Defense official: Israel readying for attack on Iran

Wow. I saw this link over at the Europe blog, and it turns out it's from the Israeli paper Hareetz. This is a very disturbing development, and I think that the fact that it's coming out of Israel lends to its credibility. Not surprisingly, we are hearing nothing about this in the MSM. You can check out the other links concerning a possible attack on Iran on the Europe site.
Here's the Hareetz article:

Defense official: Israel readying for attack on Iran
By Amos Harel, Anshel Pfeffer and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Israel's recent deployment of warships across the Red Sea should be seen as serious preparation for an attack on Iran, an Israeli defense official told the Times of London on Thursday.
"This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats," the official was quoted as saying.
Earlier this week, two Israel Navy gunboats openly sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.
The ships that passed through the Suez Canal on Tuesday were two Sa'ar 5 gunboats, the Hanit and the Eilat. This follows a similar incident in late June, when an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine passed through the canal, later returning the same way.
The move, apparently coordinated with Egypt, is seen as a warning message to Middle Eastern radicals, first and foremost Iran.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit confirmed the crossings and said that Cairo's agreements with Jerusalem permit Israeli military ships to transit the canal. He declined to speculate on whether the voyage was meant as a warning to Iran or anyone else.
While Israeli naval ships have gone through Suez before, the last such occurrence was at least a year ago.
An Israeli diplomat told the Times that Israel's has been bolstering its ties with certain Arab nations just as wary of the Iranian nuclear threat. In particular, the diplomat cited a "shared mutual distrust of Iran" between Israel and Egypt.
Though neither side says so publicly, there is ongoing security coordination between Israel and Egypt, which could be expanded if necessary in the future.
Israel has an interest in a naval presence in the Red Sea for two reasons: the effort to halt arms smuggling from Iran to the Gaza Strip - which, according to international media reports, mainly takes place by sea from Iran to Sudan, and then overland via Egypt, and the effort to bolster its deterrence against Iran in the event of a direct conflict breaking out.
See original here.

The story of Jan

I've been scanning lots of archival material onto my computer lately, and trying to re-acquaint myself with the very old stories on all those pages. This is material I copied while in the Mormon Church's large main library in Salt Lake City. Since you can't check out any of these reference volumes, you end up doing a lot of photocopying!
Anyway, the following is an interesting historical account of someone whose life definitely had some ups and downs. (Note: I don't think anyone uses the phrase "Mohammedan" for Muslim anymore!)

1607
Jan Janse, a Dutch sailor, had a son, Anthony Jansen, born this year in Cartagena, Spain. The family, with a second son and daughter, later lived at Haarlem, Holland.

1618
While on a trading mission at the Island of Langarote in the Canaries, Jan Janse was captured by pirates, taken to Algiers and forced into slavery. Jan was offered the choice of continuing to be a Christian slave and be castrated or forswear his religion and become a Mohammedan (!) Jan became a Mohammedan and later a famous pirate captain working out of Salee, Fez and Vaas, Morocco. Jan had a winning way and it is believed for political reasons he married a second wife, a Mohammedan lady said to be a daughter or granddaughter of Muley Zidan, the Sultan of Morocco from 1608 until his death in 1627. Jan Janse became the Admiral of Muley Zidan's fleet and Admiral Jan's son, Anthony, joined him at age 15 at Salee.

1627 ("Republic of Selee", promounced "Sally'l)
There was by now much political change and worst of all famine. Early in September the naturally protected port city of Salee formed the "Republic of Salee". It had originally been founded by pirates of Carthage (Jan's old stomping ground) to trade in gold and slaves. There were, however, some reservations in the "Republic” as it had to send Zidan some slaves each year to show his superiority. A town on the other side of the bay where the Kasbah is located originally known as “New Salee", is now RABAT.

