Excellent collection of contradictory articles.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Feb 12 2006 17:18 utc | 3

video
of the soldiers beating the youths can be linked from here. the sound effects are chilling

Posted by: annie | Feb 12 2006 17:43 utc | 5

Sub-Dividing G-d
A propos of G-d, to rustle up the telltales,
even before the winds of war fill our sails.
Of the several high-rank correspondents I’ve
maintained, those in US.gov are saying weird
(for them) things, ‘hold your loved ones near’,
while those from Gulf-to-ASEAN have uniformly
gone radio-silent, every single one of them.
NSA has turned inward against US, espionage
is being sold to the highest bidder, we are
in the end times of a Neo Soviet, and still
1000 days of these lame-duck Pontius Pilates,
rapturing our futures for 12 silver shekels.
Could it implode? Alpha-Tau? ‘The first will
be last, and the last will be first’? Michael
Brown, Michael Chertoff, George Bush, Katrina?
A colossal Tower of Babbel, rising up from an
Iranian Plain of Jars, gone radioactive salt?
“Religion that G-d our Father accepts as pure
and faultless is this: to look after orphans
and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
Does that sound like this White House Cabal?
Who told you they were True Believers? Them!!
Great Satan rears up laughing on his hind feet.
We are voyagers trapped on the Holy Lost Ark.
L’évolution de notre lutte finale sera pathétique.
http://tinyurl.com/dgmy3

Posted by: Gail Abernathy | Feb 12 2006 20:10 utc | 7

We’re all about to get “taken on a ride”
on that stellar anti-gravity funnel beam,
as long as you don’t mind getting dragged
at a speed-of-light-deficit-drain wherever
Star Wars is going.
More Dead Lab-Coats 1980’s s–t. Bablefish.
Playing the DoD grant morons for suckers.
Here’s Dr. Felber’s lab-coat welfare plan:
“DTRA can realize huge cost savings if
low-cost flux compression can sharpen the
pulses and compress the power curve.” OK…
“Scottie, the flux capacitors are smoking!”
“I’m giving it all I got, en’uh, Captain!”
We are being destroyed by DOD/DHS entitlements.
Corrosion alone, ordinary everyday rust, costs
DOD $30 BILLION a year in lost inventory, more
than the entire Education Budget, gone to dust.
Then these PhD ass-clowns get paid billions
to sit on their Cray-butts, and gyn up sci-fi
grants-in-aid for a Next Generation Scam (NGS).
This guy’s a professional welfare mother-f-r.
– –
During his 30-year career, Dr. Felber has led physics research and development programs for the
Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation,
the National Institute of Justice, National Institutes of Health, and national laboratories.
Dr. Felber is Vice President and
Co-founder of Starmark.
ADVANCED ENGAGEMENT PLANNING FOR
NUCLEAR ENVIRONMENTS
STARMARK, INC. (SAN DIEGO, CA)
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:
Franklin S. Felber
Starmark, Inc.
P. O. Box 270710
San Diego, CA 92198-2710
Phone: (858) 676-0055
ABSTRACT:
The Phase I objective is to identify and parameterize the engagement tactics that will be most effective
in the nuclear environments of salvage-fuzed and impact-fuzed ballistic missiles. Engagement tactics
to be analyzed will include innovative firing tactics, such as shoot–no-look–shoot with variable laddered-
down salvos, and flyout patterns that minimize redout backgrounds and exploit atmospheric shielding.
Comparisons of engagement tactics with hardening will be done parametrically with respect to ballistic
missile threats and to the operational capabilities, hardness, and inventory of interceptors. Probability of
zero leakage will be the figure of merit. Starmark will use the missile-defense performance and
engagement code, National Missile Defense Operability (NMDO), developed for DTRA by the PI, which
performs engagement analysis, calculates nuclear environments self-consistently with detonation upon
intercept, and calculates the resulting degradation of missile-defense operability and probability of
zero leakage. The Phase II objective will be to delineate the conditions under which the various innovative
and conventional engagement tactics can supplant hardening for current and projected missile defense
architectures and scenarios. We anticipate teaming in a classified Phase II program with an MDA
aerospace/defense contractor.
STARMARK, INC.
P. O. Box 270710
San Diego, CA 92198
Phone:
PI:
Topic#: (858) 676-0055
Franklin S. Felber
DTRA 00-018
Title: Innovative Flux-Compression Approaches for Next Generation Machines
Abstract: Starmark and Maxwell Systems Division have teamed to demonstrate the feasibility of using
flux compression to achieve pulse sharpening and power compression in Next Generation Machines
(NGMs) and to demonstrate that flux compression can be a simple, robust, efficient, and reliable means
of doing so. Using flux compression for pulse sharpening on x-ray simulators promises potential savings
of many tens of millions of dollars on NGMs. The objectives of the Phase I program are: (1) To assess
the feasibility of various flux-compression design configurations for pulse sharpening of x-ray simulators,
including inside-out coaxial sweeping-wave and helical-coil generators, as well as outside-in designs.
(2) To integrate plasma stability analysis into the design evaluation and design optimization processes.
(3) To systematize the process for optimizing flux-compression design parameters and implement the
process to produce a conceptual design of an effective and efficient flux-compression generator and
design options for an NGM. Anticipated products of the program include an assessment and conceptual
designs of the most promising candidates for configurations and design options for flux-compression
generators for NGMs. The Starmark/Maxwell team will work closely with DTRA to ensure that the program
contributes to the major investment decisions that must be made in planning and designing NGMs.
DTRA can realize huge cost savings on future x-ray simulators if flux compression will allow use of
long-rise-time (250 – 500 ns) voltage pulses to achieve short (50 – 100 ns) implosion times of plasma
radiation sources. Opportunities for application of flux-compression technology in the commercial arena
include all high-power pulsed-power applications in which cost savings can be realized by building
microsecond-pulse, moderate-voltage generators and using low-cost flux compression to sharpen the
pulses and compress the power.

