Good morning, it's Memorial Day, Monday, May 29, 2006. Here are a collection of news stories put together by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; Wally of The Daily Jot, Trina of Trina's Kitchen and Dallas.
Starting with the Iraq snapshot.
In Baghdad Sunday, Sheik Osama al-Jadaan and at least one of his bodyguards is dead as a result of an ambush. al-Jadaan had been seen by some as an ally with the US administration. al-Jadaan and the bodyguard were among the at least nine Iraqis who were killed on Sunday, roadside bombs continued to be a party of Iraqi daily life and another daily feature continued as at least ten more corpses were found in Baghdad. There have been sixty American military deaths for the month of May bringing the fatality count to 2464 since the illegal invasion in March of 2003. In addition to American military helicopter pilots are missing, the AFP reports, after the helicopter crashed on Saturday. In Baquba, a new feature to the occupation emerged as three severed heads were flung out of a moving vehicle. Near Baquba, Monday has already seen eleven die from a bombing, Reuters reports. This as the United States Pentagon believes their investigation into the apparent slaughter of civilians in Haditha is winding down -- the estimated 24 civilians died in November. United States House Representative John Mutha maintains that what happened in November is as important as apparent attempts to cover up the events and to stall an investigation into them. United States Senator John Warner has stated that the Senate Arms Committee, which he chairs, will hold a full investigation into "what happened . . . when it happened . . . what was the immediate reaction of the senior officers."
Meanwhile Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi prime minister, has failed to meet another one of his predicitions. He set a date for himself to establish his cabinet and he didn't meet it. He just managed to meet the constitutional deadline (May 22) for the cabinet but did so only by leaving posts vacant. Last week, he announced that he would be fill the vacant posts this weekend. Unless Iraq's having a three day weekend, he's again failed another of his own predicitions -- there remains no heads for the interior, defense and homeland security ministries.
This as Andy McSmith reports (Independent of London) that British troops in Iraq are now being attacked attacked sixty times a month since the start of the year, an increase of 26% since last year. This as the BBC reports that at least 1,000 British troops have deserted since the start of the illegal war.
In Indonesia, an earthquake on Saturday has now claimed the lives of at least 5115. Heavy rains are preventing some attempts at rescue. This as the Phillipines have been hit with an earthquake that measured 5.3 on the Richter scale -- no injuries or deaths are reported. The Indonesian earthquake was measured 6.2 on the Richter scale and the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) immediately went on alert with news of the quake. Aid agencies, including the Indoensian Red Cross, began providing assistance on Saturday including foods; however, as noted earlier, heavy rains are preventing some attempts at rescue and relief. IPS reports that this is Indonesia's worst disaster since the tsunami in December 2004 and that doctors and medical supplies are in short supply. "The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is launching an emergency appeal for 12 million Swiss francs ($9.79 million USD/ €7.68 million) to support the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) in providing assistance to the survivors of the earthquake." As noted on KPFA's Evening News Sunday, people are sleeping in the streets as they await emergency assistance and the United States government has pledged 2.5 million dollars while the Euopean Union has pledged 3.8 million dollars.
In the United States, fire fighters have discovered the body of another victim of last fall's Hurricane Katrina "in the rear laundry room" of a New Orleans house they were searching. The current official count of those killed by Hurricane Katrina is 1577.
In Afghanistan, a demonstration was held following a traffic incident. The BBC reports that four died when a US convoy entered rush hour traffic. The AP reports that three humvees were involved on the US side and quotes eye witness Mohammad Wali, "The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were in their way. They didn't care about the civilians at all." At least four demonstrators have died, shot by "U.S. and Afghan security forces."
Meanwhile, as the situation on the ground in East Timor grows more dangerous and deadly, the United Nations is relocating UN family members and non-essential staff to Darwin Australia. Last week, East Timor handed over security duties to Australian forces following shootings, houses being set on fire and other violence. East Timor's president and prime minister are holding talks to discuss resolutions to the current situation while crowds have gathered outside the presidential palace calling for the resignation of the prime minister. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Screscent Socities trace the current wave of violence to March of this year and are attempting to assist over 25,000 displaced persons. The IFRCRSS's estimates that 50,000 have left their homes due to the current violence. As the violence continues Australia's Federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison has been quoted as saying,"The United Nations, though, was the lead agency in all of this and the United Nations was, it had planned to pull out in a month's time. So I think really it's a question of the United Nations in this issue of whether people pulled out or not. It was the lead agency, not Australia." Peter Lewis reports that the New Zealand embassy in East Timor had to temporarily relocate the the Australian embassay due to threats from "armed thugs."
Yesterday, though the San Francisco Giants lost to the Colorado Rockies, Barry Bonds broke Babe Ruth's record for home runs. Bonds' 715 home runs now leaves him ahead of Ruth but behind Hank Aaron (755).
Though it seems long ago that Harriet Miers was in the running for the United States Supreme Court, those who remember the media coverage will remember Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht. The media friendly Hecht has received an admonishment from the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct for "improperly using his position" to promote Miers in an estimated "120 newspaper, TV and radio interviews" after he offered his services to the White House as some sort of go-to-guy for the media. Hecht is appealing the admonishment. In other United States governmental news, Feminist Wire Daily reports Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia "by a 57-36 vote." The Washington Post once described Kavanaugh as "a protege" of Kenneth Starr. In The Clinton Wars, Sidney Blumenthal recounts David Brock's statement that while watching the 1998 State of the Union address, Kavanaugh hissed "b*tch" at the TV when Hillary Clinton was shown onscreen. The co-author of the Starr Report now holds a lifetime seat on the court.
In news on the NSA warrantless, illegal spying on American citizens, Bully Boy is attempting to invoke the "state secrets privilege" to stop legal actions. The Center for Constitutional Rights Shayna Kadidal notes, "The Bush Administration is trying to crush a very strong case against domestic spying without any evidence or argument. This is a mysterious and undemocratic request, since the administration says the reason the court is being asked to drop the case is a secret. I think it's a clear choice: can the President tell the courts which cases they can rule on? If so, the courts will never be able to hold the President accountable for breaking the law. If the Executive Branch can secretly squash legal challenges to its conduct like this, then American democracy as we know it is in danger." The administration filed papers Friday arguing that "New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigating them would jeopardize state secrets." Also attempting to quash legal actions that might lead to further embarrasment is AT&T "which filed a 25-page legal brief" arguing that the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action suit should be dismissed. The AT&T brief had contained redactions but a few simple computer steps allowed the redactions to be made visible. The brief does not confirm the existance of the secret room (reported on in Wired's "Whistle-Blower's Evidence, Uncut" and "AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens, 31 December 2005") but argues that "'the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
In other news, Amnesty is launching Irrepressible.info to highlight "governments using the net to suppress dissent."
In Cannes, director Ken Loach has won the prestigious Palme d'Or for his film on Ireland's fight for independence from England -- The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Reuters reports "The 69-year-old film maker told Reuters in an interview earlier in the festival that the Irish fight for independence against an empire imposing its will on a foreign people had resonances with the US occupation of Iraq today."
Amy Goodman noted the scheduled topic for today's Democracy Now! (noted on Thursday's Democracy Now!):
On Monday, we bring you an exclusive interview with British Lieutenant Commander Steve Tatham, former head of the British Royal Navy's Media Operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf during the Iraq invasion. He’s author of Losing Arab Hearts and Minds.
In addition to being able to watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio, remember that you can listen, watch or read (transcripts) online at Democracy Now!
This morning on KPFK (time given is PST):
Uprising! --Weekday Mornings from 8:00 to 9:00 am
Coming up on Uprising on Monday May 29th: A memorial day special with Stephen Kinzer on Overthrow : America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.
This evening on WBAI (time given is EST):
7:00-midnight: Building Bridges-Your Community and Labor Report
With Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash, a five-hour marathon special featuring Greg Palast's latest investigative book, Armed Madhouse : Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
Thought for the day from the Mamas and the Papas's "Too Late" (off the album The Papas & the Mamas) : "Cause when the mind that once was open shuts / And you knock on the door, nobody answers anymore/ When the love and trust has turned to dust/ When the mind that once was open shuts . . ." ("and no one can get in").
barry bonds
ken loach
east timor
indonesia
democracy now
amy goodman
afghanistan
wbai
mimi rosenberg
ken nash
building bridges
greg palast
kpfk
uprising
stephen kinzer
harriet miers
nathan hecht
feminist wire daily
the center for constitutional rights
amnesty international
kpfa
kpfa evening news
the mamas and the papas
the papas and the mamas
too late
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
trinas kitchen
thomas friedman is a great man
kats korner
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
the third estate sunday review
the common ills
wired
Monday, May 29, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY GOES 'WOOPS!'
BULLY BOY PRESS AND CEDRIC'S BIG MIX - DC.
THIS JUST IN!
BULLY BOY GOES 'WOOPS!'
SPEAKING IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL WITH LAP DOG AND HAND MAIDEN TONY BLAIR BESIDE HIM, BULLY BOY SAID WOOPS.
MAYBE SOME OF HIS 'TALK TOUGH' WASN'T SUCH A GOOD IDEA?
FOR INSTANCE, HE OFFERED, "I LEARNED SOME LESSONS ABOUT EXPRESSING MYSELF MAYBE IN A LITTLE MORE SOPHISTICATED MANNER, YOU KNOW. 'WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE', THAT KIND OF TALK. I THINK IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD IT WAS MISINTERPRED."
MUST CREDIT BULLY BOY PRESS AND CEDRIC'S BIG MIX:
BULLY BOY SLIPS TO 1% IN APPROVAL RATINGS!
THROUGH SCIENTIFIC POLLING (POLLING METHODS TAUGHT BY THE NEW YORK TIMES), BULLY BOY PRESS AND CEDRIC'S BIG MIX HAVE DISCOVERED THAT AMONG THOSE "CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD" WHERE BULLY BOY WAS "MISINTERPRED" WAS THE UNITED STATES.
WHEN ASKED IF THEY BELIEVED THAT THE BULLY BOY'S STATEMENT OF OSAMA BIN LADEN MEANT BIN LADEN WAS "WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE,"
100 OF THE 100 POLLED RESPONDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE.
ASKED IF THEY HAD ANY RESPECT FOR BULLY BOY, 99 OF THE 100 POLLED RESPONDED IN THE NEGATIVE. 1 RESPONDENT EXPRESSED APPROVAL FOR THE BULLY BOY. THE RESPONDENT ALSO EXPRESSED BELIEF IN SANTA CLAUSE, THE TOOTH FAIRY, THE EASTER BUNNY, WMD AND "REBA MCENTIRE'S GOOD NATURE."
IN A FOLLOW UP TO YESTERDAY'S "THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE? " STRINGERS WERE SENT TO TIMES SQUARE TO CHECK THE VALIDITY OF WHITE HOUSE MOUTH PIECE TONY SNOW'S CLAIM THAT
"YOU KNOW, THERE AREN'T GOING TO BE PEOPLE KISSING IN TIME SQUARE TOMORROW."
STRINGERS RACHEL, MICAH, JONAH, DONA, JIM AND TY REPORTED THE SIGHTING OF AT LEAST 43 KISSES BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11:00 AM AND 2:00 PM. AT LEAST ONE KISS INVOLVED TONGUE AND FOUR WERE SAME-SEX KISSES. NOT INCLUDED IN THE COUNT WAS A WOMAN WHO SPAT ON A TISSUE AND THEN USED THE TISSUE TO WIPE THE CHEEK OF A CHILD. FURTHER MORE, TWO STRINGERS, DONA AND JIM, WERE INSPIRED BY THE ACTIVITY TO ENGAGE IN "A LITTLE KISSING AND GROPING OF OUR OWN."
TO RECAP, TONY SNOW HAS BEEN PROVEN WRONG.
Recommended: "And the war drags on . . . (Indymedia Roundup)"
"'Worse than Abu Ghraib' Thom Shanker, Eric Schmitt, Richard A. Oppel, Robert Burns & Thomas E. Ricks"
"Kat's Korner: Dixie Chicks Taking The Long Way home while NYT gets lost along the way"
"Iraq, Immigration, Dave Zirin on Barry Bonds & Babe Ruth, and Tom Hayden"
"flashpoints & ruth "
"Iraq, Norman Solomon, Immigration, Darfur, race "
THIS JUST IN!
BULLY BOY GOES 'WOOPS!'
SPEAKING IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL WITH LAP DOG AND HAND MAIDEN TONY BLAIR BESIDE HIM, BULLY BOY SAID WOOPS.
MAYBE SOME OF HIS 'TALK TOUGH' WASN'T SUCH A GOOD IDEA?
FOR INSTANCE, HE OFFERED, "I LEARNED SOME LESSONS ABOUT EXPRESSING MYSELF MAYBE IN A LITTLE MORE SOPHISTICATED MANNER, YOU KNOW. 'WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE', THAT KIND OF TALK. I THINK IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD IT WAS MISINTERPRED."
MUST CREDIT BULLY BOY PRESS AND CEDRIC'S BIG MIX:
BULLY BOY SLIPS TO 1% IN APPROVAL RATINGS!
THROUGH SCIENTIFIC POLLING (POLLING METHODS TAUGHT BY THE NEW YORK TIMES), BULLY BOY PRESS AND CEDRIC'S BIG MIX HAVE DISCOVERED THAT AMONG THOSE "CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD" WHERE BULLY BOY WAS "MISINTERPRED" WAS THE UNITED STATES.
