christian terrorist rudolph sentenced [but not tortured]

Juan Cole calls a spade a spade.

Finally, a victory in the war on terror.

Oh, and check out Wikipedia on Rudolph's religious background, one shared by others on the right.

Christian Identity

Especially this passage:

A relatively new tenet gaining popularity among some Christian Identity believers justifies the use of violence if it is perpetrated in order to punish violators of God's law, as found in the Bible and interpreted by Christian Identity ministers and adherents. This includes killing interracial couples, abortionists, prostitutes and homosexuals, burning pornography stores, and robbing banks and perpetrating frauds to undermine the "usury system."; Christian Identity adherents engaging in such behavior are referred to as Phineas Priests or members of the Phineas Priesthood. This is an appealing concept to some Christian Identity's members who believe they are being persecuted by the Jewish-controlled U.S. government and society and/or are eagerly preparing for Armageddon.

nanny nanny boo boo

News You Can Ewes: By the way, does everyone here know that Jude Law banged his nanny? And had to apologize for the bangin' to his fiancee? And that her publicist had no comment? And that Jude Law felt very very sorry for the trouble he has caused his family for having banged the nanny?

Or if that doesn't float your nanny boat, how about the nanny du jour?

From Atrios, nanny expert (but, oh, there are endless others):

Slimed by the Times

I'll have more later on why yesterday's wanker was deserving of such a high honor 'cause I think a lot of people don't quite get it.

Until then, here's more commentary on the subject:

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen

uranium from uranus

Josh Marshall sums up the Iraq-uranium link that so many Rove-Bush-Cheney-Scooter-Puppy-Eating Etc. Iraq War apologists are now returning to in the hope that our wee American memory-spans are already shot to hell by sharks, hurricanes, and runaway brides:

But why mess with preliminaries? The Iraq Survey Group more or less owned Iraq for more than a year, had access to all the evidence leading up the war, all the evidence in Iraq, all the scientists arrested by the US military, everything we've learned since the war. And, as Ivo Daalder pointed out a few days back, the ISG concluded that Saddam's regime had not sought uranium either at home or abroad since 1991, period.

What else is there to say?

Rove + Scooter = Jailhouse Love

Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson, LA Times.

Nuke 'em

Next time some talking head suggests that anti-war comments bolster the insurgent or terrorist or whatever cause, recite Tancredo's utterly inane remarks below. Next time someone blows off Muslim concerns about proliferating holy war, read them this. And next time you have the tiny little passing thought that maybe the right has a point in all this mess, remember this:

Congressman Suggests Way to Retaliate for Nuclear Terror

"Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

UPDATE (19 July 10:57pm):

Tancredo: No Apology

foreign fighters in the fight on foreigners

From the Boston Globe (courtesy of the Poorman):

New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank — both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States — have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.

The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush’s claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the "central front" in a battle against the United States. […]

American intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and terrorism specialists paint a similar portrait of the suicide bombers wreaking havoc in Iraq: Prior to the Iraq war, they were not Islamic extremists seeking to attack the United States, as Al Qaeda did four years ago, but are part of a new generation of terrorists responding to calls to defend their fellow Muslims from "crusaders" and "infidels." […]

Obaid said in an interview from London that his Saudi study found that "the largest group is young kids who saw the images [of the war] on TV and are reading the stuff on the Internet. Or they see the name of a cousin on the list or a guy who belongs to their tribe, and they feel a responsibility to go."

Other fighters, who are coming to Iraq from across the Middle East and North Africa, are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and have families, according to the two investigations. "The vast majority of them had nothing to do with Al Qaeda before Sept. 11th and have nothing to do with Al Qaeda today," said Reuven Paz, author of the Israeli study. "I am not sure the American public is really aware of the enormous influence of the war in Iraq, not just on Islamists but the entire Arab world."

Case studies of foreign fighters indicated they considered the Iraq war an attack on the Muslim religion and Arab culture, Paz said.

Here's the full article since the Globe is subscription-only: Study Cites Seeds of Terror in Iraq

unbearable lightness

Via Truthout:

July 14, 2005 | US Marine Lance Cpl. Angel Gomez holds up his left arm during a ceremony marking his becoming a citizen as his parents Paulino and Antonia Gomez stand behind him. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services gave Gomez his US citizenship after he was injured in an explosion outside of Baghdad, Iraq, in April. Gomez sustained head wounds and was unable to hold up his right arm during the ceremony.
(Photo: Paul Sakuma / AP)

Then check out these brave warriors:

Civilian Group Patrols Mexico Border

tour de france -- george!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, today was a thing of beauty in the Tour! Yes, Lance held on to the yellow, increased his lead over Ullrich. He basically wrapped up his 7th overall victory, barring accident in the days to come. Ivan Basso has basically wrapped up second. And Rasmussen rode a hell of a stage to possibly hold onto third overall (and definitely the polka dot climber's jersey) by keeping a decent amount of time between him and Ullrich for the upcoming time-trial (Ullrich can take back two or three minutes from Rasmussen in the TT).

But the biggest news of the day is George Hincapie. Took off in the early escape at the 27km mark, held on with a small group over five extremely difficult mountains, and raced to stage victory over Oscar Pereiro at the top of the nastiest climb of the day. No other Armstrong teammate has won a stage during Armstrong's tenure because the team has always worked for that overall classification -- Armstrong's place. Everything has been built around Lance. Hincapie has been the most loyal lieutenant one can ask for, and an all around good guy. He has deserved this stage win for years already and now finally has it. Many congratulations to George and to Discovery. A thing of sheer beauty.

Frank Rich on the Rove Affair

As usual, Frank Rich is deadly accurate and entertaining at the same time:

Follow the Uranium

mo' mangoes

Slow, tired night here in Washington, DC after a day of draining humidity. We'll dream of mangoes tonight.

Photo: Jim Richter

The CIA and Trust

A post from TPM Cafe worth reprinting in full:

The Intelligence Challenge: Can We Trust Our President?

By Larry Johnson

From: TPMCafe Special Guests

By Brent Cavan, Jim Marcinkowski, Larry Johnson, and Jane Doe

We trained and worked at the CIA with Valerie Plame. We presented the following statement at a hearing on Capitol Hill in October 2003. In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate.

Jul 15, 2005 -- 10:59:46 PM EST

We slogged through the same swamps on patrols, passed clandestine messages to each other, survived a simulated terrorist kidnapping and interrogation, kicked pallets from cargo planes, completed parachute jumps, and literally helped picked ticks off each other after weeks in the woods at a CIA training facility. We knew each other's secrets. We shared our fears, failures, and successes. We came to rely on each other in a way you do not find in normal civilian life. We understood that a slip of the tongue could end in death for those close to us or for people we didn't even know. We were trained by the best, to be the best. We were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. They may not appreciate what they have created.