Posted by: Clarence Michaels | Feb 12 2006 21:08 utc | 9

Hmm in an odd way we needed that sobering referral back to the horrors of the Imperial model of power structures.
I know that one of the reasons I haven’t had much to say lately is the sort of ennui that comes from looking inwards, combined with the shame of worrying about whether someone’s phones are tapped, when in other parts of the world, that isn’t an issue. In those places when the phones, whose calls are listened by every man and his dog, stop working at 3.00am, even the children know that it means the jackboots are going to come crashing through the door.
Riverbend’s story really got to me. The reason I identified with it was her description of the ordinariness of the actions of the home invaders in a situation that was extra-ordinary for the other actors, reminded me of a similar circumstance when I was young.
I was about seventeen, a student at Uni and was woken up by a kick to my head (I thought it was cool to sleep on a futon a few inches above the floor- heh the last time I did that). Once awake I saw that there were more burly blokes in my room than it seemed could possibly fit. Some were uniformed, most were not but the thing that really caught my attention was the gun pointed at me. This by a bloke who seemed to be in charge and was ordering me out of bed. Even nowadays NZ Police don’t normally carry guns, in fact in those days handguns were virtually unobtainable, and my repulsion was tempered by a young male’s fascination with seeing a real handgun up close for the first time. I had to restrain myself from reaching out grabbing it and saying “Wow can I take a look at that?”
Although I wasn’t well endowed with common-sense in those days I had enough to not grab at the gun.
All of these thoughts must have happened in an instant. I got dressed to the sound of various blokes insinuating that I must be a ‘homo’, this because a classmate who was too tired to drive all the way home the night before had crashed on the couch in the corner of my room.
That poor bloke was copping it big time, although he had picked up on the stunt these invaders were pulling.
That is they were trying to establish ascendency over us through intimidation and humiliation. So he didn’t rise to their taunts.
I had a pretty fair idea why this was happening but my classmate had none and in what I later learned was pretty standard m.o. they ‘authorities’ weren’t telling us why they were there.
A couple of nights ago an act of what would now undoubtedly be termed ‘terrorism’ but which we considered was ‘just making a statement’ had occurred at a foreign owned corporation’s NZ offices (before conclusions are leapt at, it wasn’t a US corporation). Considerable effort had been made to ensure that no people could/would be in the vicinity, something which at the tine appeared sufficient to adolescents who were not that well versed in either consequential thinking or ‘Murphy’s law’.
These two factors would cause any of the participants to dismiss any such action out of hand once they matured a little.
Anyway I was dragged off along with my classmate (talk about wrong place at wrong time stuff), over the somewhat subdued protests of my housemates (It wasn’t just fear which kept them quiet, it subsequently transpired that one of them; a schoolteacher who had been caught smoking ‘pot’ a couple of years before, was working off his ‘debt’ to society by immersing himself in the ‘counter-culture’ and informing on us).
The only reason I bring this up (if I don’t in fact delete this), is that once back on the police and security services territory, we were split up and they moved straight into physical torture right from the get go.
The thing about that which horrified me the most was that they knew exactly what they were doing and had obviously done this stuff many times before.
It was that I most identified with in Riverbend’s tale.
These acts of intimidation and abuse of power are bad enough in themselves, but if you’re young and naive the way this horror appears to be absolutely ordinary, just another day at the office for the torturers, is what horrifies most of all.
I had suffered a depressed fracture to my skull about a year before (caused by apolice baton during a particularly violently resisted attempt to prevent our expression of opposition to Vietnamese people being slaughtered), and at one stage during this question-free ‘interrogation’ I can remember being on the ground while assorted thugs kicked the shit outta me. I was concerned that one of their boots may land in the ‘sweet spot’ ie the part of my skull where the bone had been pulled back up off my brain to mend by re-attaching to the rest of my cranium.
I then did the stupidest thing I had done in a long while. I pointed out to them that perhaps they should avoid that spot lest they have a dead interrogee. Ah the naivety of youth. I had given them a good target to aim for and a couple of the bones in my right hand were shattered by their kicks as I tried to protect my head from their kicks..
Anyway I won’t bore any longer with this tale of woe because however bad the treatment a white kid from the burbs copped from NZ ‘authorities’ all those years ago it would have been nothing in comparison to what could have happened to Riverbend’s uncle had he put a foot wrong during his home invasion.
We can see and hear from the english video of brutes ar work, some blokes really get their rocks off beating the shit out of younger males.
I have my theories on this and guess any of the psychologists could give us even more, although it doesn’t take a great deal of knowledge or skills to adduce this video narrator’s motivation. These sort of acts always have the opposite effect from the one that the authority’s leadership claims they are achieving.
It may be possible to beat someone a little older, who has more than just himself to worry about eg a family, a mortgage, a job; into submission. I’d reckon that trying this on a young wanna-be male is almost always going to have the opposite effect.
For example my classmate who got caught up in all this simply because he was unlucky enough to have been allocated DiD as a project partner, immediately became a committed member of our ship of fools.
We go back to Riverbend’s story which in it’s own way is far more cause for concern than those kids’ hidings. That is foul and evil in itself.
A few things are apparent; firstly that since Negroponte, Baghdad is being ‘tamed’ by the sort of continuous harrassment of the citizenry that is the antithesis of developing the open and democratic state BushCo claims to be seeking.
But the real horror is contained in these lines from Riverbend :

