Monday, September 06, 2010

6 Sept - Blogger Migration

In response to Josh Marshall's advisory about shutting down TPM Cafe Reader blogs....I didn't wait. http://oldephartte.blogspot.com/2010/09/tpm-cafe-blog.html is one of two posts where I reposted content from here.
Isn't that a lot of work ?
Like most stuff, there's a hard way and an easy way to do things. I had set up a 'repost' blog already becauses 404 Errors were lousing up my archives of Opit's LinkFest! at My Opera. I didn't do a lot of research choosing Blogger : perhaps I should have after listening to bitching,whining and complaing from people who eventually ended up paying a modest fee for self-hosting at places like SoapBlox. Regardless, here's how I transferred my files to Blogger in under an hour. Your experience may vary depending on the amount of content you have should you choose to try the same.
Firefox browser please. I have Google Chrome - which works almost as well...until it doesn't finalize the post...on my Ubuntu machine lacking some updates, anyway.Opera and other GNU browsers just won't do this little trick properly...not this way anyhow.
Shade in the area to be copied.Right click, select copy.Paste.
That's it. Links are complete. I find I have to edit and don't know how to fix things so videos repost properly.Those I skip.If anyone has a fix for that, I 'd like to hear it.
I use Discus and Zemanta. Zemanta and LastPass I sometimes shut down while composing a post and come back in Edit to add content after re-enabling in 'Tools'.
And if anyone wants to find their content and comments online - I recommend a little surfing with BackType. That's even scarier than a Vanity Search on Google.
And in Blogger I chose 'Follow' for the TPM Cafe Readers Blog.
The New TPMCafe Readers' Blogsite!
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/r/u/rutabaga_ridgepole/2010/09/the-new-tpmcafe-readers-blogsi.php
http://tpmcafereadersblogs.blogspot.com/

TPM Cafe - Mar 2009 To Mar 2007

Noam Chomsky at the World Social Forum in 2003...

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End of an Era

March 23, 2009, 1:47PM

Jumping all over the web the way I do means I often lose track of all the little notes and rants and lists and comments. Apologies to those who wonder if I didn't just drop off the face of the Earth ( lately I've been 'Down Under' a lot - electronically, of course ).
I doubt many realize just how much time it takes to search and post - which is why a central noteboard is so important. Utilities back at Opit's Linkfest give locations of different networks and places I wander through. The links page tends more to locations where stories were found while the blog is chronological - though it may be off because of absences or even 'lost' posts.
Here's a collation about Water : a basic and urgent necessity. Because of that, it is a natural lever of power - and destruction.
End of an Era is about changes coming from water shortages looming over us - and how that happened.
June 23 I'm adding a note here that Opera is returning 404 errors. Relevant data is still on the Links page under Water - Wealth & Power. Files are being duplicated at Opit's LinkFest! on Blogger. Most topics are searchable on Del.icio.us/OPIT.

Boondoggle beats Perception

February 23, 2009, 2:12AM

As I rove around the web, it seems I hear constant complaining that so-and-so is lying, talking through his hat, making shit up....
I don't really know when I started taking a more basic view of things seriously, i.e. unless insanity of a specific type was contagious - a plan was being followed.
I grew up watching television advertising - something that should guarantee cynical disbelief.
Rove was a revelation : a known advertising man packaging fiction as the front for not just the campaign trail, but ongoing smoke and mirrors to hide the real agenda of the administration.
Intelligent dissent was immediately branded variously as unAmerican, disloyal, Leftist, Conspiracy Theorist....Epithet of the Day branding of various and sundry people in lieu of rebuttal.
I'm lazy online - preferring to catalogue what I consider wonderful writing by others. Noam Chomsky, Tom Engelhardt... so many listed at places like Dandelion Salad,Op-Ed News, Think Progress and more. But I have tried lackadasically to do some organizing of incisive analysis into more concentrated form. The problem is, unless people actually peruse such a list, use it for exploration stimulation, or even a reading aid...the work ends up mostly wasted.
So I diversify, commenting here and there and joining new-hunters' groups and joining some of the better comments threads.
Problem is, by the time that happens, you're dealing with people who realize something is 'off'. What about those who don't ? And can you quip without being slotted into the category of 'fruitcake' so fast you might as save yourself the effort ?
Needlenose, Daliy Kos, Last Left Turn B4 Hooterville and more have tried. Here's another note dealing with the fact that stupid things are constantly said in the news.
The decrying of lack of accuracy stirred up totally misses the point.
An introduction to the Overton Window

