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america
THE UNLOVED AMERICAN thanks to Robot Wisdom
dictators
Fiore Presents: Are You a Loser Dictator?
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iraq Transatlantic Battle Over the New World Order
Transatlantic ties have frayed as pundits and politicians have hurled invectives and insults across the ocean over France and Germany's opposition in both NATO and the UN Security Council to the Bush administration's war plans in Iraq. What makes this high-stakes drama so confusing to the public is the Bush administration's red herring – Iraq. This row is not about Iraq, it's about the new world order.
Richard Dawkins: Why should we in Britain help Bush to get re-elected? Harkin: I was fooled on Bush Iraq plans Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said Thursday that if Congress were voting now on its resolution authorizing the president to take military action against Iraq, he would oppose it. "I'm not going to be fooled twice," said Harkin, who backed President Bush on the resolution last year. Harkin said he did so because the language required the administration to seek diplomatic solutions to the standoff with Iraq and to make full reports to Congress on the progress of diplomacy.
Instead, "In my adult life, with the exception of Vietnam, this has been the biggest failure of diplomacy we've had," said Harkin. thanks to BookNotes 1. Cabal of oldsters who won’t listen to outside advice? Check. 2. No understanding of ethnicities of the many locals? Check. 3. Imposing country boundaries drawn in Europe, not by the locals? Check. 4. Unshakeable faith in our superior technology? Check. 5. France secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check. 6. Russia secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
7. China secretly hoping we fall on our asses? Check.
Voice of the dark corners
These are hard times we are living in. In recent months, we have more than once heard chilling words and statements. In his speech to West Point graduating cadets on June 1 2002, the United States president declared: "Our security will require transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world."
Playing Texas poker, Bush bets all on Iraq
A senior Bush official privately admits what his administration cannot declare publicly. The stagnant economy, a dagger aimed at the heart of George W. Bush's second term, will not immediately respond to the president's economic growth program. The economic engine will not be revived until the war against Saddam Hussein is launched and won. thanks to BookNotes Russian Expert Predicts 500,000 Iraqi Dead in War Designed To Test Weapons thanks to Spitting Image
interview
Roundtable Interview with John Lennon
  Beckett: Glad you could make it, John. Lennon: Sam, this bloody fecking amazes me! Beckett: It takes some getting used to. But your public faithfully adores you. You'll be all right! Lennon: I've often admired your work, Sam, but I never ever dreamt you might interview me. Especially not now. Beckett: Try to relax ..
Lennon: Right! Breathe in, breathe out. I'm a little out of practice. thanks to wood s lot
The Logic of Occupation - Part 4 The first rule of the logic of occupation: "The logic of occupation is actually a form of madness. Violence breeds violence without end." When Israel first occupied Lebanon in 1982, Israeli soldiers were greeted with almonds and flowers. Perhaps the same will occur in Iraq. But within a few months, Israeli soldiers were returning home in body bags by the dozen. The inevitable force that an occupier applies to maintain control of the occupation, leads to hatred and more violence. Inevitably, the occupied people see themselves as helpless victims and are driven by intense anger and a desire for revenge to relieve their suffering.
The Israeli army always claims that the purpose of its use of force is to make the Palestinians "understand that violence doesn't pay." Here's a quote from the Israeli army justifying their violent actions in Gaza: "Colonel Strick acknowledged that Israeli armor was operating in a volatile atmosphere in areas densely populated by noncombatants. But he said his forces would remain 'until the Palestinians understand this launching has a very high price.'" The occupier believes that he can "educate" the occupied by the use of force. But the education is usually in the opposite direction. Also read Aron's previous installments of this series. Aron always has good links on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but it is his personal observations, based on his time in the IDF and serving in the Occupied Territories, that is essential reading.
Background / Palestinians: Israelis 'deserved' Haifa bombing Satisfaction among Palestinians following the Wednesday's bus bombing in Haifa was much greater than after previous attacks. This was the impression received by a group of Palestinian journalists who carried out interviews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A youth who enrolled in a computer course in East Jerusalem said Wednesday that when he came to the class everyone welcomed him saying, "Finally! The Israelis got what was coming to them!"
"We have 40 killed every week, so don't expect us to sit in silence," an Al-Aqsa Brigades member told journalists in Ramallah. Even senior Palestinian Authority officials, who condemned the attack, added that it was only to be expected considering Israel's "daily slaughter," as a spokesman for the PLO in Ramallah said.
