Lady, singing: 14 November 2011

I wish I knew who this lady is, or what the words are. I used to know some Arabic, but this is difficult for me to interpret. [link]

update: Her name is Amal Maher, and she was born in 1985. Evidently she is a pretty big deal currently in Egyptian music.

an invisible failed coup?

NOTE: 6 Aug 09: please see additional comments at "an invisible coup, pt 2"

I gather that some Arabic language radio channels have been discussing a possible failed coup this past weekend in Saudi Arabia, possibly led by Prince Bandar.

Have you heard of E.I.R. Gmbh, aka Eirna.com? I know nothing about E.I.R. GmbH, so I'm not really in a good position to assess their veracity. I found this(dated July 16th) at their site in looking for info about the possible failed Saudi coup:

In the U.S., newly declassified documents from the files of the official investigatory Commission on the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, give further evidence of the direct role of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services. One key document, a “Memorandum for the Record” dated April 23, 2004, confirms that a known Saudi intelligence officer, Omar al-Bayoumi, was working closely with two of the hijackers based on the West Coast, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.

This document summarizes an interview that Commission staffers Quinn John Tamm Jr. and Dietrich Snell had with an unnamed source, who was an FBI informant in the San Diego area, and who rented a room in his home to two hijackers during much of 2000. In the interview, the FBI informant confirmed the relationship between al-Bayoumi and the two hijackers.

However, the document omits one highly interesting piece of information, that is included in other 9/11 Commission documents, as well as in a 28-page synopsis suppressed by the Bush White House, on the role of al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan (another identified Saudi intelligence officer) in funding the two West Coast hijackers. That is, that Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, then Saudi Ambassador to the United States, and his wife, Princess Haifa, paid between $50,000 and $72,000 to al-Bayoumi who, in turn, passed on some of the money to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, to finance their rent, and their flight school attendance, previous to the 9/11 attacks. Note that Princess Haifa is the sister of Prince Turki bin-Faisal, who was the head of Saudi Arabian intelligence at the time of the 9/11 attacks – and resigned, suddenly, shortly thereafter.

The article goes on to mention that former FBI director Louis Freeh is now Prince Bandar's attorney, representing him in the BAE bribery case.(2003 Guardian link) Meanwhile this is the only link I found discussing a possible failed coup in Saudi this past weekend:

Press TV, "In kingdom, Saudi prince's coup 'fails'"

see also
BBC, April 2008, "UK wrong to halt Saudi arms probe"


BBC, July 2008, "Lords says SFO Saudi move lawful"

Times of London, May 2008, "BAE accused of being uncooperative with US investigators"

6 Aug 09: please see additional comments at "an invisible coup, pt 2"

Mosaic on the DNC convention- an Arab view

via truthdig.

Staring at the sun

Apparently a sundog, or a parhelic circle, is an "atmospheric optical phenomenon primarily associated with the reflection or refraction of sunlight by small ice crystals."
AP photo taken in Kerala, India by S. K. Mohan



And this is a Dragon blood tree, found on the "virtually untouched Yemeni Island of Socotra, a site of global importance for biodiversity conservation, located in the Indian Ocean."
AFP photo by Khaled Fazaa.

Alternate Focus:"If Americans knew"

You don't need me to tell you that there's an enormous amount of junk on Youtube, but there are some intellectually redeeming things too. One useful channel is that of Alternate Focus, which includes the video above. If Americans Knew is an organization founded by the woman they interview towards the end of the piece, Allison Weir.


Alternate Focus is available on the Dish Network, Free Speech TV, Channel 9415, Saturdays at 8:00pm EST and on some cable stations.

