Prog Gold is on the move!

Update blogrolls and bookmarks! Prog Gold is moving, from Blogger to, you guessed, Wordpressed at:

http://www.cloggie.org/proggold/

The new site should load automatically, otherwise click the link above. We've been using Blogger with little complaints for years, but it was always meant to be a temporary thing... So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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Posted 10:41 PM by Martin Wisse

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Comment of The Day

Is at Sadly, No, in response to a wingnut troll:

Dorothy said, January 14, 2007 at 23:46

OMG! My Constitutional liberties have been diminished! I’m not sure exactly how, but maybe Gavin will shed light on it. I’ve heard that, while I can still talk to my terrorist friends, there is a chance it might be recorded. The HORROR! Constitutional rights down the toilet! Freedom disappearing! I can’t go on!!

The problem is, Kevin, that once Constitutional rights have been denied to any single American citizen, we are all equally at risk. I’m going to say this very slowly: there is no legal distinction between you and me and Jose Padilla. We share the same legal status: we have not been arrested, charged with any crime, pled a case before a judge, or convicted in a court of law. Whether or not he is actually guilty of anything is completely irrelevant: legally, the government has exactly as much right to detain him as they do you and me and Gavin and my cat. None. What. So. Ever.

I don’t care if they toss him in prison and throw away the key after his trial. He hasn’t had one. The government isn’t planning to give him one: they are now arguing that he is incompetant to stand trial, so even if they were planning to give him a trial, they can’t now. Oh, well, them’s the breaks. Too bad, so sad.

And if they get away with this, there is nothing and no one that can prevent the same thing happening to you. Or a member of your family. Or one of your friends.

So’s here’s the new Miranda warning; get used to it:

You had the right to remain silent. Now, you can be tortured until you confess, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law–that is, assuming you actually ever get to see the inside of a courtroom or even military tribunal chamber.

You had the right to an attorney, but since we no longer allow you to notify anyone that you have been detained and keep the fact that you’re in custody a national secret, we’d like to see you try to contact one. And we won’t let you talk to your attorney anyway, so there.

If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the court–at least, until we get the boycott of attorneys who represent detainees pro bono under way and drive those Constitution-hugging traitors out of business. Besides, when we’re done with you, you won’t be sane enough to stand trail anyway, so boo fucking hoo.

Quit acting like a girl. That was in no way an attempt to offend girls. It’s just that Gavin was acting like one of you. Girls rock. Gavin, not so much.

Please define “acting like a girl”. I’m dying to see what behavior patterns you characterize as “rocking” when performed by “a girl” and yet offensive when done by Gavin.

“Giving a damn about one’s fellow Americans,” maybe?

Or “valuing the rule of law that is the foundation of our country”?

Or how about “realizing that something doesn’t have to affect one personally in order to be bad”?

Maybe just “not being a self-centered asshole”?

Not a lot one can add to that is there?

Read more: Comment of the day

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Posted 8:02 PM by Republic of Palau

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Pam at Pandagon is suggesting how maybe a Googlebomb of John McCain might be a good idea, in light of the fact that McCain is a lying sack of shit and right up that warmonger Bush's arse, and not at all the principled maverick the media is positioning him as. (I paraphrase, obviously).

Heavens to Betsy, a Googlebomb? How very uncivil! We lefties are far too polite and principled to do such a thing, surely?

To forestall any winger accusations of vulgarity and to show just how well-bred and polite we on the left actually are, I've put my thoughts on Senator McCain into song, with more than a little assistance from a Mr.JJ Cale of Oklahoma:

If you want the Right out out you've got to knock him about; McCain
If you wanna him down, down on the ground; McCain
He just lies, He just lies, He just lies; McCain

Think he's bad news? Get out your googlebomb shoes; McCain
When your day is done and you want some fun;McCain.
He just lies, He just lies, He just lies; McCain

When your democracy's gone and you wanna MoveOn; McCain
Dont forget this fact, you can't get it back;McCain
He just lies, He just lies, He just lies; McCain.

He just lies, He just lies, He just lies; McCain

Now, what could more civil and refined than that?

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Posted 11:36 AM by Republic of Palau

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Unexpected Art

Here from PBS is gallery of the history of contraceptive Pill packaging design.

Historical, aesthetic and educational: I'm surprised the fundies haven't complained yet.

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Posted 3:10 PM by Republic of Palau

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Leaky Leaky

it make look like government by fiasco, but is New Labour playing a long game with all these Home Office leaks to the media?

The latest is that records of British criminals convicted abroad are 'sitting on a desk' at the Home office and the police don't know if there are murderers loose.

LONDON (Reuters) - Home Secretary John Reid faced mounting pressure on Sunday over his department's failure to log overseas offenders' details after it emerged that a convicted armed robber committed murder on his return to Britain.

Political opponents accused Reid's department of incompetence and called for an independent inquiry into the latest Home Office controversy.

Career criminal Dale Miller, 43, killed a man in Newcastle in 2000 after being released from prison for armed robberies in Germany and Switzerland, The Observer newspaper said on Sunday.

Once is accident, twice is suspicious, three or more times is looking decidedly conspiratorious.

For the non-UKian, the Home Office is a huge historical portmanteau of a government department, one whose remit includes criminal justice, policing and terrorism, prisons, immigration and citizenship and last but not least, race relations. It's overseen by a Cabinet member, the Home Secretary, who's third in seniority and influence to the PM and Chancellor.

Labour's most recent Home Secretary is alleged Scots hardman ( Nu-Lab speak for office bully) John Reid, who's been very vocal in running his department down, saying it's 'not fit for purpose', the idea being he's the new broom who'll sweep it clean and it's all the civil servants' fault. A little background on the man to give you a taste of his style:

I Really Like John Reid, I Really Do, Honest

John Reid, the newly appointed Home Secretary, has my deep and unalloyed admiration, he really does. Not only has he gone into the Home Office, his 27th Cabinet job in as many years or something, and told them they are all a bunch of cunts, which is palpably true, but he is an old Stalinist tankie of the first order. "Red" Reid does not mess about, and is just the comrade to supply the sort of smack of firm Government that this country needs. Thank heavens he does not drink, and is no longer the man who once consumed possibly 10 whisky and lemonades at lunch. And no food. The lemonade, I think, was a very stylish touch. And his deep admiration for the Bosnian Serb freedom fighter Radovan Karadzic (whereabouts, I believe, still unknown - I'd suggest starting at John's house - if they can find a sliver of cannbis, they can find a large former pyschiatrist, surely?) is something that can only affirm one's awe for the man's judgement. If only he would rename the Home Office the Ministry of the Interior (MiniTer) then we could all certainly sleep safer in our beds.

If you add up all the stories about Home Office leaks and incompetence that have appeared in he tabloids over the last year an overwhelming preponderance are about lax information management, with the blame placed firmly on the shoulders of the staff and not the ministers for their endless barrage of management consultants and badly-drafted kneejerk legislation.

If anything Reid seems almost to relish the scandal. I wonder why?