Why the Right-Wing gets it - and Dems don't

Logical Fallacies Info

I really owe a lot of my willingness to chase this train of thought to Noam Chomsky, who was down this road many years ago in his work on media control by a close-knit corporate in-group. Taking things further led me to see that a pattern of deception could be possible right from school, entertainment, media...everywhere. A real case for paranoia plus.
Could such a framework be reasonably posited and considered ? A little look at political theory yielded startling results
Plutocracy
Kleptocracy
The basics of our laws are inherited from those imposed by conquerors who defined the conditions under which society would operate : specifically in England the settlement of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Modification came in 1215 when the hereditary ruling class took a chunk of Imperial power away because of ongoing abuse : the Great Charter ( Magna Carta ) which limited the authority of the state to imprison and hold people.
Under the current false war of existance threat of terrorism ( real challenges being in short supply ), replacing the old Cold War and Mutual Assured Destruction ( something current policies go a long way towards revitalizing ), the citizenry is stripped of this protection.
Orwell is so often quoted he's become flagged as a sort of UFO-style alarmist. Check his background : he worked in broadcasting before becoming an author. He knew media. His 'fictional' account ? People are fed a recurring theme instead of reporting : news is made to fit the story line by changing it , just not telling everything, or flat omission.
I found '1984' rather dull in some ways. The idea of a soporific community has other proponents. Perversely, Aldous Huxley - Brave New World seemed to have more zip.

Desert Crossing and other Information

April 17, 2007, 11:10PM

The 1999 Study projecting the results of an invasion of Iraq
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/index.htm
This was 'hidden' by Don Rumsfeld
How Iraq's water supply was destroyed
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0808-07.htm
Power of hate speech and the Big Lie
http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2007/03/whats-in-word-power-of-hate-speech-and.html
Sowing Disention Among the Insurgency ( pdf )
http://www.mountainrunner.us/files/Sowing_Dissension.pdf
Project for the New American Century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Security First : Ours, Theirs, and the Global Order
http://dspace.wrlc.org/bitstream/1961/4011/1/A370+-+Security+First.pdf
One further piece of information. Check the original PNAC policy statement and note names of the members.
Now try an experiment. Imagine 'Desert Crossing' is the policy of the Cheney/Bush administration. How well does the model fit the train of events ?

The Importance of Being Earnest

March 20, 2007, 7:54AM

Or to steal a line.
The President of the United States has gone so far as to advise Congress what legislation is out of bounds for consideration re: Iraq as to meet automatic veto should it be promulgated. This does not seem like an adequate support of Congress' duty to vette engagements in foreign conflict and define - as opposed to administer - ongoing policy.
Despite bad weather conditions hampering the physical ability to assemble for the fourth year of an illegal invasion promoted with deception equivalent to shouting "Fire !" in a crowded theater, Americans clearly are dissatisfied with their perceptions of the Administration's direction, candor, competence and discretion.
That would be before recognition of what a colossal "haul" Halliburton and friends have made from extra-budgetary and/or improperly administered contracts - coupled with tax exemptions for super corporations - and mercenaries - and torture.
That this only scratches the surface of this horror show makes Congress' seeming inability to leave its familiar distractions of partisan politics and engage with the idea that it has lost most if not all of its real power to affect the tide of events to become an almost irrelevant vestigial appendage of government really comes at the most inconvenient time when it is once more revealed that those who most desire power are often the least deserving of it.
Perhaps that is only poetic justice after all.

