The NY fucking Times has an op-ed suggesting that it would be good for democracy if we repealed the 22nd Amendment. You know, the one that says that Presidents can only have 2 terms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/opinion/05burns.html

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 5 2006 9:33 utc | 3

don’t know if anyone has mentioned it but the rude pundit and his brother have been visiting and reporting first hand from some of the worst hit katrina sites the past few days,and although unless you see it yourself its almost impossible to comprehend the scope of this diaster,he has done a very good job with comentary and pictures.tried to link but didn’t work.rudepundit.blogspot.com

Posted by: onzaga | Jan 5 2006 11:05 utc | 5

Civil war in Iraq:
Yesterday Attack on Iraqi Funeral Kills at Least 42
Today Attack Near Shiite Shrine in Iraq Kills 49

Posted by: b | Jan 5 2006 11:24 utc | 7

Watching the goggle the other night a report came on a local (NZ) channel about how some suburbs of New Orleans have been left untouched since Katrina. Three guesses as to the primary socio economic grouping in those ‘burbs? Yep give the lady a cigar. Poor and black!
I don’t spend a helluva a lot of time reading US media I suppose I’ll sound snarky if I say that’s because I like to be informed, so instead I’ll say I prefer to find out what’s happening without my blood pressure being raised to dangerous levels.
I do however glance at NYT and WaPo as well as LAT a coupla times a week and I also may have been known to hang around a blog or two where amerikans hang out.
Nowhere have I seen the deliberate policy of keeping the blackfellas out of the ‘new’ New Orleans raised as an issue. Sure a number of people speculated in the immediate post Katrina hullabaloo that this would probably occur but now that it has no-one is saying jack shit.
The African Americans could be excused for thinking that they had served their purpose by looking suitably victimised during the BushCo inertia.
That as far as the ‘left’ is concerned anyway. There is no outpouring of emotion and assistance for these people who are in even direr situations now than they were straight after the storm.
Perhaps it is felt that harping on about these ‘losers’ would simply be flogging a dead horse. All of the points that can be knocked off BushCo polls by this horror have been so it’s time to move onto the next big thing.
Now I’ll concede that this issue is being handled by the MSM in a very similar way to the method I demonstrated that NYT was doing on the West Virginia coal mine deaths. But that just doesn’t cut it as an excuse for the whole amerikan population pretending nothing has happened.
After the huge issue that was made of this neglect at the time it first occurred, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect that a substantial clutch of people would remain concerned for at least long enough to ensure that BushCo didn’t fall back into old habits as soon as the football season got interesting.
I’m not pointing this out to launch a broadside in the general direction of the seppos despite what some may think.
There is no evidence to suggest that any other group of people would behave any differently given the same set of circumstances.
So what am I talking about? Well I have already pointed out in other posts that the economy bad as it is well short of bad enough to drive people to open insurrection.
My personal view about this is that the BushCo/Rethug mob aren’t infallible, they make lots of mistakes but they are just smart enough to be more dangerous than a sensible intelligent person would be.
I reckon that some of them still have enough residual Trotsky ism about them to imagine that a population can be controlled long term from one centralised power base and they have done sufficient research to have come up with a curve which plots the point where people do take to the streets screaming “I’ve had enough and I’m not going to take anymore”.
Here’s the thing. They will also have plotted another graph that shows them the point at which they will have sufficient control over the major organs of the state as to guarantee that they can successfully beat any resistance down mercilessly.
Yeah, yeah. It sounds like some wild conspiracy theory except these guys have proven that they don’t give a fuck about no constitution, rule of law or any of those other quaint old limits on power in a republic.
C’mon you haven’t been drinking the kool aid have you? Why on earth would BushCo risk all on this wiretap bizzo just to listen to a bunch of Ay-rabs planning to blow up some sheeple. Blowing up sheeple is good! Keeps everyone on their back foot. Makes ’em too worried about the poor old Sikh round the corner to think about the ‘guvmint’ protecting them by reading their mail or listening to their phone calls.
Anyway back to the point at hand. This sort of ‘tidiness’ would be right up Rumsfeld and Cheney’s alley. They will have overlaid the two graphs to see at which point the curves intersected.
They will have made sure that the point in time where they have sufficient control over the secret police especially the whole shebang of Homeland Security and the elements of the military and national guard still in the US. That point in time will have been planned to occur well before the other big day. That is the point when things have gotten so bad for Joe Sheeple that he’s on the street waving his 30-08.
Even if amerikans’ life long indoctrination into not feeling the pain of marginalised citizens still holds sway, they need to start resisting now for themselves.
Don’t be letting the pricks pick off the poor of New Orleans, the miners of West Virginia, the Americans from the other side of the Rio Grande who imagine life up north just has to be better than what they have been enduring back home. Rationalising or praying you won’t be next just helps them.
It is vital that all amerikans make sure that as many people as possible know exactly how greedy and uncaring this mob is.
Not for some ‘greater good’. In the cause of self defense as much as altruism.
Scream, Shout and Hassle your representatives about the predicament of the poor of New Orleans now. Don’t wait until it becomes too late for anything other than marveling with the last of your friends that:- “It is wonderful now that the trains run on time.”

