Jan 18, 2009
Jan 17, 2009
Jan 14, 2009
Nuremberg principles
Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950, and forming the cornerstone of international law:
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.
Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
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The SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) signed with the Iraqi government over the objections of many Iraqis, significantly Muqtada Al Sadr, is in many respects a meaningless document, according to many US commentators. US forces will not, apparently, move out of Iraqi cities as agreed; they will stay where they are, but be called “Support troops” rather than “Combat troops.”
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Similarly, the fifteen thousand or so prisoners in US jails, which must, now they fall under Iraqi, not US, law, be either charged with a crime or released, will continue to languish in their prisons, if the Iraqi government agrees to this, as demanded by the US.
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By coy admission of US news reports, it is the US which is behind Ukraine’s blocking of the gas which Russia had turned on again. A very odd situation, since Russia now insists that only a new pipeline completely bypassing Ukraine can solve the problem. Not only missiles aimed at it from Poland and the Czech Republic, but the cause of freezing people throughout eastern Europe, and probably of the complete disarming of its Ukrainian proxy. The bankrupt US clearly has no wish for friendly relations with the main depositary of oil and gas in the world, far larger than Saudi Arabia.
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Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that Iran is not trying to make nuclear weapons, and that even if Iran had them, they would be useless against the two hundred Israel has, and the thousands in the USA. Iran’s real crime is the proposed Oil Bourse, trading oil in currencies other than dollars: no more “mint in your backyard” by possessing the only petrocurrency. That horse has already bolted, however. Only one third of China's trade is export business. Two thirds is domestic consumption, and the current financial chaos has resulted in a fall of three per cent in export business. The dire predictions of financial disaster for China as exports to the US dry up are something of a joke - in its reporting as in its treaties and agreements, US statements are hardly worth the paper they are written on or the breath required to make them. China has allowed its currency to be used for inter Asian trade, and the best Washington can hope for is to be included in a basket of currencies used as the new reserve.
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Timothy Geithner is by no means “the only man in Washington who understands the TARP program.” Many people understand it very well. Mr. Hank Paulson, previously head of Goldman, Sachs was made head of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) as a temporary hire of the federal government, and given power to over rule all existing government agencies. $350 billion was distributed to the banks. Many institutions rushed to declare themselves banks, including GMAC, the department of General Motors previously arranging financing for purchasers of GM cars. Space for parking all the GM cars that no one wants to buy is running short, and GMAC is advertising on TV for people to deposit money with them, with what success is not known. By one professional estimate, $200 billion would have been sufficient to buy all the troubled mortgages overhanging the economy. None of the banks have said what they have done with their share of the $350 billion, and the Treasury has similarly given vague and repetitive answers to congressional questions on what happened to the $350 billion. No one is willing to say what happened to the money. (Mr. Bernie Madoff is mailing boxes of jewellery and checks to his friend and family and Ms. Condy Rice has a very large haul of diamonds presented to her during official visits to Middle Eastern countries.) A second tranche of $350 billion for Mr. Obama to dispose of is waiting.
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The coming administration of the little Luo certainly needs to protect its own existence, and the limitation of inauguration contributions to $50,000 and the complete banning of contributions from lobbyists were very impressive. An honest man, apparently. The closing of Guantanamo is also positive. The US refused to give up its lease of the land from the Batista regime that Castro overthrew, and Castro has never cashed any of the checks regularly sent by the US under its Batista agreement. Will they now admit the Batista regime has gone, and hand the land back to Cuba?
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Above all, the incoming administration can not dodge the question whether they are going to investigate, and punish, contraventions of the law by the previous administration. (The appointment of Admiral Blair, who aided and supported the slaughter of the Timorese by General Wiranto, - How dare they vote for independence! - as Obama’s head of Intelligence is not promising.)
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Without that, any administration can use the Bush continuation of Nixon’s “If the president did it, then it's legal” as precedent.
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“Mr. Obama’s pick for attorney general, the mild-looking Eric Holder, may be the key figure in the early months of the new government. If he doesn’t commence some aggressive investigations and prosecutions – beginning with Henry Paulson for insider trading when he was in charge of Goldman Sachs and shorting his own company’s mortgage-backed securities – [which he invented, by the way – ed.] then the whole Obama enterprise could fall under suspicion of illegitimacy.” The Daily Reckoning 12/23/08
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Iraqi victims are unanimous that US torture is far, far worse than that of Saddam. Hillary Clinton’s hearing in the US Congress (“protecting women”) makes it clear that the Pathan treatment of women a thousand miles away will be used as the justification for the Palestinian slaughter, and the Congressional “non-binding resolution” is a gleeful, jeering support of the Israeli campaign in Gaza. What disgusting people!
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What goes around comes around – don’t whine then.
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The people at the Pentagon better hope they win, since at the Nuremberg Trial the Charter of the International Military Tribunal shows what is a hanging offense if they lose.
Quote:
Quote:
(a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
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(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
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(c) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
Jan 11, 2009
The saddest thing
The Gaza operation is an internal political exercise, without military objectives.
An election is looming in Israel, a fear driven country like the USA of the last eight years. Benny Netanyahu and Likud might easily win. We have to demonstrate our strong military posture, our credentials. We have this tank of captives, like trout in an expensive restaurant; and so Tzipi Livni (She used to be a civil rights lawyer? Wow!) rushes off periodically to Cairo to sit with pudgy Husni Mubarak and make sure the southern gate is kept shut, and the fish do not flood out, and well fed Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expires now.
We could try out some depleted uranium ammunition – go right through a concrete wall, that will, and some of those neat white phosphorus bombs, and bunker busters for the tunnels. We’ll show we’re tougher than Netanyahu. We can be trusted with defense.
Fear needs a meal to reassure and calm the hunger, and so the ghoulish sacrifice is made. The fish launch homemade barbs towards their homes, with Turkish era ownership certificates, now called Ashkelon and Ashdod. Real people have to rush into their comfortable shelters when the alarm sounds? Outrageous.
Not too many casualties on our side, public opinion won’t stand for it. No house to house inner city fighting – too risky. Carefully slotted in to the three week inauguration run up, Karl Rove style. Leaflets to say “Run, fish” to show we care. No military objective. We’ll show that Netanyahu up.
An election is looming in Israel, a fear driven country like the USA of the last eight years. Benny Netanyahu and Likud might easily win. We have to demonstrate our strong military posture, our credentials. We have this tank of captives, like trout in an expensive restaurant; and so Tzipi Livni (She used to be a civil rights lawyer? Wow!) rushes off periodically to Cairo to sit with pudgy Husni Mubarak and make sure the southern gate is kept shut, and the fish do not flood out, and well fed Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expires now.
We could try out some depleted uranium ammunition – go right through a concrete wall, that will, and some of those neat white phosphorus bombs, and bunker busters for the tunnels. We’ll show we’re tougher than Netanyahu. We can be trusted with defense.
Fear needs a meal to reassure and calm the hunger, and so the ghoulish sacrifice is made. The fish launch homemade barbs towards their homes, with Turkish era ownership certificates, now called Ashkelon and Ashdod. Real people have to rush into their comfortable shelters when the alarm sounds? Outrageous.
Not too many casualties on our side, public opinion won’t stand for it. No house to house inner city fighting – too risky. Carefully slotted in to the three week inauguration run up, Karl Rove style. Leaflets to say “Run, fish” to show we care. No military objective. We’ll show that Netanyahu up.
