Major Florida coke bust conspiracy? Mexican election mess; Underlings misinform Bush; Gaza; Italian intrigues; Army skinheads

Massive 5 ton cocaine bust tied to Bush cronies?: Yummy stuff. This weird company called SkyWay Aircraft, which claimed to sell security products to the Department of Homeland Security, got busted with a huge amount of cocaine from Mexico, and both Mexican and American authorities are being curiously silent about it. The Mexican press, on the other hand, has been speculating that high-ranking members of Vincente Fox's government are involved. Of course, SkyWay is based in Venice, Florida, right by where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained.

MadCowProd.com is offering the goods in this case. They conclude:

DC9’s cost money. But the twin airliners weren’t being used to demonstrate SkyWay’s products, for the simple reason that the company never had a product to demonstrate. The fact is both inescapable and mind-boggling at the same time. Two DC9’s painted to impersonate U.S. Government planes were being used for an as-yet unknown purpose… for almost two years.

Like the FAA, the attitude of the DEA toward a drug trafficking case involving 5.5 tons of cocaine seems remarkably laissez faire. A call to the DEA to inquire whether the Agency had mounted an investigation of an American-owned airliner busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine elicited a terse “no comment.”

The duty officer at the Tampa Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration revealed no indication that the DEA has taken any interest in the case. Two days of phone calls to the Agency’s Public Information Officer in Miami yielded nothing but busy signals.

.........The answer, both here in the U.S. as well as in Mexico, appears to be: Damage Control, for what clearly appears to have been officially-sanctioned drug trafficking. The silence in the U.S. and Mexico is a tell-tale sign of clandestine activity gone horribly awry. The bust was a mistake.

Once again, low-level personnel just hadn't been "clued-in" to the protected nature of the trade. Because of the sensitivity, everything is on a need to know basis. This creates a continuing problem.

You can't tell just anyone.

Cheney seems to be investing in securities that favor a weak dollar: That's pretty fucked up, observed at Attu Sees All and dissected on Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.

Are they going to gut the Freedom of Information Act under the mask of 'counter-terrorism'? (via The Agonist)

The Mexican election is starting to look pretty ugly. How could there possibly be voting fraud south of the US?? More here.

UK Times: Leftist calls supporters onto streets in Mexican crisis

Mexico's electoral crisis deepened today after a recount separated the two leading candidates by less than 0.5 per cent of the vote and the leftist, Andres Manuel López Obrador, called his supporters onto the streets to protest against the result.

With 99.48 per cent of the vote reviewed by election officials, Felipe Calderon, a pro-business former energy secretary, led Señor López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, by 0.41 per cent, or just 170,000 of the 41 million votes cast on Sunday.

Señor Calderon appeared relaxed at a party in the headquarters of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), saying: "Now is the hour for unity and agreements between Mexicans."

But Señor López Obrador said he would challenge the result in Mexico's highest electoral court, the Federal Electoral Tribunal. He asked his supporters to rally in Mexico City's huge Zócalo square on Saturday afternoon.

"We have taken the decision to challenge the electoral process," he told a press conference. "We cannot recognize or accept these results. There are lots of irregularities."
......
Señor López Obrador, whose Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was founded by a populist famously cheated of the presidency in a rigged election in 1988, has alleged throughout the week that PAN activists had counted votes twice in some districts and ignored votes in others.

Today he said that a case before the Federal Electoral Tribunal would expose the "lack of transparency, the lack of independence of the electoral body".

"We have triumphed and this is what we will demonstrate to the tribunal," he said.

Aryan Nations & other hate groups infiltrating the US Army: An army desperate for recruits might be handing guns to unsavory criminal lunatics: NY Times:

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
.......
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."

Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."

The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
.......
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units. The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator." "Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "

He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."

Holy shit. And let's not forget about Gulf War vet Timothy McVeigh.

The twisted Internal Disinformation of the Bush Regime:

I thought this was pretty nuts. Ron Suskind's new "One Percent Doctrine" is selling pretty well, and the

review in the NY Times was disturbing, for it paints a portrait of a president protectively misinformed in order to defend the illogical madness of the war. This is madness:

During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.

Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush ''plausible deniability'' from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: ''Keeping certain knowledge from Bush -- much of it shrouded, as well, by classification -- meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements.''

''Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial,'' Mr. Suskind continues. ''It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much.''

Plainly nuts.

The situation in Gaza is pretty ugly right now. On the one hand, the Israeli strategy is brutal, but even worse, it's pointless. HAMAS has offered a prisoner swap, like the old days with Hezbollah. Check out "The Ideology of Occupation, Revisited" from Israeli peacenik Ran HaCohen. James Zogby observes the Deadly Silence over the matter. I haven't said much about it, but this piece pretty much sums up the problem.

Captive in Gaza: Israel has several objectives in Gaza -- all mutually exclusive, writes Graham Usher

There are four aims behind operation "Summer Rain", the Israeli army's latest invasion of Gaza, according to ministers, officers and analysts. The first is to free "unconditionally" Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian guerrillas just outside the Strip on 25 June. The second is to end Palestinian "rocket fire" that, in the last month, has peppered Sederot and other Israeli areas on the Gaza border, so far without serious injury.

The third aim -- undeclared but acknowledged -- is to force the Palestinian government from office via a rising curve of pre-emptive strikes. So far this has included tightened economic and political blockades, destruction of civilian power plants and bridges, military re-occupation, rocket attacks on the prime and interior ministers' offices and the wholesale arrest of Hamas ministers, members of parliament and local authority officers.

The ouster has little to do with the government's refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Jewish state -- a rejection that suits Israel since it frees it from having to deal with an elected Palestinian Authority. It has more to do with Hamas's success not only in surviving the siege but in enshrining resistance as a central policy in its and any future National Unity Palestinian government, courtesy of the recently agreed Prisoners' Document.

The fourth aim is to repair the battered status of Israel's "deterrence". It is now clear to most Israelis that the relative quiet they enjoyed for the last year or so was not due to their army's military prowess. It was due to the Palestinian ceasefire, observed above all by Hamas's military arm, Izzeddin El-Qassam (IQ). Since it was renounced, 200 mortars have been fired into Israel, four soldier abductions have been attempted or carried out and two soldiers and one settler have been killed.

Threats Hamas may now take the fight "deep into Israel" reminds most Israelis of the bloodiest days of the Intifada. It destroys the illusion that the Gaza disengagement was somehow a military success. And it casts Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's project to determine unilaterally Israel's eastern border as absolute folly.

Vanity Fair had a lengthy feature on the Duke Cunningham/hookergate scandal and here's a summary.

Italian intrigues: In a small tidbit perhaps related to the Valerie Plame scandal, some of the top-ranking guys in Italy's SISMI intelligence service were arrested, as noted in the Italian media and the AP. This probably has more to do with furious Italian judges going after SISMI and CIA agents who helped get some terror suspect abducted.

.....the Italian military intelligence organization's deputy director and director of the first "foreign" or counterintelligence division Marco Mancini has been arrested in Italy, allegedly for his role in the CIA extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar from Milan in 2003. When I was in Rome on a few recent reporting trips, Mancini was the guy who everybody was literally frightened of even saying his name. I mean literally, people just referred to him as Marco. He was highly involved in Sismi's Middle East affairs, as well, apparently, I am hearing from Rome, in several recent cases of illegal wiretapping and illegal domestic spying in Italy. Arrest warrants have apparently been issued in the same Abu Omar case for four more CIA officials as well, including for the former CIA station chief in Rome.

In fact, on Sismi's behalf, Farina and Libero led the bogus charge that France was responsible for the Niger forgeries. Farina was also the beneficiary of illegal wiretaps seemingly conducted by friends of Sismi. Interesting times indeed.

