OT 07-56
News & views ...
Posted by b on August 16, 2007 at 14:09 UTC | Permalink
See my post on Peak Oil on the previous thread. It relates well to Naomi Klein's ideas.
Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2007 15:02 utc | 2
Whoops, it was on the Army not planning to leave thread.
Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2007 15:03 utc | 3
NPR Check - a blog watching Nat'l Propaganda Radio
NPR's WeekEnd Edition is a truly poisonous mindbending mix of disinfotainment and militainment. Don't fail to miss it.
Their weekly news reader show, All Things Considered, is loaded with American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations interviews.NPR gave such a nice send off to Karl Rove. What scandals?
NPR is clearly Voice of America for the reading class, just like PBS.
example...
Friday, March 23, 2007
Smart Imperialism
Given the dreams of militaristic domination and triumphalism that neocons were dreaming of back in the days of PNAC - it is refreshing to see some of them like Iran-Contra Armitage and go-it-alone Fukuyama are changing their tune (and trying to hide their own culpability). But today's Morning Edition piece on US foreign policy was a true work of constricted debate. The "experts" brought in represented a range of opinion varying from the Pentagon to the US State Department.The scholarly guest list was as follows:
* James Carafano, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation. Carafano had a long career in the US Army.
* Joseph Nye, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Nye has been a loyal servant to both the Pentagon and State Department.
* Richard Armitage, currently working with Nye on a "bipartisan" study for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Armitage was a Deputy Secretary of State during Bush's first term.
* Edwin Luttwak, a senior advisor at the CSIS who as his bio states "has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force."
* Francis Fukuyama of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Worked for the State Department.
* William Martel, an associate professor of international security studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Professor Martel has worked for the Air Force, the RAND Corp., Air War College and Naval War College.You can probably guess that none of these fellows is going to challenge the underlying premise that the US can and should dominate the globe. Instead these men all agree that since 2001 the US has relied too much on threats, military action, and unilateralism--what they call "hard power." But don't despair, by using more carrots and diplomacy Jackie Northam assures us that "...the US can attract them [allies] with the legitimacy of its long-standing policies and values. Nye calls this soft power."
Don't worry, NPR is not suggesting any wild-eyed hippie ideas like dismantling our global network of military bases or slashing our bloated war budget. Northam lets us know that "Professor Nye is the first to say that soft power by itself is not enough, and that hard power — whether it be coercion or military might — is also needed. The key, he says, is to balance the two so one doesn't undercut the other. The new term for this is 'smart power.'" And if any of you peaceniks are still whining about this, "Armitage says the ability to balance soft and hard power is a sign of a country's maturity and confidence."
And so children, the bedtime story ends: the US is a gentle giant at heart, with a history of noble and legitimate values, and the last six years have just been a little aberration (like the Vietnam War) and now we will get back on our best behavior, just like after Vietnam when as Northam tells us, "within a few years after American troops pulled out of Vietnam, the U.S. had regained its prestige and diplomatic power."
Yep. That's EXACTLY the kind of fascist crap that NPR does so well.
I heard a small segment yesterday about Iran that was so biased it made me turn it off in disgust.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 16 2007 15:08 utc | 4
coverage slant on the following depends on your location
lagos' this day: Nigeria: Chevron to Face Trial in U.S. Over Nigeria Killings
In a landmark development which could open the door for a flood of lawsuits against oil companies operating in the country, Chevron Nigeria Ltd is to stand trial later this year in the United States for the alleged murder of villagers in the Niger Delta region in two separate incidents in 1998 and 1999.In a series of ruling issued yesterday, the United States (US) District Court Judge in San Francisco, Susan Illston, ruled that Chevron was directly involved in the alleged attacks by acting in consonance with Nigerian government security forces, paving the way for a trial which the company had made spirited attempts to avoid for eight years.
The lawsuit was brought against Chevron eight years ago in San Francisco Federal Court by nine Nigerian plaintiffs for alleged deaths and other abuses in the two incidents in 1998 and 1999. The plaintiffs assert claims ranging from torture to wrongful death.
According to information made available to THISDAY, Judge Illston "found evidence that CNL [Chevron Nigeria Limited] personnel were directly involved in the attacks; CNL transported the GSF [Nigerian government security forces], CNL paid the GSF; and CNL knew that GSF were prone to use excessive force."
The report alleged that the crime occurred when the Nigerian Military and Police were paid by Chevron to shoot and torture protesters opposed to the company's activities in the troubled region. Chevron helicopters and boats were used by the security forces, resulting in torture and wrongful death, it further alleged.
The said evidence, the Judge said, will allow a jury to find that Chevron knew the attacks would happen and supported the military's plan.
"We're pleased that our clients will finally get justice for Chevron's crimes," said the plaintiffs' counsel Theresa Traber, partner at Traber & Voorhees.
Continuing, she said, "Chevron conspired with and paid the notorious Nigerian military to attack our clients and their loved ones, murdering at least seven people, torturing others and burning two villages to the ground. The court correctly refused to let narrow legalistic excuses allow Chevron to escape responsibility for these brutal attacks."
...
Mr. Oronto Douglas, Deputy Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and one of the lawyers representing the case here in Nigeria, told THISDAY last night that the decision is a "demonstration that there is no hiding place for corporate criminals." He saluted "the courage, the forthrightness, the clarity and the firmness of the pronouncements of the judge. This is a lesson to other corporations who think they can ride roughshod over defenceless communities who live on lands where vital resources are in abundance. The judgment also indicates that there is hope for other communities in other parts of the Niger Delta where environmental vandalism and human rights abuses have gone on without redress."Chevron officials in Nigeria did not make any comments when contacted last night.
l.a. times: Chevron to face human rights suit
A U.S. judge ruled that a lawsuit claiming Chevron Corp. violated human rights in Nigeria should proceed, throwing out some charges against the U.S. oil company but leaving the centerpiece of the plaintiffs' case intact.A group of Nigerians filed suit against Chevron in May 1999, charging that Chevron Nigeria recruited Nigerian military and police personnel to fire weapons on Nigerians staging a protest at a Chevron oil platform in 1998, killing two.
The group also claims that the San Ramon, Calif.-based company was complicit in an attack on two villages in the Niger Delta, during which at least four villagers were killed.
Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California gave summary judgment Tuesday in favor of Chevron on some issues, throwing out, for instance, claims of property damage by the villagers.
But the judge allowed wrongful-death and other suits to proceed and reinstated some human rights claims against Chevron.
"A jury could conclude that Chevron Nigeria Ltd. had the power to hire, supervise and train the government security forces, and that Chevron Nigeria Ltd. did so, or failed to do so, negligently," Illston said in one order.
She said a jury could also conclude that the company's hiring and failure to train the security forces were a proximate cause of the alleged injuries.
Chevron has denied involvement in the incidents, has said it wasn't liable for militia actions and has disputed parts of the Nigerians' accounts.
Posted by: b real | Aug 16 2007 15:12 utc | 5
Follow up to yesterday's piece about the principal of the Arabic School who was forced to resign: An Arab American's Pocket Political Dictionary
Dedicated to Debbie Almontaser, the Arab-American principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy -- the first public school in New York City dedicated to the study of the Arabic language and Arab culture. Almontaser was forced to resign last week after a campaign by Daniel Pipes and the Stop the Madrassa Coalition. Almontaser's crime: she correctly translated the word "Intifada" to mean "Shake Off" and defended school children's right to wear t-shirts saying "Intifada NYC." The headline in the New York Post was "Intifada Principal." The Post then ran an editorial titled "What's Arabic for Shut it Down?" praising United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Randi Weingarten for chastising Almontaser. Mayor Bloomberg said he welcomed Almontaser's resignation, but said about her: "She's very smart. She's certainly not a terrorist. She really does care." Montaser was replaced yesterday by Danielle Salzberg -- who doesn't speak Arabic.
Posted by: Bea | Aug 16 2007 15:23 utc | 6
Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
Also see, Freaky News Report About Clergy Used In US Martial Law
Praise Jesus! Now get in your box car.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 16 2007 15:32 utc | 7
uncle, that scholarly guest list couldn't be more mediocre if they had to pull guests from jackie gleason or merv griffin
luttwak takes the cake tho - i'm still recovering from his review of the letters of reagan that he placed amongst - the greatest thinkers of our time
luttwak i wouldn't piss on if his tweeds were on fire & fukayama - well his name implies what can be done with him
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 16 2007 16:47 utc | 8
Saw this just today:
If it has been discussed earlier, I have missed it. So is the thought of a general strike getting traction, are people planning to participate?
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 16 2007 17:10 utc | 9
Duh, thats were I read it first! Thought it seemed familiar :-)
Anyway, I just saw this video:
Cheney's neighbors topple him in protest
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 16 2007 17:26 utc | 11
Uncle Scam that is beyond creepy, if not unexpected. We all know about soldiers fighting for Jesus and so on. Still.
An interesting aspect is that in the US the religious parasites, fakers, leeches, side with the Gvmt. (not all, I am aware) and that elsewhere it is the opposite.
Posted by: Tangerine (ex Noirette) | Aug 16 2007 17:28 utc | 12
piero gleijeses: Remembering Cuba’s Sacrifice for African Liberation
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, in south-eastern Angola, which pitted the armed forces of apartheid South Africa against the Cuban army and Angolan forces. General Magnus Malan writes in his memoirs that this campaign marked a great victory for the South African Defense Force (SADF). But Nelson Mandela could not disagree more: Cuito Cuanavale, he asserted, "was the turning point for the liberation of our continent - and of my people - from the scourge of apartheid."Debate over the significance of Cuito Cuanavale has been intense, partly because the relevant South African documents remain classified. I have, however, been able to study files from the closed Cuban archives as well as many US documents. Despite the ideological divide that separates Havana and Washington, their records tell a remarkably similar story.
