This is kinda nuts. Where do the masterminds think their control extends to? just because Al supposedly attributed the invention of the Internet to himself (or an American agency) that makes them think that they can demand the key to it all? I'm sure that the answer to this demand form the community as a whole, especially the EU and major Asian countries is going to be a resounding "NOT!" as well it should be. The internet is a remarkable forum which levels the playing field of information and idea exchange in a way that has never been seen before. The internet is almost Marxian in the manner in which it equalizes all of the content contained in and carried over it--maybe that's what drives all the power mongers batty...
Winter is officially over here in Southeast Texas. the first rainstorms followed by stifling humidity followed by more rain and harmonic Toad croaking was experienced today and is continuing through tonight...
Calling all movie buffs: what unearthed/withheld treasures await our viewing pleasures at the whim of bunt out desensitized movie executives whose only concern is the protection of the studio (read corporate) interests? This calls to mind a quote from Derek Dick, aka Fish, lead singer for the Scottish band Marillion, on the answer to a query about piles of demo tapes he saw in a record company exec's office during a meeting that came from the indifferent exec:
"Oh those, they're just demos that we've gotten from some bands."
The haphazard way that the exec referred to them and the way that they were stacked in an offhand way infuriated Fish, knowing how much effort had to have gone into making the Demos (this was back in the '80's, when computer studios were an inconceivable notion...) and that the demos were the bands ultimate shot at landing some, any kind of touring/recording deal, and that the record companies thrived on the desperation of such bands to make the ludicrous amounts of money that they were able to squeeze out of hardworking talented bands before the age of digital online music sucked all the wind out of their sails before they knew what had happened to them... That pretty much sums up my thoughts about all these unreleased titles...
I just realized that I'm crossing the century mark with this blog (counting the myspace blogs). Hooray for perseverance, I guess. The overactive brain takes a bow...
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
The fence is too rotten to support my weight
My last post highlighting commentary by Kagro X might lead some to the conclusion that I am of the opinion that the resolutions to end the Occupation of Iraq that were passed by the House and Senate were the best legislation for the job.
This is not so.
While the bills in question do call for a withdrawal by a named date in 2008, they also allocate $20b more than the Shrub requested for 2008, and they provide for an additional $50b for military operations in 2009.
Arthur has written about this disappointing, maddening turn of events here, citing powerful commentary by Matt Taibbi:
As for everyone else -- specifically, the Democrats who sponsored and passed the timetable measure -- they benefited from the bill most directly, riding a crest of antiwar sentiment and setting the Democrats up as the party that will look the best in the eyes of frustrated, war-fatigued voters in 2008. But lost amid all of this antiwar posturing were a series of inconvenient truths. One was that the bill was always going to be meaningless because Bush was always going to veto it, there were never going to be enough votes to override the veto, and everybody knew there were never going to be enough votes to override the veto. The second is that the timetable measure was buried in an emergency spending bill to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bill that ended up authorizing $122 billion in spending when the supposedly evil, warmongering, politically isolated Bush White House only asked for $103 billion. In other words, the outwardly combative Democratic leadership not only refused to do anything substantive to bring the troops home, it actually tossed Bush an extra $20 billion or for the war effort without prodding.
In my visits to Washington in the past few months I've heard different stories from Democratic congressional aides about what the party's intentions are. Some say they think the leadership is just going to stall and pass a bunch of non-binding, symbolic, Kumbayah horseshit to help propel whoever the Democratic candidate is into the White House two years from now. Others claim with a straight face that all of these non-binding resolutions are only a start, that the strategy is to really end the war via a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of legislative grind, with the leadership sending to the floor bill after bill after bill designed to eat away at either war policy or war funding. They claim that all of these votes are exercises in coalition-building, necessary steps to gathering the support needed to pass real biting measures later on.
Dave Lindorff:
Despite polls showing that 6 in 10 Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq asap, the best that this crew can come up with is a call-not binding, or course-for the president to pull out the troops by next spring or even summer. That would be over a year from now, and more than five years (!) into this criminal and incredibly stupid war.
At the rate things have been going, it would also be perhaps 1000 more dead Americans, 14,000 more gravely wounded Americans, and 100-150,000 more dead Iraqis later.
