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Open Thread

The Pirate King

While the world has been watching the rise of the left – from Obama’s ascendancy to the reorganisation of political parties across South America, another game has been in play – the ascendency of the Pirate King.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.

While Johnny Depp brought smiles to our faces though the Pirates of the Caribbean, it’s the Somali Pirates who are writing the script in 2009. On the 7th April this year hijackers off Somalia’s coast seized five ships in 48 hours. The pirates eluded the armada of warships from more than a dozen nations patrolling Somalia’s seas.

According to Wikipedia piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of Somalia’s civil war in the early 1990s. Since 2005, many international organisations, including the International Maritime Organization and the World Food Programme, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy. Piracy has contributed to a rise in shipping costs and impeded the delivery of food aid shipments. Ninety percent of the World Food Programme’s shipments arrive by sea, and ships have required a military escort. According to the Kenyan foreign minister, Somali pirates have received over US$150 million during the 12 months prior to November 2008.

Where things get interesting is in the analysis of cause and effect. According to an article over on the New York Times Somali officials said piracy started about 10 to 15 years ago as a response to illegal fishing. The country’s tuna-rich waters were plundered by commercial fishing fleets soon after its government collapsed in 1991. Somali fishermen turned into armed vigilantes, confronting fishing boats and demanding they pay a tax. In 2008, more than 120 pirate attacks occurred in the Gulf of Aden, far more than in any other year in recent memory. Experts said the Somali pirates netted more than $100 million, an astronomical sum for a war-racked country whose economy is in tatters.

UPDATE: 12 April 2009
Rachel Maddow provides a roundup on the Meet the Press.

UPDATE: 13 April 2009
John J. Kruzel of the American Forces Press Service reports Hostage Captain Was in ‘Imminent Danger’ at Time of Rescue

1,477 replies on “The Pirate King”

HarryH, further to our discussion last night:

Like many bears, Mr Patterson expects the great crunch to end in deliberate inflation, deemed a lesser evil than outright depression.

“The US government has thrown 29pc of GDP at this crisis compared to 8pc in the early 1930s. The Fed’s balance sheet has risen from $900bn to $2.7 trillion to bail out the system. America has to do it because the only way out is to debase the currency, but that is going to lead to some very high inflation three years down the road,” he said.

…and this is from a guy who’s private equity firm received TARP money, and he reckons the whole thing is scam on the taxpayers!

You’ll find the nitty gritty here:

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/mark-patterson-its-sham-banks-are.html

…it’s a complicated story, but worth delving into if you like that kind of thing.

Oh, ‘that’ Treasury department…

“Ken Henry has clearly become a new bogeyman for conservatives. Today’s lengthy editorial spray from The Australian — including an hilarious justification of Peter Costello’s “China tsunami” howler — indicates just how seriously the Right takes the head of Treasury.

Obviously Henry’s years of loyal service to the Howard Government have been forgotten — although he famously blotted his copybook when he said — in private — that Treasury needed to redouble its efforts to keep that Government to some sort of policy discipline. It’s peculiar, too, that the Coalition is now so eager to attack Treasury, but repeatedly claims what a strong economy and fiscal position it left the incoming Rudd Government, as though all the hard work had been done by the Howard Cabinet and not those bumblers down the road in the Treasury building.

Treasury’s error of course has been to stay within the mainstream of economic orthodoxy as the economic crisis has unfolded. Only a few right-wing economists, and the Federal Coalition, have seriously argued that the Government should not have adopted a highly expansionary fiscal policy. ”

Keane in Crikey today nails it: you can’t bag the same head of Treasury who developed the best economy in the world as the same guy who’s some clueless pointy head doing the ‘socialist’ government’s bidding.

Unless you’re Malcolm Trumbull or his running dog rag the Oz.

Let the sheer hypocrisy of it fade from your mind, and try an envisage the clip I saw last night: Trumbull and Chrissy Pyne in a supermarket, cornering some old guy. Pyne squeaks with the feral ferocity of a gerbil on steroids: “aren’t you afraid of all that DEBT???”

It was too funny for words.

1304

Kirri
It is hard for Henry to soar like an eagle when he is surrounded by Turkeys.

Kirri at 1287, the deflation/inflation question is a bigun’ alright. Fortunes are gonna be made or lost but as Harry observes, no one really knows how this economic crisis will play out. If deflation hits first as you suggest, then it would be a good time to buy “self-sustaining” real estate, a fistful of doubloons and maybe a few pieces of eight.

That way one’s kin could survive the hyperinflation and whatever other consequences the collective Homo Economus will be compelled to engage.

