April 30, 2004
US-Run Iraqi Prison Accused of Abusing Iraqis
As Seen on CBS' 60 Minutes
More photos [Warning images of human cruelty].
The CBS News program reported that poorly trained American reservists were forcing Iraqis to conduct simulated sexual acts, among other things, in order to break down their will before they were turned over to others for interrogation...
"The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners," states a transcript of the program's script... "And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."
story with links to earlier reports, etc. via unknown news; also archived at the New Yorker
---"Poorly trained reservists" concocted these torture techniques all by themselves?
"What did you do in the war Mommy?"
Agreement Reached to End Fallujah Siege
...American forces will pull back and allow an all-Iraqi force commanded by one of Saddam Hussein's generals to take over security.
story thanks, joerg
Fun was being had: Bush upbeat after 9/11 testimony
"There was some laughter from time to time. The president is a bit of a tease," Mr Thompson [a Republican lackey errr.... member of the 9/11 commission] told the Associated Press news agency." story
Now that's what you want to hear when they talk about all that terrorism and about those 3,000 dead people: You want to know they're having fun.
In Class the Audience Weighs In
...the newest aid in the classroom is a small wireless keypad, linked to a computer. Students answer questions not by raising their hands but by punching buttons, with the results appearing on a screen in the front of the room.
Although some skeptics dismiss the devices as novelties more suited to a TV game show than a lecture hall, educators who use them say their classrooms come alive as never before. story
---I wonder if these devices can be adapted for primates in zoos? Using images instead of text?
Big Changes Coming in Advertising
---Once TIVO-type commerical skipping technology goes mainstream, "addressable advertising", "behaviorally targeted advertising." i.e. accountable advertising with performance-based campaigns will take off. article via: Adrants
Censorship anyone?
"The ABC Television network announced on Tuesday that the Friday, April 30th edition of 'Nightline' will consist entirely of Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq. Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.
"While the Sinclair Broadcast Group honors the memory of the brave members of the military who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country, we do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content. As a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of 'Nightline' this Friday on each of our stations which air ABC programming."
So how's that not censorship?
Dear Hal
Father Who Believes Son is in 'Coffin' Photo Thanks 'Seattle Times' for Running It.
Article thanks, joerg. See also link to banned coffin photographs.
April 29, 2004
Fingertips Read Text Messages
While the system can (direct fingertips) to recognise circles, lines, squares, or letters such as V, the perception of more complex symbols is highly individual.
"I can assign a certain tactile melody to my wife and another tactile melody to my daughter, (according to) Professor Rolf Eckmiller...
For instance, the '@' sign might feel like a spiral, the word 'I' as a wave that flows towards the person and 'you' as a wave that flows away."
press release
---What's the limit on the number of "tactile melodies" a person can learn to discriminate?
Tipping Point Time
Support for War Sharply Down, Poll Concludes register/signin: unknown/unknown
---Number cruncher Jason/Atomgrid gazes at the entrails of this NY Times article and surmises:
"Extrapolating the present rate of erosion for Bush means Nader's candidacy won't matter after the end-of-May holiday. Getting beyond the deleterious effects of Bush's slow-motion occupation of Iraq there's still millions and millions of Americans that are unemployed with no relief in sight. And gasoline (and energy) prices will remain completely out of whack until the beginning of September (corporate greed will get in the way of any Saudi-driven reduction in the price-per-barrel and consumers will see no real decrease in the price at the pump [oil industry wags will blame it on "distribution problems"])."
---I, your poster Cieciel, can make no predictions until I'm sure there's no August, September or October surprises. In 1980 the elder Bush might've been most helpful insuring American hostages stayed in Iran until Reagan's inauguration. That plus a few Diebold voting-machine inconsistencies (soon to be a regular part of every election?) and naming the next President of the US is as predictable as a back-alley crap shoot.
I Believe in You
I Believe in You is a free text message 'affirmation' service which offers you the chance to fulfil your own creative potential.
Affirmations are short, positive phrases which you can memorise and repeat until they create a strong sense of self-belief.
