Stacking The Damn Deck.

Conditions: Cold.


Justice?

In 2004, the wife to a University of Buffalo professor died suddenly of a heart attack. When the police arrived, they found a bunch of biology gear and some bacteria that the professor was using in an art project. The FBI were called in and before you could say shazaam the professor was being prosecuted as a bioterrorist. Well a mere four years later the charges have been dropped.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A judge threw out charges Monday against a college art professor accused of improperly obtaining biological materials for an exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies.

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was ''insufficient on its face.''

Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works intended to draw attention to political and social issues. His arrest drew protests from artists in several countries who called the charges an intrusion on artistic freedom.

''Obviously this is a weight off his back, but he still had to suffer through this for four years,'' said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria. ''The last thing this guy is is a bioterrorist.''

- NYTimes.com

Indeed. In fact, he's something much more dangerous: an artist with a political bent. Something the powerful will do anything to crush. Frankly, I think he got off lucky.



Entreprewarial.

Let's pretend your family smokes a lot. And your neighbours happen to own a tobacco farm, and like to party all night. And one day you decide that all the hooting and hollering and staying up all night has got to come to an end, and so you and your family take over your neighbours farm, for the purposes of forcing them to quieten down. But unfortunately it costs your family so much money to 'pacify' your neighbours house that it looks like you can't afford to buy cigarettes anymore. So you all sit around the new house, pondering your new financial problems when suddenly cousin Joe in the corner has an idea. "What if", he says as the gears grind in his head, "instead of buying cigarettes we just make 'em, from the tobaccy plants down the back yard?" Genius!

An April 14 Associated Press article by Anne Flaherty reported that US senators and representatives are finding common ground in asking that Iraqis begin picking up the tab for the cost of war. The lawmakers are troubled that Iraqis might experience windfall surpluses of revenue generated by rising oil prices, while Americans bear the burden of paying for the Iraq war. "In hearings last week," Flaherty writes, "Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates whether Baghdad should start paying some US combat costs, and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) raised the possibility that an anticipated Iraqi budget surplus this year could be used to help Afghanistan, whose $700 million in annual revenue represents a small fraction of Iraq's $46.8 billion budget."
[...]

In February, Iraq produced 2.4 million barrels per day of oil, of which about 1.6 million barrels per day are exported from the south (the rest being for domestic consumption). Assume a price of $100 per barrel of oil; multiply it by 1.6 million barrels; and multiply again by 365 days and you get $58.4 billion in annual revenue from oil. Iraq's budget for 2008 is about $54.3 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund.

This is a pretty nifty idea. Instead of going to all the trouble of dealing with bad empire building, you can simply take over the assets the conquered country just happens to have, and use that to pay for all the damage. I wonder if this would work in a retail situation? You accidentally break a vase in a gift store, so you simply take another vase off the shelf, sell it to someone, then use that money to pay for the damages. Brilliant! But of course, the naysayers have to weigh in.

Before US lawmakers imagine ways to spend Iraq's possible "surplus," they should be asked about the "rights" of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The US waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to Americans. Did Iraq have any "rights" after it invaded Kuwait? An aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Indeed, the international community - via the UN Security Council - continues to punish the Iraqi people for the crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime by requiring Iraq to pay five percent of its oil revenues as "war reparations" for the prior regime's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91 (with virtually all of the remaining payments going to the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia or those country's state-owned oil enterprises).

Commenting on suggestions that the US impose financial obligations on Iraq, Lando writes:

"This begs the question as to whether a country can invade another country - which inherently destroys the capital, political and societal infrastructure - poorly spend both occupying and occupied funds, unilaterally create conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds, and then bind the occupied country to make reparations and take out loans from the occupying country?"

- Truthout.org

Takes 'Stop Hitting Yourself' to a whole new level, don't it?





Watching the Watchers.



You know, when you watch the news on television these days, you expect a little spin from whatever network you're on. The mad war-mongering flag-humping quacks on Fox, the elitist stuck-up Brits on the BBC, even the pro-ruling party sensibilities of the local news can become obvious if you pay enough attention. But still, there's something to be said for an independent expert who is invited onto a news show to give his opinion about something important. Such a person could for instance be a retired military officer, who's asked to commentate on the latest doings in the War On Terror. It's certainly a common enough sight, and we the viewers tend to give such experts some respect because a) they've been there and done that, and b) the implied loyalty they have to their fellow soldiers. Surely they, in amongst the propaganda of the modern news studio, will be a voice of independence and wisdom?

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

And so it seems yet again that what one thought was something of value in an otherwise jaded and biased world, was actually just another form of control. The corporations have backups to their backups, and we are deceived again.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

“Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.”