TPM Cafe Blog

Climate Change Science & Technology Management...

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Josh Marshall is advising that TPM Cafe Readers' blogs are holding back needed modernization/streamlining : so here are reposts

The International Tax on the Use of Fire

April 13, 2010, 11:39PM

Fitness Model posing with dumbell. Photo by Gl...

Image via Wikipedia
Posing with Dumbell - I couldn't resist.
Here's why it blew up.
Copenhagen destroyed by Danish draft leak,says India's environment minister
The outcome was determined by a failed "ambush", targeted at the leaders of emerging economies, by the host nation Denmark. This attempted to switch a new negotiating text for the existing UN texts.
Then there's notice to all and sundry that the US will impose a global tax on the use of fire
Confidential document reveals Obama's hardline US climate talk strategy
Reinforce the PERCEPTION that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.
Have you ever heard a psyops program described with more clarity than that ?
Background on the media circus trying to paint our options to a black and white choice by scientists who cannot model a chaotic open system but must pretend they can to avert our impending doom.
This from the people who have killed on all continents on a covert budget from flogging arms and smuggling drugs plus purloined public purse.
Climate in Contention

Nuclear Progress Report

March 20, 2010, 7:50PM

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Guidance
Declassified report reveals U.S. has drawn down stockpiles of nuclear arms 50%, unannounced and 5 years ahead of schedule

Document Updates

September 11, 2009, 12:59AM

I usually try to steer clear of dry documentation!
This file is an old 'find' from when Rumsfeld was exiting Defence : a War Game outlining the likely consequences of invading Iraq. I didn't realize at that time it was a Clinton-era plan. 'Post-Saddam Iraq : Desert Crossing' seems more like a cautionary tale than a pattern which can be repeated to overthrow governments.
New URL http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/
There is also an update from State to look over
New State Department Releases on the "Future of Iraq" Project
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/index.htm
Finally, the Search itself had interesting data surface
Search
Showing 1-10 of about 262 results.
Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game
Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game. "Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed 400,000 Troops and Still a Mess. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 207. ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB207/
Eyes on Saddam
... US Satellite Imagery, 1960-1999. Pre- and post-strike overhead imagery of an Iraqi military headquarters compound. Eyes on Saddam US Overhead Imagery of Iraq. ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88/
[PDF] Iraq and Iran: Society, Politics, War and Peace
... at http://www.nytimes.com); The Washington Post (www.washingtonpost ... o Adeed Dawisha, "Identity and Political Survival in Saddam's Iraq," Middle East ...
www.gwu.edu/~imes/assets/docs/syllabi/IAFF-358.11.pdf
White House Ignored CIA Warnings on Iraq
... Washington, DC, October 13, 2005 - The White House disregarded intelligence projections on post-Saddam Iraq according to a newly-declassified CIA report, ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20051013/
State Department experts warned CENTCOM before Iraq war about lack ...
... cable announces the establishment of 15 "Future of Iraq Project" working groups to prepare for the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, adding that ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB163/
Saddam's Iron Grip: Intelligence Reports on Saddam Hussein's Reign
... State Department experts warned CENTCOM before Iraq war about lack of plans for post-war Iraq security Planning for post-Saddam regime change began as early as ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB167/
New State Department Releases on the "Future of Iraq" Project
... from the USG, which might have negative consequences both for the participants and for the interests of the US government in post-Saddam Iraq." (See 20020001 ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB198/
TOP SECRET POLO STEP - Iraq War Plan Assumed Only 5,000 US Troops ...
... "Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton. ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/
The Communitarian Network
... Scott Feil (Ret.) at congressional hearings, to keep the peace in post-Saddam Iraq we may need 75,000 troops, which amounts to three divisions (the military ...
www.gwu.edu/~ccps/etzioni/B432.html
US Intelligence and Iraq WMD
... by December 2006. Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game "Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed 400,000 Troops and Still a Mess. New State Department ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/