You can choose affirmations and have them sent direct to your mobile phone at the most convenient dates and times for you. Simply register with us and start on the path to your new creative future.
Messages can be sent to UK mobile networks only.
link via rhizome.org
See also on Spitting Image: Pope to Ping the Faithful
Hurricane Floyd Boosted Brain Injuries in Children
CHAPEL HILL – Hurricane Floyd, which drowned much of 16 eastern North Carolina counties under a layer of water in 1999, also significantly boosted the number of cases of both inflicted and non-inflicted brain injury among small children, a new study shows.
Increased injuries resulted from both child abuse and accidents, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers say. Parental stress, weakened social supports and other factors also may have taken a toll.
"The incidence of child abuse following natural disaster has not been thoroughly studied, (said Dr. Heather T. Keenan, research assistant professor of social medicine at the UNC School of Medicine.)
story
---It took a few years but most of us in America have learned when men objectify women injustice & violence follows. It seems our culture never got around to similarly examining the objectification of children.
Controlling Pain with Your Brain
Biofeedback techniques based on electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of brainwave patterns, in which electrodes are placed on the scalp, are used with some success to treat epilepsy and attention problems such as ADHD.
Now Fumiko Maeda, Christopher deCharms and their colleagues at Stanford University in California have tried showing people real-time feedback from a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner...
press release
See also on SI: Politics on the Brain
---Are they factoring in the effect MR (magnetic resonance) might be having on the brain? 39 minutes with your head in a fMRI scanner might itself account for any new sensations. However according to this page: "there have been no documented significant side effects of the magnetic fields and radio waves used on the human body to date." but "because the effects of strong magnetic fields on a fetus are not well documented at this time, pregnant women are usually advised to avoid MRI scans."
I wonder if someone will soon be selling a personal fMRI? Think of the fun you can have as you watch the colors, i.e. areas, of your brain react to various stimuli in the privacy of your room. Forget tattoos and body modifications, punching holes, scarring, sticking metal on or under your skin. With fMRI you can watch in real time while you train your brain. Documenting as you go do-it-yourself brain modification.
Biofeedback your way to orgasms without physical stimuli? To what your brain was like when you were say 20 years old? Your first encounter with ice cream; your favorite painting; recording; long dead friend or relative? Strange Days?
War in Iraq Aims a Bullet at the Heart of the Economy
There's no indication that Bush thought through the potential for far-reaching fiscal damage. article by James K. Galbraith
---Could the war in Iraq be the reason for high gas-pump prices?
Chicago's Big Brother to Watch 10 More Intersections
After nearly six months of red-light cameras in Chicago, City Hall has already issued a blitzkrieg of 15,070 tickets, generating nearly $1.4 million in sorely needed revenue, assuming all the motorists caught lead-footed end up paying their $90 fines.
At every one of the eight intersections where cameras have been installed, the average number of daily violations has plunged. The biggest drop occurred at Belmont and Kedzie. It started with 63 daily citations. It's now down to 36, a 43 percent drop.
Ald. Tom Allen (38th), chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, said the experiment has only begun to "rein in lawlessness of drivers" in Chicago.
"It's an epidemic and still is," Allen said...
"Mechanical enforcement is the wave of the future. I'm not suggesting they go crazy, but they should buy, install and operate as many cameras as necessary to change people's driving habits. Every neighborhood that's crying out for safer driving habits should be able to have a camera."
story
---What's odd about this story is that it leads with the dollar amount of revenue collected and doesn't specifically mention that accidents at these intersections have been impacted (pun intended). One has to infer from the number of daily citations that this is so. Are we expected to be pleased by the city's "blitzkreig of tickets"? We're
over-joyed when people on the public payroll are given more of our money to spend?
Outsourcing Secrets
Computer services and equipment company Unisys Corp. said Wednesday it has set up a software development and back-office center in India, with plans to hire 2,000 people and invest $180 million in five years.
Governments and public sector institutions are among Unisys' largest customers. The company handles sensitive information such as police records and homeland security databases.
The company's center in Bangalore...will provide document checking for loans, insurance claims and electronic check processing, besides outsourced services for government-related work and clients in telecommunications, transport, media and consumer-products industries, (Cal Killen, Unisys' vice president for solution development) said.
