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

04 February 2009

Cargo Cult,Wind up,Omid, Relocalization, Manas

Cargo Cult
Auto sales tumbled 38% in January ... worst levels since 1982 ...

General Motors-49% Ford-40% Toyota Motor 32% decrease in its U.S. sales, Honda Motor (HMC) -28%. Nissan -30%.
In as much as this is a car civilization, this pretty much wraps it up...
cnn


Wind up
aaa
Last year America ramped up wind-power capacity to 25 gigawatts (GW) in 2008, overtaking the previous leader, Germany, according to new data from the Global Wind Energy Council. America added 8.4GW of installed power in 2008,

The new rightist regime in NZ is "gutting" (sic) some environment regulations. One that we wont miss: the local council persists in blocking Wind Turbines because they arent pretty.
Central Govt will allow them if "Nationally Important"

__________________________________________________
Omid
February 2, 2009--Iran's Omid--or "hope"--blasts off aboard the rocket Safir-2 at an undisclosed location. The spacecraft is Iran's first domestically made satellite, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Irianian press rather coyley says the launcher has a range of "155 miles" - but its that 1957 feelin... its over your head


____________________________________________
Relocalization
Mike Rupert is singing "relocalization" -millions of guest workers are heading back home

Even in China, with all of it's ethnicities, the result will be the same... relocalization. And woe to those who are trapped in unfriendly regions.

Indians fleeing vanishing jobs in Dubai are leaving their cars abandoned at the airport; and where Poles and other late-comer EU arrivals flee the UK and Ireland to go home. I am certain that by this point in the collapse of industrial civilization, every sentient nation understands that it is going to "relocbe on its own very soon. Instinctively, most animals go home to die;

It looks like NZ will fare ok for the first phase og AGClimate Change
Westerlies are dumping snow on glaciers and "spillover" the mountains is filling the rivers.
The Canterbury plains are dry but, so when the remnants of Aus wheat are priced out by PRC, expect those rivers to be sucked up by irrigators.
No more braided Salmon rivers,


obrag
the Whole World Is Rioting … Why Aren’t We?
So far unrest hasnt appeared in english speaking nations... Only France, Greece, Russis China et al are up in arms


Violent Unrest Rocks China as Crisis Hits
indiatimes





"Transitional Ecosystems". "Asymmetrical Civil Unrest".
cnn

cnn


\independent
Shaun Walker in Moscow
Monday, 2 February 2009
Supporters of the banned National Bolshevik party protest against Moscow's rulers
The Kremlin's rule is beginning to look much shakier than at any time since Vladimir Putin came to power, after a series of protests in cities across its vast landmass this weekend by Russians ..
...Tiger, an acronym for The Society for Proactive Russian Citizens, is an online community of anti-government activists based across Russia's 11 time zones. ...
..."Everyone serious knows that in six months, things will be catastrophically bad here," says Mr Oreshkin.,,,Russia's 2009 budget is based on an oil price of $95 and will be in deficit if oil averages less than $70 this year.


Captn Watson of the SSSteve Irwin reports that Jap Whalers have mounted Sonic weapons - seems these are widely distributed protest-dispersants
I recall as a boy admiring the Soviet whale factory ships that docked in Wellington Harbour. Much later we learned that the CCCP was secretly killing lots of Blue whales ... whalers, you cant trust them.


Fiji Coup
I recall in 1986, the first Fiji military coup (Rambuka) In Auckland, A white (Viennese) sympathaser of Maori Land rights tried to explain to me how the coup was a good thing, because the "Non Indigenous" Indian population had too much economic power in Fiji. None of my Maori or Fiji friends put that to me, guess I was too whitebread.




aaa
Energy
___________________________________________________
Manas
MOSCOW — ..the president of Kyrgyzstan announced that he'd shut a U.S. airbase in his country and insurgents in Pakistan blew up a bridge, disrupting the main U.S. supply route into Afghanistan.

..
Bakiyev made his announcement in Moscow, not in his own capital, shortly after the Russian government reportedly agreed to lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion, write off $180 million in debt and add another $150 million in aid...
Manas is the main transit point through which U.S. troops fly into and out of Afghanistan. .
In Pakistan, meanwhile, Islamic insurgents allied with the Taliban blew up a bridge in the Khyber Pass, disrupting one of two truck routes from the port of Karachi by which U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan receive about 80 percent of their supplies.
mcclatchydc


Gaza is far from the biggest tragedy ,numerically ... (2M in Darfur camps, 5M killed in DRC) but something about the callousness of those West Bank settlers and the high tech torture of Gaza makes it somehow prominent in grotesquery

aaa
aaa
___________________________________________________

aaaorca1
aaaorca2


The orca, regular visitors to the Taranaki coast, paid little attention to the surfers at Stent Rd surf break
[images from Stuff.co.nz evidently dont last]
__________________________________________________
Transit Tracker

transittracker

keep tags on buses and trains so you can track them online or on your cell phone.