…..”Last time they had raided my aunts area, they took away four men on their street alone. Two of them were students in their early twenties- one a law student, and the other an engineering student, and the third man was a grandfather in his early sixties. There was no accusation, no problem- they were simply ordered outside, loaded up into a white pickup truck and driven away with a group of other men from the area. Their families haven’t heard from them since and they visit the morgue almost daily in anticipation of finding them dead.”…..
…..”We found out a few hours later that one of our neighbors, two houses down, had died. Abu Salih was a man in his seventies and as the Iraqi mercenaries raided his house, he had a heart-attack. His grandson couldn’t get him to the hospital on time because the troops wouldn’t let him leave the house until they’d finished with it. His grandson told us later that day that the Iraqis were checking the houses, but the American troops had the area surrounded and secured. It was a coordinated raid.
They took at least a dozen men from my aunts area alone- their ages between 19 and 40. The street behind us doesn’t have a single house with a male under the age of 50- lawyers, engineers, students, ordinary laborers- all hauled away by the ‘security forces’ of the New Iraq. The only thing they share in common is the fact that they come from Sunni families (with the exception of two who I’m not sure about).”…..

Not only has Riverbend described an act of genocide chillingly familiar to the description of the Srebrenica slaughter, it appears this genocide is being committed with US connivance. No I’m not shocked by US assistance in genocide per se, that has been a permissable act dating back to at least WW2. What concerns and surprises me that given the current contra temps BushCo are trying to crank up with Iran, assisting Shia ascendency in this area must be counterproductive.
It’s a sad indication of the calluses most of us have allowed grow across our empathy, that it requires two incidents as bad as these ones are, to put our thoughts back onto the real victims of Empire.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 12 2006 23:16 utc | 11

Refering to the “MARS BITCHES” link, of course.

Posted by: Gaianne | Feb 13 2006 1:03 utc | 13

“The Long War”
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0212-01.htm
How to make enemies and succeed in the business of arms manufacture….first you gotta sell the product to the peeple.

