Above was by me, Owl, but for some reason the signature did not get on. One professor pointed out that Elahi has saved himself lots of hassles at airports by having all this information available.

Posted by: Owl | May 8 2008 9:28 utc | 4

A rare piece of good news, though I don’t see how they will be able to get any supplies in:
Algeria offers to cover energy supply needs of the Gaza Strip

As the Gaza Strip residents are threatened by epidemic due to fuel shortage and operations in the chirurgical wards of hospitals have been reduced to an absolute minimum, Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas’ political office, said that the Algerian government has offered to cover all energy supply needs of the Gaza Strip for free.

Posted by: Alamet | May 8 2008 14:08 utc | 6

FBI raids Special Counsel Buildings
Remember the guy whom had his computer wiped by an out side org called “computer geeks’?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 8 2008 16:57 utc | 8

The Gospel

In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that “the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be produced by three days’ work a week.”
…
Today “work and more work” is the accepted way of doing things. If anything, improvements to the labor-saving machinery since the 1920s have intensified the trend. Machines can save labor, but only if they go idle when we possess enough of what they can produce. In other words, the machinery offers us an opportunity to work less, an opportunity that as a society we have chosen not to take. Instead, we have allowed the owners of those machines to define their purpose: not reduction of labor, but “higher productivity”—and with it the imperative to consume virtually everything that the machinery can possibly produce.

Posted by: Cloud | May 8 2008 17:13 utc | 10

The responsibility for gross consumption has been that of the poor for a long time. One only has to consider the increased rates of obesity and diabetes amongst people with lower incomes to realise that we live in a society where the poor are encouraged to over-consume by way of mass advertising and media campaigns but those who are better off consume ‘personal trainers’ or dieticians whose primary aim appears to be to assist the ‘client’ to counter the dangerous messages being pushed out to the masses.
What I find most interesting about Cloud’s quotation is that this Labour Secretary’s spiel which was in 1927 coincides pretty much with the introduction of planned obsolescence and ‘disposables’. Although neither of those manufacturing fads really took off until the post WW2 boom it is likely that the thinking that Davis was enunciating here, was what began the move towards goods which weren’t designed to last forever. That were planned to fail so they would need to be replaced.
Planned obsolescence is the hidden horror of environmentalism, the issue people particularly environmentalists who want to get ahead with a minimum of approbation, refuse to discuss openly.
If the goods we consumed didn’t have to be replaced every couple of years the rug would be pulled out from all major corporations whose primary tenet is ‘expand, expand’. A corporation which doesn’t grow every quarter is considered a failure by stockholders and since the only way to achieve growth is by increasing the customer base while retaining the old one, the only real option of business is to sell the same goods regularly to existing customers while expanding their markets into ‘new’ economies such as India and China.
It is a lunacy that will never be properly addressed until capitalism, whose momentum is almost entirely derived from the exponential growth induced by usury, has been destroyed.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 8 2008 20:50 utc | 12

thanks Uncle for #2, I highly recommend it to other moon dwellers, in particular it sheds light on the strange apparent boom in discretionary consumption by working people while bankruptcies are going up, which ties into other stuff on this thread. it does take a while but it is worth it, best lecture by a professor I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in a university for far too long

Posted by: boxcar mike | May 9 2008 1:15 utc | 14

@#10, 11, and 15:
Although I have not read it, it appears (from info on the same Wiki page) that “The Man Who Ate The World” is probably set in a similar ‘universe’ in a similar time, but is about a person’s choice (compulsion) to consume.

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | May 9 2008 1:50 utc | 16

Uncle @2.
Thanks. Explains a lot. I’ll pass on to others.
Thanks again

Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | May 9 2008 3:59 utc | 18

Sorry about the double post!
@ 15 — Actually, “The Man Who Ate the World” is in the “Midas Plague” collection.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | May 9 2008 4:36 utc | 20

