:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 12.29.2009 ::

:: President Obama pledges to scour world for terror cells ::

Times Online UK

President Obama vowed to track down and destroy terror cells all over the world last night as he finally ended his silence over a failed Christmas Day plot to blow up an American passenger jet.

The White House said that Mr Obama’s reticence to speak out was designed to reduce the attention focused on an extremist group based in Yemen calling itself al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Islamist organisation led by a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched attack in a statement yesterday.

The President took a few minutes out of his holiday in Hawaii to pledge that he would work to keep America safe from attack with further foreign interventions where necessary.

“We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us,” Mr Obama said.

“Whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland."

A new front in the battle against extremists has already been opened in Yemen, where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former student in London, spent three months earlier this year.

Yemeni government forces, acting on US intelligence and using what officials have admitted was American military hardware, launched air raids on suspected militants in the east of the country on December 17 and again on December 24. At least 60 people were understood to have been killed.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed that the Christmas Day plot was a response to those raids but plans are believed to have pre-dated the US-backed assaults.

Mr Obama has proved willing to sanction military intervention but appears to be less tough than his predecessor in terms of rhetoric.

George W. Bush, who was elected in 2000, responded to the September 11 2001 attacks by pledging to seize bin Laden “dead or alive”. He said would “smoke” extremists out, and taunted “bring ’em on” when asked about insurgents in Iraq.

Despite the potentially devastating impact of Mr Abdulmutallab’s attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253, Mr Obama was measured in his response.

“The American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season,” he said.

The incident prompted stiffer airport boarding measures and authorities warned travellers to expect extra delays in the coming weeks.

Read more here.

A L S O

Obama blames 'systemic failures' in US security
Reuters

A N D

An Obama Christmas
ABC News (blog) - Jon Garcia

posted by me

:: 8:09:00 PM [+] ::
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For your consideration. Froehliche Weihnachten!

:: Jesus Hated War -- Why Do Christians Love It So Much? ::

Gary G. Kohls, Consortium News
via Alternet

Belief: There are no "blessed wars". Yet virtually all evangelical, conservative and many mainstream church leaders were active supporters of the Bush wars.

A L S O

Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics
Rev. Howard Bess, Consortium News
Belief: Beautiful as it is, the story of the birth of Jesus is a myth born of the political needs of early Christians.

Most of Us Hate X-mas: Let's End That Holiday As We Know It
By Bill McKibben, Grist.org
Environment: If you poll Americans this time of year, far more regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. How can we make Christmas worthwhile again.

Senate Passes Health-Care Reform Bill; Feingold, Rockefeller Issue Appeals to Progressives
Adele Stan, AlterNet
Politics: With no public option or Medicare buy-in, the Senate's health-care reform bill passes in the early hours of Christmas Eve.


Rep. Keith Ellison: Public Option Still Possible If We Get Loud
AlterNet Staff

New Year's Resolutions To Help Make Corporate Fat Cats and Our Politicians Human Again
Jim Hightower, AlterNet
I was working on my list of New Year's resolutions when it occurred to me that some of the people running our country could benefit from my suggestions.

Let's start, then, with those proud-and-loud members of Congress who've adamantly opposed real health insurance reform for workaday Americans. Not only do I include the entire block of Republican lawmakers whose vocabulary is limited to the word "no," but also those pathetic Democrats who've compromised the reform idea into corporate mush. It would be neat (and only fair) for each of these stalwarts of the status quo to make this vow for 2010: "Since I helped kill reform, I will give up the excellent government-paid, socialized health coverage that I get so that I am in the same leaky boat as my constituents."

And here's one for the barons of Wall Street, who continue to float on billions of dollars in government bailout money, yet are grabbing bonus payments for themselves, while pouting that the public is not showing them the love they deserve: "I hereby pledge to go through the 12-step detox program of Greedheads Anonymous to cure my narcissism and become a human being again."

Let's not forget the Obamacans, either! They came into office on an antiwar, anti-fat cat, pro-middle-class program, yet they've expanded their war, catered to fat cats and offered the middle class nothing but "a jobless recovery." Here's the resolution we need from Obama: "In year two of my term, I promise to Democrat-up by getting some economic advisors who've actually met a real worker and downloading some recordings of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to my iPod. I'll also require top officials in my administration to volunteer at least one loved one to go to war in Afghanistan." If only we can get those in charge to make these pledges, we'll all have a happier New Year!

Top 10 Ethics Scandals of 2009
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Politics: Madoff, Sanford and Murtha are just a few who made it onto the top 10 list of the nation's most ethically challenged players of the year.


The Ten Worst Nightmares Bush Inflicted on America
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Politics: Here are my picks for the top ten worst things about the wretched period, which will continue to follow us until citizens stand up to fix them.

Will Dur$t's Xma$ Gift Wi$h Li$t
By Will Durst, AlterNet

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Just ask anybody. Oh, they’ll tell you. Over and over and over again. On the radio, they’ve been pounding it into our heads ever since November 1st. That’s when a lot of stations went 24/7 Christmas. And every single one of them went 24/7 Christmas ads nauseum. A sixth of a year. Longer than the lifespan of 4 generations of drone ants. More protracted than an entire Minneapolis summer. Double the playoff contention duration of the Detroit Lions.

The problem is, this particular most wonderful time of the year is proving to be a bit less than. More like the most semi- wonderful time of the year or the most not too bad time of the year. Mainly because people like you and me (mostly you) selfishly refuse to stop whining and go out there and do their patriotic duty by sinking deeply into debt to honor the birth of that Jewish hippie kid by buying more stuff than anybody in their right mind really needs. The worst holiday season in recent memory. Except for last year. So, things are looking up. But it’s an odd up.

It is fair to say that a great many of us are not going to find everything we want under the tree. So, making sure that we don’t throw a perfectly good premise out with the financial bath water, let me offer up my annual scathingly incisive yet curiously refreshing, WILL DUR$T’$ 2009 XMA$ GIFT WI$H LI$T. These are the presents that folks may not receive wrapped up with bows this year but certainly deserve.

