"Chickensh*t is so called ? instead of horse- or bull- or elephant sh*t ? because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously. Chickensh*t can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war."
We've got five more years of this, and after November, all political constraints on Bush and co. will be gone. More chickensh*t, anyone?
To gain a fuller understanding, we must disabuse ourselves of our high school civics lessons where we're led to believe that when people assume political office, or receive bureaucratic appointments, they're somehow a changed person and motivated by the public interest. No such thing happens. When a person becomes a politician or bureaucrat, he's still motivated by self-interest, he's simply in a different market with different restraints. Buyers in that market seek favors and privileges from government. Politicians are suppliers of those favors and privileges - and the prices are campaign contributions and votes.
You say, "What's the grief, Williams? Five dollars won't kill you." Washington is home to thousands of business and labor union lobbyists looking for a leg up here and a handout there. After a while $5 here and $4 there adds up to real money. According to some estimates, restrictions of one kind or another cost the average American family $5,000 to $6,000 a year in higher prices.
townsend even says at one point: "I know I broke the law legally, but the law was broken when it was retrospectively changed. I wonder whether Blunkett (British Home Secretary David Blunkett) changed the law to gather up the names that had been found by the FBI on the Landslide list. It's quite possible he did."
Speaking at the Capitol Hilton before an audience of such skeptics, Kennedy held up what he said was a telegram from his "generous daddy" and read it aloud: "Jack, Don't spend one dime more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide."
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
"I have given the order to plan for the evacuation of 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip," the right-wing prime minister told the Haaretz newspaper. "I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no Jews in Gaza."
A senior government source said it would happen if talks with the Palestinians hit a dead end.
His plan entails removal of all but two or three Jewish enclaves in the 360-sq-km (139-sq-mile) coastal strip, where over a million Palestinians live in poverty beside a few thousand settlers who control 21 per cent of the land.
Sharon said his plan "has to be done with American agreement and support."
A senior government source said it would happen if talks with the Palestinians hit a dead end.
His plan entails removal of all but two or three Jewish enclaves in the 360-sq-km (139-sq-mile) coastal strip, where over a million Palestinians live in poverty beside a few thousand settlers who control 21 per cent of the land.
Sharon said his plan "has to be done with American agreement and support."
Zinni was right. So was Gen. Merrill A. McPeak. So was Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan. So was Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf. So was former Navy Secretary and much-decorated Marine veteran James Webb. So was Commander Maj. Gen. Patrick Cordingley. So were a host of other top officers, both retired and active duty
"How do you do it?" they asked their hosts. "In our country, to achieve this, we throw people in prison; we tear out their fingernails. Here, there’s none of that? What’s your secret?"
Throughout 20th century imperialism, the authorities of Britain, Belgium and France gassed, bombed and massacred indigenous populations from Sudan to Iraq, Nigeria to Palestine, India to Malaya, Algeria to the Congo. And yet imperialism only got its bad name when Hitler decided he, too, was an imperialist.
A Czech friend, a novelist, told me; "You in the West are disadvantaged. You have your myths about freedom of information, but you have yet to acquire the skill of deciphering: of reading between the lines. One day, you will need it."
Why is there no public discussion about this? The answer is that Australia has become a microcosm of the self-censored society. In its current index of press freedom, the international monitoring organisation Reporters Without Borders lists Australian press freedom in 50th place, ahead only of autocracies and dictatorships. How did this come about?
Today, of twelve principal newspapers in the capital cities, one man, Rupert Murdoch, controls seven. Of the ten Sunday newspapers, Murdoch has seven. In Adelaide and Brisbane, he has effectively a complete monopoly. He controls almost 70 per cent of capital city circulation. Perth has only one newspaper.
the three most significant political developments of the twentieth century were, "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
In 1983, the principal media in America was owned by fifty corporations. In 2002, this had fallen to just nine companies. Today, Murdoch’s Fox Television and four other conglomerates are on the verge of controlling 90 per cent of the terrestrial and cable audience. Even on the Internet, the leading twenty websites are now owned by Fox, Disney, AOL, Time Warner, Viacom and other giants. Just fourteen companies attract 60 per cent of all the time Americans spend online.
George Orwell wrote: "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip. But the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip."
For those members of our small, privileged and powerful elite, I recommend the words of Flaubert. "I have always tried to live in an ivory tower," he said, "but a tide of shit is beating its walls, threatening to undermine it." For the rest of us, I offer these words of Mahatma Gandhi: "First, they ignore," he said. "Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
"How do you do it?" they asked their hosts. "In our country, to achieve this, we throw people in prison; we tear out their fingernails. Here, there’s none of that? What’s your secret?"
Throughout 20th century imperialism, the authorities of Britain, Belgium and France gassed, bombed and massacred indigenous populations from Sudan to Iraq, Nigeria to Palestine, India to Malaya, Algeria to the Congo. And yet imperialism only got its bad name when Hitler decided he, too, was an imperialist.
A Czech friend, a novelist, told me; "You in the West are disadvantaged. You have your myths about freedom of information, but you have yet to acquire the skill of deciphering: of reading between the lines. One day, you will need it."
Why is there no public discussion about this? The answer is that Australia has become a microcosm of the self-censored society. In its current index of press freedom, the international monitoring organisation Reporters Without Borders lists Australian press freedom in 50th place, ahead only of autocracies and dictatorships. How did this come about?
Today, of twelve principal newspapers in the capital cities, one man, Rupert Murdoch, controls seven. Of the ten Sunday newspapers, Murdoch has seven. In Adelaide and Brisbane, he has effectively a complete monopoly. He controls almost 70 per cent of capital city circulation. Perth has only one newspaper.
the three most significant political developments of the twentieth century were, "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
In 1983, the principal media in America was owned by fifty corporations. In 2002, this had fallen to just nine companies. Today, Murdoch’s Fox Television and four other conglomerates are on the verge of controlling 90 per cent of the terrestrial and cable audience. Even on the Internet, the leading twenty websites are now owned by Fox, Disney, AOL, Time Warner, Viacom and other giants. Just fourteen companies attract 60 per cent of all the time Americans spend online.
George Orwell wrote: "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip. But the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip."
For those members of our small, privileged and powerful elite, I recommend the words of Flaubert. "I have always tried to live in an ivory tower," he said, "but a tide of shit is beating its walls, threatening to undermine it." For the rest of us, I offer these words of Mahatma Gandhi: "First, they ignore," he said. "Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
wilson: The best line I?ve ever heard about democracy is that it?s a bit like an English lawn. You have to seed it, you have to fertilize it, you have to water it, and to make it look really good you have to rule it every day for 600 years. Now I?ve done democracy in Africa for 25 years, and it is tough. It takes a lot of institution building, it takes a lot of precedent setting, it takes a certain respect on the part of the population for the institutions and the laws that have been passed, it requires the spirit of compromise?none of which is in place in Iraq.
"Well, I don?t think it was oil. What I do think on the oil thing, though, is that my experience is that once you have vested commercial interests in place, that they will trump strategic interests every time. So that while I think that they did go on what these guys thought were strategic reasons, that the vested interests will begin to shape how we deal with this going forward.
xymph: In order to maintain the charade that such weapons would be found, Bush gave Kay $600 million to go back to Iraq and pretend to look for them. Since the Administration already knew that there were no weapons to be found, the only purpose of the $600 million was to delay admitting that there were no weapons to a time when it would be less politically sensitive for Bush and the Republicans. Shouldn't the Republicans be offering to pay this completely wasted $600 million back to the American taxpayers?
Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age ? in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset ? and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.
It turns out that the ice age versus temperate weather patterns weren't part of a smooth and linear process, like a dimmer slider for an overhead light bulb. They are part of a delicately balanced teeter-totter, which can exist in one state or the other, but transits through the middle stage almost overnight.
"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly can't have a policy of preemption," Kay said on Fox News Sunday.
Recalling former French President Charles De Gaulle's statement that he so trusted President John F. Kennedy's word he did not need to see satellite photos of Soviet missiles near Cuba, Biden told CNN: "No leader in the world would respond to President Bush that way today."
"A marketplace phenomena was about to occur, if it did not occur; sellers meeting buyers. And I think that would have been very dangerous if the war had not intervened," Kay said.
mr ed - it seems that everyone is reading off the same page re germany's "self-confessed cannibal". wot, pray tell, is a self-confessed cannibal?
NO wonder Downing Street detests the BBC. Take your mind back to the episode of Yes, Minister wherein Jim Hacker expressed great concern about a looming political scandal. Should the media twig what had been going on, Jim's brilliant career would be considerably tarnished. His unflappable permanent head, Sir Humphrey, sought to soothe the panicking politician by suggesting that the best approach would be to hold a "top-level inquiry", chaired by some "sound fellow" from the City, one hopeful of preferment. Perhaps a chappie yearning for an appointment to the Bank of England board?
Noting that "The Wall Street Journal lists Halliburton's billings at twice the total of 40 other contractors in Iraq," Lionel Van Deerlin observes that "Clearly, war is not hell for everyone."
"It's exposed a huge problem in our intelligence gathering. But who wants to take that on in an election year? Or while you are fighting terrorists?"
coulter:Kerry's life experience consists of living off other men's money by marrying their wives and daughters. For over 30 years, Kerry's primary occupation has been stalking lonely heiresses.
As the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein trenchantly observed, "It's amazing the coincidences you find digging into Hollinger International," where corporate bandits and rip-off artists meet and merge with the intellectual Mafia that runs American foreign policy.
The spirit of the neoconservative enterprise was captured, oh irony of ironies, in a wonderful piece in the Jerusalem Post, "Neoconservatives on Mars.":
"But the best thing, the most thrilling aspect of the space program, the truly delicious part, is how it eats up so many hundreds of billions of dollars for no other purpose but one's amusement! One's joy. When all those rabble that the liberals are always blubbering over are starving, dying of thirst, dying of AIDS, dying of whatever ? we're going to Mars! It's so ? Roman."
It is no longer possible to view commercial news media as mere servants of the ruling rich ? they are full members of the presiding corporate pantheon.
The corporate media is a window on the dialogue among the rich.
Foreign Affairs [May-June, 2001]:
Abuzed Dorda, Libya's U.N. envoy, has said, 'I expect that we will sit down with the Americans and put the past behind us.' Even Qadaffi, in his own eccentric manner, has made overtures to the new American president, stressing, 'I believe that George W. Bush will be nice. As a person he is not malicious or imperialist. I believe that he attaches importance to the United States and does not have world ambitions.'"
"Well, I don?t think it was oil. What I do think on the oil thing, though, is that my experience is that once you have vested commercial interests in place, that they will trump strategic interests every time. So that while I think that they did go on what these guys thought were strategic reasons, that the vested interests will begin to shape how we deal with this going forward.
xymph: In order to maintain the charade that such weapons would be found, Bush gave Kay $600 million to go back to Iraq and pretend to look for them. Since the Administration already knew that there were no weapons to be found, the only purpose of the $600 million was to delay admitting that there were no weapons to a time when it would be less politically sensitive for Bush and the Republicans. Shouldn't the Republicans be offering to pay this completely wasted $600 million back to the American taxpayers?
Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age ? in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset ? and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.
It turns out that the ice age versus temperate weather patterns weren't part of a smooth and linear process, like a dimmer slider for an overhead light bulb. They are part of a delicately balanced teeter-totter, which can exist in one state or the other, but transits through the middle stage almost overnight.
"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly can't have a policy of preemption," Kay said on Fox News Sunday.
Recalling former French President Charles De Gaulle's statement that he so trusted President John F. Kennedy's word he did not need to see satellite photos of Soviet missiles near Cuba, Biden told CNN: "No leader in the world would respond to President Bush that way today."
"A marketplace phenomena was about to occur, if it did not occur; sellers meeting buyers. And I think that would have been very dangerous if the war had not intervened," Kay said.
mr ed - it seems that everyone is reading off the same page re germany's "self-confessed cannibal". wot, pray tell, is a self-confessed cannibal?
NO wonder Downing Street detests the BBC. Take your mind back to the episode of Yes, Minister wherein Jim Hacker expressed great concern about a looming political scandal. Should the media twig what had been going on, Jim's brilliant career would be considerably tarnished. His unflappable permanent head, Sir Humphrey, sought to soothe the panicking politician by suggesting that the best approach would be to hold a "top-level inquiry", chaired by some "sound fellow" from the City, one hopeful of preferment. Perhaps a chappie yearning for an appointment to the Bank of England board?
Noting that "The Wall Street Journal lists Halliburton's billings at twice the total of 40 other contractors in Iraq," Lionel Van Deerlin observes that "Clearly, war is not hell for everyone."
"It's exposed a huge problem in our intelligence gathering. But who wants to take that on in an election year? Or while you are fighting terrorists?"
coulter:Kerry's life experience consists of living off other men's money by marrying their wives and daughters. For over 30 years, Kerry's primary occupation has been stalking lonely heiresses.
As the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein trenchantly observed, "It's amazing the coincidences you find digging into Hollinger International," where corporate bandits and rip-off artists meet and merge with the intellectual Mafia that runs American foreign policy.
The spirit of the neoconservative enterprise was captured, oh irony of ironies, in a wonderful piece in the Jerusalem Post, "Neoconservatives on Mars.":
"But the best thing, the most thrilling aspect of the space program, the truly delicious part, is how it eats up so many hundreds of billions of dollars for no other purpose but one's amusement! One's joy. When all those rabble that the liberals are always blubbering over are starving, dying of thirst, dying of AIDS, dying of whatever ? we're going to Mars! It's so ? Roman."
It is no longer possible to view commercial news media as mere servants of the ruling rich ? they are full members of the presiding corporate pantheon.
The corporate media is a window on the dialogue among the rich.
