CMoore.com

Swim, terrrrrists, swim! Flipper’s gonna get ya.

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying ‘toxic dart’ guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet’s smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

I have no problem with animals-as-servants, and I could see how a mine-sniffing dolphin could be useful… but c’mon, people. Poison darts against swimming terrorists?

So much for that unbiased public media thing.

A leading Republican donor and fundraiser was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting yesterday, tightening conservative control over the agency that oversees National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Welcome to the one-party State. Eurasia is our friend.

Now, I want to note a few things here before continuing to the meat of the post. Namely, that if you follow the links here, you are going to see some really bad stuff; heads-blown-open-like-melons bad.

That said, this is war. This is what war looks like. This is how horrifying and tragic those decisions made by ideological warriors/real-life cowards are. This is how close we are to our base animal state.

This comes up in the context of outrage over a site I’ve known about for a long time – nowthatsfuckedup.com. Synopsis: it was originally designed for people to post amateur porn pictures. Then they offered free registration (and thus, free admittance to all the pr0n) for any person who provided photographic evidence that they were in the Armed Services. Noble enough gesture, I guess. I’m pretty sure it was linked to from some sites I frequent like fark or somethingawful. And, hey, pr0n, baby!

But then it turned from your garden variety porn to something … different. Soldiers starting posting pictures of bodies. Or wounded. Or maimed, disfigured, or otherwise grossly injured.

In other words: war trophies.

And then the shit that pushed billmon to the tipping point appeared – the fascist, hate-filled, cheering over these images. The only-good-haji-is-a-dead-haji jingoist fucktards crowed. Demanded more. Lusted for more. It was, and is, truly sickening. There is an undercurrent of male sexual excitement there too – the sex-is-violence domination, the heavy breathing over bodily fluids, the turgid members in response to victory. This is not as disturbing to me as the social ramifications, but I can see how it might be a worse factor for some.

That all humans are wont to do this is no defense. Just because kidnappers videotape beheadings or al Jazeera broadcasts the Blackwater Mercenary body mutilations does not excuse our behavior. This is an easy moral line to see and an easy moral rule to obey. It is as easy as the no-torture and the friends-jump-off-cliffs rules.

I never blogged about the war porn because, well, it’s not a pretty topic. More to the point, it’s a very disturbing subject that would require a lot of work to present properly… and I’m a lazy bastard. Then, The Nation picked up the story with this week’s issue. Online Journalism Review has another article. John at AmercaBlog also has some highlights (with images) if you don’t want to troll the nowthatsfuckedup.com boards yourself, but need some imagery. I can understand why one wouldn’t want to avoid them.

I think, however, if you do not realize the cost of the war – and I’m talking psychologically as well as physically here – you need to view these. I’m merely referring to what the war has done to us as a nation here. The cheering rabble are prehistoric in their unthinking bloodlust. Their inhumanity to their fellow man is chilling, and they make me embarassed to be a part of the same species.

This is war. This is what happens when an unelected ideological minority usurps control of the greatest power on earth. This is what happens when the media does not do its job.

May FSM have mercy on us all.

and get ready to re-learn what your grandparents knew… the taste of shoe leather. Consumer confidence drops 20 points in one month and new home sales plummet.

Good times, good times, they are a’ comin.

‘course, this guy is the real pessimist

Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas and most of them are elsewhere than the Gulf Coast. On the markets, the price of gas is now heading north of $15 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It could easily hit $20 by Christmas, which would be about 700 percent higher than the price in 2002. Everyone in the non-Sunbelt is going to feel the pain this winter, and quite a few of the poor and infirm may freeze to death.

Which means, you know, the shit is about to really hit the fan.

President Bush called on the Americans today to conserve gasoline and avoid non-essential driving as the average national prices for retail gasoline climbed higher for the first time since they peaked over the Labor Day weekend.

The president’s remarks appeared to reflect concerns that gasoline supplies may remain tight and prices will rise further, even as the energy industry and analysts were breathing a sigh of relief over the limited scope of damage at Texas refineries from Hurricane Rita.

“We can all pitch in by being better conservers…”

But FSM will provide, right Georgie?

Hmm… who am I reminded of right now… who… who? Oh yes. Cardigan man.

Of course, unlike Carter, Bush didn’t offer any real plans or initiatives to foster conservation. Just wants us to “pitch in.” Typical. Miserable failure.

Surprised?

The Justice Department’s inspector general and the F.B.I. are looking into the demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment nearly three years ago shut down a criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, current and former department officials report.

Nice to see the squash of an investigation is now under investigation. I think this administration can beat the Reagan score of 138, what do you think, Johnny?

I’ve got your personal accountability right HERE, buddy!

Best choice possible, really. Which war leader are you? (52 Wisdom, 70 Tactics, 47 Guts, and 36 Ruthlessness … totally off. I’m way more ruthless than that.)

I’m also a modern, cool nerd (56 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 26% Dork)

I’m also cutting edge with my humor (66% dark, 42% spontaneous, 21% vulgar)

… but I did. All those stories about riots, rapes, and looting? Almost entirely hogwash. Racism-fueled hogwash, I might add.

