Fed approves Chinese Govt. owned bank to open in U.S.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2008 9:21 utc | 3

Perhaps Obama foreign policy might be a bit different? From Haaretz;
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Israel’s push for Iran strike may hurt U.S. ties

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, said in an interview with Haaretz over the weekend that Israel will do harm to its relations with the United States if it insists on lobbying Washington for an American military strike on Iran.
Brzezinski was at the center of a controversy during much of the United States presidential campaign when Jewish opponents of president-elect Barack Obama sent out mass emails calling the former U.S. president’s aide anti-Israel, and saying he was one of the Illinois senator’s key advisors on foreign policy.
The Obama campaign denied that Brzezinski and other figures like Bill Clinton’s former advisor Robert Malley with dovish positions on the Israel-Palestinian question were among his Middle East advisors.
Brzezinski told Haaretz: “One [piece of] advice that I would give the Israeli government is not to engage in this campaign for an American attack on Iran, because I don’t think America is going to attack Iran, and if it did, and the consequences would be disastrous.”
“It wouldn’t be particularly good for American-Israeli relations, and there will be a lot of resentment against [Israel],” he said. “There already has been some after the war in Iraq.”

Of Course the Obama team denied he speaks for them, but my guess is the hint has been dropped; Best not to push us to where we don’t want to go.

Posted by: Lysander | Dec 9 2008 10:27 utc | 5

@lysander:
Since the Bush regime did NOT attack Iran, I see no evidence of change.
Iran’s aquiescence was essential to the “sucess” of the “surge.” At that point, Iran became a temporary ally of US foreign policy and all plans of attacking Iran were shelved. Continued references to an attack in the media were purely for domestic consumption, as outlined above.

Posted by: Malooga | Dec 9 2008 12:30 utc | 7

Along those same lines…
Part 1
New article (pdf):
Convar, WTC Hard Drive Recoveries, Evidence of Foreknowledge (pdf)

The Ghost in the Machines:
Evidence of Foreknowledge in the WTC Hard Drive Recoveries
by Michael Fury
Many are aware of the surge in put options purchased on American and United Airlines as well as several major tenants of the WTC in the days preceding 9/11, purchases the 9/11 Commission Report waves away in a footnote on pg. 499 as having no connectionwith the events of 9/11 because the unnamed “institutional investors” responsible had “no
conceivable ties to al Qaeda”.
More obscure, and nowhere mentioned in the Commission Report, are the facts of the WTC computer data recovery operation undertaken in late 2001 by Convar GmbH, a German firm. Under conditions of hermetic secrecy, Convar used its proprietary technology to salvage data from the damaged hard drives of WTC tenants, as reported in December 2001 by Reuters and CNN.

German firm probes final World Trade Center deals
Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues

“The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorisations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,” said Convar director Peter Henschel.” “Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at the company, said illegal transfers of more
than $100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster.” “There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million,” Wagner said. “They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.” “Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI to piece together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination
of the dubious transactions would one day be tracked down.”

more in part 2..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 9 2008 13:13 utc | 9

The rhetoric that now conflates the North Korean “Dear Leader” with our President-Elect is, itself, a propaganda technique. Obama does have an opportunity, after he takes the oath and assumes office, to reverse a number of police state measures adopted by the criminals who have been running the country for 8 years.