The civil servants are represented by a left-wing union, the PCS, who new Labour hate like poison precisely because it is left-wing and its leader has led the fight to decouple his and other unions from funding Labour - so it's not just about modernising a creaky department, it's about purging the left, who oppose plans for a privately run but publicly funded massive and inclusive cradle to grave database and biometric ID system that will erase any personal privacy, make individuals the property of the state, make billions for private consultants, privatise the civil service, and be buggy and useless too.

In the light if disastrous current and previous government IT projects, this seems a reasonable position to take.

This leads me to think that the leaks are not in the least bit accidental, no matter how it looks on the face of it. For instance we even had a tethered goat set out in the form of a junior Home Office minister on Friday's BBC Any Questions, this from a government whose invariable press relations motto during this type of fiasco is "No-one is available for comment'.

My theory is also propped up by two worrying stories from this morning's UK papers; first from the Independent:

Blair calls for data to be shared By Marie Woolf, Political Editor Published: 14 January 2007

Tony Blair will propose this week to change the law to allow government departments to share personal data, including people's medical records and tax details.

The plan to allow Whitehall departments to share information that is currently protected by strict confidentiality rules will prove highly controversial.

The Prime Minister is likely to argue that allowing personal files to be shared will speed up and simplify Whitehall decision-making.

But the move is expected to be criticised by civil liberties groups, which will say that sensitive information could fall into the wrong hands.

Then there's this from The Observer:

Police across Europe to share DNA database David Rose

Sunday January 14, 2007

Police and security services in the European Union will share access to an unprecedented range of individuals' personal data under a radical package of measures to be discussed by EU justice ministers this week.

It allows agencies in different countries to search one another's databases - DNA records, fingerprints, vehicle details - and other personal information. Even if someone has no criminal record and their DNA is not on a database, police can ask their foreign colleagues to collect a sample.

The measures, known as the Prum Treaty, after the German town where it was signed, are being championed by Germany, which holds the EU presidency. Documents obtained by The Observer show that the Germans are also holding secret talks with top US officials in an attempt to conclude a data-sharing agreement with America - first for Germany alone, then for the EU.

Last week The Observer revealed that all British visitors to the US will have their fingerprints stored alongside criminals' on a database linked to the FBI. 'Prum has several dangers,' Peter Hustinx, the EU's Data Protection Commissioner, said. 'Some of its definitions are very sloppy and it creates an infrastructure that may well not be necessary. The Council of Ministers has not been involved, the European Parliament has not been involved. It bypasses Europe's normal processes of accountability and decision-making.'

It threatens to 'trump' a separate initiative to create an EU data-sharing system - with much stronger safeguards - which has been working its way through the Council of Ministers, in consultation with the European Parliament. 'The framework as it stands has flaws,' said Tony Bunyan, of the civil liberties monitoring group Statewatch. 'But if Prum, which is much worse, becomes European law, it will be left high and dry.'

Sarah Ludford, the Liberal Democrat MEP for London and a leading member of the European Parliament's justice and civil liberties committee, said that while she accepted the need for security agencies to share information it was 'vital that the provisions should be transparent and decided democratically'. She said that the move to adopt Prum amounted to a 'parliamentary bypass'. Plum began as a private treaty in 2005 between Germany, France, Austria and four other countries. Now member states can only choose to ratify or reject it as a whole.

Add this to the Universal Child Database this government is also proposing :

While the proposals for the database grew out of concern for children at risk of child abuse or neglect, reinforced by the death of Victoria Climbié, all 11 million children in the UK are to be registered on the database. The data entries for each child are to consist of:

• - name, address, gender and date of birth;
• - a unique identifying number;
• - the name and contact details of any person with parental responsibility or who has care of him at any time;
• - details of any education being received by him, including details of any educational institution attended;
• - the name and contact details of any person providing primary medical and other services specified by the Secretary of State;
• - information as to the existence of any cause for concern in relation to him; - other information, not including medical records or other personal records, specified by the Secretary of State. [1]

Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Children, has also stated that drug or alcohol use by parents, relatives and neighbours, together with other aspects of their behaviour, may be recorded. [2].

and it all starts to look like a plan, with the leaks an integral part of the strategy to discredit an independent civil service.

A universal database plus every other personal record available in other government databases is to be available to overseas governments with no permission whatsover from those most intimately concerned. tell me what's wriong with this picture.... This is as repressive a measure as anything Stalin himsell thought up and totally unsurprising from Uncle Joe's (supposedly reconstructed) supporters in New Labour.

Of course none of this, though it was at least reported, made the actual front pages; the fading glories of David Beckham took precedence. Sometimes I think we deserve all we get.

Read more: UK Government, Home Office, Scandals, Civil Service, Data Protection, Government IT, Unions, EU, John Reid.

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Posted 11:28 AM by Republic of Palau

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"Is It Because One Is Posh?"

It's my chippy socialist side coming out I know but I couldn't help but smile and go 'hah!' on reading this story. My ears have suffered this particular historian on the radio too often.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is one of those over-emphatically English men who've adopted the most affectedly posh and strangulated Oxford accent, reminiscent of Bertie Wooster being buggered with a badger by Oofie Wegg-Prosser.

I bet that alone made the Atlanta cop arrest him, not that it was at all justified, no matter how irritating the professor is. If having a posh voice justified violent arrest then Brian Sewell would've been banged up long since. The BBC has the story:

What every Brit should know about jaywalking

The moment of his arrest

In the UK no one would bat an eyelid. In Atlanta, you could be wrestled to the ground.

It is a cautionary tale for any traveller - distinguished historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto tried to cross the road while in Atlanta for the conference of the American Historical Association, only to find himself in handcuffs and surrounded by armed police.

"I come from a country where you can cross the road where you like," said the visiting professor of global environmental history at Queen Mary College, University of London. "It hadn't occurred to me that I wasn't allowed to cross the road between the two main conference venues."

The bespectacled professor says he didn't realise the "rather intrusive young man" shouting that he shouldn't cross there was a policeman. "I thanked him for his advice and went on."

The officer asked for identification. The professor asked for his, after which Officer Leonpacher told him he was under arrest and, the professor claims, kicked his legs from under him, pinned him to the ground and confiscated his box of peppermints. Professor Fernandez-Armesto then spent eight hours in the cells before the charges were dropped. He told the Times that his colleagues now regard him as "as a combination of Rambo, because it took five cops to pin me to the ground, and Perry Mason, because my eloquence before a judge obtained my immediate release".

Not every jaywalking Brit abroad will be similarly blessed, nor enjoy the intervention of the city mayor.

[...]

You can see and hear Felipe Fernández Armesto's version of events here and also video of another conference attendee, testifying that he'd jaywalked himself, but that he was merely warned.

Read more: US, UK, Legal system, Crime, Jaywalking, History, Historian, Conference

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Posted 6:47 PM by Republic of Palau

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Tory Boy, US Edition

Note to the Virgin Ben - oh, just go get laid already.

