Evan Burton

My first impression is there is nothing untoward about this incident... apart from maybe bad luck. Both the vessels were what the US call 'boomers' - SSBNs. The first of their aims to is be silent - to hide. Their patrol areas would seems to have overlapped, they were both being quiet and they probably got a sniff of each other. They'd each go ultra-quiet to avoid detection. Being essentially blind to each other, they blundered into each other.

Because they were both SSBNs, I'd imagine they would assess the damage and finding nothing of immediate concern, clear the area before notifying their relative national commands.

Although it seems that a collision is pretty-much certain to be the explanation, I wouldn't rule out a submerged container. If the either of the subs were at fairly shallow depth - perhaps for sending a burst transmission? - then hitting a container is possible. It's happened on a number of occasions to surface vessels, and I know I have reported at least one partially sunken container myself.

Regarding a THRESHER article in the USNI Naval History magazine: I should be able to get the print copy of that issue, if anyone would like me to do that.

I thought that Walker didn't have access to sub crypto, only surface / air? When his deeds came out, it was a good justification for the submarine service's compartmentalization from the rest of the navy. Happens in our navy, too.

BTW - I thought THRESHER was sunk because of a broken pipe causing flooding?

My apologies, Bill - I mistakenly formed the impression by posting the article you thought this was a bit of a first. Sorry!

The submarine service have a habit of keeping things very close hold; it doesn't surprise me that they kept it quiet. It's not called the silent service for nothing. As you say, it's a very good example.

If interested, might I suggest BLIND MAN'S BLUFF by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew. A very good look at US submarine operations against the USSR.

Sorry, but do you think this is the first time this has happened? It isn't - at least between other navies. Being a submariner can be a dangerous business.

People who think the U.S. government was complicit in 9/11 or in the JFK assassination sometimes complain that those who dismiss them as “conspiracy theorists” are guilty of inconsistency. For don’t the defenders of the “official story” behind 9/11 themselves believe in a conspiracy, namely one masterminded by Osama bin Laden? Don’t they acknowledge the existence of conspiracies like Watergate, as well as everyday garden variety criminal conspiracies?

The objection is superficial. Critics of the best known “conspiracy theories” don’t deny the possibility of conspiracies per se. Rather they deny the possibility, or at least the plausibility, of conspiracies of the scale of those posited by 9/11 and JFK assassination skeptics. One reason for this has to do with considerations about the nature of modern bureaucracies, especially governmental ones. They are notoriously sclerotic and risk-averse, structurally incapable of implementing any decision without reams of paperwork and committee oversight, and dominated by ass-covering careerists concerned above all with job security. The personnel who comprise them largely preexist and outlast the particular administrations that are voted in and out every few years, and have interests and attitudes that often conflict with those of the politicians they temporarily serve. Like the rest of society, they are staffed by individuals with wildly divergent worldviews that are difficult to harmonize. The lack of market incentives and the power of public employee unions make them extremely inefficient. And so forth. All of this makes the chances of organizing diverse reaches of the bureaucracy (just the right set of people spread across the Army, the Air Force, the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, etc. – not to mention within private firms having their own bureaucracies and diversity of corporate and individual interests) in a short period of time (e.g. the months between Bush’s inauguration and 9/11) to carry out a plot and cover-up of such staggering complexity, close to nil.

Another reason has to do with the nature of liberal democratic societies, and the way in which they differ from totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, whose leaders did conspire to do great evil. The point is not that the leaders of liberal democratic societies are not capable of great evil. Of course they are. But they do not, and cannot, commit evils in the same way that totalitarian leaders do. There are both structural and sociological reasons for this. The structural reasons have to do with the adversarial, checks-and-balances nature of liberal democratic polities, which make it extremely difficult for any faction or interest to impose its agenda by force on the others. In the American context, the courts, the legislature, and the executive branch are all jealous of their power, even when controlled by the same party. The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, CIA, FBI, etc. are all also notoriously often at odds with one another, as are the various departments within the executive branch. The same is true of private interests – the press, corporations, universities, and the like. All must work through public legal channels, and when they try to do otherwise they risk exposure from competing interests. Unlike traditional societies, in which the various elements of society agree (if only because they’ve never known any alternative) to subordinate their interests to a common end (e.g. a religious end), and totalitarian societies, which openly and brutally force every element to subordinate their interests to a common end (e.g. a utopian or dystopian political end), liberal democratic societies eschew any common end in the interests of allowing each individual and faction to pursue their own often conflicting ends as far as possible.

Now I do not claim that liberal democratic societies in fact perfectly realize this ideal of eschewing any common end. Far from it. The liberal democratic ethos inevitably becomes an end in itself, and all factions that refuse to incorporate it are ultimately pushed to the margins or even persecuted. (John Rawls’s so-called “political liberalism” is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to rationalize this “soft totalitarianism.”) But that does not affect my point. The imposition of the liberal ethos may involve an occasional bold power grab on the part of one faction (as Roe v. Wade did in the case of the Supreme Court). It may involve attempts culturally to marginalize the opposition (as in the universities and entertainment industry). But the other factions know about these efforts – they are hardly carried out unobserved in smoke-filled rooms – and never roll over and play dead, as they would in a totalitarian society. Liberal ideologues must work through the very adversarial institutions that their ideology calls for, which is why these alleged arch-democrats are constantly complaining about the choices their fellow citizens democratically make (electing Bush, voting for Prop 8, opposing gun control, supporting capital punishment, etc.). For them to impose their egalitarian ethos on everyone else through force of law takes generations, and a series of public battles, before the other side is gradually ground down. The evil that results is typically the result of a slowly and gradually evolving public consensus to do, or at least to give in to, evil – not a sudden and secret conspiratorial act.

