There are some very good links and texts in the last Open Thread too.
News & views …
Back to Main
September 12, 2006
OT 06-86
Comments
Since I cant find a link to this here, HERE IT IS.
I dunno, seems has been reading Billmon.
Posted by: anna missed | Sep 12 2006 6:43 utc | 1
For those without patience to figure out that link: here’s a corrected version.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 12 2006 6:47 utc | 3
Interesting interview with Sadr’s top man: Top Aide to Sadr Outlines Vision of a U.S.-Free Iraq
First, “there will be a civil war,” said the aide, Mustafa Yaqoubi, as his three young children wandered in and out of the room. The rising violence and rivalries under the American occupation make a shaking-out all but inevitable once foreign forces go, Yaqoubi said. “I expect ist.”
“No matter the number of people who would lose their lives, it is better than now,” he added. “It would be better than the Americans staying.”
When the tumult ends, the Sadr aide said, Iraq’s Shiite majority will finally be able to claim its due, long resisted by the Americans — freedom to usher in a Shiite religious government that Yaqoubi said would be moderate and perhaps comparable in some ways to Iran’s.
…
Despite their ascendancy now, Yaqoubi said, Iraq’s Shiites owe no gratitude to the Americans. “The Americans are not saving us from Saddam for the sake of the Iraqi people,” he said. “They gave Saddam clearance in the 1990s to strike at the Shia people. It was in their own interest to get rid of Saddam.”
…
How would a Sadr government look, should the cleric come to full power? “Our main goal, by our nature, we are Islamists,” Yaqoubi said. “Our only desire is to obey God. We want the heavenly laws to be applied, in a normal way.”
Yaqoubi described a gentler version of Shiite Islamic government. He insisted that Iraq would not model itself on Shiite Persian Iran next door. But he spoke approvingly of Iran in hinting how Iraq might look, saying, “There is freedom of journalism, women can drive, can go without veils.”
Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. very interesting
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 12 2006 8:16 utc | 5
US Embassy in Syria attacked.
Sorta suprised they haven’t kicked our sorry asses out of there years ago, given that we’ve been threatening them daily since before the Iraq war started.
Posted by: ran | Sep 12 2006 13:16 utc | 7
Attack on billmon? or are a fair and balanced impugning his integrity?
—
“The Goebbels family values” aka Hitler’s ghost
Here is a post that packs a punch, — more like a kick in the head–and stirred memories of billmons quasi-review which influenced me enough to rent the movie. It is reminiscent Imo of what’s the matter with Kansas dkos democrats.
As beq questioned, and Noirette so wonderfully articulates in hir 72 and 73 posts. It never ceases to amaze me the level of denial we humans can adhere to.
I have a friend whom is a Zen Buddhist monk that related a story of his coming to the States as a younger fellow and practicing hypnotism in LA, to fill his eatting bowl, before giving it up, and moving to Montana, as he put’s it, he came to the realization that American’s don’t need hypnotism to help them overcome dieting, quiting smoking, drinking etc, etc.. “Because they are already in a hypnotic state, even the well meaning ones are still half asleep.” Thus for me explains what is wrong with the so called left, and in particular the vast majority of dKos and fellow Kossacks with their wishful thinking i.e. hopes and illusionsof a democrat savior. “Oblivious, In Denial, is Dangerous.”
Interestingly enough, Billmon’s comments on the German film Downfall (Der Untergang) passed w/out much fanfair, but it intrigued me enough to watch it, and the above (Hitler’s ghost) floored me all over again.
I remember at the time, after watching the movie and having been silent all that day because the story of Traudle Junge ( Hitler’s secretary) frightened and effected me so deeply. As billmon suggested the “certain psychological similarities and the totalitarian mindset” they [Bush and Hitler]share are out right creepy. Like Traudle Junge, part of the reason I voted for Bush (to be brutaly honest),was in part out of dark curiosity, and part wanting to get this slow motion train wreck over with.
Just as in Hilter’s character in Downfall, and the rhetoric about the Fatherland, Hitler showed little use for Germany’s sons and daughters; he proclaims that they deserve to suffer because they have proved to be too weak. Reminds me of the disconnect and aloofness of not only our king george and the katrina affair and other events, ad nauseum as well as other instances of cruelty but of half asleep, well meaning democrats and the so called left.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 12 2006 16:34 utc | 8
Who IS Robert Anton Wilson?
Born in 1932 He is still alive, though suffering from post-polio syndrome. He can barely/rarely walk and fights constantly to maintain his medicinal marijuana to fight the pain. He seems a hero to me, if indeed, I have one.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 12 2006 17:15 utc | 9
bar snack.
Mocking Bush is my patriotic duty
A comedian explains how cruel jokes about the president can stop terrorism.
By Bill Maher
Posted by: beq | Sep 12 2006 18:06 utc | 10
In 1969, the United States Senate Subcomittee on Communications convened to discuss proposed budget cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting A little-known (at the time) children’s television show host named Fred Rogers appeared before the committee and delivered a quiet but passionate defense of moral and educational television for the young. This has been posted before here at the bar, but what was not commented on at the time, was that ten years later, Mister Rogers again entered public affairs when he testified before the Supreme Court in favor of the Sony Betamax during the landmark Sony Corp. v. Universal Studios and in particular his understanding of social conditioning and programing of the young. “Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others.” He knew who made the grass green.
I often wonder what will define the post 911 generation, i.e., children born within these last five years, and what they will be like.
Students remember Bush’s ‘My Pet Goat’ visit on 9/11
Hitlers Children-Walt Disney cartoon (Banned)
Thank you ABC/Disney.
Gerhard Rempel was known to say, “the children, get the the children by four or five and you have them for life…” On how to create Nazi Youth. It’s all about imprinting and social conditioning.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 12 2006 18:11 utc | 11
Billmon you are on a roll. Keep it up. Enjoy your perspective.
Posted by: D | Sep 12 2006 18:31 utc | 12
Who IS Robert Anton Wilson?
i noticed your reference to him yesterday when you said billmon was your second favorite writer, made a note to myself to check him out. one of my favorite sayings
“everything that i see, i give it all the meaning it has for me” aligns w/his ‘is’ comentary.
Posted by: annie | Sep 12 2006 19:04 utc | 13
The Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen Luis Posada Carriles will be released from a United States Immigration jail and given amnesty, a U.S. federal judge announced Sept. 12. Both Cuba and Venezuela have demanded his extradition in order to try him for a 1976 airplane bombing that killed 73 people. Carriles has been in U.S. custody since he immigrated one year ago after serving a prison sentence in Panama for his role in a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro.
now if carriles was a muslim…
Posted by: b real | Sep 12 2006 21:06 utc | 14
national security archives’ files on carriles
LUIS POSADA CARRILES: THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD
CIA and FBI Documents Detail Career in International Terrorism; Connection to U.S.
The Posada File: Part II
Posada Boasted of Plans to “Hit” Cuban Plane, CIA Document States
Served as Instructor, Informant for Agency for more than a Decade
Posted by: b real | Sep 12 2006 21:10 utc | 15
Uncle,
Hitler’s Children was wonderful. Now I can’t wait for the racist Disney Uncle Remus cartoons from Song of the South to show up on YouTube.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 12 2006 22:01 utc | 16
IDF Commander: We Fired More Than a Million Cluster Bombs in Lebanon
“What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.
In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Sep 13 2006 1:14 utc | 17
Actually, according to AngryArab, “1/3rd of all bombs dropped on Lebanon by Israel were dropped in the last 24 hours of the war.“(posted 09/07).
