informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica
Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.
Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors
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30.10.06
Headline, first sentence:
Telegraph UK:
Lula on brink of victory thanks to the grateful poor
When voters in the sun-drenched resort of Recife on Brazil's north-eastern coast went to elect a president four years ago, many of them had to climb from their precarious homes perched on stilts along the seafront, negotiating rats, sewage and open sea to reach the polling station
Brazzil Magazine:
Lula's Win Keeps Brazil on Its Course far from Washington
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's resounding electoral victory with over 60 percent of the vote places Brazilian politics on a new footing.
Reuters UK:
Lula, Brazil's first working-class president
Whether escaping from rural poverty with his family on the back of a truck or leading auto workers in huge strikes against a military dictatorship, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has shown a stubborn resolve
EuroNews:
Second term for Brazilian President
The Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has won a landslide victory in the second round of the country's election.
OhMyNews Int'l:
Lula Re-elected in Brazil
Election day in Brazil the polls have just closed (10 p.m. Local time, 10 a.m. KST). With 128 million votes counted, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has won 68 percent of total valid votes against 39 percent for Geraldo Alkimim.
Mail&Guardian SA:
Re-elected Lula to champion Brazil's poor
Celebrating a landslide re-election, Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed on Sunday to fight for social justice while spurring economic growth.
People's Daily:
Brazil's president re-elected
Brazil's Presiednt Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, candidate of the Workers' Party, won a second term in the presidential runoff with Geraldo Alckmin, Brazil's electoral court announced on Sunday.
Headline, first sentence:
New York Times:
Brazil's President Re-elected in Landslide
Overcoming a series of corruption and political scandals that tarred his image and undermined his credibility...
Washington Post:
Despite Corruption, Lula Wins in Brazil
Lula's victory in Brazil does not mean the people have acquitted him of all the corruption scandals of his first term
Washington Post:
Brazil's Leftist President Re-Elected
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a landslide victory giving him a powerful mandate to press his anti-poverty campaign, but corruption scandals dogging his leftist party and thinner support in Congress...
LA Times:
Brazil's Lula captures a second term
subhead - The leftist president shakes off doubts and scandals and rolls to a landslide victory
A chastened President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a landslide victory Sunday...
Arkansas Democrat Gazette:
Brazilian soy farmers riled at Silva
Three years ago, farmers raced to plant more soybeans from Brazil's rolling southern hills all the way to the Amazon, profiting handsomely...
29.10.06
Yadanabon Silicon Village:
Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Commander-in-Chief (Army) Vice-Senior General Maung Aye yesterday morning inspected the Yadanabon Myothit Project in PyinOoLwin Township, Mandalay Division where Teleport and Incubation will be constructed, and gave necessary instructions.The New Light of Myanmar
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link path
Inside Myanmar's secret capital
Clive Parker /AsiaTimes
unbiased unprejudicial and strictly informative:
Federal police in riot gear and armored cars took up positions on the outskirts of this southern Mexican city on Sunday, as leftist protesters who have taken charge of the streets stood firm at their barricades of tree trunks and hijacked trucks.Stevenson/ABC 29.Oct.06
...the federal presence appeared designed to bolster law and order ahead of their return. But some strikers and their leftist supporters were outlining plans for street-by-street resistance...
...said police action could occur if there was another violent incident like Friday's killing of a U.S. activist-journalist and two local residents...
...Protest sympathizers gathered on Saturday in the nearly deserted, graffiti-smeared main plaza the arch-ringed square normally abuzz with tourists and vendors to mourn Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York, who was killed during a shootout between protesters and men they claim were local officials...
...U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in a statement that those who shot Will may have been Oaxaca police...
Local police officers often out of uniform have staged sporadic attacks on protesters, who themselves have been blamed in at least one death...
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They have classes in this shit, right?
Some place you can go learn how to write like that.
It's that simpering mincing thing, that get-right-next-to-the-line and shuffle your feet til it disappears. What line?
Truth? I don't got to show you no stinkin truth.
Simple techniques like "Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York, who was killed during a shootout between protesters and men they claim" where Will is followed by killed followed by shootout followed by protestors and men they claim.
The logic of it is the protestors did it and now are lying about it, even though the words don't technically, legally, say that.
That's propaganda, folks!
The way it's written the police are placed in opposition to the killing, but they did it.
"They" inasmuch as the official chain of command is energized by whatever it is down there that's fighting to stay on top.
A big mutant reptile with its fangs in the neck of the peasantry.
Thrashing its tail while the reporter imagines the praise and bonus from his handlers in Arlington and Langley.
28.10.06
Oaxaca:
Tres muertos y varios heridos por enfrentamientos armados en Oaxaca
-A U.S. journalist and two Mexican men were killed by gunfire in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, where leftist protesters have barricaded streets and occupied government buildings for five months in a bid to oust the governor. Several other people were injured.Romero/AP/Chron 28.Oct.06
-At last report, Will was one of five people who died in the last day, along with 17 wounded, as paramilitaries and federal police poured in to retake the city, according to Centro de Medias Libres. The city had been in the hands of the workers for five months. Will is the first American to be killed in the months-long confrontation.Indybay/Indymedia 27.Oct.06
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Al Giordano on Brad Will
27.10.06
President Vicente Fox has vowed to end the conflict
before he leaves office:
Gunmen opened fire on protesters in Mexico's colonial city of Oaxaca on Friday, killing a U.S. journalist and wounding several people at road blocks set up by leftists pushing to topple a state governor.Reuters/Alertnet 28.Oct.06
Will Bradley Roland, a cameraman working with Indymedia New York, was shot in the chest and died before reaching the hospital, the independent news group said on its Web site.
Emergency services said the journalist died after being shot in the torso in one of two shootouts in the city.
Nine people, mostly protesters, have been killed in a conflict that began in Oaxaca state five months ago, when striking teachers and leftist activists occupied much of the state capital, a popular tourist destination.
