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October 17, 2007
OT 07-72
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The Dems again let a Cheney candidate as Attorney General sail right through the Senate.
– Asked about torture he said the US doesn’t torture.
– When he was asked if waterboarding is torture, he won’t answer.
– When Mukasey was asked about the legal memos on torture, he said they were unnessecary (the president can torture without such memos …).
– Guantanamo should be abolished (sometime in the far future …)
– If he’d disagree with the President he would leave the job (he’ll never disagree …)
AP:
The White House has seldom, if ever, placated prickly Democrats into the kind of support they are exhibiting for Mukasey. But in the troubled twilight of Bush’s second term, Mukasey’s nomination is a political peace offering.
A peace offering?
Congress has a positive rating of 11% – does anybody really wonder why? There was an election for Congress yesterday and the meager Dem candidate made it with 51-45. This in a very, very democratic district where she was expected to have a 10-15% lead. Why? The progressives just stayed home … anyone wonders why?
Here is Frontlines Cheney’s Law – haven’t seen – maybe someone wants to give it a try and tell us about it.
William Engdahl – The geopolitical stakes of ‘Saffron Revolution’
(snip)
The tragedy of Myanmar, whose land area is about the size of George W Bush’s Texas, is that its population is being used as a human stage prop in a drama scripted in Washington by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the George Soros Open Society Institute, Freedom House and Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution, a US intelligence asset used to spark “non-violent” regime change around the world on behalf of the US strategic agenda.
Myanmar’s “Saffron Revolution”, like the Ukraine “Orange Revolution” or the Georgia “Rose Revolution” and the various color revolutions instigated in recent years against strategic states surrounding Russia, is a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change, down to the details of “hit-and-run” protests with “swarming” mobs of monks in saffron, Internet blogs, mobile SMS links between protest groups, well-organized protest cells which disperse and re-form. CNN made the blunder during a September broadcast of mentioning the active presence of the NED behind the protests in Myanmar.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Oct 17 2007 18:25 utc | 2
Personally, think Gore is chosen name and plan.
Has anybody looked into idea of planetary slight axle shift last December? Truth and/or implications of such? link
I ran into because elsewhere I ran into a debunking thing that turned out false after 2 minutes googling, but no one, including debunker, ever replied substantively on question.link
Sorry, axis. Have had car problems lately. Thanks to people who said nice things about opinionated beasts.
Posted by: plushtown | Oct 17 2007 19:05 utc | 4
Has anybody looked into idea of planetary slight axle shift last December? Truth and/or implications of such? Hoax
Cheney’s Law. Caught the last 1/2 hour last night. Will have to watch beginning later on the web.
About the last 1/2 hour:
While focussed, and only occasionally equivocal, in describing Cheney’s determination to establish broad Executive powers and total independence from Congress, despite law and legal practice, the Frontline report failed to pursue wider implications and dangers of this crusade, nor did it give historical context. Also, it pretty much left the story at 2004. The latter probably because the show’s key informants seemed to be conservative dissenters within DOJ, who left after the 2004 elections – Jack Goldsmith, in particular.
Perhaps because Goldsmith was an informant, the report did not discuss the nature of the revised “interrogation” that Goldsmith, Ashcroft, and all did eventually approve. And left the viewer with the impression that somehow, after the dissenters in DOJ balked, torture ceased.
Frontline needs a whole second Frontline on the far more advanced predations of the Gonzalez DOJ, and the outrageous manipulations of law, and meddling by means of law, that have been the hallmark of that department since 2004. The utter disregard for the Constitution and the whole fabric of law:
* Electronic surveillance of everyone and everything, through coerced or rewarded telcoms;
* justification of continuing torture of prisoners;
* selective investigations and prosecution of political opponents, and dropped or limited investigations of compliant politicans and funders;
* propagation of rules to reduce voter turnout, and failure to investigate or investigate fully allegations of electoral fraud;
and so on.
Nevertheless, Cheney’s Law should wake up anyone who managed so far to snooze through the Cheney crusade against the Constitution and the law.
Posted by: small coke | Oct 17 2007 19:13 utc | 6
If hoax, are reported solar flares part of hoax? Battros’ claim was that there were no such reports.
Posted by: plushtown | Oct 17 2007 19:34 utc | 7
Some diarist named “troutfish” has a sensational diary as number two on the recommended list of Dkos. It is titled: Ari Fleischer To Run $200 Million “Attack Iran” PR Push
The diary gives NO source for the $200 million claim or the Iran targeting.
The diary has several links to something called “Mediatransparency”. But nothing about the $200 million.
Searching the linked articles if find one of the “Mediatransparency” stories with this small line.
Freedom’s Watch intends to raise $200 million by November 2008, one anonymous benefactor told the New York Times.
“Mediatransparency” does not(!) link to the article. Googling the original NYT piece, published September 30(!), brings up this:
One benefactor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group was hoping to raise as much as $200 million by November 2008. Raising big money “will be easy,” the benefactor said, adding that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million.
Yeah, sure, “I’ll open business tomorrow and I will have GREAT sales.”
BTW – if the $200 are collected in November 2008 when will they be spend? Who will then be president to attack Iran?
250+ panic comments on Dkos, only one or two even asking for the source of the $200 million claim in that diary. That source is third level, anonymous and simply promotional.
But the diary is recommended and all …
Sheeps!
If hoax, are reported solar flares part of hoax?
Solar flares happen all the time, sometimes they are bigger and influence radio waves. They don’t change the earth axis. That’s just stupid, stupid, stupid – a hoax.
Battros’ claim was that there were no such reports.
I have no idea who that guy is so I’ll not spend time looking into that.
comment on Cheney’s Law, posted here.
I flinched just a tad as the narrator described the attacks of 9/11 as something “no one could imagine.” Figuratively speaking, given just how montrous those events were, I suppose this works. (The G8 Summit in Rome two months earlier, which Bush attended, was “defended” with surface-to-air missiles and fighter jets in anticipation of just this sort of attack.)
But then the crux of this whole constitutional fracas was laid bare. On that day, the narrator described Cheney, in the bunker below the White House, deciding the United States would have to become “a country ruled by men and not by laws.”
Also, seeing the loop of Cheney taking his oath of office was poignant — swearing to protect against what he, Addington, Yoo, and all their apologists have become: domestic enemies of the U.S. Constitution.
Posted by: manonfyre | Oct 17 2007 20:29 utc | 10
plushtown:
i’m not sure which article Battros perused, but the one you linked to about the axis shift doesn’t mention any details about the shift other than when it happened and the conspiracy to cover it up
Battros mentions a 26 degree shift caused by massive solar flares and the other article says the flares are a cover-up for the unspecified shift…?
Battros does mention precession (the bit aboot the earth is near the bottom of the article) but not the solstices.
So, if there was a shift:
Which direction?
How much?
The beautiful blue marble is already tilted about 23.5 degrees, another 26 would be catastrophic fer sure…
Posted by: jcairo | Oct 17 2007 20:43 utc | 11
In his recent speech, Bush revealed the pattern to be used when again no WMAs will be found: World War III started to bring more prosperous economic wealth to the Iranian people.
