Left I on the News  

The real payolagate may be coming to a halt

"Under a far-reaching reform to be announced Tuesday, all staff scientists at the National Institutes of Health will be banned from accepting any consulting fees or other income from drug companies, and the employees must also divest industry stock holdings, officials said.

"For the past decade, government scientists at NIH have quietly been allowed to consult for biomedical companies under policies that defenders have said helped attract talented personnel to the agency. Hundreds of scientists took millions of dollars in fees and stock from industry. Most of the payments were hidden from public view, raising questions about the scientists' impartiality in overseeing clinical trials and in making recommendations to doctors for treating patients."

The Washington Post covers up White House gay-bashing

And, to no one's surprise who reads this blog, the "loyal opposition" proved they've got plenty of loyalty, but not much opposition: "Democrats have welcomed Spellings's appointment, praising her passion and professionalism." They also offered support for her new program, "No spineless creature left behind."

Incidentally, for those who have only read briefly about this controversy, this from de Moraes column should be rather enlightening in light of Spelling's claim that she opposed the show because "many parents would not want their young children exposed to the life-styles portrayed in this episode":

"According to Brigid Sullivan, WGBH's vice president of children's programming, the RFP -- that's government-speak for request for proposals -- on the show said Ready-to-Learn was looking for a program that would 'appeal to all of America's children by providing them with content and or characters with which they can identify. Diversity will be incorporated into the fabric of the series to help children understand and respect differences and learn to live in a multicultural society. The series will avoid stereotypical images of all kinds and show modern multi-ethnic/lingual/cultural families and children.'

"Except, it would seem, children who have two mothers.

"'We have produced 40 episodes,' Sullivan said. 'We have tried to reach across as many cultures, as many religions, as many family structures as we can. We gave it our best-faith effort. We have received hate mail for doing [an episode] about a Muslim girl. We've also received mail from Muslims saying thank you.'

"Buster, Sullivan said, has visited 'Mormons in Utah, the Hmong in Wisconsin, the Gullah culture in South Carolina, Orthodox Jewish families, a Pentecostal Christian family -- we are trying to do a broad reach and we are trying to do it without judgment.'"

Personally, there are a lot of things I would prefer any children of mine were not exposed to. Most of it originates in Washington, not in Boston. And I'm afraid only being deaf and blind would offer any hope not to be exposed to that kind of nonsense.

What a great country

The New York Times writes about how, even though "there is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and confirmed by the methods of science," evolution is being taught less and less rather than more and more, due not so much to the evisceration of textbooks as to the emasculation of science teaching.

There is good news though. "53 percent of Americans agreed with the statement 'human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.'" Why is that good news? Because it's the first time that a majority of Americans has ever agreed with that statement. Nevermind that in other industrialized countries the number is more like 80 percent, and even in heavily Catholic Poland the number is 75 percent. And, just for the heck of it, in advance of tonight's anticipated hatchet piece on Fidel Castro, I'll venture a guess that in Cuba the number exceeds 95 percent. Heck, the population of that country is educated enough that I'll bet the answer would exceed 50 percent even if the question were asked in English.

The Iraqi election - the real story

"Once results are in, it could take weeks of backroom deals before a prime minister and government are picked by the new assembly."

Gotta' love that "fair and balanced" coverage

"Palestinian militants shelled Jewish settlements Monday after witnesses accused Israeli troops of killing a girl at a U.N.-run Gaza school."

Quote of the Day

"The only road along which we can smash the hegemony of imperialism and the oligarchies of this earth is the road of Revolution"

- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the World Social Forum

Can't wait for the reaction from the new American Secretary of State.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out

"A new Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International poll finds [that] majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) also favor U.S. forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in place."

The disappearing "coalition"

"A British Royal Air Force transport plane crashed in central Iraq on Sunday, and news reports here said that up to 15 service members might have died. If that tally were confirmed, the toll would be the biggest loss of British troops in a single day since Britain joined the American-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003."

I guess since the original justification for why the U.S. invaded Iraq has been completely scrapped, there wasn't any reason to keep on pretending about who did the invading.

It's Cuba week on PBS

Nature photography is truly amazing - the patience it takes to get some of the shots in a show like this must be amazing. And there's always something new to learn. Cuba originated as an island 600 miles into the Pacific! Who knew? Cuba has more caves per square mile than anyplace else on earth. 440-pound Goliath Groupers eat lobsters in one gulp. Crocodiles jump six feet out of the water to nab rodents sitting in trees. Frogs a half-inch long!

The film itself was entirely unobjectionable, with no gratuitous slurs thrown in as they so often are. Would that that could be said for the web site, which is littered with such nonsense as: "In 1959, communist leader Fidel Castro took control of the island [single-handedly!], establishing a socialist dictatorship" [Cuba has always had a completely functioning government composed of thousands of people, and has never been a dictatorship, that is, not since 1959 - before that was a different story], and: "Closed to much of the world for years, Cuba is now welcoming outsiders" [Cuba has never been "closed to much of the world"; it has been closed to Americans for most of the time since 1959, due entirely to the policies of the American government, not the Cuban government]. Gheesh.

However, if nothing else, watching this film increases my desire to return to Cuba in purely an eco-tourist capacity, in order to see some of the marvelous things documented in this film firsthand. Sadly, my own government, that bastion of "freedom" and "liberty", doesn't want me to have the freedom and liberty to do so.

How would it be any different?

When the voting started, CNN actually had cameras in a couple voting places. For all intents and purposes they were deserted; I think I saw five people between two of them. Jane Arraf, eager to make excuses, claimed that perhaps the people were eating breakfast before they went to vote. Perhaps, but I think it's a little more likely they were waiting until later in the day to make sure their polling place was still standing before going to vote. No sense risking your life to vote if the ballot box is going to be blown up. Jane didn't mention that.

Meanwhile, in the "now you see a bit of bad news, now you don't", BBC News had reported that more Iraqi civilians had been killed by coalition forces than by insurgents, but within a day they quickly retracted the story. Here's the absurd bit: BBC (and the Iraqi Health Ministry who provided the statistics) claim that, between July 1, 2004, and January 1, 2005, 3,274 people in Iraq were killed and 12, 657 injured in conflict related violence, and that 2,041 of these deaths were the result of "military operations", in which 8,542 people were injured. What absurd figures. There were more Iraqis killed in Fallujah alone during the month of December than those figures, and, from available evidence, a substantial number of them were non-combatants.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk...

There are values and there are values

In Chicago last weekend, Dr. Frenchak joined a gathering of 20 Christians, mostly evangelicals, to produce a book defining moral values to include a focus on poverty. At the meeting, one man held up a Bible from which he had cut every verse that addressed poverty. "There was hardly anything left," Dr. Frenchak said. "He said, 'I challenge anyone in the room to take their Bible and cut out every verse about abortion or gay marriage, and we'll compare Bibles.' "

"You vote, we leave"

Most readers probably realize that the very idea of a "free and fair" election in an occupied country is absurd on its face; one in which a significant percentage of the voters will be people who don't even live in the country (and, in some cases, haven't done so for 40 years!) makes it even more so. But that isn't enough for the occupying powers, so they're adding insult to injury by throwing in a standard American campaign tactic - false promises (a.k.a. out-and-out lies). One story I read talked about American soldiers trying to get Iraqis to go register (or to agree to vote), and telling them "You vote, we leave." Then last night I saw a clip from a "get out the vote" TV ad being run in Baghdad (for those who have electricity), which showed U.S. tanks streaming across the desert (presumbly leaving the country based on the rear view) while Iraqis walked beaming toward the polls. I believe the "you vote, we leave" message was not just implicit, but explicit as well.

The fact is that the people who are not voting, but who instead are busy setting off bombs on election day, will have a lot more to do with the Americans leaving than the people who are voting. But I don't think that would go over to well as a PSA on TV.

Schwarzenegger's "special interests"

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would enlist donors from across the country to fund a multimillion-dollar fight over California's public pension system and its voting districts -- reforms being watched with keen interest on Wall Street and a bit of panic in Washington, D.C.

"Schwarzenegger's plan would move new state employees into individual 401(k) investment plans by mid-2007. That means Wall Street investment houses would be able to work with tens of thousands of clients instead of just the handful of expert investors at CalPERS and CalSTRS, the two public pension systems. The windfall could be huge.

"'There is national interest here: from the various interest groups, from the unions, from everybody,' Schwarzenegger added. 'So there will be national money coming in to fight us and national money coming in to help us fight the battle.'

"Rather than go back to the same Californians who have funded his various campaigns, Schwarzenegger said he wants to solicit well-heeled businesspeople across the country."

Taking fiction seriously

"A provocative new novel by bestselling author Michael Crichton that says fears of global warming are unjustified and stoked by an environmentalist-media conspiracy is taking Washington by storm.

"'State of Fear,' by Crichton -- who also wrote 'Jurassic Park' and created the TV show 'ER' -- compares scientists who warn of global warming to advocates of eugenics who said mixing the races would ruin the world's genetic stock.

"Sixteen of 18 top U.S. climate scientists interviewed by Knight Ridder, however, said the Harvard-educated author is bending scientific data and distorting research.

"'Wrong, wrong, wrong,' said Martin Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University. 'The best face I can put on this is that he doesn't know what he's doing. The worst is that he's intentionally deceiving people as he accuses environmentalists' of doing in 'State of Fear.'

"Crichton's book has grabbed the fancy of Washington political conservatives. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair James Inhofe, R-Okla., in a Senate speech this month, called the novel 'the real story' of climate change. Conservative think tanks and columnists have been promoting the novel."

Euphemism, sweet euphemism

"He was subjected to a process called 'rendition,' under which the United States sent him to Egypt. There, he says, he was tortured with beatings and electric shocks, and hung from the walls by hooks.

"One form of torture in Pakistan, Mr. Habib said, involved hanging him on hooks with his feet on the side of a large drum. Wires from the drum ran to what seemed to be a battery. When the interrogators were not satisfied with his answers, they threw a switch and a jolt of electricity shot through the drum, causing it to rotate and leaving him "dancing" on it. When he slipped off, he said, he was left hanging.

"For almost six months, the affidavit says, Mr. Habib was kept in a small, roach-infested, windowless cell, roughly 6 feet by 8, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He slept on the concrete floor. He was taken out for interrogations, sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes he was hung from hooks on the wall, he said. He was 'kicked, punched, beaten with a stick and rammed with what can only be described as a cattle prod,' Mr. Margulies wrote.

"One interrogation room was filled with water until it was up to his chin, Mr. Habib told the lawyer. Then he would be left there, standing on tiptoe, for several hours.

"Then the beatings stopped, his wounds began to heal, he was given meat, sweets and cigarettes. He was put in a room with a bed and allowed to sleep. Later, Mr. Habib realized this was in preparation for his being taken out of Egypt. He was first taken to the American base at Bagram, Afghanistan, and then to Guantanamo."

More Koufax Awards, and missing in action

There are actually two posts because there are so many nominees. In Part I, which is here, there are two other posts you might want to consider voting for: "War President", by American Leftist, and "Just Go", by Riverbend at Baghdad Burning.

"Me" vs. "we"

"Don't underestimate the significance of this development. Atomization of the working class, and the destruction of the ability of people to work together for their common benefit, and encouraging everyone to think of themselves as an "individual" responsible for their own destiny (financial and otherwise) is an absolutely critical component of today's class struggle. And whether it's limiting the ability of citizens to sue corporations for malfeasance, or eliminating the ability of public employees to have a common pension system fighting for their joint interests, the struggle is the same, and the consequences are potentially enormous."

"The most profound cost of privatization has been wholly ignored: the systemic cost to our public way of life. By turning a public social insurance and pension policy into a private bet in which personal and private decisions determine who does well and who does badly, we do irreparable harm to our democratic 'common ground.

"Privatization -- whether of education, housing or Social Security -- makes us less of a public. It diminishes the republic --the res publica, or public things that define our commonweal. It turns the common 'we' into a collection of private 'me's.' It opts for market Darwinism, in which smart investors prosper but others lose, rather than social justice as its organizing principle. It demeans the 'us' by turning 'us' into 'it' -- the big, bad, faceless government bureaucracy. And it privileges the private and individual by appealing to market liberty, as if people could really be free one by one or as consumers alone.

"Private market liberty is not political liberty; it is only personal choice. It may generate private benefits ('I want an SUV!' or 'Give me 100 shares of EBay!') but offers nothing for the common good (a fuel conservation policy, for instance).

"Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: It dissolves the bonds that tie us together. The social contract takes us out of the state of nature; it asks us to give up a part of our private liberty to do whatever we want in order to secure common liberty for all. Privatization puts us back in the state of nature where we possess the natural power to get whatever we can but lose the common power to secure everything to which we have a natural right."

300 billion reasons to say: "Not one cent more!"

All across the country, cities and states are laying people off, closing schools, hospitals, libraries, cutting other social services, and in some cases actually going bankrupt. Want a reason to say "stop the war now!"? How about 300 billion of them?

In this spirit, here's a chant I made up today while I was out enjoying a run. Feel free to use it in your next antiwar march. It's an "open-source" chant, so you're welcome to improve it. :-)

Chant leader: Not one dollar more, for occupation and war!
Crowd response: Not one dollar more, for occupation and war!
Not one quarter more, for occupation and war!
Not one dime more, for occupation and war!
Not one nickel more, for occupation and war!
Not one cent more, for occupation and war!

End the occupation,
Stop the war!
Troops out now,
Not one cent more!

