A fresh one …
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December 7, 2006
OT 06-114
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We are consumed by the events in Mesopotamia and we disregard the most important aspects of our present predicament. Technology has changed completely the manner in which politics or war are carried out. We are in a revolutionary moment but not one of those moments in which one expects something grave to happen that will overwhelm, bouleverse, the systems. By our acting we are creating the very revolution. The State is in retreat. Someone said that the State was the entity that could use violence legally. The dictum may stand but the proliferation of cameras, telephones and videos makes the violent activities of the state if not impossible at least very restricted. When policemen beat a guy we see that now instantly, when a bomb destroys a neighborhood we see it. The state in order to preserve its appearance must attempt to appear moral and nowadays we see the violent activities of the state in stark reality. Another aspect of the state that is vanishing is the control of money printing or striking. The credit card system has made actual currency unnecessary. The third aspect of the state that is vanishing is the inplementation of some plan of conquest or subjection through war. The lesson in Iraq is that people refuse to submit and they are ready to die while killing. Regular armies want to kill without suffering death. If you are a devotee of Hegel you will notice that I am describing the transition from desire to the master slave relationship. The states of Europe are a glaring example of the superfluity of states. The European states limit themselves nowadays, to controlling the manifestation of religious beliefs while the technocrats in Brussels create ordinances that have to be obeyed by everyone across borders and seas. This is the revolution. Older categories have to be jetissoned and new ones created, actually they are not created they become obvious.
Posted by: jlcg | Dec 7 2006 18:40 utc | 1
It’s Bigotry That Should Be Silenced
by Amy Goodman
A couple of months ago, Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi architect and blogger, was heading from JFK Airport in New York to Oakland, Calif. He was approached by two Transportation Security Administration workers and two JetBlue employees. They said he could not get on the flight wearing the T-shirt he had on. His shirt read, “We will not be silent.”
He asked what the problem was. It was not the English words that bothered them, but the Arabic script above it.
Jarrar said it was simply the Arabic translation of the English. He said the officials countered that they didn’t have a translator, so they couldn’t be sure.
They handed him another T-shirt, and said if he wanted to fly he had to wear it over his own. He put it on, and they escorted him onto the plane. Not to his assigned seat at the front of the plane, but to the back of the bus, I mean, plane.
Jump ahead two months to Nov. 20 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. This time it’s US Airways. Six imams, or religious leaders, have come from a conference at the Mall of America. Its purpose was “to discuss how to build more bridges with non-Muslims, how to be more open-minded imams,” said Omar Shahin, the president of the North American Imams Federation. That purpose would soon be sorely tested.
The sun was setting. It was the imams’ prayer time. Sensitive to drawing attention to themselves, the six men decided only three of them would pray. Said Shahin: “We picked a quiet area. We did not bother anybody. We did our prayer in a very quiet, lower voice.”
Then they boarded the plane. Shahin had been upgraded to first class. Three of the imams sat in the middle, and two sat in the back, in their assigned seats. Two asked for seat-belt extenders. According to the later police report, one off-duty flight attendant found the seat-belt extenders unwarranted and thus suspicious. When Shahin was a guest on my daily show “Democracy Now!,” he needed an extra-long microphone cable to accommodate his girth. As Shahin sheepishly said, “I’m a big guy.” Yes, his need for a seat-belt extender was real.
Imam Shahin then did the unforgivable — he walked to the middle of the plane to offer his older, blind colleague his first-class seat.
Before they knew it, airport police swarmed onto the plane, and the six imams were herded out, handcuffed and interrogated for hours. Shahin said, “When I saw the look in the eyes of the other passengers, it became the worst day of my life.” After the FBI cleared them, US Airways still refused to allow them to fly. The imams bought tickets on Northwest Airlines and flew back to Phoenix, humiliated and angry.
Racial profiling does not make us safer. It simply alienates and marginalizes whole populations. Whether it is African Americans driving while black, or Muslims trying to fly home.
Back to the T-shirt story. The phrase “We will not be silent” goes back to the White Rose collective of World War II. A brother and sister named Hans and Sophie Scholl, with other students and professors, decided the best way to resist the Nazis was to disseminate information, so that the Germans would never be able to say, “We did not know.”
The collective distributed a series of pamphlets. On the bottom of one was printed the phrase “We will not be silent.” The Nazis arrested Hans and Sophie as well as other collective members, tried them, found them guilty and beheaded them. But that motto should be the Hippocratic oath of the media today: “We will not be silent.”
Our job is to provide a forum for people to speak for themselves, to describe their own experiences. This breaks down stereotypes and bigotry, things that fuel racial profiling, which ultimately endangers us all.
Amy Goodman hosts the radio news program “Democracy Now!”.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 7 2006 19:01 utc | 2
Game time!
Iran plans to reduce use of dollar in trade
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 7 2006 19:54 utc | 3
jlcg –
What a hopeful post. How I hope it can be so.
I see other possibilities in the technologic revolutions, as I look around at popular culture and my countrymen.
1) Does culture prepare us to accept increasingly brutal ways? Crime and the military proliferate in television, movies, and games, and are played out in increasingly violent scenarios. Official authorities in these dramas are almost always good guys, despite the frequent plagues of rogue elements within their ranks. They only shoot and torture because they have to do so for the greater good, and it always produces the desired result; the victims of such behavior are always guilty.
2) We live and drown in a sea of material goods dangled tantalizingly before us in every direction. It seems like everything we do has a “sponsor”. So, just like in the old mining systems, we enslave ourselves to the company store with long credit accounts. We have all learned that the game of life is that whoever has the most stuff and money when s/he dies, wins, and having more along the way marks us as winners, the culmination of the Calvinist calculus.
3) And what about the conflation of fundamentalist Christianism and fundamentalist nationalism, which locks thinking into a box with inflexible, reassuring borders? Someone at MoA a week or so again mentioned a correlation between degree of dysfunctional psychosis and a preference for authoritarianism. Is this related? As change increases, as the times and verities become more uncertain, more seemingly chaotic, are we attracted to more authoritarian systems of meaning and conduct?
4) Did you hear the report on NBC about the mysterious telephone caller from Florida, who calls fast food restaurants around the country pretending to be a police officer? He has succeeded in inducing managers at many locations to strip search an employee, and in one case to have the employee perform sex acts.
Unbelievable as it seems, forensic psychologists speculate that the fast food culture of strict hierarchy and all activities performed by the letter of the operations manual somehow fosters this sort of stupid obedience. Interestingly, it was low level employees, janitors, burger flippers, and such, who doubted the false police officer and called his instructions BS.
5) And then there are those of us camping out, stampeding, fighting, and maiming each other to buy a game.
6) Sadly, so much still suggests that little in human nature has changed since Dostoevsky wrote his chapter on the Grand Inquisitor, in pre-industrial Russia.
Pls persuade me I am wrong, that these are not sentinel signs.
Posted by: small coke | Dec 7 2006 20:38 utc | 4
Iraq is a diversion. As the army attacks Iraq, the US gov’t erodes rights at home by suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon, rigging elections, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting 2 illegal wars based on lies. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran, (on behalf of Israel).
Final link (before Google Books bends to gov’t demands and censors the title):
[spam marketing link deleted – b]
Posted by: Pearl Harbor Day | Dec 7 2006 21:48 utc | 5
re #5 see It is the speculation of this commenter that the author of the previous comment is actually the author of the book looking for some easy publicity via blogs. A google search on “America Decieved” will bring up hundreds of very similary comments, but all have the link to iUniverse in them and the tag line “Final link (before Google Books bends to gov’t will and drops the title)”.
Posted by: b real | Dec 7 2006 22:17 utc | 6
Moscow’s agreement to supply military equipment valued at USD7.5 billion to Algeria includes arrangements under which Russian oil producer LUKoil and gas group Gazprom will gain access to the North African states’ oil and gas reserves.
It is likely that the proceeds from exploiting the energy fields will be split between the Russian producers and Algeria, giving Algiers a revenue stream with which to pay the remaining cash element of the deal.
In addition, it was revealed that Russia will write-off Algeria’s USD4 billion Soviet-era debt (as widely anticipated). This will account for a quarter of Algeria’s total foreign debt.
Under the deal, which was concluded following three months of negotiations, Russia will deliver 36 MiG 29SMT fighters, 28 Su-30MK interdiction aircraft and 16 Yak-130 Mitten combat trainers, plus the upgrade of 36 older MiG-29s, supplies of ground-based radars, and pilot and technical training.
