Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski may soon be permitted back into the U.S., but he's made some of his most compelling films while in exile from the Hollywood machine. As he collaborates with artist Francesco Vezzoli on a commercial for a fictional perfume starring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams, the director talks about the Perils of the movie world and the pleasures of skiing drunk at night.
When Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli went looking for a director to help him make his latest artwork, he went straight for the biggest. Vezzoli's productions have always served up larger-than-life spectacles studded with Hollywood mythos and celebrity. His piece, Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula (2005), which starred luminaries Gore Vidal, Helen Mirren, Milla Jovovich, and Courtney Love, was an orgiastic "preview" for the 1979 film Caligula. For his live play reading at the Guggenheim of Right You Are (If You Think You Are) in 2007, Vezzoli cast actors such as Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Diane Wiest. This time, he had his mind set on creating a commercial and an ad campaign for an imaginary fragrance called Greed (heavily indebted to Marcel Duchamp's own fictional perfume piece, 1921's Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette). The artist selected two leading Hollywood beauties who pointedly did not already have fragrance contracts—Portman and Michelle Williams—to be the faces of the perfume. He had Miuccia Prada specially design the costumes. He had art dealer Larry Gagosian produce the project, which will be exhibited at Vezzoli's show at Gagosian Gallery in Rome this month. Naturally, for a work this overloaded with talent, he could think of only one man to direct: Roman Polanski. Last October, in a suite at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, the 75-year-old director shot his glamorous testament to a substance that everyone wants but no one can ever get their hands on because it doesn't actually exist (the metaphor couldn't get any better, could it?).
What's going on in Bush's mind here?
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This long NYT retrospective on the seminal news-photos of some guy named George Bush during his presidency ends with photos of the man on his way to his farewell address, during which it appears that he's been crying in the bathroom. I've looked at it several times now and I'm not sure I agree that's what's going on -- this facial expression seems to contain a lot more than mere sorrow.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
And I turned to one of my editors — First I said, "Oh, my God." And he said, "What?" And I said, "You've got to see this picture of Bush. This is really stunning." And I flipped it over to him to process and his first reaction was, "Wow." And I said, "If he wasn't just back there behind that door crying, I don't know what that look on his face is." Because he just looks absolutely devastated as he comes through this door after essentially ending his eight year presidency. And it's just really striking. He just looks absolutely devastated.
It's snowing on Mars ...
... or at least in the sky above it. This is just one extraordinary piece of information being sent back to us by the landers, probes and rovers scanning the planet. Home to the largest mountain in the solar system and a canyon as long as the US is wide, it is a world as fantastic as any imagined by JG Ballard
Cape St Vincent, one of the cliffs of the Victoria crater. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters
High in the sky above Mars, it is snowing right now. Very gently snowing. The snow does not settle on the rubble-strewn land below - not these days, anyway - but instead vaporises into the thin atmosphere long before it reaches the ground.
The first flakes of snow, on a planet that until fairly recently was believed to be waterless, were spotted just a few months ago. A Nasa lander near the planet's north pole was scanning the sky with a laser when it noticed the telltale signs of snowfall. The probe, called Phoenix, announced the news in a radio signal that was picked up by an overhead orbiter and beamed back to Earth. Nothing like it had ever been seen before.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/27/mars-snow-space-technology-nasa
Sphere: Related ContentGlobal warming is 'irreversible'
 Politicians must offset damage from man-made pollution, the report says |
A team of environmental researchers in the US has warned many effects of climate change are irreversible.
The scientists concluded global temperatures could remain high for 1,000 years, even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted.
Their report was sponsored by the US Department of Energy and comes as President Obama announces a review of vehicle emission standards.
It appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists have been researching global warming and the consequences for policymakers.
The team warned that, if carbon levels in the atmosphere continued to rise, there would be less rainfall in already dry areas of southern Europe, North America, parts of Africa and Australia.
The scientists say the oceans are currently slowing down global warming by absorbing heat, but they will eventually release that heat back into the air.
They say politicians must now offset environmental damage already done by man-made pollution.
"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 year - that's not true," said researcher Susan Solomon, the lead author of the report, quoted by AP news agency.
You Can Call Me Arne
Another federal employee checks in from the trenches:
I work at the Department of Education headquarters in DC. Today completed our 2-day introduction to Arne Duncan. Yesterday he had lunch in our cafeteria (Edibles, ha ha), with his wife and children. His wife wore jeans and a sweater and Arne looked like an average joe in khaki dress pants, white shirt and tie. They stood in all of the lines and talked to anyone who approached them. They probably stayed 90 minutes. It was definitely the highest cafeteria attendance ever.Yesterday afternoon he visited every floor of our building and introduced himself to everyone. We all came out into the hall and he shook everyone's hand with a "Hi, I'm Arne."
