Columbia Journalism Review: Failures of Imagination
How the media (especially some editors) suppressed reporting about prisoner abuse out of patriotism until the first Abu Ghraib pictures were published. After that some reporting was done on presidential advised torture but it still lacks bite.
Good read.

Posted by: b | Sep 6 2006 8:21 utc | 4

Convicted ex-Ill. governor out-polls Bush

Posted by: beq | Sep 6 2006 11:45 utc | 6

diversion bomb
“Hippy Sex Fiends and Brutal Machiavellians”
[always knew he was a chimp]

Posted by: beq | Sep 6 2006 18:19 utc | 8

Argh, best thing to do is send an email to Bernhard and see what can be worked out. Thanks for your help with this. It certainly makes me feel better about the world to see how many people have wanted to make a difference as a community.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 6 2006 18:39 utc | 10

froomkin: On Quoting bin Laden

The spectacle of the president of the United States extensively quoting Osama bin Laden to bolster his controversial policies during political season deserves notice, and reflection.
By all rights, President Bush ought to be embarrassed that the al Qaeda leader who masterminded the September 11 terrorist attacks remains at large almost five years later.
…
Mentioning bin Laden so much couldn’t help but remind listeners of Bush’s failure to capture or kill him. But the risk was easily offset by the fact that bin Laden remains the most effective bogeyman out there, and job one for the White House in the run-up to a potentially crippling mid-term election is to scare the hell out of people.

BUSH DIGS UP MOLDY OLD MANUAL OF AFGHAN JIHAD: Tries to make it a reason for why we fight

How do you know when a leader is being deceptive about “al Qaeda” documents? His lips are moving. Another explanation, more benign, is that he’s utterly clueless.
From Associated Press, today, in the story: “Bush reminds Americans U.S. is at war.”
“Bush said that despite the absence of a successor on U.S. soil to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the terrorist danger remains potent,” wrote AP.
“Bin laden and his terrorist’s allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them,” the president was said to have said before an organization called the Military Officers Association of America. “The question is `Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?'”
“Quoting extensively from letters, Web site statements, audio recording and videotapes purportedly from terrorists, as well as documents found in various raids, Bush said that al Qaida, homegrown terrorists and other groups have adapted to changing U.S. defenses . . . ” continued the wire report.
“For example, Bush cited what he called “a grisly al Qaida manual” found in 2000 by British police during an anti-terrorist raid in London, which included a chapter called “Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages.”
Readers of my work from GlobalSecurity.Org and this blog know that when someone quotes from a “document” attributed to al Qaeda, it’s time to review it. Because you either won’t be getting the entire picture, or its historical context and provenance will be distorted in some interesting but politically expedient manner.
The ‘grisly al Qaeda maual’ is the same ‘al Qaeda manual’ that was posted to the US Department of Justice website years ago. It is more accurately known as the “Manual of Afghan Jihad” or “Military Studies in the Jihad [Holy War] Against the Tyrants.”
You can think of it as a moldy oldy, dragged out and banged around to shake loose the dust of fear when leaders need some to sprinkle around.

Posted by: b real | Sep 6 2006 18:58 utc | 12

Here’s a link to another car that runs on water scam.
This isn’t to say that we’re not being gamed by the “peak oil” meme as per Palast (he delves into this in Armed Madhouse), just that most alternative energy schemes are rather scams that defy the physical laws of the universe and misrepresent quantum and string theories to bolster their supposed efficacy.
What is an ultracentrifuge other than a really, really spiffy one?
You cannot get something for nothing energy-wise, not in this universe.

