the most dangerous man in America...
happens to be G. W. Bush, if only that vast & ignorant
herd of citizens would wake up and pay attention.
Two items, culled from many, relating to another of the
great mistakes being made by the current administration;
from the N.Y. Times, both by Nicholas D. Kristof,
Bush vs. Women;
Shaming Young Mothers.
then please hie thyself to the U.N. Population Fund site,
where you can choose to join us in attempting to make up for the short-sightedness
of the present administration by supporting the efforts of these concerned citizens,
because it isn't just about birth control you know, it's about HIV/AIDS education &
prevention, family planning, it's just about being humane, teaching peace,
taking some responsibility for the welfare of one another....

Ted Rall says George W. Bush hates America.

Do Hamdi and Padilla need company? Anita Ramasatry discusses Ashcroft's plan to create internment camps for Americans.

The Great Speckled Bird. 'Underground' newspaper from Atlanta, dating from the 1960's.
The Rock Art Museum.
Steal This Web Page. Guide to Abbie Hoffman.

Time
Travel to the Korean War. The website of
Kim Dong Gyu, a South Korean high school student, and
his friends.
'Our team, Synergy, took great pains to select a
topic for this entry. At first, we were hesitant to
base our entire project on the Korean War due to its
bleak nature, but after careful deliberation, we
realized that we had a mission to fulfill. Our
mission was to dig up the Korean War from the ashes
and stop it from fading away as "the forgotten war." ... '

Archie Loves Betty, Veronica, and the FBI
My favorite blog, Common-Place Book, writes, “Since 1954, the Comics Magazine Association of America has issued a Comics Code Authority Seal to comics submitted by publishers which meet the standards of the Comics Code. In practice, the Code was used as a tool of censorship, since it was nearly impossible to sell unapproved comics to newstands and mass merchandisers. With the rise of specialty comic book stores in the mid-80's, most publishers have opted out of the Comics Code.” The code was updated in 1971 and again in 1989. The 1989 version adds:

In general, recognizable national, social, political, cultural, ethnic and racial groups, religious institutions, law enforcement authorities will be portrayed in a positive light. These include the government on the national, state, and municiple levels, including all of its numerous departments, agencies and services; law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, the Secret Service, the CIA, etc.; the military, both United States and foreign; known religious organizations; ethnic advancement agencies; foreign leaders and representatives of other governments and national groups; and social groups identifiable by lifestyle, such as homosexuals, the economically disadvantaged, the economically privileged, the homeless, senior citizens, minors, etc.

CPB notes, “DC Comics and Archie are the publishers who still abide by the Code to portray the CIA, ethnic advancement agencies and the economically privileged in a positive light.”

Why be suprised that the FBI is acting like the FBI? Targeting minorities is part of their ignoble tradition.

Flashback :- Lockerbie was an impossible verdict.
'Lockerbie Trial Unfair'. Report on and evaluation of the Lockerbie trial by Dr. Hans Köchler, University Professor, international observer of the International Progress Organization nominated by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the basis of Security Council resolution 1192 (1998).

Aide says Nidal confessed to Lockerbie bombing. (Guardian Unlimited) 'The Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal admitted to a meeting of his most trusted colleagues that he was behind the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing and the culprits were not Libyans, it is claimed today in a leading Arabic newspaper. '
'In an interview with the London daily, Al-Hayat, a former colleague, Atef Abu Bakr, says Nidal made the confession to the inner circle of his revolutionary council some time before his death earlier this week. '
[ ... ]
'Tam Dalyell, Labour MP for Linlithgow, has long maintained that Nidal was to blame, and not Libyans. Last night he said: "If true, this is a hugely important development. If he has said that no one else had anything to do with it, where does that leave Mr al-Megrahi? I believe the Libyans had nothing to do with it. This is one hell of a thing." '
'He said that the Foreign Office must now investigate Bakr's claims "as a matter of the utmost urgency". '

Symbol of a Profession: One Hundred Years of Nurses' Caps. 'The caps shown here are a selection from the 167 Mrs. Kay recently donated to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The Gloria Kay Nurses' Caps Collection is now the most comprehensive of its kind, dating from 1895 to 1983 and representing every province.'

akaKurdistan. 'This site, a borderless space, provides the opportunity to build a collective memory with a people who have no national archive.'

Sneaking up on America. A long bike ride from Miami to Seattle.
'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry,and narrow-mindedness.. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of people and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. - Mark Twain.'

