The Bush War in Iraq

Bush Accepts the Nomination 

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 31, 2004

"Everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran." That was the attitude in Washington two years ago, when Ahmad Chalabi was assuring everyone that Iraqis would greet us with flowers. More recently, some of us had a different slogan: "Everyone worries about Najaf; people who are really paying attention worry about Ramadi."

Ever since the uprising in April, the Iraqi town of Falluja has in effect been a small, nasty Islamic republic. But what about the rest of the Sunni triangle?

Last month a Knight-Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces were effectively ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Last Sunday The Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, like Samarra, have also fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Moktada al-Sadr: his Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its two million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."

For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was "Mission Accomplished" - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.

Now, serious security analysts have begun to admit that the goal of a democratic, pro-American Iraq has receded out of reach. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies - no peacenik - writes that "there is little prospect for peace and stability in Iraq before late 2005, if then."

New York Times Editorial by Paul Krugman

Southeast Asia News 9

Blue Pill or Red? 

The Bangkok elections for a new governor are over and the latest winner has promised the standard blue-sky: relief from traffic woes, pollution, noise, and corruption. The poor citizens of Bangkok have been hearing this tired dirge for decades, but at least they elected a Democrat to put something of a crimp in the political/industrial juggernaut that is Shinawatra. Indonesian goes to the polls in two weeks to elect a new president and the two current favorites are Megawati Sukarno Putri and Susilo who is expected to run away with the race. Neither are expected to gain a majority, so run offs will be scheduled in early 2005.

Richard Ehrlich on the Olympics and Women in Thai Society

Thais traditionally do not view their country's females as capable of winning awards through sheer muscle power and physical skill. Women hold high government posts and run businesses in Thailand, but are barred from holding the same lofty rank as men within Thai Buddhism's clergy. Women also suffer unequal treatment when marrying foreign men and are liable to lose their right to own real estate in Thailand. Thai men who marry foreign women have no such misfortune.

Richard has been writing about Thailand and Southeast Asia for many years, and always provides some fresh insight into local issues, plus he's not afraid to bang a few heads together.

Richard Ehrlich Article

Thai Telephone Shafts Olympic Medal Winner

Surat Thani
Thaweep Petchkoom, father of the Olympics boxing finalist, now knows what a difference there is between winning a silver and gold medal. The TOT Corp telephone line installed for him to make international calls to his son, Worapoj, was shut off just after his son was outpointed by Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz on Sunday and he had to settle for the silver medal. This forced Mr Thaweep to drive 13km from his home at Baan Sakhli to Phanom district town to dial Athens to comfort his son, he complained.

TOT Proves Themselves Cheap Ass Nitwits

Some Free Advice for Indonesian Porn Producers

Don't Mention Your Name in the Film, and Don't Videotape the License Plate of Your Car

Philippines Communists Resent Blacklist

Rebel Attacks Kill 91 and Destroy Property

MANILA -- Communist guerrillas committed "terrorist" actions that killed 91 civilians and destroyed private property worth 1.17 million dollars in the Philippines this year, the military said Tuesday. These actions are consistent with the rebels' designation as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the United States, the European Union, Australia and Canada, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Lucero said in a statement.

"Statistics show that the CPP/NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines and its 8,600-member New People's Army) has been aggressive in using terrorism as a tool to air its political message," Lucero said. The rebels indefinitely postponed planned peace talks with the Philippine government in Norway last week. They are trying to pressure Manila to prevail on Washington and its allies to remove the CPP-NPA from the blacklist.

Filipino Communists Just Want Some Love

Philippines On Brink of Economic Collapse

International Herald Tribune

Singapore and Gay Magazines

Playboy is banned and Sex in the City is censored, so who would have imagined that Singapore would have a gay lifestyle magazine? Oh, and it's against the law to have oral sex unless it is then followed by regular intercourse, and homosexuality is against the law. How, exactly, do gays have sex in Singapore, and is the low birth rate for straights due to the prohibition of oral sex from the females? And wouldn't the legalization of porn for married couples help spice up sex life in the City, and perhaps reverse their declining birth rate?

Sex? In Singapore? Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Movies Filmed in Thailand

Thailand Handbook by Carl Parkes 

Movies Filmed in Thailand

More than 100 films and documentaries were shot in Thailand over the last few decades, primarily Vietnam War pictures which substituted Thailand topography for Vietnam's.

Over the years, Thailand has seen the likes of Sylvester Stallone in Rambo III, Jean Claude Van Damme in Kick Boxer, and erotic classics such as Emmanuelle in Bangkok, as well as lighter fare starring Mel Gibson, Michael J. Fox, and Disney's Dumbo. Recent efforts include a James Bond flick, Anna and the King, and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach.

Chang (1927)
Although filmmakers Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper will be forever associated with their 1933 classic King Kong, the inventive pair accomplished some of their greatest work with their depiction of Siamese peasant life near Nan. Filmed on location, Chang ("Elephant") established a cinematic blueprint for King Kong, complete with roaming jungle cats and marauding herds of elephants.

Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
The original film account of King Mongkut (Rex Harrison) and his nanny (Irene Dunne) wasn't filmed in Thailand but the staging is reasonably authentic, except for the Balinese gong kebayar gamelan style of music which didn't exist until the 20th century.

The King and I (1956)
Though Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr never left the Hollywood soundstage, the costumes and set designs look quite accurate, except for the Japanese lantern in the garden. Based on the fictional life of a former governess, The King and I was immediately banned in Thailand due to Brynner's unfavorable portrayal of King Mongkut, one of the nation's most honored and accomplished rulers.

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
The classic story of Phileas Fogg and company includes a shot of David Niven as he watches the royal barges on the Chao Praya in Bangkok.

The Ugly American (1963)
After a visit to Southeast Asia in 1958, Marlon Brando agreed to star in this film based on the controversial William Lederer novel about diplomatic intrigue and anti-American sentiments in the mythical country of Sarkhan. Brando, ever the political idealist, portrayed a quaintly simplistic American ambassador who struggles against the rising tide of communism. The well-intended film included extensive footage of Bangkok, the Thai countryside, and historic temples, but the complex political issues and obscurity of the region doomed it to commercial failure.

The Man With The Golden Gun (1973)
Many of the brilliant chase scenes in this James Bond flick were filmed in Phangnga Bay, near Phuket in southern Thailand. Soon afterward, one of the towering limestone pinnacles was dubbed "James Bond Rock" by local tour promoters, a clever marketing ploy still used some 25 years after the film's release. The film also includes a wild car chase down an almost rural Sukumvit Road in Bangkok, an impossible feat today given the bone-crushing traffic.

Emmanuelle in Bangkok (1976)
A French softcore romp largely staged in Bangkok with endless, mindless, jerky, poorly focused shots of Thai kids playing in the Bangkok klongs.

The Deer Hunter (1978)
Most of the hair-raising river scenes in this Vietnam War classic were filmed on the River Kwai near the town of Kanchanaburi. The bar scenes might also look familiar since most were shot inside the Mississippi Queen on Patpong Road in Bangkok. Deer Hunter won a slew of Academy Awards and started the mania for Vietnam-era films.

Uncommon Valor (1983)
Gene Hackman, Robert Stack, and Patrick Swayze (in one of early roles) tell about Vietnam Vets who return to rescue imprisoned comrades held captive on some dusty hill in Thailand.

The Killing Fields (1984)
This production, based on Sydney Schanberg's The Life and Death of Dith Pran, won several Academy Awards for its powerful depiction of the Cambodian holocaust. Most of the exterior scenes were shot in Thailand, including footage of Hua Hin's Railway Hotel, which doubled as the correspondent's hotel in war-torn Phnom Penh. Bangkok, Patpong Road, and Bang Tao Beach on Phuket were also used as backdrops. Finally, the elegant old Government House in Phuket town served as a replica of the French Embassy in Phnom Penh.

Volunteers (1985)
This comedy-adventure flick about the American Peace Corps was filmed in Bangkok and around Mae Hong Son. Despite the leading roles of Tom Hanks and John Candy, Volunteers was quickly relegated to video rentals.

Platoon (1987)
This film garnered Oliver Stone an Academy Award for Best Director of the Year, and Willem Dafoe a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Street scenes of old Saigon were re-created by constructing fiberglass replicas of old blue-and-yellow Renault taxis. Chinese-Thai extras were hired to ensure a Vietnamese look.

Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
Spalding Gray, San Francisco's famed but now hated monologist (he prefers New York), used his experiences as an actor in the filming of The Killing Fields to explore the social and political undercurrents of contemporary Southeast Asia. Jonathan Demme directed.

Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
Hollywood's first Vietnam War comedy starred Robin Williams as a zany disc jockey who entertains troops via the American Forces Radio Service. The atmosphere of old Saigon was successfully re-created by production designers who arrived months in advance to scout locations and work on elaborate transformations, such as turning a small food store into the Minh Ngoc GI Bar, complete with American flags and flashing jukebox. Most of the Saigon street scenes were filmed along Rajadamnern Avenue. Director Barry Levinson sensibly used Bangkok's notorious Patpong Road as the substitute for Saigon's equally notorious brothel district along Tu Do Street.

Rambo III (1988)
This film begins with our hero, played by Sylvester Stallone, meditating about the truths of life in a Thai monastery; he quickly decides to chuck the robes and do battle with the Soviets in Central Asia. The opening scenes were filmed in Bangkok and the meditation sessions at Wat Buddhaphat, a hillside temple about one hour southeast of Chiang Mai, near the weaving village of Pasang.

Air America (1990)
This MASH rehash centers around a pair of wild and crazy U.S. pilots--played by Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr.--working for Air America, the secret airline operated by the CIA out of Laos during the Vietnam War. Air America was largely filmed around Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand, including a dramatic scene of an elephant being airlifted over the Burmese-style temples around Chang Khom Lake.

Casualties of War (1991)
The war drama, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, was filmed in Kanchanaburi and on the island of Phuket.

The Good Woman of Bangkok (1991)
Loosely based on Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Women of Szechuan," this documentary features a 25-year-old prostitute named Aoi, who made the confessional in exchange for enough cash to quit her job and buy a farm in her old village. Any traveler foolish enough to fall for a Thai prostitute should see this film.

Heaven and Earth (1993)
Oliver Stone's final Vietnam War film approaches the conflict from the viewpoint of a Vietnamese woman who sympathizes with the communist cause but loves an American GI. The film was shot in Vietnam and around Phangnga Bay near Phuket in southern Thailand.