Posted by: gmac | Sep 6 2006 21:34 utc | 14

@Malooga, I would think that many here know my patterns by now, (*winks* at paid gov contractors), in that I do not believe everything that I post , I’m more concerned with the data, not the messenger. However, the ‘peak oil scam’ resonates with me at this time. Further, I do not hold to your ideal that of not trusting people whom can’t write coherently because they are unable to think coherently, that is not always the case. Again, some are foxes some are hedgehogs some are “other”. I would add more, but I am running late as it is, ‘for a very important date’…lol
There are two kinds of people in the world, some who think there are two kinds of people in this world, and some who know better.
~Tom Robbins

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 6 2006 23:08 utc | 16

Go to the “About this site” page for email info.
There are two kinds of people in the world, some who think there are two kinds of people in this world, and some who know better.
~Tom Robbins
I know better. I know there are really three types of people in this world 😉
I’ll give a more substantial post about peak oil, Ruppert, Palast, abiota, and my own theories, which make more sense than Palast or your guy, tomorrow.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 7 2006 1:03 utc | 18

“Frog marches” are reserved for little folk like you an’ me, Unca. Rove ain’t little in any sense you want to use the word. Are you still thinking that there’s justice to be had…? Rove will pull a Kennyboy Lay and “die” before he ever sets foot in a detention cell.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 7 2006 5:36 utc | 20

The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan and Greater Talibanistan
North Waziristan is not al-Qaeda’s endgame, the entire border region is the target

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 7 2006 7:12 utc | 22

Does anyone else have the feeling that now that “everybody” wants to go to Tehran, “real men” want to go to Islamabad? Although even true believers in the U.S. are starting to have doubts about the glorious struggle to bring freedom to Iraq as a way to better America’s position in the world, from a Jabotinskian point of view the increasingly likely partition of Iraq into 3 antagonistic mini-states represents a complete success. An encore in Iran (with Khuzestan, Baluchistan and Iranian Kurdistan as possible secessionist provinces) must exert great attraction on the architects of the Iraqi disintegration, even if Saddam’s failed attempt to detach Khuzestan should serve as warning. U.S. special forces are reported to be already deployed in Iran, although not ostensibly to this end. After that, it’s on to Pakistan, which, by pure chance, is now seen to be “harboring” Osama, and which also has an ample supply of restive ethnic groups (Baluchis again, and Waziri’s). That Pakistan has nuclear weapons presumably represents only a minor technicality to be overcome via the same brilliant planning that has characterized the Iraq operation. The true beauty of the project lies in the fact that it can be “sold” to dim-witted Americans as a program for securing U.S. control of strategic energy resources and infrastructures.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Sep 7 2006 10:01 utc | 24

Uncle, thanks for link to Roubini’s recent blogging on US housing bust.
A US realtor of my acquaintance had been in touch recently about the logistics of moving to Blighty because the US market is so whacked (in Oregon), and she has no possibility of making a living there. I knew, as we all did, that the bubble-burst was coming, but to see it happening like this is, well, scary.
I wonder how the bubble is going to burst here in the UK. I think the speculative bubble here is even bigger than that in the US, given the extent of our wonderful buy-NOT-to-let sector.
The UK govt is talking about a program of “affordable” house building on account of the abject failure of the market to provide for anyone who is not willing to engage in criminal complicity with lenders for a mortgage ten times salary, but to me it looks like that would pop the bubble here, because all the speculators would start to unload if supply increases.
Kind of intractable. I bet the govt now rues demolishing the rent controls that were in place for much of 20th C here (I reckon house prices would not have risen so high if sich controls had been in place).

Posted by: Dismal Science | Sep 7 2006 14:13 utc | 26

found mike nourse’s classic edit of a bush speech up on youtube – Terror, Iraq, Weapons
or if you want a classic mashup, here’s ronnie & nancy delivering thier important public service announcement on drugs

Posted by: b real | Sep 7 2006 16:29 utc | 28

interview w/ daniele ganser, author of NATO’s Secret Armies Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe on the theories surrounding who was behind the sept 11 attacks
le monde diplomatique: False Flag Terrorism
chris floyd: Aid and Comfort: The New Bush-bin Laden Alliance