Jan 9, 2009
Letters to an ancient friend
7 Jan 2009
Yep, sounds OK, except that "The US is bound forever to preservation of a Jewish state" which it isn't. It was the spear created in 48 to serve roughly the ends Ahmedinejad specifies for the reasons you mention, but the spear has long ago taken control of the hand, and in the end might does not make right, justice for European Jews is not achieved by these means, however you define that justice, any more than you noticed any burkas around in your year in Jordan; those are all transparent scams such as Israel has the right to defend itself but the Gazans don't.
I'd say "Apart from the fact there are rather too many Madoffs around in the community," only it isn't apart, of course. It's exactly the same thing. Pointing out other miscreants in other communities doesn't make it right. And there is in fact almost zero "common economic and cultural values" (except for the original purpose of creating a pseudopod for US domination - you'd be on better ground to claim that for the Irish and the US, but no one has so far suggested America must always support Sinn Fein) just as it makes no sense to claim that somehow Jewish people have the right to terrorize people without connection to their sufferings in Europe, as Netturei Karta, other anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and practically all Sephardis would point out. It's irrelevant.
7 Jan 2009
Subject: And finally
The view you’re proposing “All Israelis are essentially Americans, and all Americans are essentially Israelis,” is, I notice, precisely the one endlessly promoted on my expensive TV, and it is a recipe for unending warfare, quite literally.
I’m quite used to that but I don’t have to like it. I’m rather happier with the current situation where the Brits and Germans may have hard thoughts about each other, but we’re not quite in the 1939 – 1945 situation. We won, after all. There was never any doubt which side I or my mother and father were on, but that doesn’t stop my noticing that it was the Brits and their cronies that made the whole situation almost unavoidable by the impossibly vindictive conditions they imposed at the Versailles conference after WWI; Maynard Keynes resigned from the commission for exactly that reason.
Similarly I never had any doubt I was on the side of the Irish, i.e., the Catholic Irish, the IRA, whose lives had been comprehensively smashed by the Black and Tans – as a senior Brit Embassy official once put it to me, “As an Englishman he reserved the right to be anti British,” though he may, of course not have meant by that what I do, and I regard the present situation where the IRA is becoming more of a political party in Stormont as an improvement over blowing up hotels where Mrs. Thatcher was due to be staying. Just my personal preference of course.
The point being that I never had any doubt that Mr. Schickelgruber had to be stopped by extreme violence, even though some at least of his opponents were responsible for creating the situation in the first place, nor that the Irish had to take rather more extreme steps to halt the Brits than forming a political party. I just prefer it when they’ve got beyond that point.
So the question Cui bono, who is profiting, seems to me to be vital in the current American preference for unending warfare, possibly nuclear. “To eradicate the jihadists” as you put it is clearly impossible – a quarter of the world’s population, roughly, is not going to lie down and die just because the Americans would like that. The progress visible from Yasser Arafat living in his ruined HQ in Ramallah under the guns of Israeli tanks, to the present situation in Gaza is considerable, however. Fatah was looked to for construction after hostilities when you were in Jordan, but it never got beyond the hostilities because Fatah were never a serious opponent – they relied on conferences and resolutions and negotiations and such and got decimated on a permanent basis, fleeing from one country to another, and ending with the Israeli tanks outside the window in Ramallah. Like Hezbollah, Hamas is a different proposition.
For the Gaza situation I rely on Olmert to screw up badly – a lesson to all of us that if you have military rule, never accept any one below the rank of a full colonel.
It’s the collapse of the US economy that will pull the rug from under the Israelis. They can and will try for alliances with some of the totally corrupt Arab regimes. (Remember the video of the troops blocking the entrance to voting centers in areas where Mubarak was expected to do badly? A very blatant Middle East uptake of the Bush election rigging. “No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria.” The question is how long Mubarak can survive without the generous US donations, even allied to the Israelis.)
Obama’s tax rebates and rebuilding the infrastructure employment programs depend on a further two trillion or so borrowing. Borrowing only works with a lender and attitudes are hardening. Russia’s attitude to the Ukrainian (I won’t even speculate which of the usual suspects is behind that) gas cut off from eastern European countries is “Let them freeze.” Obama has no magic wand. Further borrowing will come at a greatly increased interest rate and other conditions tightening the screw further. As the unavoidable price controls get put in, with lengthening queues and emptying shelves at supermarkets, and a flourishing black market emerges (seamlessly penetrated by the Madoffs of the day) the impression will grow “Things were better under Bush.” So they were. Running the country like a banana republic means, however, existing like a banana republic in the end.
Plans for massive increases in military spending may have to be shelved. No doubt efforts will be made to have other countries pay for the seven hundred plus US bases (On the Clausewitz principle of having the oppressed pay the costs of their oppression) but an enthusiastic response seems unlikely.
9 Jan 2009
Subject: You're an intelligent well informed guy
and I regard the back and forth between us not so much as an argument between two people as an effort to elicit a tight reply to standard presentations and attitudes. That way we're both performing a useful function, and I believe is the real skeleton on which all this drossy flesh rests.
The forty million Pathans have, it is quite true, some tribal practices peculiar to them. These include the burqa, cannibalism when convenient, and a generally brutal attitude to their womenfolk which is probably secretly envied by the pussywhipped Americans.
The first thing to notice about this is that these elements have remained essentially undisturbed for centuries, show no sign whatever of being changed, and it is a ludicrous piece of arrogance to claim that any western power is somehow justified in slaughtering the Pathans en masse, as both the Yanks and the Brits have been doing for centuries, because they happen not to like these tribal traits. It is also highly dishonest, of course, since the Brit pursuit of the "great game," and its American cousin, the adolescent "war on terror," have very obvious global aims to which these tribal habits are irrelevant. The central position of Kabul, capital city of the first Mogul (Moslem) emperor of India, from which he ruled all of India, while pursuing a policy of total religious tolerance as the best way to achieve prosperity and stability, that central position remains crucial. That neither Alexander, the Brits, the Russians, or anybody else ever achieved any more than a temporary hold on arguably the toughest people in the toughest environment on earth strongly suggests nothing will change.
The second thing to notice is that to use the Pathan tribal practices a thousand miles away to justify and explain seizing Palestine and corraling its inhabitants for slaughter at leisure is a fair measure of the woefully low level of current western dialogue, or rather monologue, since one side controls the main media outlets. That very few apart from the paid presenters of that view (and those for whom gullibility is necessary or advantageous) really believe it strongly suggests it can not be maintained in the face of any opposition.
That only leaves "might is right," (if one ignores for the moment the juvenile "turn it into a sea of green glass" arguments of the "Prince of Darkness," Richard Perle and his PNAC buddies), the great power arena.
Working westwards, the visibly cordial relations between China and Taiwan have destroyed the main western crowbar in the area, Russia has supplied Iran with an advanced missile system that makes an Israeli airstrike impossible, Kashmir/Pakistan/India remains an open wound but without much western leverage, only agonized apprehension, and Ahmed appears correct, the frontline is Palestine now. That's even without considering (from the top down) the current best estimate that 500 ppm (parts per million carbon/methane/et al) will be reached by 2050 - 300 feet higher ocean level the last time that was so, or NY, DC, and London no longer exist - and imminent bankruptcy looming for all western countries with financial power shifting to Asia. Assuming Obama survives assassination attempts, he'd probably prefer NOT to have a nuclear war against Russia/China.
The pathetic current attempts of the above Prince of Darkness to deny he or his buddies ever said any of the things they're voluminously documented as saying suggests reality is beginning to bite. No one really cares whether richly deserved hangings take place or not. Ye're on yer own, just like all the rest of us. Good luck.
