1973

by bill leahy
illustrated by john farwell

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i think bill was prescient.

of course this thing can be 'interpreted' broadly, but still, it's worth posting.

i think.

hello bill. my regards to you and yours.

Edmond, Oklahoma reminds me of Coral Gables, Fl. The people are kindly, gentle and sweet. The ambience is one of old calm, clean prosperity, and sedate living for generations.

I work at the Edmond Public Library. I am the porter. Seven days a week.

Hysteria about hysteria itself is on an alltime high, so what better balm is there than to go giddy berserk and terrorize the local neighborhood ladies exercising on an early morn? When things get downright silly, the silly get downright inspired.

Tomgram: Mark Engler, How to Rule the World After Bush
posted May 18, 2008 5:33 pm

A mere eight months to go until George W. Bush and Dick Cheney leave office -- though, given the cast of characters, it could seem like a lifetime. Still, it's a reasonable moment to begin to look back over the last years -- and also toward the post-Bush era. What a crater we'll have to climb out of by then!

My last post, "Kiss American Security Goodbye," was meant to mark the beginning of what will, over the coming months, be a number of Bush legacy pieces at Tomdispatch. So consider that series officially inaugurated by Foreign Policy in Focus analyst Mark Engler, who has just authored a new book that couldn't be more relevant to our looming moment of transition: How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy.

The question Engler is curious to have answered is this: If Bush-style "imperial globalization" is rejected in January, what will American ruling elites try to turn to -- Clinton-style economic globalization? Certainly, as Engler points out, many in the business and financial communities are now rallying to the Democrats. After all, while John Edwards received the headlines this week for throwing his support behind Barack Obama, that presidential candidate also got the nod from three former Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen -- William Donaldson, David Ruder, and Clinton appointee Arthur Levitt Jr. The campaign promptly "released a joint statement by the former SEC chiefs, as well as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, that praised Obama's 'positive leadership and judgment' on economic issues."

The United States, however, is a very different creature than it was in the confident years when these men rode high. Now, the world is looking at things much differently. Let Engler explain... Tom

Globalizers, Neocons, or...?
The World After Bush
By Mark Engler

Picture January 20, 2009, the day George W. Bush has to vacate the Oval Office.

Starting July 1, 2008, gas stations in Oklahoma City will be required to post notice that they are or are not selling E10.

Patrons here are reported to have discovered two things from their unknowing purchase of E10 gasoline:
-Their mileage suffers enough to offset any price per gallon savings.
-It harms older engines, reportedly by quickly degrading materials such as rubbers and plastics.

Until July 1, I expect voluntary signage to pick up some, even if only by those retailers selling pure gasoline. As it is, I know of only one. -Which is where I'll be buying my gas, as I too distinctly noticed my mileage dropping greatly in the past 2-3 months... I haven't tanked up at that station but when I do (next fueling), I darn well had better see my mileage return to normal.

Book Review
Chalmers Johnson on Our 'Managed Democracy'

It is not news that the United States is in great trouble. The pre-emptive war it launched against Iraq more than five years ago was and is a mistake of monumental proportions—one that most Americans still fail to acknowledge. Instead they are arguing about whether we should push on to "victory" when even our own generals tell us that a military victory is today inconceivable. Our economy has been hollowed out by excessive military spending over many decades while our competitors have devoted themselves to investments in lucrative new industries that serve civilian needs. Our political system of checks and balances has been virtually destroyed by rampant cronyism and corruption in Washington, D.C., and by a two-term president who goes around crowing "I am the decider," a concept fundamentally hostile to our constitutional system. We have allowed our elections, the one nonnegotiable institution in a democracy, to be debased and hijacked—as was the 2000 presidential election in Florida—with scarcely any protest from the public or the self-proclaimed press guardians of the "Fourth Estate." We now engage in torture of defenseless prisoners although it defames and demoralizes our armed forces and intelligence agencies.

A Primer on Plan Mexico
By LAURA CARLSEN
Counterpunch
May 8, 2008

On Oct. 22, 2007 President Bush announced the $1.4 billion dollar "Merida Initiative," security aid package to Mexico and Central America. The initiative has fatal flaws in its strategy; instead of leading to a stable binational relationship and peaceful border communities, its military approach will escalate drug-related violence and human rights abuses.

Mexico and the United States face a joint challenge in decreasing transnational organized crime and they must cooperate to strengthen the rule of law and stop illegal drug and arms trafficking over the border. This misguided policy will result in an inability to achieve its own goals and will waste taxpayers' money. It will also seriously undermine the U.S.-Mexico relationship and Mexican stability.

rupert+murdoch+echostar+codes+hacked+rom

i get the feeling i'm going to have to read several accounts of this unfolding story before i really have a handle on it...

my least question is: how easy is it to burn a ROM anyway?

Go to Original

Blackwater Shooting Highlights a US, Iraq Culture Clash
By Borzou Daragahi and Raheem Salman
The Los Angeles Times

Sunday 04 May 2008

Relatives of those killed in September by US contractors are insulted by the compensation offers. In their justice system, an apology comes first.

Baghdad - He refused to take the Americans' blood money.

Report: Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths
By: Steve Benen @ 5:30 AM - PDT

Bloomberg reported this week on yet another devastating and deadly aspect of the war in Iraq: the U.S. troops, burdened with post-traumatic stress, who commit suicide.

i learned today i knew nothing about sam peckinpah, and that i badly want a copy of his director's cut of pat garrett and billy the kid.