Inflation’s way too high; isolation is causing economic pain. This is a country that has got a much better future, people have got a much better — should have better hope inside Iran than this current government is providing them.
(…to send a focused signal to the Iranian government that we will continue to work to isolate you…
Posted by: snafu | Oct 17 2007 23:14 utc | 12
OK. Let’s talk Turkey.
Today’s vote in Turkish parliament to approve Turkey’s military to make incursions into Northern Iraq is a complex issue that I haven’t quite got my head around.
Turkish MPs today gave the green light to military operations in northern Iraq, amid fears that an incursion could create turmoil in one of the few stable areas of Iraq.
Turkey’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a government request for possible military action, although the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has played down fears of an imminent offensive against Kurdish fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party (PKK).
Today’s 507-19 vote provides the legal basis for Nato’s second biggest army to cross the mountainous border, should it wish to do so.
Moments after the vote, President George Bush urged Turkey not to launch a major attack. . . .
. . . .Turkish military authorities have been pressing for an attack against PKK fighters based in northern Iraq. In recent weeks, rebels have killed more than a dozen Turkish soldiers, sparking public pressure for tough action. . .
There is a multiplicity of issues in play here and I am disappointed to see that I couldn’t find a direct quote in the print media from the Whitehouse spokesman who criticised Turkey for threatening to take unilateral action by invading Iraq. How the worm has turned. Unfortunately although some ironist at the BBC had the unintended ‘hot button talking point’ in the TV coverage I couldn’t find it on the Beeb’s website. With a little editing and other clips from 02 and 03 it could have made a classic YouTube.
This is not a decision of the Turkish elite represented by the military – the so-called white turks (NB according to that link there are also white Kurds) neither is it confined to the Turkish proletariat. The vote in favour was 507-19 ! Pretty much everyone. Not unlike Congress in ’03 really.
The immediate response has been to bring the prospect of $US 100 barrel oil closer. And that is sheer opportunism considering that there has been no immediate effect on Iraq’s oil industry.
The real question is that which of the multitude of geo-political events which any action by Turkey could cause, is likely.
As predicted it seems Iraqi Kurds will wash their hands of their ‘brothers’ in Turkey and Iran. There has been no outcry from them over Maliki’s promise to root out the PKK so that Turkey won’t need to. Yet if Turkey plays it’s cards correctly and doesn’t actually invade unless extremely provoked, the solidarity of Iraq’s Kurd/Shia alliance must be threatened. One of the Kurds biggest problems has always been themselves. That is they factionalise and splinter too much to be really effective. That was one area the PKK were solid in, solidarity. Iraq is heavily factionalised and Turkey’s vote will really strain alliances.
The next step will be for Iraqi Kurdistan to chase any part of the PKK that isn’t already in Iran across the border to join their mates. Iran wants them out even more than Turkey does. Under normal circumstances Iran Iraq and Turkey would join forces to ‘eradicate’ the threat. But these are not normal circumstances, there is an erratic fourth player in the game of ‘wipe out the Kurds”. That erratic behaviour has perplexed those on the fourth player’s team, even an advocate of amerikan/israeli ME hegemony, the disgusting Michael Rubin.
Number 4, amerika is either playing a smart game or a real dumb one. It doesn’t seem to be in control of these events but who can tell.
The only thing we can be sure of is that people will die needlessly.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 17 2007 23:38 utc | 13
International Rule of Law Part #133434
———————
Vulture funds buy up sovereign debt issued by poor countries at a fraction of its face value, then sue the countries in courts – usually in London, New York or Paris – for their full face value plus interest.
Donegal International, an offshore vulture fund, burst into the spotlight this year when it won an award for $15m from impoverished Zambia in the UK High Court. Donegal paid $3m for some old Zambian debt, then sued for $55m, although the London judge reduced the award to $15m.
But that was the tip of the iceberg. A paper prepared for the IMF/World Bank meetings this week shows there are now $1.8bn of lawsuits against poor countries where people typically live on less than $1 a day. Eight cases were launched in the past year – five against Nicaragua, two against Cameroon and one against Ethiopia. But the report warns the figures are far from complete and the real totals could be higher still.
It shows that of the 24 countries that have received debt cancellation under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, 11 have been targeted for legal action by private creditors. And they have already seen awards in courts of just under $1bn – money that could have been spent on schools and hospitals.
The IMF said litigating creditors were concentrated in the US and UK, as well as UK protectorate tax haven the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2192561,00.html
——
This is like poetry! Imagine a nice courtroom in Paris or London. A solemn judge, versed in the legal codes, well paid lawyers who have gone to the finest schools and the fine gears of justice turning as some irresponsible Congolese orphan or Zambian farmer learns that one cannot simply flout the moral regime of international law without consequence. Thanks god most of this is happening under the auspices of the EU where humanism is known to flourish.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 18 2007 0:53 utc | 14
Defence lawyers in the trial of four officers requested Tuesday an investigation of the prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), doubting of its independence.
Christopher Black (Canada), the lawyer of General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, supported by his colleagues, requested an inquiry commission, acting on mandate from the general assembly of the UN, in order to examine the allegations of interference from the American government in the work of the prosecution.
Black, who made the announcement at the resumption of the trial known as Military II, which had been adjourned since mid-June, bases himself in particular on the book “Paix et Châtiment” (Peace and Punishment) by Florence Hartmann, spokesperson of the former prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.
In this book, Florence Hartmann gives details on the intervention of the American government to the office of the prosecutor, so that it only prosecute former Hutu officials, according to Mr. Black. “Mr. Jallow (NDLR, the current prosecutor) agrees to follow the policy of the American government”, affirms Mr. Black. Questioned by the Hirondelle agency after the publication of this book, the spokesperson of the prosecutor affirmed that Mr. Jallow did not have “any knowledge of these discussions or agreement”.
The Canadian lawyer, who also refers to a recent letter of the prisoners opposing the transfer of cases to Rwanda, alleges that “the prosecution is trying to grant impunity to the RPF (former Tutsi rebellion in power in Kigali)” suspected of war crimes committed in 1994.
Affirming that Washington is an ally of the RPF, Black adds: “My client was targeted by the RPF, he also feels targeted by the American government which controls the ICTR by the means of the prosecution.”
The counsel of the former head of the Rwandan gendarmerie requested the suspension of the trial in order to carry out an investigation.
there’s also controversy about intervention which removed the investigation of the attack on the plane resulting in the deaths of the presidents of rwanda & burundi from ICTR’s mandate, meaning that they could not pursue the very incident which triggered the mass killings. pretty amazing since the heads of two states were killed that day, until you consider the rpts that the missles were supplied by the cia.
Posted by: b real | Oct 18 2007 2:56 utc | 15
On Turkey – sure the Turkish military is itching for a fight, but they are a “full metal” army that would have little chance to really fight the PKK.
Those are excellent guerilla warriers and the area is very rough and mountainious (I have climbed there) with lots of caves to hide and all. The PKK folks were born there and know it by heart. No 2nd/3rd generation army can really beat them on their turf. Excellent fighters including the women (pretty and tough :-))
A different thing would be to take Kirkuk – possible, but then how to hold it?
