whatever … and take a look at the older one too.
Back to Main
June 25, 2005
Again An Open Thread
Comments
Your lawmakers on duty: Required Report on Trip by House Ethics Chairman Is Missing
The chairman of the House ethics committee apparently did not properly file a required report about a $3,170 trip to Canada last year. His staff said it must have been lost in the mail.
Perhaps the report, due nine months ago, will turn up. …
recently i saw a bumper sticker –
“if you’re not horrified, you haven’t been paying attention”
Posted by: mistah charley | Jun 25 2005 18:45 utc | 2
mistah charley- the one i have says “If you’re NOT outraged, you’re NOT paying attention.”
both of the “not” words are in red, while the others are in black, so you can also read it as “it you’re outraged, you’re paying attention.”
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 25 2005 19:06 utc | 3
Very tame scenarios – I can think of much worse pictures: Simulated oil meltdown shows U.S. economy’s vulnerability
…
Fast-forward again, to June 23, 2006. Emboldened Saudi insurgents attack foreign oil workers, killing hundreds. A mass evacuation follows from the world’s pivotal oil producer, the one country that could be counted on to boost production during shortages in global supplies.
A take-charge guy with a Texas accent who led the CIA from 1991 to 1993, Gates calls yet another war-room meeting. Global recession looms. The world economy turns on cheap oil. Without foreign oil workers, how will Saudi Arabia meet its production targets and quench the oil thirst of America, China and India?
Oil prices have reached an unthinkable $150 a barrel. In Philadelphia, Miami and Kansas City, Mo., gas prices reach $5.74 a gallon. Now it takes $121 to fill that midsized SUV.
…
Hey.
There is one bubble that has apparently already burst.
It’s the one labelled ‘Torturers For Hire’.
_____
My views on the matter are at my place for anyone interested further
From Ray McGovern (IomPaine.com):
The Washington Post’s Getler did offer a constructive suggestion; namely, that Blair produce the former intelligence chief and the drafter of the minutes of July 23, 2002, for a news conference or open parliamentary session and let reporters or legislators pursue clarification.
Getler is talking bullshit. These are minutes. That is important because
1 It is a legal document, like a signed witness statement or a signed affidavit. It can be submitted to a court of law as an unimpeachable record of what took place.
2 It is standard practice for the notetaker to circulate draft notes to allow those quoted to correct any mistakes. This document is the end product of this process.
3 The meeting was chaired by the Prime Minister, which makes the minutes his personal property. Although Mathew Rycroft’s name appears on the copies circulated, Blair himself had first to sign the original before it was filed. “Notes” become “Minutes” once the Chairman has signed them.
4 At some point after this meeting took place, the minute taking stopped. There are no (admitted) records of Blair’s kitchen cabinet comprising three elected and ten unelected officials. Even the official Butler Inquiry (another whitewash) was sufficiently disgusted to complain about Blair’s “sofa style” of government
I’ve no doubt Getler attends enough formal meetings to know this is standard procedure. I’ve no doubt Getler knows full well that Blair’s own signature is to be found on the original. This suggestion is just another diversion thrown out by the corporate media.
Posted by: John | Jun 25 2005 19:29 utc | 6
@ mistah charley
I’ve always thought anything I’ve read by Thom Hartman has been good to excellent. I think that in the top of the excellent category is : They Died So Republicans Could Take the Senate
It has some pretty insightful ideas as to: “So why then did George W. Bush lie us into invading and occupying Iraq?”
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 25 2005 20:00 utc | 7
Feds check passports against terror list
Seems reasonable, you might think, until you notice that people who owe money are on the terror list, and may be denied passports because of it or even hauled to jail.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 25 2005 21:30 utc | 8
The Bush folks, at least when it comes to Africa policy, have learned from centuries of conservative teaching – from Burke to Oakeshott to Hayek – to be skeptical of Sachsian grand plans. Conservatives emphasize that it is a fatal conceit to think we can understand complex societies, or rescue them from above with technocratic planning.
What? You didn’t know?
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 25 2005 22:56 utc | 9
Brooks isn’t as bad as the appalling Kristof, who once said: “It feels unseemly to defend the vapourising of two cities, events that are regarded in some quarters as among the most monstrous acts of the 20th century.”
Filthy liberals.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 25 2005 23:10 utc | 10
Is “angina attack” MedSpeak for heart attack, real or imagined? If so, maybe the Admin. decided to cut Cheney loose, or his heart couldn’t stand him any longer. Anyway, Arianna happened to land in Vail, as Cheney entered the hospital w/one. Link He might be out now. Hard to get good info.
Devotees of her site, sent in their condolences, but curiously she found many “offensive” so they were deleted!
Posted by: jj | Jun 26 2005 1:12 utc | 11
Angina is chest pain–can be an early warning for a heart attack, but blood flow to the heart muscle is not yet cut off.
Posted by: catlady | Jun 26 2005 2:18 utc | 12
It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.
—Marx to Engels, 1857
“Marxist doctrine provides a good blueprint for converting human society into a giant concentration camp.” – DISCUSS
Posted by: Drive by shooting | Jun 26 2005 2:46 utc | 13
Don’t bother DBS, I posted that several weeks ago
fishing for comments an nary a peep or comment from anyone.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 26 2005 3:36 utc | 14
uncle
Ignored by me because of the polemical nonsense: “Marxism has proven to be completely barren as an instrument of social understanding or prediction.”
Simply untrue where such analysis matters most.
I found the article very shallow. Sorry.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 3:45 utc | 15
If the Vice-President did die in this term, who do you think would be the replacement? He would be selected by Bush, and would need approval by a majority of both House and Senate.
Frist?
Jeb?
Powell?
Laura?
There’s a lot of comic material here.
Posted by: Dick Durata | Jun 26 2005 3:53 utc | 16
From WRH
L.A. Times suspends Web site participation experiment
A bold Los Angeles Times experiment in letting readers rewrite the paper’s editorials lasted all of three days. The newspaper suspended its “Wikitorial” Web feature after some users flooded the site over the weekend with foul language and pornographic photos.
Posted Jun 25, 2005 09:27 AM PST
Category: MAINSTREAM MEDIA
Read this CAREFULLY. The LA Times requested readers to submit plans to get our troops out of Iraq. And, at first, some very good plans were being submitted (Mine was, land a plane, open the door, blow a whistle).
But then “someone” started to flood the LA Times site with porno, resulting in shutting it down.
Now who would do a thing like that?
Posted by: DM | Jun 26 2005 4:20 utc | 17
Rude awakening: Students quit over anti-US slurs
AMERICAN students are quitting Queensland universities in the face of hate attacks by Australians angry at US President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.
One university has launched an investigation into claims an American student returned to the US after suffering six months of abuse at a residential college in Brisbane.
American students have told The Sunday Mail the verbal attacks are unbearable and threatening to escalate into physical violence.
…
The Colorado-based Australearn organisation – which teaches “cultural adjustment” to US students before they come to Australia – started warning in January of attitudes towards Americans over Iraq.
Australearn’s Australian director, Shelia Houston, said the briefings aimed to give American students “coping strategies” in the face of an attack.
She said some students suffered culture shock because of the belief that everyone loved Americans. “We are giving them the heads up that it is a bit more heated because of the war in Iraq,” Ms Houston said.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 26 2005 4:47 utc | 18
The Armstrong Williams NewsHour
HERE’S the difference between this year’s battle over public broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich’s face a decade ago: this one isn’t really about the survival of public broadcasting. So don’t be distracted by any premature obituaries for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he’s the ornithological equivalent of a red herring.
…
After Mr. Labaton’s first report, Senator Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, called Mr. Tomlinson demanding to see the “product” Mr. Mann had provided for his $14,170 payday. Mr. Tomlinson sent the senator some 50 pages of “raw data.” Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn’t merely Mr. Moyers’s show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR’s Diane Rehm.
Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and “anti-administration” was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post’s star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.
