IRAN: PASSIVE INFRARED SENSORS, ETC.

Nemo over at Entropic Memes has yet another brilliant post on the fake dossier put out a couple days ago by the U.S. government.

Nemo left a comment on my last post about the ubiquity of passive infrared sensors, which were fingered by the unnamed U.S. briefers as being one of the devices that supposedly proves that these EFPs are being manufactured by Iran (and only by Iran). A Newsweek story on the briefing puts it thusly:

The Iranian fingerprint, these officials claimed, was in the pieces used to manufacture the EFPs, as well as the usage of the infrared triggers. "Some components are solely found in Iran," the senior defense official said.

Now I originally read this as the senior defense official saying that the infrared sensors were the component of EFPs that are "solely found in Iran." That's not what exactly what he said, obviously, but in the dossier, the claim is made that "Passive Infrared Trigger (PIR) tied to Iran" (on page 9).

Nemo correctly points out that PIRs are widely available, and don't just come from Iran (see comment in last post below). Now perhaps the senior defense official meant to convey that the use of PIRs in roadside bombs is what is uniquely Iranian. But he didn't say that either, that I'm aware of.

Here, for example is a website of an American company that is marketing PIRs for use in Automatic Pedestrian Doors. Here is some of the text on their website:

Passive Infrared Sensors

Passive Infrared Sensors are used for the activation of Automatic Pedestrian Doors. This technology has been successful where other types of sensors have been troublesome. These sensors are not vulnerable to wind blown debris, extraneous radio signals or adverse weather conditions.

Passive Infrared Sensors detect persons or objects, which have a surface temperature difference of at least +/- 2°C compared to that of the scanned zone and which are moving at a rate of at least 10cm per second. Both movement and temperature difference are required for detection.

Bircher-Reglomat remains on the cutting edge of IR Technology providing the Automatic Door Industry with safe, reliable sensors that come in the most compact housings available in today's market, making Bircher-Reglomat products the best solution for automatic door applications.

Kudos to Nemo, who is doing yeoman's work on this fake evidence that's being used to try to railroad us into a war with Iran.

IRANIAN WEAPON UPDATE

Looks like the media are being less credulous this time when the government is trying to drag us into a war. That's great!

I think the blogosphere has determined that where the Iran-in-Iraq briefing is concerned, these are the most relevant points:

1. The weapons probably were made in Iran.
2. That doesn't mean that Ahmadinejad or the Supreme Leader authorized giving them to Iraqi insurgents--this is what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said.
3. The weapons very likely were sold or given to Hezbollah to fight Israel in Lebanon. Israel may have recovered some and shared them with us--just in case we wanted to start a war with Iran or something like that.
4. The weapons could have other origins.

These conclusions deal mostly with the mortar rounds picture in the dossier. I haven't read much about the infrared triggering devices--I would guess that it's highly unlikely that those are made only in Iran. But again, I don't know that for a fact.

P.C. ROBERTS IS RIGHT: THE DOLLAR IS OUR WEAKNESS

Great piece by Roberts. I'm not sure that the average American is hip to this--I say that because I wasn't until recently. But he makes great points, in this piece called "How The World Can Stop Bush: Dump The Dollar!:

The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime's military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime's two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.

If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the "sole superpower" myth would burst like the bubble it is.

The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government's ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America's will.

The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.

And the first part of the piece is really informative as well...

EVERYONE IS POINTING OUT...

...how this whole Iran dossier reeks to high heaven. Like Newshog and his merry band o'commenters.

And now General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is not toeing the line on this supposed evidence:

"We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this," he said. "It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it's clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit."

That's basically what Bill Scher said today on the Sam Seder show and at Liberal Oasis:

1. Just because a weapon is made in Iran, doesn't mean the Iranian leadership sent the weapons in.

On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Jack Reed, who sits on the Armed Services Cmte, was asked "how solid is the evidence":

"I think the evidence is confused ... The question is: is this a deliberate policy of the Iranian government at the highest levels. Is it rogue elements within the government?
And then the other question is: to what extent are there countervailing signals that the Iranians actually are trying to ... not ... further raise the stakes in Iraq.

So it's a very complicated situation."

Reporters at yesterday's briefing backed up Reed's skepticism.

NYT's James Glanz was at the briefing. And he noted that hard evidence was lacking:

The officials also gave fresh details on recent American raids ... in which they said members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, or the Qods Force, were picked up and accused of working with extremist groups to plan attacks on American and Iraqi forces.
Because the elite Qods Force is involved, a senior military analyst said, the American intelligence community believes that the weapons shipments have been approved at "the highest levels of the Iranian government."

Still, no direct evidence was presented of how the intelligence community has made that link.

MORE IRAN WEAPON MARKINGS INFO

From the blog "Entropic Memes," which I was thankfully alerted to in the comments. The writer makes a very good observation--on page 11 of the Iran dossier, there is a picture of a mortar casing that was supposedly made in September 2006 and seized in Iraq on September 9, 2006.

While that scenario is not out of the realm of possibility, it certainly seems unlikely.

The writer also links to a site that shows artillery cartridges from various countries. Some Iranian cartridges do in fact have Farsi rather than English markings (on p. 57, for example).

From "Entropic Memes":

"I’m extremely skeptical about the printing on the mortar tubes; if the date codes follow the widely-used standard of mm-yyyy, then the rounds on the left on this page, which were supposedly seized in central Iraq on September 9th, 2006, are a week old or less. Come on, do those look brand new to you?"

Another excellent point the writer makes:

"That brings me to a second point: If you discount the “9-2006″ mortar tubes, the other weapons with date codes in the report, even if “found” in January 2007, were made between March and May, 2006. In other words, they were made before the July-August 2006 conflict in Lebanon. If you were intent on waging war with Iran, the Iranian-made weapons seized by Israel from Hezbollah could be used (and abused) as “evidence” of Iranian involvement in the insurgency. If not, there’s nothing to prove they didn’t come from Hezbollah themselves, who certainly have an interest in furthering the civil war in Iraq."

Very nice work--you should check out the post. Thanks to the commenter who pointed this out!

IRANIAN WEAPONS MARKINGS--MORE RECENT

Here is a picture of a Zelzal missile:



This is what the missile says, according to Wikipedia:

"The Farsi text on the missile literally says "Zelzal", which means "Earthquake" in English."

And there's Ahmadinejad in the picture, so this is very recent. Are we to believe that weapons manufactured in Iran use English markings and American dating systems as the U.S. dossier on Iranian arms would have us believe?

I don't know--I'm asking...

IRANIAN WEAPON MARKINGS FROM THE PAST

Can be found here. A little over more than halfway down the page, there is this picture:




The caption reads "Persian markings of a Brno made rifle." It goes on to say that:

One typical such inscription read "tofang-e nemoone 1309 karkhane-ye aslahe sazi berno" ("Rifle model 1309 Made at Brno Arms factory." The number 1309 refers to the Persian year 1309 which is the year 1930 in the Western calendar).

So in 1930 at least, "Persian" was used as well as the Persian calendar. Do they not do that anymore? I don't know--I'm asking. Also, Farsi has its own characters for the familiar Arabic numbers that we use.

Wait, here's another picture from the same website:



More Farsi markings.

My point is, if the weapons in the pictures the U.S. is disseminating were in fact made in Iran, why are their markings in English?

QUESTIONS ABOUT SUPPOSED EVIDENCE OF IRANIAN WEAPONS

The 16-page dossier presented by the 3 unnamed officials can be found here:

p. 5-refers to U.S. raid on Iranian consulate in Irbil. Report says the consulate was not a consulate. The IRGC-QF logo is supposedly on at least one ID card--could that have been Photoshopped into the picture of the ID?

p. 8-why should we believe that these weapons were found where this report says they were found? How do we know they weren't planted? How do we know any of this for sure?

p. 9-Headline says "Passive Infrared Trigger (PIR) Tied To Iran" but never gives evidence for this claim.

p. 10-headline says "TNT from Iran"--how do they know this? They don't explain how Iranian TNT differs at all from the TNT produced by any other country. There is a picture of a label on something--what that something is they don't say--that is purported to be written in Farsi. However, there is soot or something on the label that almost completely obscures what the label says and what language it's written in. This could also be Photoshopped. Why is the soot not cleaned off?

p. 11-81mm mortar round shipping containers: Why are weapons manufactured in Iran labelled in English? The previous page attempted to get us to see Farsi on a supposedly Iranian weapon. How is "Fuze: A111-A2" assessed to be "of Iranian production?" It's not in Farsi.