After the victory of the US, the removal of the Taliban government, business is once again booming in Afghanistan.

Joseph Sobran wonders:

Why do so many conservatives — most of whom oppose abortion, the killing of human fetuses — so readily, even eagerly, favor war? Not just this or that war, but nearly every war?

The idea of war seems to conjure in their imaginations a picture of a battle between a virtuous America and a purely evil enemy who deserves whatever he gets. In World War II movies, for instance, German soldiers are always shown as cruel, usually beefy men, more than 30 years old, each of whom is capable of strangling Ann Frank with his bare hands. They are never shown as scared kids, drafted like our boys to fight for purposes they don’t understand.

Multimedia edition of Galileo's notes on motion. Courtesy of the
Institute and
Museum of the History of Science, Florence.


This Land Is Ours. A land reform campaign for
Britain.
'TLIO campaigns peacefully for access to the land, its
resources, and the decision-making processes affecting
them, for everyone, irrespective of race, gender or
age.' Of related interest :-
Rural Futures.


Hiroshima Peace Site.

Bush unveils plan to fight wildfires. Well, weren't we all just waiting for this one? A perfect excuse to log the living hell out of any old growth forest to "prevent forest fires" (say, how about that new redwood deck?), so his buddies can make a few more bucks before it all goes poof.



"The bush administration said changes are necessary to clear forests of a decades-long buildup of highly flammable materials.
" -- excuse me for saying that this is just about the stupidest statement I've heard come out of the White House today. (was it the real white house, or the Texas White House? Maybe it was a whole brand new white house no one knows about that was set up for security reasons...shhhhh, don't tell.).



Mostly anyone that has studied any kind of forestry (and some who didn't) know that forests often need to burn. "Without fires, dead material accumulates, locking up essential nutrients necessary for plant growth. Fires release these nutrients, and enhance the production of nitrogen- fixing plants that often revegetate recently burned areas"



They really do treat us like idiots. How much stupider is the american public going to appear (it's hard to imagine we could appear any stupider than we already do) when they allow these monsters to cut into the last remaining old growth forests to "prevent forest fires". No wonder why they're dumbing us down, turning our educational system into a quagmire of ineffeciency. It's so they can pull the wool over our eyes because we're too stupid to read, instead receiving our daily dose of "news" from the media owned by them.

War game was fixed to ensure American victory, claims general - on the face of it, a slightly alarming revelation, but who's to say for sure that Saddam won't be amenable to similar collusion when the real thing goes off, in return for safe passage to Sudan, or wherever? After all, he past record shows he's the kind of guy that Bush, Cheney and co. can do business with... (Guardian via Robot Wisdom)

Sharon Leong... Teen-Age Terror. From Works by Sharon Leong, The Queen of B-Paintings. "...If you're a fan of the old dramatic bad-girl pulp paperback covers, then Ms. Leong's art will quicken your pulse. Humorously sexy, lovingly cliche and dead on creatively genius, Ms. Leong's art will very soon be gracing museum walls." JT Leroy, Author (Sarah; The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things).

So you've been wondering how the EU equivalent of the DMCA, the EUCD, is taking shape? Wonder no more: Danny O'Brien has posted a summary at Stand, and the news isn't terriby good. But there's a handy step-by-step guide to what little we can do to resist the clampdown... (via Oblomovka)
ASIDE: apologies for mistakenly posting this here - it was intended for my own blog. Must... fix... bookmarklets...

Please put your hands together and welcome to this domain none other than proud blog voyeur Relton Dupiniot!

The Renewed Israeli Occupation
2 million Palestinians under curfew for 61 days!

Palestine's partisans

While Mr Barghouti waits for his trial to start, two other powerful voices have been raised to haunt the Israeli authorities. The first is that of Nelson Mandela, who says he will be closely following the trial proceedings. His involvement is a reminder of the similarities between the bantustans for South African black people under apartheid, and the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza. The other voice was that of Marek Edelman, who was deputy commander of the historic Warsaw ghetto uprising of the Jews against the Nazis in 1943.

