full of juicy tidbits.

Could you stand listening to this? (scroll down)

(A)s the country braces for war, some liberal Democrats in Congress are preparing to introduce articles of impeachment against Bush and perhaps members of his Cabinet, according to lawmakers and congressional aides.

At least one senior House Democrat has produced a draft impeachment resolution. It accuses Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft of more than a dozen “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including bombing civilians in Afghanistan and constitutional violations in the domestic war on terrorism. National Review

by Francis A. Boyle, professor of law, University of Illinois School of Law. CounterPunch

Reviewed: The Philosopher’s Dog

by Raimond Gaita: “Stephen Law enjoys Raimond Gaita’s attempt to get inside the heads of animals.” Guardian/UK

Let me put it succinctly: I don’t think serious education is possible in America. Anything you touch in the annals of knowledge is a foe of this system of commerce and profit, run amok. The only education that can be permitted is if it acculturates to the status quo, as happens in the expensive schools, or if it produces people to police and enforce the status quo, as in the state school where I teach. Significantly, at my school, which is a third-tier university, servicing working-class, first-generation college graduates who enter lower-etchelon jobs in the civil service, education, or middle management, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work–basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses. Democratic Underground

Daniel Dennett tells

…a story you probably haven’t heard, about how a team of American researchers inadvertently introduced a virus into a third world country they were studying. They were experts in their field, and they had the best intentions; they thought they were helping the people they were studying, but in fact they had never really seriously considered whether what they were doing might have ill effects. It had not occurred to them that a side-effect of their research might be damaging to the fragile ecology of the country they were studying. The virus they introduced had some dire effects indeed: it raised infant mortality rates, led to a general decline in the health and wellbeing of women and children, and, perhaps worst of all, indirectly undermined the only effective political force for democracy in the country, strengthening the hand of the traditional despot who ruled the nation. These American researchers had something to answer for, surely, but when confronted with the devastation they had wrought, their response was frustrating, to say the least: they still thought that what they were doing was, all things considered, in the interests of the people, and declared that the standards by which this so-called devastation was being measured were simply not appropriate.

These researchers were not biologists intent on introducing new strains of rice, nor were they agri-business chemists testing new pesticides, or doctors trying out vaccines that couldn’t legally be tested in the U.S.A. They were postmodernist science critics and other multiculturalists who were arguing, in the course of their professional researches on the culture and traditional “science” of this country, that Western science was just one among many equally valid narratives, not to be “privileged” in its competition with native traditions which other researchers–biologists, chemists, doctors and others–were eager to supplant. The virus they introduced was not a macromolecule but a meme (a replicating idea): the idea that science was a “colonial” imposition, not a worthy substitute for the practices and beliefs that had carried the third-world country to its current condition. Butterflies and Wheels

Hottest new headset for your cellular phone.

Mizuko Ito takes a look at the keitai generation in Japanese society, where we see perhaps the highest penetration of mobile media capability and reliance and with it, “sweeping changes to how we coordinate, communicate and share information.” I was led to this piece via bOing bOing, which led with the observation that leaving your phone at home is “the new taboo.” Instant mobile availability has also changed the dynamics of meeting-making; the appointment appears to be becoming a thing of the past. No one calls anyone’s home numbers anymore either, leading to a sense of parents’ losing control over their children’s social contacts. Interestingly, one “knocks before entering”, i.e. sends a text message asking if the recipient is available to talk on the phone before the intrusion of a sudden phone call (I wish my wife learned to do that sometimes…). Being in persistent contact with one’s intimates means a person has a “portable virtual peer space” with them at all times, changing the parameters of privacy and anonymity profoundly. Online Journalism Review

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh writes in The New Yorker about Richard Perle, suggesting politely he might have a conflict of interest between his role as a primary defense department advisor and proponent of the current war fever on the one hand and his being a principal partner in a venture capital firm called Trireme Partners which was formed to capitalize on fear of terrorism by investing in goods and services of value to homeland security and defense. In response, Perle says that Hersh is “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.” IMHO, Hersh ought to take it as a compliment…

[I’ve received this a number of times already via email. — FmH]

Here is a one question multiple choice test.

In the answer you will find the

value of bombing Iraq.

World History 101 – Mid-term exam

This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question (so you better

get it right!) Here’s a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed

since >the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:

China 1945-46

Korea 1950-53

China 1950-53

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-60

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Peru 1965

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991-99

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

———————————————-

NOW HERE IS THE QUESTION:

In how many of these instances did a FREE government, respectful of

human rights, occur as a direct result? Choose one of the following:

(a) 0

(b) zero

(c) none

(d) not a one

(e) a whole number between -1 and +1

Addendum: A reader quibbles with me:

“Eliot, I think you’re slipping. First of all, like every e-chain letter I have ever received, this one is not true, or it at least leaves out as much as it leaves in. I think. In particular, I don’t think we ever bombed Nicaragua–we did support the Contras, but I don’t think we ever bombed the place. In Grenada, Reagan’s ridiculous interference amounted to the removal of our med students, and the local strong man. Panama? I think it was a democracy, and remained so. Yugoslavia? It’s more democratic than it was.