Reuters:Hormuz speedboat video

I'd really like to know if there is any polling data about how much credence the proverbial man on the street is paying to all this. We've had so much fuss about whether or not the polling in New Hampshire was accurate-- I think this poll would be more interesting.

see also:
US Navy press release: "Three U.S. Navy Ships Approached by Iranian Boats"

"greetings from Kabul"(and an Iraqdoc update)

photo courtesy irwfp.org

No, I'm not in Kabul, but presumably our friend Mr. Karzai is. I've included the above image because I'm using it in a short film I'm working on, which I mean to post on youtube in a few days, mainly to refresh and maybe improve my fallow and primitive video editing skills.(I removed the caption for a wee bit of suspense.)


I'm not soliciting funds for the Iraqdoc project right now, because if you sent me money presently I'd use it to pay for niceties like food and dsl. Fortunately I've got rent and electricity covered, so I'd say others have it far more dire than I do, and I expect to actually make some money in the 3-dimensional world in December.

Anyway: at present I plan to go to Syria in March 2008, for 6 to 10 days, to cover the Iraqi diaspora. Then if I can raise funds when I come back I would go back in May for 2-3 weeks, going to Jordan and Lebanon, or to Iraq if it appears funds and conditions allow it. Or maybe in the opposite order, as far as the 1st three countries go: to Lebanon and Jordan in March, then to Syria and maybe Iraq in May.

I've come to the conclusion that one of the things I need to do in order to realize these projects is to post some short films on the internet, so that I can demonstrate my editing skills, video and audio mixing, plus my ability to weave together a coherent and compelling narrative.

My Iraq war

Recently both Arthur Silber [here, and here]and Chris Floyd have discussed our shared if diffuse responsibility for the possibly impending war with Iran. Unnecessary war number 2 or 3 under George Bush, jr, depending on your point of view I suppose. Of course, I also suppose there still are people who believe all our post 9-11 wars have been wars of necessity, just as there must be people who believe we were attacked because "they hate us for our freedoms."

Also, Dennis Perrin has recently discussed his view of the Iraq war and how it has changed in the past few years[pt 1]. [and part 2 and part 3] I've resisted navel-gazing related to my view of the war for some time, partly because of a certain self-consciousness, but also out of a desire to leave myself out of political posts as much as possible, to offer objective arguments unrelated to my personal history, etc. But now I feel I should also offer an accounting of how I've viewed the Iraq war, then and now, and how I think my Arab-Americanness plays a role in my views.

My last posts discussing it at any length were here, "Saddam's Last Night"(December 2006) and "Leaving Iraq, pt 1"(March 2006). I first discussed my view of the (then pending) Iraq war in early April of 2002 in a BBC forum, which I was surprised to see was still available, here:



Tuesday, 9 April, 2002, 12:28 GMT 13:28 UK Should there be military action against Iraq?

Neither Bush nor the Democrats have the resolve to attack Iraq and see through the consequences of an ouster of Saddam Hussein. Most Americans who may be in favour of Saddam's ouster are unwilling to concede the responsibility to help a post-war Iraq rebuild itself. My impression is that most Americans favour a viscerally rewarding and superficial solution and I fear that we will just bomb the hell out of Iraq's infrastructure and leave her people desolate, with only token, guilt-salving efforts at reconstruction. If we do this we will have made our problems in this region much, much worse. We already seem to be headed in this direction in Afghanistan.
Jonathan Versen, Dallas area, Texas, US

Then in February of 2003 I wrote:

Sunday, February 23, 2003

I would very much like to believe that Bush is serious about liberating the people of Iraq, but I cannot trust him. I don't believe George W. Bush means to liberate the Iraqi people. I believe he means to remove Saddam but keep the Baath party and its apparatus in place, including the secret police. He will betray the Iraqi people just as his father did, while taking credit for their supposed liberation. Why else would Turkey's consent be so important? They can't wait to invade the north and suppress the Kurds. And how can we take Bush seriously as a liberator when he publicly speaks of using nuclear weapons against Iraq?

I am a democrat, not a republican, but if Bob Dole were president and said he wanted to liberate Iraq , I would be willing to believe him. In my eyes George W Bush is unprincipled and untrustworthy-- he only wants to go to war to distract people from our sour economy and our failure to capture Bin Laden.

