Iran opposition figures arrested after protests
A number of opposition figures have been arrested in Iran, a day after violent protests in the capital left at least eight people dead.
The BBC Monday, 28 December 2009
Those detained include senior aides to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
His nephew Seyed Ali Mousavi was among those killed in Sunday’s violence, the worst since June’s contested elections.
Family members say they are being prevented from holding his funeral because his body has been taken from the hospital where it was being kept.
His brother, Seyed Reza Mousavi, is quoted by the reformist website Parlemannews as saying: “Nobody accepts responsibility for taking away the body… We cannot have a funeral before we find the body.”
Other opposition sources say the body has been taken by government agents in order to prevent his funeral becoming a rallying point for more protests.
December 2009 archive
Dec 28 2009
Docudharma Times Monday December 28
Dec 28 2009
“He was in a trance”
In yet another example of unbelievable douchebaggery, our favorite Senator Joe Lieberman has decided, based on some guy trying to set his underwear on fire on a flight to Detroit, that we need to go to war with Yemen.
“Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war,” Lieberman explained. “Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. That’s the danger we face.”Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), also appearing on the program, seemed to agree, calling an attack against Yemen “something we should consider.”
What these two double-douchebags fail to mention is that we’ve already attacked Yemen.
Do they really think we’re that stupid? I guess if you’re appearing on Fox, you can assume your audience IS that stupid, but c’mon. Just a few days ago we sent Tomahawk missiles into Yemen, slaughtering dozens of civilians. We also signed off on Saudi air strikes that had the same result — a slaughtering of civilians.
So yeah, let’s just ignore that for the time being, and maybe we can somehow retroactively justify something we’ve actually already done, based on some extremely flimsy evidence about this guy who tried to set his nutsack on fire on an airplane. Flimsy evidence? How can that be? Why would CNN be reporting on this 24/7 with it’s “Fear! Fear! Fear!” tactics if the evidence was flimy? Yemen is the enemy damnit! I heard it on TV!
Well, check this out from Chris Floyd:
Wow, that didn’t take long at all. Scant days after the American war machine took the cloaking device off its direct military involvement in Yemen, we have an alleged attempted terrorist attack by an alleged attempted terrorist who, just scant hours after his capture, has allegedly confessed to getting his alleged attempted terrorist material from … wait for it … Yemen!Yemen-trained terrorists on the loose in American airplanes! At Christmas! Great googily moogily! It’s a good thing our boys are on the case over there right now, pounding the holy hell outta some of them Al Qaeder ragheads! And to think, a few pipsqueaky fifth columnists had been starting to wonder why we were killing dozens of innocent civilians on behalf of an authoritarian regime embroiled in a three-way civil war on the other side of the world.
(snip)
And it must be true, right? I mean, just look at how well-sourced the NYT story is. “A law enforcement official” — Police captain? State trooper? G-Man? Traffic cop? — said that the alleged attempted terrorist said he’d got his “explosive chemicals” from Yemen. (Elsewhere in the paper, other unnamed officials told NYT reporters that the alleged material strapped to the alleged attempted terrorist was “incendiary,” not explosive. But who cares? “Bomb, Terror, Yemen!”)
Of course, the NYT noted that “authorities have not independently corroborated the Yemen connection claimed by the suspect” (nor, they could have added, have they independently corroborated that the claim was actually made), but still, the completely anonymous “law enforcement official” said that the suspect’s claim “was plausible,” and even added: “I see no reason to discount it.”
Well, it doesn’t get more solid than that, does it? They nailed that story down so tight you couldn’t pry it open with God’s own crowbar. An anonymous source confirmed the plausibility of his own claim. Man, that’s ironclad. It’s certainly good enough to light up the media firmament with headlines linking “terror in the Heartland” with the empire’s newest killing field in a volatile foreign land.
So yeah, with that kind of evidence, let’s go bomb a new country! Oh, wait, we already have. Shhh!
Dec 28 2009
Gaza lives on.
On December 27, 2008 (one year ago today), the Israeli government launched a brutal assault on the Gaza strip, killing an estimated 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and 14 Israelis, in less than 1 month. This clip was created by the Never Before Campaign in support of the Gaza Freedom March.
For more on the Israeli massacre of Gaza, Al Jazeera has the best timeline of events. I also recommend Amnesty International’s report, B’TSelem’s report, Human Rights Watch report, and The Goldstone Report.
Dec 28 2009
We have been warned
The underlying assumption that the current world monetary system is built upon is that America will always over-consume and the world will always accept our debt at face value. It’s a warped and unhealthy relationship, but its worked (sort of) for several decades. That’s why it was notable when a Chinese central banker spoke up last week.
“The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries,” Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. “Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible.”
Impossible? That’s absurd. For decades foreigners have been more than willing to exchange their excess dollars from trade surpluses for our debt in order to keep their currencies at artificially low levels.