"We will open more centers in other Indian cities and outside India, too," he said. Eastern Europe and China are possibilities.
press release (As heard on NPR)
---Is it safe yet?
April 28, 2004
God Bless Our Troops
[Excerpt]
Come home, come home to pork-barrell politics
and a new presidential race
that shines like oil in the sunlight
beautiful but it still fucking reeks
We'll be waiting for you on the dilapidated piers
of Norfolk, VA
Our country, your piers, have been eaten
by termites of negligence
The money we could have spent on exterminators
we've spent on your deaths.
poem by Carl A.I.
Cops Ask Californians to Rat on Their Neighbors' Cars
...the California Highway Patrol wants residents statewide to turn in fellow motorists they suspect of illegally driving vehicles with out-of-state license plates. The public is being asked to jot down license plate numbers and other information and send it anonymously to CHP headquarters via computer. With that, the agency will track down violators. The effort will also be a moneymaker for California, says the head of the Highway Patrol, Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick...
via/archived: politech
---To the question, "Do you think this will be popular"? Jason/Atomgrid replied:
"The state of California will claim the program is wildly popular right up until the moment it's discovered Department of Motor Vehicle employees and higher-ups aren't paying California licensing fees either. Then enforcement will quietly go away. The only clear winner will be whichever TV news crew shows up at a state employee parking lot and "pops" the first taxpayer-funded scofflaw."
---Further on this Politech thread someone wrote...
"On this argument..."There are always good reasons and then there are real reasons for laws."
Traffic enforcement is primarily about revenue-- not public safety, despite the fact that some public safety benefit is obtained. In California, the CHP retirement system is maintained by vehicle registration fees. Check out what they earn on the same website-- $90K/year and 90% of that after 20 years of revenue enforcement. Traffic court generates more revenue per hour than a neurosurgical team....
Many states place their highway patrol in the table of organization under their department of revenue. They at least fund their criminal justice growth industry, the adjective criminal modifying justice, as in it is a criminal system. If the proceeds enter the general fund, the state perpetrates all manner of other mischief with the money. The basis of all tyranny is revenue."
link
---Amen to dat, but without taxes how would any of that tyrannical revenue known as profits get redistributed? There are counties in this country where the only employer is government. Why continue to pretend that a free unregulated market is god?
Ron Mueck; Art Molds/ BBC
--Special effects wizardry: not what anyone would call cerebral, but there's something visceral here even via the photographs.
These works remind me how cheap our towns & cities are when it comes to sponsoring and displaying sculpture. Outside city centers we're all art poor, sculpture deficient, routinely spatially challenged.
Secret Service Investigates Teen's Art Project Depicting Bush As Devil
PROSSER, Wash. -- One drawing showed President Bush's head on a stick. Another depicted Bush as a devil launching a missile.
The drawings by a 15-year-old boy in Prosser, Washington, were enough to prompt some questions from the Secret Service.
Agents questioned the teen after being called by police. The boy's art teacher told school officials about the drawings, and they called police.
The boy was not arrested but the school district has taken disciplinary action.
Prosser police Chief Win Taylor says the boy and his sketches were seen as "a threat against the president of the United States. And we notified the Secret Service because that's their bailiwick." He sees the situation as a clear-cut case.
"First of all, the disturbing part was the extreme violence depicted in the pictures," said Taylor, who has seen the drawings. "We assume that he deliberately took an action of his own free will, which he reasonably should have known was against the code of conduct."
When pressed as to whether he really thought the 15-year-old student had a plan to harm the president, Taylor said that as a child of the '60s, he understands dissent and protest. But times have changed.
"We've been in a different ballgame because police were attacked after what happened in Columbine," Taylor said. "Since then, we've all been under the gun with all these mandated policies for school security plans. ... Now for whatever reason, it's 'Oh, we want you to use discretion again.' We can't win."
link to pr forum post
---This is a good sign. When the Secret Service and the local cops are harassing budding artists that must mean there's no terrorist or assassination threats to worry about.