“It’s pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it’s pro or anti the president,” Senator Dorgan said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Posted by: Fran | Jun 26 2005 4:57 utc | 19
After Syria and Iran – Europe? National Security Watch: Eurolefties fund Iraq insurgency
Who’s funding the insurgents in Iraq? The list of suspects is long: ex-Baathists, foreign jihadists, and angry Sunnis, to name a few. Now add to that roster hard-core Euroleftists.
Turns out that far-left groups in western Europe are carrying on a campaign dubbed Ten Euros for the Resistance, offering aid and comfort to the car bombers, kidnappers, and snipers trying to destabilize the fledgling Iraq government. In the words of one Italian website, Iraq Libero (Free Iraq), the funds are meant for those fighting the occupanti imperialisti. The groups are an odd collection, made up largely of Marxists and Maoists, sprinkled with an array of Arab emigres and aging, old-school fascists, according to Lorenzo Vidino, an analyst on European terrorism based at The Investigative Project in Washington, D.C. “It’s the old anticapitalist, anti-U.S., anti-Israel crowd,” says Vidino, who has been to their gatherings, where he saw activists from Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Italy. “The glue that binds them together is anti-Americanism.” The groups are working on an October conference to further support “the Iraqi Resistance.” A key goal is to expand backing for the insurgents from the fringe left to the broader antiwar and antiglobalization movements.
Ok, this is it – looks like it is going to be a beautiful Sunday here.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 26 2005 5:21 utc | 20
@Fran
I had to smile:-
Griffith University student Ian Wanner, 19, from Oregon, said abusive Australian students had repeatedly called him a “sepo” – short for septic tank. “It is so disrespectful. It’s not exactly the most welcoming atmosphere here,” he said.
Septic Tank (Yank) in rhyming slang (orig. Cockney) – and Aussies shorten everything to baby talk. This is no more “disrespectful” thank limey, pommey, dago etc. In fact, it is almost a term of endearment.
However, I have long years of experience with Americans (relatives included), who have such “patriotic” sentiments that it is very difficult to discuss politics (even the Vietnam war). OK to wax lyrical about British Imperialism, but they do tend to get very defensive when America is criticised.
Present company excepted of course. I know the constant “anti-American” sentiments occasionally get up the noses of some, but by and large, I am very impressed that most here are prepared to distinguish politics from people. So, apologies to all the septics who are offended.
Posted by: DM | Jun 26 2005 5:22 utc | 21
re rove’s blood libel:
An interesting theory that seems to gaining momentum is that DoD must release some 140+ new photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib by June 30. DoD must also provide a status on 4 videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib by this date.
I suspect Rove and other Republicans will be waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 quite frequently in advance of this date.
Posted by: Natty Bowditch at June 25, 2005 09:52 AM
have you heard this? wish he had cited a source.
Michael Smith, The Sunday Times: How the leaked documents questioning war emerged from ‘Britain’s Deep Throat’
Ministry of Defence figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that virtually none were used in March and April; but between May and August an average of 10 tons were dropped each month, with the RAF taking just as big a role in the “spikes of activity” as their US colleagues. Then in September the figure shot up again, with allied aircraft dropping 54.6 tons.
If this was a covert air war, both Bush and Blair may face searching questions. In America only Congress can declare war, and it did not give the US president permission to take military action against Iraq until October 11, 2002. Blair’s legal justification is said to come from UN Resolution 1441, which was not passed until November 8, 2002.
Last week one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the “spikes of activity” were part of a covert air war.
From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, “laid the foundations” for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war.
James Conachy in July 2003 about Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley and the Air War: US launched air war against Iraq in 2002
In a briefing to military commanders last week, US Air Force Lieutenant General T. Michael Moseley acknowledged that the Air Force launched offensive operations against Iraq in June 2002. Three months before President Bush appeared before the United Nations to present a case for “disarming” Iraq, five months before the adoption of UN resolution 1441 threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not cooperate with weapons inspectors, and a full nine months before the war was officially announced, the Bush administration had already ordered combat operations to begin.
Still in denial of reality, Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times: Focus: Secret memos fuel US doubt on Iraq
On the election in Iran:
It’s the economy, in Iran too
Business leaders reacted with alarm. To them, Ahmadinejad is an Islamic socialist who will eventually clamp down on private enterprise and the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Still, he did not fight back directly. He said only Iran was drifting from the values of the revolution – which sounds scary to Western-oriented Iranians, but appeals strongly to those who feel modernising Iran has left them in the dust.
In a final TV campaign pitch last Wednesday, he described the average Iranian man, making the equivalent of about $150 a month and crushed by bills and inflation hovering around 15%.
“How can such a person have dignity in front of his children and wife?” he said. “How can a family respect him if he cannot even take care of them?”
“If they can ignore this, they can ignore anything”
Bwahaahahaha!
No shit?
Posted by: jay boilswater | Jun 26 2005 7:18 utc | 25
Citigroup faces record fine over bond coup
In August of last year, Citigroup traders suddenly sold £7 billion of government bonds, but within minutes repurchased nearly £3bn at lower prices – overwhelming electronic trading systems but yielding the bank a tidy profit of £10 million.
The trades, which led to the suspension of several dealers, were undertaken after it emerged that Citigroup had published a memorandum that gave details of an aggressive plan designed to undermine the German government bond market and thereby eliminate weaker competitors. Citigroup officials later described the exercise as ‘juvenile’ and suspended a number of traders.
But its rivals were furious and government officials from Germany and Portugal complained that Citigroup had destabilised the market for the trading of European government debt.
This week, according to City sources, the FSA will impose a record fine for offences involving trading in the capital markets: the amount is expected to be between £15m and £25m. The figure could exceed the £17m fine that the FSA slapped on Shell last year for exaggerating its oil and gas reserves.
What’s up with Eurotrib.com? I can’t access it all day. Until I can access it again, I’ll post some comments indended for the thread on the Pew International Attitudes Poll [pdf] here.
First: some commenter concluded that in the polled Muslim-majority nations, people connect democratising in the Middle East with US actions. The problem is,
(1) this was the result of the question asked of those who are optimistic about progress of democracy in the region, who are even in just relative majority only in Lebanon and Indonesia,
(2) those who are pessimistic about democratic progress fault US policies for it much more strongly,
(3) for some of these and the strangely positive results in other questions from India, you have to consider this at the opening page: NOTE: Data based on national samples except in China, India and Pakistan where the sample was
disproportionately or exclusively urban.
I see Fran quoted an article on American students harrassed in Australia, so I am on-topic.
Two more interesting bits I discovered in that poll:
Q.33 was loaded in my view: Overall, do you think the war with Iraq that removed Saddam Hussein from power made the world a safer place or a more dangerous place? they asked, but using the word removed is one of most successful spins of the Rovians. The original term for what was done was regime change, i.e. Saddam wasn’t just removed with vacuum in its place, he was replaced – with bloody occupation, chaos, corrupt exiles, terrorists and criminal gangs having free rein.
However, the poll shows this spin has a pull on majorities only in the USA and sub-sampled (see previous post) India, and even those majorities aren’t absolute.
Second thing I noted, this one truly strange: the country where by far the lowest percantage thinks “Greedy” is a word characterising Americans is – France (31% vs. 67%). In fact, the only other country where there isn’t a clear majority thinking so is sub-sampled India (even there it is a 43%-43% tie), and it is Americans themselves who most strongly agree.
DoDo- both Euro and Booman seem to be down. Aren’t they run by the same person or group?
