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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
George from North Queensland, Australia, sent this one in. It's three weeks old but as it comes from one very brave journalist (and one of the best throughout the war), Robert Fisk, and as I'm too lazy to check our archives to see if we ran it, here goes:
Can't Blair see that this country is about to explode? Can't Bush?
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
"The war is a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida which didn't exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm talking about the new lies.
"For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America's puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month's death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told.
"The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at Saddam Hussein's 'trial.' Not only did the US military censor the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe - until he reached the courtroom - that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked 'disorientated' – CNN's helpful description - because, of course, he was meant to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi: 'Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?' And swiftly, as he realised that this really was an initial court hearing – not a preliminary to his own hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence.
"But don't think were going to learn much more about Saddam's future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings [emphasis mine – PW] . And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime - which were primarily with the United States.
"Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler report.
"Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed 'government' controls only parts of Baghdad – and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the 'Prime Minister,' is little more than mayor of Baghdad. 'Some journalists,' Blair announces, 'almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq.' He doesn't get it. The disaster exists now.
"When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside police stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even the National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has been twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have spoken to, not a single mercenary – be he American, British or South African – believes that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we journalists weren't saying so.
"But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his Republican supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support the 'coalition,' that they support their new US-manufactured government, that the 'war on terror' is being won, that Americans are safer ..." Read on at Common Dreams
"LONDON - Doctors working for the U.S. military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist charges in The Lancet medical journal.
"In a scathing analysis of the behavior of military doctors, nurses and medics, University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles calls for a reform of military medicine and an official investigation into the role played by physicians and other medical staff in the torture scandal.
"He cites evidence that doctors or medics falsified death certificates to cover up homicides, hid evidence of beatings and revived a prisoner so he could be further tortured. No reports of abuses were initiated by medical personnel until the official investigation into Abu Ghraib began, he found.
"'The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations,' Miles said in this week's edition of Lancet. 'Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu Ghraib' ...
"'The detaining power's health personnel are the first and often the last line of defense against human rights abuses. Their failure to assume that role emphasizes to the prisoner how utterly beyond humane appeal they are,' Miles said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. [my emphasis - N]
I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on November 14, 2002, speaking on National Public Radio and Infinity Radio, USA. Source: BBC
The Iraq war had been going for five months by August 20, 2003 as land troops from United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland had invaded Iraq on March 20. That must make today some kind of anniversary! Yayyy!!!!
Jim Lehrer: Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Secretary, I went back and checked the record today, the impression that was given in public statements and all that sort of thing was that when this war ended, this war was going to end, that when Saddam Hussein and his regime, you know, fell, then the rest of it was going to be kind of a mop-up. And I’m just – Donald Rumsfeld: Not by me. Amnesiac Donald Rumsfeld, September 10, 2003 Source: PBS News Hour
Mr Rumsfeld, you win the Cakewalk Anniversary Cake!
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
A good website I just stumbled upon is Human Development Reports, from the UN Development Programme.
Usually when you google up a country, you get the CIA facts pages (and it's not too far-fetched to presume something there). CIA facts sheets are very useful, it's true, and I find Wikipedia's country profiles are becoming a great resource. But anyone who is interested in places from a human rights perspective will like the Human Development Reports. Oxfam, too, has very useful country profiles on the Two Thirds World.
"NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes pounded areas near a shrine where radical Shi'ite militiamen were holed up early on Friday after their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, defied a final demand from Iraq's interim prime minister to disarm.
"U.S. AC-130 gunships struck repeatedly at positions held by Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters, who have sheltered in and near the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, sacred to Shi'ites around the world." Source
Iraq's Sistani leaves London hospital
"LONDON (Reuters) - Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, has been discharged from a London hospital after heart surgery, but will stay in Britain for the time-being, says his spokesman ...
"Many Shi'ites regard the reclusive Iranian-born Sistani as their highest religious authority and some experts blame his absence on the latest escalation in violence." Source
"SEATTLE (Reuters) - A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday ...
