text:
Friday, June 30, 2006
Stop lying
Looking for an excuse
From Haaretz.com (Mazuz is the Israeli Attorney General; my emphasis in red):
"The detention of Hamas parliamentarians in the early hours of Thursday morning had been planned several weeks ago and received approval from Mazuz on Wednesday. The same day, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the list of Hamas officials slated for detention."
In other words, Israel used the Palestinian attack on the Israeli military post as an excuse to do what it was looking for an excuse to do, arrest a democratically elected government and destroy Palestinian access to electricity. And the world sits back and lets it happen.
Burnt Norton
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Opera/Firefox/Apple rant
Has anyone else noticed how bad - I mean sucks-donkey-balls bad - the new Opera 9 is? Just awful, possibly even worse than Firefox (which is slowly becoming a decent browser, but has never come close to living up to all the hype). I struggled with Opera 9 for a few days, uninstalled it and went back to 8.54 (it's like going from Hell to Heaven). Opera 8.54 is the epitome of the browser maker's art, and given the precipitous slide of Opera 9, may be the best a browser can be. Opera 9 is unresponsive - 'sticky' is the term that comes to mind, somewhat like Firefox, although Firefox is much improved - and, perhaps even worse, fails to render sites properly (like Bloglines, which I am becoming addicted to). I'm supposed to give up the elegance and sleekness of Opera 8.54 for . . . widgets?
I don't know whether the geeks who write these things realize it or not, but the vast majority of people use browsers to, um, surf the net. We don't need or want games, the weather, something to tell us whether Abe Vigoda is alive or not (on second thought, that is somewhat useful), and all this other crap which gets in the way. We just want to load and read through web pages, and dispose of them, as easily and quickly as possible, preferably using the keyboard. The nerd love of Firefox extensions is completely beyond me, particularly when any little change to the main browser renders half of them unusable (what the hell is up with that?).
While I'm ranting, has anyone else noticed that, while nobody was looking, Apple has become the Evil One. Crappy customer service, crappy production standards, iPods made in Chinese slave labor factories, going to court to protect its immoral digital rights management, an unwillingness to allow its proprietary file extensions - most notably music, but there are other examples as well - to work with anybody else's products. Arrogance everywhere. Even in their new ads, you end up cheering for the PC/Microsoft guy. As usual, good industrial design hides a lousy set of products (nerds like shiny objects). Steve Jobs is the new Bill Gates. Is it possible that Microsoft, in the absence of any other reasonable options, will save the internet?
Monday, June 26, 2006
Western Union's war against Islam
From Cryptome, quoting Ron Suskind's new book:
"[At a meeting with FBI, CIA and Western Union at CIA headquarters.]
Lormel talked about what a good friend Western Union has been since 9/11. Nervous Phil [a pseudonym] talked a bit about what might be done going forward. Western Union had twelve thousand offices across the globe, thirteen hundred in Pakistan alone. There was no country more important in battling the terrorists.
Everyone nodded, a show of consensus, until one of the Western Union executives had something to say.
He looked at Tenet. 'Here's my concern,' he said. 'If it seems that Western Union is a global front for the CIA, we'll go out of business.'
Tenet leaned forward in his chair and dropped his ace.
'I know we're asking a lot,' he said. 'But this country is in a fight for its survival. What I'm asking is that you and your company be patriots.'
After that, it was all about logistics."
"Two weeks after Western Union officials met with Tenet, [head of Israel's Shin Bet] Dichter gave the United States a piece of intelligence to begin the process: the name of a supporter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who was expected to wire money from Lebanon to a point somewhere in Israel. Early in April, Western Union's offices in Lebanon received the expected order. The Terrorism Section of the Department of Justice, on twenty-four hour call, kicked into gear. In an arrangement with the U.S. Federal Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, based in Alexandria, they issued an instantaneous subpoena. It allowed Western Union - a U.S.-based company - to notify FBI and CIA about which location the money was being wired to, and who was picking it up. All of it occurred in minutes. Israeli intelligence officers were hailed. They raced, silently to the right Western Union office in Hebron, and then followed the PIJ courier to his safe house in the West Bank. From, there, electronic surveillance equipment quickly tracked communications to other cells in the Palestinian territories."
Any Muslim using Western Union to send money is supporting the American-Israeli war against Islam.
Bilderberg jumps the shark
Is it just me, or has all the talk about the Bilderbergs become silly? Twenty years ago, they may have been a little more important, and slightly conspiratorial. Now, they have become somewhat of a joke. Not only is the meeting no longer any kind of secret, but the press, at least in Canada, covered the meeting as if it was the most newsworthy event happening in Canada (probably because it was the most newsworthy event happening in Canada !). The Ottawa Citizen had pictures of the attendees, obviously taken with a long lens at the airport or the hotel, spread across most of its front page. Paris Hilton's love life is more secret than the Bilderberg conference.
The list of attendees has become so large that it is impossible to have a truly secret meeting. How are Richard Perle and David Rockefeller supposed to have a conversation about what kind of rifle to use to blow Hugo Chavez' head clean off when they are surrounded with swarms of two-bit politicians and bureaucrats?
The Bilderberg conference has degenerated into a meeting where semi-important people get to feel fully important by being invited to hob nob with a few really powerful people. It is a way for people whose self-worth depends on serving important people to pad their resumes. Its only real purpose now is to serve as the debutante's ball for future extreme right-wing politicians, who are shown around the group to ensure that they are not covert commie pinko fags, and are worthy of being installed as the next political leaders.
Fascination with the likes of the Bilderbergers is a manifestation of one of the two main types of conspiracy theory. It has long been the most common form of conspiracy theory, the idea that the whole world is run by an identifiable cabal – aristocrats, Jews, Freemasons, Illuminati, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers. The idea arose at the same time that democracy started to take over politics, and it was based on the assumption that the elite groups would conspire behind the scenes to regain control of lost power. The Big Conspiracy helped to explain why power in the people seemed not to make things any better, and seemed not to reduce the power and wealth of the aristocracy.
This type of conspiracy theory is largely nonsense, and obviously nonsense, and does a lot of harm to what I consider to be real conspiracy theory, which is the simple idea that political crimes are the same as any other crime, and should be investigated using normal forensic methods, and punished using the regular justice system. Real conspiracy theory might not lead to a new utopia, but it would go a long way to ensuring that democratic political systems work the way they are supposed to, and that the interests of the average person aren't lost behind the interests of the corporadoes and warmongers. Focusing on the likes of the Bilderbergers distracts our attention from the real task at hand, and gives ammunition to those who would try to stop us from using methods available to us now to improve the world.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Parsing Truthout
From Truthout:
"Our primary sources for this report are career federal law enforcement and federal government officials speaking on condition of anonymity."
We know that the career federal government official is Joseph Wilson. Who is the career federal law enforcement official? From Sam Smith's semi-sympathetic posting on Jason Leopold (my emphasis in red):
"He is still having problems such as his recent report that Karl Rove had been indicted. Maybe his source was wrong, maybe he was being used for reasons not yet clear (such as helping the prosecutors turn Rove) and perhaps there is more to come."
This makes sense. Despite dragging him back and forth to the Grand Jury, Fitzgerald was obviously getting nowhere with Rove. Did Fitzgerald's people fear that Rove wasn't taking their threats seriously enough? By planting the story with the only source gullible enough to run with it, and by passing the same information to Wilson to create the appearance of dual sourcing, Fitzgerald's office made it seem that there was credible evidence that an indictment was imminent. The idea would be to use this to force Rove to give up somebody else. The story got mangled in the telling, and Rove never worried about it anyway, as he knew Fitzgerald could never convict him, and he knew he had Bush's pardon in his back pocket should the worst come to worst. Nevertheless, the idea that this was a trick from Fitzgerald's office makes sense, and that sourcing would explain why Truthout still cannot believe it has been had.
Fitzgerald took the pressure off himself early on by nailing Libby, but he has wasted so much time and energy with Rove that the optics of his position will mean he will need another indictment before he gives up. My guess is one of the usual names: Hadley, Hannah, Fleitz or Bolton. Bolton might be a good guess, as his insanity appears to be spinning out of control (is he off his meds?), and the old-school Republicans, for whom Fitzgerald works, would like to find an excuse to get him out of a position where he can further destroy the reputation of the United States.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The case against Karl
Amid all the ongoing bluster concerning Fitzgerald and Rove, including the newest extreme delusion that the confusion instigated by Truthout relates somehow to the fact that Fitzgerald has forced Rove to turn on Cheney – keep dreaming! – we seem to have lost sight of the fact that Rove isn't under threat of indictment because Fitzgerald had no chance of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Rove committed a crime. Rove's problem appears to relate to his failure to mention Cooper in his appearances before the Grand Jury. Rove could be indicted for obstruction of justice or perjury, but Fitzgerald would have a hell-of-a-time proving it. All Rove has to say is that he forgot. It happened months before; Rove is a terribly busy guy (saving Americans from the terrorists!); Rove speaks to hundreds of people a week; Cooper was new to the Washington beat, not one of Rove's regular journalist pals, and not a forceful or memorable personality; and Rove mentioned other names equally or more embarrassing to the White House case. Rove has probably demonstrated to Fitzgerald in his Grand Jury appearances that he will be an excellent and engaging witness in his own defense. How does Fitzgerald prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rove didn't just forget? Given the importance of Rove in American politics, and the fact that an indictment would remove Rove from the upcoming election cycles, it would be an abuse of Fitzgerald's power as a prosecutor to go after Rove if Fitzgerald feels he doesn't have a reasonable prospect of winning.