I really enjoy reading information from both sites…even with the overlap. They’re much easier to deal with than dKos, which has too many entries for me.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 26 2005 13:54 utc | 30
Newsweek A Sharp New Look at ‘Material Witness’ Arrests
Since 9/11, the Justice Department has used a little-known legal tactic to secretly lock up at least 70 terror suspects—almost all of them Muslim men—and hold them without charges as “material witnesses” to crimes, in some cases for months. A report to be released this week by two civil-liberties groups finds nearly 90 percent of these suspects were never linked to any terrorism acts, resulting in prosecutors and FBI agents issuing at least 13 apologies for wrongful arrest. …
“Marxist doctrine provides a good blueprint for converting human society into a giant concentration camp.” – DISCUSS
Posted by: Drive by shooting | June 25, 2005 10:46 PM | #
Being a liberal means you get to set down the Rush Limbaugh/FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK Memorial Decoder Ring without any need to subscribe to any other particular dogma. Dig?.
In sum, being a liberal means never having to say “I agree.” 🙂
Communism ain’t necessarily the problem. Totalitarianism is the problem. Conservatism is also pretty problematic.
Posted by: Porco Rosso | Jun 26 2005 14:04 utc | 32
the ideological fantasies of this movement … were no more than a nonsensical expression of the whims of spoilt middle-class children, and while the extremists among them were virtually indistinguishable from Fascist thugs, the movement did without doubt express a profound crisis of faith in the values that had inspired democratic societies for many decades. … The New Left explosion of academic youth was an aggressive movement born of frustration, which easily created a vocabulary for itself out of Marxist slogans … : liberation, revolution, alienation, etc. Apart from this, its ideology really has little in common with Marxism. It consists of “revolution” without the working class; hatred of modern technology as such; … the cult of primitive societies … as the source of progress; hatred of education and specialized knowledge.
Sound familiar?
Yup. Grumpy old man with no clue but an unshakeable conviction of rightness. Quite familiar. Abbie Hoffman had more intelligence and integrity in his upraised middle finger than is exhibited in this entire whiny screed.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 26 2005 14:31 utc | 33
From the Kolakowski review:
I feel constrained to add, in the way the curate’s egg was good: The Communist Manifesto, the Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology contain some powerful rhetoric, but have you looked into Das Kapital or the Grundrisse lately?
That’s some callow bullshit there. Only someone who has not read the Grundrisse and late Marx would say something so stupid.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 14:59 utc | 34
Bernhard,
You’ve read Michael Smith’s piece. There is a huge amount of trickery in there, and I’d be wary.
For example, in this piece he says he received the minutes “in the runup to the General Election”. In his last piece he talked about getting them “in the middle of the election campaign”. He also said he did not recognize the significance of the MINUTES, so wrote about the Cabinet Office BRIEFING instead. No informed individual can believe that.
I’d like to know WHEN the Sunday Times got these documents. I’d be prepared to bet that Mr Murdoch (Sir Rupert?) sat on them for at least two and probably more like four weeks.
Posted by: John | Jun 26 2005 15:00 utc | 35
Fran @ June 26, 2005 12:47 AM:
Griffith University student Ian Wanner, 19, from Oregon, said abusive Australian students had repeatedly called him a “sepo” – short for septic tank.
“sepo”… nice touch.
All the students received counselling before arriving and were warned of the backlash against the US.
They said they were advised not to carry any items that would identify their nationality.
we could use some of this bloak “moral clarity” over here… maybe infuse some attitude into DNC.
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 26 2005 15:04 utc | 36
In Italy, I organise a working lunch in a ‘spiffing’ restaurant.
The convives are to be: myself, a Spaniard whom I know well, an ex-USSR man – an émigré to the US- , and an American woman unknown to any of the others, with husband in tow.
I am early. My Spanish friend arrives and looks a little worried. We stand ouside, so that I can usher and accompany. I realise I have committed a terrible faux pas – the Americans may be Bush supporters. The émigré will obviously be anti- war and anti-totalitarian, this is evident from his background and books. My Spanish friend fled Franco. If they are Bush supporters, the lunch, I realise, will be impossible – I realise I should have checked first.
The days when colleagues unknown to each other could just meet on the presumption that calm consensual discussion of Gvmt. policy in the fields of education and health are gone.
When the Americans finally arrive everyone is stressed and even the waiters stiffen as they walk in.
First I chat about the menu and the buffet (which I did check!) Then I figure, hung for a sheep, why not, and wade right in, hoping that if things turn out badly, I will take the stage and will keep the two men at least sitting in their seats, though that may be hard for the émigré, a massive man with very strong opinions. I have a plan B up my sleeve too.
-So how are things in Bush Country?
Color rises in the woman’s cheeks, she undoes her twisted hands and her menu drops to the floor.
-Awful.
So it turned out OK. The émigré explained why he was now emigrating again – to Germany.
The next day, I hear about a fight that broke out in a courtyard. Also an exchange of ugly insults in a meeting. A movement to exclude Americans entirely. Absolutely terrible.
The professional associations who run these conferences have struggled with the question of S. Africa under apartheid (and generally decided not to exclude) and have periodically had to deal with movements to boycott /exclude/demote membership status etc. of Israelis. In this case, as well, it has usually been possible to mend fences.
Of course, in my profession (psychology, etc.) most people are ‘liberal’ or ‘left’ as they entered those fields to care for others. The ‘people’ have been able to argue that they are ‘people’, although in fact, many represent their Gvmt indirectly, but this can be obscured.
The Americans seem to present a different problem – it is said – their desire to dominate and cow others is not acceptable. I didn’t see much of that myself, gossip, but this attitude is new.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 26 2005 16:26 utc | 37
”I have a gloomy premonition though that we will soon look back on this troubled moment as a golden time [the ’60s] of freedom and license to act and speculate. One feels the steely sinews of the tiger, an ascetic, ‘moral’ and authoritarian reign of piety and iron.”
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 17:24 utc | 38
Noisette,
Too bad you they can’t run things like a Bush rally. You know, just check the bumper stickers and tee shirts and eject accordingly.
Of course, where would I find a Radical Constructivist bumper sticker?
Posted by: Porco Rosso | Jun 26 2005 18:55 utc | 39
More on Gelb
A commentator referred me to his analysis of Gelb’s musings on the new Iraqi army. Gelb may have been focusing more on the fact that this army would be completely useless for its stated function of spelling the Americans, and less on what its specific function against Iran might be. The United States seems to be creating a massive, but completely untrained, Iraqi army. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense no matter how you slice it (particularly when you consider that Bremmer of Baghdad disbanded the old Iraqi army). What would be news is if the Council on Foreign Relations is now ‘out of the loop’. Do the Rockefellers not call the shots anymore? If it is just Gelb that is uninformed, it is odd that they continue to allow him to express his rather strong opinions as President Emeritus of the CFR. I can’t help but see a neocon-paleocon catfight everywhere I look.
Also see the comments an update and interesting insights…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 26 2005 22:48 utc | 40
Too much can easily be read into Gelb’s remarks if you don’t recall Haass’ first words when opening the session: “This is an on-the-record meeting.”
Translation – the real stuff is taken care of behind closed doors. So, any conclusions Xymphora may be tentatively drawing about Rockefeller’s decreased influence seem, at the very least, premature.This is just the get the public revved up for Iran garbage.
Posted by: jj | Jun 26 2005 23:47 utc | 41
Australians have been calling US citizens ‘septic tanks’ or seppo for short a lot longer than GWB has been the psychopath in charge.
Similarly Greeks are ‘bubbles’ (bubble and squeak = Greek) or ‘chocolate frogs’ (rhymes with wogs) I could go on, the discerning Ocker has always referred to the english as ‘to and froms’ (rhymes with Poms and also describes that English migrant propensity for going to Australia and complaining about how much better things were back home then returning to England and informing the natives there that Australians know what’s what then returning to Australia…ad nauseum)
Humans are categorized and then labeled and not just by nationality, sexuality is an easy way to separate and generalize so that gay men are ‘pork and beans’ (more rhyming slang) or lesbians ‘tongue and groovers’.
Perversions are another easy way to classify then denigrate people. Child rapists are ‘rock spiders'(cause you can’t get much lower than under a rock).