Hillaryious: campaign talk

Posted by: b | May 9 2008 5:33 utc | 22

# 22,
the movie was pretty good too, but not nearly as funny

Posted by: anna missed | May 9 2008 7:55 utc | 24

Uncle, my today’s paper had an article about the middle class in Germany collapsing, but it mentioned (following German studies) flexi-work, temp work, unemployment payments, and the (presumbably swiss) author threw in the ‘strong central state’ argument and taxation. A mish mash…
Warren is good (I saw that vid), it’s interesting that she is not from the financial community, but from law.
She lays out great descriptions of the change in family spending 1970 – early 2000s, showing that standard of living for the average family has not improved much (bit of back pedal there I think), and the loss in security or confidence is tremendous. Average families (as she defines it) are extremely vulnerable, ready to be churned up by the slightest mishap.
However, she doesn’t address causes; nor remedies. OK it is not her job, a cheap shot.
Ho!, what is the scene when top academics like her have nothing to say except a lot of charts? I don’t want her to be a socialist firebrand, or take a political stance, that is not the point; but all the number tracking shouldn’t just take place in a void.
She mentions, for ex. that taxes have risen (some 30% iirc, inflation adjusted). ? – a no brainer, called Pax Americana. But into this area she cannot venture – even if she knows (probably not) she can’t mention it. So middle class families are hurting, then what?
She mentions a rise in mortgage payments of over 70%, again supposedly adjusted, 1970-2003 (ex), of course for bigger, better, more comfortable, energy hogging, properties. In recent years, as well as trad. as a % of income, the portion that goes to housing in the US is high to very high for top slice of the lower class (that can maybe aspire) to the top 1%, billionaires. The US has land: but servicing it is very expensive; and a parasitic group of real estate types skims some huge % off the top. And so on. – Getting too long.
this visual from the NYT built on the CPI (another lying stat.) is informative as presenting the official round up. Note the big chunk devoted to land. Land, not housing.
link

Posted by: Tangerine | May 9 2008 17:17 utc | 26

@Hannah – @25 – Interesting – Blix is correct here:

In the case of Iran, I think that while the Europeans have a number of carrots on the table, they say that these carrots are only available to Iran if, first, Iran does its part. There’s a precondition that Iran should suspend enrichment. I don’t know any negotiations in which one party says, yes, I will do my part and then we’ll discuss what you’ll give me for it. But the two elements I mentioned in the case of North Korea are not, to my knowledge, on the table in the case of Iran. Namely, a guarantee against attack, and talk about diplomatic relations. So I think that playing these two cards would be enormously valuable.

He also emphazises not to humilate the other. A very important point in diplomacy the U.S. has forgotten.

Posted by: b | May 9 2008 18:14 utc | 28

Yeah, here’s an opportunity. Computer games are the fastest growing industry in USA.
GTA4 outsold Iron Man, both of which portend America dominated by comic book culture.
Think I’m kidding? I found Depends in my kid’s closet, so he doesn’t have to get up,
and an open bottle of Fabreeze, so he doesn’t have to get up to empty the used ones!
Don’t wait for CoMC. Better invest in Coca-Cola, Mars Candy, and Marvel Enterprises.

Posted by: Atom Ant | May 10 2008 5:07 utc | 30

b, i did say it was a lying stat. the problem lies firstly with the definition of the basket which is not correct according to qualified commentators (e.g. price of food; but these are specialist arguments and could go on for ever..) who can ‘afford’ it or not is another question, what part, how, why, how do they adjust? etc. nevertheless, it gives an ‘official’ picture, a standard that can be dissed and discussed. such numbers are part of the picture of poverty in the US. Warren (afaik) uses them as well.
b real, yes Warren’s point that the MC can no longer help those below is important and little mentioned.

Posted by: Tangerine | May 10 2008 15:47 utc | 32

we live in the fucking middle ages. it is so dark; certainly darker than weimar
when people like nasrallah or a mugabe or putin look reasonable then you understand how the cretinisation has taken control
the recent election of berlusconi is just the same as other europeans countries exceptit is in extremis. the leadership of every european country is so cretinous that you understand crowds of cows possess keener intelligence. that the corpses that litter the fields & cemetries of europe possess profounder understanding of what is happening. there’s not one – brown, sarkozy, merkel, berlusconi etc etc etc – these are ‘inteligenences’ so primitive that it would barely measure as any movement of neurons
like hitler rôhm & goerring before them – they just look like bags of shit covered in cloth & speak no better than that. clemencau was also a cretin but at least he could breathe & speak at the same of time – the genius of a person like leon blum is an impossibility in this dark moment. the best we can produce in europe at this time is a form of the nazi jurisprudential cadre – functionaries who are willing to go to the ends of their humanity to serve the needs of their master
this in a time when the imperial power is so full of numbskulls they can’t even keep to their own policies for more than 24 hours
i suggest a fabulous book – which i think has been translated into english & german & is available in french & obviouslly italian – ‘gommora’ by roberto saviano – it is ‘about’ the cammorra but it is about the world we live in – really

