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November 10, 2005
Open Thread 05-115
Comments
NYT: U.S. and Europe to Give Iranians New Atom Offer
The Bush administration and three European allies have approved a new offer to be made to Iran in a last-ditch effort to head off a confrontation over its suspected nuclear weapons program.
The proposal would permit Iran to conduct very limited nuclear activities on its own soil, but would move the process of enriching all of its uranium to Russia, American and European officials said.
Why is this an “offer”. The Iranians are “offered” the chance to give up their rights?
American and European officials differed Wednesday over who had come up with the proposal that Dr. ElBaradei will present to Iran. European officials said Ms. Rice was pressing Dr. ElBaradei to present the proposal to the Iranians. American officials said they were simply reacting to a European proposal that he had brought to them.
Guess who is lying here.
This background information and family testimonial is worth reading, and the “suspect” nature of the first source in no way diminishes the significance of what is reported there. Adults will be able to decide how much of this is to be believed.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Nov 10 2005 9:14 utc | 2
I’ve been a little slow about this but I think I’m going to drop my yahoo e-mail box for two reasons. They outed by law the Chinese information poster, and they are hosting Ben Stein on some new finance page they’re setting up. “Yecch,” in a Mad magazine way.
Posted by: christofay | Nov 10 2005 9:28 utc | 3
This really chaffes my ass. It’s taking everything I got to not blog about it right away because it makes me so damned mad, I could chew my own arm off. Next on Ted Stevens’s “Agenda Of Corruption: Ruling that Scooter Libby doesn’t have to sworn in as his own fuckin’ trial.
Don’t fuck with the White House
oooh – i guess everyone’s scared.
fuckwits.
Posted by: DM | Nov 10 2005 13:27 utc | 5
Arctic drilling dropped from House bill
Washington – House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday—The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists, who have lobbied hard against the drilling provisions. President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge his top energy priorities.
What was that the preznit said about all his accumulated capital ? Looks like he’s spent it … wonder if there’s a credit card equivalent he can use to log up political capital debt ? 😉
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 14:21 utc | 6
Mohammad Jabir, a boy of nine years who was shot by an American sniper at his house door in the “Death Street” on Thursday Oct 20, 2005.
05 November 2005 By Sabah Ali, Brussels Tribunal.org
“He was going to his uncles’ house, across the street in the railway houses” his father said, trying hard to hold his tears. “They were 4 of my children, went out to visit their uncle’s family, they were shot at immediately. They returned back, Mohammad was putting his hand on his chest, said I am injured, and then fell to the ground. He was bleeding. We tried to save him, but no ambulance or car was allowed to pass through. His uncle did not mind the shooting; he drove his car and took us to the hospital. By then Mohammad was dead”…
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 15:18 utc | 7
A work in progress, one to watch – the court martial in the UK of Flight Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith for refusing to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty.
Chris Floyd at Counterpunch weighs in, using early reports by The Guardian’s Richard Norton-Taylor, one, two, and from The Observer.
John Pilger’s take.
And Bliar got fucked last night in the House of Commons over trying to extend arrest without charge for three months/90 days (the FT called it “a rout”).
Let’s hope it’s the start of the general fucking that is coming down the pipe for all these guys.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 10 2005 15:22 utc | 8
The Staff Sgt. Gets It Right
November 07, 2005 By Gordon Trowbridge, Army Times staff writer
HUSAYBAH, Iraq – U.S. forces nearly completed their operation to clear this Syrian border city on Monday, encountering little resistance.
Marines said they expected more insurgents and fewer civilians in the city, and wondered if a tougher fight loomed Tuesday in the final few blocks on Husaybah’s eastern edge.
“They’re not stupid,” said Staff Sgt. Dennis Ranahan, of Boston, a platoon sergeant in the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. “They’re running. They don’t want to stand and fight us.”
Guerrillas never win wars but their adversaries often lose them.
– Charles W. Thayer
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 15:34 utc | 9
November 14, 2005 Marine Corps Times
For the first time, senior Marine officials admit that if the war in Iraq ended tomorrow and Marine units shipped home, it would cost $12.8 billion to re-equip them with vehicles and gear lost in combat and through wear and tear.
For every year that Marines operate an up-armored Humvee in Iraq, for example, the vehicle ages the equivalent of nine years.
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 15:36 utc | 10
An Interview with Stan Goff
A Special Forces Officer Turned Anti-War Socialist
By M. JUNAID ALAM
Stan Goff is a former US Special Forces Master Sergeant with three decades of military experience, now heavily involved in anti-war work with Military Families Speak Out and the Bring Them Home Now campaign. He is also the author of two books, Full Spectrum Disorder, an analysis of the US military action, and Hideous Dream, a memoir based on his military experience.
…
Alam: Liberals who express disillusionment and anger with the war–like Juan Cole – nevertheless object to immediate US military withdrawal because they argue it would result in total anarchy and chaos. They also say the US has certain obligations to Iraqis in light of its policies the past two years. Are these objections valid, or are they cover for a more visceral concern about the US losing “credibility” if it leaves?
Goff: They are an expression of white supremacy. I don’t think there is any way to sugarcoat this.
Liberal racism is a far more destructive force in this society, largely because it is still unacknowledged. The argument to stay the course from liberals is based directly and absolutely on a latter-day version of the “white man’s burden to civilize the darker races.”
The political cover is not to protect US credibility.
The leadership of the Democratic Party wants to stay in Iraq for the same reason the Republicans do. This is, from the point of view of the US state, an absolutely necessary re-disposition of the post-Cold War American military. The argument between D’s and R’s is about how to accomplish it.
The reason we saw next to zero official Democratic Party participation in September 24th was that the Democratic Party leadership disagrees with us.
They want those permanent bases in Iraq every bit as much as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz do.
There is simply no other way to explain why the most visible leaders of that party continue to argue for expanding the war with more troops and garnering more international support for it, when the polls show this to be an increasingly unpopular position like free trade agreements, another issue where the public opposes, and both parties agree.
This is a pretty good indicator that transnational capital operating through the US state regards these positions as non-negotiable.