Gaffy, hadn’t twigged it was the same Jerry. Can’t stand the Car Show he hosts as seen on sbs but Min and Junior Segundo reckon it’s grouse and taunt with cruel names like Peter Pedals and fuddy-duddy and Mistah E-V Crank etc. if one utters disparaging comments en passent the Home Entertainment Module during Jerry’s program. These people with whom I co-habitate are SO Twentieth Century! 🙂

May 20:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/patoliphant;_ylt=AnPWtZwsRF_9llyOS569.kDV.i8C

May 20:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=AqtjqgCpxoUfXiH4I7I7QEPX.sgF

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70918

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70907

May 21:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=A0WTUffeBRVKNSMBPQcDwLAF

A third of a year’s rain in one night! Freakin’ hell Ecky, you guys have really copped a deluge. How’re you going, got ya rubber ducky at the ready?

Won’t be long now, gaffy, before we get a weekly show on 100% renewable energy vehicles. The MiEV is due for release next year at around 30 k AUD. Should spark up the competiton. Some other mob have one in the works for 20 k.

The idea of short hop commuting in a car that one “plugs into the sun” in order to tool around the neighbourhood thrills me to the core of my being. Every itty-bitty atom of every element that composes each of us and terra herself was once forged in that celestial power house.

Afterall, we star children have a need to feel connected. 🙂

1309
Ec
I being the full on optimist or pessimist (not sure which) think there will be a fair bit of gouging during the first couple of years until there are a few more competitors on the market.

Ecky,
Have great admiration for a former local Ross Blade, who not only stood against Phillip Ruddock as an Independent during the Howard years, but also developed an electric car.
He has since moved to Victoria where he has managed to engineer a car so impressive that the NZ Environment Minister now drives one as his ministerial vehicle and Hyundai NZ are importing 200 next year.
The link below is written by one satisfied owner who has driven one of his cars for more tham a year.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-little-green-car-that-pays-for-itself-20090507-awk6.html
http://www.bev.com.au/media.htm

For your perusal Gouldie. cf 1222 and your:
1243
David Gould Says:

May 19th, 2009 at 10:01 am
gaffhook at 1222

Of course. But as it is rumour stacked on rumour stacked on rumour

The rumours are surfacing again David maybe you want to restack em!

America was braced last night for new allegations of torture in Iraq after military officials said that photographs apparently showing US soldiers beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death and having sex with a female PoW were about to be released.

The officials told the US television network NBC that other images showed soldiers “acting inappropriately with a dead body”. A videotape, apparently made by US personnel, is said to show Iraqi guards raping young boys.

There you have it: the Telegraph implied in 2004 that U.S. officials admitted that there was a video of guards raping boys. Even if the Telegraph’s implication is wrong, there is strong evidence that such rapes did in fact occur as Hersh said.

And whether or not any of the rapists were U.S. soldiers or contractors, at the very least, American soldiers aided and abetted the rape by standing around and taking videos and photographs.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/U-S-Officials-Admitted-th-by-George-Washington-090520-900.html

Wonder if there is any chance the Poms will go the knuckle again with the Seppops?

The One Case of Torture Obama Doesn’t Want You to Learn About

Well, it is true that Obama had Binyam released. However, Obama is going to extraordinary lengths to try to cover up the extent of Binyma’s torture.

For example, the Obama Justice Department has filed criminal charges against one of Binyam’s lawyers just for asking Obama to release details of Binyam’s torture.

The Obama administration also made a dramatic threat against the British government. Specifically, Obama told England that if British courts released any documents about Binyam’s torture, the U.S. would stop sharing vital intelligence with England, even if such intelligence would prevent a terrorist attack against England.

The Obama administration is playing real hardball to try to hide the truth.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Think-You-ve-Heard-Everyth-by-George-Washington-090520-950.html

Glen Greenwald at Salon:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/04/07/smith/

gaffers @1313 –
I was wrong: it was longer than 12 hours. I just can’t get past the idea that Obama did an about-face for a reason, and that perhaps he has been honest about it… that it would cause such outrage that it would endanger american lives in the middle east , well, more than they already are.
In the meantime, trying RSVP for the first time because despite what His Holiness and The Other George say- celibacy sucks.
What a weird experience!! Not many lefty voters in the cyber-dating world I can tell you.
Might just stick to the ticksters I know and love 😉

Jen, is this what they mean by being celibate?

Irish Reform Schools: Thousands Beaten, Raped.
UBLIN — After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children.

The 2,600-page report painted the most detailed and damning portrait yet of church-administered abuse in a country grown weary of revelations about child molestation by priests.

The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.

Wednesday’s five-volume report on the probe _ which was resisted by Catholic religious orders _ concluded that church officials shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.

