charging the canvas

Saturday, October 19, 2002

Marjorie Kelly of Business Ethics on real reform of the corporatocracy
It's not hard to trace the route from today back to the 1980s. The two eras are (un)ethical bookends to the greatest bull market in history. The management excesses that seemed so shocking back then -- hostile takeovers, massive layoffs, and exorbitant CEO pay -- became ordinary stuff in the 1990s. It was fuel for a hungry market, and as that market became more ravenous it demanded greater sacrifices. Thus minimally acceptable excesses gave way to outrageously fraudulent excesses, until the whole thing blew up in a kind of July 4 extravaganza, with the explosions of Kenneth Lay and Andrew Fastow, the flame-out of Bernard Ebbers, the detonation of Dennis Kozlowski, and the little mauve starburst of Martha Stewart.

[...]

One executive with his firm 20 years told me recently, "I'm inside the most enlightened company, and I'm telling you, it is no more." Another legendary CSR firm, once known for its employee-friendly practices and no-layoff policy, has in recent years been laying off tens upon tens of thousands, and sucking money from an "over-funded" pension plan to feed its bottom line.

And those are the good guys. Elsewhere firms stoop to buying "janitor insurance" so they can profit when employees die, or move incorporation to Bermuda to evade taxes. No steps seem too brazen or shameless to take, when they boost the numbers enough. If we want to know why the corporate social responsibility movement has accomplished so little of substance, here's the reason: The pressure to get the numbers overrides everything else. It overrides not because God-given, organic "market" forces are at work, but because the system is designed that way. It is designed to serve certain people and not others.

11:46 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

1 in 16 US military biochem protection suits are defective
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL -- Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said up to 250,000 suits designed to protect U.S. soldiers from chemical and biological weapons are defective and may be mixed in with the Dept. of Defense inventory of over 4 million working suits, UPI reports.

The Dept. of Defense discovered 778,924 suits were defective in 1996 when 120,000 of them were sent to Bosnia, and though the Defense Logistics Agency believes all the defective suits were found, the General Accounting Office does not agree.

Raymond Decker, director of the GAO's defense capabilities and management section, told a national security subcommittee hearing on government reform, "We have received no evidence they have found [the remaining defective] 250,000 suits."

There is no way to determine which suits in the inventory are good and which are bad short of comparing the numbers on every box containing the suits, which are distributed only in wartime, meaning there is no guarantee a soldier will get a working suit.

"It's kind of like what I would call Russian roulette. I just hope and pray if they do decide [to invade Iraq] they at least be told their vulnerabilities," Shays said. [Oct 2 periscope defense email]
Pretty poor odds.

11:11 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Catholic Church waffles on sex abuse, slouches further into irrelevance

I agree that priest's rights have to be protected, but time is not on the Church's side. This is the institution that took 500 years to apologize for smacking Galileo down . . . among other things.

The window of tolerance is a lot smaller now.

11:31 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

9/11 through the anti-capitalist Looking Glass

For Max Kolskegg, capitalism is the Great Satan
Provocation and fake terror as the pretext for a new assault on capital's enemy, the working people of the world, is nothing new; most wars of the last hundred years have started this way. (Wars are, above all things, attacks on working people -- who fight them and die in battle, and are the vast bulk of the "collateral damage" as well. In the last analysis, all wars are class wars.) By "provocation" is meant the action of an agent provocateur, on any scale: against a cop, or against a country. The purpose is to provide an attack that legitimizes an aggressive response, an attack that otherwise would not occur. When a cop dressed up as a black blocker throws a stone or molotov cocktail at the police phalanx, he provides the pretext they wait for to rush and crush the crowd. "Fake terror" is a type of provocation which selects the innocent, defenseless public as the specific victim of the attack, to wreak maximum psychological damage on the population and render them as putty in the state's hands.

I think there is more complexity and nuance to what is happening -- and has happened -- than articles like this portray. But in the absence of any significant independence by the mainstream media in the US especially, you have to seek the truth where you can find it.

I feel like I have to be an investigative reporter of sorts just to have any handle on what's really going on Beyond the Grand Narrative, since 9/11 particularly.