For Bernie Madoff. A sudden illness that causes him to die peacefully in his sleep.
For Joe Biden. Since his foot spends so much time in his mouth, mint flavored shoelaces.
For Tiger Woods. A marriage mulligan.
For Hall & Oates. Another 500 or so casinos in Las Vegas so Cirque du Soleil finally gets around to doing a show based on them.
For Barack Obama. A reset switch for his Presidency.
For Sarah Palin’s Publisher. More best sellers targeted to people who don’t read. Maybe an “audio book for the deaf” division. Cookbooks for Supermodels.
For the US Economy. A bit more stimulus to goose that whole stimulus thing into action.
For the Mitt Romney and the Rest of the Republican National Committee Looking at 2012. Something else on Sarah. Then again, maybe the Mayans were right.
For Newspaper Headline Writers Everywhere. Something else to write other than “Recession Appears to be Over.”
For Mexican President Calderon. A wall on the border to control our immigration.
For the Imposters Who Crashed the White House. An endorsement deal with Butterfingers.
For the Democrats in Congress. A year’s supply of whole milk to put a little calcium into their spine.
For Medical Science to Study. Dick Cheney’s heart. George Bush’s brain. And Howard Dean's mouth.
For Granny. Someone to ask, if maybe she might not like her plug to be pulled.
For Those 3 Hikers Facing Trial in Iran. Bill Clinton’s attention.
For Glenn Beck. A one way ticket on the clue train.
For South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. See Tiger Woods.
For Joe Lieberman. A diamond-studded collar to befit his position as GOP lap dog.
The State of Texas. A time out, so they stop executing people with IQs of 62. And stop electing them governor as well.

P R O S T !

posted by me

:: 1:51:00 AM [+] ::
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:: LHC nears restart after repairs ::

BBC News

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could restart as early as this weekend after more than a year of repairs.

But officials have avoided giving an exact date for sending beams of protons around the 27km (17 mile) circular tunnel which houses the collider.

The LHC was first switched on in 2008, but had to be shut down when a faulty electrical connection caused one tonne of helium to leak into the tunnel.

The vast machine is located 100m below the French-Swiss border.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC will recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang.

Two beams of protons will be fired around the tunnel. These beams will travel in opposite directions around the main "ring" at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with enormous energy.

Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos.

Read more here.

A L S O

Earth Destroyed By Large Hadron Collider; Martian Questioned
Wired News

posted by me

:: 3:22:00 AM [+] ::
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:: In Germany, an ode to joy ::

Fall of Wall commemorated World leaders attend celebration in Berlin
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service

BERLIN -- For once, Germans celebrated a moment from their tumultuous past without a pang of guilt.

World leaders, aging Cold War luminaries and tens of thousands of spectators packed the center of Berlin on Monday to commemorate a singularly joyful chapter in Germany's national history, the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

On a rainy night, spotlights bathed the Brandenburg Gate in a spectrum of color to mark the anniversary of the night -- Nov. 9, 1989 -- when Berliners spontaneously reunited their divided city and sealed the end of the Cold War.

"Almost everyone can remember what he or she did on that evening," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A young East German physicist at the time, Merkel had just finished her regular Thursday night trip to the sauna when a crowd swept her past a border crossing into West Berlin. "For me, it was one of the happiest moments of my life," she said.

In a symbolic procession, Merkel led a delegation of leaders from the United States, Britain, France and Russia -- the powers that divided and controlled Berlin after World War II -- through the restored Brandenburg Gate, from east to west. Joining her were French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Read more here.

A L S O

Cold War's End -- The Wall Comes Down
Huffington Post

'I'll always associate Beethoven's 7th with the fall of the Berlin wall'
Guardian UK

posted by me

:: 10:31:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Barack Obama puts Bush era behind him in UN general assembly speech
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Guardian.co.uk

Barack Obama put the Bush era decisively behind him today in a speech to the United Nations in which he rejected unilateralism in favour of countries working together to problems ranging from the Middle East to Iran and North Korea.

Obama, in his first address to the UN general assembly, pleaded he would need the support of other countries in tackling what described as the world's most intractable problems.

"Make no mistake: this cannot solely be America's endeavour. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world can not now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," said.

In contrast with Bush's speeches at the UN that were usually heard in sullen silence, Obama was greeted with two minutes of applause at the end of his 41-minute speech, as well as bursts of appreciation throughout.

But, in contrast with Obama's soaring rhetoric, the UN continues to be bedevilled by divisions and walk outs.

Among the 100-plus world leaders attending were the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, attending for the first time, and the Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez. European leaders included Gordon Brown, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy and the Italian president Silvio Berlusconi.

Highlighting the problems of Obama's call for unity, Ahmadinejad is threatened with a walk out when he delivers his speech because of his reiteration on Friday that there was no Holocaust. The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Carter, was among leaders who said his country would leave its seat empty.

Ahmadinejad, sitting in the fifth row, was among the few leaders not to applaud Obama. Gaddafi, also faced a walk out when he took to the podium immediately after Obama, mainly because of US anger over the release of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

White House aides made sure that Obama and Gaddafi did not meet and all the members of the US delegation, other than a notetaker and an African specialist, left the chamber when the Libyan leader began a speech that lasted one hour and 40 minutes.

Obama, in the most sweeping foreign policy speech he has delivered since becoming president in January, set out four priorities are: nuclear non-proliferation, Middle East peace, climate change and addressing poverty among developing nations.

There were bursts of applause when he mentioned all these, and when he promised to close the Guantánamo detention centre and push to end the conflict in Sudan.

At the heart of his speech, he promised to work with the UN in a way that Bush had not: "The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st.... Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations."

Read more here.

Video of the speech.

posted by me

:: 3:14:00 PM [+] ::
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:: FCC chief proposes new Net neutrality rules ::

by Marguerite Reardon
CNET News.com

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined a plan to keep the Internet open.

In a speech given at the Brookings Institute, Genachowski proposed that the FCC turn its four principles of network openness official into regulation. And he suggested that the FCC add two more "principles" as part of these new rules.

The existing principles can be summarized this way: Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network.

Now Genachowski is proposing two new principles. The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.

Genachowski tried to alleviate fears that the FCC will overstep its bounds and create rules that hamper innovation.

"I am convinced that there are few goals more essential in the communications landscape than preserving and maintaining an open and robust Internet," he said. "I also know that achieving this goal will take an approach that is smart about technology, smart about markets, smart about law and policy, and smart about the lessons of history."

