla positions; their commanders have been unable to make soldiers move forward and some officers are siding with the troops. Only the Iraqi army’s special forces unit, which is mostly Kurdish, helped search for hidden guerrillas behind U.S. Marine lines outside the city. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have deserted to bases around Al Fallujah, the sources added.
Posted by: b | Nov 9 2004 19:44 utc | 36
@ONZAGA, optical scan is the method of reading the ballot, not the method of voting. I think it can be used either w/ballots on which you punch or blacken in a box.
Here’s how to rig it, if this helps. (This was posted @DU, by someone Bev Harris knows or works w/.)
“147. Scantron is optical scan but they can be rigged just as easily.
The rig is done through the central tabulator at the county election office. The same tabulating software (in the case of Diebold it’s GEMS, but they all have their own tabulating software and it’s all easily riggable) is used for both optical scan and touch screen systems. If the numbers aren’t questioned, there will never be a recount, so there’s not much risk involved. In some FL counties it looks like they concentrated primarily on the optical scan tallies BECAUSE there was so much heat over the DRE’s leading up to the election.”
So, Everything can be & prob. is rigged!!
Posted by: jj | Nov 9 2004 19:53 utc | 37
@GLYNGIRL – It’s called vote-skimming – transferring votes from candidate A to Candidate B. To find out more about it check out results from Special Election to Throw out Calif. Governor. They practiced there, so they’d be ready for 2004.
I’ll skip the whys & whyfores, but the long & short is that there were a few hundred candidates. No one except a handful were known to anyone but their friends where they lived. But lo & behold, you saw huge spikes in vote totals for someone in a distant county where no one could ever have heard of them. Had people voted randomly for Joe the Joker, you would’ve seen a random distribution. You did not. This happened for many candidates, as I guess different counties were testing their fraud capabilities on new voting equipment. It sure convinced me that Big People were all too serious about rigging votes.
Posted by: jj | Nov 9 2004 20:11 utc | 38
had a new mydoom virus try to spread throgh my powerbook through an email from us & then a followup email from ‘paypal’ – first i’ve had on my old & beautiful mac – warning others here
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 20:22 utc | 39
Great interview on democracynow this am. Amy Goodman spoke w/James Perkins, author of new MUST READ BOOK: “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. That’s what they called themselves – his official title was Chief Economist. Employed by private sector “Consulting Firm”, rather than the CIA, ‘cuz it looked better & provided deniability. He explains as an ex-insider, now overcome w/conscience, how the Empire worked since Kermit Roosevelt’s coup in Iran taught them how they could plunder w/out armies. They’d force huge loans on small countries, knowing they could never pay them back. These only benefitted a handful of families, but everyone else, who couldn’t afford it, was forced to try to repay these. This provided the leverage they needed to take over their economies. If leaders refused to go along w/the scheme, they’d either murder the offender, or invade the country. Trujillo murdered, Iraq invaded in ’91. At last we’ll find out why. He also has scoop on how & why they brought down Jimmmy Carter. Hopefully, that’s in the book, ‘cuz Amy didn’t ask for details.
(He was bribed & threatened to try to keep him from writing the bk, but finally wrote it anyway. This guy is great. Zippo Bullshit. )
Posted by: jj | Nov 9 2004 20:33 utc | 40
I downloaded Firefox a couple of days ago and have been trying it out. It works very well and picks up all of your favorites from IE. This latest MyDoom is spread from websites directly into the browser, in this case Internet Explorer.
It is free! link
Posted by: Dan of Steele | Nov 9 2004 20:34 utc | 41
dan of steele
do you have any more info on this new mydoom – what damage does it do etc – i’m a little naïve in relation to these things
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 20:44 utc | 42
take the last slash off the dn link
john perkins interview w/ transcript
dream change
Posted by: b real | Nov 9 2004 20:52 utc | 43
Picture caption on a picture in the the current New York Times Slideshow:
Protecting the Islamic cultural center in Falluja was one the the marine’s objectives today.
How do they dare to call themself a newspaper. This is the dumbest kind of propaganda thinkabel.
Posted by: b | Nov 9 2004 20:57 utc | 45
And now it’s the ambulances.