Street Fighter (1994)
Jean Claude Van Damme makes his first appearance in Thailand in this hokey film, based on a video game, which is plagued with cheesy effects and costumes cloned from Nazi and sci-fi films.

Men of War (1994)
Starring Swedish-born Dolph Lundgren, this film about hardened mercenaries and innocent natives was mostly filmed on Ao Nang Beach and in Khao Phanom Bencha National Park near Krabi. The "Cavern of the Dead" was created inside the caves of Suan Si Nakawan National Park near Phangnga; the boxing scenes were staged in Bangkok.

Day of Reckoning (1994)
A flash-in-the-pan dirge with rogue travel guide Fred Dyer touring around Bangkok with a brief visit to the phallic shrine in the back yard of the Hilton International.

Operation Dumbo Drop (1995)
This Walt Disney film about elephants and their mahouts was filmed over a two-month period in Mae Hong Son, Kanchanaburi, Chiang Mai, and Lopburi. Although the film starred Ray Liotta and Danny Glover, the real star was Pathet Thai, an elephant born in Thailand, raised in the United States, and returned to Thailand to assume the lead role as Dumbo.

The Quest (1995)
Roger Moore, star of the 1973 James Bond film, returns to Thailand to play a villain opposite Jean Claude Van Damme. The Belgian kickboxer was apparently was an old Thailand fan, as he married Darry Lapier at the Bangkok Regent Hotel in 1994.

Mortal Combat (1995)
This flick and its 1997 follow-up were largely filmed in Bangkok and on the beaches near Krabi.

Cutthroat Island (1995)
A big budget Hollywood blockbuster which did even worse in box office receipts that The Quest and Mortal Combat despite the drawing power of Hollywood stars Matthew Modine and Geena Davis. Geena pouts while the area around Krabi substitutes for the Caribbean, including some great shots of the ship inside Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi--the same wonderful location where Leonardo DiCaprio wandered aimlessly in The Beach.

Street Fighter (1996)
Jean Claude Van dam returns to Bangkok to wage fisticuffs on an Asian despot.

The Phantom (1996)
Billy Zane (the evil husband in Titanic) as the Man in Purple Tights and Treat Williams as Xander Drax can't rescue the early half of this film lensed in Thailand, though the latter half in New York features some nifty costumes from the 1930s.

Mortal Combat II (1997)
The Japanese robot action craze returned to Thailand with several scenes filmed in Ayuthaya, the ancient capital. After its release, some Thais protested the apparent sacrilegious desecration of the 600-year old temples of Ayuthaya. Actually, the problem was that the plywood and styrofoam sets back in Hollywood were so realistic that it appeared on screen that Ayuthaya was going up in smoke.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Michelle Yeoh tear up the streets of Bangkok, including some clips of the soaring Baiyoke Tower (tallest building in town) and a motorcycle chase which almost ended the career of Ms. Yeoh. Although these scenes supposedly took place in Vietnam, sharp-eyed viewers will find a significant amount to Thai script and a Thai flag waving from a mast in the harbor. Other goofs include the impossibility of helicopters hovering in place with their rotors tilted forward (a cool effect, but beyond the laws of physics) and the fact that Bond's car is actually a BMW 740i V8 and not a 750i V12.

Return to Paradise(1998)
This highly acclaimed but largely ignored film revolves around two friends who must choose whether to help a third friend who was arrested in Malaysia for drug possession, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Anne Heche. The drug connection banned filming in Malaysia but areas around Krabi in southern Thailand substituted for the Malaysian prison.

Brokedown Palace (1999)
Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale are arrested for drug smuggling while vacationing in Thailand.

Anna and the King (1999)
The third cinematic retelling of the highly inaccurate relationship between Anna and King Mongkut, one of the most highly revered of all Thai kings. Although 20th Century Fox attempted to film in the country, the sets were constructed in Malaysia just outside Kuala Lumpur near a luxury golf course. Other scenes were filmed near Ipoh and on Penang Island. Despite major revisions provided by the filmmakers, the film was banned in Thailand, but Thais are permitted to view the controversial film on video or DVD. Anna was played by Jody Foster; King Mongkut by Chow Yun Fat.

The Beach (2000)
The biggest film to be lensed in Thailand since the 1973 James Bond flick, The Man with the Golden Gun, starred Leonardo DiCaprio and was directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting.) The Beach caused a national uproar after the Fox production company asked to use Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi as a central film set, planting over 100 coconut trees to enhance the atmosphere of the film, apparently an environmental assault on the pristine atmosphere of southern Thailand (cough, cough). Despite the protests, the film was completed in mid-1999 with additional scenes filmed at the On On Hotel in Phuket Town and at a waterfall in Khao Yai National Park. The film was based on an award-winning novel by British author Alex Garland and tells the story of a young backpacker who discovers an Edenic beach and takes up residence, only to ruin the island paradise. Beautiful Maya Bay was featured on the cover of the second edition of Thailand Handbook.

Movies Filmed in The Philippines

Philippines Handbook by Carl Parkes 

MOVIES FILMED IN THE PHILIPPINES

Hollywood has gone to the Philippines many times to use the tropical scenery as the setting for movies based on the era of the Vietnam War.

Too Late the Hero
Cliff Robertson, Michael Caine, and Toshiro Mifune star in this 1970 release shot in Boracay in the late 1960s. A rare chance to see the Philippine's most famous island without all the guesthouses, hotels, condominiums, and golf courses.

Apocalypse Now
The helicopter scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 masterpiece were filmed at Balera Bay, while the climactic explosion of Kurtz's Cambodian temple was staged on the riverbanks near Pagsanhan Falls. Tribal dance scenes were performed by the Ifugaos of Banaue. Coppola's ex-wife subsequently wrote an intriguing book about their problems with typhoons and clashing personalities.

Platoon
Most of this Academy Award-winning film was filmed in the Philippines.

An Officer and a Gentleman
Richard Gere and Debra Winger star in this 1982 love story whose early parts were filmed in Olongapo.

The Year of Living Dangerously
One of the best films about contemporary politics in the region was filmed in the Philippines in 1983 after Indonesian authorities refused to allow the Australian director to complete the film on location.

Missing in Action
All of the Missing in Action films starring Chuck Norris were filmed in the Philippines from 1984-1988.

Born On The Fourth Of July
Ron Kovic's autobiographical novel was largely filmed in the northern Philippine province of Ilocos Norte. While there in 1989, director Oliver Stone and star Tom Cruise stayed in the Fort Ilocandia Resort Hotel, built by the Marcoses to house guests for their 1983 wedding of daughter Irene. Stone summed it up: "I have been all over the Far East, and the Philippines has the most natural wonders. The people give their hearts to you; it's like being in the old pirate country in the Caribbean."

Fortunes of War
Set in Thailand and Cambodia but actually shot in the Philippines at Subic Bay in 1994 with a cameo appearance by Martin Sheen.

Chinese Food Conundrum

Alice at the Dim Sum Palace 

Chinese food is apparently a different animal between San Francisco and the hinterlands of China, where most of the residents have no clue about what is served on Grant and Jackson.

A Guide to Chinese Takeout Menus
Associated Press

Zuo Kuanxun wrinkles his face in skepticism, and you can hardly blame him. A foreign visitor has appeared without warning to inform him that his great-great-great grandfather - battlefield hero and crusher of rebellions against the imperial Qing court - is renowned on restaurant menus across the sea. Gen. Zuo Zongtang, a hometown legend in his south-central province of China, was the fiercest of 19th-century warriors. Yet today, most of America associates the late military strategist with a chicken. And a tasty one at that.

Odds are you know him as General Tso, General Chao, General Zhou, even General Ching - namesake of the succulent, sweet-spicy chunks of dark-meat chicken that features in most every Chinese restaurant in America but is almost entirely unknown in China itself. General Tso/Zuo himself, however, is well known - decidedly real and born in 1812 in this tiny valley in Hunan province. And a bit of detective work turns up the fact that, indeed, there is an obscure Hunan chicken recipe that bears his name - though no one can say quite how that happened.

"We have chickens here. We make chicken. But it's nothing special," says Zuo, sitting in the shade of his open-front house a few yards from the general's old homestead. As he speaks, a hen wanders in. "You say millions of Americans are familiar with our ancestor?" His son, Zuo Jingyou, offers this: "It's been forgotten here. We Zuos have all heard stories about it. But did it come from him? We don't know."

Chinese food in the United States is full of such anomalies. Dishes that Americans consider takeout-joint stalwarts leave mainland Chinese scratching their heads. Chop suey? Describe it to anyone across the land and you get blank looks. Lake Tungting shrimp? There is a Lake Tungting - or Dongting, as they spell it - here in Hunan, and it does have big shrimp, but locals say it's not a recipe per se.

Duck sauce? It's brown and made with plums - nothing like that translucent orange stuff that's apparently neither for, nor made of, duck. In the Chinese capital, the sauce is served with julienned scallions and cucumber to be placed on wrap-up pancakes over succulent Beijing duck.

Don't even ask about fortune cookies. Though some Chinese vaguely remember a grandparent putting a secret message in a holiday cake, the notion of finding an aphorism like "Yesterday's enemy is tomorrow's ally" tucked inside one's dessert is utterly alien here.

"A Confucian saying inside a cookie? I've never heard of it, but it doesn't sound like a bad idea," says Chen Huanshun, a cooking teacher at the Beijing Economic and Trade Senior Technical School. "But," he sniffs, "putting a piece of paper inside a baked good doesn't sound too sanitary."

Why the differences? The Chinese food that first made an impression on Americans came from the south, because the earliest immigrants to the United States were Cantonese, from around Guangzhou near Hong Kong. Their less spicy cuisine became the standard for a generation of chow mein houses.

Among Cantonese contributions: chow mein (fried noodles), moo goo gai pan (mushrooms and chicken slices) and the universally loved wonton (literally, "swallowing clouds").

In the 1970s and 1980s, a new wave of immigrants with roots in Hunan and Sichuan (think "Szechwan") provinces - both homes to famous cuisines noted for their fragrant, spicy flavorings - opened restaurants in U.S. cities. But in case American palates weren't ready for such intricate fare, traditional recipes were modified to fit the market.

That happened with kungpao chicken, a fiery Sichuan dish that was tamed - some would say dumbed down - for an American audience. "Every single family in Sichuan probably knows how to make it," says Yang Jianping, a taxi driver in Chengdu, the province's capital city. Then he gets animated. "I'll tell you right now: I've never been to America, but I know that Sichuan food there is nothing like here. You have your tastes, we have ours," Yang says. "But I would probably take a bite of American kungpao chicken and spit it out."

