4/27/2009

Obama's Iraq: The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Ivan Albright (1943)

Image via Wikipedia

Every president gets his war. Then there's the ready-mades.

News that U.S. combat troops won't exactly withdraw from Iraqi cities on June 30th shows the ugly reality behind Obama's facade.

Obama's Iraq: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports
Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:00:01 GMT


4/26/2009

Those pirates again (click to expand)

NATO's War on Yugoslavia: Ten Years Later

 

By Danilo Mandic - Znet

Serbia has still not been forgiven by the West for having been bombed "back to 1389" ten years ago...A decade ago, US-led NATO forces bypassed the UN Charter, the UN security council, NATO's own charter and, despite illusions to the contrary, world opinion to engage in a "humanitarian intervention" that turned a tragedy into an irreversible catastrophe.

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CPP Invests in Canadian Missile Exporter Tied to Cluster Bombs


"This open letter from Richard Sanders, coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is part of a campaign to oppose CANSEC, Canada's largest arms export show, Ottawa, May 27-28...The letter takes the CPPIB to task for investing $1 million in Magellan Aerospace Corp, a Canadian war industry known around the world as the creator and exclusive supplier of a rocket weapons system that delivers a variety of warheads..."

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Mirror to Mirror in the Mirror

frameless

Image via Wikipedia

A short film by the director of Solaris and Stalker.

Tarkovsky's Mirror Set to Arvo Pärt's Mirror in the Mirror. [previously]
More info on Arvo Part and Tarkovsky.

Art In HD

 

Zoom in to brush-stroke level detail of the masters at the World's First HD Online Art Exhibition. At SXSW 2009, France's Zoomorama showed off its latest collaboration with Bridgeman Art Library. So far the collection features the work of only three artists, but for those of us who like to make museum security nervous by getting really close, the results are pretty amazing, and the implications for future exhibitions are exciting. [Flash]

Art In HD

4/23/2009

Entertainment industry's greedy lobbying is their undoing

Cory Doctorow at Worldcon 2005 in Glasgow, Aug...

Image via Wikipedia

 

Here's my latest column for Internet Evolution: "Big Entertainment Wants to Party Like It's 1996" explains how the entertainment industry's greedy, naked lobbying tactics will be their undoing, since these victories end up backfiring because they arouse such public ire.

It's not that these companies can't get their laws on the agenda, and not that they can't cook the process to make it run favorably for themselves. For example, when Canada was considering its own version of the WCT, the entertainment giants saw to it that the parliamentarians in charge of the process only talked to multinational entertainment giants, without conducting any kind of embarrassing public consultation. They wouldn't even talk to the Canadian record companies -- just the multinationals.

 

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Big Entertainment Wants to Party Like It's 1996

 

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4/22/2009

David Simon in conversation with Bill Moyers about The Wire

The Wire (season 5)

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Bill Moyers Journal, April 17, 2009 From crime beat reporter for the BALTIMORE SUN to award-winning screenwriter of HBO's critically-acclaimed The Wire, David Simon talks with Bill Moyers about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism today. Sorry for the one link post.

David Simon in conversation with Bill Moyers about The Wire

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4/21/2009

OBAMA, CHANGE AND CHINA : Brzezinski's G-2 grand strategy

From Henry Lui, a regular on Asia Times Online, one of my favorite sites. His web site is amazing.

Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, in seeking a United States and China "Group of Two" to jointly address global challenges, rightly recognizes that the days of a unipolar world order are numbered. His mistake is in believing China wants to partner a weakening US, or would gain from such ties. - Henry C K Liu This report is the fourth in a series

OBAMA, CHANGE AND CHINA : Brzezinski's G-2 grand strategy
Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT

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4/20/2009

The Cartography of Recession

World map of Gini coefficient for 2007/2008. T...

Image via Wikipedia

 

The Cartography of Recession. Act I, The Collapse: Slate's interactive map of vanishing jobs by county, The Fed's maps of subprime mortgages, USA Today's housing bubble maps, Gini coefficients by state, budget deficits and foreclosures from CNN. Act II, Intervention: The data of Stimuluswatch, mapped, and expected job gains by state, while newspapers and the auto industry die. Act III, the Future: A terrific interactive map from the Atlantic (and accompanying article) hints at the future, showing the evolving patterns of population flows (also see the amazing New York Times immigration map), innovation, and income by city over time.

