Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 16:04 - Category: Unfiled ;
Arlington West, Santa Monica
Once a week, Veterans for Peace quietly displays on
Santa Monica Beach by the pier, hand-crafted crosses with the names of
US soldiers killed in Iraq. The name, rank, and age of the dead are
read. Today, there were 810 names. Among those present were soldiers about to ship to Iraq. (Photos taken with a cell phone)
Pfc. Timmy R. Brown, 21
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:15 - Category: Unfiled ;
Gen. Dimwit says “Iraqis will forgive jail abuse”
The people of Iraq will forgive US-led occupying forces for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, according to a senior coalition spokesman.
Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt told the BBC’s Talking Point programme that the photos of abuse by US soldiers at the Baghdad jail were not representative.
Maybe someone should tell Gen. Dimwit that forgiveness is not something those requiring forgiveness should arrogantly order their victims to produce - and that, if and when forgiveness comes, it should be accepted humbly with apologies given.
“Why, oh why, do they hate us?”
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:11 - Category: Unfiled ;
Blogrolls
Blogrolls are the lists of websites that weblogs post, usually on their home page. However, I’ve moved the PoliZeros blogrolls to their own page.
Why? Mainly because the site that hosts my blogrolls, the excellent blogrolling.com, sometimes has network problems. When they do, Internet Explorer takes forever to load the page. Thus, to insure the home page always loads fast, I’ve moved the blogrolls to their own page.
Once I did, I realized it’s easier to use, no scrolling back and forth to view links, plus many more links can now be listed. Check it out!
PS The error does not occur with Mozilla and Firefox browsers which apparently are smart enough to ignore javascript links that don’t run and load the rest of the page anyway, while Internet Explorer will not load any part of the page when this happens. Bad Microsoft, bad bad bad.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Catholic gay activists denied communion in Chicago
Priests denied Holy Communion on Sunday to a group of rainbow sash-wearing gay activists who showed up to protest a directive from Chicago’s prelate that they violated church teachings by advertising their homosexuality.
This from men who routinely dress in gowns, often brightly colored, wear huge garish rings, and refer to themselves as Brides of Christ.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:06 - Category: Unfiled ;
The kingdom is crumbling. Pt. 2
The country may be deeply divided about President Bush, but even his harshest critics used to offer their grudging admiration of one of the greatest talents of this White House: its extraordinary discipline and message control.
For months now, the same administration whose members once prided themselves on never contradicting one another in public has been riven by conflicting pronouncements. Senior officials keep missing opportunities to keep their signals straight, prompting cases of vicious backbiting that one senior member of Mr. Bush’s national security staff said with disgust the other day “make us sound like Democrats.”
Um, if they were more “like Democrats”, probably none of this would have happened, because I doubt any Democrat would be have been extremist enough to invade two countries within a year or so.
The applause is fading; it’s time to change the Iraq script
We have come to a delicate moment in an absorbing drama. The actors seem unsure of their roles. The audience is becoming restless with the confusion on stage. But the scriptwriters keep trying to convince the crowd that the ending they imagined can still, somehow, come to pass.
The authors stick to their plotline even as its plausibility melts away, and why not? For months the audience kept applauding; many of the reviewers were admiring, while many others kept quiet.
No more. Senior military officers, government officials, diplomats and others working in Iraq, commentators, experts and analysts have all joined a chorus of doubters that is large and growing. And the applause - in this case, public approval as measured in polls - is fading. Already, some of the authors’ friends are grabbing them by their rhetorical lapels. “Failures are multiplying,” wrote George Will, the conservative columnist, yet “no one seems accountable.”
Here’s a perfect example of how the Bushies have lost it
Chalabi story spins out of control
I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on in Iraq right now. Seeing the Forest isn’t normally an up to the minute newsblog, but this is getting so weird that I can’t help myself.
From Seeing the Forest
Nobody really knows who ordered the raids on Chalabi. No one really knows who chose Chalabi’s cousin Allawi to be head of state, either. Don’t ask me.
They then list links to multiple contradictory stories about Chalabi.
My take: The neocons put Chalab in power, and now that events have spun far out of their control,, they want someone to blame stuff on.
