Juan Cole with a good rant today on Schiavo, Abortion, Iraq and Control on his site
and on Salon.com: In gods we trust
Evangelicals insist that the U.S. is a Christian country. An increasing number of Americans beg to differ. (So does the Constitution.)

Posted by: b | Apr 1 2005 16:07 utc | 3

U.S. soldiers arrested for Colombian cocaine smuggling plot
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Five American soldiers have been arrested for trying to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine into the United States on a U.S. military aircraft, the U.S. military said. …
…..The wife of a U.S. Army officer who headed anti-drug operations in Colombia was sentenced to five years in prison in 2000 for trying to mail $700,000 worth of heroin to New York. Her husband admitted he knew she was laundering drug proceeds and was sentenced to five months, angering Colombian legal officials who complained this was too lenient.

Posted by: Marching powder setback | Apr 1 2005 18:11 utc | 5

Infinite Injustice by Chris Floyd

Bush’s gulag has little to do with “fighting terrorism”; it is itself an instrument of terror — state terror — designed to strike “pre-emptive” fear into the hearts of anyone, at home or abroad, who might oppose the Regime’s crusade to make the world safe for klepto-plutocracy. Such a system actually requires innocent victims and lawlessness, in order to underscore its arbitrary nature — an essential element of terror. For Bush, Murat Kurnaz is a more important prisoner than a genuine criminal like Osama bin Laden.

Posted by: beq | Apr 1 2005 20:22 utc | 7

Riverbend on life in Baghdad

Posted by: Sind ou Hind | Apr 1 2005 22:08 utc | 9

Medical ethics deemed quaint
SEATTLE — The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has been harvesting brains from the corpses of mentally ill clients and quietly trading the tissue for money, KIRO Team 7 Investigators reported.
In the past seven years, the medical examiner’s office received more than $1 million for collecting brains of people with schizophrenia….

Posted by: Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr | Apr 1 2005 23:05 utc | 11

“In the past seven years, the medical examiner’s office received more than $1 million for collecting brains of people with schizophrenia….”
Do they get double rates for schizoids??

Posted by: enquiring minds want to know | Apr 2 2005 3:02 utc | 13

From the Independent:Europeans will need visas for travel to US

Posted by: Fran | Apr 2 2005 5:15 utc | 15

And, I understand that an American citizen wishing to return to America from abroad will have to pass a psychiatric exam proving they are sane.

Posted by: jj | Apr 2 2005 9:56 utc | 17

Yikes! From the Fritz Stern speech:
“German moderates and German elites underestimated Hitler, assuming that most people would not succumb to his Manichean unreason; they didn’t think that his hatred and mendacity could be taken seriously. They were proven wrong. People were enthralled by the Nazis’ cunning transposition of politics into carefully staged pageantry, into flag-waving martial mass. At solemn moments, the National Socialists would shift from the pseudo-religious invocation of Providence to traditional Christian forms: In his first radio address to the German people, twenty-four hours after coming to power, Hitler declared, “The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.”
Sound a bit familiar???

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 2 2005 10:32 utc | 19

ASKD: How about just saying no to the US demands? What kind of World are you living in? I have given up on Europeans really showing backbone, its like the US Democrats. At least this is the conclusion I have arrived at lately and I guess to many (self)-interessts being involved.
From OutlookIndia.com:
For Whatever It’s (Fort) Worth – With the offer of F-16s, Bush bails out old favourite Lockheed Martin

Strategy, security and friendship certainly went into the United States decision to reverse a 15-year policy and sell F-16s to Pakistan but base economics was also at play. The economy of Texas, to be precise, the home state of President George Bush. Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-16s, was planning to downsize and ultimately shut down a plant in Fort Worth, Texas, by 2008 in the absence of new orders. Nearly 5,000 American jobs were on the line.

Posted by: Fran | Apr 2 2005 13:37 utc | 21

“The natives are getting restless”

Posted by: Colonel Kurtz | Apr 2 2005 18:54 utc | 23

At Least 20 U.S. Troops Wounded in Iraq Jail Attack

“A group of between 40 and 60 insurgents attacked the U.S. forward operating base at Abu Ghraib,” Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for detainee affairs, told Reuters, saying the attack began at around 10 a.m. EST.
“They detonated two VBIEDs (suicide car bombs) and also fired rocket-propelled grenades into the prison camp … it was a sustained attack,” he said.