It doesn't have to cost much, and no actual icky human contact need be involved if you do it right. Or just say hello to Mrs Palm and her five lovely daughters while looking at pictures of Lucianne Goldberg.

Or something.

Whatever, it's clear that all that unexpressed sperm (or curdled pre-fetal-American soup, depending on how you look at it) is going straight to your brain.

Virgin Ben is Ben Shapiro the 20 year old Harvard law student and precocious wingnut author (which reminds me, wouldn't the latter preclude the former? Dishonesty isn't a quality one actually looks for in a lawyer, no matter how prevalent it might be in the profession), proving with very little effort required that years of home-schooling and enforced celibacy addle the brain.

Let's face it, that theory is just about as valid as his. Shapiro says that Nancy Pelosi uses her womb for political advantage. How, exactly? Does she pop it out and wave it like flag when it's time to vote? Does she sign motions in menstrual bood? What? Young Ben doesn't seem able to say exactly.

Via Punkass marc:

It must be difficult to be a famous woman. If you don’t have children, you’re an old maid with shriveled ovaries who has forsaken your godly purpose. If you have children and don’t talk about them, you’re a cold parent who puts her career ahead of her offspring. If you’re like Nancy Pelosi, i.e. you have children and talk about them openly, you’re holding your previously occupied uterus above the heads of jealous menfolk as a sign of your superiority.

Yes, with the ascendance of Speaker Pelosi, uterine envy is at an all-time high. Take a recent editorial by Family Security Matters‘ Ben Shapiro, a Harvard Law School student who’s clearly worked overtime to overcome the many inherent disadvantages associated with having a dick.

[...]

While we’ll soon see how his obsession with Nancy Pelosi’s body is concentrated primarily in the pelvis, Shapiro gives us a head’s up that he’s thinking an awful lot about her breasts, too:

Nancy Pelosi, however, could breastfeed on the speaker’s podium and receive the plaudits of the mainstream media.

Yikes. Either Shapiro’s repressed maternal fetish has him uttering the creepiest of creepy phrases in print, or he’s incapable of imagining a woman performing anything but childcare duties (and whatever he may or may not have observed in his forays into internet porn).

The creepiness continues:

No woman in the history of politics has used her womb like Nancy Pelosi.

Sadly, far too many men have used their jackassery like Ben Shapiro.

[...]

To which I might add, no-one has used the genetic accident of having a penis to such pointless effect as Ben Shapiro.

Read more: US politics, Women, Feminism, Wingnuts, Shapiro, Pelosi

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Posted 3:39 PM by Republic of Palau

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"It Wasn't Me"

As part of his increasingly Spinal Tap-esque "Legacy Tour" ( Who does he think he is, Eric bloody Clapton? I bet he's even had a tour t-shirt made.) Tony Blair made a speech on a naval ship my hometown yesterday in which he blamed, in front of an invited audience of military, academics (and for some obscure reason 30 local schoolchildren, who must've been bored out of their poor little skulls) everyone in Britain but himself for the inescapable fact that his illegal war in Iraq is one supersized clusterfuck and his tenure as Prime Minister a complete disaster for the country.

Somehow he managed to do all this without mentioning Iraq or his host city's increasing toll of local military war dead even once. The grim faces of his audience on the video say all you need to know about how it was received, yet to read the local rag, the execrably bad Evening Herald, you'd never know it - the Herald never ever questions the staus quo unless it's to complain about bus lanes or old dears slipping on dogshit - for instance you'd think a picture of Blair and the local Labour MP and professional sycophant and busybody Linda Gilroy, snogging, would be front page news:

But no, that would be hoping for too much. Evening Herald? News and comment? Don't make me laugh.

Luckily The Independent has parsed Blair's speech for us so we don't have to read the whole self-justifying, narcissistic transccript at No 10's webiste:

Tony Blair's spin unspun By Colin Brown

* BLAIR SAYS: "The parody of people in my position is of leaders who, gung-ho, launch their nations into ill-advised adventures without a thought for the consequences."

ANALYSIS: No amount of lectures will erase the fact that Iraq is now a mess because of the failure to plan for the peace after Saddam was toppled, and it has made Iran the dominant force in the region.

* BLAIR SAYS: "Public opinion ... will be constantly bombarded by the propaganda of the enemy ... to the effect that it's really all "our", that is the West's, fault."

ANALYSIS: Mr Blair is losing the propaganda war over Iraq, but blaming the media for covering the reporting of the horror of daily life in Baghdad is a sign of his desperation.

* BLAIR SAYS: "The risk here - and in the US where the future danger is one of isolationism not adventurism - is that the politicians decide it's all too difficult and default to an unstated, passive disengagement, that doing the right thing slips almost unconsciously into doing the easy thing."

ANALYSIS: Mr Blair appears worried that after handing over power to Gordon Brown, his successor may come under pressure to do the "easy thing" and bring the troops home before the 'job is done'.

* BLAIR SAYS: "The extraordinary job that servicemen do needs to be reflected in the quality of accommodation provided for them and their families, at home or abroad. So much of what is written distorts the truth."

ANALYSIS: Mr Blair is clearly irritated not only at the media but also at defence chiefs for criticisms of the "overstretch" of the armed forces.

* BLAIR SAYS: "September 11 wasn't the incredible action of an isolated group. It was the product rather of a worldwide movement, with an ideology based on a misreading of Islam."

ANALYSIS: Mr Blair still linked September 11 with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But there is no evidence that Iraq was used as a training ground for terrorism. It is now.

If you watch the video you can see with your own eyes the depths of delusion and head-in-the sand-ism Blair has sunk to. He's gone beyond self-parody and way off into total denial of reality territory and he's becoming increasingy shrill, nervy and twitchy with it.

This is a man who looks temperamentally and psychologically unsafe to be in control of a car, let alone a country.

Read more: UK politics, Blair, Linda Gilroy, Defence speech, Plymouth

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Posted 12:20 PM by Republic of Palau

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I'm not sure whether to laugh uncontrollably or turn away in disgust.

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Posted 9:43 AM by Republic of Palau

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Exactly.

From Tarek at Liquid List.

Read more: US, Iran, Iraq, War

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Posted 4:49 PM by Republic of Palau

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Friday Cat Blogging

I was going to post a kitten picture, it being Friday afternoon and we get to bring toys in, but I couldn't find one quite cute enough to blot out war on Iran, so I've gone for bizarre and dogs.

Much more mind- boggling dog couture here.

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Posted 4:06 PM by Republic of Palau

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The Wheels Of Justice Grind Exceeding Slow, But Exceeding Fine

Members of the CIA and Bush administration had better think twice about setting foot in Europe: EU warrants have been issued for CIA agents involved in renditions in Italy, according to Der Spiegel:

MILAN'S EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS CASE

The CIA in the Dock

By Georg Mascolo and Matthias Gebauer

A Milan prosecutor is making the CIA nervous. Despite the opposition of his own government he wants to indict 26 US agents and five Italian secret agents for the kidnapping of a terror suspect. Rome and Washington would prefer that the embarrassing trial would just go away.