Posted by: Copeland | Dec 9 2008 13:20 utc | 11

The rhetoric that now conflates the North Korean “Dear Leader” with our President-Elect is, itself, a propaganda technique. Obama does have an opportunity, after he takes the oath and assumes office, to reverse a number of police state measures adopted by the criminals who have been running the country for 8 years.
He has always had the opportunity to repudiate state violence but never has. But I am familiar with the liberal claptrap mythology: He really is a nice guy who just needed to sound tough to get elected; but then he’ll change. Yeah…
As a Senator, he IS one of the top 150 criminals who have been running the country. To argue otherwise is Orwellian.
The phrase “Dear Leader” is accurate and merited for several reasons:
First, The powers of the office have been greatly expanded under Bush II under the theory of the “unitary” executive, and literally whatever the President decides goes legally nowadays; far beyond what the original drafters of the office had in mind. Obama has never clearly and unequivocably refuted this (il)legal interpretation of “leader”.
Second, it underscores the liberal mythology which many here subscribe to, despite the evidentiary record, that Presidents (and not groups of advisors hired from think tanks funded by corporate wealth) actually “make” policy. (To any extent that they do, it is by choosing among the very narrow limits of options acceptable to the corporate/military/financial elite put forth by those hired hands of advisors.)
Thirdly, it is because of the actual reverance many here and elsewhere have for a man who has the power to literally destroy the entire world, a man who sought that power, and a man who has a record of using the power given to him to vote for funding for two illegal and genocidal invasions of sovereign nations (one third of all Iraqis have been killed, injured, or dislocated to date, and this number will continue to increase over time; a figure which does not compare altogether favorably with the similar figure of 50% achieved by Hitler against world Jewry during World War II. The difference is that one is universally decried, with Hollywood making films on an almost daily basis about, and the other is universally excused under the doctrine of American Exceptionalism. )
Fourthly, Obama’s mythological (yet rapidly backtracked) position of being an “anti-war” candidate has been used to almost completely co-opt, subvert and defuse any substantial anti-war movement in this country. This will inevitably result in more destruction, despite dearly held liberal conceits, not less. The evidentiary record of wars begun and deaths under Democratic vs. Republican regimes upholds this position. Bush is the only outlier. (I spent Sunday at the single major anti-war event of the quarter for my State, the event to co-ordinate Statewide strategy under the incoming regime. A paltry one hundred people showed up, despite the deaths of a bare minimum of 1 1/2 Million people due to US policy over the past eight years. This doesn’t even begin to compare to grassroots response during the Vietnam war era, or even the Central American wars of the eighties. There were NO Obamaniacs “citizen movementers” there, who all advocate “giving him time.” To my surprise, not even Corporate Waldo was there. To call this showing an effective resistance to government policy is ludicrous.)
Obama will not stop the use of secret special forces worldwide; he will not stop the use of the “Salvadorian option” of incited warfare and murder, he will not stop the use of CIA false flag operations like “Gladio” which most of the left even refuses to believe happens despite the evidentiary trail and reporting, deriding such actual death policies as “conspiratorial”, he will not stop the use of financial warfare which subtley causes more deaths than actual weaponry, and he will not stop the profits which derive from this behavior. He will not stop Africom and the murderous treatment of those of his own “race,” a completely discredited scientific mythology, which we are supposed to be proud that he now somehow represents (As do Condi Rice, Colon Powell, and Clarence Thomas).
He will not stop the rise in population of America which is consuming the earth’s resources and exterminating its lifeforms at an ever increasing pace. He will not stop the use of GMO’s, the patenting of life, the corporate ownership of food water healthcare and shelter, nor the rise in mortality and cancers due to all of this.
Indeed, he cannot; nor can any one human, most especially an “elected” one (Somehow the one with the most corporate money and pleasing corporate media treatment always wins under the “Democracy of the people.” And yes, “underdog” Obama was that this cycle, one receiving 74% of his donations from corporate sources, compared to 75% for Bush four years ago. Progress…). The US State was founded on violence against others and its reigning ideologies have always sanctioned that violence, it has invaded 50 countries since WWII, one for each state of the union (truly, a more accurate symbolic representation of the meaning of the stars in our flag) almost always based upon the regnant Democratic ideology of humanitarian intervention. Virtually everything about our “non-negotiable” American “way of life” is murderous to the Earth and its inhabitants and ultimately unsustainable anyway: The need for constant growth, our allocation of wealth, our disposal of corporate externalities like nuclear and industrial waste, our consmption of natural resources, our means of production, our fundamentalist and mainstrem religions which failed to stand up to fascist ideologies, wars and laws, our vapid, normalizing and distractingly entertainment and culture industries (one of America’s sole profitable exports), our need for self-medication and psychotropic drugs in order to function.
Yes, virtually everything is rotten to the core — which is why the system which cannot function without high levels of structural violence.
And to revere the figurehead of such rot and death, the symbol, the apotheosis of the ephemeral yeast infection we call Western Civilization, to revere such a man, is to me deeply immoral and goes against everything I hold dear and believe in. It is pathological.
And to consciously — either against better knowledge or because of willful ignorance — unhold that pathology by revering such a man — regardless of how he is marketed to those who don’t want to know how our civilization is run either because they have kids or a job they don’t want to think too much about or because it is just too scary — is to contribute to the disease process itself.
For all of those reasons, I am justified in using the clearly derisive, satirical, and yet completely factually accurate description of how many see the function of the man and the office, their “Dear Leader.”
If you support Obama, and you cherish how his personality is publicly marketed to be (you will never hear about what goes on behind closed doors), and you ferverently believe that he will improve the lives of the world’s inhabitants, then he really is your “Dear Leader.”
But he sure as hell ain’t mine.