The debate over so-called Net neutrality began heating up about three years ago, when congressional leaders first held hearings on potential laws to ensure that Internet service providers couldn't monkey with traffic. There is no clear definition of the term "Net neutrality," but in general it refers to the concept that Internet users should have unfettered access to content and services. In other words, service providers should not be allowed to either impede or favor access to particular sites or applications.

The discovery that the nation's largest cable operator, Comcast, had slowed down certain kinds of peer-to-peer traffic on its network fanned the flames and sparked public outrage over such practices.

Read more here.

A L S O

Republicans to Push Against Net Neutrality
Washington Post

posted by me

:: 7:27:00 PM [+] ::
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:: The Holy Grail of the Unconscious ::

By SARA CORBETT
NYT

This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome.

And yet between the book’s heavy covers, a very modern story unfolds. It goes as follows: Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again.

Some people feel that nobody should read the book, and some feel that everybody should read it. The truth is, nobody really knows. Most of what has been said about the book — what it is, what it means — is the product of guesswork, because from the time it was begun in 1914 in a smallish town in Switzerland, it seems that only about two dozen people have managed to read or even have much of a look at it.

Of those who did see it, at least one person, an educated Englishwoman who was allowed to read some of the book in the 1920s, thought it held infinite wisdom — “There are people in my country who would read it from cover to cover without stopping to breathe scarcely,” she wrote — while another, a well-known literary type who glimpsed it shortly after, deemed it both fascinating and worrisome, concluding that it was the work of a psychotic.

So for the better part of the past century, despite the fact that it is thought to be the pivotal work of one of the era’s great thinkers, the book has existed mostly just as a rumor, cosseted behind the skeins of its own legend — revered and puzzled over only from a great distance.

Which is why one rainy November night in 2007, I boarded a flight in Boston and rode the clouds until I woke up in Zurich, pulling up to the airport gate at about the same hour that the main branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland, located on the city’s swanky Bahnhofstrasse, across from Tommy Hilfiger and close to Cartier, was opening its doors for the day. A change was under way: the book, which had spent the past 23 years locked inside a safe deposit box in one of the bank’s underground vaults, was just then being wrapped in black cloth and loaded into a discreet-looking padded suitcase on wheels. It was then rolled past the guards, out into the sunlight and clear, cold air, where it was loaded into a waiting car and whisked away.

Read more about the publication of Jung's "Red Book" here.

A L S O

Carl Jung’s Red Book
PsychCentral

In his late 30s, Jung started writing a book called The Red Book. The Red Book is part journal, part mythological novel that takes the reader through Jung’s fantasies — hallucinations he self-induced to try and get to the core of his unconscious. And as a theorist, he wanted to document his 16-year journey, so he wrote down everything he experience, saw and felt.

Jung recorded it all. First taking notes in a series of small, black journals, he then expounded upon and analyzed his fantasies, writing in a regal, prophetic tone in the big red-leather book. The book detailed an unabashedly psychedelic voyage through his own mind, a vaguely Homeric progression of encounters with strange people taking place in a curious, shifting dreamscape. Writing in German, he filled 205 oversize pages with elaborate calligraphy and with richly hued, staggeringly detailed paintings.

For decades, The Red Book has been wrapped in mystery, because it has never been published. It was thought that only one copy of the book existed — locked in a Swiss safe deposit box by the heirs to C.G. Jung’s estate.

As it turns out, however, copies of the book have been around if one searched hard enough to find them. A historian by the name of Sonu Shamdasani found said copies and after three years of discussions with the descendants of Jung, convinced the family to allow him access to the original to translate and finally publish it. The book will finally be published next month.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 4:04:00 PM [+] ::
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:: The Father Of the Green Revolution ::

By Joe Holley and J.Y. Smith
Washington Post

Norman E. Borlaug 1914-2009

Norman E. Borlaug, 95, an American plant pathologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for starting the "Green Revolution" that dramatically increased food production in developing nations and saved countless people from starvation, died Saturday at his home in Dallas.

"More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world," the Nobel committee said in honoring him. "Dr. Borlaug has introduced a dynamic factor into our assessment of the future and its potential."

Edwin Price, director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, said his mentor died of cancer. Since 1984, Dr. Borlaug had been a distinguished professor of international agriculture there.

Dr. Borlaug was barely known in the country of his birth. But in India, Mexico and other nations susceptible to hunger and famine, he was known as one of the great Americans of modern times. Price accompanied Dr. Borlaug to Russia, where he visited a wheat research institute south of Moscow. "When Norm came in," Price said, "the scientists at the institute all cried."

From the 1970s until his death, he increasingly took the politically incorrect view that environmentalists were hampering world food production by indiscriminately attacking the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

"They claim that the consumer is being poisoned out of existence by the current high-yielding systems of agricultural production and recommend we revert back to lower-yielding, so-called sustainable technologies," he said in a speech in New Orleans in 1993.

Unfortunately, he said, it is not possible to turn the clock back to the 1930s, when the population of the world was 2.2 billion. It was estimated at 5.6 billion in 1995 and was projected to rise to 8.3 billion by 2025.

Dr. Borlaug's career was defined on the one hand by the ability of science to increase food production at an exponential rate and on the other by the Malthusian nightmare of an exploding population outstripping its ability to feed itself. His work took him from the Iowa farm where he grew up to the primitively cultivated wheat fields of Mexico in the 1940s, the rice paddies of Asia in the 1960s and 1970s and to the savannas of Africa in the 1980s.
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In his lecture accepting the Nobel Prize, he said an adequate supply of food is "the first component of social justice. . . . Otherwise there will be no peace."

He warned that the world could wind up with too many mouths to feed, and he offered only guarded hope that "since man is potentially a rational being . . . he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth and will adjust the growth rate to levels which will permit a decent standard of living for all mankind."

posted by me

:: 3:04:00 PM [+] ::
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:: How 9/11 Should Be Remembered: The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People ::

By Rebecca Solnit
Tomdispatch.com
via Alternet

After 9/11, saw amazing acts of courage by ordinary people, including assembled flotilla of boats evacuated 300,000 to 500,000 people from lower Manhattan.

Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word "terrorism," which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified. The distortion, even obliteration, of what actually happened was a necessary precursor to launching the obscene response that culminated in a war on Iraq, a war we lost (even if some of us don't know that yet), and the loss of civil liberties and democratic principles that went with it.

Only We Can Terrorize Ourselves

For this eighth anniversary of that terrible day, the first post-Bush-era anniversary, let's remember what actually happened ...

Read more here.

A L S O

Obama marks 9/11 with memorial, call to service
AP

WASHINGTON — On his first 9/11 anniversary as president, Barack Obama urged Americans to come together in service just as they united after the terrorist attacks eight years ago.

"We can summon once more that ordinary goodness of America, to serve our communities, to strengthen our country and to better our world," Obama said at a memorial at the Pentagon.

Obama on Thursday declared the anniversary of the attacks a national day of remembrance and service. And he and first lady Michelle Obama led the way Friday, visiting a Habitat for Humanity construction site in Washington, where they pitched in by painting a living room wall.

Earlier, the Obamas participated in the anniversary rituals that have become familiar in the eight years since the attacks on New York and Washington. They began the day by observing a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House at precisely 8:46 a.m., the moment the first jetliner struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Nearly 200 White House staffers — from chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to kitchen workers — gathered under a heavy downpour. Moments before the president and first lady stepped outside, the rain subsided and it held off as they placed their hands over their hearts and bowed their heads.

After the Obamas walked back into the White House, the rain resumed.

As a presidential candidate, Obama marked last year's anniversary in New York at the site of the World Trade Center. This year, the commander in chief spoke at a Pentagon memorial service, and laid a wreath in honor of the 184 people who died there.

Read more here.

9/11 Remembered: Photos From The Day
Huffington Post

posted by me

:: 4:01:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Death in Texas, what a concept ::

Man convicted of murder, executed over arson that wasn't, scientist says

Faulty investigation of fire that killed 3 kids led to conviction, state-funded report concludes.
By Chuck Lindell
Austin American-Statesman

The fatal house fire that led Texas to execute Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 was erroneously ruled to be arson by fire investigators who relied on bad science, unproven theories and personal bias, a state-funded analysis concludes.

The analysis, prepared by nationally known fire scientist Craig Beyler, raises the possibility that Willingham did not commit the crime for which he was executed, a 1991 fire that killed his three young children in the Corsicana house they shared.

Only Willingham escaped the burning house, and he insisted on his innocence until the moment of his death.

"I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do," he said while strapped to the execution-chamber gurney.

Beyler's report, requested by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, listed more than a dozen instances of improper analysis and mistaken conclusions provided by two fire officials during Willingham's capital murder trial.

Read more here.

A L S O

Did Texas execute an innocent man?
The New Yorker

posted by me

:: 3:31:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Marred Afghan Vote Leaves US in a Delicate Spot ::

By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER
NYT

WASHINGTON — On Monday, as the vote-counting in Afghanistan was nearing an end, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was briefed by the American ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry. The same day, the ambassador delivered a blunt message to the front-runner, President Hamid Karzai: “Don’t declare victory.”

The slim majority tentatively awarded Mr. Karzai in Afghanistan’s fraud-scarred election has put the Obama administration in an awkward spot: trying to balance its professed determination to investigate mounting allegations of corruption and vote-rigging while not utterly alienating the man who seems likely to remain the country’s leader for another five years.

Mrs. Clinton and Ambassador Eikenberry, senior administration officials said, wanted to prevent Mr. Karzai or his backers from pre-empting an outside investigation of allegations of irregularities in the Aug. 20 vote.

“We realize that the allegations have reached such a level that we need to be very careful to allow the process to breathe,” said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “The message was, Let’s make sure that the electoral bodies do their work, and do it rigorously.”

On Tuesday, the United Nations-backed commission that is the ultimate arbiter of the vote said it found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at several polling stations and ordered a partial recount.

Read more here.

ALSO

A primer on Afghanistan's political situation, and the US role
LA Times

"As charges of election fraud surround Afghanistan's recent presidential vote, Obama is considering his next steps in that country. Here's some background, and what Obama faces."

ELSEWHERE

US warns Iran is nearing nuclear capabilities
AP

Mexican Jetliner Hijacked, Passengers Freed
Wall Street Journal

posted by me

:: 4:33:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Trustafarian meets a 1960s band so obscure that their music is not even available on iTunes ::

Chuck Klosterman Repeats The Beatles
A.V. Club

Like most people, I was initially confused by EMI’s decision to release remastered versions of all 13 albums by the Liverpool pop group Beatles, a 1960s band so obscure that their music is not even available on iTunes. The entire proposition seems like a boondoggle. I mean, who is interested in old music? And who would want to listen to anything so inconveniently delivered on massive four-inch metal discs with sharp, dangerous edges? The answer: no one. When the box arrived in the mail, I briefly considered smashing the entire unopened collection with a ball-peen hammer and throwing it into the mouth of a lion. But then, against my better judgment, I arbitrarily decided to give this hippie shit an informal listen. And I gotta admit—I’m impressed. This band was mad prolific.

It is not easy to categorize the Beatles’ music; more than any other group, their sound can be described as “Beatlesque.” It’s akin to a combination of Badfinger, Oasis, Corner Shop, and everyother rock band that’s ever existed. The clandestine power derived from the autonomy of the group’s composition—each Beatle has his own distinct persona, even though their given names are almost impossible to remember. There was John Lennon (the mean one), Paul Stereo versionMcCartney (the hummus eater), George Harrison (the best dancer), and drummer Ringo Starr (The Cat). Even the most casual consumers will be overwhelmed by the level of invention and the degree of change displayed over their scant eight-year recording career, a span complicated by McCartney’s tragic 1966 death and the 1968 addition of Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, a woman so beloved by the band that they requested her physical presence in the studio during the making of Let It Be.

