Shlonkom Bakazay?

check out this gallery of CSS Descramblers!
and check out this too.

cool. enjoy

lim.

<< What is new here is only that Sistani seems to be saying that his earlier deadline of October 1 for elections could slip to December or January, but no later. >>

Not to just cue in line after Professor Cole, but it's true. Could be a factor for elections in the US...perhaps it means nothing much, tho.

It, interestingly enough, only emphasizes the election issue in both the US and Iraq. It emphasizes how important elections are in two countries at a time where cultures continue to butt heads over "Passion", an Amendment for the constitution over gay marriages (see Cheney's daughter situation), a BBC program abt religion that has no philosophical challenger, the Valentine's Day gift of "Al Hurra" to the middle east via Virginia/State-side, and this general heightened awareness of Christian-ness in the states. That's just from my side. I couldn't begin to describe what I am not experiencing in the Near East without making you read pages and pages. Very strange stuff happening here, tho...Bush calling upon the 40mill strong base to rise up and weather the storm like Moses. How ridiculous that this administration can co-opt such a message (and I think Prof. Cole does a good job summarizing it). How interesting and stupid at the same time. And the West, especially the US, is just figuring out that Jesus Christ was a Near-Eastern brown being that spoke funny languages? "You mean he didn't speak English? Whaaah? It must be real then..." This takes Zizek's "Desert of the Real" to the next level. How completely retarded the world is becoming. How completely absurd. And we've been dumped in the middle of a campaign, IN FEBRUARY? Why don't presidents run for 3 year terms? I don't recall this happening before. People are extremely pissed off here and there (Iraq) they are paying through their nose for both gasoline (from Halliburton over-charging average Iraqis) and civilians having to pay 0.49cents/minute to call outside of Iraq while people OUTSIDE CANNOT CALL Cell phone services at all! So, basically...slow contact with the outside world. Slow down complaints. Well, I'm going to speak up for those slowed down complaints. Hello, how r u? I'm Mista Bakazay. Please don't abandon Iraq after all this torment. GIVE THE PEOPLE PHONE RATES THAT CAN AT LEAST COMPARE WITH JORDAN'S! PLEASE. pretty please? come on. you can do it! be positive! and you'll get positive things in return. don't just take, take, take...learn how to give, give, give...esp. after you bomb, bomb, bomb. Capisce?

Essentially, things are more unstable now...that's how I feel about the situation. There's no reason for Al-Sistani to give-in or make any distinction over a couple months that are obviously key times in the US election calendar, when he obviously had and still has the upper-hand. Save, to save Iraq from difficult times ahead... So, it means both everything (to how the situation is like in Iraq) and nothing (to how situation is like in the US). It almost cancels itself out in my view. Very interesting. Al-Sistani speaketh. hm...extremely curious and meaningless. What an interesting contrast these opposites...and I didn't even mention what came out about the UN that was already obvious. Come on folks! Please, please give me a break. COMPLETE ABSURDITY.

US finds itself scattered about in a vast land of contradictions to many and more. Holier than thou brown cow?

Sarcasm. I dont know if any of you got it...I'm role-playing. Playing the role of the occupier....? hahaha. hee hee hee... while giving you a link to a kick-ass site. PROPS to my man that led me to it! You don't REALLY think I'm that self-righteous now do you? I thought so...

so dont feel like a subaltern being...I really do love you. I LOVE PEOPLE NOT PLACES! I LOVE PEOPLE IN CYBERSPACE, NOT PLACES IN CYBERSPACE. I LOVE PEOPLE NOT PLACES. LOVE PEOPLE NOT PLACES!!! PLACES CANNOT LOVE YOU!!! PEOPLE CAN!!! LOVE PEOPLE NOT PLACES!!! LOVE PEOPLE NOT PLACES. (PROPS YO!...i had to.toogood.ev'body else will understand later maybe.)

buh bye,
l.

anybody that comes here is lucky to know this exists. (both the website below and bakazay, i.e. ME) U just remember that...and that I LUB U.

(((mEnTaL nOte, "LIMINAL ROCKS, I'm going to tell all my friends about him" and besides, I'm your free and freaky Iraqi psychoanalyst.))) Right now, I love my DUCHAMP cd...it's of lectures and interviews. Pretty rare, tho re-issued. I'm gonna go listen to it now. Maybe if you're nice to me I'll put it somewhere where you can find it. i also like gettin BAHJorked watchin' her Cambridge Concert. It's truly amazing. Well done to everybody involved in the production and performance. It's Sunday, so I'm telling you some of my leisure activities. I'm tired from traveling and time is not its usual self if ya know what I mean. I need to relax tho...I have to get in touch with fellow IB'ers and do some emailing. So pardon me! Nothing can cinematically satisfy me these days...I'm a big Godard fan, but I just am into sound right now. But you'll find some interesting visual&vids here too. SO ENJOY!

illegal-art

the iceberg's always growing on my planet...and the water's drinkable. you should come over some time...we dont have the preventive war doctrine.

ha ha.

L to the L, and btw u smell. go away!!!

Mark my word...from the swami of the IB-sphere. Poetic justice still exists.

Check Sistani, der speigel interview...(here's one link to a transl. by Professor Cole of Sistani's interview, teaser only...but you'll get the point.) [i.e. if there are riots and killing in the streets of iraqs cities in september and october, bush doesn't get elected. and honestly, i've always thought (besides one or two moments of hope) that he would be re-elected. but now...very interesting.]

Certain Iraqi voices around me mutter that they will kill Sistani. BUT that would be the most foolish thing to do...esp. if the U.S. is worried about Iran and Khomeni-ism. (THEY SHOULD BE GUARDING HIM.) What they had in IRAN on 20 FEBrUARY were NOT legitimate democratic elections. What Sistani wants is just that, DIRECT ELECTIONS...one man, one vote. But he also wants the UN to be involved, passing a resolution making the process more legitimate to Iraqis and the world community. Calling on Sharia, is a new one for him. So what's the result? Sistani is beating USA at its own game...politics.

Isn't it all so ironic??? An invading force (USA), occupies a place (IRAQ), then the people of that place(IRAQ) have the power to decide who stays in power in the place (USA) that invaded that other place(IRAQ) to begin with. One breath...in........ out........ WHY DOES DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ THREATEN THE US?

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

BOO-YAH-KAH-SHAH!!!

Lim.

Got to a CPU and was somehow inspired.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Who are we kidding, tho? We knew (well, some of us perhaps knew) it was gonna happen. But this soon? Oh come on! I wanted to be alive long enough to be able to afford a 20 foot plasma television. Damn it!

Should we believe the Pentagon? In an odd way, it is alarming...don't you think.

HAHAHAHA!!!!

LOVE over FEAR,

Lim. aka, "THE CROSS-POSTING FIEND"

ps. I TOLD YOU SO ABOUT CHALABI BEING THE SCAPEGOAT.

AND THE PENTAGON STILL SUPPORTS THE SCAPEGOAT. HOW INTERESTING AND WHAT A LIABILITY FOR THE PREZ.

