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June 13, 2006
OT 06-52
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No coalition on Iran – Japan skips out: Japan Wary Of Plan for Sanctions Against Iran
Despite months of pressure from Washington, Japan has become increasingly reluctant to join a Bush administration plan for sanctions against Iran if negotiations fail to resolve concerns over the country’s nuclear program, Japanese and U.S. officials said Monday.
Japanese officials are suggesting that their country, which has more at stake in Iran financially than any other potential sanctions partner, may not join in punitive measures unless there is a broad international consensus along the lines of a U.N. Security Council resolution or other measure backed by nations now reluctant to impose sanctions, such as China. The White House had hoped instead to bring Japan into a “coalition of the willing” that avoided dealing with “recalcitrants” such as Russia and China.
Monbiot: Behind the spin, the oil giants are more dangerous than ever
For a company that claims to have moved “beyond petroleum”, BP has managed to spill an awful lot of it on to the tundra in Alaska. Last week, after the news was leaked to journalists, it admitted to investors that it is facing criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to seep across one of the world’s most sensitive habitats. The incident was so serious that some of its staff could be sent to prison.
Had this been Exxon, the epitome of sneering corporate brutality, the news would have surprised no one. But BP’s rebranding, like Shell’s, has been so effective that you could be forgiven for believing that it had become an environmental pressure group. These companies have used the vast profits from their petroleum business to create the impression that they are abandoning it.
Call to Decision
Attorney Elsebeth Baumgartner is facing 66 years and 6 months in jail in a political payback case for uncovering serious corruption in Cuyahoga Country, OH, which leads directly to the White House.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 13 2006 7:12 utc | 3
NSA Blocking Whistleblower From Telling Committee About Shocking, Illegal Activities
Tice said his information is different from the terrorist surveillance program that President Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts last month that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. Because he worked on special access programs, however, it has not been clear on Capitol Hill which committees have jurisdiction to debrief him. Shays and Kucinich gave the NSA until Friday to explain any legal reason why they cannot interview him. But that deadline passed without a response, and a subcommittee aide today called the missed deadline troubling.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 13 2006 7:16 utc | 4
Palestinian disarray results from cumulative past failures, including the slow death of the Oslo process without a peace agreement. That has resulted, in part, from Israel’s bad habit of illegally building settlements on Arab land, so that the creation of a viable Palestinian state that is more than a collection of disconnected Bantustans is in serious doubt. That is why it was alarming to hear, even as Mr Olmert was pledging to withdrew from “most” of the West Bank, that plots of land have gone on sale to build new homes near the large settlement of Ariel, one of the “blocs” Israel insists on retaining, even though it is deep in Palestinian territory. Israel and its supporters often argue that after nearly 40 years of occupation, many of the facts that have been created on the ground are irreversible – although that wasn’t the case when it evacuated and dismantled outposts in Sinai or Gaza. The only thing that is truly irreversible is death. And there has been far too much of that already.
Sorry, don’t mean to flood the board, but being as we are sure to lose the internet soon to big money lobbist’s with the Net neutrality bullshit.
Google follows Yahoo: Restrictions Applied in China
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 13 2006 7:37 utc | 6
Two interesting bits of news today:
1) the BBC World service gave a prominent place to a U.S. Army major
acting as lawyer for Guantanamo prisoners and advocating the abolition
of the detention center. Furthermore he called the legal process there “show trials” (and this was picked up by the interviewer).
2) it has come out (revealed by Massimo D’Alema, the new Italian
foreign minister) the Silvio Berlusconi made a secret deal (not approved by the Italian parliament, or (of course) the U.S. congress)
for Italy to keep 1000 troops in Iraq.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 13 2006 15:11 utc | 8
Rove off the hook?
Leak Counsel Won’t Charge Rove, Lawyer Announces
The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.
The decision by the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced in a letter to Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, lifted a pall that had hung over Mr. Rove who testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer’s identity.
In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, “On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove.”
Maybe – Luskin has lied before.
A unannounced state visit
Bush Trip Kept Secret, Even to His Host
President Bush traveled to Iraq under exceptional security and secrecy – even for a president who is pressing a war on terrorism.
Without notice, he left Camp David, Md., Monday night in a helicopter – not the distinctive green and white one he usually uses – and flew to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. He boarded Air Force One from the back rather than the front, wearing a ball cap, slacks and a shirt with no tie.
…
“Good to see you,” exclaimed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who had expected to be talking to Bush today in a videoconference to Camp David.
That must be the result of the “strategy session” Bush had on Iraq over the weekend. Now we know it was a PR strategy session.
What does it say when the U.S. President has to sneak in and out of a country in secret?
What does it to the honour of an Iraqi premier when he is “suprised” by such an unannounced visit?
and what does it say about his calls for responsible fuel consumption when he flies eleven hours to spend less than five hours at his destination?
Posted by: b real | Jun 13 2006 15:41 utc | 11
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, or go to Mexico.
Yeah, HST only stole a ‘af of it.
Posted by: Ambrose Bierce | Jun 13 2006 16:06 utc | 12
@b – He’ll be sneaking around for the rest of his miserable life.
Posted by: beq | Jun 13 2006 16:24 utc | 13
“Sorry, don’t mean to flood the board, but being as we are sure to lose the internet soon to big money lobbist’s with the Net neutrality bullshit.”
Well!! There go PC sales down the tube as well as soft ware. Is Bill Gates going to sit still for that?
Posted by: pb | Jun 13 2006 18:12 utc | 14
hey, b- and others here who read the crystal pawnshop balls of wall street.
–what’s up there? or rather, what’s down?
Has this been the second day of selloffs? are ppl taking profits b/c of the predicted interest rate rise, or are ppl sniffing the air around Dubya deficit and thinking something stinks?
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 13 2006 18:52 utc | 15
People have been conditioned to ignore the long term deficit: Pay later. They claim instead it’s the concern over rising interest rates intended to curb inflation…
A short term worry. [NOT!]
Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 13 2006 20:34 utc | 16
@fauxreal “what’s up there? or rather, what’s down?”
My reading of the market slump is that the smart money (eg. Gross) has known for a long time that:
– the recent GDP growth is mainly corporate profit driven, felt by the top 1% rather than the populace
– US productivity increases were due to a one-off exporting of low productivity jobs, not investment or an IT “miracle”
– the deficit is unsustainable, esp. if China stabilises or needs it’s T-bills to re-capitalise its banks
– the consumer is worried now that property has peaked and their real income continues to fall
– the USD has to fall, which given the level of imports means inflation will come up
Until now, there has been no reason to jump off the gravy train as plentiful liquidity and increasing leverage continually drove asset prices higher. In a down market that same leverage forces selling as it unwinds.
Just a few thoughts…
Posted by: PeeDee | Jun 13 2006 21:38 utc | 17
Of all the mean low down walk under a snake’s belly stunts that Israel has pulled during the illegal occupation of Palestine (see numerous ignored UN resolutions), Israeli gutlessness in trying to duck the consequences of their deed, the murder of that young family picnicking on a beach in Gaza is the lowest, BY FAR!. And believe me that is really low.
