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

@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

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.
But Then It Was Too Late

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

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

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.
Ready for Your Close Up?

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

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

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

The above #16 twas me…
Paranoid Shift

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

@ 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

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

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

ACLU, e-mail about torture, but no executive order as far as I can see?
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)
campacc
from Variant, 2001, something which you probably saw:
link
there is also I think a later article in the same journal..

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 24 2006 19:34 utc | 25

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

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

Posted by: b | Nov 24 2006 20:34 utc | 29

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.
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.

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:

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.)

Let’s hope this artist can get the justice he deserves.
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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@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

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.

Posted by: b | Nov 25 2006 10:34 utc | 53

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

@ 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

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

@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

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

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

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

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

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

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.
link
This article from the NY times would tend to show that Y was no stranger to handling illness and very determined.
ny times

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 26 2006 17:35 utc | 75

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.

Posted by: b | Nov 26 2006 19:13 utc | 77

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

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

Here is a piece of good news, for a change:
Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire
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

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

@ 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

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.

Posted by: b | Nov 27 2006 10:41 utc | 89

Gore Vidal: Living Through History
Nuff said…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 27 2006 11:52 utc | 91

In case you need some Pollonium 210, you can buy it here (sorry U.S. only)

Posted by: b | Nov 27 2006 15:32 utc | 93

anyone know what’s up at billmon’s place?

Posted by: esme | Nov 27 2006 20:24 utc | 95

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 ET
WASHINGTON (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

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