But that's all in the past. ....

No, I don't think so.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

OUT,
L to the L

sacre = sacred

facere = to make

ad deum,

liminus <>quamquam oppositonis limen, limin, limena symbola
V
in SUFFIX
-ine; -in; of, pertaining/belonging to; connected with; derived/coming from
limin.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS
lima, limae N F
file (carpenter's); polishing/revision (of a literary work);
limus, limi N M
apron crossed with purple, worn by attendants at sacrifice;
mud, mire; slime; filth, pollution;

Between Iraq and a Hard Place BREMNER BIRD AND FORTUNE - XMAS SPECIAL
Published: 17-Jan-2003 By: Channel 4 News

The comedy trio Bremner Bird and Fortune bring their viewpoint on the Iraqi crisis in their own unique way

We're about to invade Iraq. Again. We invaded in 1917… and 1941… and 1991. This time though, we're dealing with Saddam Hussein.

But then, we've been dealing with Saddam for years. Why now? The Americans see the chance to bring traditional Western values to the Middle East (aka the guys with the diapers on their heads): democracy (from the people who brought you George W Bush); freedom (from the people who brought you Guantanamo Bay) and economic prosperity (from the people who bought you Enron).

Starring George W Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and a cast of… well, Rory Bremner, flanked by John Bird and John Fortune as Foreign Office mandarins, convinced that this time they have got it right, and that above all the one thing this is not about is oil… Note: It requires real player

To watch in four segments, between 10-15 minutes:

Watch Part 1 (13 mins), Watch Part 2 (14 mins), Watch Part 3 (10 mins), Watch Part 4 (15 mins)

To download the transcript click all over this aranja colore.

And for more recent material and other archived material clickity click.

On a comic note, Bush speaking out firmly against the proliferation of nuclear weapons on 12 Feb., is like a whore on Sunset Blvd. speaking out firmly about abstinence and addiction rehab. You have to lead by example mr. prez, if you expect anybody to take you seriously. Instead of building low-grade nuclear weapons in your current budget, why don't you try to you create a high standard for both low-grade students to high-school students? The numbers speak for themselves. And abondoning your proliferation of nuclear weapons would assure every American under the age of 18 an excellent education in the public school systems.

Ha ha...funny.

liminal

So, I do not regret cross-posting to The Iraqi Agora. I will spend the next week getting to the bottom of this when I have the chance. After that, I don't know what will happen to this blog. I must be frank. It is too difficult being so emotional about something that I believe so much in when I'm not getting the support that I need. So, I might just do something else. I want to laugh and have fun while I worry. I've always said that if I was in Iraq, I would probably be in better mental shape because I would have the support of all my family and friends of family there...instead of being in the US. I feel like I'm walking on pins and needles sometimes. So, while it could be an over-reaction. I do not regret it by any means.

Thank you all for reading this blog. I really appreciate your support and kindness.
It will never go un-noticed.

Thank you so much.

Liminal

coup d'état
- n. (kü-dA-'tä)-a sudden and decisive exercise of force in politics;
especially the overthrow of a government by a small group of persons
in positions of authority. [French - literally, a "blow to the state"]

Happy VD! here's an anti-VD site to send e-cards to all your loved ones....

Now I'm going to describe to you what I call a "Public TV Coup D'etat"...There's this program that I respect very much that PBS (Public Broadcast Service) produces called Frontline. Normally, it is broadcast first on Television (all public TV stations across the US), then sometimes they move it to an online version. An archive of all the former Frontline programs that are now online can be found here.

Now, I know today is Valentine's Day and Al Hurra was just launched in Virginia and the Prez is in alotta hot water over his poor performance on the Oval Office interview with Tim Russert...but this program, Beyond Baghdad, went straight to the internet. That's like a big Hollywood movie going straight to video as far as I'm concerned. Now let me explain why.

This program that had producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria risking their lives visiting Mosul, Hawija, Suleimaniya, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Baquba, Baghdad, Fallujah, Kufa, Najaf, Shatrah, and finally Nasiriyah did not get the public screening it deserved. And I'm upset about it. They were in Iraq traveling for five weeks from November 12th until the day of Saddam's capture. I think they found out a couple of interesting things about Iraq and its people that certain people in positions of power in the US didn't want to be broadcast on Public TV. Many americans cannot afford cable TV anymore, so this was a dangerous program. Bush would have lost a few votes if this program saw TV-time. Check it out yourself and be the judge. Luckily, those who have internet connections (low or high band) can see it from anywhere. I recommend checking it out if you don't believe me. You will see it in six segments of 5-10 min (in either Real Video or Windows Media).

Damage control are the key words in the oval office these days. The last thing they need is the de facto governor of Baquba, a woman US commander, Leitentant S.G., saying...we "ran out" of money.

(From a segment of the show, Beyond Baghdad, below.)
Martin Smith, one producer notes in this section. "We had come here at a critical time. It has not been widely reported, but in October reconstruction money, so important to winning hearts and minds, dried up."

Click here for a low-bandwidth version of that... (Approximately, 2:03 minutes into this 12:47 minute clip)


" 'Hello, hi there,' Lt. SG says she ran out of money (Martin Smith speaking) while trying to set up a police force. 'What happened was initially (Lt. SG speaking) when we arrived here we used coalition money, and then, you know at some point, you know, it ran out. And honestly, for a few months, we were really at a stand-still. I couldn't get weapons. I couldn't get uniforms. Patrol cars...I have a couple of police stations that only had one patrol car. ...we cannot really work on public works if we don't have the security to protect the workers that are there. We can ask all the contractors in the world to come out and build a sewege line and everything else, but you know what, someone can come right behind them throw a couple RPGs at it, and what'ayou have? We need the security first in order to allow the civilian contractors to get out and do their job." (Aproximately, 3:36 into 12:47 min. clip)

LOW BAND, click.

And the "mayor" of Fallujah, who "says he is pro-American," (according to Martin Smith) says (in translation from Arabic) "Most Americans have a military mindset. They don't bother to know or learn about our culture or customs. They have a misinterpretation of Iraqis. When somebody kicks down a door to search a house, does he expect to be loved? (the mayor smiling...). (approximately, 7:54 into 12:47 minute clip)

I checked and re-checked our local public TV website for the time they would show Frontline: Beyond Baghdad...but there was no sign of it on the schedule. I wondered why because, again, it is not usual for the program to go directly to the internet. Then I quickly used deductive reasoning and figured there could be only a few reasons why they are not broadcasting this to over 100 million (probably closer to 200 million) homes. 1) It is negative news about Iraq during the months of November and December, which were supposidly high times, esp. after Saddam was caught. So this would basically confirm things were NOT doing well in Iraq, when they were in fact NOT doing well...while the likes of, (insert one White House or Pentagon high cabinet official's name here), in the Bush Administration continued to say they were making great progress as they were fighting off Howard Dean's position (who in turn woke up the Democratic party with the unfortunate help of REAL tragedies occuring in Iraq). Facts and reality are tough pills for most Americans to swallow. But I believe that once swallowed, there is a great chance of swaying an enormously powerful sleeping giant in the spirit of what is good: American Public Thought.