WHEN ASKED IF THEY BELIEVED THAT THE BULLY BOY'S STATEMENT OF OSAMA BIN LADEN MEANT BIN LADEN WAS "WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE,"
100 OF THE 100 POLLED RESPONDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE.
ASKED IF THEY HAD ANY RESPECT FOR BULLY BOY, 99 OF THE 100 POLLED RESPONDED IN THE NEGATIVE. 1 RESPONDENT EXPRESSED APPROVAL FOR THE BULLY BOY. THE RESPONDENT ALSO EXPRESSED BELIEF IN SANTA CLAUSE, THE TOOTH FAIRY, THE EASTER BUNNY, WMD AND "REBA MCENTIRE'S GOOD NATURE."
IN A FOLLOW UP TO YESTERDAY'S "THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE? " STRINGERS WERE SENT TO TIMES SQUARE TO CHECK THE VALIDITY OF WHITE HOUSE MOUTH PIECE TONY SNOW'S CLAIM THAT
"YOU KNOW, THERE AREN'T GOING TO BE PEOPLE KISSING IN TIME SQUARE TOMORROW."
STRINGERS RACHEL, MICAH, JONAH, DONA, JIM AND TY REPORTED THE SIGHTING OF AT LEAST 43 KISSES BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11:00 AM AND 2:00 PM. AT LEAST ONE KISS INVOLVED TONGUE AND FOUR WERE SAME-SEX KISSES. NOT INCLUDED IN THE COUNT WAS A WOMAN WHO SPAT ON A TISSUE AND THEN USED THE TISSUE TO WIPE THE CHEEK OF A CHILD. FURTHER MORE, TWO STRINGERS, DONA AND JIM, WERE INSPIRED BY THE ACTIVITY TO ENGAGE IN "A LITTLE KISSING AND GROPING OF OUR OWN."
TO RECAP, TONY SNOW HAS BEEN PROVEN WRONG.
Recommended: "And the war drags on . . . (Indymedia Roundup)"
"'Worse than Abu Ghraib' Thom Shanker, Eric Schmitt, Richard A. Oppel, Robert Burns & Thomas E. Ricks"
"Kat's Korner: Dixie Chicks Taking The Long Way home while NYT gets lost along the way"
"Iraq, Immigration, Dave Zirin on Barry Bonds & Babe Ruth, and Tom Hayden"
"flashpoints & ruth "
"Iraq, Norman Solomon, Immigration, Darfur, race "
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Iraq, Norman Solomon, Immigration, Darfur, race
"Iraq VP Calls For Withdrawal Timetable Ahead of Bush-Blair Meeting" (Democracy Now):
In Iraq, a top leader has renewed calls for President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to set a timetable for the withdrawal of occupying troops.
Iraqi Vice President Tareq Al Hashemi: "Two days ago we spoke with Tony Blair about this issue and the fact that it is necessary that the U.S. and British administration should put a timetable for its troops withdrawal from Iraq. We have discussed this thoroughly and I convinced him of the necessity of announcing a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupying troops and told him frankly that Iraqis have a right to know when the last British or American soldier will leave Iraq." Bush and Blair have long rejected setting withdrawal timetables and vowed to withdraw troops at their own discretion. The two leaders will meet today in Washington with Iraq expected to top the agenda.
Contacted the reference librarian/researcher (reference to Elaine's "Long but is there a topic?") and asked about something I'd read but couldn't remember where? C.I. was kind enough to tell me the book, author and page number. It's pages 224-225 from Normal Solomon's War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death:
In effect, the war had to go on because the war had to go on -- widely promoted as the least bad option, in contrast to the taboo of withdrawal. Meanwhile, a prerequisite for any Baghdad government to exist would be that it sufficiently satisifed the administration in Washington.
[. . .]
Pretense and realism were at war. Washington was preparing to hand over power to Iraqis while steadfastly refusing to do so; putting an Iraqi "face" on authority in Iraq while retaining ultimate authority in Iraq; striving for Iraqis to take up the burden of their country's national security while insisting that military control must remain in Uncle Sam's hands.
To some readers, the headline across the top of USA Today's front page on day in June 2004 must have been reassuring: "New Leader Asks U.S. to Stay." The banner headline was a classic of occupation puppetry and media gimmickry. Iraq's "new leader" Iyad Allawi -- selected and installed as prime minister by the U.S. government -- had shown distinct reliablity over the years. The USA Today story made only fleeting reference to Allawi's longtime U.S. entanglement, indentifying him as "a Shiite close to the CIA." The contradiction did not seem to trouble American media outlets, though they sometimes openly fretted that Iraqis might not be so accepting. Allawi "is the secretary general of the Iraqi National Accord, an exile group that has received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency," the New York Times reported. "His ties with the CIA and his closeness to the United States could become an issue in a country where public opinion has grown almost universally hostile to the Americans." A separate Times article noted that Allawi "lived abroad for 30 years and is not well known in Iraq." All in all, by Washington's lights, the man was eminently qualified to be Iraq's "new leader." And his superb judgement was immediately apparent: New leader asks U.S. to stay!
If you're not familiar with the book, it's one I recommend and we discussed it back in August "1 Book, 10 Minutes" (The Third Estate Sunday Review). It's an antidote not only to this adminstration's spin but to the lies that get us into war (by any adminstration) and keep us there.
"Senate Expected To Vote On Immigration Bill" (Democracy Now):
The Senate has agreed to end debate on a controversial immigration bill, setting the stage for a vote likely to come today. The bill would heighten enforcement measures, establish a temporary guest worker program, punish employers who hire undocumented immigrants and open a route to citizenship for at least some undocumented immigrants. If passed, the Senate bill would have to be reconciled with the Sensenbrenner bill passed by the House in December. That bill focuses strictly on enforcement and would consider undocumented immigrants to be felons. It would also make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.
Big business always protects big business and with all the loybbing of Congress, it works for big business. Which is why immigrants got screwed over and will continue to be screwed over. C.I.'s covered how the New York Times has lied over and over about the Senate bill but there's a new liar in town and his name is David Espo who has obviously learned from the Times how to 'shape' opinion by playing the bill as opposed by racists and supported by do gooders.
Yesterday Mike wrote "Michael Hayden, FCC and spying, and more" and he covered Darfur great but I got an e-mail about it asking why he was saying it was harder to open our borders than to send force. Well the item above demonstrates the border issue. It's also true that we're dealing with Black people and you might want to send in some bullets and soldiers to fix the issue because anything's better than having one of us move next door to you, right?
It was the same thing with the Jewish race. 'Decent people' fretted what an influx of 'those people' might do to a nation's character and over six million Jews (as well as gypsies, gays and lesbians and others) would die in the Holocaust.
Sending force as opposed to welcoming the victims in Darfur into this country is the equivalent of sending a pie to someone's house because you don't want to actually invite them over to dinner. It's racism and xenophobia. We're willing to make sure they stay, just not willing to make them really safe.
Did you make a point to listen to KPFA's The Morning Show today? Robert Jensen was on addressing the issue of race and he brought up a point about how you hear people bemoan the underpriviliged but what about examing the realities of the overpriviliged? Were it not for economic class and skin color, do you think Bully Boy would be in the White House? He was a bad student and a bad businessman. They (Jensen and co-hosts Andrea Lewis and Philip Maldari) addressed affirmative action and a number of other things. (They also played some of Tim Wise's speech. Jensen had nice words for Wise.)
Go to Mikey Likes It! for Mike's take on the two headlines. I'm going to try to post tomorrow -- Wally and I have talked about doing a joint post again. Be sure to check out Wally's
"THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE?"
Forgot to put in C.I.'s "Iraq Snapshot:"
Iraq snapshot.
As Amy Goodman noted, Tareq Al Hashemi, vice president of Iraq, has called for "a timetable for the withdrawal of occupying troops" from Iraq. As Al Jazeera notes, Al Hashemi does not favor the notion of a set of conditions that would result in withdrawal of all foreign troops (US, British, et al) but instead favors a fixed date. The Irish Examiner reports that as Tony Blair and Bully Boy meet in DC, "the White House" has declared it "premature to talk about troop withdrawals."
This as Free Speech Radio News reports the Inspector General of Iraq's Oil Ministry has noted "that one billion dollars of Iraq's oil is being illegally smuggled out of the country every month." On the topic of the Oil Ministry, Steve Negus reports that Hussein al-Shahristani, exile installed as oil minister, has declared "the central government should handle all contracts related to petroleum exploration and production, putting him on a potential collision course with the autonomous Kurdish region which has recently begun to develop its own oil resources." What Kurds may read as a power grab occurs as the occupied nation is still without a minister of interior or defense.
In England, Matthew Tempest reports for the Guardian that "attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, has been forced into disclosing further information relating to his decision that an ivasion of Iraq would be lawful." Goldsmith issues one ruling and then another (that was already known), the report traces the change of opinion to March 13th and he would inform Blair of the change in opinion (that the illegal invasion would suddenly be legal). March 17, 2003 was then the UN failed to endorse the Bully Boy's war lust, March 20th would see the start of the illegal invasion.
A battle in Baghdad (yes, in Baghdad) resulted in at least three people dead from
"[t]he ambush of Brig Gen. Khalil al-Abadi, head of the Defense Ministry logistics office" reports the Associated Press. Reuters notes several bombings taking place in Iraq -- one "planted inside a building wounded 13 people," another wounded two police officers in New Baghdad, and another injured two police officers on "patrol in northeastern Baghdad." Reuters also notes that four corpses were discovered throughout Baghdad ("torture . . . gunshot wounds in their heads").
The AFP reports that two more corpses were discovered in Baquba while Reuters notes an additional three ("bullet gunshot wounds") near Tikrit and that, in Balad, "U.S. forces handed over five decomposed bodies to the hospital." The AFP reports that a judge (Walid Ahmed) has been kidnapped while "traveling on a highway between Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and the city of Samarra." Reuters notes that Ali Hisham and his son were kidnapped not far from Kirkuk (Hisham is "head of the Turkmen Front party in town of Tuz Khurmato"). A "nine-year-old girl" died in Kirkuk from a roadside bomb, the AFP notes. Meanwhile the BBC reports that, James Cook has been determined to be not guilty ("by a jury panel of seven senior officers in Cochester") in the death of Ahmed Jabber Kareem -- three remain on trial. In the United States, Robert Burns reports that Gen. Michael W. Hagee is headed for Iraq as a result of concerns over "two recent cases of alleged killings of civilians in Iraq."
Finally, Reuters notes the Norwegian Refugee Council's report on Iraq:
Sectarian displacements received much attention in the mainstream world media in April 2006, yet equally large-scale population displacements caused by multiple military operations across the country have been largely unreported. Several hundred thousand people were displaced by military operations during 2005.
In Iraq, a top leader has renewed calls for President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to set a timetable for the withdrawal of occupying troops.
Iraqi Vice President Tareq Al Hashemi: "Two days ago we spoke with Tony Blair about this issue and the fact that it is necessary that the U.S. and British administration should put a timetable for its troops withdrawal from Iraq. We have discussed this thoroughly and I convinced him of the necessity of announcing a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupying troops and told him frankly that Iraqis have a right to know when the last British or American soldier will leave Iraq." Bush and Blair have long rejected setting withdrawal timetables and vowed to withdraw troops at their own discretion. The two leaders will meet today in Washington with Iraq expected to top the agenda.
Contacted the reference librarian/researcher (reference to Elaine's "Long but is there a topic?") and asked about something I'd read but couldn't remember where? C.I. was kind enough to tell me the book, author and page number. It's pages 224-225 from Normal Solomon's War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death:
In effect, the war had to go on because the war had to go on -- widely promoted as the least bad option, in contrast to the taboo of withdrawal. Meanwhile, a prerequisite for any Baghdad government to exist would be that it sufficiently satisifed the administration in Washington.
[. . .]
Pretense and realism were at war. Washington was preparing to hand over power to Iraqis while steadfastly refusing to do so; putting an Iraqi "face" on authority in Iraq while retaining ultimate authority in Iraq; striving for Iraqis to take up the burden of their country's national security while insisting that military control must remain in Uncle Sam's hands.
To some readers, the headline across the top of USA Today's front page on day in June 2004 must have been reassuring: "New Leader Asks U.S. to Stay." The banner headline was a classic of occupation puppetry and media gimmickry. Iraq's "new leader" Iyad Allawi -- selected and installed as prime minister by the U.S. government -- had shown distinct reliablity over the years. The USA Today story made only fleeting reference to Allawi's longtime U.S. entanglement, indentifying him as "a Shiite close to the CIA." The contradiction did not seem to trouble American media outlets, though they sometimes openly fretted that Iraqis might not be so accepting. Allawi "is the secretary general of the Iraqi National Accord, an exile group that has received funds from the Central Intelligence Agency," the New York Times reported. "His ties with the CIA and his closeness to the United States could become an issue in a country where public opinion has grown almost universally hostile to the Americans." A separate Times article noted that Allawi "lived abroad for 30 years and is not well known in Iraq." All in all, by Washington's lights, the man was eminently qualified to be Iraq's "new leader." And his superb judgement was immediately apparent: New leader asks U.S. to stay!
If you're not familiar with the book, it's one I recommend and we discussed it back in August "1 Book, 10 Minutes" (The Third Estate Sunday Review). It's an antidote not only to this adminstration's spin but to the lies that get us into war (by any adminstration) and keep us there.
"Senate Expected To Vote On Immigration Bill" (Democracy Now):
The Senate has agreed to end debate on a controversial immigration bill, setting the stage for a vote likely to come today. The bill would heighten enforcement measures, establish a temporary guest worker program, punish employers who hire undocumented immigrants and open a route to citizenship for at least some undocumented immigrants. If passed, the Senate bill would have to be reconciled with the Sensenbrenner bill passed by the House in December. That bill focuses strictly on enforcement and would consider undocumented immigrants to be felons. It would also make it a crime for priests, nuns, health care workers and other social workers to offer help to undocumented immigrants.