"The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.
"It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge." Source
"Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.
"In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.
"But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to 'enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire' directed at 'all units' of the five boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat 'despite enemy bullets flying about him' ...
"Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes 'with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.'" Full text at truthout.org
It wasn't last year's bomb but American policy which destroyed the UN's hopes in Iraq
Salim Lone
"Even before that awful bomb ripped through our Baghdad headquarters on August 19 2003, taking the lives of 22 of my colleagues, the UN mission in Iraq had already become marginal to the epic crisis being played out there. Iraq had become the centre of both the US war on terror and the war between the extremities of two civilisations. The vicious terrorist attack a year ago today surprised no one working for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN secretary general's special representative. Indeed, the UN chiefs of communication in Iraq had met that morning to hammer out a plan to counter the intensifying perception among Iraqis that our mission was simply an adjunct of the US occupation.
"Little did the Iraqis know that the reality was quite the opposite: by August, the UN mission had grown very distant from the Americans. The intense early relationship that Sergio, the world's most brilliant negotiator of post-conflict crises, had fashioned with Paul Bremer, the US proconsul, had already fractured. Contact was intermittent now that Bremer's coalition provisional authority (CPA) could deal directly with the Iraqis whom it had appointed, with Sergio's help, to the governing council. General dismay over occupation tactics aside, Sergio had already parted company with Bremer over key issues such as the need for electoral affirmation of a new constitution, and the arrest and conditions of detention of the thousands imprisoned at Abu Ghraib prison.
"The low point came at the end of July last year, when, astonishingly, the US blocked the creation of a fully fledged UN mission in Iraq. Sergio believed that this mission was vital and had thought the CPA also supported it. Clearly, the Bush administration had eagerly sought a UN presence in occupied Iraq as a legitimising factor rather than as a partner that could mediate the occupation's early end, which we knew was essential to averting a major conflagration ...
"But by mid-August, a restless and discouraged Sergio had begun to breach the protocol. Two days before the bombing, he told a Brazilian journalist that Iraqis felt humiliated by the occupation, asking him how Brazilians would feel if foreign tanks were patrolling Rio de Janeiro's thoroughfares. And on the day of the bombing, Sergio was going to issue a statement criticising the killing by US soldiers of the Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana as he filmed an incident outside Abu Ghraib prison. That statement saved my life. Sergio asked me to add additional information about other unlawful killings, which made me miss the 4pm meeting that was the target of that attack. Six of the seven participants were killed, and the seventh lost both legs and an arm.
"August 19 2003 is a pivotal moment UN history, not merely because of the unprecedented viciousness of the attack, but because of the lack of an Iraqi, Arab and Muslim outcry over the atrocity. This near silence exposed the depths to which the organisation's standing had sunk in the Middle East a result of its inability to contain or even condemn the militaristic excesses of US and Israeli policies in the post-9/11 period. The UN is generally considered to be too willing to do the US's bidding, and its rare challenge on the Iraq war authorisation was quickly forgotten once subsequent resolutions pushed the American project in Iraq. Spectacularly egregious was the security council approval of a Spanish resolution condemning Eta for the Madrid bombings when most suspected al-Qaida. This cavalier use of supposedly hallowed security council resolutions was only possible because of support from the US, which wished to protect the Aznar government from electoral defeat ..."
· Salim Lone was director of communications for the UN mission in Iraq headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello
Know how your elected representative might be thinking.
"Dominionism, as defined by S.R. Shearer, is a 'militant post-millennial eschatology ('doctrine of end times') which pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the church as the only means through which the world can be rescued; only after the world has been thus "rescued" can Christ return to "rule and reign."" Source: Disinfopedia
With the Iraq crisis, it's easy to forget that Russia has its own Iraq, and it's called Chechnya.
The Russian government has a pretty propaganda site (with sweet pictures like the one shown at right) called Chechnya Free, to fool web searchers looking for info on the tragedy.