From my brief exposure to politics there, I would say Mancini is far more comparable to a Lewis Libby figure than to his ex-CIA deputy director counterpart John McLaughlin, far more wired into the Byzantine politics of the Berlusconi project than a straight intel professional. Although this arrest would seem to be lapping pretty high on the ankles of the ex-Berlusconi administration itself, a friend in Rome writes that it may not go any further, and Prodi is giving indications he may not wish it to, especially as far as Sismi is concerned.
.......
Update: A reader in Rome writes that Libero's Farina is "under investigation not for his articles but because he has allegedly been identified as a Sismi source code-named 'Betulla.' ... [Sismi's] Mancini and Pignero are suspected of having studied Abu Omar’s habits and having prepared an initial plan for his abduction which would have the airport of Ghedi as the first destination of Abu Omar after his kidnapping. The plan went otherwise, as Aviano was opted for. They are also accused of spying on Repubblica's Giuseppe D’Avanzo as of May 12th..."

If I understand this and other recent Italian news reports correctly, Mancini was allegedly a liaison to several private Italian dirty tricks intelligence operations.

More on this here.

Ann Coulter's plagarism situation seems not that serious, but here's the comprehensive index. Xenu, the Scientology warlord, is involved.

The LA Times tries to claim that anti-Lieberman-ism is a "purge" of the Democratic Party by antiwar fanatics, while in fact it's more of a reaction to the fact that Lieberman is a crappy senator all around.

Around the paranoid side: I was advised to check out "The Resistance" on MySpace. As always PrisonPlanet will fill your daily conspiratoria quotient. Some Montana guy that sold (legal) gun kits was raided by the FBI, ATF and Canadian law enforcement for handing out 'subversive' Alex Jones material, according to... Alex Jones. In a crossposted story from the Sacramento Bee, Homeland Security denies tracking political activity after the state office got word of a peace rally on April 18. There was a new al-Qaeda video released to mark the 7/7 London bombings, and PrisonPlanet asks a bunch of questions about 7/7 anomalies, suggesting as they have from the beginning it was staged by the UK government.

The guy who invented Ren & Stimpy (a particularly raunchy but funny one that never went on TV is here) is in a battle with Warner Bros. because he's been posting their really good but forgotten cartoons on YouTube as Examples of the Art.

Worse than a Star Trek 'red shirt': 10 worst jobs to have in the action film universe.

Well that should tide folks over for a bit of the weekend here...

Al Gore says perhaps he'll speak on FL vote fraud someday; Sibel Edmonds tidbits; new 9/11 conspiracy video; the Teflon pharaoh

I am going up to Hibbing to see my aunt's Dylan documentary until Saturday afternoon and probably won't have time to post until Sunday.

A tantalizing nugget: my friend's dad stumbled across a massive embezzlement scheme in the Chicago branch of the Head Start education program. This is only now coming into public view and I will try to get something real on it later.

So the Administration wants to eat reporters who spill classified information. This lends itself to a new strategy: classify everything embarrassing and evil. Now that's your tax dollars at work!

Wednesday night I was hanging out with some folks soon parting ways with Minnesota, and it was a good time. In exchange for a nice old hat, various objects were offered for barter, including a Krazy Kat book. Krazy Kat was a weird old comic from the 1920s that has reached a kind of Major Art status, while really it's just pretty weird. I noticed that Itchy & Scratchy seems to be kind of based on it, including the cat's androgynous quality. Anyway.

Finally a Democrat in the House is getting busted for a scandal. Poor Jefferson was caught taking major cash in a pretty blunt kind of way and they're saying indictments next month, yet there is a big ruckus from Republicans after the FBI searched his Congressional office and took boxes of documents. Due to the bipartisan uproar, Bush has sealed the docs from the FBI, at least temporarily.

It's an interesting case. I feel that Republicans are a bit terrified that a potential future Democratic president could find evidence of all kinds of illegal stuff in their offices. For the whole history of this country, the executive hasn't been able to storm these places (or had the guts to). I tend to think that this is appropriate, that there ought to be a sphere of immunity of some sort to protect Congress from the executive. On the other hand, I would like to see Hastert, DeLay and all the other homies get nailed for all their Abramoff corruption. Just because you're in Congress doesn't mean you're above the law. Laura Rozen asks, is it panic?

But, what if (and certainly this has happened), member X has lots of evidence proving that Gonzales is a lawbreaker himself, that Rummy is a psychopath who permits war crimes, that Cheney helped channel Halliburton contracts and Porter Goss partied with hookers at the Watergate for a decade? In other words, what if I had Sen. Carl Levin's file cabinet? Well, that file cabinet would serve as a crucial check in the pretty corrupt system we've got now, and it seems clear that the founders intended to privilege stuff like that file cabinet. I also think that it should be impossible to charge Rep. Cynthia McKinney for slapping that Capitol police officer (in particular since it's been said that the Capitol police corps have been taken over by southern GOP good-ol-boy sheriff types).

We should note that the great Joseph McCarthy could not be sued for all the crazy slanderous and libelous garbage he puked onto the floor of the Senate during the 1950s, because, well, it was his constitutional right as a Senator to say plainly false and libelous things there. If the legislative branch gets under that kind of pressure, well, they will be 'chilled' in the legal speech sense, and it's curtains for that supposedly equal branch of the government. Never forget that people with their hands on executive power don't necessarily care about the truth, but they'll try to silence those who get in their way. McKinney has been a pretty vocal anti-imperialist (not to mention 9/11 skeptic), despite her silly style, and that whole thing reeks of an effort to kill the messenger. Movin' on.

Al Gore stares into the distance: From New York magazine, via the Brad Blog:

Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen?

Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. "There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, "but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. "In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution."

Later, I put the question of Gore’s views on the matter to David Boies, his lawyer in the Florida-recount battle. "He thought the court’s ruling was wrong and obviously political," Boies says. So he considers the election stolen? "I think he does—and he’s right."

Brad Blog was a leading place for tracking the election fraud in Ohio, and while I don't read regularly, it's well done.

Check out Wot is it Good 4 by Lukery, which has especially followed the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds - with its bizarre stories of drug money laundering, 9/11 links, FBI corruption, the whole bit. Sibel herself (official site), under many federal gag orders, has said that Lukery has been able to digest the known facts of the case better than anyone else. There's fresh stuff on a daily basis. For example, if you want to get waist-deep in some weird defense contractor shit, connected laterally with Manucher Ghorbanifar, Rep. Curt Weldon (of Able Danger fame), plus Edmonds' belief that Weldon has been kind of duped about some of the fake Iraq intelligence, well this story is what you need, and this one about some kind of corrupt link between neoconservatives, Turkey and military-industrial defense contractors, which Edmonds is also tied up in, another good one. Read this and trip out: Bing Bang Boom Shazam. The Edmonds case is way under the radar, extremely weird, but it seems to connect to the AIPAC scandal, Chalabi and the fake Iraq intelligence, some kind of secret 9/11 financing arrangements, drug money laundering, Turkish spies, and perhaps illegal money in the campaign coffers of people like Rep. Dennis Hastert. Or maybe not (Hastert is getting sucked into the Abramoff scandal, either way). I think at some point, Sibel Edmonds will finally break out into a major scandal and I'd like to say that we got a bit of the early word out here. SourceWatch on Sibel Edmonds too. (tiny side note: Lukery suggests this woman's skillful negotiation sites)

But who are Sibel Edmonds, Curt Weldon, Able Danger and what do these have to do with 9/11?? Fortunately in the expanding field of 9/11 conspiracy videos, a new one introduces these issues in an accessible way. Check out Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime. I thought it was better than Loose Change, in terms of consisting of actual information and loose ends. However it doesn't have as many fun video clips. It has a pretty good introduction to the Able Danger, the pre-9/11 military intelligence project that apparently pinpointed some of the hijackers, and then was abruptly shut down with its terabytes of records vaporized. But ironically the problem perhaps might have been that it was based on illegal data mining?

Chinese spy update: Pretty cool stuff on the next hurrah about Katrina Leung, a pro-Republican Chinese spy who is basically getting let off by the Justice Department. She admitted tipping off the Chinese to the identities of FBI agents investigating nuclear sales to China (which mighta been tied to Iran-contra - whew). Evidently, she fed disinformation to the FBI to go after the unfortunate scientist Wen Ho Lee.