One dish that emerged from the pack was General Tso's chicken. Though the recipe remains quite malleable - in some American restaurants the chicken is sweet and unbreaded, in others spicy or batter-fried - it was a hit and remains on virtually every American Chinese restaurant's list of "chef's specials." This is somewhat bewildering to folks in the place that the general called home.

"You're telling me there's a chicken dish named in his memory?" says Geng Ermao, proprietress of a popular family-style restaurant in Changsha, the provincial capital. Her face wrinkles. "You say Americans who eat Chinese food are familiar with his name? I don't know of it, and you'd think I'd know."

Head north from Changsha, drive for about an hour and you'll reach Wenjialong, a verdant valley of tucked-away farms and small houses. Here, living quiet lives, are the remaining descendants of the general, who died in 1885. Zuo Rensi, another great-great-great grandson, opens the decaying gate of his ancestor's courtyard home and leads visitors quietly into what was once the kitchen. He speaks quietly of the dish known here as "Zuo gongji," or "Zuo's rooster."

"I don't know if he created the dish or it was made for him," Zuo says. "But we all know about it. No one knows how to make it anymore, though." Aside from his formidable military career - including campaigns to crush the famed Taiping Rebellion and an uprising in the predominantly Muslim western region of Xinjiang - Zuo was known for his belief that China needed to modernize to survive. His method: using tried-and-true Western innovations to improve upon Chinese traditions.

This is instructive when considering the global journey of General Tso's chicken. In a recent random sampling of more than a dozen restaurants in Hunan province, only one - near Changsha's main train station - offered Zuo's rooster on the menu.

What arrived was a melancholy mix of vegetables, shallots and greasy, scrawny pieces of chicken studded with perilous slivers of bone - a far cry from the juicy, boneless poultry chunks familiar to Americans. "Chinese are going all over the world, and they're taking their recipes with them. It can only get better and more professional," says Chen, the cooking-school instructor.

Usually, though, the Chinese version of Chinese food is far tastier than its American imitation. Not this time. And there's not a Zuo in town who can explain why. "All the Zuos who could leave here left. Maybe they took it with them," says Zuo Jingyou, who doubts he will ever make it to America to sample the descendant of his ancestor's eponymous meal. "I don't know the story of the dish. I really wish I did."

Southeast Asia News 8

Politics and Love in Southeast Asia 

Blogger has been slow as molasses the last few days, and posting has been a pain, plus I foolishly tried following Goggle Blogspot's advice on how to create "expandable post summaries." Hogwash. The whole deal just installs another way to say Permanent Link (the "time" after "Posted by..." is already a Permanent Link), and puts the lame "Read More!" at the bottom of every post. So I deleted the whole thing. You'd think Google/Blogger/Blogspot would hire somebody who could speak English and explain directions in a somewhat understandable format. I'll probably limp along with BlogSpot for a few more months, until I make the move to Moveable Type. Bear with me.

Thai Muslim Terrorists Tied to Taliban?

Bangkok Post editorial today relates confessions by a captured terrorist, who tells of secretive rituals, his training in private Islamic schools in three southern provinces, and possible links between the Islamic Ustaz movement and their inspiration in Afghanistan: the Taliban. It's a chilling story of what can go wrong when you allow fundamentalist Islamic schools to take over the educational responsibilities of the government.

Confessions of a Terrorist

Frozen Chickens for Russian Fighter Jets?

I think somebody in Bangkok has been smoking too much of the wacky weed.

Thailand in Talks With Russia on Chicken-for-Aircraft Exchange
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg)

Thailand, which has about 60,000 tons of frozen chicken meat which can't be sold because of an import ban, is in talks with Russia to exchange chicken meat for fighter jets, a Thai trade group said. The Thai government offered to swap about 250,000 tons of chicken meat over the next five years for fighter aircraft made by Russia's Sukhoi Holding Corp., the Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association said in a faxed statement.

Thai chicken exports this year may fall 60 percent to 200,000 tons, the lowest shipment since 1996, after Japan, European Union members and other countries banned chicken meat imports from the Southeast Asian country following the bird flu outbreak. The Thai government has confirmed bird flu virus infections among poultry in 25 of 76 provinces since the virus reappeared last month.

Thai exporters have about 60,000 tons of frozen chicken meat in storage they are unable to sell because of the ban, according to commerce ministry data published Aug. 19. Thailand is the world's fifth-largest chicken meat exporter.

Ok, I'll Trade You My Frozen Chickens for Your Figher Jets. Ok? Huh?

Indonesia to Australia: Bug Off

The Indonesian judiciary recently ruled that a convicted Bali bomber would not be tried as a terrorist, since Indonesia had no laws against terrorism at the time of the blasts. Australia then suggested he might be tried for some other crime, say, like MURDER. The Indonesians were offended at the outrageous invasion into their national matters of legal sovereignty and said so:

"Our recommended approach would be to have confidence in the legal process and in the corridor of law rather than so-called diplomatic pressure," said Natalegawa.

The Indonesians want the Australians to "have confidence in the legal process and in the corridor of law..." This comes from one of world's most corrupt governments, whose judicial system is now the laughing stock of the civilized world.

Indonesia Warns Australia of Possible Islamic Backlash, or Please Don't Criticize Our Pristine Judicial System

Acronyms Run Amok in Indonesia

Uncluttered by tenses, prepositions and grammatical quirks, Indonesia's national tongue was once a gift to travellers who quickly grasped the basics. Now a bizarre passion for acronyms is threatening to engulf the language, leaving visitors and even locals lost in translation. As more phrases are mangled into this ugly alphabet soup, academics fear tourists and investors already wary of terrorists, graft and nasty insect-borne diseases can also list language problems as a reason to avoid Indonesia.

And So You Thought Bahasa Was An Easy Language to Master?

Don't Blame Canada, Blame MacArthur for the WWII Destruction of Manila

The Japanese refused to surrender Manila to American forces toward the end of World War II, and Gen. MacArthur ordered the invasion of the city and massive aerial bombardments to drive out the Japanese. A Filipino newspaper journalist thinks the Americans should not have used bombs, but should have sacrificed their troops in huge numbers to minimize damage to the city and fatalities to the civilian population. I assume he also feels that the U.S. should not have used the bomb on Hiroshima, but should have sent several million American soldiers to invade Japan. This is Filipino historical revisionism at its best.

It took later historians (Recommended reading: The Battle for Manila by authors Connaughton, Pimlott and Anderson) to correct erroneous claims about the civilian casualties of the 1945 Battle of Manila. Filipinos became sacrificial lambs when Gen. Douglas MacArthur chose to violate the rules of war by razing the city to rubble with cannons and bombs instead of sending troops to secure what was already a sure victory. The risks of war are supposed to be taken by soldiers not civilians.

Americans Destroyed Old Manila

Does Singapore Have Sex Slaves?

I don't know, but none of the prostitutes in that dismal alley in Little India seem too pleased about their situation. Contrary to popular belief, prostitution is legal in Singapore and even girls aged 16 and 17 are welcome to join the happy profession. The U.S. State Department isn't too thrilled about all this, so they issued a report, which virtually everybody ignored. Except the Singapore government which has protested the findings, and made it a worldwide issue. They should have just kept their mouths shut and let this issue fade away into nothingness.

New York Times Report on Sex Slavery in Singapore

Reuters on Sex in the City

U.S. State Department Report on Sex Slavery. They Call it Human Trafficking.

Australians Believe in the Upside-Down-World-Theory

Amusing link from 2Bangkok Website about some nutty maps that show Australia at the top! Outrageous!

Does Ian Thorpe Know About This?

Singapore Anarchists Jam Orchard Road

Singapore Erupts! 

Thousands of angry Singaporeans marched down Orchard Road on Sunday morning to protest FriskoDude and his obnoxious blog which seems to have a thing about "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" on their fair island. Some say these issues were resolved decades ago and Western liberals should wise up and get a life.

Not so quick my little darlings. Singapore now permits citizens to hold private meetings without government permission, so long as they don't talk about politics or religion. Singapore now permits its citizens to gather at the officially designated free speech center in a Chinatown park, but they must register in advance with the police, state the purpose of their talk, and are prohibited from using an amplified speaker system. Bullhorns are also against the law. This is what Singapore calls "freedom of speech?"

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore tempered vows to relax freedom of speech and open up society with new rules and regulations on Friday, banning among other things microphones from performances in a free-speech designated "Speakers' Corner".

Casting himself as a cautious reformer, new Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong -- 52-year-old son of founding premier and elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew -- outlined a loosening in social controls in a major policy address on Sunday.

Unlicensed public talks got a green light, so long as they are held indoors and avoid "sensitive subjects" such as race or religion, and activists can hold exhibitions at "Speakers' Corner", a downtown park loosely based on its namesake in London.

But like past reform efforts in a country known as Asia's "nanny state" for pervasive government controls -- from a ban on "Playboy" magazine to heavy-handed state censorship -- the new lighter touch has its own new set of regulations.

All speakers must be Singaporean citizens and speak in the island's four official languages -- English, Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Malay and Tamil -- and must stay clear of religious topics, a 4-page police statement said on Friday.

Performers at "Speakers' Corner" must register with police, mount exhibitions only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., not use placards or banners or a "sound amplification device" -- the same rules critics say now stifle political expression at the park.

Only 14 speakers have registered to speak in the grassy downtown corner between January and Aug. 23, the police said -- a fraction of the 400 in a month when it opened in September 2000.

New Freedoms Come With New Rules

Some pundits have also complained to FriskoDude that political dissidents in Singapore are a thing of the past and all have faded away into oblivion. A quick look at Singapore Window turns up some recent news on Chee Soon Juan:

Opposition Leader Wages Lonely Campaign
in US for Greater Freedom

Agence France Presse
June 30, 2004
WASHINGTON

JAILED thrice at home for speaking in public without a license, Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan pounces on any opportunity in the United States to criticize the human rights record and lack of western-style freedom in his highly-developed home country. On a five-month fellowship stint with the US National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit private group, Chee needled a red-faced Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on a local political issue at a public forum while the leader was on a visit to Washington last month.

Much to the embarrassment of the host, the Council on Foreign Relations, an irritated Goh flatly refused to answer Chee's charge at the forum that his government was marginalizing minority Muslim Malays in Singapore. At another public forum on the role of America in Asia, Chee asked Singapore's ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh how the United States could help promote press freedom in Singapore.