9:49 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

An important article

I'm very interested in private military contractors [u]
"Contractors are indispensible," said John J. Hamre, deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. "Will there be more in the future? Yes, and they are not just running the soup kitchens."

That means even more business, and profits, for contractors who perform tasks as mundane as maintaining barracks for overseas troops, as sophisticated as operating weapon systems or as secretive as intelligence-gathering in Africa. Many function near, or even at, the front lines, causing concern among military strategists about their safety and commitment if bullets start to fly.

The use of military contractors raises other troubling questions as well. In peace, they can act as a secret army outside of public view. In war, while providing functions crucial to the combat effort, they are not soldiers. Private contractors are not obligated to take orders or to follow military codes of conduct. Their legal obligation is solely to an employment contract, not to their country.

Private military contractors are flushing out drug traffickers in Colombia and turning the rag-tag militias of African nations into fighting machines. When a United Nations arms embargo restricted the American military in the Balkans, private military contractors were sent instead to train the local forces.

At times, the results have been disastrous.
There are many questions brought up in this article that bear deep consideration, especially with shrub & co ready to take on the Mid East. For example, Kellogg Brown & Root -- a subsidiary of, yes, Halliburton -- was paid $2.2bil to provide logistics support to US troops in Bosnia, the ballooning cost prompting a GAO inquiry -- which came to nothing of course. KB & R are still getting government contracts.

You've probably heard of Dyncorp (nice neutral corporate webpage), and their shenanigans in Bosnia and Colombia. Some portion of the covert ops activity that was the province of the CIA back in the fifties has been taken over by these contractors, as the "plausible deniability" factor is easy to manage. Much of what they do is more mundane, yet troubling in any case because of the blurring of lines between official and unofficial activity.

Hiring mercenaries has been going on since war began, as the author of the article Leslie Wayne notes. It's also a sure sign of a declining empire when it becomes common. They're in it for the money, folks.
During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, one of every 50 people on the battlefield was an American civilian under contract; by the time of the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia in 1996, the figure was one in 10.

[...]

"These new mercenaries work for the Defense and State Department and Congress looks the other way," Colonel Hackworth, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, said. "It's a very dangerous situation. It allows us to get into fights where we would be reluctant to send the Defense Department or the C.I.A. The American taxpayer is paying for our own mercenary army, which violates what our founding fathers said."
Of course this works really well when the government that hires them wants to do things that the public might not support.

1:16 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Along the same lines as the item about the Indonesian army's history of inciting/creating terrorism: Undernews quotes Brasscheck on Peru
The U.S. was our partner in every respect, giving us intelligence, training, equipment and working closely with us in the field. The United States was our best ally." - Peruvian General Miguel del Aguila, head of Peru's National Anti-Terrorism Bureau until last year. He is charged with conspiracy in the state-sponsored bombing last year of a bank in central Lima, an act meant to look like the handiwork of Fujimori opponents to portray them as radicals.
Couldn't find the brasscheck mention.

12:27 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

What the RC-7 surveillance plane can do [u]

Take really good pictures and stay in the air a long time, basically. It's other capabilities aren't relevant here.

Which might help if one of the 2 planes is close to where the next attack is. It's worth a shot, but you can tell they're grasping.

Interesting aside on the use of the military at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta and at Waco, as other examples of testing the Posse Comitatus Act.

12:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Friday, October 18, 2002

Interesting info on the "voter fraud in South Dakota" story I mentioned below [me-zine]
Now it's long been TPM's view that misfiled or improperly filled out voter registration cards or absentee ballot applications can be whipped up into charges of voter fraud and often for nefarious purposes. What seems to us like an interesting example of this came on KSFY's Tuesday evening newscast with a piece from reporter Shelley Keohane.
It's complicated, so just click on over to Josh's site for the scoop.

That being said, I think there has been funny stuff going on on both sides forever. Just like with the economy, Enron etc., and so on, both parties have skeletons in their closet, so little is said and less is done against the other party -- in the public eye.

6:29 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Aussie columnist suggests caution blaming al-Qaeda for Bali bombing, as the Indonesian military has a history of staging terrorist incidents to allow them to "restore order" [a]
[Australian Foreign Minister] Alexander Downer has derided the line of suspicion as "silly", but surely some in his entourage - as he did the rounds of Indonesian military and police chiefs in Jakarta yesterday to discuss the Bali bombing - might have wondered how clean were some of the hands they were shaking.