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 13 2006 1:40 utc | 18
We are now in the early hours of this struggle between tyranny and freedom. Amid the violence, some question whether the people of the Middle East want their freedom, and whether the forces of moderation can prevail. For 60 years, these doubts guided our policies in the Middle East. And then, on a bright September morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. Years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. So we changed our policies, and committed America’s influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism.
Out of the swamp of the President’s fevered rhetoric, we pluck this exemplary passage. It’s a black hole of sorts–an “eye” in the cyclone of his ravings. He didn’t write it, of course, but he clearly believes it, even if he doesn’t know what it means.
It’s the perfect epitome of delusional neo-con reasoning, and invites a long and patient analysis. For the moment, I’m paying attention to just one little detail. In the space of three quick, rather breathless, sentences, he mentions something he calls “the Middle East”: he refers (1.) to “the people of the Middle East,” (2.) to “our policies in the Middle East,” and (3.) to the “calm in the Middle East” that proved to be a “mirage”.
So the question I’m asking is this: what exactly do you mean, Mr. President, when you give so much weight to this thing you call “the Middle East”? Where does it start, and where does it end?
In Europe, the term “Middle East” usually refers to “the Levant”–Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (Israel), and sometimes Egypt and Turkey. But in Washington the term is used rather broadly, as referring to territory reaching from Morocco to Pakistan. It can be even used, rather abusively, as a synonym for the Muslim world.
So what’s the big idea, Mr. President? Where do you draw the line–or what line do you you think you’ve drawn? “You,” Mr. President, not “we” (a word that you beat to death with your idiot ravings). When I use the word “you,” I’m referring to “you yourself,” though the term could also extend, I suppose, to your ghostly neo-con speech-writers.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 13 2006 2:30 utc | 19
Ah yes, JFL. The “most moral army in the world” carpeting southern Lebanon with made in the USA cluster bombs.
But it’s our freedoms they hate per Dear Leader.
Posted by: ran | Sep 13 2006 2:39 utc | 20
Lest there still be anyone around here who still doesn’t get that the self-styled “lefty” blogs aren’t really in bed w/the Plutocrats working to destroy us, johnny A- is delighted to disabuse you. bloggers lunch w/BClinton (Representatives of the usual suspects were there.)
We get more done working together than working separately, and that’s one of the main messages we delivered.
Is Bill trying to bring ’em on board for Hillary? Their inferiority complex is as pathetic as their political ignorance. Why does anyone read their right-wing horseshit?
And p.s. did you read P.C. Roberts 9/10 columns? Someone(s) leaned on BYU. They put physicist & 911 student Prof. Steven Jones on paid leave. Also, Bush the Pitiful
Can Alabama, Slothrup, Uncle, or any of our resident academics translate that into English for us. Is that what you do w/a “hot potato” to buy time to dump him according to “proper procedures”?
Posted by: jj | Sep 13 2006 3:25 utc | 21
Cenk Uygur: Vicious Muslims and the Americans Who Help Them
There are Muslim religious leaders in Pakistan who argued that a woman who has been raped has to have four male witnesses to prove it, otherwise she will be punished as an adulterer. But it gets sicker – they won that argument.
Pakistan just decided to leave rape within the jurisdiction of religious law. And since the literal reading of the Koran on this issue is vile, reprehensible and dead wrong, now women in Pakistan can pretty much be raped at will. Just make sure there are only three other male witnesses anytime you rape a woman in Pakistan, and you’re home free.
Plus, for kicks, the sick religious leaders in Pakistan will punish the woman instead.
Yeah, yeah, I know, Islam is a religion of peace. My ass. Have you ever read the Koran? Just like the Bible, it is wildly contradictory and dripping in blood. Work with Christians and Jews in one verse, slaughter them in the next.
Before you Christians get all cocky and self proud about how Muslims are violent and Christians are holy, let me be clear – the only religion more violent than Islam in history is Christianity. Forget the Crusades, how about the Inquisition? How about the wholesale massacre of Native Americans? How about the enslavement of millions for centuries? How about World War I? How about the Holocaust? The German army in the Second World War had this slogan chiseled into their buckle belts: Got mit uns – God is with us!
[Article continues at link, with highest recommendations.]
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 4:56 utc | 22
…the university must provide an environment enlightened by living prophets and sustained by those moral virtues which characterize the life and teachings of the Son of God.–from the “Brigham Young University Mission Statement”.
You can see the problem, jj: did Prof. Steven Jones “enlighten,” as a “living prophet,” an “environment” “provided by the university”? And not just any “environment,” by the way, but an environment that “has to be sustained by…moral virtues”; and not by just any moral virtues, by the way, but by those “which characterize the life and” (not just the life, but also) “the teachings” of “the Son of God”.
So maybe the Professor almost made the grade, but not quite–or not to everyone’s satisfaction.
Yes, he probably did “enlighten,” as “a living prophet” of some kind, the University’s “environment”. But the University may have had a problem on its hands all the same, because it always has to provide that very particular environment required by its mission–one which is not merely “enlightened,” but is also “sustained” by those moral virtues that “characterize the life and teachings of the Son of God”.
The professor exercised his curiosity in public, and in doing so, he evidently failed to advance the University’s mission. And why? Because “curiosity” isn’t a virtue ascribed to the Son of God. Not being a virtue (so ascribed), it’s probably a vice of some kind, and shouldn’t be seen on that campus.
In situations such as his, “paid leave” is clearly the way to go.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 13 2006 4:57 utc | 23
@ U$:
Aw, thanks for the RAW dose. I went to a Wilson workshop some 20 years ago in Phoenix; he was promoting a crude little brainwave device–a Sony Walkman with ‘trodes attached so you could entrain your brain to alpha, beta, theta, or delta wave frequencies, depending which tape you put into the deck. There was a little plastic box glued to the Walkman, in which the audio signal was converted back to current flowing to the headpiece, which was placed behind the ears. If you turned up the volume all the way, it got a little twitchy. What the hell was that thing called; I long since parted company with the device.
I recently revisited “Prometheus Rising,” and dagnabbit, I lent my copy of Illuminatus! to someone 5 years ago and never got it back. Hardly need that one anymore; just turn on the news, fnord fnord fnord 23 skidoo.
@Annie:
Wilson’s line on “the is of identification” comes from his study of Korzybski’s “General Semantics.” I’m having trouble tonight linking to the General Semantics website, where I downloaded (a few months ago) PDFs of one of Korzybski’s books. Haven’t read it yet….
Wikipedia has entries under Korzybski and General Semantics, and here’s an article at the Gestalt Journal’s website.
Posted by: catlady | Sep 13 2006 5:43 utc | 24
Thanks for all the good links. I’m a bit busy, but as Billmon is on a roll …
R’giaps laptop will arrive on the 19th – Apple had a backlog on them.
WTF
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. “(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I thin
Posted by: anna missed | Sep 13 2006 6:26 utc | 26
When rockets and phosphorous cluster
“In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs, what we did there was crazy and monstrous,” testifies a commander in the Israel Defense Forces’ MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) unit. Quoting his battalion commander, he said the IDF fired some 1,800 cluster rockets on Lebanon during the war and they contained over 1.2 million cluster bombs. The IDF also used cluster shells fired by 155 mm artillery cannons, so the number of cluster bombs fired on Lebanon is even higher. At the same time, soldiers in the artillery corps testified that the IDF used phosphorous shells, which many experts say is prohibited by international law. According to the claims, the overwhelming majority of the weapons mentioned were fired during the last ten days of the war.