Big business always protects big business and with all the loybbing of Congress, it works for big business. Which is why immigrants got screwed over and will continue to be screwed over. C.I.'s covered how the New York Times has lied over and over about the Senate bill but there's a new liar in town and his name is David Espo who has obviously learned from the Times how to 'shape' opinion by playing the bill as opposed by racists and supported by do gooders.
Yesterday Mike wrote "Michael Hayden, FCC and spying, and more" and he covered Darfur great but I got an e-mail about it asking why he was saying it was harder to open our borders than to send force. Well the item above demonstrates the border issue. It's also true that we're dealing with Black people and you might want to send in some bullets and soldiers to fix the issue because anything's better than having one of us move next door to you, right?
It was the same thing with the Jewish race. 'Decent people' fretted what an influx of 'those people' might do to a nation's character and over six million Jews (as well as gypsies, gays and lesbians and others) would die in the Holocaust.
Sending force as opposed to welcoming the victims in Darfur into this country is the equivalent of sending a pie to someone's house because you don't want to actually invite them over to dinner. It's racism and xenophobia. We're willing to make sure they stay, just not willing to make them really safe.
Did you make a point to listen to KPFA's The Morning Show today? Robert Jensen was on addressing the issue of race and he brought up a point about how you hear people bemoan the underpriviliged but what about examing the realities of the overpriviliged? Were it not for economic class and skin color, do you think Bully Boy would be in the White House? He was a bad student and a bad businessman. They (Jensen and co-hosts Andrea Lewis and Philip Maldari) addressed affirmative action and a number of other things. (They also played some of Tim Wise's speech. Jensen had nice words for Wise.)
Go to Mikey Likes It! for Mike's take on the two headlines. I'm going to try to post tomorrow -- Wally and I have talked about doing a joint post again. Be sure to check out Wally's
"THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY AND BLAIR HAVE BEEN WHERE?"
Forgot to put in C.I.'s "Iraq Snapshot:"
Iraq snapshot.
As Amy Goodman noted, Tareq Al Hashemi, vice president of Iraq, has called for "a timetable for the withdrawal of occupying troops" from Iraq. As Al Jazeera notes, Al Hashemi does not favor the notion of a set of conditions that would result in withdrawal of all foreign troops (US, British, et al) but instead favors a fixed date. The Irish Examiner reports that as Tony Blair and Bully Boy meet in DC, "the White House" has declared it "premature to talk about troop withdrawals."
This as Free Speech Radio News reports the Inspector General of Iraq's Oil Ministry has noted "that one billion dollars of Iraq's oil is being illegally smuggled out of the country every month." On the topic of the Oil Ministry, Steve Negus reports that Hussein al-Shahristani, exile installed as oil minister, has declared "the central government should handle all contracts related to petroleum exploration and production, putting him on a potential collision course with the autonomous Kurdish region which has recently begun to develop its own oil resources." What Kurds may read as a power grab occurs as the occupied nation is still without a minister of interior or defense.
In England, Matthew Tempest reports for the Guardian that "attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, has been forced into disclosing further information relating to his decision that an ivasion of Iraq would be lawful." Goldsmith issues one ruling and then another (that was already known), the report traces the change of opinion to March 13th and he would inform Blair of the change in opinion (that the illegal invasion would suddenly be legal). March 17, 2003 was then the UN failed to endorse the Bully Boy's war lust, March 20th would see the start of the illegal invasion.
A battle in Baghdad (yes, in Baghdad) resulted in at least three people dead from
"[t]he ambush of Brig Gen. Khalil al-Abadi, head of the Defense Ministry logistics office" reports the Associated Press. Reuters notes several bombings taking place in Iraq -- one "planted inside a building wounded 13 people," another wounded two police officers in New Baghdad, and another injured two police officers on "patrol in northeastern Baghdad." Reuters also notes that four corpses were discovered throughout Baghdad ("torture . . . gunshot wounds in their heads").
The AFP reports that two more corpses were discovered in Baquba while Reuters notes an additional three ("bullet gunshot wounds") near Tikrit and that, in Balad, "U.S. forces handed over five decomposed bodies to the hospital." The AFP reports that a judge (Walid Ahmed) has been kidnapped while "traveling on a highway between Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and the city of Samarra." Reuters notes that Ali Hisham and his son were kidnapped not far from Kirkuk (Hisham is "head of the Turkmen Front party in town of Tuz Khurmato"). A "nine-year-old girl" died in Kirkuk from a roadside bomb, the AFP notes. Meanwhile the BBC reports that, James Cook has been determined to be not guilty ("by a jury panel of seven senior officers in Cochester") in the death of Ahmed Jabber Kareem -- three remain on trial. In the United States, Robert Burns reports that Gen. Michael W. Hagee is headed for Iraq as a result of concerns over "two recent cases of alleged killings of civilians in Iraq."
Finally, Reuters notes the Norwegian Refugee Council's report on Iraq:
Sectarian displacements received much attention in the mainstream world media in April 2006, yet equally large-scale population displacements caused by multiple military operations across the country have been largely unreported. Several hundred thousand people were displaced by military operations during 2005.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
On Race
I woke up today thinking I'd blog about something that happened in the park yesterday. I really didn't think it was interesting enough last night and then C.I. called me after my post went up and asked why I didn't cover it. Honestly, I didn't know if it was serious enough. C.I. said, "'Go Your Own Way' Cedric is taking a pass on this!" And I had laugh too. (That's a reference to
"Into the e-mails.") Then I spoke to Ty this afternoon and he said, "That would make a great piece for our fiction edition this summer." (At The Third Estate Sunday Review.) I was already excited about the special edition and think it will work there. (It will also probably be better if it has some fiction to it and we can all input.)
Then, today, I read Samantha Power's "Why Can't We?" and thought I could write about that. I phoned Mike and suggested we both grab it. But I get home and go to Mikey Likes It! and read his "Michael Hayden, FCC and spying, and more" and there's nothing left to cover -- he's done a great job. I can't even think of anything to add to it.
So let me talk about a special on KPFA today called "Tim Wise Special" and co-hosted by Andrea Lewis of The Morning Show. What's The Matter With Kansas? Is that the name of Thomas Frank's book? We're all supposed to love it. I read it and didn't love it. I don't know a lot of people who read the book but one (C.I.) who did didn't care for it.
Tim Wise talked about it and put it perfectly. This isn't about teaching people to vote in their own interest (which is pretty "paternalistic" as Wise noted). It's one more thing about "We must bring the White Male back to the Democratic Party!" They're spitting on women already by running these anti-choice candidates. (I'm offended by that and I am pro-choice but I won't pretend that an issue which has to do with women's bodies could offend me more than it could a woman. I'm pro-choice and will say so loudly and clearly. But for women, I think it has another level since it is their bodies.) But it's also about, "Forget you African-Americans." Because African-Americans didn't abandon the party.
They didn't need to "learn" their interests. You can toss Condi on one side of Bully Boy and Colin Powell on the other and it's still just window dressing.
Does Kansas have no African-Americans?
This is another thing about how "We will get the White Males back! No matter how much we have to water down the issues." That was really a great special and you probably could only hear it on Pacifica Radio so if you have the money to donate and you haven't donated already, donate Thursday.
I don't want to pick on someone I've noted before has a White view. I think she means well. But she pushed that book like crazy. And I kept thinking, "Does this magazine have no African-American readers?" Wise made a point about a book and Lewis emphasized that after his speech was over. There was a period of time when Black Like Me was selling second only to the Bible. Why was that?
A white man takes some pills to be Black and suddenly it's worth reading to find out about African-Americans? Were they unaware that African-Americans had been writing about what it was like to be African-American for some time already?
I'd be willing to guess that most African-Americans have a better idea of what it's like to be White than than most Whites have an idea of what it's like to be African-American. Not because African-Americans are more aware by "nature" but because the White culture is the one that's all over the place.
I think Andrea Lewis was talking about something that had happened to her and not something in the speech Wise gave. (If he noted it, I missed it. I was listening at work so it's entirely possible that I missed it.) So she said that this man was just insisting to her that Columbia University had gone Black. 'They' were all over the place. Lewis gave a figure (under twenty-percent) to the friend about how that wasn't the case. But he was White and he sees five African-Americans and it's one of those 'They're taking over!' moments.
They weren't fifty-percent and he wanted to argue with her about her source for the figures (Columbia was her source) because when he looked around, what he saw made him feel like it was at fifty-percent.
I'm not making fun of him. I'm saying that this happens. It has to do with impressions.
I'll mess up (not spoil, mess up) the speech if I try to go into it more but if race matters to you, check it out. Because race does matter. Someone can whine, "Oh, you're playing the race card!"
Am I ABC, NBC or CBS? No. But they play the race card in their programming or maybe people don't notice how few African-Americans are on TV?
What does that say to kids growing up now? They can watch a host of White families, they can watch a ton of White lawyers and investigators. It's like we've dropped back to pre-I Spy and pre-Julia these days.
African-Americans are not in competition with Latinos and any who think they are should correct themselves. But it is true that the dominant society encourages us to think that there will be one lucky break extended so we all better fight for it -- all of us on the bottom, nonWhite rung.
So those are my thoughts for tonight. If I can, I'll blog tomorrow.
KPFA's The Morning Show tomorrow will feature another discussion on race. Make a point to listen if you have the time (and a computer that allows you to hear streaming audio if you aren't in their broadcast area).
"Into the e-mails.") Then I spoke to Ty this afternoon and he said, "That would make a great piece for our fiction edition this summer." (At The Third Estate Sunday Review.) I was already excited about the special edition and think it will work there. (It will also probably be better if it has some fiction to it and we can all input.)
Then, today, I read Samantha Power's "Why Can't We?" and thought I could write about that. I phoned Mike and suggested we both grab it. But I get home and go to Mikey Likes It! and read his "Michael Hayden, FCC and spying, and more" and there's nothing left to cover -- he's done a great job. I can't even think of anything to add to it.
So let me talk about a special on KPFA today called "Tim Wise Special" and co-hosted by Andrea Lewis of The Morning Show. What's The Matter With Kansas? Is that the name of Thomas Frank's book? We're all supposed to love it. I read it and didn't love it. I don't know a lot of people who read the book but one (C.I.) who did didn't care for it.
Tim Wise talked about it and put it perfectly. This isn't about teaching people to vote in their own interest (which is pretty "paternalistic" as Wise noted). It's one more thing about "We must bring the White Male back to the Democratic Party!" They're spitting on women already by running these anti-choice candidates. (I'm offended by that and I am pro-choice but I won't pretend that an issue which has to do with women's bodies could offend me more than it could a woman. I'm pro-choice and will say so loudly and clearly. But for women, I think it has another level since it is their bodies.) But it's also about, "Forget you African-Americans." Because African-Americans didn't abandon the party.
They didn't need to "learn" their interests. You can toss Condi on one side of Bully Boy and Colin Powell on the other and it's still just window dressing.
Does Kansas have no African-Americans?
This is another thing about how "We will get the White Males back! No matter how much we have to water down the issues." That was really a great special and you probably could only hear it on Pacifica Radio so if you have the money to donate and you haven't donated already, donate Thursday.
I don't want to pick on someone I've noted before has a White view. I think she means well. But she pushed that book like crazy. And I kept thinking, "Does this magazine have no African-American readers?" Wise made a point about a book and Lewis emphasized that after his speech was over. There was a period of time when Black Like Me was selling second only to the Bible. Why was that?
A white man takes some pills to be Black and suddenly it's worth reading to find out about African-Americans? Were they unaware that African-Americans had been writing about what it was like to be African-American for some time already?
I'd be willing to guess that most African-Americans have a better idea of what it's like to be White than than most Whites have an idea of what it's like to be African-American. Not because African-Americans are more aware by "nature" but because the White culture is the one that's all over the place.
I think Andrea Lewis was talking about something that had happened to her and not something in the speech Wise gave. (If he noted it, I missed it. I was listening at work so it's entirely possible that I missed it.) So she said that this man was just insisting to her that Columbia University had gone Black. 'They' were all over the place. Lewis gave a figure (under twenty-percent) to the friend about how that wasn't the case. But he was White and he sees five African-Americans and it's one of those 'They're taking over!' moments.
They weren't fifty-percent and he wanted to argue with her about her source for the figures (Columbia was her source) because when he looked around, what he saw made him feel like it was at fifty-percent.
I'm not making fun of him. I'm saying that this happens. It has to do with impressions.
I'll mess up (not spoil, mess up) the speech if I try to go into it more but if race matters to you, check it out. Because race does matter. Someone can whine, "Oh, you're playing the race card!"
Am I ABC, NBC or CBS? No. But they play the race card in their programming or maybe people don't notice how few African-Americans are on TV?
What does that say to kids growing up now? They can watch a host of White families, they can watch a ton of White lawyers and investigators. It's like we've dropped back to pre-I Spy and pre-Julia these days.
African-Americans are not in competition with Latinos and any who think they are should correct themselves. But it is true that the dominant society encourages us to think that there will be one lucky break extended so we all better fight for it -- all of us on the bottom, nonWhite rung.
So those are my thoughts for tonight. If I can, I'll blog tomorrow.
KPFA's The Morning Show tomorrow will feature another discussion on race. Make a point to listen if you have the time (and a computer that allows you to hear streaming audio if you aren't in their broadcast area).
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Arundhati Roy speaks to truth to power while others stay silent
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush speaking in India. Arundhati Roy, your response?