25.10.06
Hello Google
"Google Custom Search Engine"
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hello
Google Custom Search Engine
also this promising addition to the Google news search engine:
archive search
with a timeline
24.10.06
a decent Arctic civilization with a very reduced number of people in the not too distant future:
Palmer, Lovelock, and Hoffert at Seed on global warming
acquitted of conspiring to brainwash:
The 64-year-old musician, who admitted to belonging to the Solar Temple cult during his trial in 2001, is accused of encouraging cult members to a "transit towards the star Sirius"swissinfo 24.Oct.06
a truly Faustian bargain:
You can see a close-up of some of that futility in the new book "Design Like You Give a Damn" from the nonprofit Architecture for Humanity, a book that is lovely in every sense of the word. The group started by sponsoring a competition for new shelters for refugees, and the range of replacements that people thought up for canvas tents makes clear just how much talent is currently going to waste designing McMansions. There are inflatable hemp bubbles and cardboard outhouses and dozens of other designs and prototypes for the world's poorest people and biggest disasters. As time went on, the group also collected photos and plans for attractive buildings around the world: health clinics that generate their own power, schools cheap enough for communities to construct. Still, there's something sad about the entire project -- most of these designs have never been carried out, because the architects lacked the political savvy or influence to get them adopted by relief agencies or national governments. When there's a disaster, relief agencies still haul out the canvas tents.Bill McKibben/Salon 24.Oct.06
[...]
The technology we need most badly is the technology of community -- the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair at least in part because the prosperity that flowed from cheap fossil fuel has allowed us all to become extremely individualized
Bunnies in trouble:
Landslides caused by feral rabbits have destroyed fragile penguin colonies on a remote Australian island near Antarctica, and millions more seabirds are under threat, the environmental group WWF said on Tuesday. A plague of more than 100,000 introduced rabbits on World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island has stripped native tussock grasses, causing loss of nest cover at breeding grounds.RSOE 24.Oct.06
an infant analog to post-traumatic stress disorder:
In a statement, the Doctors Opposing Circumcision said the judge's ruling protected "the boy's legal right to bodily integrity."Reuters 024.10.06
"Male circumcision in an irreversible amputation of functional tissue," it added.
"The ruling opens a very interesting question," said the group's John Geisheker. "If the benefits of circumcision are not available to a 9-year-old, what does that say about infants?"
At least one study has shown infants that have been circumcised later show a greater sensitivity to pain, "an infant analog to post-traumatic stress disorder," Geisheker said.
On the opposing side, one study suggested an uncircumcised penis may be more prone to becoming infected with HIV.
The practice of circumcising infant males is rare in Europe, while it is declining but remains common in the United States.
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The Ashley Montagu Campaign Against the Torture and Mutilation of Children
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An unbiased clip:
John Geisheker, a Seattle attorney who specializes in botched circumcision cases, is hoping for a new wave of cases based on the success of the New York case.
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A biased clip:
"Everyone I hear are waving their arms and saying we don't have a stick big enough to hit back at this issue," Tinari announces. "I've come to the conclusion, after years of studying, that no appeal to morality will ever end circumcision. You have to make it so financially painful that it ends by punishing practitioners. How do you do that? I may have the tool that we've been looking for."
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One scientific study:
These men were living in Orange Farm, a neighborhood near Johannesburg, South Africa, with high rates of HIV transmission and an existing male circumcision rate of approximately 20%. Prior to this study, the researchers had conducted a feasibility pilot study that found that 70% of men would consider circumcision if it were beneficial and safe.
Subjects willing to be circumcised were then randomized to receive immediate circumcision or to wait 20 months for the procedure. In the intervention group, medical physicians removed the penile foreskin after administering local anesthetic and using sterile surgical procedures.
At 21 months, the researchers diagnosed 69 new HIV cases, 51 in the control group that had yet to be circumcised, and 18 in the group that had been circumcised, Dr. Auvert said. This translates into a 65% protective effect (with a 95% confidence interval of 40% to 80%).
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A serendipitous appointment:
The research, presented at the International AIDS Conference here, builds on last year's finding that circumcised heterosexual men are at least 60% less likely to contract HIV than their uncircumcised counterparts.
Kevin De Cock, MD, director of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS program, says that if the findings hold up, the global agency will issue guidelines backing the procedure for HIV prevention.
[...]
No one's really sure how circumcision might prevent infection with HIV, but De Cock offers several possibilities.
The foreskin is covered with a much thinner layer of cells than the penis, which could facilitate invasion by the virus, he says. Also, the foreskin has more cells that have targets for the virus, De Cock says.
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Sobering numbers:
Overall, 26% of individuals in Kisumu and 28% in Ndola were HIV-positive. In both sites, HIV prevalence in women was six times that in men among sexually active 15-19 year olds, three times that in men among 20-24 year olds, and equal to that in men among 25-49 year olds.
Told you:
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said on Tuesday he thought Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could win the White House in 2008 and that a potential Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, was too inexperienced.Tabassum Zakaria/swissinfo 24.Oct.06
Clinton, a New York Democrat who is running for re-election, is considered a likely contender for the White House in 2008. Obama, serving his first term as a U.S. senator from Illinois, has been touted recently as a possible candidate, something he said he would consider.
"I think Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate," Cheney said in an interview with Fox News Channel's "Hannity&Colmes" due to air on Tuesday evening.
23.10.06
Conditions In The Near East:
Report Of The American Military Mission To Armenia
From: Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, United States Army.
To: The Secretary of State.
Without visiting the Near East it is not possible for an American to realize even faintly the respect, faith, and affection with which our country is regarded throughout that region.JAMES G. HARBORD,
Whether it is the world-wide reputation which we enjoy for fair dealing, a tribute perhaps to the crusading spirit which carried us into the Great War, not untinged with hope that the same spirit may urge us into the solution of great problems growing out of that conflict, or whether due to unselfish and impartial missionary and educational influence exerted for a century, it is the one faith which is held alike by Christian and Moslem, by Jew and Gentile, by prince and peasant in the Near East.
It is very gratifying to the pride of Americans far from home.
Major General, United States Army, Chief of Mission.
On Board U. S. S. Martha Washington, October 16, 1919
[Armenia is] an area about as large as Montana, without political identity, but existing in 1914 in two parts, the eastern belonging to Russia, which consisted of Kars and Erivan, and some portions of the present territory of Azarbaijan: the remainder being Turkish Armenia, comprised in the Villayets of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diarbekir, Kharput, and Cilicia,
[...]
