mik

Pictures of human suffering were on television sets all over the world in the days that followed hurricane Katrina's devastating blow to New Orleans just over a year ago. Human suffering that was made worse by the incompetent and callous mismanagement of the so called rescue effort. People around the world wondered how America could make such a hash of rescuing their fellow Americans from borderline starvation and the rising floodwaters that were engulfing the city. Everyone knows now that the reason the Katrina rescue effort was a screw up of mammoth proportions was down to a failure of leadership. It is useful to remember that it is the same leadership that is prosecuting the so called global war on terror. That too is a screw up of mammoth proportions. The Bush administration is doing its best to spread hate and fear amongst the population with words like "islamo-facist", "axis of evil" and "the worst of the worst". There is supposed to be a great stuggle going on of "good" versus "evil". America is "winning" the war, but there is still a long road ahead, possibly many years, possibly for ever, before victory can be achieved. The stated goals of Pres. Bush are to spread "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East and "win hearts and minds". That way terrorism will be defeated! Far from winning hearts and minds, the fact is America has managed to spread chaos and hatred throughout the Middle East through the occupation of Iraq. Far from reducing the number of terrorists in the world, the fact is America has created a training ground in occupied Iraq for new terrorist recruits. Far from spreading democracy in Iraq, there is now a civil war in progress. Axis of evil partner Iran is able to exert ever more influence in Iraq. Shia, Sunni and Kurds are unable to bury their differences and partitioning the country seems the most likely outcome. In Afghanistan the Taliban have become active again and are a rejuvinated and effective, well equipped fighting force. They are engaging British and Canadian troops in the south. That is because Pres. Bush in his rush to start the war in Iraq neglected to finish the job that he started in Afghanistan. Then America was most encouraging to Israel when Israel decided the best course of action in response to a couple of kidnappings was to flatten Lebanon. The result of that war was Hezbollah (terrorists) winners, Israel (good guys) defeated, Lebanon (democracy) flattened. Another Pres. Bush American leadership screw up. Axis of evil Iran backed the winning side, Hezbollah. The center piece of Pres. Bush's war on terror must be all the terrorists successfully captured and locked up in Guantanamo Bay. Except there is a screw up going on there as well. Out of a total 770 "captured terrorists" (actually bought by the Americans), 315 have been quietly released, 455 remain, 10 have been charged with a crime and so far not one has been brought to trial. According to Pres. Bush, these detainees are the worst of the worst. But Pres. Bush has no evidence that would stand up in a regular court with which to convict a single one of these detainees. The only choice open to Pres. Bush is to gain convictions through rigged trials, if congress allows rigged trials to proceed, or to let all the detainees go. The war on terror is a farce, a black comedy, a tragedy and a disater. Blame Pres. Bush, it's his fault.

There are two wars that have the attention of the world's media at the present time, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. And there is the shaky cease fire between Lebanon and Israel, that has plenty of media attention and reporting on the latest progress. But before the Israel Lebanese conflict there was the Israel Palestine conflict that was just getting under way, and we don't hear anymore about that.Gaza is in a bad situation. June 25th was when Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants and two other Israeli soldiers killed, and that was when Israel decided that the best action it could conceive of was to retaliate. Two and a half months later, Israel is still retalliating, and the whole of Gaza is suffering.Gideon Levy in the daily newspaper Haaretz writes that the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately". Gaza has effectively been reoccupied by Israel. And Israel is remodelling the landscape to Israel's specifications, knocking down houses, reducing them to rubble, and carving up - stripping bare the land - farmers' fields and and olive groves.According to the London Independent a total of 262 people have been killed since June 25th, in Gaza. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. So one in every four casualties is a child. There were 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 are now amputees.But that is not all. Israel has imposed a total ban on all trade and cross border traffic. This is having the effect of starving the population, 1.5 million Palestinians, who are surrounded and imprisoned with no escape route, are struggling to survive in the most heavily populated area in the world. Looting and crime are taking over the society, only one third of the poulation have jobs, but those who have jobs no longer receive wages.Nearly 300 homes have been destroyed, it is a Palestinian's greatest fear to get a call on a cell phone with an order to vacate their house within the next half an hour. Electricity is in short supply, water scarce. This siege has been going on now for 75 days. But wathing television, or reading a newspaper, there is little mention of the fact.

