Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
This video shows what Real Democrats ought to sound these days. I appreciate the reference to the college students... Good stuff. Rep. Ryan on the House floor recently.
Of course the Emmys are rarely, if ever, worth watching. However, this clip from the introduction is awesome, as Conan stumbles through one TV show after another, all the major networks in harmonious satire.
As for me, well tomorrow we are going to try to beta release the software I've been developing at Macalester. It is mostly finished and it's going to be kind of exciting to have something in the field. However, this means that I'm not going to sit around and fiddle with my website in the waning hours of the summer. Sorry! I might have a post later tonight after I run around a bit. Or maybe not.
Hopefully the del.icio.us bookmark things, while a bit glitchy, are still interesting to look at. At the least I'll throw in a couple of those every day so there is something actually worth checking out....
Here are some exciting pictures of the situation at 1511 Grand Ave. early this morning. I am releasing these to the local media for use, but I would really like to be credited as "Dan Feidt / HongPong.com". I am a resident of #15 at 1511 Grand. After WCCO interviewed me in the morning, Channel 5 and Channel 9 came through around lunchtime! Those camera guys in the last photo were from 5 and 9. The woman in the reflective red vest was from the red Cross, offering us shelter.
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Abby's room got the worst of it. Mattress and many furnishings soaked.
About 5 AM, pounding on my door. Gotta Evacuate they shout. I swing off the futon, my swollen foot splashes on the ground. Splashes? I stagger out to the door. Firemen in the hallway. Hallway's soaked. Gotta get out, they say, water on the roof, risk of collapse. Water poured in through the hatch on the ceiling, evidently through the wall, into my apartment. We go outside, four big fire trucks. They put the ladders up. One says that we can go in and gather some stuff. Someone from the Red Cross is going to arrive soon and offer shelter. I go back with one of the firemen, shut off my computer and put a garbage bag over it, placing it on top of a milk crate.
I go back outside. A WCCO cameraman has set up and interviews Chris the caretaker. I stand behind him, looking somewhat concerned in the still-falling rain. Plaster has broken off and is scattered around the first floor hallway. My friend Abby's apartment, on the first floor below mine, is apparently quite soaked.
I retreat up Snelling, trudging past SA with my busted ankle in the rain, Vicodin and Advil rattling in my pocket. I call my parents and they tell me that a segment is coming on WCCO. We tune in at a friend's house. The image is fuzzy, but there I was, already in the background. That was quick.
We go to Coffee News where one of the apartment-mates works. we got breakfast and awaited word on the apartment. Finally we hear it's all clear, so i decide to go back for my iPod before i go to work. As I enter, Chris says that WCCO is back filming again. The crew asks me if they can film me going into my apartment. Of course I was down with that. So they mic'ed me up with a wireless and I introduce them to my messy-ass apartment. A brief interview, coffee in hand, towels and junk all over the place.
Apparently there will be a feature at noon on WCCO today. I'm going to head out on my lunch break and use my camera to take a video of it.
Very little damage for me. Just a couple damp pillows and one box of junk. Far worse for Abby downstairs. But I've already been on TV once today. Not bad at all!
Some of the guys from Macalester (formerly of Fresh Concepts) moved to NYC and have put a sketch comedy group together called the "Bare Hand Wolf Chokers." They're getting some gigs out there and put up "The Admins" on iFilm, a satire of Behind-The-Music band retrospectives about... the first guys to make PowerPoint really badass. It is ridiculous but I liked it. Check it out.
This was pretty cool, a flash animation of the ten dimensions of reality. Check it out. (via Shoutwire)
Also via Shoutwire, the CIA is trying to up the fees on FOIA for journalists:
The National Security Archive today filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), challenging the Agency's recent practice of charging Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) fees to journalists pursuing news. The FOIA says that "representatives of the news media" can be charged only copying fees since they help to carry out the mission of the law by disseminating government information; but the CIA last year began claiming authority to assess additional fees if the Agency decides any journalist's request is not newsworthy enough. In adopting this new practice, the CIA reversed its prior 15-year practice of presumptively waiving additional fees for news media representatives, including the National Security Archive.
"The CIA takes the position that it should decide what is 'news' instead of the reporters and editors who research and publish the stories," explained attorney Patrick J. Carome of the law firm Wilmer Hale, who is representing the Archive. "If the CIA succeeds in exercising broad discretion to charge additional fees to journalists, despite the plain language of the law, then too often we will find out only what the government wants us to know."
"Today is the day that federal agencies are turning in their FOIA improvement plans under President Bush's Executive Order for a more 'citizen-centered' and 'results-oriented' FOIA system. But the CIA has taken the opposite approach, and is instead trying to close off use of the FOIA by journalists," commented Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs.
One of my little favorite things is getting the Sunday NY Times, even though I can't really afford it. There's more information in there than the average medieval person read in their whole life, and it's all spiffy...
Back in Minneapolis, they delivered it to my apartment door. Here it's left hanging on the stoop on Grand Avenue where those Latte Volvo types are attracted like moths to a Brooks Brothers cashmere sweater. Or maybe not.
But it really pisses me off that I rarely had problems in Minneapolis, but St. Paul is far worse. For the last 9 weeks they gave me the dailies for free, which is nice but they pile up. I just wanted my Sundays and they fucking steal them every time!
So I think I'm gonna have to cancel because I really can't afford it, and it sucks, but it's just too much bullshit to put up with. The Times has been a very badass paper lately, but what am I to do?
Massive 5 ton cocaine bust tied to Bush cronies?: Yummy stuff. This weird company called SkyWay Aircraft, which claimed to sell security products to the Department of Homeland Security, got busted with a huge amount of cocaine from Mexico, and both Mexican and American authorities are being curiously silent about it. The Mexican press, on the other hand, has been speculating that high-ranking members of Vincente Fox's government are involved. Of course, SkyWay is based in Venice, Florida, right by where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained.
MadCowProd.com is offering the goods in this case. They conclude:
DC9’s cost money. But the twin airliners weren’t being used to demonstrate SkyWay’s products, for the simple reason that the company never had a product to demonstrate. The fact is both inescapable and mind-boggling at the same time. Two DC9’s painted to impersonate U.S. Government planes were being used for an as-yet unknown purpose… for almost two years.
Like the FAA, the attitude of the DEA toward a drug trafficking case involving 5.5 tons of cocaine seems remarkably laissez faire. A call to the DEA to inquire whether the Agency had mounted an investigation of an American-owned airliner busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine elicited a terse “no comment.”
The duty officer at the Tampa Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration revealed no indication that the DEA has taken any interest in the case. Two days of phone calls to the Agency’s Public Information Officer in Miami yielded nothing but busy signals.
.........The answer, both here in the U.S. as well as in Mexico, appears to be: Damage Control, for what clearly appears to have been officially-sanctioned drug trafficking. The silence in the U.S. and Mexico is a tell-tale sign of clandestine activity gone horribly awry. The bust was a mistake.
Once again, low-level personnel just hadn't been "clued-in" to the protected nature of the trade. Because of the sensitivity, everything is on a need to know basis. This creates a continuing problem.
You can't tell just anyone.
Cheney seems to be investing in securities that favor a weak dollar: That's pretty fucked up, observed at Attu Sees All and dissected on Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.
Are they going to gut the Freedom of Information Act under the mask of 'counter-terrorism'? (via The Agonist)
The Mexican election is starting to look pretty ugly. How could there possibly be voting fraud south of the US?? More here.
UK Times: Leftist calls supporters onto streets in Mexican crisis
Mexico's electoral crisis deepened today after a recount separated the two leading candidates by less than 0.5 per cent of the vote and the leftist, Andres Manuel López Obrador, called his supporters onto the streets to protest against the result.
With 99.48 per cent of the vote reviewed by election officials, Felipe Calderon, a pro-business former energy secretary, led Señor López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, by 0.41 per cent, or just 170,000 of the 41 million votes cast on Sunday.
Señor Calderon appeared relaxed at a party in the headquarters of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), saying: "Now is the hour for unity and agreements between Mexicans."
But Señor López Obrador said he would challenge the result in Mexico's highest electoral court, the Federal Electoral Tribunal. He asked his supporters to rally in Mexico City's huge Zócalo square on Saturday afternoon.
"We have taken the decision to challenge the electoral process," he told a press conference. "We cannot recognize or accept these results. There are lots of irregularities."
......
Señor López Obrador, whose Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was founded by a populist famously cheated of the presidency in a rigged election in 1988, has alleged throughout the week that PAN activists had counted votes twice in some districts and ignored votes in others.
Today he said that a case before the Federal Electoral Tribunal would expose the "lack of transparency, the lack of independence of the electoral body".
"We have triumphed and this is what we will demonstrate to the tribunal," he said.
Aryan Nations & other hate groups infiltrating the US Army: An army desperate for recruits might be handing guns to unsavory criminal lunatics: NY Times:
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
.......
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
.......
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units. The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator." "Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
Holy shit. And let's not forget about Gulf War vet Timothy McVeigh.
The twisted Internal Disinformation of the Bush Regime:
I thought this was pretty nuts. Ron Suskind's new "One Percent Doctrine" is selling pretty well, and the
review in the NY Times was disturbing, for it paints a portrait of a president protectively misinformed in order to defend the illogical madness of the war. This is madness:
During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.
Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush ''plausible deniability'' from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: ''Keeping certain knowledge from Bush -- much of it shrouded, as well, by classification -- meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements.''
''Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial,'' Mr. Suskind continues. ''It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much.''
Plainly nuts.
The situation in Gaza is pretty ugly right now. On the one hand, the Israeli strategy is brutal, but even worse, it's pointless. HAMAS has offered a prisoner swap, like the old days with Hezbollah. Check out "The Ideology of Occupation, Revisited" from Israeli peacenik Ran HaCohen. James Zogby observes the Deadly Silence over the matter. I haven't said much about it, but this piece pretty much sums up the problem.
Captive in Gaza: Israel has several objectives in Gaza -- all mutually exclusive, writes Graham Usher
There are four aims behind operation "Summer Rain", the Israeli army's latest invasion of Gaza, according to ministers, officers and analysts. The first is to free "unconditionally" Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian guerrillas just outside the Strip on 25 June. The second is to end Palestinian "rocket fire" that, in the last month, has peppered Sederot and other Israeli areas on the Gaza border, so far without serious injury.The third aim -- undeclared but acknowledged -- is to force the Palestinian government from office via a rising curve of pre-emptive strikes. So far this has included tightened economic and political blockades, destruction of civilian power plants and bridges, military re-occupation, rocket attacks on the prime and interior ministers' offices and the wholesale arrest of Hamas ministers, members of parliament and local authority officers.
The ouster has little to do with the government's refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Jewish state -- a rejection that suits Israel since it frees it from having to deal with an elected Palestinian Authority. It has more to do with Hamas's success not only in surviving the siege but in enshrining resistance as a central policy in its and any future National Unity Palestinian government, courtesy of the recently agreed Prisoners' Document.
The fourth aim is to repair the battered status of Israel's "deterrence". It is now clear to most Israelis that the relative quiet they enjoyed for the last year or so was not due to their army's military prowess. It was due to the Palestinian ceasefire, observed above all by Hamas's military arm, Izzeddin El-Qassam (IQ). Since it was renounced, 200 mortars have been fired into Israel, four soldier abductions have been attempted or carried out and two soldiers and one settler have been killed.
Threats Hamas may now take the fight "deep into Israel" reminds most Israelis of the bloodiest days of the Intifada. It destroys the illusion that the Gaza disengagement was somehow a military success. And it casts Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's project to determine unilaterally Israel's eastern border as absolute folly.
Vanity Fair had a lengthy feature on the Duke Cunningham/hookergate scandal and here's a summary.
Italian intrigues: In a small tidbit perhaps related to the Valerie Plame scandal, some of the top-ranking guys in Italy's SISMI intelligence service were arrested, as noted in the Italian media and the AP. This probably has more to do with furious Italian judges going after SISMI and CIA agents who helped get some terror suspect abducted.
.....the Italian military intelligence organization's deputy director and director of the first "foreign" or counterintelligence division Marco Mancini has been arrested in Italy, allegedly for his role in the CIA extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar from Milan in 2003. When I was in Rome on a few recent reporting trips, Mancini was the guy who everybody was literally frightened of even saying his name. I mean literally, people just referred to him as Marco. He was highly involved in Sismi's Middle East affairs, as well, apparently, I am hearing from Rome, in several recent cases of illegal wiretapping and illegal domestic spying in Italy. Arrest warrants have apparently been issued in the same Abu Omar case for four more CIA officials as well, including for the former CIA station chief in Rome.
In fact, on Sismi's behalf, Farina and Libero led the bogus charge that France was responsible for the Niger forgeries. Farina was also the beneficiary of illegal wiretaps seemingly conducted by friends of Sismi. Interesting times indeed.
From my brief exposure to politics there, I would say Mancini is far more comparable to a Lewis Libby figure than to his ex-CIA deputy director counterpart John McLaughlin, far more wired into the Byzantine politics of the Berlusconi project than a straight intel professional. Although this arrest would seem to be lapping pretty high on the ankles of the ex-Berlusconi administration itself, a friend in Rome writes that it may not go any further, and Prodi is giving indications he may not wish it to, especially as far as Sismi is concerned.
.......
Update: A reader in Rome writes that Libero's Farina is "under investigation not for his articles but because he has allegedly been identified as a Sismi source code-named 'Betulla.' ... [Sismi's] Mancini and Pignero are suspected of having studied Abu Omar’s habits and having prepared an initial plan for his abduction which would have the airport of Ghedi as the first destination of Abu Omar after his kidnapping. The plan went otherwise, as Aviano was opted for. They are also accused of spying on Repubblica's Giuseppe D’Avanzo as of May 12th..."
If I understand this and other recent Italian news reports correctly, Mancini was allegedly a liaison to several private Italian dirty tricks intelligence operations.
Ann Coulter's plagarism situation seems not that serious, but here's the comprehensive index. Xenu, the Scientology warlord, is involved.
The LA Times tries to claim that anti-Lieberman-ism is a "purge" of the Democratic Party by antiwar fanatics, while in fact it's more of a reaction to the fact that Lieberman is a crappy senator all around.
Around the paranoid side: I was advised to check out "The Resistance" on MySpace. As always PrisonPlanet will fill your daily conspiratoria quotient. Some Montana guy that sold (legal) gun kits was raided by the FBI, ATF and Canadian law enforcement for handing out 'subversive' Alex Jones material, according to... Alex Jones. In a crossposted story from the Sacramento Bee, Homeland Security denies tracking political activity after the state office got word of a peace rally on April 18. There was a new al-Qaeda video released to mark the 7/7 London bombings, and PrisonPlanet asks a bunch of questions about 7/7 anomalies, suggesting as they have from the beginning it was staged by the UK government.
The guy who invented Ren & Stimpy (a particularly raunchy but funny one that never went on TV is here) is in a battle with Warner Bros. because he's been posting their really good but forgotten cartoons on YouTube as Examples of the Art.
Worse than a Star Trek 'red shirt': 10 worst jobs to have in the action film universe.
Well that should tide folks over for a bit of the weekend here...
They meant well, but we all pretty much got sick of that U2 song a while ago. Suddently, from ThePartyParty.com we get G-Dubs remix of Sunday Bloody Sunday, hosted on Google Video:
That's pretty much teh sweetness.
Looks like I'm going to handle the booth a bit for Politics in Minnesota at the Republican state convention down at the Minneapolis convention center this afternoon, Friday & Saturday. I woulda been able to make some bank if I could do the DFL convention at Rochester, but it looks like I'll have to deal with the Chunkies graduating from high school next Saturday.
Mordred sends word that he's busy moving out of his apartment in Tucson and I think going to Santa Fe. But he sent along a REALLY sweet video of one North Carolina Republican's Vernon Robinson's ad for Congress.
His platform is basically pretty straightforward:
Vernon Robinson's Public Policy Views in a Nutshell
I am pro-Constitution, pro-national sovereignty, pro-military, pro-veteran, pro-growth, pro-business, pro-property rights, pro-marriage, pro-adoption, pro-farmer, pro-school choice, pro-states' rights, pro-religious freedom, pro-Pledge of Allegiance, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, and pro-life.
I will secure our borders and demand the vigorous enforcement of our immigration laws. I support market-based reforms of government entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
I am unabashedly and unalterably opposed to racial quotas, special rights for homosexuals, the United Nations, the proliferation of frivolous lawsuits, women in combat, pork barrel spending, useless government programs and agencies, onerous regulations, and all tax hikes.
Securing Our Borders
Our current immigration policy is a treasonable threat to both public health and national security. We do not need a wall to secure our borders. Five thousand Marines and 100 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) can do the job tomorrow. We must also make English the official language of the United States. Any local government or college that interferes with immigration enforcement should lose its federal aid. Finally, automatic citizenship for those born here must be replaced with the baby adopting the citizenship of the mother. These steps must precede any guest worker program.
.....Defending Marriage and Traditional Values
I will always fight for what's right and you will always know where I stand. We cannot redefine marriage as any grouping of adults and children. I will vigorously oppose homosexual marriages, marriage-lite proposals and adoptions, as well as "gay" Scoutmasters. While my opponent believes that those in a drag queen parade and Rosa Parks are both civil rights leaders, I will join the dozens of Congressmen who sponsored an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that provides that "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
There was also some funny stuff about stopping the "feminization" of the military and shutting down bases in Japan, Germany and Korea.
I can only hope that the denizens of the MN GOP are half as entertaining.
This is the second time,
we will not fall in line,
No you can’t stop this exodus
No you won’t stop this exodus.
--Anti-Flag, Emigre (For Blood and Empire, 2006)
Canada's National Post newspaper published a story last Friday, A colour code for Iran's 'infidels', by Amir Taheri, which described a law passed by the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) requiring religious minorities such as Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians to wear colored clothing to signify them in public:
That sector [not headed for recession] is the garment industry and the reason for hopefulness is a law passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) on Monday.
The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).
The new law, drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, had been blocked within the Majlis. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from Khatami's successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This, of course, echoes the Nazi policy of marking Jews and others, part of the psychological preparation to cleave them from German society, and subsequently exterminate them. The story resonates with the emerging storyline that "Ahmedinejad == Hitler!!", because as we all know, everyone from Daniel Ortega to Vladimir Putin to Hugo Chavez is in fact the reincarnation of that weird fey Austrian guy.
(The National Post is the Fox News of Canadian papers: as Wikipedia notes, discredited corrupt media mogul Conrad Black started it to counteract "over-liberalizing" Canadian papers)
The problem with Taheri's story is that it's fucking fake, a fabrication. For example, this quote appears to have materialized from nowhere, as its speaker does not exist:
"Iranians have always worn trousers," says Mostafa Pourhardani, Minister of Islamic Orientation. "Even when the ancient Greeks wore woman-style dresses with skirts, the Persians had trousers. We are not going to force Iranian men to do away with trousers although they predate Islam."
The story was quickly propagated in the right-wing media. I first heard of it from my roommate, who said there was a headline on Drudge when he was at work on Friday, yet when he tried to find it around 6 PM, it was already gone. To my credit, I immediately suggested it sounded cartoonishly evil and too good to be true. And of course, it bounced through the right wing blogosphere quite thoroughly.
The story was in turn picked up by that bastion of accuracy, the Murdoch-owned New York Post. So in keeping with our mission to comment on "information operations," and with a touch of dark irony, I have developed badges that will be attached to news stories determined to be fabrications designed to manipulate the public's perceptions of foreign devils and others. Henceforth a blue PSY OPS starburst will be affixed to such things so no one's brains are contaminated by lies!
How do we know that this is a fabrication? Wikipedia already has a major page for the event: 2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy with many details and links. A blog called Lenin's Tomb summarized the situation and Taheri's spot in the neo-con media heirarchy quite effectively:
Amir Taheri, of course, is a dubious figure. He is a sublunary of the Benador Associates, a right-wing PR firm that supplies conservative speakers for all sorts of occasions. He specialises in producing bilge about Iran, interpreting Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush as an attempt to provoke a clash of civilizations so that the Hidden Imam will return, while asserting not only that Iran wants a nuclear bomb, but that it wants one to - well, hasten a clash of civilizations so that the Hidden Imam will return. He has claimed that attacks on London and New York were inspired by a desire by some Muslims to exert total dictatorial control over what you eat for breakfast (which is cartoonish nonsense), referred to Tariq Ramadan as a Muslim Brotherhood militant (which is flatly false), smeared antiwar protesters as defenders of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and asserted that Israel must claim victory over Palestine. As an "Iranian-born analyst" (they never forget to mention this), he is the neoconservative's favourite 'native informant' about Islam, the Middle East and how well various imperialist adventures are going. Commentary Magazine loves him, the Wall Street Journal loves him, the Telegraph loves him, the National Review loves him - to put it mildly, his brand of 'insight' is very popular with that baroque sodality of reactionary imperialists. Noteworthy that, after the story has already been rebutted, Amir Tehari has gone and retold the story to the New York Post with the headline 'Iran OKs "Nazi" Social Fabric'.
But what is more interesting than Tehari's corroborative role is that this utterly false and utterly implausible story was first published by the National Post and then taken up by newspapers and television stations across America and the West, and even a supposedly leftish site called Truthdig. The report cited no solid sources, merely adducing unnamed "human rights groups" were were "raising alarms" and unnamed "Iranian expatriates" who "confirmed reports". Well, I say 'unnamed' - one Iranian expatriate is named, some geezer called 'Ali Behroozian'. Quite how he was able to 'confirm' this claim, what qualified him in other words, is a mystery. Googling yields nothing about him, so either he's a private citizen, in which case the question about his qualifications to confirm anything for the National Post is repeated, or the name is all made up, in which case other questions come to mind. Possibly, these human rights groups and expatriates are of the same character as the Iraqi exiles who obligingly told Bush what he wanted to hear - or what he wanted others to hear - so that he could invade Iraq. Or one could equally suspect the hand of such PR groups as Hill & Knowlton, who famously manufactured a story about Iraqi soldiers ripping babies from incubators and leaving them to die on the floor. But what is clear, abundantly clear, is that any news reporter worth his or her salt would have spotted that this set of claims had fuck all to it. Hardly any sources, obtuse style, vagueness of details, nothing but colourful, arresting and emotionally involving claims and expostulations that divert one from analysis. As Alexandra Kitty explains in her useful book on lies becoming news, those are the absolutely standard tell-tale signs of a hoax. CBS boasts that it did not publish the story because "there were too many red flags" and not enough concrete information. Yet Fox News, MSNBC the New York Post, the New York Sun, the Washington Times, the American Jewish Congress, the Jerusalem Post and any number of wingnut sites and of course our progressive friend Truthdig all repeated these outrageous, obvious lies as if they were fact. Most, including our progressive friend Truthdig, followed the National Post's lead by illustrating their coverage with artefacts or photos from Nazi Germany.
I'll also note Juan Cole's thorough debunking of the matter: Another Fraud on Iran: No Legislation on Dress of Religious Minorities:
The National Post was founded by Conrad Black and has been owned by CanWest since 2003,* is not a repository of expertise about Iran. It is typical of black psychological operations campaigns that they begin with a plant in an out of the way* newspaper that is then picked up by the mainstream press. Once the Jerusalem Post picks it up, then reporters can source it there, even though the Post has done no original reporting and has just depended on the National Post article, which is extremely vague in its own sourcing (to "human rights groups").
The actual legislation passed by the Iranian parliament regulates women's fashion, and urges the establishment of a national fashion house that would make Islamically appropriate clothing. There is a vogue for "Islamic chic" among many middle class Iranian women that involves, for instance, wearing expensive boots that cover the legs and so, it is argued, are permitted under Iranian law. The scruffy, puritanical Ahmadinejad and his backers among the hardliners in parliament are waging a new and probably doomed struggle against the young Iranian fashionistas. (The Khomeinists give the phrase "fashion police" a whole new meaning).
There is nothing in this legislation that prescribes a dress code or badges for Iranian religious minorities, and Maurice Motamed was present during its drafting and says nothing like that was even discussed.
The whole thing is a steaming crock.
In fact, Iranian Jewish expatriates themselves have come out against a bombing campaign by the US or Israel against Iran. There are still tens of thousands of Jews in Iran, and expatriate Iranian Jews most often identify as Iranians and express Iranian patriotism. I was in Los Angeles when tens of thousands of Iranians immigrated, fleeing the Khomeini regime. I still remember Jewish Iranian families who suffered a year or two in what they thought of as the sterile social atmosphere of LA, and who shrugged and moved right back to Iran, where they said they felt more comfortable.
This affair is similar to the attribution to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said "The occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Of course Ahamdinejad does wish Israel would disappear, but he is not commander of the armed forces and could not attack it even if he wanted to, which he denies.
The Palestinian advocacy website Electronic Intifada notes that an editor of a CanWest paper said "We do not run in our newspaper Op Ed pieces that express criticism of Israel".
Here is background from SourceWatch on Benador Associates - basically a PR firm for neo-con hawks. And a Kos writer adds:
Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neoconservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months. Also found among her client list are other major war-boosters, including former New York Times executive editor and now New York Daily News columnist, A. M. Rosenthal; Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer; the Council on Foreign Relations' resident imperialist Max Boot; and Victor Davis Hanson, a blood-and-guts classicist and one of Vice President Dick Cheney's favorite dinner guests.
In other words, practically the whole gang! There's plenty of commentary around this flap, such as this columnist in the Toronto Star, Canadian Cynic, Taylor Marsh, Unqualified Offerings, and plenty more if you care to search.
Besides all that, um, check out Thomas Lippman and Juan Cole's basic explanation of why Iran is not really a military threat to Israel.
Get ready for more of these. They are definitely coming, but it would appear that lots of people are already wary of the Persian version of Aluminum Tubes©®.
Technorati Tags: PSYOPS
My aunt Mary Feidt has worked on documentaries for a long time. Long ago she used to work at the WCCO investigative unit, and since then has been involved with a number of major projects including HBO's America Undercover and PBS Frontline. After quite a few years of painstaking work, the first documentary she's fully produced and directed, "Tangled up in Bob: Searching for Bob Dylan: A Minnesota Story" is going to be aired to Dylan's hardest core of fans at Dylan Days in Hibbing tomorrow, though it was formally released a while ago. It's also going to be screened Friday and I'll probably go up with my dad and Uncle Dan to check that out. Here's the press release.
It was a long slog of a production. They got in a bad car accident at University & Snelling after shooting around Dinkytown (everyone knows that Dylan lived where the Loring Pasta Bar is today. This is below the Witch's Tower that I tend to associate with being all along the Watchtower, but that's just me). I have heard about the production process on a number of Macs, using Final Cut Pro and about 5 portable hard drives.
One of the tough things was that, unlike that p0nk Scorcese, they could not license any of the music for the production, which is a big deal for legal matters and distribution. This meant that a lot of weird and unknown gems that they uncovered from visiting eccentric Canadian guys couldn't go in. However, there was still a bit of Fair Use law to skirt, such as when Dylan's old High School English teacher sings along to a song – that was apparently enough of a critical modification to get by.
The following was featured in StarTribune's ItemWorld on Jan 19 but has since vanished off their site:
Bob Dylan, M.I.A.
I.W. felt right at home in Taos, N.M., last week when author Natalie Goldberg ("Writing Down the Bones") and Minneapolis-bred filmmaker Mary Feidt premiered their mini-documentary on Bob Dylan's Minnesota roots. "Tangled Up in Bob" (www.tangledupinbob.com) follows Goldberg's search for the former Bobby Zimmerman to Minneapolis, where she interviewed buddies Erik Storlie (meditating on icy Lake Calhoun) and John Palmer (serving cheese at the Wedge Co-op). Then off to Hibbing, where she wormed her way into Dylan's childhood home and fell in love with Bobby's high-school English teacher BJ Rolfzen, who called Dylan "the Shakespeare of our time." Musicians Spider John Koerner and Tony Glover also make cameos, but Dylan, per usual, remains elusive. As Glover recalled a 1959 encounter in Dinkytown, Bobby boasted he'd been out West, but "we suspected he'd gone to visit his folks in Hibbing."Tangled" will air May 24 at Hibbing's Dylan Days. -LINDA MACK
On a side note, MPR has a music wiki with a Dylan entry?!?!
The movie has been noted here, and its premiere at the trippy Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, NM is noted here. And by trippy, I mean that Aldous Huxley, DH Lawrence and the gang probably took a lot of peyote there, and Lawrence painted the bathroom. My family stayed there once and this room was sweet. Odd coincidence. Anyway.
The film is also being screened at a Zen Center in Mary's current home of Santa Fe on May 31. It's been linked to at this Dylan site. In 2004, MPR's Cathy Wurzer did an interview with my aunt.
Oh yah, the bonus thing. I might be related to Bob, actually, via my mom's family. My mom's grandfather was a Zimmerman (or Zimmermann) from Duluth. Bob's family were Zimmermans from Duluth. How man Zimmermans could Duluth have had in those days? (I guess that would make me a bit Jewish too. Shalom!)
Major story in the Duluth News Tribune:
Dylan, revisited: HIBBING: A new documentary on Bob Dylan's early influences ends up as an ode to the Midwest.
BY LEE BLOOMQUIST - NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
HIBBING - Like many Bob Dylan fans, filmmaker Mary Feidt and her friend Natalie Goldberg, a creative writer, came to Hibbing to learn more about the songwriter's formative years.
They came away with much more.
"We kind of marched around and did things that people would do as a fan," said Feidt, a filmmaker from Santa Fe, N.M. "We went to B.J.'s (Dylan's high school English teacher B.J. Rolfzen) house, and B.J. started talking. After about 10 minutes, I said, 'We have a story.'
"What we found out is that this is an interesting town and an interesting part of the world. This (film) is as much about Hibbing as it is about Bob Dylan. It's about how the place where you grew up affects who you are." "Tangled up in Bob," a 68-minute documentary tracing Dylan's upbringing in Hibbing, gets its first public screening at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Hibbing Community College theater. The screening kicks off Dylan Days -- a music, writing and arts celebration.
This year, the event includes a "Blood on the Tracks" concert, a singer/songwriter competition, literary readings and a bus tour. Dylan was born in Duluth as Robert Zimmerman and raised in Hibbing. His 65th birthday is Wednesday.
"We've been getting a lot of attention every year," said Aaron Brown, Dylan Days spokesman. "We get a lot of Dylan pilgrims who have followed Dylan's career, and we've gotten international attention." Feidt's original film, more than three years in the making, will be the center of attention on the opening day of the four-day event.
Feidt and Goldberg first came to Hibbing in December 2003 to begin filming. Goldberg is a native of Long Island, N.Y., who now lives in Santa Fe. "When we went up there, the idea was believing that Dylan was a genius and the voice of our generation," Feidt said. "We said, 'Let's see if this place has anything to do with what you've become.' We did find out a lot about him. I believe he took a lot of things from Hibbing that were a part of his life."
In the film, Goldberg acts as a guide. She talks to Hibbing residents who knew Dylan, visits local sites linked to Dylan and has a coffee conversation with Rolfzen at his home. "It's just a wonderful film, and ultimately it's not about Bob," said Goldberg, the author of 10 books that have been translated into 14 languages. "It's about all of us. It's really more about Hibbing, place and the Midwest. It's a sweetheart poem to Hibbing."
During filming, Goldberg said she fell in love with Hibbing and its people. "To tell you the truth, I expected them to be more rough," Goldberg said. "What I found were people that are open, warm, intelligent and accepting of us. I just came back from France, and I tell you what -- I'd rather be in Hibbing."
Dylan gained a lot from Hibbing, she said. "If you read 'Chronicles,' he talks about the weather all the time," said Goldberg. "And even now, on his first radio show on XM Radio, his first show was about the weather. I also think he was influenced in that he continued making new songs and not just playing the old ones," Goldberg said. "And that's a Minnesota value."
The film has received a private showing in Santa Fe. After its debut in Hibbing, Feidt hopes to show it at film festivals and release it to the public.
In addition to footage shot in Hibbing, the crew traveled to Shreveport, La., to interview radio personalities who worked at KWKA, an AM station that Dylan listened to as a youth, and from which he ordered rhythm and blues records. Another portion of the film is shot in Dinkytown, a coffeehouse neighborhood in Minneapolis that Dylan frequented. Dylan's fascination with polka music and with his Jewish heritage on the Iron Range also are explored in the film. Iron Range people and local scenes are shown.
"I wanted to go home to Minnesota and tell a story," said Feidt, whose mother grew up on the Iron Range. "It's kind of a valentine to Minnesota."
The film isn't a Dylan biography, she said. Instead, it's designed to leave viewers pondering how their childhood affected their adult life. "There's a story of a Dylan childhood everywhere," Feidt said. "In the last scene, she (Goldberg) goes home to her hometown. It's all sort of about what she learned about Dylan and herself. What we learned is you can go looking for Bob Dylan in Hibbing, but you won't find him -- you may find somebody else."
We live in a Freemason country, but good George didn't trust those damn Illuminati
In honor of the Da Vinci Code opening today, there were about seven documentaries about the Illuminati, Da Vinci, the Templars and the Holy Grail running on PBS, the History Channel, Discovery &tc. last night. So I was treated to several concurrent exposes of the eye on the dollar bill, DC's inverse pentagram, mysterious relics and apocryphal bloodlines. By the end I had severe paranoia fatigue. But one 'fact' offered by the various weird authors and such caught my attention: the apparent seriousness with which the Illuminati was treated during the revolution, as well as how the PBS documentary seemed to indicate that America's basic political structure, including its religious tolerance, were heavily influenced by Freemasonry. Perhaps, even, in the 13 colonies, Masonic lodges were one of the only broad civic denominators, which seems bizarre today, but seems to have been true to a great extent. In a weird sense, Freemason ideals projected out of the organization to form the basis for our government, an odd connection I'd pretty much never thought about.
This has to be one of the strangest things I have run across in a long time (click to enlarge): located here at the Library of Congress site:
The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor.
[Note 7: Of Fredericktown (now Frederick), Md.]
Mount Vernon, September 25, 1798.
Sir: Many apologies are due to you, for my not acknowledging the receipt of your obliging favour of the 22d. Ulto, and for not thanking you, at an earlier period, for the Book [8] you had the goodness to send me.
[Note 8: Proofs of a Conspiracy &c, by John Robison.]
I have heard much of the nefarious, and dangerous plan, and doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the Book until you were pleased to send it to me.[9] The same causes which have prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter have prevented my reading the Book, hitherto; namely, the multiplicity of matters which pressed upon me before, and the debilitated state in which I was left after, a severe fever had been removed. And which allows me to add little more now, than thanks for your kind wishes and favourable sentiments, except to correct an error you have run into, of my Presiding over the English lodges in this Country. The fact is, I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice, within the last thirty years. I believe notwithstanding, that none of the Lodges in this Country are contaminated with the principles ascribed to the Society of the Illuminati. With respect I am &c.
[Note 9: In a letter from Snyder (Aug. 22, 1798, which is in the Washington Papers), it is stated that this book "gives a full Account of a Society of Free-Masons, that distinguishes itself by the Name of 'Illuminati,' whose Plan is to overturn all Government and all Religion, even natural."]
This painting is at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial: "George Washington Laying the Cornerstone of the National Capitol." Note his gear:
The following was a Mason knickknack card based on the same Masonic apron Washington was said to wear at the Capitol cornerstone-laying, and apparently this is the apron's design, according to an official Masonic site: (I'll fix these links later, sorry)
This excerpt of a different painting was here:
I guess, then, that today's George is in good company.
Naturally when you go spelunking for such material as this, it takes about two links to get waist-deep in weird ass esoteric shit, strange anti-semitic tracts and New World Order dancing aliens. That's the internet for you. I'll post the good, the bad and the ugly later. But for now, isn't a Washington letter about the Illuminati sweet? And why not a second one?
The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor.
Mount Vernon, October 24, 1798.
Revd Sir: I have your favor of the 17th. instant before me; and my only motive to trouble you with the receipt of this letter, is to explain, and correct a mistake which I perceive the hurry in which I am obliged, often, to write letters, have led you into.
It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.
The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a seperation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.
My occupations are such, that but little leisure is allowed me to read News Papers, or Books of any kind; the reading of letters, and preparing answers, absorb much of my time. With respect, etc.
Now that's a funny spin on American history for your weekend.
"A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation. We do not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation."
ABC News put out a press release, saying that an anonymous government source had informed them that the government was watching their phone calls specifically, apparently in part to find out who has been leaking about the government watching everyone's phone calls. It's Nixon in the information age (BTW check out this story about Kissinger tapping reporters and NSC staffers).
These days the Fourth Amendment is about as valued by our government as the hemp it was written on. It really pisses me off that my calls are being logged in some giant database - as USA Today revealed on my birthday, naturally. Well everyone is supposed to call Congress tomorrow, and despite my cell phone bill I think I'll do it. It's a measure of how far this nation has slid towards totalitarianism that such a wildly paranoid program like this almost totally passes in the media and people's heads don't explode out of sheer anger. Last night on the Daily Show (QT and WMP), Jon Stewart nailed it with a montage of FOX anchors defending the total canvassing of phone records, with "Wow, the entire network of anchors has been hired to be the press secretary..."
(CrooksAndLiars.com is our site of the day for their many handy video clips and good sources)
Fortunately 51% of Americans oppose the NSA database - commentary from Atrios here. Poor National Security Advisor Big Glasses Hadley just can't seem to tell Wolf Blitzer a single damned useful result of the NSA Total PhoneCall Awareness Trolling (QT). Even Joe Scarborough thinks its kind of chilling, since if Nixon had done this, they would have caught Deep Throat before Watergate broke.
Murray Waas, the intrepid National Journal reporter who has been covering the Valerie Plame / Libby case in obscene detail, is himself getting positive coverage from US News. He started by working for Jack Anderson as a teenager. Not bad at all. And his blog.
NY Times bombthrower Frank Rich has a new book, the Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth. Sounds good to me. More Rich lately (also on RawStory and featured in E&P):
"His mission was not to protect our country but to prevent the airing of administration dirty laundry, including leaks detailing how the White House ignored accurate C.I.A. intelligence on Iraq before the war. Journalists and whistle-blowers who relay such government blunders are easily defended against the charge of treason. It's often those who make the accusations we should be most worried about. Mr. Goss, a particularly vivid example, should not escape into retirement unexamined. He was so inept that an overzealous witch hunter might mistake him for a Qaeda double agent....read on"
Meanwhile Al Gore went on SNL, claiming to have invented an anti-hurricane machine, and I missed it. And the trailer for his new movie about the environment.
Action Alert from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee: Wednesday, May 17, National Call-in to Congress on NSA Warrantless Surveillance:
Last December, we learned that, according to some Members of Congress, the President may have violated laws by allowing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans' phone calls.
On Thursday, 5/11, USA Today published a major cover story revealing a National Security Agency (NSA) database of millions of innocent Americans' domestic phone call records, indicating who, when and where we are calling.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
This database has nothing to do with catching suspected terrorists: It is documenting all our associations in the largest database in history-with a goal of including "every call ever made" within the nation's borders. This program is truly *beyond "Big Brother"!*
*Take Action Now*
It's time for the American people to tell Congress in a clear, loud voice that *we've had enough!*
Join the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and thousands of other Americans by calling Congress on Wednesday, May 17 to demand they investigate this government intrusion immediately. ADC, the BORDC, the ACLU, People For the American Way, and other organizations (see below) have declared the week of May 15 "National Call-in to Congress Week" and are asking their constituents to call their members of Congress on a specific day. Let's keep those phones ringing in the Congressional halls all week long!
*The Message*
Please phone each of your Senators, and your Representative. *Urge them NOT to consider draft legislation that would give the executive branch new surveillance powers that are immune to oversight by the courts and Congress. Call for a full, public investigation of the NSA surveillance program. *
*Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121* (24 hours) and ask the operator to connect you. Or this ADC page to find your legislators' phone numbers.
*Additional sample talking points:*
Here are a few suggestions. Choose one or two:
* The President has broken the law. He must stop warrantless eavesdropping and collecting records on all our phone calls and come clean with the American people about any further secret powers he claims as Commander-in-Chief.
* The administration's claim that it must break the law to protect us from al-Qaeda are just plain false: any communications specifically targeting an al-Qaeda member outside the U.S. doesn't even need a warrant, and FISA judges are ready and waiting to issue warrants to wiretap any suspected al-Qaeda in the U.S.-- even if those calls include U.S. citizens or residents.
* Overburdening the FBI with thousands of false leads makes us less safe because it leaves them less time and fewer resources to find the real terrorists.
* How can Congress even consider passing legislation to make these illegal programs legal, when it can't even find out what they entail? It must investigate. This is no time for new legislation!
* What's needed is an immediate, full and unrestricted public investigation into the NSA spying program, including a probe into the massive database collecting Americans' phone calls.
* The idea that the database of all our calls is permissible as long as it doesn't contain names and addresses is ludicrous. By linking the database of phone calls with all the other government data mining operations, the government can literally follow our every move, every contact, and every transaction. It's "Big Brother" run amok!
* Congress needs to pass whistleblower protections for government employees and safeguards for journalists who provide information to the American public about illegal government acts.
* The Fourth Amendment is clear. Electronic surveillance of this sort requires a warrant. A warrant allows a judge to serve as a check against executive abuse of power. That check keeps our government honest - preventing one branch of government from mischief and errors.
*Organizations supporting the call-in day (partial list)* include the Alliance for Justice, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Civil Liberties Union, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, First Amendment Foundation, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Liberty Coalition, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Coalition Against Repressive Legislation, National Lawyers Guild, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, People For the American Way, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, and United For Peace and Justice.
More information is available on the BORDC webpage.
Because guess what? Without any probable cause, the government doesn't have any fucking right to your phone logs. Some would say that defending the Constitution is worth fighting for. Or at least calling for.
Learn Something, Pass It On...
I make sure to use the New York Times to stay abreast of all cultural trends and "fads" in America. Their coverage of our faddish fopperies always gives me a hearty chuckle. So, of course, I was delighted today when I opened the paper and read a review of two books recently written about the oh-so-new and exciting world of professional eating.
Kobayashi Receiving His Fifth Straight Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship
Both books are funny, in different ways. Both struggle to take the measure of two Asian competitors who have eaten their rivals under the table. The amazingly slim Takeru Kobayashi, competitive eating's one bona fide superstar, makes headlines each year by showing up at the Nathan's Famous hot-dog competition in Coney Island and humiliating the American competition. In July 2004 he ate 53½ hot dogs (with buns) in 12 minutes. Second place was 38.
In third place was Sonya Thomas, a petite Korean immigrant and former Burger King manager once introduced onstage as "a cross between Anna Kournikova , Billie Jean King and a jackal wild on the Serengeti." Ms. Thomas currently holds the competitive-eating records for toasted ravioli (four pounds in 12 minutes), oysters (46 dozen in 10 minutes), eggs (65 hard-boiled eggs in 6 minutes 40 seconds) and turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck that has been stuffed with a chicken. Ms. Thomas consumed nearly eight pounds of turducken in 12 minutes. She often claims to be hungry after competitions.
Oh, New York Times, this is just so ZANY, so epically... wait, turducken?
Wikipedia defines a "Turducken" thusly:
A turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned bread crumb mixture, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. Some recipes call for the turkey to be stuffed with a chicken which is then stuffed with a duckling. It is also called a chuckey.
A Beautifully Prepared Turduckeneast
Wow. I actually learned something from a New York Times trend watch article. Not only that, but the piece of information acquired just keeps giving and giving as I try to picture a Turducken in my mind. Beware of believing too much of what you read about Turducken, though, kids- the Wikipedia entries veracity is under dispute, presumably by people whose existence is so wretched, the day so unmanageably hellish, that an evening spent fact-checking turducken on an internet encyclopedia brings sweet release.
By the way, if you are interested in purchasing a Turducken, they can be purchased online from the two major vendors, Paul Prudhomme and the Cajun Grocer: If you want to make your own, you can find the instructions here courtesy of Lynn and John Salmon of New York.
It was a very long run, some seasons better than others, but West Wing aired its final episode last night and it was fairly boring. The high point was probably when they are packing all the books in the Oval Office and the only book you see is a Michel Foucault volume, which brought much cheer to Macalester viewers. I pretty much ignored the show until I was deep into my Political Science courses, and when we needed some little ray of sunshine to show that politics was not the worst possible disaster all the time, Alison's ever-expanding DVD collection fit that need.
There was a pretty funny opinion bit in the Washington Post about how British Blairite/New Labour staffers were infatuated with the show because it showed them a much happier vision for government. When Whitehall Meets 'The West Wing':
The show portrayed the U.S. government operating much as Blair's young followers wished Whitehall could work. Instead of ideas having to fight their way up through the bureaucracy, they could be thrashed out by two bright young things and taken straight to the boss. During the fourth season of the show, Bartlet staffers Josh and Toby took inspiration from a chat with a stranger in an Indiana bar to devise a quick plan making college tuition tax-deductible. Fast-forward a few episodes, and it became the centerpiece of the president's second-term tax plan -- just like that.
The old joke goes that the British government has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls-Royce. As the Blairites chafed against that system, "The West Wing" offered them a tantalizing vision of how life could be.
This longing was heightened by the similarities between Bartlet and Blair. They are both self-defined moral men with the ability to inspire devotional loyalty. They both think in world-changing terms and are married to dynamic, feisty, professional women. One of Blair's confidants even told the Daily Telegraph in 2003 that the psychology of the two leaders was strikingly similar. And both had as sidekicks hardened bruisers who had struggled with the demon drink (although Blair's partner was communications guru Alastair Campbell, not his chief of staff).
......
Of course, Blair would have stood with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and joined the invasion of Iraq with or without "The West Wing." But the show can only have bolstered his team's eagerness to understand the U.S. position and its appreciation of America's potential for good. Its perceived influence led conservative British commentator Peter Oborne to denounce Blair and his team's deployment of the "techniques, and empty morality, of 'West Wing' to rewrite the Iraq conflict."
......
James Forsyth, an assistant editor of Foreign Policy magazine, is one more Brit who wishes he could be Josh Lyman.
How to Pick a Satisfying Career: Know Yourself
Hongpong.com Drupal development: Some new advancements: I have organized the menus a bit and set up a basic forum. It is colossally easy to register an account on the new system, which allows you to put up files and such, as well as personal blogs and polls. Anonymous comments are also turned on.
Check out the new RSS headline aggregator thingy set up - viewed here as a big list of mixed things, or here broken into the component sections (or "wires")or a set of the sources we're putting together. NOTE: Right now the auto headline updater doesn't work - in other words it won't check sites on its own yet. Therefore I think anyone can hit drupal.hongpong.com/cron.php to force updating the feeds. (we're gonna do some SEO somehow, too)
Meanwhile some randomness: Bill Salisbury on polarization in MN nominating processes. He is an intrepid reporter who's been around the Capitol for a long time.
Help Palestinians but dodge giving Hamas government money? Sounds dubious.
Aspyr is releasing Civilization IV for Macintosh tentatively in June. I just saw it on PC again, and it is excellent.
Porter Goss: shitty leader goes back to Capitol Hill. Never should have brought his greasy face outta the House.
You gotta see the Truth live. The word is law, bitch! Wayne Madsen promotes Al Gore comeback in 2008 in the Salt Lake Tribune.
If you care at all about South America you need to check out Greg Grandin's "Rumsfeld's Latin American Wild West Show" on TomDispatch.com. Basically the U.S. is militarizing its relations with the whole region, as one country after another slips out of Washington's orbit. Only a small part of a CRUCIAL read about how direct American imperialism/Full Spectrum Dominance has been field-tested south of here:
Latin America, in fact, has become more dangerous of late, plagued by a rise in homicides, kidnappings, drug use, and gang violence. Yet it is not the increase in illicit activity that is causing the Pentagon to beat its alarm but rather a change in the way terrorism experts and government officials think about international security. After 9/11, much was made of Al Qaeda's virus-like ability to adapt and spread through loosely linked affinity cells even after its host government in Afghanistan had been destroyed. Defense analysts now contend that, with potential patron nations few and far between and funding sources cut off by effective policing, a new mutation has occurred. To raise money, terrorists are reportedly making common cause with gun runners, people smugglers, brand-name and intellectual-property bootleggers, drug dealers, blood-diamond merchants, and even old-fashioned high-seas pirates.
In other words, the real enemy facing the U.S. in its War on Terror is not violent extremism, but that old scourge of American peacekeepers since the days of the frontier: lawlessness. "Lawlessness that breeds terrorism is also a fertile ground for the drug trafficking that supports terrorism," said former Attorney John Ashcroft a few years ago, explaining why Congress's global counterterrorism funding bill was allocating money to support the Colombian military's fight against leftist rebels.
Counter-insurgency theorists have long argued for what they describe as "total war at the grass-roots," by which they mean a strategy not just to defeat insurgents by military force but to establish control over the social, economic, and cultural terrain in which they operate. "Drying up the sea," they call it, riffing on Mao's famous dictum, or sometimes, "draining the swamp." What this expanded definition of the terrorist threat does is take the concept of total war out of, say, the mountains of Afghanistan, and project it onto a world scale: Victory, says the Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, "requires the creation of a global environment inhospitable to terrorism."
Defining the War on Terror in such expansive terms offers a number of advantages for American security strategists. Since the United States has the world's largest military, the militarization of police work justifies the "persistent surveillance" of, well, everything and everybody, as well as the maintenance of "a long-term, low-visibility presence in many areas of the world where U.S. forces do not traditionally operate." It justifies taking "preventive measures" in order to "quell disorder before it leads to the collapse of political and social structures" and shaping "the choices of countries at strategic crossroads" which, the Quadrennial Defense Review believes, include Russia, China, India, the Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia -- just about every nation on the face of the earth save Britain and, maybe, France.
[Read the next one carefully then check your phone records: -Dan]
Since the "new threats of the 21st century recognize no borders," the Pentagon can, in the name of efficiency and flexibility, breach bureaucratic divisions separating police, military, and intelligence agencies, while at the same time demanding that they be subordinated to U.S. command. Hawks now like to sell the War on Terror as "the Long War," but a better term would be ‘the Wide War," with an enemies list infinitely expandable to include everything from DVD bootleggers to peasants protesting the Bechtel Corporation. Southcom Commander Craddock regularly preaches against "anti-globalization and anti-free trade demagogues," while Harvard security-studies scholar and leading ideologue of the "protean enemy" thesis, Jessica Stern, charges, without a shred of credible evidence, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is brokering an alliance between "Colombian rebels and militant Islamist groups."
.....In Latin America more generally, it is increasingly the Pentagon, not the State Department, which sets the course for hemispheric diplomacy. With a staff of 1,400 and a budget of $800 million, Southcom already has more money and resources devoted to Latin America than do the Departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, and Agriculture combined. And its power is growing.
For decades following the passage of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, it was the responsibility of the civilian diplomats over at Foggy Bottom to allocate funds and training to foreign armies and police forces. But the Pentagon has steadily usurped this authority, first to fight the War on Drugs, then the War on Terror. Out of its own budget, it now pays for about two-thirds of the security training the U.S. gives to Latin America. In January 2006, Congress legalized this transfer of authority from State to Defense through a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which for the first time officially gave the Pentagon the freedom to spend millions from its own budget on aid to foreign militaries without even the formality of civilian oversight. After 9/11, total American military aid to the region jumped from roughly $400 million to more than $700 million. It has been steadily rising ever since, coming in today just shy of $1 billion.
Much of this aid consists of training Latin American soldiers -- more than 15,000 every year. Washington hopes that, even while losing its grip over the region's civilian leadership, its influence will grow as each of these cadets, shaped by ideas and personal loyalties developed during his instruction period, moves up his nation's chain of command. [And that in turn, could be the backdoor for American-directed coups and direct political pressure --Dan]
Training consists of lethal combat techniques in the field backed by counterinsurgency and counter-terror theory and doctrine in the classroom. This doctrine, conforming as it does to the Pentagon's broad definition of the international security threat, is aimed at undermining the work civilian activists have done since the end of Cold War to dismantle national and international intelligence agencies in the region.
BagNewsNotes on Pitching the Zarqawi bloopers.
The Ny Times says today:
Two related National Security Agency surveillance programs begun after the Sept. 11 attacks have provoked legal controversy because the agency does not seek court warrants for their operation.
In the domestic eavesdropping program, the N.S.A. listens in on phone calls and reads e-mail messages to and from Americans and others in the United States who the agency believes may be linked to Al Qaeda. Only international communications — those into and out of the country — are monitored, according to administration officials. Until late 2001, the N.S.A. focused on only the foreign end of such conversations; if it decided someone in the United States was of intelligence interest, it had to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Now such warrants are sought only for communications between two people who are both in the United States.
In the telephone record data-mining program, the N.S.A. has obtained from at least three phone companies the records of all calls — domestic and international — showing the phone numbers on both ends of each conversation, and its date, time, duration and other details. The records do not include the contents of any call or e-mail message and do not include personal data like credit card numbers and home addresses, officials say.
Security agency employees perform computer analysis in an effort to identify possible associates of terror suspects.
Meanwhile a nice birthday present from the AP - May 11: Justice Department Abruptly Ends Domestic Spying Probe
The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.
"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey.
Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.
Jarrett wrote that beginning in January, his office has made a series of requests for the necessary clearances. Those requests were denied Tuesday.
"Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation," wrote Jarrett.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the terrorist surveillance program "has been subject to extensive oversight both in the executive branch and in Congress from the time of its inception."
Meanwhile it is interesting that the Carlyle Group has some control over how those security clearances are handed out via the U.S. Investigative Services, USIS, entity. $13 million in a recent contract.
Man, to hell with it. I'm gonna go have fun now.