There is a long history of political manipulators within the Indonesian armed forces, or TNI, playing with the fire of Islamic extremism and staging incidents of terrorism, as well as the institution itself carrying out state terror as in Aceh, Ambon and East Timor - directly or through militia proxies.

This immediately was in the minds of some Indonesia experts after the Kuta Beach bombing, as Downer, among others, pointed the finger at al Qaeda and its Indonesian followers.

Journalist David Jenkins recalled (on this page on Monday) the Machiavellian use of former Darul Islam fanatics by the intelligence chief Ali Murtopo during ex-president Soeharto's New Order, leading to acts of terror - such as the 1980 hijacking of a Garuda Airlines jet - that were used to justify political crackdowns.
What an interesting notion -- staging or inciting terrorist attacks to justify repressive measures. . .

3:42 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

The Cheney/Wolfowitz Plan for a tripartite ex-Iraq

11:25 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Las Vegas recreates wetlands in sewage wash after decades of red tape

11:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Just for the record, I'm all for a complete inquiry into voting fraud and misconduct, by ANY party

This would bring down both parties and cause a crisis in governing probably, and will happen eventually.

See post below about voting machine makers being controlled by the far right-wing.

10:35 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Palast News

Counting on Democracy, the hour-long documentary on the Florida voting scandal, is being screened on some PBS stations in the weeks before the election

The PBS network wouldn't schedule it, but a handful of stations are running it anyway.

Also, Unprecedented, the other film on the scandal, opens in theaters this month.

And Palast's UK Guardian article and followup BBC interview on the Bush-bin Laden connection made the new Project Censored book.

3:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Biz customers eat license fees, XP selling well: Micro$oft bucks economy slump

2:04 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Alt.weekly moguls wield monopoly power, limit choices
MEDIA SAVVY PROGRESSIVES have been sounding the alarm for some time now about how the "chaining" of alternative weekly papers has been selling communities short. But a deal consummated last week between the nation's two largest alternative newspaper companies reveals just how closely chains of the weekly industry have begun to parody daily newspaper behemoths like Gannett, Knight-Ridder, and Hearst -- the very establishment they are meant to offer an alternative to.

[...]

Former staffers are by no means the only ones who've lost out. Businesses in Los Angeles and Cleveland can expect higher ad rates. Readers can expect less coverage of local politics and arts. And truly alternative perspectives will have no forum in which to get heard.

"This is another example of how some of the alternative press is becoming as mainstream as the mainstream press we tend to criticize," says John Fox, copublisher and editor of the independently owned Cincinnati CityBeat.

9:34 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

ACLU launches campaign to repeal parts of the PATRIOT Act, recover lost liberties

SecurityLord Ashcroft, golden robes glinting in the sun, smiles indulgently.

9:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Ghoulish in America
The restaurant in Studio City where Robert Blake's wife was shot is hosting a murder-mystery [skippy the bush kangaroo]

6:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

What's with this fake description of the sniper?

Why would someone do this, unless it were planted disinformation? I'm not saying it was, just that I can't figure the reason if it isn't.
Asked if the witness may have intentionally misled investigators, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is heading the investigation, said simply, "Yes."

Investigators had showed a certain optimism after the latest attack seemed to yield the best details yet about the killer. But that gave way to anger Thursday.

Moose said there was no credence to the witness' description of the cream-colored van with a burned-out rear taillight. And while Moose did not give the witness' exact description of the shooter, he chastised reporters for running reports that variously described the gunman as dark-skinned, olive-skinned, Middle Eastern or Hispanic.

"When we have people from the media interviewing witnesses and publishing reports, we get confusion," Moose said. "We get this noise ... out there that gives people tunnel vision and makes them focus in on things that are not appropriate. ... We would like to be able to do our job."
I wondered about that "dark-skinned man" item. It's hard to see how the media can't overdo coverage of something like this, but it seems in this case to be as bad as not enough.