Our joint training experience forged a bond of trust and a sense of duty that continues some eighteen years later. It is because of this bond of trust that the authors of this piece and two other colleagues, all former intelligence officers, appeared on ABC's Nightline to speakout on behalf of the wife Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a sensitive undercover operative outed by columnist Robert Novak. The Ambassador's wife (we decline to use her name) is a friend who went through the same training with us. We acknowledge our obligation to protect each other and the intelligence community and the information we used to do our jobs. We are speaking out because someone in the Bush Administration seemingly does not understand this, although they signed the same oaths of allegiance and confidentiality that we did.

Many of us have moved on into the private sector, where this Agency aspect of our lives means little, but we have not forgotten our initial oaths to support the Constitution, our government, and to protect the secrets we learned and to protect each other. We still have friends who serve. We protect them literally by keeping our mouths shut unless we are speaking amongst ourselves. We understand what this bond or the lack of it means.

Clearly some in the Bush Administration do not understand the requirement to protect and shield national security assets. Based on published information we can only conclude that partisan politics by people in the Bush Administration overrode the moral and legal obligations to protect clandestine officers and security assets.

Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer.

You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It's a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Ambassador Wilson's political affiliations are irrelevant. Political differences serve as the basis for the give and take of representative government. What is relevant is the damage caused by the exposure that Ambassador Wilson's wife as a political act intended to undermine Wilson's view.

It is shameful on one level that the White House uses the news media, its own leaks, and junior Congressmen from Georgia, among others, to levy attacks on Ambassador Wilson. Moreover they discount what he has to say, his value in the Niger investigation, and suggest his wife's cover is of little value because she was "a low-level CIA employee". If Wilson's comments or analysis have no merit, why does the White House feel the need to launch such a coordinated attack? Why drag his wife into it?

Not only have the Bush Administration leakers damaged the career of our friend but they have put many other people potentially in harm's way. If left unpunished this outing has lowered the bar for official behavior. Further, who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States? If we won't protect our own officers how can we reassure foreigners that we will safeguard them? Better human intelligence could prevent any number of terror incidents in the future, but we are unlikely to get foreign recruits to supply it if their safety cannot be somewhat assured. If more cases like Mrs. Wilson's occur, assurances of CIA protection will mean nothing to potential spies.

Politicians must not politicize the intelligence community. President Bush has been a decisive leader in the war on terrorism, at least initially. What about decisiveness now? Where is the accountability he promised us in the wake of Clinton Administration scandals? We find it hard to believe the President lacks the wherewithal to get to bottom of this travesty. It is up to the President to restore the bonds of trust with the intelligence community that have been shattered by this tawdry incident.

We joined the CIA to fight against foreign tyrants who used the threat of incarceration, torture, and murder to achieve their ends. They followed the rule of force, not the rule of law. We now find ourselves with an administration in the United States where some of its members have chosen to act like foreign tyrants. As loyal Americans and registered Republicans we implore President Bush to move quickly and decisively against those who, if not apprehended, will leave his Administration with the legacy of being the first to allow political operatives to out clandestine officers.

lamut

Photo: Jim Richter

tour de france -- a very difficult weekend

Here are the incredibly difficult Stages 14 and 15 (Saturday and Sunday) as the Tour heads into the Pyrenees. This is going to be a wild weekend on the Tour, the wildness most likely starting tomorrow about half way through this very long and hot stage. As Ivan Basso said, the Tour will be won in the Pyrenees. The attacks on Armstrong -- still in yellow -- are going to come by all the top contenders. Watch especially for Rasmussen, Basso, Moreau, and Vinokourov to make a go of it. Anyone who's not able to cut it this weekend is not going to be on the podium in Paris. If you are in the US and have OLN on cable, watch!

w and osama race to the bottom

Pew Charitable Trusts poll:

Most Muslim publics are also expressing less support for acts of terrorism in defense of Islam and less confidence in Osama bin Laden....


AP-Ipsos poll (July 11-13) [June results in parentheses]:

Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?

_Right direction, 36 percent (35)

_Wrong track, 59 percent (59)

_Not sure, 5 percent (6)

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

_Approve, 42 percent (43)

_Disapprove, 56 percent (55)

_Mixed feelings, 1 percent (1)

_Not sure, 2 percent (1)

helmut loves spongebob

Spongebob Pitching Fruits and Vegetables

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

insurgency

No shit:

8 Months After US-Led Siege, Insurgents Rise Again in Fallujah

Not until this war is recognized as propagating war -- a nationalist insurgency, if not civil war -- will it be possible to search for a solution to this disaster. You cannot kill and humiliate Iraqi nationalists in the name of liberating them or in the name of reconstructing a "stable" and "autonomous" Iraqi state. The problem with this recognition however, is that it would totally and publicly belie the administration's justification for and rhetoric of the war. This will not happen, thus the quagmire or Carrollian rabbit-hole the US is in.

science and political pressure

The Union of Concerned Scientists reports on political pressure on NOAA marine biologists. (thanks to kos for the reference).

• More than one third of respondents positioned to make such recommendations (37 percent) have “been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making findings that are protective” of marine life and nearly one in four (24 percent) of those conducting such work reported being “directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a NOAA Fisheries scientific document;”
• More than half of all respondents (53 percent) knew of cases where “commercial interests have inappropriately induced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions or decisions through political intervention;” and
• More than half of the scientists (58 percent) knew of cases “where high-level U.S. Department of Commerce administrators and appointees have inappropriately altered NOAA Fisheries determinations.” A substantial minority (42 percent) also cited incidents where members of Congress “inappropriately influenced NOAA Fisheries determinations.”

Britain and the US

I'm not so sure we shouldn't be standing 24 hours a day for Iraqis (25,000 to 128,000 killed, depending on the estimate), northern Kenyans, and others, in addition to Britons and nearly 2000 killed and 20,000 wounded American soldiers. No liberation anywhere to be seen. Move along.

James Wolcott writes,

We are quite willing to stand by our British brothers and sisters, as long as we can stand a good safe distance and still do our shopping.

To me, the greatest insult to the British and their losses was delivered today, all the more insulting because it was thoughtless and unintentional.

I was watching the news of the two minutes of silence held for the victims of the London bombings, a silent vigil held not just in London but across Europe.

"Britain's Queen Elizabeth stood in silence at Buckingham Palace. In London's Trafalgar Square, a giant banner declared 'One City, One World.'

"Taxis and buses pulled over, workers left their offices to stand in the street and financial markets paused to remember the dead.

"In Italy, government offices, railway stations and airports paused while television stations cut into normal broadcasting to honour the London dead.

"In Paris, President Jacques Chirac's annual Bastille day television address was put back so the French could mark the moment. Chirac stood silent on the steps of the Elysee Palace."

Has the United States or even simply Washington, DC held a silent moment for the victims of the London bombings? Has any national gesture of solidarity been proposed?

If so, I haven't seen or heard of it. We're just going about our business while insisting that the world perpetually acknowledge our scars and trauma from September 11th as our justification to wage whatever aggressive action we deem necessary to ensure it never happens again.

For months, we've been hearing and reading that Brits no longer discriminate between average Americans and the policies of our government--that the reelection of Bush has made them hold us in something of the same contempt they hold him. Well, they have good reason, and we keep furnishing them with better reasons all the time.