The system follows your ride's actual location — not an estimated schedule — so you know exactly when it will arrive at your station or stop

This gps system is the future of transPort.
in NZ, Rakon makes the world¹s smallest GPS oscillator and specialises in GPS products, which can be used in navigation products and weaponry."
So gps systems in cabs and buses could be a local goer
However, Rakon got paint-bombed recently, because their oscillators are inside JDAM bombs dropped on Gaza. A hard moral call - should Rakon refuse USA/Zion work?

aaa
engadget

02 February 2009

Gaza,Glaciers,Tulip Mania,

aaa
Hamas - because Democracy matters, because Resistance matters
_________________________________________________
Gaza
kawther
Zionist Entity war criminals. names and photos
aaa
just 1:
Colonel Yigal Slovik, commander of 401st Armored Corps Brigade convoy, entered Gaza in a Merkava tank from Netzarim and he did not stop until it reached the coast. He murdered the Palestinian civilians who raised the white flags, and he destroyed many houses over the head of the people. The brigade units also conducted numerous raids targeting public infrastructure.
redress
__________________________________________________
sjlendman
Shortly after Sunday's announcement, an Israeli aircraft killed a Gaza City resident. IDF troops opened fire in Wadi al-Salqa village, southeast of Deir al-Balah. Homes in al-Qarara village were attacked. Helicopter gunships struck areas west of Khan Yunis, and F-16s bombed near the Science and Technology College in the same area. Israeli naval vessels shelled coastal areas and turned back ships with humanitarian aid. Agricultural land was raised. Arrests were made. Gaza continues to be terrorized.



net
Audio on Gaza 8Jan U Chicago
merip


Israel's "Dahiya Doctrine" comes to Gaza
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 20 January 2009

In the last days before Israel imposed a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza to avoid embarrassing the incoming Obama administration, it upped its assault, driving troops deeper into Gaza City, intensifying its artillery bombardment and creating thousands more displaced people.
... the air force exhausted what it called its "bank of Hamas targets" in the first few days of fighting..
The military sidestepped the problem by widening its definition of Hamas-affiliated buildings....
That included mosques, universities, most government buildings, the courts, 25 schools, 20 ambulances and several hospitals, as well as bridges, roads, 10 electricity generating stations, sewage lines, and 1,500 factories, workshops and shops.
...21,000 residential apartment buildings need repairing or rebuilding, forcing 100,000 Palestinians into refugeedom once again. In addition, 80 percent of all agricultural infrastructure and crops were destroyed.

The Dahiya doctrine means that any risks associated with Infantry incursions, .... ie snipers, booby traps, actual fighting, are not necessary... just bomb the place flat.
electronicintifada


Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, compared Gaza to a "concentration camp," reminiscent of Nazi-era atrocities.



aaa
"Why I Spend More of My Time in Beirut (My Birthplace)
Sight-seeing right after the cease-fire. There is something existential about the place"
_________________________________________________________________
fooledbyrandomness

... alliances and the Platonicity of categorization in Chapter 1. We are suckers for simplifications and categories. There is something I am missing in the current map of alliances. Take the following. From what I understand, for a Shiite Moslem, a Sunniis not an infidel –he is a pure Moslem “of another tradition”. A Jew and a Christian are “people of the book”, therefore not infidels, but non-Moslem “under the protection” of the Moslem law. But for a fundamentalist Sunni Moslem, a Shiite is an infidel that you can kill with impunity. A Christian is not an infidel (except for some Sunni branches that only accept as monotheists Christian Iconoclasts who refuse representations of Saints). A Jew, for a Sunni, is never an infidel, given the Jews’ staunch monotheistic credentials (El is Allah, or Eloh). Ironically, for a Sunni, a Jew is always more Kosher than a Catholic (you can see that in numerous Medieval Andalusians debates). In other words, theologically speaking, AlQaida is far more anti-Shiite than it is anti-Western. You can see evidence of that in Iraq.
Now when I look more closely (and less naively) at Islamic fundamentalism, I seems obvious that the Wahabist regime of Saudi Arabia resembles far more closely my nightmare (as a Westerner): Saudi Arabia finances fundamentalism across the world –and the nastiest brand at that. They propose the worst possible society I can think of. Women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. But they can run for office in Iran. The Shiites are far more a natural ally of the United States and the West –or at least something like the enemy of the enemy, that is terror-sponsoring Islamic fundamentalism. Furthermore, as a minority they own the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. To a Westerner, they are the lesser evil.