This is not exactly the legacy I thought we had stumbled upon last November. More and more I'm coming to realize that Arthur's thoughts on the Democrat's predilection for imperialistic policies dating back to Woodrow Wilson (which are in many ways worse than those of Republicans--mainly because they are much more competent about executing those policies and achieving maximum results):
In effect, Democrats (and many liberal and progressive bloggers) would have you believe that something like the Iraq disaster would never occur if the Democrats were in charge.
This is flatly false. It is a lie offered for the least admirable and most petty of ignoble partisan motives. The Democrats would have you forget Woodrow Wilson and World War I, and the century of conflict to which our entrance into that war led (and the effects of which still play out in the Middle East and beyond today); they would have you forget Vietnam, which parallels the Iraq catastrophe in ways beyond counting -- and they would have you forget the Balkans and Kosovo.
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that there aren't any candidates out there who will be around after the primaries worth even considering, and yet one of them will be in the White House trying to figure out the next chapter in this whole sordid mess on 1/20/09. How far the conflaguration has spread by then God only knows, and even that entity may have averted its eyes from the mess we may have made of things by then.
UPDATE 31 MAR 07:
In an interview with Think Progress Mike Gravel has plenty to say about this:
I think it’s ridiculous legislation. Truthfully, truthfully. Here, when they’re talking about getting out of Iraq next year, what about the people that die between now and then when they know they’re going to get out? What about the families of those people that going to get killed between now and then? We need to get out now.
A year from now isn’t going to make it any better. And I have my suspicions that — whether Democrats or Republicans — they’re not going to get out of Iraq, even after the election. I don’t care who’s elected.
This is not so.
While the bills in question do call for a withdrawal by a named date in 2008, they also allocate $20b more than the Shrub requested for 2008, and they provide for an additional $50b for military operations in 2009.
Arthur has written about this disappointing, maddening turn of events here, citing powerful commentary by Matt Taibbi:
As for everyone else -- specifically, the Democrats who sponsored and passed the timetable measure -- they benefited from the bill most directly, riding a crest of antiwar sentiment and setting the Democrats up as the party that will look the best in the eyes of frustrated, war-fatigued voters in 2008. But lost amid all of this antiwar posturing were a series of inconvenient truths. One was that the bill was always going to be meaningless because Bush was always going to veto it, there were never going to be enough votes to override the veto, and everybody knew there were never going to be enough votes to override the veto. The second is that the timetable measure was buried in an emergency spending bill to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bill that ended up authorizing $122 billion in spending when the supposedly evil, warmongering, politically isolated Bush White House only asked for $103 billion. In other words, the outwardly combative Democratic leadership not only refused to do anything substantive to bring the troops home, it actually tossed Bush an extra $20 billion or for the war effort without prodding.
In my visits to Washington in the past few months I've heard different stories from Democratic congressional aides about what the party's intentions are. Some say they think the leadership is just going to stall and pass a bunch of non-binding, symbolic, Kumbayah horseshit to help propel whoever the Democratic candidate is into the White House two years from now. Others claim with a straight face that all of these non-binding resolutions are only a start, that the strategy is to really end the war via a death-by-a-thousand-cuts type of legislative grind, with the leadership sending to the floor bill after bill after bill designed to eat away at either war policy or war funding. They claim that all of these votes are exercises in coalition-building, necessary steps to gathering the support needed to pass real biting measures later on.
Dave Lindorff:
Despite polls showing that 6 in 10 Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq asap, the best that this crew can come up with is a call-not binding, or course-for the president to pull out the troops by next spring or even summer. That would be over a year from now, and more than five years (!) into this criminal and incredibly stupid war.
At the rate things have been going, it would also be perhaps 1000 more dead Americans, 14,000 more gravely wounded Americans, and 100-150,000 more dead Iraqis later.
This is not exactly the legacy I thought we had stumbled upon last November. More and more I'm coming to realize that Arthur's thoughts on the Democrat's predilection for imperialistic policies dating back to Woodrow Wilson (which are in many ways worse than those of Republicans--mainly because they are much more competent about executing those policies and achieving maximum results):
In effect, Democrats (and many liberal and progressive bloggers) would have you believe that something like the Iraq disaster would never occur if the Democrats were in charge.