Nightmare in Rafah
To understand daily life in Rafah is beyond the capability of most foreigners. Only by paying a visit is it possible to understand how people survive in a city that is almost completely surrounded by hostile tanks and gun towers, and loses portions of its border almost daily. Since the start of the second Palestinian Intifada, the Israeli Defense Forces have embarked on a slow, but monumental campaign of demolishing homes along the Egyptian border to the south and the Israeli settlements to the west. After conducting a few massive demolitions in July 2001 and again in January 2002, which garnered international condemnation, the IDF has resorted to slow and piecemeal destruction instead. In its now gradual method, over the past three months some 200 more homes have been demolished, brining the total in Rafah to over 600. This doesn't include the vast areas of orchards, gardens and greenhouses so critical to this impoverished city's food supplies.
There Is No Fixed Method for Genocide Dr. Ya'akov Lazovik writes ("Academic Genocide", "Ha'Aretz", 4 March) that in the State of Israel it is impossible that the regime and the nation will plan and commit a genocide. It is difficult to determine if this is naivety or self-righteousness. As we know, there is no single fixed method for murder and not even for genocide. The author Y. L. Peretz wrote about "the righteous cat" who does not spill blood, but only suffocates.
The government of Israel, using the military and its instruments of destruction, is not only spilling blood, but it is also suffocating. What other name can be given to the dropping of a one-ton bomb over a dense urban area, when the justification uttered is that we wanted to murder a dangerous terrorist and his wife? The rest of the citizens who were killed and injured, among whom are children and women, do not count, of course.
Unnatural disaster Of all the images associated with the occupied Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, extreme hunger is not the first to leap to mind. It is more likely to be the usual television pictures of tanks and guns, angry crowds and stone-throwing youths.
But according to UN figures, children in Gaza are today as seriously malnourished as children in Congo and Zimbabwe.
optical art Panopticon of optical illusions, visual effects and graphical deceptions It's no magic but the astonishing processes in our brains that makes the following visual deceptions possible...
 [more] thanks to Spitting Image
magazines A new on-line magazine is upon us brought to us by fellow harbinger Jason Lubyk. This isn't the mid-to-late 90's, which was like some fun-house-mirror sixties, where kids dropped out of school and tuned into the rhythms of the IPO/internet-start-up/day-trader New Economy instead of the rhythms of the universe, where revolutionaries read George Gilder instead of Che Guevara, hallucinating Fortune magazine glossy visions of desktop utopias where work is a playhouse and all are watched over by the computers of loving NASDAQ. Self-loathing grunge death rockers had burned out and faded away, replaced by lip synching sex robots too beautiful and vacant unable to even think of hating themselves and wanting to die. The digital Singularity humanity was evolving towards was easy to see, getting there as predictable as Moore's Law. After a few heady years some cracks in the new paradigm began to appear, hinting that all was not quite right in info-age: the surprising comeback of the disaffected masses in Seattle, the NASDAQ crashing harder than Robert Downey in police custody and the shifty military dictator antics of Bush Coup 2000. That idea something new and strange was developing was easy to ignore; just cut back on the espressos, get some more zzz's and the paranoid thoughts should go away.
When planes hijacked by young men dreaming of fleshly paradise flew into the symbols of American military and financial dominance on 9/11 the realization that everything has changed and a new zeitgeist was upon us was as impossible to ignore as the images of death and destruction being psychically driven into your mind.
we need some of that old time partisan politics
Where are the Democrats? There was news a report in Washington this week about how Democrats and Republicans in Congress conspired to close down the investigation of an alleged abuse of power by a leading member of the House. Now we'll never know the truth of the matter. The story reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with a constitutional scholar who said the most important function of one political party is to keep the other party honest. "No party investigates itself," he said, "so the public safety depends on each party shining the spotlight of scrutiny on the shenanigans of the other."
Once upon a time, this happened quite often. Both parties could be counted on to mock the deceit, hypocrisy, and pretensions of the opposition, while they cloaked their own vices in the warm pieties of patriotism and altruism. They also challenged one another's belief systems with the two-fisted ferocity of street brawlers. Such spirited partisanship wasn't a pretty sight for children, but it offered choices, got the public's attention, and aroused a robust and sometimes ribald participation in democracy. Politics mattered.
sea slugs
 [more] thanks to dublog
voting Now Your Vote Is The Property Of A Private Corporation "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery...." -- Thomas Paine
Santa Clara County, of all jurisdictions in America, should have known better. They could have started by looking at Florida.
iraq Here is a picture and a speech to remind us of who will suffer the most.