Will Europe prepare to freeze when Russia turn off the Gas?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 7 2006 22:33 utc | 7
Thanks b-real – I deleted the link in comment #5
– some folks asked about the cahllenge issue and spam the last days. Well #5 was one spam comment and usually I just delete them. If they already have drawn a response, I just “disable” them as I don’t want to censor the discussion.
Jerome is up right on this one.
If the U.S. doesn’t hold Bush accountable, the international backslash will be huge. The major parties in Germany who openly (CDU) or covertly (SPD) backed Bush are at historic lows in polling. That is no random coincidence.
@beq
it worked for me a short time ago, and there were some 700+ comments… the page tends to have problems when there are more than 400/500
Posted by: crone | Dec 8 2006 0:54 utc | 13
“Do any of you know if Billmon is alive and well?”
No, but Mrs Billmon might have him by the ear. He was spending too much time at the bar and not enough work was getting done around the homestead.
Posted by: pb | Dec 8 2006 3:26 utc | 14
i heard he was rummaging around the attic for his santa costume
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 8 2006 4:00 utc | 15
another article on Bush’s Vacation Get-Away in Paraguay?
US to Deploy Troops to Panama
Panama, Dec 7 (Prensa Latina) Nearly 1,400 US Army reservists will be deployed in Panama next year in an alleged humanitarian aid operation, announced official sources Thursday.
Officials from both countries told press that the Pentagon troops will serve in the region of Ngobe Bugle, Bocas del Toro Province, between February and June 2007.
According to Bocas del Toro Joint Forces Commander Lt. Col. Thomas Jones, the soldiers will render their service in groups of 450, and will gradually increase until completing the 1,400.
The Pentagon led the controversial military maneuvers “Panamax 2006” in this Central American country between August and September, causing the death of three Panamanian marines.
The drills were carried out in the Panama Canal and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and were designed to face a supposed terrorist attack against the canal.
Lima, Dec 7 (Prensa Latina) An unknown number of US troops will carry out a joint military drill “Landing-Assault and Security Operation -LASO” in Peru December 9-22.
Peru State-run news agency Andina informed Thursday that Congress approved a resolution that also okays US military presence in Peru from February 4 through March 8, 2007.
LASO will target “narco-terrorism” and involves the local Navy and special naval troops from central Pucallpa forest region.
A recent resolution also allows the presence of foreign troops in Peru without weapons and without the need for legislative consent.
“Nuestra Bandera” daily denounced the action by the Peruvian Congress, with Aprista Party and conservative forces as majority, approving an agreement to increase US military presence.
The paper said that while theoretically the Pentagon would participate in anti-drug surveillance over Amazonian rivers riddled with drug trafficking, the approval ties Peru to President George W. Bush´ warmongering policy.
Nuestra Bandera director Gustavo Espinoza added that both countries may agree to transfer the US military base Manta, now in Ecuador, to Peru since a nationalist [Rafael Correa] won the recent presidential race.
Posted by: b real | Dec 8 2006 4:46 utc | 16
Lieber Bernhard, ich hab’ am Moon over Alabama für eine lange Weile nicht geschrieben. Endlich bin ich vertig, meine Gedănke zu teilen. Ich kann Euch nicht genug danken; Moon over Alabama ist meine beste Quelle für Wahrheit under Klarheit. Wo anders kann ich solche eigenartige Meinungen lesen, remingerbergiap und Uncle Scam und Noirette und alle die andere? Und Sie besonders.
I haven’t posted in quite a while because I was exhausted. The political situation in the United States, which I observe from fairly close hand, has simply been too bizarre to believe. Six years of lies and crimes by the Bush Administration, coupled with a noteworthy lack of courage on the part of the Democrats, simply wore me out. I was too tired to think about it.
The procession of events has been stunning. Matters reached, I felt, a climax when Congress easily passed the Military Commissions Act, the single greatest assault on the U.S. Constitution in 217 years of our history as a nation. We are, and remain, on the edge of a Constitutional abyss. For the first time ever, the United States is governed (they would say ruled) by men who simply do not believe in the fundamental truths of the U.S. Constitution. The necessity of some sort of revolution to protect the Constitution seemed, and remains, freighteningly apparent.
Then, in an almost humorous sequence, the mendacity, immorality, and incompetence of the Bush Administration, the Neocons, and the Republicans as a whole were startingly illuminated. The Foley scandal (how long ago and almost quaint it seems), the Haggerty announcement, the conviction of Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney, the entire Abramoff episode, and the general spectacle of the Republicans being caught in tawdry violation of the law like an alderman surprised at a brothel, revealed the Right Wing for the truly morally pathetic fraud that it is.
At the same time, on a much more serious level, events in Iraq spiraled inexorably out of control. October was a disaster, more Americans dead everyday, and no one can give any coherent reason why. It’s even worse for the Iraqis. A civil war would be an improvement. Iraq would have to organize to fight a civil war. This is worse, utter chaos, a fairly advanced, secular, well-educated industrial society cast back into a medieval world of violence and repression. We Americans are just another gang, the meanest and most deadly, but we’re not going to stay. It’s not our home. As far as the Iraqis are concerned, it really would be better if we left now. That way they could concentrate on fighting their tribal wars, and figure out what Iraq is going to be.
And the people blame Bush. For so long, he inexplicably avoided responsibility for what is indeed looking to be the single greatest blunder in American history. Invading Iraq was pretty much the stupidest thing the United States has ever done – and people have figured that out. It has become impossible for Cheney and Bush to hide what an utter disaster Iraq has come. One after another, the Marine report on Anbar, the Hadley Memo, and the Rumsfeld memo revealed how hopelessly confused Bush is.
Then came the elections, and we won. I’m a Democrat – not always a happy one, but I’m sure not going to vote for a Republican. We won back both the House and the Senate. Not a single incumbent Democratic Representative, Senator, or governor lost. Carrying the Senate was an incredible feat. I take personal credit, because I’m a Virginian, and we elected Jim Webb. It was a sort of revolution; people just don’t believe the Republican bullshit any more. Here’s the really interesting thing: Webb carried every urban area in Virginia. Even small cities like Charlottesville and Bristol voted for Webb.
He also carried my town, McLean. McLean is home to the CIA and several Fortune 500 corporations, as well as dozens of high government officials. It’s one of the politically powerful communities in the country, and one of the wealthiest. And it voted for the Democrat. Great Falls, horse country, even quieter and richer and more Republican than McLean, voted for Webb. I don’t know what it means, but it says something.
Meanwhile, we’re having to consider the real possibility of the end of the world as we know it. Global warming is real, and it’s happening, and we have no idea what the consequences will be. Of course, if we run out of oil more quickly than we imagine, global warming will slow, right along with Western society. These are challenges so big it hurts to think about them. The Bush Administration of course denied them both.
So that’s the world. And to top it off, Billmon’s gone quiet. I don’t know how he does it, and I can certainly understand why he’d take a break, but I fell like I’ve lost an eye. He is the oracle.
In the next few weeks, my friends, let us see too. I have the feeling that history is reaching a critical juncture, and that things could happen beyond our imagining. I think of the future as a bell curve, with some outcomes more likely than others. But when an unlikely outcome does occur, as is inevitable, the entire curve can shift in unexpected directions. The coup that put Bush into the White House in 2001, 9/11 and its aftermath, and the sad yet dangerous personal pathologies of Bush and Cheney all show that the curve for the United States, and the world, lurched dangerously to the left (left is bad in bell curves, the region of lower scores). We are faced now with possibilities and even certainties that would have seemed most improbable even a decade ago. And we have to guess right.
Put on your ghost shirts.
Posted by: Aigin | Dec 8 2006 5:51 utc | 17
Saudi Arabias funding of Iraqi Sunnis. And what they may be spending the money on:
Allegations the insurgents have purchased shoulder-fired Strela missiles raise concerns that they are obtaining increasingly sophisticated weapons.
On Nov. 27, a U.S. Air Force F-16 jet crashed while flying in support of American soldiers fighting Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent hotbed. The U.S. military said it had no information about the cause of the crash. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, said he would be surprised if the jet was shot down because F-16’s have not encountered weapons capable of taking them down in Iraq.
But last week, a spokesman for Saddam’s ousted Baath party claimed that fighters armed with a Strela missile had shot down the jet.
“We have stockpiles of Strelas and we are going to surprise them (the Americans),” Khudair al-Murshidi, the spokesman told the AP in Damascus, Syria. He would not say how the Strelas were obtained.