There are two sets of mortar containers pictured, but they each have slightly different markings. Of course, one is supposedly from 2001 while the other is from 2006. Why the discrepancy in markings? Could these labels also have been Photoshopped? After all, it would be hard to convince the American public of all this supposed Iranian treachery if all the labels were written in Farsi. It's very convenient that these particular weapons have English markings.

p. 12-same questions

p. 13-same questions--Photoshopping likely or at least possible. And now that I think about it, Iran uses the Persian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. So to them, this year isn't 2007 and last year wasn't 2006, and so forth. Is Iran in the habit of using a calendar other than their own in industrial production?

What is "New Baghdad?"

p. 14-I'm not convinced--a picture of what looks like a silver-colored metal cylinder with some numbers stamped on it is supposedly a "man portable air defense system missile?"

p. 15-how are these anti-tank rounds uniquely Iranian? Again, are Iranians in the habit of using English and the Gregorian calendar, as in "Lot: 5-31-2006?" Do they always use the American date ordering system of month/day/year? Because of their English influence, would they not use the European system of day/month/year?

p. 16-I wondered when the "intelligence" extracted by torture was going to come up.

IMPEACHMENT NOW!

They're not showing any restraint in their drive to attack Iran, so why should we show any restraint in our drive to get these people the hell out of office?

So Markos and others in the left blogosphere who want to be seen as "reasonable" came out after the Democrats won the House and Senate and said (paraphrasing)--we shouldn't impeach because that will be the only focus of the media and we should instead show the public what government under Democrats will look like.

I argued against that nonsense here.

What I didn't count on in that post was this drive to attack, invade, bomb, or whatever we're about to do to Iran. Now THAT'S what's going to keep the news off the Democrats' agenda for the foreseeable future. Had we begun impeachment proceedings already, Bush would've been on notice that he better not manufacture more evidence for even more wars.

But no, Pelosi said impeachment's off the table, and blah blah blah. The Democrats have power now and they're not even attempting to use it. We need to start impeachment proceedings TODAY--THIS WEEK. And get it over with post-haste. If we don't, Bush will still have pardon power and will pardon Libby, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, etc.--the whole lot of them. This guy must be stripped of power, and quick fast in a hurry...

IF WE WERE GONNA DO THAT...

Condoleezza Rice says this a month ago (in response to Matt Lauer question):

Is the President saying that military action inside Iran and Syria is a possibility?

SECRETARY RICE: The President is saying that we are going to make certain that we disrupt activities that are endangering and killing our troops and that are destabilizing Iraq.

If we were gonna do that, we'd pull our troops out of Iraq! We would've never invaded in the first damn place. The nerve of these people, the chutzpah, is beyond belief. She talks as though it's someone else "destabillizing Iraq"--as though our bloody 4 year occupation with no end in sight is creating a safe haven for the Iraqi people.

IRAN: VERY CURIOUS, INDEED...

I find this story very, very curious. Here's the headline:

"U.S.-led forces show evidence of Iranian arms in Iraq"

What I find curious about the story is not so much the content, but the way it's written, the way it's constructed. For example, the headline has now planted in millions of people's minds that not only is Iran helping kill our boys in Iraq, but that there is now "evidence" to back it up. And that's what the Bushies want people to think: Iran helping Iraq, end of story, we got proof, let the bombs fall.

So we read the story, and what do we learn this "evidence" consists of? We get one paragraph:

"Officials showed journalists fragments of what they said were Iranian-manufactured weapons, including one part of an EFP -- which is strong enough to penetrate the armour of an Abrams tank -- and tail fins from 81 mm and 60 mm mortar bombs."

Fragments? Fragments? How big are these fragments? Could we see pictures? Could we see pictures of the fragments alongside pictures of the unexploded weapons they supposedly came from?

To their credit, Reuters does sort of try to inject a little skepticism into the story, saying that they were shown fragments of "what they said" were Iranian weapons--they kinda try to make it seem like they don't totally buy it. Except of course for in the headline, which is all a lot of people will ever read.

And then the paragraph after that is just a quote, in which the still unnamed "senior defense official" claims that "Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons."

Hmmm...isn't that convenient in several ways. I mean, not only have they determined that fragments of something are in fact "EFP"s (another acronym!) instead of just pieces of say, an Iraqi car that has been crushed by an American tank, but they've also determined that such things ONLY COME FROM IRAN. I mean, look at that--you keep saying you're not planning a war with Iran but then come to find out, 170 of our boys have been killed by these horrible devices that are only available in Iran.

How fishy is this?

Here's how fishy--according to this Newsweek story, journalists were called to this presentation given by three officals who journalists were told they wouldn't be allowed to name in their stories. Not only that:

"No TV cameras or tapes were allowed in, and journalists’ cell phones were taken away before they entered the briefing room."

Isn't that something? We're supposed to take these three guys at their word but they won't tell us their names and they won't let us see pictures of what they're talking about.


Carriers in the Gulf

Well, hell, what are we gonna do? We can't let this go on, can we? What can we...wait a second! Don't we just happen to have a couple of carrier groups in the Persian Gulf? What a coincidence! We happen to have aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf at just the same time we reveal to America that Iran is killing our soldiers with weapons only they can produce! That is so lucky--it's almost as if it were not a lucky accident or twist of fate at all, but were completely planned and thought out!

This is too much...I have to go to bed. I want to sort this out, but I am tired from rocking and rolling all day in the Nereids Mardi Gras parade in Waveland. But now I'll have to go to the online forums of my local newspaper this week and try to debunk this crap. It's exhausting...

IRAN: WHO TO BELIEVE? WHAT HAPPENED TO "evidence of official Tehran involvement is 'ambiguous'?"

Why does Robert Gates now want to convince us that Iran is involved in helping Iraqi insurgents when the NIE that just came out said that evidence of such is "ambiguous" at best?

This story from yesterday has an "yellowcake/Zarqawi in Baghdad" type of feel to it:

"I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found" that point to Iran, he said.

Gates' remarks left unclear how the U.S. knows the serial numbers are traceable to Iran and whether such weapons would have been sent to Iraq by the Iranian government or by private arms dealers.

I thought "we weren't planning to attack" and "not planning a war with" Iran. I mean, this is ludicrous. The headline for the story quoted above is:

"Gates:Bombs Tie Iran to Iraq extremists"

So you read the story thinking it'll be some explosive (pun intended) revelation. Instead, it's just Gates going "I think" and "we may." The article also says that:

National security officials in Washington and Iraq have been working for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence for Bush administration claims of what they say are Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities.

Didn't we just find out yesterday that Feith's office manipulated intel on Iraq in just this exact matter? That intel on Iraq had many caveats that made the info ambiguous, just like this about Iran:

" But three U.S. officials familiar with unpublished intel (unnamed when discussing sensitive info) said evidence of official Tehran involvement is "ambiguous," in the words of one of the officials."

Are we gonna fall for this again? Are we really?

BRZEZINSKI: "A PLAUSIBLE SCENARIO" FOR STARTING WAR WITH IRAN

The most important part of this video starts at 54 seconds in (partial transcript below):



Transcript:

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

He's talking about something like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Operation Northwoods, or even 9/11--flimsy pretexts at best and false-flag operations at worst--but this time we "do" Iran. And Republicans and even a lot of Democrats will come out to tell us exactly what happened even though it won't be quite clear just what went down. The official story/conventional wisdom about evil, aggressive Iran attacking the poor, well-meaning United States will harden into stone and be pumped 24 hours a day through every possible medium, making anyone questioning what happened seem disloyal, unpatriotic, treasonous, insane, or all of those.

However, it will then come out in 20 or 30 years, just like in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, that, well, what do you know--they played the public for suckers and got a lot of people killed and it turns out that the pretext the whole thing was based on didn't even happen or didn't happen at all like they said it did. When will we learn?

