Friday News Bucket

28 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on April 21, 2006 at 7:49 am

   Now? AP/Yahoo

   The nation’s spy chief disclosed for the first time Thursday that the number of U.S. intelligence personnel worldwide totals nearly 100,000.

   In a speech at the National Press Club marking his first year on the job, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte indicated his willingness to make some, normally classified information public.

   He provided one previously secret fact: “The U.S. intelligence community comprises almost 100,000 patriotic, talented and hardworking Americans in 16 federal departments and agencies.”

   So much for thinking that they don’t have enough people to read through all our emails…

   • 

     BooMan on April 21, 2006 at 8:34 am

     i still have the surveillance truck sitting in front of my house.  It’s been there for almost a week now.  Maybe I should start bringing them snacks.

     • 

       CabinGirl on April 21, 2006 at 8:42 am

       Maybe you should ask them to give your TV remote back? 🙂

       • 

         BooMan on April 21, 2006 at 9:01 am

         yeah…and my red ashtray.  And my sock.  

         Just so long as they don’t take my keys.

         • 

           CabinGirl on April 21, 2006 at 9:10 am

           I thought the sock re-appeared?

         • 

           BooMan on April 21, 2006 at 9:47 am

           gremlins…

         • 

           Nag on April 21, 2006 at 9:49 am

           I didn’t know that gremlins wore socks. I learn something new every day on this blog!

     • 

       sjct on April 21, 2006 at 9:01 am

       take them sealed brand-name snacks so they won’t wonder if you’ve adulterated them.

       Seriously, BooMan. Are you really being watched or was this snark?

       • 

         BooMan on April 21, 2006 at 9:03 am

         someone parked an old police van in front of my house and left it there.  You can still read Police on it.  The back windows are blacked out, and it still has all the extra antennaes and lights.

         But I’m not paranoid.

         • 

           IndyLib on April 21, 2006 at 12:23 pm

           We have Qwest trucks out in our parking lot, always parked in front or to the side of our condo. Every day. For the past three years. Since we know, and they have to know we know, I don’t know why we must continue the charade. Just pull up in a truck marked FBI, save us some fuckin’ tax dollars on the whole camouflage routine.

         • 

           cruz del sur on April 21, 2006 at 2:04 pm

           Call the city and say that there is an abandoned car parked there for a month. They will mark it an set it up for towing. That will give you a clue.

2. 

   ask on April 21, 2006 at 8:01 am

   Nepal faces fresh protests

   KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Anti-monarchy protesters in Nepal burnt tyres and threw logs and barbed wire across the streets of the capital Kathmandu on Friday as a curfew imposed to prevent a march on King Gyanendra’s palace came into force.

   Black smoke rose from several places in the city of 1.5 million people as protesters, angry at the king’s sacking of the government last year, tried to block the movement of police and troops.

   The protests started two weeks ago but an Indian envoy said he hoped there would be a “major announcement” by the end of the day to help bring the crisis to an end.

   • 

     ask on April 21, 2006 at 2:01 pm

     The protests seem to be working.

     Nepal king moves to end protests

     Nepal’s King Gyanendra has called on opposition parties to put forward their candidate for prime minister, after days of protests against him.

     In a televised address, he said he would return power to the people, but gave no date for elections to be held.

     The opposition is expected to meet on Saturday to discuss the situation but the initial reaction has been negative.

     The king sacked the government and assumed direct power in 2005, saying he needed to tackle the Maoist insurgency.

     His apparent climb-down came on the 16th day of protests against his direct rule.

3. 

   CabinGirl on April 21, 2006 at 8:06 am

   In the news: statenews.com

   Last month while protesting the war in Iraq outside Congressman Mike Rogers’, R- Brighton, Lansing office, Terry Olson came up with an idea.

   “Right in the middle of the week — it was a long, hard, grind of a week — I looked up and saw the flower shop and thought it would be nice to do something positive to deliver our message,” said Olson, who is a member of the Greater Lansing Network Against War & Injustice, or GLNAWI.

