<Seymour> Hersh recently got hold of a copy of the United Nations interim report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The document cited "converging evidence" that senior levels of the Syrian government were involved in the murder.

But according to Hersh, the Mehlis report is built on the same anemic foundations as Powell’s UN presentation in February, 2003. "He is relying on intercepts of an unnamed source inside the Iranian air force, someone without inside stuff. It’s not empirical." On the basis of this thin evidence, he says, the Bush administration is campaigning at the UN for sanctions on Syria.

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The Frankenpumpkins have been carved and are ready for Halloween. (Check what they looked like before.)

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From the ANSWER LA Forum on War and Racism. 10/29/2005. Pt. 3 of 3.

ANSWER leader and award-winning filmmaker Gloria la Riva recently traveled to New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Texas and spoke about the aftermath of Katrina and her new documentary.

MP3 (28:50 min. 9.9 MB, 10/29/05)

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Letter to The Guardian, Thu. Oct. 27, 2005

Two thousand Americans are dead. Fifty times that many Iraqis are dead; 300 times that many human beings are injured. One million times that have been indirectly affected by a barbarous act of inhumanity (Casualties of a war a world away, October 26). War is about numbers. The small number of humans who have much to gain by war. The large number affected. The small number who sit home and rally the large number to send their kids to die physically or mentally. The largest number who say nothing. The financial numbers are so huge that millions aren’t accounted for, and millions more are paid in bonuses.

I’m a Vietnam infantry veteran who has taken the time to peel away the onion of war. Strip off the uniforms, the flags, the nationalities, the slogans. War is, at best, the failure of leaders to solve problems. At worst, war is a massive money-generating machine with no regard for life. It’s all in the numbers.

Arnold Stieber
Grass Lake, Michigan, USA

Like the protest signs said in the 60’s, "War is good for the economy, invest your son." Just be careful that what Country Joe sang doesn’t happen, "Be the first one on your block/To have your boy come home in a box."

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A report into malaria research funding found stark inequalities between the amount of money spent on predominantly Western illnesses and diseases that kill millions every year in developing nations.

"It’s really a tragedy when the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day," Bill Gates told the AP news agency. "If those children were in rich countries, we would have headlines, we’d take action.

The Microsoft boss was speaking after announcing $258.3m (£145m) in new grants to combat the disease through his charity organisation.

Gates is genuinely doing much good with his foundation. A while back he started scholarships in the US for high-achiever high school students of color. If accepted by the scholarship fund, then college and grad/medical school is on the Gates foundation. This is a well-thought-out and implemented plan that will help many. Ditto for this new donation to fight malaria. 

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Italian PM tries to distance himself from White House

If even Berlusconi now wants to distance himself from Dubya, then I’m thinking the D.C. neocons are in their final days of power and influence. One thing a seasoned politician knows how to do is to avoid being anywhere in the vicinity of a political train wreck.

Meanwhile, Dubya is pretending he knew nothing about that darned CIA leak, that he is hurt and anguished by the behavior of those underlings who have betrayed him so foully.

Bush losing faith in Cheney, top aides

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From your living room to the world, via podcast

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Contacts knowledgeable about the areas tell me the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the Tamil Tigers insurgency in Sri Lanka are both backed at least in part by India.

Both insurgencies are well equipped and funded. Of course, insurgencies can not exist without the support of those within the country itself, but why would India be involved?

Anyone know more about this? True, the Tamils are an ethnic group from southern India, but that doesn’t fully explain the possible involvement of India, and I’m clueless about Nepal, except that the two countries share a common border. Imperialism India-style?

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Escapable Logic and Doc Searls are blogging thoughtfully about why hasn’t there been more grass roots activism in the wake of Katrina.

I was on the phone with Doc Searls on September 1st as he wrote:

This event won’t have ripple effects. The consequences will be tidal: on transportation, on agriculture, on lumber and other supplies, on retailing, on churches and on citizens across the country who will need to take on the burden of caring for refugees and helping others start new lives.