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 15:51 utc | 11
You probably all saw the New Yorker article this week about Casey vs. Santorum. God, what a depressing start to my day. They even quote Hillary C mumbling into her hat about her respect for the extreme pro-life position. Casey is also pro-gun. The whole thing’s put into horribly apt perspective by the death of Mohammad Jabir (Outrage’s post, above). What’s the plan here: bring them to term, then hunt ’em? Forget moral clarity: when’s the stench of death going to leave the air? But then even the folk living downwind from Dachau got used to it in the end, apparently.
Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 10 2005 16:38 utc | 12
U.S. Trade Deficit Hits $66 Billion, Another Record
The trade deficit widened by 11 percent and set another record in September, the government reported this morning, as exports of airplanes plummeted and imports of natural gas and petroleum products surged in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. The deficit with China also hit a record.
America imported $66.1 billion more in goods and services than it exported in the month, breaking the previous record set in February when the economy registered a $60.4 billion deficit, the Commerce Department reported. The trade deficit in the first nine months of the year totaled $529.8 billion, about 18 percent higher than at this time in 2004.
After watching some of the Rwanda documentaries and reading about the genocide in Darfur, I’m less confident the US can just pack up and split from Iraq without risk of even greater bloodshed. Surely, people like Stan Goff are aware of the dangers of US withdrawal?
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 10 2005 17:24 utc | 14
@Slothrop
Forgive my bluntness, but, the only thing the US military is doing in Iraq is protecting itself, i.e. the doctrine of ‘Force Protection’, primarily hunkered down in cantonments trying to avoid moving anywhere at all, ’cause then they suffer multiple ambushes … strategically just hoping the insurgents will get tired and give up the conflict … military history says otherwise re insurgencies …
The US military and the wider ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is doing virtually zero to provide security for anyone else, not the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Police, Iraqi officials excepting the most senior elites, and most certainly not the Iraqi civilian population which is trapped in a hell of someone else’s making whilst drinking non-potable water laced with untreated sewerage …
The risk of a wider regional conflict increases the longer the flames of this conflagration is not ‘doused’.
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 17:46 utc | 15
slothrop- i suppose you’re playing devil’s advocate on rwanda & darfur. i posted several links/excerpts back in a june open thread which highlight the role of the us/uk in the genocide in the former in order to help persuade citizen k that his position that the u.s. had zero interest in the region was myth. here’s what boutros boutros-ghali had to say about us/uk responsibility. not sure how dallaire could blame kagame but not his instructors/beneficiaries.
the situation in darfur is related. this is an issue of resource extraction, as it always has been in the african continent. to argue that the same player could both instigate instability in a region & then ensure stability is an abstract dream & not a realistic option.
Posted by: b real | Nov 10 2005 18:23 utc | 16
my dear slothrop
whatever the empire does today will inevitably lead to massacre – it is every which way & loose – mostly for the people
& they will be made to leave – their tide of murder will stop or be stopped – as it is now to a large degree in latin america
Posted by: r’giap | Nov 10 2005 18:28 utc | 17
Good news from Israel: Analysis / A new era – The Labor Party is back in the politics game
The election of Amir Peretz has shaken the political system and may mark the beginning of a new era in Israeli politics. The big winner is the Labor Party, if only because Peretz has the ability to attract sectors that have been inaccessible to Labor for many years.
Peretz’s personal profile is almost identical to that of millions of Israelis who immigrated to Israel or were born here after its establishment. A son of Moroccan immigrants, who was raised in a southern development town and reached his position with great toil, and made his way to the top. It is ironic that it was the new immigrants of the 1950s and 1960s who voted for Labor and made it stronger against the right, led at the time by Menachem Begin. The Likud’s rise to power in 1977 drew the low-income sectors away from the Labor Party, and it has been ambling behind Likud ever since.
…
Peretz’s victory may bring about a change in the state’s priorities. The age of ex-generals as Likud and Labor leaders dictated an agenda that subordinated all aspects of life to the military-political interest. This is the how the political system was overtaken by former generals that changed its nature radically. Peretz is a threat to the military hegemony that Labor MK Danny Yatom expressed so crudely in that famous party meeting, where he ridiculed Peretz for his non-military persona.
The Labor Party could not have hoped for a better vote. Peretz may turn out to be the harbinger of a new era for Labor that will pull it out of the isolation and seclusion it had to endure since the 1977 upheaval. The Labor Party is back in the game.
Hopefully a seechange in Israel. Peretz will leave the Sharon government and have an election as soon as possible.
Outrage,
The US military and the wider ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is doing virtually zero to provide security for anyone else, not the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Police, Iraqi officials excepting the most senior elites, and most certainly not the Iraqi civilian population which is trapped in a hell of someone else’s making whilst drinking non-potable water laced with untreated sewage.
…………………….
Its so good that you point this out, and come to think of it, I’ve never heard it said in this simple way (by the pundantry). This would account for Iraqis themselves, across the political spectrum, to see the US occupation as the primary cause of chaos. If the US were to pull out (immediatly) the only party to feel the brunt of withdrawl would be the political class currently in power, and perhaps the military (1brigade) under their direct control. It would seem that, everything else going on, like the general state of civil lawlessness and sectarian militia driven strife, would continue as it has been, because the US has let all this happen the way it has, by remaining uninvolved in the first place. Generally then, what the US has been doing is protecting THEIR OWN INTERESTS through empowereing the puppet government (and its army) — Remove the US interests and the puppet regieme, what would happen that has’nt been happening (and allowed to happen) all along anyway? More of the same, less of the same? Its not a givin that things would necessarily become worse.
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 10 2005 21:13 utc | 19
just having a little fun
“How can the president not suspect that his boss—I shouldn‘t say, what a Freudian slip—that his partner, Dick Cheney, didn‘t have a hand in leaking this—youre laughing, Mike. You know why I‘m laughing because he is such a strong V.P. Didn‘t believe that his strong V.P. was the boss of Scooter Libby?”
Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2005 21:15 utc | 20
Hannah, thanks for the links at 4:14:52 am.
The story of Olson as a government employee during the 1950s is riveting — for some reason the whole thing seems diabolically vivid.
It gives me a creepy feeling about the 1950s: LSD and Nembutol. I can see each scene almost cinematically … men with short haircuts and black eyeglasses wearing white short-sleeved shirts … quite a story no matter what the truth value is.