Yep, sounds OK, except that "The US is bound forever to preservation of a Jewish state" which it isn't. It was the spear created in 48 to serve roughly the ends Ahmedinejad specifies for the reasons you mention, but the spear has long ago taken control of the hand, and in the end might does not make right, justice for European Jews is not achieved by these means, however you define that justice, any more than you noticed any burkas around in your year in Jordan; those are all transparent scams such as Israel has the right to defend itself but the Gazans don't.
I'd say "Apart from the fact there are rather too many Madoffs around in the community," only it isn't apart, of course. It's exactly the same thing. Pointing out other miscreants in other communities doesn't make it right. And there is in fact almost zero "common economic and cultural values" (except for the original purpose of creating a pseudopod for US domination - you'd be on better ground to claim that for the Irish and the US, but no one has so far suggested America must always support Sinn Fein) just as it makes no sense to claim that somehow Jewish people have the right to terrorize people without connection to their sufferings in Europe, as Netturei Karta, other anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and practically all Sephardis would point out. It's irrelevant.
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7 Jan 2009
Subject: And finally
The view you’re proposing “All Israelis are essentially Americans, and all Americans are essentially Israelis,” is, I notice, precisely the one endlessly promoted on my expensive TV, and it is a recipe for unending warfare, quite literally.
I’m quite used to that but I don’t have to like it. I’m rather happier with the current situation where the Brits and Germans may have hard thoughts about each other, but we’re not quite in the 1939 – 1945 situation. We won, after all. There was never any doubt which side I or my mother and father were on, but that doesn’t stop my noticing that it was the Brits and their cronies that made the whole situation almost unavoidable by the impossibly vindictive conditions they imposed at the Versailles conference after WWI; Maynard Keynes resigned from the commission for exactly that reason.
Similarly I never had any doubt I was on the side of the Irish, i.e., the Catholic Irish, the IRA, whose lives had been comprehensively smashed by the Black and Tans – as a senior Brit Embassy official once put it to me, “As an Englishman he reserved the right to be anti British,” though he may, of course not have meant by that what I do, and I regard the present situation where the IRA is becoming more of a political party in Stormont as an improvement over blowing up hotels where Mrs. Thatcher was due to be staying. Just my personal preference of course.
The point being that I never had any doubt that Mr. Schickelgruber had to be stopped by extreme violence, even though some at least of his opponents were responsible for creating the situation in the first place, nor that the Irish had to take rather more extreme steps to halt the Brits than forming a political party. I just prefer it when they’ve got beyond that point.
So the question Cui bono, who is profiting, seems to me to be vital in the current American preference for unending warfare, possibly nuclear. “To eradicate the jihadists” as you put it is clearly impossible – a quarter of the world’s population, roughly, is not going to lie down and die just because the Americans would like that. The progress visible from Yasser Arafat living in his ruined HQ in Ramallah under the guns of Israeli tanks, to the present situation in Gaza is considerable, however. Fatah was looked to for construction after hostilities when you were in Jordan, but it never got beyond the hostilities because Fatah were never a serious opponent – they relied on conferences and resolutions and negotiations and such and got decimated on a permanent basis, fleeing from one country to another, and ending with the Israeli tanks outside the window in Ramallah. Like Hezbollah, Hamas is a different proposition.
The arms merchants supplying both sides profit, of course, and any one else who has an interest in reducing viable countries to piles of rubble and corpses. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks. That they have to be stopped goes without saying for their own sake as well as every body else’s– no one survives unless they are. And negotiations are pointless until the ability to hand out bloody noses has been established, as the Russians did in Georgia.
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8 Jan 2009
Subject: And worse
McCain’s ludicrous “the economy is strong” forms the subtext of the official happy talkers; to get a realistic view you have to go to marginal people like Peter Schiff, whom I recommend to your attention.Subject: And worse
For the Gaza situation I rely on Olmert to screw up badly – a lesson to all of us that if you have military rule, never accept any one below the rank of a full colonel.
It’s the collapse of the US economy that will pull the rug from under the Israelis. They can and will try for alliances with some of the totally corrupt Arab regimes. (Remember the video of the troops blocking the entrance to voting centers in areas where Mubarak was expected to do badly? A very blatant Middle East uptake of the Bush election rigging. “No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria.” The question is how long Mubarak can survive without the generous US donations, even allied to the Israelis.)
Obama’s tax rebates and rebuilding the infrastructure employment programs depend on a further two trillion or so borrowing. Borrowing only works with a lender and attitudes are hardening. Russia’s attitude to the Ukrainian (I won’t even speculate which of the usual suspects is behind that) gas cut off from eastern European countries is “Let them freeze.” Obama has no magic wand. Further borrowing will come at a greatly increased interest rate and other conditions tightening the screw further. As the unavoidable price controls get put in, with lengthening queues and emptying shelves at supermarkets, and a flourishing black market emerges (seamlessly penetrated by the Madoffs of the day) the impression will grow “Things were better under Bush.” So they were. Running the country like a banana republic means, however, existing like a banana republic in the end.
Plans for massive increases in military spending may have to be shelved. No doubt efforts will be made to have other countries pay for the seven hundred plus US bases (On the Clausewitz principle of having the oppressed pay the costs of their oppression) but an enthusiastic response seems unlikely.
_______________________________________________
9 Jan 2009
Subject: You're an intelligent well informed guy
and I regard the back and forth between us not so much as an argument between two people as an effort to elicit a tight reply to standard presentations and attitudes. That way we're both performing a useful function, and I believe is the real skeleton on which all this drossy flesh rests.
The forty million Pathans have, it is quite true, some tribal practices peculiar to them. These include the burqa, cannibalism when convenient, and a generally brutal attitude to their womenfolk which is probably secretly envied by the pussywhipped Americans.
The first thing to notice about this is that these elements have remained essentially undisturbed for centuries, show no sign whatever of being changed, and it is a ludicrous piece of arrogance to claim that any western power is somehow justified in slaughtering the Pathans en masse, as both the Yanks and the Brits have been doing for centuries, because they happen not to like these tribal traits. It is also highly dishonest, of course, since the Brit pursuit of the "great game," and its American cousin, the adolescent "war on terror," have very obvious global aims to which these tribal habits are irrelevant. The central position of Kabul, capital city of the first Mogul (Moslem) emperor of India, from which he ruled all of India, while pursuing a policy of total religious tolerance as the best way to achieve prosperity and stability, that central position remains crucial. That neither Alexander, the Brits, the Russians, or anybody else ever achieved any more than a temporary hold on arguably the toughest people in the toughest environment on earth strongly suggests nothing will change.
The second thing to notice is that to use the Pathan tribal practices a thousand miles away to justify and explain seizing Palestine and corraling its inhabitants for slaughter at leisure is a fair measure of the woefully low level of current western dialogue, or rather monologue, since one side controls the main media outlets. That very few apart from the paid presenters of that view (and those for whom gullibility is necessary or advantageous) really believe it strongly suggests it can not be maintained in the face of any opposition.
That only leaves "might is right," (if one ignores for the moment the juvenile "turn it into a sea of green glass" arguments of the "Prince of Darkness," Richard Perle and his PNAC buddies), the great power arena.