A Moroccan friend told me something similar just prior to the US elections last November. He maintained that most North Africans generally viewed Americans favorably despite the US having elected W the first time around -- the administration and the American people were held to be separate entities worthy of separate judgments. But if W was reelected, my friend had said, this view was going to change. Now, this is purely anecdotal information. But for many worldwide, the reelection was a genuine surprise and a kind of realization that Americans really do support American aggression abroad. We're not just stupid; we actually are aggressive. In addition to the real, concrete damage caused by administration policies, this view is not to be underestimated in terms of its long-term damage to the image and international policy-making of the US. Legitimacy is crucial at the international level in all kinds of ways, including getting what one wants, and it is largely a matter of perception of a global power as legitimate. The collapse of American legitimacy in its benign sense then entails a malignant form in which a state must take what it wants through sheer economic or military force. And the US is a wanting and self-regarding state.

See also my earlier post below on "us."

Aargh

Note this passage in an article from the NY Times:

The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity.

No comment on an ongoing investigation. But there's certainly more leakage. And who was this?

bananas

The dervishes flew into action today and I'm still reeling, even numb. The Rove spin has been fast and furious all day from all sides, all jockeying for that precious moment of enframing. All I can do is put the best face that I can on this mad dance. It might be an overly literal choice of photo, but look at it as interpretive dance.

Photo: Jim Richter

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is on Fresh Air today. Tune in or be my dog.

....

Here.

moral inversion

From Josh Marshall:

I think it's only late in the evening, when the email traffic slows and the other distractions fade, that I can really see and marvel at the collosus that is, as Brock calls it, the Republican noise machine, with its ferocity that is only surpassed by its nihilism.

Now we can see in full view what we've seen again and again in recent years, the favored tactic: terror by grand moral inversion, the lie so total and audacious that it almost knocks opponents off their feet.

John Kerry decorated war hero? No, coward and showboat.

We noted yesterday the great article by Josh Green in the Atlantic last year in which Josh chronicled the tactic as Rove practiced it in races he ran down in Alabama in the 1990s. In one state supreme court race his candidate went up against an opponent who'd developed an impeccable reputation on child welfare issues (he was a former family court judge). Once you understand the pattern, the strategy suggests itself. Rove orchestrated a whispering campaign to spread the word that the man was a pedophile. Like I said, audacious.

And so here now. Wilson, a whistleblower administration officials were trying to punish? A whistleblower calling out White House manipulated intelligence during the lead-up to war?

Not at all. Rove was the whistleblower trying to knock down a campaign of disinformation from Joe Wilson. The audacity of it is enough to knock some people off their feet. Like I said, terror by grand moral inversion.

And here we have them on their shows and newsprint boxes, having Plame simultaneously a glorified secretary and also a political operator scheming to upend the president's drive to war by sending her husband on a mission to Niger. What range!

The two words capture it: ferocity and nihilism, feeding off each other.

more about guantanamo and abu ghraib...

Abu Ghraib Tactics First Used at Guantanamo

...which puts to rest the administration's rhetorical defense that Abu Ghraib was a matter of a few bad apples. In fact, there is so much organized bad-apple-ness here that we may as well call it a policy.

things we learn from w

I'm working on a paper with a deadline of Friday from the publisher. They asked me how it was going. I told them I refused to comment on an ongoing investigation... hahahahahahahahhaha.

fruit - fish convergence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to realign the fruit kingdom and the seafood kingdom, which had formerly connected with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station of fish and fruit, in order to form a more perfect union, and to establish post offices and roads, it is necessary to present the tuna (yeah, the prickly pear). Quatre, or shi, or more appropriately cuatro, in fact. Count all four of them using your own unique counting utensils with the freedoms endowed upon us by the s'curity of the internets, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. Amen.

Thank you, Sean, for the beautiful convergence.

Remember also, the Safeway tomato has a flounder gene. But is it a fruit or a vegetable? ...Or a fish?

nani? or, rather, comment?

Tokyo Governor Sued for Insulting French

In their suit, the plaintiffs accused Ishihara of saying: "French is a failed international language because it cannot be used to count numbers."

Really, I think it depends on how many numbers you want to count. If you want to count 387 numbers, you can use one number or 387 numbers in French. You could also build simple equations such as 200 + 187 or 587 - 200. The possibilities are endless, therefore Ishihara is incorrect. But, true, counting numbers is hard work. On a given day, I have so many numbers pass by my desk that I just don't have time to count them all, let alone in French.

talk, countertalk, scream,...

Nice roundup of reality-based responses to faith-based talking points about Rove spewing like a burst dam from the administration. The Left Coaster does the work.

it ain't the first time

The LA Times reports on Bush Sr. firing Rove for leaks.

and, by the way, environmentalists are terrorists too

In an old and probably outdated poll, something like 85% of the American population called itself environmentalist. (I'll find a cite). Of course, this can mean anything from not littering to recycling to enjoying natural beauty to fighting for carbon emission reductions or biodiversity conservation to vandalizing SUVs, etc. But these chuckleheads think environmentalists are nazi terrorists. The "us" grows smaller every day.

128,000 iraqis

An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.

Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.

'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.

The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im. 'Iraqiyun's figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies' database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.

the logic of suicide terrorism

Maybe I'm nostalgic for the old-timey patrician bigotry of the right and tone-deaf from the screetching pop bigotry of Coulterish banshees, but Pat Buchanan's The American Conservative sometimes prints articles that make sense. See this interesting interview with Robert Pape on suicide terrorism. See also my earlier post.

foxes and chickens

From American Progress Action Fund:

ABUSE -- NO ACCOUNTABILITY: Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the top military official who oversaw detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, will not punished in any way. The LA Times reports that "military investigators recommended that the former commander of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be reprimanded for his role in detainee mistreatment at the facility, but a top Army general rejected the conclusion." The decision "in effect closes the book on the Pentagon's examination of detainee abuse worldwide."

keyboard kommandos

Keyboard Kommandos from the Poor Man.

famous norwegians

Helmut, dear reader, comes from half sturdy Norwegian stock (in addition to Kafkasian Czech, thank god). As Norwegian-American, we have retained our mystical traditions of lefsa, klub, and, uh, that's it. There's some kind of Christmas cookie I can't remember the name of. We are very proud of our long line of famous Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans. These include Thor Heyerdahl, Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch, Edvard Grieg, Liv Ullman, Gro Brundtland, and Arne Naess. Among Nor-Amers, we have James Arness, Robert Bly, Norman Borlaug, Blossom Dearie, Babe Didrikson, James Cagney, Leif Ericson (according to Wikipedia), Ole Evinrude, Andrew Furuseth, Ivar Giaevar, Conrad Hilton, Garrison Keilor, Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Eliot Ness, Knut Rockne, Ole Rolvaag, Karl Rove, Jan Stenerud (Wikipedia calls him a "legendary kicker"), Thorstein Veblen, Renee Zellweger,....

