Sunday, 30 November 2003

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi marks six months in detention

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi marked six months in detention with Myanmar's military rulers showing no hint of when she may be freed. The Nobel peace laureate was detained on May 30 after a pro-junta mob attacked the convoy she was travelling in while touring northern Myanmar to drum up support for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. The party's top eight decision-makers -- men in their 70s and 80s -- were also thrown into detention after the bloody clashes, the details of which remain murky but are feared to have left dozens dead. The unrest triggered a nationwide shutdown of NLD offices, many of which had only just been reopened following Aung San Suu Kyi's release from the second stint of house arrest during her tumultuous political career in May 2002. The charismatic 58-year-old leader was initially held in secret detention until being hospitalised for gynaecological surgery in September, after which she was shifted to her famed lakeside villa on University Avenue. Five of the eight top NLD members were freed by the junta last week without fanfare and without being granted permission to see their leader. Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi marked six months in detention with Myanmar's military rulers showing no hint of when she may be freed. The Nobel peace laureate was detained on May 30 after a pro-junta mob attacked the convoy she was travelling in while touring northern Myanmar to drum up support for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. The party's top eight decision-makers -- men in their 70s and 80s -- were also thrown into detention after the bloody clashes, the details of which remain murky but are feared to have left dozens dead. The unrest triggered a nationwide shutdown of NLD offices, many of which had only just been reopened following Aung San Suu Kyi's release from the second stint of house arrest during her tumultuous political career in May 2002. The charismatic 58-year-old leader was initially held in secret detention until being hospitalised for gynaecological surgery in September, after which she was shifted to her famed lakeside villa on University Avenue. Five of the eight top NLD members were freed by the junta last week without fanfare and without being granted permission to see their leader.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 30, 2003 at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 26 November 2003

CBC News: Deadline Iraq - Uncensored Stories of the War

CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has put together a website called Deadline Iraq: Uncensored Stories of the War which interviews journalists who have been stationed in Iraq. You really, really need to check it out. It's fantastic.

ROSS SIMPSON, REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS RADIO One day
Simpson saw the soldiers gun down an Iraqi officer who was bathing in
the bushes with an AK-47 within reach. The body lay there burning for
an hour hour a half before a corpsman put out the fire with an
extinguisher.
"The corpsman went up and said 'better you than me.' And that was it.
It was just cold steel. No emotion whatsoever, total disconnect. And I
simply thought, these guys were trying to kill me a few minutes ago,
how can I feel sorry for them?"
Simpson also witnessed some horrific mistakes. Tense and under the
constant threat of suicide bombers, soldiers fired on innocent
civilians attempting to flee the city at military checkpoints. "One
soldier had to bury 3 of the people, a mother, a father and a 14 year
old boy. They dug a grave along the Tigris rive, it was so hard they
could only dig it shallow. They put the mother and the father in first
and laid the son across their bodies. And the sergeant who had been in
the marine corps for 15 years almost had tears in his eyes."
"He said 'what I regret most of all is that we don't have anybody in
this battalion with a Polaroid camera who could take their pictures and
make the location. We could put out some flyers in the neighbourhood
saying, these people were killed on this evening, do you know them.'"

Posted by flow Frazao on November 26, 2003 at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 25 November 2003

See where this is going?

June 10, 2003:

There is a "high probability" that al Qaeda will attempt an
attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years, the
U.S. government said in a report Monday.

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit
with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the
Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of
government. Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to
liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave
to the men�s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.
In the magazine�s December edition, the former commander of the
military�s Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in
using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our
allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our
cherished republican form of government.
Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of
Sept. 11, Franks said that �the worst thing that could happen� is
if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear
weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, �... the Western world, the free world,
loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we�ve
seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we
call democracy.�

Posted by flow Frazao on November 25, 2003 at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

So much for endearing Bushisms

Not surprisingly, the Bush Administration and the RNC have been caught redhanded in another shady, borderline illegal transgression:

When President Bush laid out the potential threat that
unconventional weapons posed in Saddam Hussein's hands last year in his
State of the Union address last year, he became tongue-tied at an
inopportune moment.
The line read, "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate,
slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have
ever known." But Mr. Bush stumbled between the words "one" and "vial."
And when at the word vial, he pronounced the "v" as if it were a "w."
Yet in a new Republican commercial that borrows excerpts from that
speech, Mr. Bush delivers that line as smoothly as any other in the
address, without a pause between "one" and "vial," and the v in "vial"
sounds strong and sure.
Republican officials acknowledged yesterday that the change was a
product of technology. The line, they said, was digitally enhanced in
editing "to ensure the best clarity." [...]
The Democrats asked whether the Republican National Committee had gone
to the White House with sound equipment to have Mr. Bush recite the
line anew for what was the first Republican commercial of the campaign
season here. That might have meant that the party was not being
truthful when it said it had not coordinated with Mr. Bush when it made
the advertisement, a possible violation of law [...]
[Republican] Party officials said the line in question was "cut and
pasted." Still, Democrats were ecstatic over the perceived chink in an
advertisement that they have criticized for days as unfair.
"Audio cutting and pasting is `Bush speak' for them having doctored
their own ad," Jim Mulhall of the Democratic National Committee said.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 25, 2003 at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 24 November 2003

One among many

This is the first photo I've seen of an American casket:

An
honor guard carries the casket of Army Spc. Robert Wise during funeral
services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Monday, Nov.
24, 2003. Wise, a member of the Florida National Guard, was killed Nov.
12 when his squad came under attack during a patrol in Baghdad. (AP
Photo/Matthew Cavanaugh)

Posted by flow Frazao on November 24, 2003 at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This just makes me laugh and laugh

The Future of Social Security.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 24, 2003 at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 23 November 2003

Gruesome

This is just getting uglier and uglier:

Attackers killed two U.S. soldiers Sunday as their car
stood in traffic in the city of Mosul, and a roadside bomb killed
another soldier north of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said its men were shot dead
shortly after midday as they traveled from one military compound in the
bustling northern city to another. But several Iraqi witnesses said the
soldiers were stabbed and had their throats slit. Television pictures
showed large pools of blood on the asphalt. Witnesses said locals stole
items from the dead men's pockets, and smashed the windows of their
white, four-wheel drive civilian car. One man was seen brandishing
bloodstained Iraqi dinars he said were taken from the bodies. "People
were taking things from the car. I looked inside and saw two soldiers
with blood all over them," said a local fireman who ran to the scene
after hearing gunshots. U.S. troops quickly surrounded the area, in the
crowded center of the Kurdish city, and interrogated bystanders. "They
hate the Americans in this area," said a man waiting for petrol near
the scene. "They've been doing many raids around here and so it's not
surprising they've been attacked."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 23, 2003 at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Georgia on my mind

It's pretty amazing stuff
that's going on in Georgia right now. President Eduard Shevardnadze has
been accused of rigging elections, and for the past two weeks the
opposition party has been getting people more and more riled up.
Yesterday a mob literally broke down the doors to Parliament and rushed
the session while Shevardnadze was giving a speech. If you've seen the video
then you know how fast those politicians took off when their
constituency came flooding onto the floor.
As of now, the whole country is teetering on the edge. The Opposition
leader has proclaimed herself acting president and has called for new
elections in 45 days. Meanwhile, Shevardnadze has threatened force:

He said the army would take over if the newly-elected
parliament was not allowed to meet to ratify the emergency decree
within 48 hours, as required by the Georgian constitution.

Protesters said they were determined to topple the
president, who has long claimed that his leadership is key to
maintaining stability in the Caucasus region, located on vital oil routes.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 23, 2003 at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 21 November 2003

Stroke leaves Sarasota woman with British accent

This sounds sort of cool:

A stroke temporarily paralyzed the 57-year-old Sarasota
County woman's right side and left her unable to talk. After months of
therapy, she recovered physically and could make guttural sounds.
But when her speaking voice finally returned, it was not her own.
Instead of the deep voice and northern accent she acquired while
growing up outside Philadelphia, Roberts spoke with what sounded like a
higher-pitched, British accent. She had no idea where the voice came
from. Doctors couldn't explain it, friends didn't understand, and
acquaintances accused her of faking it. "I thought I was losing my
mind," Roberts said.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 21, 2003 at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 20 November 2003

If we get the message out, we win

Salon.com has a killer interview of environmental leader Robert Kennedy Jr. up here. In order to view it you have to sit through an advertisement, but it's worth it:

Q: If we're looking at an environmental wasteland under
Bush, why aren't there people in the streets the way they were on Earth
Day 1970, which launched the modern environmental movement?
Well, it's not because people aren't interested. The primary reason is
it's not being covered in the news. I asked [Fox News chief] Roger
Ailes about this recently, and he said, 'We just don't cover it because
it's not fast-breaking. If you release toxics into the air, people
don't get sick for 20 years. We need something that is happening this
afternoon. The polar ice caps melting -- that's just too slow for us to
cover.' And of course the tampering with the regulations you're seeing
in Washington is happening in back corridors, and the networks can't be
bothered to investigate, much less explain to the public the connection
between these regulatory rollbacks, even though the outcomes will be
dramatic and will affect America for generations. But I'll say this --
every poll shows that both Republicans and Democrats want strong
environmental laws, up around 75 percent of the public, and there's
almost no difference between the parties. Those polls are confirmed by
my own anecdotal evidence. I speak all around the country on
environmental issues. Three weeks ago I spoke at a petroleum and gas
industry conference, and I got a standing ovation from the audience
when I told them about Bush's environmental record. And I'll give you
another example: I was recently in Richmond, Va., speaking to the
Women's Club, which is solidly Republican -- I was told that none of
its members had voted for a Democrat since Jefferson Davis. And I got a
standing ovation there, too. It's because most Republicans are actually Democrats; they just don't know it.
If they knew what was happening in the White House, they would be
angry, they would be furious. And when they are told what is happening,
they get angry. And that's the reaction I get all around the country.
If we get the message out, we win.

• EPA officially rolls back Clean Air Act protections
• EPA quietly backs off on reducing drinking water pollution
• Forest Service to double logging in Sierra Nevada forests
• EPA exempts oil and gas industry from water pollution rules
• Despite scientific concerns, Interior Department approves power plant near Yellowstone

Posted by flow Frazao on November 20, 2003 at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The penguin is mightier than the sword

Woohoo!

"Bloom County" cartoonist Berkeley Breathed talks about
bringing Opus back to the nation's comics page to rip Garfield (and
maybe George Bush) a new one.

Q: Last we heard from you, via the Onion interview a
few years back, the odds of you ever doing a strip again seemed pretty
slim (to put it mildly). What changed?
The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things
properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it
necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at
least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to
retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his
zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 20, 2003 at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Break out the handcuffs

Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and one
of the most outspoken and influential hawks leading the rush to war,
has conceded that the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law:

In a startling break with the official White House and
Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in
this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal
either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq -
also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of
self-defence permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises
the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law
... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this
would have been morally unacceptable.