OS X operating system design: Check out this Flash animation if you want to know how OS X is structured internally. This guy's book will kick ass if you are into kernel hacking.

Israel claims Iran gets nukes in "months": My Ass. Antiwar.com's Raimondo, in a column bitching about the Iran badge story, the peripheral Israeli connections to the fake Iraq intelligence, and new and shiny paranoia from Israel about Iran, notes that well, Israel is definitely going to jerk the U.S. down this path.

AIPAC notes: I thought this was a good writeup about the power of the Israel lobby from Stephen Zunes: FPIF Special Report: The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really? He points out an interesting example of a Congressman, who, when challenged about his heavily anti-Palestinian votes, basically says that the Jews made him do it for fear of losing fundraising, but even after he announces he won't run again, he still votes against Palestinians. The Jews are just - wait for it - a scapegoat for his actual anti-Arab bias. And of course there's the basic fact that Bush depends a lot more on the hardcore rightwing (and often apocalyptic) Christian Zionists that Jewish ones.

Misc notes: Watch Lazy Ramadi, a video from some troops with a video camera. You won't regret it.

Sidney Blumenthal notes Iraq is doomed. Of course, it has literally the most corrupt government ever created (although maybe DC actually wins that right now). Duly noted by the brave Patrick Cockburn:
Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold:

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale.
By Patrick Cockburn in Khanaqin, North-East Iraq (20 May)
The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: " They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.

The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.

I liked this list from Juan Cole:

There are now four distinct wars going on in Iraq simultaneously
1) The Sunni Arab guerrilla war to expel US troops from the Sunni heartland
2) The militant Shiite guerrilla war to expel the British from the south
3) The Sunni-Shiite civil war
4) The Kurdish war against Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk province, and the Arab and Turkmen guerrilla struggle against the encroaching Peshmerga (the Kurdish militia).

The struggle of the Turkmen is starting to branch out into Turkey. Note how Turkey is now red on the lovely Reuters map, seems ominous:

Kurds say Turkish shells land in Iraq, Turkey denies: By Sherko Raouf
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, May 17 (Reuters) - The government of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region accused Turkish forces of shelling an area inside northern Iraq on Wednesday.
A Turkish government official dismissed the accusation as "total fabrication."
Ankara traditionally launches a spring offensive against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in southeastern Turkey, an area which borders Iraq.
Earlier this month, villagers in Iraq's Kurdistan accused neighbouring Iran of hitting targets inside Iraq, a charge Tehran denied.
Khaled Salih, a senior official of the Kurdish regional government in Arbil, said by telephone that no one was hurt when three shells slammed into a mountainous area close to the town of Kani Masi a few km (miles) inside Iraq.
"A village ... has been bombarded from the Turkish side. There were no casualties, but there was material damage," Salih told Reuters. "This is the second time in a week villages have been bombarded in the north."
"We will report this to the government in Baghdad so that they can contact the Turkish government and ask for an explanation," he said.
Salih said there were no PKK fighters in the area where the shells landed. NATO member Turkey has stationed some 1,500 troops stationed inside northern Iraq since the late 1990s when it launched regular raids into the region to hunt PKK fighters.
In Turkey, a government official told Reuters: "This is not true ... All the measures are on our side of the border." Turkey has sent 40,000 troops to its own Kurdish areas to reinforce the 220,000 already there, the biggest build-up in years after an increase in PKK attacks.
The PKK, seeking a Kurdish homeland including southeastern Turkey, accuses Ankara and Tehran of mounting coordinated operations against the group and its Iranian wing, PJAK.

NSA Total My Phone Bill Awareness: Crusty CIA veteran Ray McGovern rails against NSA monitoring of Americans. Sy Hersh with a few bits and pieces on the NSA situation. Congressional Quarterly reports on mysterious data links between Homeland Security and the NSA. TPMM observes how DOJ sends out TONS of subpoenas for data daily, apparently outside of judicial oversight. National Security Letters. Someday, the Letter will come for you (or more likely, me). TPMM also looks at how there is a cottage industry of companies that handle all our phone records, passing them from the telcos to the government, allowing AT&T to claim that they aren't giving Big Brother the records directly. Check this: Fuck NeuStar, the "scapegoat" for hire.

Billmon hung out in Egypt for some conference. Egypt is autocratic, the Teflon pharaoh. I like that phrase.

As always, Prof. Cole is the go-to man for direct analysis of the situation and Arab media. He also follows up further on the fake Iran Jew Badge story. Firedoglake traces back the root of the fake Badge story. The National Post had to retract the story:

Last Friday, the National Post ran a story prominently on the front page alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law that, if enacted, would require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges that would identify them as such in public. It is now clear the story is not true. Given the seriousness of the error, I felt it necessary to explain to our readers how this happened.

Then, of course, the bastards require you to register to read the rest. Fuck! (this early, erroneous bit on the badge story struck me for its interesting historical content, but also classic pompous ignorati*-style writing)[ * "Ignorati" has been trademarked by Mordred]

We noted earlier a report about 200,000 AK-47s from Bosnia, that were purchased by the US for the Iraqi security forces, but now there are more reports that the AKs basically vanished and are now in the hands of insurgents because of - you guessed it - private defense contractors!! BBC reports on how the guns that ruined Yugoslavia are getting dumped straight into the Iraqi civil war.

Ah, the irony of how shitty neoconservatism worked out to be.

Murray Waas reports that Rove and Novak may have hatched a conspiracy to cover up the Valerie Plame leak (via TPMM):

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men. . . .
Rove and Novak, investigators suspect, might have devised a cover story to protect Rove because the grand jury testimony of both men appears to support Rove's contentions about how he learned about Plame.

Chinese PCs feared to be bugged: There's always time for Sinophobia.

Blockquotes are plagarism?! Plagarism Today (what a name for a site) talks about how the practice of blockquoting from other sources is really the new plagarism. I think that's a bit retarded since if you're naming your source, it's not plagarism at all. However, there are sites that exclusively skim off content and pass it as their own for spamming purposes. There are actually Hongpong.com fragments on spam sites out there. We blockquote a lot here, but damn, no one can read the whole damn Internet themselves! It seems like a silly argument, but on the other hand, the game ought to be about original content. However, I like to put lots of sources in here, since, well, you gotta at least weigh their credibility apart from mine in order for my arguments to sink in. Anyway, slashdot reacts.

Long ass random post. However more than enough stuff to keep anyone busy for a while. True?

The Equation of Life; the Olive Branch is Quaint; 5% vote fraud rate in Iraq asserted as blogs propagandize?

Some scientists determined that apparently, across the scale from bacteria to whale, the basic unit of life is energy and metabolism -- not time. A Master Equation for All Life Processes? Check out the 10 little-known sweet science stories. A Swedish bio-gas (cow poo) train, pillows are laden with fungi, French scientists figured out how to slow down & speed up light, (!!!) leading the way to future all-optical data routers (!!!!!), a robot with square wheels, and of course they are training honey bees to find land mines! (also 50 greatest robots ever - via GM)

The Eagle faces the olive branch: Dear Leader recently addressed the nation about that war thing, and someone told me that it was interesting how the olive branch on the Great Seal of the United States is hidden.

(Bush has also been pressuring newspaper editors a lot lately, including trying to prevent the CIA European prison stories in the WaPo, and the Times NSA story, by summoning the editors to the Oval Office in a vain effort to intoxicate with the fearful trappings of power)

I found out that on the Presidential Seal, the eagle used to face the arrows until 1945:

This one-time change has given rise to the myth that the eagle's head changes position to indicate wartime or peacetime, but that is obviously not true. The eagle faced right from 1880 to 1945, and has faced left ever since. It is nevertheless true that, when the change was made in 1945, the announcement referred to the symbolism of the eagle facing peace instead of war, and this symbolism has been alluded to many times since, although it was not the motivation for the change.

Make no mistake; when the Duke makes a televised address, every visual detail is carefully managed. The fascinating Brian Springer film "Spin", which was made primarily with intercepted satellite signals — open video feeds from the White House and other political and media operations. There's one funny part when they remove a photo from behind Poppa Bush's seat, because it is thought to resemble a recent photo of when he passed out in Japan.