RICE DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

Rice says "We're not planning to attack Iran." That can mean one (or all) of five things:

1. "We" are planning to attack Iran. Remember the Bush administration's tendency toward "oppositism."
2. We are have already planned to attack Iran, but not currently doing so at the time of this response of hers
3. We are provoking Iran, just not planning to attack them.
4. We are planning on going to full-scale war with them, not simply "attack" them.
5. We are orchestrating a false-flag attack that we can use an excuse to go to war with Iran.

With this statement of Rice's and the "we're not planning a war with Iran" statement a few days ago of Robert Gates, the Bushies are protesting too much, methinks. But the question Rice responded to fulfills one of my wishes from a while back. I just wish this question had been asked way back then...

She denies seeing the 2003 fax from the Iranians about wanting to open a dialogue with the US about everything from their nuclear program to recognition of Israel. Of course, she also couldn't imagine that anyone would use planes as weapons, even though that had been raised by the government over and over again as a distinct possibility.

WATADA: THEN WHERE CAN THE LEGALITY BE SETTLED?

So the Watada trial ends in mistrial, sending this brave hero back to the brig for another month? For Pete's sake, this is crazy. Watada's defense has been that since the war is illegal, he's in the right by refusing an illegal order, i.e., to fight in Iraq:

"At the center of the dispute between the judge and the defense is Watada’s intent when he did not deploy with his unit to Iraq. The defense has consistently tried to call into question the legality of the war, because Watada said the war is illegal and a command to fight in Iraq is also illegal. But the judge has said the argument over the legality of the war is not a matter that can be settled in military court."

If the legality of the war can't be settled in military court and the new Republican minority won't let it be debated, where in the hell can the legality of the war be settled?

HAWKMAN, WONDER WOMAN, RETCON, 1337, and WIKIPEDIA

So we recently bought a lot of secondhand action figures for my 3-year-old son. They were very cheap and there were a lot of them. Among them was this badass Hawkman figure pictured below:




















Hawkman and Wonder Woman

Well, anyway, I always liked Hawkman even though I didn't read that many Hawkman comics as a kid. But with my recent interest in Hawkwind and the fact that this action figure was so awesome, I wanted to know more.

So we found ourselves at the public library this past weekend and to my great joy, I discovered that on the very last row of the kid's section, they have tons of comics--Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, anime, etc. Among them was an encyclopedia of DC Comics characters, and I picked that out for me and Zander to look at because he loves Batman and Superman.

So we read about Batman and Superman but he lost interest when we started getting into characters he was less familiar with and started playing with another 3-year-old who had come in by that time. Anyway, I read about Hawkman and then Wonder Woman caught my eye (wonder why?). Come to find out, according to this encyclopedia, Wonder Woman is an "ambassador of peace," which I don't remember reading or seeing on the TV show.

Retcon and 1337

Anyway, long story short, I wanted to read more about Hawkman and Wonder Woman today, so I went to Wikipedia and checked out some of the links they had. In one of those Wiki entries, there was mention of the term "retcon" that was highlighted as a link, so I clicked it. Turns out that retcon is, well, here's how the 'pedia puts it:

"Retroactive continuity or retcon is the adding of new information to "historical" material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is referred to as a "retcon", and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called "retconning". Retconning can be done either on-purpose, or accidentally, wherein a break in continuity is not noticed until later and is then 'blessed' by later writers or editors."

I was familiar with the concept of retcon (i.e., the movie "Batman Begins") but I just didn't realize that there was a word for it.

So then I'm reading about ATHF for my entries below about that situation and run across a Wiki link to "Leet" or "Leetspeak," again, something I'd seen before but wasn't really that familiar with and didn't realize that it was so codified and colorful. For example:

Sentences
Example: 7|-|3 [,]|_|1(|< |3|20\/\/|\| |=0>< ]|_|/\/\|?5 0\/3|2 7|-|3 |_42`/ [)09.

Translation: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Example: 1 ]|_|57 |_34|2/\/3|) \/\/|-|47 1337 /\/\34/\/5.

Translation: I just learned what leet means

More common example: 7 |-| 4 7 |\/| 0 \/ 3 \|/ 4 5 1337!!!

Translation: That move was elite!!!

A more basic form: 7h15 15 4 v3ry b451c f0rm 0f 31i73, 0nly 1nv0lv1ng numb3r 5ub5717u710n.

Translation: This is a very basic form of elite, only involving number substitution

Example: | - | 1 C@ | \ | Y0 | _| Sp#@| { | _ 3 3 1?

Translation:

Hi can you speak leet?

Anyway, I'm sure it's very uncool for me to admit that I just learned about all this, but whatever. I'm cool with being uncool...

BOSTON FLIPS OUT, GETS A COOL DEUCE

So Turner and Interference (bloody appropriate name for a marketing firm in this position, eh?) are going to pay $2 million dollars to the city of Boston because people freaked out about a marketing campaign.

Well, I guess that was cheaper than taking it to court.

But I want to know what's going to happen to the only two guys that were charged with anything, Berdovsky and Stevens. They were charged with "placing a hoax device to incite panic" and disorderly conduct. By the way, I'm getting this info from Wikipedia's entry on this subject, the "2007 Boston Mooninite Scare"--my favorite part of the entry is this:

"Between 2 and 3 p.m., a police analyst identified the image on the devices as an ATHF cartoon character..."

I wonder if that police analyst still has his or her job--for the analyst to identify the device as a Mooninite, he or she would then basically admit to watching subversive, terror-inducing programs, right? I mean, there's a reason ATHF doesn't air in prime time, see. The show's time slot is obviously geared toward the terrorist crowd, who are up late at night, plotting and scheming and attaching exposed battery packs to circuit boards for--advertising campaigns.

There oughta be a law--and there is!

The charge of "placing a hoax device to incite panic" sounds to me like it was made up on the spot. Does Boston or any city really have a law against that, in those words? Maybe they do, but it sounds a little improvised to me. Wait, they do have such a law:

"From Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 266 Section 102A 1/2:


(b) For the purposes of this section, the term "hoax device" shall mean any device that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such device is an infernal machine. For the purposes of this section, the term "infernal machine" shall mean any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically. For the purposes of this section, the words "hoax substance" shall mean any substance that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such substance is a harmful chemical or biological agent, a poison, a harmful radioactive substance or any other substance for causing serious bodily injury, endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both."

What was the next step in the marketing plan?

I wonder what the payoff for this marketing plan was supposed to be. Would TV commercials have begun to appear with the images that would then supposedly make people think--"That's kinda like that shiny thing I saw on the bridge today--it made me freak the fuck out and call 911"? As it turns out, all the marketing people would've had to do was make an anonymous phone call to the police and report a "suspicious-looking device" on a bridge and bingo-bango, millions of dollars worth of publicity!

Oh well, as long as they drop the charges against Berdovsky and Stevens, all's well as far as I'm concerned. Those two will now probably have their pick of jobs at any ad agency in the country. Thanks, Ignignokt and Err!

WHEN THE IRAN WAR STARTS GOING BADLY...

...let's all remember this article, which points out that the "intelligence" regarding Iran is "ambiguous" at best:

" But three U.S. officials familiar with unpublished intel (unnamed when discussing sensitive info) said evidence of official Tehran involvement is "ambiguous," in the words of one of the officials."

The Bush administration wants to take us into some sort of conflict with Iran by suggesting that Iran is helping kill American soliders in Iraq--and let's not forget that we are in Iraq illegally and for no reason other than to destabilize the Middle East and generate profits for the defense and oil industries.

But there is little or no evidence that Iran is doing this, and any evidence that may be said to exist is ambiguous, meaning of course that the evidence is "open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations." So those who will profit (financially or politically) from war will want to interpret it as indicating that Iran is helping to kill Americans, and those who will suffer from the war (soldiers, their families, and the public) will want to interpret the "evidence" as indicating that Iran is not in fact doing that.

Hmmm...wonder whose motives in that scenario are purer?

This article is precisely the kind of thing that we should point to when the Iran war starts going badly and the neocons say, as they have with Iraq, that "no one could have known that Iran wasn't actually helping Iraqi insurgents." YES, they do know that and they're trying to warn us now, before the conflict starts. Will we listen and make our leaders listen?

IRAN: ANOTHER OLDIE BUT GOODIE

From June 24, 2005 (in which I assume a confrontation with Iran this coming spring):

HAS THE NEXT "DOWNING ST. MEMO" ALREADY GONE...DOWN?