… Frank Olson took his plunge from the 13th floor of the Statler Hotel, a critical piece of information slipped out. Dr. Robert Lashbrook nervously admitted that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the head of MKULTRA, had been in New York during the entire time that Lashbrook and Olson were …
A switchboard operator at the Statler listened in on the brief conversation. Lashbrook said, “He’s gone.” Abramson replied, “That’s too bad.”
On Nov. 28, 1994, 41 years to the day after Frank Olson’s death, Dr. Starrs and his team held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to release their findings. Speaking for the majority of his team members and for himself, Dr. Starrs described the death of Frank Olson as “homicide deft, deliberate, and diabolical.”
The actual circumstances surrounding the death of William Colby may never be clarified. But there is no question that his untimely death came shortly after the letter arrived, asking for an interview on his recollections of the Frank Olson case.
Above from HOK’s link to the November 11, 2005 Executive Intelligence Review.
Posted by: jonku | Nov 10 2005 22:22 utc | 21
House GOP Leaders Scuttle Budget-Cut Vote
WASHINGTON – House Republican leaders scuttled a vote Thursday on a $51 billion budget-cut package in the face of a revolt by lawmakers over scaling back Medicaid, food stamp and student loan programs.
The development was a major setback for the GOP on Capitol Hill and for President Bush, who has made cuts to benefit programs a central pillar in his budget plan.
L.A.M.E. D.U.C.K.S.
Dear Democratic Members of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
I commend you all for your dogged insistence upon the importance — to all our citizens; to the broader global community; and, indeed, to history, itself — of completing Phase II of your Committee’s Report on Prewar Intelligence.
I’ve read the Honorable Senator John D. Rockefeller’s statement outlining “key remaining issues that must be addressed in order to produce a thorough, prompt and credible Phase II report:” the Honorable Senator Carl Levin’s statement that “newly declassified information indicates the Bush Administration’s use of pre-war intelligence was misleading;” and the general statement, published by the Honorable Senator Harry Reid, regarding your combined, “continued effort to force the Bush administration to answer the American people’s questions about the war in Iraq and the need for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to complete its investigation into the use of intelligence before the war.”
It is in each of you and in the work of your Committee that I invest my sincerest hope and faith that your efforts can lead, beyond “credible,” to a definitive and true accounting on all the questions relating to this matter.
For your esteemed consideration, I urge you to include among the witnesses to be called to testify in this investigation:
– Retired USAF Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
– Retired USAF Col. Sam Gardiner
– AEI Resident Scholar, Michael A. Ledeen
And for your futher consideration, I commend for your reading the following articles and analyses:
The Lie Factory, by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest
Drinking the Kool-Aid, by W. Patrick Lang
The New Pentagon Papers, by Karen Kwiatkowski
Truth From These Podia (pdf), by Sam Gardiner
Profile: Michael A. Ledeen, by International Relations Center
Michael Ledeen’s Scooter Scotoma (with several further, very relevant links), by Susan Hu
Thank you for your continuing efforts in this matter — a matter of utmost and vital importance to our nation and the global community of nations.
Most sincerely,
[manonfyre]
cc: The Honorable Senators John D. Rockefeller, Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Evan Bayh, Barbara Mikulski, & Jon S. Corzine
Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 10 2005 22:43 utc | 23
comment from a friend:
Good job…this morning I was singing in the shower….
Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call,
Don’t stand in the doorways, don’t block up the halls,
for he that gets hurt, will be he who has stalled…
the battle outside is raging.
It will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls….
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’ ……..
Let’s commit to keeping at least OUR momentum up for the good of the
2006 elections….letter writing, petitions, creative thinking stuff…
Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 10 2005 23:07 utc | 24
Is it the case of ‘The circling wolves’ or ‘The incredible shrinking base’ ?
I find myself somewhat uncomfortably in agreement … with a number of his points …
Bush Leaves GOP in Crisis
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted Nov 10, 2005
With the rout of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s initiatives, Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia, and President Bush’s free fall in national polls on job performance, credibility and character, the Republican Party is in imminent peril of losing the country.
– snip –
However, post-9/11, Bush II converted to a neoconservatism that calls for unilateral American intervention in the Middle East and the Islamic world, to bring down dictators and establish democracy.
Thus, in March, 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and did not threaten us—to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have.
Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world have been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of Al Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up.
True to the neoconservative creed, Bush launched a global crusade for democracy that is now bringing ever closer to power Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, and Shia fundamentalists in Baghdad and Basra.
Democratic imperialism is still imperialism. To Arab and Islamic peoples, whether the Crusaders come in the name of God or in the name of democracy, they are still Crusaders…
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 10 2005 23:14 utc | 25
headsup:
Germ Boys and Yes Men: How White House Cronyism and the Push to Invade Iraq Hampers the Country’s Ability to Handle a Bioterror Attack
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10/1527211
Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 10 2005 23:58 utc | 26
“Someone somewhere is going to get that $8 billion, and it is not going to be you or me.”
Turkeys
Posted by: DM | Nov 11 2005 0:11 utc | 27
Stalinist Androids
Simply confirms my own belief that at best the Dems are just the lesser of two evils … jettison MoveOn.org and the ‘Left’, somehow becoming Centrist or Centrist Right. What utter bullshit. That would in today’s world equate to being Centre-right or right-wing as opposed to extreme right-wing … ah, what happened to serving The People, rather than considering cherry-picked segments of them as stepping stones to the assumption of power !
Jeez, these representatives, these supposed leaders, they don’t actually believe anything … Political Androids … too much damned time studying Machiavelli, purchasing a new top of the line Audi and re-inventing themselves as another marketable product/image. Reminds me of:
“The only thing worse than a corrupt politician, is a politician that doesn’t stay bought”
I look upon the rise of Populism, the grass-roots rebirth of representative Democracy in areas of Latin America, almost like a naive child, in envious wonderment …
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 11 2005 1:29 utc | 29
b real
to argue that the same player could both instigate instability in a region & then ensure stability is an abstract dream & not a realistic option.
