Tripoli: a city in the shadow of death
Gunfire in the suburbs – and fear, hunger and rumour in the capital Thousands race for last tickets out of a city sinking into anarchy
Robert Fisk, with the first dispatch from Libya’s war-torn capital, reports
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli’s international airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi’s rump state, paying Libyan police bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry, desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat those who pushed their way to the front.
Among them were Gaddafi’s fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation. The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to see Gaddafi’s capital if you are a “dog” of the international press.
February 2011 archive
Feb 24 2011
Six In The Morning
Feb 24 2011
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| Maybe there is a country where all of us live, all of us freaks who aren’t able to give our loyalty to fat old fools, the crooks and thugs who wear the uniform that gives them the right to wave a flag, puff out their chests, put their feet on our necks, and break their own rules. But from where we are –Imtiaz Dharker |
 Dream of Happy |
Feb 24 2011
American Unions are a compliant, selfish disgrace, compared to European Unions
This video needs little comment. I post it because some people think that public service unions, such as the WI teachers’ union, should get supported by American workers, no strings attached, even though (by my reckoning), American unions are quite selfish. See, e.g., my discussion in Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Union Workers. See also my diary Why are there no MLK’s of Labor?
Feb 24 2011
Petraeus demonstrates pain reflex pathway by giving self hot-foot.
Illustration of the pain pathway in René Descartes’ David Petraeus’ Traite de l’homme (Treatise of Man) 1664 2011. The long fiber running from the foot to the cavity in Petraeus’ head is pulled by the heat and releases a fluid that makes the muscles contract, retracting the foot from the fire and into the salving buccal mucosa.
Reports that Gen. David Petraeus, the top US Commander in Afghanistan, accused parents in rural Kunar Province of burning their children simply to make the US “look bad” sparked considerable consternation, and what passes these days for an “explanation” from the military.
Petraeus’s insultingly awkward and racist evasion was made “awkwarder” when his spokesman clarified his meaning:
“Petraeus never said that children’s hands and feet were purposely burned by their families in order to create a civilian casualty event,” insisted spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, and here’s where the explanation falls off the rails again.
“Rather, he said that the injuries to the children appeared inconsistent with the types of munitions used and that the burns to their hands and feet may have been the result of discipline sometimes handed out to Afghan children. Regrettably this is customary among some Afghan fathers as a way of dealing with children who misbehave,” Smith continued.
That’s right, the Afghan government wasn’t mad that Petraeus said parents burned their kids to make him look bad, the Afghan government was mad because Petraeus said Afghan parents burn their kids all the time.
Boffo. Simply boffo.
Feb 24 2011
So this is what the Green Party’s got to say about Wisconsin
Before I start, just so you know, the Green Party is airing their first weekly podcast tonight at 10 PM EST, focused all around Wisconsin and WI Greens. More info here – as usual, you can chat and interact and stuff like that.
Interestingly, Madison, Wisconsin is actually one of the better cities in the nation to be a Green in. They’ve got 8 elected officials there and one of their strongest state representative candidates in the nation ran and got over 30 percent of the vote there in 2010. His name is Ben Manski and he’s now taking a leading role, with his organization Liberty Tree and a new one called Wisconsin WAVE, in the resistance to this new trend of hardcore union-busting.
The Green Party of Wisconsin and the Green Party of the US have also put out press releases (available here and here, respectively) on the matter, but Ben’s debate on CNBC today with a Republican state legislator shows really some of the best the Greens have to offer and some of what’s really missing from the Democratic Party. Enjoy. (The debate starts a bit before 6:30)
Feb 24 2011
Obama: Please Go To Wisconsin
Well, here I go again, oversimplifying, being idealistic, possibly ranting. To all of these I plead guilty. In advance.