This is flatly false. It is a lie offered for the least admirable and most petty of ignoble partisan motives. The Democrats would have you forget Woodrow Wilson and World War I, and the century of conflict to which our entrance into that war led (and the effects of which still play out in the Middle East and beyond today); they would have you forget Vietnam, which parallels the Iraq catastrophe in ways beyond counting -- and they would have you forget the Balkans and Kosovo.
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that there aren't any candidates out there who will be around after the primaries worth even considering, and yet one of them will be in the White House trying to figure out the next chapter in this whole sordid mess on 1/20/09. How far the conflaguration has spread by then God only knows, and even that entity may have averted its eyes from the mess we may have made of things by then.
UPDATE 31 MAR 07:
In an interview with Think Progress Mike Gravel has plenty to say about this:
I think it’s ridiculous legislation. Truthfully, truthfully. Here, when they’re talking about getting out of Iraq next year, what about the people that die between now and then when they know they’re going to get out? What about the families of those people that going to get killed between now and then? We need to get out now.
A year from now isn’t going to make it any better. And I have my suspicions that — whether Democrats or Republicans — they’re not going to get out of Iraq, even after the election. I don’t care who’s elected.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The message is clear
Kos:
Bush's veto sends troops to Iraq without rest, without armor, and without training. No president in American history has ever abandoned troops in the field to die. But George W. Bush is about to show you he's "man enough" to do it, just to prove he can.
As for his concern about setting an artificial deadline, with or without this bill there's already an artificial deadline: January 20, 2009. Because it's simply not physically possible to elect another president so willfully ignorant and as openly traitorous as this one. In short, George W. Bush is the only person on the planet who believes this occupation can feasibly last one day longer than his term in office. So anyone who pretends that moving the date up a few months is going to make a damned bit of difference in this disaster just isn't doing any serious thinking about the situation.
Any questions?
Bush's veto sends troops to Iraq without rest, without armor, and without training. No president in American history has ever abandoned troops in the field to die. But George W. Bush is about to show you he's "man enough" to do it, just to prove he can.
As for his concern about setting an artificial deadline, with or without this bill there's already an artificial deadline: January 20, 2009. Because it's simply not physically possible to elect another president so willfully ignorant and as openly traitorous as this one. In short, George W. Bush is the only person on the planet who believes this occupation can feasibly last one day longer than his term in office. So anyone who pretends that moving the date up a few months is going to make a damned bit of difference in this disaster just isn't doing any serious thinking about the situation.
Any questions?
On the Road to Tehran...
Highway signage by Halliburton; No Bid contract with US Government as part of the Iran Reconstruction Initiative.
The jerking knee almost caught me in the chin
Speaking with a colleague today about the situation between Iran and Britain I had to hold my tongue a bit (actually, a lot) in order to avoid getting into a heated argument about how much fault to lay in either direction. In truth, enough time, rhetoric and information has flowed in so many directions that the truth has already passed into the realm of unknowability. My colleague spoke of the unshakable evidence that Britain has put forth in the form of their GPS readouts and lamented about how he's got two children who will be of eligible age for the draft in eight or nine years that he doesn't want to see potentially sucked into the maelstrom when they reach that age. I believe his exact words were, "I don't want to be worrying about this kind of crap in nine years..."*
I restrained myself since engaging him in a debate about the fluidity of the actual line of demarcation and the question of justification of both thee British and the Iranians would have taken all afternoon, or at least a good chunk of time that we didn't really have available to us. I also recognized, even though I have known this particular individual for less than a month and our relationship has been on a strictly professional level, the tone of one who has come to a conclusion and only looks to media coverage of the GPS declarations to bolster his viewpoint about how the British "have the Iranians dead to rights with the GPS readings", and "will have them in a pretty tight corner if they're not careful".
Pointing him in the direction of coverage and commentary like Pepe Escobar's here would most likely elicit head shaking and eyebrow raising at this non Western media source.
I'm sure commentary like this would be received with skepticism:
Tactically, as a backgammon or, better yet, chess move - in which Iranians excel - the Shatt-al-Arab incident may be much more clever than it appears. Oil is establishing itself well above US$60 a barrel as a result of the incident, and that's good for Iran. It's true that from London's point of view, the incident could have been arranged as a provocation, part of a mischievous plan to escalate the conflict with Iran and turn Western and possibly world public opinion against the regime.
But from Tehran's point of view, for all purposes British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a soft target. The episode has the potential to paralyze both President George W Bush and Blair. Neither can use the incident to start a war with Iran, although Blair has warned that his government is prepared to move to "a different phase" if Iran does not quickly release the sailors.