So, structurally, there is just no plausible way for an “inside job” conspiracy of the JFK assassination or 9/11 type to work. There is simply not enough harmony between the different institutions that would have to be involved, either of a natural sort or the type imposed by force. And this brings me to the sociological point that the liberal ethos itself, precisely because it tends so deeply to permeate the thinking even of the professedly conservative elements of liberal democratic societies, makes a conspiracy of the sort in question impossible to carry out. “Freedom,” “tolerance,” “democracy,” “majority rule,” and the like are as much the watchwords of contemporary American conservatives as they are of American liberals. Indeed, contemporary conservatives tend to defend their own positions precisely in these terms, and are uncomfortable with any suggestion that there might be something in conservatism inconsistent with them. The good side of this is that contemporary American conservatives will have absolutely no truck with the likes of Tim McVeigh, and will condemn right-wing political violence as loudly as any liberal would. The bad side is that some of them also seem willing to tolerate almost any evil as long as there is a consensus in favor of it and it is done legally. (Same-sex marriage? Well, the courts imposed it without voter approval. But what if the voters do someday approve it? Will conservatives then decide that it’s OK after all? Some of them already have.)

The point, in any event, is that just as the structure of a liberal democratic society differs from that of totalitarian states, so too does the ethos of its leaders. They generally like to do their evil in legal and political ways, through demagoguery, getting evil laws passed, destroying reputations, and other generally bloodless means. Occasionally they’ll resort also to ballot-box stuffing, and maybe the odd piece of union thuggery or police brutality. But outright murder is extremely rare, and usually folded into some legitimate context so as to make it seem justifiable (e.g. My Lai or the firebombing of Dresden, atrocities committed in the course of otherwise just wars). Do ideologically motivated sociopaths like General Jack D. Ripper of Dr. Strangelove fame sometimes exist even in liberal democratic societies? Sure. But hundreds or even just dozens of Jack D. Rippers, occupying just the right positions at just the right times in the executive branch, the FBI, the FAA, the NYPD, the FDNY, the Air Force, American Airlines, United Airlines, Larry Silverstein’s office, CNN, NBC, Fox News, The New York Times, etc. etc., never accidentally tipping off hostile co-workers or fatally screwing up in other ways? All happily risking their careers and reputations, indeed maybe even their lives, in the interests of the Zionist cause, or Big Oil, or whatever? Not a chance. Indeed, the very idea is ludicrous.

Of course, some conspiracy theorists will insist that the adversarial, checks-and-balances nature of liberal democracies and their tolerant ethos are themselves just part of the illusion created by the conspirators. Somehow, even the fact that conspiracy theorists are perfectly free to publish their books, organize rallies, etc. in a way they would not for a moment be able to do in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia is nevertheless just part of a more subtle and diabolical form of police state.

Here we’ve gone through the looking glass indeed, and come to a third and more philosophically interesting problem with conspiracy theories, one that can be understood on the basis of an analogy with philosophical skepticism and its differences from ordinary skepticism. Doubting whether you really saw your cousin walking across the bridge, or just a lookalike, can be perfectly reasonable. Doubting whether cousins or bridges really exist in the first place – maybe you’re only dreaming they exist, or maybe there’s a Cartesian demon deceiving you, or maybe you’re trapped in The Matrix – is not reasonable. It only seems reasonable when one is beholden to a misguided theory of knowledge, a theory that effectively undermines the possibility of any knowledge whatsoever. The difference here is sometimes described as a difference between "local" doubt and "global" doubt. Local doubts arise on the basis of other beliefs taken to be secure. You know that you are nearsighted or that your glasses are dirty, so you doubt whether you really saw your cousin. Global doubts have a tendency to undermine all beliefs, or at least all beliefs within a certain domain. You know that your senses have sometimes deceived you about some things, and being a philosopher you start to wonder whether they are always deceiving you about everything.

Notice that unlike local doubt, global doubt tends to undermine even the evidence that led to the doubt in the first place. Doubting that you really saw your cousin doesn’t lead you to think that your belief that you are nearsighted or that your glasses are dirty might also be false. But suppose your belief that you sometimes have been fooled by visual illusions leads you to doubt your senses in general. You came to believe that your perceptual experience of a bent stick in the water was illusory because you also believed that your experience of seeing the stick as straight when removed from the water was not illusory. But you end up with the view that maybe that experience, and all experience, is illusory after all. You came to believe that you might be dreaming right now because in the past you’ve had vivid dreams from which you woke up. You end up with the view that maybe even the experience of waking up was itself a dream, so that you’ve never really been awake at all. Again, the doubt tends to swallow up even the evidence that led to the doubt. (Philosophers like J. L. Austin have suggested that this shows that philosophical skepticism is not even conceptually coherent, but we needn’t commit ourselves to that claim to make the point that it does at least tend to undermine the very evidence that leads to it.)

I suggest that the distinction between ordinary, everyday conspiracies (among mobsters, or Watergate conspirators, or whatever) and vast conspiracies of the sort alleged by 9/11 and JFK assassination skeptics, parallels the scenarios described by commonsense or “local” forms of doubt and philosophical or “global” forms of doubt, respectively. We know that the former sorts of conspiracies occur because we trust the sources that tell us about them – news accounts, history books, reports issued by government commissions, eyewitnesses, and so forth. And there is nothing in the nature of those conspiracies that would lead us to doubt these sources. But conspiracies of the latter sort, if they were real, would undermine all such sources. And yet it is only through such sources that conspiracy theorists defend their theories in the first place. They point to isolated statements from this or that history book or government document (the Warren Report, say), to this or that allegedly anomalous claim made in a newspaper story or by an eyewitness, and build their case on a collection of such sources. But the conspiracy they posit is one so vast that they end up claiming that all such sources are suspect wherever they conflict with the conspiracy theory. Indeed, even some sources apparently supportive of the conspiracy theory are sometimes suspected of being plants subtly insinuated by the conspirators themselves, so that they might later be discredited, thereby discrediting conspiracy theorists generally. Overall, the history books, news sources, government commissions, and eyewitnesses are all taken to be in some way subject to the power of the conspirators (out of sympathy, or because of threats, or because the sources are themselves being lied to). Nothing is certain. But in that case the grounds for believing in the conspiracy in the first place are themselves uncertain. At the very least, the decision to accept some source claims and not others inevitably becomes arbitrary and question-begging, driven by belief in the conspiracy rather than providing independent support for believing in it.