Bob Morris @ May 31st 2004 00:02 - Category: Unfiled ;
Latest terrorist attack increases doubts about ability of Saudi Arabia to pump more oil
“The attack was orchestrated to display that the royal family cannot maintain security in the heart of its own oil patch, and in that sense they succeeded,” said Jean-François Seznec, an authority on Saudi Arabia and a professor at Columbia University.
Bob Morris @ May 30th 2004 19:56 - Category: Unfiled ;
Warning, warning, danger, danger
There are some extremely devious and tricky emails out there that want to fool you into thinking you need to click on a link in the email to verify a bank account, a credit card number, or maybe to change a credit card expiration date. Such scams are getting much smarter and appear much more realistic than ever before.
I nearly just got fooled by one, purporting to be from eBay asking me to verify credit card info. I’ve gotten similar emails pretending to be from PayPal. This is called “phishing”, and the emails are scams to get credit card numbers.
Here’s how to avoid such scams yet also check to make sure if your account is, in fact, ok.
1) Never ever click on links in any email asking you to update account or credit card information
2) Instead, go to the website in question the way you normally do (via a bookmark or typing the address.), then go to your account information. If something in your account actually needs to be updated, the website will tell you.
For example, I just got a phony email pretending to be from eBay saying to click here to update the expiration date on your credit card number (which in fact does expire next month.) Something about the email didn’t look right, so I logged onto eBay and saw no message from eBay about updating my account. So, I forwarded the email to spoof@ebay.com and within minutes they replied saying thank you, the email was not from eBay, it was a scam.
You might consider using the free SpoofStick, which resides on your browser bar and tells you the actual website you are on, not the address the email is pretending to be. And yes, another variant of phishing puts a phony address in your browser bar address by using a graphics file - however SpoofStick will still display the real address.
From SpoofStick
SpoofStick is a simple browser extension that helps users detect spoofed (fake) websites. A spoofed website is typically made to look like a well known, branded site (like ebay.com or citibank.com) with a slightly different or confusing URL. The attacker then tries to trick people into going to the spoofed site by sending out fake email messages or posting links in public places - hoping that some percentage of users won’t notice the incorrect URL and give away important information. This practice is sometimes known as “phishing”.
SpoofStick makes it easier to spot a spoofed website by prominently displaying only the most relevant domain information. It’s not a comprehensive solution, but it’s a good start.
Be careful out there.
Bob Morris @ May 30th 2004 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Blowback
US Saudi embassy to American nationals: Leave now
The US embassy on Saturday reiterated its call on US citizens to leave Saudi Arabia following a series of attacks by suspected Islamist gunmen in the oil city of Al-Khobar in which an American was killed.
The embassy originally issued the call on May 15. Think about that. The embassy told US citizens to leave Saudi Arabia ASAP because of the ever-increasing danger and instability. Sounds like they, um, aren’t real optimistic about what is coming down the pike.
As Saudi security officials surveyed the horror, energy experts warned of the potential for a global fuel crisis triggered by instability in the country with the world’s largest reserves.
BBC Middle East correspondent Paul Wood says that with oil at more than $40 a barrel, the attack is bad news for the world’s economy.
He adds that by terrifying foreign workers in the oil industry, the militants are also undermining the ruling Saudi royal family - one of their stated aims.
Watergate was an internal issue, it ripped the country apart, but had little international impact. The idiocies of Bush however - his pointlessly agressive wars, founded in lies and deception, and now lurching towards ignominious defeat - have made the world vastly more dangerous. He wanted unchallenged empire and unfettered access to Mideast oil. Instead the empire is becoming unsustainable and the oil slips out of reach.
Not only will the neocons not grab Iraqi oil, the US and the rest of the world now faces an unstable Saudi Arabia. And, among many other things, this probably mean sharply higher oil prices.
None of this had to happen. There was no need to invade Iraq, no WMDs, no threats lurked there for the US. But the neocons wanted oil and empire, and in their arrogance and stupidity, they destroyed the balance of power. A destabilized Saudi Arabia is now one of the results. There will be many more.
Bob Morris @ May 30th 2004 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ May 30th 2004 00:04 - Category: Unfiled ;
Intelligence agents accused in abuse
Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.
Scant evidence cited in long detention of Iraqis
Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib prison for prolonged periods despite a lack of evidence that they posed a security threat to American forces, according to an Army report completed last fall.