Whaaa...??!! Karl Rove???!!! Oh, the bellary! I'm giving up klub. Damn you, Leif Ericson!

UPDATE (14 July):

Thor Hushovd

karl rove, turdblossom

Just joking. Here's a durian.



Photo once again by Jim Richter. Thanks, Jim.

war reservations

A good pal of Helmut, DL, sends this article from the Washington Post: A Hawk Questions Himself as His Son Goes to War. I think it's poignant, but that there's also a lot wrong with it. For now, give it a read.

oysters

How about a little love, people? WD, Phronesisaical's at-large food columnist, has sent a photo of an oyster being shucked by two giant hands. What's more sexy than that?


UPDATE (12:13am, 13 July):

Helmut here. Upon quiet and not unintense reflection, I'm a little depressed with the breakdown in tropical fruit unity. If anyone has any photos they would like to post that would restore the balance (I don't know, Thai shrimp and lime?), please help us out here.

mehlmaniacal

Grandma "I Ain't Got Cable" Dan does Mehlman and other shining points of light, citing Betsy's Page:

"And don't get on me about how terrible it was to out a CIA agent's name. As far as I understand, she had a desk job here in Virgina. She wasn't undercover and as the mother of toddler twins probably wasn't heading out undercover for a long time. If Wilson had been so worried about his wife's name he would have stayed quiet. Apparently, lots of people knew that she worked for the CIA and he had to know that that would come out if he started putting himself forward to oppose Bush's policy. Especially, since he had to know that he was mischaracterizing what he found out in Niger. And if he was truly so mortified, perhaps he wouldn't have posed for Vanity Fair with his wife." [Helmut: Dan sent me a link from my Great Aunt Betsy -- it's brilliant (if you're into the master-slave dialectic and stuff like that) in her lovable glass menagerie kind of way: Betsy's Page].

I like the idea that if your wife works for the CIA you are under a virtual gag-order lest you piss somebody off and they pay you back by intentionally endangering your wife's life. He should have known that's what would happen. Pig. Perhaps lots of people did know. Her coworkers knew. Maybe some close friends. But none of those people published the information in a nationally syndicated column.

Thanks to Dan for this informative comment. Dan is the winner of yesterday's fruit: the papaya.

little incentive to nab bin laden

Ahmed Rashid in the International Herald Tribune.

mehlman calls in from upside-down land

"It's disappointing that once again, so many Democrat leaders are taking their political cues from the far-left, Moveon wing of the party. The bottom line is Karl Rove was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise and the Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks." -- Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee

Oh... oh! I see. Man, were we wrong. How can we make it up to you, Karl? Doughnuts?

tour update

How about that.... Discovery has had a strong ride today, destroying the field. Armstrong is now out ahead with three other riders. The T-Mobile guys are all behind by over a minute with about 7km left on Courchevel.

UPDATE:
Valverde of IBanesto wins a sprint with Armstrong to the line at the top of Courchevel with Mancebo and Rasmussen coming in a bit behind them. Armstrong will have put a minute on Basso, and over two minutes on Ullrich and Klöden. Still not sure where Vino ended up. But his relatively poor ride is very surprising. Anyway, Armstrong will be back in the yellow jersey. Nice rides by Mancebo and Valverde today, as well as Lance.

UPDATE:
Oops. IBanesto no longer exists. It's now Illes Balears, as my official fact checker and unofficial grandma, Dan, reminds me. Illes Balears is Valverde's team.

more from corruption land

Iraq is a mess in so many ways. Way number 1364.

rove on, dudes

The liberal blogworld is a-twitter over Karl Rove and the Plame outing. The issue is even starting to grace the country's editorial pages. For some blog and editorial comment, see here, here, and here. You can hunt out the rightwing defenses on your own.

Me, I'm waiting to see if we'll get the public execution we so richly deserve. Leaking classified information and exposing agents, where the leak has real national security consequences (Plame was, after all, undercover and working on WMD issues), amounts to treason, right? Treason is punishable by death in the United States. Let's toss in a Bushism and say anyone harboring traitors is equally guilty. Now add a dash of at least circumstantial evidence that W has known all along who was responsible for the leak while, of course, doing the tough-guy bit and saying he'd get to the bottom of it and toss out the culprit (this was two years ago, remember), and we've possibly nailed not only Rove, probably Scooter Libby and Cheney, but also Bush. Now that's a precious little creampuff ready for public consumption. Bush, during his governorship in Texas, was one of the biggest and most exuberant American executors of all time.

Raise the gallows!

nice....

Via Josh Marshall:

No longer operative.

From this morning's gaggle ...

Question: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove -- Karl Rove was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose? -- involved?

McClellan: This is -- no, I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.

Question: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.

McClellan: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Question: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?

McClellan: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it, nor is --

McClellanN: -- any remorse?

McClellan: -- nor is the White House, because the President wanted us to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that's what we're doing.

Question: That's not an answer.

Question: It's not an answer. And you were perfectly willing to comment from that podium while the investigation was going on, and try to clear Karl Rove. Why the double standard? Why were you willing to say Karl Rove was not involved when -- and talk at length about it, when the investigation was going on, and now that he's been caught red-handed, all of a sudden you've got a new line?

McClellan: No, I don't think it is the way you characterize it, as new, because I have said for quite some time that this is an ongoing investigation, and we're not going to get into discussing it while it's an ongoing investigation. I've really said all I'm going to say on it.

Question: But you did -- you did discuss it while it was an ongoing investigation. You stood there and told the American people Karl Rove wasn't involved.

McClellan: I've said all I'm going to say on it. Go ahead, April.

tour de france -- the real mountains begin!

Today was a rest day in the Tour de France. Tomorrow's Stage 10 is the first big mountain day -- the Alps begin. The mountains are where things really get exciting for the overall classification and this year should be a great battle. Armstrong is strong as usual, but his Discovery team showed signs of weakness in lesser mountains on Saturday (though they won the team time-trial days earlier). Armstrong has won his six Tours through teamwork. Yes, he's great in the individual time-trial and very strong in the mountains, but he has always had other great riders on his team to help him through the mountains. This year could be tougher given Saturday's performance where Armstrong was left without teammates to fend off attacks from the mighty T-Mobile riders (Ullrich, Vinokourov, and Klöden), and the terrific riders on CSC. In pre-stage interviews, T-Mobile and CSC are making lots of noise about attacking Armstrong. With the T-Mobile lads, the powerful CSC riders (Basso, Julich, and Sastre), Floyd Landis and Santiago Botero on Phonak, Roberto Heras and Joseba Beloki of Liberty Seguros, the entire Basque team of Euskaltel, and a host of other darkhorses as challengers, this could be one of the best series of mountain stages in years. It's an incredibly difficult pick this year, but Vinokourov ("Vino") looks very very good. Ivan Basso could be correct in his assessment that the Pyrenees will actually decide things this year, but I say look for the attacks to come fast and furious tomorrow on the unforgiving Courchevel. Yummy.

do all terror victims count equally?