I watched some IDF officer who had “carried out a full and thorough investigation” by looking at some selected pix from their spies in the sky, worm, wriggle and obsfucate his way through in a clumsy attempt to avoid an undeniable truth.
The truth is that the IDF has been continuously shelling the Gaza territory which they ‘gave back’ (you can’t give what isn’t yours in the first-place, thieving scum), about 500 metres past where this family was trying to inject some normality into the hell on earth the Israeli state has made of their lives, when a mis-fire or faulty load caused a shell to fall short.
It fell short right on top of a young family who had committed the crime of being Palestinian in an area where Israelis want no Palestinians, even if it means imprisoning, torturing and murdering every last Palestinian man, woman and child.
This is no exaggeration, look at the facts.
After the Palestinians notified Israel that Israeli terrorism in Gaza would no longer be tolerated, rather than attempting any sort of negotiation, the IDF responded with air-raids killing more Palestinian children.
I watched the forked tongued murdering scum try and ‘prove’ that the artillery shell which landed on the family wasn’t their’s.
If the subject hadn’t been so grave the clumsy bullshit would have been laughable. His story ran something like this:
That the explosion was 500 metres short of where the particular battery that was firing into the area at that time had been aimimg for. He pointed to an aerial photo that had been enlarged to the point of blurriness then heavily photoshopped with lines and labels showing where 5 of the 6 shells the battery had discharged had landed, then said it was impossible for a shell to be that far off target.
He quickly moved on to accusing the Palestinians of being the cause of the explosion. Yet the colonel offered no evidence of where the 6th shell had landed. His ‘opportunity’ alibi was based entirely on observations of how long it would take an ambulance to reach the spot of the slaughter. On that basis he reckoned the explosion may have occurred after the battery finished it’s hard days work of blowing up someone elses back yard.
He pointedly refused to say what the explosion was if it wasn’t an IDF shell. The Palestinians have no large artillery ordinance. If they did they wouldn’t be burying it in the sand, at one of the few spots that people can use for recreation. The Palestinians would be fire it at one of the numerous sources of their misery.
That is one of the many bases located on the other side of the cruel ‘Berlin Wall’ from which the IDF launch their cowardly terrorist attacks on Palestinian families.
That the explosion was from some form of artillery ordinance had been confirmed on the ground by a human rights watch observer that has been studying the munitions the Israel Defence Force has been using to blow any vacant Gaza ground to smithereens.
This tragedy was the inevitable result of that shelling ‘program’. It was only last week that the media had finally deigned to inform the world of this horrendous torture by shelling that Israel has been subjecting the Palestinians to.
Of course even then the media were too gutless to point out that artillery is never 100% accurate and that a killing such as this was only a matter of time.
But the real cowardice rests with the Israeli military leaders and politicians, who are blatantly and contemptibly insulting the children slaughtered in this tragedy by lying in a vain attempt to squirm out of their culpability for this war crime.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 13 2006 22:17 utc | 18
Posted by: | Jun 13, 2006 6:17:26 PM | 18
But Anon, who will believe it? They lost credibility long ago, if anything this makes them look more guilty.
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 13 2006 23:22 utc | 19
Other poll highlights:
• Fifty-three percent said the killing of Zarqawi was a “major achievement.”
• Twenty percent said Zarqawi’s death will reduce insurgent attacks in Iraq; 30% said insurgent attacks will increase.
–President Bush, seen Monday at Camp David, saw his approval rating rise in the latest USA TODAY/CNN Gallup poll.
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
So at least 33% of the people polled did NOT think Zarkawi’s death will reduce insurgent attacks in Iraq, but nevertheless though it was a major achievement, because….they thought it was a trick question and Zarkawi is actually an insurgent in Afghanistan?
Of course, this just adds a baroque flourish to the general chord of cluelessness struck by the American public in responding to the main question:
The new poll found that 48% believe the United States probably or definitely will win the war, up from 39% in April. It also found that 47% believe things are going well in Iraq, up from 38% in March.
Posted by: heatkernel | Jun 13 2006 23:31 utc | 20
debs & amurra
i saw another press conference held in tel aviv by a non govt agency on french television which showed physical fragments from the explosion – & it was unquestionably an israeli bombardement
but yr fury debs is absolutely appropriate – i also saw the tshal press conference & they wer without shame – even used this as an excuse for more bombing
with both israel’s & cheney’s link with racist apartheid south africa – it is absolutely no wonder at all that all their press conferences are almost the same as those issued when they were trying to slaughter black south africans, their enquetes so obscenely uninvestigated & the free tickets given to those who chose an openly genocidal method
today’s israel dishonours deeply the memory of thos brave fighters in the warsaw ghetto who in fact today resemble the resistance to israeli occupation
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 13 2006 23:55 utc | 21
I feel compelled to state as a newcomer that I detest, (I can’t think of a stronger word) bigotry and racism. I understand the difference between zionists and Jews. I say this because I used words like ‘they’ and ‘them’ and I realized I might be misunderstood.
remembereringgiap , I have a special fondness for your comments, I have been reading them for a long time.
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 14 2006 0:12 utc | 22
I wonder how many security checks bush had to complete to prove he wasn’t concealing a bomb intended to blow up al-maliki and his cabinet?
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 14 2006 0:20 utc | 23
remembereringgiap,
Again to avoid confusion, my fondness comes from arguing with someone in my family that reminds me so much of you 😉
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 14 2006 0:45 utc | 24
Too much focusing on the minutae around here, rather than on reasons for atrocities…
Paul Craig Roberts weighs in w/the important point – as usual:
To help undermine any prospect for peace in the Middle East, Israeli gunboats shelled a public beach and killed or wounded 50 Palestinians. This was done in order to provoke Hamas into abandoning the long-established cease-fire that Hamas had imposed in the interest of negotiating a Palestinian settlement.
The Israeli government succeeded, and now there will a resurgence of “Hamas terrorism” that Bolton and his neocon compatriots can use to build a frightening spectacle of Muslim terrorism.
The Bush/Olmert axis-of-evil have made it clear that “we don’t want no stinking peace.” Neocon Plot To Nuke Iran Invites Catastrophe
Posted by: jj | Jun 14 2006 1:07 utc | 25
amurra
no, there wasn’t any confusion – i am glad there can be these resonances
we are a polyphony as edward said might have said
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 14 2006 1:21 utc | 26
@ JJ:
Nice to see you back.
Much easier to deal in stereotypes and minutia than to talk as serious adults.
And Amurra, you do not needs to make this distinction to most thinking adults, with an IQ above 25.
And hell, anyway, it’s much more fun to whack PADDY
I always enjoyed it and it kept them in their place.
But if anyone thinks my analysis is in anyway anti-Lepraucitic, I’ll turn Mickey Featherstone and the Westies loose on the pitch to sort the argument out.
And Fuck the BLACKS and Kiwis too. You lost, get over it!
Before you Flame On err Play On, glance at the links.
Andy Griffith’s doing the color commentary on this one. He knows what football’s all about.
Posted by: Longshanks | Jun 14 2006 1:56 utc | 27
for a chuckle, check out the arial photo: Des Moines’ well-endowed flood control
Posted by: b real | Jun 14 2006 2:41 utc | 28
erm, aerial
jim lobe: ‘New American Century’ Project Ends With a Whimper
Is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which did so much to promote the invasion of Iraq and an Israel-centered”global war on terror,” closing down?