Best alternative for Turkey: to take and “clean” a ten mile strip at the boarder. But I am afraid the general want some big operation.
Good for Erdogan to hold back for now. But some Kurd may have interest to provoke a bigger fight. Little Erdogan can do against that.
From DiD’s #13: “Moments after the vote, President George Bush urged Turkey not to launch a major attack. . . .”
If Hersh’s analysis that the USA has ceded the south of Iraq in order to make a show of a decreased troop strangth just in time for the 2008 election, then Turkey’s meddling in the north might be a nightmare scenario for the PNAC-types. Going forward with a troop strength reduction might inflate the casualty numbers in that kind of turmoil, and maintaining the present deployment numbers undermines the whole strategy. Nothing like having your own allies throw sand into your gears. I’ll keep my schadenfreude to a minimum since we are, after all, discussing a lot of death and regional instability here.
Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 18 2007 6:15 utc | 17
Ignore the prolonged italics. I seem to be having one of those days.
Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 18 2007 6:16 utc | 18
The Dems are losing every battle. The Pelosi loss on the unneeded and bad timed Armenia resolution has done her lots of harm. But this will harm all U.S. people:
Senate and Bush Agree On Terms of Spying Bill
Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government’s domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.
Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.
The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats’ bill, and an embarrassment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had pushed for the measure’s passage.
Actually, AG nominee is far worse than b makes him out to be (#1). According to head of NLG/ACLU I heard discuss him, he supports the idea that there should be different court systems for Americans & “terrorists”…
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2007 6:54 utc | 20
I’m sure everyone recalls when the Brit special forces guys were caught in Iraq dressed as Arabs in car full of explosives…dem ragheads too effin’ incompetent to even stage their own civil war donchaknow…
So, it’s not surprising that we discover that Israelis are helping smuggle weapons into Gaza – just surprising that Haaretz is reporting it. After all, Israel, likewise being a “democracy”, has to manufacture domestic consent for its policies as well..
WASHINGTON – An Egyptian document distributed in Congress asserts that Israeli soldiers cooperate with smugglers in allowing arms and military equipment into the Gaza Strip. …
The Egyptian document was circulated among congressmen by a group of Egyptian generals visiting Washington for meetings.
Obviously, this doesn’t preclude Egypt being in on the game as well…
Posted by: jj | Oct 18 2007 7:02 utc | 21
Why doesn’t this surprise me?
Study: Israel is biggest polluter in eastern Mediterranean
Posted by: Rick | Oct 18 2007 7:11 utc | 22
If you don’t comment Hillary will win …
Well, I can’t let that happen. 🙂 So only a small hello, telling you all, how much I enjoy reading your comments, even though I do not often have the time to comment. 🙂
Posted by: Fran | Oct 18 2007 7:35 utc | 23
It’s difficult to imagine that Iraqi Kurds will come out in favour of a bigger fight with Turkey. Sure , some faction may but it is doubtful they will have the numbers to provoke something on the scale required to push Erdogan into retaliation. Retaliation would be counterproductive for Turkey since it would almost certainly going by these comments from Iraqi Kurds cause them to unite against Turkey.
Even though the language/cultural divide usually appears to matter more than any sectarian division, there are some Iraqi Kurds who are opposed to partition and who side with the insurgency. If they were to cut a deal with insurgent Arab Iraqis to mount a false flag operation in Turkey of some magnitude, the results would be terrible for many Iraqi people and devastating for amerika’s long term ME strategy.
A major Turkish incursion which would /could happen without any more political consultation would definitely result from another large Turkish military casualty count.
amerika would be hoist by it’s own petard, Turkey is a member of Nato and 70% of supplies for amerika’s Iraq invasion force come through Turkey. Yet the Iraqi government would be forced into a position of fighting the Turkish military or lose it’s power. Without support from the Kurds Maliki loses his majority.
Since the amerikan empire’s strategy is generally predicated on shifting alliances and putting diverse groups under the hammer singly, Iran’s presence rather stymies that.
It is difficult to see how amerika could ‘blame it all on the Persians’ but it is also impossible to isolate any of the other players without getting onside with Iran. But “getting onside with Iran” rather fucks up the next planned phase of the strategy.
The BushCo mob must have gamed through this and have a few tricks to pull, but it is hard to see what they are. amerika’s natural allies in Turkey, the white Turks, derive their power from Turkey’s military who are going to be at the forefront of any push to sort out the PKK.
white Turks are already angry since their undemocratic attempt to deny the masses their electoral voice failed and Erdogan picked up an increased majority.
But it will be in that area that amerika will seek to neuter Turkey. If they can create a situation where the military doesn’t respond but that is believed to be Erdogan’s fault, that may give the military enough excuse and maybe even enough popular support to unseat the government. Of course then the Turkish army would be obliged to invade, so even more duplicity would be required to control that situation.
I don’t see how amerika could pull it off. However given that they don’t have to live in this mess created out of amerikan induced instability, and all the others do, the ‘others’ may take a deep breath and a step back.
I betcha amerika has compounded their mess by giving supplies and arms to the PJAK who are the major resistance arm of the Iranian Kurds. In fact this 2006 article by the Jamestown Foundation’s Global Terrorism Analysis appears to be arguing for just that- clandistine support for the Kurdish resistance in Iran.
There has been a proposal to spark ethnic conflict in Iran by the sound of it:
As the confrontation between Iran and the West escalates, international attention has increasingly focused on Tehran’s internal vulnerability. In particular, analysts point out that Iran’s “imperial” past has resulted in ethnic Persians—who make up scarcely half of Iran’s 80 million people—holding disproportionate power, wealth and influence. If the crisis with Iran escalates further, Iran’s neglected and often resentful Kurdish, Azeri and Arab minorities may increasingly play a key role in global events. At the forefront will likely be Iran’s Kurds, and chief among them PJAK, which for nearly a decade has worked to replace Iran’s theocratic government with a federal and democratic system, respectful of human rights, sexual equality and freedom of expression.
Naturally support must be clandistine and not just for the usual wanting to appear the good guy motive. The PJAK is an offshoot of the PKK and is therefore a proscribed group on the UN terrorist list.
Although of course that is disputed:
The exact history of PJAK is widely disputed. Turkey and Iran claim that PJAK is no more than an off-shoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). According to founding members of PJAK, however, the group began in Iran around 1997 as an entirely peaceful student-based human rights movement.
The founding members are going to deny any links since they want to be able to travel and organise political representation, however it is doubtful that PJAK could have organised in Iran without PKK support. This is the flaw in the whole global anti-terror strategy of course. Groups driven to violence need more communication not further isolation.
Whatever the answer to that is, on the surface,the whole mess is likely to bring amerika’s Iraqi adventure crashing down, even without it becoming widely known amerika has been funding proscribed terrorist groups.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 18 2007 8:03 utc | 24
there’s also controversy about intervention which removed the investigation of the attack on the plane resulting in the deaths of the presidents of rwanda & burundi from ICTR’s mandate, meaning that they could not pursue the very incident which triggered the mass killings. pretty amazing since the heads of two states were killed that day, until you consider the rpts that the missles were supplied by the cia.