The only explanation I could offer for this abject denigration of difference is that most of these words are such common currency that they ceased to hold any meaning for the people using them a long time ago and in fact for the person using them they are generally not meant to offend unless there is something else deliberately offensive in the context. I suppose that the one other slightly redeeming feature of this is that racial epithets are not usually considered to be acceptable so while most Australians would happily refer to their neighbor from Virginia that they had just had a few beers with as “The Seppo over the way” they would never refer to their Vietnamese neighbor as “The Slope on the other side”.
I suspect that the real dynamic at work here is that many US emigres are finding the current actions of their native country much more difficult to defend just as those Australians that like bailing up hapless types in bars (let’s face it that’s not just an Australian characteristic) are finding US people much easier targets.
As far as I can recall most Australians are as capable as anyone else at separating the individual from the current perception as anyone else. Which means of course that their attitude will depend upon the contemporaneous MSM stance on the subject and the amount of ethanol they have metabolized.
I still shudder with horror when I recall one night many years ago when I lurched into the Darwin casino much the worse for wear to be confronted by a Seppo in a flying suit. I don’t think he was carrying a sidearm although he might have been as the B-52 crews flying into Darwin did get about armed on occasion.
At the time the US Air Force was flying B-52’s armed with nuclear weaponry from their base in Guam down to Darwin for “refueling”, then up to the edge of Vietnamese airspace and then back to Guam. The hotel at the Darwin casino had the contract to provide accommodation for these nuclear warriors while they were in town and so the bar would often be full of them.
Most had the good sense to change before coming out for a drink though.
Anyway apropos of nothing in particular I went up to this chap and waded into him, pointing out that if the US was such “hot shit” why was it that little old Nicaragua had just beaten them like an old rug at their own game ie Baseball. (I think that Nicaragua had just won the Pan American games or somesuch).
It quickly became apparent that I was going to get the fight I was looking for but not from the airman. Other clientele horrified at my appalling disregard for hospitality would step me out if that was what I wanted.
I’ve no doubt that at least some of these Australians were as appalled as I was at the thought of nuclear weapons so close to where we were putting ourselves outside cold beer, but nevertheless when they told me to “give the seppo a break” it wasn’t an attempt to taunt the airman any more, it was to try and shut me up.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 27 2005 1:47 utc | 42
Just because I personally am getting a little burned-out with Neonuts, Rumsfeld, Rove, and Bush, I wonder if anyone else would care for a brief diversion. I would particularly be interested in comments from anyone with a science background, but I don’t want to discourage common-or-garden nuts like myself. And by the way, I did try some years ago to find real data, but couldn’t come up with much beyond the level of material for high school projects. I’m sure I just don’t know where to look.
Posted by: DM | Jun 27 2005 6:27 utc | 43
an update on b’s link upthread about hastings , the ethics chairman. getting lots of coverage here in wash state.seattle times
” Rep. Doc Hastings, already under fire as chairman of the stalled House ethics committee, accepted a $7,800 trip to England in 2000 from a company he championed for a multibillion-dollar contract at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, records released by an advocacy group yesterday show.”
there’s more…
Posted by: annie | Jun 27 2005 8:21 utc | 44
Short version: common sense depends on living in a thick soupy atmosphere at earth gravity in a constantly wet environment. It does not apply outside that environment.
Why didn’t they take pictures of stars? They were on the moon. You think they were looking at the bloody big dipper?
The conspiracy theory works on the basis that tens (hundreds?) of thousands of scientists and techies could be silenced, they complain when things accord with their common sense and they complain when they don’t.
That guy complains that didn’t test the moon lander to his satisfaction (how? with an anti-gravity machine?) and at the same time complains they tested and rehearsed everything else in as much detail as they could.
The complaints about the pictures are hilarious. If he even applied his own fucking logic about the effects of the atmosphere he would see why the sun has the effects it has. Has he even picked up a camera? Wide-angle lenses flare like that – especially with the more primitive lens coatings available in 1969. Look through the damn viewfinder.
After years of war reporting driven by a desire to prove his bravery this writer found a new kind of courage in the grace his mother showed when faced with death
My mother’s death and the nature of courage – well written and sad
U.S. Has Plans to Again Make Own Plutonium
The Bush administration is planning the government’s first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.
Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.
Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.
“The real reason we’re starting production is for national security,” Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.
He vigorously denied that any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space.
What was that about Iran and secret plans etc.?
Posted by: Fran | Jun 27 2005 9:49 utc | 47
The Bush administration is planning new measures that would target the U.S. assets of anyone conducting business with a handful of Iranian, North Korean and Syrian companies believed by Washington to be involved in weapons programs, U.S. officials said yesterday.
…
The effort would begin by targeting just eight entities, seven of which are suspected of working on missile programs, and not on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. According to a government list obtained by The Washington Post, three companies identified are North Korean; four are Iranian, including the country’s energy department; and one is a Syrian government research facility. Three of the eight companies have been targeted previously by U.S. sanctions, as have most Iranian government agencies. None is subject to any international sanctions, and the entities freely conduct business with companies around the world.
But the draft executive order goes far beyond previous measures by threatening the U.S. assets of individuals or companies, including foreign banks, that do business with those on the list.
“If there is a bank in some European capital that is participating in working with one of the entities and that bank has some assets in the U.S., it is conceivable that some action could be taken to the bank’s assets here,” said one senior official with knowledge of the order’s details. Russian and Chinese companies in particular, which do enormous business with Iran and North Korea, could be more affected than others by the new strategy, officials said.
And they wonder why they need PR agency to improve the US image. Amazing, just amazing.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 27 2005 9:56 utc | 48
Fran, they tried to pull that shit with Cuba. I believe everyone told them to fuck right off. If they try to freeze the assets of an EU bank, it’ll just lead to tit-for-tat retaliation. Maybe it’s another way to blame the libruls and the Europeans for the coming disasters in the US.
/trivia
Yes, Colman, I suppose you are right (probably).
Just because the flag thing is an American fixation (like the Iwo Jima pose) — I suppose they could go to exceptional lengths to practice planting a flag.
As I remember, they did practice with that lunar landing thingie about 6 months before Apollo 11 (crashed I think).
Now, after 36 years, I just wish there was some technical info available (if you can find any, let me know). It can’t all still be top secret. The best I can find anywhere, is that lots of people were given little lolly bags of moon rock. That’s the sum total of available information.
Nope, none of these photos proves any sort of conspiracy. In fact though, they prove nothing much at all — as they could all just as easily have been shot on a film set. I don’t always believe what I see, but I wouldn’t mind seeing some proof. They fact that it was on the telly doesn’t help (nor does “common sense” in this thick soupy atmosphere).
Anyway, there is a lot more of this “stuff” out there. It could all be a load of crap, and there is nothing new about the “they faked it” angle. (Was muttered around some pubs in Glasgow at the time – but who are you gonna believe – some drunken Scotsman?).
Practicing walking over to the Surveyor 3 craft does seem a bit odd. You would think that they would be more concerned about landing within 100 miles of where they expected. So, all I am saying is that there would be some general interest in lots to do with the Apollo missions – just for the sake of scientific history you know. Would love to see detailed technical specifications of the landing module — and the source code for all the guidance systems that executed some of the most daring and flawlessly executed adventures of the 20th century.
And I am always quite intrigued by what people “don’t do” as opposed to what they “do”. I guess if I was bouncing around on the moon, I would have tried to lift the moon buggy over my head, or hurl a moon rock into space. But of course, that’s just me. If I was an American, I probably would also be obsessed with taking photographs of that crappy little flag.
Posted by: DM | Jun 27 2005 11:41 utc | 50
The flag thing:
In the absence of athmosphere, there is virtually no friction to end the motions of the fabric once it is put up. If I would design a “moonflag” I would use a solid frame all the way around, but on the other hand if I were to photograph one with a solid frame only on the topside I would probably spend a lot of time getting the fabric to stop moving. Once you have succeded it will stay that way (no wind). But getting it to stand still and then let go without causing any motion of the fabric.