This is the contradiction always favoring this fascist expansion of capitalist accumulation. Just as marx said capital poses barriers to its growth seemingly surmountable only by the further expansion of capital, the alternative to withdrawal is more horrible than continued occupation.
further knowledge about the rwanda genocide terrified me enough to have a fleeting interest in a continued occupation (however sustained ‘internationally’ or, gulp, only by the US) to avert genocide.
Perhaps, returning to my senses, the “people of iraq will decide” as rgiap says, and thge contradiction of neoimpoerial occupation will be broken and a new world of possibilities revealed, only after most iraqis have been drowned in their own blood.
Easy for me to say.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 11 2005 2:05 utc | 30
all to say: the point at whivh the forces of production and the social relations of production are no longer recoinciled by continued oppression, is a miserable, monstrous time, requiriung shocking sacrifices.
it’s no easy matter, the matter of revolution and the decline of capitalist domination. I suppose I demonstrated my lack of courage, yes, but also tearful sympathy for the people of iraq.
Posted by: slothrop | Nov 11 2005 2:16 utc | 31
Just felt the need to interject a cheery note
Republican Edge on Key Issues
Is Slipping Amid Party’s Setbacks
Posted by: Lurker | Nov 11 2005 2:22 utc | 32
There is NOthing Liberal about MoveOn. There was only one proposition on the Calif. Tues. ballot that could vaguely be called “liberal” – intelligent governance that’s slightly balanced between corp. & public interests would be more like it…though it’s still way too tilted to the Pirates – and MoveOn Refused to even note its existence in it’s how to vote primer. The Proposition called for a slight bit of re-regulation of the energy sector to avert another Kennyboy Lay Fiasco.
Were MoveOn liberal, they would have properly criticized proposition for being too weak & limited to get the job done.
Posted by: jj | Nov 11 2005 3:22 utc | 33
El Mismo Río Nunca Se Cruza Dos Veces
http://tinyurl.com/a9v95
http://tinyurl.com/exzds
http://www.mindfully.org/
For intelligent adults, we’re spending
way too much time dithering Capitol Hill.
Some Repug senator on Jon Stewart saying
we don’t need a department of Energy or
Commerce or of Education. Just Defense.
The Senate will chalabize over “torture”,
until they are all secure from Nuremburg,
and Cheney’s free to retire with oil $B’s.
Meanwhile, across the country, USCG/DHS
is securing transportation facilities as
“permanent security zones”, trans-shipping
out weapons of mass destruction, and return-
cargoes of foreign radioactive waste casks.
They said they would drown government in
a bath tub, but never said anything about
cutting government spending, or authority.
Instead of our taxes going for healthcare,
education and community development, they
will be diverted to paying deficit debt to
multinational financiers, and paying DoD
to enable Corporate destruction of Earth.
The sky never answers, but the earth sings.
|
Chalabize this, George… ,’|”
Posted by: tante aime | Nov 11 2005 3:46 utc | 34
@Stalinist Androids
Just watch the stink tanks these boys come from–follow the money. You don’t get to be a media star by advocating for the homeless, or something.
@slothrop
This is the contradiction always favoring this fascist expansion of capitalist accumulation. Just as marx said capital poses barriers to its growth seemingly surmountable only by the further expansion of capital, the alternative to withdrawal is more horrible than continued occupation.
Capitalism should be looked at as a totalitarian cult. Cult, because it cannot even fathom the possibility of other ways of organizing human affairs (note: Fukuyama’s “The end of history”). Thinking outside the capitalist box is not permitted. Totaliarian, because it needs to control everthing, everywhere. Could anyone imagine the world capitalists holding a press conference and announcing that there is an area of the world, say a small chain of islands, that they are willing to set aside, as not needed by the capitalist world? “We renounce any claims to your minerals, or your fish, or your harbor for a military base, or your women and young boys for sex. We will not force feed you loans, like drugs, then once hooked, demand payment forever with interest. We will not call for ‘structural adjustments’ on your land.” Of course we can’t imagine this, it’s absurd on its face. I rest my case.
The capitalists will not be happy until everyone of those 1.3B dirty Moslems are bathing with Dial Soap, or maybe Irish Spring, every day. And smoking Marlboros while drinking Coke-a-Cola with a Big Mac in their hand.
Not Making this up kids. via Capitol Hill Blue
A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and “restore his image as a leader of the American people.”
The closely-guarded memo lays out a list of scenarios to bring the Republican party back from the political brink, including a devastating attack by terrorists that could “validate” the President’s war on terror and allow Bush to “unite the country” in a “time of national shock and sorrow.”
The memo says such a reversal in the President’s fortunes could keep the party from losing control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections.
Posted by: jj | Nov 11 2005 4:52 utc | 37
slothrop- but the genocide in iraq is already an ongoing reality, even were there no further blood to be spilled. the imperialists have destabilized iraq purposefully, destroyed it for the most part, and they’re intent on keeping it underdeveloped & dependent on outside powers. in the same manner that capitalists do not condone the creation of other capitalists (the objective, after all, is to eliminate competition and monopolize production/wealth), the remaining world superpower is further destabilising the “arc of instability” running from east asia through southern africa to ensure that there is no resistance to transnational capital’s accessibility to these resource-rich regions. so long as this exploitation is allowed to continue, w/ the concomitant oppression and racism necessary for its continuance, there will be plenty of bloodshed & sacrifice of the type we find w/ any national liberation movement.
in iraq, particularly, it is a given that so long as their sovereignty is relegated to the occupier’s agenda, so long as the iraqi’s are not in control of their own destiny, there will always be mass murder. w/o a doubt. as fanon said, “hesitation in murder has never characterized imperialism.” u.n. intervention is not an neutral option either. again, fanon: “In reality, the UN is the legal card used by the imperialist interests when the card of brute force has failed.” and, refering to lumumba’s mistake of appealing to the UN, “For after all, before the arrival of the UN, there were no massacres in the Congo. After the hallucinating rumors deliberately propagated in connection with the departure of the Belgians, only some ten dead were to be counted. But since the arrival of the UN we have grown used to learning every morning that the Congolese were mutually massacring one another by the hundreds.” i think of the recent stories of blue helmet attrocities in haiti for confirmation that little has changed.
no, the only true way to end the bloodshed in iraq is to remove the foreigners & thier influence and let the iraqi people determine their own fate. other than reparations, the u.s./u.k. should have no other input. iraq belongs to the iraqis, not the global corporatists. if anyone’s blood should be spilled…
Posted by: b real | Nov 11 2005 5:47 utc | 38
re stalinist androids- i’ve long suspected that alterman himself is an android b/c his columns never threaten the status quo. obama is the answer? oh god. here comes the propaganda. “the walking, talking embodiment of Dr. King’s dream and an early and eloquent opponent of Bush’s war”? dr. king must be turning in his grave. bush’s war, maybe, but definately not the gwot or raining missiles down on the dem’s real target of iran. can we talk? you no call him eric alterman. you call him eric maintainman.