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 5 2006 12:05 utc | 9

@Did
Per onzaga’s post the rude pundit: Katrina Plus Four Months, Part 3 – Chalmette
Also see:
Hurricane Katrina dossier

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 5 2006 13:27 utc | 11

Someone help Billmon back up on to his barstool, he has been laying on the floor far too long.

Posted by: E Pluribus Unum | Jan 5 2006 14:30 utc | 13

Good links Uncle Scam.
I posted two energy related points in A Turkish Non-denial, had no time for the third, which is:
US reiterates strong opposition to Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
Forbes
Iran has snatched an opportunity from Afghanistan by nearing an accord with Pakistan and India on the seven billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
“The US will be dismayed as its oil and gas company UNOCAL efforts to pass gas pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan had been delayed because India and Pakistan have opted to sign an accord with Iran, analysts say.”
Delayed ??
India Daily
And, surprise, surprise:
Gazprom eyes stake in Iran pipeline
World War 4 Report
To sum up: An Iranian oil bourse in Euros, Pooty Poot controlling part of the energy in the EU (a bit exagerated, as those most dependent belong to the ex-Soviet bloc. Spain, for example, imports no or almost no fossil fuels from Russia); Russia-Iran collaboration of various kinds, and Gazprom ready to invest in the pipeline that circumvents the longstanding, but now defunct, US plan. According to some, that pipeline was the reason for the Afgh. invasion…

Posted by: Noisette | Jan 5 2006 15:40 utc | 15

During and right after the Katrina disaster there was an upsurge of indignation.
Subsequently, articles about the cause(s), results of investigations on the levees, reports of individual ‘horror’ stories about not being able to return home, etc. were published. Basically, though, no mainstream follow up occurred, and, afaik, nothing has happened; its all move on, nothing to see, business as usual.
The US public is disoriented by the mainstream news, which garbles events, takes them out of context, solicits emotional reactions. In some cases, the emotions are exploited to infantilise the public, make them subservient, get them to count on leaders and parent figures (anthrax, 911), whip them up to hate and encourage a fascist kind of patriotism. The media have become used to implementing this procedure, and did it as well in the case of Katrina, even if, in that case, the ‘enemy’ could only be ‘Fate’ or ‘The Govmint’ (parent figure..). Then, seeing their mistake (bad parent!), they dropped the whole thing. Or perhaps not: underlining that people are subject to disasters which cannot be managed, that results cannot be handled, that repair cannot be implemented, makes people even more insecure, afraid, lonely, vulnerable, and inclined to take orders from saviors wearing Black Boots.
– just one take from far away – ??
Could it be that if the very many private efforts, as well as the plans of local or sub-and/or-para Gvmt. groups or organisations had been allowed to act and save as many as possible with all the considerable means to hand, Katrina would have been seen as a triumph of American pragmatism, technical savvy, and solidarity?

Posted by: Noisette | Jan 5 2006 16:44 utc | 17

Iraq war costs $1-2 Trillion
Please let me have the change…
BTW: Anyone in the MSM noticed that oil is up?