I first wrote (also here) about this issue because it appeared to me that Democrat delusions about the Grand Jury – and an unhealthy obsession with Rove – were actually playing into the hands of the White House. The way this story refuses to die – largely if not entirely the fault of Truthout, which should be ashamed of its actions in this matter, starting with the fact that it decided, for no obvious reason, to make itself a large part of the story - proves that things have become even worse. At the end of the day on November 7, there will still be no indictments against either Rove or Cheney, and no Democrat control of either the House or the Senate. Will that be enough to force Democrat supporters to stop counting on Fitzgerald to bail them out of their political woes? I doubt it.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Was Louis Bloomfield in Winnipeg on February 13, 1964?
Nakba Revisionism
Holocaust Revisionism is a crime in many places. Denying the reality of the Holocaust, or even quibbling about its details as established by the official Zionist historians, can land you in jail. Why isn't there a crime of Nakba Revisionism?
The Nakba is the forced exodus of Palestinians from their homeland caused by violence and threats of violence by Jews who were, in effect, clearing land for the new state of Israel (an idea that may have come from Stalin). As part of the general mythology of Israel, the fact of the Nakba was almost entirely hidden from Official Western History until relatively recently. There is now absolutely no doubt that it occurred, and no excuse for claiming that it didn't occur. Anyone who claims that the birth of Israel was without sin, or says something like "a land without people for a people without land", is a Nakba Revisionist.
Of course, there is no comparison between the evils committed by Holocaust Revisionists and Nakba Revisionists. The Holocaust is ancient history, and quibbles about its details have very little effect on the world today. On the other hand, the Nakba represents an ongoing crime against humanity, and one that has never been ameliorated by even a gesture of restitution. While the Nakba refers specifically to the events of 1948 and perhaps the few subsequent years, Nakba Revisionists repeat the lies that enable the ongoing horrors of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians to continue. Nakba Revisionism is much worse than Holocaust Revisionism. Why aren't Nakba Revisionists, or anyone who uses Israeli mythology to enable the illegal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, on trial?
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Mystery death of the week
Aviation/aerospace reporter Michael A. Dornheim has died in what looks like a very mysterious automobile accident. Sploid summarizes the oddness. He had met friends at a restaurant, and had told them which road he was going to take home. Then he disappeared for nine days, when his car was spotted by a police helicopter crashed in a ravine off another road. The accident must have occurred moments after he left the restaurant, and thus moments after he made a point of saying he would be taking a different road. Sploid:
"Beyond the mystery of why Dornheim's car crashed on a road he had no intention of driving on, police are baffled by the crash itself.
California Highway Patrol Officer Leland Tong said he and his fellow officers were 'scratching their heads' over how the editor's car got in the ravine at all.
'He navigated the turns just fine, and then, in a straightaway, for whatever reason, he went off the cliff,' Tang told the Los Angeles Times.
'Not a rock was disturbed. Not even the brush was disturbed.'
As for how the crash scene was missed for more than a week - a helicopter pilot finally spotted the Honda on Monday - the CHP says there was nothing to indicate a car had gone off the road beyond 'a slight rubber scuff mark on one of the guardrails,' the Times reported."
Since they are going to leave the car jammed into the ravine, it won't reveal any forensics, including whether it actually left the scuff mark which is supposed to indicate where it left the road.
Dornheim's last article was on research being conducted by DARPA on robotic satellite servicing. The religious freaks at NASA – the world's best funded cult – think that non-human space research is some kind of sin, which is why they resist the sensible replacing of human astronauts by machines. Instead, they keep sending up space-shuttle cannon fodder. They are so crazy about this that they would prefer to see the Hubble telescope turn into space junk rather than send robots up to fix it. The fear is that robots will prove so safe and effective that it will no longer be necessary to use human astronauts, thus ending the Cult of NASA. Is it possible Dornheim rubbed some religious nut at NASA the wrong way? Or did he uncover something else that he was not supposed to know?
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Israeli spy rings in Lebanon and the Hariri assassination
It is very complicated, but you can begin to see paradoxical patterns emerging in Lebanon as set out in the postings of t_desco at Syriacomment.com. There is a Palestinian refugee camp called Ain al-Hilweh on the outskirts of Sidon. An Islamist leader named Sheikh Jamal Khattab, who allegedly has ideas similar to bin Laden's, lives there. The Sheikh's mosque, the al-Nour mosque, has quite a history (from Syriacomment.com):
"The Ain Hilweh camp, and in particular the al-Nour mosque, is home to several Sunni extremist groups:
Usbat al-Ansar, which is believed to have received funding from bin Laden and al-Zarqawi and was among the first eleven international terror groups listed in President Bush's executive order of September 23, 2001; its even more radical splinter groups Usbat al-Nour and Jund al-Sham, which has claimed at least four bombings following the assassination of Hariri (three explosions in Christian neighborhoods and an attack on Iqlim al-Kharub); and the Dinniyeh group, formerly known as Takfir wa al-Hijra, founded by Bassam Ahmad Kanj, who had fought alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan and was killed in an uprising against the Lebanese army in the mountains of Dinniyeh in January 2000. Some of the rebels escaped to Ain Al-Hilweh and found shelter in al-Nour mosque, among them Ahmed Salim Mikati, who was detained in September 2004 when a car bomb attack on the Italian embassy in Beirut was foiled. Together with another al-Qa'ida operative, Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib, Mikati had also planned to attack the Ukrainian Consulate General and Lebanese Government offices in central Beirut."
Ahmed Abu Adas, the student who took responsibility for the assassination of Rafik Hariri (and thus, possibly falsely, put the blame on an unknown terrorist group), allegedly met with Sheikh Abu Obeida (aka Badee – or Badih - Hamadeh, and now captured and executed), an associate of Sheikh Jamal Khattab, in Ain al-Hilweh. Mehlis himself points out that Ahmed Abu Adas had been employed at a computer shop in the summer of 2004, which was owned in part by Sheikh Ahmed Al-Sani, who was a member of the Ahmed Miqati and Ismaíl Al-Khatib network, the network sheltering in Sheikh Jamal Khattab's mosque.
Mehlis said that Khaled Midhat Taha, a Palestinian, had escorted suspected suicide bomber Ahmad Abu Adas to Syria two weeks before the Hariri assassination. This connection was noted by Mehlis presumably as part of Mehlis' efforts to implicate Syria. However, Khaled Midhat Taha appears to be related to Sheikh Abdullah Hallaq, founder of the Islamic Struggle Movement. The Islamic Struggle Movement is now led by none other than Sheikh Jamal Khattab.
The Sheikh's brother, Hussein Khattab, has been identified as the leader of one Israeli spy ring operating in Lebanon (the other was led by Mahmoud Rafeh, who, unlike Khattab, has been captured). Rafeh has admitted responsibility for a number of assassinations in Lebanon that have commonly been ascribed to the Mossad (some of these assassinations appear to relate directly to removing people whose testimony could have been embarrassing to Ariel Sharon).
It is starting to look more and more likely that the assassination of Hariri, blamed by the Israelamericans on Syria, is just another in this long line of Israeli assassinations that have occurred in Lebanon. The other aspect to this, which may have September 11 implications, is how easily the Mossad operates in the world of what appears to be radical Islamist terrorist groups.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The Phalcon hits the fan
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Oddities about the Toronto 'terrorists'
- From the Globe and Mail:
"As the summer of 2005 turned to fall, it is alleged that Mr. Ahmed increasingly drew upon a fellow suspect, Zakaria Amara. According to the dossier, he sent him to Cochrane, Ont., to scout out a possible location for a training camp.
It is alleged that Mr. Amara was spotted approaching government offices in the far Northern Ontario community. Someone claims to have heard him fire off two shots with a shotgun.
Police allege he returned back to brief the emir on his travels. In the end, the location was not suitable. A community closer to Toronto was chosen."