In the absence of an official announcement and the failure since late last year of a live person to answer its telephone number, a Washington Post obituary would seem to be definitive. And, sure enough, the Post quoted one unidentified source presumably linked to PNAC that the group was “heading toward closing” with the feeling of “goal accomplished.”
In fact, the 9-year-old group, whose 27 founders included Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, among at least half a dozen of the most powerful hawks in the George W. Bush administration’s first term, has been inactive since January 2005, when it issued the last of its “statements,” an appeal to significantly increase the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to cope with the growing demands of the kind of “Pax Americana” it had done so much to promote.
could it have anything to do w/ worries over possible war crimes charges? plans to dominate the world, etc can probably make a person paranoid.
Posted by: b real | Jun 14 2006 2:59 utc | 29
@ B real:
It would cost a pretty penny for Ashcroft to cover that art work up.
Posted by: LS | Jun 14 2006 3:13 utc | 30
i’ll nominate this as one of the most tasteless headlines of late: Girl who saw family die on beach becomes icon and media celebrity
Posted by: b real | Jun 14 2006 3:34 utc | 31
And Amurra, you do not needs to make this distinction to most thinking adults, with an IQ above 25.
Thanks Habibi, for telling me what you think I need to make distinctions about.
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 14 2006 3:57 utc | 32
I think a hair-trigger desire to huffily leap on whatever high horse of righteous indignation is currently tethered in the stable of your elitest wit was the true motivating factor for your unconvincing and impotent loofness Amurra. Your personal control drama is showing, better cover it up. So you can quit playing the aloof messiah.
MOA is a longtime discussion blog of people from all walks of life, many of whom are some of the brightest people on the planet imo. you will find wise sages, expats, internationals, humorists, assholes, peacemakers, debunkers, sex crazies, New Agers, Old Agers, philosophers, rebellious freethinkers, arguers, arousers, artists, musicians,libertines, geniuses,alerters, truthseekers,etc, etc. All in all a pretty damn great and wild bunch here.
You seem to be the asshole of the bunch. I’m open to being wrong.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 14 2006 5:08 utc | 33
If remembering the real acts of evil perpetrated on real people is minutae, I’ll take that every day ahead of insane and totally unsupportable conspiracy theories which not only reduce the reality of these criminals’ actions to an abstraction of who said what to whom, when, it robs the victims of any power they may have had.
If people want to sit around and gossip about whether ‘fitzie’ is corrupt or just plain gutless, or whether dubya straps on his dildo before his teleprompt, fine, but don’t confuse that gossip with anything meaningful.
The scum that are continually elected to positions of power in USuk are just plain selfish and greedy, we need know nothing more than that. Their actions every day in places such as Palestine, Iraq, Columbia and Diego Garcia defines them far better than the so-called ‘liberals’ expositions on why which sad little fuck thought he could steal from or lie to which other sad little fuck on whatever day the boss sad little fuck wiped his ass with his left hand rather than his right.
But that’s not even the worst of it cause while the rest of the world knows enough to see exactly what these people are, many ‘liberals’ demonstrate they are cut from exactly the same cloth as their leaders.
They do this by denying the oppressed any power or ability to resist. They tar the oppressed of the undeveloped world with the same brush of ennui that marks themselves.
When the people of the middle east got so pissed off they couldn’t take it any more, some of them foolishly thought that giving USuk a bit of their own medicine might wake the USuk people up.
It didn’t but worst of all many of those who had claimed to be sympathetic to the oppressed, turned around and showed exactly what they really felt by denying those oppressed the ability to speak and act for themselves. “Al Quaeda didn’t blow up the WTC, BushCo and the zionists did that”
Yeah right! Of course. If the creeps running USuk are that omnipotent, that’s how they trick us into voting for them. So it’s not our responsibility if our fellow country-men keep voting for them, it’s theirs.
Oh woe is me ! What shall we do about the mean things that ‘ol Dubya’ and ‘tony bliar’ get up to in our name?
“Of course I know!” cry the couch resistance. “They are so powerful we can’t resist, so instead we’ll just sit here and gossip about them”. “There is one thing though.” the ‘bollinger bolshie’, ‘designer dyke’ or ‘limosine liberal’ adds. “I do wish that people wouldn’t keep talking about all the blood and mean-ness. It makes me quite ill.”
ps the 2000 decision in favour of the Ilois islanders regaining their homeland has been ignored, their islands are just too important as a refuelling stop for bombers on their way to reduce the people of the M.E. to blood and bone plus of course Diego Garcia is to be the new Gitmo. “lets see Amnesty get out here and film us” the torturers laughed.
The brit scum won’t even pay these exiles any compensation and they actively interfere in the Ilois islanders lives in exile to deny them education or access to a secure income, either of which could enable the Ilois islanders to accumulate enough money to take their case to an international tribunal. It would be a lay down misère that the islanders would win a huge settlement at great public embarrassment to USuk.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 14 2006 5:51 utc | 34
Normally when one finds they have a neigbor who continually peers out the blinds at one, shouts threats and deprecations at passers-by or accuses people of poisoning their cats, living next door to one, it is possible to call up the out-reach psych team and let them know the crazy bloke next door is off his meds again.
Unfortunately for papa Fidel and the rest of the cubans that option isn’t available for crazy old uncle sam. Listen to this:
“Officials in Washington accused the Cuban president of pulling the plug as part of a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation of US staff. They cite other tactics including allegedly setting off car alarms outside diplomats’ houses in the middle of the night and slowing the mission’s water supply to a trickle. . . ”
. . . “Tensions between the two countries heightened in January when Michael Parmly, the new chief of the US mission, unveiled a sign displaying messages critical of Castro’s government. And last month, mission staff said they were forced to scrap a telephone number for visa applications after the system was swamped by half a million “suspicious” calls in one day. Cuban government agents were also accused of being behind an attempt to poison a US diplomat’s dog in December. . . “
Car alarms are a pain in the ass, however what would happen if the Venezualan ambassador to the UN called a press conference to complain that NYPD weren’t doing their job in catching the juvies on the CIA payroll who were setting off his car alarms at all hours.
That since he had been berating the locals about nasty amerikan behaviour his cat had been baited, which proved that was another CIA plot.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 14 2006 6:56 utc | 35
Composer Gyorgy Ligeti died.
Here is his symphony for 100 metronomes. This Halo2 smash up is also good.
from debs-
… while the rest of the world knows enough to see exactly what these people are, many ‘liberals’ demonstrate they are cut from exactly the same cloth as their leaders.
They do this by denying the oppressed any power or ability to resist. They tar the oppressed of the undeveloped world with the same brush of ennui that marks themselves.
is that ennui meant as “worry-boredom” or in the sense of an unremitting sense of weary annoyance? how do you think the liberals tar the oppressed with ennui?
When the people of the middle east got so pissed off they couldn’t take it any more, some of them foolishly thought that giving USuk a bit of their own medicine might wake the USuk people up.