Posted by: catlady | Feb 13 2006 2:32 utc | 15

Cloned poster said:
One must wonder why NOTW Murdoch has released this video.
I reckon Murdoch’s doing his well reknowned climbing off the bandwagon trick. This is the moment every politician lives in dread of. Murdoch’s immense power stems from the fact that the hand that giveth doth taketh away. The Sun’s desertion of Margaret Thatcher would be about the most radical of these.
There won’t be anything philosophical in it, just economic, Murdoch never been a fool and only a fool would think there’s a dollar in firing nukes off.
It could also be NOTW is more intent on undermining Bliar than any issue over Iran.
It seems that Rupe may have found a Tory leader he can work with in David Cameron and so Bliar may be superfluous to current requirements.
Murdoch is a pragmatist, in addition to being prepared to share Murdoch’s world view and being compliant enough to do what he/she is told, to cop the Murdoch good politiking seal of approval, a politician must be a winner.
If so this is the clearest sign yet Bliar is dead in the water.
Murdoch is a study in contradictions. He never shows any loyalty to politicians, he regards them contemptuously but he can be big on personal/corporate loyalty. There was a drunken old leftie journo who had known Murdoch since the Adelaide Advertiser days when Rupe’s dad Keith Murdoch was in charge of the operation; and his son was being indoctrinated as company man.
Jim and Rupert would never have politically seen eye to eye on anything, yet Murdoch gave Jim the editorship of one of his papers and suffered his drunken follies, compounded with lefty attacks on the Tory state government. It was reckoned even when Murdoch had made News Ltd multinational he still read the front page of each and every fishwrap daily.
Same with the Reuters thing. Reuters haven’t been on message about the Iraqi invasion yet. As far as anyone can tell they weren’t pulled into line.
Reuters lost two journalists early on in the piece when Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel was ‘accidentally’ shelled by US forces, which may well be why Murdoch allowed the newswire to run it’s anti-invasion stories. If so it makes for good company politics within his entire organisation.
Lest anyone imagine this post may be an apprecition of anything Murdoch stands for let me disabuse you.
The point is that, just as many a control freak before him has, Murdoch is fickle and probably considers himself some sort of honorable eccentric deep down.
All that tells us is that like other meglamaniacs there is no limit to Rupert Murdoch’s self delusion.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 13 2006 5:39 utc | 17

@ The “Truth”…
I’d rather wait and see what the verdict is from some qualified physicists first. One thing to remember is that if anyone ever does come up with a way to make interstallar travel genuinely practical (as opposed to a big old waste of resources), it would potentially spell an end to competition for resources.
Why don’t you just wait and tell us, we’ll all be on tenterhooks until we here from you. Even you concede that ” if the guy is right the futurists might, for the first time ever, actually be right.” Since it would be, by your own admission, for the first time ever, how much hope do you think we should place in this ‘Eldorado’?
By the author’s own admission “His rigorously tested and truly unique thinking has taken us a huge step forward in making near-speed-of-light space travel safe, possible, and much less costly.” How is it rigorously tested; where are the chimps to interview on NPR? Also this minor disclaimer: “In the ‘antigravity beam’ of a speeding star, a payload would draw its energy from the antigravity force of the much more massive star. In effect, the payload would be hitching a ride on a star. Good, lets all wait till a speeding star streaks by and we’ll stick out our thumbs and hitch a ride.
Even if this chimera were somehow true, how would we be able to get our raw materials from outer space except by millions of interstellar ‘trucks’ ferrying back and forth polluting our atmosphere with each exit and reentry. And how will this solve the increasingly perilous problem of orbital junk surrounding our planet and putting any launch into peril? Will any of this solve global warming?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is such tripe as to be not worth a sentient thought. Cordially….

Posted by: Malooga | Feb 13 2006 6:34 utc | 19

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Dick Cheney must be reenacting his mental and emotional life as a child of the 1950s, as are the other stringpullers at large.
Because they certainly seem to be dragging us back to that time, that mindset. The air is full of the same cold war style; the FBI cop shows, the simplifying, the gee-whiz gadgets of the future.
Even mentioning the n word scares the crap out of me these days — it’s no longer just a phrase. I was reminded about some sci-fi story I read long ago about a child with six fingers, a mutation due to some terrible nuclear event I assume. Both common themes in SF back in the day, life after a nuclear holocaust and mutation.
The current event might be DU, agent orange, chernobyl or bhopal. I guess years back it was thalidomide … anyway,
Thanks guys I always wanted to live in the future.