By the end of the day yesterday, everyone was aglow, since this was already more attention than we'd received from Spellings or Paige. Today, however, was the all-staff meeting, and I can say that the morale in the building increased ten-fold by the end of it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/you_can_call_me_arne.php
Sphere: Related ContentDepression-era wisdom: How they survived
The nation's deepening recession recalls the lessons of the Great Depression, which shaped the lives and financial philosophies of many local elders.
As a child, Bill Cable remembers his parents sweating over finances at the kitchen table, struggling through the years that would come to be known as the Great Depression.
Such experiences taught Bill, 80, and wife Donna, 79, to save what they could, keep their bills manageable and live without credit-card temptation. "That's probably why we've survived and why we're all here," he said.
Through nearly 60 years of marriage, "we never bought anything unless we saved the money and paid for it," Donna said. "We were always afraid something would go wrong."
The Cables passed on the lessons they learned, and their children mostly have fared well. Faced with the current economic crisis, however, "they are feeling it, and they're scared," Donna said.
As the nation heads deeper into recession, the longest and possibly most severe since World War II, it's worth remembering that once upon a time, things were much worse. Those who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s emerged with experiences that would shape their lives and financial philosophies, providing lessons many passed on to their children and a lens through which they see today's situation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2008678892_depression28m.html
More radiation, less popcorn fumes from Bush
by CINDY SKRZYCKI
The Bush administration said it would try to finish writing its last regulations before Election Day. Instead, that's when things really got popping.
In their last 13 weeks, the lame ducks churned out 48 rules that didn't quite become law by noon Jan. 20 when George W. Bush helicoptered into history.
Before his exit, agencies in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy sent up a wide variety of proposals: One would allow more exposure to radiation, another makes an effort to protect the public from the dangers of microwaved popcorn butter.
All have one thing in common: They were issued long after a May 1 deadline the Bush White House set for itself on proposing new measures. The administration also in many cases ignored its November deadline for completing work on new regulations.
Besides the four dozen proposed regulations that didn't clear the necessary hoops to go into effect by Jan. 20, hundreds remain piled up in the pipeline. Dozens more became effective before President Barack Obama took office and placed a hold on pending measures.
"They continued to put out rules after the deadlines passed," said Reese Rushing, director of regulatory and information policy for the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy organization that supports Obama. "If it was about good government, they would have stopped," Rushing said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/397652_bushonline28.html
Under the Radar
ECONOMY -- CONSERVATIVES PEDDLE MYTH THAT STIMULUS SPENDS $275,000 FOR EVERY JOB CREATED: Over the past few weeks, conservatives have been staking out their opposition the economic recovery package by peddling a variety of myths. One favorite is that taxpayers will be forced to pay $275,000 for every job created by the plan. "All told, the plan would spend a whopping $275,000 in taxpayer dollars for every new job it aims to create, saddling each and every household with $6,700 in additional debt," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said. "It is more than likely the private sector could have created more than one job for $275,000," according to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Nobel laureate Paul Krugman addressed this "bogus talking point" yesterday in his New York Times column, saying that it "involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years," Krugman wrote. Time's Joe Klein called the number "phony-baloney propaganda," while economist Dean Baker noted that "the media have been typically derelict in simply reporting this number without making any assessment to evaluate it." And as Center for American Progress Action Fund senior fellow and budget expert Scott Lilly pointed out, the actual cost per job is closer to $50,000, without taking into account the "substantial number of additional jobs [created] beyond 2012."
Sphere: Related ContentAt the hinge of history
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Stop me if you've heard this one before. "Guy walks into a bar ..." No, not that one -- this one: "This is the most critical year ever for Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. It is five minutes to midnight. If we don't get diplomacy back on track soon, it will be the end of the two-state solution."
I've heard that line almost every year for the last 20, and I've never bought it. Well, today, I'm buying it.
We're getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution, because the two chief window-closers -- Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank -- have been in the driver's seats. Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable, while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.
If Hamas continues to obtain and use longer- and longer-range rockets, there is no way any Israeli government can or will tolerate independent Palestinian control of the West Bank, because a rocket from there can easily close the Tel Aviv airport and shut down Israel's economy.