Posted by: b real | Oct 17, 2007 10:56:54 PM | 15
Of course, the agents of the French/Belgian client state that carried out genocide in Rwanda is innocent because we can blame everything on Amerika.
The European left is a factory for manufacturing excuses.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 18 2007 9:17 utc | 25
Let me make my remarks in #25 more precise.
The question of whether the CIA or Mossad or some other favorite scapegoat of the EU Left supplied missiles for the incident which supposedly triggered the genocide in Rwanda is only slightly more interesting than the question of who supplied uniforms to the Germans who staged the famous attack from Poland that was Hitler’s excuse for the invasion. The unchallenged facts are that the Hutu nationalists in Rwanda had carried out a classical campaign of stirring up exterminationism, most famously on the radio; that they had organized militias; that these militias then carried out an extensive campaign of genocide under the tacit and sometimes explicit protection of the French/Belgian equipped and trained Army; that France was able to, during the genocide, exert control to save its nationals and property; that France and Belgium had military capabilities in the region which they chose not to use until the Hutu government began to collapse. All this bullshit about the CIA is only a shameful attempt to distract attention from clear and horrible moral culpability. Of course, since we know that EU governments assisted in the CIA rendition, we also know that indignation against the CIA is itself dishonest propaganda.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 18 2007 9:33 utc | 26
Interesting analysis of Turkish dynamics that leaves out one minor point – the effects of the EU’s decision to renege on commitment to Turkish membership.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 18 2007 9:49 utc | 27
@jcairo #11? i’m not sure which article Battros perused, but the one you linked to about the axis shift doesn’t mention any details about the shift other than when it happened and the conspiracy to cover it up
Battros mentions a 26 degree shift caused by massive solar flares and the other article says the flares are a cover-up for the unspecified shift…? [snip]
So, if there was a shift:
Which direction?
How much?
This page
has what he quoted, don’t know if he saw directly. My interest was piqued because in course of debunking he vehemently claimed no validity to massive solar flare story cover-up claim by denying existence of such stories, and their existence in trusted media is easily found. He also confused issue by restating as though flares were cause, not cover-up, and is right that they’re ridiculous as cause. I also found interesting that no one else on the thread pursued subject, in any recognizable direction. (one in unrecognizable directions now has “banned” under name)
Battrosused to post on the site often, not recently (link above is to material the Administrator put on, then every bit of followup)
Think probably is hoax, that not enough weight has left glaciers yet for scenario, but wonder if scenario itself possible after inevitable eathquakes under ice and possibly all ice weight redistributed then (and all my links on that are mainstream, yet no group wacko or otherwise talks about such, to debunk or to try thought experiments.).
There were 2 videos on u-tube, now down. Putting their cached urls here froze my computer twice so am giving google url, 3rd and 4th down (am i finger typist, neurosis) Haven’t seen, only now found.
Here’s something showing why 26 degrees is nuts for something that’s happened already, one reason my first post (#3) this thread has link to people who seem to be suggesting a smaller shift.
By the way, think hoaxes outside subsets of false flag operations, suicided scientists, verified elections, are also sometimes telling: teasing vibrations of the cage.
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 18 2007 17:37 utc | 30
I dont Know the truth but it is not difficult to measure the angle of distraction in the images of “divulgence”.
It is no more than 2º30min. Which is A LOT , but no need to correct the disc of reception of satellites. I think this hoax is very interesting. Please anybody measure the tilt of the images.
Posted by: curious | Oct 18 2007 17:58 utc | 32
from #24 “Whatever the answer to that is, on the surface,the whole mess is likely to bring amerika’s Iraqi adventure crashing down, even without it becoming widely known amerika has been funding proscribed terrorist groups.”
I tend to go a little nuts when I hear the shrub talk about state sponsors of terrorism and nobody calls him on it. It’s clear at least since the fall of the Soviets and probably before, that the US is far and away the biggest sponsor of state funded terrorism.
Wait – I forgot – they’re all freedom fighters.
Posted by: Sgt Dan | Oct 18 2007 20:42 utc | 33
honestly, those vid loops purporting to show the change in the axis of rotation of the earth look more like the earth shifted in space – a change in orbit – if what is in question is the difference shown in the stills between the horizon and the white line.
if the axis of rotation had changed what would have happened is a rotation along the vertical axis, presumably somewhere up to 26 degrees more towards the equator than it has been
this would have shown in the loop as the coastline of Florida moving southward (southwest?) with the earth remaining in place in its orbit
what i see is a translation or the axis moving to a new location
the loops display recording artifacts or perhaps an orbital correction of the satellite
amateur astronomers world-wide would be freaking because their programmable telescopes would be out of whack by even 1 degree
Posted by: jcairo | Oct 18 2007 21:39 utc | 34
b, wtf is your problem? Ari Fleisher is the head of Freedom’s Watch, a newly formed neocon lobby whose goal is to shore up popular support for the occupation in Iraq and a war on Iran.
Okay, are we factually sound there? Good.
The election for the next president will be held on November 4, 2008. Freedom’s Watch plans to raise and spend money on ads attacking the Democratic nominee and Democratic candidates for Congress on these issues. That’s completely consistent with a fundraising goal of $___ million by November 2008.
$200 million is a lot of money, but 1) all the men involved have all been heavy-duty fundraisers for Bush’s presidential campaigns and the national Republican Party, and 2) the Republican candidate for President will be running on the platform that their ads will promote. So I’m not sure why you are mocking a $200 million goal as if they were the South Park underwear gnomes.
In short, for a blog focused on Democratic campaigns, the scale of FW’s ambitions is a relevant diary topic, and it’s perfectly understandable that it would get recommendations. Not your cup of tea, clearly, but I can’t imagine why you think this is a subject on which your skepticism is either informed or useful.
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 18 2007 22:00 utc | 37
The only problem on this thread seems to be anon at 57 who imagines that others have no right to chortle at the pretend contest between Dems and rethugs where the lack of real policy difference has reduced dem spruikers to beating up bulldust about whose gonna be spending the most money on what.
The Dem primary contest appears it will be about measuring pledges, and now it seems the Dem campaign will be too.
If b. finds amusement in the delusions of Dkos habitues being exploited by apparatchik gossip, rumour and half truth concerning how much the rethugs are gonna spend, which has successfully panicked those deluded folks, then we thank him for sharing the joke with us.
If our laughter offends, toddle on back to the safe environment of idiots being exploited by charlatans, nicely.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 19 2007 1:03 utc | 38
NYT photo essay: Return to Nahr al-Bared
Not the greatest, but worth a quick look nonetheless.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 19 2007 1:41 utc | 39
No ‘him’ here, and no anonymous either. My name is showing in the right boxes, but didn’t show up in comment #37. If it doesn’t this time, I’ll put the info in a comment.
If everyone here is so over U.S. electoral politics and beyond that rigged game, then why the fvck are you reading Kos at all?
Bea #39, …very sad coming home to rubble.
Nell #40, I don’t usually read DKOS, sorry.
Debs’ #38 – Nobody could say it better.