Then Saddam was caught. And the Bush administration's position was saved. But only temporarily. Honestly, I was initially shocked and melancholic. Unbelievable. "Arrested" ??? Yet I was happy in the strangest possible way and uniquely affected when I first believed it was true. I don't even think "happy" is the right word, because I knew it would have no bearing on the terrible ground situation. Even so, I wanted to share the moment with my father. It was a historical water-shed moment.

Let me tell you how I found out. I was online (it was early early in the morning) when I saw what I thought were rumors on a Iranian Kurdish news web site...I translated it into english. (I first saw it as "Breaking News" on the BBC...u know, when there's no story. So I Googled it, found the exact news site it derived from. I can even supply you with these initial discoveries, because being Iraqi and a organisational and information freak...I've kept records of them) So, I first sat back and thought, this is most probably a double. Then I double checked another Kurdish site...and it starting to sink in...it seemed to be real. I was beside myself, pacing back and forth. I assumed I woke up my father because I was making more noise than usual...and Iraqis can be very suggestive when they get over-excited. (It's a personality trait of mine.) Besides, I was being loud in the middle of the morning, and that's not too respectable in my family. Anyway, I approached my parents' bedroom...and he was snoring so LOUD!!! OMG! (FACT: My Dad snores so loud...it is like an airplane in the room.) I thought to myself...he shouldn't lose any of this excellent sleeping over such a trifle. So, I left a note at the foor of his doorway for him saying "They arrested him. -son" I did not sleep that night. A few hours later my dad comes up to me in a daze. I was glad I didn't wake him. He rested so well. (U know, I admire people who sleep well...so so much. I'm a terrible insomniac.) We hugged and made some extremely funny jokes that I will not mention. Meanwhile, BBC streamed on the internet while the Arabic whispers of a female Al-Jazeera anchor floated in audibly from the other room. My dad was shocked and asking me ten questions a minute. I responded like a robot. My mom slept. We remained in this state of shock-question-response-internet/Tv-media-absorption until we smelled the "gah'weh"...(coffee) My dad and I drank "Chai"...(tea)

Basically, this was the Coup the Bush Administration needed (and I'm not saying it wasn't a good thing in and of itself), but this was the event that I thought--at that point in time--was enough for Bush to ride-out on and win re-election. And so, while I was so oddly and violently happy (not like bjork tho). To be completely frank, I was perversely freaked out. I was weary of Howard Dean very early on...but I commend him for waking up half the country. Now, bye bye baby. Wisconsin, Shminsconson.

So it helped Bush and co. tremendously at the time...Bush's approval rating shot up and suddenly the war was justified. And Dean looked like a hippy. This powerful symbol of "rogue-state," "smoking gun as a mushroom cloud," "WMD," "spit-in-the-face-of-American" (though invented by America) was wrapped in American justice and even given both a medical exam and clean shave (and let him hold onto what little bit of manhood he had left, the moustache). How kind. (This was actually one of the most humiliating things to do to this person...and it satisfied many people, while it left many Arabs, even Iraqis, kind of astonishingly impotent. While many would not admit it...it was a clear slap in the face of Arab pride, whatever that is. So, it was an odd event that I felt very oddly about...because immediately I knew what the reactions would be. And that is the capture of Saddam, while intrinsically good, was going to be an event representing nothing that is close to reality and make matters seem peachy-keen on the surface in Iraq (to the American populous) while they are actually get much worse (underneath the surface). We all have to look underneath the surface at some point.

BTW, Mr. Bremer, when you said "We got em!" that was a phrase that completely backfired on you. I must be blunt. Very unintelligent...and directed at an American audience. You would have made things better for American troops and the Iraqi people if you had let an Iraqi announce his capture. That's my opinion. And it is pretty much a no-brainer.

What would have happened if this program Frontline: Beyond Baghdad had aired on public TV, as it was meant to have been? That is my question. You tell me. Email me, right now. Click the orange writing here.

I think once you lie, you have to cover it with another lie, then that lie gets bigger and bigger but nobody notices or cares because they are too comfortable with their narrow minds. Until somebody has the backbone to reveal the truth, like Daniel Ellsberg did during Vietnam, there will be one huge lie that is backed up by consistent white-washing and continued, sometimes self-inflicted, delusion to facts.

America Today = "Brain-wash....then, Brain-rinse." -KRS-ONE said it.

Out,

lim.

The US troops will pull out of sight, into fortified bases, out of cities...and let Iraqis kill each other. But the problem for you Mr. Bush, is the election. If you have Iraqis killing each other everyday that's not exactly the best way to get re-elected, is it? If there's a civil war in Iraq...you leave the White House. I know Rove the wizard (he does shame to the term, doesn't he?) has a plan to make it work...i.e., civil war in Iraq while having a successful re-election (defending your 6 month absence in the national guard during Vietnam), but there are variables beyond his reach. None of you knew what you were in for, did you? What a shame.

And shame on you.

lim.

ps.

Al Hurra,("The Free One") the new satellite network/pr-stunt is paid for by US Tax Payers, a program by the Department of State. The main office is in Virginia, not in Iraq or any where in the Arab world. Right next door to the CIA. Good luck convincing Arabs. I'm sure the pop-shows will go over well.

I want a Kerry (vietnam war hero) and Clark (four star general) ticket to go up against you're privileged national guard service, "war president," national security ticket. That'll be like going to Las Vegas after you've spent your 100+ million dollars. Because money talks, bullshit walks...isn't that how that cliche goes?

What a circus. INTERNATIONALISE! DO IT NOW! Or watch the world slip into some Orwellian nightmare. Not that it isn't one already.
:)

Out,
l.

Mo Kin on the xylophone...3 year old Korean girl! Truly incredible.

"My Parent's Kiss" by Mo Kin, 3 year old extraordinaire!

"Grapes of Love" featuring Mo Kin

Note: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INSTALL LANGUAGE PACKAGE...JUST press CANCEL WHEN IT PROMPTS YOU TO DO SO.

Giorgio Agamben was supposed to be a "global visiting professor" at NYU during this academic year. And he had tentatively agreed to come to Duke to give a lecture. However, he has decided not to come to the US this year as a protest against the new immigration policies, that is, taking fingerprints and photographs of visitors to the US. Michael Hardt has distributed the article he published in Le Monde on the topic. I thought some of you might be interested in it.


Non au tatouage biopolitique, par Giorgio Agamben
LE MONDE | 10.01.04 | 15h26

Les journaux ne laissent aucun doute : qui voudra désormais se rendre aux Etats-Unis avec un visa sera fiché et devra laisser ses empreintes digitales en entrant dans le pays. Personnellement, je n'ai aucune intention de me soumettre à de telles procédures, et c'est pourquoi j'ai annulé sans attendre le cours que je devais faire en mars à l'université de New York.