Posted by: b real | Nov 11 2005 6:02 utc | 39
jj – Imagine, for a moment, that I gave you a contact list of the big US private investment capital company’s top flight people. And you
were to send them your confidential memo above.
Here’s what they would write back, that is, if
you could get through their server firewall, and ‘teaser’ them with some business proposal first.
“Dear Mr. JJ – Thanks for your very interesting proposal, and the link you suggested to ‘Capitol Hill Blues’. We have not read the link (sic), but if we did, our response would be as follows: Please don’t send us anymore of this crap. We don’t have the time, frankly, to read it, and we really don’t care anyway. If you have a business proposal with merit, or some uplifting message to share, then by all means. Otherwise, please remove our name from your distribution list.”
Money really doesn’t care! Our US politicians, drinking from the firehose of unlimited and never-ending public tax streams, unfathomable wealth and power in their hands, are *insane*!
That leaves the financial and political elite above a radio ceiling you can’t hope to break.
The *only* alternative is to dial everything down. Turn on your wayback machine. Kill your TV. Kill your radio. Kill your cell phone. Kill your credit cards. Chop firewood. Shop in bulk. Network in the hood. Pull all your savings out of the markets and big banks, put them in your local savings & loan in CD’s. And pay in cash!
Kick way, way back. Study the art of not-doing.
Just by not using plastics, we can cut the price of oil by $10 a barrel. By not impulse shopping on the Net, and not jumping in the car everytime the six-pack runs out, we can cut the price of oil by another $20 a barrel. $30 a barrel again.
The firehose will spurt, then dribble, and drip.
FICA taxes will dry up. The deficit will become rapidly unsupportable. Fed will go into crisis.
The financial pillars will tremble and shake.
Great political seachanges will come about.
But, if we sit here, drunk on blog, be-yatching like Middle-Age French peasants everytime some fleur-de-leis rides by on DKOS or Atrios, we’re going to still be having this conversation in the year 2405. !The Hapsburgs ruled 400 years!
Choke off the taxes, that’s all they care about.
Not Iraq, not New Orleans, not Free Choice, not Headstart, not the World Series, not nothing.
All they care about is our M-O-N-E-Y.
Posted by: tante aime | Nov 11 2005 6:07 utc | 40
Saw McCain interviewed on the newshour tonight, where he revealed the (his) new meme for (leaving) Iraq. We cant leave Iraq without “winning” because Iraq is more important than Vietnam, in that when we left Vietnam and unlike Iraq, they didnt pursue us to our homefront. In other words, we can’t leave Iraq (unfinished) because they will follow us home. (presumably as terrorists). He seemed kind of proud to make such a pronouncement — as in his general prescription for Iraq, he was promoting a large escalation in troop numbers — or just as likely, he was giving a shot at walking the walk on national tv, like he was already the president. These people (like McCain) and all this insane pander-fest, makes me wonder, when did mental illness become such a prerequesit for national office?
Posted by: anna missed | Nov 11 2005 6:29 utc | 41
“when did mental illness become such a prerequesit for national office?”
.. or when did it become contagious.
‘fraid there’s no cure though.
@b – any chance of adding straw polls to MoA. I’d love to know how many MoA’ers actually believe that 2006, 2008, or the Democrats in general will make one iota of difference. It’s America that is stark staring raving mad – not just George W.
Posted by: DM | Nov 11 2005 6:47 utc | 42
@anna missed
“These people (like McCain) and all this insane pander-fest, makes me wonder, when did mental illness become such a prerequesit for national office?”
This is an international phenomenon unfortunately. The combination of large ‘democracies’ and centralised media outlets means that getting elected is a quite a different skill than being a good leader.
Since anyone who could actually be an effective leader can also see that they have little chance of being elected unless they deceive the voters and compromise what they believe in, this leaves the jobs open for the unstable and neurotic.
The people who run for elected office are either sociopathic crooks trying to line their pockets (Leopold Cheney) or life’s unfortunates who have low self esteem and require validation via the ballot box (Chimpee the crack addicted perpetual adolescent).
Neat eh!
Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 11 2005 6:57 utc | 43
Justin Raimondo has another
good bash at the U.S. war criminal administration.
America, from the “shining city on a hill” to the dark dungeon of sadistic torturers. What a comedown! Abu Ghraib, we were told, was an “aberration.” Now they want to make it a policy. How low can we go?
We’re supposed to be spreading “democracy” and “freedom” throughout the Middle East, according to this administration and its Washington amen corner, but how is human liberty advanced by frying Iraqi civilians with incendiary phosphorous bombs?
If that isn’t a war crime, then nothing is.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Nov 11 2005 7:44 utc | 44
Iraqi VP sees ‘terrorists’ shifting to other states
Mahdi addressed a think tank audience as Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi pursued his political comeback on a simultaneous trip to Washington.
Chalabi planned to visit wounded U.S. soldiers from the Iraq war at Walter Reed Army Hospital, an organizer said. Both men have held separate meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Mahdi is to meet Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday.
Chalabi sees Cheney and other officials next week.
Terrorists shifting to other states – fits for Chalabi.
I don’t know if any other MoA barflies have ever been Sci-Fi freaks but I may have misspent a few thousand hours coming to grips with hyperdrives and wormholes. See I don’t just mean Philip K Dick future as a paradigm of our capitalist ethos but the full on spaceship flying, alien killing, United Federation Imperialists.
Most of the stuff was written during the cold war and although there are numerous instances of characters with Russian/Slavic origins, there is no doubt who won that ancient conflict.
The United Federation often has a Senate and Congress as well as a Prez and a constitution.