Let me review the facts briefly. ...
Posted by: b real | Aug 16 2007 17:43 utc | 13
b real,
that is a really good article.
It is amazing how fast Minitrue media changes the "facts". We are to forget that ANC and Mandela was commie terrorists in the eyes of the west until they won. Remembering is anti-american.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 16 2007 18:17 utc | 14
guilty on all counts Jose Padilla American Citizen.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 16 2007 18:31 utc | 15
b real@5:
Judge Susan Illston is a hero.
what more can I say.
And Chevron is desperately hoping she does not ask to visit the vicinity of the crimes.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 16 2007 18:38 utc | 16
This is somehow ridiculous too:
Iraqi leader announces new alliance
The Iraqi prime minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government Thursday, saying a key Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them.
...
At the news conference announcing the accord, al-Maliki was flanked by President Jalal Talabani, the leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region, elder statesman Massoud Barzani and Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
The four men signed a three-page agreement they said ensures them a majority in the 275-member parliament that would allow action on legislation demanded by the U.S.
Ok - the major goal of building a new coalition, without any Sunni arab voice, was to get a majority (which isn't one) to yeah to US "demanded" legislation?!
What a muppet show ...
I am egotistically reposting this from the thread I wrote it on this morning because it got buried there:
Peak Oil vs. Peak Wealth
Let me repeat again two years later:
While I do believe that the concept of Peak Oil is real and will one day arrive, I see no evidence whatsoever that Peak Oil has arrived. The evidence is clear that fully 5% of world oil production is intentionally being kept off the market by the ongoing war in Iraq. The oil companies are in a win/win situation: oil off, prices high; oil laws signed, production rises, profits and control ensured.
It is pure bullshit that big oil was not in favor of invading Iraq. They are too powerful, and it would not have happened without their acquiescence; they are just too smart, and like all official secrets, they managed to keep it mum. It is like the same b.s. story of how US auto manufacturers REALLY want national health insurance to keep their costs competitive. There is simply no evidence that the big three have done any lobbying whatsoever for single payer universal coverage; it is just a cover-your-ass myth perpetuated to keep the dumb consumer thinking that the companies "care" about people. No, they don't. They would be happy to off-shore all production, and that is the way they are moving.
Back to Big Oil: An additional 1% is kept off markets in Nigeria do to the kleptocracy not sharing with gulf locals. And what about the Falklands, whose huge reserves have yet to be tapped? What Big Oil (and the US government) wants is complete control of the amount of oil being put on the market at any time. Control of the "shortages" and the surpluses, so that the financial sharks can make money in the market both ways. At that level, it is all a rigged game.
Peak Oil is very much a function of social justice. There will be no freedom allowed in producer nations.
Peak Oil is also just another scam to squeeze the middle class. If it were a real crisis, there would be national mobilization for efficiency programs and subsidies. But the ruling elite do not want national mobilization about anything; they want a dumb, divided, easily controlled, populace -- which is what they strive to create. So with the Peak Oil excuse, the middle class gets squeezed still further about something they feel is a law of nature and they have no control of, the poor stay poor, and the rich continue to build bigger and bigger houses, and buy more and more oil consuming toys and trinkets.
Peak Oil is one of a number of myth/scams to move along the process of Peak Wealth Redistribution, made easier by fear.
What Peak Oil does in the US, as proven by experience in Germany, is create a Green Party/environmental movement of educated, well-off, middle class in hysterical opposition to the dumb, dirty, underclass and how they live, and in opposition to all social justice/income equality movements.
Peak Oil is very much a function of social justice. There will now be no freedom allowed in consumer nations.
I have seen this here where I live, where well-off, upper-middle class people are hysterically proposing draconian rules which will result in the complete social control of society, especially the poor and underclass. They refuse to look at the oil consumption curve, which continues to show that oil is consumed in inordinate amounts by the ultra-wealthy, and that conservation can best be accomplished by taxing the rich, rather than penalizing the poor. Yeah, so maybe the rich wouldn't be able to fly all over the world several times a month, boo hoo!
So yes, Peak Oil is a real phenomenon on a finite planet, and one day it will arrive. But it has not arrived yet, and right now it is being used as a form of social control. God is always in the details. Be very careful, folks, and always think deeply about the implications of all of your actions.
If we really want to conserve oil and are concerned about growth, how about a law like this: If you make over 100K you are only allowed one child,; if you make over 200K, no children. That would even out consumption a bit. You want children, you can't be wealthy, because wealthy people burn more than their share of oil.
The poor of the world, the favelas, are not using up all the world's oil; the rich are. The real problem is income distribution. We always pay lip service to "solving the problem of the poor," which really means some sort of media campaign so that the middle class can ignore the poor with a clear conscience. But the problem is the opposite. If we can solve the problem of the rich, we can live on a sustainable planet.
There simply is no such thing as a rich person who is environmentally conscious. Rich people consume more resources than the poor -- even those rich who live in Green houses. Solve the problem of the rich, who are destroying the world in every way possible, and you solve the problems of a sustainable life.
Don't worry about Peak Oil; worry about Peak Wealth. If we run out of oil, we can always burn the rich. Rich people's oil may not be of quite the quality of the whale oil used to power the last century, but it will do. It will do.
Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2007 21:44 utc | 18
what kind of world is this when it is almost impossible to find a media that can tell the story, the most important developments in venezuela this week with the changes in the constitution
b real - if you could link to a site you have referred to a number of times - i think it is by an american living in caracas
sick as i am these stupid fucks whether it is french tv, al jazeera or bbc with their banal but brutal bias bores the living fuck out of me
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 16 2007 23:36 utc | 19
i mean their commentaries are callow & so sophomoric i sometimes have to stutter myself to make sense of their stupid sentences
i do not expect sympathetic or even disinterested commentary but even amongst those scum i expect a form of understanding of the limited histories that are contained in their cerebral cortices
bark, is about all they do when they are not howling or the slow weeping of the sold out scribblers they are, they are in essence beyond stupidity, a kind of wanton retardation, a form of imbecility i am sure they would not have even permitted in bedlam
the irish film ' the revolution will not be televised' intrigued me about the 'people' - because in the end it was the people who saved the government of chavez & even on this documentary you can view the essential decency of the people. what you see however is the naiveté of the appareil - in either side - the aids of chavez did not know what to do - they were in a sense helpless without the hands of the people & the bulk of the army which is made up of their sons & daughters
nearly 30 years after the americans assasinated salvador allende & established &a murderous dictatorship - an essential lesson has not been learned - that the beuracracy & the army have to be totally transformed & the people must be armed
in the united states the people are too crazy to be armed - but in the third woll it is an absolute necessity - if the people are armed - elites & oligarchies & their paymasters in washington shut the fuck up
after all, that is why they will never go into iran - because they will be twisted around the carwreck of their polity
they attacked ira as they attacked grenada & panama & everyone else before - because the nations & the people were defenceless & they could carry out their tide of murder without military opposition
that was their fatal error in iraq - they underestimated the will of the people & their capacity to resist & their culture of armed opposition
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 17 2007 0:14 utc | 20
hahahahahahaha, uh, ahhh, hahahahahaha...
excuse me, while I go puke now...
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 2:17 utc | 21
r'giap-
gringo in venezuela is chris carlson, who writes for venezuelanalysis. there was also charles hardy who used to blog at "cowboy in caracas" though he's back in the states & hasn't updated his site in several months.
i also link occasionally to oil wars and borev.net, both of which have mentioned the hysteric coverage of the news from the bolivarian revolution.
Posted by: b real | Aug 17 2007 2:38 utc | 22
The White House is generous!
US rushing $100k in quake aid to Peru
"In consultation with the US ambassador to Peru, USAID is providing an initial $US100,000 in funds to be used for immediate emergency needs of those affected by the quake," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
John Pilger on Venezuela: The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez
The disinformation that helped destroy Allende and give rise to Pinochet's horrors worked the same in Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had the temerity to implement modest, popular reforms.
...
The similarities in the campaign against the phenomenal rise of popular democratic movements today are striking. Aimed principally at Venezuela, especially Chávez, the virulence of the attacks suggests that something exciting is taking place; and it is. Thousands of poor Venezuelans are seeing a doctor for the first time in their lives, having their children immunised and drinking clean water. New universities have opened their doors to the poor, breaking the privilege of competitive institutions effectively controlled by a "middle class" in a country where there is no middle.
...
Yet, as in Nicaragua, the "treatment" of RCTV is a cause celebre for those in Britain and the US affronted by the sheer audacity and popularity of Chávez, whom they smear as "power crazed" and a "tyrant". That he is the authentic product of a popular awakening is suppressed. Even the description of him as a "radical socialist", usually in the pejorative, wilfully ignores the fact that he is a nationalist and social democrat, a label many in Britain's Labour party were once proud to wear.In Washington, the old Iran-Contra death squad gang, back in power under Bush, fear the economic bridges Chávez is building in the region, such as the use of Venezuela's oil revenue to end IMF slavery. That he maintains a neoliberal economy, described by the American Banker as "the envy of the banking world" is seldom raised as valid criticism of his limited reforms. These days, of course, any true reforms are exotic. And as liberal elites under Blair and Bush fail to defend their own basic liberties, they watch the very concept of democracy as a liberal preserve challenged on a continent about which Richard Nixon once said "people don't give a shit". However much they play the man, Chávez, their arrogance cannot accept that the seed of Rousseau's idea of direct popular sovereignty may have been planted among the poorest, yet again, and "the hope of the human spirit", of which Roberto spoke in the stadium, has returned.
Is this how it starts?
Right There on the Tarmac, the Inmates Revolt
By JOE SHARKEY
Published: August 14, 2007ON July 29, Continental Flight 1669, a 737-700 with about 120 passengers aboard, was bound for Newark from Caracas, Venezuela, when bad weather caused the plane to be diverted to Baltimore. It sat there for about five hours with passengers on board as food and water ran low and toilets became filthy.
