OT 06-110
News & views ...
Posted by b on November 24, 2006 at 7:43 UTC | Permalink
next page »When Votes Disappear By PAUL KRUGMAN
But the fact that our electoral system worked well enough to register an overwhelming Democratic landslide doesn’t mean that things are O.K. There were many problems with voting in this election — and in at least one Congressional race, the evidence strongly suggests that paperless voting machines failed to count thousands of votes, and that the disappearance of these votes delivered the race to the wrong candidate.
Step by step, inch by inch. Little political increments...
Ok, this is getting creepy.
Police SKYWATCH TOWER set up in Harlem
The NYPD has installed a patrol tower in a Harlem neighborhood in an effort to cut crime in the high-risk neighborhood.The two-story booth tower, called Sky Watch, gives the officer sitting inside a better vantage point from which to monitor the area. Officers in the booth have access to a spotlight, sensors, and four cameras. The tower is portable and can be moved to the areas that need it most.
Residents in Harlem say they like the idea, though some wonder if the appearance of Sky Watch has anything to do with the two new luxury condos built on a nearby corner.
"There was crime around here before and they never had it. Now all these expensive buildings, it's true,” said one area resident. “But actually it's good though, because then I used to see a lot of crowd here and sometimes I was scared to pass here, but guess what, that doesn't happen anymore. It’s a kind of deterrence and it's good."
Police say the Harlem tower was placed there to combat a rise in murders.
Sky Watch has also been tested in Crown Heights in Brooklyn where it reduced crime. Police are hoping to have three more towers soon.
It's all about control by increments.
Fox News Trumpets Pentagon Spy Drones Listening In On Americans
On yesterday morning's FOX & Friends Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade announced that a Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) had flown across the United States. "It's the first time anywhere in the United States that one of these big things has flown on an official air combat command mission," Steve Doocy noted. Brian Kilmeade followed up: "Well, you know what? I love it. They gotta be listening in, listening to the right people. If they're listening in at my house, they're gonna be bored to tears." Doocy jumped in to say that he "wasn't sure" that the drone could listen in, but "they can certainly see what's going on in your back yard. ... I don't think you have anything to worry about as long as you're not doing anything against the law."Gretchen Carlson expressed skepticism about those people who are worried about invasion of privacy, saying "You know, I don't completely understand this whole controversy when people get all up in arms over the fact that someone may be watching. I mean, for goodness sake, we don't know who's even listening to our phone calls. I know, I know that's a big deal and all that but - aren't you busy in your life and you're worrying about other things goin' on with your family and stuff like that, not worrying about who might be watching you and listening to you with a drone. I don't know. It doesn't bother me."
COMMENT
Well the airheads on FOX & Friends might not be worried, but the whole idea of some military spy drone silently cruising above my neighborhood on an "air combat mission" scares the dickens out of me.At the very least these drones have a less than stellar safety record, having crashed several times. They are also equipped with an array of electronic gadgets that sounds like alphabet soup, the purpose of which is military surveillance.
First we had the NSA wire-tapping program and now this, a robot ship equipped with sophisticated snooping capabilities gliding overhead taking pictures of people in their hot tubs, at their BBQs, walking their dogs, etc.
Since the drone is equipped with the latest in GPS, it's not inconceivable that it could be set up to monitor cell phone calls as well.
Big Brother is alive and well and, if the Bush administration has anything to say about it, coming to your neighborhood really soon ...
Of note: Affidavit of Bruno Bettelheim Concerning Patterns of Adaptation of Concentration Camp Inmates
' When the concentration camps were first established the Nazis detained in them their more prominent foes. Pretty soon there were no more prominent enemies available, because they were either dead, in the jails, the camps, or had emigrated. Still, an institution was needed to threaten the opponents of the system. Too many Germans became dissatisfied with the system. To imprison all of them would have interrupted the functioning of the industrial production, the upholding of which was a paramount goal of the Nazis. So if a group of the population got fed up with the Nazi regime, a selected few members of this group would be brought into the concentration camp. If lawyers became restless, a few hundred lawyers were sent to the camp, the same happened to physicians when the medical profession seemed rebellious, etc. The Gestapo called such group punishments "actions" and this new system was first used during 1937-38, when Germany was first preparing to embark on the annexation of foreign countries. During the first of these "actions" only the leaders of the opposition group were punished. That led to the feeling that just to belong to a rebellious group was not dangerous, since only the leaders were threatened. Soon the Gestapo revised its system, and selected the persons to be punished so that they represented a cross-section through the different strata of the group. This new procedure had not only the advantage of spreading terror among all members of the group, but made it possible to_ punish and destroy the group without necessarily touching the leader if that was for some reason inopportune. Though prisoners were never told exactly why they were imprisoned, those imprisoned as representatives of a group came to know about it. Prisoners were interviewed by the Gestapo to gain information about their relatives and friends. During those interviews prisoners sometimes complained that they were imprisoned while more prominent foes of the Nazis were at liberty. They were told that it was just their bad luck that they had to suffer as members of a group, but if their fate did not teach the group to behave better, they would get a chance to meet them all in the camp.'
Affidavit of Bruno Bettelheim Concerning Patterns of Adaptation of Concentration Camp Inmates
The Snooping Goes Beyond Phone Calls
The Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans' finances, phone numbers, and biographical information, according to a report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Often, the agencies and their contractors don't ensure the data's accuracy, the GAO found.
Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules. The Privacy Act of 1974 restricts how federal agencies may use such information and requires disclosure of what the government is doing with it. But the law applies only when the government is doing the data collecting.
Finally, Israeli mole Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's 'Chilling Vision'
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 8:43 utc | 3
excerpt:
Wood hooked up his laptop, threw his first slide onto the screen and got down to business: What if all the conventional thinking about how to deal with global warming was wrong? What if you could do an end run around carbon-trading schemes and international treaties and political gridlock and actually solve the problem? And what if the cost to get started was not trillions of dollars but $100 million a year -- less than the cost of a good-size wind farm?Wood's proposal was not technologically complex. It's based on the idea, well-proven by atmospheric scientists, that volcano eruptions alter the climate for months by loading the skies with tiny particles that act as mini-reflectors, shading out sunlight and cooling the Earth. Why not apply the same principles to saving the Arctic? Getting the particles into the stratosphere wouldn't be a problem -- you could generate them easily enough by burning sulfur, then dumping the particles out of high-flying 747s, spraying them into the sky with long hoses or even shooting them up there with naval artillery. They'd be invisible to the naked eye, Wood argued, and harmless to the environment. Depending on the number of particles you injected, you could not only stabilize Greenland's polar ice -- you could actually grow it. Results would be quick: If you started spraying particles into the stratosphere tomorrow, you'd see changes in the ice within a few months. And if it worked over the Arctic, it would be simple enough to expand the program to encompass the rest of the planet. In effect, you could create a global thermostat, one that people could dial up or down to suit their needs (or the needs of polar bears).
Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 24 2006 8:50 utc | 4
@manonfyre:
From what I've read, that's plausible, but it has some problems.
First off: by blocking off sunlight, you make it harder for plants to grow, which then cuts down on the amount of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere and compounding the heat problem in the long term.
Also, there's a limit to how much heat can be deflected that way. As you approach that limit, you're killing off the ecosystem, and when that limit is reached you end up with a broken ecosystem which then starts heating up again.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be tried, but it's useless to do this and keep emitting so much carbon.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Nov 24 2006 9:02 utc | 5
Hmm - I read this headline at the LA Times site: German forces to go where needed and wondered what had happend as I only posted a few days ago, that Chncellor Merkel had said no to German troops is South Afghanistan.
And that is exactly what the LA Times writes:
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he was counting on German troops to operate in any volatile part of Afghanistan if the need arises, and not just in the more peaceful northern sector.So how does the headline: "German forces to go where needed" fit the news?German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made it clear Wednesday that Berlin did not plan to deploy troops to volatile southern Afghanistan.
The 2,900 German troops in Afghanistan serve under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the north.
Addendum...
Suspect Nation
Do not be lulled into a false sense of security by the above, (because it's not happening here) as it has long been known that the UK is merely a big test lab for us serfs here in the land of the free.
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 9:08 utc | 7
@Uncle $cam - thanks for the links - but Bettelheim is certainly not a reliable source for Gestapo patterns esp. this is most definitly wrong: "During the first of these "actions" only the leaders of the opposition group were punished. That led to the feeling that just to belong to a rebellious group was not dangerous, since only the leaders were threatened. Soon the Gestapo revised its system, and selected the persons to be punished so that they represented a cross-section through the different strata of the group."
B, you are certainly entitled to your position, regardless of how subjective it is. However, what you point out is merely a template of the character of the ideal not the master pattern.
In other words, it is a thought experiment. Likened to how Scientists tend to use thought experiments in the form of imaginary to get their points across. And I happen to believe Bettelheim does a fine job of that, at least in this instance. However infallible his empirical data may or may not be.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 9:41 utc | 9
The hatefest against Muslims gathers momentum in the UK
Muslim teaching assistant Aishah Azmi, who was suspended for refusing to remove her veil while teaching at a school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, has been sacked, sources said today.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 24 2006 10:59 utc | 10
Consequences of the Panopticon
as Foucault puts it:
the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate (uh, that would be you) a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it...
Of course, this is what they have always wanted, the kind of power todays technology affords them. The Grim Meathook Future is they want:
the metaphorical illustration of a police officer hailing a man in the street-yelling out "You, there!" into the crowd of pedestrians. The man who turns - who recognizes the hail as meant for him - immediately admits his guilt and takes on himself the identity of the criminal (note that it is not necessary for the police officer to know anything about the hailed man's guilt - it is the act of recognition which makes him guilty, rather than any previous knowledge on the part of the officer). In this sense he becomes subject to the domination of the legal apparatus.*
from "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" by Marxist philosopher Louis Pierre Althusser. Althusser is concerned with the way a State (in his conception, Western States, despite the fact that he describes Stalinist Communism almost to the letter) creates appropriate subjects. On the one hand, he notes, there are Repressive State Apparatuses, such as the military, the police, mental institutions, and so on, which serve to impose certain behaviours and exclude others. The use of such apparatuses is costly, (you pay for it with your taxes) however, both in resources and in the potential threat of resistance. Ideally, then, domination is achieved through the creation of self-regulated subjects, accomplished though the Ideological Apparatuses of education, vocation, religion, and so on. The goal is the production of subjects who "recognize" themselves in terms of the state ideology.
