Bob’s Body Leaves Us

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — August 21, 2005 — Bob died this afternoon at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 71. Bob was diagnosed with brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM) in late April 2005. He had received both radiation treatment and chemotherapy to help combat the disease. He is survived by his wife, Ileana, his five children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa, Renee Moog, and Miranda Richmond; and the mother of his children, Shirleigh Moog.

What a loss. Truly a genius, who radically changed the landscape of modern music. If you get a chance, watch the recent movie on his life. Very interesting man.

Although eventually some U.S. troops may be withdrawn from Iraq, we have good reason to suspect that many–perhaps 50,000 or 60,000–will remain, because their permanent bases are already under construction. A half-billion dollars for this project was included in the Iraq war supplemental appropriation approved last May. The plan widely discussed in various media outlets calls for U.S. forces, now scattered around the country in more than a hundred bases, to be concentrated in fourteen large, fortified bases on the way to eventual consolidation in four giant, heavily fortified mega-bases.

Once this relocation has been completed, the United States can use the bases to serve important purposes in the implementation of its larger plan for the region. The Iraqis can fight each other day and night, so long as they do not threaten the security of the mega-bases. The hope, of course, is that when the U.S. forces have repositioned themselves in these enclaves, the Iraqi resistance will lose interest in attacking the Americans and turn their energies toward joining a coalition focused on ordinary politics–that is, on looting the country’s oil revenues. If they persist in slaughtering one another, well, the Bush administration realizes that it can do nothing to stop them–short of leaving the country, which it certainly will not do in any event–and so it will rest content to protect U.S. forces inside the big bases, where they will be shielded from the mayhem of the surrounding countryside by wide, lethal, perimeter defenses.

Continue reading What Does the Administration’s Leaked Mea Culpa on Iraq Portend?

Apparel Maker Tags RFID For Kids’ Pajamas

Sleepwear is designed to protect children from abductors
By Laurie Sullivan

Children’s sleepwear with radio-frequency identification tags sewn into the seams is expected to hit stores in early 2006. Made by Lauren Scott California, the nightgowns and pajamas will be one of the first commercial RFID-tagged clothing lines sold in the United States.

Or how about this?

Council listens in to Soho crowds

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 04 May 2005

Westminster Council is piloting a scheme to install microphones on lampposts to augment CCTV coverage with audio snooping.

For more examples of RFID big brother exploits- all to keep us safe, you understand- try the CASPIAN website.

America’s Good Germans?

A Mercenary Society

By Robert Jensen

08/18/05 “Counterpunch” — – The failed war in Iraq — and its effect on the U.S. military — has the potential to spark the U.S. public to fundamentally rethink the role of force in U.S. foreign policy, and one of the central questions for the future of the United States is whether this questioning can mature and deepen.

Can we in the so-called “lone superpower” face that we are now a nation of mercenaries?

More from the “Laws? We don’t need no stinkin’ laws” Republicans, this time in the late state of Ohio:

Prosecutor: Ohio Governor to Be Charged
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Wed Aug 17, 3:38 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Bob Taft will face misdemeanor charges for not reporting golf outings paid for by others, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Taft, a second-term Republican and member of a distinguished U.S. political family, would be the first Ohio governor to be charged with a crime. If convicted of the four misdemeanors, he could be fined $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail on each count, though time behind bars was considered unlikely.

I’m already sacrificing too much for a war I always believed was stupid and wrong. I’m paying three dollars a gallon for buck-fifty gas and walking through gauntlets of over-armed National Guardboys at airports and bus stations. I’m in greater danger than ever before of getting blown up by a pissed-off fanatic. And I dread the giant tax hike we’ll eventually need to pay off Bush’s deficit. But these aren’t enough sacrifices for Bush and his vainglorious generals, who are planning “a Civilian Reserve, a sort of Peace Corps for professionals…a program to seek commitments from bankers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers and solid-waste disposal experts to deploy to conflict zones for months at a time on reconstruction assignments, to relieve pressure on the military.”

If you voted for Bush, here’s your chance to plant your butt where your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Good luck.

Continue reading Sacrifice? Count Me Out

when you get me steamed:

Dear Sirs:

At some point on 8.15.2005, you paid Rush Limbaugh a small portion of his $30 million salary to say the following:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There’s nothing about it that’s real, including the mainstream media’s glomming onto it. It’s not real. It’s nothing more than an attempt. It’s the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

This might be the vilest statement I have ever heard uttered in the American mainstream entertainment industry. I confess I didn’t listen to the show in question, so I don’t know the context of the remark, but as quoted here, your employee, Rush Limbaugh, is calling the mother of a serviceman killed in action in Iraq a liar. This is morally repugnant. My father was a veteran. Rush Limbaugh has smeared not only the Sheehan family, but every person who is or has served in uniform. America is better than this. Better than this sneering contempt for anything different, better than this slanderous gibberish masquerading as “entertainment”.

Was it worth however much you garnered in revenue for this show to debase our country in such a manner? Was the extra tick on your stock price worth driving yet another rip of divisiveness into our national fabric, which has been strained so near to a breaking point? You evidently think so, since I have heard no mention of your employee being fired, suspended, or at least reprimanded for behavior that frankly, civilized people find abhorrent. And sadly, I doubt I will. This letter, and the others like it, will be ignored, tossed aside for yet another scan of the national ratings and your ad book. It is one thing for you and your odious employee Rush Limbaugh to profit by spewing hate filled rhetoric, it is entirely another to slander a dead American serviceman- all American servicemen- to do so.

You must know in your heart that such statements are beneath contempt, and should not be given encouragement in a decent society. You know that Rush Limbaugh must go, because it is the right thing to do.

And if you don’t- if you don’t recognize how wrong such statements are, then I’m afraid we’re much further down a path that is much darker than I feared. Rush Limbaugh must go. Our country and the honor of those that die in its name deserve more. Certainly more than Limbaugh, those that hired him, and those who pay his salary with advertisements. They deserve nothing but the contempt of a disgusted nation. You can start with mine.

James Mann

Yes, completely overwrought, but he’s disgusting. Sent to Limbaugh and the executives at Clear Channel. Who you can meet- and maybe email- from here.

First, an eloquent look at what our troops actually volunteered for.

Read Casey Sheehan: He volunteered to serve America, not a President

And then, wander over here, where the great Rush Windbag proclaims:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There’s nothing about it that’s real, including the mainstream media’s glomming onto it. It’s not real. It’s nothing more than an attempt. It’s the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

I even emailed the big pillhead. I mean, good gravy, people can’t just rattle off whatever bile passes thru their heads and into a microphone. Right now, there are guys in pickup trucks going “Hell yeah, Rush. That bitch probably don’t even have a son…”

He believes the release of the photos would “incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk,” according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York.

Uh, fellas? This horse has already left the barn. Release the photos, and let the American people (since they have been shown in the Middle East already) know what is being done in their name.

Read more of New Abuse Photos Could Spark Riots, US General Warns

Listening to a great Stones boot - Brussels Affair 1973

Whew. Great stuff, Keith, Mick Taylor post Exile… Sweet!

Anyone interested, drop me a line…