Bolivia passes major land reform | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

Let's hope it spreads...

Bolivia passes major land reform | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited: "The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, has secured a sweeping land reform bill with the help of thousands of indigenous peasants who marched on the capital, La Paz.

To the jubilation of his supporters, Mr Morales signed the bill into law at a midnight ceremony last night after overcoming fierce resistance from senators representing large landowners.

The law is intended to reverse centuries of discrimination against the indigenous majority by seizing 77,000 square miles of land - an area around three-quarters the size of Britain - deemed unproductive or illegally owned and redistributing it to the poor."

A Quantum (Computer) Step

University of Utah News Release : November 19th, 2006:

"Nov. 19, 2006 -- A University of Utah physicist took a step toward developing a superfast computer based on the weird reality of quantum physics by showing it is feasible to read data stored in the form of the magnetic 'spins' of phosphorus atoms."

Michigan Teen Fuses Atomic Nuclei for Fun

He creates fusion in his Oakland Township home: "In the basement of his parents' Oakland Township home, tucked away in an area most aren't privy to see, Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on a project that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and build -- a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear fusion."

Leftist leads banana baron

Leftist leads banana baron in Ecuador election:

"A leftist nationalist who is friendly with Venezuela's anti-U.S. president held a commanding lead over a Bible-toting banana tycoon in Sunday's runoff presidential election in Ecuador, exit polls showed.

The tall and charismatic Rafael Correa received nearly 57 per cent of the vote, compared to 43 per cent for Alvaro Noboa, according to an exit poll conducted by CEDATOS-Gallup."

Crowd stones Iraqi PM

Calls for calm as crowd stones Iraqi PM | Top News | Reuters.co.uk: "BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The motorcade of Iraq's prime minister was pelted with stones on Sunday by fellow Shi'ites in a Baghdad slum when he paid respects to some of the 200 who died there last week in the deadliest attack since the U.S. invasion."

'More popular' President Bush defends son from 'hostile audience'

Yeah, you go original King George, you tell those pesky kids, what the hell do they know

'More popular' President Bush defends son from 'hostile audience': "The former president lost his cool with one audience member, calling him 'crazy' and recommending that he 'go back to school.'

According to the AP, a student implied that 'U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies,' and that 'globalization was contrived for America's benefit at the expense of the rest of the world,' but 'Bush was having none of it.'

'I think that's weird and it's nuts,' Bush said. 'To suggest that everything we do is because we're hungry for money, I think that's crazy.'

'I think you need to go back to school,' Bush added."

What an awkard moment...

"For all the focus on the Democrats, a former Bush official who predicts a coming bloodbath between the White House and disgruntled conservative Republicans brushed off the Pelosi-Hoyer tussle as much ado about process."

"'The Democrats are the sideshow,' he said. 'Bush self-destructing is the big story in town.'"

New York Daily News - Politics - Pelosi's bruising:

Oh Fuck

Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth | Science | Guardian Unlimited:

"A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs."

"The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036."

"A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion."

Workers without bosses at a turning point

Workers without bosses at a turning point: "Workers face off with the Argentine government on the status of their worker-controlled factories and other businesses. Since 2001, many have had to face bleak futures of unemployment. The workers, reclaiming their destinies, have opened closed plants and started operating outside the system to make a living. Many of these worker-controlled plants have operated for years in legal limbo."

Al-Jazeera, which already had an English language website, relaunches

Along with a new english language cable channel. Of course, good luck finding a cable system that carries it. For news junkies, the old site did not have RSS feeds (though there were folks that unofficially put them out), but the new one does.

See, for example, the Middle East section's RSS feed.

Document shows Bush guided CIA on detention

International Herald Tribune:

"WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including one signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency's interrogation and detention of terror suspects."

Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld

TIME.com: Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse -- Page 1:

"New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

Collective puts Marx's Das Kapital on stage | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

As long as we don't have to eat ashen bread, I'm in...

Collective puts Marx's Das Kapital on stage | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: "There is no wedding, no romantic interest and no plot to speak of. Instead the reader of Karl Marx's epic work, Das Kapital, is treated to a lengthy treatise on the division of labour and capitalist modes of production, offered up in long, convoluted sentences."