China pulls the same trick for Googlers of "human rights China"; see this phoney site, humanrights-china.org. Then there is China's cutesy Tibet tourism site, which says that the era of Dalai lama rule: " ... basically ended in 1951 when Tibet was liberated and came to a complete end in 1959 when rebellion led by the Dalai Lama was pacified and the People's Government of the Tibet, Autonomous Region was set up", neglecting to mention that China killed one million people before turning Tibet into its new tourist resort.
On the other hand, if you find a genuine Chechnyan site like this you will read things to make us weep, but which we should all know, like:
"Estimates indicate that during the first and second war in Chechnya, on a Chechen population of 1 million, 150,000 - 200,000 civilians died or disappeared. This amounts to 15% - 20% of the entire population." [References]
One of the happy headlines in the phoney site is: "Builders are in demand in Grosny". Below is a picture from another genuine site, Free Chechnya, that will explain why.
A good site to bookmark is the official website of the Chechen separatist movement.
It is inconceivable that in Europe there hasn't been any movement of rebellion against all this, a rally, not a symbolic one, but a huge and imposing rally that says how all this is intolerable! The tragedy of Chechnya is the tragedy of Russia. Europe is a happy and thoughtless continent. A continent that doesn't think about it. About nothing. When it will be forced to think about it, it risks to pay a very high price. It's better it would begin to think about it. Adriano Sofri, on Russia's occupation of Chechnya
There is nothing more dangerous in the war of ideas than the “realpolitik” approach which brought us so many disasters in the past. After all, was not Osama bin Laden a by-product of similar “marriage of convenience” at one point? Was it not true also in the case of Saddam Hussein? And is it not true that your new “partners” such as Russia secretly sell military equipment (including nuclear technology) to the Axis of Evil countries even now? Will the United States ever learn this lesson, or will it continue forever to build up new enemies while fighting present ones? Yelena Bonner (wife of Andrei Sakharov) and Vladimir Bukovsky; from an open letter on Chechnya to President George W Bush
"[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard has refused to confirm he was told by former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix that there was no solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Avoiding questions on the revelations yesterday, Mr Howard would only say that Mr Blix was 'careful and guarded' when they met in New York during the lead-up to the Iraq war.
"In an email to a researcher last week, Dr Blix said he told Mr Howard that weapons inspections in Iraq were working ..." Source
Aussie whistleblower and former Ambassador to Poland,Tony Kevin, has written a book, A Certain Maritime Incident, exposing an Australian gov't cover-up. Tony Kevin is virtually unemployed because of the stand he has taken, along with many other SIEVX activists who are still having a hard time getting the story heard. Please spread the word. A federal election is due in Australia about the time of the US one, and George W Bush would like to see the current right-wing Howard government returned, to help his own political fortunes. Remember how upset he was when the Spanish voters threw out his war buddies?
Please pass it on.
Noam Chomsky writes: "The treatment of refugees is one of the great scandals of the modern age… With impressive courage and determination, Tony Kevin has unearthed the grim and deeply moving story he recounts in this remarkable book – an "always powerfully contested story," and one of "durable national significance" that has "crept into the hearts and consciences of many Australians" and must find its way to the hearts and consciences of many others if these persistent and shocking crimes are to be brought to end."
Tony Kevin writes:
"I retired from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1998, after a thirty year public service career involving posts in DFAT and Prime Minister’s Department. My last postings were as Australia’s ambassador to Poland (1991-94) and Cambodia (1994-97).
"I have been an honorary Visiting Fellow at ANU [Australian National University] Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies since 1998. I have also since 2001 given a seminar course on UN peacekeeping at Melbourne University Institute of Asian Languages and Societies. In the past five years I have written extensively, from a standpoint increasingly critical of the present government, on a range of Australian foreign, national security and refugee policies.
