Friday, October 22, 2004
World upside down
Why are people who tried to peacefully stop an unjust war put in jail while those who lied to the world and killed thousands of people allowed to run for a second term in office?
posted by chris at 1:22 PM
Wal-Mart in Mexico
I know Wal-Mart is an international phenomenon, but it still shocks me to read things like this:
Wal-Mart is already Mexico's largest retailer, with 664 stores in 66 cities, with sales of $12 billion.
Mexico's largest retailer is a company from Arkansas. Welcome to the wonderful world of globalization. From a story about Wal-mart's newest store in Mexico.
A Wal-Mart store rising near the 2,000-year-old pyramids of the Teotihuacan Empire has ignited the wrath of Mexican conservationists and nationalists, who say the U.S. retailer is destroying their culture at the foot of one of Mexico's greatest treasures.
Is the retail giant invading sacred ground and stamping on cultural tradition or just continuing a long tradition of trade?
Teotihuacan and Wal-Mart, centuries and cultures apart, share one thing in common: Both blossomed from trade.
Teotihuacan, which flourished between 250 and 600 A.D., controlled an intricate network of commercial routes that stretched north, west and south, reaching a thousand miles to the Classic Maya civilization of southeastern Mexico and Guatemala.
Tens of thousands were employed there in crafts. Some estimates say there were 100,000 traders. Among goods exchanged were valuable gray and green obsidian used in knives, instruments, mirrors and jewelry, and bartered for faraway sea salt, shells, Quetzal feathers, jade and chocolate.
posted by chris at 1:12 PM
The life and times of Dick Cheney
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (like PBS) aired an expose of Dick Cheney. The video is here.
posted by chris at 1:01 PM
Snow job
Three out of 4 self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them. According to a new survey published Thursday, the same number also believes that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to al Qaeda.
But here is the truly astonishing part: as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than they did several months ago. In other words, more people believe the claims today –- after the publication of a series of well-publicized official government reports that debunked both notions.
There's much more, and it ain't pretty. (From Bob Harris, whose new blog is indispensible.)
UPDATE: You know, I don't think this shows that Bush supporters are ignorant fools. It more clearly points to the constant barrage of statements by the Bush administration that are utterly divorced from anything remotely resembling reality. The Bush administration has repeatedly lied, cherry-picked information to support their lies and then covered up their lies with more lies when the facts disputed their lies. It's no wonder Republican supporters think that Saddam Hussein had some connection to 9/11 or had WMD.
And, sadly, the mainstream media has not challenged these statements until it was much too late. Then there's media sources like FOX News, which is more Bush administration cheerleader and spokespiece than any kind of legitimate news source. Again, with a media that is either cowed by the Bush administration or actively supporting them, it's no wonder so many people are misinformed.
posted by chris at 11:35 AM
How is that "Fair and Balanced"?
In introducing the second half of his interview with Cheney, [FOX News Channel Hannity & Colmes co-host Sean] Hannity said: "[O]nly 13 days -- that's right, 13 -- until the American people go out and reelect [President] George W. Bush as president of the United States and of course, Dick Cheney as vice president."
Here.
posted by chris at 11:23 AM
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Thursday, October 21, 2004
Be afraid, be very afraid (and then vote for us!)
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday evoked the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat, which the vice president called a concept "you've got to get your mind around."
"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us -- biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.
There they go again: scaring the hell out of the American people in order to get some votes.
posted by chris at 2:30 PM
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Bush vs. Reality
The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."
Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."
"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."
"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "
Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
Amazing. (via Kos.)
posted by chris at 1:34 PM
The heart of the election
Bob Harris has been traveling about the globe lately and actually talking to people (instead of talking AT them like some people we know).
It would be outrageous to pretend to speak on behalf of about six billion people, of whom I have met vanishingly few, and whose languages I do not mostly speak. But I can tell you that I've met stunning unanimity, from South Africa to Thailand to New Zealand to Turkey to the Cook Islands and onward. All I can tell you is what I've heard with my own ears.
From the outside, as far as I can tell, the election we're about to have isn't about Bush or Kerry. It's really about whether you and I are OK with illegal war and bombing civilians and torturing people and indefinite detention.