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, look, let's not forget that this whole call to the free market started in the late 19th century in India. You know, that was what colonialism was all about. They kept using the words "free market." And we know how free the free market is. Today, India has -- I mean, after 15 years of economic liberalization, we have more than half of the world's malnutritioned children. We have an economy where the differences between the rich and the poor, which have always been huge, has increased enormously. We have a feudal society whose feudalism has just been reinforced by all of this.
And, you know, it's amazing. Just in the wake of Bush's visit, you can't imagine what's happening, say, in a city like Delhi. You can't imagine the open aggression of institutions of our democracy. It's really like courts, for instance, who are an old enemy of mine, are rolling up their sleeves and coming after us. You have in Delhi, for example -- I have just come from being on the streets for six weeks, where all kinds of protest are taking place. But you have a city that's been just -- it's just turned into a city of bulldozers and policemen. Overnight, notices go up saying tomorrow or day after tomorrow you're going to be evicted from here. The Supreme Court judges have come out saying things like, "If the poor can't afford to live in the city, why do they come here?"
And basically, behind it all, there are two facades. One is that in 2008, Delhi is going to host the Commonwealth Games. For this, hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of the city. But the real agenda came in the wake of Bush's visit, which is that the city is being prepared for foreign direct investment in retail, which means Wal-Mart and Kmart and all these people are going to come in, which means that this city of millions of pavement dwellers, hawkers, fruit sellers, people who have -- it's a city that's grown up over centuries and centuries. It's just being cleaned out under the guise of sort of legal action. And at the same time, people from villages are being driven out of their villages, because of the corporatization of agriculture, because of these big development projects.
So you have an institution like -- you know, I mean, how do you subvert democracy? We have a parliament, sure. We have elections, sure. But we have a supreme court now that micromanages our lives. It takes every decision: What should be in history books? Should this lamb be cured? Should this road be widened? What gas should we use? Every single decision is now taken by a court. You can't criticize the court. If you do, you will go to jail, like I did. So, you have judges who are -- you have to read those judgments to believe it, you know? Public interest litigation has become a weapon that judges use against us.
So, for example, a former chief justice of India, he gave a decision allowing the Narmada Dam to be built, where 400,000 people will be displaced. The same judge gave a judgment saying slum dwellers are pickpockets of urban land. So you displace people from the villages; they come into the cities; you call them pickpockets. He gave a judgment shutting down all kinds of informal industry in Delhi. Than he gave a judgment asking for all India's rivers to be linked, which is a Stalinist scheme beyond imagination, where millions of people will be displaced. And when he retired, he joined Coca-Cola. You know, it's incredible.
That's Arundhati Roy speaking with Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now! ("Arundhati Roy on India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent"). I hope you already caught it but if you missed it, you can use the link and read it or listen to it or watch it. (I listen to Democracy Now! each day.) And if that part above doesn't make you want to listen, I don't know what will. How often do you get to hear anyone tell the truth? She tried to with Charlie Rose. Amy Goodman brought that up and Arundhati Roy said they taped the show, he just never broadcast it. I don't care for Charlie Rose. He's just too prissy and in love with his own voice. I hate it when he lands on a word and draws it out or when he plays with that coffee mug. When Bully Boy ordered the invasion of Iraq, I thought I should try to watch some news and I turned to PBS. I lasted about three weeks. If I thought I was going to see the cast of Sesame Street or Reading Rainbow, I lost that illusion quickly as one White face after another danced across the screen.
It wasn't worth it to me to have the visuals. So I went back to using the radio as my primary source of news. It's not like I got any strong visuals anyway, just a lot of close ups of White people. If there's footage on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman will usually note it and if she does, I'll usually go to the website later in the day and watch it. Otherwise, I'm a grown adult and I can usually picture something in my head.
I prefer to listen. I know some people love to watch Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez -- like Rebecca and Mike prefer to watch. C.I. prefers to listen, thinking you focus more. I think I agree with that. If I'm watching something, my mind's going to drift off. I'll focus on someone's face or the set or something and then think, "Wait, what did they just say?"
But however you prefer, you can do it with Democracy Now! -- you can watch it online or listen online or read it online. (And they do headlines each day in English and in Spanish.) And if you're lucky, you can listen or watch with your radio or TV. I bet you already know where but if you don't, click here and it will give you options to find out how to watch or listen.
If you need a laugh today, and who doesn't?, check out Wally's "THIS JUST IN! CONDI RICE FINALLY GETS IT!" -- Condi faces that she's not loved.
C.I. noted this from a PDF file ("AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens, 31 December 2005") and if I had time, I'd note something else -- but I know why C.I. put it up and I'm putting it up too (for the same reason):
To mollify critics, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) spokesmen have repeatedly asserted that they are only conducting "research" using "artificial synthetic date" or information from "normal DoD intelligence channels" and hence there are "no U.S. citizen privacy implications" (Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General report on TIA, December 12, 2003). They also changed the name of the program to "Terrorism Information Awareness" to make it more politically palatable. But feeling the heat, Congress made a big show of allegedly cutting off funding for TIA in late 2003, and the political fallout resulted in Admiral Poindexter's abrupt resignation last August. However, the fine print reveals that Congress eliminated funding only for "the majority of the TIA components," allowing several "components" to continue (DoD, ibid). The essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into "real world" telecommunications offices.
In San Francisco the "secret room" is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High speed fiber optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T's WorldNet service, part of the latter's vital "Common Backbone." In order to snoop on these circuits, a special cabinet was installed and cabled to the "secret room" on the 6th floor to monitor the infomration going through the circuits. (The location code of the cabinet is 070177.04 which denotes the 7th floor, aisle 177 and bay 04.) The "secret room" itself is roughly 24-by-48 feet, containing perhaps a dozen cabinets including such equipment as Sun servers and two Juniper routers, plus an industrial-size air conditioner.
The normal workforce of unionized technicians in the office are forbidden to enter the "secret room," which has a special comination lock on the main door. The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room. In practice this has meant that only one management-level technician works in there. Ironically, the one who set up the room was laid off in late 2003 in one of the company's endless "downsizings," but he was quickly replace by another.
Plans for the "secret room" were fully drawn up by December 2002, curiously only four months after DARPA started awarding contracts for TIA.
Check out the following:
"NYT: A war hawk finds out it's not easy being sleazy (Kate Zezima)"
"It's a Monday"
"dixie chicks, flashpoints, attempting to privatize the bbc & more"
"KPFA's Radio Chronicles' 'John Ono Lennon' special""
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, look, let's not forget that this whole call to the free market started in the late 19th century in India. You know, that was what colonialism was all about. They kept using the words "free market." And we know how free the free market is. Today, India has -- I mean, after 15 years of economic liberalization, we have more than half of the world's malnutritioned children. We have an economy where the differences between the rich and the poor, which have always been huge, has increased enormously. We have a feudal society whose feudalism has just been reinforced by all of this.
And, you know, it's amazing. Just in the wake of Bush's visit, you can't imagine what's happening, say, in a city like Delhi. You can't imagine the open aggression of institutions of our democracy. It's really like courts, for instance, who are an old enemy of mine, are rolling up their sleeves and coming after us. You have in Delhi, for example -- I have just come from being on the streets for six weeks, where all kinds of protest are taking place. But you have a city that's been just -- it's just turned into a city of bulldozers and policemen. Overnight, notices go up saying tomorrow or day after tomorrow you're going to be evicted from here. The Supreme Court judges have come out saying things like, "If the poor can't afford to live in the city, why do they come here?"
And basically, behind it all, there are two facades. One is that in 2008, Delhi is going to host the Commonwealth Games. For this, hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of the city. But the real agenda came in the wake of Bush's visit, which is that the city is being prepared for foreign direct investment in retail, which means Wal-Mart and Kmart and all these people are going to come in, which means that this city of millions of pavement dwellers, hawkers, fruit sellers, people who have -- it's a city that's grown up over centuries and centuries. It's just being cleaned out under the guise of sort of legal action. And at the same time, people from villages are being driven out of their villages, because of the corporatization of agriculture, because of these big development projects.
So you have an institution like -- you know, I mean, how do you subvert democracy? We have a parliament, sure. We have elections, sure. But we have a supreme court now that micromanages our lives. It takes every decision: What should be in history books? Should this lamb be cured? Should this road be widened? What gas should we use? Every single decision is now taken by a court. You can't criticize the court. If you do, you will go to jail, like I did. So, you have judges who are -- you have to read those judgments to believe it, you know? Public interest litigation has become a weapon that judges use against us.
So, for example, a former chief justice of India, he gave a decision allowing the Narmada Dam to be built, where 400,000 people will be displaced. The same judge gave a judgment saying slum dwellers are pickpockets of urban land. So you displace people from the villages; they come into the cities; you call them pickpockets. He gave a judgment shutting down all kinds of informal industry in Delhi. Than he gave a judgment asking for all India's rivers to be linked, which is a Stalinist scheme beyond imagination, where millions of people will be displaced. And when he retired, he joined Coca-Cola. You know, it's incredible.
That's Arundhati Roy speaking with Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now! ("Arundhati Roy on India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent"). I hope you already caught it but if you missed it, you can use the link and read it or listen to it or watch it. (I listen to Democracy Now! each day.) And if that part above doesn't make you want to listen, I don't know what will. How often do you get to hear anyone tell the truth? She tried to with Charlie Rose. Amy Goodman brought that up and Arundhati Roy said they taped the show, he just never broadcast it. I don't care for Charlie Rose. He's just too prissy and in love with his own voice. I hate it when he lands on a word and draws it out or when he plays with that coffee mug. When Bully Boy ordered the invasion of Iraq, I thought I should try to watch some news and I turned to PBS. I lasted about three weeks. If I thought I was going to see the cast of Sesame Street or Reading Rainbow, I lost that illusion quickly as one White face after another danced across the screen.
It wasn't worth it to me to have the visuals. So I went back to using the radio as my primary source of news. It's not like I got any strong visuals anyway, just a lot of close ups of White people. If there's footage on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman will usually note it and if she does, I'll usually go to the website later in the day and watch it. Otherwise, I'm a grown adult and I can usually picture something in my head.
I prefer to listen. I know some people love to watch Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez -- like Rebecca and Mike prefer to watch. C.I. prefers to listen, thinking you focus more. I think I agree with that. If I'm watching something, my mind's going to drift off. I'll focus on someone's face or the set or something and then think, "Wait, what did they just say?"
But however you prefer, you can do it with Democracy Now! -- you can watch it online or listen online or read it online. (And they do headlines each day in English and in Spanish.) And if you're lucky, you can listen or watch with your radio or TV. I bet you already know where but if you don't, click here and it will give you options to find out how to watch or listen.
If you need a laugh today, and who doesn't?, check out Wally's "THIS JUST IN! CONDI RICE FINALLY GETS IT!" -- Condi faces that she's not loved.
C.I. noted this from a PDF file ("AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens, 31 December 2005") and if I had time, I'd note something else -- but I know why C.I. put it up and I'm putting it up too (for the same reason):
To mollify critics, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) spokesmen have repeatedly asserted that they are only conducting "research" using "artificial synthetic date" or information from "normal DoD intelligence channels" and hence there are "no U.S. citizen privacy implications" (Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General report on TIA, December 12, 2003). They also changed the name of the program to "Terrorism Information Awareness" to make it more politically palatable. But feeling the heat, Congress made a big show of allegedly cutting off funding for TIA in late 2003, and the political fallout resulted in Admiral Poindexter's abrupt resignation last August. However, the fine print reveals that Congress eliminated funding only for "the majority of the TIA components," allowing several "components" to continue (DoD, ibid). The essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into "real world" telecommunications offices.
In San Francisco the "secret room" is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High speed fiber optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T's WorldNet service, part of the latter's vital "Common Backbone." In order to snoop on these circuits, a special cabinet was installed and cabled to the "secret room" on the 6th floor to monitor the infomration going through the circuits. (The location code of the cabinet is 070177.04 which denotes the 7th floor, aisle 177 and bay 04.) The "secret room" itself is roughly 24-by-48 feet, containing perhaps a dozen cabinets including such equipment as Sun servers and two Juniper routers, plus an industrial-size air conditioner.
The normal workforce of unionized technicians in the office are forbidden to enter the "secret room," which has a special comination lock on the main door. The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room. In practice this has meant that only one management-level technician works in there. Ironically, the one who set up the room was laid off in late 2003 in one of the company's endless "downsizings," but he was quickly replace by another.
Plans for the "secret room" were fully drawn up by December 2002, curiously only four months after DARPA started awarding contracts for TIA.
Check out the following:
"NYT: A war hawk finds out it's not easy being sleazy (Kate Zezima)"
"It's a Monday"
"dixie chicks, flashpoints, attempting to privatize the bbc & more"
"KPFA's Radio Chronicles' 'John Ono Lennon' special""
Monday, May 22, 2006
Questions the administration and others should be asked by Congress
The comic below is Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts and it's Michael Hayden speaking before the Senate.
I really like the comic but in terms of the Senate, I think from now on, when anyone's been sworn in to testify before them that has any connection to the administration, someone should ask the following:
1) Do you know Valerie Plame?
2) Did you know she was CIA before it broke in the press?
3) If so, how did you find out?
4) Did you speak on the record or off the record with any members of the press about Valerie Plame?
If they'd had Alberto Gonzales under oath when he testified before the Senate the last time, that would have been the perfect opportunity. But everybody. Donald Rumsfeld comes in to talk about the military, anyone comes in, ask them about Plamegate.
Get them under oath when possible. But even if you can't get them under oath, ask them.
Condi Rice comes in to talk about the State Department, ask her about Plame.