 thanks to Politics in the Zeros What About the Iraqi Children? The following is a transcript of a speech given by now 13-year-old Charlotte Aldebron at a peace rally in Maine. When people think about bombing Iraq, they see a picture in their heads of Saddam Hussein in a military uniform, or maybe soldiers with big black mustaches carrying guns, or the mosaic of George Bush Senior on the lobby floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel with the word "criminal." But guess what? More than half of Iraq's 24 million people are children under the age of 15. That's 12 million kids. Kids like me. Well, I'm almost 13, so some are a little older, and some a lot younger, some boys instead of girls, some with brown hair, not red. But kids who are pretty much like me just the same. So take a look at me -- a good long look. Because I am what you should see in your head when you think about bombing Iraq. I am what you are going to destroy. If I am lucky, I will be killed instantly, like the three hundred children murdered by your "smart" bombs in a Baghdad bomb shelter on February 16, 1991. The blast caused a fire so intense that it flash-burned outlines of those children and their mothers on the walls; you can still peel strips of blackened skin -- souvenirs of your victory -- from the stones. But maybe I won't be lucky and I'll die slowly, like 14-year-old Ali Faisal, who right now is in the "death ward" of the Baghdad children's hospital. He has malignant lymphoma -- cancer -- caused by the depleted uranium in your Gulf War missiles. Or maybe I will die painfully and needlessly like18-month-old Mustafa, whose vital organs are being devoured by sand fly parasites. I know it's hard to believe, but Mustafa could be totally cured with just $25 worth of medicine, but there is none of this medicine because of your sanctions. Or maybe I won't die at all but will live for years with the psychological damage that you can't see from the outside, like Salman Mohammed, who even now can't forget the terror he lived through with his little sisters when you bombed Iraq in 1991. Salman's father made the whole family sleep in the same room so that they would all survive together, or die together. He still has nightmares about the air raid sirens.
Or maybe I will be orphaned like Ali, who was three when you killed his father in the Gulf War. Ali scraped at the dirt covering his father's grave every day for three years calling out to him, "It's all right Daddy, you can come out now, the men who put you here have gone away." Well, Ali, you're wrong. It looks like those men are coming back. thanks to the bitter shack of resentment
japanese woodblocks
Winter Wonderland
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hey! where are all the links?
It's a little light this morning. I'm off to jury duty today. I'll be back!
all war all the time
 [more] thanks to follow me here...
Peace Takes A Bullet These are the final days of peace in America. Please remember to turn off the lights and lock up when you leave. These are the last days of relative calm before we start bombing and massacring hundreds of thousands of people and in so doing enter into what many believe will a very long, drawn-out, insanely expensive, volatile, destabilizing, completely unwinnable war against a cheap thug of an opponent who has negligible military might and zero capacity to actually harm the U.S. in any substantive way. U-S-A! U-S-A! (...) Here are the words you will never hear from Dubya: We have won the war on terror. Never will you hear this, because the battle is, by definition, unwinnable; you can't win a war on terror any more than you can win the war against racism, or ignorance, or drugs, or cutesy boy bands or sunlight. Terrorism is as much a concept as a force, an idea as a scattered, well-organized, global network we can't possibly pinpoint. It is ongoing. It is never-ending. This is the Dubya plan. Perpetual war, perpetual fear, perpetual massive profits for a large handful of high-powered Bush-friendly CEOs and military contractors and petrochemical execs, long after Saddam is gone, especially after Saddam is gone. Who's next on the hit list?
They don't really care. War is at hand. America is about to turn a corner, sharp to the right. These are the last days of peace in America as you know it. And we will never be the same.
economy Oregon cuts off prescriptions to mentally ill in bid to save cash
In a state that says it is already so short of public money it does not have enough to keep all the schools open and prosecute many criminals, Oregon took a drastic step this week to cover budget shortfalls: It cut off medications to thousands of schizophrenics, manic-depressives, drug addicts and other mentally ill people.
Avoiding a 'Mega-Catastrophe'
Charlie [Munger, Buffett's partner in managing Berkshire Hathaway] and I are of one mind in how we feel about derivatives and the trading activities that go with them: We view them as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system. thanks to Robot Wisdom
our fearful leader While not normally a person of strong religious or political conviction, recent events have opened my eyes to those spheres and to the recent confluence of them. Our Dear Leader is officially described (with becoming modesty) as a man of simple piety and moral clarity. It is with this simple pious clarity that our Dear Leader has inextricably committed America's most valuable and irreplaceable assets -- its very lives, treasury, credibility, goodwill, moral leadership, and alliances -- to the elimination of Saddam Hussein, an inhuman Cyclops who is officially described as being a million, billion times worse than Hitler. Hitler was at least elected in a fair democratic process, Saddam cannot even claim that simple distinction which is necessary for legitimate governance over a free people. The essential meaning of these developments escaped me until this last week, when, after an unusual lapse in my household hygene, I was blessed to receive the following image in the interior of my water closet:
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iraq
THE HAPLESS HEGEMON The hapless hegemon stumbles over its own feet as it makes its grand entry onto the world stage. The Americans, the world notes, have none of the finesse of their British predecessors. A clumsy giant, apparently half blind, stumbles into a bottomless quagmire, and the world wonders: will he drag the rest of us down with him?