While I'm in my activist mode, here's my action thought for the day, following up on what I wrote two days ago. Then, I encouraged readers to write their Congresspeople and demand that they vote against the latest $80 billion war appropriation. Today, I propose we should all go a bit further. Get a group together from your city, go testify at your next city council meeting, and get your city council to write a letter to your Congresspeople urging them to vote against the $80 billion and reflect the will of the people. Many city council people will say "foreign affairs are not our business." If they do, and if, say, the population of your city is 50,000, just tell them that there are 50 million reasons why it is their business.

Support the troops - bring them home!

Support the troops? This President doesn't give a toss about the troops, who are just so much cannon fodder in his cynical calculations. In his inaugural address, he couldn't even mention the fact that 1360 of them (now more than 1400) had given their lives, but instead offered a generic (and perfunctory) "Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice." 25 words in a 2064-word speech.

Thought for the Day

"If President Bush's war on terrorists [sic] has made America safer, why did his inauguration require the largest security precautions in our country's history?"

Iraqi politicians are learning from American ones...

So it looks like the ball's back in the court of antiwar Americans. Remember - Not one damn dime for war! NO to the $80 billion request!

Fool me once, shame on you...

A few days ago, Dick Cheney made the claim that Iran is building a "fairly robust new nuclear program." Considering that this is the same man who is famous for having said "We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," one might expect that any article carrying his latest claim might make reference to his earlier, totally discredited, claim, by way of providing context to the reader. If so, one would be wrong. I cannot find a single article which does so. By comparison, when Cheney mentioned that "Israel might decide to do something about it" in the same interview, almost every article provided context for that remark by noting that "In 1981, Israel sent warplanes to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor."

Fidel goes public

My opinion, which won't be changed by the film since I already know an awful lot about the subject: Fidel Castro is without any question the most principled person leading any government in the world today, or for many a year. I am unaware of a single instance in which he has lied to, or even misled, the world or the people of his country. He speaks the truth. He embodies what a real political leader is -- someone who has worked tirelessly for the betterment of the people of his country. And, unlike in the United States, where corporations qualify as "people", I am referring to the real people, all of the people, and not the elite few. Google search doesn't work all that well on blogs, but here are some of the things I've posted which demonstrate the results of his leadership.

I'll close with two of my favorite quotes. First this one:

"Enough of the illusion that the problems of the world can be solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the hungry, the sick, and the ignorant, but they cannot kill hunger, disease, and ignorance. Nor can they kill the righteous rebellion of the peoples.

"Let us say farewell to arms, and let us in a civilized manner dedicate ourselves to the most pressing problems of our times. This is the responsibility and the most sacred duty all the world's statesmen. This, moreover, is the basic premise for human survival."

"It is not enough for the truth to be the truth; the truth must also be told."

Cry, the beloved "opposition"

Item: "As members of Congress...we have pledged to give our armed forces the support they need in these difficult and dangerous days -- both to win this war and to win the peace,'' said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi." [speaking about the latest request for $80 billion for the war]

Item: "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that the opposing sides in the divisive debate over abortion should find 'common ground' to prevent unwanted pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions, which she called a 'sad, even tragic choice to many, many women.' In a speech to about 1,000 abortion rights supporters near the New York State Capitol, Mrs. Clinton firmly restated her support for the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. But then she quickly shifted gears, offering warm words to opponents of legalized abortion and praising the influence of 'religious and moral values' on delaying teenage girls from becoming sexually active." In conjunction with Clinton's first remark, it should be noted that the centerpiece of yesterday's march against choice were women carrying signs reading "I regret my abortion," which Clinton's remark reinforces nicely. [Incidentally, what's with that "Mrs." Clinton from the New York Times? Shouldn't that be "Senator" Clinton? And why in this article do they refer to "Ms. Rice" rather than "Dr. Rice"? What's up with that?]

I'm not even including Joe Lieberman's words of lavish praise for Condo-lie-zza Rice in this list. Lieberman is on the far right of his party (although he was amusing on the Daily Show the other night, I have to admit). Hillary Clinton is a central figure, and potential Presidential candidate, of the Democratic Party, while Nancy Pelosi is its elected leader in the House of Representatives.

More on Nancy Pelosi and her support for war can be found here in a CommonDreams piece by Stephens Zunes.

Missing in action: military credibility (plus a movie recommendation)

Item: "The US Army has failed to aggressively probe claims of detainee abuse in Iraq, including forced sodomy and severe physical beatings, a top US free speech group charged, citing newly released government files."

Item: "Twenty-three terror suspects tried to hang or strangle themselves at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay during a mass protest in 2003, the military confirmed Monday. Those incidents were mentioned casually during a visit earlier this month by three journalists, but officials then immediately denied there had been a mass suicide attempt."

A couple nights ago I watched The Winslow Boy, a David Mamet film (adapted from a play by Terence Rattigan) about a young boy who is expelled from military school for allegedly having stolen a 5 shilling postal note. When his father first confronts the boy, he asks him if he stole the note. "No father, I didn't," says the boy. The father pauses, then repeats the same question. "No father, I didn't," says the boy. Given the same answer twice, the father believes him (and proceeds to stake his entire family fortune on clearing the boy's reputation). Clearly, this is the approach that the press needs to take with the military (not to mention Bush, Rice, and the rest of the congenital liars). Ask a question. Get an answer. Then ask the same question again.

The movie, by the way, is excellent, with some great acting by Nigel Hawthorne as the father, Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife) as the boy's sister, and the very Cary Grant-ish Jeremy Northam as the lawyer. It does, however, illustrate a classic problem with movies which are based on real events, as this one is. In the movie, the sister is a strong feminist and activist in the suffrage movement (the events take place in early 20th-century England), which sets up a conflict with the right-wing lawyer which is one of the key elements of the movie (and play). But in real life (as I learned from the DVD extras), the sister was (according to the DVD) "to the right of Attila the Hun," so that part of the movie is entirely invented. But movies which are based on real events tend to strongly shape the minds of viewers about those events, just like one tends to remember the parts of vacations that one took pictures of, and remember other parts less well if at all, especially as time passes. I have a friend who refuses to see movies like Hurricane and Mississippi Burning for precisely this reason, because she doesn't want to have her mind clouded by inaccurate information. I don't share the opinion (if I did I'd have to stop reading and watching the corporate media, given all the inaccurate and incomplete information I get from those sources). See the movie. :-)

Out now? Not according to the U.S. Army

"The U.S. Army expects to keep its troop strength in Iraq at the current level of about 120,000 for at least two more years, according to the Army's top operations officer.

"While allowing for the possibility that the levels could decrease or increase depending on security conditions and other factors, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr. told reporters yesterday that the assumption of little change through 2006 represents 'the most probable case.'"

Find your Representative and their contact page here.

Find your Senators and their contact pages here.

Not American? Heck, just make up an address and pretend you are. Your dishonesty will pale in comparison to George Bush's. And you'll be lying to save people's lives.

"Take your olive branch and shove it": Parts II and III

Item: "Israel resumed building one of the most controversial parts of its West Bank barrier, deep in occupied land."

Item: "Gov't decision strips Palestinians of Jerusalem lands - The Sharon government implemented the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem last July...The law means that thousands of Palestinians who live in the West Bank will lose ownership of their property in East Jerusalem. Government officials estimate the assets total thousands of dunam, while other estimates say they could add up to half of all East Jerusalem property."

Once again quoting songwriter David Rovics:

The word you need to know is occupation
The very definition of a land without a nation
And if peace is what you're after then let us not deceive
It will come on the day the settlers return to Tel Aviv

Thurston Howell III meets comes too close to the rabble

"'Yes, there were some waits -- and in our section there were two cruddy-looking people,' [John Jernigan] said, referring to two protesters who found their way to the prime blue section B, right in front of the Capitol. 'You would've just thought they were trash that had blown in is all, but I thought it was great.'"

"'They need a new law for these protesters: 'You cross the line, you do the time,'' said Kenneth E. Boring, 80 [a member of the Republican Eagles, the elite GOP fundraising group]. 'It's time to put a stop to all this nonsense, protesting and causing confusion,' Boring said."

More thoughts on the Iraqi elections

Today I heard again something I had mentioned before - the actual polling places will only be announced "at the last minute". There's just one little problem with that - you actually have to be able to tell people where they are! With only a couple hours of electricity each day in Baghdad and elsewhere, how exactly is that going to happen? Send election workers, who are fearful enough for their lives as it is, to knock on every door to let people know? And what will happen if someone shows up at the wrong polling place? Will their vote be thrown out, as in Ohio? Just askin'.

Amidst all the questions, there's one thing we know for sure. On Jan. 31, George Bush and the American corporate press will pronounce them a resounding success for democracy, unless the turnout is less than 33%, in which case they'll pronounce them a resounding "step forward" for democracy.

Political Humor of the Day

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of America...and to the Republicans, for which it stands, one nation, under debt, easily divisible, with liberty and justice for oil."

- Danae, a character in Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur strip

Fallujah - the City of Rubble

There are "crises" and there are crises

And exactly how many times have the same people (or anyone) talked about a crisis which will culminate just a few years later, although it has actually already begun?

"Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world's top climate watchdog.

"Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has 'already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere' and called for immediate and 'very deep' cuts in the pollution if humanity is to 'survive'.

"He told delegates: 'Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose.'

"In November, a multi-year study by 300 scientists concluded that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and that its ice-cap had shrunk by up to 20 per cent in the past three decades.

"The ice is also 40 per cent thinner than it was in the 1970s and is expected to disappear altogether by 2070."

But after all, what's a bigger crisis? The possibility of a 25% reduction in Social Security benefits 40 years from now, or the survival of humanity? Gosh, let me think.

$10 billion in reparations for Iraq?

Oops. Sen. Bill Frist's bill isn't quite what I thought (oh-so-briefly) from the headline:

"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist unveiled a plan Friday that would boost the one-time, tax-free payments to survivors of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to $100,000 from the current $12,400.

"'We need to do right by these families,' said Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine."

Why "Out Now!" should have been "Out Then!"

"In March 2003, reports of suicide-bombing attacks on American soldiers had reached Sgt. Rob Sarra's Marine Corps unit in an Iraqi town called al-Shatra. A short time later, soldiers saw an older woman walking toward them with a small bundle. The marines, fearing that she might be a bomber, called to her to stop, but she kept walking.

"'I was looking at her, and I thought 'I have to stop this woman,' ' Mr. Sarra said. 'So I fired on her, and then the other marines fired on her.'

"'When we got to her, we saw that she was pulling out a white flag,' he said. 'She had tea and bread in her bag. I kept thinking, 'Was she a grandmother? Was she a mother?''"

The rich and the Iraqi election

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges."

- Anatole France

Is this a minor factor in the election? Who knows how close it will be. I do know that it's likely that those rich Americans are likely to cast more votes in this election, and have more influence over the government of Iraq, than all the people of Fallujah, which, as I'm sure you'll recall, was "pacified" so that the people there could vote. "Pacified". That's synonomous with "flattened".

News guaranteed to make you smile

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cancelled a planned visit to Germany after a US human rights organisation asked German authorities to prosecute him for war crimes, Deutsche Presse-Agentur has learned.

"The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.

"The organisation alleges violations of German legislation, which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused.

"The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe reportedly is examining the roughly 170-page complaint to see whether an investigation is warranted." (Source)

Quote of the Day

"Water is like peace -- you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away.

"It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, 'Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh.' Which means, 'If you see death, you settle for a fever.' We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water."

- Baghdad Burning blogger (and soon to be published author) Riverbend, who has now (along with most other Baghdad resisdents according to her informal survey) been without running water for six days

Overthrow the Iranian government? We already did that

All of these people need a little history lesson. Because the United States overthrew a democratically-elected Iranian government once before, in 1953. Here's a nice summary of those events from an article in Worker's World, reviewing not just the U.S./CIA role in the coup which overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he had led the Iranian parliament in nationalizing the Iranian oil industry (what a concept - Iranian oil to benefit first and foremost Iranians, and not American and British oil companies), but also the subsequent 26 years of absolute tyranny (hey, George Bush doesn't have a trademark on that word) under the U.S.-installed Shah, Reza Pahlevi. Of course this in turn led to such things as the seizing of American hostages after the Shah had been overthrown, the "arms for hostages" deal, arguably the election of Ronald Reagan, the Iran-Contra scandal, Oliver North having his own show on TV, and lots more.

And now the Republicans and the Democrats, the conservatives and the liberals, want to toy with the idea of doing it again. If you're even thinking this might be a good idea, go read the history. "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana). Unfortunately the ones who will really be condemned, as in Iraq, won't be the Bushes and the Cheneys and the Rices of this world, they will be the Iranian people and the poor Americans who are sent off to kill them and be killed.

The "quality" of "intelligence"

But today, we learn it was even worse. Much worse. Not only was there only a single source for this "information", but that source was anonymous. Here are some more of the amusing details on which this national scare was based:

"The Homeland Security Department official said the tipster has refused to meet with agents. 'He won't meet, so we can't polygraph him or anything like that.' That official said the names of the Chinese immigrants were contained in documents the tipster had hurled over a border fence."

George and Condi call this 'tyranny'

"[Cuba's] endeavors in terms of health protection for the population have attained a new triumph for 2004: not one case of tetanus! At the same time, another six illnesses remain eradicated: poliomyelitis, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, rubella and mumps; as well as two serious complaints: tuberculous meningitis in infants under 12 months, and neonatal or new born tetanus, the latter having been eliminated for 33 years.

