...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
and U.S. film director Oliver Stone:
Marxist Colombian rebels kept three hostages waiting to be released on Monday as leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez worried that more delays could derail the hand-over he had negotiated with the guerrillas.- Hugh Bronstein/Reuters 31.Dec.07
a "buffoon, rude person, slanderer and a liar":
[Colombian Senator Piedad] Cordoba also said she had received death threats from "a high functionary of the Uribe[Columbian] government" however she assured she would continue working towards a humanitarian exchange. Cordoba confirmed she would fly to Caracas on Friday to discuss preparations for the liberation of the hostages.Venezuela Analysis
“the people have no voice because they have no information”Which is pretty much exactly what I was thinking about half an hour before I saw this. What's most exasperating is the presence of literally millions of for lack of a better term nice people in the US who don't know what to do. About anything. Except keep the household stuff going to the best of their abilities.
Shooting Back
B’Tselem has given Palestinian families across the West Bank video cameras to document how they are treated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Some of the videos depicting abuse by settlers sparked a national debate earlier this year after they were broadcast on Israeli television.Oren Yakobovich/DemocracyNow! 26.Dec.07
]...]
The result of the settlements is a lot of restriction of movements on—that are being held on Palestinians. There are many streets that they cannot really walk. A Palestinian cannot drive cars in these areas. And there is a lot of violation that’s happening there from the settlers that are living there. There are very radical settlers, more radical even than the rest of the West Bank. And we know from a lot of years of watching the place or getting testimonies that a lot of violations is happening there.
What you’re going to see is a clip from a settlement called Tel Rumeida in Hebron. What we will see is a settler from this settlement, from Tel Rumeida, pushing Palestinians that basically are living across the street, on the other side of the road, pushing her back to her home, calling her “whore,” cursing her very viciously. And all this time, you see the soldier standing next to the woman doing nothing, not interfering.
It is startling that the appeasers in the press only accommodate to a new force in Congress which insults 2,000 years of the European tradition and religious history and on the day of Christmas at that. As torture, like the repeal of habeas corpus and the establishment of American gulags, has only entered into the American political realm and discussion since American politicians, like George Bush and Mitt Romney, have promoted themselves as Christian. Romney, in fact, the most fascistic of the lot, has promised us that he is also - Mormonism aside - the most Christian of this squalid pack of hungry wolves and in his extreme positions on torture and Gitmo he appears to want to bolster his Christian karma.Bernie Quigley
Molly says:
"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
June report from the Division of Occupation Safety and Health
Police are treating the San Francisco Zoo as a crime scene this afternoon, one day after a 350-pound tiger escaped and fatally mauled a 17-year-old San Jose boy before attacking two other men 300 yards away.A state investigation later ruled that the zoo was at fault for the attack because of the way the cages were configured.
SFGate
-
A 48-year-old man was killed Monday night on Interstate 880 in Oakland, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The man was on foot in the northbound lanes of the freeway near Seventh Street when he was hit at 7:40 p.m., the CHP said, and the roadway was closed for nearly two hours.
ibid.
2005 Annual Report of Fatal and Injury Motor Vehicle Traffic CollisionsTable 8A - Collisions and Persons Killed/Injured by City, County, and Road Classification, 2005San Francisco - 32/3797
...about 230 "clients" - full-time students at the Rotenberg Center - who are mentally retarded, developmentally disabled with diseases like autism, or have been diagnosed with ailments such as depression, schizophrenia, or conduct disorder.Jarrett Murphy/village voice 10.Oct.06
-
One thing you won't see at the center is traditional psychological counseling. While students do meet with clinicians, there are no regular appointments or group therapy. School literature states that counseling is done "as needed," but not when it could be seen as a reward for bad behavior, and adds: "The purpose of the counseling is to enhance the student's cooperation with, and progress within the program."
-
In a few cases where a student is suspected of being capable of an extremely dangerous but infrequent behavior, the staff at Rotenberg won't wait for him to try it. They will exhort him to do it, and then punish him.Even the people watching the screens are themselves on camera.
Michael P. Flammia, the lawyer for Rotenberg, defended the practice in an interview.Leslie Kaufman/NYT 25.Dec.07
“People want to believe positive interventions work even in the most extreme cases,” he said. “If they did, that is all we would use. Many of these kids come in on massive dosages of antipsychotic drugs, so doped up that they are almost comatose. We get them off drugs and give their parents something very important: hope.”
...encourages employees to file anonymous reports about their coworkers’ lapses.-
Stay strong baby. I love you forever:
I am innocent. I am being punished for a crime I did not commit. I have professed my innocence for nine years, and I continue to say I am innocent.