Posted by: b | Jan 5 2006 16:53 utc | 19

Riverbend meditates on the 6 as in 2006

Posted by: b | Jan 5 2006 17:25 utc | 21

To the anonymous poster who in response to the indignant post I made on public apathy about the way that Katrina refugees have been swept under the carpet,tried to compare the two blogs by obviously decent people on Katrina to the massive outpouring of emotion at the time of the Katrina disaster:
I’m not sure how many bloggers there are in the US but I would say more than 200,000. That means that by any estimate less than 0.1% of media interested people in the US are still concerned about the state of the refugees of New Orleans.
A lot of the refugees are still living in temporary accomodation. The children won’t have access to regular community schooling, but who cares eh we’ll just start building their prison cells now.
Posting on contentious issues means that the two most common reactions are either an onslaught of argument or complete silence. Either of those at least suggest that people are considering what has been posted. Not that they are agreeing with it because that would be an aim as despotic as a BushCo goal but at least that they are either resisting the argument by debate and discussion and forming their own view or going off to have a bit of a think.
Lately however as things have gotten worse in the republic another reaction has become increasingly common. That is to nitpick one element of the poster’s rationale and in that way dismiss the whole line of thought. Then everyone can go back to blissful ignorance. Live in the eternal now. The flaw is what will happen when the eternal now becomes unbearable? It won’t be possible to post your thoughts to a blog then. The prison cells built for the African Americans displaced by Katrina aren’t completly full. Look they’ve left one wing for people who have noticed what’s going on and are trying to resist. Too late of course. Still just in time for Prisons of America Corp to meet its quarterly forecast courtesy of your incarceration.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 5 2006 20:31 utc | 23