***

flash-forward to November 2007: today I wince at much of what I wrote in the early days of my blogging(Feb 2003 was my 2nd month blogging at HZ). And although I think I would be more skeptical about the hypothetical of a Bob Dole in his 2nd term dealing with Saddam, I do think the proposition, tentatively glimpsed, that George Bush the 2nd represented a different kind of Washington oligarch was accurate, one who was blithely unconcerned about the long-term consequences of his actions in a way that was markedly unlike more traditional politicians-- like his father. The somewhat overpraised Iraq study group report from last year reminded us of this difference, as did Junior's disdainful response to it.

But in 2002 and early 2003 the main thing I had to go on was Bush Junior's style(for lack of a better word). I remembered the Chinese spy-plane incident from early 2001 and how you had Colin Powell speaking like a traditional pol, contrasted with GWB shooting his mouth off like a crazy man as if he was trying to escalate the situation(and undermine his secretary of state, sometimes in concert with Cheney). Bush behaved more like a normal president in the fall of 2001 in his initial reaction to 9-11. Whether this was just him in tightly-scripted marionette mode, I suppose we'll never know for sure.

Then 2002 rolled around, and he had to revert to the mean of being George Dubya Bush, and we were treated to the "axis-of-evil" speech. The war in Afghanistan was, what, barely three months old and he was apparently bored with it, and wanted to have another war.

When I wrote my comment in the above-referenced BBC forum, I still hadn't fully grasped just how destructive and different Bush,jr and the neocons were from traditional American oligarchs. I felt certain that whether it was Bush senior's old cronies in the White House dictating the script or just political inertia dictating that things be done the way they'd always been done, that if Saddam was removed from power by Junior, he would've been replaced by a Saddam-clone who was just as brutal to his people but friendlier to Washington. (I imagine a Dole invasion would've been like that too, although I'm also thinking Dole would've been content with the Afghanistan adventure.)

Of course if that happened, all the people who would die in the war, Americans and Iraqis, would've died just so that the US government and Dubya could show the world how tough they were, and life in Iraq would eventually be pretty much the same except for the lifting of sanctions and the no-fly zones.

The figure generally touted for how many deaths were caused by the sanctions regime is approximately 500,000 deaths. (I note we didn't really talk about that in 2002-2003 in the mainstream US press.)

Anyway, going with the 500,000 deaths* figure for 1990-2003: the only argument for war I could see in 2003 was the alleviation of the sanctions, because I believed it was otherwise politically impossible to persuade the American public that the US should just allow the sanctions to be lifted and not worry about Saddam. In other words, the only rational argument I could see for the war was,

"Look: you Americans are profoundly racist or misinformed or naive, or some dank mixture of all three, and there's seemingly no overcoming that. Since you want this disgusting, stupid war and your revenge on the Arabs, at least after you win and destroy Iraq you'll feel guilty and lift the damn sanctions and in terms of lives saved in the conquered postwar, post-sanctions Iraq, eventually, the war will mean fewer net deaths, as opposed to say, the alternate of maintaining the sanctions for another 20 or 30 years(??!) and not having a war. Maybe."

I wanted to write something like that in 2003 but felt ill at ease doing so, even anonymously.** Now, I recognized that using that sort of rhetoric can only serve to antagonize people. Additionally, it's something I would like to believe is not actually true, or at least only true of a disreputable subgroup. Even today I'd like to believe isn't true, although many things that have happened since then makes me feel as if the national debate is coarsening, and various genies are being encouraged to leave their bottles. I will post some additional thoughts about this subject in a couple of days.




*and actually that's per the Lesley Stahl interview with Madeline Albright in 1999, so it's really for 1990-99, come to think of it.

(**I was signing myself just as"Hugo" 1.2003--7.2005)

a Sibel Edmonds update, and some other items

photo:Brad Freidman

an update from Lukery: FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds: 'I Will Tell All, & Name (new) Names'

and from Sarabeth at 1115.org,"US breaks radio silence on Maher Arar"

an older item, from Arar himself, in Counterpunch:"What they did to me"

(Maher Arrar's own website is here.)