-
I would like to say to Damien's family I did not murder your son. I did not do it. I just want you to know that
-
What I want people to know is that they call me a cold-blooded killer when I shot a man that shot me first. The only thing that convicted me was that I am a Mexican and that he was a police officer. People hollered for my life, and they are to have my life tonight. The people never hollered for the life of the policeman that killed a thirteen-year-old boy who was handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. The people never hollered for the life of a Houston police officer who beat up and drowned Jose Campo Torres and threw his body in the river. You call that equal justice. This is your equal justice.
-
I love you Angel. Let's ride. I guess this is it.
-
When you look at the video, you know you can't see anyone. You overplayed your hand looking for something against me and to cover it up the State is killing me. I'm not mad or bitter though. I'm sad that you are stuck here and have to go through all of this. I am going somewhere better. My time is up. Let me get ready to make my transition. Doug, don't forget Marcy.
-
Offender declined to make a last statement.
-
Uh, I don't know, Um, I don't know what to say. I don't know. (pauses) I didn't know anybody was there. Howdy.
-
Profanity directed toward staff.
-
Go ahead Warden, murder me. Jesus take me home.
-
Jesus had a few questions before he died
Look forward:
...conditions today feel eerily familiar: the paramilitaries, the rising tension, the mysterious activities of soldiers, the renewed isolation from the rest of the country.Naomi Klein on Acteal ten years on and Chiapas ahorita
The next president faces an unenviable task::
Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt:Stewart seems right on the unenviable and you've ever seen but it's always the national debt as an unbreakable commandment. As a thing intransmutable. This is a debt so severe in its terms it will destroy the United States to leave it unpaid. The national debt, entered into by a handful of men but legally binding for all 300 million Americans and all future Americans as well, to and past the point of the loss of their lives and property, that being what can only be meant by Stewart's "worse trouble than you've ever seen".Simple put, the U.S. has to go into "let's save the federal government from bankruptcy" mode. If we don't then we're going to have worse trouble then you've ever seen.Hale Stewart/Huffington 23.Dec.07
-
US: NKorea Won't Meet Nuclear Deadline
-
North Korea recently turned over to the United States equipment found to be contaminated with traces of highly enriched uranium — HEU — apparently contradicting the country's stance that it never had such a program, FOX News has confirmed.
The equipment was described as a set of "smelted aluminum tubes" suitable for an HEU centrifuge program, a step necessary to make a nuclear weapon.
"They got some 'splainin' to do," one U.S. arms control official said when first told of the discovery about a month ago, he recalled to FOX.
However, North Korea claims the tubes were intended for use in the development of a conventional "artillery" weapon, sources told FOX News.
-
Reuters:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly urged North Korea on Friday to keep its promise to disable all its nuclear facilities and give a full declaration of its nuclear program by year-end.
-
Our friend, Japan
-
Japan, parts of which lie just 120 miles from North Korea across the Sea of Japan
-
"2000 kilometers." That is the distance from Israel to Iran
-
Israel is our friend
-
"US may attack Iran"
-
'US ready to strike Iran on Good Friday'
-
US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
-
'Israel will attack Iran on its own'
$100 billion in the past six months alone:
Morgan Stanley, the No. 2 U.S. investment bank, reported a $9.4 billion writedown on Wednesday from bad bets on mortgage-related debt, leading it to take a $5 billion infusion from an arm of the Chinese government.Bel Bruno/AP/Yahoo 19.Dec.07
China Investment Corp. was launched in late September with $200 billion in capital, one-third of which was to be invested outside of China. It is one of the world's richest investment funds...
We are obviously upset with our 2007 results,
particularly in light of the fact that weakness:
...in fixed income more than offset strong and, in some areas, record-setting performance in other businesses,” James E. Cayne, Bear Stearn’s chairman and chief executive...in a statement.de la Merced/NYTimes 20.Dec.07
The fate of Mr. Cayne, its longtime leader, has been the subject of much speculation on Wall Street since this summer. As two internal hedge funds that had bet on home mortgages began to crumble, questions about Mr. Cayne’s leadership arose. Reports that he had gone golfing during the worst parts of that crisis did not help.
The investment bank lost so much capital that Bear Stearns formed a partnership this fall with China’s Citic Securities, in which the two firms swapped shares. Though not as drastic as other firms’ measures to shore up capital — Morgan Stanley on Wednesday announced the sale of a $5 billion stake to China’s sovereign wealth fund, and both Citigroup and UBS made similar deals with Middle Eastern and Asian governments — it was a reflection of how weak Bear Stearns had become.
The firm has also suffered much internal turmoil.
"We need our own radar that we don't share with others."