Working westwards, the visibly cordial relations between China and Taiwan have destroyed the main western crowbar in the area, Russia has supplied Iran with an advanced missile system that makes an Israeli airstrike impossible, Kashmir/Pakistan/India remains an open wound but without much western leverage, only agonized apprehension, and Ahmed appears correct, the frontline is Palestine now. That's even without considering (from the top down) the current best estimate that 500 ppm (parts per million carbon/methane/et al) will be reached by 2050 - 300 feet higher ocean level the last time that was so, or NY, DC, and London no longer exist - and imminent bankruptcy looming for all western countries with financial power shifting to Asia. Assuming Obama survives assassination attempts, he'd probably prefer NOT to have a nuclear war against Russia/China.
The pathetic current attempts of the above Prince of Darkness to deny he or his buddies ever said any of the things they're voluminously documented as saying suggests reality is beginning to bite. No one really cares whether richly deserved hangings take place or not. Ye're on yer own, just like all the rest of us. Good luck.
Dec 31, 2008
An infallible test
Here is an infallible test to decide terrorism in any case where large numbers of people (Humans – genus homo) are destroyed:
If the humans are destroyed by missile strikes, smart bombs, or any automatic machinery, it is the people killed who are the terrorists, and those operating the machinery are innocent victims. This is especially true if the killing machinery is entirely human-free, such as robot drones firing hell fire missiles.
If the humans are destroyed, on the other hand, by other humans, who may also destroy themselves in the process as in the case of suicide bombers, then it is the humans destroyed who are the innocent victims, and those doing the destroying who are the terrorists.
Cousin strands of genus homo, such as apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans (orang hutan = “people of the trees”) need not be considered because although they have the necessary two legs, two arms, and head configuration, none have any known experience of manufacturing explosives.
If the humans are destroyed by missile strikes, smart bombs, or any automatic machinery, it is the people killed who are the terrorists, and those operating the machinery are innocent victims. This is especially true if the killing machinery is entirely human-free, such as robot drones firing hell fire missiles.
If the humans are destroyed, on the other hand, by other humans, who may also destroy themselves in the process as in the case of suicide bombers, then it is the humans destroyed who are the innocent victims, and those doing the destroying who are the terrorists.
Cousin strands of genus homo, such as apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans (orang hutan = “people of the trees”) need not be considered because although they have the necessary two legs, two arms, and head configuration, none have any known experience of manufacturing explosives.
Dec 20, 2008
Iran's nuke
"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse." ---Mark Twain.
“According to an article published Thursday in the New York Times, "Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts."
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Little physics here, folks.
"ALL reactor fuel, with "added purification", can be used in a nuclear weapon.
"It is the "added purification" which is the issue.
"Is Iran actually doing "Added purification"? The IAEA says no. And it is not as trivial as the article implies. Nuclear fuel (what Iran is making) is enriched to 3%. Weapons-grade uranium needs to be enriched to 95% or higher. The required equipment, energy, and time needed to go from 3% to 95% is enormous, orders of magnitude larger than that needed for reactor fuel. And impossible to conceal (except under the Dimona reactor, which is, unlike Iran, safe from IAEA inspections.)” Mike Riviero
The present stockpile of US nuclear weapons is sufficient to destroy the entire planet many times over, but Mr. Paul Wolfowitz recently recommended greatly increasing US nukes, and Mr. Gates, Bush’s Secretary of Defense, kept on in Mr. Obama’s cabinet, shares this view.
Quote of the month
“Those people could be offering free bacon flavored aphrodisiacs and there’d be no takers.” (Courtesy Ms. Rachel Maddow)
“According to an article published Thursday in the New York Times, "Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts."
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Little physics here, folks.
"ALL reactor fuel, with "added purification", can be used in a nuclear weapon.
"It is the "added purification" which is the issue.
"Is Iran actually doing "Added purification"? The IAEA says no. And it is not as trivial as the article implies. Nuclear fuel (what Iran is making) is enriched to 3%. Weapons-grade uranium needs to be enriched to 95% or higher. The required equipment, energy, and time needed to go from 3% to 95% is enormous, orders of magnitude larger than that needed for reactor fuel. And impossible to conceal (except under the Dimona reactor, which is, unlike Iran, safe from IAEA inspections.)” Mike Riviero
The present stockpile of US nuclear weapons is sufficient to destroy the entire planet many times over, but Mr. Paul Wolfowitz recently recommended greatly increasing US nukes, and Mr. Gates, Bush’s Secretary of Defense, kept on in Mr. Obama’s cabinet, shares this view.
Quote of the month
“Those people could be offering free bacon flavored aphrodisiacs and there’d be no takers.” (Courtesy Ms. Rachel Maddow)
Dec 19, 2008
The Palestinian Prime Minister
Mr. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and previously for many years Chancellor of the Exchequer or Finance Minister, has achieved the sort of results for the British economy that we have come to expect from our financial experts.
Earlier this week he appeared on newsreels with someone whose name I forget (let us call him Mr. Abu Flan) who was headlined as “Palestinian Prime Minister.”
Now the Palestinian election was chiefly remarkable, not only for the fact that one party won in a landslide, but that it was the only election world wide to take place without allegations of vote rigging, charges of corruption, or other objections, and was agreed by all independent monitors to have been entirely free and fair.
Mr. Abu Flan clearly came from the party that lost the election. What happened to the party that won the election, the freely elected government of the Palestinians? I note a BBC news headline this morning “Palestinian militant Islamist group in Gaza to end six month cease fire with Israel.”
How did this happen?
I think that one morning as Mr. Brown was shaking his Rice Crispies into his cereal bowl one of those plastic kiddy toys fell out, and when he picked it up he read “Congratulations. You have won the right to appoint the Palestinian Prime Minister.”
It seems the kindest explanation.
Earlier this week he appeared on newsreels with someone whose name I forget (let us call him Mr. Abu Flan) who was headlined as “Palestinian Prime Minister.”
Now the Palestinian election was chiefly remarkable, not only for the fact that one party won in a landslide, but that it was the only election world wide to take place without allegations of vote rigging, charges of corruption, or other objections, and was agreed by all independent monitors to have been entirely free and fair.
Mr. Abu Flan clearly came from the party that lost the election. What happened to the party that won the election, the freely elected government of the Palestinians? I note a BBC news headline this morning “Palestinian militant Islamist group in Gaza to end six month cease fire with Israel.”
How did this happen?
I think that one morning as Mr. Brown was shaking his Rice Crispies into his cereal bowl one of those plastic kiddy toys fell out, and when he picked it up he read “Congratulations. You have won the right to appoint the Palestinian Prime Minister.”
It seems the kindest explanation.
Dec 15, 2008
Modern media myths
1. Religion and culture are two separate things.
Study of any of the more than ten thousand – by a recent count, from the Afghanistan animists to the Zoroastrians – religions in the world reveals that in practice it is not possible to distinguish between the culture and the religion; in practice they are so closely intertwined as to be indistinguishable, and follow certain predictable paths, mainly that the culture remains and selects what it wants from the religion up to and including physical artifacts.
Statues of the goddess Isis with the child Horus in her arms continued to be venerated in Egypt for example even after the adoption of Christianity only now they were called the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus. The most militant Christian groups in the USA survive the discovery that their leader consumes large quantities of drugs and hires male prostitutes without changing in the slightest their insistence the Bible and only the Bible is the complete word of God. This does involve, of course, a tactful blindness to passages allowing fathers to sell their daughters into slavery, forbidding usury (charging interest on loans), or a blanket death penalty for homosexuals, but Christian groups survive this with equanimity, as do all the other ten thousand religions.