Anyway there was one guy who was a master of the genre. A fellow by the name of Robert Heinlein probably most famous outside sci-fi heads for Stranger in a Strange Land . This book was a favourite amongst many in the 60’s counter-culture.
Interestingly some themes voiced in that work were the antithesis of those in most of Heinlein’s other work. As the Wikpedia link says:
“The book was a breakthrough best-seller, attracting many readers who would not ordinarily have read a work of science fiction. Late-1960s counterculture was influenced by its themes of sexual freedom and liberation”
So those who came to his work via this opus got a surprise to find that Heinlein’s other stuff tended toward militaristic fascism. His best known work amongst sci-fi indulgers is probably Starship Troopers (who remembers the YES with Rick Wakeman?)
Starship Troopers is a sort of a boy’s own adventure novel heavy on liberterian individualism within an extremely repressive political regime which is steering imperialist expansion throughout the galaxy.
I don’t think I’ve thought about the book for decades. You see all those years ago I managed to enjoy the book because it was a ‘ripping good yarn’ and the society Heinlein proposed seemed removed from any I could conceive people living in future. The acceptance of this fascism seemed so off the wall that it was possible to just enjoy the story.
Anyway enough digression. On Friday nights my son and I tend to do a bit of PC gaming. I have found a way to obtain the things that doesn’t result in some global corporation getting its grasping paws on any of my resources.
About 90% of games are utter garbage. However this is alleviated by the occasional gem waiting to be found amongst the dross.
So I grab a mob of games and we have a look at them. I don’t normally get shooters cause the old boy doesn’t enjoy them much. He prefers games which test his visual and spatial skills a bit more than shooters tend to.
Anyway when I saw Starship Troopers I thought “Lets give that a burl”. We have come to enjoy games with a good storyline and a tight plot and since that was the case with Heinlein’s original I thought maybe we’ll check this out on the “It’s either gonna be really good or shockingly bad” part of Murphy’s law.
What I hadn’t considered was the story would turn out to be a parallel of our current epoch.
The humans are in a state of perpetual war with the ‘Bugs’. The fight is largely a tug of war over resource rich planets.
The Bugs ‘proper’ name is Arachnids. Say that out loud and see what it sounds like. Many of the planets in the early stages are hot and desert like. The human’s most effective weapon are flamethrowers and incendiary weapons that get many teeming bugs fried. Air-support comes screaming through and drops canisters on bug colonies that explode into balls of flame.
Lastly the art design is based around a 1999 movie of Starship Troopers and the human soldiers bear an uncanny resemblence to current US uniforms.
The game is only OK as these things go but the uncanny resemblence to the Iraqi invasion makes it impossible to suspend judgement in the same way as I and many others did in the ’70s.
What does it all mean?
I dunno Heinlein had been a submariner prior to writing and had a good insight into the military industrial machine so maybe he really had managed to see where the world was heading.
I hesitate with that because his characterisation is two dimensional and it’s difficult to comprehend how someone with so little insight into people could be spot on about their society.
During the course of this spiel I came a across an essay by Karen Kwiatkowski which draws the parallel between Starship Troopers and the current crusade much better than I could hope to so if any of this interests you, take a gander, as they say in the classics.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 11 2005 8:50 utc | 46
Debs, you have to smoke less pot before playing the game.
Heinlein is a great writer just as Hemingway is. Clear and clean from an intelligent mind. What the stories are about and what they engender is another story since they both celebrate the myth of manhood. And I suppose paternalism, but that’s not the effect they had on me as a reader.
I have another few favorite writers that have helped me develop self awareness, Burroughs, Alfred Bester, and since you named Phil Dick him too. And Hunter S and the legion of pulp writers that came before.
So my vote is in favor of comics, genre fiction, video games, blogs. How the hell else are we going to communicate?
Posted by: jonku | Nov 11 2005 9:07 utc | 47
Hmmm, it would appear that the bad news, the polls, the resulting analysis within the machine that is Bush&Co is causing some to despair re potential future loss of royal power … and affecting already questionable judgement … well done, more of it, please 😉
Just one recent example over the last week here (also has video)
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 11 2005 12:48 utc | 48
Sorry to be monomaniacal, but Richard Chichakli has put
some extremely interesting new material up on his site. OK, I admit that his new material regarding his battle with the Office of Foreign Asset Control and Richard Peleman may not be as fascinating for others as it is for me, but his new photos and comments (including a Power Point Slide presentation) of the circumstances surrounding the “accidental” February 2005 crash of a KAM air 737 in Afghanistan can not fail to arouse interest, especially since he seems to have a photo of the “missing” flight recorder which was (officially) never found. By the way, I would be extremely interested in hearing from someone (Outraged?) with sufficient expertise to tell me what the photos really show. For instance, do the various pieces really cover 50 kilometers. If so, that would be totally at variance with the official story.
It looks to me like Chichakli is much more believable and forthcoming than the U.S. government on this matter, and, naturally I tend to see his other documentation in a similarly favorable light. If what he says is true (and it seems to be) then the U.S. government seems to have deliberately shot down a passenger plane carrying a renegade spy. This is one of those stories that has already been pushed into the memory hole (like the Frank Olsen murder), but deserves IMHO to be much more widely known and discussed.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Nov 11 2005 14:43 utc | 49
following razor’s injunction i will not post on the billmon threads as i too sense a hypocricy in responding to someone with whom i have lost respect on the essential issue of ‘inevitability’, ‘just wars’ & ‘just causes’
also i do not feel welcome, there, in any case
however, outraged, my resident expert on all matters great & small perhaps to prove i really am a stalinst fruitcake i cleaned my keyboard with something one normally uses to clean windows & while my keyboard is now immaculate – now it doesn’t work at all i hope its not iredeemably fucked but given my knowledge of practical thing perhaps it is
have you or the others any idea
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 11 2005 18:47 utc | 50
@remembereringgiap
A replacement or secondhand keyboard is rather cheap and your best bet … an ami with a retired computer in the garage/shed/attic ?
On the other hand, if necessary, carefully seperate the keyboard casing and using a barely damp soft cloth or handtowel gently wipe all surfaces of the ‘sandwiched’ composite carbon/plastic ‘layer’ … wipe dry … allow to thoroughly air dry … reassemble and crossfingers 😉
If what you used originally was corrosive … no joy.