Foreign Affairs [May-June, 2001]:
Abuzed Dorda, Libya's U.N. envoy, has said, 'I expect that we will sit down with the Americans and put the past behind us.' Even Qadaffi, in his own eccentric manner, has made overtures to the new American president, stressing, 'I believe that George W. Bush will be nice. As a person he is not malicious or imperialist. I believe that he attaches importance to the United States and does not have world ambitions.'"
Monday, February 02, 2004
Overall, the capture of Saddam Hussein seems to have made little difference to the level of resistance. This is not immediately obvious, because the number of attacks on US forces is down to about 17 a day now, compared with twice that two months ago. But this is in large part because, eager to cut their casualties, US commanders cut the number of patrols they carry out by two thirds from 1,500 a day in November to 500 a day in December.
One of Dr. Kay's most important observations cut the legs out from under those who insist the president and his subordinates ? in particular, Vice President Dick Cheney ? manipulated the intelligence they received from the CIA and other agencies. "In the course of [his work in Iraq], I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance. And never ? not in a single case ? was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it.'"
He went on to note that, "...Almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that. The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis."
Even if Democratic presidential candidates refuse to acknowledge it, David Kay's testimony actually confirms the president's most important claim to reelection: He spared us the very difficult problem of having to do something about the "Butcher of Baghdad" after the U.N. had let Saddam out of the so-called "box" in which he was supposedly being "contained."
One of Dr. Kay's most important observations cut the legs out from under those who insist the president and his subordinates ? in particular, Vice President Dick Cheney ? manipulated the intelligence they received from the CIA and other agencies. "In the course of [his work in Iraq], I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance. And never ? not in a single case ? was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it.'"
He went on to note that, "...Almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that. The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis."
Even if Democratic presidential candidates refuse to acknowledge it, David Kay's testimony actually confirms the president's most important claim to reelection: He spared us the very difficult problem of having to do something about the "Butcher of Baghdad" after the U.N. had let Saddam out of the so-called "box" in which he was supposedly being "contained."
Bill O'Reilly - Good Morning America - 3-18-03 -- "And I said on my program, if -- if -- the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again."
It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues.
The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade ? almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago.
Diebold "basically had no interest in putting actual security in this system," said Paul Franceus, one of the consultants. "It's not like they did it wrong. It's like they didn't bother."
On Jan. 23, Pellicano was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of illegal explosives. Federal agents found plastic explosive and a pair of hand grenades in his Sunset Boulevard office. They were searching for evidence of his involvement in a plot to frighten a Los Angeles Times reporter into abandoning a story on movie star Steven Seagal.
It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues.
The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade ? almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago.
Diebold "basically had no interest in putting actual security in this system," said Paul Franceus, one of the consultants. "It's not like they did it wrong. It's like they didn't bother."
On Jan. 23, Pellicano was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of illegal explosives. Federal agents found plastic explosive and a pair of hand grenades in his Sunset Boulevard office. They were searching for evidence of his involvement in a plot to frighten a Los Angeles Times reporter into abandoning a story on movie star Steven Seagal.
THE British government has seen "categoric" evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction ahead of the war to unseat Saddam Hussein, one of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's top ministers insisted today.
"Saddam is in Iraq now and, yes, he will be tried publicly by a special Iraqi court when the prerequisites for setting up such a court are completed," Mr Bremer told the Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
"Saddam will be handed over to the Governing Council after it finishes setting up the court." Asked if Hussein was co-operating with investigators, Mr Bremer replied: "He is not co-operating but he is not a troublemaker either.
"He has not given us any important or useful information up to now and has not confessed to the whereabouts of his offshore funds, but we know for sure that he has a lot of money outside Iraq."
ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said last week Hussein could not be tried in Iraq until the country regained its sovereignty, due to Geneva Conventions restrictions.
THE US has used information gained during interrogations of Saddam Hussein to help round up insurgents and identify false leads, a senior military official said today.
It has been pointed out that it is inconsistent for Hutton to be happy with Blair's reliance on one uncorroborated source for the 45 minute claim, when he comes down on the BBC like a ton of bricks when Gilligan relied on one uncorroborated source in his reporting.
A second leaked document prepared by the BBC for Hutton also reveals crucial details of why executives stood by its controversial Today report, detailing a lunch between the head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, and Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme. In a witness statement prepared by Marsh and BBC legal representatives, it is claimed that Dearlove suggested that 'hard evidence of WMD in Iraq would never be found'.
During proceedings in the rape case Monday before the prosecutor and defense attorney, Stephenson looked at a photograph of the battered victim and said, "Why would he want to rape her? She doesn't look like a day at the beach," according to a transcript reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.
"Saddam is in Iraq now and, yes, he will be tried publicly by a special Iraqi court when the prerequisites for setting up such a court are completed," Mr Bremer told the Arabic-language daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
"Saddam will be handed over to the Governing Council after it finishes setting up the court." Asked if Hussein was co-operating with investigators, Mr Bremer replied: "He is not co-operating but he is not a troublemaker either.
"He has not given us any important or useful information up to now and has not confessed to the whereabouts of his offshore funds, but we know for sure that he has a lot of money outside Iraq."
ICRC spokeswoman Nada Doumani said last week Hussein could not be tried in Iraq until the country regained its sovereignty, due to Geneva Conventions restrictions.
THE US has used information gained during interrogations of Saddam Hussein to help round up insurgents and identify false leads, a senior military official said today.
It has been pointed out that it is inconsistent for Hutton to be happy with Blair's reliance on one uncorroborated source for the 45 minute claim, when he comes down on the BBC like a ton of bricks when Gilligan relied on one uncorroborated source in his reporting.
A second leaked document prepared by the BBC for Hutton also reveals crucial details of why executives stood by its controversial Today report, detailing a lunch between the head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, and Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme. In a witness statement prepared by Marsh and BBC legal representatives, it is claimed that Dearlove suggested that 'hard evidence of WMD in Iraq would never be found'.
During proceedings in the rape case Monday before the prosecutor and defense attorney, Stephenson looked at a photograph of the battered victim and said, "Why would he want to rape her? She doesn't look like a day at the beach," according to a transcript reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.
Some of the same personnel who worked in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP), which reviewed intelligence for evidence allegedly linking Saddam to the al Qaeda terrorist group and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs before the Iraq invasion, have reportedly been working on a similar effort regarding Syria. David Wurmser, a neoconservative who has long advocated destabilizing Damascus through Lebanon and Iraq, joined Cheney's staff as his Mideast adviser last September. An administration ally, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, also suggested this week that Iraq's alleged WMD stockpiles were transported to Syria before the war.
McVeigh, the argument ran, had some help from Nichols and another friend from army days, Michael Fortier, but essentially he carried out the bombing alone. No accomplices, no broader network of conspirators, nothing. Case closed, as far as the government was concerned.
Now imagine the scene all over again, this time with extra details supplied by eyewitnesses interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing and by the investigative work of a handful of journalists, lawyers and academics who have spent the past six years going over every detail of the calamity to try to wheedle out its mysteries.
McVeigh was found in just 48 hours, largely thanks to the fact he had been pulled over on the freeway for a missing back licence plate and remanded in police custody for possession of an illegal concealed weapon.
The Army is so strained that it has pulled up more than 100,000 reservists for long stretches, doubled the length of deployments for regular military and ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to remain in the service involuntarily. With some commanders in Iraq complaining publicly that they are short the soldiers they need, more than two dozen House Democrats have backed a bill to add about 82,000 troops ? 40,000 soldiers, 27,000 airmen and 15,000 Marines ? to the congressionally approved limit of 482,000.
This week, in an unexpected move that military officials say will relieve some of the stress on the force, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked emergency orders authorizing the Army to grow temporarily by 30,000 troops.
Base pay, bonuses, special pay and allowances for things like food and on-base housing ? plus the advantage troops receive because some allowances are not subject to federal income tax ? typically make up only 43% of a service member's total compensation.
The other 57% is made up of subsidized goods and services that can be used immediately, such as medical care, groceries and child care, along with the accrued cost of retirement pensions, healthcare for retirees and veterans benefits.
Benefits aside, members of the military average $43,000 a year in pay
Americans believe that they are free until they encounter the ?justice? system, at which time they learn that they are as helpless as medieval serfs.
? KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan president said a recent U.S. airstrike killed 10 civilians, including women and children, contradicting American military reports that claimed the casualties were Taliban militants. Meanwhile, the U.S. military said a blast at an arms dump that killed eight soldiers appeared to have been an accident. President Hamid Karzai said an Interior Ministry report had found that the Jan. 17 airstrike on a village killed 10 civilians. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said a review of the report was underway.
In all, some 107 U.S. soldiers have died 37 of them in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom that began in Afghanistan in late 2001.
McVeigh, the argument ran, had some help from Nichols and another friend from army days, Michael Fortier, but essentially he carried out the bombing alone. No accomplices, no broader network of conspirators, nothing. Case closed, as far as the government was concerned.
Now imagine the scene all over again, this time with extra details supplied by eyewitnesses interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing and by the investigative work of a handful of journalists, lawyers and academics who have spent the past six years going over every detail of the calamity to try to wheedle out its mysteries.
McVeigh was found in just 48 hours, largely thanks to the fact he had been pulled over on the freeway for a missing back licence plate and remanded in police custody for possession of an illegal concealed weapon.
The Army is so strained that it has pulled up more than 100,000 reservists for long stretches, doubled the length of deployments for regular military and ordered tens of thousands of soldiers to remain in the service involuntarily. With some commanders in Iraq complaining publicly that they are short the soldiers they need, more than two dozen House Democrats have backed a bill to add about 82,000 troops ? 40,000 soldiers, 27,000 airmen and 15,000 Marines ? to the congressionally approved limit of 482,000.
This week, in an unexpected move that military officials say will relieve some of the stress on the force, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked emergency orders authorizing the Army to grow temporarily by 30,000 troops.
Base pay, bonuses, special pay and allowances for things like food and on-base housing ? plus the advantage troops receive because some allowances are not subject to federal income tax ? typically make up only 43% of a service member's total compensation.
The other 57% is made up of subsidized goods and services that can be used immediately, such as medical care, groceries and child care, along with the accrued cost of retirement pensions, healthcare for retirees and veterans benefits.
Benefits aside, members of the military average $43,000 a year in pay
Americans believe that they are free until they encounter the ?justice? system, at which time they learn that they are as helpless as medieval serfs.
? KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan president said a recent U.S. airstrike killed 10 civilians, including women and children, contradicting American military reports that claimed the casualties were Taliban militants. Meanwhile, the U.S. military said a blast at an arms dump that killed eight soldiers appeared to have been an accident. President Hamid Karzai said an Interior Ministry report had found that the Jan. 17 airstrike on a village killed 10 civilians. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said a review of the report was underway.
In all, some 107 U.S. soldiers have died 37 of them in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom that began in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
"I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts," the president said.
British Airways has canceled three flights from Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C. and Miami because of government security concerns, the airline said Saturday.
The official said that while some of the canceled flights were scheduled for Sunday, when the Super Bowl is being played in Houston, there is no direct intelligence to indicate a threat to the football game.
WASHINGTON ? Vice President Dick Cheney revived two controversial assertions about the war in Iraq on Thursday, declaring there was "overwhelming evidence" that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Al Qaeda and that two trailers discovered after the war were proof of Iraq's biological weapons programs.
"Nobody has ever said Saddam directed Al Qaeda in attacks," Pletka said. "But it is clear that had he decided to do so at any point it would have been easy."
Americans are asking why the French are so attached to secularism.
The network, citing its decades-old policy against accepting paid policy advocacy ads, also turned down a spot submitted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Their first conversation took place on Dec. 30, 2000. That morning, the Associated Press had run an article announcing that a two-day economic forum with the president-elect in Austin, Tex., would feature O'Neill, the Treasury secretary-designate; Donald Evans, his counterpart-to-be at Commerce; and Lawrence Lindsey, who would be chief economic adviser. O'Neill learned about his participation while reading The New York Times.
What enriches ''The Price of Loyalty,'' aside from the accretion of persuasive detail, is its assertion that in this administration, a time-honored notion of public service has been deeply corrupted.
But Cheney -- the book's chief villain and, if Suskind and O'Neill are to be believed, our functional president -- just sat passively.
''Politics, as it's now played, is not about being right,'' O'Neill concludes. ''It's about doing whatever's necessary to win. They're not the same.''
"It is very hard to see (the prewar analysis on Iraq) as anything but a failure in terms of the specifics that we provided" to policy-makers, Kerr said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. He said he submitted a report of his findings to CIA Director George J. Tenet this week that in many respects echoes the criticism raised in recent days by David Kay, who resigned last week as head of the U.S. weapons search team in Iraq.
?I think he knows that he's in trouble,? noted one prominent Republican activist, who thinks Cheney should be dropped. ?I don't think there's any other way to explain why he would sit for a puerile interview for the (Washington Post's) ?Style? section. You know he despises that sort of thing.?
Indeed, the fact that Cheney would cite Yasin at this late date suggested that he still clings to a theory developed in the 1990s by Iraq specialist Laurie Mylroie at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that al Qaeda was actually a front for Iraqi intelligence, a notion that is completely dismissed by the intelligence community.
British Airways has canceled three flights from Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C. and Miami because of government security concerns, the airline said Saturday.
The official said that while some of the canceled flights were scheduled for Sunday, when the Super Bowl is being played in Houston, there is no direct intelligence to indicate a threat to the football game.
WASHINGTON ? Vice President Dick Cheney revived two controversial assertions about the war in Iraq on Thursday, declaring there was "overwhelming evidence" that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Al Qaeda and that two trailers discovered after the war were proof of Iraq's biological weapons programs.