5:59 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Jim Kunstler on the "hallucinated wealth" behind the stock upswing and the sniper on the threshold

5:16 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Another predatory fatcat energy trader bows out
Dynegy's trading business has gone fallow since the collapse of top trader Enron, which caused the virtual disintegration of what had been a bustling trading arena. Enron began its spiral into bankruptcy exactly one year ago, when it reported a $618 million loss and $1.2 billion write-down.

The trouble did not end there for Dynegy, which faces a criminal investigation into round-trip trades it allegedly conducted to artificially boost revenues and volumes.

Last month, it agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $3 million to settle charges it improperly accounted for a $300 million natural gas deal and engaged in two round-trip trades.

It has also said that some employees in its trading unit gave inaccurate information on natural gas trades to publications that compile price benchmarks, raising fears that it manipulated the wholesale market.

2:26 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

What can I say?

Microsuck tries to counter Apple's "Switch" ads, fails spectacularly
Microsoft had posted a breezy advertisement on its website purportedly written by a freelance writer who switched to Windows from the rival Macintosh platform.

The ad echoes Apple's high-profile Switch campaign, which features ordinary people telling why they switched from the PC to the Mac. Apple's ads uses real people, who clearly identify their names and occupations, and speak in their own voices.

Microsoft's ad, on the other hand, did not identify the woman.

She turned out to be an employee at a public relations company hired by Microsoft: Valerie G. Mallinson of Shoreline, Wash.

[...]

Trouble erupted after amateur sleuths at a popular technology website, Slashdot.org, noticed that a photograph showing the woman with a cup of coffee was a stock image available from Getty Images' Photodisk.

1:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wholesome All-American Leadership

The Bush Dynasty's cozy ties to Saudi Arabia ensure a steady revenue-flow to terrorist groups as American munitions makers demonstrate the latest in military tech to states like Libya, Sudan, Syria -- and Iraq

I picked up Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden at the library today, and the book's exposé of Family Bush's connections with the Saudis are borne out by the study credited in the Post article above.
Administration criticism of Saudi Arabia, the top oil supplier to the United States and a crucial ally if the Bush administration takes military action against Iraq, has been largely muted since the Sept. 11 attacks, despite the belief of many law enforcement and intelligence officials here and abroad that al Qaeda relies on wealthy Saudis for most of its funding.

Earlier this year, however, relations became strained when a defense consultant told a Penatagon advisory committee that Saudis were active at all levels of the terror chain.

[...]

But the report drew a sharp rebuttal from the Bush administration. Robert Nichols, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said the report was "seriously flawed" and that his department considered it a "Clinton-era snapshot of what al Qaeda looked like in 1999 or 2000" without taking into account the new resources and strategies to combat terror financing.

"We are not claiming victory, we are not spiking the football, but we are off to a good start," Nichols said.

[...]

The report concludes that al Qaeda retains access to millions of dollars and that as long as its financial network is viable, the terrorist organization "remains a lethal threat to the United States." Financing for Osama bin Laden's terror network is often routed through charities, front companies and shell banks in offshore havens. [my emphasis]
Indeed.

And just where is the football, and who's on which team exactly?

1:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Rumsfeld's power-tripping alienates military
Indeed, nearly two dozen current and former top officers and civilian officials said in interviews that there was a huge discrepancy between the outside perception of Rumsfeld - the crisp, no-nonsense defense secretary who became a media star through his briefings on the Afghan war - and the way he is seen inside the Pentagon. Many senior officers on the Joint Staff and in all branches of the military describe Rumsfeld as frequently abusive and indecisive, trusting only a tiny circle of close advisers, seemingly eager to slap down officers with decades of distinguished service. The unhappiness is so pervasive that all three service secretaries are said to be deeply frustrated by a lack of autonomy and to be contemplating leaving by the end of the year.

Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed for this article.

His disputes with parts of the top brass involve style, the conduct of military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and sharply different views about how and whether to "transform" today's armed forces. But what the fights boil down to is civilian control of a defense establishment that Rumsfeld is said to believe had become too independent and risk-averse during eight years under President Bill Clinton.
I kind of sensed that some of Rumsfeld's ideas were anathema to the Pentagon establishment, particularly the emphasis on new technologies and deployment strategies. But I didn't know he was pissing the military brass off with his bullying style; though he fits right into the shrub Terrible Twos Club, doesn't he?

