May 31, 2005
Documentary Film: Poison Dust
"During the current Iraq War the U.S. use of radioactive DU weapons increased from 375 tons used in 1991 to 2200 tons. Geiger counter readings at sites in downtown Baghdad record radiation levels 1,000 and 2,000 times higher than background radiation...Over one million U.S. soldiers have rotated into Iraq. Today, half of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf War troops from the 1991 war have reported serious medical problems and a significant increase in birth defects among their newborn children.
The effects on the Iraqi population are far greater. Many other countries and U.S. communities near DU weapons plants, testing facilities, bases and arsenals have also been exposed to this radioactive material which has a half-life of 4.4 billions years."
story [5/28]
more info about Poison Dust/ partial bibliography/with links
[still from Poison Dust]
Nukes in the News: Depleted Uranium Bill Introduced Into Congress
Washington, DC - Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), a medical doctor, on May 17 introduced legislation with 21 original co-sponsors in the House of Representatives that calls for medical and scientific studies on the health and environmental impacts from the U.S. Military's use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in combat zones, including Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls for cleanup and mitigation of sites in the U.S. contaminated by DU.
DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process; it is chemically toxic. and DU has low-level radioactivity. About 300 metric tons of DU munitions were fired during the first Gulf War, and about half that amount has been used to date in the Iraq War.
~Related: as of today this 'Depleted Uranium Bill' (which recently passed the Senate btw) is not a big news story according to google news search (95 results). The mainstream-media has very specific, tried and true, ways it broadcasts support for American service men and women. Reporting on legislation that asks for more research into the health effects of depleted uranium is apparently not their way of supporting the troops and their familes.
For what it's worth today's murder-suicide story from Ohio in which six family members have been killed is being carried by over 1,200 news outlets according to google.
Today I learned depleted uranium munitions were used in Vietnam and during the first Gulf War.
[image via google/ not with story]
RFID Wiggling Its Way Into Credit Cards
"The standard credit card with mag strip does not require physical contact with the reader. All it requires is very close proximity. It's already "contactless". It's not RFID since it is reading magnetic rather than radio pulses."
"Something like 200 million 14443 RFID smartcards have been sold in the last ten years. DC's Metro system for example uses 14443 RFID smartcards.
Security measures used in these smartcards are quite good. I am unaware of any reports of 14443 cards being cloned or hacked, but to be honest, I haven't done much checking.
The next generation of U.S. passports will also use this same technology. New U.S. drivers licenses may also."
May 28, 2005
Judge Orders Gov't to Release Abuse Photos
New York - A federal judge has told the government it will have to release additional pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, civil rights lawyers said.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein, finding the public has a right to see the pictures, told the government Thursday he will sign an order requiring it to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union..
...his order "will lead to production (of the pictures) or further proceedings."
Government lawyer Sean Lane argued that releasing pictures, even if faces and other features are obscured, would violate Geneva Convention rules on prisoner treatment by subjecting detainees to additional humiliation or embarrassment. He said the emotional wounds would be reopened because detainees could identify themselves and because the public would learn their identities.
The judge, however, said, "I don't believe with suitable redaction there is an unwarranted invasion of privacy." He also said he didn't think it was likely that detainees in redacted photos would be able to be identified.
~The gov't will have to change it's objections for their next appeal? Maybe they can argue releasing even redacted photos of US soldiers torturing Iraqi civilians will lead to riots and violence, as in the Newsweek Koran as toilet-paper report?
May 27, 2005
Overheard at Starbucks
"So it's not hookers and swingers with their all-inclusive...ha-ha...sex clubs you hate; it's their security, their infrastructure!?"
-"How free can it be if Guido, Mr. Farquehart and Ma Belle need to pass muster on me? If they're doing me the favor; if she's doing them the favor? ..no matter how beautiful or crazy the women, the mob are not good people."
"It's not her; it's her mom, her boyfriend?"
-"Boyfriends. The mob like the FBI doesn't use unmarked vans."
"They use mustard...gas?"
-"I hate cults."
"Even cults that've created a sexual utopia? Daily providing how many thousands of American men and women with safe, secure, willing and anonymous sex-partners? Imagine the number of marriages they've saved? The hours of work NOT wasted on unsolicited and unfruitful sexual advances? The stay-at-home housewives rescued from boredom and drudgery? Think of the kids whose dad's don't have the stray all that far for a little regular sumptin-sumptin? Women freed from unwanted marital duties, marital-rape! No need to stalk the girl or wife next door. No need to look for sex from anyone but who they provide. All they ask in return is obedience and secrecy."
-"I'm so screwed."
Call for Papers
CFP: 2006 ASECS Gay & Lesbian Caucus (Montreal)
The Gay & Lesbian Caucus of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is proposing two panels for the upcoming meeting in Montreal, March 30 to April 2, 2006.
(1) "In And Out Around The Academy" (Roundtable)
This panel seeks personal narratives and reflections on job experiences which will generate discussion of the practical issues of professional life for our constituency.
Possible topics might include:
* Strategies for coping -- maybe even flourishing -- as queers in the
profession.
* Homophobia in the department or administration.
* Queer-exile at small institutions far outside urban centers.
* Advantages and, perhaps, pitfalls of using queerness to establish
professional networks.
* Being straight in queer studies.
* Straight eye for the queer guy and gal: pressures to pass.
Papers might raise questions such as:
* How vulnerable are we before tenure? After?
* Do our CVs out us?
* Should we out ourselves in interviews?
* How does our sexuality inform our teaching and our scholarship?
* Are we ghettoized, are we tokens, or does that matter?
* Are we no longer fashionable? Is queer studies passИ?
2) "New Queer Methods and Texts"
In the field of queer and sexuality studies in the eighteenth century, we all follow in the wake of Foucault, but it can no longer be assumed that we are arguing with him, whether for or against. This panel seeks submissions that propose, develop or otherwise utilize new theoretical frameworks, methodologies, or strategies to read for queerness before the invention of the homosexual.
We seek:
* Alternate constructions and intersections of same-sex desires and/or identities.
* Ambiguities in familiar texts, artifacts and accounts that can be
exploited.
* New texts which require surprising sexual re-orientations.
* Historically sensitive elaborations as well as productive anachronisms.
* Investigations into unexpected discourses -- not only juridical, medical and aesthetic discourses need be the sites in which we locate queer possibilities.
* Proposals that our CFP cannot anticipate.
Email proposals as MSWord attachments (or in the body of the email) to panel co-organizers Derrick Miller (millerde@grinnell.edu) and Aurora Wolfgang (aurora@csusb.edu) by Friday, September 16, 2005. For general information on the ASECS meeting, see the conference website at http://asecs.press.jhu.edu/2006annualmtg.htm
----------------------------
Aurora Wolfgang
Professor of French and
Coordinator of Women's Studies
CSU San Bernardino
5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407
909-880-5838
aurora@csusb.edu
via: genderstudies@kcgs.org.ua
~Diederik notes: "I fwd this to celebrate the genre of CfP. so much irresponsible question-generating! So much creativity! CfPs should be collected in a volume: 'CfP: A genre in academe'."
Andrea Dworkin Online Library
"How does it happen that the male child whose sense of life is so vivid that he imparts humanity to sun and stone changes into the adult male who cannot grant or even imagine the common humanity of women?"
Andrea Dworkin Lie Detector / Living With Andrea
~So what does is mean when someone is so often misquoted and misrepresented in the media? (In her case, "Don't mess with our porn"?)
I'd alter her quote like this: "...who cannot grant or even imagine the common humanity of us all?"
May 26, 2005
Airport-Screeners Could See X-Rated X-Rays
"...backscatters... use X-ray imaging technology to allow a screener to scan a body. And yes, the body image is detailed. Let's not be coy here, ladies and gentlemen:
"Well, you'll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."
The Homeland Security Department's justification for the electronic strip searches has a certain logic. In field test after field test, it found that federal airport screeners using metal-detecting magnetometers did a miserable job identifying weapons concealed in carry-on bags or on the bodies of undercover agents.
In a clumsy response late last year, the department instituted intrusive pat-downs at checkpoints after two planes in Russia blew up from nonmetallic explosives that had apparently been smuggled into the aircraft by female Chechen terrorists. But it reduced the pat-downs after passengers erupted in outrage at the groping last December.
Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, told a Senate subcommittee that "technology is really what we ultimately have to use in order to get to the next level" in security.
Thwarting body-scanning technology would be simple (Steve Elson, a former Federal Aviation Administration investigator) argues. Because of concerns about radiation, body scanners are designed not to penetrate the skin.. All that's needed is someone heavily overweight to go through the system, he said. I won't quote him directly on the details; suffice it to say he posits that a weapon or explosives pack could be tucked into flabby body folds that won't be penetrated by the scanner.
Homeland Security has not identified the airports that will test backscatters. More than a dozen have been selected...
~Even with their "miserable job identifying weapons" how many US airplanes have been commandeered or endangered by non-metallic explosive, ceramic knife, or even gun packing terrorists, nut-cases, disgruntled employees, etc., in the years airport screeners have been using magnetometers and ignoring baggage X-rays? What do the Israelis' do?
I smell pork-barrel security. But there's nothing like the threat of fiery death coupled with whiz-bang technology to negate centuries-old customs of modesty and justify new federal security jobs. It smells inevitable.*
When the use of these X-ated X-rays become popular (not only in airports?) will there be an increase in the number of fat travelers and others who fit security profiles contracting radiation-related cancers as screeners selectively use (Homeland Security classified) backscatter machines designed to get to THAT level of security?
Millimeter wave technology from security specialist Qinetiq is designed to detect not just metal but other threats, like ceramic knives and *hidden drugs. [image/caption: 1 of 2 with article]
~Is that a knife or is he just happy to see someone while wearing a glow-in-the-dark condom? (It's a knife in a glow-in-the-dark condom!)
Federal Crime ("Drug Paraphernalia") Fighters Seize Web Sites
WASHINGTON--Federal police have adopted a novel crime-fighting tactic: seizing control of domain names for Web sites that allegedly violate the law.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that the domain names for several Web sites allegedly set up to sell illegal "drug paraphernalia" would be pointed at servers located at the Drug Enforcement Administration...
press release more via/archived @ politech
~Your federal tax-contributions at work!
We Don't Do That Here
Self-immolation by women in Afghanistan
Marzia, aged 15, has her burns cleaned at the Herat Public Hospital in Afghanistan. Terrified at the prospect of her husband's wrath after she short-circuited the television he had been saving for, she set fire to herself. Although no statistics are kept on female self-immolation, staff at the hospital estimate that they treated between 300 and 400 women with self-inflicted burns between November 2001 and February 2003. The suicide attempts make use of the kerosene used for cookers. Medical officers say that there were almost no similar cases under the Taliban regime, and some attribute the increase to a growing frustration as Western culture infiltrates Afghanistan, yet the position of women in society remains much the same. photo link
~Related:
Violence Against Women Rampant in Asia
"...the ouster of the conservative, Islamic Taliban regime in 2001 by U.S.-led forces did little to bring relief to women.
Across Afghanistan, but particularly in the western Herat region, Amnesty reported that hundreds of women had set fire to themselves to escape violence in the home or forced marriage.
"Fear of abductions by armed groups forced women to restrict their movements outside the home," Amnesty said. Even within families, "extreme restrictions" on women's behavior and high levels of violence persisted, it said.
~Photo from 2004; story from 2005.
Real I.D. Rebellion
"In a free country you do not need the government's permission to travel."
~and other quaint sentiments at the:
Arrest Bush on a Visit Abroad?
Amnesty International called on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating U.S. officials implicated in the development or implementation of interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. While the U.S. government has failed to conduct a genuinely independent and comprehensive investigation, the officials implicated in these crimes are nonetheless subject to investigation and possible arrest by other nations while traveling abroad, the organization said.
"The human rights organization warned that at least one dozen former or current U.S. officials are vulnerable to this action..
Amnesty International's Annual Report thanks conscientious joerg
~(Yeah and monkeys might fly out of my butt.)
Stay tuned for reports of denial of American visas and arrests (drug, alcohol, morals charges, tax-fraud) of Amnesty International officials in their home countries?
I wonder if Amnesty America will immediately issue a public rebuke of this report or will they take a few days before being forced to distance themselves?
Can American reporters of any major news-outlets suggest something similar, concur with Amnesty's Report, and not lose their jobs?
Almost Laughable
Less than 4 percent of editorial cartoonists on major syndicates are female.It would almost be funny, if it didn't smack of sexism.
~Somewhat related:
more The Boiling Point political cartoons
by Mikhaela Blake Reid
May 25, 2005
McNamara: US Nuke Policies "Immoral & Dangerous"
Nukes in the News
"If I were to characterize U.S. and NATO nuclear policies in one sentence, I would say they are immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, very, very dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launch and destructive of the non-proliferation regime that has served us so well," he said.
~What's he trying to say? These statesmen are so afraid to speak clearly, to say exactly what they mean. I'm sure Limbaugh and the other media pundits will explain Bush's nuclear policy so all of us can understand.
Is Photography Becoming Illegal?
The USA Patriot Act, with its broad definition of "suspicious activity," has cracked the door wider to individual interpretation.
But "just because it's not law yet, doesn't mean there aren't people trying to enforce it," says Alicia Wagner Calzada, vice president of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).
Ms. Calzada offers the example of a small-town photojournalist in Victoria, Texas, who was taking shots of potholes for a newspaper story last year when a police officer drove by several times. Finally, the officer stopped and questioned him and, even after running an ID check, bluntly declared the photographer's actions suspicious and intimated he'd be keeping an eye on him, the photographer recalls.
Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator
This interactive tool illustrates the devastating effects of a nuclear weapon detonation in selected U.S. cities. The size of the weapon and the height at which it is detonated are the two main factors which affect the range of destruction. The size of the bomb can be chosen by selecting the weapon's yield, as measured in kilotons (KT) or megatons (MT) of TNT equivalent. There is also the option of having the bomb delivered using an automobile at ground level or using an aircraft flying at an altitude which produces the widest area of destruction.
link via secrecy news (May 24)
US Military Atrocities and the Moral Choice Facing the American People
The “honorable” US military has been unleashed on defenseless peoples in the Middle East and Asia with horrifying consequences. Much of what is foul and backward in American society has been encouraged and cultivated in the armed forces, inviting or producing a considerable crowd of sadists, psychopaths and, frankly, perverts.... given nothing culturally or morally, exposed to the most reactionary influences—religious fundamentalism, nationalism, the cult of blood and guns.
The description of the physical and psychological torture of the prisoners at Bagram renders one physically ill. And one encounters the same porno-sadism over and over again in the exploits of this military all over the world!
Administration personnel are confident that they will never be held to account for their crimes...Both government spokesmen and liberal pundits like Alan Dershowitz, Ted Koppel and Michael Ignatieff have been explicitly or tacitly advocating torture since the events of September 11, 2001. Genuinely democratic consciousness has almost entirely disintegrated within the upper echelons of American society. Today, anything goes.
The argument that barbaric methods are needed to combat “terrorism” and extract information that could “save lives,” the time-honored claim of every authoritarian regime, is both spurious and illegal, especially given that the US government had considerable prior knowledge about the 2001 terrorist hijackings and refused to act on it. Moreover, this argument ignores the political reality: torture is never about specific pieces of information, it is one element of an overall policy. It is meant to break the will of a resisting movement or population. So it was with the Nazi authorities, so it is today with the American military.
The absence of widespread and loudly voiced revulsion to the crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is shameful. It speaks to the degraded state of American public opinion.
article By David North and David Walsh thanks joerg
~Save yourself. Save your family. Keep your kids away from the blood-lust and out of the armed forces.
Whatever holy war, revenge fantasy or kill-sports they're selling this year (and for generations to come) ain't worth shit, ain't worth getting maimed or dying over.
Respect yourself, choose 'cruelty-free' living.
It's your choice.
[abu ghraib image via google/ caption cieciel]
May 24, 2005
The New American Way of War
The characteristics:
1. Pick an area with a significant local insurgency that can be destroyed for the purposes of teaching other areas a lesson.