A simple three-sentence letter to U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan formally ended U.S. participation in an agreement to create
the world's first permanent tribunal to prosecute war crimes, genocide,
and other crimes against humanity. In the letter, Undersecretary of
State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton,
asserted that Washington "does not intend to become a party to the
(Rome Statute of the ICC)" and that it "has no legal obligations
arising from its signature (to the treaty) on December 31, 2000." The
ICC treaty � which was signed by President Bill Clinton � has been
signed by almost 140 countries and ratified by 66 and takes formal
effect July 1. Right-wing hawks in the Bush administration have been
gunning for the ICC even before the inauguration. The author of the
U.N. letter, John Bolton, was perhaps the most outspoken foe of the
Rome Statute in Washington even before his appointment to the State
Department. As vice president of the neo-conservative American
Enterprise Institute and a trusted adviser of Sen. Jesse Helms, Bolton
argued that the Court compromises U.S. constitutional guarantees, U.S.
sovereignty, and could be used to pursue politically-motivated
prosecutions of U.S. troops stationed overseas.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 20, 2003 at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 19 November 2003

Our pathetic media

From Atrios:

NIGHTLINE
"TONIGHT'S FOCUS: President Bush is in London, as are tens of thousands
of demonstrators. His visit comes on the heels of a major policy change
by the White House, and the acceleration of the plan to hand authority
in Iraq back to the Iraqis.... And oh yeah, Michael Jackson may be
arrested today.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 19, 2003 at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Why did we go to war again?

Just in case you've forgotten.

(Warning: Loud noises)

Posted by flow Frazao on November 19, 2003 at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Quick roundup

• Iraq Pipeline Bombed Despite New U.S. Protection
  • Saboteurs have set an oil pipeline in northern Iraq on fire as a new U.S.-led force was deployed to protect the area's infrastructure, witnesses said Monday. The force, dubbed Task Force Shield, is made up of U.S. military personnel, a South African security contractor and local tribes. Exports revenues from oil sales are vital for U.S. hopes of paying for Iraq's reconstruction. Iraq has been exporting around 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) over the first 10 days of this month from its southern Basra oil terminal. Baghdad hopes to raise December exports to 1.5 million bpd. Before the war, Iraq was exporting 2.2 million bpd and the northern pipeline was capable of carrying around 800,000 bpd.
• Ramadi Car Bomb Said to Cause Casualties
  • A car bomb exploded late Wednesday outside the home of a pro-American tribal leader in Ramadi, killing at least one person and wounding others, a resident of the city said. Suleiman is a leader of the Duleim tribe, one of the largest Sunni Muslim tribes in Iraq. Suleiman, a member of the city council, is close to the Americans, and insurgents have threatened and targeted Iraqis who work with the coalition.
• Iraqis Say Saddam Not Leading Attacks
  • A former Iraqi general who claims to be part of the insurgency against U.S. troops says the guerrilla war around this "Sunni Triangle" city is being waged by small groups fighting on their own without direction from Saddam Hussein or others. He and two other Samara men, who said they are in separate guerrilla units, insisted in interviews with The Associated Press that their fight isn't aimed at returning Saddam to power. They said it's about ending the U.S.-led occupation and restoring Iraqi rule. .... Meeting with a reporter at the house of an acquaintance, he said he had only a half hour to speak because he was on his to way to ambush an American convoy on the Samara-Tikrit highway.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 19, 2003 at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Coincidence?

You decide:

'Iron Hammer', the U.S. military's code name for a
crackdown on resistance in Iraq, was also used by the Nazis for an
aborted operation to damage the Soviet power grid during World War II.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 19, 2003 at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 18 November 2003

Oil addictions make for the strangest bedfellows

I'm not quite sure how we decide which murderous regimes should be
overthrown (Saddam/Iraq) and which murderous regimes are led by "our kind of guy" (Suharto/Indonesia). Regardless, it appears as though America has renewed ties with the murderous regime of Equatorial Guinea:

Equatorial Guinea's president had his opponents imprisoned
and tortured, had his presidential predecessor executed by firing
squad, helped himself to the state treasury at will. State radio recently declared him "like God."
Teodoro Obiang might seem an unlikely candidate for warmer relations
with Washington, except for one thing - his tiny West African country's
got a tremendous amount of oil.
With America looking increasingly for alternatives to oil from the
Middle East, West Africa - and dictators like Obiang - aren't looking
so bad.
To the dismay of human rights activists, Washington reopened its
embassy on the tropical country's island capital of Malabo last month
after an eight-year shutdown.
Although no U.S. ambassador is serving in Malabo, Obiang's critics say
reopening of the embassy gives tacit approval to a repressive regime
that lets little of the country's newfound oil wealth trickle down to
its 500,000 people, who are among the poorest on Earth.

"...In commentary on the economic and social situation, the
report notes that there was no change in relation to the extreme
poverty; no perceptible improvement in the quality of life of the
people had resulted from the large fiscal revenues derived from oil
production and exports. There had been no major investment in health, education, housing or public works"
"...On the status of women and the situation of girls, the report
notes: women separated from their husbands are kept in prison for
unspecified periods because their families have not paid restitution to
their former husbands."
"...A communication was sent to the government related to the arrest,
detention and provisional release of a lawyer. The actions were
reportedly taken because of the lawyer�s efforts to prevent the
admission, as evidence, of statements made under torture by detainees
on trial for alleged involvement in an attack on a military barracks on
Bioko Island in January 1998. Information also indicated that the same
lawyer, and one other involved in the case, had received death threats
after they informed the court of systematic torture of those detainees.
[The case involved] the arrest of some 500 persons on the island of
Bioko, most of whom belong to the Bubi tribe � including a teacher
and his spouse, an MP for the Partido Democr�tio de Guinea Ecuatorial
and a former Director of the Prime Minister�s office. The methods of
torture included beating (some with a high voltage cable all over the
body and on the feet), suspension by the arms, cuts, sexual abuse and
rape."

These days, [President] Obiang speaks of his nation
becoming "the Kuwait of Africa," and he's not far off the mark.
West Africa's Gulf of Guinea already supplies the United States with 15
percent of its oil imports, and analysts say that share could grow to
25 percent by 2015.
Obiang keeps state oil proceeds a secret, and critics accuse him and
other top officials of funneling hundreds of millions of dollars of oil
money into private accounts in foreign banks.
"The regime's lack of financial capacity and control and preference for
cash up front means effectively that the population is not getting its
fair share of the oil wealth," Wykes said. "And U.S. oil companies are
benefiting from this situation."
She estimates oil revenues in Equatorial Guinea this year could reach
$700 million.
In July, state radio announced that Obiang, "in permanent
contact with the Almighty," was "like God in heaven" who has "all power
over men and things," according to the British Broadcasting
Corp.
An American spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, speaking on condition he
not be identified further, acknowledged there are problems in
Equatorial Guinea, but said the best way to effect change is to have a
presence on the ground, not to watch events unfold from afar.
"There's really so many Americans there now and there are so many
interests," the official said. "There's a lot more that we have now in common."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 18, 2003 at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

See no evil

The White House has just announced that a scheduled speech to British
Parliament has been scrapped:

GEORGE Bush was last night branded chicken for scrapping
his speech to Parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war
MPs.
The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and
Lords during his state visit to Britain.
But senior White House adviser Dr Harlan Ullman said: "They would have
loved to do it because it would have been a great photo-opportunity.
"But they were fearful it would to turn into a spectacle with Labour
backbenchers walking out."
The only speech Mr Bush, who will stay with the Queen at Buckingham
Palace, is now due to give will be to an "invited audience" at the
Banqueting House in Whitehall.
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: "This is yet another slight on this
country by the president of the USA.
"The least he could do is subject himself to questions from MPs."
And colleague John McDonnell said: "Bush might be able to run from the
protesters, he might be able not to see the banners.
"But he must not be able to hide from the anger felt across the country
at this unjustified war."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 18, 2003 at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.N. Agency Begins Afghan Withdrawal

A bit of news from the war that never was:

The U.N. refugee agency began pulling foreign staff out of
large swaths of southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday in the wake
of the killing of a French worker, a decision that could affect tens of
thousands of Afghan returnees.
The withdrawal of international staff follows a series of attacks on
the United Nations in recent days, including the drive-by killing of
Bettina Goislard, a 29-year-old UNHCR worker, as she traveled through a
bazaar in a clearly marked U.N. vehicle in the city of Ghazni, 60 miles
southwest of the capital.
That same day saw a bomb attack on a U.N. vehicle in eastern Paktia
province. And on Nov. 11, a car bomb exploded outside U.N. offices in
Kandahar, injuring two people.
However, Mullah Akim Latifi, who was a culture and information official
under the Taliban and claims to still speak for the group, told The
Associated Press by satellite telephone on Tuesday that the Taliban
were not involved in Goislard's killing.
"We are not interested in killing aid workers. We only want to kidnap
them to bargain for the release of our jailed comrades," said Latifi.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 18, 2003 at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 17 November 2003

US agrees to international control of its troops in Iraq

Finally, the Bush Administration comes around to reality (at least in one respect):

The United States accepts that to avoid humiliating failure
in Iraq it needs to bring its forces quickly under international
control and speed the handover of power, Javier Solana, the European
Union foreign policy chief, has said. Decisions along these lines will
be made in the 'coming days', Mr Solana told The Independent.
The comments, signalling a major policy shift by the US, precede
President George Bush's state visit this week to London, during which
he and Tony Blair will discuss an exit strategy for forces in Iraq.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 17, 2003 at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Best language ever

How cool is this:

Juan Cabello is a "silbador," until recently a dying breed
on tiny, mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands off West
Africa. Like his father and grandfather before him, Cabello, 50, knows
"Silbo Gomero," a language that's whistled, not spoken, and can be
heard more than two miles away. This chirpy brand of chatter is thought
to have come over with early African settlers 2,500 years ago. Now,
educators are working hard to save it from extinction by making
schoolchildren study it up to age 14.
Silbo � the word comes from Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle
� features four "vowels" and four "consonants" that can be strung
together to form more than 4,000 words. It sounds just like bird
conversation and Cabello says it has plenty of uses. "I use it for
everything: to call to my wife, to tell my kids something, to find a
friend if we get lost in a crowd," Cabello said.
A snatch of dialogue in Silbo is posted here and translates as follows:

"Hey, Servando!"

"What?"

"Look, go tell Julio to bring the castanets."

"OK. Hey, Julio!"

"What?"

"Lili says you should go get the kids and have them bring the castanets for the party."