This is what, with outside funding, drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan — and why the U.S. can ill-afford to retreat onto their bases, or abandon entire provinces, or side with the Shiites in the civil war — the late game options reduce to one.
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 8 2006 8:25 utc | 19
anna missed:
If the Sunni have weapons that can shoot down US aircraft then the Shia have them too.
Iranian money spends just as well as Saudi.
In fact the Shia could probably buy the weapons from the Sunni, the Sunni have no airforce to protect. If they had difficulty locating a supply on their own, although it seems unlikely that the Shia could not get a Russian missle from the Iranians.
It’s just that the Americans have sent more aircraft after the Sunni, so far.
I certainly agree that leaving is the only option, because it is the right thing to do regardless the military outlook. But the military oulook is getting worse quicker than they imagine.
If there is a real American bloodbath, tens of thousands of lives lost in relatively short order, because these bozos stayed, nursing their forlorn hopes for Iraqi oil… then Republicrats will again “enjoy” the same reputation they had in the South for the first one hundred years after the American Civil War.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 8 2006 9:37 utc | 20
Greater Role for Nonscientists in E.P.A. Pollution Decisions
The Environmental Protection Agency has changed the way it sets standards to control dangerous air pollutants like lead, ozone and tiny particles of soot, enhancing the role of the agency’s political appointees in scientific assessments and postponing the required review by independent scientific experts.
The change, which largely tracks the suggestions of the American Petroleum Institute but also adopts some recommendations of the agency’s independent scientific advisers, was announced yesterday afternoon by the agency’s deputy administrator, Marcus Peacock.
…
The Clean Air Act requires that every five years, the agency review existing standards for the six air pollutants considered most dangerous to health. Two standards, for lead and ground-level ozone, are currently under review. A third, for lethal particles of soot, was left partly intact two months ago, a decision that ignored the consensus recommendation of the agency’s scientific advisers that it be tightened.
…
For one thing, agency scientists will no longer produce their own independent review of the latest science to start the process of deciding whether a pollution standard — for lead, say, or ozone — is tough enough to protect public health. Instead, initial reviews will now involve both agency scientists and their political bosses and will produce a synopsis of “policy-relevant” science, agency officials said.
Pure Orwell ..
“Policy-relevant” science has been explained to me :
“Never believe your lying ears”
There is no such thing as an objective fact. Facts are the creation of an out of control, non-patriotic, soft on terrorism, non-Christian, abortion loving, equality seeking, peace mongering, light in the loafer, tree hugging, global warming preaching, intelligent design doubting, honest elections promoting, Ku Klux Klan hating group of starry eyed lovers of facts who grew up in families with no values.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 8 2006 11:21 utc | 22
Four attempts to post that last before I was able to read the gibberish put out by the “friendly interface”.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 8 2006 11:23 utc | 23
Carter OpEd in LAT: Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine
The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.
…
My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.
The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine’s citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens.
…
Requiring those who want the privileges of U.S. citizenship to have some minimal knowledge of American civics is a great idea. Why should this country mint new so-called citizens who don’t know the first thing about American history or law?
But there’s no reason to restrict this test to immigrants.
…
In September, the Annenberg Public Policy Center released a poll showing that only two-thirds of Americans could identify all three branches of government; only 55% of Americans were aware that the Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress unconstitutional; and 35% thought that it was the intention of the founding fathers to give the president “the final say” over Congress and the judiciary.
Should these people really be voting? Deport them, I say!
…
(Students at UC Berkeley, Brown, Cornell, Duke and Yale were among the most woefully ignorant.)
And if we deported so-called citizens who don’t know anything about the U.S. Constitution, it’s not just beachfront real estate that would open up. We could clear out the White House too.
Lind: When Will the First IED Strike Cleveland? – The Boomerang Effect
One of the things U.S. troops are learning in Iraq is how people with little training and few resources can fight a state. Most American troops will see this within the framework of counterinsurgency. But a minority will apply their new-found knowledge in a very different way. After they return to the U.S. and leave the military, they will take what they learned in Iraq back to the inner cities, to the ethnic groups, gangs, and other alternate loyalties they left when they joined the service. There, they will put their new knowledge to work, in wars with each other and wars against the American state. It will not be long before we see police squad cars getting hit with IEDs and other techniques employed by Iraqi insurgents, right here in the streets of American cities.
…
We saw this phenomenon in the effect the defeat in Afghanistan had on the Soviet Union. Just as that defeat led to the disintegration of the USSR, so defeat in the current Afghan war will bring the disintegration of NATO. We are seeing 4GW pull Israel apart today, to the point where a leaden blanket of Kulturpessimismus now oppresses that country.
We will see the same thing here, powerfully I think, as a result of our defeat in Iraq. It will manifest itself in many ways, and one of those ways will be the progression of inner-city and gang crime into something close to warfare, including war against the state.
…
The boomerang effect is a central element of Fourth Generation war. When a state involves itself in 4GW over there, it lays a basis for 4GW at home. That is true even if it wins over there, and all the more true if it loses, as states usually do. The toxic fallout from America’s 4GW defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan will be far greater than most people expect, and it will fall most heavily on America’s police.
In Beit Hanun and Baghdad, the scene is the same:
NEWS MIDDLE EAST
‘Children killed’ in US Iraq raid
Six children and eight women are among at least 32 people killed in a US air raid northwest of Baghdad, according to Iraqi police and local officials.
Khedr Hussein, an Iraqi police major, said 32 people were killed at Ishaqi, 90km north of Baghdad.
Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters news agency that US aircraft bombed two homes in the early hours of Friday.
He said 32 civilians were believed to be inside and that of 25 bodies pulled so far from the rubble, eight were women and six children….
“If there is a weapon with or next to the person or they are holding it, they are a terrorist,” he said.
So this is what war has become: Armies invade private homes and bomb civilians, and any resident who dares to hold a weapon is marked for death because they are a “terrorist?” Am I reading this article correctly, folks? Has the concept of self-defense, then, ceased to exist?????
I am speechless.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 15:00 utc | 28
Clarification: The bolded quote in my post #28 was from Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver, a US military spokesman. The way I excerpted the piece that was unclear.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 15:03 utc | 29
Ex-Detainees Seek to Sue U.S. Officials
9 Former Prisoners Want Rumsfeld and Others Held Responsible for Torture
~Snip
In a federal courtroom today, nine former prisoners at U.S. military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan will seek through an unusual lawsuit to hold outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders personally responsible for the torture they say they endured.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 15:48 utc | 31
Uncle, here’s the Link Not sure how I omitted it – probably I was too angry!
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 15:53 utc | 32
Re: b’s #27
On a similar note regarding the The Boomerang Effect:
Soldiers of Fortune
An elite Army Ranger, back from Iraq, led his cohorts in a precision hold-up, cops say. If money wasn’t the motive, what was?
To customers and employees in the Bank of America branch that Monday, the invaders rushing through the door had the appearance of commandos on a raid. Ski-masked men in heavy clothing, armed with automatic rifles and sporting soft body armor under their jackets, stormed the one-story South Tacoma BOA branch near closing time, shouting orders and forcing everyone to the floor.
The four-man robbery team brandished handguns, pointed AK-47s, and seemed ready for a firefight, bringing along extra banana-style ammunition clips. “That’s a tremendous amount of weaponry and ammunition for a bank robbery,” says assistant U.S. attorney Michael Dion in Tacoma.
I think before it is all over, we will see this type thing become quite ubiquitous, and the ptb will use it to their advantage. Think, surreal plots like from Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil .
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 8 2006 15:59 utc | 33
Good one (for a US paper) on Lebanon: Analysts: U.S. at root of effort to topple Lebanese government
American political leaders watched with alarm during the past week as the Hezbollah militia laid siege to the U.S.-backed Lebanese government, but few would acknowledge publicly what most analysts and politicians here say is obvious: American policy may bear much of the blame.
Many in Beirut say that U.S. failure to stop Israel’s onslaught against Hezbollah last summer crippled the Lebanese government – a U.S. ally – while strengthening Hezbollah – a U.S. enemy. That created an environment in which the Shiite Muslim militia could call for overthrowing Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his Cabinet.
…
Fatfat and other Lebanese officials said that while there was a complex set of reasons for the crisis – Syria is trying to derail a tribunal from investigating Syrian participation in political assassinations, Shiites long have felt underrepresented by their government, Iran is pushing against U.S. interests across the region – the conditions largely were set by U.S. actions during the conflict last summer.
…
Saniora pleaded with American officials to intervene, but for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others said there first must be a “durable solution,” meaning primarily that Hezbollah had to be contained and then disarmed.