Since Dec. 29, there have been hundreds of reports of passengers unable to get off parked airplanes for 6, 8 and even 12 hours. Just last weekend, for example, a Customs computer breakdown at Los Angeles International Airport stranded more than 17,000 international passengers on planes, some for more than 10 hours.
But what made the Continental flight somewhat different was that passengers organized and protested by clapping in rhythm and drumming on overhead bins. Finally, the pilot, worried about mayhem, called the police.
“People were clapping, but nobody got out of hand,” said Israel Niezen, a developer of interactive media who was returning to his home near Los Angeles through Newark when Flight 1669 was diverted to Baltimore Washington International Airport.
“We wanted answers, rather than mixed signals,” Mr. Niezen said. “Some people were getting sick. The flight attendants were understanding, except for one older one who got on the public-address system when the drumming started and told us we were destroying airline property and we were all going to be arrested.”
Jonathan O. Dean, a spokesman for the Maryland Aviation Administration, confirmed that police officers from the airport agency and United States Customs officers boarded the plane about 6 p.m.
“Apparently the pilot radioed and asked for some assistance; I guess the passengers were becoming angry after having sat for a number of hours,” he said. The police, he said, “assessed the situation and worked with the airport” to offload the passengers into a secure area until the plane was cleared to take off for Newark.
About 70 passengers signed a petition, later attached to a letter to Continental written by Mr. Niezen. “We did not have water, food, toilet paper” on the plane, the letter said. “The toilets were clogged and completely unsanitary. Moreover, there were a number of children and older and special-needs passengers, including a diabetic and a pregnant woman, who desperately needed attention.”
In a statement, Continental said there was “no question, the flight took a lot longer than planned because of the diversion.” The fact that the flight was international caused further complications, since passengers could not just be released into a terminal. The toilets on the plane were always operating and the waiting area had “chips and pretzels and water,” the airline said, adding: “Assistance was provided to customers with special needs, including a sandwich for a diabetic customer and wheelchairs for everyone who needed one.”
As passengers described it, once the police ordered the plane emptied, they filed out into the secure area, where some said they felt as if they were being treated like suspects.
“As we walked down the hallway, we were yelled at like we were scary criminals by this female cop who had a dog. She kept yelling: ‘Stay against the wall!’ ” Mr. Niezen said.
While he and other passengers credited the officers who boarded the plane with quickly assessing the situation and removing the passengers, in the waiting area it was a different story, they said.
“We had to negotiate” with airline agents to obtain wheelchairs for passengers needing them, said Caroline Murray, a community organizer from Amherst, Mass.
One of the officers “told us the report they got was that passengers were violent and out of control,” Ms. Murray said.
After the plane finally arrived in Newark about 7 p.m., passengers desperate to rebook missed connections said they hit a wall of indifference.
“At Newark, the service just got worse,” Mr. Niezen said. “People were shouting at us. One agent told Caroline Murray to shut up about her connecting flight.”
Ms. Murray said she stood at a counter behind Mr. Niezen, who was vehemently insisting on being rebooked that night. “They made him say he was sorry before he could continue speaking to someone,” she said. When she got to the front of the line and complained about inattentive service, one of the men behind the counter called her a derogatory name, she said. A spokesman for Continental declined to comment on those accusations.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 7:54 utc | 25
Trail of the Octopus - Complete
The book about the Lockerbie bombing that the authorities tried to ban.
Navigate forward using the hyperlink at the foot of each page - the links at the top point somewhere else.
LINK TO ENTIRE BOOK ABOVE
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 8:03 utc | 26
Floyd: "We are all Jose Padilla now."
Also, wanna talk about some bizarre o creepy shit, that I just ran across, Jose Padilla Jury Shows Up Dressed in Red, White and Blue ; The jurors showed up on July 3rd in celebration of Independence Day? And that wasn't the first time the jury has dressed up either. Between this, Libby's Valentine's Day weirdness, (See, Leak jury thanks judge on Valentines Day ) Bush and his Kodachrome tie*, and the whole republican red tie thing, --the recent yellow tie thing--the point about the jurors in the Padilla and the Libby trials is utterly bizarre. There might be mundane explanations but at first sight the Padilla story has echoes of Twin Peaks-style weirdness. The Libby trial story sounds just plain nasty at first read.
You guys remember Bush's speech and the weird blue light and shirt as well as his hypnotizing necktie during his New Orleans press conf even billmon mentioned something about it, like something out of the twilight zone. Or better some kind of creepy psychological/psyop shit.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 9:32 utc | 27
This is really really scary:
Why They Designated the Iranian Guard as Terrorists
As Will Bunch notes, one of the major purposes of this designation [of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization] is to bring an attack on Iran within the 2002 Authorization of Military Force against Iraq. But what many people miss is that the "terrorist" designation also brings an Iran attack within the language of the 2001 AUMF. Moreover, while the specific language in the final sections of both AUMFs is relevant, no one seems to pay attention to the critical prefatory statements.The final introductory paragraph of the 2001 AUMF states:
Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States...And Congress underscored its approval of this view of Executive warmaking authority in the 2002 AUMF:
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and
Whereas it is in the national security of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region...
But, you might object, these provisions empower the executive branch to do whatever it wants, provided it manages to bring its actions within the rubric of acting "to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States," and/or "to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region." Exactly -- and that is exactly what the Bush administration has argued for the last several years. Didn't you believe they meant what they said?
Posted by: Bea | Aug 17 2007 12:07 utc | 28
US Considering Terror Label for Eritrea
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is considering designating the Red Sea state of Eritrea a ``state sponsor of terrorism'' for its alleged support of Islamist militants in Somalia, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said Friday.The State Department is now compiling data to legally back up such a move, which would impose severe sanctions on the impoverished nation and put it on the same diplomatic blacklist as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan, said Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
...
The designation, which is rarely used, is nearly a diplomatic death sentence and mandates a wide range of U.S. economic and financial sanctions. The last country added to the list was Sudan in 1993.
As Atrios remarked, Eritrea was a member of the higly praised "coalition of the willing" ...
Then again, the U.S. is now best friend with the dictatorship in landlocked Ethiopia which wants to regain access to the seas, preferable by annectating Eritrea (and killing its people if nessessary.)
Just getting back after following Uncle $cam's link 26 above.
It's quite a good read, thanks Uncle.
Posted by: jonku | Aug 18 2007 0:21 utc | 33
r'giap #32,
Chavez proposes quite an ambitious plan for change - social, political and economic.
The proposal calls for the constitution to promote a diverse and independent mixed economy to guarantee the social necessities of the people. While article 115 would continue to recognize and guarantee different forms of property, including private property, it would promote the development of social production and social property including direct/communal social property and indirect/state managed social property.
Chavez also called for the promotion and self-management of communal property, communal micro-financing organizations, cooperatives of communal property (which he distinguished from capitalist cooperatives) communal savings banks, networks of free associated producers, voluntary work, and community businesses as mechanisms toward the implementation of a new social system.
Do readers here think Chavez will succeed in these changes? And will the people be better off? I wonder as to what extent will free enterprise be allowed? Also, to what extent will article 15 “recognize and guarantee” private property?
Posted by: Rick | Aug 18 2007 4:49 utc | 34
re #31
more harassment & intimidation of eritrea by the u.s., plus it takes headlines away from the human rights watch rpt condemning ethiopian war crimes in mogadishu.
here's the DoS transcript from frazier's briefing
On-The-Record Briefing On U.S.-Eritrea Relations
QUESTION: So I'm just slightly confused. So you say you don't want to go down this route, but you are looking at it? So it's right to say you are considering putting Eritrea on the State Sponsor list?ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRAZER: It is right to say that we are considering that if they continue their behavior and if we get the file that -- you know, through the evidence, that -- you know, we can go through our interagency process and make that determination. That determination hasn't been made at this point, but it is absolutely part of the consideration. And the primary reason is not because of U.S. relations with Eritrea, but because of what's going on in Somalia.
the hypocrisy in that briefing is sickening
Posted by: b real | Aug 18 2007 5:00 utc | 35
The squeeze is still on in Gaza:
Fuel block hits Gaza power supplies
And this article from a few days ago is pretty direct:
Gaza: The Auschwitz of our Time
Largest detention camp in the World
Posted by: Rick | Aug 18 2007 5:22 utc | 36
McClatchey: Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns
Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.Political appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received at least four briefings — all in the election years of 2002, 2004 and 2006.
Hmmm, things must be getting real bad. Who will be next? Any bets?
Posted by: Bea | Aug 18 2007 9:56 utc | 38
re U$ at 26, this excerpt really hit home. as an expat myself I have experienced the very same thing and still do whenever I return to the homeland.
When he told them he lived in Iran, they would mostly look him up and down, shake their heads, and with doubt shading through scorn to open hostility ask him 'Where's that?' And when he told them where it was, they would shake their heads again and dismiss what he said as 'a sack of porkey-pine shit'. He had never noticed before how parochial and ignorant of the world American kids were.'It struck me about this time,' Coleman says, 'that they seemed to lie more than kids from other places. They didn't do it with purposed deceit -- it was just part of America's fast-hustle, three-card-monte morality. When a person tells the truth, other people, looking at themselves in the mirror and seeing a liar, assume that the truth-teller is a liar, too. You see America differently after you've been away for a while. All us expatriate kids had the same experience. When we got home and tried to communicate with our peers who had never left the United States, they'd look at us like we'd just landed from Mars.'
Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 18 2007 10:22 utc | 39
You can't make this shit up.
The Pentagon - as always looking for fresh and easily duped IED fodder for the Iraq/Afghanistan clusterfucks - accuses Puerto Rican counter recruiters of "manipulating impressionable young people".