Given the near absence of any American media coverage of the Srebrenica anniversary, we go to the Tehran Times for a discussion on the 10th anniversary: Srebrenica massacre: a dark page in history. See also Malaysia's New Straits Times: Srebrenica buries its dead, but not its pain after ten years (AFP).

Jerusalem and Terrorism

Juan Cole has a rather lengthy (for my blog) post on the proposed wall in Jerusalem. Worth reading....

Jerusalem and Terrorism

The Ariel Sharon government in Israel has announced that it will build a huge wall on someone else's land through Jerusalem, cutting off 55,000 Arabs from the city (they'll have to go through nasty Israeli checkpoints every day to get into their own city!)

This is land theft on a massive scale. Worse, it is theft on a stage of sacred space that affects the sentiments of over a billion people. Whether Westerners like it or not, Jerusalem is considered by Muslims their third holiest city, and Israeli theft of the whole thing drives a lot of them up the wall. A partitioned Jerusalem where the Arab east is connected to the West Bank is the only route to peace. Sharon in his usual aggressive, grabby way, is trying to make that forever an impossibility.

And, folks, this sort of thing, which the Washington Post didn't even notice, may very well get you and me killed. I think what Sharon is doing is morally and politically wrong to begin with. But I sure as hell resent the possibility that I or my family is going to get blown up because of it.

You want to know what causes terrorism? Well, in part it is caused by deviance, by people so warped that they will take innocent lives in a wicked quest to achieve some political or religious goal. In part, terrorists are like bank robbers. Bank robbers desperatedly want to be rich, but for one reason or another think they are very unlikely to get rich through their ordinary activities. Likewise, terrorists, break the law, both moral and civil, to get what they want. In that sense they are criminals, or, as I say, deviants. But they are not motiveless and do not act out of free-floating generalized hatred for the most part. They have a specific goal in mind.

Terrorism is also caused when one country militarily occupies another country. That is, it is the military occupation that provides a lot of terrorists with their goal (i.e. to free their country from foreign military occupation). Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has shown that the vast majority of suicide bombings in the past 30 years have come in response to foreign military occupation (or what the terorists perceived as such). Back in the late 50s and early 60s, the Algerians and the French were locked in such a struggle. The French killed nearly a million Algerians (in a population of 11 million), and the Algerians blew up a lot of French. When the French recognized Algeria as an independent country in 1962, the struggle quickly subsided and by 1963 Algeria wasn't even a big subject in French newspapers.

The Israeli military occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza from 1967 has caused an enormous amount of terrorism in the world. It hasn't been the only such source by any means. The Tamil Tigers, a group based in Sri Lanka (used to be called Ceylon), blew up Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and engaged in many other terrorist operations in Sri Lanka and India. It is a Marxist group and in some ways pioneered the suicide bombing. Because Sri Lanka and its concerns seeem so remote to most Americans, most people here don't even know about the Tamil Tigers. But if the US went in and militarily occupied the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka, all of a sudden we'd be seeing bombs go off against US targets. I guarantee it. That is not to say it would be right. But it is to say that that is how reality works (reality cannot be simply manufactured in the White House, contrary to what Scooter Libby thinks).

The Israeli Jerusalem Barrier project will have similar effects. It keeps inside itself a major Israeli settlement on Palestinian land that Sharon has recently announced he will greatly expand (probably using American money at least in part).

Because al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers do not speak in the language of Palestinian nationalism, it has been possible for certain quarters to obscure to the US public that they are absolutely manically fixated on the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. This is what Bin Laden meant way back in the 1990s when he denounced the foreign military occupation of "the three holy cities." Here is what Bin Laden wrote in 1998 when he declared war on the US:

' Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula. '

If this is a big part of what is driving the radical Muslim fundamentalists' violence, then Sharon's announcement on Sunday is guaranteed to produce a terrorist strike. If what Sharon is doing were the right thing, morally and politically, then he should do it anyway and we'll just soldier on against the terrorists. But it is wrong in the first place, wrong morally, and wrong in international law and an insult to the United States in completely departing from the roadmap.

How obsessed Bin Laden & company are with what goes on in Palestine is obvious, as I said last week, in the 9/11 commission report:

' According to KSM, Bin Ladin had been urging him to advance the date of the attacks. In 2000, for instance, KSM remembers Bin Ladin pushing him to launch the attacks amid the controversy after then-Israeli opposition party leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. KSM claims Bin Ladin told him it would be enough for the hijackers simply to down planes rather than crash them into specific targets. KSM says he resisted the pressure.

KSM claims to have faced similar pressure twice more in 2001.According to him, Bin Ladin wanted the operation carried out on May 12, 2001, seven months to the day after the Cole bombing. KSM adds that the 9/11 attacks had originally been envisioned for May 2001. The second time he was urged to launch the attacks early was in June or July 2001, supposedly after Bin Ladin learned from the media that Sharon would be visiting the White House. On both occasions KSM resisted, asserting that the hijacking teams were not ready. Bin Ladin pressed particularly strongly for the latter date in two letters stressing the need to attack early.The second letter reportedly was delivered by Bin Ladin's son-in-law,Aws al Madani. '

That is why our press and politicians do us an enormous disservice by not putting the Israeli announcement about the Jerusalem Barrier on the front page. This sort of action is a big part of what is driving the terrorists (and of course Sharon himself is a sort of state-backed terrorist anyway). The newspapers and television news departments should be telling us when we are about to be in the cross-fire between the aggressive, expansionist, proto-fascist Likud Coalition and the paranoid, murderous, violent al-Qaeda and its offshoots.

Eisenhower called up DeGaulle and told him to get the hell out of Algeria, on a short timetable, or else. I wish Bush had Eisenhower's spine when it came to dealing with Ariel Sharon.

------

green zone, baghdad

Baghdad Burning (blog by an Iraqi computer programmer in Baghdad), in a 21 June post, describes some of the Iraqi sentiment towards the American "Green Zone" in Baghdad:

What people find particularly frustrating is the fact that while Baghdad seems to be falling apart in so many ways with roads broken and pitted, buildings blasted and burnt out and residential areas often swimming in sewage, the Green Zone is flourishing. The walls surrounding restricted areas housing Americans and Puppets have gotten higher- as if vying with the tallest of date palms for height. The concrete reinforcements and road blocks designed to slow and impede traffic are now a part of everyday scenery- the road, the trees, the shops, the earth, the sky... and the ugly concrete slabs sometimes wound insidiously with barbed wire.

The price of building materials has gone up unbelievably, in spite of the fact that major reconstruction has not yet begun. I assumed it was because so much of the concrete and other building materials was going to reinforce the restricted areas. A friend who recently got involved working with an Iraqi subcontractor who takes projects inside of the Green Zone explained that it was more than that. The Green Zone, he told us, is a city in itself. He came back awed, and more than a little bit upset. He talked of designs and plans being made for everything from the future US Embassy and the housing complex that will surround it, to restaurants, shops, fitness centers, gasoline stations, constant electricity and water- a virtual country inside of a country with its own rules, regulations and government. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Republic of the Green Zone, also known as the Green Republic.