   So Olson walked about a block from Rogers’ office to Bancroft Flowers & Gifts, 1417 E. Michigan Ave., and purchased flowers to deliver as a form of protest to the war and Rogers, who has supported it.

   Olson said the idea of using flowers as a means of protest has spread.

   “It’s caught on, we’ve gotten participation from people in different states and countries. People have been e-mailing or faxing (Rogers) pictures of flowers,” Olson said. “It’s a cool way to utilize your democratic rights.”

   Please help support this project by recommending this diary here at BT, and at the Big Orange (I’ll add the link as soon as it’s posted there).

   • 

     BostonJoe on April 21, 2006 at 8:19 am

     This is now up at dKos .  If anyone can go over and recommend it and comment, etc., that would be of great assistance to the cause.

     Thanks CG.

4. 

   ask on April 21, 2006 at 8:08 am

   Eritrean food aid may be rotting away – aid workers

   ASMARA (Reuters) – Thousands of tonnes of food aid from Western donors may be rotting in Eritrean warehouses due to the Horn of Africa nation’s restrictions on humanitarian handouts, diplomats and aid officials said.

   They hope a top-level U.N. visit next week to Eritrea, one of the world’s poorest and hungriest countries, will help iron out tensions between the foreign aid community and Africa’s newest independent nation.
   (snip)
   No independent or official data is available, but in October, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki accused the United Nations of lying about Eritrea’s food situation.

   Aid officials say that in the near future, Eritrea will not be able to grow more than half its cereal requirements.

   This is bad, Isaias is an alcoholic, paranoid madman.  The promise of independent Eritrea is turning to a nightmare under his leadership.

   • 

     CabinGirl on April 21, 2006 at 8:12 am

     What is it about crazy people becoming leaders of countries?  What a mess.

     • 

       Knoxville Progressive on April 21, 2006 at 9:08 am

       It may have something to do with leaders that do not listen to alternative ideas or allow their free exchange – see the honeybee story below.

       So can we say that science has shown this administration is more stupid than bugs?  🙂

5. 

   Knoxville Progressive on April 21, 2006 at 9:05 am

   How do honeybee swarms of 10,000 bees find and agree upon a new location for their nest when they swarm?  It turns out it’s surprisingly like Congress – individual scout bees that discover potential new homes come back to the nest and dance to “lobby” for their site, encouraging others to go check it out, and come back and join in the lobbying.  Competing sites creating competing quorums trying to persuade the hive to swarm their way.   These group decision-making methods, which include an open forum of ideas, frank “discussions” and friendly competition, just might help human committees “achieve collective intelligence and thus avoid collective folly,” conclude the researchers.

   Opening of the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, and the resulting creation of the circular ocean current around Antarctica, led to that continent’s transition from cool forests to an icebox, and affected the climate worldwide.

   Frogs and lots of them are being discovered in the Southeast Asia nation of Laos (Lao PDR), according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which says that six new frog species have been found by scientists over a two-year period.  Lao PDR, the least densely populated country in Asia, has produced a treasure trove of wildlife discoveries in recent years.  Check out this fellow.

   China’s environment chief has made a rare official admission that serious water and air pollution is fuelling social tensions, protests and riots.  “The environment has become a focal issue that triggers social contradictions,” Thursday’s edition of the Beijing News quoted Zhou Shengxian, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), as saying.  “Mass incidents” — protests and riots in the ruling Communist Party’s jargon — over environmental woes have grown at an annual rate of 29 percent in recent years, he said.

   In lieu of your Global Warming Rant du jour, how about some alternative power news?  Biofuels are in the news today, with stories from Guatemala on sugar cane, Indonesia on palm oil, and Singapore and Russia, also on planned ethanol production.  Meanwhile, Scotland may be headed for a “wind rush” – “Scotland’s the Saudi Arabia of the renewables industry,” declared Maf Smith of trade body Scottish Renewables Forum, who says the country is the windiest in Europe.  But the plans are not universally welcomed.