Posted by: Rick | Oct 19 2007 2:53 utc | 41
@citizen k #’s 25/26
giving your shopworn argumentative devices a workout today, i see. mossad? nazi’s? “cia bullshit” being only an EU left distraction? and some fallacious logic on renditions to wrap it up. nice effort.
but, in reality, your command of “unchallenged facts” lacks serious context, of which i’ve provided many links over the years, and your accusations themselves — your announced ‘precision’ — eerily serves as “a shameful attempt to distract attention from clear and horrible moral culpability” of the u.s. role in this rwanda affair.
as mahmood mamdani, an acknowledged expert on the events & context involved (and an ugandan, now living in NYC; definitely not one of your EU strawmen), wrote in a LRB essay earlier this year, taking the savedarfurian to task for eliciting more of the holocaust-industry rhetoric created by the kagame regime to manipulate hearts & minds toward military intervention in western sudan,
If many of the leading lights in the Darfur campaign are fired by moral indignation, this derives from two events: the Nazi Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. After all, the seeds of the Save Darfur campaign lie in the tenth-anniversary commemoration of what happened in Rwanda. Darfur is today a metaphor for senseless violence in politics, as indeed Rwanda was a decade before. Most writing on the Rwandan genocide in the US was also done by journalists. In We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, the most widely read book on the genocide, Philip Gourevitch envisaged Rwanda as a replay of the Holocaust, with Hutu cast as perpetrators and Tutsi as victims. Again, the encounter between the two seemed to take place outside any context, as part of an eternal encounter between evil and innocence. Many of the journalists who write about Darfur have Rwanda very much in the back of their minds. In December 2004, Kristof recalled the lessons of Rwanda: ‘Early in his presidency, Mr Bush read a report about Bill Clinton’s paralysis during the Rwandan genocide and scrawled in the margin: “Not on my watch.” But in fact the same thing is happening on his watch, and I find that heartbreaking and baffling.’
With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha Power’s book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But it is the wrong lesson. The Rwandan genocide was born of a civil war which intensified when the settlement to contain it broke down. The settlement, reached at the Arusha Conference, broke down because neither the Hutu Power tendency nor the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) had any interest in observing the power-sharing arrangement at the core of the settlement: the former because it was excluded from the settlement and the latter because it was unwilling to share power in any meaningful way.
What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy. That proxy was the RPF, backed up by entire units from the Uganda Army. The green light was given to the RPF, whose commanding officer, Paul Kagame, had recently returned from training in the US, just as it was lately given to the Ethiopian army in Somalia. Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda.
the french & belgians had their own proxies, of which you are already aware.
for the perspective of another non-EU national, consider that of rwandan paul rusesabagina — the central figure in the (formulaic) movie hotel rwanda — highly touted throughout the world following the movie’s release as a heroic man of great courage & principle when the movie industry was telling the story. for some reason, he’s been having trouble getting the same type of press nowadays…
Keith Harmon Snow: …and Major-General Nsabimana…the Rwandan Armed Forces [Forces Armées Rwandaises, FAR] Chief of Staff who was also on the plane…
Paul Rusesabagina: Yes, he was the Rwandan [FAR] General, the Chief of Staff. So that person who beheaded two nations, to me, is the one, who is responsible for the death of a million people. (20)
KHS: Paul Kagame…
PR: Kagame. He pretends that people are not supposed to be angry; because he pretends that he can keep on killing them. Now, who took machetes first? And went down to the streets? All those refugees who surrounded Kigali, who had been angry for four years, who had lost their family members, killed by the [RPA] rebels; they started revenging on everyone… on Hutus and Tutsis.
KHS: On everyone…
PR: On Hutus and Tutsis, all together; on each and every one.
later in the interview
KHS: What role did Canadian General Romeo play? Because it’s claimed by ICTR lawyers—for the defense—that Dallaire and the UNAMIR forces closed down half the runway, eliminating one possible approach, which made it possible to shoot down the plane carrying the two presidents.
PR: Well, General Dallaire openly helped the RPF rebels, unfortunately.
KHS: He was working for the RPF…
PR: I couldn’t tell exactly who he was working for. For me, what I cannot understand: A Canadian general who came to Rwanda in 1993, who has 2,500 soldiers, and when they are in the genocide [period] and 10 Belgian soldiers were killed, the Belgian government decided to pullout [of Rwanda]. And they [Belgium] had about 350 soldiers in the U.N. [UNAMIR], supported by the United States, and the United Kingdom, and the whole world decided to pull out, and to abandon the whole [peacekeeping] mission, to abandon Rwanda. When they decided to abandon, the General [Dallaire] himself decided to remain, this time not with 2,500 soldiers, but with 200 soldiers. Can you imagine a Canadian general commanding 200 African soldiers? That is a big question mark. I can’t imagine, a U.S. or Canadian general commanding 200 soldiers, and African soldiers… maybe if he was a lieutenant he could have done that…
KHS: So you are saying it was highly irregular for a Canadian General to stay in Rwanda at the time and be commanding only 200 soldiers… So the question then arises: what was a Canadian General doing with 200 African soldiers? Was he working for Canada?
PR: No, not as a Canadian, but maybe on his own.
KHS: Not officially for Canada…
PR: No, not officially.
KHS: But he wasn’t officially U.N. anymore either, is that right?
PR: But he was still, in the end, he was still supposed to be a United Nations commander. But myself, I don’t imagine a Canadian general commanding 200 soldiers. Can you imagine? And knowing, purposely, that he is unable to do anything to protect any one civilian? And with only 200 soldiers for the whole country: you can imagine what it means: nothing, zero.
KHS: Why did he stay?
PR: Why did he stay? That remains a mystery to me. I haven’t understood. But maybe if I was in his position—myself, I would have resigned. Because giving me 200 soldiers, that is a humiliation for a general. So resigning, and staying, remaining, knowing purposely that he was not going to change anything… that was a game. Or maybe secretly he [Dallaire] was working for someone else.
KHS: In other words, the only sensible conclusion is that General Romeo Dallaire remained in Rwanda—after the UNAMIR “peacekeeping” mission was aborted—because he was expected to play a role in the overthrow of the Habyarimana government. And he did play a role: he supported the RPF.
PR: Well, that is a big question mark. Dallaire’s army, his [UNAMIR] soldiers were bringing RPF soldiers, in their [UNAMIR] cars, from the RPF side, to the CND, the house of the parliament in Kigali.
KHS: You are saying that UNAMIR was transporting RPF soldiers from the RPF side of Rwanda, across the ceasefire zone, to Kigali, and this was before April 1994?
PR: Yes, before April 6, 1994. Initially there were supposed to be 600 soldiers, but in [April] 1994 when the genocide broke out there were about 4000 RPF soldiers.
KHS: And what was the official number of RPF soldiers allowed to be in Kigali? Wasn’t there a restriction of RPF soldiers in Kigali according to the Arusha Peace Accords of 1993?
PR: Yes. Under the Arusha Accords it was 600 [RPA] soldiers.
KHS: So, officially, only 600 RPA soldiers were allowed in Kigali, but in fact there were almost 4000 RPA. So obviously Habyarimana knew that, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
PR: Yes, and that is why he [Habyarimana] was angry against each and every one. He was always upset.