***

Mere Islam has some new, link-rich posts up, the first in several months:
"Islamofascism in historical context"
and
"A Detailed Response to a Brain-Washed Marine"


and finally "Riverbend" from Syria, "Blogging without borders"

the possible return of Friday middle eastern pop star blogging

photo of Dina Hayek(link appears to now be corrupted.)

Iraqdoc 2008

In the past I've postponed my plans to go to Iraq from the summer of 2007 to the fall(i.e., now) and now I am postponing again, to February of 2008. The main reason is money. I estimate I need another $4500-5000 more than what I presently have. My plans have also changed, insofar as I now mean to go to Jordan and Syria, and I don't think I will make it into Iraq. In the meantime, I've been working on some other posts, which I will put up soon.

things to read-- Sukhoi 33 edition

photo courtesy Aeroweb.lucia.it

Brian Beutler has Petraus's doctoral dissertation online in PDF, here. (It's pretty long.)

meanwhile, Castro criticizes the 2008 candidates. I find it hard to believe that Castro, wily old survivor that he is, might be unaware that when he criticizes Obama or HRC he only gives them credibility in many quarters over here.


from Rahul Mahajan's Empire notes, "The Real Iraq-Vietnam Analogy":

With Vietnam, we struggled hard and mostly successfully as a nation to make sure we didn’t learn the true lessons of the war. And with Iraq, we are on track to the same achievement, although this time it seems the path will be much easier.

This is a similarity that George Bush, a man who seemingly has never learned anything from anything or anyone in his entire life, is well positioned to appreciate.
[...]
Perhaps we could have learned instead that the cold war and the war on terror were not just mis-executed but misconceived?

We have apparently learned, from both of these wars, that America’s legendary good intentions are apparently not enough to ensure a good outcome. Perhaps we could have learned instead that it’s very easy to assume you have good intentions, but that, on close examination, it often turns out that you really don’t?

from the Jerusalem Post(via Xymphora, here)
"Analysis: Russia uses Syrian port to demonstrate its power in the Med"

In January 1996, the Russian Navy aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov came very close to Israeli territorial waters. On January 27, it launched several advanced Su-33 fighters, the naval version of the Su-27. The jets ventured into Israeli air space near Haifa. IAF planes were scrambled to intercept, but a skirmish was avoided.

The incident was kept secret for six years and was only revealed in 2002 in an article in the Israel Air Force magazine.

According to the report, Russian planes entered Israel's airspace at least twice and several F-16 scrambled for an intercept mission after an intrusion alert was received.

One assumes, nevertheless, that the Clinton administration became apprised of this at the time.


and Wikipedia's Russian Air Force entry notes that:

Russia resumed the Soviet-era practice of sending its bomber aircraft on long-range flights at a permanent basis in July and August 2007, after a 15-year unilateral suspension due to fuel costs and other economic difficulties after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Patrols towards the North Pole, the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean were reinstated, bringing the planes often close to NATO territory.

Does GWB miss the cold war,when other people fought in his place and he got to fly for the Texas Air National Guard by day and party every night with booze and cocaine? Is he hoping to start another one?


see also BBC News: "Russia restarts Cold War patrols"

Dick Cheney-- a tv snippet

The moveon.org people sent me an email about this video, which is also available at their site, here, and of course directly at youtube. I'm beginning to think it should be called UbiquitousTube, but then again marketing savvy has never been my strong suit.

I'm also reminded of a thing I've reflected on from time to time-- that the Dick Cheney of the 80's and early '90s seemed like a less truculent fellow than the guy who became vice-president and told Patrick Leahy to eff off and went out of his way to wear disgracefully inappropriate garb at a memorial service at Auschwitz not so long ago.