Here’s more confirmation that many officers are deeply disturbed by the cover-up too.
The unpublished report, by Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, reflects what other senior Army officers have described as a deep concern among some American officers and officials in Iraq over the refusal of top American commanders in Baghdad to authorize the release of so-called security prisoners.
Blameless Iraqi scientist apparently beaten to death by US
Bob Morris @ May 30th 2004 00:02 - Category: Unfiled ;
Live fast, die old
Researchers have turned the medical world’s understanding of how the body’s metabolism works on its head by discovering that the more energy you burn, the longer you will live.
“We are really excited by this finding,” said Professor John Speakman, leader of the research team. “The result is striking: living fast means dying old.”
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:42 - Category: Unfiled ;
Long hot summer
More and more, I’m feeling that serious change is coming to this country, and quite soon. There will be nationwide antiwar protests on June 5th, and it’s looking like people who have never protested in their life will be there. It’s important that everyone opposed to the lunatic destructiveness of Bush and the neocons be in the streets. Protest works. It gets the message out.
And largely due to the antiwar movement, the message is out there. The Washington Post, NY Times, Newsweek, even Fox “News” are now openly questioning the war and Bush. Six months ago, anyone saying “Bush lied about the reasons for war” was judged a leftist wacko. Now most the mainstream press is saying the same thing. This is a sea change.
Senators, some of them Republican, retired Generals, and others like them are now saying the war is lost, that it was an insane idea from the beginning. The neocon rats are starting to abandon ship as the FBI closes in on them.
Bush is doomed. There’s no way he can regain his former glory, the damage is far too severe for that. This is also when he, like a cornered rat, might do something deeply vicious and stupid in a vain attempt to hold onto power.
He will either be forced from office or suffer a crushing electoral defeat in November. This will be the end of the influence of the neocons and the lunatic fringe Christians on D.C. policy.
Do you think this not possible? Think back two months ago, would you have thought then that Bush et al would now be spending all their time in damage control, that the public would be opposing the war, that Bush’s popularity would be at historic lows? And we’ve only just begun down this road, this is just the opening act.
So why am I not dancing in the streets? Because things are getting deadly serious, because danger is in the air, because as a country we’ve never really been here before. Watergate was a warm-up to what’s going down now.
In a few more months, yeah, maybe we’ll all be dancing in the streets, but until then keep the pressure on and stay alert for the inevitable desperation counter-attacks by the crumbling Bush empire.
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg updates the data used in his popular book, The Two Americas, and finds that President Bush is losing support from even his most loyal backers.
Iraq causing heartburn for voters and GOP
A couple of stories in the Post this morning show you why Iraq and specifically Abu Ghraib are causing significant internal problems for the GOP.
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:33 - Category: Unfiled ;
Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss
A British-educated neurosurgeon who has close links with both the CIA and MI6, was named as Iraq’s new interim prime minister last night.
Not that it matters who the Iraqis chose…
In a telephone conversation at 2:30 p.m., a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy sounded uncertain about whether Ayad Allawi would head Iraq’s interim government.
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:32 - Category: Unfiled ;
Nixon ‘too drunk’ for Cold War crisis chat
Former US President Richard Nixon was too drunk to answer the phone when Britain’s prime minister rang him at the height of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, according to newly-released records.
<Henry Kissinger tried to> “fend off a UK request to discuss the crisis as it sucked in Cold War rivals, Russia and America.”
“Can we tell them no?” Mr Kissinger asks his assistant. “When I talked to the president, he was loaded.”
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:31 - Category: Unfiled ;
Unclear on the concept?
A schoolboy posed as a female British secret service spy in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to try to murder him, a court heard yesterday.
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:30 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hybrids
Gas-guzzling muscle cars are being overtaken by unassuming little hybrids.
And the Toyota Prius is leading the charge.
For the first four months of the year, sales of the Prius are up 80 percent from last year, and April sales are more than 150 percent higher than a year ago.
Bob Morris @ May 29th 2004 00:29 - Category: Unfiled ;
David Crosby on music and the music business
On the effects of MTV
”But what happened? It changed it from being about the music to being about what you look like. And that was a terrible blow to music, because now you’ve got all these people who look great and can’t write, sing, or play.