"Nobody has ever said Saddam directed Al Qaeda in attacks," Pletka said. "But it is clear that had he decided to do so at any point it would have been easy."
Americans are asking why the French are so attached to secularism.
The network, citing its decades-old policy against accepting paid policy advocacy ads, also turned down a spot submitted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Their first conversation took place on Dec. 30, 2000. That morning, the Associated Press had run an article announcing that a two-day economic forum with the president-elect in Austin, Tex., would feature O'Neill, the Treasury secretary-designate; Donald Evans, his counterpart-to-be at Commerce; and Lawrence Lindsey, who would be chief economic adviser. O'Neill learned about his participation while reading The New York Times.
What enriches ''The Price of Loyalty,'' aside from the accretion of persuasive detail, is its assertion that in this administration, a time-honored notion of public service has been deeply corrupted.
But Cheney -- the book's chief villain and, if Suskind and O'Neill are to be believed, our functional president -- just sat passively.
''Politics, as it's now played, is not about being right,'' O'Neill concludes. ''It's about doing whatever's necessary to win. They're not the same.''
"It is very hard to see (the prewar analysis on Iraq) as anything but a failure in terms of the specifics that we provided" to policy-makers, Kerr said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. He said he submitted a report of his findings to CIA Director George J. Tenet this week that in many respects echoes the criticism raised in recent days by David Kay, who resigned last week as head of the U.S. weapons search team in Iraq.
?I think he knows that he's in trouble,? noted one prominent Republican activist, who thinks Cheney should be dropped. ?I don't think there's any other way to explain why he would sit for a puerile interview for the (Washington Post's) ?Style? section. You know he despises that sort of thing.?
Indeed, the fact that Cheney would cite Yasin at this late date suggested that he still clings to a theory developed in the 1990s by Iraq specialist Laurie Mylroie at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that al Qaeda was actually a front for Iraqi intelligence, a notion that is completely dismissed by the intelligence community.
Karzai said recent videos showing bin Laden demonstrated that he was still alive. "Everyone can see those videos," he said
Two suicide attacks killed two international peacekeepers from Britain and Canada in the capital Kabul in the past week.
"Our biggest problem with this was the late notification. If the NFL had made this decision, why didn't they give us 30 days notice?" Krohn said. "We wouldn't have scheduled the event. We wouldn't have spent the money."
British Airways and Air France said on Saturday they had canceled seven flights to and from the United States amid fears of a possible September 11-style attack.
mred - curiously, no vegas planes were cancelled - wasnt there also some concern about vegas at xmas? also there were these parties cancelled - could it be that 'osama' is planning a vegas attack during the futbol?
"There are a handful of flights we are concerned about and British Airways has canceled about half of them," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"We canceled these flights on advice from the UK government for security reasons," a spokeswoman for the airline said, without giving details.
Leith and her 17-year-old sister downloaded 960 songs over a three-year period using the popular Kazaa program. But the free music binge got Leith ensnared in the legal dragnet cast by the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) in September.
mred - i thought there were no political ads
Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the new figures hurt the administration's credibility. "Every pressure tactic known to mankind was used to get it through the House at $400 billion. At another $150 billion, it wouldn't have gotten through," Smith said.
"The president is always very clear with the American people in the decisions that we are making and very upfront with them about the information that we have," McClellan told reporters.
But administration officials, budget analysts, lobbyists, political conservatives and congressional sources said the administration, if not the president, had long known of the discrepancy.
Two suicide attacks killed two international peacekeepers from Britain and Canada in the capital Kabul in the past week.
"Our biggest problem with this was the late notification. If the NFL had made this decision, why didn't they give us 30 days notice?" Krohn said. "We wouldn't have scheduled the event. We wouldn't have spent the money."
British Airways and Air France said on Saturday they had canceled seven flights to and from the United States amid fears of a possible September 11-style attack.
mred - curiously, no vegas planes were cancelled - wasnt there also some concern about vegas at xmas? also there were these parties cancelled - could it be that 'osama' is planning a vegas attack during the futbol?
"There are a handful of flights we are concerned about and British Airways has canceled about half of them," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"We canceled these flights on advice from the UK government for security reasons," a spokeswoman for the airline said, without giving details.
Leith and her 17-year-old sister downloaded 960 songs over a three-year period using the popular Kazaa program. But the free music binge got Leith ensnared in the legal dragnet cast by the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) in September.
mred - i thought there were no political ads
Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the new figures hurt the administration's credibility. "Every pressure tactic known to mankind was used to get it through the House at $400 billion. At another $150 billion, it wouldn't have gotten through," Smith said.
"The president is always very clear with the American people in the decisions that we are making and very upfront with them about the information that we have," McClellan told reporters.
But administration officials, budget analysts, lobbyists, political conservatives and congressional sources said the administration, if not the president, had long known of the discrepancy.
Female GIs Report Rapes in Iraq War
37 seek aid after alleging sex assaults by U.S. soldiers
Nearly 30 percent of 202 female Vietnam veterans surveyed in 1990 said they experienced a sexual encounter "accompanied by force or threat of force," according to the Congressional Record. And a study of troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War by Department of Veterans Affairs researchers found that 7 percent of surveyed women reported sexual assaults, while 33 percent reported sexual harassment.
So far exactly two people who spent time at Guantanamo have had access to due process -- and the government's record stands at 0 and 2.
By a complete coincidence, almost all the top USDA officials are former meat industry employees, consultants, and lawyers.
"No special rights for Christians"
Rehnquist poo-poos Scalia recusement request
The Bush administration intensified its defense of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act on Thursday, threatening to veto legislation in Congress that would scale back key provisions.
He also says the Pentagon figures don't include bases in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar and Uzbekistan. Except for the one in Kosovo, those were all set up following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Somebody smarter than me says that investigations like this one, that pesky 9/11 one of ours and others in the pipeline that ultimately pit intelligence services against the administrations they serve, are the next big politically explosive thing. Don't know. Not sure what to look for, wouldn't know it if it peed on my leg.
We all knew it was going to be a lying cover-up job when Hutton allowed Blair another secret kick at the can to explain the lies in his government's testimony, and even more so when Blair announced he'd resign if he was criticized by Hutton (something we know he wouldn't have offered to do unless he knew the fix was in), but no one could possibly have foreseen that it would be this bad.
Referred to in internal Pentagon messages as the "spring offensive," the operation would be driven by certain undisclosed events in Pakistan and across the region, sources said.
A source familiar with details of the plan said this is "not like a contingency plan for North Korea, something that sits on a shelf. This planning is like planning for Iraq. They want this plan to be executable, now."
A military source in Washington, D.C., said last week: "We are told we're going into Pakistan with Musharraf's help." Yet a large-scale offensive by U.S. forces within the nuclear-armed Islamic republic could be political dynamite for Musharraf.
Speaking on Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Musharraf again rejected the need for U.S. forces to enter Pakistan to search for bin Laden. "That is not a possibility at all," he said.
"In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace."
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945
"With God's help, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace."
President Harry S. Truman, 1949
"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959
"Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation, which leads a worldwide alliance.
President John F. Kennedy, 1962
"Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace ? as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1964
"I wrote out some of my goals for my second term as president. Let me read them to you: To make it possible for our children, and for our children's children, to live in a world of peace. ..."
President Richard M. Nixon, 1973
"I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace."
President Gerald Ford, 1974
"America [is] a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world."
President Jimmy Carter, 1979
"We need to preserve the peace."
President Ronald Reagan, 1984
"We must ensure that America stands before the world united, strong, at peace, and fiscally sound."
President George H. W. Bush, 1989
"We will be partners for peace."
President Bill Clinton, 1994
"I look forward to doing what is right to make the world more peaceful."
President George W. Bush, 2001
37 seek aid after alleging sex assaults by U.S. soldiers
Nearly 30 percent of 202 female Vietnam veterans surveyed in 1990 said they experienced a sexual encounter "accompanied by force or threat of force," according to the Congressional Record. And a study of troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War by Department of Veterans Affairs researchers found that 7 percent of surveyed women reported sexual assaults, while 33 percent reported sexual harassment.
So far exactly two people who spent time at Guantanamo have had access to due process -- and the government's record stands at 0 and 2.
By a complete coincidence, almost all the top USDA officials are former meat industry employees, consultants, and lawyers.
"No special rights for Christians"
Rehnquist poo-poos Scalia recusement request
The Bush administration intensified its defense of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act on Thursday, threatening to veto legislation in Congress that would scale back key provisions.
He also says the Pentagon figures don't include bases in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar and Uzbekistan. Except for the one in Kosovo, those were all set up following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Somebody smarter than me says that investigations like this one, that pesky 9/11 one of ours and others in the pipeline that ultimately pit intelligence services against the administrations they serve, are the next big politically explosive thing. Don't know. Not sure what to look for, wouldn't know it if it peed on my leg.
We all knew it was going to be a lying cover-up job when Hutton allowed Blair another secret kick at the can to explain the lies in his government's testimony, and even more so when Blair announced he'd resign if he was criticized by Hutton (something we know he wouldn't have offered to do unless he knew the fix was in), but no one could possibly have foreseen that it would be this bad.
Referred to in internal Pentagon messages as the "spring offensive," the operation would be driven by certain undisclosed events in Pakistan and across the region, sources said.
A source familiar with details of the plan said this is "not like a contingency plan for North Korea, something that sits on a shelf. This planning is like planning for Iraq. They want this plan to be executable, now."
A military source in Washington, D.C., said last week: "We are told we're going into Pakistan with Musharraf's help." Yet a large-scale offensive by U.S. forces within the nuclear-armed Islamic republic could be political dynamite for Musharraf.
Speaking on Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Musharraf again rejected the need for U.S. forces to enter Pakistan to search for bin Laden. "That is not a possibility at all," he said.
"In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace."
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945
"With God's help, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace."
President Harry S. Truman, 1949
"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959
"Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation, which leads a worldwide alliance.
President John F. Kennedy, 1962
"Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace ? as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1964
"I wrote out some of my goals for my second term as president. Let me read them to you: To make it possible for our children, and for our children's children, to live in a world of peace. ..."
President Richard M. Nixon, 1973
"I pledge an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace."
President Gerald Ford, 1974
"America [is] a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world."
President Jimmy Carter, 1979
"We need to preserve the peace."
President Ronald Reagan, 1984
"We must ensure that America stands before the world united, strong, at peace, and fiscally sound."
President George H. W. Bush, 1989
"We will be partners for peace."
President Bill Clinton, 1994
"I look forward to doing what is right to make the world more peaceful."
President George W. Bush, 2001
what is inescapable by the end is an absolutely hair-raising trail of dead bodies, many of them found hanging in prison cells under less than transparent circumstances, and all of them traceable in some way back to the Oklahoma City bombing. Real-life mysteries don"t get much better than this.
Slowly, though, Hammer, McVeigh and a third inmate, Jeffrey Paul, started to spend time together, if only because they were the sole white prisoners on death row.
Wolfowitz says Iraq war justified because Saddam ignored U.N. demands.
Wolfowitz said Pentagon officials are not sure, however, that permanently enlarging the Army is the answer.
"There's a big uncertainty about what we're going to need in the future, " Wolfowitz said.
mred - itll be either a lot or not many, depending...
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true.
mred - i wonder who is insuring the sooperbowl. i think ill watch it on the tv - set your vcr.
perhaps curiously, newsgoogling "superbowl insurance" gets zero response. i wonder if buffet is involved. or not.
White criminal offenders in Florida are nearly 50 percent more likely than blacks to get a ''withhold of adjudication,'' a plea deal that blocks their felony convictions even though they plead to the crime. White Hispanics are 31 percent more likely than blacks to get a withhold.
Under fire from Republicans alarmed at the growth of the federal budget in recent years, Mr. Bush called Saturday for new statutory limits on spending. "To assure that Congress observes spending discipline, now and in the future, I propose making spending limits the law," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. "This simple step would mean that every additional dollar the Congress wants to spend in excess of spending limits must be matched by a dollar in spending cuts elsewhere."
mr ed - and on a saturday too. cute.
But he is proposing an increase of 7 percent for the military, including 13 percent more for missile defense systems; an increase of nearly 10 percent for heightened security against terrorist attacks; and an increase of 11 percent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A Herald examination of 18,000 sex cases involving children during the past decade found that:
? More than half of adults who solicit children for sex online get withholds of adjudication, meaning they have no conviction on their record even though they plead to the crime.
? Nearly eight in 10 people who publish or peddle child porn on the Internet get their convictions erased.
A leading nephrology journal has rejected a guest editorial questioning the efficacy of epoetin in end stage renal disease, despite favourable peer reviews, apparently because it feared losing advertising.
Slowly, though, Hammer, McVeigh and a third inmate, Jeffrey Paul, started to spend time together, if only because they were the sole white prisoners on death row.
Wolfowitz says Iraq war justified because Saddam ignored U.N. demands.
Wolfowitz said Pentagon officials are not sure, however, that permanently enlarging the Army is the answer.
"There's a big uncertainty about what we're going to need in the future, " Wolfowitz said.
mred - itll be either a lot or not many, depending...
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true.
mred - i wonder who is insuring the sooperbowl. i think ill watch it on the tv - set your vcr.
perhaps curiously, newsgoogling "superbowl insurance" gets zero response. i wonder if buffet is involved. or not.
White criminal offenders in Florida are nearly 50 percent more likely than blacks to get a ''withhold of adjudication,'' a plea deal that blocks their felony convictions even though they plead to the crime. White Hispanics are 31 percent more likely than blacks to get a withhold.
Under fire from Republicans alarmed at the growth of the federal budget in recent years, Mr. Bush called Saturday for new statutory limits on spending. "To assure that Congress observes spending discipline, now and in the future, I propose making spending limits the law," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. "This simple step would mean that every additional dollar the Congress wants to spend in excess of spending limits must be matched by a dollar in spending cuts elsewhere."
mr ed - and on a saturday too. cute.