Missile Defense: Ready, Set, Go?
...the military is fulfilling a congressional mandate to deploy missile defenses as soon as it can -- even though the program is still in a research and development phase. That means additional testing will take place after the first interceptors are deployed..
"When the administration does deploy a system this fall, the United States will unfortunately still be a long way from an effective defense against real missiles," he (Sen. Jack Reed) said.
story
---Mission Accomplished!
Iraqis Say Council Approved Flag Won't Fly
In particular, people objected to the pale blue color of the crescent and stripes, saying it was identical to the dominant color in the flag of Israel, a Jewish state.
story
---Neo-con humor.
A Black & White Case of US Injustice
Jose Padilla was a devout Muslim, born on the wrong side of the tracks. White, middle-class John Walker Lindh shared his religion but little else.
.."Rumsfeld vs Padilla". It may just be the most important case of its kind in half a century, in setting the limits of presidential power, and determining whether an American citizen can be denied justice in his own country.
"An American citizen" are the three words that are the very heart of the controversy over Mr Padilla. Much has been written about the plight of the 600-plus detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, like him held without lawyers and without charge. But almost without exception they are foreign nationals, captured outside the US.
Mr Padilla was not captured on a foreign battlefield in the service of an enemy power, but as he stepped unsuspectingly off a commercial jet at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, returning to the US to visit his American mother in Florida and his 12-year-old son. He was arrested not by the military, but by civilian law enforcement officers of the FBI. article also this Amnesty press release
---So what's the bookies' line on this?
[I'm hearing in my head Countiing Crows " Big Yellow Taxi".]
April 27, 2004
From a German War Primer
[Excerpt]
THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the contribution is destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACE
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY: PEACE
AND WAR
Are of different substance.
But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.
War grows from their peace
Like son from his mother
He bears
Her frightful features.
Their war kills
Whatever their peace
Has left over.
poem by Bertolt Brecht
Jordanian Militants Shown Confessing on State TV
---Why don't we have public confessions on American tv? Afterwards we can all phone-in our votes ($1.-a-call): judging for style and whether or not we believe they were sincere.
I remember when the word 'militant' was used to describe un-media-worthy feminists: "militant feminist". They were always angry. These militants here planned to kill at least 80,000 people with unspecified toxic chemicals. They look like the guys who run donut shops and gas stations. They don't look angry at all.
THE 9/11 Question?
Why were there no Air National Guard (or any other military) planes flying on Sept. 11? Normally there are hundreds of National Guard planes in the air, training and patrolling. Every day there are at least 16 military planes whose job it is to patrol America's skies, 24 hours/365 days of the year). Why were there not even the normal fighters up, and why were not extra planes ordered up that day to protect America's skies, the moment that there was a hint of a hijacking?
In the eight months before September 11, 2001, military planes intercepted planes which had "gone off course or had other suspicious problems" sixty-seven times. [link to 'Norad Stand-down']
From "Two Questions for the 9/11 Commission" by Susan Strouss via: Unknown News
--Coincidentally: "(C)iting the rarely used "state secrets privilege":
(Justice Dept.) Lawyers Try to Gag FBI Worker over 9/11
Outsourcing Porn
"As you may know, the U.S. porn industry basically shut down
two weeks ago when a major male star tested positive for HIV, and
since the test they use has a 30-day window, things aren't expected
to be back up to normal for at least 2 more weeks. Now comes the
Associated Press angle: The culprit that threatens to crush this
industry (whose annual revenues are estimated at $5B-$10B) is,
yes, the outsourcing of porn work overseas. Specifically, it was
those Brazilians and East Europeans with their cheap women and
cheap HIV tests! Daschle, Dean, and Kerry have been warning us
about these things (so to speak)." Chuck Shepherd via: News of the Weird.
See also Porn in the USA story
---Too bad porn actors aren't unionised. Is there a "Screen Actor's Guild' for porn? This forum post says no. Incredible isn't it, that workers in such a profitable, state-of-the-art industry have so little legal protection?
April 26, 2004
Our Hidden WMD Program
Why Bush is spending so much on nuclear weapons.