-
Unit cost
F-35A: US$48 million
F-35B: US$62 million
F-35C: US$63 million
In 2003, Israel signed a letter of agreement, worth almost $20 million, to formally join the system development and demonstration (SDD) effort for the F-35 as a "security cooperation participant". The Israeli Air Force (IAF) stated in 2006 that the F-35 is a key part of IAF's recapitalization plans, and that Israel intends to buy over 100 F-35A fighters at an estimated cost of over $5 billion to replace their F-16s over time. Israel was temporarily reinstated as a partner in the development of the F-35 on 31 July 2006, after Israeli participation was put on hold following the Chinese arms deal crisis.wikipedia
Top Stories The Christian Science Monitor 7:57 pm. 18.Dec.07
An apple a day:
If you were to substitute a variety such as Monty’s Surprise in place of a ’supermarket’ commercial variety, you would receive 3.4 times the amount of phenolics in the skin and 5.9 times the amount in the flesh. Hence one Monty’s Surprise apple a day would be comparable to eating at least four modern apples.cryptogon 15.Dec.07
here poor statecraft has trumped
our improved efforts :
Wouldn't oil production policies be used to separate us from our allies or further manipulate the world's economy? Wouldn't we face a region increasingly hostile to our interests? Wouldn't we see the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace diminish as Iran worked to weaken, isolate, and demoralize the Jewish state? And to avoid being at the mercy of Iran, wouldn't the Saudis decide to go nuclear -- and wouldn't that impel the Egyptians to do the same?Dennis Ross/WINEP 12.Dec.07
The point is that even the image of Iran as a nuclear power carries with it very dangerous consequences, including that the Middle East might become a nuclear-armed region.
An Escherian staircase, lengthening
via RWA
a quasi-putsch
-
chaos everywhere you turn
-
off the map
-
a woman believed to be in her late 40s or early 50s who had three sons killed by the Iraqi army
-
in which a subject is made to believe he is being drowned
-
President Bush has no recollection of being made aware
-
Without fresh sea water the fish will start going bad
-
in the State Department after 5:00
a modern-day allegory
"...instead of being lured into a sterile argument about how offensive the word 'Muhammad' can be, it's probably much more sensible to either ignore this horseshit entirely or diagnose the media obsession itself. But then there are other people, probably some of them sniffing around this blog, who want to do exactly what the news says, follow orders and belch out feckless denunciations every five seconds. I know some people imagine that they're seriously, unproblematically outraged at someone being locked up for something this ridiculous. Well, fine, but I don't believe you. I think you only care about this because the television said so, so you can take your fake 'concern' about this case and go fuck yourself with it. Here's a reminder: for every minute you've spent emoting about this case, you've ignored another dead Iraqi (approximately one a minute is the going rate). Not that this is the only thing worth focusing on, but let's not pretend that your apparent outrage is anything other than a disgusting display of narcissism."lenin's tomb 03.Dec.07
We know where Al Smith would have stood
"Either the argument will be, as our enemies want, framed as Islam versus the West; or it will be, as we want it, framed as moderates of whatever faith, colour or race against extremism however it manifests itself..."Tony Blair, speech to the Al Smith Dinner 18.Oct.07
Fur's quiet comeback
- Weisman/IHT
In Russian luxury market, companies strategize to reach the rich consumer
- Alderman/IHT
The Millionaire Fair: Art becomes the next step along the path of riches
- Kishkovsky/IHT
...under the watchful eye of soldiers a sigh of relief always getting tricked power grab 10 times as much money just to scare the daylights out of the Jewish community an unabashed anti-Semite the greatest thing that could have happened a doomsday scenario the rabbi a frequent target anti-Semitic expressions on state-controlled media:
The defeat of Hugo Chavez's broad-ranging referendum has eased Jewish fears in Venezuela. Yet many remain fearful about their future in the country and are making plans to leave.For me it’s very easy an apartment in Miami one in New York a large home behind a high protective wall in Altamira cheese blintzes and chocolate eclairs...
"After seven years of waiting, [Dziekanski] arrived to his utopia, Vancouver," said the Polish consul general, Maciej Krych. "Ten hours later, he was dead."
"It doesn't look good. I agree with that":
Friday, the Bush administration did an about-face, abruptly withdrawing the text while Israeli diplomats reiteratedLynch/WashingtonPost 01.Dec.07
The incident raised the hackles of some State Department officials, who said Khalilzad has a history of diplomatic freelancing and that he had stumbled into his current predicament by failing to adequately consult the Israelis or his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"the need to encourage the parties concerned to follow diligently the joint understanding that was reached."