b real
Unfortunately mining is a very high risk occupation. This is why in many nations working in a coalmine has been about the most lucrative employment that manual workers can get. Throughout the Iron Curtain countries resistance to change came chiefly from mine workers who had managed to negotiate a very good (by comparison to other workers), salary.
They knew what would happen to their employment when their industry was privatised.
Of course when the workers have sufficient power to push for higher wages any employer looks for a less expensive way out. That less expensive way has often been by making the job safer. When mines are less dangerous places to work, then recruitment becomes easier and wage demand lessens.
However even a cursory examination of mining in the US shows that the government in concert with the corporations ‘given’ the right to mine national resources, and thereby mint money, have consistently gone for a third option.
Pay the worker badly and if they object repress them.
Wartime is also considered to be a good time to repress workers particularly miners. I mean anyone would be hard pressed to imagine that the USA was in any direct danger during it’s two year involvement in WWI. I suggest they take a look at Bisbee probably one of the first times that national security was dragged out as a justification to further corporate objectives. In this case the aim had little to do with national security but a helluva lot to do with destroying the Wobblies (IWW).
I apologise if I’m teaching grandma to suck eggs here but I am always unsure of how much of their real history citizens of the USA know.
For example I could walk downtown right now and round up a possies of visitors from the US and ask them ‘How do you think Wilson’s incarceration of Eugene Debs effected the development of human rights in the US?’ Out of ten questioned I would be pleasantly surprised if one even knew who Gene Debs was. Before everyone gets hot under the collar, this is not meant as a criticism of people from the US. It is an observation of how the society has been effectively channelled into debate in a few prescribed areas which everyone knows down to the last obscure detail.
eg Practically everyone of a certain age in the US knows that it was alleged Oswald bought a Mannlicher by mail order.
Yet few knew Sirhan Sirhan’s nationality (Palestinian) much less thought that might be connected to the act of this ‘madman’.
And if I were to try and point out that Oswald was the madman and Sirhan the freedom fighter, I would be howled down in any forum in the US, Liberal or Conservative.
Now I’m not saying stuff like this because I’m a frustrated Brit or Frenchman resentful that the place in the world of my nation has been relegated by US supremacy.
I’m saying it because my experience of people from the US has been positive. I have generally had a great time when in the US and over the years I have developed many close friendships with migrants and visitors from the US.
It’s just that sometimes the depth of indoctrination that good people have been subjected to is often so profound that there seems no other way than to just confront it.
Whilst I wouldn’t describe myself as objective I look at the relationship between individuals and the power structure in the US from a different perspective than say a lot of other left thinking people within the US. That isn’t just because I’m unsure nowadays what ‘left thinking’ really means but because there are a few important points of view that are held across the political spectrum within the US accepted by all.
For someone who hasn’t been completely indoctrinated into these beliefs I am uncertain of their veracity, much less their relevance.
The JFK assassination is a classic example.
But back to mining. plenty of other countries have tried the same model of human resources management of mine workers as the US. The misnamed People’s Republic of China comes to mind.
The thing is that in ‘democratic’ societies they have been pretty unsuccessful keeping the lid on long term. Up until now populations have been generally unable to stomach the harsh treatment of fellow citizens. especially citizens who typify many of the most respected attributes of humanity: Strength, courage and mateship (otherwise known as personal loyalty or solidarity).
When the appalling Thatcher got away with destoying Scargill and his mineworkers union; that was chiefly because she was trying to shut the mines down. The exploitation of oil in the North sea meant that coal was no longer required as a major energy source.
So although there was considerable community unease at miners being so brutally cast out of work, once it had been done there was an ability for the discomforted to ‘move on’. They wouldn’t have to consider the plight of those workers for ever and a day.
What will be really interesting is what’s going to happen now the mines are viable again.
Both sides will try and turn back the clock. The miners to the times when their industrial power was at it’s zenith and the corporations to the Thatcher years.
The result will be up to the Brits themselves.
Hmm still digrressing…
There are some good things coming out of the mineworkers of the US as good things have always come from these workers and their families.
eg A copper mine in Cananea Sonora Mexico has repressed it’s workers since at least 1906 when the first large scale industrial action undertaken in Mexico was brutally repressed by the Mexican government who used fellow miners from Arizona, a few kilometres to the north to bust mineworkers heads and the strike.
Fast forward to 1999 when conditions have hardly improved and the workers take up industrial action once more. The strike was sold out by the union leaders back in Mexico city but one group of ‘outsiders’ decided to remain staunch and assist the miners of Cananea. That was the mineworkers of Arizona.
It should be no surprise that distraction was used in the West Virginia tragedy, firstly to allow the armed authorities to get into place and prevent any public indignation at the heinous acts of the mine corp and it’s friends in state and federal government.
Secondly to ensure that the hoi polloi didn’t worry themselves unneccessarily about the working conditions of hillbillies in 2006.
I suppose those looking for a silver lining can console themselves.
They should consider that had the national media not decided to make an issue of these workers’ jeopardy that the dead would still be dead. On the other hand there were no further deaths resulting from the mine owners and authorities ‘preferred’ method of dealing with these ‘problems’ ie killing and arresting the deceased families.
That method not only stops inconvenient publicity and possible resistance from the corrupt union bosses in Washington or whatever, it also ensures there is no one about to claim compensation for this murder by proxy.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 5 2006 23:48 utc | 25

@fauxreal The Blake quotation takes me back to the 70’s when decadence ruled for a (thankfully, my liver assures me) short time. I had deconstructed Blake’s words to:
You never know whats enough until you’ve had more than enough!
Usually shouted the motto was the inevitable prelude to absorbing some substance; ethanol as much as any other, then casting any inhibitions to one side in search of a good time.
I know we say this with the repetitous monotony of a scratched piece of vinyl but the days before HIV, herpes, 12 step programs and children were a lot of fun.
Sometimes it is difficult to make parenting other than an act of pseudo-pious hypocrisy.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 6 2006 2:52 utc | 27

did – being a late 60’s soul, i totally relate to your comment especially the ‘psuedo-pious hypocrisy’ of later parenting but then my oldest went on to reed and any suggestion of hypocrisy was trodden upon quickly from that point on –