So make no mistake, the selection of the arrows was 100% intentional, in a White House as image-conscious as this one.

(evil witch Peggy Noonan observed Bush talking about the way the eagle faces pre-9/11)

Windy: Energy issues in MN. Apparently the vast majority of windmills around Buffalo Ridge are not owned locally according to an interesting Strib article. Let's think about the means of production here people!

They don't like the vote: Guardian: Religious parties deal blow to US hopes for Iraq. Apparently an official level of 5% vote fraud in Iraq has been accepted, Juan Cole says:

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq admitted on Sunday that voting fraud occurred in approximately 5 percent of the ballots cast, but said that this level of fraud would not affect the over-all outcome. Still, the IECI announcement will certainly fuel Sunni Arab anger and conviction that the election was stolen.

Bizarre. The Sunnis think that Shiites ganked their votes, and there have been mass protests in Fallujah. KR: "Iran now enemy No. 1, Sunnis say". Violence resumes apace as Sunni Arab student leader killed in Mosul after protesting vote -- Shiite militias and Kurds accused of killing him.

AP reports that US airstrikes are escalating, although of course it is hard to tell how many civilian casualties this generates, or whether they are the 'right targets,' or whether it is strategically useful at all. Such urban bombardments have not been seen in years, but due to 'perception management' techniques, the US public is blissfully unaware. A Steel Curtain for their bodies and our eyes, indeed.

RJ Eskow: Voting Confirms: Iraq Is a Red state. We have generated a fundamentalist theocracy, aligned against Israel, towards Iran, while 45% of the country supports attacking US troops. Why was this such a brilliant fucking idea again? Robert Scheer cackles: Iran's victory revealed in Iraq election.

Ethnic/sect structure of iraqi forces is doomed, man: One of the measuring sticks of how propagandizing a perspective on the Iraq war is how the difference between Sunni & Shiite groups is framed. When Sunnis are "rat's nest terrorists" while the Shiites are "Free Iraqis come to Battle for Freedom" in the northwest of the country, you are looking at some obfuscation.

Consider this first: SF Chronicle: Various private armies still exist, threatening Iraq's national security:

Residents of Samarra, the scene of bloody clashes between U.S. soldiers and insurgents, said they feared a Shiite militia being unleashed on the city. Interviewed in their homes this week, they said they were unaware of a Mahdi Army presence, but claimed they had already suffered when commandos affiliated with al-Sadr's militia were dispatched to the city earlier this year.

Ibrahim Farraj, who lives in the Sikek district, said, "The Interior Ministry forces are very strong. The insurgents are afraid of them, but they are corrupt and we cannot trust them. The last time the Interior Ministry was here, they were al-Sadr -- people are scared of them and the Mahdi Army."

U.S. Army Capt. Ryan Wylie, of the 3rd Infantry Division serving in Samarra, said he had heard rumors that the Interior Ministry was conducting a private war, but had seen no evidence.

These bloggers that have been embedded with US troops in the northwest Euphrates river valley are all about exaggerating this difference. In particular, Bill Roggio at Threatswatch (where the map above came from) explains how Rats Nests are obliterated in Steel Curtain Unmasked, and other interesting dehumanizing euphemisms. See if you can find the subtle twist of meaning here:

Throughout the operation, the 1/1/1 of the Iraqi Army and the Desert Protection Force worked in conjunction with the U.S. Forces, and proved to be an instrumental part of the operation. The Iraqi Army battalion participated in combat operations, and they and Desert Protectors were able to identify foreign fighters and local insurgents.

I wonder if Roggio can wrap his head around the concept that 'identifying' is not a neutral act of observation, but a conscious change of political identity (by Shiite militia, no less) leading straight to violence.

Roggio is not happy about a Washington Post article that characterized his role in Iraq as a military-supported Information Operation. He says that all the cash to get him there was raised independently, and that the military has not 'influenced' his writing. But his main sources are military personnel, and his perspective is deeply enmeshed with the same terminology and concepts that Pentagon spokespeople attempt to beat into our heads. Here's his core point:

Equating military information operations with al-Qaeda propaganda efforts is a form of moral equivalence of the worst sort. The U.S. military is conducting an influence campaign to draw attention to the news which is missed by the media on a daily basis. Their belief (and one that I share) is the portrayal of events in Iraq do not reflect the actual situation on the ground. While the articles may be viewed as “favorable” to the Coalition, the question is, are they accurate and factual? The Washington Post does not address this issue, nor does it provide evidence that the military is running a disinformation campaign.

Misrepresenting the source (such as the placed Iraqi newspaper stories) is a form of disinformation because it manipulates the perception of where it's coming from. The military's justification is that there is a metaphysical or ontological gap between (all?) portrayals and reality, according to him. Well isn't there always? How far can this go? Also consider this ironic statement:

al-Qaeda is running a sheer disinformation campaign which uses human beings as props in events such as beheadings and execution styled killings. It manufactures events, such as the faux uprising in Ramadi in the beginning of December. The truth is not relevant to al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations, only results matter.

The administration has 'manufactured' all sorts of symbolic events and concepts, such as the Statue Toppling, the mysteriously Satanic Terrorist Singularity in Fallujah that needed to be nuked after the 2004 Presidential election, etc. There have been plenty of symbolic constructions. Look at how Pat Tillman died -- that event was manufactured beyond the truth (it was a friendly fire fatality) to burnish the war narrative. Oh by the way, here's what Tillman's dad said:

"They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up," Patrick Tillman said. "I think they thought they could control it and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out."

Al Qaeda is not the only force at hand here seeking to 'sharpen the contradictions' through symbolic action. What is Shock and Awe, if not a symbolic gesture? (Roggio also said that lots of Sunnis voted for Allawi in Anbar. That's fucking ridiculous!)

But what can I say about a worldview with ideas like "Samarra, a city once ripe for a Tal Afar styled assault."

By the way, here's a by-the-numbers orthodox propaganda tale about the Terrorists in Mosul. Of course it comes from the American Forces Press Service, part of the 'American Forces Information Service.' Use this to set your propaganda index, I guess.

Sadr City has a good deal of reconstruction, after decades of neglect. A story in the rightwing UK Telegraph claims that Tal Afar is totally ballin' these days:

Their commander, Col H R McMaster, is a counter-insurgency specialist who wrote a book about the Vietnam War, in which he criticised the US military's failure to understand the enemy's culture.

Before deployment, his men were given extensive Arabic classes and intensive lessons on Iraqi history, customs and religion. Proper efforts were made to woo local tribal sheiks with banquets in which goats were slaughtered and concerns listened to.

"The enemy is really good at disinformation and propaganda. We have to win the battleground of perception," he said.

Big Brother & Crying Wolf: People are more willing to believe the right yarn at the right time these days. A student at Dartmouth claimed that Homeland Security questioned him after he got Mao's Little Red Book through inter-library loan. But apparently it was a hoax. This story shows that people are expecting to hear these kinds of things... so stay sharp, we can hit spin real fast here.

Scratch the Checks and/or Balances: How sad is it that Sen. Rockefeller gets to jot secret handwritten notes of concern to the White House like a high school sweetheart, and that is supposed to be his total constitutional role? WTF?

AIPAC says Jump! WaPo: "Pro-Israel Group Criticizes White House Policy on Iran:"

AIPAC, which describes itself as nonpartisan, has criticized nearly every administration's Middle East policies, often speaking out when Israeli government officials express private frustration with U.S. policies.

But the news releases mark the first major criticism of the Bush White House and come as the administration is focused on problems in Iraq and has no clear path on Iran.
[.....]
Ross said the criticisms, though serious, are unlikely to lead to an all-out rift between AIPAC and the administration. "At the end of the day, every administration does what it needs to do, but obviously they will have to pay attention to this," he said.

Which again suggests that AIPAC should be registered as an agent of a foreign power. Well, that, and some of their (former) personnel have been indicted on espionage charges (more info here via the New Yorker).