Je voudrais expliquer ici la raison de ce refus, c'est-à-dire pourquoi, malgré la sympathie qui me lie depuis de nombreuses années à mes collègues américains ainsi qu'à leurs étudiants, je considère que cette décision est à la fois nécessaire et sans appel et combien je tiendrais à ce qu'elle soit partagée par d'autres intellectuels et d'autres enseignants européens.

Il ne s'agit pas seulement d'une réaction épidermique face à une procédure qui a longtemps été imposée à des criminels et à des accusés politiques. S'il ne s'agissait que de cela, nous pourrions bien sûr accepter moralement de partager, par solidarité, les conditions humiliantes auxquelles sont soumis aujourd'hui tant d'êtres humains.

L'essentiel n'est pas là. Le problème excède les limites de la sensibilité personnelle et concerne tout simplement le statut juridico-politique (il serait peut-être plus simple de dire
biopolitique) des citoyens dans les Etats prétendus démocratiques où nous vivons.

On essaie, depuis quelques années, de nous convaincre d'accepter comme les dimensions humaines et normales de notre existence des pratiques de contrôle qui avaient toujours été considérées comme exceptionnelles et proprement inhumaines. Nul n'ignore ainsi que le contrôle exercé par l'Etat sur les individus à travers l'usage de dispositifs électroniques, comme les cartes de crédit ou les téléphones portables, a atteint des limites naguère insoupçonnables.

On ne saurait pourtant dépasser certains seuils dans le contrôle et dans la manipulation des corps sans pénétrer dans une nouvelle ère biopolitique, sans franchir un pas de plus dans ce que Michel Foucault appelait une animalisation progressive de l'homme mise en oeuvre à travers les techniques les plus sophistiquées.

Le fichage électronique des empreintes digitales et de la rétine, le tatouage sous-cutané ainsi que d'autres pratiques du même genre sont des éléments qui contribuent à définir ce seuil. Les raisons de sécurité qui sont invoquées pour les justifier ne doivent pas nous impressionner : elles ne font rien à l'affaire. L'histoire nous apprend combien les pratiques qui ont d'abord été réservées aux étrangers se trouvent ensuite appliquées à l'ensemble des citoyens. Ce qui est en jeu ici n'est rien de moins que la nouvelle relation biopolitique "normale" entre les citoyens et l'Etat. Cette relation n'a plus rien à voir avec la participation libre et active à la sphère publique, mais concerne l'inscription et le fichage de l'élément le plus privé et le plus incommunicable de la subjectivité: je veux parler de la vie biologique des corps.

Aux dispositifs médiatiques qui contrôlent et manipulent la parole publique correspondent donc les dispositifs technologiques qui inscrivent et identifient la vie nue : entre ces deux extrêmes d'une parole sans corps et d'un corps sans parole, l'espace de ce que nous appelions autrefois la politique est toujours plus réduit et plus exigu.

Ainsi, en appliquant au citoyen, ou plutôt à l'être humain comme tel, les techniques et les dispositifs qu'ils avaient inventés pour les classes dangereuses, les Etats, qui devraient constituer le lieu même de la vie politique, ont fait de lui le suspect par excellence, au point que c'est l'humanité elle-même qui est devenue la classe dangereuse.

Il y a quelques années, j'avais écrit que le paradigme politique de l'Occident n'était plus la cité, mais le camp de concentration, et que nous étions passés d'Athènes à Auschwitz. Il s'agissait évidemment d'une thèse philosophique, et non pas d'un récit historique, car on ne saurait confondre des phénomènes qu'il convient au contraire de distinguer.

Je voudrais suggérer que le tatouage était sans doute apparu à Auschwitz comme la manière la plus normale et la plus économique de régler l'inscription et l'enregistrement des déportés dans les camps de concentration. Le tatouage biopolitique que nous imposent maintenant les Etats-Unis pour pénétrer sur leur territoire pourrait bien être le signe avant-coureur de ce que l'on nous demandera plus tard d'accepter comme l'inscription normale de l'identité du bon citoyen dans les mécanismes et les engrenages de l'Etat. C'est pourquoi il faut s'y opposer.

Traduit de l'italien par Martin Rueff
Giorgio Agamben est philosophe, professeur à l'université de Venise et à l'université de New York. ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 11.01.04

I'm going to be busy these next month or two, but I'll try to keep things going as much as I can. I want to write-up a proposition directed to all Iraqis and Iraqi Bloggers both inside and outside Iraq, which I believe will make our voices heard louder and clearer across the world. I hope to have this document up by the end of the weekend.

The Iraqi blogosphere and Iraqi e-Culture and e-Network needs to be strengthened. It can do this by itself, I know. And it can be done with such gracious efforts of our friend Emigre at Iraq Blog Count. But Iraqi Bloggers and all Iraqis that have access to a computer need to spread the word, link to through emails, and let others hear our voice. There are many both creative and obvious ways to acheive this that have yet to be done. We must continue creating while going ahead and DOING the obvious ones.

It is a crucial time and it is crucial that our voices be heard during this time...in ALL the diversity of our opinions.

So I'll have that proposition on the blog with clear and concrete things each Iraqi and Iraqi blogger (both inside and outside Iraq) could do if they want to and have the time. NOTE: some of these things take only 10-20 seconds. In fact, I'll probably list the items in terms of the estimated time that would be consumed in order to complete each task.

Meanwhile, my father and I are fine. We had a good talk and things are fine. We both just had a long day and expressed ourselves in out-of-ordinary ways. It was a very strange incident and we both regret it happened. (But I was right on certain points. haha) So, everything's fine.

I am encouraged to continue this project and the Agora. The I-Agora will take some time, though. So please be patient with us administrators. And keep the emails coming! Any and all suggestions are very appreciated.

lim.

i love

the pixies
the velvet underground
cat power
the meters
curtis mayfield

but i love
nathum algazali
hatam al'iraqi
oum kalthoum
fairuz (even, like cup of tea in the morning)
kazam live and some of his clzsics

i love the world. i love you.

bye bye

lim

i'm close to abandoning it all together if i dont get the support i need from those in the iraqi blogosphere.

lim.

I just had a huge fight with my father. He is scared that because he has a son that seeks out the truth (or something near it), that this government's administration (the CIA the FBI the NSC, or whatever) will make him a victim of my exploits or discoveries.

I know who I am. And nobody, not even my father or the government in the US can take that away from me. I want peace. But we must have justice before we have peace.

He is afraid that if the Shia come to power that they will persecute Christians. I have hope...a hope that this will not happen, even tho I think civil war could be just around the corner. And I don't even think the persecution of Christians will even happen regardless. If the situation is handled properly...as it should be, this should absolutely not be the outcome. I know who the Iraqi people are.

First off, to the US Government and all related agencies...LEAVE MY FATHER ALONE. He's created more jobs than Bush in this country.

Let me have my identity as an Iraqi and as a global person...and that goes to the government and my father. Because I am Iraqi, whether either of you like it or not. This is what I have to deal with being on both sides of the fence. Being liminal...

I have somebody telling me to just let go...give up. And I have another group saying I am a bad person because I am Iraqi and I am suspect no matter what I do with my life.