Katrina also forces us to face a subject even Democrats have stopped talking about, although it lurks beneath everything: class. When the dead are counted, most of them will have been poor. Count on it.

This thing is a huge reset button on politics as usual. Along with everything else.

Few of us imagined that there wouldn’t be a lasting emphasis on fixing the problem: on September 1, we couldn’t conceive that the Katrina calamity could fade so quickly from our national consciousness. 

They tried to convene net-based groups to focus on and help in the aftermath of Katrina and found people quickly lost interest and now wonder how any meaningful grassroots activism will be able to happen.

I say - wait. I expect enormous grassroots activism to be coming out of the areas hit by the hurricanes. But it’ll take time. It’ll probably be more along the lines of a populist revolt (coming from an area quite used to populism.) The aftermath of the 1927 floods in Louisiana led to the rise of Huey Long, and some say, to the revitalization of the Democratic Party itself. History may well repeat itself (if the Dems allow a rabble-rouser like Huey Long in the door, that is.)

Groups outside the hurricane areas can help most by finding groups in the areas and helping them grow. Also, if you want to build and grow as a group, you need a steady stream of events and activities to keep members interested and active. Keep your own group active and form coalitions with other groups. That’s how activist groups grow.

Doc is right, Katrina will be a big reset button. But it’ll take time. 

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From the ANSWER LA War and Racism Forum, 10/29/05. Pt. 2 of 3.

Keisha Brunston is a relative of Deandre Brunston. He was shot 22 times by Compton Police while being attacked by a police dog They said he had a gun. He didn’t. The dog, who was also shot, was flown by helicopter to a hospital while they let Deandre die in the street. She has dedicated her life to fighting this appalling injustice.

MP3 (10:04 min. 3.4 MB)

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A majority of Americans say the indictment of Scooter Libby "signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office," according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

 

President Bush’s overall job approval rating "has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls."

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From the ANSWER LA War and Racism Forum, 10/29/05. Pt. 1 of 3.

Derrick and his family survived Katrina. Listen to this on-the-ground account of what happened.

MP3 (4:25 min. 1.5 MB)

More podcasts from the forum coming in the next few days. These include an original song by Hip-Hop artist Creó from New Orleans about Katrina and the government’s criminal response, and talks by Keisha Brunston whose cousin was shot 22 times by Compton Police and by filmmaker Gloria La Riva, who travelled to New Orleans and Houston and did a documentary about it.

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Defense attorney Lynne Stewart has lost her bid for a new trial after her conviction on charges that she conspired to conduct a conspiracy, the New York Law Journal reported.

She faces 30 years in prison on bogus, inflated charges.

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The Libby indictments have been filed. BushCo has this and many other things to worry about, such as the DeLay indictments, Frist’s stock profits, Miers’ withdrawal, plummeting support for the war, as well as their dismal poll numbers.

There’s a war in the ruling class now. Well, sort of, at least. Congressional Democrats are conspicious by their absence, missing in action as usual. When will they actually stand for something? Polls show that while people increasingly distrust the Republican Party, that this hasn’t converted into increased support for Democrats. The reason for this isn’t difficult to fathom. The Dems have no real platform, and offer no real alternative.

All the various scandals and indictments aren’t about anything basic, like the insanity of the war(s), the continued attempts by both parties to destroy the social safety nets created in the 30’s, or an imperialistic foriegn policy that continues to invade countries, consequences be damned.

None of this is being discussed, And it needs to be. The way to do that is to mobilize, get in the streets, force them to listen and act. It’s happened before. It’ll happen again. I expect that their will be a populist uprising soon, especially in the hurricane areas, as people devastated by those storms realize the government isn’t really helping much. That’ll be an organizing opportunity for those of us who want real, structural change in the country.

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RSS news readers allow you to read multiple news feeds in one place. I had been using the news aggregator in Radio Userland, the previous publishing platform for this blog, to read news. However now I’m checking out new ways to read RSS.

List of RSS readers (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Sharp Reader. Basic, easy to use.