KHS: Did you ever hear anything about the investigations into the shooting down of the presidential plane? The 6 April 1994 event that is always credited with “sparking the genocide?”
PR: Well, I heard about the investigations, and I heard that, at a given time, they had come up with a result. But they couldn’t declare the results [at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda], because the prosecutors didn’t want the results to appear. And even today, which is still a mystery, the prosecutor does not take the assassination of President Habyarimana into his mission. And yet according to his mission given by his security council, given by the U.N. resolution of 1994, he was supposed to deal with the Rwandan genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes between January 1 and December 31, 1994, the whole year. So he is excluding the most important point of his mission—the investigation of the death of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. And he does not consider this, even now: the ICTR IS not concerned about Habyarimana’s death.
KHS: Right. It’s inside the bounds of the court—the ICTR—what the court is allowed and required or mandated to investigate, but they have ignored it completely, and they are still ignoring it, and they have told you that they will continue to ignore it.
PR: Yes. And myself, I will never understand. An International Court for Rwanda, given a mission—a mission of reconciliation—but never talking about a terrorist act. To me—assassinating two presidents—that is a terrorist act. First of all, a peace agreement had been signed between the [RPF] rebels and the [Habyarimana] government.
KHS: The Arusha Accords.
PR: Yes. There was a ceasefire; no one was allowed to fight. Whoever killed, that is a terrorist. So, if someone comes as a tribunal, and this is defined, well defined, in their mission, they are supposed to handle what happens between January 1st and December 31rst, 1994. That is the U.N. resolution on Rwanda. So, saying that this double presidential assassination is outside of their boundaries, is unbelievable.
KHS: So this is just another example of how the evidence is hidden, how the RPF is protected, even rewarded, for their military coup. But the RPF has been killing all along, and you have said this, and they are never challenged, because they use the “genocide” card to manipulate, or silence, or accuse people. And you have said openly that there is a genocide going on in Rwanda now.
PR: I’ve said openly that if we do not follow up what is going on in Rwanda, if—again—the international community closes eyes, and ears, and turns backs, then another genocide might be committed in the near future.
KHS: By who? And against who?
PR: By who? Who else can commit that? I told you that Kagame has got an army, a very strong army. He’s got a militia, and this militia is present all over the country, on each and every hill. They kill whomever they want; whenever they want; however they want. Many people get lost. Whoever says “no,” they kill him. Today, people support no one; businesses have stopped. No one is allowed to sell even beans. Even if you cultivate your beans you are no more allowed to go and sell your own beans on the market. The RPF has taken over everything—even all the markets. They have appointed people who go and buy everything and sell them at their own prices. The RPF controls each and everything.
there are plenty of other similiar accounts by central africans. no reason to invoke EU-leftist conspiracies to explain away inconvenient truths.
Posted by: b real | Oct 19 2007 3:05 utc | 42
molly & steve (occasional MoA poster) of meeting resistance were on democracynow today – Meeting Resistance: New Doc Follows Iraqis Fighting U.S. Occupation of Their Country
Posted by: b real | Oct 19 2007 3:38 utc | 43
@Neil – 37 – I assume you refer to my comment in 8
There I wrote: 250+ panic comments on Dkos, only one or two even asking for the source of the $200 million claim in that diary. That source is third level, anonymous and simply promotional.
It was a “panic” diary which now seems to be typical for DKos.
It extremly exaggerated on one very dubious fact (which was 2+weeks old). There was no source given for that fact (well, there was – very indirectly – it took me some 15 minutes to google and read to find it – why wasn’t it linked?). Just one of the commentators besides me did validate the statement in the diary.
That is proof for a sheepish behaviour that now seems to be very typical for the dkos-crowd. It is also proof for very sloppy diary writing – exaggerating the headline and the content to get recommended and attrack comments. No or dubious sources of the “information” and a readership that eats it all.
Someone screams fire! and everybody rushes to look and marvel at the burning match. The bullldozers behind their back seem to be of no interest.
@Nell – 40 If everyone here is so over U.S. electoral politics and beyond that rigged game, then why the fvck are you reading Kos at all?
Little information and lots of ammusement 🙂 …
Can anyone make sense of this from IHT?
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said Thursday action would be taken against the interpreter responsible for an erroneous report that Syria has a nuclear facility.
Syria denied that one of its representatives told the U.N. General Assembly’s committee that deals with disarmament on Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility. It said the representative was misquoted, demanded a correction, and insisted that “such facilities do not exist in Syria.”
After more than seven hours of investigation Wednesday, U.N. officials agreed the Syrian delegate was misquoted. “There was an interpretation error,” U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said. “There was no use of the word nuclear.”
The U.N. expressed regret for the incident.UN: Action to be taken against interpreter for false report that Syria has a nuclear facility
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 7:03 utc | 46
The new (likely) attorney general shows his real face:
On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.
He suggested that both the administration’s program of eavesdropping without warrants and its use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, might be acceptable under the Constitution even if they went beyond what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.
The NYT writer seems to think there is stuff that is “technically” forbidden but can be done anyway. Why else would he made the destinction?
Wonder if its “technical” illegal when his wife and/or children get raped … or he gets tortured himself …
@JJ – Can anyone make sense of this from IHT?
Yes, there were headlines in the Israeli press that the Syrian ambassador to the UN had admitted that the Israeli air raid hit nuclear stuff in Syria.
Turns out that the UN translator “screwed up”. An “innocent mistake” like the translation of Ahmedinejad’s “wipe Israel off the map”.
The interesting question now is who paid the translator?
—
Neocon watcher Jim Lobe on changes in the neocon push
.. I think neo-conservatives, [..] are now embracing [that] Iran is now the main target, and, if that means a resurrection of the Baathists and bolstering Islamists previously allied to al Qaeda in Iraq, so be it.
Turns out that the UN translator “screwed up”. An “innocent mistake” like the translation of Ahmedinejad’s “wipe Israel off the map”.
The interesting question now is who paid the translator?
Yes. I was wondering about that aspect. Wasn’t it MEMRI/an outfit founded by M. Wurmser who does the systematic mis-translations? Perhaps they weren’t paid, but had a commonality of interests/previously worked for same firm…or maybe neocons are finding this mistranslation racquet so helpful that they’re working to get their people on UN staff…
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 8:06 utc | 49
jj, it is interesting that the error occurred in the translation from French to English. looks like maybe Sarkozy is taking Bliar’s place as the créateur d’intelligence for his new amerikan friends.
it would be interesting to know the nationality and political affiliation of this interpreter, or taking off the tinfoil hat, maybe he/she is just grossly incompetent….
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 19 2007 8:12 utc | 51
The reason birdflu has not become an epidemic among humans is ‘cuz it settled in the lower lungs, so wasn’t expelled w/the breath. Can anyone think of any legitimate reason for doing the research needed to turn it into epidemic??? ‘Cuz it looks like they may have succeeded… Change ONE Amino Acid & you hit the jackpot
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 8:14 utc | 52
DoS, sounds like plenty of incompetence to go around on top of who knows what. If they just hired someone, you’d think in such a sensitive capacity they’d check their translations, during a probationary period at least, to avoid precisely this kind of issue. Funny how I’d always thought of translators as apolitical functionaries – guess that’s only if they do the job their employers intended..
