And more on the US media: Some deaths don’t matter
how and why the Lancet study on Iraqi civilian mortality under US occupation was ignored by all the majors.

Posted by: DeAnander | Jan 28 2005 18:29 utc | 4

I do expect a similar development in the U.S.o.A. Gen Boykin (“my God is bigger than yours”) as Chief of ME operations is the most likely next step.
Yair Naveh appointed head of IDF Central Command

The issue of senior religious commanders in the Israeli military has taken on special importance recently. Some settlers and rabbis have called on religious soldiers to refuse to carry out Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, set for this summer.
In recent years, the number of religiously observant officers in the Israeli military has risen significantly. Almost all of Israel’s legendary military commanders – men like Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin – were strictly secular.
Naveh previously served as the army’s chief infantry and paratroops officer, and the head of the Home Front command.

Posted by: b | Jan 28 2005 20:56 utc | 6

B: the settler movement and the power of the orthodoxs are the big elephants in the Israeli domestic living room (as opposed to Palestinians, who are the mammoth in the international one). I begin to think the best consequence of Sharon’s withdrawal plan will be that these issues can’t be ignored any longer, and Israelis will soon have to choose sides, and act decisively to make clear who is in charge of the country, wacko nutcases or the responsible secular adults who built the country – some of them may be dishonest or wicked, but they aren’t nearly as crazy as those who protest against withdrawing from Gaza and call to civil war.
Warnerd: He’s spot on. I’ve half-jokingly wondered since one year if Bush, not Chalabi, wasn’t on Iranian payroll. So far, he destroyed Talibans and Saddam, their worst enemies. Now, he may well destroy the US, the last major enemy of Iran (well, there may still be the Saudis, but without a US support Iran would eat them for breakfast).
And he’s also right that if something is bad, Bush will do it. He reminds me of Milosevic: you knew since the beginning that when he would have totally fucked up an ex-Yugoslavian republic, he would go after another one; all along, ruining the influence when not the mere physical presence the Serbs had there before. They’re lucky he was deposed before he could go after Montenegro, which imho he would’ve done in a matter of months, because then Serbia would’ve lost the last republic who still accepted their inane behaviour, and would’ve become a backward landlocked 3rd rate country for the whole 21st century. Bush gives me the same feeling: if there’s any way of ruining the US power in the middle and long run, he’ll do it. The Onion was creepingly prescient with the “At long last our long nightmare of peace and prosperity is over” article.
And since I don’t want to hijack the “Just say No” thread about torturer-enabler Gonzales, I’ll repost here B’s link about S. Roach from Morgan Stanley making some interesting comments on the economy and the inept WEF. First, oil, steel and other resources will be more expensive this year, with China totally failing to slow down its huge growth (+14% in 2004) – and this doesn’t sound like good news for the environment either, not because resources are more expensive, which could be good, but because industrilisation, urbanisation and pollution will continue to sharply increase.
Second, he hints at the real problem with the US economy: “With America’s import volumes currently running more than 50% larger than exports, I view the trade gap as, first and foremost, a problem of excess domestic demand.” Indeed, excessive domestic demand! Though I beg to differ with the cure. Given the huge federal debt, the underfunding of pretty everything outside military spending, the cure to American excessive demand seems to me to be self-evident: raise the fucking taxes, and not by 0.1%. Then American people will spend less, consume less, and the trade deficit will vanish into thin air.
Lastly, I don’t really see his point, or rather I may see too obviously the perversion of capitalist thinking here: “There was concern over the lack of internal demand elsewhere in the world — especially in the wealthy economies of Europe and Asia” What’s the problem? I mean, the fact that Europeans and Japanese haven’t an internal demand as big as the US one could mean they just have nearly everything they want and don’t need to waste more natural resources on unneeded and even unrequired goods can’t touch his mind? And frankly, with a growth still superior to 1%, I don’t know where he sees a serious lack of demand. During the industrialisation of UK in late 18th and 19th, according to the figures I’ve seen, you never had the 10% growth you see in China, and in most years, you didn’t even have 2%.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jan 28 2005 21:21 utc | 8