As I write this here in Chicago, most stores, restaurants, and other places of business have surveillance cameras. The city offers every business three options.Option 1: Hook up a camera and have it connected to the Police Department, so every time a customer walks in, the Police can see what they are doing. In what is probably the World's largest reality TV program, right now Mayor Daley and members of the Chicago Police Department come to command headquarters and watch on the monitors as thousands maybe more Chicagoans shop while under surveillance.
Option 2: If a business doesn't want to participate in hooking a camera up to police headquarters they can hook the camera up to the back of the store. The store's security people watch a tape of everyone who comes in and if a crime is committed the tape is forwarded to the Police
Option 3: If for Civil Liberties reasons or because they feel it creates an impersonal atmosphere a business owner doesn't want to hook up a surveillance camera, they can choose not to since it's there property.
So while every store near my home in Chicago has surveillance cameras, some places in other parts of the city chose not to and some of the cameras don't go directly to Police headquarters. The Chicago Police Department also has set up hidden cameras throughout the city, so citizens walking on sidewalks or driving at intersections can be routinely watched. So we are a pretty well protected city.
Despite that fact, an aldermen proposed and Mayor Daley has voiced his strong support of a new law mandating that every business in the city install a camera and hook it up to command headquarters. If any business would prefer not to have a camera or have a camera that goes to the back of the store instead,if this law passes they could have their business shut down by the city for failure to comply.
Also see, HPD may add video cameras to its ranks citizens homes...
p.s. But hey, don't worry citizen, it's for your safety; besides, the Dems will protect you from bad ol' big brother, happy shopping!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 11:15 utc | 11
Q: How many presidential aides does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None, the president likes being in the dark.
Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the lightbulb; its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are totally unfounded, and the result of delusional "spin" assaults from the fanatic, elitist, liberal media. That lightbulb has served honorably, and anything you say against it undermines the lighting effect and dims its ego. Why do you hate America?
From here
Posted by: gmac | Nov 24 2006 12:34 utc | 12
Further to your #2 b:
Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked
Results Skewed Nationwide In Favor of Republicans by 4 percent, 3 million votes...."We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape," said attorney Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance, "so 'the fix' turned out not to be sufficient for the actual circumstances." Explained Simon, "When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater the risk of exposure--of provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1 fell short on November 7.
Posted by: Juannie | Nov 24 2006 12:49 utc | 13
hahaha, what shit sandwich Jr. has created... I Hope He Chokes On It.
Sadr group threatens to quit Iraq govt if PM meets Bush
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 14:25 utc | 14
John Young's Cryptome site is full of stuff like this out of the Federal Register or similar official documents, and his captions, as in this case "Prez Orders Lucent-Alcatel to Allow Spying",
are usually right on the mark. The actual document is both very grave
and dry as dust. Its content will come as no surprise to habitués of this watering hole. Nevertheless the sheer volume of such edicts, ordinances and directives, and the very aridity of their bureaucratic prose validate our most dire forebodings. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the national security bureaucracy is, day in and day out, eroding the very civil liberties it purports to defend, and finds accomplices for its nefarious campaign among elected officials of both parties. As long as the damnable dyarchy retains control there seems to be little hope for a change in direction.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Nov 24 2006 14:39 utc | 15
New evidence revealed in a BBC report puts three known anti-Castro CIA operatives at the scene of the assasination...
YouTube video part1 Did the CIA Kill Bobby Kennedy?
Riddle of the day: the only man in America who does not remember where he was on 11-22-63 is?
Posted by: | Nov 24 2006 14:47 utc | 16
The above #16 twas me...
Nor, finally, is it in any way a "theory" that the one, single name that can be directly linked to the Third Reich, the US military industrial complex, Skull and Bones, Eastern Establishment good ol' boys, the Illuminati, Big Texas Oil, the Bay of Pigs, the Miami Cubans, the Mafia, the FBI, the JFK assassination, the New World Order, Watergate, the Republican National Committee, Eastern European fascists, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the United Nations, CIA headquarters, the October Surprise, the Iran/Contra scandal, Inslaw, the Christic Institute, Manuel Noriega, drug-running "freedom fighters" and death squads, Iraqgate, Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, the blood of innocents, the savings and loan crash, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the "Octopus," the "Enterprise," the Afghan mujaheddin, the War on Drugs, Mena (Arkansas), Whitewater, Sun Myung Moon, the Carlyle Group, Osama bin Laden and the Saudi royal family, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States, is: George Herbert Walker Bush.
"Theory?" To the contrary.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 14:59 utc | 17
b:
from your Krugman:
But for the nation as a whole, the important thing isn’t who gets seated to represent Florida’s 13th District. It’s whether the voting disaster there leads to legislation requiring voter verification and a paper trail.
Even Krugman seems to be missing the point.
We need our ballots restored not a "paper trail" leading to the electronic ether. The best that electronic voting can only supply is an "electronic trail" to the ballots themselves.
Ballots are the sine qua non of elections.
They can be counted by anyone, again and again if necessary, in front of ordinary people as witnesses, and then packed up and stored away for as long as required to be referred to as often as required.
The grand theft here is of our ballots.
Substituting any kind of electronic tally for the ballots themselves is fraud, sui generis.
Electronic machines can help the handicapped mark their ballots and can provide a rapid preliminary tally of an election's votes. But the results of an election are reified in the very ballots cast by the voters. No ballots no elecion.
Unless and until our ballots are returned the results of American elections are unknowable, by design.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 24 2006 15:08 utc | 18
@ SKOD
I'm interested in getting a copy of a book by
Desmond Fernandes and Iskender Ozden with title something like
"US, UK, German and NATO 'Inspired' Psychological Warfare Operations
Against The Kurdish 'Communist' Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq"
and which, it seems, is to be published late this year or early next year by Apec Press of Stockholm. I'm unable to find a link to Apec Press. Any comments or help with the address would be appreciated.
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Nov 24 2006 16:30 utc | 19
Do not eat before watching this...
OUTLAWED: Extraordinary Rendition
I ran across an article recently that I can not seem to find now, of evidence of direct links to Jr. ordering torture, anybody else see that? If so can you post it?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 16:35 utc | 20
JFL,
Its confounding that resolving the issue of electronic-vote integrity is still not a major party iniiative for the Dems. If these reports are credible (and they appear to be) Dem candidates statistically had a 3.9% handicap on average nationwide. Take the handicap up 1% to 4.9% and the Repubs keep the House & Senate.
Never mind the discouraging effect on Dem voters & campaign activists who have serious concerns with the vote-counting process.
And now the Dems have both houses, is their leadership going to do anything about vote-count integrity. So far, it does not look like they are very concerned.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 24 2006 17:06 utc | 21
Also, whats not talked about much is how vote-count fraud impacts third-party candidacies. They are probably the biggest potential victims.
Which might explain why the two main parties and the PTB/media have not made too much of the issue.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 24 2006 17:16 utc | 22
Maybe the Dems are becoming as smart and criminally ruthless as the Rethugs and don't want to do away with election hacking completely. Now they will be in charge do they think they can control it to their own advantage? Not that I believe yet that they will really get to be in charge. I think that Cheney probably has this one covered in some way shape or form.
Posted by: Juannie | Nov 24 2006 19:06 utc | 23
Continuing on todays theme...
Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'
But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy.Top U.S. officials have cited the need to challenge news that undercuts Bush’s actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists, who are aided by “news informers” in the words of Defense Secretary
Donald RumsfeldRobert Gates.
And speaking of Gates...
In November 1987, as the Reagan administration was still scrambling to contain the Iran-Contra scandal, then-deputy CIA director Robert M. Gates denied that the spy agency had soft-pedaled intelligence about Iran’s support for terrorism to clear the way for secret U.S. arms shipments to the Islamic regime.With Congress hoping for a new Defense Secretary who has both the guts and the clout to stand up to White House pressure, the senators who will evaluate Gates’s fitness for the job may want to look back at this troubling Iran-Contra episode.
Of course we all know, even with the the Democrats controlling congress in 07, I doubt seriously that they'll do anything more than wave this nomination through as they did the rest of Poppy's crime family, and friends.
Oh, and speaking of Arm's sales...
These are what Russia is supplying Iran with. As I type this Russia has already begun shipping...
fed x? Nightmare before X-mass?
Defense official: Russia has begun air defense missile system deliveries to Iran
and
Russian rocket deliveries to Iran started: reports
“Deliveries of the Tor-M1 have begun. The first systems have already been delivered to Tehran,” ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed, high-ranking source as saying.
Of course, as to whether or not these reports are true, beats me. Further, more than who benefits, --we know the answers to that--, thus it's not not just qui bono, but "quo vadis", where will this terror-monomania addled dry drunk take us? Heaven only knows...
While Ken Kesey will be sorely missed, let's face it, in a world this twisted who needs fiction?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 19:08 utc | 24
ACLU, e-mail about torture, but no executive order as far as I can see?
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/18769prs20041220.html>link
Hannah I couldn’t find that book, but maybe the sponsors (not publishers) are CAMPACC and not apec (campacc has one article by hernandes somewhere)
http://www.campacc.org.uk/>campacc
from Variant, 2001, something which you probably saw:
there is also I think a later article in the same journal..
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 24 2006 19:34 utc | 25
@JFL - 18 - I'm quit sure Krugman is arguing for paper ballots when he asks for a paper trail.