"This is another of the positive results of widespread and systematic immunization campaigns: the eradication of tetanus, an infectious disease that affects the nervous system and is fatal if it reaches the respiratory muscles. At the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, there was a high infant and adult mortality rate.

"The Revolution's systematic healthcare efforts began to be reflected in statistics. Whilst in 1962, there were 645 cases and 410 deaths from tetanus, by 1970 this had dropped to 223 cases with 81 deaths; in 1980, 26 cases and 12 deaths; in 1990, 4 cases and 2 deaths; in 2000, one case who died; 2001, 2 cases and no deaths; 2002, 2 cases and one death; 2003, 3 cases and one death; 2004, not one case.

"Tetanus causes approximately five deaths per year in the United States and on an international level, reports show that there are around one million cases annually, the majority of them in developing countries." (Source)

Cuba is one of those countries singled out recently by Condo-lie-zza Rice, and over the years repeatedly by George Bush as well. Both would very much like to see a change of government there so Cubans will no longer suffer under "tyranny". The fact that they'll start dying of tetanus, or diptheria, or whooping cough, or just plain dehydration like millions of people in the third world? For George and Condi, it will just be a demonstration of their new-found "freedom".

CBS and NBC: "Tolerance is 'too controversial'"

"At first it sounded like a bad joke, but it turned out to be true: CBS and NBC both rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ because they deemed the ad's message of tolerance 'too controversial.' The ad emphasized that the church welcomes everyone, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance, or sexual orientation. According to a statement from CBS, the network regarded that as unacceptable because it 'touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations.' If that makes you scratch your head, another reason cited by CBS for rejecting the ad was because 'the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.'"

Incidentally, the latest issue of Extra! also includes a long, interesting article (not online) comparing press coverage of Kerry's "gaffe" (mentioning that Mary Cheney was a lesbian) with George Bush's statement in the same debate (arguably not a "gaffe" but instead a serious attempt at lying and covering up the past) of claiming that he didn't think that he had ever said he wasn't "worried about Osama bin laden."

Remember the Bay of Pigs

Will the U.S. government be looking to implement this model again in other countries? It's a safe bet the answer is "yes".

The march of "freedom" at the inauguration

"The most effective -- and disruptive -- protest may have come from the anti-war group Code Pink, which obtained 16 tickets to the inauguration from their members of Congress. Eight female activists, including Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin of San Francisco, obtained seats in the VIP section.

"They took their cue during Bush's speech -- when he spoke about the rights of people living under dictatorships to 'free dissent' -- and unfurled banners reading 'No War' and 'Bush Mandate: Bring the Troops Home.' Police confiscated the banners but did not remove the women.

"A few moments later, the women stood up again, but this time they shouted, 'Champagne is flying while soldiers are dying' and 'Out of Iraq now.' The pro-Bush crowd began chanting, and Bush momentarily paused. Police pulled the women off their chairs and escorted them out of area.

"Two of the women were still being held late Thursday -- Benjamin and Diane Wilson of Texas -- but the others were released after the speech was over."

Political humor of the day

"I'm looking forward to working as hard as I possibly can for the next four years."

- George Bush, speaking to attendees at one of his inaugural balls

The Bush "doctrine"

But all of this wouldn't mean anything without something else. Because the President has no Constitutional authority to launch a war against another country merely because he claims that the people of that country are "willing" to "adopt our system of government" and are living under a "tyranny". So the whole essence of the Bush "doctrine" is summarized instead by this enabling assertion:

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

Thanks above all to geography, America has not been invaded since 1812, nearly 200 years. The most famous attack on the U.S., Pearl Harbor, far from an attempt to conquer America and threaten our "liberty", wasn't even an attempt to conquer the then American-possession Hawaii. It was an attempt (and a rather successful one, if temporarily so) to destroy the Pacific fleet so that it couldn't be used to attack Japan. The idea that a loosely affiliated group like al Qaeda, who couldn't even hold state power in a weak country like Afghanistan and doesn't own a single warplane, ship, or tank, could somehow threaten the "liberty" of the United States is simply laughable. Only people like George Bush have that power.

This doctrine has to be seen in the context of one of Condoliezza Rice's new appointments, as described here:

Rice taps Stanford expert for post
Professor proposes methods to make failed states stable
"Rice soon will name Stephen Krasner, one of the country's foremost experts on international relations, as the director of policy planning, the State Department's influential in-house think tank.

"Krasner's work has not been without controversy. Some critics see him offering intellectual justification for widespread intervention by the United States into other countries.

"Krasner argues forcefully that bad governance in weak states threatens not only their citizens but also more powerful countries. They can generate conflicts that spill across their borders, harbor terrorist networks, or aid the spread of weapons of mass destruction -- Iraq and Afghanistan are examples he cites.

"'Left to their own devices, collapsed and badly governed states will not fix themselves,' Krasner writes in a recently published paper on this subject. He challenges conventional ideas about sovereignty of nations, arguing that in some cases it would be better to 'share' sovereignty with outside institutions."

Bush v. reality, part MCXXXIV

Reality:

"Minister of State Adnan al-Janabi, an intimate of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, tells NEWSWEEK that he was so incensed by his treatment by American soldiers as he tried to enter the Green Zone to go to a cabinet meeting that he resigned in protest.

"An angry Al-Janabi not only resigned from the government, but is now denouncing the American military as an anti-Iraqi occupation army. He is hardly a raving anti-American. An insider since the days of the former Coalition Provisional Authority and one of the country's most prominent Sunnis as leader of the huge Janabi tribe, he was given the minister of state portfolio in Allawi's government. For a while he served as justice minister. And he remains the campaign chairman for Allawi's slate in the elections, the Iraqi List."

Quote of the Day

"America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling."

- George Bush, demonstrating severe short-term memory loss while giving his inaugural address

"As of June 14, [Paul] Bremer had issued 97 legal orders, which are defined by the U.S. occupation authority as "binding instructions or directives to the Iraqi people" that will remain in force even after the transfer of political authority.

"The orders include rules that cap tax rates at 15 percent, prohibit piracy of intellectual property, ban children younger than 15 from working, and a new traffic code that stipulates the use of a car horn in 'emergency conditions only' and requires a driver to 'hold the steering wheel with both hands.'

"Other regulations promulgated by Bremer prevent former members of the Iraqi army from holding public office for 18 months after their retirement or resignation, stipulate a 30-year minimum sentence for people caught selling weapons such as grenades and ban former militiamen integrated into the Iraqi armed forces from endorsing and campaigning for political candidates. He has also enacted a 76-page law regulating private corporations and amended an industrial-design law to protect microchip designs. Those changes were intended to facilitate the entry of Iraq into the World Trade Organization."

In reality, on a serious note, Bush's quote above is meant to provide total flexibility in implementing this "doctrine". When it comes to his friends, like Saudi Arabia, he'll define them as "unwilling" to adopt "our own style of government", so they will be one of the countries to whom Bush was referring when he says he'll kindly "help others find their own voice" (i.e., call them up once a year and say "Hey, what about that democracy thing?"). In other cases, though, he'll magically detect that the Iranian people are eager and "willing" to receive outside "help" to adopt "our own style of government", and George will graciously be there to provide it. OK, he won't actually be there, that would go against his principles; just a bunch of mostly working-class youth will be there, having "volunteered" to go be killed to advance Bush's "vision".

The Washington Post gets testy

Bush's Words On Liberty Don't Mesh With Policies
"President Bush's soaring rhetoric yesterday that the United States will promote the growth of democratic movements and institutions worldwide is at odds with the administration's increasingly close relations with repressive governments in every corner of the world.

"Some of the administration's allies in the war against terrorism -- including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan -- are ranked by the State Department as among the worst human rights abusers. The president has proudly proclaimed his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while remaining largely silent about Putin's dismantling of democratic institutions in the past four years. The administration, eager to enlist China as an ally in the effort to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, has played down human rights concerns there, as well."

'Quote' of the Day

"Okay, so here are the key interrogation protocols we'll be covering...stress positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, temperature control, dog handling, cigarette burns, hooding, and beating. But remember, there is one thing that leadership -- from the President on down -- will never again tolerate at our detention centers...digital cameras."

Self-perpetuating employment

Unleash the 'old' Condi

Her war role harmed U.S. ties with Allies;
At State Department, she can undo damage

The ANSWER to Bush

Update: CSPAN-2 will be re-broadcasting the ANSWER rally at 8 p.m. Eastern tonight.

Further update: Hysterical and oh-so-telling moment of the day. The motorcade proceeds down Pennsylvania Avenue at a stately pace. Secret service types are walking slowly beside the President's limosine. The President approaches 4th and Pennsylvania where the ANSWER protest is located. Suddenly the motorcade speeds up and all the Secret Service men are jogging to keep up. A block later, they're back to walking slowly, as the "crisis" (Bush having to confront actual protestors) is past (and passed). "George Bush, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide." No, but he can try! What an effing coward.

Checking coverage on channels other than CSPAN, I hear Wolf Blitzer claiming that the overwhelming majority of people are there to support Bush. Switching to NBC a moment later, Brian Williams claims the crowd is divided 50-50 between supporters and opponents. It's hard to tell from TV coverage, but I've seen an awful lot of antiwar, anti-Bush signs everywhere along the route, and quite a few empty seats in the "Bush bleachers" that the RNC was selling.

In keeping with his status as a Bush tool, a little later Blitzer covers for the Bushies by claiming that the reason that the motorcade sped up is because a Secret Service agent was hit by a piece of thrown fruit, and "out of an abundance of caution" they sped up. I'm sure. As someone at the ANSWER rally said about politicians, but I'll paraphrase: "A diaper and Wolf Blitzer are both full of the same thing."

More: First Draft has pictures of Bush's minions "spreading freedom" - with a pepper spray hose.

"Out NOW!"

"From the pavement I could see into the bullet-mottled windshield more clearly, the driver of the car, a man, was penetrated by so many bullets that his skull had collapsed, leaving his body grotesquely disfigured. A woman also lay dead in the front, still covered in her Muslim clothing and harder to see.

"Meanwhile, the children continued to wail and scream, huddled against a wall, sandwiched between soldiers either binding their wounds or trying to comfort them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, 'Why did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were just going home!'"

The greatest f**king what?

The greatest f**king country in the world indeed. A lot closer to the most f**ked-up country in the world, I'd say. A country that spends $50+ million dollars on something they call "A Celebration of Freedom" and then walls off the people behind 7-foot barbed wire fences.

Update: I finally found the video online here and he does say "country" (although with the word before it bleeped, it comes out a bit distorted, which is why I misheard it on my first quick hearing). Oh well. The paragraph immediately above this one certainly still stands.

"Free speech" update

"A DC judge yesterday in DC ruled that ANSWER protestors can not use sign holders because they might contain razor blades and thus could be a Horrible Hideous Menace. Republicans of course will be allowed to carry umbrellas. Further, the linear footage on the parade route in the ANSWER area was lowered to 120 feet while the Inauguration Committee gets over 5280 feet, more than one mile. Barricades and 7 foot barbed wire fences sprouted around the ANSWER area Monday night. The forces of repression are doing their best to scare people off and make things difficult."

Update/Irony Alert: CNN is currently running special coverage on the inauguration. The "title" of their coverage (which I believe they are taking, as they often do, directly from the Bush administration), prominently displayed on the bottom of the screen, is "A Celebration of Freedom".

You know you live in Northern California when...

...you're pulling out of a parking lot a few minutes later, and the car in front of you has a bumper sticker reading: "I eat tofu...and I vote!"

Meaningless language

In response to him (I think, although maybe to Boxer, who I caught during a different 30 seconds of channel flipping), Rice said, "I'd be the first to admit there have been problems." No, Condi, you're the last to admit there have been problems, not the "first". I know it's an expression. It's a dumb one.

In a more serious, but still similarly meaningless use of language, Rice said yesterday "Nobody condones torture. Nobody condones what was done at Abu Ghraib." Nobody? Are you sure about that, Condi? Because I've read an awful lot of right-wing pundits and heard an awful lot of talking heads on TV, including quite likely Rice herself, who not only have "condoned" torture and what was done at Abu Ghraib, put postively extolled it as necessary for dealing with "bad guys". Why, the name Alberto Gonzalez even comes to mind.

I do want to add here something on a completely different subject than "meaningless language", but still on the subject of the Rice hearing. I've taken some shots at Barbara Boxer (see below), and she deserved them. However, I am willing to give her points for at least trying to shake things up and confront Rice with her lies (and expose them to the public). The problem lies, at least in part, with the American political system. If Boxer were a more confrontational type person, even with the same politics, she never would have received the kind of donations you need to become a Senator (or even a Representative or most other governmental positions) in the first place. The "establishment", the corporations and other big money donors, simply don't cotton to that kind of person. "Shaking things up" is not in their interest, to put it mildly.

Another Quote of the Day

"I don't want the families of those 1,366 [US soldiers killed in Iraq] to believe for a minute that their lives were given in vain."

- Sen. Barbara Boxer, questioning Condoleezza Rice

Faith vs. science

Hugo Chavez is...stingy? Bigoted?

il·lib·er·al adj.

• Narrow-minded; bigoted.
• Archaic. Ungenerous, mean, or stingy.
• Archaic.
  • Lacking liberal culture.
  • Ill-bred; vulgar.

Quote of the Day

"A charming man courts a woman, telling her that he's a wealthy independent businessman. Just after the wedding, however, she learns that he has been cooking the books, several employees have accused him of sexual harassment and his company is about to file for bankruptcy. She accuses him of deception. 'The accountability moment is behind us,' he replies."