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 10 2008 18:48 utc | 34

– i watched it all knew her before and have read some papers she published-
She lays out the long view, from 1970, to the early/middle 2000’s.
Rightly so, she is not concerned with this or that admin. Clinton or Bush are not part of her analysis. Tax rises.. house prices, rents, go up…etc and go on doing so, linking it to this or that admin is a distraction.
She points to facts like, the ‘regular family’ needs two cars, as both have jobs that require that.
Then they need child care, as they are working all the time.
So they hire illegals, or need to pay expensive pre-school plus a minder…
They are in fact running a small enterprise, where the bringing up of the kids is a drain with uncertain return, she doesn’t say that – type into google, something like AFFORD CHILDREN, many Americans cannot, or are not willing, etc.
Her numbers show that the crippling costs for that average family are, a) for land (housing), b) for health insurance/health costs, that is, the two basics without which no one can be secure and move forwards.
Light:: The Duggar family, media icons, 19 or more?, children and going strong:
wiki

Posted by: Tangerine | May 10 2008 19:27 utc | 36

Badger analyses ambiguities, questions whether full Iraqi govt and US have made any commitment to truce.
US certainly has not pulled back yet.

Baghdad, May 10, (VOI) – Three large parts of Sadr city were subjected to heavy bombardment that was continuously carried out by U.S. helicopters, starting from Saturday 3:30 p.m. until now, despite the Iraqi government and representatives of the Sadr movement having signed an agreement to stop confrontations in the city.

Posted by: small coke | May 10 2008 22:14 utc | 38

NY Times Sunday
Obama Won’t Rule Out Easing Clinton Campaign Debt
By Jeff Zeleny
Updated WOODBURN, Ore. – Senator Barack Obama said today that he would not rule out the possibility of helping Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton retire her campaign debt to bring her into the fold and unify Democrats.
—
Recall Senator Kerry retired early from the elections, ran actually, with $25M in surplus campaign funds that he was allowed to KEEP! Then why is the taxpayer bailing out the failed Clinton campaign, when Bill just sucked down $200M in speaking fees?
And don’t give me that bullshit, “it’s not coming from the taxpayer”. EVERYTHING in
WADC comes from the taxpayer, it just depends on how many times it gets stepped on.
—
Red Army, Blue Army, same Neo-Soviet
—
Let Hillary earn it back flying Air America drug runs to Colombia, their old M.O.

Posted by: Telly Savalas | May 11 2008 6:19 utc | 40

The further erosion of the MC…
Two of the nation’s largest labor Unions Forge Secret Pacts With Major Employers.

it is critical to the success of the partnership “that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements.” That includes not disclosing them to union members.

Entropy nation, proceeds a pace…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 11 2008 15:54 utc | 42

Funny:
2 Humvees missing from US base in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two armored Humvees were missing from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Monday.
The military was investigating whether the vehicles were stolen, although officials believed they were likely still in the possession of U.S. personnel but simply unaccounted for, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning.
The two vehicles were reported missing on May 6 from U.S. Camp Phoenix in the capital, Kabul, Fanning said.

Posted by: b | May 12 2008 12:50 utc | 44

Shanghai news channel on sopcast had the best coverage through the morning (US time) hours.
There are at least 30 million people – if my memory is correct – in Sichuan province, with 15 million+ concentrated in the two cities of Chengdu and Chongqing. I don’t know how much building standards have risen in the 20 years since I lived there, but it’s hard to imagine the shoddy concrete structures I remember withstanding a quake of that magnitude. I sincerely hope that somehow this turns out not to be as bad as I fear it will.

Posted by: mats | May 12 2008 15:18 utc | 46

arm the homeless

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 12 2008 20:52 utc | 48

Thanks for the video, rememberinggiap.
Powerful stuff.

Posted by: jonku | May 12 2008 23:16 utc | 50

Awww,happy b-day annie, and belated mothers days to all the MOA mothers.
Too bad Mother’s Day, antiwar action was hijacked by State & Corps
Origins of Mother’s Day in the United States:

Mother’s Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament.

The idea was taken up by a West Virginian, Ann Jarvis, who sought to reconcile North and South after the Civil War and worked in the real trenches – improving sanitation.

When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912.

Now the state stepped in to impose its own meaning on the practice:

n 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Long as you’re waving the flag, it’s all good, right?
Inevitably:

Nine years after the first official Mother’s Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become.

War is imminent, according to Justin Raimondo.