Not suitable. I'll say! By road, Cochrane is 720 kilometers (almost 450 miles) from Toronto. Driving from Toronto, Cochrane is literally at the end of the road (there are no roads north of Cochrane). I wonder what Mr. Amara was doing "approaching government offices".
- Again, from the Globe:
"It is alleged that Mr. Amara was seen hatching plans to buy a detonator and researching bomb construction in public libraries. From the beginning, the bomb was said to be big: 1.5 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, according to police, mixed with several litres of nitric acid to get the explosion going.
Police monitor large purchases of such substances. But what if a lot of people make individual purchases? The Crown alleges a plot manifested itself with 200 business cards that would allow suspects to approach suppliers individually and acquire smaller batches. The Crown says the e-mail address had a memorable ring: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Then there was a change of plan. The Crown alleges Mr. Amara brought in another Mississauga man, Shareef Abdelhaleem, to assist with buying thousands of dollars worth of fertilizer.
According to the Crown information, a police agent was on the opposite end of a payment of $2,000. After that point, the operatives are alleged to have rented a house and industrial storage unit."
Since obtaining the fertilizer is the weak point of the plot, why did they go from a safe way of obtaining it, obviously well thought out in light of the risks, to buying the fertilizer in such a dangerous way? Without the fertilizer purchase, the government has no case.
- Depending on which account you read, the 'terrorists' had a unique form of target while training in the woods. They used either photographs (CBS) or statues (the Globe) of Hindu gods! A bunch of young Muslim men from Toronto wandering around the Ontario wilderness firing at Hindu gods. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. I know Hindu-Muslim relations aren't great, and that it would be relatively easy to buy such targets in Toronto, but it still doesn't make much sense. Well, until you consider that Chand, the Canadian army reservist, and fairly recent convert to Islam, who converted under the influence of friends with whom he played basketball (!), and became ultra-devout and evangelical, and allegedly made a big deal of wanting to behead the Canadian Prime Minister, was a convert from Hinduism. Did Chand supply the targets? If so, did he also supply the guns?
Zarqawi's photo
Friday, June 09, 2006
Canada's Strassmeir?
YayaCanada.com has noted that one of the Toronto 17 has an odd background:
"Let's keep an eye on Steven Vikash Chand. Somebody was a ringleader, and possibly set up the others, and I don't think it was Qayyum Abdul Jamal.
This story will appeal to Montreal Planet editor Ron Saba who is worried that the Canadian military is behind the false "Jewish badges" story about Iran in the National Post. Chris Wattie, who wrote the story is a Canadian military reservist.
Nobody in their right mind can possibly accept this terrorist plot at face value. Note that Chand converted to Islam after his military service. He's also responsible for the wildest threat of all - the beheading of the Prime Minister."
It is alleged that part of the plot was to take over the Parliament Buildings and behead Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. However good an idea that seems on the surface, it would never work, as Harper would just grow a new head. It was Chand, connected to the military and a late convert to Islam, who contributed that particular piece of over-the-top nonsense. Could Chand be Canada's Andy Strassmeir?
The RCMP obviously had an inside guy in the 'conspiracy', and this person is either unidentified or is one of the seventeen. If it is Chand, watch for charges against him to disappear somewhere down the line. The RCMP apparently thought that the beheading story would add to its case, but instead it is so silly that it just emphasizes that the crux of the background to the 'conspiracy' consists of games of paintball and wild boasts on the internet. It was entirely the fertilizer that made the case. If it should turn out that the fertilizer part of the story is the work of an RCMP informant, the entire case falls apart.
Almost all of the problems in the United States now are caused by too much influence of the Pentagon on the course of American politics. It would be a real shame if Canada were to go down that same road. It is very easy for military types to capture politicians, particularly right-wing law-and-order politicians of the type who are now running Canada.
Next week, the Supreme Court of Canada is finally getting around to considering the laws enacted after September 11, including the (obviously unconstitutional) ability of the prosecution to detain indefinitely without charge non-citizens suspected of having terrorist ties and try them for deportation without disclosing the case against them. We have to see the timing of the arrests of the Toronto 17 in light of the timing of the Supreme Court deliberations. The Canadian security establishment wants to keep all its weapons, regardless of whether they are constitutional or not.
Rich's reputation
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The Israeli plan
Perhaps the main lie of Zionism is that the plight of the Palestinians is the unintended consequence of Israeli efforts to defend itself against Palestinian violence, violence that is entirely rooted in the fact that the Palestinians have never been able to accept the existence of Israel. In fact, everything that has happened in the Occupied Territories has been part of an Israeli plan. If you are so inclined, you could call the plan, and efforts of Israeli apologists to conceal it, a conspiracy. From Alexander Cockburn (who notes that he was effectively a very early victim of the Lobby):
". . . I published a long interview in the Voice in 1980 with the late Israel Shahak, the intrepid professor from Hebrew University.
It's slightly eerie now to look at what Shahak was saying back then and at the accuracy of his analysis and predictions: 'The basic trends were established in '74 and '75, including settler organizations, mystical ideology, and the great financial support of the United States to Israel. Between summer '74 and summer '75 the key decisions were taken, and from that time it's a straight line.' Among these decisions, said Shahak, was 'to keep the occupied territories of Palestine,' a detailed development of much older designs consummated in 1967.
Gradually, through the 1980s, very often in the translations from the Hebrew language press that Shahak used to send, the contours of the Israeli plan emerged, like the keel and ribs and timbers of an old ship: a road system that would bypass Palestinian towns and villages and link the Jewish settlements and military posts; ever-expanding clusters of settlements; a master plan for control of the whole region's water."
" . . . even in the testimonies that did get published here, what was missing was any acknowledgement of the long-term plan to wipe the record clean of all troublesome U.N. resolutions, crush Palestinian national aspirations, steal their land and water, cram them into ever smaller enclaves, ultimately balkanize them with the Wall, which was on the drawing board many years ago. Indeed to write about any sort of master plan was to incur further torrents of abuse for one's supposedly 'paranoid' fantasies about Israel' bad faith, with much pious invocation of the 'peace process'.
But successive Israeli governments did have a long-term plan. No matter who was in power, the roads got built, the water stolen, the olive and fruit trees cut down (a million) the houses knocked over (12,000), the settlements imposed (300) the shameless protestations of good faith issued to the US press (beyond computation).
As the new millennium shambled forward, surely it became impossible to believe any Israeli claim to be bargaining, or even to wish to bargain in good faith. By now the 'facts of the ground' in Israel and the territories were as sharply in focus as one of Dali's surrealist paintings."
"The end of the story? I'd say the basic strategy is what it was in 1948: population transfer, to be achieved by making life so awful for Palestinians that most of them will depart, leaving a few bankrupt ghettoes behind as memorials to all those foolish hopes of a sovereign Palestinian state."
The quantity of official forgetfulness about Israel is simply amazing. The most recent example is the wall. Critics of the wall claimed that it was just another land grab, and were called every variation of the term 'anti-Semite' or even worse, by Israel apologists, who loudly claimed that it was just intended for Israeli security. Not that many months later, Israel announced that it was in fact permanently annexing the enclosed lands, and everybody seemed to forget the entire course of the earlier debate, including all the name-calling against people who were simply trying to point out the truth about a major injustice. That's why you have to ignore the name-calling: it is the main weapon of those trying to impose the Israeli long-term plan on the Palestinians.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
The Paintball 17
From the – ahem, but statements against interest, even by liars, are admissible – National Post (as found in the CanWest papers; the story is hidden behind a subscription wall; my emphasis in red):
"Members of an alleged homegrown terror cell knew they were under the watchful eye of Canada's spy agency for at least two years, CanWest News Service has learned.
Photographs of the individuals now charged with terrorism offences were first flashed throughout Toronto's Muslim community as early as two years ago by officials with the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency - and so there was little surprise among friends and acquaintances that police swept down on the 12 men and five youths Friday night and Saturday morning. The only surprise was that it took so long, said the director of a Muslim group.
'All the faces that are being shown to me I've been shown before,' said Omar Kalair, founder and director of United Muslims, a moderate community group based in Mississauga.
Police investigators have suggested this group posed an imminent threat to national security, but there are questions being raised about how dangerous the group could have been if CSIS had known about it and was watching it so closely for so long."
". . . instead of being comforted that an alleged terror threat has been averted, Mr. Kalair said community members feel resentful at the media spectacle that has been orchestrated, and said some feel investigators have 'ballooned' the danger of the threat.
He said the community is left with 'a lot of questions ... regarding how this played out.'
'Why do it now? Why wasn't this reined in before without all of this media blitz.
'In the end, when I walk down the street people are looking at me," he said. "My personal viewpoint is that these guys should have been reined in a year ago.'"
Every summer, young Canadian men head for the woods to drink beer and shoot guns at things. Except (perhaps) for the beer, young Muslim Canadian men do the same thing. Once you are labeled a 'terrorist', all the innocent stupidities turn into something sinister. There is a history in this area of rushing to judgment based on the wild imaginations of police and the media.