Biochemical roots of the Munchies: Cannabinoid receptors around the hypothalamus.

In their studies, the researchers concentrated on the lateral hypothalamus (LH) of the brain, known to be a center of control of food intake. Their studies involved detailed electrophysiological measurements of the effects of specific neurons that they had identified in previous studies as being important in endocannabinoid signaling.

Their studies revealed that activation of CB1 receptors, as by endocannabinoid molecules, induced these neurons to be rendered more excitable by a mechanism called "depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition" (DSI).

What's more, they found that leptin inhibits DSI. However, they found that leptin did not interfere with the CB1 receptors themselves. Rather, leptin "short-circuits" the endocannabinoid effects by inhibiting pore-like channels in the neurons that regulate the flow of calcium into the neurons. Such calcium is necessary for the synthesis of endocannabinoids.

Iraqi blogstorm; $100 laptop developed for developing world; Iraqi bloggers vs the 'Iranian horde'; Diebold CEO quits under fire; Horatio Alger was a pedophile

The One Laptop Per Child nonprofit organization is supporting the distribution of a Linux-based $100 laptop, which will soon go out to children in Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria. It also has a hand-cranked power generator, which is a brilliant idea.

Forbes: Intel's Barrett Dismisses $100 Laptop As 'Gadget'
LONDON - It's a crank. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett has dismissed a WiFi-enabled, Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop aimed at bringing computers to developing economies as a "$100 gadget". The lime-green devices run on electromotive energy from a wind-up mechanism--thus allowing the machines to be used in areas lacking a regular power supply.

Bit of a jackass, then. See also PCWorld.com - Kids' Laptop Hits World Spotlight. Pic source from the oddly negative article carried in Vermont Guardian.

By 2007, five to ten million of these laptops will have been shipped to developing countries. By the year after that, the number is expected to have grown ten-fold. What is not known is whether this project will mark a new phase in the spread of knowledge, or whether hundreds of millions of children will become slaves to their little green boxes instead of playing in the backyard.

The Man was Here: WaPo: "CIA scours blogs for useful intelligence: Some `secrets' can be found in plain view." Well at least I know the CIA has already been here a couple times. So it's not breaking news.

Ten stoner ideas for peace in Iraq: Brilliant. Air conditioners, kind bud, Xbox 360s with extra controllers, Madden 2006, Marshmallows, kegs of Budweiser, acoustic guitars and whores. Shrewd strategy. "I guarantee this much: Give a 16-year-old Sunni the choice between killing himself and spending his life playing videogame football, and he’ll make the right choice every time." BSnews.org also features the "Bush War Plan Clearly Written In Crayon."

DeLay is hurting Republicans in vulnerable districts. Ouch. Sweet.

The blogosphere may be unreasonably carried away with Paul Hackett's chances in the Ohio senate race, given his low name ID. Rep. Sherrod Brown seems to be leading in polls.

Polls in Iraq seem oddly positive. I doubt their scientific value. "'Failure' Most Popular Term Sending Traffic From Google To US White House Site".

Bite the patting hand: Rightwingers are angry when the NY Times Magazine carried a story titled "Conservative Blogs are more Effective." Weird.

Elections in wars may not work: Haaretz/Reuters: Gaza gunmen fire on PA security compound, storm election HQ. "The Wall of Hate" is a film about the West Bank partition wall that Israel is constructing.

Iraq blogstorm and the 'Iranian occupation': Check out Iraq Blog Count for an index. A friend of mine was saying that all these blogs and Internet things complicate the situation, but I strongly disagree because I think we get a real good sense of the mentality and the situation of Iraqis, just by looking through a few of them. Baghdad Burning by Riverbend is of course well-known now, and excellent. The Iranian Occupation bit is interesting:

The agony of the long war with Iran is what makes the current situation in Iraq so difficult to bear- especially this last year. The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.

It began, of course, with Badir’s Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Of course all this talk about the US dropping chemical weapons makes it more 'complicated.' Would the Baghdad Burning book -- now on its way -- seem more credible somehow? Truth-about-iraqis.blogspot.com has a anguished rant whose tone rings very true. And this one too:

This is not Iraq. The only Iraq I can identify with is the Iraq that rages in the hearts of those who defend its honor, who die defending its honor, those who fight the Iranian horde, the US oppressor.

.....In any case, everything is coming tumbling down. The war lies, the GOP, right wing radio, the illusionists, the nazis and their WASP allies, the zionist war machine, and the racist white-hood wearing commentators.

The Iraq lie is simply too heavy a burden.

Sow it buddy, then drink the rotten milk of human waste.

Nefarious is as nefarious will do.

I think it makes a major, positive, difference -- although the terrible experience of Khaled Jarrar when he was captured by the Interior Ministry, and his additional troubles because they found out about his blog, were an example of how it can hurt the writers. But we wouldn't know about what it's really like inside the New Security Organs of Iraq without people like him.

For more, consider Aunt Najma's A Star from Mosul (with many relatives blogging too), Treasure of Baghdad, Free Iraq ("The US's pre-emptive occupation of Iraq will see to it that the Lion of Babylon rises again" sweet) and Iraqi Rebel.

David Ignatius likes the eschatological-conspiracy angle in "Breaking the Assassins." Thanks for obfuscating reality with a bunch of grand gibberish. Can Rummy defeat the Cult of the Assassins? Sure!

Ethnically pure militias: Bloomberg service: Bush's Strategy, Iraq's New Army Challenged by Ethnic Militias

The Defense Department's intelligence agency says there are dozens of loosely organized Shiite armies in southern Iraq, Kurdish militias in the north that function like a regular army, and as many as 20,000 Sunni fighters who are part of the violent insurgency in Iraq's four central provinces.

..... ``The situation continues to deteriorate,'' said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. ``It's a matter of the militias, new political organizations, Shiite groups'' and Iraqi security forces becoming ``forces for revenge or reprisal.''

....Leslie Gelb, former assistant secretary of state and former president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said most of the militias pay first allegiance to their ethnic or tribal group. ``It's not an Iraqi army,'' said Gelb, who visited Iraq for 10 days earlier this year. Kurds are loyal to Kurds, Shiite militias resembling ``mafia operations'' run the south, ``the central region has the insurgency, and Baghdad is all mixed up,'' he said.

Patrick Lang, former chief analyst for the Middle East at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Iraq's different ethnic groups ``will not serve together'' in national army units. ``They tried it and it didn't work, and now they're going back to ethnically pure units,'' he said, citing Defense Department officials he declined to identify. Lang, a retired colonel in the Army's Green Berets, is now president of Global Resources Group, a Washington-based consulting firm.

"Islamic leaders unveil action plan to rescue a 'nation in crisis'." Baghdad Press Club investigated as a central node of paid military propaganda.

Cheney visits Auschwitz and secret CIA Poland camp on same trip? Oy vey. FT: Allegations of secret US jails in Europe are 'credible'. Guardian: Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights. Ireland On-Line 'Signs suggest US illegally held detainees in Europe' especially Poland and Romania. Take it with a grain of salt, but Wayne Madsen's report on Cheney visiting secret camps in Poland (Dec. 13) around his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp last January. Not sure if it's a true report, but if it is true, a very dark irony.

Iran talks a big game: But this Haaretz article makes it all too clear that their economic situation is excellent, and they can count on Russia and China to help them in the UN if things get hairy. Ahmadinejad can continue to smile while the world argues. True.

The Horatio Alger NAMBLA chapter: Larry Beinhart's "Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin" looks interesting. In particular, for example, he establishes that Horatio Alger was a pedophile, and was a pedophilic minister before he got chased out of Brewster, Massachusetts, and admitted to it. That's established, then the spin dissection starts. Weird. And maybe that's more widely known, but I never heard of it. Also claims that the NYC chapter of NAMBLA is the Horatio Alger chapter. Creepy.