Let's see if they pull a Michael Hayden and say they can only answer in closed testimony or if they'll give a denial?
That's my thought for today.
I was studying the comic at work today and we were all talking about how Hayden avoided so many questions.
It got us thinking what sort of questions we'd ask him? We agreed that the NSA was an important one and then we started thinking of other things like Hurricane Katrina and the spying on Americans.
When someone said spy, I thought, Valerie Plame.
The point isn't thinking someone will confess at some point to being involved (there are probably a lot of people involved).
The point is to get them on record. Plamegate is going to break at some point and it would be nice to see, for instance, Stephen Hadley on the news telling a senator that he has no knowledge would be an interesting clip for the nightly news programs to have handy if Hadley ended up indicted.
If Rove gets indicted, they better show that clip where Scott McClellan was saying that Rove had nothing to do with it.
Here's new content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:
A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Here it comes, here it comes again
TV Review: Will & Grace -- goodbye, good riddance
Senate plays "Don't Spook the Spook" with Michael Hayden
"Can an unindicted co-conspirator remain at the White House? Personally, I don't think so."
Into the e-mails
Laura Flanders spoke with Penny Lang about the importance of music and much more
Radio highlights for Sunday
"We were all wrong!" Not so fast
This is a short entry just to see how they go. Rebecca and I have been talking about doing some of these. I'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll be able to blog more often than just Tuesdays and Thursdays? We'll see.
I really like the comic but in terms of the Senate, I think from now on, when anyone's been sworn in to testify before them that has any connection to the administration, someone should ask the following:
1) Do you know Valerie Plame?
2) Did you know she was CIA before it broke in the press?
3) If so, how did you find out?
4) Did you speak on the record or off the record with any members of the press about Valerie Plame?
If they'd had Alberto Gonzales under oath when he testified before the Senate the last time, that would have been the perfect opportunity. But everybody. Donald Rumsfeld comes in to talk about the military, anyone comes in, ask them about Plamegate.
Get them under oath when possible. But even if you can't get them under oath, ask them.
Condi Rice comes in to talk about the State Department, ask her about Plame.
Let's see if they pull a Michael Hayden and say they can only answer in closed testimony or if they'll give a denial?
That's my thought for today.
I was studying the comic at work today and we were all talking about how Hayden avoided so many questions.
It got us thinking what sort of questions we'd ask him? We agreed that the NSA was an important one and then we started thinking of other things like Hurricane Katrina and the spying on Americans.
When someone said spy, I thought, Valerie Plame.
The point isn't thinking someone will confess at some point to being involved (there are probably a lot of people involved).
The point is to get them on record. Plamegate is going to break at some point and it would be nice to see, for instance, Stephen Hadley on the news telling a senator that he has no knowledge would be an interesting clip for the nightly news programs to have handy if Hadley ended up indicted.
If Rove gets indicted, they better show that clip where Scott McClellan was saying that Rove had nothing to do with it.
Here's new content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:
A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Here it comes, here it comes again
TV Review: Will & Grace -- goodbye, good riddance
Senate plays "Don't Spook the Spook" with Michael Hayden
"Can an unindicted co-conspirator remain at the White House? Personally, I don't think so."
Into the e-mails
Laura Flanders spoke with Penny Lang about the importance of music and much more
Radio highlights for Sunday
"We were all wrong!" Not so fast
This is a short entry just to see how they go. Rebecca and I have been talking about doing some of these. I'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll be able to blog more often than just Tuesdays and Thursdays? We'll see.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Dry Drunk Bully Boy
"Senate Votes To Build 370-Mile Border Fence" (Democracy Now):
The Senate has voted to build a fence along parts of the Mexico border to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. In total, 370 miles of triple-layered barriers would be added near San Diego and in the Arizona desert. Senators also approved a provision that would prevent illegal immigrants from petitioning for a guest-worker permit without the sponsorship an employer. And in a unanimous vote, Senate accepted an amendment that would bar granting work permits to undocumented immigrants convicted of either a felony or at least three misdemeanors. The measure would effect even those who ignored a court-deportation order.
I'm sorry to go personal here but this is such a dry drunk moment. Bully Boy's a dry drunk. He dealt with his addiction to alcohol by finding another one (God) and then another one (blood lust). Someone like that can't deal with what's real. They shut it out. And Bully Boy thinks if he acts like something's not there, it not there.
Like if he keeps acting like he didn't lie us into war, we'll all look the other way too. Mike and I are both grabbing the same headlines tonight. Always check out Mikey Likes It! but to get his take on the headlines, be sure to check him out.
"At Least 50 Killed in Afghanistan Clashes" (Democracy Now):
In Afghanistan, more than fifty people were killed in fighting between Taliban members and Afghan and foreign forces in two southern provinces Wednesday. The dead included a dozen police, a Canadian soldier and more than 30 militants.
That's another elephant in the room that we're not supposed to notice. We're supposed to believe that Bully Boy accomplished something by bombing that country to further ruin and doing pretty much nothing to help rebuild it. The country's run by warlords. There's no safety there. But he got to satisfy his blood lust by bombing and destroying and he was ready to move on for another high (Iraq) and now he needs another quick fix (Iran).
I didn't get to note Betty's "Leather Prada pumps and tears" Tuesday. I'm not sure if she's posting tonight or trying for Friday, but it's hilarious and read it. I wanted to put that in early in case I forgot.
Now I'm going to note the latest on Iraq via C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Chaos and violence was the rule on Wednesday and remains so today. Wednesday, as noted by Bassam Sebti and Debbi Wilgoren, car bombs and gun shots resulted in the death of at least 16 people. As noted by Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher, two corpses ("handcuffed . . . shot in the head") were discovered in Baghad and "[f]ifteen members of the Iraqi Olympic Tae Kwon Do team were kidnapped." The BBC notes that $100,000 is what kidnappers have set as the ransom for the release of the atheletes and CNN notes that the kidnapping took place on "a road between Ramadi and Falluja." The AFP reports Peter Pace (general), testifying to Congress yesterday, stating that "No, sir," there is no prospect of American troops being "withdrawn from even Iraq's most stable regions."
Today?
In Baghdad, the BBC reports, at least three police officer are dead and at least four civilians wounded from a roadside bomb. CNN, in a later report, notes that seven have died and four are wounded. Another roadside bomb has killed at least four and CNN identifies them as "4 U.S. soldiers" in the headline but as "Four Multi-National Division" in the text. AFP identifies them as American soldiers -- an Iraqi interpreter died in the bombing as well. CNN reports the death of "six car mechanics" who were attacked by assailants while on their way to work.
The AFP reports that, in Kirkuk, "local leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Nejmeddin Abdullah" is dead from a drive by shooting as he left "his Kirkuk party headquarters" while "a teacher and a student" were also dead as a result of a drive-by.The Associated Press notes the discovery of a corpse ("beheaded"; "woman labor activist affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party").
A high school teacher was killed in Karbala, Reuters notes.
In Baqouba, the Associated Press reports the destruction of "a small Sunni shrine" as a result of bombing.
In Basra, the Associated Press notes that "police chief Gen. Hassan Swadi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit his convoy as he was heading to work." This would be the same Basra that Des Browne, England's new defense minister, visisted yesterday to declare, "Basra is calm, and British forces are working hand in han with their Iraqi and colation partners. Suggestions that the city is, in some way, out of control are ridiculous." Browne made those comments on Wednesday, the same day, as Reuters notes, that Nazar Abdul-Zahra ("former member of Iraq's national soccer team") was killed.
Though the American press apparently doesn't give a damn about the death of troops in Iraq who aren't American, the issue of Jake Kovco's death and what followed is still a big issue in Australia. Kovco's father-in-law said, regarding the latest developments, "Because of the way everything has been bungled, Shelley and her two kids have had to go through this death three times." So what's the latest? The investigation into the events of Jake Kovco's death and the time afterward (when another body, Juso Sinaovic's body, was shipped to Australia instead of Kovco) someow resulted in "[h]ighly sensitive information about the bungled repatriation . . . [being] left in a computer at an airport."
The report "ended up in the hands of broadcaster Derryn Hinch" and has resulted in John Howard (Australia's prime minister) issuing yet another apology to the family (from Chicago, which is where Howard is currently). As a result of all that Shelley Kovco is being put through (not just 'has been,' is being), the Federal Opposition is saying that "extra compensation to the family of Private Jake Kovco" should be paid.
Jake Kovco's body, following the mix up, was finally laid to rest on May 2nd. Kovco died in Iraq on April 21st. The investigation is supposed to help determine the cause of the death and to help determine how his body and Sinaovic's were mixed up.
Now let me talk about that. I think Iraq's covered there but I'd add that when you think about what Shelley Kovco, her children, her late husband's family and everyone has been through, I can't believe it hasn't already been a Dateline special -- "This is Stone Phillips. Jake Kovco died serving in Iraq. What should have followed was a routine and ceremony familiar to far too many families. Instead . . ."
But what I wanted to talk about was something Elaine and I were talking about. I'd just gotten home from church and she called upset and just wanting to talk. By the way, this is what she was upset about:
"UNICEF: 25% of Iraqi Children Suffer Malnutrition" (Democracy Now):
Meanwhile, a survey carried out by the Iraqi government and UNICEF has concluded a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition.
That's something to be upset about. This whole illegal war is something to be upset about. Every paper in the country should be splashing that on the front page and asking why, in the fourth year of the occupation, Bully Boy's done nothing to help the Iraqi children?
He uses "insurgents" as his excuse for everything else. Well, I don't think people will buy that when faced the fact that children, even the children, aren't a concern of his.
But we talked about Iraq and then we started talking about the snapshot. C.I. was in DC today (and last night) so we were wondering if there would be a snapshot? There was a brief summary of the Michael Hayden hearings.
There's this whole slam bloggers (The Common Ills is a resource/review, before I'm accused of calling it a blog) thing where they're supposedly living in a basement, wearing pajamas and have no life at all. That's not anyone I know. You've got college students like Mike, Wally, Jim, Dona, Ty, Ava and Jess. You've got Betty who's a working mother with three young children. You've got Rebecca who is 'retired' because she made her money in the rat race and got out. I think everyone hopes she and Fly Boy are together for good this time. (He's her ex-husband.) Elaine's a doctor. Trina's raised eight children, worked, has a happy marriage and, like Betty and me, is active in her church. Kat's a working artist. Who's hiding out in a basement?
And all of us go to rallies and demonstrations. Elaine said that if anyone's putting anything on hold it's C.I. and I'd agree with that. C.I.'s not hiding out in a basement. But it's obvious why C.I. was the one to bring up (last summer) the idea of shutting down shop. Right now, as announced, the plan is come November of 2008, we shut shop. Some might continue.
But the one that I know worries the community is C.I. I think if we could all (I'm a member of the community too) be happy with one entry a day, C.I. might continue The Common Ills. But it's just too much work. C.I.'s too busy as it is and dictating so many entries these days. Sometimes, and I've said this to C.I., I think The Common Ills is like a new car. You know how when you get a new car or a new old car and you are so careful where you park it? You're so worried that you're going to get a ding or someone will sideswipe it?
That's what I think The Common Ills is like. We all wish C.I. would take off a day and that might be a possibility if there was ever a day C.I. had already missed. It's just too much for one person. We talk sometimes, all of us, about how if Blogger continues to screw up, just using a for pay site. (C.I. worried that it would be less D.Y.I. if that happened.) If that ever did happen, we're all agreed we'd just do one site. On Sundays, it would be Third. And we'd all just post at it during the week.
If that happened, you know, for instance, Mike would cover Democracy Now so that would be one less entry C.I. had to do. And someone could grab a morning entry every now and then. C.I. let Ty and Jess fill in twice on Sunday evening. That's not really a day off. C.I. had to attend functions on those nights. And this was after a marathon session on Third and after doing the morning entry at The Common Ills.
It just seems like that instead of getting easier, things are getting more time consuming. The Iraq snapshot is something that C.I. does because it's, summarizing C.I. here, real easy to gripe, "Where is the Iraq coverage?" But it's harder to note what's going on. That's time consuming. C.I. had already turned the Sunday evening and Thursday evening entries over to Iraq to try to up the awareness and coverage of the war, the peace movement, everything. I don't know that it will get easier ever.
Elaine and I were wondering if today, since C.I. was in DC for the hearing, it would be an entry without the snapshot. But, as Elaine pointed out, that's the kind of challenge that means C.I. works overtime so you got the snapshot, two highlights, DN! and "impressions" of the hearings.
You got two entries this morning, you'll get the "And the war drags on" tonight. It just really amazes me that there's so much being juggled. C.I. will bench Ruth or Isaiah or tell Kat "don't worry about a review, go have some fun." But regardless of where C.I. is, it's entry, entry, entry. It just seems like a lot for one person. Really, too much for one person. Elaine says that if there wasn't the cut off date ("and the return of life after"), C.I. would be nuts but that this whole thing is like working through now to then and just getting through it. She also thinks it will be one week or less of stopping and then it will be back but in a more limited form.
All of that should set you up for the fact that tonight, Mike will be posting an interview with C.I.
And instead of doing links for all the sites above, I'm just noting this:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.
Check out Mike's interview.
The Senate has voted to build a fence along parts of the Mexico border to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. In total, 370 miles of triple-layered barriers would be added near San Diego and in the Arizona desert. Senators also approved a provision that would prevent illegal immigrants from petitioning for a guest-worker permit without the sponsorship an employer. And in a unanimous vote, Senate accepted an amendment that would bar granting work permits to undocumented immigrants convicted of either a felony or at least three misdemeanors. The measure would effect even those who ignored a court-deportation order.