a third TV in a two-room apartment doesn’t make you happier…
a good moment to introduce an index conceptually competitive with GDP and GNP: GNH (Gross National Happiness) Index
there’s a compelling body of research in the last decade or so suggesting that up to a point, increases in material consumption produce enormous increases in happiness. the transition from wearing dirty rags to clean clothes, from having no shelter or dorm-like accommodation to having a clean and private place to sleep, the transition from having no night time lighting to having some kind of electricity, and so on, is a huge transition and increases feelings of pride and happiness quite a lot. the transition from hunger to food security likewise, or from water scarcity to water security…
…but at the other end of the scale, past a certain point which almost certainly varies from one individual to another, the same research suggests that the addition of one more pair of shoes to a closet that already contains 10 pair is not a big deal, brings little satisfaction. the addition of the third refrigerator, the fourth car, the 100th DVD, just doesn’t pack the happiness punch of that first working household appliance, that first brand new suit or good pair of shoes.
even the massive merchandising efforts that sell and display all this Stuff may produce unhappiness: too many choices when shopping may make people anxious and depressed. and of course the process of converting natural low-ent resources into high-ent consumer gomi destroys along the way many of the things that make people happy — like clean air, quiet, the sound of birdsong, leisure time, clean water to play and swim in, freedom of movement and association, local neighbourhood businesses, community character and tradition, the quality of food, time with the kids, community bonds of knowledge and reputation…
this may be one reason why wealthy Americans, the most materialistic mass culture on earth (can’t count the Emirates and other places where only a small elite wallow in materialism), consume more antidepressants per capita per annum than any other nation (though the Americanised UK is catching up). it may explain why suicide rates are high in the US (murder also) compared to other countries.
recent assessments suggest that America’s longevity, child health, child cognitive performance, social cohesiveness, overall public health, etc. are all slipping steadily — along with its economic viability as a nation state — even as our markets are flooded with “cheap” consumer goods and we are told daily to believe that Happiness is Owning More Stuff. I am slowly endorsing the reverse theory: not only does More Stuff not make us happy after we have enough, but Unhappy People Buy More Stuff (trying to distract or assuage their nagging malaise)…
which once again makes US style capitalism a feedback loop — the more it immiserates and sickens the workers, the more desperately they will strive against one another for that third TV, that monster SUV, that 11th pair of shoes and 15th video game cartridge, that game or toy or hobby that they pretend their rat-race day job will someday allow time for…

Posted by: DeAnander | Jan 28 2005 22:17 utc | 10

For me one of the best shows on Italian TV is a program called “blob” which comes on RAI 3 around 8 pm. It is very well done commentary covering the events of the day or the previous day using a combination of short clips of film from actual current news mixed with scenes from old movies, game shows, cartoons or as tonight, footage from Auschwitz.
It was really quite chilling to see the killing rooms of the concentration camp immediately followed with scenes from Abu Ghraib. They then went on to show other scenes of death and destruction and it was hard to tell what was then and what is now. There really isn’t much difference and the only cues you have is whether the film is black and white or color.
They then went on to cover some very lively political debate where people do shout at each other but somehow it seems so much better than that seen on Fox News.
This program lasts around 15 minutes and is able to say more in that brief amount of time then all the talking heads on all the major US networks can in an entire week.
here is their site for a peek at what they offer.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 28 2005 22:31 utc | 12

done a little research googling – drrms region codes are a way of protecting america’s dollars & since on the mac you can only do the change five times – i m fucked – was hoping to see this derrida doc – another time

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 28 2005 23:44 utc | 14

slothrop
no – it seems that any of the decrypting things risk damaging the computer & it is the tool i use for almost everything – its a pity – i think i merit a moment or two of relaxation – but i guess not

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 29 2005 0:09 utc | 16

To see how stalking horses are made by regional media to distract audiences from confronting the torrent of lies by the Bush administration, here’s a great one unfolding in the past few days in the western U.S. Here’s another aerticle. Note how carefully Churchill is villified as a proponent of terror, even though his essay doesn’t champion such terror;p more like the old epithet: “when you wipe your ass with the poor, sometimes you get some shit onya.”
Churchill’s essay is an excessive polemic, but what red meat for rednecks, I Tell You Whot.
And we gotta get Saddam…and he’s a Hitler and hey, look, a fetus!…and whatever…–Bill Hicks