Editor and Publisher: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques

U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques:

"Now we learn [via FOIA] that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation methods used on prisoners.

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a ?non-hostile weapons discharge.? "

[snip]

?Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ...".

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. ?But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,? the documents disclose.

Rare Joint Editorial between Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines Calls for Rumsfeld to Resign

The Ross Report:

"An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld"

Judge Rejects Libby's Use of Memory Expert

Olbermann's Comment on Habeas Corpus Loss

See here to get a video of post festum's post on Olbermann...Here is another strong one, showing what Adams did for the sedition act, Wilson did to the pacifists (remember Debs for President, got a million votes), and Roosevelt did to the Japanese-Americans, Bush does...

YouTube - Olbermann's Comment on Habeas Corpus Loss

Threats to Hugo Chavez As Venezuela's December Presidential Election Approaches

Interesting piece detailing Chavez' support, program and opposition. In addition, the author hints at possible US responses. Quite an interesting projection, but alas it remains to be seen...One interesting sidenote, a US military base in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay was opened (far from Venezuela) but this was stated/speculated:

It's also been reported that George Bush recently bought a 98,842 acre farm in Paraguay to go along with the 173,000 acres his father already owns there. Both properties border Bolivia and Brazil and comprise 2.7% of the whole country that comprises an area the size of the state of California. It's not known what the Bush family has in mind there or whether it may have any connection to a planned US military intervention in the region. It is known Paraguay has no laws criminalizing money-laundering, anti-terrorism or terrorist financing even though if does have an extradition treaty with the US. It's also important to be mindful of the fact that a dominant US family of two US presidents now owns a sizable piece of real estate in a country able to domicile a large number of US forces. It may only be for whatever personal use they have in mind, but it may not be and we can only speculate on what that may be.

Threats to Hugo Chavez As Venezuela's December Presidential Election Approaches: "It still remains to be seen what strategy the opposition will decide on or even which, if any, of them will show up on election day. Already Accion Democratica, Venezuela's largest opposition party in size of membership, at first refused to back any candidate. The AD's General Secretary, Henry Ramos Allup, said the only option is to abstain from the election and that Rosales, Borges (before he dropped out of the race) and other candidates are 'like drunks fighting over an empty bottle.' Others in his party disagree though calling for an exercise of 'democratic resistance.' Still it's clear to all in the opposition, Chavez is so far ahead in the polls there's no chance anyone can defeat him in a free, fair and open election so it's likely Rosales was chosen to run with something else in mind, and his strategy will show it as the campaign unfolds and especially as election day approaches.



Clearly the US had the final say in picking him for whatever strategy is planned that may have a lot to do with the fact that he's the governor of the state of Zulia that has 40% of Venezuela's oil and where in the past energy elites there supported the state's independence to free it from the government in Caracas. Rosales also favors this idea (likely with a little coaxing from his US allies) and has called for a referendum to let the people of Zulia decide. He's also very close to the Bush administration and was the only governor to sign the infamous '(Pedro) Carmona Estanga Decree' after the 2002 coup that dissolved the elected National Assembly and Supreme Court and effectively ended the Bolivarian Revolution and all the benefits it gave the Venezuelan people (for two days).



Rosales' electoral plan, with considerable US National Endowment for Democracy (NED)-funded through Sumate support, should become clear close to or right after the December 3 e"

11/1/06 Olbermann?s Special Comment

An incredible piece of oratory.

Crooks and Liars » Olbermann?s Special Comment : There is no line this President has not crossed ? nor will not cross ? to keep one political party, in power.:

"And finally tonight, a Special Comment.

On the 22nd of May, 1856, as the deteriorating American political system veered towards the edge of the cliff, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, shuffled into the Senate of this nation, his leg stiff from an old dueling injury, supported by a cane. And he looked for the familiar figure of the prominent Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner.

Brooks found Sumner at his desk, mailing out copies of a speech he had delivered three days earlier ? a speech against slavery.

The Congressman matter-of-factly raised his walking stick in mid-air, and smashed its metal point, across the Senator's head.