@Juannie - 23 - the Dems have always been just as ruthless as the repubs (at least on foreign policy issues). Now the have a very shaky majority in the Senate, depending on Lieberman nor any lesser evil. They have not even nearly the ability to override a filibuster (the did away the chance to kill that some two years ago without getting anything for it).
So what do you expect the will really do except blow some winds?
uncle- I'd posted this article from Der Speigel and Ron Suskind earlier this month.
and here's a link to another item I'd posted about the CIA admitting for the first time that they had a document that showed Bush knew and approved of torture techniques.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 24 2006 19:39 utc | 27
Yeppers, fauxreal, thank you, that second link is the one I was refering to...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 20:03 utc | 28
Dollar Falls as Concerns Grow About Economy
The dollar dropped sharply against a broad range of major currencies today, and the euro broke through the $1.30 mark for the first time in a year and a half, highlighting concern about the strength of the American economy.The dollar’s losses came during a thin trading day in which the British pound rose to its strongest value against the dollar in two years. The Japanese yen and the Swiss franc also gained at the dollar’s expense
What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years?’ Matthew Taylor asked the e-Democracy conference last week ‘It’s basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are.’ Depicting political bloggers as a cross between vermin rooting through politicians’ bins and overbearing mother-in-laws -’The internet has immense potential but we face a real problem if the main way in which that potential expresses itself is through allowing citizens to participate in a shrill discourse of demands,’ he said as if he had legions of bloggers screeching at him all day - Taylor laid the blame for the current state of British politics firmly on their shoulders. Clearly a dangerous bunch, then. Al Qaeda must be spitting - going to all that bother of flying jets into building when they could have brought western democracy to its knees from home in their pyjamas.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 24 2006 20:42 utc | 30
Alert! Terrorist Jazz lovers get thee to the tv...
Remember this from mid-September of this year?
Let me tell you a story...it won't take very long...about how far the Bushist doctrine of fear and power has spread.Arthur Gilroy (who wrote the above), has an update on Pnomarev's story. Seems he's been interviewed by some folks at CBS news and will be on their evening news show (if you can stomach Katie Couric) approximately 6:45 EST. In Arthur's words:How far, how deeply and how dangerously it has spread.
Security people at Charles DeGaulle airport broke the arm of the internationally famous jazz trumpet player Valery Ponomarev last week...an American citizen for over 30 years...because he argued with the gate people at an Air India flight to New York when they demanded that he gate check his trumpet rather than bring it onto the plane. A trumpet that:
A-Fits with no problem whatsoever in the overheads.
and
B-Had been properly tagged as carryon baggage before he got to the gate.
Read on.
Now you must know that that musicians try very hard to get their instruments onto planes whenever they can do so. Baggage handlers are notorious for breaking things, and a broken instrument is painful in any number of ways. So is a lost or misrouted instrument. It's not like you can just pick up another one before the gig and play at your usual level of competence. Even if you are lucky enough to FIND one, every instrument has its own quirks and personality, and most professional musicians own instruments that are not easily replaceable. Older instruments or ones that were custom built or modified to their specifications. And since 9/11 and the whole Homeland Security/Terrorism scare-scam, if you DO carefully pack an instrument in a special ape-proof flight case and allow it to be checked as baggage, the minimum wagers that are doing "security" work in the baggage depeartment are often capable of opening the case, taking the instrument out to see if it's a bomb (Duh...a trumpet or violin REALLY looks bomb-like on an X-ray machine.) repacking it backwards and upside down and then forgetting to close the latches.
I have SEEN this happen.
So Valery...63 years old, maybe 5' 5" tall, 140 lbs...pitched a bitch at the gate when some pissed-off functionary at a loading gate decided to pull rank on him. They called security and four (as he so colorfully put it to me today when he told me the story) "giant asshole cops" took him someplace where there were no witnesses, tried to forcibly take his trumpet away and when he would not let go of it with his right hand, pulled his left arm behind his back and broke it.
And people sniff and moan when the word "fascism" is used to describe what is happening in America and in much of Western Europe as well.
Valery did not try to fight these people. As he related today (I wish I could reproduce his great Russan accent) "I grew up in Soviet Union under Stalin and Khruschev. I know enough not to try to hit a cop. Let alone four of them. Big, stupid motherfuckers." (Here he stands on tiptoe and raises his remaining functioning hand as high in the air as he can.) "They were THS BIG!!! FOUR of them!!! I am not THAT stupid."
And indeed he is not.
Here is a man who grew up in Russia when playing "jazz" was almost an act of open rebellion and got so good that Art Blakey hired him to join the Jazz Messengers in the late '60s. And if you do not know how serious THAT was...Blakey was possibly the only equal to Miles Davis in terms of hearing and hiring the best of the best in the post-bop era.
Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter...that level.
The BEST of the best.
So here we have this INSATIABLY positive little Russian guy, authentically playing in an idiom that had its genesis in the riot-torn black ghettos of America during the Civil Rights era. Moving to New York, getting his citizenship, re-starting a life here...a true "American" success story, when there really was such a thing. Now seriously crippled...they had to operate because it was a complex break...and unable to even HOLD a trumpet, because George fucking Bush and his handlers have decided that they are the deciders and we are their subjects.
I just thought I would bring this general "fascism" discussion down to a more personal level. This can happen to ANY of us who do not totally surrender on any level whatsoever to the madness of these people.
It's their way or it's their way.
Let's hope this artist can get the justice he deserves.CBS Nightly News tonight. They spent three hours interviewing him a couple of weeks ago and now they tell him...and he told me...that the story will run tonight. (Friday, 11/24/06.) 6:45 PM EST they said, although if you really want to see it you might have to watch Katy Kutie or her sub from the get-go because "Breaking News" like W. choking on a pretzel or a few hundred incinerated Iraqis...both stories being considered roughly equal in importance by the corporation corpses who really call the media shots...might change the schedule somewhat.
It happens...
I'm rooting for the pretzel, myself.
And I am rooting for Valery as well.
Read on.
Big media means more chance for Valery to get some recompense from Chas. DeGaulle and his racist, imperialist inheritors.
We shall see.
But one way or another, this shows the way "the blogs" work.
From the relatively small audience of two left of center blogs starting on Sept. 13th (Booman Tribune and My Left Wing-"The Ballad of Valery Ponomarev. It's Their Way Or It's Their Way." Here and here. And "What Good Are Blogs? The Slow, Steady Action of the Starfish on the Clam. [Valery Ponomarev Knows]" Here and here. ) to larger centrist blogs like dKos and special interest websites like The Jazz Times, to the International Herald Tribune and the NY Times, thence to the ears of millions on CBS.
A précis of the way it works.
Pas à pas. (Step by step.)
Bloggers are Al Queda meh, yeah, right, semanticly speaking it should look like --if one were to use precise language,-- it should read: Bloggers feel like Al Queda to the elite, because they challenge the lying powers that be.
Godspeed Valery !
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 21:45 utc | 31
Heads up!
W/regards my #31
Couldn't find a vid, but here's the little guy with his giant spirit, on his myspace blog...Valery Ponomarev...
Posted by: Alert! via Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 22:20 utc | 32
re #20, 27
Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data
One document is a directive, signed by President Bush shortly after the September 2001 attacks, that granted the C.I.A. authority to set up detention centers outside the United States and outlined allowable interrogation procedures.
The second is a memorandum, written by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department in 2002, that is thought to have given the C.I.A. specific legal advice about interrogation methods that would not violate a federal statute on torture.
Posted by: annie | Nov 24 2006 22:36 utc | 33
@annie, et al...
Re: #33
wasn't there an article a while back w/regards to Jr. signing two different sets legal documents of the same policy, er, or some kind of nefarious shit like that? Kinda like keeping two different sets of books, if you a crooked accountant. Anyone re-meme-ber that?
Anyone?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 24 2006 23:08 utc | 34
hmm, i remeber addington and yo figuring out eleborate ways to skirt geneva in hidden nefarious ways. they did it in secret and then some gov't employee posted it for all to see on a website anonymously. made quite a stir. i'll go diving for it.
Posted by: annie | Nov 24 2006 23:13 utc | 35
check this out and don't miss the tattoo photo
The Israeli Torture Template
With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."
Posted by: annie | Nov 24 2006 23:17 utc | 36
Robert Fisk writes a teary eyed article about Pierre Gemayel's funeral, and he finishes it with a ... dark hint ... ?
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought.
Not sure if I'm reading him right, but I'd be really surprised if even Fisk can bring himself to blame anyone other than Syria for a Lebanese incident.
And here is a month-old item of interest from Angry Arab that I had missed at the time:
Iraq Occupation Inc and Amin Gemayyel
(snip)
(Amin) Gemayyel was today meeting with Mas`ud Barazani in Salah Ad-Din. He referred to past "friendship" between Mustafa Barazani and Pierre Gemayyel. It must be a reference to the time when both militias were receiving opportunistic help from Israeli intelligence.
The Pierre referred to here would be the grandfather, of course.
Posted by: Alamet | Nov 24 2006 23:46 utc | 37
"The Children were Shouting. I Still Can't Sleep Remembering Their Screams"
Indira Gandhi Hamuda, the owner of the new kindergarten, an impressive 35-year-old woman, says that during the past months she used to tell the children that the Israelis don't kill children, only those who fire Qassams, and that they had nothing to fear as long as they didn't go up to the rooftops. Last week one of the children asked: "You told us that the Israelis don't kill children, but only the Qassam launchers, so why did they shoot at our minibus?"What can you say to a four-year-old who saw his kindergarten teacher lying covered with blood alongside their minibus? That the firing on the minibus was meant to prevent Qassams, which! have only intensified since then?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 25 2006 0:04 utc | 38
b:
I wish you were right about Krugman, but I wonder how you can be "quite sure" that he is arguing for paper ballots... working backwards from common sense?
Ballots are the essence of elections + Krugman is an intelligent man => Krugman is arguing for ballots?
Krugman is an economist.
Many people are working on the ATM model of voting, wherein the ATM gives you a "receipt". You know, all those little pieces of paper in the trash can placed next to the ATM?