- Paul Krugman, on George Bush's recent claim of having had his "accountability moment"

Condo-lie-zza: Open thread

I haven't the stomach for any more; horror films aren't my thing. If anyone wants to comment on the hearings, you can do so here. I've had enough.

Update: Well, I kept my pledge not to watch, but I am reading some of the coverage. This struck me: "John Kerry was the only member of the Foreign Relations Committee who told her she might not win his vote." Does John Kerry, or any member of this committee, really need to listen to Rice's answers to questions before this committee, and her promises of future behavior, to be able to evaluate both her ideology and her capabilities? Isn't four years on the job enough to evaluate her suitability for the position? Was he not paying attention? As for the fact that no one else (not even Boxer?) is going to vote against her, the less said the better.

Found: a bigger moron than George Bush

"By the way, where's the ACLU and other pinheads when Martin Luther King's picture is displayed on public property? He openly advocated the philosophy of Jesus and proudly declared himself a Christian. What say you, ACLU? Dr. King yes, the creche no? Think about it..."

On a more serious note, O'Reilly goes on and on about King's non-violence and what a wonderful thing it was, paraphrasing King saying "We're all brothers, don't hurt anyone in pursuing noble goals." Here's an email I just sent off to Bill in response, quoting at greater length the first of the three MP3 files I posted below:

Bill, you paraphrased Martin Luther King saying "We're all brothers, don't hurt anyone in pursuing noble goals." Do you see ANYTHING about your support for the invasion of Iraq that might be in the LEAST contradictory for your praise of King's non-violence?

King was talking to people like you (and George Bush) when he said in April, 1967: "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government."

He continued: "There's something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say be nonviolent toward Jim Clark [a southern sheriff who was active in preventing voter registration] but will curse and damn you when you say be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children. There's something wrong with that press."

He's talking to you, Bill.

Gee, who could have seen this coming?

"In April, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that al Qaeda terrorists might strike during this week's presidential inauguration festivities in Washington. The warning was part of a drumbeat sounded by U.S. officials throughout 2004 that terrorists were seeking to launch attacks both during and after the election season.

"Nine months later, the threat level has been lowered, and Ridge, speaking at a news conference last week, said there is no evidence of a plot to disrupt President Bush's inauguration. Previous warnings, Ridge explained, stemmed from threat reports tied to the elections -- not to the inauguration more than two months later.

"The shift in rhetoric about the dangers posed by terrorists during the inauguration marks the latest retreat from last year's terrorism warnings, which, in retrospect, were based largely on faulty intelligence, dated information or -- as with the inauguration -- an educated guess." (Source)

And really, can we dispense with the term "educated guess" in this context? Was there anything "educated" about it? (The word "guess" is questionable too, but let's not get into that)

Baghdad Burning's flame burns brighter

And while we're waiting for publication of that book, you can listen online here to a reading of one of the entries, which is being produced by Middle Eastern & North African Perspectives, who will be doing one reading a week as part of their show which is broadcast on KPFA radio every other Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. (or you can listen to archives online). If you listen to tonight's Flashpoints!, the Baghdad Burning reading is right at the beginning, one minute into the show (and is followed by a very long and very interesting interview with Christian Parenti about the reality of what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan). As I suspected when I wrote my theatre proposal back in November, Riverbend's words are even more powerful when read out loud than when simply read on a computer screen.

So huzzah and kudos to Riverbend. The world deserves to hear her words, and now more of them will. Of course, you blog readers can just go straight to her blog and read everything she's written since day one if you choose. Right after you get done reading everything I've written. :-)

Blog traffic - For bloggers only

But how accurate are those numbers? I assumed they were reasonably accurate, until just now when I happened to be running my eye down the list and saw this: "55) Test blog 5953 visits/day." What gives? Well, I visited the site, as you can too (but really, don't bother). It consists of two test posts from July, one from November, and one from December, none containing any legible content whatsoever (several of them are in the gibberish Latin you see in page mockups). Are there really 5953 people visiting this site every day, hoping against hope that one day there just might appear there something worth reading? I seriously doubt it. And so now I seriously doubt the whole "Truth Laid Bare" system, and will stop pondering the fact that there are allegedly 521 blogs more popular than this one.

"Security" at the inauguration

However, while the proles are prohibited from carrying umbrellas, things are a bit different for the limosine set. As it turns out, there is now an alleged "threat" from terrorists using limosines. So will limosines be banned from downtown Washington, just like those oh-so-dangerous sticks and umbrellas? Not on your life. "Limousine firms have been notified and barriers have been set up to prevent any 'vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices'."

Nothing, however, will be able to keep Bush secure from the greeting he's going to get at 4th & Pennsylvania. Unless he spends a lot of time looking out the other window. What will be the excuse of the national media? Oh, there probably won't be any "scuffles" between police and protesters or any arrests, ergo, not "newsworthy".

Bush, King, and American values

Gee, it couldn't be that the latter donors are actually expecting something for their money other than the chance to enjoy an evening of dancing, could it?

The non-denial denial and the press coverup

Here's what BBC calls a "rebuttal":

"Pentagon spokesman Laurence DiRita said on Monday that Hersh's article did not do justice to the 'global challenge' posed by the 'Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organisations'.

"Mr DiRita said the article was 'so riddled with errors of fundamental fact' as to destroy its entire credibility.

'Views and policies' ascribed by Hersh to several top US defence department officials were not accurate, he said."

White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, quoted by the VOA, issues a similar non-denial denail that VOA mischaracterizes as a "denial". It's no such thing:

"White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett says Mr. Hersh's story is 'riddled with inaccuracies' with some conclusions not based on fact."

Can Seymour Hersh make mistakes or be duped? Sure. But I wouldn't bet on it in this case, certainly not based on the "denials" of Larry DiRita and Dan Bartlett. And whatever mistakes he makes in his story, will they be as inaccurate as the headlines we get from BBC and VOA? I doubt that very much, since I can see for myself that those are completely inaccurate.

Haven't we been here before?

"Thousands of American reinforcements are pouring into Iraq's northern capital [Mosul] for a battle that could decide the fate of the country's elections, being held in less than two weeks.

"In the biggest military operation since US troops stormed the rebel city of Fallujah two months ago, paratroopers, infantrymen and armoured units have converged on the city over the past two weeks, increasing the number of Americans on the ground to more than 10,000.

"Their objective is not only to wrest back control of the city from insurgents, but to create enough stability so that Mosul's inhabitants can be coaxed into voting in the January 30 elections."(Source)

America's policy in Iraq, be it in Fallujah, Mosul, or elsewhere, seems to be "two steps back, three steps forward," except somehow they never get around to taking those forward steps. Possibly that's because the only steps that would really take Iraq forward are the ones which take American troops out of the country.

Blogger, begging

The Koufax Awards for "best left bloggers", about which I have written before in urging you to vote for either Left I on the News or your other favorite left blogs for "Best Overall Blog", is now up with the second-round nominations for "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition", a category in which Left I on the News most definitely qualifies. Unlike the "Best Overall Blog" voting, in which there were a number of blogs which qualify in my political spectrum as "left" rather than just "liberal", in the "Most Deserving" category Left I is the only such blog. So, if you think this blog is worth the effort I put into it, and would like to see it more "widely recognized" so that my efforts will be appreciated by more people, please cast your vote here, or, if you prefer, by sending email to "wampum at maine.rr.com". Thanks in advance!

Whatever happened to Iraqi "sovereignty"?

"Bush administration officials expect the new Iraqi government to ask for a specific schedule for the withdrawal of the 173,000 U.S. and other foreign troops in the country. Leaders of the Shiite Muslim coalition that is expected to win first place in the balloting have publicly promised voters they will press for such a timetable.

"The administration believes the new government will settle for a schedule based on military criteria -- one under which U.S. units would withdraw only once Iraqi security forces were ready to take their place -- rather than a rigid calendar."

Americans - as confused as ever
News media - as sycophantic as ever

Then there's this: "Iraq was cited most often as the president's highest priority, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. Some 53 percent of those questioned said it is unlikely that Iraq will have a stable government." So people don't think Iraq is going well, they think it's the highest priority, but they're still...hopeful? Hard to believe. Yet, if we just read the headline, that's all we get - "Americans are hopeful." What a load.

Quote of the Day

"The weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit -- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we're told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America...

Congratulations Bush -- we are a threat now."

- Baghdad Burning blogger Riverbend

Iraqi election - who gets to vote?

Sharon to Abu Mazen: "Take your olive branch and shove it"

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday he was giving Israel's army free rein to battle militants in Gaza, and the Palestinian leadership called for a halt to attacks on Israelis."

"An Israeli tank shell hit a house in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza after dark, killing a 27-year-old man and his mother and seriously wounding his father, Palestinian medics said."

"Some [people have been] saying I should have negotiated with [Yasser] Arafat for the four years I was president -- obviously, prior to his death -- and I chose not to because I didn't feel like he was a person who could deliver peace.

"I called Abu Amas the other day, and I told him I'm looking forward to seeing him again and working with him -- or Abu Mazen. So I believe that when it's all said and done, those in the Muslim world who long for peace will see that the policies of this government will lead to peace."

Martin Luther King on "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"

"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." (Listen)

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered." (Listen)

"Don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as His divine messianic force to be -- a sort of policeman of the whole world." [He's talkin' to you, George.] (Listen)

Tinpot dictator speaks

Once again, wearing his jacket so he can pretend he was actually in the military and so he can look down and remember his own name, America's own tinpot dictator speaks to say - "I'm off the hook. You should have voted for an antiwar candidate if you were against the war. It's too late to hold me responsible." Too bad there wasn't one (or, at least, one who was allowed into the debates):

"President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"'We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,' Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. 'The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.'"

Someone might also want to remind George that we have another method of accountability in this country. It's called impeachment. Then of course there are war crimes trials, which is the real fate that Bush and his cronies deserve.

The best moment from the interview is this brilliant bit of insight from the Presidential genius:

The Post: Why do you think [Osama] bin Laden has not been caught?

THE PRESIDENT: Because he's hiding.

Jesus what a moron. And can you believe this is the way he dresses when he rides on Air Force One and gives interviews to reporters? This man has got psychological problems.

Political Humor of the Day

"For Israel and the new PA Chairman, the honeymoon is over."

- headline in Ha'aretz today

Sharon: "Bush lied. I'm no 'man of peace'"

As has been the case for many years, there are only two individuals who can stop the bloodshed and bring peace to the region - the Prime Minister of Israel, and the President of the United States. The President of the Palestinian Authority is just a convenient scapegoat for those two men to blame to divert attention from the fact that neither of them wants peace, other than the peace of the grave they hope to achieve by driving the Palestinian people into the sea. And the only people who can force those two prime actors to take action are the people of Israel, and the people of the United States. The resistance of the Palestinian people, while heroic, doesn't seem likely to accomplish the task all by itself, given the relationship of forces.

The New York Times wakes up...

In an editorial today, the Times takes note of the fact that Ukraine will be pulling its troops out of Iraq. In that editorial, they write:

"Most of these countries [which are leaving the "coalition" occupying Iraq] provided token forces of a few dozen or less. But the Bush administration expended considerable political capital to beg or bully governments into joining the campaign to give it the semblance of an international operation in the absence of a credible international endorsement. Washington was especially keen to underscore the support of young democracies, which were supposed to be better capable of appreciating the blessings that Iraq was about to reap.

But in Ukraine, neither bad old dictators nor promising new democrats ever really backed the Iraq war. Like many other coalition members, the government weighed the potential benefits of making nice to Washington against the potential costs of not doing so and hoped it would all be over soon. Now that doesn't look likely, the exodus is on. When you go for facade, facade is what you get. "

By the way, note that clever little attempt to continue covering the Bush administration's rear: "in the absense of a credible international endorsement" (emphasis added). There was no "international endorsement". None. Not just no "credible" endorsement. Not the U.N. Not NATO. Not the EU. None.

The Los Angeles Times shows its ignorance

Guantanamo Gets Greener With Wind Power Project
"Four new windmill towers and turbines rising from the crown of John Paul Jones Hill will begin powering the U.S. Navy base here next month, saving $1.5 million in annual oil imports, reducing pollution and showing energy-starved communist neighbors what they are missing."

"From May 5 through 10 Havana is the venue for the 19th Latin American Congress on Rural Electrification (CLER), traditionally celebrated biannually in a different country of the region since 1964, in order to exchange experiences on that theme.

"Cuba was selected for this year given the profound social impact of a number of renewable energy projects implemented on the island.

"More than 2,000 schools, close to 400 family doctor surgeries, around 200 video rooms and eight to 12 rural hospitals have acquired energy from solar panels thus far.

"Access to electrical services in remote area has permitted the installation of telephones, televisions, videos, computers and medical equipment for both clinics and home use, yielding concrete benefits in the health, education and cultural sectors."

And while we're on the subject of Cuban scientific advances, another story from today's news is rather significant (take note in particular of the last emphasized paragraph):

"Humanity is approaching the achievement of an anti-cholera vaccine thanks to a promising Cuban project, the scientific media has announced in Havana.

"Carlos Gutierrez, director of the National Scientific Research center (CENIC), confirmed that the experimental phase prior to clinical trials of the serum was recently concluded in South Africa, given that there are no cases of cholera on the island.

"The cross reactivity and immune response potential of the 638 strain to neutralize epidemics in that country was evaluated in a joint research project. Gutierrez stated that volunteer trials should start this year.