Since he came to Washington in March, the 49-year-old Singapore Democratic Party chief walks the corridors of the US Congress pressing for democratic reforms in the tiny but wealthy Southeast Asian island nation, where the ruling People's Action Party makes no bones about its conviction that full-blown western-style liberal democracy is not suited for Singaporeans. Chee said he was fighting an uphill battle at home and abroad trying to convince people of the need for democratic reforms in the city state.

"I find it tremendously difficult to get Singapore on the radar screens of governments or NGOs because of some myths that had developed about Singapore to be regarded as a model of success by developing nations," said the US-trained neuropsychologist. "Hong Kong, China, the Middle East and Indonesia are all beginning to cite Singapore as some kind of a model but my message to them is: be careful," he said at a public forum entitled "Singapore: Asia's Standard-Bearer for Authoritarianism?" organized by the New American Foundation, which encourages research on various issues. Chee cited a letter Goh wrote to him rejecting his request for government funds to run a centre promoting democracy.

Referring to a survey by Berlin-based financial watchdog Transparency International, Goh, according to Chee, said in the letter that Singapore was already widely recognized as an open society which practiced transparency and democratic accountability. "This is a myth," Chee said, complaining that public money, including the state-run pension fund, was invested by the government with little transparency and "the use of the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy."

Amnesty International says Singapore is believed to have carried out the highest number of executions per capita in the world since 1994. Chee also questioned Goh's assertion on democratic accountability in Singapore, saying the country arbitrarily arrested and threw people in jail indefinitely without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act. "When you talk about democratic accountability, you must at least have freedom of speech. No protests, no public speeches are allowed without a permit," he said.

Chee has been jailed three times briefly after he tested the government by speaking in public without applying for a permit. He said in terms of media freedom, a 2000 survey by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders group showed Singapore 144th among a list of 166 countries, ranking even lower than Zimbabwe.

On the judiciary, he said the respected International Commission for Jurists had stated that the Singapore leadership had used defamation proceedings to silence opponents and seriously undermined the rule of law. In 2002, Chee was found guilty of defaming Premier Goh and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew over questions he raised during the 2001 general elections concerning what he claimed was Singapore government's 10-billion-dollar loan to Indonesia in 1997. Goh and Lee said the loan was never disbursed and claimed damages, saying Chee's allegations implied they were dishonest.

Chee could be disqualified from running in the next election in 2006 if he loses his appeal. The High Court last year rejected his appeal for a court trial in the defamation case and he was ordered to pay unspecified damages. Chee said the United States, a key ally of Singapore, should use its influence to prod the city state to be more open.

Chee Pleads His Case in Washington

Chee gave a speech last year after receiving an award for his struggle for democracy in Singapore:

What you don't know about Singapore:

Allow me to give you a little bit of the reality of the state of democracy in Singapore. We still have the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the Government to arbitrarily arrest citizens and detain them without trial. We had many oppositionists, trade union leaders, journalists and activists imprisoned under the ISA for opposing the ruling PAP. The longest-serving prisoner is Mr Chia Thye Poh who was detained for 23 years without ever given a trial.

All newspapers, TV and radio stations are owned and run by the Government.

Even the foreign press has come under control when it was sued repeatedly or had their circulation curtailed by the Singapore Government.

And as for the labour movement we have one umbrella trade union called the National Trades Union Congress, which is headed by a cabinet minister.

And if all this does not ensure total control by the ruling party, there is the judiciary. I am sure you have heard how Governments leaders continue to take opposition members to court in financially-debilitating lawsuits.

Dr. Chee Speech September 2003

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) also interviewed Dr. Chee in September 2003, when he visited Washington to receive his Defender of Democracy Award.

Dr. Chee Interview with ABC in Washington

Reporters Without Borders is a French organization which issues annual reports on press freedom issues. Here's something about freedom of the internet, always a hot topic in Asia, but especially in China and Singapore:

Reporters Without Border - Singapore Internet Report

And finally, Reporters Without Borders publishes an annual report on freedom of the press around the world, and Singapore ranks down near the bottom, ahead of China but below Zimbabwe:

Reporters Without Borders - Singapore Report 2004

Need to vent? Here's the Yahoo Forum for Singapore:

Yahoo Group Singapore Review

Saturday Cat 2

Saturday Kitty Cat 2 

It's Sunday morning and I'm in big trouble. Yep, I forgot to post a cute kitty yesterday, and so was greeted with hundreds and hundreds of irate emails from readers who have threatened to send jihad warriors into Pacific Heights to avenge this infidels' faux pax. Sorry, girls and guys, so here's a delightful little picture of a romping kitty with an important message to all.

Travel Quotes 1

SE Asia Handbook by Carl Parkes 


To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.
--Philip Adams, Australian Age

Travel broadens the mind.
--Anonymous

Three hundred years in a convent and fifty years in Hollywood.
--Anonymous

Though an airplane is not the ideal place to really think, to reassess or reevaluate, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice.
--Shana Alexander

Never journey without something to eat in your pocket. If only to throw to dogs when attacked.
--E.S. Bates

There are two kinds of travel--first class and with children.
--Robert Benchley

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
--William Blake

The traveler is active and strenuously searches for people, adventure and experience. The tourist is passive and waits for things to happen.
--Daniel J. Boorstein

In traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
--James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson

Countries, like people, are loved for their failings.
--F. Yeats Brown, Bengal Lancer

"Are you a god?" they asked.
"No."
"An Angel?"
"No."
"A saint?"
"No."
"Then, what are you?"
Buddha answered, "I am awake."
--Buddha

Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy.
--Richard Burton, Journal

To travel in Europe is to assume a foreseen inheritance; in Islam, to inspect that of a close and familiar cousin. But to travel in farther Asia is to discover a novelty previously unsuspected and unimaginable.
--Lord Byron

Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns incessantly, though he may pass through, and seem to inhabit, a world quite foreign to it.
--Chateaubriand, Voyage en Italie

For some ill-defined reason, lovers have a particular penchant for travelling, perhaps in the hope that by exchanging backdrops for that of the unknown, those fleeting dreams will be retained a little longer.
--Carole Chester

I shall always be glad to have seen it--for the same reason Papa gave for being glad to have seen Lisbon--namely, that it will be unnecessary ever to see it again.
--Winston Churchill

The glamour of the East had cast its spell upon him; the mystery of lands in which no white man had set foot since the beginning of things had fired his imagination; the itch of travel was upon him, goading him to restlessness.
--Hugh Clifford, The Story of Exploration

I prefer mythology to history because history starts from the truth and goes towards lies and mythology starts from lies--fantasy--and goes toward truth.
--Jean Cocteau

There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party for six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.
--Cyril Connolly, A Romantic Friendship

I believe if I were to one day accept a religion, it would be of Buddhism. No other faith seems to offer such an eloquent expression of hope and beauty with its array of imagery, fashioned seemingly by devoted geniuses of a fantasy world.
--Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line

Some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.
--Joseph Conrad

Everybody in the world is a little mad.
--Joseph Conrad, The Shadow Line

Southeast Asia News 7

New Bangkok Governor Pledges "No More Dead Whales." And Something about Traffic. 

It's Saturday morning here in San Francisco and news from SE Asia seems fairly slow and uninteresting. Do newsbots go to sleep over the weekend? Bangkok now has a new governor but results won't be announced for another 24 hours or so, though the Shinawatra candidate, Paveena, seems likely heading to a crushing defeat. Wasn't she the government bigwig who went to Pattaya a few years ago and claimed that prostitution did not exist in the seaside community, then proceeded to don a swimsuit and splash around in the unpolluted waters of Pattaya Bay? Or was that the nutcase Filipino Miriam Santiago and her aquatic antics on Boracay?

Malaysian Human Rights Commission to Now Monitor the Press

It's another blow to the already lousy state of the press in Malaysia, but according to the Asia Pacific Media Network, at UCLA Asia Institute, even government human rights commissions are being called on to watch, watch, watch those nasty, nasty, nasty newspapers. Wouldn't want to have freedom of the press suddenly break out in Malaysia, would we?

The National Human Rights Commission has a new task: to monitor "unethical journalism". Journalists in what is already a heavily restricted society have labeled the move a further erosion of press freedom. Most of the media is either government-owned or -linked and a raft of laws control publication.

Malaysia and Freedom of the Press.

Was It Abu Sayyaf or "Pranksters" who Blew Up Ship in Manila Bay?

President Gloria Arroyo really doesn't get this thing called the war on terrorism, but would rather blame, oh, bombings of major ships heading out from Manila to Davao as the responsibility of "pranksters." That's ridiculous, unless she thinks Abu Sayyaf, the Moro National Liberation Front, and the half-dozen other terrorist organizations and kidnapping gangs are just joking around. Time Asia sometimes writes unopinionated pablum, but this article is an eye opener.

Responsibility for the attack was immediately claimed by representatives of Abu Sayyaf, a group of Islamic separatists chiefly known for kidnapping for ransom in the southern Philippines. But just as rapidly, officials in Manila scoffed off the claim; President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo dismissed it as coming from "pranksters." Despite promises of a swift investigation into the attack, concrete conclusions about the cause of the explosion have yet to appear.

Time Asia Looks at Abu Sayyaf.

Filipino Gets Life Imprisonment for Selling 24 Grams of Weed

Whatever Happened to the Popularity of Shabu?

A Sassy Lawyer in the Philippines Gets Jiggy about the Impending Financial Collapse of the Philippines

I've looked at dozens of blogs from the Philippines, but most just suck ass and are apparently penned by 13-year-olds who don't know what to do with themselves since they dropped out of school. Only ASLFTP actually writes about substance, but if you quote her without permission, she will sue you to hell and back (see her threats at the end of each blog under Comments). Is this really what Creative Commons is all about? I was going to quote her but can't afford to be dragged into court in Manila and assigned to jeepney duty in Ermita. So, without quoting her, here's her take about financial meltdown in PI.

Debt Story from Manila.

Thailand Again Promises to Kill Dope Dealers

Thailand's military says the latest phase in the country's war on drugs will be softer than a 2003 campaign that left more than 2,000 people dead. Senior officers deny that worldwide protests over the alleged extrajudicial killings have prompted new approach, but say they will work with the United Nations and neighbouring countries to target dealers.

They say the war needs to be restarted because a supply shortage that followed last year's crackdown on dealers has caused the price of illicit drugs to rise and attract new gangs.