Posted by: Malooga | Dec 9 2008 15:27 utc | 13

Just to come in on the heels of Malooga’s concise #13, I will also reiterate my position… a position that was apparently too nuanced for some since it is neither entirely black nor white, but is rather a bit more along the lines of Malooga’s sans the certitude.
I completely understand both a pro-negative and pro-positive Obama stance. It is simply that the former is based on a more realistic understanding of the machinations necessary in order to attain public office, while the latter is based entirely on a worldview dominated by irrational hope in the face of any objectivity.
Even the insightful billmon has been known to fall victim to the trap of seeing what he wants to rather than what evidence indicates as was demonstrated by his absolute conviction that Patrick Fitzgerald was going to clean up Dodge City before his absolute conviction that Obama represented the great turning of the evil tide. (Although b noted that billmon’s pro-Obama exuberance over at DKos might have simply been calculated to support the lesser evil, this Hobson’s choice of supporting any evil or sitting things out runs entirely counter to my grain.)
The Hobson’s choice mentality would seem to push people reluctantly into a pro-Obama stance, but some of us, Malooga apparently being one of them, quite understandably conclude that it isn’t truly a Hobson’s choice at all, but rather a Morton’s Fork situation. That is to say, a choice made between either evil will ultimately lead the chooser into an identical conclusion. This is where I can not fully embrace the Malooga side of things because to do so would produce nothing but profound despair and eventual apathy and disconnection. It is, I presume, a defense against exactly this eventuality that causes some, against all rationality, to overcompensate with blind hope and become slobbering, mindless Obama supporters who will hear no evil spoken against their champion. Indeed, waldo even developed this pathology into a sophisticated psychic defense mechanism in which he made the a priori formulation that when Obama inevitably does not live up to his superheroic projections, it will be because people like us did not give him the necessary support to do so.
So while I do not disagree with anything Malooga wrote in his #13 above, I vary only in my intensity. Almost every point Malooga made could hold equally true for any elected candidate the United States could reasonably produce (as Malooga himself conceded when he stated that no human being could do otherwise, “…most especially an “elected” one “)and is as much a self-fulfilling expectation as the equal but opposite position exemplified by the fawning diatribes written by waldo.
I still hold to the notion that what we are discussing is a symbol and not a man. I view Obama as a symbol of American hegemony and others view him as a symbol of their version of an American dream (which might be different words for the same thing in many cases). I will critique him as a person as his policies are implemented.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 9 2008 17:26 utc | 15

unless he gets assassinated or kicked out by the ‘no birth certificate’ crowd, we are likely to have years ahead of us to criticize his each and every move. the purpose of spending so much energy lambasting his ‘inevitability’ before he takes office?
from yesterday. a movement will have to grow that pressures Washington to take such steps. Such pressure can only come from the streets….Unless there is pressure on Congress and Obama, little will be done to change the dynamics that ruled the economic-political fields over the last 30 years.
nothing inflammatory here. totally reasonable. except a few hrs later after O’s very public support for some Laid-Off Workers the gov of illinois (who this morning is indicted by fitz!) cut of the states banking thru Bof A unless they gave a loan to the Laid-Off Workers Occupying Chicago Factory(one of the Good Signs In The Downturn). now, one could assume the O spoke out in support of that union out of pressure from the streets. in fact occupying a factory IS pressure from the ‘streets’. but at the same time all this ‘bailout’ money (which is not really a bailout at all if it is just theft as usual) has not come under the scrutiny of the ‘new’ administration. some people think some of that money going to the banks should flow back into the economy as loans to small businesses. maybe this prez elect thinks that too. or maybe not. maybe he just had that very public response as some doublespeak or a trick to make people think he was on ‘their side’.
what’s the upside of trashing what we don’t know yet. what are the chances obama may have a good idea or two? (if i may borrow from monolycus) this meme of slobbering, mindless Obama supporters is completely accepted as a rational form of argument on this site towards supporters of obama as in speech such as ‘who will he kill first’. i’m just more interested in posts relating to current events instead of the alleged inevitable. it almost feels as tho there isn’t enough total shit available to rag on so we have to rag on what hasn’t occurred yet.
i would much rather have him sworn in tomorrow so we can cut to the chase, but that won’t happen. instead we have almost 2 months more of this rancid projection regarding how nothing will be different.
that is unlikely. but when the time comes i will be completely ready to be furious at a prez who is murdering civilians in some mountain region about as divorced from american culture as timbukto.
carry on.

Posted by: annie | Dec 9 2008 18:27 utc | 17

Crazy times: Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Haven Demand Surges

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill to negative 0.01 percent, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929.

Deflation – here we come …

Posted by: b | Dec 9 2008 19:45 utc | 19

annie@17: i just heard about the Illinois Governor getting indicted. Considering the man just went toe to toe with Bank of America over the window/door company shutdown and subsequent worker sit-in, it looks like he’s getting Spitzered.

Posted by: Lizard | Dec 9 2008 20:41 utc | 21

Thought I’d post a link here for those interested. Scott Horton over at antiwar.com has an interesting interview regarding new evidence that has come to light in the OKC bombing case which, interestingly enough, involves one Patrick Fitzgerald.
You fine folk here at MoA seem uncommonly well informed on The Dark Side. Has anyone else here caught this story, and if so, what are we to make of this? (Forgive me, I haven’t spent the time researching this story)

Jesse Trentadue discusses the the events surrounding the 1995 murder of his brother while in federal custody in Oklahoma City and the connection to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the Elohim City paramilitary camp sting operation run by the FBI and Southern Poverty Law Center, foreknowledge of FBI agents and complicity of FBI informants in the bombing, the ongoing court battles with the U.S. government over FOIA requests and civil lawsuits and the involvement of Obama’s appointed attorney general Eric Holder in the coverup of Kenny’s murder.