Arms Race in Space
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:31:40 -0500
By Marko Beljac - GNN

It's on. It's expensive. And it could destablize the world.

Revolution MoneyExchange
April 29th, 2008

UPDATE: ASTONISHING RESPONSE FROM CRYPTOGON READERS

Sixteen people have signed up for MoneyExchange accounts via Cryptogon in just over an hour!

— End Update —

I’m very happy to report that there is now a FREE alternative to PayPal available to U.S. bank account holders. Revolution MoneyExchange allows money transfers between members for free; no fees at all to make or receive electronic payments. Believe it or not (I didn’t at first), it’s true.

FBI wants to move hunt for criminals into Internet backbone
By Jon Stokes
April 24, 2008 - 09:35PM CT

FBI director Robert Mueller's testimony to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday gave a tiny glimpse of the future of law enforcement online, and it raised some tough questions about the evolving line between public and private in a networked world.

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11862

[Excerpts]

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced today the re-establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet and assigned Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, currently serving as commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, as its new commander. Fourth Fleet will be responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

State Secrets
A government misstep in a wiretapping case.
by Patrick Radden Keefe April 28, 2008

One Friday afternoon in August, 2004, a Washington, D.C., attorney named Lynne Bernabei received a package from the Department of the Treasury. The government was investigating one of her clients, the American branch of a Saudi charity called the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which had been active in fifty countries. Al Haramain had come under scrutiny, as had many other Islamic charities, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and Treasury Department investigators believed that Al Haramain’s American branch, which was based in Oregon, had connections to Al Qaeda. In response to a request from Bernabei for evidence against her client, the government had turned over two sets of documents, primarily media reports that referred to other branches of Al Haramain. None of the materials demonstrated a direct connection between the Oregon branch and Al Qaeda.

Bernabei asked for any classified evidence the government might have, arguing that it was impossible to rebut evidence that she couldn’t see. When a third batch of evidence arrived, that August afternoon, the cover letter noted that the enclosed materials were “unclassified,” so Bernabei didn’t give much thought to the last item, a four-page document stamped “Top Secret.” “My impression was that it might have been something that was declassified,” she told me recently.

If I Can't Dance...
Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:20:00 -0500
By David Rovics

An Open Letter to the Left on the Relevance of Culture

"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution" — Emma Goldman

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast
Monday, April 21, 2008
(For TomPaine.com)
(Listen to the Podcast here)

Psst! George Bush has a secret

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons:
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.

Government authority is crossing a line
By Raul Reyes
USAToday

Last week, Eloisa Tamez, 73, lost the latest round in her ongoing fight with the U.S. government. A judge ordered her to let Washington survey her land near Brownsville, Texas. It lies in the path of a proposed border fence. Now, Tamez, heir to an original Spanish land grant dating to the 1700s, fears that her property will be seized with good reason.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently waived more than 30 laws in order to expedite construction of the border fence. He did so with little regard for the concerns of residents, local officials and environmentalists.

Weary of War?
Don't Collaborate
By KATHY KELLY
Apri1 17, 2008

U.S. Senators and Representatives are finding common ground in asking that Iraqis begin picking up the tab for the cost of war, so an April 14 AP article by Anne Flaherty reported. The lawmakers are troubled that Iraqis might experience windfall surpluses of revenue generated by rising oil prices, while U.S. people bear the burden of paying for war in Iraq. "In hearings last week," Flaherty writes, "Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates whether Baghdad should start paying some U.S. combat costs, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., raised the possibility that an anticipated Iraqi budget surplus this year could be used to help Afghanistan, whose $700 million in annual revenue represents a small fraction of Iraq's $46.8 billion budget."

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/17/headlines#6

President Bush: "In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that God is love. And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism. In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred."

The Man Who Would Be Bush
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Posted April 16, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/82564/

Are Americans unusually stupid or is it something our president put in the water? As millions surrender their homes and sacrifice other standards of our nation's economic and political reputation to the caprice of the Bush-Cheney imperium, a majority of voters tell pollsters that they might vote for a candidate who promises more of the same.

Assuming that likely voters are not now thinking of yet another Republican president simply because John McCain is the only white guy left standing -- an excuse as pathetic in its logic as the decision four years ago to return two Texas oil hustlers to the White House because they were not Massachusetts liberals -- must mean that tens of millions of Americans have taken leave of their senses.

If not the white-guy syndrome, why would even a shocking minority of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters say they prefer McCain to the other Democrat? How otherwise to explain the nation's widespread bipartisan rejection of the Bush presidency and yet a willingness to let McCain continue in that vein?

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

In a world of new ears, old voices trail sweetly as they reverberate off into the sunset. The grace of their exits doesn't lie for me in the echo of their styles in the works of the young and the new so much as in the continuance of such singing at all.

Fiction, poetry, song... Heart is either the final luxury or the first commodity to be dispensed with in our cultural triage.

force, met with counterforce, ain't like force met with antiforce. terrorism. same thing. with that said, can we call them counterterrorists?

AP's copyright line was clear enough to stop me from me from posting this article in the Newswire on Wal-Mart's video archivists selling video access for $250.00 an hour but apparently BoingBoing safely redistributed it without such qualm.

The company is going that hourly route rather than accept a 'lowball' bid of half a million. I would too.

The BoingBoing article.

Strange story. I'm curious to see some of the footage.