Feed Demon. I’m using this now. Nice interface. Many useful features. $29.95, free trial.

Amphetadesk. Have heard many good things about this. Will try it soon. Open source.

There’s also any number of web-based RSS readers, like Google Reader, however they don’t have the power and ease of use as the PC-based ones.

What are you using? 

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What an anti-climax. Nothing new was revealed, with Fitzgerald utterly close-mouthed about what is coming next, if anything.

Still, if Libby thinks he’s facing prison, then he may sing. He was Chief of Staff to VP Cheney and thus no doubt has much he could sing about. And the prospect of that must make Rove and Cheney nervous indeed. Bush too.

Pre-trial costs for federal trials like this will be hundreds of thousands of dollars. If it goes to trial, then it could cost Libby in the seven figures.

Incidentally, a lawyer familiar with federal court once told me, if you’re a defendant in federal court, you’re screwed, noting that federal prosecuters often have 90% conviction rates because the rules are stacked against the defendant.

Will Libby, who is facing huge expenses and possible prison, roll over and tell prosecutors all he knows? I’m not saying it will happen, only that it could.

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More from Kos.

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Cheney is asking Congress to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture.

And what dangerous leftie publication is this from? Read on.

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Record heat raises climate fears

As Britain enjoyed the warmest 27 October since records began in 1880, experts warned that a pattern of extreme weather events is beginning to provide hard evidence that the climate of the world is changing.

Pt. 2 of the  WorldChanging interview with Bruce Sterling

In getting certain world leaders to be responsive to the increasingly obvious, we can’t seem to get past legacy issues (e.g. George W. Bush ignoring Kyoto because it would "cost jobs.") What should the average person, or at least the citizen change agent, be doing at this point to support both mitigation and adaptation?

I don’t want to be a big cynic about this, but really, at this point, who WANTS George W Bush to get all interested in climate change? Sooner or later, that guy poisons everything he touches. He’d probably start a highly secretive and utterly disorganized "Department of Greenhouse Security," where Bechtel apparatchiks took over abandoned army bases to install leaky nuclear power plants in dead of night with extraordinarily-rendered, off-the-books, union-busting labor. Would that help? If he fought the Greenhouse in utter sincerity and with all his might, would he win?

George Bush doesn’t care about Kyoto and "jobs." The American right’s loathing for Kyoto is strictly a nationalist, anti-globalist, unilateralist power issue. They don’t want Kyoto inspectors dropping by to double-check Exxon-Mobil’s emissions; they figure they’d show up in black helicopters, with handcuffs and guns. Because that’s exactly how they themselves would behave, if they had the chance.

I don’t believe in "average people" doing anything. People ought to support mitigation and adaptation within their own line of work, no matter how un-average that is. I mean: if you’re butcher, baker, ballerina, banker, or a plumber, envision yourself as the post-fossil-fuel version of yourself, and get right after it. We’d be best off struggling to create some kind of Solidarnosc-style entirely alternate society, for a 1989-sized across-the-board upheaval. So, just, well, stop co-operating with the status quo. Stop collaborating. Stop being afraid and stop feeling helpless. Just stop all that and start living by entirely other means.

Be glad for any scrap of choice you’re offered. The UN expects 50 million people to have their lives entirely uprooted by environmental mayhem — EVERY YEAR. That could be you or me. You’re worried that a hybrid car costs more money? People in Key West are standing on the roofs of drowned cars.

Our best hope is to "collapse upwards."

Prince Charles call to fight global warming

Prince Charles today said climate change was the "greatest challenge to face man" and should given greater priority in the UK.

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As a poll shows all of <Schwarzenegger’s> Nov. 8 initiatives faltering, the governor appeals to voters by admitting shortcomings,

The new poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that none of Schwarzenegger’s four major initiatives was favored by a majority of voters likely to cast ballots.

For a governor whose public image is the driving force in the election, the survey also found broader trouble: Just 38% of likely voters gave him positive job ratings, a steep drop from a year ago.

