May 14, 2004, 6:10 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
That's a wrap: End of the week, out of gas, so here's a passel of
short items ganged together.
Why you should never put your picture on the Internet ...
Coulter v. Franken: Political
extremes debate tonight when Ann
Coulter and Al
Franken go at it.in Hartford, Conn. Sponsored by The Connecticut Forum,
the debate is sold out. Moderator is Steve Roberts, husband of Cokie.
From
the NYT:
Finally, Mr. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress should
stop trying to evade responsibility by accusing those who want to ask tough
questions of being disloyal to the troops and the war effort.
Democracy begins at home.
(Footnote: This from a paper whose top editors resigned after accepting
responsibility for reporter Jayson Blair's
sins.)
Aljazeera.Net - Bloggers doubt Berg execution video
...the circumstances of the video release are also strange. A Reuters
journalist in Dubai first named the Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami website
as the source
for the video – at www.al-ansar.biz.
Although the site has now been shut down, Aljazeera.net looked at the
site within 90 minutes of the story breaking – and could find no
such video footage.
But Fox News, CNN and the BBC were all able to download the footage from
the Arabic-only website and report the story within the hour.
There's more on this -- and more links to check -- in the comments on this item at
Jeff Jarvis's blog:
Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal: Tony
Soprano worries about terrorism. So do I.:
Why doesn't our government provide us all with the means to survive an
expected nuclear, biological or chemical attack? Why doesn't our government
provide
us with what I think of as a "get out of Dodge" kit--a protective
suit, a regulation gas mask, information on which direction to walk in,
or rather run in, and how soon, after Port Newark, or Times Square, or
the Sears
Tower, or the Shrine Auditorium, is hit? Why aren't they doing this?
DenverPost.com - Bishop
draws line for voters:
The bishop of Colorado's second-largest Roman Catholic diocese has issued
a pastoral letter saying Catholics cannot receive Communion if they vote
for politicians who support abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia
or gay marriage....
...In an interview Thursday, (Colorado Springs Bishop Michael) Sheridan
said he chose those issues because the church considers them "intrinsically
evil."
He said some Catholics have challenged him on why he did not highlight the
church's positions against the death penalty or the war with Iraq, but he
does not believe those matters carry the same weight.
The Morning News - Reading With the Enemy
What if you spent one month reading, listening to, and watching only right-wing
media. No New York Times, no NPR, no network news, no CNN, no lefty blogs,
no liberal novels. Nothing left-wing or centrist, and nothing ‘objective.’ Nothing
that makes up the world you currently inhabit.
Oliver Griswold did.
Count Crisis? Elections official warns of glitches that may scramble
vote auditing
A scathing internal review of the iVotronic touch-screen voting machines
used in Miami-Dade and Broward, Fla., counties, written by a Miami-Dade County
elections official, has raised fresh doubts about how accurately the electronic
machines count the vote.
The review, contained in a June 6, 2003, memo that came to light last
month, concludes there is a "serious bug" in the voting machine
software that results in votes potentially being lost and voting machines
not being
accounted for in the voting system's self-generated post-election audit.
The Miami-Dade County Commission's elections subcommittee has scheduled
meetings today and Friday to discuss the issues raised in the memo.
The memo could cast a new shadow over the credibility of electronic voting
as the November presidential election approaches. Electronic voting machines
are coming under increasing criticism for being glitch-prone, not providing
an adequate way to perform a recount in close races, and being vulnerable
to computer hacking and fraud.
In the e-mail memo, Orlando Suarez, division manager of the county's Enterprise
Technology Services Department, wrote that the system is "unusable" for
auditing, recounting, or certifying an election. Suarez came to his conclusion
after analyzing one precinct in a North Miami Beach municipal runoff election
held May 21, 2003.
Link
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3:50 p.m.
The 3D virtual-reality Church
of Fools: It's a three-month experiment, and opening week has
been an adventure:
Minister 'raptured' at opening service
We'd like to say the opening service went without a glitch, except that the
minister leading it vanished into thin air, leaving the Bishop to step
in.
BBC writes about it: In cyberspace, can anyone hear you pray?
When Bishop Chartres announces the Lord's Prayer, everyone in the church
starts typing it, some in traditional form, some modern, some in French some
in Latin. Although it feels slightly daft, suddenly any notion that this
is a game is gone. These people are praying together, and that is as real
as if they were standing in the same room. That they are in a dozen different
towns and countries seems a trifling matter.
Link
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GasBuddy.com shows
the highest and lowest gasoline prices in the last 96 hours, as compiled
by local volunteers: There
are separate sections for Rhode Island gas prices and Providence
gas prices.