The extraordinary renditions program is turning into an embarassment for the CIA

The proceedings in Milan's historic Palace of Justice on Tuesday morning were kept under tight wraps. Judge Caterina Interlandi was holding court on the seventh floor, behind closed doors -- and only lawyers directly involved with the case were allowed to enter. The governments in Rome and Washington would have preferred if the hearing had not taken place at all.

However they had not reckoned with Armando Spataro. Without the lively Milan prosecutor, who is balding and has a moustache, things would never have got quite so far.

The case being heard behind the court's doors could turn out to be highly unpleasant for Washington and Rome. Judge Interlandi must determine whether 26 CIA agents and five Italian secret service agents are to be indicted for one of the boldest kidnappings of a terror suspect to happen yet. If the court takes the case, it would be the first time anyone has been tried in connection with the CIA's controversial "extraordinary renditions" program. Under the secret renditions program, suspected terrorists were kidnapped and interrogated at secret "black" sites.

There was no immediate result after the hearing on Tuesday, except the announcement that the case was adjourned until the end of January.

The statements afterwards were nevertheless revealing. For example, Daria Pesce, the lawyer representing former Milan CIA bureau chief Robert Seldon Lady said she was withdrawing from the case. "Robert Seldon Lady said that a political and not legal solution should be found." Her client, she said, would prefer "an agreement between Italy and the US" to a trial.

Pesce described her client as "disappointed" by the Italian officers because they revealed details of the operation they had sworn to keep secret. "He feels betrayed because he is still convinced he did the right thing for the US and all the other countries fighting international Islamism," she said.

Lady's position is understandable, because the case is an embarrassment. The fate of the Egyptian imam Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, is one of the best-documented cases of the controversial abductions by the US. In February 2003, a CIA team kidnapped the radical cleric in Milan as he was on his way to his mosque. From the point of view of the US investigators Abu Omar was a suspect who could have knowledge of the activities of jihadists in Europe -- perhaps.

Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who allegedly was kidnapped in Milan by the CIA.

In these kinds of situations, things are rarely done gently. Drugged and tied-up, Abu Omar was bundled into a white mini-van and taken to the US base at Aviano, and then by jet via the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany more or less directly to an Egyptian jail. During his weeks of interrogation there, Abu Omar claims to have been tortured by the local officials. In a letter that was smuggled out of the jail, he reports of electrical shocks and writes that his face has been disfigured by these methods. He is being held in a jail in Alexandria to this day.

It is now known that in the fight against international terror following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks this was common CIA practice -- something the US has indirectly admitted, without expressing any regret. Instead of waiting for the necessary due process, the agency preferred to kidnap those it had decided were suspects. Instead of placing them in US jails they were stuck in holes somewhere in countries that were known for torture and therefore speedy interrogation results. It is precisely these practices that are now the subject of several investigations in EU countries.

During their tough actions the bosses back home in the US probably never expected that they would ever have someone like prosecutor Spatoro spying on them in turn. He has impressive evidence in dozens of files. He knows the names of the CIA agents. He knows when and where they travelled to Italy, who they called and when, in order to kidnap Abu Omar. Even their fondness for luxury hotels is in the files -- and that they collected valuable frequent flyer miles. There is no point talking about a secret operation any more.

No other case has caused so much internal disquiet in the CIA as the arrest warrants from Italy. Even if the White House has promised that there is no need to fear prosecution or extradition, there is concern in the agency about what will happen after President Bush leaves office. The Democrats now control Congress and hearings about the CIA program are looming. Legal insurance has been the hot topic among CIA agents for months. The agents are aware that the small fry are always the first to be sacrificed.

In the case of the kidnapping in Italy, this concern is well founded. After all it is the names of the CIA worker ants that appear in the indictments. Due to Spataro's tireless efforts they will also be issued arrest warrants in the European Union. From now on the agents will have to worry about possible arrest during any future foreign visit -- even if one of them just wants to visit Florence instead of Florida with his wife. However the Italian Foreign Ministry never sent the prosecutor's extradition warrant -- out of loyalty to its partner, the US.

The dark prediction of Cofer Black, the CIA's former head of counter-terrorism, is being remembered in corridors of the agency these days: "One day we will all be in court for what we are doing now." At the same time, the agents of what is supposedly the best secret service in the world didn't act particularly clandestinely in Milan. Many now shake their head in disbelief that it only takes a few Google searches to find the first traces of the CIA's aircraft. The term "secret flights" is long obsolete.

Even the agents were not much of a secret. Of the first 13 suspects public prosecutor Spataro was able to identify, 11 were easily traced back to the CIA. The insurance numbers and post office boxes they kept in Virginia revealed more than they hid.

And even though it is now clear that the CIA acted carelessly in Italy, the fact that high-level agents in Rome gave their nod of approval to the operation has only served to increase anger over their negligence. "It's not only bad tradecraft, but it's stupid," commented Richard Stolz, a former CIA deputy director of operations.

Even for the renditions program, the action in Italy was highly unusual -- and also particularly risky. In most operations, countries arrested suspected terrorists and then turned them over to the United States. But in Italy, the CIA chief in Rome was looking to achieve his own success, and insiders believe that goes a long way towards explaining why the CIA there played a direct role in the kidnapping. "If I had taken a plan to my bosses to kidnap someone in Europe, it better have been Osama himself, and I doubt I would have gotten permission even then," said Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA program.

There's more to the Milan case than simply a suit against CIA agents (who wouldn't even be present in the Milan Palace of Justice if it were to be heard). Instead, it is the Italian secret service and the former government of Silvio Berlusconi who will be placed in the political dock. Berlusconi routinely swears that Italy never would have permitted or provided help for any operation like this. But few believe him these days. In fact, it appears unlikely that the operation would even have been possible without logistical aid from the US's close partner.

,P>The most extensive testimony could come from a former Italian agent who also now stands as a defendant. For months, former Italian top spy Nicolo Pollari refused to testify. Now he is threatening what could be an almost "spontaneous defense." But his lawyer says he would only be willing to do so if Berlusconi and the current prime minister, Romano Prodi, also appeared in court. For the time being, the main issue is to lift the veil of secrecy that had initially been imposed on the Abu Omar case. Still, uncomfortable questions would likely be directed at the top politicians.

It's still impossible to tell if the Milan trial will even open. Nevertheless, through sheer persistence, Prosecutor Spataro has already cut his way through considerable political resistance. At the end of the day, the decision will lie with the judge, who is under enormous pressure. So far, the judge has held up well under pressure -- so much so that German Prosecutor Eberhard Bayer has described his colleague's work as "excellent." Bayer has often met with Spataro and spoken to him on the telephone because he is currently investigating CIA planes that landed in Germany and were involved in Abu Omar's kidnapping.