Not only does Cheney of April '94 say completely different (and far more reasonable) things than does the 21st century Cheney, but, however much the ideologue in me balks at saying this, he actually seems kind of collegial here. Is it just me, and if not, do you also wonder what happened?

in transition

why I haven't posted in a while-- various pc problems, which should be fixed within 4-5 days. In the meantime, in contrast to all the bad news, I want to note in passing two cheery things: the safe release of the BBC's Alan Johnston last week, and Arvin Hill's new url, along with a passel of new Arvin items:

Arvin Hill dot Com.

No, it is NOT Hammer time

Vast Left discusses MC Hammer's unfortunate "anti-war" song(via Avedon.):

If MC Hammer can help save our troops with his new video, "Bring Our Brothers Home," why should I quibble?

Well, because it's deeply dishonest.

Still, I agree with the chorus, which is actually pretty catchy:

Bring 'em home
Bring our brothers home
Too much dying
They've been gone too long
People crying
That this war is wrong
Right or wrong, it's time to come home

Also, the endless montage of war footage and flagged-draped caskets is quite moving. How could it not be?

Unfortunately, Hammer has been Hannitized for our mutually assured destruction.

I have to agree with "Vast Left." Hammer has bought in to the idea that domestic criticism of the war is "hating the troops." Another sample:

Man it must be hard
With all the things you're going through
Got the world on your shoulders
Everybody watching you
Keep us all safe
And out the same mouth we hate you.

and Hammer seems to be saying that the problem with the war was just that we stayed there too long:

You did what we needed
In our darkest hour
While our peoples was dyin'
In them burning twin towers
Never before have we seen it like this
The enemies we looking for
Was living in our midst
So we brought it to 'em
And we hit 'em where it hurts
Stuck they heads in the sand and knocked they dicks in the dirt
They know what it is, sir,
Job well done
Now pick up the phone and tell our boys
Come on home.

"Stuck they[sic] heads in the sand and knocked they[sic] dicks in the dirt, They know what it is, sir, Job well done?"

Apparently he's decided to be a racist to boot. Too bad. The title is "Bring Our Brothers Home," and you can look for it if you are determined; but like hell I'll embed the Youtube video here.

I wonder how many people will also decide, years down the road when(and if) the Iraq occupation is finally over, that it was the right thing to do, but we "just stayed over there too long." For all I know it may already be a common sentiment among the blood-n-guts crowd that keeps buying those damn bumper stickers. (If I displayed a bumper sticker that said "I support the troops, except the deranged and sadistic ones," I imagine I'd be compromising my safety, even though it strikes me as a pretty reasonable sentiment. What if I also specified "And I support extensive mental health treatment for the deranged ones?" No, I think it still would be unwise...)

Anyway: as I said the other day, our mass media operators seem pretty determined that people don't make connections and don't put the pieces together, and Hammer's view is tailor-made for giving a way for people to unreflectively square the sheer waste of the war with the aims of the once and future war machine. It's not that different, if you stop and think about it, from John Kerry's "message" in 2004 that the problem with the war was that it was prosecuted badly.

It wasn't always this way. Remember when Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won the lead acting Oscars for Coming Home? I'm not saying the Oscars are or ever were a meaningful measure of film art (clearly they're not, and if they ever manage to be it's only coincidentally so), but they are a measure of what the Hollywood elite holds up as valuable, and it's unimaginable that a film like Coming Home, were it made today, would receive that kind of conferred legitimacy. Today Hollywood courts Hillary Clinton and (to a lesser degree) Obama, with their "all options on the table" talk viz-a-viz Iran, and even in the last cycle they wouldn't touch Howard Dean when he still seemed viable in late 2003.

If you want another reason to see Hammer's view as small and mean, consider this, from another era:


(larger image here.) photo courtesy "Rom Tobbi"

(a total of about half a million soldiers died at Gallipoli in a few months' time, roughly half on each side, the British and French, and the Turkish. The custom of sending soldiers' bodies back to their home countries is a comparatively recent development. Incidentally the man who wrote the words fought there too.)