"Since February 2002, assisting in the public investigation of the sinking south of Java on 19 October 2001 of the asylum-seeker boat that took 353 lives, and which I named SIEV X ( i.e., 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel, Unknown'), has become my main research activity. I see SIEV X as a major human tragedy that happened on Australia’s border protection military watch, and that raises disturbing unresolved questions about the Australian government’s cover-up of suspected criminality.
"I am now firmly of the view, on the basis of substantial, albeit as yet incomplete, public evidence, that the sinking of SIEV X was the result of planned acts of sabotage in Indonesia, involving use of undercover agents under a people smuggling disruption program that was being conducted by elements of the Indonesian police, who had been trained and funded by Australian police; and that Australian government agencies have much more knowledge of this suspected crime against humanity than they have so far admitted to the Australian Senate or people." Tony Kevin Source
"Everyone knows it, but not many politicians or mainstream journalists are willing to talk about it, for fear of sounding conspiracy-minded: there is a substantial chance that the result of the 2004 presidential election will be suspect.
"When I say that the result will be suspect, I don't mean that the election will, in fact, have been stolen. (We may never know.) I mean that there will be sufficient uncertainty about the honesty of the vote count that much of the world and many Americans will have serious doubts.
"How might the election result be suspect? Well, to take only one of several possibilities, suppose that Florida -- where recent polls give John Kerry the lead -- once again swings the election to George Bush.
"Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith.
"Yet the behavior of Gov. Jeb Bush's officials with regard to other election-related matters offers no justification for such faith. First there was the affair of the felon list. Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. But in 2000 many innocent people, a great number of them black, couldn't vote because they were erroneously put on a list of felons; these wrongful exclusions may have put Governor Bush's brother in the White House.
"This year, Florida again drew up a felon list, and tried to keep it secret. When a judge forced the list's release, it turned out that it once again wrongly disenfranchised many people -- again, largely African-American -- while including almost no Hispanics.
"Yesterday, my colleague Bob Herbert reported on another highly suspicious Florida initiative: state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly African-American voters -- including participants in get-out-the-vote operations -- and interrogated them as part of what the state says is a fraud investigation. But the state has provided little information about the investigation, and, as Mr. Herbert says, this looks remarkably like an attempt to intimidate voters.
"Given this pattern, there will be skepticism if Florida's paperless voting machines give President Bush an upset, uncheckable victory.
"Congress should have acted long ago to place the coming election above suspicion by requiring a paper trail for votes. But legislation was bottled up in committee, and it may be too late to change the hardware. Yet it is crucial that this election be credible. What can be done?"
RENNES, France (AFP): "A tiny French village in Brittany -- the self proclaimed capital of twin-dom -- has played host to an international gathering of thousands of identical twins, triplets and quadruplets.
"The 11th annual edition of 'Two and More' in Pleucadeuc on Sunday attracted dynamic duos from as far afield as China, Japan and Benin in Africa." Continue here
MADRID (AFP) - A white tiger with blue eyes and no stripes, one of only 20 worldwide, was born in captivity at a wild animal refuge in southern Spain, the refuge director, Serafin Domenech, told AFP. Source
"Pathologists and hospitals were paid by a pharmaceutical company for removing and storing pituitary glands taken from dead patients during postmortem examinations and which were later used in the production of a growth hormone.
"In a statement last night, Pharmacia Ireland said that one of its predecessor companies Kabi Vitrum Ltd had, in the 1980s, obtained pituitary glands from a number of hospitals to manufacture Crescormon, a human growth hormone.
"'Kabi provided reimbursement to pathologists and hospitals for the work involved. The sum was intended solely to defray any additional costs required to remove and store the pituitary glands,' the statement said ...
"The new developments in the pituitary gland controversy arose from a second statement issued by Pharmacia Ireland to the Dunne Inquiry last May.
"Based on this new information Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin last week told around 20 parents that organs taken from their children had been given to the pharmaceutical company. [my emphasis]
"The Irish Times revealed on Saturday that two former Dublin hospitals, the Richmond and Jervis Street, had also provided pituitary glands 'for research' to the company. Over the weekend it emerged that pituitary glands were taken from patients at Cork University Hospital and the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. Last night, the Southern Health Board said that the practice had also occurred at Tralee General Hospital." Full text
Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.