For over 12 of the 25 centuries of its history Armenia enjoyed independence within borders that shifted with the events of the times. Its last king, Leon VI, an exile from his own land, spent his last years in the effort to bring about an understanding between France and England, then in the struggle of the Hundred Years War, and actually presided at a peace conference near Boulogne in 1386, which brought about the understanding which led to the end of that war.
[...]
...though at an earlier period 16 Byzantine Emperors were of that race, and ruled the eastern Empire with distinction. Many individuals, and even colonies, however, played a part in distant lands. Europe, India, and Persia welcomed them. They were translators, bankers, scholars, artisans,
artists, and traders, and even under their tyrannical masters filled posts which called for administrative ability, became ambassadors and ministers, and more than once saved a tottering throne. They carried on trades, conducted commerce, and designed and constructed palaces. Nevertheless as a race they were forbidden military service, taxed to poverty, their property confiscated at pleasure, and their women forced into the harems of the conqueror. Such slavery leaves some inevitable and unlovable traces upon the character, but in the main the Armenian preserved his religion, his language, and his racial purity, persecution bringing cohesion.
[...]
In 1876 a constitution for Turkey was drawn up by the Armenian Krikor Odian, secretary to Midhat Pasha the reformer, and was proclaimed and almost immediately revoked by Sultan Abdul Hamid.
The foregoing inadequately sketches the story of the wrongs of Armenia down to our own times. From 1876 it is a story of massacre and of broken and violated guaranties.
[...]
On the route traveled by the mission fully 50,000 orphans are to-day receiving Government or other organized care. We estimate a total of perhaps half a million refugee Armenians as available to eventually begin life anew in a region about the size of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, to which would be added those, not refugees, who might return from other lands. The condition of the refugees seen in the Transcaucasus is pitiable to the last degree. They subsist on the charity of the American relief organizations with some help, not great, however, from their more prosperous kinsmen domiciled in that region. Generally they wear the rags they have worn for four years. Eighty per cent of them suffer from malaria, 10 per cent from venereal troubles, and practically all from diseases that flourish on the frontiers of starvation. There are also the diseases that accompany filth, loathsome skin troubles, and great numbers of sore eyes, the latter especially among the children. The hospitals are crowded...
[...]
All circumstances considered, the relief administration in the Trans-caucasus seems to have been conducted with more than average energy. It has rescued the refugees there from starvation, and brought the name of America to a height of sympathy and esteem it has never before enjoyed in this region. It extends now throughout the Near East, and is felt by the wild, ragged Kurd, the plausible Georgian, the suspicious Azarbaijan, the able Armenian, and the grave Turk with equal seriousness. With it or probably because of it there has come widespread knowledge of the Fourteen Points submitted by the President, and "self-determination" has been quoted to the mission by wild Arabs from Shamar and Basra, by every Government in Transcaucasia; by the mountaineers of Daghestan, the dignified and able chiefs of the Turkish Nationalist movement at Sivas and Erzerum, and the nomad Kurds who 10 minutes before had fired at our party thinking us to be Armenians.
[...]
Meantime, the Armenian, unarmed at the time of the deportations and massacres, a brave soldier by thousands in the armies of Russia, France, and America during the war, is still unarmed in a land where every man but himself carries a rifle.
Senate Document No. 266, 66th Congress, 2d Session. Washington
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Anna & Karen Vrtanesyan
Armenia House
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also:
Frequently Asked Questions about the Armenian Genocide
Armenian National Institute
["Copying any materials posted on the ANI website is strictly prohibited"]
Increasing intelligence indicates:
Sources in the Israeli military say that Israel would bomb Unifil sites in southern Lebanon if Israeli warplanes are intercepted.Aljazeera 22.Oct.06
An Israeli newspaper, Maarif, reported on Sunday that the statements came after several European countries which have been putting pressure on Israel to stop its violation of Lebanese air space.
[...]
Peretz said on Sunday that the purpose of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), was to act against Hezbollah and not Israel.
"Unifil is meant to act against Hezbollah and not against Israel," he said.
"Israel's security is the most important objective."
On July 27, Israeli warplanes bombed a UN observation centre in southern Lebanon and killed four observers.
[...]
Israel launched its war on July 12 after Hezbollah seized two soldiers and killed eight others in cross-border raids.
The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
22.10.06
Scattered thoughts whose pertinence is made somewhat moot by the lateness of the hour:
Graph the development and use of pesticides on tobacco crops and compare with the graph of cancers attributable to tobacco use.
As far as I know no one's talked about this as a plausible contributor, but also as far as I know tobacco isn't considered a food crop, and the regulation of pesticides on non-food crops is, and especially was in the 1950's and 60's, pretty lax. Smoking pesticides can't be good for you.
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Keeping in mind that men a lot like Dick Cheney and his cohort are running the domestic meat production industries, keeping in mind that chemical regulation of fat-accumulation in market meat animals - hormones etc. administered in large doses to speed weight gain - is a primary tool for profit-making in those industries, keeping in mind the total disregard for the common weal in and by those men and industries - is it unreasonable to question whether the epidemic of obesity in Americans may be at least in some part attributable to the ingestion of chemical residues carried in domestic factory-farmed meat?
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George Bush is now in the center of the target for responsibility for Iraq; and as Matt Stoller said the other day on C-SPAN, no one knows why we went there and did all that damage. It's the question, and it's going unanswered, at least publicly.
Leaving Iraq, now, without an answer to that question is not what you'd call a noble gesture, though it may be the only moral one available.
The problem is how neatly it fits - Bush: crazy, stupid, wrong, incompetent, gone.
How frantically the contest is spun as Democrats v. Republicans, as though all those Democrats didn't vote to invade, didn't vote to burn the Constitution, as if the ones who didn't weren't vilified and accused of treason.
Look how neatly the country's ready to move from bewilderment at the treachery of these present actors to the next batch,without much actually changing. The Patriot Act's not going to be repealed, Iraq's not going to be set back on its feet anytime soon.