For real, I am digging around very seriously for a job today. It's my birthday tomorrow, but I really need to make sure that the coming year has the kind of stability and confidence that the last year just really hasn't had at all. And by that, I mean full time work that will get me away from wasting my time with such really productive hobbies as this site. But hey that ain't yet, so lets waste some time:
Without BAGNewsNotes, where would we get such photos? Since politics is all images these days, its nice such a site specifically checks out the visual side: Psychology Watch: The Obvious Boy For Next Secretary Of Defense:
Nuclear gas release in Prairie Island containment vessel: A story from that new Twin Cities Daily Planet site, which sort of left ambiguous the nature of a recent nuclear leak down in Red Wing:
Prairie Island accident raises questions: A nuclear industry watchdog group Tuesday called the May 5 accident at the Prairie Island nuclear plant in which 100 workers were contaminated with radioactive iodine the most serious release of radiation there in 20 years and raised questions about the federal reporting process.
My understanding from the article is that the gas never got outside the containment vessel... The wording is a bit hazy, but the Daily Planet just started up, so they've got a couple kinks to get out. I admire the clever structure of the new Twin Cities news aggregating / indie features site, though, and I wish 'em the best.
Macalester alumni mag faces Scrotum-gate: I had declined to speak of this on the Internet but then they covered it in the Mac Weekly. Basically one of the Bad Comedy boys got his balls into a group photo that was submitted to Mac's fawning glossy alumni magazine. This was a brilliant maneuver in every sense, and a good (wait for it) extension of Bad Comedy's nudity-tinged oeuvre. I'd heard some rumors of this conspiracy in advance and I'm glad it went off well.
Obnoxious 'faux liberal' Washington Post columnist complains about angry bloggers: complaining about the 'anger' factor is just another way to deflect from the substance. In this case, it was Cohen's whining about how Colbert shouldn't have dared ruffle those mega-eagle feathers, which set off some pissed off emails. Digby: "In case Cohen hasn't noticed nobody on the fucking planet likes squishy faux liberal courtiers." And Salon's Daou Report on that and on the DailyKos.
Random as hell: (but seemed interesting enough): Old Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar "vows allegiance to bin Laden". Actually I thought this was old news, but it's interesting he's still kicking around since the old days when Reagan helped him fight the commies and pretty much everyone else. Tariq Ali on Iran. Muqtada al-Sadr wants to model the Mahdi Army on Hezbollah, which is a logical progression from boisterous militia to political party with lotsa guns and social services. AlJazeera.com (not affiliated with the TV network): Handicapped U.S. intel. on Iran challenges new CIA man.
This interview with the frontman of Godsmack about why the hell they sold songs into military recruiting commercials is pretty funny, if sad. (via Firedoglake)
"America's Geopolitical Nightmare and Eurasian Strategic Energy Arrangements" by F. William Engdahl from the idiosyncratic Centre for Research on Globalization, which always has interesting things. "The Next World War" from Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo.
Suddenly all these guys, Joe Biden among them, are saying "let's just break Iraq in three" and feeling clever about themselves. I think that's a bit insane, but hardly surprising. George Packer, a skilled journalist, says in the New Yorker:
The choice in Iraq should not be between the Administration’s failed eschatology and the growing eagerness of most politicians to be rid of the problem.
Nobody likes Joe Lieberman, not even his supporters. Bizarre.
Jews Jeer Mehlman: JTA: Republican chairman booed at AJCommittee event:
The room burst into applause, however, when AJCommittee board member Edith Everett asked Mehlman to “take a message” to President Bush to stop linking Israel and Iran. “It does not help Israel and it does not help American Jews to appear to be stimulators of any action against Iran,” Everett said.
Something about Hitchens and Juan Cole: Noted rightwing drunkard Christopher Hitchens broke into a private email server where one of my favorite academics on the internet, Juan Cole, was explaining that the term "wipe Israel off the map" is an idiom that doesn't actually exist in Farsi, therefore every time you hear it, it's actually a distortion of meaning that serves war propaganda. Basically Hitchens published all these chunks of Cole's reasoning out of context in Slate, and this was a dick thing to do, since no one likes Hitchens, so he does this kind of B.S. hit piece. Anyway here is a bit about it. More here. As always, Cole's site is absolutely key.
Kos calls my boss a "wingnut": Teh sweet. Duly noted on the dailykos:
Last week I opened up in Minneapolis, where I got a ridiculously good reception. I started with a book signing at Arise Books, which is a small indy bookstore run by volunteers. I hadn't ever heard of anything like that before. The place was packed, and in the crowd was Fighting Dem Tim Walz in MN-01, who got a chance to update me on his race (which really is looking good). Also present was CW Wisconsin, who drove three hours for the event and left some great beer behind for me.
I did some radio, including wingnut radio on a show following Hannity. It was the first wingnut radio I'd done, since quite frankly, I'd rather not waste my time talking to people who won't buy my book anyway. But I had a blast batting around callers like a cat toying with a mouse. Seriously, what a bunch of morons.
Counter-AIPAC academics strike back: The Mearsheimer/Walt paper about the Israel Lobby and AIPAC has generated a predictable round of finger-pointing and scurrilous charges of anti-semitism, because they dared to directly dissect with blunt academic Neo-Realist style the way that A) Israel's right-wing policies are fully supported by the United States B) for totally irrational reasons that undermine our real national interests and C) no one is ever ever ever supposed to talk about this. Obviously it is a controversial topic to ramble on about, but not now. Anyway Mearsheimer and Walt wrote a big letter reacting to the reactions. These guys will have to sacrifice a lot in order to take on such a dicey topic, and we owe it to them to look at the matter carefully. But not now, damnit. Also there is an academic Freedom of Speech petition Juan Cole started against the charges of anti-semitism directed towards M&W.
Bits on CIA chief candidate Hayden: For some bizarre reason, Dennis Hastert is lashing out at John Negroponte for trying to do a "power play" by getting his deputy Hayden into running the CIA. I would recommend Steve Clemons' Washington Note stories on this matter, and the counter-intuitive "Misreading Michael Hayden's Role in the Intelligence Bureaucracy Wars: Negroponte Wants Hayden to Battle with -- Not Help -- Rumsfeld" (also noted here). The TPM muckies managed to link Hayden to Wilkes' corrupt MZM contractor. Check out Rozen following the case as well as Marshall. Tuesday, WaPo reports FBI probing Foggo's CIA contracts. The Sun reports Pentagon Is Winner Over CIA. Today, NY Times says Clash Foreseen Between C.I.A. and Pentagon.
Wayne Madsen - a peculiar journalist who used to be in the NSA, (read caveats about him in Wikipedia), well he doesn't like Michael Hayden one bit, and he has a lot of weird goods on the guy and the NSA generally. Check this this this this this and this for quite a trip down the rabbit hole. Madsen was the guy who stirred up that story that John Bolton was improperly reading NSA intercepts of Bill Richardson. Never got disproven.
Big Ol love letter from Ahmadinejad: It is a very interesting thing to read, and it seems to be targeted more at a Middle Eastern audience than the White House as such. NY Times on it here and Le Monde has the full letter here. By the way Steve Clemons also talks about this funny letter gambit. I would include more, but this is interesting by itself:
Mr President,
September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.
All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems – and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?
All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbours of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people – who had been immensely traumatised by the attacks – some Western media only intensified the climates of fear and insecurity – some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?
American citizen lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?
Some believe that the hype paved the way – and was the justification – for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media. In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly – for the public to, finally, believe – and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.
Will the truth not be lost in a contrive and deceptive climate? Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?
[snip]........What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention – which I am hoping you will agree to some of it – is : Those in power have specific time in office, and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.
The people will scrutinize our presidencies.
Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice, or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful – thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs'? Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats? Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it? Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors? Did our administration set out to promote rational behaviour, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns. Intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights? And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office – to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets – or not?
Well fine, then, Ahmadinejad better damn well figure a way out of this one now, if he is going to talk all altruistic and shit...
Very bad video games: Islamists using US video games in youth appeal (May 4)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.
Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that U.S. troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, Defense Department official and contractors told Congress.
....Devlin spoke before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, at which contractors from San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, gave lawmakers a presentation that focused on Iraq as an engine for Islamic militant propaganda from Indonesia to Turkey and Chechnya.
....One of the latest video games modified by militants is the popular "Battlefield 2" from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City, California. Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, said enthusiasts often write software modifications, known as "mods," to video games.
"Battlefield 2" ordinarily shows U.S. troops engaging forces from China or a united Middle East coalition. But in a modified video trailer posted on Islamic Web sites and shown to lawmakers, the game depicts a man in Arab headdress carrying an automatic weapon into combat with U.S. invaders.
"I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters," a narrator's voice said as the screen flashed between images of street-level gunfights, explosions and helicopter assaults.
Then came a recording of President George W. Bush's September 16, 2001, statement: "This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." It was edited to repeat the word "crusade," which Muslims often define as an attack on Islam by Christianity.
I think we all want to know which mods they are running. Are Islamic militants closing the American game-modding gap? Here in America, video games serve Freedom: "America's Army", literally a first-person shooter designed to indoctrinate the youth into joining the military. Better to spend that defense cash on manipulating teen pop culture and upping polygon counts, rather than body armor, I suppose. SAIC is shady, too, but I will let that go for now.
The Flaming Lips - The Gash: (The Soft Bulletin - 1999)
Is that gash in your leg
Really why you have stopped?
‘Cause I’ve noticed all the others
Though they’re gashed, they’re still going
‘Cause I feel like the real reason
That you’re quitting, that you’re admitting
That you’ve lost all the will to battle on
Will the fight for our sanity
Be the fight of our lives?
Now that we’ve lost all the reasons
That we thought that we had
Still the battle that we’re in
Rages on till the end
With explosions, wounds are open
Sights and smells, eyes and noses
But the thought that went unspoken
Was understanding that you’re broken
Still the last volunteer battles on
Battles on
Battles on
First I will add my own original contribution to this rehash of the most goddamned annoying day in the history of the world. When I was at the Kos appearance here in Minneapolis a couple days ago, Coleen Rowley (of FBI whistleblower fame) showed up to make the liberal scene, and since Zacharias Moussaoui was all over the news, I had to ask her something, because she was at that damn Minneapolis field office when they caught the bastard in August 2001. Could 9/11 have been prevented, I asked her, given that you guys had Moussaoui? I'm imperfectly paraphrasing here, but she shot back, Yes. The reports about terrorists at flight schools got stopped up in the FBI, but those reports got to George Tenet, the chief of Central Intelligence. And all they really had to do was put bolts on the cockpit doors. It's too bad I don't have a recording so I can't quote it perfectly.
But damn, to have been in that situation, to have been an FBI agent who sensed the bigger pilot conspiracy, and to get shut down in August 2001. What a shitty thing. (Michael Ruppert blames an FBI guy named Frasca for orchestrating the Minneapolis FBI "suppression" - more here and here - just trying to cover my basic illuminati-isms). Anyway:
Somehow, quite a few of my friends have become 9/11 conspiracy buffs, as a particular film has persuaded them something just ain't right with everyone's favorite glimpse into the Abyss. Nowadays "Vigilant Guardian" and "controlled demolition" are code words we chuckle at. Well, that's a bit much, but they are among those who have had their perceptions altered by a surprisingly popular film currently passed around the Internet and on DVD. It's called Loose Change: 2nd Edition (here's the official blog), which was made by some young guys for less than $10,000. You can watch the whole thing in high-quality video through Google Video here.
Still not explained: "Is this real world or an exercise?" (source)
I haven't mentioned Loose Change to people much at all (OK, I did a couple times, and via Google Video I got the Video iPod version). Rather, they keep telling me about this exciting video that fucked with their heads. And then they usually show it to their parents, who get terribly annoyed at such silly nonsense. It is getting some play in the mainstream media, as USA Today recently ran a pretty negative article about the "conspiracy film."
USA Today, APRIL 28, 2006: Conspiracy Film Rewrites Sept. 11
Called Loose Change, it is being downloaded from the Internet and shown in small screenings here and overseas. It is not alone in the genre, and it is not unusual in American history either to offer simplistic explanations or demonize opponents. Presidents from Andrew Jackson to Lyndon Johnson were accused by their contemporaries of massive government conspiracies.
The film appears especially popular among young people immersed in a Web culture brimming with sites that question the credibility of government. They see 9/11 as the defining moment of their lives. "This is our generation's Vietnam, our generation's Kennedy assassination," says Korey Rowe, 23, the film's producer.
Professors and researchers of film and politics say the Internet is making it far easier to spread such theories because the traditional media are losing their hold on the news. The immense coverage of controversies and accusations surrounding the war on terror has created fertile ground for people who assign their own interpretations to photos, footage, eyewitnesses, investigations and newspaper accounts of what happened, they say. [w00000p w000p I know they must be talking about me! -dan]
"The information revolution now gives us access to too much information," says Jonathan Taplin, who teaches at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California. "Our problems are that we're just overwhelmed, so in some sense we just basically don't even know where to turn."
True enough, in a sense. The hypersaturation of information has caused a breakdown in the way that we structure the authority to process that information. In other words, there's so much damn noise that you don't know how to trust. Compounding this problem is the obvious fact that no one trusts the White House at all any more, and no one with any wits should trust the mainstream media, after all their well-documented fuckups. And after Colbert's performance, we can tell they're all pretty much scared shitless.
So then, what fills the gap? Stuff like this, for better or worse. Loose Change packs an effective punch for such a small production. But they really don't want you to take what they say as gospel – and the axis of the film is really just the creepy contrast between the Official Narrative supported or enforced today (i.e. the sanctimonious retrospective "Flight 93" flick type stuff), versus the on-site media and first responder reactions that day, and they just don't fit together at all. The Loose Change website's evidence section cites pretty much every bit of the film back to some report or another, and they deserve to be quoted:
The information in Loose Change 2nd Edition is widely available to the public.
We have done nothing extraordinary in terms of research. We also do not take credit for these people's hard work.
Also, take nothing we say at face value.
We highly encourage you to research this information yourselves and come to your own conclusions.
That's what's so interesting. Aside from those nagging hypothetical questions they pose, almost every bit of the movie is based on either direct, original interviews (a flight school guy and a WTC staffer, both interesting), media clips from the day itself, mainstream media press reports, and government documents. In the site's evidence section you can find links to all of these things.
On the other hand, there are press reports that I would basically dismiss. A glaring one is the Guardian report that Osama bin Laden was hospitalized in Dubai on September 10 and met with a local CIA station chief. That story was itself based on one in the French media that was based on anonymous French intelligence sources. Make your own judgments on that, but Loose Change fails to explain the source of that particular story.
It opens with a brilliant Hunter Thompson interview about the supine, "flag sucking" media. Loose Change deploys all the video and audio clips that just don't fit with the official explanations – the suppressed odds and ends of the immediate 9/11 situation, all the weird immediate eyewitness reports. My favorite is when CNN's Jamie McIntyre, live at the Pentagon, says he just doesn't see any damn evidence the plane crashed "anywhere near the Pentagon." All the clips of doomed firefighters talking about secondary WTC explosions was also interesting.
My favorite parts of the movie: the introduction featuring the Operation Northwoods case, which proves that in 1962, the military openly drafted plans to execute fake Communist Cuban terrorist attacks, intended to justify military action against Cuba. This sets a high bar for devious thinking. Then, there is the Pentagon segment, wherein the weird anomaly of how that hole in the Pentagon was not shaped like a plane at all is offered with an excellent animation. The key is that there aren't any holes matching the impact point of multiple-ton jet engines. Looking at the "controlled demolition" WTC theory, the video shows, in brackets, exploding points on the building that – with a bit of imagination – could appear to be charges blowing apart the structure.
Personally, I really can't swallow the full body of 9/11 conspiracies that are out there. I don't believe in the "controlled demolition", but I just can't refute the fact that the God damned hole in the Pentagon is not shaped right at all. And if there were Pentagon defense drills called "Vigilant Guardian," "Northern Vigilance" and others, these placed America's air defenses in all the wrong places, by evil design or really unlucky accident. But, above all, why were the War Games not documented in the 9/11 Commission's final report? The audio clip where the air traffic controller says "Is this real world or exercise?" is deployed for in a disconcerting and brutal effect. (Check the Alex Jones PrisonPlanet archives for War Games details galore, not to mention a quite exhaustive set of 9/11 conspiracy stories from everywhere)
The music is fucking awesome, especially during the Pentagon-hole part and the popping rhythms of the "controlled demolition" segment, perhaps the most surreal sequence. I think they should release a soundtrack.
So we can make one firm conclusion: It's crazy crazy crazy to think there is anything anomalous about 9/11. Or else, it is crazy crazy crazy to believe in one film's version of the events because it features the wrong conspiracy. There are people on the pro-conspiracy side that think that Avery's film is crude, misleading, and full of the red herrings like the explosive 'pods' on the WTC planes, all diversions planted by the government to divide and confuse the 9/11 Truth Movement, deemed Trojan Horses.
911research.com, a pro-conspiracy site, featured the following flyer which summarized their favorite parts and drawbacks to Loose Change:
Strong evidence – irrefutable inside job
+ “WTC7 fell straight down, into a convenient little pile, in 6 seconds.”
+ “The Twin Towers came down in nearly free fall speed.”
+ “The [WTC] remains [were shipped] off to recycling yards overseas before investigators could even examine them.”
+ “And is it merely coincidence that the Pentagon was hit in the only section that was recently being reinforced to withstand that very same kind of attack?”
+ “So four different black boxes, made from the most resiliant materials known to man, were destroyed.”
+ “And for some reason, the last three minutes of the [Ft 93] tape was unaccounted for. The FBI had no explanation for the discrepancy.”
+ “Newsweek reports that a number of top Pentagon brass cancel their flight plans for the next morning.”
+ “On September 11th, 2001, NORAD is in the middle of a number of [up to 5] military exercises . . . leaving 14 fighter jets to protect the entire US.”
+ “It was a psychological attack on the American People, and it was pulled off with military precision.”
Pseudo evidence – traps to distract and discredit the 9/11 truth movement: pods, missiles, drones . . .
+ “It would seem that an entire plane disappeared upon impact.” [Answer – Many many documented plane crash sites leave virtually no debris.]
+ “So what could blow a 16 foot hole in the outer ring of the Pentagon . . . A cruise missile.” [Answer – Wrong. A Boeing 757 could.]
+ “Why is the damage to the Pentagon completely inconsistent with a Boeing 757?” [Answer - It’s not, the first floor hole is over 90’ wide.]
+ “So if Flight 93 didn’t go down in Shanksville, then where? You ready for this? Cleveland.” [Answer – Flt 93 was most likely shot down.]
+ “Flight 93 passengers were taken to an empty NASA research center.” [This is pure speculation mixed with information from a real flight which landed, Delta 1989.]
+ “If different planes were used, what happened to the original ones?” [Answer- There is no evidence that anything but the real planes were used in any the attacks.]
+ “None of those calls [from the flights] could have possibly taken place.” [Answer – there is no clear evidence for the calls being fake or impossible.]
+ “So what happened in the North Tower? Ask Willie Rodriguez. . . . explosions coming from the basement . . .” [Answer – even though were some explosions in the basement and lobby, we know the towers collapsed from the top down.]
Some [9/11 truth movement/conspiracy theorist/planted disinformation cut-out/guy in his basement] Michael Green, offered the following analysis of Loose Change, though I think it is based on the First Edition, not second. "Loose Change" An analysis:
If a film-maker or live lecturer has the good fortune of having the attention of someone like this, or good solid middle-Americans, for an hour-long DVD, or for a 2-3 hour live presentation, he had better use clear hard facts for persuasion, and not iffy, vaguely or ambiguously supported possibilities. The intelligence agencies that do the crimes try to control the counter-community's response by infiltrating moles that infect it with large falsehoods and impossible-to-prove technical questions (micro-analysis). The large falsehoods are designed to prove the community wrong and nuts if the need arises. The microanalysis into pointless or unanswerable questions, or into just plain dumb ones, is to divert its energies from using the clear hard facts to tell the story simply and clearly.
The DVD "Loose Change" by rising media artist Dylan Avery has been touted by some members of the 911-truth community as the best presentation yet, as the "best evidence" (a reference to David Lifton’s book, "Best Evidence" on the JFK assassination). This review will show that the DVD is anything but that; if it is not naive, foolish, uninformed and ignorant, then it is the work of a calculating mole or at best a naïf who has been used by such.
...........Mr. Avery then says to “forget the debris. The 767’s that hit the WTC left a very distinct outline of a commercial airliner. Therefore we should expect something similar at the Pentagon.” The film then flashes to the famous photo of the smoky Pentagon that shows the entry hole before the outer wall collapsed. Avery remarks, “The only damage to the outer wall of the Pentagon is a single hole approximately 16’ in diameter.” COMMENT: First, Avery advances a bad argument because whether or not the Pentagon should show the outline of an airliner in the same way depends on whether it is constructed of the same material as the WTC, and if not, upon the structural differences. Since the outer wall of the Pentagon reportedly was 18” of steel reinforced concrete and reportedly had many of its windows replaced with bomb-resistant 2,500-pound windows in the renovation process that was not yet completed, there is no reason to expect the same pattern.[5] Indeed Mr. Avery’s short attention span shows when he asks the relevant question at 21:35 “And is it merely a coincidence that the Pentagon was hit in the only section that was renovated to withstand that kind of attack?” Second, the area of damage caused by the wings to the Pentagon does in fact fit its outlines well. The photo that Avery mistakenly says shows just a small hole in fact shows massive damage to the façade where the right wing hit; the left side is totally obscured by black smoke. Other photos of the left area show a very close correlation to the angled wingspan of a 767. See “Revelations 911,” [site link busted -Dan].
So that's an attack from the more paranoid side. I'm sure you can find an equally forceful one from the Offical Reality side of the media world.
Here are some more sources for 9/11 conspiracy/truth material. Take it as you will: Question911.com links, WhatReallyHappened.com and another video: Painful Deceptions. Project Censored's unanswered questions of 9/11, the staggeringly complex CooperativeResearch.org's Complete 9/11 Timeline including military exercises. This Serendipity.li essay hits all the cornerstones of this type of story. I could go on and on... but oh well. You can use Google your own damn self.
This is where I am supposed to make some grand conclusion. I dunno....
It is so irritating that this whole era revolves around your supposed emotional reaction to a big-ass terrorist attack that turned out to justify invading half the Middle East and bombing the rest. Our society relentlessly frames and reframes that point in history, with either an angle to Prove the Face of the Enemy (and take your kids to see United 93 so they turn into bloodthirsty cretins!!) or else to prove this government is even more diabolical than when Reagan's boys ran drugs for arms for hostages for Iran. In the process of rationalizing its messy history, the 9/11 Commission invented its own damn timeline that seemed shaped to take the pressure off of NORAD for their weirdly sluggish response to the whole thing, and only poor Mark Dayton had the brass to object to this spinning. At the minimum, "they" were disingenuous after the fact, as bureaucracies usually are, in order to shift the blame around. Of that much, I think we can be certain.
Let's round this out, since of course the back of the dollar bill and that creepy fucking pyramid has been at the root of this the whole time. Why not? The 9/11 folding bill conspiracy? From Armageddon Online: 911 and Currency Conspiracy. Pretty funny.
Either way, enjoy United 93. Your fucking popcorn flavoring will kill you before THE ENEMY does: ABC News: Fatal Disease From Flavoring Raises Flags. Good times. 3 AM is a perfect time to post something like this.
Technorati Tags: 11, cia, conspiracy, loose change, propaganda, war
It is always good to hear that Peter has gotten another story onto the AP wire out west. He called me on his way out of the second meeting, wherein things seemed to be leaning towards allowing the platting of a subdivision named Sinnerville, since there was this governor out there named Sinner... But the goods that got picked up by the wire:
Subdivision name raises some county eyebrows
By PETER GARTRELL, News-Record Writer
May 1, 2006
Religion and government don't often mix but there appears to be a holy controversy brewing over a subdivision name that could boil over in the chambers of the Campbell County Commission.
Commissioners on Tuesday will consider the final plat of a 42-acre subdivision north of Rozet called Sinnerville.
That's right. Sinnerville.
The subdivision, which is being brought before county commissioners by Jason Sinner, generated some controversy during a November Planning Commission meeting, which is usually a mundane affair.
“I expect there would be some discussion on that. However, the county really does not regulate the naming of subdivisions unless there's a conflict with another subdivision,” Chairwoman Marilyn Mackey said.
Sinner couldn't be reached for comment Monday morning but Barb Doyle, of Doyle Land Surveying, who has worked with Sinner on the subdivision, said he would attend Tuesday's commission meeting and fight any attempt to change the name.
At the November meeting, Sinner told planners that he is proud of his name and his family, which has among its ranks a former North Dakota governor, George A. Sinner, a Democrat who served from 1985-1992.
Peter is all over the place, churning out one thing after another: Lodging tax to get review from county, Wright. That must have been a sweet meeting. Wygen II plant on track to finish early, Few apply for 14 positions on various county boards, Court sides with county, says mine must pay $1.7M, Former mayor, senator eyes commission seat and best of all, Rural ballfield will become an open space.
Picked up in Grand Forks: Campbell Co. to consider final plat for 'Sinnerville'
Associated Press
GILLETTE, Wyo. - Pleasant, it may be. But just imagine the signs: "Welcome to Sinnerville."
Thank God P is holding it down out there for all us sinners!
"One of my balls bigger than the Epcot Center"
-Puniceus Hominis, "Quam Sublime"
Stephen Colbert was the celebrity roaster of frequent-and-deservedly-so roastee, our President, fearless leader, last night at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. In a night that saw Chuckles take to the stage with an impersonator of himself in an aww-shucksy routine that had the Press Corps obediently busting a gut, Colbert delivered an address that is, at moments, almost unbearable to watch. This is not to say that there was anything wrong with the material, but it was so shockingly direct (and shockingly directed, as Colbert turned to Bush over and over again, his faux-fawning met with an icy glare for the duration of the speech) and met with so little response amongst the sea of tables full of press folk, who struggle with the President and his administrations stinginess with details every day.
Here's the clip. [video of second half here too -Dan] When you're done with it, go up and read that FoxNews article again, or maybe this: "Being Rude to the President and His Wife is No Joke", [Political Psychology Blog by way of Powerline], which scientifically proves that Colbert bombed, Bush is super sweet and anything you say about him that's bad imperils him, this sweet land that we call home, and everyone we hold dear as a society. Tucker Carlson gave this rather weak address about Colbert "bombing" at the dinner, and Michelle Malkin (who, truth be told, can't even be covered by any sort of "Twinky" joke because the cream filling in a twinkie isn't wearing a white robe and hood) had this to say. The leftist leanings of ourselves and whatever readers we may have aside, this was a sharp piece of entertainment and, knowing that there is maybe still a smidgen of truth to the whole "liberal media" line, it is hard to imagine that many in the crowd, in different circumstances, would have found this hilarious. However, they sat on their hands here, with some too-cool-for-D.C. sniggering the only reward for Colbert's bravery.
Left: Bush's Reaction to Colbert's Clowning; Right: Colbert Turned Repeatedly to Bush During the Speech
Colbert's proximity to the President and his ability to strictly maintain his blithe, untroubled right-winger character with no egging on by the crowd and a stone-faced head of state three steps away was the highlight. He revelled in his ability to make the President uncomfortable, and crossed a number of names off his possible guest list, including John McCain, of whom he said:
John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.
Jon Stewart gave McCain a fairly thorough working-over on The Daily Show recently, which you can see here. Colbert, safe behind his persona, felt free to go further than Stewart would have dared, and Stewart seemed to recognize that last night when he mentioned the incident at the beginning of The Daily Show here and when he transitioned to Colbert at the end here.
Look, make your own opinion, but this speech tested the nation's tolerance for satire by turning to hand-tohand combat tactics in the cultural war. It's fun to bomb at political figures in D.C. from 42nd St in New York, but it takes some cock-and-balls to do it to the face of the most powerful man in the world, idiot or no.
For those of you still interested, here's the transcript of the speech.
From a really good hour-long talk on MPR yesterday that you can catch on RealPlayer:
David Halberstam: Journalist (including in Vietnam) and author, in a speech from the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Mpls. Halberstam recently edited a collection of essays titled "Defining a Nation: Our America and the Sources of its Strength." There was a ton of good stuff about journalism and what actually makes America work.
He advises everyone to see the Battle of Algiers (1966) because if you see it, "you will not want to see American kids go to Iraq." Also he talks about how Iraq is "damaging to the soul of the country." This is crucial - my fuzzy transcription:
Journalists matter when the policy is wrong... When it doesn't work, and that's when journalists really matter in a free society. When I went to Vietnam in 1962 there was a really small group of us and the Kennedy people had upgraded the commitment from 1600 to 18,000 [troops]. They didn't want to send in combat troops but they didn't want - because of what happened in domestic politics - what happened when Chiang Kai Shek fell in mainland China, they didn't want to lose Vietnam as we lost China, as if China was ever ours to own.
So they did this halfway program and it didn't work. And when it didn't work, the people in the field tried to report to their superiors in saigon that it didn't work and when their superiors in Saigon said in effect, don't ever report that way again. Report that we are winning or you will not go from colonel to brigadier general, or light colonel to colonel, which was the backchannel word...
They turned to us, they turned to the journalists, so we became a ventilating system for the bureaucracy. It was not a press struggle, it was a struggle within the United States Army, between those in the field actually fighting the war, and those in Saigon and Washington who were reflecting the political desires of the Kennedy administration. Bad policy, when the policy doesn't work, journalists become infinitely more important.
Anyhow I thought that was pretty damn good. Relevant to the current thing, I gotta say.
TomMahm, Copperfield Loses Not a Cent, Lots More Stadiums Seats to Put Butts In, I Have a Cat!
The above is an untouched photograph of the view West towards the Tucson mountains from my front yard on a weekday evening. The bar on the left was frequented by Jack Kerouac, I am told.
Introducing: Strega Nona
Abby and I have adopted Strega here, which is to say, Strega's owner forfeited his right to own her through gross negligence and she chose to reside with us instead. She is currently in heat, which has been a treat, as she begins yowling at five in the morning and gets louder until ten or so. Come Friday morning, entering into estrus will forever be a thing of the past for Strega, which is win-win for everyone. Mating screams and the demented rubbing exercises that accompany them notwithstanding, this is a very cool cat- gentle and loving without being needy, small, athletic and quite beautiful, she's ["Smitten Kitten" joke redacted- ed.]
I'm an illusionist!
David Copperfield was robbed at gunpoint in West Palm Beach Sunday night, and managed to convince the three teenage thieves holding a gun six inches from his face that he did not have any on him by performing his "reverse pickpocket" trick and pulling out his pant pockets in from of them without relinquishing possession of his scrilla and celly. He called the cops and the kids were busted "within minutes," and then magically transformed into a scale model of the Gateway Arch in a cloud of smoke. I kid, Mr. Kotkin (his real name), smoke machines are for hacks, of course! In related news, David Blaine is going to perform his next stunt, where he will be dangled from his toes while wearing the Shroud of Turin over a vat of warm marmalade, in New York City. The reason for the change of venue (he spent 44 days in a box starving himself in London two years ago) was the inhospitality of the British, who went so far as to dangle cheeseburgers from RC helicopters to torture him. So, in summary, David Blaine is a baby and David Copperfield belongs in her Majesty's Secret Service. Remember, not only did he fool the thieves and keep the cash, but we still don't know the trick, preserving his Alliance certification.
I don't even know what my point is here, other than that these guys is crazy...
Stadiums for Everyone!
Well, the VIkings' stadium deal is still in its infancy, but the Gophers and Twins are crowning as we speak. Though the Senate shifted around the Gopher stadium plans a bit, (removing the student fee and nixing TCF Bank's $35 naming rights contribution) it is still on track at the very same moment that a Twins stadium bill's passing is looking all but inevitable. I think we can probably call all three of these projects likely, which is exciting news. The Cities had to spruce up their sports infrastructure a bit both for the purposes of major events like the NCAA tournament and the Super Bowl and to, y'know, retain their teams in an era of bazillion dollar excesses on major sports venues. The price tag? $790 million for the Vikes, $522 million for the Twinkies (half a bill and no retractable roof?) and $248 million for Goldie to go toe-to-toe with the newer stadii of the Big 10; silly money, to be sure, but the resulting facilities, and the possibility of Hennepin County pursuing its imagined urban village in the footprint of the Huhuhu Metrodome, make the deal(s) too good to pass up. FYI- The Representative sleeping through the meeting on the allocation of a half a billion dollars is Representive David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake).
Big Poppa Doom informed everyone that, in a handy and expedient combination of Apocalyptic middle eastern wars and invisible men with booming voices, God is determining our foreign policy. What could go wrong? Catch the video. Editor&Publisher and the WaPo on it.
Bush: I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.
Also the following statement:
One decision he questions: After the successful invasion, "preparing an Iraqi army for an external threat. Well, it turns out there may have been an external threat but it's nothing compared to the internal threat." He did not explain what external threat the Iraqis were being trained for.
FDA 420 political diktat: Last week the FDA published a fancy condemnation of marijuana medical studies -- and in an odd example of a federal bureaucracy trying to dictate rules to state legislatures, condemned efforts at the state level to reform marijuana laws. It's kind of improper for federal agencies to order state legislatures to Jump. Scientific American on it, and here's the FDA statement.
As more than a few people are noticing these days, this is another example of fake politicized science, like ordering NASA scientists to shut up about global warming (read the damn NASA memo). (don't forget that national parks are falling apart and of course the government doesn't care about global warming) Go hang out at smokedot to compensate, and don't forget all those tax dollars flushed down the toilet for the war on drugs.
Net Neutrality: Couple more articles about the impending cancellation of the internet's egalitarian structure. Fortunately, Nancy Pelosi is supporting an amendment that would save Net Neutrality. You can become a "citizen co-sponsor" about it here. The attempt to fix it is called the Markey Amendment. Despite having a serious uphill battle, the word seems to be spreading:
We now have over 75 coalition partners, everyone from the Parents Television Council to the Texas Internet Service Provider’s Association to Consumer Action, and the blogosphere is on fire. We launched yesterday, and net neutrality is just blowing up.
Comic book collectors, video gamers, librarians, hip hop sites, music fans, more video gamers, designers, small business owners, and nonprofits have heard of the issue and are very angry at the telecom cartel’s move.
And now the tech companies have chimed in with Don’t Mess with the Net.
Iraq for Sale: The liberal documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed and others) is working on a new film, Iraq for Sale, about corrupt defense contractors, in time for the election this fall. However, they are trying to get $50 donations to finance production. I advised them that the trailer on their website doesn't seem to work on Mac.
Air Force censors liberal websites: According to someone at the DailyKos, the Air Force is blocking the DailyKos, Atrios Eschaton and TalkingPointsMemo. The roughly equivalent (although more hateful, I would say) rightwing sites FreeRepublic and LittleGreenFootballs are not blocked. More on this. If you are in the military and are trying to circumvent ideologically tainted censorship, try these tips on Peacefire. You can see if a program called SmartFilter is blocking URLs here (we are classed as "personal pages"). There is something odd about how the Air Force seems to be the most fundamentalist branch of the military.
It is also interesting that Armed Forces Radio is extremely tilted towards rightwing commentary that is rebroadcast from civilian sources. It's like 90% conservative. More on Armed Forces Radio bias here and here. This has bad effects, wherein for example, Rush Limbaugh tells soldiers through Armed Forces Radio that the Abu Ghraib torture was basically acceptable to "blow some steam off".
This website is clearly not blocked at many military installations, including the Air Force. However, I have also been sent screenshots of this site being blocked on military internet at a particular place that I won't elaborate on.
MZM meta-scandal: Corrupt defense contractor trying to start a war in Iran, and pretty much everything else too:
Disgraced defense contractor planned to promote democracy in Iran: March 24
By Warren P. Strobel - Knight Ridder
WASHINGTON - In a new example of disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade's attempts to exert influence in Washington and beyond, Wade and two business partners formed a nonprofit group in 2004 to promote democracy in Iran, according to documents and interviews.
Wade and the two partners, who have been large contributors to Republican political campaigns, formed the Iranian Democratization Foundation in April 2004, according to incorporation papers filed in Washington.
....In November 2004, Congress approved spending $3 million to promote democracy in Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month asked Congress for a large boost in funding, to $75 million. Behrooz Behbudi, who helped incorporate the foundation, said in a telephone interview that Wade "was supposed to get funds from the Congress" for the project. The two later fell out over business dealings in Iraq, Behbudi said.
Wade, who headed contractor MZM Inc., pleaded guilty last month to bribery-related charges and making illegal campaign contributions. His chief congressional patron, former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, pleaded guilty in November to taking bribes. Wade's dealings, which include contracts MZM received from Pentagon intelligence agencies, are under investigation.
MZM is a fun one. It is interesting how there are so many scandals around Washington, they sort of blend into and overlap each other. MZM was one of Duke Cunningham's corrupt companies, but in the Jack-Abramoff-of-all-trades go-get-em style of DC operators, MZM shadiness has also been a major cause of Katherine Harris' Senate campaign disintegration in Florida, and MZM contractors helped cover up the fake Iraq intelligence in one of the Congressional investigations, by working for the Silberman-Robb Commission for WMD Whitewashing, as TPMmuckrakers have dug up. Isn't DC great? The muckies also said that MZM helped select bombing targets early in the Iraq war:
In addition to its work at CENTCOM, MZM is known to have had contracts to support CIFA, the Pentagon's domestic spying operation; the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force; the Department of Energy's Counterintelligence Office; the White House's Robb-Silberman Commission to study WMD intelligence; the Homeland Security Department's watch center; and the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center.
Check out PrivateForces.com for more on privatized military firms, the sector of the economy that's gonna eat all the others.
Gas Temperature Map: You gotta check this out. It's getting hot out there.
WASHINGTON TIMES: CIA mines 'rich' content from blogs
By Bill Gertz April 19, 2006
President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said.
The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.
"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.
I'm gonna throw some random stuff at you. It's not a waste of time to look at, but it won't tell you one coherent story, so much as some shades of what went down over the last week while I was wrapped up in all the Macalester festivities... which I will elaborate on later.
Tony Snow for WH press sec.?: Lying water carrier for Republicans + doesn't stammer or sweat so much == why not? Tony Snow's many lies make him an unacceptable press sec'y
New protest album: NEIL YOUNG - Living With War, reviewed positively. Won't be in stores until the beginning of May, but online purchases later this week.
A.Norman sends along the following cartoon:
Spam keywords auto-pass NSA filter?: The odd internet journalist Wayne Madsen offered that
April 20, 2006 -- Beating Bush's NSA e-mail surveillance simple. According to NSA sources, there is a simple method to avoid having one's e-mail captured by NSA Internet filters that have been installed within major Internet exchanges, such as the AT&T facility in San Francisco, which is the subject of a class action suit against AT&T. By typing "Viagra" or "Cialis" in the message text, the filters will automatically identify the e-mail as spam and ignore it. The e-mail could contain the words "Al Qaeda" or "Bin Laden," but as long as Viagra or Cialis are also contained in the text, the e-mail will pass through the filters without being intercepted.
(Madsen's site design now looks much better, BTW)
Execrable writing: Powerline has an odd poop fetish. They use 'execrable' to describe everyone from Rybak to Kofi. I will have to remember to give Scott Johnson a wedgie when I see him.
Earth Day: This House site is fucking crazy: On Earth Day website, House Republican Committee seeks to 'dispel environmental myths'. Really crazy.
Time to kiss some Caucasian ass as the rather autocratic president of Azerbaijan visits the White House. Bush still claims that final Iraq war decisions happened after an ultimatum. Rolling Stone features: is Bush the worst President in History?
A really long article in the American Prospect (a liberal mag) about how the Democrats need to find some values and stuff. It may have been a good article but it was too long even for me.
If you have an online group, try Frappr to map them globally.
Rice is getting roped into AIPAC case: A lot seems to be transpiring in the AIPAC case for this summer, and we'll have to dig into the AIPAC angle a lot later. But for now, AP reports:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.
Goss CIA analyst crackdown: RawStory: The CIA announced today that it has fired an employee for leaking classified information to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest. Also a big story in the NY Times on it. Pretty fucked up. Juan Cole compares how in DC these days, it is good to leak Valerie Plame's name, but bad to inform the American public about a network of secret prisons in eastern Europe.
Secret torture flights: There is a global shadow detention gulag of sorts, and all kinds of rumors about it around the Internet. Perhaps we'll stir up a little trouble later with some of those exotic stories, but in the meantime consider: Amnesty International claims CIA used private airlines to hide CIA torture flights (from a couple weeks ago).
Apple lawyers say blogs not journalism: Apple is trying to sue some blogger-type guy at PowerPage.org and say he's not a journalist with journalist-style credentials because of a story about Apple developing a consumer-oriented Firewire-based GarageBand music interface - codenamed 'Asteroid' according to AppleInsider.
Corporate dudes are suing against NSA wiretaps along with the ACLU. NSA wiretaps were a prominent part of Sunday's West Wing episode, wherein President-elect Santos calls up the Chinese premier to do some saber rattling over Kazakhstan – I don't know why the hell Bartlett, or anyone, would place thousands of US troops between the Russian and Chinese armies, but to the West Wing's credit, Santos doesn't like it either.
I loathe that Clifford May and his neocon ways. But "What to make of the anti-antis?" is a pretty sublime exercise in Orwellian labeling and slanders. Also the Zarqawi psyops story makes an angular appearance I don't really understand – but it appears that he supports the psyops because it manipulates perceptions against "anti-antis"... WTF?
The media, too, have more than their share of anti-antis, and I'm not talking here only about the left-wing blogs that compare President Bush unfavorably to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Recently, the top story on the Washington Post's front page was headlined: "Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi: Jordanian Painted as Foreign Threat to Iraq's Stability."
Is there anyone -- even Ward Churchill -- who would argue that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the commander of Al-Qaida in Iraq, is not a "foreign threat to Iraq's stability"?
A seemingly more cogent reason for the Post to object to what it blasts as a U.S. military propaganda campaign: An American colonel is quoted as saying that Zarqawi and other "foreign insurgents" are only "a very small part of the actual numbers" of those fighting Iraqi government forces and the American-led coalition.
The Moussaoui case distracts from profound problems in the legal system that need to get unraveled.
Is Bush ripping Beatles onto his iPod? The RIAA is arguing in court that turning your own CDs into MP3s is not fair use, which is insane. But since you can't buy Beatles digitally at all, this means that Bush must have been ripping them. Should the RIAA bust his yarblockoes? Well as this guy says, "They nailed Al Capone for tax evasion, didn't they?"
Boston Globe says Bloggers fanning the controversy over Rumsfeld. Describing a few milblogs, the blogs in turn hasten to redefine themselves. I am in favor of military blogs, as they open new and interesting channels of information. Among those mentioned: COUNTERCOLUMN: All your bias are belong to us, and Guidons. OPFOR is apparently the standard bearer these days. Is it part of military.com? Features such bits as "Somalia Remains Free of US Imperialism, Food, Laws, Prosperity, Peace…" under the category "The Long War." Real progressive. The mil blog wire is an aggregator which looks interesting.
The Blackwater lawsuit: Those Defense contractor guys hung on the bridge probably shouldn't have been in Fallujah -- but can their widows sue over it? After the Fallujah hangings, did Blackwater cover up their own negligence and fake documents to protect their Pentagon contract? More on it here in the DailyKos. In the broader context, it's evidence that these private companies treat their employees like shit while causing the military industrial complex to spiral out of control:
The Nation: Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater by JEREMY SCAHILL [from the May 8, 2006 issue]
It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the US occupation. Shortly after entering the city, they get stuck in traffic, and their small convoy is ambushed. Several armed men approach the two vehicles and open fire from behind, repeatedly shooting the men at point-blank range. Within moments, their bodies are dragged from the vehicles and a crowd descends on them, tearing them to pieces. Eventually, their corpses are chopped and burned. The remains of two of the men are strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River and left to dangle. The gruesome image is soon beamed across the globe.
In the Oval Office the killings were taken as "a challenge to America's resolve," according to the Los Angeles Times. President Bush issued a statement through his spokesperson. "We will not be intimidated," he said. "We will finish the job." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt vowed, "We will be back in Falluja.... We will hunt down the criminals.... It's going to be deliberate. It will be precise, and it will be overwhelming." Within days of the ambush, US forces laid siege to Falluja, beginning what would be one of the most brutal and sustained US operations of the occupation.
.....
Shortly after Helvenston left that message, the men left the base and set out for their destination. Without a detailed map, they took the most direct route, through the center of Falluja. According to Callahan, there was a safer alternative route that went around the city, which the men were unaware of because of Blackwater's failure to conduct a "risk assessment" before the trip, as mandated by the contract. The suit alleges that the four men should have had a chance to gather intelligence and familiarize themselves with the dangerous routes they would be traveling. This was not done, according to Miles, "so as to pad Blackwater's bottom line" and to impress ESS with Blackwater's efficiency in order to win more contracts. The suit also alleges that McQuown "intentionally refused to allow the Blackwater security contractors to conduct" ride-alongs with the teams they were replacing from Control Risk Group. (In fact, the suit contends that Blackwater "fabricated critical documents" and "created" a pre-trip risk assessment "after this deadly ambush occurred.")
AP: Israel Preparing to Retake Gaza Strip. Probably saber rattling, but the situation is getting really bad. Some other newsbits:
Senate Bill Shorts Gear for Troops By ANDREW TAYLOR, AP Thu Apr 20, 3:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A Senate measure to fund the war in Iraq would chop money for troops' night vision equipment and new battle vehicles but add $230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions.
Kyrgyz Leader Threatens to Expel US Troops By KADYR TOKTOGULOV , 04.19.2006, 10:36 PM
Kyrgyzstan's president threatened Wednesday to expel U.S. troops if the United States does not agree by June 1 to pay more for stationing forces in the Central Asian nation.
Some random DailyKos goodies: What is the 'center' in American politics? What of the innocent people in Guantanamo? (and what of that Abbasi guy?) Are we becoming the Republic of Gilead?
Some random Israel goodies: "We could lose the next war" - an interview with idiosyncratic Likud hawk Yuval Steinitz, wherein he suggests that the Israeli military leads its government, not vice versa. Really interesting stuff. He is also paranoid about Egypt. Editorial: The UN versus Hezbollah. Hebron settlers assault two female international aid workers. I had some more links but they disappeared because of that damn Haaretz auto-reload thing.
I promise that the Big Lebowski-themed Iran exegesis is on its way. It's a new week now... Gotta get real before oil goes $80+/barrel.....
I got a raise at my other part-time job yesterday - while driving down Nicollet with A. Cheng, who returned from China for a few days to deal with immigration matters (such timing). Anyhow this is good news but it means I have stuff to do right now.
I am listening to Unknown Prophets' latest CD, 'The road less traveled'. There is a lot of weird stuff going on right now. HAMAS and the Fatah/Old Guard Palestinian factions are locked in a weird conflict as Abbas tries to set up 'parallel structures', according to a HAMAS guy. Bush authorized Libby to leak, Homeland Security guys are internet child molesting freaks, Carl Pohlad is at CostCo.
MPR had a really good lineup today. Religion, oil, debt and American politics was the subject of a recorded talk from Kevin Phillips (author of American Theocracy and the author of 1969's Emerging Republican Majority) at the Edina Barnes & Noble. He took head-on the financial-services-debt complex, the moral delusions of empire across history, the estimated 55% of Bush voters that believe in the apocalypse, and the weird sense that God speaks through Bush doesn't bother these people (idolators?!). Also mentioned how more extremist Jewish sects like the Lubovitch folks are voting for Republicans - and this is intertwined with Christian apocalyptic views of the West Bank. Reminded us that the Southern Baptists refused to reunify after the Civil War, but have since then taken over Union southern states like Missouri. He talks about the symbolic antichrist and how the Antichrist in Pop Apocalyptica (Left Behind especially) ties into Iraq and oil, thus providing a 'message problem' between the wartime White House, pursuing the oil, and the base, who needed to hear a quasi-apocalyptic or near-eschatological kind of message to rationalize the war.
Which is what we've been saying out here on the internet for a while now... But Phillips really brings it together. With a broad historical scope of the patterns of declining empires, crossing lots of really excellent currents, and a cynicism towards religion that I found extra nice, this one was damn sweet. (RealPlayer stream here)
Midmorning had a segment on the hip-hop nation I heard part of. And of course they were all over the Libby thing today. Thumbs up for another fine day for Minnesota Public Radio.
Lastly the Book of Judas - a testament discovered on papyrus in Middle Egypt - is apparently out and about, turning a good chunk of Christianity sideways. Should he be the most revered disciple because he set the spirit free from the body (which is apparently in this text)??
Oh yeah, Apple is releasing a system called Boot Camp ("enter the Alt Reality" they say) that allows people to boot between OS X and Windows on Intel-based Macs. Suddenly the Windows foundation is missing a pillar. Apple:
More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.
As elegant as it gets
Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.(1) Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don't have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.
Ah I gotta take care of stuff now. We'll get some more substantive goodies up sooner, rather than later. :-/
Over the weekend, our man Peter got a story about retiring Wyoming mine workers picked up by the Associated Press & the Casper Star Tribune. Peter works at the Gillette News-Record these days. The last 14 days of Peter stories are here.
Aging in the coal mines
By PETER GARTRELL
The (Gillette) News-Record Monday, April 03, 2006
GILLETTE (AP) -- Meet Lee Yake. He has 25 years of experience working in Powder River Basin coal mines.
A couple of years ago, he decided he'd had enough of the long hours and that it was time to retire. At 59, he is his own boss after buying Industrial Alternators and Starters. If offered him a good change of pace, and provides him with a business he plans eventually to turn over to his son, Terry.
Standing in front of shelves filled with rebuilt starters and alternators for every size of vehicle from pickups to 300-ton haul trucks, Yake said many of his friends who began working in the mines during the 1970s are also considering retirement.
"There's a lot of people that started back when I did that aren't in the Social Security range," he said. "Most of the guys I've seen around, they've had enough."
When they leave, they will take with them a wealth of knowledge.
Meet Dave McElhiney. The 46-year-old former sheriff's deputy has been working as a mechanic for Powder River Coal's Caballo mine for the past four years. That's long enough to know that more than one of his co-workers is eying retirement.
"I got one that's retiring in March, one that's retiring at the end of the year and a bunch that are retiring in three to five years," he said.
He worries that when people like Yake begin to clock out for the last time, they will take with them critical knowledge. For example, not many new hires can modify older machinery and bring it up to code.
Also On NewWest.net, a blog-style site about the western US, notes Peter's contribution to ongoing discussions of the western coal industry:
Black Butte Coal Co. estimates the extra 1,400 acres would bring production up to 1.5 million to 3 million tons of coal over about 20 years. But, as Peter Gartrell from the Gillette News Record reports, the question remains: With many of the old-time coal miners nearing retirement, is there a new generation willing to take over?
Yea Peter, you go man!!! (file photo)
March 20: CLEVELAND, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said he hoped to resolve the nuclear dispute with Iran with diplomacy, but warned Tehran he would "use military might" if necessary to defend Israel.
AIPAC Offensive: Ah what a sublime concept. "Defense". On the same day, news spread of a report by two high-octane professors of international studies criticizing the United States' alliance with Israel, and a detailed dissection of how AIPAC intimidates all opposition to Israeli government policies on Capitol Hill. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are big wheels in the international politics arena, and not doctrinaire liberals, nor terrorists. Of course Justin Raimondo at Antiwar has his take on this.
This is a pretty big ol' bombshell to put in the beginning: "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," (PDF, 70+ pages)
"The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state?"
I won't spend any more time on that now. But it's a certainly a big deal, and we will stick around the AIPAC case to see what turns up. Also worth considering: WHY IRAN WANTS THE BOMB.
Corporate media sucks: 1) Chris Matthews is taking corporate cash to speak places. Wow, big surprise that MSNBC is in awash in corporate cash. 2) The WaPo really uses sloppy terms a lot, such as:
For months the Democrats have resisted calls from their liberal base to more aggressively challenge President Bush.
...as a way to defuse what Feingold is saying and discredit the majority of the country that doesn't believe in White House policies. And to suck at the Teat. At least the Christian Broadcasting Network has the guts to go with their fanaticism properly.
The WaPo gave this young rightwing RedState jackass a blog on their site. Some negative reactions from the liberal side, since this guy is apparently allowed to pretty much make shit up all day long.
From the sphere of friends with websites: PBG has some new stuff up at InfantFoundation.com. I liked this photo. Something about those gay atheist liberals, via the Norman.
For the occasion of the Fourth Year of the war, it is good to look back and remember the insane propaganda we lived in, that sparked the whole fucking mess in the first place. Fortunately, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting pulled together: "The Final Word Is Hooray!" Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits:
"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)
"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)
"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."
(Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)
"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
And it goes on and on. And for reasons that escape me, these people still control the fucking debate. DAMN IT.
Some random bits: well, conservatives are skittish right now. Duh. Pundits suck. Duh. In an interview, ABC Nightline refuses to acknowledge that Billy Graham's son Franklin is a fanatical hater of Islam.
Antiwar.com, some goodies: How to fix the intelligence process by Charles Peña. Also "Why Libertarians Should be Critical of War," Raimondo: "American Megalomania"; TomDispatch: "Reprogramming the Infinite Loop: The NSA Spying Debate", Solomon: "War-Loving Pundits".
Check out the DailyKos straw poll of 2008 presidential candidates. Feingold's kickin ass!!
It's not impossible: Jim Webb, a conservative Democrat running for Congress, says: “The Reagan Democrats” – and how to get them back. A general criticizes Rummy's total incompetence.
Points in Case: Ten things to believe in. Way to go, Keith Olbermann.
Nasty neocon Max Boot suggests that George Clooney has been pimping the neo-con line throughout his career, noting that Three Kings provides a neocon-certified Moral Basis for attacking Iraq in 2003 (not really true but it reads well), and The Peacemaker alerted people to the hazards of WMD attacks and such.
Bush White House overdoes 'manliness'. But the problem is that they are sort of gay, but weird about it.
Something called the Iraq Study Group has been set up, with a bunch of mostly shady Washington insiders and defense contractors, etc., who are probably going to attempt to whitewash aspects of the war policy, and perhaps some fake intelligence after lunch and tea. And for some of them, keep selling lots of weapons to the government.