Posted by: slothrop | Jan 29 2005 0:23 utc | 18

Rgiap, I don’t know much about Macs, but you can solve the problem quite easily if you take your DVD to somebody who owns a PC and a DVD recorder:
1. Download and install DVDIdle (trial version) and DVDShrink (freeware).
2. Insert your DVD and run DVDShrink. DVDIdle will open automatically in the background to decrypt your DVD. Choose Backup! and copy your DVD either to the hard disk or straight to an empty DVD. It will be totally region-free.
That’s all there is to it. I can assure you it works, because I do it all the time.

Posted by: pedro | Jan 29 2005 1:42 utc | 20

AMERICA needs to act to put its economy in order and rein in “self-indulgent consumers” before its vast government borrowing triggers a global economic crisis, experts claimed in Davos yesterday
The wealthy have it great; Tax Cuts, Below cost goods from Asia. So what if there is a trade deficit, ballooning federal debt, a never ending generational war; the rich can still can vacation in Davos.
The “self-indulgent consumers” who will get shafted are American workers and homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages.
To avoid a global economic crises, taxes have to be raised, government services cut, dollar devalued, wages depressed, interest rates raised and troops pulled out of the Middle East. The Bush Administration is incapable of doing any of this. However, they are capable of bombing Iran with multiple unknown catastrophic consequences. When the current Bubble bursts, the blow-back may be a new Depression.

Posted by: Jim S | Jan 29 2005 5:44 utc | 22

Fauxreal,
Pretty exciting, SusanG over at KOS. liked that “interview” you posted, by Jeff Gannon with Scott McClellan. Its hard to believe even they– can do that with a straight face, perhaps they have a rehearsal beforehand? And so now we find that Krystol and Krauthammer were both consultants for juniors inaugral speech and then are on Fox praising the speech as “revolutionary”,etc. Gee, I thought they were kidding a couple years ago when someone said most Americans get there news from the Jay Lino Show. I guess that would be a step up.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 29 2005 9:27 utc | 24

rgiap
an ex-P myself, i have the same problem (however, my computer is zone 1 and i don’t want to block it by changing to watch zone 2 dvds). discussed solutions with my dad (a mac expert) and came to conclusion that an external dvd lecture connected to computer by firewire (hope i’m using the right terminology) should do the trick. not sure if you have to get extern dvd in us or here though.

Posted by: esme | Jan 29 2005 12:41 utc | 26

thank you pedro, susan g & irishhead for your help in my little troubles that are still not resolved

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 29 2005 16:43 utc | 28

Laura Rosen, who writes a blog, War and Piece, picked up on SusanG’s post at DailyKos.
Rosen is a very fine reporter who writes for reputable outfits and has collaborated on articles with people like Jason Vest (who “outed” the name of anonymous…though it was only a secret b/c anon.’s Bush bosses didn’t like the info he’d gotten out to the public), who has collaborated on articles with people like Murray Waas…for outfits like Mother Jones, The American Prospect, Washington Monthly…good company, in other words.
This is a story that should interest any decent journalist, however, since Gannon seems to be nothing but a plant by the GOP to keep skew information.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 29 2005 20:05 utc | 30

Remember the big discussion about the mysterious rectangular bulge detected on Bush’s back during the debates? Alexander Cockburn [co-editor of CounterPunch, http://www.counterpunch.org] notes in the 2/1/05 issue of The Progressive Populist that a possible explanation may be found in a report by C. L. Hallmark that appeared at Indymedia Houston in December: interesting article on Indymedia Houston
Cockburn concludes with these thoughts: “So here’s the president trapped into his shock harness. And if he’s a health risk, what about Dick Cheney? Given the state of the veep’s heart, he’s probably hard-wired into a local generating station. They both go down, and we have [Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis] Hastert, the former wrestling coach who weighs in these days at 275 pounds. …If Hastert also were incapacitated, Ted Stevens would follow, the current president pro tem of the US Senate…. Stevens is one ahead of Condoleeza Rice, two ahead of John Snow and three ahead of Rumsfeld.
“Who says the universe isn’t full of surprises? Ask the people on the shores of the Indian Ocean. We could lose Bush, Cheney, Hastert and the choleric Stevens all on the same day, and then Condoleeza will be running the show.”