What the hell is going on here?...Do we really need to be spending this kind of money on nuclear weapons? What role do nuclear weapons play in 21st-century military policy? How many weapons do we need, to deter what sort of attack or to hit what sorts of targets, with what level of confidence, for what strategic and tactical purposes?
These are questions that haven't been seriously addressed in this country for 30 years. It may be time for a new look.
Ten years ago, spending on nuclear activities amounted to $3.4 billion, half of today's sum...
article by Fred Kaplan thanks, joerg. See also this interview (from 12/03) with NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks.
---I'm taking a wild guess but Bush's nuclear weapons spending (as was Clit'on's) is another way to subsidize his core constituency: mining, energy, and weapons industries? And...no one on Capitol Hill will ever sponsor a serious debate on the efficacy or dangers of these programs because their stock portfolios would take a hit?
Or perhaps this program was included as a 'rider' on a larger bill. Some lobbyist during the Cliton presidentcy, perhaps a relative of someone on the Arm's Appropriation Committee (or whatever) simply asked their Congressman to please include a few billion for 'safer', more precise nuclear bombs. There never was a debate or much thought because the men & women in Congress know that their children & grandchildren, their friends and important contributors, won't be working or living in the places these weapons are produced or used. [Notice how many politicians' kids are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan?] Our legislators are so habituated to giving certain industries whatever they ask, whenever they're asked, they aren't bothered by the new poisons they've help create. It's simpler, not necessarily more profitable, for them to go along?
April 25, 2004
Military Coffins: The Photographs You're Not Supposed to See
Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.
To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases...
link via: The Memory Hole. see also on Spitting Image: #/ %+@!^*
---Your tax dollars at work. [Isn't it strange when you hear people in the media rail against 'big government' they'll never mention the military, big government's biggest beneficiary?]
Fun in the Great Outdoors
---The other day I saw one of our resident robins picking up muddy grass clippings.
The nest above is a robins', the 'egg' is not.
Free Speech Movement
link to records/photos
---Imagine something like this coming out of any university today. Cha.
April 24, 2004
Will this work?
"A police officer talks with two men in a tree in New York's Central Park Thursday, April 22, 2004. The two unidentified gay lovers protested their families' lack of understanding for their relationship by climbing the Central Park tree, having sex in front of the crowd that gathered, and refusing to come down for hours." - story
PS: You know, I'm not sure this is the way to convince your parents.
Ula Einstein: Burning and Knifing: Fragile Investigations
"We are branded by inherited traditions and histories imprinted on us. We can be trapped by a "truth," a familiar story. Burning and knifing are the actions I use to set fire to the past, a burning imperative to forge a fresh narrative..."
gallery
---Ula Einstein burns & cuts tyvek which she illuminates from behind. Besides imitating scarification (self inflicted?) she inscribes many organic shapes & forms reminiscent of plants & the actions of insects and animals. An association I found heartening.
April 23, 2004
Toothing
COMMUTERS are using their mobile telephones to organise sexual encounters with strangers in a trend called "toothing".
Users or "toothers" create a profile with their details and nickname and then set their mobile telephone to scour the surrounding area for other Bluetooth devices.
They then select one with an appropriate profile and send the device a "business card". Initial greetings usually just say "Toothing?"
The two strangers can then exchange business cards or send one another SMS messages. They also look around to guess who they are corresponding with.
"If the other party is interested, messages are exchanged until a suitable location is agreed – usually a public toilet...
press release
---Viral marketing promoting products creating opportunities to contract actual viruses!
Googling the Genome
With a dozen companies racing towards the goal of the sub-$1,000 genome, the day when your DNA is sequenced and burnt on to a CD-Rom for roughly the cost of a conventional health checkup is not far off.
A bioinformatics program running on a PC could easily check our genomes for all genes associated with the autosomal recessive disorders that had been identified so far. Regular software updates downloaded from the internet - like those for anti-virus programs - would keep our search software abreast of the latest medical research. The question is, how potentially serious does a variant gene's effects have to be for us to care about its presence in our DNA? Down to what level should we be morally obliged to tell our prospective partners - or have the right to ask about?