Poor Iran

August 21, 2009, 10:44PM

Mousavi says government agents raped detainees

Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut
He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.
The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.
"We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Syria," retired Navy Admiral James "Ace" Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.
"The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a 'spectacular action' against the Marines," said Lyons.
"He was prime minister," Lyons said of Mousavi, "so he didn't get down to the details at the lowest levels. "But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on."
Lyons, sometimes called "the father" of the Navy SEALs' Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.
Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.
But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie "Syriana," places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.
"He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was "the man largely held responsible for both attacks," Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.
"When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq," Baer continued.
"This was the heyday of [Ayatollah] Khomeini's theocratic vision, when Iran thought it really could export its revolution across the Middle East, providing money and arms to anyone who claimed he could upend the old order."
Baer added: "Mousavi was not only swept up into this delusion but also actively pursued it."
Retired Adm. Lyons maintained that he could have destroyed the terrorists at a hideout U.S. intelligence had pinpointed, but he was outmaneuvered by others in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.
"I was going to take them apart," Lyons said, "but the secretary of defense," Caspar Weinberger, "sabotaged it."
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/06/mousavi-celebrated-i n-iranian.html
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REVOLUTIONARY FLOWERPOT SOCIETY

Mir-Hossein Mousavi's Iran/Contra Connection?

They are all good friends and associates of Manuchehr Ghorbanifar (an Iranian arms merchant, an alleged MOSSAD double agent, and a key figure in the Iran/Contra Affair, the arms-for-hostages deals between Iran and the Reagan administration). In one or two, at most three, degrees of separation, these people hung out in the same circles and very likely drank to the same toasts.
You can find all kinds of trivia about Ghorbanifar in the Walsh Report on the Iran/Contra affair. In Chapter 8, for example, we learn:
    "Ghorbanifar, an Iranian exile and former CIA informant who had been discredited by the agency as a fabricator, was a driving force behind these proposals [for arms-for-hostages deal];" or, "Ghorbanifar, as broker for Iran, borrowed funds for the weapons payments from Khashoggi, who loaned millions of dollars to Ghorbanifar in "bridge financing'" for the deals. Ghorbanifar repaid Khashoggi with a 20 percent commission after being paid by the Iranians," (see: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm).
Here is a bit from an article by Time magazine that shows Ghorbanifar's circle of associates; it is from a January 1987 cover story (The Murky World of Weapons Dealers; January 19, 1987):
    "By [Ghorbanifar's] own account he was a refugee from the revolutionary government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, which confiscated his businesses in Iran, yet he later became a trusted friend and kitchen adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, Prime Minister in the Khomeini government. Some U.S. officials who have dealt with Ghorbanifar praise him highly. Says Michael Ledeen, adviser to the Pentagon on counterterrorism: "[Ghorbanifar] is one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." Others call him a liar who, as one puts it, could not tell the truth about the clothes he is wearing," (emphasis added).
This second bit is from Chapter 1 of Walsh Iran/Contra Report: (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm)
    "On or about November 25, 1985, Ledeen received a frantic phone call from Ghorbanifar, asking him to relay a message from [Mir-Hossein Mousavi] the prime minister of Iran to President Reagan regarding the shipment of the wrong type of HAWKs. Ledeen said the message essentially was "we've been holding up our part of the bargain, and here you people are now cheating us and tricking us and deceiving us and you had better correct this situation right away.''
    [...]
    "In early May, North and CIA annuitant George Cave met in London with Ghorbanifar and Nir, where the groundwork finally was laid for a meeting between McFarlane and high-level Iranian officials, as well as financial arrangements for the arms deal. Among the officials Ghorbanifar said would meet with an American delegation were the president and prime minister [Mousavi] of Iran and the speaker of the Iranian parliament," (emphasis added).
And to remind how Michael Ledeen became involved in the Iran/Contra affair in 1985, here is a bit from Chapter 15 of Walsh Report (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_15.htm):
    "[McFarlane] authorized Michael A. Ledeen, a part-time NSC consultant on anti-terrorism, to ask Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to check on a report that the Israelis had access to good sources on Iran. By early August 1985, Ledeen's talks had led to a direct approach by Israeli officials to McFarlane, to obtain President Reagan's approval to ship U.S.-supplied TOW missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in Beirut. McFarlane said he briefed the President, Regan, Shultz, Weinberger, Casey and perhaps the Vice President about the proposal in July and August 1985.40 McFarlane said that Casey recommended that Congress not be informed of the arms sales."
There you have it. Now, I'm no investigative journalist, so I'll leave it to the professionals to dig deeper into this.
But, I do have to wonder aloud: Seeing how we cannot ignore his 'neo-con' credentials and that Michael Ledeen maintained his very good relations with Ghorbanifar, (who at least used to be) a good friend of Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the 'candidate of change' in the Iranian presidential elections); and given the support that Mousavi's candidacy has been receiving from the American 'moderates', maybe this kind of 'change' is the 'regime change' the Americans have had in mind for Iran?
werkshop said...
    I have felt alone on this too, but i know I'm not alone. This is another US backed Color Coup, and Mousavi is a stooge. I'm sure of it. And I too am furious with the left for not seeing both the classism of this whole fiasco, and the way people's genuine desires for freedom are being used and channeled into something very dark.
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A Tense Calm on Streets of Tehran