I'm sick of all of you telling me how I have to feel about who I am.

Welcome to my personal life,

Liminal

CTHEORY I'll have an entire section devoted to cybernetic studies and diasporic studies on the blog soon.
Be sure to check out the multimedia part of CTHEORY too! HERE.

I'm glad cornell did something good besides getting an "undisclosed gift" from Qatar to build a Medical School for Qataris only. (which is about 30% of the total population in Qatar. If you're Iraqi and have lives in Qatar all your life you cannot attend this medical school, for example.)

Human nature= greed, selfishness, power...leads to self-interest collapsing itself onto justice. How unfortunate the human condition.

If we would build better support systems we'd all be a lot better off.

But at least they did a COOL website!


and check diss out too...

From Wagner to Virtual Reality

JUAN COLE SAYS: Saturday, February 14, 2004

"Zarqawi" Letter

I have had a chance to examine the letter the Coalition forces say they found on a Compact Disk on the person of al-Qaeda courier Hasan Ghul.

The fax of the letter that I received, unlike the version published in the Arabic newspapers has "from" after the invocation of God, and three ellipses showing that the name has been deleted. If the original said Zarqawi there, it is odd that it is deleted, because the CPA announced Zarqawi as the author.

I cannot confirm that the letter was written by Zarqawi. For instance, it calls the Americans "Amrikan", whereas in the Levant the colloquial plural is Amrikiyin. Amrikan is an Iraqi and Gulf way of referring to Americans. Likewise, the letter's attitude to the Kurds seems strange if the author actually had trained dozens of them to fight the secular parties in Kurdistan. The letter puts the Kurdish issue on the back burner, in a way I can only suspect Zarqawi would not have. Finally, Zarqawi is said to have not finished high school, whereas this letter is extremely literate, using a high-flown vocabulary and chaste classical literary style. It would be like finding a letter purportedly written by a Mafioso who dropped out of high school that sounded like it was written by Paul Theroux.

I can, however, confirm that it was written by a radical Sunni Muslim, who hates Shiites and wants to fight the Coalition troops in Iraq in the most effective way. I did not see any false notes in it that might suggest it is a fraud. The author suggests attacking Shiites so as to provoke an ethnic civil war that would amake it easier to push the US out.

As I suggested in my refutation of Safire's calumn, the letter is very contemporary and does not refer to Saddam, and does nothing to suggest a Baath-al-Qaeda link.
posted by Juan Cole at 2/14/2004 09:10:59 AM

If you want the Fisk article for free, email me! IT MIGHT BE on www.robert-fisk.com now, though!

or click below and support the Independent by paying!

America sets its sights on a new Public Enemy No 1
Robert Fisk
12 February 2004


As Iraq reeled beneath savage and almost daily suicide bombings, US forces yesterday doubled the reward - from $5 million to $10 million - for the capture of Musab Zarqawi, an obscure and little-known associate of Osama bin Laden whom they claim is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq.

Zarqawi, who is indeed inside Iraq, is trying to organise further bombing attacks on US troops and US-paid Iraqi police forces by using exclusively Iraqi Sunni Muslim insurgents. But, despite what Washington would like the world to believe, he has no senior leadership position in al-Qa'ida.

Although a letter that the Americans claim to have found in Iraq in which Zarqawi - real name Ahmed Fadil al-Khalaylah - allegedly calls for attacks against Iraq's majority Shia Muslim population, impeccably reliable sources close to al-Qa'ida say that bin Laden's organisation wants to concentrate on the occupiers, their "collaborators'' and foreigners in Iraq, not members of other Muslim communities.

America's new focus on Zarqawi came as a suicide car bomb killed 47 people at an army recruitment centre in Baghdad. Within 24 hours the death toll of Iraqis working with the US occupation forces has reached 100.

The new police and new army recruits are vital to Washington's plan to hand back power to Iraqis by 30 June. The suicide bomber came well-prepared, carrying a bomb with 300 to 500 pounds of plastic explosives mixed with artillery shells - to maximise the "kill effect" according to US Colonel Ralph Baker at the scene."

1.How spies chose the intelligence that justified war
A little-known book by an-ex CIA officer gives an extraordinary insight into the way politicians are fed data they want to hear. Peter Beaumont reports

2.Baghdad leaders reveal that coup plot duped MI6
Julie Flint explains how rumours of Saddam's overthrow caused British intelligence to miss vital information about Iraq's weapons programme

3.Britain spied on UN allies over war vote
Security Council members 'illegally targeted' by GCHQ after plea from US security agency Martin Bright and Peter Beaumont

4.The Vietnam vet will win
No candidate has more relevant personal experience or better policies than John Kerry, the man who'll beat Bush
Will Hutton

5.Vietnam steals Iraq war's thunder in US campaign
Former comrades in arms have gone into battle for John Kerry - with the votes of 25 million veterans as the prize, reports Paul Harris in New York

last Sunday they observed something too...

US officials knew in May Iraq possessed no WMD
Blair comes under pressure as Americans admit it was widely known that Saddam had no chemical arsenal
Peter Beaumont, Gaby Hinsliff and Paul Harris
Sunday February 1, 2004

and even the week before, amazing!

'Little point' in WMD search
Peter Beaumont
Sunday January 25, 2004

Cortezzi says: We also spend half our lives longing for stuff... another life, another dollar, another place, another, anohter
Liminal says: see, that's whre we need to change as humans and we are we are forced to actually...now....we have to make that weakness a strength and then we may survive...our desires must build and create, instead of destroy and maim




ARRÊT!!! c'est dangereux!!!

'La Societé du Spectacle' or Society of the Spectacle or La sociedad del espectáculo or Kommentarer till skådespelssamhället or A Sociedade do EspectÁculo -1967

this for starters...

Basically, the treaty for the Situationist International. I'll explain them a bit later for unfamiliar readers.

A Situationist Bibliography

Of course, more on the Situationists and Debord later. Here's a website for reference

Comments of the Society of the Spectacle - Debord, April 88

Pre-Situationist: Manifesto of the Dutch Experimental Group - Constant 48 (english), Forms Conceived as Language - Jorn 49, Our Own Desires Build the Revolution -Constant 49

Most Honorable Mention: Alan Lightman esp., Einstein's Dreams I read it first in 1993. It was a gift from somebody close to me. Reading it was like being a masochist and being slapped,kicked,smacked and enjoying it. I wish I could find an online edition of it. But I don't think it's there. Click the link above to get an idea about the book. Everything comes short of experiencing it in full. But here's the beginning of the prologue.

"In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops. The young man slumps at his desk. He has come to the office at dawn, after another upheaval. His hair is uncombed and his trousers are too big. In his hand he holds twenty crumpled pages, his new theory of time, which he will mail today to the German journal of physics.
Tiny sounds from the city drift through the room. A milk bottle clinks on a stone. An awning is cranked in a shop on Marktgasse. A vegetable cart moves slowly through a street. A man and woman talk in hushed tones in an apartment nearby.
In the dim light that seeps through the room, the desks appear shadowy and soft, like large sleeping animals. Except for the young man's desk, which is cluttered with half-opened books, the twelve oak desks are all neatly covered with documents, left from the previous day. Upon arriving in two hours, each clerk will know precisely where to begin. But at this moment, in this dim light, the documents on the desks are no more visible than the clock in the corner or the secretary's stool near the door. All that can be seen at this moment are the shadowy shapes of the desks and the hunched form of the young man."
Read the book! and read this essay of Einstein's "The world as I see it"

lim.

Rumsfeld 'unaware' of WMD claim

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he cannot remember hearing the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
The claim, part of the UK Government's case for war, was made in its September 2002 Iraq arms dossier presented to Parliament prior to the conflict.

It came from Iraqi intelligence sources but last year its use in the dossier was criticised by a committee of MPs.

The claim is at the heart of recent debate in the UK about the invasion.

Asked his opinion of the claim, Mr Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon briefing: "I don't remember the statement being made, to be perfectly honest."

Last week Prime Minister Tony Blair said he had not been aware the relevant weapons were not long range and capable of hitting British interests, such as military bases on Cyprus.

In fact the claim only related to battlefield munitions such as mortars and shells."

(CLICK tgt BBC article)

Give me a freaking break!

and this bbc article ....

You know, a friend of mine from Uni. told me before the latest war...(after she knew all the details of my fear of civil war after the war). She said something like the following (in a matter-of-fact way which was somewhat disturbing at a point when i was in a highly sensitive emotional state, in tatters, if you will)... "if it's civil war than it's civil war. if that is what will help iraq get out of this all-around terrible situation, then come to grips with it." She was correct. And it's taken me a long time to grasp this...Just over the last few weeks I've really made large leaps of thought to comprehend what she said over a year ago. And she's pure Americana. The thing is...understanding a bit more about the complexities of what would happen if there is civil war is a big bite to take. there's one that's drawn by the lines of space, geography. then there's the possibility of a civil war drawn by the line of ethnicity. these are the two possibilities in Iraq and of course they could merge together...space and ethnicity. Aren't they always merging together, though? And of course, the IDEA of being an Iraqi is currently changing and must change. That should go without saying. But perhaps Iraqis must say it. And look, war changes any people...but war aftar war after war after sanctions and alienation from the world, well, i needn't say more. War changes what it means to be a person in that place. Especially a war that was waged in such a manner. Without Britain, it couldn't have happened. That's what I think. I'm veering off-track now....I'll save that for later. where was i...? SO, the idea of civil war erupting in Iraq is the thing that scared me most (after the JDAM 2,000 pound bombs dropping on my family during the serious and relentless bombings of Baghdad). And while civil war in Iraq still does affect me, I've got to accept it if it happens. (MORE on that later...because this needs to be unpacked in order to understand why I've come to this conclusion.) Maybe it will be "the civil war of the roses"...yeah, right. knowing iraqis, being iraqi...no way. so, i'm really frightened. honestly.

Now there's this talk about terrorists wanting to start one...well, sure! but even without those uncivil outkasts of society or "foreign infiltrators", a civil war could start easily in Iraq. BUT REMEMBER, the latest war is what brought almost all of those unhealthy creatures swarming to Iraq. But Iraqis are the ones that are paying the dearest price. Look at what happened today!!! so don't go scapegoating on that matter (i'm saying this to the press, to anybody).

But it's far too easy for me to talk about such matters from so far away. I do have semi-regular contact with my family in Iraq now, so I don't feel so disconnected anymore. (i"m going to do a post on the i-agora soon abt the phone matters in iraq very soon. because i have some questions, and i need to do a bit more research, but it's an important post coming up.)

I'd also like to get into details about the Kurdish issue and how it relates to a possible civil war, soon. But I'll get to that later. Gotta go do some things now.

- peace, lim.

It was supposed to be a "decapitation attack" to take out a bunker underneath Al-Sa'aa restaurant where Saddam or "the big one" was supposed to be at the time. We all know now that there was no such bunker. So, I'd first like to thank the Department of Defense for providing the transcript that includes an hour of questions from reporters while they are still in the B1 Stealth Bomber.

Here is the link (of the hour of questions) to the B-1 Pilot Telephone Interviews on Tuesday, 08 April, 2003 at 10am.

Here are three excerpts. Click the link above if you want to read it all.

And so, we really didn't have time to reflect on anything until after the bomb run was done. And then coming off target myself, as I -- you know, I personally was never prouder to be in the Air Force, if actually this was the big one, which we thought it was, based on everything we heard. And everything went as advertised; the weapons came off. We knew we hit the target, because the weapon accuracy is -- it's going to hit within 40 feet. And so, as the weapons come off the jet, they're going to hit the target. So, not a lot of time to reflect. There was a lot of time to reflect on the two-hour drive back to our base, and at that time, again, just everybody's proud to be doing their job and making it happen.


______________________________________________________



Q: Colonel, good evening. It's Meredith Buel from Voice of America. You gave us a bit of a technical explanation as to exactly which bombs were dropped on the target in Baghdad at the beginning of the briefing. Would you be kind enough in layman's terms to describe which bombs you did drop on the target, in what sequence, and exactly what the desired effect was?

SWAN: Well, the -- I'm sure that the desired effect was to basically destroy the building, the target that we gave. And again, that goes back to somebody deciding that, you know, we want to minimize collateral damage, since it looked like it was in a suburb- type of an area. So by using a GBU-31 or Joint Direct Attack Munition, Version 3, which is the hard-target penetrator that would bury itself in farther before it exploded, which would minimize the collateral damage around the area, it will take out that particular structure, but it's going to minimize the fragmentation of the weapon and also the target itself into the outlying areas. And so that's why we used that weapon. And it's got a delay built into it so that it penetrates into the ground and then goes off.

Does that make sense?

Q: Yes it does, sir. How deeply does this generally penetrate prior to explosion?

SWAN: It depends on the type of soil or concrete that it's going into. But it's going to go, in rough terms, you know, 10, 20 feet, is probably a good average. And again, it depends on whether it's going through a runway or just going through soil.


_______________________________________________________



Q: I was curious when you were discussing the JDAM before; in an urban setting, how do you approach your weapons loads for an urban setting? I mean, the 2,000-pound JDAM is not known for its utility in that area. I mean, do you really have to rely on the penetrator version for targeting?

K. Pilot: Well, first of all, I'd like to say I don't think anybody has really thought about using it in that kind of area, simply because the weapon is so large, and by nature we tend to think of using smaller weapons in that just because smaller weapons tend to give you less collateral damage. However, when you take the Version 3 of the JDAM, you actually cut the explosive weight of the weapon in about half, so now you've really got, you know, really what amounts to a 1,000-pound class weapon. And by making it a penetrator and delaying the explosion, you're putting the weapon down into the ground before it goes off. So you find that you limit your collateral damage radius when you use that type of weapon, so that it becomes a little more useful for the planners when they look into a dense environment.