Vote Spoofing: The War at Home: Diebold chief executive Wally O'Dell resigns, as more questions about company conduct and illegal trading have come up. There are lawsuits happening as people claim that Diebold failed to get its modified voting machine software correctly certified on some occasions. In North Caroline, the EFF has filed a lawsuit. O'Dell was the guy who claimed he would help 'deliver' Ohio's electoral votes to Bush.

DeLay bit for Texas Gerrymandering; CBS producer defends National Guard memo story; no time for Tookie

1UP for Russ: Russ Feingold is chilling around the Internet while fighting the renewed Patriot Act. Now that's class. Also he speaks in favor of withdrawing from Iraq. So Quadruple Infinity Bonus Points -- he's trying to kill Bowser and save the Princess. The Odds are Slim but entirely worth it.

While Iraq prepares for another round of 'something', (and election irregularities around Mosul are apparently expected) a memo (PDF) from the Department of Justice indicated that career Justice lawyers believed that redistricting Texas would illegally marginalize minorities. Meanwhile a Crips co-founder is going to get injected. And who says minorities are oppressed in this free country?

(fortunately the DOJ's new policy has "barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics." - thx Marshall.)

Charting sleaze: This big ass Abramoff chart is almost big enough to encompass the mega-scandal. Marshall on this as well. There are quite a few Democrats on there. Where are the House ethics complaints anyway? Polls show that corruption is a leading concern in America nowadays.

Secret laws? The Bush Administration apparently claims that secret regulations require people to present IDs at the airport. Why secret? Secret courts, secret evidence, secret prisons. Laws too? And they call us on the Internet obsessed with conspiracies! :-D (via Kevin Drum)

It's a really big information war: I don't feel like putting a lot more words in. But this NY Times article, "Military's Information War is Vast and Often Secretive," reaches into great detail about psychological operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although really, I have to think that most of the locals see right through this stuff and scoff at it. Even if it's supposedly hidden through private contractors, I suspect they aren't really taken in that easily.

It also makes me wonder about psy ops dimensions to such things as "Shootout! Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" coming Dec. 14 to the History Channel.

Meanwhile dead US soldiers apparently back come as commercial freight. So much for honoring the heroes. If it were my kin, I would be crushed.

Juan Cole reflects on Iraq in our Strib. Background on activities of the Badr Corps, now the de facto Inner Militia of the Interior Ministry. Tactics seem to escalate in Afghanistan, no matter how many radio stations we control. Damn. Juan Cole's site will be a good spot to follow the election results, and i think this bit pretty much sums up the evolving problem:

Al-Zaman/ AFP: Muntadhar al-Samarra'i, the former commander of the Iraqi special forces, said Sunday that the Minister of Interior, Bayan Jabr Sulagh, appointed 17,000 fighters from the Badr Militia as police officers in his ministry at a time when they still receive their salaries from Iran. Al-Samarra'i accused the Badr Corps [the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] of employing torture on detainees in prison. He showed AFP a film he himself had shot of torture in Iraqi prisons. He said all of the high officials in the Ministry of the Interior are from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa (Shiite parties), whereas the detainees are Sunni Arabs. Al-Samarra'i also said that the special police speak Persian with one another (the Badr Corps fighters had been expatriates in Iran). He spoke of several secret prisons, some with as many as 600 inmates, and said there were also jails for women.

An interview with Sy Hersh, if you want more gory details. He puts in this fun bit about rigging the last Iraqi election:

...the three provinces that – according to the actual rules, the three provinces voted against the constitution – you had to have a two-thirds majority against it – it was defeated, and there is no question that in two of them this happened, and the third, Mosul province, the amount of fraud and jiggering of election ballots and manipulation was just outlandish. I do know, at least I have been told that, before the… if you remember the election day, I think it was initially supposed to be August 15th. The election day…
Horton: October 15th, I think, right?
Hersh: Right, right, October 15th. It was extremely quiet, and it's my understanding that the resistance actually had been talking to the UN – the UN had an advisory role in the election process, which it still has – and they had made it quiet not because intimidation of coalition forces and the American government but because they decided, they said, "The UN will do it straight. Because if it's a straight, honorable election, you won't get your constitution through. We'll defeat you in three provinces." There was a great, a great deal of agitation among the Sunni resistance about the fraud that was involved. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows. I think the Sunnis… I think the election will take place. That won't be spoiled by rioting and distress and disturbances, but I think afterwards – I think the Ba'athists are sort of curious, the Sunnis, to see what happens – but afterwards, I think we could even see a significant escalation, already, of the kind of damage we're having.

So Talabani will probably play the Katherine Harris role in the coming production. All right. Hersh also has lots of info about the insanity of the air war ramping up -- as airstrikes replace American soldiers, and no one's around to film all the civilian casualties.

You are looking, if you break it down, to, oh, roughly 100 bombs being dropped an hour. Twenty four hours a day for the last 15, 16 months. That's a hell of a lot of bombs.

Indeed. And that's only estimated from one section of the airborne military forces. And also this: after the election,

we could end up with Iranian operatives helping to guide and direct American bombs against targets that are against our interests. This is all in the realm of possibility. Yes.

Oh yah, also this:

The Israelis are investing in their good partners the Kurds, they support an independent Kurdistan, or at least a strong Kurdistan. And for sure, there are operations going on, Israeli-led operations are going on inside Kurdistan into Iran, Syria, absolutely. The Israelis have a platform there.

Not terribly shocking. But I'm sure it will work itself out. A final bit, on dear Michael Ledeen and the Niger forgeries:

The one thing that makes me a little skeptical is Michael Ledeen is certainly, really smart, I disagree with everything, you know, he and I are on the other ends of the world, but it is such a bad forgery, I mean, it is such a bad forgery.

Well that's true. We ought to expect more finesse from him. Anyhow, lots of quotes, but Hersh is still the Dude on these matters.

Syria talks tough: I missed this one. About a month ago Assad said that Syrians had to stick together and fight, as the US has a plan to crush the Arab nations. It was basically a pretty hard statement from a country that the US has been openly belligerent towards for years now. But it suggests that Assad is not going to fold... With a little luck the neo-cons will fall in Washington before they can generate a Tonkin Gulf incident in the Syrian desert, as Raimondo put it. Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders.

The National Security Agency reflects on Tonkin Gulf: they put together a nice website with lots of original documents on the incident that got spun up to spark the Vietnam war, in an attempt to provide clarity. Good for them.

Venezuela and USAID operations against Chavez: This bit by Tom Barry from the International Relations Center talks about USAID and its various means of influencing politics in Venezuela. Part of the shadow boxing between Chavez and Washington. Also the ever-altruistic National Endowment for Democracy pops up as supporting 'democratic organizations.' Mysterious.

Former CBS producer stands by Texas National Guard documents: Right wing bloggers rode Dan Rather's battered remains to glory last year, but it might turn out that (surprise!) they're full of it. Mary Mapes, the producer supposedly responsible for acting as a Kerry henchwoman, has returned to tell the tale of the National Guard documents. Lo and behold she found that many Guard docs have the same features that everyone said made Bush's docs forgeries. She wrote a book "Truth and Duty" about it. There was a good interview with her on DailyKos exploring all this stuff. Here's the documents she dug up.

Florida logic: Robert Novak says that Florida Republicans are trying to get Katherine Harris to duck out of the Senate race. Also interesting stuff about how in Florida the Dems are starting over from scratch, all over.

To Live and Die in CA: They say that the man from the Crips, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, is getting executed about now. I oppose the death penalty for anyone (including hapless Iraqi soldiers), and in this particular case, it strikes me as especially harmful to kill a figure who has managed to find a peaceful political strategy to defuse violent gang conflicts. (Possibilities of rioting. Only a massive LA riot could round out this ridiculous year.)

When steroid-sodden leaders, with quite soft support of their own, need to shore up that sense of solidarity among the Base, well why not get rid of a 'lead gangster'? Perhaps that's not fair because clemency ought to rest on the case itself. But I heard the same tone when a radio talk show host on CNN suggested that even if more than a hundred innocent people have been let off death row, it's still better to kill because they are plotting to kill more people in prison. Why not just shoot everyone? Horrible.