- NYTimes.com

Oh, *he's* been hosed. Right. Yes, some analyst who's been paid handsomely, has been flown all around the world, and become semi-famous, yes he's the real victim in all this.

The actual victims, of course and as always, are those who cannot read these articles, either because they're now too poor to ever see a TV or an edition of the NY Times, or are too dead to ever know what happened. 'Information' is put out to the public, who then define their opinions based on it. Those opinions are then acted on by the politicians, so it's fairly obvious how important the truth of that initial information really is. And once again we see how inadequate and corrupt the old 'new media' is at conveying information to the public, a service that is even more important than ever in a world so tightly connected at every level.

More:
- Truthout.org
- Huffpost.com



Quotes 'O The Week.

We can see how sad this really is, though, because, again, if we really want to tell the truth in a fallible way, we’ve got corporate greed running amok; you don’t have enough jobs with a living wage for fellow citizens; unavailable health care and child care for millions, disgraceful school systems, failing infrastructure; and then you have a political sphere where you can’t have a critical debate or dialogue about these issues. And then we’ve got imperial occupation in Iraq. Now, that – that’s the makings of the collapse of an empire.
- Dr. Cornel West

-------------------

Now, at the end of last week when Barack Obama ignited the "bitter-gate" scandal, you would have thought that he had scaled Mount Rushmore, dick-slapped Jefferson in the face--and spray painted "God damn America" over Lincoln. But, he wasn’t lying. The truth is that religion and guns and hating gays and immigrants, are crutches that people lean on. So are fast-food, crystal meth and child beauty pageants, but we don’t have time to tackle all of America’s addictions in one night. So, let’s focus on the big thing. That the people who claim to be the "non-elitists," are the ones who constantly shift tax burdens from the people who fire you, to you. John McCain voted to repeal the estate tax, voted against raising the minimum wage, has no health care plan, and is fine with keeping the working class in Iraq for a hundred years. But, he’s a real "man of the people." And the president went to Harvard and Yale, and inherited your country from his dad. But, he’s not an elitist because he can neither read nor write. What does it take to label someone "elitist" these days anyway? They wear shoes? They don’t buy their groceries at the gas station? Their dog has a name and their truck doesn’t?! You know who is bitter in America? I am. Because shit-kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with, and everybody else had to suffer the consequences!
- Bill Maher

Film Review: Street Kings.

There are two types of people in the world, those who like Keanu Reeves and those who do not. The second type believes him to be a terrible actor who couldn’t emote his way out of a wet paper bag, and has ruined many a good film over the years. However I’m in the former category. I think he’s a pretty good actor, when he’s got a good character to play. And that’s the catch. When his character has a defined focus, a thing for him to figure out or do, then he’s great. That’s why he’s so good in cop movies: cops always have something to do. Street Kings has him as a L.A cop, and for anything involving cop stuff he’s his dynamic self. But the movie throws his character a moment or two when he flails.

His character, Tom, is essentially a soldier. He’s sent out to do the dirty work, get the really bad guys who have to be taken down hard and then stitched up nice and clean for the official reports. It’s a familiar excursion into the world of dirty cops who trust each other in a paranoid crazy environment to bend the rules but not break them. - Not the official rules, they were broken a long time ago, but the real rules that say you can kill bad people because they are bad. Tom lives for it, at the expense of a family or even a life. Inevitably he finds out he’s being used, and people above him are as bad as the monsters he’s sent after. Predictably, there’s lots of gunfights and action, and apart from the terrible shaky cam it’s fine. The problem is when things slow down. Tom has trouble in social situations, and Keanu plays this so well it actually makes most people think he’s not acting at all, he’s just being awkward. But it’s actually his character that’s awkward around people. The problem for this film then, really comes down to the fundamentals of script and direction.

The story is garbled, yet too easy. Some cops are dirty, some are clean, some are dirty trying to get clean, some are clean trying to get dirty, it’s relatively easy figuring out who's who in the opening moments, so the point seems to be to wait for Tom to figure out what we already know: always a tough thing to enjoy. The audience should never be two steps ahead of the lead character. The issue is really in how poorly it’s all conveyed. Plot points seem overly simple, like it’s cribbing from many other films and T.V shows. The dialog is very clichéd, maybe that’s to be expected, but scenes seem poorly thought out, and poorly shot. You want things to be a bit more subtle, or more grand, or even more talky so that the characters can just say what they’re trying to say, it’s like everyone in the film has a secret. Unfortunately the overly-familiar plot and garbled characters lead us down the road to mediocrity. Two buried bodies out of Five.



Peace out.