   New Mineral History Shows That Mars May Once Have Supported Life  

   Researchers now believe there are three chapters to the history of Mars:  The first era lasted from the birth of Mars, about 4.6 billion years ago, until about 4 billion years ago. The oldest rock – exposed by erosion, impact or faulting – shows the presence of clay minerals that need abundant water, moderate temperatures and low acidity to form.

   The second era lasted from between 4 and 3.5 billion years ago. Minerals made during this era, such as gypsum and grey hematite, were found in Meridiani and in Valles Marineris. These rocks, traced by sulfates, mark a dramatic shift from a moist and alkaline environment to a dry, acidic one – likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions that spewed sulfur into the atmosphere, which then rained back down on the planet’s surface.

   The third era began between 3.2 billion and 3.5 billion years ago and continues to the present. Minerals during this period were not formed with, or altered by, liquid water. These iron-rich minerals, dominated by ferric oxides, were found across most of the planet and reflect the cold, dry, acidic conditions that persist on Mars – conditions inhospitable to life, except perhaps in scattered pockets.

6. 

   boran2 on April 21, 2006 at 9:17 am

   Mitt hasn’t a clue:  

   Link

   Battle Over Cape Cod Wind Farm Blows Into Congress

   WASHINGTON, DC, April 20, 2006 (ENS) – Advocates of a plan to build a wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod are scrambling to defeat an amendment to a U.S. Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would effectively kill the first offshore wind energy project in the United States.

   The provision gives the Massachusetts governor the right to veto the wind farm. The current incumbent Mitt Romney, a Republican, is a vocal opponent of the Cape Wind project.

   • 

     Nag on April 21, 2006 at 9:41 am

     Oh, Boran, we are in synch today.

     You may be surprised at who is against this project… I was.

     link

     Greens Endorse Cape Cod Wind Farm

     WASHINGTON – April 20 – Green Party leaders announced their support for an offshore wind turbine project being proposed by Cape Wind Associates six miles offshore of Nantucket Sound.

     “This 130-turbine wind farm will provide 74% of the electricity used by Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and would displace two million barrels of oil each year,” said Julie Risser, Green candidate for Minnesota State Senate in District 41.

     Greens noted that the project has support from most major environmental groups, as well as the Seafarers’ International Union, which includes local Cape Cod fishermen.

     Among the wind farm’s opponents are wealthy Cape Cod homeowners, including Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy, his nephew Robert Kennedy, Jr., and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, whose first president was CEO of Phelps-Dodge, a mining corporation that placed first on the EPA list of toxic emitters in Arizona and New Mexico. Other opponents include Senators John Warner and Lamar Alexander, whose families also own waterfront property on the Cape.

     Green Party activists are urging Congress to reject provisions in the Coast Guard bill (Section 414 of the Coast Guard conference report) that would allow Gov. Mitt Romney, who opposes the project, to cancel it.

     The Kennedy’s oppose this??? Here in NE Pa there are a few windfarms on the hilltops and every time I see those giants whirling in the wind I’m amazed. They’re not ugly at all. But THE KENNEDYS???? Teddy has some ‘splainin to do.

     • 

       boran2 on April 21, 2006 at 12:21 pm

       I had heard about this.  A surprising case of NIMBY.  

7. 

   Nag on April 21, 2006 at 9:28 am

   link

   Big business sees a chance for ethnic and class cleansing
   Black and poor residents are excluded from the city elections and they’re still finding bodies, but America has lost interest

   The one thing both sides seem to agree on is that neither wants the city to return to the way it was before the hurricane. The people of New Orleans, most of whom are black and many of whom are poor, want schools that will educate their children, jobs that will pay a living wage, and neighbourhoods where capital investment matches the large pools of social capital created by their churches and close-knit communities. Organised money has something else in mind: the destruction of many of those communities and permanent removal of those who lived in them, a city that follows the gentrification patterns of racial removal and class cleansing that have played out elsewhere in the US.
   [snip]

   Only this time, no one is watching. Like teenagers discovering sex, the American media developed an intense fascination with the mundane facts of American life following the hurricane: namely, the glaring disparities in race and class that persist and pervade. Having gorged themselves on the undeniable evidence of glaring disparities in race and class, they soon got sick and went to sleep.