-wow. that shows a real disconnect with any of their own reality, if some people were trying to be nice to Americans by destroying the WTC to help us wake up. in any other country, an act like that would most certainly be greeted with some sort of retaliation of whatever kind is available to that other country.
They woke up the nationalistic impulse by that act…which I would think the WTC suicide bomb planners would have certainly realized.
Anyway, I thought the issue had been stated by bin Laden years ago- that he had declared war on the U.S. until they removed bases from Saudi Arabia. So, now the U.S. is building bases in Iraq and moving them out of Saudi Arabia. (one of many “useful” things about the invasion to the neo-cons, I’m sure.)
bin Laden got what he asked for.
was it worth it, I wonder? for whomever.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 14 2006 10:12 utc | 38
@Fauxreal:
That electricity thing.
I imagine a lot of things can be found in Nawlins after the hurricane, like FEMA generators, if anyone really cared.
Posted by: Carlos Marcello | Jun 14 2006 13:34 utc | 39
While Olmert is traveling to “sell” his project of annectating the West Bank (or at least 80% of its water and 20% of its land). And while Olemert agrees to give weaons to the Abbas puppet so he can fight a civil war against Hamas, some Israeli are still fighting back.
An OpEd in Haaretz A lesson in pickling
This week 39 years ago, the Six-Day War ended and the occupation began. This week, Israel enters its 40th year as an occupier. Is it really so, or has it all been a bad dream? It certainly was – 40 years of nightmare – and still goes on.
…
From the start, the occupation was exploding with good intentions and was meant to be “enlightened.” The inhumane history of the human race does not know of any case of a good occupation that is beneficent to the occupied. But the Jewish mind is inventive. Trouble is, the invention didn’t work this time. The occupation is an occupation is an occupation – in all its hard-heartedness, in all its evil. Israel looks in the mirror and finds it difficult to recognize itself.
…
Many years ago, before the first intifada, Palestinian acquaintances from Ramallah asked me for help. They wanted permission to put up a cucumber pickling factory in their town. They asked the authorities and received no reply. I promised to help. Why not? They would invest and employ a few dozen people and make a profit. I turned to the Civil Administration and I was also turned away.
“Are you crazy?” they asked me in the administration, “If they put up their factory, our entire pickling industry will go bankrupt.” The occupation isn’t even ready to give up pickling.
I understood then; how could one not understand the entire colonialist doctrine as it stood on one foot before me. That is colonialism in all its calculated and malicious parasitism, and so is the story appropriate for these days between negotiations that won’t take place and the convergence into blocs that won’t solve a thing.
When will we understand that only the 1967 lines are the borders to defend the “Jewish and democratic state” from bestiality? And who, aside from us, really cares if we become bestial? Or maybe we don’t care anymore?
Journalists? We need no f****** press here!
Pentagon Orders U.S. Reporters to Exit Guantanamo
In the aftermath of the three suicides at the notorious Guantanamo prison facility in Cuba last Saturday, reporters with the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald were ordered by the office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to leave the island today.
A third reporter and a photographer with the Charlotte Observer were given the option of staying until Saturday but, E&P has learned, were told that their access to the prison camp was now denied. An E&P “Pressing Issues” column on Tuesday covered an eye-opening dispatch by the Observer’s Michael Gordon carried widely in other papers. He had listened in, with permission, as the camp commander gave frank instructions to staff on how to respond to the suicides.
…
The New Yorker with a 2001 Ligety piece: LIGETI SPLIT – The composer as comedian.
György Ligeti, the greatest of Transylvanian composers, once wrote a “Poème Symphonique” for one hundred metronomes. The year was 1962, and the piece had the look of a prank—a rotten egg tossed at the classical tradition. In performance, however, it cast a curious spell, one that the composer may not have fully anticipated. Several years ago, I was lucky to witness a scaled-down, twenty-four-metronome version of “Poème,” at the New England Conservatory. The hilarity of the scene—a concert stage filled with windup machines—gave way to a sense of unexpected complexity, as networks of rhythm emerged from clouds of ticktock noise. Then, as the metronomes expired, one by one, there was a strange tremor of emotion; the last survivors, waving their little arms in the air, looked lonely, forlorn, almost human. I thought of Robert Musil’s story “Flypaper,” in which a trapped insect is said to perform “endless gesticulations of despair.”
The “Poème Symphonique” is Ligeti in a nutshell.
I did link to a metronome performance above. A great composer.
ligeti’s requiem is one of the wonders of the world. kubrick used it in 2001, but ligeti was uncompensated.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 14 2006 18:47 utc | 43
the continuing attack on ward churchill & academic freedom
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 14 2006 19:20 utc | 44
r’giap- thanks for that link. here was churchill’s response to the report: Summary of Fallacies in the University of Colorado Report
Posted by: b real | Jun 14 2006 19:57 utc | 45
well Bernhard, Klinsman was noticeably relieved. So many missed chances but they finally put one in the net.
A real nail biter in the final minutes and Germany is through to the next round.
Germany 1 – Poland 0
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 14 2006 21:10 utc | 46
Uncle $cam,
I’m sorry but my anger is all over the place these days and yes I sound like an unreasonable person. I just came back from seeing my beloved 90 year old aunt. She left her home because she was being threatened and refused to become an MBO (no offence n/a, if it was a choice I’d be all for it).
I’ll work on my ‘assholishness’
Posted by: Amuura | Jun 14 2006 23:08 utc | 47
@Amuura
Sorry to hear about your aunt. Is there anything we can do to help? If I’ve learnt anything, anger, (rage even), is a great catalyst.
Rage
An expression of uncontrollable hurt and anger is one discription of rage. Rage is a violent reaction to wholesale betrayal-that implodes or explodes.
Rage isn’t simple anger at an unjust act ; it is the natural response to cruelty, callousness and direspect for the sacredness of life….
rage on…
Rage of the abused is a call to life
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 14 2006 23:31 utc | 48
June 14 (DPA) A major new security plan aimed at increasing safety in the Iraqi capital was launched Wednesday with the deployment of 40,000 Iraqi and US-led coalition troops.
The plan, dubbed “Together Forward”, was proposed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in an attempt to clamp down on insurgent attacks and secure the city streets.
Despite the plan, however, one car bomb was detonated in the city, al-Arabiya news channel reported. No information on casualties was available.
The new measures involve a ban on carrying arms, a curfew from 8.30 p.m. until 6.00 a.m. and increased security at the entrances and exits of the city. A four-hour ban on driving will also be in place Fridays.
Interior Ministry security chief General Mahdi al-Gharawi had said earlier that the plan also includes search-and-hunt raids in districts such as al-Aadhamiya, al-Doura, al-Ghazaliya and al-Ameriya, which are all Sunni-dominated.
Al-Maliki called on the media to create a “positive atmosphere” for the realisation of the plan.
Iraqi troops and policemen were seen deployed across the city Wednesday, checkpoints were set up on main roads and barricades were erected to control traffic.
Posted by: annie | Jun 14 2006 23:33 utc | 49
Annie,
You mentioned you read TAI, he really gets this issue. Please ask him about it.