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 8:18 utc | 53
DoS, sounds like plenty of incompetence to go around on top of —???. If they just hired someone, you’d think in such a sensitive capacity they’d check their translations, during a probationary period at least, to avoid precisely this kind of issue.
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 8:20 utc | 54
there are plenty of other similiar accounts by central africans. no reason to invoke EU-leftist conspiracies to explain away inconvenient truths.
Posted by: b real | Oct 18, 2007 11:05:14 PM | 42
Yes same bullshit. There is no EU-leftist conspiracy, there is just the continued complicity where the EU left is happy to march up and down condemning the horrible USA and fulminating about the terrible CIA, as if their own governments were innocent bystanders. I don’t give a shit what you say about Paul Kigale. He may be a monster. However, we have trials of French and Belgian clients who are clearly guilty of genocide under the tacit approval of their masters and who find a friendly complicit audience that is always ready to ignore the role of EU governments and the EU itself and to happily change the subject to the bad Yankees. Once again, the CIA to European leftists has the role that abortion has to US Catholics. No matter what crime the government commits, all they need to do is jump up and down and point at the distractor and the sheep line up obediently and salute.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 19 2007 8:50 utc | 55
Interesting isn’t it, that Amy Goodman mysteriously gets Bell’s Palsy, Stephanie Miller gets mercury poisoning(!) and now Randi Rhodes? Let’s not forget also, the anthrax killers is still out there, and the veiled threats to waxman upon investigating Blackwater. Looks like the brownshirts are TCB.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 19 2007 9:11 utc | 56
Uncle, what’s the story w/Rhodes & Waxman? I’d be careful about jumping to conclusions w/AG. She hasn’t looked too well in awhile. I kept wondering if it was my TV, or what black does to her skin, or what… But can You think of any legitimate reason for figuring out how to make Birdflu contagious?
Posted by: jj | Oct 19 2007 9:42 utc | 57
@ jj, UN interpreter – Syria. It is clear from the IHT article. She (most are female) was a freelance *translator* at the UN. The original interpreter (or one of them anyway) got it right; it was the rendering of the document into English that went wrong. The UN employs a lot of freelance translators, it is cheaper, some of them are not of high excellence, believe me. As this happened in NY, she was maybe even from an agency. Probably some recent grad, American most likely, with 3 languages, a loopy-keen newbie? The hype infects everyone..but who knows, more sinister is possible? The mistake should have been caught, so the question is: who let it pass? We will never know.
Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 19 2007 13:16 utc | 58
As I’ve said here before, H.C. is the Annointed One, as this article makes unmistakably obvious.
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.
Mrs Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts….
The industry’s strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 – twice the sum collected by his Democratic rival John Kerry.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 19 2007 13:23 utc | 59
As I’ve said here before, H.C. is the Annointed One, as this article makes unmistakably obvious.
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.
Mrs Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts….
The industry’s strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 – twice the sum collected by his Democratic rival John Kerry.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 19 2007 13:23 utc | 60
One for you, b, as I seem to remember you are interested in such things:
Buddha of ashes.
It’s only down the road in Berlin. Perhaps you can get along?
Posted by: Dismal Science | Oct 19 2007 15:13 utc | 61
“HC is the anointed one.”
From a voter’s perspective, HC is a woman. She is a Clinton (cuts both ways) but the Dynasty Dame aspect is negative overall. She has a past. Her positions are not Democrat. Her hairdos are a mess. She is ‘from’ NY.
From the PTB perspective she has shown she will perform, and is reliable (corruptible.) Is she strong enough? There must be doubts.
All IMHO: She is not part of the inner circle who holds power, even if she has been participating in prayer groups since forever. She will win the nomination, but not the election. All her moves to get into the top circle will be for nill. HC is a politican’s politician, that is a French expression, meaning, having a narrow focus on jockeying in that sphere, losing sight of the larger scope, and of the voters, in favor of ..well favors, contacts, position, status, adulation, money.
The last two elections were stolen, this one will be as well. I doubt HC will fit the bill, if any accepted Repub candidate emerges he will be anointed. It is important for the PTB or the inner cabal that he be a Republican, because they automatically sway the grass roots, whereas Democrats are pesky and divided, have to appeal to all kinds of types. Authoritarianism is Republican, Gitmo and torture are Republican, driving s Suv is Republican, and that is it.
Well we will see. One pov.
Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 19 2007 15:52 utc | 62
@c k – There is no EU-leftist conspiracy, there is just the continued complicity where the EU left is happy to march up and down condemning the horrible USA and fulminating about the terrible CIA, as if their own governments were innocent bystanders.
What makes you think that a “European left” (which I doubt exist the way you think it does) would have any more means to influence European policies than the “U.S. left” has to influence U.S. policy.
The U.S. gets most cricism:
1. because of its “size” and visibility in global politics
2. because the number of its interventions in other countries
3. because of its contempt for any outside cricism.
Again – show me the “European left” you are so outraged about – I don’t see it.
In case anyone was wondering, Lt Col Steele (no affiliation) was sentenced today. Kinda looks like a trumped up affair. The deal about classified documents is pure rubbish, no one even hints that he passed any information or that any information was lost, only that it could have been.
now, for the rest of the story……..
Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 19 2007 18:36 utc | 64
The U.S. gets most cricism:
1. because of its “size” and visibility in global politics
2. because the number of its interventions in other countries
3. because of its contempt for any outside cricism.
Again – show me the “European left” you are so outraged about – I don’t see it.
Posted by: b | Oct 19, 2007 12:23:43 PM | 63
This makes me laugh. Americans are contemptuous of outside criticism?
I think that the standard evasionary morality of the European left is well expressed on this site and your continued conspiracy mongering about Paul Kigale is a perfect case in point. It’s really very safe and comfortable to rail against the big bad USA and the Israelis who spit on the rule of international law as practiced by the supremely civilized people of Europe. So France and Belgium arm and advise people who hack a million people to death and when a small number of them come to trial, we get a lot of blather about how it was really all the fault of the CIA.
I don’t know if any of us can stop the march over the cliff of fascism and environmental destruction, but I do know that the continued willingness of Europeans to blame everyone else is as dangerous as the rise of dominianism in the USA.
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 19 2007 19:00 utc | 65
@65 – what are you smoking? may I have some?
This makes me laugh. Americans are contemptuous of outside criticism?
You bet – reread your comment 🙂 Think of freedom fries and the reaction in 2004 when the British Guardian asked its US readers to vote against Bush. From my personal years working in international software stuff: “Not invented here” is the usual reaction when one comes from outside the US and asks a US software developer to improve this or that detail on his stuff. Even happens when one pays them. I have worked with developers in other countries too and the reaction is typical only for US folks.
Others share my view:
Saw an interview with Roland Emmerich who directed ‘Independence Day’ on Wednesday. The last movie he produced was Trade about sex trafficing in North America. The movie flopped. Asked why Emmerich answered: “Americans don’t like to see things so critical of their country.”
I think that the standard evasionary morality of the European left is well expressed on this site and your continued conspiracy mongering about Paul Kigale is a perfect case in point.