"OK, OK, OK."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 17, 2003 at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 16 November 2003

Straight from the horse's mouth

Max Boot (I know, great name) jumps the fence in this NYT article:

The Lessons of a Quagmire
This month's setbacks in Iraq � the downing of American helicopters,
the suicide bombing of an Italian headquarters � have made President
Bush's mantra of "progress" ring increasingly hollow. It's true that 80
percent of Iraq remains peaceful and stable, but we seem to be losing
in the other 20 percent, mostly among Sunni Muslims who benefited from
Saddam Hussein's rule. The escalating violence lends credence to
critics who see parallels with Vietnam.
The biggest error the armed forces made in Vietnam was trying to fight
a guerrilla foe the same way they had fought the Wehrmacht. The
military staged big-unit sweeps with fancy code names like Cedar Falls
and Junction City, and dropped more bombs than during World War II.
Neither had much effect on the enemy, who would hide in the jungles and
then emerge to ambush American soldiers. Seeing that his strategy
wasn't working, Gen. William Westmoreland, the American commander,
responded by asking for more and more troops, until we had 500,000
soldiers in Vietnam. And still it was not enough.
What proved most effective in Vietnam were not large conventional
operations but targeted counterinsurgency programs. Four � known as
CAP, Cords, Kit Carson Scouts and Phoenix � were particularly
effective.
CAP stood for Combined Action Platoon. Under it, a Marine rifle squad
would live and fight alongside a South Vietnamese militia platoon to
secure a village from the Vietcong. The combination of the Marines'
military skills and the militias' local knowledge proved highly
effective. No village protected under CAP was ever retaken by the
Vietcong. Cords, or Civil Operations and Rural Development Support, was
the civilian side of the counterinsurgency, run by two C.I.A. legends:
Robert Komer and William Colby. It oversaw aid programs designed to win
hearts and minds of South Vietnamese villagers, and its effectiveness
lay in closely coordinating its efforts with the military.
The Kit Carson Scouts were former Communists who were enlisted to help
United States forces. They primarily served as scouts and interpreters,
but they also fought. Most proved fiercely loyal. They had to be: they
knew that capture by their former Vietcong comrades meant death.
Phoenix was a joint C.I.A.-South Vietnam effort to identify and
eradicate Vietcong cadres in villages. Critics later charged the
program with carrying out assassinations, and even William Colby
acknowledged there were "excesses." Nevertheless, far more cadres were
captured (33,000) or induced to defect under Phoenix (22,000) than were
killed (26,000).
To secure the Sunni Triangle, the army would do better to focus on
classic counterinsurgency strategies. We need closer cooperation
between Iraqi and coalition forces, as in CAP. We need better
coordination between the military and L. Paul Bremer's Coalition
Provisional Authority, as in Cords. We need better intelligence to
identify and neutralize Iraqi insurgents, as in Phoenix. We might even
want to recruit Baathists and induce them to turn against their
erstwhile comrades, as in the Kit Carson Scouts.

The power of neocons is much exaggerated � unfortunately.
I think the emergence of neocon thinking is very significant. In
essence, I think neocons combine the best of the two dominant strains
of US foreign policy thinking: Wilsonian idealism and Kissingerian
realpolitik. They have Wilson's devotion to promoting democracy while
at the same time recognizing � as Wilson did not � that this often
requires force and that the US cannot rely on international treaties
alone.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 16, 2003 at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Study: No Sign Saddam Transferred WMD

It's official:

A new study by an independent military and intelligence
expert who toured Iraq recently found no evidence that Saddam Hussein
tried to transfer weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, met with top U.S. officials in Iraq, including
David Kay, the CIA representative leading the search for chemical,
biological and other unconventional weapons.
President Bush, in justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq, said
he feared Saddam, then Iraq's authoritarian president, would supply
weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations such as
al-Qaida.
"No evidence of any Iraqi effort to transfer weapons of mass
destruction technology or weapons to terrorists. Only possibility was
Saddam's Fedayeen, and talk only," Cordesman wrote of his briefing with
Kay. The Fedayeen is the deposed leader's former paramilitary force.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 16, 2003 at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Saturday, 15 November 2003

Terror market to reopen

I'm stealing this entire post from kos.
It's just too incredible:
"Amazing to believe, but a sharp-eyed reader has found that the Policy
Analysis Market -- that Pentagon-funded and Poindexter-led futures
market -- will reopen in March.

You remember this particular DARPA project:

The program is called the Policy Analysis Market. DARPA
said it was part of a research effort "to investigate the broadest
possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." Traders would
have bought and sold futures contracts -- just like energy traders do
now in betting on the future price of oil. But the contracts in this
case would have been based on what might happen in the Middle East in
terms of economics, civil and military affairs or specific events, such
as terrorist attacks. Holders of a futures contract that came true
would have collected the proceeds of traders who put money into the
market but predicted wrong. A graphic on the market's Web page Monday
showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on
the likelihood that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be
assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown.
Although the website described the Policy Analysis Market as a Middle
East market, the graphic also included the possibility of a North Korea
missile attack.

I'm not a journalist. But someone should find out."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 15, 2003 at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I love to color!

"I made a picture of Flat Stanley!" proclaimed President Bush on Friday afternoon.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 15, 2003 at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 14 November 2003

Public Defenders Now Coming With a Cost

Remember the Miranda Rights (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966))? Here's a refresher, just in case:

• You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand?
  
• Anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?
  
• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to
  the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in
  the future. Do you understand?
  
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. Do you understand?

Alvin Hopkins had a choice: agree to a $50 fee for a
court-appointed attorney or defend himself against drunken driving
charges. Hopkins couldn't afford an attorney. Not so long ago, that
wouldn't have been a problem; state law would have directed the court
to provide a public defender. But court-appointed attorneys aren't
routinely free anymore in Minnesota, one of several states that have
decided to levy a variety of court fees in a time of budget difficulty.
Hopkins had to agree to a $50 fee � or represent himself, with a jail
sentence at stake.
While many public defenders condemn the new fees, the state's chief
public defender supports them. The critics cite the Supreme Court's
landmark 1963 Gideon ruling, which said poor defendants have a
constitutional right to an attorney because lawyers are necessities,
not luxuries. Critics say the fees undercut the right to counsel
because indigent clients may choose to take their chances without a
lawyer and risk jail even though they don't know their rights, the law
or court procedures, and might be innocent. "

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

No punishment for mom who didn't return to Iraq

This is the kind of thing the military rarely gets credit for:

A soldier who refused to return to Iraq so she could care
for her children will not be punished, the Army said Friday. Spc.
Simone Holcomb, 30, had feared she would face criminal charges and a
discharge that would cause her to lose the benefits she earned as a
member of the Colorado National Guard. But Army spokesman Maj. Steve
Stover said the medic will face no administrative or criminal penalties.

Simone Holcomb waves goodbye as she gets ready to take an elevator with her daughters in Denver on November 6, 2003.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Holy Hedgehog

Remember that guy who lived through a plunge over Niagara Falls?

This is him!!

Amazing! Who would've thought Ron Jeremy could pull it off?

Get it? Pull it off?? Oh, somebody stop me. I'm too good.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

US War Dead in Iraq Exceeds Early Vietnam Years

The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War, the brutal Cold War conflict that cast a shadow over U.S. affairs for more than a generation. A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000. By comparison, a roadside bomb attack that killed a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where U.S. forces number about 130,000 troops -- the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965. Larger still is the number of American casualties from the broader U.S. war on terrorism, which has produced 488 military deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Southwest Asia and other locations.

Update:
I wasn't going to say anything, but enough people pointed it out to warrant a mention: The above photo depicts Italian caskets. There are no photos of American fatalities because the Bush Administration has put a gag order on the media from showing them.

[T]he White House and the Pentagon are showing increased
sensitivity to the portrayal of U.S. casualties from the war in Iraq.
Officials have barred media coverage of the bodies of troops arriving
at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, in that case also insisting that a
long-ignored rule be enforced. "It concerns me, because you can't
understand the true cost of war if you can't see the amputees and the
people who have been killed," said Steve Robinson, executive director
of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans group. "The
results of war have to be witnessed at graveside, whether you like it
or not."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

That explains everything

Here's a telling snippet from the Washington Post:

[Colin] Powell described his killer schedule in an
interview Thursday with Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, a reporter for a
London-based Saudi newspaper. "So do you use sleeping tablets to
organize yourself?" Al-Rashed asked. "Yes. Well, I wouldn't call them
that," Powell said. "They're a wonderful medication -- not medication.
How would you call it? They're called Ambien, which is very good. You
don't use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien."

A variety of abnormal thinking and behavior changes have
been reported to occur in association with the use of sedative/
hypnotics. Some of these changes may be characterized by decreased
inhibition (eg, aggressiveness and extroversion that seemed out of
character), similar to effects produced by alcohol and other CNS
depressants. Other reported behavioral changes have included bizarre
behavior, agitation, hallucinations, and depersonalization. Amnesia and
other neuropsychiatric symptoms may occur unpredictably.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2003 at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 13 November 2003

Wow.

From The Atlantic:

"A Miserable Failure"
byline: Jack Beatty
With one phrase Dick Gephardt has defined the issue to be decided next
November. Can a "miserable failure" of a president win re-election?
Bush's victory would testify to a civic failure more dangerous to the
American future than any policies implemented or continued during a
second Bush term. A majority would have demonstrated that democratic
accountability is finished. That you can fail in everything and still
be re-elected president. You can preside over the most catastrophic
failure of intelligence and national defense in history. Can fire no
one associated with this fatal chain of blunders and bureaucratic
buck-passing. Can
oppose an inquest into September 11 for more than a year until pressure
from the relatives of those killed on that day becomes politically
toxic. Can name Henry Kissinger, that mortician of truth, to head the
independent commission you finally accede to. You can start an
unnecessary war that kills hundreds of Americans and as many as 7,000
Iraqi civilians�adjusted for the difference in population, the
equivalent of 80,000 Americans. Can occupy Iraq without a plan to
restore traffic lights, much less order. Can make American soldiers
targets in a war of attrition conducted by snipers, assassins, and
planters of remote-control bombs�and taunt the murderers of our young
men to "bring it on." Can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on
nation building�and pass the bill to America's children. (Asked to
consider rescinding your tax cut for the top one percent of taxpayers
for one year in order to fund the $87 billion you requested from
Congress to pay for the occupation of Iraq, your Vice President said
no; that would slow growth.) You can lose more jobs than any other
President since Hoover. You can cut cops and after-school programs and
Pell Grants and housing allowances for the poor to give tax cuts to
millionaires. You can wreck the nation's finances, running up the
largest deficit in history. You can permit 17,000 power plants to
increase their health-endangering pollution of the air. You can lower
the prestige of the United States in every country of the world by your
unilateral conduct of foreign policy and puerile "you're either with us
or against us" rhetoric. Above all, you can lie the country into war
and your lies can be exposed�and, if a majority prefers ignorance to
civic responsibility, you can still be reelected. Even Republicans must
be capable of applying a cost-benefit analysis to this record of
miserable failure. Their tax cuts on one side, the burden of
Bush-begotten debt on their children on the other. And surely even
Republicans breathe the air befouled by those power plants. I have it
on good authority that the conservatives in the party do as well.
Surely they must question the judgment of a President who proposes to
turn Iraq into what James Fallows calls "the fifty-first state" in
order to bring democracy to the Middle East�the kind of do-gooder
fantasy conservatives have long ridiculed in liberals. But the election
won't be decided by Republicans and conservatives. Most will sacrifice
independent judgment to ideology or party and vote for Bush. No, swing
voters will pick the next President. They vote the man not the party,
character not ideology. Many voted for Bush in 2000 because they liked
him better than Al Gore�applying the standards of product
acceptability to a job that entrusts its holder with the power to blow
up the planet. Well, do they still "like" Bush? I fear many do. After
all, he has spared them the embarrassment of having to discuss sex with
their children. Swing voters like Bush's "image" as a strong leader, a
CNN pundit claims. Are they incapable of looking behind that image and
seeing the weak President who stayed away from the White House on
September 11 because his Vice President said it was not safe for him to
be there and whose PR people lied to cover up his failure of
leadership? John F. Kennedy, as R. W. Apple wrote on the front page of
The New York Times on September 12, remained in the White House
throughout the Cuban missile crisis knowing that it would be hit in any
nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. The Founders feared that the
republic would succumb to corruption without republican
citizenship�without citizens who could transcend privatism and hold
elected officials to account, demanding probity and competence, and
judging their performance against both the clamorous necessities of the
time and the mute claims of posterity. They made property a criterion
for voting because it secured a measure of economic independence.
Property-less wage laborers, they feared, would vote as their employers
instructed them to. The extension of democracy to those who could not
rise to the responsibilities of republican freedom would corrupt the
republic�hasten its decay into oligarchy or mob rule. For all their
worldliness the Founders were na�ve to regard property as a shield of
incorruptibility or the property-less as inherently corruptible. Their
core insight, however, remains valid. A republic can be corrupted at
the top and bottom, by leaders and led. The re-election of George W.
Bush would signal that a kind of corruption had set in among the led.
Our miserable failure as republican citizens would match his as
President.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Getting ugly (part two)

From Editor & Publisher:

In two separate letters to the Pentagon, the press claims
that U.S. troops are harassing journalists in Iraq and sometimes
confiscating equipment, digital camera disks and videotapes.
The Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) wrote a letter of protest
to Larry Di Rita, acting assistant secretary of defense for public
affairs. Some soldiers' actions "appear intended to discourage
journalists from covering the continued military action in Iraq," wrote
APME President Stuart Wilk, also vice president/managing editor at The
Dallas Morning News.
"These actions are unacceptable and contrary to the Pentagon's own
guidelines distributed to troops in the field," Wilk wrote. The
harassment has deprived "the American public of crucial images from
Iraq in newspapers, broadcast stations and online news operations."
Separately, 30 media organizations, lead by The Associated Press, fired
off their own letter to Di Rita, saying they have "documented numerous
examples of U.S. troops physically harassing journalists," according to
a report in Thursday's Boston Globe. The letter was signed by
representatives from CNN, ABC, The Boston Globe, Newhouse News Service,
and many others.
"It's back to the bad old days where journalists are being treated as
adversaries, AP Washington Bureau Chief Sandy Johnson told the Globe.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nailing it down

Associated Press:

U.S. intelligence agencies have identified several
guerrilla groups, including one whose name calls for Saddam Hussein's
return, that they now believe are behind much of the anti-U.S. violence
in Iraq.
The top general in the region, Gen. John Abizaid, estimated Thursday
that insurgent fighters in Iraq total no more than 5,000, and he said the largest and most dangerous groups are Saddam loyalists.

The Guardian:

The White House yesterday drew up emergency plans to
accelerate the transfer of power in Iraq after being shown a
devastating CIA report warning that the guerrilla war was in danger of
escalating out of US control. The report, an "appraisal of situation"
commissioned by the CIA director, George Tenet, and written by the CIA
station chief in Baghdad, said that the insurgency was gaining ground
among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands. One
military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000.
Analysts cautioned that such a figure was speculative, but it does
indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon
had led the administration to believe. An intelligence source in
Washington familiar with the CIA report described it as a "bleak
assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".
"It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and
dramatic change of course," the source said.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Calvinball

A few days ago the White House and the 9/11 investigative commission
came to an agreement concerning access to "sensitive" documents. The
Bush Administration was pleased with it, but here's what two members of
the panel had to say:

The limitations prompted angry condemnations yesterday from
two Democratic commissioners -- former senator Max Cleland (Ga.) and
former representative Timothy J. Roemer (Ind.) -- who have argued that
the commission should be more aggressive in seeking sensitive materials
from the Bush administration. Cleland called the agreement
"unconscionable" and said it "was deliberately compromised by the
president of the United States" to limit the commission's work. "If
this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any
American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the
commission had full access," Cleland said. "This investigation is now
compromised. . . . This is 'The Gong Show'; this isn't protection of
national security." Roemer said: "To paraphrase Churchill, never have
so few commissioners reviewed such important documents with so many
restrictions. The 10 commissioners should either have access to this or
not at all." The commission, which does not release vote counts and has
conducted many of its deliberations behind closed doors, declined
yesterday to publicly provide details about the agreement. "We believe
this agreement will prove satisfactory and enable us to get our job
done," a commission statement said.

Relatives of people who perished in the Sept. 11 attacks
say a federal commission accepted too many conditions in striking a
deal with the White House over access to secret intelligence documents.
The Family Steering Committee,
a group of victims' relatives who are monitoring the work of the
independent commission, criticized the agreement announced late
Wednesday. Under the deal, only some of the 10 commissioners
will be allowed to examine classified intelligence documents, and their
notes will be subject to White House review.
"We really want to know the details here," said Lorie Van Auken of New
Jersey, whose husband, Kenneth, was killed at the World Trade Center.
"I don't understand what's so secret about that. I mean, this is not a
game."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It's democracy, not theocracy

The Alabama judge who staged a huge protest over a sculpture depicting the 10 commandments has been removed from office:

Alabama's chief justice was removed from office on Thursday
for refusing to obey a federal order to move a Ten Commandments
monument in a dispute that fueled a national debate over the place of
God in public life.
The nine members of Alabama's Court of the Judiciary unanimously voted
to remove Roy Moore, who was elected to a six-year term as the state's
top judge in 2000. "Finding no other viable alternatives, this court
hereby finds that Roy S. Moore be removed from his position as chief
justice of Alabama," said Judge William Thompson, a member of the
judicial panel. Thompson said Moore "willfully and publicly" defied a
U.S. district judge's order to move a 5,000-pound monument from public
view in the state judicial building, placing himself above the law in
doing so. Thompson also said Moore "showed no signs of contrition for
his actions."

"I have absolutely no regrets," Moore told about 50 supporters, some of them crying,
outside the state courthouse. "We have got to stop the hypocrisy in
this country." Moore, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate
for other Alabama statewide offices, said he had no plans except to
look for a job.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Have you any wool?

Talk about foot and mouth disease:

"The last time [George W. Bush] dined with the Queen [of
England] � in 1992 at his father's White House, wearing cowboy boots
emblazoned with GOD SAVE THE QUEEN � he asked if she had any black
sheep in her family. "Don't answer that!" his mother Barbara
interjected, trying to avoid embarrassment."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 13, 2003 at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 12 November 2003

What a day

Just to recap:

• Bomb at Italian Base in Iraq Kills at Least 27
  • Thereby destroying any hope of international support
  
  
• CIA Report Says U.S. Losing Popular Support in Iraq
  • Not a huge surprise to you and I, but Bush et al will be astounded
  
  
• Government Outgrows Cap Set by President By Huge Margin
  • Despite
    Bush's pledges to rein in government growth, federal discretionary
    spending expanded by 12.5 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept.
    30. This caps a two-year bulge that saw the government grow by more
    than 27 percent overall.
  
  
• London Police says it will not shield Bush from protests
  • Stay tuned for some exciting CNN clips next week
  
  
• 9/11 Panel to Get Access
  • Deal made with White House for limited review of classified briefings.
  
  
• Viceroy Bremer Rushed Back to Washington for Emergency Talks
  • "We are in a very intense period here," said L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq.
  
  

Posted by flow Frazao on November 12, 2003 at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Getting ugly

Sounds like troops are not only beginning to take things out on the media:

With casualties mounting in Iraq, jumpy U.S. soldiers are
becoming more aggressive in their treatment of journalists covering the
conflict.
Media people have been detained, news equipment has been confiscated
and some journalists have suffered verbal and physical abuse while
trying to report on events. Although the number of incidents involving
soldiers and journalists is difficult to gauge, anecdotal evidence
suggests it has risen sharply the past two months.
A number of journalists, particularly Iraqis and other Arabs working
for foreign media organizations, say they are now routinely threatened
at gunpoint if they try to film the aftermath of guerrilla attacks.
Some have been arrested and held for short periods. Sami Awad, a
Lebanese cameraman working as a freelancer for a German TV network,
said that when his crew tried to check out a report Friday about hand
grenades being thrown at a U.S. patrol in Baghdad, they encountered a
roadblock at which soldiers told him to go ahead and film. But as the
crew proceeded down the street, more soldiers appeared, threw them to
the ground and pointed their weapons at their heads, Awad said. "They
checked our identity badges and then let us go, saying they thought we
were with Al-Jazeera," he said. "Each group of soldiers acts on its
own, and most of them are very scared and inexperienced."
A TV news producer in Baghdad for a major U.S. television network said
his crews had been threatened at least 10 times in recent weeks with
confiscation of their equipment. He asked not to be quoted by name
because of his company's policy against giving interviews to other
media. In September, U.S. soldiers shot up the car of an Associated
Press photographer in Khaldiyah after an American convoy was hit with a
roadside bomb. The photographer, Karim Kadim, and his Iraqi driver
jumped from the car and ran for cover when they saw a tank aim at them.
They were shot at with a machine gun as they ran and the car was badly
damaged. Neither man was hurt. In the same incident, a U.S. tank's
.50-caliber machine gun fired at AP correspondent Tarek al-Issawi as he
viewed the scene from a nearby rooftop. He also escaped injury. "If you
don't like the way the military works, I can't help you," Capt. William
Pickett told a group of reporters left standing outside the gate after
being invited to cover a briefing Monday with Australia's defense
minister, Robert Hill.