Posted by: Amurra | Jun 15 2006 0:47 utc | 52
BuzzFlash interview: Greg Palast
Uncovering the ‘Armed Madhouse’ of the Bush reign of greed, fear and stolen elections
In other words, if you wonder why your cousin is shivering under a tank in Fallujah, it is to enhance Iraq’s relationship with OPEC. There it is, guys – black and white.
Posted by: mats | Jun 15 2006 0:56 utc | 53
Rage is a violent reaction to wholesale betrayal-that implodes or explodes.
I feel it too uncle Scam.
The Quickening.
The pikes will come together at the rising of the moon.
I am utterly awed and humbled by the collective wisdom and consciousness
Posted by: Mme Blatavasky | Jun 15 2006 1:22 utc | 54
@Unca
I disagree with Brecht that rage is an inadequate force for social change because it is unsustainable (see Mutter Courage, for example). It is absolutely sustainable. Many of us here, myself included, have lived with rage for years and decades at a time. Brecht was wrong on this score. Rage is a fine catalyst for change; it is just not a catalyst for fine change. And anyone who was alive after 1918 should have been able to see that.
I say that rage is an inadequate force for social improvement because it is unfocused. Look at the fine minds here, for example. We endlessly alternate between rants and analyses, and two public outrages afterwards, our cortisone-soaked brained have blotted out the specifics of what we were so justified for feeling until only the feeling itself remains. We can re-link to outrages from two, three, four years ago that have been buried by subsequent outrages and we are outraged all over again… as if we gain new nourishment from material that we have already digested and excreted. That is what our unfocused rage (and not the inhumane, cold calculations of those monsters who live to exploit) has reduced us to.
Is this what we want? Do we want to wallow in our rage? Many here seem to be fine with nothing more than the constant marinade, even when it means turning on erstwhile allies for petty perceived impurities. Or are we instead ready to focus our fine minds on the task of building the world that should be instead of railing against the world that is? Are we finally ready to ask the question “What is to be done?” or are we still not through yet with “What has been done?”
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 15 2006 3:30 utc | 55
Dear NSA, …
Dear NSA is here to help harness the collective wisdom of everyday folks, just like you.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 15 2006 4:21 utc | 57
When Iran did get the last negotiation offer from the EU-3, U.S., Russia, China no penalties were included and no timeframe for a response.
Now the U.S. is changing those conditions. First a timelimit was given as 29.June for an answer, now penalties are attached to the offer.
I am sure neither China, nor Russia did agree to the date and/or the penalties. This an unilateral move after some pseudo multilateral stand.
All for later portraiing Iran as the bad boys.
“What is to be done?” or are we still not through yet with “What has been done?”
i constantly fluxuate between the two, sometimes i am in a mind to act, and actually get off my ass and do things, sometimes i act from my computer. the outrage lets up on occasion but i do not want to be removed from it. as long as people are suffering and being exploited and bombed to =shit and tortured, i cannot become complacent. its not in my nature.
i just went on a binge googling, thinking anout the 2.3 trillion, Ghorbanifar, leeden, private wars, el salvador, nicaragua, the crossove characters…. what’s he building in there????
here’s a fun little article
Building a Home-Grown Counterinsurgency
The template for Iraq today is not Vietnam, to which it has often been compared, but El Salvador, where a right-wing government backed by the United States fought a leftist insurgency in a 12-year war beginning in 1980. The cost was high — more than 70,000 people were killed, most of them civilians, in a country with a population of just six million. Most of the killing and torturing was done by the army and the right-wing death squads affiliated with it. According to an Amnesty International report in 2001, violations committed by the army and its associated paramilitaries included ”extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings, ‘disappearances’ and torture. . . . Whole villages were targeted by the armed forces and their inhabitants massacred.” As part of President Reagan’s policy of supporting anti-Communist forces, hundreds of millions of dollars in United States aid was funneled to the Salvadoran Army, and a team of 55 Special Forces advisers, led for several years by Jim Steele, trained front-line battalions that were accused of significant human rights abuses.
There are far more Americans in Iraq today — some 140,000 troops in all — than there were in El Salvador, but U.S. soldiers and officers are increasingly moving to a Salvador-style advisory role. In the process, they are backing up local forces that, like the military in El Salvador, do not shy away from violence. It is no coincidence that this new strategy is most visible in a paramilitary unit that has Steele as its main adviser; having been a key participant in the Salvador conflict, Steele knows how to organize a counterinsurgency campaign that is led by local forces. He is not the only American in Iraq with such experience: the senior U.S. adviser in the Ministry of Interior, which has operational control over the commandos, is Steve Casteel, a former top official in the Drug Enforcement Administration who spent much of his professional life immersed in the drug wars of Latin America. Casteel worked alongside local forces in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, where he was involved in the hunt for Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin cocaine cartel.
you can’t know what is to be done until you know the enemy. and when i say ‘know’ i’m not meaning’identify’ i mean comprehend.
funny how the things we discuss in here end up sprouting out in the media a couple years down the road. but eavesdroppers could think we are a bunch of conspiracy freaks. and all the while people are suffering. its this race against time not only for babies and younge teenagers across the middle east but for africa, the entire planet. the looming nuclear war, the creative destruction crowd, the psycho killers
leeden
“Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize.”
one little video leaks out, like that one i posted from truth about iraqis and it gives us a little peek into the madness, the little soldiers that carry water for the empire, but to get at the root of the evil, and evil is an equal opportunity offender, for sure there are the fundies on both side, i guess what i’m getting at is what has to be done and what is to be done are preludes to HOW DO WE DO IT?
i am reminded of the 100th monkey. they have taken the arena to the media. they are fighting this war thru perception (for us). and not just thru the lack of media or the spin of media but from the complete absence of truth about what the hell is going on.
there is an exceptance in the mass public we’ve been lied to. that’s a start. there are the elite minds that grasp the implications, included in those are a bunch of nut cases. how long before the `100th monkey on this cabal. are we at 50, 75? i’m not talking about identifying them, i mean grasping what they are really up to, what lengths they will take it, what their goal is, the depth of the evil
“No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq … this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war
when i come up for air, the rage propels me. i will not give up. we need our 100th monkey. then we can stop them.
Posted by: annie | Jun 15 2006 4:54 utc | 59
As a random gossipy aside about our favorite blogger after Bernhard. Over at Stop Me Before I Vote Again a scattershot attack on liberal blogs hit Billmon and Billmon’s hitting back. It’s a bit childish (okay, a lot childish!) but it’s got the comments there going as a conversation. And, you know, maybe some of us missed seeing Billmon angry.
@dan of steele,
Actually, the Germans aren’t guaranteed to go through, though they are 99% there. If Costa Rica beats Ecuador and Poland, and Ecuador beats Germany, there will be three teams on 6 points and the Germans could lose on goal differential. Very rare, but theoretically possible. Great match, though, understandably intense.
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 15 2006 5:15 utc | 61
@b or others
Can you make sense of this from FT?
Crude oil inventories at highest level for 20 years
By Kevin Morrison in London
Crude oil inventories in the developed world rose to more than 1bn barrels at the end of April, their highest level in more than 20 years, as high prices have bitten into consumption, the International Energy Agency, the energy watchdog for the developed world, said on Tuesday.