The commander asserted that there was massive use of MLRS rockets despite the fact that they are known to be very inaccurate – the rockets’ deviation from the target reaches to around 1,200 meters – and that a substantial percentage do not explode and become mines. Due to these facts, most experts view cluster ammunitions as a “non-discerning” weapon that is prohibited for use in a civilian environment. The percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the U.S. army in Iraq reached 30 percent and the United Nations’ land mine removal team in Lebanon claims that the percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the IDF reaches some 40 percent. In light of these figures, the number of duds left behind by the Israeli cluster rockets in Lebanon is likely to reach half a million.
just wanted to say that borrowing other people’s computers – i try to catch up each day at my moon
wonderful rich & varied posts
both b & billmon hitting the mark
diabetes also complicated – so have also preferred to wait for my clarity than offer confusion
force
Posted by: r’giap | Sep 13 2006 11:22 utc | 29
r’giap good to hear from ya…
I don’t know if this would be medicine for your spirit, I do know it was for mine, and I offer it in that light…
If I ever have to have a suit, Can I hire this guy?
Steel…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 11:41 utc | 31
On the fifth anniversary of That Fateful Day, one of the Twin Towers of the American left collapses into its own footprint, emitting huge clouds of smoke, hot air and filthy rubbish. Le Colonel Chabert observes and describes the spectacle:
Nutcases indeed…
Someone here recently posted about Cockburn’s lastest, I couldn’t find it, and had reservations then and this supports em…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 12:40 utc | 32
hello to our comrade from nantes
bliar got a sadly only metaphorical kicking in beirut
100 years in the deepest pit of gitmo would be too good for him
(but of course i subscribe to the rule of law and would like to see him on trial for what he has done, not least the ruination of the health service)
Posted by: Dismal Science | Sep 13 2006 14:05 utc | 34
Let me join the others in adding my greetings to RGiap on his return.
Since I didn’t contribute to the computer purchase allow me to offer
a lunch or dinner invitation during your next trip to the Veneto.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Sep 13 2006 14:16 utc | 35
just to clarify in case there is confusion – it is not too late to contribute to the computer purchase. the community here has really come through, but there is still a balance of several hundred dollars and while our anonymous donor has been very, very generous and kind-hearted, i can’t imagine additional contributions will be turned away. when you figure the total cost of the computer and monitor came to about $1800, it says a great deal about moon as a group. i am still accepting checks by mail and then making payments via paypal for those who would rather not use it and have asked bernhard to leave the donations button operative for a bit longer.
also wanted to take a moment to say thanks – so many people have really come through across the miles and continents. i see it as a singular virtuous moment of globalisation. and if you think for a moment what this means to r’giap…. thanks to all for well wishes and more.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 13 2006 15:09 utc | 37
i’d also like to send a very special warmness to you r’giap.
#36 there is also the spirit of contribution i appreciate whether it is able to materialize in $ form.
i sort of feel like the support, even tho it is for r’giap at present actually represents giving to all of us. a very big heart felt nod of appreciation to our anonymous donor, wink to you while blowing x’s.
&thnx conchita for keeping us posted
uncle #31 at what the lawyer man is saying, let’s not forget there are more of us than they want us to believe. when the msm (wapo)talks about bushes third awakening they are referring to his 30% trying to distract the other larger % as news of soccermoms and southern women bailing on support for iraq .
this guy has more confidence than i do but i still think he sings the truth there’s something in the air but it’s not on the airwaves
Posted by: annie | Sep 13 2006 16:15 utc | 38
@Hannah:
Please do take Scam out to supper. He’s up there mumbling that he’s found his reservations. Make sure he wears a suit and tie. He’d probably show up in local court in his birthday suit, thinking that “Back to Nature” is an absolute defense in indecent exposure cases.
Cockburn’s coming in shortly to lecture on criminal law. Then the drunk Chabert, his sluttish wife, and all the inlaws.
Then the Stalinist fruitcake gets a more powerful computer. Ought to be a real zoo around here in a couple days.
My mind cannot bear the strain of contemplating all this.
I’m taking a two-month sabbatical to pursue an advanced degree in Theology.
Posted by: Ms. Manners | Sep 13 2006 18:00 utc | 39
ms m. you and gmac over @ol time religion ought to get together for contemplation and tea. your respective links seem so…. compatable! lol
Posted by: annie | Sep 13 2006 18:33 utc | 40
Well, I don’t know about the whole “reawakening” thing, but there is the revised Christian Guide to Small Arms. One has to ask, with all our bombs, churches and guns, why are we still so very afraid.
“The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant” ~Karl Kraus
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 18:49 utc | 41
Scam, you just made my day with the kraus quote, kantian that i am. didn’t eichmann try to claim kant made me do it while on trial?
Posted by: conchita | Sep 13 2006 18:59 utc | 42
From U$cam’s Xtian small arms guide:
“This document is provided by Gospel Plow for the purpose of educating the remnant.”
Think he means ruminants?
Posted by: gmac | Sep 13 2006 19:58 utc | 43
kinda curious, after reading that xtian arms site. i noticed that the site hasn’t been updated since 1999 and that the last link, hardware, proclaims
A few recommendations:
DO NOT BACKORDER ANY WEAPON!
This is no time to be waiting on an order. Find a stocking dealer with actual items available for immediate shipment.
wonder what happened?
Posted by: b real | Sep 13 2006 20:19 utc | 44
If anyone round here is trying to stay across the halfhearted BushCo attempts to bring some of the worst (ie well known and documented) war criminals in their armed forces to justice US style (ie the more money you pay, the less culpable you are found to be), this article (tip of the hat to anti-war.com) here in Yahoo news, reveals one of the ground rules.
That rule is simple, typical and blood-boilingly predictable.
If the prosecution believes that there is a chance perpetrators of these war crimes may actually be convicted, the death-penalty is taken right off the table in ActI of the show trial.
The report tells us that:
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – The government will not seek the death penalty for a Marine Corps corporal who is among eight troops charged with murder and other crimes in the shooting of a civilian Iraqi man, a military prosecutor told a hearing officer Tuesday.
Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., 21, is accused in the killing of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad last April in Hamdania, west of Baghdad. Shumate is suspected of firing his M-16 at Awad, then lying to investigators about what had happened, according to charging documents.
Military prosecutor Lt. Col. John Baker’s recommendation against a possible death penalty for Shumate came at the conclusion of an Article 32 hearing, the equivalent of a preliminary hearing in civilian court, that was held as part of the process to decide whether Shumate will be held for a court-martial. The final decision rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis. . . “
The guy has confessed, his confederates in the murder have confessed to a brutal and unprovoked murder of a civilian, yet the prosecution lets them off the hook?
C’mon now. The victim was only a sand-nigger. We all know that none of these murderers will be in jail for long. They are gonna get released as soon as no one is looking anymore.
I’m totally and irervocably opposed to the death penalty, for a plethora of reasons, most of them as predictable as this decision, but as long as poor people are routinely murdered by the state in amerika. on a lot less evidence than this, and usually because their victim wasn’t poor, then taking capital penalties off the table before the case has even been heard must be seen for what it is.
That is; yet another amoral conjoining of amerikan exceptionalism and racism.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 13 2006 21:52 utc | 46
Couldn’t agree more Did… But the dems will make it all better just wait and see…
as Blake said, “One law for the Lion and different one for the Ox is Tyranny.”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 22:09 utc | 47
syria claims u.s. responsible for the attack on the u.s. embassy. more democracy in action.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 14 2006 0:05 utc | 48
U$ (8),
Attack on billmon? or are a fair and balanced impugning his integrity?
Quote from thee link:
Can anyone here step up and tell me that it’s responsible blogging to “hope for a 1932?”