Four soldiers at Fort Benning have been arrested and
accused of stabbing to death a member of their infantry unit, setting
the body on fire and leaving it in the woods just days after their
return from Iraq.
Police said the soldiers had gotten mad at Spc. Richard R. Davis for
insulting a dancer at a strip club and getting them kicked out of the
place.
Davis, 24, of St. Charles, Mo., was stabbed repeatedly in July. His
skeletal remains were found Friday, nearly four months after he was
reported missing. Fort Benning investigators had received a tip to
search the woods near the Army post.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 12, 2003 at 09:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush to see what a real democracy looks like

It sounds like London is not going to bow to pressure from the Bush Administration:

London police said on Wednesday there would be no special
"exclusion zones" for President Bush's visit next week and he could
easily come into contact with anti-war protesters.
"There is no intention to spare anyone's embarrassment. We have been
under no pressure to do so," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy
Trotter. "There will be no exclusion zones. He (Bush) could quite
easily come into contact with demonstrators."

The prospect of Bush, Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister
Tony Blair, Washington's closest ally in the Iraq war, together could
present a tempting target for would-be attackers. A study on Tuesday
said London was more at risk of attack by Islamic extremists than any
other major city in Western Europe.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 12, 2003 at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush's entourage

Who does he think he is, Michael Jackson?

Posted by flow Frazao on November 12, 2003 at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 11 November 2003

Final letters home

From the New York Times:

Excerpt of a letter from Army Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, 34,
of Springfield, Mo. Private Givens was killed May 1 when his tank fell
into the Euphrates River after the bank on which he was parked gave
way. This letter was written to be delivered to his family if he died.
Melissa is his wife, Dakota his 6-year-old stepson and Bean the name he
used for his son, Carson, who was born May 29.
My family,
I never thought that I would be writing a letter like this. I really
don't know where to start. I've been getting bad feelings, though and,
well, if you are reading this. . . .
The happiest moments in my life all deal with my little family. I will
always have with me the small moments we all shared. The moments when
you quit taking life so serious and smiled. The sounds of a beautiful
boy's laughter or the simple nudge of a baby unborn. You will never
know how complete you have made me. You saved me from loneliness and
taught me how to think beyond myself. You taught me how to live and to
love. You opened my eyes to a world I never dreamed existed.
Dakota . . . you taught me how to care until it hurts, you taught me
how to smile again. You taught me that life isn't so serious and
sometimes you just have to play. You have a big, beautiful heart.
Through life you need to keep it open and follow it. Never be afraid to
be yourself. I will always be there in our park when you dream so we
can play. I love you, and hope someday you will understand why I didn't
come home. Please be proud of me.
Bean, I never got to see you but I know in my heart you are beautiful.
I know you will be strong and big-hearted like your mom and brother. I
will always have with me the feel of the soft nudges on your mom's
belly, and the joy I felt when I found out you were on your way. I love
you, Bean.
Melissa, I have never been as blessed as the day I met you. You are my
angel, soulmate, wife, lover and best friend. I am sorry. I did not
want to have to write this letter. There is so much more I need to say,
so much more I need to share. A lifetime's worth. I married you for a
million lifetimes. That's how long I will be with you. Please keep my
babies safe. Please find it in your heart to forgive me for leaving you
alone. . . . Teach our babies to live life to the fullest, tell
yourself to do the same.
I will always be there with you, Melissa. I will always want you, need
you and love you, in my heart, my mind and my soul. Do me a favor,
after you tuck the children in. Give them hugs and kisses from me. Go
outside and look at the stars and count them. Don't forget to smile.
Love Always, Your husband, Jess

Posted by flow Frazao on November 11, 2003 at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Happy veterans day, indeed

Check out this amazing exchange between
the press and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Next time
someone suggests the Bush Administration supports the troops, mention
this pathetic little gem. If you can stop laughing, that is.

Q Scott, there are 17 former POWs from the first Gulf War
who were tortured and filed suit against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
And a judge has ordered that they are entitled to substantial financial
damages. What is the administration's position on that? Is it the view
of this White House that that money would be better spent rebuilding
Iraq rather than going to these former POWs? MR. McCLELLAN: I don't
know that I view it in those terms, David. I think that the United
States -- first of all, the United States condemns in the strongest
terms the brutal torture to which these Americans were subjected. They
bravely and heroically served our nation and made sacrifices during the
Gulf War in 1991, and there is simply no amount of money that can truly
compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went
through at the hands of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. That's what our
view is. Q But, so -- but isn't it true that this White House -- Q They
think they're is an -- Q Excuse me, Helen -- that this White House is
standing in the way of them getting those awards, those financial
awards, because it views it that money better spent on rebuilding Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, there's simply no amount of money that can truly
compensate these brave men and women for the suffering -- Q Why won't
you spell out what your position is? MR. McCLELLAN: I'm coming to your
question. Believe me, I am. Let me finish. Let me start over again,
though. No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and
women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a very
brutal regime, at the hands of Saddam Hussein. It was determined
earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets
were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the
urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq. But again, there is
simply no amount of compensation that could ever truly compensate these
brave men and women. Q Just one more. Why would you stand in the way of
at least letting them get some of that money? MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree
with the way you characterize it. Q But if the law that Congress passed
entitles them to access frozen assets of the former regime, then why
isn't that money, per a judge's order, available to these victims? MR.
McCLELLAN: That's why I pointed out that that was an issue that was
addressed earlier this year. But make no mistake about it, we condemn
in the strongest possible terms the torture that these brave
individuals went through -- Q -- you don't think they should get money?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- at the hands of Saddam Hussein. There is simply no
amount of money that can truly compensate those men and women who
heroically served -- Q That's not the issue -- MR. McCLELLAN: -- who
heroically served our nation. Q Are you opposed to them getting some of
the money? MR. McCLELLAN: And, again, I just said that that had been
addressed earlier this year. Q No, but it hasn't been addressed.
They're entitled to the money under the law. The question is, is this
administration blocking their effort to access some of that money, and
why? MR. McCLELLAN: I don't view it that way at all. I view it the way
that I stated it, that this issue was -- Q But you are opposed to them
getting the money. MR. McCLELLAN: This issue was addressed earlier this
year, and we believe that there's simply no amount of money that could
truly compensate these brave men and women for what they went through
and for the suffering that they went through at the hands of Saddam
Hussein -- Q So no money. MR. McCLELLAN: -- and that's my answer.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 11, 2003 at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WTO imposes stiffest sanctions ever on US

Thanks to Bush's protectionist illegal trade policy on US steel, the WTO has given the go ahead for the EU to impose massive sanctions on American goods:

American jeans, Florida orange juice and dozens of other US
products could double in price from next month because of a growing
transatlantic trade war.
The World Trade Organisation gave the European Union permission
yesterday to impose huge import tariffs, which will allow price
increases of between 8 and 100 per cent on a range of goods. The row,
which began when America imposed special duties of up to 30 per cent on
European steel last year, reached a climax yesterday when the trade
watchdog gave a final decision in favour of the EU. It said the US
action was "inconsistent" with free trade commitments. Europe can now
impose duties on products ranging from T-shirts and lavatory paper, to
bras, pantyhose, suspenders, ballpoint pens, ski suits and bowling
alley equipment. Harley Davidson motorcycles were included in an early
draft of the sanctions list, but were not included yesterday. The EU
says its sanctions, amounting to �2.2bn (�1.5bn) a year, will come
into force on 15 December unless Washington drops its steel duties. The sanctions would be the biggest in the history of the WTO.
The WTO's decision comes at a sensitive time, with the US presidential
campaign about to begin in earnest. In drawing up its list of
sanctions, the EU has deliberately selected products from states which
are crucial to President Bush's electoral hopes.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 11, 2003 at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When the Dixie Chicks, the Pope, and the billionaires are against you...

...it means your time is up:

George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion
to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he
has a new project: defeating President Bush.
"It is the central focus of my life," Soros said, his blue eyes settled
on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an
interview, is "a matter of life and death."
Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than
50 countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On
Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a
liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his
personal contributions to oust Bush.
"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," Soros said. Then he
smiled: "And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is." Soros
believes that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House. He
hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary.
"When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it
reminds me of the Germans." It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi
slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ("The enemy is listening").
"My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me," he said
in a soft Hungarian accent.
In past election cycles, Soros contributed relatively modest sums. In
2000, his aide said, he gave $122,000, mostly to Democratic causes and
candidates. But recently, Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of
neoconservatives, whom he calls "a bunch of extremists guided by a
crude form of social Darwinism." Neoconservatives, Soros said, are
exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a
preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. "Bush feels
that on September 11th he was anointed by God," Soros said. "He's
leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating
violence." Soros said he had been waking at 3 a.m., his thoughts
shaking him "like an alarm clock." Sitting in his robe, he wrote his
ideas down, longhand, on a stack of pads. In January, PublicAffairs
will publish them as a book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy" (an
excerpt appears in December's Atlantic Monthly). In it, he argues for a
collective approach to security, increased foreign aid and "preventive
action."
Asked whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush,
Soros opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The proposal hung in the
air: Would he become poor to beat Bush? He said, "If someone guaranteed
it."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 11, 2003 at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 10 November 2003

Very interesting

Posted by flow Frazao on November 10, 2003 at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Patriot Act - Now In Zesty British Flavor!

White House security demands covering President George Bush's controversial state visit to Britain have provoked a serious row with Scotland Yard. American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protestors. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city centre. But senior Yard officers say the powers requested by US security chiefs would be unprecedented on British soil. While the Met wants to prevent violence, it is sensitive to accusations of trying to curtail legitimate protest. Secrecy surrounds Bush's itinerary during the trip, which starts on 19 November. He will stay at Buckingham Palace and his staff want The Mall, Whitehall and part of the City closed. Besides provoking a civil liberties backlash, the Met fears such a move would cause traffic chaos and incur huge loss of business across the capital.

President Bush may be subjected to the humiliating sight of an effigy of himself being dragged to the ground by anti-war protesters in London's Trafalgar Square next week.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 10, 2003 at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Supreme Court to Hear Guantanamo Appeals

It's about time:

The Supreme Court will hear its first cases arising from
the government's anti-terrorism campaign following the Sept. 11
attacks, agreeing Monday to consider whether foreigners held at a U.S.
Navy base in Cuba should have access to American courts. The appeals
came from British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens held with more than
600 others suspected of being Taliban or al-Qaida foot soldiers. The
court combined the appeals and will hear the consolidated case sometime
next year.
"The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates
entirely outside the law," lawyers for British and Australian detainees
argued in asking the high court to take the case. "Within the walls of
this prison, foreign nationals may be held indefinitely, without
charges or evidence of wrongdoing, without access to family, friends or
legal counsel, and with no opportunity to establish their innocence,"
they maintained.
The men whose names are on that case do not even know about the
lawsuit, lawyers from the New York-based Center for Constitutional
Rights told the court.