Helen Thomas on the Lap Dogs of the Press. Her recent press conference moment with Bush was pretty badass.
Even more random: Top 10 weirdest animals.
A Franz Ferdinand kinda place? Milosevic's death has afforded hawks an opportunity to reminisce about how warm and fuzzy it made them feel to bomb Serbia and stop the ethnic cleansing, although oddly, it seems that the mass graves in Kosovo never really turned up in the kinds of numbers we were led to believe at the time.
Of course, the Kosovo intervention was mainly about gaining more American control over the oil and gas energy pathways leading west from the Black Sea (and the surrounding political structures). The AMBO pipeline (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria) and the massive Camp Bondsteel in Southern Kosovo were the two major products of the war in Kosovo. Aside from these goodies the US doesn't much care what happens over there.
Israel Goodies: "Settlers, you have failed" by Aluf Benn. Good to hear. Guess what? Israel has its own dickhead spoiler politician named Lieberman, and better yet, Avigdor Lieberman is a fanatical settler and is the leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu Party. Apparently National Union, pretty much a fascist party that essentially supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, once had a coalition with Yisrael Beiteinu, but they split up a while ago. They are messing around with Netanyahu and maneuvering to his right. "Right-wing parties mull ways to contend with rise of Lieberman". Joe and Avigdor are apparently distant cousins.
Also "Of love and anger" as young Israelis, some of them born and raised ex-Gaza settlers, raise doubts about whether or not the IDF can still be an instrument to bring about the return of the messiah.
Here is a funny story that indicates that "Syria was ready for peace" in the mid-1990s. Bishara acted as Syria-Israel mediator in 1990s talks. Also funny: Saddam Hussein maintained pretense of chemical arms to prevent Israeli attack. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Netanyahu says the next Israeli election will be a kind of referendum on the whole damn mess. "A referendum indeed" by Uzi Benziman. and The cynicism of Olmert and Lieberman By Israel Harel. Nerds for Netanyahu? Augh.
On the left side of the spectrum, see the interview with Meretz leader Yossi Beilin in "'Not afraid of 'autonomy' By Nurit Wurgaft." (there's a bit about Lieberman's ethnic cleansing plans at the end) And don't forget the Israeli Arabs! Not pawns on the board By Nurit Wurgaft.
Some cool thoughts on Islamic Archaism from one of Islam's best writers. I lost the link to a Haaretz story about Lafif Lakdar, but check out: Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism? (also featured here), and The modern schizophrenia of Islamic integralism. On AnarchistNews.org see the links to "Islam and (communist) Anarchism" as they term it, (far be it from me to try to control their semiotics). And InfoShop.org's page on Iran.
Well that was some stuff I had piled up. Sorry, no pictures. You can enjoy that for the weekend, I think I just want to go watch movies the whole time.
This is belated:
Kirby Puckett
1960-2006
Considering the bandwagon jumping that has accompanied the passing of Kirby Puckett, I must lay claim to my rightful place in the pantheon of those who would honor him. I was nine years old when Kirby led the Twins to victory in what is widely considered the best World Series ever played. As anyone who lived within a 250-mile radius of Minneapolis that season knows, Kirby was... in a word... Jesus. Not on a scale seen more than a handful of times in major league sports, Kirby Puckett was a figure of such sterling reputation and staggering popularity that, as many hack journalists have been quick to point out, he probably could not exist in the modern, post-A-Rod contract, Pacers brawl, Barry Bonds era. To anyone growing up in the region, his status was a given, a sort of agreed-upon point of faith: Kirby Puckett is inherently and intrinsically good. His lovability factor was high- 5'8" tall, 210 pounds, he was a tiny boulder of a man capable of moving quickly and rather gracelessly, stubby twig legs and barrel body chugging along. His personal problems have tarnished his public image, but does little to diminish his power as an icon for several generations, whose psychic connection to him was formed during his years of hard work and spectacular play. Every article I've read since his passing has focused on the home run in Game 6, but it's the catch that made that home run possible that dominated my memory. It was always Kirby's defense that delighted the most, as he looked at his most Kirby when his entirely unconventional body was fully in motion- his vertical leap was basketball big and his timing was usually dead nuts on, allowing him to grab balls a foot and a half past the outfield fence in a motion that, for him, was quite graceful, practiced and nonchalant. His work ethic always impressed but, I think, the attachment I (we) had with him had more to do with the fact that he made it look like fun. Bye, Kirby.
Technorati Tags: Sports
Kind of a grab bag of stuff for the afternoon. We got posted as a City Pages MN blog o the day for Mordred's trip to Las Vegas yesterday. That is Teh Pimp. Thx to Mordred for a day of fame!
Kircher's Cat Piano is plainly the best thing ever. (via GM)
MN Governor Rasmussen Poll (via Kos). 2/20. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (1/16 results in parens)
Pawlenty (R) 40 (47)
Hatch (DFL) 45 (44)
Pawlenty (R) 42 (46)
Kelley (DFL) 42 (37)
The January results were perhaps an outlier, and of course the third party factor is unknown. But it indicates Kelley is solid - and I keep thinking that Kelley is a better candidate than Hatch, despite the fact that the DFL heirarchy seems to believe that it's automatically Hatch's turn – the same stodgy thinking that got us the Moe candidacy last time. Maybe...
The network news still sucks. ABC' Elizabeth Vargas is a fine example. Thanks to MediaMatters for chipping away at the typical layers of garbage. Such great moments in history as these recent Fox News moments deserve to be recorded: "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" and "CIVIL WAR" IN IRAQ: MADE UP BY THE MEDIA?"
Random: A Rubik's Cube Prank and Mario Cookie from the infinite well-documented prank sphere of the Internet, a genre started by such great exploits as the 1994 Police Cruiser placed on MIT's Great Dome.
"Neo-Isolationists" take heart: 42% of Americans believed the US should "mind its own business" in a October 2005 poll. To the various warmongers of Washington, this is the 'dreaded isolationism' they fear -- or rather, its the natural inclination of the American people to step away from the tangled messes of Eurasia.
Just a third (34%) say Bush's calls for greater democracy in the region are a good idea that will succeed; 36% think it is a good idea that will not succeed; and 22% believe it is a bad idea. ..... Fully 71% say the Iraq war is a major reason that people around the world are unhappy with the U.S. And just 16% – the fewest in over a decade – are satisfied with the way things are going in the world.
Raimondo at Antiwar.com hails this as evidence that 'interventionism' is basically imposed by neo-cons and hawks upon the American public. Thus, Antiwar will keep holding the line. Moment of Truth and On the Road to Empire, indeed. Even Henry Hyde is warning against the arrogance of empire these days:
...by its very nature, the U.S. is a revolutionary power. Its foundational beliefs posit universal truths that permeate all of its actions and perceptions of the world. These have had, and continue to have, catalytic effects on other societies..... [but] Lashing our interests to the indiscriminate promotion of democracy is a tempting but unwarranted strategy, more a leap of faith than a sober calculation.
.....We can and have used democracy as a weapon to destabilize our avowed enemies and may do so again. But if we unleash revolutionary forces in the expectation that the result can only be beneficent, I believe we are making a profound and perhaps uncorrectable mistake. History teaches that revolutions are very dangerous things, more often destructive than benign, and uncontrollable by their very nature. Upending established order based on theory is far more likely to produce chaos than shining uplands.
.....We are well advanced into an unformed era in which new and unfamiliar enemies are gathering forces, where a phalanx of aspiring competitors must inevitably constrain and focus our options. In a world where the ratios of strength narrow, the consequences of miscalculation will become progressively more debilitating. The costs of golden theories will be paid for in the base coin of our interests.
There's even more but I think that gets the point. Seriously, what ever happened to the gruff conservatives of yore preaching caution? ... Tom Tomorrow predicts the future?
House Republicans sense a good time to retire. (Ten or 15 more?! wow) This could help us, of course.
Afghanistan: Opium still big-time as a Taliban spring offensive looms: Guardian: Four years after fall of Taliban, leader's power barely extends beyond the capital. WaPo: Growing Threat Seen In Afghan Insurgency: DIA Chief Cites Surging Violence in Homeland. Traditionally in Afghanistan, the fighters hunker down for the winter as snow closes off mountain valleys. In all likelihood, this spring will see the strongest Taliban offensives since 2001. Opium yields are slightly down this year, apparently because the market is flooded and prices have fallen. However, productivity per hectare is way up, and according to ABC News, a mere 200 hectares were actually shut down through NATO/Western political drug suppression efforts. About one in ten Afghans is directly employed by the opium industry, which makes up between 1/3 and 1/2 of GDP.
Thus, the Pentagon presides over probably the largest organized narcotics economy ever. Always remember that the Taliban's Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Uzbek rivals only managed to finance their survival through exporting the raw material for heroin. These are the "good guys" who control the turf, and this is how they do it. The central government can only be a passive framework, at best, in this environment. As I noted earlier, over about 200 years they defeated the British two or three times, and the USSR's great Red Army. That's how they roll. The Kabul prison rebellion (now reportedly crushed) is just the overture for the first movement.
Freedom beckons for the Bluth family: Apparently the rumors were true and Arrested Development got picked up by Showtime, for another 26 episodes. I was watching the DVDs recently and really, it might have been the best comedy on network TV. FOX is dumb for replacing it with more garbage.
How to consider purchasing an LCD monitor: A subtle art: This AnandTech comparison of top-end 20" Apple and Dell LCD displays explains all the factors.
Indian nuclear plans: According to ArmsControlWonk, it appears that only about 65% of India's nuclear plants will be monitored as civilian operations by the IAEA. Why do Americans generally ignore the existence of Israel and India's nuclear weapons, try to forget about Pakistan's and Russia's? Is Iran, which has its own damn uranium mines, really that different? Then again, the 21st century will probably have a nuclear history that will make the 20th look like Daisy picking flowers.
This is what movies are supposed to do.-61.jpg)
We can all agree that Hollywood lacks any guts nowadays. Thus, the best "movie" movie of the year would have to shatter all boundaries of taste and convention — make you laugh, cry. Only Gary Busey and Billy Zane have the guts to get us out of this cinema funk. And they have.
Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (Turkish: Kurtlar Vadisi Irak) is hands-down one of the coolest movies I have seen in a long time. It will be a cult classic, it will cause some angry Christian riots in Cleveland. It's that good. According to Wikipedia, it is the most expensive Turkish movie ever. Actual plot details there - mine are purely visual impressions.
It's more cliche than an episode of Knight Rider, more crass than Jerry Bruckheimer, and it owes debts to Full Metal Jacket, Lethal Weapon, Hong Kong, Kurosawa, Ford's westerns, and every late 80's action flick on FX or USA. Check the website for an English trailer (WMV - ok on Mac) – because the version I downloaded was almost totally Turkish.
Set aside the canned "anti-Semitic" reaction. Busey really has no more than ten minutes of screen time as the evil Jewish doctor stealing organs from Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and shipping them to Israel. But someone had to play this unique, absurdly comic villain, finally bringing the unreal Abu Ghraib universe into movie culture through wicked Dr. Frankenstein-style High Camp. (Abu Ghraib really is this pointless & random, I think is Busey's subtext)
Billy Zane is Sam William Marshall, the Coalition Provisional Authority messiah-figure / piano-playing murderous psychotic, usually clad in white. He poses as a "white hat" for the savages: get it? (I think Zane figured he owed the Middle East an outlandish villain after The Mummy - fair's fair)
Zane has an entourage of evil mercenaries – the khaki vests, buzz cuts and machine guns are a fair visual representation of a typical Blackwater Personal Security Detail. In the English teaser he seems to say "When the Turkmen are done, the Arabs are next," and the movie mainly follows the travails of the Turkmen minority in northern Iraq.
I got Valley off a Turkish BitTorrent site (here's the Torrent - it works, be patient). For a little clip hit this link and uncompress it. In that early scene, Zane, his mercenaries and the U.S. soldiers raid the Turkish headquarters in Iraq. He tips over a Turkish flag – cue the dramatic music. They lead the personnel out to the truck with bags over their heads, and in the film version, an officer writes a letter, and puts it and a Turkish flag in a bag, and shoots himself. The raid is true, the suicide, not.
I downloaded a version with poor sound, and extreme flickering (the frames are not synced - it strobes really bad). Also, everything was dubbed into Turkish, including Zane and Busey. No subtitles — though the English-language trailer on the website features their lines in English, so hopefully if when the movie is released in the U.S., it will be a little easier to follow.
This film is awesome, and it would be a huge hit in the states. It reminded me of Reservoir Dogs, Apocalypse Now, the insanity of the news, Bollywood, Rambo, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Natural Born Killers, Lord of the Rings, the Chuck Norris flick Delta Force, a bit of The Matrix (roof escape), anything about Compton. Also reminded me of the book "The Ugly American" - as there is a scene with Zane handing out toys and food to the Iraqis while the media captures it.
(and of course Battle of Algiers and Lawrence of Arabia. And Xbox's "Call of Duty 2": the bazaar levels)
A lot of people die in "Valley of the Wolves." They are killed by a suicide bomber, crazed mercenaries with rocket launchers, jumpy U.S. troops, Zane himself. I took quite a few screenshots and so I will lay out a bit of the action. This movie would be huge in the United States – and it might make Rumsfeld's head explode in anger.
And I'm sorry, it's fun. It's revolting. It's utterly insane and packed with tons of Hollywood cliches, starting with the Noir venetian blind trick in the first minute.
Go look at the IMDB comments for a sampling of reactions. A Turk is pissed because the heroes are gangsters. How many ways could this movie make you angry? That's what makes art fit a certain place and time...
A little more of the cast:
Badass Sheikh Abdurrahman Halis Kerkuki. He intervenes in a beheading-video-in-progress and rides a white horse.
Strikingly similar-looking to the Battle of Algiers guy.
The two-bit Turkish gangsters who save the day in their black suits and white shirts. Tarantino heroes, without a doubt.
Leila, the young woman whose groom is killed in the wedding at the beginning of the movie (see English trailer). She kicks a lot of ass.
I started taking screenshots after the flick started, after the initial raid. Spoiler warning: this outlines a lot of what happens. Don't look at this if you want to be surprised. Including dramatic ending. Although I couldn't fully understand it.
There are a few dozen pictures on the flip. By "Turkish guys" some might actually be Turkmen. Again, I had no dialogue when watching.
Some kind of dedication ceremony. Dear Leader poster in back there.
Prisoners (including those captured from the wedding) are deposited at Abu Ghriab. Busey is furious that the mercenary killed a bunch of the Iraqis in the container. Yes, those are the coolers for Israel.
A dramatic conversation between Zane and the Turkish guy I couldn't understand. There was a bomb under Zane's chair. Zane is essentially holding the crowd of children hostage while the bomb is defused.
The evil mercenaries wasting innocent people. Rambo, anyone?
Sniper & suicide bombing type situation. Lots of wounded soldiers & innocent people.
More of the Abu Ghraib situation. German Shepherd & Lynnie England-style. The beginning of this scene is really shocking.
Public Relations - handing out food and goodies as media watches. Hence the subtle "white hat" metaphor.
Dramatic destruction of a minaret with priest inside.
Ethnic cleansing / forcible displacement of Turkmen, I think, as U.S. soldier watches, confused. There is a monologue of sorts, and I distinctly picked out something like "and then what of the Arabs?" This is pretty much the only place you will hear about the ethnic cleansing of minorities in Iraq – which alarms the Turks.
Sweet religious ceremony. This was really cool.
STAB!
Hostage video in progress. Who is that actor??
Zane has a piano moment.
Widow seeks wisdom from clerics and has a dangerous confrontation, handled calmly
Climactic battle - she is good with a knife. Turkish guys gotta save the day.
Classic Hollywood / Shakespearean ending / Nose ring symbolizes lost love & such.
Just another Day in the Valley.
I am sorry if looking at this spoiled some parts of the movie for you. Who knows how long it will take for this to get onto an American screen? If it never does, we are the poorer for it. This is great Saturday afternoon popcorn fare. I just want to actually understand the dialogue.
Just amazing. Just another day in the valley of the wolves.
On the Steps...
...Of the Wyoming State Capitol, where the illustrious vice president of the United States will speak with fanfare on the morrow morn. Peace Brother. Damn the torpedos.
--Peter
pgartrellNOSPAMPLEASE@gillettenewsrecord.net
Energy/County Reporter
Gillette News-Record
P.O. Box 3006
Gillette, WY 82717
Tele: (307) 682-9306 x211
FAX: (307) 686-9306
It is obvious that he is wearing his safety orange for the event, but from his high perch here he could be mistaken for a bird.
We are hoping for the best for Peter. O Very Unique JudeoChristian God of North and South Carolina, Keep his head down and the Kevlar tight.
*Amen*
Intellectually Upstaged but not Down For the Count
Vanilla Gorilla's emergence in our steamy little web-jungle is welcome, not least of all because he is a very serious and astute student of global policy and politicking. While I look forward to more posts from him, I also hope that he can lay a little of his less serious side on these pages, too, because he happens to also have a much quicker wit and droller delivery than almost anyone I know.
I, on the other hand, am a complete ass. Loud, vain and with permanent earplugs, I have little to offer in the way of serious exegesis on the state of the world. However, I spend a lot of time on the internet, have a rather remarkable capacity for useless fact retention and a lot of free time on my hands. Therefore, I am going to take a different tack and dole out large helpings of some of the topics du jour on the American media scene. So, without further ado,
Cartoons, Gay Cowboys and... Human/Deity Hybrids!
Cartoons: By all we know of the deadly rioting in the Muslim world surrounding a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb in place of a turban. This cartoon, though first published literally months ago, has recently been used by a number of self-interested parties in the Mohammed-loving regions of the world (read: places we bomb) to whip the citizenry into a frenzy and cause fatal riots and the destruction of much life, limb, property, etc., etc. Many high- and low-minded ideals, from freedom of speech to the maintenance of the status quo, have been furthered in attack and defense of these cartoons, with most Westerners siding with their publishing on the grounds of the cartoonist's right to free expression.
Though I am sure the cartoonist cares more for the stopping capabilities of different kevlar vests at the moments than his own ability to freely communicate his racist beliefs, freedom of the press is a sacred cow of the West for good reason, and standing firm in the face of these riots is the necessary measure. The management of the French papers have, as is the habit in their country, capitulated and fired the editors who decided to run the cartoon, but the Danish government, the leaders of the country that first ran the piece, have stuck to their guns. Hurrah for them, but in the ensuing debate the stench of fetid hypocrisy is the overbearing odor in the room.
Before we go any further, let's take a look at the offending image. [I have officially 'gone French' regarding posting this image on my site. I promise to explain fully. --Dan]
My first thought upon seeing the actual image was "European political cartoonists suck at their job." See, the political cartoon is not the venerable art form that it is in America. There are fewer of them in the pages of their papers, and they are remarkable predominantly for their toothlessness in comparison with their American counterparts. While this piece is uninspiring as an art object, it certainly doesn't disappoint in the provocation department. Problem is, and this is not the cartoonist's fault, but it merely offered up an opportunity for both sides to engage in the very behavior that created the stereotypes that make up this piece in the first place.
In order to protest their stereotyping as violent religious extremists, Muslims across the world ripped up their cities, setting consulates and embassies alight while clashing amongst themselves in clashes that eventually claimed lives in several countries. In turn, the Western countries were given an opportunity to point out this very fact in a sort of "well, ain't cha?" manner that only served to further enrage the enraged, as evidenced by the fact that the riots are still ongoing. Americans and Europeans smugly declared how sacrosanct the freedom of speech and expression was to their way of life, and how the cartoon spat was simply unavoidable given the inevitable outcome of the societal rights?
Is this sounding reasonable so far to you? We have a free press, they can publish what they want, right?
Only if it offensive to some, it would seem. You see, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently protested a cartoon by Tom Toles in the Washington Post, claiming it was improperly making light of the plight of American soldiers who are injured in battle.
Clearly, the cartoon was criticizing Massa Rummy's use of language at a congressional hearing when he chose to describe the overburdened American occupational force in Iraq as 'battle-hardened' rather than "spread thin", as had been suggested to him. The Post is sticking by their man, and both the article and the cartoon can be seen here.
I'll let you decide, but not really, because the right answer is that it is almost impossible to hear over the dissonant noise between the response to the Mohammed cartoon and the Rummy cartoon. The same knee-jerk neocons who were first in line to support the rights of the Danish cartoonist whose piece was, in fact, rather needlessly inflammatory, with the American cartoonist who was criticizing the Secretary of Defense over wartime policy using his own words. While the Danish cartoon isn't really anything more than an stereotype rendered in watercolor, Tom Toles had a point.
Now, I would point out here that I am an avid reader of political cartoons. I think that they are one art form that is truly unique to America and that can, when properly rendered, walk the thin line between giving offense and commenting acerbically on the political process. Some of the best American cartoonists even have weekly columns to accompany their cartoons, an acknowledgment on the part of their publishers that they are opinion columnists with pens. Pat Oliphant (who was actually Hunter Thompson's first choice as the illustrator for his magazine articles, a job that eventually went to Ralph Steadman, of course) is a TV commentator, a cartoonist AND an opinion columnist, on top of being, as my girlfriend says, "the most adorable man in the world."
The best response to these cartoon rows has really been from cartoonists- I suggest Tom Tomorrow's cartoon in Salon this week.
Of course, on a certain base level, 'The West' is really 'In the Right' on this one- this is a bloody cartoon, fer chrissakes, and it would not have hurt anyone were people to ignore it. As for the religious issue, it is hard to believe something so mild as Jesus lobbing a bomb would spark off riots. In fact, Jesus has probably appeared in thousands of offensive cartoons, with nary a riot in protest, a record of restraint that is admirable considering the dingbats in this country. To demonstrate my point, I want to show you a Jesus parody that I am personally quite taken with:
Gay Cowboys- Just as a parting shot, I would like to plug Willie Nelson's new song, "Cowboys are often secretly fond of each other". He debuted it on a (confusing, I'm sure) Howard Stern show today. Willie said this song has been sitting in the closet, in the literal sense, since 1981, when he received it from the songwriter, one Mr. Ned Sublette. This would be unremarkable were Ned Sublette not a frequent contributor to BoingBoing and the brother of my boss, a Mr. Mark Sublette, owner of Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson, AZ. Ned is now an expert on Afro-Caribbean music and a fine photographer. His photography can be seen at the Medicine Man site.
Who's up for some motherfucking Olympic Games?
U.S.A... U.S.A... U.S.A...
Any takers?
Not me, and I would actually watch downhill skiing voluntarily if it were on the rest of the year. During the Olympics, though, with Bob Costas' reassuring voice punctuating the proceedings with international inanities, I just can't be bothered to slog through the coverage of sports like these:
I don't know if I am just jaded or if I no longer able to muster the proper pavlovian response asked of once every two years. The Olympics are supposed to be accompanied by a cold rush of patriotism and allow one to sweat out one's nationalistic demons by projecting one's hostility towards France upon their third-string skeleton rider (racer?) and wishing for his quick and effortless dispatch at the hands of a crack American squad (minus their best member- steroids). I can't get too worked up this year, though. For reasons ranging from Bode Miller's diplomatic ineptitude and general dickishness to the location (Turin? Whatever happened to the hustle and bustle of, say, Lillehamer? or Salt Lake City?) I just cannot muster the necessary amount of patriotic zeal. With the exception of wanting to see a couple of Minnesota girls hit the slalom course (Kristina Koznick and Lindsey Kildow) and Miller fall, I don't have much riding on this game emotionally. But does anyone? Outside of this little charade once every four years, does anyone, and I mean anyone, go to Skeleton events? Speed Skating? Luge? Where did these sports even come from, and who could possibly support themselves off the ticket sales? Who are these athletes and who taught them how to Luge? I don't remember that unit in gym class. Are there just teams of stern, grandfatherly Eastern Europeans who stake out key sledding hills and, upon seeing a bright young man in a cap and mittens deftly weave his way down the bumpy run and to the bottom, sidles up to him and tells him of his own days sledding, and how sledding led to luge and, if it hadn't been for his knee, but, well, you wouldn't want to hear about that...
As for figure skating, let's face it- it's the only aspect of the Winter Games anyone gives two shits about, and it's not even a sport. This is not to say that it is not an athletic endeavor requiring thousands of hours of diligent, painful study, but it is not a sport in the traditional manner. Sports derive from war games, and thus speed, strength, endurance and an ability to drive past or score on one's opponent are easily-comprehended goals. Whipping about on metal blades for the express purpose of spinning in the air and waving your arms around emotively is a more difficult-to-grasp skill on the bloody fields of Agincourt or Thermopylae. For some reason, it strikes a spider-vein in the female population of America and, despite the fact that your average American woman has never laced up a pair of skates and breathes heavily at the top of the stairs, several days of couch time are dedicated to watching starving children perform circus tricks on skates for the glory of their nation. Does the skater above look like she is capable of dealing a fatal blow? Even the curlers look more dangerous- at least they have sticks and rocks.
The worst part, of course, is the Maurie Povitch sob stories that accompany each athlete. Divorce, poverty, instability, scabies, arterial sclerosis and painful long-term surgical treatments haunt the pasts of these brave young Americans who, being between the ages of sixteen and thirty, have had a lot more time on their hands to grapple with their demons than I feel I might have time for if I were training six hours a day to compete in the zenith of human sport. Last night they appeared, young and vital-looking, and gave no hint of the physical and emotional ravishing they have endured. Somewhere in a US Olympic training facility, thousands of portraits stamped "B.Hallward" sit in protective sleeves. It is not the manipulation aspect that bothers me, particularly- I have grown weary and become acceptant of constant and intrusive media manipulation- it is the banality of the event that must be sensationalized through the hyberbolic tales of woe that gets to me. The endless seven minute sequences of sports you don't care about spliced in with Bob Costas' studio presence and those little athlete vignettes that always start and finish with the athlete, in their gear, looking brave and heroic in the face of such stiff competition and such long odds. Something along these lines:
Some Douchebag With Skis Had Sad Childhood, NBC Reports...
Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information
By Murray Waas, National Journal
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
As we say on the Internet, LOL. Atrios notes it's slightly hypocritical. Another CIA official has come out of the woodwork to accuse the Bush Administration of cherrypicking Iraq intelligence – and guess what, Robert Novak hated him too! Paul R. Pillar, thanks for being a patriot. We need guys like you. WaPo: "Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq":
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote.
......Pillar was identified in a column by Robert D. Novak as having prepared the assessment and having given a speech critical of Bush's Iraq policy at a private dinner in California. The column fed the White House's view that the CIA was in effect working against the Bush administration, and that Pillar was part of that. A columnist in the Washington Times in October 2004 called him "a longstanding intellectual opponent of the policy options chosen by President Bush to fight terrorism."
Add these two bits together, and boom, there you go, they smoked Valerie Plame in an attempt to protect all their fake intelligence and swat at the CIA. But why the hell do I bother repeating myself for the 124,639th time?
Fair and Balanced Editing of Applause: Fox "Memory Hole" News edited out anti-Bush applause at the Coretta Scott King funeral, then Morty Kondracke said that the audience obviously didn't like the partisanship. Now that's a reality distortion field. MSNBC was caught in a Harry Reid-Abramoff headline changing dodge. More on yesterday's Reid smear below.
<woozy> What's going on everyone? After my wisdom teeth were yanked, I have been popping Vicodin like candy for the last couple days, but everything seems to be going pretty well so far. No dry sockets yet. I had never been under general anesthesia before, so I was a little nervous because it can supposedly kill you. But it was plainly awesome to wake up with all my wisdom teeth yanked, loaded up with drogas.
Hilarious stuff from Mordred. Well done. </woozy>
ADVISE is the New Total Information Awareness: Yes, this "Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement" program will know your favorite soda and pornography. Of course they will be totally responsible when drunk on Ultimate Power. CSM: "US plans massive data sweep: Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?" More here.
The CounterTerrorism Blog looks good. They are skeptical of Bush's latest West Coast marquee terrorist conspiracy. So a good place to start.
Israeli Shin Bet director says Israel 'may rue Saddam overthrow' to young Israeli settlers: You can't make this shit up:
The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yuval Diskin said a strong dictatorship would be preferable to the present "chaos" in Iraq, in a speech to teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
He also said the Israeli security services and judiciary treated Arabs and Jewish suspects differently.
.....His speech to the students at the Eli settlement as they prepared for military service was secretly recorded and broadcast on Israeli TV.
When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003. "When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said. "I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam."
This goes into my theory that Shin Bet directors are actually quite sane, and are in fact opposed to neo-con bullshit because they can understand that widespread chaos is not really in Israel's interests at all. 1995-2000 Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon was not the only one to speak against this garbage. Also, from the New Yorker, a cynical old Israeli intelligence operator who wasn't surprised that about HAMAS' victory and rising fundamentalism all over the place. Just wait until this gets to Syria and Jordan.
Cryptome.org spills secrets: Cryptome is a totally sweet site and I'd like to throw out a few goodies. One: the somewhat suppressed Official CIA History of the Bay of Pigs Operation. Plausible Deniability. The introduction on Cryptome's front page, and the official history is here. Two: all kinds of weird stuff like this list of MI6 officers that has attracted the attention of FBI Counterintelligence.
Three: famed national security writer James Bamford writes about his involvement with the NSA lawsuit. Talks about Nixon's illegal Operation Minaret, which sounds pretty similar to things these days. Four: Also consider the Pentagon's declassified "Information Operations Roadmap" they published:
We Must Fight the Net. DoD is building an information-centric force. Networks are increasingly the operational center of gravity, and the Department must be prepared to "fight the net." [1 line redacted.] but be fully prepare to ensure critical warfighting network functionality and to [1 line redacted].
.....In particular, PSYOP must be refocused on adversary decision-making, planning well in advance for aggressive behavior modification during times of conflict. PSYOP products must be based on in-depth knowledge of the audience's decision~making processes and the factors influencing his decisions, produced rapidly at the highest quality standards, and powerfully disseminated directly to targeted audiences throughout the area of operations.
....We Must Improve Network and Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities.
I'll drink to that. Actually, I think I'll drink a lot to that. Five: Cryptome.cn publishes information censored by the Chinese government, as well. This is really what the Internet is all about.
OSS.Net: Way too cryptic: "Commercial Open Source Intelligence, Risk Mitigation, and Security for the Seven Tribes. Global, New Craft, Tribal & Sub-State, in 29 Languages with Integrated IT and Underlying Geospatial." Whatever that means, I want to get a job there.
Tabs on John Bolton: Check BoltonWatch at the TPMCafe. All right. Clemons is on point here too.
The latest smear on Harry Reid doesn't really have anything behind it: Trying to tie him to the Abramoff mess, but there's no there there.
Another reason to slash PBS funding: Evidence of a "hoax" & "cabal": on NOW with David Brancaccio, they did an excellent job explaining the shady mysteries of Iraq pre-war intelligence and interviewing Lawrence Wilkerson. Brancaccio was gutsy and far more accurate than any cable news garbage. It was a great primer to Intel-gate for the un-initiated. It must make Bush's skin crawl to realize that government cash is being used to shatter their grand tale:
DAVID BRANCACCIO: We've been talking grand policy. The then director of the CIA, George Tenet, Vice President Cheney's deputy Libby, told you that the intelligence that was the basis of going to war was rock solid. Given what you now know, how does that make you feel?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: It makes me feel terrible. I've said in other places that it was-- constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life.
I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: A hoax? That's quite a word.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, let's face it, it was. It was not a hoax that the Secretary [Powell] in any way was complicit in. In fact he did his best-- I watched him work. Two AM in the morning on the DCI and the Deputy DCI, John McLaughlin.
And to try and hone the presentation down to what was, in the DCI's own words, a slam dunk. Firm. Iron clad. We threw many things out. We threw the script that Scooter Libby had given the-- Secretary of State. Forty-eight page script on WMD. We threw that out the first day.
And we turned to the National Intelligence estimate as part of the recommendation of George Tenent and my agreement with. But even that turned out to be, in its substantive parts-- that is stockpiles of chemicals, biologicals and production capability that was hot and so forth, and an active nuclear program. The three most essential parts of that presentation turned out to be absolutely false.......
DAVID BRANCACCIO: ....You've said that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld somehow managed to hijack the intelligence decision making process. You called it a cabal. And said that it was done in a way that makes you think it was more akin to something you'd see in a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Now those are strong words. Why a cabal?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, the two decisions that I had the most profound insights into and which I have spoken to are the decision to depart from the Geneva Conventions and to depart from international law with regard to treatment of detainees by the Armed Forces in particular. But by the entire US establishment, now including the CIA and contractors in general.
And the post-invasion Iraq-- planning, which was as inept and incompetent as any planning I've witnessed in some 30-plus years in public service. Those two decisions were clearly-- made in the statutory process, the legal process, in one way and made underneath that process in another way. And that's what I've labeled secret and cabal-like.
Nice.
War is a Racket: I found Major General Smedley Butler's classic Anti-war, anti-imperialist screed, War is a Racket, on the Veterans for Peace website. (interestingly, Butler also testified about a secret fascist conspiracy to overthrow FDR). This was his classic statement, which was not part of War is a Racket:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Nothing Works: It is really funny that the White House set up this grand website, expectmore.gov, to provide an evaluation of all the federal government's programs. Among the list of programs that are apparently busted (via first-draft.com):
Dept of Defense-- Military Defense Communications Infrastructure
Dept of Homeland Security Border Patrol
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Aids to Navigation
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Drug Interdiction
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Search and Rescue
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Air Cargo Security Programs
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Aviation Regulation and Enforcement
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Baggage Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Federal Air Marshal Service
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Flight Crew Training
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Passenger Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Screener Workforce
Federal Election Commission Federal Election Laws - Compliance and Enforcement
Office of Natl Drug Control Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
Department of Energy National Nuclear Infrastructure
To make a long story short via AmericaBlog: Wash Times: 1) Bush is spying on American-American phone calls IN THE US; 2) Known Al Qaeda agents are running free inside US; 3) Spy program useless. Der WaPo says:
"Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use ... Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause."
And by the way, FISA Court really streamlined after 9/11 so why no warrants? Gonzales: NSA may tap 'ordinary' Americans' e-mail.
BitTorrent evolves to avoid packet shaping: Internet service providers are apparently starting to try to filter down BitTorrent. So the BT developers are implementing encryption so they can't see Torrent traffic. leet.
Nazi mysteries: Some of the weird esoteric stuff within Nazism. Includes really disturbing stuff about Nazi research scientists and their "Holy Grail" style hunts for items of folklore and mystic significance... Somehow our cartoonish enemies these days just can't quite measure up to the Teutonic standard.
Funny t-shirts. Will they never end?
Hello, readers.
I am here to make a terrible confession. I have to admit to something, before shame eats away at me like salt-laced plow-snow on the rocker panels of a '74 Dart. I am totally, ridiculously, blindingly head-over-hells in lurve with NBC's The Biggest Loser.
For those of you unfamiliar with the program, NBC finds dangerously obese Americans who share a desire to lose weight. Competing either individually or in (generally) couples or family teams, these contestants are physically-trained within an inch of their lives for ten days, whilst learning about healthy eating and whatnot. After the ten days, they are weighed, and a preliminary prize (tonight, in a 'dream wedding' themed episode, a lavish honeymoon) is given. After that, they are turned loose and return to their hometowns to do all the work themselves without trainer supervision for something like six months. Aided by numerous sepia sequences bip-bopping gooey melodies in the background, we the viewers get to see the remarkable transformation in the lives of these people as they transition from prize hog to deflated balloon. Sometimes the fat dissolves to reveal beautiful, picturesque individuals and sometimes they look like trolls in wet gunney sacks, but their delight is always evident- the patina of exploitation just cannot dull the shine these people accrue through months of grueling physical labor.
And what labor it is- a good quarter of the show is the workout sessions of these individuals, pockmarked nodes of fat wriggling about under the voluminous skin of the heifer-human hybrid huffing it through another hill climb. Now is the time to feel smug, before the hard work and restraint force you to reconsider your wicked ways and sympathize- nay, connect, with the rapidly-dimishing men and women on the picture box. Muscles and smiles and puppies and special "surprise" visits from the telegenic and intellectually unintimidating personal trainers are harnessed together for a kind of tearjerker deathray, a combination of so many instinctual cultural cues that all Americans are rendered powerless to resist. In the face of such an authentic forgery of actual human emotions, one's eyes well up as quickly as if one had been pepper sprayed. With the twin voyeuristic urges of pleasure and pain sated, the show maintains your interest with the siren song of an eventual, winner-takes-$50,000 weigh-in.
I needn't tell you that I am practically salivating by the time the two tubby teams tilt the scales at the final weigh-in, aprons of lard disappeared from their body and tingling with anticipation. Sometimes the contestants are hardly recognizable by the end, having lost as much as 94 pounds and 30+% of their body mass. The rising strings, the transformation tale of grit and determination and a high tolerance for public humiliation, all in the name of fifty thousand bucks and half column in next week's People- Fat Ass Not So Fat, Anymore- Thinks America Cares About Her Life. The story is pure Horatio Algier, the kind of inspirational influence that has driven American efforts to expand our minds and extend our abilities to their furthest- so long as there's cash in it. When I see those whittled figures take to the stage and weigh in like steer at the 4-H show, I too dream of one day being obese enough to qualify as a contestant on a fat farm TV show. It is a dream I think we all can share, having a major network pay for us to undo thirty years of neglecting our bodies and stuffing our faces, possibly even rewarding us with large cash prizes at the end. In exchange for my dignity, I would snigger at the sucker's deal I was giving them in exchange for my fifteen minutes, a home gym, and thousands in specialists' bills.
God Bless America for having an endless supply of the morbidly obese. Without the Calorie-Industrial Complex, none of this would possible. Fifty years of research have gone into creating the starchy, fatty, greasy cuisine that is the real star in this drama. When one thinks of all the poor, urban populations that this food was tested on before it was deemed worthy of more widespread distribution, the dedication of company's like RJR Nabisco is all too evident. Outside of the watchful eyes of horizontally-organized global conglomerates, a show like The Biggest Loser mightn't even be possible.
"You have won the battle of the bulge, and that makes you the biggest loser."
Oh, and the host who says that is a little porky herself- I'm just saying, special "biggest host" episode?
A quick tour of goodies mostly from DailyKos. Via here and here, we discover that Joe Lieberman was the first person in the whole damn building to jump to his feet and applaud Bush's comments on Iraq. What the fuck? (the comic is mine - I need to offer something to match Jon tonight)
Stick up for photography in public places, it's your right: Australian snappers to defy police ban - NEWS.com.au. Via Slashdot.
Why we spend $400,000,000,000 EVERY YEAR: Raimondo checks out 'Why We Fight', a really sweet sounding documentary about the Military Industrial Complex, starring Richard Perle and Billy Kristol, Karen "Hey I saw the Office of Special Plans" Kwiatkowski, good ol' Chalmers Johnson, McCain, and other stars of the heady days of 2003-2004 spoofed intelligence wars. Also talks about the pro-war thinktank matrix and how the military industrial complex spreads cash around many congressional districts, to keep on Going and Going. Good old Eisenhower:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Because pressing 'Delete' is not really the best way to exonerate your SMTP-based crimes against America: Fitzgerald thinks someone is tampering with the White House email logs pertaining to the Valerie Plame scandal. Well done guys.
CNN Money: Visions of Future Google. Bankrupt, or the entire media, or else God & consciousness in your DNA. Why not?
Easy Cowboy:
Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
(Via DailyKos) Also from the Kos, in TX-22, Tom DeLay just can't pull cash like he used to:
Rep. Tom DeLay has just $150,000 more in the bank than challenger Democrat Nick Lampson, the most recent election filings show.
DeLay's campaign committee reported having $1.44 million on hand and Lampson's campaign $1.29 million, according to year-end reports that were filed late Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. The reports include all funds received up to Dec. 30, 2005, and also include a swing-for-the-fences fundraising dinner in Houston for DeLay with Vice President Dick Cheney on Dec. 5. DeLay's office called the fundraiser "the most successful of the congressman's career."
"In one night alone, the congressman took in more than $500,000," said campaign spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty. "It was a very strong fourth quarter."
Keith Olbermann rips apart Bill O'Reilly. And Chris Matthews is still telling absolute horseshit about Domestic Spying.
Augh I am bored of this hack shit but maybe someone cares. Thank you DailyKos.
Well, Madison is still fertile ground. Jon is wrapping up his college days right now, and he's found a spot to draw a regular comic strip and the odd story illustration lately. Nicely done. This is a way cool Alito drawing (from this opinion bit). Madison's The Daily Cardinal is the venue of choice.
Jon has also been sketching a comic called Two Word Title. Here is the Jon Lyons media index. Looks Pimp to me!! Just wait until the first Jon Lyons New Yorker cover. You heard it here first folks.
With a little luck we will get some more goodies from the Lyons Residence up here soon. I am hoping to get contributions (anonymous or otherwise) because it is more interesting to hear from friends than my usual ramblings.
TheMemoryHole.org: LSD Reports From the US Military, mostly from back in the 1950s. Totally for real. I was delighted to hear that Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who inadvertently created Lysergic Acid Diethyl-Amide, celebrated his 100th birthday this week. Thanks, Albert! You are cooler than all the Beat poets combined! (I just had this vision of a giant Allen Ginsberg robot stomping around Tokyo. I've got to lay off these magic droplets!)
We'll have lots more later today, but this batch of goodies should entertain until later.
Why are conservatives so afraid? by Kos. (But is Kos a coward?) Damn right, Digby:
This idea that we are living in a unique time that calls for special measures is what they always say. (And this current fantasy about the unique threat that proved our oceans couldn't protect us is particularly rich considering they fearmongered a communist threat of total annihilation for decades.) Often cooler heads are able to quell the worst excesses (like the fervent belief that we needed to launch a tactical nuclear war against the commies) and satisfy the right wing's other ongoing paranoid fantasy --- the left as a fifth column --- with silly, wasteful surveillance of animal rights groups or Quakers or former Beatles (along with pernicious surveillance of their partisan opponents.)
They are rhinestone cowboys who are scared to death and don't know how to contain their fear. So they lash out at their domestic political enemies, who they can bluster about and pretend to be tough, while hiding behind the military uniforms of their Big Brother and Preznit Daddy (which is a real stretch when it comes to Junior.)
The fact that they continue to win elections as being the tough guys perhaps says more about our puerile culture than anything else. They lash out like frightened children and too many people see that as courage or resolve.
Violent Islamic fundamentalism is a serious problem, not an existential threat. And it's a difficult problem that requires adults who can keep their heads about them when the terrorists put on their scary show, not big-for-their-age eight year olds staging a temper tantrum.
War and Piece rocks for your Washington 'defense' and neocon tidbits. Laura Rozen 'gets it.'
MediaMatters video: Olbermann awards "Worst Person" honors to Gibson for his religious "intolerance"; Coulter named runner-up for "Nazi block watchers" comment.
Parapolitics, from those calm people at PrisonPlanet: Spooky AOL Ad Says Big Brother Is Watching the Internet. At this site, AOL is essentially trying to scare people off the Internet? A few other PP posts, some from other sources: Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue: A President at war with America. Local paper reports that Canadian Army to occupy downtown Winnipeg as part of a drill. The Decline of the American Empire and the ever-popular 9/11 intrigue thread, Silverstein Answers WTC Building 7 Charges, are by PP writers. Around and around it goes.
From the similar SIANews.com, a division of LibertyThink, MySpace.com: Rupert Murdoch's New Takeover/IP-invasion Project and Michael Berg Changes Story About Nick & Moussaoui. I think it is funny that this one dude, Michael P. Wright of Norman Oklahoma, is on a crusade to prove whatever the hell happened with Nick Berg - and the fact that Zacharias Moussaoui somehow had Berg's computer password is one of the weirdest 9/11 anomalies out there. Seriously, my best of luck to him, but whatever happened seems to have been covered up quite thoroughly.
The DeLay Babylon Project: WaPo: The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail. Case Bringing New Scrutiny To a System and a Profession. Think Progress » Abramoff: The House That Jack Built.
Even David Brooks rips GOP over Abramoff and sleaze. Oh Bobo, where's the love?
Followup on Sibel Edmonds: Edmonds has evidently told the blogger at 'Wot Is It Good 4' that he's brought together many Sibel-approved nuggets of info/conspiracy. So let's list: sibel and feith and perle?, Outing Plame? or Outing Brewster Jennings? and of course sibel edmonds, brewster jennings, edelman and grossman. I'll have some more on this later.
Secret Pentagon Study: Armor Problems Have Killed Many. Sounds like whoever wrote that thing is about to get fired and find a horse head in their bed.
Some goodies from the Agonist: More on Iran attack plans, Iran and deterrence, and the Persian difference. Stirling Newberry comments on the GWOT for the Agonist. Makes a lot of sense:
...the creation of intelligence product has demonstrably been compromised, this is what Afterdowningstreet shows, what Daschle's comments on the information that Bush gave, and didn't on spygate shows, and what the constant flow of rosy scenario Iraq reconstruction reports show. Computer people have a phrase "GIGO" for "Garbage In, Garbage Out", but there is also the "filter effect", where a program or mathematical operation yields the same result no matter what is put in.
With a lumpenexecutive at the top, and a corruption of the synthesis process, all the high sounding organizational ideas are not worth anything. Further more, if there were a serious drive to integrate information, then people such as Crowley [Rowley? -Hongpong] - who wrote one of the two "gun shot residue" memos on the possibility of terrorists learning how to fly planes - would be promoted, not exiled, and the people who have overseen the failure to find the Anthrax attacker or forsee 9/11 would not have been promoted to the top of the counter-terrorism chain. An agency run by screw ups, is going to screw up. An agency managed by kiss ups, is going to spend its time managing up, not down.
Also he makes the point that the 'terror' organizations pursued by the FBI fail to include right-wing Christian groups. I feel that Newberry's basic theory of what constitutes 'terrorism' is really pretty accurate:
Thus, there is not only an ineffective executive, but an entire subculture whose functional effectiveness is degraded by the realization that they work for a political, and not national, security apparatus. There is a willing participation in the construction of an inaccurate paradigm, the construction of institutions designed to perpetuate and disseminate that inaccurate paradigm, the execution of plans based around that inaccurate paradigm, and the acceptance of the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of civilians because of the willfully inaccurate and criminally negligent handling of the global war on terrorism. The trend line is not upwards for ourside, but flat. And that means that the next spectacular terrorist attack on our soil is a matter of when, not if.
The corruption of executive institution, the willing prostitution of the executive branch of government, and the politicization of hierarchy and research are the root causes for our failure to decapitate Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
[.....]
Terrorism has two modes: that of asymmetrical warfare - where one side chooses not to oppose the military of the other side directly, but instead attacks civilians or prisoners. The other is a mode of political control, where privileged - economically or politically is immaterial - actors act in arbitrary and capricious ways, often through proxies, to prevent the formation of political counter-consensus. This second form of terrorism is far more common and pervasive. Its actions account for the bulk of deaths by terrorization. The use of terror and terrorization is an intergral part of warfare and even governance, in that some agentes will only be deterred by the possibility of disproportionate force. However, it only becomes terrorism, when there is the attempt to terrorize the mean, not the extreme, of the body politic. It also is terrorism when there is the discontinuity with the rule of law. The difference between repression and terrorism, is that terrorism strikes without legal justification or accountability. Crystalnacht was terrorism, Dachau was something far worse.
This paradigm makes it clear that the flip side of non-state terrorism, and revolutionary or anarchist terrorism, is state or hierarchical terrorism. The two are co-dependent upon each other.
All right. The State Dept straightens it out: “Identifying Misinformation” as summarized by FTW.
Liberal hawks piss me off because they seem to wholly lack integrity. Ugh.
Liberal Hawks: Flying in Neocon Circles
By Tom Barry
In the heat of Iraq the neoconservatives are seeing their visions of Pax Americana turn into nightmares and headaches. But they are not alone. Liberal hawks like Ivo Daalder, Robert Kerrey, and Will Marshall also find themselves discredited as the quagmire in Iraq swallows up all their arguments supporting the invasion and occupation.
Well Sarah Janecek and Brian Lambert completed their first radio show on KTLK this evening. For the first time around it was pretty good -- nearly as good as my first time on WMCN back in 2002. There was good discussion of the 2006 elections, the NSA wiretapping thing, and a long talk with a guest about Mike Tice. There were even some call-ins. So it is all working out.
Some scientists determined that apparently, across the scale from bacteria to whale, the basic unit of life is energy and metabolism -- not time. A Master Equation for All Life Processes? Check out the 10 little-known sweet science stories. A Swedish bio-gas (cow poo) train, pillows are laden with fungi, French scientists figured out how to slow down & speed up light, (!!!) leading the way to future all-optical data routers (!!!!!), a robot with square wheels, and of course they are training honey bees to find land mines! (also 50 greatest robots ever - via GM)
The Eagle faces the olive branch: Dear Leader recently addressed the nation about that war thing, and someone told me that it was interesting how the olive branch on the Great Seal of the United States is hidden.
(Bush has also been pressuring newspaper editors a lot lately, including trying to prevent the CIA European prison stories in the WaPo, and the Times NSA story, by summoning the editors to the Oval Office in a vain effort to intoxicate with the fearful trappings of power)
I found out that on the Presidential Seal, the eagle used to face the arrows until 1945:
This one-time change has given rise to the myth that the eagle's head changes position to indicate wartime or peacetime, but that is obviously not true. The eagle faced right from 1880 to 1945, and has faced left ever since. It is nevertheless true that, when the change was made in 1945, the announcement referred to the symbolism of the eagle facing peace instead of war, and this symbolism has been alluded to many times since, although it was not the motivation for the change.
Make no mistake; when the Duke makes a televised address, every visual detail is carefully managed. The fascinating Brian Springer film "Spin", which was made primarily with intercepted satellite signals — open video feeds from the White House and other political and media operations. There's one funny part when they remove a photo from behind Poppa Bush's seat, because it is thought to resemble a recent photo of when he passed out in Japan.
So make no mistake, the selection of the arrows was 100% intentional, in a White House as image-conscious as this one.
(evil witch Peggy Noonan observed Bush talking about the way the eagle faces pre-9/11)
Windy: Energy issues in MN. Apparently the vast majority of windmills around Buffalo Ridge are not owned locally according to an interesting Strib article. Let's think about the means of production here people!
They don't like the vote: Guardian: Religious parties deal blow to US hopes for Iraq. Apparently an official level of 5% vote fraud in Iraq has been accepted, Juan Cole says:
The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq admitted on Sunday that voting fraud occurred in approximately 5 percent of the ballots cast, but said that this level of fraud would not affect the over-all outcome. Still, the IECI announcement will certainly fuel Sunni Arab anger and conviction that the election was stolen.
Bizarre. The Sunnis think that Shiites ganked their votes, and there have been mass protests in Fallujah. KR: "Iran now enemy No. 1, Sunnis say". Violence resumes apace as Sunni Arab student leader killed in Mosul after protesting vote -- Shiite militias and Kurds accused of killing him.
AP reports that US airstrikes are escalating, although of course it is hard to tell how many civilian casualties this generates, or whether they are the 'right targets,' or whether it is strategically useful at all. Such urban bombardments have not been seen in years, but due to 'perception management' techniques, the US public is blissfully unaware. A Steel Curtain for their bodies and our eyes, indeed.
RJ Eskow: Voting Confirms: Iraq Is a Red state. We have generated a fundamentalist theocracy, aligned against Israel, towards Iran, while 45% of the country supports attacking US troops. Why was this such a brilliant fucking idea again? Robert Scheer cackles: Iran's victory revealed in Iraq election.
Ethnic/sect structure of iraqi forces is doomed, man: One of the measuring sticks of how propagandizing a perspective on the Iraq war is how the difference between Sunni & Shiite groups is framed. When Sunnis are "rat's nest terrorists" while the Shiites are "Free Iraqis come to Battle for Freedom" in the northwest of the country, you are looking at some obfuscation.
Consider this first: SF Chronicle: Various private armies still exist, threatening Iraq's national security:
Residents of Samarra, the scene of bloody clashes between U.S. soldiers and insurgents, said they feared a Shiite militia being unleashed on the city. Interviewed in their homes this week, they said they were unaware of a Mahdi Army presence, but claimed they had already suffered when commandos affiliated with al-Sadr's militia were dispatched to the city earlier this year.
Ibrahim Farraj, who lives in the Sikek district, said, "The Interior Ministry forces are very strong. The insurgents are afraid of them, but they are corrupt and we cannot trust them. The last time the Interior Ministry was here, they were al-Sadr -- people are scared of them and the Mahdi Army."
U.S. Army Capt. Ryan Wylie, of the 3rd Infantry Division serving in Samarra, said he had heard rumors that the Interior Ministry was conducting a private war, but had seen no evidence.
These bloggers that have been embedded with US troops in the northwest Euphrates river valley are all about exaggerating this difference. In particular, Bill Roggio at Threatswatch (where the map above came from) explains how Rats Nests are obliterated in Steel Curtain Unmasked, and other interesting dehumanizing euphemisms. See if you can find the subtle twist of meaning here:
Throughout the operation, the 1/1/1 of the Iraqi Army and the Desert Protection Force worked in conjunction with the U.S. Forces, and proved to be an instrumental part of the operation. The Iraqi Army battalion participated in combat operations, and they and Desert Protectors were able to identify foreign fighters and local insurgents.
I wonder if Roggio can wrap his head around the concept that 'identifying' is not a neutral act of observation, but a conscious change of political identity (by Shiite militia, no less) leading straight to violence.
Roggio is not happy about a Washington Post article that characterized his role in Iraq as a military-supported Information Operation. He says that all the cash to get him there was raised independently, and that the military has not 'influenced' his writing. But his main sources are military personnel, and his perspective is deeply enmeshed with the same terminology and concepts that Pentagon spokespeople attempt to beat into our heads. Here's his core point:
Equating military information operations with al-Qaeda propaganda efforts is a form of moral equivalence of the worst sort. The U.S. military is conducting an influence campaign to draw attention to the news which is missed by the media on a daily basis. Their belief (and one that I share) is the portrayal of events in Iraq do not reflect the actual situation on the ground. While the articles may be viewed as “favorable” to the Coalition, the question is, are they accurate and factual? The Washington Post does not address this issue, nor does it provide evidence that the military is running a disinformation campaign.