"'The positive results of those and other tests,' he added, 'mean that we can forecast that one sole vaccine candidate is enough to prevent the disease.'

"Despite being free of cholera, Cuba is working on a vaccine against the water-transmitted disease of high incidence in the underdeveloped nations, where the vast majority of the 1.2 billion poor people on the planet live, the expert said."

News judgment

"Early Thursday, Israeli troops in Gaza fatally shot two Palestinians, a gunman and a man driving his pregnant neighbor to a hospital. Israeli soldiers said they suspected the driver of being a militant."

The facts of the case can be learned only by reading al Jazeera:

"Israeli occupation forces have killed two Palestinians, including a man who was driving his pregnant wife to hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital and security sources said.

"Alaa Hassuna, 23, was shot in the Bait Lahya area on Thursday shortly after leaving the family home in a nearby beduin village around dawn.

"His wife and another passenger in the vehicle were wounded, the sources said.

"Hassuna died instantly, a Palestinian security official said.

"However, the Israeli army said troops fired near the man's vehicle because he was speeding towards them and they feared an attack was imminent.

"As a result of the gunfire -- which the army said did not hit the vehicle -- it veered off course, and it is possible the man died as a result of the crash, the Israeli army said.

"The military's version was contested by Mahmud al-Asali, director of the Bait Lahya hospital, who said Hassuna died of fatal bullet wounds.

"'He was shot in the right eye and the bullet exited from the back of the brain. There were no scratches to show that he had been in an accident,' he said.

"Hassuna's wife sustained a bullet wound to the hand while the second passenger was slightly injured by a bullet wound to the leg, al-Asali added."

As for Americans? 99.9% of them will have never heard of the murder of this man and the attempted murder of his pregnant wife and friend. Most of the remaining Americans will hear that the Israeli army shot another militant, or perhaps a "suspected militant"; in these days of shoot first, figure out who you shot later (or not), there's really no difference between the two. Only the tiny handful of people who read al Jazeera, or listen to Flashpoints! (on which this story was first mentioned), or read Left I on the News, will ever know the truth, and begin to understand the depth of hatred for the United States in the Middle East which stems from incidents like this one, large and small. And that hatred stems not just from the fact that the Israeli army is sustained competely by money and arms from the United States, but also from the fact that stories like this one either never appear in the American press, or appear in a completely distorted manner.

James Baker considers the partial pregnancy option

"The growing debate over a possible withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq got an added boost Thursday with the dissemination of comments by former Secretary of State James Baker suggesting that the Bush administration should consider a phased withdrawal of some of the 150,000 troops now there.

"'Any appearance of a permanent occupation will both undermine domestic support here in the United States and play directly into the hands of those in the Middle East who -- however wrongly -- suspect us of imperial design,' Baker said Tuesday in a speech at Rice University in Houston.

"Baker couched his remarks by saying that any such withdrawal should happen only if the security situation improves and once Iraqi forces are ready."

Bush takes the fifth

"Asked if he'd ever authorized the transfer of prisoners to countries that practice torture, Bush said he wouldn't answer: 'This administration will not talk about intelligence-gathering matters.'"

As opposed to the non-answer he offers to a related question:

"But he did not say whether he agreed with his White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who said at his congressional hearing last week on his nomination to become attorney general that the president, as commander in chief, had the wartime power to override laws and order harsh interrogation, possibly even torture, in the name of national security.

"'I'll have to talk to Al about that and make sure where he's coming from,' Bush said."

The Vice-President of...what?

"The White House invited conservative students affiliated with the College Republicans and the Heritage Foundation to hear Cheney's 15-minute speech. Members of student government and university administrators also attended."

Update: While I'm on the subject of spending public money for partisan purposes (no, I'm not going into the Armstrong Williams case, that's being well-covered elsewhere), this morning on Democracy Now! (it's about 38 minutes into the program if you download the show which will be online soon), Amy Goodman played the phone message you hear when you're on hold if you call the Social Security Administration. It's a dire message about how Social Security is in trouble and the sooner it's fixed, the better. Unbelievable.

The Iraqi disappeared reappear...on paper

"Some of the leaders of the so-called Iraq Survey Group charged with finding WMDs in Iraq have been calling on the Pentagon to release those scientists, who include Gen. Amir Saadi, who had been a liaison between the Hussein government and U.N. arms inspectors, Rihab Taha, the biologist American reporters breathlessly referred to as 'Dr. Germ' for his alleged work years ago with germ weapon research, and Huda Amash [sic], who was similarly, if somewhat sexistly, awarded the moniker 'Mrs. Anthrax.' ISG officials say they have cleared all three of involvement in any illegal WMD work for Hussein over the past decade or more, and add that they have been cooperating with investigators.

They shouldn't hold their breaths waiting for release, however. The Pentagon appears bent on keeping them in captivity indefinitely, as it is doing with most of the detainees at Guantanamo and other secret holding pens."

Give me heathens and pagans any day

"Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most 'Christians' regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. 'Gallup and Barna,' laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, 'hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general.' Divorce is more common among 'born-again' Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers."

The "Out Now!" voices get louder

And on Jan. 20, those "Out Now!" voices in Washington will get even louder, as antiwar protestors converge on the coronation inauguration. The big news today is that the ANSWER coalition, one week in advance of the event (!), has finally been granted a permit for a space on the parade route, and will even be erecting their own bleachers! And I can guarantee that they won't be part of the "Turn Your Back on Bush" movement. War criminals like Bush need to be confronted to their faces, with shouts and signs, not with silent "turn your back" protests, and ANSWER activists and supporters will see that that happens. Unlike the pom-pom girls, they won't be averting their gaze from the boy-king.

And if you happen to work in the 100 square-block area which will be locked down on Thursday and even parts of Wednesday, you'll not only be paying for this inauguration with your tax dollars, like we all will, but with your own personal dollars too:

"To avoid gridlock, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management notified federal agency heads that they are allowed to let downtown employees go home early Wednesday and that they should consider urging them to take annual leave, compensatory time or unpaid leave."

Limbo lower now - how low can you go?

"With just over two weeks until the Iraqi elections, the United States is lowering its expectations for both the turnout and the results of the vote, increasingly emphasizing other steps over the next year as more important to Iraq's political transformation, according to U.S. officials.

"The Bush administration played down voter turnout yesterday in determining the elections' legitimacy and urged Americans not to get bogged in a numbers game in judging the balloting, a reflection of the growing concern over how much the escalating insurgency and the problem of Sunni participation may affect the vote.

"'I would...really encourage people not to focus on numbers, which in themselves don't have any meaning, but to look on the outcome and to look at the government that will be the product of these elections,' a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity at a White House briefing yesterday. The official highlighted the low voter turnout in U.S. elections as evidence that polling numbers are not essential to legitimacy."

And don't you love the way they demonstrate their understanding of "democracy" by making statements like this, but refusing to be identified, even though they are public employees performing their jobs?

MacWorld Tip of the Day

But of course it's more than a radio. Just clicking on a "Record" button and you can start recording anything you're listening to, and then save it either as an AIFF file or an AAC file, and it can go straight into the iTunes library (and from there to your iPod to be listened to later, if you want). Getting fancier, you can schedule recordings. Where I am, Democracy Now! is on from 6-7 a.m. and again from 9-10 a.m. As it turns out, however, a better time for me to listen would be about 7:30-8:30 a.m. No problem, just set to record the 6 a.m. show and then start it playing at 7:30. Another of my favorite shows, Flashpoints! (all my favorite shows have exclamation points!), is on at 5 p.m. Sometimes I'm around to listen to it, sometimes I'm not. But if I set to record it, if I'm not around from 5-6, I can listen to it later, or the next morning. Yes, some of these shows are on the web for download, but usually not as promptly as I'd like, especially if I'm trying to transcribe something for a post.

And finally, there's the "TiVO-like" "real-time pausing" feature. This means you record everything you are listening to into a circular buffer of length you specify (e.g., 30 minutes), and then, if you're in the middle of listening to Greg Palast and the phone rings, you just pause the radio, take the phone call, and then pick up listening to the radio show right where you left off, even though the show itself is now several minutes ahead. I haven't used this feature or the scheduled recording feature yet, since I just got the darn thing, but I'm pretty confident they'll work as advertised, and I think I'm really going to like them.

And the whole thing was only $50 (show special, regular price is $70 plus tax, still not bad).

So that's my MacWorld Tip of the Day, no charge (and, needless to say, NFI). And again, it comes with Mac and PC software, so you poor sods stuck with PCs don't have to feel left out. But hey, for just $450 more you can now become the owner of a brand new Mac. You don't want to spend your whole life fighting viruses and Windows bugs, do you? ;-)

Terrorists with pom-poms

"Thousands of performers - marching bands, color guards, pompon dancers, hand bell-ringers, drill teams on horseback and Civil War re-enactors - will be bused early in the morning to the Pentagon parking lot across the Potomac in Virginia. While performers disembark and go through metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs will search the buses.

"Then everybody will get back on the buses for a trip to the National Mall, where they will spend most of the day in heavily guarded warming tents. Participants have been warned that they will not be allowed to leave the tents except to go to portable toilets accompanied by a security escort.

"Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.

"'They want you to just look straight ahead,' said Danielle Adam, co-director of the Mid American Pompon All Star Team from Michigan, which also performed in the 2001 inaugural parade."

Quote of the Day

"If Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to pay teachers on merit and not seniority, he first should find a way to pay them what they're worth."

- Leigh Weimers, San Jose Mercury News columnist (quote slightly paraphrased)

Not with a bang but with a whimper

The "Iraq Survey Group" has folded up their tent and slunk quietly back into town. So quietly that it actually happened before Christmas and is only now being reported, and even that in a limited way. The Washington Post is carrying the story, but the news doesn't appear in the New York Times online front page, and it doesn't appear in the print edition of the San Jose Mercury News, the paper I read, at all.

Local TV news (KTVU Oakland) is reporting the story, saying that the group came back "empty-handed." Not so. What they came back with was absolute proof that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the "gang" are a bunch of bald-faced liars (luckily none of them has a beard; I'm not sure what they would be then). Had they told the American people and the world that they "thought" Iraq had weapons and they thought there was a reasonable possibility that they might give those weapons to terrorists one day, they might have been telling the truth (although frankly, I don't think they even believed that). But every one of them told the American people and the world that these were absolute certainties, that there were (not "might be") "stockpiles" of weapons sitting in Iraq, just waiting to be used any day in attacks on Americans. And so, as I said, the ISG has now returned not with "nothing," but with something very valuable. Alas, since these conclusions have been known for some time, we can see how well that information is being used by the "opposition" in this country (the Democrats and some of the media). Which is to say not at all.

Update: Both BBC World News and my local CBS (KPIX) news tonight reported this story in these words - "The White House announced today that the search for WMD had ended." This is an absolute lie. The White House announced no such thing, neither the President nor his Press Secretary. His Press Secretary was repeatedly questioned by reporters about the subject, but there was absolutely no "announcement" by the White House, neither today, nor three weeks ago when it actually happened.

Queer I

I've been watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy since Day 1. It's a fun show, Carson is funny, and Thom is an absolute genius. This blog is more or less named after the show, which started about the same time. I toyed with names like "Left Eye for the Straight Guy" etc., but wasn't happy with anything I could come up with, so I went with a more descriptive title. The blog probably would be called "Left Eye on the News", but "lefteye.blogspot.com" was already taken with a one-day blog presumably for Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, so I went with "Left I", which has the advantage that "I" refers to me, and also that it can be pronounced "lefty" is you're so inclined (I'm not).

Anyway, on last night's season premiere show, the makeover target was a young, relatively newly-married soldier (with a young wife and very young baby) about to be shipped out to Iraq. I was disgusted by the nonsensical gushing about how he was going off to "protect us" and the like, but what was really disgusting, not about the show but about real life, was the closing section where the guys gave him gifts to take to Iraq, and followed that up with tips about how you (the viewer) can support your loved one:

If you have a loved one serving our nation far from home, you can't be there to feed, clothe and comfort them. However, you can do the next best thing by sending our soldiers a care package. Here are a few tips from the Fab Five on how to help:

• To keep soldiers' belongings dry and protected, send along a waterproof bag to line their duffle.
• Although it's the desert, the temperature drops considerably at night. Include a lightweight blanket to keep your soldier warm.
• Soap is in high demand for soldiers. And that sand? It gets in your eye. So send some eye drops as well.
• Sure, soldiers want treats, but they also need wholesome food to help them stay in shape. Send granola bars, cereal bars, nuts and dried fruits.
• Most importantly, don't forget to send a letter showing your support.

Who supports the troops? Certainly not the U.S. government, which sends them off on unjustified, illegal, immoral missions, and then can't even provide them with sufficient supplies to do their "job" or even to live properly. Sending off more soldiers to leave their young wives and babies at home alone, too many of them to be widowed or left without a parent? I have a better idea. Let's bring them all home. Now. And there's absolutely nothing queer about that idea.

Political humor of the day

"Today President Bush admitted that there are four areas of Iraq where it will be difficult for the people to vote...the east, the west, the north and the south."

- Jay Leno

"However, President Bush said, and this is an actual quote, 'The election will still go ahead as scheduled because it doesn't matter if nobody votes, the important thing is to say you've held an election.' Worked in Florida!"

Fallujah Facts

"Only 8,500 residents of Fallujah have returned home after a devastating US-led campaign to retake the Iraqi city from insurgents, the UN refugee agency has said.

"About 85,000 Fallujah residents - from a total population of 300,000 - have gone back to inspect their houses and general conditions in the city, but only about 10 per cent of those decided to stay, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees."

