] This extraordinary collaborative work by women from
] around the world brings a new sense to the Bushian phrase
] by making a statement of hope and peace in an age of
] chaos. The album contains 14 lullabies from Iran, Iraq,
] North Korea, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Cuba,
] presented in its original form by women from these
] countries
] ...
] Thus the record forms 14 small musical bridges between
] east and west, north and south. A complete track, sound
] samples and artist listing follows below.

[ Very interesting. Dunno if it will prove an effective means of protest, but it's interesting nonetheless... -k]

Lullabies from the Axis of Evil / cdRoots

] Royal Bank of Canada has notified SCO it has elected to
] convert 10,000 shares of SCO's Series A-1 Convertible
] Preferred Stock it currently holds into a total of
] 740,740 shares of SCO's common stock. Further, it has
] sold 20,000 shares of Series A-1 stock to BayStar so that
] "after completion of the conversion, Royal Bank of Canada
] will have no equity interest in SCO other than the shares
] of common stock it receives from the conversion."

[ Well, we knew that was coming, no? SCO continues it's circumnavigation of the bowl, on their way down the drain... -k]

RBC Cashes out of SCO

] Iraq's deepening crisis has left the Bush administration
] with few options, and although the US has entrusted the
] United Nations with the task of finding a way towards
] political stability and elections, officials and analysts
] close to the White House admit that hopes of success are
] receding fast.
]
] Insiders describe a lack of direction and a prevailing
] sense of gloom and desperation in the administration.
] This gloom has only been intensified by the exposure of
] torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Is the US about to loose control of this completely?

[ I'm pretty sure we're about fucked. You can't go into a war with no plan or strategy other than "We're total badasses with bling weapons, bitches" and expect to succeed. The most relevant meme here, which some of my posts from this week convey, is that america has lost the Image completely. It was always a bit tenuous, but through careful manipulation of language and action, the WH has been able to spin it mostly in their favor, to the great displeasure of many. Regardless, it's gone now, replaced by exactly what they didn't want. As the NYT said, the new image of the war is a parody of christ -- a man, hooded, standing naked with electrodes hooked to his outstretched hands... it's images of smiling GI's standing over a posed pile of human flesh, laughing at genitalia and reveling in the humiliation of their captives.

The hold was slipping already... this just dumped some hot oil onto the situation, and it'd take a miracle, I think, to pull anything resembling success out of this mess. There's just no spin, because it's been etched into the public mind, and certainly even more so worldwide.

The miracle Bush is hoping for, and which the conspiracy wonks have been whispering about for months, is a pull-Osama-out-of-a-hat maneuver sometime in late summer. If he does that, Bush wins the election and gets four more years to kill, even if Iraq is a smoldering wasteland, and America is out of jobs. -k]

Capitualtion in Iraq?

] When President Bush mentioned steroids in his State of
] the Union earlier this year, some people wondered why the
] president seemed interested in an unfolding criminal case
] involving a Bay Area drug lab and some of the country's
] best-known athletes.
]
] Now, J. Tony Serra, who's defending San Francisco Giants
] slugger Barry Bonds' personal trainer, says he's figured
] it out.
]
]Serra said the government is rushing to trial and wants to get ]convictions so Bush can use the case to help win re-election.

[ Interesting. Though, I wonder, am I underestimating how much people will care about this issue? Is Bush overestimating it, as I believe, if this is true? I don't see how this can be of much use. As we've seen, it's the economy and iraq that are driving this campaign, though I expect some social policy things, such as gay marriage and abortion policy will make some impact too. This one, i just don't see being a major blowup, but I'm wrong on things sometimes... -k]

law.com - Article

] The world's five biggest music labels have successfully
] forced Apple to increase the prices it charges for songs
] on the online iTunes Music Store.
]
] As we reported back in April, the major labels have been
] engaged in negotiations with the Mac maker in a bid to
] persuade it to put up prices.

[ Foot. Gun. Bang.

Fuck the big 5, more than ever. They need to die, now, and be replaced with more agile, artist-friendly, consumer-friendly independent labels. Fuck the multimillion dollar bubblegum crap and fuck the marketing budgets. -k]

Major labels 'force 70% price hike' on Apple | The Register

] The Food and Drug Administration yesterday rejected
] over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraceptive
] Plan B, saying the distributor had not proved that young
] teenagers can take the drug safely without a doctor's
] guidance.
]
] The decision was an unusual repudiation of the lopsided
] recommendation of the agency's own expert advisory panel,
] which voted 23 to 4 late last year that the drug should be
] sold over the counter and then, that same day, 27 to 0
] that the drug could be safely sold as an over-the-counter
] medication.

[ In other words, despite the science and medical avisors, and what appears to be a number of the top journals and professional groups, giving the thumbs up, the FDA says no.

So ok, on the face of it, I recognize that it's a sticky issue, giving 14 year old girls access to anti-pregnancy drugs without the need for a prescription. There are valid concerns on both sides of the debate. Still, it seems to me like all the people who are applauding this decision are the hardcore rightwing contingent, and a number of organizations dedicated to people's actual health are pretty unhappy.

Last bit, and it's about how the right controls image so much better than the left... they're "Pro-Life", which implicitly makes us "Anti-Life" or, as said in the article "Pro-abortion". This conflation of "pro-choice" and "pro-abortion" is exactly the kind of thing the right does to us far better than we do it to them. It sucks. Why can't I be pro-choice and anti-abortion? Well, it's because it's a marginally nuanced stance which isn't as black and white as people want everything to be, so it's ignored. Just a peeve of mine. -k]

Plan B Won't Be Sold Over Counter (washingtonpost.com)

] "In recent days, there has been a good deal of discussion
] about who bears responsibility for the terrible
] activities that took place at Abu Ghraib (prison). These
] events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defence, I
] am accountable for them, and I take full responsibility,"
] Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on
] Friday.