I think one of the most glaring examples of what <record companies> do wrong is they cheat as a matter of policy on paying … and it’s totally dishonest. And they all do it. And they do it as a matter of policy. They know they’re going to cheat, going in.”
Let me ask you this question. Would you have made it, now?
“No. Absolutely not. ‘Sorry, these guys are too weird, and that’s too inflammatory, too political.’ That’s the truth. We wouldn’t get a contract. We would not get out.”
So, when people say it’s a “perfect storm” moment for the music business — consolidation of radio, consolidation of ownership, downloading piracy — you know, all of it, do you care?
“Yes, I care. Do I think they deserve to go in the tank, the big companies? Absolutely. They deserve what’s going to happen to them completely. It’s their own stupidity that’s brought them to this point. And their own greed, and their own lack of taste.
I see plenty of future for music. Music is magic. It’s been mankind’s magic since the first caveman danced around his fire going ‘Ugga bugga, hugga bugga!’ That was music, and he was happy. And we’re still doing it, and it makes us happy. It will transcend; it will go on.”
Bob Morris @ May 28th 2004 00:15 - Category: Unfiled ;
The kingdom is crumbling
At a conservative thinktank in downtown Washington, and across the Potomac at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the US government and military?
You read that right! The FBI is investigating the neocons. Hey, if it appears a bunch of them might go to prison, I bet the Right will suddenly get religion about prison reform, and want kinder, gentler prisons real quick, like yesterday!
The CIA and other US agencies had long ago decided that Chalabi was a charlatan, so their dismissive and correct analysis of his lies prompted their suppression by the Bush White House.
More proof, if any was still needed, that Bush and the neocons care not about truth or fact, only in their own narrow extremist agenda.
Washington, just weeks ago in the grip of neoconservative orthodoxy, absolute belief in Bush’s inevitability and righteousness, is in the throes of being ripped apart by investigations.
Things fall apart: the military, loyal and lumbering, betrayed and embittered; the general in the field, General Sanchez, disgraced and cashiered; the intelligence agencies abused and angry, their retired operatives plying their craft with the press corps, seeping dangerous truths; the press, hesitating and wobbly, investigating its own falsehoods; the neocons, publicly redoubling defence of their hero and deceiver Chalabi, privately squabbling, anxiously awaiting the footsteps of FBI agents; Colin Powell, once the most acclaimed man in America, embarked on an endless quest to restore his reputation, damaged above all by his failure of nerve; everyone in the line of fire motioning toward the chain of command, spiralling upwards and sideways, until the finger pointing in a phalanx is directed at the hollow crown.
There is suddenly a distinct and growing possibility Bush will not last in power until the election, or if he does, will be so damaged that Kerry will win with little trouble. But there’s no rest for the weary! Now’s the time to double and triple our efforts to drive these lunatics from office.
As Howard Dean said, “I want my country back.”
Kerry smells blood in the water and is attacking Bush harder now.
Even the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle, is jumping off the sinking ship.
One of the ideological architects of the Iraq war has criticized the U.S.-led occupation of the country as “a grave error.”
Richard Perle, until recently a powerful adviser to U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, described U.S. policy in post-war Iraq as a failure..
UN opposition grows to US insistence on exemption from war crimes.
The United States may not have enough U.N. votes to exempt American soldiers from prosecution by a new global criminal court, with China now questioning the action in view of the prison scandal in Iraq, diplomats said on Thursday.
And finally, from Kurt Vonnegut
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.
Bob Morris @ May 28th 2004 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Thank you!
In March 2003, the extreme right-wing loony birds at FrontPageMag.com listed Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition as the #1 Most Dishonorable American.
And what did Becker say that caused them to foam at the mouth so vehemently?
By “rashly hit[ting] out at poverty-stricken and weak Afghanistan,” <Becker> said, America was conducting “not simply a defensive war” but a strategy of expansion in the Middle East.
A sentiment I suspect many Americans would now agree with! (However, whatever gives FrontPageMag heartburn is o-kay by me. <grin> )
Bob Morris @ May 28th 2004 00:04 - Category: Unfiled ;
Eat fast food, get a stomach ache
Do your kids complain about stomach aches?
They’re more likely to do so if their diets include a lot of fast food.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston found that almost
one-quarter of 900 youngsters between the ages of 5 and 15 reported
recurrent abdominal pain.