The only thing for which those little pieces of paper could be used is as a "coupon" to be presented to "the man" who pays for votes when requesting payment, or, conversely, to the man who "hurts" the people who vote the wrong way when requesting a "passover".
ATM excreta are "a paper trail"... to the trash can. Ballots are ballots.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 25 2006 0:19 utc | 39
for those who have noted but not completely understood what has been happening in oaxaca, there is a translation on counterpunch of luis hernandez navarro's chronicle and summary explanation of the oaxaca protest events and their significance. hernandez navarro, the opinion editor at la journada, concludes his piece with the following enticing paragraph:
Oaxaca is today, more than ever, Mexico. The civil disobedience there is close to becoming a popular uprising that, far from wearing out, grows and becomes more radical every day. The establishment of forms of self-government is reminiscent of the Paris Commune of 1871. The way things are going, the example set by the nascent Oaxaca Commune is far from being limited to that state. It could be a taste of what may sweep the country due to the governmental refusal to clear up and clean up the presidential elections of July 2.
Posted by: conchita | Nov 25 2006 2:08 utc | 40
also wanted to say jfl, b, and bea - thank you for continuing to post about what is happening to the palestinians. bea, i would also like to contribute to and participate in some way to exhibition of the palestinian children's photos you wrote about in the beginning of ot-109. earlier this week i was so overwhelmed with work that i am just now catching up on posts from monday/tuesday. please email me and let me know how i can best get involved. i am also wondering if there is something that can be done for the indira ghandi kindergarten from jfl's devastating gideon levy link.
Posted by: conchita | Nov 25 2006 2:13 utc | 41
Board Of Austrailan Corporation Knew Of Iraq Invasion in 2002
The Austrailian media is reporting that in early 2002, the Board Chairman of AWB, an Aussie food distribution company, met with Austrailia's Ambassador to the United Nations and had been told an invasion of Iraq was "inevitable". (See the February 27, 2002 Board Minutes; fourth item down on the list here.)
The Chairman met with the Australian Ambassador to the UN, John Dauth... With regard to Iran, the Ambassador noted that, despite the President’s State of the Union address and reference to the “Axis of Evil,” most acknowledge that US/Iran relations are at an all time high. Accordingly, there appears to be an unofficial agreement between the two countries that despite the language of the President, these comments should be seen as for domestic consumption only...However, with regard to Iraq, the Ambassador stated that he believed that US military action to depose Saddam Hussein was inevitable and that at this time the Australian Government would support and participate in such action. ... The Ambassador believed that the latest “olive branch” from the Iraqis [allowing the return of UN weapons inspectors] was likely to stave off US action 12 to 18 months but that some military action was inevitable.
The Ambassador felt that engagement in Iraq would be similar to that currently being undertaken in Afghanistan (ie. heavy use of air support followed by deployment of ground troops).
This courtesy of Johnathan Schwarz, guestblogging at TMW, who asks the musical question:
If George Bush had already decided to invade Iraq by February 2002, who do you think should have been told about it? I ask because apparently everyone on earth knew except regular Americans.
Posted by: Austin Cooper | Nov 25 2006 3:04 utc | 42
Read b-'s #29 link to NYT on econ. Red Flashing LIghts went off when I read it.
Analysts said that the dollar’s drop today reflected a growing anxiety over Chinese economic policy. China’s central bank holds a large amount of American currency, and speculation has intensified recently that it could begin selling off dollars to avoid being burned if the dollar collapses.
The NYT is openly mentioning the Dollar Collapsing, openly discussing Chinese preparations for its collapse??? Sure they said, "if", but ... Anyone know if this is routine for them, or a first???
I heard interesting tidbit in last week -10 days, on Thom Hartmann. He said that when Treasury held their most recent bond sale, London bought most/a Major chunk was purchased by someone in London. It wasn't Brit. Central Bank & no one knows who it was. There's speculation that it might have been xUS Treasury, or should I say US x-Treasury since there's not much there there... (Should "treasury" be in caps there?)
Posted by: jj | Nov 25 2006 4:34 utc | 43
Anyone think the power of the right-wing Israeli Lobby didn't extend to Canada? Well, guess again. They struck & their victim, David F. Noble, Prof. @York U. has the Chutzpah to fight back. :
For immediate release: PROF DAVID NOBLE SUES ISRAEL LOBBY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
This 25 million dollar lawsuit for defamation and conspiracy, filed in Ottawa on November 15, will be served Tuesday November 21. Defendants include the private corporate entity York University Foundation, pro-Israel lobbying and fundraising organizations Hillel of Greater Toronto, the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, and the Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario, and their agents.
They are accused of trying to harm, silence, and malign York University Professor David F. Noble because of his critical investigations into external influences on Canada’s third-largest public university.
Summarizing the significance of this lawsuit, professor Noble stated: “In an effort to suppress my inquiries, publicly destroy my reputation, and isolate me from my peers, the defendants launched the most vile kind of personal attack - attempting to stigmatize a Jewish man as an anti-semite - because I dared examine and expose their pernicious activities. These rich and powerful people pretend to be friends of higher learning but are in fact its worst enemies. They think they have bought themselves a university. They haven’t.”
Posted by: jj | Nov 25 2006 5:08 utc | 44
Oops, forgot the link. link I found this via a link from a blog of Progressive Canadian Bloggers you may enjoy. link
[*** ATTN. JONKU - and any other Canadian Barflies***]
Posted by: jj | Nov 25 2006 5:11 utc | 45
for yr. Holiday Wkend Enjoyment, there's 3 Superb progs. on BookTv (C-SPAN2) -
SAT:. David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, Peter Phillips, Kevin Ryan, Ray McGovern, 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. (Exc. forum held recently in Berkeley.)
SUN: (1): Greg Grandin (Someone recently posted a link to an art. of his): Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism; & (2) Rashid Khalidi - The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.
Posted by: jj | Nov 25 2006 5:20 utc | 46
Someone Alert Rummy & Cheney: Election over, yet violence continues. Guess it WASN'T the election! If the Democrats were smart, which they're not, they'd put out a press release saying as much.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 25 2006 7:01 utc | 47
This is sure to piss someone off, however that is not my intent (I would think after delivering and drinking at this watering hole for three years one would know where--i.e.the place--I'm coming from)
A blog mate of mine --over at my home away from home,-- has posted a blog that I am in entire agreement with, hir writes thus:
Nancy Pelosi: at War with Her Party. Wrong Woman for the Job?
Nancy Pelosi: at War with Her Party. Wrong Woman for the Job?Not long after I started P! Nancy Pelosi made a speech demanding that George Bush apologize to US troops for sending them into harm's way based on lies, among other things.
At that time, P! was a team blog, governed by consensus. I composed "An Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi." Knowing that it would be controversial, I submitted the piece to my editors for consensus approval. Consensus was not reached, so, without complaint, I refrained from publishing it there - I did, however, publish it here, as my own singular opinion.
This is not an "I told you so." But I did have serious misgivings about Nancy's leadership and integrity at the time. Her continuing leadership of the House during two years of cowardly non-opposition to the policies of The Doubleduh-Cheney Gang convinced me of my original stance.
Originally touted as the "sure thing" next Speaker, there seem to be the same sort of doubts in her own party about her leadership. Maybe she's just not the right woman for the job. I'm not sure this is a manifestation of the Democrats' notoriously expert "circular firing squad," since Pelosi seems intent on shooting herself.
She certainly took one in the foot, which was placed securely in her mouth, by losing the Murtha-Hoyer fight. Now comes The Independent (UK) Online with "Pelosi turns on one-time ally in Democrats' 'catfight in Congress'". Excerpts:
Nancy Pelosi, set to become the first female Speaker after the Democrats' sweeping midterm victory, is embroiled in a second bitter intra-party battle before she even takes office in January - this time with another powerful Californian congresswoman over one of the most sensitive and important jobs on Capitol Hill.Ms. Pelosi isn't the Speaker yet. It would seem that she is arrogantly and childishly assuming power that she does not have, and at this rate may not ever have.Last week, Ms Pelosi suffered a stinging defeat when her chosen candidate for House majority leader was resoundingly defeated. Now a new showdown is approaching in what Washington insiders have called "the catfight": her efforts to deny Jane Harman, her one-time friend turned rival, the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.
Normally, Ms Harman, the most senior Democrat on the panel, would take charge automatically when her party assumes the majority in the House in January. She is a moderate, respected by Republicans as well as Democrats for her experience with intelligence issues. But that is to reckon without the animosity between her and Ms Pelosi, who as Speaker has untrammelled authority to choose committee chairmen . . .
. . . Ms Pelosi's inept handling of the election for majority leader, the No. 2 post in the House hierarchy, has weakened her position. With her vigorous backing of John Murtha instead of her rival Steny Hoyer, she not only picked an unnecessary fight. She also picked one she could not win. Mr Hoyer's overwhelming 149-86 vote victory ended up by casting doubt on her command of her own troops.
Now comes the Intelligence Committee decision. Over the past few weeks, Ms Pelosi has indicated she planned to give the job to the outgoing panel's second-ranking Democrat, Alcee Hastings, despite strong advice from moderate Democrats, intelligence specialists and many newspaper editorialists, that she stick with Ms Harman.
Unfortunately, and just like Mr Murtha, Mr Alcee has a less than spotless ethics record. A former judge, he was impeached by Congress for conspiring to take bribes and removed from the federal bench in 1989. His elevation to one of the most sensitive jobs on Capitol Hill would risk making a mockery of the incoming Speaker's vow to run the "most honest, most ethical" Congress in history . . .
Frankly, I don't give a hoot what the Dumbocrats do. But I think there are several women in the House better qualified than Nancy. I'd be impressed as hell if, for example, the job was given to Barbara Lee, a congresswoman of the highest courage and integrity who represents the people of Oakland, across the bridge from Nan's district. Ms. Lee alone was against war from the start. She has never wavered. She won her position after Ron Dellums, "The Conscience of the Congress", left. Barbara represents her district as Dellums did.