Bush has never had the slightest intention of catching Osama bin Laden. He needs bin Laden like he needs air or water. Without bin Laden, he is nothing. Without bin Laden, he wouldn’t be a “War President” wielding dictatorial powers over a cowed, confused nation. Without bin Laden — whom Bush has now taken to quoting as an expert on world affairs — the Potomac pipsqueak would be just another failed, one-term president named George Bush, a national joke, a trivia quiz answer, a half-forgotten goober ridiculed for a feckless reign that made Jimmy Carter look like Bismarck. Without bin Laden, Bush never would have had the chance to seal his prejudices and inadequacies in the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people. How could he ever give up bin Laden, who gave him his truest self? Bush is bin Laden, bin Laden is Bush: they gaze at each other lovingly across the smoldering ruins of cities and the festering pits of mass graves, and whisper tenderly one to the other: “You complete me.”
…
In a land ruled by law and reason, a land where morality had any purchase at all, Bush would be sitting in a jail cell tonight, awaiting trial for high treason, terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.
Instead, he’ll be prancing around the country, taking out his little bin Laden rag doll and shaking at it the crowds to give them a big scare. But you know that when he goes to bed tonight, he’ll give that little doll a kiss and a hug and snuggle up with it under the covers.

Posted by: b real | Sep 7 2006 19:19 utc | 30

Palast is a left gate-keeper (imho) Ruppert has his gifts and faults (.. the message, and not the messenger, as Uncle Scam said) but is no oil expert.
“Peak oil” – hard to define, beyond the formal “the point at which oil production is the highest and sinks thereafter” leaves its immediate (and actually ongoing) geo-physical, political, societal aspects in the shade. These can be interpreted or seen in various different ways.
Nevertheless it is an irrefutable scientific fact. A very disagreeable one that various actors try to cover up. The timing actually matters little.
The oil industry seeks to continue, so makes optimistic noises; countries like SA have to keep the only card they have there upfront – they will go on providing; Gvmts. and pols want to stay alive as well, bad news and sacrifices are not presentable; ordinary people and flat earthers believe their world is stable, technology will provide, or whatever; thousands of other industries depend on oil and simply refuse to consider it might go outtasight price-wise or become scarce. Very few realise the real stakes and have acted on them.
The energy ‘diversification’ subsidised industry (wind, solar, ethanol from corn) provides both tax-payer cash to scammers and reassurance to everyone. Cheney, amongst others, I am certain, knows this. It is cheap and good PR, for the moment.
On the ground. Example: Who on this board knows a person aged 17 to 30 who plans to be a petroleum geologist?
No-one. (I bet.) Why? Young people know the industry is finished, none would dream of going into such a dead end. Universities have cut courses, oil companies don’t hire (except for manual or low qualif. type labor.) Even oil traders know that the game will change and last for some time only, but as traders, they are flexible.

Posted by: Noirrette | Sep 7 2006 20:17 utc | 32

American Petrocracy
Among the shifting rationales for the war in Iraq, the most plausible motive may be the least discussed: access to oil.
by Kevin Phillips

In sum, the energy-related price of the administration’s dishonesty and massive miscalculation in Iraq ought to be a central discussion point in this election year and again in 2008.

[emphasis added]
see also:
Yes, It’s About Oil, at Greg Palast’s site

Short answer: It’s the oil, stupid.

and
Oil and Iraq, by the Global Policy Forum

The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. During the final years of the Saddam era, they envied companies from France, Russia, China, and elsewhere, who had obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions (kept in place by the US and the UK) kept those contracts inoperable. Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, everything has changed and the companies have been scrambling to grab their share of the spoils. In the new setting, with Washington running the show, “friendly” companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades.

Posted by: manonfyre | Sep 7 2006 22:23 utc | 34

@bernhard you’d think. the great imponderable is Gordon Brown was even more of an arselickin globalist corporation lover than the Bliar, but given that he’s had to fight tooth and nail to get his gig with no support, the reverse in fact from Uncle Rupert Murdoch, he may no longer feel as obliged to the pricks as he once was.
One thing is for sure there will have been many promises extracted from Brown by the parliamentary party members who would like to have a career that extends past the general election.
There will be significant domestic demands particularly in regard to the privatization of the public service, but also foreign issues are seen as being vote losers, none more so than the zionist bent that the Bliar put on the Brits, which has really pissed them off. probably a transference as much as anything else. The new role of england as a suitable target for suicide bombers has not been a vote winner, though like anyone else the poms are loathe to admit that they are losing. losing in Iraq and afghanistan so rather than do that they will likely put most of the energy into resisting amerikan israeli policy since that is less likely to be seen as ‘giving into terrorism’ than pulling out of Iraq or the ‘ghan.
If we knew exactly how desperate the corporate imperative for controlling Iranian oil was it would be easier to make a judgement on which way brown will jump.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 8 2006 6:45 utc | 36