The film explores Murdoch's burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person.
Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society.
This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said "There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed."
Director/Producer Robert Greenwald has produced and/or directed 53 television movies, miniseries and features. He is the director of Uncovered and the Executive Producer of the UN series - Unprecedented, Uncovered and the soon to be released Unconstitutional.
"The US assault on Najaf is a war crime. The spectacle of the world’s foremost imperialist power unleashing its overwhelmingly superior military might against poorly armed opponents of foreign occupation recalls the most notorious crimes of the twentieth century, including the fascist bombardment of Guernica in Spain, Mussolini’s rape of Ethiopia, and the Nazi blitzkrieg against Germany’s European neighbors in World War II.
"The US military, in the name of Washington’s puppet government under Iyad Allawi, is carrying out the slaughter of supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who have taken up arms against the attempt to turn Iraq into a de-facto American colony.
"The coverage by US television networks and the American press conveys none of the true horror of what is being perpetrated by the 11th Marine Expeditionary Force and First Cavalry Division in Najaf. US bombers, helicopter gunships, field artillery and tanks are being unleashed against Iraqi fighters armed only with small arms and grenade launchers that are next to useless against American armored vehicles ...
"No estimate is being given by the US attackers of civilian casualties, but given the massive firepower being thrown against urban centers—including the Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad and other southern Iraqi cities besides Najaf—they must number in the thousands ..." Source
Capital, which is so heavily invested in the military-industrial complex, requires the existence of combatants, and traditionally generates discourses of "the enemy" and "the other".
To this end, capital's meme machine borrows heavily from racial stereotypes, and in fact sometimes creates those stereotypes.
Thus we shouldn't be surprised when a middle manager of capital, such as George W Bush or almost any news media editor, police chief or defence officer in the Western world, propagates a Crusade mentality when there are impediments to investment. In our time, Islam is the enemy, for many reasons, not the least of which is its resistance to some of the mainstays of US trade, such as alcohol and the Hollywood sex-death culture.
The portrayal of Muslims as the enemy usually relies on the stereotypes of violence and puritanism. Scratch beneath the surface, however, and a different picture emerges. If the same standards were applied to Western cultures, it would be very easy to portray Western cultures as incredibly violent and ruthlessly puritanical. Give me five minutes and I can paint a picture of Australia or the USA that would make Hieronymus Bosch's inferno pale by comparison. As a matter of fact, this method is used by Islamist ideologues of the bin Laden variety, and by Leninist memeticists in Cuba and China. Whichever "side" the propaganda is on, it is still propaganda.
Understanding why our "enemies" change like the fashion season, it's important to keep undermining the stereotypes, and I do so at every opportunity. I delight in telling people that I have lived for years with Afghan Muslims, and I make a point of conveying my experience of certain qualities that I find superior in Afghan Muslim culture to my own. As just one example, without doubt Afghans are on the whole far more hospitable than Australians, who pride themselves on being welcoming. The difference is like chalk and cheese.
Of course, we all know that Muslim countries are incredibly sexually repressive, unlike our own enlightened states. So it must be a lie that Iran, the worst of the worst as far as Muslim states goes, supports transsexuals more compassionately than many states in the enlightened West.
Caption to image above: Maryam Hatoon Molkara, who was formerly a man known as Fereydoon, was an early campaigner for the rights of transsexuals in Iran. Photograph by S. Reza for the New York Times.
August 16, 1969 Woodstock Day Two: Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman, slightly out of his gourd, attended Woodstock and attempted to take over the stage during The Who’s set.