It would be interesting to know what happened on December 7th, 2005, that was so special, to make 1,362 Xisto members be logged on all at the same time. There must be many current members that are active on the forums that were around on that day that could tell us what they thought was going on. After all, December 2005 is not that long ago. It's not like it is ancient history. I have been trying to think of possible reasons that would drive up traffic to having over 1,000 members online at once. The only thing that I can think of is maybe the site had a work over, new software installed, a new look perhaps, and that made people want to try the new site out. The first membership registration was June 11th, 2004, nearly 27 months ago. And there are now nearly 22,000 registrations. So that works out at an average of 800 registrations a week, say 25 a day, every day. Not a bad record, except .... where do they all go? Well, I guess people do not visit here that often for one reason or another. If a bunch of members are frustrated by this, there is nothing stopping them coming up with ideas to make the site more popular. I am sure the admins would be pleased if that were to happen. 1,362 is a kind of a record for this site and it is hard to see it being broken anytime soon.

If you were talking about free speech on US TV, I would agree with you. The Republican party agenda is almost exlusively represented and there are no dissenting voices to be heard. But that is the result of self censorship by the TV companies and what they perceive to be best for their bottom line profits. However I don't think free speech on the internet is in any danger -- yet. If you are interested at all in US politics and read the left wing blogs and news sites on the internet, you would know that there is vigorous criticsm of everything Pres. Bush and the neo-cons are doing, on a daily basis. And that's because liberal minded folk strongly object to the conduct of the Bush administration and are not afraid to say as much. I think Pres. Bush would like America to be more of a police state, many of his efforts seem directed towards that end. I am sure that if the Rebublican party thought that they could get away with it they would have started a program to harass left wing internet sites by now. But the idea of free speech is pretty strongly ingrained in the American psyche, so the Repubs might be playing with fire were they to do such a thing. The danger comes if the big media corporations are allowed more control over the internet, then I guess the internet might follow the same path as the less than useless TV companies and free speach might be harder to express.

The death penalty is a bad idea for any crime in my opinion. To me it is not an argument about "justice", or "retribution" or "revenge" or a "warning" to other would-be criminals. It is all about the potential for a miscarriage of justice to have occurred, and should that be the case there is no bringing the executed person back to life. However, if the recipient of such a miscarriage were merely serving a prison sentence for life, the authorities can quite easily right a wrong and release that wrongly incarcerated prisoner back into society. Miscarriages of justice are all too easy to allow and happen on too frequent a basis to be complacent about this subject. Some feel that just one miscarriage which results in the death penalty is one too many. There is a website that documents almost 2,000 cases where a miscarriage of justice was subsequently proven to a court's satisfaction to have occurred, and the person convicted exonerated. The cases reflect a problem that has been around for a long time and data comes from many different countries. In April 2004 the American Civil Liberties Union stated that in the last 30 years 122 inmates on death row in the US were found to be innocent and released. There has been no information about the number of inmates on death row in the US that were wrongly convicted and then put to death.

I have been lucky and visited a number of countries. That does not mean that I would not like to visit a lot more though. Or return to the ones I have already been to for that matter.Lots of people say, Oh, I've been to America, I would like to visit somewhere different next time.It is all very well them, or me, saying that I have been to America, but which bit of America. The US is so huge, you could easily treat each state as a separate country, that is 50 different countries right there to go and visit. One bit of the States that I really would like to visit is Alaska. The idea of its remoteness from the US mainland appeals to me ... a completely foreign culture with a sort of American culture trying to impose itself on the foreign one is an interesting mix. Also there is the spectacular scenery, the vastness of the place with a small population (not keen on overcrowding), and the fact that it never gets dark in the sunmmer months. I am interested in aviation, so it's kind of exciting to think that the only viable means of transport is frequently by air. They have "bush pilots" in Alaska, I think being a bush pilot must be one of the least boring jobs on the planet. Alaska is notorious for its changeable weather, where visibility can clamp down most unexpectedly, so there is always the element of danger attached to flying around Alaska. Are you going to land safely, or are you going to crash in some spectacular fashion?For some of the same reasons I would also like to visit Hawaii. You know, remoteness from mainland USA, spectacular scenery. Oh yeah, a bonus, warm sea! I have a friend who has recently moved to Hawaii and he has sent me some pictures. He is renting a nice little shack, if you walk down to the bottom of his road there is a cute little cove with a black sandy beach more or less all to himself. Fantastic.I love travel, I think it is probably my favourite passtime. Meeting new people is always entertaining and I think travel, when you can take your time over it, adds real excitement to life. I know it seems to change my personality quite a bit, which can't be a bad thing from time to time; 'specially if you are getting bored with the old personality...