The complications caused by the Turkish defection, the North Korean eruption, the entreaties of our allies – none of this shows any sign of deterring the Bushies. Not even the fast-softening domestic support for this war, and the President's simultaneous drop in the polls, have so much as slowed them down. That this administration is still hurtling toward war with Iraq at warp speed is the full measure of its utter recklessness, its fanatic irresponsibility, and its unfitness to rule. thanks to thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse
RELEVANT CONTRADICTIONS
The presidency of George W. Bush is also filled with profound and serious contradictions that make me laugh out loud. George W. lost the 2002 election by over 500,000 votes and was still elected president! Ha, ha, ha, ha! At 2:16 a.m. on election night, Fox News announced that George W. had won the Florida vote, thus securing the 271 electoral votes needed to win the presidential election. The other television networks followed suit in a matter of minutes. The individual responsible for recommending that Fox call Florida for Bush was John Ellis, who led the network's decision desk. Ellis is the first cousin of George W. and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Ha, ha, ha, ha! George W. graduated from Yale with a 77 average and was admitted to Harvard Business School based on that stellar academic achievement, but doesn't believe quotas should be used in college admissions. Ha, ha, ha, ha! George W. is the leader of the free world, but he doesn't hold press conferences unless the questions are limited in number and delivered to him in advance. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The White House emphatically states that George W. personally writes many of his speeches. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States and the so-called "axis of evil," Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, are four of the leading practitioners of capital punishment in the world, while France and Germany, our greatest obstacles in the war against Iraq, abolished capital punishment in 1981 and 1949, respectively. Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the only country that has used the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and wants to build more of the same! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the freedom-loving country where Americans fought each other over the right to own slaves! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the democratic country that didn't allow women to vote until 1920! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The United States is the moral country that accepted Jim Crow laws until 1964. Ha, ha, ha, ha! thanks to Orcinus Muslim Democracy Foils Bush's Imperial Plans There is, of course, an enormous irony in this most recent defeat in Turkey, if only because the neo-conservatives are trying to persuade the world that a war on Iraq is the essential first step toward spreading democracy in the Islamic world. "The essence of what we believe in – we in the United States – is that people should be free to determine their own future," Wolfowitz told Turkish reporters last July. "Turkey is proof that democracy can work for Muslims."
As a former senior state department official quipped, "We back democracy all the way. All the way, that is, up to the point that they disagree with us." When it comes to Iraq, democracy may not work well for the neoconservatives.
Wending our weary way toward war
As we wend our weary way toward war, dragging the Turks -- whose price will be our betrayal of the Kurds (the fourth time we've double-crossed the Kurds, counting Henry Kissinger's triple-cross only once) -- it reminds me of the end of a bad election. Don't believe anything until it's over.
The Last One To waste something so precious as a young life is awful to think about. Look at the faces of these young soldiers. Many are barely more than boys, really. Boys always fight wars because it's too strenuous for old geezers. These days, the generals will sit in air-conditioned comfort far from the sound of guns. They will hold their briefings for the press. When the war is over and the young men are buried or packed away in VA hospitals or sent home to try to make a living, the generals will get the book contracts, take off on the lecture circuit and get rich. Some of them might even get gifts of stocks from grateful corporations that profited from the war. When the next war comes, they'll be on television as "Fox News consultants."
And I haven't even mentioned the suffering that will be inflicted on the Iraqis — their young boys, their children, mothers, fathers and grandfathers. You saw how Americans ran terrified from the collapse of the towers in New York. Imagine what it's like to be in a city that is being bombarded with 2,000-pound bombs, cruise missiles, artillery and Gatling guns. Imagine trying to save your children in such a mad inferno. Imagine what it would be like to see your children torn into ragged, bloody chunks of meat by shrapnel, or burned into a twisted piece of charcoal, with wet, yellow intestines leaking out. It's pure hell to be the collateral damage. But sit back and enjoy your war. It's what you want.
korea The Democratic People's Republic of Korea
 [more] thanks to consumptive.org A quick note on the North Korean interception of an American spy plane over the waters near the Korean Peninsula.
Lest there be any doubt, this is an extremely serious development. It's also a fairly predictable development. You may have been noticing out of the corner of your eye those almost daily warnings out of North Korea: there's going to be a great disaster, we'll repel a US attack, the US will be devoured by flames, the world will be trampled under by a race of gigantic goblins, etc. Force is next resort, Bush tells Pyongyang President George Bush gave notice yesterday that the US will resort to military force against North Korea if diplomacy fails to stop it building a substantial nuclear arsenal.