This investigation will help end the war:
On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history’s largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation.Support Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation
They saw it for themselves, now — with your support — they’ll tell it for themselves. On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008 Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history’s largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan , as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will testify to their first hand experiences and reveal the truth of occupation.
Freedom of the press is dead in totalitarian Venezuela, but alive and well in the democratic United States.except
...the opposition in Venezuela still broadcasts on more major TV channels than there are channels sympathetic to the government. In stark contrast, the alternative media in the US cannot be viewed on any major channel. Consequently the vast majority of Americans receive all their news from a mainstream media which never questions whether the US has any right to dominate other nationsRobin Hahnel/Monthly Review 30.Nov.07 > feral scholar
[...]
The most dramatic increase in social spending was in the area of health care. In 1998 there were over 14,000 Venezuelans for each primary healthcare physician, and few physicians worked in rural or poor urban areas. By 2007 there was one primary healthcare physician for every 1,300 Venezuelans, and many of the new physicians were working in clinics in rural areas and poor barrios that had never had physicians before. There are also now 16,000 stores in poor areas throughout the country selling staples at a 30% discount on average.
Foreskins and smegma years ago:
JOSEPH J. SCHATZ, AP writer:A southern African radio correspondent has been receiving a flood of text messages and cell phone calls — some from offended listeners and readers.
All because Kennedy Gondwe chose to get circumcised to protect himself from AIDS, and took the British Broadcasting Corp.'s radio and Web audience through the procedure with him Friday.
And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music.The slaughter David's just then getting back from being his main pre-nup princely task - set by old King Saul in order to intrigue him on out of town, hopefully for keeps - of gathering up the foreskins of the sundry dead Philistines he's gone out there and recently killed. Probably he had some lesser individuals - slaves, immigrants, you know, to do the actual foreskin removalling - grab it, stretch it out, slice it off, pop it in the bag, hand in the bag to Prince for counting - David heads home, delivers the bags, gets the girl. Good old days.
And the women answered one another as they played, and said,
Saul hath slain his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.
And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?
And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
And it came to pass on the morrow,
that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand.
And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
In 1914, erroneous medical beliefs about smegma were compounded by influential American urologist and eugenicist Abraham Wolbarst (1872–1952), who updated the demonization of the foreskin and promulgated the idea that it harboured ‘carcinogenic secretions’. Wolbarst’s lifelong crusade to promote circumcision was initially provoked as a means of countering contemporary medical concerns over the unsanitary and occasionally deadly aspects of ritual Jewish circumcision, specifically the prescribed sucking of blood from the wound. Rather than being unsanitary, Wolbarst countered that circumcision was, in fact, so sanitary that it should be imposed on all males. Wolbarst’s definition of ‘sanitation’, however, was more heavily suffused with the antimasturbation hysteria concept of ‘moral sanitation’ than concern for physical cleanliness. Referring to smegma, Wolbarst made the bigoted characterization of ‘gentiles’ of even middle-class standing as being unable to ‘pay proper attention to the cleansing of their genitals’. Wolbarst thundered in JAMA: ‘Times innumerable, in my experience, the stench arising from the confined and retained balanic secretions has been almost unbearable’, and thus ‘the argument for circumcision as a measure of hygiene must be apparent to any but a man deprived of his olfactory sense’.was also involved in the following whatever it may have been at its clearest and most fundamental hinky-ass weirdness:
DECLARES SUICIDE LETTER ONLY A JOKE Dr. Wolbarst Says He and Wife Each Wrote One to See Who Could Do It the Better. SENT TO TIMES BY ERROR Wife's Letter Found and Mailed by a Servant -- Statement on Arrival in England. Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. LONDON, Sept. 5 -- The liner Kronprinz "Wilhelm arrived at Plymouth this morning having on board Dr. and Mrs. Abraham L. Wolbarst, from the latter of whom THE NEW YORK TIMES recently published a letter announcing her intention to commit suicide. To a NEW YORK TIMES correspondent, who boarded the' liner. Dr. Wolbarst related the folio-wing curious story: His wife, he said, wrote the letter printed in THB NEW YORK TIMES after having read a sensational novel In which a wife Indited a missive to her husband Uireatenlng to commit suicide. Mrs. "Wolbarst. according to the doctor, suggested that each should -write a letter to see which could pen the more startling effusion. They did so. and his wife addressed hers to THE NEW YORK TIMES. Dr. Wolbarst repeatedly Impressed upon the correspondent that all this was done as a Joke, and happened some ten or twelve weeks ago. He destroyed his own letter, he said, but his wife s letter, jokingly Intended for him, was addressed to THE TIMES, and somehow or other got put away In a drawer.Abraham Wolbarst, son of David - enemy of smegma.
now that we're all on the same page:
Rodney King, famous for a videotaped beating from Los Angeles police back in 1991, was shot and wounded on a San Bernardino street corner late Wednesday.TMZ/AOL 29.Nov.07
-
Using Video Share from the new AT&T, Lauren Conrad and her friends give you VIP access into their lives! Check back soon for the next segment. And remember, when words can’t describe,
Video Share shows it live.