HAS THIS IRAN THING REALLY BEEN BUILDING THIS LONG?

Geez Louise...

Looking back over some old posts, I came across this one from June 30, 2005:

My prediction about the new president of Iran supposedly being one of the Iranian hijackers in 1979: this is one of those stories that we'll look back on as one of the ways in which the Republicans swept Congress in the 2006 election. We've already been told that "Al Qaida [is] hiding in Iran" and now we're told that the new president of that country is a "terrorist" as Tucker Carlson just did. And not just any terrorist, but one involved with the one of our most ignominious encounters with Middle East culture prior to Sept. 11.

I will bet dollars to doughnuts that Ahmadinejad was in fact not actually one of the captors, and he and others have already protested to the contrary. However, let's remember that in these times, facts, truth, and reality have no bearing on anything our leaders do. What matters is that today Bush said that if Ahmadinejad was one of the captors, that raises "serious questions" or some such rubbish. The Bush smear jihad never ends: McCain, Gore, Paul O'Neill, Max Cleland, Kerry, Durbin, and now Ahmadinejad.

Remember that one, that Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage takers in 1979? But man, they've been trying to make this case for war with Iran for a long time!! I had kinda forgotten about all that.

IRAN: LISTEN BETWEEN THE WORDS

Oh, that's a relief. Whew! I could've sworn we were going to somehow attack Iran, but nope, apparently that's not what's happening:

At his news conference, Gates also said that the decision announced in January to send a second U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf region does not mean the United States is planning for a war with Iran. He said the purpose was to underscore to U.S. allies as well as potential adversaries that the Gulf is a vital interest to the United States.

"Nobody is planning, we are not planning for a war with Iran," Gates said.

Gates said the United States' main aim with regard to Iranian influence inside Iraq is to counter what he called networks providing explosives used to make roadside bombs that are powerful enough to destroy a U.S. tank.

I wonder how they'll explain away that quote later this year or next. Gates says "nobody is planning, we are not planning for a war with Iran." Well, listening to what the words don't say, I hear at least two things:

1). "We are not planning for a war with Iran" means Israel is planning for a war with Iran. That really means we are going to war, but Israel's drawing up (or already has drawn up) the plans.

2) Maybe the Iran war has already been planned, and it is therefore technically accurate to say today that "we are not planning for a war with Iran."

3) Maybe we're already at war with Iran, having raided one of their consulates and been "conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer [of 2004]".

4) We're simply going to bomb Iran, not "go to war" with them, silly!

5) He didn't say there wouldn't be a war, he just said they're not planning a war. In other words, there will be a war, it'll be a total improv piece, a freeform war, a "jazz odyssey" type of conflict, just like Iraq, and look how great that's worked out.

Hmmm...

OK, I was wrong

I had been writing last year that the way the Iran War would be sold to the public was by painting Iran as irrational and unreasonable for not taking the "offer" to stop enriching uranium. Well, apparently we're way past worrying about any of that at this stage. But here's where I wrote about it:

IRAN & "REASONABLE" OFFERS

BUSH & "REASONABLE" IRAN OFFER: SPRINGING THE TRAP



Now it seems clear that the way that the Bush adminstration wants to widen the war is to convince us that Iran is helping kill our soldiers in Iraq. Which is a shame, to be sure, but then again, we should've never gone to Iraq in the first place.

But wait! Just to be fair to myself, I did also begin to catch on a couple days later:

"And this, along with Iran's certain eventual refusal of "the offer," will be the talking point: Iran helps the violent terrorists in Iraq, so we have to invade (or bomb, or do regime change, or whatever).

But what evidence is there for this charge except Casey's say-so? Would a Bush military man help convince the public of something that Bush wanted him to even if there was scant, conflicting evidence with many caveats to support that general's claim? Perish the thought.

We're doomed..."

OLBERMANN LEADS THE WAY

I know everyone says this, but it really seems to be true--there is no one else in the corporate media who submits Bush administration claims to scrutiny and openly challenges the administration's motives and veracity...

THESE GUYS ARE PLAYING IT RIGHT




They know the cops have nothing on them. If anything, they've got a great case against the city for arresting them. I still haven't heard exactly what laws they've broken. They rightfully made a mockery of this whole thing.

Boston police commissioner Davis had this to say:

"“People can be smug and say all you have to do is look at this and know this is not an explosive device, but the truth of the matter is that you can’t tell what it is until it’s disrupted,” Davis said."

Are we to believe that some kind of post-modern terrorists with a sense of humor are going to encase their bombs in some sort of blinking Lite-Brite tribute? And put them all over the city in some haphazard fashion? I thought terrorist attacks had to be clandestine so no one ever knows what's happening until it's too late--you don't want to draw people's attention to blinking lights that might say "Hey, look over here! Check me out to see if I'm a bomb!"

A post-Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident world. And a post-Operation-Ajax world and a post-Operation-Northwoods world. It's a post-"Iraq has WMD"-world

This whole "post-9/11 world" meme drives me up a wall. It's used to condemn everything after the fact--i.e., "you can't be allowed to do x, y, or z--after all, this is a 'post-9/11 world.'"

It's just like the "we're at war" excuse the neocons like to drag out--"you can't criticize/protest/have freedom because we're at war and we can't allow anyone to 'embolden the enemy.'"

It's all very convenient for the authorities, isn't it? And yet people go right along with it. In a post-9/11 world, apparently, any act someone in power doesn't approve of (whether it's legal or not) can be condemned just because it's being done after a particular date on a calendar.

Well, you know what? It's also a post-Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident world. And a post-Operation-Ajax world and a post-Operation-Northwoods world. It's a post-"Iraq has WMD"-world.

In other words, we know that our government has, does, and will try to pull the wool over our eyes and fool us and abuse our trust, and not for our own good. In fact, it's pretty much always to our detriment. Why would we then enable the taking of our freedom to, I don't know, put up promotions for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, just because we've been told that over and over again that Osama bin Laden got the better of us? The FBI doesn't seem to think so.

AT LEAST SOMEONE IN BOSTON LAW ENFORCEMENT HAS SOME SENSE

So the Aqua Teen saga continues. This is just too much:

"I cannot state strongly enough the seriousness of this offense," District Attorney Daniel Conley said in the Boston Herald.

What's the offense? Advertising? Good marketing?

Thankfully the judge seems to have a good head on his shoulders:

The artists' biggest ally might be their judge, who "seemed skeptical of the state's case," in the words of the Boston Globe, and reminded prosecutors that they'd have to prove Berdovsky and Stevens intended to cause a panic.

Yeah, it's going to be really hard to prove that, since these ads were in 8 other cities and didn't cause a panic and these guys were working for a legitimate ad agency. I mean, 9/11 shouldn't be allowed to change the laws of common sense. I mean, changing the Constitution, I understand, but this is ridiculous--KIDDING!

And by the way, I hope the ad agency these guys were working for doesn't try to hang them out to dry--I'd be surprised if they what they did is actually illegal. And Turner Broadcasting needs to step up too and pay for these guys' defense. After all, TBS is still getting quite a lot of publicity bang for their buck.

THE SMEARS AND MEMES CAN'T START TOO SOON

So the last paragraph of the AP story announcing that Al Franken is running for Senate is this:

"Franken faces major challenges, said Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. Besides needing to establish himself as a serious candidate, Franken has staked out left-wing policies that make it questionable whether he can win independent voters, Jacobs said."

I wonder if Larry Jacobs, and by extension the AP, would have said such things if this had been a story about some rabid, neocon, evangelical Republican candidate. Is that what was said about entertainers-turned-Republican-officeholders Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronald Reagan or Sonny Bono or Gopher from Love Boat--can't think of his name and don't feel like looking it up--when they moved from entertainment into politics? I don't feel like looking that up either, but I'm gonna guess that's not what was said--that they needed to "establish themselves as serious candidates" with "questionable" policies that'll turn off indie voters.

I mean, for Christ's sake, Franken himself has not even made the announcement, and already the AP is already running conservative talking points against him. Now Franken's spokesman should have--well, spoken--when the AP rang him up for a quote. But the AP sure seemed to know how to run right over the the chairman of the Minnesota Republican party for a damning quote--doesn't look like they attempted to contact the chair of the Minnesota Democratic Party. And is there only one political science professor in all of Minnesota? I mean, could the AP not find a single person that has anything to do with Minnesota to say anything halfway nice about or supportive of Franken?