He told US newspapers that his administration would maintain its efforts to prevent North Korea building a nuclear arsenal, adding: "If they don't work diplomatically, they'll have to work militarily."
Shrub seems to think that issuing ultimatums is diplomacy. He seems to think that not talking to the North Koreans is diplomacy. I would feel a lot better if Shrub would actually begin some diplomacy. Any diplomacy.
what's happening here?
Outrage fatigue and its discontents A therapist I know says that more and more people are showing up at her door with a nonspecific anxiety disorder, which turns out to be shame and confusion about the state of the nation. Even those of us who have formed the loyal opposition to virtually every administration are sensing that there's something different about the new battle. We were, before, always proud to be Americans, whatever the excesses of its government or the dark secrets of its history. I think that was partly because we believed that America was stronger than the passing whimsies of presidents. Our Constitution protected us; our diversity protected us; our national impulse toward optimism and friendliness protected us. That last characteristic tended to drive the rest of the world nuts, but who cared? We liked being sappy.
None of that is true now. It's not just the war in Iraq, although that's certainly a big part of it. It's everything. It's the increase in spying on citizens and the constant pressure to suspend civil liberties. It's the relentless attack on all environmental rules. It's the nonstop pandering to large corporations at the expense of everyone else. thanks to Dumbmonkey
facism David Neiwert continues his excellent series on facism. Rush, Newspeak and fascism: Part 7
does ashcroft know about this?
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Hungry in Gaza
The world has grown used to the idea that severe hunger manifests itself only in the hollow cheeks and distended stomachs of an African famine. But today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank an insidious hunger has the Palestinian people in its grip. Hidden in the anaemic blood of children or lost in the statistics of stunted growth, a dreadful, silent malnutrition is stalking the Palestinians.
Pick a Card
Now everybody can see that Sharon's promises were nothing but a smoke-screen. At the end, Sharon has created exactly the government he intended to set up right from the beginning: a government of the radical right that will do the things the words were designed to hide. At most he was ready to imprison the Labor party in this government, shackled hand and foot, to act as a fig-leaf.
If the arch-settler Avigdor Lieberman ever had even the slightest concern about the potential negative influence of Ariel Sharon's "Herzliya speech" on the new government's policy, U.S. President George Bush's speech at the American Enterprise Institute last week removed it. Without any bargaining, Bush bought Israeli-made mines that rip the Quartet's road map to shreds. Or, if you prefer, they turn the vision of establishing a Palestinian state into a dream. Bush confirmed that in the territories, as in Iraq, he is aiming for a military victory and implementation of the right's doctrine. Like Sharon with regard to the territories, Bush is paying lip service to "bringing democracy" and to proper diplomatic procedure.
Every devotee of peace will undoubtedly experience a frisson of emotion at hearing the vision of U.S. President George W. Bush. The end of the war with Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein will effect an immediate change in the substance of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. A democratic Palestinian state will be established, terrorism will be eradicated and the settlements will be halted. If only we had known that all that stood between us and peace with the Palestinians is Saddam Hussein, we would have removed him long ago ourselves.
homeland insecurity
 thanks to BookNotes This Modern World: Loyal American's Guide
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illustration art
 [more] thanks to plep
mr. rogers I've been amazed at the number and variety of tributes to Mr. Rogers. I'm still amazed at the sense of loss I feel. The more I think about Mr. Rogers and what he taught us, the more I think that the world would be a much better place if our leaders would only ask "What would Mr. Rogers do?" And I'm totally fucking serious about that. Lyrics copyright 1970 by Fred M. Rogers ("Fox-trot, lively")
 [more] thanks to BookNotes
photography / architecture
Architectureal Constructions
 [more] thanks to Spitting Image
plant art
 [more] thanks to dublog
testingtesting Tonight's show with Uncle Bruce is up. He plays finger-picking style guitar. Amazing. The whole show was just beautiful. Lisa Toomey contributed a wonderful song and Barton Cole's Commentary From the Wires was touching and inspiring. A truly magic evening. And all from my living room. This show is what music is all about.
 Instead of links, this show is my offering to you, dear reader. Enjoy.
testingtesting TestingTesting, the Internet webcast I do from my living room, is on tonight. We will be featuring a very tasty guitar picker that goes by the name of Uncle Bruce. Here are a couple of MP3 samples of his music:
Dusty Road (402 KB) Click on in tonight for an evening of fun music.
the way it never was EphemeraNow.com is a Web site dedicated to the advertising and illustration art of mid-century America.