There are 217 songs on this anthology, many of which seem like snippets of conversation between teenagers who spend an inordinate amount of time at the post office. The Beatles’ “long play” debut, Please Please Me, came in 1963, opening with a few rudimentary remarks from Mr. McCartney: “Well, she was just 17 / If you know what I mean.” If this is supposed to indicate that the female in question was born in 1946, then yes, we know exactly what you mean, Paul. If it means something else, I remain in the dark. These young, sensitive, genteel-yet-stalkerish Beatles sure did spend a lot of time thinking about girls. Virtually every song they wrote during this period focuses on the establishment and recognition of consensual romance, often through paper and quill (“P.S. I Love You”), sometimes by means of monosyllabic nonsense (“Love Me Do”), and occasionally through oral sex (“Please Please Me”). The intensely private Mr. Harrison asks a few coquettish questions two-thirds of the way through the opus (“Do You Want To Know A Secret”) before Mr. Lennon obliterates the back door with the greatest rock voice of all time, accidentally inventing Matthew Broderick’s career. There are a few bricks hither and yon (thanks for wasting 123 seconds of my precious life, Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow) but on balance, I have to give Please Please Me an A, despite the fact that it doesn’t really have a proper single.

Things get more interesting on With The Beatles, particularly for audiences who feel the hi-hat should be the dominant musical instrument on all musical recordings.

Read more here.

a l s o . . .

Come Together: Everybody Reviews the Beatles
NYT

Newly Discovered Recordings Reveal Beatles Actually Terrible Group
The Onion

Quote for the day:

"Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust."
~The Clash, London Calling

posted by me

:: 2:49:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: One giant slip in Bangladesh news ::

BBC

Two Bangladeshi newspapers have apologised after publishing an article taken from a satirical US website which claimed the Moon landings were faked.

The Daily Manab Zamin said US astronaut Neil Armstrong had shocked a news conference by saying he now knew it had been an "elaborate hoax".

Neither they nor the New Nation, which later picked up the story, realised the Onion was not a genuine news site.

Both have now apologised to their readers for not checking the story.

"We thought it was true so we printed it without checking," associate editor Hasanuzzuman Khan told the AFP news agency.

"We didn't know the Onion was not a real news site."

The article said Mr Armstrong had told a news conference he had been "forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos and reading several blog posts" by a conspiracy theorist.

"It took only a few hastily written paragraphs published by this passionate denier of mankind's so-called 'greatest technological achievement' for me to realise I had been living a lie," the fake article "quoted" Mr Armstrong as saying.

"The truth is that Neil Armstrong never gave such an interview. It was made up." ~Daily Manab Zamin

Read more here.

A L S O

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked

posted by me

:: 8:28:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: CIA report: 'Inhumane' tactics used on detainees ::

AP via
Atlanta Journal Constitution
By STEVEN R. HURST

WASHINGTON — CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices.

At the same time, the Obama administration announced a new policy for future interrogations — under White House supervision.

With the release of the five-year-old CIA documents, the Justice Department began a probe into thespy agency's tactics, under the direction of a veteran prosecutor who has been looking into other aspects of the interrogations.

The documents released by the CIA's inspector general under a court order said interrogators went too far — even beyond what was authorized under Justice Department legal memos that have since been withdrawn and discredited. President Barack Obama has said questioners would not face charges if they followed the legal guidelines, but the newly released documents suggest some knew they were not.

"Ten years from now we're going to be sorry we're doing this (but) it has to be done," one unidentified CIA officer said in the report, predicting that interrogators would someday have to appear in court to answer for such tactics.

Monday's documents represent the largest single release of information about the Bush administration's once-secret system of capturing terrorism suspects and interrogating them in overseas prisons.

Read more here.

A L S O

Report Provides New Details on C.I.A. Prisoner Abuse
NYT

The Early Word: Document Day
NYT

DOJ to open investigation into CIA prisoner abuse reports
Jurist

DOJ Press Release

a n d . . .

Digging Through the CIA Interrogation Report
Washington Post

CIA Inspector General Report (PDF)

posted by me

:: 4:19:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: RE Health Care Reform ::

Barney Frank goes toe to toe at health care town hall
CNN International

Most Congress members conducting town hall meetings this month have chosen a noncombative posture to deal with angry participants who disrupt the proceedings. Not Rep. Barney Frank.

Most Congress members conducting town hall meetings this month have chosen a noncombative posture to deal with angry participants who disrupt the proceedings. Not Rep. Barney Frank.

"You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis," he said, adding such behavior demonstrated the strength of First Amendment guarantees of what he called "contemptible" free speech.

"Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table," Frank said to the woman. "I have no interest in doing it."

Despite the disruptions, the meeting covered many of the issues of the health care debate, with Frank shooting down rumors that a House health care bill would mandate free insurance coverage for illegal immigrants.

He read from the section of the bill that excludes payments for that purpose, and when another questioner referred to a different section guaranteeing nondiscrimination, Frank pointed out that the first section he read superseded that language.

Read more here.

A L S O

Getting past the lingo of the health care debate

Health care fact check

Read the House bill

Read the Senate bill

a n d . . .

Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic
Faux grassroots firms are exhibiting all the tell-tale signs.
Alternet

posted by me

:: 3:28:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Blackwater Hit Squads: What Was the CIA Thinking? ::

By Robert Baer
TIME

The other shoe has dropped. CIA Director Leon Panetta, it turns out, ran up to up to Capitol Hill this June not simply to confess the CIA had a secret assassination program it never implemented but rather to confess it had sub-contracted the job out. As first reported by the New York Times on its website Wednesday evening, the CIA hired Blackwater to help with a secret program to assassinate top Al Qaeda leaders. Although no one was ultimately assassinated before the program was ultimately shelved — and the Times reports that it's not clear that Blackwater was engaged to do anything more than assist with planning, training and surveillance — Panetta must have been horrified the CIA turned to mercenaries to play a part in its dirty work. It's one thing, albeit often misguided, for the agency to outsource certain tasks to contractors. It's quite another to involve a company like Blackwater in even just the planning and training of targeted killings, akin to the CIA going to the Mafia to draw up a plan to kill Castro. (Watch "Robert Baer on the Risks of Chatter")


I suspect that if the agreements are ever really looked into — rather than a formal contract, the CIA reportedly brokered individual deals with top company brass — we will find out the Blackwater's assassination work was more about bilking the U.S. taxpayer than it was killing bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders. More than a few senior CIA officers retired from the CIA and went to work at Blackwater, the controversial private security shop now known as Xe Services. Not only did they presumably take along their CIA Rolodexes with them out the door, but many probably didn't choose to leave until they had a lucrative new contract lined up. But more to the point Blackwater stood no better chance of placing operatives in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the al Qaeda leadership was hiding in 2004, than did the CIA or the U.S. military. (Read "Terror Interrogations: Can the CIA and FBI Work Together?")