It looks like the War Party is victorious, at least according to Philip Giraldi writing on The American Conservative blog:
“There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Quds-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action.”
Alarm bells ought to be going off across the nation. The presidential candidates ought to be debating whether or not this is the right course. Obama, the “antiwar” candidate, ought to be speaking out.
Instead, what we hear is… silence. If ever there was a scoop, then this is a major one. Yet not a word is being spoken about it in the “mainstream” media. So much for the supposedly highly competitive nature of the news business. While I’m a very big fan of The American Conservative – hey, they made me an associate editor! – one has to wonder: why do we have to read this on their blog and nowhere else?
Of course, the reason could be because it’s not true, but my sources are telling me that this isn’t just “speculation and buzz” – it’s for real. War is imminent. The markets sense it, too, which is why the price of oil keeps climbing to record levels.
Giraldi has more:
“The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The U.S. demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the U.S. ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles.”
A decision to go to war, sub rosa back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran using the Kurds (probably the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which has close ties to Iran) as intermediaries, missile strikes near Tehran, the dissent of Robert Gates: all of this is very big news. Yet not a word is reaching the general public.
The same pattern that characterized the run-up to war with Iraq is being employed in the case of Iran. We’re acting on intelligence that is so overcooked the stench is overpowering. There is no evidence these alleged training camps even exist, or, if they do, that their purpose is to train Iraqi “militants.” Indeed, all efforts to show the media hard evidence for this phantom threat seem to have evaporated into thin air: these charges are the intelligence community’s equivalent of “vaporware.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 13 2008 12:35 utc | 52

happy birthday, annie!

Posted by: b real | May 13 2008 14:45 utc | 54

Live blogging the Chicago Iran hearings.

Press Conference
10:41 Alderman Joe Moore, sponsor of the resolution opposed to a US military attack on Iran and urging the Co-sponsors of the resolution
5years ago the council made history passing a resolution against war in IraqSadly our leaders did not take heed. Now most observers agree the war was a horrible mistake.
Now more than 4000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, more than a million Iraqis killed or wounded.
National Priorities Project, Chicago has spent: and History is repeating itself. The Administration is beating the drum of war, despite the Iran NIE.
As in the runup to war in Iraq, basing the threat on unsubstantiated information.
Some would argue that this is not Chicago’s business. But it is definitely Chicago’s business. It’s Chicago’s neighborhoods who will suffer.
Chicago will once again lead the nation as a city for peace.
10:45 Scott Ritter
———————————–
Olbermann on Bloch, Blackwater, and Iran Lies

WHY AREN’T DAILY KOS OR ANY OF THE OTHER BIG BOX BLOGS DOING LIVE BLOGGING ON THIS IMPORTANT STAND AGAINST MORE MASS MURDER???
Also see, Conyers Tells Bush Iran Attack = Impeachment;
hahahaha, puke…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 13 2008 19:38 utc | 56

annie
happy birthday
venceremos

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 13 2008 20:57 utc | 58

colombia journal: Extradition of Paramilitary Leaders Undermines Para-Politics Investigation

In the early hours of May 13, Colombian security forces transported 14 high-ranking paramilitary leaders from their prison cells to an aircraft that whisked them out of the country and to the United States. Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe had ordered that the paramilitary leaders be extradited to face drug trafficking charges in the United States because, as Interior Minister Carlos Holgumn stated, “In some cases they were still committing crimes and reorganizing criminal structures” from their prison cells. The paramilitary leaders were engaged in a demobilization process that called for them to confess their crimes in return for reduced jail sentences. In their testimonies, several paramilitary leaders revealed links between the right-wing militia organization and elected officials and multinational corporations. By extraditing the paramilitary leaders, President Uribe has ensured that they will do no further harm to himself and his political allies as he has effectively stymied future investigations into the so-called para-politics scandal.
Sixty-one elected officials, the majority of whom are political allies of President Uribe, are currently under investigation for ties to right-wing paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Thirty of the officials are already in prison, including the president’s cousin and former senator Mario Uribe. Much of the evidence linking the politicians with the AUC has come from testimonies provided by paramilitary leaders as part of the demobilization process.
For President Uribe, the demobilization of the AUC—the country’s principal violators of human rights—was supposed to represent a peace feather in his cap. The original goal of the demobilization was to have the paramilitary leaders serve prison terms as short as 22 months—once the negotiating process was considered as time served and good behavior was taken into account. In return, the paramilitary leaders would demobilize all their fighters, confess their crimes and completely dismantle their criminal organizations, including their drug trafficking networks—or at least appear to do so.
However, due to international pressure and virulent protests from sectors within Colombian civil society, Uribe was forced to revise the plan to provide the AUC leaders with a virtual amnesty, instead insisting that they serve eight years in prison. The paramilitary leaders responded by threatening to withdraw from the process. Uribe then ordered them transferred from the ranch in northern Colombia where the negotiations had taken place to maximum-security prisons.
The original plan hatched between Uribe and the AUC leaders began to unravel as animosity between the government and the paramilitaries intensified. Demobilized paramilitary leaders soon began revealing ties between the militia and elected officials allied with the country’s president. The para-politics scandal has not only undermined the legitimacy of the Colombian government, it has also hurt Uribe’s efforts to sign free trade agreements with the United States and Canada.
With the paramilitary leaders safely ensconced in maximum-security prisons, there was no need to secretly whisk them out of the country in the middle of the night. Even if they were still managing their illegal activities from within their prisons cells—and they likely were—the Uribe administration could have allowed the AUC leaders to complete their testimonies before announcing its intention to extradite them. However, to do so would have ensured that Uribe and his political allies would have become further enmeshed in the para-politics investigation.
Consequently, the most effective way of silencing the paramilitary leaders was to extradite them to the United States where they will stand trial on drug trafficking charges. Meanwhile, their human rights abuses and links to Colombian officials will be considered irrelevant to the cases against them and so will remain secret. In all likelihood, as has occurred with FARC guerrilla leader Simón Trinidad since he was extradited to the United States, the paramilitary leaders will be kept in seclusion making it impossible for them to make public any further facts that will prove uncomfortable for Uribe and his political allies. Furthermore, the Bush administration was likely more than happy to oblige Uribe efforts to thwart justice given that the Colombian leader is Washington’s closest ally in Latin America.