Discalaimer: I have no idea how a "Blogger" type blog works, so I cannot compare Blogger with WordPress. My gut feeling tells me that WP wins out, though. I decided to start a blog at Wordpress.com and thought I might write some of my early impressions up. Let me say right off the bat all my impressions have been nothing but good so far, so this might not sound so much like a review as a promotion. One of the first things I noticed was that WPCom allows as many blogs as you like all from the same user name/passwd account. Great if you want to have several different blogs that cover subjects that do not mesh well with each other: Say if you are a politician who likes gaming casinos, you could keep the gaming out of the politics. Or if you like NASCAR racing and Formula One, obviously it's better if you don't mix the two on the same site, it could get confusing and the two topics would end up detracting from one another. Another thing worth mentioning at the start, my new blog has only been up for a bit less than 24 hours, yet it is already listed by google, in fact looking at the google cache, google found my blog very ealy on in my blog's career. Such is the power of WPCom I guess. There is a strapline that runs across the top of your blog if you are logged in with the following clickable options: * My Account o Edit Profile o Contact Support o WordPress.com o Log Out * My Dashboard * New Post * ?Frequently Asked Questions? * Blog Info o Add to Blogroll o Report as spam o Report as mature * Go to a random blog... That last option is an interesting one. There is an arrow on the extreme right that, if clicked, takes you to the next randomly selected WPCom blog. If you are committed to reading diverse blogs, this might be an alternative to blogging heaven. When I was clicking maniacally to view all the different themes in action, I did notice a number of blogs in French and some in Spanish. Which leads me to say that in the languages option in the admins area there over a hundred different language options, whether they all work I have no idea. Clicking on the ?Frequently Asked Questions? brings up a FAQ that seems very good. The topics covered are: Akismet (anti-spam program), Adverts, Appearance & Themes, Posting, Pictures and Video, Widgets, Plugins, Administration, Feeds, Feedback, Errors, Deleted/Suspended, Technical and Misc. There are more than 100 answers to the common questions. Then of course there is the very good documentation and forum on Wordpress.org as well, a good bit of which applies to WPCom too. Best bit about a WPCom blog? There are 41 different themes to choose from, and changing the appearance of your new blog is quick and easy. If you like a bit of variety in your life you could have a different look to your blog for every day in the month and still have themes to spare. Drawbacks None that I can think of.

Ha ha, this site is kinda asking to be critcised because it is opinionated, poorly researched, antagonistic.On one page at the top the owner/webmaster writes that he will not add any more websites to his list, and at the bottom of the same page he writes he will add more sites to his list.He is critical of css and html standards of other well established sites, yet he uses dreamweaver.He states that Firefox is a piece of crap as a browser, yet he admits to using Opera.He rates one forum site as one of his seven worst, yet his own forum consists of a empty page.One of his ratings is on quality of English, his own English is by no means perfect. Besides, judging by the rude character of some of his remarks, I do not believe for a moment that this person is himself English, the English are usually far more polite than this character. I therefore think that all of the statements made by this person as to the quality of English to be found on various websites are automatically invalidated.