Congressman Brooks hit his victim repeatedly. Senator Sumner somehow got to his feet and tried to flee. Brooks chased him, and delivered untold blows to Sumner's head. Even though Sumner lay unconscious and bleeding, on the Senate floor, Brooks finally stopped beating him, only because his cane finally broke.

Others will cite John Brown's attack on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry as the exact point after which the Civil War became inevitable.

In point of fact, it might have been the moment ? not when Brooks broke his cane over the prostrate body of Senator Sumner - but when voters in Brooks's district started sending him new canes.

Tonight, we almost wonder to whom President Bush will send the next new cane.

There is tonight no political division in this country that he and his party will not exploit, nor have not exploited; no anxiety that he and his party will not inflame.

There is no line this President has not crossed ? nor will not cross ? to keep one political party, in power.

He has spread any and every fear among, in a desperate effort to avoid that which he most fears ? some check, some balance against what has become not an imperial, but a unilateral presidency.

And now it is evident that it no longer matters to him, whether that effort to avoid the judgment of the people, is subtle and nuanced ? or laughably transparent.

Senator John Kerry called him out Monday.

He did it two years too late.

He had been too cordial ? just as Vice President Gore had been too cordial in 2000 ? just as millions of us, have been too cordial ever since.

Senator Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor, he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial.

He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education ? that quote "if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you can get stuck in Iraq."

The Senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid.

The context was unmistakable: Texas;the state of denial;stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required.

And Mr. Bush and his minions responded, by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.

They demanded Kerry apologize ? to the troops in Iraq.

And so he now has.

That phrase "appearing to be too stupid" is used deliberately, Mr. Bush.

Because there are only three possibilities here:

One, sir, is that you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics have suggested; that you could not follow the construction of a simple sentence; that you could not recognize your own life story when it was deftly summarized; that you could not perceive it was the sad ledger of your presidency that was being recounted.

This, of course, compliments you, Mr. Bush, because even those who do not "make the most of it," who do not "study hard," who do not "do their homework," and who do not "make an effort to be smart" might still just be stupid ? but honest.

No; the first option, sir, is, at best, improbable. You are not honest.

The second option is that you and those who work for you deliberately twisted what Senator Kerry said to fit your political template. That you decided to take advantage of it, to once again pretend that the attacks, solely about your own incompetence, were in fact attacks on the troops ? or even on the nation itself.

The third possibility is, obviously, the nightmare scenario; that the first two options are in some way conflated.

That it is both politically convenient for you, and personally satisfying to you, to confuse yourself with the country for which, sir, you work.

A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.

You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political ? to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn't about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either ? that the insult, in fact, is you.

So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans' deliberate distortions.

Thus the President will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

This President must apologize to the troops ? for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, quote "look like just a comma."

This President must apologize to the troops ? because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.

This President must apologize to the troops ? for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence, at a banquet, while our troops were in harm's way.

This President must apologize to the troops ? because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.

This President must apologize to the troops ? because his administration ran out of "plan" after barely two months.

This President must apologize to the troops ? for getting 2,815 of them killed.

This President must apologize to the troops ? for getting this country into a war without a clue.

And Mr. Bush owes us an apology? for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.

?

We will not receive them, of course.

This President never apologizes.

Not to the troops.

Not to the people.

Nor will those henchmen who have echoed him.

In calling him a "stuffed suit," Senator Kerry was wrong about the Press Secretary.

Mr. Snow's words and conduct ? falsely earnest and earnestly false ? suggest he is not "stuffed" - he is inflated.

And in leaving him out of the equation, Senator Kerry gave an unwarranted pass to his old friend Senator McCain, who should be ashamed of himself tonight.

He rolled over and pretended Kerry had said what he obviously had not.

Only, the symbolic stick he broke over Kerry's head came in a context, even more disturbing: Mr. McCain demanded the apology, while electioneering for a Republican congressional candidate in Illinois.

He was speaking of how often he had been to Walter Reed Hospital to see the wounded Iraq veterans, of how, quote "many of the have lost limbs." He said all this while demanding that the voters of Illinois reject a candidate who is not only a wounded Iraq veteran, but who lost two limbs there: Tammy Duckworth.