Posted by: old | Jan 6 2006 4:54 utc | 29

Cant resist this story ya’ll reminded me of, musta been a different planet:
When I turned 18 there was this country bar, several miles out in a one (blinking) stoplight town right on the Ohio- Michigan line. It was called The Berkey Bar and every Thursday night that summer it was $1.50 all the beer you could drink. Thats right a buck-fifty and no limits. The two middle aged ladies who ran the joint would just keep filling up the pitchers again and again and again till about two AM when the inevitable and imagined rivalries between the Michigan boys and the Ohio boys would escalate into a mad minute brawl. They only lasted a minute because by this time everybody in the place was too drunk to fight, and besides, the floor was also totally afloat with at least a half inch of beer — wall to wall. So there would be this heap of guys yellin’ and slippin’ and fallin’ and tryin’ to stand up, and at that point somebody would always just start pourin’ beer on the pile squirming around there on the floor. So at closing time everybody was not just drunk, but saturated and literally dripping wet with beer. Which, not being the most comfortable way to drive home, someone got the got the bright idea to go swimming, at a local quarry not far off, so we headed off there. After stripping off the wet clothes, we headed for the water only to find the gate locked up, and since putting those beer soaked clothes back on somehow just seemed wrong, we all just jumped back in the car and headed back to town. Which was bad enough I guess, except that we could’nt figure out or agree on what to do next, so everybody started arguing, at the same time, about what do next, which was all at the same time hilarious if you think about it, and it was — so there we were, five guys, driving around downtown at 2:30 in the morning, all butt naked, and drunk, arguing, and howling with laughter. And I think the radio was probably on.
Should’ve read Blake a little earlyer I suppose, ahhh maybe not.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 6 2006 6:04 utc | 31

Why would Abramoff disclose Republicans involved in corruption when the possibility or probability of a presidential pardon for him is high? He may be jockeying now to insure that pardon. The outcome may be different than hoped for here.

Posted by: mrm | Jan 6 2006 6:14 utc | 33

ATTENTION INTERNATIONAL BARFLIES…
Newsweek as suddenly discovered that Chomsky is the world’s most respected public intellectual…so they conducted an actual interview w/him…there’s a Catch, of course. Only in their International Editions – Jan 9. And only part of the interview is online. Could anyone get it & post the rest for us poor deprived folks in the “belly of the beast”? It would be Seriously Appreciated.
As always, he makes some important points. Aside from his comparison of EyeRack to Vietnam, his opinion of Bu$hCo, he has this to say about current situation in Iraq:
For example, there’s a lot of talk about the United States bringing [about] a sovereign independent Iraq. That can’t possibly be true. All you have to do is ask yourself what the policies would be in a more-or-less democratic Iraq. We know what they’re likely to be. A democratic Iraq will have a Shiite majority, [with] close links to Iran. Furthermore, it’s right across the border from Saudi Arabia, where there’s a Shiite population which has been brutally repressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. If there are any moves toward sovereignty in Shiite Iraq, or at least some sort of freedom, there are going to be effects across the border. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabia’s oil is. So you can see the ultimate nightmare developing from Washington’s point of view. LINK

Posted by: jj | Jan 6 2006 6:48 utc | 35

fauxreal, sometimes, Annie, you just have to take things into your own hands.
porcelaen is so much easier to work with. maybe tomorrow in my studio i’ll do some contemplating.
anna missed, i love your story.
debs, i never heard of debs until you emailed me way back, bisbee is another story, i lived there 5 years and the historical musuen is in the middle of town which is small.
Posting on contentious issues means that the two most common reactions are either an onslaught of argument or complete silence. Either of those at least suggest that people are considering what has been posted
sometimes i just don’t know how to respond. its true about most american, including me, about history.
i am in a quandry about katrina, i think about it alot, even to the point of picking up after my show(art/april) and just heading down there for awhile. here’s the gist. last summer a good friend from my college days invited me to join her and some friends to join them this spring at jazzfest, i have never been and always wanted to go. this group goes every year and has some inside link and its always great fun. when katrina hit i thought it was off, its not. my friend keeps asking if i’m still in. somehow, going to new orleans, partying, with all this devastation just sort of turns my stomach. i saw the photos from the rude pundit today. i’ve bookmarked reconstruction watch and check it periodically. the other day i read about people taking $25 dollar tours of the devastation, 3 going to relief. it just makes me so sick and angry.
i really don’t know if i can just put all that aside and party. maybe i should make plans to join the relief effort for awhile. i don’t know. when i read about most of the residents not returning, it really boils my blood.
so when i don’t respond it doesn’t mean i’m not listening. but sometimes its easier to follow annamissed post and remember bygone days of naked wanderings. (well, not that bygone, i just spent four days @breitenbush 160 acres off the grid. not an ounce of guilt.
do i chuck it and go to jazzfest? can i ? i told her i’d get back to her in a few days, someone is ready to fill my spot w/the group.
tick, tick.