And if the Jewish settlers continue with their "natural growth" to devour the West Bank, it will also be effectively off the table. No Israeli government has mustered the will to take down even the "illegal," unauthorized settlements, despite promises to the U.S. to do so, so it's getting hard to see how the "legal" settlements will ever be removed. What is needed from Israel's Feb. 10 elections is a centrist, national unity government that can resist the blackmail of the settlers, and the rightist parties that protect them, to still implement a two-state solution.
Because without a stable two-state solution, what you will have is an Israel hiding behind a high wall, defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza, a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah. Have a nice day.
So if you believe in the necessity of a Palestinian state or you love Israel, you'd better start paying attention. This is not a test. We're at a hinge of history.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/397490_friedmanonline27.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Limbaugh and Hannity, the True Faces of Conservatism: Impotent, Irrelevant
By David Neiwert
Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are clearly among the breed of Republicans who refuse to believe that Conservatism failed -- rather, that the GOP failed Conservatism. And so their solution for party renewal is to just go back to embracing the policies and ideas that brought the nation to the brink of economic and diplomatic ruin.
They don't seem to realize yet that the country has turned the page and moved on. And so they rage, rage against the fall of right-wing night. Last night's second part of Hannity's interview with Limbaugh really was more a pathetic display of hapless and unhappy impotence.
It has all the usual Limbaugh flourishes.
White Identity Politics:
Limbaugh: The Republican Party is making a big -- the Conservative movement, too, making a big, big mistake in planning for the future. You hear things like, well, the Republican Party needs to identify the middle class, the Wal-Mart voters, and come up with policies for them. And then we've got to come up with policies for Hispanics, because they hate us because of illegal immigration. That's the way the Democrats do it. You put people into groups and then you victimize them. And give the victims power over the majority. Because they then have grievances that are nonexistent, and the majority gets cowed into fear, because they don't want to be complained at, they don't want to be blamed, so 'OK, OK, you want health care, fine, we'll go get it."
[Did you know that minorities' grievances were actually nonexistent? Neither did I! Did you know that liberals -- and not racists and gay bashers -- actually victimize the minorities they champion? Me neither! Boy, ya learn something new from Rush each time out, dontcha?]
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/limbaugh-and-hannity-true-faces-cons
Sphere: Related ContentThat's It? If Bushies Escape Justice, What's Left of the U.S.?
by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--That's it? Bush moves back to Texas to dote on his presidential library--while drawing a $197,000 pension? Cheney goes back to Wyoming to fish and work on his memoirs? After committing crimes so numerous and monstrous that bookshelves are already groaning under their weight, the cabal of illegitimate coup leaders who destroyed the U.S. get to tiptoe out of the rubble and go home to a comfortable retirement?
Earlier this week a senior Pentagon prosecutor openly admitted what has long been known: torture, the lowest and most criminal act any society can sanction, is official U.S. policy. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture," Judge Susan Crawford told The Washington Post about the alleged "20th hijacker" on 9/11, now being held at Gitmo. The man was so brutalized, Crawford decided, that he could not be charged in court. The same is true of many of those being held at the Guantánamo concentration camp.
None of the Bush Administration officials responsible has faced the slightest inconvenience as the result of his actions.
Donald Rumsfeld, the beast who promoted, botched and joked about a war that has killed more than a million innocent Iraqis, spent the last year as a "distinguished visiting fellow" at Stanford, cogitating about "issues pertaining to ideology and terror."
John Yoo, the Justice Department hack who wrote the memos that authorized U.S. military and intelligence personnel to torture prisoners of war, is enjoying the cozy ambiance of academe as a UC Berkeley law professor.
Colin Powell, whose 2003 lie to the U.N. ("there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more") convinced Americans who were still on the fence to support the invasion of Iraq--a misbegotten project that drove the last nail in the coffin of the U.S. economy--wiles away his days attending the meetings of various corporate boards.
If you were expecting Barack Obama to deliver justice, forget it. "I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards," Obama said recently. "Look forward" is Beltwayese for "no accountability."
Newspaper ownership matters in American democracy
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's $250 million loan to The New York Times is an ominous move that raises questions about ownership in media companies. Major media companies should not be in the hands of a capitalist with loyalties to a foreign state.
THE $250-million loan by billionaire Carlos Slim to The New York Times Co. is said to be innocent of any motive of influencing U.S. news and opinion. Perhaps that is so, but it would have been better had the question never come up.
Slim is the richest man in Mexico, and second-richest in the world after Warren Buffett. He became that way by buying Telefonos de México in 1990. The phone company was a monopoly of the Mexican state and it became a monopoly of Carlos Slim.