Posted by: ran | Aug 18 2007 13:10 utc | 40
@35,
once again, are we looking at a pre-meditated chaos theory at work or is incompetence the answer ? Or is it both ?
Ethiopia receives a massive boost of arms & money from the USA to invade its neighbor Somalia and the Eritreans wonder if they might be the next target. However, with the increasing prospect of quagmire in Somalia and heightened unrest at home, Ethiopia must now be very worried about a re-opening of war on its eastern Eritrea front.
And there is likely to be lots of blow-back. One outcome that can no longer be dismissed if this carries on is the eventual disintegration of Ethiopia. All of Ethiopias governments in the last 40 years or so have led the nation down a path of disaster after disaster. Ethiopia may now be headed towards war on two fronts and civil war at home. At which point, they will almost certainly need direct USA military intervention.
the USA may need to begin to prepare for full-spectrum warfare in Africa. Possibly simultaneously in five separate theatres : Somalia, Eritrea, Darfur, Ethiopia & the Niger-Delta. And its not going to get any help at all from other Africans. And there are'nt enough resources in Africa to get even the Brits on board if this gets really nasty.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 18 2007 14:45 utc | 41
USA's biggest allies in Africa are its two proxies - Ethiopia & Uganda. Both now armed to the teeth courtesy of the USA. But both countries are highly vunerable to serious internal unrest. Both have a long history of brutal suppression & civil war/unrest. And neither country can be counted on as reliable determined allies on the long term.
The USA is going to have to put a lot of boots (which it does not have) on the ground in order to achieve its dubious grand scheme for Africa. Neither Ethiopia or Uganda can be counted on for the long haul. Theres not going to be any support for the USA from South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Angola or any of the more influential African nations.
How does this make any sense ? The USA strategy is so transparently brutal & destructive that it may not be too much longer before Mandela call s on all Africans & the rest of the world to resist USA aggression.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 18 2007 15:33 utc | 42
Posted by: b real | Aug 18 2007 17:09 utc | 43
b real,
thanks to your dilligence, everyone who has been following MoA knows
Dr Jendayi Frazer is employing fabrications large enough to drive a truck through.
Big Thank You.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 18 2007 18:09 utc | 44
NYT's Lichtenblau and Risen: Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law
Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.1. lesson - the Dems agree to everything Bush asks for.
...
Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States.These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns.
For instance, the legislation would allow the government, under certain circumstances, to demand the business records of an American in Chicago without a warrant if it asserts that the search concerns its surveillance of a person who is in Paris, experts said.
...
The measure, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some Congressional aides say.Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.
Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.
2. lesson - Bush will do whatever he likes to do no matter what Dems agreed to.
Homework assignement - consolidate 1 and 2.
This week's longest sentence award goes to dissident voice (see title, link, etc. at bottom.) I have knocked the footnote numbers off, see link.
quote:
The ways in which a stark and dreadful militarization permeates and impacts US and global culture is evidenced by even a cursory examination of recent news reports and events.
For example, the film “300,” a xenophobic celebration of hyper-masculine militarized mass killing and brutality, was the number one DVD rental last week1; “The Bourne Ultimatum,” a film rooted in CIA torture, deceit, assassination and espionage, was last week’s top grossing box-office film; Congressional Research Reports for the People estimates Congress has approved roughly $610 billion for the military operations instituted since 9/11; the House approved a $459.6 billion Pentagon budget for 2008 (not including supplemental spending on Iraq and Afghanistan or nuclear weapons programs through the DOE that would push the figure well-beyond $600 billion); Just Foreign Policy reported one million Iraqis killed (as of August 11, 2007) as a consequence of the US aggression initiated in March 20035; The New Yorker’s most read online article last week was “The Black Sites: a rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program; the Air Force announced that “hunter-killer” unmanned drones “loaded” with “a ton and a half of guided missiles and bombs, known as ‘The Reaper,’” will soon be headed to the grim killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan; “Operation Straight Up,” a right-wing apocalyptic Christian evangelical troupe, will embark on a Defense Department endorsed “Military Crusade in Iraq,” to push “End Times theology” on US troops and deliver “an encouraging word from God to press on to victory; the Bush Administration proposed to send $63 billion in military aid and weapons to the most volatile region in the world, the Middle East; the Senate passed an enhanced surveillance bill that includes few safeguards to protect US citizens from spying while oversight is placed into the hands of Bush Administration henchmen Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and sycophant Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, etc., etc., etc.
from: Breaking the Chains, A Review of Henry Giroux’s, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial Academic Complex, by Scott D. Morris / August 18th, 2007.
intro quote:
“God is pro-war” – Jerry Falwell, 2004
hard reading, but some good points. If the quote is too long please do delete!
The subjugation, control, co-optation of universities and research institutes is insidious, little addressed, under the radar. More another time.
Posted by: Tangerine | Aug 18 2007 22:08 utc | 46
Wondering if anyone here knows if it is possible to download from YouTube? I have been told I should do something with the embed button, but it looks like something that will only work with a site. I have also been told that there is something you can do with Quicktime. Any thoughts?
Posted by: conchita | Aug 19 2007 2:38 utc | 47
@conchita there are a couple of ways to do it for free both of which are clumsy as. Firstly TechCrunch has a system where you enter the web address of the particular You Tube video you want, it streams it to itself then serves the video to you to download in flv format. One problem I have which may be related to my file downloading software is that it lands me with a file called 'get_video' which I then need to rename and put the .flv extension on the end.
flv videos are playable in many players thankfully this includes 'media player classic' a great piece of freeware available from free-codecs Of course that is if you use Windoze. If you prefer to pay Mr Gates directly and use a Mac, VLC player comes in Mac PC Linux and other versions from the videolan site.
If you have a firefox browser things are a little simpler the Firefox addons page has an extension which allows you to download a wide range of streaming and embedded video images including YouTube. Be aware though that this is also server dependent and their server isn't always available, probably over subcribed.
The Firefox method also renders into an .flv format so you will still need a player capable of handling flv.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 19 2007 4:24 utc | 48
video webcast of aug 8 uc berkeley's institute of int'l studies conservations w/ peter dale scott on his new book, the road to 911: wealth, empire, and the future of america
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professor Peter Dale Scott for a discussion of secrecy and its consequences in the making of U.S. foreign policy. Their discussion focuses on CIA interventions, the rise of al Qaeda, the role of U.S. government in supporting Islamic jihadists to counter Soviet power during the Cold War, and the response of the Bush administration to the 9/11 [ 1hr 1 min]attack.
Posted by: b real | Aug 19 2007 4:32 utc | 49
@tangerine #46:
Re: the Falwell quote: if you accept the Old Testament as true, then god is unquestionably pro-war. If you actually read the thing straight through, instead of cherry-picking verses that make you happy, you will find that god is a terribly bloodthirsty being. (He also didn't know Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of blah blah blah until he came back later and saw them, so he presumably isn't all-knowing, and in I Judges we see that he can't conquer iron chariots, either, so he isn't all-powerful either. Between being as vicious as a spoiled 3-year-old and being terribly limited, the picture of god you get from a strict reading of the Old Testament is a lot more believable than what people usually imagine.)
If you go through the Old Testament and find every place where someone is killed directly by god or on his orders and a number of casualties is given -- which means you ignore the flood, for example, because the text doesn't say how many people are killed -- then you end up with over two million dead. (The devil, on the other hand, is only given credit for the deaths of ten people in the entire Christian bible, and then only with god's permission.)
This has not stopped anyone from claiming that the Abrahamic religions are forces for morality and peace -- at least, not anyone who believes in them -- and, indeed, many believers think that religion is the only valid source of morality. (That's kind of grim, yes? The idea that everyone is demonically evil, and only act with a patina of civilization because there's a divine Eye In The Sky waiting to condemn you to eternal damnation if you do anything wrong; what place in such a worldview for genuine human goodness?)
People come up with morality independently of faith, and then ignore anything in their belief system which contradicts the decisions they have already made. Just as an example: the jewish holy books don't explicitly condemn pedophilia. Christianity sort of vaguely does, if you interpret a single verse the right way, but there's nothing in the old testament about it, for example. (Which is odd, when you think about it -- Moses had time to tell us not to eat shrimp or wear cotton-wool mix clothing, but he couldn't mention that it was wrong to sexually molest a child?) If morality were based on faith, one would expect there to be disproportionately many pedophiles who were jewish. But there aren't. There's nothing in the New Testament about stem cells, but people have made up their minds ahead of time about what is and is not moral, and so it doesn't matter. (Actually, if there were mention in the New Testament about stem cells, it would form a much more convincing argument that Christianity is true than anything I've ever heard of.)
I don't know precisely where I'm going with this -- I had a point in mind when I started, but I've forgotten in -- so I guess I'll just close with this: religious people being hypocrites is not news. Religious people being hypocrites is religion -- it's to be expected.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 5:45 utc | 51
@Debs is Dead:
As long as I'm de-lurking again for a moment: Just out of curiosity, why do you consider the Mac to be "paying Mr. Gates directly" but not Windows? I own a Mac, and except for the copy of Windows I run in a virtual machine, there isn't anything about it that actually sent money directly to Microsoft. The copy of Windows, on the other hand, gave them just over $100, and that's for an OEM copy (which is equivalent to what PC manufacturers get when they build a machine). Just curious.