But he is proposing an increase of 7 percent for the military, including 13 percent more for missile defense systems; an increase of nearly 10 percent for heightened security against terrorist attacks; and an increase of 11 percent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A Herald examination of 18,000 sex cases involving children during the past decade found that:
? More than half of adults who solicit children for sex online get withholds of adjudication, meaning they have no conviction on their record even though they plead to the crime.
? Nearly eight in 10 people who publish or peddle child porn on the Internet get their convictions erased.
A leading nephrology journal has rejected a guest editorial questioning the efficacy of epoetin in end stage renal disease, despite favourable peer reviews, apparently because it feared losing advertising.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
dec14 - The United Nations's top weapons inspector says most of the weapons-related equipment and research that has been publicly documented by the U.S.-led inspection team in Iraq was known to the United Nations before the U.S. invasion.
mred - btw - amongst the latest rounds of noise from Kay, and from oneill and powell and condi and anyone else, the important thing to remember is that none of it qualifies as 'revelations' - none of it is new - anyone with both the time and inclination (eg me) has *known* all of this stuff for a year or 2 - (and millions of antiwar marchers at least intuited that things were somehow 'wrong'). and 'they' *knew* as well. all this and more.
today: "gwb *demands* to know 'the facts' about why there havent been any wmd found in eye-raq, but he is resisting calls for an inquiry." ha ha. ya see, they knew all along. before they got into office. ie every time they have mentioned anything about these weapons since day day was an intentional, specific lie. remember it was only 2001 when both condi and colin, separately, specifically sed that iraq has no wmd. and now dr kay (gwb called him 'mr kay' today) is claiming that 'everyone was wrong' - a problem shared is a problem halved and all that. lets make this clear - not everyone was wrong. and i hope that the taxpayer got a refund on the absurd $600m. it was obvious even then - and lets not forget that kay wasnt the first inspector to come up with the same conclusion - was it 3 or 4 others?.
u mite actually remember that kay 'resigned' a few months ago - altho he was apparently paid-off somehow to stay till a coupla days after the sotu, presumably so that gwb could lie again, with some sort of 'plausible deniability' cover for his fabulous 'weapons of mass destruction related program activities'. and condi today "its *not surprising* that our intelligence was incorrect, given that iraq was closed to us for 5 years." well how about we not run around killing people and trashing international law and proper coalitions if its not surprising that there was a gap?
and fucking cheney is simply ignoring kay's comments - he is still talking as tho they have actually found loaded, mushroom clouds. this is probably part of the reason that cheney emerged from the bunker in the last coupla weeks to put his asymmetric mug in front of the cameras. tony blair can amazingly still look earnest while repeating that he is 'without doubt' that wmd's wioll be found. john howard was saying this week that the hutton results mean that everyone who thought he was wrong to go to war owes him an apology. really!
itll be interesting to see who gets hung out 2 dry - kay exonerated gwb and hutton'd tenet. however my sense is that tenet is too powerful/knows too much to be pushed - im pretty sure that no-one wants to be in tenets cross-hairs - not least cos of the 911 thing. it could be that tenets silence will 'only cost one bullet' (with a special nod to ari for that one, we miss u ari) altho praps 41 mite not like that idea, and id have to expect the head of the cia probably has some well publicized insurance policies against that sort of thing. id also have to reckon that is wot oneill was alluding to when he sed 'im too old for them to hurt me'. the cia is also in the sp/hotlite about the plameglame.
speaking of ninewonwon, and getting back to my main point, that they knew, and they knowingly lied about *everything*. just as it is true about iraq/wmd, so it is also true about the absurd economic situation, and any purported terrorist threats, and 911. and and and and...
at the *very least* - they knew in advance about 911 - they may have some plausible deniability that they didnt know the date, or the specific target, but they categorically knew that hijacked planes being crashed into landmarks
was possible, likely. they had specific warnings from 5 countries (or so?) in the previous two months. and presumably ironically, the fbi were actually running a course on that same day 'what if a plane is hijacked and attacks a landmark?' - ok fine, i could accept that the intelligence system failed them and they couldnt/didnt sort the wheat from the chaff - but nope, condi's response was "how could we have possibly predicted this?" which sounded so reasonable way back then. i cant think of a reasonable explanation for making that statement when she knew it wasnt true. the lying goes way back.
and we see repeatedly that the badministration talks off the same hymn sheet. they dont get in front of a camera/microphone without the sheet. presumably, the same was true then - ie presumably they had all been prepped with the 'how could we have foreseen this?' line.
and lets not forget that ashcroft got the word not to 'fly commercial' a month before, and condi herself warned willybrown not to catch his plane that very morning. 'how could we have foreseen this?' indeed.
and we see the ongoing stonewalling in the 911 'investigation', quickly running up against a curiously 'hard' deadline - condi refuses to go under oath (as if she cares about any oath!), and the commission cant get any extensions - apparently 'finishing' the investigation is more important than 'closing' the case. some republican shrilldill on fauxnews was suggesting today that the inquiry gets gagged and reopened after the election. fukking hell - at least the warren commission actually got out a report.
the other thing i cant quite believe is the question 'is gwb vulnerable now that blair is vulnerable?'
standard answer: 'its not such a big deal in the US cos it was only blair that took the country to war on the main premise of wmd - gwb's attaqiraq argument was less dependent on the wmd claim.' without arguing the specifics of that argument, gwbs attaqiraq logic appeared to largely be three-pronged - wmd/911/alqaida - each as specious as the others, each verifiably wrong, and each verified as being wrong 2 years before the rhetoric slowed down. they knew none of it was true, and they kept up the mantra.
as always, the issue isnt so much that they previosuly lied per se, the issue is about what sort of people they are, and what they plan for the future. syria still seems the easy option - its saves tenet, it saves bush, it meets the neocon agenda, the likudniks get the golan pipeline and saddam gets a pow trial. a temporary alternative to syria would be something domestic again - that somehow seems scarier for some reason - perhaps i am racist deep down. or maybe its that i know more people in america than syria, or maybe its cos its preferable to believe that the rape is actually based on misguided (religious/racist) logic, rather than believe that it is purely a criminal enterprise. im sure that religion has killed more people than crime - but somehow stupidity seems more noble than a purely criminal enterprise. its not that id prefer to see syria bombed first - its just that it would perhaps point to the fact that humanity hasnt learnt anything in the last 6thousand years, rather than highlight the fact that we are simply devolving. although that perhaps ignores the unlessons of operation northwood, pearl harbour, 911, reichstag et al. people in the same positions have done the same thing before. how much fun for those screaming 'homeland' whilst concomitantly not even caring whether their own targets are foreign or domestic. the irony. how smug they must feel .
btw - just coz people have 'resigned' from the badministration doesnt mean that they arent still in their service - itll be interesting to see where kay goes from here - remember jay garner was ex-post (apparently 'disgruntled') when he proffered the martial law innoculation in Cigar magazine
today: "gwb *demands* to know 'the facts' about why there havent been any wmd found in eye-raq, but he is resisting calls for an inquiry." ha ha. ya see, they knew all along. before they got into office. ie every time they have mentioned anything about these weapons since day day was an intentional, specific lie. remember it was only 2001 when both condi and colin, separately, specifically sed that iraq has no wmd. and now dr kay (gwb called him 'mr kay' today) is claiming that 'everyone was wrong' - a problem shared is a problem halved and all that. lets make this clear - not everyone was wrong. and i hope that the taxpayer got a refund on the absurd $600m. it was obvious even then - and lets not forget that kay wasnt the first inspector to come up with the same conclusion - was it 3 or 4 others?.
u mite actually remember that kay 'resigned' a few months ago - altho he was apparently paid-off somehow to stay till a coupla days after the sotu, presumably so that gwb could lie again, with some sort of 'plausible deniability' cover for his fabulous 'weapons of mass destruction related program activities'. and condi today "its *not surprising* that our intelligence was incorrect, given that iraq was closed to us for 5 years." well how about we not run around killing people and trashing international law and proper coalitions if its not surprising that there was a gap?
and fucking cheney is simply ignoring kay's comments - he is still talking as tho they have actually found loaded, mushroom clouds. this is probably part of the reason that cheney emerged from the bunker in the last coupla weeks to put his asymmetric mug in front of the cameras. tony blair can amazingly still look earnest while repeating that he is 'without doubt' that wmd's wioll be found. john howard was saying this week that the hutton results mean that everyone who thought he was wrong to go to war owes him an apology. really!
itll be interesting to see who gets hung out 2 dry - kay exonerated gwb and hutton'd tenet. however my sense is that tenet is too powerful/knows too much to be pushed - im pretty sure that no-one wants to be in tenets cross-hairs - not least cos of the 911 thing. it could be that tenets silence will 'only cost one bullet' (with a special nod to ari for that one, we miss u ari) altho praps 41 mite not like that idea, and id have to expect the head of the cia probably has some well publicized insurance policies against that sort of thing. id also have to reckon that is wot oneill was alluding to when he sed 'im too old for them to hurt me'. the cia is also in the sp/hotlite about the plameglame.
speaking of ninewonwon, and getting back to my main point, that they knew, and they knowingly lied about *everything*. just as it is true about iraq/wmd, so it is also true about the absurd economic situation, and any purported terrorist threats, and 911. and and and and...
at the *very least* - they knew in advance about 911 - they may have some plausible deniability that they didnt know the date, or the specific target, but they categorically knew that hijacked planes being crashed into landmarks
was possible, likely. they had specific warnings from 5 countries (or so?) in the previous two months. and presumably ironically, the fbi were actually running a course on that same day 'what if a plane is hijacked and attacks a landmark?' - ok fine, i could accept that the intelligence system failed them and they couldnt/didnt sort the wheat from the chaff - but nope, condi's response was "how could we have possibly predicted this?" which sounded so reasonable way back then. i cant think of a reasonable explanation for making that statement when she knew it wasnt true. the lying goes way back.
and we see repeatedly that the badministration talks off the same hymn sheet. they dont get in front of a camera/microphone without the sheet. presumably, the same was true then - ie presumably they had all been prepped with the 'how could we have foreseen this?' line.
and lets not forget that ashcroft got the word not to 'fly commercial' a month before, and condi herself warned willybrown not to catch his plane that very morning. 'how could we have foreseen this?' indeed.
and we see the ongoing stonewalling in the 911 'investigation', quickly running up against a curiously 'hard' deadline - condi refuses to go under oath (as if she cares about any oath!), and the commission cant get any extensions - apparently 'finishing' the investigation is more important than 'closing' the case. some republican shrilldill on fauxnews was suggesting today that the inquiry gets gagged and reopened after the election. fukking hell - at least the warren commission actually got out a report.
the other thing i cant quite believe is the question 'is gwb vulnerable now that blair is vulnerable?'
standard answer: 'its not such a big deal in the US cos it was only blair that took the country to war on the main premise of wmd - gwb's attaqiraq argument was less dependent on the wmd claim.' without arguing the specifics of that argument, gwbs attaqiraq logic appeared to largely be three-pronged - wmd/911/alqaida - each as specious as the others, each verifiably wrong, and each verified as being wrong 2 years before the rhetoric slowed down. they knew none of it was true, and they kept up the mantra.
as always, the issue isnt so much that they previosuly lied per se, the issue is about what sort of people they are, and what they plan for the future. syria still seems the easy option - its saves tenet, it saves bush, it meets the neocon agenda, the likudniks get the golan pipeline and saddam gets a pow trial. a temporary alternative to syria would be something domestic again - that somehow seems scarier for some reason - perhaps i am racist deep down. or maybe its that i know more people in america than syria, or maybe its cos its preferable to believe that the rape is actually based on misguided (religious/racist) logic, rather than believe that it is purely a criminal enterprise. im sure that religion has killed more people than crime - but somehow stupidity seems more noble than a purely criminal enterprise. its not that id prefer to see syria bombed first - its just that it would perhaps point to the fact that humanity hasnt learnt anything in the last 6thousand years, rather than highlight the fact that we are simply devolving. although that perhaps ignores the unlessons of operation northwood, pearl harbour, 911, reichstag et al. people in the same positions have done the same thing before. how much fun for those screaming 'homeland' whilst concomitantly not even caring whether their own targets are foreign or domestic. the irony. how smug they must feel .
btw - just coz people have 'resigned' from the badministration doesnt mean that they arent still in their service - itll be interesting to see where kay goes from here - remember jay garner was ex-post (apparently 'disgruntled') when he proffered the martial law innoculation in Cigar magazine
Ms Rice, George Bush's national security adviser, last night said the US may never learn the whole truth about Iraq's weapons capabilities because of looting.
Mr Cook said today: "Now that even the White House has admitted they may have got it wrong, it's getting embarrassing to watch our government still trying to deny reality.
"It seems that Tony Blair is the only person still certain that weapons of mass destruction will definitely be found."
In the early 90's, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary under the first President Bush, he hired the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to determine what military functions could be outsourced to private profit-making companies. Brown & Root came up with myriad ideas in a classified study and was handed a lucrative contract to implement its own plan.
Mr. Cheney took over as chief executive of Halliburton in 1995, and the defense contracts just kept on coming. When he returned to government as vice president in 2001, no firm was better positioned than Halliburton to cash in on the billions of dollars in contracts that resulted from the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq.
A proposed set of guidelines for middle and high school science classes in Georgia has caused a furor after state education officials removed the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the age of Earth and the natural selection of species.
A handful of states already omit the word "evolution" from their teaching guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a buzz word that causes a lot of negative reaction." She added that people often associate it with "that monkeys-to-man sort of thing."