The Huffington Post

Thanks Catrina. It didn’t matter that much. They may think somethings going on. 😆

1316. Wonder if that will mean a big exodus from the Catholic Church? I mean, Catholic jokes are gonna be big now. The number of priests and nuns leaving has been huge, because of this issue. It’ll become a mass exodus now. After all, who would invite a priest to a party? Especially a kids party.

Late Night: Among the Republicans’ Chief Weaponry is Lying, Hypocrisy, and a Fanatical Devotion to Torture.
Yesterday, everyone’s favorite Nosferatu impersonator, Rudy Giuliani, appeared on national television . . . well, okay, on “Morning Joe” . . . to weigh in on the the whole waterboarding kerfuffle. The Ghoul was as predictably, dickishly a blowhard as ever:

“One of the great fallacies is that Islamic terrorist are [sic] particularly impressed by the way we conduct our interviews. They couldn’t give a darn. I’ve been investigating them since the late 1960’s, early 1970s. They are single-minded, they have their own objectives in mind. . . . I’ve read thousands and thousands of pages of documents and I’ve never heard an Islamic terrorist say, ‘Hey I became a terrorist because they waterboarded some other terrorist.'”

Firedog Lake

Gaffy,
1323
He nails it so well.
Has anyone read his Obama’s “Dreams from my father”?
Was impressed by the little I heard of it read on the ABC .

Voted Best Joke in Ireland 2008!

Malcolm O’Reilly hoisted his beer and said, ‘Here’s to spending the rest of me life!, between the legs of me wife!’

That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night!

He went home and told his wife, Mary, ‘I won the prize for the Best toast of the night.’

She said, ‘Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?’

Malcolm said, ‘Here’s to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife.’

‘Oh, that is very nice indeed, Malcolm!’ Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of Malcolm’s drinking buddies on the street corner.

The man chuckled leeringly and said, ‘ Mal won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Mary.’

She said, ‘Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised myself. You know, he’s only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep, and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come.’

Jen,
@1315
with any luck one of our Ticksters might have a sole left-leaning friend or two they could recommend…… 🙂
You have my sympathy- chance is a fine thing, especially with kids at home.

gaffers- do love the Pundit, but might be a bit far away for my purposes.. Think I’II try the profile as non-drinking conservative christian and see how i go 😈

Dems Making Massive Gains As GOP Deteriorates: Pew Poll.
==========================================

In seven short years, the American electorate has radically changed, as voters’ priorities have shifted to the economy and away from such wedge issues as abortion and gay rights, as well as away from the threat of terrorism and from the war in Iraq, according to a comprehensive survey released Thursday morning by the Pew Research Center.

From 2002 to 2009, voters’ partisan identification has moved from virtual parity — 43 percent Republican and 43 percent Democratic at the height of George W. Bush’s popularity in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 — to a massive Democratic advantage today of 53 to 36, a 17 percentage point split, by far the largest difference in the past two decades.

The Pew survey is a testament to the miscalculations of the Bush administration and of the Republican leadership in Congress. The two were handed an extraordinary opportunity to build on an outpouring of public support in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Instead, those chances to revive a Republican majority were squandered on a mismanaged invasion of Iraq and dissipated by ill-advised culture war offensives, as well as by disclosure of corrupt lobbying and spending scandals in Congress under Republican rule.

This is what we like to hear. Just have to pace ourselves nicely. Not too much controversy. Bait the right wing nut bags regularly. Bingo massive majority!
More in The Huffington Post.

Hmmmmmm!
The more things change-The more they stay the same.
There’s no way Hillary would be trying to install a new boss in Afghanistan would there?

Such a position, a senior US administration official has been quoted as saying, involves Zal serving as “a prime minister, except not prime minister because he wouldn’t be responsible to a parliamentary system”.

That’s one hell of a cute way of putting a complicated matter in real perspective. Cooper reveals that officials in the Obama administration wouldn’t admit they are behind the seamless idea, but apparently Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Af-Pak representative Richard Holbrooke are all seized of it and have been plain decent about it, leaving it to President Hamid Karzai “to decide whether to proceed”.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE21Df04.html

Um, Gaffhook, that is just recycled stuff from 2004. The rumours are only surfacing because places like OpEd are running stories based on no more information than was around then. And the information that was around then was only rumour.

megan @1326 –
It’s Ok – i’m just having fun – it’s actually pretty entertaining. 😉

I am so looking forward to Jon Stewart’s take on the latest eruption from the crypt where Dick Cheney lives. (Is ‘lives’ the right term for this zombie neocon?)

Dick should really get credits on the Daily Show for writing the best parts of their show lately.

Spot the hidden agenda: we kept America safe after 911 by torturing people.

Oh, yeah, what about BEFORE 911?

And as is becoming more and more apparent, the torture was done mostly to get evidence on Saddam’s (non-existent) relationship with bin Laden and produced even more unreliable stuff than the crock of rubbish they used to invade Iraq with.