Three more casualties of the Iraq invasion...in Central California

Add two more to the long list of deaths resulting from the invasion of Iraq which won't be added to the official tally (now standing at 1356, of course counting only Americans which is all anyone cares about, right?). In the small Central Valley town of Ceres, a 19-year-old Marine who had already spent seven months in Iraq and was faced with the unwanted prospect of being sent back, shot and killed a police officer and critically wounded another before being killed himself in what is strongly suspected as a case of "suicide by cop." We may never know what drove this Marine to this act, but we do know that his unit in Iraq sustained more than 30 casualties [by which I take it the press means "fatalities", as they usually do] during the war, mostly in Anbar province. So there is almost no doubt that he had seen his share of death and dying, and quite possibly had killed people himself and/or seen his friends die or be seriously wounded around him. Is it a surprise that a 19-year-old boy (or anyone, for that matter) might crack under those circumstances, and be desperate not to be sent back? Definitely not.

How many more lives will be cut short, or ruined, by this war? Whatever the number, it will be more than you hear about on the news. Many more.

Update: According to a report on KPIX tonight (doesn't seem to be online), the Marines have the highest suicide rate of any service. In 2004, 32 Marines either committed suicide or "suicide by cop." And, if I heard correctly, that rate was eight times higher than the general population.

Quote of the Day

"What the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there."

- Mel Gibson, in the press room after the People's Choice Awards, in which his "Passion of the Christ" won as "Favorite Movie Drama" while Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" won as "Favorite Picture".

Cell phones: "Let's be careful out there!"

"As they use to say on a TV show (Hill Street Blues) I never watched, "Let's be careful out there!" Use that earpiece if you're on the phone for long periods of time, and keep working for a society where research into the safety of various products, be they cell phones, tobacco, or the latest drug, is funded primarily by the government, and not by the manufacturer of the product, a society based on human needs and not profit."

Now Britain's National Radiological Protection Board has echoed my sentiments (ok, except for the anti-capitalist part :-) ), warning people that although the evidence is not definitive, there is enough that people, especially children, should "take care." One interesting bit is this:

"[NRPB chairman Sir William ] Stewart added that he did not think he could put his hand on his heart and say mobile phones are totally safe because the technology is relatively new and is evolving so rapidly it is outstripping the analysis of any potential impact on health."

This is some interesting new information in this report:

"Children might be more vulnerable because their nervous system is still developing, they have a greater absorption of energy in the tissues of the head and they would have a longer lifetime exposure than adults.

"Stewart recommended children use mobiles phones for as short a time as possible. They should text instead and use a phone with a low SARS value. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is the measure of the rate of energy absorption in body tissue.

"Third generation, 3G phones, which emit higher rates of radiation than earlier models are now marketed in Britain and elsewhere."

Political asylum...for Iraqis?

Entirely predictable is another aspect of the story. We're told that "The bomb, which Saleh mistook for a toy on a school playground, killed Saleh's 16-year-old brother." Now, everyone knows that the only kind of bomb that is mistaken for a toy is a U.S. cluster bomb. It may not be definite that Saleh was nearly killed by a U.S. cluster bomb, but it seems highly likely, almost a certainty. However it wouldn't do to mention that, since such a use of cluster bombs would be illegal. And so, dutifully, the article doesn't mention it.

Perjury suborned...and ignored

Most newspapers are carrying the story of the sergeant who ordered his men to thrown two Iraqis into a river to "teach [them] a 'hard lesson' about threatening U.S. troops." One of the Iraqis died, and the sergeant has now received a slap on the wrist for the crime.

But the most outrageous (most outrageous only because the murder of Iraqis by American soldiers is a daily occurance) part of the story isn't even mentioned in most coverage of the trial. As reported in the Oregonian:

"An Army officer...had soldiers rehearse misleading statements they later gave to investigators looking into the death of an Iraqi.

"According to Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, public affairs officer at Fort Hood, Gwinner testified that Sassaman told the two soldiers, 'When talking to investigators, leave out the part that you put people in the river. Only tell them you saw two people on the side of the river.'"

Followup: Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com has a very long, informative article up describing this entire case.

Can't wait until Feb. 1

Unbelievable news of the day

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The Koufax awards have now been through their nominating phase, and now they're on to the "vote for those who should be in the final vote" phase (that's the phase we would be in in my "Best Political and Antiwar Songs of All Time" thing if I ever got my act together). Left I on the News made it through the screening process and is nominated for "Best Overall Blog" (nominations aren't up yet for "Most Deserving to be better known"), as did a number of the highly recommended blogs listed in the right-hand column of this page - in alphabetical order: American Leftist, Baghdad Burning, Body & Soul, Cursor (I don't think they actually consider themselves a blog per se, but it's an absolutely indispensible site), Left I on the News, skippy the bush kangaroo, This Modern World, Under the Same Sun, and Xymphora (unfortunately for the latter, there's no category for "Best Conspiracy Theorist Blog"). I encourage readers to decide on their favorite, and go cast a vote in this "round two" of the voting. You can do so either by email to "wampum at maine.rr.com", or in the comments at the Wampum website, which you can access directly using this link. Let's not let centrists passing themselves off as leftists dominate the voting!

Update: Nominations for Best New Blog are up and you can vote (again, this is the "second-round" voting, not the final vote) here (list of all nominees here). Nominees among our recommended blogs (listed at right) are Under the Same Sun (our vote) and First Draft, as well as Manic Net Preacher, the blog of occasional commenter DoDo.

Unquestioned assumptions

Death squads

Returning to the subject of "death squads" in Iraq, there's one more point to be made that no one's making. How on earth does the U.S. think they're going to pull this off? Aside from the U.S. military death squads already in operation from the air and ground, what Iraqis are going to be part of this? The traditional source of death squads are the police and army; indeed, they typically are the police and military, simply operating at night without uniforms. But the Iraqi police and "army" can't even operate during the day without getting slaughtered by insurgents, and they're so scared of the insurgents and the population as a whole that many of them routinely do their jobs wearing face masks. It is the police and army who are terrified of the insurgents, and who know they can't look to the population for protection.

Death squads, no matter what the fantasies of the U.S. military, are not on the agenda in Iraq (other than those wearing U.S. military uniforms).

Update: Although I emphasize in the earlier post that U.S. "death squads" have already been in operation from the air, it occurs to me that the existing operations on the ground may be a lot wider than we know. Along with soldiers "killed by IEDs while on patrol" and other known causes, there have been an awful lot of "killed in Anbar province" deaths recently. It is perfectly possible that some, or even all of these purposely obscured U.S. military deaths were actually special forces killed in the course of targeted (or untargeted) assassination missions.

First-person shooters, imaginary and real

[This post stimulated, and partially derived from, some comments in an email from reader Jamie]

I wrote the other day about violent video games (and ads!), and the effect they have on young boys and men (and I suppose an occasional woman too). One thing I failed to note, however, is that video games, no matter what the target, all share one obvious but still important characteristic - the protagonist, the "player," the "first-person shooter," pays no price. Oh, I'm sure they may be "killed" in some games, but that just means they start again. Unlike the cat, the video game player has infinite lives, and unlike the real soldier, they walk away every time with nary a scratch, and no injury more dangerous than carpal tunnel syndrome.

Which brings us to real life. A while ago, there was a lot of talk about how the U.S. government prevents pictures of coffins returning from Iraq from being photographed. But, as reader Jamie points out to me, this isn't really the heart of the matter. To macho types, there's nothing wrong with death. Live hard, die hard, or something like that. The real threat, the thing that would give macho types pause, is not seeing dead people come home in a box, but seeing live ones spending the rest of their lives without arms, legs, or functioning spinal cords. Going from being a "big tough guy" to being someone with the prospect of spending the rest of their lives dependent on other people, or in the best cases dogs or machines, for the simplest of functions. Yes, we occasionally read stories about the one who has triumphed over adversity, gone through rehabilitation, and is now doing triathlons, but for every one of those there are a hundred who haven't. And it's the pictures of those people, and the portraits of their lives, forever changed, which are needed to give potential future soldiers pause about throwing their lives away for some dubious (not to mention immoral) "cause".

Update: I can't believe I forgot to mention that Gary Trudeau has been beating this drum for several months in his comic strip, Doonesbury. For those who don't know, one of the central characters of the strip, B.D., lost his leg fighting in Iraq, and after several months of hospital rehabilitation, has just recently returned home to his changed life. I had totally forgotten about this when I wrote this post!

Attention all rats! The ship is sinking!

"The winner of Ukraine's presidential vote, Viktor Yushchenko, said on Sunday withdrawing the nation's troops from Iraq will be a priority for him once he takes office, after an accidental blast killed seven Ukrainian soldiers there.

"About 1,600 Ukrainian troops have been deployed since August 2003 in Iraq's Wasit region, where US-led coalition forces are under Polish command.

"In the heat of Ukraine's election saga last month, parliament in Kiev approved a resolution that demanded outgoing President Leonid Kuchma withdraw Ukrainian soldiers from Iraq."

Foreign fighters in Iraq

Death from the air near Mosul

"The airstrike, by an F-16 fighter jet early Saturday on the village of Aaytha, 30 miles south of Mosul, was part of 'a cordon and search operation to capture an anti-Iraqi force cell leader,' the military said in a statement."

In the meantime, lots of people are discussing the new Newsweek article which talks about Pentagon plans to create death squads in Iraq to assassinate suspected insurgents. From the reaction to that news, you'd think that the U.S. forces haven't been carrying out systematic assassinations in Iraq for months, in Fallujah and elsewhere; they just do it the coward's way, from the air, instead of from the ground. And without a peep from the "establishment". The ground has been so well paved by the Israelis, I'm sure it hardly seems remarkable to most people.

Your move, George

"Iraq's most influential Sunni group will abandon its call for a boycott of Jan. 30 elections if the United States gives a timetable for withdrawing multinational forces, a spokesman for the group said Sunday."

Another "victory" in the "war on terror"

"On the afternoon of Dec. 31, 2003, Khaled el-Masri was traveling on a tourist bus headed for the Macedonian capital, Skopje, where he was hoping to escape the 'holiday pressures' of home life during a weeklong vacation.

"When the bus reached the Serbia-Macedonia border, Mr. Masri said, he was asked the usual questions: Where are you going? How long will you be staying? Mr. Masri, a German citizen, did not think much of it, until he realized that the border guards had confiscated his passport.

"The bus moved on, but an increasingly panicked Mr. Masri was ordered to stay behind. A few hours later, Mr. Masri, a 41-year-old unemployed car salesman, said he was taken to a small, windowless room and was accused of being a terrorist by three men who were dressed in civilian clothes but carrying pistols.

"It was the first day of what Mr. Masri said would become five months in captivity. In an interview, he said that after being kidnapped by the Macedonian authorities at the border, he was turned over to officials he believed were from the United States. He said they flew him to a prison in Afghanistan, where he said he was shackled, beaten repeatedly, photographed nude, injected with drugs and questioned by interrogators about what they insisted were his ties to Al Qaeda.

"He was released without ever being charged with a crime. The German police and prosecutors have been investigating Mr. Masri's allegations since he reported the matter to them last June, two weeks after his return to Germany.

"Martin Hofmann, a senior national prosecutor in Munich who handles terrorism cases and is in charge of the Masri investigation, and another official, a senior organized crime investigator in southern Germany, say they believe Mr. Masri's story. They said investigators interviewed him for 17 hours over two days, that his story was very detailed and that he recounted it consistently. In addition, the officials said they had verified specific elements of the case, including that Mr. Masri was forced off the bus at the border."

Innumeracy in Iraq

"Outside the town, hundreds of Al-Fallujah citizens stood in a long passage created by strings of barbed wire. At the end of the line, a U.S. soldier sat at a table with an interpreter and asked people for name and marital status, then took all 10 fingerprints. People also were told to look into a box, which scanned their retinas."

In the same article, the author tells us that "hundreds if not thousands of homes were in a shambles after months of airstrikes." But the one person he picks to follow from the checkpoint to his home "walked from one road to the next, looking in awe at mounds of rubble where buildings used to stand," and then finds his own home totally destroyed, a story which echoes every single story of a Fallujah returnee which has appeared anywhere. There are "hundreds if not thousands" of homes in Fallujah destroyed just like there were "hundreds if not thousands" of demonstrators (according to papers like the New York Times) at some of the pre-invasion antiwar demonstrations. "Tens of thousands" is almost certainly a more accurate figure; hundreds is simply preposterous based on all available evidence.

Recovery? What recovery?

"About 3.6 million American workers...ran out of unemployment insurance benefits last year, the most in at least three decades.

"Even as overall unemployment dropped last year, the share of unemployed workers who have been jobless for more than six months - the point at which most state benefits run out - has remained historically high. As of November, about 1.8 million, or one in five, unemployed workers were jobless for more than six months, compared with 1.1 million when the recession officially ended in November 2001.

"Since the start of the recession in March 2001, the average length of unemployment has risen to 20 weeks from 13."

The misleading part of the article, directly related to the length of unemployment, is that sentence "even as overall unemployment dropped last year." Because the only reason the "unemployment rate" has gone down is precisely because the official statistics keep dropping more and more "discouraged workers" from the ranks of the "unemployed". I've said it before and I'll say it again. News reports now have it that the number of jobs in the U.S. is almost exactly what it was when George Bush took office, and imply (or state explicitly) that this means that the U.S. has "broken even" during those four years. Nonsense. Balderdash. Stuff and nonsense. The fact is, when "job inflation" is taken into account, the U.S. has a shortfall over the last four years of 150,000 (the number of new jobs each month to keep up with population growth) times 48 (the number of months in four years) or 7.2 million jobs. Only the continual redefinition of who is "unemployed" can hide that shocking fact.