Posted by: b real | May 14 2008 4:10 utc | 60

b
i thank you for taking on some unpopular position – re myanmar & tibet – for example -which need to be argued out – even when we feel no special sympathy for either the generals or for the new emporers
in our impoverished cultures – just opening an argument – can seem like taking a position. it is not sufficient to offer affirmative arguments but to reveal openly the contradictions of our time
copeland, i know you understand that -the fact that the empire’s propaganda operates so insistently & broadly – that counterpositions are not only necessary but vital. the details are something else but there has always been sufficient space here to argue those details

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 14 2008 20:29 utc | 62

U.S. Has Detained 2,500 Juveniles as Enemy Combatants

The United States has detained approximately 2,500 people younger than 18 as illegal enemy combatants in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since 2002, according to a report filed by the Bush administration with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
…
Although 2,400 of the juveniles were captured in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, only 500 are still held in detention facilities in that country. The administration’s report, which was made public yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union, says that most of the detained Iraqi youths were “engaging in anti-coalition activity.”
As of last month, 10 juveniles were still being held in Bagram, Afghanistan, out of 90 that had been captured in that country since 2002, according to the report.
Eight juveniles were brought to Guantanamo Bay since 2002, having been captured at ages ranging from 13 to 17. Although there are no juveniles at the prison in Cuba now, two people being held — 21-year-old Omar Khadr and 23-year-old Mohammed Jawad — were under 18 when they arrived. Both are facing trial by a military commission on charges of attempted murder.

Posted by: b | May 15 2008 6:16 utc | 64

another media-campaign to put pressure on myanamar:
yesterday, theire was a lot noise in the media about a second cyclone brewing to hit myanamar. According to Frankfurter Rundschau, these reports have been instantly rejected as hoax by the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation).
Turns out, the “news” came from a UN agency in Bangkok, who got the information from an US military post on Hawai, unlinked to the WMO-Network.
(could not find a good english link, but this article quotes the US military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre as source)
quote from telegraph:
The threat of a second cyclone was once again ignored by the Burmese authorities, who have yet to alert the country.

Posted by: snafu | May 15 2008 11:23 utc | 66

UN official says foreign agents are killing Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan — Foreign intelligence agents are leading secret, deadly raids on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and shirking responsibility when innocent civilians are killed, a U.N. official alleged Thursday.
Philip Alston, a special investigator for the U.N. Human Rights Council, referred to three such recent raids in the country’s south and east.
…
He did not give the nationality of intelligence operatives involved in the mainly nighttime raids on militant suspects, but he mentioned one raid in January that killed two Afghan brothers. He said it was conducted by Afghans and personnel from a U.S. special forces base in Kandahar.
He said Afghan government officials have said the victims had no connection to Taliban insurgents.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for heavily armed internationals accompanied by heavily armed Afghan forces to be wandering around conducting dangerous raids that too often result in killings without anyone taking responsibility for them,” Alston told reporters after 12 days traveling in Afghanistan.
He said foreign intelligence agencies were operating with apparent “impunity” in some provinces where insurgents are active.
…