Posted by: hobbitess | Jan 29 2005 22:57 utc | 32

Wrong again! Now I know what’s wrong, so here’s one more try and if this one doesn’t work I’ll give up:
interesting article on Indymedia Houston

Posted by: hobbitess | Jan 29 2005 23:04 utc | 34

Dan,
commission fees? Or does

“As of 1/27/05, supplies are low and some orders that would normally ship on the same day of receipt, may be delayed several days due to the Iraqi border closings.”

mean “give us your money now and when you want dinars we will be long gone”?

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 30 2005 0:21 utc | 36

slothrop- that ward churchill piece is not recent. in fact, he worked that essay into a book, on the justice of roosting chickens: reflections on the consequences of u.s. imperial arrogance and criminality, that came out late 2003, and, even earlier, a cd recording of a lecture he gave 16, 2001, titled pacifism and pathology in the american left. ward is a scholar and an activist w/ a sizeable resume and a blunt approach, so he undoubtedly presents a threat to the white supremacist status quo. i imagine that rocky mtn news, which has a history of anti-indian hatemongering, is trying to slag him b/c churchill & seven other aim/indigenous activists were just acquitted two weeks ago in an absurd trial for again working to stop the columbus parade. they had been labeled terrorists during the build up, but, from what little i could find online, easily turned the jurists against the prosecution for defending the honoring of the institution of genocide. officials in denver really have egg on their face now that last week they recanted earlier promises to continue prosecutions of the remaining 200+ arrested & abruptly dismissed all charges.
denver was where the first columbus day celebration took place, in 1907, and in 1990 a group calling itself the federation of italian-american organizations took up the notion of a parade to honor the first transatlantic slave trader & father of genocide on this continent. aim has been effective over the years in shutting them down & making it difficult for them when the parades do take place.
despite ward’s harsh stmts on the ghosts of 911, he doesn’t accept the idea that the u.s. govt was in on 911, so i don’t think he’s really taken too seriously as a threat. this sounds like the smear attempted a few years back when this essay first appeared, re-lit by the recent court fiasco.

