Get them in their most (only?) sensitive place: their wallets. How long before this happens with the War On Evil? A lot sooner, I expect. [U again]








I can see the Jewish lobbying group the Anti-Defamation League keeping files on white racists and anti-Semitic groups. But liberal Jewish San Franciscans, the African National Congress, the NAACP and the Asian Law Caucus? [link via U]








Nearly 40% of Americans think comedy routines that make light of events like 9/11 should be limited by government, though 59% agreed that the 1st Amendment doesn't go too far in rights it guarantees. [Freedom Forum via U]

Gak.








The indubitable Sam Smith on "The American Empire."

SOME WEEKS BACK I put forth the hypothesis that a growing portion of America's elite suffers from higher functioning autism, a disability characterized by, in one definition, severe and sustained impairment in social interaction, development of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. The higher functioning autistic is typically quite intelligent and verbal but has a closed loop sort of mind resistant to new information and ideas that normal observation and interaction offer.

It is not clear that this, in the case of the elite, is a genetic problem. Rather, there is a strong suspicion that late 20th century higher education particularly at certain well known law and business schools has been more influential. For example, a woman who works at the World Bank reports that she prepared two policy options for her boss who, after a quick review, declared option A clearly preferable. The woman spent a restless night going over the matter and by daylight had concluded the opposite: option B was better. She cautiously told her boss of her concerns and he promptly responded that, okay, they would follow option B. But you were so certain about option A, she said. Oh that, he explained, was just something he had learned at the Harvard Business School: to always be decisive.

Here is further evidence that something strange is going on in the minds of the elite. To accept the notion that America is the greatest empire of all history, we must ignore that fact that America's greatest military and economic icons -- the Pentagon and the World Trade Center -- were recently damaged or destroyed by a few angry young men armed with box cutters. We have to ignore the fact that our boundless power over Afghanistan has been achieved through the dismantling of our Constitution, a massive propagation of paranoia, the strip searching of grandmothers, and other dysfunctions not typical of a well-functioning, smug empire. And your typical empire does not ask the Norwegian air force to provide cover for its major cities. Further, demonstrating massive power over Afghanistan is not all that good a measure of imperial might given that our bombs cost a couple times more than the Afghan GDP.

A rational person might assume that September 11 was regardless of what one wants to do about it a tragedy revealing some deep problems in the way we have been functioning. But it would appear that some members of our elite -- who have been infatuated with words like hegemony ever since they first heard them in Gov 101 have extracted exactly the reverse meaning, namely that the attacks have revealed us to be now the biggest, baddest, and best empire the world have ever known. To them, a mind is a clearly a terrible thing to waste on new information. [The Autistic Confederacy]

Scientists have discovered that Prozac, the antidepressant taken by millions of people around the world, may stimulate the growth of brain tumours by blocking the body's natural ability to kill cancer cells.

An international team of researchers led by John Gordon, professor of immunology at Birmingham University, found evidence to suggest cancer cells can be killed by "positive thinking", which could be blocked when people take Prozac.

The study, to be published in the journal Blood next week, examined the effects of Prozac and other antidepressants on a group of tumour cells growing in a test tube. The researchers found that the drug prevented the cancer cells from committing "suicide", thereby leading to a more vigorous growth of the tumours. [link via new world disorder] [my emphasis]








Now the Pentagon wants foreign acquisition of US companies to be reviewed by "the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an obscure interagency panel chaired by the Treasury Department and charged with ensuring foreign acquisitions do not violate US national security." And Congress will likely just bend over for the shaft again. When will someone rein these guys in? And do they really think this will have any real effect on security? [link via drudge]








The Media Research Center, a proto-fascist media watchdog group, rates media and reporters on their patriotism. And people are listening. "We are training our guns on any media outlet or any reporter interfering with America's war on terrorism or trying to undermine the authority of President Bush," [founder L. Brent Bozell III] wrote in a recent fundraising letter.

Milk it while you can, boys.






Thursday, April 04, 2002

A factory that used to build supersecret armaments for the Soviet military has been handed a new mission: to construct the world's largest Ferris wheel with a mini-bar and washroom in every car and erect it on a hill overlooking downtown Moscow.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov quietly signed off on the $20-million rotating colossus at a February meeting of the city building council. That prompted ripples of irritation among architects and urban planners who say Moscow is sinking into chaos while City Hall plays with grand construction projects that turn out to be unlovable eyesores. [link]

Oh yeah, go for it Yury.








Dark Lord in shrub admin. kaiboshes more liberal IMF stance on debtor nations -- one suggested by a Bush appointee.








The economy is booming in Almeria, Spain. Tourism is up, and hydroponic farming is bringing riches to this part of historically impoverished Andalucia.

Only one problem: this kind of farming is water-intensive and produces huge amounts of waste. The result: desertification.