A thousand apologies for the whoring, but I feel an immense need to bear witness, feeble as it is
r’giap
We use Symantec exclusively for virus protection and they have done a good job. Here is some info on Mydoom
You are probably relatively safe if you are using Mac.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 9 2004 21:16 utc | 47
Dan of Steele……….. wholly endorse the Mozilla browser no POPUPS and stops all the crap that Microsoft doesn’t filter
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 9 2004 21:32 utc | 48
agree on firefox – best browser ever behind Cello 1.01a (small grip of nostalgia)
Posted by: b | Nov 9 2004 21:49 utc | 50
dan of steele & b
thank you – it is not as if there is not enough tension in this mad, mad, world
my france info just seems to repeat press release from central command – so i’m happy to have the links b & others offered in iraq
it seems ass clear as day that the resistance is follwing the classical rules of the guerilla – leaving enough fighters in fallujah to concentrate on other areas
as i’ve stated i’m confounded that what is obvioussly an oranisationally weak movement is capable of great flexibility – & is following standard operating procedure in relation to the populations who are learning the real nature of us imperialism every day & every night
what has never happened before – is the compliance of the press in a way while not unimaginable is a surprise – even papers like the guardian & le monde are not hitting as hard as they are capable – that too is true of the italian & german press
it is strange that the americans have not assassinated robert fisk as he seems to be the only functioning journalist capable of telling the truth – i remember his despatches in the first days of the occupation in baghdad re the organisation of looters – making me fear for his life
this is a rare good man in a field full of shits, little shits
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2004 22:20 utc | 52
If we take the pro-war side;
Why are they not shouting “NOT ENOUGH TROOPS”
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 9 2004 22:32 utc | 53
Thanks also for the link b real.
Looks like all the neandercons, emboldened, are coming out of their holes now.
Even Armitage.
@b when I look around the home page I don’t find anything that looks like a Search function — can one be enabled? right now anything posted here, unless one carefully keeps a private copy, seems to vanish into a morass of text so deep and opaque that poking through it page by page is unthinkable. is there no way to get a search feature so we can retrieve our earlier words (perhaps in order to eat them)?
Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 9 2004 23:03 utc | 55
A Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election of 2004
Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2004 0:57 utc | 56
@DeAnander
If you are interested in cataloging the ephemeral – here’s one approach you can take.
Get yourself a copy of Adobe Acrobat (the full version – not the ‘Reader’).
Point it to moonofalabama.org. Say ‘get entire set’. Make yourself a cup of coffee. In 10 minutes you will have a 3,142 page MoonofAlabama book. Save it. You can probably do all the searching you like via the bookmarks – or you might want to try installing Google Desktop.
If you have plenty of time – you could probably catalogue the entire blogosphere (before it disappears).
HTH’s
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 1:47 utc | 57
@DeAnander (again)
Once you have the pdf file (currently 3310 pages with indexes) – set it to View Continuous – then you can search the entire document for (e.g. “DeAnander” and use Ctl-G to get the next occurrence. Simple – but effective.
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 1:57 utc | 58
@DeAnander (yet again)
And if you are like me – and actually have read most of this – and wonder where your life is going … 3,310 pages !!