What should be evidence is the origin of the tv-signal. Wikipedia claims that the signal was received at Goldstone, USA, Honeysuckle Creek, Australia, and Parkes Observatory, Australia. What would be nice is to have corraborating observations from the communist bloc (as they would have no reason to participate in any cover up). If it exists or not is not something I know. Of course that can also be constructed as part of the cover up.
That they practised everything they could dream up a way to practise as realistic as possible and did not practise what might have been more important but to hard to practise does not look improbable to me, rather it looks like a bureacracy doing something, with tasks divided into subtasks and performed as well as the person in charge could.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jun 27 2005 12:08 utc | 51
Blair’s son to work for controversial Republican
THE Prime Minister’s son, Euan Blair, has beaten around 100,000 hopefuls to secure an internship with a Republican congressman who is accused by gay rights campaigners of leading a double life.
Euan is to work for David Dreier on Capitol Hill in Washington.
The coveted intern posts often go to the most academically gifted, but connections are equally important. For a foreigner to be given an internship is highly unusual as the roles often go to graduates from the congressman’s local district.
…
Eric Burns, a spokesman for Democrat congresswoman Louise Slaughter, told a Sunday newspaper that the Washington rules committee, chaired by Mr Dreier, was one of the most partisan.
He said: “It is extremely surprising that the son of a Labour prime minister would intern with the Republican majority staff on the committee.”
Colman – they tried to pull that shit with Cuba. I am sure you are right. But I still find it amazing that they try to pull off that kind of shit, considering their image problem. Well, I guess having 3 new PR-agencies to improve the US image is probably more about shifting more money towards Republicans, than actually changing the US image.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 27 2005 12:57 utc | 53
DM
The killings of the Iraqi kids took place on October 22nd 2004. That would make a revenge massacre for an event that had not yet taken place rather unlikely, to say the least. Xymphora may mean well but making erroneous assumptions like that, presumably based on a poor reading of the known facts of the killings, ends up doing more harm than good as the story as advanced by Xymphora is so easily discounted and then the real crime sinks back into oblivion.
Posted by: Nugget | Jun 27 2005 14:04 utc | 54
@DM: One of the guy’s assumptions is that we have never gone back, therefore we never went. Well, there is no reason to go back. Sending a human being into space is a tremendously expensive proposition, because you have to provide food and water and air. Sending up a manned probe is something you do for PR purposes —“look what we did, aren’t we cool”— not actually something terribly useful.
It makes much more sense to send up a robot, even as primitive as robots were in the ’60s. For the price of one manned probe, you can send up a whole bunch of robots. (And that has been done.) The added benefit is that nobody much cares if your unmanned probe crashes, or blows up, or whatever, but if you lose even one astronaut, it’s a PR disaster that you may never recover from. (Challenger, anyone?) No, sending up people, unless you have some permanent place for them, is more trouble than it’s worth.
I just love the way Bush wants to send off a manned Mars mission. It’s a direct poke at China—China is about to send off a bunch of moon probes to do unprecedented mapping and resource location? Well, darn it, we’ll go all the way to Mars! That’ll show ’em! Never mind that we have no man-made shielding that is equivalent to the magnetosphere, which means that the astronauts are going to have their DNA shot full of holes by the time they get there, and probably be dead within months, if not days or hours. Better to spend a lot of money on this useless project (what would they do that would actually be worth the cost of the trip?) than to admit that in this, as in so much else, Bush doesn’t know what he’s talking about. NASA’s going to catch a lot of flack when it turns out they spent billions sending corpses to the red planet…
Posted by: Blind Misery | Jun 27 2005 16:09 utc | 55
Lebanaon, Harari killing
Politics & Policies: Terror in Beirut
Intelligence sources believe the technology used to kill the former head of the Lebanese Communist Party and a prominent anti-Syrian journalist in Beirut were so sophisticated that only a handful of countries or special services could have carried out the assassinations.
Fred Burton, vice president of counter-terrorism with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based outfit specializing in intelligence and counter-terrorism analysis, issued a report on June 22 describing the
remotely detonated charge that killed George Hawi, the former Lebanese Communist Part chief, as “so sophisticated that few in the world could have done it.”
The counter-terrorism expert believes that the “complex nature of the Hawi attack narrows down the list of culprits to a few.” Among the countries possessing that level of expertise are the United States, Britain, France, Israel and Russia. “This type of technology is only available to government agencies,” Burton told United Press International.
Burton, who spent 15 years in U.S. counter-terrorism, told UPI that the “surgical nature of the charge” and the skill set that went into these bombings are “not available for your average terrorist organization.” …
As expected…
New Criterion is basically a piece of fascistoid crap, so why would be bother? Just look at their blogroll, who they’re tied to, and the like. Laura Ingraham? Matt Drudge?
Fran: To some extent, I wished the Europeans would be funding the Iraqi guerrilla, so that the US war machin would be brought down quicker – which basically means killing as many troopers and “civilian” contractors” as possible, and convincing the others not to enlist, basically the same theory Bush wants to apply to terrorism (Terrorism doesn’t pay, you die). But this is completely ridiculous. At best the got 150 Euros from some stupid pseudo-trotskyst movement.
Fran: The last thing the US wants to do is to go into economic war with Europe, because Europe can easily buy all its stuff for cheaper from China, where most things are actually produced.
DM: the first Apollo landing was actually quite bad. SUre, they didn’t crash, but it wasn’t that flawless since that moron landed a couple of craters away from the targetted one – basically, they missed the target by 100 miles.
As Blind Misery said, the sad truth is that Apollo wasn’t a scientific mission, it was just there so that the US could see which one had the bigger (censored). It was PR, it was propaganda war, it was to show, after countless humiliations by the Soviets, that the US were still the best. And as said, the Soviets would’ve loved to expose a US fake expedition if it were so. They could’ve been there at the time if their main rocket had been safer and hadn’t blown up the launchind area – and countless skilled people.
Last but not least, I’m surprised that there are so few comments, overall, on the Iranian elections. This is the definite proof that Bush has completely and utterly failed in the Midlde East. Iran gets a higher turnout than Iraq, their population is bigger than Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan and whatever else put together, and they elect some far-right bigot. Well, Mr. Bush, you want people to vote as they like, now you get it. Let’s face it, the best way to kill reforms and to let enemies of the US win an election is to support the other guy, openly or not.
The whole rationale about spreading freedom is over. Iranian elections were at least as fair and free as the Iraqi and Afghan ones, and I’d risk to say as legitimate as the last 2 US ones.
The US has failed. The best things to do right now for the US is to withdraw the troops at once from the whole area before any other US citizen is killed, and to prepare the population for the oil crash that will come soon – 100-200$ the barrel before next year is over. Anything else is just partisan hackery and is highly harmful to the country – I’d say it’s tantamount to treason, but there still isn’t a majority of people ready to hang Bush/Cheney and their gang.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Jun 27 2005 23:40 utc | 57
ARE U.S. ROGUE PENTAGON AGENTS OPERATING ILLEGALLY AND WITH IMPUNITY ABROAD?Task Force 121 Under FBI Investigation: Is Pentagon Intelligence Chief Stephen Cambone running a vigilante team from Pentagon that’s masquerading as FBI and CIA agents? C-team?
Also see:OPPONENT OF U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ DIES IN CAR “ACCIDENT” (Last article at bottom.)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 28 2005 1:47 utc | 58
As far as I can tell, the Grokster SC decision doesn’t advance the cause of the asshole MPAA/RIAA, except employ more lawyers. Long ago, though, in the safety of the academy, one future SC justice would ask the interesting question: Why the fuck copyright?:
This article, however, has made the general claim that a large difference between the cost of producing a work initially and the cost of copying is not alone sufficient to show that copyright protection is desirable. And the
case of computer programs is no exception. One should become suspicious of the need for protection at present upon learning that the software industry is currently burgeoning without the use of copyright and that a 1964 announcement by the Copyright Office that it would accept programs for registration has led to the submission of only 200.–Stephen Breyer, Uneasy Case for Copyright, 84 Harv. L. Rev. 28 (1970)
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 28 2005 1:52 utc | 59
WaPo
The lead story in tomorrow’s WaPo is a wrap-up of the Downing Street Memoranda. It’s a feature, not a news-story, and written as a kind of history lesson for the readership. I’ve never seen anything like it, and have to suppose that it’s meant to warn the readership to prepare for the flood of vile lies scheduled to flow on tomorrow’s prime-time tv from the mouth of that piece of damaged goods known as “Bush” . An interesting gesture. Could it be that the WaPo is losing its collective patience with the White House?