In the bleak terrain below, row upon row of hothouses cover virtually every square inch of ground. The pole structures, covered in plastic sheeting, are used to grow fruits and vegetables destined for markets in northern Europe. They invade villages, illegally cover dry river beds, teeter on mountaintops, abut beaches and even occupy most of a state nature reserve just outside the town of Adra.

The explosive growth of such greenhouse agriculture has made Almeria province one of Europe's most remarkable economic success stories. But the use of vast amounts of water for hydroponic cultivation in the hothouses has severely depleted the region's underground water supply, thus degrading the soil by increasing its salinity.

This has turned Almeria into a vivid illustration of desertification, a worldwide environmental hazard aggravated by global warming that threatens to turn parts of southern Europe into landscapes resembling the Sahara.

The "Rwandan Himmler"

Theoneste Bagosora: the man who is accused of masterminding the Rwanda genocide of '94. He refused to attend his trial today, but apparently he and his co-defendants are expected to show up at some point in the projected 2-year trial "if only to see who their accusers are." He's been in custody since his capture in Cameroon 6 years ago. Had to find a pic of this guy, this was the best I could do.








America's War Incorporated. [last 3 linx via Orlin Grabbe -- which I should mention isn't appropriate for work]








So since The Event you don't mind so much that the FBI is snooping on your email and keyboard strokes. Because we need to stop those terrorists, right? And this is another one of those Essential For The Sake Of Your Freedom measures that you believe are making America a safer place, right? And the fact that the FBI had Carnivore (or "DCS1000", as it's now been wisely renamed -- these people are really amazing) in place before 9/11 and it did nothing to stop it . . . I know, I know, why do I hate America . . .








Britney Spears to open multiple-personality restaurant in Manhattan. Really. Go ahead and read the item. See, mental health is a Hot-Button Issue for Our Girl.








"By a margin of five to one, Americans sympathize more with Israel." Are people just not getting the message because of the US media, or do they really think the Israelis are justified? I'm not saying the Palestinians are saints, but come on . . . Nowhere is the distinction between "terrorism" and "preserving security" more blurred than Israel. Of course you'd never know that if you get all your news form TV.

The trouble at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development began when its French-language Web site was replaced by an "adults only" page offering links to "puritan sex" and "porn tryout."

Gone were the statistics on the economic performance of the developed world, the data on agriculture, food and fisheries, and the authoritative articles on corporate governance and sustainable development.

Instead, visitors who logged on to the site Dec. 17 were offered the "Greatest Sex Sites," a long list of mostly unprintable options including a "girlie zoo" and "hardcore teen photos." Faced with a steady stream of phone calls and e-mails from baffled visitors to the site, OECD officials scrambled to understand what had gone wrong.

They found that the registration of their French-language site, ocde.org, had lapsed because of a mix-up over a $70 renewal check - and that a group called Domain for Sale had snapped up the name and was proposing to sell it back, an Internet practice commonly called cybersquatting.

"They put up a porn site knowing that the pressure is on you to pay the money," said Sam Paltridge, the Internet specialist in the OECD's communications department who had to deal with the case. "We certainly were not going to pay to get our name back."

[...]

The fact that it happened to the OECD is particularly ironic because the organization promotes greater Internet usage around the world and is an authoritative source of global Internet data. [link]

Whoopsy. Better remember to pay your bills there, Jackson.








France now has a higher crime rate than the USA. Violence and denial are woven so deeply into French culture, the real sources of the crime wave that has spread dramatically since '98 can't even be mentioned by the 2 presidential candidates.

"The reality is," [Lucienne] Bui Trong [a former chief superintendent of the Renseignements Generaux, the government's police intelligence agency] said, "there's a traditional element of French culture that values violent conflict. The revolution, demos, confrontation. If you don't begin there, you're not dealing with the problem."

The French state, she argues, has become so placid and impotent as to rationalize and then swallow almost any attack on its own policemen, while focusing on keeping the magnitude of the problem out of the papers. For Bui Trong, serious discussion of the reality of violence and criminality in France is smothered by "immense taboos."

In a new book titled "Securite: La Gauche Contre le People," ("Security: The Left Against the People") the author, Herve Algalarrondo, takes this argument further. He says that for the left-wing intelligentsia, criminals of immigrant origin now take the cherished notional place of the old proletariat, and that they are valued in proportion to the intensity of their hatred for French society.

The book's thesis is remarkable in that Algalarrondo describes himself as a man of the left and works as a deputy managing editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine that reflects the views of the country's left-wing establishment. "The post 1968ers," he said in a conversation, "have created a political correctness that keeps the domestic political exchange on race and its implications in an unacceptably constrained area."

This also is a zone in which neither Jospin nor Chirac tread. Both have proposed super security ministries, more cops and more aggressive handling of juvenile offenders. But neither has dealt with the part of the problem involving the immigrant community, racism and the seeming incapacity of French society to provide hopeful perspectives for large segments of youth in the housing projects that constitute immigrant ghettos outside large cities. [link]

Wednesday, April 03, 2002


New study showing that most of the world's intact forests aren't.