If the Tehran leadership decides to drag out the proceedings, the Shi'ites in southern Iraq, already exasperated by the British (as they were in the 1920s), may take the hint and accelerate a confrontation. Strands of the Shi'ite resistance may start merging with strands of the Sunni resistance (that's what Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has wanted all along). And this would prove once again that you don't need nuclear weapons when you excel at playing chess.
And this splash of cold water would most likely be towelled off quickly with dismissive comments about aspiring superpowers who have no business meddling in a clear cut case of aggression:
Simultaneously, the combined US maneuvers and London's fiery rhetoric against Iran have made Moscow and Beijing realize the explosive nature of the situation, inducing them to draw a red line on their support for the United States' designs against Iran.
Thus, in their joint statement in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the US against making any military moves on Iran. The United States' painstakingly assembled international coalition against Iran at the United Nations has now been put to severe new tests. It is far from clear that, by the time the Security Council meets again some two months from now to consider the Iran nuclear crisis, the coalition will even be intact.
I fully realize that I am not exactly giving him a fair chance to react to this material, but I've been engaged in enough conversations about international affairs with fellow countrymen to recognize certain stances fairly quickly. I'm not trying to paint him as a warmonger or subjugator of Middle Eastern people, but when the main thrust of an individual's argument is the assumption that "the only language that these people understand is violence" I have a fairly good handle on where the conversation would go if I tried to pursue it. I'm also not as confident in my skills of face to face debate as opposed to my writing abilities. Some of it may also be to do with the fact that this forum is a one way street to some extent and what dialogue there is available is choppy at best via the initial entry and subsequent comments...
In the past, when I've run into a situation like this all I've done is mulled over it and replayed it in my head, coming up with clever ripostes and counterpoints after the fact. Now at least I can externalize it here and move on with trying to maintain my sanity while the last seconds tick away on the Doomsday Clock: Five minutes and counting...
*UPDATE 3/30/07:
It was never my intention to discount or call into question my colleague's concern for his children's future. As a non-parent, I have absolutely no frame of reference to what a parent goes through thinking about the potential for their children to be placed in harm's way at the whim of a nameless, faceless government in order to enforce policy that they may or may not agree with.
It concerned and annoyed me to see him using his concern about a draft that doesn't exist, and has been shown to be extremely unpopular when put to public opinion (so much so that not one of the malcontents currently in Congress will even touch it with a long pole) to help frame an argument about who was at fault in an international dispute over borders, and in a larger sense, the role of a sovereign nation in a remote region in relation to its fellow nations.
It's highly unlikely that a draft will ever be instituted in this country again, with the possible exception of the case of an actual physical invasion by another country. None of this "fight the terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here" crap, or the mantra of helping to maintain stability and train native forces so that they can protect themselves. The American public recognizes the corporate imperialistic nature of the majority of the wars the administration embarks on and wants no part of them, particularly when their children are asked to fight them on a compulsory basis.
I restrained myself since engaging him in a debate about the fluidity of the actual line of demarcation and the question of justification of both thee British and the Iranians would have taken all afternoon, or at least a good chunk of time that we didn't really have available to us. I also recognized, even though I have known this particular individual for less than a month and our relationship has been on a strictly professional level, the tone of one who has come to a conclusion and only looks to media coverage of the GPS declarations to bolster his viewpoint about how the British "have the Iranians dead to rights with the GPS readings", and "will have them in a pretty tight corner if they're not careful".
Pointing him in the direction of coverage and commentary like Pepe Escobar's here would most likely elicit head shaking and eyebrow raising at this non Western media source.
I'm sure commentary like this would be received with skepticism:
Tactically, as a backgammon or, better yet, chess move - in which Iranians excel - the Shatt-al-Arab incident may be much more clever than it appears. Oil is establishing itself well above US$60 a barrel as a result of the incident, and that's good for Iran. It's true that from London's point of view, the incident could have been arranged as a provocation, part of a mischievous plan to escalate the conflict with Iran and turn Western and possibly world public opinion against the regime.
But from Tehran's point of view, for all purposes British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a soft target. The episode has the potential to paralyze both President George W Bush and Blair. Neither can use the incident to start a war with Iran, although Blair has warned that his government is prepared to move to "a different phase" if Iran does not quickly release the sailors.