Now in his 80s, Mr Edelman wrote a letter early this month to Palestinian leaders. Though the letter criticised the suicide bombers, its tone infuriated the Israeli government and its press. He wrote in a spirit of solidarity from a fellow resistance fighter, as a former leader of a Jewish uprising not dissimilar in desperation to the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories. He addressed his letter to "commanders of the Palestinian military, paramilitary and partisan operations - to all the soldiers of the Palestinian fighting organisations". [read more]

----------

Inbuilt contradiction
by Amira Hass

The more the army leaves the cities, the more the Civil Administration authorities will encounter requests for passes. "But it's an administrative disaster," said one foreign diplomat following the process of reforms in the PA. Just to implement a reformation of the legal system requires freedom of movement for judges, prosecutors, attorneys, witnesses and accused between the various districts. To revive the Palestinian financial sector so salaries and pensions can be paid - and so the work of the security forces can be renewed, as the gradual cease-fire plan says - requires economic activity, which requires freedom of movement.

An election will require freedom of movement for candidates and their activists. "The Civil Administration will need 50,000 new clerks just to issue travel passes for two million people within a reasonable period of time and in a routine manner," said the diplomat. [read more]

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"Neighbor Practice"
by Uri Avnery

The topic of war crimes is now firmly fixed on the national and military agenda, and cannot be removed anymore..

This week there was a public outcry about the death of Nidal Abu-Muhsein in Tubas village on the West Bank. The 19 years old youngster was taken from his home by the soldiers who had come to the village in order to arrest (or kill) his neighbor, the Hamas activist Nasser Jerar. Nidal was compelled to approach Nasser's door and call on him to come out. Nasser, who must have been waiting for the soldiers, opened fire and killed him. Then a bulldozer was called in and to destroy the house, burying Nasser alive under its ruins.

The use of a local resident as a "human shield" is a war crime. That was confirmed, on live television, by a senior reserve officer, the former president of the highest military court. The Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbids the use of "protected persons" (as the convention calls inhabitants of an occupied territory) for such purpose. This practice, like the practice of compelling Palestinian neighbors to tour buildings suspected of being booby-trapped, is similar to the killing of hostages in retaliation for resistance actions. [read more]

----------

Some lives are cheaper than others
By Gideon Levy

Which is preferable - "pressure cooker" or "neighbor procedure"? Is it better to detonate a building with the occupants inside - a practice known in the Israel Defense Forces as "pressure cooker" - or to send one of the local neighbors to defend the soldiers bodily, the "neighbor procedure" in IDF argot.

In the moral deterioration of the IDF in the territories, which has been greatly accelerated in the past few weeks, the choices that are made by the army's commanding officers are often described as an alternative between two controversial actions, in which the non-use of one automatically validates the other, and both of them together are automatically justified within the framework of the war on terrorism in which just about everything now goes.

Thus it was that the IDF tried, at week's end, to justify the appalling use that soldiers made of an innocent neighbor, 19-year-old Nidal Abu Muhsein, who was equipped with a protective vest and sent to his death by soldiers who were engaged in a manhunt for a wanted individual, Nasser Jerar, in the village of Tubas, near Jenin. The other choice the soldiers had, according to the IDF, was to resort to the "pressure cooker" tactic. In fact, in this case the IDF did not balk at using that method as well: after the "neighbor procedure" failed, the army buried the disabled Jerar alive - he lost both legs and an arm a year ago - under the ruins of the building, which IDF bulldozers brought down without knowing whether there was anyone else inside. This act drew no response from anyone in Israel. [read more]

Is American Samizdat one of your favorite political blogs? Do you want to help stop Ann Coulter from co-opting the term 'samizdat' for her neocon allies? Then click here to vote for American Samizdat to be included among Eric Alterman's blog links. Thank you for your support!

we should take each & every opportunity...
to make our voices heard and our opinions count.
Received in our email this afternoon,
please sign the petition and tell your friends, co-workers,
family members, and make some difference,
"No War on Iraq"

Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders - Colombia Report

Ever hear of Frank Olsen? He was a CIA scientist who supposedly killed himself after being secretly dosed with LSD during a MK-ULTRA brainwash experiment in the 50's. For decades, the CIA denied involvement in his suicide (murder). His family eventually recieved 750,000 to settle their claims with the government.

New documents reveal that Cheney and Rumsfeld were both involved with the cover-up:

Cheney and Rumsfeld were given the task of covering up the details of Frank Olson’s death. At the time, Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney was a senior White House assistant.

. . . Cheney acknowledges that “the Olson lawyers will seek to explore all the circumstances of Dr Olson’s employment, as well as those concerning his death. In any trial, it may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons and any settlement or judgement reached thereafter could be perceived as money paid to cover up the activities of the CIA”.

Towards a Sustainable Internet? What are the Costs of Blogging?