...But even if you refuse to delve within your genome, there are plenty of others who will be keen to do so. Employers and insurance companies would doubtless love to scan your data before giving you a job or issuing a policy.
story
Banned Photos of Flag-draped Coffins Hit the Web
link via: drudge
---When the Drudge's in the press start noticing American dead soldiers, does that mean the living will be coming home soon? Will the 'drudges' ever acknowledge the Iraqi dead? Can any images help put an end to this war? Or has the neo-cons' War on Terror (of which Iraq is now the key) guaranteed conflicts that will surpass the Cold War in longevity, appropriations and lives lost? For the rest of the century it's the Neo-con World Order, Homelanders.
Politics on the Brain
Neurologists using MRI's to study partisan voters responses to campaign commercials.
story also
---I believe Cambodia's Khmer Rouge found that eye glasses were a sure sign of radicalism.
Robot Plane Drops Bomb in Test
A Boeing Joint Unmanned Combat Air System X-45 aircraft releases an inert GPS-guided bomb Sunday at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division range in China Lake, Calif
story
---Last year didn't the Israelis kill a Hamas leader and his family with a missile fired from a drone? Here they're bragging about payload & the GPS-of it all? The robots of our imagination might've gone berserk or took our jobs but they never dropped bombs.
Woman Loses Her Job Over Coffins Photo
"A military contractor has fired Tami Silicio, a Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers was published in Sunday's edition of The Seattle Times." - story
April 22, 2004
Supermodel Personals
I hate that moment on Sunday mornings when you wake up at some guy's house and realize you have to stumble home in the same miniskirt and makeup that looked so sexy the night before, but just looks scary in the cruel light of dawn. And everyone on the subway knows you've got a raging hangover and your underwear is stuffed in your purse. God, let me get married soon, because if I have another one of these mornings, I'm going to slit my wrists.-posted by Tara @ 2:00 AM
link via: everything isn't under control
--Deft.
Surveillance Balloon to Keep Eye on Baghdad
The Army says the aerostat will hover about 2,500 feet over Baghdad and will carry electro/optic-infrared sensors. item
---School kids will compete for prizes in a "name our balloon contest".
[Do kids go to school in Baghdad?]
The Bomb Project
The Bomb Project is a comprehensive on-line compendium of nuclear-related links, imagery and documentation.
link via: rhizome
Old Records Saved by Particle Physics
The technique uses a light sensor, originally designed to track the paths of subatomic particles such as bosons, to capture images of the record's groove. A computer then uses these to reconstruct the recording, filtering out any background noise to produce a blemish-free digital version.
The technique should be able to retrieve sound from even the earliest grooved recordings from the late nineteenth century, (Mark)Roosa (director of preservation at the Library of Congress) hopes. The wax or metal cylinders on which these recordings were made had been considered too deteriorated to salvage, he says.. story
---So they can make 'recordings' from the texture of anything? A brick? A block of wood?
Watching the Northern Line
Two hundred sixty-four cameras stand like silent sentinels along our nation's borders. Soon 90 new remote video surveillance camera systems will join their ranks along the northern border. The cameras are sophisticated technology costing over $250,000 each. It's a small price to pay for equipment that can identify vehicle features two miles away, and detect and track human movement approximately three miles away.
...this camera technology works hand in hand with over 12,000 sensors buried in the ground. The sensors act like electronic tripwires that use seismic, magnetic, and infrared technology to establish a line of defense against unauthorized entry into the country. What looks like a rock, a branch, or a twig may be the sensor antenna designed to transmit a signal to a central communication center miles away....
article
Spoils of War
...not all of the $22 billion being spent to rebuild Iraq is going where it should. Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began.
link via: w/comments: eschaton
---They're killing & maiming and it's costing more than it should.
April 21, 2004
Humanity is the First Casualty of War
"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"— George W. Bush's mother Barbara on ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003
...most of what hits our screens and newspapers comes out of Baghdad briefings by U.S. officials or their appointees.
As CNN's Walter Rodgers confessed to Aaron Brown on Wednesday, he travels with "an armed security guard at all times" and dares not venture out at night.