His Majesty Moulay Zidan died September 20th, some say of the pest, others say by assassination. By 1629 horrors turned to pestilence forcing thousands to flee. Great numbers of Moors and Jews died of starvation and our Admiral Jan Janse sent his son Anthony, the other son and a daughter who had come to visit all back to Holland. Since Jan was now a man of enormous wealth it is believed he sent them back loaded with gold. Jan also had other children by his second wife in Morocco; it is believed at least another daughter and two more sons, one named Philip and one Abraham. As time went on conditions improved and Jan was responsible for much civic improvement in Salee and also continued loyalty to the succeeding Sultan, Moulay Abd el-Malek. An additional title was given him, Governor of Salee, and his living quarters the castle EI-oualidia.

The last reference found of Jan Janse van Haarlem, alias Morat Rais, the Caid Morato, was in 1641. He was a man of commanding appearance, great ability, authority and charm. It took all this to be able to control a group of renegade pirate captains, to treat and to form friendships with the envoys from the European countries and finally to gain and retain the devotion of the Sultans. At all times Jon had maintained good political relations with the Dutch officials….

Jan is one of my direct ancestors. From the account here, it's clear he had children with his moslem wife. So the descendants of that union would be related to me, also. I wonder what the odds are of locating any of those descendants? I think it would be great to find at least one of them! I'm curious as to whether there are any surviving local records that far back in Morocco. I guess it'll depend on if they had any General "shitwad" Sherman types who swept through the region, torching everything in sight - like what happened here in the south (#&@%#*@^$ !).

Bite us, Emmy...


I noticed that the Emmy Awards once again ignored an interesting vampire story - this time it was True Blood that was snubbed for the major award categories. In spite of the fact that Anna Pacquin won a Golden Globe for her role on the show as Sookie. Which makes it even more odd.
According to an article in today's AP,
"The HBO vampire drama has only in recent weeks broken out as a hit (??). The first three episodes of its second season have earned high ratings and brought claims of a rebound from HBO after a cold spell.
"True Blood" earned nominations for art direction, casting and title design, but failed in the larger categories of drama series or best actress - for Anna Paquin. She won a Golden Globe for her performance on "True Blood" earlier this year.
Paquin was also overlooked for best actress in a movie or miniseries, having starred in CBS' movie "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler."
"I wish Anna Paquin had been nominated. Her performance is just stunning," said her co-star Marcia Gay Harden, who was nominated for supporting actress in a miniseries or movie.
"True Blood" can at least expect its chances to be better next year, when its second season has run entirely..."

Whatever. My theory - and this may be totally whacked - but I think that television industry bigwigs are afraid of attacks by the religious right for spotlighting "occult" type programming . The networks are constantly getting letters from fundamentalist Christian groups that become apoplectic and rabid at any mention of magic, wizardry, witches, demons, vampires, etc. That much is a fact. It's not really a leap to conclude that networks and closely-related industries are sensitized to that pressure. It's perfectly ridiculous of course, but that's how this industry works. Only the most dull-witted of the ass-kissing conformists, those with a repertoire of utterly predictable, formulaic paplum, rise to the decision maker level in corporate Hollywood. You know, like government!
And like government, they seem to have no such squeamishness about torture and butchery, ala Dexter, 24, etc. Just that wicked "supernatural" content. Gawd. What stupid, tasteless fucks.

Sanford's "Appalachian Trail hike" may have cost SC jobs

From the WTF is it NOW?! Blog:
Sanctimonious reboob Mark Sanford not only screwed his mistress, his long-suffering wife and his children, but also his home state.

The governor allowed some economic development initiatives to take a back seat {Heh - Ed.} during his secret trip to Porkville. Sanford was invited to — but turned down — a dinner invitation June 24 with representatives from a company looking to expand its S.C. operation, according to e-mail records. Sanford also declined a June 25 celebration event for a plant expansion by a S.C. business because his schedule was "just absolutely jammed this summer," wrote a staffer in an e-mail.

He was "jammed" all right. ** snicker **

In the midst of a hot adulterous bone-fest, he left his ... ahem ... staff to panic when they couldn't contact their boss:

Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, called the governor’s cell phones 15 times during the homewreaking horndog’s secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover last month. But the governor never picked up.

Not the phone, anyway.... Read the rest.