   Up in the mostly white and wealthy Garden District, the Boulangerie on Magazine Street offers a delicious choice of croissants. Down in the ninth ward they are still finding dead bodies – nine in March, some half-eaten by animals, plus a skull.

   Wow. This Guardian UK article pulls no punches. The sad truth is that America is finished with Katrina outrage and is perfectly willing to ignore what is going on there.

   • 

     DuctapeFatwa on April 21, 2006 at 10:21 am

     I’m not sure it is so much a question of fatigue, rather a calm satisfaction that things are working out so well, and a confidence that any insurgency will be effectively crushed with little effort.

     • 

       Nag on April 21, 2006 at 11:07 am

       I don’t know, DF, I think people just don’t care. We’ve been living under Republican neoconservative rule that lives by the motto ‘every man for himself’ or ‘everything for me and fuck you’. Caring for fellow human beings is considered socialistic and a sign of weakness. It grieves me to come to the realization that America has become one cold hearted selfish bitch. Not that that arrogant attitude didn’t exist before, but under single party rule, and more specifically under Bush, it seems more like a festering cancer.

8. 

   Arcturus on April 21, 2006 at 2:05 pm

   No Iran sanctions without “concrete” proof – Russia

   Toughening its opposition to sanctions against Iran, Russia said on Friday that the UN Security Council should consider punitive measures only if it had “concrete” proof that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons as alleged by the United States, Reuters reported.

   “Sanctions can be discussed only when there are concrete facts showing that Tehran’s nuclear activity is not exclusively peaceful,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told reporters. 

   “At the present time, the concerns of the international community over the Iranian nuclear program cannot be eased through sanctions and use of force,” Kamynin said, stressing that “Russia’s position remains unchanged.”   [snip]

   However, no consensus on sanctions emerged when the Council’s five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany held talks in Moscow on Tuesday.

   Moscow, which is building Iran’s first atomic power station, has consistently maintained that only the IAEA can verify whether Tehran’s nuclear program is confined strictly to civilian purposes. And Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is in Washington, repeated Beijing’s calls for a negotiated solution, signaling Bush’s failure in persuading China to allow tougher steps in the Council.

   Meanwhile, Nikolai Spassky, deputy secretary of Russia’s national security council, rejected a U.S. call to cancel a planned missile sale to Iran, a day after rebuffing Washington’s demands to suspend nuclear cooperation with Tehran. “There are no circumstances that raise obstacles to fulfillment of our obligations in military technical cooperation with Iran,” Spassky said. “This means fulfilling all obligations, including obligations on delivery to Iran of the Tor-M1 air defense system,” he added.

   Brazil follows Iran’s nuclear path, but without the fuss

   As Iran faces international pressure over developing the raw material for nuclear weapons, Brazil is quietly preparing to open its own uranium-enrichment center, capable of producing exactly the same fuel.

   Brazil – like Iran – has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and Brazil’s constitution bans the military use of nuclear energy.

   Also like Iran, Brazil has cloaked key aspects of its nuclear technology in secrecy while insisting the program is for peaceful purposes, claims nuclear weapons experts have debunked.

   While Brazil is more cooperative than Iran on international inspections, some worry its new enrichment capability – which eventually will create more fuel than is needed for its two nuclear plants – suggests that South America’s biggest nation may be rethinking its commitment to nonproliferation.   [snip]

   . . . Brazil’s enrichment program – and its reluctance to allow unlimited inspections – has raised suspicions abroad.

   ”Brazil is beginning to be perceived as a country apparently wanting to reevaluate its commitment to nonproliferation, and this is a big part of the problem,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.   [snip]

   Brazil has the world’s sixth-largest uranium reserves, but until the plant becomes operational, it can’t use the fuel for energy without shipping it to and from URENCO, the European enrichment consortium.