Let's see........does that last sentence make any sense? First, you kill almost 3,000 drug dealers, but then you create a shortage of speed for all the nail biters out there in Lotus Land. So more demand and less supply means rising prices, nicht wahr? So those speed dealers -- not killed by the police and military -- see an opportunity for economic gain, and eagerly enter the improved market for yaba. Do anyone in Thailand see the idiocy in all this? And now the government is going to repeat this tragedy all over again?

Thailand to Kill More Speed Dealers Under United Nations Supervision.

Advice to Farangs about NEP Bargirls
They Are a Jealous Lot and Should NOT be Given Pen Knives.

Burma Campaign Puts Travel Guidebook Publishers on Shit List
I'm Insulted as the Author of Southeast Asia Handbook from Moon Publications. What Am I? Chopped Liver? Why Can't I Get Banned?

NYC Cops Bust 264 Bicycle Anarchists

Bicycle Anarchists in NYC 

Marion Jones proved yesterday that without her daily injections of steriods she's can't jump, and she can't put the baton in the hand of her leading runner, but instead points the stick directly at the back of her head. Duh. Has anyone seen that disgraceful photo? I mean Marion, you're supposed to put the stick in her hand; you're looking at her and she's looking straight ahead for her upcoming sprint. You were tired? Go back to BALCO and get your fix.

In other news, a bunch of crazed NYC bicyclists have kicked off the upcoming Anarchists Against Bush convention, also known as the RNC, by taking over the streets of Manhattan for a few hours. Paranoid cops arrest almost 300 and put them in custody at some pier awaiting the jurisdiction of the judge, who had gone home for the night! Oh Boy, it's going to be a wild week in The Big Apple.

Anarchist Bicyclists Terrify New York Republicans

The Legacy of Bush

Bush Portrait Made from Photos of Dead Soldiers 

Angry Finger is Mad as Hell

Hitler Called, He Said He Wants His Appalling Regime Back
You have Dick and Bush running around the country, hitting every little church group on the way trying to convince them they're good God fearing Christians just like them, and if they want to keep God happy, they should vote Bush/Cheny.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. --Matthew 6:19-21

One would wonder how Jesus would feel about the fortunes Dick and Bush have amassed after reading this:

The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5 percent of the population, according to the bureau.

People are suffering and dying every day, living in poverty with no health insurance and no one who cares. Bushco has spent it's entire time in the White House re-writing the laws to benefit the rich while driving the poor farther into poverty.

Don't fool yourself into believing that these poor, these poverty stricken people are the lazy rabble that nothing can be doing about. Most of the people living at poverty level in this county work full time and still can't make enough to pull themselves out of abject poverty.

I'm not religious myself, but unlike Dick and Bush, who continue to practice their anti-Jesus form of government, I'm not wearing my Christian values in order to get votes.

Do Bush supporters hate America? Is that what's really going on? You take all the facts and it seems impossible that this guy has anything higher than a 0% approval rating. Maybe Bush supporters are just people that hate America and are trying to bring it down from the inside. That should be the new terrorist motto: "Help defeat America, Vote Bush."

America has never in it's history been more despised and distrusted by the world. America has never in it's history had more people living in poverty than it does now. America has never in it's history had more people living without insurance than it does now. America has never been in more debt than it is right now.

That is the Bush/Cheney legacy. That is what they have managed to do to this country in four short years. Imagine what could happen if they had four more. Please, get out and vote for Kerry this November, your country needs you.

Happy Days. Craig Kilborn is Toast

USATODAY.com - The last late show with Craig Kilborn

Who's the most boring late night talk show host? Craig Kilborn has no peers when it comes to haughty laughter, stilted delivery, pawing at the good looking chicks, and generally behaving like a dweeb. And he can't tell jokes, that's why his opening monologue is about 30 seconds long. Good bye Craig. The best late night hosts, in my humble opinion, are:

Conan O'Brian
Jimmy Kimmel
Dave Letterman
Jay Leno
Craig Kilborn

Craig's Last Night is Friday, August 27, 2004.

Alaskan Giant Bear

Bearly Believable 

This photo has been circulating around the net for ages, but perhaps a few of you haven't seen it yet. Here's some background I borrowed from Hoax or Fraud or Urban Legends. I forget.

How would you like for this monster to walk up on you in the woods? Check out the size of the paw in relation to the guy's head!!! This bear was killed down on Hitchenbrook Island by an airman stationed at Elmendorf. The bear measured 12' 6" and was estimated at over 1600lbs. The guy was walking to his hunting area and the bear stood up only 35 yards away. The bear dropped down and went straight for him. He emptied his gun and the bear fell 10 yards from him.

The attached picture is of a guy who works for the forest service in Alaska. He was out deer hunting. A large...large world record Grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded a 7mm Mag Semi-auto into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The thing was still alive so he reloaded and capped it in the head. It was over one thousand six hundred pounds, 12 feet 6 inches high at the shoulder. It's a world record. The bear had killed a couple of other people. Of course, the game department did not let him keep it. Think about it. This thing on its hind legs could walk up to the average single story house and could look on the roof at eye level.

Free Cab Ride in New York City!

Yellow Cab Coupon 

Those fine folks who drive for Yellow Cab have just made a very generous offer. Any Republican delegate attending the upcoming RNC, or Right-Wing Talk Show Host, is entitled to a free cab ride to Kennedy or Newark Airport to fight in Iraq. Note that you must have a one-way ticket to Baghdad, and that return home will be provided, one way or another, by the Federal Government.
Cabbies Against Bush

My Wish List

Olympic Digital Madness 
If Jimbo can shamelessly beg for a high-tech crack lighter (er, brulle burner), then I can politely request that he purchase all seven of these cameras, for my Birthday in October or maybe just for Burning Man weekend. Jimbo, waddaya say?

Juan Cole and a Warning from Bush Sr.

Juan Cole at Informed Comment

Juan Cole Interview at Detroit Metro Times

George H.W. Bush on Why Invading Iraq was a Bad Idea

George Gedda of AP reminds us of the opposition to an American invasion of Iraq expressed after the Gulf War by George Bush senior and his secretary of state, James Baker. Bush wrote in his memoirs:

"Incalculable human and political costs" would have been the result, the senior Bush has said, if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

"We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq," Bush wrote. "The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish.

"Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome."

Baker wrote an op-ed in 1996 that said

"Iraqi soldiers and civilians could be expected to resist an enemy seizure of their own country with a ferocity not previously demonstrated on the battlefield in Kuwait.

"Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.

"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."

One thing Gedda neglects in his account is the enormous pressure the first Bush administration received from Middle East allies not to go in. The Saudis were afraid the Shiites would take over, strengthening Iran and perhaps becoming influential in the oil-rich al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, which traditionally had a Shiite majority. The Turks were afraid of Kurdish nationalism being unleashed, such that it might spread back to Turkey. The Jordanians were also afraid of chaos, which might blow back on them. The Egyptians objected to a Western army invading a Muslim country.

Even more recently, in 2002 - 2003, King Abdullah II would have much preferred that the war had never been fought. He warned Bush that it might cast the entire region into flames. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak warned that it would produce a thousand Bin Ladens. Was he wrong?

posted by Juan @ 8/25/2004 06:29:05 AM

Juan Cole Informed Comment

Chris Allbritton Reports from Najaf

Imam Ali Mosque, Najaf, Iraq 

You can't make this shit up.

BlogSpot Help: How to Post Multiple Photos

Bruce Briscoe Wedding in Bali

Cathy Doerr 
As you can see from this post, I've finally figured out how to post multiple photos on a single blog. You'd think that BlogSpot Help would have something about this basic function, but NO................... Fortunately, I just stumbled across some advice via the Salam Pax blog below, and it seems to work:

Post your first picture with Hello (for those without their own website)
Write the Caption
After the Caption, add || (use Shift + \ twice)
Hit Publish
Blogger will send you a message that your post has been queued
Then post your second photo
Caption, then add ||
Hit Publish
Repeat as many times as you like, then just Publish final post without the ||

Also, I've finally figured out how to add Trackback to BlogSpot, which they claim in their Help section is impossible. It's not. You need to use Halo Scan for free Trackback functions. You can use Halo Scan for your Comments or Trackback - either a single function or both. See the Halo Scan Forum at the website for some recent tips from the volunteer advisor on how to just add Trackback and continue to use the Blogspot Comments.

Geez, you'd think all this stuff would be easy to find on the BlogSpot Help section, but it's not. Or they have just got the wrong information. Google can't afford to update their Help section?

I'd short their stock.

Salam Pax is Back

Salam Pax is a legendary blogger from Baghdad who set the pace with his early reports from Baghdad just as the Iraqi War was in its first stages. After gaining a degree of fame for his evocative posts, Salam sort of disappeared and his blog went silent. Well, he's back with some great posts from Najaf, including photos from the last few days. Welcome back Salam and keep you head down.
Salam Pax Blog from Iraq

Hog or Hoax?

Alabama Hog Story 

I know a few people who live in Alabama (travel writers in Burmingham), and they just love to tell tall stories and pull the leg of outsiders. So I'd take the photograph with a grain of salt, but congrats to the local denizens for their sense of creativity.


ALAPAHA, Ga. (AP)

With the local legend of Hogzilla spreading worldwide, residents of this tiny Georgia town have decided to feature the prodigious porker in their annual festival. Plantation owner Ken Holyoak said one of his hunting guides shot the 12-foot-long wild hog in June, but few actually saw it before it was buried. Besides the few witnesses, the only proof is a photo showing the guide with the beast dangling from a strap.

Holyoak claims the hog weighed 1,000 pounds and had 9-inch tusks. Now, residents plan to include a Hogzilla float, a Hogzilla informational booth and Hogzilla T-shirts in Alapaha's festival in November.

"We're going hog wild," said Darrell Jernigan of Jernigan's Farm Supply.

The festival's previous themes include God Bless America, Saluting Our Firemen, and Our Indian Heritage. Residents around town smile when strangers ask them about the massive hog. "Some say it's like fishing,"' Elizabeth Moore said. "The more you tell the story, the bigger the fish gets and the more you tell the story about Hogzilla, the bigger the hog gets."

Feral hogs, popularly known as wild hogs, are domestic hogs that escaped from farms and began living off the land. Holyoak said his plantation's previous record was a 695-pound hog shot several years ago.