It is becoming obvious that CSIS found a hot-headed leader, and took its time to cultivate the leader and his 'cell', probably through guidance from an insider informant who carefully developed all most the radical ideas, up to and including the RCMP-supplied fertilizer. The reason CSIS didn't act more quickly is that it needed to build up the group to the extent where it could use it to form the basis for requests for more money and power. It is completely ridiculous to believe that the group wasn't aware that it was being watched, since the Muslim community was completely aware. What kind of group carries on its activities knowing it is being watched by the police? The kind of group that knows it is doing nothing wrong.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
More on the Toronto 17
The Official Story on the 17 arrested 'terrorists' in Toronto shifted from no mention of a police sting operation, to a report by the Toronto Star, which seems to have all the sources on this matter, that the supply of the tons of fertilizer was a RCMP sting, to a denial that it was a sting. The Official Story is now the heroic one that the RCMP intercepted the shipment and replaced the dangerous fertilizer with an non-dangerous substance. Obviously, some bigwig at the RCMP realized that the sting story would be used by lawyers for the defendants, and ordered that a safer story be spread. Rapid changes in the Official Story is a sure sign of official shenanigans.
CSIS has an unfortunate history of using informants. In the late 80's, the terrorist threat du jour was extreme right-wing terrorism. CSIS hired a man named Grant Bristow to infiltrate right-wing groups. He did such a good job that he almost ended up as the leader, and how far he went in fitting in with his extremist pals is till the subject of controversy. Unfortunately for CSIS, there were no right-wing extremist groups to speak of in Canada prior to Bristow. There were a few loud-mouths with no money and essentially no followers. Some of the money supplied by CSIS was used to fund the main group, the Heritage Front. CSIS was therefore the founder of right-wing extremism in Canada!
This sort of thing is not uncommon. Anti-terrorist organizations need terrorist organizations in order to receive more finding. The RCMP quite obviously worked to have the Conservatives elected in the last Canadian election, and the Conservatives ran on a law-and-order platform of increased government funding for police, prisons and spies. The Conservatives are already taking credit for the latest arrests based on their increased funding for law-and-order, clear nonsense as the operation started in 2004, two years before they were in government. Nevertheless, this type of sting plays right into the hands of the law-and-order types (for discussion of motives, and the best summary of the case, see the Yayacanada.com summary, including the idea raised in the comments that the parallel British case – this was a Canadian/American/British operation - is starting to fall part), and also allows the Conservatives to appease their big brothers in Washington (the way the story was presented, with all the police lined up in a news conference in uniforms, and the over-the-top theatrics of the unnecessary and un-Canadian security, shows a clear American influence, and was intended to taint the jury pool). It also neatly fits the general Zionist clash of civilizations theme (read this in the New York Sun!), that no one is any safer than Israel from the treat of irrational and hateful Islam.
You can see how this operation works. The government finds a particularly loud hot head, and puts an informant in close to him. The informant steers him to more and more radical positions, at least rhetorically. He forms a group, which becomes the 'terrorist cell'. The end game is to suggest that the informant can obtain some contraband, like fertilizer, and the shipment of the fertilizer is the end of the sting. The hot head may in fact not even be aware of the fertilizer (in this case, a younger member of the group is alleged to have purchased it), or have no bad plans for it, but he, and by extension his group, and suddenly in jail as 'terrorists'. Everything they own is depicted as part of a terrorist attack, and everything they have done is a 'training exercise'.
Canada is currently murdering innocent civilians in Afghanistan, a situation recently extended by the Canadian Parliament (requiring the shameful vote of some Liberals, including Liberal leadership front-runner Igantieff, who received a hand-shake from Canadian Prime Minister Harper after the vote). In the context of the 'war on terror', and the escalation of that war in Canada, a country which hasn't intentionally entered into a campaign to kill innocent civilians in a very long time (possibly since the campaign against the Métis in the 1870's), it is no surprise that it should be easy to establish a group of young Muslim males who are angry. The war on terror is the cause of the problem, not the solution (note the backasswardness).
The police are making a great deal out of the fact that the new al Qaeda/Osama is the internet. 'Jihad' training and organization is now blamed on the internet. Many people predicted that capitalism would suffer under the internet, but instead it benefited greatly. The internet was thus allowed to thrive, for a while As we have recently seen in the lies about Iran in the National Post, the internet is posing huge problems for International Zionism. We will no doubt start to hear increased calls for control of information. Prepare to kiss your internet good-bye.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
The Toronto 17
Friday, June 02, 2006
Another thought experiment
From an article on the Israel Lobby thesis by Stephen J. Sniegoski (my emphasis in red):
"It seems perfectly plain that the Israel lobby has had significant influence in shaping American foreign policy. Let us conduct a brief thought experiment. Assume that the positions of Jewish-Americans and Palestinian-Americans were reversed, and that Palestinian-Americans were disproportionately wealthy, disproportionately influential in the media and academia, and had established a powerful lobby with numerous well-funded think tanks to advance the interests of the suppressed Palestinian people. Palestinians use the term 'Nakba' to refer to their brutal expulsion from Israel in 1948, so let us imagine that Nakba education courses had been established in most schools and that a U.S. Nakba Memorial Museum had been created near the Mall in Washington, D.C. Of course, anyone who disputed the Palestinians' description of their suffering, attested to by eyewitness accounts, would be labeled a 'Nakba denier' and would suffer severe career consequences resulting from that lethal designation.
In such an environment it seems hardly likely that Israel would be supported by the United States or that it would have elicited the necessary aid to develop its highly sophisticated military arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons. Few people would support the double standard on international law favorable to Israel. Israel would be expected to abide by all UN resolutions, including the Palestinian 'right of return.' The rights of the Palestinian people would be seen to mesh with the interests of the oil lobby. In such a situation, it is easy to imagine that Israel would be treated by the United States and the rest of the world as a pariah state and would go the way of white South Africa, with the establishment of a single Palestine of Jews and Palestinians and with Palestinians receiving reparations for the harm done them by the Zionist takeover, analogous to the reparations provided to Jews for Nazi oppression. Certainly this is a totally imaginary alternate history; but I would add that elsewhere in the world, especially where Jewish power is negligible, the population, especially the intellectual population, favors the rights of the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Evidence for that may be found in the voting at the UN.
If the United States were willing to support Israel at the current level without the efforts of the Israel lobby, there would be no need for that lobby. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out: 'Indeed, the mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest group to bring it about. But because Israel is a strategic and moral liability, it takes relentless political pressure to keep U.S. support intact.' [48] Really, it is piquant to hear members of the Israel lobby, who devote their careers to promoting Israel, proclaim their uselessness and lack of influence."
The thought experiment – and I refer you to my own Syrian thought experiment, which I think proves conclusively that the Lobby promotes policies that do not benefit the United States but only Israel - demonstrates how the Chomsky thesis, that support for Israel masks support for American Establishment interests, is completely, and rather obviously, backasswards. The fact that somebody of Chomsky's moral and intellectual stature would risk his reputation in order to provide cover for the Lobby is another demonstration of the lengths that Lobby members have to go to in order to support a program that is against the interests of both the American Establishment and the American people.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Zionists lose the knack of spin
What happened to the Zionists? They engineered what is undoubtedly the greatest PR boondoggle in the history of spin. Israel has tanks, assault helicopters, one of the world's most powerful armies, and nuclear weapons. It uses its power and the backing of the most powerful country in the world to steal land from the Palestinians and brutally mistreat them. Everything Israel does is completely against international law. It is up against some twelve-year-olds throwing rocks and some poor souls whose weapon is blowing themselves up. Yet who is the only victim? Israel!!! Unbelievable.
Yet, suddenly, the Zionist spinners have lost the knack. The war in Iraq has thrown them off their game, along with the rope-a-dope Ecce-Homo strategy of the Palestinians, whose new intifada seems to consist in taking the all the brutality the Israelis can hand out, while still surviving. The Europeans even managed, to their eternal shame, to get into the act, signing on to the Israeli 'diet' plan. The Palestinians still survive, and can add some Euro-guilt to their arsenal.
The main weapon of the Zionists over the years has been to hide information damaging to Israel. The billionaire Jewish owners of the major media simply order that the truth not be published, and smaller media is dealt with by the threat of advertising boycotts by Jewish-owned businesses (the threat of these boycotts is one of the biggest dirty secrets in the North American media). The vast majority of Americans are thus completely unaware of what is actually going on in the Occupied Territories.