Well, just let's say: Most impressive! You have done a real professional job. I pinched a link from your site, moon river photography. Like you say, inspirational pics. And your own pictures are very good. My suggestion Have you thought of doing a photo blog? I think that might be good idea for two reasons: 1. It shoudn't be hard for you to do, and for example, a trip to Sark will probably give you lots of material that you can drip out over several months, interspersed with other pics so people don't get thoroughly sick of Sark. You don't have to post every day, a couple of times a week is fine, most visitors would be looking at the archives anyway. Just post a lot to start with to give the blog a bit of a shot in the arm at the start. Then if a new pic appears every three or four days, people will want to come back, and if people start commenting, you will know that you have arrived. 2. A photo blog is a good way to get people to visit your site in the first place. You could submit your blog to http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ that will help direct people in your direction, and there are probably other directories as well. Here are a couple of links to look at: http://www.tenyearsofmylife.com/ is a site that doesn't put a new picture up very frequently, but I like the layout and the quality of the pictures is excellent -- just as long as there are not too many baby pictures. Then, http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/ post a new pic every day, his blog wins prizes, and he has a forum which is a good place to pick up tips on digital photography. That's it, perhaps you will get some suggestions about games. When you go to Sark it will feek like a step back in time

In a recent US Supreme Court decision (referred to as "Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld"), the Court found that the so called "Military Commission" process which was new, and intended as a means to try and convict a handful of detainees held at the Guantanamo, was a crap process and unconstitutional. The Military Commission process was designed and codified by that great institution, the Department of Defense or DoD. Now that the Supreme Court has made its ruling, it has occured to me that all the hard work that the DoD put into designing this Military Commission process need not go to waste. Accordingly, I present to you my Military Commission How-to, but in the interests of not getting sued for breach of copyright, I have given it a different name. =================================== KANGAROO COURT HOW-TO :: a Simple Ten-Point Plan --------------------------------------------------------------- (Published in the general spirit of free expression best exemplified by the famous internet version of the "ANARCHIST COOKBOOK".) 1. Make sure the defense never get exculpatory evidence. Wikipedia defines "exculpatory evidence" as: "... the evidence favorable to the defendant in a criminal trial, which clears or tends to clear the defendant of guilt." 2. Allow the Prosecution to obtain a conviction through the use of rank hearsay, including unsworn written statements and law enforcement agents summaries of interviews. Prevent the Defense from being able to cross-examine any actual witnesses, just say all the Prosecution witnesses need to preserve their anonymity. 3. Allow in to evidence all the statements you like that were obtained by coercion or torture, period. The more the merrier. 4. Make sure that both the Presiding Officers, who perform the judicial function, and the panel members, who serve as jurors, are selected by the "Appointing Authority" the same official who approves the charges against the defendant. 5. Have the "Appointing Authority" the same guy mentioned above also perform a judicial role. Then any appeals can be resolved by him! You can see where we are going with this. Mr. "Appointing Authority" now has the power to name the Charges against the defendant, appoint the Prosecution, select the Jury and decide any Appeals that arise challenging fairness, procedure or the final verdict. If it is not clear that he *does* have these powers *exactly*, make up a new rule (see No. 10 below) that says he does and you are good to go. 6. Allow the "Review Panel", which is supposed to serve as the appellate body and should normally be impartial, become involved with the Prosecution case at an early stage. (Mr. "Appointing Authority's" resposibility to see that this happens.) 7. Preclude the Defense from calling some witnesses. Preclude the Defense from calling *all* witnesses, if you like. 8. Make sure that any documents furnished to the Defense by the Prosecution in response to the discovery process are first stamped For Official Use Only. This will prevent the Defense ever sharing these documents with the defendant. Also issue protective orders to prevent the Defense discussing the identities of all prosecution witnesses with the defendant. These are very useful road blocks to throw up because it prevents the Defense from putting together a case that in any way is going to be effective. 9. Exclude the defendant from his own trial at various crucial points, whenever you like. Say that he has to leave because what the court is about to discuss is "classified". Oh, and don't allow him the time to review evidence with his attorny either, the aim is to keep them separate as much as possible. 10. Change the rules every day to confuse the Defense. Then, enjoy the spectacle as you watch them struggle to cope with your latest new rule! ------------------------------------------- I am proud to think that my little contribution would not look out of place next to some of the other contributions to be found on the "Anarchist Cookbook", should they wish to publish it. One thing should be clear, I am not in this to make money; if the truth be known I cribbed my whole "How-to" from the opening satatement delivered in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee by Lt Cmdr Charles D. Swift, Mr. Hamdan's defence counsel, in a hearing held on July 11th, 2006. You can read his statement here to see if I got it right. (I did.) Basically, Cmdr Swift was complaining bitterly about the unjustness and unfairness of the Military Commission process, to which he had become part, in his role as defence counsel to one of the accused, the Guantanamo detainee Mr. Hamdan. (He beat the Supreme Court! Wow!) No, my purpose in making my "How-to" is to point out the shortcomings of the US Department of Defence, the shortcomings of the man in charge of that department, Mr. Rumsfeld, and the shortcomings of that department's General Counsel, Mr. Haynes, who being a lawyer, forgot all that he had learned about the law standing for truth and fairness. Who preferred to prostitute all his lawyerly skills and expertise in constructing the MILITARY COMMISSION KANGAROO COURT. All in the name of expediency, and to satisfy the demanding "Rules of The Mighty Global War On Terror (GWOT)". Bush's GWOT is a failure. George dreams up "The GWOT", but the "Rules of The GWOT" say it only works if you can point to hundreds of terrorists locked up and all trying to get out, in one giant prison camp. The "Rules of the GWOT" *demand* that Bush can stand up on national TV in front of a crowd of props from the military and claim victory in the "WOT". Victory only works when you have proven terrorists all locked up and trying to get out of a giant sized etc.... OK, it's a circular argument which makes it all the more compelling and powerful, right? Those in the DoD obviously thought so. The whole raison d'etre of the Military Commissions was to help prove that point. Which point? The "circular argument" point or the ""The GWOT" is all powerful and mighty and far reaching and global, and you should stand before it and worship it" point? Both I guess. Ethics flew out the window on that day in DoD when it was decided to gain convictions by means of a court process that was rigged. "The GWOT" has that effect on people.

