Lefty Blogs
williampfaff ++ ++
Russian News ++
seaton-newslinks. USA expat in Europe ++
bilegrip Asu spleen ++
us-rockstroh a rant, not a blog ++
aboutmyplanet eco ++
sfgate ++
crookedtimber ++
onthecommons ++
sjlendman ++
....
abutamam freeiraq ++
airamericaradio +
amygdalagf +
angryarab ++
annezook +
antiwar ++
norwegianity
terrorism-news
blogspot
ourtomorrow
politickybitch
welcome-to-pottersville
aviraqi
billmon ++ whiskeyB
consortiumnews ++
dahrjamailiraq
dailywarnews ++
drforbush +
english +
fallujahinpictures
freespeechradio
halcyondays ++
healingiraq
hereticalideas ++
icasualties
maru
om
boxspinning boxes

jamaicaobserver newspaper
jameswolcott +
lefarkins +
liberalgirlnextdoor ++
lonehighlander Libya, not lefty
mahablog +++ solid
maruthecrankpot +
indymedia melbourne
messopotamian +7Apr06
monkey ++
motherjones ++
fisk
nocapital +
norightturn +NZ
peakoil ++
pilger +
politicalhumor +
raedinthemiddle
rafahtoday Feb05?
rense w= wacko conspiracies
rigorousintuition x
hegemon ++
ruckus ++
rudepundit ++
satiricalpolitical +
scaramoucheblog ++
secretsinbaghdad ++15Ap06
Energring
aliveinbaghdad ++
riverbendblog ++
sideshow +++
signs-of-the-times +++
slashdot ++techy
talkleft ++
thinkprogress ++
thismodernworld +++
uncapitalist ++
velorution ++ bicycles
org ++Brazil peasants
warandpiece +
warfare.ru +russia military
greenpeace
allhatnocattle
alternet ++
americanpolitics
antiwar
gbruno ++YT
axisoflogic ++
blackcommentator
bobharris +
bradblog +
buckfush +funnies
buggery +
buzzflash ++
changeforamerica
countercurrents
counterpunch +++
crisispapers
crooksandliars ++?
csmonitor
dahrjamailiraqhref="http://www.dailykos.com/
davidcorn
democracynow
democracyuprising
dissidentvoice
earthfirstjournal
earthstation5
empirenotes
foodfirst
fpif
fromthewilderness
geocities
granta
grist ??
gristmagazine
guerrillanews
gulf
hizbollah
huffingtonpost ++
informationclearinghouse
infoshop +
inthesetimes x
iranmania x
ivaw
jihadunspun
juancole ++
kuro5hin ++ notlefty
kurtnimmo ++
lrb ++ Iraqi?
mahablog
lewrockwell ++
marklynas climate change
mnftiu get your war on comics
motherjones
nilemedia
nybooks
occupationwatch
oriononline
palestine
prisonplanet
rall ++ Ted Rall cartonist
ratical
redpepper
rense
robert
rollingstone
scoop
selvesandothers ++
smirkingchimp
snappingturtle
socialistworker
spiked
tblog
theiraqiroulette
theleftcoaster +
thepoorman +
tnr ++ magazine
tompaine ++ mag
traprockpeace ++
truthout +
boondocks ++
crowning3
. . . helix
Base
rain radar
Weather
worldtribunal +
worldwatch ++ $ required
zaman + Turkish news
youcantmakeitup + ?
youngfox ????????????
bareknucklepolitics videos?
popdrain videos??
discovery videos??
cs videos??
aegisIraq video??
mariyaguchi video??
iwilltryit video..
baghdadtreasure
ahram cairo newspaper
felbers
thepartyline
jfaughnan 28/04/2006 10:25AM
shrillblog +
thinkprogress +
marchforjustice + pictures
messopotamian + Iraqi not so radical, but scared (also see IraqTheModel which was a USA front, but is now also scared)
scaramoucheblog +
counterpunch
.............
blogads liberal blogs by CPM $ per view
malakandsky ++ stolid?
republicoft + black gay parent??
dailykos ++
rawstory ++
democraticunderground ++
atrios ++
workingforchange +
leftinthewest +
dembloggers +
talkingpointsmemo +
firedoglake ++
vastleft ++
pamspaulding +
americablog +
washingtonmonthly ++
mydd +
politics1 +
bartcop ++
politicalwire +
sisterstalk black lesbian?
culturekitchen ++
alternet
wonkette +++
billstclair +
freefreedomtoldhere ++ pipe bomb