The results remain and, if we're going to suggest Bush was used - which we are in fact suggesting, loudly - the next puppet "steps up" to fix things, though of course not to the point where Iraq has a strong independent economy with no American influence, and certainly we aren't going to fix Iraq to the point where it's a strong military presence in the Middle East again.
So if the idea all along was a two-fold scam - to break the country, militarily and economically, and to get access to Iraq's western oil fields - then it's an accomplished mission, and the next phase would be a "meet the new boss" gambit. A change of uniform and language, but business as usual.
19.10.06
A lawmaker who headed a Katrina task force says a Democratic-controlled House would look into insurance industry practices criticized for shifting the financial burden of Hurricane Katrina claims onto the taxpayer.WTVM
Congressman Gene Taylor of Mississippi says the Democratic task force is recommending a repeal of the federal antitrust exemption as it relates to price-fixing in the property insurance market. They also will recommend the creation of government-backed all-perils disaster insurance to close current gaps, particularly from flood damage.
Taylor, who lost his own southern Mississippi home in the 2005 storm, says the biggest Katrina fraud of them all was the insurance industry practice of declaring that hurricane damage was due to flooding - a federal government responsibility - rather than wind, covered by private insurance.
AP story
Biloxi Sun Herald
The insurance industry is opposed to most of the task force's recommendations.-
Gene Taylor was the sanest voice I heard come out of Katrina, and he's still making eminent sense, and taking principled rational stands for his constituency. He was on C-SPAN today.
One of his indisputable points is that if there ever is one of these "inevitable" terrorist attacks the fearlords are threatening everybody with - and justifying the suspension of rights to combat - it will be pretty much a note-for-note replay of Katrina in terms of disaster preparedness.
He made some graphic illustrations of how the mess in Iraq has drained the US of its disaster-relief capability - financially and logistically - we're missing manpower, equipment, and co-ordination.
John Tester, running for the Senate from Montana, is another guy that I hesitate to impugn with praise from this odd corner of things-as-they-are, but he's inspiring, the way Taylor is, because they're doing what a good man does in those circumstances - cut through the horseshit and defend what needs defending.
"It's not too hard to see bias in the news that's printed. What's a lot more difficult is to see the bias in the news that's not printed."
Left I
to forget...and to deal with today's reality:
Promoting religious tolerance, the world's most influential Buddhist leader said in Delhi last week that talk of "a clash of civilizations between the West and Muslim world is wrong and dangerous".Dalai Lama/MondayMorning
Muslim terrorist attacks have distorted people's views of Islam, making them believe it is an extremist faith rather than one based on compassion, the Dalai Lama told a press conference in the Indian capital.
Muslims are being unfairly stigmatized as a result of violence by "some mischievous people", said the Dalai Lama, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his work to bring democracy and freedom to his people.
"Alain Pellegrini" google news:
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we protest to the Israelis...
The commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon has said force may have to be used to stop repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese air space.Aljazeera 20.Oct.06
General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of the Unifil force in Lebanon, said on Thursday that the UN was relying on diplomacy to try to end the violations.
"If the diplomatic means should not be enough, maybe it could be considered other ways," he added, referring to the possible use of anti-aircraft missiles equipping French forces in Lebanon.
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to shoot down Israeli Air Force planes, which conduct surveillance flights in Lebanon to supervise...
Alain Pellegrino, the commander of United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), threatened Thursday to ask for guidelines allowing his troops to shoot down Israeli Air Force planes, which conduct surveillance flights in Lebanon to supervise terrorists' movements.Arutz Sheva 19.Oct.06
An officer of the 2,500 Italian contingent of UNIFIL added he is "upset overt the repeated violations by Israel."
UNIFIL did not address charges by Israel that Hizbullah is violating the United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution.
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Israel, for its part, has accused the U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, of doing nothing to disarm Hezbollah guerrillas in its and failing to prevent arms from being smuggled from neighbouring Syria.Reuters 19.Oct.06
But Pellegrini said only U.N. and Lebanese soldiers were legally allowed to have arms in the area.
"We have not spotted any illegal weapons" since arriving, he said. UNIFIL's area of operations is bordered by the Litani River to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and to the south by the "Blue Line" marking the Israel-Lebanon border.
Pellegrini said he also knew of no arms smuggling.
"I think all these moves fell off" after large numbers of UNIFIL and Lebanese troops moved in, he said.
The Lebanese troops working with UNIFIL were "well deployed along the border (with Syria) and they are doing a marvellous job," he said.
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The significance of the google news search would be the void where American news agencies' reportage should have been.
what we can see in the light of day:
Iraq's new government stands on the verge of a complete meltdown, faced with a crisis of legitimacy based largely on the fact that it is seen as collaborating with American forces.
...the real gem - what one oil consultant called the "Holy Grail" of the industry - lies in Iraq's vast western desert. It's one of the last "virgin" fields on the planet, and it has the potential to catapult Iraq to No. 1 in the world in oil reserves. Sparsely populated, the western fields are less prone to sabotage than the country's current centers of production in the north, near Kirkuk, and in the south near Basra. The Nation's Aram Roston predicts Iraq's western desert will yield "untold riches."Joshua Holland/Alternet 16.10.06
Iraq also may have large natural gas deposits that so far remain virtually unexplored
[...]
a recent poll asked Iraqis what they believed was the main reason for the invasion and 76 percent gave "to control Iraqi oil" as their first choice.
pt.2
18.10.06
...it does, it seems to me, open the door:
The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit US access to or use of space.Aljazeera 19.10.06
17.10.06
Prepare ye the way:
Over and over the set-up gets confirmed - as if George Bush was burning the Constitution in a public ritual of disavowal that leads in a directly linear progression to his own rise to emperor of the world.
It's very frustrating to keep encountering this.
The next level up, or in, would be that he's doing it for the Republican party. That he'll step out of the light in 2008 and his successor will take over, with the path ahead cleared of such obstacles as due process and free speech.
Which is accurate in form, but not in its particulars.
It seems obvious that none of that Democrat v. Republican sports-analog matters, not at a national level - locally yes, crucially, but nationally...
It seems obvious that anything powerful and amoral enough to direct Bush's actions in this way must exist entirely above and beyond partisan politics. Able to use Hillary Clinton as readily as it's used George Bush, and to the same non-partisan end.