The WWF has just recently released what amounts to a free book (in .pdf) investigating all the relevant data on how the development of a global ICT network -- what we're involved in here (i.e. blogosphere) -- is affecting the campaign for a planet free from oppression and the various pathologies resulting from unsustainable production / consumption cycles.

This book from the WWF hopes to present the hard facts as best they can in the hope that the debate around ICT (which is here to stay regardless) and the future of the planet (which may not be) can be moved beyond the polarized factions of love and hate to the level of an informed discussion amongst the civilian population and enlightened policy formation. Of course, for this to be possible in a world of transnational capitalism, it means pressure on the companies, organizations and states that are in charge of the industry. Thus, the WWF has also put together this list (.pdf) of the 50 key players who can influence the future in this regard.

IRAQ LINKS

Index page for IAEA Iraq inspection reports
Cordesman describes CBRN scenario
The issue of disease in Bagdad - Declassified DIA document
Commercial satellites track suspected WMD facilities
Annan pressures Iraq on 600 Kuwaitis missing in war
Phyllis Bennis interview - Bombing Bagdad would be comparable to bombing LA
Blix: Invasion Talk Won't Get Inspectors Into Iraq
Directed-Energy Weapons (high-power microwave (HPM) technology) : Possible U.S. Use Against Iraq Could Threaten International Regimes
RFE/RL Iraq Report
Winds of Change Iraq Roundup - Bonus: Millenium Challenge 2002 replay and a Report from Sudan

80s flashback:

"Repeatedly, Rumsfeld made clear that US interests coincided with Iraq's in the war. He wrote in his own note to Shultz, "I said I thoght we had areas of common interest, particularly the security and stability in the Gulf, which had been jeopardized as a result of the Iranian revolution. I added that the US had no interest in an Iranian victory; to the contrary. We would not want Iran's influence expanded at the expense of Iraq. As with all sovereign nations, we respect Iraq's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Rumseld has really managed to re-invent himself. Though the prize must go to John Ashcroft on that score.

Turn Yourself In and Get It Over With
Our governmental vigilance against hidden sources of potential terrorism is, as you know, expanding rapidly. It quite naturally includes the deepest suspicion directed toward those of you so dangerously misguided as to foolishly disagree with any of our activities. The thought of the United States of America continuing to tolerate so-called normal citizens who insist on harboring hurtful negative attitudes toward those holding the reins of power is clearly unacceptable. Such disagreement is shockingly counterproductive to a beleaguered government trying to rid itself of a few dangerous enemies while simultaneously taking over as much of the world's resources as possible. Because if you think this is easy to pull off without too many people noticing, you can think again.

Nissan accelerates fuel cell vehicle plans

The anthrax killer - thoughts from a linguist who helped catch the Unabomber

"Controversially, Prof Foster says the killer is likely to be highly patriotic individual who wanted to demonstrate that the US was badly prepared for an act of biological terrorism."

Was Millenium Challenge 2002 Rigged?

What do we do about our ex-generals who come up with unconventional tactics that might actually win?

Corporate vandals Coke and Pepsi deface majestic Himalayas

Yahoo fires janitor who tried to organize a union: "Janitors take pride in keeping Yahoo's offices clean. Unfortunately, their employer, Team Services, does not take the same pride in its business practices. Team pays janitors poverty wages, fails to provide affordable family health insurance, and harasses workers when they try to organize a union to improve their conditions. Now, Team management has gone one step further by firing one of their workers for being an activist! Team Services put an end to Ricardo Olguin's dream of winning better wages and affordable family health coverage by giving him the boot for visiting co-workers in co-workers homes as part of the Justice for Janitors campaign. Imagine if you were fired for talking with your friends! Well, federal law protects Ricardo's and his co-worker's right to organize free from harassment and intimidation. BY FIRING RICARDO, TEAM SERVICES IS BREAKING THE LAW!"

THE WAR IN CONTEXT:: Alternative perspectives on the "war on terrorism"
is an excellent source for news -- Relton (le blogeur)

Geov Parrish sits down with Vandana Shiva

Seven Days Would Be Too Long: Free Saad Eddin Ibrahim
I have a question for the Egyptian Government and especially for President Mubarak. Does Egypt really need to have a man like Saad Eddin Ibrahim behind bars?

Iraqi Opposition Group Occupies Berlin Embassy: "This is a message to Gerhard Schroeder as much as for Saddam. The Iraqis are disappointed with Germany's stance vis-a-vis an attack to remove Saddam."

Is Schroder going to invade America for funding terrorist groups?

America support terror? What? You must be a conspiracy theorist, or maybe even a terrorist yourself!