Now, while “global” forms of skepticism might be fun to think about and pose interesting philosophical puzzles, it would hardly be rational to think for a moment that they might be true. Seriously to wonder whether one is a “brain in a vat,” or trapped in The Matrix, or always asleep and dreaming – not as a fantasy, not in the course of a late-night dorm room bull session, but as a live option – would be lunacy. Certainly it would make almost any further rational thought nearly impossible, because it would strip almost any inference of any rational foundation. But something similar seems to be true of conspiracy theories of the sort in question. The reason their adherents often seem to others to be paranoid and delusional is because they are committed to an epistemological position which inherently tends toward paranoia and delusion, just as a serious belief in Cartesian demons or omnipotent matrix-building mad scientists or supercomputers would. Their skepticism about the social order is so radical that it precludes the possibility of coming to any stable or justified beliefs about the social order.

Am I saying that news organizations, government commissions, and the like never lie? Of course not. I am saying that it is at the very least improbable in the extreme that they do lie or even could lie on the vast scale and in the manner in which conspiracy theorists say they do, and that it is hard to see how the belief that they do so could ever be rationally justified. But what about government agencies and news sources in totalitarian countries? Doesn’t the fact of their existence refute this claim of mine? Not at all. For citizens in totalitarian countries generally do not trust these sources in the first place. Indeed, they often treat them as something of a joke, and though they might believe some of what they are told by these sources, they are also constantly seeking out more reliable alternative sources from outside. Moreover, these citizens already know full well that their governments are doing horrible things, and many of these things are done openly anyway. Hence, we don’t have in this case anything close to a parallel to what conspiracy theorists claim happens in liberal democracies: evil things done by governments on a massive scale, of which the general population has no inkling because they generally trust the news sources and government agencies from which they get their information, and where these sources and agencies purport to be, and are generally perceived to be, independent.

On such general epistemological and social-scientific grounds, then, I maintain that conspiracy theories of the sort in question are so a priori improbable that they are not worth taking seriously. That does not mean that the specific empirical claims made by conspiracy theorists are never significant. In my college days I read a great deal about the JFK assassination case, and was even convinced for a time that there was a conspiracy involving the government. While I no longer believe that – I believe that Oswald killed Kennedy, and acted alone – I concede that there are certain pieces of evidence (e.g. the backward movement of Kennedy’s head, Ruby’s assassination of Oswald) that might lead a reasonable person who hasn’t investigated the case very deeply to doubt the “official story.” (I’ve also examined a fair amount of the 9/11 conspiracy theory material, though I must say that in this case this has only made the whole idea seem to me even more preposterous than it did initially, if that is possible. They don’t make conspiracy theorists like they used to.) But in my judgment, in the vast majority of cases the alleged “evidence” of falsehood in the “official story” is nothing of the kind, and where it is it can easily and most plausibly be accounted for in terms of the sort of bureaucratic ass-covering, incompetence, or just honest error that is common to investigations in general (whether by police, insurance companies, or whatever).

If one is going to claim more than this, then just as in these other sorts of investigations, one needs to provide some plausible alternative explanation. The “I’m just raising questions” shtick is not intellectually or morally serious, certainly not when you’re accusing people of mass murder. And given the considerations raised above, it is hard to see how conspiracy theories of the sort in question could ever be plausible alternatives.

Why, then, do people fall for these theories? Largely out of simple intellectual error. But what makes someone susceptible of this particular kind of error? That is a question I have addressed before, in a TCS Daily article which suggested that the answer has something to do with the (false) post-Enlightenment notion that science and critical thinking are of their nature in the business of unmasking received ideas, popular opinion, and common sense in general. Some readers of that article asked a good question: How does this suggestion account for the existence of conspiracy theories on the Right, which generally sees itself as upholding received ideas and common sense?

I would make two points in response. First, consider some standard examples of such right-wing conspiracy theories, such as those involving Freemasons or Communists. These can be understood in two ways. On one interpretation, the idea would be that Freemasons, Communists, or whomever, given their ideological commitments, have actively sought to get themselves and their sympathizers into positions of power and influence so as to promote and implement their ideas, and that they have done so subtly and by using duplicity. But there is nothing in this idea that conflicts with anything I’ve been saying. In particular, there is nothing in it that entails that any single massively complex event was engineered in detail by a small elite manipulating, with precision, dozens or hundreds of actors across a bewildering variety of conflicting institutions and agencies in the context of a society that is to all appearances reasonably open, all the while skillfully covering their tracks to hide their actions to all but the most devoted conspiracy theory adepts. Rather, it just involves like-minded people working systematically and deviously to further their common interests in a general way over the course of a long period of time – a phenomenon that is well-known from everyday life, and does not require belief in any radical gap between appearance and reality in the social and political worlds. In short, it does not involve belief in any “conspiracy theory” of the specific sort I’ve been criticizing.

The alternative interpretation would be that Freemasons, Communists, and the like have done more than this, that they have indeed conspired to produce individual events of the sort in question, in just the manner in question – that they conspired across national boundaries and bureaucracies to engineer World War I, say, or various stock market crashes, or whatever. Here the right-wing sort of conspiracy theory does indeed run into the problems I have been identifying, and is as a consequence just as irrational as its left-wing counterparts. And this brings me to my second point. As I said earlier, given the hegemony of liberal, post-Enlightenment ideas in modern Western society, even many conservatives can find themselves taking some of them for granted. Ironically, this sometimes includes even those conservatives most self-consciously hostile to liberal and Enlightenment ideas, namely paleoconservatives (the sort, not coincidentally, who are most likely to be drawn to conspiracy theories). And it does so, even more ironically, precisely because of their awareness of this hegemony. Because they quite understandably feel besieged on all sides by modernity, and utterly shut out of its ruling institutions, they are tempted by at least one modern, post-Enlightenment, left-wing illusion, and the most beguiling one at that: that all authority is a manifestation of a smothering, omnipotent malevolence. Like the Marxist or anarchist, they find themselves shaking their fist at the entire social order as nothing more than a mask for hidden forces of evil, and even the most absurd conspiracy theories come to seem to them to be a priori plausible.