It must be obvious now even to those who don't want to see it that whatever this is, it doesn't have the slightest loyalty to the American experiment, doesn't care about idealistic notions like liberty and democracy, and doesn't care at all about the preservation of those ideals, in fact sees them as dangerous threats.
It should be clearer daily that the fearful rhetoric saturating the airwaves is projection, self-description thrown out and away from the thing that's destroying America.
"...a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom".
Exactly.
and then it all went away:
A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.Mega/Scotsman 25.Aug.05
The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.
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xymphora and lenin's tomb
The rest were members of a disposable population of subhumans:
At least 20 Palestinians, most of them armed militants, were killed in Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip last week...Stahl/CNS 17.Oct.06
16.10.06
New Assigment gets funding
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link path Craig Newmark, eponymous developer of craigslist
Newmark was interviewed on C-SPAN 2 but C-SPAN online is a jungle of non-intuitive gormless maplessness, and their search engine is gormlessly worthless, and I can't remember the name of the show he was on.
If it had not been for her, no one would've known of our pain, we would've been all killed in silence, all of us. Please thank her for us.
15.10.06
Notes on television:
Antonin Scalia was on C-SPAN (though C-SPAN itself seems unaware of this) today, in a "Conversation about Civil Liberties" with someone from the ACLU, followed a little later by Andrew Sullivan. Scalia's a Supreme Court Justice, Sullivan's a blogger whose site gets around 100K hits a day.
Scalia's a Catholic, and a conservative.
Sullivan's a Catholic, a conservative, and gay.
Scalia is surprisingly humourous, to the boundaries of gaffe considering his power and position, openly religious, and intelligent.
Sullivan's sincere and forthright, openly gay without being effected, open about his religious quandaries with a conservative church and his political difficulties with a conservative community, to both of which he belongs and seeks to continue to belong, despite stern disapproval and bigoted condemnation of his lifestyle from elements in both.
The someone from the ACLU was Nadine Strossen. Oh, Nadine.
In response to Strossen's illustration of the inherent Protestant bias of things like posting the "ten commandments" in public places - that there are different versions other than the Protestant one - a Jewish version and a Catholic one, among others - Scalia scoffed, though warmly, and said he hadn't known until recently that there were any other versions. Rhetorically it blunted Strossen's point, but it was a trick, a diversion, and seems indicative of an internal state that's not conducive to clear insightful reasoning, let alone courage and rigor.
Scalia also said, in response to Strossen's attempt to separate the legislation of sexual morality as a protective response to potential harm from moral legislation as a continuation of received prejudice - that all societies have always legislated or codified sexual mores.
This is inarguable, but as a refutation of Strossen's distinction - between laws to ameliorate the potential for actual harm, to protect the weaker party in a relationship from coercion and abuse, and laws that are nothing more than simple prejudice trying to maintain itself - it was as intellectually rigorous as if he'd started quacking like a duck.
Something that wouldn't have been quite as startling as one would have thought before seeing and hearing him speak.
Most every society up to the 18th century practiced slavery of one kind or another, too. How that becomes an argument for the preservation of slavery into the present time is beyond me.
The push and pull of gay rights and the "defense of marriage" was illuminated in Sullivan's rap on Q&A as well.
But most striking in the bit I saw was the sincere and forthright delivery of his - one assumes now widely-shared - conservative befuddlement at an Administration that marched the country off to war in response to Sept. 11th 2001, and having successfully invaded and essentially conquered Iraq, militarily if not politically, discovered, when it arrived victorious in Baghdad, that it had absolutely no plans for what to do next.
Sullivan expressed his mystification at this in a sincere and forthright manner, but that's when I turned the sound down and picked up the guitar.
How anyone could manage to avoid thinking, at least for a second or two, that maybe, just maybe, what has transpired in Iraq was in fact the plan, that present conditions - no army, no air force, no internal security, no national coherence, no possibility of translating oil revenue into economic power and distributing that power to other groups and organizations - give or take a few hundred thousand dead Iraqis, a few thousand dead Americans, and a couple dozen destroyed hospitals and schools more or less - how anyone could not wonder that these conditions are exactly what was hoped for, planned for, and headed for all along, is beyond me as well.
Isn't that one of the first things a sensible person would ask themself about any big mess?
That maybe whoever did this wanted it to happen.
14.10.06
A white ribbon, draped across the lid of Bishop Alberto Ramento's open coffin, carried the words: "bishop of the poor, workers and peasants".
13.10.06
A forensic examiner said the first 15 minutes of the tape:
A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq unlawfully killed a British television journalist by shooting him in the head as he lay in the back of a makeshift ambulance during the opening days of the war.Wagner/Houston Chronicle 13.10.06
The widow of reporter Terry Lloyd called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted for the "despicable, deliberate, vengeful act." And Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would ask the attorney general to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for the death.
But prosecution of U.S. service members seemed unlikely.
Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman, said an investigation into the killing of Lloyd, 50, a veteran reporter for the British TV network ITN was completed in May 2003 and "determined that U.S. forces followed the applicable rules of engagement."
Just follow the Nimitz:
...three key facts.Jane Smiley/HuffPo 12.10.06
1. The deployment of mine sweepers and mine LAYERS to the Gulf.
2. The report that the Carrier groups are deploying to the west coast of Iran.
3. The Marine amphibious force deployment to the Gulf.
Add to this another key bit of info I remember: A caller to the Rhodes show in June reported that her son-in-law's Air Force Mid-air refueling wing was deploying to Iraq in June. Mid-air refueling is not needed for local air operations in Iraq as the refueling capability exists at the US bases there. The only need for such a capability is to refuel naval strike aircraft and Air Force Bomber wings coming from the US.
Ishmael1- in a comment at
12.10.06
Cave pater, cave patria:
A man has been charged with torturing his 9-year-old son by keeping him locked in a bedroom for much of the past three years, with a surveillance camera tracking his every move, authorities said Thursday.CBS 12.10.06
The home of Randall Warren Piercy, 41, was like a prison that had cameras in almost every room, with the father monitoring the boy on television and computer screens, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Lt. Annie Smith said.