The moral cowardice of the Australian government:

The Australian government wants to attack Iraq preemptively because the Iraqis won’t allow the UN to inspect their weapons facilities. Meanwhile, the government opposes the UN protocol on torture because it doesn’t want the UN to inspect its prison facilities.

This was posted below by Jason of New World Order. And this I happened to read 10 minutes earlier.

Mind you, the fact that a woman is going to be put to death by stoning for having a child by a man not her husband is deplorable, especially considering the fact that probably 90% of the men in that courtroom shouting "Allahu Akbar" are guilty of either having relations outside of their marriages, rape, or severe cruelty to women.

But now, what I would like for you to do, is try and see a connection here. Remember when Laura Bush came out with her support for the poor oppressed women of Afghanistan? A month or so after we started slamming that country with bombs, she piped up about RAWA, and how sad it was that women were so badly treated...yadda yadda yadda. Well, here's the absolute perfect opportunity for the slimy, sneaky administration (oops, i mean ChevronTexaco) to get what they want in Nigeria now.

Let's say it's all about the women, it's all about oppression. It's all about us sticking up for this woman and the lives of all women everywhere, when in reality, it's not about that AT ALL. In reality, it's about oil, my friends. Once again, it's all about the oil. Chevron and oil. Bush and Bush, Cheney and all the other lying sneaky bastards who talk out of both sides of their mouths, telling you one thing, how good they are, how concerned they are, when they're lying, lying lying.

Get Informed : Get Mad : Fight for Justice

Are you Rapture Ready? Includes: Satan's Little Helpers -- "The liberal media who else could it be," a Prophetic Top Ten List and Your Final Final Final Warning . . . "This time we're serious."

Additional evidence that George Bush is in this alone is dismissed as inconsequential. What to make of this then? You know you're alone on an island when even an eager-to-fight Aussie tones down his bellicosity.

Chevron getting pissed off at Nigerians who keep seizing oil platforms/demanding jobs and development assistance: "Chevron's reaction to this latest incident is a clear measure of their deep frustration. It says these protesters are not entitled to support as they are not from a recognised host community."

Amazon Indians lose appeal of Texaco (now ChevronTexaco Corp.) case ruling: "The plaintiffs alleged that a Texaco subsidiary dumped an estimated 30 billion gallons of toxic waste into their environment while extracting oil from the Ecuadorean Amazon between 1964 and 1992. They alleged that instead of pumping the substances back into emptied wells, the Texaco subsidiary dumped them in local rivers, directly into landfills or spread them on the local dirt roads. They also alleged that the Ecuadorean Pipeline, constructed by Texaco, leaked large amounts of petroleum into the environment. The Indians alleged that they and their families suffered various injuries, including poisoning and development of pre-cancerous growths."

(special preview to a new look for mister pants . . . will disappear soon, shhhh . . . )

The meaning to the recent Zilla craze . . .

Samizdatzilla?

Scott Ganz, warblogger, in the comments section at Warblogger Watch:

Why exactly do you people keep Menlo around? All he does is link external content. Whatever one might say about the rest of your writings, they at least required thought.

Face it. Menlo is a plagiarizing waste of space. Even if he links to the holy grail itself, he's still just pointing and expecting a pat on the back.

Whether or not what Menlo linked is funny, the fact remains that all he does is paste up links to other peoples' content. I've done more work pissing in this comments section than he's done all month.

Take a look at my page, and you'll note immediately that more than 2/3 of it is entirely, as Shuggie Otis would say, Aht Uh Mi Hed. . . . Since I, unlike the WBW crowd, am over 17 years of age, I've been to college. . . . Ohhh, so nobody's supposed to write anything. We're just supposed to link other people's work in a maddening mobius strip of hypertext? Anyone can post a link and say "go". It is one who writes, which includes everyone at WBW except Menlo, who at the very least puts something of themselves into their work. . . . If Menlo is the site's tech guru, then that's another story.

No comment.

Skinhead Markings... 01 | 02. "...Tattoos depicting scenes from Norse mythology on a neo-nazi skinhead, early 90s." From South-Africa Political Photographs at Raath.org. "...Photographs taken between 1988 and 1993 at political gatherings in Pretoria, South Africa, reflecting the ultra-nationalist zeitgeist."

An Open Letter to Americans from a Canadian. Eww, that smarts!
Go get your ten- billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and- hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind- numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."...You have become a nation of monsters, America. Hypocrites. Murderers. Fools.