Posted by: annie | Jan 6 2006 8:16 utc | 37

this is weird. i’ll try that again. i’ve bookmarked reconstructuion watch..here it is w/out the link http://www.reconstructionwatch.org/index.php
and check it periodically. the other day i read about people taking $25 dollar tours of the devastation, 3 going to relief. it just makes me so sick and angry.
i really don’t know if i can just put all that aside and party. maybe i should make plans to join the relief effort for awhile. i don’t know. when i read about most of the residents not returning, it really boils my blood.
so when i don’t respond it doesn’t mean i’m not listening. but sometimes its easier to follow annamissed post and remember bygone days of naked wanderings. (well, not that bygone, i just spent four days @breitenbush 160 acres off the grid. not an ounce of guilt.
do i chuck it and go to jazzfest? can i ? i told her i’d get back to her in a few days, someone is ready to fill my spot w/the group.
tick, tick. very weird the way the post was self editing, maybe there is some meaning i should glean from it??

Posted by: annie | Jan 6 2006 8:25 utc | 39

Oops – forgot to finish phrase: by the Sr. Toxic Waste Analyst, should read …Analyst @EPA.
On another front, this is the first time I’ve seen this mentioned…Eric Margolis looks back over the yr. He doesn’t note that xUS pushing Japan to become almost its proxy. Anyway, when tensions are so serious that Top Diplomats between 2 countries are not speaking, somebody should be paying attention:
Big trouble was brewing up in Asia. China, its new colossus, chose to adopt a policy of confrontation with its other powerhouse, Japan, that bodes ill for the future of the region. Sino-Japanese tensions are now so bad that senior officials of the two great nations are not even on speaking terms. China’s decision to stoke anti-Japanese sentiment at home has raised tensions across North Asia and is drawing the US into the confrontation. Add the worsening Taiwan dispute into this equation, and North Asia looks headed for some serious trouble in 2006.
For the first time in modern history, both China and Japan are strong: each is determined to be sole master of the region. Meanwhile, the US cannot decide how to handle China’s growing power. The far right of the Republican Party seems determined to put the US on a military confrontation with China, a potential conflict that the US cannot possibly win. link

Posted by: jj | Jan 6 2006 8:48 utc | 41

Nice to see you back jj,
I’ve never understood Chomsky’s lack of profile here. there is the occasional thing in the New Yorker or some other such publication, but in the MSM he’s pretty much unknown, I remember Hannity spouting off one day about some anti-american MIT professor he said he’d like to debate (ha-ha), and saw him once on the Rose show once (in which at one point in the interview, Charlie stood up from his chair waving his arms all over the place exclaiming “do you know everything!?”) but thats pretty much it. It is suprising that givin his stature, and massive publication record (a few years ago I think he had 3 books on the best seller list at the same time) you’d think he would have been trotted out for ritual demonization by the mainstream yak-yaks — but not a peep — ever (except maybe Brooks, who occasionally whines about him). Even in scholarship, I’m only aware of one ( some austrailian guy) major and public critic.
So he either does’nt like to indulge in such media things, or he gets no takers. I do’nt know which, which I suppose is neither here nor there were it not for the fact that his critique of US foreign policy has been so paramount, encyclopedic, and bound in the official record, as it is, that you’d at least expect an occasional reference to him (his work) might be made from time to time in discussion / debate. For a society so used to having an elephant in the room, you’d think one missing from the room might draw a similar notice.??