The Zionists were completely taken aback by the Emperor's-new-clothes revelation of the power of the Israel Lobby, as if they never thought it possible that anyone would dare mention the most obvious fact in the world. For some baffling reason, the Zionists decided to tackle the issue head-on. Disaster! Chomsky wrote the stupidest thing he's ever written in a vain attempt to refute it, and Dershowitz, who must be some sort of cretin, relied on name-calling as his main argument. People seeing the debate, who otherwise certainly would have been unaware of the original thesis, correctly determined that if the best the Zionists could do was call people names, the thesis must be correct, and if people like Chomsky and Dershowitz were prepared to make fools of themselves trying to refute it, the thesis must be important.
The most recent Zionist debacle has been the lies printed by the National Post concerning sumptuary laws in Iran. Iran has a legislature and publishes its laws, so it should have been the easiest thing in the world to confirm the story. Instead, the Post decided to confirm the story entirely from one main source, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (they also claim to have asked two local Iranian exiles, who 'believed' it to be true). In the context of the fact that there is an obvious North American Zionist campaign to force a war against Iran, this isn't just a profound breach of journalistic ethics, it is practically criminal. How did the Zionists who run the Post possibly think they were going to get away with it?
I think the Zionists are simply suffering from too much success and power. They have controlled all the media for so long that the Post editors thought they could publish any propaganda nonsense they liked about Iran, gussy it up with images from Nazi Germany, and get away with it. It was inconceivable to them that anyone would be in a position to challenge them. The world has changed. There are new outlets for the truth. Perhaps more importantly, the hopeless war in Iraq, which Americans were fooled into due to the trickery of the Lobby, has created a fertile field in the United States for the seeds of truth to grow. The alternative media on the internet can reveal the truth, and some outlets in the mainstream media are compelled to publish it. The upshot is that nobody will ever be able to read anything published by the Post without considerable scepticism, if not outright bemusement, and Zionist warmongering against Iran has been revealed for what it is. As is so often the case, too much power creates an arrogance which leads to the loss of power.


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There are plenty of products on the shelves claiming to be "green", but it's not always easy to separate the truly green from the gently greenwashed. To help you make the right decisions for your family, look for labels from these independent certification programs as you shop for home goods.
Whether it's makeup, floor cleaner, or house paint, a product that earns the Green Good Housekeeping Seal is evaluated for both effectiveness and environmental impact. GH is proud to stand behind Seal-holding products with our two-year limited warranty.
If a product (home appliances, lighting, and consumer electronics, to name a few) bears this label, the green claims of its manufacturer have been validated through third-party testing by Underwriters Laboratories.
More From Good Housekeeping
Started by the Canadian federal government in 1988 but serving all of North America, EcoLogo puts products from a broad selection of categories, including paint, flooring, and insulation, through vigorous evaluations of their entire life cycle.
Cradle to Cradle certification verifies that a product—anything from furniture to carpet—uses materials that are safe for people and the environment, is recyclable, and is produced in an environmentally sound way.
The Greenguard certification program includes emissions standards and testing procedures to verify that products like paint and cabinetry will contribute to healthier indoor air quality; it certifies that products emit low levels of chemicals and particles into the air.

subset: commoncrawl


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Beyond CopenhagenDonate Now
Issue 258
Jan/Feb 2010
Beyond Copenhagen
by Stephen Hale
Cover: Common Starling flock, Dumfries, Scotland. Photograph: Paul Hobson/FLPA
Why our leaders are failing us and why, collectively, we now need a far broader and deeper global movement for change.
Illustration: Peter Till
Soon after I left my role as an adviser to the UK government in 2005, I was interrupted whilst speaking on the need for new climate-change policies. "If you advocated these things in government for four years, how come none of them happened?"
It was a question that deserves a substantive answer. I have been working to secure action on climate change for over ten years, since 2005 as director of Green Alliance. Much of it has been hugely enjoyable. There have been many successes along the way. But the stark truth is that we're failing. The collective efforts of all those working on climate change have so far delivered far less than the crisis demands.
There is currently no real prospect of action at the necessary scale and speed. Resurgence readers will not need reminding that we must do far better – starting now.
To give ourselves a high probability of limiting average global temperature rise to 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next ten years. Yet the most recent IPCC projections predict an increase in global emissions of 25-90% between 2000 and 2030. Climate change poses a profound threat to the wellbeing of our planet and humanity.
To succeed in the struggle against climate change, we must build a movement for change that our political leaders cannot ignore.
The current debate on why we are failing is essentially about allocating blame. Pressure groups blame politicians for not introducing the policies needed to reduce emissions. Politicians justify their inaction by citing the lack of public support for those policies. In the margins of this exchange, most businesses quietly blame both sides.
The power to avert runaway climate change is held first and foremost by governments. This is a collective problem that will only be solved with decisive action by governments, who can use tax, regulation and spending to give businesses and individuals the incentives and opportunities they need to act.
But climate change is also an issue of personal responsibility. Each of us chooses in our homes, at work and in the choice of our holidays whether to live in a way that is compatible with the climate crisis. Far too few people currently choose to do so. But it is high time we moved beyond this blame game. The attitudes and actions of politicians and the public are deeply interlinked. Governments shape personal action. They can opt for renewable energy, or to sustain the fossil-fuel economy. They can feed the car culture, or make public transport the cheap choice for us all.
But the public, ultimately, determines the paths our leaders choose. The most critical role for individuals is not their behaviour, but their influence on governments. The UN Summit in Copenhagen needs to be seen in that context. The media, politicians and campaigners all described it as the defining moment in the struggle against climate change. But don't believe the hype.
An ambitious and effective global agreement will simply make success possible. The struggle to avert catastrophic climate change will be determined by the actions of national governments over the next five to ten years. The history of the Kyoto Protocol demonstrates that the real challenge is implementation, not negotiation.
There is much that our leaders could do right now, of course. Some, notably Ed Miliband, show a much greater willingness to act. But I know from my own experience that there are deep structural reasons why governments do not deliver. Climate change is perhaps the most complex policy challenge national governments have ever faced. It demands action across the silos of government, and at global, national, regional and local level. It must provide opportunities and incentives for action by businesses, communities and individuals. This action must be secured despite the lobbying of vested interests, and the inertia of government.
The commitment of presidents, prime ministers and their ministers of finance will be critical to this. But our leaders will not acquire this commitment or overcome these vested interests and inertia without far greater demand from below. Levels of public concern, behaviour and above all demand for political action are currently too weak to overcome these obstacles.
This is not a counsel of despair. For many years, climate change was an issue highlighted by environmental groups. But this has changed rapidly recently. There has been an explosion of concern and action over the past two years among faith leaders, development groups, trade unions and grassroots initiatives such as Transition towns.
But we still need a far broader and deeper movement for change. Climate change is not 'just' an environmental issue. It profoundly threatens many other causes that others hold dear, from security to poverty, from community cohesion to health. New initiatives are under way among groups concerned with all of these issues, to articulate these links and bring them to public attention. Initiatives like this are critical to the prospects for political action on climate change.
The 'third sector' holds the key to success in the struggle against climate change. It is made up of the community groups, national membership organisations, trade unions, faith communities, social enterprises and co-operatives that provide people with collective opportunities to act. The third sector can provide the leadership we need to transform the politics of climate change and make it the primary issue of public concern. It can and must do so in four ways:
First, by mobilising a huge diverse network of groups concerned with issues from development and security to housing and health. Secondly, community and local leadership will enable people to come together to change their lifestyles and demand political action, as Transition towns and low-carbon villages have done. Thirdly, led by the environmental movement, it can create a highly visible movement of people living low-carbon lifestyles and setting an example to others. This could be brought together by a voluntary national personal carbon-trading scheme. Finally, international mobilisation could persuade national leaders to act consistently and ambitiously, as pressure groups make consistent and compelling demands for national action.
Climate change is not a problem of science, technology or economics. It is above all a problem of politics. We need politicians with the vision and commitment to make the low-carbon economy and society a reality.
But in the eyes of many people and their governments, climate change is still characterised as a second-tier 'environmental' issue, of far less concern than core economic, social and security priorities. This view is profoundly mistaken. But we need to develop new strategies if we are to secure the political action we need. Together, we must create the pressure needed to persuade governments to use their power to full effect.


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NEW YORK >> New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's official vehicles were spotted breaking several traffic laws on Thursday, just two days after he laid out a sweeping traffic safety plan that included harsh restrictions on reckless drivers.
De Blasio was in the front passenger seat of the lead SUV of a two-vehicle caravan that was captured on video speeding, running through a pair of stop signs and not signaling when changing lanes. The footage, which aired on WCBS-TV, was taken as de Blasio returned to City Hall after a news conference in Queens.
The mayor's press office deferred to the police department for particulars of the incident because a member of the NYPD was behind the wheel of de Blasio's SUV. But de Blasio's press secretary said that "public safety is everyone's responsibility."