Vota 'Sí':
On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.Petras/Counterpunch 28.Nov.07 > fanonite
The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled ‘Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer’ and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym ‘HUMINT’ (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA’s polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.
In French Suburbs, Same Rage, but New Tactics-
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, Nov. 27 — Two years after France’s immigrant suburbs exploded in rage, the rituals and acts of resentment have reappeared with an eerie sameness: roving gangs clashing with riot police forces, the government appealing for calm, residents complaining that they are ignored.
And while the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police.
Nov. 27: Young residents of Villiers-le-Bel, a northern Paris suburb, vandalize an abandoned police car during clashes.
PARIS — One of the victims of a moped crash that sparked days if rioting in a Paris suburb presented himself on his blog as a confident teenager who love his mother and was looking for a girlfriend, Reuters reported.
The current riots were triggered by the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town in Paris' northern suburbs.
Residents claimed that officers left the crash scene without helping the teens, whose motorbike collided with the car. Officials cast doubt on the claim, but the internal police oversight agency was investigating.
The world has less than a decade to change course to avoid irreversible ecological catastrophe, the UN warned today.-
A new United Nations report warns that progress toward prosperity in the world’s poorest places will be reversed unless rich countries promptly begin curbing emissions linked to global warming while also helping poorer ones leapfrog to energy sources that pollute less than coal and oil.
the future of Jerusalem
-
DNow!:new statistics show that the vast majority of foreign fighters in Iraq are not coming from Iran but Arab allies of the United States. The New York Times reports Saudi Arabia and Libya were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year. While American officials have accused Iran of aiding anti-U.S. militants, only 11 Iranians are in U.S. detention in Iraq.
-
good/bad for everybody
-
Suicide Soldiers
-
Alarming UN report on climate change too rosy, many say
-
bad example of the good
-
160 Airbuses off to China any day now
"when it makes sense to leave."
The bottom line for me in Israel policy is what I saw in the Occupied Territories. The separate roadway system, the religious girls stoning Arab girls who were going to school... the settlements are, as poet David Shulman writes, evil. The settlers are driving Palestinians off the land and getting the Israeli army and American political system to back them. I want no part of this, emphatically. Any other country that carried on such a policy would merit American sanctions. But Israel is immune to such considerationsMondoweiss 26.Nov.07
in Israel's hands:
Tuesday's Arab-Israeli peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland, is supposed to be about resolving long-standing Palestinian issues, the Golan Heights, and other contentious matters. But, increasingly, it is framed in the United States and Israeli media as a dual-purpose conference, the other being the containment of Iran.Afrasiabi/AsiaTimes 27.Nov.07
Thus, an editorial in the Jerusalem Post writes that "the process that Annapolis seeks to launch will be inherently conditional on Western success against the Iranian challenge ... The idea that holding an Arab-Israeli peace summit would be a setback for Iran is a valid one." The more liberal Ha'aretz went even further by stating the goal of the Annapolis conference to be the formation of a "global coalition against Iran".
Similarly, in the US a number of pundits have painted Annapolis as a "means of sorts of cementing a coalition against Iran and its allies", to paraphrase Tamar Cofman Wittes of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. According to Cofman and a host of media pundits paraded on American television news programs, Annapolis is President George W Bush's wakeup call to the world on the "Iran threat".
[...]
[The Us has been] relatively blind to what another Tehran analyst, Elias Hazrati, has termed as "substantial reduction of radical and offensive positions in Iran's foreign policy during the past few months". In his "The road for compromise with Tehran is open", Hazrati has, however, placed disproportionate blame, for lack of adequate progress in resolving the nuclear crisis, on the government of Ahmadinejad, without adequately taking into consideration the US's schizophrenic, contradictory, approach that, as in the run-ups to the Annapolis summit, fuels the very Iranian radicalism that it purports to disfavor. This it does by falsely accusing Iran in Iraq and ignoring the impressive results of Iran-IAEA cooperation in a relatively short time.
"We are committed that the IAEA's next report will be even more positive," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi...