The overall result is something eerily like the old Gnostic heresy, on which the apparently benign world of our experience is really the creation of an evil demiurge, and where this dark and hidden truth is known only to those few insiders acquainted with a special gnosis. (Into the bargain, the demiurge was often identified by the Gnostics with the God of the Jews.) For “world” read modern Western society, for “demiurge” read Freemasons, Communists, or Zionists, and for “gnosis” read the vast labyrinth of conspiracy theory literature. Alternatively, it is like the Cartesian fantasy of a malin genie who deceives us with a world of appearances that masks a hidden reality. Certainly these similarities should give any traditionalist pause; and the conspiracy theory mindset is in any event a very odd thing to try to combine with the traditional Christian anti-Gnostic emphasis on the public and open nature of truth, and the Aristotelian-Thomistic rejection of any radical Cartesian appearance/reality distinction in favor of moderation and common sense.

Anyway, if the question is how, given that (as I argue in the TCS Daily article) conspiracy theories are essentially an artifact of certain key modern, post-Enlightenment attitudes and assumptions, right-wingers could ever accept them, the answer is that here, as elsewhere, conservatives and traditionalists are too often not conservative and traditional enough.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/01/tr...y-theories.html

Let's see:

- Closes Gitmo

- Stops intelligence agencies torture practices

- Makes his administration more transparent & accountable

- Accepts that people in government have to set highers standards

- Increases accessibility for FOI requests, makes department have to prove why documents should not be released

- Says that he screwed up and he is to blame for poor choices in nominees

- Makes bailout proviso that corporate execs salaries are limited to 0.5 million

Oh yeah - this guy has NWO written all over him.

Labor's 'deafening silence' as web censorship trials delayed

Asher Moses

January 30, 2009 - 4:00PM

* Fatal flaws in website censorship plan, says report

One of the largest ISPs signed up to participate in Labor's ambitious internet censorship trials has said its application has been met with "deafening silence" from the Government, raising questions over the workability of the proposed scheme and the effectiveness of the trials.

The Government originally planned to trial the mandatory internet filters before Christmas but the timetable has been pushed back considerably and the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has still not released details of which ISPs have signed up to take part in the trials or when they will begin.

Mark White, COO of iiNet, said the ISP put in its submission to be part of the trial on December 6 and was told that the Government would come back with more details by the middle of January, but all it had heard was "deafening silence".

"I can't for a moment speculate what's going on but it certainly doesn't seem to be running as a project on time and they're certainly not communicating with the people that they need to - that is, the ISPs that have offered to test this thing," said White.

Senator Conroy - despite his promises before Labor was elected that people would be able to opt out of any internet filters - has said the first tier of the Government's censorship policy will be compulsory for all. This would block all "illegal" and "inappropriate" material, as determined in part by a secret blacklist administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

A second tier would filter out content deemed harmful for children, such as pornography, but this would be optional for internet users.

Australia's largest ISP, Telstra, and Internode have said they will not take part in the trials. The second-largest ISP, Optus, will run a scaled-back trial of just the first tier, while iiNet, the third-biggest provider, has also said it will only trial the first tier, simply to show the Government that its scheme will not work.

The Government said this week it had received 16 applications from ISPs looking to take part in the trials and more details would be available within days but the lack of participation from the major ISPs indicates that the trial participants will be small players with few users.

This may mean the trials will not provide much useful data as to the effects of internet filtering in the real-world.

Cooperation from the large ISPs has been so poor that makers of internet filtering hardware - mindful of the revenue they could generate if the internet censorship plan goes ahead - are petitioning small ISPs, offering to provide them with all the equipment they need to take part in the trials.

"I know that some vendors have been approaching ISPs and saying we're happy to support your participation in the trial and then on that basis they put in an application," said Peter Coroneos, CEO of the Internet Industry Association.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, who has long campaigned against the censorship plan, said the delays in starting the trials indicated the Government may have hit the wall of technical impossibility that the industry had been warning it about for 12 months.

"Considering the intention was to launch a live trial before Christmas, we've got a six week delay and no commitment to testing on actual people," he said.

"This isn't a great advertisement for the workability of any large scale scheme. The proposal has always been unpopular, now perhaps the Government is starting to come to grips with what the industry has been saying all along: if your policy objective is to protect children online, this is not the way to go about it."

Ludlam posed a series of questions to the Government about the web censorship scheme late last year and responses were received this month.

Asked to provide evidence to support the claimed public demand for filtered internet connections, the Government said the plan was an election commitment.

"I don't think it's good enough to refer back to an election promise that no one even knew existed ... they certainly didn't campaign on it," Senator Ludlam said.

"You get a sense of the degree of public demand by the fact that the voluntary opt-in [NetAlert] scheme [that was started by the Howard government and provided free software filters] was so barely subscribed that they closed it down."

The Government also admitted that any internet filters it would introduce could be bypassed using easily available technological tools.

And despite Senator Conroy claiming that most of the content on the ACMA blacklist was child pornography, the Government revealed that only 674 sites out of the 1370 sites currently listed related to depictions of a child under 18.

506 sites would be classified R18+ and X18+, which is legal to view in Australia but would be blocked for everyone under Labor's mandatory censorship scheme.

The policy has attracted opposition from online consumers, lobby groups, ISPs, network administrators, some children's welfare groups, the Opposition, the Greens, NSW Young Labor and even the conservative Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who famously tried to censor the chef Gordon Ramsay's swearing on television.