Delara Derabi

photo: savedelara.com

Delara Derabi is a 20 year old woman who is scheduled to be executed in Iran, possibly as soon as next month. She initially confessed to a murder comitted by her then-boyfriend at his insistence, because at the time she was 17 and he was over 18, and they believed she would not receive a harsh sentence, whereas he would. She's recanted her confession since, but has still been found guilty and is scheduled to be executed by hanging.

In January of this year another Iranian girl, Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi(below left) was given clemency from the hangman's noose via a retrial and exoneration after her government received some 350,000 signatures petitioning for her to be freed(she had killed a would-be rapist in self-defense.). If she had been raped and not tried to prevent it, it's likely she would have been found guilty of having unchaste sexual relations(i.e., because she was not married to the attacker), and received a corporal punishment of several lashes instead.




However, Nazanin may have had the case of Ateqeh Rajabi (b&w inset, above) on her mind when she acted. Ateqeh, who was hanged at the age of 16 for having sexual relations with an older man-- and apparently for talking back to the judge and taking her hijab off in court.[1]

Note that hanging in Iran is a particularly brutish affair, as they don't use the traditional sudden drop designed to snap the victim's neck and kill her nearly instantaneously. Instead the Iranian justice system uses suspension hanging, in which the victim is gradually hoisted off her feet and dies from asphixiation and neck trauma leading to gradual breaking, a process that generally takes 20-30 minutes.

Initially I hesitated to post the "glamour" photo of Delara, because I considered it possibly counter-productive, as her being dolled up and encouraged to pose in a soulful, contemplative manner, undoubtedly at her attorney's behest, might seem like phoniness to some people visiting here. But-- so what? She sure as hell needs sympathy, and if the "glamour" photo better engenders it, so be it. She's nowhere near 350 thousand signatures presently, and she could use some international attention. (There's also a "help delara" myspace page.)

Normally I'd take this moment to chide conservatives for not banging the drum on her behalf, but I've seen very little discussion of her story, whether on the left or the right. I heard about her via Ali Eteraz,here, whose web site I used to visit more frequently.

Delara also paints, mainly in charcoal. SaveDelara.com has a link to some of her illustrations, like the one below.

Info on the petition is here.




[1]see BBC:"Execution of a teenaged girl"

Nazanin and Ateqeh collage by me, from images from Kristian Hvesser's Save Nazanin page.
Update, above, May 9th.

3 things

1.Riverbend has been silent for two months. She posts again, about the partially-built US wall of Adhamiya. And leaving Iraq..

2. Naomi Wolf, in The Guardian:"Fascist America, in 10 easy steps"

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all...

3."The War Party" James Antle in American Conservative magazine.(via Eric Alterman, who also discusses Wolf's essay briefly.)

Metacontent for an April Morning

Cannes, c. 1979. the photo above was uploaded to Wikipedia and possibly snapped by"Eric D", who is almost as mysterious as the young lady being photographed, as no one seems to know who she was.

300 the movie "that's so gay",NCAA final four april fool's jokes, major league baseball, Angelina Jolie's telephone number, brunch recipes,(1)an experiment should not necessarily be labeled as such,dendreon corp.(2)enormous breasts, donald trump,

Ocean's Thirteen, Rolexes for sale to the highest bidder, McDonalds Instant Discount;Walmart Free! Buy it Now: You know you want it; George Bush, junior toilet brush, Whetham Knauckweirst?


Lars Ulrich, don't mess with Oprah,

Wikipedia,

or the three tenors. Lindsay Lohan: click her if you don't want to see this message again. Tasting Rachael Ray requires flash player , The Rich Man being led to Hell, what is the name of the sexy mom in that ad?


King o' Zembla: Of course, the piece was much more effective at Bohemian Grove, where it was performed in the nude.(as the King would say: "hello, puzzled googlers!".)