After five days managing near riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported murders, rapes and gang violence inside the stadium, the doctor from FEMA — Beron doesn’t remember his name — came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

“I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” Beron recalled the doctor saying.

The real total?

Six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the handoff of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice.

Ahhhhh! Black people together in an enclosed building! They must be rapin and killin! Must be! Run, whitey, run!

After all, isn’t that what you do when your mythic symbol wasn’t the one you wanted?

Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

I was at the Seattle anti-Iraq war march with ghostfinger (by chance we happened to be in the area just as it was going by). It was a profound, powerful moment for me. Watching thousands of people peacefully march in opposition to the war. Thousands of people, without the support of any people of power, getting together and registering their opposition.

It was an unusual feeling, to say the least, to realize how many more there are like me out there. This is the downside to no organized antiwar movement (the upside is that there is no one to demonize and the movement is more successful as a whole because of this). I was overwhelmed with a mix of emotions – pride, sadness, anger, regret… but most of all empathy with my fellows out there. By fellows, I don’t mean simply anti-Iraq war sympathizers (because I’m not certain which camp I am in), but a larger set of people that are willing to stand up to the people of power, or at the least, tell truth to power.

The withdrawal from Iraq is fraught with danger (moral, physical, and strategic), but I feel there are sound rationales (on these same bases) for making a withdrawal as quickly as is organizationally possible while also as safely as possible. We have a duty to fix what we’ve broken; in pure utilitarian terms, I’m not sure whether leaving now (because our mere presence is making the situation worse) or leaving later (because if we leave now, a civil war + genocide o’ rama might break out). The only thing even causing me to hesitate on the “Out, Now!” choice is the possibility of genocide on a scale that would give Slobo nocturnal emmissions. All things considered, we do more harm than good and we cannot fix what we’ve broken. If Vietnam taught us anything it’s to recognize the concept of sunk cost and cut your losses when you can to avoid even more senseless deaths. So I guess I’m an Out Nower.

People of all stripes took part; many old Vietnam-era protesters were there, as were kids and college students and octegenarians. Some with professional signs, some with home-made scribbled one. Some defiant, some angry, some calm. Just when I thought I could not process any more, when there couldn’t possibly be any more people like me against the war, I would look up the street and realize that there was no end in sight to this parade. We are legion.

The brick wall I keep hitting is how to turn this popular sentiment into Power, into action. How do the powerless, without a clear leader with a mighty Will, organize and influence the powerful? As much as I’d like to imagine this is a groundswell for change, that a revolution is coming, I have no illusions about such an occurence actually happening (or, rather, happening in a pro-people direction).

We have the ability to make our voices heard. We have the numbers. How can we take our seat at the table?

This Saturday, thousands of people around the world will take part in an international day of action calling for an end to the war in Iraq.

To mark the event, IWTnews is proud to present this provocative new video interview with Eric Margolis, author, foreign affairs columnist and contributing editor to American Conservative magazine.

http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/eric_margolis

Margolis is one of a growing number of self-identified conservatives who opposes the Bush administration’s “no fault” politics. “We live in a period of what I call ‘no fault government,’” he says. “People responsible for misleading the United States into war should be held accountable…. No one has been held accountable for a war that’s killed over 100,000 people and is now costing us as much as the Vietnam War.”

We hope you’ll join us in making this Saturday’s day of action a call to build media that can genuinely hold power accountable. Invite others to join us as well by forwarding this message, or using our online “tell a friend” tool here:

http://www.iwtnews.com/invite

You’ll find more recent highlights from our web site below. Please let us know what you think, and be sure to join the discussion happening at www.IWTnews.com.

Best,

Paul Jay, Chair
Independent World Television

Photoop cancelled because it was too sunny. Seriously.

President Bush was supposed to land here on Friday afternoon on the first stop of a tour intended to make clear that he was personally overseeing the federal government’s preparations for Hurricane Rita’s landfall. But the weather did not cooperate.

It was too sunny.

So what does he do? Too sunny to show his “decisive leadership” in response to an emergency, can’t go home because of the massive anti-war rally that he’s too afraid to face… so he headed to a hole in the ground

Instead, Bush wound up going directly to Colorado, where the Defense Department’s Northern Command ? responsible for domestic troop deployments ? is monitoring storm developments.
…
Some obvious options for Bush were ruled out. He wouldn’t stay in Washington, where demonstrators were massing for a huge protest against the Iraq war. He probably would avoid his ranch near Crawford, Texas, where he was criticized for spending the first few days of Katrina instead of visiting the disaster scene. He would want to show attention to the storm, but not get so close that he could become a distraction to rescue officials.

Petulant baby preznit now blames his woman. I wonder if he’s found another shaker of salt yet.

But over the course of six months, a growing number of Republicans inside and out of the White House have noticed an administration less sure-footed and slower to react to the political environment surrounding them.

A top Republican close to the White House since the earliest days said the absence of a “reelection target” and pressure from first lady Laura Bush and others to soften his second-term tone conspired to temper Bush’s swagger well before Katrina hit.

What’d we learn, kids? When in danger… throw the wife under the train!

Goin’ down! Insider trading strikes again!

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was updated several times about his investments in blind trusts during 2002, the last time two weeks before he publicly denied any knowledge of what was in the accounts, documents show.