Posted by: jonku | Feb 13 2006 7:07 utc | 21

I’m not slow to change my mind, sometimes I even do it without noticing, yet I still can’t believe in the attack on Iran.
If one assumes that the main aim is to control ME ressources, then Iran will have to be taken over; partly as Iraq has to be pacified. How to accomplish that? It would costs billions and billions which the US doesn’t have; hundreds of thousands of troops that the US ain’t got, and NATO is not willing to give (yet?) Holding the oil fields (areas) alone won’t work either.
Precision bombing of nuclear sites is in itself a useless and ridiculous thing to do, except as a first salvo to provoke escalation. (The Iranians are not building nuclear bombs.) Then what?
Meanwhile the price of oil flies south (the market), the US discusses a complete embargo on Iran (Halliburton has stopped doing biz there, reluctantly, I read), and Iran thinks about selling less oil! Lunatic!, or rather taunts and threats, agressive posturings, from both sides.
The scenario for Iraq – depose Saddam, set up ‘democracy’ and a puppet Gvmt, maintain a heavy military presence, multiple bases, to ensure control – create a ‘free market’, more liberty for civilians, see to it that living standards rise, revamp education, watch the country ‘take off’ in a frenzy of materialist excitement – in short, create a weird kind of little America while preserving local customs of worship, desert lore, family customs, etc. (not diet!), while unrealistic was nevertheless a possibility, a dream not entirely divorced from reality. Because Iraq was extremely weak on the military end, was partly destroyed already, poor and getting poorer (sanctions), because Saddam was reviled by a large part of the population and was seen as contributing to their misery….it might have been manageable. WW2 ‘liberation’ scripts – remember the hearts and flowers? – played a big mythical role.
Subsequently, it did not work out, though one could qualify it as a semi-success for the moment. Well, not a total failure at any rate. The US miscalculated in various ways, of course, and mismanaged through greed and utter incompetence. The polarisation of the different communities — Sunni, Shia — are not just symptoms of crazed muslim ‘attitudes’ but are an outcome of the whole story. It is a way for the occupied to show – well you have bitten off more than you can chew…
But who could possibly imagine such a plan for Iran? Nobody.
Therefore, the plan to attack Iran is not real, or another one, of a different kind, is operating.
Has Israel benefitted from the Iraq invasion? No. Naturally, its leaders may not care about that….
(–Debs good on Murdoch, thanks, that’s exactly it.)

Posted by: Noisette | Feb 13 2006 17:13 utc | 23

The scenario for Iraq – …
is nothing like the plans I have read about recently for Iran. There is no intention to occupy. Massive bombing against military targets – as well as key infrastructure and the occupation of Iran’s oil and gas fields. The Iranian army is severly damaged and the regime is cut off from its own oil. Here is one account of how it could happen.
There is no doubt that disaster will ensue. However, disaster has always worked quite nicely for the Cheney Admin. In the wake of an attack on Iran, Cheney et. al. would be in a good position to ram through their complete agenda – which could include cancelling elections, detention centers, etc.,

Posted by: tgs | Feb 13 2006 19:22 utc | 25

@Malooga:

What, did a gang of masked astrophysicists kill your parents while holding up a gas station or something? You really seem hostile!

That aside, I consulted a friend of mine who has a degree in physics and is working on a PhD thesis in mathematics. The initial reaction was “I wasn’t aware this problem was still open,” which would have been enough to make me decide that this probably won’t lead anywhere, but was then followed by “and I just did a seminar in general relativity a couple months back.” It is, of course, possible that my friend is just woefully underinformed, but if this problem isn’t even “big” enough to be mentioned in a graduate-level seminar on the subject, then it probably doesn’t mean much. So it looks like the futurists and the Republican party will continue to be tied for “fewest correct predicitons” for

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Feb 14 2006 8:01 utc | 27

@Keith
You might have come in a bit late if you are just learning about the Neocons (I bookmarked my Billmon neocon introduction here) – but anyway – you certainly have not been slow if figuring out the inanity of this “pre-emptive” philosophy.
Also, as has been pointed out around here, making war preparations is illegal according to the Geneva Convention (as if that mattered).
Of course the point you make probably hasn’t been lost on (say) the Chinese . .. long ways down the track, but at this rate it’s bound to happen someday … (might quench the Empire thing a bit)

Posted by: DM | Feb 15 2006 14:24 utc | 29

When Brazil’s leaders start threatening to “wipe Argentina off the map”, then it is time to consider bombing Rio.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Feb 16 2006 11:33 utc | 31