PS If you’re a Stalinist Fruitcake, then I must be a Born Again Socialist Radical 🙂
Hah ! Whats in any label, merely a means to denigrate or disempower …
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 11 2005 19:26 utc | 51
merci, outraged`ì think i am the original dumbkof
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 11 2005 19:35 utc | 52
also i do not feel welcome, there, in any case
Still the monk carrying that scantily clad woman ?
however, outraged, my resident expert
Bah ! my mind has forgotten far more than I currently or into the future will, ever recall … LOL … for myself, I envy your poetic mastery of the written word 😉
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 11 2005 19:49 utc | 53
Looks like W’s speechwriter came up with something quotable ..
“Evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously, and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.”
Posted by: DM | Nov 11 2005 19:55 utc | 54
@DM
Um, what’s it called ? Damn, something like ‘subconscious projection’ ?
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 11 2005 20:06 utc | 55
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, (NASA), “has four times as many technicians over the age of 60 as they have under the age of 30.”
Far more important than marginalized space-fart,
the US petroleum industry will retire 33% of its intellectual-capital staffing within five years.
Yet in 2004, U.S. universities graduated only 70,000 engineers, compared with about 200,000 in India and more than 500,000 in China. Many of those (advanced degree almost exclusively) U.S. engineering graduates were *foreign nationals*, spilling over into the US for classroom space.
Maybe why Bill Gates is pushing for *another* 350,000 H-1B visas, (and why NBC has a whole new cartoon wack-laugh-track lineup for your kids).
The U.S. economy created *fewer* than 350,000 high-tech jobs *in total*, the last two years
of their so-called, “major economic recovery”.
If U.S. manufacturing goes, and IT goes, and high-tech goes (at least goes to H-1B’s), that leaves the service industry, exclusively.
ser·vice (sûr’vĭs) n.
1. Employment in duties or work for another.
2. A government branch or department.
3. The armed forces of a nation. <--
4. The performance of work or duties for a superior or as a servant:
I understand the US Mint plans to change the motto on US$'s in 2008 from, "E Pluribus Unum"
to, "Fries With That?", and on the long green,
"Paper, Or Plastic?".
- - -
Hannah- Chichakli is what you call a disgruntled former Defense contractor. His air company made money transporting U.S. WMD's to 3-W mil bases. That wreckage photo is clearly not 50km apart, and I'm sure he can find another line of work.
r'giap- Treat yourself to the new hardware on the market. Dell's keyboards and laser-mice are great, extremely good tactility and sensitivity.
Donate your old keyboard to a community college, so our kids can clean up the PC's of the H-1B's.
Everyone- Go buy $20 worth of LD calling cards today, then visit your local veterans hospital!
Posted by: tante aime | Nov 11 2005 21:04 utc | 56
Seems former Presidents Clinton and Bush the Elder must be getting together to do more than appear on commercials together to panhandle for mismanagement of Katrina relief donations. Clinton’s latest tirade, a variation of a particularly imperial argument, is well-timed in light of Fitzgerald’s investigations and the specific charges presently faced by Scooter and the likelihood that similar charges will be faced by others close to Bush the Younger.
Remember, Clinton was not impeached for the blowjob (as Democrat apologists would have it), but for perjuring himself over it. If this argument gains ground (viz. that an elected official being caught lying is “trivial”), then the brouhaha currently facing the administration in regards to the deliberate misuse of intelligence to Congress and the American people during run-up to Iraq falls under that umbrella; that is to say, trivia.
If Mssr. Clinton is working this hard for the Bush camp even after it was their ilk who opened the impeachment-for-lying meme in the first place, it is reasonable to conclude that he is brokering a deal for his wife in 2008.
With Bill working those who control the election apparatus and Hillary working those who control the mainstream media, it looks like the Clintons are firmly entrenched for another four year stint at the minimum. And this, of course, means the United States will be needing to be digging deeper trenches around the Green Zone in Iraq since Hillary is as hawkish about Middle East policy as Cheney.
Maybe military recruiters will have an easier time of things in a few years when someone with lipstick is asking poor people to go die for them.
Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 11 2005 21:53 utc | 57
tante aime
i will follow yr counsel & that of outraged on my habitual incompetence with computers
Posted by: r’giap | Nov 11 2005 22:01 utc | 58
It’s not rocket science – oh wait – yes it is !
Another Physics Professor breaks cover. Fingers crossed, and one day we might get to the tipping point in this fiasco.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
“conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics”
Posted by: DM | Nov 11 2005 23:54 utc | 59
Hmm there’s been a lot of talk about veteran’s day today. It’s the 12th here so as per usual penny didn’t drop cause when it was the 11th here it was still 10th in most places. Thing is apart from Anzac day being big one here not veteran’s/Armistice day, I have never served in national armed forces so it doesn’t mean jack I do remember something my old man and I did agree on.
He fought in English navy as a pilot from ’39 to late 45 in Atlantic and Pacific theatres and he would give shit for anzac day veterans day or any of the other days which are alleged to remember the fallen but in fact glorify war.
I reckon most people don’t need to pick one day a year to remember those who have made a sacrifice for them. You only need to remember if you have forgotten in the first place. Just as I never met my uncles who died in Turkey and France 14-18, my kids did get to meet my father but didn’t meet another younger uncle who copped it building a railway in Thailand yet they know them. We have spoken the stories and looked at the photos, laughed at my oldest brother who has been stuck with all the names of my father’s mates who didn’t make it back.
I hope my kids will continue the family tradition of knowing that just like funerals are for the living not the dead, veterans day armistice day and anzac day are for the politicians not the fighters.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 12 2005 1:25 utc | 60
AT dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow’ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!
– Siegfried Sassoon
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 12 2005 1:44 utc | 61
There’s been a lot of talk about quarreling lately, people venting, leaving, threatening, blaming MoA or individuals, trying to be nice, etc.
The socio-political atmosphere in our country has not exactly been like a Miss Manners’ convention lately and the frustration levels are high. We’ve witnessed a lot of abuse. The petty crimes of the posters are nothing in comparison to the multitude of major ones that surround us. The guilty posters can be punished later, if need be.