Human Rights Watch described the 1.8m by 2.4m open-sided
wire cells in which the men are being held as "a scandal". There was
also concern that the detainees were seen handcuffed, blindfolded and
masked. Later images showed them being manacled and clamped into leg
irons on trolleys to be wheeled to interrogation huts. The US says
these restraints are only used during transit. They also say that with
three meals a day, medical care and pens to write home with, the
prisoners are living in better conditions than they did before they
were captured.

The
media has reported 32 suicide attempts by detainees in the past year.
On Oct. 8, according to an Associated Press story, Richard Bourke, an
Australian lawyer representing a few Guant�namo detainees, told
Australian radio that U.S. military officials were using "good,
old-fashioned torture" to force confessions out of prisoners. Bourke
said his assertions are based on reports leaked by U.S. military
personnel and from descriptions by some detainees that have been
released.
"One of the detainees had described being taken out and tied to a post
and having rubber bullets fired at them," Bourke reported. "They were
being made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they collapsed."

Both Afghanistan and the United States signed the Geneva
conventions. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention requires
countries at war to grant POW status to all captured members of a
government's regular armed forces - whether the government is
diplomatically recognized or not. Thus, the Third Geneva Convention
requires the United States to grant POW status to all captured Taliban
soldiers who were members of Afghanistan's armed forces.
POW status means a captive has due process rights. POWs accused of war
crimes must, according to the Geneva conventions, be tried before "the
same courts according to the same procedures as in the case of members
of the armed forces of the Detaining Power" - meaning military courts.
The White House fact sheet on the status of detainees at Guant�namo
attempts to wheedle around the Third Geneva Convention. It states, in
part: "Although we never recognized the Taliban as the legitimate
Afghan government, Afghanistan is a party to the Convention, and the
President has determined that the Taliban are covered by the
Convention. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, however, the
Taliban detainees do not qualify as POWs."
Bush administration officials have also asserted that "regular armed
forces" means having a responsible command, wearing fixed insignia,
carrying arms openly, and conducting operations in accordance to the
laws of war - therefore, the Taliban do not qualify. Factually, Article
4 of the Third Geneva Convention contains no such requirements.
Bush administration officials have also asserted that "regular armed
forces" means having a responsible command, wearing fixed insignia,
carrying arms openly, and conducting operations in accordance to the
laws of war - therefore, the Taliban do not qualify. Factually, Article
4 of the Third Geneva Convention contains no such requirements.

Not quite Club Med, is it?

Posted by flow Frazao on November 10, 2003 at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 09 November 2003

Satellite imagery of the Israeli fence

Here.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 9, 2003 at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 08 November 2003

Teeth and claws

Sounds like they're starting to get "desperate" in Rihad:

Three explosions rocked a residential compound in the Saudi
capital Saturday night, killing dozens of people in what the government
described as a "terrorist" attack.
The midnight blast came after gunmen broke into the upscale compound of
about 200 villas and exchanged fire with security guards, a Saudi
government official said.
There were conflicting reports of the number of dead and wounded. An
official at a Riyadh hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
dozens of people were killed. The official said dozens more were
wounded, and that Saudis, Germans, French and Italians lived in the 200
villas in the compound.
Flames could be seen still burning at the compound several hours after
the explosion. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Amanda Batt in
Washington said no Americans were hurt.
Diplomats reported one big explosion about midnight, followed by two
smaller ones 15 seconds apart. The streets were crowded with late night
crowds because of Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast during the
day.
A woman living in the compound told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview that "there is lot of blood" at the scene of the explosions.
"I am extremely terrified; I am really scared. I felt it was an
earthquake," the woman said without identifying herself.
"Lots of houses are damaged, windows shattered and police echoing with
sirens of ambulances," she said. "The ambulances were picking up lots
of people. It looks like there are lots of people who died."
The Saudi government official said the explosions took place in the
Muhaya compound. He said the attackers exchanged fire with the guards
and he said there were apparently three explosions.
"We heard a very strong explosion and we saw the fire," Bassem
al-Hourani, who said he was a resident at the targeted compound, told
Al-Arabiya in a telephone interview.
"I heard screams of the children and women. I don't know what happened
to my friends if anybody was injured," he said. "All the glass in my
house were shattered."

A Saudi government official said most of the wounded were
believed to be children because their parents were out shopping during
Ramadan. Hanadi al-Ghandaki, manager of the targeted compound, told
al-Arabiya that about 100 people were wounded, mostly children "because
most adults were outside the compound at that time." She did not
elaborate.

An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed Friday apparently
shot down by insurgents--killing all six U.S. soldiers aboard and
capping the bloodiest seven days in Iraq for Americans since the fall
of Baghdad. In retaliation, American troops backed by Bradley fighting
vehicles swept through Iraqi neighborhoods before dawn Saturday,
blasting houses suspected of being insurgent hideouts with machine guns
and heavy weapons fire. "This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them,'' said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.

I'd write myself, except I live in DC and we don't have representation in Congress. But that's a whole other rant.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 8, 2003 at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gun-Wielding Cops Conduct Drug Sweep At School

Looks like the War On Some Drugs has just gotten a little bit scarier:

Surveillance video from Stratford High School in Goose
Creek shows 14 officers, some with guns drawn, ordering students to lie
the ground as police searched for marijuana. Students who didn't comply
with the orders quickly enough were reportedly handcuffed. Police didn't find any criminals in the armed sweep, but they say search dogs smelled drugs on a dozen backpacks.

During a drug sweep at a South Carolina high school,
police went in with guns and ordered students on the floor. They
handcuffed those who didn't comply. No drugs were found. Is this type
of search necessary to stop drugs in schools?

• Yes. It sends a strong message to students
• No. This much force was unnecessary.

Update:
CNN has posted a video of the raid.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 8, 2003 at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Miss Afghanistan May Face Afghan Charges

A 23-year-old woman who is the first Afghan in three decades to take part in a beauty pageant could face prosecution if she returns to her native country, a senior justice official said Saturday. Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, told The Associated Press that Vida Samadzai, a college student in California, had betrayed Afghan culture by appearing at the Miss Earth contest in a bikini � and may have also broken the law. "I hope that this lady regrets her actions," Mamawi said. He added that Afghan prosecutors may open an investigation, but refused to say what charges or penalties Samadzai could face. Afghan law is based on Islamic principles but stops short of the extremist interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah, which was applied by the former Taliban regime. Despite the fall of the Taliban two years ago, many Afghan women still wear the all-covering burqa robes that became an international symbol of the regime's hardline policies. Women who avoid the burqa respect Islamic tradition by covering their hair with a scarf. Samadzai's wearing the bikini led to criticism from the Supreme Court, which said such a display of the female body was un-Islamic. However, in an office in the city, female employee Mazari Alamyar also criticized Samadzai. "Every (Afghan) woman who is living in any country should respect Shariah law. We are Afghans, we are Muslims," she said. "We know that what was done by this woman was against Shariah law and we condemn it." Najeba Sharief, Afghanistan's deputy minister for women's affairs, also said she was displeased with Samadzai. It is "too early" for beauty pageants when the majority of Afghan women face a tough daily struggle to survive, she said. "First, we should take other steps and after that, one day, we'll be able to turn to such activities." However, she refused to condemn Samardzai outright. "I seriously respect the human rights conventions which say every human being has the right to do whatever he or she wants. But those women who want to do this should still think a little about their culture."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 8, 2003 at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What are they hiding?

At the risk of treading into tinfoil hat country, I submit the following:

"A federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks
voted Friday to subpoena the Pentagon for documents related to the
activities of U.S. air defenses on the day of the terrorist hijackings."

The panel, headed by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, a Republican, has also encountered resistance from the White House in its efforts to review sensitive intelligence documents.

One commissioner, Democrat Richard Ben-Veniste, said the
Defense Department's failure to produce documents will force the
commission to postpone a planned hearing in January on the immediate
response to the hijackings by the nation's air security system. "Our
investigative staff will have to spend valuable time backtracking and
re-interviewing certain personnel," said Ben-Veniste, a former
Watergate prosecutor. "It is my view that given the very stringent time
constraints under which we are operating, the failure of agencies to
produce essential materials to us is simply unacceptable." At a hearing
earlier this year, Ben-Veniste dug into the length of time it took the
FAA to notify NORAD about American Airlines Flight 77 between the time
it deviated from its flight path to the time it crashed into the
Pentagon. The FAA knew that Los Angeles-bound Flight 77 left its course
at 8:55 a.m., Ben-Veniste said, but NORAD did not get official notice
of a hijacking until 9:24 a.m. A witness at the hearing, retired Maj.
Gen. Larry K. Arnold, who was in charge of NORAD on the day of the
attacks, said it
was "physically possible" that fighter jets could have beaten the
civilian airliner to the Pentagon had they been activated earlier.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 8, 2003 at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Family Buries U.S. Soldier and His Mother

Beyond tragic:

An Army sergeant killed in a missile attack as he was
returning home for his mother's funeral was buried along with her
Saturday.
Mary Ellen Bucklew, 57, of Darlington Township, died Oct. 31 of an
aneurism as she drove home from work. Her 33-year-old son was on
emergency leave two days later when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter he was
in was shot down near Fallujah, Iraq Military officials presented his
wife, Barbara, and his father, Donald, with American flags. Barbara
Bucklew also received her husband's Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
Ernest Bucklew, the son of a coal miner, grew up in Geneva, Pa., and
Morgantown, W.Va., where he attended high school and college and joined
the National Guard. He joined the Army in 1999.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 8, 2003 at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 07 November 2003

What is the Meatrix?