Maha:"privatization gone wild"

who is Shatha Hassoun?(3)Modern audiences prefer to assign their own meanings and simply cannot be fooled by the girl in the dry cleaning ad.

you see, Micah Holmquist used to do this, and I've associated it with him ever since!

hater tonic(on technorati),gmail paper, youtube, joost,"crowdsourcing"

why does Nancy Grace scowl so much?
file your taxes now!

from th' BBC:

"Verka Serdyuchka, who pokes fun at middle-aged women, is loved by many people and is a cult icon in Ukraine. She was chosen as Ukraine's entry by an overwhelming majority in a public vote, but some find her vulgar and offensive."

kathy sierra (also) avalonstar, and avalonstar(ahead of the curve guy: hey, no smirking!)

Why do they hate us? property is theft:Iran, Iran

ritalia. twitter(from kathy sierra's blog)


does Marc Lynch really believe Eminem can save the Middle east?

Jack K:"9 mos. vs. 20 years" (see David Hicks)

"While most Americans believe the situation in Iraq will be judged a failure in the history books, 40% believe the U.S. should take military action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons."-dohiyimir


////////////////////////////////////////////////
and now(speaking of theft), here are some jokes:

from Your Right Hand Thief:

He walked up to me and said, "You know why Notre Dame is similar to Marijuana?"
I said "Sir, no sir."
And he said "Because they both get smoked in bowls".

From cutie El Goodo's defunct 2006 blog(a joke contest):

Do you think there are thieves who justify their actions through the ol' "God helps people who help themselves" adage?

Rob said...

But the better question is, in pantheistic religions, are there deities who go around stealing offerings meant for other deities, and justify it by saying, "Hey, people help Gods who help themselves?"

[The above comment was Rob's entry in the "world's most awkward joke contest" . . .]

A Pantheist stole an apple, and nobody said nuthin'. The wind did not whistle mournfully through the trees, even in the apple orchard. The pantheist said to himself.

This was my entry:

The thief said, God helps those who help themselves, and stole a can of potted meat. it was very good, and he was no longer hungry. God said nothing, and the thief felt vindicated. then the thief stole a Celica, with fancy wheels and a CD changer, even though the area's public transit was pretty good and he even had a bus schedule. He hit a tree and died.

An end of month miscellany

photo: US Naval Observatory/Amazing Science

1.from the Guardian: an RFK conspiracy

2.Jonathan Schwarz : the U.S. and Israeli governments face a difficult challenge: how can they continue pretending they want peace, while avoiding it at all costs?

3.Mark Kleiman:
"For every one that doeth evil hateth the light":

A special treat for all you Kafka fans: the recipient of a "National Security Letter" explains how a gag order works. If there's anything nastier than a warrantless search, it's a warrantless search the victim is legally forbidden to complain about.

4.Joe Bageant: "Neurological Biocaste Blues":

As most of the world has noticed by now, very few Americans are critical thinkers. Most suffer from a collective learning disability based on the complete commodification of our consciousness by consumerism and electronic media. In this case, learning disability is a nice way of saying that we have become collectively stupid, muchless capable of insight.

Insight is scary to Americans so conditioned to rote consumption and substituting entertainment and illusion for actual involvement. When they realize something, and I mean genuine higher understanding of what the sum of the parts mean, not simply what they appear to be, their consciousness is altered and they become different inside. Suddenly the world is no longer the solid consumer state sonambulation they are accustomed to. They have no tools to deal with it. Beyond that least half of us are so conditioned we are incapable of human insight at all...

but go read the whole thing. If you've never read anything by Joe Bageant before, this piece is an excellent introduction. Bageant is a kind of southern-fried Baudrillard, only with a decidedly non Baudrillardian impatience for the apolitically ironic distancing angrier.

5.Scott Ritter: "Calling out Idiot America:"

the title is a bit misleading, insofar as this piece mainly discusses US ignorance of Islamic history. I don't entirely agree with Ritter's premises, but that's an argument for another day-- suffice to say, it's a concise overview of the history of the Sunni/Shi'a rift, and a useful read for that reason.