Today's low is $1.80 at the Mobil in Wakefield/Peacedale. The highest reported
price is $2.09 at a Mobil on Plainfield Street in Cranston.
The Hess on North Main Street in Providence was $1.99 when I pulled up
there last night.
Link
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Trash
cans of India: Not what you might think.
Link
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May 13, 2004, 5:20 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Oldiez but goodiez: Vonnegut, Faithfull, Country
Joe's Fixin'
to Die again
Cold
Turkey by Kurt Vonnegut at In
These Times:
When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was
already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t
be any more of those. Cold turkey.
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels
in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now
committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re
hooked on.
Marianne
Faithfull on her friend William Burroughs: At the Guardian (U.K.) Here's
her site.
Country Joe McDonald -- The
Crisis. Fixin' to Die again on that second link.
Link
to this item | Comment
Yahoo's Web Bugs: How to Opt Out: By
Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News:
A reader alerts me to Yahoo's use of Web Bugs, invisible files that let
the company track a variety of behavior "inside and outside our network
of web sites and in connection with Yahoo! products and services." Yahoo
calls them "Web Beacons," a rhetorical trick.
Yahoo says no personally identifying information is collected, but since
it knows who you are when you're doing email, that's a distinction without
a difference, I think.
Anyway, here's a
page where you can get Yahoo's explanation and then opt
out. Note that you have to do it for each browser you use, and the browsers
have to accept cookies. Also note that when you opt out you get a page that
makes it all to easily to inadvertently opt back in. Be careful.
For more information on web bugs, see this
page by Richard Smith.
As always, there's value added in
the comments on Dan's original post.
Link
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Why
does Dali still delight?
In
pictures: 100 years of Dali
Dali at Tigertail
The Impossible - The Art of Surrealism
via wood s lot
Link
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The
latest CBS News poll (pdf): Presidential approval, Iraq, photos, more.
Questions, answers. The raw data, not a story about the data.
Link
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Get
chipped, then charge without plastic -- you are the card: USA
Today,
...there's the important and deeply scientific experiment being conducted
among the barely clothed patrons of Baja Beach Club in Barcelona. They're
getting
electronic credit cards implanted under their skin.
Beautiful club-goers have a problem: If you're going to wear a halter top
and micro-skirt, there's not much of anywhere to put a wallet. And who wants
to carry a purse when you're there to dance? Luckily, a company called VeriChip
this year unveiled a solution based on radio-frequency identification (RFID)
technology.
It's a slender glass capsule about as long as a dime is wide. Inside sits
a computer chip, which stores a unique code that can identify an individual
-- sort of an electronic Social Security number. The capsule also holds a
tiny antenna, which can radio that code to a receiver many feet away.
At the Baja Beach Club, Tuesdays are VeriChip implantation days. Stop in
and a ''nurse'' -- the club's word -- uses a syringe to inject a VeriChip
capsule under your skin. There don't seem to be any rules about where on
the body it has to be placed. If you think this sounds like something you'd
never do, then you're not the kind of person who goes to clubs wearing your
bestest nose ring.
First, the drink chip. Who thought it would be so easy to get us to volunteer?
(Couldn't you just wear a prepaid badge?)
Link
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3:05 p.m.
Consul told family Berg was in U.S. military hands: AP reports,
WEST CHESTER, Pa. - A U.S. diplomatic official in Iraq told the family of
slain American Nicholas Berg in early April that he was being detained by
the U.S. military, according to e-mails provided by the family Thursday.
U.S. government officials have said Berg, who was found dead last weekend
in western Baghdad, was detained by Iraqi police March 24 and was never in
the custody of American forces.
He is believed to have been kidnapped within days of his April 6 release
by either Iraqi police or coalition forces, and later beheaded by militants
who videotaped the slaying.
To back its claims that Berg was in U.S. custody, the family showed The
Associated Press an April 1 e-mail from Beth A. Payne, the U.S. consular
officer in Iraq.
"I have confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the U.S.
military in Mosul. He is safe. He was picked up approximately one week ago.
We will try to obtain additional information regarding his detention and
a contact person you can communicate with directly," the e-mail said.
In another e-mail four hours later, Payne wrote "I have been able
to confirm that your son is being detained by the U.S. military. I am attempting
to identify a person with the U.S. military or FBI here in Iraq who you
can
contact directly with your questions."
In a third e-mail later that day, Payne wrote she was still trying to find
a local contact for the family.
Berg's brother, David Berg, called on the government to come clean about
its contacts with the slain American before he died. The family has blamed
the government for keeping him in custody for too long while anti-American
violence escalated in Iraq.
Link
to this item | Comment
12:35 p.m.