......
almuajaha defunct
whynot defunct
winstonsmith defunct
samadams dormant
mquinn02 defunct
iraqblogcount ++14Apr06 suspended
iraqicomments most recent: jan2005
iraqidoctor most recent: Aug2005
georgemustgo + moved?
vialls ++Dormant (joe is dead)
warblogging Defunct
hammeroftruth quiescant?
mediastorm quiescant? +
bushwhackedusa defunct
hamasonline defunct
4Jul06

09 November 2006

Elections, Indian Head

dailykos
VA-Sen, MT-Sen: Allen to quit recount challenge?
Wed Nov 08, 2006 at 11:49:26 AM PST
Rumors are flying fast and furious in DC that Allen may quit the race and give up on a recount challenge.


So:
The USA Senate wont confirm any of Cheney's nominations?
The Congress will immediately cut off funds for the crusader army in Iraq?
Equal rights & Justice will prevail?
Israel will be cut off from its supply of cluster bombs?
Dont hold your breath.

The world has been given a reprieve to the extent that a totally arrogant and unapologetic mass murderous regime has been voted out.
40%+ turnout.
So now its back to Empire with a human face.
The crude, "Fuck you, we'll invade who we like" to the world just didnt fly.

Some history lessons:
JFK started the Vietnam war, LBJ massively upped the bombing
JFK tried many times to assassinate Fidel Castro
JFK tried to invade Cuba
Democrats have been big Zionist backers.
in 1968, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobbie Kennedy because of the Democrats support for Zionism. He was asked "why didnt you shoot the President?" He replied "Dont you realise? ... I did"


head

Indian head
226 metres forehead to chin

,

Google Australia, Gaza, Nasa, tropical storms, uranium information, Christies

yahoo
Nov 7, 5:48 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP)..proposed changes to Australia's copyright laws could .. open the way for copyright owners to take legal action against search engines for caching and archiving.
..it is impossible for a search engine to contact personally each owner of a web page to determine whether the owner desires its web page to be searched, indexed or cached," Google said Tuesday.
.. Such requirements would "condemn the Australian public to the pre-internet era and will place them at a serious competitive disadvantage ..McLaughlin said.
.. Agence France-Presse, .. have complained [Google]had used their material without permission or compensation.

[so Australia has opted out of Broadband and Google. Makes me feel better about retiring to a net dead zone]

mercurynews
blind in Gaza
When members of the Hamad family emerged Tuesday morning, they discovered that all 100 of their ducks and 50 rabbits had been plowed under along with their trees.
..
The brothers said they'd tried to steer clear of politics and had even pulled out their guns three months ago to chase away militants who were trying to launch rockets from their orchards.

"We don't want rockets. We don't want militants," said Yassir, who's 48. "We just want peace."

But now, with their farm destroyed, the brothers said they weren't likely to try to stop the militants again.

"After this, there's nothing left," said Hikmat, 49.

His brother added: "If they want to launch, let them launch. I don't care anymore."


storms
nasa
tropical storms
An example of:
.. NASA's excellence in graphic visualisation
.. Aint Nature Grand
.. How foolish of me to build my house in Luzon
_______________________________________________________
energy blogs:
21st-century-energy
bioconversion
energywatch.tv
enmanregister
ergosphere
graphoilogy
i-r-squared
nowatermelons
the-sustainability
thefraserdomain
watthead
alternate-energy
alternative-energy-news
ifenergy
(i've skipped a couple of nuke boosters, they seemed oblivious to on-the-ground-costs)
.......................
uic
'the economics of nuclear power' from those nice folks at UIC
doesnt mention insurance, nor security
if you search the entire UIC site:
hit 1: Beyond £140 million, the current Paris/Brussels system (?) applies,
- now that seems a rather small cap.
Chernobyl cost more than the value of electricity ever produced by all the reactors in CCCp
hit2&3: a $3 billion insurance fund to provide protection to investors in new nuclear plants against regulatory delays.
- now we are talking billions, not for victims of radiation, but for those poor investors.
hit 4: "Legislation that will provide a federal financial backstop for insurers in the event of future terrorism attacks has been approved by both Senate and House"
oh dear me, nuclear builders dont have to take responsibility for explosions, leaks or attacks. Why not?
........................
news
Nuclear power will 'worsen drought'
October 29, 2006 12:00
AUSTRALIA'S crippling drought will worsen if the Howard government succeeds in its push for nuclear power, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has told a conference.
Addressing the New Zealand Labour Party conference in Rotorua today, Mr Beattie said an independent study commissioned by the Queensland government showed a nuclear power station would use 25 per cent more water than a coal-fired power station.