Misrepresenting the source (such as the placed Iraqi newspaper stories) is a form of disinformation because it manipulates the perception of where it's coming from. The military's justification is that there is a metaphysical or ontological gap between (all?) portrayals and reality, according to him. Well isn't there always? How far can this go? Also consider this ironic statement:
al-Qaeda is running a sheer disinformation campaign which uses human beings as props in events such as beheadings and execution styled killings. It manufactures events, such as the faux uprising in Ramadi in the beginning of December. The truth is not relevant to al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations, only results matter.
The administration has 'manufactured' all sorts of symbolic events and concepts, such as the Statue Toppling, the mysteriously Satanic Terrorist Singularity in Fallujah that needed to be nuked after the 2004 Presidential election, etc. There have been plenty of symbolic constructions. Look at how Pat Tillman died -- that event was manufactured beyond the truth (it was a friendly fire fatality) to burnish the war narrative. Oh by the way, here's what Tillman's dad said:
"They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up," Patrick Tillman said. "I think they thought they could control it and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out."
Al Qaeda is not the only force at hand here seeking to 'sharpen the contradictions' through symbolic action. What is Shock and Awe, if not a symbolic gesture? (Roggio also said that lots of Sunnis voted for Allawi in Anbar. That's fucking ridiculous!)
But what can I say about a worldview with ideas like "Samarra, a city once ripe for a Tal Afar styled assault."
By the way, here's a by-the-numbers orthodox propaganda tale about the Terrorists in Mosul. Of course it comes from the American Forces Press Service, part of the 'American Forces Information Service.' Use this to set your propaganda index, I guess.
Sadr City has a good deal of reconstruction, after decades of neglect. A story in the rightwing UK Telegraph claims that Tal Afar is totally ballin' these days:
Their commander, Col H R McMaster, is a counter-insurgency specialist who wrote a book about the Vietnam War, in which he criticised the US military's failure to understand the enemy's culture.
Before deployment, his men were given extensive Arabic classes and intensive lessons on Iraqi history, customs and religion. Proper efforts were made to woo local tribal sheiks with banquets in which goats were slaughtered and concerns listened to.
"The enemy is really good at disinformation and propaganda. We have to win the battleground of perception," he said.
Big Brother & Crying Wolf: People are more willing to believe the right yarn at the right time these days. A student at Dartmouth claimed that Homeland Security questioned him after he got Mao's Little Red Book through inter-library loan. But apparently it was a hoax. This story shows that people are expecting to hear these kinds of things... so stay sharp, we can hit spin real fast here.
Scratch the Checks and/or Balances: How sad is it that Sen. Rockefeller gets to jot secret handwritten notes of concern to the White House like a high school sweetheart, and that is supposed to be his total constitutional role? WTF?
AIPAC says Jump! WaPo: "Pro-Israel Group Criticizes White House Policy on Iran:"
AIPAC, which describes itself as nonpartisan, has criticized nearly every administration's Middle East policies, often speaking out when Israeli government officials express private frustration with U.S. policies.
But the news releases mark the first major criticism of the Bush White House and come as the administration is focused on problems in Iraq and has no clear path on Iran.
[.....]
Ross said the criticisms, though serious, are unlikely to lead to an all-out rift between AIPAC and the administration. "At the end of the day, every administration does what it needs to do, but obviously they will have to pay attention to this," he said.
Which again suggests that AIPAC should be registered as an agent of a foreign power. Well, that, and some of their (former) personnel have been indicted on espionage charges (more info here via the New Yorker).
Biochemical roots of the Munchies: Cannabinoid receptors around the hypothalamus.
In their studies, the researchers concentrated on the lateral hypothalamus (LH) of the brain, known to be a center of control of food intake. Their studies involved detailed electrophysiological measurements of the effects of specific neurons that they had identified in previous studies as being important in endocannabinoid signaling.
Their studies revealed that activation of CB1 receptors, as by endocannabinoid molecules, induced these neurons to be rendered more excitable by a mechanism called "depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition" (DSI).
What's more, they found that leptin inhibits DSI. However, they found that leptin did not interfere with the CB1 receptors themselves. Rather, leptin "short-circuits" the endocannabinoid effects by inhibiting pore-like channels in the neurons that regulate the flow of calcium into the neurons. Such calcium is necessary for the synthesis of endocannabinoids.
Call the Cave of Shadows the Cave already! As we find ourselves hip-deep in propaganda, it's hard to know where to turn. Such strange web conspiracy theories as the Chappelle Theory briefly amuse us, but these are just the zeitgeist products of an insane time. The Cosby Theory, a follow-on satire of Chappelle Theory, explains the terrible conspiracy of the Cosby Sweaters. (the guys who dreamed up the Chappelle Theory were advised by their lawyers to let everyone know it's totally fake).
Some guy mocked me in the comments, implying I believed that the Chappelle Theory was real. I said that "The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing," and I picked out a quote of Oprah ranting about her infinite power like a Bond villain. I thought it was a well-crafted example of that sort of site, but at no point did I claim it was real, although it prompted me to reflect that Chappelle might have been threatened somewhere along the way, and some of the 'Dark Crusaders' may have negatively reacted to Chappelle. (It was indeed well-marketed. They are now selling Dark Crusaders t-shirts.)
These days, there is a pretty thick distance between what we're presented with, and the Objective Truth that I still suspect exists somewhere. This site has been unafraid to link to raving lunatics, angry Iraqis, neoconservative screeds and gibbering Freemason spotters. I'm not looking over their shoulder, so how can I trust them any differently than, say, Scott McClellan or the Associated Press?
As we learned from such works as The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a conspiracy theory can offer a direct conjecture about a certain set of facts or circumstances, but it can also show an alternate style of linking events and people together.
A goofy conspiracy theory centered on pop culture is a kind of prism that reflects the basic weirdness of our times. When it's executed with style, I'll mention it because its logical form — apart from its literal content — can help induce a bit of a mindfuck, a unit of guerilla ontology to the everyday grind, imploding assumptions.
For example, when I mentioned to my family this crazy Chappelle Theory, they immediately leapt to Oprah's defense. How would Oprah ever threaten anyone?! She's a paragon of sassy afternoon virtue!!"
Aha!" said I, tanked on a bit of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. "Why do you leap to praise her automatically? She's just some billionaire! This silly theory reveals that you have all sorts of biased, programmed instincts to defend the wealthy & powerful, etc etc..."
The point is that we live in an Disinformation Age, and a wobbly conspiracy theory can help show you why Conventional Wisdom is just as shaky. As I have detailed here, we invaded Iraq partly because Iranian intelligence agents fed lurid stories about nuclear weapons through Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress into the Pentagon and the Vice President's office. That's part of the history of our times, and it's pretty damned conspiratorial. It sets the bar for intrigue, I think it's fair to say.
The sources of supposedly 'clean & authoritative information' in our information economy utterly failed to figure this out in time, and they still haven't come clean about it.
I long ago decided that only by monitoring the widest possible spectrum of rhetoric and information can a rough sense or useful 'heuristic' of any given political theater be reached. So I can't be afraid to reflect on what anyone from Charles Krauthammer to Wayne Madsen to DEBKAfile to Hezbollah's Al Manar is talking about. You can't achieve more intellectual accuracy by boycotting Mother Jones.
When yet another slickly executed Conspiracy Theory tale comes along, as they always do, I'll often toss it up here because it shows that the Dominant Narrative and Tacit Assumptions are often just as ridiculous. The battle for perceptions runs deep these days; the war is between your ears and behind your eyes.
The issue of Information Warfare is going to be a hot one next year, but we ought to take it all with a sense of good humor and a strong drug regimen to keep our minds limber, as the Dude put it.
To some extent, all political rhetoric rests on gestures toward phantasmic workings, a secret esoteric logic — either hidden actors, or Principles such as Freedom arranged by that mysterious Other 'Calling from beyond the Stars' for Dear Leader. As Ariel Sharon put it recently, "You see things from here [as PM] that you don't see from there [an outsider]." This is the 'appeal to authority' argument, and the Authorities cash out the fallacy as far as they can.
Plato spelled out this basic political principle for us in the Allegory of the Caves, when he said that only the select can reach the World of True Forms, while the rest would just watch projections. He meant that a good leader better be able to dream up some fine-sounding esoteric Forms to tell the tribe at the campfire. An objectively false 'conspiracy' can still illustrate how these grand Authoritative and Legitimate Sources are just a couple notches up from the tribal shaman.
Botox is the new charmed skull on a stick, the Brookings Institution is nothing but the 21st century's beard-stroking witch doctor.
Of course, as an atheist I must consider all spiritual appeals as possibly having this basic political purpose at their core, even if part of the intention is self-deception, rather than purely manipulating the audience.
Again we must return to the words of Hasan i Sabah, the leader of the Assassins. "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted." Surely, Karl Rove is his truest disciple, and I'll set the ideological filters for my site's content accordingly.
An interesting site popped up, offering a strange conspiracy tale surrounding Dave Chappelle and leading members of the American black community. The site, chappelletheory.com, offers a strange tale of threats, phone calls and the dangerous members of the Oprah mafia/militia.
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Johnson (the founder of BET) are all purported to have been quickly offended by the Chappelle Show, and have conspired to get Chappelle Show cancelled.
The theory places such sketches as 'Dave marries Oprah' in an entirely different context -- supposedly that one was Dave's gesture of defiance against Oprah.
The site claims to have been written by a former PR executive disgusted with what happened. The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing. We can't be too surprised that this kind of stuff pops up, considering how the Chappelle Show's abrupt demise was kind of mysterious. This segment, March 2004, was quite dramatic:
The next day a friend recounted a frantic phone call from Chappelle at 2pm. Dave described the following story of the previous night, which his friend assumed, at the time, to be a dream: (paraphrased)
I was in bed next to my wife when I got woken up by a heavy pressure on my chest.
I opened my eyes to find one of the three men — that appeared in my bathroom days before — perched on top of my stomach, wielding a Colt 45 handgun with an enormous silencer. The other two men were holding me down. It seemed like my wife had been drugged, as she laid motionless but breathing next to me.
Oprah Winfrey leaned forward and whispered in my ear "you better watch your step — we're representing interests more powerful than you can imagine. You do remember that Farrakhan killed Malcom, and that Cosby, Johnson and I have more money than God — we can keep this harassment up forever. Is this what you want your life to be like Dave?"
The last thing I remember, someone knocked me out.
I woke up with my wife the next morning and I thought it might have been a dream, but I still have a bruise on my head and I really think this all happened, despite the fact that my wife shows no signs of anything having ever happened.
Chappelle then said he was afraid to tell his wife this story because he was nervous that she would call the ambulance again. He told his agent that he felt he needed body guards — but his agent advised against it for fear that it would make him look too paranoid and jeopordize his career. Since it seemed like he could get no outside help, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
March 24, 2004
On the next show Chappelle decided to attack Oprah directly, as he now knows she is behind all of the harassment.
The skit, called "Dave Gets Oprah Pregnant" centered around Dave getting a call from Oprah informing him that she is going to have his baby. After hearing the news, Dave quits his job and moves in with Oprah, spending her money like its going out of style. Chappelle felt that he had the leverage to get away with this, as Winfrey wouldn't want her involvement to unseat Chappelle made public. He soon realized his leverage wasn't as strong as he thought.
So is it real? Of course I cannot say. I would not be surprised that Oprah, Cosby, Farrakhan and Sharpton would have been deeply offended by the Chappelle Show, and taken some kind of reactive action. Maybe Dave will explain if he was ever threatened, or if this is just another exciting Internet yarn...
1UP for Russ: Russ Feingold is chilling around the Internet while fighting the renewed Patriot Act. Now that's class. Also he speaks in favor of withdrawing from Iraq. So Quadruple Infinity Bonus Points -- he's trying to kill Bowser and save the Princess. The Odds are Slim but entirely worth it.
While Iraq prepares for another round of 'something', (and election irregularities around Mosul are apparently expected) a memo (PDF) from the Department of Justice indicated that career Justice lawyers believed that redistricting Texas would illegally marginalize minorities. Meanwhile a Crips co-founder is going to get injected. And who says minorities are oppressed in this free country?
(fortunately the DOJ's new policy has "barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics." - thx Marshall.)
Charting sleaze: This big ass Abramoff chart is almost big enough to encompass the mega-scandal. Marshall on this as well. There are quite a few Democrats on there. Where are the House ethics complaints anyway? Polls show that corruption is a leading concern in America nowadays.
Secret laws? The Bush Administration apparently claims that secret regulations require people to present IDs at the airport. Why secret? Secret courts, secret evidence, secret prisons. Laws too? And they call us on the Internet obsessed with conspiracies! :-D (via Kevin Drum)
It's a really big information war: I don't feel like putting a lot more words in. But this NY Times article, "Military's Information War is Vast and Often Secretive," reaches into great detail about psychological operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although really, I have to think that most of the locals see right through this stuff and scoff at it. Even if it's supposedly hidden through private contractors, I suspect they aren't really taken in that easily.
It also makes me wonder about psy ops dimensions to such things as "Shootout! Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" coming Dec. 14 to the History Channel.
Meanwhile dead US soldiers apparently back come as commercial freight. So much for honoring the heroes. If it were my kin, I would be crushed.
Juan Cole reflects on Iraq in our Strib. Background on activities of the Badr Corps, now the de facto Inner Militia of the Interior Ministry. Tactics seem to escalate in Afghanistan, no matter how many radio stations we control. Damn. Juan Cole's site will be a good spot to follow the election results, and i think this bit pretty much sums up the evolving problem:
Al-Zaman/ AFP: Muntadhar al-Samarra'i, the former commander of the Iraqi special forces, said Sunday that the Minister of Interior, Bayan Jabr Sulagh, appointed 17,000 fighters from the Badr Militia as police officers in his ministry at a time when they still receive their salaries from Iran. Al-Samarra'i accused the Badr Corps [the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] of employing torture on detainees in prison. He showed AFP a film he himself had shot of torture in Iraqi prisons. He said all of the high officials in the Ministry of the Interior are from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa (Shiite parties), whereas the detainees are Sunni Arabs. Al-Samarra'i also said that the special police speak Persian with one another (the Badr Corps fighters had been expatriates in Iran). He spoke of several secret prisons, some with as many as 600 inmates, and said there were also jails for women.
An interview with Sy Hersh, if you want more gory details. He puts in this fun bit about rigging the last Iraqi election:
...the three provinces that – according to the actual rules, the three provinces voted against the constitution – you had to have a two-thirds majority against it – it was defeated, and there is no question that in two of them this happened, and the third, Mosul province, the amount of fraud and jiggering of election ballots and manipulation was just outlandish. I do know, at least I have been told that, before the… if you remember the election day, I think it was initially supposed to be August 15th. The election day…
Horton: October 15th, I think, right?
Hersh: Right, right, October 15th. It was extremely quiet, and it's my understanding that the resistance actually had been talking to the UN – the UN had an advisory role in the election process, which it still has – and they had made it quiet not because intimidation of coalition forces and the American government but because they decided, they said, "The UN will do it straight. Because if it's a straight, honorable election, you won't get your constitution through. We'll defeat you in three provinces." There was a great, a great deal of agitation among the Sunni resistance about the fraud that was involved. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows. I think the Sunnis… I think the election will take place. That won't be spoiled by rioting and distress and disturbances, but I think afterwards – I think the Ba'athists are sort of curious, the Sunnis, to see what happens – but afterwards, I think we could even see a significant escalation, already, of the kind of damage we're having.
So Talabani will probably play the Katherine Harris role in the coming production. All right. Hersh also has lots of info about the insanity of the air war ramping up -- as airstrikes replace American soldiers, and no one's around to film all the civilian casualties.
You are looking, if you break it down, to, oh, roughly 100 bombs being dropped an hour. Twenty four hours a day for the last 15, 16 months. That's a hell of a lot of bombs.
Indeed. And that's only estimated from one section of the airborne military forces. And also this: after the election,
we could end up with Iranian operatives helping to guide and direct American bombs against targets that are against our interests. This is all in the realm of possibility. Yes.
Oh yah, also this:
The Israelis are investing in their good partners the Kurds, they support an independent Kurdistan, or at least a strong Kurdistan. And for sure, there are operations going on, Israeli-led operations are going on inside Kurdistan into Iran, Syria, absolutely. The Israelis have a platform there.
Not terribly shocking. But I'm sure it will work itself out. A final bit, on dear Michael Ledeen and the Niger forgeries:
The one thing that makes me a little skeptical is Michael Ledeen is certainly, really smart, I disagree with everything, you know, he and I are on the other ends of the world, but it is such a bad forgery, I mean, it is such a bad forgery.
Well that's true. We ought to expect more finesse from him. Anyhow, lots of quotes, but Hersh is still the Dude on these matters.
Syria talks tough: I missed this one. About a month ago Assad said that Syrians had to stick together and fight, as the US has a plan to crush the Arab nations. It was basically a pretty hard statement from a country that the US has been openly belligerent towards for years now. But it suggests that Assad is not going to fold... With a little luck the neo-cons will fall in Washington before they can generate a Tonkin Gulf incident in the Syrian desert, as Raimondo put it. Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders.
The National Security Agency reflects on Tonkin Gulf: they put together a nice website with lots of original documents on the incident that got spun up to spark the Vietnam war, in an attempt to provide clarity. Good for them.
Venezuela and USAID operations against Chavez: This bit by Tom Barry from the International Relations Center talks about USAID and its various means of influencing politics in Venezuela. Part of the shadow boxing between Chavez and Washington. Also the ever-altruistic National Endowment for Democracy pops up as supporting 'democratic organizations.' Mysterious.
Former CBS producer stands by Texas National Guard documents: Right wing bloggers rode Dan Rather's battered remains to glory last year, but it might turn out that (surprise!) they're full of it. Mary Mapes, the producer supposedly responsible for acting as a Kerry henchwoman, has returned to tell the tale of the National Guard documents. Lo and behold she found that many Guard docs have the same features that everyone said made Bush's docs forgeries. She wrote a book "Truth and Duty" about it. There was a good interview with her on DailyKos exploring all this stuff. Here's the documents she dug up.
Florida logic: Robert Novak says that Florida Republicans are trying to get Katherine Harris to duck out of the Senate race. Also interesting stuff about how in Florida the Dems are starting over from scratch, all over.
To Live and Die in CA: They say that the man from the Crips, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, is getting executed about now. I oppose the death penalty for anyone (including hapless Iraqi soldiers), and in this particular case, it strikes me as especially harmful to kill a figure who has managed to find a peaceful political strategy to defuse violent gang conflicts. (Possibilities of rioting. Only a massive LA riot could round out this ridiculous year.)
When steroid-sodden leaders, with quite soft support of their own, need to shore up that sense of solidarity among the Base, well why not get rid of a 'lead gangster'? Perhaps that's not fair because clemency ought to rest on the case itself. But I heard the same tone when a radio talk show host on CNN suggested that even if more than a hundred innocent people have been let off death row, it's still better to kill because they are plotting to kill more people in prison. Why not just shoot everyone? Horrible.
Drunk Trashy White Power, Mate: Elsewhere, in Australia there's been riots after some Lebanese immigrants were accused of assaulting a lifeguard. Naturally the Australian far-right has apparently latched onto the situation as an opportunity to demonize immigrants. Mean right wing lady Lucianne Goldberg said "Finally, a WASP riot as beer soaked beefy Aussies bash Muslims at beach" (via nomoremisterniceblog). Something to be proud of when neo-Nazis are circulating videos about 'the Battle for Cronulla'. Even more horrible. 12thharmonic is following this. Radio host Alan Jones is whipping things along:
The riot was still three days away and Sydney’s highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along.
"Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them."
Froomkin's getting Posted: I think everyone knows how lame the Washington Post usually is these days. Somehow they seem to be getting upset about how all over the Internet people spit at them. Now one of their better writers, Dan Froomkin, is getting a bunch of crap from the WaPo editors because his column, the "White House Briefing", is perceived as too liberal, and by too liberal, they mean it is not always buried in the torrent of spin and propaganda masquerading as 'balance'.
Political Editor John Harris is a jackass here. Marshall and Firedoglake with more on it. Since Froomkin might go down over this, lets give him a couple paragraphs to explain himself:
Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.
There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny. I was prepared to take the same approach with John Kerry, had he become president.
This column’s advocacy is in defense of the public’s right to know what its leader is doing and why. To that end, it calls attention to times when reasonable, important questions are ducked; when disingenuous talking points are substituted for honest explanations; and when the president won’t confront his critics -- or their criticisms -- head on.
The journalists who cover Washington and the White House should be holding the president accountable. When they do, I bear witness to their work. And the answer is for more of them to do so -- not for me to be dismissed as highly opinionated and liberal because I do.
Cheers dude, cheers. How the hell did you ever get that column anyway? Perhaps I'm not being totally fair with the Post. They did hook us up with the Abramoff chart and DeLay memo above. But why are they still such punks?
Viveca Novak twist in the Plame scandal: Weird. Digby if you want the ugly details. NextHurrah, E&P, Atrios, needlenose, Talkleft, & the firedoglake again for more. Apparently VandeHei suddenly said that Hadley was Rove's source on Hardball (a slight bombshell) and no one even noticed, probably because they have all gotten aneurisms by now. She tries to explain herself but its shady. Eccch whatever.
Hong Kong activists ask for quiet at WTO: According to the Guardian, the stalwart crew of rebels against the Communist order in those parts distributed notices:
In what passes for Hong Kong's alternative press, a cut-out-and-keep rioters' guide to Hong Kong was hardly a call to arms. Under R for Rioters, it said: "This is a peaceful place and your shenanigans will only make it harder for us once you leave, so leave the rocks at home." G for Globalisation noted: "While we are on the topic, what is your beef anyway?"
Could be some of that neo-Communist Propaganda though.
Wikipedia hoaxer apologises. The guy says it was a workplace prank. Old story about a Mac SE 30 made into a bong. The worst video game art ever. Hilarious.
Clinton messed with Bush at the global warming thing in Montreal. It is actually really good Clinton is wielding his residual 'soft power' to pressure the US on global warming, while saving a tiny bit of dignity for Sane America with the rest of the world.
Wake Up Neo, the screensaver. When you are listening to Massive Attack's Dissolved Girl and your mescaline-toting hipster friends show up for warez, you know you need to follow the white rabbit.
Star and stripe resign: A spoof. Rove's on the case. The little dog is a nice touch.
Al Qaeda Santa Connection - via elf torture: Sam Seder and Bob Knight from Air America's Majority Report point out the value of a war on Christmas (video here):
SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?
SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I'd like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.
PHILLIPS: I don't think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.
SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.
PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?
SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it's actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It's exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.
... Yes, well, Kyra, I mean, listen, I would like Bob to tell me who is the person who has been offended by someone saying Merry Christmas to them? I've never met that person. I don't celebrate Christmas. But if someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, I either think, well, it's a little bit odd, it's like me saying happy birthday to you on my birthday, but no one cares.
But I will tell you this, as we wage the war on the war on the war on the war on Christmas on our radio show. News Corp., Fox News, those people who have started this entire war on Christmas mean, fake war, they're having a holiday party.
President Bush saying "Happy Holidays." Tokyo Rose, Laura Bush, saying "Happy Holidays" to her dogs in the video, I'm sure you've seen it. I mean, these are the things that we should be talking about when we are waging this war in Iraq, we should be equating it to the war on Christmas.
Saw a very strange mockumentary: The September Tapes, a low-budget indie film shot in Afghanistan in early 2002. The plot, writing, and acting are often unwieldy, but for those of us obsessed with taking in every angle, it still had a lot of interesting elements.
It could be called the 'Osama Witch Project' for its handheld zoominess. The central character, one Don Larson, lost his wife in 9/11, so he's decided to go to Afghanistan and see if he can find bin Laden while pissing off the whole country with his boorish and idiotic ways. The filmmakers admitted they were going with a Heart of Darkness model story, but when the crew follows some bounty hunters towards Khost and the Final Battle, the film kind of breaks up. Wali Razaqi is his Afghan/American guide, and apparently the only sane, but always ignored, character.
Apparently once the filmmakers arrived in Kabul, the new Northern Alliance governor sort of took them under his wing. There's a memorable scene -- although incredibly stupid -- where Don insists on taking photos of the Kabul police force, and they don't like it. Don abruptly announces he wants to get arrested so he can go find out the Truth in the prison. He zooms off in the Rover, and the Kabul police Give Chase, get to have a fun time for this movie.
Likewise the Northern Alliance officers and miscellaneous gruff men armed with AKs that fill the film are hardly actors. The staging of scenes in the Kabul bazaar reminded me of Godard's whole realism on-the-streets thing. The real-life governor and narcotics minister each have cameos as arms dealers, so I can imagine the locals liked seeing themselves on film.
This film spoofs pretty accurately the Geraldo-Nic Robertson bull-headed dramatic style of embedded Western reporters. I can imagine the inhabitants of Jordanian town of Zarqa scoffing when yet another Western TV crew, full of the starry-eyed gung-ho macho Info Warriors like Don arrives.
There are moments of striking clarity, like when the Afghan fighter tells Wali matter-of-factly that the Americans let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora. Many of the scenes were improvised, so it has the 'traction' of the Real. But the editing is really lurid and perhaps 'imperialist' or 'Orientalist' at times.
Don's 9/11 rage is barely contained; it spills out of him in perilous and impulsive ways. He has no idea who he's dealing with, and has some kind of psychotic death wish. They follow the bounty hunter out of town, and set up a campfire a couple miles from the battle site. Suddenly some horseback raiders shoot Wali and ride off. Don screams that they're cowards, then basically grabs his gun and runs off into the night, shooting wildly. The terrorists briefly capture him, then he escapes, drops the camera and vanishes into destiny.
So it actually is a pretty good metaphor for the thrashing, blind and confused rage of America in those parts. Too bad it's such a silly film. The filmmakers risked their lives to shoot this innovative flick. It gets dull about halfway through, but it kind of strobes between the sublime and the banal. The Behind the Scenes feature on the DVD was really much better than the film, but also showed that director Christian Johnson isn't that different from Don. His next one should be interesting, though. Not recommended without whiskey.
More reviews 1 2 3 4 5 6 7- official site. RottenTomatoes = 24%. iFilm.
Josh Marshall asks the million dollar question:
This is one of those media questions for which there is no real way to provide a concrete answer. But it is at least worth asking: How many of the stories coming out now under the very broad heading of botched or manipulated intelligence could have been reported and written at more or less any time over the last two years? I suspect the answer is, the great majority of them.
They're getting written now because the president's poor poll numbers make him a readier target.
I know I'm not saying anything most of you don't know. And better late than never, of course. But all working reporters and editors should consider what that says about the profession.
Damn media. More tomorrow.
ExplodingDog comic says it all. "I knew the answer in the beginning." The poor stick figure works through it now, too late -- the war was rationalized in terrible ways, turned now to mist. The righteous American stands alone, confused, as the world smolders with conflict, blood all around. The US has apparently introduced White Phosphorus chemical weapons into the arena of Iraq, apparently using them around Fallujah to kill targets and surrounding people:
White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries. The resultant burn typically appears as a necrotic area with a yellowish color and characteristic garliclike odor. White phosphorus is highly lipid soluble and as such, is believed to have rapid dermal penetration once particles are embedded under the skin. Because of its enhanced lipid solubility, many have believed that these injuries result in delayed wound healing. This has not been well studied; therefore, all that can be stated is that white phosphorus burns represent a small subsegment of chemical burns, all of which typically result in delayed wound healing.
..... Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful; a firm eschar is produced and is surrounded by vesiculation.
White Phosphorus shells apparently react with human flesh by sort of melting it, giving victims a carmelized, melted appearance while the clothes remain intact. There are reports that it's a developed Marine tactic, used in Fallujah.
The US Army itself admitted that it uses WP in Iraq, in their own "Field Artillery Magazine", as a DKos diarist pulled it together. The military said (PDF):
"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
When Paula Zahn introduced the exciting Suicide Bomber Woman Video the other day, they couldn't resist throwing in this horrible theatrical music, that kind of "Islamic Threat" theme, heavy with throbbing drums and synth strings, the stuff that keeps FOX News so jazzy and amusing. The thrill of the chase! Vicarious pursuit! Who can stop these Arabs before they come down the street!?
For some reason there are tornadoes ravaging the country today - the atmosphere is weird right now. Why are there so many Lockheed-Martin and Boeing feelgood promotional ads on CNN? What are they even selling?
"The End of News?" by Michael Massing - as rightwing dominance settles over much of the news landscape. This pretty much sums up the toxic information swamp we're in:
Through the Internet, commentators can channel criticism of the press to the general public faster and more efficiently than before. As became plain in the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, to cite one of many examples, an unscrupulous critic can spread exaggerated or erroneous claims instantaneously to thousands of people, who may, in turn, repeat them to millions more on talk radio programs, on cable television, or on more official "news" Web sites. This kind of recycled commentary has become all the more effective because it is aimed principally at a sector of the population that seldom if ever sees serious press coverage.
On the other hand, there's been this change in the political wind over the last month or so, with Libby's indictment, Harry Reid's recalcitrance -- forcing the long-suppressed investigation into the spoofed intelligence. It's been a treat to see Wolf Blitzer asking everyone about it, over and over, while Cafferty cackles. It seems the elite crew finally smell blood.
James Fallows runs through the basic points of the whole case. When every chattering head on TV claims "the Senate Intelligence report PROVES this intelligence manipulation never happened", and yet, that's pretty much their only firm point, it signals that a great many pillars of the pro-war case have finally been knocked away.
Another major defense of the war was the National Intelligence Estimate on October 1, 2002 that the CIA produced about Iraq - which they claim showed that the CIA and other intelligence agencies was dumb as anyone about the matter. There was a classified version that only a limited circle of politicians could read, and the unclassified version. The classified one had lots of things like "The State Dept thinks this WMD is not really certain", while the version that they deigned to permit Congress to read lacked the statements of doubt. Small catch. Lots of details on the NIE here and here.
RUMSFELD STRIKES BACK read the CNN title bar today, as he cited the Dems who'd talked about Iraq's threat in the past. He says that the decision to invade was based on the same stuff they had, they were all seeing, before 2000. He implies that the quality and quantity of information available to the Dems in 2002 and 2003 was the same as what the President saw, as 'everyone knew.' But even the Washington Post can't take that seriously anymore:
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
Rummy even trotted out the Orwellian classic "Islamofascists: we just gots to kill 'em!"
Nothing quite as handy as merging political identities for a quick & lazy ethnic demonization -- see 'Judeo-bolshevik' for how these things work out.
They keep saying, "How dare we have this discussion now, when the war is still happening and the troops need moral support?" Well, three arguments:
First, the American public ought to see the difference in Iraq intelligence between what Democrats in Congress, Bush himself, the various intelligence agencies, and the shady guys around Cheney and Rumsfeld saw. The stuff from Chalabi should be on the public record, one piece at a time.
Second, because I believe that things were willfully manipulated (and aggressively defended when attacked - the Plame case a key symptom), the people who did that shit should lose their security clearances and go play golf with their devious friends. They don't have some intrinsic right to government paychecks, even if firing them would embarrass or fragment Bush's sad White House more than it has already. It has been widely said, especially in recent weeks, that people like Michael Ledeen were running around in 2002, helping move the specific Niger forgeries that scared the hell out of the American people. Some of this was dug up by Josh Marshall and Laura Rozen in "Iran Contra II?" Larry Franklin and the AIPAC scandal fold right into this stuff, as well.
Third, it is plenty patriotic to believe that the American people should pressure the government to have a realistic, honestly weighed and "not murderously insane" view of the world. The Bush Administration has no short-circuit to infallibility or the Wisdom of God. The embattled ranks of the U.S. military need to know that the pencil-pushers in DC will actually have to pay a price for their nonsense, and their evasion of disasters like the torture policy. The blame here resides near the top of the chain of command -- we have to help out the lower rungs by getting them out of the system. The armed forces have to know that we are going to protect them from being forced to commit such terrible acts as torture.
From an article in the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts:
In the name of fighting terror, we have terrorized, and in the name of defending our values, we have betrayed them. We have imprisoned Muslims in America and refused to say if we had them, why we had them, or even to provide them attorneys. We have passed laws making it easier for government to snoop into what you read, who you talk to, where you go. We have equated dissent with lack of patriotism, disagreement with treason. And we have tortured.
Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham attempts to suspend Habeus Corpus for people detained as terrorist suspects. (If you permit yourself to believe that they're all known, proven terrorists, well, that just isn't true of any jail or shadow detention network - sorry)
Fortunately there are lots of military veteran Democrats, many from Iraq, who are getting into the elections less than 12 months from now. While I can't demand their politics align with my own perfectly, they'd be a hell of a lot better than the chickenhawks at understanding the terrible price of war and violence (as well as treating veterans decently).
The blowback against the Right is reaching far and wide.
Jordan bombing: Juan Cole reflects on the death of Moustapha Akkad, a Syrian movie producer who was involved with the Halloween movies, among others. Akkad was on track to produce a film about Saladin, but now it won't happen:
The guerrilla war in Iraq has claimed a unique cinematic voice of transnational modernity, who had explored the terror of psychopathology and the angst of alienation, as well as the history of anti-colonial movements.
The Iraq conflict has become a bad horror film. It has killed the grandfather of the "Halloween" movies. And it has snuffed out the man who wanted to bring real Muslim heroes such as the Prophet Muhammad, Omar Mukhtar and Saladin to American film-going audiences. Now, his last project will remain unachieved. Saladin was a Kurd from what is now northern Iraq, and he defeated the Crusaders with a legendary chivalry that inspired their respect.
Zarqawi's henchmen inspire only horror, not respect. They have no chivalry, only bloodthirstiness. They are Michael Myers, not Saladin.
Moustapha Akkad was an American voice as well as a Muslim one. We needed his ability to communicate one culture to the other. His death diminishes us all, and signals the nightfall of a decade-long "Halloween" of the horrific sort for Iraq and for the United States.
New Israeli Labor Party leader wants to pay settlers to leave West Bank: Condi Rice managed to cut a deal to fully open the Gaza-Egypt border for the Palestinians, a major step forward towards independent operations. This is good, but also the new leader of the Israeli Labor party, Amir Peretz, said that he wants to compensate settlers who want to leave the West Bank.
Peretz, who accuses the government of neglecting the poor and wants to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, also told Israeli television on Saturday he would back any bid "to give back parts" of the West Bank.
Wegner said Peretz agreed with Sharon that Israel should keep large Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied land. But, Wegner said, Peretz wanted the "billions" Israel spends on building those enclaves to be diverted to help the country's poor.
.....Wegner said Israel was in effect holding settlers not protected by the barrier as "political hostages".
This is true. It is unethical to force Jewish people to live in an occupied territory when they simply can't afford to move out. Perversely, market forces keep impoverished Jewish settlers trapped there, deprived of the choice to leave -- trapped by tax incentives and poverty, they're hapless pawns in the Israeli right-wing's absurd land game.
Sorry for the lack of updates. I have decided that the Internet was better off without my collected musings the last few days.
Meanwhile in the middle of the night, I am working on managing the photos from the Minnesota trade mission to China as Sarah Janecek sends them over. I was surprised to find that AOL Instant Messenger works through the Great Red Firewall....
Anyway I am very tired so I am going to bed now. But it's an interesting thing to be checking out. See PoliticsInMinnesota.com for the blog of the trip. Night!
There have been so many scandals breaking this week that I've really got Intrigue Fatigue:
Frank Luntz, who helped develop the "Contract With America" message that swept Republicans to power in 1994, was on the Hill last week warning the party faithful that they could lose both the House and the Senate in next year's congressional elections.
Har har har... Blogs for Bush darkly rambles about Democrats wishing for civil war. Fortunately, I scored a new apartment at the edge of downtown Minneapolis with Colin Kennedy. The apartment windows are just above the street signs in this photo. It's at Apartment 200, 32 Spruce Place, the "Haverhill Apartments", which is around the Laurel Village area. Basically to get there, you drive up Hennepin past the Minneapolis Community & Technical College and take a left onto Harmon Place, then go a block. It is right there on the first corner in. Not bad!
First, the Covert Propaganda. Let's put that in bold. Covert Propaganda. It is not getting much bounce on the TV news because there is too much going on. But I like it. See AFP or NY Times:
Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.
Then, Valerie Plame and the War Propaganda. Meanwhile they started a war based on fabricated propaganda. I think I know which is worse. But they didn't like it when uppity ponks like Joe Wilson tried to deflate some of their more outlandish claims, so they smeared him by outing his wife as a CIA operative, which in their demented cocktail-party worldview somehow was thought to be a good idea. But who did this? Michael Ledeen? (well he quite possibly involved with the Yellowcake forgeries themselves, but...) Joe Wilson wasted no time in insinuating that Karl Rove and I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby were involved, and I had this thing fairly well pegged back in 2003. Nearly two years ago, October 4, 2003, 'Everyone's National Disaster' I said:
The leaker went after Wilson to intimidate anyone else who might attack the Bush folks falsification of war intelligence. Let me offer a prediction about who was probably behind the leak: the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. There have been insiders saying that the bad guy works in the Executive Office Building, where Cheney's people are. If I'm right about this, I definitely win a cookie.
(although on antiwar.com they had it pegged back then too - that was certainly one of my sources) I will award myself a cookie now. A fine headline from the WaPo: "Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer: Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement". And so now they are saying, let's look at bringing in CONSPIRACY charges. Har har (via a happy Billmon)!
A new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
Naturally folks are drooling over the opportunity to see who in the White House could actually be indicted. Dkos writer DC Poli Sci outlines how back in the Watergate days, the prosecutors wanted to avoid setting a precedent of indicting the President, so fortunately they had bi-partisan support for impeachment, an option not open these days. A very good place to start looking at the matter. An (actual) psychoanalyst looks at Bush's general destructive tendencies - and how he might lash out if Karl Rove et al. are threatened by Fitzgerald's CIA probe:
Why this matters now is the possible reaction of Bush to Fitzgerald's next serious move. My fear is that the inner emptiness in Bush will respond with absolute panic to the potential loss of Rove and his other pals. Panic in a sadist who believes in the apocalypse is something serious about which we all should be worried.
It would be funny if it weren't so obviously alarming. So would Fitzgerald bring charges against Libby? Froomkin in the WaPo has many bits about Miller's Big Secret.
Haaretz: U.S. officials eye possible Assad successors in Syria:
The sources added that senior American officials, in recent conversations with their Israeli counterparts, have expressed interest in Israel's assessments of Assad's possible successors, asking who Israel thought could replace him and still maintain Syria's stability. American officials said that their impression from these conversations was that Israel would prefer to have a weakened Assad, vulnerable to international pressure, remain in power, and is unenthusiastic about the possibility of a regime change in Syria.
The Israelis' impression was that America's main concern is the flow of terrorists into Iraq via Syria, rather than the threat posed by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah organization in Lebanon. But Washington, like Jerusalem, is eagerly awaiting the results of the Hariri investigation, and will not decide what to do about Syria until the findings have been published.
AIPAC Your ass, bitches!!! Funny stuff. Former Pentagon analyst (under Douglas Feith and the Office of Special Plans, part of the time) Larry Franklin is going to plead guilty to passing classified defense intelligence to AIPAC staffers, who in turn passed it along to Israeli intelligence agents at the embassy in Washington. AP story on it:
Rosen, a top lobbyist for Washington-based AIPAC for more than 20 years, and Weissman, the organization's top Iran expert, allegedly disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics, including al-Qaida, terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and U.S. policy in Iran, according to the indictment.
Presumably this means that he could really spill some beans on how AIPAC has operated as an agent of a foreign power (and probably as an espionage channel) while lobbying in DC. Justin Raimondo makes the 'maximalist' case that the Israeli government has, to some extent, been manipulating US policy. I think that "Israel's secret war on the US" goes a ways too far, but we are certainly looking at a serious Rabbit Hole of mysterious proportions. Raimondo puts his favorite pieces together in "AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell":
The chief beneficiaries of the conquest of Iraq, and subsequent threats against both Iran and Syria, have been, in descending order, Israel, Iran, and Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda has used the invasion as a recruiting tool and training ground for its global jihad against the United States. Iran has extended its influence deep into southern Iraq and has penetrated the central government in Baghdad. In the long run, however, Israel benefits the most, as a major Middle Eastern Arab country fragments into at least three pieces and the U.S. military is ineluctably drawn into neighboring countries.
While the U.S. imposes an occupation eerily reminiscent of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestinian lands and prepares to deal with Israel's enemies in the region, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon makes major incursions into the West Bank, even while supposedly "withdrawing" from Gaza. In the meantime, the political and military bonds between the U.S. and Israel are strengthened, as the two allies present an indissoluble united front against the entire Muslim world.
Except the alliance is far from indissoluble, as the AIPAC spy scandal reveals. The U.S.-Israeli relationship, often described as "special," is rather more ambiguous than is generally recognized, both by Israel's staunchest friends and its most implacable enemies. This has come out in Israel's funneling American military technology to China, and the threat of American sanctions, but was also made manifest earlier by indications that Israel was conducting extensive spying operations in the U.S. prior to 9/11 – suspicions that are considerably strengthened by the AIPAC spy brouhaha.
Israel's secret war against America has so far been conducted in the dark, but the Rosen-Weissman trial will expose these night creatures to the light of day. Blinking and cursing, they'll be confronted with their treason, and, even as they whine that "everybody does it," the story of how and why a cabal of foreign agents came to exert so much influence on the shape of U.S. foreign policy will be told.
In the course of bending American policy to the Israelis' will, they had to compromise the national security of the United States – and that's what tripped them up, in the end.
Again, this is not my basic opinion about the situation, but it ought to be considered. On the flip side, Juan Cole reacts to Raimondo by pointing out that in Washington, it is ALL interest group politics, but when there is no wealthy counter-interest group to given foreign countries (like pro-Likud groups or anti-Castro Cubans) then U.S. policy gets incredibly one-sided and stupid. With the memorable headline "A Government of War Criminals, A Press of Agents Provocateurs, A Bureaucracy of Foreign Spies:"
I wish the argument were more nuanced, and there are many things in it with which I disagree (David Satterfield is likely to have been a relatively innocent bystander in this train wreck, e.g.). But because Raimundo pulls no punches, he forces us to consider the degree to which Congressional foreign policy on the Middle East in particular has become virtually captive to the Zionist lobby (just as US policy toward Cuba is captive to the Cuban-American community and its lobby). He clearly goes too far, but how far should an analyst of this case go? Billmon is almost equally scathing.
One thing must be said, which is that there is no sinister cabal, that all this is just single-interest politics. The American system is one of checks and balances, and takes it for granted that there will be lobbies on both sides of an issue. But because there are no wealthy, organized, well-connected lobbies on the other side of AIPAC or the Cuban-American National Foundation (e.g.), US government policy ends up being unbalanced and often irrational on those issues. And, AIPAC functions as a foreign agent in the US without having to register as such, and some of its major officers clearly have been deeply involved in espionage for Israel for years. The last two points are uncontestable. Is this really a situation that serves the American people? Franklin, the "go-to" man at the Pentagon for then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, was trying to get up a US war against Iran, and was soliciting AIPAC's help. We already know that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has tried as hard as he could to get the US into a war against Tehran. Do the rest of us, who already have one military occupation of a Middle Eastern country we're not comfortable with, have any say at all in this? Don't we need a PAC for Middle East Peace that could begin offsetting AIPAC, the War PAC? If the pro-Israeli lobby or the Israeli prime minister want wars in the Middle East, why don't they fight them themselves? By the way, AIPAC has for several years been attempting to get Congress to pass a law that would put it in charge of the Middle East professors, like myself, and in a position to punish our universities financially if any of us criticize it or Israeli policy. The most dangerous thing about key elements of the Zionist lobby is that they really do want to gut the US First Amendment when it comes to Israeli interests.
I hope everyone who reads this will consider writing their Congressional representatives and senators and asking them to work to see that AIPAC is made to register as the agent of a foreign power, given the repeated pattern whereby it acts as such.
So yeah, Billmon has had a couple things to say about the matter. I also liked this UPI bit "Analysis: Netanyahu: US Opposes? So what?" which talks about Netanyahu's campaign to capture some more settlements as part of his bid to take over the Likud Party. I won't quote it now, but if you want evidence of how an insane racial chauvinist campaigns in favor of territorial expansion, you've got it. On the flip side, reflections about the peace movement in the broader Jewish community.
To hell with Des Moines: Finally the oh so productive 'retail politics' of Iowa and New Hampshire are finished as Dems to Add Contests to 2008 Calendar (via the Kos). So two more states will join IA and NH in the early set of primaries. I hope it's New York and California, or maybe Oregon and Montana. Or Mississippi and Kentucky. Whatever. Anything would be an improvement. Montana governor Brian Schweitzer was named the nation's 2005 "Hot Governor" by Rolling Stone but his story got axed. "'Since Hunter S. Thompson left, Rolling Stone hasn't been worth reading,' Schweitzer said," according to the article.
Able/Danger mystery continues: Newsday writes that the Pentagon had some sorts of leads on lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta before the attack, but the defense intelligence program Able/Danger was shut down and huge amounts of data got deleted. I've got an exciting conspiracy linked below about this, naturally!
Shaffer explained in a telephone interview that although Able/Danger never had knowledge of Atta's whereabouts, it had linked him and several other Al Qaeda suspects to an Egyptian terrorist, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who had been linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later was convicted for conspiring to attack the U.S. Atta arrived in the U.S. some seven years after that bombing. But Shaffer and his attorney, Mark Zaid, emphasize that Able/Danger never knew where Atta was, only that he was connected to Abdel-Rahman and Al Qaeda.
"Not to say they were physically here, but the data led us to believe there was some activity related to the original World Trade Center bombing that these guys were somehow affiliated with," Shaffer said.
...[Senator] Specter sharply criticized the Pentagon for refusing to allow Shaffer, Phillpott, Smith and others who recall seeing the chart to appear and answer the committee's questions. "It looks to me as if it could be obstruction of the committee's activities," the senator said. Specter added that he was especially "dismayed and frustrated" by the committee's inability to hear from Shaffer and Phillpott, whom he described as "two brave military officers [who] have risked their careers to come forward and tell America the truth."
Pentagon to permit testimony: Following the hearing, Specter announced that the Pentagon had agreed to allow Shaffer, Phillpott and three other witnesses to testify in public next month, though a Specter aide said Tuesday that the Pentagon now insisted the hearings be closed.
.....Able/Danger was an experiment in a new kind of warfare, known as "information warfare" or "information dominance." One of the program's missions was to see whether Al Qaeda cells around the world could be identified by sifting huge quantities of publicly available data, a relatively new technique called "data mining."
The data miners used complex software programs, with names like Spire, Parentage and Starlight, that mimic the thought patterns in the human brain while parsing countless bits of information from every available source to find relationships and patterns that otherwise would be invisible.
Weird. Anyway the article also features some classic pre-9/11 bits such as the Phoenix memo and the arrest of Zacharias Mussaoui (so on the day of 9/11, the Minneapolis FBI had Nicholas Berg's email password inside Mussaoui's laptop. Random but interesting......)
War Porn: A very disturbing site called nowthatsfuckedup.com features images sent in by U.S. soldiers of dead people, blown to bits and so forth, from overseas, and this has been characterized as "the new pornography of war" (also The Porn of War at The Nation). Like any incredibly shady site, it's hosted in the Netherlands, so it's unlikely that lawyers can really get to them. It is very disturbing.
It seems like this is part of a very disturbing glorification of violence, using the aesthetic of death to provide meaning -- in other words, a surface manifestation of the inner emotional state that drives wars and murder. In contrast are the (warning: very graphic links) other photo galleries that can be found online that are intended to illustrate the horrors of Iraq, in order to encourage an end to the conflict. And there are those photos of flag-draped coffins coming into Dover Air Force Base in the United States that Bush was always obsessed with hiding from us. (thememoryblog, by the way, is excellent for more news on censored and concealed news like this)
Zarqawi-Goldstein update: I found another story about the ghost-like, eerie quality of how the Abu Musab al Zarqawi figure continues to generate media reports, while everyday Jordanians doubt he's still alive at all. This was by Dahr Jamail, who also has the Iraq casualty photo galleries linked above.
IRAQ MESS - time to grab our marbles and book it: Reuters: "Reuters says US troops obstruct reporting of Iraq." Now they are saying there is ONE fully functional Iraqi battalion. Great. Time to produce some kind of really important strategic benefit by blowing the hell out of some town (Sadah) eight miles from the Syrian border. I'm sure this will produce the same fine effects as the fourth time that the U.S. captured Samarra. Classified documents are talking about withdrawal strategies. "US Generals Now See Virtues of a Smaller Troop Presence in Iraq." as in:
"the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East."
The WaPo says that well, Bush is under pressure because Iraq is dissolving, and the Saudis are getting more vocal about noting this in public, which is not their usual style at all:
For all the public confidence, however, the Bush administration in private is nervous about this sensitive last stage, which will establish whether Iraq’s disparate religious and ethnic factions can stay together in a single nation — and whether civil war can be avoided, according to U.S. officials and experts on Iraq.
The administration has come under growing pressure at home and abroad over the past two weeks, with dire warnings from Arab allies and a prominent international group about the looming disintegration of Iraq. In an unusual public rebuke of U.S. policy, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister called a news conference in Washington last week to predict Iraq’s dissolution. He said there is no leadership or momentum to pull Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds back together and prevent a civil war. Other countries have expressed similar concerns in private, according to U.S. and Arab diplomats.
IRAQ Withdrawal Options Summary: Retired Lt. General William Odom adds that the Iraq war was "greatest strategic disaster in United States history". I mentioned Odom's analysis of What's really wrong with 'cutting and running' earlier. Michael Schwartz had a widely read reflection on why immediate withdrawal would be the better option now. Juan Cole's list of ten war demands for Congress, Billmon's sullen yet wise perspective and Robert Dreyfuss' view represent an excellent cross-section of thinking about the options for getting the U.S. away from this sorry vortex. Billmon's view of the War Porn site finally pushed him over the edge about the war, giving him the mental picture of growing, incipient Fascist tendencies in this country:
So I've been promising myself for a while now that I would break cover and at least admit that I'm not sure withdrawing from Iraq is the morally right thing to do, and have deep doubts about the arguments in favor of it.
But something happened on my way to a confession: I came across the Nation article on nonwthatsfuckedup.com, which meant I had to take a good, hard look at the psychopathic side of the American spirit, and consider its implications not just for the war on terrorism and the occupation of Iraq, but its role in the emergence of an authentically fascist movement in American politics, one which feeds on violence and the glorification of violence, and which has found an audience not just in the U.S. military (where I think -- or at least hope -- it's still a relatively small fringe) but in the culture as a whole.
I don't have time at the moment to explain fully why and how this peek at the banality of evil changed my thinking, although I'll try to cover it in a future post. Suffice it to say that my visit to nowthatsfuckedup.com was a reminder of the genocidal skeletons hanging in the American closet. It left me with the conviction -- or at least an intuitive premonition -- that an open-ended war in Iraq (or in the broader Islamic world) will bring nothing but misery and death to them, and creeping (or galloping) authoritarianism to us.
Jim Lobe had an excellent article about whether "Can the US Military Presence Avert Civil War?" This article is required reading. (Also it's worth recalling that Niall Ferguson was at my table when I had lunch with Michael Ledeen):
The growing spectre of a full-scale civil war in Iraq -- and the likelihood that such a conflict will draw in neighbouring states -- has intensified a summer-long debate here over whether and how to withdraw U.S. troops. Some analysts believe that an immediate U.S. withdrawal would make an all-out conflict less likely, while others insist that the U.S. military presence at this point is virtually all there is to prevent the current violence from blowing sky-high, destabilising the region, and sending oil prices into the stratosphere.
The Bush administration continues to insist it will "stay the course" until Iraqi security forces can by themselves contain, if not crush, the ongoing insurgency. But an increasing number of analysts, including some who favoured the 2003 invasion, believe Washington will begin drawing down its 140,000 troops beginning in the first half of next year, if for no other reason than the Republican Party needs to show voters a "light at the end of the tunnel" before the November 2006 elections.
.....In fact, some of these analysts believe that a civil war -- pitting Sunnis against the Kurdish and Shia populations -- has already begun. "A year ago, it was possible to write about the potential for civil war in Iraq," wrote Iraq-war booster Niall Ferguson in the Los Angeles Times. "Today that civil war is well underway," he asserted. While that remains a minority view, the likelihood and imminence of civil war in Iraq is no longer questioned by analysts outside the administration.
Ferguson blames the situation on Washington's failure to deploy a sufficient number of troops in Iraq to crush any insurgency. But a report released Monday by the International Crisis Group (ICG) pointed the finger at the U.S.-sponsored constitutional process, which will culminate in a national plebiscite Oct. 15, as having further alienated Sunnis from the two other major sectarian groups. Barring a major U.S. intervention to ensure that Sunni interests are addressed, according to the report, "Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry", "Iraq is likely to slide toward full-scale civil war and the break-up of the country."
......"We created the civil war when we invaded (Iraq); we can't prevent a civil war by staying," Odom wrote last month in an essay entitled "What's Wrong with Cutting and Running?" He and Bacevich both argued that, instead of creating a vacuum in Iraq that would draw in neighbouring powers, Washington's withdrawal would force neighbours and other great powers -- who have been relegated to the sidelines by the Bush administration's high-handedness -- to form a coalition to ensure a conflict would not get out of hand.