We all have significant experience telling us that what the US military reports is always much less than what really happens. So I take this as a sign that things are getting worse, much more worse, that the reports say.

Posted by: b | Apr 2 2005 20:17 utc | 25

I have a suggestion of my own for a reality show. Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in the suburbs of, say, Falloojeh for at least 14 days. We could watch them cope with the water problems, the lack of electricity, the check points, the raids, the Iraqi National Guard, the bombings, and- oh yeah- the ‘insurgents’. We could watch their house bombed to the ground and their few belongings crushed under the weight of cement and brick or simply burned or riddled with bullets. We could see them try to rebuild their life with their bare hands (and the equivalent of $150)…
I’d not only watch *that* reality show, I’d tape every episode.
‘Riverbend’ on American media.

Posted by: Reality T.V. | Apr 2 2005 22:17 utc | 27

Note – A post entitled “Matched Set” was deleted at Billmon’s request after he took down the corresponding post from his own site. No comments had been made yet.

Posted by: Jérôme | Apr 3 2005 2:11 utc | 29

From a Canadian friend

As you know, I’ve got a few bucks invested in mutual funds (never enough to do anything with but it’s a nice little cushion just-in-case). Anyway, I was having a chat with my advisor yesterday and he strongly suggested that I move everything that had any connection to the US market into Asian investments. His words: “The US economy is finished and Asia is the economic future”. I hadn’t said a word up to this point but at that I muttered “At least until the oil runs out”. He smiled sadly and nodded. The scariest thing was his bald statement about the US economy, though. I never expected to hear those words in my lifetime from an investment advisor… I think I’m going to talk to him about investing in property. It’s not in his best interest for me to pull my money out but he takes care of Mum and I pretty well. Anyway, I thought I’d better pass on his comments as he’s in a position to know what he’s talking about.

If this is what investment counselors are telling people in countries all over the world… then in addition to the genuine, dire structural problems and fiscal insanity of the current US regime, there’s a good head of steam building up for “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
would those who have more than a gnat’s [i.e. my] understanding of finance care to comment?

Posted by: DeAnander | Apr 3 2005 3:43 utc | 31

Fury at ‘shoot for fun’ memo
One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is ‘fun’ to shoot people.
Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater Security were recently sent a message stating that ‘actually it is “fun” to shoot some people.’
Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater’s president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists ‘need to get creamed, and it’s fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.’
Human rights groups said yesterday that the comments raised fresh questions over the role of civilian contractors operating in Iraq and other world flashpoints…..

Posted by: Nugget | Apr 3 2005 4:28 utc | 33

44 U.S. troops wounded in Abu Ghraib attack
You were correct, b, it was bigger than they were admitting initially.

Posted by: Nugget | Apr 3 2005 5:51 utc | 35

Finally, a puff of white smoke from the East : Hajim al-Hassani elected as speaker of Iraqi parliament

Posted by: Puppetmaster | Apr 3 2005 9:05 utc | 37

The event was actually mentioned in the Taguba Report, under Protocol Golden Spike. And there’s more. Before our company transported the bodies, the soldiers stopped and posed with the bodies and mutilated them further. I got photos from the guy who was there, my friend. I have a photo of a member of my unit scooping out the prisoner’s brains with an MRE [meals-ready-to-eat] spoon.
…….Four people are looking on; two are taking photographs. If you remember the Abu Ghraib stuff that came out on CNN, this kind of stuff was common. You see guys posing with bodies, or toying with corpses. It was a real common thing in the military, all because the guys thought Arabs are terrorists, the scum of the earth. Anything we do to them is all right….

Posted by: America’s finest | Apr 3 2005 19:00 utc | 39

wierd story from Newsweek Terror Broker
Bin Laden needed a role in the Iraqi insurgency, and Zarqawi needed outside support. How a deadly deal was made.

Posted by: b | Apr 3 2005 19:33 utc | 41