A recent survey by Netspace of 10,000 of the ISP's customers found 61 per cent strongly opposed mandatory internet filtering with only 6.3 per cent strongly agreeing with the policy.

An expert report, handed to the Government last February but kept secret until December after it was uncovered by the Herald, concluded the proposed scheme was fundamentally flawed.

It says the filters would slow the internet - as much as 87 per cent by some measures - be easily bypassed and would not come close to capturing all of the nasty content available online.

They would also struggle to distinguish between wanted and unwanted content, leading to legitimate sites being blocked. Entire user-generated content sites, such as YouTube and Wikipedia, could be censored over a single suspect posting.

"It's definitely not going to be workable to get a very significant reduction in access to this [unwanted] content that is available out there - it's fundamentally just not viable," said one of the report's authors, University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/...ge#contentSwap1

231 million per cent inflation: Zimbabwe dumps currency

January 30, 2009 - 9:48AM

Zimbabwe is seeking to prop up its ailing economy with foreign currency, as the United Nations warned that more than half the population needs emergency food aid.

Grim estimates show that Zimbabwe's humanitarian situation is worse than anticipated with just 6 per cent of the population employed, while nearly 7 million need emergency aid, UN agencies said.

The latest stark illustration of the once-vibrant economy's collapse came hours before acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced that Zimbabweans can now legally use foreign currencies alongside the Zimbabwe dollar.

"These currencies include the South African rand, the United States dollar, Botswana pula, euro, pound sterling among others," he said, acknowledging the country's long-established parallel forex economy.

Chinamasa was presenting a 66,500,000,000,000,000,000-Zimbabwean dollar ($3 billion) government budget in both foreign currency and the local unit, amid world-record hyperinflation last officially set at 231 million per cent.

Fees at state institutions such as hospitals and tertiary education facilities were listed in US dollars, while the country's power, water and state-run fuel utilities will also charge money in forex.

A hospital visit for an adult will cost $US8, a term at medicine school will cost $US1800 and a kilowatt of power is now charged at 98 US cents.

The country's financial ruin has added to the chronic hunger and a runaway cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 3000, faced by ordinary Zimbabweans.

Southern African leaders see a unity government as the best chance to rescue Zimbabwe and are pushing for President Robert Mugabe and rival Morgan Tsvangirai to share power by mid-February.

But the opposition has yet to decide if it will join Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga suggested on Thursday that the "dinosaur" 84-year-old should be offered a "golden handshake" to leave office.

He criticised fellow African leaders without the courage to tell Mugabe to leave and said the world should tell him "the time to go is now, we are ready to give you a golden handshake if you will quit".

Mugabe's reputation has plummeted from an African liberation hero to a despot, who has ruined his once-prosperous country.

In June the World Food Program estimated that 5.1 million Zimbabweans would need aid by this month, but the actual figure was 35 per cent higher.

"The economic situation has worsened more dramatically than we had anticipated," WFP regional spokesman Richard Lee said.

The agency is being forced to halve cereal rations given to hungry Zimbabweans so that all in need can receive aid, with food aid being distributed in every district in the country, he added.

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said on Thursday that, out of the country's 12 million people, only 480,000 have formal jobs, down from 3.6 million in 2003.

"At close of 2008, only 6 per cent of the population was formally employed, down from 30 per cent in 2003," the agency said.

Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by more than 45 per cent over the past five years, leaving half of Zimbabwe's urban population relying on remittances from friends and family overseas, the report said.

Feuding political rivals Mugabe and Tsvangirai have failed to agree on a power-sharing deal signed six months ago, after disputed elections last March in which the veteran leader suffered his first loss at the polls.

AFP

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/231000000...2818687057.html

Well, you did ask Nathaniel, and Len was able to show that your recollection was not as accurate as you thought. And I don't see where he made any accusation against "truthers" in general. A bit unfair towards Len, IMO.

Another Dave Allen:

The scene: back seat of a car in a deserted country field, late at night.

Lady (crying): " You are a beast! What's a poor girl like me to do now? What will people say? My parents are going to be devastated. They'll ask me and I won't lie! I won't lie, I tell you! They'll ask and I'll tell them how you had your wicked way with me several times."

Man: "Several? We've only done it once!"

Lady: "You are going to do again, aren't you?"

BOOM! BOOM!

Why do elephants have big ears?

Because noddy won't pay the ransom...

I still say: lets wait until his first 6 months are over, but even so I am impressed with his initial actions. IMO, it bodes well for the future.

What Len accuses me of here is false AS I CURRENTLY REMEMBER IT. I remember having some difficulty with the voting process, but AS I NOW REMEMBER IT nowhere did I accuse len of fixing the vote. Please show me before lumping me in a blanket accusation, I was once from the Show Me State.

That's a fair call, Len. Are you able to show where Nathaniel said such a thing?

You're useless with Mugabe: Carter blasts Mbeki

January 27, 2009 - 11:26AM

Thabo Mbeki has been useless as a political mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis and should step down so someone else can tell dictator Robert Mugabe to give up his rule, says former US president Jimmy Carter.

Mbeki, the former South African president, has acted as a go-between for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), an alliance of southern African nations, and pursued a policy of quiet diplomacy.

Mbeki argues confronting Mugabe could backfire.

Carter was curtly dismissive of his activity in an interview with The Associated Press, saying he was too timid.

"I think he's (Mbeki's) always been in bed with Mugabe pretty much, and pretty timid about contradicting his old friend, who was one of the first revolutionary freedom fighters who was successful in southern Africa," Carter said.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since the country won independence from Britain in 1980.

Carter disagreed with the idea that peaceful means have been exhausted in Zimbabwe and a forceful overthrow of Mugabe is needed.

South Africa's Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pushed that concept for several months.