You can bet no Western journalist would have gotten out of Falluja alive...
The record shows that, if the victims are white and/or Western, their deaths (and humiliation) are usually shielded from our tender sensibilities.
But, if the victims are not one of us, if they live far away or have no names or cultural commonalities, they're fair game. Hence, it's perfectly acceptable, if not mundane, to show piles of skulls in Rwanda or a skeletal and swollen-bellied African baby on the verge of death while a vulture struts in the background....
article see also on Spitting Image the incredible Inside the Fire
Maskon: Female Latex Masks
link
way station
(with lists of masks in the media & fiction and friends' image galleries)
Factoid
Ratio of the number of privately contracted military workers in Iraq to the number of British troops there : 5:4 [Coalition Provisional Authority (Baghdad)
--Harper's Index March 2004
April 20, 2004
Archaeologists Review Loss of Iraqi Artifacts One Year After Looting
article w/links
"In terms of archaeological losses, the looting of the museum may well be dwarfed by the continual destruction of archaeological sites all over Iraq by looters..."
Not Guilty!
Evidence exonerates 328, but many still falsely imprisoned.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Exonerations of defendants convicted of serious crimes more than tripled over the past 15 years as DNA and other new evidence overturned the convictions, a University of Michigan study shows.
The study..."Exonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003" conducted by law professor Samuel Gross & four students...did not include at least 135 additional innocent defendants who were framed by rogue police officers and cleared within the last five years in two mass exonerations in California and Texas. item
---Isn't it fantastic that an unintrusive procedure like a DNA test has put an end to years of suffering for hundreds of people? No oaths, no trials, no deals, no threats, no torture, no expert arguments, 12 just men & women or distinguished judges. A few tiny cells can change a life.
Trek Tech
40 years since the Enterprise's inception, some of its science fiction gadgets are part of everyday life...the genesis of the show dates to March 11, 1964, when (Gene) Roddenberry wrote a 16-page draft pilot for a show he told (NBC) network executives would be a "Wagon train to the stars,'' a nod to the many Westerns that populated TV schedules at the time...
article
---Jason/Atomgrid reflects:
"Sadly, no mention of bright, monochromatic Old Navy fleeces and their uncanny resemblance to Star Trek tunics. You see somebody walking around in a red one and you expect a giant flying reptile to suddenly swoop down and grab them.
I'm repeatedly amazed at how much my LG G4010 "flip" phone looks like a classic Star Trek communicator. It's been ages since I got the same level of nerd-fuzzies by mentally comparing my Palm IIIxe to a tricorder."
shaneAIDS 'Bidness'
"Gifts Used to Lure AIDS Business"
Pharmacies in New York are offering hairdryers, fax machines, travel cards and bleepers in order to lure Aids patients away from big chains and bring their lucrative prescriptions with them.
story
---Coincidentally: "HIV Drug Content in Developing Countries Meets U.S. Standards"
Antiretroviral drugs from four developing countries were found to meet United States Pharmacopeia (USP) standards for the active drug amount listed on the label, according to a study in the May 1 Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. item
---AND..."Abbott Sued Over Drug Price Hike"
— Abbott Laboratories Inc. was hit with a federal antitrust lawsuit Monday by patients charging the company with illegally jacking up the price of a popular AIDS drug by 400 percent...
Abbott spokeswoman Jennifer Smoter said the company has not violated any laws...
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E-Nose Helps Food Industry Smell the Cost Benefits
The EU-funded project – e-nose- found the new tech can be used to quickly detect bacteria, yeasts, filamentous fungi and off-odours. press release
---Smell me the money! Sensors & devices like e-nose will be producing graphic representations of whatever they're measuring. [Lots of fuzzy color-video-type graphs or coded text-messages?] Whether those representations find use outside their industries, as trading cards, or art is anyone's guess.
Pupils Get Smart With Clocking-In Cards
St Thomas of Aquin’s High School in Edinburgh (Scotland) will become the first in the country to replace the...ticks on graph paper with a sophisticated new clocking-in system based on ID swipe cards. press release
---Swipe cards can free teachers from e