This leads to the question of what the CIA ever saw in Blackwater that the public hasn't. Even before it was expelled from Iraq after a Blackwater security detail allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, the contractor for unclear reasons took over security duties CIA staff employees used to carry out. In May of this year in Kabul four Blackwater contractors reportedly shot and killed two unarmed Afghans; Blackwater whisked the four out of the country before the Afghans could investigate. The State Dept. has also relied heavily on Blackwater in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the years.

And there may even be a darker side to Blackwater. This August one former anonymous Blackwater employee filed a sworn statement in federal court in Virginia claiming that Blackwater's founder Erik Prince (who is no longer involved with the day-to-day running of the company) was involved in the murder of at least one informant reporting to federal authorities on his company. The allegation, first reported by The Nation magazine, was part of a civil suit filed by several Iraqis for the company's alleged abuses in the country. Blackwater has denied the claims, calling them "anonymous unsubstantiated and offensive assertions."

Still, the CIA has maintained its various Blackwater contracts, which run from protecting CIA operatives in the field to loading Hellfire missiles on Predator drones. None of this is to mention that as soon as CIA money lands in Blackwater's account it is beyond accounting, as good as gone.

If this Administration ever hopes to get a handle on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other countries around the world where the 'war on terrorism' has been fought it's going to have to figure out what happened to the billions and billions spent on contracts. So far the Obama White House has been happy to work with the Bush Administration contracting mess. In Afghanistan today, the company that supervises Blackwater is a British security called Aegis, which is headed by a notorious British mercenary. Afghans are a people that do not take well to mercenaries.

Even more troubling, I think we will find out that in the unraveling of the Bush years, Blackwater is not the worst of the contractors, some of which did reportedly end up carrying out their assigned hits.

— Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower

Read a brief history of secret CIA missions.

Read "CIA's Secret Program: Why Wasn't Panetta Told?"

posted by me

:: 2:52:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Protest & Mourning in Iran ::

Iranian riot police tear gas 'Neda' mourners, vow to 'decisively' crush demonstrations
BY Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Warning that any more demonstrations would be "decisively" crushed, Iranian authorities broke up all attempts Monday to publicly mourn protest icon Neda Soltan.

Protesters who tried to gather for a vigil for the woman slain Saturday by a single bullet to the heart were chased away with tear gas, batons and low-flying helicopters, witnesses reported.

The helicopters were effective at spreading fear: during Saturday's demonstrations, witnesses claimed choppers dropped burning liquid on the crowds. It was initially reported to be boiling water. Later reports said it was a chemical agent.

There were unconfirmed reports on the popular Persian website Balatarin that the commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran was arrested for refusing to obey orders from Iran's Supreme Leader to use force against protesters.

General Ali Fazli, a one-eyed veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, was said to have been fired and taken into custody.

Neda's fiance, Kaspin Makan, told BBC Persia that she was hastily buried Sunday and the government had barred her family from holding any public funeral.

"The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story," he told the BBC. "They were afraid that lots of people could turn up."

He said Neda wasn't a supporter of either side in the disputed June 12 election between President Mamoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi but simply "wanted freedom for all."

Nevertheless, Neda has become a symbol and rallying cry for those rebelling against Ahmadinejad's suspiciously large landslide. She is being compared to Tiananamen Square's Tank Man, the unarmed protester who stood in front of a tank, and hailed as "Iran's Joan of Arc."

Mousavi's Facebook page calls the 26-year-old philosophy student, who was initially identified as a teenager, a "martyr and hero."

Her quick and gruesome death was captured on amateur video as a distraught man her fiance says was her music teacher repeats "don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Neda dear, don't be afraid." The graphic and heartrending video has been watched more than 250,000 times on YouTube.

Her picture, open-eyed in death, is on Web sites all over the world.

It is not clear from the video who shot her.

Read more here.

A L S O

Iran fury as YouTube screens last moments of woman shot dead at democracy rally
Daily Mail UK
[THE FIRST YOUTUBE MARTYR?]

Neda Agha Soltani Killed In Cold Blood
Huffington Post

Neda Video: Neda Agha-Soltani Becomes Symbol of Protest in Iran
The Now Public Iran Elections page

posted by me

:: 10:00:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: The future of film? ::

Kodak Retires Kodachrome Color Film After 74-Year Run
By Bloomberg News

Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer whose Kodachrome film inspired Paul Simon's 1973 hit of the same name, said it will retire the 74-year-old product this year after sales dwindled and most labs stopped processing it.

Revenue from Kodachrome represents "a fraction of one percent" of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films, the company said today in a statement. Kodachrome became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, Kodak said.

The Rochester, New York-based company has seen its profitable film business "evaporate" as digital cameras gained dominance, Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez said earlier this year. The company lost $4.53 billion in market value in 2008 as it struggled to show investors it had a place in the new technology.

"The majority of today's photographers have voiced their preference to capture images with newer technology -- both film and digital," said Mary Jane Hellyar, Kodak's outgoing president of the film, photofinishing and entertainment group. Kodak derives 70 percent of its revenue from commercial and consumer digital businesses, the company said in the statement.

Photofinishing labs that process Kodachrome film have dwindled to one worldwide, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, Kodak said. The lab will offer processing for the film through 2010, and Kodak estimates Kodachrome film supplies will last until "early fall" of this year, according to the statement.

"I love to take a photograph," Paul Simon sang in "Kodachrome," which reached second place in 1973 on Billboard's Hot 100 list. "So mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

A L S O

from Dwayne's Photo
Kodachrome — The End of an Era

On June 22, 2009, Kodak announced the final manufacturing run of Kodachrome 64, the last remaining Kodachrome film. Dwayne’s Photo plans to continue processing Kodachrome films through the end of December 2010. As long as supplies last, Dwayne's will continue to offer Kodachrome film for sale.

This is a sad occasion for us, as we’re sure it is for many of you. While we understand the business realities driving Kodak’s decision, we are still sorry to see the film go. Kodachrome was truly an icon of the 20th century and has certainly been a very important part of Dwayne’s business for many years. Once it’s gone, nothing will ever capture “those nice bright colors” in quite the same way. We want to say thank you to all the customers who have been loyal to Kodachrome and to us over the years.