"I don't know how a force could operate in Zimbabwe without causing the death of a lot of very innocent people," Carter said, while conceding "Tutu knows a lot more about it than I do."

Carter said a peaceful solution would require Zimbabwe's southern African neighbours, "particularly South Africa, telling 'Mugabe, you've got to step down."'

He said they should also demand "sharing authority and political power equitably with the other leaders who were actually elected last March".

Zimbabwe has been virtually without a government since last March's presidential election in which opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes.

Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), pulled out of a subsequent runoff against Mugabe because of brutal attacks on opposition supporters.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed in September to form a coalition government but have failed to agree on how to share cabinet seats and political power.

The political stalemate has distracted leaders from a growing economic and humanitarian crisis, with millions of Zimbabweans dependent on international aid groups for food and medical care and a cholera epidemic killing nearly 3,000 people and spreading to neighbouring countries.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/youre-use...2818397432.html

Cut it down to 10 lines mr cut and paste and perhaps I'll read it....

Ditto.

Wanna bill passed, luvvy? Well, first we have to talk about financial arrangements....

Well, he's given orders for Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be closed, outlawed torture by the CIA, and held his administration up to higher standards of disclosure. Not too bad for the first few days.

The only good thing I can say about Obama is that he is not Bush.

But only time will tell how controlled he is by his masters. If he should

start thinking he is really in charge it will be a repeat of 1963, but this

time accompanied by martial law.

Jack

This is an interesting position to take because no-one can ever prove you wrong.

Obama does things we don't like?

- See? I told you! His masters are pulling the strings.

Obama does excellent job?

- His masters allowed him to do this.

Regardless of what happens, you can "explain" it and it never requires any proof at all.

Hey, Senator - leave us discerning viewers of pornography alone

By Helen Razer

January 24, 2009

The famous maxim "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" was never actually uttered by Voltaire. It was the work of an upright lady named Evelyn Hall, summarising his attitudes in her book, The Friends Of Voltaire. An exacting biographer, she was aghast to find the quote misattributed. And she might rethink writing it at all in the era of the internet.

In any case, Stephen Conroy probably wouldn't let her.

In case you hadn't heard, Senator Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, will soon serve Australians a smut-free internet. Or, at the very least, he'll soon supervise the audition for his sanitised feed. Late last year he announced it on his now-defunct blog. Any day now, some of Australia's internet service providers - the companies you pay for your web access - will join in a pilot of the minister's filter.

It will defend to the death our right to be spared from digital filth.

Part of the Federal Government's cyber-safety plan, the initiative will block content blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. It is claimed the blacklist will prohibit access to child pornography - and no rational person would argue with that. Not even Evelyn Hall or Voltaire. And certainly not me.

Nonetheless, rational people are arguing with a scheme that could block anything a government authority doesn't fancy.

Last November, Conroy said the blacklist would filter child-porn sites as well as "other unwanted content". How untoward those "other" sites might be is not a matter for public discussion. The authority's list is secret.

Naturally, advocates for free speech are troubled and one might say their concerns have been answered with dogged piety. "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree," Conroy said in 2007.

According to some, this particular ministerial blogger has been nothing short of bolshie. To those who fear their speech will be stifled, or their net access slowed, he has offered a stubborn response: if you're opposed to the department's cyber-safety plan, you are opposed to the protection of children.

His evangelical logic seems lost on many, and not only civil liberties groups who are unhappy with his Reverend Lovejoy decree. Much of the IT community is adamant the clean feed will slow our connectivity. Normally moderate thinkers are horrified that we're taking cultural cues from China and North Korea. Even some child protection workers gently suggest that federal attention and funds would be better disbursed elsewhere.

Nonetheless, it remains difficult to counter the won't-someone-think-of-the-children reasoning without being branded a perve. Upright people are trying, though. They've been loud and eloquent in their censure.

It's time for the less seemly to have their say. It's time for fans of Voltaire, and his civil biographer, Miss Hall, to defend to the death the tastes of people like me. It's time to ask: "Won't someone think of the porn fans?"

I enjoy pornography. Perhaps not quite so much as I enjoy living among citizens who take an entitlement to free speech for granted. But I do like it quite a lot. And it seems that my porn is endangered.

If Conroy's clean feed works, which some tech skeptics argue that it cannot, it will prevent access to all pornography. According to the interpretation of Electronic Frontiers Australia and other advocates, the clean feed will mean that garden-variety X-rated material may not be viewed online in Australian territory. Further, R18+ content will be prohibited. And MA15+ sites hosted in Australia will probably go as well. According to the communication authority's criteria, everything saucy must go.

This will certainly save many Australian adults thousands of hours. This will possibly save a handful of unsupervised minors from harm.

But not many. As a keen internet hobbyist, I can report that one doesn't simply amble into X-rated or even R18+ material. One must actively seek it. I have become adept at this; children, presumably, have not. And if they have, clearly they are the issue of the world's most reprehensible parents and should be sent to live with Hetty Johnston forthwith.

The usefulness of the World Wide Web is threatened by Conroy. I have found the medium terribly instructive. When I am lacking culinary inspiration, I will browse a recipe database. When my writing is misfiring, I catch up with The New Yorker. And when my boudoir has become as flavourless as my writing or my food, I go to a website that propriety will not permit me to divulge.

I am very grateful for the DIY stylings of my internet teachers. And I imagine many others are grateful for the inspiration that gushes from these amateur couplings as well.

Despite the best efforts of some, there is no evidence that pornography will negatively affect me or other consenting adults.

The only lasting effect of my access to porn is a reflex giggle when the pizza delivery man knocks on my door.

Helen Razer is an author and broadcaster.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/leave-p...ge#contentSwap1

*****************

You can e-mail the Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy, Senator the Honourable Stephen Conroy at:

minister@dbcde.gov.au

Seems these "truth and justice" organisations want anything but:

Dear Steering Committee of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice,

I hereby resign my membership with Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice and respectfully demand that all information on the public web site regarding my membership status be updated to reflect this or be removed. My reasons for this decision are that the organization does not live up to its charter regarding “evidence based scientific inquiry” or democratic principles.

I have repeatedly called on the steering committee to reign in abuses by the moderator (Victoria Ashley) on the discussion forum only to be ignored. The abuses have ranged from anti-scientific censorship tactics (i.e. moving unwanted arguments to the “Debunker” sub-forum) to the banning of members who actually call others to the mat to support their spurious claims. I have repeatedly asked the steering committee to make a simple statement to the effect that ALL evidence based arguments should be permitted on the “Scientific Analysis” sub-forum.

An earlier letter to the steering committee:

Dear Friends,

I have sent the moderators at the STJ911 forum the following questions and posted them repeatedly on the forum:

1. I believe the analysis by Kuttler (WTC1) is incorrect for a number of reasons. Is it OK to post on the Scientific Analysis forum demonstrating what is wrong with this analysis?

2. Is it OK to challenge each generally accepted theory or results which I believe may be incorrect on the Scientific Analysis forum?

3. If I think that gravitational collapse is the most likely cause of the destruction of WTC1 and 2, is it OK to argue that on the Scientific Analysis forum?

No answers have been forthcoming. Considering the hundreds of hours I have put into sincere work for our cause, I believe I at least deserve answers to these questions. Any support you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Let's not let science and truth die on our watch.

Best regards,

Gregory Urich

These calls for a commitment to the scientific process have fallen on deaf ears. In all fairness, Steven Jones has supported this, but he is not on the steering committee. Actually, one steering committee member did support this and was subsequently banned from the discussion forum after repeatedly arguing my point of view.

The organization, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, is supposed to be democratic in accord with the frequently asked questions on the web site which is as close to a charter as I can find for the group:

5. "Who is in charge now, and how does the group operate?"

An elected steering committee will be in charge of the website and its contents. Currently an ad hoc committee is in place. Administrative positions will be limited to one year. Important decisions affecting the whole group will be submitted via email to the membership.

To my knowledge, the original ad-hoc committee has retained their positions for years, there have been no elections and not a single “important decision” has ever been submitted to the whole group.

Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed by the organization. In my opinion the group no longer functions in its search for truth, but has come down on the side of delusion and misinformation. I hope my resignation is a wakeup call to the steering committee and members. Justice can never be served if the truth is secondary to the movement.

Sincerely,

Gregory Urich

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=133494

An open letter to Richard Gage and AE911Truth

Dear Mr. Gage and members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth,

I am a member of AE911Truth (pending verification) and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. I have also contributed articles to the Journal of 9/11 Studies. While I appreciate the work you and others are doing to examine the events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I am concerned that many arguments

put forth are incorrect. Please don’t mistake me for a NIST apologist or an official cover-up story believer. The truth movement needs to be very sure of its claims to avoid being dismissed as ignorant fools, nut-jobs or politically motivated manipulators. Justice is clearly dependent on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because of the large number of fallacious claims purveyed by various groups within the movement, my approach has been and will continue to be to examine claims on both sides of the argument and take them at their own merit. I hope others will embrace

this approach so that the truth movement can live up to its basic values and achieve its well meaning goals.

There are clearly problems with the official story and these are well covered by truth movement. However, after spending many 100s of hours examining and discussing evidence, analyses and claims on both sides of the argument, I have found that a large portion of the truth movement’s claims are unsubstantiated or incorrect. These need to be corrected. With this in mind, I have looked at the AE911Truth claims given below and I offer criticism where I feel it can be helpful.

From AE911Truth with my comments interspersed:

”As seen in this revealing photo the Twin Towers' destruction exhibited all the characteristics of destruction by explosions: (and some non-standard characteristics)

1. Extremely rapid onset of “collapse”

The validity of this claim rests on the definition of “extremely rapid”. NIST provides evidence of growing instability 10 min prior to collapse including smoke expulsions from partial floor collapses and bowing of the exterior wall on the south side of WTC1.

2. Sounds of explosions and flashes of light witnessed near the beginning of the "collapse" by over 100 first responders

Surely, there were explosive sounds and flashes of light as there are too many witnesses to deny this. Nonetheless, the only videos of the collapses with sound do not have any explosive sounds. In the following video, one can hear people talking and the sound of the collapse. In videos of actual demolitions the explosive charges are at least ten times louder than collapse sounds. Compare:

http://www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/vi...south_below.mpg

to these actual demolitions:

This evidence directly contradicts the controlled demolition theory, at least by conventional means. Nonetheless, the witness testimonies should be taken seriously. It is possible that people heard or saw something else, for example, reflections of lights from emergency vehicles or cars exploding.

3. Squibs, or “mistimed” explosions, 40 floors below the “collapsing” building seen in all the videos

This argument would only favor controlled demolition if the pressures inside the building in a gravitational collapse are not sufficient or cannot propagate fast enough to cause the observed phenomena. To my knowledge, this has not been demonstrated.

4. Mid-air pulverization of all the 90,000 tons of concrete and steel decking, filing cabinets & 1000 people – mostly to dust

This claim is not correct and in no way favors controlled demolition over gravitational collapse. Engineers at Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (STJ911), including Greg Jenkins, Tony Szamboti and Gregory Urich, have demonstrated that the upper bound for concrete pulverized to dust was 15%. We have also calculated that the amount of dust attributable to easily crushed materials like gypsum and SFRM (thermal insulation) was equivalent to 5 lbs per square foot over an area of 200 acres. We have also calculated that no extra energy source would be needed to create this amount of dust. The pressures approached 100,000 psi late in the collapse. How could these pressures not result in humans and other materials being crushed to dust?

5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds

Is the cloud really pyroclastic, or is it just dust? Engineers at STJ911 have calculated that 15% of the concrete together with fireproofing and gypsum would result in massive volumes amounting to 10 lbs of dust per square foot over an area of 200 acres. Engineers at STJ911 have calculated that the air being expelled from the collapsing building was approaching velocities of 200 m/s. This is the primary engine driving the expanding dust clouds. The dust cloud was given even more energy from debris falling outside the perimeter.