Take the red pill.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 7, 2003 at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

All hail the mighty 'stache

Posted by flow Frazao on November 7, 2003 at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dissenters will be crushed

Unreal:

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from
congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer
money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any
more questions from opposition lawmakers.
...
The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A.
Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and
minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels.
Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process,"
he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we
are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to
the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate
these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and
materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in
writing from the committee."
...
It's saying we're not going to allow the opposition party to ask
questions about the way we use tax money," said R. Scott Lilly,
Democratic staff director for the House committee. "As far as I know,
this is without modern precedent."
Norman Ornstein, a congressional specialist at the American Enterprise
Institute, agreed. "I have not heard of anything like that happening
before," he said. "This is obviously an excuse to avoid providing
information about some of the things the Democrats are asking for."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 7, 2003 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

White House Alters Webpages About Iraq Combat

Remember when Bush was pretending to be a fighter pilot and landed on
that aircraft carrier? Those were good times for W, it was looking like
we'd won the war (Mission Accomplished!) and he even said that combat
was over. However, after a few months of one or two American casualties
a day Bush changed his mind. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I say combat was
over? I meant major combat." Now when you read about the Mission Accomplished debacle you hear about the end of major
combat. I know it seems sort of trivial, but it's an important point.
When the President of the United States makes a statement about a war,
he should be quoted accurately. Under no circumstances should he be
allowed to go back in time and try to change his words.
I know this is old news, but it bears revisiting since during
Wednesday's press briefing White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan
issued the following challenge to reporters:

Q: Has the White House taken any move to restrict or put
some information on its website out of reach of search engines like
Google? And can you tell us whether the White House has -- makes any
effort to go in and change documents that are already out there, for
instance, press releases, statements on Iraq? MR. McCLELLAN: I heard
some of those reports, and I was somewhat puzzled by them. Every page
on our website is searchable. All information regarding Iraq is
searchable. We would encourage people to come to visit our website and
look for that information. We want the website to continue to be fully
accessible and open to all people who wish to visit it. Q: The stories
on the -- that are making their way around the Internet are that there
are some new protocols in place which makes it hard to get to reach
some of the Iraq and September 11th information if you go through a
search engine, not if you come straight in through the White House
website. The implication, they say, is that you are making some
material captive only to your own restrictions and you can go in and
change, for instance, the word "major combat" on the headlines of the
President's speech from March 1st -- I mean, May 1st. MR. McCLELLAN: I
don't know who the individuals are that are making some of these
allegations, but all subjects available -- are available on the White
House website, including on Iraq. And they're completely accessible to
all Internet users. And that's the way we want it to be. All this
information is searchable, it's all available there on our website. And
that's what it will -- it will continue to be. Q: It's not your policy
to go back in and change the -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, do you have a specific instance you want me to look into to?
I will be glad to. But that's the bottom line on our website; it's all
there, it's all searchable, and please come visit it. It's
WhiteHouse.gov.

When the White House published the text of and photos from
Bush's speech announcing the supposed end of the Iraq attack, the
headline read: "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have
Ended." But on Tuesday, 19 Aug 2003, the Cursor website noticed that
the headline had been changed to read: "President Bush Announces Major
Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended." The word "major" had been added.
Apparently, with the quagmire resulting in at least one dead US soldier
a day--not to mention even more injuries, dead Iraqis, and
sabotage--that headline had proved incorrect. Therefore, straight out
of 1984, the headline was stealthily altered to make it seem as if
that's what it had always said.

"What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. " -George Orwell, 1984

Posted by flow Frazao on November 7, 2003 at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 06 November 2003

Mysterious weapon used on US forces in Iraq

From the ArmyTimes:

Shortly before dawn on Aug. 28, an M1A1 Abrams tank on
routine patrol in Baghdad �was hit by something� that crippled the
69-ton behemoth.
Army officials still are puzzling over what that �something� was.
According to an unclassified Army report, the mystery projectile
punched through the vehicle�s skirt and drilled a pencil-sized hole
through the hull. The hole was so small that �my little finger will
not go into it,� the report�s author noted.
The �something� continued into the crew compartment, where it
passed through the gunner�s seatback, grazed the kidney area of the
gunner�s flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole
1� to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank. As it
passed through the interior, it hit enough critical components to knock
the tank out of action. That made the tank one of only two Abrams
disabled by enemy fire during the Iraq war and one of only a handful of
�mobility kills� since they first rumbled onto the scene 20 years
ago. The other Abrams knocked out this year in Iraq was hit by an
RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade.
Experts believe whatever it is that knocked out the tank in August was
not an RPG-7 but most likely something new � and that worries tank
drivers.
---SNIP---
�It�s a real strange impact,� said a source who has worked both
as a tank designer and as an anti-tank weapons engineer. �This is a
new one. � It almost definitely is a hollow-charge warhead of some
sort, but probably not an RPG-7� anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade.
The well-known RPG-7 has been the scourge of lightly armored vehicles
since its introduction more than 40 years ago. Its hollow-charge
warhead easily could punch through an M1�s skirt and the relatively
thin armor of its armpit joint, the area above the tracks and beneath
the deck on which the turret sits, just where the mystery round hit the
tank.
An RPG-7 can penetrate about 12 inches of steel � a thickness far
greater than the armor that was penetrated on the tank in Baghdad. But
the limited spalling evident in the photos accompanying the incident
report all but rules out the RPG-7 as the culprit, experts say.
Limited spalling is a telltale characteristic of Western-manufactured
weapons designed to defeat armor with a cohesive jet stream of molten
metal. In contrast, RPG-7s typically produce a fragmented jet spray.
The incident is so sensitive that most experts in the field would talk
only on the condition that they not be identified. One armor expert at
Fort Knox, Ky., suggested the tank may have been hit by an updated RPG.
About 15 years ago, Russian scientists created tandem-warhead
anti-tank-grenades designed to defeat reactive armor. The new round, a
PG-7VR, can be fired from an RPG-7V launcher and might have left the
unusual signature on the tank.
In addition, the Russians have developed an improved weapon, the
RPG-22. These and perhaps even newer variants have been used against
American forces in Afghanistan. It is believed U.S. troops seized some
that have been returned to the United States for testing, but scant
details about their effects and �fingerprints� are available.
Still another possibility is a retrofitted warhead for the RPG system
being developed by a Swiss manufacturer.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 6, 2003 at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Explorers Rediscover Incan City Near Machu Picchu

An Anglo-American team of explorers have found an Incan city lost for
centuries in the Peruvian jungles despite being within sight of the key
religious center at Machu Picchu.
Using infrared aerial photography to penetrate the forest canopy, the
team led by Briton Hugh Thomson and American Gary Zeigler located the
ruins at Llactapata 50 miles northwest of the ancient Incan capital,
Cusco.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 6, 2003 at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Teenager Robbed His Grandparents, D.C. Police Say

This is just plain sad:

A Southeast Washington teenager robbed his grandparents at
knifepoint on Halloween, forcing his grandfather to withdraw money from
an ATM and then leaving the couple bound with duct tape, D.C. police
said.
Police said the robbery began about 5:30 p.m. Friday, when the two
teenagers approached Joyce Hill in the home and displayed a knife. The
assailants then bound her hands, feet and mouth with tape and put her
in an upstairs bedroom, the charging papers said. About the same time,
Henry Hill, 54, arrived home and was immediately seized by Williams,
police said. Both assailants punched Henry Hill in the stomach, and
Williams poked Hill in the sides with two knives, police said, while
Bruce demanded that his grandfather hand over his bank card and code.
Bruce and Williams then took Henry Hill to an ATM in Oxon Hill, where
Hill withdrew an unspecified amount of money, police said. The two then
returned him to the home, bound him with duct tape, and left him in the
upstairs bedroom with his wife, police said.
Cmdr. Winston Robinson of the 7th Police District said the incident
"just shows you where we are in our society. There's no regard for
anybody."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 6, 2003 at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

White POW 80%, Black POW 30%

Here's the deal with Jessica Lynch and POW compensation (link)

Shoshana Johnson was captured March 23 near Nasiriya along
with Pfc. Jessica Lynch and three other members of the Army's 507th
Maintenance Company.
Johnson was shot through both ankles in the ambush that led to the
capture of several in her company and was held for 22 days. According
to her family, she's still struggling physically. "She walks awhile,
but she cannot walk long. She then has to put her legs up to take away
the stress. She still has playbacks about being in the war under those
conditions, so she goes through these highs and lows of stress." Lynch
suffered three breaks in her left leg, multiple breaks in her right
foot, a fractured disk in her back, a broken right upper arm and
lacerations on her head, family spokesman Randy Coleman told CNN in
July. She was discharged as a private first class in August.
Johnson's family is upset because Shoshana, who is about to be
discharged from the Army, will get a 30 percent disability benefit,
while the Post reports that Lynch has received an 80 percent disability
benefit.
The army has given no justification for this discrepancy, which amounts
to $600-$700 a month in payments.

Perhaps if Shoshana looked a little less like this:

And a little more like this:

Then the pay scales might not be quite so unbalanced.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 6, 2003 at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 05 November 2003

PLEASE PROTECT ME FROM PORNOGRAPHY

Now that it's over and we're all safe, I can mention the following (straight from the White House website):

We have committed significant resources to the Department
of Justice to intensify investigative and prosecutorial efforts to
combat obscenity, child pornography, and child sexual exploi-ta-tion*
on the Internet. We are vigorously prosecuting and severely punishing
those who would harm our children. Last July, the Department of
Homeland Security launched Operation Predator, an initiative to help
identify child predators, rescue children depicted in child
pornography, and prosecute those responsible for making and
distributing child pornography.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution
and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 26 through
November 1, 2003, as Protection From Pornography Week. I call upon
public officials, law enforcement officers, parents, and all the people
of the United States to observe this week with appropriate programs and
activities.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 5, 2003 at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

So fine it blows my mind

Posted by flow Frazao on November 5, 2003 at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Deported Canadian Terror Suspect Details Torture in Syria

An article in the Washington Post documents a US method of dealing with
"terrorists". But first, a few choice rules from the Geneva Convention:

• Prisoners must be allowed to communicate with their families.
  They must not be subjected to "violence, insults and public curiousity."


• Prisoners may not be murdered, tortured or subjected to scientific experiments.


• POWs must be provided with reasonable and hyginic shelter,
  including food, clothing and medical care. They can't be used as human
  shields. If they are forced to work, they must be compensated and
  provided with reasonable workplace conditions.


• POWs may be tried by their captors in a fair and impartial manner, and they are entitled to competent representation.

• Occupiers of a land must honor the safety, dignity, religious beliefs and cultural mores of the people there.