Bob Dole and his Purple Heart

Bob Dole 

I like Bob Dole. He's one of the few Republicans who has always tried to keep himself above the gutter politics of Washington, and understood that respect must be earned. Hell, I even liked him more after he became the first spokesperson for Viagra.

So I was very disappointed yesterday when he attacked John Kerry and claimed that Kerry did not deserve any of his three Purple Hearts because he never bled. Today, blog pundits are all over Dole, including the always angry Markos from Berkeley (yeah! I went to school there) at Daily Kos who picked it up from Josh at Talking Points Memo

From Kos:

Dole a Hypocrite
by Kos
Mon Aug 23rd, 2004 at 16:25:14 GMT

Josh Marshall applies the smackdown to Bob Dole, so I don't have to:
Today Bob Dole suggested that one or more of John Kerry's Purple Hearts may have been fraudulent in some way because they were for "superficial wounds."
Dole knows better.

In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here's how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: "As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."

Notice that even though much was made of Dole's military service during the 1996 election (comparing it to Clinton's draft avoidance), Democrats were much too classy to try and smear Dole's war record or question the validity of his first Purple Heart.

Philippine Financial Crisis

President Gloria Arroyo 

The Philippines has been in economic free-fall for decades, but it looks like the basket case of Southeast Asia is about to hit the wall and may soon face total economic collapse ala Argentina a few years ago. A very insightful analysis is provide by Conrad at Gweilo Diaries here at his daily blog from Hong Kong

Screaming for Security

Soon for Sale in Your Neighborhood 
Blogspot from Goggle is a fairly good free tool for starting your first blog, but it ain't Moveable Type 3.0, since there's no Trackback capability and you can't organize your old posts into categories on the sidebar. But the biggest drawback is that you can only post one photo per posting, and if you forget to post the photo at the start of your post, then you are just plain out of luck. I intended to put The Scream on the post below, but screwed up and forgot about the friggin necessity of order. So here it is.

Southeast Asia News 1

Finally plowed my way through The San Francisco Chronicle and made a few phone calls, then off to the internet to check on stories from various sites such as The Bangkok Post and The Nation, along with new spots including a new MSN Newsbot that looks promising.

Political Polls are an Absurdity in Thailand
The Nation has an odd story about a recent poll concerning the upcoming elections for mayor in Bangkok. Apparently, it's OK for a major university to conduct political polls but it's taboo to actually name the politicians cited in the poll. So, they come up with pseudonyms such as "pretty-faced politician" and "renowned social activist," along with "leisure tycoon" and "loving father." This absurdity is ridiculous and an insult to the intelligence of the Thai people

Pimp Running for Governor in Bangkok
So who's running for the top position in Bangkok and why should anyone care? It is almost beyond belief, but one of the leading candidates is a guy who owns almost a dozen of the largest prostitution centers in the capital. He's not beyond openly admitting his occupation and brags about paying off the police and military and presumably higher ranking government officials to keep his brothels open, as reported in some depth at www.2bangkok.com. He's considered an honest politican in a country where most of the ruling class should be locked up and the key thrown away. A Canadian news outlet goes into more details about Bangkok's largest brothel owner and his run for political office You can't make this stuff up.

Lee Kuan Yew (again)
The China Post posts another outrageous and misguided series of quotes from the always quotable Lee Kuan Yew, who rails on about the lack of discrimination in Singapore against the Hindu Indians and Muslim Malays (yeah, sure) and claims their lot is superior to minorities in the United States. Lee has never been able to handle criticism of his country, but he's always happy to dish it out

Gloria Arroyo and the Unemployed
Ms. Arroyo may not want to pucker up any longer for her fans, and she's only too happy to withdraw her meager Filipino humanitarian contingent from Iraq and prohibit any Filipinos from working in the country. Now, she's come under fire from thousands of unemployed Filipinos who seek work in Iraq despite the grave dangers, rather than slowly sinking into abject poverty in their home country. Demonstrations have taken place recently in Manila protesting the government's policy to prohibit Filipinos from accepting work in Iraq I say, if somebody wants to take on the risks to feed their family, they should be entitled to sign up and head on over. Otherwise, all the jobs will be taken by Pakistanis and Indians, whose governments have more realistic views about poverty in their countries.

Cow Tipping and Hunting for Snipes
I'm such a city boy that I've long believed in the truth about "cow tipping."
I guess I'm an idiot

Give a Gold to the Korean
Everyone feels pretty crummy about that unfortunate Korean gymnast who was cheated out of his gold medal due to the idiocy of the judges, who failed to recognize that the difficulty of his routine was rated a 10 rather than the 9.9 he was given. The New York Daily News has the obvious solution: give a gold medal to Mr. Yang of South Korea Hamm keeps his gold and everyone goes home happy.

What is with Norwegian Security?
It's happened again. Thieves Steal The Scream

Saturday Cat

Yes, This is a REAL cat 
After a million page views last month, everyone complains that I am getting too heavy with the politics and scandals, so I've decided to launch a new tradition here at this fine blog. Every Saturday will now be CAT DAY! That's right! A new kitty cat every Saturday for your viewing pleasure!

Bali Bomber Threats

Before and After 

Bali Bomber Pledges Fresh Attack
Tasmanian Sun
22aug04

Bali bomber Imam Samudra has warned he will continue to wage jihad if a recent constitutional court decision means he is set free. Vowing to carry out more bombings against "unbelievers", Samudra said: "I want to continue my Jihad Fie Sabililah (violent holy struggle). "I want to go to Moro (in the Philippines). I want to go to Afghanistan. I want to go to Israel to kill Sharon."

Speaking from his death-row cell in Bali's Kerobokan prison, Samudra vowed to kill again. "If I get the death penalty, I will die a martyr's death. If I'm free, I'll bomb again. You got it?" The 33-year-old field commander of the Bali bombings that killed 202, including 88 Australians, said he would "slaughter Bush" if a recent change in Indonesian legislation meant he was released from custody.

Last month, Indonesia's constitutional court ruled that the anti-terrorism law under which the Bali bombers were sentenced breached the constitution. It has since been erased from the statute books. The court's decision gives the bombers the chance to have their convictions overturned. The court ruled that as Anti-Terrorism Law Number 16 was brought in after the attacks took place, it could not be applied to the Bali bombing case as Indonesia's constitution prohibits prosecution using retroactive laws.

Kerry Testifies 1971

Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright, Senator Javits, Senator Symington and Senator Pell.

I would like to say for the record, and also for the men sitting behind me who are also wearing the uniforms and their medals, that my sitting here is really symbolic. I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of a group of 1,000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony. I would simply like to speak in general terms. I apologize if my statement is general because I received notification [only] yesterday that you would hear me, and, I am afraid, because of the injunction I was up most of the night and haven't had a great deal of chance to prepare.

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit--the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam,in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.



We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation. The term "winter soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine's in 1776, when he spoke of the "sunshine patriots," and "summertime soldiers" who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel, because of what threatens this country, not the reds, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.

I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

As a veteran and one who felt this anger, I would like to talk about it. We are angry because we feel we have been used it the worst fashion by the administration of this country.

In 1970, at West Point, Vice President Agnew said, "some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse," and this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam.

But for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion. Hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country, because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so many who have died would have returned to this country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans' Administration hospitals in this country which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol. And we cannot consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but, also, we found that the Vietnamese, whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image, were hard-put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American.

We found also that, all too often, American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy missions as well as by Viet Cong terrorism, - and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai, and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free-fire zones--shooting anything that moves--and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while, month after month, we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental human beings" with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using, were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and, after losing one platoon, or two platoons, they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of "Vietnamizing" the Vietnamese.

Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying, as human beings, to communicate to people in this country--the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions, such as the use of weapons: the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones; harassment-interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions; the bombings; the torture of prisoners; all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly: He told me how, as a boy on an Indian reservation, he had watched television, and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "my God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country....

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that they can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission: To search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our own hearts; to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so, when, thirty years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

MOMA Tall Buildings Project

MOMA Tall Buildings Project

This superb flash presentation by New York MoMA looks at 20 of the world's most amazing buildings, both constructed and imagined.

Hat tip 2Bangkok Website

Indonesia Censors Sex Movie

Photo by Carl Parkes 

Kyodo
Friday August 20, 1:29 PM

'Kiss Me Quick' Draws Film Censors Ire in Indonesia

Indonesia's censor board ordered a film called "Kiss Me Quick" withdrawn from cinemas Friday after Muslim groups complained that its title could lead to adultery.
"We have had hundreds of letters," said board director Titi Said. "The film caused unrest among the people, who say it was not in line with our society's values."

The low-budget flick was originally passed by the board two weeks ago and has been playing to large audiences across the world's most populous Muslim nation. Several Jakarta cinemas took down posters advertising the film Friday after receiving a copy of the censor board's order.

The film contains a scene of a young couple sharing a brief meeting of the lips, but protests have apparently been sparked by its title, "Buruan Cium Gue" or "Kiss Me Quick." "The title clearly leads people to commit adultery," popular Islamic cleric Abudullah Gymnastiar told Gatra magazine. "Kissing is the root of adultery."

The controversy is unusual because Indonesian cinemas and television are full of violent American imports that contain kissing scenes. Earlier this year, a local film showing two gay men sharing a kiss was passed by censors.

Script writer Ve Handojo said the reaction to the film was "not very mature. It is funny because they are reacting to the title," he said. "Most of the protesters have not watched the movie."

Thai Gold Medal - Don't Hand it Over!

Gold Digger in Bangkok 

Saturday August 21, 2:37 AM
Thai Weightlifter Wins 75kg Gold

Weightlifter Pawina Thongsuk of Thailand won the gold medal Friday in the 75-kilogram class with a total of 272.5 kg (601 pounds).

Last week, a female Thai weightlifter won a gold medal, the first such award ever given to a Thai female and a source of pride for all the people of Thailand. The Deputy Prime Minsiter to Thaksin Shinawatra (smiling picture above) immediately asked to borrow the medal, then flew back to Thailand where he proudly showed it off to the press. The people of Thailand were outraged, despite his pleas that he only brought it home early to have a copy made of the medal.

It is widely suspected that the copy will be returned to Athens and the original medal will disappear into somebody's bank vault. Pawina, Don't Hand Over that Medal! Same goes for the additional female Thai weightlifter who won another gold medal today.