I mean, the AP runs what amounts to a Franken hit piece on the occasion of his unofficially official announcement of his candidacy!

ARRESTING ARTISTS?

So now the ATHF story gets weirder...they've arrested "an artist" supposedly for putting up the ATHF displays...I just heard Anderson Cooper announce that...he said "an artist has been arrested" or words to that effect. That's the headline of the story I linked to: "Artist arrested for planting marketing figures" (is that really "planting" something--isn't that kind of a loaded word?).

Not something you like to hear in the U.S., especially considering that these displays were harmless. I don't know if they violated city ordinances or what have you, but even if they do, I would imagine that such things normally involve the writing of tickets or the levying of fines, not ARREST!

This sounds like they're sending a message to the Freeway Blogger and like-minded individuals.

But back to the harmlessness of this act--this was a legitimate ad campaign for a legal product. The advertisers cannot be held responsible for people's perceptions of their ads, particularly when their ads (at least the one picture I've seen of one) don't have words, they don't depict anything that actually even exists. People are freaking out about ART and they shut down a city and arrested an artist because of it.

Buck Fush

It's like the situation that Sam Seder talked about on his show recently with a kid who was thrown out of class for a "Buck Fush" T-shirt. Seder's argument was that there is nothing wrong with the words "Buck Fush." And he's right--the kid can't be responsible for other people's interpretations of completely innocent words. It doesn't say "Fuck Bush," it says "Buck Fush."

What kind of country will it be when you can be arrested or cited or fined because someone interpreted your words as something other than what you said? Because that's the principle that's at stake here.

TERRORISTS FROM SPACE!!




So Ignignokt and Err scared the hell out of Boston. I saw this story this morning but didn't read it because it just said something like "suspicious packages" in Boston. I was like, "Yeah, some more fake terror crap that'll be announced all over the news for a day or two then revealed two months from now as a 'mistake' or a 'misunderstanding' or 'not a real terror plot' or whatever."

I had no idea that the ATHF was involved. I admit, I haven't watched the show in a while--but man, a few years ago, I couldn't get enough of MC Pee Pants--and now I'm interested again! So I guess the takeaway lesson here is that if you want loads and loads of free publicity, try to do something completely harmless that can get mistaken for some sort of terror plot by a populace purposely and continuously freaked out by the government about terrorism.

The campaign worked, though--I now realize that there is an ATHF movie coming out in March. Before today, I had never heard that and I am a fan of Adult Swim in general and Aqua Teen Hunger Force in particular(and Metalocalypse rules!).



But this article indicates that the ads have been up for two or three weeks without this kind of furor. As my wife just pointed out--good thing it wasn't a real terror plot!

"DE-ESCALATION"--I LIKE, I LIKE

Obama introduces the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007. I'm still a Kucinich man, but Obama gets some serious press...Was Obama "warning" against Iran in Herzliya the other day? No, I see that he declined to address the Herzliya conference...Too bad John Edwards didn't do the same thing...yeesh!

It's still January, less than a month after the Democrats have taken control, and already we've got Democrats introducing bills for "de-escalation!" Of course the bill won't pass--or if it does, it'll be vetoed by Dear Leader--but that's not the point. The point is to end this war and to be on record as being against this foul war.

Whatever...I'll say this, though...I never gave a fuck about an Obama candidacy until I saw the following video posted at Americablog (maybe a lot of other Democrats feel the same way):

INDEED, SMOKING IS HEALTHIER THAN FASCISM

Great Prison Planet article on how the state doesn't really care about people's health, it only cares about controlling people. Yes, smoking is bad for you--no question. But the trick that's being played here is to get people to accept government restrictions on legal activities.

Another recent example of this is the limits on the sale of legal drugs with ephedrine in them, such as the legal, OTC drug Claritin-D and its generic equivalents. Even though you can get this drug without a prescription, you now have to sign your name in a log book or be entered into an electronic database that is connected to federal agencies before you can get it. And you can't just go into a store and pick up a pack or two off the shelf, you have to go to the pharmacy and present your ID.

This is all done in the name of fighting the "meth epidemic" and unfortunately, most people seem perfectly okay with it. And most people seem perfectly okay with outlawing smoking in public places--even though the act of smoking is perfectly legal--because, yes smoking is bad for you.

But, as this article asks, where does it stop? I hope we don't realize too late that this is creeping fascism and then can't do anything about it:

"It's all about control, it's all about letting you know who the bosses are. If the government can regulate personal habits and behavior, what's next? If the state is so concerned about our good health as they would have you believe, why not use the latest scientific advancements to remove that nasty aggressive gene that causes so much unhappiness? Well, you're causing those around you distress and harming their health so why not? Are your political opinions a mental illness? Are they harming society? Perhaps we should ban certain types of "free" speech that is offensive to others."

And here are some more things to consider from this article:
"

Here are some more examples of fascism being unhealthier than smoking.

- In Omaha Nebraska, city police are encouraging residents to call 911 if they see a smoker in a non-smoking area. So when your wife is being raped by an illegal immigrant or a gang banger, be assured that the cops have a good reason for their absence - Joe Bloggs just lit up a Marlboro and he's going to get Tasered.

- Bangor City Council approved a measure that criminalizes smoking in your own car with a child present.

- In Okemos Michigan, an insurance business boss ordered all his employees to take urine tests to determine if they had smoked, even in their own homes. Smokers were warned that they would be fired.

- In New York, Mayor Bloomberg's tobacco stormtroopers raided the offices of Vanity Fair no less than three times, attempting to catch noted journalist Graydon Carter smoking. All they found was an unused clean ash tray but Carter was fined and given a warning nonetheless. Numerous other instances of infamous "ash tray raids" have occurred in New York City.

- In Scotland, social services are drawing up a master list of smokers and warning residents against smoking in their own homes unless they wish to risk being cut off from government services.

Many of the people reading this will have had relatives die directly due to smoking. I am not advocating smoking, I am simply advocating the fact that I'd rather live in a society of smokers than a society of control freak fascists who slavishly seize upon any action of the individual in order to create yet another pretext for creating a Stasi system of informants, locking us all up and building the infrastructure of the prison planet.

"

WHILE I'M POSTING VIDEOS...

Here is my band "One Red Leaf" (the name came from the Jane Siberry tune "The White Tent The Raft") in a noise jam at the end of a 1993 set at Tal's Dart Bar in Hattiesburg. We were opening for Godplow, and the noise jam comes right after the end of our tune "Taking It Out" (written to vent my frustrations at not being able to find a job, decent or otherwise, after graduating from college):



I'm using a Peavey MX/VTX head (the guy that sold it to me said it was previously owned by Fingers Taylor, the harmonica player for Jimmy Buffet) and a Yamaha E1005 analog delay. That delay was (and is) awesome; I was also using a Boss CE-2 Chorus pedal that created a beautiful breakup of distorted tones--unfortunately it bit the dust years ago and I've never found another chorus pedal that does the same thing. And I don't use single effects anymore, so I've never bought a used one or anything...

THE REAL MCCAIN

I am far from the first to link to this, but in case you haven't seen it, here's "The Real McCain." Robert Greenwald is at it again, kicking ass and taking names.

DEBUNKING THE FREEPERS

A member of the Hattiesburg American forum posted some Freeper nonsense today. I took the time to debunk it all (I'll try to clean up the links later. The absurd claims are in bold and the debunking follows each bold heading.

The stock market is at a new all-time high and America's 401Ks are back.

The stock market "records" of late are only nominal. In real terms, they still do not match the record set in 2000 (http://www.slate.com/id/2152253), before Bush was president.

From the link above:
"What's more, 12,000 doesn't really even represent a record high for the Dow. In absolute numbers, the Dow is higher than ever. But thanks to inflation, a dollar today isn't worth what a dollar was several years ago. That's the difference between nominal returns (how much you make on an investment before adjusting for inflation) and real returns (how much you make after adjusting for inflation). In real terms, the Dow is still nowhere near the peak it hit several years ago. The handy inflation calculator supplied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that $12,000 of goods and services (or stocks) in today's dollars buys you only $10,184 of goods and services (or stocks) in 2000 dollars."