President Obama’s made a few statements about the demonstrations in Wisconsin. The most widely disseminated one is this one, reported in TPM:
Well I’d say that I haven’t followed exactly what’s happening with the Wisconsin budget. I’ve got some budget problems here in Washington that I’ve had to focus on. I would say, as a general proposition, that everybody’s gotta make some adjustments to new fiscal realities. And I think if we want to avoid layoffs — which I want to avoid, I don’t want to see layoffs of hard-working federal workers.We had to impose, for example, a freeze on pay increases for federal workers for the next two years, as part of my overall budget freeze. You know, I think those kinds of adjustments are the right thing to do.
On the other other hand, some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin — where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally — seems like more of an assault on unions.
And I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. These are folks who are teachers, and they’re firefighters, and they’re social workers, and they’re police officers. You know, they make a lot of sacrifices, and make a big contribution, and I think it’s important not to vilify them, or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.So, I think everybody’s gotta make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to the well being of our states and our cities.
Sounds, feels, smells and looks like a politician. It’s balanced. It’s cautious. It looks over his shoulder to wonder which side might ultimately win the Battle of Madison. It sounds like he’d like to be on the winning side for 2012. What it doesn’t sound like by any means is leadership.
Leadership would be going to Madison and linking arms and standing in solidarity with the demonstrators and union members against the reactionaries and would-be union busters. It would be standing up to the Koch funded “movement.” It would be explaining clearly to all who would listen that these unions are important to sustained high pay in Wisconsin and the nation, and that the antedeluvian effort to kill these unions must be defeated. The Wisconsin football stadium might be a good place to hold the rally.
The President, however, hasn’t shown any signs that he’s ready to lead a fight for labor, his largest supporter. It looks like he might still want to invoke politesse and refer to these union busters as “the right to work” advocates with whom he has a small disagreement.
These people don’t deserve that kind of deference. They have ginned up a plan to destroy public unions and are inflexible about it. They will not modify it or back off from it. They plan to destroy public unions. Period. They have begun by trying drive a wedge between public workers’ unions. The teachers and highway workers and bureaucrats are ok to beat up on and they won’t be able to bargain, but those the cops and firefighters, which are more traditionally Republican, will.
Today’s mock phone call with “David Koch” proved beyond all cavil that Scott Walker is the lead dog running a national union busting movement. He doesn’t care at all about the state’s budget. This is another item entirely. This for Walker is only about destroying public unions. Yes, it’s happening through the state legislatures, but this is a manifestation of an organized, well funded, nationwide movement to emasculate public workers’ unions.
That’s why the unions can’t afford to lose this battle. And it’s why President Obama needs to organize an appearance in Wisconsin. The unions have already conceded on the economic issues in this confrontation by agreeing to pay more for their health insurance and to contribute more to their pensions. Those issues are not what’s keeping 14 Wisconsin legislators under cover in Illinois (or elsewhere). No. They are outside the state solely to protect collective bargaining. It bears repeating. What makes the confrontation persist is only one thing: the governor’s adamant refusal to drop his plan for withdrawal of collective bargaining rights for certain Wiaconsin public workers. Plain and simple: the Governor insists on destroying these unions.
That’s why the national democratic leadership in Washington needs to go to Wisconsin. And they need to go now. This is a confrontation that can and should be won. Obama and the national leadership have to stop playing Bert Lahr. They have to show up in numbers, and they have to roar.
cross-posted from The Dream Antilles
Feb 24 2011
Under the Radar: Look Over Here
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Here’s some of the other news that gets missed or relegated to the inner pages by our ratings fixated media and what some of the loonies have been “plotting”.
The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has quietly dropped its legal representation of more than a dozen Bush-era Pentagon and administration officials – including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and aide Paul Wolfowitz – in a lawsuit by Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, who spent years behind bars without charges in conditions his lawyers compare to torture.
Charles Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that the government has agreed to retain private lawyers for the officials, at a cost of up to $200 per hour. Miller said “conflicts concerns” prompted the decision. He did not elaborate.
(emphasis mine)
This is not the first time that the NYT has done the bidding of the administration in power. Keller even boasted in a BBC interview that the NYT had earned the praise of the U.S. Government for withholding materials which the Obama administration wanted withheld.