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 2:03 utc | 59
2 Wisconsin-based Marines die In Iraq
Tulsa Marine killed In Iraq
DeForest Marine killed In Iraq
Cowpens Marine killed in Iraq
Two Illinois Marines killed in Iraq
Two Metro area soldiers killed in Iraq
Marine from Vancouver killed in Iraq
New York soldier killed in Iraq
Lexington Marine killed near Fallujah
North Dakota soldier killed in Iraq
Pendleton Marine killed By hostile fire in Iraq
Marine from the Ozarks dies in Iraq
Southland Marine killed In Iraq
Marine from Belvidere killed in Iraq
Arizona Marine killed In Iraq
Williston Guard soldier killed in Iraq
Soldier from Eufaula killed in Baghdad
Soldier killed in Iraq is buried in Indianapolis
Soldier killed in Iraq remembered in Bennettsville
Slain Marine laid to rest in Brighton
Sad rites for Long Island Marine
Marine killed In Iraq laid to rest in Plymouth
Colorado Marine buried in Northglenn
Hamilton soldier to be buried Thursday
Funeral plans made for two Marines from Clovis killed in Iraq
Dying in Iraq – US Army Nurse supervisor Patrick McAndrew tries to save the life of an American soldier by giving him CPR upon arrival to a military hospital in Baghdad, November 9th 2004. The soldier was later pronounced dead from his wounds suffered in a Baghdad firefight with insurgents
US Army Nurse supervisor Patrick McAndrew tries to save the life of an American soldier by giving him CPR upon arrival at a military hospital in Baghdad, Tuesday, November 9th 2004 but the soldier died
US Army Chaplain Cpt. Daoud Agbere, right, a Muslim priest (sic), prays for an American soldier after he was pronounced dead upon arrival to a military hospital in Baghdad, November 9th 2004, despite the efforts of Army Nurse supervisor, Patrick McAndrew, left, to revive him. The soldier was fatally wounded in a Baghdad firefight
Injured US Marines, Falluja, November 9th 2004
Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 10 2004 2:23 utc | 60
I have read 3310 pages?! No wonder I don´t seem to get anything done.
But on that matter I like to thank Jerome and everybody who has contributed on the oily threads. I had a lecture today about Peak Oil, and I already knew it all. I looked even sharper than usual.
This is equivalent to a college education. And a lot of us have read 3310 pages of it.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Nov 10 2004 3:15 utc | 61
Here, my European friends, is a site for you …
Sorry Everybody
be sure the click on the gallery
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 3:35 utc | 62
PS my thanks to Richard Cranium over at The All Spin Zone for the link.
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 3:41 utc | 63
Anon @ 9:23pm–
It’s a terrible list.
But I am sorry, my empathy for that particular list is waning fast.
Because I want to see the list of Iraqi civilians.
If you would like to learn all you need to know about the callous disregard for the latter list at the highest levels of the current American Administration please read this.
Then go read Riverbend’s latest. If you are pressed for time you need only read the last line.
I am sorry to be so cold-hearted, but it is impossible to avoid confronting the true nature of the aggressor any longer.
@DM but that would involve paying money for licensed proprietary software! and then I would burn in hellfire for all eternity and my linux box would never speak to me again. but if you wanted to put that monster PDF on an anon ftp site or http server someplace and send me the URL I would definitely download it. some of the stuff here is better than ephemeral — I don’t necessarily refer to my own ranting, more to the enormous wealth of info and links posted by the rest of the barflies. often I find myself thinking, “someone mentioned that over at the Moon, now what the heck thread was that on and how long ago was it…”
@RossK moi aussi. I was just raving to a colleague at work the other day that the Yanks have never come to terms with anyone’s deaths but their own — well, except for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi horror. when they think of WWII they do not remember the 20 mio Soviet dead, and they definitely don’t remember how they encouraged Japan to invade China in the 20’s and the toll from that adventure. they don’t count the Koreans when they tot up the score from the Korean war, nor the Vietnamese and Laotians and so on from the Viet Nam war. they sort of recognise that a lot of people died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they insist that “it was necessary” long after the documents have been released and the sheer criminal electiveness of that bombing has been exposed. I suppose it’s Viet Nam that bothers me the most because it’s the freshest in my memory. all that weeping and wailing over the 50,000 or so US dead. not that I don’t feel it, I knew families who lost a son or worse, got a son back whom they no longer recognised — but it has made me quietly furious for decades now, that in all that weeping and Angst so few, so very few took even one minute to count up the victims of the bombings and the defoliation and the “S and D” missions and the fumbling, stupid attempts to play the Great Game (Pol Pot, for example).
I know I know I know, it’s just the imperial mindset, it’s nothing about the Yanks particularly — the Brits were the same way during their heyday with all those little pink bits on the map. a few Tommies would get killed in some garrison near the Khyber pass and it would be headline news — the Calcutta incident during the Mutiny (mutiny! hah! the word says it all) became a household word — but the millions who starved to death in India thanks to British “market expansion” and mismanagement are hardly remembered… it’s just that one would like to think we actually learn something…
Sorry, that was the virtual equivalent of drunken babbling. It’s been said before and we all know it, it’s just getting to me (again). You can pat me on the shoulder, nod sympathetically, and take that last drink from my trembling hand. Thanks.