Come on Jon, do your worst! (best) LOL

The poor Brits, on their knees, borrowing money hand over fist, nationalising banks, watching unemployment numbers go through the roof, and then, to add insult to injury, along comes a rating agency to say that whoa, we just might have to think about downgrading their credit rating if things don’t get better soon.

Ironic really, when you consider the role that ratings agencies played in putting Britain and the world’s financial system on its knees.

The 800lb gorilla in the bank vault is of course the US. Without any need for another hint, the bond market got the idea last night and rates went up.

Oh, what a surprise. The bleeding obvious has raised its ugly head: the US is almost on life support and would be a prime candidate for some IMF intervention if it wasn’t Uncle Sam.

Gold didn’t need to be reminded that all that paper money they are printing has got Mickey Mouse’s face on it.

I watched Penny Wong on QandA last night, and was quite impressed that she could take tough stuff, even one near hysterical woman saying that she, of all people, had not made gay marriage legal.

Tricky.

But Ms Wong kept her demeanor and pointed out that Labor had done more than any party to recognise gay relationships and that marriage was a political step too far for today.

I must say, she’s got a lot of control. And likewise on CC, she was heckled in all directions, from Bob Ellis on her left to Tony Abbott on her right, and she held her ground with aplomb.

It must be bloody hard trying to explain to a population who are terminally innumerate just what is involved. Ellis of course had some hair-brained solution and kept interjecting with silliness while Abbott cheered him on.

I was impressed with how well she handled the circus clowns.

1337
Certainly did Kirri.
How about her barb of the mad Monk.
You want to talk about spin, you cut peoples wages and get them sacked and you call it workchoices, or something to that effect.

Thanks for the link, megan. It’s appalling the way Rudd is dragging the chain on the ETS.
————————
“Um, Gaffhook, that is just recycled stuff from 2004”

Um, Gouldie, perhaps the matter of US govt sanctioned torture was not given enough “air”, shall we say, under BushCo in 2004. Remember, good sir, that there are a lot of busy folk out there who need reminding of BushCo’s bastardry.

And another one’s gone
Another one’s gone
Another one bites the dust………

WASHINGTON — Regulators on Thursday shut down BankUnited FSB, a struggling Florida thrift whose closure is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $4.9 billion.

The failure of the Coral Gables, Fla.-based bank represents the second-largest hit to the FDIC’s insurance fund so far _ the costliest was last year’s seizure of California lender IndyMac, on which the FDIC is estimated to lose $10.7 billion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/floridas-bankunited-fsb-s_n_206565.html

Enemy Combatant,

I have no problem with them talking about government-sanctioned torture. But *rumours* that children were raped and that the US has a video of it and that it was sanctioned by the US government in some fashion are just that: rumours. Hersch made this claim *years* ago, and has for whatever reason kept quiet about it since.

Personally, I think that recycling these rumours without any new information *damages* the case against Bush and Cheney on things we *know* they actually did do, such as waterboarding. Wild accusations based on rumour are worthless, however much those accusations may feed into hatred of Bush and co. If these wild accusations then become linked in people’s minds with accusations based on solid evidence, that becomes a problem.

1345
David
When i read that sad story i immediately think to myself that if those mongrels at the top had not gone out of their way to torture certain persons to get them to admit false information which was used to invade Iraq, that poor bastard may have spent his entire enlistment on American soil and never be faced with more than a punch up at Harry the Wheels on the way back to base.
He may never have been put in the situation to do what he did.and would probably be a proud citizen walking freely in the USA.
Along with the other 4000 odd US service personell who have lost their lives in Iraq.
Read Kirri’s 1335.
We kept America safe after 911 by torturing but we did not keep Americans safe after 911 because of the torture because we sent them to war to be killed under false pretences. Get my drift.
There has been fuck all americans killed in America because of torture, but over 4000 americans have been killed in Iraq after torture. Not a very good ledger IMHO.
Fuck George Bush and Dick Cheney.

gaffhook,

My suspicion is that if someone is inclined to rape and murder and then boast about it afterward then I think that there is something mentally wrong with them to begin with …

As to getting false information to use to invade Iraq, my suspicion is that Iraq would have been invaded in any case.

To continue using the reasoning that you are using – and which as a no free will believer I certainly agree with 🙂 – Bush and Cheney only authorised torture because of the situations that they were placed in during the course of their lives. But you say fuck them, but not fuck this guy …. Interesting. 🙂

I am again reminded of Henry V. If you believe in the concept of ‘responsibility’ – for clarity, I do not – each individual’s conscience is their own, not the king’s. The king may have brought them to war, but the things that they do in it belong to them.