In Alabama, the state board of education voted in 2001 to place disclaimers on biology textbooks to describe evolution as a controversial theory.
Mr Cook said today: "Now that even the White House has admitted they may have got it wrong, it's getting embarrassing to watch our government still trying to deny reality.
"It seems that Tony Blair is the only person still certain that weapons of mass destruction will definitely be found."
In the early 90's, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary under the first President Bush, he hired the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to determine what military functions could be outsourced to private profit-making companies. Brown & Root came up with myriad ideas in a classified study and was handed a lucrative contract to implement its own plan.
Mr. Cheney took over as chief executive of Halliburton in 1995, and the defense contracts just kept on coming. When he returned to government as vice president in 2001, no firm was better positioned than Halliburton to cash in on the billions of dollars in contracts that resulted from the war on terror and the conflict in Iraq.
A proposed set of guidelines for middle and high school science classes in Georgia has caused a furor after state education officials removed the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the age of Earth and the natural selection of species.
A handful of states already omit the word "evolution" from their teaching guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a buzz word that causes a lot of negative reaction." She added that people often associate it with "that monkeys-to-man sort of thing."
In Alabama, the state board of education voted in 2001 to place disclaimers on biology textbooks to describe evolution as a controversial theory.
His letter noted that there were 15 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases a year in the United States, nearly 4 million of them in teenagers, and that 65 million Americans had incurable sexually transmitted diseases.
The grovelling, nauseating apology offered by the new acting chairman of the Board of Governors was what governments want from the BBC: abject obedience. Thankfully, the man whose mea culpa made us all cringe does not want the job full time (and this may be a clever way of giving Blair his pound of flesh without tainting whoever takes on Gavyn Davies's old role).
The Bush administration said on Thursday that the new Medicare law offering prescription drug benefits and private health plans to the elderly would cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, or one-third more than the price tag used when Congress passed the legislation two months ago. The bill passed narrowly in the House after Republican leaders gave assurances that the cost would not exceed $400 billion.
At the same time, the officials said that the overall budget deficit for the current fiscal year would exceed $500 billion. The deficit for fiscal 2003 was $375 billion, a record amount.
William A. Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: "The Medicare bill had lots of moving parts. We could not make a final analysis of the cost until it became law."
Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office, has estimated that the drug benefit could cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion in its second decade.
Some Democrats suggested that Mr. Bush was predicting a big deficit for 2004 so it would be easier to halve the deficit in five years.
The audit office identified a staggering $575 million worth of errors in seven of 19 accounts it examined in detail - mainly because agencies had under-reported the amount of money they had in the accounts.
In one of the worst cases, $250 million from the sale of the second tranche of Telstra was mistakenly paid twice into the Natural Heritage Trust account, as was $235 million in interest.
THE Howard Government has failed to reduce the tax burden of the poor, despite holding hard evidence for more than a year that low-income earners face marginal tax rates of more than 60 per cent.
The grovelling, nauseating apology offered by the new acting chairman of the Board of Governors was what governments want from the BBC: abject obedience. Thankfully, the man whose mea culpa made us all cringe does not want the job full time (and this may be a clever way of giving Blair his pound of flesh without tainting whoever takes on Gavyn Davies's old role).
The Bush administration said on Thursday that the new Medicare law offering prescription drug benefits and private health plans to the elderly would cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, or one-third more than the price tag used when Congress passed the legislation two months ago. The bill passed narrowly in the House after Republican leaders gave assurances that the cost would not exceed $400 billion.
At the same time, the officials said that the overall budget deficit for the current fiscal year would exceed $500 billion. The deficit for fiscal 2003 was $375 billion, a record amount.
William A. Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: "The Medicare bill had lots of moving parts. We could not make a final analysis of the cost until it became law."
Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office, has estimated that the drug benefit could cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion in its second decade.
Some Democrats suggested that Mr. Bush was predicting a big deficit for 2004 so it would be easier to halve the deficit in five years.
The audit office identified a staggering $575 million worth of errors in seven of 19 accounts it examined in detail - mainly because agencies had under-reported the amount of money they had in the accounts.
In one of the worst cases, $250 million from the sale of the second tranche of Telstra was mistakenly paid twice into the Natural Heritage Trust account, as was $235 million in interest.
THE Howard Government has failed to reduce the tax burden of the poor, despite holding hard evidence for more than a year that low-income earners face marginal tax rates of more than 60 per cent.
Not only does Hutton thus effectively end freedom of the press in Britain, his report also forms part of the ongoing plan of the Powers That Be to weaken and destroy the BBC, so that its functions can be taken up by thugs more in tune with the establishment, like, say, Rupert Murdoch. Hutton's report is a direct attack on the very structure of democracy in Britain, and is practically a fascist document.
Cisco chief John Chambers explained in Davos that productivity improvements could continue for 10 years ? one reason why technology stocks are back in favour.
On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified ? under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less ? because Saddam "did not let us in.")
In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged ? and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.
Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.
And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan.
Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?
A Gallup survey - commissioned by the World Economic Forum - shows that in most countries if you are prosperous you are much less concerned about security than if your country is depressed. Australia is the exception, ranking high in both prosperity and in concern for security.
It was a measure of Mr. Bush's problem, and Mr. Tenet's, that Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said this week that his committee's draft report of what went wrong, to be issued soon, would be very specific, and very critical.
"We'll have to get Cheney the new memo," one White House official said after Mr. Cheney's comments. "As soon as we write it."
mred - on the beeb, gwb called Kay "Mr Kay" - i thought he was a doctor? i remember the nyt switching to "Dr"
mred - and Blair has started with the ricin thing
mred - a couple of curious things abuot the hutton report (apart from all the obvious ones, as usual)... firstly, it has been wiped off the front pages (and deeper) already (outside the uk) - mostly in favour of the german cannibal - ok, fine. secondly, we must remember that the hutton report was *primarily* about gilligans 6.07am claim that the govt knew that the 45 min claim was wrong *before* it went into the dodgy dossier (it was added immediately prior to the final draft). this fact is getting lost amongst the beeb and kelly noise. but heres the rub - there is a direct parallel in the US - the shitehouse categorically *knew* that the niger claims were wrong *before* those claims were written into SOTU03.
the Mutton report is widely regarded as a whitewash - so much so that some spundits are suggesting that Mutton was actually sending the signal 'this is so obviously wrong that u can see it was political. given that the outcome was inevitable, i wanted to make that completely clear. any apparent balance would have actually been more misleading'.
imagine if a similar inquiry was held in the US about the niger claim - which should of course include the dastardly plame affair - altho given the clintonesque ability to slice and dice terms of reference, that shouldnt be a given. of course, if gilligans calim that 'they knew' was found to be accurate - then the findings necessarily flip 180 degrees - with the beeb exonerated, and the blurgh govt getting beeb'd - everything hinged on the accuracy of that one statement. in the gwb badministration sotu analogy, there could only be one legitimate finding. *they knew*.
Cisco chief John Chambers explained in Davos that productivity improvements could continue for 10 years ? one reason why technology stocks are back in favour.
On Tuesday Mr. Bush declared that the war was justified ? under U.N. Resolution 1441, no less ? because Saddam "did not let us in.")
In any case, the point is that a grave mistake was made, and America's credibility has been badly damaged ? and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.
Finally, an important story that has largely evaded public attention: the effort to prevent oversight of Iraq spending. Government agencies normally have independent, strictly nonpartisan inspectors general, with broad powers to investigate questionable spending. But the new inspector general's office in Iraq operates under unique rules that greatly limit both its powers and its independence.
And the independence of the Pentagon's own inspector general's office is also in question. Last September, in a move that should have caused shock waves, the administration appointed L. Jean Lewis as the office's chief of staff. Ms. Lewis played a central role in the Whitewater witch hunt (seven years, $70 million, no evidence of Clinton wrongdoing); nobody could call her nonpartisan.
Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?
A Gallup survey - commissioned by the World Economic Forum - shows that in most countries if you are prosperous you are much less concerned about security than if your country is depressed. Australia is the exception, ranking high in both prosperity and in concern for security.
It was a measure of Mr. Bush's problem, and Mr. Tenet's, that Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said this week that his committee's draft report of what went wrong, to be issued soon, would be very specific, and very critical.
"We'll have to get Cheney the new memo," one White House official said after Mr. Cheney's comments. "As soon as we write it."
mred - on the beeb, gwb called Kay "Mr Kay" - i thought he was a doctor? i remember the nyt switching to "Dr"
mred - and Blair has started with the ricin thing
mred - a couple of curious things abuot the hutton report (apart from all the obvious ones, as usual)... firstly, it has been wiped off the front pages (and deeper) already (outside the uk) - mostly in favour of the german cannibal - ok, fine. secondly, we must remember that the hutton report was *primarily* about gilligans 6.07am claim that the govt knew that the 45 min claim was wrong *before* it went into the dodgy dossier (it was added immediately prior to the final draft). this fact is getting lost amongst the beeb and kelly noise. but heres the rub - there is a direct parallel in the US - the shitehouse categorically *knew* that the niger claims were wrong *before* those claims were written into SOTU03.
the Mutton report is widely regarded as a whitewash - so much so that some spundits are suggesting that Mutton was actually sending the signal 'this is so obviously wrong that u can see it was political. given that the outcome was inevitable, i wanted to make that completely clear. any apparent balance would have actually been more misleading'.
imagine if a similar inquiry was held in the US about the niger claim - which should of course include the dastardly plame affair - altho given the clintonesque ability to slice and dice terms of reference, that shouldnt be a given. of course, if gilligans calim that 'they knew' was found to be accurate - then the findings necessarily flip 180 degrees - with the beeb exonerated, and the blurgh govt getting beeb'd - everything hinged on the accuracy of that one statement. in the gwb badministration sotu analogy, there could only be one legitimate finding. *they knew*.
Jan 21 - Britain is facing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the use of cluster bombs by its troops in Iraq. Peacerights, a UK-based human rights group, yesterday issued an executive summary of a report on alleged war crimes committed by the British government and armed forces during the recent invasion of the Middle Eastern country.
Friday, January 30, 2004
CAIRO (AFP) -- The head of the investigation into the crash of an Egyptian charter plane said he was puzzled why its flight data recorders showed one thing when the aircraft was doing something different.
CBS News reported, meanwhile, that a passport belonging to one of the hijackers, Satam al-Sugami, was found on the street minutes after the plane he was aboard crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center and before the New York landmark collapsed.
mr ed - hmmmm - another passport
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
When one is comparing then and now, I think the most interesting factor is that most German Jews remained in Germany until it was too late. They just couldn't believe Hitler was as dangerous as some people said he was. The more prescient Jews (most often those who could afford to do so) got out, however.
Hitler came to power in 1933, but the killing of Jews (and others) didn't begin until five years later, in 1938
'Downers' are cows that can't walk.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says the sick cow was a downer.
The people who were there say it wasn't.
It's important, because the USDA focuses its 'mad cow' testing on downers.
Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming, new research suggests. Ominously, the trend has accelerated since 1990, during which time the 10 hottest years on record have occurred.
LONDON (PTI) -- In a forthright view that is likely to embarrass her husband, Cherie Blair, wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, is reported to have observed that George W Bush "stole" the US presidential election from Al Gore.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish organization that combats anti-Semitism, condemned the results, and said Israel should "draw the only conclusion possible" and exclude the E.U. from having a role in any peace process.
Rush Limbaugh's attorney mounted an offensive Monday, accusing Palm Beach County prosecutors of smear tactics and likening his client to any ordinary American with chronic pain.
A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
Among unexamined facts about the administration?s determination to go to war is that, in the weeks leading up to
the invasion of Iraq, US oil companies doubled their imports of Iraqi oil. According to government figures, US imports of Iraqi oil, which increased steadily following the November 2002 elections, almost tripled from November 2002 (9.57 million barrels) to February 2003 (25.78 million barrels). Iraqi oil imports almost doubled in the weeks following December 2002. Indeed, even in March 2003, the month US troops invaded Iraq, US petroleum companies imported 22.9 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
There is another sad point: in April 2003, US imports of Iraqi oil totaled at least 18.8 million barrels, and some estimates give 21 million barrels. Yes, that?s right: immediately after the invasion of Iraq, with US troops given the mission of controlling Iraq, somebody was pumping millions of gallons of Iraqi crude out of the country. Evidently somebody felt that to the victors belong the spoils. It was following this successful transition, on May 1, that Bush made his flight-suit appearance on an aircraft carrier, to proclaim major combat over.
CBS News reported, meanwhile, that a passport belonging to one of the hijackers, Satam al-Sugami, was found on the street minutes after the plane he was aboard crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center and before the New York landmark collapsed.
mr ed - hmmmm - another passport
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
When one is comparing then and now, I think the most interesting factor is that most German Jews remained in Germany until it was too late. They just couldn't believe Hitler was as dangerous as some people said he was. The more prescient Jews (most often those who could afford to do so) got out, however.
Hitler came to power in 1933, but the killing of Jews (and others) didn't begin until five years later, in 1938
'Downers' are cows that can't walk.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says the sick cow was a downer.
The people who were there say it wasn't.
It's important, because the USDA focuses its 'mad cow' testing on downers.
Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by global warming, new research suggests. Ominously, the trend has accelerated since 1990, during which time the 10 hottest years on record have occurred.
LONDON (PTI) -- In a forthright view that is likely to embarrass her husband, Cherie Blair, wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair, is reported to have observed that George W Bush "stole" the US presidential election from Al Gore.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish organization that combats anti-Semitism, condemned the results, and said Israel should "draw the only conclusion possible" and exclude the E.U. from having a role in any peace process.
Rush Limbaugh's attorney mounted an offensive Monday, accusing Palm Beach County prosecutors of smear tactics and likening his client to any ordinary American with chronic pain.
A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.