Some of the administration's critics, however, argue that an immediate withdrawal will indeed make things far worse, particularly for Iraqis. "I just cannot understand this sort of argument," wrote University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole on his much-read blog (www.juancole.com). "The U.S. military is killing a lot of Iraqis, but whether it is killing more than would die in a civil war would depend on how many died in a civil war," he wrote. "A million or two could die in a civil war, and that's if the war stays limited to Iraq, which is unlikely."
"A U.S. withdrawal would not cause the Sunnis suddenly to want to give up their major demands; indeed, they might well be emboldened to hit the Shiites harder," wrote Cole, who favours both the withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops and, in the absence of NATO or U.N. peacekeepers, the maintenance of Special Forces and U.S. airpower in the region precisely to prevent sectarian forces from escalating the conflict into a conventional civil war, as in Afghanistan.
Bing West reporting from Fallujah for Slate.com talks about the Emerging Iraqi Army and life in Fallujah in a series of articles. He was a Pentagon official, so the tone is towards "Rah-Rah!!" but it's still well-done. Ah, the Berg/Zarqawi story pops up here too. Anyway. 'C', an anonymous officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, related to Human Rights Watch how he couldn't get those in the chain of command to do anything about widespread torture practices. This quote says it all:
[At FOB Mercury] they said that they had pictures that were similar to what happened at Abu Ghraib, and because they were so similar to what happened at Abu Ghraib, the soldiers destroyed the pictures. They burned them. The exact quote was, “They [the soldiers at Abu Ghraib] were getting in trouble for the same things we were told to do, so we destroyed the pictures.”
....My company commander said, “I see how you can take it that way, but…” he said something like, “remember the honor of the unit is at stake” or something to that effect and “Don’t expect me to go to bat for you on this issue if you take this up,” something to that effect.
"Officials Fear Chaos if Iraqis Vote Down the Constitution". The suspicious sentiment of the moment:
"Nobody will be surprised to lose Anbar, and maybe one other province," one Pentagon official said. "We're not going to lose three."
Juan Cole reflects on the recent war protests and spineless Democrats. Fred Kaplan in Slate writes that the damned Constitution coming down the line in Iraq will be a disaster, and he hopes it's defeated:
The basic fact about Iraqi geography is that the Kurdish north and Shiite south have lots of oil, while the Sunni center does not. Read in this context, the basic fact about the Iraqi Constitution is that it strengthens the north and south, lets them form semiautonomous regions and expand them into super-regions—in short, it lets them dominate the country's politics and economics—while leaving the Sunnis with nearly nothing. It leaves the very faction that needs to be assimilated, if Iraq is to be a secure and viable nation, unassimilated.
Former Iraqi Army officers sat around and discussed why they wished that the old Army was still in existence, by Patrick Cockburn:
It was meant to be a moment of reconciliation between the old regime and the new, a gathering of nearly 1,000 former Iraqi army officers and tribal leaders in Baghdad to voice their concerns over today's Iraq. But it did not go as planned.
General after general rose to his feet and raised his voice to shout at the way Iraq was being run and to express his fear of escalating war. "They were fools to break up our great army and form an army of thieves and criminals," said one senior officer. "They are traitors," added another.
.....The meeting, in a heavily guarded hall close to the Tigris, was called by General Wafiq al-Sammarai, a former head of Iraqi military intelligence under Saddam who fled Baghdad in 1994 to join the opposition. He is now military adviser to President Jalal Talabani.
His eloquent call for support for the government in his fight against terrorism did not go down well. He sought to reassure his audience that no attack was planned on the Sunni Arab cities of central Iraq such as Baquba, Samarra and Ramadi, as the Iraqi Defence minister had threatened. He said people had been fleeing the cities but "there will be no attack on you, no use of aircraft, no bombardment by the Americans". The audience was having none of it.
......The meeting was important because the officer corps of the old Iraqi army consider themselves as keeper of the flame of Iraqi nationalism. One of them asked General Sammarai to stop using the American word "general" and use the Arabic word lewa'a instead.
In conversation, the officers made clear that they considered armed resistance to the occupation legitimate. General Sammarai told The Independent that he drew a distinction between terrorists blowing up civilians and nationalist militants fighting US troops.
One of the Senior Fuck-Ups, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, is finally retiring to somewhere else that he can pointlessly bomb. Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair bitterly lament the spinelessness of Democrats as they "Sink Deeper into the Ooze." A final bit about the AIPAC == War Party meme today:
For those interested in some of the reasons for this incredible abdication [of Democrats avoiding the recent war protest], we can cite former National Security Agency staffer and muckraker Wayne Madsen who reported two days after the rally that "according to Democratic insiders on Capitol Hill AIPAC put out the word that any member of Congress who appeared at the protest, where some speakers were to represent pro-Palestinian views, would face their political wrath."
Madsen wrote that three members of Congress had been scheduled to speak at the rally McKinney, Woolsey and John Conyers. "Word is that AIPAC will direct its massive campaign to Wolsey's neo-con and pro-Iraq war primary challenger, California state assemblyman Joe Nation, who has strong connections to the RAND corporation."
USS Cole-Wayne Madsen conspiracy time: Meanwhile Wayne Madsen has a new really exciting conspiracy theory involving the famous Israeli art students, John O'Neill, September 11, Douglas Feith and Marc Zell, Able/Danger, Islamic militants in Bosnia, Plame's Brewster Jennings front company, Sibel Edmonds, Michael Chertoff, the USS Cole bombing (actually an Israeli missile, according to Madsen's unnamed CIA source) and the rest. Not worth betting the lunch money on, but a very entertaining counter-narrative about the ideologies and paranoia of our times. Time for Deep Politics, Comrade. But Madsen takes heart with all the breaking scandals, as I do on his site:
After almost five years of incessant outrages by the Bush regime, I have never been more optimistic that the tide may be beginning to turn.
UK Times: "Iraq's Relentless March of Death." Via lies.com (love the banner pic) we get a bit about Statements from the Leaders (via Kevin Drum):
Asked whether the insurgency has worsened, Casey said it has not expanded geographically or numerically, “to the extent we can know that.” But he noted that current “levels of violence are above norms,” exceeding 500 attacks a week. “I’ll tell you that levels of violence are a lagging indicator of success,” he added.
So he is having trouble fully vaulting into lie territory, unlike Rummy. Lies.com also notes that surprisingly, adept liars' brains are built differently - with more white matter and less neurons in the prefrontal cortex.
Boeing and Bell Helicopter have apologized for running an advertisement for the V-22 Osprey aircraft that features soldiers invading a mosque. "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell... Consider it a gift from above." That's pretty fucked up. Apparently the building in the image says "Muhammed Mosque" in Arabic. Wow. Almost as ill-conceived as the boondoggle Osprey itself.
Abu Ghraib Photo Bomb: We are set for another batch of Abu Ghraib media to be released, much to the chagrin of the Pentagon leadership, who prefer to frame the issue as destabilizing and pointlessly inflammatory media. However, it is also excellent evidence for the American people that the Pentagon leadership does not deserve to keep their jobs, which is obviously the most important thing in the fucking world.
Former CIA dude Ray McGovern notes that the chain of command is constantly ducking responsibility for torturing people and all that. Stories of the 'New Boss' Iraqi security agencies are really scary, such as the story from Khalid Jarrar's detainment that I mentioned a while ago. You can almost taste the insanity and paranoia now generating inside those new Iraqi government agency buildings (actually, like Abu Ghraib, they're the same buildings as Saddam's day).
Paul Craig Roberts summarizes your basic reasons that Bush is stirring up some more wars with Iran and North Korea.
The Misc File: "India loses political credibility in anti-Iran vote" (IPS):
India, a country that aspires to be a superpower in Asia, lost its political credibility among the world's developing nations last week when it voted against Iran at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The headline in a leading Indian national newspaper said it all: "India's shameful vote against Iran." The criticism kept snowballing, as the media, academics and mainstream and left-wing politicians in New Delhi crucified the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for abandoning one of its longtime political and economic allies in Asia.
Well that's enough fun for today. With a little luck, let this post stand as this website's high water mark of charting the World's Sordid Affairs, the sinister inverse point, the final crest of the high and terrible wave we've been on. The opposite of this:
And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right sort of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Time is on our side. I'm moving to Minneapolis.
It seems that my case will come down to the matter of whether or not I was taking pictures. Well, anyone can tell you that police officers make an excellent photographic element. So here are my some of my best photographs of police officers from the Republican National Convention. (click to enlarge)
The (lower) photo of the NYPD officer on the motorcycle is one of my all-time favorite photographs. On his forearm, his tattoo reads "All gave some / Some gave all / 9-11-01". It is so much more authentic than all the cheap rhetoric...
Well folks, tomorrow the City of St. Paul is going to try to assert that there was Probable Cause that I committed a crime on May 11, but never photographed any police officers. Let this little post indicate that I have had a great deal of success photographing police officers. Police officers are more likely to behave themselves when they are being recorded. It cannot be denied.
I missed the Green Day concert in St. Paul on Friday. It sounded like a hell of a good time, made particularly special by Billy Joe Armstrong's connections to the area: his wife is from New Brighton, and I have heard on reasonably good authority that he purchased a house on Summit Avenue. Star Tribune reported Saturday:
St. Paul was where he wrote some of the songs for the politically charged "American Idiot," the Grammy-winning album that is the best-selling nonrap CD of the past year, with more than 4 million copies sold. In the summer of 2003, he had walked around the track at Macalester College in St. Paul, writing the songs in his head.
This also tracks with what I've heard, that Armstrong was spotted a few times around the track - a more interesting celebrity sighting than that time Josh Hartnett came into the SuperAmerica and Grand and Cleveland when Alison was working. It would also explain why much of the album has a perfect rhythm for running. This song always made a lot of sense to me - it must have been because I was living down the street when he wrote it! :-)
So what's my real point today? The image of Senior Demon Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is an essential element of the Bush Administration's strategy to manage perceptions of their disastrous war - diverting blame and creating an attractive 'negative image'. Zarqawi is one of the principle Hollow Lies of the war.
Say, Hey!
Hear the sound of the falling rain / Coming down like an Armageddon flame / The shame / The ones who died without a name
Hear the dogs howling out of key / To a hymn called "Faith and Misery" / And bleed / The company lost the war today
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On Holiday
Hear the drum pounding out of time / Another protester has crossed the line / To find / The money's on the other side
Can I get another Amen? / There's a flag wrapped around the score of men / A gag / A plastic bag on a monument
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On holiday
Meanwhile, in the Information Age of Hysteria, we have perhaps the underlying principle of our government in a nutshell, as Ron Suskind put it before the election:
The [White House] aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Enter the Demon of our Times.
Let me offer a theory: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may actually exist, but his "existence" in the media is an essential element of the Bush Administration's Public Relations strategy to manage perception of the war. He is a personification of malevolent intent: if he wasn't around, we are told to believe, things would sort themselves out, so our motive has to be to crush him instead of confronting the Pentagon's essentially racist, disastrous policies. The Star Tribune carried a Washington Post/AP story on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's latest pledge to kill all the Shiites. Consider the following:
More bombings push Baghdad deaths near 200: Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post
BAGHDAD -- Insurgents believed to be allied with Al-Qaida in Iraq kept up bombings in the capital on Thursday, launching strikes that brought the two-day death toll close to 200.
The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said the surge in bombings represented the kind of occasional spikes in attacks that the military has been expecting "around certain critical events that highlight the progress of democracy."
In this case, an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution is only a month away.
"Remember, democracy equals failure for the insurgency," Lynch said. "So there has to be heightened awareness now as we work our way toward the referendum."
Police targeted
In the violence Thursday, suicide bombers killed at least 31 people in two attacks about a minute apart that targeted Iraqi police and Interior Ministry commandos, officials said. Insurgents also managed to land a single mortar round inside the Green Zone, the base for U.S. officials and Iraq's government. There were no casualties and only minimal damage, U.S. officials said.
A day earlier, at least 14 car bombs across Baghdad killed 167 people, the majority of them Shiite Muslim civilians -- the highest one-day toll of the war inflicted by insurgent attacks in the capital. Seven of the victims died overnight of their wounds.
An audiotape released on a website linked to Al-Qaida in Iraq after Wednesday's attacks said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group had opened "all-out war" on Iraq's Shiite majority.
Attacks linked to Al-Qaida also hit the city of Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar, a stronghold of foreign-led fighters. Witnesses said Al-Qaida-allied fighters rocketed and shelled two U.S. military installations at Ramadi and traded fire with U.S. patrols in the city. The U.S. military reported one Marine killed and said a would-be car bomber also died. Iraqi emergency medical workers said Marine snipers killed six Al-Qaida fighters.
The two-day barrage of attacks attributed to Al-Qaida in Iraq, and the increasing control of towns in the west along the Euphrates River being asserted by foreign-led insurgents, intensified the U.S. military's focus on Al-Zarqawi.
U.S. commanders often have publicly denigrated his role in the insurgency to little more than that of a media-fostered figurehead. On Thursday, however, Lynch discussed Al-Zarqawi in some of the sharpest terms yet, calling him the Americans' main target and saying the United States was winning the fight against him.
"We believe we are experiencing great success against the most crucial element of the insurgency, which is the terrorists and the foreign fighters. The face of that is Zarqawi and Al-Qaida in Iraq," Lynch said.
"We've got great intelligence which tells us where he's moving to and where he's trying to establish safe havens. As soon as we see him trying to establish a safe haven, we will conduct operations," such as the one underway against northwestern insurgent strongholds in Tal Afar, Lynch said. "We're using all assets under our control in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces to find him and kill him."
Now let us refer to a little bit from Orwell's 1984... As WikiPedia summarizes the teachings of Emmanuel Goldstein:
...the state of war creates a mentality that suits the Party well. A Party member should be "a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war." Though "the entire war is spurious...and waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones", even Inner Party members who potentially could know better passionately believe that the war is real and will "end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world". .... There can never be any large-scale invasion of enemy territory, so that citizens of one superstate would come face to face with citizens of another and discover that conditions there are very much the same as in their own superstate: Even the prevailing ideologies are almost identical. To maintain the image of the enemy as a monster whose ideology is a barbarous outrage on common sense, all sides realize that "the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs"!
Since the war is a sham and each superstate is unconquerable, the ongoing "conflict" has no sobering effect on the oligarchies ruling the three superstates: .... "The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they chose." [Paging Mr Suskind...]
Thus, the war is actually "waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact". As far as the lack of any genuine outside threat is concerned, the superstates might just as well agree to live in permanent peace; then they would still be "freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger" (the kind of danger that might force the rulers to behave somewhat responsibly). This, according to the author, "is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace."
While I quietly alluded to this earlier, other people have been making this point for a while, but damn it, even the newspaper admits this "media figurehead" phenomenon is partly true. There's probably a real Zarqawi figure out there, but basically, these days I generally believe he is a media construction designed to provide a narrative that Joe Six Pack can understand. The exciting Zarqawi Chase (with, say, captured laptops and narrow escapes) is the kind of story that the NASCAR dad needs to stave off cognitive dissonance. The insurgency is not a failure of policy, it's not Rummy's and Myers' fuck-ups, it's this damn Zarqawi always trying to throw monkey wrenches in the system AKA "building democracy". Some might say it's a Leo Straussian Noble Lie to provide succor for the Bronze Masses. Let me throw in a Billmon post on this matter from a year ago:
The problem here is not with the Fallujans, the problem here is not with the coalition. The problem here is with foreign fighters, international terrorists, people like Zarqawi, who we believe to be in Fallujah or nearby.
Coalition spokesman Dan Senor: Press Briefing April 13, 2004
The security situation in Fallujah, Iraq, remains stable, and coalition forces there are engaged in a "robust hunt" for al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be in or near the city, coalition officials said today.
American Forces Information Service: 'Robust' Manhunt for Zarqawi Under Way April 13, 2004
Former regime elements can be former Ba'athists, they can be Iraqi extremists, they can be outside jihadists, they can be Zarqawi network folks as well.
Gen. Dick Myers: Press Briefing April 7, 2004
The terrorists, assassins are threatened by the Iraqi's people's progress toward self-government, because they know that they will have no future in a free Iraq. They know, as al Qaeda associate Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi put it in his letter recently, that we intercepted: "Democracy is coming"...
Donald Rumsfeld: Press Briefing April 7, 2004
A statement circulating in Iraq and signed by anti-U.S. groups last month claimed al-Zarqawi was killed earlier by American bombs in northern Iraq. A senior U.S. official denied the report of al-Zarqawi's death.
Associated Press: Al Qaeda tape takes credit for Iraq attacks April 6, 2004
The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
George Orwell: 1984
And let us not forget Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's entry into the universe of the News Cycle came with the notorious Nick Berg decapitation video. This video had a number of strange anomalies in it, and I have suspected for quite a while that it was fake. My favorite alternate explanation was that the video was actually shot by US personnel inside Abu Ghraib prison (aside from the "Lawn Chair from Hell" connection) to distract attention from the exploding torture scandal.
Too conspiratorial? Such a video could never be fake? Then why does the great Zarqawi appear to have Two Legs, not One? Try the WikiPedia Nick Berg conspiracy theories page for even more! This WikiPedia paragraph essentially sums up my point:
There are rumors that Zarqawi is dead because no sightings of him have been confirmed since 2001. In one report, the conservative British newspaper Daily Telegraph described as myth the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq. According to a U.S. military intelligence source, the Zarqawi myth resulted from faulty intelligence obtained by the payment of substantial sums of money to unreliable and dishonest sources. The faulty intelligence was accepted, however, because it suited US government political goals, according to an unnamed intelligence officer.[14] The Zarqawi myth has also been purported to be the product of U.S. war propaganda designed to promote the image of a demonic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq[15], perhaps with the tacit support of terrorist elements wishing to use him as a propaganda tool (a sort of Al-Qaeda Ronald McDonald).
I'm just going to wrap this up with a chunk from iconoclastic researcher Michel Chossudovsky, who wrote "Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?" at the Centre for Research on Globalisation:
War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, but the Chase keeps it Interesting. Hedges:The US intelligence apparatus has created its own terrorist organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself created. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations. Counterterrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present the terror groups as "enemies of America."
The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support of America's war agenda. The "war on terrorism" requires a humanitarian mandate. The war on terrorism is presented as a "Just War", which is to be fought on moral grounds "to redress a wrong suffered." The Just War theory defines "good" and "evil." It concretely portrays and personifies the terrorist leaders as "evil individuals". .....To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. The propaganda campaign presents the portraits of the leaders behind the terror network. In other words, at the level of what constitutes an "advertising" campaign, "it gives a face to terror." The "war on terrorism" rests on the creation of one or more evil bogeymen, the terror leaders, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, et al, whose names and photos are presented ad nauseam in daily news reports.
.....Al Zarqawi is often described as an "Osama associate", the bogyman, allegedly responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in several countries. In other reports, often emanating from the same sources, it is stated that he has no links to Al Qaeda and operates quite independently. He is often presented as an individual who is challenging the leadership of bin Laden. His name crops up on numerous occasions in press reports and official statements. Since early 2004, he is in the news almost on a daily basis.Osama belongs to the powerful bin Laden family, which historically had business ties to the Bushes and prominent members of the Texas oil establishment. Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan war and fought as a Mujahideen. In other words, there is a longstanding documented history of bin Laden-CIA and bin Laden-Bush family links, which are an obvious source of embarrassment to the US government.
In contrast to bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi has no family history. He comes from an impoverished Palestinian family in Jordan. His parents are dead. He emerges out of the blue. He is described by CNN as "a lone wolf" who is said to act quite independently of the Al Qaeda network. Yet surprisingly, this lone wolf is present in several countries, in Iraq, which is now his base, but also in Western Europe. He is also suspected of preparing a terrorist attack on American soil.
.....In Iraq, he is said to be determined to "ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites". But is that not precisely what US intelligence is aiming at ( "divide and rule") as confirmed by several analysts of the US led war? Pitting one group against the other with a view to weakening the resistance movement. (See Michel Collon [1], See also [2] )
......What is the role of this new mastermind in the Pentagon's disinformation campaign, in which CNN seems to be playing a central role? In previous propaganda ploys, the CIA hired PR firms to organize core disinformation campaigns, including the Rendon Group. The latter worked closely with its British partner Hill and Knowlton, which was responsible for the 1990 Kuwaiti incubator media scam, where Kuwaiti babies were allegedly removed from incubators in a totally fabricated news story, which was then used to get Congressional approval for the 1991 Gulf War.
What is the pattern?
Almost immediately in the wake of a terrorist event or warning, CNN announces (in substance): we think this mysterious individual Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is behind it, invariably without supporting evidence and prior to the conduct of an investigation by the relevant police and intelligence authorities.
In some cases, upon the immediate occurrence of the terrorist event, there is an initial report which mentions Al-Zarqawi as the possible mastermind. The report will often say (in substance): yes we think he did it, but it is not yet confirmed and there is some doubt on the identity of those behind the attack. One or two days later, CNN may come up with a definitive statement, quoting official police, military and/or intelligence sources.
Often the CNN report is based on information published on an Islamic website or a mysterious Video or Audio tape. The authenticity of the website and/or the tapes is not the object of discussion or detailed investigation.
Bear in mind that the news reports never mention that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA and that Al Zarqawi had been recruited to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war (This is in fact confirmed by Sec. Colin Powell in his presentation to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003) (see details below). Both Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi are creations of the US intelligence apparatus. The recruitment of foreign fighters was under the auspices of the CIA.
.......
Colin Powell's Address to the UN Security Council
In the months leading up to the war on Iraq, Al Zarqawi's name reemerges, this time almost on daily basis, with reports focusing on his sinister relationship to Saddam Hussein. A major turning point in the propaganda campaign occurs on February 5, 2003. Al-Zarqawi was in the spotlight following Colin Powell's flopped WMD report to the UN Security Council. Powell's speech presented "documentation" on the ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, while focusing on the central role of Al-Zarqawi: (emphasis added):
Our concern is not just about these illicit weapons; it's the way that these illicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations...
But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.
Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan War more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons.
When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in Northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp. Graphic, above. [there were no WMDS at this camp according to ABC report, see below]
The network is teaching its operative how to produce ricin and other poisons.... Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq, but Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered Al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.
......
The Nicholas Berg Video
Barely a couple of weeks later (11 May 2004), Al Zarqawi is reported as being the mastermind behind the execution of Nicholas Berg on May 11, 2004. Again perfect timing! The report coincided with calls by US Senators for Defense Sec Donald Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It occurs a few days after President Bush's "apology" for the Abu Ghraib prison "abuses" on May 6. The Nicholas Berg video served to create "a useful wave of indignation" which served to distract and soften up public opinion, following the release of the pictures of torture of Iraqi prisoners. (See the intelligence assumptions underlying Operation Northwoods, a secret Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to kill civilians in the Cuban community in Florida, and blame it on Fidel Castro. (More: [3]))
..........
Extending the War on Terrorism
Are "we winning or losing" the war on terrorism. These statements are used to justify enhanced military operations against this illusive individual, who is confronting US military might, all over the World. Al Zarqawi is used profusely in Bush's press conferences and speeches in an obvious public relations ploy.
You know, I hate to predict violence, but I just understand the nature of the killers. This guy, Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate -- who was in Baghdad, by the way, prior to the removal of Saddam Hussein -- is still at large in Iraq. And as you might remember, part of his operational plan was to sow violence and discord amongst the various groups in Iraq by cold-blooded killing. And we need to help find Zarqawi so that the people of Iraq can have a more bright -- bright future. (Press Conference, 1 June 2004, emphasis added)
We become the embodiment of light and goodness. We become the defenders of civilization, of all that is decent. We are more noble than others. We are braver than others. We are kinder and more compassionate than others -- that the enemy at our gate is perfidious, dark, somewhat inhuman. We turn them into two-dimensional figures. I think that's part of the process of linguistically dehumanizing them. And in wartime, we always turn the other into an object, and often, quite literally, in the form of a corpse.
I promised Peter a while ago that I would post about his adventures (hence the "from abroad" topic) in Gillette, Wyoming. Peter was driving back to Oregon (i might have mixed up the details here) where he was working on an organic farm, decompressing after his illustrious Macalester career.
As he drove through Gillette, he picked up a newspaper in a gas station and thought, wouldn't it be a good idea to see about getting a job here? So he pestered them for a while in his usual polite yet indefatigable fashion, and the Gillette News-Record hooked him up with the cub reporter slot. Fortunately, rather than the cats-in-trees beat, he is now covering the energy industry (mostly natural gas), which is a very big deal out in those parts. He has spent a hella long time figuring out all these weird drilling techniques and stuff, going to visit drilling sites and hanging out with the roughnecks.
I think it is a very cool venture for him to go with, because what better place to get a grip on things than the most sparsely populated state in the country? I don't really have a lot more useful to say about it, but here are links to most of Peter's stories. i think the paper publishes like 5 or 6 days a week, so he's pretty darn busy.
My favorites were his recent major feature about new gas drilling technology & ventures, and the story of the gas technicians who rescued fifteen people from a trailer park that got wasted by a sudden tornado. So here is the set of Peter's stories so far, via the newspaper site's search function. Keep holding it down, P, that's Cheney country out there, and we need to keep an eye on 'em:
Pumped up Sep. 4, 2005 With rigs peppering the Rocky Mountain region, Gillette-based Cyclone Drilling s business has more than doubled since 2000. Rigs operate around the clock and they still have a hard time keeping pace with demand. We were running 10 (drilling rigs) in ...
Local gas prices climb to 2.90 Sep. 6, 2005 As gas prices rise across the country, drivers in Gillette are responding, as the average increased to 2.90, more than 1 higher than a month ago on Aug. 4. Felix Vondracek, on his way back to York, Neb., after visiting his son in Billings, Mont., s...
Latest Avenues of Art display includes 27 pieces Aug. 12, 2005 Standing next to his most recent piece of public art, Karl Saliter, his daugter and four Gillette Street Department employees smiled for a publicity photo as hail began to fall. The semi-circle of smiling faces cradled Saliter s work of granite, stee...
Gillette feels pinch of nationwide shortage of cement Aug. 28, 2005 When Basic Energy s cement supply was cut by 40 percent in July, Rod Geil called suppliers in Utah, Colorado, Texas, Iowa and Alberta, Canada, in search of more. Each time he was told the same thing: We don t have any. The drilling company is still i...
Scavenger hunt for new teachers Aug. 24, 2005 Campbell County s 58 new teachers spent Tuesday searching for cowboy hats, rhinos, toys and firefighters during a scavenger hunt that was part of new employee orientation. New teachers were paired with experienced teachers who are helping the new emp...
President declares Wright a disaster area Aug. 23, 2005 President Bush signed a disaster declaration Monday, making federal relief funds available for Wright residents affected by the Aug. 12 tornado that struck the town. The declaration came 10 days after the tornado destroyed or severely damaged 92 home...
Jacobs Ranch wins mine rescue contest Aug. 21, 2005 The blood-covered and headless body of a mine worker had fallen more than 30 feet off an overburden drill, and his co-workers were stranded. In Saturday s simulated accident, one worker was lying only feet from the smashed skull with a badly broken l...
Kids donate money from stand to Wright tornado victims Aug. 17, 2005 Logan Wasson and Ashlyn Pearson were selling juice and baked goods at their old-fashioned lemonade stand on Tuesday. But the money they make isn t for them. The Gillette fifth-graders will donate their profits to help the victims of the Wright tornad...
Rescuers pull 15 from the wreckage Aug. 14, 2005 Scott Lindsey, Bob Shock and Luke Reddy leapt from their rig and headed toward the voice of a woman screaming hysterically. She was standing near a mobile home that had been flipped over, a home so mangled that all the things that were on the floor w...
Latest Avenues of Art display includes 27 pieces Aug. 13, 2005 Standing next to his most recent piece of public art, Karl Saliter, his daugter and four Gillette Street Department employees smiled for a publicity photo as hail began to fall. The semi-circle of smiling faces cradled Saliter s work of granite, stee...
Head-on kills 3 Gillette men Aug. 30, 2005 Three people were killed and one is hospitalized after a two vehicle accident west of Wright on Monday afternoon. Anthony Vance, 21, of Gillette, and two passengers died instantly when their pickup truck, traveling northbound on Highway 387, drifted ...
At this very moment, Hunter Thompson's ashes may be arcing through the air, settling back down all over the place. A fitting end to the legend. There were Golden Tickets to the ceremony hidden in Gonzo Imperial Porter bottles which you can order from Flying Dog brewery over the Internet. "Photographer tangles with Thompson's neighbor for shot of cannon". A news roundup via the Great Thompson Hunt. Hunter Thompson Widow Tells AP of Send-Off. FAA to keep tight grip on airspace at Hunter Thompson’s memorial (it is near the airport).
I've got nothing particular to say, save a quote (Songs of the Doomed, p. 294)
Feeling crazy has never really worried me. It is an occupational hazard and some days I even get paid for it--but there are some things that even crazy people can't get away with, and this idea of turning around and driving back to Sacramento to pick up Jilly's birth certificate seemed to be one of them.
"Don't worry about him," she said. "He's having dinner with some tax lobbyists tonight. I'll just run in and get a little suitcase. It won't take two minutes."
I shrugged and turned around. What the hell? I thought. Buy the ticket, take the ride. There was madness in either direction. And besides, I was beginning to like the girl.
She was a dangerous dingbat with a very pure dedication to the Love and Adventure ethic--but I recognized a warrior when I met one, and on the way down the mountain I knew what Clyde must have felt like when he met Bonnie.
Fare thee well, Doctor of Journalism. Selah.
Gonzo in Space: Hunter S. Thompson to Go Out With a Bang on Saturday
"We have never had a request such as this one in our company's history," Marcy Zambelli, chief executive officer of Zambelli Fireworks, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gaztte this week. "But we respect the request of the family and have actually custom engineered an aerial shell specifically designed to carry out his final wish."
Richard Gilmore, left, and Tom Bennie with Specialized Protective Services of Aspen, stand guard at the entrance to Hunter S. Thompson's Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo., on Friday, Aug. 19, 2005, where preparations are underway for Saturday's memorials service for Thompson. The memorial pictured in the background will be unveiled Saturday night and Thompson's ashes will be distributed by a fireworks projectile. As many as 250 family members and friends are expected to attend the by invitation only ceremony. Thompson shot himself to death six months ago on Feb. 20 at age 67. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
Hunter S. Thompson's counselor By D.A. Blyler | RAW STORY CONTRIBUTOR
The Scriptures relevance for Thompson flooded back as I stared at The Proud Highway and Bible in the bottom of the box. It reminded me of the mystery surrounding Thompson’s brief suicide note. Before shooting himself with a revolver, he had typed the single word “Counselor” in the center of a blank page. To date, fellow journalists and friends of Thompson have expressed confusion as to what the word might signify, comparing it to the mysterious “Rosebud” of Citizen Kane. And that’s when it hit me. I picked up the Bible and quickly scanned the Gospel of John. There it was in the 14th chapter:
“16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor*, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.”
It isn’t surprising that journalists didn’t pick up on this connection with Thompson’s goodbye in the days following his death. While the Bible has wielded greater influence on the history of American Letters than any other work, we currently live in an age where any mention of the Bible immediately conjures up images of right-wing nut-cases, homophobic TV evangelists, and door-knocking Adventists in bad suits. Fewer and fewer educated people (including Christians) read the Bible anymore. But Thompson wasn’t a product of this age. He was of that rapidly dwindling generation of writers who saw the majesty of the Bible as both a work of literature and a looking-glass into the human condition.
Thompson surely would have felt drawn to the Gospel of John, the most lyrical and mystical of the four Gospels. It’s there that we find the pronouncement: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is a decree that has resonated with writers from Twain to Whitman to Fitzgerald to Miller—a revelation that words are transcendent, that a writer’s vocation is more than just a job. It should be a calling, wherein the “Spirit of truth” (Counselor) is followed unfailingly. No mean trick.
For following your Counselor often means discovering things that aren’t fit for polite company. It’s never pleasant to find evil growing among the peonies. Or in the hearts of your elected officials. Better to be “vaguely happy” than uncomfortable. Thompson, though, never fell for that devil’s lie. He knew that even though the truth often cuts like a razor, it also serves as a “Comforter*” when the jackals begin circling. Because as Thompson recognized, the jackals don’t really give a damn whether you speak the truth or not. They are coming after us all one day. But facing the bastards down is a whole lot easier when you’ve got the truth by your side.
Hunter Thompson Ashes Set to Blast Off
By ROBERT WELLER
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 20, 2005; 8:26 PM
WOODY CREEK, Colo. -- Iconoclastic journalist Hunter S. Thompson would have loved the 153-foot tower built to blast his ashes into the sky, said one of his many friends and admirers gathered for an unsolemn farewell.
"It's a beautiful structure. Of course, he would not have been able to resist putting a few holes into it," said Michael Cleverly, referring to his former neighbor's love of shooting guns. "But it weighs several tons, so it could handle a few holes."
The counterculture author killed himself six months ago at his home near Aspen. His ashes, intermingled with fireworks, were to be fired out of the tower Saturday evening in front of a star-studded crowd at his Owl Farm compound.
"He loved explosions," his wife, Anita Thompson, explained during the planning of the fireworks sendoff.
The tower _ intentionally built just taller than the Statue of Liberty _ was erected in a field between Thompson's home and a tree-covered canyon wall. It was shrouded in tarpaulins for days, but his widow, Anita, said it was modeled after Thompson's Gonzo logo: a clenched fist, made symmetrical with two thumbs, rising from the hilt of a dagger.
The memorial was expected to be a party, with plenty of alcohol, reminiscences, readings from Thompson's works and performances by both Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
About 250 people were invited, including Thompson's longtime illustrator, Ralph Steadman, and actors Sean Penn and Johnny Depp, close friends of the writer. Depp portrayed Thompson in the 1998 movie version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," perhaps the writer's most well-known work.
Anita Thompson said Depp funded much of the celebration.
"We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design," Depp told The Associated Press last month. "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."
Ok so Andrew has me doing a couple websites now - the front end of a party supply company site, and more complex sort of social services type site. So there's a lot to do for the next few days. Also Arthur Cheng is going off to China tomorrow, so we have to kick it before he returns to the Great Red Middle Kingdom. So I need to clear out these links to free the RAM for web stuff... Enjoy.
Outer Space. Real sweet M8/Lagoon Nebula photograph. From NASA. Congrats to the shuttle folks on patching their stuff and using the International Space Station. Even though the recent affair looked like a mess, they'll learn quite a bit about how to do space patching missions in the future. "How to hack yr craft in space" is something the human race will have to figure out sooner or later. It's a pity, I used to take such an interest in Out There, until this ball suddenly seemed like a much larger problem.
The Next War. "War Plans Drafted to Counter Terror Attacks in U.S." "No Sympathy for the Neocons" by Raimondo, good stuff. Again, here's that creepy report about Cheney requesting nuclear war plans to nuke Iran after a random terror attack, committed by someone, anyone. I recommend this Federation of American Scientists site with all kinds of cool docs about Iran's nuclear program, including the COOLEST BIBLIOGRAPHY EVER:
Journal of Science of the University of Tehran, 1998, Vol. 3, p21-37, A. Pazirandeh
Research Reactor Fuel Element Leak Testing Using Delayed Neutron Counting
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 1999, Vol. 26, p1601-10, H. Khalafi
Calculational Tools to Conduct Experimental Optimization in Tehran Research Reactor
Nuclear Science Journal, 1999, Vol. 36, p42-50, M.Roshan Zamir
Design of the Tehran Research Reactor Spent Fuel Storage
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2002, Vol. 29, p1591-96, M. Zaker
Effective Delayed Neutron Fraction and Prompt Neutron Lifetime of Tehran Research Reactor
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2002, Vol. 29, p1989-2000, M.B. Ghofrani and S.A. Damghani
Determination of the Safety Importance of Systems of the Tehran Research Reactor Using a PSA Method
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2003, Vol. 30, p63-80, M. Boroushaki, M.B. Ghofrani, C. Lucas and M.J. Yazdanpanah
An Intelligent Reactor Core Controller for Load Following Operations, Using Recurrent Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems
Iranian Journal of Physics Research, 2004, Vol. 4, p13-31, R.I. Najafabadi, R.K. Faegh and H. Afrideh
Measurment and Calculation of High Energy Neutron Flux in Aluminum, Graphite, Water and Paraffin Assembly
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 2005, Vol. 32, p588-605, H. Arab-Alibek and S. Setayeshi
Adaptive Control of a PWR Core Power Using Neural Networks
Scientific Bulletin of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, 1998, Vol. 18, p9-17, A.A. Hosseini, H. Mansuri and R. Mahmudi
Casting and Irradiation Studies of 8001 Series of Aluminum Alloys for Nuclear Research Reactor Structural Applications
Progress in Nuclear Energy, 2004, Vol. 44, p331-45, P. Parvin, B. Sajad, K. Silakhori, M. Hooshvar and Z. Zamanipour
Molecular Laser Isotope Separation vervus Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation
I think we harbor the fantasy that all these people have no right to do their research, but hopefully something as prosaic as these journal articles helps illustrate that they are well integrated with the global nuclear research community and it can't be wished away. Come on, wouldn't it be Totally Badass to design neural networks to manage an Iranian nuclear power plant?
Ledeen and his uncle Izzy: A lot of neocons were Trotskyists, dontcha know?
Think Tankery: "Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks." Also "Bear 'expert' devoured by bears." roughly the same stuff. "Britney 'oblivious' to shooting."
Iraq. I am really appalled that Bush is taking a FIVE WEEK VACATION while everything is going to hell. Fortunately, the appearance of pissed off mom of a deceased soldier Casey Sheehan threatens to turn the entire vacation into a PR disaster for Bush. She has every right to do this, she's giving out dozens of interviews and reframing the whole situation. Top Notch. A whole little tent city of angry veterans families might materialize, and wouldn't that be excellent? Spending August on Caesar's Doorstep, not bad at all.
A weird sort of coup dislodged the US-appointed mayor of Baghdad with a SCIRI guy. how many insurgents?
Going to court yesterday made this report from Raed Jarrar's brother, Khalid, about getting arrested by the New Mukhabarat (Iraqi secret police) all the more vivid. Khalid basically got picked up after surfing a couple websites at a university Internet cafe, and got tossed in the dungeons of the Interior Ministry, now of the refurbished Mean Shiite sort, and his family didn't know where he was for several days. All sorts of guys, mostly Sunnis, are sitting around, getting tortured, accused of having terrorist infrastructures, while in reality they don't know what the hell is going on. Harsh.
They started by asking me: “What’s the connection between you and the London Bombs?” !!!
And I was like: “haaaaa???!!.”. I said: “London Bombs???! Nothing!”
BANG!!
A heavy hand landed on my neck, my brain was too busy to feel the pain, I felt my neck numbing for a while.
“SPEAAAK” he shouted.
“Turn around” he yelled.
I turned, facing the room now, but not seeing anything other than my nose and the shoes of the person who was interrogating me, standing so close.
“Why do you have a beard?” he asked.
“Because the prophet...” (I was trying to tell him that prophet Mohammad had one, and that I have one because I love to look like him...)
BANG
He slapped me on the face. It made a loud noise that the room became dead-silent for some seconds….
“May the prophet curse you” he shouted.
Again, my brain didn’t respond to the pain signals, I didn’t feel it.
For the next few hours, they asked me questions like “who are the other members of our terrorist cell, where does your fund come from? What operations did you have?”
“What do you have against Shia?”
I said: “nothing, my mother is Shia!”
He said” what do you have against Kurds? Why don’t you go blow yourself up and kill Kurds?”
I said: “Because God says in Quran…” (I was trying to tell him a part of Quran where God orders us not to kill any innocent soul) he interrupted me shouting, “We know Quran better than you”.
“My best friend is Kurdish!” I said.
“Of course he is, so that you can get information about Kurds from him, right?” he answered.
Nothing I said seemed to make sense to them. And nothing they said makes sense to anyone in the world.
Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of “reading terrorism sites” and “having communications with foreign terrorists”.
“Do you know what these pages are?”
I looked at them and figured out they were the comment section of Raed in the Middle!!
[.......]
I was so lucky that I was taken to the Mokhabarat directly. Usually you have to go through a police station or a center of the national guards to get there, where the standard procedure of torturing is hanging people upside down and beating them with cables for hours, pinching their bodies with electrical drills, burning them with hot water, ripping out their finger nails, breaking bones, using acids on the wounds after whipping them, the dead bodies that are found in the dumpsters in Baghdad even had their eyes taken out of them, and a lot of these things happened with people that I know, or with people that were detained with the people that were with me in this jail, before they were brought here, and the list of torturing techniques is long, and you don’t want to hear them or know about them if you want to sleep at night.
In one of the floors in the same building, there is another prison, a bigger one called “The Palace of Hospitality” (doesn’t this remind you of 1984? The ministry of love and stuff?) Where recently a father and his son were arrested, and the son died at night because his rips were broken after they beat him, and then they spelled hot water on his body, he kept moaning of pain for the whole night, said Abo Ayid, who slept right beside him, and then he died. I’ll tell you more about Abu Ayid in the end.
The one thing in common between all the people that were there is that almost all of them were Sunnis. Interrogators told one of the prisoners during an interrogation session “you Sunnis are all terrorists” and during my interrogation, I heard a lot of racist remarks and questions. The Shia Iraqis who were there were mostly accused of non-terrorism crimes, like stealing, carjacking, etc…
It goes on and on, very intense. Glad he's ok, but it's hard to hear about the security apparatus shearing the state into pieces.
Also Riverbend from Baghdad hasn't had any entries since July 15. There are often big gaps in Riverbend's blog, but you always wonder if something horrible hasn't happened, as it regularly does. I would recommend spending awhile both Khalid Jarrar's 'secrets in Baghdad' and Riverbend's 'Baghdad Burning'. I don't have the words to describe the depth of the writing...
Juan Cole on the problems of the Japanese mission in Iraq, where it would appear that the Sadr supporters in their bit of the south are pissed off with the SCIRI/Badr Corps people. Also Hakim of SCIRI officially wants a 'Sumer' super-province in the south, which would negotiate as a bloc with the central government, keeping a lot of the revenue from the southern oil fields, and as a regional counterweight to 'Kurdistan.' This would appear to be a formal manifestation of the fracturing of the country. The question is, can we get a catchy title for Sunni Anbar and other bits? How about "Arabian Texas"?
The great Bush Vacation Conspiracy and the 1999 Russian Apartment building bombings: nathan x over at 911fraud.blogspot.com suggests that whenever Bush takes his August vacations, terror attacks are likely to follow. But he believes that there was a 9/11 coverup and so forth, roughly along the lines of the 9/11 conspiracy theory laid out by the Prison Planet people. I think it's more likely that Bush just doesn't feel like reading goddamn memos like "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." because he needs to Cut the Brush!! nathan also some other tales/stories/whatever label you want about governments performing terror strikes to manipulate the political situation. One particular site, terror99.ru, chronicles the very suspicious 1999 Russian apartment building bombings and the strange investigation that followed. I think that particular case is especially weird.
However I will take a moment to clarify that I don't believe there was a Grand 9/11 coverup/'false flag' conspiracy (although 50% of New Yorkers are kinda suspicious about it), nor do I think that the London bombing was like that, despite what the conspiracy folks (let's say tinfoilhatvolken) are saying now. On the other hand, very often governments generate terrorist-paramilitary style organizations for various ends, such as the international Islamic front in late 1970s Afghanistan, Israel's bastard child, Hamas, as well as fortifying more concrete organizations like the heroin-laden Kosovo Liberation Army. Would Russia's FSB blow up some stuff to galvanize the withering Russian public to support crushing separatists at Russia's crumbling edges? (I'm still curious about the 9/11 insider trading, but who knows?)
I just don't know. (and far be it from me to risk antagonizing the New KGB, the New Mukhabarat, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army in one mere post). But I'll always enjoy a good yarn. I always try to pass things like this through by John Le Carre/'Absolute Friends' filter before I consider them as Truth. Anyway, there is far too much crazy stuff in the Mundane World to require me to dwell on the more Grand Esoteric Plots.
The 9/11 Israeli Art Student mystery: Speaking of Grand Plots, the weirdly conspiratorial journalist Wayne Madsen has a really enormous story about the strange tale of the Israelis arrested selling art around secure installations in the U.S. and Canada, possibly acting as Mossad agents and shadowing the 9/11 hijackers in several cities. I have trouble judging Madsen's credibility, considering stories like his exciting claims that secret Saudi funds and BCCI-linked offshore cash financed fixing the vote in Ohio last year. Real hard to believe. But still, at the least people like Madsen offer a different kind of prism to evaluate the world. But I was kind of surprised to see a more mainstream guy like James Wolcott announced that he added Madsen's site to his blogroll. So maybe he's a little more credible. Madsen has lots about the AIPAC thing, and definitely accuses Michael Ledeen of being involved.
AIPAC Fun! So now we may add Mossad to the list of intel agencies that should be annoyed today. Perhaps they would like to read Dreyfuss' report on the AIPAC scandal as well. Naughty, everyone's talking about it. Corn says it's Bad News for Rove.
Likud ready to split? With Netanyahu out, former Jerusalem Mayor and Sharon loyalist Ehud Olmert is relatively more important, and has said that Israel is not trying to trade Gaza in order to keep West Bank settlements. I don't know how far that will stick, but it is pretty much the opposite of what Netanyahu says all the time. "Gaza Pullout threatens to split Israel's ruling party."
Interesting stuff from Norman Solomon: War Made Easy, methods of propaganda, etc. Also a Solomon bit about a jailed soldier, Kevin Benderman, who refused to go to Iraq. Although I can't say if this sentiment is legal in such a day and age, (especially in Britannia) I also believe that it is very legitimate for a soldier to fight hard to stay home, if for no other justification than that we invaded that country because of knowingly fabricated intelligence, and those implicated in the Pentagon are still in charge of setting the disastrous policies that the military's Bendermans would have to carry out.
Random: Also check out inside Bush's weird Global Democracy movement. Coldtype.net had a lot of sweet essays about the war and such from Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Solomon, Jim Lobe and others. The Lobe one, in particular, outlines the neocon intelligence fabricating (PDF) with excellent detail.
Safari Crashed so I am dumping in the headlines I wanted to put: "Abu Mazen quietly plans a revolution: He wants to be president, too." The bus shooter case is now a lynching, says Haaretz, and a TV station showed footage of it. And so it's a nasty situation. Talk of the connections between Palestinian security forces, corrupt officials, the Israelis and militants/terrorists, in other words the Robin Hoods of Gaza. Netanyahu is plotting something. So would leaving Gaza truly equal the End of the Occupation? what does that say about efforts to make the West Bank arrangement seem "Normal"?
And that is all.
Nevermind. The cat is observing matters from the kitchen, we are waiting for the weekend to start. Crushingly ordinary.
On the plus side I accomplished some useful PHP coding after 2 AM, which as usual is the most insightful time for these sorts of things. Right now I am trying to get a news aggregator type program put together, which will take posts from other blogs & news sources, and recombine them in order by date, so I can put together specialized subject news pages. It seems to work so far: http://wp.hongpong.com/agg-test.php.
I succeeded in importing all the stories from this HongPong site into the new one, but there are still some anomalies to be worked out (and I want to get rid of another 50% of the comment spam), so it's not quite ready yet.
I am trying to determine the best way to organize the new operation, and I have settled on making a few top-level categories, while stuffing the usual things - Iraq, Israel-Palestine, War on Terror - into subcategories, so that these posts don't wash out everything on the front page. Here is the topic layout so far:
Topics
• Uncategorized (36)
• geo (3)
• Iraq (168)
• Israel-Palestine (93)
• Afghanistan (20)
• Iran (1)
• War on Terror (114)
• politics (1)
• Military-Industrial Complex (57)
• Minnesota (37)
• Tracking Election Irregularities (21)
• Campaign 2004 (66)
• News (62)
• tech (3)
• hongpong-meta (1)
• Open Source (9)
• words (1)
• Books (6)
• Quotes (13)
• Mac Weekly (16)
• Usual Nonsense (29)
• tidbits (1)
• kulturny (1)
• Music (14)
• Macalester College (31)
• Movies (11)
• Media (44)
Another CIA guy, Pat Lang, started a blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, and he even put up some novel he wrote. Good for him.
Disturbing stuff about that "Over There" series on FX. Ok that's all for now. It's a really nice day, I want to go ride my bike. Syd Barrett knew it well. (Album: Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1967):
I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like.
It's got a basket, a bell that rings
And things to make it look good.
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.
I've got a cloak it's a bit of a joke.
There's a tear up the front. It's red and black.
I've had it for months.
If you think it could look good, then I guess it should.
...
I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house.
I don't know why I call him Gerald.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
...
I've got a clan of gingerbread men.
Here a man, there a man, lots of gingerbread men.
Take a couple if you wish. They're on the dish.
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world.
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.
I know a room full of musical tunes.
Some rhyme, some ching, most of them are clockwork.
Let's go into the other room and make them work.
As I have previously explained, my ironclad Internet marketing and search engine strategy so far has relied upon comment spammers or spambots to regularly plug their crap into old posts on my site, although periodically I close threads older than a month or so.
About a week ago, the number of comments on the site reached beyond a staggering 10,000 (10,921 was the highest comment serial number). This has a negative effect on MovableType's ability to export the entire contents of the site. in other words, it hasn't yet been able to create the complete export file because it gets overwhelmed with spam.
So I spent a few hours today trimming the fat off the spam, while opting to preserve the spams with funny quips and philosophical fragments about Hegel above the cialis links.
I also ran across *real* comments that I'd never seen before, as they were tucked away in infinite Texas Holdem plugs. It seems that, shockingly enough, people these days actually look at their referrer logs (which indicate to a website where surfers come from). I found that the proprietor of "NewsCorpse" took some umbrage when he found i'd described his site as somewhat "pretentious." I suppose I should clarify: I thought the graphics are a little cheesy, but NewsCorpse has an all right name and metaphor for its purpose. Anyhow...
There was a CNN reporter who responded to my post that addressed the Pentagon's new plans to scoop up high schoolers' data for recruiting purposes. They were wondering if I was someone who had initially supported the war, and become pissed off by the new policy. Unfortunately, as this site documents pretty well, I was opposed to this mad conflict before it started, and have since followed along by publishing stories (169 about Iraq, in all) about the deceptive and intentional schemes of fake intelligence and disinformation that were used to sell it to the public.
So if the draft comes along, I have enough evidence to prove I'm a conscientious objector. At least I'm planning ahead for a change. This from a kid who had to pay more than $140 for two incredibly late parking tickets today >:-(
This may be part of the reason that I keep getting all these hits from the government. The CIA openly returned on July 7, on a Google search for "text messaging IED" and ended up on the Afghanistan page. The "text messaging" keyword appears in a blockquote from, who else, Michael Ledeen, who is talking about what a great idea it is to arm the Iranian opposition. Fortunately the rest of it goes on to make fun of John Bolton and his potential connections to the Iranian terrorist group, based in Iraq, the MEK.
So let us consider the IP numbers of the CIA's openly marked relays. This is information released publicly (over DNS) - so don't anyone accuse me of going Novak. The CIA obviously has computers whose IP numbers don't say friggin "CIA.gov" when you look them up. 198.81.129.194 and 198.81.129.193. On the 193 address they came on a google search for "goss punish cia analysts cold war 2004" back on Nov. 10, 2004, when surely Agency employees were pondering the blowback from the election. They ended up on the War on Terror index page.
So for some bizarre reason the CIA also looked for "bloomington lrt condo" on March 17, 2005, and landed on some nighttime light rail shots.
Blah. Who knows what intelligence agencies want these days: condominiums or text messaging?
Anyhow here is a grand old list of every domain containing ".gov" that visited since the start of the year: (ignore the odd numbers there)
apm.gov.ec 2928
pix-a-20.gov.calgary.ab.ca
vance004.net.gov.bc.ca
ins.nh.gov
daoutside.hanford.gov
chameleon.doechicago.gov
strata.mt.gov
bhappy.jpl.nasa.gov
vance002.net.gov.bc.ca
bcccache6-3.tco.census.gov
nersc2.lbl.gov
some.security.gov.ge
gw.conab.gov.br 1 2
pix-a-20.gov.calgary.ab.ca
testcache.rtp.epa.gov
gk-central-23.srvs.usps.gov 0
nat-235.fw08nat.dot.ca.gov
lsm5.gtwy.uscourts.gov
sherman.state.gov+computer+logging 1
sherman.state.gov 2
sherman.state.gov 3
jaffwa.staffordshire.gov.uk
s0b1ed1.ssa.gov 0
vance002.net.gov.bc.ca
bcccache6-3.tco.census.gov
gk-west-24.srvs.usps.gov
n021.dhs.gov
ip12-156-194-3.ita.doc.gov 2
sherman.state.gov
vicce001.net.gov.bc.ca
relay2.cia.gov 6498
box.suffolkcountyny.gov
More below.. w00p w00p!
ip .gov.nf.ca
cache2.cdc.gov 6
152-130-7-130.res.net.va.gov
wkst146.uc.usbr.gov 0
152-130-6-130.res.net.va.gov
bowie-fc.census.gov 0
gtwy.uscourts.gov 1
office+of+personnel+management.gov 2
housegate4.house.gov 1
sherman.state.gov 1
gtwy.uscourts.gov 1
housegate4.house.gov 1
sherman.state.gov 1
management.gov 2
vance004.net.gov.bc.ca
smtp1.sanantonio.gov
n021.dhs.gov
sherman.state.gov
clayton.state.gov
cwood.etl.noaa.gov
turnerra.ornl.gov
152-133-7-130.kc.net.va.gov
unwgsgs3.customs.treas.gov
vicce003.net.gov.bc.ca
wcfc.ocio.usda.gov
gk-central-23.srvs.usps.gov 0
wdcsun24.usdoj.gov
sherman.state.gov 2
sherman.state.gov 2
denver-254.blm.gov
vance004.net.gov.bc.ca
enduser5.faa.gov 6498
unwgsgs4.customs.treas.gov
ns1.corr.ca.gov 6274
host246.welsh-ofce.gov.uk
ip12-156-194-3.ita.doc.gov
clayton.state.gov
internet.fsa.gov.uk
digger1.defence.gov.au
client1.ed.gov 6498
vance002.net.gov.bc.ca 2 0
152-133-7-133.kc.net.va.gov
user.plano.gov
ns2.corr.ca.gov
vicce002.net.gov.bc.ca
sherman.state.gov 1
sherman.state.gov 1
dknrgwpxav02.defence.gov.au
bcccache6-2.tco.census.gov
dknrgwpxav01.defence.gov.au 224
server4.gba.gov.ar
correo.transmilenio.gov.co
smtp.mpi.gov.vn
gatehouse.cambridgema.gov
a032-fw1.nyc.gov
housegate10.house.gov
vicce002.net.gov.bc.ca 168
sherman.state.gov 1
sherman.state.gov 1
pool3253.ihs.gov
pt .pnl.gov 1
clayton.state.gov
b12-arbiter-b.net.nih.gov
proxyout2.maricopa.gov 8
binhdinh.gov.vn 6778
smtp.mpi.gov.vn 84
bacninh.gov.vn 6934
relay1.ucia.gov
152-132-11-64.dal.net.va.gov
subnet84.idsc.gov.eg 1786
housegate10.house.gov
sherman.state.gov 1
sherman.state.gov 1
dnscachelastupdate.hongpong.com.txt: 50 130.20.172.158 pt .pnl.gov
dnscachelastupdate.hongpong.com.txt: 50 209.128.29.254 ip .gov.nf.ca
Ouch. When the Associated Press goes this way, you've lost that bit of spin you really need:
Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.
Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
I found this really weird and interesting: "Vladislav Surkov's Secret Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracies," complete with allegations of CIA meddling in the recent Ukraine elections, etc. There's even a jab at James Woolsey for interfering. The site also carries a story about possible Soviet WMDs hidden in the US. The government of tiny, horribly poor Russian republic of Dagestan, adjacent to Chechnya, is on the verge of collapsing, and Islamic militants are causing persistent problems.
Eurasia Daily Monitor: LEAKED MEMO SHOWS KREMLIN FEARS COLLAPSE OF DAGESTAN
On July 8, Moskovsky komsomolets published a report leaked from the office of Dmitry Kozak, Russian President Vladimir Putin's Special Envoy to the Southern Federal District. The report, from Kozak to Putin, described Dagestan as rife with interethnic, religious, and social conflicts and on the brink of collapse. Specifically, "One should recognize that, taken together, the unsolved social, economic, and political problems are now reaching a critical level. Further ignoring the problems and attempts to drive them deep down by force could lead to an uncontrolled chain of events whose logical result will be open social, interethnic, and religious conflicts in Dagestan" (Moskovsky komsomolets, July 8). The authors of the report also warned that the rising influence of religious communities, especially at the local-government level, could result in the emergence of "Sharia enclaves" in the mountain districts of the republic. The report warned that an Islamic state could potentially materialize in the Dagestan mountains.
Iraq: Billmon curses the Flypaper theory of anti-terrorism how Bush's advisor, Townsend, still seems stuck on it. Krugman on the depressing White House detachment from reality. Sunni-Shiite violence and tensions intensify. "Insurgents active again on the streets of Falluja". Tales of an Iraq veteran. Another leaked British document indicates that the Iraq war is seen to radicalize British Muslims. "Shiites bring rigid piety to Iraq's south."
A strange story about ongoing conflict between privatized military firms/forces and the US military in Iraq. There are conflicting stories about whether the US wants to build permanent bases in Iraq -- either in the desert or urban enclaves -- as Stratfor reported last year, VS. recent reports that the British want to get the hell out.
Iraqi blogger Raed "in the Middle" Jarrar's brother has been arrested by the new Iraqi security forces or new Mukhabarat / Mokhabarat. "Fortunately, it's a nice governmental gang!"
If your child or sibling vanishes for two days then calls from the secret service jail in any other place on earth, that would be considered a disaster and a violation of human rights… In Iraq, however, it’s Happy News.
Because the other options include: To be tortured, executed, and thrown in garbage by SCIRI and their Badr brigades. To be held by the Iraqi police and left to choke to death in one of their cars. To be held by the US troops then disappear and be mistreated for months in one of their many prisons. To be kidnapped by one of the countless criminal gangs and cost your family some tens of millions of Iraqi Dinars and/or your life.
So now you can see why being held at the mukhabarat jail is such happy news!
Rovification: (defined as a vortex of scandal from which not even spin can escape)
See the Video: Cooper confirms Rove told him! Ouch! Cooper's tell all TIME story (excerpts). Howard Fineman with a surprising amount of candor in Newsweek. Via CrooksAndLiars.com, sweet site. Alex Cockburn bitterly compares coverage of the Rove story with the Franklin/AIPAC scandal, and a lot of nasty things to say about the CIA. Scooter Libby may have released Miller from confidentiality agreement?
Wilson pounces, calls for Rove resignation. Krugman points out that Rove was the guy who changed our political environment post-9/11, making it clear that "we're living in a country where there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth." In other words, we're in Team B country now.
it seems plenty clear that rightwing hawks band together to provide more threatening propaganda about enemies of the United States, in order to undermine other people in Washington's professional intelligence community. This has happened quite a few times, and the general moniker of "Team B" style thinking -- named after a 1976 group that produced dramatically inflated disinformation about the Soviet Union from the CIA's data -- has become associated with manipulating intelligence, to create public impressions the hawks need to support their policies. Wolfowitz was on Team B back in the 1970s, which is where he first started mucking about with the exciting political potential of WMD threat construction. (Andy Tweeten and Adam Zelmer introduced me to this interesting idea about how security discourse is manipulated. Threat construction arguments in debate are very helpful.)
As Rovegate goes down, Team B-style tricks seem to be popping up all over. The Yellowcake uranium forgeries may yet get tied to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which worked quite a bit like Team B to subvert America's intelligence agencies. Scooter Libby was the OSP's liason to the CIA, which means he might be involved with the whole thing, as Wilson has alleged more than once. I earlier linked to this interview with a former top CIA officer, Vincent Cannistaro, who quite directly talks about Ledeen, the Iraqi National Congress fabricating WMD intel, the whole bit.
Keep an eye on TPM, it's damn good.
Juan Cole is yet again saying he thinks that Michael Ledeen was involved with fabricating the Niger-Yellowcake documents. Daniel Schorr on NPR talking about how the real issue is how America was misled into the war, featuring Wilson. Raimondo maps it onto the conflict between neo-cons and the CIA, before the war started:
Seen against the backdrop of the fierce intra-bureaucratic war that broke out in the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war – with the CIA and the mainline intelligence and diplomatic communities pitted against civilian neoconservatives in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the Office of the Vice President – the outing of Plame and her colleagues amounts to an act of espionage committed out of a desire to exact revenge. The leakers meant to retaliate not just against Joe Wilson, through his wife, but against the "old guard" that was resisting the campaign to lie us into war. When the CIA wouldn't go along with the neocon program and "spice up" their analyses with Ahmed Chalabi's tall tales and the outright forgery of the Niger uranium documents, the War Party struck back at them with the sort of viciousness for which the neocons are rightly renowned.
And it goes on further into the links between Scooter Libby, John Hannah, John Bolton, AIPAC, Chalabi, the Yellowcake forgeries, etc. etc. etc. Raimondo's earlier piece about the unmitigated calls for post-London fascism from former Mossad director Ephraim Halevi is also quite interesting, as I noted earlier.
Older stories: "A Flood in Baath Country" about depressing conditions in Syria has been widely acclaimed in Lebanon. The filibuster deal has apparently harmed the Senate Republicans, causing fundraising setbacks--they are way behind the Democrats! It would seem the hard-right base is furious that Senators cut a deal, and ties have loosened between the leadership and the base. All the more pressure on Bush to appease them with some dingbat on the Supreme Court
Iran: Kissinger says don't discount military action if talks fail. (via CFR... bum bum bummm...)
Whatever: Guardian: Reporters find cocaine in EU parliament. World of Paparazzi: Photo Wars. They've got the best intel of all, it seems:
He opens a drawer, pulls out a few stacks of paper. Here, he says, are this week's scheduled movements of every famous passenger of a major limousine company in Los Angeles. He has an employee of the limo company on retainer, with bonuses "if there's results."
Here, too, are what Mr. Griffin describes as the passenger manifests of every coast-to-coast flight on American Airlines, the biggest carrier at Los Angeles International Airport. "I get the full printout," he says. "If they fly any coastal flight, I know. I can also find anybody in the world within 24 hours, I guarantee it. If they don't mask the tail number on a private plane, I'll find it." He says he has law-enforcement officers on his payroll, too, and can have a license plate checked in an hour on weekdays, 20 minutes on weekends.
I thought this set of photographs from the point of view of snipers was creepy but sort of cool.
It's going down in Israel: Fighting both Palestinian militants and hardcore Jewish protesters, the protest actions are starting up pretty much right now. It's coming: "Settlers to march on Gaza despite police ban". Keep tabs with right-wing sites Arutz Sheva (offering opinion from settlers), GAMLA, a for more on settler actions. Of course there is also the weird and disinformation-laden DEBKAfile.
Disturbing new law enforcement stuff: "Genesis of an American Gestapo," a somewhat ranting bit about the spooky new National Security Service, or as this writer dubbed it, the New SS. I don't feel like looking for new horrible news about the FBI-law enforcement shakeup, but it's damn interesting, and real important. The next COINTELPRO or whatever could spring out of this kind of stuff...
Tech: Wouldn't this keyboard be amazing? Programming on offshore boats = sweatshops at sea?
It reminds me of when I went to London, only a few days after the Madrid bombings. At the time, the whole system was on a terror alert, as they feared a reprisal. However, I walked right past heavily armed police onto the Tube, and it wasn't as if they were patting everyone down. "Al-Qaeda shadow looms over London." This was very similar to the Madrid attacks:
"Like the attacks on the Spanish capital, the targets in London were key transportation nodes: underground stations which intersect with main railway stations, feeding through hundreds of thousands of passengers an hour during peak time," says Dr Eyal.
"And, like in Madrid, the purpose was to kill as many people as possible, by striking at different targets at more or less the same time."
The London stock market plunged after the attacks but the FTSE 100 index came mostly back up. US stock markets aren't hosed. And oil is at a record high but for some reason eased off after this. I wonder if the Plunge Protection Team is rolling out? (London's Evening Standard on the PPT)
The Guardian has a news blog running with updates (General summary). The photo here came from flickr.com. There is a large collection of pictures tagged "London Bomb Blasts" that has a lot of original pictures. (BBC also has pictures and a map of the bombed lines)
Wikipedia now has a picture collection as well as large set of emerging information. Wikinews covers "Four bombs rock London" with many news links, including the surprising news that Netanyahu of all people had some kind of advance warning from the Brits.
The Israelis were tipped off minutes before the explosions?! WTF?
Netanyahu Changed Plans Due to Warning
By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 7, 7:14 AM ET
JERUSALEM - British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.
Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he wasn't aware of any Israeli casualties.
Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy to say they had received warnings of possible attacks, the official said. He did not say whether British police made any link to the economic conference.
Reporter Chris Allbritton put a translation on his site back-to-iraq.com, of a statement posted on an al-Qaeda linked website, www.qal3ati.com. The site seems to be gone for now, but this was the post:
Announcement on London's Operation 7/7/2005
Jamaat al-Tandheem Al-Sierri (secret organization group)
Organization of Qaeda't al-Jihad in Europe
In the name of God the most merciful...
Rejoice the nation of Islam, rejoice nation of Arabs, the time of revenge has come for the crusaders' Zionist British government.
As retaliation for the massacres which the British commit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mujahideen have successfully done it this time in London.
And this is Britain now burning from fear and panic from the north to the south, from the east to the west.
We have warned the brutish governments and British nation many times.
And here we are, we have done what we have promised. We have done a military operation after heavy work and planning, which the mujahideen have done, and it has taken a long time to ensure the success of this operation.
And we still warn the government of Denmark and Italy, all the crusader governments, that they will have the same punishment if they do not pull their forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
So beware.
Thursday 7/7/2005
Jamaat al-Tandheem Al-Sierri (secret organization group)
Organization of al Qaeda't al-Jihad in Europe.
BTW Allbritton is releasing podcasts of his journalism over in Iraq. Nice.
Speaking of Afghanistan, an interesting BBC tale about American troops battling near the Pakistan border. As their Afghan ally put it, are mostly Arabs, Waziris from Pakistan and Chechens. Also, the Iranians are going to train Iraqi troops. What could go wrong?! "Will the US be asked to leave key military bases?" in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan & Uzbekistan?
In the evening of the aftermath, Financial Times analysts have published a harsh rebuke to the United States and its Global War on Terror:
Bush has to review strategy, say US experts
By Guy Dinmore and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: July 7 2005 18:16 | Last updated: July 7 2005 18:16
A constant theme of the Bush administration is that America and the world are safer because of the US invasion of Iraq and its anti-terror strategy.
That argument prevailed during the US presidential election campaign last year, despite even official US evidence to the contrary, but may have been finally buried by Thursday’s bombings in London.
Experts in Washington said following the blasts that it was time for the Bush administration to re-evaluate its strategy. Confronted by opinion polls showing his falling popularity and waning support for the war in Iraq, Mr Bush stuck to his guns in a speech to the military last week that characteristically showed no hint of change.
“There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home,” said Mr Bush in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Last September, at the peak of his re-election campaign, Mr Bush told the Republican national convention: “We are staying on the offensive striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. Our strategy is succeeding. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.”
John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy secretary of defence, said: “Clearly [the world] is not safer. I think this highlights the complexity of the problem.
“We must defend a vast infrastructure constantly while extremists get to pick the time and place with very limited tools. Obviously we must try to intercept the terrorists. But we must also address the broader socio-political context. We can’t solve this with a relatively limited dimensional model of counterforce. Being mighty is one thing. Being effective is another. This is a much more complex problem.”
Classified studies by the CIA and State Department leaked to the media last month concluded that Iraq had replaced Afghanistan as the prime training ground for foreign terrorists who could travel across the world spreading destruction. The Bush administration has struggled even to work out whether the world is a safer place or not.
A year ago, the State Department had to withdraw a report by the Terrorist Threat Integration Centre that claimed terror attacks in 2003 had declined sharply. The revised report more than doubled the numbers of attacks and deaths.
We have to keep on going, doing whatever the hell we are doing...
[enter classic Radiohead theme] In a Chinatown alley, ex-cop finds body sliced in half. All your elements fall into place: the classic diner, Blade Runner's rainy neon, bullets stopping in midair, "Gigawatts!!", hacking the NSA, the plucky Ensign Ro from late Star Trek: The Next Generation, Soviet telepathy researchers, the blonde quantum physicist, a red sports car, a kung fu fight in a government lobby, a shower scene, reference to the Fortean Times, and a top notch HollywoodOS. Venetian blinds and your other comic-style noir visuals...
"Everybody knows that the agencies supposed to protect us never talk to each other. So some of the best, scariest intelligence agents solved the problem. Now they spy on the spies. They get all the pieces, they put them together and they stop whatever's coming, whatever the cost.... You are needed. I am needed. You never know who's on the Global Frequency."
So its a lot like Google.
Miranda Zero: "Don't eat the Kung Pao chicken, Barry, It's mine... Hang up on me, and I will kill your entire family!"
A leaked television series pilot that never got on the air has been making the rounds on BitTorrent the last few days. The live-action show, Global Frequency, is based on a comic book series (and the pilot was based on the Bombhead issue).
Supposedly, it leaked out of the Warner Brothers television studio, after they declined to pick up the series for production. They didn't want to put down $2 million for yet another sci-fi series that would barely pick up viewers. Also, there apparently were executives getting moved around the studio, causing them to back off new projects. But I kind of suspect over-enthusiastic producers have cajoled the network lawyers into letting them introduce a show about a decentralized spy agency over BitTorrent. It would be a very sharp marketing strategy.
Read this post by one of the producers and tell me that isn't what's going on.
The show immediately sparked discussion and seems to have been well-received. In an era of crappy sci fi offerings, this little pilot was surprisingly fun and well-executed. It's a pretty good follow-up to Mulder and Scully, but this time they aren't working for the evil FBI conspiracy. There's a lot more comic-book-style visual flourish, although I think the gloominess was provided by shooting in Canada. The special effects, while cartoonish in their intent, were very well done.
The video is quite high quality, although it is very dark.... but it all happens at night, anyway.
The writing has the geeky, at times clumsy, ironic edge to it that we haven't really seen done well since Hercules. Exploding sunglasses. And a nod to the Blues Brothers with a police car flying through the air. And the part where coins spontaneously jump off a counter and roll away... About the only thing missing was some white doves in slow motion. But there is plenty of slow motion. The command center is a wall of LCDs in a Diablo-like basement.
Best line: "I'm not melted."
BoingBoing had something along these lines recently: "Future of TV: Piracy will save production."
Warren Ellis was involved with making the comics. I wish DiePunyHumans.com was working. For more on the comic, globalfrequency.org.
Technorati Tags: globalfrequency
[enter classic Radiohead theme] In a Chinatown alley, ex-cop finds body sliced in half. All your elements fall into place: the classic diner, Blade Runner's rainy neon, bullets stopping in midair, "Gigawatts!!", hacking the NSA, the plucky Ensign Ro from late Star Trek: The Next Generation, Soviet telepathy researchers, the blonde quantum physicist, a red sports car, a kung fu fight in a government lobby, a shower scene, reference to the Fortean Times, and a top notch HollywoodOS. Venetian blinds and your other comic-style noir visuals...
"Everybody knows that the agencies supposed to protect us never talk to each other. So some of the best, scariest intelligence agents solved the problem. Now they spy on the spies. They get all the pieces, they put them together and they stop whatever's coming, whatever the cost.... You are needed. I am needed. You never know who's on the Global Frequency."
So its a lot like Google.
Miranda Zero: "Don't eat the Kung Pao chicken, Barry, It's mine... Hang up on me, and I will kill your entire family!"
A leaked television series pilot that never got on the air has been making the rounds on BitTorrent the last few days. The live-action show, Global Frequency, is based on a comic book series (and the pilot was based on the Bombhead issue).
Supposedly, it leaked out of the Warner Brothers television studio, after they declined to pick up the series for production. They didn't want to put down $2 million for yet another sci-fi series that would barely pick up viewers. Also, there apparently were executives getting moved around the studio, causing them to back off new projects. But I kind of suspect over-enthusiastic producers have cajoled the network lawyers into letting them introduce a show about a decentralized spy agency over BitTorrent. It would be a very sharp marketing strategy.
Read this post by one of the producers and tell me that isn't what's going on.
The show immediately sparked discussion and seems to have been well-received. In an era of crappy sci fi offerings, this little pilot was surprisingly fun and well-executed. It's a pretty good follow-up to Mulder and Scully, but this time they aren't working for the evil FBI conspiracy. There's a lot more comic-book-style visual flourish, although I think the gloominess was provided by shooting in Canada. The special effects, while cartoonish in their intent, were very well done.
The video is quite high quality, although it is very dark.... but it all happens at night, anyway.
The writing has the geeky, at times clumsy, ironic edge to it that we haven't really seen done well since Hercules. Exploding sunglasses. And a nod to the Blues Brothers with a police car flying through the air. And the part where coins spontaneously jump off a counter and roll away... About the only thing missing was some white doves in slow motion. But there is plenty of slow motion. The command center is a wall of LCDs in a Diablo-like basement.
Best line: "I'm not melted."
BoingBoing had something along these lines recently: "Future of TV: Piracy will save production."
Warren Ellis was involved with making the comics. I wish DiePunyHumans.com was working. For more on the comic, globalfrequency.org.
Technorati Tags: globalfrequency
Via BoingBoing we learn about a new hyper-accessorization trend popping up among Japanese adolescent girls. Shocking. Someone at "Masamania" covered this "Decorer, process of cheerful decoration fasion [sic] trend". BoingBoing said "Apparently this new Japanese girl subculture is called "Decorer" (one who decorates, or is decorated). A little candy-raver, a little kinderslut, a little goth lolita, and a little Cindy Lauper. Pretty amazing."
Masamania is "Japanese culture report by MasaManiA with fucking photo & poor English you never seen at boring CNN, Time or major sophisticated jurnalism. I don't know what is good, bad, right or wrong, but I certainly know there is the truth ! and I also know it must be FUCK ! I'm not moralist. but wana be mania of the truth. MasaManiA means that. this is my philosophy"
Well done Masamania! And too damn funny. Also the site is mirrored here because it is slow and unreliable.
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky: The Democrats' hearings on the Downing Street Memo and the distortion of pre-war intelligence will happen at the Capitol at 2:30 Eastern time Thursday afternoon. I really hope they spring some new documents, wouldn't that be fantastic? John Conyers, "A Busy Day Today, and an Important and Historical Day Tomorrow" [Thurs]:
The pace will not let up tomorrow either. At 9am [all times Eastern], I will be on C-Span’s Washington Journal for a half hour. Shortly after 10, I will be appearing on Stephanie Miller’s show to break some news I am very excited about. Finally, at a time to be determined, I will appear on the Al Franken Show at 12:15pm.
For those commenters who were concerned (or hoping) that there would be a media blackout of the forum, that will not be the case. I have every major network, other than Fox, bringing cameras to the hearing. Nightline is taping the event, which I think represents a welcome development from a well respected investigative program. In addition, C-Span 3 and Radio Pacifica are carrying it live.
Member interest in the hearing has been stellar and participation is expected to be very high. My friends Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, Chris Van Hollen, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Lynn Woolsey, Major Owens, barney Frank, Cynthia McKinney, Corrine Brown, Jay Inslee, and Charlie Rangel are all likely to attend. A number of other Members are attempting to adjust their schedules to attend as well.
Following the hearing, I will personally deliver a letter with stacks and stacks of signatures to the White House. This is the culmination of all of your efforts and I hope Thursday makes you very proud. I also hope at the end of the day tomorrow, we will all feel that the truth has begun to be known by more and more Americans and that we are all re-invigorated to do the critical work that comes next.
Conyers, John Jr., U.S. Representative, D-MI Bonifaz, John C., Founder, National Voting Rights Institute Wilson, Joseph, Deputy Chief of Mission (1988-91), Iraq McGovern, Ray, Member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Sheehan, Cindy, Mother [of 9-11 victim]
Rep. John Conyers, Jr., and other Democrats hold a public meeting concerning the "Downing Street Memo" and pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the "Downing Street Minutes", recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair with his advisers that depicted an American president already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also described apparent efforts by Bush administration officials to manipulate intelligence data in order to justify the war to the international community.
Rep. Conyers is also going to be on C-SPAN's call in show "Washington Journal" at 9 AM Eastern. RawStory.com, a pretty good spot these days, (earlier story) has the press release:
CONYERS TO HOLD DEMOCRATIC HEARING ON DOWNING STREET MEMO AND LEAD UP TO IRAQ WAR
WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of House Judiciary Committee, and other Democratic Members will hold a Democratic hearing to hear testimony concerning the Downing Street Minutes and the efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.
On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the Downing Street Minutes, recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair that describes an American President already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also describe apparent efforts by the Administration to manipulate intelligence data to justify the war. The June 16th hearing will attempt to answer the serious constitutional questions raised by these revelations and will further investigate the Administration's actions in the lead up to war with new documents [OOH?!!] that further corroborate the Downing Street memo.
Directly following the hearing, Rep. Conyers, Members of Congress, and concerned citizens plan to hand deliver to the White House the petition and signatures of over a half million Americans that have joined Rep. Conyers in demanding that President Bush answer questions about his secret plan for the Iraq war.
WHAT: Democratic hearing on Downing Street Minutes and Pre-war intelligence
WHEN: Thursday, June 16, 2005, 2:30pm
WHERE: HC-9 The Capitol
(Overflow Room - 430 S. Capitol Street, The Wasserman Room)
WITNESSES: Joe Wilson, Former Ambassador and WMD Expert, Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA analyst who prepared regular Presidential briefings during the Reagan administration, Cindy Sheehan, mother of fallen American soldier, John Bonifaz, constitutional lawyer
It is nice that they're going to deliver the petition. I signed it. Maybe if you do, you might get somewhere in that pile of 500,000 people for intelligence sanity... Raw Story also has a nice timeline about how the War started, with what I assume is a newly labeled section about "fixing the intelligence" in 2002. Also a pretty god damned sweet PDF collection of British government documents.
The LA Times also totally harshed their mellow. Kerry is going to finally make a statement about it. There's also a jolly good editorial from the Star Tribune called "Fig Leaf for war/Paper indicates UN was misled".
...more important [that the Pentagon's lack of postwar planning] is the use of the United Nations to fashion a rationale for war. The British briefing paper says that when Blair met Bush at his ranch in Texas, in April 2002, Blair said "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change...." But in order to do that, the paper continues, it "is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action."
The paper goes on to explain that "Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law." But it would be lawful if "authorized by the U.N. Security Council." It goes on to say that this is the preferable route, provided the Security Council does not allow the weapons-inspections process to continue indefinitely.
This is where the plot really thickens. Perhaps readers will recall that Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, recently was accused of orchestrating the 2002 ouster of Jose Bustani, head of the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, a U.N. agency. Why did Bolton want Bustani replaced? Because Bustani was aggressively seeking to reinsert chemical weapons inspectors into Iraq. The conclusion of many observers is that the United States did not want inspectors in Iraq because it undercut the U.S. case for an invasion.
Many Bush critics accused him of "using" the United Nations to justify war, rather than truly working to avoid military conflict. But they were naturally suspect because they oppose U.S. policy. The British briefing paper is especially significant because it comes from a government that is not only astute, but is also quite friendly to Bush's objective of invading Iraq. The unavoidable conclusion is that both British and American citizens were duped into hoping that the United Nations would make such a conflict unnecessary. In fact, Britain eagerly and the United States reluctantly went to the United Nations to get a fig leaf of respectability for a war on which they had already decided.
In the end, the Security Council refused to play its role, arguing that the weapons inspectors needed more time (actually ample time) to complete their mission. Then the United States threw up its hands, branded Security Council members a bunch of hand-wringing pansies, and went to war. As the British briefing paper makes clear, that was pre-ordained.
It makes me happy when the Strib seems to Get It, and their ombuds[wo]man's perspective on why it took the Strib so long to talk about the Downing Street Memo struck me as a forthright admission of how newsrooms wait around to get their cues from wire services like the AP, which has been criticized for failing to write anything at all about the story. It was also great to hear Juan Cole about how bloggers managed to pressure the corporate media into finally starting to explain how they helped co-opt public opinion with the bad intel. Awkward!
A couple interesting things reflect how it's becoming easier to come up with original content and offer it up. First I found a link to a video by some young guys at Systm.org (not to be confused with the pretentious System.net 'global aesthetic conditioning'). They released a short video about 'warspying,' or modifying a wireless video camera receiver, putting it in a cash box, with a little LCD screen on it. The guys drive around town and capture other people's unencrypted video transmissions.
So these guys made a short video, complete with custom circuit diagrams, and distributed it over BitTorrent (high quality Quicktime / Windows Media torrents). Related links: Kevin Rose's blog (or this), one of the guys on the video, a very rich Technorati tag, review of the show on O'Reilly's Makezine.com, also randomculture.com, an earlier project called thebroken.org, switcherman.com is their project blog, they got the /. and CNet stories the lucky bastards.
So this would be an example of putting yourself in the right spots for a PR offensive online.
Stuff like podcasting is becoming increasingly popular and sites like podnova and ipodderx provide a constant source of these home brewed audio broadcasts. The idea is that such content might finally fulfill the promise of the internet etc etc.... Meanwhile people can hook into streams of links like those at Make Magazine put onto del.icio.us.
Looking around at this led me to some interesting sites. Digg.com is sort of like MetaFilter for geeks. Fromtheshadows.tv is another crew that put together some videos including another one about the fun of hacking into wireless data connections ("0wning 2.4GHz" is a great name for an episode)
Meanwhile military guys are starting to release rap music, such as the guys featured in Gunner Palace. There was a major feature on MetaFilter about this with many links.
Hackermedia.net gets points for the obvious name, and links to many other little internet TV shows. My favorite title is "Teh Scene" (not a typo). Good luck to all these kids.
Meanwhile such operations as Guerrilla News Network are still rolling along, and let's not forget the classic video they released some time ago, "Crack the CIA" about the links between cocaine trafficking and intelligence agencies.
Google has gotten this insane three-dimensional flyover map thing... not available to the public yet. Or is it some kind of 3D mapping truck scheme where lasers measure the dimensions of buildings to generate maps. Wow.
I just learned today that there is a peace-based organization down the street @ 1045 Selby Ave., Friends for a Non-Violent World and a buddy of mine is interning there.
You can take CEH (certified ethical hacker) exams now. and practice for them.
Hollywood paid for video cameras in LA to catch bootleg DVD vendors. No comment necessary. Located here to be precise.
Oh great, a 'Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption' as they rule that having PGP software on your computer can be seen as part of malicious intent, in this case against some kiddie porn guy.
Your misc blogs: brainwagon.org , mckinneysucks (discontinued since last January, and I don't agree, but it's funny) freedomhater, israelpundit, neocon-insanity, Sabbah's blog. It's the info age and it's all gravy.
Technorati Tags: cia, google, minnesota, encryption, rap, warspying
Vanity, disinformation and rumors get picked up and passed around and our BS filters get sidestepped by the sourcing of the information. Take this Elvis Presley = Nazi idea that circulated lately. Another example of the perils of the information age:
Almost 28 years after his death, fans of the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, can now see their icon in a radically different light; that as a Nazi.
The legend is seen wearing a Nazi cap and giving a Nazi salute in some pictures taken from a grainy half-hour home cine film.
The pictures, believed to be from the sixties, were taken during a boat trip with friends and have surfaced at the same time as Presley's ex-wife Priscilla released his home movies.
"I was given it ages ago, I think when I used to own a bar. But I had never watched it. It wasn't until I found it in the loft that I decided to. When I did I was shocked," Mark Vernon, who owns the tape, was quoted as saying.
The story still appears on News.com.au, an Australian site, FemaleFirst.co.uk, ContactMusic.com. Originally the British tabloid Sun propagated the story but of course the Sun's Elvis page has expired. The counter-story comes from Elvis-express.com, which is filing a complaint with the UK's Press Complaints Commission.
The other horror would be blogebrity.com, an agglomeration of big shots or something like that. So when I first visit I get the bloviating post:
While the majority of the emails we've received have been something along the lines of:
I love it....this is so much fun; I'm glad somebody finally did this, etc.
There have been a few of these:
You suck. Your list sucks and you suck and people should ONLY talk about blogs in the way I WANT THEM TO. Shame on you. Oh....and you didn't put me on your list. You suck and I hate you.
Just a clue to the haters--your whining is more transparent than a glob of used Neutrogena. But please, do keep it up....your sour grapes are like a glass of Opus One to us.
Speaking of which, I do think it's time for an eye-opener.
So right off the bat they are indulging their own egos in the mailbox. This one's destined to be a classic. On the other hand this site declared that blogging has finally passed a critical peak, from which it will roll downhill:
Blogging Jumps Shark, Becomes Trucker Hat
Following the recent whirlwind of blog hype including Nick Denton's love affair with the New York Times, his pie to the face at the Radar Magazine party, the launch of Blogebrity, Jason Calacanis' three million micro-blogs, a sudden explosion of branded character blogs and "all marketers should blog" blog conferences, it's now official. Rick Bruner and I, today, declare blogging to have gone the way of the trucker hat. In celebration of this sacred event, May 20, 2005, you can pick up your memorial, Nick Denton Trucker Hat over at Cafe Press.
That is too bad. HongPong.dyndns.org ran on a hacked-together Mac Linux server in the fall of 2000, when "blog" had not yet become soggy label to spill from the mouths of those grinning chicks on CNN... Before Hugh Hewitt and Scott Johnson appropriated something thought up by far more clever people.
So it is sorely tempting to pull the plug on HongPong.com now that the living situation is changing. Either that or some sort of drastic redesign, something overwrought and bombastic, like a John Williams score.
Elvis might be a Nazi but Jim Morrison is alive, according to rodeoswest.com. Why the hell not? I guess it reinforces my point that there is very little truth to latch onto. "FlashNews" tells us something:
Filmmaker Claims Jim Morrison Is Alive In Oregon
NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) – Here’s news that will light the fire of Jim Morrison fans: A filmmaker claims The Doors’ frontman is alive and raising horses on a ranch in southern Oregon. Rodeo photographer Gerald Pitts insists Morrison didn’t die in July of 1971 and he has current photographs and film footage of the rocker to prove it.
Pitts, who met Morrison in 1998, says the rocker staged his death because of a French conspiracy to kill him, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix with narcotics because they were all Vietnam war protestors. These days, Morrison isn’t the drug user he once was, although Pitts says when he goes over to Jim’s house he’ll “maybe have an occasional beer.”
Now Pitts claims that Morrison is announcing he’s alive, in part, to promote his recent agreement to star in a rodeo shoot-out movie based on events that actually happened to Pitts.
Yet another reason to leave this country, as Arun would put it.
In other random news an online tool called Tor provides anonymity in Internet use, and was originally developed by the Navy. It is becoming popular among government and other such types... Mysterious. But the EFF supports it, so it must be good. Sort of similar to this sourceforge project called ANts, Freenet, (Freenet-china.org looks interesting) and MUTE are all anonymizing systems--that is, they shield a user's IP number and data using layers of encryption. A major problem, for say, your software pirate or Chinese dissident, is making sure the IP can't be traced to you as you engage in things. Centralized servers are another weak point, and other technologies such as our beloved BitTorrent are getting "distributed tracker" features put into their clients. Tor sounds promising, then:
The Naval Research Lab began developing the system in 1996 but handed the code over to Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson, two Boston-based programmers, in 2002. The system was designed as part of a program called onion routing, in which data is passed randomly through a distributed network of servers three times, with layers of security protecting the data, like an onion.
Dingledine and Mathewson rewrote the code to make it easier to use and developed a client program so that users could send data from their desktops.
"It's been really obscure until now and hard to use," said Chris Palmer, EFF's technology manager. "(Before) it was just a research prototype for geeks. But now the onion routing idea is finally ready for prime time."
Dingledine and Mathewson made the code open source so that users could examine it to find bugs and to make certain that the system did only what it was supposed to do and nothing more.
The two programmers wanted to guard against a problem that arose in 2003 when users of another open-source anonymizer system -- called JAP, for Java Anonymous Proxy -- discovered that its German developers had placed a backdoor in the system to record traffic to one server. The developers... said they were forced to install a "crime detection function" by court order.
Law enforcement authorities have long had an uneasy and ambivalent relationship with anonymizer services. On the one hand, such services allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to hide their own identity while conducting investigations and gathering intelligence. But they also make it harder for authorities to track the activities and correspondence of criminals and terrorists.
Anonymizer services can help protect whistleblowers and political activists from exposure. They can help users circumvent surfing restrictions placed on students and workers by school administrators and employers. And they can prevent websites from tracking users and knowing where they're located. The downside is that anonymizer services can aid with corporate espionage.
....Tor builds an incremental encrypted connection that involves three separate keys through three servers on the network. The connection is built one server at a time so that each server knows only the identity of the server that preceded it and the server that follows it. None of the servers knows the entire path the data took.
So I guess my ultimate point is that technology is offering solutions for freedom, as well as coercion. Disinformation, however, is something that only our brains seem capable of swatting away, and it's an uphill battle.
Misc:
Look at this sweet
Robot Hand. More Koran desecration rumors. "60 Minutes Wednesday" gets cancelled, y'all can't keep telling us about insane prisons....
Television newsmagazines in general have been suffering in the ratings. There was some speculation that one of ABC's newsmagazines might be canceled, but both "20/20" and "Primetime Live" were included on the schedule announced Tuesday.
"The mood in the country right now tends to favor escape," Heyward said. "There's a lot of grim news out there. In prime time, when people are looking to be entertained as well as informed, a drama or a reality show is tough competition. The thing about reality shows is they offer the same appeal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, but it's all a game. There's a happy ending."
Tech: Microsoft used Apple G5's to demo their Xbox games at the recent E3 conference. That's right, Apples run the Xbox software somehow... Check out ImageSavant.com: this is what the Apple spinning ball should look like.
In times of difficulty we must not lose sight of our achievements, must see the bright future and must pluck up our courage.
Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, P. 373
Well now college is slipping away, but at least empirical reality is too. David Sirota depresses me. then i go to bed.
President Bush has said that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency." That means that in America, we have a government where the public gets to see as much information as possible about its government.
But as the record shows, Bush is anything but pro-transparency. A careful look shows the Bush White House has systematically tried to stop publishing government information that it finds embarrassing or disagrees with - the opposite of "transparent." See the record for yourself:
- Knight-Ridder reports today that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has "decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered."
- When unemployment was peaking in Bush's first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department's regular report on mass layoffs.
- In 2003, when the nation's governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting.
- In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government Web sites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau.
- In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. That scientific data was seen by the White House as a direct affront to the pro-life movement.
All right, Major Things have to Happen today and I've got to set about doing them real quick-like, in preparation for the trip. Have to write midterm exam all day...
Civil war stuff further down. Turns out that the Bush Administration makes up more shit than any other presidency, ever. They use fake news broadcasts with fake reporters, distributed to TV stations, to help provide the public with a fuzzy background of "a caring get-it-done Administration". The Congressional Budget Office has considered some of this stuff potentially "covert propaganda". The NY Times had a major feature on it Sunday.
"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.
Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.
Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.
Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.
All right other stuff, quickly. Stratfor says that John Bolton is not such a horror for the UN post, and of course I disagree because he is A) batshit crazy B) antagonizes people purely for symbolic value C) incredibly dishonest and dangerous.
In fact, there is some extremely deep diplomacy going on here. Bolton belongs to the "put-up-or-shut-up" branch of American neocons, believing that the United Nation's original charter prescribed a much more activist organization -- where resolutions would be strengthened by possible consequences if violated, often including the use of force. In Bolton's mind, the Korean War is precisely the type of military action the United Nations was designed to authorize and carry out.
This is, needless to say, very different from the circumstances surrounding the Iraq war of 2003 -- in which the Bush administration, we believe, hoped that the United Nations would not go along with U.S. requests. The whole point of the war was not to oust Saddam Hussein but to intimidate Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia into acting against al Qaeda on Washington's behalf. Bush wanted to scare regimes that supported or enabled al Qaeda by placing uninvited, unsanctioned American armored divisions -- not a sea of polite blue helmets -- in the sands of Iraq.
[.....]
Had the administration simply wanted to destroy the United Nations, it would have appointed someone far less controversial and independent-minded who would simply rubber-veto U.N. Security Council resolutions ad nauseam. As Bush pointed out during his first term, the United Nations is relevant only if it takes steps to enforce its own dictates.
Bolton feels the same way. He believes the U.N. system is not necessarily irredeemable, but simply discredited. Rather conveniently, he has two ready-made test cases waiting: North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while Iran is, at best, attempting to skirt the IAEA on technical grounds. In effect, both states have -- in the eyes of the United Nations -- placed themselves outside of the system, and are therefore squarely in what Bolton and his neocon circle feel are the United Nations' crosshairs. Bolton's task will be to get the United Nations to act against them -- not for American interests, but to prevent the United Nations from sliding into total irrelevance.
In the four years to come, the United Nations is likely to have several "legitimate" targets, from the neocons' point of view. In his second term, Bush seems committed to finishing the work not just of his first administration, but of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations as well. The White House has made no secret of goals that include not only tying up the final loose ends of the Cold War and completing the rollback of Russian power, but also of extending that geopolitical effort to Communist East Asia and the Middle East.
I don't buy it. Ok. Also a former US soldier, Nadim Abou Rabeh, claims that the U.S. faked the news of Saddam's capture on Dec. 13, 2003, and he was actually captured by Rabeh and others somewhere totally different on Dec. 12. Justin Raimondo speculates on whether this is true, and the upcoming demonization of Bashar Assad as the next-worst-thing-to-Hitler. He also has a bit about how the Neo-cons have been chased out of one of their periodical redoubts, National Journal.
The pro-Syrian govt in Lebanon is back in the saddle. Experts warn that the War on Terror (TM) is going to make more terrorists. Apparently the U.S. is finally ready to acknowledge that Hezbollah has a key role to play in Lebanon. We just don't have the traction to play the stupid demonization card anymore.
Speaking of liars around Bush, a bit by David Corn about the bad old days of massacres in El Salvador, and Elliot Abrams lying to Congress to cover it up. These days are going to be here again, with people like him and Negroponte running around. Dowd points out that these 'security-minded' bastards are not really that competent at security.
Oh yeah, here's some batty stuff. David Horowitz made up a site, discoverthenetwork.org, that purports to connect, say, the editors of The Nation with Zacharias Moussaui. It also shines light on the evil conspiracy that is Counterpunch.org. Nuts.
Ok finally, something about that civil war stuff. Uri Averny, an old-school Israeli peacenik, has a ton of good thoughts about what kind of mess we are getting drawn into with Lebanon and elsewhere.
Many years ago, I read a book called The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The results are disastrous.
I have the feeling that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and not so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose on it order, democracy, and freedom.
[....]
Exactly 50 years ago, a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then minister of defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army chief-of-staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator, and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, then prime minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster.
At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett.
[....]
In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community that stands behind them.
[...]
It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shi'ites into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shi'ites received us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later, when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hezbollah.
[....]
If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war – if almost secret – is already in full swing.
The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish peshmerga ("those who face death"). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Fallujah, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.
Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein.
How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the "war against terrorism."
But this small war is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunnis would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shi'ite majority, which they despise, even if it came about in the name of "democracy." The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war may only be a question of time.
[....]
If the Americans succeed, with Israel's discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy."
Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses.
It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel.
[....]
Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice.
The religious fervor of the ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the "Big Satan" (the U.S.) or the "Little Satan" (us) may set fire to the whole Shi'ite crescent: Iran, south Iraq, and south Lebanon.
[....]
And here, too. Israel, too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war.
In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the Christians, attacking, burning, and destroying. By a miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.
Here are a couple other writings by Averny. This one is interesting but in particular please read "Israel's coming civil war," it is scary as hell. It was written back in October but it is highly relevant.
Everybody in Israel is talking about the Next War. The most popular TV channel is running a whole series about it. Not another war with the Arabs. Not the nuclear threat from Iran. Not the ongoing bloody confrontation with the Palestinians.
The talk is about the coming civil war.
[....]
The seeds of the civil war were sown when the first settlement was put up in the occupied territories. At the time, I told the prime minister in the Knesset: "You are laying a land mine. Some day you will have to dismantle it. As a former soldier, let me warn you that the dismantling of land mines is a very unpleasant job."
[...]
Many settlers do not yet say so openly and pretend to be insulted when such attitudes are attributed to them, but in fact they are dragged along by the hard core that has already thrown off all the masks. They challenge not only the policy of the government, but Israeli democracy as such. They declare openly that their aim is to overthrow the State of Law and put in its place the State of the Halakha.
A State of Law is subject to the will of the majority, which enacts the laws and amends them as necessary. The State of the Halakha is subject to the Torah, revealed once and for all on Mount Sinai and unchangeable. Only a very small number of eminent rabbis have the authority to interpret the Halakha. That is, of course, the opposite of democracy. In any other country, these people would be called fascists. The religious coloration makes no difference.
The religious-rightist rebels are powerfully motivated. Many of them believe in the Kabbala – not Madonna's fashionable Kabbala, but the real one, which says that today's secular Jews are really Amalekites who succeeded in infiltrating the People of Israel at the time of the exodus from Egypt. God Himself has commanded, as everyone knows, the eradication of Amalek from the face of the earth. Can there be a more perfect ideological basis for civil war?
In preparation for the Great Rebellion, the settlers have unveiled their potential. The most eminent rabbis of the "Religious Zionist movement" have declared that the evacuation of a settlement is a sin against God and have called upon the soldiers to refuse orders. Hundreds of rabbis, including the rabbis of the settlements and the rabbis of the religious units in the army, have joined the call.
The voice of the few opponents is being drowned out. They quote the Talmudic saying "the law of the kingdom is law," meaning that every government has to be obeyed, much as Christians are required to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, etc. But who listens to these "moderate rabbis" now?
The conquest of the army from the inside began long ago. The "arrangement" with the yeshivot (religious schools) that serve in the army as separate units has allowed the entry of a huge Trojan horse. In any confrontation between their rabbis and their army commanders, the soldiers of the "arrangement yeshivot" will obey the rabbis. Worse: for years now, the settlers have systematically penetrated the ranks of the officers' corps, where they now constitute an even more dangerous Trojan horse.
[....]
Altogether, the settlers, together with their close allies in Israel including the yeshivot students, may amount to something like half a million people – a mighty phalanx for rebellion.
Well that's a pretty serious blog post. I don't think I'll have time to add anything else. I didn't really even have time for this, but it is really important stuff to note. Everyone have a great spring break, and hopefully Mordred will offer something to us over that time....
Hey all,
I have a radio show in twenty minutes. I have a big story in the Mac Weekly today about How to Interview the Minnesota Legislature.
Listen to the radio show online. Special guest today: DJAngryNihilistRoommate and The Bobs! Studio request line 651 696 6312. Hell ya
I've been way too busy lately, and I feel like I'm barely getting anywhere. Once again I'll warn everyone that I have no time to make regular updates, despite all the hulabaloo in the world i just can't sit around blogging for hours yet. So if it's quiet around here, be patient. Believe me, I am collecting a lot of information these days...
The Mac Weekly website which is my charge looks purty sorry right now, as I haven't put together a complete replacement for the front page. Nonetheless it has been a rather momentous week in the world, so I gotta finally say something. I just cracked open my window to this incongruous heat wave sweeping us all week. It's nice to have fresh air in the house but also disconcerting because in the last century in Minnesota Februaries YOU COULD NOT OPEN THE WINDOWS!!! (is there a plural for February?)
We watched the rebroadcast of the State of the Union late Wednesday, and I flipped away to check if the Daily Show had started just as the famous Hug O Compassion magnetized the whole audience. Aw shucks, it looked like Bush got a tear in his eye. Then he quickly started speaking again, which indicated to me that the whole thing wasn't spontaneous. (or else CNN shortened the moment in the replay edition, I don't know)
These days I always look askance the participants in Iraqi Symbolic Events Recognizing the Innate Righteousness Of Freedom (®©✌), because they often turn out to be tied to the neocons. (the Firdaus Square flag-waving statue topplers and the INC would be the other major example, famously cited in Control Room) Well, some other people started looking around and they found that this woman appeared in, for example, a State Department pseudo-news report — PR releases, really — supporting the drive to war. So check out the Metafilter post and DailyKos diary on this.
It also turns out the State Department was totally complicit in the oil smuggling games that happened under Saddam, thusly undermining the line that Norm Coleman, William Safire and Ahmed Chalabi (truly my favorite people) keep flogging, that the UN was somehow culpable for all the shady dealings, and it never could have happened without Kofi messing around, and etc etc. Now we find that the U.S. condoned this stuff all along, for fairly straightforward reasons, or so they say:
(CNN) -- Documents obtained by CNN reveal the United States knew about, and even condoned, embargo-breaking oil sales by Saddam Hussein's regime, and did so to shore up alliances with Iraq's neighbors. The oil trade with countries such as Turkey and Jordan appears to have been an open secret inside the U.S. government and the United Nations for years.
The unclassified State Department documents sent to congressional committees with oversight of U.S. foreign policy divulge that the United States deemed such sales to be in the "national interest," even though they generated billions of dollars in unmonitored revenue for Saddam's regime.
The trade also generated a needed source of oil and commerce for Iraq's major trading partners, Turkey and Jordan. "It was in the national security interest, because we depended on the stability in Turkey and the stability in Jordan in order to encircle Saddam Hussein," Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, told CNN when asked about the memo documents.
"We had a great amount of cooperation with the Jordanians on the intelligence side, and with the Turks as well, so we were getting value out of the relationship," said Walker, who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
[......]
The justifications came at a time when the United States was a staunch backer of U.N. sanctions on Iraq imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
"Despite United Nations Security Council Resolutions," a 1998 memo signed by President Clinton's deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, said, "Jordan continues to import oil from Iraq." But Jordan had a "lack of economically viable alternatives" to Iraqi oil, Talbott's memo said. [....] "Timely, reliable assistance from the United States fosters the political stability and economic well-being critical to Jordan's continuing role as a regional leader for peace," Talbott said. Identical language was used four years later in a 2002 memo by Richard Armitage, undersecretary of state under President George W. Bush.
"Jordan has made clear its choice for peace and normalization with Israel," Armitage said, calling Jordan "an important U.S. friend" and citing its 2001 free trade treaty with the United States. "U.S. assistance provides the Jordanian government needed flexibility to pursue policies that are of critical importance to U.S. national security and to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East," Armitage said.
Economic and military ties to Turkey were cited by Talbott and Armitage in justifying waivers of U.S. penalties to Iraq's northern neighbor. Indeed, their memos advocated hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the U.S. allies.
[......]
"With Jordan and Turkey the circumstances were unique," Ereli said. "We approached them in a way that preserved key alliances and didn't help the regime of Saddam Hussein."
[Current State Dept spokesman Adam Ereli] added that Saddam's smuggling to Syria, which the United States tried to curtail, raised far more concerns because of the possibility of "dual use" goods reaching Iraq.
[....]
Estimates of how much revenue Iraq earned from these tolerated side sales of its oil to Jordan and Turkey, as well as to Syria and Egypt, range from $5.7 billion to $13.6 billion. This illicit revenue far exceeds the estimates of what Saddam pocketed through illegal surcharges on his U.N.-approved oil exports and illegal kickbacks on subsequent Iraqi purchases of food, medicine, and supplies -- $1.7 billion to $4.4 billion -- during the maligned seven-year U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.
[....]
John Ruggie, a former senior adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said U.S. diplomats focused on assuring U.N.-approved shipments to Iraq were free of military components, and the United States felt Jordan and Turkey needed to be compensated for the adverse impact of the sanctions.
Ruggie said, "The secretary of state of the United States said each and every year that those illegal sales were in the national security interest of the United States. So it wasn't just that the U.S. was looking the other way."
Oh yeah, it looks like Dean is going to take over the DNC, then. Well, Establishment, this is what you get for being so stodgy and letting the Republicans take over town. Neener neener... I have very mixed feelings about all of this, but considering where we are now at (the nadir), why the hell not? The New Republic, a periodical I'm often suspicious of, has an interesting look at how, in one writer's view, Dean split the Democratic Party during the primaries, seduced the state party heads and secured the the DNC chairmanship. Very worth reading.
Ordinary folks and county officials in Fargo-Moorhead area, who happen to be on some MeetUp lists, find themselves blacklisted from a Bush appearance. Nice.
I was wondering what the hell Dean's "Democracy for America" organization was really intended for, and right after the race they came right out of the gate, a still-beating structure of true believers. Hey, why not? It should turn out to be entertaining.
Meanwhile the prime minister of Georgia died mysteriously of carbon monoxide. Talk about your classic Caucasus intrigues. Georgia is a place I'm concerned about, because of its position in the oil/ethnic unrest situation around the Caucasus. I got an email from the Stratfor mailing list, with George Friedman on what this might be about:
The former Soviet republic, a key land bridge between the Caspian and Black seas, is an important pawn in the rapidly accelerating Great Game still being waged by Russia and the United States. A Georgia where Russian influence holds sway allows Moscow to project power into the Middle East, whereas a pro-U.S. regime means Tbilisi can cut Russia off from any potential allies to the south. Iran and Turkey also seek to influence opinion in Georgia's power circles.
What, if anything, this political backdrop has to do with the death of Zhvania remains to be seen. Security forces found the prime minister's body in the home of Raul Yusupov, the deputy governor of the Kvemo-Kartli region. Yusupov also died; both men apparently having suffocated on fumes from a small heater that was in use, though foul play has not been ruled out.
In this case, disguising a murder as an accident -- by sabotaging a space heater so that it would emit carbon monoxide, for instance -- would not have been difficult, and sources in Georgia say many actors, from hard-line nationalists to organized crime groups, might have had reason to want Zhvania dead.
The deaths appear to have unsettled Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, a passionate nationalist who has consistently defied and annoyed Moscow since taking office. Saakashvili, who temporarily assumed the prime ministership for himself, relied heavily upon the advice of the more sober-minded and tactical Zhvania. According to a source in the Georgian Interior Ministry, Saakashvili has requested personal protection from the United States in the wake of Zhvania's death -- highlighting concerns that the prime minister's demise could have been more than accidental.
Even if Zhvania's death proves to be nothing more sinister, the consequences could be great. The last powerful Georgian leader to die was Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in 1993. His death left the state in political limbo until Eduard Shevardnadze took power -- and in the process of solidifying control, waged two wars against separatist provinces.
With separatist movements (backed by Russia) still lingering in the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and given the number of other players -- both domestic and foreign -- who take an interest in Georgia, any perception of instability in Tbilisi could be enough to prompt any one of them to make a move.
So hey, that's some interesting stuff.... Back to the mess o' things to do.
THIS JUST IN: SAFIRE A DOUCHEBAG
You heard it here first, kids: William Safire is a big fucking douche. Today he is on about none other than... drumroll, please... the forces of freedom!
Yes, Mr. Safire, lighting up his opium pipe in the ivory tower of the New York Times building, decided he was going to enlighten us on the subject of the "Four Elections". In dogmatic claptrap terms, that means the elections for head of state that have been held in America, Australia and Afghanistan (pop quiz, Hongsketeers; can anyone figure out what these countries have in common other than the fact that they all start in "A"?) and the upcoming one in the big I: Iraq. According to Safire, (who will from here on out be known only as "El Doucherino") the three wins thus far by Karzai, Howard and Bush (yes, that's right, I switched the order—let Bush run Afghanistan for a bit—he was a kid once, you leave a mess, you pick it... oh wait, he never got that part, did he?) are examples of an outpouring of world sentiment in favor of the undefinable term "freedom."