(Oh, and you can download the Flash videos from Youtube on a Mac using Safari; open the "Activity" window to see a list of all the files which have been or are being downloaded to render the currently visible pages. Find the Youtube page, then look through its listing for the "get-video" item, which should be large, hold down the option key, double-click on that line; Safari will download the file to wherever it puts your downloads by default (which is usually the Desktop). You'll have to add the ".flv" extension to the name, though. VLC for Mac is currently the best free player I've found when the files are local.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 6:01 utc | 52
@Debs is Dead:
As long as I'm de-lurking again for a moment: Just out of curiosity, why do you consider the Mac to be "paying Mr. Gates directly" but not Windows? I own a Mac, and except for the copy of Windows I run in a virtual machine, there isn't anything about it that actually sent money directly to Microsoft. The copy of Windows, on the other hand, gave them just over $100, and that's for an OEM copy (which is equivalent to what PC manufacturers get when they build a machine). Just curious.
(Oh, and you can download the Flash videos from Youtube on a Mac using Safari; open the "Activity" window to see a list of all the files which have been or are being downloaded to render the currently visible pages. Find the Youtube page, then look through its listing for the "get-video" item, which should be large, hold down the option key, double-click on that line; Safari will download the file to wherever it puts your downloads by default (which is usually the Desktop). You'll have to add the ".flv" extension to the name, though. VLC for Mac is currently the best free player I've found when the files are local.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 6:01 utc | 53
Today's "must read" - an OpEd written by seven sergants on the ground in Iraq. Finally some real militray intelligence: The War as We Saw It
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.
...
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
...
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Debs' post bit my curious too, TGGVWYCI. I guess it's the difference between paying them (MS) and him who shall not be named. I know he bailed out Apple way back, maybe he owns a bunch of shares?
Just think, Excel and Word, the programs that made the Mac useable for mundane office work and accounting, were written by Microsoft. Excel still stands as a mighty tool for arithmetic and record-keeping, the true standard being Lotus 1-2-3. But Excel is graphical.
If I had a bit more money I might invest in Apple too.
For the original post, great to know that streamed videos can be recorded so easily, especially if you have a Mac mini. And a small team of experts who will set it up for you and show you how to use it.
Posted by: jonku | Aug 19 2007 7:36 utc | 55
From the same article Bernhard linked to above, it is the New York Times about the recent changes to US FISA law restricting electronic surveillance of US citizens:
The measure, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some Congressional aides say.Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.
So the Justice Department and the Intelligence department (sorry no link) can spy on whoever they want in the USA and as always everywhere else.
That is the FBI (under Justice) and the CIA (I think earlier banned from continental USA) have free reign to observe whomever they wish. Not that they didn't before ...
and the reason is that the party in power, who one might expect would oppose their President (in Canada, modeled on British parliament, I was taught that the Loyal Opposition's job was to oppose (fight against bad legislation) propose (put forth laws they thought were good and necessary) and depose since in the parliamentary system, the party in power can be overthrown if they lose a Vote of Confidence, usually a budget that fails to pass. That doesn't happen in the US. At all.
But Congress and Senate reportedly had the new law pushed through because of Democratic senators and congresspersons' "fear that they would be criticized by President Bush."
Now that is funny.
And I also recommend following Uncle Scam's link to this book copied online about a former US agent who got hung out to dry about 10 years ago, escaped to Sweden to tell his story and have it published.
Revealingly detailed tale of US involvement in the middle east, from regime change to the drug trade, Iran-Contra details and much other stuff over my head.
Told by an American who grew up there as the son of an oil engineer, had a national broadcasting career on radio and tv, and also spent time in Beirut as a spy.
I wonder if this guy Lester Coleman ever existed. Great story nonetheless.
Debunk at will.
Posted by: jonku | Aug 19 2007 8:12 utc | 56
Sorry for the third post in a row but it is the punch line:
Who the heck pushed through the legislation?
These folks must vote for whatever they are told to vote for ... so I honestly ask who runs the Democratic Party -- who tells them where and when to vote?
Posted by: jonku | Aug 19 2007 8:15 utc | 57
@jonku:
Bill Gates owned a certain number of common shares in Apple (which, if I recall my brief period of owning some myself, pay little or no dividend) -- a small fraction of the number he owns in Microsoft, either by volume or percentage -- and I believe he sold some (all?) of them a while ago. Even if he still owns them, he makes less money off the purchase of a Mac than off of a copy of Windows, let alone Office.
As for Excel and Word: bah. The former is a lousy program which rips off, more or less directly, the interface of the spreadsheet programs which came before it, and the latter might more accurately be called "Microsoft Format Lockin: No New Features Version". (That was a bit too terse. For those who had trouble following it: Word has introduced basically no new features in the last 3 versions which are actually useful; instead, they keep updating the document format so that in order to read the documents produced by default by the latest version, you have to upgrade your own copy.)
I don't like the free/open source software movement. Their ethical claims are laughable, and in fact provide accidental incentives for bad interface design. Saith the f/ossm: software development should be free; if you want to make money, make it from service contracts. Therefore programmers must either resign themselves to programming as a hobby, or else deliberately write software which will require service contracts, probably by being difficult to figure out. And, of course, that means the programmer has to either start spending time doing support in person -- leaving less time to program -- or hire someone else. No other profession takes this sort of claim seriously. There's nobody saying "cars should be free, and automakers should make money from repairs" or "artists should give up on royalties and make money by manning live chatlines". Why this kind of stupidity has taken root in software development I don't know.
Be that as it may: open source programs are still a good thing; they often provide a lowest common denominator (and you have no idea how low the common denominator is until you use a Mac for a few days and then try the Mac version of OpenOffice.org) but more importantly they bring with them open standards, which are an incredibly useful thing to have around. The worst crime Microsoft is currently committing is their attempt to kill off the open XML word processing document standard by producing their own proprietary XML standard (those ".xdoc" documents you see these days).
As for doing video: if you have a Mini, you need a camera, too. (The iMac, Macbook, and Macbook Pro all have built-in surprisingly-high-quality video cameras above the monitors.) If you were smart enough to buy an iSight while Apple still made them as a separate product, you can use that, or any UVC-compliant USB camera. (If you're talking to a salesperson: ask if it works in iChat AV; they're less likely to give a misleading answer.)
I have never streamed a video myself -- if you're just putting a file on a website and letting people download it, it isn't really streaming. A couple of things to note, though:
1. Supposedly the version of iMovie which just got released (part of the new iLife, and comes with new Macs from now on) is dramatically easier to use. Personally, I found the previous version of iMovie pretty easy to use, and I suspect that "easier to use" may translate into "easier to make a really bad movie with", but then I was using video software a long time ago, and it used to be pretty horrible without producing particularly good results, so I may be jaded. (Any time you want to realize that We Live In The Future, go look at video software from, oh, 1992, and examine the cost of the equipment that produced video with it.)
2. Remember that you don't have to use iMovie. Any recording device that works with iMovie can also be used to record with QuickTime Player. On the minus side, QuickTime Player doesn't do effects and subtitles and audio overlay, so you'll end up with just a video. On the plus side, QuickTime Player doesn't do effects and subtitles and audio overlay, so the controls are much simpler. (You need to buy a license for QuickTime Pro to do recording and editing in QuickTime Player, though, while every Mac comes with a copy of iMovie.)
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 9:31 utc | 58
The Guardian on Afghanistan: 'It's bleak and ferocious, but is it still winnable?'
Statistics tell their own story. Briefings in London last summer placed the number of Taliban as low as 1,000. Since April the Royal Anglians alone have killed more than 600, the nature of certifying 'kills' suggesting that their tally is certainly greater. By any calculation, the enemy should all be dead. Instead they are more deadly.Advanced surface-to-air missiles and armour-piercing machine guns accurate over a one-kilometre firing range have started targeting the British. One missile recently locked on to a British Harrier jet, forcing the pilot to take evasive action. This is hi-tech stuff.
But British commanders also voice concerns about another profound threat, this time unfolding in their ranks. The unforeseen ferocity of operations in Helmand is set to precipitate an exodus of soldiers.
I don't want to see this thread turn into some asinine M$ V Apple garbage but Bill and Melindy Gates acquired the majority shareholding in Apple back in 04. Gates owns a bigger slice of Apple than he does of M$. While I realise he doesn't talk about this much I did think it was fairly common knowledge.
Of course there have been rumours about Google buying Apple of late but considering that the majority shareholder may not see an upside to that it is probably just a rumour.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 19 2007 10:12 utc | 60
to easily DL videos from utube (or anywhere else) use firefox and install the DownloadHelper add-on
Posted by: jcairo | Aug 19 2007 10:18 utc | 61
Fair enough I will hold my tongue on the Gates Apple ownership issue until I can find one of the articles on the subject I have read. These were out of mainstream media not blogs. That or identify the holding company Bill and Melinda are using. When they created their Gates foundation to cure the world of all known diseases and build box girder bridges or whatever, the foundation made a huge investment in Apple. According to reports at the time it was a controlling position.
If that is still the case one would have to assume that Fidelity Management FMR may be the agents for managing the shareholding but without the articles from the time or any other way to draw a straight line, there is no way to prove it. Fidelity have a range of positions in Apple through both outright ownership, share management and mutual funds as do other major institutions.
One of the joys of capitalism is the circuitous ownership of shares, something a share register doesn't really help explain.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 19 2007 11:07 utc | 63
The founding Johnson family controls most of FMR Corp.; Abigail Johnson, CEO Ned's daughter and perhaps his successor (not to mention one of the richest women in America), is the company's largest single shareholder.
Posted by: jcairo | Aug 19 2007 13:48 utc | 64
did, ttgvwyci and jcairo
thank you all for your suggestions. i have a mac and will try the safari method - not sure i ever bothered to download firefox as i use its cousin netscape and am very happy with it.if this works and it helps the clip of eliz holtzman i am working on helps to convince jerry nadler to lead impeachment in the house you will have contributed. if any of you would have the time to actually do this for me and email it, it would help me tremendously as i am fighting the clock, but chances are it isn't half as complicated as my pre-morning coffee brain thinks. whatever ever the case, i do appreciate your assistance.