He did his Abbie best to exhort the crowd with Yippie rants, but was roundly booed for interrupting the music. Guitarist Pete Townsend (who didn’t know Hoffman was a celeb) bashed Hoffman’s head with a guitar and Abbie was thrown off the stage. At a later time, and perhaps in a different mind, Hoffman wrote one of his his bestselling books, Woodstock Nation.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
"While waiting I read a Time magazine, from last year, that stated that there were more tigers owned by private individuals, in America, than there were left in the wild. ie 10,000 vs 5,000."
The credibility of Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is on the line once again over the 'Children Overboard' scandal of three years ago.
Immediately before the last federal election, Howard and several of his senior ministers whipped up racist sentiments in Australia by alleging that boat people in the waters off the coast of Australia were holding their babies over the edge of their boats and threatening to drown them if they were not granted asylum.
'Honest John' Howard and Co. even went as far as to show photos of children in the water as evidence of how wicked these asylum seekers are. Howard was re-elected, with the biggest issue being 'protection of Australia's borders'. Meanwhile, thousands of people fleeing regimes such as those of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were rounded up and put in Aussie concentration camps that have drawn international condemnation. I do not use the term 'concentration camps' flippantly. I have spoken to people that have been inside them, and there is a wealth of info on the Net, such as here, here and here.
When a tardy media finally deigned to investigate the allegations, it turned out that no such incident had occurred, and the photos were phony. Of course, this alone should have prompted a media campaign sufficient to do a Watergate on Howard and have him kicked out of office, but the Oz media has more important things on its mind, such as the Rugby finals and who Russell Crowe is punching out lately.
They put Howard and his cronies on the back burner, and Howard, a slick politician, got away with saying that he had no idea that Children Overboard was dodgy. Peter Reith, one of the ministers at the centre of the lie, quietly slipped out of Parliament. The other main player, Philip Ruddock, still wields considerable influence in the mismanagement of Australia.
The occasional story slips through the media net, however, and this one challenges the veracity of the Prime Minister:
Aide reveals children overboard advice "A former federal ministerial adviser has revealed that he told Prime Minister John Howard before the 2001 federal election that no children had been thrown overboard from a boat carrying asylum seekers in Australian waters.
"Mike Scrafton, an adviser to then-defence minister Peter Reith, has written a letter to The Australian newspaper saying he had three telephone conversations with Mr Howard on November 7, 2001.
"Mr Scrafton says he told the Prime Minister that a tape of the incident 'certainly didn't support the proposition that the event had occurred'.
"He says he told Mr Howard 'that no-one in defence that I had dealt with on the matter still believed any children were thrown overboard'.
The adviser says he also told the PM that photographs released during the debate were not of children thrown into the water.
"Mr Scrafton says he passed on the advice in three conversations with Mr Howard on the evening of November 7.
"'During the last conversation, the Prime Minister asked me how it was that he had a report from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) confirming the children overboard incident,' he said.
"'I replied that I had gained the impression that the report had as its source the public statements of the then minister for immigration, Philip Ruddock.'" Source
What next for the whistleblower? A little birdie just whispered something in my ear. I'm not in the business of making predictions, but I will say that I expect whistleblower Mike Scrafton to be the target of a major smear campaign immediately if not sooner. It's likely that the only way the government can salvage any lost face and votes will be by character assassination. I hope Mr Scrafton is prepared. These guys play for keeps.
Children Overboard: so what really happened? So, who were those people filmed floating in the ocean, if not the children of filthy towelheads? Well ... they were asylum seekers trying desperately to stay alive after their leaky boat had sunk, no thanks to the Howard tripartite policy of dealing with tinted people, namely: push them back to sea; throw them into a desert camp; ship them over to the Pacific island of Nauru.
Australia's spooks, the ONA, had given advice to the government not from their own spooking, but from media releases put out by none other than Peter Reith, John Howard and Philip Ruddock! This CIA-like advice, the government then used to support its own deceits. Richard Nixon, eat your heart out.
[In another notorious case full of government disinformation, a refugee boat sarcastically named by the government 'SIEVX' (as in, leaky sieve; it means 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel'), capsized and 353 men, women and children drowned. This weblog is dedicated to their memory, and casualties of poverty and authority all around the planet.]