   Brazil says its plant will be capable of enriching natural uranium to less than 5 percent uranium-235, an isotope needed to fuel its two reactors. Warheads need ore that has been enriched to 95 percent uranium-235, a material Brazil says it can’t and won’t produce.   [snip]

   Brazil initially refused inspections by the International Atomic Energy Association, arguing that providing full access to its state-of-the-art, Brazilian-designed centrifuges would put it at risk of industrial espionage. Since then, IAEA inspectors have visited the plant many times, monitoring the uranium that comes in and out, but they’re still prevented from seeing the actual centrifuges, which are covered with opaque screens.   [snip]

   Brazil had great nuclear ambitions during a 1964-85 military dictatorship, when it built the two nuclear energy plants, worked to develop a nuclear submarine and had secret plans to test an atomic bomb in a 1,000-foot-deep, concrete-and steel-lined hole in the Amazon jungle. That idea was formally scrapped in 1990, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in 2004 that ”we know for sure that Brazil is not thinking about nuclear weapons in any sense.”

   But Brazil’s nuclear ambitions have been rekindled under leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in part, analysts say, because joining the nuclear club would boost Brazil’s status internationally and possibly earn it a permanent seat on the Security Council.

   What is really at stake in both Brazil and Iran is self-image, Goldemberg said. ”It’s nationalism, pride. That’s the real reason,” he said.

   Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

   Author [& former New York Times foreign correspondent] Stephen Kinzer discusses his new book, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq [with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!]

   “The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not an isolated episode. It was the culmination of a 110-year period during which Americans overthrew fourteen governments that displeased them for various ideological, political, and economic reasons.”     [snip]

   Kinzer writes that “The “regime change” in Iraq seemed for a time — a very short time — to have worked. It is now clear, however, that this operation has had terrible unintended consequences. So have most of the other coups, revolutions, and invasions that the United States has mounted to depose governments it feared or mistrusted.”     [snip]

   There’s really a three-stage motivation that I can see when I watch so many of the developments of these coups. The first thing that happens is that the regime in question starts bothering some American company. They start demanding that the company pay taxes or that it observe labor laws or environmental laws. Sometimes that company is nationalized or is somehow required to sell some of its land or its assets. So the first thing that happens is that an American or a foreign corporation is active in another country, and the government of that country starts to restrict it in some way or give it some trouble, restrict its ability to operate freely.

   Then, the leaders of that company come to the political leadership of the United States to complain about the regime in that country. In the political process, in the White House, the motivation morphs a little bit. The U.S. government does not intervene directly to defend the rights of a company, but they transform the motivation from an economic one into a political or geo-strategic one. They make the assumption that any regime that would bother an American company or harass an American company must be anti-American, repressive, dictatorial, and probably the tool of some foreign power or interest that wants to undermine the United States. So the motivation transforms from an economic to a political one, although the actual basis for it never changes.

   Then, it morphs one more time when the U.S. leaders have to explain the motivation for this operation to the American people. Then they do not use either the economic or the political motivation usually, but they portray these interventions as liberation operations, just a chance to free a poor oppressed nation from the brutality of a regime that we assume is a dictatorship, because what other kind of a regime would be bothering an American company?   [snip]

   Sometimes we hear the phrase “Business follows the flag.” But in my research, I found that it’s actually the opposite. First comes the business operations, then comes the flag. It’s the flag that follows business.

9. 

   DuctapeFatwa on April 21, 2006 at 3:18 pm

   and one unique to a particular political figure or group, but as I’m sure you know, the conditions of poverty that existed in pre-Katrina New Orleans, and still exist all over the US did not spring up over the last few years.

10. 

    dada on April 21, 2006 at 3:33 pm

    Apparently left unguarded by the SS, tagger Marc Ecko leaves his mark.

    Film at 11

    wmp and qt…NOT a high quality vid, but…