You can’t have it both ways: either Bush and Cheney are responsible for their crimes and this guy is responsible for his, or none of them are responsible.

Gaffy, that was the corker of the show, and the audience loved it. It shut up the mad monk for all of a few seconds too!

I think DG is right over the child rape rumour. (Let’s face it, the Irish Catholics had that practice going for decades on an institutionalised basis and yet few have been prosecuted. We don’t need to find one case of it in some Iraqi gaol to feel outraged.) But as DG says, it’s more rumour than fact and making claims without proof only weakens the arguments against what they actually did.

1347 The military has been getting desperate as to who they take. The list includes thieves rapists and murderers. So really what else can anyone expect?

Just four paragraphs that make my subscription to Crikey worth every cent:

In your average tribal group s-x fertility ritual, men and women copulate in relatively equal numbers, to replenish the earth, to celebrate a big wedding, etc. The modern asymmetrical gang bang isn’t a celebration of a triumphant masculinity, it’s a neurotic maintenance of a threatened one. The sobby, blubby mutual support groups that the Footy Shows have become couldn’t be better proof of what a soap opera sport has become, an endless performance of wounded postmodern maleness.

Just about the only thing worse than this has been the official response, whereby any sort of lapse in manners, decency or morals is the occasion not for either the law or simple disapproval, whichever applies, but behaviour modification via sensitivity training, counselling, anguished Stalin-lite televised confessions (with the wife at the side — isn’t that great! You get to make her feel like sh-t, twice, and televised nationally!) etc etc. As Miranda Devine noted the other day in the SMH. See what you made me do.

Where Devine is wrong however, is in seeing player behaviour as some sort of usurpring of inherent male behaviour, as if players were just dogs to be tamed by a cabal of officials and consultant feminists. Yes male s-xual aggressiveness is hardwired to a degree, but it’s also culturally produced. Rugby was as violent 30, 50 years ago, but teams didn’t have gang bangs on the agenda. Let’s face it, when sport was something you did as well as holding down a full time job, and getting paid 2/6 to play, your only perk was a warm pastie. If you were horny, you waited for the pastie to cool, then you rooted that. No-one got hurt, except those who couldn’t wait long enough.

Devine blames “androgynous feminism” (the sort of androgynous feminism that says a woman can write a politics column, rather than covering hats or Royals). Of course she would. The complex causes behind a scandal such as has hit Cronulla are no competition for continuing the zombie culture wars. Women won’t let men open doors for them, so the only alternative is a bukkake party. Amazing how the places where feminism has really changed the culture — Scandinavia for example — never sees this sort of cr-p happening. Amazing too, how for Bolt, Devine and others, men’s behaviour is women’s fault, whether they’re in Christchurch or the UNSW cultural studies department. No wonder people can’t take conservatism seriously these days. It’s as weepy, wounded and self-pitying as The Footy Show.

…Keane put in the boot to the whole lot of them, including that Ann Coulter Lite in the SMH, Miranda Devine.

Onya, Bernard.

DG at 1344: “If these wild accusations(aggravated sodomy of a minor in front of said minor’s mother) then become linked in people’s minds with accusations based on solid evidence, that becomes a problem.”

Yes, David, how some people seek to besmirch the legacy of Junior Bush, after all he’s done for America, remains for me one of life’s little mysteries.

Kirri, agree. Incidentally, I think Bernie does his best work when he talks like a commie. 🙂

And do stand by for Randi Dev’s comprehensive op-ed piece sinking the slipper into Holy Mother Church for HMC’s mega- duplicity and hypocricy most high in white-washing global serial kiddie rooting by priests and brothers, scoutmasters and other scum who had a duty of care to those children—so many of whom are now damaged goods as adults.

Yeah Ecky, it’s so much better that the kiddies get the ‘real’ male experience and not the namby-pamby “androgynous feminism” that so upsets her highness.

Oops, sorry Ecky, it’s a Guy Rundle piece, not Mr Keane. Apologies for the brain fart, as Possum would say.

Still, it’s a cracker, and more power to his arm.

1347

Bush and Cheney only authorised torture because of the situations that they were placed in during the course of their lives.

Bush and Cheney authorised torture to get false information from a prisoner to give to Colin Powell to mislead the UN with so that they could put themselves in the situation they chose to follow. ie invade Iraq. They were not placed in to any situation during the course of their lives, they chose what situation they wanted to be in.
That’s a different kettle of fish to what you are proffering.

And that soldier may have been completely sane and had no mental problems when he landed in Iraq. Who knows. I don’t. He then may have became mentally deranged after being there for a while. Who knows. I don’t.
Therefore i have pity for him as he should not have been there in the first place.
Facts are now that he has been found guilty, along with all the other torturers, and is destined to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Why should i fuck him when he is already fucked and those other imbeciles are still running free.