We are in the process of busting a crime syndicate that has infiltrated our government and the release of desire has unpleasant side effects. It’s not an easy task.
But it is an opportunity, as passions get unleashed to deal with our own ways of handling conflict. It’s not a good idea to shove it under the rug. Backed up poisons increase in potency like anything that is dammed up. And they will eventually surface and find release anyway. Every time we handle an interpersonal conflict successfully we contribute to the resolution of conflict on a larger scale. We can learn to fight back, duck, sidestep, avoid it completely, whatever the situation demands. The more we practice, the better we’ll get. Conflict is a totally natural and ultimately beneficial part of relationship. No one really creates it. It happens automatically. We can bear with it and learn.
Posted by: jm | Nov 12 2005 2:13 utc | 62
Thanks for bringing it up jm.
My wife threatened to leave me – well no, she tried to kick me out…because of our unresolved differences vis-a-vis “socio-political atmosphere” and we are supposedly on the same side of the fence, I mean dedicated?? dems.
So you can see why it is an issue for me – I have nothing more to do in the evening now than blather here on politics and ideology. Isn’t that boring? Oh yes I have also to spend some cognitive time trying to come up with a political/personal position that might assuage our differences and make things OK again.
Good news: we are still in love and are finding ways to come to terms. I have firmly, loudly, callously confirmed that I will not modify my beliefs for the sake of salvaging a personal relationship (a risk, I recognised, but one with upside potential). Still playing out, and will for some time, but with inevitably positive results, so you need not tune in for the next episode.
Thanks for listening, all.
Posted by: rapt | Nov 12 2005 3:13 utc | 63
Tante Aime, you’re messing up yr. piles of chickens and eggs.
The reason kids have stopped majoring in CS is ‘cuz Sharkey & Co. Stopped Hiring. I heard CEO of whatever – CISCO, I think – discusssing how they all planned to ship everything overseas in 10 yrs. He gave figures; I posted them at that time. It was hideous. There are stil so many unemployed CS people from Wave I & Wave II, that a college student would be crazy to pursue that path. Possibly Bio-Sciences look like a better bet than engineering.
Until JackAss Party starts campaigning/bloggers start Demanding that all the factories come home immediately why major in Engineering of any sort? Pirates are destroying our entire R&D sector by moving factories overseas. Paul Craig Roberts has been writing about this for some time, tracking the figures. Wall Street’s in love w/slave labor & eff America.
(I heard Sen. Boxer speak recently – and she’s about as good as it gets in that disgusting body. All she had to say was raise min. wage. Yes…that’ll do it. Everyone can make $6.23/hr instead of whatever crumbs it is now. And in case you missed it, John Edwards has joined the Pirates on Wall Street.)
Posted by: jj | Nov 12 2005 3:31 utc | 64
“Conservation of Momentum” what kind of Horseshit is that? You know we ain’t no reality-based Admin. noway.”
Wowwwww .,,,, on same day news of BYU Physics Prof. demolishing official 911 Horseshit, and Prof. Rubin finds smoking gun in Diebold Code!!! Red-letter day folks!! (see my earlier link on other thread.)
Hope the fine professor drives carefully, and BYU doesn’t get too much money from War Dept – or any other branch of govt. Finally, the Mormons come through!! I’m impressed.
Posted by: jj | Nov 12 2005 3:42 utc | 65
I know this will come as a great surprise to Barflies, but the link in DM’s article – on BYU prof. who says WTC brought down by explosives not planes – to the paper the Prof. actually wrote on the subject, is DEAD. My my, I wonder why that would be.
Posted by: jj | Nov 12 2005 3:56 utc | 66
Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?
(link is working)
By Steven E. Jones
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Brigham Young University
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 12 2005 4:08 utc | 67
thanks Outraged. Guess they were just having problems when I tried. Glad it’s back up.
Posted by: jj | Nov 12 2005 4:24 utc | 68
Looks like so many peeps been checking it out the prof’s daily bandwidth allocation has been chewed up.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 12 2005 5:00 utc | 69
It went out in today’s Sam Smith mailing. Anyone think it’ll be featured on any of the so-called liberal/”lefty” blogs? Just wondering….
b- hope you read it and weigh in – as I recall you’ve been way down on the explosives theory, so I’m curious whether this started to change yr. thinking.
Posted by: jj | Nov 12 2005 5:04 utc | 70
My well functioning cortex says definitely explosives.
Rapt,
I have firmly, loudly, callously confirmed that I will not modify my beliefs for the sake of salvaging a personal relationship (a risk, I recognised, but one with upside potential).
My belief is that the risk of rejection by others is a small price to pay for being true to the self.
Thanks to you for expressing your sensible, open-minded self.
Posted by: jm | Nov 12 2005 5:17 utc | 71
I still say we are as a group in shell shock, suffering from excess fear. Our brains have been pummeled continuously with the most obnoxious, low down, humiliating, infuriating, sickening, torrential barrage of detritus in creation from our public figures. When we’re not hearing this we are looking at plastic cannon balls masquerading as breasts topped by ridiculous, taunting facial expressions on our female icons. There is very little to satisfy the senses and the intellect. Self confidence is the antidote and self expression is part of it. It’s always a risk to put yourself out there in the line of fire. Someone will always take a shot.
There are a number of aging pompous windbags on this board, and I include myself among them. There is so much to say. There is no way overposting can be stopped. It’s almost as bad as trying to halt a sneeze. In certain moods, when the mind-hand-eye connection gets going, and the instant audience is available…ZING!!!!!!…a poster can take off like a stone in a wrist rocket. It will usually run its course and calm down naturally, when those who object can grab a breather.
The blogosphere is a new and absolutely exciting fresh and innovative development for us. We don’t have our tribunal yet where trolls can be tried and overposters given sentences. And there is a yet to be controlled energy about it.
I’m remorseful when I overdo it, and I feel the pain of slogging through or past endless posts I don’t like. But I will gladly endure it to have the existence of such a gloriously free forum.
Now is the time to enjoy this magnificent invention, still in its nascent form, before we become jaded.
Posted by: jm | Nov 12 2005 6:22 utc | 72