Click here to read the Kodak announcement ›

posted by me

:: 9:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: "Jury seated in music downloading trial in Minn." ::

By STEVE KARNOWSKI
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A jury has been selected and opening statements are expected later Monday in Minneapolis in a replay for the nation's only music file-sharing defendant so far to go to trial.

Thirty-two-year-old Jammie (JAY'-mee) Thomas-Rasset of Brainerd lost her first trial in 2007 when a jury in Duluth awarded the recording companies $222,000.

But U.S. District Judge Michael Davis later concluded he made a mistake in his jury instructions and ordered the retrial.

This time, Davis will tell jurors the recording companies need to prove that someone actually downloaded the music that Thomas-Rasset allegedly made available over the Internet. Last time, he told the jury the plaintiffs didn't have to prove anyone downloaded the copyright-protected songs.

The companies suing are subsidiaries of four major recording companies.

A L S O

All eyes on Minnesota as RIAA trial starts over
BetaNews

RIAA Case, Capitol Vs. Thomas #2, Starts Monday
/.

posted by me

:: 2:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Red Cross report: CIA tortured terror suspects ::

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The CIA's secret interrogation program amounted to torture for some of the 14 "high-value detainees" held by the agency, according to published excerpts of an internal 2006 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ICRC report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and excerpted in the April 9 issue of the New York Review of Books.

The neutral, Swiss-based ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare to visit prisoners of war and other people detained by an occupying power, to ensure countries respect their obligations under the 1949 accords.

ICRC officials would not confirm details of the report to The Associated Press and denied leaking it.

"We regret that information attributed to the ICRC has been made public. We share our observations and concerns related to U.S. detentions as part of the confidential dialogue we maintain with U.S. authorities and so we do not wish to comment on the substance of the article," said Simon Schorno, a spokesman for the Geneva headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ICRC generally refuses to comment on its prisoner-of-war investigations, reasoning that it undermines the organization's ability to gain access to the prisoners and influence how they are treated.

A U.S. official familiar with the ICRC report noted that the claims of abuse were made by the alleged terrorists themselves. The official asked to speak anonymously because the CIA interrogation program is classified.

The ICRC was granted private access by the Bush administration to the 14 prisoners after they were moved from secret interrogation sites and prisons to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2006.

According to the report, as described by Danner, the prisoners separately and consistently described long-term solitary confinement, waterboarding — which simulates drowning — prolonged stress positions, forced prolonged nudity, beatings, denial of solid food and other forms of abuse.

"The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," states the report, according to Danner.

The report was written shortly after then-President George W. Bush publicly declared that the United States does not and had not tortured detainees at secret CIA prisons known as "black sites."

Read more here.

A L S O

Call It Torture
Washington Post

Here's another good reason to have some sort of authoritative public reckoning of the Bush administration's dark legacy: Until we deal with it once and for all, it will come back to haunt us time and time again.

US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites
By Mark Danner
The New York Times

We think time and elections will cleanse our fallen world but they will not. Since November, George W. Bush and his administration have seemed to be rushing away from us at accelerating speed, a dark comet hurtling toward the ends of the universe. The phrase "War on Terror"—the signal slogan of that administration, so cherished by the man who took pride in proclaiming that he was "a wartime president"—has acquired in its pronouncement a permanent pair of quotation marks, suggesting something questionable, something mildly embarrassing: something past. And yet the decisions that that president made, especially the monumental decisions taken after the attacks of September 11, 2001—decisions about rendition, surveillance, interrogation—lie strewn about us still, unclaimed and unburied, like corpses freshly dead.

How should we begin to talk about this?

Read more here.

Tales From Torture’s Dark World
By MARK DANNER
NYT Op-Ed

ON a bright sunny day two years ago, President George W. Bush strode into the East Room of the White House and informed the world that the United States had created a dark and secret universe to hold and interrogate captured terrorists.

“In addition to the terrorists held at Guantánamo,” the president said, “a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

At these places, Mr. Bush said, “the C.I.A. used an alternative set of procedures.” He added: “These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful.” This speech will stand, I believe, as George W. Bush’s most important: perhaps the only historic speech he ever gave. In his fervent defense of his government’s “alternative set of procedures” and his equally fervent insistence that they were “lawful,” he set out before the country America’s dark moral epic of torture, in the coils of whose contradictions we find ourselves entangled still.

At the same time, perhaps unwittingly, Mr. Bush made it possible that day for those on whom the alternative set of procedures were performed eventually to speak. For he announced that he would send 14 “high-value detainees” from dark into twilight: they would be transferred from the overseas “black sites” to Guantánamo. There, while awaiting trial, the International Committee of the Red Cross would be “advised of their detention, and will have the opportunity to meet with them.”

A few weeks later, from Oct. 6 to 11 and then from Dec. 4 to 14, 2006, Red Cross officials — whose duty it is to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and to supervise treatment of prisoners of war — traveled to Guantánamo and began interviewing the prisoners.

Their stated goal was to produce a report that would “provide a description of the treatment and material conditions of detention of the 14 during the period they were held in the C.I.A. detention program,” periods ranging “from 16 months to almost four and a half years.”

As the Red Cross interviewers informed the detainees, their report was not intended to be released to the public but, “to the extent that each detainee agreed for it to be transmitted to the authorities,” to be given in strictest secrecy to officials of the government agency that had been in charge of holding them — in this case the Central Intelligence Agency, to whose acting general counsel, John Rizzo, the report was sent on Feb. 14, 2007.

The result is a document — labeled “confidential” and clearly intended only for the eyes of those senior American officials — that tells a story of what happened to each of the 14 detainees inside the black sites.

Read more here.

More info from Danner [in .pdf]

posted by me

:: 3:12:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Bush-Era Anti-Terrorism Documents Made Public ::

Washington Post
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Dan Eggen

The number of major legal errors committed by Bush administration lawyers during the formulation of its early counterterrorism policies was far greater than previously known, according to internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department yesterday.

Those policies were based on at least 10 legal opinions conferring broad powers on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered withdrawn, including several approving the military's search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input, according to the documents.