[ Hm, well, that's a step in the right direction.

Best picture ever on this one too... Rumz just throws his hands up. "I dunno *what* the fuck we're gonna do..." -k]

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.

[ That's very very cool... this stuff is getting so damn interesting! -k]

newsmap

[Crossposting from the Supernicety :

Indeed, more proof that Shakespeare has already said pretty much everything that’s worth saying… Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo provides the following excerpt from Henry V in which the king, disguised, talks with two soldiers :

KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men’s minds; methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable.

MICHAEL WILLIAMS. That’s more than we know.

JOHN BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

MICHAEL WILLIAMS. But if his cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place’ - some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

…Act IV, Scene I

Our president wishes himself king, and wishes us to be Bates’ — unknowing, unquestioning followers of his cause, which he believes both just and honorable. The neocon movement, by denouncing all forms of dissent, subverting open discussion, wontonly tossing Coulterian charges of Treason at anyone who would challenge their King, would simultaneously have themselves absolved of whatever wrong may someday come to light. “Our obedience…wipes the crime of it out of us”, they’ll say, in so many words… “Who are we to question the King… he said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction and we obeyed his call to war!” At the same time, they deny that the King Himself should shoulder any guilt either, for he is the King, whom God alone may judge, not mere mortals, not his SUBJECTS, not us.

But we are not like Mr. Bates. We have more information and more freedom. We are *not* subjects, and we have the capacity, the right, and even the duty to challenge our leaders. Challenge them to justify their actions, so that we can be satisfied that their cause is just, their quarrel honorable, so that we can be sure that the crying dead have bought something of value with their lives. As such, we are all accountable as well. We owe no obedience to any King, and nothing but ignorance un-asked-for may absolve support for a dishonorable King.

The burden is heavy for all, and I’m not so unreasonable as to believe that President Bush doesn’t feel it as strongly as any. I believe he is genuine in his respect for the fallen. But his reckoning has not yet come. More and more we learn that the cause was misguided, mishandled and ill conceived… and the price grows ever higher. The King’s reckoning must come in November, when the people voice their disapproval and choose a new leader; one whose causes will be worthy of our support.

Just some thoughts I had while sitting idle this evening. -k]

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: May 02, 2004 - May 08, 2004 Archives

"Congress and Bush enacted an $87.5 billion package last November for this year's U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2003, a $79.5 billion measure was approved for that year's activities. "

This is what the war is costing us people. 764 solder's lives, and 192 Billons dollars.

And what is our return? What have we gained? No WMDs, but of course we stopped the horror that was Saddam. And thats a good thing right? I mean just forget the fact that Bush has single handedly mortally wounded the NATO Alliance, the fact we have troops "blow[ing] off some steam" as Rush says by by pseudo-sodomizing some of the same people we are liberating. We "stopped" WMD proliferation in Iraq while we overlook our ally Pakistan selling outlawed Nuclear Weapons Technology. We removed a horrible dictator who didn't value civil rights, so overlook our other allies who are just as guilty of denying its citizens these rights.

And Powell was right when he told Bush if we start this war, we will have to own Iraq. And we do. The administration glosses over it everyday, but the line between fighting Saddam's Army and fighting in the Iraqi Civil War was crossed a *long* time ago. And take a look at the deaths per month: the Iraqi Civil War is killing us faster than Saddam ever could or did.

That is what we have in Iraq now. Civil War. Think about that. Civil War. Yet there are no UN peace keepers helping to secure and police the country. No UN assistance in drafting a constitution, or in organization a vote. No Red Cross personal visiting prisons like Abu Ghraib until the Army so nicely invited them yesterday. Iraq is engaged in a Civil War, and because of Bush's arrogance, we are largely fighting it alone.

So, to get where we are today, its costing us 764 deaths and 192 Billion Dollars. But its not over. We aren't leaving. We can't. Iraq is in anarchy. Yet we insist on transfering sovereignty of a country that is so unstable that it requires 138,000 US, not Nato, not UN, but US troops to stay until 2006 by June 30 for some stupid ass reason or another. Why? This is a country where the major faction leader who is even the closest to a moderate, Sistani, is calling the quasi-defined government we are supposedly handing sovereignty to illegitimate. Yet we stick by this meaningless date of June 30, instead of creating a government that will in some way be effective and will be viewed as legitimate to even a small segment of the Iraqi population.

And to those who say that having an democracy in the Middle East, an "island of stability, "a "foothold" is worth the cost, I ask you to remember. Remember the last "island of stability" the US tried to create in the Middle East. And by "tried" I mean preemptively overthrew a government and set up a government that was more alike to our thinking. It was Iran. It was the Shah. And People saw it was a puppet government, and the Ayatollah Khomeini was what we got. "The Great Satan" is what we got. Radical Islam as mainstream policy is what we got.

Yes we rebuilt Europe at the end of WWII. We also had the support of our biggest trading partners, a strong economy, and no brain drain or job flight. We have none of that now, and oh by the way, the war to liberate the country is still raging, and is bloodier than ever before.

Ultimately, its the Iraqis who will suffer from our vanity, our belief that the US, and not the UN, and through them the whole world should rebuild Iraq. Sure we can do it, but it will be half done, like some 50 year old Hollywood star that looks beautiful in glance, but whose insides rot.

What will the return on our investment of blood and bucks be in Iraq, and will our current policies create the best return? I have no answers, but the are Things to Ponder

Things To Ponder : Return on Investment in Iraq