Cave Canem:
The study reveals five U.S. state prison systems - Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah - authorized the use of large un-muzzled dogs to terrify and even attack prisoners to extract them from their cells.Democracy Now! 12.10.06
[...]
one of the best kept secrets in corrections in the United States, that there are prison systems that permit dogs, large un-muzzled attack dogs, usually German Shepherds, to be brought to the cell front, and bark and try and intimidate the prisoner into complying with orders to leave his cell. If the prisoner doesn't comply, the cell door is opened, the dog goes in and bites the prisoner and stays holding on, jaws clamped on the prisoner at whatever limb the dog can get, until he's called off...
Eelam, Eelam:
On August 22, 2006 two complaints were unsealed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with multiple crimes under the United States Code. The eight defendants were charged [with] conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers). Four of the defendants were arrested on Long Island, New York, on August 19, 2006, after three of them traveled to New York from Canada to attempt to purchase from an agent acting in an undercover capacity Russian-made SA18 surface-to-air missiles, missile launchers, AK-47s, and other weapons to be used by the LTTE in its rapidly escalating conflict against the Sri Lankan military.tamiltigers.net 22.08.06
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TamilCanadian news
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Tamiltigers.net
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JAFFNA: Tigers suffered innumerable losses during the retaliatory attacks by the Security Forces at the terrorist's offensive shelling and the ground attacks on the FDLs at MUHAMALAI and KILALY yesterday (11) and have now resorted to strain the innocent Tamil civilians in the uncleared areas for assistance to recuperate from the situation.Media Center for National Security 12.10.06
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Twenty two Sri Lanka Army troopers were killed and 113 injured when LTTE retaliated advancing SLA troopers towards the LTTE territory from SLA Muhamalai Defence Line Wednesday, military sources in Colombo said. Major clashes between Liberation Tigers and Sri Lanka Security forces took place in Thenmarachy Forward Defence Lines (FDLs) and seas along littoral villages from Kilali to Sangupiddy along Jaffna lagoon from early morning Wednesday.Tamilnet 11.10.06
Watch the orange flames ravage the apartmentI didn't, but you can if you want to. CNN thinks you might want to. CNN hopes you want to. CNN is in the business of wanting you to want to.
11.10.06
no comparable way :
...an eight-day, James Bond-style quest behind the scenes of Israel's conflict with Palestinian militants.Baker/swissinfo/Swiss Radio International 11.10.06
For a little less than $2,000 and a donation to a centre that sues countries and groups it accuses of militant links, participants are promised briefings from Israeli spies, a visit to a West Bank checkpoint, tours of the Lebanese frontlines and trips in light aircraft over northern Israel.
"Experience a dynamic and intensive eight-day exploration of Israel's struggle for survival and security in the Middle East today," reads the promotional material for the tours.
Highlights listed on the organiser's Web site include:
* "Inside tour of the Israel Air Force unit that carries out targeted killings"
* "Meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence"
* "Meetings with senior cabinet ministers and other key policymakers"
10.10.06
US forces do not yet know the cause:
Withington said: "We have a fire. An ammunition holding area caught on fire. It's in our operating base in the Rasheed area of the city. The ammunition holding area contains tank and artillery rounds as well as small arms ammunition."
Two hours after the fire broke out a regular drumbeat of explosions could still be heard five kilometres [2.4 miles] away in the city centre, a barrage more intense than Baghdad's daily diet of car bombs and mortar strikes.Aljazeera 11.10.06
can't see it from here:
Major Mori said four other Guantanamo detainees had corroborated another claim by Mr Hicks that he and other detainees were subjected to random beatings by their guards.Richard Baker/Herald AU/Common Dreams 10.10.06
He said the US Navy investigation did not accept the testimony because the detainees were hooded and could not visually confirm the allegations.
Editorial: Threat from North Korea requires unified response
San Antonio Express-News
China: N.Korea Must Be Punished for Test
CBS
China urges calm after N.Korea triggers alarm
Reuters
China, other powers say N. Korea should be punished
ABC
Diplomacy sought over nuclear test
China Daily
Chinese-North Korean border closed for holiday
IHT
China urges DPRK to keep calm
Xinhua
Bush administration rejects talks with North Korea
McClatchy
"We're more likely to solve this issue peacefully when we've got people like Japan and China and South Korea and Russia saying the exact same thing as the United States to the man in North Korea," Bush said.
ABC
Russia and China may stand in way of united response to nuclear test
IndependentUK
Japan suspects second N. Korean nuclear test
CTV
9.10.06
subjected to a heavy-handed attempt:
"The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure," Kasprzyk said. "That's obvious -- we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that."Just World News/Helena Cobban 09.10.06
scattered thoughts:
Lots of rough and tough hombres out there, and some mujeres too, will express their revulsion toward certain acts of moral failure - depending on their ethical orientation and their places in the economic food chain, with a soupcon of life-experience thrown in.
"I would never do that."
End of story.
Therefore anyone who would do that is pariah, disposable, wrong, evil - whatever fits.
But that's the whole point of torture right?
Dude's all up on the get-the-infidels presence and intent and would never, ever, never give in or buckle, would never spill. Not ever.
Won't talk, can't be made to talk, won't, can't, won't...
Well yeah.
So then where is circumstance in that?
Can the random hits of upbringing and environment collapse the will?
Can circumstance conspire to break a human being - to "make them talk" or otherwise violate their own moral code?
When is poverty synonymous with waterboarding? Ever?
No? And aren't the voices of disagreement the same ones saying they would never do that? That it's not in them to do that?
What happens to the other aspects of will in those who've been broken to make them talk?
What happens then to the social and personal moralities that we all carry? Do they remain intact when someone's been broken in those chambers we've been seeing so graphically hinted at lately?
Is torture that precise?
Any research in the files? Think the Mengelians left any documentation on that? Think the neo-Mengelians have gathered any?
These questions will always lead back to the twilight horizon of the metaphysical and supernatural, because at some point in the discussion you'll have to commit to a view of "circumstance" that's either random, or a controlled display of will from a higher source - or from an other source, not necessarily higher but exercising more shaping control on our lives than most of us can get our minds around.