As the fighting stretched on for more than a month and the Bush administration didn’t intervene, Saniora looked ineffectual, a nearly unforgivable sin in a region in which military force and political strength are often synonymous.
…
The push against Saniora was an easy sell to Hezbollah’s rank and file.
“Saniora’s government did not help us during the war,” said Hussein Ali, who was sitting with a group of friends across from his shoe store in a southern suburb of Beirut.
Ahmed Musalmani, who sells ceramic tiles, added: “And Fuad Saniora was kissing Condoleezza Rice.”
re: Fourth Generation War
I would like more understanding of what, exactly this refers to. Can someone supply some good sources? Or definitions?
Also, I think this goes hand in hand with why societies should never condone torture, or military occupation, or unjustifiable war, or any other form of oppression against fellow human beings. The bottom line is, ultimately, you cannot separate what you as a society do to “others” from what you do to yourselves. Sooner or later, and most probably sooner, the attitudes, behaviors, methods of inflicting pain, etc etc will be brought home and inflicted right at home — whether to fellow citizens, or to family members within the privacy of one’s actual home. There are powerful thresholds of psychological transformation in one’s willingness to hurt others that just get crossed by virtue of engaging in that hurt, and it seems that once they are crossed, those lines do not easily get reinstated. Am I making any sense?
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 16:14 utc | 35
WWII U.S. Internment Camps To Be Restored
Interesting in light of this:
Host Glenn Beck threatens Muslims with concentration camps
p.s. Is anyone else having typepad problems? my last three posts typepad has asked that I Verify my comment by putting in random letters which I understand only does that to stop spam, however this is the first time it does it on first post….
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 8 2006 16:21 utc | 36
26 years ago today – R.I.P., John Lennon
John Lennon 10/9/40 – 12/8/80
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 8 2006 16:52 utc | 37
For those interested in internal Palestinian politics, especially the ongoing efforts to achieve a national unity government, and, by extension, the efforts of the US to exclude Hamas from a Palestinian government, here is a lengthy and interesting piece from Al-Ahram Weekly on the topic. It explains why the Palestinian national unity government, which appeared to be on the verge of collapse when Condi came to call last week, has now been given a new lease on life.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 17:31 utc | 38
Defense and the National Interest & Global Guerrillas are in my favorites list for keeping up 4th Generation Warfare.
There was an undercurrent of revolution after Vietnam: The Weathermen, Patty Hearst and Rambo but the Criminal Justice System put millions of men in prison ending the unrest. Besides, we are all old farts now.
There are profound changes in the decades since that will make the GWOT Veterans return even more difficult. All of the soldiers volunteered. They haven’t mutinied yet like Vietnam Vets. They actually believe the President’s Shit. Good paying jobs are no longer there. Pay scales are falling to match Chinese workers. The Criminal System is not longer just. The inhumane treatment of Jose Padilla is SOP. When disillusioned men have nothing to loose, violence erupts. The revolt will organized along religious super gangs defending their turf against the repressive mercenaries funded by the wealthy 1%.
Posted by: Jim S | Dec 8 2006 17:45 utc | 39
It happens Uncle (36). Just stick with it and it will eventually stop.
Posted by: beq | Dec 8 2006 17:55 utc | 40
@Uncle (36) – I already complained with Typepad – the system is currently nuts.
@bea (35) – 4GW
– John Robb’s short explenation
– The basic piece written by Lind et al in 1989(!)
Again, we are not suggesting terrorism is the fourth generation. It is not a new phenomenon, and so far it has proven largely ineffective. However, what do we see if we combine terrorism with some of the new technology we have discussed? For example, that effectiveness might the terrorist have if his car bomb were a product of genetic engineering rather than high explosives? To draw our potential fourth generation out still further, what if we combined terrorism, high technology, and the following additional elements?
* A non-national or transnational base, such as an ideology or religion. Our national security capabilities are designed to operate within a nation-state framework. Outside that framework, they have great difficulties. The drug war provides an example. Because the drug traffic has no nation-state base, it is very difficult to attack. The nation-state shields the drug lords but cannot control them. We cannot attack them without violating the sovereignty of a friendly nation. A fourth-generation attacker could well operate in a similar manner, as some Middle Eastern terrorists already do.
* A direct attack on the enemy’s culture. Such an attack works from within as well as from without. It can bypass not only the enemy’s military but the state itself. The United States is already suffering heavily from such a cultural attack in the form of the drug traffic. Drugs directly attack our culture. They have the support of a powerful “fifth column,” the drug buyers. They bypass the entire state apparatus despite our best efforts. Some ideological elements in South America see drugs as a weapon; they call them the “poor man’s intercontinental ballistic missile.” They prize the drug traffic not only for the money it brings in through which we finance the war against ourselves — but also for the damage it does to the hated North Americans.
* Highly sophisticated psychological warfare, especially through manipulation of the media, particularly television news. Some terrorists already know how to play this game. More broadly, hostile forces could easily take advantage of a significant product of television reporting — the fact that on television the enemy’s casualties can be almost as devastating on the home front as are friendly casualties. If we bomb an enemy city, the pictures of enemy civilian dead brought into every living room in the country on the evening news can easily turn what may have been a military success (assuming we also hit the military target) into a serious defeat.
That was written 12 years before 9/11 – impressive.
Mutism (my own, not Billmon’s) takes hold at odd moments, and also relaxes its grip at odd moments. But what then? Is there really anything left to say? Yes, of course, there’s always something to say: that’s why we give the name of “mutism” to this particular kind of silence, where the mind is in good working order, but does not speak its mind…..
So I have only one thing to say–something I’ve already said for a number of years in this haven of comfort and counsel, but I might as well repeat myself yet again–mutism, for the moment, having relaxed its mysterious grip.
The US must not only leave Iraq, but must be driven from Iraq by the insurgents on the ground.
This has to happen for two reasons: first, we certainly have to leave the place, and second, we’ll never do so willingly, either slowly or swiftly. Because it’s our will to stay. So when we’re driven out, it will happen against our will.
Driven out against our will: this means that we won’t accept our expulsion, we won’t process it philosophically, and we won’t get over it any time soon. “We” will engage in scapegoating all over the place, something to be expected of people who can’t accept reality.
Imagine a corpse–a really dead one, not a pretend corpse–springing out of the grave to deny that it’s dead, and blaming everyone in sight for hallucinating, even wishing, that it be “dead”. This, I believe, has been the situation of the Rumsfelds, the Kissingers and the Cheney’s (and their millions of like-minded citizens) ever since our retreat from Viet Nam, and it won’t change when we pull out of Iraq. The wonder of it all is that this preposterous process never stops, and will never stop, but will continue for ever and ever–no matter how weak and dysfunctional the United States becomes.
It will continue, not out of hope, or out some Messianic vision, or out of some delusional “team spirit,” but out of a particular form of insanity that launched the process in the first place. Call it a really odd denial of mortality and of the limits of power, insofar as these pertain to each and every one of us.
Losing the war, then, is not a process of enlightenment. It is a process of self-perpetuating blindness giving rise to no kind of insight whatsoever, to no amendment. In this sense, it’s hardly a process at all; it’s just the same old blindness, perpetuating itself in a slightly different set of circumstances. (I might add that I find it very boring–a “personal opinion”.)
On to the next dead Marine, then, because there’s no other possible “process”.
Posted by: alabama | Dec 8 2006 18:48 utc | 42
always a pleasure when you break from your mutism alabama, much appreciated
Posted by: annie | Dec 8 2006 18:58 utc | 43
Reuters: U.S., Iraqi troops seal off Haditha – residents
BAGHDAD, Dec 8 (Reuters) – U.S. and Iraqi troops have sealed off the city of Haditha
in Anbar province, in the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, and have warned residents
to keep off the streets and stay indoors, officials and residents said on Friday.
The U.S. military said troops were manning checkpoints and building a sand berm to crack
down on insurgents in Haditha and in neighbouring Barwana. It said U.S. troops were
protecting “the population and good citizens of Haditha”.
But residents in Haditha, which is at the centre of a U.S. military investigation into the
deaths of two dozen civilians in November 2005 by U.S. Marines, said electricity has been
cut off and that no food is being allowed into the city.
Schools have been forced to close, they said.