I'm sorry to go personal here but this is such a dry drunk moment. Bully Boy's a dry drunk. He dealt with his addiction to alcohol by finding another one (God) and then another one (blood lust). Someone like that can't deal with what's real. They shut it out. And Bully Boy thinks if he acts like something's not there, it not there.
Like if he keeps acting like he didn't lie us into war, we'll all look the other way too. Mike and I are both grabbing the same headlines tonight. Always check out Mikey Likes It! but to get his take on the headlines, be sure to check him out.
"At Least 50 Killed in Afghanistan Clashes" (Democracy Now):
In Afghanistan, more than fifty people were killed in fighting between Taliban members and Afghan and foreign forces in two southern provinces Wednesday. The dead included a dozen police, a Canadian soldier and more than 30 militants.
That's another elephant in the room that we're not supposed to notice. We're supposed to believe that Bully Boy accomplished something by bombing that country to further ruin and doing pretty much nothing to help rebuild it. The country's run by warlords. There's no safety there. But he got to satisfy his blood lust by bombing and destroying and he was ready to move on for another high (Iraq) and now he needs another quick fix (Iran).
I didn't get to note Betty's "Leather Prada pumps and tears" Tuesday. I'm not sure if she's posting tonight or trying for Friday, but it's hilarious and read it. I wanted to put that in early in case I forgot.
Now I'm going to note the latest on Iraq via C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Chaos and violence was the rule on Wednesday and remains so today. Wednesday, as noted by Bassam Sebti and Debbi Wilgoren, car bombs and gun shots resulted in the death of at least 16 people. As noted by Sabrina Tavernise and Qais Mizher, two corpses ("handcuffed . . . shot in the head") were discovered in Baghad and "[f]ifteen members of the Iraqi Olympic Tae Kwon Do team were kidnapped." The BBC notes that $100,000 is what kidnappers have set as the ransom for the release of the atheletes and CNN notes that the kidnapping took place on "a road between Ramadi and Falluja." The AFP reports Peter Pace (general), testifying to Congress yesterday, stating that "No, sir," there is no prospect of American troops being "withdrawn from even Iraq's most stable regions."
Today?
In Baghdad, the BBC reports, at least three police officer are dead and at least four civilians wounded from a roadside bomb. CNN, in a later report, notes that seven have died and four are wounded. Another roadside bomb has killed at least four and CNN identifies them as "4 U.S. soldiers" in the headline but as "Four Multi-National Division" in the text. AFP identifies them as American soldiers -- an Iraqi interpreter died in the bombing as well. CNN reports the death of "six car mechanics" who were attacked by assailants while on their way to work.
The AFP reports that, in Kirkuk, "local leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Nejmeddin Abdullah" is dead from a drive by shooting as he left "his Kirkuk party headquarters" while "a teacher and a student" were also dead as a result of a drive-by.The Associated Press notes the discovery of a corpse ("beheaded"; "woman labor activist affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party").
A high school teacher was killed in Karbala, Reuters notes.
In Baqouba, the Associated Press reports the destruction of "a small Sunni shrine" as a result of bombing.
In Basra, the Associated Press notes that "police chief Gen. Hassan Swadi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit his convoy as he was heading to work." This would be the same Basra that Des Browne, England's new defense minister, visisted yesterday to declare, "Basra is calm, and British forces are working hand in han with their Iraqi and colation partners. Suggestions that the city is, in some way, out of control are ridiculous." Browne made those comments on Wednesday, the same day, as Reuters notes, that Nazar Abdul-Zahra ("former member of Iraq's national soccer team") was killed.
Though the American press apparently doesn't give a damn about the death of troops in Iraq who aren't American, the issue of Jake Kovco's death and what followed is still a big issue in Australia. Kovco's father-in-law said, regarding the latest developments, "Because of the way everything has been bungled, Shelley and her two kids have had to go through this death three times." So what's the latest? The investigation into the events of Jake Kovco's death and the time afterward (when another body, Juso Sinaovic's body, was shipped to Australia instead of Kovco) someow resulted in "[h]ighly sensitive information about the bungled repatriation . . . [being] left in a computer at an airport."
The report "ended up in the hands of broadcaster Derryn Hinch" and has resulted in John Howard (Australia's prime minister) issuing yet another apology to the family (from Chicago, which is where Howard is currently). As a result of all that Shelley Kovco is being put through (not just 'has been,' is being), the Federal Opposition is saying that "extra compensation to the family of Private Jake Kovco" should be paid.
Jake Kovco's body, following the mix up, was finally laid to rest on May 2nd. Kovco died in Iraq on April 21st. The investigation is supposed to help determine the cause of the death and to help determine how his body and Sinaovic's were mixed up.
Now let me talk about that. I think Iraq's covered there but I'd add that when you think about what Shelley Kovco, her children, her late husband's family and everyone has been through, I can't believe it hasn't already been a Dateline special -- "This is Stone Phillips. Jake Kovco died serving in Iraq. What should have followed was a routine and ceremony familiar to far too many families. Instead . . ."
But what I wanted to talk about was something Elaine and I were talking about. I'd just gotten home from church and she called upset and just wanting to talk. By the way, this is what she was upset about:
"UNICEF: 25% of Iraqi Children Suffer Malnutrition" (Democracy Now):
Meanwhile, a survey carried out by the Iraqi government and UNICEF has concluded a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition.
That's something to be upset about. This whole illegal war is something to be upset about. Every paper in the country should be splashing that on the front page and asking why, in the fourth year of the occupation, Bully Boy's done nothing to help the Iraqi children?
He uses "insurgents" as his excuse for everything else. Well, I don't think people will buy that when faced the fact that children, even the children, aren't a concern of his.
But we talked about Iraq and then we started talking about the snapshot. C.I. was in DC today (and last night) so we were wondering if there would be a snapshot? There was a brief summary of the Michael Hayden hearings.
There's this whole slam bloggers (The Common Ills is a resource/review, before I'm accused of calling it a blog) thing where they're supposedly living in a basement, wearing pajamas and have no life at all. That's not anyone I know. You've got college students like Mike, Wally, Jim, Dona, Ty, Ava and Jess. You've got Betty who's a working mother with three young children. You've got Rebecca who is 'retired' because she made her money in the rat race and got out. I think everyone hopes she and Fly Boy are together for good this time. (He's her ex-husband.) Elaine's a doctor. Trina's raised eight children, worked, has a happy marriage and, like Betty and me, is active in her church. Kat's a working artist. Who's hiding out in a basement?
And all of us go to rallies and demonstrations. Elaine said that if anyone's putting anything on hold it's C.I. and I'd agree with that. C.I.'s not hiding out in a basement. But it's obvious why C.I. was the one to bring up (last summer) the idea of shutting down shop. Right now, as announced, the plan is come November of 2008, we shut shop. Some might continue.
But the one that I know worries the community is C.I. I think if we could all (I'm a member of the community too) be happy with one entry a day, C.I. might continue The Common Ills. But it's just too much work. C.I.'s too busy as it is and dictating so many entries these days. Sometimes, and I've said this to C.I., I think The Common Ills is like a new car. You know how when you get a new car or a new old car and you are so careful where you park it? You're so worried that you're going to get a ding or someone will sideswipe it?
That's what I think The Common Ills is like. We all wish C.I. would take off a day and that might be a possibility if there was ever a day C.I. had already missed. It's just too much for one person. We talk sometimes, all of us, about how if Blogger continues to screw up, just using a for pay site. (C.I. worried that it would be less D.Y.I. if that happened.) If that ever did happen, we're all agreed we'd just do one site. On Sundays, it would be Third. And we'd all just post at it during the week.
If that happened, you know, for instance, Mike would cover Democracy Now so that would be one less entry C.I. had to do. And someone could grab a morning entry every now and then. C.I. let Ty and Jess fill in twice on Sunday evening. That's not really a day off. C.I. had to attend functions on those nights. And this was after a marathon session on Third and after doing the morning entry at The Common Ills.
It just seems like that instead of getting easier, things are getting more time consuming. The Iraq snapshot is something that C.I. does because it's, summarizing C.I. here, real easy to gripe, "Where is the Iraq coverage?" But it's harder to note what's going on. That's time consuming. C.I. had already turned the Sunday evening and Thursday evening entries over to Iraq to try to up the awareness and coverage of the war, the peace movement, everything. I don't know that it will get easier ever.
Elaine and I were wondering if today, since C.I. was in DC for the hearing, it would be an entry without the snapshot. But, as Elaine pointed out, that's the kind of challenge that means C.I. works overtime so you got the snapshot, two highlights, DN! and "impressions" of the hearings.
You got two entries this morning, you'll get the "And the war drags on" tonight. It just really amazes me that there's so much being juggled. C.I. will bench Ruth or Isaiah or tell Kat "don't worry about a review, go have some fun." But regardless of where C.I. is, it's entry, entry, entry. It just seems like a lot for one person. Really, too much for one person. Elaine says that if there wasn't the cut off date ("and the return of life after"), C.I. would be nuts but that this whole thing is like working through now to then and just getting through it. She also thinks it will be one week or less of stopping and then it will be back but in a more limited form.
All of that should set you up for the fact that tonight, Mike will be posting an interview with C.I.
And instead of doing links for all the sites above, I'm just noting this:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.
Check out Mike's interview.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Immigration
Let me start out by noting the "new content" at The Third Estate Sunday Review:
A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Could it be true? Rove indicted?
TV Review: When it's time to go -- That 70s Show
Who exactly are the outlaws?
2 Books, many minutes
About that 'fan mail'
Professional Slime Mike McCurry stabs Milano in the back
Laura Flanders spoke with Cindy Sheehan on Saturday's Radio Nation With Laura Flanders
Mark Danner discusses impeachment with Larry Bensky today on KPFA's Sunday Salon
It was a rough weekend because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. We're trying to get on the phone in about a half hour (little less than that, so I need to hurry) to get some ideas for this week so that we're not pulling such a long shift this weekend. (And I bailed as did everyone but Ty, Ava, Jess, Dona, Jim and C.I. They told us to because we'd added input in the stuff that hadn't been written yet. We grabbed that logic because we wanted some sleep and also because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. If you wonder why I keep saying "most," it's because Elaine's mother passed away when she was very young. I'll say "most" at Father's Day because Wally and I both lost our father's when we were kids. And Elaine lost her mother and father both, at the same time. Those are the breaks. Doesn't make it easy, just makes it the way it is.)
Okay, I wanted to talk about the sermon we heard Sunday in my church. Our pastor talked about Heaven and what our religion believes is needed for you to get there: accepting God as your savior. If you're not religious or your religion is something other than Christianity, stay with me a moment because I'm not trying to change your mind here.
His point was that all God requires is belief and acceptance. So, here's the point, if this administration and our Congress is so full of people willing to toss around the name of the Lord, why do they want to put up all these hurdles for people in this country?
He was talking about immigrants who don't have documentation. They're here now. Who cares how? (I'm sure many have stories of bravery and courage. I'm not dismissing that.) They are here now because they believed that coming here could mean something better. So why are we trying to punish them?
Why is the best we can do, "Apply through a new process and after five years of being a 'guest worker,' we'll let you jump through the hoops required to be a citizen"? They obviously wanted to be here very badly. They still want to be here. Shouldn't that matter?
Shouldn't a belief like that count for something?
Instead of making it count for something, we want to put up some new hurdles and station troops on the border. What is that about?
Give us you poor, your huddled masses . . .
Did they never hear that? The people trying to say, "Sure, stay here, take the jobs no one wants and pray your employer doesn't screw you over for five years and then, THEN, you can try to be a citizen."
That's nonsense.
They've already leapt through hurdles to get here and to work here. They are contributing. If the people tossing around the Lord's name know anything about Christian charity, they should be doing their best to help immigrants, not punish them.
We don't need to create new hurdles, we need to find a way to honor the accomplishments of those who really want to be in this country.
Okay, the timer just went off. It's not time to get on the phone, but I was cooking some dinner in the microwave (don't tell Trina!) and I need to eat it now so I'm not smacking in everyone's ear when we're on the phone. Read Wally's "THIS JUST IN! NEDRA PICKLER SEES INSIDE PEOPLE!" and Elaine's "We hold the Iraqi government and the occupiers responsible for this brutal atrocity" is pretty amazing too. There's a lot of stuff worth reading but I'll just note those two things since I'm rushing.
A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: Could it be true? Rove indicted?
TV Review: When it's time to go -- That 70s Show
Who exactly are the outlaws?
2 Books, many minutes
About that 'fan mail'
Professional Slime Mike McCurry stabs Milano in the back
Laura Flanders spoke with Cindy Sheehan on Saturday's Radio Nation With Laura Flanders
Mark Danner discusses impeachment with Larry Bensky today on KPFA's Sunday Salon
It was a rough weekend because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. We're trying to get on the phone in about a half hour (little less than that, so I need to hurry) to get some ideas for this week so that we're not pulling such a long shift this weekend. (And I bailed as did everyone but Ty, Ava, Jess, Dona, Jim and C.I. They told us to because we'd added input in the stuff that hadn't been written yet. We grabbed that logic because we wanted some sleep and also because most of us had plans for Mother's Day. If you wonder why I keep saying "most," it's because Elaine's mother passed away when she was very young. I'll say "most" at Father's Day because Wally and I both lost our father's when we were kids. And Elaine lost her mother and father both, at the same time. Those are the breaks. Doesn't make it easy, just makes it the way it is.)
Okay, I wanted to talk about the sermon we heard Sunday in my church. Our pastor talked about Heaven and what our religion believes is needed for you to get there: accepting God as your savior. If you're not religious or your religion is something other than Christianity, stay with me a moment because I'm not trying to change your mind here.