Not every country enjoys the freedoms of Indonesia, with the largest Moslem population in the world, where everyone is constitutionally (which also means in practice, unlike the USA) allowed to change from any religion, including Islam, to any other religion, as many times as they wish.
A number of tactical moves from one religion to another are taking place particularly in India among the Untouchables, the lowest caste. (See “The Dalits” in February 2008 at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/02/dalits.html)
2. Western countries have a free press
Western countries do not have a free press. Their media, not only newspapers, but more importantly radio and TV, are tightly controlled. (See Letter to Coral, in November 2008 at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/11/letter-to-coral.html on Bill Maher, for some striking examples.)
It would not be difficult to argue that both Russia, which has just announced the formation of a new political party, dedicated to the dismantling of the Putin power structure on its official channel, RT, and India, where a movement has sprung up asserting that the Mumbai bombings are an inside job engineered by Hindu nationalist extremists bent on fomenting war against Pakistan and seizing the Kashmir, have more open media than western countries. It is instructive to compare both of these with the vaporings of Mr. Gordon Brown in Afghanistan, where the whole question why on earth we are fighting there at all was entirely ignored in favor of heavy condemnation of a fifteen year old suicide bomber, - one would have thought that a place where even fifteen year olds are ready to die in order to kill you would be a good place to get out of - or Mr. Bush’s farewell visit to Iraq, where he had shoes thrown at him. The aim was excellent; President Bush had to duck to avoid each shoe. The Baydan company of Istanbul making that particular shoe has reported a fourfold increase in orders and taken on one hundred extra staff.
It is important not to be confused by items such as the cartoons on the prophet Mohammed published in Denmark. It is certainly possible, with expert guidance, to fabricate ways to enrage selected populations, which the cartoons achieved, but the hollowness of the boast that this makes them free can be exposed by comparison with the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Would cartoons have bothered them? Not in the slightest. Would the Abu Ghraib humiliation of draping a woman’s knickers over the head have humiliated the Viet Cong? Not at all. That only worked on a carefully researched population which regarded the genitalia as the seat of honor. Any Viet Cong would have laughed and blown his nose on the knickers.
The group that hijacked the US government in 2000, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Podhoretz, Kristol, Krauthammer, et al, usually referred to as “the neocons,” or neo conservatives, also control the media, in pursuing the “Bush doctrine,” which is that the USA has the right to attack preemptively any country or area that might in the future be capable of posing a threat to it. The casual announcement by this group that the US asserted “ownership of space” (since the earth is surrounded by space this is equal to claiming ownership of the entire universe) is one of many examples that the neocons are not playing with a full deck.
3. Suicide bombers are distinctively Islamic
Wrong again! By far the most successful, both in numbers and elevation of target, are the Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers, always carefully avoided in any discussion of suicide bombers, who actually bagged a sitting Indian prime minister, Rajiv Ghandi.
Two things are noteworthy about this most successful of all suicide bomber groups, the first of which is that they are entirely secular. Their aim is an independent, or at least autonomous, homeland for the Tamil population of Sri Lanka in the north of the island. They have no religious affiliation or interest at all.
The second thing that is noteworthy about the Tamil Tigers is the Tamil culture on the mainland in India, home of the famous Juggernaut, the heavy carriage of the god, under which devout believers threw themselves and were crushed to death to show their devotion. See the connection? If not, go back to Section 1, above.
4. Jewish people are Jewish people
Well, yes and no. Certainly any one is free to enter Judaism, as Jewish folks like Mendelsohn the German composer and friend of Goethe are also free to leave it and become Christian, even if they do not have the luck to live in Indonesia.
The real question is who is a Jew, which has been exercising the Jewish community for some time, and is still a subject of debate. (For the moment, let us leave aside the answer of the rabbi asked that question and his answer “Why, everybody, I suppose.”)
The community of Jewish folks is divided into Sephardi and Ashkenazi. Sephardi Jews are the lineal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Saul, David, and all those familiar biblical characters. Ashkenazi are the descendants of a semi-nomadic Turkic tribe, the Khazars, originating in Eastern Asia, who decided to adopt Judaism between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.
According to news reports Russian archaeologists have recently found the long-lost Jewish (Ashkenazi) capital, Itil, near the Caspian Sea, and the reports state that Christian, Moslem, and pagan communities also existed in Itil and had places of worship there. See Agence France Presse for Wed Sep 3, 12:08 PM ET at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080903/lf_afp/russiahistoryculturearchaeology_080903160809
Zionism, and the state of Israel, is heavily Ashkenazi dominated, and Sephardi Jews are marginalized and ignored as far as possible. This is not surprising as Sephardis include anti Zionist groups like Netturei Karta, and generally espouse the traditionally accepted command to the Jewish people to be good and loyal citizens of whatever country they live in, and leave the fate of the Jewish community in the hands of God. Ashkenazis, on the other hand, take the more robust view perhaps brought with them from the plains of eastern Asia that characterize some of the other waves of peoples from that area.
5. Iran’s Ahmedinejad has called for Israel to be wiped off the map
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?%20articleid=11025
'Wiped off the Map' – The Rumor of the Century -by Arash Norouzi
On Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at the Ministry of Interior conference hall in Tehran, newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at a program, reportedly attended by thousands, titled "The World Without Zionism." Large posters surrounding him displayed this title prominently in English, obviously for the benefit of the international press. Below the poster's title was a slick graphic depicting an hour glass containing planet Earth at its top. Two small round orbs representing the United States and Israel are shown falling through the hour glass' narrow neck and crashing to the bottom.
Before we get to the infamous remark, it's important to note that the "quote" in question was itself a quote – they are the words of the late Ayatollah Khomenei, the father of the Islamic Revolution. Although he quoted Khomeini to affirm his own position on Zionism, the actual words belong to Khomeini and not Ahmadinejad. Thus, Ahmadinejad has essentially been credited (or blamed) for a quote that is not only unoriginal, but represents a viewpoint already in place well before he ever took office.
The Actual Quote:
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:
"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."
That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "regime." pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh" is not contained anywhere in his original Farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's president threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." despite never having uttered the words "map." "wipe out" or even "Israel."
'Wiped off the Map' – The Rumor of the Century
Word by word translation:
Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West's apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the "Zionist regime" was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world's struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.
Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America's powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:
(1) The Shah of Iran – the U.S. installed monarch
(2) The Soviet Union
(3) Iran's former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini's own words foretelling that individual regime's demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini's unfulfilled wish: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise." This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.
6. A corporation is the same thing as an individual human
Oddly enough a US judge delivered a verdict on this very point in 1841, and took the trouble to point out that his decision served as a judicial precedent to be followed in any later legal proceedings, that the rights and privileges conferred on human persons by the constitution could not be applied to corporations or other groups of people, so that the right to be free of search and seizure, for example, the right to bear arms, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances embodied in the various amendments (the Bill of Rights) could apply only to people, never to corporations or groups of people.
Unfortunately for everyone the judgment was circumvented or otherwise ignored and the current situation is that corporations have all the rights intended by the constitution to apply to people, you know, two arms, two legs, body, and head, well, more or less.
When the government of Canada was facing a vote of no confidence in Parliament in December 2008, which it was certain to lose, which event normally results in an election for a new government, it took the unusual step of calling on the representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve Parliament. Queen Elizabeth is the sovereign of Canada as well as Great Britain, since Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, and her representative was able therefore to grant the request and Parliament was immediately dissolved. No Parliament, but the government is still the government, and has not lost a vote of confidence.