-----------------------------
Unemployment is at 25-year lows.

Nothing about this claim is true.

Under Clinton, the unemployment rate was lowest in 2000: 4.0. (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt)

Under Bush, the 2006 unemployment rate was: 4.6 (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=LNS14000000)

Employment was lower more than 25 years ago--for example, in 1966-1969, the unemployment rate never got above 4.0 (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt).



--------------------------
Oil prices are plummeting.

Oil prices dipped below $30 and were not higher than $35 in 2003. (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0621/p01s02-usec.html)
Oil prices went as high as $78.64 in 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5251458.stm)

Today's oil prices: $54 (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/4508248.html)

So yes, oil prices are falling, but they're almost twice what they were 4 years ago.


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

Taxes are at 20 year lows.

Except for the years 1988-1992, which fall within the last 20 years (http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php)
And what type of taxes are being talked about here? Which rates? The above link refers to marginal tax rates.
This link (http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6133&sequence=0 Go to the bottom of the page under “Appendix” and click the spreadsheet link) shows effective tax rates (as opposed to marginal tax rates), which are lower than in the past twenty years as of 2002.

So it’s effectively correct to say that by some measures, taxes have been lower in the past 20 years than they are now, or that taxes have never been lower in 20 years.
But let’s not forget the FICA tax, which is higher now than it was 20 years ago (http://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/t2a3.pdf). In 1987 the rate was 7.15%, now it is 7.65%.

So it is incorrect at best and misleading at worst to simply say that “taxes are at a 20 year low” without qualification.
It is also worthwhile to bear in mind that we also are laboring under a record national debt (as opposed to deficits, which may go up and down from year to year but still contribute to the overall, and rather large, debt). Last year, to avoid government shutdown, Congress raised the debt ceiling to $9 trillion dollars for the fourth time in five years (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5282521).


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

Federal tax revenues are at all-time highs.
This is true.

However, if you’ll look at the chart here, (http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:LK4mcAFfc4cJ:www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf+historical+tax+revenues&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6) you’ll notice two things:
1. Tax revenues increase every year, at least they have since 1962, and so it is nothing special to say that tax revenues are at all-time highs because they naturally increase every year. This claim could have been made correctly every year since the Kennedy administration and it would have been true under Democrats as well as Republicans.

2. You’ll notice that throughout the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II years (except 2001), outlays were higher than revenues, effectively blunting the effect of naturally-increasing tax revenues. However, in the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, tax revenues were higher than outlays, producing the budget surplus which Bush turned into record debt.

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


The Federal deficit is down almost 50% over last year, just as predicted.

The deficit last year was $248 billion. The prediction for this year is $200 billion with the cost of the wars added in.
That’s not a 50% decrease or even “almost” a 50% decrease.

The CBO predicted this year’s deficit will be $172 billion as opposed to last year’s $248 billion (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7731/01-24-BudgetOutlook.pdf). However, if you throw in the cost of the wars–which you should–the deficit rises to $200 billion for 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/washington/25budget.html?_r=1&oref=slogin).

But the CBO also predicted that for the budget to be balanced by 2012, Bush’s tax cuts will have to expire in 2010, even though Republicans want to make them permanent.


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

Home valuations are up 200% over the past 3.5 years.

I couldn’t find any corroboration for this particular claim of home valuations going up 200% nationally. But there is no doubt that home prices have soared out of all proportion to people’s ability to afford them.

The 200% figure doesn’t jibe with the House Price Index, which shows that over the past 5 years, the typical home in the U.S. appreciated at a 6.1% annual rate (http://finance.realtor.com/Finance/HousePriceIndex/msa_top60.asp?gate=realtor&poe=homestore).

To be sure, home valuations differ in many parts of the country and it is certainly conceivable that in California for instance, home prices may have risen more than 200% in the past 3.5 years. But that is not the claim being made here.

According to Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy and Research (http://www.cepr.net/documents/housing_indicators_2006_06.pdf pg. 5):
“The HPI gives the clearest evidence of the bubble. Throughout the post-war period, house prices increased on average at the same rate as the price of other goods and services until the mid-1990s.1 Of course, there were large variations in the rate of housing inflation across regions and by year. Since the mid-1990s, the HPI nationwide has increased by more than 50 percent after adjusting for inflation. In the regions with the most rapid run-up in housing prices (mostly along the coasts), the increase has been more than 100 percent. While some of the more rapid increase in house prices in the coastal areas probably does reflect the increasing desirability of these areas, they will probably still see the sharpest price decline when the housing market adjusts to more normal levels.”

Homes being overvalued results in situations like last year, in which existing home sales fell by almost 10%, the largest decline in 17 years (http://www.suntimes.com/business/230644,CST-FIN-homes26.article).
New home sales were down 17.3% in 2006 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,247141,00.html).

And let’s not forget that foreclosures went up 42% in 2006 (http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/25/real_estate/bc.usa.economy.housing.foreclosures.reut/?postversion=2007012508).
-------------------------------

Inflation is in check, hovering at 20-year lows.

This is just plain made-up and wrong. The inflation rate for 2005 was 3.39%. It was lower than that in every year of Clinton’s term (http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/inflation/ Run the inflation calculator for the US from 1985-2005).
Or have a look at these two charts–the 2006 inflation rate was 3.24%–still higher than during any of the Clinton years.
(http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=0)
(http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=1)
--------------------------------------------------------

Not a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01.

This is wrong.

Many people forget the anthrax attacks, still unsolved, that killed 5 people.
Here’s the story from a right-wing perspective: (http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005946.htm)
Here’s the story from a left-wing perspective: (http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=43459)

THE SHINS: THE HYPOCRISY OF PERSONAL TASTE

There's a great song called "Spilt Needles" on The Shins' latest album, "Wincing The Night Away." I'd never really listened to The Shins before, but I really like the album and that song, which says this in a couple places:

"It's like I'm perched on the handlebars/of a blind man's bike"

That section of the song always kind of gave me the stomach, if you know what I mean. I felt something emotional and deep when it got that part--the song just sound cool, the melody for those lyrics is moving yet controlled, etc.

But as I walked around singing it to myself, it occurred to me--this lyric doesn't really make much literal sense, yet I like it very much. I mean, why would a blind person have a bike?

Blind bikes

I suppose in general, blind people don't have bikes just like they don't have cars. I tried to think of situations in which blind people might have bikes and came up with the following (hat tip to my man Mik Davis for a couple of these):

1. Someone blinded later in life
2. An exercise, or stationary bike
3. A blind person who uses echolocation to get around

Anyway, while any of those is a likely explanation for why a blind person might have a bike, I think most people would agree that blind people, while possibly owning bikes, don't generally ride them.


The hypocrisy of personal taste

And that's what struck me about The Shins' lyrics--they don't really make any sense.
In fact, if those same lyrics were in a song I didn't like, I would use them as an argument against the song. I'd say something like, "Yeah, that song sucks--I mean, even the lyrics have something about a 'blind man's bike' or some nonsense--it's just weak writing, man. Blind people don't have bikes."

But since I like the song a lot, I not only excuse what common sense tells me are not great lyrics, I try to make them make sense. You know, like write an entire blog entry about them citing certain conditions under which blind people might have bikes. Now why someone might get on the handlebars, I have no idea.

I guess it's just the hypocrisy of personal taste.

UPDATE TO "THAT GUY GOT NAILED"

On Friday, I posted the saga of the purloined letter by Przybelski. The paper went so far as to remove his letter from their online edition due to one intrepid blogger's efforts to expose the letter as being copied.

Well, the Saturday edition brought a notice printed in the hard copy versions of the paper which said this (there doesn't seem to be a link):

Letter lifted from Web site blog

A letter in Thursday's edition about World War II radio personality "Tokyo Rose" bore a strong resemblance to an article at a blogger's Web site, www.onebigdog.net.
Much of the letter, published under the headline "Words of WWII still ring true," was verbatim to the blog.
Dick Przybelski of Petal, who submitted the letter, said Friday the information in the letter was sent to him by a friend. He said parts of the information that attacked Democrats were deleted before he submitted the letter.
He said he also changed the syntax in a number of instances in what was sent to him.
The letter should have stated that much of the information was created by the blogger and was not the original work of Przybelski.