Posted by: b | May 16 2008 5:54 utc | 68

here’s another story from africa to go w/ two others [1, 2] that i linked to one month ago concerning an increase in other species striking back against homo sapiens sapiens
The ‘man eaters’ of Baringo

As darkness grips Lake Baringo, the vast Rift Valley Province is treated to a unique and spectacular sunset.
This, complemented by the shy chocolate waters, gives the lake and its environs an unimaginable touch of beauty.
But beneath the beauty is a community undergoing untold suffering, with huge scars. Here, families have lost breadwinners and livestock to the man-eaters inhabiting the otherwise quiet and flashy lake.
The lake is home to hundreds of hippos and crocodiles, which have made life difficult to the residents to an unprecedented scale.
Though the hippos normally feed on grass, humans have often become their prey. And the crocodiles have also found an easy meal by lazily lying in wait at the lush grass on the shores of the lake.
While the crocodiles usually waylay animals going to the lake in search of water, the hippos ambush fishermen and people going to fetch water.
Many households have had to contend with the dangers of fishing and drawing water from the lake, with very sad tales to tell of their experiences.
Only last week, a rogue hippo killed two people in a span of an hour. Francis Loyual and Joseph Kiptosok were killed while checking on their fishing nets mid water at dawn.
In the first incident, the hippo attacked Loyual at 6am. According to Austin Onyango, a resident, the animal dragged Loyual into the water after ambushing him, as he stood unaware in the waters.
And a little later, local divers who were searching for his body encountered several crocodiles devouring it.
…
One hour later, another fisherman in his canoe drowned after a hippo terrorised him.
…
Area councillor, Richard Kampala, says that the more than 50,000 people who depend on the lake for survival are now living in a sort of ‘curfew’ imposed by the hippos.
He says women and children particularly cannot fetch water unaccompanied by armed men and the fishermen have basically abandoned their trade.
“We are facing difficult times and we do not know how we are going to live now,” he said.
Similarly, Samuel Cherutich Chebor is a sad man. He has lost a record 30 goats to the crocodiles.
Chebor says the reptiles would lay in wait under the papyrus and prosopis trees lining the shores of the lake before grabbing the unsuspecting goats and dragging them into the water.
…
He says farmers lose up to 300 animals monthly to the reptiles and there is no one to compensate them for the loss.
“It is a terrible experience that we have kept silent over for long, but we can no longer keep mum because our source of livelihood is diminishing,” he says.
Chebor says similarly, the hippos threaten the livelihoods of fishermen and soon the residents will be forced to move out of the place.
…
Michael Kandagor tells of how he escaped death by a whisker when a hippo charged at him. He escaped unscathed after climbing a tree.
…
Joshua Chepsergon, the chairman of the lake’s Beach Management Unit, says the fishermen were losing a lot of revenue because they no longer fish for fear of their lives.
Chepsergon says the hippos have destabilised their lives completely. In a period of six months, the hippos have killed seven people.
“This is a worrying trend and the Government through the Kenya Wildlife Service should move with speed and come to our aid,” he says.
…
Another fisherman, Richard Chelimo, is nursing broken limbs after he was thrown out of his canoe by a hippo.
“It was around 5pm while I was returning to the shore after visiting a friend on the island,” he says.
…
Silas Lokodowiny, a resident, fought a battle of his life with a crocodile that grabbed his leg while fishing at the lake.
“I knew I was going to die because there was no one in sight to assist me, but I took courage and hit it,” he says.
Said he: “There is something queer that makes a crocodile want to kill more after tasting human blood.”

whodathunkit, really

Posted by: b real | May 17 2008 3:22 utc | 70

Sometimes I ignore the world for a little bit and just try to have a little fun (played a couple of games of paintball yesterday). Then I read (via Drudge no less) a story that truly makes me shake my head in shame and disgust.

Ending speculation about the fate of the Rio Grande Valley’s undocumented immigrants during a hurricane evacuation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has confirmed it will check the citizenship both of people boarding buses to leave the Valley and at inland traffic checkpoints.

Posted by: dan of steele | May 17 2008 8:18 utc | 72

John Negroponte is now setting up death squads in Pakistan, according to the Asia Times.