Goldman/AP 22.Nov.07Unseasonably balmy weather greeted cheering crowds as the giant balloons in the traditional Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floated through the streets of Manhattan."My 5-year-old and the beautiful weather"
There's a gymnastic series of moves that are still pretty common in the US nice-people and smart-people clads, where the hysterical claims from the margins about ZOG intrigue and iniquities are met with a nice-smart person shrug of tolerant intolerance, the "I don't have time for your dipshit racism" thing, even though you know figures like Pound and Eliot had that stain etc etc, so that saying Nicholas Negroponte and Rupert Murdoch are both Jews, which lends a lot of weight to the accusations of Jewish control and Jewish over-presence in American political media and political life, is rebutted with a refusal to engage the claims on evidence, because they're anti-Semitic, which is at least as nasty as white on black racism or even worse - think of the Holocaust! - and socially unacceptable, in the sense that it exposes the holder to ridicule. So anti-Semitic claims will not be taken seriously, or investigated.
Yet the CNN post-Demdebate show was run by a Jew, the debate itself was MC'd by a Jew. So what? Well if they were both black men that would be a thing all by itself, hey? Yet still somehow saying that is seen as bigoted.
When does the truth itself become a form of bigotry?
Saying those things isn't possible now, in a real political sense. You can't make the claim because the erstwhile open minds won't look beyond the grotesque and unacceptable surface to the uncomfortable material below the surface.
Mukasey's suddenly the USAG - how amazing that the rejection of Albert "Torture? We don't got to show you no stinking torture, we don't got no stinking torture" Gonzales would lead to Mukasey's odd little headshot there instead - which virtually guarantees AIPAC and its escort phalanxes won't be prosecuted for the treason they've been accused of, for the treason they've clearly been plotting and performing for years.
Either America is a worthless failed experiment or it's in mortal danger, right now. Choose one and act.
Myself I was intensely put off by the whole ZOG thing when it first crossed my line of sight, back in the early 90's. It stank of ignorance and bigotry, it called up the sound of threatening ignorance in southern accents and images of swaggering macho bullying. It had paranoia and amped-up stupidity gleaming all over it.
And yet now here we are, in the US in 2007 - all ZOG'd up with nowhere to go.
Mother Theresa with lipstick.
Or maybe not. Is there a pattern? The way the pigs keep scuttling on stage hidden in the skirts of mediagenic women.
The US is in Afghanistan to rescue women from the Taliban, in Iraq to rescue women from sharia law, and exercizing to get ready to rescue the women of Iran; the Ukraine thing, and that sad little soldier-girl Jessica Lynch all bound up in the swine scenario, not to mention the pigs' next chosen candidate for whatever it is the US Presidency's become being a woman.
from the archives:
thumbs
The mayor of Las Vegas has suggested that people who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.
"In the old days in France, they had beheadings of people who commit heinous crimes," Mayor Oscar Goodman said Wednesday on the TV show "Nevada Newsmakers."
Goodman said the city has a beautiful highway landscaping project and "these punks come along and deface it."
"I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor said. "That may be the right thing to do."
Goodman also suggested whippings should be brought back for children who get into trouble.
CNN 04.Nov.05
UN Says Knowledge of Iran's Atomic Work `Diminishing' !
Bloomberg - 48 minutes ago
-
New UN Report on Iran’s Nuclear Program
New York Times, United States - 55 minutes ago
-
IAEA set to deliver Iran report
BBC News, UK - 2 hours ago
-
IAEA: Teheran continues to defy the UN Security Council !
Jerusalem Post, Israel - 41 minutes ago
-
Allies Maneuver To Avert Iran A-Bomb !
New York Sun, NY - 14 hours ago
-
China encourages Iran to continue dialogues, co-op with IAEA, EU
Xinhua, China - 6 hours ago
-
Iran comes clean with the IAEA... sort of !
Foreign Policy Passport - 18 hours ago
-
Iran on right track
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates - 15 hours ago
-
Iran hands over uranium blueprint
Aljazeera.net, Qatar - Nov 14, 2007
-
Iran not in the clear if UN report partly good: US !
Reuters - Nov 14, 2007
-
In Gesture, Iran Provides Nuclear Document
New York Times, United States - Nov 13, 2007
-
Iran gives IAEA uranium papers before report
Reuters - Nov 13, 2007
-
Elbaradei delays to refer report on Iran's nuclear issues
Xinhua, China - 20 hours ago
-
IAEA seen citing some progress in Iran atomic probe
Reuters - Nov 13, 2007
-
US, Britain, France asking tough questions
about Iran's nuclear... !
International Herald Tribune, France - 23 hours ago
-
Iran making 'substantial progress' but more needed: UN nuclear ...