Quote of the Day

John Paul II also called on the Cuban authorities "to continue their sustained efforts in the fields of health, education and culture," which he said were "among the pillars of the edifice of peace, which is not merely the absence of war."

- Pope John Paul II, receiving the credentias of the new Cuban ambassador to the Vatican

Destroying Iraq, one city at a time

Pity the poor American pilots. Having "flattened" Fallujah, there they were with idle time on their hands. Time to move on and start the process of flattening another city:

"An explosion at a house south of Mosul killed 14 people and wounded five early Saturday, the owner said. The U.S. military confirmed that an air strike hit the building, but said five people died.

"'The house was not the intended target for the air strike. The intended target was another location nearby,' the statement said. 'Responding forces reported that five individuals died in the strike.'

"The house owner, Ali Yousef, said the strike happened at about 2:30 a.m. in this village 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Mousl and American troops immediately came and surrounded the area, blocking access for four hours.

"The brick house was reduced to a pile of rubble, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.

"By evening Saturday, all 14 dead -- including seven children -- had been buried in a nearby cemetery, Yousef said."

How on earth, even if they were telling the truth, would "responding forces" have been able to determine that "five individuals" died? The bomb was dropped at 2:30 in the morning! Did they go in personally in the middle of the night and dig through the "pile of rubble" to count the bodies? Since there's no evidence that they did, or that they went to the cemetery to count the number of new graves, surely the word of the owner of the house as to how many members of his family he buried is the only credible information in this story, even disregarding the history of misinformation that pours out of the U.S. military on a daily basis.

[Special note to linguists - note the spelling of the word "cemetery," which certainly fooled me until I looked it up; I thought it was "-ary". Indeed, a quick peek into Bill Bryson's "Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words" finds that error noted as a common one.]

Update: This gets even "better" (or worse). Here's today's update on the AP story, with a new lead about yet another American war crime:

"American troops opened fire after their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing at least two policemen and three civilians, police said Sunday, a day after the U.S. military acknowledged five people were killed when it bombed the wrong house during a search operation in northern Iraq."

"The owner of the house, Ali Yousef, said 14 people were killed when the 500-pound GPS-guided bomb hit at about 2 a.m. Saturday in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said seven children and seven adults died. The discrepancy between the death counts could not be reconciled."

The next paragraph is even more unbelievable:

"The U.S. military later released a statement saying it regretted the loss of 'possibly innocent lives' in the strike, which occurred as U.S. ground troops searched for 'an anti-Iraqi force cell leader.'"

The proper way to report this story? AP should report the facts as they know them, which is that 14 people, including seven children, were killed when the U.S. dropped a bomb on their house, and, at the very end, in a final paragraph, add, "The U.S. military claims that only five 'possibly innocent' people were killed in the strike as they attempted to assassinate a suspected insurgent leader." In my paper, the sentence would start with the word "Improbably," but I'll allow the AP to leave that out.

Further update: As an example of what happens when the story moves from print to the broadcast media, CNN Headline News today reports the story like this: "The U.S. military apologized today for accidentally bombing the wrong house. Five people were killed in that incident." No inclination of the slightest uncertainty about that number. The U.S. government said it? Good enough for them.

Quote of the Day

"It's kind of bad we destroyed everything, but at least we gave them a chance for a new start."

- Navy corpsman Derrick Anthony, 21, of Chicago, discussing Fallujah

Tales of Fallujah

How serious is the U.S. about this effort? Consider these two juxtaposed facts:

"The U.S. has earmarked $150 million to rebuild the city.

"Marines patrol the littered streets, talking to residents, asking for information about insurgents and handing out water, juice, cigarettes and snacks, some of which have been sent to the troops by their families in the U.S."

The article is just chock-full of gems. How about this one?:

"'It's kind of bad we destroyed everything, but at least we gave them a chance for a new start,' said Navy corpsman Derrick Anthony, 21, of Chicago."

Or this one:

"'Any time we can interact with these people is good,' said Sgt. James Regan, 29, of San Antonio. 'They can see us for what we are. I asked one of them, 'When was the last time the mujahedin gave you water or food?' Never.'"

Zeynep's (Under the Same Sun) focus was on this curious note in the article:

"At five heavily guarded entry points to the city, military interrogators are selectively asking returning residents whether they have heard of the upcoming election and, if so, which, if any, candidates they support."

"The goal, officials say, is not to influence how Iraqis vote but to gauge how well residents of politically isolated Fallouja understand the changes that have occurred in their country since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled."

Here's the final irony in the story:

"Iraqis stand for hours to receive water and food packets stamped with a U.S. flag and the words 'A Food Gift From the People of the United States of America.'"

Assessing the antiwar movement

The one thing that people haven't come to grips with, or even mentioned, is the huge victory that was scored by Bush and the U.S. ruling class with the invasion of Iraq. Not a victory over Saddam Hussein (although that happened), not a victory over the Iraqi people (because that didn't happen), but a victory over the left and the antiwar movement. The antiwar movement had tremendous success in the months before the war, mobilizing literally tens of millions of people worldwide, and being called a "superpower." That movement prevented the U.S. from accumulating significant international support for the invasion, prevented the U.S. from obtaining U.N. endorsement of the invasion, and created a situation where the U.S. had to invade with just one significant partner, Britain. It was clear to the entire world that the people of the world were opposed to the invasion. Yet, in the face of all that, the U.S. invaded anyway, and in so doing dealt a crushing, utterly demoralizing blow to the antiwar movement, who had to come to grips with the fact that their (our) best efforts simply weren't enough. No movement of activists into electoralism remotely compares to the effect of that demoralization.

Now I don't mean to be totally negative. Although I believe the invasion was a huge defeat, I noted above that the movement scored important successes, and those successes carry though to this day. It's easy to think that the prime reason there is dissention in the ruling class ranks is because of the success of the Iraqi resistance. That's true, but one of the reasons that the resistance has had such success is precisely because of the insufficiency of the American (and allied) military forces, which is in turn a direct outcome of the antiwar movement. Why did the invasion (and especially the occupation) occur with insufficient forces ("insufficient" from the point of view of the occupiers, of course)? On an international scale, because the antiwar movement prevented key countries from joining in the effort, and limited the participation of others. On the national scale, because they had to sell the war "on the cheap," because agreeing with Shinseki before the invasion that hundreds of thousands of troops were needed for the occupation would have increased the opposition to the invasion.

And that imperialist weakness continues to this day. Countries (most notably Spain) have pulled their forces out, and not a single country has added significant forces (or any forces, as far as I know) to those in Iraq, not even Berlusconi's Italy. That is a testament to the continuing antiwar movement in those countries, and to the legacy of the pre-invasion antiwar movement, and the knowledge on the part of the rulers of those countries of the domestic consequences of sending more troops to Iraq. The same is true in the United States. Everyone knows they need more troops. Why won't they do it? Because, especially if it involved a draft but even if it didn't, they fear the consequences of doing so in terms of revitalizing the antiwar movement. So let's not sell the power of the antiwar movement short, even if the actual activity level has been low of late, and even if (as will almost certainly be the case), demonstrations planned for January 20 and March 19 fall far short (in terms of numbers) of the pre-invasion events.

I actually wrote the analysis that appears above a few days ago in another forum. In today's San Jose Mercury News, some confirmation of that analysis from Knight-Ridder's "senior military correspondent," Joseph Galloway. In an op-ed article entitled "Vote, declare victory and come home", Galloway writes:

"The problem is that there is no way we can win -- defeat the insurgents and install a stable, democratic, friendly government -- and bad things are going to happen anyway. There is no way Americans are willing to pay the price even of stalemate, never mind an unattainable victory.

"That would mean half a million American soldiers on the ground, maybe more, and a new draft to find enough people for the force. It would mean an escalating drain of hundreds of billions more dollars, and a blood bath on both sides."

Recommended Required reading

The Ghosts of Mississippi

Well I met Judi Bari in the redwood timber wars
When a walking rainbow came to her and said the time is yours
He said freedom riders for the forest come
Just like in Mississippi it was done
Cause your forests are a-fallin' and the nation's eyes must turn
But if you look to Mississippi there's a lesson you must learn
Call the nation's college students forth
Just like when the south called up to the north

And the ghosts of Mississippi will be watchin', watchin' watchin'
As they disappear then come back into view
And the ghosts of Mississippi will be watchin', watchin', watchin'
Let me tell you, girl, they've got their eye on you

So we printed up some posters and the word got out somehow
Mississippi Summer in the California Redwoods, now
Our non-violence code was taken carefully
From the annals of the SN double-C
Because back in Mississippi they were shooting at 'em all
Firebombing churches and taxing the voting halls
But those college students came down to the fray
'Round the time that Medgar Evers was blown away

Now when the timber barons heard the news they geared up for the fight
And we laughed away the death threats and we cried to sleep each night
And the media walked right into our homes
As if they really were one of our own
Now Goodman, Swarzer [sic] and Chaney left this little racist town
Drove down that Mississippi highway to the place they would bed down
But in the mirror they could see the Sheriff's light
No, they never did make it home that night

Now I can still remember when that bomb it did explode
And Judi's car came crashing to the left side of the road
And when the FBI showed up they knew our names
And told the world we were the ones to blame
Now back in 1964 they dredged the river bed
Looking for three activists they now presumed were dead
But the dredgers they all had to be turned back
When all the bodies they dredged up were black

Judi's pelvis it was shattered and her leg half-paralyzed
She was impaled upon a seat spring and tailbone pulverized
And then the Oakland Police said she must go to jail
On one hundred thousand dollars bail
Well Redwood Summer carried on like Freedom Summer did
We made our mark on history some day it may be read
But as I stare out on the foggy mountain day
I swear that I heard Gabrielle's trumpet play

Gag me with a spoon - or a Democrat

News reports have it that Attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales is drawing "scorching criticism" from Senate Democrats. Here's a sample:

"'The road you traveled...all the way to the White House is a tribute to you and your family,' [Sen. Patrick] Leahy said...'This is not about your intelligence, this hearing is not about your competence, it's not about your integrity -- it's about your judgment and your candor,' said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. 'We're looking for candor, old buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far.'"

Yes, some Democrats are criticizing the famous torture memo. But what does Gonzales say about that? We're told that "he repudiated torture tactics and vowed at a contentious confirmation hearing to abide by international treaties on prisoner rights." He'll "abide" by treaties, but of course, the U.S. only abides by treaties that it's subject to and which are applicable. So "abiding" by the treaties is completely irrelevant; the only thing that's relevant is precisely the determination of when and where certain treaties are applicable.

And on that score, Under The Same Sun reminds us of a key event in Gonzales' history, an event that was part of that "road to the White House" praised by Sen. Leahy and that "intelligence, competence, and integrity" praised by Sen. Biden - the time when, back in Texas as a Supreme Court Justice, Gonzales ruled that Texas could go ahead and execute a Mexican national who had not been allowed to contact his embassy, on the grounds that the State of Texas was not bound by international treaties which prohibit such treatment. Two hundred years of Constitutional precedent? Not relevant to the "intelligent" Judge Gonzales. An event highly relevant to the question of the applicability of the Geneva Convention, and an event totally ignored by the media (and probably the Senators as well, at least as far as one can tell from media reports).

TalkLeft, meanwhile, talks about Gonzales' totally inadequate reviews of death penalty cases while acting as clemency adviser to then Gov. Bush, another striking demonstration of that "competence and integrity" that his "old buddy" Joe Biden is so fond of. Gonzales' record on this score is summarized thusly: "His memos were so shabby they seemed intended solely to make it easy for Bush to send prisoners to their deaths."

Followup: Whatever It Is, I'm Against It turns a nice phrase on the subject:

"I wish the D’s would stop praising Gonzales’s 'rags-to-riches' story. Patrick Leahy: 'The road you traveled... is a tribute to you and your family.' That road was paved over dead bodies in Texas and broken ones in Guantanamo; the toll on that road was too damned high.

Something for the "values voter" crowd

You are a mercenary.
In a playground of destruction.
Hijack any vehicle.
Use any weapon
Blow up anything.
Blow it up again.
Keep blowing stuff up.
Blow the living crap out of it.
Blow the living crap out of it some more.
MERCENARIES: Playground of Destruction

You probably can figure I'm not of the video game generation, and I know this kind of game has been around for quite some time, but this is the first time I've ever seen such a disturbing ad for one on TV. I'm sure most of my readers know better than I that this is the kind of game that sells millions of copies, and brings in billions of dollars, for its developer, and, although I'm just guessing here, I think it's safe to say it sells just as well in the "red states" as in the "blue states".

Is it any wonder that the U.S. armed forces have no trouble finding kids who will torture people, shoot civilians first and ask questions later, shoot unarmed injured prisoners, or drop bombs on buildings without the slightest idea of who's inside?

Colin Powell - consistent until the end

Now today he feels compelled to say: "The United States, when it says $350 million, it means $350 million." Touchy, touchy... This couldn't be what had Powell on the defensive, could it?

"The United Nations and other aid agencies have found that after the television cameras are turned off and officials try to collect on pledges, they often hear the equivalent of 'the check is in the mail.'

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami complained in December that of $1.1 billion pledged after the Bam earthquake in 2003, only $17 million had arrived [The U.N. says that figure should be $115 million; still an order of magnitude less than the pledges].

