January 2008 archive

Jan 21 2008

Rethinking Iraq: We have to do better

We are mired in a false narrative about Iraq.  Getting out of the false narrative will require us to to gain a better understanding of the political factions in Iraq, their manuverings, and their attempts to both deal with the American occupiers and to evict them.  

In brief, over the past few months political factions in Iraq have moved from making largely violent arguments in their bids for power and independence to making largely political ones.  As a result, we, the progressives in the United States who wish to end the occupation of Iraq, have been caught totally flat-footed.  We have been relying on their deaths, and the deaths of American soldiers, to make our arguments for us.  

Jan 21 2008

Fin, fur and feather: Animals, Candidates and Actions

This evening I received an email forwarded by the animal behaviorist who helped us with Jack, our Alaskan Malamute, who had some initial behavioral issues.

She had received it apparently by mistake, but forwarded it on to her clients for dissemination and feedback.

I’m plopping it on DailyKos, ePluribus Media and Docudharma to open a discussion on other issues and where candidates stand on them.

I’d like folks who know of a candidate’s actions with regard to animals to put the candidate’s last name first in their subject, then ” — good” or ” — bad” next to the name, and have the content of the comment itself contain any good, bad, or additional information. I hope to tally this up later and present results. Please don’t get into candidate wars; just post what you can verify and include a link to support your statement.  Please note that this also includes Republican candidates; please follow the same procedure, if you’ve information to add.

Thank you.

Jan 21 2008

cooking with Jeffinalabama, vol 1.0 Seafood Gumbo

Well, here’s a beginning, based on an off-hand request last night… cooking with me!

I’m not a master chef, but I have cooked in restaurants before, including a 2-star restaurant, at least for a short time.

However, I do love to cook, and to eat! And in this chilly time of the year– it’s about 25 here in alabama tonight, which to me is cold… I like stews, soups, and gumbos.

Come with me below the fold, and let’s talk about them!

Jan 21 2008

“A weird mixture of total cynicism and moral fervour”

The Guardian has posted the first of three excerpts from a new book, Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq, by Johnathan Steele, about Tony Blair and the run-up to the Iraq war.

In November 2002, six academics with backgrounds in Iraqi history and international security met with Blair and tried to convince him that invading Iraq would be disastrous.

“We all pretty much said the same thing,” [George] Joffe [an Arabist from Cambridge University] recalls. “Iraq is a very complicated country, there are tremendous intercommunal resentments, and don’t imagine you’ll be welcomed.” He remembers how Blair reacted. “He looked at me and said, ‘But the man’s uniquely evil, isn’t he?’ I was a bit nonplussed. It didn’t seem to be very relevant.” Recovering, Joffe went on to argue that Saddam was constrained by various factors, to which Blair merely repeated his first point: “He can make choices, can’t he?” As Joffe puts it, “He meant he can choose to be good or evil, I suppose.”

— snip —

The experts didn’t seem to make much of an impression. Blair “wasn’t focused”, [Charles] Tripp [Iraqi history expert] recalls. “I felt he wanted us to reinforce his gut instinct that Saddam was a monster. It was a weird mixture of total cynicism and moral fervour.”

More below . . .

Jan 21 2008

Nick Henck’s “Subcommander Marcos”

This is a review of Nick Henck’s book on Sup Marcos, the military leader of the EZLN, the subversive movement in Mexico.

(Photo from the account of Whodisan215)

(Crossposted at Big Orange)

Jan 21 2008

UK Times: Official Documents Prove FBI lied to protect US officials…by lukery

(reposted with permission)

The UK’s Sunday Times has another explosive article out tonight.

   

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets.

The Times has obtained official documents which prove that the FBI is lying about the existence of a counterintelligence operation targeting high-level US officials and Turkish operatives.

The FBI’s comments demonstrate conclusively that either:

a) They are lying, or

b) They have destroyed the evidence of this multi-year investigation concerning the corruption of high-level US officials, the nuclear black market, money laundering and narcotics trafficking.

Jan 21 2008

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Jeff Beck Group



Morning Dew

Jan 20 2008

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Did oil canals worsen Katrina’s effects?

By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

47 minutes ago

IN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA – Service canals dug to tap oil and natural gas dart everywhere through the black mangrove shrubs, bird rushes and golden marsh. From the air, they look like a Pac-Man maze superimposed on an estuarine landscape 10 times the size of Grand Canyon National Park.

There are 10,000 miles of these oil canals. They fed America’s thirst for energy, but helped bring its biggest delta to the brink of collapse. They also connect an overlooked set of dots in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath: The role that some say the oil industry played in the $135 billion disaster, the nation’s costliest.