Posted by: conchita | Aug 19 2007 16:13 utc | 65
Jeez, just looked at my comment. My apologies for all the double typed words. I think Ii had too many things happening at once on my poor litle G3 and my sleep deprived mind. Thanks to Dan of Steele who recognized the deficiencies and just emailed me that he is downloading it - a good thing because although I downloaded I cannot get it open as a Flash or wmv file.
Posted by: conchita | Aug 19 2007 17:02 utc | 66
I've had some serious problem from downloading the DownloadHelper add-on that's linked @ 61. There seems to be a bug that comes with it. Every time I open the browser I'm transferred to the the add-on page and can't get out of it. This happens whether I'm on my homepage or try to quickly switch to another site on my blogroll. I had to use a second system on my computer to send this message.
this site works really well to convert .flv files. you can convert them without even downloading the files to your own PC. I had no problems with the firefox addin.
I was able to convert the youtube video into apple quicktime with only a small increase in filesize.
Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 19 2007 20:17 utc | 68
@Debs is Dead:
I've been looking on Google for any mention of such a thing (it would be tech news and financial news, and by 2004 both were on the Internet), and the only articles I've seen which make that claim either steal directly from this page or reference it as a source. Notice the statement at the bottom saying "Unconfirmed Sources political satire and news story parodies as represented above are written as satire or parody. They are, of course, fictitious."
Now that I've had some sleep, I found the numbers I was referencing earlier: Microsoft directly bought $150000000 worth of non-voting Apple stock in 1997. These were eventually converted to voting stock after the three-year mandatory waiting period and then sold. The deal was basically Microsoft's way of settling Apple's various then-current infringement suits against them. In any event, (a) that was Microsoft, not Bill Gates personally, and (b) they don't own that stock now.
(Of course, there's also "Pirates of Silicon Valley", which was a fictitious retelling of the Microsoft-Apple rivalry, which implied that Microsoft owned a much larger chunk of stock which was also voting stock, and did not sell it. Like I said: fictitious.)
As for a holding company: I suppose it's possible that a single holding company could, in turn, own other companies, and thus split up ownership of a large chunk of Apple into a large number of fake companies. But look at that listing of major holders in the SEC filing for a moment:
1) Institutions and mutual funds hold a total of 68% of the stock.
2) The listed institutions on the list of major holders, none of which would appear to be Gates in a mask (Fidelity, by the way, is a financial institution which one of my relatives has used for decades, not a recently-erected front for Gates), account for over 28% of the stock.
3) The listed mutual funds, which are likewise apparently not Gates, take up a bit more than another 7%. That's more than 35% of all the stock accounted for right there.
4) In order to not be listed on the "major direct shareholders" list, an individual would have to own less than a fifth of one percent (0.0172%) of the stock.
Let's put those together: if Bill Gates and family own as much stock personally as possible, they collectively own (rounding up -- Bill and Melinda Gates have three children, so that's 5 people) 1%. Since 68% of the stock is owned by institutions and mutual funds and 35% is already accounted for, even if every single institution and mutual fund which is not listed on the SEC filing were a front for Bill Gates (which is most certainly not the case) they could own a maximum of 33% of the stock. Combine this with the 1% which the family might hold, and you get 34%. That's not a majority.
Therefore: you are just plain wrong.
Sorry if I appear to be defensive about this stuff, but it's a topic I know about and I'm really annoyed that you're trying to convince people that things are the opposite of the way they actually are. Leave that to Fox News, okay?
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 20:27 utc | 69
As long as people are giving browser advice for video viewing--I'm having trouble watching Money as Debt at google videos. It begins streaming, then after a few minutes, the stream just stops, whether or not the video is playing or paused. I've downloaded the latest Flash player, and I'm using Firefox on a Mac. I'm getting really sick of the music in the opening frames of the video. Any suggestions?
Posted by: catlady | Aug 19 2007 20:31 utc | 70
@catlady:
Just a note: Google Video and Youtube are not streaming video. They're just download sites specializing in video. ("Streaming" means that you see the video immediately as it arrives from the server -- Flash video is just another file.) A couple of questions:
1. Do you mean that the download of the video stops, regardless of whether or not it was playing, or that the player ceased to function regardless of whether or not it was playing?
2. How much of the video was downloaded when things stopped working? (You can tell approximately by looking carefully at the little progress bar at the bottom; its starts off white and turns light gray as the video downloads.)
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 21:43 utc | 71
The download is stopping; I see the lights on my DSL modem flicker for a while, and then they stop. It sure looks like streaming video to me; nothing's being saved to the desktop and the video starts playing as soon as it has filled the buffer. I've got buffering issues, so I have been pausing the playback while it loads. Maybe I need to reset my cache size--what do you recommend?
In Firefox, I only seem to be able to download 3-7 minutes of video. In Safari, I managed to get nearly half of the 47 minute video. I tried clearing my cache, but that didn't seem to help. I have occasionally had problems with shorter YouTube videos, but those usually load fine.
Posted by: catlady | Aug 19 2007 22:48 utc | 72
Dancewater (Susan) has a very good, very comprehensive post on Medical Care in Iraq. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
Posted by: Alamet | Aug 19 2007 23:57 utc | 73
Big oil groups that declared force majeure and quit Somalia 16 years ago will be given the chance to resume their activities under the anarchic country’s proposed hydrocarbon law.
According to a parliamentary bill, companies that held concessions before December 30 1990, would be given the right to return to those areas under new production-sharing agreements. The new production deals will set out different financial terms, exploration periods and obligations as well as new block sizes, businessday.co.za said.
(snip)
The bill also nullifies any exploration deals struck after 1990--a clause that is likely to meet opposition from Somalia’s northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland, which have both signed separate agreements in the past five years.
It may also affect a production-sharing agreement signed by President Abdullahi Yusuf and China’s largest offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC, which was reported by the Financial Times last month.
(snip)
A production-sharing agreement template says the government would receive 8 percent of revenues in cash on the first 25000 barrels of oil a day if the price was $55 or more a barrel.
On production in excess of 100000 barrels of oil a day, it would receive 14 percent of revenues.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Aug 20 2007 0:02 utc | 74
@truth I'm not trying to convince people of anything, other than how I remember some newspaper articles I read. I can't understand why anyone would even care who owns Apple. Has either corporation forsworn supplying products to be used on the rape and murder of innocents by the amerikan military?
I really don't understand what difference it makes which rich prick owns what greedy monopolistic corporation. It is really a non issue since I can perceive no difference at all in the moral stance of any of corporation, hence the initial throwaway line of giving yer money to Gates one way or another.
The whole mob of assholes who, aided by Clinton's oppresive DMCA sought to create an amerikan monopoly on computer patents while using knowledge which dates back to the Greeks or before and which has previously been available to all comers is immoral. It is a protection racket which would never have got up without all the threatening and dick swinging of the amerikan military machine. The techniques of blackmail, bribery and extortion have been used to make other nations enforce the corrupt practices. None of em will ever get a brass razoo out of me.
I use PC's because they can be put together with an absolute minimum of my cash going into the pockets of any amerikan corporation. The taiwanese churn out inexpensive PC hardware which suits my needs and which over the years has proven just as reliable as any of the 'legacy' amerikan hardware products.
As far as software goes, the game of undoing the DRM protection is a relatively interesting diversion and one that will ensure I don't have to worry about much of my cash being used to subsidize the empire for some time yet.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 20 2007 0:12 utc | 75
@catlady:
Nope, not streaming. The video file is being downloaded to a temporary location and then being played back. (Otherwise, you could immediately skip to the end -- you'd just be telling the server to send that portion instead. The delay you describe as "caching" is just the delay before there's enough of the file there for Flash to start playing it back.)
From the symptoms it sounds like the problem probably isn't your copy of Safari or Firefox. This is just a download being cut off. I'd try downloading the .flv file using Safari's Activity window -- you might get some more information about why it's failing, if nothing else. (Once you start the download that way, it will show up in the "Downloads" window, and you can treat it like any other file being downloaded.)
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 20 2007 0:29 utc | 76
i'm personally very thankfull to the truth gets...... because s/he's offered very considered counsel & i am a mac user & even after all this time i am possibly the dumbest fucker ever to tap a keyboard - the administrator of my work is a dab hand with the computers & when he opens one up - i enter a trance not unlike those papa doc duvalier used on his enemies - i want despite all the evidence to the contrary - to think of what is inside the computer as a purely metaphysical question & my reason for typing on it - an existential one (tho the us admin has given that particular expression a bad name)
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 20 2007 1:21 utc | 78
i'm personally very thankfull to the truth gets...... because s/he's offered very considered counsel & i am a mac user & even after all this time i am possibly the dumbest fucker ever to tap a keyboard - the administrator of my work is a dab hand with the computers & when he opens one up - i enter a trance not unlike those papa doc duvalier used on his enemies - i want despite all the evidence to the contrary - to think of what is inside the computer as a purely metaphysical question & my reason for typing on it - an existential one (tho the us admin has given that particular expression a bad name)
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 20 2007 1:22 utc | 79
Wall Street in looking over the wreckage of the week, has come generally to the opinion that high grade investment issues can be bought now, without fear of a drastic decline. There is some difference of opinion as to whether not the correction must go further, but everyone realizes that the worst is over, and that there are bargains for those who are willing to buy conservatively and live through the immediate irregularity.
-New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1929
Kunstler is tedious & not very constructive, but some of the commenters are interesting.
Today's Sunday paper headline: Football game cancelled because someone stripped all the copper wiring out of the grandstand lights. So, I'm thinking you're right about those suburban homes. Once abandoned, they'll be stripped to the cement foundation for metals, parts and firewood.
On the other hand, I can foresee a new job area opening for the former middle class as security guards, perhaps even assigning one person per highway lamp post. Just like in the Mexican border towns, you hire someone to watch your car, or else it will be up on blocks when you return, if it's even there at all.