1354
That’s a good read Kirri.

EC have you been out waxing the Long Board ?
Surf’s up at Noosa.

Gaffy, the ‘evidence’ that Powell presented to the UN in early 2003 was not the result of torture, but it was the result of a torturous path of ‘intelligence’ from Germany to the US. Curveball was willing and able to spin the Germans a yarn, which they suspected as being dodgy and could not verify, but the US took it hook line and sinker and despite the spooks in the CIA telling them there was serious doubts about it, got overruled by the Rummy/Cheney mob who were desperate for ‘evidence’.

It’s a story so Byzantine it makes Dan Brown look like a children’s author, and if it wasn’t something that ultimately led to so much death and destruction, would be hilariously funny. Unfortunately the consequences of this fiasco were not so trivial.

Kirri, Teresa Nielsen Hayden is sure one helluva hoyden! Smart feminist with a sense of humour; especially one who can give it to Randi Devine so comprehensively.
Now Favourited.

Ms Hayden to Ms Devine:

“Dude. When Peter Fitzsimons can both love competitive football and clearly state that the culture in Australia is rife with misogyny and violence and you can only blame feminists for the unfairness of it all, you really know the problem is well and truly YOURS.”

gaffy, gonna take a walk and check it out after din-dins settles. The low pressure cell has done a 180 is is headed back our way. Posiedon has thusfar spared the Sunny Coast from major damage. Just a much needed good soak. We’ve luckily had nothing like the flooding of the Clarence delta. Mooloolah, Maroochy and Noosa river banks are holding.

Nevertheless, exemplarary citizens that we endeavour to be, our sleeper cell is primed to respond the moment authorities give the order to evacuate.

——————————————-o0o—————————————
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=Atfj0dVWkB3cYlTISP_11vnX.sgF
——————————————-o0o—————————————–

May 22:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/nonsequitur;_ylt=A0WTUeapXxZKq3wBcwoDwLAF

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWP-AsG5DRk

May 22:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tonyauth;_ylt=A0WTUcxQZRZKIDUAWhQDwLAF

Stop me if you’ve seen this cartoon before!
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70939

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70959

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70960

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70968

Torture Dick get a slap from a seriously Red State newspaper.
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70971

May22:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/doonesbury;_ylt=Ar_Sd.9U.uEwRqIeBH59L8XX.sgF

May 21:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/mikeluckovich;_ylt=AhifXNkpWlJsXdeCLVW_K7fX.sgF

May 22:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=AnTUxxdmOuWG0wjj.TDpe4TX.sgF

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70965

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70983

May 21:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tedrall;_ylt=AmaNEJeRA5SmAyqrxI5r9kTX.sgF

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/70961

Nearly 6,000 confirmed pig flu cases in the US and nine deaths.

It’s certainly contagious like a flu, but so far not as nasty as first thought, which is not to say it can’ become so.

We’ve now had 11 confirmed cases in Oz.

No doubt the Repugs are proud of denying Minnesotians their proper representations in the parliament.

The letter is the latest in a growing effort to ramp up the pressure on the governor – and Republican Party as a whole – to seat Franken, as the Minnesota Senate race drags on more than six months since the actual election. In his note, Kaine claims it is “all but indisputable” that Franken won the election and urges Pawlenty to “use [his] influence to bring this process to an end by asking Norm Coleman to allow his neighbors and yours, their full representation in Congress.”

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/democracy/140141/pressure_mounts_on_minnesota_governor_to_seat_al_franken/

1357
Kirri
I am aware of Curveballand agree.
I am prety sure that they used the false evidence given under torture by al-Libi.
This has been made public by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. The war officially started on 20th March 2003 and they were hopping into this guy well before that.

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)

Yep, pretty much what I said yesterday:

“There is an exquisite irony in worrying about the S&P downgrade. This is a company vilified by nearly everyone for the failure to recognize the subprime risk, lamely giving AAA ratings to assets now viewed as “toxic waste.” All of a sudden, we are viewing these guys as the brilliant analysts who know the potential for nations to pay back debt. Really?”

(Jon Nadler, Kitco)

You do have to wonder at Mr Market’s perverse attachment to agencies like S&P after they proved themselves so incompetent and corrupt, dontcha?

Didn’t he have fun with Darth Cheney? LOL

Jon Stewart had a ball with Darth’s dire dribblings of doom the other day.

It has to be one of the best things available on broadband, my daily dose of the daily show. Worth the ticket price on its own I reckon.

DEPT. FOR THE PREVENTION OF FUTURE CRIME

FRIDAY MAY 22, 2009 09:23 EDT
Facts and myths about Obama’s preventive detention proposal

That’s what “preventive” means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be “combatants.”