However, it is unlikely that Bayer's case will ever progress as far as the Milan investigation. "We've hit a dead end because the Americans aren't providing us with any information," Bayer said. But Bayer does know that Abu Omar was taken to Egypt on a flight that also landed at the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, which is also under his prosecutorial jurisdiction. Each time he contacts the base, authorities tell him politely but firmly that Washington has instructed them to provide no information whatsoever. "To be honest, we're at our wits end," Bayer said.

But prosecutors in Germany are following the progress in Milan with great interest. Privately, they hope the trial will open -- almost more because of the hard work of their colleague than because of their hopes for a public tribunal against the CIA.

"Of course it's true that we're dealing with big political issues here," says Bayer, deliberately speaking in abstract terms. "But even if a crime is a political one, it still remains a crime."

We'll get these bastards in the end, legally, and when we do they'll sing like canaries about their bosses just to save their miserable slimy hides, no rendition or torture required.

Cartoon copyright Martin Rowson, The Guardian

Read more: War On Terror, US, Europe, Italy, CIA, Rendition, Kidnap, Prosecutions, Arrests

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Posted 2:33 PM by Republic of Palau

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It's been pretty damned obvious from the moment she was appointed to the administration that Condi Rice is a political lightweight, for all her apparent academic accomplishments. Her continuance in office has been an unmitigated disaster for the international diplomacy and the rule of law.

Finally, a Democratic Congressman calls Condi Rice incompetent:

The gloves are off in the new Congress. Hawaii Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie, the outspoken new Chairman of the powerful House Air-Land Subcommittee, has gone on the record with a highly personal attack on Bush's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Abercrombie referred to Rice as "the most overrated underperforming individual in executive authority that I have ever seen" in an interview published this week in the "Honolulu Star Bulletin."

In response to a follow-up question by Star Bulletin columnist Richard Borreca whether race or gender had anything to do with it, Abercrombie continued, "She constantly gets a pass. Who knows if the whole question of race and gender come into it? But I can't account for it except to say she isn't up to the mark."

Abercrombie's spokesperson confirmed the quotes and told ABC News today the congressman does indeed have a highly critical view of Rice's performance not only as the current Secretary of State but also in her previous role as Bush's National Security Advisor.

As to the congressman's comments on race and gender, the spokesman said Abercrombie was responding to a follow-up question. "It's an old reporter's trick to put words in a question to get the respondent to use them himself in the answer, but nonetheless the congressman was quoted accurately."

And oops, there she goes again proving his point for him.

I doubt she's planning on resigning anytime soon though - with Harriet Miers gone, there's only the mysteriously invisible Karen Hughes between her and the prime office wife spot. I sometimes wonder if she's the heroine in her own mental bloody Harlequin novel (one of these perhaps) .

For the life of me I can't really see what else is driving her at this point.

Read more: Politics, Condoleeza Rice, Bush, Relationship

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Posted 1:00 AM by Republic of Palau

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For Martin..

..who's having a minor obsession with this artist at the moment, for me who needs some solace, for my son Simon the guitarist, and in memory of my late friend and good socialist Dave, at whose tragically early funeral I first heard this song, here's Silvio Rodriguez with Mi Unicornio Azul.

Enjoy.

Read more: Music, Cuba, Socialism, Silvio Rodriguez, MP3, YouTube, Video

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Posted 3:17 PM by Republic of Palau

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Well, It's Just As Likely As Anything Else

True or false? We report, you decide:

Blair Foundation has been papering over the cracks in Tony Blair’s government since 1997. Now, for the first time, you too can enjoy the same experience at home.

Worried about the size of your debts? Fallen out with your interfering neighbour? Police on your back? Explore our website and find out how Blair Foundation can help you!

How to pay

There are two great ways to pay for Blair foundation.

Option one: Buy now, get something similar but not quite what you asked for, let your children pay in 30 years' time (1000% APR)!

Option two: Make a donation now, get as much Blair Foundation as you like in a few months' time and get your money back as soon as we can afford it!

Although all major credit cards are accepted, we prefer wire transfers from tax havens. Postage and packing is charged separately.

Note: Blair Foundation is an exclusive product, only available from select retailers. At present these are:

• Lord Levy

We reserve the right to refuse orders, especially if your name is Gordon.
©2007

I wonder what the available shades are? Blair beige, Cherie caramel?

Blair to launch 'Blair Foundation' cosmetics range
8 Jan 2007

Tony Blair is to launch a range of cosmetics upon leaving office, DeadBrain can reveal. The first of those, Blair Foundation, has already been developed and was discovered by our intrepid reporter during a bored afternoon searching the internet.

Future releases are understood to include a concealer, given the codename 'WMD', and a range of aftershave. Early versions of the latter product were found to have the side effect of sending dogs berserk after being tested by David Blunkett, who has since made a full recovery.

Mr Blair is not the first politician to use his name to cash in. Former President Bill Clinton famously lent his name to a dry-cleaning product after leaving office, while Boris Yeltsin had his own best-selling brand of vodka. Not all politicians have been as successful, however. A range of hair care products launched by Boris Johnson after his first resignation were rapidly withdrawn after Trading Standards called them a "severe fire risk".

Downing Street declined to comment, but a policeman standing outside the door of Number 10 told DeadBrain that he had had a full head of hair until he used Mr Johnson's shampoo.

Read more:UK Politics, Blair foundation, Snark

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Posted 2:24 PM by Republic of Palau

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The Looming Storm

It's still dark at noon, there's a massive, scary and possibly global-warming-driven gale blowing up outside and the BBC is reporting that US troops are already attacking euphemistically described 'Iranian interests' along the Iran/Iraq border.

American soldiers have already raided an Iranian diplomatic mission. It seems even the inviolability of embassies is fair game now. Le Loi? C'est Bush. Game on.

Massive troop surges, attacks on diplomatic missions, naval strike groups in the Gulf, a change of peskily obstructive generals - it's clear that, as I've always said, megalomaniac midget George Bush is is planning to nuke Iran. The only question is when.

There's depression and then there's despair and this news, although expected, is tipping me towards the latter. It's tempting to take a mental health day, to go back to bed and sleep it all away, but what good would that do? It'd still be there when I woke up.

No, Bush really is riding into his longed-for Armageddon with his eyes wide shut and nothing and no-one seems able to stop him, not even his own father - or maybe especially not his own father. Famously he's said he'll carry on to 'victory', whatever that is, even if only Laura and the dog support him - he's even willing to fire his own officers, who, if they gainsay the boy emperor, are swiftly replaced with biddable fundy automatons.

He's also promised a 'cataclysmic fight to the death' should Congress attempt to oppose or depose him; indeed he's already divorced one of his office wives in order to get lawyered up for the fray by hiring a veteran Watergate defence counsel.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much too soon, given the time differences, but there's a very strange yet pregnant lull in the public conversation on the subject of Bush's speech last night, as though people are hoping this is all not really happening. Some discuss Bush's odd and apparently drug-fuelled affect and there is much weary outrage, but the overall tone, from the left blogs at least, seems to be despairing resignation .