Meanwhile something more interesting — the bloody brilliant Cosma has come up with some marvelous demographically proportional maps. that explode the whole cartoonish Red State Blue State game the media have been playing with us. The Jesusland cartoon is funny and it made its point, but Cosma (and friends) have made maps that are far, far more interesting and revealing and imho should be in the next edition of Tufte’s Envisioning Information.
Juan Cole extract:-
I have it from a source I consider reliable that the order for the arrest of Muqtada al-Sadr in early April, 2004, which came as such a surprise and threw the country into chaos for two months, came from Dan Senor. Senor is said to have acted on instructions from Neoconservatives in the Pentagon, and to have kept Paul Bremer, his putative boss, out of the loop. Bremer was presented with a fait accompli.
I speculated at the time that the Neocons came after Muqtada because he had objected so loudly to Sharon’s murder of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the clerical leader of the Hamas Party (the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood). Muqtada had highlighted the assassination in his newspaper, al-Hawzah al-Natiqah, which the Coalition Provisional Authority ordered closed. And then Muqtada had promised to be the right hand of Hamas in Iraq, and to open Hamas offices all around the country.
In other words, his position was completely intolerable to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Likud Party, and their American fellow-travelers among the Neocons.
So, when are you guys going to start the treason trials …
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 7:42 utc | 70
@DeAnander
but the millions who starved to death in India thanks to British “market expansion” and mismanagement are hardly remembered
Sorry DeAnander, gonna have to ask for your source/links on this one.
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 7:48 utc | 71
DeAnander – thanks for the link to the maps. Tufte-worthy indeed!
No one anymore on the other thread? Pity!
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 10 2004 8:16 utc | 72
City of Mosques
Half of the mosques destroyed. Dangerous game.
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2004 10:09 utc | 73
love the map deanander
just spent a few hrs catching up and want to thank everybody for the great links and all. b real for the eyeball map. thousands of pages. wow.i have to agree w/ a swedish kind of death, this really
is an education. got a little lost over at bagdad burning. i think a lot more about the iraqi’s dying than team america. not to sound callous but..we have a choice. with this crowd i hope i can admit that.
Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2004 11:00 utc | 75
this made me shake my head.
3 members of Iraqi interim leader’s family reported kidnapped
This is sick, I don’t think the resistance is going to win any hearts and minds with this act. If I were a conspiracy theorist kind of guy I would suspect it was somebody on our side that grabbed these poor folks.
Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 10 2004 11:57 utc | 76
@ DM
About the british rule in India, I agree with DeAnander, though I failed to find an online source to collaborate the actual numbers that died from the mismanagement (or pillaging if you like) of India. However I found this excelent article on salt starvation in British India.
When I add up the numbers from that article I see that:
1,266,420 deaths is “a considerable under-estimate” of the deaths in the 1877-78 famine in Bengal
and
” Some would have died anyway, but it seems probable that the high Salt Tax would have considerably increased their number.”
and I end up with around a million or more deaths from the salt tax.
And thats just the effects of the salt tax in the years 1877-78 in Bengal. There were many more starvations at other parts of India.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Nov 10 2004 13:07 utc | 77
Another useful map site from a professor at Princeton (think it was mentioned on the site DeAnander listed):
Election 2004 Results
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 13:25 utc | 78
dan, unfortunately kidnapping is now a big business in Baghdad (although of course Allawi’s relatives are not kidnapping as usual). During the Nagorno-Kharabagh war between Armenia and Azerbaijian it was common for citizens, wives, women, children, etc. to be kidnapped and held as insurance for trading and making deals. I know that it was common for the Azeri jihadists to do this. Probably the same thing was common in Chechnya but I don’t know about that.
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 13:28 utc | 79
PS re Empire: what’s the UK going to do with a big army except use it as hired out muscle? An Empire tradition from the past sits fine with this understanding of things and makes it possible, but the US culturally is a different story. We don’t have that same history, our military has never been hired out to fight the natives for somebody else. Sooner or later this is going to catch up with culture and understanding, and I’m certain it’s taking its deepest tolls on the US soldiers at the moment. What they’re doing is really against the grain of the history of the country. Couple that with the neocon’s motives mentioned by DM above and you’ve got a recipe for major inner turmoil that will hit the fan sooner or later, one way or another.
Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 10 2004 13:40 utc | 80
Sorry, that was me above. You know, if you think about it, it makes perfectly sense that Bush/RoveNeocons would need to sell the war through total idiocy (Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, the WMDs were about to get us) or through the Christian Zionist mentality of fighting for the “New Jerusalem.”
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 13:57 utc | 81
annie @ 6:00am–
I understand your trepidation.
It was the same for me before I posted.
In fact, while I’ve been around, I haven’t been posting much as my POV has turned.
Like Billmon a few months ago I am finally coming to the unavoidable conclusion that American exceptionalism is well and truly gone, perhaps forever.
@RossK,
I always enjoyed traveling to the US and spend a lot of time there. But I wonder, has this American exceptionalism ever existed. Wasn’t it just Maya or Illusion. Despite liking the US I never was able to see that exeptionalism, besides making everything a little bigger. There was always the ugly American, only until Bush there was also a Knight in shining armour that balanced the ugly part. However, the Knight seems to have vanished, at least for the moment. Now I am talking about the country, I am aware that there are many nice Americans.
Posted by: Fran | Nov 10 2004 15:04 utc | 83
RossK, have had the same thoughts myself this past week. Came to the realization that this is probably why Billmon left after the conference – he saw how enormous it is. However, I can’t just give up. As much as I don’t relish the lablel conspiracy theorist, I do believe this election was stolen and it is critical we get to the truth now before it becomes de rigeur. There is so much at stake here now. For those who are interested a good compendium of info put together by two posters at kos: http://countingcoup2004.blogspot.com/.
Posted by: conchita | Nov 10 2004 15:11 utc | 84
Polarization Develops on the Left Over Electronic Voting Machine Story
On one side (who believe it was stolen with the machines), so far, you have Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann, Laura Flanders, Mark Crispin Miller, Amy Goodman, and a ton of blogs, and on the other (who don’t think there’s proof, who don’t want to rush into things), you have Al Franken, Salon and Atrios. Both lists are thumbnails, to be sure. I like Suburban Guerrilla’s response to the Atrios stance:
Big old rumble over at Duncan’s place (check the comments) over the “shrill” people who say the election was stolen. Maybe it was stolen, he says, but we need to be careful and reasonable and try not to sound like conspiracy nuts.
Well, I about choked on my raisin bran.
I suppose it’s a function of age and experience. I’m almost twenty years older than Duncan, and I’ve been working on political campaigns since I was 15. I sat and watched through both the Watergate and Iran-contra hearings, and was quick to notice when this present administration filled their ranks with the criminals from those sorry episodes.
As a reporter, I covered politics in Delaware County, a corrupt Republican machine that dominates every aspect of life in the county. (Some days, I couldn’t believe the things I saw with my own eyes.)
Were elections fixed? Sure – that, and more. I eventually got to the point where almost nothing surprised me, and that was just at the local level.
This particular election? You figure it out. Hell, there are people sitting on death row who got there with less circumstantial evidence. In fact, that’s how most cases are decided. Unlike what you see on “CSI”, criminals are rarely convicted with a smoking gun.
In order for me to believe this election wasn’t fixed, I’m to assume that all those people stood in line for 10 hours to tell George Bush what a Godly man he is; that the failure of the exit polls only in certain areas was a meaningless anomaly; that the intertwined business and political connections of the people who own the voting machine companies are of no real concern; and that the crooks, thieves and CIA spooks of the Nixon and Reagan administration who found a loving home with this bunch have all found Jesus and wouldn’t dream of putting those special skills to work again.
Right.
I guess Paul Krugman (who said there was a “25% chance” they’d steal this election) and John Dean (just read the “Secret Government” chapter in his book, “Worse Than Watergate”) are “shrill” conspiracy nuts, too.
more?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 10 2004 16:18 utc | 85
Fran —
You’re probably right in terms of the big picture, but the fact that it is all becoming ‘just an illusion to me now’ is what is so difficult for me to come to grips with.