The Fallujah solution?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 8 2006 19:00 utc | 44
alabama- nice to see you. while I understand your argument, I think ppl can be made to face reality or fantasy…it all depends upon the messages put before them.
tho I don’t agree with freud’s interpretations (i.e. he needed to read Foucault concerning power) this (part one) and part two, part three, and part four is an interesting documentary about mass psychology and ways to manipulate opinion.
if we don’t leave, it is only because the mass psychosis of the DC establishment cannot accept what a horrible thing Bush Jr. did…which is very likely, because these same ppl are vested in not having their incompetence revealed…incompetence based upon a total misunderstanding of the world, of other humans, and of the value of ideas.
Posted by: fauxreal | Dec 8 2006 19:27 utc | 46
Funny post over at AMERICAblog on the release of the Ethics Committe report on the Foley scandal:
The press conference is on, and they’re busy spending time patting each other on the back. It’s 11 past the hour and they still haven’t told us a damn thing, other than how great they all are. Gosh, they’re all such great men and women, I just love them all. What is this, a high school graduation mixed with the Oscars? Tell us the damn results, you arrogant out of touch fools. I want to thank my wife, my staff, and especially Mark Foley, without whom this entire child sex scandal wouldn’t be possible. Shut up already. Oh my God, they’re still talking about themselves, they’re 15 minutes into this press conference and they’re talking about themselves. And they wonder why people hate them?
CNN just cut away from the press conference, mid press conference, because neither the Dem nor the Republican said a God damn thing other than lauding themselves (about a child sex predator scandal, mind you – inappropriate much?). We now have no idea what they found.
Posted by: Bea | Dec 8 2006 19:46 utc | 47
bliar has a funny definition of tolerance
Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don’t come here.
Posted by: b real | Dec 8 2006 20:07 utc | 48
Drudge has a headline with no further information that police in Hamburg are looking for Polonium in a flat there. (No, I won’t link to him)
Posted by: ww | Dec 8 2006 20:35 utc | 49
Kid & Nabil’s Iraqi Folk Medley
1. Mohammed :
O Mohammed My Son Mohammed
My Son, why do you remain intent?
O Mohammed My Son Mohammed
My Son, why do you reamin intent?
O Mohammed, don’t you fear God?
O Mohammed, beware, for this is God.
My son Mohammed, my eye Mohammed.
2. Fog El Nakhal
Up There, Up, Up, Up there we have a lover, up there…
Perhaps his cheek his twinkled, or perhaps it is the moon, up there…
and by God, I do not want it…
for his love has brought me much agony…
3. S’ghayeroon
I was a little girl and you were a cute little boy…
And love has bonded us by the exchanged glances…
and they said, surely these two are in love….
From their childhood to the day they grow…
by the river we have sat for many nights…
by the river, and the palm trees were high
and they said, that we have grown , my precious…
the river, and the palm remained high…
CHORUS: Between the star and the moon, our love grew and prospered, for your eyes my love, I see the essence of times…
La La Lay Lai Lai…La La Lay Lai Lai…
4. Lewd Song
The Hajji returned from Mecca
riding on a limp donkey
and he was met by the hijiiya (female hajji)
who trapped him into the corner
she said Hajji that’s enough
it has brought me to my knees
she said Hajji taste it
it has gone up to my head
it’s gone up to my head…
heh heh…
Posted by: annie | Dec 8 2006 20:46 utc | 51
Concern that soldiers and Pentagon civilians might appear to be celebrating outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s last day has caused the date of a Pentagon Christmas party to be changed, according to an item in today’s Washington Post.
…….someone in Pace’s office “had fretted that it might look as if all the hootin’ and hollerin’ that would be spilling out into the hallways was in celebration of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s departure that same day.”
Posted by: annie | Dec 8 2006 21:12 utc | 52
Bea:
To follow up on your link
Iraq ‘al-Qaeda militants’ killed
US-led forces in Iraq say they have killed 20 al-Qaeda militants in an operation in the centre of the country.
The air strike was ordered after troops came under fire in the Thar Thar area, north of Baghdad, a statement said.
But local officials say those who died were civilians and mostly included women and children.
Ground forces were searching a cluster of buildings when they were targeted with machine gun fire, the military said in a statement.
The troops returned fire and killed two insurgents, the military said, but continued to come under fire.
The air strike was then ordered, in which another 18 people died – among them were two women. The military insists all were militants.
However relatives and local officials showed journalists the bodies of children they say had died in the raid.
Amer Alwan, mayor of the Ishaqi district east of Lake Thar Thar, said US aircraft had bombed two houses, killing 19 civilians.
Police spokesman Nasser Abdul Majeed told Reuters news agency that six women and five children were among the dead.
So says the BBC.
‘Children killed’ in US Iraq raid
Six children and eight women are among at least 32 people killed in a US air raid northwest of Baghdad, according to Iraqi police and local officials.
Khedr Hussein, an Iraqi police major, said 32 people were killed at Ishaqi, 90km north of Baghdad.
Mayor Amer Alwan told Reuters news agency that US aircraft bombed two homes in the early hours of Friday.
He said 32 civilians were believed to be inside and that of 25 bodies pulled so far from the rubble, eight were women and six children.
The US military said in a statement that said two women were among 20 suspected “al Qaeda terrorists” killed during the ground and air operation.
The statement said: “This is another step closer to defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq and helping establish a safe and peaceful Iraq.”
“Coalition forces will continue to target not only senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, but all terrorists regardless of their titles or positions within the community.”
Garver told AFP news agency that the women would have been confirmed as combatants in a “battle damage assessment” or inspection of the site following the incident.
“If there is a weapon with or next to the person or they are holding it, they are a terrorist,” he said.
The Garver person will say anything to justify whatever measures his organizations undertakes.
Controversy over Iraq air strike
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Controversy has broken out over a US air strike that killed around 20 Iraqis, with the military branding them “Al-Qaeda terrorists” while locals displayed the corpses of children.
The US military said coalition forces called in an air strike after coming under heavy fire during a raid on two buildings housing suspected militants in Salaheddin province, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Baghdad.
In all, 20 Al-Qaeda militants were killed by air and ground fire during the raid shortly after midnight on Thursday, it said.
But AFP journalists who visited the village of Taima in the aftermath of the strike found and photographed relatives weeping over several mangled bodies, including those of at least two children, near the ruined homes.
A search of the area revealed that two of the “armed terrorists” were women, as well as turning up numerous weapons — including rocket-propelled grenades, a suicide bomb vest and materials for making roadside bombs.
Photographs showing weapons and explosives accompanied the US military’s statement. AFP in turn passed its photographs of the dead children to US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver.
“We’ve checked with the troops who conducted this operation — there were no children found among the terrorists killed,” he said.
“I see nothing in the photos that indicates those children were in the houses that our forces received fire from and subsequently destroyed with the air strike,” he added.
Garver could not confirm whether the coalition troops involved were American or from a coalition ally. “There are some units we don’t talk about,” he said.
Amr Alwan, the mayor of Ishaqi, the main town in Taima’s district, vigorously disputed the US military’s account.
Local police provided AFP with the names of 17 victims, four of them women. The names seemed to indicate that the victims were members of two extended families living in neighbouring houses.
The AFP was there. They saw the reality of what had happened. They have born witness.
It migh be that the US Air Force has been used by the US’ own death squads for their own purposes, again.
And as Garver testifies they are quite willing to go anywhere and kill from on high and tell any lies about it afterward.
That’s their job. They are the United States Air Force.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 8 2006 23:30 utc | 53
jfl
yes the same new on bbc & on al jazeera – not only completely different – but really worlds apart
but in the good faith old criminals have – bbc will post two weeks from now somewhere where you can’t see that it was indeed one more massacre down the path to a more general genocide – almost familial
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 9 2006 0:00 utc | 54
This is your border patrol on crack:
for a growing number of the truckers who are plying routes across the Canada-U.S. border, packing a lunch has become risky business.
Drivers say they’ve been fined, detained for hours and threatened with confiscation of their U.S.-issued identity cards for trying to enter the United States with seemingly innocuous, but undeclared food items.
The brown-bag crackdown is the latest in a growing list of complaints from truckers and travellers about a border that has become thick with intense screening, hefty fees, body searches, long waits and unexpected hassles.
“It doesn’t make sense that someone can’t take their lunch across the border,” complained Mark Seymour, president of trucking company Kriska Transportation of Prescott, Ont.
“It’s not like packing a weapon. It’s not contraband. It’s food, and if it wasn’t safe, they wouldn’t be eating it.”
In the past couple of weeks, Mr. Seymour said two of his drivers have been searched and fined $300 (U.S). They were also detained for hours.
One of the truckers, he said, was carrying a soy burger and a can of Campbell’s Chunky soup in a lunch packed by his wife.