Posted by: Dr.Doom | August 19, 2007 at 06:09 PM
Border Violence Heads North, a story from the LA Times:
...
Posted by: jj | Aug 20 2007 3:08 utc | 80
a pdf copy of the draft oil law cited in #71 is linked in this article from garowe online. the draft is controversial, since it was written by KEC (kuwait energy company) & medco energy (indonesia), who are both said to have 49% ownership in the proposed somali petroleum corporation, at the behest of prime minister gedi, who has a personal relationship w/ the CEO of KEC, while president yusuf has been making his own arrangements w/ the chinese in puntland. since the parliament hasn't even debated the proposed laws, the deals being made are a bit premature & yet more blatant evidence that the warlord TFG govt has only self-interest at heart, quickly securing oil rent money while they still have a tenuous hold on authority, strictly for their own benefit w/ not even a token gesture of getting the best deal for the somali people. but then, of course, they are warlords in an illegitimate govt... perhaps this greed among the top officials will cause increased infighting that will further weaken & lead to the demise of the TFG. haven't seen any noise from the former concessionaires indicating interest in returning anytime soon. chevron last week said don't look at us. let the minnows waste their time & money.
Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 4:51 utc | 81
alamet #74, thanks for linking to dancewater, that is one hell of a post.
i am possibly the dumbest fucker ever to tap a keyboard
lol, get in line r'giap!
Posted by: annie | Aug 20 2007 5:13 utc | 82
@Debs is Dead:
While I can understand some of your logic, I think you are wrong on several levels. A few comments:
1) Microsoft has a history of business practices which are particularly vile, no matter how you look at it. There's quite a long list of ideas ruined by Microsoft, people and small businesses ruined by Microsoft for getting in the way, and bad ideas sold to a public which didn't know any better. Bill Gates may or may not be directly responsible for all, or even most, of these actions, but he certainly failed to stop them, and definitely encouraged some of them. (Gates can't even be socially responsible now, when he's left Microsoft and running a charity. The Gates Foundation bought a big chunk of McDonalds a while ago, stictly for funds. Speaks volumes.) Other companies may not be perfect; they may even be evil; but Bill Gates and Microsoft play roughly the same role in the computer industry as George Bush and the Republican Party in the world. You may feel that, say, Al Gore is a bad politician, a right-of-center corporatist masquerading as a centrist, or even a leftist, who deserves no votes. But is he as bad as Bush? No. Comparing Apple to Microsoft is a similar unfair piece of rhetoric. (The metaphor works quite well, in fact. Both Microsoft and the Republican Party make a big fuss about security without actually undertaking any measures which actually improve it, for example.)
2) I question whether your argument is valid. "Why pay the people who came up with these ideas when we can just get the implementation cheaper from a ripoff artist" is pretty close, ethically speaking, to "why pay people for access to their resources when we can just kick the people off the land and take the resources ourselves".
3) What knowledge which dates back to the Greeks? I have a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in Classics, and although I admit that the Greeks were the first western culture which wouldn't have found computers incomprehensible, the ideas behind computers do not stretch back that far. The formal logic which runs a computer was only ironed out in the victorian era, for example. (And if you do some reading of primary sources, you'll be amazed at how difficult it was for boolean logic to take hold, given how intuitive it seems to us now.)
4) Examine the DMCA (not to put too fine a point on it, but I also have a master's degree in library and information science, and we had to spend a lot of time on the DMCA) and you will see that the really draconian parts are mainly there to bring U.S. copyright law in line with the intellectual property rights treaties signed with Europe. (And yes, I have looked up the treaties, and yes, the draconian measures started there, not in the U.S. Why do you think a.s.k.o.d. started his Pirate Party, anyway?) Quite frankly, the U.S. already owned all those patents, because we had a technological boom as part of the burst of prosperity post-World War II. The patents will expire eventually, and thanks to the Republican party there won't be many more big new ideas registered in the U.S., so why complain so bitterly? The DMCA leveraged a short-term advantage by creating a terrible long-term problem for the U.S.; if anything, you should be happy about it.
5) Does it matter whether people know about this stuff? First and foremost: it matters whether you know it, because you're willing to open your mouth and make statements without the knowledge, which is dangerous and bad. But in the more general case as well, yes. If you could somehow travel back in time and make the population at large more knowledgeable about technology, and about the shady side of Microsoft, then we would be in a dramatically better situation today. Apple might or might not even exist in such a situation, but Microsoft would not have been allowed to deliberately introduce so many complications, with all that that entails in terms of additional complexity elsewhere. Consider: every minute that you spend troubleshooting a computer is a minute you don't have for everything else in your life. Every minute you spend deleting spam -- most of the spam you get these days is relayed to you through compromised Windows boxes, you know -- is a minute gone, never to come again. Microsoft is responsible for an astonishing amount of this, and it does matter.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 20 2007 5:23 utc | 83
latest power and interest news report analysis of somalia
Faint Signs of Political Evolution Appear in Somalia's Devolutionary Cycle
PINR sees no early end to the insurgency in Mogadishu because the Ethiopian-T.F.G. crackdown cannot be sustained indefinitely and is not succeeding in any case.Signs of a deepening devolutionary cycle also were evident in Somalia's regions, which are covered almost exclusively by local media and escape international attention.
...
The return of warlords to prominence in Hiraan and the Jubba regions, widespread inter-clan violence and criminal activity throughout the country, the appearance of sectarian violence, and instability where warlords are attempting to assert control, either under the T.F.G.'s aegis or against the government, point to the deepening of the devolutionary cycle in much of Somalia outside Mogadishu. Coupled with the unabated insurgency in Mogadishu, conditions in the regions indicate that the T.F.G. remains weak and dependent on Ethiopian support, and has not made headway toward effective governance.
...
The fact that the clan-based conference is taking place at all and has not been disrupted by violence shows the limits of the insurgency and indicates that substantial sectors of Somali society have at least acquiesced in the reconciliation process and are willing to try to see if it can work. Although the political opposition to the T.F.G. has boycotted the N.R.C. and has its own clan support, the N.R.C. is not entirely composed of President Yusuf's allies. There has been genuine debate and the conference has not served as a rubber stamp for the T.F.G. executive.It is on the basis of the appearance of serious political debate -- not any concrete steps toward reconciliation -- that PINR counts the N.R.C. on the side of evolution. That opposing actors are willing to air their interests and encounter one another in discussion constitutes the germ of the genuinely political process that the N.R.C.'s international backers -- the U.S., European Union and U.N. donors to the T.F.G. -- wanted to engender and hoped for when they pressured Yusuf to hold the conference.
Having noted that the N.R.C. is being taken seriously by its participants, it is necessary to add that it has not produced impressive results and has been confused and confusing.
Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 14:33 utc | 84
Rwanda is currently offering professional military training to Somali government forces in a bid to enable them deal appropriately with the raging conflict in the troubled Horn of Africa country."Following requests from the African Union and the Somali Transitional Federal Government to contribute to the peace process in Somalia, Rwanda pledged to provide professional training to the TFG's forces, and that has started," Military Spokesman Major Jill Rutaremara said yesterday.
He said that the training of the Somalis started on May 21 at RDF military schools. He however declined to disclose the duration of the training, and the exact venues where it is being administered from.
"The training is being funded by Rwanda and it is in line with the Rwanda Defense Forces' constitutional obligation of Regional and International peace maintenance," said Rutaremara. Rwanda has thousands of military and police peacekeepers in various parts of the world including Sudan's Darfur, where a hybrid AU-UN force is expected to take over from an exclusive AU mission later this year.
on that new u.n. force for the sudan,
Rwanda: UN Appointee for Darfur Force is War Criminal - Opposition
Last week, the UN and the African Union endorsed the nomination of Rwandan Maj. Gen. Karenzi Karake to deputise the head of the Darfur hybrid force. Opposition groups say the General does not have clean hands to manage a peace keeping mission, RNA reports.According to United Democratic Forces - UDF Inkingi, Gen. Karake supervised several extra judiciary executions targeting politicians and civilians in Rwanda. The group points to the period before the Genocide and after the Rwanda Patriotic front RPF rebels took over Rwanda.
"His nomination as Deputy Commander of the UN-AU force to be sent to Darfur is an insult to Africa, to Sudan as a State and to the suffering Sudanese as well as to the memory of Rwandan victims of his crimes", Inkingi said in a statement.
On the list of accusations that have been rejected by officials in Kigali includes assassinations and mass killings.
"Karenzi Karake directed the military assault conducted against Kibeho IDP (internally displaced people) camps that killed 8.000 displaced persons on April 22, 1995", Inkingi claims.
Kibeho camp was located in Gikongoro province - southern Rwanda - where several civilians gathered as the country was just recovering from the Genocide. Aid groups on the ground claimed hundreds of civilians were attacked by soldiers but have not identified which group exactly.
Gen. Karake is also accused of masterminding the assassination of numerous politicians at a time when he was RPF liaison officer on an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) military observatory in Rwanda (GOMU) during 1992-94.
The team had been put in place by OAU, to monitor the implementation of the Cease-fire between the Rwandan governmental army and the then RPF rebel force.
...
The Netherlands-based Ikingi opposition group accuses Gen. Karake of alleged mass killings of civilian refugees in D R Congo describing him as a "notorious Rwandan war criminal"."Karenzi Karake supervised the mass killing of hundreds of thousands Rwandan refugees in former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1996-1997 as Chief of Operations during the military campaign that aimed at destroying refugee camps", Ikingi boss Dr Jean-Baptiste MBERABAHIZI said yesterday.
"He was directly responsible of the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of combating the insurgents allegedly operating in that area from 1998 to 2000".