General:
FBI told Iraqi police to hold Berg. South Africa's News24.com is
reporting from Mosul, Iraq, that
Nick Berg, the US hostage shown being beheaded by Islamic radicals, was
held for two weeks in Iraq at the FBI's request for travelling without documents
while his identity was checked, a US general said on Thursday.
"Berg was in Mosul. He was travelling alone. The Iraqi police found
him without any documentation. Iraqi police was suspicious and took him into
custody" Brigadier General Carter Ham, who heads the Olympia Task
Force, said in this northern Iraqi city.
"FBI asked (police) to keep him until they knew who he was" Ham
told journalists.
Coalition officials said on Wednesday the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
had eventually established Berg was not involved in any "criminal or
terrorist" activities.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that
(Chilean freelance journalist Hugo) Infante old CNN that weeks before
the videotape of Berg's grisly death emerged on the Internet, "Nick
told me, 'Iraqi police caught me one night, they saw my passport and my
Jewish last name and my Israeli stamp. This guy thought I was a spy so
they put me with American soldiers and American soldiers put me in a jail
for two weeks.'"...
...Infante said Berg told him that Iraqi
police were suspicious of the electronics equipment he was carrying for
his
work on radio communications towers when he was arrested in Mosul.
USA Today:
In Mosul, police chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi insisted his
department had never arrested Berg and maintained he had no knowledge of
the case.
"The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American," al-Barhawi
told reporters. "Take it from me ... that such reports are baseless."
Link
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Friedman's
good idea: Thomas
L. Friedman in the Times today:
Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration
make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue how
to export hope. They would never think of saying, "Let's close this
prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical College
for Computer Training — with all the equipment donated by Dell, H.P.
and Microsoft."
Still doable.
Related: A Time for
Truth by Pat Buchanan at antiwar.com. (Really.)
Link
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Author
Gabriel García Márquez asked to solve Cuba crisis: The Guardian (U.K.) is reports:
Mexican opposition politicians are appealing to Latin America's best-known
writer, Gabriel García Márquez, to mediate in the diplomatic
crisis that has taken their country's traditionally good relations with
Cuba to the brink of collapse.
"We need the actions of a friend to both Mexico and Cuba, like García
Márquez," Senator Javier Corral from the leftwing Party of
the Democratic Revolution said, explaining his appeal to the Colombian
author
of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
García Márquez lives much of the time in Mexico but is also
a personal friend of Fidel Castro and has helped smooth over disputes involving
the Cuban president in the past.
Mexico recalled its ambassador from Havana and ejected his Cuban counterpart
a week ago after Mr Castro accused its leaders of following US directives
over its support for a UN resolution criticising human rights on the island.
The crisis moved to mutual accusations over the case of a businessman who
fled to Cuba ...
Link
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Irrational
Phobias 5 is the latest photoshopping contest at Worth 1000,
and one of the best. Sometimes the contest entries are merely clever manipulations.
But ask people to create an image of an irrational phobia, and you see
their imaginations in action. And maybe, what they themselves fear..
Link
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Hungry
space: A game like Fishy. You eat tiny monsters to get bigger while
avoiding bigger 3-eyed monsters who'll eat you.
Link
to this item | Comment
May 12, 2004, 7:10 p.m. -- (Last
week's weblog)
Both
U.S. officials and Iraqi
police deny holding Nick Berg: More
questions surround Nick Berg's last weeks: AP reports,
In Mosul, however, police told the AP they had no knowledge of the Berg
case. Police official Safwan Talal said the only American arrested there
in recent months was a woman who was released soon afterward.
Elsewhere in the story,
(U.S. spokesmen Dan) Senor said Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March
24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in ''suspicious
activities.''
Senor refused to say more, citing the sensitivity of the case. But he did
confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody.
''U.S. authorities were notified,'' he said. ''The FBI visited Mr. Berg
on three occasions and determined that he was not involved with any criminal
or terrorist activity.''
If nobody had him in custody, where did the FBI talk to him? Did U.S. officials
talk to the Mosul police chief? Did they think the press wouldn't? Maybe
by morning this will be sorted out.
Meanwhile, at the Washington Post, Excerpts From Nicholas Berg's E-Mails
Related: Arabs react to Berg decapitation
Link
to this item | Comment
The
war of the snuff videos: This is by Brazilian journalist Pepe
Escobar, who writes for AsiaTimes.
(Go figger.)
HOUSTON - It will get worse. A secrecy-obsessed Pentagon is in total disarray.
Republican Senator John McCain is in favor of releasing all of Abu Ghraib's
S&M stash right now, photos and videos.