Hey, I’ve heard that Turrists have perfected the multipart Nukular Sandwich Bomb, which masquerades as an innocuous han sarnie or soyburger until mixed with the contents of a can innocently labelled Campbells…
There’s a SSIF aspect to this that boggles the mind:
[talking head] estimated that all border delays are adding as much as $600-million (Canadian) a year to the cost of transborder shipping.
However, truck and car traffic has dropped substantially this year, mitigating the full impact of tighter security, because of the slowing U.S. economy, the higher value of the Canadian dollar and the perception that the border is more restrictive, according to Mr. Bradley.
In the first nine months of this year, 100,000 fewer trucks than last year crossed the border — a drop of 1.3 per cent.
Many truckers, he lamented, are getting out of the business because they’ve decided making trips to the United States just “isn’t worth the hassle.”
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that Canadian exporters are increasingly shifting operations to the United States to avoid problems at the border.
and this they call NAFTA? so what’s the real agenda here? any guesses?
1) to ensure business for the US fast food chain outlets and motels just over the border, by making sure truckers and motorists arrive hungry and exhausted
2) to force Canadian operations to shift onto US territory thus creating a market for the glut of sprawlified real estate and big box construction.
3) there isn’t any agenda, it’s just the characteristic metastasis of the Security State.
Posted by: DeAnander | Dec 9 2006 1:53 utc | 55
Four attempts to post that last before I was able to read the gibberish put out by the “friendly interface”.
An told by those who follow such developments that there is now an industry in the third world that hires people at insanely low wages to sit typing in those recognition codes to get spam past visual-pattern filters.
Posted by: DeAnander | Dec 9 2006 1:55 utc | 56
“Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don’t come here.”
Tony Blair playing to the masses & saying “we do’nt want any more Muslims” without actually saying it.
just another chapter in a superior-subordinate moral world-view going back many hundreds & of years.
Blair’s vain belief is that the British experience should “moralize” Muslims & Arabs. It should be a stepping-up for them.
It is way beyond him to contemplate that his version of morality is neither superior, nor essential.
Still, I feel for the British, but why Blair ?
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 9 2006 2:11 utc | 57
Renowned Cancer Scientist Was Paid by Chemical Firm for 20 Years
Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.
While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer.
The priests are pederasts, the accountants are frauds a la Anderson Little, the journalists are mouthpieces for their corporate masters, the military are hired muscle for big oil, the cream of Bell Labs is at google doing the NSA’s work “right”, medical school drug trials are done in the pay of the “ethical” pharmaceuticals, who have hired the first string at the NIH while they remain at their government positions, and sundry scientists are all in the pay of whomever.
Looks like it’s bound to get much worse before it gets better.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 2:50 utc | 58
balooning trade deficits in europe and US: check this out. I assume the expansion of credit fueling finance bubbles is not disasterously inflationary because our creditors in asia and elsewhere are simply accumulating US dollars without investing the largesse?
could somebody explain how this works exactly?
Posted by: slothrop | Dec 9 2006 3:23 utc | 59
Changes Are Expected in Voting by 2008 Election
Having stalled for over two years, federal legislation requiring a shift to paper trails and other safeguards, proposed by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, has a better chance of passing next session, several members of Congress and election officials say.
This week, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a federal panel of technical experts that helps set voting standards, adopted a resolution that recommends requiring any new electronic voting systems to have an independent means of verification, a move that could eventually prevent paperless touch-screen machines from being federally certified.
Touch-screen machines with paper trails give voters a chance to check their choices on a small piece of paper before casting their ballots, while large rolls of paper keep a running tally and can be used to check the vote count made by the machine’s software. Localities can also use optical-scan systems, in which paper ballots marked by voters are counted by scanning machines and remain available for recounts.
Over the last two years, 27 states have passed laws requiring a shift to machines with paper trails, and 8 others do not have such laws but use the machines statewide. Some counties have attached rolls of paper to touch-screen machines, at a cost of $1,000 to $2,000 for each device, while others have bought optical-scanning devices.
In Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, electronic machines can print a paper tally, but do not give voters a paper record, meaning they would not comply with Mr. Holt’s bill. Beverly Kaufman, the county clerk, said she and other election officials elsewhere disliked the paper requirement.
“Every time you introduce something perishable like paper, you inject some uncertainty into the system,” Ms. Kaufman said. She said she was skeptical that Congress would come up with enough money for replacements by 2008. “You show me where you can pry the cold, bony fingers off the money in Washington, D.C., that fast,” she said.
Another significant change that will affect how votes are counted involves the recording and tallying software embedded in each electronic machine. Under changes approved by the Election Assistance Commission yesterday, voting machine manufacturers would have to make their crucial software code available to federal inspectors. The code is now checked mainly by private testing laboratories paid by the manufacturers. Mr. Holt would go even further, requiring the commission to make the code publicly available.
It seems to me that the trace of an electron in semiconductor memory might be taken as the definition of evanescence, or perishability, Ms Kaufman.
From HR 550
(B) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY.
(i) The permanent voter-verified paper record produced in accordance with subparagraph (A) shall be preserved
(I) in the case of votes cast at the polling place on the date of the election, within the polling place in the manner or method in which all other paper ballots are preserved within such polling place;
(II) in the case of votes cast at the polling place prior to the date of the election or cast by mail, in a manner which is consistent with the manner employed by the jurisdiction for preserving such ballots in general; or
(III) in the absence of either such manner or method, in a manner which is consistent with the manner employed by the jurisdiction for preserving paper ballots in general.
(ii) Each paper record produced pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be suitable for a manual audit equivalent to that of a paper ballot voting system.
(iii) In the event of any inconsistencies or irregularities between any electronic records and the individual permanent paper records, the individual permanent paper records shall be the true and correct record of the votes cast.
(iv) The individual permanent paper records produced pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be the true and correct record of the votes cast and shall be used as the official records for purposes of any recount or audit conducted with respect to any election for Federal office in which the voting system is used.
The point made in (iv) above is the “reification” of ballots that seems to me to be indispensable in any voting system that is to be taken seriously.
Similarly, open source software is a requirement inside any machine which facilitates the creation and or counting of ballots.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 3:49 utc | 61
Saw him play once, sloth, took my mate Rob after we’d been to a yoga class, who couldn’t quite believe it.
I used to listen to one album of his a lot at one point – in the end I concluded I liked the bassist he had, Buell Neidlinger, more – This Nearly Was Mine, killlller track.
As for the Asian central banks, perhaps they are waiting to deliver payback for the 90s currency crisis – waiting for the US dollar to crash, and will then go into the US market to buy up whatever they can at firesale prices with the devalued greenbacks they’ve already stockpiled (just as Bush Snr splashed out in the region after 1997)?
After that, the PLA sets out on jetskis around the world and changes the locks.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Dec 9 2006 4:06 utc | 62
“waiting for the US dollar to crash, and will then go into the US market to buy up whatever they can at firesale prices with the devalued greenbacks they’ve already stockpiled”
Hmmm… How does that work now?
When they stockpiled them they hadn’t yet devalued.
I often wondered if that’s what Cheney meant when he sald “Deficits don’t matter” When the dumb bastards holding the worthless American paper want to spend it it will not buy a fig.
Do T bills hold ‘real’ collateral? I mean could China for instance slap a lien on the US?
I don’t know. It’s beyond my tiny fibers.
It does amaze me that the US can continue to do what they are doing on ‘other peoples money’.
Posted by: pb | Dec 9 2006 4:41 utc | 63
A conservative journalist advocates negotiating Iranian cover for US retreat.
Iran can either facilitate or humiliate a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Key mullahs are now saying Iran should assist a U.S. exit that would enhance Iran’s regional power. The argument, put forward by Moshen Rezai, secretary of the government’s “Expediency Council,” states that “America’s arrival in the region presented Iran with an historic opportunity.”
“The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us,” said Rezai, “no superpower has ever done anything similar. America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein…It did all this in order to confront us face to face, and in order to place us under siege. But the American teeth got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank Allah.”
America, therefore, “presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat — not because it intended to, but because its estimates were wrong and made many mistakes,” argued Rezai. Washington, he said, “has now despaired of toppling the Islamic Republic. The threats we face…are about blocking Iran’s influence in the region. This is a vital national interest and the entire nuclear dispute revolves around it.”
Rezai said, “now that the Democrats have both houses of Congress,” it was incumbent upon Iran to “behave reasonably.” America’s policies and goals in the Middle East won’t change, he concluded, but methods will and “put aside Bush’s warmongering methods,” and both countries “will stay clear of aggressive confrontations.”