Ah, irresponsible blogging. Now there is a crime to be proud of.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 14 2006 0:06 utc | 49
Nearly forgot (long thread),
good to have you back r´giap! Glad that operation Fruitcake was a success.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 14 2006 0:09 utc | 50
Hezbollah accused of war crimes
Amnesty International has accused Hezbollah of acts amounting to war crimes in the conflict with Israel.
The group said Hezbollah deliberately targeted civilians with rockets in the 34-day war – a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”.
An earlier Amnesty report accused Israel of committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.
…
Amnesty’s report on 23 August said Israel had targeted homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants as an “integral part” of its strategy.
It said Israeli claims of “collateral damage” were “simply not credible”.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel’s actions during the war were “in accordance with recognised norms of behaviour during conflicts and with relevant international law”.
Posted by: annie | Sep 14 2006 5:17 utc | 51
from conchita’s(48) link
“Only the Americans can succeed in carrying out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad’s residence in the most heavily guarded section of Syria.”
once apon a time, this may have seemed far fetched. now, it seems like the most logical conclusion. unless it was mossad working in conjunction w/the US.
Posted by: annie | Sep 14 2006 5:23 utc | 52
debs war criminals in their armed forces to justice US style
US justice doesn’t included executing soldiers thru the system as far as i know. maybe in theory. i’m sure they have other ways of taking care of their own if they want an elimination. a more private affair like that ‘suicide’ in iraq. anything else would be a PR disaster. i cannot even fathom it.
maybe if a soldier went on a binge and killer a few of our own.
Posted by: annie | Sep 14 2006 5:34 utc | 53
This NYT article by John Tierney has probably already been noted, but it seems to me to be worth reading. Also Josh Landis blogs the attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus. I would
expect some updated comments shortly, in response to the accusation
of U.S. involvement.
If memory serves (correct me if I err), during the early 1960’s about 90% of the funding for the American Communist Party derived from the dues of paid FBI infiltrators. Given the remarkable success of John Walker Lindh and Adam Yahiye Gadahn in infiltrating Al Qaeda, and given the many intelligence agencies with a strong interest in such infiltration (ranging from the usual U.S. suspects, to those of Great Britain, Israel, many “friendly” Arab states, many European countries, Iran, India
and others) it seems reasonable to conjecture that the same situation obtains for Al Qaeda. So, while there may indeed be a certain number of dedicated “independent” Al Qaeda fanatics (just as there were Gus Hall, Earl Browder, etc. in the PCUSA), it is probably the case that they are
constantly “escorted” and maneuvered by intelligence agency moles and
provocateurs. Indeed (and here I apologize for “preaching to the choir”) this hypothesis seems to clarify many mysteries.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Sep 14 2006 7:44 utc | 54
@ Debs is dead (#46) – “The final decision rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis. . . “
Remember Lt. Gen. James Mattis?
“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot,” Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. “It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
Posted by: beq | Sep 14 2006 13:09 utc | 56
the wonderful tool has arrived & with its maiden ecran – there will be much work done on them
i really, really want to thank all the comrades for their fraternity & generosity – i hope i am worthy of your efforts
here & elsewhere
as conchita knows i have a fascination with the tools of my labour (perhaps even a little too much) but to be working on something that only my own failure is exigante is important for me
the conflation of my situation, the sickness being very heavy & the pure absurdity of events – foreseeable events like the ‘resurgance’ of the ‘insurgents’ in afghanistan – where we have since the whisky bar been most insistant
the plane affair become a sorry soap instead of the affair of state it is
from bint jbeil to wajiristan – the empire has understood nothing, absolutely nothing
& the mess they are making of it is enough it send us all to hospital & sometimes it is hard to see through the mess & sometimes i am unconvinced of friend slothrops sense that finally the empire knows what it is doing even in chaos
having been more or less a silent witness & overcrowded with commentary &images during this été – i am convinced of only their brutality & their stupidity
& it is not flattery to say i come here for sense, common sense
& i find it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 14 2006 19:07 utc | 59
audio interview w/ r.t. “hot money” naylor
Our next guest says governments are wasting their time tracking down money that doesn’t really exist. R.T. Naylor, a McGill economics professor, has been following the trail of the so-called “terror dollar”. His new book is called, Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation in the War on Terror, and Professor R.T. Naylor joined us from Montreal.
robert dreyfuss, though he scribes for the “right-arabist” crowd, has an article out in rolling stone (posted here from informationclearinghouse) The Phony War
John Brennan, the former counterterrorism director, says that the military is singularly unsuitable to combat the new organizational model that is emerging to replace Al Qaeda. “It’s not a Terrorist International that we’re fighting,” he says. “But the Department of Defense and others insist very strongly on calling it a war, because that allows the Pentagon to prosecute the military dimension of the conflict. It fits their global strategy.”
Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Marine colonel who served as Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department, also ridicules the president’s notion that the enemy is a global force made up of “Islamic fascists” who can be defeated as the Nazis were by military force. “I don’t think there’s a soul in the administration, except for Vice President Dick Cheney, who believes that crap about ‘Islamofascism,’ ” he says.
To make matters worse, Wilkerson adds, the Pentagon often undertook its anti-terrorism ventures without even bothering to notify other agencies. Special Forces frequently turned up uninvited in countries around the world, and the State Department didn’t even know they were there. “We’d have an ambassador call us and say, ‘Why are these six-foot-six Americans walking down the streets here?’ ” Wilkerson recalls. “And Colin Powell would have to call Don Rumsfeld and say, ‘Don, why the hell do you have the Delta Force in such-and-such place?'”
The emphasis on the military has come at the expense of intelligence gathering. In fact, the administration’s recent steps to reorganize intelligence agencies have weakened the CIA and created an overlapping and contradictory web of bureaucracy that has complicated the ability of U.S. spies and analysts to prevent another attack. “We have a more confusing organization now,” says Pillar. “It’s really hard to answer the question ‘Who’s in charge?’ ”
Over the past two years, as the CIA has been forced to do the bidding of the Pentagon, scores of top agency officials have been fired or have quit in disgust. In addition, Rolling Stone has learned, the Defense Department has even blocked efforts by the agency to produce a National Intelligence Estimate — a formal, top-secret analysis of the threat posed by Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. Five years after the attacks of September 11th, the administration still lacks a unified, up-to-date analysis of who the enemy is and how best to fight him.
“When I left the CIA in November 2004, they had not done an NIE on Al Qaeda,” says Scheuer, who headed the agency’s Al Qaeda unit for nearly a decade. “In fact, there has never been an NIE on the subject since the 1990s.” Today, the process remains bogged down in interagency disputes — largely because of resistance by the Pentagon to any conclusions that would weaken its primary role in counterterrorism. As a result, the Bush administration remains uncertain about the true nature of the terrorist foes that America faces — and unable to devise an effective strategy to combat those foes.
Posted by: b real | Sep 14 2006 19:08 utc | 60
Oh well B real’s post kinda puts this article from the Grauniad into perspective.
It seems that twisting and peverting the truth especially the truth about Musloms is now an open and celebrated national obsession. However this story may not be playing very loudly in the US.
The Atomic Energy Commission has caught a US Congressional Committee ‘at it’ lying and twisting intelligence that is, and has called them out on it.
The lying and twisting bit isn’t surprising, that the IAEA felt emboldened enough to call them out truly reveals how far amerikan influence at the UN has fallen since Bolton took the gig. read on:
UN attacks US nuclear report on Iran
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has made a stinging attack on the US Congress over an “outrageous and dishonest” report on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that the congressional report published last month contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information”, and that it took “strong exception” to “incorrect and misleading” claims in the report that the IAEA was covering up some of its doubts about Iran’s nuclear intentions.