Houston was under "tornado alert" this Tuesday. This was not
merely a meteorological metaphor. Conservative Texas is getting sick and
tired of it all. Some blame it on "the whole movement of our culture
towards decadence". Others, like Randy Johnson, a gentleman from Houston,
are more ... proactive: "Just take the camera away from the troops
and replace them with 9mm pistols." Retired generals are in panic,
convinced that Iraq may become, simultaneously, an ally of Iran and an
al-Qaeda paradise.
The upcoming snuff videos from Abu Ghraib found their counterpart in the
snuff video on the Islamic website Muntada al-Ansar of five masked men
beheading civilian contractor Nick Berg from Philadelphia after warning
George W Bush he will regret the day he stepped into Iraq. This snuff video
even comes with a title: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Shown Slaughtering an American.
Al-Qaeda-linked al-Zarqawi, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, may
be the only real al-Qaeda commander active in Iraq. The Pentagon had at
least three clear chances to nab him before the war. It did not - because
he was one of the justifications for the war.
The war of the snuff videos may have deadly repercussions. This hardcore
jihad propaganda stunt - if it's real - may encourage different sectors
of the Iraqi resistance to join, to the delight of Washington neo-cons
who want an all-out clash of civilizations-cum-total war. The majority
of Americans don't seem to have the stomach to go primal, but the impatience
already expressed by many people in Texas may eventually signal the go-ahead
for total war without mercy....
Bizarrely (to me) "liberal
media" is being accused of suppressing the link to the full video
of Nick Berg's beheading. Maybe calling it a "snuff video" explains
more clearly why it wasn't shown.(Hard to believe, but just a couple of
weeks ago there was criticism over showing flag-draped coffins.)
This morning I heard a caller to local right-wing radio show say, "I
now think that the best thing was to have Saddam Hussein caging these people.
They're all animals. Let's just bomb the whole country and if there are any
good Iraqis they'll turn in the bad ones to make it stop."
Escalating hate isn't going to take us anywhere good.
(Where's the "Give Peace a Chance" guy when you need him?)
Link
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Webby
Award winners: Discovery fun. The difference between the official
winners and the People's Choice awards is always interesting.
Map24.com, winner in Technical Achievement, richly deserves its
dual kudos. It's way beyond Expedia and Mapquest. I searched my own address
and slid down the
street
to see icons
indicating
restaurants
and gas stations. Nothing clunky here.
Related: EPpy
Awards announced today. They're Editor
& Publisher's big-media
kudos. More good browsing.
Link
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E-Voting: In Ireland, Failed
election candidates to sue over electronic voting fiasco. Is that what
awaits us in November?
It has been reported that a number of General Election candidates who failed
to get elected to the Dail where Electronic voting was trailed, are planning
to sue the Irish Government. This follows the indefinite postponement of
the roll out of Ireland's electronic voting system for the Local and European
Elections in June, which was slammed by the Electronic Voting Commission
as insecure, and error ridden.
Many of the failed candidates lost out by only a few votes, but it has since
emerged that the NEDAP electronic voting system lost approximately 2.4% of
all votes cast. Also a number of ballot modules were corrupted and the integrate
of the votes cast could not be verified. Sinn Fein have suggested that one
of their candidates has consulted their legal team, with the view to seeking
compensation in light of the flawed electronic voting system being shelved.
Microsoft Access was used to count the votes, yet was found to be completely
inadequate for the task.
Fla.: Wexler
lawsuit over electronic voting machines is creating fear, state officials
say:
FORT LAUDERDALE -- U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's federal lawsuit over touch-screen
voting machines is helping foster doubts about the upcoming election and
is shaking people's faith in the new voting machines, attorneys for Florida
elections officials told a judge Monday.
"They have created a fear mentality based on no facts, based on isolated
situations," said George Waas, an assistant state attorney general
representing Secretary of State Glenda Hood.
He called the case "a near midnight-hour rush to fix something that
isn't broken."
Meanwhile, Wexler's attorneys argued that the elections officials were more
interested in protecting the reputations of the multimillion-dollar equipment
rather than looking out for voters.
Jeff Liggio, one of Wexler's attorneys, said state law allows for manual
recounts, but there is no way to manually recount votes cast on touch-screen
machines.
"The reason the statutes mandate a recount is to try to determine intent," Liggio
said. "You don't have that [with touch-screen machines]."...
Link
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Cicadas: It's showtime for Brood X, the generation of 17-year cicadas that
will plague much of the nation this summer.
Good news for New England: Not here. UMass reports,
This will not occur anywhere in New England. The closest will be NJ and
southeastern PA. Kentucky is expected to be hit the hardest. Massachusetts
has Brood XIV for the 17-year cicada. 1991 was the last year for peak emergence
(Cape Cod) and the next will be 2008.
They also offer a Periodical
Cicada Fact Sheet.