Posted by: arglebargle | Dec 10 2008 2:20 utc | 23

annie 22) RE Malooga’s and Monolycus’ mono-brow punditry; Google for Johns Hopkins research study on fear, in 2004, can’t find it now, but the premise was: given three “candidates,” one wrapped in the war flag, one wrapped in business and finance, and one exhibiting an esche sense of ‘we are the world, we are the people’, the research “voters” tended to cluster fairly evenly around those three political gambits, unless they read “news stories” before the “political speeches” warning of imminent danger from EurAsia, Three Minutes of Hate, kind of thing. Then test subjects who voted for the candidate wrapped in the war flag increased by 800%!
Probably a Rovian white-paper request funded by RNC. The opposite sim of that polarization you might call sharq versus sharif. Those afraid of the sharq, (the robber, terrorist), obverse those afraid of the sharif (the law, nobility). Common folks most fear sudden loss and fear the sharq, voting in favor of the sharif, while those already steeped in power and privilege will most fear the new sharif in town. (e.g. good old boys.)
But really, who cares? The election is over, unless Berg has his day in court.
Today’s eulogy-as-oracology: flameout of a US warplane killing immigrant family on the ground, a finely-crafted omen for the Neo Go-Go 00’s US credit economy bailout, then the inevitable and inexorable impact that will have on America’s immigrant businesses.
How many Korean businesses and how many Iranian businesses, blocked perforce by the NeoZionist “Axis of Evil” dialectic from any real participation in the Great Obama Stampede, will dry up and blow away on our Long March, well before any hoped-for “trickle down” effect exudes like dew on the upper lip from those summer-time-and-living-is-easy heartily remunerated 1st-class financiers and 2nd-class bureaucrats?
There’s nothing big in this Stampede for US, the 3rd class workers. We have nothing left to trade with immigrant businesses, except a smile and a wave, a ‘how di doo’ and ‘nice day, ain’t it’? For that, we’re all going to need one hell of a lot more convivial spirit and audacious hope, and shut our ears to the Magloom-and-doomers.
To use Obama’s own words, we need a continuous transfusion, all of US, not just the privileged elites and the entitled bureaucrats. And most of all, we need the youth, joy and heart of immigrant experience kept on preferred life support.
Toss your Xanax, and prepare to get really, really flash-mobbed!
Yeah, that’s right! Orange!

Posted by: Yellow Tiber | Dec 10 2008 5:12 utc | 25

The country is an empire now and unfortunately something of a leech, clinging tenaciously to the planet’s ecosystem; and the steps to be taken to begin to mend our ways, are indeed steps, and must proceed one at a time.
the rest of the world will surely be gladdened to know americans are capable of such harsh assessments of their negative global impact and the illusory little steps we’re told our dear leaders are taking to mend our ways.

by slow degrees the frog is cooked
while dogs below whine for scraps
while those who sit around the table
gorge themselves, then suffer naps

Posted by: Lizard | Dec 10 2008 6:18 utc | 27

Thanks to Uncle $cam for the links regarding Convar, a story which, I agree, has been consigned to the memory hole. In particular, thanks for calling into question its acquisition by Kroll, which had indeed been widely reported.
Thanks also to Malooga, Monolycus, Annie and Copeland (among others) for the spirited but civil debate, the thanks embracing both the spirit and the civility.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 10 2008 9:08 utc | 29

Americans are often derided by snotty Euros for not having a “real” culture. And culture has become a word in the American vocabulary thats sometimes used to refer to some essence that itself refers to some other essence. Truth is America may not have a full-blown wrapper-culture but it does have its own culture-kernel which is afterall the most critical component of any culture. The Euros (perhaps with the exception of France — donor of the Statue of Liberty) are mostly clueless about it. And the election of Obama represents the most vivid expression in USA’s history of thing/things core & valid within America’s culture. Still I’m always willing to listen to anyone with an ideological view-point that overlooks or ignores cultural expressions.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 10 2008 11:40 utc | 31