A letter from the IAEA to Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the intelligence select committee in the house of representatives, was leaked to the Washington Post today.
Washington has been keen to ramp up pressure on Iran at a time when Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany – the other main negotiators over Iran’s nuclear programme – are favouring a more cautious approach.
Although all six countries want Iran to stop enriching uranium, Russia and China are understood to oppose the imposition of economic sanctions and the European negotiators are opposed to any military action against Tehran.
There have been international concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme since it announced success in enriching uranium earlier this year. Uranium must be enriched to be used in nuclear power plants, but further enrichment can produce material suitable for use in atomic bombs.
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is only intended for peaceful power generation purposes, but diplomats suspect that it is being used as cover for atomic weapons development.
The congressional report is said to have been written by a Republican staff member of the house intelligence committee who is known to have hardline views on Iran and who based the report’s conclusions on published material, rather than secret intelligence.
The IAEA letter particularly criticised a caption in the report claiming that the Natanz plant in central Iran was enriching uranium to weapons grade. That claim was contradicted by the IAEA’s latest report on Iran, released to diplomats at the end of last month and showing that enrichment had so far only reached low levels.
But the strongest response was to the report’s retelling of an article in German newspaper Die Welt about the departure of former nuclear inspector Chris Charlier from the IAEA.
The report had claimed that Mr Charlier was removed by the IAEA director, Mohamed El Baradei, at the behest of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and that there was an “unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear programme”.
The letter described these statements as “outrageous and dishonest”, saying that the IAEA’s founding rules stated that inspectors could only be sent to a country with the agreement of the country’s government.
This new resistant attitude from Europe combined with stories such as this:
DAKAR (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday he was open to what he called new conditions to resolve Tehran’s standoff with the West over its nuclear program and believed talks could end the dispute.
“We are partisan to dialogue and negotiation and we believe that we can resolve the problems in a context of dialogue and of justice together,” Ahmadinejad told a midnight news conference during a visit to Senegal’s capital Dakar.
“I am announcing that we are available, we are ready for new conditions,” he said, without elaborating, before leaving to fly to a Non-Aligned summit in Cuba. Ahmadinejad was speaking through a translator.
re-assure me that amerika won’t get it’s much sought after huge set piece confrontation in the ME.
Which in turn means that the responsibility for hosing out the whitehouse and both houses of congress rests back with the amerikan people lets hope they finally grasp the nettle.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 14 2006 19:55 utc | 62
I somehome missed this one: Body Count in Baghdad Nearly Triples
Separately, the Health Ministry confirmed Thursday that it planned to construct two new branch morgues in Baghdad and add doctors and refrigerator units to raise capacity to as many as 250 corpses a day.
250x30x12 = 90,000 is the obviously expected dead per year number that need some morgue attandance – and that is only Baghdad.
I saw (offline source) that the US is pulling its non-essential personel from their Syria embassy, on account of that bomb attempt. Is someone going to attack Syria perhaps?
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 14 2006 21:31 utc | 64
Who can tell ASKOD? There is no doubt that the amerikan regime is even more pissed off with Syria than they were a week ago.
The reasons are an ‘either or’
They are either pissed because the Syrian security services reacted to commendably when the amerikan embassy was under attack by giving up their own lives to protect their amerikan guests from the bomb that was going to be exploded. Then they killed or arrested all the perpetrators. This act not only showed that Syrians don’t support this type of jihadist attack on targets that are less than 100% miltary targets, but that they protect foreign guests including the amerikans withoutfear or favour. Not a point of view that the Bushitas would enjoy getting wide currency.
The OR is the point that Conchita made here, that the US attacked their own embassy in an attempt to crank up “two minutes hate” against Syria.
I favour the first alternative for what it’s worth. If it is indeed resentement at being thwarted by a good deed, Syria should take this latest round of invective very seiously indeed, as the neo-cons are at their nastiest when ensuring no good deed goes unpunished.
Of course being an Oil Free State may save their asses yet again
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 15 2006 0:00 utc | 65
debs & askod
yes, its curious & getting more curious
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 15 2006 1:30 utc | 66
Happily R’Giap is back ‘cuz it we may need him…Today is some sort of Apocalypse Now sort of day. I just hrd. on the news that Ford offered ALL their Salaried Employees Buyout Packages…
And then there’s this…Jim Lovelock‘s new bk. is due for its US release. It’s written w/out his co-developer of the Gaia Hypothesis, Lynn Margulies (sp?). He’s 88, so may not schlep over for interviews – presumably that’s why WaPo sent a reporter to England to interview him. I”m posting both the Brit link Independent, and link to WaPo Interview.
The WaPo interview is so much grimmer. Not sure if he really believes things he’s saying or if he’s just DESPERATE to wake up Am. elites, as he notes in Ind. that he fears it’s too late for America to reverse course in time. (The key issue scientifically is if it’s gone so far that we’re already locked in positive feedback loop, in which case we’re cooked.) Anyone have any thoughts? Here’s early graph from WaPo:
A lean, white-haired gentleman in a blue wool sweater and khakis beckons you inside his whitewashed cottage. We sit beside a stone hearth as his wife, Sandy, an elegant blonde, sets out scones and tea. James Lovelock fixes his mind’s eye on what’s to come.
“It’s going too fast,” he says softly. “We will burn.”
Why is that?
“Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return.”
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 1:47 utc | 67
DeA-*********You Around??
Update to above: Jim is stopping by Carnegie (in DC) to give them Religion tomorrow.
Within the next decade or two, Lovelock forecasts, Gaia will hike her thermostat by at least 10 degrees. Earth, he predicts, will be hotter than at any time since the Eocene Age 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic Ocean.
“There’s no realization of how quickly and irreversibly the planet is changing,” Lovelock says. “Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover.”
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 2:16 utc | 68
Re: Lovelock.
Real estate in central Alaska sounds like mighty fine investment under this scenario.
Moon of… Fairbanks?
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 15 2006 2:35 utc | 69
lovelock was on kpfa‘s morning show thurs (you can listen hear) and he made clear that he hopes he is wrong, but his research indicates that he’s not. he’s thinking that by the end of the century, 80% of the population will be wiped out, largely the result of conflict involved in the mass migrations across the planet into the northern regions. bleak stuff, no doubt.
the interview w/ rashid khalidy, author of The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, was also good.
also, recommend listening to r.t naylor’s CBC interview which i linked to in #60, if you haven’t. some good stuff.
Posted by: b real | Sep 15 2006 3:11 utc | 70
Thanks b real – will definitely do so.
Just found another reason xUS Elites helped engineer rigging of Mexican election: The Guy stealing the office plans to ram through congress Piratizing Mexico’s Oil Industry…Surprise!
Then, for those who believe in the Religion of the Market, sorry to disappoint you…Rigging the Market – the Secret Maneuverings of the Plunge Protection Team But Knowledgeable Barflies, will it be enough to stave off collapse?
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 3:24 utc | 71
jj,
the so-called Plunge Protection Team has nothing to do with systemic collapse, that’s not what it is for. It is the financial markets equivalent of the Lender of Last Resort, i.e. the Central Bank — in this country the Fed. The PPT exists to buy in a panic at prices that are objectively very low, as in October of 1987. I don’t know why it has that silly name: it is the major Wall Street firms teaming up with the Fed/Treasury that do the buying (and get to make a lot of money).