The world cup may be over, but the drama for Italy continues.There has been a massive match fixing scandal that has gripped all of Italy, that was unfolding prior to the world cup. Just as the scandal was reaching a climax, the world cup loomed, and everything was effectively put on hold. Now that world cup is over, an annoncement is to be made tonight by the Italian Football Assoc. after the stock market has closed as to the fate of the four top Italian clubs that are implicated in the match fixing fraud.The four clubs involved, Juventus, Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, should find out whether they have been relegated from the Italian Serie A competition which is the equilavent of the English Premier Division.Thirteen players in Italy's World Cup-winning squad are currently under contract with the clubs involved in the match fixing trial. And eight of the players, five of them Italian and the other three French, who played in the Berlin final are with Juventus. None of these players can be sure where they will be playing next season. The biggest clubs in Europe are poised to swoop with juicy contracts should any or all of the four Italian clubs be demoted from Italy's top division. And for clubs themselves, the future might turn out to be anything but bright as demotion would mean the loss of lucrative TV contracts.

Hi dyknight, Yes, the website is reliable, Ian Masters, the guy who runs it comes from Australia, by way of the UK to California, where he now lives. He is an independent journalist producing a 1 hour radio show every week, basicially he is a one man band with limited funding, but his credibility is enhanced because he always manages to interview well respected people that have particular knowledge of recent events. In fact, that is what his program format consists of, 3 interviews with 3 people over an hour long program. Sorry, did not make this bit clear so it reads all wrong. Should have said, "The Shia are able in many cases to influence the Americans, more so than the Sunni", I have changed my original post. Of course the US army is able to stand tall and strong above all this mess, except to say that the Americans are constantly seeking solutions every day for ways to stamp out the insurgency, most of the Iraqi national army, the police force and the Iraqis directly employed by the Americans are Shia who hate Sunnis, it naturally follows that most of the "intelligence" supplied to the Americans will be helpful to the Shia cause and detrimental to the Sunni.