@32.
I tend to distinguish between the culture-wrapper (foods, arts, music, norms, behavioral-prescriptions …) and the culture kernel (the inputs/ process by which people define their identities & class-dynamics). And by the way, the American culture-kernel seems closer to the French culture-kernel than to the British). With the culture-wrapper, its the opposite.
Every now & then a peoples will assert their culture-kernel, often when thinkers & intellectuals least expect it.
As for cultural traditions, that stuff is kind of like Xmas/Santa-Claus, the Rio/New-Orleans Mardi-Gras & Saint-Patricks Day, warm Guiness in Glasgow, Happy-Hour/pub-crawling in Lower Manhattan, sipping wine in a Paris cafe … People like as much of it as they can get or afford. But please ask before you serve them chitlins or frog-legs.
people also find the sheer expanse & diversity of America liberating & uplifting. While this factor does a lot to enhance America;s “cultural-traditions”, it is independent of America’s culture-kernel.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 10 2008 13:34 utc | 33

comment relates to INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICT:
I know that it’s fashionable to ignore infowars.com, and to discount some of the things that Alex Jones says, but for anyone seriously interested in educating themselves on the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, in order to try and analyse, in an impartial manner, the situation from a number of different perspectives, it’s quite hard to justify not listening to Alex’s (yesterday) radio interview with former Pakistan ISI head Hamid Gul. The two men speak specifically about the India-Pakistan conflict and, in doing so, offer a perspective not widely available in the mainstream media, but one which, nevertheless, I am sure many here would be interested to listen to and analyse. I don’t know much about Hamid Gul…(and am wary about trusting everything he says)…but if he was a former head of ISI, well…surely his opinion is at least partly useful when it comes time to analysing this situation

Posted by: Al | Dec 10 2008 13:56 utc | 35

@34,
“culture-kernel”
Take two communities side by side. In one, the king or all-powerful leader benevolently assigns land to his subjects. Hence subjects will join their individual identity with the kings and will comply with & celebrate the hierarchy that evolves. In the other, there is no king or all-powerful leader and the land is assigned by some form of consensus. Hence subjects will tend to be the custodians of their own identities and will not be firmly attached to any hierarchies that may develop along the way.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Dec 10 2008 14:22 utc | 37

tantalus
greece has wouns frm thr covil war in which england played & ignomonious & murderous role. even before with the fascist metaxas. the us supported & trained military junta is a wound so recent that the greeks have remained the most anti u s state in europe
exachia is the scene where heroic students frm the polytecnique, in effect, finally defeated the junta at the cost of many of their lives
the greeks this week are showing what participatory democracy really means

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 10 2008 15:36 utc | 39

There is a good / vivid diary from a participant in the Greek conflagration at this link: http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/

Posted by: drunk as a rule | Dec 10 2008 16:41 utc | 41

I’d suggest following Malooga’s links to this analysis by William Domhoff on The Four Networks of Power in which he discusses American power through Michael Mann’s theory of how all nation states develop through an interrelation of ideology,economic,military, and political forces that determine the profile of how power manifests in that particular state. And how that interrelationship, in effect, “locks in” an overall power structure of the state.
This would seem to confirm Malooga’s skepticism on the ability of any one political figure (Obama) to effect notable change to the system. A fascinating read, in that it takes a very broad look at the historical evolution of nation states, comparing Europe, China, and the U.S.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 10 2008 20:03 utc | 43

re Annie 44
The agreement is clear. The question is whether the US will obey what they have signed. In my view they will, with reluctance. The US has agreed to something publicly. It is difficult to denounce it.

Posted by: Alex | Dec 11 2008 0:57 utc | 45

Wow, something is going on.
Mainstream news items are circulating as of yesterday with the headline that Hamid Gul is a high level wanted terrorist financier and helper to al Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Youtube of CNN: Former ISI Head In Pakistan Says 911 Was An Inside Job
Interesting too is, this article says that authorities believe ISI is linked to the Mumbai massacre, and that the US has sent a special memo specifically stating Gul as a high level threat.
How convenient.
Are they just hanging the ISI out to dry?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2008 3:05 utc | 47

j-b-c,
It’s a tricky one. I’d say that the English Revolution (Civil War and ousting of James II) had an equally profound effect on the UK (and America).
But what exactly is this kernel, in terms of the US and, say, France?

Posted by: Tantalus | Dec 11 2008 4:13 utc | 49

And this, continuing on my 911 theme…*
Ziad Jarrah, fluffing his lines! (Any Arabic speakers here?)
The Shy Guy. (YouTube, MSNBC report, Nov 22 2008, 2 mins 24 secs.)
Bizarre, just bizarre. Why on earth would they release that on nationwide TV?
Here’s the only plausible explanation I’ve heard:

victronix01 wrote:
Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject:
——————————————————————————–
Yes, someone on blogger was speculating this tape was going to be leaked, so they had to use it so they could control the context. The most blatant contradiction was the “alienated youth” thing. I guess we can’t know for certain, but how alienated can you be if you can’t take a suicide video seriously. It’s absurd. He would have to be psychotic, and clearly he is not.
You look at him and you see his future, the clothes he is wearing, his grooming. He saw no “end” to his life anytime soon.

and someone points out that the scarf changes mid-video. that, and i think that shot of the guy holding the script in the corner of the shot is classic.
Note how clumsily it’s cut. You’re barely permitted to hear a word he’s saying, or to see why he’s laughing so much.
The commentating “terror experts” in the NBC studio are really sweating to press home the alleged message.
*Thanks to Hannah K. O’Luthon for at least replying not so much that I want the acknowledgment, so much as I recently read one of the new military control blogger hacks is to hide text in plain view, in other words, I (or anyone) can see their messages posted, but it will be invisible to others on their individual screens. For instance, had HKOL not replied (acknowledged it) I would be able to see it, but if I was to look for it, say, on my friend lizards box, it wouldn’t be there.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2008 8:01 utc | 51

Addendum:
notice my link above doesn’t go to did’s excellent post, but back to the top of that page, further obfuscation…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2008 8:56 utc | 53

UNCLE$CAM
see my above post.