Slim used his gains to create the largest cellphone company in Latin America, América Móvil. Slim companies are said to make up one-third, by value, of all the shares traded on Mexico's stock exchange.
Of his politics, the International Herald Tribune wrote last year, "Slim has been careful not to support openly any political party."
Careful — yes.
In September, Slim bought an interest in The New York Times Co. reported at 6.9 percent. Now he has agreed to lend $250 million at 14 percent interest. The loan comes with warrants to buy stock that would increase Slim's stake to 17 percent of the company.
Slim would have a much smaller share of the votes, however, because the Sulzberger family, which has controlled The New York Times since 1896, has special shares with more than one vote. Slim will have no seat on the board of directors, at least for now.
Still, the move is ominous. Ownership matters. Slim is a capitalist with a close connection to the Mexican state. He is buying a substantial stake in the most politically influential newspaper in the United States, and he easily has the wealth to buy the whole thing.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008673366_editb27slim.html
Boing Boing Video: "OUTLAWED" excerpts, pt. 1 -- Guantánamo Detainee Who Survived Torture.
Today's episode of Boing Boing video is an excerpt from OUTLAWED, a film produced by WITNESS, in partnership with more than a dozen other human rights groups around the world.
The future of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and of the men held there, has been at the top of the news this week -- President Obama has ordered the facility closed, one released detainee has now become the head of Al Qaeda in Yemen, and some around the world are calling for war crimes tribunals to be held over the torture some prisoners survived during rendition.
The story of what he endured, which included horrific sexual violence during interrogation, was painful for us to watch in the studio, when we were editing this preview piece. But all of us on the BB Video team felt like this was an incredibly important story for the world to hear, and we were grateful for the ability to draw greater attention to the story at this time.
Speaking on my own behalf here: What happens with Guantánamo and the legal process surrounding the men still held there should matter to each person who reads this blog post. The safety of our nation does not require us to abandon universally-recognized principles of human rights. Torture and disappearances do not make America more secure.
Paraphrasing what one person from WITNESS told us in email -- if more Americans realized they live in a nation where, on a street corner in the town where you live, any one of us could be picked up, pushed into an unmarked van, then moved around detention centers all over the world, tortured, without a charge or a word to your family, surely there would be more outcry.
OUTLAWED was produced around the time when the Council of Europe issued a report on the topic of extraordinary rendition and torture involving America's "War on Terror." To document why those issues matter, WITNESS created a coalition with a number of US human rights and social justice 'project partners' such as Amnesty and the ACLU to distribute the video.
Mr. Mohamed is still being held at Guantánamo Bay.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/23/boing-boing-video-ou.html
Airwaves We Can Believe In
Or, The Return of Fairness...
Thus, while perusing President Barack Obama's new White House website last night, there was much I found of interest. There was a bit, here and there, on issues of Election Reform --- particularly of note to this site, of course --- which I'm sure I'll get to in a bit. But, for the moment, this comment from the "Technology" page caught my eye, as posted in the section titled "Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets" [italics mine]...
Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum.
One of the reasons I was most looking forward to the likely-victory of John Kerry back in 2004, was so that I could begin to make his life a living hell in regards to Media Reform, the most important --- in my opinion --- reform of all at this particular point in the 21st Century. While the Supreme Court has declared many times that the right to vote is protective of all other rights, I'd suggest that the right to be informed, accurately, via our nation's publicly owned airwaves, is the right that ensures our right to vote is ultimately protective of anything.
With our current hard right-leaning corporate media landscape, every attempted reform, including Election Reform, by any Democratic administration, must overcome a nearly impossible crucible of rightwing opposition --- and more disturbingly, propaganda --- across the nation's public airwaves.
That built-in impediment --- not faced by policy agenda from the Right, which, in fact, benefits from that unholy and unAmerican (yes, unAmerican) imbalance --- must end, if this country is ever to find its equilibrium, and restore itself from the twenty year imbalance that has quietly decayed the nation's sense of Reality-based policy since Ronald Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.
That quiet change to 38 years of direct governmental oversight, attempting to ensure responsible corporate use of, and balance on, the publicly owned airwaves since it was first established in 1949, quickly paved the way for the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Ingrahams, Liddys, Bennetts, Pragers, Medveds and other ditto-headed miscreants, propagandists and ideological-driven Savages to take unfettered and virtually insurmountable 24/7/365 control of the nation's hearts and minds vis a vis the public broadcast spectrum. With that non-stop, disinformative, brainwash-wire pumped around-the-clock into virtually every rush-hour bound vehicle of the American electorate, it was only a matter of time before the same falsely-propped up beliefs and agenda were echoed in the non-regulated realm of corporate cable news.