Posted by: alabama | Jun 28 2005 3:31 utc | 60
The at the end of the tag just won’t fly (don’t ask me why)….
Posted by: alabama | Jun 28 2005 3:37 utc | 63
alabama’s WaPo link
the end tag was there; the opening tag was missing the leading <
Posted by: b real | Jun 28 2005 3:43 utc | 65
I expected to find folks holding a wake over here tonight. Anybody hear about the Brand X decision today??? True, Scalia made history by being on the correct side for once in his life, but beyond that the Internet as anything but yet another tube to hook up to the anus of the elite could be history…depending on the FCC… 🙁
Today’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit Court’s classification of cable modems as a “telecommunications service” (and thus subject to the open access regulations that have long governed the dial-up Internet) poses a grave threat to the future of the Internet.
By upholding the FCC’s March 2002 Declaratory Ruling that classified cable Internet as an unregulated “information service,” the Supreme Court has paved the way for a privatized, tightly controlled broadband environment that will bear little resemblance to the open, diverse, and competitive Internet of the past.
As the ACLU warned in its Brand X brief to the Supreme Court, “…cable companies can leverage ownership of the physical infrastructure into control of citizens’ access to and use of the Internet. This threatens free speech and privacy. A cable company that has complete control over its customers’ access to the Internet could censor their ability to speak, block their access to disfavored information services, monitor their online activity, and subtly manipulate the information sources they rely on.” link
Posted by: jj | Jun 28 2005 4:10 utc | 67
/trivia /conspiracy nutjob
@SKOD, Blind Misery, Clueless Joe
I think the more pertinent response is from SKOD :-
Wikipedia claims that the signal was received at Goldstone, USA, Honeysuckle Creek, Australia, and Parkes Observatory, Australia. What would be nice is to have corroborating observations from the communist bloc (as they would have no reason to participate in any cover up).
So, any fakery would also have had to have been enough to fool the Russians (esp. as this was a dick measuring contest).
In any of this fruitloop stuff has any legs, then we would have to assume that Russian technology wasn’t quite up to the job of directly monitoring transmissions from the moon. If you can find an old DVD of Sam Neil’s ‘The Dish’ – it looks like Parkes was barely up to the job as well.
I have NO IDEA – and without an insider’s view – it is not possible to goggle up the sort of insight necessary to either prove is dispel these sorts of theories. But if there is no corroborating ‘observations’ from the communist bloc – it might not be something that they would have been shouting from the rooftops – they ‘might’ have just watched it all on television like the rest of us.
Finally (honestly, unless someone continues the trivial pursuit) – I did read some analysis somewhere regarding the transmissions. That the ‘dialogue’ between ‘Houston’ and the ‘moon’ was a fake because they did not allow for the propagation delay between question and answer. Again, I have no idea if someone was spinning yarns based on false facts. You would, though, assume that anyone faking such a thing would have been smart enough to calculate the propagation delay for round-trip communications with the moon.
Posted by: DM | Jun 28 2005 4:17 utc | 68
Here’s a far better discussion the great democrats & True Progressives @FreePress who led the fight to uncover the Ohio Fraud, and hopefully will be an integral part of this fight. link
The following quote from Scalia is interesting because it makes it transparently clear that they all knew their verbiage was transparent horseshit, but they said it anyway simply to give the Elite control. (Wonder if Scalia voted the way he did as payback for putting the Gangstas in office?)
Justice Scalia, who rarely collects accolades from the public interest community, got it right this time in his dissenting opinion. “After all is said and done,” he wrote, “after all the regulatory cant has been translated, and the smoke of agency expertise blown away, it remains perfectly clear that someone who sells cable-modem service is ‘offering’ telecommunications.”
(for those who don’t get it, if it’s “telecommunications”, the internet is governed by the “Must Carry Rules” of the FCC that govern telephones – ie. there can be no limitations on content, nor denial of service to anyone…ie freedom of speech prevails)
Posted by: jj | Jun 28 2005 4:28 utc | 69
Thanks, jj. Great quote.
I see that Justice Scalia voted in the dissent. But how is this payback for ushering Bush in to office? Do you mean that Scalia can profit from a regulated internet, at least regulated when delivered over cable?
On rereading, you seem to be saying that he is spanking the elites although they have already profited mightily from the current administration.
Sorry for the questions but I was genuinely confused.
Posted by: jonku | Jun 28 2005 5:37 utc | 70
WaPo Poll
A serious poll. Only one American in eight wants to pull out of Iraq. This means, so far as I can figure it, that no war-protest movement will receive the needed traction any time soon, and so the insurgents will have to win this one on their own (hardly a surprise), and can only do so by driving the Americans out. And if the Americans are hell-bent to stay there, then a draft is surely in the works, because only a draft will keep them there. I don’t think the prosecutors of Cheney’s war believe that the Iraqis are capable of sustaining the current level of violence; if they did, we’d be hearing about a draft at this point.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 28 2005 5:38 utc | 71
Scott Ritter: Unplugged and Uncensored
(Audio)
Scott Ritter: US at War with Iran
On June 23, 2005, Scott Ritter spoke to 110 people at a fundraiser for Traprock Peace Center at the Woolman Hill Meeting House. Before the presentation, Ritter met with 30 people over dinner at Woolman Hill. Hear his presentation and the question and answers, complete and unabridged. Sunny Miller moderated the event, introducing Ritter and reading questions from the audience.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 28 2005 6:25 utc | 72
Scott Ritter: Unplugged and Uncensored
(Audio)
Scott Ritter: US at War with Iran
On June 23, 2005, Scott Ritter spoke to 110 people at a fundraiser for Traprock Peace Center at the Woolman Hill Meeting House. Before the presentation, Ritter met with 30 people over dinner at Woolman Hill. Hear his presentation and the question and answers, complete and unabridged. Sunny Miller moderated the event, introducing Ritter and reading questions from the audience.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 28 2005 6:30 utc | 73
A serious poll. Only one American in eight wants to pull out of Iraq.
Yeah, well, they can’t complain later when the inevitable happens.
Posted by: DM | Jun 28 2005 8:05 utc | 74
DM: That’s an easy one. It takes roughly 1 second to send a signal to the Moon (well, 1.2 actually).
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Jun 28 2005 8:51 utc | 75
@CJ: I’ll try find the link (sometime) where it was argued that the 1.2s was not accounted for in some transmissions (supposedly).
Posted by: DM | Jun 28 2005 9:05 utc | 76
@DM: actually, evidence from the Communist Bloc wouldn’t prove anything, either. If you’re already assuming they faked the whole thing, but admit that there had already been unmanned probes, then there is no evidence that can be produced which will change your mind. (On a deep level, you can never actually prove the past.*) For example:
- Photographs from space? Faked using existing satellite photographs and manipulation.
- Artifacts left on the moon? Planted later by an unmanned satellite.
- Transmissions from the right place at the right time? The unmanned decoy had a recording which it played back, or was relaying a signal generated on earth. (Might require new technology, but nothing worse than that needed to send a man to the moon.)
- Footprints currently on the moon, found by later probes? (No rain to wash ’em away, so they could possibly last a long time.) Faked using an empty boot by a robot on the next mission.