"With that in mind, Mayor de Blasio is firmly committed to the traffic safety policies outlined this week," Walzak said in a statement that did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing.
The NYPD did not address the specifics of Thursday's incident in a statement, but said members of the security detail "receive specialized training in driving based on maintaining security as well as safety." The statement spoke broadly about acceptable tactics used to keep vehicles together and said the handling of vehicles transporting any "protectee" is determined by police personnel based on "protection and professional judgment."
The footage shows de Blasio's vehicles starting their journey in a quiet residential stretch of Maspeth, where they mayor had just held a news conference discussing his administration's plans to combat potholes.
The two bulky, black vehicles did not stop at two stop signs in the neighborhood. Later, the CBS camera – which was in a car that followed the mayor's motorcade – showed de Blasio going 40 mph in an area where the speed limit was 30 mph, and then nearly 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.
The SUVs were also shown changing lanes without using their directional signals. The total number of violations witnessed by the news crew would yield a suspended license, according to the CBS report.
It was not clear from the footage if de Blasio was aware of the traffic infractions.
The mayor's cars are typically driven by members of de Blasio's security detail, which is made up of NYPD detectives. Security protocols suggest that de Blasio sit in the backseat because the SUV's side windows, unlike the front windshield, are comprised of bulletproof-glass. But de Blasio, who is 6-foot-5, frequently sits in the front, where he has more room to stretch out.
Just two days earlier, de Blasio released his "Vision Zero" traffic safety plan which aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities. The plan proposed reducing the citywide speed limit to 25 mph, detailing more NYPD officers to enforce speeding violations and toughening penalties for on speeding drivers.
"We hope that every time someone reads one of your stories, they're also asking themselves the question, are they handling their vehicle as responsibly as they could?" the mayor told reporters at the Tuesday press conference.
"The likelihood of a fatal crash and this statistic is very powerful," he also said at the traffic event. "The likelihood of a fatal crash drops significantly for speeds below 30 mph. If we get those speeds down, it will be the difference between losing a life and saving a life."
Brian Zumhagen, communications manager for the transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement that "no driver is above traffic law."
"We look forward to other city officials leading by example as well," said Zumhagen, who suggested that it could be a teaching moment for all drivers.
The incident also comes just more than a week after de Blasio drew criticism for calling the NYPD about the arrest of a political ally. Bishop Orlando Findlayter was pulled over for a traffic violation and then arrested on an outstanding warrant stemming from an immigration rally last year.
The bishop was later released on a desk appearance ticket instead of spending a night in jail. De Blasio said he did not ask for his release and denied any improper behavior, saying he was just asking for information about the incident.
De Blasio is not the first mayor whose official vehicles were caught speeding. In 1998, The Daily News observed Rudolph Giuliani's car going more than 20 mph over the speed limit while driving on Staten Island. Giuliani denied that he broke the law.


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I believe the better the friendship the more raucous the laugher—the real belly laughs that make you think you are going to die of asphyxiation. I have a number of friends that are enjoyable to be with but I have just two or three that make me really laugh.
Donna and I worked in home care at a Chicago area VA in the late '80s. Our caseload mostly included veterans who were elderly with chronic disease or dying of cancer. Both NP's, we worked four-ten hour days a week, each covering for the other on the day we had off. Jane, a third NP who worked with us, had young children and requested to work a regular schedule.
Many times after work, Donna and I lingered in the large 4-bed room on a deserted patient unit that served as an office for us three NPs. Each of our desks was centered against a wall. No other furniture filled cavernous room. Donna and I would take turns rolling our chairs next to the other's desk. We discussed our patients before we wandered off into the personal and humorous. Our laughter ricocheted off the walls. If we became raucous, we didn't care since there was no one nearby to complain.
After my husband and I had moved to the DC area, Donna came to visit. At one of my favorite art museums—The Phillips Gallery, Donna and I burst into unrestrained laughter. I can't remember the trigger. What could be so funny in an art gallery? The other patrons gave us wide berth while we two middle-aged women tried to control ourselves. The more we worked to settle down, the harder we laughed. That was the last time Donna and I were together.
In 2000, Donna moved to southern Illinois and I to North Carolina. We emailed and occasionally spoke on the phone. In 2013, Donna was diagnosed with lymphoma.
During one of her remissions she reviewed my manuscript checking for any inaccuracies in my descriptions of NP practice in the 80's. I sent her a thank you bouquet of flowers.
Now as I ready my book for publication, I am composing the Acknowledgements. The realization that Donna won't see a formal appreciation saddens me. She died on July 9th.


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Marathon Deaths Prompt Review Of Security Policy
At the airport. On the subway. At a sports event.
And, as a result of the two backpack-encased bombs that exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, sports teams and leagues around the world are rethinking what kind of bags, satchels, purses and, yes, black nylon backpacks should be allowed inside stadiums and arenas.
The packs will even be the focal point of a conference this summer of stadium-security personnel in Orlando.
"After what happened … I wouldn't be surprised if the number of people eliminating backpacks would increase," said Lou Marciani, director of the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security, founded in 2006 and based at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
Next Saturday, more than 165,000 people are expected at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. Backpacks, duffel bags and large purses have been banned from the track since 2002 – part of the clamp-down that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Still, Derby officials have told fans their bags will undergo increased security checks for this year's race.
No matter where the world ends up on the bag-check spectrum, some fans may never again regard the pack slung across their body quite the same way.
"I never really thought about backpacks until last week, and now you notice backpacks all over the place," said Ryan Hershberger of Hartwell, Ga., as he headed into a Colorado Rockies game carrying a black backpack. "It makes you think."
Down the street, at the Denver Nuggets game, a handful of fans shared the same sentiment.
"I've been thinking about it all day," Joel Cross said on the concourse at the Pepsi Center in Denver. He and his wife traveled from Harrisburg, Neb., to attend Tuesday night's Nuggets playoff game. "We're from a community where our whole county only has 600 people in it. Nobody is going to bomb us because there's no one there. But we're coming to a populated area."
The NFL beefed up security for thousands of fans attending its annual draft, which runs through Saturday, with metal detectors, pat-downs and about 20 percent more personnel in place than previous years. Backpacks are banned. The league said it would consider what, if any, changes might be made for the 2013 season, which ends with the Super Bowl in New York next February.
Major League Baseball's security officials met Thursday but Commissioner Bud Selig said no changes are expected in the rules on bags fans can bring to ballparks, generally limited to 16x16x8 inches. The meeting was scheduled before the Boston explosions that killed three and injured more than 260/
"I wouldn't say that Boston has changed anything," Selig said. "Each club makes its own decision."
At Yankee Stadium, for example, briefcases, coolers and other hard-sided bags or containers are not permitted. At Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium, wrapped presents are banned along with cameras with lenses of 12 or more inches. The Baltimore Orioles ban bags with wheels at Camden Yards.
Boston and San Francisco were among the teams opting to use metal-detecting wands on fans and their possessions this week.
"We've added people, and people are getting in faster now, so we're going to stick with the plan," Giants president and CEO Larry Baer said.
Though the marathon bombings caught the attention of the world, not every event or championship, especially overseas, is beefing up or changing security measures.
For instance, officials at Manchester United, the FA Cup final and the European Champions League say their policies, which either ban large bags or strongly discourage them, are under constant review but not set to change.
"We did, of course, contact the police in the aftermath of the Boston bombings, as part of our commitment to the security of fans and visitors to the stadium," Manchester United said in a statement.
At Wimbledon, where tennis action starts in June, no changes are planned.
"It was a terrible event, but we have no reason to believe it's something that has a direct impact on Wimbledon," All-England Club chief executive Richard Lewis said, referring to the Boston explosions.
At the Summer Olympics in London, soft-sided bags were required to fit under seats and couldn't hold more than 25 liters (6 gallons).
Sebastian Coe, who led London's organizing committee, says a ban on backpacks at sports events would not be justified.
"We have to make some pretty tough decisions in the way we want to live our lives," he said. "It's very easy to draw all sorts of conclusions (from the Boston bombings). Do we want to live in a world where people can't wear backpacks to sporting events? I'm not sure we do."
Organizers in Brazil aren't making any radical changes to their backpack policy for the upcoming Confederations Cup or next year's World Cup. So far, the extensive list of prohibited items includes "unwieldy" bags – no more than 10x10x10 inches and too big to fit under a seat.
Officials in Russia, which hosts the 2018 World Cup, said that whenever a sports-related tragedy occurs, they review what happened "to ensure that our own regulations and procedures are sufficiently covering such potential tragedies or risks."
In Sochi, Russia, site of February's Winter Olympics, security for test events was so stringent that the president of the international skiing federation, Gian Franco Kasper, cracked, "The only moment they didn't inspect our athletes was during the race."