2. Seal off the town, so the civilians can't leave.
3. Drop bombs on the captive civilian population (and, at least in the case of Falluja, incendiaries).
4. Level most of the economic hub of the city or town.
5. Make grandiose claims about how many 'terrorists' have been killed, and unsupported allegations that a significant percentage of them were foreigners (in Al Qa'im, the local tribes may actually have been fighting to keep the very small number of foreign fighters out,) fearing exactly the kind of Falluja-style attack that they received).
6. Seal the town off from journalists (and humanitarian workers) so the lies about the nature of the insurgents and the enormity of the war crimes cannot reach the rest of the world.
7. Do everything possible to prevent the rebuilding of the town, so its ruins can stand as a warning to others.
8. While withdrawing as quickly as possible before American casualties get completely out of hand (leaving behind only sufficient troops to man the checkpoints to keep journalists and humanitarian workers out and to prevent the civilians from rebuilding their lives), announce proudly and loudly that the operation was an enormous success.
link to post/ with internal links; via Xymphora
We Don't Do That Here
Small numbered plaques allegedly mark anonymous graves in a cemetery on the outskirts of Andijon, Uzbekistan
(Photo: Misha Japaridze / Associated Press)
The scale of death is fiercely contested. (President Islam A.) Karimov said 32 Uzbek troops and 137 other people had been killed. An opposition party says that at least 745 civilians died in Andijon and Pakhtaabad, a border town, the next day. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a Vienna-based group, says Uzbek troops may have killed 1,000 unarmed people. story
~Americans know how to count their dead.
We do have problems estimating the numbers of people at certain types of political rallies. And lately we can't be bothered to estimate the numbers of enemy and civilians killed or injured or publish tallies and names of the detainees and prisoners held by our armed forces and police in our on-going war against terrorism.
Media Often Ignore Women as Sources, New Study Finds
In all media outlets, women are cited as sources far less often than men, according to a new Project for Excellence in Journalism study... released on Monday (May 23).
Cable news and the PBS NewsHour ranked lowest in terms of percentage of stories with at least one female source, at 19% and 17% respectively. Network TV came in at 27%, morning shows at 34%, news Web sites at 36%, and print newspapers at 41%.
Even though newspapers are the news medium most likely to cite at least one woman in a story, they are still more than twice as likely to consult at least one male source (88%), according to the nine-month study.
~Isn't it a running joke that all men are clueless about the day-to-day things that matter to the people closest to them? Anniversaries, birthdays, etc? That within relationships, with children, family-members and co-workers aren't women the 'go-to' people when it comes to personal information? One might have the impression women are much better than men with verbal communication and the knowledge of others yet in the media men are more informative than women? We expect men to explain what's going on? How does that work exactly? Isn't that counter-intuitive?
Consumptive Retooled
"...due to time constraints (work work and work) and a conscientious attempt to step away from the computer, at least long enough to make something non-virtual.
...for the foreseeable future consumptive.org shall be a photoblog: a
new photo everyday! all of them of Japan!
or at least taken in and around my neighborhood, usually while walking my dog."
Pat Tillman's Family Blasts 'Disgusting' Army Lies
Family questions reversal on cause of ranger's death.
Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder for them to deal with their loss.
More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.
~I'm sorry for this family's pain and loss but given the control individuals as soldiers allow the military over their daily lives, shouldn't we expect the military to have control over the stories of their deaths?
Futhermore they made Tillman a national hero, gave him a posthumous Silver Star, its not like they branded him a coward.
One of the H's at Unknown News remarked: "As someone with little patience for lousy reporting, I'm wondering why the word 'lies' is in quotes in the second paragraph -- as if it's just the Tillman family's opinion, not a matter of obvious fact.
There is no doubt that military officials ordered a cover-up of what happened. There's no doubt that they lied to Tillman's parents. If 'lies' must be presented in quotes, as if it's somehow less than factual, then any mention of Tillman's 'death' should also be in quotes -- his death is no less factual than the fact of the lies about it."
:| hh
"Do with me what you will when I'm alive, but don't lie about the way I die?"
[Pat Tillman via google]
Return of the Fallen
Defense Department redactions obscure the faces and insignia of honor guard members in many of the war casualty images.
PENTAGON RELEASES HUNDREDS MORE WAR CASUALTY HOMECOMING IMAGES
link (National Security Archive)
Illinois Library to Get Fingerprint Scanners
Library officials in a Chicago suburb (Naperville) plan to scan and record visitor fingerprints, purportedly to prevent unauthorized persons from using library computers.
""We take people's fingerprints because we think they might be
guilty of something, not because they want to use the library," said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois.
~related: Spitting Image search results (especially 'Fingerprint Marketing') through here
~Do people with reading disorders feel guilty about libraries?
May 23, 2005
Tattoo Conventions
A tattoo artist tattoos an unidentified man on the chest with an image of the man's four-month-old son Lee-Roy during the 13th international tattoo convention in Frankfurt May 8, 2005. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach @
News of the Weird
Eating disorders have such a hold on many young women that
some Internet sites glorify anorexia and bulimia as a quasi-divinity,
using religious language to command obedience to a goddess of
thinness known as "Ana," according to a May story in
Minneapolis's Star Tribune. Said one Minnesota college
freshman, "Ana is definitely a higher power, not higher than God,
but higher than myself." There are Ana prayers, Ana psalms, and
Ana commandments. One site has instructions for a ritual at an
altar, culminating in a blood contract "with the anorexia deity."
An Arizona doctor reported that a 13-year-old anorexia patient
suddenly spoke "an incantation, like a hex, as if to scare me off."
[Star Tribune, 5-1-05]
News of the Weird has already reported that some people have a
fondness for inserting 3-inch steel hooks in their skin and hanging
from pulleys for minutes, or even an hour, at a time. In April,
about 100 such aficionados attended a gathering in Providence,
R.I., and participants seemed thrilled, according to a Reuters
dispatch. A Connecticut teen: "It was euphoric. It was spiritual.
I'd do it again today if I wasn't so sore." A woman, watching her
boyfriend slowly swing: "Look at his face. He's so serene. We've
had some really rough times this year, and he needed this really
bad." A Canadian man: "The first couple of times, I didn't enjoy
it. The first time, I blacked out, and one time I was convulsing.
But the third time I got better. I wasn't blacking out anymore."
[Reuters, 4-5-05]
The governments of Spain and Nanjing, China, appear to have
had similar ideas but with different rationales. Both are readying
regulations to keep track of who important people are nailing. In
Spain, that would be directors of companies, in order to keep up
with lovers who might be insider trading, and in Nanjing, it's city
officials, in order to discourage public money from going to mistresses.
A Chicago gas-station clerk tricked a robber in February by the
simple ploy of telling him there was more money "up there,"
pointing toward the ceiling. The robber looked, then said, "What
are you talking about? There's no money up there." However,
there was a surveillance camera there, and police were grateful for
a full-face shot of the robber, according to WMAQ-TV. [WMAQ-
TV (Chicago), 2-15-05]
A model wears a design by Russian designer Mia Shvili on the runway during Miami Fashion Week of the Americas in Miami Beach @
The Latest Remote Touching Experience: Following previous
Pro Edition reports about hands-on cyber sex is the invention by
the "Mixed Reality Lab" at the National University of Singapore:
the Touchy Internet. You feel up a model of an animal, loaded
with sensors and connected to the Internet, and a real animal
somewhere else is thereby petted in the very same way in the very
same spots. For some reason, the animal they used to demonstrate
the thing on was . . . a chicken. Said Prof. Adrian David Cheok:
"This is the first human-poultry interaction system ever
developed." (Egg-heads Invent Tele-petting)
via news of the weird pro-edition
The Unknown Unknowns of the Abu Ghraib Scandal
"...according to a memo, in my possession, addressed to Donald Rumsfeld, there were "800-900 Pakistani boys 13-15 years of age in custody". I could not learn if some or all of them have been released, or if some are still being held.
A Pentagon spokesman, when asked to comment, said that he had no information to substantiate the number in the document, and that there were currently about 100 juveniles being held in Iraq and Afghanistan; he did not address detainees held elsewhere. He said they received some special care, but added "age is not a determining factor in detention ... As with all the detainees, their release is contingent upon the determination that they are not a threat and that they are of no further intelligence value. Unfortunately, we have found that ... age does not necessarily diminish threat potential."