Hey, at least they gave credit where credit was due, right?

No seriously, I don't expect personal credit or anything, but why not mention that the forum discovered this and brought it to their attention? I know for a fact that they have been concerned about driving traffic to their forum, and here was a perfect opportunity to show that the forum can be an interesting, educational, and lively place (not really, but you know...)

MISSISSIPPI GAS VS. CIGARETTE TAX

My local paper printed a great column today regarding the debate going on over raising cigarette taxes here in Mississippi:

Therefore, the priority of Mississippi government - Gov. Haley Barbour the lead dog and his lapdogs in the state Senate chief among them - is that we keep the 4-out-of-4 Mississippians who must purchase gasoline to get to work, school and church paying within 7 percent of the national average gasoline tax so that we can protect the apparent divine right of the 1-in-4 Mississippians who smoke to pay 72 percent less in tobacco taxes than other Americans.

If Mississippi's gasoline excise tax rate was equalized with the state's cigarette excise tax rate at 72 percent less than the national average, this state's gasoline excise tax rate would drop from the current 18.4 cents a gallon to 3.56 cents per gallon - or a drop of almost 15 cents per gallon at the pumps.

If there is any logic or fiscal responsibility a state artificially keeping cigarette taxes almost 10 times lower than gasoline taxes, it's lost on this writer.

I wrote a post about it on the Hattiesburg American forum, which I reproduce below.

GAYS, TAXES, MINIMUM WAGE, and the "great" LOTT & COCHRAN

Of course Salter's got a great point. The "anti-tax" sentiment of the people that run this state has no rational defense or basis in reality. It's simply a ploy to seem "fiscally conservative" which is supposed to translate in voter's minds to "I hate gays and love Jesus."

Meanwhile, large parts of the public convince themselves that as long as gays can't get married, somehow this country is still great and fair even though there are all types of the kinds of things Salter's talking about going on that are not common knowledge.

Like the fact that recently, our great Senators Lott and Cochran joioned 26 other "pro-family" Republicans and voted in favor of an amendment to the minimum wage bill passed by the House that would have effectively cancelled the minimum wage.


Did the Hattiesburg American write about that? If they did, I didn't read it.
Seems like a pretty big story to me when the state with the LOWEST median household income, LOWEST median family income, and the LARGEST percentage of people below the poverty level has senators who claim to be "pro-family" and yet vote for an amendment to kill the minimum wage despite the fact that they know the amendment has no chance of passing!


Lott and Cochran wanted to put themselves on the record as being in favor of big business, not in favor of the little guy. Just like Barbour. Please, let's not continue to fool ourselves--these guys are no good for this state.

THAT GUY GOT NAILED...(or, what the hell does Tokyo Rose have to with Iraq?)

There was a plagiarized right-wing letter printed in the Hattiesburg American this week. I of course had no idea it was plagiarized until I got to looking up info that the letter referred to. I'd give you a link to the letter, written by Dick Przybelski, headlined "Words of WWII Still Ring True", but the paper removed it from their website, leaving this message:

"A question was raised about the authenticity of this letter to the editor. Until the issue is resolved, this letter has been removed from the online edition of the Hattiesburg American."

The Przybelski letter had to do with Tokyo Rose supposedly demoralizing GIs in WWII and basically saying that the left is doing the same thing now to soldiers in Iraq. It was originally posted by and plagiarized from OneBigDog, an extremely conservative blogger. So extreme that I'd rather not link to his site (even though it will appear below). But I was happy that the paper reacted the way they did, and I was glad to find out about Tokyo Rose, who I'd heard of but really didn't know anything about.

So here're my posts to the forum:

Post 1:

"Tokyo Rose" was not a single person, but a name given by U.S. soldiers to a group of 12 women who broadcast Japanese propaganda. An American named Iva Ikuko Toguri was convicted of being Tokyo Rose (on only one of 8 treason charges against her), but she was not given a fair trial and was pardoned by Gerald Ford in 1977.

This letter purports to be anti-propaganda but in fact it is itself propaganda. It's interesting how Przybelski represents the message of supposed traitor "Tokyo Rose" as being three of the main (true) arguments against the Iraq war. And he seems to have gotten this info from this site: http://www.onebigdog.net/?p=2413

Przybelski not only "seems" to have gotten this info from the above website, it's copied verbatim in places. Check out the plagiarism for yourself. And yes, it's plagiarism because Przybelski doesn't use quotation marks or give his sources for this material. He tries to pass it off as his own.

Post 2:

Here are the rather striking "similarities" between the onebigdog post from 1-16-07 (http://www.onebigdog.net/?p=2413) and today's Przybelski letter:

onebigdog:"Through Tokyo Rose during World War II the Japanese attempted to develop a way to demoralize American forces."

Przybelski: "During World War II, the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces."
------------------------------
onebigdog: "It was intended that Japanese psychological warfare experts could formulate a message that would work..."

Przybelski: "Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work."
--------------------------
onebigdog: "And they gave their script to the famous broadcaster “Tokyo Rose,” and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on the morale and fighting spirit of American GI’s."

Przybelski: "They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose," and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale."
-------------------------------------------
onebigdog: "What was the message? It had three main points: 1. Your President is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal. 3. You cannot win the war."

Przybelski: "What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:
1. Your president is lying to you. 2. This war is illegal. 3. You cannot win the war."
-----------------------------------
onebigdog: "Does this sound familiar?"
Przybelski: "Does this sound familiar?"
---------------------------------
onebigdog: "The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them. Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too!"

Przybelski: "The only difference is that the people saying this now claim to support our troops before they demoralize them. Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too."

Post 3:

And just so you'll know, onebigdog is an "occupational health nurse consultant" who blogs anonymously from Maryland. So Przybelski and onebigdog are not the same person. Przybelski is from Petal.

http://blogcritics.org/writer/big_dog

Post 4:

I have gone to great lengths to show that Przybelski's letter was in fact plagiarized from onebigdog. I'm not crying wolf over plagiarism--the letter was clearly plagiarized from onebigdog.

I have also done a lot of reading up on "Tokyo Rose" today. I learned that the woman that was eventually convicted of being Tokyo Rose was not only an American, she was literally born on the fourth of July. And I also learned that American GIs actually enjoyed listening to "Zero Hour"--the show she was on--because she played popular tunes of the day.

If the purpose of the "Zero Hour" show was to demoralize U.S. troops, it didn't work very well.

I have not been able to corroborate the claim of onebigdog (and by extension, Przybelski) that "Tokyo Rose" ever said or implied that the U.S. president was lying, or that the war was illegal, or that the U.S. would lose the war. I'm not saying that the collective "Tokyo Rose" didn't say those things, I'm just saying that in the research I've done today, I haven't run across accounts of any broadcasters saying such things.

Here, from the LA Times, is an account of the type of things she did say:
----------
Calling herself "Orphan Ann," she came on the air with: "Hiya, keeds. I mean all you poor abandoned soldiers, sailors and Marines vacationing on those lovely tropical islands. Gets a little hot now and then, doesn't it? Well, remember, fellas, while you're sweating it out on the islands, your sweet little patootie back home is having a hotcha time with some friendly defense worker. They're probably dancing right now to this number...it used to be your song...remember?"
-------------------

The LA Times article goes to say this:
"For war-weary soldiers and sailors, the broadcasts were a break in the boredom of war, and not to be taken seriously. *Many officers believed Tokyo Rose strengthened the morale of the armed forces in the Pacific*. In jest, they even gave her a citation after the war."

Here's another description of the broadcasts of "Tokyo Rose," from a book review of )"Tokyo Rose, Orphan of the Pacific":
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" When the Japanese ordered the program expanded, the Australian POW selected Iva to read some scripts, but her voice was very coarse and low and he spent much time with Iva to get her to use a cheerful, lively voice. The POW, whose name was Major Cousins, assured Iva that he screened all scripts and that she would never be asked to say anything that was damaging to the USA. Iva was to call herself "Ann: and when Cousins heard that American broadcasters were referring to their troops as "Orphans of the Pacific", he asked Iva to call herself "Orphan Ann".