AFP - 59 minutes ago
OCTOBER HOME SALES (% change from Oct. '06)
Los Angeles -48.3%
Orange -42.0%
Riverside -44.1%
San Bernardino -54.8%
San Diego -32.5%
Ventura -44.0%
"Christian" "Socialist":
While Baduel was Minister of Defense, Venezuelan landlords' armed paramilitary groups assassinated over 150 peasants active in land reform while the National Guard looked the other way. Under Baduel's watch over 120 Colombian paramilitary forces infiltrated the country. The Colombian military frequently crossed the Venezuelan border to attack Colombian refugees. Under Baduel, Venezuelan military officials collaborated in the kidnapping of Rodrigo Granda (a foreign affairs emissary of the FARC) in broad daylight in the center of Caracas. Baduel made no effort to investigate or protest this gross violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, until President Chavez was informed and intervened. Throughout Baduel's term as Minister of Defense he developed strong ties to Colombia's military intelligence (closely monitored by US Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA) and extradited several guerrillas from both the ELN and the FARC to the hands of Colombian torturers.Petras/Counterpunch 14.Nov.07
At the time of his retirement as Minister of Defense, Baduel made a July 2007 speech in which he clearly targeted the leftist and Marxist currents in the trade union (UNT) and Chavez newly announced PSUV (The Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela). His speech, in the name of 'Christian socialist', was in reality a vituperative and ill-tempered anti-communist diatribe, which pleased Pope Benedict (Ratzinger).
[...]
Venezuelan democracy, the Presidency of Hugo Chavez and the great majority of the popular classes face a mortal threat. The US is facing repeated electoral defeats and is incapable of large-scale external intervention because of over-extension of its military forces in the Middle East; it is committed once more to a violent overthrow of Chavez. Venezuela through the constitutional reforms, will broaden and deepen popular democratic control over socio-economic policy. New economic sectors will be nationalized. Greater public investments and social programs will take off. Venezuela is moving inexorably toward diversifying its petrol markets, currency reserves and its political alliances.
Time is running out for the White House: Washington's political levers of influence are weakening.
Executive Action:
"...a private CIA and Defense Department available to address your most intractable problems and difficult challenges..."Laura Rozen/MoJo via ATR
His master's voice:
On a parallel level, the Pentagon has practically finished a base in southern Iraq less than 10 kilometers from the border with Iran called Combat Outpost Shocker. The Pentagon maintains this is for the US to prevent Iranian weapons from being smuggled into Iraq. Rather, it's to control a rash of US covert, sabotage operations across the border targeting Iran's Khuzestan province.Pepe Escobar/AsiaTimes 10.Nov.07
I wasn't as skeptical as some about the "one laptop per child" enterprise, but this image has completely tipped it for me. Even the file name is disgusting.
Iraq Veterans Against The War:
The L.A. chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War was recently denied permission to march in the Long Beach Veterans Day Parade on the grounds that they do not "represent the spirit of the parade."
anti-American:
Finally, I wish to directly refute Mr. Schoenfeld's claim that I "cast aspersions on American Jews." I do not cast aspersions, I forthrightly damn, and pray that God damns, any American – Jew, Catholic, Evangelical, Irish, German, Hindu, hermaphrodite, thespian, or otherwise – who flogs the insane idea that American and Israeli interests are one and the same. The nation-state of Israel is an intolerable burden to the treasury and security of the United States, and Washington's current relationship with Israel...Michael Scheuer/AntiWar 08.Nov.07
Dennis Kucinich:
I think that the American people and their response is becoming more and more powerful, and we’re seeing that there being rising discontent among Democrats in Congress about the direction that our leaders have said is not possible. I think that people want to see this administration held accountable. After all, what could be more important than having an opportunity to get to the truth of what happened in Iraq, that the war was based on lies; that over almost 4,000 of our brave young men and women who represent this country have lost their lives because of those lies; that over a million innocent Iraqis, noncombatants, civilians, have lost their lives because of those lies; that we will spend between one and two trillion dollars for this war, even borrowing money from China? And our whole domestic agenda is being capsized by this war. And the administration is preparing still to take us in another war against Iran, similarly lying about a cause for war. So what can be more important?Democracy Now! 09.Nov.07
the craziest thing in the world:
As the insurgency in Iraq escalated in the spring of 2004, American officials entrusted an Iraqi businessman with issuing weapons to Iraqi police cadets training to help quell the violence.NYTimes 11.Nov.07
[...]
...help explain how the American military lost track of some 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles...
[...]
In July, the company, American Logistics Services, which later became Lee Dynamics International, was suspended by the Army from doing future business with the government amid accusations that the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to military contracting officers. The company had won $11 million in contracts to manage five warehouses with arms and other equipment in Iraq.