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 6 2006 9:26 utc | 43

This just in – looks like they’re not going to be able to keep Sharon alive on machines much longer – minutes, an hour or a few max. Results of his new CAT scan just in – bleeding began again in his brain, rushed into surgery, b.p. up, family rushed to hospital….
Could this toss Iranian mis-adventure onto history’s ash heap??

Posted by: jj | Jan 6 2006 10:03 utc | 45

I dunno if anyone else has seen this yet but it’s a classic insight into how the wheels are falling off for the Pennsylvania Ave crew:

“The White House has been unusually sharply critical of one of the president’s most prominent supporters, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Mr Robertson suggested Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for the withdrawal of Israeli settlers in Gaza.
A White House spokesman described the broadcaster’s remarks as “wholly inappropriate and offensive”.

If the god botherers are going to hang around MoA they need to concentrate. The general feeling of anger and disgust at the asshole the war crim wasn’t so much at the creation of the biggest outdoor concentration camp in the world (yep Gaza is bigger and even more overpopulated than the Warsaw ghetto was) but his deliberate slaughter of women and children at Sabra, Chatila and Jenin.
No wonder these fools get the only book they seem able to read so wrong.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 6 2006 19:58 utc | 47

Hugh Thompson Jr., dies at 62.
My Lai. (NSFW photo) “‘We had conspired with the government of South Vietnam to literally destroy the hopes, aspirations and emotional stability of thirteen thousand human beings…This was not war it is genocide ….’.”
“Thompson landed his chopper between the troops and the shelter, then jumped out and confronted the lieutenant in charge of the chase…Furious, Thompson announced he was taking the civilians out.He went back to Colburn and Andreotta and told them if the Americans fired, to shoot them.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 7 2006 5:13 utc | 49

Giggle of the day:
Reality TV: fleecing the Sheeple for “DHS: The Series”
Here’s the trailer. Looks like it coulda been a big hit–I mean it looks and sounds just like all the other shoot ’em up blow ’em up overwrought cop/soldier dramas–but I suspect C-SPAN’s upcoming “JACKing abramOFF the Big Boy$” will sweep the ratings.

Posted by: catlady | Jan 7 2006 5:48 utc | 51

Comandante Ramona dies

Posted by: Zapatista R.I.P. | Jan 7 2006 8:49 utc | 53

Hanging the Messenger
Another from Glenn Greenwald.
I don’t know who this guy is but he has been kicking major ass over at digby, and from what I have read of him he’s damn near up there w/our billmon.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 7 2006 11:30 utc | 55

Violence threatens Iraq coalition wrote Jill Carroll for the Christian Science Monitor yesterday.
Today she seems to have been kidnapped in Baghdad but there’s very little word of her in the ten and a half hours since she was taken.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 7 2006 17:25 utc | 57

I like MoA and visit often, especially to read Monolycus. But we each of us have a distinctly personal voice and there is no substitute for Billmon. A community is not an author.
He may be used up, run dry, or under threat. Anyway, it’s our loss as thoughtful friends of liberty and a nation writhing in agony for want of courage we loved best in Billmon.
Something similar happened to James Otis in 1774 and his eloquence was lost when needed most.
– Wolf DeVoon

Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Jan 7 2006 18:12 utc | 59

I didn’t know James Otis before you mentioned him Wolf, but Wikipediaed him and learned another nugget thanks to this community.
“Taxation without Representation is Tyranny” and
“If we are not represented, we are slaves”
are both totally and succinctly appro pro for today’s political/societal complex.
And
“…early advocate of the political views that led to the American Revolution.” (my bold) is a goad to we all who have had that foresight, at least since Billmon brought us together, to articulate the those realities to our friends and neighbours (sp., I’m expat. Canuck. I actually imigrated here because I really believed in the American myth of democracy and personal freedoms.)
Let’s assure ourselves that Otis’s lost eloquence won’t be repeated this time around.

Posted by: Juannie | Jan 7 2006 20:16 utc | 61

annie,
fascinating stuff about the earthquakes, it reminds me of Mel Gibson’s character in “Conspiracy Theories” in which he noted that earthquakes occured every time the shuttle was in orbit.
ps, my warning to Debs as well

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 7 2006 20:31 utc | 63