The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.
Among unexamined facts about the administration?s determination to go to war is that, in the weeks leading up to
the invasion of Iraq, US oil companies doubled their imports of Iraqi oil. According to government figures, US imports of Iraqi oil, which increased steadily following the November 2002 elections, almost tripled from November 2002 (9.57 million barrels) to February 2003 (25.78 million barrels). Iraqi oil imports almost doubled in the weeks following December 2002. Indeed, even in March 2003, the month US troops invaded Iraq, US petroleum companies imported 22.9 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
There is another sad point: in April 2003, US imports of Iraqi oil totaled at least 18.8 million barrels, and some estimates give 21 million barrels. Yes, that?s right: immediately after the invasion of Iraq, with US troops given the mission of controlling Iraq, somebody was pumping millions of gallons of Iraqi crude out of the country. Evidently somebody felt that to the victors belong the spoils. It was following this successful transition, on May 1, that Bush made his flight-suit appearance on an aircraft carrier, to proclaim major combat over.
Venezuela is now the third largest supplier of oil to the United States, after Canada and Saudi Arabia; Mexico is the fourth largest, and Columbia is the seventh. As indicated by Secretary of Energy Abraham, ?President Bush recognizes not only the need for an increased supply of energy, but also the critical role the hemisphere will play in the administration?s energy policy.?
Eight months after Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the government's partial victory in a trial against an accused terror cell based in Detroit, the convictions of three men are in doubt amid growing turmoil within the offices of the federal prosecutor and the F.B.I. here.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, responding to unusual criticism from a three-star general that the Army is too small to meet its global commitments, has authorized an emergency increase of 30,000 troops, Congress was told yesterday.
The testimony appeared to surprise committee members.
"General Schoomaker, I want to make sure I understand some of your comments here today," said Rep. John McHugh, a New York Republican. "The secretary has given you the option of going to 30,000 additional troops, saying that he has waived under the emergency declaration provisions the statutory cap on end-strength. How long does the secretary intend to declare that emergency to waive that limit?
"Well, sir, I'm not sure we can see into the future as far as we need to.
There are about 120,000 Army soldiers in Iraq, a figure expected to drop to105,000 by May, according to the Pentagon. About 330,000 active and reserveArmy troops are deployed to 120 countries, Riggs said. Another 10,000 soldiers are in Afghanistan.
"Without question, the Washington media descended unfairly on Dean -- both because he was the front-runner and because he's leading a movement that's hostile to their insider culture," said Yale historian David Greenberg, author of the book "Nixon's Shadow." "They turned the 'scream' from an amusing if slightly weird sidelight into a four-day front-page story that may seriously damage his chances."
"The Washington press corps can do the most amazing imitation of a clique of snotty high school kids," wrote Texas columnist Molly Ivins, "and they were determined to find that Dean was not good enough for their clique from the beginning."
These two would-be world-class tough guys were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to show that they couldn't be pushed around. Their trusted underlings misled them with fanciful information on advanced Iraqi weapons programs that they credulously believed because it fit what they wanted to hear.
The two men both had copies of "Crime and Punishment" ? Condi Rice gave Mr. Bush the novel on his trip to Russia in 2002, and Saddam had Dostoyevsky down in the spider hole ? but neither absorbed its lesson: that you can't put yourself above rules just because you think you're superior.
Eight months after Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the government's partial victory in a trial against an accused terror cell based in Detroit, the convictions of three men are in doubt amid growing turmoil within the offices of the federal prosecutor and the F.B.I. here.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, responding to unusual criticism from a three-star general that the Army is too small to meet its global commitments, has authorized an emergency increase of 30,000 troops, Congress was told yesterday.
The testimony appeared to surprise committee members.
"General Schoomaker, I want to make sure I understand some of your comments here today," said Rep. John McHugh, a New York Republican. "The secretary has given you the option of going to 30,000 additional troops, saying that he has waived under the emergency declaration provisions the statutory cap on end-strength. How long does the secretary intend to declare that emergency to waive that limit?
"Well, sir, I'm not sure we can see into the future as far as we need to.
There are about 120,000 Army soldiers in Iraq, a figure expected to drop to105,000 by May, according to the Pentagon. About 330,000 active and reserveArmy troops are deployed to 120 countries, Riggs said. Another 10,000 soldiers are in Afghanistan.
"Without question, the Washington media descended unfairly on Dean -- both because he was the front-runner and because he's leading a movement that's hostile to their insider culture," said Yale historian David Greenberg, author of the book "Nixon's Shadow." "They turned the 'scream' from an amusing if slightly weird sidelight into a four-day front-page story that may seriously damage his chances."
"The Washington press corps can do the most amazing imitation of a clique of snotty high school kids," wrote Texas columnist Molly Ivins, "and they were determined to find that Dean was not good enough for their clique from the beginning."
These two would-be world-class tough guys were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to show that they couldn't be pushed around. Their trusted underlings misled them with fanciful information on advanced Iraqi weapons programs that they credulously believed because it fit what they wanted to hear.
The two men both had copies of "Crime and Punishment" ? Condi Rice gave Mr. Bush the novel on his trip to Russia in 2002, and Saddam had Dostoyevsky down in the spider hole ? but neither absorbed its lesson: that you can't put yourself above rules just because you think you're superior.
It is time to set the record straight. The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Rather, Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the president the decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States Constitution vests the awesome power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the United States Congress.
Claims that dozens of politicians, including some from prominent anti-war countries such as France, had taken bribes to support Saddam Hussein are to be investigated by the Iraqi authorities. The US-backed Iraqi Governing Council decided to check after an independent Baghdad newspaper, al-Mada, published a list which it said was based on oil ministry documents.
But the war over the war in Iraq isn't really about the facts, or 45 minutes, or what went wrong with the intelligence, or who believed what when. It's a titanic clash of beliefs, between those who think the war was generally a good thing, and those who think it was rash, or dangerous, or opportunistic, or colonialist, or downright evil. It is not, mainly, about Iraq at all. It is a giant referendum on George Bush and the United States, and on those who chose to stand with them. And of one thing you can be sure: That war won't end any time soon.
Lord Hutton has flung the whitewash around with a copiousness, a completeness, which must have surprised even the inhabitants of Downing Street.
We might direct his lordship?s attention to the way in which the very title of the document was changed. Originally it was entitled ?Iraq?s Programmes for Weapons of Mass Destruction?, which had the whiff of accuracy about it. Later it became ?Iraq?s Weapons of Mass Destruction?
And, similarly, at every juncture, Lord Hutton stuck the boot into the BBC and, while he was about it, Dr David Kelly. For Hutton, Kelly?s previous eminence and chance of a knighthood were destroyed by his regrettable decision to talk to journalists, and ? the implication is ? he got what he deserved. Which is a strong message to be sent out to any other public servants who feel appalled at the way politicians use or abuse their services.
A third said they were now less likely to vote for Blair, compared to three percent who said it was more likely.
John Howard said yesterday that the British report clearing the Blair Government of claims it "sexed up" its intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons also exonerated him. "Those who have accused us of taking Australia to war on a lie owe me as much an apology as those who made equal accusations against Tony Blair owe him an apology," the Prime Minister said.
Asked if he was concerned that intelligence warnings that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction appeared to have been incorrect, Mr Howard said: "It's still too early to make a final judgment. If you wait for proof beyond all reasonable doubt, as I said more than a year ago, you face a potential Pearl Harbour situation."
Claims that dozens of politicians, including some from prominent anti-war countries such as France, had taken bribes to support Saddam Hussein are to be investigated by the Iraqi authorities. The US-backed Iraqi Governing Council decided to check after an independent Baghdad newspaper, al-Mada, published a list which it said was based on oil ministry documents.
But the war over the war in Iraq isn't really about the facts, or 45 minutes, or what went wrong with the intelligence, or who believed what when. It's a titanic clash of beliefs, between those who think the war was generally a good thing, and those who think it was rash, or dangerous, or opportunistic, or colonialist, or downright evil. It is not, mainly, about Iraq at all. It is a giant referendum on George Bush and the United States, and on those who chose to stand with them. And of one thing you can be sure: That war won't end any time soon.
Lord Hutton has flung the whitewash around with a copiousness, a completeness, which must have surprised even the inhabitants of Downing Street.
We might direct his lordship?s attention to the way in which the very title of the document was changed. Originally it was entitled ?Iraq?s Programmes for Weapons of Mass Destruction?, which had the whiff of accuracy about it. Later it became ?Iraq?s Weapons of Mass Destruction?
And, similarly, at every juncture, Lord Hutton stuck the boot into the BBC and, while he was about it, Dr David Kelly. For Hutton, Kelly?s previous eminence and chance of a knighthood were destroyed by his regrettable decision to talk to journalists, and ? the implication is ? he got what he deserved. Which is a strong message to be sent out to any other public servants who feel appalled at the way politicians use or abuse their services.
A third said they were now less likely to vote for Blair, compared to three percent who said it was more likely.
John Howard said yesterday that the British report clearing the Blair Government of claims it "sexed up" its intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons also exonerated him. "Those who have accused us of taking Australia to war on a lie owe me as much an apology as those who made equal accusations against Tony Blair owe him an apology," the Prime Minister said.
Asked if he was concerned that intelligence warnings that Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction appeared to have been incorrect, Mr Howard said: "It's still too early to make a final judgment. If you wait for proof beyond all reasonable doubt, as I said more than a year ago, you face a potential Pearl Harbour situation."
Our Prime Minister is the elected servant of the people and his behaviour reflects on all of us.
When the National Guard Review asked Bush during 2000 what he'd learned in the Guard, he responded, "[T]he responsibility to show up and do your job."
Why has the White House accepted intelligence reports to initiate an unprovoked, first-strike declaration of war, a declaration of war that is a first time occurrence in the entire history of our republic, yet failed to accept as valid these very same intelligence reports when it came time to take action to protect the American people from the possibility of the 9-11 attacks?
There is a serious lack of consistency with regard to when the Bush administration reacts to intelligence, irrespective of whether or not that intelligence is good or bad, and the way it cavalierly and selectively dismisses them.
O'Neill's revelations were decried as really no biggie - this was a mere extension of the Clinton administration's priorities. But then, why wasn't "global warming" a continuing policy as well? Why weren't environmental issues a continuation as well?
"I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
But if US President George W. Bush never called Saddam's Iraq an "imminent threat" in so many words, he said it was "urgent".
Vice President Dick Cheney called it "mortal" and it was "immediate" to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Other senior Bush aides shied away from using the word "imminent" but agreed with that characterisation in exchanges with reporters.
On January 26, 2003, CNN television asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett "is he (Saddam) an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
"Well, of course he is," Bartlett replied.
When the National Guard Review asked Bush during 2000 what he'd learned in the Guard, he responded, "[T]he responsibility to show up and do your job."
Why has the White House accepted intelligence reports to initiate an unprovoked, first-strike declaration of war, a declaration of war that is a first time occurrence in the entire history of our republic, yet failed to accept as valid these very same intelligence reports when it came time to take action to protect the American people from the possibility of the 9-11 attacks?
There is a serious lack of consistency with regard to when the Bush administration reacts to intelligence, irrespective of whether or not that intelligence is good or bad, and the way it cavalierly and selectively dismisses them.
O'Neill's revelations were decried as really no biggie - this was a mere extension of the Clinton administration's priorities. But then, why wasn't "global warming" a continuing policy as well? Why weren't environmental issues a continuation as well?
"I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
But if US President George W. Bush never called Saddam's Iraq an "imminent threat" in so many words, he said it was "urgent".
Vice President Dick Cheney called it "mortal" and it was "immediate" to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Other senior Bush aides shied away from using the word "imminent" but agreed with that characterisation in exchanges with reporters.
On January 26, 2003, CNN television asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett "is he (Saddam) an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
"Well, of course he is," Bartlett replied.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
I understand what the politician meant who said of the Texas House of Representatives, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents."
" What would have happened if millions of American and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey [part of the Rockefeller empire] managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars' worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan [the Rockefeller family among others?] Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the FockeWulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial balI bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership with Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?"
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, 1950
"If we'd been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe.'
Samuel Johnson
"Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent."
James Madison
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
mred: i dunno if u saw the whole moveon/hitler fiasco? basically moveon.org ran a competition where people could submit antiwar/antibush 30sec vid/flash movies and then users could vote on their faves. they got a thousand submissions or sumthink and 2 of them made the bush/hitler analogy.
the shrill media made a big deal about it - presumably to discredit moveon - who coincidently were the lucky recipient of 2.5m of soros money. one somewhat interesting thing is that the attacks on moveon often didnt mention soros (altho there were soros articles that mentioned moveon). soros is obviously a target, but the opportunity to tar moveon with the soros brush seemed to often stay in the pocket. (this is a mere curiousity at the mo). the more interesting thing if one has a tendency to draw long bows, is that its a golden rule in pr that u dont use negative words in association with yuor brand - even to deny something. think nixon's "im not a crook". ad campaigns sh/would never say something like "some people say our product sux, but 100% of scientists prove them wrong" - the brain often doesnt absorb the literal message, but remembers the 'our product sux' bit. nothing new here, so far. but if one assumes for a minute that rove et al are really good at this sort of thing (or more accurately, just if they follow the basics), then one could easily assume that the attention lasered on the bush/hitler thing was actually a form of 'innoculation', rather than a 'legitimate' (ie as it appears) attack on moveon, or (indirectly) on soros.
does that idea/approach sound reasonable? heres the logic again: 1. shrillmedia went outta their way to highlight an issue which suggested a bush/hitler link 2. it was a non-story without the attention (the ads didnt make the 'cut' for the competition) 3. professional pr people know that every time a scribe says bush slash hitler, that the link is reinforced, even in a denial. 4. professional pr people also know that 'innoculating' an audience is the best way to introduce an idea to an audience.
the logic suggests that shrillmedia is actually promoting the bush/hitler link - bush as a strong leader (oops about the oratory ability), defending the homeland (didja ever hear that term before 43?) etc etc. thats one of the scariest ideas ive had in a long time.
of course, it could be that they ran the moveon story for other reasons, or cos theyre bad at executing (media) - but we've seen from the *increased* saddam/911 beliefs that they realy are very fukking good.