If the Tehran leadership decides to drag out the proceedings, the Shi'ites in southern Iraq, already exasperated by the British (as they were in the 1920s), may take the hint and accelerate a confrontation. Strands of the Shi'ite resistance may start merging with strands of the Sunni resistance (that's what Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has wanted all along). And this would prove once again that you don't need nuclear weapons when you excel at playing chess.
And this splash of cold water would most likely be towelled off quickly with dismissive comments about aspiring superpowers who have no business meddling in a clear cut case of aggression:
Simultaneously, the combined US maneuvers and London's fiery rhetoric against Iran have made Moscow and Beijing realize the explosive nature of the situation, inducing them to draw a red line on their support for the United States' designs against Iran.
Thus, in their joint statement in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the US against making any military moves on Iran. The United States' painstakingly assembled international coalition against Iran at the United Nations has now been put to severe new tests. It is far from clear that, by the time the Security Council meets again some two months from now to consider the Iran nuclear crisis, the coalition will even be intact.
I fully realize that I am not exactly giving him a fair chance to react to this material, but I've been engaged in enough conversations about international affairs with fellow countrymen to recognize certain stances fairly quickly. I'm not trying to paint him as a warmonger or subjugator of Middle Eastern people, but when the main thrust of an individual's argument is the assumption that "the only language that these people understand is violence" I have a fairly good handle on where the conversation would go if I tried to pursue it. I'm also not as confident in my skills of face to face debate as opposed to my writing abilities. Some of it may also be to do with the fact that this forum is a one way street to some extent and what dialogue there is available is choppy at best via the initial entry and subsequent comments...
In the past, when I've run into a situation like this all I've done is mulled over it and replayed it in my head, coming up with clever ripostes and counterpoints after the fact. Now at least I can externalize it here and move on with trying to maintain my sanity while the last seconds tick away on the Doomsday Clock: Five minutes and counting...
*UPDATE 3/30/07:
It was never my intention to discount or call into question my colleague's concern for his children's future. As a non-parent, I have absolutely no frame of reference to what a parent goes through thinking about the potential for their children to be placed in harm's way at the whim of a nameless, faceless government in order to enforce policy that they may or may not agree with.
It concerned and annoyed me to see him using his concern about a draft that doesn't exist, and has been shown to be extremely unpopular when put to public opinion (so much so that not one of the malcontents currently in Congress will even touch it with a long pole) to help frame an argument about who was at fault in an international dispute over borders, and in a larger sense, the role of a sovereign nation in a remote region in relation to its fellow nations.
It's highly unlikely that a draft will ever be instituted in this country again, with the possible exception of the case of an actual physical invasion by another country. None of this "fight the terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here" crap, or the mantra of helping to maintain stability and train native forces so that they can protect themselves. The American public recognizes the corporate imperialistic nature of the majority of the wars the administration embarks on and wants no part of them, particularly when their children are asked to fight them on a compulsory basis.
Keeping their grimy paws of the Internets...
If web radio program content that is free from corporate broadcasting's taint is important to you, please check out this petition. It must drive the execs in their boardrooms crazy that there is a medium out there that is free and clear of any influence on their part. Of course, the untapped financial potential in the form of all those ears of consumers can't be helping but make them chafe at the bit all the more.
A great deal of what I write about and link to here comes from internet sources, some of which already engage in commercial advertising, but almost none of which are subject to government or corporate regulation. I think that's just fine. If these measures find their way into the internet broadcasting realm, they will only take root deeper and spread to other formats which are vital to the amazing exchange medium that the internet is right now.
A great deal of what I write about and link to here comes from internet sources, some of which already engage in commercial advertising, but almost none of which are subject to government or corporate regulation. I think that's just fine. If these measures find their way into the internet broadcasting realm, they will only take root deeper and spread to other formats which are vital to the amazing exchange medium that the internet is right now.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Lines, lines, lines...
They mean nothing to the Sun. Or the Birds, or the Fish, or... anything, except meddling governments that have nothing to do with or any inherent concern for the native land and peoples that the lines are ostensibly de-marking...
Craig Murray:
The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.
But there are two colossal problems.
A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.
B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.