Iranian State Media Intensify Criticism of Mousavi, Protesters

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 22, 2009
TEHRAN, June 21 -- The Iranian government and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stepped up their war of words Sunday after at least 10 people were killed in clashes on Saturday, while an uneasy calm prevailed on the streets of Tehran on Sunday for the first time since Iran's worst political crisis in 30 years began a week ago.
Government media lashed out Sunday at Mousavi, suggesting that some of his actions were illegal and blaming "terrorists" for Saturday's violence, in which at least 100 people were injured. The semiofficial Fars News Agency, which has strong ties to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quoted a law professor at Tehran University as saying that Mousavi's actions were criminal.
"Through uncivil and illegal means, he created an environment for unrest and hooliganism," Firouz Aslani told Fars News. "Contrary to his claims of lawfulness, he acted against the security of the nation and the interests of the system."
Some analysts in Tehran said those comments and others carried in the state-run news media questioning the legality of Mousavi's actions could be the government's way of preparing the ground for his arrest.
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Profile: MirHossein Mousavi Iran's presidential challenger (telegraph.co.uk)
Mousavi to Obama: You Insult Us (minx.cc)
W. David Stephenson: New Anti-Terror Weapons: You, Me, iPhone & Twitter (huffingtonpost.com)
Paul Rahe: Iran's trajectory (powerlineblog.com)
Robert Baer: Don't Forget Mousavi's Bloody Past (time.com)
Iran's Revolutionary Road: Beware the Echo Chamber (lailalalami.com)
Congress Seeks More Answers From CIA (abcnews.go.com)
Which State Security Branch Rules Tehran's Streets? (time.com)

Dysfunction Junction

July 23, 2009, 12:33PM

I've been preoccupied with bringing Opit's LinkFest! to Blogger, recapping Indexes in some kind of order and posting all at the same time. Still, some links shrieked to be noted on a political site.
Paging Erin Brovkovich
This place has quite a good overview of water worldwide, of which this is only a part The Water Issue. I ran into the posts because of the pictorial essay 'Absence of Water' showing derelict public baths in Britain. It was a StumbleUpon recommendation.
Group News Blog feature 'Why Medical Care in the U.S.A. sucks ass' is upstaged by Blacklisted News' WHO moves forward in secret to accomplish forced vaccination and population agenda.
Punditry Conservative Democrats have all the qualities of a dog except loyalty is about shocking vet stats. R.I.P. is for Habeas Corpus and the contination of the worst of Bush...something moved to Bagram and expanded. Did you see Greenwald on that ?
$15 M from Michigan for factories to go renewable