The article says that mid-level Pakistani army officers are being trained and financed directly by the US to go after ‘key figures’ of the militants in the tribal areas. How this will be done in unspecified, it should be easier for Pakistani officers to infiltrate such groups than it would be for Americans, but that still doesn’t mean it can be done effectively. And moving regular troops out of the border areas means leaving more space for militant operations.
While the Central American death squads did take out ‘key figures’ when possible, their main strategy was terrorizing villages that might give support to guerrillas. That will not be so simple in the wild areas of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
If true, this strategy also has far ranging implications for the Pakistani army. It undermines the chain of command, and as these officers move up in rank, will mean that the US will have ‘underground’ operatives at high levels (not excluding that they do already). I wonder what the new government of Pakistan thinks about all this?

via
Dick Durata blawg.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 17 2008 9:47 utc | 74

Compare this to Iraq and you can see that the U.S. behavior obviously has not changed one bit.
AP IMPACT: Thousands killed by US’s Korean ally

DAEJEON, South Korea – Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation’s U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.
With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.
The mass executions — intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners — were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century.
…
The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.
…
In 2002, a typhoon’s fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.
…
.. not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.
…
The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials — to no obvious effect — but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean “internal matter,” even though he controlled South Korea’s military.
…
CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified “secret” and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide “thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks” by the South Koreans.
Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing “the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon,” 20 miles south of Seoul.
…

go read …

Posted by: b | May 18 2008 19:05 utc | 76

b,
do you have any idea how my (long) comment above got posted on Uruknet by “American Samizdat” – without a link to here? It was posted as IranContra II, so I started reading it and thought, finally someones picking up the same vibe – and then realized it was written by me – very weird deja-vu sensation. They should have at least linked it back here.

Posted by: anna missed | May 19 2008 5:09 utc | 78

No problem Uncle, I put it together right after I posted#78 that must have been your page. So thanks for passing it on, as I’ve been posting variants of it here and there trying to get the thought out there, so its good to see it there on uruknet.

Posted by: anna missed | May 19 2008 5:34 utc | 80

On thinking about comments, read this stellar one yesterday at Defense and National Interestand thought about dragging it over here, so now I will:

Dr_Vomacton 02 May 2008 at 1:19 pm 1
I have a problem with any analysis of the Troubles in Iraq that attempts to parse these events in terms of strategic theory. That’s because I don’t think it’s a war—nor is it an “insurgency”, or a “Fourth Generation” conflict, or anything of that ilk. Obviously, I’m not going to deny that there is violence in Iraq, that people have been dying in large numbers, that our soldiers are regularly attacked (and attack in turn). However, even war has to live up to certain standards; there’s a point where a situation is so degenerate that it is senseless to describe it as a “war”, and that is the case in Iraq.
If you are engaged in an aerial dog-fight, it makes sense to speak of tactics, of “OODA loops”, and so forth. The situation is clear: you are engaged in battle with an enemy who is trying to kill you. You can extend this logic to conflicts having millions of participants; as Boyd taught, the same type of thinking can be useful in winning a big war as in winning a little battle.
However, the OODA loop is irrelevant if you find yourself caught in the middle of a drunken free-for-all barroom brawl. Well, perhaps Observing that you are in deep manure, Orienting yourself with respect to the nearest exit, and Deciding to make use of it expeditiously would be wise—but that’s just basic self-preservation, not Deep Thinking.
Just so in Iraq. This is no war, just lots of fighting, and there are about as many “sides” as you’ll find in a really good drunken riot. What is the point of talking about strategy in a situation like this? To do so is to perpetrate the illusion that our Iraqi policy is, in some sense, rational. It’s not. There’s nothing to be won here, folks.
By the way, has anybody noticed that even al-Maliki is smarter than our Esteemed Leaders? For reasons of his own, he wanted to weaken Sadr. So what does he do? He acts as though he believes the U.S. propaganda that he is the Prime Minister of a real, legitimate government, declares the Mahdi Army anathema, huffs and puffs and delivers himself of pompous ultimata—then fails spectacularly, as he knew he would. Result: U.S. troops are now fighting his factional scuffle of the moment for him. Can’t let our imaginary friends down, now can we?

Posted by: anna missed | May 19 2008 5:51 utc | 82

food first: From Food Rebellions to Food Sovereignty: Urgent call to fix a broken food system