 [more] thanks to Spitting Image
fundamentalism
Pedants and partisans
There are two things desirable for fighting fundamentalists. The first is not to be one yourself. The US government's war on the movement is somewhat compromised by the fact that it is run by scripture-spouting fanatics for whom the sanctity of human life ends at the moment of birth. This is rather like using the British National party to run ex-Nazis to earth, or hiring Henry Kissinger to investigate mass murder, as George Bush recently did by nominating him to inquire into the background to September 11. Fundamentalists of the Texan stripe are not best placed to hunt down the Taliban variety. thanks to DANGEROUSMETA!
iraq
War fears prompt Iraqi threat to halt missile destruction
Iraq will halt its most serious disarmament effort in four years if it emerges that even the destruction of prohibited missiles will not spare a war, a trusted adviser of Saddam Hussein said yesterday. United States must dig deep to pay the price for loyalty AMERICA faces a bill running into many billions of dollars even before the first missile strike against Iraq as it tries to coax, pressure and, if necessary, buy allied support.
Washington’s unseemly cash-for-access wrangle with Turkey may involve big money, but it reflects only a small strand in a web of deals that the Bush Administration is trying to weave with potential allies in the Gulf, on the United Nations Security Council and in “new” Europe. thanks to BookNotes Turkish Lawmakers May Reconsider American Presence
Under intense American pressure, a senior Turkish official indicated today that his government would ask Parliament a second time to allow American troops to use the country as a base against Iraq, a day after lawmakers here rejected such a plan. They are just going to have to do this over and over again until they get it right. It's the battle of the emigre NSC Directors!
Today on CNN's Late Edition Wolf Blitzer had on Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. I don't normally do this, but I'm going to quote Brzezinski at length because I think what he said amounts to some of the most sensible stuff I've heard of late on this subject. It's worth reading through. White House advisors looking for a "way out" of war with Iraq
Some strategists within the Bush Administration are urging the President to look for an "exit strategy" on Iraq, warning the tough stance on war with the Arab country has left the country in a "no win" situation. thanks to Hammerdown
the future we were promised
 [more] thanks to MetaFilter
give me convience or give me death
All-Consuming Passion: Despite the astounding economic growth between 1958 and 1980, Americans reported feeling significantly less well-off in 1980 than they had 22 years before. Rise in per capita consumption in the U.S. in the last 20 years: 45% Decrease in quality of life in the U.S. since 1970, as measured by the index of Social Health: 51%
 [more] thanks to BookNotes
our very own terrorism Indians have lived with terrorism for 500 years America is now experiencing the fear American Indians have felt for more than 500 years. Our ancestors never knew what act of violence or terror would befall them from the American invaders. But death did come. It came in the form of biological warfare when small pox tainted blankets were distributed to the unsuspecting victims.
It came to them from the muzzles of guns that did not distinguish between warriors, women, elders or children. It came to them in the ruthless name of Manifest Destiny, the American edict that proclaimed God as the purveyor of expansion westward. thanks to Wampum
what time is it?
 [more] thanks to Geisha asobi blog
nuclear madness
Nucleus of a Dilemma: Reactors Closing as Disposal Sites Wane The obstacle-strewn odyssey of San Onofre's decommissioned reactor is just one piece of a looming dilemma: what to do with the remains of America's aging nuclear power plants. That problem will escalate, with more than half of the nation's 103 commercial reactors facing mandatory shutdown in the next three decades, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission data compiled by The Times. "We are now about to enter the era where large reactors are going to be coming off line," said Daniel Hirsch, director of the nuclear watchdog Committee to Bridge the Gap. "A reactor gives you maybe 50 years of energy, and 500,000 years of waste."
Yet a tangle of competing state and federal laws leaves California and 35 other states no place to ship their most toxic low-level waste after 2008. If the problem isn't solved, operators of decommissioned nuclear plants might have no choice but to keep radioactive waste on site for hundreds of years.
who do we blame now? Angry Hill Republicans say Bush is screwing his own party President George W. Bush has an interesting political strategy for why his domestic agenda may fail. Blame the Republicans. Bush blames the GOP-controlled Congress for underfunding programs to guard against terrorism. saying the Hill "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money" for other unrelated programs.
"That was an incredibly stupid thing for the White House to do," a senior House GOP aide complained Thursday. thanks to CalPundit
faded ad art Fading Ad Campaign is a photographic project documenting vintage mural ads on building brickfaces in New York City spanning nearly a century. It has become a metaphor for survival for me since, like myself, many of these ads have long outlived their expected life span. Although this project doesn't deal directly with HIV/AIDS, it is no accident I've chosen to document such a transitory and evanescent subject. Of the hundreds of ads I've photographed, many have already been covered up, vandalized, or destroyed. But still many silently cling to the walls of buildings, barely noticed by the rushing passersby.