You can help defeat Howard, and Bush Please read up on this and other nasties the Australian Government has been up to and tell your friends. An election is due before November, and Australian and overseas support is needed to help bring down this extreme right-wing government. George W Bush does not want to read headlines in the Washington Post that his Deputy Sheriff in Australia has been defeated just before the 2nd Tuesday in November.
Sydney Indymedia and Wilson's Blogmanac are two pretty good ways to stay informed.
Thank you Almaniac Star Light (USA) for alerting the Almanac to 911 In Plane Site. I haven't seen the fillum but it does sound interesting. It certainly has been troubling me that an airliner should crash into the Pentagon, leave only a hole the size of my toilet, then vaporise into the atmosphere over the Eastern Seabord.
The fillum does sound a bit too conspiratorial for my taste, but if I get a chance, I'll watch it. Here are some quotes from its website.
"Why weren't America and the world shown the video and photographs of the Pentagon, before the outer wall had collapsed? The Pentagon's outer wall did not collapse for a full 35 minutes after the initial impact. See these astounding photographs for the first time.
"Given that the outer wall of the Pentagon had not yet collapsed, how does a plane over 44 feet tall and 125 ft. wide, fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. in diameter, as shown in the crystal-clear photographic evidence from the Pentagon? Can physics explain this?
"In the aftermath, it was reported by media sources that a giant 100 ft. crater was plowed into the front lawn of the Pentagon as the result of a powerful airliner crash. Why does photographic evidence overwhelmingly show that this was not the case?
"How does a Boeing 757, constructed from lightweight aluminum, penetrate over 9 ft. of steel reinforced concrete? Recently discovered photographs shed light on this unexplained feat of physics.
"Contrary to the pictures shown to the American public, why does photographic evidence taken only a few moments after the Pentagon event, show no wreckage on the lawn of the Pentagon? Where is the plane? What happened to the passengers? Examine this new evidence for yourself.
"At the World Trade Center, why did firefighters, reporters and other on the scene eyewitnesses describe a demolition-like, pancake collapse of buildings One, Two & Seven? Outrageous admissions by the building lease owner recorded on video, plus shocking new video evidence helps to answer important questions.
"What is the bright flash on the right side of the Boeing 767, seen just before impact on both the North Tower & the South Tower, captured on video by 5 separate cameramen including CNN and ABC? Slow motion analysis reveals startling verification of this extraordinary event and begs the question [sic], 'What is it?' Find out what former military personnel think this could be.
"Why were there numerous reports of bombs & explosions going off in and around the WTC before any buildings had collapsed? Hear & see the testimony of the reporters, rescue teams and eyewitnesses who tell a different story than what we have all been lead to believe.
"Why did a FOX News employee, who witnessed the second tower attack, report seeing no windows on “Flight 175” a commercial United Airlines jetliner?" 911 In Plane Site website
One reviewer writes:
"One particular interview that brought gasps from the audience and many looking around with shock etched on their faces was an interview conducted – live at the time – by FOX News. This intense interview with Mark Burnback, an employee of FOX News, contains the following narrative, paraphrased: Burnback was close to the path of the second plane and had a good long look at what he describes was not a commercial airliner. The plane that hit the second tower had no windows, Burnback was very clear about that. The plane had some kind of blue logo on the front near the nose and looked like a cargo plane." Source
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"LONDON - Doctors working for the U.S. military in Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights, a bioethicist charges in 
Hey Mr Rumsfeld, you said it!
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Capital, which is so heavily invested in the 
August 16, 1969 Woodstock Day Two: Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman, slightly out of his gourd, attended 
The credibility of Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is on the line once again over the 
"Given that the outer wall of the Pentagon had not yet collapsed, how does a plane over 44 feet tall and 125 ft. wide, fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. in diameter, as shown in the crystal-clear photographic evidence from the Pentagon? Can physics explain this? 