…
Not surprisingly, people have taken to the streets in Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Yemen, Egypt, and Haiti. Over 100 people have been killed and many more injured. In Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with food prices increases of 50-100%, driving the poor to eat biscuits made of mud and vegetable oil angry protestors forced the Prime Minister out of office.
The food crisis will get worse before it gets better. Without massive, immediate injections of food aid, 100 million people in the Global South will join the swelling ranks of the word’s hungry. But the protests are not simply crazed “riots” by hungry masses. Rather they are angry demonstrations against high food prices in countries that formerly had food surpluses, and where government and industry are unresponsive. They reflect demands for food sovereignty: people’s political and economic right to determine the course of their own food systems.
The food crisis appeared to explode overnight, reinforcing fears that there are just too many people in the world. But according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone—at least 1.5 times current demand. In fact, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Population is not outstripping food supply. “We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,” says World Hunger Program’s executive director Josette Sheeran, “There is food on the shelves but people are priced out of the market.”
The immediate reasons for food price inflation include; droughts in major wheat-producing countries in 2005-06, low grain reserves (we have less than 54 days worth, globally); high oil prices; a doubling of per-capita meat consumption in some developing countries, and the diversion of 5% of the world’s cereals to agrofuels. Though an increase in agricultural growth is projected for 2008, most experts agree food prices will continue to rise. Drought, meat diets, low reserves, and agrofuels are only the proximate causes of food price inflation. These factors do not explain why—in an increasingly productive and affluent global food system—next year up to one billion people will likely go hungry. To solve the problem of hunger, we need to address the root cause of the food crisis: the corporate monopolization of the world’s food systems.

walden bello: Manufacturing a Food Crisis

Once regarded as relics of the pre-industrial era, peasants are now leading the opposition to a capitalist industrial agriculture that would consign them to the dustbin of history. They have become what Karl Marx described as a politically conscious “class for itself,” contradicting his predictions about their demise. With the global food crisis, they are moving to center stage–and they have allies and supporters. For as peasants refuse to go gently into that good night and fight de-peasantization, developments in the twenty-first century are revealing the panacea of globalized capitalist industrial agriculture to be a nightmare. With environmental crises multiplying, the social dysfunctions of urban-industrial life piling up and industrialized agriculture creating greater food insecurity, the farmers’ movement increasingly has relevance not only to peasants but to everyone threatened by the catastrophic consequences of global capital’s vision for organizing production, community and life itself.

fred magdoff @ monthly review: The World Food Crisis: Sources and Solutions

Food is a human right and governments have a responsibility to see that their people are well fed. In addition, there are known ways to end hunger—including emergency measures to combat the current critical situation, urban gardens, agrarian reforms that include a whole support system for farmers, and sustainable agriculture techniques that enhance the environment. The present availability of food to people reflects very unequal economic and political power relationships within and between countries. A sustainable and secure food system requires a different and much more equitable relationship among people. The more the poor and farmers themselves are included in all aspects of the effort to gain food security, and the more they are energized in the process, the greater will be the chance of attaining lasting food security. As President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a country that has done so much to deal with poverty and hunger, has put it,

Yes, it is important to end poverty, to end misery, but the most important thing is to offer power to the poor so that they can fight for themselves.

Posted by: b real | May 19 2008 15:25 utc | 84

Sam,
Perhaps “war on Sadr” is to strong, but those in Sadr City might disagree. I’m aware of the two conflicting reports about the negotiations, and think the second one is a backdoor excuse from the Iraqi delegations to make their capitulation to Iranian control appear like they are trying to declare independence from it.
On your other points, I disagree with your contention that Iran is actually in support of Sadr, and is negotiating on his behalf with the Maliki government, for them to halt operations against him. The Sadr movement is very large and multifacited, and I’m inclined to believe that Iran is worried about it. I think they are worried first about its explosive growth and de-facto control over the three southern provinces, and how that growth may translate into a sweeping electoral victory this fall. Because there is a good chance that such a victory will mean the end of the SIIC/Maliki government, and Iran’s rather direct influence on that government. But, on the other hand the Iranians don’t want to officially make war on them in fear that the whole thing could backfire. So instead of arresting Sadr they are trying to inflame the (the already fragmented) internal differences within his movement and weaken its prospects this fall. And I think the U.S. is on board with the same program.

Posted by: anna missed | May 19 2008 19:08 utc | 86

@ anna missed – Or to put it another way here we have a country that hosts the leader of the Shia resistance in Iraq claiming that they don’t support him.

Posted by: Sam | May 19 2008 19:30 utc | 88

Annie, I usually do cite, but have had an on going personal emergency situation come up and am having to deal with, (hence I haven’t been posting nearly as much as per my norm) meant even to go back after hearing from anna missed, but again got distracted, and then locked out of my account there because I have my account set up for my desk top, and have been using my laptop but, things are settling down a bit now, thanks for reminding me.
Also, many MOA’s may want to become acquainted with the: Samizdat process as it may become dire at some point to put it into play on the street, not so much on the controlled net.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 19 2008 22:53 utc | 90

cool uncle, i saw the update @ Samizdat..

Posted by: annie | May 20 2008 2:06 utc | 92