____________________________________________________



It isn't the fault of these soldiers. They were doing their job, one could argue. But who is accountable, then, for all those people that died in Mansur because of these lethal munitions that were dropped on a target that did not exist?

You tell me? I know some of you will just blame "intelligence"...but for me, that is not sufficient enough. I want answers and those families that had members of their families killed or injured in this attack want both answers and deserve compensation.

l.

coming soon...

Mainly because of The Confessions, I thought St. Augustine deserves some recognition. The Confessions were most probably the first narrative prose work in literary history and ultimately led to the creation of the novel, or prose writing in the form of a novel. Here are texts in their original Latin, English, German, and Russian. Here's a general page to introduce one to Augustine of Hippo. Another original latin version. And please do not misconstrue...I believe St. Augustine has much to offer as a writer. In fact, it has absolutely nothing to do with religion. What he accomplished as a writer was a watershed in literary history. Some people want to make it about religion. But this is just silly. The Confessions adumbrate the concept of the journey. At times I feel like I'm reading Jung when I pick it up and read. I'm most familiar with William Watts' bilingual edition of 1631. I can't find it online because of those Loeb people. I'll do my best to find and provide it at some later time.

Honorable Mention: Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra who wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), the first fictional (and fictionalizing) narrative novel in history. And said, "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd." Here are the texts in the original Spanish, part one (.gif, navigatible html first edition) and part two, English (trans. Ormsby, 1885), Italian (trans. Perino, 1888) and illustrated

Other translations and forms of Don Quixote: English and searchable, Gutenberg .txt version in English (easiest to dl and save to hard drive), Illustrated English (trans. Ormsby), to download Part One and Part Two in smaller sections, a cool Java version that's better on the eyes if you're reading online (click open button on the right), Learn Spanish by reading Don Quixote (for English or Italian native speakers, in .wav format, sentence by sentence!)

And here's a Don Quixote dictionary for English readers. An online interactive journey through Don Quixote in English, French, Italian, and Castellano. This will show you how Cervantes fictionalized his great accomplishment. It is certainly based in fact and factual places.

An online exhibit on Don Quixote de la Mancha and Cervantes, given by Johns Hopkins University. (in english and spanish)

To dispel any western perverse attachment to classical writings...my idol is Khalil Gibran. I just visited his home in B'sharri, or Bet Sharre ("the place of kings") a few months ago. Of course, he studied/wrote/painted/worked in Boston and New York! But he's the pinnacle of the written word for me. He captures and expresses what cannot be captured and expressed. He is the timeless author. And I need not offer a post for his sake. If you haven't noticed, I'm Lebanese too. That's my mother's side. And that side of the family is much more complex. One day I'll explain.

Until next time, Blessings for Iraq...and while thinking of Gibran, Blessings for the fruits of B'sharri's past and future... and that valley, those mountains so beautiful. Blessings, too, for Lebanon. Let us hope Iraq will not become another Lebanon.

on way to Bsharri, october 2003

Has the moving image become a universal language spanning geographical boundaries and trumping metaphysical obstacles?

----Pioneers of Film---- (a list in progress...)

Lumiere Brothers: "The cinema is an invention without a future." odd thing to say, Louis! Where's Auguste? maybe here!

Edison: Chronological list of Edison's films (loc) , Edison's early sound recordings, Marriage between Sight and Sound

(AND THEN THE LEAP TO...)

----Avant-Garde Cinema/Video---- "L'imagination au pouvoir" -a student in Paris, may 1968 dominated by Al Razutis' critical writings (I'll be fleshing out this section. dunt wurry!)

Random note: I went to some wicked video exhibition at the ICA a few months back. I'll get up some info on that specific exhibition and the artists involved.

Honorable Mention in SOUND : (should really get its own post) Emile Berliner, the inventor of the gramophone. For his early recordings, click here to hear them!

ps-regrets. i realise i have mostly loc links here. i'll be getting much more diverse in my linkages of this post in the coming days, weeks. there's quite a bit out there. i just want as much of it immediately accessible to the viewer of this blog. I'm trying to find the right resources and a wide range of them. i no hyperlink discriminator! fyi

If you believe the White House, Iraq's future government is being designed in Iraq. If you believe the Iraqi people, it is being designed at the White House. Technically, neither is true: Iraq's future government is being engineered in an anonymous research park in suburban North Carolina.

When Tenet says this..."When the facts on Iraq are all in, we will be neither completely right nor completely wrong." You know that the bases for going to war rested upon the fact that proponents of the Bush administration were trying to prove a negative. Any half-witted person knows that this is an impossibility. So, if there were no WMD, like most intelligence sources were pointing out (both before during and after), then precisely what Tenet says above is their defense. A weak one, but a defense nonetheless. I have always found it disturbing, from the very first moment they've tried to prove a negative. (more on that later)
Administration's Message on Iraq Now Strikes Discordant Notes By DAVID E. SANGER
Also read Dr. Nicholas Kristof's Editorial in today's Times, Secret Obsessions at the Top

(((NOTE: Dr. Kristof's last article, Sex Lies and Bush Tapes addressed the fiscal irresponsibility of Bush and co. and is somewhat related to this post, while being enlightening in its own isolated regard.)))

Now, how pathetic. Are they finally giving up on proving a negative? Let's move forward already! But let's stop all this unnecessary lying and distorting right NOW. It seems as though this administration will not face the facts. Without politicians embracing fact and then applying their knowledge for just and fiscally responsible outcomes, there can be no such thing as a democracy. Instead, it's spinning and strategums and discursive language, soundbits for pacifying the public, fear-mongering through abstractions as the color coded terror alert system...and what emerges from this? I know America before 11 Sept. and I know it after...what seems to be emerging is this paranoiac, fear-riddled, dumbed-down, crypto-fascism that allows one to feel scared and safe at the same time. It's a schizy-state-of-affairs that has pushed the U.S. in the doldrums of decades past. America has not learned the lessons of Japanese internment camps, The Vietnam War, the Cambodia intervention/debacle, Central America interventions/debacles (like in Chile with the ousting of Salvador Allende and replacing him with a dictator Agosto Pinochet)...the list is long. But Vietnam resonates deeper than most of these lessons that seem to have been chosen to forget...or misremembered. I'd lke to get further into this, but I need to wake up early. Much peace! Salaam alekum!

ps. Sistani should not be messed with...whether this was some PR stunt or not...it is like playing with fire. Who did it? Did it happen?
it all reeks of political mischief if you ask me. esp. it coming hrs after the u.s. signaled that it would perhaps consider delaying the transfer of power if the UN were to insist upon it. There are so many political machinations taking place at the moment. I believe it will all make more sense in a day or a few days. But I'm afraid we only have a short time before steps can be made to ensure Iraqis a better future. While this seems to always be the case, I feel these are extemely critical weeks.

Important Link:

Here's a link to the Iraqi Fundamental Law, Iraqi Interim Constitution, translated with commentary by Professor Nathan Brown at George Washington University.

I'm going to post some things I've been enjoying lately on this specific post in the coming days.