Wingnut bloggers, as one would expect, are creaming their pants at the anticipation of an onscreen bloodbath.

The major US media outlets in general (though with a couple of honourable exceptions) appear to be supinely accepting this further invasion and the latest pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation, as though sending more young people to die and destroying yet another country are perfectly valid and acceptable options. There are no questions asked about legality or even morality - the issues just don't arise for them.

It's as though, faced with what GB has said time and time again and in no uncertain terms - that he intends to have his own way on Iraq whatever anyone says - the nation has just collectively thrown up its hands and gone "Oh, whatever. Look, over there, Al Qaeda! Sexy airstrikes in Somalia!"

Americans can't keep on acting alternately as though either a] this is a movie they can switch on and off at will or b] wringing their hands that it's all those evil Republicans fault and not their responsibilty and that they've been hijacked by some shadowy neocon cabal and "it's nothing to do with me, man, I voted for Gore. "

Every minute they and their elected representatives allow this administration to continue to flout the country's own constitution and international law. every US citizen becomes more complicit, whether they opposed the war, voted against Bush or not.

Let's face it, if America really wanted rid of him, they'd've read the Declaration of Independence :

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness""

and then marched on DC with metaphorical pitchforks long since. It's their sons and dusghters that'll be dying after all.

But no, because of national self-interest and greed the citizenry have shirked their responsibility to their nation and the world. This vain and self-obsessed psychopath and his plan for a Middle East in nuclear flames is the result.

The Responsibility by Peter Appleton

I am the man who gives the word,
If it should come, to use the Bomb.

I am the man who spreads the word
From him to them if it should come.

I am the man who gets the word
From him who spreads the word from him.

I am the man who drops the Bomb
If ordered by the one who's heard
From him who merely spreads the word
The first one gives if it should come.

I am the man who loads the Bomb
That he must drop should orders come
From him who gets the word passed on
By one who waits to hear from him.

I am the man who makes the Bomb
That he must load for him to drop
If told by one who gets the word
From one who passes it from him.

I am the man who fills the till,
Who pays the tax, who foots the bill
That guarantees the Bomb he makes
For him to load for him to drop
If orders come from one who gets
The word passed on to him by one
Who waits to hear it from the man
Who gives the word to use the Bomb.

I am the man behind it all
I am the one responsible.

Read more: Iraq, Iran, War, Nuclear bombs, Surge, Bush, Responsibilty, War poetry

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Posted 11:00 AM by Republic of Palau

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Willing Tools

It's most amusing to watch the reception of Joe Klein - "... not so much a political writer as a bad theater critic" - the Slate columnist and alleged liberal is getting as he sheds his designer bathrobe and dips his carefully-manicured toes into the choppy waters of the blog sea, via the safety of Time/CNN's new astroblog, Swampland.

(Btw did you notice Ana-Marie Cox is now Time Washington Editor? And they call it serious journalism? Wahahahahaha.)

Myself, I'm amazed by Klein's chutzpah: after having spent the past few years basking in journalistic comfort onshore, idly cursing the swimmers, he seems to have expected a sedate Hamptons water-polo match in which position and seniority would give him innate advantage.

Surely blogging would be a doddle for such a fine figure of a pundit and anonymous novelist as Klein, if so many provincial neanderthals were doing it, wouldn't it?

Of course, having no editor to save his skin or tone down his vainglorious self-certainty and belligerence he floundered badly straight away - hysterically accusing the blogging left of being illiberal, anti-American and hoping for US defeat and in the process lying, saying that he'd never supported the Iraq war when his own words said otherwise.

Oh dear. He didn't want to do that...

Understandably he's getting an ass-whupping from the real bloggers:

Late yesterday I was mulling why exactly Klein feels the need to presuppose the worst motives on the part of unnamed liberals and Democrats -- whom he regularly accuses of rooting for America to "lose" -- when Klein went ahead and unwittingly revealed a possible answer in his new post. It's vanity.

[...]

To look into the mirror and see a brave and heroic pundit staring back, of course, you need to flatter yourself into believing that you're challenging entrenched ideas and the people who hold them in some way, even if you aren't. This impression can be created in several ways. One is to simply dream up a whole class of people, claim they hold "extreme" opinions based on nothing at all, and set yourself up as a lonely warrior against them -- preferably while standing shoulder to shoulder with other lonely heroes of moderation like John McCain and Joe Lieberman. That's David Broder's preferred approach. Another way is to dream up a whole series of nefarious but nonexistent motives driving colleagues' opinions, so that you can deprive those colleagues of credit for those opinions, and position yourself as, again, braver and more heroic than they are -- even though you agree with them. That is Klein's approach -- and I submit that at bottom it's all about vanity.

Klein issued a challenge in his post that has already been deftly parried by Boo Man. So here's a challenge for Klein: Back up your arguments with facts and evidence. Produce one example of someone whose comments betray the fact that they're tacitly rooting for American failure. Quote this person. Explain why this person's quotes should be interpreted that way. If you manage to get that far, then maybe consider finding a second example, and even a third. That doesn't sound all that hard, does it?

One might think that a journalist who has had the very basis of his reporting skill challenged in such a very public way might be a little shame-faced that his lack of professionalism had been so devastingly exposed. Not Klein.

But why is this little blogospheric kerfuffle of any importance at all in the larger political media picture?

There appears to be yet another evolutionary change happening with political blogs as the big news corporations switch their loss-making paper operations online and the group and community blogs become, in their turn, more corporate. The online operations of the media conglomerates are now being recast, falsely, as group or community blogs themselves, a direct marketing challenge to the likes of Kos and Atrios - the use of folksy names like Swampland is one way of fooling visitors that what they are reading is the voice of the average American.

This is not just about Joe Klein spouting his outdated and overexposed mouth off, entertaining though that is. This is about TimeWarner using its online presence to take on the liberal blogs - 'We, the corporate establishment are patriots; you, the liberal bloggers, are unwashed hippies" - using Klein as its willing proxy.

They're slapping down any attempt at encroachment on one of their markets, of course; it's a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value and dividends. What else can they do? They won't be happy until until they own or control all the media outlets, it's what conglomerates do, and liberal independent blogs are a direct challenge to corporate dominance of the news markets and public opinion.

"The largest media company in the world is the standard bearer of synergy and vertical integration in the modern digital age. The marriage between "old" media Time Warner and "new" media AOL in 2000 was heralded by many experts as a sign of a new era. The belief was that traditional media companies had to align themselves with online partners or risk the chance of finding their business model and methods obsolete. A weak ad market, subscriptions for new online users hitting a plateau, and a less than expected demand for broadband Internet service are just some of the reasons why AOL Time Warner never jumped started an overhaul of the entire media industry as first predicted. The company dropped AOL from its corporate name in 2003 in an effort to show Wall Street that it still valued its core assets. With such influential brands as CNN, Warner Brothers studio, Sports Illustrated and AOL Instant Messaging, a Time Warner property is never too far away from any consumer's fingertips."