Michelle Malkin Blows Her Nut on Hardball

Malkin Tells Chris Matthews "Fuck You" 

So there I was last night, watching the Olympics and wondering if any other athletic events exist aside from gymnastics and swimming, when another obnoxious commercial pops up and I grab for the remote. I am allergic to commercials and always channel surf while slowly counting two minutes in my head. Down a few channels is MSNBC, where my favorite Chris Matthews on Hardball is going hot and heavy with journalist and blogger Michelle Malkin. Sparks are flying, Matthews is infuriated, Malkin is about to blow up into a million pieces. It's an amazing confrontation between hot-head Matthews and right-wing Nutcase and FOX Whore-slave Malkin.

This will be all over the blogosphere today and I'll add comments from other bloggers, but in the meantime, a few quick links:

Michelle Malkin's blog Today about her disastrous encounter with Matthews:
Michelle Malkin on her Hardball Fiasco

MSNBC Blog from Matthews and Company:
MSNBC Hardball Blog

MSNBC Transcript of Hardball smack-down of Michelle Malkin:
Hardball Michelle Malkin Transcript

Thailand Today

Woke up this morning and conducted my early ritual of coffee, cigar and The San Francisco Chronicle, then fired up the computer and checked the news from The Bangkok Post. It's a wild and wacky world, when one can find all these sad and absurd stories in a single day, in a single newspaper.

Border Governors Want Transfers
The governors of three southernmost provinces rocked by months of insurgent violence have asked to be transferred out of the region, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra confirmed yesterday.

He said the governors of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat may be stressed out as a result of their constant preoccupation with the region's problems. This may be a good time to rotate the governors who had been engrossed in tackling the southern insurgency and needed time off from the problem, he said. The prime minister said postings to the region would be voluntary, while admitting there were limited qualified candidates to replace them.

Over 300 Thai Buddhist monks, members of the military and police, and innocent citizens have been murdered this year in Southern Thailand by radical Islamic fundamentalists who wish to establish an independent Islamic state in the region. I'd want to get the hell out too.

Early Closing Goes Down Badly with Car Owners, Shoppers
"What is the point of closing these stores early while letting unlimited new cars hit the road every day?" - Sitthirat Poonsapsathit, Housewife

"Business has not been good and with this measure it will get even worse." - Somsri Prod-on, Clothes vendor

"It will certainly affect vendors, then people earning overtime, then the whole economy." - Warisara Sapkasem, university Freshman

Bangkok shoppers doubt early closure of malls and superstores can help cut oil consumption but say it will make life even harder for many. They said removing cars from streets was a better way to save energy and wondered why the government did not do it. Sitthirat Poonsapsathit, 40, said closing department stores at 8 pm and convenience and discount stores at 10 pm could cause heavier traffic jams as people would rush to the stores to do their shopping at the same time, mostly in the evening after work.

The Thai government recently ordered the early closing of all markets and department stores in an effort to conserve fuel, forcing most consumers to do their shopping between the time they get off work and when most stores must now close at 8 or 10pm. Rather than deal with the critical problems of traffic, pollution, and noise, Thai politicians take the easy way out and punish shop owners and the average Thai citizen.

Thai 'Sympathy' for Burma
Thailand remains sympathetic to Burma despite slow progress in its democratisation process and United Nations criticism over the opposition's absence from the constitution-drafting process, said the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

''Thailand has already asserted its efforts and still continues with what we could do to support the reconciliation and democratisation in Burma,'' said ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow.

Let's see. Burma (Myanmar) is one of the world's most brutal dictatorships and is the chief exporter of speed to Thailand. And the Thai Foreign Ministry has "sympathy" for Burma? The lack of backbone from the Thai government is nothing short of astonishing.

Poonpol Barred from Politics
Court rules He Lied about Owning Shares
The Constitution Court has barred former MP [Member of Parliament] Poonpol Asavahame from politics for five years for intentionally hiding shares worth more than 400 million baht [$10 million] belonging to him and his wife. The shares should have been declared in asset statements he filed with the national anti-graft agency from 1997-2002. The ban is retroactive from 2001.

Deputy secretary-general Paiboon Warahapaiboon said the court yesterday voted 13:1 in ruling that Mr Poonpol had presented the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) with false asset and liability statements. It banned him from holding any political position for five years retroactive to Feb 18, 2001, when he left the job of secretary to a Prime Minister's Office minister. The case was forwarded to the court by the NCCC which found that Mr Poonpol, who became an MP on Nov 17, 1996, lied about his assets and liabilities in six statements submitted between Nov 7, 1997, and March 8, 2002.

Members of Parliament in Thailand make about $3000 monthly including expenses. How in the world did this guy manage to bank about $10 million? And what happens when he is caught? He's banned from holding public office until 2006. This criminal should have been taken to court, convicted, and thrown into jail.

And that's just this morning news from Thailand...

Dolphin Surfing - The Newest Sport at Olympics 2004!

The La Jolla Dolphins are Favored 
But the Mazatlan Marauders are also in the hunt.

Rolling Stone on O'Reilly and Fox

Rolling Stone Story

I subscribed for several years to Rolling Stone and often found one article that make it sensible to pay their annual subscription, generally their coverage of politics or contemporary issues. Their stories from an embedded reporter last year during the invasion of Iraq were superb, and every bit as good as anything from The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. But I have no interest in pop princesses or the latest retro bands, and I have only purchased jazz CDs in the last 20 years, so I dropped the subscription.

This well written article about Bill O'Reilly and Fox News is unbalanced and unfair, and I love it.

AngryFinger is Pretty Damn Angry Today

www.angryfinger.org/

James is generally, almost always, in a bad mood about America, but the latest U.S. Census report on the distribution of wealth in this country has really got him riled up. It's posted on Tuesday, so if you're looking at his site a few days later, just scroll down.

Also check the photos from the rallies of Kerry and Bush in Portland last week.

A Blog from Athens

www.panoramatos.com/weblog/

Probably one of the better blogs coming from Athens, with incisive commentary and unusual photos, taken by a pair of expats living in Athens while making a documentary on the plight of the gypsies. Probably worth checking daily until the Olympics end, then who knows?

The Morality of "Win Ben Stein's Money"

Who would have imagined? I've always seen Ben Stein as a minor TV personality and shill for eye drops, but his final column for E Online really puts life in perspective.

Ben Stein's Final Column at E

Major Victory for WildAid in Thailand

Major Victory for WildAid

The consumption of shark's fin soup in Thailand - and elsewhere in Asia - has decimated the world's population of sharks, and this tragic tradition of the Chinese has been opposed for several years by an American wildlife organization in San Francisco, WildAid. After placing ads in local Thai newspapers protesting the destruction of sharks for the production of a soup, and claiming that shark's fin soup contained dangerously high levels of mercury, WildAid was sued in Thai courts by the commercial producers of this high-priced soup. After two years of court procedures, WildAid won a very important legal decision today in Bangkok.

AFP · AP · Asia Pulse · Reuters · Channel NewsAsia · Kyodo
Monday August 16, 4:35 PM

Thai Court Acquits Wildlife Activists in Shark Fin Lawsuit

A court acquitted wildlife activists Monday who claimed shark fin soup sold in Thailand may contain mercury poison _ an allegation that provoked a 110 million baht (US$2.65 million) lawsuit by local sellers of the Chinese delicacy. Judge Chayan Thempiam, of the Bangkok Southern Civil Court, said defendants from the group WildAid published and distributed information based on scientific facts from government-affiliated laboratories.

"The defendants' conclusion that cooked shark fin may have mercury does not contradict the facts," Chayan said in his verdict. "Therefore, to quote and publicize such information does not violate the plaintiffs' rights."

Shark fin soup is highly popular among Chinese, and is a top selling item at restaurants in Bangkok's Chinatown. A bowl of high-quality soup can cost as much as US$100.

WildAid is based in San Francisco and has offices around the world, according to the group's Web site.

A global WildAid campaign launched in March 2001 said because sharks are predators at the top of the food chain, they ingest all toxic material, including mercury, consumed by smaller fish that feed in polluted waters. The campaign prompted shark fin soup restaurant owners and other retailers to file the lawsuit, saying the claim damaged their businesses. They have 30 days to appeal Monday's ruling.

WildAid put its campaign on hold as a result of the litigation. One of the defendants, Bangkok-based WildAid Executive Director Steven Galster, called the ruling a victory not only for his group, but one for other environmental organizations in Thailand as well. "The ruling sends a signal that so long as we can back up our campaign with the facts, we should feel free to speak up," Galster told The Associated Press.

"The plaintiffs' strategy was to shut us up, which unfortunately they succeeded in doing for three years. We will now resume our campaign," he said.
Galster said shark protection would be an important topic at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which will hold a meeting in Bangkok in October.

More information at www.wildaid.org Be sure to read their article in Outside magazine.

Exit Strategies for Iraq

Anyone Got a Better Idea?

Slate
http://slate.msn.com
No Way Out
Is There any Hope of Avoiding Catastrophe in Iraq?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Aug. 13, 2004

No solutions in sight? This is a terribly grim thing to say, but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq. There might be nothing we can do to build a path to a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region, and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster.

Much as the Bush administration hoped otherwise, the fighting didn't stop—or so much as turn a corner—after sovereignty passed from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the new government of Iraq. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made a fine speech on the occasion about dealing with the insurgency, especially the need to isolate the foreign jihadists from the homegrown rebels who simply don't like being occupied. But the distinction has turned out to be muddy, and it will remain so until Allawi demonstrates he deserves their loyalty—that is, until he proves that he's independent from his American benefactors and competent at restoring basic services.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks. The Marines could readily defeat the insurgents in Najaf, but only at the great risk of inflaming Shiites—and sparking still larger insurgencies—elsewhere. In the Sadr City section of Baghdad, as U.S. commanders acknowledge, practically every resident is an insurgent.

There are not enough U.S. and British troops now to create the conditions for order. Nor are there likely to be any time soon. John Kerry says that, if elected president, he'd persuade our allies—the ones Bush blew off—to come help (or bail) us out. Kerry would certainly be an abler diplomat than Bush; he would repair tattered alliances, and the benefits would likely be substantial in many aspects of international politics. But it's unclear how even Kerry would lure reluctant leaders to send significant numbers of combat troops into what they see as the quagmire of Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration seems to be muddling through with neither a military strategy for beating the insurgents nor a political strategy for securing Iraq's stability. Bush seems to have gone into this war without any notion that he was popping the lid off a Jack-in-a-box—that toppling Saddam and destroying the Baath Party (however laudable) would also uncork decades of pent-up ethnic and tribal tensions. If his advisers were better briefed, they took no steps to quell the likely postwar conflicts. They didn't send more troops to keep order (either in defiance or in ignorance of historic precedent). More to the point here, they didn't seek out the various ethnic leaders or offer them incentives to join a new political order. They didn't, for that matter, formulate a new political order. (Perhaps they thought Ahmad Chalabi had that department under control.)