The Paris-based agency consequently trimmed its forecast of global oil demand growth for this year by 10,000 barrels a day to 1.24m b/d.
“High oil product retail prices and comparatively low natural gas prices will act as a drag on demand through the end of the year,” it said in its latest monthly report.
Later, the article also says:
The rise in crude oil inventories has led to market talk that global oil storage capacity is nearing its limits but the IEA said it lacked data on this.
“There has been anecdotal evidence of storage reaching capacity for particular grades of oil in some areas, but that [storage data] is something we would like to know more about,” said David Fyfe, an oil analyst at the IEA.
Oil inventories in countries of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development are even higher than the very high levels seen in 1998, which triggered a oil price collapse to $10 as demand started to slow.
How can IEA know inventory levels and not know storage capacity? Where is the “storage capacity” located? Who controls that stored oil? How do IEA gather their data? Is it reliable?
Do the following final graphs imply that the cost is high for reasons of “security” preparations as much as for market demand reasons. Or that refining or refinery capacity will not expand, thus keeping prices high?
Haven’t oil company profits risen by selling less oil for higher prices? Does the article suggest, indirectly, a strategic alliance between oil companies and govt to restrict demand and fill all storage facilities? Or is it a message aimed at reassuring corporate actors, who may be nervous about biz sputtering if war in the ME expands?
Mr Fyfe said global oil demand was about 85m b/d at present, 11m b/d or 15 per cent more than its daily average of eight years ago.
Therefore a bigger stockpile is required comfortably to cover demand in the event of a severe supply disruption.
There is currently enough oil within the OECD to cover 54 days of demand, versus 59 days in August 1998.
The fine points of oil trading are over my head, but the article seems curious to an outsider.
Posted by: small coke | Jun 15 2006 5:33 utc | 62
Honor Bound to Defend Freedom – sign in front of Gitmo……….
Posted by: EnoughAlready(x-jj!) | Jun 15 2006 5:51 utc | 63
Honor bound to defend freedom
but torturing 24/7 anyways.
To the tune of “Me and Mrs. Jones”
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 15 2006 6:16 utc | 64
@Rowan
I wont take sides, I like the guys over at stop me before I vote again I also respect and adore billmon, however, I think we all know billmon can be moody i.e. temperamental. While I haven’t read as much of SMBIVA, they do often have profound insights. And as the saying goes, “I’ll take the truth where ever I find it.”
I wouldn’t put much into it. I think Billmon’s brilliance, his exceptional clarity and agility comes from the working out of his battles within himself…
All of the significant battles are waged within the self. ~Sheldon Kopp
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 15 2006 7:16 utc | 65
@ small coke
If I were a cynic I would say that the stockpiling that has been going on serves two purposes.
the first would be that if the US wants to start some crap with Iran it could weather an interruption in supply without too much hardship.
the second is that it would greatly behoove the incumbents to have gas prices down around $2.00 come late October. Voters have very short memories, at least in the US.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 15 2006 10:51 utc | 66
@small coke – There is currently enough oil within the OECD to cover 54 days of demand, versus 59 days in August 1998.
That is the all important number. Less reserves than 8 years ago. Though I have a hard time to calculate how 1 billion reserves and 85 million usage per day calculate to 54 days. 54 days of using 18 million per day would eat up the reserves.
But how to make up that 18 million?
Via Cryptome, here is the listing from Alex Jones’ site of
participants at Bilderberg 2006
Here is the list of participants from the U.S.A. with their
affiliations:
I have only listed the U.S. participants, but the list seems to include all participants. From Italy there are those one might expect (a representative of the present government (Padoa-Schioppa), the previous government (Tremonti) and the permanent government (Fiat heir Elkann).
Disengagement” but well know in international finance
Better informed Moonies than I might wish to comment on
“their” countries “representatives”. There may indeed be
nothing at all sinister in the Bilderberg meetings, but anyone who is serious about his tin-foil hat will certainly want to do some Googling, and Slothrop will undoubtedly be delighted to have a representative sample of what would seem to correspond to his much belabored ruling elite. This
group and its connections might well merit a tin-foil tinsel thread of its own.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 15 2006 15:20 utc | 68
there’s an update @ rowans 61 link
I would cheerfully slice your pathetic little nuts off for
that, you miserable piece of human excrement, but
you wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
Now go away and leave me alone, fucktard.
let me count the ways….
Posted by: annie | Jun 15 2006 17:01 utc | 69
@annie – Wow. That’s about all I have to say to that.
@Uncle – That tends to be my belief as well. The anger and professional pride are part of what makes him a great writer. This seems to be above and beyond, though.
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 15 2006 19:51 utc | 70
@fauxreal“is that ennui meant as “worry-boredom” or in the sense of an unremitting sense of weary annoyance? how do you think the liberals tar the oppressed with ennui?
Speaks for itself really. When the conspiracy theorists argue that the attack on the WTC was actually a complex web of deceit that was plotted by the Bush family in alliance with the Bin Laden mob who represent ME oil producers wanting to ‘push up the price’,they are saying that people in the MR weren’t so pissed off and vengeful about the rape of their part of the world by ‘western interests’ that they would do something as rage-ridden and irrational as flying a bunch of planes into a few symbols of the violence that has been wrought upon them. Symbols like the pentagon; which they saw as the heart of the physical viciousness they suffer.
Or the World Trade Centre whose name says it all. World Trade as preached by western globalists is somewhat of a misnomer.
The evangelists attempt to force their corporate style trading regime on others.
It may come as a surprise to some but usury is not the only was of doing business. One doesn’t need to borrow or lend if there is real trust between the principals.
The last airplane was reportedly intended for the whitehouse, the main plotting palace from whence the miserable fuckers unleash their shit on the rest of the planet.
So back to the point, diminishing angry people’s responsibility for attacks like the mass murder which has been reduced to a cliche called 911, possibly to disconnect the grief and outrage felt by the victims from it’s cause ie the grief and outrage felt by people in the ME, reduces the rage of the people of the ME to the same sort of ennui one can see at a zillion weblogs around the net. People point out the problems of the world in their weary resigned tone, actually feeling rage and acting out on it is considered a bit extreme old chap. Here just sign this petition, send this letter to your congressman. No need to get so involved man. Take it easy.
Is that clear enough? I was under the impression that readers were capable of filling in the dots. It’s fucking boring having to reduce the flow of the arguement by doing it all onseself. . . but then perhaps the ennui is so chronic that even making the effort to follow someone else’s thoughts without every detail being filled in is just too hard man.
The french had a name for it in their colonial days of empire.
les cafard
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 15 2006 21:32 utc | 71
This seems to be above and beyond, though.
not PC enough for you? i don’t agree, as you might have guessed from the comment on my last post.
part of what makes him a great writer is his flexibility w/ dilution, i love his willingness to let it roll, along w/the ability to express himself so succinctly
Posted by: annie | Jun 15 2006 21:34 utc | 72
guns and butter, is one of unca’s fav programs, if your not listening to g&b your missin out…
Lies About the World Trade Center by NIST and Underwriters Laboratory
Jun 14, 2006
Interview with Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan is a former employee of Underwriters Laboratory which certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center. Ryan wrote a letter to Frank Gayle of NIST, questioning the incongruence between laboratory testing, and conclusions drawn in the official government NIST report. After Ryan’s questions became public, he was terminated.