 [more] thanks to Coudal Partners
homeland insecurity The Scare Bear Index of Possible Hazards
 Radiation Bear We like to call this bear the "Extra strong dose of Sunshine" Bear. He can sure help you speed up that tan. [more] thanks to Dumbmonkey
Turkish Deputies Refuse to Accept American Troops The Turkish Parliament today dealt a heavy blow to the Bush administration's plans for a northern front against Iraq, narrowly rejecting a measure that would have allowed thousands of American combat troops to use the country as a base for an attack. More Turkish lawmakers supported the measure than opposed it, but the resolution failed because the total number of "no" votes and abstentions exceeded the number of favorable votes. Under the Turkish Constitution, a resolution can become law only if it is supported by a majority of the lawmakers present.
The final tally was 264 to 251, with 19 abstentions. My son-in-law is still in Germany waiting to go to Turkey. It appears he won't be going any time soon.
Could Tony Blair look at the internet now, please? It's heart-warming to hear Tony Blair's concern for the plight of the Iraqi people and how the only possible way to help them is to bomb them with everything the Americans have. Mr Blair's sudden sympathy for the Iraqis' political aspirations comes as a welcome relief after all these years of US, UK-led sanctions, which have caused the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, according to the UN.
But I'm a bit worried that Tony may be deluding himself that his friends in the White House share his altruistic ideals. I'm sure Tony has been reading all the recent stuff about PNAC - "The Project For The New American Century" - but has he looked at their website? (www.newamericancentury.org) Even Thomas Friedman is getting worried.
The Long Bomb Watching this Iraq story unfold, all I can say is this: If this were not about my own country, my own kids and my own planet, I'd pop some popcorn, pull up a chair and pay good money just to see how this drama unfolds. Because what you are about to see is the greatest shake of the dice any president has voluntarily engaged in since Harry Truman dropped the bomb on Japan. Vietnam was a huge risk, but it evolved incrementally. And threatening a nuclear war with the Soviets over the Cuban missile crisis was a huge shake of the dice by President John Kennedy, but it was a gamble that was imposed on him, not one he initiated.
A U.S. invasion to disarm Iraq, oust Saddam Hussein and rebuild a decent Iraqi state would be the mother of all presidential gambles. Anyone who thinks President Bush is doing this for political reasons is nuts. You could do this only if you really believed in it, because Mr. Bush is betting his whole presidency on this war of choice.
Bush Ex Machina George W. Bush has often talked wickedly about his days as the black sheep of a blue-blooded, mahogany-paneled family. But the younger rebellion pales before the adult revolt, now sparking epochal changes.
The president is about to upend the internationalist order nurtured by his father and grandfather, replacing the Bush code of noblesse oblige with one of force majeure.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
dissent The War on Dissent: Goosestepping Along Some fresh salvoes in the ongoing war against any criticism of the Bush administration: Michael Savage, soon-to-be MSNBC talk-show host, has proposed the following law: The Sedition Act Read its sickening contents for yourself. At his Web site, his basic pitch is this:
Time to Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement, [more]
Dissent Exposed
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facism Rush, Newspeak and fascism: Part 6 I'd like to apologize to everyone who's been following the series on fascism; I've kind of dropped the ball since Part 5 appeared nearly three weeks ago. These posts require a great deal of focus and I've been distracted by other issues. I'll try to catch up in the coming days with more regular installments in the series. (I've put links to the previous five parts at the bottom of this post.)
I left off talking about how -- left-wing hyperbole notwithstanding -- our current state couldn't be called fascist per se. We are, however, in danger of a real manifestation of it, particularly if the identifiable proto-fascist elements form a power alliance with the corporatist elements; and secondarily, if this alliance is effected under the aegis of a singular charismatic personality. I mentioned that I would try to tackle the key role of "transmitters" in this process, but a couple of things have happened in the interim that have forced another important component to the fore, and I'd like to tackle it this week: Namely, the role of Bush's professed religiosity and the image, promoted by himself and by the White House, of W. as an instrument of God.
nagasaki Human memory has a tendency to slip, and critical judgment to fade, with the years and with changes in life-style and circumstance. But the camera, just as it seized the grim realities of that time, brings the stark facts of seven years ago before our eyes without the need for the slightest embellishment. Today, with the remarkable recovery made by both Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it may be difficult to recall the past, but these photographs will continue to provide us with an unwavering testimony to the realities of that time.
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The PLO withers while Hamas flourishes There are signs that the leaders and activists of the Hamas movement are feeling a sense of strength, an intoxication with power.
The reasons are clear: Their political rivals have been weakened considerably. Their chief rival, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's government, is continuing to crumble. In the West Bank, PA institutions function only partially and Palestinian security organizations were effectively broken up about a year ago in Operation Defensive Shield.