That said, on to the issue at hand:

A Canadian citizen who was detained last year at John F.
Kennedy International Airport in New York as a suspected terrorist said
Tuesday he was secretly deported to Syria and endured 10 months of
torture in a Syrian prison.
Maher Arar, 33, who was released last month, said at a news conference
in Ottawa that he pleaded with U.S. authorities to let him continue on
to Canada, where he has lived for 15 years and has a family. But
instead, he was flown under U.S. guard to Jordan and handed over to
Syria, where he was born. Arar denied any connection to terrorism and
said he would fight to clear his name. U.S. officials said Tuesday that
Arar was deported because he had been put on a terrorist watch list
after information from "multiple international intelligence agencies"
linked him to terrorist groups. Officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said that the Arar case fits the profile of a covert CIA
"extraordinary rendition" -- the practice of turning over low-level,
suspected terrorists to foreign intelligence services, some of which
are known to torture prisoners.
-snip-
"This is when my nightmare began," he said. "I was pulled aside by
immigration and taken [away]. The police came and searched my bags. I
asked to make a phone call and they would not let me." He said an FBI
agent and a New York City police officer questioned him. "I was so
scared," he said. "They told me I had no right to a lawyer because I
was not an American citizen." Arar said he was shackled, placed on a
small jet and flown to Washington, where "a new team of people got on
the plane" and took him to Amman, the capital of Jordan. Arar said U.S.
officials handed him over to Jordanian authorities, who "blindfolded
and chained me and put me in a van. . . . They made me bend my head
down in the back seat. Then these men started beating me. Every time I
tried to talk, they beat me." Hours later, he said, he was taken to
Syria and there he was forced to write that he had been to a training
camp in Afghanistan. "They kept beating me, and I had to falsely
confess," he said. "I was willing to confess to anything to stop the
torture." Arar said his prison cell "was like a grave, exactly like a
grave. It had no light, it was three feet wide, it was six feet deep,
it was seven feet high. . . . It had a metal door. There was a small
opening in the ceiling. There were cats and rats up there, and from
time to time, the cats peed through the opening into the cell." Steven
Watt, a human rights fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in
Washington, said Arar's case raised questions about U.S.
counterterrorism measures. "Here we have the United States involved in
the removal of somebody to a country where it knows persons in custody
of security agents are tortured," Watt said. "The U.S. was possibly
benefiting from the fruits of that torture. I ask the question: Why
wasn't he removed to Canada?"
Syria, where use of torture during imprisonment has been documented by
the State Department, maintains a secret but growing intelligence
relationship with the CIA, according to intelligence experts. "The
Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda
in the past," said Cofer Black, former director of counterterrorism at
the CIA who is now the counterterrorism coordinator at the State
Department. One senior intelligence official said Tuesday that Arar is
still believed to have connections to al Qaeda. The Justice Department
did not have enough evidence to detain him when he landed in the United
States, the official said, and "the CIA doesn't keep people in this
country."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 5, 2003 at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When Is 'The Matrix'?

Using background culled from the three movies and "Animatrix" shorts,
The Associated Press compiled an estimated timeline of the war between
men and machines: 2010-60 � Humans create humanoid drone robots with
Artificial Intelligence to fill jobs as construction laborers and
servants. 2069 � The hovercraft transport ship Nebuchadnezzar, later
to be captained by Morpheus, is constructed in the United States. 2075
� All programs evolve and some robots began to resent their human
overlords. 2077 � In the first case of a machine rising up against
its owners, the butler robot B166ER slaughters two humans, leading to
B166ER's eradication and a backlash against robots and artificial
intelligence. 2080-85 � Rioting and violence against machines prompts
robots to flee major cities and establish their own community � known
as Zero One � in a remote part of the Middle East. 2085-2095_ Zero
One thrives, creating superior vehicles, computers and weaponry and
decimating the economies of many human nations, which now lack the
machine-based labor that made them strong. 2096_ United Nations (news -
web sites) officials refuse to accept the robot civilization of Zero
One as a sovereign nation. A trade blockade of robot goods leads to
war. 2097 � Zero One survives a nuclear attack � its inhabitants
are impervious to the heat and radiation and casualties are quickly
replaced. Counterstrikes launched against humans. 2098 � As cities
fall beneath the might of mechanized forces, desperate military leaders
attempt to block the main source of energy for the robot city: the sun.
The plan destroys the atmosphere and fills the sky with choking black
smoke � but does not stop the machines. 2099_ Machine forces overtake
human armies and capture survivors and civilians for experimentation,
determining that human bio-electricity can be harnessed to replace the
sun's energy. 2100 � Machines create the Matrix, a dream-like world
set in 1999, to extend the lives of the comatose human batteries. 2105
� The first human known as The One, locked in bondage inside the
Matrix, learns he can manipulate the world through thought and manages
to break free. Seeks sanctuary in the underground human stronghold of
Zion. 2105-2150 � Zion resistance movement created, although The One
later dies under unexplained circumstances.
2161 � Morpheus born in a Matrix womb; freed in childhood. 2167 �
Trinity born in a Matrix womb; freed in early childhood. 2175 � The
Oracle prophesizes that Morpheus will discover the second coming of The
One. 2199 � Trinity and Morpheus discover Neo, a hacker in the
Matrix. They free him and do battle with Agent Smith, a program
designed to rid the Matrix of humans who detect its flaws. 2201 � The
Osiris, another human rebellion ship, discovers machines drilling
through the Earth above Zion. Crew members send a message through the
Matrix to their compatriots shortly before being destroyed. 2201 �
Now living in Zion and working with the rebellion against the machines,
Neo encounters The Architect, the artificial intelligence program that
created the Matrix. 2201 _The Architect reveals that the Matrix places
rebellious humans in Zion, which it then targets for destruction, thus
eradicating "bugs" in its system. He states that Zion has been
destroyed five previous times � suggesting the Matrix may be much
older than he thinks.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 5, 2003 at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cool

Posted by flow Frazao on November 5, 2003 at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 04 November 2003

Determination

This is a woman I'd like to meet:

Zoe Koplowitz completed her New York City Marathon mission
Monday, reaching the finish on crutches more than 27 hours after the
first runner crossed the line.
Koplowitz, who suffers from diabetes and multiple sclerosis, completed
the marathon in 29 hours, 45 minutes. This was the 16th NYC Marathon
she has finished. The 55-year-old New Yorker has also finished
marathons in Boston and London.
Koplowitz made her way through the course. She started at 5:30 a.m.
Sunday, more than four hours before the rest of the marathoners. She
stopped every mile to stretch and, because she has diabetes, she tested
her blood sugar every two hours. She took breaks but didn't sleep. She
said she was at mile seven or eight when the professional runners
overtook her. Whenever that happens, she stops to watch them pass. "The
ultimate gift is being both a spectator and a participant," said
Koplowitz, who hopes to make it through 20 NYC Marathons. "Every year
this becomes a far more precious experience," she said.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 4, 2003 at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Best show and tell ever

Only in Amsterdam:

A five-year-old Dutch girl handed out "sweets" to
classmates that turned out to be ecstasy, cocaine and heroin pills,
police said on Monday. The drugs were confiscated by a suspicious
teacher before any were consumed at the primary school in Hilversum,
southeast of Amsterdam. Police arrested the girl's older brothers aged
21, 19 and 16 and her 43-year-old mother. Large quantities of soft
drugs and hard drugs were found in the car of the eldest brother. The
brothers were in custody, but their mother was set free after
questioning.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 4, 2003 at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Home sweet home

Great. Just great.

"According
to the FBI, D.C. had more murders per capita in 2002 than any large
U.S. city with a population over 500,000. The murder rate in Washington
is six times worse than New York City and increased 14 percent last
year with a total of 264 homicides. In overall crime rate, D.C. came in
third behind Detroit and Baltimore."

Posted by flow Frazao on November 4, 2003 at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hello Diebold, goodbye democracy

This is an excellent piece electronic voting machines. If you give a crap about democracy, then this is required reading.

As for the possibilities of foul play, Dr Mercuri says they
are virtually limitless. "There are literally hundreds of ways to do
this," she says. "There are hundreds of ways to embed a rogue series of
commands into the code and nobody would ever know because the nature of
programming is so complex. The numbers would all tally perfectly."
Tampering with an election could be something as simple as a
"denial-of-service" attack, in which the machines simply stop working
for an extended period, deterring voters faced with the prospect of
long lines. Or it could be done with invasive computer codes known in
the trade by such nicknames as "Trojan horses" or "Easter eggs".
Detecting one of these, Dr Mercuri says, would be almost impossible
unless the investigator knew in advance it was there and how to trigger
it. Computer researcher Theresa Hommel, who is alarmed by touchscreen
systems, has constructed a simulated voting machine in which the same
candidate always wins, no matter what data you put in. She calls her
model the Fraud-o-matic, and it is available online at
www.wheresthepaper.org.
It is not just touchscreens which are at risk from error or malicious
intrusion. Any computer system used to tabulate votes is vulnerable. An
optical scan of ballots in Scurry County, Texas, last November
erroneously declared a landslide victory for the Republican candidate
for county commissioner; a subsequent hand recount showed that the
Democrat had in fact won. In Comal County, Texas, a computerised
optical scan found that three different candidates had won their races
with exactly 18,181 votes. There was no recount or investigation, even
though the coincidence, with those recurring 1s and 8s, looked highly
suspicious. In heavily Democrat Broward County, Florida � which had
switched to touchscreens in the wake of the hanging chad furore �
more than 100,000 votes were found to have gone "missing" on election
day. The votes were reinstated, but the glitch was not adequately
explained. One local official blamed it on a "minor software thing".
Roxanne Jekot, who has put much of her professional and personal life
on hold to work on the issue full time, puts it even more strongly.
"Corporate America is very close to running this country. The only
thing that is stopping them from taking total control are the pesky
voters. That's why there's such a drive to control the vote. What we're
seeing is the corporatisation of the last shred of democracy.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 4, 2003 at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 03 November 2003

Talk about some hot pussy

A Vodou believer pours hot pepper-spiced homemade alcohol on her genital area, one of the key rituals during Gede, a Vodou holiday dedicated to Baron Samdi and the Gede family of spirits of the dead, while other believers, one clutching a miniature coffin, look on in the National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 1, 2003, which is All Saints Day and is also the first of two days devoted to the Gede, who are feted for most of the month of November.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 3, 2003 at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 01 November 2003

Just nail him to the fucking thing already

Posted by flow Frazao on November 1, 2003 at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Did Rumsfeld ever have mojo?

Today a reporter asked Donald Rumsfeld if he'd lost his mojo. This was his reply:

Rumsfeld said he did not consult a dictionary -- as he has
for words like slog about which he has sparred with reporters -- but he
spoke with an aide who had. "And they asked me that, and I said, 'I
don't know what it means.' And they said, 'In 1926 or something, it had
to do with jazz music.'"

Posted by flow Frazao on November 1, 2003 at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hallowiener

Man, what a lame Halloween. I'm pretty disappointed. Oct. 31 is always
one of my best days, but this year it downright blew. What a lame city.
What a lame bunch of friends. Fucking hell. Am I lame? I tell myself
that it's just circumstantial, but it's hard to keep it from getting to
you.
I've got to say, I'm really looking forward to getting out of here.
It's not that I hate it here (I really don't), but I'm just so fucking
bored. The same damn thing every day. Work Work Work. Then go to some
lame bar and drink beer with people who are trying to have the same
conversations we've been having for the past 5 years.
But fuck it, fuck it, fuck it all. In 10 months we're gone. We leave
monotony behind and start taking some serious chances. I am literally burning for adventure.

I can't wait.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 1, 2003 at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack