------------------------------------------------------------------
First a Word

Charles Todd and Gretch Ross have put together a new community blog described as "Commentary and Perspective on International Economy, Trade, Corporations, Labor, Poverty & Social Justice." It is a noble and high-minded effort by a group rather smart folks. Not entirely sure how I got in on this but I will be there from time to time so stop and check it out. This will be a much more serious treatment of issues than is usually seen here and by people who actually know what they are talking about.

As much of the US blog world becomes ever more a magnifier of national political navel gazing and back-biting "pundit" wars, this effort counters the trend with news and commentary directed toward a more socially conscious and international bend. Tune in.

The UnCapitalist Journal

------------------------------------------------------------------
Not Our Fault

It's a clean place, mum. The people are educated. There's no violence in England. No one goes around carrying guns, not even police.

So said 27 year old Brazilian electrician , Jean Charles de Menezes, to his mother not too long before Metropolitan Police plain clothes officers pumped seven Glock slugs into his head. His crime? looking shifty, wearing a big coat and running when unidentified men with guns approached. Tony Blair, never a man short of worthless words, said he was "desperately sorry" but that, by God, the police have to get on with their job. Please pay no attention to that bullet riddled corpse of an innocent man. Blair indicated a fear of criticism should the man have been a bomb-laden terrorist and police had not acted but apparently he can tolerate criticism for this. In Tony's world, you're either a terrorist hell bent on blasting civilians or you must be shot. And the actions of the police certainly seem to confirm this dictum. Even Red Ken Livingstone claimed that Menezes was a victim of the terrorist bombings and not of trigger-happy police. Not to be outdone by this blazing stupidity, chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, explained that the "shoot-to-kill" policy was effective and that he fully expects more innocent civilians will be shot. Dead. We will agree with Sir Ian, the policy so far has been quite effective: they shot and killed. Londoners and Brits in general ought to be outraged by promises from the commissioner that his police force will kill more civilians.

While it does appear that Menezes leapt over a ticket barrier and ran, the conclusion of police -- that he was a suicide bomber -- is absurdly extreme. But Menezes death was almost immediately cast off as acceptable collateral damage in the War on Terror. However, the actions of the Met police appear even more ludicrous in light of the fact that, in a real hot bed of terrorism, the Gaza strip, Israeli troops managed to disarm and arrest an actual suicide bomber without resorting to any head shots whatsoever.

British citisens should rightly demand a stand down from the shoot-to-kill order after this incident. While the Met police might be taking their instructions from Israelis, they are clearly not capable of executing them very well. And if the United Kingdom does acquiesce to such draconian police policy, who then has really won the War on Terror?

------------------------------------------------------------------
Deferred Success

The Brits have decided that the word "fail" ought to be banned from use in British schools. Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) are now arguing that using the word "failure" or "fail" or possibly "fucking idiot" could put some students off their potential "learning for life". The replacement grade? "Deferred Success." This is a curious posture for the Brits although it may explain their apparent acceptance of the Met Police shoot-to-kill policy, a policy that may appear to be an abject, bloodyminded failure to most people but which, to the Brits at least, is simply a policy that will eventually reap success, quite possibly after many, many "deferred" ones.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiny, Sappy People

Convinced that US troops are winning the war in Iraq and that the "liberal" media is failing to convey such news in favour of constantly reporting all those bombings and other unpleasantries, a merry band of conservative talk show radio hosts have decided to take up media arms and report the "truth" from Iraq. Move America Forward, a group funded by Republican PR firm, Russo Marsh Rogers, gathered up their American things and shipped out to the Green Zone eager to begin their reporting of the Big Win that most of the rest of the world has simply failed to recognise.

The intrepid group arrived in Iraq in mid-July and, no doubt, began furiously documenting all the good and happy stories the MSM has kept us from hearing. Because while Americans in the US, subjected to liberal bias, got to read and hear about a suicide truck bomb ramming a police station where 25 people died, truth seekers Melanie Morgan and Buzz Patterson are certain that this is all just being made up:

The war is being won, if not already won, I think. It [Iraq] is stabilized.

We can't quite know how Buzz comes to such a conclusion as this past June was the one of the most violent on record since the invasion began. July looks on track to being even worse. In fact, a quick perusal of one single day's bloody events would not evidence anything close to stability:

-- A suicide bombing targeted an Iraqi army base in the Shaab district, killing 8 and wounding 20.
-- A car bomb exploded near a gendarme patrol, leaving 6 policemen dead and 45 persons wounded.
-- In central Baghdad, a car bomb killed 2 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 7 others.
-- At an Iraqi military academy situated in southeastern Baghdad, a car bomb wounded two US soldiers.
-- At the Defense Ministry building, a suicide bomber killed 2 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 14 persons.
-- Near the northeastern city of Baquba, guerrillas shot 3 Iraqi policemen to death.
-- In Haswa a suicide bomber killed 5 Iraqi soldiers and left 10 wounded.
-- US forces fought running street battles with guerrillas in central Baghdad. Armed with machine guns, anti-tank missile launchers and mortars, the guerillas destroyed one Bradley fighting vehicle.

One day.

This was before a suicide bomber then launched himself at a fuel truck and killed nearly 100 people. And then, after having kidnapped and killed the Egyptian ambassador-designate, insurgents abducted two Algerian diplomats . Clearly, the liberal bias in the news is becoming nearly intolerable for these people.

So, just what uplifting stories have the merry band of bobbleheads managed to report? A quick trip over to their website and ... hmmm. Not much. No nice stories of schools being built. No nice stories of a reliable power grid, or potable water supplies and certainly nothing about winning or having won the war. In fact, we can find no reporting at all. What visitors will find are a few snapshots of the intrepid ones talking with the troops; laughing and smiling -- no frowns now! Their so-called "news" page has things on it like a post about their "outrage" over some "Attorney General's Profane Anti-American Display," and then that again, and then something about about how Saddam "Harbored 4,000 Terrorists on War’s Eve," and finally a mention of the launch of their "I LOVE GITMO CAMPAIGN." Ahhh, now there's the nice story: the truth seekers have started "Cookies & Coffee For Our Troops" campaign! So uplifting do they imagine this program will be, they encourage readers to sponsor a box of cookies and a bag of coffee for the troops. Insurgents are expected to be laying down arms momentarily.

A Martha Zoller writes her final chapter of her trip to Iraq. This is not so much reporting a story as it is a list of all her wonderful interviews with various officers and troops and that her short and relatively comfortable stint in Iraq made her "proud to be an American." Great. But Martha my dear, where are the happy stories? and we don't mean about yourself and how good this whole masturbatory junket made you feel. So, after a week of hanging around with generals in CENTCOM and the palace in the Green Zone, whoosh, it's over and out. Nary a single story was reported in the making of this boondoggle and certainly no evidence was presented that, as they strangely believe, we are "winning."

As we indicated earlier, this high-spirited band of fiddlers was motivated in this effort by the mainstream media's determination to ignore the "successes" and report all the bad stuff. To the happy fiddlers, of course, this is just a massive liberal effort to discredit the White House's grand plan because it would seem they believe that liberals relish reports of bombings and death. Bad, bad liberals. We just have one question for these people: have you ever actually watched "news?" We don't get stories of schools being built here, why should it be different in Iraq, where there is an ongoing war?

If there is one thing news is largely biased toward it is violence and mayhem. And it is that way for a very good reason. Violence and mayhem are regarded as news exactly because their occurrence is out of the ordinary -- or at least it should be. For a society to live up to a peaceful ideal -- and this is something we tell ourselves is civil society's calling -- it must regard violence this way. Unfortunately, violence is not out of the ordinary in Iraq right now but if our media and, by implication, ourselves, ever devolves to where we regard bad news as no news, we will truly have revealed the devil within.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Absolute Theft

Tom Noe's financial arrangements with the Ohio State government to "manage" its Bureau of Workers' Compensation fund first became widely known back in April when the Toledo Blade began reporting the story (see The BHC, Vol. 52, Penny Wise). The state handed Noe $50 million, which he promptly invested in his own rare coin fund business. As suspicion of the arrangement grew, an investigation was launched and has resulted in Ohio’s attorney general pronouncing that Noe had stolen "millions of dollars" using a "Ponzi" scheme to fake investment returns:

There was an absolute theft of funds going on.

State Attorney General Jim Petro has said that Noe purloined almost $4 million from the pension fund and that,

on Day One, Tom Noe took $1.375 million and put it in his personal or his business account

and began using state money for his personal comfort. He also used taxpayer money to make some generous campaign contributions to prominent state Republicans. $13 million of state funds are now missing and presumed dead. And like animals shunning a sick member of the herd, all those state Republicans who once counted Tom Noe a friend have been quietly keeping their distance. Indeed, averted vision is all Mr. Noe can expect from his once proud Republican friends.