Here's a map of where
Brood X will be plaguing folks. (Del., Ga., Ill, Ind., KY.,
Md., Miss., N.C., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., Tenn., Va., W. Va.)
More accessible, perhaps is a Cincinnati
Enquirer "explainer" that, er,
explains,
What is Brood X?
Hint: it's not the name of a new punk band. Generations of cicadas come
in "broods," labeled with Roman numerals. Brood X is the generation
of 17-year cicadas that will arrive in the Tristate area this May. In addition,
we'll also see part of Brood XIV, which will arrive out of their regular
cycle (they're 17-year cicadas that were supposed to wait until 2008 before
emerging).
Are cicadas locusts?
No. They've earned that reputation because of the Biblical plague-like mass
in which they emerge. But locusts are actually much closer to grasshoppers,
while cicadas are closer to aphids.
Will they hurt me?
Cicadas may fly into or land on you, but they do not sting or bite. If you
hold one for a long time and it decides you are a tree, it may try to feed
on you.
What's that noise they make?
It's the male cicada's version of Marvin Gaye. The humming noise attracts
female cicadas. He makes it by rubbing together his pair of tymbals, membranes
found in his abdomen. Be warned that if your lawn mower or weed whacker
makes the same sound, you may find yourself more popular among the female
cicada population than you want to be.
... and more.
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From a reader: Martin Scott writes to say,
I did some browsing around and found the perfect link in lieu of
http://www.perseus.gr/Images/ecl-lun-2004-05-04-01.jpg
for the amazing eclipse photo you have on PROJO ... check out
http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Eclipses-2004-05-04.htm
where you will also find all kinds of other information and perhaps you can
update the pointer in the blog.
Thanks for pointing this site out!
Link
to this item | Comment
1:35 p.m
Ordinary soldiers'
photos from Iraq: Clay Shirky , author of Corante.com's Many-to-Many section, writes
about the impact of digital cameras on secrecy, control and official structures.
In his lead is this standalone link, though, to a group blog -- a "moblog" --
in which soldiers in Iraq, using names such as TiredAnDirtySoldier, CannonFodder,
BaghdadBlues and GIJones, post their photos and text to
go with them:
James Hong of HotorNot fame launched YAFRO as
a Friendster clone (the acronym is
for
Yet
Another
Friendster
Rip-off.)
Since
then, they’ve
turned it into a moblog, and Hong has recently posted a list
of US soldiers posting
pictures to YAFRO from Iraq. Images straight from the front, with Dan
Rather nowhere in sight…
...The spread of images from Iraq, both relatively plain ones like most
of what’s on the YAFRO blogs to the horrifying images of torture
and abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison are all part of the removal of bottlenecks
that will change the political structure in ways we can’t predict.
Go read the post. It even manages to equate digital cameras with the invention
of the printing press and the subsequent distribution of Gutenberg Bibles.
("Once the Church lost the ability to control the direct perception of scripture,
thanks to the printing of (relatively) cheap bibles in languages other than
Latin, their loss of political hegemony followed.")
A bonus link here: The
End of the Surprise Ending. The Times bemoans
spoilers, the leaking of TV plots and endings.
Related: Iraq Photos No. 1 Internet Search Request
Link
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Mexican
Air Force Pilots Film 11 UFOs: AP reports,
MEXICO CITY - Mexican Air Force pilots filmed 11 unidentified flying objects
in the skies over southern Campeche state, a Defense Department spokesman
confirmed Tuesday.
A
videotape made widely available to the news media on Tuesday shows the
bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights,
moving rapidly in what appears to be a late-evening sky.
The lights were filmed on March 5 by pilots using infrared equipment. They
appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,480 feet),
and allegedly surrounded the Air Force jet as it conducted routine anti-drug
trafficking vigilance in Campeche. Only three of the objects showed up on
the plane's radar.
"Was I afraid? Yes. A little afraid because we were facing something
that had never happened before," said radar operator Lt. German Marin
in a taped interview made public Tuesday.
"I couldn't say what it was ... but I think they're completely real," added
Lt. Mario Adrian Vazquez, the infrared equipment operator. Vazquez insisted
that there was no way to alter the recorded images.
The plane's captain, Maj. Magdaleno Castanon, said the military jets chased
the lights "and I believe they could feel we were pursuing them."
When the jets stopped following the objects, they disappeared, he said.
A Defense Department spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the videotape was
filmed by members of the Mexican Air Force.
Related: PBS's Nova this week showed The
Elegant Universe, about string
theory, parallel universes and 11 dimensions. No, I dont get it all either
l, but if these were UFOs, they may have something to do with this.