Hold on a second while I wrestle my rage to the ground.... OK. The most he can say about Howard's role in the march of freedom is that he is an "American ally." I guess that the rest of the world's constitutional democracies are anti-freedom, not like the steak-chewing, SUV-driving, prisoner-torturing U.S. of A. I'll give him Karzai, and we won't even get into the Bush thing, but what exactly does he even mean? What is the point of this article?
Well, the point, as usual, is to demonstrate how smart El Doucherino thinks he is and how many top-level connections he has. In the application of his raison d'etre, we find Safire opining on Iraq because of the straight poop he is receiving (read: eating) from the Kurds about the status of Iraq:
From the Desk of El Doucherino:
My bona fides with the Kurdish people go back a generation, to friendship with their nationalist patriot, Mustafa Barzani. Kurds were the open source of a 2001 column reporting the presence of an affiliate of Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, in northern Iraq, where terrorists tried to kill Dr. Salih. Hungry Kurds first told me of Saddam's oil-for-food scam, and still remember Christer Elfverson, the Swede who spent four years as the U.N. deputy to Benon Sevan - a bureaucrat who saw no evil in the denial of $4 billion worth of food and medicine owed the Kurds.
Today their pesh merga is the readiest and fiercest Iraqi fighting force. In Iraqi uniform, these mountain warriors are helping to pacify Mosul; they want to avoid Kurd-Arab clashes, but a million Kurds live in Baghdad and their trained compatriots will defend them from terrorists. It's simplistic to prognosticate the coming election as 60 percent Shiite, 15 percent Sunni, 20 percent Kurd, 5 percent other. Only half the Shiites and Sunnis are fervent Islamists, while most of the Kurds are secular Sunnis. The result is an Oliver Hardy demographic: "a fine mess," susceptible to democratic surprises by charismatic local candidates.
So, in summary- we can trust everything the Kurds tell us, and the Kurds tell us it's all hunky-dory. As an aside, the running foreign policy battle between Friedman and Safire on the Times Editorial page can get quite silly on both sides, but lets remember that Safire hardly ever leaves the damn country, whereas Friedman (and Kristof) feel it is important to see the area one is reporting on.
Also, anyone who has a problem with the holding of the elections if they are to bear any resemblance to Rummy's "80% is good enough for me" faux-lection is a "pessimist" and a "foot dragger" aligned with the anti-American contingent so bitterly humiliated in the last few months, out only to win a vindictive scuttling of the greater good in Iraq, who's people El Doucherino feels such strong empathy for:
From the Desk of El Doucherino:
Now pessimists are trying desperately to call off the fourth election - the one scheduled for late January in Iraq to elect a 275-member national assembly that will write a constitution - lest they lose that vote, too.
As if that's enough, he even gets in his twice-weekly jab at the United Nations, attacking the U.N. deputy to Iraq 1999-2003, Christer Elfverson, as a "Swede who spent four years as the U.N. deputy to Benon Sevan - a bureaucrat who saw no evil in the denial of $4 billion worth of food and medicine owed the Kurds." For those of you who don't read El Doucherino often, his obsession as of late has been with the U.N. Food for Oil program, in which billions of dollars earmarked for food for starving Iraqis was siphoned off by Saddam while French and Russian corporations raked it in by buying at sub market rates. While the program was an enormous rip-off and a shameful misuse of the U.N., Safire acts like we didn't know any of this before we invaded, and that the invasion uncovered these hard truths.
In fact, the reason the food-for-oil program kept running has little to do with a complicit U.N. or a scamming France, and quite a bit to do with P.R. The greenie sissy liberals (my term—I'm not of their kind) were banging and haranguing on the issue of starving Iraqis in an effort to have the embargo lifted. Not willing to lift the embargo, we set up the Food-for-Oil program with the U.N. The reason we didn't call for its cancellation was public realtions realted: We couldn't afford to be seen as Iraqi baby killers.
Now that the right has nothing else to point to, now that the treads have worn off of the "Saddam was a ruthless killer and he had to be removed" bus and that bus has been sideswiped by its "Thousands of Iraqis are ruthless killers and they have to be stopped" counterpart, the traction is seen as being against international multilateralism, namely, the U.N.
In this spirit, they have chosen the World's Largest Douche, Baron Von Douchenstein, to investigate. For those of you not familiar with the Baron, his real name is Norm Coleman, and he is a very principled Senator from Minnesota whose deep-seated beliefs led him to switch parties and religions. The Baron is a busy man, and had to be ripped away from very official business— 
-in order to take part in this, one of five parallel federal investigations into "UNscam," as it is known. With El Doucherino and Von Douchenstein on the job, the world is a safer place for all.
AAAHH!
Sorry for that break in our regularly-scheduled program and allow me a minute to wrap this up. I have been a supporter of Safire's, though I agree with him on almost nothing. I used to feel that he was a true political insider, acting out in the way that egomaniacal conservative political insiders do. Now I feel differently—his columns as of late are a broken record, the dinner party ramblings of an individual that cares more about being listened to than being right. With his column winding down and his life reaching its final stages, El Doucherino is revealed as being, in the end, awed by his own panache. Enough of that rant. Selah.
From the "Somewhere Between Bad P.R. and War Crimes" department I bring you the following image off Yahoo! News:
A series of television pool images shot by NBC shows a U.S. Marine shooting dead a wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a Falluja mosque November 13, 2004. U.S. Marines rallied round the Marine now under investigation for killing the Iraqi during the offensive in Falluja, saying he was probably under combat stress in unpredictable, hair-trigger circumstances.Via DailyKos.
This is a repost from BlackOutBlog, but as nobody reads BlackOutBlog, I'm posting it on Hongpong.
On to my thoughts:
Safire: He's leaving, and I am despondent over it. Safire is a gargantuan asshole, with a Mailer-like obsession, if not a Carlyle-like obsession, with the halls of power. His life has been lived with an ear undelicately to the ground, pumping biased sources for information often false. However, his commentary is excellent. There is no denying this guy is one smart mofo, and I will miss him.
Compounding my despondency is the now-obvious placement of David Brooks, who has been placed in the role of sucessor to token conservative on the NYT staff. Brooks is colorless, odorless, tasteless and uninsightful, choosing to review Tom Wolfe's (another non-dumb ragin asshole) new book the other day rather than do his job. He belittles those book critics who line up to trash his latest book every time, and lauds Wolfe's "moral intent" while dismissing his underdevloped characters.
To you, David, I say this: shut the fuck up. You aren't a critic, and your love of Wolfe has to do with some notion of him as a pitchman for your own retrograde notion of morality. First off, I don't think Wolfe is pushing any value system upon his readers. I would suspect, though I don't know, that Wolfe would agree with Oscar Wilde's prologue to The Picture of Dorian Gray when he says:
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."
It's not as simple as that, however?there are beautifully-written books with no content or vision published every year. However, a writer and an artist are two different things, and morality has a complicated relationship with the artist and an untroubled relationship to the writer. Brooks would be a writer in this construction, lacking the chops for artistry:
"The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved."
In fact, Wilde would posit that Brooks is not even a legitimate critic:
"The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things."
Brooks is not translating, he is drawing conclusions on something for which conclusions can not be drawn, only interpretations forwarded. For him to discursively rant, stapling his ideology upon a great man of letters, demonstrates what a pea-brained little sycophant he is, a little nitpicking turd without the breadth of vision of Friedman (who I nonetheless dislike), the humanity of Kristof or Krugman (though Krugman can be a sanctimonious whinger at times) or the wit of Dowd (my hero). While the alternatives are no great shakes, either?we could have seen some George F. Will-esque replacement?I really think the world's most august daily could do a little better than Brooks.
Back to Safire; the man used "Weltanschauung" in his column today. These days, we are running out of competent writers in the newspaper industry. There is no craftsmanship, just a dry retelling of facts or a spoken word-like delivery of opinions. Safire is a godsend here?he, like Dowd, can write?they have lively writing voices, their prose represents a sub-character of themselves, not merely their world view as they would present it on a pundit's show. Dowd is a wry and raunchy cocktail-circuit party girl grown up, Safire is a deeply skeptical observer, peering through the fog of cigarette smoke and the haze of scotch towards the raw and unedited truths of the game as played in Washington.
Both voices are certainly self-caricatures; Safire is an accomplished historian of the English language, with other interests and an awareness of his crotchety bias. Dowd is simply too old and too smart to think her barbs even scratch her targets. They still do it, though, bring a literary twist into their writing, and I willmiss Safire's counterpoint. In retrospect, they should have been scheduled to write on the same day, it would have allowed for more competitiveness. By the way, Weltanschauung means "world view" in German.
As for world views and the relative lack thereof of certain individuals in government, Condi Rice was named Secretary of State by Piehole yesterday, meaning a continuation of her shameless sycophancy and her utter distaste for world politics. A former Kremlinologist, Rice is still bent by the "Us vs. Them" mentality that was the hallmark of the Manichaean ideological divide of 1946-1991.
Dan adds: Oh and she ducked questions under oath and stonewalled the 9/11 Commission.
Safire had argued that Powell would stay on a few months to see if Arafat's death could help clear the peace process, but it looks as if he wanted out and wanted out NOW. Obviously, peace is on the backburner now, and it's up with war:
Be afraid of the war mammie, be very afraid.
We all know about John Ashcroft's musical talents, as "Let the Eagle Soar" perched at the top of the Billboard charts for months on end last year (lyrics)... but wait, there's more!
That's right, now you too can experience Missouri state auditor John Ashcroft and his arm candy Bacon singin about God and stuff. Via the site whitehouse.org you can download recordings and they're damn funny. Check out this candid in-studio album art:
Also Nick posted a rather shocking picture of Big Vice Man. I think it may have been faked in PhotoShop, but maybe not.
Thanks to Big Poppa Peter Gartrell for the Ashcroft recording link... I know Pete's way into this folk stuff.
Well, first off, a little in memoriam:
RIP Russell Jones a/k/a "Ol' Dirty Bastard a/k/a "Osiris" a/k/a "Big Baby Jesus a/k/a Dirt McGirt. As you may have heard, the dirty passed away this weekend, dropping dead in a recording studio at the age of 35. While his death was obviously due to a breathtaking history of drug consumption, it is sad nonetheless. No one captured the kind of brainless senseless FEEL for Hip-Hop tha tall rappers need in order to bring something that isn't cliche and effete into their rapping style. ODB had the kind of unglued loopy energy that all great rappers (do you hear me Slug?) possess in some quantity, be it the irreverant wordplay of Jay-Z, the ludicrous political screeds of Nas or the sheer, well, ODB-like loopiness of early Eminem. Legend has it that Russell once ran out of a recording studio to help a 4 year old girl pinned under a car. May this good deed and others never witnessed weigh heavily enough against the much-publicized bad that Russell committed in his lifetime to ensure him a place on the 'good' list.
Another RIP follows: Ted Rall and Gary "Doonesbury" Trudeau have been removed from the Washington Post's stable of editorial cartoonists. Perhaps in the wake of another Bush win the lefties are being culled from major media outlets in an effort to "centralize" themselves politically and not jeopardize their access to those in power or alienate themselves and lose ad revenue. This would seem more true for Rall than Trudeau—I assume Doonesbury was dropped because it is probably expensive to carry and anyone can look at it free on the internet or in their local paper. Rall may very well have gotten the axe over his caricature of the Bush administration. I would argue that it is hardly even a caricature, but there you have it. RIP freedom of speech, inch by agonizing inch. We here at Hongpong use the Internet, as we are taking back what is rightfully ours. I hope you all do the same.
Next: This will not be a link-laden entry, with source material not included, or perhaps not even existing. I would link this next article, however, but it isn't available online anymore. Reading the New Yorker this morning on the bus, I ran into an article that explains an economic theory that I find both fascinating and staggeringly obvious, the kind of intellectual posit that is difficult to properly phrase but so obvious that it hardly needs explanation, the kind of bread-and-butter duh that keeps half of the faculty of American universities in the money.
The theory of the principal-agent problem is simple: in an era of increasing specificity in expertise, large corporations, government agencies and any institution of significant size undoubtly employs "agents," experts in a field, to negotiate for and advise on matters relating to institutional business. Insurance brokers, defense corporation lobbyists, and even buyers for department stores would all be considered agents. The problem, as outlined by economists, is that these agents oftentimes have a vested interest in the outcome the dessemination of their expertise has on the bottom line of their company, their future job prospects or their immediate financial gain.
For example, a real-estate agent looks for a quick turnaround on a home owned by a client, but will wait and get the highest possible price by using all the tools at his/her disposal to sell their own home. Likewise, a stock analyst for a major financial house like Bear Stearns or the like may give a more favorable analysis of a certain corporation's stock on the basis of that corporation's relationship to his house, as evidenced with Enron and their high ratings in major financial houses that had significant investments in the company.
This notion is an important even politically; military officials may be bullish on particular weapons systems because of hopes of employment in the manufacturing corporation upon retirement or because of its political expediency (i.e. Dick Cheney's reference to specific weapons systems that John Kerry voted against as being "instrumental in winning the Cold War") and their corresponding pull with politicians on The Hill.
Conflicts of interests are complicated, but when a middle man is involved, it could be for the very simple reason that the directness of said conflict is diffused when it is complicated. The loser, almost everytime, is the consumer, as the costs are almost always born by those consuming the product or being affected by the policy in question. I am filing this one under Military-Industrial Complex, but it really applied to any business.
All for now, stay cool.
UPDATE: Continuing on the matter of disappearing voices, William Safire will be stepping down as an opinion columnist at the NYTimes in January. I love Safire—not because I agree with him, but because I think he's a smart motherfucker. He will be missed. Perhaps the Times knew about this ahead of time, though, well ahead of time. It would seem Brooks is the replacement conservative voice. A poor replacement, says I, and a little douchebag, says Leroy. At least it's not Novak, I guess, or Will. I never really considerd Safire a true conservative, more of a Likud Libertarian. Ah well, he's preparing to write his memoirs, I would imagine. I'll buy it.
Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians:
With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.
Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.
[....]
"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.
Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.
One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines 3,000 years ago.
"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.
The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.
"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.
Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."
"American Marines attack Fallujah" via ScotlandToday:
Colonel Gary Brandl of the United States Marine Corps commented:
"The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."
The Americans needed to free up hundreds of troops for this operation and the Black Watch was moved from the relatively benign Basra area to allow that to happen.
On Thursday, three soldiers died in only their second day in the area - Sergeant Stuart Gray and Privates Paul Lowe and Scott McArdle, all of whom were from Fife.
There's an interesting documentary that I found out about called "THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES: THE RISE OF THE POLITICS OF FEAR" by Adam Curtis, originally aired in late October on BBC2. You could have gotten part 1 via BitTorrent, but it seems to be gone now.
This guy made a transcript of the whole thing (Part 1 [A B], part 2 [A B] part 3 [A B]) It starts with the adventures of one Sayyed Qutb in Colorado, 1949. The writings of this guy have been highly influential in forming Sunni fundamentalist ideas. Then it flips straight over to Leo Strauss. Regardless of how you think these guys fit into the scheme, they are definitely part of the intellectual backdrop of both sides of the 'War o' Terror.'
I have two main threads to post here from the documentary. One theme is the origins of modern Islamist ideology. The other is how the neoconservatives filtered into power and manipulated how the U.S. perceived the threat from the Soviet Union. Both of these are quite important, yes?
Voiceover: This was Truman’s America, and many Americans today regard it as a golden age of their civilization. But for [Sayyid] Qutb, he saw a sinister side in this. All around him was crassness, corruption, vulgarity—talk centered on movie stars and automobile prices. He was also very concerned that the inhabitants of Greeley [Colorado] spent a lot of time in lawn care. Pruning their hedges, cutting their lawns. This, for Qutb, was indicative of the selfish and materialistic aspect of American life. Americans lived these isolated lives surrounded by their lawns. They lusted after material goods. And this, says Qutb quite succinctly, is the taste of America.
VO: What Qutb believed he was seeing was a hidden and dangerous reality underneath the surface of ordinary American life. One summer night, he went to a dance at a local church hall. He later wrote that what he saw that night crystallized his vision.
CALVERT: He talks about how the pastor played on the gramophone one of the big-band hits of the day, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” He dimmed the lights so as to create a dreamy, romantic effect. And then, Qutb says that “chests met chests, arms circled waists, and the hall was full of lust and love.”
VO: To most people watching this dance, it would have been an innocent picture of youthful happiness. But Qutb saw something else: the dancers in front of him were tragic lost souls. They believed that they were free. But in reality, they were trapped by their own selfish and greedy desires. American society was not going forwards; it was taking people backwards. They were becoming isolated beings, driven by primitive animal forces. Such creatures, Qutb believed, could corrode the very bonds that held society together. And he became determined that night to prevent this culture of selfish individualism taking over his own country.
[ TITLE: CHICAGO ]
VO: But Qutb was not alone. At the same time, in Chicago, there was another man who shared the same fears about the destructive force of individualism in America. He was an obscure political philosopher at the University of Chicago. But his ideas would also have far-reaching consequences, because they would become the shaping force behind the neoconservative movement, which now dominates the American administration. He was called Leo Strauss. Strauss is a mysterious figure. He refused to be filmed or interviewed. He devoted his time to creating a loyal band of students. And what he taught them was that the prosperous liberal society they were living in contained the seeds of its own destruction.
Professor HARVEY MANSFIELD, Straussian Philosopher, Harvard University: He didn’t give interviews, or write political essays, or appear on the radio—there wasn’t TV yet—or things like that. But he did want to get a school of students to see what he had seen: that Western liberalism led to nihilism, and had undergone a development at the end of which it could no longer define itself or defend itself. A development which took everything praiseworthy and admirable out of human beings, and made us into dwarf animals. Made us into herd animals—sick little dwarves, satisfied with a dangerous life in which nothing is true and everything is permitted.
VO: Strauss believed that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything—all values, all moral truths. Instead, people were led by their own selfish desires. And this threatened to tear apart the shared values which held society together. But there was a way to stop this, Strauss believed. It was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation. And in America, that was the idea that the country had a unique destiny to battle the forces of evil throughout the world. This myth was epitomized, Strauss told his students, in his favorite television program: Gunsmoke.
The episode quickly goes into Qutb's philosophy of jahiliyya (roughly "the pervasively corrupting influence of the West that has poisoned our people and must be destroyed") and how that led to Ayman Zawahiri starting Islamic Jihad.
The documentary also talks about how the neoconservative clique wormed its way into Washington with Cheney and Rumsfeld in 1975-76. Then Paul Wolfowitz started the 'Team B' plan to demonize the Soviet Union and exaggerate the threat it represents. Then the Committee on the Present Danger was created to propagate their bollox findings. A fascinating tale of cold war hawk propaganda.
Suddenly I realize why they titled this "The Power of Nightmares"... But wait, Michael Ledeen makes an appearance!
VO: To persuade the President [Reagan that the Soviets were a global threat], the neoconservatives set out to prove that the Soviet threat was far greater than anyone, even Team B, had previously shown. They would demonstrate that the majority of terrorism and revolutionary movements around the world were actually part of a secret network, coordinated by Moscow, to take over the world. The main proponent of this theory was a leading neoconservative who was the special adviser to the Secretary of State. His name was Michael Ledeen, and he had been influenced by a best-selling book called The Terror Network. It alleged that terrorism was not the fragmented phenomenon that it appeared to be. In reality, all terrorist groups, from the PLO to the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, and the Provisional IRA, all of them were a part of a coordinated strategy of terror run by the Soviet Union. But the CIA completely disagreed. They said this was just another neoconservative fantasy.
MICHAEL LEDEEN , Special Adviser to the US Secretary of State 1981-1982: The CIA denied it. They tried to convince people that we were really crazy. I mean, they never believed that the Soviet Union was a driving force in the international terror network. They always wanted to believe that terrorist organizations were just what they said they were: local groups trying to avenge terrible evils done to them, or trying to rectify terrible social conditions, and things like that. And the CIA really did buy into the rhetoric. I don’t know what their motive was. I mean, I don’t know what people’s motives are, hardly ever. And I don’t much worry about motives.
VO: But the neoconservatives had a powerful ally. He was William Casey, and he was the new head of the CIA. Casey was sympathetic to the neoconservative view. And when he read the Terror Network book, he was convinced. He called a meeting of the CIA’s Soviet analysts at their headquarters, and told them to produce a report for the President that proved this hidden network existed. But the analysts told him that this would be impossible, because much of the information in the book came from black propaganda the CIA themselves had invented to smear the Soviet Union. They knew that the terror network didn’t exist, because they themselves had made it up.
MELVIN GOODMAN , Head of Soviet Affairs CIA, 1976-87: And when we looked through the book, we found very clear episodes where CIA black propaganda—clandestine information that was designed under a covert action plan to be planted in European newspapers—were picked up and put in this book. A lot of it was made up. It was made up out of whole cloth.
So in other words, neoconservatives used the CIA's black propaganda against the policymaking process of the American people. That's clever! Ledeen again, and he really sounds like he did when he came to Macalester:
VO: [Reagan's 1983 order authorizing covert action against leftists globally was a] triumph for the neoconservatives. America was now setting out to do battle against the forces of evil in the world. But what had started out as the kind of myth that Leo Strauss had said was necessary for the American people increasingly came to be seen as the truth by the neoconservatives. They began to believe their own fiction. They had become what they called “democratic revolutionaries,” who were going to use force to change the world.
LEDEEN : We were aiming for an expansion of the zone of freedom in the world. And in part that had to do with fighting Communism, and in part that had to do with fighting other kinds of tyrannies. But that’s what we were about, and that’s what we’re still about.
INTERVIEWER (off-camera): When you say you were democratic revolutionaries, what do you mean?
LEDEEN : It meant that we wanted to support the people who wanted to carry out revolutions against tyrannical régimes in the name of democracy, in order to install a democratic system.
INTERVIEWER : As simple as that.
LEDEEN : Yeah. It’s not nuclear physics, you know. I mean, freedom is a fairly simple thing to get.
In a nutshell, then, we have gone from the faked threat from the Soviet Union to a situation where our armed forces claim to be fighting the face of Satan in Fallujah.
Ah, the sweet, sweet power of fake moral frameworks. I hope this illustrates a little of how they lied to us before, and how they found the political power of racist dehumanization...
This is really weird. One of the more marginal yet oddly spunky anchors on cable TV, the former sportscaster Keith Olbermann, has suddenly decided to take his show, Countdown, straight into the land of tinfoil hats (welcome, sir!) and is now trying to blow the stories of voting irregularities wide open. Fascinating stuff. I am posting a bit about this voting fraud story (described as 'naked promotional announcement') I got this off a DailyKos diary which has links to some of the MSNBC videos.
There is some serious shit in here, about security lockdowns in Ohio and the apparent discrepancies between optical scanners and electronic machines in Florida. Yeee-haw!!!
This was originally published on MSNBC's website. The nut of the issue: we now have evidence that shows most of the gap in Ohio's election results can be filled with phantom voters (evangelicals or ghosts in the diebold machines, take your pick).
At least, that's what a corporate news desk is now saying. WHAT the HELL? I will not still not assign credulity to the idea that the election WAS stolen. However, now things are, shall we say, amped.
I needed to pull out this quote. I can't believe it myself. And Homeland Security is involved?
Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County's website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.
I'll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.
Oops.
Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.
Sorry, here is the full thing:
SECAUCUS -- A quick and haplessly generic answer now to the 6,000 emails and the hundreds of phone calls.
Firstly, thank you.
Secondly, we will indeed be resuming our coverage of the voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida -- and elsewhere -- on this evening's edition of Countdown {8:00 p.m. ET}. The two scheduled guests are Jonathan Turley, an excellent professor of law at George Washington University, and MSNBC analyst and Congressional Quarterly senior columnist Craig Crawford.
For Jonathan, the questions are obvious: the process and implications of voting reviews, especially after a candidate has conceded, even after a President has been re-elected. For Craig, the questions are equally obvious: did John Kerry's concession indeed neuter mainstream media attention to the questions about voting and especially electronic voting, and what is the political state of play on the investigations and the protests.
Phase Two, in which Doris gets her oats...
Keep them coming. Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com
* November 9, 2004 | 12:55 a.m. ET
Electronic voting angst (Keith Olbermann)
NEW YORK -- Bev Harris, the Blackbox lady, was apparently quoted in a number of venues during the day Monday as having written "I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2... My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time."
I didn't get the memo.
We were able to put together a reasonably solid 15 minutes or so on the voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio on Monday's Countdown. There was some You-Are-There insight from the Cincinnati Enquirer reporter who had personally encountered the `lockdown' during the vote count in Warren County, Ohio, a week ago, and a good deal of fairly contained comment from Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who now leads a small but growing group of Democratic congressmen who've written the General Accountability Office demanding an investigation of what we should gently call the Electronic Voting Angst. Conyers insisted he wasn't trying to re-cast the election, but seemed mystified that in the 21st Century we could have advanced to a technological state in which voting-- fine, flawed, or felonious-- should leave no paper trail.
But the show should not have been confused with Edward R. Murrow flattening Joe McCarthy. I mean that both in terms of editorial content and controversy. I swear, and I have never been known to cover-up for any management anywhere, that I got nothing but support from MSNBC both for the Web-work and the television time. We were asked if perhaps we shouldn't begin the program with the Fallujah offensive and do the voting story later, but nobody flinched when we argued that the Countdown format pretty much allows us to start wherever we please.
It may be different elsewhere, but there was no struggle to get this story on the air, and evidently I should be washing the feet of my bosses this morning in thanks. Because your reaction was a little different than mine. By actual rough count, between the 8 p.m. ET start of the program and 10:30 p.m. ET last night, we received 1,570 e-mails (none of them duplicates or forms, as near as I can tell). 1,508 were positive, 62 negative.
Well the volume is startling to begin with. I know some of the overtly liberal sites encouraged readers to write, but that's still a hunk of mail, and a decisive margin (hell, 150 to 62 is considered a decisive margin). Writing this, I know I'm inviting negative comment, but so be it. I read a large number of the missives, skimmed all others, appreciate all-- and all since-- deeply.
Even the negative ones, because in between the repeated "you lost" nonsense and one baffling reference to my toupee (seriously, if I wore a rug, wouldn't I get one that was all the same color?), there was a solid point raised about some of the incongruous voting noted on the website of Florida's Secretary of State.
There, 52 counties tallied their votes using paper ballots that were then optically scanned by machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, or Election Systems and Software. 29 of those Florida counties had large Democratic majorities among registered voters (as high a ratio as Liberty County-- Bristol, Florida and environs-- where it's 88 percent Democrats, 8 percent Republicans) but produced landslides for President Bush. On Countdown, we cited the five biggest surprises (Liberty ended Bush: 1,927; Kerry: 1,070), but did not mention the other 24.
Those protesting e-mailers pointed out that four of the five counties we mentioned also went for Bush in 2000, and were in Florida's panhandle or near the Georgia border. Many of them have long "Dixiecrat" histories and the swing to Bush, while remarkably large, isn't of itself suggestive of voting fraud.
That the other 24 counties were scattered across the state, and that they had nothing in common except the optical scanning method, I didn't mention. My bad. I used the most eye-popping numbers, and should have used a better regional mix instead.
Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County's website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.
I'll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.
Oops.
Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.
Vote early! Vote often!
And in the continuing saga of the secret vote count in Warren County, Ohio (outside Cincinnati), no protestor offered an explanation or even a reference, excepting one sympathetic writer who noted that there was a "beautiful Mosque" in or near Warren County, and that a warning from Homeland Security might have been predicated on that fact.
To her credit, Pat South, President of the Warren County Commissioners who chose to keep the media from watching the actual vote count, was willing to come on the program-- but only by phone. Instead, we asked her to compose a statement about the bizarre events at her County Administration building a week ago, which I can quote at greater length here than I did on the air.
"About three weeks prior to elections," Ms. South stated, "our emergency services department had been receiving quite a few pieces of correspondence from the office of Homeland Security on the upcoming elections. These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.
"In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services, we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10 (with 10 being the highest risk). Pursuant to the Ohio revised code, we followed the law to the letter that basically says that no one is allowed within a hundred feet of a polling place except for voters and that after the polls close the only people allowed in the board of elections area where votes are being counted are the board of election members, judges, clerks, poll challengers, police, and that no one other than those people can be there while tabulation is taking place."
Ms. South said she admitted the media to the building's lobby, and that they were provided with updates on the ballot-counting every half hour. Of course, the ballot-counting was being conducted on the third floor, and the idea that it would have probably looked better if Warren had done what Ohio's other 87 counties did-- at least let reporters look through windows as the tabulations proceeded-- apparently didn't occur to anybody.
Back to those emails, especially the 1,508 positive ones. Apart from the supportive words (my favorites: "Although I did not vote for Kerry, as a former government teacher, I am encouraged by your `covering' the voting issue which is the basis of our government. Thank you."), the main topics were questions about why ours was apparently the first television or mainstream print coverage of any of the issues in Florida or Ohio. I have a couple of theories.
Firstly, John Kerry conceded. As I pointed out here Sunday, no candidate's statement is legally binding-- what matters is the state election commissions' reports, and the Electoral College vote next month. But in terms of reportorial momentum, the concession took the wind out of a lot of journalists' aggressiveness towards the entire issue. Many were prepared for Election Night premature jocularity, and a post-vote stampede to the courts-- especially after John Edwards' late night proclamation from Boston. When Kerry brought that to a halt, a lot of the media saw something of which they had not dared dream: a long weekend off.
Don't discount this. This has been our longest presidential campaign ever, to say nothing of the one in which the truth was most artfully hidden or manufactured. To consider this mess over was enough to get 54 percent of the respondents to an Associated Press poll released yesterday to say that the "conclusiveness" of last week's vote had given them renewed confidence in our electoral system (of course, 39 percent said it had given them less confidence). Up for the battle for truth or not, a lot of fulltime political reporters were ready for a rest. Not me-- I get to do "Oddball" and "Newsmakers" every night and they always serve to refresh my spirit, and my conviction that man is the silliest of the creator's creations.
There's a third element to the reluctance to address all this, I think. It comes from the mainstream's love-hate relationship with this very thing you're reading now: The Blog. This medium is so new that print, radio, and television don't know what to do with it, especially given that a system of internet checks and balances has yet to develop. A good reporter may encounter a tip, or two, or five, in a day's time. He has to check them all out before publishing or reporting.
What happens when you get 1,000 tips, all at once?
I'm sounding like an apologist for the silence of television and I don't mean to. Just remember that when radio news arose in the '30s, the response of newspapers and the wire services was to boycott it, then try to limit it to specific hours. There's a measure of competitiveness, a measure of confusion, and the undeniable fact that in searching for clear, non-partisan truth in this most partisan of times, the I'm-Surprised-This-Name-Never-Caught-On "Information Super Highway" becomes a road with direction signs listing 1,000 destinations each.
Having said all that-- for crying out loud, all the data we used tonight on Countdown was on official government websites in Cleveland and Florida. We confirmed all of it-- moved it right out of the Reynolds Wrap Hat zone in about ten minutes.
Which offers one way bloggers can help guide the mainstream at times like this: source your stuff like crazy, and the stuffier the source the better.
Enough from the soapbox. We have heard the message on the Voting Angst and will continue to cover it with all prudent speed.
Thanks for your support.
Keep them coming... Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com
Well, everyone has heard by now about Jon Stewart's exciting trip onto CNN Crossfire a couple weeks ago. You can download it via this BitTorrent link. I've had this link a while but been too lazy to put it up.
I'm don't have the details about this, but it sounds like an amazing movie: "The Fourth World War" is a documentary out of the various movements against wars all over the world, or rather, the 'thousand civil wars' the trailer speaks of. Suheir Hammad is narrating, and she was really impressive when she spoke at Macalester last year.
The movie is touring the U.S., and playing at the Campus Center Sunday night at 7:30. It will be screened in Minneapolis later tomorrow night, at the Soap Factory at 10 PM (2nd St. SE and 5th Ave.).
Additionally, this is an example of how our Macalester internet setups aren't working. There is nothing about a MOVIE in the CAMPUS CENTER on Macalester's event calendar website. What is the point of having a site like that? If we started doing more dynamic things online at Mac, then such events could be better publicized, as I argued in a Mac Weekly editorial a couple weeks ago.
'The Corporation' also screened on campus recently, and I'm sad I missed that, although I saw it at Lagoon a while ago.
Right now, doing the endless elections project, but its easier listening to Arthur Cheng's radio show at the University of Puget Sound, "Midnight Love," which sounds like him and about six of his friends. International hip-hop night coming out, Chinese and Canadian stuff so far. Nicely done, Mr Cheng! He's on from 11 to midnight Pacific, which would be 1 to 2 AM Central.
You can get UPS's radio broadcast streamed via their website. Sounds good. Someday Macalester will have it too.... I had my show tonight, but I sense the audience was not as grand as Cheng's. Also they are allowed to air music with swearing. Bastards!!!!
Now it sounds like insane Russian rappers hollering at each other. WTF?
While listening to MPR this afternoon I learned that they are in the process of purchasing St. Olaf College's non-profit radio station WCAL, another classical station on 89.3 FM, for $10.5 million. They don't have the cash on hand, so they are borrowing it. Gary Eichten just asked, "Is Minnesota Public Radio out to conquer the world?" in his classic way. Hahahahaaa....
I would say this will probably work out very nicely, but I'm not sure if such a nerdy thing as a St. Olaf classical station could ever become cool.
The press release has some helpful info:
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH WCAL?On a tangent there's kind of a funny story in Haaretz about Ultra-Orthodox pirate radio stations in Israel.
We do not yet have specific plans as we did not expect this opportunity to be on the horizon this year. Over the years, we have explored several formats that we think would be valuable services for the Twin Cities. Now we will have the opportunity to work with the community to develop the best one.We will maintain the current classical music format until we are able to determine the best use for the frequency. We acted quickly because it was most important for us to save the frequency for public radio. For the long term, we will review other options, such as programming not currently available to the 2.6 million people within the range of the WCAL signal.
The future of signature WCAL national programs such as Sing for Joy and annual broadcast of the St Olaf Christmas Festival, which are St. Olaf's programs, is still under consideration.
[......]
WHY DID ST. OLAF DECIDE TO SELL THEIR STATION TO MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO?
St. Olaf said in its press release that it wanted to sell WCAL to an entity that would reflect the college's values and that would appreciate the 80 years of dedication and hard work that went into building the station's programming and broad listenership. President Christopher M. Thomforde noted Minnesota Public Radio's mission "to enrich the mind and nourish the spirit" and its 37-year history of operating public radio stations, and called it a "perfect partner" to carry on WCAL's legacy. St. Olaf said it would use the assets of the sale to strengthen the college's endowment and support programs that strengthen the college's mission.HOW MANY LISTENERS DOES WCAL REACH? HOW MANY MEMBERS? WHAT IS ITS HISTORY?
WCAL reaches more than 80,000 listeners each week in the Twin Cities and Rochester areas, with broadcast transmitters in Rosemount and Rochester. It began as a student physics experiment in 1918. It was licensed as an AM broadcast station in 1922 and received its FM license in 1968. WCAL has 8,000 members.
Mordred has posted something about Donald Trump this morning so I suggest ya check it. Again I'll note that he's going to have a top link on the side here, but I haven't had the time to change my templates yet, and I guess I won't until I get back.
The wild documentary "Outfoxed" that even Kerry is mentioning finally arrived at my house yesterday and I haven't had time to watch it yet. It sounds awesome though.
Well well, it took one hell of a long time, but my summer video project is finally finished. I decided to call it 'Between the Lines' because that's where I'm always looking, true?
In the University lab right now, I am burning a total of four DVD copies. Turns out the first two that I made last night have a couple glitches in the menus that i didn't catch. I would also like to note that Apple's DVD Studio Pro, while a fairly powerful and intuitive program, is really annoying because it seems to always want to render (in this case called 'compiling' menus and 'muxing' tracks) every time I want to burn a copy. In other words, it is rendering out the whole thing, and then throwing it away every time. What the hell? It wastes like 20 minutes a disc.
On the other hand I may have been using the wrong command, 'Build' instead of 'Build/Format.' Right now it's doing the latter, so my hopes are higher.
So I am getting picked up at 3:30 today to fly out to Utah for my cousins' wedding. As I wait for the discs to burn, let me share some quick headlines that have been sitting around. I have a stack of about 30 links to post up. In the meantime here's a smaller collection of older tidbits:
Times feature on a woman who educates naive county officials on the madness of electronic ballot systems. What can I say? These things scare the hell out of me and I try not to think about it. Some terrorist plotting to disrupt the election? Who cares, we've got electronic machines that can eat votes by what, the millions?
In Iraq
The Times has switched its little "Iraq news theme" motif to "THE REACH OF WAR: THREATS AND RESPONSES" with scary looking narrow type. Hey, they gotta be selling papers....
This cemetary fighting in Najaf is some seriously creepy stuff. Can you imagine the chills on their spines as the Marines go into this ancient collection of Shi'ite graves? This type of situation is so incredibly combustible I don't even know what to say. And Robert Fisk (or was it Juan Cole?) said that the governor of the province is some unemployed old Iraqi they dragged out of Michigan. However, I think that the anger Iraqis feel about violating the sanctity of the cemetary is perhaps directed as much to Muqtada al -Sadr's guys that hunkered down there. I mean, it's not exactly a standard insurrection tactic. Then again, if you were a fanatical pre-millennialist you might want to bring about a more mythic Mahdi Army by fighting among the dead spirits. Or something like that. Like I said, chills on the neck.
A National Guardsman was ordered to look the other way at torturous conditions in an Iraqi detention center. Down the slippery slope...
Newsweek on Fallujah: "We Pray the Insurgents Will Achieve Victory."
Al Jazeera shut down in Iraq again?grouchy ministers. So is Jazeera just a Jihadi PR device? (I don't buy that; Control Room really put the idea away)
Elsewhere
Alternet on the vast right-wing Scaife conspiracy and more specifically his grudge against Teresa Heinz-Kerry.
"Afghanistan's Transition: Decentralization or Civil War?" on EurasiaNet. Indeed.
BAGnewsNotes has the best regular collection of parody images. Laughs every day.
Kerry has an interview in the Army newspaper Stars & Stripes, and it's really a pretty gutsy one. Nice work on both sides. But does this stuff, particularly about the global military base arrangement, mean Kerry is just going to play the military-industrial game yet again? (in fairness, Kerry is not a huge military pork enthusiast) He knows the jargon pretty well.
I found this random weird online science fiction story via a BlogAd. Just for something different.
[Book of] Revelation is must reading nowadays, especially for the nonbeliever. I have returned to it, many years after abandoning the above-mentioned childhood faith, not because I think it is inspired prophecy, there being in my opinion no such thing, but because many other people (including many I'd grant are "good" people) think that it is. And because some of them think this piece of Holy Scripture somehow justifies ongoing imperialist war, which they (with their commander-in-chief) conceptualize religiously as a war of Good versus Evil. And because that conviction causes believers to support, on faith, Bush's efforts to remold the Middle East in the way the neocons (who are overwhelmingly not fundamentalist Christians, but who assiduously court them) want to do it. One should read Revelation to see how it can be used, and to see what sort of worldview the book encourages.I thought this was a striking article "Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading," reflecting on Bush's pandering to the apocalyptic fanatics and such. Also it linked to this insane prophetic/war type page. Also the PBS page "frontline: apocalypse!" has a number of serious scholarly perspectives. I also ended up at Frederick Engels' "On the History of Early Christianity," which had some weird excerpts:It is truly a godsend to those in the administration who want to transform the Muslim world, acquiring strategic control over Southwest Asia while enhancing Israel's security situation, that a considerable portion of the U.S. population consists of persons who take the book seriously. The neocons and patrons manipulate the Christian devout who adulate Ariel Sharon like a rock star, believe Israel (miraculously reconstituted half a century ago, in fulfillment of Ezekiel 37:12-14) can do no wrong, have little concern about Arabs' rights, and think Islam is a teaching of the Devil. Rev. Jerry Falwell calls the Prophet Muhammed a "terrorist." Rev. Franklin Graham calls Islam "a wicked, evil religion" and says its God is not the Christians' God. These reverends' followers are very useful supporters of the war on the human mind that is the "war on terrorism," the focus of which shifted so swiftly from al-Qaeda to Iraq (alike in little save their Muslimness), and could shift to Syria or Iran or Pakistan suddenly tomorrow. When you mix the anti-Islam pronouncements with Bush policy decisions and millenarian faith, you have an explosive combination.
We therefore see that the Christianity of that time, which was still unaware of itself, was as different as heaven from earth from the later dogmatically fixed universal religion of the Nicene Council; one cannot be recognized in the other. Here we have neither the dogma nor the morals of later Christianity but instead a feeling that one is struggling against the whole world and that the struggle will be a victorious one; an eagerness for the struggle and a certainty of victory which are totally lacking in Christians of today and which are to be found in our time only at the other pole of society, among the Socialists.In fact, the struggle against a world that at the beginning was superior in force, and at the same time against the novators themselves, is common to the early Christians and the Socialists. Neither of these two great movements were made by leaders or prophets -- although there are prophets enough among both of them -- they are mass movements. And mass movements are bound to be confused at the beginning; confused because the thinking of the masses at first moves among contradictions, lack of clarity and lack of cohesion, and also because of the role that prophets still play in them at the beginning. This confusion is to be seen in the formation of numerous sects which right against one another with at least the same zeal as against the common external enemy. So it was with early Christianity, so it was in the beginning of the socialist movement, no matter how much that worried the well-meaning worthies who preached unity where no unity was possible.
[.....]
So here it is not yet a question of a "religion of love," of "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you," etc. Here undiluted revenge is preached, sound, honest revenge on the persecutors of the Christians. So it is in the whole of the book. The nearer the crisis comes, the heavier the plagues and punishments rain from the heavens and with all the more satisfaction John announces that the mass of humanity will not atone for their sins, that new scourges of God must lash them, that Christ must rule them with a rod of iron and tread the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, but that the impious still remain obdurate in their hearts. It is the natural feeling, free of all hypocrisy, that a fight is going on and that -- à la guerre comme à la guerre.
A peculiar antithesis to this was the religious risings in the Mohammedan world, particularly in Africa. Islam is a religion adapted to Orientals, especially Arabs, i.e., on one hand to townsmen engaged in trade and industry, on the other to nomadic Bedouins. Therein lies, however, the embryo of a periodically recurring collision. The townspeople grow rich, luxurious and lax in the observation of the "law." The Bedouins, poor and bence of strict morals, contemplate with envy and covetousness these riches and pleasures. Then they unite under a prophet, a Mahdi, to chastise the apostates and restore the observation of the ritual and the true faith and to appropriate in recompense the treasures of the renegades. In a hundred years they are naturally in the same position as the renegades were: a new purge of the faith is required, a new Mahdi arises and the game starts again from the beginning. That is what happened from the conquest campaigns of the African Almoravids and Almohads in Spain to the last Mahdi of Khartoum who so successfully thwarted the English. It happened in the same way or similarly with the risings in Persia and other Mohammedan countries. All these movements are clothed in religion but they have their source in economic causes; and yet, even when they are victorious, they allow the old economic conditions to persist untouched. So the old situation remains unchanged and the collision recurs periodically. In the popular risings of the Christian West, on the contrary, the religious disguise is only a flag and a mask for attacks on an economic order which is becoming antiquated. This is finally overthrown, a new one arises and the world progresses.
Dramatic CounterPunch stuff tonight: "The Rise of Global Resistance" by Omar Barghouti. Rather top-to-bottom leftie roundup of this that and the other thing, etc, etc....
If the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the decisive beginning of the end of the East-West opposition, the illegal, immoral and criminal war on Iraq, waged by the new Rome of our time, might well announce the baptism of a new world community opposed to empire, any empire, and based on the precepts of evolving international law, human rights and the common principles of universal morality that are emerging.Almost everyone with conscience fears and resents the megalomaniac cult sitting on the throne in Washington. It is the product of a strategic alliance between the omnipotent military-industrial complex (with a lion's share for the oil industry), the fundamentalist-Christian and the Zionist ideologies. It is a cult that has amassed colossal financial, political and media power, enough to rekindle its deep-rooted disposition and ambition to become the master of the universe. A century and a half after officially abolishing slavery in the U.S., the new-old masters have a diabolic agenda to resurrect it, except this time on a worldwide scale.
Being able to detect this phenomenon, a great majority of nations, including an impressively increasing number of conscientious and mentally-liberated Americans, wish to see this cult of "neo-conservatives" and its agenda humbled, at the very least, if not altogether defeated.
[....]
At the very heart of this strategy is control over oil supplies. Robert E. Ebel, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank whose advisers include Kissinger and Brzezinski, among other dignitaries, explains: "Oil fuels military power, national treasuries, and international politics. It is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold within the confines of traditional energy supply and demand balances. Rather, it has been transformed into a determinant of well-being, of national security, and of international power."
[...]
The rest of the world truly hopes that Americans may themselves rise up to the occasion and renounce the empire from within; that they may opt for the status of relatively less privileged citizens of a more just and peaceful world, rather than the loathed masters of a bludgeoned, bullied, and oppressed world; that they may shed their role as uncritical, even submissive, subjects of a reviled, racist and morally bankrupt empire. With conscientious Americans on board, the world has a chance to defeat the mad beast with nuclear fangs, before it takes us all under. With concerted mobilization and global activism, we may well celebrate one day the withering away of empire.
"Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Now it's coffin bombs in Baghdad," a column from Iraq by Robert Fisk. "The Dogma of Richard Perle" is an interesting piece because I have absolutely no idea why this was written, a free-floating polemic, if you will.
This article in CounterPunch poses the idea that there is no neutral position available in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I'm not sure if that's really an honest thing to say, but I can certainly see where the "neutral" media fuzzes things out and legitimizes them.
[Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun] also has a puzzling tendency puzzling for someone clinging to the middle to refer to the Palestinians as "the Other". Although he uses the term in a friendly context of having respect for "the Other" for instance the terminology actually gives away the true nature of his neutrality. No matter how conciliatory, Lerner clearly deep down thinks of himself and Israel as residing on "this" side of that imaginary middle path between "us" and "them", and therefore his first interest is Israel.I blame the media more than the activists, really. It is hard to keep perspective in such a dizzying topic, but then again, isn't this article rather dogmatically claiming that a spectrum of acceptable positions doesn't even exist, and yet again the writer is the only one who can pick out the Safe Spot?? Sounds like a copout to me.
[.....]
The immorality of the center is that this middle path has helped create a deathly silence about the destruction of lives and property that goes on every day in the occupied territories. Because they refuse to see realities on the ground, centrists cannot even imagine the scale of the oppression that Palestinians face at Israel's hands. They cannot imagine the grotesque miscarriage of justice represented by taking a middle position between the oppressor and the oppressed. The checkpoints, the roadblocks, the sniper shootings, the aerial bombardments, the assassinations, the settlements and Israeli-only bypass roads, the land confiscations, the bulldozing of olive groves, the demolition of homes and entire residential neighborhoods, the foul labyrinth of walls and fences that have imprisoned entire Palestinian villages, halted all movement, separated farmers from farmland, children from schools, the sick from hospitals, brothers from brothers: all of these separate aspects of Israel's oppressive system, and the magnitude of their totality, have escaped the rosy view of those who only follow a middle way. Their silence and averted gaze grease the wheels of oppression and are in no way balanced by the occasional suicide bombing.Their silence clears the way for ever greater Israeli violence, making it easier for Israel to swallow more of Palestine while the world looks elsewhere. Certainly the centrists are not alone responsible for enabling continued Israeli oppression; they are themselves fighting a valiant uphill struggle against vocal mainstream pro-Israeli sentiment on the near right and the far right, among Jewish organizations, Christian fundamentalists, the media, and politicians of both major parties. But the peace movement represents a substantial minority voice that could have a major place in public discourse if only it would speak out against oppression. Its determination merely to be a voice of sweetness and light, rarely criticizing, always accentuating the positive, severely diminishes its own impact and allows Israel to be wanton while the rest of the world is silent.
[....]
Public discourse in general, and many in the vocal pro-Israel community in particular, are tuning in to the public relations benefits of appearing balanced and open to the Palestinians. The rightwing pro-Israel advocacy group The Israel Project, led by Republican consultants Frank Luntz and Jennifer Lazlo Mizrahi, has recently been holding seminars to train activists in how to get the Israeli message across most effectively and is emphasizing the importance of being optimistic and not demonizing the Palestinians. It's hard to distinguish this kind of false, deliberately deceptive appearance of "balance" from the balance advocated by the centrists of the peace movement, and in terms of how the situation on the ground plays out, there is no difference. As it works out in actuality, neutrality is an endorsement, at least implicit and often explicit, of all Israel's policies; it results in a virtually total obliviousness to how those policies affect Palestinians, their daily lives, and their national prospects. Centrist peace activists have helped make this possible.
The classic movie Network, which I inexcusably haven't seen yet, was on Bravo today, full of bleeped words. Yet the scene where the anchor says that we are the illusion rings more true today than ever.
The Britons are flustered over complaints from viewers that Fox News' horrible John Gibson made a bunch of rash statements about the BBC hating America back in January, etc. etc. The government found against Fox, ruling that
Nice. I just wish some section of the American government might at least comment on the regular stream of misrepresentations issuing from the idiot box. (news bit via the DKos)
We recognise how important freedom of expression is within the media. This item was part of a well-established spot, in which the presenter put forwards his own opinion in an uncompromising manner. However, such items should not make false statements by undermining facts. Fox News was unable to provide any substantial evidence to support the overall allegation that the BBC management had lied and the BBC had an anti-American obsession. It had also incorrectly attributed quotes to the reporter Andrew Gilligan.Even taking into account that this was a ‘personal view’ item, the strength and number of allegations that John Gibson made against the BBC meant that Fox News should have offered the BBC an opportunity to respond.
Fox News was therefore in breach of Sections 2.1 (respect for truth), 2.7 (opportunity to take part), and 3.5(b) (personal view programmes - opinions expressed must not rest upon false evidence) of the Programme Code.
The almighty seven-minute silence.
A centerpiece of Fahrenheit 9/11 will be the seven minutes, all of them, that Bush sat in the Florida classroom while the WTC burned. Psychological minutes. Minutes of very low credibility, shall we say. Roger Ebert reviews the movie.
There are goonies posing as a "grassroots" group trying to intimidate theaters into not showing Fahrenheit 9/11. The group, Move America Forward, is hosting its website from the same IP number as Russo Marsh & Rogers, a PR firm in San Francisco that among other things had people involved in the Gray Davis recall, as Cosmic Iguana dug up. They were also the same characters that got "The Reagans" bumped off network television so I couldn't see it.
The report of the 9/11 panel may wound Bush, duhh, but it is nice to see the Washington Post understanding that.
On the Fourth of July, a new book by an anonymous CIA official, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," is going to be published. This article is fascinating but I'm not getting into the juicy bits right now.
A huge examination of 9/11 tapes by Gail Sheehy.
The families heard a tape that has just now surfaced. Recorded by American Airlines at its headquarters in Fort Worth, Tex., even as the first hijacked airliner, Flight 11, was being taken over, the tape shows the airline’s top management was made aware beginning at about 8:21 a.m.—25 minutes before the impact of the first plane into the World Trade Center’s north tower—that a group of men described as Middle Eastern had stabbed two flight attendants, clouded the forward cabin with pepper spray or Mace, menaced crew and passengers with what looked like a bomb, and stormed the cockpit in a violent takeover of the gigantic bird.Despite all the high secrecy surrounding the briefing, a half-dozen different family members were so horrified by voice evidence of the airlines’ disregard for the fate of their pilots, crew and passengers that they found ways to reveal some of what they heard on those tapes, and also what they felt. To them, the tapes appeared to show that the first instinct of American and United Airlines, as management learned of the gathering horror aboard their passenger planes on Sept. 11, was to cover up.
The response of American’s management on duty, as revealed on the tape produced at the meeting, was recalled by persons in attendance:
"Don’t spread this around. Keep it close."
"Keep it quiet."
"Let’s keep this among ourselves. What else can we find out from our own sources about what’s going on?"
"It was disgusting," said the parent of one of the victims, herself a veteran flight attendant for United Airlines. "The very first response was cover-up, when they should have been broadcasting this information all over the place."
That instinct to hold back information, some of the families believe, may have helped to allow the third hijacked plane to crash into the Pentagon and contributed to the doom of a fourth flight, United Flight 93. The United dispatcher was told by his superiors: Don’t tell pilots why we want them to land. The F.B.I. and the F.A.A. have also held back or, in one case, destroyed evidence in the government’s possession that would tell a very different story of how the nation’s guardians failed to prepare or protect Americans from the most devastating of terrorist attacks on the homeland.
[.....]
"This has been the attitude all the way along," Ms. Dillard observed. "Everybody was keeping it hush-hush."The failure to trumpet vital news from calls placed from the first hijacked flight throughout the system and into the highest circles of government leaves families wondering whether military jets could have intercepted American Airlines Flight 77 in time to keep it from diving into the Pentagon and killing 184 more people. That suicide mission ended in triumph for the terrorists more than 50 minutes after the first American jetliner hit the World Trade Center. Suppose American Airlines had warned all its pilots and crew of what their families were able to see and hear from the media?
The information hold-back may have arisen from lack of experience, or from the inability to register the enormity of the terrorists’ destructive plans, or it may have been a visceral desire to protect the airlines from liability. The airlines make much of the fact that the "common strategy" for civil aircraft crews before 9/11 was to react passively to hijackings—"to refrain from trying to overpower or negotiate with hijackers, to land the aircraft as soon as possible, to communicate with authorities, and to try delaying tactics."
This strategy was based on the assumption that the hijackers would want to be flown safely to an airport of their choice to make their demands.
But that defense of the airlines’ actions is belied by the fact that the F.A.A., which was in contact with American Airlines and other traffic-control centers, heard the tip-off from terrorists in Flight 11’s cockpit—"We have planes, more planes"—and thus knew before the first crash of a possible multiple hijacking and the use of planes as weapons.