"The Americans won't be out in less than ten years." Is how the argument often begins with the friend who has entered the Green Republic. "How can you say that?" Is usually my answer - and I begin to throw around numbers - 2007, 2008 maximum... Could they possibly want to be here longer? Can they afford to be here longer? At this, T. shakes his head - if you could see the bases they are planning to build- if you could see what already has been built - you'd know that they are going to be here for quite a while.

The Green Zone is a source of consternation and aggravation for the typical Iraqi. It makes us anxious because it symbolises the heart of the occupation and if fortifications and barricades are any indicator- the occupation is going to be here for a long time. It is a provocation because no matter how anyone tries to explain or justify it, it is like a slap in the face. It tells us that while we are citizens in our own country, our comings and goings are restricted because portions of the country no longer belong to its people. They belong to the people living in the Green Republic.

papaya

You saw this coming. The signs were clear, the occasion auspicious, world events ominous. You couldn't sleep, you couldn't concentrate. You desired it. Yes, papaya.



Photo: Jim Richter

Japanese "Cool Biz costumes" and global warming

Japanese news tends to fall under the radar for Americans now that Japanese corporations are no longer buying up US golf courses. But here's one of Koizumi's more interesting and amusing proposals to help solve global warming. 'Cool Biz' dress code spreads through halls of promotion. It's the way Japanese businesspeople dress! Fewer ties and suits and more mirthful sporty sunshine shirts will help reduce air conditioning and thus greenhouse gas contributions. This is an advance over the "Energy-Saving Look" of the late 70s, and factories are jumping into production of "Cool Biz."

Blowback

It's fairly simple: can one win a war by continuously helping to create and motivate the enemies you're supposed to defeat? Even if you confuse different kinds of wars as a strategy for motivating your own side?

Blair's blowback

Cut 'n Run

Reuters gets a very interesting story on Iraq troop withdrawals (link thanks to Juan Cole of Informed Comment):
UK Memo Says US, UK Readying Iraqi Withdrawal

Testimony

A leather jacket, a sense of humour

Claude Simon....

The great Claude Simon has died [in French]:

Le Prix Nobel de littérature Claude Simon est mort

"The Database"

Atrios and Truthout caught this:

Robin Cook: Terrorism can't be beaten by force

the poignant get your war on

The mighty Get Your War On gets serious.

terrorism is good for us

You know, let's chat for a moment about the Fox humanoids' commentary about the London terror attacks being good for us ("works for us" or at least "time to buy"). [click the Fox links in the post below]. What they mean is found by parsing "us." I actually don't think terrorism is good for "me" (or friends or family or all other humans) and I didn't think "time to buy" or that I was sorry French people weren't killed instead. I'm certainly not one of the "us." I suspect not many of us are us. Kind of like saying that Fox News is news or a Fox journalist is a journalist.

So who are these vile people who think such things? A certain set of Republicans, those nasty cur ones that somehow came to dominate our world, and who want to maintain their status through any means necessary, including celebrating the deaths of over forty people in the UK. One supposes, in the oddest of twists, that it actually might not have "worked" so well for "us" if the victims were French or the folks inside the New York Times building. So, killing French would have been better because they are less us, but bombing us-like Londoners works better.

What else can we say about them (or, rather, "us")? Well, that it's best if those ostensibly closest to us -- such as our allies -- are killed because that "works for us, to our advantage." Now that's a truly odd way to fight a war on terror. It's like strapping a bomb to yourself and saying this works for me. The difference is that the cause of "us" is best advanced by our friends dying rather than ourselves. Otherwise, who would maintain the vacuous feedback loop pomposity of the right? That alternative would be like evolution or natural selection or somethin'. No, the war on terror should be fought by terrorizing ourselves and our best buddies. That's what works, that's intelligent design. It keeps us afraid. And because we're afraid, we're willing to pseudo-justify just about anything, including beating non-us people to death, making them shit all over themselves, and various other forms of humiliation, torture, and murder. We're willing to let loose our bigotry into the public and assume it is right and okay to do so because of the terror through which we terrorize ourselves into our own shitty pants (or at least I know that John Gibson at Fox poops his pants). And that makes for good journalism.

But, of course, it's bigger than Fox journalashmism. "Us" here is an upside-down state of mind and a twisted kind of community -- the administration's meaning of the "everything changed" world turned upside-down by 9-11. Join "us" is the message. Terror is the medium. Islamic fundamentalists do the labor. You're either with us, or you're against us.

another book plug

Quixotism: The Imaginative Denial Of Spain's Lost Empire (Suny Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture)

mangosteen encore

Photo: Jim Richter

comments on london from the fair and balanced

MyDD does a tally of Fox comments regarding the London bombings: good business, good for the American ego and WOT project, too bad they didn't kill French people, you're not a real citizen if you come from an Arab background.... Nice. Fox News: making the liberal media look better all the time. Thank you, Fox.

Fox on London Attacks

the magnificent mangosteen

Also by Jim Richter

flypaper, iraq, and the sucking sound

A lot of blogpeople have posted this graph of terrorist attacks over the past decade (courtesy of BTC News). I will too. It's suggestive (the black bar is 2000, when W was selected; mauve represents 2004). Remember, one of the three hundred variations on some ten or so trumped up reasons for invading Iraq was that the country would draw in terrorists on non-American soil to do battle with the mighty US military in a winner takes all war on terror (WOT). Remember "bring it on"? Oops. What we have in Iraq is an insurgency supported by some non-Iraqi fundamentalist terrorists. In some cases the insurgency is comprised of religious fundamentalists, but in many cases it is comprised of anti-occupation nationalists. In the latter case, terrorism was created by occupation. Read the "Guantanamization" link below on Bush wanting to keep bases in other central Asian countries against their will and then think again about the occupation of Iraq....

London today is a terrible thing. As was Madrid, as was 9-11, as was Paris in the 80s, as was.... There is no doubting that. The question is about what to do to stop such attacks. This administration doesn't have a clue. This is a simple, pragmatic point: terrorist attacks have increased over the lifespan of this administration. Time for another approach. And, frankly, that's going to mean engaging in a much better understanding of who the terrorists are as well as a much better understanding of the countries the US presently occupies. Maybe it also means not invading and occupying countries? That would likely be quite helpful.

UPDATE:
Here is another graph courtesy of the very interesting Terrorism Knowledge Base. You can create graphs yourself using a number of different variables. The one at the link uses terrorist attacks, both domestic and international, for the period of 1998-2005. Apparently, domestic (internal to any country, not just the US) attacks were not counted until 1998. This particular graph may give a better picture of the rise in attacks than the previous one copied above. But you can also explore these for yourself and find other information and data on terrorism at this invaluable site.

UPDATE:
Oh well. The graph link above no longer works. It will take you to the page from which you can do your own, however.

london...

Juan Cole at Informed Comment has a good, brief analysis of today's attacks:

Implications of London Bombing

And, of course, Fox has one of the most evil and asinine of commentaries. Via Atrios of Eschaton:

John Gibson of Fox

damn scottish bikes

W was wearing a titanium tuxedo at the time. The policeman appears to be OK, thank god.