Listen Now..
http://www.gunsandbutter.net/archives.php?si=132
Show Archives
http://www.gunsandbutter.net/archives.php
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 15 2006 22:45 utc | 73
Uncle $cam:
You like those whiners as “stop me before I turn my nose up so far my neck breaks”?
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 15 2006 23:16 utc | 74
You like those whiners as “stop me before I turn my nose up so far my neck breaks”?
Was that an rhetorical question?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 15 2006 23:44 utc | 75
Well, it should have been: “Really? what do you like about them?”
BTW – I thin it was you who recommended Graeber. Very nice. Thanks again.
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 15 2006 23:48 utc | 76
Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely
A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.
Posted by: annie | Jun 16 2006 0:54 utc | 77
An interesting, amusing story, that you present Annie, Rowan, and Scam.
Can we play some poker, to escape the ennui and infantility of all this.
And I’ll have a bourbon or rye, straight up.
Thanks.
Posted by: Carlos Marcello | Jun 16 2006 1:11 utc | 78
Can we play some poker, to escape the ennui and infantility of all this.
Poker? I’m more of a dart board or Go! player, oh, and first drink’s on me.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 16 2006 1:25 utc | 79
billmon’s got a new post up. let’s hit the whiskey bar. booze, i want booze now!!! then lets’ play spin the bottle. my specialty 😉
Posted by: annie | Jun 16 2006 1:30 utc | 80
I’ve always wanted to learn Go, but it’s never stuck with me. I do enjoy chess, but bring me a poker table and I’m game.
@Annie – I find it somewhat amusing that the non-billmon commenters over there are still unsure if it’s really him, but we seem to suffer no doubts.
Posted by: Rowan | Jun 16 2006 1:32 utc | 81
I like to see “fucktards” making utter fools of themselves.
But they should do so with civility and half-assed respect for the English language.
Posted by: Miss Manners | Jun 16 2006 1:40 utc | 82
@citizen k
To answer your q,
As mentioned above, “I’ll take my truth where ever I can find it”; Any one who can show insights into this Battle of Unnumbered Tears and Vending machine democracy, I tend to have veneration for, until such a time as I do not. Eat well, Sleep well, and gain two stones…For, “There is death in the hane”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 16 2006 1:40 utc | 83
@ Rowan
I remember quite well the Marxist fruitcake thread here that lead to MoA being thrown into the old toy bin.
Perhaps that is why some people like him, he treats them bad….
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 16 2006 1:49 utc | 84
Well, I applaud that sentiment Unc, but what I saw on that site was the usual petulant narcisism of the upper west side and Berkeley “left”.
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 16 2006 1:58 utc | 85
Signals Intelligence(SigInt) is interesting, when you analyze it vigorously.
And it is not wise to endanger our operatives and moles by broadcating on Clear Channel.
Cause we got a thang going on.
Posted by: YMCA-NSA-Westy1 | Jun 16 2006 2:21 utc | 86
@citizen k
Perhaps the issue here is we’re not Ordering off the [same] Menu. I take what I like and leave the rest behind, as they say in AA. I’d rather create my own drama, it beats watching someone else’s.
Congress keeps itself, public in the dark on surveillance
With its wiretapping of international phone calls and collecting a database of domestic phone records, the Bush administration is busy watching for evildoers.
The problem is, this is not really about spying on ‘evildoers’: it’s about spying on everyone to get them both accustomed to 24/7 surveillance. Also, it’s to make people afraid to talk to each other if their views differ from those of the administration. They’ll play hell shutting me up, at least until I’m draged off to reeducation camp.
Lawsuit: CIA defines who’s a news outlet
The CIA has adopted internal rules allowing it to define what constitutes a news organization and what doesn’t, a Washington-based research group contended in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The lawsuit by the National Security Archive, which operates the largest non-governmental library of declassified documents, says the spy agency has begun charging illegal search and duplication fees under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Translation: unless you have a great deal of money, you won’t be able to request info from the Archive on a FOIA. This of course limits private citizens’ access to these Archives, which is precisely the design intent.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 16 2006 2:52 utc | 87
From Cryptome, the link to the web site of the Privare Security Company Association of Iraq. Useful database, and a helpful reminder of the panoply of mercenary mouths feeding at U.S.
taxpayer trough, surely one of the major factors in explaining the “difficulty” in withdrawing from Iraq.
Pat Lang highlights this
Vanity Fair article on the Niger forgeries by Craig Unger. Definitely worth a look.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 16 2006 6:57 utc | 88
Gabriel Kolko’s getting Nervous. “The Demons of Greed are Loose” Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms
He runs down extensive list of problemos, making int’l econ. sound like an out of control race car!
Posted by: EnoughAlready(x-jj!) | Jun 16 2006 7:13 utc | 89
Notice we’ve had some weirdos around lately? Well, trollery is now a Paid Occupation. More here. Suggestions on tracking them down Here.
Posted by: EnoughAlready | Jun 16 2006 7:29 utc | 90
must admit I alway sort of assumed that organisations like netvocates were going hard at it since last century.
back in the old dot.com boom a good mate (r.i.p.) was madly looking around for something to make him rich.
I suggested to him that what with all the shit being said around the web and usenet about particular people, and their artistic endeavours, or corporations and their employees, or their goods n services, that a sniffer system combined with a few expressive writers could defend things besmirched.
Unfortunately that wasn’t risky enough for him.
Although perhaps it contained sufficient possibility of actually succeeding to make it too boring. So instead he got involved in media streaming about the same time as half the planet. and
He managed to blow a few hundred grand of his significant other’s dough, since there’s nothin new under the sun it was certain a few other people with a bit more ‘follow thru’ would have come up with something similar.
Remember that sort of stuff is pretty much where Xtian Bailey and co are at too.
The really disappointing thing is the poor quality of the talent most of these shops seem to have.
it all straight into the ad hom. No real humour, just boring and unoriginal.
If you’re in the mood you can have quite a bit of fun.
e.g. . . Just spent a bit of time trolling round the hadji girl download sites, where marines and their fan-boys who go for men in uniforms, are snickering away about that sicko lardass’s singin.
The blogs all have the same ‘out’ posted above the link warning “liberals n faggots” in a lame attempt to call their sociopathy ‘marine humor’.
So their defense for singing about blowing a little iraqi girl’s brains out is that this is a joke and that if you’re not a marine you won’t get it.
Funny thing is for humorists, those marines don’t have much of a sense of humour. They get quite angry if someone posts a limerick about a marine being sodomised by a toothless arab, jokes about why they they seem to be losing don’t make them laugh, neither do lines like “had anyone intesting in your unit blown up by a IED lately?”, although at least they don’t see anything funny about Haditha or any other war crimes committed by usmc,
In fact posts about any of that really sends the steam whistlin outta their ears.
No sense of humor at all. At one weblog a mild little ‘pinko’ joke about whether the women and children at Haditha were raped before they were murdered and one marine flew right off the handle.