If it's random then your moral superiority evaporates, and you can't pull that "I would never" posture because you would - you just haven't been broken; if it's controlled from outside the observable system, if these situations and conditions are part of some larger design, then it would behove you to align yourself accordingly.
Either way the smug confidence of the statement has no validity - it's a product of shelter and privilege.
8.10.06
common property:
Had the Americans been steadfast in upholding the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty by reducing their nuclear weapons and respecting the sovereignty and independence of the non-nuclear states, North Korea would not have felt any need to defend itself with nuclear weapons.Kim Myong Chol
"Unofficial" spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea (DPRK)
Asia Times 06.10.06
we need a more serious remedy:
Ali Mohamed... trained most of al Qaeda's top leadership - including Bin Laden and Zawahiri - and most of al Qaeda's top trainers. He gave some training to persons who would later carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. From 1994 until his arrest in 1998, he lived as an American citizen in California, applying for jobs as an FBI translator.Peter Dale Scott/Global Research 08.10.06
Patrick Fitzgerald knew Ali Mohamed well. In 1994 he had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York landmarks case, yet allowed him to remain free. This was because, as Fitzgerald knew, Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989.
Thus, from 1994 "until his arrest in 1998 [by which time the 9/11 plot was well under way], Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries."
Shortly after 9/11, Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States.
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link uruk
7.10.06
Hannah Arendt, 100 Years Later:
Quoting Sophocles's suggestion that freedom can "endow life with splendor," Arendt called freedom the raison d'etre of politics. The highest political action, she thought, is free speech in public about public affairs.Benjamin Balint/Forward 06.10.06
Hence Arendt's lofty regard for the wisdom of the American Revolution - and her fear that contemporary Americans are in danger of forgetting it. For such people as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, she wrote, "life in Congress, the joys of discourse, of legislation, of transacting business, of persuading and being persuaded, were a foretaste of eternal bliss." A sophisticated indulgence of those joys and freedoms - together with an awareness of the urgent necessity to protect them where they are threatened - may be just the thing to counter the bleak vision of eternal bliss that animates today's would-be totalitarians.
illegal workers:
A nineteen-year old Israeli security officer who shot and killed a Palestinian worker in Jaffa Wednesday lied under investigation, but was still released the same day, according to Israeli sources. The police investigation revealed that the officer cocked his weapon unprovoked, contrary to the officer's original version that Palestinian tried to snatch his weapon. The teen subsequently confessed to having lied about the worker attempting to grab the weapon. Police released him on bail the same day, saying he would be charged with 'improper use of a firearm'.Bethlehem Ghetto 07.10.06
6.10.06
Quit being a pussy:
"He was just mad that they kept letting him go when he was a known terrorist, sir," Bacos said. "He was detained and released three times, sir."Tanner/Reuters 06.10.06
Yet the squad did not find their intended target - whose name was Saleh Gowad - and instead seized Awad next door, Bacos said.
The U.S. command in Baghdad reported Wednesday it suffered the most bombings last week since the insurgency began, and at least 21 American soldiers have been killed since Saturday.both links via Small Wars Journal
"This has been a hard week for U.S. forces," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, chief military spokesman in Baghdad.
Scarborough/WashingtonTimes
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A son, nephew and grandson of American veterans, Mr. Newbill said he had sought out the videos, searching on YouTube for "I.E.D.," "because I like watching stuff blow up."
Wyatt/NYTimes
"a little more than a month after he defied the media conglomerate's demands for staff cuts that he suggested could damage the newspaper"The Tribune Company fires LATimes publisherJeff Johnson:
Native Intelligence 05.10.06previous ditches, low points, disaster areas, self-imposed crises at The [LA]Times
LAObserved
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story in the aforementioned journal
story in the NYTimes
Robert Scheer fired by Jeff Johnson in Nov. '05
5.10.06
to other states without their consent:
"Our prisons are now beyond maximum capacity, and we must act immediately and aggressively to resolve this issue," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.Warren/LATimes 05.10.06
Prisoner rights advocates questioned the timing of the announcement.
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"We simply must do everything in our power to slow down global warming before it's too late."
Despite leading the nation in energy efficiency standards and control of automobile emissions, California is the 12th largest emitter of carbon in the world. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took another step toward a cleaner worldwide environment and fullfilled a campaign pledge Thursday by signing a bill to fight against global climate change.Xinhua 29.09.06
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Turn the prisoners into fuel. Better than the death penalty all the way around, and many in the gas-buying public will get great satisfaction knowing they're burning low-emissions felons on their way to work.
these chips in the bright mosaic:
Just before dawn last Saturday, Italian filmmaker Angelo Rizzo awoke to flames at the doorstep of his house.
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...the fact that they lost the computer
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The female flower merchants were arrested after police attempts to evict them got out of hand and they clashed with police.
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...lifted a warning against eating fresh spinach other than products that had already been recalled by Natural Selection.
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"Our people actually have jobs, so they can't go to the hotel and try to get lucky and eat the bagels and do stuff and chase each other up and down the halls," he said.
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"I've never felt out of the mainstream in America. I've felt out of the mainstream at Le Cirque."
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James Packer
Who: Executive chairman of Australia's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd. and Australia's richest man
Controls: The Nine Network, a major Australian TV station, as well as
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"an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites,"
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it's arguably 60% of the GDP right now
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Remember, Izzy had no access to classified information whatever. Remember, the FBI hounded him for decades seeking to find something to pin on him and found nothing.
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Sam Bodman, the energy secretary, said he would tell Opec ministers that the world still needed all the oil they could pump as they head into winter...
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So far, the investigation into the leak has cost $1.44 million, according to Fitzgerald's office.
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...the day when police in Milan arrested the members of a private espionage ring. It was headquartered in the security department at Telecom Italia, where software programs...