Systemic collapse is different: under such a scenario the fundamentals of the financial markets take a hit that isn’t reversible (due to: “Radiation”, “Gaia’s Revenge” “Peak Oil” —you name it): no more earnings growth, or even worse. If that were to happen, a superhero, Helicopter Ben (as in Bernanke) would appear in the sky and it would rain Dollars. Nominally that would rescue the markets and allow the financial system to honor its many contracts, but the collapse in value would still occur in full due to inflation.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 15 2006 4:25 utc | 72
As I understand it after the 87 crash, when the ninnies were looking around for a reason to explain why ‘the masters of the universe’ (MOTU) on their multi million dollar salaries had all behaved like sheep and kept offloading stock at well below its value as the market plummeted, they blamed their technology.
They claimed that all of the complex derivative constructs that underpin so much of the market nowadays are computer controlled.
This means that as the market tanks these programs just keep selling even when they get way beyond the point where the stock is good value.
Now given these MOTU’s loathe state intervention in any shape or form, it was surprising (note irony) that rather than amend their programs to not be so goddamned stupid, or take the hit if they got it wrong, they set up a team to intervene. But how can the market work in it’s pure and chaste glory if it can’t be allowed to move to it’s ‘logical conclusion’, without interference from grubby little federal employees in cheap suits?
Now they may be grubby, but they can provide access to funds kindly donated by millions of other grubs, apparently this is called “Income Tax”. MOTU’s of course don’t pay income tax, they believe that the grubs should pay for the privilege of having MOTU’s around.
Which they will do the next time the market goes into free fall, the MOTU’s programs will keep selling stock so as not to corrupt the flow, but taxpayer funds will be spent buying up billions of dollars worth of stock, in that way supporting the price so that the MOTU’s will barely feel the hit.
The grubs will be told that this was ‘necessary to prevent a ‘meltdown’. The alternative of simply turning off the ‘sell’ programs will not of course be mentioned.
Something else won’t be mentioned either,that is when the ‘crisis has been averted’ none of the paper that the Feds are holding will be worth jackshit. All of those sales which should never have happened because the stock’s fundamentals were sound will have been sold back into the market at low prices to ‘reinforce stability’.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 15 2006 6:44 utc | 73
I knew if I put that out here I’d get some valuable explanations. Thanks.
Found bit on doings @Ford alluded to above. Looks like it’s the end of Unionized Auto Co, if not more…Ford offers buyouts to all 75k UAW members in US
Guess all that’s left is to file for bankruptcy, so they can let the “court” let them out of paying pensions & medical benefits to retired workers. Then voila, just like that, plaster the papers w/ads for $7/hr jobs…or move all factories to Mexico…Screw Americans anyway…
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 7:08 utc | 74
If Lovelock is right — and there’s no particular reason to think he isn’t, really — then we’re in really deep shit really fast. So fast, in fact, that basically nothing else matters. Every political issue out there is going to be dwarfed by climate change in the near future. He’s predicting that the human population will be reduced to 200 million over the next few decades, which means that compared to today’s population, at least 32 out of every 33 people will die. That’s not as bad as it could be — 99 out of 100, 999 out of 1000, 1 out of 1 — and in any event it won’t work out to be that granular (it’s not like a disease; rather than each individual either surviving or dying, it will be groups or even nations). But it’s really bad.
I have a question, though: after the human population has been killed off, what will prevent the algae from coming back, thriving in the wonderful conditions (warm, lots of sun, lots of carbon dioxide), and dropping the temperature down to ice-age levels? And why does he feel that a warmer earth would support so few humans, anyway? There’s a lot of tundra up in Russia and Canada that currently isn’t hospitable; if the climate goes to hell in a handbasket, wouldn’t someone notice and start transplanting tropical plants up there? Does anyone know if he covers this stuff in his book or not?
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 15 2006 7:55 utc | 75
Debs,
you misunderstand: it is profitable to be on the PPT just as it is profitable to be the Lender of Last Resort. I suspect this is why there is no official federal stabilization fund the way there is in several Asian countries, but only this informal “team”. It’s more profitable that way for Wall Street.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 15 2006 12:03 utc | 77
It’s more profitable that way for Wall Street.
why? wouldn’t it be just as profitable if it was official, does the lack of transpanercy add to its ‘value’ as socialized protection for the elite, welfare for the rich, instead of the rich protecting or subsidizing the poor.
Posted by: annie | Sep 15 2006 12:29 utc | 79
If there were an official stabilization fund, using for example social security contributions, then the capital gains would accrue to the social security beneficiaries, i.e. you and me. Under an informal set-up the stabilization buying is never officially acknowledged and noone knows where the profits went. In all likelihood though, they are part of the trading P&L of the major Wall Street firms for the year the PPT intervened. That would be 1987 and perhaps 2002/2003.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 15 2006 13:17 utc | 80
Journalist shot dead in Pakistan
Senior journalist, Maqbool Hussain Siyal, who was also a district Correspondent for Online News Network, DIK, was shot dead by some unidentified gunmen.
The 32-year old journalist was on his way to meet PPPP leader Nawab Azek ‘s residence when two unknown gunmen riding a bike fired upon him near a Toyota showroom situated on the northern Circular Road.
Posted by: annie | Sep 15 2006 13:40 utc | 81
Smoking Gun: Washington Post Hires Top Bush Speechwriter
Few media marching bands have beat the Iraq war drums more frantically and with more influence than the editorial pages of the Washington Post. On Monday, the Post announced the hiring of another drummer boy, one who played a key propaganda role inside the Bush White House.
The Post editorial pages were an echo chamber for pre-war distortions and paranoid fantasies originated by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). So it’s grotesquely fitting that the Post would hire as an op-ed columnist, Michael Gerson, Bush’s top speechwriter who – as a key wordsmith within WHIG – helped originate the flights of rhetorical fancy that so dazzled the Post’s laptop warriors. Gerson spun the deceit; the Post peddled it. Now they’ll operate under the same roof.
In explaining why the Post was adding yet another pro-war voice to its op-ed page, hawkish editorial page editor Fred Hiatt described Gerson as being “a different kind of conservative from the other conservatives on our page.” Thanks, Fred, for all the diversity.
In their new book “Hubris,” Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that it was Gerson who –
* inserted references to the yellowcake-from-Niger tale into various Bush speeches, including the 2003 State of the Union.
* helped prepare Secretary of State Colin Powell’s dishonest and bellicose speech to the U.N.
* conceived Team Bush’s trademark paranoid “soundbite” warning of a potential Iraq nuclear program: “The first sign of a smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.”
Posted by: b real | Sep 15 2006 14:50 utc | 82
As the WaPo et al degenerate into ever more blatant propaganda, Journo Prof. Jay Rosen is working on a new model for the internet.Reinventing Journalism in the Networked Age
@Truth, I haven’t read Lovelock’s book yet. I’m surprised he thinks there is sufficient evidence that we’re already irreversibly locked into positive feedback cycles. It’s possible that politically significant actors – say Gore, Soros, et al – have asked him to present the worst case scenarios he can since xUS elites are so intransigent nothing but the Extreme will move them. It certainly provides cover for worst elements to ….
I heard interview yesterday w/someone who said even WalMart was beg. to wake up. They’d hired Amory Lovins to make their operation more energy efficient. This is where it could have hooked up w/a ‘produce locally, consume locally- bring the factories back’ movement, but none has been built. Idiot bloggers have been too busy showing how much more clever they are than the fascists, to focus on anything that matters, the unions have been gutted, and Environmentalists have never focused on Production..