Rwanda has about 3.000 soldiers and police in Sudan and all are planned to be incorporated into the newly agreed hybrid force of 22.000. But the police officers are in Khartoum. Rwanda also recently promised AU chief Omar Konare that it would increase its force numbers in the troubled Darfur region.
Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 14:45 utc | 85
interesting article on what's behind current news re uganda, oil & the congo
Heritage Oil's Flight With the Winds of Change in Africa
War drums in the last two weeks between DR Congo and Uganda have filled the newspapers with headlines - and observers with the same dread that hangs around the mining of oil and other minerals in areas prone to what is known as resource wars. A high-money venture, the allure of oil around the world has attracted the most colourful of characters and spawned some of the most interesting stories.Sadly, in most oil producing countries death, instability and poverty have stalked the people, governments have shaken and fortune seekers both local and foreign have played their hand. Enter Uganda.
While not yet an oil producer, promising prospects have drawn in the usual suspects. At a dinner table to thank higher powers for the good fortune of oil in May this year, President Yoweri Museveni sat next to Heritage Oil's Tony Buckingham. Anyone with an Internet connection will learn interesting things about Mr Buckingham. Today one of Buckingham's former business partners - a man with whom he set up a mercenary army comprising ex-South African army commandos called Executive Outcomes - is being held at a maximum security jail in Zimbabwe.
Simon Mann, as Buckingham's comrade is known, is facing charges of attempting to overthrow the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of oil rich Equatorial Guinea.
Mann, Buckingham and others set up Executive Outcomes in the 1990s and have operated the private military outfit in other oil or mineral rich countries including Angola and Sierra Leone.
As the handcuffs were being snapped onto Mann's wrists at Harare airport, another band of mercenaries in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea including friends of Buckingham like Nick Du Toit, another former member of Executive Outcomes were being put under law and order. Some reports claimed that the British, Spanish and American governments knew of the privately funded attempt to overthrow Nguema's regime and replace it with an opposition leader residing in the Spanish capital, Madrid.
At the time of the scandal (March 2004), then acting Foreign Affairs Minister Col. Tom Butime told this newspaper that he was not aware of the relationship between Buckingham whose Heritage Oil had a license for oil exploration in Uganda and the alleged coup plotters who had been nabbed in a failed attempt at regime change in Equatorial Guinea.
Mann is currently serving part of a four-year sentence but is facing extradition to Guinea for his alleged role in the coup. In October 2004, President Museveni was in Harare for a three-day official visit. Some sources claimed he had been tasked by Buckingham to broker the release of his friend Mann by appealing to his colleague, Robert Mugabe.
Despite these events little of the connections of Buckingham has been an issue with Kampala it seems. Indeed such are the high stakes games that are played in the international oil industry.
Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 15:02 utc | 86
Average Incomes Fell for Most in 2000-5
Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.While incomes have been on the rise since 2002, the average income in 2005 was $55,238, still nearly 1 percent less than the $55,714 in 2000, after adjusting for inflation, analysis of new tax statistics show.
...
The growth in total incomes was concentrated among those making more than $1 million. The number of such taxpayers grew by more than 26 percent, to 303,817 in 2005, from 239,685 in 2000.These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.
People with incomes of more than a million dollars also received 62 percent of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003, according to a separate analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, a group that points out policies that it says favor the rich.
While the Uber-rich ship their money off to tax-havens, or overseas to clean up & on the other hand, the Feds pump in phunny money to prop up BIG Wall St. investors, here's the picture on the ground for real Americans:
Two years ago, William Stout lost his home in Allentown, Pa., to foreclosure when he could no longer make the payments on his $106,000 mortgage. Wells Fargo offered the two-bedroom house for sale on the courthouse steps. No bidders came forward. So Wells Fargo bought it for $1, county records show.
Despite the setback, Mr. Stout was relieved that his debt was wiped clean and he could make a new start. He married and moved in with his wife, Denise.
But on July 9, they received a bill from the Internal Revenue Service for $34,603 in back taxes. The letter explained that the debt canceled by Wells Fargo upon foreclosure was subject to income taxes, as well as penalties and late fees. The couple had a month to challenge the charges.
...
Foreclosure is one way that beleaguered homeowners can fall into this tax trap. The other is when homeowners are forced to sell their homes for less than the value of the mortgage. If the lender forgives that difference, they are liable for income taxes on that amount.
The 1099 shortfall, as it is called, stems from an Internal Revenue Service policy that treats forgiven debt of all types as income even if the taxpayer has nothing tangible to show for it, unless the debt is canceled through bankruptcy. link
Posted by: jj | Aug 21 2007 7:27 utc | 90
Youtube: Congresswoman Betty Sutton ask FBI Director Robert Mueller about Sibel Edmonds
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 21 2007 8:53 utc | 91
I am deeply ashamed by this - EU cuts off aid to Gaza power plant
Tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents were without electricity Monday after the European Union stopped paying to supply fuel to a Gaza power station serving part of the coastal enclave.
...
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said the fuel shipments, initially halted Thursday on security grounds, were to have resumed Sunday.But European officials refused to lift the cutoff after learning Hamas planned to impose a tax on electricity produced by the Gaza power plant, said Alix de Mauny, a spokeswoman for the commission in Jerusalem. Resuming fuel payments could, in effect, help Hamas raise money by paying for the production of taxable electricity, she said.
@jcairo - these people are sick.
For those without youtube capacity, the video shows house raids in Iraq by us special forces. All raids cut in very short intense scenes underlaid with pump-up music.
two minutes hate. and the comments there show it works.
Posted by: b real | Aug 21 2007 14:07 utc | 95
more on #81 above
reuters: Somalia to struggle to tap Western oil investment
LONDON (Reuters) - Western oil majors who quit Somalia at the beginning of its long civil war have no plans to take up a government invitation to return, and their insistence that 1980s deals remain valid threatens Somalia's hopes of oil riches.Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi is trying to push a new oil law through parliament that would pave the way for foreign investment in oil and gas exploration.
Gedi told Reuters last week he hoped companies that were formerly active in the country -- Conoco, now known as ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Amoco, now owned by BP Plc, AGIP, a unit of Italy's ENI SpA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc -- would return and take up new contracts.
However, none of the companies previously active in Somalia said they had any plans to resume operations there.
yet, as the article points out further on
However, BP and Shell insist that their exploration contracts from the 1980s are still valid. Conoco, Chevron and ENI declined to comment, but industry sources said they also probably had similar claims.Although the contracts typically spanned only a few years, BP and Shell say the civil war forced them to declare "force majeure", a term that effectively stops the clock on the contract but keeps it intact.
BP and Shell declined to say what steps they might take if the transitional government awarded licenses over the blocks they formerly owned to other companies, but Chris Flynn, senior energy associate at international law firm Ashurst, said it was likely they would seek legal redress.
"There is a possibility that they could claim, under international law, that the assets have been expropriated," Flynn said.
This threat could cast a shadow over any licensing round.
"I'm sure it will be a point of difficulty ... Most companies awarded a license don't lightly give it up," said Andrew Hayman, director at industry experts IHS.
...
A Somali businessman with oil interests said the government's preference was still for the western oil majors to return, but that the CNOOC deal was a warning sign to them against waiting indefinitely to do so."He wanted to frighten the daylights out of them," the businessman said.
also related is
Somalia's Puntland region rejects draft oil law
BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) - Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region will refuse to recognise a proposed national hydrocarbon law that nullifies any exploration deals struck after 1990, its most high-ranking officials said.Many observers expect Somalia's interim parliament to pass the controversial bill -- widely viewed as the brainchild of interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi -- in coming days.
Puntland President Adde Muse told Reuters in an interview late on Sunday that his administration planned to pass its own legislation in favour of previous oil agreements.
...
"Puntland and its resources primarily belong to us and we know what suitable step to take against the forthcoming endorsement of the law that deprives us of our rights," he said, without elaborating.Somali interim government officials were not immediately available for comment.
But Gedi told Reuters last week that valid deals cannot be struck until the new legislation is in place and urged foreign firms to negotiate exclusively with the interim government.
Posted by: b real | Aug 21 2007 18:06 utc | 96
Nahr al-Baraid - possibly the beginning of the endgame:
Lebanon's military allows militants' families to leave camp
The Lebanese army has accepted a request by Islamic militants holed up in the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp to allow their families to leave the heavily destroyed area, a military official said Tuesday.
Posted by: Alamet | Aug 21 2007 23:47 utc | 97
Exclusive excerpt: The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
In this exclusive excerpt from his powerful new book, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), UC Berkeley professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott asks whether there is a connection between America’s historical use of terror as a political weapon and the recent moves by the Bush administration to suspend the Constitution and create a “shadow government” in the wake of the next terrorist attack.
Posted by: b real | Aug 22 2007 4:16 utc | 98
b real -- what a fascinating chapter! Think we'll be getting more sneek peeks from this book?
Posted by: jane | Aug 22 2007 20:13 utc | 99
jane-
the book is out now. earlier versions of other chptrs have been around for awhile & links to those can be found here. re somalia, which you may also find interesting, chpt 9 deals w/ ali mohamed, the mysterious u.s. AQ agent who is said to be responsible for everything from training UBL & azzam et al in insurgency tactics to teaching somalis how to disable blackhawks (shoot out the tail rotor) to planning the attacks on the embassies in east africa to teaching AQ how to sneak box cutters onto planes to writing the AQ training manual to training the parties responsible for the WTC bombing and so on. i wouldn't be surprised if there's not a dyslexic bureaucrat out there trying to blame him as the one who put the crack in the liberty bell...
scott's book is a great resource & useful narrative, though.
Posted by: b real | Aug 22 2007 20:49 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Must read: Naomi Klein on Democracy Now: From Think Tanks to Battle Tanks, "The Quest to Impose a Single World Market Has Casualties Now in the Millions"
Posted by: b | Aug 16 2007 14:39 utc | 1