And, to finally kick that folly into overdrive, President Bill Clinton ensured that whatever independent media voices remained on the public spectrum would soon be swallowed up by corporate behemoths via his Telecommunications Act of 1996 which would destroy any last remnants of protection against local and national media monopolies.
To paraphrase the Bill Clinton campaign of 1992: It's the publicly-owned airwaves, stupid.
They are ours. We issue leases to the corporations --- who have come to falsely believe they own them --- out of the kindness of our public hearts. And with that government largesse, they have a responsibility to the public which has been, by and large, completely abandoned.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6832#more-6832%20%3Chttp://www.bradblog.com/?p=6832
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award
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Palin Has Sought to Remove Endangered Species Act Protection for the Polar Bear, Suppressed and Lied About State Global Warming Studies, and Denied That Global Warming Is Caused by Greenhouse Gas Emissions TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity today awarded Alaska Governor Sarah Palin the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award. Last year's award, which inaugurated the prize, went to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for setting a new record in refusing to add imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list. This year's award goes to Governor Palin for fighting Kempthorne's designation of the polar bear as a threatened species.
"Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee." Palin has waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska's southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey. Palin has repeatedly asserted that Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists found fatal flaws in the sea ice models used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the polar bear is threatened. When challenged, Palin refused to release the alleged state review. Independent scientists eventually obtained a summary through the federal Freedom of Information Act, revealing that Palin had lied: The state mammalogists concurred with the Fish and Wildlife Service determination that Arctic sea ice is melting at an extraordinary rate and threatens the polar bear with extinction. "All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different," said Suckling. "To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science." Palin has since filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Bush administration to have the threatened listing overturned. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey announced on September 16th that the 2008 summertime Arctic sea-ice melt was the second greatest on record, nearly matching the extraordinary melt of 2007. "Palin's insistence that Arctic melting is 'uncertain' is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff," said Suckling. "It's hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical." |
Scariest charts ever?
Federal spending for the last 100 years.
Now, same chart adding the last 100 days.
Credit crunch claims Icelandic Government after 'Household Revolution'
The Government of Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister, resigned en masse after days of mounting anger over the country's financial meltdown.
The protests, which began peacefully after the nationalisation and overnight bankruptcy of Iceland's three main banks, turned violent last week with the nation experiencing its worst riots in 60 years.
At their height 32,000 people — more than 10 per cent of Iceland's population — took to the streets of Reykjavik banging pots and pans in what came to be known as the "Household Revolution".
The final collapse of the Government came after talks between the two coalition partners failed over who would lead a new administration. Mr Haarde, the leader of the Independence Party, said that he planned to seek a government of national unity with all parties in parliament to lead the country into fresh elections.
"I really regret that we could not continue with this coalition," he said. "I believe that that would have been the best result." Icelanders did not agree. The Government's approval rates — 72 per cent a year ago — stood at 20 per cent last week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5594348.ece
Living on thin ice
In a single year, the Arctic lost an area the size of Alaska. So how long before it melts altogether? Juliette Jowit meets the British explorers risking their lives to find out
On a cold Monday in December, one of Britain's most experienced polar explorers is sitting in an even colder room in Portsmouth, explaining his latest mission. The temperature has been turned down to a mere -20C, tropical by comparison to the almost inconceivable conditions he will have to endure during his next expedition to the Arctic. There, temperatures can drop as low as -90C; it is dark all day or the sun can blind people in minutes; the explorers will wake up, their eyelashes frozen together, in sleeping bags full of shards of ice; the ground beneath the trekkers' feet will be only inches of frozen water which can at any moment open into icy rivers which will kill almost instantly, and, apart from the odd grey seal, the only life they are likely to meet is a hungry polar bear.Meeting Pen Hadow for the first time is something of a shock. He is the first man in history to have managed one of the ultimate feats of human endurance - to trek solo and unaided to the North Pole. But instead of the great strapping giant of a man you might expect, the 46-year-old is slightly built, and his hand, when he shakes mine hello, is almost the hand of a woman. As Hadow talks his breath frosts the air in front of his face, but he looks unperturbed while sitting still in this giant concrete freezer. Such small extremities, along with his brown eyes, olive skin and naturally low heart rate, make him ideally suited to a life of spending months at a time alone or responsible for teams of amateurs in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/25/melting-arctic-north-pole-explorers
US seizing of Iranian ship 'a covert op'
The interception of an Iranian arms ship by the US Navy in the Red Sea last week likely was conducted as a covert operation and is being played down by the US military due to the lack of a clear legal framework for such operations, an American expert on Iran told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday evening.