___________________________________________________________-
Big Shoe Gone
The monument was reportedly taken down just a day after being unveiled in the late Saddam Hussein's home town.
The head of the Childhood organisation, which owns the orphanage, said she had been told to remove the monument immediately by the Salaheddin Provincial Joint Coordination Centre.
"I did take the shoe down immediately and destroyed it, and I did not ask why," Shahah Daham told the German news agency DPA.
blogspot


Sea Rise
aaa


sea levels - can we trust the 1m prediction?
realclimate
__________________________________________________
Glaciers in NZ
realclimate
In 2005 there were 442 glaciers examined, 26 advancing, 18 stationary and 398 retreating - implying that "only" 90% are retreating. In 2005, for the first time ever, no observed Swiss glaciers advanced. Of the 26 advancing glaciers, 15 were in New Zealand. Overall there has been a substantial volume loss of 11% of New Zealand glaciers from 1975-2005 Salinger et al. ,but the number of advancing glacier is still significant.
aaa
__________________________________________________
Worst escape ever
maruthecrankpot
youtube
escapistmagazine
Hastings achieves high ranking in international idiocy ...


Cheney stands
aaa
__________________________________________________
NZ blogs
tumeke
nzblogosphere


Tulip Mania
financialsense
..tulip mania ... tulips with the right virus...mosaic,,, spread by aphids (the Dutch didnt know this)
"windhandel" wind trade - selling something you dont actually have yet ...mosaic infected tulips
Short selling was banned by an edict of 1610, which was reiterated or strengthened in 1621 and 1630, and again in 1636. Short sellers were not prosecuted under these edicts, but their contracts were deemed unenforceable…


1630.. Fredrick Henry held the office of Dutch Stadholder... "appeal to Fredrick" refers to a trader invoking the protection of the prohibition on short sales
ie the courts refused to enforce short contracts...
google


Or, as Karl Marx wrote in his DAS KAPITAL: "All nations with a capitalist mode of production are seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the mediation of the process of production."
cnbc


Buckminster Fuller’s belief in “Universal Emergence Through Emergency”. It is increasingly clear that today’s crisis is rapidly approaching that of an emergency—the prerequisite for Universal Emergence.
pravda


The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Wednesday to send the nomination of retired Adm. Dennis Blair as the nation's chief intelligence officer to the full Senate for consideration.
..Hey, it's only genocide. It's only East Timor. It was only 200,000 people killed, and a third of the population. Why care?
amygdalagf



Wind
15 January: China more than doubled its wind power capacity in 2008, installing 4.66GW of additional capacity and passing the government’s 10GW target two years ahead of schedule.

environmental

org


Open Letter on Biofuels
theoildrum
Posted by Gail the Actuary on January 20, 2009 -
agrofuels made from inedible plant feedstocks (cellulosic fuels) will continue to exacerbate the food crisis by monopolizing additional agricultural lands


U.S. MILITARY WARNS THAT SUDDEN COLLAPSE OF MEXICO IS LIKELY
democraticunderground



Ben McGrath, American Chronicles, “The Dystopians,” The New Yorker, January 26, 2009, p. 41
January 26, 2009 Issue
Related Links
Audio: A discussion about doomsaying nd the predictions of economic and social collapse.



Celebrity worship a symptom of failed individuation?
Following on to Jaynes's theories on consciousness and the bicameral mind, I suggest that humans today have not (yet?) developed full consciousness.
The aristocat is envied, but also identified with, people feel that they are Angelina Jolie, or.. name a rich person. (drinking in AJ's favourite riverside bar in Battambang, I was scorned by the young French tourists, perhaps because I was not young, not French, or travelling with a Khymer woman? I had to wonder why youth travelled preferentially to former colonies. In Cambodia French language is no longer taught in schools...


"So I have just one wish for you -- , and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom." -- Richard Feynman
< href="http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html">pd



The Lord Howe Island tree lobster, Dryococelus australis, is the most famous of the group and w
aaa
Wikipedia fails to give a weight, so we assumeif the Weta retains the title of biggest insect\
___________________________________________________
Methane
"After seven years [of zero growth] methane has started to rise again to growth rates of the early 1990s,
abc
- several sources suggest methane as the origin of ancient rapid temperature rises ... clathates?