The "Zero Hour" program lasted only one hour..from 6 to 7 p.m. Tokyo time. It began with a theme song, "Strike Up The Band", played by Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The POW messages were read by Cousins for 5 to 10 minutes. Next came Iva's "Orphan Ann" disc jockey segment. She read a few pert comments written by Cousins. The records played were mainly classical or semi-classical with a few dance tunes. Her voice was only on the air for two or three minutes, followed by news from the US, followed by a "Juke Box" segment of popular or jazz music played by the Filipino POW. More news and commentary followed by male voices and a military march or song was played. The American POW signed off. " ------------

None of this sounds even remotely similar to what onebigdog or Przybelski intimated.

Post 5: The Point Of All This

Now, why is all that important?

Because onebigdog and Przybelski are trying to conflate WWII with Iraq. WWII is remembered as the last good war, the time of the "Greatest Generation," and so forth, while Iraq is rightly seen by the majority of the country as a regrettable quagmire that has more in common with Vietnam than WWII. Onebigdog and Przybelski are seeking to transfer the public's generally good feelings toward and general approval of WWII onto Iraq.

And they're doing so by trying to compare Iraq war critics to "Tokyo Rose," who is wrongly remembered as a propagandist and a traitor. Onebigdog and Przybelski are trying to play on the public's ignorance of the real story (or more accurately, the real *myth*) of "Tokyo Rose"--I must confess that I was largely ignorant of the whole story--to get them to believe that anyone who criticizes the Iraq war is also a propagandist and a traitor.

The thing is, the way onebigdog portrayed the effect of so-called Tokyo Rose broadcasts on American soldiers is just as wrong as his implication that critics of the Iraq war are traitorous anti-Americans.

Post 6: The Media Implications

And the Hattiesburg American isn't helping matters by titling Przybelski's letter "Words of WWII *still ring true.*"

For one thing, that headline implies that the HA thinks what Przybelski's letter says is true when in fact it isn't. Przybelski never said anything about anything "still ringing true," so the headline is not merely reflecting what Przybelski said, it's the HA's interpretation of what he said, which is demonstrably inaccurate.

But to the majority of people who will read only the letter and the headline and not this forum,
the publication of Przybelski's letter under that headline will be just one more tiny piece of the puzzle that will confirm for them that Iraq war critics are traitorous troop-haters if they are already inclined to think such a thing.

A more accurate and impartial headline for the letter might have been "Does this sound familiar?" That would have the advantage of being a quote from the letter as well as an indication of its content. That way, the HA's opinion wouldn't have been injected into it and they could reasonably and correctly claim that they're merely a conduit for opinion, however misguided it may or may not be.

Post 7: Wrap up

Furthermore, these types of appeals to mythology instead of reality should be more closely examined by journalists and by the public so that they can be seen for what they are.

A recent example is the story that the young Barack Hussein Obama supposedly attended a madrassa in Indonesia. It was reported on the Fox and Friends program, and they said they got the information from Insight Magazine.

On its face, this story should sound suspicious to any curious, ethical journalist and would have been independently verified by such a person. But that's not how Fox News operates. They just repeated what someone else (Insight magazine, in this case) said as fact.

It wasn't until CNN sent a reporter to the school in Indonesia that the madrassa myth was revealed. And Fox's John Gibson mocked CNN for sending a reporter to find out the truth, which is what actual journalists are supposed to do.

Here's a link that lays out the whole thing...

And what onebigdog and Przybelski are doing is very similar.

UPDATE: Here's the Przybelski letter, from the Google cache:

Words of WWII still ring true

During World War II, the Japanese developed a way to demoralize the American forces. Psychological warfare experts developed a message they felt would work.

They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose," and every day she would broadcast this same message packaged in different ways, hoping it would have a negative impact on American GI's morale.

What was that demoralizing message? It had three main points:

1. Your president is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal.
3. You cannot win the war.

Does this sound familiar? The only difference is that the people saying this now claim to support our troops before they demoralize them. Come to think of it, Tokyo Rose told the troops she was on their side, too.

COMPETITION "IMPEDED" BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENT?

The White House issued a statement Thursday as a response to the House's passing of a bill to require Medicare to negotiate for lower prices with pharamceutical companies:

"Government interference impedes competition, limits access to lifesaving drugs, reduces convenience for beneficiaries and ultimately increases costs to taxpayers, beneficiaries and all American citizens alike."

What kind of morons must the White House think we are? That's their argument--that government harms competition? Do they think we don't know about antitrust legislation? Do they think we don't know that in general, the idea is for government to force competition to be allowed, so that a monopoly does not exist to the detriment of the consumer?

I mean, I'm no economist or anything, but the statement that "government interference impedes competition" just seems ludicrous to me. I tend to think that "government mandates competition (with a few exceptions)."

Or am I just totatlly wrong about that?

IRAN SO FAR AWAY, PART THE...SECOND? TENTH?

I'm going to crosspost my response to this post on the Hattiesburg American forum:

Okay, let's cover this again:

- Clinton doesn't capture OBL. This is the same OBL who attacked the USS Cole, many think the Hezbollah acted in cohort with Iran/Al Queda/OBL in the Beirut bombing and OBL's forces planned the original attack on the WTC. OBL made it clear he planned to attack America and he did. See 9-11.

- Geography lesson: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, et al, are all located in the middle east.

- Sadaam Hussein [former dictator of Iraq, whose address is now in Hell ---- and good riddance], supported, harbored, protected and consorted with all terrorist, OBL included.

- The world's largest oil supplies are located in the middle east. Again, see above geography lesson --- these countries are all contiguous and all harbor (or have harbored) terrorists.

- The US is a staunch ally of Israel, and if you're a christian (and I am), my Bible tells me the Jews are God's chosen people and we are to ally with them and protect them. I have no choice.

- The US must protect her interests abroad [See oil] and our allies abroad.

- Side note: If environmentalists would allow more drilling on US soil and more refineries built, we wouldn't be so dependant on their oil.

- I could continue this list, ad nauseum, but you get the point.

We have to take the fight to them and ensure a stable middle east [something about Iran and nukes]. Did that clear it up for you?

Response

In the August 2, 2005 issue of the Washington Post a story was printed that was headlined "Iran Is Judged 10 Years From Nuclear Bomb." This was part of the National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the overall consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies.

It is now January 13, 2007. According to our own intelligence agencies, then, Iran is still over 8 1/2 years from having a nuclear bomb, if in fact that's what they're working on. They of course deny that they're working toward a nuclear weapon. But Bush of course, insists that they are, so he can try to convince the public to let him attack Iran.

In 2003, Iran sent word to Washington that they wanted improved relations with the U.S. and according to the Washington Post story, everything was on the table--"including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups."

But the Bush administration rejected the offer of talks with Iran. Now why would Bush have done something like that when Iran wanted to come to some sort of agreement on every issue we differ with them over?

Operation Ajax--how soon we forget

I've never said that terrorism has only been around since the days of George W. Bush. We've been killing and exploiting people around the world for over a century now. Why, a prime example of that happened in Iran in 1953 when Kermit Roosevelt worked with the British on Operation Ajax and overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh to install the pro-Western but decidedly undemocratic Shah (another major player in Operation Ajax was Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, the drummer for The Police).

Dissatisfaction with the autocratic Shah led to the Islamic Revolution, during which the Iranians took over the U.S. embassy, which is all most Americans remember.

Eisenhower and 9/11

Since some on the forum like to blame things on past presidents on the basis of historical "what ifs" or "if onlys", try this one on:

9/11 was Eisenhower's fault. Eisenhower, you may remember, was a Republican.

Truman (a Democrat) refused to participate in Operation Ajax. Eisenhower was up for it and so the year he took office, we and the British overthrew Mossadegh. Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs leads to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the taking of the U.S. embassy.

That in turn causes the U.S. to side with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, with us supporting Saddam Hussein. We then tell our buddy Saddam in 1990 that we have "no opinion" on "Arab-Arab conflicts." So Saddam invades Kuwait.

Suddenly we have a very strong opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts and to dislodge Saddam from Kuwait, we set up military bases in Saudi Arabia, massing some 500,000 troops there. This upsets Osama bin Laden.

An upset Osama bin Laden works in conjunction with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the 9/11 plot, which kills 3,000 Americans.

Therefore, in the logic of some posters on this forum, Eisenhower is responsible for 9/11.