@Bey
OK, I’m wrong. For the sake of argument then, and in your inimitable loquacious style, describe what Peak Oil is. I am confused by your description of what it isn’t.
I would say Peak Oil represents the point in our consumption of energy resources at which there is less than half of known reserves remaining. How is that any different from:

“the point at which oil production is the highest and sinks thereafter”

or
“we have a global oil supply problem” as evidenced by “oil finds have been few while oil demand has been rising inexorably.” Include the fact that “We have been drawing down reserves for the last 20 years.” Could this indicate that we have “used up half the planet’s recoverable oil?” “Some very smart oil people like Pickens, Simmons, Petrie and Maxwell think so.”
Peak Oil seems rather easy to define to me. These examples differ only in the matters of specificity and brevity.
Apparently I have thricely described what Peak Oil isn’t.
What is it then?

Posted by: gmac | Sep 8 2006 12:13 utc | 38

Suicide bombing near U.S. Embassy in Kabul kills 16, including 2 U.S. soldiers

Posted by: beq | Sep 8 2006 14:33 utc | 40

credible?

“You’ve got to be lucky to make $4 Billion killing on a 6-month investment of $124 Million”

Posted by: beq | Sep 8 2006 16:39 utc | 42

Interesting article beq. It makes anyone that questions the official conspiracy theory seem like a crank. Lite on real facts and plays up the loonier aspects as well as being contradictory. All to further cloud the issue.
On the one hand it states that if the tower is going to go, it will fall straight down. On the other it says the jet fuel sloshed around and heated the supporting steel columns unevenly – some would be much hotter than others and some may not have been very hot at all or even come into contact with the fuel . So which is it? Either the supports gave all at once – near free fall pancake – or they gave unevenly, which would cause the tower to collapse to one side at the point where the steel became weakest like this

Posted by: gmac | Sep 8 2006 18:55 utc | 44

you gotta admit though that the article was not bad for the corporate media. granted, the POV was biased, but it didn’t completely make everyone who questions the official conspiracy tale into a nutjob. and it did leave some questions open. no mention of wtc7.
democracynow is going to give the 911 skeptics another airing on monday’s program, pitting one of the guys behind loose change against one of the popular mechanics guys.

Posted by: b real | Sep 8 2006 19:12 utc | 46

We’re on the same page, gmac. What do the Popular Mechanics [oxymoron?] guys say?

Posted by: beq | Sep 8 2006 22:26 utc | 48

BYU places ‘9/11 truth’ professor on paid leave
“BYU remains concerned that Dr. Jones’ work on this topic has not been published in appropriate scientific venues,” the university statement said.
Of course he’s not been published in appropriate scientific journals — self-interest drives the tenured whores who keep the gates. Their own security, comfort, prestige and mortgage payments ensure that heretical thoughts can not take root.
How conveniently circular: the information, and its bearer, are bogus because not published in peer-reviewed journals; not published therein because threatening to the careers of those controlling publication.
The mewling cowardice of our intellectuals and our institutions of “higher learning”. Speaking of Nazis( as Buschco did tues) this is so like the intellectuals in Germany who just caved rather than speak out against the fascists. Someone with a grain of courage and honesty?? Uh-oh…throw him out before our precious grants run out. Well I have news for them…When Bushco finishes off his “job” there won’t be a dime for their “grants” or their “jobs” or even their persistant and unceasing asskissing.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 8 2006 22:49 utc | 50

‘Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now’