Posted by: small coke | Dec 9 2006 5:34 utc | 65
I’m not sure if anyone added this one on here:
The Road To Democracy In The Arab World
Posted by: A | Dec 9 2006 6:46 utc | 66
slothrup, dismal science:
Thank you for the pointer to the Cecil Taylor performance. I would not have known it was Cecil Taylor, if not for your remark Dismal, and of course you put it up Slothrup.
I typed Thelonoious Monk into the search box after listening to Cecil and found a nice little performance of ‘Round Midnight in Poland in 1966.
I don’t have the bandwidth here to enjoy a streaming performance, but if I let it load in a tab by itself and later retrun to “watch again” I get a decent approximation of the original.
Thank you Professor Doctor Slothrup.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 8:22 utc | 67
@ ww 49
I just finished reading Stasiland by Anna Funder which I quite enjoyed. One of the things she writes about is the use of radioactive tags the East German’s employed to track people. I suspect that is what happened to Litvinenko. Because a sharp eyed radiologist picked up some unusual shadows during a routine X-ray additional tests were run and finally someone detected polonium 210. I doubt that is what actually killed him but it sure has helped investigators track his movements.
pretty spooky (pun intended) stuff!
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 9 2006 9:23 utc | 68
I had a friend who drove 300 miles to see Cecil Taylor play in a bar, it was in the 70’s, Taylor was so impressed they drove that far (the place was practically empty) he sat with them the rest of the evening and went out for late night eats. I never saw Cecil, but was lucky enough to see these guys that in some ways, follow in his & Sun Ra’s steps. Talk about gettin’ the other’s head. Chicago!
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 9 2006 9:32 utc | 69
And as an additional reflection, on Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble, and yes, the Iraq Study Group — can you imagine, that after 4 fucking days in the green zone, these pin heads, heard 1 Iraqi pop song, 1 Iraqi poem, saw 1 Iraqi painting, or play — let alone swallowed or digested 1 deep Iraqi thought — observations that are in fact opaque to them, in their own culture. Right. The sick joke continues.
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 9 2006 9:56 utc | 70
Man, you guys are smokin tonight! Can remember if I posted this or mot, but, it’s one of my favs…
Leonard Cohen and sonny Rollins!
I too, like a commenter there, wish all of this would come out on CD or DVD, I’d rob a preacher to get it.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 9:57 utc | 71
beautiful, uncle. it should be forced to sell ketchup in america
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 9 2006 10:21 utc | 73
Cecil Taylor! Jesus fucking Christ! Just worked my way backwards on the thread and that guy is possessed! Never heard of em before, damn glad I know now, thanks sloth..
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 10:34 utc | 74
4r those whom don’t know,(of the fire that sloth
started) you must see part two of this to really get it…Cecil Taylor – pontos cantados 2/2.
@
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 10:46 utc | 75
The British literary landscape is dominated by three writers: Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. All three have considered the central dilemma of our time: terror. Indeed, Amis has issued something of a manifesto on the subject he terms “horrorism”. In their different styles, their approach and opinions define a coherent position. They are the vanguard of British literary neoconservatives – or, if you like, the “Blitcons”.
Blitcons come with a ready-made nostrum for the human condition. They use their celebrity status to advance a clear global political agenda.
The Blitcon project is based on three one-dimensional conceits. The first is the absolute supremacy of American culture. Blitcon fiction is orientalism for the 21st century, shifting the emphasis from the supremacy of the west in general to the supremacy of American ideas of freedom.
…
The second Blitcon conceit is that Islam is the greatest threat to this idea of civilisation. Rushdie’s suspicion of and distaste for Islam is obvious in his novels Midnight’s Children, Shame and The Satanic Verses
…
The third Blitcon conceit is that American ideas of freedom and democracy are not only right, but should be imposed on the rest of the world.
…
The real world is not a fiction. The ideology of mass murder has a history and a context in all its perversity and evil. But the wild imaginings of the Blitcons are not an appropriate guide to the eradication of this horror. Turned to this end, the manipulative power of literary imagination is nothing but spin. And such spin is simply hatred answering, mirroring and matching hatred. Like minds reach across intervening swaths of the world and, in their hatred, embrace each other. That is all Blitcons tell us. But it is hardly enlightening for those of us desperate to find a sustainable path from destruction and slaughter.
Yeah, loud and clear anna missed, loud and clear…
I didn’t understand jazz when I was younger, just never got it, I was one of those that grew up with unfocused white anger and channelled it w/ 70’s Metal/ 80’s Punk, was a puerile purist, and believed like others my age that, “Punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS”.
I knew rhythm and blues, hell, I grew up in Memphis, it was in my bones, however much I denied it, and later came to reclaim it as my background as I got older. But still never got ‘the jazz’, until the last few years, even though Memphis was Nawleans’ sister city. I guess I just wasn’t at a place to decode the signals. I can now.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 11:43 utc | 77
from 53
Garver could not confirm whether the coalition troops involved were American or from a coalition ally. “There are some units we don’t talk about,” he said.
anybody here have a clue who they don’t talk about? Mercs? Israelis? South Africans?
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 9 2006 11:43 utc | 78
Just rememer folks, it’s all about the edge…Ass pennies!…lol
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 12:13 utc | 79
Addendum,
of course, the above #79 is prolly typical of the group hubris and mentality of the frat-boy class; further, mix that with a frat-boy psychology, that encourages the chest-thumping that makes everyone totally absorbed in comparisons of the size of his house, his dick, his car, and his stock portfolio.
Gives new meaning to glad-hand* no?…lmao
*Idiom: glad hand
A warm and hearty but often insincere welcome or greeting, as in Politicians are apt to give the glad hand to one and all. [Slang; late 1800s]
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2006 13:03 utc | 80
The death of the Npn-Proliferation Treaty:
Congress OKs nuclear pact with India
Reversing three decades of U.S. policies intended to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, Congress early today approved a long-stalled agreement giving India access to American nuclear technology with limited safeguards to discourage possible proliferation.
The House of Representatives passed the measure, 330 to 59, Friday night, and senators voted unanimously in favor of the deal shortly before 3 a.m. President Bush, who finalized the terms of the agreement during a visit to India in March, is expected to sign it quickly.
The pact would lift a U.S. moratorium on nuclear cooperation with a nation that has developed atomic weapons and has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970.
…
Critics argued that by allowing India’s nuclear arsenal to keep growing and keeping some of its facilities off-limits, the pact establishes a double standard and sets conditions under which treaty violations would be tolerated.
“Such a policy unravels years of successful U.S. diplomatic efforts to convince countries that the benefits of surrendering the right to develop nuclear weapons outweighed the risk of staying outside the treaty and pursuing a nuclear weapons option,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard Jr., a senior military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington think tank.
“The Blitcon project is based on three one-dimensional conceits. The first is the absolute supremacy of American culture. Blitcon fiction is orientalism for the 21st century, shifting the emphasis from the supremacy of the west in general to the supremacy of American ideas of freedom.
…
The second Blitcon conceit is that Islam is the greatest threat to this idea of civilisation. Rushdie’s suspicion of and distaste for Islam is obvious in his novels Midnight’s Children, Shame and The Satanic Verses
…
The third Blitcon conceit is that American ideas of freedom and democracy are not only right, but should be imposed on the rest of the world.”
America can be great and can also thrive without all the hubris. Why does any one country have to be the greatest ? Or the example for all others ?
these people are not doing America any favors. Why anyone would even listen to such people is beyond me. It seems these are some of the people providing the motivation for the Brits to piggy-back of off America’s greatness.
And when we see the Brits going for this crap, the bottom-line again is – its all about the benjamins.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 9 2006 14:14 utc | 82
anna missed :
Thanks for the link to the Arts Ensemble. It was really great to see those guys as well as hear them. Made me want to hear Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, or Silent Way, but I couldn’t find them.
I typed in Eric Dolphy’s name and came up with a very nice solo performance in Oslo with some members of the Charley Mingus’ band.
Then I watched John Coltrane and Eric play Impressions. It did my soul good. Yes it did. I’ve heard it many times but I’ve never seen it. John Coltrane is beatific. Dolphy plays great. And Cecil Taylor and Elvin Jones. God, they look as sharp as they sound too. That is American culture at its highest, if you ask me.
Impressions
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 14:50 utc | 83
bea :
Photos confirm US raid child deaths
Abdullah Hussain Jabbara, deputy governor of Salah al-Din governorate, told Al Jazeera: “Residents of the two houses [which were bombed] have nothing to do with al-Qaeda network. All the people killed are members of the same family.”
