Summary Execution by US Forces: Iraq (2006)

via wikileaks

The cable excerpts a letter written by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, addressed to then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. American troops approached the home of Faiz Harrat Al-Majma’ee, a farmer living in central Iraq, to conduct a house raid in search of insurgents in March of 2006.

“It would appear that when the MNF [Multinational Forces] approached the house,” Alston wrote, “shots were fired from it and a confrontation ensued” before the “troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, (aged 28), his wife Sumay’ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther (aged 24), their three children Hawra’a (aged 5) Aisha ( aged 3) and Husam (5 months old), Faiz’s mother Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali (aged 74), Faiz’s sister (name unknown), Faiz’s nieces Asma’a Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 5 years old), and Usama Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 3 years), and a visiting relative Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi (aged 23) were killed during the raid.

Alston’s letter reveals that a US airstrike was launched on the house presumably to destroy the evidence, but that “autopsies carried out at the Tikrit Hospital’s morgue revealed that all corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed.”

The Horror of Diamonds

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life.

Process

• The diamond market had to be further restructured in the mid-1960s to accomodate a surfeit of minute diamonds, which De Beers undertook to market for the Soviets. Almost all of the Soviet diamonds were under half a carat in their uncut form, and there was no ready retail outlet for millions of such tiny diamonds.

• DeBeers devised the "eternity ring," made up of as many as twenty-five tiny Soviet diamonds, which could be sold to an entirely new market of older married women. The advertising campaign was based on the theme of recaptured love. Again, sentiments were born out of necessity: older American women received a ring of miniature diamonds because of the needs of a South African corporation to accommodate the Soviet Union.

• By the mid-1970s, the advertising campaign for smaller diamonds was beginning to seem too successful. In its 1978 strategy report, N. W. Ayer said, "a supply problem has developed ... that has had a significant effect on diamond pricing"—a problem caused by the long-term campaign to stimulate the sale of small diamonds.

• "In fact, this [campaign] will be the exact opposite of the small stone informative program that ran from 1965 to 1970 that popularized the 'beauty in miniature' concept...."

The Atlantic

Trace is Not a Talker

I love this post. Perfect balance of fact and limited bitterness, as Trace & Kristin depart one project for a new one

My sobriety factors very heavily in this move as does my desire to be less accountable and responsible to an increasingly distant and foreign collective. A strong sense of misplaced entitlement pervades that place, which is something that I cannot support in any way. Living rent free while someone else carries the financial water is not anarchist, not friendly and not nice. The others may argue that this isn’t the case, but all I have to do is read through old emails and bank records to see how things went down, get a glimpse of what should have been some serious red flags and see that I made many mistakes in making a path for this coddled land project.

Cricketbread

Libya Disaster Capitalism. Not a Surprise.

No time was wasted by the imperialist interventionists, more commonly known as NATO. Soon after the capture of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizya compound, his main base in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the military aggressors announced their interest in rebuilding the very same country they nearly demolished, all in the name of democracy, or in financial terms, unrestricted free market access for selected foreign companies.

Has the West eagerly been looking for a new Iraq to help avert its own downfall?

Press TV

Andre Pejic: Moving Beyond Gender

More repressive desublimation?

"Though he may not exactly bristle at the gender distinctions made by others, he does question their underlying assumptions. “In this society, if a man is called a woman, that’s the biggest insult he could get.” He arches his eyebrows skeptically and asks, “Is that because women are considered something less?” Later, he tells me, “I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, ‘I’m a boy, but I wear makeup sometimes.’ But, you know, to me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really have that sort of strong gender identity—I identify as what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing purposes, it’s just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn money.”

Androgyny has been a selling point in the fashion world at least since Coco Chanel jettisoned corsets in favor of sailor suits, but it’s always been a trickier, and more sexualized, endeavor with men. In the sixties, April Ashley’s career was destroyed when she was discovered to be a transsexual. Since then, there has generally been a level of campiness to men who modeled as women: Teri Toye, Connie Girl, and Candy Darling, Andy Warhol’s transgendered muse, all had a quality Pejic refers to as “We’re fabulous; fuck off” and which he views as less progressive ­because it drew attention to gender rather than moving beyond it. What he and others like the transsexual runway model Lea T (who was in a recent Riccardo Tisci campaign for Givenchy) are doing is sidestepping the gender issue altogether by not only passing as women but even managing to be a more ideal version of the impossibly hipless and curveless women the fashion industry fetishizes. Designers can use them and feel progressive without having to actually challenge the aesthetic norm.

Source

WTF Has Obama Done

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

Alpha Lipoic Acid: The Diddy

Some nutrients have specific roles, while others are so versatile that they defy classification. It is like entertainers. The Game is a rapper, but Diddy, on the other hand, is a rapper, producer, actor and apparel designer. Think of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) as the Diddy of supplements.