Posted by: Al | Dec 11 2008 11:29 utc | 55

I hear you Al@35
Sorry I missed your comment before posting mine, but your right sounds pretty fishy eh?
Anyway, back to my axe grinding, if b was so inclined these comment issues of late perhaps could be solved easily enough using such outfits as this, Rent A Coder. I as well as other MOA’s I’m sure would be happy to pitch in w/costs.
@Hkol
good article, proprietary software sucks ass, I try to use ‘open source’ wherever possible, which is becoming less and less due to the control issues.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2008 13:17 utc | 57

We All Failed Gary Webb

Since Gary Webb’s suicide four years ago, I have written annual retrospectives about the late journalist’s important contribution to the historical record — he forced devastating admissions from the CIA about drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan contra rebels under the protection of the Reagan administration in the 1980s.

Also see, Investigative journalist Gary Webb refused to be complicit.
News flash, it wasn’t a suicide.
R.I.P. Gary Webb — Unembedded Reporter

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 11 2008 14:24 utc | 59

prwatch: Bush Memo Describes Rosy Legacy

Source: Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2008
As PR Watch previously reported, George W. Bush is worried about his legacy. In case they have any trouble summing it up on their own, he has provided his Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials with a memo containing suggested talking points for characterizing his eight years in office. The memo, titled “Speech Topper on the Bush Record,” states that Bush “kept the American people safe” after the September 11 terrorist attacks, that he helped the U.S. economy by making tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained “the honor and the dignity of his office.” The memo presents Bush’s record as a complete success, without mentioning any major negative events that have happened during his presidency, like flawed intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, the federal government’s failed response to Hurricane Katrina, abuse of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial company failures. The document makes no mention of the current recession.

Posted by: b real | Dec 11 2008 16:23 utc | 61

This artist, Hans Haacke is one who made a reputation in the art world, by shinning a light on exactly where that line between free market and not so free market lies in the art world.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 11 2008 20:09 utc | 63

Yes, virtually everything is rotten to the core (Malooga@13).
Why “virtually,” Malooga? What, as you see it, might not be “rotten to the core”? I can’t think of anything missing from your list…..

Posted by: alabama | Dec 11 2008 20:43 utc | 65

No, Uncle $cam, you can’t “leave out” a future thing from a list of things that are (“rotten to the core”).
Malooga suggests that there’s something out there, here and now, however “virtual”, that doesn’t quite count as “rotten to the core”–but much as I’d like to know what that thing might could be, I can’t think of a single thing he’s left off his list. And neither, it seems, can you…so I guess we should just forget about the “virtual”.

Posted by: alabama | Dec 11 2008 23:13 utc | 67

more supporting evidence for my analysis of ambassador ranneberger’s coup in kenya in this article in the nation, Meddling in Kenya’s Elections

At the time of the election, Ken Flottman was country director for the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Congressionally mandated organization funded mainly by USAID, the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. Flottman recalls that in the months leading up to the vote, the US Embassy conveyed the impression that it believed Kibaki would win. “As time went on, some of the polling we were doing showed it was more complicated, but I got the sense that the embassy wasn’t interested in hearing it,” he says. “The embassy saw the top line of GDP growth but didn’t see that nothing was really changing for most Kenyans.”
At times, according to Flottman, US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger appeared to him to be actively trying to help Kibaki’s chances. In one case, he says, when a horse-race poll done by the country’s top commercial pollster showed Odinga pulling ahead, Ranneberger “was keen to release our poll, which showed Kibaki was more popular.” Flottman declined. As he explains it, it has always been IRI’s policy to probe issues of general concern to voters and to publicize those findings, in keeping with its democracy-building mandate. But as part of its remit from USAID, which funds the polls and which answers to the State Department, IRI has routinely shared horse-race information only privately with US officials. (Ranneberger declined to discuss this incident or anything about the US role in the election.)
…
Such incidents, in retrospect, were a portent of what was to happen to the exit poll IRI conducted on election day with the aid of a local polling firm, Strategic Public Relations and Research, assisted by polling experts from the University of California, San Diego. The poll–which asked voters whom they’d voted for–showed that Odinga had bested Kibaki by an eight-point margin. This was in contrast to the official figures released later, amid chaos and allegations of rigging, that showed Kibaki winning by a two-point margin. Plans called for releasing the poll, the only one of its kind (a second exit poll by a different organization was begun but not completed), the day after the election. But instead, IRI’s top Washington-based officials, claiming they had serious doubts about the poll’s validity, refused to make the results public. Flottman says he kept pressing for an answer as to why. “I was eventually told that it wasn’t in the best interest of IRI,” he says.
Ranneberger was given the poll results on the evening of election day, December 27. This was three days before the official announcement that Kibaki had won touched off weeks of rioting in which more than 1,000 Kenyans died and as many as 350,000 were made homeless. Nonetheless, Ranneberger went on to tell the Washington Post on December 31 that “the US would accept” the announcement that Kibaki had won, and the State Department congratulated Kibaki on his win–a position that it later retracted after the European Union raised concerns about election rigging.