Suggest check out what Rachel Maddow has to say in Update III of GG’s post.

Remember The Kid used to teach Constsiutional Law……. but that was another place and another time.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/22/preventive_detention/
——————————————————
THE LOVING HUSBAND

A man had two of the best tickets for the Grand Final. As he sits down another man comes along & asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him.

“No”, he says, “the seat is empty.”

“This is incredible!” said the man, “who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the final, the biggest sporting event of the year & not use it?”

He says, “Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife was supposed to come with me but she passed away. This is the first final we haven’t been to together since we got married.”

“Oh… Gees ..I’m sorry to hear that. That’s terrible. I guess you couldn’t find someone else, a friend or relative or even a neighbour to take the seat?”

The man shakes his head… “No. They’re all at the funeral.”
—————————

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/opinion/cartoons/

KR: “You do have to wonder at Mr Market’s perverse attachment to agencies like S&P after they proved themselves so incompetent and corrupt, dontcha?”

Yes indeed, Kirri. It’s almost as if they’re Cramerites for whom the symbol *S & P* is richly imbued with fiscal mysticism and is thus afforded by their nutter devotees the same reverernce some afford to religious or dare I say, cult iconography. 🙂

As cases go, reasonable professionals would have difficultly classifying these people under Basket or Cot. But this is the mistake a lot of people make when they seek insight about Mr and Ms Market from the annals of psychiatry.
For info on money sucking animals, one refernces zoology.

http://www.creative-i.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/mammon-euro-dollar1.jpg

I have just come back from watching an under 10 girls basketball side play an all boys side. They were beaten 28 nil. The positive effects on this girls team were huge. They are learning to play a faster more aggressive style of basket ball. This is the 4th time in a row they have played boys. The improvements in the side each week have been very noticeable. The other side were taller faster and more aggressive. But you would continually see these girls using similar styles and taking on the guys bump for bump. The shrinking violet syndrome quickly disappears. It was amazing to see these young girls weave in and out of the bigger boys. These girls taking on a similar female team which hasn’t played boys, would destroy them. A very good way to learn assertiveness. I can highly recommend this if you have girls.

gaffers- read The Pundit … just makes me want him all the more 😉

David G – re – it’s all just rumour and innuendo…surely given that this material IF it is true is going to be kept under wraps by anyone that is threatened by it’s release- it is going to dribble out from unsubstantiated sources until definite evidence comes forward.

Chris, be nice to have Silk Specter, Zena, Buffy, Wonder Woman and Bat Girl in the starting line up, with Medusa, Linda Blair and Tonya Harding on the bench to inject a bit of mongrel into the game when required.

Ann Coulter would be the ultimate assertive coach and Planet Janet and Randi Dev could slice, plate and distribute the oranges during breaks. Pru Goward, a born embrocationist, would make a first class Zam Buk.
Better than the Roller Game, no wucken furries!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUJTOaoi4wE&feature=PlayList&p=C18B6BFD8D165885&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=13

and OT – as the abstaining right-wing born again evangelical christian that I am I could be hooked up a hundred times over … curse my politics!

Good to see the radio shock jocks volunteering to be waterboarded just for the record. And he hardly lasted 10 seconds.

Erich “Mancow” Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.

Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back… It was instantaneous… and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/mancow-waterboarded-video_n_206906.html

geezus Gaffers- what is it with Yanks?
Hitchens only backed down on ehe wterboarding -is-no-big-deal position after he let them do it to him, and now this guy.
I don’t think most of need to experience it to know iyt’s hgoing to ber pretty horrifying having water poured into your mouth and nose…interseting that they were both avid Bush supporters- soemthing to do with no common sense perhaps.

1378
Yep Jen
Operating on the “no brain-no pain” principle but it fucked em.

Music to mosey about the place to on a wet Staurday afternoon:

The Zozo Sisters: Ann Savoy and Linda Ronstadt doin’ the old Four Tops thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzdR8j2_JX8

Debby Harry played a great cameo as the Dennis Hopper character’s spouse in the film “Elegy” (starring Penny & Benny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbMYwuAHK_4

John Fogarty wrote the song, can’t recall anyone who gave it a workout as good as this……:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMOG25ZT8_4&feature=PlayList&p=01942E2F9BF355A1&index=4

Hey Ecky- are you and the other Northerners OK?
Don’t know if anyone has been directly affected by floods – hope not.

1380 mind you Gaffers- noticed Cheney hasn’t offered to give it a whirl. What a perverse kind of pleasure it would be to watch…. wonder if I could find it my heart to feel sorry for him.