Will People on Long Space Missions Inevitably Kill Each Other?

I guess that'll depend on how many times someone uses the last of the toilet paper without putting on a new roll! Seriously, I'd give myself about 21 days before claustrophobia, hyperactivity, and pms combined in a perfect storm of stress-induced homicide...

From io9:














For 105 days, 4 Russians and 2 Europeans holed up in isolation in Moscow, to see if they could survive a mission to Mars without killing one another in frustration, while American scientists watched. Tomorrow, they'll be freed.

The experiment was designed to see if the crew could conduct experiments and deal with stressful situations they might experience, including emergencies and communication delays. No murderous computers were involved. The American scientists running the experiment forced their counterparts to endure sleep deprivation, monitored their interactions with Mission Control, and then looked at how stress and fatigue impacted the performance of their duties.

The scientists running the experiment consider it a great opportunity. Said project leader Charles A. Czeislder, who worked on the project, "We've done experiments in the sleep lab to test the efficacy of lighting interventions, but that is a highly controlled environment. By transitioning studies into an operational environment, like the 105-Day Mission, we have the opportunity to learn how to best deploy interventions in a realistic mission setting. This analog is a great intermediate step before implementation on an actual spaceflight". See the rest at io9.

Final Words from George Carlin

The AP reported today that George Carlin's book "Last Words" will be published in November. Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, is publishing the book. "Last Words" is the end product of a 10-year collaboration with author and noted humorist Tony Hendra. You may be familiar with Hendra's best known work, a memoir titled "Father Joe."
Carlin died in June 2008 at age 71. His other two published books are "Brain Droppings" and "Napalm and Silly Putty."

Has the Fed Backed Itself into a Corner?

If you followed the Glenn Greenwald link posted here on 7/14, you might recall seeing this point in an update:
..Back in September, the Federal Reserve allowed Goldman (and a few other surviving institutions) to convert from an investment bank into a bank holding company. The Wall St. Journal claimed at the time that the move meant the firm would "come under the close supervision of national bank regulators, subjecting them to new capital requirements, additional oversight, and far less profitability than they have historically enjoyed." A mere nine months later, Goldman boasts of "blowout profits." So much for "less profitability." As for allegedly greater regulations and capital restrictions, they freely admitted from the start: "'We don't believe we'll have to get out of any businesses,' says Lucas van Praag, a Goldman spokesman. Adds Morgan Stanley's Mark Lake, 'There will not be much in terms of divestitures'."
But what the conversion did allow was access to lending from the Federal Reserve. Since then, the Fed has increased its balance sheet by $2 trillion while steadfastly refusing to disclose the beneficiaries of that credit. Thus, even aside from the bailout money it directly received and the billions in bailout money which it indirectly received (through AIG), Goldman has had access to massive amounts of Fed lending in order to fuel its bulging profits. That unimaginably enormous (though entirely secret) lending is, in part, what is behind the Ron Paul-sponsored bill to audit the Fed -- a bill that is now co-sponsored by a majority of House members from across the political spectrum (progressive, conservative and everything in between), yet which continues to be blocked by Congressional leaders from receiving a floor vote.
-Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

The following by Mike Whitney expands on that point and its significance, using an example that's easy to understand.

Maestro's Revenge: Has the Fed Back itself into a Corner?
By Mike Whitney, Smirking Chimp

Here's the rundown along with a short explanation of where things stand right now.
Imagine you bought a home in the Bay Area (SF) in 2000 for $300,000 with 10% down payment. By the peak of the bubble, the price of that house doubled to $600,000 market value. But (like most homeowners during that period) you withdrew $20,000 dollars per year in equity to buy the wife a new Prius and an jet-ski for yourself. All told, you owed roughly $400,000 on the home. ($270,000 mortgage and $130,000 equity withdrawals)

Then the market tanked.
Prices dropped 45% in your area, so the house was now worth $270,000. Ouch. So now you're $130,000 underwater and the bank is calling in the loan on the Prius and the jet ski. What do you do?