International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound of Canada said one strategy might be to push back security boundaries.
"I remember in Vancouver and other places, the tension between the organizers and the events and the security folks was over the size of the perimeter," Pound said. "If you can move the perimeter back 50 or 100 meters, a backpack bomb is going to have less lethal effect."
In the U.S., NBA spokesman Tim Frank wouldn't comment on specific security practices, beyond saying: "We regularly practice a wide range of state of the art security measures in all of our arenas." The Nuggets have long used wands and searched bags. But Cross' wife, Shelly, said she noticed a more extensive security presence at Tuesday's game than the last time they made the trip to Denver.
"We were here not too long ago and we don't remember this," she said.
At least one backpack developer said she was unaware of any pending changes to basic designs. She also thought the bombings were unlikely to create a need for see-thru or clear backpacks.
"I don't think people want to share their belongings with everyone. Everyone wants their privacy," said Annelies Mertens, a member of the Samsonite development team in Belgium. "I don't think this will have an influence on the way backpacks are made. I don't see that happening."
While the Boston Marathon presented its own set of difficult challenges – securing a 26-mile course dotted with trash cans and spectators on almost every block – one expert says there's no such thing as perfect security guidelines, regardless of venue.
"A no-backpack policy is fine if it applies to everyone," said Derek Catsam, an associate professor at University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa who has studied the safety issue in stadiums. "But then you start making exceptions for people with kids, and for the elderly and for women with purses and people in expensive seats. Where does it end? You can have a policy or not have a policy. But once you start selectively enforcing it, that's going to be problematic."
After the bombings, the NHL's Boston Bruins added metal-detecting wands to their security regimen and checked cars parking in a garage underneath the arena. Security measures vary by arena in the NHL. The New York Islanders, for example, don't allow backpacks; the Detroit Red Wings ban oversized bags and search all bags that are allowed in.
Catsam said security can always be ratcheted up, but then comes the issue of how much convenience people are willing to give up for the sake of safety.
"They could start saying you can bring whatever kind of backpack you want but you have to go through an X-ray system like you do at the airport," he said. "It would take forever and we'd adjust, but I'm not sure what we'll discover or if we'll be making anything really safer."
Marciani, on the other hand, envisions a day when backpacks are as obsolete at a stadium as the bulky transistor radios that fans once brought along so they could listen to play-by-play as they watched the game.
"I think it's just one less aggravation we'd have to put up with," he said. "I'd just say, 'Why backpacks at a stadium?' I don't think we need them."


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Home » ReR Label » BLAST: Altrastrata
BLAST: Altrastrata
In my opinion this is far and away the best thing this group has ever done (many will doubtless disagree) since they have moved from the complex rigidity of their earlier material into an altogether looser, more organic fluidity that retains some of the best of their organizing and compositional ability in an environment that, musically, has space to breath. The inclusion of drummer and amplified, processed percussionist Fabrizio Spera seems central to this new approach, at once improvisational, extended in tonal and rhythmic subtlety, and still locking into clear, coordinated stretches of translucent writing. An important release.L <p>
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The Latest Obamacare Figures Are In. Is It Time to Panic Yet?
Putting it mildly, it's been an ugly beginning for Obamacare's health exchanges.
In hindsight, the website was pretty much doomed from the get-go because of inadequate time to test the complex cloud-based IT-architecture behind the federally run health exchange, Healthcare.gov, and the fact that more than four dozen contractors contributed to the build-out of the network behind Healthcare.gov. Amazingly enough, though, things are beginning to improve.
Source: White House on Flickr.
Taking things step-by-step
In late October, Healthcare.gov spokesperson, Jeffrey Zients, set a November month-end goal as to when its "tech surge" would have diagnosed and completed fixes to the federally run website to make it usable for a majority of Americans in the 36 states that it serves. Believe it or not, following a number of critical delays, including pushing the implementation of the employer mandate out a full year, Zients' promise was met, and the new-and-improved Healthcare.gov relaunched with significantly fewer problems and glitches earlier this month. This isn't to say everything is now perfect, but the system is night-and-day better compared to two months prior.
Now the focus for Americans and investors has turned back to the actual enrollment figures themselves. Initial enrollment through the first 33 days was nothing short of abysmal, with only 106,185 people fully enrolling for health insurance. Would month two, which offered minimally better federal and state-run health exchange access, fare any better?
The latest Obamacare skinny
Yesterday the Department of Health and Human Services released the results of total Obamacare enrollments for the month of November, and they were both deceptively terrible and fantastic, all at the same time!
For the month of November, full health exchange enrollments increased by 258,497, reaching 364,682 people in the first two months. This represents a 243% jump over last month's full enrollment numbers. State-run health exchanges continued to lead the charge with 227,478 signups (62.4% of all enrollees), while the number of federal signups jumped by more than 100,000 to 137,204. California's state-run exchange currently leads all states with 107,000 enrollees, while Oregon's dysfunctional exchange pulled up the caboose with a mere 44 enrollees. Florida was the state with the highest number of enrollees on the federal side with just shy of 18,000 enrollees.
After reviewing this pool of statistics you're probably thinking to yourself, "Just 364,682 signups in two months? This is going to fail!" I'll certainly give that thought process some merit, because at this pace we're going to fall well short of the 7 million signups that the HHS has been targeting. Furthermore, we can only suspect that adverse selection is likely causing the sickest and most in-need-of-care people to sign up first. In other words, if we don't see a big boost in young adults signing up for Obamacare, then insurers are going to lose out because of higher medical expenses than the premiums they're bringing in, and premiums are going to rise for everyone.
The new-and-improved Healthcare.gov. Source: Healthcare.gov.
A ray of hope
But before you starting running through the streets proclaiming Obamacare's end of days, consider this: the number of enrollees that have completed the identification and application process but have not selected a plan increased by nearly another 1 million in November and now sit at more than 1.9 million! Think of these people in this context: They have completed the grueling and arduous part of the health insurance process; now all they need to do is select a plan and pay for their insurance.
Should you really be concerned that there are 1.9 million people sitting on their hands? Not really, especially considering that we have roughly four months to go before the coverage cutoff date. Let me ask you this, how many of you look forward to paying your taxes four months in advance when you owe money? Probably not too many of you, and the same applies here. As much as the currently uninsured might crave health insurance coverage, the ultimate objection is that it's a bill they're not used to paying, and they're probably going to wait until the last couple of weeks to fully sign up.
As proof, I'll again turn to the Massachusetts health reform law, which attracted just 6% of total enrollees within the first two months. Admittedly, this plan offered enrollees 11 months to sign up, whereas Obamacare's cutoff allows for approximately six-months of signups -- but all things considered, we appear to be right on schedule. If you take into account that a vast majority of those people who've completed the application process are likely to sign up at some point, and add that total to the nearly 365,000 that have already signed up, you tentatively have around 2 million people. Considering that signups are expected to be back-loaded, Obamacare's health exchanges really aren't doing as bad as the numbers on the surface would indicate.
These five companies are sitting pretty after this data
If I were looking at this from an investable perspective, I would be feeling pretty confident if I were a shareholder in private platform marketplaces such as eHealth , Aon , or Xerox . eHealth, which has operated an established private platform similar to Healthcare.gov for years and has no worries about website functionality, has seen its membership soar past 1.1 million as frustrated consumers look for ways around the federally run option.
Also, many businesses are realizing that it's less time consuming and costs less if they simply give their employees or retirees a subsidy and let them shop for health insurance on their own. That's where Aon and Xerox have come in and snagged some fairly sizable corporate clientele. As long as fears about technical glitches and distrust toward the Obamacare website exist, these three stocks could be metaphorical gold for investors.
I'd also be encouraged if I were a WellPoint or Centene shareholder. On the one hand this is a bit of a catch-22, in that weak full enrollments should be a disappointment, not a positive, for these companies -- and that's partially true.
However, companies which are focused on government-sponsored enrollees, such as WellPoint, which purchased AmeriGroup for $4.5 billion last year to become the nation's largest Medicaid-based insurer, and Centene, which prides itself on low-income and Medicaid-based members, should be thrilled with the news HHS data. As of the end of November, 803,077 members were determined to be eligible for Medicaid CHIP assistance by the health insurance marketplace. This figure is up by 406,816 from the previous month, or 103% overall. We really wouldn't expect insurers to struggle to sign up people who qualify for subsidized health insurance, but it's nice to see the data translating into what I suspect will be positive results for these two insurers.
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The article The Latest Obamacare Figures Are In. Is It Time to Panic Yet? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.The Motley Fool owns shares of, and recommends Aon and WellPoint. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Show Me the Money
In today's Toronto Sun, a source told the paper that free-agent Ted Lilly is seeking a four-year deal worth $9 million per year. Late last season, Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi said an asking price of $8 million or more per year for Lilly might be too steep to re-sign the left-hander. Considering that Vicente Padilla reportedly wants $10 million per year, it makes sense that Lilly — considered by many to be one of the better available arms this winter — would seek a similar amount. If he won't budge on the figures, it might be difficult for the Jays to bring him back.