I agree with your intent, but feel it is incumbent on us to try to tell the truth. Even if the truth is complicated. This makes us better than our opponents.”

He’s right; I’m guilty of intent, but should not be distorting in its service. Here, perhaps abit more precise, is what Molly Ivins said in a similar vein this week:

In the more potentially disastrous category of “What happens when we win?” the numbers are not good. Of the 20 regime changes forced by U.S. military action in the last century, only five produced democracies; and of the five unilateral actions, only one produced a democracy — Panama. Afghanistan, the closest proximate case, is not looking good beyond Kabul.

You Say War Crimes

‘ “Whether I hate Saddam or not, and I’m not saying I do,” one man told me quietly during my recent trip to Iraq, “I hate America – the government, not the people – for what it did and is going to do to our children.”

His is not a lone voice. The vast majority of the Iraqi people I spoke to believe the United States committed war crimes during the last Gulf war in 1991 by using depleted uranium (DU) weapons deliberately to cause cancer and inflict birth defects for generations to come.’ — Terry Allen, New Scientist [via AlterNet]

Maureen Dowd: The Xanax Cowboy:

You might sum up the president’s call to war Thursday night as “Message: I scare.”

As he rolls up to America’s first pre-emptive invasion, bouncing from motive to motive, Mr. Bush is trying to sound rational, not rash. Determined not to be petulant, he seemed tranquilized.

But the Xanax cowboy made it clear that Saddam is going to pay for 9/11. Even if the fiendish Iraqi dictator was not involved with Al Qaeda, he has supported “Al Qaeda-type organizations,” as the president fudged, or “Al Qaeda types” or “a terrorist network like Al Qaeda.”

We are scared of the world now, and the world is scared of us. (It’s really scary to think we are even scaring Russia and China.)

She goes on:

It still confuses many Americans that, in a world full of vicious slimeballs, we’re about to bomb one that didn’t attack us on 9/11 (like Osama); that isn’t intercepting our planes (like North Korea); that isn’t financing Al Qaeda (like Saudi Arabia); that isn’t home to Osama and his lieutenants (like Pakistan); that isn’t a host body for terrorists (like Iran, Lebanon and Syria). NY Times op-ed

Saying No to War. Not that it matters to the Cabal, and it certainly is a day late and a dollar short, but the Paper of Record comes out against the war. Citing the evidence of Iraqi cooperation with the inspection process under duress, the editorial notes,

“By adding hundreds of additional inspectors, using the threat of force to give them a free hand and maintaining the option of attacking Iraq if it tries to shake free of a smothering inspection program, the United States could obtain much of what it was originally hoping to achieve.. Had Mr. Bush managed the showdown with Iraq in a more measured manner, he would now be in a position to rally the U.N. behind that bigger, tougher inspection program, declare victory and take most of the troops home.”

Of course, this takes at face value that it is disarming an imminent threat that Bush seeks in Iraq; the Times does know better. It acknowledges that Bush’s demand for regime change paints him into a corner where he cannot accept Saddam’s compliance under duress, although the tone of the editorial suggests it thinks this was an indication of Bush’s lack of skill rather than what is more likely, that it is with full intent. Bush’s only mistake may be that he is not craftier at hiding his intent.

Similarly, The Times notes dysadministration waffling on the rationale for the invasion among

• self-defense against imminent danger (which the Times dismisses),
  
• Iraq’s refusal to obey UN orders to disarm (an argument that obviously cannot be made when the UN itself believes disarmament is occurring),
  
• and the transformation of Iraq into a showplace democracy that will inspire the rest of the Middle East to follow suit (a notion so ridiculous that it is not worth the column inches the Times spends addressing it).
  

Again, it appears that the Times takes this waffling simply as an indication of confused thinking and lack of clarity to our intent rather than simply an ineptitude about what the dysadministration tells us when it can’t fully disclose what it is really after in Iraq. Will we ever see a NY Times editorial with a headline like “If You’re Going to Lie to Us, Mr. President, At Least Get Your Story Straight”?

The piece concludes by citing the longterm damage to our alliances and the irreparable weakening of the United Nations. No mention is made of several other important important potential consequences. Pity; when midtown Manhattan is taken out by the next massive terrorist backlash against this latest US arrogance, the New York Times might no longer be there to remind Bush that it was his fault.

Court Reverses Ruling on Jane Akre’s rBGH Suit:

Accepting a defense rejected by three other Florida state judges on at least six separate motions, a Florida appeals court has reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.

In a six-page written decision released February 14, the court essentially ruled the journalist never stated a valid whistle- blower claim because, they ruled, it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

Now there’s a court that knows what it is talking about. It doesn’t usrprise me, but is to their shame, that the lower courts had ruled differently. We have freedom of the press, yes — if you own the medium. Let this be a lesson to anyone who gets their news from Fox in particular and — I shudder to go with the larger generalization — the mass media at all…