Drunk Trashy White Power, Mate: Elsewhere, in Australia there's been riots after some Lebanese immigrants were accused of assaulting a lifeguard. Naturally the Australian far-right has apparently latched onto the situation as an opportunity to demonize immigrants. Mean right wing lady Lucianne Goldberg said "Finally, a WASP riot as beer soaked beefy Aussies bash Muslims at beach" (via nomoremisterniceblog). Something to be proud of when neo-Nazis are circulating videos about 'the Battle for Cronulla'. Even more horrible. 12thharmonic is following this. Radio host Alan Jones is whipping things along:

The riot was still three days away and Sydney’s highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along.
"Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them."

Froomkin's getting Posted: I think everyone knows how lame the Washington Post usually is these days. Somehow they seem to be getting upset about how all over the Internet people spit at them. Now one of their better writers, Dan Froomkin, is getting a bunch of crap from the WaPo editors because his column, the "White House Briefing", is perceived as too liberal, and by too liberal, they mean it is not always buried in the torrent of spin and propaganda masquerading as 'balance'.

Political Editor John Harris is a jackass here. Marshall and Firedoglake with more on it. Since Froomkin might go down over this, lets give him a couple paragraphs to explain himself:

Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.

There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny. I was prepared to take the same approach with John Kerry, had he become president.

This column’s advocacy is in defense of the public’s right to know what its leader is doing and why. To that end, it calls attention to times when reasonable, important questions are ducked; when disingenuous talking points are substituted for honest explanations; and when the president won’t confront his critics -- or their criticisms -- head on.

The journalists who cover Washington and the White House should be holding the president accountable. When they do, I bear witness to their work. And the answer is for more of them to do so -- not for me to be dismissed as highly opinionated and liberal because I do.

Cheers dude, cheers. How the hell did you ever get that column anyway? Perhaps I'm not being totally fair with the Post. They did hook us up with the Abramoff chart and DeLay memo above. But why are they still such punks?

Viveca Novak twist in the Plame scandal: Weird. Digby if you want the ugly details. NextHurrah, E&P, Atrios, needlenose, Talkleft, & the firedoglake again for more. Apparently VandeHei suddenly said that Hadley was Rove's source on Hardball (a slight bombshell) and no one even noticed, probably because they have all gotten aneurisms by now. She tries to explain herself but its shady. Eccch whatever.

Hong Kong activists ask for quiet at WTO: According to the Guardian, the stalwart crew of rebels against the Communist order in those parts distributed notices:

In what passes for Hong Kong's alternative press, a cut-out-and-keep rioters' guide to Hong Kong was hardly a call to arms. Under R for Rioters, it said: "This is a peaceful place and your shenanigans will only make it harder for us once you leave, so leave the rocks at home." G for Globalisation noted: "While we are on the topic, what is your beef anyway?"

Could be some of that neo-Communist Propaganda though.

Wikipedia hoaxer apologises. The guy says it was a workplace prank. Old story about a Mac SE 30 made into a bong. The worst video game art ever. Hilarious.

Clinton messed with Bush at the global warming thing in Montreal. It is actually really good Clinton is wielding his residual 'soft power' to pressure the US on global warming, while saving a tiny bit of dignity for Sane America with the rest of the world.

Wake Up Neo, the screensaver. When you are listening to Massive Attack's Dissolved Girl and your mescaline-toting hipster friends show up for warez, you know you need to follow the white rabbit.

Star and stripe resign: A spoof. Rove's on the case. The little dog is a nice touch.

Al Qaeda Santa Connection - via elf torture: Sam Seder and Bob Knight from Air America's Majority Report point out the value of a war on Christmas (video here):

SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?

SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I'd like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.

PHILLIPS: I don't think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.

SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.

PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?

SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it's actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It's exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.

... Yes, well, Kyra, I mean, listen, I would like Bob to tell me who is the person who has been offended by someone saying Merry Christmas to them? I've never met that person. I don't celebrate Christmas. But if someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, I either think, well, it's a little bit odd, it's like me saying happy birthday to you on my birthday, but no one cares.

But I will tell you this, as we wage the war on the war on the war on the war on Christmas on our radio show. News Corp., Fox News, those people who have started this entire war on Christmas mean, fake war, they're having a holiday party.

President Bush saying "Happy Holidays." Tokyo Rose, Laura Bush, saying "Happy Holidays" to her dogs in the video, I'm sure you've seen it. I mean, these are the things that we should be talking about when we are waging this war in Iraq, we should be equating it to the war on Christmas.

Scandal breakfast: Speeding up the war; Duke scandal reaches into CIA; Diebold revelations; GOP war-dialing in New Hampshire; More mercenaries

I have plenty of scandals for you today. But I'll try to keep it concise.

Texas gerrymandering: Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal.

DIEBOLD insider speaks out on Vote Spoofing: One of my reliable spies sent this in. Diebold insider alleges company plagued by technical woes, Diebold defends 'sterling' record. This talks a lot about how Diebold may have manipulated the Georgia 2002 Senate race, among other things. Basically it indicates that Diebold should not be trusted at all. And they are diabolical.

New probes in the prewar intel, but Those Italians mighta done the forgery! Spicy Meat-aball! So yah, Lewis Libby attacked Wilson because he called out the yellowcake uranium thing, which turned out to be a forgery. The hot rumor -- supported in the Italian media -- is that Michael Ledeen and some other neo-cons channeled the stuff into Washington. And now it seems like they might finally get nailed for it. Congress Opens New Front In Iraq-War Probe. Treasongate: The Niger Forgeries v. the CIA Intel Reports - Preliminary Conclusion: An Italian Job. Consult Raimondo for more. FBI Is Taking Another Look at Forged Prewar Intelligence. Marshall's take on that, check it out.

Marshall adds that Scooter Libby's legal defense fund is being run by Mel Sembler, the US Ambassador to Italy "when all the secret meetings took place and when the forged uranium papers showed up at the US Embassy in October 2002." However he sees no evidence Sembler was involved.

New Hampshire scandal: via Marshall, blogger Betsy Devine is covering the court case of NH Republicans phone hacking -- more like phreaking -- no, wardialing. Yeah, wardialing on election day is illegal.

Bomb Jazeera-Gate: Clemons promises news from London on the Bush Bombing Al Jazeera memo, so check that later.

SAVE XMAS: Oh great, another holiday video from the White House. And holiday cards. Where is our Jesus??! Conservatives are really disappointed that Bush surrendered Christmas -- really!

SAVE BORAT FROM KAZAKHSTAN: Kazakhstan shows the world tyranny is not dead. And not only that, they threatened to sue Sasha Cohen for his fine Borat portrayal on MTV. Borat, for his part, "fully support my government's decision to sue this Jew" immediately, in a response video on his site.

SAVE NIXON: 'I Didn't Like Nixon Until Watergate': The Conservative Movement Now. Interesting reflections on a weird philosophy.

Meth for Iraqi insurgents: When you need to conduct a war, it is a good idea to get your forces sped up with pharmaceuticals, as we learned from the Stim Packs in Starcraft. The UK Mirror reports that methamphetamine has been found in pills around Basra -- and claims that Mahdi Army irregulars have used it fearlessly. However, it is also official US government policy to give speed to pilots sometimes -- which was blamed as a cause for the deaths of several Canadians in Afghanistan. Meth or dextro -- which is the ethical War Stimulant??

IRAQ: Why no army & how to get out: What? Dems dont know a strategy? James Fallows' recent bit on Why Iraq Has No Army from the Atlantic. Interesting column from E&P about White Phosphorus and the media spin that followed. Armando on the Kos suggests that we need to stick with criticizing Bush, since theoretical Democratic plans (a fuzzy mess nowadays) don't really do as much as discrediting Dear Leader (which is something that Lieberman attempted to attack this week. Fuck you, Lieberman!! Why articulate when obscenities express it better?)

"Donald Rumsfeld Is Mad As a Hatter" Funny how that victory strategy was written by some shady professor. US Rep. Adam Smith (D) on the ground in Iraq.