Where did I ever say something about Kigale?
It’s really very safe and comfortable to rail against the big bad USA and the Israelis who spit on the rule of international law as practiced by the supremely civilized people of Europe.
Europe as you see it doesn’t exist as a country any more than the “European left” exists. Where did I claim that Europe is better? Thinking about it, I don’t know of a European country that officially tortures as the US and Israel do.
So France and Belgium arm and advise people who hack a million people to death and when a small number of them come to trial, we get a lot of blather about how it was really all the fault of the CIA.
Again – I never looked into that conflict and don’t have much of an opinion about who is guilty of what in that case. The bigger and smaller conflicts I looked into more often than not had some connection to nefarious CIA mangling.
I don’t know if any of us can stop the march over the cliff of fascism and environmental destruction, but I do know that the continued willingness of Europeans to blame everyone else is as dangerous as the rise of dominianism in the USA.
Really – what are you smoking?
You bet – reread your comment 🙂 Think of freedom fries and the reaction in 2004 when the British Guardian asked its US readers to vote against Bush. From my personal years working in international software stuff: “Not invented here” is the usual reaction when one comes from outside the US and asks a US software developer to improve this or that detail on his stuff. Even happens when one pays them. I have worked with developers in other countries too and the reaction is typical only for US folks
Well, we both think the other one is drunk, at best.
Oh yes because it is well known that German engineers are famous for their humility and willingness to learn from others unlike Americans! You can even ask them, they will tell you – in great detail. And Muncheners never drink beer. Parisians love to help foreigners learn to speak French! Swedes are known for their dancing and devil-may-care light spiritedness.
Asked why Emmerich answered: “Americans don’t like to see things so critical of their country.”
That’s outstandingly original of Americans don’t you think? Of course Americans hate any films that are not gung-ho exercises in chauvanism which is why films like “Born on the 4th of July” or Apocalypse Now or Wall Street or Michael Clayton all flop and why Michael Moore is in the poorhouse.
We know that any putative flaws in “Trade” are simply excuses?
No?>
My apologies for mixing you up with “b real” who does go on and on about Kigale.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 19 2007 20:16 utc | 67
@ jcairo, thanks for links #11 on solstices and equinoxes, and measuring image reported # 34.
If great bulk of ice on Greenland and Antarctica went into oceans quickly due to roughly simultaneous earthquakes, might the axis shift? If all that mass is distributed worldwide as displaced sea water, if shift did occur, any speculation as to how major or in what direction? Are we more likely to get increased seasons or less? Less seems likely to me, if thing possible at all, but I don’t know the physics of spinning objects.
Swopa on the new Iraqi contracts with Iran and China to build power plants:
As I remarked earlier this month, the Team Shiite government (or what’s left of it) seems to be realizing that bad things could happen in the next elections — even despite their best effort at intimidation and vote-rigging — if they don’t get off their butt with regard to providing basic services.
It would be a truly impressive demonstration of how seriously they take the threat if even graft is forced to take a back seat temporarily. That particular moment of truth doesn’t appear to have ever occurred on the U.S. side of the equation.
Posted by: small coke | Oct 19 2007 23:29 utc | 69
Priests Protesting Torture Jailed
Bill Quigley – Information Clearing House October 18, 2007
Louis Vitale, 75, a Franciscan priest, and Steve Kelly, 58, a Jesuit priest, were each sentenced to five months in federal prison for attempting to deliver a letter opposing the teaching of torture at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Both priests were taken directly into jail from the courtroom after sentencing.
Fort Huachuca is the headquarters of military intelligence in the U.S. and the place where military and civilian interrogators are taught how to extract information from prisoners. The priests attempted to deliver their letter to Major General Barbara Fast, commander of Fort Huachuca. Fast was previously the head of all military intelligence in Iraq during the atrocities of Abu Ghraib.
The priests were arrested while kneeling in prayer halfway up the driveway to Fort Huachuca in November 2006. Both priests were charged with trespass on a military base and resisting orders of an officer to stop.
Posted by: DM | Oct 20 2007 4:00 utc | 71
Is this the America you thought you were living in? Is this the America your parents and teachers told you about? Is this the America that you sing about at all the ball games and public events, “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? Is this the America you have carried in your mind, and perhaps your heart, all these years?
You’d better snap out of it. You’d better slap yourself in the face and look around, see where you really are. You aren’t living in “the land of the free;” you’re living in a two-bit, tin-pot, half-assed tyranny, led by greasy cut-throats and howling cranks. And they have peopled the entire government with ideological automatons, willing and eager to use the levers of power to punish all those who displease the Leader.
Posted by: DM | Oct 20 2007 4:46 utc | 72
bill conroy over at narcosphere has a diary on his frustrated efforts to get some more information on the two german filmmakers awaiting trial in nigeria on espionage charges
Message from the Earth: Free Opitz and Lehmann Now!
The real target of this legal terror is likely Asuni, who has a long history as an activist in Nigeria and by her own admission, according to media reports, has made numerous enemies among Nigeria’s power hungry political class.
But nonetheless, Opitz and Lehmann, are along for the ride. Their fate should be of particular importance to all of us, since authentic journalists across the globe covering similar indigenous struggles could well suffer a similar fate under the guise of national security. That holds true even here in the United States, where the current administration has employed the mantra of national security to methodically smother civil liberties, even rights as basic as habeas corpus, with the acquiescence of Congress and the courts.
With that in mind, it seemed appropriate to ask some hard questions about the Opitz and Lehmann case.
the last i read, which was probably a week ago now, they had been granted bail & released to the custody of the german embassy while awaiting trial. haven’t noticed any nigerian press coverage this week on it.
Posted by: b real | Oct 20 2007 6:10 utc | 73
ck- who is this “Kigale” fellow you bring up so much?
Posted by: b real | Oct 19, 2007 10:40:55 PM | 70
Of course, I mean to write Kagame and have written in the name of the Rwandan capitol in error.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 20 2007 13:22 utc | 74
ck
if you have difficulty determining the difference between a man & or a ville – i think we have some epistemological problems, right there
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2007 13:27 utc | 75
RG: Epistemology has nothing to do with it. Aphasia is not a philosophical condition and is one of the reasons why language has so many redundancies that people who want to understand, can.
Posted by: citizen k | Oct 20 2007 14:21 utc | 76
ck
aphasiac is one thing – forgetting the name of a central african player, quite another
next you’ll be telling me fidel castro played soccer for naples
Posted by: r’giap | Oct 20 2007 15:52 utc | 77
Aphasia (or aphemia) is a loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to injury to brain areas specialized for these functions. It is not a result of deficits in sensory, intellect, or psychiatric functioning. (Brookshire, 1992; Goodglass 1993) It is also not muscle weakness or a cognitive disorder.
Posted by: jcairo | Oct 20 2007 22:39 utc | 78
jcairo, i know – we published a book of texts from a men’s shelter here called, ‘étreintes aphasiques’
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 21 2007 0:16 utc | 79
Since we are well on our way back to the Middle Ages, “Paul of Kigali” may soon be appropriate. Likewise “George of Washington”.
Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 21 2007 2:07 utc | 80