Amid my frenetic reporting for the New Yorker on Abu Ghraib, I was telephoned by a middle-aged woman. She told me that a family member, a young woman, was among those members of the 320th Military Police Battalion, to which the 372nd was attached, who had returned to the US in March. She came back a different person - distraught, angry and wanting nothing to do with her immediate family...
The war, the older woman told me, was not the war for democracy and freedom that she thought her young family member had been sent to fight. Others must know, she said. There was one other thing she wanted to share with me. Since returning from Iraq, the young woman had been getting large black tattoos all over her body. She seemed intent on changing her skin."
article by Seymour Hersh
~This article ask questions a war-crimes tribunal might ask Bush & Co. about 'prisoner abuse' if and when hell freezes over.
Fun in the Great Outdoors
tampico road, lee county
~If I lived here would I think this [View image] was picturesque? Would it be something to stop-the-car-and-get-out-the-camera for?
How many times would I need to pass this way before familiarity obliterated what I saw here?
Or was it the two hours of freeway driving which preceded this rise in the road, speeding out of the darkness before dawn, that made this image?
An Ally from Hell
CIA's close relationship with Sudan's government enables genocide there to continue.
...thanks to a carefully documented report by Ken Silverstein in the April 29 Los Angeles Times, which has had far too little follow-up by the media—it is clear that the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur: over 400,000 black Africans dead, with some 500 more dying every day, and more than two million, many in peril of starvation, turned into refugees as their homes and villages are destroyed.
In his April 17 column, (Nicholas) Kristof wrote: "President Bush seems paralyzed in the face of the slaughter. He has done a fine job of providing humanitarian relief, but he has refused [for months now] to confront Sudan forcefully or raise the issue himself before the world."
In his May 3 column, Kristof-who has made repeated trips to Darfur...added: "Incredibly, the Bush administration is fighting to kill the Darfur Accountability Act, which would be the most forceful step the U.S. has taken so far against genocide."
The bill, passed by the Senate, "calls for such steps as freezing assets of the genocide's leaders and imposing an internationally backed no-fly zone to stop Sudan's army from strafing villages." (That bill has now been killed.)
article by Nat Hentoff
~Hentoff hints that this genocide may be collateral damage in our CIAs-war on terror in Sudan. By the way Sudan is an oil producing nation. Freedom isn't free.
[image via google/ not from above]
May 22, 2005
Abstract: Sexual Boredom & Its Discontents
In recent years, the topic of sexual boredom has emerged as a focus of concern for sexuality and sexological researchers and practitioner (Hawkes, 1996). However, the study of sexual boredom has received scant attention outside of medical and sociological genres and the psychological measure of individual ‘performance’. This paper questions the assumption that sexual boredom is primarily a personal reaction or an exhibit of inherent and fixed emotional characteristics. Whilst not denying the physiological and psychological aspects of sexual desire, it is argued that understandings and experiences of sexual boredom are institutionally, socially and culturally mapped. Using approaches(s) from discursive psychology, we examine both the local pragmatics of the interview conversations and the broader patterns of sense making and understanding (Wetherell & Edley,1999).
Interviews with gay and straight men illustrate how experiences of sexual boredom are situated in relation to the required achievements of ‘romantic’ love and (for the heterosexual participants) the protection of women in sexual relationships and the potential limitations of heterosexual long term excitement. Furthermore, discourses of the male sexual drive, reciprocal love, ‘penises with minds of their own’ and fairness of receiving ‘good’ sexual service (Hollway, 1984) were discussed with reference to ‘gay’ access to promiscuity and the freedom of the gay sexual experience. Sexual boredom, therefore, was seen by both gay and straight men as an inevitable feature of long term sexual relationships: the trade off being enduring love and commitment from a partner.
Aneta Joiner and Paula Reavey @ thanks diederik
~Related? Michel Foucault by Steven Shaviro
~"See what I do for you, Sweetheart?" ("See what you make me do?")
Sexual boredom is not as problematic for women? Women have other more pressing sexual concerns? Or it's exactly the same for women but they don't call it 'sexual boredom'?
Otis Reddings' lyrics to the old Aretha Franklin song R-E-S-P-E-C-T are here.
[image via google/ not with above links]
Overheard at Starbucks
"That guy? He's never been poor but he'ld say otherwise... he's always liked expensive things. He knows value."
-"A jack daw."
"People who have expensive things are worth knowing... worth cultivating, worth imitating."
-"What's that in dollars?"
"People no-better-off than him are often a waste of his time.... those worse-off then him are human-garbage, a waste of space."
-"His God lives in a palace."
"There are no mysteries. The most important things have the biggest price tags, make the most money. It's that simple. ...there can be no other possible explanation... it's that precise."
-"If sociopaths make-up the majority of a population doesn't that make empathy and sympathy pathological?"
"Empa-paths?"
"-Yesth."
May 21, 2005
Off the Radio: Healing Room
as heard May 19 on WBEZs Odyssey
~I understand the healing powers of certain spaces and places but healing rooms are news to me.
large
[image via google @/ not with above]
May 20, 2005
FEMA: Nuclear Attack Planning Base 1990
The Nuclear Attack Planning Base 1990 was an official estimate of the potential physical effects of a Soviet nuclear attack on the population of the United States, including detailed county-by-county assessments of damage due to blast overpressure, fire and radiation.
"This publication was provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, for its academic and historical value only."
~If you've ever wondered what the Russians were planning for your town... A classic example of Homeland Security-type concerns back in the dark-days of the 1990's. Should we assume Russia similarly estimated what we planned to do to them? I wonder if they knew as much about our nuclear capabilities as we knew about theirs? I wonder whose estimates were more accurate?
When I was young I remember thinking there was a little Russian kid just like me, living in the middle of his country... I heard about the Russian 'steppes'... and if we ever met we'ld be good friends even though he was a godless commie and I was a god-loving American. My commie doppelganger?
(Later I had somewhat different fantasies about Russian women.)
Biodash & Biohacking
"We are rapidly moving into a world where biology can be as manipulable as data. After all, DNA is code; life is information. The new tools and methods we're developing for bioengineering reflect this parallel, and the philosophies underlying the "hacker" ethic (in the original sense of someone devoted to exploration, invention and discovery) are being absorbed by the biological disciplines."
~I don't exactly know what this is about but the way it's being described is too exciting to ignore. He or she had me at "a Semantic Web prototype of a Drug Development Dashboard." (I wonder if I can convince Clare to read this aloud tonight?)
California Real-time Forecast of Earthquake Hazard
~Pretty maps but I think they're being optimistic (delusional?) with the word 'forecast'. Ideally some journalist will be keeping score and within a year(?) we can all find-out how far California earthquake forecasting has progressed.
Librarian's Brush With the FBI
Here's an interesting part:
"In the 1980s, it was revealed that the FBI had engaged in a secret "library awareness" program to track the books borrowed by patrons who had emigrated from communist countries. Determined to prevent such activities in the future, librarians helped pass laws in 48 states that bar the surrender of customer information except in compliance with a subpoena."
complete story
~Seriously, how many local libraries would go to court to quash an FBI subpeona? What planet do these people come from? (The FBI was sniffing out commies in the 1980's!?)
AirSafety.com
for example:
The Most Recent Fatal Airline Events
Air Rage Information Resources
Fatal Events With a Sole Survivor
let Shirl Kennedy highlight some more of the many links at Air Safety.com
~Our cat recently had a fatal automobile event. (She wasn't a celebrity.)
Fetish America
link to a list of examples of prominent Republican's exercising their rights to free speech and expression. thanks joerg
~Are these really the best politicians money can buy? (Think on THAT as you read.)
"We Get the Films We Deserve"
"It's almost like the critic (and basically every other critic whose reviews I read) expected (and got) utter trash, only then to be surprised that it wasn't quite as horrible as anticipated."
link to article comments and reviews
Related: MRQE's links to reviews of Star Wars Episode III
~Star Wars-mania.
I don't understand the Star Wars franchise. I was shocked to learn they made six of them!
Star Wars is the Pizza Hut of science fiction. It's excruciating to see that much money and technology creating something so bland. (Trekkies with their tv-room inspired insanity, I grok.)