While the Bush administration had previously acknowledged rescinding two of those memos -- authorizing the infliction of pain and suffering on detainees and claiming unquestioned authority to interrogate suspects outside the United States -- the government's eventual repudiation or rewrite of the eight other early legal memos was secret until now.

In one of the newly disclosed opinions, Justice Department appointee John Yoo argued that constitutional provisions ensuring free speech and barring warrantless searches could be disregarded by the president in wartime, allowing troops to storm a building if they suspected terrorists might be inside. In another, the department asserted that detainees could be transferred to countries known to commit human rights abuses so long as U.S. officials did not intentionally seek their torture.

The opinions were initially drafted -- and later repudiated at least in part -- by the Justice Department's storied Office of Legal Counsel, which issues interpretations of laws and presidential authorities considered binding on the entire executive branch. The multiple policy shifts during Bush's two presidential terms reflect an unprecedented degree of turmoil in that office, experts say.

In releasing some of the discredited memos, including three that the Bush administration had argued must be kept secret as recently as November, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declared that "Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness." He also said he hoped to make future legal opinions by his department on such matters "available when possible while still protecting national security information and ensuring robust internal" debate.

The new batch of opinions does not include any repudiated by the Obama administration or reflect a government shift on the underlying legal issues since Bush's departure. They also do not include the most controversial memos that Democratic lawmakers and human rights experts have been asking to see for several years, including those justifying the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques and the National Security Agency's program to surveil certain Americans without warrants.

Read more here.

A L S O

In Legal Memos, Clearer View of Power Bush Sought
New York Times

Post-9/11 Military Memos Are Released
The Lede By David Stout
New York Times

The Bush/Yoo Axis
Rolling Stone

Press release from DOJ.gov:
Department of Justice Releases Nine Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda and Opinions (09-181)
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Justice today released two previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memoranda and seven previously undisclosed opinions.

"Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "It is my goal to make OLC opinions available when possible while still protecting national security information and ensuring robust internal executive branch debate and decision-making."

The two memoranda memorialized that certain legal propositions in ten OLC opinions issued between 2001 and 2003 no longer reflected the views of OLC and "should not be treated as authoritative for any purpose." They further explained that some of the underlying opinions had been withdrawn or superseded and that "caution should be exercised" by the executive branch "before relying in other respects" on the other opinions that had not been superseded or withdrawn.

In light of the legitimate and substantial public interest in many of the questions raised in those opinions and in the evolution of OLC’s views on those questions, the Department has released the six of those underlying opinions from 2001-2003 that are not classified and that had not previously been disclosed.

In November 2008, the Department filed a motion in a pending civil action to submit two of those underlying OLC opinions, along with one other, to the court under seal. The Department has determined that there is no longer any reason the three opinions should remain under seal and is therefore withdrawing its motion.

The opinions and memoranda are available at usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm.

posted by me

:: 10:26:00 PM [+] ::
...

:: Hope? ::

Like never before, inauguration experienced online
Associated Press

By JAKE COYLE – 4 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — In an inauguration defined by a sense of change, the experience of watching Barack Obama take office was fittingly revolutionary.

Like never before, Americans watched the inauguration of an incoming president online through live video streaming across their computers. And wholly wrapped up in following Inauguration Day 2009 on the Web was reacting to them — blogging, vlogging and tweeting.

Essentially every major news outlet offered live feeds on their respective Web sites in what was potentially the most Web-driven coverage of a significant news event yet. It was partly out of necessity, since many viewers were at work in front of their computers — and away from TV sets — for the midday swearing in.

It was also a notable benchmark in the fast evolution of online video. At the time of the last inauguration, YouTube didn't even exist.

The major news portals — Yahoo.com, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, AOL News, The New York Times, ABC.com, CBS.com, Fox.com, WashingtonPost.com — all streamed the festivities, some with video embedded right on their home page for the first time.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which delivers Internet video for many Web sites, said the inauguration was a record for them, with 7.7 million people watching video streams at the same time.

Read more here.

A L S O

A day at the Mall
Two million came to D.C. to brave the crowds and the cold -- and to see their country change
By Rebecca Traister
Salon.com

Jan. 21, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- Tuesday, Jan. 20, began, for more than a million people here, in inky early hours that gradually faded to a pale blue morning. The weather was absolutely bone-chilling, but the energy was bright as bundled figures of every shape and age and persuasion poured out of metro stations and cabs and buses and over bridges and into the heart of the capital.

"Happy Inauguration Day!" they said as they passed, greeting each other with a level of joyful familiarity typical of days on which Voldemort has been defeated. This was the day that Barack Obama was to become president and George Bush was to stop being president. It was the day that, for many Americans, this country became their own for the very first time. On Monday, Faye Walker, an African-American dancer and teacher in Washington, told me that she had been thrown out of schools for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, because, for her, the words had never felt true. Tuesday, she said, would be the day she'd finally be able to put her hand over her heart.

And for the 2 million people who decided to honor this day by driving, flying, busing, training or walking to D.C. to pay their respects to the new president, the journey began very, very, very early. As one of them, I wish I could report that the ground warmed beneath our feet and the paths to the Mall were open and paved with hot beverage vendors. Alas, this was not the case.

Read more here.

A N D
Day of memorable moments created history
San Francisco Chronicle

Transcript: Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
NYTimes

Excerpt:

We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality...

(APPLAUSE)

... and lower its costs.

posted by me

:: 1:51:00 AM [+] ::
...

:: More Evidence For a Clovis-Killer Comet ::

from /.

fortapocalypse sends word that a new paper was published today in the journal Science on the hypothesis that a comet impact wiped out the Clovis people 12,900 years ago. (We discussed this hypothesis last year when it was put forth.) The new evidence is a layer of nanodiamonds at locations all across North America, at a depth corresponding to 12,900 years ago, none earlier or later. The researchers hypothesize that the comet that initiated the Younger Dryas, reversing the warming from the previous ice age, fragmented and exploded in a continent-wide conflagration that produced a layer of diamond from carbon on the surface. While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."

Read more here.

ALSO ON SLASHDOT

Your Rights Online: UK Government To Outsource Data Snooping and Storage

Your Rights Online: Security Checkpoints Predict What You Will Do

posted by me

:: 1:30:00 PM [+] ::
...