Well, if you could convert yourself into a bank or financial institution, then you could take out a low-interest loan at one of the Fed's lending facilities for the peak value of your home; $600,000. Then, when the loan comes due, you roll it over again and again and again at no extra charge so that you continue to have operating capital to run your business, and enough extra cash to dabble in the stock market. In fact, this is exactly why the S&P 500 has skyrocketed in the last 4 months gaining 40 percent from its March 9 low. The Fed's money is leeching into stocks even while personal consumption flags, manufacturing teeters, and unemployment zooms to a 25 year high of 9.5 percent. Go figure?

The Fed's loans and other commitments now amount to a whopping $12.8 trillion. Bernanke has underwritten the whole crumbling financial system and kept the prices of and $5 or $6 trillion of mortgage-backed garbage artificially high. It's the same as Uncle Sam mailing out checks to every homeowner for the equity they lost after the bubble popped--only worse--because however dreadful the housing market is; some homes are still selling. That's not the case with toxic assets and mortgage-backed bonds. Investors are avoiding these stinkers like the plague. No one wants them. And, besides, the banks CAN'T sell them, because if they sold them at their true value (roughly $.30 on the dollar) they'd be wiped out and forced into bankruptcy. That's why the charade continues to go on with no end in sight.
Rest of article here.

The events preceding Goldman Sachs' new "blowout profits"

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

Remember all of this -- the $700 billion bank bailout, the AIG scandal, dark and scary threats of imminent global meltdown if there wasn't full-scale capitulation by the citizenry to the immense transfer of public wealth to the private investment banking sector? Such distant, hazy memories: so many exciting celebrity deaths and riveting celebrity resignations ago. If sequences of events like these don't cause mass citizen outrage, then it's hard to imagine what will:
See the rest at Salon.com, including the updates.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

From Democracy Now:
Report: CIA Had Secret Assassination Plan (Now there's a surprise!)
The CIA is also coming under increasing criticism for failing to inform Congress about a highly classified targeted assassination program started by the CIA after Sept. 11. According to the Wall Street Journal, the program focused on the CIA’s attempt to capture or assassinate terrorists. The Journal reports the CIA spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts even though the Ford administration had banned assassinations in the 1970s. Congress only learned about the program last month when President Obama’s CIA Director Leon Panetta ended the initiative. Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared on Fox News Sunday. She didn’t describe the program but confirmed reports that Vice President Dick Cheney had ordered the CIA to withhold information about the program from Congress.
Dianne Feinstein: “The answer is yes, Congress should have been told. We should have been briefed before the commencement of this kind of sensitive program. Director Panetta did brief us two weeks ago, I believe it was on the 24th of June, said he had just learned about the program, described it to us, indicated that he had canceled it and, as had been reported, did tell us that he was told that the Vice President had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress.”
This does not mark the first time the Bush administration has been accused of carrying out targeted assassinations. Earlier this year investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said publicly the Bush administration ran an executive assassination ring that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Seymour Hersh: “Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination wing, essentially. And it’s been going on and on and on. And just today in the Times there was a story saying that its leader, a three-star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to certain activities because there were so many collateral deaths. It’s been going in—under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.”
According to Hersh, the program was carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. The former head of JSOC, Stanley McChrystal, is now Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan.

Gov’t Report: Bush Surveillance Program Was “Unprecedented”
In other intelligence news, a government report released Friday found that the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went well beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program. The report called the surveillance program “unprecedented” and questioned its legal justification. The report also raised questions about the effectiveness of the surveillance operation. Some CIA officials complained that much of the data from the program was “vague and out of context,” so they turned to other information sources. The report was compiled at the request of Congress by five government agency watchdogs: the inspectors general of the Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, Directorate of National Intelligence and National Security Agency. More than 200 top officials and front-line agents in defense and intelligence agencies were interviewed for the report, but several top Bush administration officials refused to speak, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Justice Department attorney John Yoo, former CIA Director George Tenet, and David Addington, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney.
More at Democracy Now!

Heath Ledger on a break during a 2000 photo shoot by Vanity Fair.

Shit, I coulda told ya that!