Space.com
reported last fall, Co-Founder
of String Field Theory Explores the Physics of ET:
Renowned physicist, author, and co-founder of 'String Field Theory', Dr
Michio Kaku believes that alien civilisations may have learnt to harness
the energy of galaxies and travel through the universe using wormholes.
Dr Kaku has described what we might expect of alien cultures in an article
on
his website, titled "The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilisations".
The answer might be there.
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Google launches a blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/
Link
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May 11, 2004, 6:55 p.m.
An angry father, a beheaded son: Is Iraq tearing America
apart? Beheaded
American Helped Ghanaian Village, says a
headline at Ghana Web above an excerpt from an AP story about the late Nick
Berg, who had purchased a $900 brick-making machine for an African village
long before he was beheaded in Iraq.
But Nick Berg's father, Michael Berg, blames Secy. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
whom he and his wife sued on April 5 for holding his son in Iraq for 13 days
without filing charges or providing him a lawyer. He believes his son could
have
gotten
out of Iraq
before the
violence
escalated, had he not been held for no reason.
From the
AP story:
Nick Berg, a small telecommunications business owner, spoke to his parents
on March 24 and told them he would return home on March 30. But Berg was
detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24. He was turned
over to U.S. officials and detained for 13 days.
His father, Michael, said his son wasn't allowed to make phone calls or
contact a lawyer.
FBI agents visited Berg's parents in West Chester on March 31 and told the
family they were trying to confirm their son's identity. On April 5, the
Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their
son was being held illegally by the U.S. military. The next day Berg was
released. He told his parents he hadn't been mistreated.
Michael Berg said he blamed the U.S. government for creating circumstances
that led to his son's death. He said if his son hadn't been detained for
so long, he might have been able to leave the country before the violence
worsened.
"I think a lot of people are fed up with the lack of civil rights
this thing has caused," he said. "I don't think this administration
is committed to democracy."...
Here's an excerpt from an interview
today with Michael Berg at here
and now.org, WBUR:
Do you really blame Donald Rumsfeld for your son's death...?
It goes further than Donald Rumsfeld. It's the whole Patriot Act. It's the
whole feeling of this country that rights don't matter any more because there
are terrorists about.
Well, in my opinion "terrorist" is just another word like "communist" or
"witch" -- it's a witch hunt. This whole administration is just representing
something that is not America. Not the America I grew up in.
Poking around the web, I thought Nick Berg might have had a website, so
I searched the
name of his company: "Prometheus Methods Tower Service". There
were only two results. One, an AP story at IraqNet, "West Chester contractor
missing in Iraq," was only viewable
in the Google cache.
The second: "HERE
IS THE ENEMY -- they have posted their names" is at FreeRepublic.com,
a right-wing site.
It is a list of signers of a petition to bring the troops home. One of the
names:
Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc., West
Chester, PA -- Nick Berg's father.
I don't think Nick Berg thought his father is, or ever was, the enemy.
At FreeRepublic.com right now, the lead post is "Alleged Irag Prisoner Abuses.....So
what?? Who Cares??" that ends,
"...Am I sorry for the "alleged" Iraqi prisoner abuses??
NO!! I'm only sorry that the story and the photos leaked out. Why should
we apologize??
I'm STILL waiting for an apology from the Muslims for September 11th, the
Khobart Towers, The USS Cole, Madrid, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and NOW
the murder of Nick Berg. Why should we be "polite" and "politically
correct" fighting EVIL??..."
We observe the Geneva Conventions to
protect our own. We declare off limits atrocities we don't want done to
our soldiers when they become prisoners. It's hard to believe this wasn't
explained to the MPs at Abu Ghraib. The
poster above doesn't seem to know it, either.
Nick Berg, according to first reports, died for the sins of the Abu Ghraib.
To those who are sorry only that the photos came out, I can only say there
were no photos from German concentration camps, but truth came out anyway.
Germany has never recovered from what was done in its name in secret there.
There's not a lot of high ground left for anybody to claim right now. If
Donald Rumsfeld was having a bad week already, Michael Berg is going to make
it a lot worse.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the
tape shows the "true
nature of the enemies of freedom." He said those responsible have "no
regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children." It sounds hollow
and simplistic in the light of Abu Ghraib.
I fear that we are on the brink of an ideological civil war in this country
far worse than the one that tore families apart -- over Vietnam -- in the '60s.
It's time to start over, start fresh. Find a respected former military man
with broad international experience to take
over the Defense Department. Let him choose general staff who know the
cost of war, understand how to keep a peace and share his respect
for the ideals of America.
"We have presented ourselves as a value-based country and we are," Colin
Powell insists.
It's past time to walk the talk again.
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What
are they smoking at the Labor Dept.? asks John Crudele of the
New York Post:
DON'T get too excited about all those new jobs that were supposed to have
been created in April.