Bush Has Bike Accident

happy travels

Happy travels to my friends Kory and Devrim in Turkey.

the market at work in iraq

Costs for Halliburton's Iraq Services Rise

sigh...

From Filmmaker in Los Angeles to Iraq Detainee

UPDATE (10 July):

Iranian-American filmmaker freed in Iraq

computer security stuffses

Here are some standard browser and security programs you should download and use. They'll help keep your personal computer more secure. I have no stake in any of these, but have found them all to be helpful. First and foremost, you should already have active anti-virus software on your computer. Below are additional steps you can take.

Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/ (I've been using this browser for a while and it makes a huge difference security-wise). Automatically alerts for updates. Quit using Internet Explorer and use this browser. Making the transition from IE, importing bookmarks, etc. is very simple (File>Import...>Import Explorer Bookmarks). There are also several different skin themes and extensions, so you can make it look different than the default if you prefer. But the most important thing is that most viruses are made for IE, and using Mozilla eliminates most of these threats (and has a default popup blocker). There was a recent report on a virus made for Mozilla, and they dealt with it immediately with a security update. You can make it your default browser, though Microsoft will open IE when you run Microsoft updates (which you should continue to do regularly). The only drawback I've found is that some forms online -- like signing up for a newsletter -- were created in IE and sometimes Mozilla can't read the forms.

Spybot: http://www.spybot.info/en/download/index.html -- you do updates manually, but it's pretty easy: click the updates button. This program found some non-threatening things on my computer when I first ran it, but hasn't found anything since. I'm not sure how useful it actually is, but some IT folks suggest having it.

Ad-Aware SE Personal: Download at: http://www.download.com/
SE Personal is free, the other versions have a charge. Maintain the updates.

RegCleaner: http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/reg-cleaner4.3.htm (made by a fellow in Finland, this is nice software -- goes into the registry and gets rid of dead entries; you can also check the startup programs for junk you don't need -- run the complete cleanup from Tools>Registry Cleanup>Do them all). They've gone into the business of charging for their software, but this older freeware version is still available, and works well. Do not, however, delete things when you are not certain even if the program does backup deleted files.

All of these are respected programs and open-source. If you worry about this kind of thing and the fake software online posing as spyware, check out the site Spyware Warrior: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/.

limes

Photo by Jim Richter, Razzle Dazzle (Lime).

Guantanamization?

Central Asian States Ask
When US Troops Will Leave

torture in iraq

Great...

grim world of new Iraqi torture camps

G-8 skepticism from George Monbiot

George Monbiot discusses the G-8 meeting and Make Poverty History campaign. An article worth reading:

Africa's new best friends

giggles

Chirac's reheated food jokes bring Blair to the boil

Delicious snottiness on Chirac's part. But I think it's rather worse for poodleboy Blair to have to give W lapdances all night. The UK press is assiduously trying to ignore this latter reality by getting pissy back at the French. Good show, old chaps!

john tierney, socialist urban planner

Tierney: Your Land Is My Land

grunt

Eh? Read this and let me know what Kristof is saying. I suspect it's a case of dunderheadedness.

Kristof: Bush, Friend of Africa

MIT weblog survey

Persecution News from RedStateWorld

UN one planet atlas....

Interesting atlas from the UN re changes in the environment.

(Here's the link for cutting and pasting or click the title above -- there have been some mysterious tech problems with this link):
>http://www.na.unep.net/OnePlanetManyPeople/index.php< href="http://http//www.na.unep.net/OnePlanetManyPeople/index.php">

By the way, fuck Bush and fuck the media. There is no debate about global warming.

UPDATE: Could it be? From The Guardian:
US close to climate concessions
Look, climate change is real, has scientific basis, and has clearly anthropogenic causes. There is a wee bit of debate regarding the nature and quantity of anthropogenic climate change, but it's negligible in the face of the problem. The worst polluting state, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases, is the United States. There is, of course, a huge debate over what to do and how best to do it. The Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is not a panacea. Kyoto calls for a global 5% reduction in carbon emissions with 1990 levels as the baseline for emissions. Since the US has greatly increased emissions over the 1990's and 2000's, this reduction would mean that the US take serious measures. So there is reason to be wary of Kyoto. But the reason is that Kyoto doesn't do enough; not the other way around. Proponents of the Kyoto Protocol maintain that it's a solid first step. This may also be true. But it will require real commitment on the part of the US.

One of the central arguments the US administration uses for criticizing Kyoto is that developing countries such as China and India are exempt from Kyoto reductions. There is merit to this claim. But there is also merit to the argument that atmospheric problems are the result of long-term industrial development on the part of the "developed" countries, not the result of Chinese or Indian industrial development. The question of responsibility has to be included into any kind of accord. This shouldn't exempt major industrializing countries from taking their own steps at carbon emissions reductions, but it does mean that the bulk of the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the industrialized states. The principal state here is the US. Since this administration takes no action, it is irresponsible and the president's claims are specious. The claim about lack of scientific evidence or the developing countries argument are really quite superfluous in the face of the long-term problem of climate change. And, fundamentally, this is going to require Americans to think differently about economic life.

A good website for following climate change research, arguments, policy suggestions, etc. is Real Climate:

UPDATE:
By the way, fuck Exxon too.

UPDATE:
Ah, yeah, well, whatever.... But Bush at least reluctantly admits the existence of science via a papal decree by one of his "sherpas":

Bush rejects Kyoto-style deal at G-8 summit

Another by the way: Sherpas are an ethnic group of Nepal originally from Tibet. They live mostly in the east of the country around Namche Bazaar and elsewhere near Everest. The word "sherpa" basically means "easterner" in Tibetan. Anglophones climbing the eastern mountains (namely, Everest) hired Sherpa people who lived in the region as porters. Many have become some of the best climbers in the world, and the first person to summit Everest was a Sherpa: Tenzing Norgay, who climbed the mountain with Sir Edmund Hillary. One can hire a porter anywhere in Nepal, but they may be from the Gorkha, Thakali, Dhangar, Chepang, or any number of other ethnic groups. But the word "sherpa" has come to mean in English something like "anyone who carries your bags." It's a bit like saying, if you lived in Mexico and had a cook, that anyone who now makes something for you is your "Mexican" or saying that someone who cooks for you while you're in Bolivia is your "Mexican."

a good life

Baseball Legend's Son Takes His Turn at Bat

a few thoughts on conservatism and progressivism

In an essay on the political ideology of conservatism, Anthony Quinton writes that "a conservative will not be an absolutist, except to the extent that the tradition of his society is an absolute one. But absolutism, the idea that the sovereign is free from all constraints of the law, perhaps by reason of a supposed divine right to rule, is at odds with conservative respect for the interpersonal wisdom embodied in laws and the constitution." (Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy). Conservatism, if a rejection of theory is, for Quinton, a "disposition" against change rather than a philosophical theory or ideology aspiring to universal political principles. As such, however, it is "more reductively, an expression of the self-interest of those who benefit from the status quo" which, of course, plays back into the resistance to change. That is, conservatism's fundamental position regards the quality of change where significant change may indeed occur, but is qualitatively acceptable to the extent that the interests of the status quo are preserved.