[.....]
So many unconnected dots, contradictions and implausible coincidences. Like the fact that NORAD was running an imaginary terrorist-attack drill called "Vigilant Guardian" on the same morning as the real-world attacks. At 8:40 a.m., when a sergeant at NORAD’s center in Rome, N.Y., notified his northeastern commander, Col. Robert Marr, of a possible hijacked airliner—American Flight 11—the colonel wondered aloud if it was part of the exercise. This same confusion was played out at the lower levels of the NORAD network.What’s more, the decades-old procedure for a quick response by the nation’s air defense had been changed in June of 2001. Now, instead of NORAD’s military commanders being able to issue the command to launch fighter jets, approval had to be sought from the civilian Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. This change is extremely significant, because Mr. Rumsfeld claims to have been "out of the loop" nearly the entire morning of 9/11. He isn’t on the record as having given any orders that morning. In fact, he didn’t even go to the White House situation room; he had to walk to the window of his office in the Pentagon to see that the country’s military headquarters was in flames.
Mr. Rumsfeld claimed at a previous commission hearing that protection against attack inside the homeland was not his responsibility. It was, he said, "a law-enforcement issue."
Why, in that case, did he take onto himself the responsibility of approving NORAD’s deployment of fighter planes?
In minor media matters, CBS is waffling about airing an anti-Clinton ad.
Lately I have enjoyed looking at the blogs node707 "Just a Bump in the Beltway" , "WarAndPiece" and Spacerook. As always I recommend Mr Juan Cole and in particular this rich and huge interview he did with the somewhat maverick Pepe Escobar in Asia Times online.
Experts report that the United States Strategic Snark Reserves have been severely depleted, and absent new discoveries of snark may run dry within three years.Hunter on the Daily Kos. Yeah, that partly reflects my posting patterns of late, but really, this week I've been acclimating to classes at the University and doing more work for Computer Zone. I have good stuff to do tomorrow, should be interesting."Liberal bloggers have been using snark at an exponentially expanding rate, but it's not a renewable resource" said Lawrence Peters, head researcher at the American Blog Studies Group, a liberal think tank. "Once it's gone, it's gone."
Already the shortage has had an impact. Liberal bloggers like Billmon and Josh Marshall have taken extended vacations in recent months to recover; others, like the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, have dramatically curtailed daily snark output. Other bloggers have suffered more severely.
"I just couldn't take it anymore," blogger Hesiod probably would have said, had this reporter bothered to contact him or any of the other people mentioned in this story. "It started out bad, even before the Bush Presidency began, and it just kept getting worse."
[......]
...for now, experts caution that the months before the next election could see the shuttering of many liberal blogs. "There simply isn't enough snark to go around, and it's only going to get worse from here," said Peters. "Some of these bloggers won't make it to the election. Their heads will pop like grapes."
In other news, someone took a strategic photo of the notes that Bush had in front of him at one of his cheesy contrived press conferences. This photo reveals that he has a list of the reporters, not a huge surprise, but also he scrawls the same damn worthless talking points that he's parroted forever. Assuming the photo isn't faked.... Someone sent it to Atrios, and now the contest is to flip it around in Photoshop and see what he wrote. My first try produced the following image from the large source photo:
According to the speculations of the Tom Tomorrow blog, the messages read:
So that's entertainment!
Islam was A Threat -SworN ENEMy of US Destabilizing Force in
Volatile part of world
weapons of mass d.has [illegible, possible cross-out] - USED them
- Ties to terrorist orgs
- Contacts with Al Qaeda
over last DECADe
Right now, Fox News is advertising:
I am not going to make any Iran-Contra jokes this evening, except one.
"If you helped Reagan sell missiles to the Ayatollah so that coke mobsters in Latin America would get more weapons, what does that make you?"
"A trusted member of Fox News... if you ran the show, you get a show!!"
Only funny because it's true. Not because it's funny. Ollie also wrote a couple books such as The Jericho Sanction, with such chapter titles as Legacy of Death, The Letter, Intrigue, Traitors & Hostages, Blown Cover, The Wolf, Making Plans While Marking Time, and other highly original contributions. Then there is "Mission Compromised," something Ollie Poo would Never Do!
Reagan and God, from the link above:
But it was in his lifelong battle against communism – first in Hollywood, then on the political stage – that Reagan's Christian beliefs had their most profound effect. Appalled by the religious repression and state-mandated atheism of Bolshevik Marxism, Reagan felt called by a sense of personal mission to confront the USSR. Inspired by influences as diverse as C.S. Lewis, Whittaker Chambers, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he waged an openly spiritual campaign against communism, insisting that religious freedom was the bedrock of personal liberty. "The source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual," he said in his Evil Empire address. "And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man."Well, you have to admit it's better than "Bring Em On!" Billmon memorializes the great actor who filled up a suit 40% more effectively than W.
In some ways, Reagan's biggest triumph was the creation an atmosphere of existential crisis, in he could play the stereotypical role of the man on a white horse. He had a brilliant script, written by a new type of PR consultant (Michael Deaver generally gets the top credit) ready to exploit the synergies of the merger between politics and show business. And, like all great myths, it had enough correspondance with the reality of the times to be believable.Billmon follows again with a look at the Legacy:But there was always a kind of stage set quality to it - the sense that if you looked behind the facade all you'd find would be plywood and paper mache.
The legacy of Reagan's policies in the Middle East, meanwhile, are still being paid for - in blood. The cynical promotion of Islamic fundamentalism as a weapon against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the alliance of convenience with Saddam Hussein against Iran, the forging of a new "strategic relationship" with Israel, the corrupt dealings with the House of Saud, and (perhaps most ironic, given Reagan's tough guy image) the weakeness and indecision of his disastrous intervention in Beruit - all of these helped set the stage for what the neocons now like to call World War IV, and badly weakened the geopolitical ability of the United States to wage that war.There's a whole slate of good films coming out. Check out "The Hunting of the President," telling the story of Clinton's sleazy tormenters. My favorite part of the trailer might be where one journalist says "We were following these stories simply because Scaife was paying us to do it," presumably referring to the evil Republican billionaire industrialist Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife indeed dropped a fat $2,400,000 on the American Spectator magazine to go after Clinton, along with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation... on and on and on... more about the foundations.But all this pales in comparison to Reagan's war crimes in Central America....
The second movie is of course Fahrenheit 9/11 (Quicktime trailer). I am not a uniform supporter of Michael Moore, particularly with glaring inaccuracies that pop up all over some of his stuff. Regardless, the man is a pressure release valve on the hypocrisy and contradictions in what they're trying to sell us. He is shrill and unpleasant a great amount of the time, but that's tempered by a real quest to bring us something significant, at odds with the mainstream narrative.
The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.In other news, a splendid review of media bias by Michael Massing in the New York Review of Books.The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists -- whom he termed ''zealots and despots'' bent on destroying the global system of nation-states -- are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.
The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.
The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists -- whom he termed ''zealots and despots'' bent on destroying the global system of nation-states -- are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.
''It's quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,'' Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.
...
....saying that while terrorists must be confronted, the bigger problem is the extremist Islamic ideology that produces them.''What you have is a civil war in that religion where a small minority are trying to hijack it,'' he said.
This is just so damn goofy: an RNC promotional website for Hispanics that offers them four job choices: war veterans, teachers, senior citizens, or farmers and ranchers. Yes, that is where they fit in. (via WaPo)
Religious crusaders attacking the separation of church and state, while bringing political campaign pressure straight into churches. Safety for atheists not assured.
This is so bizarre: Colin Powell was being interviewed by Tim Russert, and right as Russert asks the key question about spoofed intelligence at the UN, Powell's media person somehow gets the camera to point away from Powell and stops everything for a few moments. Then Powell gets control again and answers the question.
The video is online. Skip to about halfway to see where—what, the press monkey takes over the camera? This was laid out on this blog, via the Agonist.
I don't know what happened, really. This fixation on video clips is a striking feature of reality lately. I finally finished reading Pattern Recognition, which revolves around a set of enigmatic video clips distributed on the Internet, and obsessed forum-goers search for hidden connections in these videos. And yet who would have thought that William Gibson's 'footage fetishists' would so readily appear in our reality? Now we have enigmatic moments of horror like the Berg atrocity to drive speculation on the message boards in droves.
They are making the case that there are fifty weird things about the Berg video. I will reflect on this a little later. Beware the lawn chair.
There's been a hella lotta news over the past couple days. However, Saturday is Springfest, and I fully intend to immerse myself in the music, because I haven't been keeping tabs on pop culture as well as I should be. I don't want to think about all the damn news for a little while. So let this summary suffice for Saturday; there's plenty of interesting things to look at, radical and more conservative.
Remind us why the war happened. This animation has some rather jarring imagery but nonetheless it's worth looking at. A tacky style or propaganda of the 21st century?
UN Iraq man Lakhdar Brahimi condemns Israel's policies, generating conflict with the Israelis and surely making the Pentagon a happy bunch of fellas, reports BBC.
CS Monitor reporter on the deterioration in Iraq and how it has made journalists increasingly unable to wander about the country:
The United Nations envoy to Iraq has sparked a row after describing Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as "the big poison in the region". Lakhdar Brahimi told French radio there was a link between Israeli actions and the recent upsurge of violence in Iraq. He said that the handover of power in Iraq was being complicated by Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza.UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman has reportedly described the comments as "unacceptable".
....
Mr Brahimi said his job was made more difficult by Israel's "violent and repressive security policy" and its "determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory". He added that people's perception in the region was of the "injustice" of Israeli policy compounded by the "thoughtless support" of the US.The UN secretary general's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, told Israeli radio it was not acceptable for senior UN officials to make such comments about a member nation.
In essence, I feel we've become boiled frogs. Toss the frog into boiling water, and he jumps right out again, or at least tries. But put him in lukewarm water and slowly turns up the heat and he barely notices until he's cooked. Rather than overestimate the problems (a common journalistic temptation), I've begun to wonder if we're not understating them, notwithstanding the letters from readers who accuse our paper, and many others, of being Chicken Littles.Phil Carter of Intel Dump has an insightful article on Slate about how the Iraq invasion has basically paralyzed the ability of the US military to respond to things elsewhere, crunching logistics and all that. He's a more conservative guy but he knows his stuff really well.To be sure, in a wartime environment like Iraq's there is rarely a constant arc of progress, or descent into chaos. Violence ebbs and flows, incidents flare and then almost inexplicably, vanish. This froggy is leaving on a reporting trip outside Baghdad today - the first trip out of the city in more than a week. It feels safer again.
I wanted to throw in some things from CounterPunch: this April 10 piece by Robert Fisk describing how the Bush administration attacks its critics on Iraq, this jolly rambling report on 'Pseudoconservatives' by an anonymous defense analyst. Rahul Mahajan is a very intrepid journalist that I've mentioned recently, having written this piece on a visit to Fallujah and also writing the very interesting Empire Notes from Baghdad. Also Tariq Ali weighs in with his New Leftist sort of thing on "The Iraqi Resistance: a new phase." What seems to be his key point:
Its no use for Westerners to shed hypocritical tears for Iraq or to complain that the Iraqi resistance does not meet the high stands of Western liberalism. Which resistance ever does?Then there is Fisk again on the Bush-Sharon plan, "Bush Legitimizes Terrorism." The piece is a tad overwrought, but I can only imagine how bitter someone like him would be having seen the middle east burn itself to bits for decades, never even thinking that it would come to this today. On the front page today is a humorous "Glossary of the Iraqi Occupation" by Paul de Rooij.When an Occupation is ugly, the resistance cannot be beautiful, except in a Hollywood movie or an Italian comedy.
Here are the now-famous photos of deceased American soldiers returning to Dover Air Force Base (on a fast mirror). These pictures are the rather explicit negation of a finely tuned, decade long Cheney policy to remove critical images of the reality of American warfare from the array of visual images that the public can actually see. In other words, their strategy was to prevent you from seeing these pictures. Now you can and should look at them to understand more fully the situation.
Mr Marshall is following a couple interesting developments. Firstly he says that plans to invade the southern Iraqi oilfields were ordered at the same time in the same document as the plans to invade Afghanistan in late 2001. Hot damn, cause and effect! He is also following the upcoming changes in the Iraqi government, and the apparent distancing of Ahmed Chalabi from the reins of power, both within Iraq and the ludicrous perks accorded to him by the U.S., such as his enormous personal stash of incriminating Baathist documents that by all rights should belong to the Iraqi people, not a lying, intel spoofing embezzler.
The topic is the new Iraqi government now being planned and organized jointly by the US and the UN and the fact that the decision has been made to toss overboard most if not all of the folks we put on the Interim Governing Council. At the top of the list of those to get the heave-ho is Ahmed Chalabi.According to the article, the administration is seriously considering cutting off the amazingly ill-conceived $340,000 a month subsidy we still give Chalabi. Meanwhile, his role as head of the de-Baathification committee has just been publicly criticized by Paul Bremer.
David Corn has some reactions on the administration shifting Afghanistan money getting to possibly illegal Iraq war preparations.
The Hawkington Times says that "US sees Syria 'facilitating' insurgents." Oh well.
One conservative columnist in the Chicago Tribune flames Bush to a crisp over the war. I strongly think this is worth checking out, as it is not the new leftist claptrap of Counterpunch! :) Since no one wants to register for the Tribune, why not read it on the Agonist message boards?
They repeatedly tell us, in only slightly different ways, that this leadership group--or, better said, "court"--is one of "irregulars." At every opportunity, they went around our official government, around our institutions, and likely enough around the law. Across their history from the 1970s until today, this Bush neo-conservative group, backed by elements of the radical right and American supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, created alternate power centers to bypass traditional American ones. In short, they are true radicals. Think "Robespierre."Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," for instance, how Douglas Feith, one of the most radical of the Bush-Rumsfeld courtiers, lobbied for the special intelligence planning board within the Pentagon to bypass traditional intelligence that warned against going to war in Iraq. This fact is widely known, but Woodward importantly explains: "It was a different way of doing things, first because the planners would be the implementers"--they would become the "expeditionary force" within Iraq after the war. Definitely not kosher!
There is a huge feature on the public radio series Marketplace about the Spoils of War, the reconstruction cash money millionaires and all that. You can listen online, and it will certainly go in the Mercenary File as well. Speaking of mercenaries here is a feature on them from earlier in the month.
On Iraq: this just rolled into my mailbox, a piece on TomPaine telling us that Chaos is the Reason All Along. Yop.
This report from Reason is pretty sharp. Also the Pandora Project is monitoring the disturbing health effects, including mutations, of depleted uranium. "Wildfire" has some further links, including a diary from an earlier trip.
Naomi Klein is apparently on the ground in Iraq now, reporting on the uprising situation.
The mentally dubious Joseph Farah explains that since al-Sadr is a Shiite with Iranian support, the US must be at war with Iran. Of course! (Never trust WorldNetDaily)
All I can tell you is we are now fighting a regional war. Our local opposition in Iraq is being trained, armed and directed with foreign support – by neighboring Iran.idiot at the New York Post, what else is new?The uprising yesterday was treated in many initial news accounts as a spontaneous uprising directed by Najaf cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
What the other news accounts left out was one significant, but well-established fact: Al-Sadr works for Iran. He is an Iranian agent. His authority comes from Iran.
Make no mistake: Just because we view restraint as a virtue does not mean our enemies share that view. The refusal to use our power in the face of defiance only makes defiance more attractive.What the hell does that mean, anyway? Evil Blonde Woman of Wrath saysWhen U.S. forces arrive in a troubled country, they create an initial window of fear. It's essential to act decisively while the local population is still disoriented. Each day of delay makes our power seem more hollow. You have to do the dirty work at the start. The price for postponing it comes due with compound interest.
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We broke a basic rule: Never show fear. No matter how we may rationalize our inaction, that is what we did.Instead of demonstrating our strength and resolve, we have encouraged more attacks and further brutality - while global journalists revel in Mogadishu-lite.
Of course, we're not going to flee Iraq as President Bill Clinton ran from Somalia. But our hesitation to respond to atrocities against Americans has renewed our enemies' hope that, if only they kill enough of us, as graphically as possible, they still can triumph over a "godless" superpower.
To possess the strength to do what is necessary, but to refuse to do it, is appeasement. Since Baghdad fell, our occupation has sought to appease our enemies - while slighting our Kurdish allies. Our attempts to find a compromise with a single man - the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - have empowered him immensely, while encouraging intransigence in others.
Weakness, not strength, emboldens opponents - and creates added terrorist recruits.
We came to Iraq faced with the problems Saddam created. Increasingly, we face problems we ourselves created or compounded.
If the administration lacks the guts to do what must be done, free Iraq will face a dismal future. As vicious as they are, our enemies have the courage of their convictions.
Do we?
I suppose it would be considered lacking in nuance to nuke the Sunni Triangle.But so goes the unanimous vote around my household - and I'm betting millions of others - in the aftermath of what forevermore will be remembered simply as "Fallujah."
Wouldn't it be lovely were justice so available and so simple? If we were but creatures like those zoo animals we witnessed gleefully jumping up and down after stomping, dragging, dismembering and hanging the charred remains of American civilians whose only crime was to try to help them.
Another blogger is attacked by rightwingers from LittleGreenFootballs.
It appears that more mercenaries from Blackwater Security Consulting have saved the day and protected the CPA's office in Najf from being overrun like the rest of the city, after a Blackwater helicopter dropped them ammo and took away a wounded Marine. Interesting... And they say we can't tell civilians and militants apart. (links via Agonist)
Juan Cole suggests that the whole storm is really due to a fractured White House. I would tend to agree, after seeing Biden complaining about the situation to Jim Lehrer:
As I read him Biden is passing on what he has heard, that the reason for this gridlock is an internal power struggle within the Bush administration, which has paralyzed decision-making.If so, it may be that certain forces within the administration took advantage of the lack of a clear reporting line to launch the assault on Muqtada al-Sadr, hoping to effect a fait accompli and forestalling any later State Department attempt to treat with him. If this interpretation is correct, the retreating Department of Defense may sow a lot of land mines for hapless State before June 30.
Biden and Lugar also made it clear that they are not being consulted by the White House on Iraq, and, indeed, it has been a year since they could even get an appointment to see Bush about it. Imagine how locked out the American public is!
The late breaking news is that 12 Marines have been killed in Ramadi. Al Qaeda is claiming responsibility for some attacks, though not from the last few days.
Hans Blix says that the war is worse than Saddam. Oh, what a naughty inspector.
The BBC reports on the nature of this spectacular and decidedly well-armed Mehdi Army. Evening Standard characterizes rising anarchy.
Wow, a lot to follow. Attacks coming all over now: can the U.S. keep it together this week? My imagination struggles with what's going on....
I am eagerly looking forward to spring break this year. For the first time, I'll fly over the big pond to Europe and hang out with Nick Petersen in London for a week. That's this Friday.
During that time I'll leave the site turned on, and I'll probably find some time to post back to here, but it can't be frequent.
This week, I have several mid-term exams and a giant group paper to contend with, so I can't spend a great deal of time writing here.
On the plus side, I realized that the Apache server which comes with OS X has a built-in Perl module (mod_perl), but deactivated. The Perl module runs the site's Perl code much more quickly than a server without the module. To turn it on I just had to enable it in the configuration files and restart the server. *Bingo*, just like that my site's dynamic stuff runs about 3x-4x faster. It was really necessary, and I only put it off because I was too busy and I thought I would have to go through the mess of recompiling Apache. So far I am using Apple's default Apache server with no problems.
This week I am experimenting with a slick program called ecto which allows me to write entries without using a web browser.
As far as the news is concerned, those new Bush ads are just so marvellous I don't really need to add anything. But imagine if Lincoln or FDR had tried to exploit similar images. This site is run by a legal professor with a spectacular sense of humor. (via the DKos)
The NY Times is running a huge Kerry op-ed blitz today. Maureen Dowd is clearly sugar-coating a nice image of a candidate with rich interests. A DLC totem suggests that "reform" should be Kerry's word of the campaign. A Clinton-Gore poll guru says that Kerry can take Bush on all kinds of issues.
For now, however, only 40 percent of voters think the country is headed in the right direction. According to nearly all public polls, Mr. Kerry is the preferred choice for president, and that prospect may well keep Mr. Kerry from focusing on the larger choice before America. That would be a shame, because voters would respond to such a challenge.The choice is between an America inspired by John F. Kennedy and one shaped by Ronald Reagan. When the alternatives are framed this way, Americans choose the Kennedy vision by a striking 53 percent to 41 percent. It brings increased support for Democrats among voters from across the political spectrum — in small towns and rural areas, in older blue-collar communities, among low-wage and unmarried women as well as young voters and women with a college degree.
Rather than simply criticizing specific policies of the Bush administration, Mr. Kerry should emphasize the worldview it represents. Mr. Bush favors tax cuts for business and the wealthy as the best way to bring about prosperity. He heralds individualism as the key to a healthy community. In his tenure America has retreated at home before our shared problems, but advanced alone abroad. If Mr. Kerry challenges this worldview, Mr. Bush will be forced to defend it.
For more election news, Electablog is pretty darn good.
There is some weird stuff going on in Afghanistan, as the long-awaited Spring Offensive between the allies and the Taliboid forces (al-Qaeda types, probably ISI people, who knows?) springs into action. Bin Laden may have narrowly avoided a Pakistani raid. US snipers killed a bunch of "suspected Taliban."
I never thought the Republicans were 31337 hax0rs, but apparently they can steal filez and r00t a judicial computer system better than anyone thought. Their head judicial aide apparently helped steal around 4,670 secret Democratic documents. As the trolls on Fox News have been commanded to point out, many memos indicated the D's were working with outside groups to keep conservatives off judicial panels for specific cases, a hoorrrible, oh so hoorrible, infringement of judicial power. Or something like that.
I don't quite understand what D's were legitimately doing, except considering impact the judges will have on cases!!! Bad Democrats! Thinking about the effect of judges!! Bad!
Kerry beats Bush by a few points, 49-43, in Florida!!! Time to purge the voter rolls again!
Many Palestinians killed, including 4 children, in massive Gaza raids supposedly designed to draw militants out. What the hell is the point? Apparently Sharon's credibility with the abused Israeli public is at a new low, so this, like many Sharon initiatives, probably has a wag-the-dog logic to it. There is also word that the Israelis may have been asked by the Bush administration to avoid withdrawing from Gaza before the elections because of the potential instability. Uhm, Israeli occupation ==Bush political power? What? This is worth following.
Finally, at long, long last, the pervasive sense of the everlasting nightmare has softened. Yet now we have VP speculations. Bill Richardson or John Edwards seem good right now. Alison caught the McLaughlin Group this morning and McLaughlin predicted that the search for VP would go for ethnic, not regional, balance. We could do worse than Richardson, a popular southwestern Hispanic governor with tons of executive and international experience. Or on SNL, the skilled Darrell Hammond as Clinton put forth his own VP candidacy. He asked how awesome it would be to have him around again with even less responsibility. He said could put the Vice back in Vice President, although Cheney's done pretty well by that measure.
Ok, so now I will say it. My optimism about the outcome of the election and the future of the country has finally shot above 50%.
The glass is indeed half full.
Andy sent me an instant message at about 12:45 this morning saying that I appeared on the policy wonk's lifepartner C-SPAN during the Vote 2004 segment on Kerry's visit to Macalester.
Fortunately C-SPAN has put up a RealPlayer video stream of Kerry's event. It is quite blurry at 128K, but the sound is much more clear than I got with my voice recorder. Kerry and I can be heard really well, actually. I appear at about 1 hour 8 minutes into the clip.
I am now covering the Kerry event on Macalester's campus Wednesday, which, alongside the Edwards rally on Sunday has surprisingly thrown me right into the middle of the national campaign for the first time since my November pilgrimage to Iowa (though the stories of Kellen, Andy and Adam at the Iowa Caucus made it far more colorful--and insightful).
With Dean's sudden deflation, my wandering political spirit stumbled onward yet again. I'm genuinely happy that the Democrats haven't torn themselves to pieces, and evidently Edwards doesn't plan to attack Kerry, or so he told us on Saturday. That in itself is a big step for the Dems.
The gang around here is flocking to Edwards, but I've hemmed and hawed about where I stand altogether. I think his image works great, I think he's making an impressive run that a lot of people said would never even get this far. That's a lot to his credit. There were plenty of Dean backers sporting their colors at the rally, so naturally, I am supposed to gravitiate there. But is Edwards' glossy inexperience ultimately a liability? (Additionally there's an incestuous sort of lawyer love going around among this crew, whether or not they admit it :-)
In the end Kerry seems to be steamrolling all the way down, and what's coming Wednesday will reflect that. Yet the Iowa and Wisconsin campaigns revealed Edwards poll spikes at the very end. Would Minnesota finally be the site where Edwards beats the man on top?
In sum, I am still ambivalent, and heck, since we are conducting entrance polls to the caucuses for Empirical Research Methods, I probably wouldn't even have time to caucus even if I wanted to. At this point, I may be more interested in watching the pretty pieces assemble into one glorious mural than really come down on it either way.
Right now MSNBC is running these fawning sequences about how burnished and heroic McCain and Bush are. Ugh--between all the Pfizer "An American Company" and Big big Boeing ads that run every hour, every day.
There is a very exciting article from Mother Jones detailing the many exciting intrigues concerning the neo-conservatives, the Pentagon and the rest of the mess.
How fitting that the investigation into the intelligence failure cracked open today. As Jon Stewart put it tonight, "Conspiracy theorists, start your websites!!!" Ahh, Jon...
The Lie Factory:Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews-some on the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity-exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the participants in the meeting-and officials all the way down the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed, the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn't even been formally installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, began putting together what would become the vanguard for regime change in Iraq.
The Bush Administration will probably attempt to dump all the blame for the WMD fiasco on the CIA. As many are saying, this move is highly ironic. Every evidence is that Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon made an end run around the CIA and the DIA, cherry-picked intelligence, and funneled it to Cheney, who then manipulated Bush with it. (W. admits to not reading the newspapers, so he is at the mercy of his close advisers for information, for all the world like an illiterate medieval king with crafty ministers!)To make George Tenet take the fall for all this, when his analysts were relatively careful in their assessments, and to let Feith and Cheney off the hook, would be the height of injustice. Ironically, Feith leaked some of the most damaging evidence against him to the The Weekly Standard...
Yes, we are gearing up for another full season of good things at HongPong.com. Later I'll have to look at how this all correlates.
Josh Marshall points out that Bush is in a February slump and goes on to score a double play with lots of information about Bush's mysterious AWOL time.
And then there is the idiot David Brooks, praising the Illuminati's wisdom and blaming the CIA:
When it comes to understanding the world's thugs and menaces, I'd trust the first 40 names in James Carville's P.D.A. faster than I'd trust a conference-load of game theorists or risk-assessment officers. I'd trust politicians, who, whatever their faults, have finely tuned antennae for the flow of events. I'd trust Mafia bosses, studio heads and anybody who has read a Dostoyevsky novel during the past five years.Most of all, I'd trust individuals over organizations. Individuals can use intuition, experience and a feel for the landscape of reality. When you read an individual's essay, you know you're reading one person's best guess, not a falsely authoritative scientific finding.
Even more CIA guys piling onto the Bush Administration.
The primaries are so much fun!! Dean has all but washed out now, sadly. Oh well. Joe Trippi has been slurped up by MSNBC, and I'm lookin forward to seeing him and Buchanan get crazy. More tomorrow!
Watching the recall gunk unfold yesterday, I flipped to MSNBC and caught this guy named Frank Luntz talking about how unpopular establishment pols might have to dive for cover after this. A general notion, but Luntz is no general commentator.
Luntz is very suspicious, and the way MSNBC frames him describes everything you need to know about the network. He is just an "MSNBC pollster" on his bio box. However, in reality he is a high-ranking GOP political consultant, who uses his regular appearances on MSNBC to subtly assassinate Democrats and warp issues. He was considered one of the 'key architects' of the Republican swarming of the capitol in 1993.
He specializes in focus group type work, but he has finely developed the art of spinning a focus group. For example, once on MSNBC I saw a focus group on the democratic primaries. He made sure to end the focus group with "Now who thinks Al Sharpton would make a viable candidate for President?" Naturally virtually no one raised their hand. The end. That's what a Republican operative does: creates images of Dem. unpopularity. A panelist on Hardball immediately hassled him about it, but he feigned innocent intentions.
Make no mistake, this is how he works. Every word he says is carefully chosen as part of a plan.
And what better platform than his new show on MSNBC, "America's Voices"?
I've seen him tell Chris Matthews that he 'leans right' but, crucially, omit that he is a Republican consultant. Such is the state of today's corporate media.
Today the NyTimes said that
"If I were a governor from a different state with a huge deficit and bad poll ratings, I'd be scared senseless," said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who frequently offers advice to the nation's Republican governors. "If you're a governor in a recall state, this will send chills down your spine."Here's a description from someone in one of Luntz's fabulous focus groups:
I'd like to let you know about my experience as a participant on Hardball in November 2000 during the recount fiasco. I was part of a Frank Luntz "focus group," that pitted 10 Republicans against 10 Democrats.An excellent piece from Media Whores Online goes into more detail about how Luntz works.We were told to come to a hotel in West Palm Beach an hour before the show. Upon arrival, we were checked off a list and segregated by party. I was close enough to the Republicans to see a man passing out "talking points" to his fellow panelists - telling them that it would be great if they could incorporate them into whatever they said- and to make it sound personal.Each side had a few more people than they actually needed- so Frank and the Producer started to hand pick the participants and show them to their seats.
Interestingly, I was passed over initially (perhaps they smelled a trouble maker). I made it on when a gentleman had to recuse himself.
So here we sat for what was said to be a "sound check." The guy next to me explained in whispers that this was actually an "attitude check," and that the Producers were identifying who might possess a brain along with an attitude. During the show, those folks would be avoided and interrupted at all costs, my new friend said- unless they sat on the Republican side.
All said, the show looked liked a one-sided Jerry Springer show (Matthew's good friend, you know) with the well dressed and rehearsed Republicans winning sizable airtime with their facist talking points. I found the whole experience very disturbing.
Let's examine the discourse between Luntz and Brian Williams after the second Presidential debate on October 11, 2000:A Luntz-friendly site described him thusly:WILLIAMS: A group of uncommitted voters has been with us all evening long under the good auspices of Frank Luntz, political pollster, who joins us now from Cincinnati, city in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. Frank? LUNTZ: Brian, this is now the third time that we've gathered these undecided voters but there's something that thisnight featured that we never saw before. We do have a clear winner. And you can all demonstrate by a show of your hands: How many of you believe that George Bush exceeded your expectations for what you expected this evening? Please raise your hands. Brian, that's almost everybody.Did you notice that Frank made a statement about a winner and then asked a completely different question regarding expectations?Still not convinced that Frank might intermingle his own opinion with his pollstering? Take a look at the Young Republicans Online Community Network website (YRock.com), where he was not only their pollster for the 2000 election, but also a weekly columnist. Titles to his commentaries include, Saying Yes to Jobs and No to Minimum Wage Increase; Ending Racial Preferences; and The Real Truth About The Gore Plan.
He's not just a Republican, he's a super Republican with the power to influence public opinion to his advantage, and he's done it before. Luntz's bio on the Harry Walker Agency site, touts:
-USA Today labeled him one of the nine most influential minds in the GOP -Advisor to New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani - One of the strategic architects in the Republican landslide in 1994 - Key role in creating Gingrich's Contract With America (he is often noted in articles written in the mid 90's as Newt's pollster)
Would you not agree that the Contract With America took partisanship to new heights? Luntz was instrumental in conducting the research for the Contract and in the fall of 1994, he declared that all 10 provisions cited by the Contract had overwhelming public support.
The AAPOR asked to see the research supporting HIS claim that at least 60% of the public favored each of the elements in the GOP contract. He refused on the grounds of client confidentiality.
Frank Luntz was capable of creating the dubious notion that the Contract With America was embraced by most Americans in 1994 and Republicans benefited in Congressional elections that year. In the 2000 election, Frank Luntz helped to perpetuate the low bar of expectation for George W. Bush. Although he didn't win the popular vote and most certainly the electoral vote, it was much closer than it should have been. Frank Luntz is still on MSNBC, folks.
Named the "Hottest Pollster" by Boston Globe, One of the Most Innovative Marketers of Political IdeasSo when you see this punk pop up on MSNBC, watch for semantic tricks and deceptiveness. Yes.Dr. Luntz, famous among campaign pros for his research on language and politics, is one of the most innovative marketers of political ideas. He has served as an adviser to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and numerous candidates in this country and abroad.
He was one of the strategic architects of the Republican landslide in 1994 that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years and made Newt Gingrich speaker. Dr. Luntz had a key role in creating Gingrich's Contract with America.
I've been quite busy this week, and if you're like me then now, finally, it might be safe for us to breathe again. Through all those Clinton years we were treated to one smear incident after another, Travelgate, Watergate, Monicagate... all these inconsequential scandals with one special prosecutor after another.
And now this Administration, with its 'crown jewels' of 'credibility and integrity' or whatever they call it, now finally has that unmistakeable tarnish of a real political disease upon it. The schism between the government agencies (the CIA never really bought this bullshit all along) has exploded all over the cable news, months after it should have...
Actually that's one interesting aspect. Novak wrote his column back in mid-July, and Bush only publically said anything about this national security crisis a few days ago. One guy points out that's 75 days of sitting on his ass. True.
What to make of this? What damage? Who's spinning?
FOX News has been hilarious the last few days. First, they didn't want to talk about it. They avoided noting the Justice investigation for quite a while. Brit Hume disparaged the whole thing, anchors noted that 'nothing ever comes of these things, why bother?' Silliest of all, one rightie after another has said Wilson was some partisan peacenik yahoo, who existed to hassle the Bush administration. This doesn't quite fit with Wilson's work around the first Gulf war, where he was the US unofficial ambassador to Iraq, and the last American to meet with him prior to the war. He received much praise from Poppa Bush for his work. He also has given money to Republican candidates recently. No one's partisan, really.
I also like the line of reasoning which claims that because 'all he did was sip tea' in Niger rather than, I don't know, break into offices and kidnap officials, he could never have done a thorough job investigating the uranium story. (this is what Brit Hume and resident AEI Neo-con bitch Reuel Marc Gerecht talked about, because they didn't want to talk about the leak itself) But these fools don't know how the uranium business works. The mine is run by a large European conglomerate licensed under the IAEA. It's on the level. Really.
Novak himself is putting out all kinds of nonsense, but it's like he's compelled to share national security secrets with the public. for one thing, he said that she was known as an agent to insiders and "well known" in Washington, so it's not a big deal that he ran her name. What the hell is he talking about? So just now he decided to tell the name of her CIA front company. Good, that will help destroy their cover overseas. On CNN he said:
"Joe Wilson, the -- everybody knows he has given campaign contributions in 2000 to both Ford -- I mean to both Gore and to Bush. He gave twice as much to Gore, $2,000, $1,000 over the limit. The government -- the campaign had to give him back $1,000. That very day, according to his records, his wife, the CIA employee gave $1,000 to Gore, and she listed herself as an employee of Bruster, Jennings and Associates (ph).The Washington Post now reportsThere is there no such firm, I'm convinced. CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're a deep cover. They're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. So it adds to the little mystery."
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front... The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.Thanks, Novak! You're a great journalist! These clips come via DailyKos.
There is one piece of fallout from the crime we can't deny: whoever was ever associated with agent Plame overseas is in danger. What remains in question is what, exactly, Plame did. Calpundit piles up the public facts so far. It seems to be emerging that Plame ran networks of foreign informers who passed on information about biological, chemical, and nuclear material. Let me say that again: Plame's job was to collect intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, to monitor and prevent them from being used against the United States. Now anyone who can be tied to her can be compromised.
That's something that is really a disaster for everyone. That's the central point. Politics don't enter into calculating this.
Yet it is political. The leaker went after Wilson to intimidate anyone else who might attack the Bush folks falsification of war intelligence.
Let me offer a prediction about who was probably behind the leak: the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. There have been insiders saying that the bad guy works in the Executive Office Building, where Cheney's people are. If I'm right about this, I definitely win a cookie.
On a related topic, you need to see this report which says that FOX News watchers were the most likely to believe in misinformation about the war, namely that WMD have already been found, and Saddam was acively engaged with Al-Qaeda. Fair and Balanced!
In following these developments, naturally the Internet is the best source. Lately my reliable wisdom has come from the Daily Kos, Eschaton and The Agonist. If you keep an eye on these then you'll probably catch most of what's going on. Also much respect is due to Washington reporter Josh Marshall, who writes the Talking Points Memo, and kept the story alive since July. Marshall also has recently interviewed Wilson and Wesley Clark.
Actually, Clark told Marshall something important about neoconservatives:
TPM: I noticed that Doug Feith, who's obviously the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, had a statement a while back saying that the connection between terrorist organizations and state sponsors was, I think he said, the principal strategic thought behind the administration's policy.This whole statement that the neo-cons actually used the PNAC to undercut the administration's options is a kind of inverted view of issue advocacy (and it's fun to tie them to Carter). Marshall strongly agrees with the idea, and it got a bunch of nasty feedback from neocons. Very interesting. I am happy Clark is on the right page with neo-con deviousness, because that would be so fun to see him go off about in the democratic debates.CLARK: It's the principal strategic mistake behind the administration's policy. If you look at all the states that were named as the principal adversaries, they're on the periphery of international terrorism today. Syria -- OK, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas -- yeah, they're terrorist organizations. They're focused on Israel. They're getting support from Iran. It's wrong. Shouldn't be there. But they're there. What about Saudi Arabia? There's a source of the funding, the source of the ideology, the source of the recruits. What about Pakistan? With thousands of madrassas churning out ideologically-driven foot soldiers for the war on terror. Neither of those are at the front of the military operations. ...
The ability to conduct foreign policy draws not only on the president himself but on the leadership of the administration. If you were to start here and work backwards, you'd say this administration was doctrinaire. You'd say that it didn't have a real vision in foreign policy. It was reactive. Hobbled by its right-wing constituency from using the full tools that are available -- the full kit-bag of tools that's available to help Americans be in there and protect their interests in the world.
Clinton administration: broad minded, visionary, lots of engagement. Did a lot of work. Had difficulty with two houses in congress that [it] didn't control. And in an odd replay of the Carter administration, found itself chained to the Iraqi policy -- promoted by the Project for a New American Century -- much the same way that in the Carter administration some of the same people formed the Committee on the Present Danger which cut out from the Carter administration the ability to move forward on SALT II.
TPM: This being the same neo-conservatives that people hear about in the press today?
CLARK: Right, some of the same people. And then, you know, if you go back to the Bush administration, they were there when the Berlin Wall fell.
I suggest everyone sit back and watch the fireworks. This mess has just begun to unfold.
NEW POLL!
A quick lunchtime update: Fox News has just sued Al Franken for titling his next book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," because Fox believes it controls the concept of 'fair and balanced.' What I really like is how their lawyers phrased the case(NyTimes)
"Franken is neither a journalist nor a television news personality," according to the complaint. "He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. His views lack any serious depth or insight."... "Franken is neither a journalist nor a television news personality," according to the complaint. "He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. His views lack any serious depth or insight." Lawyers for Fox who filed the complaint also take issue with Mr. Franken's book cover because it "mimics the look and style" of two books written by Bill O'Reilly, a prominent Fox News personality. Mr. O'Reilly is also pictured on the cover, just beneath the word "Lies."I did see bits and pieces from said dinner... Judging by the choice edits made by MSNBC that day, O'reilly is a screaming bastard and Franken a rambling idiot. I forsee the possibility that this lawsuit may unequivocally prove Fox News is not fair and balanced. That would be precious. This is great, as it will help promote his book, which I do intend to buy. He better stop at Ruminator on the book tour!Court papers refer to Mr. Franken, who is a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, as a "parasite" who hopes to use Fox's reputation to confuse the public and boost sales of his book.
Franken is also accused of verbally attacking Mr. O'Reilly and other Fox personalities on at least two occasions, and of being "either intoxicated or deranged" as he flew into a rage at a press correspondents' dinner in April 2003. Mr. Franken has not filed a response in court to the suit.
One nice thing going on today is the profusion of internet weblogs in places like Baghdad and Tehran. During the war Salam Pax got to be pretty well-known as 'the Baghdad Blogger.' I'd suggest looking at his look at the return of the Hashemite prince or the story of depressing Baghdad madness:
Actually we have been having pretty bad days. If you would have talked to me a week ago and I would have told you that I am very optimistic; maybe not optimistic but at least had hope. Now I can only think of two things. One of them was something my mother said while watching the news. She was watching something about the latest attacks on the "coalition forces" and their retaliation. She said that she has always wondered how people in Beirut and Jerusalem could have led any sort of lives, when their cities were practically military zones, she said she now knows how it feels to live in a city were the sight of a tank and military checkpoints asking you to get out your car and look thru your bag becomes "normal". When you turn on the TV and just hope that you don?t see more pictures of people shooting at each other.Salam has started a photo-log too. Other Iraqi bloggers include 'G in Baghdad,' who describes an encounter with a captured Syrian teenager in an American-run hospital, or the dual reality of the Iraqi mind:The other thing was something a foreign acquaintance has said after spending some time in the city on a really hot day. He went in threw his hat on the floor and said loudly: "I want to inform my Iraqi friends that their country is doomed". I have no idea what that was about but the sentence just stuck to my mind.
Here in Iraq every citizen was provided -since the early days of the regime- with a whole set of lies that gradually became the foundation on which you would build your perceptions of the world outside. Consequently you end up with two channels, a "channel reality" that is off the air most of the times and "channel rhetoric" a mixture of self-denial, conspiracy theory [apologia] and propaganda.G also has a photolog going now. There's an Iraqi female blogger named Zainab writing now too.Of course we shouldn?t blame Saddam and his lies based tyrannical regime only, this phenomenon has its roots deep in our cultural/religious history. Nowadays the main question every Iraqi is trying to answer, since the removal of our beloved leader is: (how should I feel towards the Americans?) and (is the American "liberation / occupation" a good or bad thing?). Don?t expect an answer from me here, until we have our first Gallup poll in Iraq all what you will get is mere speculations-observations gibberish...
I think one of the main issues we have to face, is how to stop using the rhetoric channel, how could we stop this cog mire of stupid conspiracy theories going on and on and on how to liberate our selves from the secret police mechanisms nesting in our brains, this liberation will not be achieved by American tanks, nor by a self-denial flagellation process.
Iran has experienced an upsurge in blogging as well, as View from Iran and Blue Bird Escape look at Iran from inside. Persian Blogger Chronicles is grad student Alireza Doostar's attempt to chart this new form of information as it emerges from Iran.
While on the topic of blogs, notorious uber-blonde right-winger Ann Coulter supposedly has a weblog now, but it hasn't really started. She must be building up steam and bleaching those locks...
There are a whole lot of other blogs out there to check out. Here's a few:
Today's Star Tribune features a story on the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Paul Wellstone. Most likely it was a random accident, but as Ted Rall said, we can't ignore the remote possibility of a harsh government killing its most powerful liberal opponent. Was Wellstone worth assassinating? I think so. i think my favorite theory is the electromagnetic pulse assassination:
Discounting weather, pilot error or mechanical problems in Wellstone's flight, Fetzer's articles have seized on the possibility of sabotage brought on by a futuristic electromagnetic pulse weapon that he said could have disabled the plane's computerized components. Evidence for this, he said in an interview, was the absence of any distress call from the pilots and the odd cell-phone experience reported by St. Louis County lobbyist John Ongaro.Ongaro, who was near the airport when Wellstone's plane went down, has dismissed the significance of his experience, in which he said his cell phone made "strange" sounds and then disconnected. "It's not unusual for cell phones to cut out, especially in northern Minnesota," he said.
The Democrats are conflicted, believe it or not. Kerry and Dean are dickering with each other, as Dean has been the most outspoken, grassroots oriented Democrat to run. Is there a conflict between the D grassroots, (Wellstone's bread and butter), versus the Democratic national leadership? (link Nick)
The contest for the 2004 Democratic nomination cannot be understood apart from two factors. One is the intense opposition to Bush at the Democratic grass roots. The other is the widely held sense that the party's older strategies and internal arguments are inadequate to its current problems. Candidates can't win if they address only one of these concerns. But addressing both at the same time will require a political magic that Democrats haven't seen yet.
Private schools in Minnesota are undergoing a growth spurt, according to an article in today's Strib. Would Mounds Park do something similar? Well, you gotta keep up with Blake and Minnehaha, dontcha?
Nick was happy with Thomas Friedman in the times yesterday, talking a big game about the whole theory of everything and generally disreputing the usual targets. Friedman is funny, I like to think of him as this guy from St. Louis Park, travelling about on an exciting personal journey to illuminate the whole everything (particularly the Middle East) for confused American liberals. Yet he seems to sugarcoat the corruption inherent in the way America has managed so much. Does he pull it off?
Why didn't nations organize militarily against the U.S.? Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," answers: "One prominent international relations school ? the realists ? argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. ? and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used."Oh dear, the lack of weapons of mass destruction is blowing a mess all over the place. Paul Krugman is pounding away as usual today on the Bush crew and their addiction to 'spin.'
There is another reason for this nonmilitary response. America's emergence as the hyperpower is happening in the age of globalization, when economies have become so intertwined that China, Russia, France or any other rivals cannot hit the U.S. without wrecking their own economies.
The only people who use violence are rogues or nonstate actors with no stakes in the system, such as Osama bin Laden. Basically, he is in a civil war with the Saudi ruling family. But, he says to himself, "The Saudi rulers are insignificant. To destroy them you have to hit the hegemonic power that props them up ? America."
Hence, 9/11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon ? a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally ? turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of us, a mood reinforced by the Bush team's unilateralism. With one swipe of our paw we smash the Taliban. Then we turn to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, "Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used." That is what the whole Iraq debate was about. People understood Iraq was a war of choice that would affect them, so they wanted to be part of the choosing. We said, sorry, you don't pay, you don't play.
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters ? a group that includes a large segment of the news media ? obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.Sounds like nothing but liberal excuses to me. Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken got in a huge argument over liberal media bias on CSPAN. However what was shown on TV was edited to provide its own perspective. (The fair and balanced Fox News story) I can't seem to find a transcript of the argument around, but here is a story about the whole book fair they were at, which seems to have been overtly political this year. (AP)If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent ? who supported Britain's participation in the war ? writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."
?The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is." ?Dick Cheney the Experienced Liberator, 1996. (Quote from the excellent collection of war-related documents and evidence, cooperativeresearch.org. Thx to Schwartz)
The war plows on as Americans are forced away from every major Iraqi city. Lacking the popular favor to safely attack ancient Arab cities, they have been forced into waiting and firing blind missiles and bombs... You can say they are smart and that they minimize civilian casualties. ONLY PEACE minimizes civilian casualties.
So how can we perceive what is going on? Media chickens ride along with the American troops, unable to describe the random tactics of the Anglo-Saxon "coalition." They cannot directly expose the flip side, the lives of people who are actually getting the life bombed out of them by American planes. The media plays elusive games, obsessing over rumors of Saddam's duplication while ignoring what he has to say. With all these reporters driving around the desert in humvees, there have often been vast stretches of time where human interest stories flood out everything else. Because Iraq is not turning over like the neocon 'idealists' predicted. So what do you do to get the real story? One excellent site is The Agonist, with constant news updates from all sides. Want to know how smart YOU are? Take the Iraq quiz. Thx again to Schwartz!
Un-embedded and longtime war reporter Robert Fisk covers Baghdad, outside the walls of media censorship. From the scene of at least 20 dead innocent Arabs in Baghdad:
It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still smoldering car. Two missiles from a single American jet killed them all ? more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be ?liberated? by the nation which destroyed their lives.It is all too likely that we have stumbled badly in managing the political climate of the Middle East prior to engaging Saddam. Robert Fisk reported yesterday from outside Baghdad:Who dares, I ask myself, to call this ?collateral damage?? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning. It?s a dirt poor neighborhood ? of mostly Shiite Muslims, the same people whom Messers Bush and Blair still fondly hope will rise up against Saddam ? a place of oil-sodden car repair shops, overcrowded apartments and cheap cafes.
A senior Iraqi business executive wanted to explain how slender was the victory the Americans were claiming. "Throughout history, Iraq has been called Mesopotamia," he said. "This means 'the land between the two rivers'. So unless you are between the two rivers, this means you are not in Iraq. General Franks should know this." Alas for the businessman, the US Marines were, as we spoke, crossing the Euphrates under fire at Nasiriyah yesterday as hundreds of women and children fled their homes between the bridges. But still, by yesterday evening, only 50 or so American tanks had made it to the eastern shore, into "Mesopotamia". It didn't spoil the man's enthusiasm.Fisk also had an excellent interview with Democracy Now on March 25th. How experienced do TV reporters sound, really? How much do they bother considering a history that is longer than 12 years?"Can you imagine the effect on the Arabs if Iraq gets out of this war intact?" he asked. "It took just five days for all the Arabs to be defeated by Israel in the 1967 war. And already we Iraqis have been fighting the all-powerful Americans for five days and still we have held on to all of our cities and will not surrender. And imagine what would happen if Iraq surrendered. What chance would the Syrian leadership have against the demands of Israel? What chance would the Palestinians have of negotiating a fair deal with the Israelis? The Americans don't care about giving the Palestinians a fair deal. So why should they want to give the Iraqis a fair deal?"
This was no member of the Baath Party speaking. This was a man with degrees from universities in Manchester and Birmingham. A colleague had an even more cogent point to make. "Our soldiers know they will not get a fair deal from the Americans," he said. "It's important that they know this. We may not like our regime. But we fight for our country. The Russians did not like Stalin but they fought under him against the German invaders. We have a long history of fighting the colonial powers, especially you British. You claim you are coming to 'liberate' us. But you don't understand. What is happening now is we are starting a war of liberation against the Americans and the British."
....As the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said a few hours ago, I was listening to him in person, the Americans expected to be greeted with roses and music- and they were greeted with bullets. I think you see what has happened is that -- and as he pointed out -- the American administration and the US press lectured everybody about how the country would break apart where Shiites hated Sunnis and Sunnis hated Turkmen and Turkmen hated Kurds, and so on. And yet, most of the soldiers fighting in southern Iraq are actually Shiite. They?re not Sunnis, they?re not Tikritis, they?re not from Saddam?s home city. Saddam did not get knocked off his perch straight away, and I think that, to a considerable degree, the American administration allowed that little cabal of advisors around Bush- I?m talking about Perle, Wolfowitz, and these other people?people who have never been to war, never served their country, never put on a uniform- nor, indeed, has Mr. Bush ever served his country- they persuaded themselves of this Hollywood scenario of GIs driving through the streets of Iraqi cities being showered with roses by a relieved populace who desperately want this offer of democracy that Mr. Bush has put on offer-as reality.In a critical development, an Iraqi Shi'ite leader declared that the United States must leave the country immediately after Hussein is toppled, or they will soon face armed resistance. The leader of the Iraqi Shiite Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, declared that "The world does not approve of any colonialism or occupation, and we will take peaceful measures in this respect at the beginning but we will use force later." So much for those multi-year Halliburton contracts that have already been signed.And the truth of the matter is that Iraq has a very, very strong political tradition of strong anti-colonial struggle. It doesn?t matter whether that?s carried out under the guise of kings or under the guise of the Arab Socialist Ba?ath party, or under the guise of a total dictator. There are many people in this country who would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I?m sure, but they don?t want to live under American occupation...
...Very soon, the Americans are going to need the United Nations as desperately as they wanted to get rid of them. Because if this turns into the tragedy that it is turning into at the moment, if the Americans end up, by besieging Baghdad day after day after day, they?ll be looking for a way out, and the only way out is going to be the United Nations at which point, believe me, the French and the Russians are going to make sure that George Bush passes through some element of humiliation to do that. But that?s some way away. Remember what I said early on to you. The Americans can do it- they have the firepower. They may need more than 250,000 troops, but if they?re willing to sacrifice lives of their own men, as well as lives of the Iraqis, they can take Baghdad; they can come in.
But, you know, I look down from my balcony here next to the Tigris River- does that mean we?re going to have an American tank on every intersection in Baghdad? What are they there for- to occupy? To repress? To run an occupation force against the wishes of Iraqis? Or are they liberators? It?s very interesting how the reporting has swung from one side to another. Are these liberating forces or occupying forces? Every time I hear a journalist say ?liberation?, I know he means ?occupation?. We come back to the same point again which Mr. (Richard) Perle will not acknowledge; because this war does not have a UN sanction behind it?I mean not in the sense of sanctions but that it doesn?t have permission behind it, it is a war without international legitimacy, and the longer it goes on, the more it hurts Bush and the less it hurts Saddam. And we?re now into one week, and there isn?t even a single American soldier who has even approached the city of Baghdad yet. And the strange thing, looking at it from here in Baghdad, is the ad hoc way in which this war appears to be carried out.
You need to read this: Thank God for the Death of the United Nations by Richard Perle:
...For Lady Williams (and many others), the thumb on the scale of judgment about this war is the idea that only the UN security council can legitimise the use of force. It matters not if troops are used only to enforce the UN's own demands. A willing coalition of liberal democracies isn't good enough. If any institution or coalition other than the UN security council uses force, even as a last resort, "anarchy", rather than international law, would prevail, destroying any hope for world order.Yes, if you believe that 3 of 5 permanent members of the Security Council will never agree to your aggression and advocacy of military hegemony, then the UN has little value. But is Perle after Israel's regional hegemony, or America's? Is there a difference these days?This is a dangerously wrong idea that leads inexorably to handing great moral and even existential politico-military decisions, to the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France. When challenged with the argument that if a policy is right with the approbation of the security council, how can it be wrong just because communist China or Russia or France or a gaggle of minor dictatorships withhold their assent, she fell back on the primacy of "order" versus "anarchy"....
This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN.