Supposed journalists like Klein don't see this at all: First Amendent? Democracy? Accountability? Phooey. Blogging is for them just an opportunity for further personal aggrandisement and for unencumbered-by-truth-or-editing, vainglorious ranting in which they can get back at all their percieved enemies. And get paid for it!

Klein has confused the immediacy of blogging and the fact that the posts scroll off the screen with the notion that what he's written is gone, because he doesn't see it any more: he thinks there'll be no consequences from his lies: that was yesterday and besides he's got TimeWarner at his back. He'd better think again.

Read more: Media ownership, Blogging, Media conglomerates, CNN, Time magazine, Time/Warner, Joe Klein

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Posted 1:09 PM by Republic of Palau

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Don't Be Fooled By Cuddly Dave

It's hard not to like UK Conservative party leader David Cameron. On the face of it he's a very nice man: clever, personable, young; an iPod-loving, soaps-watching Head Boy who appeals to grandmas and skateboarders alike.

Call-me-Dave smiles a lot, his wife is pretty, he makes all the right cuddly noises, he talks about caring and sharing and children and the internet and the NHS and his disabled son and is swiftly becoming what many of his antediluvian colleagues would call 'the housewives choice'.

Under Cameron the outward, media-facing aspect of the Tories has changed drastically - these days they even have a British Asian (I'll leave others to dispute which of those descriptors takes precedence) party vice-chair.

This and their more principled, dare we even say liberal, stands on torture and civil liberties have won them many admirers amongst the non-aligned and Labour-loathers alike, as have Cameron's own carefully calibrated public statements on Blair's Iraq excursion.

He's good on his feet too: even I've caught myself egging him on against Blair at Prime Minister's Question Time. (video)

So far, so according to plan:

Party bosses want people to recognise, approve of and ultimately buy the Cameron brand first.

They will then glue that branding all over the old Conservative Party and, so, transform it into something the public will like and vote for again. It's called brand extension in the trade.

All this niceness and market manipulation has led the Tories to poll consistently higher than Labour when voters are asked which party they'd vote for in a Cameron v Brown contest, something that common wisdom would've formerly have dismissed. But apparently the Tories are no longer percieved as the Nasty Party - indeed they've become so nice that some of their more rabid shire Tories have decamped to UKIP.

But let's give Cuddly Dave the benefit of the doubt rather than immediately cry hypocrisy. Maybe Liam Fox is a just a loose cannon. Maybe the disconnect between public utterances and policy means Cameron has lost control over his his historically backstabbing party's policy and shadow cabinet (if he ever had it) and they're all going off half-cocked in the media.

But no. There is no disconnect on policy and no difference between Fox' and Cameron's foreign policy views.

Neoconnery is Conservative party policy and Cameron policy too according to Dr Brendan Simms of the Henry Jackson Society , who ought to know it when he sees it:

[...]

His close allies and contemporaries, the new shadow minister for housing, Michael Gove, his shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, and Ed Vaizey all describe themselves as neoconservatives.

The new shadow cabinet is a clear sign of the way the wind is blowing on foreign and security policy. Some Conservative leaning observers had wondered whether Cameron might resile to classic foreign-policy "realists", such as the sometime foreign ministers Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and Lord Hurd. Both of them had strongly opposed the Iraq war. In fact, Cameron recalled the former conservative leader William Hague - who was and remains an unyielding supporter of the war - to the front bench as shadow foreign secretary. Rifkind thereupon resigned his shadow post as work and pensions secretary in a huff.

In terms of the American party-political spectrum, all this places Cameron well to the "right" of most Democrats and many Republicans, who have gone cold on the Iraq war, but well to the "left" of the President himself. The closest match with Cameron is probably Senator McCain, whose staunch support for the democratic transformation of Iraq, and principled stand against torture makes him the least bland of American politicians. By contrast, the Democratic mainstream, and even its left-liberal grass roots, is now firmly "realist" in its scepticism about the democratic transformation of the Middle East. This means that if the British Labour Party goes the way of the Democrats, which is by no means certain, the best hope for progressives in foreign policy on both sides of the Atlantic will be on the (party-political) right.

Anyone who votes Tory in the coming local, Scots and NI Assembly elections on the grounds that they're not Labour and Cameron isn't Brown is being wilfully blind. All the obfuscatory talk in the media - that the Conservatives have no policies yet, that Cameron is a nice man but an unknown quantity - it's all PR spin meant to mask the Tories' real agenda.

Cameron is no cipher. He's a known quantity; a rightwing libertarian hawk who is committed to the same imperialistic, 'freedom'-spreading principles as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and all the other architects of the destruction of Iraq and promoters of worldwide cultural war.

Cameron's not the lipstick on the pig, he's the pig's lips.

Read more: UK politics, Tory party, David Cameron, Local elections, Neocons, Middle East, Iraq, Iran

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Posted 10:19 AM by Republic of Palau

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Why Can't Life Imitate Art?

I'd've posted this yesterday, but Blogger was playing silly buggers with Blogger Beta again and was completely inaccessible. (We have the blog all set up on typepad and ready to switch, but it just takes the will. Honestly we will do it. Soon.)

Anyhow I did a double-take when I saw this headline from from yesterday's Evening Standard:

Blair in the dock for TV war crimes 'trial' By Alexa Baracaia, Evening Standard 09.01.07

Trials and tribulations: Robert Lindsay as Tony Blair

Channel 4 is to screen a hardhitting drama which portrays Tony Blair facing an international tribunal charged with war crimes. Robert Lindsay plays the Prime Minister, who is shown becoming increasingly unhinged.

In dramatic scenes shown at a private screening today Mr Blair hallucinates about dead Iraqi children, sees the coffin of a British soldier on his kitchen table and believes he is to be murdered by a suicide bomber.

The Prime Minister has a waking nightmare that he is found dead. In sinister echoes of Dr David Kelly's death, he hallucinates that a newsreader announces that “it appears the former Prime Minister had gone for a walk on his own”.

The 72-minute film The Trial Of Tony Blair will be screened on Monday on digital channel More4.

Written by Alistair Beaton, who also wrote A Very Social Secretary about David Blunkett, it opens in 2010 with the vision of a distressed Blair, having converted to Catholicism, about to make confession for his “mortal sins”.

In Beaton's account, the US and British forces have declared war on Iran, there has been a second terror attack in London and George Bush, deposed by Hillary Clinton, has entered rehab after being found comatose on his ranch.

Today, Beaton insisted he had no qualms about screening a film which could affect public opinion while a leader of state is still in power.

He said: “That would be terrific if I'd contributed to the public perception of Blair having done something he must pay a price for.

“I did set out, however, from the position of Blair as being fundamentally a man who cares but whose decisions have backfired and he is struggling to live with that.”

I really really want to see this, if only for the vicarious satisfaction of watching a fictional Blair getting his comeuppance. Bittorrenters and YouTubers, those of us without More4 are relying on you; don't let us down.