........................
Nuclear Power
Let's leave the decision to hard-headed financial men, not greenies. Let's insist that nuclear power stations pay normal insurance, including full insurance for worst case events.
If nuclear is cost-effective with normal insurance, then we can start talking about police-states

Coal wastes dont need guards with machineguns for (10 half lives?) 270,000 years.
........................

November 04, 2006
Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear
Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology
THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.
The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.
The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest.


christies
Christies tonight
christies
christies
, , , , ,

08 November 2006

The Passenger, rat, phanerozoic CO2, chocolate

passenger 201
why dont I remember this scene?

The Passenger. (Profession Journalist) At the Chauvel. An odd sensation, knowing that hardly any of the audience can have seen it before. Locked up by Jack Nicholson, for 30 years. Maria Schneider stars as an architecture student. I saw it in 1975 with an architecture student who was, if anything, more beautiful than Maria S. Died a couple of years ago. My first really great sex. plein du chien. One of her houses featured in a NZ architecture book. She became a University professor. I came out to a rainy Paddington night. Found myself about to step in front of traffic. No Suicidal ideation, just stepping in front of traffic. Quick Napolitana pizza & couple of Scotch & hes back on the bike. I reckon the movie will create no stir. The last of the New Wave. The end of the cultural rev. A door closes. People now will see and say 'so what?'. It wont affect.
schneider

_______________________________________________________
I believe I have a rat. Something heavier than a mouse in my kitchen. I sleep near on a foam slab. Hate rats. Ginger, the local tom, came by this morning. I said 'rats' and he dived beneath the stove where the rodents enter. Gotta love cats.

Ortega rules in Nicaragua. Justice at last. Or it will be when Ollie North is racked, with hooks in his flesh dragging out his last nerves.


Phanerozoic
globalwarmingart
Global warming gallery.
Its fairly clear that CO2 is lower now than its ever been. Pre-Cambrian, the world may have been chilly, but in the last 500 Myears its usually been hotter, with way more CO2.
In the last 5 or 10 million years we've been bumping along a cold bottom. More CO2 and a warmer word seem like good things.
Problem is we are locked into a grass-seed agriculture, and the rate we're burning those fossil-carbon stores is so high that plant biomes may not cope.
If the grasses wither, its a hungry time. Eventually after a few million years, new species will presumably arise to replace the current lot, which we are poised to eliminate.
Its gonna be a bleak million years but.

In the meantime, cheer up with chocolate
pralus
c/o parisbreakfasts
, , ,

07 November 2006

Melbourne cup, Monckton denier, Bein Hanoun

Melbourne cup 2006
bet On Yeats, or place your bets on Rough beast, but avoid Lion body, with its slow thighs, boxed in by Indignant desert birds.
The favourites lack all conviction, the outsiders will break too soon, with passionate intensity
Ceremony of innocence is stuck in the centre, which cannot hold
Vast image out of Spiritus Mundi looks good for a place.
Darkness drops back again,

7Nov06 Monckton in the UK Telegraph is a global warming denier. Or maybe we are warming, but its the sun doing it. In which case we'd better cut carbon anyway. He says the Chinese sailed to the North pole in 1421 and saw no ice . Which I guess comes from the least likely of Menzies' maybes.
He also says "A recent paper by John Lyman, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, reports that the oceans have cooled sharply in the past two years."
Amazingly this refers to a real result..
"We observe a net loss of 3.2 (± 1.1) × 10^22 J of heat from the upper ocean between 2003 and 2005"

However Lyman also says
Past estimates of the global integral of ocean heat content anomaly
(OHCA) indicate an increase of 14.5 × 10^22 J from 1955 to 1998 from the surface to 3000m [Levitus et al., 2005] and 9.2 (± 1.3) × 10^22 J from 1993 to 2003 in the upper (0 – 750 m) ocean [Willis et al. 2004]. These increases provide strong evidence of global warming. Climate models exhibit similar rates of ocean warming, but only when forced by anthropogenic influences
Current models cant explain these episodes of upper ocean cooling. I expect that warming-deniers will prevail. Stern's report has Northern Europe,Russia & Canada actually benefiting from the first 1.5°. Food exporters USA and Australia suffer, but can afford it. Africa is bad all the way, but really, nobody cares. The Asian monsoon is currently un-modelable, if that flicks, billions will die, thats billions more than those dependent on glacier fed rivers.
nasa
Lyman pdf