Jabbara said an investigation into the incident would be carried out.
“But what is the use of opening an investigation?” he asked. “The occupation still exists and Iraqi citizens are the victims.”
Indeed, what is the use?
The US government must confront the evil it has done and is doing in Iraq and in Palestine and give it up. Atone. Make amends.
This is killing America as surely as Iraq and Palestine.
We must… but there seems little chance of that happening anytime soon.
It will happen. It happened in Germany and it will happen here.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 15:27 utc | 84
from the left coast:
Cut and walk
Senator Gordon Smith, conservative Repub from Oregon, begins to see the light. The rest of his remarks from the Senate floor yesterday are pretty disgusting–he knows it’s all gone wrong, but he can’t stop defending Dubya and all the bad choices, even the fucking Mission Accomplished photo op.
Posted by: catlady | Dec 9 2006 16:42 utc | 85
re BLitCons –
Why anyone would even listen to such people is beyond me.
a) Why does anyone listen to Pinter? b) We don’t know that they do. Perhaps they only provide cover & comfort to the NeoNuts.
Do these toads know anything at all about say the Medieval Catholic Church? Ever, say considered that religions, like living creatures, evolve?
Posted by: jj | Dec 9 2006 17:16 utc | 86
Europeans tend to have the unfortunate expectation that events on the outside should have little or no impact on Arabs/Muslim immigrants/citizens in Europe.
Its like expecting the Irish in Boston or Jews in New York to be disconnectted & unconcerned about events in Northern Ireland or Israel respectively.
this is all the more compounded by the realities that Arabs/Muslims face in European countries where the signals they receive from society frame & re-enforce the perception of second-class status or even lower.
but people like Blair will blame it all on the Arabs/Muslims.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 9 2006 17:36 utc | 87
Will Europe prepare to freeze when Russia turn off the Gas? Cloned P. asked.
The Cold War (brrr…teeth chatter!) never stopped.
The US struck an almighty blow, and/or the USSR was decrepit and deliquescent, or Gorbatchev miscalculated, c’est selon.
The US encouraged chaos and privatization, supported the oligarchs -who were to sell to and deal with the US- but Putin managed to do a ‘reconquista’ the waves of which are still on the front page, with fantasists and ex-spies poisoning each other in snazzy capitals over smelly sushi.
Russia needs to sell, at a good price to be sure, but that is not a problem. There is no way it will cut off its no 1. client. It will not use, except very diplomatically, its energy clout, that is not in its interests. The important question, which I am sure Putin understands very well (his thesis was about oil, after all!), is what is to be done for the long term; how are energy revenues to diversify the economy, how are the Russian poor to hike themselves up, and most important, how can Russia re-attain world power status; how to handle Chechnya and US incursions and dollars – those color revolutions, bases in the Stans, NATO, and so on. Chavez provides a contrast of the slash and burn type. Say.
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 9 2006 17:46 utc | 88
A posted:
road to democracy in the Arab world…etc
The USuk mainstream loves to make a big deal about democracy not being something one can impose on ‘primitive’ people. Duh, they just don’t, well, like, unnerstan’ civilization, etc. False, naturally, as it is not that difficult, given the right conditions, to impose anything.
In Mauritania – not ‘ayrab’ but ‘muslim,’ democracy is the in-thing, promised by the chief of National Security of 20 years, no less, who came into power after the latest putsch, not too long ago. They have had two rounds of lower level elections – all OK, the last was just now – and presidential elections are set for April. Whether this will do the people of Mauritania any good remains to be seen, I have read that the opposition has agreed to this ‘deal.’ Anyway, an interesting experiment. Google will provide.
I have read that there were many surprises, a daily worker in the mines beat a powerful figure from the old regime, and a lady poet who runs a hotel or café also won, and these were not just anecdotal examples.
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 9 2006 18:08 utc | 89
Fathers and Sons –
How George W. Bush has ruined the family franchise.
The former president was reflecting on how well Jeb handled defeat in 1994 when he lost his composure. “He didn’t whine about it,” he said, putting a handkerchief to his face in an effort to stifle his sobbing.
That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family’s grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They’d go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won.
The son who was wrongly launched has made such a mess of things that he has ruined the family franchise.
This article, posted, by b, was interesting.
The Blitcon supremacists
What is going on with the Brits? Sure, Bliar is a leader and people follow, but opposition exists.
Yet, if one looks at a site like Lenin’s Tomb, the author can’t be faulted on historical knowledge, scholarship, adherence to worker’s agenda, sensitivity to women’s/cultural issues, analysis of the Iraq ‘war’, etc. etc. He is, within the style and scope and pol. opinion, Brit traditions, etc. ‘relly’ good, to be recommended, also lots of news from the ground, demos and such, all of it from a rigorous ‘traditional’ left perspective.
But there is a huge black hole, or an area of silence that is uncoordinated with the rest. He accepts Muslim terrorism, accepts that 9/11 was the work of Islamist fundamentalists, and basically won’t discuss the topic, as he is smart enough to understand that the ‘bad apples’ argument is worse than feeble. He goes to bat for Muslims in GB, decries discrimination, stigmatisation, racial profiling and so on, points out that white supremacist are more dangerous, etc.
About Mohammed Atta, silence… Bin Laden… silence ….Arab society…silence…energy questions…silence…The WTC…silence…the Khobar towers..silence…Disgusting.
Lenin’s tomb
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 9 2006 18:54 utc | 91
@j_b_c- The masses may have that notion. Leadership knows better. That’s why Israeli State Political Police are fomenting anti-Semitic acts in Europe – to convince their educated classes that Europe is dangerously anti-Semitic so they don’t consider moving back. Similarly, clamping down on MaleMuslims helps discourage their immigration.
Posted by: jj | Dec 9 2006 19:14 utc | 92
slothrop & uncle
wonderful, wonderful
i didn’t know about the sonny rolloin/cohen – so a surprise
cecil taylor – i had met & seen here in france through a girl that was singing with him & he is like many of the jazzman here in france like archie shepp – deeply calm people who have tranfromed their righteous rage into great art
the rest of us under the sign of dismal science & the very reverend professor su ra shall join the people’s liberation army on their swarm of jet skies as they turn over the tables
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 9 2006 21:02 utc | 93
Noirette:
He accepts Muslim terrorism, accepts that 9/11 was the work of Islamist fundamentalists, and basically won’t discuss the topic, as he is smart enough to understand that the ‘bad apples’ argument is worse than feeble. He goes to bat for Muslims in GB, decries discrimination, stigmatisation, racial profiling and so on, points out that white supremacist are more dangerous, etc.
What are you getting at here? If there is a “supply side” and a “demand side” to terrorism is it not fitting that those of us on the receiving end work on cutting “demand”?
Railing against “the culture” of the “suppliers” soon degenerates into “they hate us for our freedoms”.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 9 2006 22:59 utc | 96
The personnel on Impressions are John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner (not Cecil Taylor) on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.
Wikipedia has a good article on John Coltrane and a good one on Eric Dolphy as well.
And I found a performance of another Monk tune Epistophy, or it found me. Winking and blinking in the window at the end of Impressions. There’s a nice dialogue between Monk and Charlie Rouse on saxophone. And a very nice little solo by Monk.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Dec 10 2006 15:17 utc | 97
I meant “devalued” as in “devalued greenbacks” to be taken proleptically.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Dec 11 2006 0:37 utc | 98
two quotes from cecil taylor, taken from the rough guide to jazz (1995 ed.)
Taylor has always been interested in ballet and dance, and once said, “I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.”
…
Taylor has said that the more he plays, the more he becomes aware of the non-European aspects of the music, and he explained to John Litweiler: “In white music the most admired touch among pianists is light. The same is true among white percussionists. We in black music think of the piano as a percussive instrument: we beat the keyboard, we get inside the instrument. Europeans admire Bill Evans for his touch. But the physical force going into the making of black music – if that is misunderstood, it leads to screaming.”
Posted by: b real | Dec 11 2006 2:59 utc | 99
imo. the stuff from the late 50′;s from the mosaic boxset bw/ neidlinger is sublime, as is taylor’s stuff w/ the great jimmy lyons.
there’s a ron mann doc ftilm “imagine the sound” featuring taylor, bill dixon, and others that is worth seeing.
this is also cool. a little snip from metheny/dewey from 80/81 period followed by braxton’s riff on impressions.
hoy!
Posted by: slothrop | Dec 11 2006 3:38 utc | 100