[image: movie still from Trekkies
News About the News: Short Tales from Bizarro World
It takes an irate Scot to play the role of the dogged opposition in the U.S. Senate, and it takes a Newsweek article by the guy who got Clinton impeached to ruin America's reputation in a Muslim world reeling from invasions, torture, rape and murder. Yes, you almost have to laugh. It's either that, or start breaking things.
Related: "Galloway: the Man Who Took On America"
...The Washington Post and The New York Times devoted only inside-page coverage. The Times noted that Mr Coleman, despite being a former prosecutor, seemed "flummoxed" by Mr Galloway's "aggressive posture and tone". Both singled out the MP's debating skill. It is a skill on which, alas, American politics place little premium.
Much the same went for television coverage. CNN's presenters smiled gamely as they ran clips of the juiciest Galloway invective. Plainly though, they too were bemused. This sort of thing does not occur in the US Congress - and that of course was his achievement, to turn the usual rules of such hearings on their head.
Normally, the committee members dominate proceedings, armed with investigative material furnished by their handsomely financed staff, and expect respect bordering on veneration from those they summon. When the matter at hand is as contentious as the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, most witnesses appear with a phalanx of lawyers, advising them when to "take the Fifth" and thus avoid potentially incriminating testimony.
Not so George Galloway. Not a lawyer was in sight, and even if one had been whispering in his ear, he almost certainly would not have listened. Instead, he took the battle to his accusers. Mr Coleman looked as if he had not been spoken to like that since his father caught him cheating on high school homework.
~If I was making money in the business, the above stories would be funnier.
Not related:
May 19, 2005
Sauerkraut Triggers Alarm at Air Base Post Office
'Suspicious package' delays grand opening of new mail facility at OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea
— A parcel of sauerkraut passing through chemical-sensitive mail-scanning equipment in the new base post office here... triggered a “suspicious package” alert, forcing officials to call off the post office’s grand opening ceremony.
They also evacuated the Osan Shopping Mall, which adjoins the post office.
story/ also here "Sauerkraut Marked as Weapon of Mass Destruction?"
via harpers weekly
Related(?): ZNose Electronic Sensor Technology: "...currently being utilized by companies such as Lockheed Martin, Honeywell Corporation, SC Johnson, and the United States Armed Forces."
Also the disclaimer here?
~I don't think we'll be hearing about ZNose on Court TV anytime soon.
NZ Academic Takes on Incest Taboo
As the law and order select committee members sat around gob-smacked at the very thought of legalising incest, the professor who suggested the law change was equally perturbed at their reaction.
The MPs said and did "nothing", asking no intelligent questions, philosophical historian Professor Peter Munz told the Herald.
He says the MPs ought to have at least tried to understand the theoretical argument in his submission on legalising incest between consenting adults when he fronted up this week to the law and order select committee on the Crimes Amendment Bill.
"The prohibition of incest is completely universal in early Palaeolithic societies and has lingered on ever since. But in modern civil societies it is an outmoded prohibition."
He believes that in Palaeolithic tribes, women were not available for "consumption" at home.
They had to be kept and treasured as capital to be invested in fomenting alliances with so-called foreigners - and incest amounted to the wasteful consumption of such capital at home. Thus, it had to be prohibited.
Professor Munz sees no problem with incest these days if adults consent.
story thanks growing up sexually diederik
~Junior and Sis showed uncharacteristic interest in this news item until I mentioned the part about consenting adults.
Would his research have greater credibility if the professor wasn't living on a sparsely inhabited island with a shrinking colonial population?
Flushed With Enthusiasm
From an interview with a twenty-one-year-old Afghan man whose name is withheld for his protection, conducted last summer in Gardez by Daniel Rothenberg, an American human-rights researcher. The interviewee, who was upset when his interrogators placed a copy of the Koran into a latrine, showed a Department of Defense discharge letter stating that he was detained from December 2002 through May 2004. Originally from Harper's Magazine, March 2005.
story / related: Newsweek Got Gitmo Right
thanks conscientious joerg for both links
~So will Newsweek be pressured to recant it's recantation? Will they be able to withstand the onslaught from American truth-in-media watchdogs now demanding they standby their original report? Whatta-ya think?
Overheard at Starbucks
"Do the cops know about the women who give men rides in those white limousines?"
-"You mean the whore-mobiles? The whore-mosines?"
"Do newspaper-reporters know about this illegal activity? Do local politicians know? Do the clergy, doctors, social workers, marriage counselors?
-"Cui bono? ...Quid pro quo!"
"Sine non qua."
May 18, 2005
Kids With Exotic (Black) Names Don't Do So Well In School
Study: Exotic Names Don't Make Grade For Black Students
Children With Asian-Sounding Names Considered Brighter
A new study suggests that black students with exotic names don't do as well in school as black students with more common names.
The University of Florida study found that students with names such as Da'Quan or Damarcus are more likely to score lower on reading and math tests.
Researchers (David Figlio, a University of Florida economist whose findings appear in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research) said that black students with unusual names are also less likely to meet teacher expectations and be referred to gifted programs than black students with more common names, such as Dwayne.
story thanks james
~What the 'bell curve" is cracked?
Note the words 'racism', or 'bigotry' don't appear in this news-story. These findings simply reflect the way things are. Names are important, Moms and Dads. Don't make the same mistakes. Institutions are inscrutable.
Explosive Iraq Memo Greeted With US Apathy
Dubbed "the Downing Street Memo," the report of the July 23, 2002, meeting of Blair and his aides purported to recount the Bush administration's approach to Iraq at that point. The memo asserted that Bush had decided to remove Hussein nearly eight months before U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq.
At the time, the Bush administration was assuring the public that a decision to go to war had not been made and that Iraq could prevent military action by complying with existing United Nations resolutions that were intended to curtail its chemical, nuclear, biological and missile weapons programs.
The memo was divulged earlier this month by the Sunday Times of London...
See also: They Lied to Us below
~With their silence the American people and their 'culture of life' speak volumes about the killings, suffering and financial costs of this war.
WMDs?
[image: google not with above. caption: cieciel]
We Don't Do That Here
Bun-snatchers
[VINCENT YU / AP:Seattle Times]
Climbers scale a 46-foot-tall bun tower to grab as many buns as they can during the Bun Festival on Sunday in Hong Kong. The event is held every year to placate the spirits of people killed by pirates.
~Here in the Midwest we don't endanger ourselves over bakery. Our multitudes of careless but unobtrusive diabetics and our few at-the-fair pie-eating contests are as risky as we get.
I wonder if the dangers of farming, steel mills, slaughter-houses and coal mines put a permanent damper on all our celebrations?
Have you noticed how 'reality tv' has colored events like this? I first thought this was just another stunt for a tv show.
I'm sure it's been jazzed-up because of media coverage but I've been told people all over the world still hold historic, religious or cultural celebrations like this one without the presence of AP photographers, video cameras or satellite feeds. (No one I know.)
May 17, 2005
Poem: Blossom
In April
the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know: that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe,
continue reading Blossom by Mary Oliver
[image:cieciel/ not with poem]
How Does a Mole View the World?
Any human being who has not been totally blinded by dogma knows that cats, squirrels, mice and deer are all creatures that experience the world. This knowing is not intellectual; it is a kind of felt-knowing based on the direct interactions we have with animals.
Each animal has a perspective, a point of view through which it lives in the world. When we observe an animal, we observe how it is living out this perspective, how it is living its unique way-of-being.
The point is to build up vivid pictures of the animal from as many sides as possible. By continually immersing ourselves in concrete observation and then connecting our observations to vivid inner images, we enter into a conversation with the animal. The animal begins to show itself.
~"Intentionality" is such open-ended, non judgemental term.
Photo-caption Non Sequitur
"The human animal is both a part of and yet distinct from nature. This relationship between ourselves and the natural world we inhabit is rich, complicated, and problematic.
In what ways are humans natural? How are we related to our larger natural surrounds? How have we described nature to ourselves? In different times and places how have humans understood and interacted with the natural world? How have our understandings of nature changed? Do we as humans have unique responsibilities toward the natural world; if so, what are they?"
[images: cieciel/ caption: PSU course description]
May 16, 2005
Bridge Rail Guide 2005
for example...
metal tube bridge rail
index to photos
~Bridge rails are not 'human-sized', they're designed to keep vehicles on the road not as supports or guides for humans without wheels. I feel like a toddler whenever I walk near them.