ITM rubbished

IraqTheModel psy-op blog rubbished by Iraqi bloggers.
I always thought ITM was a psy-op, but they deleted my comments

signs-of-the-times
"Bein Hanoun, with 30,000 inhabitants, has been the target of daily aggressions and air strikes since June 25. It is now besieged by Israeli troops. We have seen the tanks advance and take up their positions. We are now encircled by about 70 tanks and at least 450 soldiers who announce that the city is a "closed military zone". That means that no one can leave. No one can flee. It is an offensive based on those carried out in the West Bank in 2002.

We have no water, no electricity. We hide in the remote corners of our houses. Ambulances are not authorized to enter into this occupied and closed zone. The soldiers have circled the houses they want to invade. They occupied the houses and they shut up the families in one room. Now they are using then as forts. They use explosives to pierce holes in the walls, they blow off doors, and the people are terrified. They shoot anyone that moves.


, ,

Indonesia peat, snipers, Chalabi, Death squads, Diebold

Indonesia peat 2.3 E9 Tons CO2
places Indonesia in 3rd place in Carbon emitters, vandals of the biosphere.
We need hit squads to proceed immediately to execute the executives of the palm oil corporations who are destroying our world.
Mainly Malaysian, some PRC and Perth individuals. Jet in and kill them, the world cant tolerate such filth.

military blog: michaelyon - hard to take this psy-op seriously; it talks about USA soldiers helping 'a little girl to cross a road'. The only images out of Iraq so far show little girls dead and bloody, or screaming in terror after USA soldiers kill their entire family. It seems that snipers are back nytimes The fancy microphone-array locators dont help if youre too scared to follow up. Sadly for the Iraq people, the world needs the USA to remain in Iraq and bleed, the world needs to see the USA paralysed and powerless.

iht
Where Plan A left Ahmad Chalabi
..in the 1950's, Chalabi, Mahdi and Allawi were schoolmates at Baghdad College, an elite Jesuit high school. Even in their class photos, nearly a half-century old, all three men are instantly recognizable: Mahdi, the soft-spoken intellectual; Allawi, the charming bully; and Chalabi, the boy genius in a bow tie.
...
Chalabi's version. In the run-up to war, he says, he provided only three defectors to the American intelligence community. "We did not vouch for any of their information," Chalabi told me.

..He didn't think much of Haideri or his information, he says, and was astonished to learn later that the information he provided became a pillar of the Americans' charges against Hussein.

"We told them, 'We don't know who this guy is,' " Chalabi said..
...
"We had three or four sources for every item that was substantive in his presentation," .."Powell insisted on that. But what I am hearing now, though, is that a lot of these sources sort of tinged and merged back into a single source, and that inevitably that single source seems to be either recommended by, set up by, orchestrated by, introduced by, or whatever, by somebody in the I.N.C."


Bush surrenders Iraq to Maliki’s death squads thousandreasons">thousandreasons
by Ahmed Amr Saturday November 4, 2006
.[Bush]is holding a videoconference with Nouri Al-Maliki... both walk away from the encounter .. with the understanding that the United States will abandon efforts to tackle (sic) the death squads in Iraq.
..Maliki.. demanded more American funding and accelerated training of the very same Iraqi security forces that moonlight as death squads.
..there is little that distinguishes the Iraqi police from the Shia death squads. ..
..Judith Miller’s NYT ..“much of Iraq is a place without rules or laws, in which armed gangs, sometimes dressed as police officers, can come into any house and do exactly as they please.” (Sabrine Torernice, NYT, 10/29/2006).
..Kim Sengupta - “Operation enduring Chaos: The retreat of the coalition and the rise of the militias” (The Independent, 10/31/2006).
.. ironically (sic) , the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of [2005]. .. the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out “irregular missions.” .. the “Salvador Option” after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin America more than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rights abuse.”
..Badr is an Iraqi Shia militia that was trained in exile by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. It is the armed wing of (SCIRI) – ..
..within one month of his appointment, Bayan Jabr – technically Iraq’s senior police officer - put his death squads out on the streets of Baghdad and started a purge of Sunni officers.
“In May 2005, Shiite militia groups in Iraq began depositing corpses into the dumps of Baghdad. The victims, overwhelmingly Sunni, were typically handcuffed, their corpses showing signs of torture – broken skulls, burn marks, electric drill holes; ..
Where is Bayan Jabr today? He’s the Iraqi finance minister and a key ally of Maliki.
..The Prime Minister is the defacto chairman of the death squads ..