The petition of the Chagossians, the inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, for redress and reversal of their expulsion from their island by the British and placement in refugee camps for fifty years while their island was handed by the British to the US to establish a military base there, was granted by various courts on a number of occasions. When the final appeal to the highest court possible, the House of Lords, against this judgement was also denied, an “Order in Council” was made to deny the Chagossians the right of return to their island.
What was the first thing Mayor Bloomberg of NY did after amending the constitution on term limits to allow him a third term? “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his administration wouldn’t send $400 property-tax rebate checks due this month to owners of apartments and houses because the slowing economy threatens to worsen a widening budget gap.” Reneging on your debts and obligations is the first thing you do.
This is the process referred to in the famous expression “You can’t fight City Hall,” meaning that even if your case is clear and legal and correct, the local war lords will invent a law to deny your case if none already exists.
There is however a very serious danger in demonstrating contempt for the law. After all if no one else takes the law seriously, why should you, or anybody else? The successful crowd takeovers in Greece and Thailand and the unsuccessful one in Burma (Myanmar) may be precursors of many more.
And there is a vast range of laws the local warlords have made. The common habit of burying the afterbirth in a child’s birthplace may have a mystical or merely sentimental effect, though harmless in any case, but it will certainly be denied if you have your baby in any western institution under the warlords’ control, since ownership of your own body, like the right to end your life if you choose, is not something the warlords are willing to grant. Foods and drinks you are allowed to consume and at what age, actions you may or may not perform with your lower body, information you are allowed to know about, the list is literally endless.
"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." Walt Whitman
7. Technology is a modern invention
Quite untrue. Really useful bits of technology, like earthenware pots kept on the terrace that hold deliciously cool water are commonplace, as is the Eskimo igloo built of ice blocks for survival. It is not necessary to know that the slight ooze of water through the earthenware produces a drop in temperature as it evaporates in the heat, nor how the body heat of the occupiers can build up quite a cozy warmth in the igloo to profit from either. “It’s the poor who are the gainers,” says the Daily Reckoning, tougher, more used to deprivation and without investments to lose.
No one expected very much from the G - 20 meeting weekend before last but at least the wrong message might have been avoided. Vague as the statements of the president were, his expectation of "growth" was spectacularly wrong, given the UN description of the current situation, which no one has disputed, "that an entire second planet Earth is required merely to keep our present living standards where they are now." One would hope that the Haitian diet of mud cakes to quell hunger pangs do not become our fate, but "growth" is not on the menu without a second and third planet Earth available to feed the greed.
All informed opinion knows that we have long passed the tipping point for climate change and we can no longer have any effect on what happens in the next fifty years. In addition, for the last eight years a gentleman from the PI (Petroleum Institute) has been editing out all references to climate change in government documents, while the amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere has been rising enormously each year, and the Siberian tundra, frozen for the last eleven thousand years, is now melting, releasing large amounts of methane – approximately twenty times as damaging as carbon – into the atmosphere. Below is a report on the conference on global warming at Exeter University. That was in the summer and there’s another in Poznan at the moment. More agonized handwringing, and disasters certain.
“At a high-level academic conference on global warming at Exeter University this summer, climate scientist Kevin Anderson stood before his expert audience and contemplated a strange feeling. He wanted to be wrong. Many of those in the room who knew what he was about to say felt the same. His conclusions had already caused a stir in scientific and political circles. Even committed green campaigners said the implications left them terrified.
“Anderson, an expert at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester University, was about to send the gloomiest dispatch yet from the frontline of the war against climate change.
“Despite the political rhetoric, the scientific warnings, the media headlines and the corporate promises, he would say, carbon emissions were soaring way out of control - far above even the bleak scenarios considered by last year's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Stern review. The battle against dangerous climate change had been lost, and the world needed to prepare for things to get very, very bad.
"As an academic I wanted to be told that it was a very good piece of work and that the conclusions were sound," Anderson said. "But as a human being I desperately wanted someone to point out a mistake, and to tell me we had got it completely wrong."
“Nobody did. The cream of the UK climate science community sat in stunned silence as Anderson pointed out that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible, driven mainly by the coal-fuelled economic boom in the developing world. So much extra pollution is being pumped out, he said, that most of the climate targets debated by politicians and campaigners are fanciful at best, and "dangerously misguided" at worst.” David Adam The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008
Study of any of the more than ten thousand – by a recent count, from the Afghanistan animists to the Zoroastrians – religions in the world reveals that in practice it is not possible to distinguish between the culture and the religion; in practice they are so closely intertwined as to be indistinguishable, and follow certain predictable paths, mainly that the culture remains and selects what it wants from the religion up to and including physical artifacts.
Statues of the goddess Isis with the child Horus in her arms continued to be venerated in Egypt for example even after the adoption of Christianity only now they were called the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus. The most militant Christian groups in the USA survive the discovery that their leader consumes large quantities of drugs and hires male prostitutes without changing in the slightest their insistence the Bible and only the Bible is the complete word of God. This does involve, of course, a tactful blindness to passages allowing fathers to sell their daughters into slavery, forbidding usury (charging interest on loans), or a blanket death penalty for homosexuals, but Christian groups survive this with equanimity, as do all the other ten thousand religions.
Not every country enjoys the freedoms of Indonesia, with the largest Moslem population in the world, where everyone is constitutionally (which also means in practice, unlike the USA) allowed to change from any religion, including Islam, to any other religion, as many times as they wish.
A number of tactical moves from one religion to another are taking place particularly in India among the Untouchables, the lowest caste. (See “The Dalits” in February 2008 at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/02/dalits.html)
2. Western countries have a free press
Western countries do not have a free press. Their media, not only newspapers, but more importantly radio and TV, are tightly controlled. (See Letter to Coral, in November 2008 at http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2008/11/letter-to-coral.html on Bill Maher, for some striking examples.)
It would not be difficult to argue that both Russia, which has just announced the formation of a new political party, dedicated to the dismantling of the Putin power structure on its official channel, RT, and India, where a movement has sprung up asserting that the Mumbai bombings are an inside job engineered by Hindu nationalist extremists bent on fomenting war against Pakistan and seizing the Kashmir, have more open media than western countries. It is instructive to compare both of these with the vaporings of Mr. Gordon Brown in Afghanistan, where the whole question why on earth we are fighting there at all was entirely ignored in favor of heavy condemnation of a fifteen year old suicide bomber, - one would have thought that a place where even fifteen year olds are ready to die in order to kill you would be a good place to get out of - or Mr. Bush’s farewell visit to Iraq, where he had shoes thrown at him. The aim was excellent; President Bush had to duck to avoid each shoe. The Baydan company of Istanbul making that particular shoe has reported a fourfold increase in orders and taken on one hundred extra staff.
It is important not to be confused by items such as the cartoons on the prophet Mohammed published in Denmark. It is certainly possible, with expert guidance, to fabricate ways to enrage selected populations, which the cartoons achieved, but the hollowness of the boast that this makes them free can be exposed by comparison with the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Would cartoons have bothered them? Not in the slightest. Would the Abu Ghraib humiliation of draping a woman’s knickers over the head have humiliated the Viet Cong? Not at all. That only worked on a carefully researched population which regarded the genitalia as the seat of honor. Any Viet Cong would have laughed and blown his nose on the knickers.