9:28 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Wrist slap for Anderson

I know Arthur Anderson has pretty much been shredded by the Enron scandal (losing all but 1000 of its 28,000 employees) -- but a fine of half a million bucks and probation seems like a joke to me

That's supposed to send a message to other accounting companies and their customers?

1:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Questions about Bali attack

US claims it warned Indonesia of terror attack

So why wouldn't they let Taiwan announce threat tip (see below)? And why did Australian PM John Howard claim he wasn't informed? The Indonesian security apparatus says it was informed of the possibility of an attack -- but did not suspect Bali as a target -- countering CIA claims that they included Bali in their report, which would routinely be shared with the Australians at least. And -- one would think -- the Indonesians.

The article also claims the explosion was caused by plastique setting off a TNT cache, which some have disputed (though the "Zionist" angle in this last link is questionable, the info is interesting).

11:07 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

War protests, White House credibility gap having effect
"America speaks with one voice," says President Bush.

In Washington, Bush, having been empowered by both houses of Congress to use force, seems to face very little opposition on Iraq.

On the streets of America, nothing could be further from the truth.

10:39 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

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Including one from planing lakes which I'm too lazy to do separately.

10:09 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Who makes the vote-counting machines?
[Sitd]
Just a handful of companies sell ballots, machines and program counting codes. They lobby, make campaign donations, and sometimes bribe government officials to choose their vote-counting systems... Understaffed election officials are required to make purchase decisions, then supervise the use of machines they can't repair, can't always check for accuracy, made by companies they know almost nothing about.

Unfettered by any disclosure regulations about ownership or political affiliations, private individuals own the companies that control almost all the voting machines in the U.S. Do the people who own them have conflicts of interest? We don't know, they won't tell us. Do they employ anyone with a criminal record? We don't know, they say it's private. Can we have someone check the vote-counting code to make sure no one tampered with it? Nope, they say its proprietary.

Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election -- and the company that now makes the voting machines for most of America -- is a private company that does not like to tell the public who owns it. But at least one major shareholder is Michael R. McCarthy, who runs the McCarthy Group. The McCarthy Group has been one of the owners of Election Systems & Software, including its predecessor, American Information Systems for more than a decade. Michael R. McCarthy is the current campaign Treasurer for Republican senator Chuck Hagel. Prior to his election, Republican Senator Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems and a partner in the McCarthy & Company. In fact, he decided to run for office while his own company was making the vote-counting machines!

1:47 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monty Python's Terry Jones on "The audacious courage of Mr Blair" [Stumblings in the dark]
I would like to say a special word about another side of Tony Blair's courage - his moral courage. Tony Blair has the guts to stand on platform after platform repeating the words of the President of the United States even though he must be well aware that in so doing he makes himself a laughing stock to the rest of the world. Tony Blair has the balls not to be influenced by the knowledge that people imagine he is the US President's parrot and that his knee jerks only when George W. pulls the strings. It must take a very special kind of stamina to withstand that sort of daily humiliation. It is time we gave Mr Blair credit for it.

1:41 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Why did the US tell Taiwan not to reveal tip on terror attack in SE Asia? [og]

12:45 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Indian nuke plants a ticking time bomb
While the government releases no information about leaks or accidents at its nuclear power plants, Dhirendra Sharma, a scientist who has written extensively on India's atomic-power projects, has compiled figures based on his own reporting. "An estimated 300 incidents of a serious nature have occurred, causing radiation leaks and physical damage to workers," he says. "These have so far remained official secrets."

According to critics like Mr. Gadekar, India's nuclear-power program has always been secretive because politicians use it as a cover for the country's weapons program. "Right from Jawaharlal Nehru [India's first prime minister] onward, our leaders have always claimed that the nuclear-power program is a 'peaceful' program, whereas the weapons implications were always there in the background," says Gadekar. "As a result, secrecy has become a way of life for these people."

The "best" Indian plant (Kakrapara in the western city of Surat) in terms of radiation emissions is releasing three times the international standard.

I wouldn't want to hang out near an American nuke plant. . .