If we say no, then a lot of folks are willing to put it all on Bush and give us a second chance.
But if we say yes to all this... there will come a whirlwind.
posted by chris at 9:51 AM
Delaying another report
It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the Congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."
More.
posted by chris at 9:40 AM
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Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Going offshore to avoid those pesky regulations
It began as one of the Bush administration's most ambitious homeland security efforts, a passenger screening program designed to use commercial records, terrorist watch lists and computer software to assess millions of travelers and target those who might pose a threat.
The system has cost almost $100 million. But it has not been turned on because it sparked protests from lawmakers and civil liberties advocates, who said it intruded too deeply into the lives of ordinary Americans. The Bush administration put off testing until after the election.
Now the choreographer of that program, a former intelligence official named Ben H. Bell III, is taking his ideas to a private company offshore, where he and his colleagues plan to use some of the same concepts, technology and contractors to assess people for risk, outside the reach of U.S. regulators, according to documents and interviews.
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Bell and his business associates said they are trying to fill wide gaps in existing commercial databases that enable criminals and terrorists to roam the globe, sometimes under false identities. Company founder Donald Thibeau, a former LexisNexis executive, said he formed Global Information in the island nation to take advantage of regulations there that he thinks will make it easier to collect data than in the United States, which has a hodgepodge of information and privacy laws that he said would making doing business far more costly.
"You can realize the CAPPS dream in the commercial world," Thibeau said. "We live in a world where data can go anywhere and be warehoused anywhere."
Legal and privacy specialists said the company raises troubling new questions about the ability of computers -- in both the government and private sectors -- to collect and analyze personal information for homeland security. These critics said Global's initiative echoes the aims of the troubled government passenger-screening system, as well as another controversial program at the Defense Department that was shut down by Congress called Total Information Awareness.
An important difference from those programs, these critics said, is that Global operates in private hands, offshore and beyond the oversight that stymied the government programs.
Story.
posted by chris at 10:34 AM
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Monday, October 18, 2004
Stop hurting America
Jon Stewart nails it to the boys of Crossfire. A few choice excerpts:
STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns.
BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes.
STEWART: No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.
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STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.
The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk...
CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.
Video here and transcript here. You MUST see this.
posted by chris at 7:39 PM
Smokers, beware!
Legislation just passed by Congress abolishes the requirement that the government inspect imported tobacco to ensure it is not laced with chemicals and pesticides banned in the United States but permitted elsewhere.
That means imported leaf, which U.S. tobacco companies are increasingly relying on, could make cigarettes even more harmful, said Tom Glynn, director of science and trends for the American Cancer Society.
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The Agriculture Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Food and Drug Administration all have authority to inspect other imported agricultural products to ensure they meet U.S. standards. Officials at those agencies said they did not know of another agricultural product that comes into this country without some kind of inspection.
More.
posted by chris at 3:02 PM
Court rules against shaking down protestors
Fear of a terrorist attack is not sufficient reason for authorities to search people at a protest, a federal appeals court has ruled, saying Sept. 11 "cannot be the day liberty perished."
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Friday that protesters may not be required to pass through metal detectors when they gather next month for a rally against a U.S. training academy for Latin American soldiers.
Authorities began using the metal detectors at the annual School of the Americas protest after the 2001 terrorist attacks, but the court found that practice to be unconstitutional.
"We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the war on terror is over because the war on terror is unlikely ever to be truly over," Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote for the panel. "Sept. 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country."
Story.
posted by chris at 2:58 PM
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Sunday, October 17, 2004
No plan, no supplies
The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.
The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."
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He also said units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army's average. In some Army supply depots in Iraq, 40 percent of critical parts were at "zero balance," meaning they were absent from depot shelves, he said.
He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor, but that their delivery twice had been postponed in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.
More.
posted by chris at 9:57 PM
To Be Provided
They never had a plan...
In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.
Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.
The slide said: "To Be Provided."
A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.
posted by chris at 9:26 PM
The faith of George W. Bush
A fascinating look at the faith-based presidency. A few excerpts:
Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''
Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''
Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''
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In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
There is so much more to read and it's essential reading. This aspect of Bush must be understood before Nov 2.
posted by chris at 8:51 PM
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