I found an interesting link last night via Ran Prieur Barflies might enjoy to a fellow who made enough bucks to buy farm in NZ by working for a Screw The Masses Home Loan Operation owned secretly by Major NY Bank that sucked $5B – right, billion – per month out of it… He tells the story How Toxic is Yr. Mortgage(9/4)And here’s his site on his Adventures Farming in NZ God knows if they know anything about farming…looks like a back to the land circa 1970 redux…if he’s actually just an Orange Co. kid who now has to live off the land, things could get tough…
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 16:38 utc | 83
Brit thinking on cutting back greenhouse gases 90% by 2050 – though it so follows idiot elite models that it seems to still rely on factories in China. Warning: bigger carbon cut needed to avoid disaster
Anyone have Any doubt that anti-terra horseshit is a Fig Leaf for concerns about Major “unrest” caused by The Precipitous Fall?
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 17:05 utc | 84
After poking about the blogs, I think I have to apologize for my comments re WaPo. I completely agree w/Truth’s comment (#75). It changes everything, yet poke about the web & pls. tell us where you find it discussed. There are those who realize everything we’ve built must collapse, ane everyone else hasn’t bothered to mention Lovelock’s new book/WaPo Interview.
For myself, I find the old stuff just doesn’t interest me anymore…except for Jim Woolcott quoting Robt. Dreyfuss noting that Wash. elites are digesting the fact that they lost in Iraq, but are holding tight til post election.
Other thing worthy of note, is that J.G. Ballard has a novel appropriate to the collapse. He’s latest dystopian work is set in a shopping mall – J G Ballard – The Comforts of Madness
Posted by: jj | Sep 15 2006 17:55 utc | 85
Following jj’s book link, found Iraq to dig trenches around Baghdad
revert to moats?
Posted by: beq | Sep 15 2006 18:41 utc | 86
@jj, #85:
Yeah, I was reading those interviews and started to think about the number 200 million, and suddenly thought “wait a minute, isn’t the world’s population over 6 billion already?” and then I started to grasp how bad things are going to be. (I’m a math geek at heart.)
And that’s really only the tip of the iceburg: once the world’s population is reduced that far, it would just take a single catastrophe to effectively polish off the human race for good. Tsunamis worldwide? No problem if there are people on every continent, many of them living well inland. Fatal if everyone lives near water (because of the lower temperatures) on a single continent. We’re in trouble.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Sep 15 2006 19:41 utc | 87
ft: US warns Nicaraguans not to back Ortega
The US ambassador to Nicaragua has issued a vigorous warning to this small Central American country’s electors against supporting Daniel Ortega, the veteran leftwing Sandinista leader and the frontrunner in November’s presidential election.
In a frank interview with the FT, Paul Trivelli said Mr Ortega was “undemocratic” and would roll back much of the advances made in recent years. And, underlining the concern felt in Washington about the regional influence of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, the ambassador said he had no doubt that Venezuela was playing an important role in the election.
“It’s one thing to be truly democratic. It’s another thing to do what the Sandinistas really have done, which is to distort and manipulate democracy for partisan and personal benefit,” Mr Trivelli said. “The fact that [Mr Ortega] has been in charge of the Sandinista movement for 25 years or more gives you a clue about his democratic tendencies.”
irc: Nicaragua: Crisis and Rebirth of Sandinismo
Since its 1990 electoral defeat and ouster from power, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has gone through several political crises, leading a large number of its most charismatic founders and leaders to defect. On top of these defections, questions have been raised about the ethics of the party’s main leader, Daniel Ortega, splitting the party into what can be seen as “the two Sandinismos.”
The Sandinista movement will come to the November 5 presidential and legislative elections divided into in two camps: Daniel Ortega heads up the FSLN’s ticket while Edmundo Jarquín and the singer-songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy will run on that of the Movement to Rescue Sandinismo (MPRS),1 following the untimely death of Herty Lewites. Lewites was to be the presidential candidate of this dissident faction, in which the principal historical stalwarts of the Sandinista movement are grouped. An extended interview with comandante Mónica Baltodano sheds light on some key elements of the rift between the two factions.
Posted by: b real | Sep 15 2006 22:09 utc | 88
@Guthman Bey that is pretty much what I was trying to say except with a bit more fortissimo. This is old now but the damned blogserver went down when I was posting this:
The big investors the PPT is designed to protect don’t hand large chunks of their profits over to the state in the good times, they do everything they can to avoid paying the small amounts of tax which is demanded of them, so why should they receive any assistance when they make mistakes?
What appears to happen is that the derivative contracts and the programs which maintain them continue to be run ostensibily to maintain market purity but in reality because a few ‘longshots’ will get up.
That is to say that these bets are like a bet the bookies used to run called a “Heinz” which was 57 bets of every different permutation on one race. Obviously it didn’t cover every horse in the field or there would be no money to be made. Pick the best 4 horses (say three favoured and 1 from’outside’) in a field of 8 to 10 and take quinellas, trifectas and each way bets on all the permutations, lo and behold sometimes one of the heinz tickets will come in really big even when there is only a small stake on each nag.
Of course under normal circumstances the income pretty much evens out so that the money coming in and out is pretty even. On the nags that is less the bookies commission, on the market there is a brokers commission but there is also the capital increase (measured by systems such as the Dow). This is the ostensible purpose of these derivative schemes constructed by analysts and actuaries to ensure that even when things ‘go bad’ smart people have some things ‘go good’.
Hedging. The price of oil changes if it goes up then one derivative construct will be short on key investments adversely effected by oil price increases and long on investments that do better when energy prices are up. Then the bet is the same in reverse in another derivative construct for when oil prices fall.
Within the normal range of fluctuation these manipulations even out and in fact can have a ‘smoothing’ efect on the market, but when the market is having major movements rather than smooth out, the derivatives begin a snowball effect, taking on a life of their own and accentuating movement. Nobody objects in a bull market cause everybody gets rich. They should object then though since the bears come out when equity values are unrealistically high.
When the market does wake up to itself (this is reification right here, giving the exchange of ‘assets’ the persona of a living, sentient being) and the constructs over-react to the negative trend, that’s when Joe Taxpayer is called in to carry the bludgers through.
I realise it is difficult for amerikans not to be caught in the immoral trade in equities somehow, but since they are really just hamsters on a wheel, at the very least they need to call out these blatant rorts of their sweat.
Bail up any politician; dem or rethug about this and you will be told that burns such as the PPT are there to protect the amerikan citizen from the exigencies of the equities industry.
They aren’t. The simplest way to prevent these vertigo inducing drops in equity values is to suspend trading, pull the plug on the mad machines and go back to realistic analysis of fundamentals.
The MOTUs hate that idea because they don’t know which constructs will throw up incredible wins until it has happened. Imagine pulling the pin on an ‘investment’ that could have made you billions!
These are really complex programs, check ot the Long Term Capital Management scam.
Still what could be better than gambling with other people’s money in a way that you get to keep some incredible winnings every now and then and don’t have to wear the losses.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 15 2006 22:27 utc | 89
It’s damn near impossible to make sense of what’s happening down there in the north end of the planet this week.
Some news has been heartening, but that must be leavened by some shocking stuff the absolute kicker of which came from the Nazi Pope.
But none of the stuff has any real shape, there’s no coherency about the approach that BushCo are taking toward anything, just meanness and weirdness.
That closet case who walks around in his pope drag with a face like he’s got a permanent hard-on really helped promote world peace.
Making a speech on “the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between violence and faith.”
Yeah, right! An objective analysis of that little topic would rip xtianity to shreds. We often forget that many of the countries colonised by European nations from about the 17th Century onwards, had enjoyed successful relationships with Islamic nations for centuries previously, yet the Arabs didn’t try and colonise those South Asian societies, they traded with them.