It turns out that the problem isn’t foreigner’s willingness to lend to us.
“The US current account deficit is falling as residents’ savings increase, so its trade turnover is falling, which means the US is supplying fewer dollars to the rest of the world,” he added. “The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries.”
The problem is that the American middle class is broke and unable to continue to over-consume.
Dec 28 2009
Urban Myths
Myth-
Busted-
Using the most powerful explosives they could and a normal sized pen, the Mythbusters demonstrated that a pen bomb could be fatal. However, they needed an unrealistically large pen to completely destroy the top half of the foam dummy they used.
Myth-
Busted-
The pressure is not high enough and the hole is too small. Explosive decompression only occurred when a hole the size of a window was made with explosives. Even then, the rush of air could not suck Buster completely out of the hole. Lastly, there are proven instances of explosive decompression where the plane was still able to maintain control and land.
Fact-
Flight 253 terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s bomb was an explosive-packed condom sewn into underwear near his genitals, where al Qaeda operatives figured airport screeners were too squeamish to look, reports said.
What a package it was.
The condom was filled with a powdery substance called PETN — a relative of nitroglycerine. It was to be ignited by a liquid detonator substance, which Abdulmutallab tried to inject into the condom with a syringe, reports say.
Each time the U.S. bombs a new location in the Muslim world, the same pattern emerges. First, officials from the U.S. or allied governments run to their favorite media outlet to claim — anonymously — that some big, bad, notorious, “top” Al Qaeda leader “may have been” or “likely was” killed in the strike, and this constitutes a “stinging” or “devastating” blow against the Terrorist group. These compliant media outlets then sensationalistically trumpet that claim as the dominant theme of their “reporting” on the attack, drowning out every other issue.
…
Yet over and over and over, it turns out that these anonymous government assertions — trumpeted by our mindless media — are completely false. The Big Bad Guy allegedly killed in the strike ends up nowhere near the bombs and missiles. Sometimes, the very same Big Bad Guy can be used to justify different strikes over the course of many years (we know we said we killed him four times before, but this time we’re pretty sure we got him), or he can turn up alive when it’s time to re-trumpet the Al Qaeda threat (we said before we killed him in that devastating airstrike, but actually he’s alive and more dangerous than ever!!). Just like the “we killed 30 extremists” claim or the “we got Al Qaeda’s Number 3” boast, this is propaganda in its purest form, disseminated jointly by the U.S. Government and American media, and it happens over and over, compelling a rational person to conclude that it’s clearly intentional by both parties.
My advice?
Stop being a coke mule you C.O.B.R.A. agent, G.I. Joe is sure to capture you.
Bwah hah hah hah hah.
Crossposted @ The Seminal.
Dec 28 2009
Sunday Train: Why the CEI is Intrinsically Broken and How to Fix It
Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence
What is the CEI? It is the “Cost Effectiveness Index”, used to evaluate applications for capital improvements in transit. As described by Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic:
In reviewing transit capital projects to fund with New Starts grant money, the Federal Transit Administration evaluates proposals from a variety of perspectives. Since 2005, it has placed an overwhelming focus on one criterion, requiring a medium “cost-effectiveness” rating, which values predicted overall travel time saved by commuters likely to use the new service.
… but there’s a problem with that.
Dec 27 2009
the Jane Hamsher Front — Strike the Empire Back!
I know, I’m the pest who keeps complaining that, for all their heroic posturing, our progressive leaders have been pathetic in refusing to brandish any kind of retaliatory stick while begging the Democratic Party to not turn the healthcare bill into nothing more than the bloody stump of reform. And urging those outraged at those pathetic leaders to start figuring out how to hit the Democratic Party where it hurts.
Then along comes Jane Hamsher. For the record, I had criticized her in my intro to the Full Court Press as one of those progressive leaders who had caved in and was supporting the bill even without the “robust” public option she had once demanded. But then she turned around and came out 4-square for killing the Senate bill. And then, a few days ago, she joined with notorious scoundrel Grover Norquist to demand an investigation of Rahm Emmanuel for malfeasance regarding his relationship with Freddie Mac.
Well, I gotta say the lady’s got guts.
Her move follows one or both of two tracks. It could be seen as an innocent exercise in good government. Or it could be a counterpunch to the way Rahm and the White House have viciously sidelined progressives around, well, everything. Both are valid.
But working with Norquist! the Dems cry while clutching at their smelling salts. Okay, let’s look at the Democrats’ record. The Stupak amendment passed mostly with Republican votes. And then when the House Democrats passed its Stupak-laden bill, they made Stupak their own. They passed a Republican measure.
So the Obamacrats cry “teabagger!” Jane Hamsher is getting her money from Jack Abramoff! Next thing you know, she’ll be leading teabagger rallies. The charges are nonsense, but the underlying politic is worth some thought.