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Posted 10:04 AM by Republic of Palau

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Comment of the Day: astroblogs

The comment of the day today was written by Node of Evil and comes once again from a Digby comments thread. The comment is about what to call that class of faux-blogs that are nothing more than fronts for the Beltway establishment to enable them to claim popular support:

Ooh, ooh, I've got it -- we can call those sorts of sites (HotSoup, Swampland, Pajamas Media, etc.) "Astroblogs":

Astroblog (adj.):

1.)A blog or collection of blogs set up to look like a public forum, when really it's just a soapbox for the proprietor.

2.)A blog or collection of blogs set up with much fanfare and venture capital but no real readership and/or original content.

Read more about: astroblogs, comment of the day

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Posted 8:44 AM by Martin Wisse

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A Question For Our Readers

Would it be horribly tasteless to title this story Charlie's Anals?

.

.

.

.

I thought it might.

I'm a bad, bad blogger.

Read more: Health, Celebrities

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Posted 1:18 PM by Republic of Palau

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Hell Hath No Fury Like A Media Exposed

Digby is justifiably angry that the US news media has slipperily flipped the story of the Democrats' victory into a narrative that paints the Republicans as poor put-upon victims being targeted by evil far-left partisans.

Again.

I understand the anger but I really don't think that the media could have done anything else, given how much they have invested in Bush and the Republicans.

Unfortunately the reversal of power in Congress has not been replicated in the DC government and media infrastructure, which remains defiantly and unashamedly right wing. This is an arena where someone as patently batshit crazy as Pat Robertson can be described, straight-faced, as moderate.

The Republicans may no longer be officially in power in Congress, but sensibly and foresightedly, during their tenure as supreme rulers over all three branches of government they installed a whole machinery of loyal placemen and women to carry on the good work should they fall out of public political favour. The formerly Trotskyist neoconerati know all about entryism.

Margaret Thatcher also knew about this tactic: she used to ask meaningly of her aides about any new civil servant she encountered, "Is he one of us?". Thus she ensured that a whole generation of government administrators would be an impediment to any government that came after.

The news industry has been deeply politicised in the same way. Media owners and ambitious industry media types alike saw in the nineties which way the political and financial wind was blowing , quickly realised that a mix of rightwing ranting, jingoism, god and advertising made the moneymen happy and set about hiring their staff from the Republican pod-farms thinktanks magazines and schools. or from the children of influential GOP figures.

These unapolagetically partisan pundits have edged out the Nixon/Ford/Carter/Reagan era reporters and news anchors and have acted as unquestioning cheerleaders for the Bush government, right across all major US news media platforms, promoting as holy writ the President's cruel and stupid policies. You might almost think their jobs depended on parotting the party line.

Even with those journalists who started out at the beginning of Bush's tenure trying to objective, well you know how it is with spin: one small lie goes unchallenged so as not to offend someone who can do you some good ( maybe get you invited to a WH dinner or help your child get into a good school) that lie begets another and another and another and before you know it you're describing waterboarding as humane and the mother of a dead US soldier as a traitor.

So having constructed this floating world in which Bush is a hero, freedom reigns and the Democrats are meanies who want to spoil everyone's fun and where they rather than the voters are the sole arbiters of anyone's fitness to govern its understandable the punditocracy want to keep their cosy, privileged, well paid and influential positions and they'll go to some lengths to do it.

A lot of people have a lot to lose if exposed as the incompetent political hacks they are.

The Right's mode of attack is quite clever though : as Digby says, Ford's death provided the perfect pretext for Republicans and their media enablers to make what appears to be a perfectly reasonable plea for moderation and civility. In reality it's a demand that all their former trangressions be swept under the rug, with the implied threat that if the Democrats insist on doing what they were elected to do and uncovering misdeeds then the media, egged on by the even more rabid wingnutosphere, could get very uncivil indeed.

In short- don't fuck with us or we'll fuck you over first.

Back before the last Presidential election (though 'election' is hardly the right word) when it looked as though Kerry might just make it to the White House, there was much discussion on the blogs about the necessity for a purge in Washington. It didn't happen then, for obvious reasons, but it needs to happen now, and soon.

George Bush and his strategists have threatened to fight the Democratic congress to the death if they issue investigative subpoenas: In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

And all the loyal footsoldiers of the press corps, beltway and the lobby firms will be marching lockstep into battle with him, despite everything - because far too many of the rightwing establishment have too much invested in the precarious construction of outright lies, propaganda and half-truths of the past few years to even consider letting go of it. The cognitive dissonance alone would kill them, not to mention the well-deserved years in the slammer some are well overdue.

A cataclysmic fight to the death, Bush said: this is going to get a lot uglier yet before it gets better.

Read more: US politics, US Media, Framing , Democrats

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Posted 9:18 AM by Republic of Palau

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Comment of the day

Over at Hullabaloo, in a comment thread discussing the Jameil Hussein clusterfuck, commenter Bob makes a good if depressing observation:

[...] It seems to me that you don't need biased news organizations to control the news, you merely need overworked reporters working for companies who don't really care about the quality of their product. Once you have that, the political organizations who work hardest at framing (message discipline, etc) can control the stories that get told.

There are obviously many problems with this as the fundamental mechanism for informing society, but I'll just point out one: Groups that are more strongly organized (top-down, disciplined, anti-democratic) will probably do a better job of framing stories than groups where everyone thinks and speaks for themselves.

Read more about: US media, media manipulation, comment of the day

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Posted 12:03 PM by Martin Wisse

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This Rather Puts Things In Perspective

Dark matter mapped in 3-D detail

Invisible web serves as scaffolding for ‘ordinary’ matter, scientists say

This illustration shows the three-dimensional distribution of dark matter in a patch of the universe, going back from a nearby region in recent time (on the left) to a distant region about 6.5 billion years ago (on the right). The chart indicates that the distribution of mass has become increasingly clumpy

[...]

The findings announced Sunday provided a "first glimpse of the cosmic web" in true-to-life, three-dimensional detail, said Caltech's Richard Ellis, another member of the COSMOS team.

The lead author of the Nature paper, Caltech astronomer Richard Massey, said the COSMOS study provides the best confirmation that dark matter determines "the underlying structure of space." Galaxies as well as primordial globs of gas and dust form "within this dark-matter scaffolding," he said.

[...]

Even though the matter itself couldn't be seen, astronomers detected its effect by analyzing the gravitational effect of that matter on light rays from more distant light sources. As light rays from faraway objects passed by, the unseen matter acted like a gravitational lens, bending and distorting those rays in characteristic ways.

Observations from other instruments, particularly the XMM-Newton space telescope, provided information about how far the light rays had traveled. The COSMIC team combined the data about the distortions with the data about the distances, then produced a 3-D map by building up separate layers. The process is similar to the way a 3-D map of the human body can be built up in a medical CT scan.

[...]

Full story

Read more: Science, Physics, Astronomy, Cosmology, Dark matter, Universe, Space, Maps

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Posted 9:35 AM by Republic of Palau

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