This debate is not quite on the “prove that I am not a brain in a jar being fed stimuli” level, but it’s close. The best piece of evidence is what Colman said: if we didn’t go, how come none of the engineers and scientists involved has ever admitted it? No other conspiracy of that size has ever managed to keep things quiet to that extent.
As for “I’d try to lift the moon buggy”—no you wouldn’t. Not if you had any sense. You’re all alone, one of the the first humans ever to leave Earth, and you’re relying on shaky technology built for this purpose for the first time ever. Are you going to deviate from the scripted stuff you practiced at home, particularly in a way which might end up damaging your equipment (or your suit!) and risk being trapped and dying in an agonizing, horrible way, stranded, watching your air run out, without even the false courage of patriotism to keep you going because your death from such stupid causes will make your country a laughingstock? No.
* Just as a side note: in quantum physics, as far as we know, the same laws apply to the world if you simultaneously reverse the flow of time, the charge of particles, and subatomic spin direction. Which means that measurements of the past, interestingly enough, have exactly the same level of uncertainty as those of the future. Therefore: either recent history is uncertain—just because you remember it, doesn’t mean it happened, because the past must be as uncertain as the future—or else the future is actually quite certain, because it has to have the same level of certainty as the past. Which is it, do you suppose?
Posted by: Blind Misery | Jun 28 2005 9:49 utc | 77
alabama: A serious poll. Only one American in eight wants to pull out of Iraq.
Interesting. There is a quite large discrepancy with the June 20-22 AP/Ipsos poll, which found 37% support for immediate pullout. As far as I can tell, the alternatives the polled could choose from were the same, even the wording was similar. Any ideas how that could be?
On the faked moon landing urban myths: I am a trained astronomer (tough now working in a rather different field), and this one always cracked me up. Here is the astronomers’ angle on it.
What is the conspiracy theorists’ take on the truckload of moon rocks the Apollos brought home? Earth rocks, or rocks collected by simple automats that had no clue what to look for? The issue is, those rocks gave us a knowledge entirtely unexpected, which we couldn’t get from any other source.
You know how plantetary scientists determine the age of planetary surfaces? They count meteorite impact craters of different sizes on a given territory. The principle behind this is, meteorite impacts are roughly random, so the more craters you see, the older the surface. However, you need to calibrate this method, i.e., have some clue about how many meteorites whizzled around in the Solar System throughout the past 4.6 billion years. It was mostly the Apollo probes that enabled this calibration: we had different-aged areas where the craters were counted, and we had rocks from these areas (some taken on-site, some identified as hurled from another site to the vicinity of a landing place by an impact) which we could date with the nuclear decay method at home.
The unexpected result was that instead of a smooth exponential decrease, meteoritic activity had a number of stand-out, very strong spikes (increases by an order of magnitude).
Cohen Editorial in WaPo today is funny: Right-Wing Sucker Punch
This calculating contempt for the IQ of right-wingers is not limited to opportunistic authors, of course. Last week it was demonstrated by Karl Rove, of all people. Speaking to the New York State Conservative Party, the president’s most important adviser had this to say: “Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.” Actually, a Los Angeles Times poll taken in November 2001 showed Bush with an approval rating approaching 90 percent and Democrats almost as supportive as Republicans for going into Afghanistan and pounding the Taliban.
So Rove’s crack is simply not true. I attribute it, possibly, to his deep, subconscious shame over never having served in the military or, more likely, a cynical appreciation that his audience would rather hate than think. So he patronized them, knowing that they would not for a moment connect such simplistic thinking to the quagmire of Iraq, the debacle of Social Security reform or the dash back to Washington from Texas so that George W. Bush could sign a bill attempting to keep the sadly brain-dead Terri Schiavo alive. The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes.
If I were a right-winger, I would be offended by both Klein and Rove. But I am not a conservative, and so I can only wonder at their gullibility. Right-wingers are the useful idiots of our times and while they have their occasional left-wing counterparts, the lefties will not buy essentially the same book over and over again — if only because they lack the funds. Maybe Klein has taken this as far as it will go. I hope not. My book on Hillary’s romp with Paris Hilton will be out soon. It’s hot.
Nimmo. More on Buhriz. (as we will not find this in the Sunday papers). “Buhriz is a hateful place” – GI.
Posted by: DM | Jun 28 2005 12:45 utc | 81
Be warned, here’s a recent thread on a forum that you may find as bracing as an ice cold shower. Note the wide range of viewspoints canvassed …
Is Protesting The War Patriotic ?
This is one of the things I’ve heard coming out of the mouths of the tie-dyed granola-types:
“I support the troops, that’s why I think we should bring them home… out of harm’s way… they shouldn’t die in an illegal war.”
There are many things that bother me about their stance. While they attempt to appear concerned about the welfare of our men and women in uniform, this is nothing other than a smoke screen. These people are pacifists. According to them, all wars are illegal. I wonder if they personally know anyone that has ever served… let alone are friends with a service member, active or veteran.
But this isn’t what bugs me the most …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 12:45 utc | 82
@Outraged
Well, what can be said? As one commentator noted, war is in their DNA. What can be done? Eugenics?
Some education wouldn’t go astray, but maybe the sort of ‘education’ needed by some Americans is to have boots stomping around their home-town.
Anyway, as I’m not an American, I am free to say ‘fuck the troops – I don’t support them’.
Posted by: DM | Jun 28 2005 13:11 utc | 83
“One of the great attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.” — Aldous Huxley
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 13:52 utc | 84
“One of the great attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.” — Aldous Huxley
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 13:58 utc | 85
The New Yorker has a Fact piece on AIPAC:
REAL INSIDERS – A pro-Israel lobby and an F.B.I. sting
I asked Rosen if aipac suffered a loss of influence after the Steiner affair. A half smile appeared on his face, and he pushed a napkin across the table. “You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”
…
[Rosen] is a hard-liner on only one subject—Iran—and this preoccupation helped shape aipac’s position: that Iran poses a greater threat to Israel than any other nation. .. (aipac lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraq war, but Iraq has not been one of its chief concerns.) Rosen’s main role at aipac, he once told me, was to collect evidence of “Iranian perfidy” and share it with the United States.
…
.. on Iran aipac’s views resemble those of the neoconservatives. In 1996, Rosen and other aipac staff members helped write, and engineer the passage of, the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which imposed sanctions on foreign oil companies doing business with those two countries; aipac is determined, above all, to deny Iran the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons.
…
Franklin seemed more frustrated with American policy in Iran than he had the year before. “We don’t understand that it’s doable—regime change is doable,” he said. “The people are so desperate to become free, and the mullahs are so unpopular. They’re so pro-American, the people.” Referring to the Bush Administration, he said, “That’s what they don’t understand,” and he added, “And they also don’t understand how anti-American the mullahs are.” Franklin was convinced that the Iranians would commit acts of terrorism against Americans, on American soil. “These guys are a threat to us in Iraq and even at home,” he said.
…
In mid-August of 2002, according to the indictment, Franklin met with Gilon—identified simply as “FO,” or “foreign official”—at a restaurant, and Gilon explained to Franklin that he was the “policy” person at the Embassy. The two met regularly, the indictment alleges, often at the Pentagon Officers’ Athletic Club, to discuss “foreign policy issues,” particularly regarding a “Middle Eastern country”—Iran, by all accounts—and “its nuclear program.” The indictment suggests that Franklin was receiving information and policy advice from Gilon; after one meeting, Franklin drafted an “Action Memo” to his supervisors incorporating Gilon’s suggestions….
and lots more on AIPAC/ Franklin / Rosen and espionage
surprise
“Escalating unemployment and the deteriorating economic situations play a major role in pushing Iraqis into joining the insurgency,” he said.
American officials here refuse to accept this view, insisting that most of the militants in the area were foreign fighters.
“There is no direct relation between the economy and the insurgency,” said Sergeant First Class James Joyner of the Stryker Brigade. “The insurgents coming from abroad are killing Iraqis for no reason. And here’s my question: why are they doing this and what do they want?”