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a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period
the good news keeps on coming:
While Washington insiders were distracted with a Capitol Hill sex scandal - and while media outlets and politicians are doing all they can to keep the story alive - the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its second, consecutive record high on Wednesday. Also, President Bush signed into law a homeland-security spending bill that frees up funds for a U.S.-Mexico border fence...CNSNews 05.10.06
4.10.06
Silva, a leftist, fell just shy of the 50 percent needed for an outright win in Sunday's first round, topping the conservative former Sao Paulo Gov. Geraldo Alckmin 48.6 percent to 41.6 percent.leftist v. conservative
as opposed to liberal v. or progressive v. I guess
definitely as opposed to v. rightist
though of course leftist v. rightist is the symmetrical choice
but it doesn't scan
doesn't make for good poetry
Laingian:
It's okay for people to do bad things
to people who do bad things
Spam:
It works on gullibility, also on the cut-corners mentality that most any striver's subject to, looking for a way around the daily grind.
There's a spam phenomenon working in the polis too, in the American people, it's what was tapped to put Bush in office - it's fluxing now, the amalgam's precipitating, but it's still that same idea.
Only with real spam you can tell yourself - well, this Nigerian person with the son dying of cancer and the 14 million dollars in a bank in Cote d'Ivoire wants to get my bank acct. #'s, or my credit card #'s, or some other ticket into my worldly goods.
What's being scammed in the political arena is something the people don't even know they have - the tremendous might of the electorate, the latent power of the will of the people - which is compounded of millions of the powerless, people who feel they have no power at all, who feel their will makes no difference.
So here's some charismatic someone offering them power, a way to make the world conform to their values and expectations, in exchange for almost nothing, or what seems like nothing.
Votes, or small cash donations, or simply paying attention to a few subliminal messages.
Spam.
3.10.06
under the condition where safety is firmly:
PYONGYANG, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday announced that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future as war deterrent against the U.S. hostile policy.Xinhua 03.10.06
In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, DPRK said "the field of scientific research of the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
[...]
DPRK also affirmed that it would strive to "realize the denuclearization of the {Korean} peninsula and give impetus to the worldwide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons."
The statement accused the United States of adopting a hostile policy towards DPRK, saying that's why it must conduct a nuclear test as a way of bolstering war deterrent.
"Under the present situation... the U.S. moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK have reached the worst phase, going beyond the extremity," it said.
"The DPRK can no longer remain an on-looker to the developments," it added. Enditem
2.10.06
life, liberty and the pursuit:
...legislation now marching up to the Republican White House for signature, has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else George W. Bush deems to be an enemy.William Rivers Pitt/truthout 29.08.06
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A lot of good minds are trying to get next to this latest signifier - there's shrugs and cynical laughter, shock and nervousness, bitter negativity, sorrow, the atomization of fragile communities as groups collapse around nuclei of helplessness.
Bleak - aching and empty out to the horizon, and the gloating behind us - well we'll get to the gloating later.
It isn't Bush, he doesn't even exist anymore except as a lunchbox full of soundbites. And as Rivers Pitt makes clear, the personal theme is the undeniable linear movement toward this moment, all those steps, all that sensible denial of what so frighteningly led right to here. And goes on from here, now.
It feels almost inevitable, like watching the skin of a bubble go from that swirling rainbow of bright glistening profusion to gold then silver metallic then colorless black white and gray, just before it pops.
The pigs can track anyone entering the country down to the minutest detail of locus.
Placing the emphasis for the utilization of that power on Bush is another, firmer, deeper form of denial.
This is preparation, it's like watching something prepare for its own birth.
What thing?
The tradition I was raised in would call it Satan, but that tradition has, at least for me, been degraded in too many ways to get and keep my blind trust.
The binary has too much of the shell game to it, diversion and misdirection, that building up of false confidence in the rube so he'll go with what his senses tell him has to be.
Terrorism's a false flag, we know that. What they're really afraid of is something else.
Jesus, maybe. Joan of Arc. Spartacus. D'Artagnan. Rosa Luxemberg. Thomas Paine.
Something like a Messiah. Or Subcommandante Marcos for the gringo world.
Those of us who don't have those kinds of bones can write our names, and arrows, on the walls of the maze.
The one consistent mistake the privileged left has been making all along has been the underestimation of its enemy, following the misdirection toward an empty shell. The near-drooling idiocies of fundamentalism, the illogic and overt hypocrisy of the barking mad right. These were, and are proving themselves to have been, masks.
But the alternative is to have no word to name it with, or to use the ones it gives us, to have no one to point with precision at except Bush and Rumsfeld and the rest of that collection of masks - the public faces it wears.
I have visions of a kind now and again, small things, clips, like youtube videos - a giant made out of babies sitting spread-eagle in an empty parking lot, Moloch at the PTA meeting with an antique dress on, lipstick on its monstrous telegenic smile - stuff like that.
On the other hand, I've always had this problem of seeing the humanity of what hates me, of what wants to hurt me, the mammalian commonality, the relation of living, of identification with anything that's alive, doing what it needs to do to live.
It weakens the defiance, makes for a pulled punch. That guy who's got you trained in his gunsight is just protecting his young, like any other creature would. The fascist leather-and-steel regulations that bind us in tighter and tighter now - just things to make it safer for the pigs to raise their families.
I tried a bunch of times to get to the gist of it, the kernel of the locked forces of the present - what it is that has to be recognized; it's still elusive but it comes down to something like
Make them remember you. Make it count.
1.10.06
The options are many:
"We have developed an ability to look harder and broader in a greatly enhanced way to see if there is any crossover," Billy saidMilton/AP 01.10.06
Eelam, Eelam:
The abducted men had been interrogated about six months earlier by the police.
Unidentified armed men came in a "White Van" abducted two Tamil civilians on Tuesday night around 11:10 p.m. in Ward No.6 area opposite Udappu Tamil Vidiyalayam, according to a complaint made by the abductees' relatives with the Munthal police.TamilNet 28.09.06
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Seven Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in clashes with the Sri Lankan navy in two separate battles, the military said today.ZeeNews 01.10.06
Three rebels were killed yesterday evening on Kayts Island, West of the Jaffna Peninsula, after sailors were deployed there, an official at the Media Center for National Security said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
The Navy operation followed an attempted raid on Friday by a Tiger vessel that was destroyed trying to enter a Naval base near the island, he said. Four guerrillas were killed in the sea battle and two bodies were recovered, the official said.
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