 

The Cartography of Recession

4/18/2009

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency


Article by Ellen Brown author of Web of Debt.

“A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.


“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,’ it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.

“In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”



The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency

4/16/2009

The mother of all cockfights


click to enlarge

What President Barack Obama won't do - and the Pentagon won't allow - is to do a full Vietnam and go down as the president who lost the American empire of bases and the dream of prevailing in the New Great Game in Eurasia. Meanwhile, it will be Predator hell from above raining over angry Pashtun tribals in Pakistan. Make no mistake: there will be blood - a lot of blood. - Pepe Escobar (Apr 16,'09)

THE ROVING EYE : The mother of all cockfights
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT


Dubai: How the Middle East Shangrai La Became a Hell on Earth

Dubai Skyline No. 2

Image by twocentsworth via Flickr

A truly bizarre story...

Dubai is a living metaphor for the neo-liberal globalized world that may be crashing -- at last -- into history. And the fall has been ugly.

Dubai's Lesson to America: How the Middle East's Shangrai La Became a Hell on Earth
Johann Hari, The Independent
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:00:01 GMT

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4/15/2009

Could Cuba become new telecom mecca?


If Cuba's government allows it, the country's 11.5 million citizens may soon have greater access to U.S. tech trappings--including high-speed networks and satellite television and radio--thanks to Obama administration plans to ease restrictions that bar U.S. telecom providers from setting up shop there. [More]


Americans poised to dominate Cuban tourism - again (nationalpost.com)

Obama Opens Door to Cuba, but Only a Crack (nytimes.com)


Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant

Daniel Tammet is author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, the latter of which came out in January. He is also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 digits of the mathematical constant pi. Scientific American Mind contributing editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Tammet about the way his memory works, why the IQ test is overrated, and a possible explanation for extraordinary feats of creativity.

[More]


Wall Street Sharks Circle the UAW

United Auto Workers

Image via Wikipedia

Interesting article by (Canadian) publisher of Harpers, on those bad, bad unions.

by John R. MacArthur

Barack Obama's commitment to helping labor has always been suspect, but handing over the American car business to the investment banker Steven Rattner might well turn the president into the last great union buster.

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4/14/2009

You Are Being Lied to About Pirates

 

by Johann Hari

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal.

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Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates in Somalia

It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective. But according to many Somalis, the disruption of Europe's darling of a trade route is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don't believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.


Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates in Somalia
K'Naan, URB Magazine
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:00:01 GMT

4/13/2009

U.S. Opening More Commerce Channels with Cuba

 

Obama

The Obama administration is relaxing some of the restrictions on travel to and business with Cuba, launching a new initiative which will allow American telecom companies to set up cell phone and other services on the island nation.

The Wall Street Journal:

The move is part of an effort to open access to the Cuban people, the official said. The initiative will also include lifting of long-standing restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island, as previously reported. Family will be loosely defined as a third-degree relative, a definition that was in place during the Clinton administration that extends to second cousins. The money can go to any Cuban, unless he or she is a senior government official.

Under Bush administration rules, Cuban-Americans were permitted to travel to Cuba just once every three years.

 

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4/12/2009

The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized: Ottawa’s Democracy Promoters Target Venezuela


Canada's foreign policy, as that country which is closer geographically, economically, and militarily with the US than any other, has long been circumscribed by the whims of the world's lone Superpower.

Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.


The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized: Ottawa’s Democracy Promoters Target Venezuela
Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:52:25 GMT

4/06/2009

Dylan: Obama’s ‘Like a Fictional Character, But He’s Real’

 

Dylan

Bob Dylan, seasoned troubadour and chronicler of a-changin’ times, recognizes a story-worthy character when he sees one, and he certainly sees one in Barack Obama, judging by his description of the president in an interview with the UK’s Times Online.

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editor@truthdig.com
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:39:52 GMT

4/05/2009

Rising to the Occasion


from The Nation..

Socialism's all the rage. "We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek declares. As the right wing tells it, we're already living in the U.S.S.A. But what do self-identified socialists (and their progressive friends) have to say about capitalism's current troubles? We've asked them, and you can read their spirited replies in the forum that follows this essay. --The Editors

Rising to the Occasion