Make no mistake, the teabagger movement is a fascist-led, corporate-funded reactionary movement. But its success is in part a monument to progressive failure. While progressives had dreams of Obama-plums dancing in their heads, they ignored their working class base, which was outraged that Wall Street was getting bailed out while they were losing their homes. They distrust the Fed. They fear a distant government that might do things like, oh, mandating people to buy insurance they can’t afford. The teabaggers were able to merge this righteous anger with backward racist and sexist currents in the American people. Because progressives were asleep at the wheel!
Dec 27 2009
Afternoon Edition
Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Suicide attack at Pakistan Shiite procession kills 30
by Hasan Mansoor, AFP
Mon Dec 28, 11:43 am ET
| KARACHI (AFP) – A suicide bomber on Monday targeted Pakistan’s largest procession of Shiite Muslims on their holiest day, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens more in defiance of a major security crackdown.
The blast sparked riots in Karachi, the financial capital, where angry mourners went on the rampage, throwing stones at ambulances, torching cars and shops and firing bullets into the air, sparking appeals for calm. Pakistan had deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces, fearing sectarian clashes or militant attacks on Ashura processions, when Shiites whip themselves to mourn the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein. |
Dec 27 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
This Sunday’s Edition is being brought to you, one more time, by TMC. Hopefully ek hornbeck has survived the Holiday in Stars Hollow and will return to the news to its regular format. It was fun. 😉
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – There is no initial evidence that the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a U.S. passenger jet was involved in a larger plot, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.
But al Qaeda involvement is a “subject of investigation” in Friday’s incident, U.S. homeland security chief Janet Napolitano said after U.S. authorities on Saturday charged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, with attempting to blow up the plane by setting alight an explosive device attached to his body.
The suspect, who was being treated for burns at a Michigan hospital, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Northwest Airlines plane from Amsterdam on Christmas Day with almost 300 people on board.
“Well, right now we have no indication that it is part of anything larger. But obviously the investigation continues. And we have instituted more screening and what we call mitigation measures at airports,” U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
Asked whether al Qaeda was involved in the incident, Napolitano told ABC’s “This Week” program, “That is now the subject of investigation, and it would be inappropriate for me to say and inappropriate to speculate. So we will let the FBI and the criminal justice system now do their work.”
Dec 27 2009
Send Them a Message
It’s official. The USA Patriot Act is no longer the greatest social achievement of our time. The Baucus/Lieberman Perpetual Serfdom Act has just been awarded that distinction. Obama is immensely proud of it. “Pragmatic” progressives are saluting it. They’re telling us we should be grateful for the crumbs Democrats toss us, they’re ridiculing us for taking a stand on principle, they’re calling it “wanting our ponies”, they never shut up, their condescending lips are always flapping, their lips never stop flapping until police state decrees like this are issued from on high . . .
After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever.
Every time Obama channels Cheney and goes all medieval on us, his Obamabots fall silent. All we hear is crickets. Until the next greatest social achievement of our time is announced. Then the festivities begin anew and anyone who doesn’t join in gets burned as a witch.
For corporate fascists keeping score at home, that’s two great social achievements in one week! For “pragmatic” progressives, it’s one great social achievement and a minor disappointment. Nothing to dwell on. Clap louder and it’ll go away. For actual progressives, it’s the final evidence that we no longer have any choices left. There is only one way to fight back now. We have to boycott the major parties in the 2010 Midterms. Vote 3rd party. Vote for a write-in candidate. Take electoral action in whatever way you think is most effective.
Iranians can die for democracy . . .
But we can’t even boycott an election?
Don’t argue about it. Do it. Call it what you want. Get to work organizing it. Get to work publicizing it. Help in any way and every way you can or get the hell out of the way.
Democrats told us they couldn’t Impeach because “we don’t have the votes”. They told us they couldn’t pass single payer because “we don’t have the votes.” They told us they couldn’t give us a strong public option because “we don’t have the votes.” They told us they couldn’t even give us a watered down public option because “we don’t have the votes.”
When progressives boycott the Midterms, Democrats will discover the true meaning of “we don’t have the votes.” They’ve been using it as a bullshit excuse, we’re going to use it as a warning, as a nationwide declaration that we will no longer tolerate betrayal.
“Pragmatic” progressives will freak out, we’ll be lectured about “reality” by people who think that gutter they’re crawling in is the Yellow Brick Road to Incremental Change. They’ve been crawling in that gutter of “political reality” ever since their anti-Impeachment days. They weren’t worth listening to then and they never will be.
We’ve supported Democrats over and over again, election after election, but nothing ever changes. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is insanity. It’s insane to keep reelecting corrupt politicians who keep betraying us.