Ricciardi informed the Sun that free-agent shortstop Julio Lugo is seeking a four-year deal worth $32 million. That might be too expensive for the Blue Jays, too, meaning the club could turn its attention towards pursuing a second baseman instead of a shortstop. Ricciardi also told the paper that Toronto had no interest in free-agent Craig Counsell, but that Adam Kennedy is a player the Jays are interested in. "We'll just have to see what the final figures are," Ricciardi told the paper. "We know what we can afford and if the bidding gets too high, then we'll go to Plan B."
On Monday, the Blue Jays signed free-agent reliever Matt Roney to a Major League contract and added him to the 40-man roster. He was mainly in Triple-A last year, but was called up three times briefly by Oakland. Other than three appearances in the Majors last year, Roney hasn't pitched in the bigs since going 1-9 for the 2003 Tigers. He at least adds more depth to Toronto's bullpen. Plus, the Jays haven't ruled out trades this winter. Perhaps adding some depth in arms would allow Toronto to move some other relievers (a lot of teams are looking for bullpen help) to fill its own needs. I'm just thinking outloud here — nothing like that has been reported, yet.
From the Denver Post: "The Rockies have also called about former Yankee Octavio Dotel, Scott Williamson, LaTroy Hawkins and Justin Speier. Given the anticipated bullish market for relievers, Speier and Hawkins are expected to land multiyear deals."
From today's Los Angeles Times: "The Dodgers are interested in Luis Gonzalez, Cliff Floyd, Trot Nixon, Aubrey Huff and Frank Catalanotto if they can't land [Alfonso] Soriano or [Carlos] Lee." … "The Dodgers are targeting a proven middle reliever to help get through the sixth and seventh innings, which were problematic last season. Their wish list includes Ron Villone, Justin Speier, Russ Springer, Chad Bradford and David Weathers."
From today's Chicago Sun-Times: "The Cubs might be aiming lower, with right-hander Vicente Padilla (who's seeking at least a four-year, $40 million package), about as high as they will top out for pitching. They remain intrigued by Japanese left-hander Kei Igawa of the Hanshin Tigers, and Toronto Blue Jays left-hander Ted Lilly is on their radar."
From the Boston Globe's Web site today: "The [Red] Sox, like several other teams, are also looking to upgrade their bullpen. Names like Justin Speier, Eric Gagne, Scott Schoeneweis have all been mentioned as possible targets. The Sox might also target outfielders J.D. Drew and Frank Catalanotto and infielder Julio Lugo, but Epstein had not made offers to any of them as of Monday."
From New York Daily News today: "The Yankees were exploring free agent options including Randy Wolf, Gil Meche, Vicente Padilla and Ted Lilly…"


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Not many of you agreed with me two weeks ago, when I predicted that Oracle would be the one to snap up Sun Microsystems following the breakdown of talks with IBM. But as it turns out, Larry Ellison did -- and he was the only one that really mattered.
What has us all buzzing now, of course, is what will happen next. The Oracle acquisition of Sun is definitely an event that will reshape the industry. In the short term, however, Oracle claims it can wring $1.5 billion in profit from Sun this year and $2 billion the next. I don't know how it plans to do that, but since Larry took my advice earlier, I thought maybe he'd like to consider these suggestions, post-merger:
[ Neil McAllister foresaw Oracle's Sun takeover; find out why he thought the deal would make sense. | For full coverage of the Oracle-Sun deal, see InfoWorld's special report. ]
10. Unify your identity management products. The identity management market is crowded, with few stand-out offerings. LDAP servers are a dime a dozen. Thinning this herd will make it easier to acquire customers and market aggressively against the real threat in this space: Microsoft, which is developing an identity management platform based on Active Directory. Cherry-pick the best from your existing technology and Sun's stack, discard redundant efforts, and forge a strong leadership role while you still can.
9. Consolidate global development teams. Everyone hates it when American tech companies move development jobs overseas. Doubtless more heads will roll as a result of Oracle's Sun acquisition, but at least some of them won't be on these shores. While Sun maintains development facilities in India, China, and elsewhere, Oracle is an acknowledged master of offshoring. By redeploying its existing overseas staff, Oracle can create efficiencies in Sun's software divisions that Sun couldn't have managed on its own.
8. Restructure your conferences. Between shrinking travel budgets, fluctuating fuel costs, and increased airport security, customers are growing increasingly reluctant to travel to industry trade shows. What's more, with municipalities everywhere facing declining tax revenue, lawmakers are sure to be eyeing hotels and convention centers to take up the slack. Sun spent last year's JavaOne jabbering about RIAs and Web 2.0 -- again. Do we really need a whole show for that? With Sun, Oracle, and BEA now sharing the same address, it's an ideal opportunity to make OpenWorld the premiere destination for Java developers everywhere (and save some cash in the process).
7. License Sun's server technology to a partner. Hardware isn't Oracle's forte. Sun's team brings the technical know-how, but in a shrinking economy its pricey, high-end servers don't stand much chance against the x86-based competition. Oracle should de-emphasize Sun's hardware divisions and renew its relationship with Hewlett-Packard -- or some other partner, such as Fujitsu -- to produce co-branded servers. That would allow it to concentrate on selling end-to-end enterprise application solutions, which is what it does best.
6. Stop pretending Sun can be Google. Did anybody really believe that selling marketing opportunities in software installers was a sensible strategy for the likes of Sun? Ask anyone in the industry what comes to mind when you say the name "Sun Microsystems," and they'll tell you innovative engineering. To see a company with such a proud history reduced to standing on a street corner in fishnets and a leather skirt is just heartbreaking -- and it wastes effort that could be spent on more constructive pursuits. If you keep the Sun brand around, let it stand for something.
5. Make Solaris the preferred OS for Oracle. There was a time when it almost went without saying that you deployed Oracle databases on Sun servers. More recently, however, the market share once held by Solaris and other proprietary Unix variants has been eaten up by Linux. But while Linux tries to be all things to the entire Unix market, Oracle still has an opportunity to market a high-end OS that's custom-tailored for running mission-critical database servers. Give Oracle database customers an unbeatable reason to license Solaris instead of Linux and they will come.
4. Unbreakable MySQL. Under Sun's stewardship, the MySQL community has fractured amid reports of buggy releases and an exodus of former employees. Oracle needs to grab the reins and shore up MySQL's position as its new, entry-level database for departments, software developers, and Web apps. Make InnoDB the standard table type, give the code a thorough quality review, and let the industry know that it can forget about the other guys because the new MySQL is a rock-solid database backed by the full faith and support of Oracle. Oh yeah, and it's still free.
3. Build Sun's cloud on an enterprise-grade RDBMS. MySQL is a great product, but everything has its place. Jonathan Schwartz says he wants to build Sun's cloud computing platform using all open source technologies, including MySQL as the database back end. Is he offering a service or making a fashion statement? Your customers wouldn't choose MySQL for that purpose, and neither should you. Rip that out of there, replace it with Oracle's database, and not only will the project start to look legitimate enough that it might actually win some customers, but you won't need 4,000 developers to get it to work reliably, either.
2. Forget about JavaFX. Sun has had a hard enough time competing with the likes of HP, IBM, and Microsoft. Did it really think it could take on Adobe, too? JavaFX was late to the RIA party and it met with a cool reception from its intended audience. And for all Sun's bluster about uniting developers and designers, Adobe took that goal to heart years ago. Better to scrap this stillborn strategy and partner with Adobe on Flash.
1. Fire Sun's entire marketing department. Those clowns have all the savvy of the team at the Sirius Cybernetics Corp., and they deserve the same fate. Sun should have come out of its corner swinging as soon as the dot-com bubble burst. If it had, this merger might never have had to happen. Instead, it pussyfooted around with pointless maneuvers such as changing its stock ticker symbol to JAVA (as if your average Wall Street broker could care). Sun's technology portfolio should practically market itself. Let's hope it's finally found management that will play the game like it's in it to win.


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Leslie, David
Leslie, David, d. 1682, Scottish military commander. After serving in the Swedish army, he was a major general under his uncle, Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, in the Scottish army that joined the forces of Oliver Cromwell in defeating the royalists at Marston Moor (1644). He defeated James Graham, earl of Montrose, at Philiphaugh in 1645. By 1650 he himself was supporting Charles II and as commander of the Scottish royalists was defeated by Oliver Cromwell at Dunbar (1650). After Charles's defeat at Worcester, Leslie was imprisoned (1651–60). He was created (1661) Baron Newark after the Restoration.
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