It’s a Free Country

Bush acknowledges to have authorized the NSA spying within the United States on U.S. citizens.

Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution."

This is about as "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution" as torture is.

Cont. reading: Lots of Questions

by Monolycus

On 20th April, 2005 Senate bill 256 (sponsored by Senator Charles Grassley [R-IA]) became Public Law 109-8.  This law is better known by its more Orwellian title of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.

Far from protecting consumers as its name implies, the purpose of the bill, according to most non-partisan consumer advocacy groups appears to be  "…padding the pockets of the wealth-heavy credit industry". 

Cont. reading: Tsunami On Its Way

We are baaaaaccckkk.

Hope you have missed MoA!

What happened? 

The typepad folks somehow screwed up their scheduled maintenance.

Shit happens … I once kicked half a million users offline by accident and it took 2/3 of a day to get them back online. They were not amused … Anyhow:

News & Views …

Still in search of holiday presents? How about Baghdad Burning – Riverbend’s girl blog from Iraq now available as a book (Amazon, Barnes&Nobel).

Today Riverbend posted some observations on the campaigns and election. The Iran supported Shia list is likely to win. For Iraqi women this a huge step backwards:

Cont. reading: Voting in Iraq

A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source, one of the military officials in charge of the program says.

Cont. reading: $300 Million Propaganda

Screenshot from www.washingtonpost.com, Oct 19, 2005

Back in October I sent the above screenshot to Dan Froomkin and asked
"Who is More?". Dan wrote back: "I consider myself warned! Thanks for
the heads up!".

This Sunday the Washington Post newspaper ombudswoman, Deborah Howell, wrote:

Cont. reading: “How to Defeat Hamas, Froomkin, More”

An officer handed Nahvi’s mother, Nancy, a form asking if she wanted her 24-year-old son’s body parts returned if they were recovered. President Bush sent his parents a three-paragraph condolence letter. It contained a typo: "God less you."
A Unit’s Fitful Year at War, WaPo, Dec 13, 2005

Words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
Politics and the English Language, George Orwell, 1946

Open Thread …

The Washington Post has this nice graphic about the flow of money in the Abramoff scandal. Over $5.3 million has flown from casino rich tribes through Abramoff’s lobbying shop to committee heads in Congress. Most of the money did go to Republicans, but a hefty share also went to Democrats.

Cont. reading: Scandals

Viveka Novak, a journalist for Time who last week testified in the Plamegate case, spills her beans about the questions Fitzgerald put to her.

Turns out she had a calender problem similar to Judy Miller’s.

Cont. reading: Calendar Problems

This from Capital Hill Blue, not always the most believable source, but it fits everything else we know.

Cont. reading: That Goddamned Piece of Paper

There is a lot of outrage about something the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is supposed to have said. The UN security council condemns him, the EU is chipping in and several states had harsh talks with their respective ambassador from Iran.

The papers report Ahmadinejad "denied the holocaust" and "called for Israel to be relocated to Europe". But did he really say so and when and to whom?

Cont. reading: Confusing Reports

News & views …

International climate talks in Montreal: U.S. Delegation Walks Out. The U.S. and Australia are blocking any Kyoto successor. A decent press roundup with a debug of the Australian spin is in this WaPo World Opinion.

Flying in an ex U.S. president on short notice was a bit of a stunt, but of course it didn´t change anything:

"I think it’s crazy for us to play games with our children’s future," Mr. Clinton said. "We know what’s happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."

But maybe this gave a realistic impression:

The National Environmental Trust distributed custom-printed noise-making rubber whoopee cushions printed with a caricature of President Bush and the words "Emissions Accomplished."

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. … I don’t know what will go first—Rock and Roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me."

A decent walk from my place is the Reeperbahn. At the beginning of their career they played for a few month at one of the clubs there. Their old hairdresser still has the autographs hanging in his shop.

I was a bit too young to really get the early records. Later, during some interesting travels with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I started to understand relativity.

The music was part of my personal revolution. The White Album is one of my treasures. His portrait is one of the most intense photographs I know.

Annie gives a precious intense view on him in her comment:

by annie

i was stringing popcorn unsuccessfully, it was before i knew dayold popcorn strung better. i heard it over the radio.   

when i was ten i thought i might marry him. i belonged to a fan
club and got the records before they were available at the record
stores. there was a section between the living and dining rooms
w/sliding doubledoors, a closet area w/the record player. my only
record. i would dance for hours to the same songs.

one of my fondest memories is my father bringing home 2 tickets to
the cow palace. by the time we went his leg was in a cast. i left him
immediately once they appeared and ran to the stage. i was one of the
first and as a result was directly in front of him, a crowd pushing
against my back, security guards in front. the dress i had made for the
occasion got ripped. they stopped the music and said they wouldn’t
continue unless we calmed down. i was 11. my first concert.

we spent one christmas in lake tahoe, i got frost bite. the revolver
album came out. i understood what he meant in norwegian wood, after
close scrutiny.

i met john lennon. really. it was when he and yoko came to the bay
area to concieve, something to do w/a healer or acupuncturist in sf.
would have been summer 71 possibly 72. about 9 months before sean was
born. they rented my friends house. i was the nanny/babysitter. it was
a house fashioned out of the wood from an old bridge on lovell avenue
in mill valley. i spent days cleaning making it just right. we had to
remove all the childrens drawings from the walls. and place a
television across from the bed. i placed a ceramic bowl i had made for
them and filled it with figs, i assume they took it, it wasn’t there
when we returned. i also left a detailed map of one of my favorite
intimate places to go for a walk where they would not be distirbed. my
friend rosa, who owned the house, her 4 children and i were going to
mexico while they were there. by then i was not the same 11 year old
girl. i had been altered thru teen years of herman hesse, peyote, dylan
and his music. and the 60’s.

that night listening to the radio, first that he had been shot, then
the finality. everything flooded back to me. the figs, if they ever
followed the map. feeling so very small and looking in his eyes. this
is a very private memory, i don’t know why i am telling you now. it’s
not exactly a secret, but nothing i usually share.

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The man was renditioned to Egypt, was tortured and testified on Al Qaeda-Iraq links. The professionals did not believe him, but the Cheney administration did use the testimony to justify the Iraq war.

So it did work for them. Too lazy to make up the lies themself I guess.

The U.S. public does not eat all the propaganda crumbs falling off the administration table – like we "promote democracy/piece in the Middle East" or we "free Iraqi people".

But other things like the false "Irak => terrorism" meme seem to stick.

Cont. reading: “Our Oil Interests”

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

Today Harold Pinter received the Nobel Prize in Literature 2005. He did give a conscience-rattling lecture:

Pinter first looks at art and describes how his plays grow:

Cont. reading: Pinter: The Dignity of Man

News & views …