IRI as an institution, does not have clean hands by any means, but this ranneberger fella is really fucking up the HOA

Posted by: b real | Dec 12 2008 3:27 utc | 69

@Uncle $cam 51, 52:
I have always followed your posts and have learned a lot from your links. I was actually thinking that you are not acknowledged much when I read that post.
Anyway, that is certainly the wierdest psy-op video I have ever seen — completely riddled with contradictions. Of course, it also clearly showed the lack of plane wreckage from the crash site.
And yes, it is clear that the internet is beng vastly fucked with. I have noticed the same inexplicable posting behavior with my posts getting worse and worse. All the neat interactive software companies from the last years of the nineties-2005 have been bought up by large entitites and their missions perverted. The Stallman essay from HOK was right on!

Posted by: Malooga | Dec 12 2008 4:13 utc | 71

By the way, if anyone thinks that I’ve been tough on Obama, read James’ Petras’ latest post and cry. He’s not one of the “pretty boys” of the left who get to write for The Nation. But then he’s been fighting for the ordinary person for fifty years. I’m proud I was able to articulate half of what he did.
In any event, it’s too painful for many to admit that they were had by the best political con game in memory, so I expect four more years of rationalization and denial.
Longer post coming.

Posted by: Malooga | Dec 12 2008 5:51 utc | 73

that gutless bastard is likely james mcgee, u.s. ambassador to zim, who two months ago complained that “the former jewel of Africa, is on the precipice”

Posted by: b real | Dec 12 2008 6:19 utc | 75

Now that the Senate has rejected the Auto Bail Out, it seems likely (but
I am certainly not competent to judge) that GM and Chrysler will soon open bankruptcy proceedings. This could be the beginning of some major social unrest in the U.S. (again, I’m not competent to judge). Certainly there ought at least to be an “unwinding” of the overblown rhetoric of the free marketeers, but that would require that the rhetoricians admit that they have been dealing in bullshit for decades.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 12 2008 7:22 utc | 77

Ring the bells Iraq wins -shrub shuffles off
If you are wondering why the media coverage of Iraq was amped up after the election as many expected. Why the amerikan invaders hadn’t gone back to their murdering and thieving ways now an election no longer depended on quiet, the answer is simple, the status of forces agreement which finally draws a line under amerika’s attempted theft of a sovereign nation details such a resounding defeat for the amerikan empire, that the Bushites ‘neglected’ to release an english language version of the final draft enacted in the Iraqi parliament last week.
Long term Baghdad correspondent Patrick Cockburn providwhies the inside running on amerika’s full spectrum defeat, news of which was swamped by the Mumbai attacks last week. One wonders why; since despite amerika’s attempt to shift the focus of it’s wanton slaughter from Iraq of the Mid East , to Pakistan, West Asia, there can be little doubt that the eventual outcome of that crime will be amerika getting it’s head handed to it there, also.
The amerikans have gained nothing and whilst the Iraqis are hurting from the loss of more than a million citizens slaughtered in this inexcusable breach of national sovereignty, they should have an under-lying sense of pride in the fact that they fought the evil empire and won.
So what is in the Sofa that makes it such a win?
All amerikan troops will be pulled out of all cities by June 2009 and out of the Green Zone within a few weeks.
All amerikan troops of any sort have to leave within the next three years. There will be no enduring bases. All military operations must have the prior approval of the Iraqi Government. Immunity has gone and the blackwater mercenaries will be tried within Iraq under Iraqi law like the common criminals they are.
No operations against other nations can be mounted from within Iraq. Cockburn commented:

Even Iran, which had furiously denounced the first drafts of the SOFA saying that they would establish a permanent US presence in Iraq, now says blithely that it will officially back the new security pact after the referendum. This is a sure sign that Iran, as America’s main rival in the Middle East, sees the pact as marking the final end of the US occupation and as a launching pad for military assaults on neighbours such as Iran.