Arnold has proven to be one of the most inept, blundering (and arrogant) politicians in California history. He had no previous political experience, refused to build coalitions, and ignored advice of those more experienced. He has no one to blame but himself. 

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Libby will be. Press conference at 2 pm ET 

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Twas the night before Fitzmas, and in the White House
Every one was scared shitless, and Bush was quite soused.
The indictments were hanging like Damocles’ sword
As verminous oxen prepared to be gored.
The perps were all sleepless, curled fetal in bed,
While visions of prison cells loomed in each head.
And Dick in his jammies and George in his lap
Were sweating and swearing and looking like crap.

Read the whole thing!

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An Arab News editorial: Contrived Fury

It was certainly undiplomatic of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" at a conference on Zionism in Tehran. But the wave of Western fury, with countries such as Canada, France, the UK and Spain hauling in the Iranian ambassador and protesting, looks contrived.

Is this the same France that four years ago ignored the comments of its then ambassador in London, Daniel Bernard, who called Israel “that shitty little country”? Is this the same UK that likewise turned a deaf ear? Nor is it the first time an Iranian leader has used such language. Four years ago, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, regarded by the West as a moderate, called for the nuclear annihilation of Israel. The West did not blink an eye. Ever since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been consistently and vehemently anti-Israel. The rest of the world has known it and lived with it. It lived with the knowledge because it also knew that Iran was not in a position to wipe Israel off the map.

So why the apparent anger at something known? And why is it that only the West is making a fuss?

This response has far more to do with Western fears about Iran’s nuclear intentions than with its views about Israel. Washington, which does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran and so could not haul in the ambassador to protest, let the cat out of the bag when it said that the comment showed it was right to be concerned about Iran’s nuclear program.
…

This, of course, is Ahmadinejad the radical speaking, Ahmadinejad the politician who perhaps wants to divert attention from his government’s failure so far to deliver on his promises to Iran’s poor. That is where he needs to concentrate his energies and his passion. The danger is that with such rhetoric he gives his nation’s enemies the chance to act.

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Mr Ahmadinejad told some 3,000 students in Tehran that Israel’s establishment had been a move by the West against the Islamic world.

True enough. (Update: This is true in the sense that Western powers want dominance over the Middle East and have never been friendly to Muslim/Arab countries in the first place.)

He was addressing a conference entitled The World without Zionism and his comments were reported by the Iranian state news agency Irna.

"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," he said, referring to Iran’s late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

No. Never. Saying Jews should be killed because one opposes the Zionist policies of Israel is like saying Christians should be killed because one opposes the policies of George Bush. It’s insane, bigoted, vicious, and beyond counter-productive. One can oppose Zionism and not be anti-Semitic, and proof of that is the thriving peace movement in Israel headed by Jews. Anti-Semitism is grotesque and must be opposed, as should any form of racism.

In a seriously Orwellian moment, as Israel continues to decimate the Palestinian population, Ariel Sharon responded,

"A country calling for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN," Mr Sharon said.

Does that mean Israel will withdraw from the UN? What a monumental hypocrite.

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With heavy weather upon us and even boring, established news conduits like CNN talking apocalypse, we consulted the Viridian Pope-Emperor, WorldChanging ally #1 Bruce Sterling, to get his take as he was leaving for Europe and Art Futura.

With Arctic ice melting and the worst hurricane season in recorded history, are we past the point where mitigation of global climate change is going to have much of an effect?

The climate crimes we’ve already committed aren’t much compared to what’s coming down the pipe. It’s pretty cynical to write off mitigation when we haven’t as yet even tried it. It may well be that the roof is on fire, but that doesn’t make it good policy to chop up the walls and floors and add them to the blaze.

Should we be building an ark or two?

The planet IS an ark.

Where do you propose to hide or construct such a thing? There’s no place to hide from the sky.

Bruce Sterling is the Pope-Emperor of Viridian Design a design movement about global warming. I’ve been a member since Day One.

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