May 2009 archive

Southwest Shots

America is not a suburb or a strip mall. It contains some vast unfathomable places. Places that evoke timelessness and spirituality regardless of one’s specific beliefs. As I hiked my middle aged self down and up trails I was struck by the way my petty thoughts, the ones that entertain me, the ones that occasionally obsess me, came to mean fundamentally nothing against the landscape.

Most of these pictures where taken at Zion, Bryce, and a few other parks and trails in and around Utah. Sadly, my talent does not match the majesty of the scenery but I hope they bring a slight sense of wonder and invoke my appreciation for a world that doesn’t change even as humanity swirls in confusion.

DSC_0135

Docudharma Times Monday May 4

Misha Lerner has a question

for  Condoleezza Rice  

What did Rice think about the things President Obama’s

administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration

had used to get information from detainees?




Monday’s Headlines:

For her an uproar, for him a whisper

Slash fees to save education, Zimbabwe minister tells schools

Doh! Pirates captured after attacking the wrong ship

China’s quake cover-up

Hamid Karzai gets clear road to re-election as challengers fall by wayside

Elite police in France complain of being used as dog walkers

Fiat could buy Vauxhall and Opel

An interview with a jailed Somali pirate leader

Is the Darfur bloodshed genocide? Opinions differ

Cuban Zeal: Revolutionary art and artists

Pakistan Strife Raises U.S. Doubts on Nuclear Arms



By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: May 3, 2009


WASHINGTON – As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.

But the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital.

Mexico complains of swine flu backlash

• Travellers isolated under ‘unacceptable’ conditions

• Four Latin American countries restrict Mexico flights


Rory Carroll in Mexico City and Tania Branigan in Beijing

Mexico has protested about an international backlash against Mexican travellers who have been quarantined and banned from several countries as suspected flu carriers.

Mexican authorities tonight singled out China for its draconian measures and criticised four Latin American countries for restricting air links. More than 70 Mexican travellers were quarantined in hospitals and hotels in China as part of sweeping measures against swine flu.

“Mexican citizens showing no signs at all of being ill have been isolated under unacceptable conditions,” said Patricia Espinosa, Mexico’s foreign minister. “These are discriminatory measures, without foundation. The foreign ministry recommends avoiding travelling to China until these measures are corrected.”

USA

4th-Grader Questions Rice on Waterboarding

Ex-Secretary of State Stresses Legality

By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 4, 2009


Days after telling students at Stanford University that waterboarding was legal “by definition if it was authorized by the president,” former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was pressed again on the subject yesterday by a fourth-grader at a Washington school.

Rice, in her first appearance in Washington since leaving government, was at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital before giving an evening lecture at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. She held forth amiably before a few dozen students about her love of Israel, travel abroad and the importance of learning languages, then opened the floor to their questions.

Obama’s 100 Days – The Mad Men Did Well

from John Pilger, April 30, 2009

The BBC’s American television soap Mad Men offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths. Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving dreamt up by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics. Just as Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged and sold.

[snip]

Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design”, as Henry Kissinger, war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it. In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous clichés, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

An Opened Mind XXIX

Art Link

Trapping the Demon

Emerson or Thoreau?

I am not

devoid of feelings.

I can be

hurt by words.

I can feel

anger at slights.

A stick swung

at someone else

will still hurt

if I am

the one stricken.

A stone thrown

at someone else

will do me damage

if me it strikes.

I can and do

feel outrage

when any group

is disparaged

anytime

anywhere.

This place

is not immune.

Where is the honor

in attacking

a Phelps of Topeka

for bigotry

if we practice

the moral equivalent

in this virtual realm?

Where is

the high ground?

Where is

our center?

Is the tent

in this place

too small

to contain

people like me?

Where is

your outrage?

Where is

your anger?

What is

your response?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 8, 2005

 

Late Night Karaoke

Rush Moving Pictures

Sometimes Children Dying is Worth It.

Not our children mind you.  The children in the countries who attacked us, and those in the countries that are trying to kill us.  Why not?  They killed 3000 of our people.  They are trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.  Fair is fair.  We can’t allow an attack on our homeland, killing 3000 people, to go unanswered.  Not only that, if we don’t take action now and show them we mean business, they might attack again.  We have no choice.  The very security of the citizens of the United States is at stake so we must do whatever is necessary to protect them.  

The people who attacked us are evil and developing weapons of mass destruction is evil.  We must fight them wherever they are, no matter what country of the world.  The very future of the world depends on our response and the need to eradicate terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of evil people.

War has costs.  We must keep in mind those costs, but realize those costs are nothing compared to what could happen if we don’t react.  Just as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved thousands of American lives, we need to take whatever actions necessary to save more American lives.  That is the purpose of our military, save American lives and protect American interests.  That is the American way.  

Madeline Albright said it best in 1996 in her interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes.  

“Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeline Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

http://www.youtube.com/…

She did make a mea culpa to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, stating she should not have made that statement, but the facts are there.

http://www.democracynow.org/…

Former SOS Albright isn’t the only politician or statesperson to make such a claim regarding the costs of war or political sanctions.  But her statement certainly makes her one of the poster childs.  Imagine thinking that over one half million dead children is worth the benefits we received from sanctioning Iraq.  Imagine what kind of person Madeline Albright must be.  Now imagine what Albright thinks, is normal for our politicians and diplomats.  I remember watching a video of Bill Richardson where he said the same thing as Albright.

http://www.youtube.com/…

The utterly disgusting thing is she made these comments based on the sanctions on Iraq.  Sanctions!  The over 500,000 dead children occured because of sanctions.  Then the U.S. flat out invaded and occupied Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of over 1 million MORE Iraqis, and has completely devastated the environment and infrastructure.   If left to peace right now, it would take well over a generation to overcome the effects of the war and its destruction, including cancer causing and disease causing conditions.

But don’t kid yourself.  We’re Americans, we take care of our own.  If a half million  kids have to die half way around the world so we can be safe here at home, so be it.  No one said life is fair.  We’re talking about a third world country here anyway.

So when you see what comes out of this current AIPAC meeting regarding Iran, i.e., the sanctions, don’t fret about what the cost may be.  There may be some Iranian kids that die.  But Iran might be able to make a nuclear weapon.  That is unacceptable and if some children must die to keep it from happening, the world will be a better place.

Update:  There is no doubt that the U.S. is going to use further sanctions against Iran to try and prevent its development of a nuclear weapon, however realistic that is.  And there is not doubt that the country most interested in these sanctions, other than the U.S., is Israel (not that other countries don’t have similar interests). AIPAC is Israels most influential lobby group in the U.S.  The meeting this week will focus on sanctions on Iran.  My point is, we saw what sanctions did to Iraq and its children.  What will these sanctions, if enacted, do to the children of Iran?  This has no more to do with Israel and AIPAC than it does with the US Congress and Senate.

Crossposted at Daily Kos – http://www.dailykos.com/story/…    

More wankery from Krauthammer

There are plenty of GOP hacks out there, but, sometimes, one writes something so infuriating that you simply must respond.

Below the fold is my letter that replies to Krauthammer’s latest wankery, “Torture? No.  Except…”

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Gates optimistic on 2010 U.S. defense budget success

Reuters

2 hrs 18 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview aired on Sunday that he is optimistic his recommendations for overhauling defense spending can survive an upcoming budget fight in Congress.

Gates told CNN that he has been surprised by the limited scope of criticism aimed so far at his recommendations for the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010, which begins October 1, and had heard some “important voices raised in support.”

“I’m relatively optimistic, actually,” he said in the interview, which was taped last week. “I think we’ve presented, as one news magazine referred to it, a radically sane set of proposals. They don’t represent a cut, and where we have eliminated one program, you have added to others.”

Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple Tree

NICHOLAS WADE

New York Times 5-3-09

More and more scientific evidence is surfacing which supports the theory that modern human life did originate in Africa.  

Locations for the Garden of Eden have been offered many times before, but seldom in the somewhat inhospitable borderland where Angola and Namibia meet.

A new genetic survey of people in Africa, the largest of its kind, suggests, however, that the region in southwest Africa seems, on the present evidence, to be the origin of modern humans. The authors have also identified some 14 ancestral populations.

readmore

Cheney tried to revive torture after Hamdan decision

I’m cross-posting this from my diary over at DailyKos and my blog

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Bush’s military commissions violated the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. As a result of that decision, the Bush administration asked Congress to pass legislation on military commissions. They passed the Military Commissions Act, which was struck down later.

From 2006-2008, Congress was giving the Bush administration nearly everything they wanted. They got their very own courts to try detainees and their very own spying program complete with immunity, even while the administration was suspected of holding detainees in secret CIA black sites.

Enter Dick Cheney.

Abu Ghraib Torturers Appeal ‘We Were Scapegoats For Bush’

Charles Graner the ‘ringleader’ of the abuse at Abu Ghraib is appealing his 10 year Leavenworth sentence and dishonorable discharge. Graner is this guy, pictured with the mother of his child Lynndie England.

The Times Online has this story

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration.

The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.

The decision by President Obama to release the memos showed that the harsh interrogation tactics were approved and authorised at the highest levels of the White House.

Europe’s First Police State

So I know you were just sitting around wondering, “What are the origins of the modern police state?,” and maybe, “Can an effort at genocide, if sustained long enough, actually work?,” or possibly, “What would happen if a bunch of religious zealots were in a position to exercise spiritual, temporal, political, and military authority over all they survey?”   Well, Pope Innocent III, the same guy who launched the Fourth Crusade, certainly asked himself these questions, and he sought to answer them through direct action.

So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, to get a glimpse of a nobly enlightened culture as it is extinguished by the hate-filled love of the Medieval Church.  We’ll also see the heretical Cathars subjected to travesties that only these people would not find barbaric…

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