Cockburn goes on to say that the last minute hold ups were the result of a recognition by the Sunni and Kurd minorities that the Shia clique will dominate the political elite and they were holding out for as many concessions as possible realising that a lever such as this won’t be available once the power shift has occurred.
He also highlights the role that Muqtada al-Sadr played in this great victory, in that the sadrists outspoken opposition to any ‘compromises’ by the weak-kneed amerikan owned factions ensured that the parliament was solid in it’s opposition to any last minute surrender (IE bribery or extortion by ameriKa). The iraqi citizens of all sects particularly the ruling shia made it plain that any pol who gave in to any of amerika’s demands would be punished politically and probably personally. Sadr’s ‘extreme’ position created the space for the ‘moderates’ to gather in unanimous opposition to the ceding of Iraqi sovereignty.
Amerikans will never hear of this great defeat. It’s amazing that such a thing could happen but unsurprising really.
I mean to say the fact that amerikans are queueing up in droves to see “Frost Nixon the movie” rather than watching the original interviews kinda says it all.
Nixon’s persona has been re crafted, his reputation has been salvaged by Ron Howard’s revisionist rewrite of history. I mean the original interviews were bad enough. I’m sure many other remember the original with it’s evasions and distortions. Over 80% of the interviews were edited out so as to begin the distortions to rehabilitate Nixon. Howard’s film is the end of that process. A necessary revamp to re-affirm the fantasy that the amerikan prez is an omniscient, omnipotent being – incapable of error let alone corruption, dishonesty or a callous disregard for his ‘subjects’.
In the same way no one will discuss Iraq for the next 5 years – then a revisionist mockumentary/docudrama distortion masquerading as reality will be pushed down the throats of the amerikan population. naturally there will be some disagreement by those wanting to set the record straight.
The makers and the shrub-ites will stonewall making the most absurd denials of facts we know to be correct. They won’t care because their assertions that WMD were found in Iraq and that Saddam organised 9/11 will resurface a few years later – all spelled out in banner headlines – news stories right before the empire tries this crap on again.
But we must salute Mesopotamian strength and resolute determination and total sacrifice. (amerikan sacrifice is summed up by the FA-18 pilot who ejected over a suburb leaving hist plane to crash into houses killing at least three. When I lived in Darwin where there is a large military airfield bang smack in the centre of town I can remember at least two instances where Oz pilots refused to eject preferring to stay with their fighter so as to ensure it crashed out at see away from other humans. The pilots died – no time to eject if you want to save civilians).
The reality which has evaded many empire’s elites is simple. We the people only ever fight hard when it is our own nation in danger. A few gung ho fools whose bicep measurement beats their IQ is all they ever muster keen for these nasty crimes.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 12 2008 11:38 utc | 79

Finally, someone is considering solar stations to beam electricity back to Earth…but, of course, the article makes it sound like it’s still SciFi and decades away from practicability. And, of course, no mention of Gerard K. O’Neill, who, if he had been able to convince the dullards, could have set this up decades ago!!!

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Dec 12 2008 22:24 utc | 81

The Human Face of Eviction

In the third quarter of 2008, more than 700,000 Americans faced foreclosure — a new and troubling record. While mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced last month they would temporarily halt foreclosures and evictions from Thanksgiving to Jan. 9, [complete bullshit] the moratorium is likely to affect only a small percentage of homeowners. On a cold December morning, ANP witnessed an increasingly common, but rarely documented, tragedy: someone being evicted from his home.

Meanwhile, I wonder how those Private Contractors that Treasury Secretary Paulson Hired to Handle the Bailout with Billions of your money are doing? At least they have work eh?
Just as the have hid the unemployment numbers they are hiding the poor.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 13 2008 4:27 utc | 83

Any of you fine folks happen to watch Bill Moyers tonight?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 13 2008 7:15 utc | 85

Interesting development on Wall Street where some wealthy victims get fleeced.
one possible positive outcome outcome from all this will be a bit less cash available to AIPAC.
Damn! a 50 billion dollar scam. you gotta admit, the guy has cojones.

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 13 2008 8:54 utc | 87

I’d caught the good news at Republic factory, but I’d missed this great development:
‘Yes’ Vote at Republic: Workers Get Pay, Plant Occupation Ends

(snip)
[UE Director of Organization] Kingsley then announced the creation of a new foundation, dedicated to reopening the plant. It will be initiated with seed money from the UE national union and the thousands of dollars of donations to UE Local 1110’s Solidarity Fund that have come in from across the country and around the world in just the past five days.
Melvin Maclin, vice president of Local 1110, announced the name of the foundation, which was chosen by the workers themselves: the Window of Opportunity Fund. Maclin said that the fund will be open to receive donations from all friends of the Republic workers and supporters of their struggle.
(snip)

Posted by: Alamet | Dec 14 2008 23:34 utc | 89

b, here’s another example of these cretin in the media 6 months behind your work here

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 15 2008 20:22 utc | 91