Anyway the Nazi Pope who was speaking to like-minded old assholes in Munich, quoted 14th century Emperor Manuel Paleologos, an xtian emperor of Byzantium, who had lost part of his empire to the Islamic Ottomans. By stressing that he was only quoting another, old Ben E Dicked, imagined he could be as racist as he wanted to be then claim he was just reading someone else’s quote.
The shirt-lifting gutter-snipe said this:
“”Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.””
So the man never left the Nazi Party.
It was to be expected JP2 waited until the ructions from the assassination of JP1 died down before purging the left element in the church.
Bennydicked has waited until everyone has been convinced that he’s not such a bad bloke after-all before he delivers a message from his sponsors.
This is really bad stuff because during JP2’s regime considerable efforts were made to cast the pope in the role of leader of all western xtians, rather than just the leader of the terminally guilt-ridden.
A generation ago fundie prods would have treated a statement from the pope with the disdain that most people treat the pronouncements of a corrupt despot. but now fundie leaders will be quoting this nazi from their pulpit.
Islamists will now be justified in believing that bushCo are conducting a crusade despite their transparent denials.
ps I realise some may consider the tenor to be homophobic and so I hasten to point out that my dislike of Bennydicked’s preference stems from his public disparagement of his fellow travellers.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 15 2006 22:57 utc | 90
Debs,
far be it from my mind to claim that the financial markets are always rational and never being gamed. The Hieronymus Bosch vistas you conjure up, on the other hand, are, well, Hieronymus Bosch vistas: in other words expressionistic visions, as opposed to empirical descriptions.
I have no problem with that, especially since you say outright what you want to see: the wrathful shutting down of this Sodom of Finance.
Since the financial markets are my business (and my only skill) I am a bit like Lot’s wife when it comes to all this: I guess I’ll just have to turn to salt if the dreaded Reckoning does come.
Having said that I can’t see anything inherently immoral and devilish in markets. But I understand why they can seem a giant Black Sabbath.
One thing: Long-Term Capital Management was fucked-up, but not a scam. Noone was defrauded. As the wiki article itself states:
In the end, the basic idea of LTCM was correct, in that the values of government bonds did eventually converge after the company was wiped out.
What the article doesn’t state is that the banks which took over the positions in the bail-out made a lot of money on them. So the only people who lost money are the investors in LTCM. Caveat Emptor I say.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Sep 16 2006 0:14 utc | 91
actually, your shirt-lifting guttersnipe comment reminded me that this douchebag quashed any further investigation into the pedophiles the church has been shuffling around for centuries.
Posted by: gmac | Sep 16 2006 0:24 utc | 92
annie- see what really happened for comment on ” A picture of the Pentagon you’ve never seen before”
Posted by: b real | Sep 16 2006 2:10 utc | 94
@beq, glad you found something you like @marc parent’s place. I think he assembles a superb collection of articles everyday, unwieldy as the structure of the livejournal software is. He adds to it throughout the day, so it’s worth checking again in the evening.
Speaking of my fave sites, Saltspringnews has good collection up now on urban agriculture that’s taking off in Canada, among far too many impt. stories to enumerate beg. w/article on Decline of Am. Empire, which is timely in light of Yesterday Being the Effective End of Unionized Labor. Idiot blogs of course, fixated on war & Repugs, couldn’t have been bothered to comment.
@Truth, right, 600M is 10% of the human race…that leaves 3%! But it’s worse than that, because civilization is built up by specialization. Ripping it apart, and even if a small percentage physically survive, all the knowledge we’ve built up is lost & all the ecosystems will have been ripped apart making survival perilous until they’re able to reconstitute themselves. Lovelock gave a number off his head of 1000 yrs. for this, but who knows…
Hop a plane, take a vacation/travel to a far off land you’ve always wanted to visit while you can before the Airlines go, to be replaced by Air Charter Services shuttling the Ruling Elite about overseeing the serfs…fleeing plagues…whatever…
Anyone interested in joining me w/in the next month reading Lovelock & Ballard stereophonically – for balance & what passes for sanity?
Posted by: jj | Sep 16 2006 2:30 utc | 95
this just came in via email and i can’t get the url to work so i am posting most of the article. the non-aligned countries meeting in havanna are likely to adopt and implement a resolution barring illegal settlers in the west bank from entering non-aligned countries. resolutions have been drafted in the past, but not implemented. this one seems likely to happen because of the israeli agression in lebanon.
AKI (Rome) – Sep 14, 2006 http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.34025534...
Israeli officials are reportedly worried about a possible decision by countries participating in the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), currently being held in the Cuban capital, Havana, to ban Israeli tourists and products from entering their countries.
ISRAEL: SETTLERS MAY BE BANNED FROM NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT COUNTRIES
Tel Aviv, 14 Sept. (AKI) – Israeli officials are reportedly worried about a possible decision by countries participating in the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), currently being held in the Cuban capital, Havana, to ban Israeli tourists and products from entering their countries. In a report on the Arabic language London-based daily, Al-Quds Al Arabi, Western diplomats described as being friends of Israel, suggest that a resolution will be taken at the summit, banning Israeli tourists who live in the West Bank from entering the countries of Non-Alignment Movement.
The Al-Quds Al Arabi report quoted Ouri Yablonka, a reporter with Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, as saying that the Israeli foreign ministry received letters from India and Thailand, stating that the two countries had decided to ban Jewish settlers living in the West Bank from entering their countries, to protest the fact that they were living in territory taken from the Palestinians after the war of 1967.
Quoting political sources in Tel Aviv, the Israeli newspaper also said that in the past the Non-Alignment countries took resolutions banning Jewish settlers from coming to their countries, but the resolutions weren’t implemented because of political pressure applied by Israel and the United States.
However, the sources say that NAM leaders meeting on Saturday in Havana are expected to issue a new resolution banning Jewish settlers from entering their countries. They suggest and the decision will be implemented this time in response to the 34-day Israeli military offensive in Lebanon which began in July.
The same sources added that if taken, the implementation of the resolution would be a blow for Israeli diplomacy, especially since Israeli tourists consider many of the Non-Alignment countries cheap and attractive destinations.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 16 2006 2:57 utc | 96
Doesn’t matter who Israel invades, that won’t be implemented unless US now too powerless to stop it…and it’s declining fast morally & economically..what jumps out at me is that India is on board which screams about US elites shipping our jobs over there, weakening us & strengthening them…as I’ve said before Israel could be toast very soon as US disintegrates & can’t protect Israel from what’s likely to be a cascade of consequences for their almost universally abhorred actions over the yrs. Wonder if they’ll read the tea leaves in time & adapt…
Posted by: jj | Sep 16 2006 3:16 utc | 97
debs- that guardian article is blatantly lying to it’s readership. talk about apologetics for the pope, jeez.
Stressing that the words were not his own, the Pope quoted from a book according to which, he said, the Byzantine emperor Manuel Paleologos II had said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
Clearly aware of the delicacy of the issue, the Pope used the words “I quote” twice before repeating the emperor’s reported remarks on Islam, which he described as “brusque”.
well, the transcription of the speech is here and you can search on the phrase “i quote” all you want but there’s no match in the entire body of the text. there are two matches on the word “quote”, both after the line about “evil”, and neither refering to the words of the emporer.
But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
…
Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul [text unclear] worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).
sounds like the reporter made that lie up out of whole cloth – a white sheet w/ eyeholes removed comes to mind – in an effort to make the muslim communities objections sound irrational, much like the spin on the cartoon issue earlier this year.
Posted by: b real | Sep 16 2006 3:21 utc | 98
@ jj – I’m going to look up Ballard the next time I’m at the library [soon]. Lovelock too.
Posted by: beq | Sep 16 2006 3:23 utc | 99