12:17 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Colonia Dignidad still active as Villa Baviera

High-tech Nazi base in Chile described in Levenda's Unholy Alliance is still apparently active under a new name

5:44 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Some images of war from a classic Ernst Friedrich anti-war book originally published in 1924 [oracle.zenic.net]

Not for kids. Not even for adults. Just shouldn't be seen at all.

Unless you're gung ho about war. Any war.

5:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Pretty thin line here:

Military "reconnaissance and equipment" may be used in sniper hunt [drudge]

Of course -- beyond the Posse Comitatus issue -- one wonders if the military isn't going after a military-trained operation here. This is certainly no ordinary serial killer.

Which also makes you wonder -- is this a set-up to get the public used to military involvement in domestic affairs?

Yeah, I'm a suspicious guy. Wonder why.

2:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

White House still sidestepping independent commission inquiry into 9/11 [a]
Cheney strongly opposes the idea of any independent body?s poking into the White House?s conduct. He has repeatedly objected to efforts by a separate joint-intelligence-committee inquiry to obtain documents and interview key witnesses, including an FBI informant who lived with two of the 9-11 hijackers. Bush officials insist the VP?s stand is based on ?principle,? not fear of embarrassments
Because the Democrats will "politicize" the hearings blah blah blah.

When are people going to stop putting up with the stonewalling?

12:24 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, October 14, 2002

National Organization to Shoot Bill O'Reilly Into the Sun [u]

No petition though.

7:21 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

UK government's secret Celldar project will allow surveillance of anyone, at any time and anywhere there is a phone signal
[also not found in nature]
The radical new system, which has outraged civil liberties groups, uses mobile phone masts to allow security authorities to watch vehicles and individuals 'in real time' almost anywhere in Britain.

The technology 'sees' the shapes made when radio waves emitted by mobile phone masts meet an obstruction. Signals bounced back by immobile objects, such as walls or trees, are filtered out by the receiver. This allows anything moving, such as cars or people, to be tracked. Previously, radar needed massive fixed equipment to work and transmissions from mobile phone masts were thought too weak to be useful.

The system works wherever a mobile phone can pick up a signal. By using receivers attached to mobile phone masts, users of the new technology could focus in on areas hundreds of miles away and bring up a display showing any moving vehicles and people.

An individual with one type of receiver, a portable unit little bigger than a laptop computer, could even use it as a 'personal radar' covering the area around the user. Researchers are working to give the new equipment 'X-ray vision' - the capability to 'see' through walls and look into people's homes.

3:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

President says "Eat it!":

Bush cited for stalling on giving USDA authority to order food recalls, tighten meat quality testing
The Pilgrim's Pride record recall of 27.4 million pounds was prompted by a USDA investigation into a listeria outbreak that has caused at least 23 deaths, three miscarriages and 120 illnesses in the U.S. Northeast. The company and USDA have said no illnesses could be linked to the recall.

The USDA and the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention have been unable to pinpoint the source of the Northeast listeria outbreak in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Michigan and Massachusetts.

The CDC has suspected turkey deli meat as one likely source. Despite more than 400 tests on lunch meats and deli products, USDA has not been able to find the cause.

"The USDA is more than one step behind," said Karen Mitchell, executive director of Safe Tables Our Priority. "There are proposed Listeria regulations dating back to the Clinton administration that may have prevented this, but the Bush administration is sitting on it."

1:33 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Summary xymphora's dossier on al-Qaeda
This has given the corrupt American government an excuse, through the 'war on terror', to attempt to solidify U. S. control over all the world's oil resources through a series of wars (we now know that planning for control of Middle East oil was in place before the selection of the Bush Administration by the U. S. Supreme Court, and that this planning was done by people who became members of the Bush regime). On its face, this seems to be against the interests of al-Qaeda, but the al-Qaeda leadership presumably knows that the turmoil caused by these wars will eventually (and they calculate their interests on a longer timeline than the Americans, who are always concerned with the next fiscal quarter) lead to the self-destruction of the United States, together with the replacement of all the corrupt regimes in the Islamic Middle East.

10:24 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, October 13, 2002

Controversy over Israeli government's "recommendation" that ethnic cleansing advocate Rehavam Zeevi be discussed in high schools
Zeevi was widely known by the nickname Gandhi because as a young man he was thin. The name took on an ironic twist later when Zeevi invariably urged more use of military force and referred to Palestinians working illegally in Israel as "lice" and a "cancer."

