December 13, 2010 archive

Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo and WikiLeaks on Antiwar Radio


Originally published at www.andyworthington.co.uk

A few days ago, I spoke – for the 21st time – with the irrepressible Scott Horton for his show on Antiwar Radio, which is available here. Over the course of 18 minutes, we discussed why my contentiously entitled article, The Irrelevance of Wikileaks’ Guantánamo Revelations, was intended to provoke interest in the reasons why the main WikiLeaks revelations about Guantánamo – detailing the often shabby horse-trading with countries around the world, as the Obama administration sought third countries to take cleared prisoners who could not be repatriated because they faced the risk of torture – was only necessary because of the refusal of every part of the US government – the Obama administration, Congress and the courts – to give homes to any of these men on the US mainland.

read it all here…

You can listen to the interview at Antiwar.com , or right here….





Antiwar.com – December 07, 2010 – 18 minutes

Open Verdon

Photobucket

Purity is in the Eye of the Beholder

The Quaker artist Edward Hicks is well known among the Religious Society of Friends, but less so among others.  Though an adept and respected minister in his own faith, it is for his series of paintings that he is now largely remembered.  The reverse was true in his own lifetime.  One often considers folk artists like Hicks either charmingly unskilled or unforgivably untrained.  Detractors see him as the Grandfather of C.M. Coolidge’s Dogs Playing Poker series.  Supporters see a self-taught painter who eventually developed a sophisticated technique.  That debate aside, his best known work, The Peaceable Kingdom, has 61 different versions, each modifications from paintings prior.

Docudharma Times Monday December 13




Monday’s Headlines:

Cancún seen as interim step toward global treaty

USA

Risky Borrowers Find Credit Available Again, at a Price

As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border

Europe

Kosovo PM Thaçi claims election is in his grasp

Berlusconi’s fate could hang by a single vote

Middle East

Intelligence chiefs fear nuclear war between Israel and Tehran

Israel rejects Jerusalem split plan

Asia

Crime, politics and terrorism together a combustible mix

America’s Unsavory Friends in Central Asia

Africa

Gbagbo accuses foreign powers of wooing army

Latin America

Detroit’s Monsters Thrive on a Diet of Cheap Gas

$52bn of American aid and still Afghans are dying of starvation

Patrick Cockburn reports from Kabul on the rampant corruption that has left the country on its knees

Monday, 13 December 2010  

The most extraordinary failure of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan is that the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars has had so little impact on the misery in which 30 million Afghans live. As President Barack Obama prepares this week to present a review of America’s strategy in Afghanistan which is likely to focus on military progress, US officials, Afghan administrators, businessmen and aid workers insist that corruption is the greatest threat to the country’s future.  

In a series of interviews, they paint a picture of a country where $52bn (£33bn) in US aid since 2001 has made almost no impression on devastating poverty made worse by spreading violence and an economy dislocated by war.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.

–S.I. Hayakawa



Glyph 3

Late Night Karaoke

Pique the Geek 20101212: LED Christmas (and Other) Lights

One of the more revolutionary innovations in lighting is the Light Emitting Diode, or LED.  This cutting edge technology was first discovered 103 years ago!  However, only comparatively recently have LEDs been either efficient or cheap enough for wide use.

LEDs operate just like any other diode, allowing an electric current to pass, for the most part, in only one direction.  They are built by placing into contact a P-type (positive) and an N-type (negative) semiconductor and passing a current from the N to the P materials.  In the case of LEDs, when the electrons and holes recombine, light is emitted.  In most diodes, heat is emitted.  Actually, LEDs do produce some heat as well and this becomes important for reasons to be discussed later.

Cosmos & Psyche Part 1

“That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing”



~Hermes Trismegistus~


To understand one you must understand the other.

http://www.mothersky.com/2008/…

http://archaijournal.org/Tarna…

http://www.astroconsulting.com…

http://www.astrologyinsights.c…

http://www.magimysteryschool.c…

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”

Mazar-i Sharif
Forward loading bay of a C-5B at “Camp Marmalade” in Mazar-i Sharif

The city of Mazar-i Sharif was created because a local mullah dreamed that the first Shia Imam was buried there, and after another weird quirk of fate, more than 5000 NATO soldiers are now stationed at nearby Camp Marmalade.

Aircraft based at Camp Marmalade provide close air support for NATO operations all over northern Afghanistan, like the airstrike which killed ten people in Takhar Province on September 2, 2010.

President Hamid Karzai said the victims were campaign workers seeking votes in this month’s parliamentary elections.

Earlier, Takhar Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said the car in which candidate Abdul Wahid Khorasani had been riding was fired on by helicopters following an initial pass by fighter jets. He called the incident an obvious mistake, saying there were no Uzbek militants, foreigners or members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the convoy.

“There aren’t even any Taliban in this area,” Taqwa said. “They were all working on Mr. Khorasani’s campaign.”

NATO predictably denied all charges even from its own allies in Takhar Province.

After careful planning to ensure no civilians were present, coalition aircraft conducted a precision airstrike on one sedan and later followed with direct fire from an aerial platform. The vehicle was traveling as part of a six-car convoy, but no other vehicles were hit in the strike,” the military said.

But instead of issuing yet another absurd contradiction of all local authorities every time we kill another crowd of civilians, wouldn’t it be better if the United States simply proclaimed the fundamental principle of the American occupation of Afghanistan once and for all?

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”