Jury Convicts Iraqi Immigrant in ‘Honor Killing’ of Daughter
Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, also was convicted of aggravated assault for injuries suffered by the mother of his daughter’s boyfriend during the October 2009 incident in a suburban Phoenix parking lot, and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.
Prosecutors told jurors during the trial that he mowed down 20-year-old Noor Almaleki with his Jeep Cherokee because she had brought the family dishonor by becoming too Westernized. He wanted Noor Almaleki to act like a traditional Iraq woman, but she refused an arranged marriage, went to college and had a boyfriend.
Border Activist Sentenced to Death for Fatal Home Invasion
Forde was convicted Feb. 14 of first-degree murder in the May 30, 2009, deaths of Raul “Junior” Flores, 29, and his daughter, Brisenia Flores, 9. She was also found guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of Gina Gonzalez, Flores’ wife and Brisenia’s mother.
Prosecutors said Forde decided to target the house in Arivaca, Ariz., because she believed Flores was a drug smuggler and would have cash in the house. She wanted money to fund her border protection group, Minutemen American Defense, prosecutors said.
Feb 23 2011
Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette
Our regular featured content-
- On This Day In History by TheMomCat
- Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat
- Evening Edition by ek hornbeck
- Prime Time by ek hornbeck
And these articles-
- Under the Radar: Look Over Here by TheMomCat
- Obama finds DOMA UNconstitutional! by RiaD
- It’s Gotta Be Bad If Even Bob Barr Gets It by TheMomCat
Feb 23 2011
It’s Gotta Be Bad If Even Bob Barr Gets It
Cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Sen. Al Franken, (D-MI) has called Internet Freedom the most important free speech issue of our time. That Freedom is now being threatened by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) who have introduced a bill that would essentially give the President the authority to shut down the internet with new national emergency powers, aka a “kill switch”:
President Obama would be given the power to “issue a declaration of a national cyberemergency.” Once that happens, Homeland Security would receive sweeping new authorities, including the power to require that so-called critical companies “shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action” decreed.
No “notice” needs to be given “before mandating any emergency measure or actions.” That means a company could be added to the “critical” infrastructure list one moment, and ordered by Homeland Security to “immediately comply” with its directives the next.
The U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs, appears to believe that it’s not necessary to include explicit judicial review of the president’s emergency authority once exercised, believing it’s implicit. Any such lawsuit filed by a targeted company would likely focus on language saying the emergency decrees should be “the least disruptive means feasible.”
The president may declare a “cyberemergency” for 30 days, and extend it for one 30-day period, unless Congress votes to approve further extensions.
Homeland Security will “establish and maintain a list of systems or assets that constitute covered critical infrastructure” and that will be subject to those emergency decrees.
(emphasis mine)
The ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson said”It still gives the president incredible authority to interfere with Internet communications.” If the Department of Homeland Security wants to pull the plug on Web sites or networks, she said, “the government needs to go to court and get a court order.” I light of the recent erroneous seizure of 84,000 web sites by the Department of Homeland Security that took them off line even Bob Barr has weighed in with this statement:
No government – no matter how benign or well-meaning – should be empowered to control the Internet. Moreover, the Congress should take a long, hard look at how federal agencies are using – and abusing – their existing powers to control parts of the Internet.
Holy FSM. They’re even calling this bill “Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act.”
Hello!!!! Does this sound familiar?????? Egypt, Libya, anyone?????
Feb 23 2011
from firefly-dreaming 23.2.11
Regular Daily Features:
- The Kinks are in the spotlight at Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs
Essays Featured Wednesday, February 23rd:
- Youffraita‘s Wednesday Open Thoughts are Entirely Too Cool
- TheMomCat most kindly gives us a repeat performance of herHealth & Fitness News
originally posted Saturday at The Stars Hollow Gazette - Obama finds DOMA UNconstitutional!
- Firefly Memories 1.0 is where Alma takes a look back at some of the Brilliant essays of our first years posts, highlighting those which exemplify our firefly-dreaming spirit and mission. Today:a special faerie tale
join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….