6. Vertical progression of full building perimeter demolition waves

This is only one interpretation of the visual records of the collapses. Another interpretation is that the pressures due to impacts were blowing out the windows. The characterization as “demolition waves” has no support in the evidence or scientific analyses to date.

7. Symmetrical collapse – through the path of greatest resistance – at nearly free-fall speed — the columns gave no resistance

This is simply incorrect. Neither collapse was symmetrical. In WTC2, most debris falling outside the footprint went east and south. In WTC1, most debris falling outside the footprint went north and west. Engineers at STJ911 have calculated that the structure provided resistance to the extent that 40-60% of the original PE was dissipated prior to debris impact at the foundation.

8. 1,400 foot diameter field of equally distributed debris – outside of building footprint

This claim in no way favors CD over gravitational collapse. The size of the debris field is not surprising considering that the exteriors peeled outward (see also #10). The debris was not equally distributed.

9. Blast waves blew out windows in buildings 400 feet away

The characterization of blast waves is not supported. Since most of the broken windows were broken lower down on the surrounding buildings, the most likely cause was winds caused by the expulsion of air from the building as described in #5. The winds described above would certainly be capable of blowing in windows.

10. Lateral ejection of thousands of individual 20 - 50 ton steel beams up to 500 feet

Close inspection of some of the videos reveal that most exterior columns fell still connected as the exterior peeled outward. Since the exterior was 1400 ft. high it is not surprising that they reached 500 ft. away. In fact, there exist photos of the nearly intact exterior stretching all the way from WTC1 to the World Financial Center.

11. Total destruction of the building down to individual structural steel elements – obliterating the steel core structure.

It has not been demonstrated that this is uncharacteristic of a gravitational collapse that initiates high up in a 110 floor, high rise, tube/core structure building. Since the world has never seen such a collapse prior to or after 9/11, there are no empirical results to compare to. Often, the collapses are compared to gravitation collapses due to earthquakes resulting in pan-caking or toppling. These comparisons are not relevant to the Twin Towers because the initiation of the collapses is low in the building due to lateral forces. Nonetheless, it has been demonstrated that there was plenty of

potential energy to enable buckling of all columns at every floor. In reality, the core columns broke mostly at the welded connections every 36 ft, which takes even less energy.

12. Tons of molten Metal found by FDNY under all 3 high-rises (What could have produced all of that molten metal?)

Does any evidence for “tons of molten metal” exist? What metals comprise this molten metal? This author is only aware of witness statements regarding molten metal and only small pieces of previously molten metal. Can molten metal observed in the pile weeks after the collapse be attributed to a thermate attack weeks before? The fires in the pile would not be hot enough to ignite any unburned thermate and any thermate burning in the pile would give off a characteristic bright white light, which was not observed. If there is in fact evidence of tons (i.e. more than one ton), this is a

reasonable issue to investigate. Until this claim is supported by evidence, it cannot be considered indicative of a thermate attack.

13. Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.

I believe that this is a valid issue which should be pursued by independent researchers and NIST alike. However, there may be alternative explanations other than a preplanned demolition and these should receive at least as much attention.

14. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and inter-granular melting on structural steel samples

I believe that this is a valid issue which should be pursued by independent researchers and NIST alike. However, there may be alternative explanations other than a preplanned demolition and these should receive at least as much attention.

15. More than 1000 Bodies are unaccounted for — 700 tiny bone fragments found on top of nearby buildings”

This does not favor the CD hypothesis over the gravitational collapse hypothesis. See #4.

And exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e.

1. Slow onset with large visible deformations.

See #1 above.

2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, intact, from the point of plane impact, to the side most damaged by the fires).

Has any rigorous analysis of the “path of least resistance” been done? An application of the principle of least action would probably be more appropriate. Mechanical dynamics are governed by inertia, force, momentum and material properties. This author has seen no dynamic analyses showing that the top parts of the towers should have fallen off. Unless this argument is supported by careful analysis it is only conjecture.

3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel.

It is well proven that temperatures in building fires can soften steel. This is why buildings have thermal insulation applied to the steel structural components.

4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”.

These buildings were not structurally damaged to begin with and had different structural designs than the Twin Towers. It would be meaningful to examine whether or not the buildings, which survived serious fires, had concrete cores or not. Does any evidence exist that buildings with similar structural design, damaged in the manner of the world trade center, should not collapse due to fires?

*******

My conclusion is that there is no claim favoring the controlled demolition hypothesis over NIST’s impact/fire/gravitational collapse hypothesis. Most important, there are no tell-tale sharp cracking sounds in the sound video given above and there is no comparison between the sounds in that video

and the sounds in videos actual demolitions. This means we can rule out demolition using conventional means.

I hope that your commitment to the truth is such that you take my criticisms seriously. If the truth movement is going to be successful, we will need to distance ourselves from fallacious claims and avoid conjecture. I would welcome constructive discussion of these issues in any forum. I am

regularly available on the STJ911 and JREF forums, and you have my e-mail address.

Sincerely,

Gregory Urich

P.S. Some wordings have been changed for clarity and small errors have been corrected in this published version.

http://www.cool-places.0catch.com/911/Open...RichardGage.pdf

The problem is that he seems too religious, although he might be capable of overcoming that handicap.

I'm wondering about that. I get the impression that every US politician has to be "god fearing" or they won't be elected. Perhaps he just seems to be that way, to placate the religious right?

Charles, to me you act like a barnyard rooster, strutting about and crowing whilst not producing anything.

If he's wrong, then prove him wrong. For someone like me, who is ignorant of much of the JFK era, you do nothing to show where / why he is wrong (and he well may be); all you do is appear to be a pompous ass that avoids debate.

Show me why I should believe you and not him!