The deadly toll
* After the kidnap of Cpl Gilad Shalit by Palestinians on 25 June, Israel launched a massive offensive and blockade of Gaza under the operation name Summer Rains.
* The Gaza Strip’s 1.3 million inhabitants, 33 per cent of whom live in refugee camps, have been under attack for 74 days.
* More than 260 Palestinians, including 64 children and 26 women, have been killed since 25 June. One in five is a child. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 have been wounded.
* 1,200 Palestinians have been injured, including up to 60 amputations. A third of victims brought to hospital are children.
* Israeli warplanes have launched more than 250 raids on Gaza, hitting the two power stations and the foreign and Information ministries.
* At least 120 Palestinian structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed and 160 damaged by the Israelis.
* The UN has criticised Israel’s bombing, which has caused an estimated $1.8bn in damage to the electricity grid and leaving more than a million people without regular access to drinking water.
* The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says 76 Palestinians, including 19 children, were killed by Israeli forces in August alone. Evidence shows at least 53 per cent were not participating in hostilities.
* In the latest outbreak of violence, three Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli troops raided a West Bank town in search of a wanted militant. Two of those killed were unarmed, according to witnesses.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Sep 9 2006 2:30 utc | 52

Michael Berube
shows us how “hegemony” can make us smart enough to stop messing around with “false consciousness” and why that actually might matter to left politics:

(Remember last month, when I was arguing against Ed Herman’s claim that “on some issues, like “free trade,” and the merits of overseas military ventures [except in the heat of battle and under a furious elite propaganda barrage], the “radical left” is far closer to mainstream opinion than is the “decent left,” and it is listened to on those issues by ordinary citizens when they can be reached”?  This is why.  The argument that The People line up with the radical left “naturally” and are diverted from their true interests only by a furious elite propaganda barrage is not only bad politics; it’s bad theory, the kind that some leftists fall back on to explain to themselves why their followers are so few.)

and this is just one piece in a lovely essay on how Marx is useful to effective activism in the real world, but needs to be thought through, in this case via Raymond Williams.
The whole essay is worthwhile, especially the activist implications it draws out about the difference between alternative politics and oppositional politics. I’m not doing it justice. Read.

Posted by: citizen | Sep 9 2006 5:25 utc | 54

thanks, citizen. might be exactly what i need right now.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 9 2006 5:31 utc | 56

ah HA!! so that’s where citizen k hangs out. berube interesting.

Posted by: b real | Sep 9 2006 6:36 utc | 58

Krugman says [not firewalled] inequality is up for grabs in the national discourse funhouse. Good news.
So what do you know about how to help this discussion keeps implying a need for social policies that support economic equality?

Posted by: citizen | Sep 9 2006 7:05 utc | 60

@Monolycus
Well said, and as many expected: Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, …

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2006 18:17 utc | 62

A movie that everyone should see, Monolycus, just like they say. I ordered and received a copy several months ago.
One thing you can say about the Post article is that it will make people think. It brings the subject out in the open. It’s a good starting place for a lot of people.

Posted by: beq | Sep 9 2006 21:09 utc | 64

Yes, b real. I watched “Loose Change” again this evening and my jaws have been clenched since. So many questions.

Posted by: beq | Sep 10 2006 2:47 utc | 66

gmac- i do not expect wapo to ever cover this issue in the manner that an authentic journalism would require (it’s a little late to begin now), so i start from the position that I am not their targeted audience & was basing my evaluation from that view. sure, as carlin says, there are a lot of stupid mf’ers out there, but that’s not the group i’m thinking of. people who can’t think for themselves make lousy jurists, so we don’t really want them on our side anyway. but there are still people out there that do think & do share a healthy skepticism of what their govt tells them. and there are undoubtedly readers of wapo who have not time on the web researching the topic yet can spot contradictions – as you point out – and, reading this particular article, might become aware that there are more than just fringe whacko’s w/ too much time on their hands espousing open skepticism of the official conspiracy story and that, therefore, more info may be suppressed than the corporate media coverage is providing. a distinguished theologian? ex-admin staffers? professors? it just may make some readers go hmmmm enough to seek out more information and, hence, further diminish the marginalization of alternative theories.

Posted by: b real | Sep 11 2006 2:52 utc | 68

Also wondering if the “great grey mass” may not need the emotional detachment that time will provide. And with everything else coming apart at the seams, maybe it will be sooner rather than later.

Posted by: beq | Sep 11 2006 12:13 utc | 70