Up In Smoke: The National Drug Control Policy's Wasted Efforts
Established in 1988 to oversee all aspects of America’s war on drugs and to coordinate U.S. domestic and international anti-drug efforts, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has morphed into a federal wasteland, throwing taxpayer money toward numerous high-priced drug control programs that have failed to show results. After 17 years of operation and funding, ONDCP has not achieved its objectives of reducing “illicit drug use, manufacturing, and trafficking, drug-related crime and violence, and drug-related health consequences.”
~My favorite part:
One of ONDCP’s cornerstone programs, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, has been an utter failure. The five-year effort has wasted $2 billion on propaganda with no measurable results. The project was initially created “to educate and enable youth to reject illegal drugs, especially marijuana and inhalants,”[2] but has been unsuccessful in reducing drug use amongst America’s youth. In addition to its chronic failure, a January 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found the advertising campaign violated federal advertising laws.
The media campaign was the pet project of former ONDCP Director (“drug czar”) Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey. In November 1996, just nine days after Arizona and California voted in favor of their new medicinal marijuana initiatives, the White House drug czar called the first meeting at his office to mobilize “his troops to combat the spread of what he had previously called ‘Cheech & Chong’ medicine.”[3] McCaffrey gathered 40 federal and private sector “drug warriors”[4] to brainstorm over how to increase efforts on the war on drugs. The outcome was the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which was touted as an educational outreach effort, but remains nothing more than a thinly-veiled propaganda scheme focused on curtailing further medicinal marijuana initiatives on state ballots.
Critics immediately began questioning whether the federal government should be involved in state ballot measures at all....
article with citations by Angela French
[Image from R. Yager (below)]
~Am I the only one who gets cravings from photos of cigarette papers, or bills folded a certain way? Visual triggers? I've friends who can't look at bags of doritos.
"Unmanned Drone Kills" +
~For those at home keeping score: unmanned drones have so far reportedly been used to kill people in Yemen, Afghanistan, Gaza and Pakistan, (according to google using the above search terms plus names of various countries)
Odd but there's no reports of drones being used for 'kills' in Iraq.
Britain: Minister Wants Crackdown on Teens
LONDON, England, May. 15 (UPI) -- The minister in charge of Britain's police forces is pushing for a crackdown on violence and brutish behavior.
She said she has learned that many youngsters wear hooded jackets to avoid identification on security cameras in public places.
item (excerpt from Observer interview)
~I'm grateful I can live without the benefits of this fashion advice.
Also. Although the Masons no longer control British law enforcement...one, two, three... isn't it something that "hoods" are specifically mentioned by the chief Minister in charge of police forces as a means of circumventing the rules?
Pakistan: Unmanned Drone Kills Al Qaeda Operative
WASHINGTON — An al-Qaida figure killed last week by a missile from a CIA-operated unmanned aerial drone had been under surveillance for more than a week by U.S. intelligence and military personnel working along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a U.S. official and two counterterrorism experts said yesterday.
The U.S. team was hoping Haitham al-Yemeni would lead them to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, said two counterterrorism experts, both former senior U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of events surrounding the attack.
But after Pakistani authorities captured another al-Qaida leader this month, Abu Faraj al-Libbi*, CIA officials became concerned that al-Yemeni would go into hiding and decided to kill him instead, the counterterrorism experts said.
Al-Yemeni's importance in the al-Qaida organization could not be learned yesterday. He is not listed by that name in either the FBI or Pakistani "Most Wanted" list.
The CIA declined comment. Pakistan denied the incident happened.
5/15/05 Seattle Times /also here
*Related:
"Latest "high-ranking" al Qaeda capture was another nobody, another lie"
"Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, (May 5) was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al-Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”...
Al-Libbi is just a ‘middle-level’ leader,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence investigator and leading expert on terrorism finance. “Pakistan and US authorities have completely overestimated his role and importance. He was never more than a regional facilitator between Al-Qaeda and local Pakistani Islamic groups.”
A former close associate of Bin Laden now living in London laughed: “What I remember of him is he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying.”
~So the high-profile arrest and whiz-bang killing is the CIA's way of 'closing-up-shop', shutting-down this particular line of investigation? This Al Qaeda 'cell' is not connected (is no longer in contact?; has never been in contact?) with Bin Laden? These men can't (to save their lives) lead the CIA to him?
May 15, 2005
Overheard at Starbucks
"Imagine if millions of people didn't believe the word of God was written in holy books and interpreted for them by holy men?"
-"Billions."
"Given what passes today after centuries of study, debate and holy wars for 'gospel truth' ..the effect upon society would be catastrophic...the chaos unbelievable!"
"Imagine what mischief the gullible and credulous could be convinced to do if they had to find faith for themselves...were compelled to create and honor their own systems of behavior and belief, instead of being smugly ensconced in authoritarian churches?"
-"Ensconced"? Does that've anything to do with 'scones'?"
"I'm thankful today for all established religions which provide society with clearly identifiable, historically 'proven' reservoirs of sacred superstitions, proscribed clap-trap and richly-textured ritualized nonsense."
-"Flood control for the fabulists and their faithful fans?"
"Flood control for fanatics."
A Terrorist Comes Home to Roost
Washington - The sudden and untimely arrival on U.S. territory of a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset and admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, poses an embarrassing challenge to the credibility of the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
Posada, who in an interview with the New York Times seven years ago admitted to organising a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 others, is best known as the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight shortly after it took off from Barbados in October 1976.
The incident, in which all 73 crew members and passengers including teenaged members of Cuba's national fencing team were killed, was the first confirmed mid-air terrorist bombing of a commercial airliner.
"This is a real test of (President) George W. Bush's commitment to fighting terrorism," said Peter Kornbluh, a Latin American specialist at the non-governmental National Security Archive (NSA). This week, the organisation released a series of declassified U.S. documents that detailed Posada's terrorist history and his previous association with the CIA.
story/ related The Posada File (The Nation)
Luis Posada Carriles (8/2004) @
~Welcome home?
May 14, 2005
6,210 Dead US Soldiers?
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals are not counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005.
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources. Ed
~This is one of those internet fabrications my teachers warn me about, isn't it?
One of the H's at Unknown News comments:
"I don't know what to make of it. This is the third such article I've seen, but I doubt the methodology of the first two and haven't read this thoroughly yet.
I dunno. I'll read it, but it's already making me scratch my head. My nagging doubt is always the cnn page and a few other places, and local newspapers that count and list the local dead. I just think Mr and Mrs American might be willing to see their son die for squat, but only if they can convince themselves it was somehow heroic, and if Junior's name isn't on the grand tally page at CNN, I think Mr and Mrs American would raise a ruckus.
I just find it hard to believe there could be THOUSANDS of Juniors dead from Iraq but not on the "honor roll", and we wouldn't be hearing angry protests from their parents.
Plus, it would be a big story. And while I know on one level the mainstream media is "in on it all", playing footsies with the Bush bastards, I don't yet think they could get away with turning a blind eye to a lie of such numbers. If they did, I think Mr and Mrs America would be calling talk radio and telling heartrent stories about Junior, who gave his life but isn't on the list of those who gave their lives."
~Cieciel (again):
"I've read news-reports that GI doctors are keeping more seriously wounded soldiers alive then even ten years ago, which could offset the writer's estimates of expected deaths per 15,000.
(Today's doctors are working miracles with brain injuries. The bad news is that a larger percentage of the returning wounded will need long-term or permanent professional care and given the recent Bush Adminstration cuts to the VA, a greater financial burden will fall more heavily on the familes and state-funded medicaid programs.)
A Social Bluetooth Smartphone Application
"Here's how it works: after downloading the software, you must set up a personal homepage (dubbed a folio) which can be shared with other Sensor users.
This folio includes your profile (pictures, snappy bon mot etc.), a file sharing page (where you can put mugshots, amusing photos, video and audio) and a Guestbook.
As lustful lotharios enter a nightclub, their phones can be set to automatically start scanning for other Sensor users over Bluetooth.
Once connected, the user can look through other people's folios, and if they like the look of what they find, they can message them and possibly consider doing something really radical - like putting down the bloody phone and talking..