The delta, formed by the accumulation of the Mississippi River’s upstream mud over thousands of years, is a shadow of what it was 100 years ago. Since the 1930s, a fifth of the 10,000-square-mile delta has turned into open water, decreasing the delta’s economic and ecologic value by as much as $15 billion a year, according to Louisiana State University studies.

Jan 20 2008

Picture Impressions

I have said before I get psychic impressions from pictures.  It has to be a first impression, a sort of mirror of the soul experience.  Alberto Gonzales, Leo Strauss, John Yoo gave the the absolute creeps upon seeing their photos for the very first time.

Well I have viewed a video of this guy I will not name yet.  I get no such evil impressions from.  They have destroyed him, his life and his name.

Jan 20 2008

Phoenix

There are so many excellent essays here at Docudharma:

davidseth’s: Remembering Dr. King’s True Legacy

NLinStPaul’s:  A Better Way

OPOL’s:  A Gentle Reminder

Jimstaro’s: Peace History – This Past Week

are a few I read this morning.  Please check out the list on the sidebar, this weekend’s been a all-header for stories.  @;-)

I am taken with the ideas, experience and hard truths that are offered here as a matter of routine.  There aren’t often essays calling for someone else to provide “leadership;” there are however many essays about “calls” that individuals have answered and are in the process of answering. Just as in the Hero’s Journey stories of myth, only right now- real people- in real time.

I am struck with how much work is being accomplished as much as I am struck by the enormous amount of work there is yet to even begin.

So, in the spirit of encouragement, I offer a poem that I wrote (and was fortunate to see published) in 2001.  It is the story of the bird of rebirth, the Phoenix, who rises from its own ashes on the fabled Ben-Ben stone only once every 500 years.  In most myths, the bird is solitary, he/she has no leader, has no followers, has no companions.  I like to think that we all are our own Phoenix, but while our journeys are often conducted alone, we now have the opportunity to share the inspiration from our own experiences of ‘rising out of the ashes’ with other Phoenixes from not only around the country, but from around the world.  I like to think that the millions of us on our own journeys see each other, flap our wings, and know that individually together, we are changing our worlds.

In honor of your own Phoenix:

Jan 20 2008

On the frozen tundra, asking an end to war

There are no photos of this week’s Iraq Moratorium vigil in downtown Milwaukee.  The battery in the digital camera froze.

About 40 people turned out in the bitter cold, and marched with flags, banners, signs and drums past City Hall, then gathered on four corners of the main downtown intersection.

“I was feeling a little wimpy, like maybe it was too cold to come, but I decided that if 70,000 people could go to the Packers game Sunday, when it will be colder than this, I could come out here for an hour to try to stop the war,” one vigiler said.

The tundra was frozen in Hayward, a city of 2,200 in northwestern Wisconsin which has led the nation in percentage of the population turning out for Iraq Moratorium vigils.  Attendance was down from the high of 83 in December, but, as one of the organizers reports on the scene below:

 

24 determined, (and half crazy!) peace supporters braved 20 below zero windchills to stand for an hour in observance of Iraq Moratorium Day #5. We had mostly encouraging responses from motorists who seemed both delighted, and incredulous, at our presence on the street corner.

At 4:45 p.m. some folks suggested that we knock off early due to the bitterly cold winds, but a couple of hardcore skier/peace types shouted, “No! We came to stand for an hour, and for an hour we’ll stand!” We hunkered down, and at 5 p.m. sharp a great cheer went up as we headed for the warmth of vehicles that had been idling for half an hour in the parking lot. See you in February!!

That’s hard core.



Those are among the reports beginning to trickle in to the Iraq Moratorium website in the wake of Friday’s actions, numbering about 90 across the country.  Typically, many more will be posted during the coming week, many with photos and videos.

In Mountain View, California, where the weather was a bit warmer, the Raging Grannies Action League “welcomed” a new armed forces recruiting station to the neighborhood — and let the recruiters know they were invading the Grannies’ turf.  “Killing and Dying is not a career,” the Grannies said.

Iraq Moratorium #6 falls on February 15, the Third Friday of the month.  Now’s the time to start planning, and share your plans and ideas with others at IraqMoratorium.org

P.S. — Go Pack!

Jan 20 2008

My Covert Media Op to Save Public Hospitals

In early December, I diaried a proposed Medicaid Rules change, which, if it goes into effect in May as scheduled, will result in draconian cuts to public and teaching hospitals.  This is a non-partisan issue: the US v. the Bush Administration.  Representatives Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Sue Myrick (R-NC)  have introduced HR 3533, the Preserve Our Public and Teaching Hospitals Act into the house to block the odious rules change.  Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)have attemtped to introduce a moratorium on the rule in the senate.

Unfortunately, the good guys have not been able to muster the votes to extend an existing moratorium on the rules change, which would spare our frayed public health care infrastructure a possibly mortal blow for at least another year.

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