The group that hijacked the US government in 2000, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Podhoretz, Kristol, Krauthammer, et al, usually referred to as “the neocons,” or neo conservatives, also control the media, in pursuing the “Bush doctrine,” which is that the USA has the right to attack preemptively any country or area that might in the future be capable of posing a threat to it. The casual announcement by this group that the US asserted “ownership of space” (since the earth is surrounded by space this is equal to claiming ownership of the entire universe) is one of many examples that the neocons are not playing with a full deck.
3. Suicide bombers are distinctively Islamic
Wrong again! By far the most successful, both in numbers and elevation of target, are the Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers, always carefully avoided in any discussion of suicide bombers, who actually bagged a sitting Indian prime minister, Rajiv Ghandi.
Two things are noteworthy about this most successful of all suicide bomber groups, the first of which is that they are entirely secular. Their aim is an independent, or at least autonomous, homeland for the Tamil population of Sri Lanka in the north of the island. They have no religious affiliation or interest at all.
The second thing that is noteworthy about the Tamil Tigers is the Tamil culture on the mainland in India, home of the famous Juggernaut, the heavy carriage of the god, under which devout believers threw themselves and were crushed to death to show their devotion. See the connection? If not, go back to Section 1, above.
4. Jewish people are Jewish people
Well, yes and no. Certainly any one is free to enter Judaism, as Jewish folks like Mendelsohn the German composer and friend of Goethe are also free to leave it and become Christian, even if they do not have the luck to live in Indonesia.
The real question is who is a Jew, which has been exercising the Jewish community for some time, and is still a subject of debate. (For the moment, let us leave aside the answer of the rabbi asked that question and his answer “Why, everybody, I suppose.”)
The community of Jewish folks is divided into Sephardi and Ashkenazi. Sephardi Jews are the lineal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Saul, David, and all those familiar biblical characters. Ashkenazi are the descendants of a semi-nomadic Turkic tribe, the Khazars, originating in Eastern Asia, who decided to adopt Judaism between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.
According to news reports Russian archaeologists have recently found the long-lost Jewish (Ashkenazi) capital, Itil, near the Caspian Sea, and the reports state that Christian, Moslem, and pagan communities also existed in Itil and had places of worship there. See Agence France Presse for Wed Sep 3, 12:08 PM ET at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080903/lf_afp/russiahistoryculturearchaeology_080903160809
Zionism, and the state of Israel, is heavily Ashkenazi dominated, and Sephardi Jews are marginalized and ignored as far as possible. This is not surprising as Sephardis include anti Zionist groups like Netturei Karta, and generally espouse the traditionally accepted command to the Jewish people to be good and loyal citizens of whatever country they live in, and leave the fate of the Jewish community in the hands of God. Ashkenazis, on the other hand, take the more robust view perhaps brought with them from the plains of eastern Asia that characterize some of the other waves of peoples from that area.
5. Iran’s Ahmedinejad has called for Israel to be wiped off the map
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?%20articleid=11025
'Wiped off the Map' – The Rumor of the Century -by Arash Norouzi
On Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at the Ministry of Interior conference hall in Tehran, newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at a program, reportedly attended by thousands, titled "The World Without Zionism." Large posters surrounding him displayed this title prominently in English, obviously for the benefit of the international press. Below the poster's title was a slick graphic depicting an hour glass containing planet Earth at its top. Two small round orbs representing the United States and Israel are shown falling through the hour glass' narrow neck and crashing to the bottom.
Before we get to the infamous remark, it's important to note that the "quote" in question was itself a quote – they are the words of the late Ayatollah Khomenei, the father of the Islamic Revolution. Although he quoted Khomeini to affirm his own position on Zionism, the actual words belong to Khomeini and not Ahmadinejad. Thus, Ahmadinejad has essentially been credited (or blamed) for a quote that is not only unoriginal, but represents a viewpoint already in place well before he ever took office.
The Actual Quote:
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:
"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."
That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "regime." pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).
So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh" is not contained anywhere in his original Farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's president threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." despite never having uttered the words "map." "wipe out" or even "Israel."
'Wiped off the Map' – The Rumor of the Century
Word by word translation:
Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
In his speech, Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West's apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the "Zionist regime" was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. Palestine, he insists, is the frontline of the Islamic world's struggle with American hegemony, and its fate will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.
Ahmadinejad acknowledges that the removal of America's powerful grip on the region via the Zionists may seem unimaginable to some, but reminds the audience that, as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books. He then proceeds to list three such regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished, all within the last 30 years:
(1) The Shah of Iran – the U.S. installed monarch
(2) The Soviet Union
(3) Iran's former arch-enemy, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
In the first and third examples, Ahmadinejad prefaces their mention with Khomeini's own words foretelling that individual regime's demise. He concludes by referring to Khomeini's unfulfilled wish: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise." This is the passage that has been isolated, twisted and distorted so famously. By measure of comparison, Ahmadinejad would seem to be calling for regime change, not war.
6. A corporation is the same thing as an individual human
Oddly enough a US judge delivered a verdict on this very point in 1841, and took the trouble to point out that his decision served as a judicial precedent to be followed in any later legal proceedings, that the rights and privileges conferred on human persons by the constitution could not be applied to corporations or other groups of people, so that the right to be free of search and seizure, for example, the right to bear arms, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances embodied in the various amendments (the Bill of Rights) could apply only to people, never to corporations or groups of people.
Unfortunately for everyone the judgment was circumvented or otherwise ignored and the current situation is that corporations have all the rights intended by the constitution to apply to people, you know, two arms, two legs, body, and head, well, more or less.
When the government of Canada was facing a vote of no confidence in Parliament in December 2008, which it was certain to lose, which event normally results in an election for a new government, it took the unusual step of calling on the representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve Parliament. Queen Elizabeth is the sovereign of Canada as well as Great Britain, since Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, and her representative was able therefore to grant the request and Parliament was immediately dissolved. No Parliament, but the government is still the government, and has not lost a vote of confidence.
The petition of the Chagossians, the inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, for redress and reversal of their expulsion from their island by the British and placement in refugee camps for fifty years while their island was handed by the British to the US to establish a military base there, was granted by various courts on a number of occasions. When the final appeal to the highest court possible, the House of Lords, against this judgement was also denied, an “Order in Council” was made to deny the Chagossians the right of return to their island.
What was the first thing Mayor Bloomberg of NY did after amending the constitution on term limits to allow him a third term? “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his administration wouldn’t send $400 property-tax rebate checks due this month to owners of apartments and houses because the slowing economy threatens to worsen a widening budget gap.” Reneging on your debts and obligations is the first thing you do.
This is the process referred to in the famous expression “You can’t fight City Hall,” meaning that even if your case is clear and legal and correct, the local war lords will invent a law to deny your case if none already exists.
There is however a very serious danger in demonstrating contempt for the law. After all if no one else takes the law seriously, why should you, or anybody else? The successful crowd takeovers in Greece and Thailand and the unsuccessful one in Burma (Myanmar) may be precursors of many more.
And there is a vast range of laws the local warlords have made. The common habit of burying the afterbirth in a child’s birthplace may have a mystical or merely sentimental effect, though harmless in any case, but it will certainly be denied if you have your baby in any western institution under the warlords’ control, since ownership of your own body, like the right to end your life if you choose, is not something the warlords are willing to grant. Foods and drinks you are allowed to consume and at what age, actions you may or may not perform with your lower body, information you are allowed to know about, the list is literally endless.