Unfortunately, and mostly because of that self-same integrity, Congresswoman Lee hasn't a chance in hell of being Speaker. The Democrats in Congress, including Ms. Pelosi, don't have that courage and integrity.
Me again...
Further, I would add, if the Dems had a spine weren't purposely committed to the status quo in the beltway--remember they git their cut of the pie whether they stand and stand and deliver or not. Good job if you can get it, smeggin elite fucks-- they imo would put some majior musle behind getting Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney back in office.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 25 2006 8:03 utc | 48
Note: I should have been more clear and checked my atrocious spelling,
that should have read at the end, "...they imo would put some major muscle behind getting Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney back in office.
and to be clear my home away from moon is American Samizdat from which my co-blogmate ddjango has posted on amsam from his worth while home.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 25 2006 8:18 utc | 49
$cam:
I don't think there are too many folks here sheltering any delusions that Nancy Pelosi is anything other than a Demoplican politician.
I saw that article at the Independent. With the "cat fight" trash they are trying to turn the fight to keep Harman, an AIPAC agent, from the chair of the intellegence committee into a women's squabble. I guess they can still get away with that with their readership. The AIPAC man was given the whip job, and they want the intelligence chair too, of course.
For some reason Pelosi is opposing them.
Which is good!
But she's not winning. Which is not good.
The media are on the side of the AIPAC of course. Murtha had "ethical" problems, and Alcee Hastings was impeached as a federal judge.
Personally I'd take two "common criminals" over the uncommon criminals in the AIPAC's thrall.
"Common criminals" are the role models in the US House of Representatives.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 25 2006 9:07 utc | 50
@AustinC,
anybody who watched Cheney's speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 2001 knew that war with Iraq was inevitable.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 25 2006 9:16 utc | 51
Gates pushed for bombing of Sandinistas
Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to lead the Pentagon, advocated a bombing campaign against Nicaragua in 1984 in order to "bring down" the leftist government, according to a declassified memo released by a nonprofit research group.The memo from Gates to his then-boss, CIA Director William J. Casey, was among a selection of declassified documents from the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal posted Friday on the website of the National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/ .
...
Gates' memo echoed the view of many foreign policy hard-liners at the time; however, the feared communist takeover of the region never materialized."It seems to me," Gates wrote, "that the only way that we can prevent disaster in Central America is to acknowledge openly what some have argued privately: that the existence of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Nicaragua closely allied with the Soviet Union and Cuba is unacceptable to the United States and that the United States will do everything in its power short of invasion to put that regime out."
Gates predicted that without U.S. funding, the Nicaraguan anti-communist forces known as Contras would collapse within one or two years. But he said that providing "new funding" for the Contras was not good enough. Instead, he advocated that the United States withdraw diplomatic recognition of the Sandinista government, provide overt assistance to a government in exile, impose economic sanctions or a quarantine, and use airstrikes to destroy Nicaragua's "military buildup."
"It sounds like Donald Rumsfeld," said National Security Archive Director Thomas S. Blanton. "It shows the same kind of arrogance and hubris that got us into Iraq."
A good one from The Independent: Boris Berezovsky: The first oligarch
As Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, lay dying in a London hospital, regular bulletins on his condition were supplied not by his family and only rarely by the hospital. The head messenger was the energetic and voluble Alex Goldfarb, who described himself as a close friend of the stricken agent. He could also have been described, no less accurately, as the right-hand man of Boris Berezovsky, the fugitive oligarch exiled in Britain who heads the list of Russia's "most wanted".
...
This was six years ago. Berezovsky's subsequent role in Litvinenko's life - as Litvinenko's in his - is shrouded in the mystery that obscures so many exiled Russian plutocrats. But there is evidence that they kept up at very least what might be called a business relationship. Berezovsky sponsored a book that Litvinenko published in 2003, supposedly lifting the lid on the murkier doings of the FSB. If, as has been said, Litvinenko was investigating the contract-killing of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya at the time he fell ill, this is likely to have been at Berezovsky's instigation, too. Berezovsky is reliably reported to have been at Litvinenko's bedside on the day the media were first made aware of his illness.
...
Before leaving Moscow for what he hoped in 2000 would be temporary exile, Berezovsky formed an opposition party, Liberal Russia, intended to unite leading businessmen and other devotees of a free market who felt that their interests were threatened by Putin.
...
His official political vehicle in Britain is a group curiously called the Civil Rights Foundation, which he seems to do little publicly to promote, but may channel money to opposition groups in the former USSR. Berezovsky boasted that he had funded Ukraine's Orange revolution.
...
Always ready with flashy quotes, always game to appear on platforms to denounce his arch-foe, Vladimir Putin, he has proved almost as masterly an image-maker in his adopted country as he was in Russia. A Channel 4 documentary this year suggested he was singlehandedly responsible for the negative image of Putin's Russia that prevails among Britain's chattering classes.
...
Russia would dearly love to get its hands on Berezovsky. Even after six years away, in Russia his name is still synonymous to many with the great privatisation swindle of the 1990s. And Putin would surely see his downfall as a personal triumph. Berezovsky, though, for all his scheming is a shrewd and cautious survivor. He keeps at arm's length from the action - a puppeteer invisibly pulling fewer and fewer strings.
"Nancy Pelosi: at War with Her Party. Wrong Woman for the Job?"
the writer may be counting on us to give him/her tthe benefit of doubt on the hint of sexism in the article caption above
"Ms. Pelosi isn't the Speaker yet. It would seem that she is arrogantly and childishly assuming power that she does not have, and at this rate may not ever have."
but shes already been voted Speaker by the Dem delegation - unanimously
The Speaker has the power to select who they want as commitee chair.
And if theres a problem, its Harman whose over-reaching, especially by taking the dispute to the streets. Espeecially using Hastings ethical issue for straw-man effect. The other culprits are the Dem congress-persons who are not rallying strongly enuf aroud Pelosi.
Pelosi lost on the Murtha/Hoyer vote. Maybe Tip O'Neill in his time might have won that one. Possibly by intimidating Hoyer from campaigning/pushing so hard for the position, in some way or the other. Or creating cover/incentives for others to vote against Hoyer.
But that does not seem to be Pelosi's style. At least for now.
Its way too early to be judging Pelosi's performance. She's already gettng bashed for style over substance, a fave Repub tactic.
The Dems sometimes do not seem to know how to leverage power to their advantage. Unlike the Repubs, they seem to somehow find ways to make the sum lesser than the parts.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 25 2006 10:34 utc | 54
Bush shrugs off massive protests in Indonesia
US president George Bush shrugged off massive protests against his visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation today as a sign of a healthy democracy, as thousands braved heavy rains to call him a war criminal and a terrorist.“I applaud a society where people are free to express their opinion,” he said at a joint news conference at the Bogor Palace, a graceful presidential retreat surrounded by vast gardens. “People protest. That is a good sign of a healthy society.”
The second quote would be laughable if it didn't spotlight the sorry, sorry state of American society after nearly six years of bullying and arrogance and unconstitutional usurpation by the executive, especially the US Department of Justice.
We should rechristen ( I use the word advisedly ) the Department of Defense the Department of War, as it used to be called in the Good Old Days.
I don't know what the appropriate name is for the erstwhile Department of Justice... perhaps the Department of Accusations, Prisons and Forgetfulness.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 25 2006 14:56 utc | 55
Jeffrey Blankfort: My years of Middle East Activism: An Interview
Jeffrey Blankfort: Jewish-American anti-Zionist journalist
Nov. 20, 2006
re-posted on Bleier’s blog (Nov. 24, 2006.)
personal experience, the Lobby at first hand, and more.
long. well worth reading.
http://bleiersblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/jeffrey-blankfort-my-years-of-middle.html>link
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 25 2006 14:57 utc | 56
@ b #53
The whole Litvinenko thing stinks to high heaven. Could it be one of Berezovsky's latest (of many) attempts to avoid extradition from the UK along the lines of "If I go back now, Putin will kill me?"
As the Financial Times and others reported last week, the UK and Russia just signed a new memorandum on extraditions.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 25 2006 15:42 utc | 57
@Dismal S - exactly my feeling.
A but like with the Syrians are about the only ones who I would not suspect to have killed Gemayel.
Putin is the one who would not profit from killing Livinenko in such a way and smart enough to know. Why this curious method. Get a shooter, take him down and make it look like a robbery or arrange a car crash. If the Russian's "services" would like to do such a thing itt should be easy for them to find a silent effective way.
and from your same link source, ds-
Russian presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky has described as "alarming" the coincidence of the deaths of people who opposed the Russian leadership with international events attended by President Vladimir Putin.
"What is alarming is the eye-striking excessive number of deliberate coincidences of high-profile deaths of people who positioned themselves as opponents to the existing Russian government with international events in which the Russian president takes part," Yastrzhembsky told journalists following an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki on Friday.
The poison, polonium 210, isn't easily come by. But it's plausible that either faction in this fight could have access or buy it.
don't forget that the poisoning of Yushchenko by dioxin was initially dismissed by experts until a doc in Amsterdam nailed it.
fwiw, it's in the interests of western european nations to maintain good relations with Putin because they are so dependent on Russia for natural gas. and were an issue with the Ukraine after Yushchenko came to power.
So, while it is entirely plausible that the corrupt russian oligarch poisoned Litvinvenko, it is not so plausible that he poisoned Yushchenko, or shot Politskovkaya, or any of the 12 other contract killings of journalists who have been critical of Putin since he came to power. Eleven at the time of this article from The Committe to Protect Journalists...which seems to report from various perspectives, but maybe I'm wrong. The board of idirectors includes Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, Terry Anderson, The Nation, Al Jazeera, as well as The Carlyle Group.
Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 25 2006 18:39 utc | 59
Non-Universal Ethics Notice:
Due to the possibility that a common notion of ethics are not
universally shared by all sentient beings, and that therefore the
manufacturer may have entirely different concept of "fairness",
"equity", "honesty", and "integrity" than the consumer, the consumer
should not expect the product purchased to conform in any way to the
advertised properties of the product.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 25 2006 21:54 utc | 60
@JFL #55:
I don't know what the appropriate name is for the erstwhile Department of Justice... perhaps the Department of Accusations, Prisons and Forgetfulness.
How about Ministry of Truth and Consequences?
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Nov 25 2006 22:57 utc | 61
“Only one or two analysts believed Iranian support for terrorism was waning,” Gates wrote in articles that appeared in the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs magazine. “And no CIA publication asserted these things.”However, a month earlier, an internal CIA review had found three reports from Nov. 22, 1985, to May 15, 1986, claiming that Iranian-sponsored terrorism had declined, according to a sworn statement from veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern...
The timing of CIA’s dubious reporting in 1985 about a decline in Iranian-backed terrorism is significant because the Reagan administration was then in the midst of secret Israeli-brokered arms shipments of U.S. weapons to Iran.
In 1985, Israel and some of its allies within the Reagan administration were pushing for permission to sell arms to Iran, which was then fighting a bloody border war with Iraq. Israel was seeking to expand its strategic influence in Iran...
Gates’s DI set the stage for the Iran initiative by producing a special National Intelligence Estimate in May 1985 that laid out justifications for U.S. openings toward Iran, including fears of Soviet inroads in Iran if the United States did nothing.
In a Nov. 21, 2006, article for the Los Angeles Times, former CIA analyst Jennifer Glaudemans charged that the special NIE flipped the judgments of CIA Soviet specialists who saw little chance of Moscow making progress with Tehran.
“When we received the draft NIE, we were shocked to find that our contribution on Soviet relations with Iran had been completely reversed,” Glaudemans wrote. “Rather than stating that the prospects for improved Soviet-Iranian relations were negligible, the document indicated that Moscow assessed those prospects as quite good.
“What’s more, the national intelligence officer responsible for coordinating the estimate had already sent a personal memo to the White House stating that the race between the U.S. and USSR ‘for Tehran is on, and whoever gets there first wins all.’
“No one in my office believed this Cold War hyperbole. There was simply no evidence to support the notion that Moscow was optimistic about its prospects for improved relations with Iran. …
“Despite overwhelming evidence, our analysis was suppressed. At a coordinating meeting, we were told that Gates wanted the language to stay in as it was, presumably to help justify ‘improving’ our strained relations with Tehran through the Iran-Contra weapons sales.” [LAT, Nov. 21, 2006]
Gates Pushed for Bombing of Sandinistas
"It seems to me," Gates wrote, "that the only way that we can prevent disaster in Central America is to acknowledge openly what some have argued privately: that the existence of a Marxist-Leninist regime in Nicaragua closely allied with the Soviet Union and Cuba is unacceptable to the United States and that the United States will do everything in its power short of invasion to put that regime out."Gates predicted that without U.S. funding, the Nicaraguan anti-communist forces known as Contras would collapse within one or two years. But he said that providing "new funding" for the Contras was not good enough. Instead, he advocated that the United States withdraw diplomatic recognition of the Sandinista government, provide overt assistance to a government in exile, impose economic sanctions or a quarantine, and use airstrikes to destroy Nicaragua's "military buildup."
George H. W. Bush
After Nixon was re-elected President in 1972, he asked Bush to become Chairman of the Republican National Committee...After Nixon's resignation in 1974, Vice President Gerald R. Ford became President, and Bush was one of the two leading contenders to be appointed vice president by Ford, but he lost to the other leading contender, Nelson Rockefeller. Bush had the support of many conservative elements in the Republican Party, particularly Barry Goldwater, against Rockefeller for the vice presidency...
In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. Bush served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977...
If these are the "realists"... George XLI is seen in retrospect to have been in at the beginning of the conversion of the CIA from an intelligence operation to a supplier of "Tailor Made Facts To Go". Cut from whole cloth as Ronald Regan used to say.
Gates thought it was a good idea (more likely an idea "whose time had come") to bomb the Nicaraguans' military buildup? How much more so then to bomb Iran's!
To allow Gates to become the Secretary of War is approve more of the same. If the Demoplicans don't stop this, and they can, the amalgamation of the War Parties will have been accomplished. The War Party Inc. will be firmly in control.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 26 2006 3:42 utc | 62
Harith Al-Dhari, "The Power to Resist"
There have been rumours that your recent meeting with the US ambassador to Iraq resulted in a secret agenda. Is this true? Who helped arrange this meeting and what was discussed and has another meeting been arranged?Our meeting with members of the US diplomatic mission in Baghdad was the first such meeting to have taken place since the occupation. They had asked for the meeting and it was arranged through the intermediacy of the French Embassy. We agreed to meet because our door is always open to all diplomatic agencies that want to hear what we have to say, just as we want to hear what they have to say. The American delegation was headed by US Charge d'Affaires John Negroponte and consisted of several civil and military officials.
Sunni urges Arabs against Iraq gov‘t
CAIRO, Egypt - A prominent Sunni religious leader accused in Baghdad of inciting terrorism warned Saturday that Iraq ‘s escalating sectarian violence will spread throughout the Middle East unless the international community ends support for the Shiite-led Iraqi government."I call on the Arab states and the Arab League and the United Nations to stop this government and withdraw its support from it. Otherwise, the disaster will occur and the turmoil will happen in Iraq and other countries," said Sheik Harith al-Dhari, who heads the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq.
Documents Reveal Secret Talks Between U.S. and Iraqi Armed Resistance
Here is the plan, paraphrased briefly, as proposed by a source within the Green Zone who serves as an authorized back-channel link to the insurgent groups:* Leaders of the organized resistance groups are seeking immediate meetings with top American generals towards the goal of a cease-fire. Meetings with lower-level US officials already have occurred. The resistance groups reject the ability of the al-Maliki government to unify its government, and therefore want an interim government imposed before new elections can be held.
* The former Baathist-dominated national army, intelligence services and police, whose leaders currently are heading the underground resistance, would be rehired, restored and re-integrated into national structures under this plan.
* Multinational Force [MNF-I] activities aimed at controlling militias to be expanded.
* The US-controlled Multi-National Force [MNF-I] would be redeployed to control the eastern border with Iran.
* A Status of Forces agreement would be negotiated immediately permitting the presence of American troops in Iraq for as long as ten years. Troop reductions and redeployments would be permitted over time.
* Amnesty and prisoner releases would be negotiated between the parties, with the Americans guaranteeing the end of torture of those held in the detention centers and prisons of the current, Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
* De-Baathification edicts issued by Paul Bremer would be rescinded, allowing tens of thousands of former Baathists to resume military and professional service.
* An American commitment to financing reconstruction would be continued, and the new Iraqi regime would guarantee incentives for private American companies to participate in the rebuilding effort.
* War-debt relief for Kuwait and other countries.Secretive wars include secretive diplomacy. The American people will be the last to find out what future is being prepared in the flurry of events beginning now.
The first quote interview with al-Dhari is more than a year old... but it's talking of just "the first" meeting between al-Dhari and the occupation.
So a new Sunni "strongman", perhaps Ilyad Allawi, is waiting in the wings. The agreement is that Sadam, I mean Ilyad, will cut a deal allowing for permanent stationing of US troops and PSAs with the multinational oils. In return the "strongman" is put and maintained in power, with the US assigned initially to guard his border with Iran.
This is "realism".
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 26 2006 3:59 utc | 63
The Twilight Zone / After the rain of death
This is Islam al-Atamna. A girl of 14. She is sitting in her black mourning clothes. Eight close relatives - including her mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts - were all killed before her eyes, one after the other. They were killed in the street after they awoke at home in horror at the sound of the first shell that exploded and then fled outdoors, where the next shells caught them. About 11 fell on a residential neighborhood, one shell a minute, a rain of death, pursuing them in their flight. Fatherless for some time already, the girl is left alone in the world with her two little sisters and her 3-year-old brother Abdullah, whose legs were severed and who is hospitalized in the Al-Hilal Hospital in Gaza.
Think about that for a minute. Remember yourself at 14. Imagine yourself at that age, a resident of Gaza, now bereft of father, mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles... it is suddenly your responsibility to take care of your two little sisters and your 3 year old, now legless, brother... they have no one but you to depend on in this world. You four live together in a Concentration Camp which the Israelis are liable to shell, or to invade, to bulldoze... at any time. They have destroyed the electricity, water is hard to come by..
Think about this for a minute.
This could not go one for one more instant if the United States government did not fund it.
This war, this pogrom, this unending persecution would have ended ten, twenty, thirty years ago if it were not for the unending supply of American dollars secured by the AIPAC through its corrupt congressmen and women, like Jane Harman, and its corrupt senators like Hilary Clinton... like all of them!
This can stop tomorrow... in one New York Minute.. and its Evil Twin occupation in Iraq can stop tomorrow... in one New York Minute.
Cut the funding. That's all that need be done.
Not to do so is to choose to continue, to accept that the position that Islam finds herself in because "nothing can be done".
Sorry. Nothing can be done.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 26 2006 4:06 utc | 64
noirette:
Thanks for the link. A very interesting interview.
Jeffrey Blankfort: Jewish-American anti-Zionist journalist
When 240 senators and congressmen wrote a letter to Bush [XLI], telling him to pass the loan guarantees for Israel, at a time when America's economic situation was terrible, Bush realized that if he vetoed the legislation, he'd be overridden. So what did he do? When a thousand Jewish lobbyists were on Capitol Hill, Bush went on national television, and he said there are a thousand lobbyists up here "against little old me. But I have to do the right thing." And he says, US boys are over in Iraq protecting Israel and every Israeli man, woman and child gets so much money from the American taxpayer. No one's ever done that before. What were the polls the next day? Eighty-five percent of the people supported Bush. A month-and-a-half, two months later, only 44% of the American public supported aid to Israel, while 70% supported aid to the former Soviet Union, and 75% to Poland.In fact, the Lobby had to retreat, because they realized the American public was not going to go for it. Senator Barbara McCloskey, a good liberal Democrat, was speaking to a group of Jewish lobbyists, when she's handed a piece of paper, and according to the Washington Jewish Week, her face "went ashen."