Shrewd people are thinking about getting out. Via the solid Steve Clemons, some good strategies. Politicians square off against each other. Republicans try a bizarre two-handed trick, claiming that the Dems are treasonous for demanding it more quickly, while still claiming that withdrawal is going to happen, sooner rather than later.

The Hard Nosed Realists are worth consulting. Lt. Gen. William Odom is one of these. He was merely director of the National Security Agency and was the Army's senior intelligence officer for a time. I am hardly such a damn fool as to not appreciate the kind of wisdom that only one of these old, battle-tested characters could give you. Odom: Want stability in the Middle East? Get out of Iraq!

On the flip side, journalist Nir Rosen has kicked around Iraq a lot, so he's got a pretty solid view of why the hell we need to get out.

The Insurgencies Are Winning by Dreyfuss, always good. Ten ways to argue about the war. Well at least Sunnis and Shiites are praying together a bit. "Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive in Iraq".

Wes Clark, still Big Pimpin with war plans here. Clark-Mentum. Drum is confused. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Clark in the Democratic netroots, but I feel ambivalent.

Death squads instead! Billmon sighs about the execution squads now deemed to be Iraq's Last, Best Hope, characterized as Salvadoran Option, Pt. II. And his bit about the Lincoln Group and its organized efforts to propagandize for the military in Iraq was interesting. More below...

Marketing the Dogs of War: Mercenaries are always interesting. So here is a pile o links. Private Security Guards in Iraq Operate With Little Supervision. American Security Firm Implicated in Iraq Killings. Triple Canopy investigation. This PDF is interesting because it indicates that they kill Iraqis and lie about it. Booman Tribune on the Aegis Security Corporation and Tim Spicer. Also more about Triple Canopy.

A NY Times story about these forces, with some random Nazi thing attached to it.

PERU: Veteran Soldiers, Police Recruited for Iraq by U.S. Contractors.
Mercenaries Guard Baghdad Green Zone. Green zone security switch increases risk.
Sandline mercenaries: from Sierra Leone to Iraq.
CPI: Marketing the Dogs of War: Making a Killing.

As earlier reported, "Trophy Video" of Civilian Shootings By Contractors Emerges and guess what folks, here is the actual video. Creepy. Crooks and Liars has more on Spicer.

I wrote a big paper for Wendy Weber about these private military firms and their role in geopolitical developments. Actually my view is not 100% negative, but I mostly worry that they are used to A) cover up covert foreign policy, like DynCorp spraying herbicide in Colombia, and B) destroy the chain of command -- and in turn our adherence to international treaties, etc. More later.

Pentagon Propaganda Matrix. For some conspiracy stuff, see the PropagandaMatrix. For a real Matrix of Propaganda, look at Iraq these days. In the so-called Serious Media:

Williams: Bush administration has "right" to buy media coverage
Appearing on the December 4 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams told host Howard Kurtz that the Bush administration has "the right" to pay a columnist to tout its views in his column. Williams also condoned the "politiciz[ation]" of programming on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).

Bastard. Let me just put in these DAMN links.
WaPo: Pentagon Funds Diplomacy Efforts / Military Says It Paid Iraq Papers for News
NYT: U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
SourceWatch: Burson-Marseller's BKSH Gets Piece of Pentagon Psy-ops Pie
Forbes.com: Military Explains News Propaganda in Iraq
Freepaz: U.S. propaganda effort described
KR Washington Bureau: U.S. military pays Iraqis for positive news stories on war
LA Times: Secret Program May Have Erred, Pentagon Says
GovExec.com: What's Lincoln Group?
LA Times: U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
Military Says It Paid Iraq Papers for News
DO YOU FEEL SAFER FROM TERROR YET? MUST BE THAT WARM AND FUZZY 'PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION' FEELING!! (sorry that was tacky. This pisses me off)

Bribery scandal has many tentacles! Rep. Harris to donate contributions linked to Cunningham. Florida schemes? Of course! The Cunningham bribery scandal extends into the area of Pentagon defense spending -- and shadowy contributions leading to classified spending contracts (MZM gives cash to Duke, Duke hooks up open-ended contracts). Josh Marshall recently insinuated that people 'looked the other way' at what Cunningham was doing, while their own machinations around Defense sailed forth. Money quote:

The Pentagon's classified budget for buying goods and services has increased by nearly 48% since 9/11 — from $18.2 billion in fiscal 2002 to $26.9 billion this year — according to figures compiled by the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

......Harold Relyea, who studies government secrecy at the Congressional Research Service, says even if lawmakers had the time to study classified programs, most are not inclined to question the pet projects of their colleagues. And within the defense industry, "there is a coziness that sometimes builds up. You are familiar with the company and their people, it's easy to go back to them" for more work. "It's a new phase of what we used to call the military-industrial complex."

Neither Congress nor the executive branch regularly produces reports on oversight of classified spending. ... "We don't have the manpower or time to look into this, so we take it on faith that all of the companies working the black world are basically honest."

One of Porter Goss' boys at the CIA is apparently implicated in the Cunningham scandal, and other guys at the CIA are talking to the media about it. (Goss brought in a bunch of nasty national security punks to push people around at the Agency, and perhaps it will backfire since they were somewhat corrupt. Office politics from hell!) Jason Vest reports on this for GovExec.com about the details, including CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who ought to go down on this.

Josh Marshall's on it too, as well as Laura Rozen. Marshall adds that legislative spending 'earmarks' have been used to provide patronage / funding for favored companies, maintaining the Power Structure.

BIG RED: China: Boom or Boomerang?

CFR: Council of Frickin' IDIOTS: Bush speaks at the CFR yesterday, and they were weak about it. Atrios mocks.

Psychological & economic damage of war: Coping with Combat. "Has 'War' become a leading brand for United States? How Bush's imperial policies are being linked to economic woes and CEO angst in America".

Wiki bad! To spoof Wikipedia's latest problems, consider Uncyclopedia and its fine CNN, Nostradamus and German grammar entries.

Misc file: Dems still polling damn well. Haaretz says, OK Sharon, what about the damn West Bank outposts!? Guess I finally found the vast right wing conspiracy. Pointers from Hunter on how to write massively for the DailyKos. Ah, good stuff. Hunter is always pretty cool.

Spin Charting for Fun! Part of the new liberal institutions' priorities are to track the subtle points of spin. For example, ThinkProgress got Bush Knew 10 Marines Had Died Prior To Rose Garden Remarks, Didn’t Mention It because he wanted to keep the happy spin going.

Alito in trouble. Don't really care.

Torture vs the media: Project Censored presents Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media. Even the WaPo says Rice offers a weak defense of torture.

Skyscrapers and carbon sequestration schemes may cause earthquakes. The world's tallest tower in Taipei may have cracked open a fault line. Ouch.

Microsmish: IE flaw lets intruders into Google Desktop. Xbox 360 is lacking in some good features. SO much damn hype.

Persian Atom Smash: Iran Plans to Build Two More Reactors. Look to Khuzestan for the potential "FIRST FRONT IN THE WAR ON IRAN."

Now we've got some mothafuckin' scandals. Have fun kids.

Clocky holds it down; the GOD WARRIOR; shady voting machines in Nov. election

I have to praise Clocky, the clock that randomly rolls away after you hit the snooze button, so you have to chase it down. I also have to praise the BRILLIANT crazy "talking bobblehead nodder Trading Spouses GOD WARRIOR!!" as sold on eBay - a small, talking statue replicating a crazed Christian fundamentalist mom from an episode. This got some major internet and media buzz and got bid up beyond $800!

Many people were shocked and disgusted with Marguerite's behavior on the show. Not me! I thought it was so hilarious and wonderful it inspired me to create a bobblehead in her likeness! She is now my favorite t.v. personality of all time. When judgement day comes, me and Marguerite will be fighting the demons and stabbing the jaws of gargoyles and the demonic "moon creatures"! Everything's unholy!

An interview with the Dude (the basis for the Big Lebowski) on bullz-eye.com. Really enjoyed this. In particular the part where he just k