Posted by: annie | Jun 28 2005 16:39 utc | 88
@Jonku, I wondered if he was trying to balance out his legacy – repay the Republic for taking the lead role in putting the Gangstas in office, by supporting democracy here. Further, I wonder if it could have been a bit of electioneering for Chief Justice. Did he wait til he knew they had the votes to gut the internet, then cast a meaningless vote on the other side, hoping to blunt opposition by the “Dem” masses to his ascension to the “throne”. Not out of the question, but I look forward to if reading legal scholars think this was as un-Scalia a vote as it seems to the casual observer. If so, one Has to ask these sorts of questions. I’m just jumping the gun a bit here.
I’m aghast, that this decision means we lose the internet – it becomes like Cable TV w/better shopping, gambling & pornography opportunities – yet no one here even gives a damn…
This is a case in point of why it’s prudent for Elites to “throw a war” whenever they want to seriously wreck our country. War & phony elections divert everyone’s attention – Chris Hedges knew whereof he spoke, except that it’s people on both sides who are obsessed to the exclusion of all else.
Posted by: jj | Jun 28 2005 17:39 utc | 89
Thanks for the clarification, jj … again, the Supreme Court voting to not support free speech over the cable Internet infrastructure by ruling that cable is not “telecommunications.”
Don’t forget that the telephone infrastructure explicitly is “telecommunications” and thus cannot be regulated by the carriers, and that we all used to access the Internet via modem on those phone lines, and still could.
So cable is not a monopoly, and the phone system now supports DSL for high-speed access. Not to mention wireless, although that is in the process of being regulated too I understand.
So the attempt to shut down the Internet continues … I suppose the telephone lines could become very expensive if they are the only free method of access.
Posted by: jonku | Jun 28 2005 18:15 utc | 90
If this has been posted already, sorry.
On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.
Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
Posted by: beq | Jun 28 2005 18:24 utc | 91
Patrick Cockburn: Iraq: A bloody mess
The sense of fear in Baghdad is difficult to convey. Petrol is such a necessity because people need to pick up their children from school because they are terrified of them being kidnapped. Parents mob the doors of schools and swiftly become hysterical if they cannot find their children. Doctors are fleeing the country because so many have been held for ransom, some tortured and killed because their families could not raise the money.
Rawstory is a valuable news resource/aggregator. They are in need of some stuff and some money. Feel free to give.
jonku, good point. I have not upgraded from modem precisely because I knew that it would endanger the internet.
I hope I didn’t offend anyone w/my previous comments about so much focus on the war. What I see is that in 1-2 weeks at home, the legal framework was put in place to cut off our lifeline here, take over the homes or businesses of anyone not at least upper middle class by the Plutocrats, and eliminate the the whole medical system used by millions of us. Yet Billmon dribbles sweet nothings & the Open thread is ~90% the war. In the blink of an eye, virtually everything I value was wrecked- well CAFTA isn’t passed yet, but leading Dems, beg. w/Clinton, apparently took out a full page ad in WaPo last Sun. urging immediate passage – but nobody’s talking about it.
(I don’t have a link, but I heard that down the beach a piece from Asbury Park, NJ. – in Long Branch – where middle class etc. have lived for many yrs., if not generations, they’re moving immediately to throw them out so homes for rich can be built. That will happen in the best lands throughout America, as i noted last wk. Talk about acceleration of the class war at the most intimate level. It’s unimaginable – brought about by Clinton appointees. go, Hillary, go… 🙁 )
Big lesson in why Soros funds select bloggers, as the CIA would have done in an earlier age til Soros & others took over for them in the age of Piratization – they set the tone & by definition they support the Pirates. Soros opposed the overt way Iraq intervention was done, unlike the more sophisticated war to destroy the Soviet Union & now Russia that he’s been so hard at work on via Open Society Institute, etc., so that’s a safe topic. That & how awful the Repugs are…well yes, but…
Posted by: jj | Jun 28 2005 19:41 utc | 94
Oh, you didn´t like Judith Miller’s ‘reporting’ of Chalabie’s talking points?
Why don´t you tell her JudithMiller.org
Sometimes it seems as if we are hoping to repeat the Vietnam experience of withdrawing public support for a criminal war and restoring some honor or at least neutrality to U.S. actions in the world. But the nation’s politicians never atoned for what they did to a generation of soldiers, much less to a generation of Vietnamese. And our politics have simply grown more anti-democratic, more contemptuous of law and a society that respects the law.
Thanks to jj, jonku, and beq for continuing to push what is happening to rule of law in this country. In two weeks, the Supreme Court has strengthened the ability of our plutocrats and their Pinkertons to silence and rob us blind. The Supreme Court’s other new accommodations to the company men will soon have us crossing ourselves and genuflecting to get heard in our courts.
Even the people who make our laws, Congressional representatives have already abased themselves to the point of crowning Moon (not this one) and the whole body has basically crowned Bush emperor for 4 years straight. And of course the 4th Estate has been bought up and ‘regulated’ by aristocrats. These are the exact sorts of reasons that squeezed us into Iraq in the first place – all four of our Estates are attacking democracy and its citizens the better to kick our legs out and accustom us to the floor.
If all we critique is the war, we will get Vietnam’ed again. And the whole critique will die with the war. How about we make a little democracy to come home to?
Posted by: citizen | Jun 28 2005 21:45 utc | 96
citizen
as in nazi germany – the war & the attack on the rule of law at home are one & the same thing & yes we need to be tighter in our understanding of their corelation
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 28 2005 22:28 utc | 97
citizen, I don’t think the category of “class warfare” can do justice to the complexity and the magnitude of the problem. It doesn’t allow for the dynamism and fluidity of capital, its commitment and capacity to seek out and buy off, as it were, the voices of protest. Those voices, once bought–or, if you prefer, having bought in–necessarily become the powerful exponents of the thing they once opposed. This is boring–very boring indeed!–and it’s also true. And it doesn’t alter the picture to say that those voices (bought, or bought in) are really the victims of a complex con game. They participate in the game (call it, if you prefer, the “lottery”). In this context, the war has the virtue of providing a particularly insane instance of the process at work. It’s legible, in no small part because the war is so utterly evil (and we can always cavil at the introduction of such retrograde ethical terms as “evil”). Can you, for example, name a single veterans organization that has denounced this war? I know of none, notwithstanding the perversion of military wisdom and elementary fairness at stake in this thing. And why no such protest? I submit that veterans own a piece of the action, and that they regard the dreadful Bush as one of their own. I haven’t seen a Marxist analysis of the matter, but when I do, I suspect it will have more than a little trouble articulating the vectors of the process in terms of class warfare.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 28 2005 22:52 utc | 98
The Brand X SC decision is complicated. Basically, and somewhat ironically, the Court used Chevron to say the FCC can interpret the Title VI cable broadband as information service exempt from common carriage regulation–that FCC has the big balls top say what cable broadband is and not the 9th Circ.
What I think is ironic is the Portland (AT&T Corp. v. City of Portland, 216 F.3d 871) 9th Cir decision to require FCC to regulate cable as title II common carrier subject to universal service and access requirements, was done to stop the city of Portland from requiring AT&T to open up its local cable monopoly to broadband competition, and then force the FCC to do the right thing. The distinction of basic/enhanced has always been arbitrary bs. Even more bs is the diustinction of dsl as telecom and cable bb as information.
Honestly, the Brand X decision here is not worthy of alarmism–especially the First Am. concerns. The 1st am. jurisprudence is found in the Turner and
Finally, imo, the big concern is universal service. Sooner or later, beyond the requiremejt to bring broadband to schools, health clinics, libraries as required by the 1996 am. to the Comm Act, Congress must push for a more expanded strategy to develop subsidized broadband service for rural and poor customers.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 28 2005 23:09 utc | 99
Denver Area SC decision also addresses the 1st Am concerns regarding cable provision.
You want your head to swim? Read that crazy decision.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 28 2005 23:11 utc | 100