On the other hand, having lived in the States for an extended period of time, and having met and worked with folks like conchita, and many others here and over at places like the ASZ, it’s very hard for me to let go of the concept in the smaller sense.
Ross … I’m prescribing a medicinal dose of Camus and “The Myth of Sisyphus”, my friend… plus a little Emerson as an immune system booster. Emerson talking about skating on the illusions was so important to me during my “crossing the Rubicon” moments 20 years ago. And Camus… I found his “Sisyphus” when I was researching for a manuscript on suicide. It’s working title was: “The Rutted Path”…
And I mentioned to you at ASZ, but I’m not sure you saw it because it was way down-blog, that there was no such thing as a “feeble witness”… and I meant it. You either witness or you don’t. 😉
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Nov 10 2004 17:01 utc | 87
the american (sic) dream, baby…abstract illusion/delusion
meanwhile in central america, the fsln made out rather well in sunday’s election
Posted by: b real | Nov 10 2004 17:03 utc | 88
@x re a rebours (I hope I’m remembering the phrase correctly, “against the grain”) —
there are at least two “grains” in US cultural history. one of them reflects your own POV, i.e. that soldiers would be upset to find themselves deployed to fight a purely mercenary war, to be used for private gain, etc. — it goes against basic principles of decency that go back to pre-Enlightenment days, back even to the Republican critique of the Famiglia Augustus and the conversion of Republican Rome into an Empire.
but the other grain is just as long and just as deep, and it involves the use of US troops to slaughter indigenes so that White settlers could steal their land, the use of US troops to intimidate, beat, and murder union organisers at the behest of wealthy industrialists, etc. … uniformed US troops have been sent out against women and kids before for mercenary reasons, US troops have even fired on their own fellow citizens. some, and I honour their spirit, refused; but enough always comply. it’s a job.
BtW, Whiskey Bar now says Closed.
Billmon left the HST quote up for a week or so and now it’s all blank… think he’s moved to Canada?
I agree with you DeAnander, but in those examples you cite they were at least having something to do with a supposed interest of fellow Americans (i.e. wanting to settle on Indian land, hired thugs on union organizers, etc.) The difference is in asking now who we are saving Iraq for. I know you can make analogies to Vietnam but even that was supposedly a civil war with an entrenched organized military on one side and a government on the other. This colonial adventure is a whole different ballgame.
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 17:36 utc | 91
BTW, talking of architects of imperial policy, has everyone seen this news yet?
Bush names White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, to succeed Ashcroft
Posted by: x | Nov 10 2004 17:50 utc | 92
Billmon, moved to Canada? Huh – he’s still running Atrios for the Soros party. Our comments became too offensive to his Masters, editing them out became too time consuming & complicated, so he shut down the bar.
Posted by: jj | Nov 10 2004 18:39 utc | 93
The Kerry camp did not lose because more people voted for Bush.
Accepting that means admitting defeat for the wrong reasons.
The real results are at present unknown.
I looked around the net for stories that described unbelievable votes in favor of Kerry, and did find one – a story in the Charlotte Observer, that candidly explained that a whole bunch of votes were downloaded (onto PCs) and then doubled and even tripled. This was because employees hit Enter twice or more (after slow computer reaction), just as happens here – result, double posts. Kerry came out tops! The article was informative, naive, very specific, and utterly hallucinating. It posted a picture of a fat lady frowning (not laughing!) looking at a long scroll of paper, puzzled. The message was, now the votes themselves would be counted.
Apparently, the site has now gone over to registration, or for whatever reason, one cannot access the article directly (perhaps it is gone). My original link, 4 hours old:
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/special_packages/election2004/10133248.htm?1c
Fraud will not ever be proved.The overall utter confusion is accepted and nobody with the right tools and the courage to step forward is around.
Look at the confusion in this message:
Link
MSNBC did do a short piece (also quoting the Charlotte Observer…):
Link
There are dozens of factual articles on very serious voting problems. Maybe aout 50 – 60.
So? Then what? Who is collecting them? Nobody as far as I can make out. Who cares? Thats life. Mistakes are made, corrected, move on.