Mad Lib takin' control of BBC One's, The Gilles Peterson Show (real stream, 32 Kbps, ~ 2hrs)

Check out (or b'leg)...sounds from Mad Lib and MF Doom's new collaboration, Mad Villainy (Don't listen to them, it's already out.)

For your reference:

Stones Throw Records
MF Doom

120 Years of Electronic Musical Instruments

Some more musica! 12 FEB repost below!

DJ Spooky video streams with music and words (Baraka)

DJ Spooky, "Peace in Zaire" (CONGO!)
Spook with Amiri Baraka!

just mixes:

Abstrakt Blowback '03: The Satyagraha mix
Live on J-Wave – Tokyo 1/19/02
Blahzay, Blahzay: hip-hop mix
Live @ Knitting Factory 4/13/02: DJ Spooky + CARL HANCOCKRUX
Prosthetica 2000

links:

Digital Cut-up Lounge (still haven't really checked it out totally, seems ok)

friends of mine:

hyperdub YOU GOTTA CHECK IT OUT! here's where you find the streamable delectables!

I've really been in all out dub mode for some time now. I LUB DUB. This is just a taste...I'll find more and post it later.

out,
lim.

Here is something interesting to think about: When you look at the sky at night, it is black, with the stars and the moon forming points of light on that black background. So why is it that, during the day, the sky does not remain black with the sun acting as another point of light? Why does the daytime sky turn a bright blue and the stars disappear?

The first thing to recognize is that the sun is an extremely bright source of light -- much brighter than the moon. The second thing to recognize is that the atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere have an effect on the sunlight that passes through them.

There is a physical phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering that causes light to scatter when it passes through particles that have a diameter one-tenth that of the wavelength (color) of the light. Sunlight is made up of all different colors of light, but because of the elements in the atmosphere the color blue is scattered much more efficiently than the other colors.

So when you look at the sky on a clear day, you can see the sun as a bright disk. The blueness you see everywhere else is all of the atoms in the atmosphere scattering blue light toward you. (Because red light, yellow light, green light and the other colors aren't scattered nearly as well, you see the sky as blue.)
- Courtesy of Howstuffworks.com

Related topics:

How Light Works
How the Sun Works
How Stars Work
The Physics Classroom: Blue Skies and Red Sunsets
Blue Sky and Rayleigh Scattering
Weather World 2010: Sunsets
Why isn't the Martian sky blue like the Earth's?

I was going to sleep...it is morning here, but I saw this and couldn't resist. I hope Professor Cole doesn't mind me putting this latest post of his up in it's entirety. It nails it right on the head. When I have more energy, I'll do the same in my own way. Even tho I feel like I have thus far, but there's still much to tell...

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Inquiry Must cover Cheney, Feith

The Bush Administration will probably attempt to dump all the blame for the WMD fiasco on the CIA. As many are saying, this move is highly ironic. Every evidence is that Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon made an end run around the CIA and the DIA, cherry-picked intelligence, and funneled it to Cheney, who then manipulated Bush with it. (W. admits to not reading the newspapers, so he is at the mercy of his close advisers for information, for all the world like an illiterate medieval king with crafty ministers!)

To make George Tenet take the fall for all this, when his analysts were relatively careful in their assessments, and to let Feith and Cheney off the hook, would be the height of injustice. Ironically, Feith leaked some of the most damaging evidence against him to the National Review, a listing of implausible cherry-picked reports about supposed Saddam-al-Qaeda links. If this is the sort of thing that was being given to Cheney and pressed on Bush, no wonder the administration made such faulty policy.
posted by Juan Cole at 2/3/2004 09:54:26 AM

here is a link to a Conversation with Joseph Joffe that I found thoroughly engaging. you might enjoy...real player required. Courtesy of the international studies dept. at UC-Berkley, their conversations with history series, Joffe"is a German journalist and prominent international relations scholar. Most recently he was foreign and editorial page editor for Suddeutsche Zeitung, one of Europe's most respected newspapers, and he has just been named the publisher designate of the German periodical, Die Zeit, in Hamburg. Mr. Joffe holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard and he's taught at Harvard, Princeton, and most recently at Stanford. He has written numerous scholarly articles and chapters in books and is a regular contributor to journals like The National Interest and Foreign Affairs, among others. He is author of The Limited Partnership: Europe, the United States, and the Burdens of Alliance."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

-Sokrates (viaPlato)

I urge those reading to ask "WHY?" something is or is happening the way it is...do it more often.

America is an unreality. What does that mean? Ask me,"why?" And I'll tell you what I think.

Finding the cause behind negative events taking place should be first and foremost in the minds of those who have power. When they neglect this duty...this obligation, they neglect things that are most important for justice to become a reality. It is very clear what path we are on. It is very disturbing. So, I urge everybody to ask "WHY?" I know this smacks of idealism. But why not ask "why?"

Why is the sky blue?

Why is water wet?

Why does Iraq bleed?

Why do American working-class have to die?

Why don't they re-instate the draft and see if an honorable senator's son would go to war to fight for the freedom that seems to not spread beyond its borders?

And why does it seem that these borders not exist, lately? Why does it seem that there is not a democracy here in America? Could it be that the electoral college system is archaic and flawed, like the caucus system in Iowa that they incidentaly tried to pitch as a solution for Iraq? Oh, come ON! You have got to be kidding me.

(That was one of the most ridiculous ideas. It would be that part in Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring where you have the different races of people gathered together damning each other to have claim on the control of the one ring (i.e. the power). Do these people know anything about Iraq? WHY don't they??? It's a legitimate question! And this whole tri-umverate presidency will NOT work. I'm telling you...especially if it Lebanon-esque, one Sunni, one Shia, one Kurd? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? COME ON MR. PACHACHI, you know these people better than that...how could you even THINK to endorse something so stupid. There are no HOBBITS in Iraq. Anyway, we see what has happened to Lebanon. Case in point. If anybody would like me to elaborate, I'd be more than happy to.)

Ask "WHY?" and maybe those in the corridors of power will respond, maybe they won't. But at least you're asking...and that is a right of yours (most of you), if I remember correctly...WHY my father came here in the first place.

Search for the CAUSE of the problem...be a SCIENTIST, a DOCTOR, a SENTIENT BEING...in order to solve the problem, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE CAUSE. CONNECT THE DOTS. Personally, I'm a dot connector. It doesn't have to be a linear thing, though.

You see, I'm more quantum than newtonian...but if you're still stuck on newton or the cartesian system you'd still have to ask "WHY?" ......Right?

You don't have to have so-called 'save-the-world-syndrome' to understand WHY something is happening. I'm not claiming to have all or any of the answers, even. But asking that simple question would make the whole world much safer. Answering more truthfully is the tricky part. Because people want to trick you and take your livelyhood, dignity, and any sense of honor with the trick. Stop being fooled and ask why, pretty please.

ps.
I'll have many links up that answer some of the why soon. I'll answer "why the sky is blue?" first and go from there. We have got to start on some solid ground my friends.