She said, "I've just been informed that the President is taking the issue of the loan guarantees to the American people." The American people!?! The last people that the Lobby wants to have concerned with anything about Israel. If you want to put it on the basis of nationalism, we're talking about a nest of traitors. We're talking about a fifth column in the classic sense. You have Israel . . . it's Israel first. These people care nothing about the United States, or they do secondarily to Israel's interest or what they perceive as Israel's interests . . . there's a lot of Israelis who don't agree with that . . . but they are looking for a powerful Israel because its power gives them power as well.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 26 2006 5:57 utc | 65
Flashback...
El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq militants
The Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.
... just in case you wondered just WHO was behind all this "Sectarian violence."
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 26 2006 6:49 utc | 66
When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small U.S. ally, truth was a casualty.
Was the CIA involved? Did Washington know? Was the public deceived? Now we know: Yes, Yes and yes.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 26 2006 6:56 utc | 67
jj, thanks for the link(s) -- I'll follow them.
Over her in Pacific Canada, we have just gone through a major windstorm as the jet stream from Hawaii or so dipped down to the ground, winds of 60 miles per hour and up dropped dozens of trees onto the high-voltage power lines causing power outages -- I was off the grid for 6 days.
Luckily the temperature was moderate, about 40 degrees, and most roads stayed open. The local community declared an emergency and many families (100 or more) stayed in motels etc.
I stayed home and fed the fireplace and the cats -- living like a farmer chopping wood during daylight hours and listening to the radio at night.
Interesting, the phone service was the only dependable commications link as power and cable broadband were out for a week.
Cell phone service was also consistently up.
The power outage lasted from Wednesday Nov 15 to Tuesday Nov 22. Tonight we have a snowstorm (4-5 inches so far) and the power is fluctuating apparently due to snow on the wires.
I watched a helicopter with a small hook on the end of a 75-foot rope trying to pick up downed (or new) power lines out of the trees and lift them up to linemen waiting atop wooden poles to splice them in. Multiply by 5 or six or more tree-broken power line routes and it is an amazing accomplishment that the power has been completely restored. I was told that BC Hydro (power company) had 30,000 service people in the field during this crisis.
No loss of life although some houses were damaged by falling Douglas Fir trees, which are more prone to snapping than the cedars. These are big trees, 18 inches and up at the base and easily 60-100 feet tall or more.
I saw two hanging in the wires the previous week within blocks of where I live.
The area is getting through this, but it is on the scale of the East Coast ice storms of recent years.
Again, thankfully it hasn't been that cold although -6 celsius temperatures are predicted for next Tuesday.
Posted by: jonku | Nov 26 2006 11:20 utc | 68
sorry i've just spent several hours watching a city council meeting on a local new orleans channel.my god!!!!!is all i can say,where is the money?we have programs upon programs etc.....pre programs to give you a loan that will have to be paid back upon reciept of $ from that original program.but you will have to be accepted to the original program which you will have to pay back.so by the time we pass you through our application,your actual grant is only days away from $ of grant program.at which time you will have to immediately pay back your loan with interest.and on,,,and on.if i only had bullets this gun would pay for itself.
Posted by: onzaga | Nov 26 2006 11:39 utc | 69
Vent away onzaga. I've been hoping that things were getting better for you. Can we help in any way?
Posted by: beq | Nov 26 2006 14:52 utc | 71
jonku,
just came back from an evening stoll here in Germany, where I walked through several swarms of mayflies! Yesterday also saw record high temps for Germany in November - 21.6°C (that's nearly 70° for you Celsius fans).
Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 26 2006 15:56 utc | 72
Survey: Israel worst brand name in the world
As if Israel’s position in the world in not bad enough, a new survey published in the US Wednesday says that Israel is suffering from the worst public image among all countries of the world.The study, called the National Brands Index, conducted by government advisor Simon Anholt and powered by global market intelligence solutions provider GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), shows that Israel is at the bottom of the list by a considerable margin in the public’s perception of its image.
The Index surveyed 25,903 online consumers across 35 countries about their perceptions of those countries across six areas of national competence: Investment and Immigration, Exports, Culture and Heritage, People, Governance and Tourism. The NBI is the first analytical ranking of the world's nation brands.
"Israel's brand is by a considerable margin the most negative we have ever measured in the NBI, and comes at the bottom of the ranking on almost every question," states report author Simon Anholt.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 26 2006 16:53 utc | 73
For the record... happened to see this lunatic piece and just had to post it. I hope to God this writer is the fringe lunatic that he comes across as, and not someone tasked with floating some trial balloon... You really have to read this whole piece to appreciate its breathless insanity.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 26 2006 16:58 utc | 74
About Yushchenko. He was very ill before his ‘poisoning’. I think he was here at the hospital as well but couldn’t find a link. (He has been back here since, google will show that.) The link below is a neutral news aggregator, simply the first I found googling.
The diagnosis I heard or read (?) before the poison episode was pancreatitis, caused by alcoholism. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t poisoned, of course. The whole diagnosis of his poisoning was slow and bizarre - it seems to me that medically speaking poisoning would have been easily identified, but nailing the substance itself might have taken some time, possibly deliberately. In a funny way, his being a very ill man before the poisoning (if it was that) explains the hesitation and slowness - how to sort it all out medically, and to hide his previous illness /ongoing condition (patient confidentiality for a famous pol) and come out with direct evidence of malfeasance? It would be a very difficult situation.
While campaigning earlier in 2004, Yushchenko had fallen seriously ill and been hospitalized twice in Vienna. On Dec. 10 he entered the hospital again, this time with his face swollen, discolored, and covered with cysts. Dr. Michael Zimpfer, head of the Rudolfinerhaus hospital, said Dec. 11 that Yushchenko had been poisoned by dioxin. Yushchenko had already said as much, indicating that political opponents had sought to kill him.
http://www.worldalmanac.com/newsletter/200501WAE-Newsletter.html>link
This article from the NY times would tend to show that Y was no stranger to handling illness and very determined.
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 26 2006 17:35 utc | 75
Hail to the chiefDick Cheney's mission to expand -- or 'restore' --the powers of the presidency
A close look at key moments in Cheney's career -- from his political apprenticeship in the Nixon and Ford administrations to his decade in Congress and his tenure as secretary of defense under the first President Bush -- suggests that the newly empowered Democrats in Congress should not expect the White House to cooperate when they demand classified information or attempt to exert oversight in areas such as domestic surveillance or the treatment of terrorism suspects.Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor, predicted that Cheney's long career of consistently pushing against restrictions on presidential power is likely to culminate in a series of uncompromising battles with Congress.
"Cheney has made this a matter of principle," Shane said. "For that reason, you are likely to hear the words 'executive privilege' over and over again during the next two years."
...
Some liberal blogs, Steve Gilliard as well as DailyKos are up in arms about a McClatchy piece that claims Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station.
When one reads the piece, one finds something different. The TV station Iraqia did a two hour (live?) segment from some place in Sadr city broadcasting a discussion between three parliamentarians and some local people. Lots of folks vented their anger and some called for attacks on Sunnis.
Nobody has taken over Iraqia, nobody stormed their building. It was just a segment with people saying what they think.
Usuall McClatchy (ex KnightRidder) has quite good Baghdad reports. This one is titled wrong and some bloggers fail for it. No need to do so, the situation in Iraq goes down to hell without such exagerations.
The domonization of al-Sadr as "radical" is exceptional. What is more "radical" with him than with SCIRI and it's Badr corps? SCIRI (the southern Shia) are some 60% of the Shia people/forces - Sadr has some 40% - so why is he the "big one".
Oh wait - he was/is the only one who constantly has bridged to the Sunni for some national accord ....
Newsweek title: Sword of the Shia
He can deal out death through his black-clad followers and roil the government any time he chooses. Why Moqtada al-Sadr may end up deciding America's fate in Iraq.
stay safe, jonku.
the plants here in southern england are already pretty confused about the weather, kind of fooled into thinking it's spring already.
i've had to stop planting bulbs because the ones I planted earlier this autumn far from waiting until next year's spring to come up, have begun to bust above the ground (crocuses).
what gives? and do plants get exhausted by this? false starts? (that's assuming that next spring is going to be spring, and not some faux-winter event).
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 26 2006 21:09 utc | 79
ds,
the same thing happened to me last year with the irises i put in. i am crossing my fingers they come back this spring. i spent yesterday afternoon adding to last year's bulbs and putting in some pansies. it occurred to me that i planted last years rather late too, so i don't know that waiting solves the problem. i don't think the ground really froze over last year till after january 1 in new york. i remember pansies still blooming just after christmas. so many plants in my roof garden are appreciably happier in this weather than in the searing heat of the summer. my roses, morning glories, day lillies, neurembergia, brown-eyed susan vine, snap dragons, lobelia, mystery daisies, and geraniums are all still producing flowers. it was so warm up there that i was able to work comfortably in shirt sleeves. very strange.
Posted by: conchita | Nov 26 2006 21:52 utc | 80
b:
The spinning of headlines is the work of editors. The editors are McClatchy. Knight Ridder is dead.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 27 2006 1:46 utc | 81
wow, conchita, that is fantastic roof coverage
maybe u r right, it's pointless to wait for things to get back to 'normal', we and the plants have just got to deal with the changed/changing/fucked climate
today we have had hail storm (this morning) and i could see my breath on the air (lunchtime), but it still felt so warm
at least my jasmine vine has stopped growing for now, i do not want that to be a climate casualty
i will go back to the bulbs
Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 27 2006 3:01 utc | 82
Here is a piece of good news, for a change:
Let's hope this ceasefire holds and can give all the weary, pained, oppressed civilians on both sides a moment of quiet to nurse their gaping wounds.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 27 2006 3:10 utc | 83
"Brand Israel" has been market testing even worse than "Brand USA", so rather than send it back to R&D to tweak the product, they've decided an ad blitz might just save this turkey. It worked so well for the "New Coke" after all.