In the Ministry of Education lesson plan, Zeevi is described as someone whose "love of the homeland" included a knowledge of its every stone and flower, who spoke an exemplary "clean" Hebrew," who "kept the faith with his comrades-in-arms even if he differed with their political views."

Zeevi, was also honored Sunday with a postage stamp. At the state ceremony, his son, Palmach, declared with a choked voice, "You have earned your place in the national pantheon."

Zvi Hendl, a member of the Knesset elected on the same list as Zeevi, backs promoting his memory. "The heritage of Gandhi, of defending the homeland, started before the state was created. He is a man who oversaw the publication of more than a hundred books. Pupils must know that Zionism is about holding a book and fighting when you have to, and of saying what you think is right. That is what Gandhi was about."
Gandhi.

Right.

11:57 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

NarcoNews Venezuela update
A day after the march, all the hysterical shriekers have been proved wrong, and in many cases intentionally dishonest. The opposition march came and went. Most news sources said there were hundreds of thousands. The LA Times said "About a million." The corrupt Venezuelan press said "more than a million" or "two million." The Independent of London said "tens of thousands." In any case, it was no bigger, nor different, nor did it include a wider base than that of the same old same old from the upper classes, the same as many a previous opposition march.

People peaceably assembled. Sure, they called for the violent overthrow of the government, but that's speech too. The government, police, and military - despite all kinds of provocations and threats of violent coups - remained calm and ensured the right of its opponents to march. After the march, the supporters of the Ch�vez government held parties in the streets because there had been no coup d'etat. And then everybody went home. Sounds like a healthy democracy to us.
Compared to accounts of the DC demo recently (see below) -- sounds like Caracas is safer -- and perhaps more democratically tolerant -- than Washington.

3:25 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Illinois tollway passcards used to track citizens [u]

2:54 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Those wacky American psyops operators: what'll they think up next? [u]
Often more confusing than convincing, psy-ops can suffer hugely from the smallest graphical errors. A T-shirt used in Cambodia to try to deter kids from entering certain unsafe zones featured a boy squatting over a mine that he was poking with a stick. The silk-screened shirt was yanked from production, according to one account, when angered villagers kept asking why American personnel were distributing images of kids defecating over land mines. The squatting boy was eventually redrawn.

Bigger mistakes mean bigger consequences. Leaflets dropped in Somalia in 1992 prior to the UN troop arrival were meant to assure the populace of the mission's humanitarian intentions. Unfortunately, of all the personnel the U.S. initially deployed in the country, only two were native speakers, and one turned out to be the son of the country's bloodiest warlord. Pamphlet proofreaders, needless to say, were in short supply, and the result was sometimes quite embarrassing. Instead of announcing help from the "United Nations," the pamphlets spoke of help from the "Slave Nations," and as anyone who has seen the movie Black Hawk Down can certainly attest, neither the blue helmets nor the boys with stars and stripes were welcomed with open arms when they eventually landed ashore.

2:49 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

James Ridgway on who profits from the Iraq War [u]

I think there are many more than this, but it's a start.

2:41 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Somewhat over-heated but probably accurate-in-the-details overview of Skull & Bones initiates and their positions of power since 1837 [Temple Furnace]
Skull and Bones--the Russell Trust Association--was first established among the class graduating from Yale in 1833. Its founder was William Huntington Russell of Middletown, Connecticut. The Russell family was the master of incalculable wealth derived from the largest U.S. criminal organization of the nineteenth century: Russell and Company, the great opium syndicate.

There was at that time a deep suspicion of, and national revulsion against, freemasonry and secret organizations in the United States, fostered in particular by the anti-masonic writings of former U.S. President John Quincy Adams. Adams stressed that those who take oaths to politically powerful international secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.

But the Russells were protected as part of the multiply-intermarried grouping of families then ruling Connecticut (see accompanying chart). The blood-proud members of the Russell, Pierpont, Edwards, Burr, Griswold, Day, Alsop and Hubbard families were prominent in the pro-British party within the state. Many of their sons would be among the members chosen for the Skull and Bones Society over the years.