His point was that all God requires is belief and acceptance. So, here's the point, if this administration and our Congress is so full of people willing to toss around the name of the Lord, why do they want to put up all these hurdles for people in this country?
He was talking about immigrants who don't have documentation. They're here now. Who cares how? (I'm sure many have stories of bravery and courage. I'm not dismissing that.) They are here now because they believed that coming here could mean something better. So why are we trying to punish them?
Why is the best we can do, "Apply through a new process and after five years of being a 'guest worker,' we'll let you jump through the hoops required to be a citizen"? They obviously wanted to be here very badly. They still want to be here. Shouldn't that matter?
Shouldn't a belief like that count for something?
Instead of making it count for something, we want to put up some new hurdles and station troops on the border. What is that about?
Give us you poor, your huddled masses . . .
Did they never hear that? The people trying to say, "Sure, stay here, take the jobs no one wants and pray your employer doesn't screw you over for five years and then, THEN, you can try to be a citizen."
That's nonsense.
They've already leapt through hurdles to get here and to work here. They are contributing. If the people tossing around the Lord's name know anything about Christian charity, they should be doing their best to help immigrants, not punish them.
We don't need to create new hurdles, we need to find a way to honor the accomplishments of those who really want to be in this country.
Okay, the timer just went off. It's not time to get on the phone, but I was cooking some dinner in the microwave (don't tell Trina!) and I need to eat it now so I'm not smacking in everyone's ear when we're on the phone. Read Wally's "THIS JUST IN! NEDRA PICKLER SEES INSIDE PEOPLE!" and Elaine's "We hold the Iraqi government and the occupiers responsible for this brutal atrocity" is pretty amazing too. There's a lot of stuff worth reading but I'll just note those two things since I'm rushing.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Different stuff
Thursdays, so I'm blogging. (If you're new, I try to blog Tuesdays and Thursdays.)
"Telecom Companies Helped NSA Spy on Millions of US Citizens" (Democracy Now):
Three of the country's largest telecom companies have provided the National Security Agency with the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. This according to a report in USA Today. One source with direct knowledge of the program called it "the largest database ever assembled in the world" whose goal is to collect a record of "every call ever made" within the United States. The Bush administration has insisted its spy program focuses solely on international calls. The companies -- AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth -- have been under contract since after the 9/11 attacks. Only one major telecom company declined to participate in the program. The company, Qwest, reportedly asked the NSA to get FISA-court approval before it would hand over the records. The NSA refused. Although the program does not involve the direct monitoring of phone conservations, it amasses detailed records on who people have called and when they've called them. At least one company had already been implicated in the program. In a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this year, former AT&T technician Mark Klein said AT&T has been working with the National Security Agency to spy on Americans. In addition to raising new questions about the extent of the NSA spy program and the companies involved, the disclosure also raises new questions about CIA Director-nominee Michael Hayden. Hayden headed the National Security Agency at the time the spy program was implemented. He declined USA Today's request for comment.
If you're thinking, "What's going on?" Well, Elaine's off on Thursdays and I called to check on Mike and he suggested that we both cover the same items. I can't turn down my sick friend. (He said the fever's gone and the chicken pox is going down. I kidded him about having a kid's disease.) So remember how Bully Boy keeps covering up? Remember how Alberto Gonzales told the Judiciary Committee in the Senate that he couldn't talk about all the programs that were going on? This is just one more that we didn't know of. Just one more. There's a lot more going on and if more of it starts coming out, you're going to see the Bully Boy (who has a 31% approval rating right now) look more and more like the crook he is.
"UK Attorney General Calls For Guantanamo Closure" (Democracy Now):
Britain's Attorney General has called for the closure of the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a speech in London, Lord Peter Goldsmith said: "The existence of Guantanamo remains unacceptable."
Here's my problem, if we close Guantanamo, where are we going to send the Bush Crime Family after the war crimes tribunal? I'm only half-way joking. I think Bully Boy is in real danger of being tried for war crimes. Not just because he's committed them. But because so many people are outraged by them. I think this is like Anita Hill where people tried to dismiss her and act as though her charges weren't a big deal or weren't true. And that worked during the confirmation hearing for Clarence Thomas, but a year later, there was this huge number of people who believed she told the truth. I think we're going to see something similar when Bully Boy leaves office. All these people who've been silent because they didn't know what they thought or felt that they couldn't think that way about our leader or whatever. When he's out of office, there will be so much disgust expressed openly by people you'd never expect to hear it from.
Go check out Mikey Likes It! to hear Mike's take from his sick bed in the children's ward. (I'm joking with him.)
I listened to KPFA's The Morning Show today and they had an interesting discussion on race issues (they had a great one last week too that C.I., Kat and I were trying to make part of "Where do you get your information?" but everyone was tired. I'm going to push for that topic this weekend. So I'll talk instead about this Canadian documentary they broadcast. It was about the harmful things in the environment -- and the environment is your home. Philip Malderi said in the introduction that it was in a kind of Leave It To Beaver form and it was. I think they named the toddler Sam and I forget the mother, father and older sister's name. But it was a family, and they had a dog, and it addressed the stuff that was in their home without them ever realizing it. Like the dust mites and the dust in the carpet but also things that get tracked in. They used the dog there. He'd been having a blast in the next door neighbor's yard and when he comes back into the house, he's tracking in all the chemicals that they were using in their garden to try to get rid of weeds. And did you know that some of the most pollution you're exposed to is in your car? Sick building disease was talked about too. It was really informative and I'm trying to think of a comment Andrea Lewis made because when I was listening, I thought, "I need to put that in." Now I'm forgetting it. It wasn't about the dust mites. She made some comments on that but it was on something else.
They also talked about how many chemicals children were exposed to. Oh, Andrea Lewis made the point that the air outside was cleaner than the air in many homes. Which also reminds me of Andrea and Philip talking about this one section on air freshners. When people use those, the products usually either just mask the odor or they deaden the nerves (I think it was nerves) in your nose that allow you to smell.
So that was pretty interesting. If you missed it and are interested in hearing it you can go to
KPFA and check out the archives for Thursday or click on The Morning Show and pull up Thursday's show.
Philip almost didn't get mentioned when we were writing "Where do you get your information?" because people were going, "How do you spell it?" (Watch, I'll have mispelled it in this.) "Is it two 'L's?" (C.I. and Kat knew how to spell it.)
Speaking of Kat, I hope everyone's read her four reviews in the last few days:
"Kat's Korner: Pink's not dead or silent"
"Kat's Korner: Neil Young's Living With War -- key word 'Living'"
"Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection"
"Kat's Korner: Need deeper? Check out Josh Ritter's The Animal Years."
She's done that since Saturday. (She'll have a new review this Saturday.) I've always been a been a big fan of Kat's writing. If you go through the old entries at The Common Ills, you'll see that from before I had my own site. As early as December 2004, I'm praising her because she's a really incredible reviewer. She's doing all these reviews lately for two stated reasons. 1) Ruth is on vacation and music reviews can't replace Ruth but they can provide us with some really interesting things to read. 2) There's so much coming out now that so many have stopped playing "War Got Your Tongue?" (I saw a dopey thing about Bob Dylan and how he performed "Masters of War" in concert -- yeah, and he didn't say one word about the current war. He performed a moldy, golden oldy. He does that on all of his tours because no one's coming to hear the new stuff -- and by "new" I mean anything from the 90s, 80s or 70s. It wasn't a "statement." It was more cowardly acts from the King of Cowards.)
I think there's a third reason. Remember when Kat got attacked by the idiot that she hadn't even written about? And how he e-mailed her with what she needed to put up at her site, only to act like she was saying it and not him? I think she's more than over the All Puff No Politics crowd. They really had a lot of nerve attacking Kat. But that's really the sort of thing they can do -- attack people who speak out against the war while they hide in silence. Grown ups, acting like 12 year-olds addicted to their TVs and putting out puff on really bad TV shows while acting like they're a political site.
They're just a joke. (And a nasty two people, there was this idiotic, screaming rant that one of them sent Ava that could best be summed up as the writer needs therapy.)
So while the Puff crowd have made themselves useless, here's Kat still keeping it real, doing her thing, contributing and refusing to be made useless. Two more things to check out are Betty's "The hopping mad Thomas Friedman" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HILLARY CLINTON LOVES THE BOYZ WHO CHEAT ON HER!" That's it for me tonight.
"Telecom Companies Helped NSA Spy on Millions of US Citizens" (Democracy Now):
Three of the country's largest telecom companies have provided the National Security Agency with the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. This according to a report in USA Today. One source with direct knowledge of the program called it "the largest database ever assembled in the world" whose goal is to collect a record of "every call ever made" within the United States. The Bush administration has insisted its spy program focuses solely on international calls. The companies -- AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth -- have been under contract since after the 9/11 attacks. Only one major telecom company declined to participate in the program. The company, Qwest, reportedly asked the NSA to get FISA-court approval before it would hand over the records. The NSA refused. Although the program does not involve the direct monitoring of phone conservations, it amasses detailed records on who people have called and when they've called them. At least one company had already been implicated in the program. In a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this year, former AT&T technician Mark Klein said AT&T has been working with the National Security Agency to spy on Americans. In addition to raising new questions about the extent of the NSA spy program and the companies involved, the disclosure also raises new questions about CIA Director-nominee Michael Hayden. Hayden headed the National Security Agency at the time the spy program was implemented. He declined USA Today's request for comment.
If you're thinking, "What's going on?" Well, Elaine's off on Thursdays and I called to check on Mike and he suggested that we both cover the same items. I can't turn down my sick friend. (He said the fever's gone and the chicken pox is going down. I kidded him about having a kid's disease.) So remember how Bully Boy keeps covering up? Remember how Alberto Gonzales told the Judiciary Committee in the Senate that he couldn't talk about all the programs that were going on? This is just one more that we didn't know of. Just one more. There's a lot more going on and if more of it starts coming out, you're going to see the Bully Boy (who has a 31% approval rating right now) look more and more like the crook he is.
"UK Attorney General Calls For Guantanamo Closure" (Democracy Now):
Britain's Attorney General has called for the closure of the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a speech in London, Lord Peter Goldsmith said: "The existence of Guantanamo remains unacceptable."
Here's my problem, if we close Guantanamo, where are we going to send the Bush Crime Family after the war crimes tribunal? I'm only half-way joking. I think Bully Boy is in real danger of being tried for war crimes. Not just because he's committed them. But because so many people are outraged by them. I think this is like Anita Hill where people tried to dismiss her and act as though her charges weren't a big deal or weren't true. And that worked during the confirmation hearing for Clarence Thomas, but a year later, there was this huge number of people who believed she told the truth. I think we're going to see something similar when Bully Boy leaves office. All these people who've been silent because they didn't know what they thought or felt that they couldn't think that way about our leader or whatever. When he's out of office, there will be so much disgust expressed openly by people you'd never expect to hear it from.
Go check out Mikey Likes It! to hear Mike's take from his sick bed in the children's ward. (I'm joking with him.)
I listened to KPFA's The Morning Show today and they had an interesting discussion on race issues (they had a great one last week too that C.I., Kat and I were trying to make part of "Where do you get your information?" but everyone was tired. I'm going to push for that topic this weekend. So I'll talk instead about this Canadian documentary they broadcast. It was about the harmful things in the environment -- and the environment is your home. Philip Malderi said in the introduction that it was in a kind of Leave It To Beaver form and it was. I think they named the toddler Sam and I forget the mother, father and older sister's name. But it was a family, and they had a dog, and it addressed the stuff that was in their home without them ever realizing it. Like the dust mites and the dust in the carpet but also things that get tracked in. They used the dog there. He'd been having a blast in the next door neighbor's yard and when he comes back into the house, he's tracking in all the chemicals that they were using in their garden to try to get rid of weeds. And did you know that some of the most pollution you're exposed to is in your car? Sick building disease was talked about too. It was really informative and I'm trying to think of a comment Andrea Lewis made because when I was listening, I thought, "I need to put that in." Now I'm forgetting it. It wasn't about the dust mites. She made some comments on that but it was on something else.
They also talked about how many chemicals children were exposed to. Oh, Andrea Lewis made the point that the air outside was cleaner than the air in many homes. Which also reminds me of Andrea and Philip talking about this one section on air freshners. When people use those, the products usually either just mask the odor or they deaden the nerves (I think it was nerves) in your nose that allow you to smell.
So that was pretty interesting. If you missed it and are interested in hearing it you can go to
KPFA and check out the archives for Thursday or click on The Morning Show and pull up Thursday's show.
Philip almost didn't get mentioned when we were writing "Where do you get your information?" because people were going, "How do you spell it?" (Watch, I'll have mispelled it in this.) "Is it two 'L's?" (C.I. and Kat knew how to spell it.)
Speaking of Kat, I hope everyone's read her four reviews in the last few days:
"Kat's Korner: Pink's not dead or silent"
"Kat's Korner: Neil Young's Living With War -- key word 'Living'"
"Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection"
"Kat's Korner: Need deeper? Check out Josh Ritter's The Animal Years."
She's done that since Saturday. (She'll have a new review this Saturday.) I've always been a been a big fan of Kat's writing. If you go through the old entries at The Common Ills, you'll see that from before I had my own site. As early as December 2004, I'm praising her because she's a really incredible reviewer. She's doing all these reviews lately for two stated reasons. 1) Ruth is on vacation and music reviews can't replace Ruth but they can provide us with some really interesting things to read. 2) There's so much coming out now that so many have stopped playing "War Got Your Tongue?" (I saw a dopey thing about Bob Dylan and how he performed "Masters of War" in concert -- yeah, and he didn't say one word about the current war. He performed a moldy, golden oldy. He does that on all of his tours because no one's coming to hear the new stuff -- and by "new" I mean anything from the 90s, 80s or 70s. It wasn't a "statement." It was more cowardly acts from the King of Cowards.)