" What would have happened if millions of American and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey [part of the Rockefeller empire] managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars' worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan [the Rockefeller family among others?] Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the FockeWulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial balI bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice-chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in partnership with Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?"
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, 1950
"If we'd been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe.'
Samuel Johnson
"Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent."
James Madison
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
mred: i dunno if u saw the whole moveon/hitler fiasco? basically moveon.org ran a competition where people could submit antiwar/antibush 30sec vid/flash movies and then users could vote on their faves. they got a thousand submissions or sumthink and 2 of them made the bush/hitler analogy.
the shrill media made a big deal about it - presumably to discredit moveon - who coincidently were the lucky recipient of 2.5m of soros money. one somewhat interesting thing is that the attacks on moveon often didnt mention soros (altho there were soros articles that mentioned moveon). soros is obviously a target, but the opportunity to tar moveon with the soros brush seemed to often stay in the pocket. (this is a mere curiousity at the mo). the more interesting thing if one has a tendency to draw long bows, is that its a golden rule in pr that u dont use negative words in association with yuor brand - even to deny something. think nixon's "im not a crook". ad campaigns sh/would never say something like "some people say our product sux, but 100% of scientists prove them wrong" - the brain often doesnt absorb the literal message, but remembers the 'our product sux' bit. nothing new here, so far. but if one assumes for a minute that rove et al are really good at this sort of thing (or more accurately, just if they follow the basics), then one could easily assume that the attention lasered on the bush/hitler thing was actually a form of 'innoculation', rather than a 'legitimate' (ie as it appears) attack on moveon, or (indirectly) on soros.
does that idea/approach sound reasonable? heres the logic again: 1. shrillmedia went outta their way to highlight an issue which suggested a bush/hitler link 2. it was a non-story without the attention (the ads didnt make the 'cut' for the competition) 3. professional pr people know that every time a scribe says bush slash hitler, that the link is reinforced, even in a denial. 4. professional pr people also know that 'innoculating' an audience is the best way to introduce an idea to an audience.
the logic suggests that shrillmedia is actually promoting the bush/hitler link - bush as a strong leader (oops about the oratory ability), defending the homeland (didja ever hear that term before 43?) etc etc. thats one of the scariest ideas ive had in a long time.
of course, it could be that they ran the moveon story for other reasons, or cos theyre bad at executing (media) - but we've seen from the *increased* saddam/911 beliefs that they realy are very fukking good.
The largest contributor to the AEI is Irving Moskowitz, a bingo hall operator from Florida. He is a militant supporter of the Jewish settlement movement in Israel and the occupied territories. Going down the list of Bush Administration foreign policy gurus, one encounters dozens of graduates of the AEI, a pro-Israeli lobby group that camouflages itself in the garb of a pseudo-academic ?research? establishment. In fact, the only thing they research at the AEI is the best marketing strategies for selling Sharon?s real estate fantasies with a ?made in America? label.
After placing so many of their operatives in such sensitive second tier positions; the next step for this bingo hall subsidized cabal was to project their presence on the national stage. For this task, they recruited mass media operatives like William Safire, who boasts about writing Sharon?s speeches and Charles Krauthammer, a designated OSP leaker. Some of the other neo-con media personalities are Judith ?WMD? Miller, Wolf ?War Room? Blitzer, Aaron ?arson? Brown, Andrea Mitchell (a centerfold on AEI?s web site) and Ted Koppel, a family friend of Netenyahu. By far, the most formidable part of their media arsenal is Rupert Murdoch?s neo-con gang at FOX. The Weekly Standard and the New York POST.
While projecting themselves as a political movement, the neo-cons went shopping for a ?real? constituency. They found willing allies among the millions of Americans on the Christian Right who believe Armageddon is around the corner. All it took to convince them was the promise that the neo-con agenda would speed up the end of times.
Veteran New York money manager Arnold Schmeidler - who did not invest in dot.com IPOs - warns, "We are in a period unlike anything since the 1930s when the world is confronting deflationary forces."
Schmeidler concludes, "The single greatest force for deflation is when you have open trade between nations that have the ability to import the most efficient manufacturing expertise into a low-wage-base society, and so can produce products of the same quality as the high wage economy. The price pressure on the product allows consumers to get more for their money and they benefit. But it is disinflationary, if not deflationary."
Almost half of the US Treasury bonds are now owned in Asia. So China is financing Bush's bold economic experiment: running two or more wars simultaneously with a huge budget and trade deficit, and equally huge tax handouts for the richest Americans.
One has to question the long-term economic rationale for China of putting its long-term assets into very low-interest bonds in a currency that has already dropped recently by a third - and is going to drop even more. It certainly makes strategic sense: if push came to shove over, for example, the Taiwan Strait, all Beijing has to do is to mention the possibility of a sell order going down the wires. It would devastate the US economy more than any nuclear strike the Chinese could manage at the moment.
mred - btw, the hutton thing looks like a murdoch attack on the beeb license fee.
After placing so many of their operatives in such sensitive second tier positions; the next step for this bingo hall subsidized cabal was to project their presence on the national stage. For this task, they recruited mass media operatives like William Safire, who boasts about writing Sharon?s speeches and Charles Krauthammer, a designated OSP leaker. Some of the other neo-con media personalities are Judith ?WMD? Miller, Wolf ?War Room? Blitzer, Aaron ?arson? Brown, Andrea Mitchell (a centerfold on AEI?s web site) and Ted Koppel, a family friend of Netenyahu. By far, the most formidable part of their media arsenal is Rupert Murdoch?s neo-con gang at FOX. The Weekly Standard and the New York POST.
While projecting themselves as a political movement, the neo-cons went shopping for a ?real? constituency. They found willing allies among the millions of Americans on the Christian Right who believe Armageddon is around the corner. All it took to convince them was the promise that the neo-con agenda would speed up the end of times.
Veteran New York money manager Arnold Schmeidler - who did not invest in dot.com IPOs - warns, "We are in a period unlike anything since the 1930s when the world is confronting deflationary forces."
Schmeidler concludes, "The single greatest force for deflation is when you have open trade between nations that have the ability to import the most efficient manufacturing expertise into a low-wage-base society, and so can produce products of the same quality as the high wage economy. The price pressure on the product allows consumers to get more for their money and they benefit. But it is disinflationary, if not deflationary."
Almost half of the US Treasury bonds are now owned in Asia. So China is financing Bush's bold economic experiment: running two or more wars simultaneously with a huge budget and trade deficit, and equally huge tax handouts for the richest Americans.
One has to question the long-term economic rationale for China of putting its long-term assets into very low-interest bonds in a currency that has already dropped recently by a third - and is going to drop even more. It certainly makes strategic sense: if push came to shove over, for example, the Taiwan Strait, all Beijing has to do is to mention the possibility of a sell order going down the wires. It would devastate the US economy more than any nuclear strike the Chinese could manage at the moment.
mred - btw, the hutton thing looks like a murdoch attack on the beeb license fee.
As specialist medical professionals, we do not consider the evidence given at the Hutton inquiry has demonstrated that Dr David Kelly committed suicide.
Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the inquiry, considered the amount ingested of Co-Proxamol insufficient to have caused death. Allan could not show that Dr Kelly had ingested the 29 tablets said to be missing from the packets found. Only a fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach. Allan conceded that the blood level of each of the drug's two components was less than a third of what would normally be found in a fatal overdose.
Although previous news accounts have reported Douglas was thrown from the car and broke his neck, those details were not in the report. The speed of Laura Bush's car was illegible on the report.
mred - we can add this to the 500 soldiers in iraq, and the 20k or wotever dead iraqis, plus the executed texans, and the dead babysitter, and the 'suicide' of the woman gwb raped.
The UN has passed more than 350 Resolutions against Israel, though it failed on some 850 more, vetoed by the USA.
By the time I released to the press in 1971 what became known as the Pentagon Papers - 7,000 pages of top-secret documents demonstrating that virtually everything four American presidents had told the public about our involvement in Vietnam was false - I had known that pattern as an insider for years, and I knew that a fifth president, Richard Nixon, was following in their footsteps.
Cheney's remarks about the Weekly Standard article, particularly in light of the Pentagon's firm and public denunciation, angered former intelligence experts. "I just can't find words to describe how horrible it is," says Cannistraro. "For the vice president to undercut the head of intelligence at the Pentagon is unparalleled. It just illustrates the peculiar worldview Cheney has and how distorted it is. And it shows there's a real contempt for the professional intelligence community."
"The problem with raw intelligence is you can cherry-pick it," he says. "It's like having the Bible in your hand; you can pick and choose individual passages to prove almost any point."
Cannistraro is stunned that Feith's office, out to prove linkage between Saddam and bin Laden, relied on raw intelligence summaries and not evaluated intelligence. "It's just amazing, because it's the antithesis of the intelligence process," he said.
President Bush and Republican Congressional leaders, who have backed both huge tax cuts and huge spending increases with little regard for the consequences, will be tempted to disregard the agency's report, as they have brushed off similar credible warnings. That is one reason Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, must insert himself into the debate. The Fed chairman is said to be extremely worried about Mr. Bush's deficits, and his ostensible independence is no excuse for remaining silent about one of the biggest looming threats to the American economy.
Cheney continued to insist last week that Iraq had been trying to make weapons of mass destruction, apparently oblivious to the findings of the administration's own chief weapons inspector that Iraq had possessed only rudimentary capabilities and unrealized intentions. The vice president's myopia suggests a breathtaking unwillingness to accept a reality that conflicts with the administration's preconceived notions. This kind of rigid thinking helped propel us into an invasion without broad international support and, if Mr. Cheney is as influential as many say, could propel us into further misadventures down the road.
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense, made headlines last year suggesting that Allah is not "a real God" and that Muslims worship an idol. Last month in Israel, Pat Robertson said that today's world conflicts concern "whether Hubal, the moon god of Mecca known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme."
Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the inquiry, considered the amount ingested of Co-Proxamol insufficient to have caused death. Allan could not show that Dr Kelly had ingested the 29 tablets said to be missing from the packets found. Only a fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach. Allan conceded that the blood level of each of the drug's two components was less than a third of what would normally be found in a fatal overdose.
Although previous news accounts have reported Douglas was thrown from the car and broke his neck, those details were not in the report. The speed of Laura Bush's car was illegible on the report.
mred - we can add this to the 500 soldiers in iraq, and the 20k or wotever dead iraqis, plus the executed texans, and the dead babysitter, and the 'suicide' of the woman gwb raped.
The UN has passed more than 350 Resolutions against Israel, though it failed on some 850 more, vetoed by the USA.
By the time I released to the press in 1971 what became known as the Pentagon Papers - 7,000 pages of top-secret documents demonstrating that virtually everything four American presidents had told the public about our involvement in Vietnam was false - I had known that pattern as an insider for years, and I knew that a fifth president, Richard Nixon, was following in their footsteps.
Cheney's remarks about the Weekly Standard article, particularly in light of the Pentagon's firm and public denunciation, angered former intelligence experts. "I just can't find words to describe how horrible it is," says Cannistraro. "For the vice president to undercut the head of intelligence at the Pentagon is unparalleled. It just illustrates the peculiar worldview Cheney has and how distorted it is. And it shows there's a real contempt for the professional intelligence community."
"The problem with raw intelligence is you can cherry-pick it," he says. "It's like having the Bible in your hand; you can pick and choose individual passages to prove almost any point."
Cannistraro is stunned that Feith's office, out to prove linkage between Saddam and bin Laden, relied on raw intelligence summaries and not evaluated intelligence. "It's just amazing, because it's the antithesis of the intelligence process," he said.
President Bush and Republican Congressional leaders, who have backed both huge tax cuts and huge spending increases with little regard for the consequences, will be tempted to disregard the agency's report, as they have brushed off similar credible warnings. That is one reason Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, must insert himself into the debate. The Fed chairman is said to be extremely worried about Mr. Bush's deficits, and his ostensible independence is no excuse for remaining silent about one of the biggest looming threats to the American economy.
Cheney continued to insist last week that Iraq had been trying to make weapons of mass destruction, apparently oblivious to the findings of the administration's own chief weapons inspector that Iraq had possessed only rudimentary capabilities and unrealized intentions. The vice president's myopia suggests a breathtaking unwillingness to accept a reality that conflicts with the administration's preconceived notions. This kind of rigid thinking helped propel us into an invasion without broad international support and, if Mr. Cheney is as influential as many say, could propel us into further misadventures down the road.
Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense, made headlines last year suggesting that Allah is not "a real God" and that Muslims worship an idol. Last month in Israel, Pat Robertson said that today's world conflicts concern "whether Hubal, the moon god of Mecca known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme."
The "womb of history" metaphor used so vigorously by Marx tends to suggest that a little fascism is like a little pregnancy.
For others, perhaps, the judgment of inevitability heightens whatever masochistic pleasure people may get from premonitions of doom, or provides justification for personal escapism from any form of political activism or commitment.
(1980):Indeed the possible convergence of neofascist state-supported capitalism and high-technology state socialism tends to give the impression that there are few alternatives to some form of repressive collectivism as the profile of man's fate by the end of this century.
I have already suggested how Skinnerian reinforcements could be used to help economize on terror and develop what Stephen Spender once called "fascism without tears."