The background to Skull and Bones is a story of Opium and Empire, and a bitter struggle for political control over the new U.S. republic.
One of the sources for the article is Antony Sutton's America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones, which I imagine is a better choice than the recent Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power by Alexandra Robbins -- though I haven't read either one.

1:01 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

I guess this is kind of like how the Russians changed the names of cities and so forth after the Soviet Union dissolved
It is an ethics question that is reverberating from the ivy-covered walls of Harvard to local YMCAs. Ethics experts say institutions having accepted money that is now tainted need to act to protect their reputation. They point out that keeping a building named for a felon is not a very healthy message for students being groomed as future leaders.

"The ultimate test is whether the institution is subject to ridicule," says Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute of Ethics. "Do they have any standards?"

Many of the institutions, however, don't see it that way. They argue that the money was given before the donor ran afoul of the law. The cash funds something important, whether it's a hospital wing or a learning center. Furthermore, even if an organization wants to remove a name, it may face legal knots preventing any action.

Despite the potential for embarrassment, most institutions are not lining up sandblasters.
Easier to pull down a statue of Lenin than remove the name of a convicted felon from a university cornerstone.

Besides, where would you stop? So many rich people who donate money later in life did such awful things to get it in the first place. . .

11:58 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

What if the US had a law like Serbia -- that elections were invalid if less than half the voters showed up at the polls?

Not that I'm saying things would change overnight if that many people voted. But if candidates were able to campaign only with public funds and that many people did vote, I'll bet things would at least look different.

11:42 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Yes, these are the silly non-issues Arizonans put up with in their elections
A remote enclave of polygamists on the border with Utah is roiling the race for Arizona governor.

Richard Mahoney, an independent trailing badly in the polls, has ditched mainstream issues and is trying to woo voters by accusing the front-runners of being soft on multiple marriages.

[...]

Another Mahoney ad accused Democratic candidate Janet Napolitano, the state's attorney general, of turning a blind eye to the sect and failing to protect women in Colorado City.

Both ads start with footage of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, going up in flames and says the crimes allegedly committed by the sect are "worse than Waco."
Arizonans (for the most part) seem to avoid real issues like they were mouse droppings ripe with hantavirus.

11:33 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Reign of Fear spreads to Bali and Finland

These 2 attacks -- on the anniversary of the USS Cole attack last year, and on another "11" day, smell like some pretty deep psyops to me. You never hear of this kind of thing happening in either of these countries, and along with the sniper shootings in the DC metro area, it all feels like professional covert ops to me. Who exactly I don't know, but there's nothing coincidental about them.

Just a feeling. . .

2:08 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

How close the Doomsday Shroud

Newly declassified documents from the 3 players in the Cuban Missile Crisis of '62 reveal a US depth charge almost hit the hull of a Soviet nuclear sub

The Evan Thomas book I just finished on 4 major players in the early CIA makes clear that the ill-fated Bay of Pigs fiasco -- mostly a failure of Richard Bissell's covert ops division of the CIA -- was a major factor precipitating the Missile Crisis: the Soviets and the Cubans thought a US invasion was imminent.

It's heartening to see a conference held between some of the principals of the operation -- some meeting for the first time. Would that the lessons learned then resonate in the White House now.

1:59 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

69-year-old retired Lieutenant Colonel attends D.C demo, gets lesson in The New Democracy
I AM A lieutenant colonel, retired from the U.S. Army after 20 years of service, including Vietnam. My second career is law and I work as a trade association president and adjunct professor at a local law school.

As a soldier, I risked my life to defend the Constitution. With the GI Bill, I went to law school to learn to apply it. I have always been proud of our constitutional system and the wealth and power it has generated. While the wealth and power of our nation could be more fairly distributed, the opportunity this nation provides to its citizens, native and naturalized, is unequalled.

On Friday, Sept. 27, in Washington, D.C., my sense of my own place in our society was stunned when I was arrested for the first time, at the age of 69. This experience shook my confidence that our Constitution and my adherence to that rule of law made me safe and secure on the streets of our capitol.

[...]

The result of the command decision to treat us as criminals, if not actual terrorists, was a 29-hour incarceration, a summary punishment disproportionate to the violation ("failure to obey") that we will return to court to defend.

1:14 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

charging the canvas

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