Sphere: Related Content
Iranian workers load humanitarian aid to be send to Gaza
International media reported that an Iranian-owned merchant vessel flying a Cypriot flag was boarded early last week by US Navy personnel who discovered artillery shells on board.
The ship was initially suspected of being en route to delivering its cargo to smugglers in Sinai who would transfer the ammunition to Hamas in Gaza, but the US Navy became uncertain over the identity of the intended recipient since "Hamas is not known to use artillery," The Associated Press cited a defense official as saying.
It was then allowed to sail toward the Suez Canal, where Egyptian authorities have been asked to conduct another search of the vessel, according to the report.
In an e-mail to the Post, Lt.-Col. Patrick Ryder of the US Air Force, who is a spokesman for the Defense Department, said the US military was "aware of the media reports and are looking into them, but we have nothing to provide at this time."
An open letter to the country's former leader
By TOM DANEHY
Dear former President George W. Bush:
Here's a list of all of the things I'm going to miss about you:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Most Sincerely,
Tom
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:121094
Monday, January 26, 2009
Hate. Remorse. Forgiveness
Years after racial strife in Rock Hill, 2 whites apologize to 5 blacks
- The HeraldNext to a lunch counter that was segregated for so long sat a table of two white people and five black people 
Coleman, had been just outside, among so many, wanting to scream racial epithets.
The conversation quickly took the group back to Jan. 31, 1961.
Elwin Wilson, one of those white men, had come that day to that very lunch counter four steps from where he was now, wanting to pull one of those black men off of the stool he was sitting on. He wanted to give a beating.
Coleman, had been just outside, among so many, wanting to scream racial epithets. But 48 years later, Wilson, now 72, and Coleman, in his mid-60s, wanted something entirely different from these five black people.
They wanted forgiveness.
These black men and women -- just a few of the folks known as the "Friendship Nine" and the "City Girls" -- have been honored in museums.
They have been apologized to by politicians.
But never before had any of the white men from that day in 1961 asked to meet any of them, and sit down with them where it all started and apologize for hating them.
So, David Williamson and Willie McCleod, Phyllis Hyatt and Elsie Springs, and for sure Patricia Sims, didn't skip a beat to forgive.
Williamson said words that he and the other men and women protesters have said for decades.
"We accept your apology," Williamson said. "We forgave everybody a long time ago."
60 Minutes: Is Israel's free ride almost over?
By Jane Stillwater
Last Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a segment on Israel and Palestine, and for the most part they did a good job of covering some of the very real issues there. But according to segment host Bob Simon, "Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote." What? Democracy is not a good option?
Although Simon struggled valiantly with presenting a fair view of the so-called "settler" situation on the West Bank, there were a couple of scenes on that subject that made me almost want to laugh. Instead of showing us footage of the thousands of modern (by American standards) condos that have been built on Palestine's West Bank so that we could get real-life glimpses into the lives of some of these so-called "settlers" as they hung out on their verandas, sipped coffee in their posh living rooms or watched their big-screen TVs, Simon showed us footage of some grubby woman in a headscarf as she wandered around on some rock pile out in the middle of nowhere, wielding a pickax.
This woman had obviously never seen a pickax before in her life. This woman appeared to be straight out of central casting.
But here's one scene that "60 Minutes" left out, as described to me by a reliable American reporter currently in Gaza:
Gaza woman: "I have ten children."
Israeli Defense Force soldier: "Pick out five of them to be shot."
Gaza woman: "I cannot do that."
IDF soldier: If you don't, then I will." Soldier then picks out five children randomly and shoots them.
Last Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a segment on Israel and Palestine, and for the most part they did a good job of covering some of the very real issues there. But according to segment host Bob Simon, "Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote." What? Democracy is not a good option?
Although Simon struggled valiantly with presenting a fair view of the so-called "settler" situation on the West Bank, there were a couple of scenes on that subject that made me almost want to laugh. Instead of showing us footage of the thousands of modern (by American standards) condos that have been built on Palestine's West Bank so that we could get real-life glimpses into the lives of some of these so-called "settlers" as they hung out on their verandas, sipped coffee in their posh living rooms or watched their big-screen TVs, Simon showed us footage of some grubby woman in a headscarf as she wandered around on some rock pile out in the middle of nowhere, wielding a pickax.
This woman had obviously never seen a pickax before in her life. This woman appeared to be straight out of central casting.
But here's one scene that "60 Minutes" left out, as described to me by a reliable American reporter currently in Gaza:
Gaza woman: "I have ten children."