Hell no, Bibi's nephew won't go
In less than two weeks, 20-year-old Jonathan Ben-Artzi will likely become the first Israeli conscientious objector in three decades to be tried before a military tribunal, where he could be sentenced to up to three years in prison for refusing to serve in the military. He's already been locked up for nearly eight months without a trial. His family is firmly behind him, arguing that the government is getting tough on so-called refuseniks because they challenge not just Israeli policy in the occupied territories, but the entire structure of Israeli society, built as it is around compulsory military service.
propaganda poster art Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages This site is dedicated to the Chinese propaganda poster as it has been produced from 1949 till the present day. So-called propaganda art has played a major supporting role in the many campaigns that were designed to mobilize the people, and throughout the People's Republic, the propaganda poster has been the favored vehicle through which art conveyed model behavior. I've been collecting these Chinese political posters for many years now, and have brought together quite a nice collection of some 1,300 titles, spanning five decades of Chinese poster production. From time to time, new sections will be added, devoted to the political, social and economic movements and developments that have found their way into visual propaganda over the years.
 [more] thanks to Coudal Partners
korea
N. Korea says U.S. prepares for war North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of stepping up spy flights as a preparation for war as South Korea’s new president vowed to work for a swift, peaceful end to the nuclear crisis on the peninsula.
“THE U.S. IMPERIALISTS committed over 180 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in February by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes on different missions,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said, quoting military sources. "So, now that we have the business squared away, you wanna talk a bit more about Korea?" I asked. "Sure. What do you want to know?" "As much as you can tell me?" I replied. "I don't have that much time, Sean-Paul. But I'll give you the short version, how's that?" "Yes sir. Works for me." I said, "so, how does it look?"
"They're gonna blow this one. Bigtime," he said.
music — B. B. King Spinning Blues Into Gold, the Rough Way B. B. King is tired. The last of the great bluesmen, Mr. King sits slumped in a chair in a Manhattan hotel room. It is early afternoon, and Mr. King, sipping water, is resting before a sold-out appearance at the club named for him on 42nd Street. A big man encased in a silk Hawaiian-style shirt, Mr. King, at 77, travels relentlessly around the country, as consumed with performing and recording as he was 30 years ago. "If I don't keep doing it, keep going, they'll forget me," he says.
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This is the third in a series. Also check out: Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.
unpatriot act
Ashcroft Out of Control Many of the new security measures proposed by our government in the name of fighting the "war on terror" are not temporary. They are permanent changes to our laws. Even the measures that, on the surface, appear to have been adopted only as long as the war on terror lasts, could be with us indefinitely. Because, as Homeland Security director Tom Ridge himself has warned, terrorism is a "permanent condition to which America must . . . adjust." — American Civil Liberties Union, January 29
Since September 11, 2001, a number of us at the Voice have been detailing the Bush administration's accelerating war on the Bill of Rights—and the rising resistance around the country. This battle to protect the Constitution, and us, has entered a new and more dangerous dimension.
lorry art
FULLY INSURED This project had been completed during my Sri Lankan vacation, in January 2002. It is a photographic study of hand-painted lettering (and whimsical woodcarving) that adorns the old Sri Lankan lorries. The styles of lettering vary from trompe-l'oeil 3D effects to fantastic majuscules and illuminated letters, from fanciful rococo to americana.
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sweatshops in amerika
Misery of rag-trade slaves in America's Pacific outpost
When Thanh Nguyen was offered the chance to quit her poorly paid factory job in Vietnam and work in one of America's Pacific territories, she saw it as an easy way to a good income. Instead she found herself in a brutal sweatshop where workers were beaten and starved while they made designer clothes for the US retail giants Sears and JC Penney thanks to also not found in nature
music — john fahey Special thanks to Mark Woods at wood s lot for these John Fahey links. Emusic.com has 12 John Fahey albums (you can listen to 30 second clips.) These albums are worth far more than the price of joining Emusic for a year.
I REMEMBER BLIND JOE DEATH
In Memory of Blind Thomas of Old Takoma
Guitarist John Fahey Dead
browser wars Remember the browser wars? Microsoft may have won, but some dudes in Norway didn't notice and they make a wonderful browser called Opera. Version 7 was released recently. I was still a little buggy and I went back to version 6. 7.02 just came out and it is working just fine now. It's small, fast, skinnable, lots of keyboard controls, and, for someone whose most used application is his browser, it's a joy to use. It has a new e-mail client built in that is most interesting. It needs some more formatting capabilities before I think I will switch from Eudora, but it is well integrated into the browser. No Opera 7 for the Mac yet. There is a free version with ads (see below.) I will be sending in my US$39 as soon as get some of those US$. The picture below is Opera 7 with a Cocoa skin. Opera - The fastest browser on earth Download Opera 7 for Windows today to see why our users are calling this the fastest, smallest, most full-featured desktop browser on the market.
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