Source

Today I are mostly thinking about Meconium

Meconium is the earliest stools of an infant. Unlike later feces, meconium is composed of materials ingested during the time the infant spends in the uterus: intestinal epithelial cells, lanugo, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile, and water. Meconium is almost sterile,^[1] unlike later feces, is viscous and sticky like tar, and has no odor. It should be completely passed by the end of the first few days of life, with the stools progressing toward yellow (digested milk). The term Meconium derives from meconium-arion, meaning "opium-like", in reference either to its tarry appearance or to Aristotle's belief that it induces sleep in the fetus.^[2]

Wikipedia.

film series

http://crimethinc.com/movies/

Civil unrest, re: dinner conversation

Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2009

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6851

In the wake of this week's London riots, some commentators have linked the youth unrest to budget cuts. The authors of CEPR DP8513 explore the historical basis for this view and find that austerity and violence have tended to go hand in hand.

Does fiscal consolidation lead to social unrest? From the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1930s to anti-government demonstrations in Greece in 2010-11, austerity has tended to go hand in hand with politically motivated violence and social instability. In this paper, we assemble cross- country evidence for the period 1919 to the present, and examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear positive correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship simply reflects economic downturns, and conclude that this is not the key factor. We also analyse interactions with various economic and political variables. While autocracies and democracies show a broadly similar responses to budget cuts, countries with more constraints on the executive are less likely to see unrest as a result of austerity measures. Growing media penetration does not lead to a stronger effect of cut-backs on the level of unrest.

Strauss Kahn, you son of a bitch

Empleada que acusó a Strauss-Kahn sí fue violada, según el informe médico
Llorosa, Diallo dio a los médicos más detalles de esa agresión, que están contenidos en el informe. “Un hombre desnudo con el pelo blanco cerró la puerta y la empujó encima de la cama” en un primer momento, para posteriormente agredirla al fondo del pasillo, donde tocó “la parte exterior de su zona vaginal” e “introdujo su pene en la boca agarrándola del pelo”.
La última página del informe médico describe la zona vaginal de la paciente, donde se señala la presencia de un traumatismo en la parte posterior, además de indicar que la zona estaba enrojecida.
El comercio

McDonald's + Fake Food

From this article on self-regulation in the food industry comes a gem:

Forty percent of McDonald’s advertising budget is spent on marketing to kids.

Fancy th(is) -

Most medical professionals and health care decision makers say that we could make substantial gains in public health, and save lots of money if we addressed the social determinants of health more consistently and systematically.

Any connection??

Birth Control by Law

Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for health care as well as social mores.

The requirement is part of a broad expansion of coverage for women's preventive care under President Barack Obama's health care law. Also to be covered without copays are breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer and for diabetes during pregnancy, counseling on domestic violence, and other services.

"These historic guidelines are based on science and existing (medical) literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Yahoo

Nothing but good news today

This deal, according to Paul Krugman, is called "The President Surrenders."

The deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Also:

What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.

Source

Appalling, Outrageous

Free speech in Israel was dealt a severe blow this month when the country’s Parliament passed antiboycott legislation that targets individuals or organizations publicly calling for a boycott against Israel or any area under its control.

Because I believe in ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, equal rights for Palestinians and Jews, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees forced from their homes and lands in 1948, I support boycotting — and calling on others to boycott — all Israeli companies that help perpetuate these injustices.

But this new legal limit on free speech could bankrupt me.

Israeli officials will not throw me in jail for publicly supporting such boycotts, but settler groups can claim financial damages without even having to show any harm done. Furthermore, organizations supporting boycotts could be denied tax-deductible contributions and state funding.

Source

Kind of a Shame

Juliette Binoche in the Guardian -

In the past, Binoche has said she prefers working with independent auteurs – Kiarostami; Krzysztof Kieślowski; Michael Haneke – rather than Hollywood directors owing to her frustration with the way mainstream American films depict women. When I ask about this, she gives an exasperated sigh.

"That's a very old question for me," she says. "That's a very old way of thinking."

But what about the fact that we still see so few women, especially over the age of 40 – Binoche is 47 – in leading roles? She interrupts, raising her voice. "That debate has been there for ages! It's boring! We're kind of feeding this thought in talking about it. If we talk about something else, people will think differently, and we'll change it. Because we're responsible, as women – journalist, actress, whoever – just to move on."

Does she consider herself a feminist? "No," she says. "Aware of my feminine and masculine parts, sure. [But that term] just puts people in a stereotyped way of thinking. I think creation and doing, being active, is more important than talking about it."

Anarchy for the UK

What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin's anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately.

Guardian