Large expanses of the world's forests are in rapid decline and could be lost much sooner than expected, a new report by an environmental research group says.

The report, written by Dirk Bryant for the Washington-based World Resources Institute, says much of what is currently designated intact forest is actually badly degenerated.

"A lot of it is illegal logging in areas of the tropics," Mr Bryant told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Interesting article/interview on the dangers and effectiveness of anti-depressants.

[Counterpunch]: Is it unreasonable to suggest that Yates was suffering from extreme agitation and/or insomnia, given that she was taking high doses of both Effexor and Remeron, and that this might have been a factor in her actions the day she drowned her children? What do you know about Effexor and Remeron? (Effexor is known as a "Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor" or "SNRI" and Remeron is known as a "Noradrenergic and Specific Serotonergic Antidepressant," "NaSSA")

Dr. David Healy: The European tradition had been that all antidepressants could cause a problem. This included the tricyclic antidepressants which like Venlafaxine (Effexor) inhibited both serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake. The clinical trials of Mirtazapine (Remeron) submitted to the FDA that got it a license contain an excess of suicides and suicide attempts in those trials compared to placebo. I don't know the details for Venlafaxine (Effexor).

Your point about it not being unreasonable to suggest that Yates was suffering from extreme agitation and/or insomnia on the combination of Effexor and Remeron is a reasonable one. [link] [RW]

This has probably made the rounds -- I found it on Robot Wisdom well down the page -- but ani difranco's poem re 9/11 is worth re-reading. I like it a lot.

...with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its indian summer breeze
on the day that america
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please...

[link]






Tuesday, April 02, 2002


The Edible Ballot Society on trial. [U]








A business boycott in Cincinnati -- supported by the likes of Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg and Wynton Marsalis -- is highlighting the racism that seems unusually pronounced there.








Neighborhood assemblies and the autoconvocados in Argentina.

Even before the events of 19 and 20 December, and faced with the increasing deterioration of the economic and institutional situation, in some neighbourhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, local people began to meet up, almost spontaneously, on street corners, to share their unease and to discuss effective forms of protest. In the two weeks that followed the fall of Fernando De la Rua, the phenomenon multiplied, with around twenty neighbourhood assemblies being held and the creation of an inter-neighbourhood assembly. This meets on a weekly basis to co-ordinate the proposals of the neighbourhood assemblies, and has an average of 3000 autoconvocados from all the city's neighbourhoods participating in it. Today there is already more than fifty assemblies operating in the city of Buenos Aires alone, while in Greater Buenos Aires (the urban belt surrounding the city, where there is the largest demographic concentration in the country), and in the rest of the country, the first steps are beginning to be taken in this direction.

Sex searches are half what they were in '97.

Perhaps people have um found it by now?








Satellite pic of blackwater off FLA coast. After 4/2, find this day in Archives.








An ominous article confirming my fears about the Israeli zeitgeist.

A journey through the TV and radio channels and the pages of the newspapers exposes a huge and embarrassing gap between what is reported to us and what is seen, heard, and read in the world - not only in the commentaries and analytical pieces, but also in the reporting of the dry facts.

Israel looks like an isolated media island, with most of the reporters drafted into the cause of convincing themselves and the reader that the government and army are perfectly justified in whatever they do. Some have actually been drafted - Yedioth Aharonoth has started running a regular column by its reporter, Guy Leshem, who reports with determination from the heart of the West Bank, straight from his military reserve service. This is another step in erasing the line between the defense framework and the editorial framework that is supposed to report and criticize.

An Israeli citizen interested in a more complex picture of reality has to rely on the remote control and the computer mouse. "I've been here many years but I don't remember such a dark period in the Israeli press," complained one foreign correspondent, who indeed has been here many years. But even if he slightly exaggerated, it's not a totally unrealistic assessment.

Also distessingly familiar.








Magic Robot.

I liked adding samples from the Reddish figure to he said omala's "Post Code Orange."








The Internet can be a leetle bit scary. [Gay, Dead or Canadian]

ISRAEL, THE TRUST FUND BABY of American foreign policy, should now be considered an outlaw nation. Our government, if it had any decency, would immediately shut off the flow of funds and equipment that allows the Israelis to behave in such a disgusting manner. Of course, that's not the way it works and so Israel with moral and material support of the U.S. continues to thumb its nose at the United Nations and international law while taking actions of dubious advantage even to itself but certainly of a character that endangers the whole globe. Specifically, Israel is creating the precise conditions that could lead to more major guerilla attacks on the U.S., a full scale war in the Middle East, and the permanent enmity of the Muslim world. As for Bush, he is not waging a war on terrorism, he's is instead encouraging terrorism by joining with Sharon in presenting those angriest at the US and Israel with even more arguments for turning their anger into
violence. This is not foreign policy; this is insanity. Sam Smith [Undernews]

Funny captions to Jesus charcoals that made the rounds recently. [bb]