When
the researchers looked into what the kids were eating, they found that
fast foods were most often associated with the tummy aches while fresh
fruits and vegetables appeared to be protective.
This is exactly what happened to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, the guy in the film documentary Supersize Me.
He ate three meals a day at McDonalds for a month and got severe
stomach aches. He also got headaches, felt lethargic, gained 10% of his
body weight - and by Day 28 his doctors were so alarmed at his
documented medical deterioration they were begging him to stop. Gimme a
double veggie burger, please, and skip the fries and soda…
Bob Morris @ May 28th 2004 00:00 - Category: Unfiled ;
California Senate votes to restrict Google’s Gmail
California’s Senate voted on Thursday to support a bill to limit a new e-mail service by No. 1 Web search company, Google Inc., over concerns it could threaten the privacy of users.
Google had intended the service to scan e-mail for key words and concepts and use them to place targeted advertisements in personal messages.
The bill by Democratic state Sen. Liz Figueroa would require Gmail to work only in real-time and would bar the service from producing records.
The bill also would bar Gmail from collecting personal information from emails and giving any information to third parties.
This is the crucial part. Google is not allowed to store what they know about you and your email in a database, which could then be accessed by, well, whoever they might sell the information to - or by Homeland Security for that matter. Google, it is said, never deletes any information it has gathered, ever.
It’ll be interesting to see if Google continues to be the new, forward-looking, “different” company they appear to be or if they go old school and instead swarm Sacramento with lobbyists trying to derail the bill.
Bob Morris @ May 27th 2004 00:14 - Category: Unfiled ;
New York Times: we were wrong on Iraq
The New York Times today issued an extraordinary mea culpa over its coverage of Iraq, admitting it had been misled about the presence of weapons of mass destruction by sources including the controversial Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi.
However, they printed it on page ten, rather than on the front page as they normally do with such apologies and neglected completely to mention Judith Miller, who wrote most of the articles, and who was one of the more noxious cheerleaders for the invasion. She is incompetent, did enormous damage, and should be fired.
Still, it made headlines worldwide. This is good! We now appear to be entering what I call Phase Two of such media events. Phase One is where the media ignores or continually distorts a story, mocking and scoffing those with opposing views. Phase Two occurs after they finally pick up on the story, start running with it, then realize they really screwed up during Phase One and begin blubbering apologies. Phase Three, which will no doubt be along soon enough after a few more weeks of anguished media apologies, will be when the media begins writing stories about how the media is apologizing. (And Phase Four is stories about all the stories about the apologies…)
Here’s a tip to the media: Next time, investigate and report competently from the beginning and don’t believe everything the government and their apologists tell you!
Bob Morris @ May 27th 2004 00:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
U.S. General linked to use of dogs at prison
The U.S. Army general sent by the Pentagon to bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners at Abu Ghraib is said to have urged the use of guard dogs to frighten Iraqis detainees, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing sworn testimony by the top U.S. intelligence officer at the prison.
Col. Thomas Pappas testified that the idea came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then commander of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was implemented under a policy approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military officer in Iraq
When a colonel testifies against a general, well, things are really heating up, aren’t they? One can only imagine what’s going on inside the Pentagon now, as the evildoers dive for cover, try to get their fingerprints off anything incriminating, and backstab and blame anything within range. No doubt the Pentagon is a seething rats nest of intrigue and duplicity by now.
But let’s not forget there are real heros in the military too, like that first soldier who went to higher-ups to report about the atrocities or the Taguda Report, which blew the story into the open - people like Taguda are taking serious risks with their careers, futures and yes, maybe their lives, in doing the honorable thing and getting the truth out in the open.
I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating. For many career soldiers, concepts of honor aren’t just concepts, it’s the bedrock they live on. I once asked a decidedly right-wing uncle, a retired Marine Colonel, what he thought of Ollie North. He said, “Ollie North lied under oath and he’s a goddamn disgrace to the uniform.” I’m sure there are many like my uncle in the armed forces now, expressing similar sentiments.
More: US prisoner abuse ‘widespread’
A leaked study by the US army says abuse of prisoners in US custody is more widespread than previously known, a US newspaper has reported.
Cases of maltreatment date from as early as the war in Afghanistan in 2002 to as recently as last month in Iraq, according to The New York Times.
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