I'm not going to waste a lot of my precious space on this, but the bottom
line is that most of the 288,000 jobs that the Labor Department says were
created last month may not really exist. ...
... Back in the March employment report, the government added 153,000 positions
to its revised total of 337,000 new jobs because it thought (but couldn't
prove) loads of new companies were being created in this economy.
That estimate comes from the Labor Department's "birth/death model." You
can look up these numbers on the Department's Web site.
As staggering as the assumption about new companies was in March, the Labor
Department got even more brazen in April.
Last Friday, it was disclosed that these imaginary jobs had been increased
by 117,000 to 270,000 for the latest month - because, I guess, the stat jockeys
got a vision from the gods of spring.
Without those extra 117,000 make-believe jobs, the total growth for April
would have been just 171,000 - sub-par for an economy that's supposed to
be growing at more than 4 percent a year, but right on the pros' targets.
Take away all 270,000 make-believe jobs and, well, you have the sort of
pessimism that the political pollsters are seeing. ...
What's true?
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May 10, 2004 -- (Last
week's weblog)
Usually, new posts go on top, but I want to keep this headline up there
overnight. If you already read the items that went up at 3:32 p.m. (Monday),
the latest additions begin here.
Iraqi
abuse report's author before Senate panel (Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.): Major
General Antonio M. Taguba, author of the Investigation
of the 800th Military Police Brigade, is to testify before the Senate
Armed Services Committee tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
We expect C-Span to come
through.
(Later: 9:30 a.m Tuesday) NYT: Head
of Inquiry on Iraq Abuses Now in Spotlight
At NPR: A
Profile of Gen. Antonio Taguba
General Taguba's father, Tomas
Taguba, was a prisoner of war in Japan in WWII who escaped during the Bataan
Death March.
Yesterday, Michael Corkery, the Journal's embedded reporter in Iraq, published
a story ('Tensions'
at Guantanamo are detailed, reg.req.) based on an interview Friday with
Rick Baccus, who commanded MPs at Guantanamo Bay for seven months in 2002:
CRANSTON -- The former Rhode Island National Guard commander at Guantanamo
Bay said there were "tensions" between his approach to treating
the detainees and that of the military interrogators.
Rick Baccus, who headed the military police operation at Guantanamo for
seven months in 2002, said that the two sides were sometimes at odds.
Baccus had ordered religious books for the detainees and arranged a special
meal schedule for Ramadan, the Muslim holiday. He also proposed more recreation
time and showers.
But the interrogators, Baccus said, complained that these were special accommodations
that undermined their information gathering.
"They would view that as us giving a reward. And I would view that
as humane treatment," said Baccus. "There is nothing inherently
wrong. It's just a natural tension that existed."
Baccus, 51, spoke about his mission at Guantanamo in an interview on Friday,
providing a glimpse into the workings of the secret detention center on the
U.S. Navy base in Cuba. He spoke at a time when the investigation into military
prison abuse is widening....
...Baccus said a Navy JAG officer informed him he would likely have to testify
before a Congressional hearing on the issue....
In October, 2002 after seven months at Guantanamo, Baccus was replaced. Corkery
reports,
A veteran of more than 20 years in the Rhode Island National Guard, Baccus
was criticized in the media for being too soft on the suspects being held
in Cuba.
"What was mentioned in the press about my conduct [at Guantanamo] was
false," he said.
Reports
about Baccus range from an Associated Press story (Guantanamo
Bay Leader Removed) that says,
Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus left the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay on Oct.
9, amid unconfirmed reports he had philosophical differences with those interrogating
detainees. Navy officials say Baccus was removed only because his duties
at the base were consolidated with those of a commander who outranked him.
to a Washington Times story (Army
General Shamelessly Caters to Guantanamo Terrorists) that includes,:
Gen. Baccus in April addressed the detainees and began speaking with the
words "peace be with you" and finished with "may God be with
you." He promised that as long as he is in charge the prisoners will
be "treated humanly."
Gen. Baccus also authorized putting up posters supplied by the International
Committee of the Red Cross around the camp. The posters remind prisoners
they need only cooperate as required by the Geneva Convention on the rules
of war — name, rank and serial number.
The following month, November 2002, Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller arrived
from Korea to take overall charge of the detention center
Gen. Miller subsequently was sent to oversee prisons in Iraq and was cited
in Gen. Taguba's report, according to the New
York Times:
Among General Miller's classified recommendations, submitted after
a tour that ended Sept. 9, were that the guards at Abu Ghraib and other facilities "be
actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the
internees," according to General Taguba's report.
Baccus also lost his spot in the Rhode Island National Guard, for unrelated
reasons.