At the onset of the investigation, Noe had claimed this story was a partisan witchhunt, that his management was sound, the investments profitable. Well, for him, yes. For Ohio state employees, not so much. With his belief system leading him to the conclusion that the state monies were his to enjoy, Noe began buying expensive real estate in the Florida Keys and Catawba Island, including what is no doubt one sweet crib for $1.85 million. After Mr. Petro's investigation revealed much of these details, Ohio bureau spokeman Jeremy Jackson, an apparent master of understatement, said,

Looking back, the investment wasn’t a prudent one.

This seems obvious now but it is interesting to note that back in April, Republican Governor Taft was outraged that anyone would besmirch Tom Noe's feel-good aura and impeccable reputation:

He’s probably been the most effective advocate for this part of the state in Columbus that you’ve got and you’re going after this guy. You’re trying to kill him for some reason.

Some reason, indeed. But note that Mr. Taft's outrage was very precise in its fuzziness and his statement that Noe was an "effective advocate" can certainly be considered true. It just took some time to discover for whom Mr. Noe was such an advocate. Amusingly, and now that Noe has been fingered in this multi-million dollar swindle, Governor Taft has changed his tune via his spokesman, Mark Rickel:

The governor commends the attorney general’s continued vigorous pursuit of all assets that belong to the state

Attorney General Petro's investigation has revealed a vast web of intricate Republican back room deals, all at taxpayer expense and it must be noted that Petro himself is not without sin in this. In fact, Mr. Petro declined to investigate the matter at all until the mounds of evidence the Toledo Blade kept digging up finally forced him to act (and how marvelous it is to see a newspaper actually do something like this these days). Petro was, as much as anyone, deep in Republican honey pot with Noe, Taft and a number of other prominent Republicans in Ohio. Well, prominent they most certainly are now that this affair d'etat is unwinding. And it will not be a prominence to which they will be accustomed.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Ragin' Glory

Don't, for one minute, think the Brits are going to beat us to the ultimate police state punch. A group of elderly women, most in their 60s and 70s, have just been arrested for war protesting. Yes, folks, the "Raging Grannies of Tucson" are due in court for criminal trespass at an Army recruiting centre in Arizona after they staged a demonstration whereby they entered the grounds of the centre to sign up for combat duty. They claim they tried to register so that they could replace "our young" on the line and the recruiters didn't believe them. Can't fault the recruiters for that but after the grannies read a statement and sang songs, they left. Police then arrested the group.

Are we really this far gone? Arresting well-meaning old ladies protesting a war?

------------------------------------------------------------------
Down, Down, Down

Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a man in legal troubles up to his armpits, started the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust fund to which Republican cringers and other of the undead who count Tom DeLay a "friend" may donate in an effort to keep Mr. DeLay from taking a trip to the Big House. Well, it seems that, after more and uglier truths about DeLay's heavy handed influence peddling started revealing themselves, the fund is now drying up. The trust is emptying faster than a Bay of Fundy ebb tide as administration and legal expenses are now outpacing contributions. He should be done soon.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Killer Mice

We have seen and conveyed some strange stories here at the BHC but this one is truly bizarre. And, not surprisingly, a result of our own human activity. In 2000-2001, research biologists Richard Cuthbert and Erica Somme were studying bird populations on Gough Island in the south pacific. The small island is a vital nesting ground for literally millions of seabirds, albatross included. What they discovered shocked them.

In the nineteenth century, ships would moor on Gough Island and eventually the British house mouse was introduced. With nothing but millions of little chicks to feed on, the mice quickly became huge, two to three times normal size. And now after a hundred years of this high protein diet, the mice are aggressive and attack nesting chicks at night, devouring them alive. The island previously had no known predators and, with no ability to fly, the young birds are essentially defenseless. Often gangs of flesh-eating mice will gather and surround a nest, each nipping pieces out of the birds until they're dead. The scale of the carnage is astonishing as it is now thought that as many as a million chicks a year will perish. It is believed that this may have severe consequences for some, possibly all of the species that nest on the island and may eventually drive them to extinction.

Suddenly, mutant ninja turtles don't seem all that silly.

Of course, the human animal has done this before, many, many times. Introducing non-native species to an environment unfamiliar with such creatures will inevitably result in unintended consequences, oftentimes terrible. We've even done this to ourselves when Europeans introduced diseases to the Americas that natives had never encountered and which resulted in the near extinction of the various native American populations.

------------------------------------------------------------------
"...there is a real risk that the Administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it."
- Downing Street Memos.