Posted by: b real | Jan 30 2005 4:10 utc | 38

http://www.lewrockwell.com/browne/browne30.html

Posted by: DM | Jan 31 2005 4:47 utc | 40

Frightens me that my father reads The New Republic religiously:
January 31, 2005
>
>Tom Frank’s Fatwah
>
>New Republic Calls for Death and Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
>
>By DAVE ZIRIN
>
>The words “libelous” and ‘the New Republic” have a proud history of
>walking arm-in-arm. Now, in the esteemed tradition of [former TNR
>writer who passed fiction as fact] Stephen Glass, The New Republic
>has stooped to a new low, publishing a piece that calls for
>violence, torture, and even death for leading leftists who dare
>oppose Bush’s war on terror and the slaughter in Iraq.
>
>Author Tom Frank — clearly from the Glass School of Journalism the
>New Republic has made famous — described sitting in on an anti-war
>panel sponsored by the International Socialist Organization, the
>Washington Peace Center, the DC Anti-War Network and other groups.
>
>After having heard the 100 plus attendees cheer sentiments like
>”Money for Jobs and Education Not For War and Occupation,” Frank
>became so riled up, he unloaded a deranged harangue about the
>suffering he would like to rain upon people daring to organize
>against this war. After Stan Goff, a former Delta Forces soldier and
>current organizer for Military Families Speak Out, expressed
>sentiments like “We ain’t never resolved nothing through an
>election,” Frank’s jag began. Clearly too doughy to do it himself,
>Frank started to fantasize about a Teutonic strongman who could shut
>Goff up.
>
>Frank writes, “What I needed was a Republican like Arnold
>[Schwarzenegger] who would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the
>face.”
>
>As the panel continued, every cheer and standing ovation seemed to
>set Frank deeper down a path of psychosis. After International
>Socialist Review editorial board member Sherry Wolf asserted that
>Iraqis had a “right” to rebel against occupation, Frank upped the
>ante in his efforts to intimidate anyone considering entry into the
>anti-war movement.
>
>He wrote, ‘these weren’t harmless lefties. I didn’t want Nancy
>Pelosi talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting
>through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an
>immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for
>interrogation.”
>
>Later, when Wolf quoted Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy’s
>defense of the right to resist, Frank was sent into such a state of
>panic, he once again dreamed of the mighty hand of state repression,
>writing, “Maybe sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever
>is more likely to take a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy.”
>
>Interestingly, Frank didn’t have the guts to slander another one of
>the panel speakers, exonerated death row inmate Shujaa Graham.
>Graham, who has been moved to speak out against the torture of Iraqi
>prisoners by intimately connecting their pain with his own
>experience of torture in California’s death row, escaped Frank’s
>pen. I guess it’s hard to pose fantasy threats of torture and death
>toward someone who has actually looked it in the face.
>
>We can write this piece off as just another one of the smarmy New
>Republic 20-something writers getting his jollies slamming the left.
>We can say that Frank — his entire piece an exercise in poorly
>executed humor, ill-written grammar, and awkward phrasing — just
>forgot to break his Prozac in half that morning. But there is
>something far more insidious at work here.
>
>This piece is yet another effort to intimidate and silence people
>who aren’t willing to toe the “party line” espoused by Democrats and
>Republicans alike that the death of 1,400 US troops and 100,000
>Iraqi civilians is somehow justified. Frank’s piece is an exercise
>in hate and intimidation. To be quiet in its face is to give ground
>in a period when we have precious little to give.
>
>Therefore, this is a call for people to e-mail The New Republic and
>let them know what you think about humorous musings on killing
>Arundhati Roy or torturing Stan Goff. Let them know that a disgraced
>magazine will not intimidate us, especially one with the credibility
>of The National Enquirer. Let them know that we will publicly debate
>Tom Frank or any of their 20 something post-graduate hacks on the
>merits of this war anytime and any place. This is the only way to
>deal with darkness: shine as bright a light as possible — right in
>it’s face.
>
>E-mail letters@tnr.com to let them know what you think. We are also
>considering a picket of the New Republic Offices, for those
>interested.
>
>Dave Zirin’s new book “What’s My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in
>the United States will be in stores in June 2005. You can receive
>his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing
>edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. Contact him at editor@pgpost.com.

Posted by: conchita | Feb 1 2005 0:12 utc | 42

@Conchita:
Street demonstration wise, I don’t think a little goose-stepping and Nazi saluting would be out of order at all.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 1 2005 2:07 utc | 44

and speakin’ of those lovable loonies over at the NR, don’t miss their coverage of serious, relevant scientific developments such as this:

So weird have the attempts to hasten the End Time become that a group of ultra-Christian Texas ranchers recently helped fundamentalist Israeli Jews breed a pure red heifer, a genetically rare beast that must be sacrificed to fulfill an apocalyptic prophecy found in the biblical Book of Numbers. (The beast will be ready for sacrifice by 2005, according to The National Review

(from The Godly Must Be Crazy, Grist Magazine)
The NR gang among them? I wonder if they ran the Talking Fish Prophecy story as well… (sigh)

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 1 2005 3:33 utc | 46

World Front Pages.
341 front pages in 41 countries (Jan 31) – every one proclaiming ‘Democracy’, ‘Victory’, and vindication for this ridiculous war. Multiply this with broadcast and cable news around the world and you start to get a feel for the power of propaganda. And why “they” probably don’t feel very threatened by a handful of nutcases on the Internet.

Posted by: DM | Feb 1 2005 7:04 utc | 48

There’s a hard landing ahead ..

Posted by: DM | Feb 1 2005 8:28 utc | 50

@ De
Just as the red heifer gets ready for sacrifice, the new earth-penetrating nuclear weapon should come on line.
I close my eyes and see Slim Pickens sitting on the bomb, waving his cowboy hat in the air, riding down to the target

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 1 2005 17:26 utc | 52

That is just mean DM. It would be hard, even for Rove to spin that into something positive.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 1 2005 21:11 utc | 54