Israeli Defense Force soldier: "Pick out five of them to be shot."
Gaza woman: "I cannot do that."
IDF soldier: If you don't, then I will." Soldier then picks out five children randomly and shoots them.
Long term soil devastation in Gaza due to use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium
Losses are huge in the Gaza Strip with many of the devastated population still in tears, some little kids afraid to return to school today.
The environmental effects will continue to be uncovered for years on lands that become less fertile with each invasion and home demolition.The Agriculture Minister in the Gaza Strip noted today that the Israeli military continues to target farmers on their lands near the boundary lines. Many people are unable to reach the fields. He added on Saturday that in the Mediterranean just off the Gaza coast Israeli naval ships continue to open fire on fishermen, preventing them from working.
Financially speaking it is clear that reconstruction costs in the Strip are around two billion. The Ministry of Agriculture says that another 170 million USD is needed for that sector alone.
Agriculture Minister Mohammad Al Agha told a press conference in Gaza City today that nearly a thousand water wells were destroyed along with 60 percent of the Strips total agricultural land. Included in the 170 million figure needed is the cost for reconstruction to the fishing industry in the Mediterranean Sea.
Massive destruction [was] caused in the agricultural and fishing sector of the Gaza Strip through bulldozing thousands of acres and destroying wells, agriculture and poultry and livestock farms, fishing ports and fishing boats, and canning and packaging plants.
Al Agha said that the Israeli military use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium have a direct impact on agriculture and public health as the length of stay of these toxic substances in the soil will continue to create disastrous results.
Is Afghanistan going to be Obama's Iraq?
The US could find itself isolated as the conflict goes on
A soldier on patrol in Afghanistan last week. Up to 30,000 more US troops may be sent in by the summer
President Barack Obama is facing warnings that the US risks repeating some of its errors in Iraq as the new administration turns its focus to Afghanistan, where Nato forces are engaged in a conflict which has already lasted longer than the Second World War.
Having received a briefing on his first day in office from General David Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, Mr Obama is preparing to meet his military chiefs to decide on the size and shape of the Afghanistan reinforcements he promised during his election campaign. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said just before Christmas that up to 30,000 more troops could be sent by summer, nearly doubling the size of the US force in the country. Britain, the next largest contributor in the 41-nation international force, has fewer than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, which means American dominance of the campaign against the Taliban is set to increase.
"There are fears that this could become a US war rather than a Nato one," said Christopher Langton, senior fellow for conflict at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. "With other Nato members already planning to scale back, the US could find itself isolated. Rather than being an international operation, it would become another 'coalition of the willing', as in Iraq – though with the crucial difference that the Afghan mission has had a United Nations mandate throughout."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/is-afghanistan-going-to-be-obamas-iraq-1515332.html
Obama’s new foreign policy team prepares escalated bloodletting in Afghanistan and Pakistan
By Patrick Martin
In a series of meetings and public appearances Wednesday and Thursday, and with the first military strikes of his administration, President Barack Obama has given a clear signal that he plans intensified bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the US escalates its military intervention in Central and South Asia.
Missiles fired from unmanned Predator drones struck two targets inside Pakistan Friday morning, killing at least 18 people. As is always the case with such exercises in remote-controlled murder, US officials claimed they were targeting Al Qaeda, although even US media accounts admitted that the majority of those killed were local residents.
Three missiles struck the village of Zharki in North Waziristan, killing ten people, of whom five were described by US "security sources" as Al Qaeda militants. A few hours later, another missile hit a house in South Waziristan, killing eight people whose identities were not known.
The strikes were the latest in a series of more than two dozen such attacks since last August, and Pentagon officials said they had carried out the attacks under existing authority from the outgoing Bush administration, while keeping the new president fully informed of the action.
The death toll from the missile campaign, according to Pakistani government figures, numbers at least 263 people. Even US government officials claim only a handful of those killed had any ties to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The attacks on sovereign Pakistani territory are blatant violations of international law, which the regime in Islamabad protests verbally, while continuing to accept billions in US subsidies to the country's military.
'US strike' on Pakistan kills 21
 Pakistani paramedics treat a victim of a missile attack. |
The death toll from two suspected US missile strikes in Pakistan -- under President Barack Obama -- has risen to 21, security officials say.
Intelligence officials said eight people including five militants of Arab origin died in the missile strike at a house near Mir Ali, the main town in North Waziristan districts near the Afghan border.
Hours later another suspected US drone fired two missiles into a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing seven people.