Jen, thanks, our neck of the woods got off light with a welcome monster soak. Dams are overflowing; you bewdy! Havn’t heard how Flaneur and Ferny have weathered things in Brissy. I think jv is somewhere in northen nsw, but he’s seems too smart to live on a flood plain.

trawling back. ..
David @1347:
“You can’t have it both ways: either Bush and Cheney are responsible for their crimes and this guy is responsible for his, or none of them are responsible.”

ummm… how about They are ALL responsible for the crimes committed. Both thosewho sanctioned them and those who committed them.

jv’s over the at the neighbours 😉
hope Ferny and Flaneur haven’t copped it too badly, and glad you are OK..

1383
Jen
He may not want to but if the guy at 1017 gets hold of him he will know what it is all about.

just went back and read it gaffers-
wouldn’t put the Tate murders past him anyway (that was just for you DG).

All is well at the Ferny household. Don the aqualung at bedtime or when visiting the now-fully submerged facilities, and everything is honky dory.

Actually, I’m on a hill. If Ferny goes down – all of Qld will need to call on Mr Noah and his internationally renowned floating menagerie show.

And speaking of going down – or not going down enough – RSVP Jen???? Having once been a citizen of them thar dark hallways, I can tell you there’s some odd, sad, souls in those parts.

Ferny- I am the “newest babe” in my district, so… I kid you not- about 12 a day, and not one that I would have coffee with. Unlike here – I’d do coffee and even scones with everyone.
Ahhh … the price of one’s souls – nary enough.
Glad you and Lady Grover are above water. Will send you snorkel tooo sweet if that helps. Or,( just for old time’s sake) : nose clips.
😉
I do miss the synchronised swimming sessions you know.

and btw, oh Rumpole of The Ticksters – do you really think this whole Torture thing can be swept under the carpet just because no one will provide photographicevidence , or are you of the “Where there’s Smoke There’s Cheney” school of thought?
Irrespective of the prosecutory likelihood (given that you guys are all Guns for Hire regardless of the truth ) .
xx

Poor old Uncle Dick nobody wants to own him.
Every time he opens his gob someone from his side of the fence gives the real versions.
He must be getting very nervous when people like Admiral Blair, Director of National Intelligence and in charge of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, goes public and corrects what Dicky Bird has said in his version.
Methinks (that’s the CTI in me) that they have done a deal something along the lines of we will leave the imbecile alone as long as we can have the one big sacrificial lamb, Uncle Dick.
There are a few high ranking Goppers and officials who are wilfully throwing him under the bus so to speak.

Cheney said that President Barack Obama’s decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was “flatly contrary” to U.S. national security, and would help al-Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-fullstory/story/1059900.html

1394
The number three is a classic EC.
How much truth they can say in so few words and a small drawing eh.

gaffy, John Sheffius is one of the best, he’s almost always very good and regularly outstanding. And you’re right, a great image can save an avalanche of verbiage.

And gaffers since we are on par with attitudes to credit cards, do you pointblank refuse, like I, to have anything whatsoever to do with texting (sms), ipods and twitter. The only time I punch a bit of fat into (buy credit for) the mobile is when travelling. Less paperwork. Every time you sign on for a plan some bastard comes at you with a better one ($100 worth of “free” calls and here, root my wife no worries, whatever it takes just sign on to our new flexi-plan….)

—————————————-
Dan Froomkin gets on board the Let Truth Out Train re BushCo’s green-lighting torture most foul.

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00351

Its pretty amazing that these soft headed commentators and Bush supporters think a bit of waterboarding wont hurt them. They wouldn’t stand up to lot less savage stuff dished out by the CIA and the US offensive forces so why they think waterboarding wouldn’t wipe them out amazes me. Still anything for 15 minutes of fame.

1398
EC
First up i have a mobile for my business.
I am on a low plan
I do very little SMS
No ipod
No tweeties
Was a partner in a mobile phone shop when “Orange” were up and running before they shut down their rural areas, sold their data base to Optus and went forward as 3G in Sydney and Melbourne, and sponsored the Oz cricket team.
The missus was never part of the bargain on the plans though. You know the old story about the Victa and your missus. Never lend em as they always come back fucked.

Talking about Ipods there was an attack on a female somewhere the other day and she did not hear the attacker come up behind her.
I have often thought about how they leave themselves open to that.
My daily fitness is a good ride on the Iron Gelding round the ross river banks in the afternoon. Luckily there are lots of people exercising so it would be very unlikely that any attacks would happen where i go.
However the number of females that walk by themselves wearing their music box is unreal, (they all seem to have them suppose it stops boredom), and there is no way they can hear anyone coming up behind them.
If they are walking in the middle of the track and I ring the bell they are oblivious to it all.
I am not sure, if they are aware, that in a different area they are making themselves a lot easier target.

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