I think there's a third reason. Remember when Kat got attacked by the idiot that she hadn't even written about? And how he e-mailed her with what she needed to put up at her site, only to act like she was saying it and not him? I think she's more than over the All Puff No Politics crowd. They really had a lot of nerve attacking Kat. But that's really the sort of thing they can do -- attack people who speak out against the war while they hide in silence. Grown ups, acting like 12 year-olds addicted to their TVs and putting out puff on really bad TV shows while acting like they're a political site.
They're just a joke. (And a nasty two people, there was this idiotic, screaming rant that one of them sent Ava that could best be summed up as the writer needs therapy.)
So while the Puff crowd have made themselves useless, here's Kat still keeping it real, doing her thing, contributing and refusing to be made useless. Two more things to check out are Betty's "The hopping mad Thomas Friedman" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HILLARY CLINTON LOVES THE BOYZ WHO CHEAT ON HER!" That's it for me tonight.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Rove about to be indicted?
"Rove Indictment in Leak Case Remains A Possibility" (Democracy Now):
This update on the CIA leak case -- a reporter from MSNBC has publicly said he is convinced Karl Rove will be indicted in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The reporter, David Shuster, made the comment last night, a week after Rove made his fifth appearance before the grand jury investigating the outing of Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Shuster is the same reporter who revealed on MSNBC that Plame was working undercover investigating Iran’s nuclear program at the time of her outing. On Monday the Washington Post reported that Rove had advised his colleagues at the White House on the importance of defending prewar intelligence and countering Wilson's critique of the war.
Rebecca told me that Mike's sick (chicken pox -- Mike, are you ten-years-old, dude!) so for my sick friend, I'll include something from his favorite show at the top of this post and wish him a speedy recovery.
That'd be great if Rove had to do a perp walk.
On a similar/different note, a new family left our church. They moved to the area and started attending about six Sundays ago. It's a Black Church (mainly African-American but we do have other races). The family was nice enough in many ways but they kept making these offensive remarks about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. With the immigration issue in the news, that might have been part of it. But people were telling them they were offensive and they'd just blow it off. (Comments about how Mexican-Americans couldn't drive, were thieves, etc.)
Our pastor went to talk to them -- for the second time -- and this Sunday, they didn't show up at church. They had really offended Three Cool Old Guys because they felt that after all our race went through to get as far as we have (which still isn't equality), there was no justification for any African-American to "traffic in stereotypes and slurs."
I agree with that. Unless we delude ourselves, we know what is still said about us and it's not as bad as it once was, but it's still bad. There's no reason for us to join in attacks on others.
We have one family that is Mexican-American as well as a woman who comes to church by herself who is Cuban-American. Anybody wanting in the church better realize that everyone who's a member is family and there's no room for new members to bring their hate in.
Three Cool Old Guys are going to make this the topic of their column for Friday's gina and krista round-robin and they've got a lot to say on the topic. Be sure to read it.
What else is going on?
Jim's asked if I would jot some stuff down about the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review? I told him I would but I would note why. He said that was cool.
Why? Ava and C.I. were right. If they wrote the piece he wanted them to write, it would overwhelm everything in the edition -- and it has. But here's what's in the latest edition:
"Radio highlights for Sunday (and one for Monday)" -- if you missed any of the programs highlighted, you can catch archived broadcasts of them (for free) so look at the highlights.
"Why He Took On Rumsfeld: Ray McGovern Talks to Democracy Now!" -- this is about something that really angered a bunch of us. Ray McGovern was on a number of shows, including Democracy Now!, talking about what he did last Thursday -- confronted Donald Rumsfeld -- but if you surfed online, it was all CNN, MSNBC and corporate outlets. If you don't support independent media, who are you helping?
"TV commentary takes a back seat this week to Colbert" -- is the piece everyone's e-mailing about. This is the piece Ava and C.I. didn't want to write but Jim and Ty say it's getting a huge positive reception (and overshadowing everything else in the edition) as well as 20 of the nastiest e-mails (at least half include physical threats) that site's ever received. For the record, I agree with every word in that commentary. I also (and Jim knows this) do not think it was fair or appropriate in what was supposed to be an easy week to tell them the day before, "Oh, we're going to need you to weigh in the whole Colbert thing." They'd already planned their commentary for the week, viewed a show, called friends who worked on it, and roughed out their main points. Ava and C.I. are both hugely involved in about three thousand issues at once and they did all their work for their commentary early in the week in the hopes that they could actually get some sleep. Didn't happen. What did happen, as they suspected, was that they'd end up with the attention getting piece for the edition.
"Book: Anthony Arnove's IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal" -- we were tired but we needed to note this book. It's a great book and one you should read and pass on to your friends.
"Shame of the Week (Musical)" -- three mothers saw a commercial and lobbied us to write about it. It is pretty shameful, this shame of the week. If you haven't read it, go read it to find out what offended three mothers. (And those of us writing were offended by it as well.)
"Where do you get your information?" -- this is getting the word out. KPFA has a show called The Morning Show and this is giving you a rundown of that as well as noting Guantanamo. This was actually the start of two pieces but, due to lack of time, it got blended into one piece.
"Head on Home (a musical in four scenes)" -- this is pretty good. More than pretty good. This is one of the things I'm most proud of and point to and say, "Yes, I helped with that." You expect the extreme right wing to call for military solutions to any problem. You don't expect the same from groups like Working Assets. This is a look at the peace movement and quite a bit more. There were actually melodies to the lyrics. Jess, Kat, Rebecca and C.I. came up with this idea and lobbied for it. It had my support right away and I hope we try something similar again. (It doesn't have to be a musical or a play, but just something out of the norm for what we usually do.) Three Cool Old Guys made me sing it to them tonight because they wanted to hear it. Need more music? Check out Kat's "Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection."
"Darfur" -- is the place that Working Assets and others on the left are calling to be turned over to NATO. With regards to Africa, I get a little bothered anytime the "answer" is to send in troops from the "developed" (read: White) nations. If genocide is going on, what's a way to address that without matching bullets for bullets and turning it even more into a war zone? This proposes one possible means of addressing the conflict and it's one I support strongly. I doubt most people will. Like we say, it's easier to send guns and bullets then to welcome anyone to your country. I think Wally's "THIS JUST IN! IT TAKES A COWARD --- SOMETIMES TWO!"
goes with the piece, so check it out.
"TV: The Urine Stains of David Mamet" -- is the review that Ava and C.I. had roughed out, made calls on, etc. They almost didn't write this. But there were a number of technical problems with posting so they ended up grabbing a few minutes (I think 15) and wrote it up.
It made me laugh. It made my cousin laugh. He's seen the show (because he skips church on Wednesdays) and he said they captured it "to a t."
"Editorial: Bully Boy Thinking?" -- we had another topic for the editorial but no one was in the mood and just wanted to get done. So Dona came up with the idea for this which is pulling together a point that was made in the edition and around the community websites all week: the need for perspective.
"A Note to Our Readers" -- is where Jim gets to offer his thoughts each week.
Except for Ava and C.I.'s two commentaries and Jim's notes, the rest of it was worked on by the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot
So that's about it for me tonight. I'll probably have pleasant dreams tonight, thinking about Karl Rove getting indicted.
This update on the CIA leak case -- a reporter from MSNBC has publicly said he is convinced Karl Rove will be indicted in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The reporter, David Shuster, made the comment last night, a week after Rove made his fifth appearance before the grand jury investigating the outing of Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Shuster is the same reporter who revealed on MSNBC that Plame was working undercover investigating Iran’s nuclear program at the time of her outing. On Monday the Washington Post reported that Rove had advised his colleagues at the White House on the importance of defending prewar intelligence and countering Wilson's critique of the war.
Rebecca told me that Mike's sick (chicken pox -- Mike, are you ten-years-old, dude!) so for my sick friend, I'll include something from his favorite show at the top of this post and wish him a speedy recovery.
That'd be great if Rove had to do a perp walk.
On a similar/different note, a new family left our church. They moved to the area and started attending about six Sundays ago. It's a Black Church (mainly African-American but we do have other races). The family was nice enough in many ways but they kept making these offensive remarks about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. With the immigration issue in the news, that might have been part of it. But people were telling them they were offensive and they'd just blow it off. (Comments about how Mexican-Americans couldn't drive, were thieves, etc.)
Our pastor went to talk to them -- for the second time -- and this Sunday, they didn't show up at church. They had really offended Three Cool Old Guys because they felt that after all our race went through to get as far as we have (which still isn't equality), there was no justification for any African-American to "traffic in stereotypes and slurs."
I agree with that. Unless we delude ourselves, we know what is still said about us and it's not as bad as it once was, but it's still bad. There's no reason for us to join in attacks on others.
We have one family that is Mexican-American as well as a woman who comes to church by herself who is Cuban-American. Anybody wanting in the church better realize that everyone who's a member is family and there's no room for new members to bring their hate in.
Three Cool Old Guys are going to make this the topic of their column for Friday's gina and krista round-robin and they've got a lot to say on the topic. Be sure to read it.
What else is going on?
Jim's asked if I would jot some stuff down about the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review? I told him I would but I would note why. He said that was cool.
Why? Ava and C.I. were right. If they wrote the piece he wanted them to write, it would overwhelm everything in the edition -- and it has. But here's what's in the latest edition:
"Radio highlights for Sunday (and one for Monday)" -- if you missed any of the programs highlighted, you can catch archived broadcasts of them (for free) so look at the highlights.
"Why He Took On Rumsfeld: Ray McGovern Talks to Democracy Now!" -- this is about something that really angered a bunch of us. Ray McGovern was on a number of shows, including Democracy Now!, talking about what he did last Thursday -- confronted Donald Rumsfeld -- but if you surfed online, it was all CNN, MSNBC and corporate outlets. If you don't support independent media, who are you helping?
"TV commentary takes a back seat this week to Colbert" -- is the piece everyone's e-mailing about. This is the piece Ava and C.I. didn't want to write but Jim and Ty say it's getting a huge positive reception (and overshadowing everything else in the edition) as well as 20 of the nastiest e-mails (at least half include physical threats) that site's ever received. For the record, I agree with every word in that commentary. I also (and Jim knows this) do not think it was fair or appropriate in what was supposed to be an easy week to tell them the day before, "Oh, we're going to need you to weigh in the whole Colbert thing." They'd already planned their commentary for the week, viewed a show, called friends who worked on it, and roughed out their main points. Ava and C.I. are both hugely involved in about three thousand issues at once and they did all their work for their commentary early in the week in the hopes that they could actually get some sleep. Didn't happen. What did happen, as they suspected, was that they'd end up with the attention getting piece for the edition.
"Book: Anthony Arnove's IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal" -- we were tired but we needed to note this book. It's a great book and one you should read and pass on to your friends.
"Shame of the Week (Musical)" -- three mothers saw a commercial and lobbied us to write about it. It is pretty shameful, this shame of the week. If you haven't read it, go read it to find out what offended three mothers. (And those of us writing were offended by it as well.)
"Where do you get your information?" -- this is getting the word out. KPFA has a show called The Morning Show and this is giving you a rundown of that as well as noting Guantanamo. This was actually the start of two pieces but, due to lack of time, it got blended into one piece.
"Head on Home (a musical in four scenes)" -- this is pretty good. More than pretty good. This is one of the things I'm most proud of and point to and say, "Yes, I helped with that." You expect the extreme right wing to call for military solutions to any problem. You don't expect the same from groups like Working Assets. This is a look at the peace movement and quite a bit more. There were actually melodies to the lyrics. Jess, Kat, Rebecca and C.I. came up with this idea and lobbied for it. It had my support right away and I hope we try something similar again. (It doesn't have to be a musical or a play, but just something out of the norm for what we usually do.) Three Cool Old Guys made me sing it to them tonight because they wanted to hear it. Need more music? Check out Kat's "Kat's Korner: Richie Havens: The Economical Collection."
"Darfur" -- is the place that Working Assets and others on the left are calling to be turned over to NATO. With regards to Africa, I get a little bothered anytime the "answer" is to send in troops from the "developed" (read: White) nations. If genocide is going on, what's a way to address that without matching bullets for bullets and turning it even more into a war zone? This proposes one possible means of addressing the conflict and it's one I support strongly. I doubt most people will. Like we say, it's easier to send guns and bullets then to welcome anyone to your country. I think Wally's "THIS JUST IN! IT TAKES A COWARD --- SOMETIMES TWO!"
goes with the piece, so check it out.
"TV: The Urine Stains of David Mamet" -- is the review that Ava and C.I. had roughed out, made calls on, etc. They almost didn't write this. But there were a number of technical problems with posting so they ended up grabbing a few minutes (I think 15) and wrote it up.
It made me laugh. It made my cousin laugh. He's seen the show (because he skips church on Wednesdays) and he said they captured it "to a t."
"Editorial: Bully Boy Thinking?" -- we had another topic for the editorial but no one was in the mood and just wanted to get done. So Dona came up with the idea for this which is pulling together a point that was made in the edition and around the community websites all week: the need for perspective.
"A Note to Our Readers" -- is where Jim gets to offer his thoughts each week.
Except for Ava and C.I.'s two commentaries and Jim's notes, the rest of it was worked on by the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot
So that's about it for me tonight. I'll probably have pleasant dreams tonight, thinking about Karl Rove getting indicted.
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