Stub your toe? Say ‘Sh#!’ You’ll feel better
Shouting swear words has a powerful pain-killing effect, study shows








From MSNBC:
By Linda Carroll
msnbc.com contributor

Peggy Loper doesn’t know why, but she’s sure that the rapid hissed repetition of her favorite expletive somehow dulls the pain when she’s hammered her thumb rather than the nail she’d aimed for.

“Generally I start swearing even before the pain actually registers,” says the 48-year-old student from Salem, N.J. “And usually, the ouch-ouch dance, where I’m hopping from foot to foot, goes along with it. People have told me that I should try deep breathing, but I personally prefer to swear.” The F-bomb is her curse word of choice; that hard consonant at the end is particularly satisfying, she explains.

As it turns out, Loper may be right. British scientists have shown that swear words can have a powerful pain-killing effect, according to a new study published in the journal NeuroReport.
The researchers originally thought that swearing would make pain worse by focusing a person’s attention on the injury and its implications. To prove their hypothesis, they set up an experiment with 67 college students.

The students were asked to plunge their hands into frigid 41-degree Fahrenheit water for as long as they could stand the pain. Half were told to repeat their favorite curse word while their hands were submerged. The other half were asked to repeat a neutral word describing a table, such as solid or brown, while keeping their hands under water. Then the whole experiment was repeated with the two groups switching types of word. (Favorite swear words were, as you might guess, the ones starting with "F" and "S." But since the subjects were British, the researchers also got an earful of "bollocks.")

To the researchers’ surprise, the cursing group not only reported lower levels of pain, but also were able to keep their hands in the icy water longer. The men in the study, for example, were able to keep their hands in the water for an average of 190 seconds while swearing, but for only 140 seconds when uttering a neutral word.
Rest of article.

Israeli Violence Continues in the West Bank

Israeli settlers set fire and destroy 37 Acers of Palestinian owned land in southern W.B
Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

Monday July 13, 2009

Israeli settlers set fire and destroyed Palestinian owned lands on Monday that belongs to villagers of Saffa near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

The damaged 37 Acers had olive trees, grab vines, the farmers said. They added that the settlers came from the nearby illegal settlement of Biet Ein.

Mohamed Awwad, from the Palestinian Solidarity campaign, told reporters that the Israeli military stopped fire fighter brigades from reaching the lands to stop the fire.

Awwad added that the military allowed the Israeli fire fighter brigades to start stopping the fire when it got close to the settlement which caused great losses for the Palestinian farmers.

Local sources said that the fire is still burning near the settlement after it destroyed 37 Acers of farmers' lands.

See original here.

I'm sitting here waiting for the AT&T tech to arrive and repair the DSL line, but all I can think about is the vet visit I have coming up this afternoon. I'll be taking Goober, a cat I was given several years ago when he was just a kitten. He was supposed to be a temporary foster, but like other cats I care for/end up with, his person was not able to come back for him, or his siblings. I had taken them in so she could enter a DV shelter, and she wanted to get the kitties out of the abusive situation, also.
Sometimes life feels overwhelming and out of control for victims of abuse, and I understand that. I'm just glad she got herself and the kitties out of there, and wherever she is, I wish her well. I think she knew I would have never dumped her kitties at the pound. Besides, I fell in love with them (as usual!). Goober is the sweetest, most loving kitty you could imagine. He got his name because he was such a silly, playful little goober who always made me laugh, and who could be counted on to snuggle under my hair and give me little kitty kisses. It was definitely a mutual love-fest from the get-go!
Goober is now at the end stage of Feline Leukemia, and the time has come where the right thing to do is to help him leave this world. He is ready, but I am not. I'm never, ever ready for this, and the lump in my throat feels like a tennis ball. But it's not about me, it's about him, and what he would choose for himself if he could. I believe he is telling me this, with every means of communication that he has. He is trusting me to help him - because he knows I love him dearly, knows I am his ally and protector, no matter what.
So somehow I have to get myself together, and get him ready for this last visit to the vet. I need to be his loving friend one more time.
Gotta go.