Waterboarding is Torture… PeriodSmall Wars Journal
Torture is a tool of state terror:
And we talk about torture so often in this country as being just about getting information. Torture is a tool of state terror. That is what torture is, and that is why it’s prohibited. It is about instilling -- it’s a method of instilling terror in an individual, and it’s also a method of spreading terror throughout a whole society, saying we are willing to use these techniques; if you cross us, you will be subject to these techniques. So it is the science of terror. It is literally terrorism.-
People have gone back to their neighborhoods now, and they see neighborhoods which have just been destroyed by the fires, but a few houses standing, and are asking questions about why some of those houses were saved. And in some cases, you can’t explain it, you know, it’s mysterious. But in some cases, it’s not mysterious. The reason why some houses were saved and others were not is because the people who lived in those saved houses pay insurance to the company AIG, and AIG offers privatized fire response.Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman
dem belly full eh:
The great population scare is mainly notable for what didn't happen: widespread deaths from famine. In the 1960s, when Erhlich penned his eloquent alert, about one out of every ten nations was having a famine at least once a decade. By the 1990s, just one country out of the two-hundred in the world had a famine. Global population did about double from 1960 to 1998, but food production tripled over the same period in both rich and poor nations. Far from us seeing increasing food shortages, food prices have fallen by nearly half over the past two decades. ...William Easterly/MIT/delanceyplace 07.Nov.07
The military that killed him are flying around up above his funeral, the people who killed him by dropping bombs on him from above, from planes just like the ones that are flying around overhead at his funeral, and 25000 people show up for it. Under the conditions they're in it's amazing anyone showed up.
Human Photos
Eelavision - photo visions of Eelam
-
Assassination of Tamil Leader Prompts Fears of Escalated Sri Lankan Civil War
A Tamil leader[Suppiah Param Thamilcelvan] was killed Friday with five of his associates in an air strike by the Sri Lankan military. Analysts suggest this could be the beginning of a return to a full-scale war.
DemNow!
-
Thamilchelvan laid to rest, 25 000 attend funeral
More than 25,000 people took part in the funeral procession of LTTE's Political Head and Chief Negotiator S.P. Thamilchelvan, despite the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers circling over the Ki'linochchi town.
Tamilnet
a symbolic display:
After meeting with the French-American Business Council, the French community in Washington and Washington’s mayor, Adrian Fenty, Mr. Sarkozy and his large entourage are to be honored by President Bush at a black-tie dinner at the White House.Sciolino/NYTimes 06.Nov.07
On Wednesday Mr. Sarkozy will address a joint session of Congress, as his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, did, before having lunch and holding a joint news conference with Mr. Bush at George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. He also will meet with leaders of the American Jewish community.
“Sarko l’Américain,” as he is called, is considered the most pro-American French president in decades. He unabashedly confesses his admiration for the United States, particularly the American work ethic and American popular culture, joking last month: “The trial has started. I will be a friend of the Americans. Oh, yes, it’s true!”
a high enough price:
These days, it's becoming downright chic to hint forebodingly that America's Jews are just too powerful. But whether it's the political scientists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt or former president Jimmy Carter, those who accuse modern Jews of having excessive clout are getting it precisely backward. In the real world, Jews have too little power and influence. They also have too little self-confidence about defending themselves.Ruth Wisse/WashingtonPost 04.Nov.07
In due time the hour will strike:
no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.Eugene V. Debs, in a speech that got him sentenced to ten years in the pen for sedition.
Judge Michael Mukasey appears to have cleared the last major hurdle to becoming the next US Attorney General, after concerns about his views on waterboarding and warrantless surveillance threatened to derail his nomination.Bayou Buzz
Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced on Friday that they will support his nomination. Both senators are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will vote on Tuesday on whether to send the Mukasey nomination to the full Senate for approval.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel
blasted, disputed:Without knowing anything else about it, I'd way rather be on a fireline under the current CAL FIRE chain of command than anywhere doing anything under any of the asshole politicians so obviously trying to get leverage and recognition off this disaster.Reps. Darrell Issa, Duncan Hunter and Brian Bilbray — all California Republicans — this week blasted a California policy that requires a "military helicopter manager" to sit aboard flights of military helicopters that are joining state firefighting efforts.Simmons/FOXNews 26.Oct.07
[...]
Michael Padilla, chief of aviation for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — or Cal-Fire — disputed the lawmakers' assertion in a telephone interview.
Padilla said anyone saying those helicopters were sidelined by the policy alone are "absolutely wrong. Those aircraft could have been used had they had properly trained crews" and proper equipment
-
slams
-
demanding
-
accusing
-
disgusting, inexcusable foot-dragging
-
CAL FIRE
-