Yesterday I listened to an interview of reporter Nir Rosen on the radio. Mr. Rosen was being asked, and talking about, the present situation in Iraq. He made the following points: --- The US military is acting largely as just another participant militia in the ongoing civil war, and is certainly unable to keep a lid on things. --- In recent months the military has made itself less visible on the streets of Baghdad, that is it has confined itself to staying in camp more. This is to give the Iraqi army and police force a chance to show their mettle. Now you can travel around Baghdad for two days, and never see a US humvee. --- In the last year there have been more Sunni dead than Shia dead. This is a turnaround of the previous balance of power, for the first two years of the war Shia dead exceeded Sunni dead. --- The Shia essentially hold all the trump cards, they outnumber the Sunni in Iraq, they control the army, the police force and the ministries. They are able in many cases to influence the Americans, more so than the Sunni. They are waiting for the Americans to leave, before attempting to clear Baghdad, and all Iraq if possible, of Sunni. This is ethnic cleansing. Nir Rosen is an independent journalist who has reported extensively on the ground in Iraq, and has spent time with both Sunni and Shia insurgent groups in his efforts to build a complete picture of the situation. Here are some more of the points he covered during the interview: --- What is turning out to be a civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq could escalate and spread and become some sort of Sunni/Shia regional conflict. --- Iran has little or no influence on the Iraqi Shia population and does not supply weapons to the militias. This is because Iraqi Shia are proud Iraqis and nationalistic and do not want Iran interfering, also Iraq is awash with weapons so there is no need for help from Iran to that end. --- The original Al Qaeda was destroyed by the US as a result of the Afghan invasion but various factions in Iraq have adopted "Al Quada" as a brand name. They have no connection with some guys with famous names hiding out in caves along the Pakistan Afghan border. --- Ultimately it is quite possible that the US, rather than "withdraw", might be driven out of Iraq. Nir Rosen said that when the Samara shrine got destroyed last February, this angered the Shia militias and they "took the gloves off". In the space of a few days over I,000 Sunni were dead. Otherwise, Shia are willing to hold back and let the Americans do their dirty work for them (basically at the direction of Shia informers who direct the military to which Sunni target to hit next), as long as the military do not fall behind on the job. Since 2005 things have not been going fast enough, so the Shia have organised death squads that carry out mass arrests in Sunni neighbourhoods, torturing and killing people in the dead of night just for being Sunni. Of course the US occupying force targets Shia as well, but mostly it is the Sunnis that are getting hit. Also, the big Shia militias do not get along, so even if there were no Sunnis involved Shias would still be fighting each other. "Iraq is just being controlled by various gangs, tribal gangs, criminal gangs, religious gangs, anybody with a gun and a few friends with guns, so in terms of a vision, few people can really elaborate on one ..." -- Nir Rosen. You can go to this website to hear the radio interview in full (20 minutes).

The London Times today published an article headed "Peace deal offers Iraq insurgents an amnesty" that goes on to say: This plan has the US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's fingerprints all over it, for some reason he is given a free rein by Bush, for example, he is the only American allowed to talk to the Iranians, I think this plan has a chance because, assuming it is Zalmay's plan, then Bush will have endorsed it while it can be presented to Iraqis as the first act of their newly elected sovereign government, Z. will have talked to all the main sunni factions that he can identify, hoping that if they are willing to deal, they will be able to persuade the littler factions to come along, the sunnis and shia might still have a small part of them telling them to be IRAQIS first and foremost rather than fractious sunnis and fractious shias, everyone must be tired of the war, most would probably see it as a great way of getting rid of the Americans, think about it, it is the first plan for three plus years that hasn't been "stay the course", also the IRA laid down their arms after 30 years so strange things do sometimes happen, I don't expect peace to suddenly break out all over Iraq, but it would be a way of giving the troops a well earned rest before they were sent to conquer the next country on Bush's list, probably Iraq again.

Croatia are out of it, commiserations CroSpartacus, did you watch the game with Australia? I didn't, I only saw the edited highlights, but it appears that it was a match of high drama, not least of which were a number of dubious referee decisions. It pains me to say that I am a Brit and the referee this time was Englisman Graham Poll, he got himself in such a twist that he even ended up handing out 3 yellow cards (to the Croatian player Simunic), maybe the first time in history that a ref has handed out 3 yellows in a game. The final equalising goal by Australia (Kewell) was a cracker though. Ah well, onwards and upwards, time to start supporting your second favourite. I do not expect England to do very well, nothing about the way they are playing is exciting to watch at the moment, so already I am looking for another team to support, I think that team might be Argentina. I don't want Brazil to win, I am tired of the whole Renaldo thing.