Nation of Sheep

We are a

of

"Homeland" Security

The name of this new department sticks in my craw. It's reminiscent of das Vaterland, which is German for "the Fatherland."

I've been meaning to write about this, but the people at Reason Magazine beat me to it recently. Wikipedia has some discussion of fatherland, motherland, and homeland.

I think it was a deliberate invocation of Nazi obedience by our current administration. Didn't we already have a Department of Defense? Doesn't that department have lots of civilian employees? I thought coordination of intelligence and response efforts was a problem.

Domestic Security would say it less imperialistically; but I'd rather see the Department of Homeland Security merged into the Department of Defense.


Let's see, that'd be God (Gott), Emperor (Kaiser), and Fatherland, all teamed up like, "religious" conservatives, imperial Bushites, and the 9/11 Overscare.

CyberWatch Phase One Has Gone Public

As announced today on local television, the City of Memphis has rolled out the first phase of a new crime-fighting system, CyberWatch.

You can click here to see what has been accomplished so far; and you can download a presentation -- in either .mht format for browsers or .ppt format for those who have PowerPoint or a reader for it -- to see what is planned for Phases II and III.

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin deserves credit for reaching out to retired Lt. John Harvey, former data wizard for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, and giving John a free hand in designing and building the project so far.

Oh heck, here are the phases:

CyberWatch – A Phased Approach

• Phase I of the project will provide public information on arrests, sex offenders, wanted parties and criminal offenses utilizing email.
  


• Phase II will include web forums that are established and controlled by the MPD to encourage further collaboration with neighborhood watch groups.
  
  Shelby County will be presented in a webpage allowing any user to select an area and view the CyberWatch reports for that location.
  
  Officers will communicate with participating citizens via this tool.
  
  A webcam registry may also be implemented, to allow citizens to provide police the ability to monitor a situation, if necessary.



• Phase III will incorporate citizen’s email addresses into offense reports as an communication method enabling email, automated telephone messaging and/or text messages.

Bin Laden Video Transcript

I had some trouble for a few days getting a text version of Osama Bin Laden's recent video. To tell the truth, I busied myself with other things and didn't look that hard. But I found this version in a Google cache of Al-Jazeera's site. I post it without sponsorship or excuse.

===================================

Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.

Bin Ladin directed his message at the American people

Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.

In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?

If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.

As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.

And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.

It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.

And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".

So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.

And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.

Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."

It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."

And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.

Source: Al-Jazeera

The people in this world are getting organized

At an undisclosed location (actually, Pam's and my house in the suburbs of Los Angeles), several brave souls came together to plot, plan, and organize the revolution. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, The Bloggerz:


I leave it to you readers to put names to faces. But here are the names:

Jane "FireDogLake" Hamsher

Howie "Down With Tyranny" Klein

skippy "skippy the bush kangaroo"

John "Crooks and Liars" Amato

RJ "HuffPo, FDL" Eskow

Tom "tbogg" and Mrs. tbogg

Oh, and me.


Others at the meeting of the secret cabal were:

Mark "Same Facts" Kleiman

Kevin "Washington Monthly" Drum

Mickey "Kausfiles" Kaus

Bob "Bob Harris" Harris

Pamela "Democratic Daily" Leavey

and my co-blogger Dave " Dancin' Dave"

and several others who chose not to show their faces.

Cowards!

Seriously, there were around 40 people at our place today, and the discussion was illuminating, conversations were fascinating, food was great (Thanks, Honey!) and sis-in-law Kathy and Pam's cousin Kathy helped in immeasurable ways.

And we still have a few copies of Bob Harris' new book, "Who Hates Whom", which Bob was kind enough to bring. If anyone wants a copy, email me with your info and I'll gladly send it off.



SteveAudio.blogspot.com

Demonstrate Against John Yoo in Memphis

The Memphis Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society is bringing in John Yoo to speak in Memphis on September 19, 2007, as part of a tour that also propels Yoo to Nashville the next day.

Let's greet this guy with a protest demonstration outside the speech site.

"The Commander-in-Chief: Presidential Powers in Time of War"

Memphis Lawyers Chapter

-->Start:--> Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:00 PM
-->End:--> Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:00 PM

Location:
Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law
Room 252
3715 Central Avenue
Memphis, Tennessee

The September 20th Nashville site is the Nashville City Center, 511 Union Street, Suite 2700, at 5:30pm.

Mother Theresa: Closet Atheist

From a piece by Helen Kennedy in the New York Daily News, Saturday, August 25, 2007:

Mother Teresa, a beloved symbol of saintly devotion to the poor, spent her last 50 years secretly struggling with doubts about her faith, her newly published letters show.

"If there be God -- please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul," she wrote.

"How painful is this unknown pain -- I have no faith," Mother Teresa wrote.
. . . .
It began, she said, soon after she set up her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in the late 1940s to succor India's poor. And it lasted, with only a joyous five-week respite in 1959 when she refound God, until her death at age 87, a decade ago.

Read the rest here.

Goodbye, Halimah Abdullah

Some of you remember the serious dustup last year about allegedly biased coverage of the campaign for Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District.

After a firestorm of criticism from other media and from what Halimah foolishly called the flotsam of the local blogosphere, I didn't see much from Halimah anymore.

Well, Halimah's not being employed by the Memphis Commercial Appeal anymore is why.

Halimah Abdullah covers Washington for The Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky., the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., and the Macon Telegraph in Macon, Ga.

Cities not as big as Memphis, but maybe she gets to live around D.C. or go there a lot.

Halimah, grow in wisdom.

No Pulitzer for Alexis Amorose

I subscribe to a lot of news outlets via RSS, so I occasionally run across a piece of work that, in my opinion, should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Memphis ABC affiliate WPTY TV channel 24 has hired someone who, in my opinion, has just proven to be a very sloppy excuse for a journalist.

Alexis Amorose recently filed a report that is so bad I am here blogging about it. Read her "New Kind of Rape Affecting Women" and watch the video report if you don't believe me.

Here are some snippets:

Eyewitness News Everywhere uncovers "gray rape". It's a new type of rape in which sometimes victims do not realize they have been violated.

"Gray rape" means sex falls into a gray area, where the woman isn't sure if she was actually raped or not.
. . . .
Experts say you can avoid becoming a victim of gray rape.
. . . .
4. Know your legal rights. According to the law, silence does not equal consent. You have to verbally agree to sex.

"Experts say." You couldn't get away with this in a high school debate society.

"You have to verbally agree to sex." Well damn if this doesn't happen every time. If you're going to advise your viewers on the law, don't get it wrong. In case you need a link to Tennessee's definition of rape, here it is:

39-13-503. Rape. —

(a) Rape is unlawful sexual penetration of a victim by the defendant or of the defendant by a victim accompanied by any of the following circumstances:
(1) Force or coercion is used to accomplish the act;
(2) The sexual penetration is accomplished without the consent of the victim and the defendant knows or has reason to know at the time of the penetration that the victim did not consent;
(3) The defendant knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless; or
(4) The sexual penetration is accomplished by fraud.

Alexis, your interviewee didn't claim penetration, did she? No penetration means it isn't any kind of rape: gray, purple, green, or whatever. The kinds of behavior you're trying to paint with your overbroad brush may be other sexual or assaultive offenses, or they may not be. Your interview could be a case study in suggestibility, however.

I don't believe I spotted a law degree in your credentials online. Perhaps you should at least call a professor at the law school before telling WPTY's viewers what the law is. As a helpful start, here's a link to the Tennessee Code online.