This would almost be funny if it weren't for all the lost lives and suffering...
Amir Gissin runs what he calls '"Israel's Explanation Department". Which is why it is surprising to hear him admit that many Israelis think "the whole problem is that we don't explain ourselves correctly".But Gissin was not down-hearted. He declared there to be a "war on the web" in which Israel had a new weapon, a piece of computer software called the "internet megaphone".
Israel's apparent new slogan: "Louder is Better."
Also, in the absence of effective "sticks" (What were the US recruiting goals last month again?) with which to get their way, the US has been offering more diplomatic "carrots" to nations like North Korea. This consists of making demands and in return offering... well, other things the US wanted anyway.
I linked to a story in another Open Thread about how Syria liked that approach so much, they adopted it themselves. (Bashar Al-Assad: "You want more boots on the ground in Iraq? Sure, sure... Give us back the Golan Heights and they're all yours!"). Now Iran is getting in on that game. (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "You want more boots on the ground in Iraq? Sure, sure... get the hell out.")
Iran says will help U.S. if it quits Iraq
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran was ready to help the United States and Britain in Iraq but only if they pledged to change their attitude and withdraw their troops.The remark comes amid growing calls for Washington to engage Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria, to help prevent Iraq plunging into civil war.
A senior U.S. official said this month Washington was "in principle" ready to discuss Iraq with Iran but said the timing of such talks was unclear. Ahmadinejad has previously said he would talk but only if Washington changed its behavior.
"The Iranian nation is ready to help you get out of that swamp (in Iraq) on one condition ... you should pledge to correct your attitude," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a parade of the Basij religious militia.
"Go back and take your forces to behind your borders and serve your own nations," he added.
Go home and take of our own nation? Well, crap. Why didn't we think of that? That would have saved us a lot of blood and treasure.
Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 27 2006 4:44 utc | 84
The spinning of headlines is the work of editors. The editors are McClatchy. Knight Ridder is dead.
@JFL we still don't know the story of Knight-Ridder that was killed by unnamed Huge Stockholders forcing the sale. I suspect Pressure was brought to bear since they were only xUS news service w/real coverage of Iraq. Were those unnamed stockholders, NY investment banks, or...a few pension funds, or...
Posted by: jj | Nov 27 2006 6:08 utc | 85
***EURO BARFLIES ALERT ****** (or how not to start Barkeep's week)
Once upon a time, Daddy Bush had to step in to clean up Jr's disasters. Timed moves on, Offices are bought & now, welcome my European Friends, you too are now expected to give your lives to clean up This Loser's latest shitpiles...
Germany, France, Spain and Italy will come under pressure this week to surrender the “red cards” that allow them to keep their troops away from the most dangerous areas of operations in Afghanistan.
The issue of national caveats, under which Nato governments can opt out of certain operations when they choose, is expected to dominate the alliance heads of government summit, in the Latvian capital, Riga, which starts tomorrow.
Some senior diplomats and military officials say that the credibility of the alliance in its most important mission overseas is at stake.Nato urges end of right to opt out of Afghanistan combat
Posted by: jj | Nov 27 2006 8:51 utc | 86
@ Bea 74
The unexpurgated
version with blog comments is even "better".
Thanks to Noirette for help on the book by Fernandes and Ozden.
One other point, I watched the BBC Sunday Talk Show "Dateline London" yesterday, and got the impression that the usual "reliably moderate"
representative of the Palestinian press, was "off the reservation",
understandably so since it appears that his family has been the victim
of Israeli military action in Gaza. Can't help wondering if MI-6 has
given the green light to speak the unspeakable as a prelude to a major
change in policy. Probably just a "pipe dream".
Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Nov 27 2006 9:05 utc | 87
North American Union exposed during Senate Debate
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 27 2006 10:33 utc | 88
What is the matter with the lefty blogs? Now some folks wonder over black bars on the bottom of white house video clips.
There is nothing to wonder about there and no censorship or 1984 there. The white house just cuts away the crawl lines of the channels where they copied the clips from.
Note: Re: the above, #88 in this he made a mistake, he meant may of 2008...
I know because I was there and spoke to him afterward.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 27 2006 10:43 utc | 90
Recommended: Bond and The Return of the Evil Empire
The Litvinenko coverage is one more example of unquestioning journalismWe are living in a prime-time Bond film: we have dashing spies, poisoning, espionage, allegations of undercover assassinations. Murdered journalists are involved, as are billionaire 'tycoons'. What is going on? A former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, in hospital, apparently poisoned. Whether he was in fact poisoned and by whom is not the key issue here. The key issue – and a serious cause for concern about the fairness and independence of the UK media – is that the UK media unanimously, unquestioningly, report the story as 'spy poisoning' (to quote the BBC World headline). This is the Soviet-style murder of an innocent 'dissident'. And not only do the media report this and fail to ask probing questions about alternative versions of the story, they actively work up the credibility of the mainstream version of events.
...
Then we have the photo. Guardian readers [extern] learn that:Family and friends of the Russian dissident poisoned in London released a photo of him in his hospital bed last night as a graphic illustration of the effects of the deadly toxin thallium.
Perhaps this photo should have been accompanied by a copyright caption: '© Lord Tim Bell', [extern] public relations consultant to Margaret Thatcher, Monsanto and South Africa's National Party among others. It was after all his public relations company, 'retained by Boris Berezovsky', which [extern] launched and fed the public relations campaign and 'arranged for a photograph of Mr Litvinenko in his hospital to be distributed to the media via a news agency.' Nice to have influential 'family and friends'.
In case you need some Pollonium 210, you can buy it here (sorry U.S. only)
The autumn (sept oct nov) here (ge, switz.) has been the warmest in history - 3 degrees C more than the ‘average.’ That is so mind boggling I ‘m speechless. People in the streets in shorts and t shirts partying...a bit of fog, a little precipitation, fallen leaves all over the streets, and buds on the trees at the same time, roses blooming all over.
This ain’t an Indian summer with its myriad colors, its afternoon sun for a week or two, and the cold snap in the air in the morning, the first snows falling gently on dormant fields. The shutters slowly closing, cold rain and wind soon spitting darts of hail.
It is like something out of a Science Fiction novel.
Posted by: Noirette | Nov 27 2006 17:10 utc | 94
@esme - as far as I can tell Billmon has his blogging software configured to take posts off the front page after a certain time (12 days?). He didn't disable that feature when he stopped some 12 days ago so I guess he will be back soon.
Even though this is to go after Judith Miller, THIS IS SCARY SHIT. Now the government can find out who a reporter's informant is by going through the Newspaper's PHONE RECORDS!!!.
"Court allows review of NY Times phone records" This is a SUPREME COURT ruling.
Court allows review of NY Times phone records Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:42pm ETWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the U.S. government to review the phone records of two New York Times reporters as part of an effort to discover who leaked information about a terrorism-funding probe involving Islamic charities.
The justices rejected a request from the newspaper to put on hold a ruling from a U.S. appeals court in New York while it prepares an appeal asking the high court to hear the case involving constitutional rights of freedom of the press.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wants to know the identity of government sources who might have given information to the two New York Times reporters, including former reporter Judith Miller.
Fitzgerald is investigating how Miller and fellow reporter Philip Shenon learned of government plans to search the premises of the two Islamic charities about three months after the September 11 attacks and to freeze the assets of the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 27 2006 22:20 utc | 97
Bwah!!! And all the liberals wasted a year of their lives thinking Patrick Fitzgerald was one of the "good guys."
Posted by: Bob M. | Nov 28 2006 0:33 utc | 98
The West is seriously pissed @Putin for taking control back of Russian Oil, so don't overlook the fact that the poisoning could have been done by Putin agents, or agents of Western Powers who wish to demonize him.
Posted by: jj | Nov 28 2006 2:24 utc | 99
There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition of gleeful Americans with fistfuls of dollars storming the department store barricades and the slaughter by the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including old people, children and babies. The war was started by the U.S., but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it.With no obvious personal stake in the war in Iraq, most Americans are indifferent to its consequences. In an interview last week, Alex Racheotes, a 19-year-old history major at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, said: “I definitely don’t know anyone who would want to fight in Iraq. But beyond that, I get the feeling that most people at school don’t even think about the war. They’re more concerned with what grade they got on yesterday’s test.”
His thoughts were echoed by other students, including John Cafarelli, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, who was asked if he had any friends who would be willing to join the Army. “No, definitely not,” he said. “None of my friends even really care about what’s going on in Iraq.”
This indifference is widespread. It enables most Americans to go about their daily lives completely unconcerned about the atrocities resulting from a war being waged in their name. While shoppers here are scrambling to put the perfect touch to their holidays with the purchase of a giant flat-screen TV or a PlayStation 3, the news out of Baghdad is of a society in the midst of a meltdown.
Iraq burns. We shop. The Americans dying in Iraq are barely mentioned in the press anymore. They warrant maybe one sentence in a long roundup article out of Baghdad, or a passing reference — no longer than a few seconds — in a television news account of the latest political ditherings.
Since the vast majority of Americans do not want anything to do with the military or the war, the burden of fighting has fallen on a small cadre of volunteers who are being sent into the war zone again and again. Nearly 3,000 have been killed, and many thousands more have been maimed.
They are dying anonymously and pointlessly, while the rest of us are free to buckle ourselves into the family vehicle and head off to the malls and shop.
I don't for one second think of those of us enlisted in the military as "volunteers" for the occuptation of Iraq. The military is filled with Americans to whom "the Service" seemed like a better deal than what they had, in a time of peace. Now, impressed into service by the "stop loss" orders of Donald Rumsfeld, they form an ever-shrinking class of soldier slaves.
Everything about this war is disgraceful.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 28 2006 3:45 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Desperation: Grandmother Blows Self Up in Gaza Suicide Blast
Posted by: b | Nov 24 2006 7:47 utc | 1