"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." Walt Whitman
7. Technology is a modern invention
Quite untrue. Really useful bits of technology, like earthenware pots kept on the terrace that hold deliciously cool water are commonplace, as is the Eskimo igloo built of ice blocks for survival. It is not necessary to know that the slight ooze of water through the earthenware produces a drop in temperature as it evaporates in the heat, nor how the body heat of the occupiers can build up quite a cozy warmth in the igloo to profit from either. “It’s the poor who are the gainers,” says the Daily Reckoning, tougher, more used to deprivation and without investments to lose.
No one expected very much from the G - 20 meeting weekend before last but at least the wrong message might have been avoided. Vague as the statements of the president were, his expectation of "growth" was spectacularly wrong, given the UN description of the current situation, which no one has disputed, "that an entire second planet Earth is required merely to keep our present living standards where they are now." One would hope that the Haitian diet of mud cakes to quell hunger pangs do not become our fate, but "growth" is not on the menu without a second and third planet Earth available to feed the greed.
All informed opinion knows that we have long passed the tipping point for climate change and we can no longer have any effect on what happens in the next fifty years. In addition, for the last eight years a gentleman from the PI (Petroleum Institute) has been editing out all references to climate change in government documents, while the amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere has been rising enormously each year, and the Siberian tundra, frozen for the last eleven thousand years, is now melting, releasing large amounts of methane – approximately twenty times as damaging as carbon – into the atmosphere. Below is a report on the conference on global warming at Exeter University. That was in the summer and there’s another in Poznan at the moment. More agonized handwringing, and disasters certain.
“At a high-level academic conference on global warming at Exeter University this summer, climate scientist Kevin Anderson stood before his expert audience and contemplated a strange feeling. He wanted to be wrong. Many of those in the room who knew what he was about to say felt the same. His conclusions had already caused a stir in scientific and political circles. Even committed green campaigners said the implications left them terrified.
“Anderson, an expert at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester University, was about to send the gloomiest dispatch yet from the frontline of the war against climate change.
“Despite the political rhetoric, the scientific warnings, the media headlines and the corporate promises, he would say, carbon emissions were soaring way out of control - far above even the bleak scenarios considered by last year's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Stern review. The battle against dangerous climate change had been lost, and the world needed to prepare for things to get very, very bad.
"As an academic I wanted to be told that it was a very good piece of work and that the conclusions were sound," Anderson said. "But as a human being I desperately wanted someone to point out a mistake, and to tell me we had got it completely wrong."
“Nobody did. The cream of the UK climate science community sat in stunned silence as Anderson pointed out that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible, driven mainly by the coal-fuelled economic boom in the developing world. So much extra pollution is being pumped out, he said, that most of the climate targets debated by politicians and campaigners are fanciful at best, and "dangerously misguided" at worst.” David Adam The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008
Dec 4, 2008
The mechanics of money
If you have a hundred dollars in your bank account, it is probably not earning interest, and if you leave it there, it will probably earn nothing except the grudging admission of your bank that you are, for the moment, still solvent.
If you take your hundred dollars out, however, and spend it on groceries, something quite amazing happens. The grocery store owner has an extra hundred dollars, he pays off his suppliers with $25 and places a new order, his staff receives $25 in pay which they spend, his wife buys a new dress for $25, the dress store orders another dress, and so on. Your hundred dollars is spent many times over, exactly how many times depending only on the speed of its passing on. Your humble hundred dollars, by virtue of the velocity of money, the speed at which everyone else receives it and spends it, has produced two thousand dollars of spending. This is what happens in a normally functioning economy, a healthy commercial state.
Note that ownership changes constantly. It is no longer "your" hundred dollars as soon as you have exchanged it for groceries (it belongs to the grocery store) but it remains quite clear and trackable (though a hundred thousand dollars would be better for real trackability) that it is the same hundred dollars, constantly changing ownership.
The calculation of a country’s GDP, its gross domestic product, or all the goods and services that country produces, is equally simple: take the total amount of cash in the country, and multiply it by velocity, that is, take all the money being spent on groceries, car repair, payments from abroad, and multiply it by the speed at which it goes round, since the same money can be spent many times over as people receive it and pass it on.
Now imagine that being unemployed, or suspecting that you soon might be, you decide to hang on to your hundred dollars in preparation for possible hard times ahead. Imagine further that the grocery store, noting that sales are slowing down, decides to build up its cash, cut orders to the wholesalers, and lay off some of its staff; imagine that your bank, worried about some unmarketable securities it has on the books from its last president, and unsure whether two or three other banks it deals with might not be going under quite soon, and all loans to them will be lost, also decides to hang on to as much cash as possible; and finally imagine that the government of the country, noting that its revenues are falling, its cities and farms are in trouble and demanding help, and no one is buying what it exports, takes the painful decision to welsh on some of its promises of aid to worthy causes, delays all rebates due, cancels a lot of expensive projects, even wonders about seizing some private assets on dubious grounds, and generally re-adjusts to being a much poorer country, which they are, of course: their GDP, the amount of goods and services produced in a whole year by the entire country has shrunk enormously, and is now much much smaller, most of it no longer being multiplied by anything except one, since its citizens, its municipalities, its financial and commercial institutions, and the other countries that are its trading partners are all tightly clutching their hundred dollars, fearful of the future and suspicious of any attempts to have them spend it.
This is called the credit crunch.
If you take your hundred dollars out, however, and spend it on groceries, something quite amazing happens. The grocery store owner has an extra hundred dollars, he pays off his suppliers with $25 and places a new order, his staff receives $25 in pay which they spend, his wife buys a new dress for $25, the dress store orders another dress, and so on. Your hundred dollars is spent many times over, exactly how many times depending only on the speed of its passing on. Your humble hundred dollars, by virtue of the velocity of money, the speed at which everyone else receives it and spends it, has produced two thousand dollars of spending. This is what happens in a normally functioning economy, a healthy commercial state.
Note that ownership changes constantly. It is no longer "your" hundred dollars as soon as you have exchanged it for groceries (it belongs to the grocery store) but it remains quite clear and trackable (though a hundred thousand dollars would be better for real trackability) that it is the same hundred dollars, constantly changing ownership.
The calculation of a country’s GDP, its gross domestic product, or all the goods and services that country produces, is equally simple: take the total amount of cash in the country, and multiply it by velocity, that is, take all the money being spent on groceries, car repair, payments from abroad, and multiply it by the speed at which it goes round, since the same money can be spent many times over as people receive it and pass it on.
Now imagine that being unemployed, or suspecting that you soon might be, you decide to hang on to your hundred dollars in preparation for possible hard times ahead. Imagine further that the grocery store, noting that sales are slowing down, decides to build up its cash, cut orders to the wholesalers, and lay off some of its staff; imagine that your bank, worried about some unmarketable securities it has on the books from its last president, and unsure whether two or three other banks it deals with might not be going under quite soon, and all loans to them will be lost, also decides to hang on to as much cash as possible; and finally imagine that the government of the country, noting that its revenues are falling, its cities and farms are in trouble and demanding help, and no one is buying what it exports, takes the painful decision to welsh on some of its promises of aid to worthy causes, delays all rebates due, cancels a lot of expensive projects, even wonders about seizing some private assets on dubious grounds, and generally re-adjusts to being a much poorer country, which they are, of course: their GDP, the amount of goods and services produced in a whole year by the entire country has shrunk enormously, and is now much much smaller, most of it no longer being multiplied by anything except one, since its citizens, its municipalities, its financial and commercial institutions, and the other countries that are its trading partners are all tightly clutching their hundred dollars, fearful of the future and suspicious of any attempts to have them spend it.
This is called the credit crunch.
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