When a few of my students argued a decade ago that fascism would shake Americans from torpor and prepare the way for a more humanist society, I countered one irrationality with another by arguing that the "improbability of any effective internal resistance" to neofascism would doom all hopes of a humanist future.
I drew an exaggerated parallel with the past by pointing out that after all serious internal resistance had been liquidated by the German, Japanese, and Italian fascists, "the only effective anti-fascism was defeat by external powers." Since the "only war that could defeat a neofascist America would be a nuclear war, a holocaust from which no anti-fascist victors would emerge," I concluded with the prophecy: "Once neofascism arrives, the only choice would be fascist or dead." 6
William H. Hastie: "Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming rather than being. It can easily be lost, but is never fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle."
"Sure, we'll have fascism, but it will come disguised as Americanism." This famous statement has been attributed in many forms to Senator Huey P. Long, the Louisiana populist with an affinity for the demagogues of classic European fascism. If he were alive today, I am positive he would add the words "and democracy."
Mahatma Ghandhi
"For me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive. I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India . . . My patriotism is inclusive and admits of no enmity or ill-will."
George Washington, Farewell Address
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
Colonel James A. Donovan identifies the dangerous patriot: "the one who drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. He is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism . . . which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power and which equates the national honor with military victory."
another pungent description of false patriots:
"People who wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim the sanctity of the nation are usually racists, contemptuous of the poor and dedicated to keeping the community of 'ins' small and pure of blood, spirit and mind."
In a (virtually unimaginable) fair trial for Saddam, a defence attorney could quite rightly call to the stand Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush I and other high officials who provided significant support for the dictator, even through his worst atrocities.
A fair trial would at least accept the elementary moral principle of universality: The accusers and the accused must be subject to the same standards.
For others, perhaps, the judgment of inevitability heightens whatever masochistic pleasure people may get from premonitions of doom, or provides justification for personal escapism from any form of political activism or commitment.
(1980):Indeed the possible convergence of neofascist state-supported capitalism and high-technology state socialism tends to give the impression that there are few alternatives to some form of repressive collectivism as the profile of man's fate by the end of this century.
I have already suggested how Skinnerian reinforcements could be used to help economize on terror and develop what Stephen Spender once called "fascism without tears."
When a few of my students argued a decade ago that fascism would shake Americans from torpor and prepare the way for a more humanist society, I countered one irrationality with another by arguing that the "improbability of any effective internal resistance" to neofascism would doom all hopes of a humanist future.
I drew an exaggerated parallel with the past by pointing out that after all serious internal resistance had been liquidated by the German, Japanese, and Italian fascists, "the only effective anti-fascism was defeat by external powers." Since the "only war that could defeat a neofascist America would be a nuclear war, a holocaust from which no anti-fascist victors would emerge," I concluded with the prophecy: "Once neofascism arrives, the only choice would be fascist or dead." 6
William H. Hastie: "Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming rather than being. It can easily be lost, but is never fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle."
"Sure, we'll have fascism, but it will come disguised as Americanism." This famous statement has been attributed in many forms to Senator Huey P. Long, the Louisiana populist with an affinity for the demagogues of classic European fascism. If he were alive today, I am positive he would add the words "and democracy."
Mahatma Ghandhi
"For me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive. I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India . . . My patriotism is inclusive and admits of no enmity or ill-will."
George Washington, Farewell Address
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
Colonel James A. Donovan identifies the dangerous patriot: "the one who drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. He is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism . . . which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power and which equates the national honor with military victory."
another pungent description of false patriots:
"People who wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim the sanctity of the nation are usually racists, contemptuous of the poor and dedicated to keeping the community of 'ins' small and pure of blood, spirit and mind."
In a (virtually unimaginable) fair trial for Saddam, a defence attorney could quite rightly call to the stand Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush I and other high officials who provided significant support for the dictator, even through his worst atrocities.
A fair trial would at least accept the elementary moral principle of universality: The accusers and the accused must be subject to the same standards.
The Bush administration, deeply concerned about recent assassination attempts against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and a resurgence of Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan , is preparing a U.S. military offensive that would reach inside Pakistan with the goal of destroying Osama bin Laden 's Al Qaeda network, military sources said.
An offensive into Pakistan to pursue Al Qaeda would be in keeping with President Bush 's vow to strike wherever and whenever the United States feels threatened and to pursue terrorist elements to the end.
Musharraf's vulnerability is of deep concern to U.S. officials. If he were killed, Bush administration officials say, it is unlikely that any successor would be as willing to work toward U.S. goals to eliminate Islamic extremists.
Pentagon and administration officials, buoyed by that success, believe a similar determined effort could work in Pakistan and lead to the capture or killing of bin Laden, said sources familiar with the planning.
Thousands of U.S. forces would be involved, as well as Pakistani troops, planners said. Some of the 10,600 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan would be shifted to the border region as part of regular troop movements; some would be deployed within Pakistan.
"Before we were constrained by the border. Musharraf did not want that. Now we are told we're going into Pakistan with Musharraf's help," a well-placed military source said.
"We don't have enough forces but we can rely on proxy forces in that area," said a military source, referring to Pakistani troops. "This is designed to go after the Taliban and everybody connected with it."
WASHINGTON - Aiming to increase Internet security, the government is now offering Americans free cyber alerts and computer advice from the Homeland Security Department.Yoran said the government will aggressively warn consumers about vulnerabilities, in some cases revealing threats "above and beyond what specific commercial vendors may not wish to disclose."
An offensive into Pakistan to pursue Al Qaeda would be in keeping with President Bush 's vow to strike wherever and whenever the United States feels threatened and to pursue terrorist elements to the end.
Musharraf's vulnerability is of deep concern to U.S. officials. If he were killed, Bush administration officials say, it is unlikely that any successor would be as willing to work toward U.S. goals to eliminate Islamic extremists.
Pentagon and administration officials, buoyed by that success, believe a similar determined effort could work in Pakistan and lead to the capture or killing of bin Laden, said sources familiar with the planning.
Thousands of U.S. forces would be involved, as well as Pakistani troops, planners said. Some of the 10,600 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan would be shifted to the border region as part of regular troop movements; some would be deployed within Pakistan.
"Before we were constrained by the border. Musharraf did not want that. Now we are told we're going into Pakistan with Musharraf's help," a well-placed military source said.
"We don't have enough forces but we can rely on proxy forces in that area," said a military source, referring to Pakistani troops. "This is designed to go after the Taliban and everybody connected with it."
WASHINGTON - Aiming to increase Internet security, the government is now offering Americans free cyber alerts and computer advice from the Homeland Security Department.Yoran said the government will aggressively warn consumers about vulnerabilities, in some cases revealing threats "above and beyond what specific commercial vendors may not wish to disclose."
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
The U.S. has urged Russia to accelerate its removal of two former Soviet military bases in Georgia, but Russia now says it will require at least 11 years to dismantle them. Powell told Russian reporters that the U.S. is ready to help pay for closing the bases, an offer some Russians see as interference.
Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?
Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value--oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal--must do as they're told or become military targets.
It's important to understand that the corporate media don't just support the neoliberal project. They are the neoliberal project. This is not a moral position they have chosen to take; it's structural. It's intrinsic to the economics of how the mass media work.
We all know the sordid story of Enron in India. The then-Maharashtra government signed a power purchase agreement that gave Enron profits that amounted to 60 percent of India's entire rural development budget. A single American company was guaranteed a profit equivalent to funds for infrastructural development for about 500 million people!
Think about it: If we had been collecting millions of fingerprints and photos before Sept. 11, 2001, would that attack have been foiled? Probably not. We already had all sorts of specific and relevant information about the 9/11 hijackers; we had the raw data at our fingertips; we just didn't analyze it well.
Former Vice President Al Gore, in making this very point, recently listed all of the information we had in hand, weeks before the attacks, about the 9/11 hijackers:
? In late August 2001, Nawaq Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar bought tickets to fly on American Airlines flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon. They bought the tickets under their real names -- names that were also on a State Department/INS watch list (spelled correctly, and not at all Welsh-sounding).
? The CIA and FBI were looking for Alhamzi and Al-Midhar as suspected terrorists, in part because they had been observed at a "terrorist meeting" in Malaysia. The whole time, they were in San Diego -- where they'd rented an apartment under their own names and were listed in the phone book.
? Using the Internet to search for common addresses, analysts would have discovered that other hijackers shared an address with Alhamzi and Al-Midhar -- including Mohamed Atta (who was on American Airlines flight 11, which flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and Marwan Al-Shehhi (on United flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower).
? Similar searches of common addresses, phone numbers and even, believe it or not, frequent flier numbers -- coupled with an INS watch list of expired visas -- would have led to all of the other hijackers, including those who boarded United flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
The Bush Administration wants to widen the definition of "professional" so that it denies overtime pay not just to those with four-year degrees -- but also those who have accumulated work experience "equivalent" to college.
"I think it should be your job to tell our military men and women in Iraq that when they come home, their service of their country will be used as a way to cut their overtime pay."
This is a wonky one, but worth watching. You've got credible, documented allegations that the attorney general committed a federal crime -- and then conspired to cover it up.
"State of the World 2004" is the latest in an annual study put out by the Worldwatch Institute. The authors tell us that in the past 30-odd years, refrigerators have gotten 10 percent bigger, new American homes have gotten 38 percent bigger, and those homes are more likely than ever to house multiple refrigerators.
Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?
Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value--oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal--must do as they're told or become military targets.
It's important to understand that the corporate media don't just support the neoliberal project. They are the neoliberal project. This is not a moral position they have chosen to take; it's structural. It's intrinsic to the economics of how the mass media work.
We all know the sordid story of Enron in India. The then-Maharashtra government signed a power purchase agreement that gave Enron profits that amounted to 60 percent of India's entire rural development budget. A single American company was guaranteed a profit equivalent to funds for infrastructural development for about 500 million people!
Think about it: If we had been collecting millions of fingerprints and photos before Sept. 11, 2001, would that attack have been foiled? Probably not. We already had all sorts of specific and relevant information about the 9/11 hijackers; we had the raw data at our fingertips; we just didn't analyze it well.
Former Vice President Al Gore, in making this very point, recently listed all of the information we had in hand, weeks before the attacks, about the 9/11 hijackers:
? In late August 2001, Nawaq Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar bought tickets to fly on American Airlines flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon. They bought the tickets under their real names -- names that were also on a State Department/INS watch list (spelled correctly, and not at all Welsh-sounding).
? The CIA and FBI were looking for Alhamzi and Al-Midhar as suspected terrorists, in part because they had been observed at a "terrorist meeting" in Malaysia. The whole time, they were in San Diego -- where they'd rented an apartment under their own names and were listed in the phone book.
? Using the Internet to search for common addresses, analysts would have discovered that other hijackers shared an address with Alhamzi and Al-Midhar -- including Mohamed Atta (who was on American Airlines flight 11, which flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and Marwan Al-Shehhi (on United flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower).
? Similar searches of common addresses, phone numbers and even, believe it or not, frequent flier numbers -- coupled with an INS watch list of expired visas -- would have led to all of the other hijackers, including those who boarded United flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
The Bush Administration wants to widen the definition of "professional" so that it denies overtime pay not just to those with four-year degrees -- but also those who have accumulated work experience "equivalent" to college.
"I think it should be your job to tell our military men and women in Iraq that when they come home, their service of their country will be used as a way to cut their overtime pay."
This is a wonky one, but worth watching. You've got credible, documented allegations that the attorney general committed a federal crime -- and then conspired to cover it up.
"State of the World 2004" is the latest in an annual study put out by the Worldwatch Institute. The authors tell us that in the past 30-odd years, refrigerators have gotten 10 percent bigger, new American homes have gotten 38 percent bigger, and those homes are more likely than ever to house multiple refrigerators.
It's true that Dean yelled at his Monday night rally in Iowa. And so what? Basically, at a pep rally, he yelled like a football coach. This is described as being "unpresidential." But says who? Besides, what's the definition of 'presidential?' Isn't giving insulting nicknames to world leaders unpresidential? Isn't sending hundreds of American soldiers to die for uncertain and misrepresented ends in Iraq unpresidential?or worth considering as such? Isn't having an incredibly poor grasp of essential world facts and an aversion to detail and active decision making unpresidential?
Once the howl of the pack gets loud enough, questioning the seriousness of Dean's so-called 'problems' becomes tantamount to downplaying allegations against Michael Jackson.
And overnight, if you combine voting and non-voting shares, Liberty has become the largest holder of equity in News Corp.
Maybe he was motivated by more mundane concerns than disrupting the Murdoch succession. For one, he seems to have got a great deal on the voting shares, buying them at $29 each, when, at close of play on Wednesday, they were valued at $38 apiece. And there is another possible explanation. That by increasing his weight at News Corp, he will be able to ensure that DirecTV has little choice but to carry his various content-producing properties such as QVC and CourtTV.
Some analysts were speculating that Mr Malone might be positioning himself for the moment when the holding is split up among all these heirs - and control of the company really is up for grabs.
Once the howl of the pack gets loud enough, questioning the seriousness of Dean's so-called 'problems' becomes tantamount to downplaying allegations against Michael Jackson.
And overnight, if you combine voting and non-voting shares, Liberty has become the largest holder of equity in News Corp.
Maybe he was motivated by more mundane concerns than disrupting the Murdoch succession. For one, he seems to have got a great deal on the voting shares, buying them at $29 each, when, at close of play on Wednesday, they were valued at $38 apiece. And there is another possible explanation. That by increasing his weight at News Corp, he will be able to ensure that DirecTV has little choice but to carry his various content-producing properties such as QVC and CourtTV.
Some analysts were speculating that Mr Malone might be positioning himself for the moment when the holding is split up among all these heirs - and control of the company really is up for grabs.
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