"After Hurricane Mitch devastated parts of Central America in 1998, governments and institutions gathered in Stockholm in 1999 and offered nearly $9 billion in emergency relief and long-term reconstruction, an Inter-American Development Bank report states. Five years later, less than a third of the money has materialized.

"There have been significant shortfalls in governmental and institutional aid promised to India, after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, to Mozambique, after floods in 2000, and after other disasters, according to records kept by the U.N.'s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"Aid for countries recovering from man-made disasters can also be slow to appear. A donor conference for war-torn Liberia in February also brought promises of more than half a billion dollars. But by the end of 2004, only $65 million had been delivered, a U.N. official said."

Incidentally, while Googling around getting links for this post, I came across an article from the Chicago Tribune which verified something I had posted but had never been able to find a source for anywhere (and was beginning to doubt my sanity) - that the real initial pledge of the U.S. was not $15 million, but $4 million (I wrote $5 million). So, the rewriting of history which now has the "initial contribution" of the U.S. at $350 million acquires one more verified level of evolution.

Election? You're kidding, right?

Oh yeah, "free and fair" elections, coming right up. Somewhere, I guess. But definitely not in Iraq.

Guilty until proven innocent

"A security service assessment was embarrassingly withdrawn after it emerged that the purpose behind a visit to Dorset by a group of Muslim men had not been to elect a terrorist leader but to get away from their wives for the weekend.

"The Home Secretary has been forced to concede that some of the funds raised by the detainee Abu Rideh for alleged terrorist activity were sent to orphanages in Afghanistan run by a Canadian priest."

Non-reality TV

Of course she isn't actually smoking anything; the origin of her delusions is elsewhere: "Unger's support for the war is bolstered by her strong fundamentalist Christian faith and an unshakeable trust in the Bible. 'I don't believe God makes mistakes,' says Unger." So, I guess not only was the recent tsunami a deliberate decision by God to kill 150,000 people, but also it must be the case that the destruction of the World Trade Center and the death of nearly 3,000 people in that incident was also God's doing. Given that, the American response, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, must surely be an arrogant challenge to God's will, since we weren't willing to accept his judgement.

Or is trying to reason out this woman's "logic" way too insane a task?

Pension privatization in California

"California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will urge lawmakers to pass a sweeping overhaul of the state's public pension systems, including Calpers, the nation's largest pension fund, an aide said on Wednesday.

Schwarzenegger plans to use his 'State of the State' address on Wednesday evening to back a plan that would scrap California's defined-benefit public pension plans in favor of defined-contribution plans similar to 401(k) retirement plans in the private sector."

"Critics of that partial privatization, which mirrors Bush administration moves to shift Social Security money into private accounts, call it an attempt to undercut the influence of Calpers as a corporate watchdog and curb its political activism."

Quote of the Day

"The US troops are saying that soon Fallujah will be rebuilt. I believe that this city won't offer a minimum of living conditions until another year has passed. I am still searching for what they have been calling democracy."

- Muhammad Kubaissy, a civilian from Fallujah

"The hospital emergency team has recovered more than 700 bodies from rubble where houses and shops once stood, adding that more than 550 were women and children. He said a very small number of men were found in these places and most were elderly."

Total number of Iraqis slaughtered by American forces in Fallujah? As usual, uncounted, and uncountable. And almost certainly a very large number. Not large enough to capture the attention of the U.S. media, however, for whom nary a word about Fallujah's civilian dead has been mentioned.

Political humor of the day

"Who are you?" asked one slightly bemused Australian consular official as the large-girthed US stranger pumped his hand.

"I'm Jeb Bush."

"Oh, are you a relative of the president?" said the interlocuter, jokingly.

"Yes I am. I am his little brother."

"Oh," came the reply. "Good for you."

"The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, came close to damaging his reputation as the Bush administration's leading diplomat when he walked into the room, strolled to the US desk, shook the hands of the people working there and then walked straight back out again. It was only when he was downstairs that an aide suggested he 'might like' to meet the volunteers from some of the other countries, too. Reminded that he is part of an international relief mission, Mr Powell promptly turned on his heels once again and marched back up the stairs to belatedly press some non-American flesh."

The angry God surfaces

" Aceh's highly influential Islamic clergy have explained the giant wave that devastated this overwhelmingly Muslim region as a warning to the faithful that they must more strictly observe their religion, including a ban on Muslims killing Muslims."

"Out Now!" heard in Washington

A week ago Joe Lieberman was claiming that there wasn't a single "credible voice" calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. That was wishful thinking on his part, but it was true with respect to Congress. No longer though. Although it doesn't seem to be on her website yet, the local CBS News reported today on a statement released today by Congresswoman Lynn Wolsey calling for U.S. troops to leave Iraq "as soon as possible," and played a verbal statement from her in which she clarified that, if it were physically possible, she'd like to see them all on planes and ships today. Me too, Lynn, me too.

Woolsey represents Sonoma and part of Marin counties, north of San Francisco (centered on the city of Santa Rosa), and was, along with Barbara Lee, one of a handful of members of Congress to vocally oppose the invasion before it occured by speaking at major antiwar demonstrations. When asked by the reporter if there wouldn't be "chaos" if U.S. troops left Iraq, she correctly noted that there already is chaos in Iraq, and that the presence of U.S. troops is one of the major causes.

Hey, Joe. Stick that in your ear.

Update: A link to Woolsey's statement which is now online. Neither Google News nor Yahoo News gives any indication that there has been any print or online report of this statement whatsoever.

This is the Zionism that American dollars support

"Israeli occupation forces have killed at least seven Palestinians, six of them children [all from one family, the youngest of them 10 years old], after tanks fired artillery shells on a northern Gaza family farm where crops were being harvested.

"'The bodies of the boys were mutilated beyond recognition,' [said] Dr Muhammad Sultan, spokesman of the hospital's emergency department.

"The Israeli claim that the dead and wounded were youths who were armed or were involved in firing mortar shells and homemade rockets at Israeli settlements, has been demolished by the facts on the ground.

"The Israeli army initially said it had fired at a group of Palestinians who were seen firing rockets, but the targeted area was an agricultural farm that was visible from the Israeli military posts guarding [illegal] Jewish settlements."

Bush the "leader"

What a jerk. Does it really matter if an individual gives money to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders or Oxfam or one of dozens or hundreds of well-known, reputable organizations? Surely the timeliness of the donation is ten times more important than the recipient.

The hell that is Cuba

When the Cuban revolution triumphed, in 1959, the infant mortality rate under U.S.-backed dictator Batista stood at 37.3. After an initial decade in which the Cubans built up their world-class medical system and the rate stayed relatively constant, it has declined steadily ever since. Put in human terms, that's roughly 3500 children each year (one "9/11's worth" every single year) who aren't dying, roughly 7000 parents who no longer have to suffer the loss of their child.

Recommended reading

Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian freedom struggle, by Muna Coobtee - a very nice summary of the life of Yasser Arafat and an overview of the history of the PLO and the Palestinian struggle in general.

Robbing workers to pay the banks, by Richard Becker - an analysis of aspects of the attempts to privatize Social Security that you haven't seen in the mainstream press, including the underfunding of corporate pensions and the mismanagement of the Teamsters retirement funds by investment house Morgan Stanley.

Irony, thy name is...Arnold?

But they didn't, and here in the real world in 2005, the worst terrorists in the world, the people who pose the biggest threat to the very existence of the world, continue to live in Washington, as they did in 1994.

Rewriting history, day by day

"The Mercury News must think your readers have an awfully short memory as you attempt to rewrite history. In today's paper we read that "the United States would provide $350 million in aid for victims of the disaster, well above its initial pledge of $35 million." But just three days ago, you reported that "Bush administration more than doubled its financial commitment Tuesday amid complaints that the vacationing President Bush has been insensitive to a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions," as they increased their "initial pledge" from $15 million to $35 million."

The disappeared and the disappearing in Iraq

"My sister is a scientist with a human interest. She devoted herself to save the victims of depleted uranium and carried out extensive research in that field," she said. "I will take legal action against those who have promoted her as a killer and tarnished her reputation in the eyes of people in Iraq and around the world."

So why is Ammash still being held by the Americans, and being held in such tight circumstances that she has only seen members of her family twice in two years? If she had any role in researching (certainly not in deploying) biological weapons, which is questionable, it occured more than ten years ago. And surely they're still not interrogating her and hoping for revelations about hidden biological weapons. But the U.S. certainly doesn't want her running around, talking about her work on depleted uranium and its effect on the Iraqi people (not to mention American soldiers). The U.S. media does its part, rarely (and in most cases never) mentioning the subject, but a prominent Iraqi scientist discussing the story in the Arab media? That just wouldn't do. So Ammash remains one of the "disappeared," held without charges and without rights. What is the U.S. justification for continuing to hold her (and al Saadi and so many more)? What on earth is their legal basis for doing so, given that they have "yielded sovereignty" to Iraq?

Those are some of the "disappeared"; what about the disappearing? The same al Jazeera article includes this information:

"In Beirut, Lebanon, the Arab Forum...blamed the assassination of 125 Iraqi scientists and professors since the US invasion of Iraq in April 2003 on Israel's Mossad intelligence service and held the US military responsible for the safety of Iraqi scientists in its custody."

Elections in Iraq

"There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don't know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren't making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.

"Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

"Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled 'male'."

Why?

"Before the tsunami hit, a manager at the orphanage noticed the tide was going out unnaturally fast. 'He piled all of them inside a bus and got out of there,' Parkinson said."

A second article tells us in a subhead that "Scientists [were] awed by world's mystery" and alleges that "it prompted prominent scientists to ponder the relationship between humans, nature and God." Curiously, though, every scientist in the article talks about the power of nature and of natural processes, not about God. Even the one scientist quoted who professes a belief in God says simply "There's certainly portions and power of some scope beyond me that I know are not going to be found at the end of a telescope." Whatever that means. Is she saying that we don't understand every single thing about the natural world yet? Of course we don't. But earthquakes and tsunamis are definitely not among them, even if the ability to predict their occurances is obviously limited by the ability to mount sensors along every inch of every fault (known and unknown, on land and under the sea).

The author of the article does his best to bias the reader with such phrases as "Scientists say the more they study Earth and the universe, the more they are struck by the imbalance of power between humanity and creation." But what the scientists actually say is that there is an imbalance of power between humanity and nature; "creation" has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

But the biggest news on the belief front comes out of England, where the Archbishop of Canterbury says "it would be wrong" if faith were not "upset" by the catastrophe, and adds, "The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't." He isn't giving up his faith though. Faith is such a great thing. If it doesn't provide you with a simple answer to the question "why did God allow this?", you can always revert to the old standby - it was a "test of faith." Faced with "logic" like that, what can you say?

Was there a "reason" why this earthquake and tsunami happened? Of course there is, it's called "plate tectonics" and has nothing to do with God unless you want to believe that God created the world and set it in motion with natural laws, among which were plate tectonics, a belief which answers absolutely no questions whatsoever but if it gives you comfort to believe it, that's fine with me. And was there a "reason" why so many people have died? Certainly there is, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with "God's punishment of the wicked" or similar reasons that have been advanced over the centuries. Aside from the immense power of natural forces, it does have to do with the underdevelopment of the third world thanks in large part to the super-exploitation visited upon them by imperialism, and the resulting disparities in income which lead some in this world to live in grand palaces while others life in flimsy shacks. The Archbishop of Canterbury is, I think I'm correct in saying, one of the few religious leaders who might actually acknowledge this; most will just keep wailing "why?"

"First they locked up the alleged terrorists for life..."

"The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts, the Washington Post reported Sunday."

"Since global war on terror is a long-term effort, it makes sense for us to be looking at solutions for long-term problems," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. And what does he mean by "long-term"? I don't know, but last night on CNN one of their "military analysts" talked about fighting the "war on terror" for at least two or three generations. That's 50-75 years. What's going to happen then, I have no idea.

Don't think this affects you? If so, you've not only forgotten Martin Niemoller, but you've also forgotten the rules of the Bush administration - anyone who aids a terrorist, even unknowingly, is a terrorist. Remember that meeting in Berkeley you attended where they passed the hat for the ISM (International Solidarity Movement)? [I'm counting on at least one of my readers having attended such a meeting. :-) ] Well, the ISM may not have been designated a "terrorist" organization yet, but when the U.S. government realizes that the ISM once paid the airfare of a Hamas member to come to a conference to speak about the plight of the Palestinian people (I'm making this all up, people), then the ISM will be designated a terrorist organization for having giving aid to a terrorist organization, and you'll be designated a terrorist for having giving aid to the ISM, and you'll be eligible to be locked up for life, or until the "war on terror" is officially declared over, whichever comes sooner.

Certainly something to look forward to in 2005.

Followup: Am I prescient or what? While conservative Republican Sen. Richard Lugar says this is a "bad idea," leading liberal Democratic Senator Carl Levin says: "There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process...if you're going to detain people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years." Actual due process? Not required. Just a "modicum" of it, or even just a "semblance." Feh. Counting on liberals to preserve your rights? Fuhgeddaboudit.

A commentor asks the question what is this a trial balloon for? Good question. In thinking about it, my guess is that it's a way to make more palatable what they are doing right now - imprisoning people for years with no evidence, no charges, and no rights. By talking about imprisoning them for life, "just" imprisoning them for two or five or ten years won't arouse nearly as much opposition (not that it's aroused much to this point, sadly).