There's more to the Rick Baccus story, if you want to piece it together.
He sounds like one of the good guys.
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Battle of Algiers? From Jeff Jarvis yesterday,
American Foreign Legion
: Bertrand Pecquerie of EditorsWeblog says that America's experience
in the war in Iraq is not similar to Vietnam; it is similar to the French
experience in Algeria.
It's just a little comment, but when I read in the Washington Post "U.S.
May Be Winning Battles in Iraq But Losing the War, Some Officers Say",
I immediately remind the French-Algerian situation at the beginning of the
sixties. It was said that the military actions were going well in Alger and
the country, but at the end France lost everything: Algeria, international
prestige, honor and self-esteem...
And with our private forces, it is as if we have an American Foreign Legion
there.
Battle of Algiers will play Providence June 4 at the Cable Car, according
to the
movie's site.
The
extensive trailer (none of it is documentary footage, but it's meant
to look like it): Quicktime, plays in page; banned in France in 1965, screened
at the Pentagon 2003.
The
script by Gillo Pontecorvo Franco Solinas
Traditional
film review from the LA Times: A war film with striking relevance
Review: February
2, 2004, The American Conservative
The Pentagon's Lessons From Reel Life 'Battle of Algiers' Resonates in Baghdad
Washington Post, September 4, 2003
What
Does the Pentagon See in 'Battle of Algiers'?
New York Times, September 7, 2003
According to Thomas Powers, the author of "Intelligence Wars: American
Secret History From Hitler to Al Qaeda": "What's called a low-intensity
war in Iraq brings terrible frustrations and temptations — the frustrating
difficulty of finding and fixing an enemy who could be anyone anywhere, and
the temptation to resort to torture to extract the kind of detailed information
from prisoners or suspects needed to strike effectively. How the United States
is dealing with this temptation is one of the unknowns of the war. We are
told that outright torture is forbidden, and we hope it is true. But as low-intensity
wars drag on, soldiers tell themselves, `We're trying to save lives, no one
will ever know, this guy can tell us where the bastards are.' "
If indeed the government is currently analyzing or even weighing the tactical
choices reflected in "The Battle of Algiers," presumably that is
being done at a higher level of secrecy than an open discussion following
a screening of the Pontecorvo film. Still, by showing the movie within the
Pentagon and by announcing that publicly, somebody seems to be raising issues
that have remained obscure throughout the war against terror.
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6:25 p.m.
Blogger
upgrade: Blogger,
the free blogging tool now owned by Google, has issued an upgrade with
some new features: Comments (at last), posting by email, nice
new templates (background) and
more.
Not all users are thrilled. Here's Jeneane
Sessum:
Did we ASK you to mess up the UI?
Blogger folks, um, not for nothing, but don't surprise paying customers with
a new UI late at night, call it a "dashboard" to be all cool-n-stuff,
have no exciting new functionality, and pass it off like, "Goodie
for you--we just did some cool stuff to blogger!"
It's not cool. It's goofy. And it's slow. Let us have the option of using
the old UI.
thank you.
sheesh--like we don't have enough problems.
(UI=User interface)
A UK blogger rounds
up some reactions. Change is hard.
Related: Preview:
Google's Gmail Beta. A long review at Extreme
Tech.
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Insect
Journal and Spiderblog:
For those who like legs.
Link
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Strange
graphic: Cool technology, even if it's not your politics. Via Doc
Searls.
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Hubble resurrected? From the Washington Post, NASA
Weighs Robotic Mission To Aid Hubble:
Early this year NASA had all but written off the Hubble Space Telescope,
but today a robotic mission to replace worn-out batteries and gyros, and
even to install new instruments, suddenly seems so doable that the agency
is likely to ask for proposals to do the job in early June....
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Astrophotography
by Anthony Ayiomamitis is a Greek site whose Image
of the Week showcases superb time-lapse photos of last week's lunar
eclipse. (Here's the permalink to
the photo, since the weekly choice will change.)
Later: Thanks to reader Martin Scott, a
better URL for this photo, with much
more eclipse info.
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All
New Orleans, All the Time: Largely a photoblog. I'll be in New
Orleans next month at the National
Society of Newspaper Columnists conference,
and I'm doing some homework.
As synchronicity would have it, an old friend I hadn't heard from in years
called last night. He's the only person I know in New Orleans, and I didn't
know how to reach him.
He found me. "I was just thinking about you, and decided to dial..."
Recommendations of good food, music and day trips gratefully
accepted.
Thanks to Liz
Donovan -- Blogger user -- for the pointer to the N.O. blog.
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Double trouble: Sometimes a headline has two meanings,
and the obvious one isn't the obvious one: Unitarians
prepare to marry gays.
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