Support some of the wounded veterans. But bad-mouth the Democratic one.

And exploit all the veterans, and all the still-serving personnel, in a cheap and tawdry political trick, to try to bury the truth: that John Kerry said the President had been stupid.

And to continue this slander as late as this morning ? as biased, or gullible, or lazy newscasters, nodded in sleep-walking assent.

Senator McCain became a front man in a collective lie to break sticks over the heads of Democrats ? one of them his friend; another his fellow veteran, leg-less, for whom he should weep and applaud, or at minimum about whom, he should stay quiet.

That was beneath the Senator from Arizona.

And it was all because of an imaginary insult to the troops that his party cynically manufactured ? out of a desperation, and a futility, as deep as that of Congressman Brooks, when he went hunting for Senator Sumner.

This, is our beloved country now, as you have re-defined it, Mr. Bush.

Get a tortured Vietnam veteran to attack a decorated Vietnam veteran, in defense of military personnel, whom that decorated veteran did not insult.

Or, get your henchmen to take advantage of the evil lingering dregs of the fear of miscegenation in Tennessee, in your party's advertisements against Harold Ford.

Or, get the satellites who orbit around you, like Rush Limbaugh, to exploit the illness ? and the bi-partisanship ? of Michael J. Fox ? yes, get someone to make fun of the cripple.

Oh, and sir, don't forget to drag your own wife into it.

"It's always easy," she said of Mr. Fox's commercials ? and she used this phrase twice ? "to manipulate people's feelings."

Where on earth might the First Lady have gotten that idea, Mr. President?

From your endless manipulation of people's feelings about terrorism?

"How ever they put it," you said Monday of the Democrats, on the subject of Iraq , "their approach comes down to this: the terrorists win and America loses."

No manipulation of feelings there.

No manipulation of the charlatans of your administration into the only truth-tellers.

No shocked outrage at the Kerry insult that wasn't; no subtle smile as the First Lady silently sticks the knife in Michael J. Fox's back; no attempt on the campaign trail to bury the reality that you have already assured that the terrorists are winning.

Winning in Iraq, sir.

Winning in America, sir.

There, we have chaos: joint U.S./Iraqi checkpoints at Sadr City, the base of the radical Shiite militias ? and the Americans have been ordered out by the Prime Minister of Iraq? and our Secretary of Defense doesn't even know about it!

And here ? we have deliberate, systematic, institutionalized lying and smearing and terrorizing ? a code of deceit, that somehow permits a President to say, quote, "If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don't have one."

Permits him to say this while his plan in Iraq has amounted to a twisted version of the advice once offered to Lyndon Johnson about his Iraq, called Vietnam.

Instead of "declare victory ? and get out"? we now have "declare victory ? and stay, indefinitely."

And also here, we have institutionalized the terrorizing of the opposition. True domestic terror:

? Critics of your administration in the media receive letters filled with fake anthrax.

? Braying newspapers applaud, or laugh, or reveal details the FBI wished kept quiet, and thus impede or ruin the investigation.

? A series of reactionary columnists encourages treason charges against a newspaper that published "national security information" ? that was openly available on the internet.

? One radio critic receives a letter, threatening the revelation of as much personal information about her as can be obtained ? and expressing the hope that someone will then shoot her with an AK-47 machine gun.

? And finally, a critic of an incumbent Republican Senator, a critic armed with nothing but words, is attacked by the Senator's supporters, and thrown to the floor, in full view of television cameras, as if someone really did want to re-enact the intent and the rage of the day Preston Brooks found Senator Charles Sumner.

Of course, Mr. President, you did none of these things.

You instructed no one to mail the fake anthrax. Nor undermine the FBI's case. Nor call for the execution of the editors of the New York Times. Nor threaten to assassinate Stephanie Miller. Nor beat up a man yelling at Senator Allen. Nor have the first lady knife Michael J. Fox. Nor tell John McCain to lie about John Kerry.

No, you did not.

And the genius of the thing, is the same, as in King Henry's rhetorical question about Archbishop Thomas Becket: "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

All you have to do, sir? is hand out enough new canes."