If one takes a more libertarian strain, the best defender was Robert Nozick. But even Nozick admitted the philosophical limitations to the theory he laid out in his classic Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

There is no philosophical basis for conservatism. Not that the world of American politics cares about philosophical consistency or coherence, but conservatism's lack of strong intellectual grounds should provide a resource for those committed to progressive ideas. Personally, I'm a philosophical and sometimes political pragmatist, so I have no interest in foundationalisms or absolutisms of any sort. But the present administration's positions are radically relativistic, the very thing they supposedly disdain. Its "philosophy" is inconsistent, incoherent, and, as we know well, dangerous. The more theoretical engagement, however, is largely lacking from current debates. As such, what we tend to have are screeds on the progressive side of American politics, and a religious-ideological coup on the right (the absolutism above). What progressives ought to be doing is re-explaining and defending - from the most practical and simple terms to the most theoretical and abstract - progressive principles and ideals and progressive policies. Really, there's very little of this. Let's get into a philosophical debate. We will win because genuine governance is about the population of a country or other political entity, not about defending the self-interest of a few. Nearly all indicators, exacerbated by this administration, point to the defense of the self-interest of a decreasing number of people and their apologists - the Iraq War, Social Security, education, tax policy, the deficits, religiously framed policy battles, etc. That simply has to be hammered into the heads of an electorate that is diverse, not unintelligent (but rather fooled into simplistic trickle-down, anti-bureaucracy formulations), and losing their future security. Show how it is indeed a matter of security, but rather than stimulate citizen's fears then pose as a savior, progressives need to show why the longer term can be made more secure by sound economic, military, and social policies. The trenches are certainly one place to do this. But the big picture has to be built and publicized, with real practical effects and theoretical depth. And it has to be communicated honestly and courageously - we know these latter two virtues are missing from this administration. And, frankly, it doesn't even draw upon the best that conservatism does have to offer such as the anti-absolutism regarding divine right and respect for law and constitution discussed above.

torture

One of my current projects is putting together an edited book on torture. Contributors include Tzvetan Todorov, Barbara Ehrenreich, Juan Goytisolo, Margarita Serje, and about eight others. It should be interesting. I'd like to discuss torture here periodically during the next year and would greatly appreciate comments.

For starters, from a philosophical-ethical view there is no coherent justification for torture except, questionably, from the abused "ticking time-bomb" analogy. Certainly not from Kantian positions based in the fundamental dignity of human beings. An exception could be one qualified by lex talionis (eye for an eye). This argument has been used to defend capital punishment: in brief, one gives up one's claim to human dignity when one violates the universal rule that would apply to others whom one has terrorized or tortured or whatever. The penalty aspect then comes from LT -- what to do with this violation? Eye for an eye. But this argument doesn't apply to Abu Ghraib, for example, because, as US generals have admitted, perhaps some 80-90% of "detainees" (itself a consciously chosen term by the administration) were caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, without any guilt in the first instance, a justification for torture based on the Kantian-lex talionis combo claim above appears to have no basis whatsoever. In this instance, in fact, if we assume widespread torture and abuse, most of the victims are innocent. Those who are guilty may be found guilty but only after the fact of torture and not prior, as would be necessary to make the claims above.

From a consequentialist point of view, I think things are a little trickier. It appears clear that if there's a ticking time bomb and someone is tortured who gives you the information on where that bomb is and you thus save thousands of lives with the info gained from torture, then there's a case to be made. But it's unclear in practice whether this case holds up. First, in the Abu Ghraib case, it's clear that the outcomes of the use of torture have largely been to strengthen the insurgency in Iraq, help to recruit further fighters -- Iraqi and foreign -- to the cause of battling the American occupation, and has demolished respect for the US worldwide, not to mention its moral standing in the international sphere. These all have extremely negative short-term and long-term consequences. Second, torture is famously ineffective. The person who is tortured will say anything to make it stop whether the information is true or not.

I can't imagine that we can find justification for torture in other ethical approaches such as virtue theory, feminist ethics, pragmatism, etc.

So, what's the point in torture? It's one of the worst things human beings do to each other -- perhaps the paramount abuse of other humans. It's why we end up with odd formulations in capital punishment that killing people who have killed is okay, but "cruel and unusual punishment" in addition to capital punishment is beyond moral bounds. Clearly, if we're looking to consequences, the Abu Ghraib cases and the legal contortions of the Gonzalez memo, etc. suggest that there are some beneficial outcomes in mind on the part of the administration. I have no idea what these could be.

I read a piece by Naomi Klein recently (forgot where) in which, in a bit of a throwaway line, she notes that one of the popular shows on al-Arabiya (the Iraqi tv network set up by the Americans) is one where claimed Iraqi insurgents with their faces bruised confess to their crimes. In a situation in which it looks pretty clear that there are no benefits for the US of condoning and carrying out torture, such that some Republicans are complaining about "negative media coverage" of the war (and, really, any kind of criticism) as a kind of treason, why would the US televise clearly beat-up prisoners? Is there a larger goal here?

Anyway, some preliminary thoughts on torture.... Please feel free to comment.

UPDATE:
Check out this column on torture from yesterday's Washington Post: OpEd

hits

Pop the champagne. This blog has now had ten unique visitors. The diamond anniversary, or amethyst, or wet paper bag, or whatever. I don't know if any of you will ever return, especially all you big Lleyton Hewitt fans. But, if you do, please consider clicking on the Make Poverty History link at the upper right corner. They (a coalition of organizations, including Oxfam, etc.) do good work. You can add to your rubber bracelet collection, and even get one in Welsh that's not rubber.

book plugs

Some book plugs:

Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared (European Horizons Series)

The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism (Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy)

The Internet In Public Life (Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy Studies)

Representative Practices: Peirce, Pragmatism, and Feminist Epistemology

Price, Principle, and the Environment

Supremes

From Dailykos:

Whatever happens with the Supreme Court nomination battle that is about to ensue, it's going to happen fast. Here are some things you can do right now:

• If you have a cell phone, sign up for People at the American Way's Mass Immediate Response site. This way, you'll be able to receive text message action items instantly as events break. (If you signed up during the nuclear option fight, you'll need to re-sign up.)

• Also sign up with the Save the Court, another PFAW website devoted specifically to this issue.

• Recruit friends and family members to the cause.

• Write to the President, telling him he should choose a consensus candidate to replace O'Connor.

• Contact your Senators to tell them the same thing.

Update: Pew has polling at 30% for overturning Roe v. Wade, 63% for keeping it (in a mid-June 2005 poll). This issue is thus political and will require political pressure on Congress (if indeed the Administration does genuinely consult Congress).

"In 1973 the Roe versus Wade decision established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?"

          Yes    No    Unsure
6/2005    30     63      7
1/2003    31     62      7