Of course, the official British line is treated as almost gospel:
BBC:
Vice Admiral Charles Style said the sailors had been "ambushed" in the Gulf after searching a vessel and their detention was "unjustified and wrong".
Tony Blair said it was time to "ratchet up" pressure on Iran, with whom the UK has now suspended bilateral contacts.
The prime minister said: "These personnel were patrolling in Iraqi waters under a United Nations mandate. Their boarding and checking of the Indian merchant vessel was routine - there was no justification therefore for their detention."
UK VERSION OF EVENTS
1 Crew boards merchant ship 1.7NM inside Iraqi waters
2 HMS Cornwall was south-east of this, and inside Iraqi waters
3 Iran tells UK that merchant ship was at a different point, still within Iraqi waters
4 After UK points this out, Iran provides alternative position, now within Iranian waters
The only thing that has helped me keep my faith in the integrity of the BBC is the headline of the previous section--"UK version of events." Funny how just a few words can make all the difference in the world...
Arthur's take on it is here.
His anecdote about the missed opportunity from his youth has gotten me to thinking about the philosophical ramifications of investing in a socially responsible way or not--and how one may apply the financial benefits reaped from such investments.
Riddle me this, Batman:
Is it acceptable to invest and reap financial rewards from not so socially responsible investments (in defense industries or energy industries who aren't as environmentally responsible as they could be) if the resulting gains are applied towards endeavors that are more aligned with social responsibility (a more ambitious blog effort than this one, active investment/development of alternative energy industries, support/founding of humanitarian aid foundations)?
An interesting question to ponder. Although the age old saying about the road to Hell and the Good Intentions that it is paved with always should be kept in mind whenever one contemplates and/or actively pursues such a course of action.
As to which nonsocially responsible industries are the best bets, your guess is as good as mine... if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be writing here nearly as often--I'd be too busy dealing with my many (hopefully world redeeming, but you never know, money does funny things to people) endeavors and having my ulcers (from the worry about all that great sums of cash inevitably causes) treated... Batteries seem like a good bet, but who knows? Everyone seems to be exploring and finding new reserves of fossil fuels and staking their claims, so that might be a red herring for another fifty years.
Craig Murray:
The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.
But there are two colossal problems.
A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.
B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.
Of course, the official British line is treated as almost gospel:
BBC:
Vice Admiral Charles Style said the sailors had been "ambushed" in the Gulf after searching a vessel and their detention was "unjustified and wrong".
Tony Blair said it was time to "ratchet up" pressure on Iran, with whom the UK has now suspended bilateral contacts.
The prime minister said: "These personnel were patrolling in Iraqi waters under a United Nations mandate. Their boarding and checking of the Indian merchant vessel was routine - there was no justification therefore for their detention."
UK VERSION OF EVENTS
1 Crew boards merchant ship 1.7NM inside Iraqi waters
2 HMS Cornwall was south-east of this, and inside Iraqi waters
3 Iran tells UK that merchant ship was at a different point, still within Iraqi waters
4 After UK points this out, Iran provides alternative position, now within Iranian waters
The only thing that has helped me keep my faith in the integrity of the BBC is the headline of the previous section--"UK version of events." Funny how just a few words can make all the difference in the world...
Arthur's take on it is here.
His anecdote about the missed opportunity from his youth has gotten me to thinking about the philosophical ramifications of investing in a socially responsible way or not--and how one may apply the financial benefits reaped from such investments.
Riddle me this, Batman:
Is it acceptable to invest and reap financial rewards from not so socially responsible investments (in defense industries or energy industries who aren't as environmentally responsible as they could be) if the resulting gains are applied towards endeavors that are more aligned with social responsibility (a more ambitious blog effort than this one, active investment/development of alternative energy industries, support/founding of humanitarian aid foundations)?
An interesting question to ponder. Although the age old saying about the road to Hell and the Good Intentions that it is paved with always should be kept in mind whenever one contemplates and/or actively pursues such a course of action.
As to which nonsocially responsible industries are the best bets, your guess is as good as mine... if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be writing here nearly as often--I'd be too busy dealing with my many (hopefully world redeeming, but you never know, money does funny things to people) endeavors and having my ulcers (from the worry about all that great sums of cash inevitably causes) treated... Batteries seem like a good bet, but who knows? Everyone seems to be exploring and finding new reserves of fossil fuels and staking their claims, so that might be a red herring for another fifty years.
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