"Six bodies of local tribesmen were found in the rubble of the house which was destroyed in a US missile strike on Friday just outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan district," an official was quoted by AFP as saying.
The attacks were the first since US President Barack Obama took office Tuesday.
Intelligence officials said eight people including five militants of Arab origin died in the missile strike at a house near Mir Ali, the main town in North Waziristan districts near the Afghan border.
Hours later another suspected US drone fired two missiles into a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing seven people.
"Six bodies of local tribesmen were found in the rubble of the house which was destroyed in a US missile strike on Friday just outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan district," an official was quoted by AFP as saying.
The attacks were the first since US President Barack Obama took office Tuesday.
The real reason Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich
During Eric Holder's confirmation hearing, Arlen Specter scolded the attorney general-designate, but no one mentioned Israeli pressure.
By Joe Conason
In an editorial that appeared on the morning of the hearings, the Washington Post urged the Senate to question Holder "closely" on the Rich matter. But it is difficult for senators (and editorial writers) to ask pertinent questions when they are completely ignorant of the real background and motivations of the players in the case. Even now, the true machinations behind the Rich pardon cannot be discussed honestly -- perhaps because they implicate the government and the security services of the state of Israel.
Sitting quiet and grave before the committee, Holder listened as Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., one of the leading windbags of our time, held forth on how dreadful Rich is and how awful the pardon was. The fugitive trader, who still lives in Switzerland, had "a reprehensible record," Specter said -- alluding to reports that Rich did business in Iraq and Iran. The Pennsylvania Republican demanded to know how Holder could possibly have recommended a pardon for such an odious figure.
No doubt Holder was advised by the president-elect's transition team not to argue with Specter or anyone else about Rich. He must have been told not to talk about the foreign-policy issues that heavily influenced his view of the Rich decision. So he offered a meek mea culpa, took his lumps from Specter, and promised that his mistakes had made him a better man. Considering that his objective is to get through the hearings without undue stress, that was probably the wisest course. Telling the truth would only have inflamed the Republicans and the press, while creating unwanted drama for Obama.
Still, it would have been a refreshing change from the usual confirmation minuet if instead of humbly apologizing, Holder had tartly instructed the buffoonish Specter, his fellow senators, the press, and the public about the actual circumstances of the Rich affair. He might have started with the fact that continuous lobbying on Rich's behalf from the highest Israeli leaders and their American friends -- among whom Specter no doubt counts himself -- became even more intense in the days before Clinton left office. He could have noted that such pressures coincided with Clinton's efforts to conclude a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. And he could have explained to Specter that Rich's deals in Iran and Iraq were often related to his other role -- as an asset of the Mossad who gathered intelligence and helped to rescue endangered Jews from those regimes.
It is clear that Holder and his colleagues in the Justice Department had ample reason for concern over the proposed pardon, in part because pardoning a fugitive violated precedent. But for the Post to call him "the pardoner" in a front-page headline directing readers to the editorial was grossly unfair. Clinton had sole constitutional discretion to grant the pardon, and he would have done so whether Holder liked it or not.
But Holder understood that there were deeper reasons why the pardon was likely to be approved, which had nothing to do with the political and charitable contributions of Rich's ex-wife, the Manhattan socialite Denise Rich. The New York Times offered just a hint in a front-page story that appeared shortly after the Holder nomination was announced. Only at the very end did the Times mention the pressure from "the Israelis" that had persuaded Holder not to oppose the pardon -- as he told Beth Nolan, then the White House counsel.
Placed in its international context, that remark puts an entirely different coloration on Clinton's decision and on Holder's forbearance.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Airlines treating squabbles, snuggling as terrorism
At least 200 airline passengers have been convicted of terrorism for incidences that have involved little more than raised voices, foul language and drunken behavior.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap.
She swatted each of them on the thigh three times. It was a small incident, but one that in the heightened anxiety after the Sept. 11 attacks would have enormous ramifications for Freeman and her children.
A flight attendant confronted Freeman, who responded by hurling a few profanities and throwing a can of tomato juice on the floor.
The incident led to Freeman's arrest and conviction for a federal felony defined as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act, the controversial federal law enacted after the 2001 attacks.
"I had no idea I was breaking the law," said Freeman, who spent three months in jail before pleading guilty.
Freeman, 40, is one of at least 200 airline passengers who have been convicted under the law. In most cases, there was no evidence that the passengers had attempted to hijack an airplane or physically attack a flight crew member. Many simply have involved raised voices, foul language and drunken behavior.
Some security experts say the use of the law by airlines and their employees has run amok.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008656969_airfelonies220.html
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