With the Series 60 phones growing in the mass market it looks like this kind of social networking is going to have a significant impact amongst its target demographic (i.e. young).
Be kinda handy for people plying nefarious trades, when you think about it."
complete press release
zNose Remote Handheld Vapor Sampler for Testing Cargo Containers
"...designed to detect chemical odors which can damage sensitive cargo such as food products. The Sampler has greater sensitivity than the other zNose® models which we believe makes it ideal for protecting the nation's food supply.
~Here's an interesting bit:
This press release includes forward looking statements, including the Company's expectations regarding its ability to develop and access capital markets and its ability to achieve expected results in the chemical detection and analysis industry. The forward looking statements are identified through use of the words "potential," "anticipate," "expect," "planned" and other words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements may be affected by the risks and uncertainties inherent in the chemical detection and analysis industry and in the Company's business. The Company cautions readers that certain important factors may have affected and could in the future affect the Company's beliefs and expectations and could cause the actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement made by or on behalf of the Company. For a discussion of these factors, please refer to our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent report on form 10-KSB. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof."
press release
~Can it be calibrated for ganja? China White? Rhino-horn? Cockatoo? Human cargo? (The disclaimer's got me thinking no-way.)
Mp3 Blogs: The Tofu Hut & Earphone.Org
~I"ve a really slow internet connection (I'm cheap.) so I don't have time for this but from the e-mails I got there's lot's here. "Almost too much."
Diederik recommends the free "(minimal microsound electro-acoustic) sound art" at earphone.org for those less "commercially entrained" (my term)?
Somewhat related: James of Consumptive's remarks on the Tofu Hut link:
"the trouble is not my internet connection. my download speed is fast.
funny how these things -- our tools, machines -- get faster, and yet
my time frame stays the same.
no matter how quickly i can get the songs, i still have to find them
and then listen to them - neither of which have sped up any faster
since forever.
i sometimes listen to rush limbaugh. the only english radio station in
tokyo is the armed forces nework.
at 7pm, live, comes one hour of npr morning edition followed by one hour of rush (this is supposed to be some sort of balance) - i am often cooking dinner at this time, and so listen in.
anyway. rush has this hearing problem. he has some sort implants now, codliear implants or something. they allow him to function but his hearing is not normal. he said that new music all sounds the same to him. he can't really hear music. so he can only listen to old songs,
music he already 'knows' -- which i thought was brilliant. he can only
hear what he knows. i thought that was a great analogy of fascism.
he is also a mac supporter. only uses apple products".
[image via consumptive/ not with above links]
May 13, 2005
Overheard at Starbucks
"I wonder if every state's capitol had a terrorism alert?"
-"That sent everyone scurrying for cover...locked the place down?"
"When the legislature was in session."
-"The NRA and the Mormons are coming to town for their conventions and swap-meets, should we expect terrorism alerts during those weekends in July and August?"
"Pencil it in. We'll keep score."
-"But not the night of the U-2 concert?"
EPA to Hold Public Meeting on Nanomaterials
The agency is considering a pilot program for voluntary industry submission of information on existing chemical substances.
~Voluntary, industry submission(s) on existing substances. (June 23 in DC.)...this is the gov't of 'the culture of life' at work?
Fun with Photoshop
~Yeah, I know you first have to make something somebody wants to buy before you can try to restrict access to it.
Hoogerbrugge
~Animation, art, music, social commentary, shoppe.
another fine mess
"The wallpapers are intended solely for personal, non-commercial use. You may download or copy the wallpapers for your personal use only. No right, title or interest is transferred to you as a result downloading or copying. You may not reproduce (except as noted above), publish, transmit, distribute, display, modify, create derivative works from, sell or participate in any sale of or exploit in any way, in whole or in part, any of the wallpapers. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, display, or performance, of the content of the wallpapers is prohibited."
~Don't you wish the things you made required similar caveats and restrictions?
Christian Femdoms
There are as many different flavors of BDSM or more specifically D/s as there are participants. No two couples will work out their relationship the same way.
At this site we will attempt to show how
Femdom malesub D/s works out in our lives.
We also want to let other Christians who struggle with Femdom malesub leanings know that it is OK to be in a Femdom relationship. It is possible to be in a loving committed Femdom malesub relationship and remain faithful to Jesus Christ.
link to site via bifurcated rivets
~The 'reading room' may provide inspiration.
May 12, 2005
"Quote du Jour"
"What strikes me is the fact that, in our society, art has become something that is related only to objects and not individuals or to life. That art is something which is specialized or done by artists. But couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life?" --Michel Foucault
links via notes from somewhere bizarre
~James of Consumptive might remind us that not ony has art become something related solely to objects; we as connoisseur-consumers futhermore have been taught that valued art has a price tag, has monetary worth. Only those objects that can be bought and sold are important, are worth our attention.
How about security-alerts as living theater? Happenings? Living Theater of the Absurd?
Two-Seater Airplane Brings Government to a Halt: Was Alert Justified?
If a Cessna 150 hit a large government building, the impact damage would be localized. People who weren't near the impact site might not even notice. As the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association notes: "The suicide crash of a Cessna into a Tampa office building demonstrates the ineffectiveness of a general aviation aircraft as a terrorist weapon."
Yet one of these tiny Cessna 150s reportedly strayed into the controlled airspace near Washington, DC this afternoon and prompted a panic evacuation of the White House and the Capitol. Politicians, aides, and journalists were told by police to run from the buildings as fast as they could away. "Run, this is no joke, leave the grounds," a U.S. Secret Service agent told one CNN correspondent.
But was this panic justified?
Related: "How a 2-Seater Can Roil the Feds"
Lots of Thoughtful Replies
and most interesting: "One DC-Area Pilot on Ground vs. Air Vulnerabilities" linked here [all links via politech]
~I support the men and women who keep this country safe from terrorism. Don't you?
Double Visions?
...the site of a car bomb in central Baghdad. At least 64 people have been killed in a bloody wave of bomb blasts in three Iraqi towns, as US troops battled insurgents in the western hinterland.. May 11, 2005 (AFP)
U.S. Secret Service officers talk after authorities gave the 'all clear', after evacuating the White House and Congress in response to a feared threat from an unidentified aircraft, May 11, 2005. A Cessna airplane that breached restricted airspace and prompted evacuation of the White House and Capitol on May 11 2005 (AP) @
~"The idea behind Double Visions is that sometimes seeing two photographs side-by-side helps us notice things we might miss if we only looked at one. Look at the sets with an eye toward comparing and contrasting.
The main idea is to look closely at the matched images...to see things you might have missed if the pictures weren't paired together."
Inside the Bubble
U.S. Capitol, White House emptied in plane scare
The plane's approach sent two F-16 fighter jets into the air over the U.S. capital and thousands of staff and tourists into the streets outside the White House, Capitol building and Supreme Court in an urgent evacuation.
President Bush was on a bicycle ride at a suburban wildlife preserve at the time, but Vice President Dick Cheney was quickly evacuated, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
First lady Laura Bush and former first lady Nancy Reagan, who was visiting, were rushed to a secure location on the White House grounds, he said.
The two fighters, which scrambled from nearby Andrews Air Force base, intercepted the Cessna and fired four flares to get the pilot's attention before escorting the plane to Frederick, Maryland, officials said. The pilot and a passenger were taken into police custody.
The U.S. Customs service also scrambled Black Hawk helicopters during the alert, which the White House characterized as the most serious since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by hijacked airliners in New York and Washington.
Get out, get out," Capitol police shouted to lawmakers and staff as they moved through the building and adjacent offices, clearing the floors and galleries in both chambers.
~Any heroes here? Will White House and DC security officers be issuing commendations to individuals who today performed 'above and beyond the call of duty'?
We Don't Do That Here
North Korean children play a shooting game with a toy gun aiming at a portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush at Namjun kindergarten in Shinwiju, Pyongan-Budo, North Korea. The photo was released by Korean Central News @
~Most of us don't feel threatened by world leaders, so we don't want our kids to play such games? We're uninhibited about threatening the leaders of certain countries in casual conversation but visual displays like the above are generally offensive no matter who's the target. Osama and Saddam might be exceptions.
Ridge Reveals Clashes on Terror Alerts
The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Ridge and Ashcroft publicly clashed over how to communicate threat information to the public. But Ridge has never before discussed internal dissention over the threat level.
