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July 22, 2005
Open Thread
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New terrorist event in London: one perpetrator shot and killed by police Friday 22 July
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 22 2005 9:58 utc | 2
Oh fuck this is getting ridiculous.
What I am concerned about is that whoever’s doing it is counting down to something big. The attacks seems to have a high symbolic content in terms of number (911, 311, 7/7) and target (WTC, Pentagon, Russell Sq, then WAR, BUSH, OVAL yesterday – not sure about Spain). The shape of the London attacks is what gets me – pretty much hitting N, S, E, W – as if the city was in the crosshairs of a very large weapon. The buses hit were 30, 26. If the next one is a 22 I am going to freak.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Jul 22 2005 10:27 utc | 3
From the BBC link
“I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers.
“One of them was carrying a black handgun – it looked like an automatic – they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him.
That sounds like an execution, not an arrest.
On a more cheery note, the New Economics Foundation in the UK has just published an excellent study, Mirage and Oasis, into the attempt to restart nuclear power as an option vs global warming. The report neatly kicks nuclear into touch on a number of issues, not least cost:
The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by almost a factor of three.
And has some nifty pics and graphics. Who knew that North Korea’s nukes are Magnox reactor technology bought from us Brits? If only we could have known then what we know now about the “axis of evilitude” (c) Private Eye’s Revd Dubya of the Church of the Latter Day Morons.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Jul 22 2005 11:03 utc | 5
Here is link to PDF for Mirage and Oasis. The graphic on the last page (p54) shows the escalating cost of nuclear:
According to this report, the true costs of nuclear power have been seriously underestimated. This figure illustrates the effects of correcting the various underestimates. It starts from the UK industry estimate of 3p/kWh. Taking an average cost for the first eight reactors that would be built in a programme of new nuclear power stations, however, adds 1.3p/kWh. So does substituting the International Energy Agency range for typical construction costs in wealthy OECD countries. So called ‘first-of-a-kind’ costs – inevitable given the fact that any new stations would incorporate substantially new designs – add about 0.1p/kWh, taking the figure to 5.7p/kWh. Allowing for delays and cost-overruns of the sort typical for the industry could add a further 1.8p/kWh, and lowering the assumed performance to levels that have actually been achieved in practice adds another 0.8p/kWh, taking the total to 8.3p/kWh, nearly three times the industry estimate. Tellingly, these costs do not factor in the wider risks associated with nuclear power such as terrorism, the danger of proliferation and accidents.”
Posted by: Dismal Science | Jul 22 2005 11:10 utc | 6
“…they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him.”
That sounds like an execution, not an arrest.
Another example of the newest democratic application of the ‘Rule of Law’ ? Hmmm, shot whilst evading arrest or shot whilst resisting arrest ?
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 22 2005 13:26 utc | 8
wtf? “They say they gave him a warning, they then shot him…They brought in the air ambulance. They did everything they can to revive him.” righto…
Posted by: b real | Jul 22 2005 14:16 utc | 9
The eyewitness account as transcript: I saw Tube man shot – eyewitness
Shooting a probably innocent man, or maybe a fleeing pocket picker, after he is laying on the ground with three policemen on top of him – I wonder how they will spin this murder away.
How did the witness(es) know the apprehenders of the man were “plain-clothes police officers”? Just because one had a gun?
If the fallen man was under their control (they were sitting on him or holding him down, thus could not detonate any body bomb), would he not be more valuable to the police alive?
Posted by: Hamburger | Jul 22 2005 15:36 utc | 11
if they actually thought the guy was wired w/ a bomb, would the police dogpile on top of him? or shoot into him in a crowded setting?
Posted by: b real | Jul 22 2005 15:43 utc | 12
http://dc.indymedia.org/ has live streaming today of cynthia mckinney et al’s “Congressional Briefing: The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later – A Citizens’ Response – Did They Get It Right?”