Almost stopped a bloke from asking if he reckoned those responsible should be gassed or fried.
so as is normal in those cases where a joke falls flat someone gave the standard “I guess you had to be there” line.
You wouldn’t believe it, that got him even madder! Talk about no sense of humor.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 16 2006 10:10 utc | 91
Robert Parry discusses recent developments in the Hariri assassination, in particular the change in atmospherics
after the departure of Mehlis as lead investigator.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 16 2006 10:24 utc | 92
“Notice we’ve had some weirdos around lately?”
I’ve been here for quite some time
Posted by: gmac | Jun 16 2006 12:53 utc | 93
trascript of john pilger’s address at the april panel at columbia univ, ‘breaking the silence: war, lies and empire’, featuring pilger, sy hersh, & charlie glass: War by Media
During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said their spokesman, “that we were astonished to find, after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were, by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don’t have that. What’s the secret? How do you do it?”
What is the secret? It’s a question now urgently asked of those whose job is to keep the record straight: who in this country have extraordinary constitutional freedom. I refer to journalists, of course, a small group who hold privileged sway over the way we think, even the way we use language.
I have been a journalist for more than 40 years. Although I am based in London, I have worked all over the world, including the United States, and I have reported America’s wars. My experience is that what the Russian journalists were referring to is censorship by omission, the product of a parallel world of unspoken truth and public myths and lies: in other words, censorship by journalism, which today has become war by journalism.
For me, this is the most virulent and powerful form of censorship, fuelling an indoctrination that runs deep in western societies, deeper than many journalists themselves understand or will admit to. Its power is such that it can mean the difference between life and death for untold numbers of people in faraway countries, like Iraq.
an earlier article on that panel discussion: Normalizing the Unthinkable
a review of pilger’s new book, freedom next time: Comments on John Pilger’s New Book Freedom Next Time
and this morning on the commute to work i heard a real cool cover of marvin gaye’s what’s going on by the dirty dozen brass band w/ chuck d. unfortunately there’s nothing for it on youtube yet, so i can’t play it in here yet. cool song though. more than made up for the bluegrass version of jump i also heard david lee roth doing. and then yesterday, there was that tuvan throat singer version of in-a-gadda-da-vida by yat-kha. curious to hear their covers of man machine & love will tear us apart. found one youtube video of a live performance of ???
Posted by: b real | Jun 16 2006 14:34 utc | 94
as a follow up to breal, jamison foser on media matters sees media as the defining issue of our time. he opened his june 9th post with: “The defining issue of our time is the media. Whatever issue you care most about, media coverage of that issue is likely a key stumbling block to real, progressive change.” And then looks at how the conservative misinformation masquerading as coverage of the lead up to the invasion and the occupation of Iraq and global warming is shaping how the world deals with these two critical issues.
i have been quiet here the last few days – busy and sleep deprived – but also ruminating on how to deal with the net neutrality vote to come before the senate and keep the internet free. without it i question if we will have access to the truth of what is going on in the world and to each other. i become disappointed by what seems to be a lack of interest in actively pursuing solutions to the problems discussed here at moon, but i do come back because of the multiplicity of information and views commenters share. what if it became prohibitively expensive for bernhard to host the site or for most of us to access it or the internet? what if the capitalist driven censorship we see in the traditional media is allowed to extend into the internet? it’s scarey enough to know they are listening in and tracking, the obvious next step is to control the flow of information here as well. it looks like we’ve got about two weeks to fight this. i’ll be writing and calling my congress critters and posting action diaries to motivate others to do the same. but i don’t think it’s enough this time. this one scares me, possibly more than alito, because if we lose the internet we are fucked. foser refers readers to firedoglake and thehorsesmouth for suggestions about reclaiming the traditional media. matt stoller at mydd has lead the charge on net neutrality in the house and hopefully will continue with the upcoming senate vote. any out of the box thinkers out there with suggestions for how to beat the telecoms?
Posted by: conchita | Jun 16 2006 16:30 utc | 95
est-que les cafard ala Churchill’s le chien noir? Ou comme “avoir le cafard?”
No need to answer. Obviously any attempts at understanding what another writes is a sign of stupidity, so by all means, never ask questions or you might get insulted by someone. LOL.
glad you don’t teach, since it’s so fucking boring to lower yourself to talk to those who do not possess your great intellect and insight. My apologies for wasting your time but thank you for lowering yourself to respond.
as a matter of fact, students in the US who do even the most cursory history survey of europe read in their texts about the differences between islamic and medieval western financial arrangements…that exist to this day, except that now the christians can charge interest and don’t leave it to jewish europeans to do that for them.
Ursury is,or at least was considered one of the big issues in w. e. christian objectification of jews once the christians took power via Constantine’s conversion.
I’m glad to know that it’s only the west who has forced corrupt govts on the pppl of the ME. The House of Saud should be called “The Incorruptible!! –except for our association with the Bush family…” Kind of long to say, tho. But good to know that once the U.S. is out of the region, it will be heaven on earth, a paradise of good govt and a great place to raise kids (if they’re male.)
Yeah, and funny how others have no sense of humor when you laugh at their friends dying. I was just saying, the other day, over at Welcome to War, that I wondered if ppl’s heads and legs were always left lying a few feet away from each other after a suicide bombing, or if it were gender-specific, you know, depending upon the width in the juncture of a thigh bone’s placement. because, boy, it sure LOOKS weird.
annie- billmon just lost his temper.
not everything that comes out of his mouth is honey, unless it is a sort of rock star level of praise for me. –oh wait, that would mean nothing that comes out of his mouth is honey.
that’s not true.
my momma told me to apologize when I regained my composure.
the closest I’ve gotten to GO is Pente, and that was a while ago. I like backgammon myself. Not Chinese. Persian. It’s fun to play the backgame, too.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 16 2006 17:55 utc | 96
How “Al Quaida” developed “chemical and bio weapons”:
FROM THE POISONER’S HANDBOOK TO THE BOTOX SHOE OF DEATH
Hint – the recipies are from a 1988 U.S. fringe book.
ok, a little sound track for good measure friday i got the edge i got the flow
thats just one of my fav lines from i’m big in japan
unless it is a sort of rock star level of praise for me.
honey? did someone say honey? think i read billmon dripping praise for you foxy, wait, someone’s at my door, when i get back i’ll link to it… hold your breath.. brb
Posted by: annie | Jun 16 2006 18:23 utc | 98
conchita- you’re cenergy is impressive. you go.
I have tried to write professionally as much as possible about the value of common carriage regulation for public communication networks. I agree net neutrality–basically common carriage for new media–is important, but I also know how unlikely it is to succeed given the tenacity of elites to defend the industrial model of knowledge production.
I continue to believe that because of the diversity of platforms and competing producers of new media (content, equipment, access, infrastructure), the provision of access will not suffer in the near term.
but, that’s what people said in 1845 about the telegraph, and in 1921 about the radio. still, new media seem to me to be different insofar as the proliferation of uses and cheaply distributed access make it difficult for telcos–the people who own “pipes”–to monopolize access.
yochai benkler, one of the great examiners of new media, has just written his book about this and other issues re new media: wealth of networks
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 16 2006 18:26 utc | 99