The color-coded system was controversial from the start. Polls showed the public found it confusing.
by the way:
today's terror alert level
Overheard at Starbucks
"Are there many thermal-imaging viewers out there?"
-"You mean those 'see-through-wall' devices?"
"Are they expensive? Can anyone buy one? Does it take a homeland security grant? Some kind of certification?
Right now there could be people secretly sitting by screens in homes and offices(?) watching the thermally imaged bodies of their neighbors and friends go through their daily routines.
...maintaining files on the frequency and duration of specific activities and interactions: their neighbors' rituals of dining, personal hygiene, conflict and love-making; the popularity of certain rooms and furnishings.
While people like us are surfing the internet they're watching the comings & goings of targeted individuals and families. High-priests and priestesses of the neighborhood watch. They're the scouts, the shock-troops behind-the-lines in America's war on crime and terror!"
-"That's enough! De-caf for you next time."
May 11, 2005
Counter-terrorism with Feminism?
"A sustained and serious effort to gain human rights for women worldwide could be the start of a brand new approach to fighting terrorism."
~Condileeza Rice and Lyndie England can give speeches.
[image google/ not with article]
Gang Photography by Robert Yager
link to more (and larger) photos thanks diederik
ZNose
For the very first time, the chemical odor (vapor, toxin) associated with any chemical or biological process can be analyzed and quantified with unprecedented accuracy in less than ten seconds with part-per-trillion sensitivity.
...applications in the homeland security market, namely in commercial building heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) security, maritime port security, airport screening security, and border importation security.
EST (Electronic Sensor Technology) products have extensive commercial as well as defense applications, and are currently being utilized by companies such as Lockheed Martin, Honeywell Corporation, SC Johnson, and the United States Armed Forces.
~It doesn't say if ZNose's technology is legally recognized in any courts of law. For suspected acts of terrorism such distinctions aren't necessary but I wonder how soon ZNose-type 'searches' will become the basis for arrest or quarantine?
EPA on Threshold of Brave New World of Human Testing
EPA Invites Industry to Mimic Practices of Discontinued CHEERS Study.
Under its new policy, EPA would accept all human chemical dosing studies "unless there is clear evidence that the conduct of these studies was fundamentally unethical… or was significantly deficient relative to the ethical standards prevailing at the time the study was conducted." Since industry is not required to disclose the conditions under which experiments were conducted, it is not clear how EPA will ever learn of "fundamentally unethical" practices. Moreover, EPA is unwilling to define what ethical lapses would disqualify an industry submission from being used for regulatory purposes.
"The Bush Administration is setting the ethical bar so low that only the most sleazy cannot limbo under it," stated PEER Program Director Rebecca Roose. "The basic problem is this:the safeguards that apply to experiments involving development of drugs to help people are far more stringent than EPA's standards for experiments to determine how much commercial poisons harm people."
story by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
They Lied To Us
On May 1, the Sunday Times of London printed a secret memo that went to the defense secretary, foreign secretary, attorney general and other high officials. It is the minutes of their meeting on Iraq with Tony Blair. The memo was written by Matthew Rycroft, a Downing Street foreign policy aide. It has been confirmed as legitimate and is dated July 23, 2002. I suppose the correct cliché is "smoking gun."
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. (There it is.) The NSC (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
~Bush lies to the American people and thousands die. (Impeachment anyone?) Clinton's lies about his sexual activities with an intern infuriated millions of Americans. (I can't hear you.)
May 10, 2005
The Latest from Liberated Iraq
"The American military in Iraq has begun a massive military campaign against several small villages along the Euphrates River in Iraq. These villages, say military personnel, are suspected of harboring Syrian fighters crossing the border. A thousand U.S. troops, backed by helicopter and fighter support, are laying siege to these small villages. The incursion has become one large firefight.
But here's the interesting bit. When the troops first approached the villages, they did so by night. They were told to use the headlights on their trucks to spot mines, and those headlights apparently alerted one of the villages. All of a sudden, every light in the village was switched off at the same time. Apparently, this is how one village warns another village of an impending attack.
Now, unless you are able to convince yourself that there is a border-crossing Syrian fighter manning each and every light switch in that town, the conclusion is unavoidable. We are not fighting a few 'insurgents' here and there, nor are we facing foreign fighters. We are fighting the entire country, all of Iraq, one small chunk at a time."
from The Millstone by Wiliam Pitt
~Often the smallest details expose the biggest lies..
Double Visions?
"The idea behind Double Visions is that sometimes seeing two photographs side-by-side helps us notice things we might miss if we only looked at one. We've matched up pairs of images that we think create sparks when you look at them together. Look at the sets with an eye toward comparing and contrasting.
Instructions
The main idea is to look closely at the matched images. Use the questions and especially your own eyes and ideas to see things you might have missed if the pictures weren't paired together."
link to 'seeing questions' and more info about "Double Visions"
(substitute 'images' or 'photographs' for 'paintings')
Poem: Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
by W.H. Auden @
"Fortess America" Deterring Billions in Tourism
"...rising anti-Americanism has created a feeling that the US is inhospitable and difficult to visit. "There's a perception of 'Fortress America' that is much worse than it really is," he (Roger Dow, chief executive of the Travel Industry Association of America, tourism's main trade body), said. Dow added that more competition from other destinations such as Australia, South Africa, Spain and Asia had siphoned off tourism to the US. The TIA urged US policymakers to facilitate various security measures. An October 26 deadline that requires some foreign passports to have biometric facial-recognition technology is unrealistic and must be extended, according to the TIA.
It also wants problems resolved with the US-Visit programme, an initiative requiring photos and fingerprints of some visitors, which is scheduled to be in place at land borders and ports-of-entry by end the end of the year.
~America would never endanger it's citizens to 'facilitate' special interest groups, like the tourism industry, no matter what the costs. Freedom isn't free. While on the other hand our oil and defense industries seem to require human sacrifice. Go figure.
[image via don't flame me]
Photo-Caption Non Sequitur
"Is sentinmentality the love for everything we know well? So many familiar things gather during a lifetime that everything then seems coated with sentimentality. The more familiar something is, the more sugary layers pile up on it. It takes a long, long time for the sediments of familiar things to harden fully. Until then, no one can escape sentimentality; one can only make sure the areas of familiar things lie far apart from each other; many still astonishing things will then remain in between. Only coherent familiarity, the closed continent of the familiar is dangerous. If you settle there- where else can you go- what strangers can you possible reach?"
[image yahoo news/ caption Canetti; "The Human Province"]
Crucifix NG
"Many people affix crucifixes and other religious iconography to the walls of their homes for metaphysical security. Crucifix NG goes a step further, bathing a physical space in an anointed electromagnetism. The signal is strong enough to fill the average size room, perfect for use at home or at the office, and is received by any object that acts as an antenna. As electronic objects may be the strongest antennas within range, believers will see a marked improvement in the security of their devices, both at the software and hardware levels, whether the device in question is a cell phone, portable music player, or computer."
May 09, 2005
The Penis Monologues
"The week before V-Day, the Roger Williams campus was plastered with flyers emblazoned with slogans such as “My Vagina is Flirty” and “My Vagina is Huggable.” There was a widely publicized “orgasm workshop.” On the day of the play, the V-warriors sold lollipops in the in the shape of–-guess what? Last year, the student union was flooded with questionnaires asking unsuspecting students questions like “What does your Vagina smell like?” None of this offended the administration or elicited any reprimands, probations, or confiscations.
The campus conservatives artfully (in the college sense of "artful") mimicked the V-Day campaign. They papered the school with flyers that said, “My penis is majestic” and “My penis is hilarious.” The caption on one handout read, “My Penis is studious.”
It is easy to understand why school officials would not want a six-foot phallus wandering around campus; nor why they would ask students not to paper the college with posters describing all the things it likes to do. But that is just the sort of thing the vagina warriors have been doing, year after year, on hundreds of campuses. In fact, P-Day at Roger Williams was mild by comparison. Wesleyan College hosted a “C***” workshop; Penn State held a “C***”-fest. At Arizona State, students displayed a 40-foot inflatable plastic vagina. It was not confiscated and no one was ever threatened with probation.