Posted by: b real | Jul 22 2005 16:18 utc | 13
So that is one terrurist that will not be doing any talking then?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jul 22 2005 16:19 utc | 14
PEN
anyone gripped by the ghorbanifar/leeden/forged document drama i recommend reading this diary @kos
Posted by: annie | Jul 22 2005 18:21 utc | 15
Cracks in the hegemony?
A recent session of the International Olympic Committee decided to drop baseball and softball-quintessential American sports-from the 2012 Summer Games, which were just awarded to London. It was an unexpected comeuppance-it may be helpful to recall that there is very little “world” in the World Series-the game is played only by the US and a few banana republics in the Caribbean, from which America imports its best players.
I find it pointless to argue which sport is better than the other. It is totally subjective, visceral, something you grow up with-the first bumps and scratches, the first collective battle cries that define the behavior of human tribes, the first hard-on one gets from looking at a giggly, preening cheerleader. This is not the point. However small this whole episode, it was almost impossible to imagine just a few years ago that the US would not get its way in the major international powwow.
at The Exile
Light at the end of the tunnel?
Posted by: citizen | Jul 22 2005 23:49 utc | 16
If the Bush administration had run NASA……
Apollo 13: Houston, We have a problem.
Karl Rove: Jim Lovell’s wife sent him on that mission.
Scott McLellan: We have already addressed this issue.
Dick Cheney: (No comment. In an undisclosed location. Hires Halliburton to transport fuel to the moon)
GW Bush: Mission accomplished!
Posted by: dooglefish | Jul 23 2005 5:30 utc | 18
Morford, just to lighten you day a little:
There’s Sex In My Violence! What’s this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent “Grand Theft Auto”? I am outraged!
Posted by: Fran | Jul 23 2005 7:47 utc | 19
@b real
if they actually thought the guy was wired w/ a bomb, would the police dogpile on top of him? or shoot into him in a crowded setting?
Um, yes, because they apparently fired five rounds into his neck and skull while pinnimg him to the ground … no torso, i.e. Centre of the Seen Mass, aka body shots … brutal, blatant, summary execution …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 23 2005 11:17 utc | 20
Nothing Left In The Army Reserves
This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-05-660 entitled ‘Reserve Forces: An Integrated Plan Is Needed to Address Army Reserve Personnel and Equipment Shortages’ which was released on July 12, 2005.
About 43 percent of Army Selected Reserve personnel have been mobilized since September 11, 2001, and are not eligible to be remobilized under current DOD and Army policies.
Only about 16 percent, or 31,300 personnel, are considered eligible for mobilization.
The other 41 percent are ineligible or not available at this time for a variety of reasons, including the nature of their current assignments–such as providing recruiting and retention support, training for mobilizing units, and other critical duties; lack of required training; or various medical and administrative issues, such as pregnancy or pending separations.
Those soldiers who complete the required training or resolve medical and family issues may become available for mobilization in the future.
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 23 2005 14:25 utc | 21
Army War College Prof. Says Iraq Game Over
15 July 2005 By Erich Marquardt, The Power and Interest News Report (PINR)
Dr. Max Manwaring, a research professor of military strategy at the U.S. Army War College, explained to PINR in January 2005 that it is unlikely the U.S. will defeat the insurgency in Iraq.
Manwaring highlighted the consistent failure of occupying powers to defeat an indigenous insurgency by showing that his studies of post World War II insurgencies demonstrate that “the more intense and voluminous the military actions of the intervening Western power, the more likely the incumbent government was to lose to the insurgents,” and that “the more the intervening power escalated the numbers of its forces in response to a deteriorating situation, the worse (the situation) got.”
The intervention has revealed the extent of the U.S, military’s power, demonstrating that Washington does not have the military forces necessary to engage in protracted insurgent warfare.
The United States does not have the troop strength or the political will to conduct its current scope of operations for years to come.
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 23 2005 14:32 utc | 22