Consider the possibility that the Death Squads are deliberate, intentional, tools of USA policy,to keep populations cowed and countries chaotic.
From history we see that USA trains and finances death squads wherever it operates:
Recent examples.Guatemala 1982, El Salvador 1980, Nicaragua 1988. Chile 1974, Argentina 1982.
Going back in history: Iran Shahs secret police, (Iraq Sadaams secret police?). Indonesia 1975 USA provided lists for the 'anti-communist' purges.

It may be a mistake to believe that USA ever intended 'to tackle the death squads in Iraq'. We are being fed a false conflict scenario. USA wants chaos in Iraq. USA wants to see the population in terror. Death squads are a USA requirement. Follow the leaders: Where John Negroponte (carrion) is, there eagles gather.
USA is not averse to dealing with Iran. The problem for USA is that Iran wins. This is the weakness of the current USA position.

politickybitch
..In San Diego in the June 6 election, the event log,..shows the voting machine dialing out to Diebold at 9:31 p.m. during the count on election night. These are the kinds of things that show up.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, the machine dialing out?
BEV HARRIS: The machine dialed out and made a remote connection to Diebold at 9:31 p.m. during the count. And when you say, “Explain it,” I don’t know of any legitimate explanation.

lefty blog:
sfgate
crookedtimber

Gamelan
Monday 20November 7 pm
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
A free concert to name the Conservatorium's new Balinese gamelan semaradana

gauguinprint
PG print available $4100? printed in 1961??

, , , ,

06 November 2006

Ortega, Gauguin, Bechtel, Perle

House news.
The grill is on the terrace. After a slight delay caused when the leading hand's brother was shot dead in the palenque. Hipag sister Ann has a filipino boyfriend, which has dashed my heart, but otoh, what was the delay? The guy apparently is a spaghetti head (so called for the wicks of rolled up tissue, which look like.. well you know)

Heads of state can be sentenced to death for war crimes, with no time-limit. When can we expect to see Bush Howard and Blair dangling from the gallows pole?

Reuters is saying
The right is split between Montealegre and rival conservative candidate Jose Rizo, but is expected to unite to defeat Ortega in any second round.

voting closed 6pm 5Nov (in 8 minutes time)

pg axe
8Nov Christie Gauguin auction
- a quality work'L'Homme a la Hache' , one of the first Tahiti pictures.
Christies are saying $45M, I expect more.
gauguin df
Previous auction was from Marquesas, an inferior work when PG had a contract to turn out a regular number.
Some critics have said the Marquesas girls are more pretty and delicate. This is a silly, racist comment. I think PG may have been churning out 'pretty' stuff for his new market. If it wasnt for provenances, I would suspect 'Deux Femmes' was a forgery, its so far below the best. Expect more than the £16.9m (correction: $19.2M) DF got
_______________________________________________________
After Gauguin who?
Picasso is facile
Bonnard is charming

who does pictures that we care about?
Matisse? (these from ibiblio are decent sized)

matisse 1
matisse 2
_______________________________________________________
1Nov06 iraq-war.ru
NEW YORK - Security company Kroll has withdrawn its bodyguard teams from Iraq and Afghanistan after it lost four workers in Iraq, its parent company said Wednesday.
...
October 31, 2006
Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged..
Now Bechtel is leaving.
.."Did Iraq come out the way you hoped it would?" asked Cliff Mumm, Bechtel's president for infrastructure work. "I would say, emphatically, no. ..

guardian
Iraquis stand up (not) video is NOT available from guardian

vanityfair
Richard Perle
"Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform," ..February 2003..
'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No ..' Oct 2006
..I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. ..

To David Frum..speechwriter.. "axis of evil," it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable,
Kenneth Adelman..February 2002.."I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
2006.. neoconservatism "is dead"..I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do..

Michael Ledeen..the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Frank Gaffney,.."[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle ..

Kenneth Adelman: ..I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people.
..We're losing in Iraq...[Rumsfeld] certainly fooled me."

Michael Rubin, ..Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991,

Eliot Cohen.. we can still pull ourselves together. .. it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."

condi
condi by annie
_______________________________________________________
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