Right now it is all Fallujah, Fallujah, Fallujah .. on to the next scandal.
Time rushes by, Bush won, crow or eat your heart out, the media sees to it all.
There is no democracy in the US. Nowhere in the world would people put up with such manipulation, chicanery, lies, and frank newspaper articles about votes being just like Duh! tripled! Except, of course, in dictatorships which run fakey elections (e.g. Saddam) to push propaganda and make a minimal show on the world stage – and/or vaguely pretend to satisfy those all powerful institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, etc.
Accepting the standard myths dooms the opposition to failure.
Posted by: Blackie | Nov 10 2004 20:45 utc | 94
This just in:
NPR has assigned a reporter to explain away all the confusion. Since they have gotten a whopping load of emails and calls about election fraud, they went to work to explain how it is just a few glitches, blown out of proportion.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
I’m still gagging. My beloved NPR, fukkin me in the ass and assuring me that it feels good.
Posted by: rapt | Nov 10 2004 23:04 utc | 95
While the precise numbers of who got exactly how many votes will never be known, before you decide that who actually is the winner is unknown you should consider this art. by Sheldon Drobny – CPA, venture-capitalist & co-founder of Air America Radio. He insists the exit polling is accurate to ~.10% In short, it’s bullet-proof. Kerry Won, as we know. Otherwise skew would have been random as Blackie alludes to. Know anyone who’s vote was mis-recorded for Kerry????
Votergate 2004; We Don’t Need Paper to Prove Fraud, But We Do Need Money and Leadership, NOW.
Finally, recall art. Bev Harris posted w/in last few days, revealing Software Not Tamper-Proof by Design.
Posted by: jj | Nov 11 2004 3:04 utc | 96
Wooo hooo! Stan Goff, back from Haiti and in fine form, describes his debate with a high-powered neocon.
It is truly remarkable how easily KO’ed these neocons are once you step outside the tight little ring of the Republicrats. They’ve got maybe three combinations, and they are slow as a cow. Everything inside has been ritual combat, so they do very badly when someone actually intends to hit them.
It’s good strong stuff, even funny in parts.
@ Blackie 3:45 someone is tracking them also another this is not going away.
Posted by: annie | Nov 11 2004 9:27 utc | 98
@annie I followed your links. I got to the Howard Dean site. There was a poll ‘Did the Rovians Steal the election’. I voted ‘we’ll never know’. I was one of 13 people who voted. Even if the election was stolen, it will go away. Winners get to write the history books. Nobody is going to start a new American Revolution on a statistical probability that (aw shucks – the land that gave Tammany Hall to the English language)actually had a crooked election. Better to work on impeachment for some (take your pick) illegality rather than the election issue – because you wont find anyone from the Democrats willing to take this to its conclusion (even if you are right).
Posted by: DM | Nov 11 2004 9:57 utc | 99
Damn Stan Goff, he’s been reading my mind all along:
“Anyone who considers the Democratic Party as a left party needs to pull their face away from that bottle of spot remover.”
“I am on record as a severe critic of capitalism as an inherently destructive system built on genocide and slavery, sustained by misogyny, racism, poverty, and war, and bound to undermine its own material basis through ecocide. I do not, however, believe as some leftists seem to, that a more sensible system will inevitably replace it. If progressives continue to whine and wring their hands instead of fighting back, we could very well end up with a century or so of anarchy and warlords in the context of a mass human die-off on a ruined and toxified planet.”
Exactly. Except that as far as I’m concerned, if we don’t have a more sensible system, the die-off will eventually entirely wipe out mankind – which would be deserved, if it can’t save itself. My own assessment is 99.9% it happens. That said, if mankind survives, it will only be because a better global system will have been implemented.
“The deeper crisis is that the shock-and-awe bluff is being successfully called, and the rest of the world is now alive to the fact that the great power bleeds.”
Exactly, and that’s why from an imperialistic point of view this war was pretty stupid and risky. That’s what sank the Russians: oppressed people could see how the Afghans managed to push them back, and this may also have convinced some people in Eastern Europe that you could successfully resist USSR. Except that the US controls far more countries now, so the mess is potentially bigger.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 11 2004 11:09 utc | 100