The trick of a stable Iraq is to find some way of accommodating the ambitions and insecurities of Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites, religious Shiites, and Kurds. Nobody has figured out a way to do this yet.

Some analysts, most notably Peter Galbraith and Leslie Gelb, have advocated a "three-state solution." Iraq, after all, was an artifice of the British Empire from its very birth in the land-grabbing wake of World War I. Why not undo the monstrous deed and sever the conjoined triplets into separate beings? Partition has its abstract appeal, but it's a recipe for creating three weak states, and it would probably spark a civil or regional war. Iraq's oil is concentrated in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south; the Sunnis in the center would get nothing from the deal and thus would fight it. They could expect aid in this fight from the Saudis, who, if nothing else, would want to stem expansionist Iran, which would no doubt aim to dominate the Shiites (Iran's making political incursions even now).

Meanwhile, the Kurds would come under pressure from Turkey, which would get nervous about the example being set for its own Kurdish residents; Turkey might be encouraged in this pressure by northern Iraq's large Turkmen population, which would chomp at Kurdish rule. (To be fair, Galbraith endorses a "loose federation," not three distinct states, but the problems and regional dynamics would be only slightly less severe; it's doubtful that our own Articles of Confederation could have survived such pressures, and Muqtada Sadr is no Thomas Paine.)

Iraq will have to find its own political arrangement; an imposed solution like MacArthur's Japan—an analogy in which some sought solace before the war—is no longer in the cards, if it ever was. However, before Iraq can have politics, it must have basic order. Which leads back to the opening question: Is there a solution?

Professor Juan Cole, whose blog remains essential for tracking events in Iraq, has an idea, though he admits its chances of success are remote. He thinks that, with the right mix of incentives, Russia and France might be persuaded to send troops. One key would be to play on their commercial ambitions. Give both countries—and any others—favored status to bid on vital contracts. Iraq's oil reserves alone might prove tempting. The other key would be to turn over the occupation, including its military command, to an outside entity: NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League—anything, as long as the general in charge is not an American. This would be a particularly difficult step. In all other multilateral peacekeeping operations involving U.S. troops, the military component has been kept under U.S. command. Yet the undisputable fact is that no outsider will send troops to Iraq if the United States remains in charge there.

Historical analyses suggest that at least 300,000—possibly as many as 500,000—troops are needed to impose order in Iraq. Fewer than half that many U.S. and British troops are currently stationed there, and neither country has many armed forces to spare. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, is training a new Iraqi army (much of which amounts to re-recruiting the less tainted members of the old Iraqi army), but that project will take a few years to bear fruit, and it's questionable, in any case, whether Iraqis would shoot their own. (Cole notes that, during last spring's aborted offensive in Fallujah, the local police chief told the U.S. Marines that his men would not attack the native insurgents. More recently, nearly all 4,000 Iraqi security forces in Najaf defected to Muqtada Sadr's army.)

Even if our re-energized allies agreed to send more troops, they would be but a beginning, a holding action, and who knows how long they'd have to stay? What kind of country Iraq becomes, what kind of politics it practices, what kind of alliances it forms—all are mysteries. You don't hear Paul Wolfowitz waxing lyrical these days, as he did a year ago, over the universal truths of Alexis de Tocqueville. Even he must realize that the best we can hope for, at this point, is an Iraq that doesn't blow up and take the region with it. The dismaying, frightening thing is how imponderably difficult it will be simply to avoid catastrophe.

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate.
Photograph by Ceerwan Aziz/Reuters.

Iranian Judo Expert Prohibited by His Government to Challenge Jewish Contender

The Spirit of the Olympics

Olympics Hit by Crisis Over Iran-Israel Contest
Aug 15, 11:11 AM (ET)
By Douglas Hamilton
ATHENS (Reuters)

Iran's world judo champion, Arash Miresmaeili, refused to compete against an Israeli Sunday, triggering a fresh crisis at the Olympic Games where race, creed or color are barred from interfering in sport. The International Judo Federation (IJF) failed to agree how to deal with the politically explosive issue at an emergency meeting and said it would hold further talks Monday.

The burning issue was whether any penalty would hit Miresmaeili alone or the entire Iranian team, as the intrusion of the Middle East's bitter politics threatened to fly in the face of the Olympic ideal. "There has been no decision and we are considering this situation very carefully," said IJF spokesman Michel Brousse.

The official reason at the Games for Miresmaeili's non-appearance was failure to make the weight but judo chiefs questioned how a seasoned athlete, who carried Iran's flag at Friday's opening ceremony, would have made such a basic error.

REAL REASON
But in Tehran, the Iranian National Olympic Committee said in a statement: "This is a general policy of our country to refrain from competing against athletes of the Zionist regime and Arash Miresmaeili has observed this policy."
Iran has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist since Islamic fundamentalists toppled the Shah in 1979. Miresmaeili, who had been due to fight Israeli Ehud Vaks, was quoted by Iran's official news agency IRNA as saying he acted in solidarity with the Palestinians.

"Although I have trained for months and am in shape I refused to face my Israeli rival in sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people," said Miresmaeili, 66 kg world champion in 2001 and 2003. "I am not upset about the decision I have made."

That is a lie. He was given no choice, but forced to sacrifice his appearance at the 2004 Olympics to satisfy the Zionist racists in Tehran. So much for the Iranian government's sense of the Spirit of the Olympics.

Singapore Political Dissidents

Singapore Handbook

DISSIDENTS IN SINGAPORE
Carl Parkes
Singapore Handbook, 1st edition

Joining an opposition party or running in elections against the PAP can be a risky career move as shown by the stories below.

Chia Thye Poh
Singapore’s original political dissident and near-holder of world’s record for political detention is former assemblyman and university lecturer, Chia Thye Poh, who was held in detention from 1966 to 1989, a 23-year stretch exceeded only by that of Nelson Mandela.

Chia had been a lecturer at Singapore’s Nanyang University and an opposition member of Parliament representing the now defunct Barisan Socialis party. In October 1966 Chia resigned his parliamentary seat to protest the detention of other Barisan legislators and was arrested three weeks later under Singapore’s Internal Security Act. Chia was held without formal charge or a trial for 22 years in Whitley Road Detention Centre. When the Internal Security Department (ISD) offered to release him on condition that he “give a public undertaking renouncing the use of force and terror to overthrow the government,” Chia refused on the grounds that he never advocated violence or been a member of the communist party.

Chia was finally released from prison in 1989 under the condition that he remain confined on the tourist resort island of Sentosa, where he worked in a converted souvenir stand as assistant curator of the museum. Some say he his release from prison a few weeks before Nelson Mandela’s release was timed so that Singapore could avoid the dubious distinction of having the world’s longest serving political prisoner. An unapologetic Chia was later sent home and now lives with his father but is forbidden to be employed, travel abroad, issue public statements, or associate with other former detainees without ISD approval.

J.B. Jeyaretnam
Singapore’s most defiant opposition figure is Sri Lankan-born attorney Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam who, during the mid-1980s, claimed the citizens of Singapore suffered from the authoritarian and paternalistic behavior of Lee's government. Perhaps alarmed by the decline in PAP popularity and the election of J.B. Jeyaretnam to Parliament in 1981 as the first opposition candidate in over a decade, the government introduced a series of constitutional amendments and disciplinary measures aimed at troublesome politicians. Punitive lawsuits eventually bankrupted the cash-poor Workers Party and put Jeyaretnam on trial where he was denied legal council, convicted, stripped of his parliamentary position, banned from contesting future elections, and disbarred from legal practice.

Jeyaretnam's appeal to the Privy Council in London--a right generally granted all citizens of British Commonwealth nations--ruled that he and his co-accused had suffered “grievous injustice” and were “fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced of offenses of which they were not guilty.” After another incident with Francis Seow, the government passed legislation which prohibited the right of appeal to the Privy Council, a British institution which the ruling party portrayed as an unnecessary legacy of colonialism.

Jeyaretnam later withdrew his appeal before the Singapore Court of Appeals for parliamentary reinstatement and lost a US$232,723 defamation suit to former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Jeyaretnam was later sued by the Straits Times which forced him back into bankruptcy court and threatened to end his colorful political career. He lost the case in late 1994 and was ordered to pay the Straits Times almost US$100,000.

Jeyaretnam and his Worker’s Party has lost ground to younger opposition parties such as the Singapore Democratic Party which won three parliamentary seats in the 1991 general elections. Although Jeyaretnam has returned to legal practice, he has lost all subsequent parliamentary elections after a 10-year forced hiatus from politics.

Vincent Cheng and the Marxist Conspiracy
Although Vincent Cheng has never served in a political position, mention must be made of the 1987 arrest of 22 people involved in what the government called a “Marxist conspiracy” to overthrow the government. Among the arrested were Catholic Church social workers, employees of Jeyaretnam's Workers Party newspaper, and members of a theatrical company called Third Stage. The government claimed the two leaders of the Marxist conspiracy were Vincent Cheng, a Catholic Church activist, and Tan Wah Piow, a former student leader who, according to the government, had been attempting to overthrow the Singapore government since attending law school in Oxford.

Reaction to the arrests was disbelief since few observers thought it possible that this loose collection of lawyers, Christian activists, and theatrical performers comprised some sort of Marxist conspiracy against the Singapore government. Thirty-nine members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter condemning the arrests and the subsequent detentions of the accused without trial.

Those arrested were interrogated and then paraded before the media in an orchestrated campaign to convince the public of their guilt, while the Straits Times presented accusations made by the Ministry of Home Affairs as fact rather than allegation. Amnesty International claimed that both psychological and physical torture were used to extract the confessions of the political detainees. All but one of the suspects were eventually set free, but eight were re-arrested after signing a statement saying that their confessions had been obtained after beatings, intimidation, and deceit.

Vincent Cheng remained under ISD house arrest until 1995 when restrictions were finally lifted.

Francis Seow
Another sad case of government actions against political activists is Francis Seow, a former solicitor general and ex-president of Singapore's Law Society who harshly criticized the government while representing the suspects in “Marxist conspiracy” described above. The government responded by arresting Seow as a threat to national security and placing him under the control of the Internal Security Department, a secret police agency which taps phones, searches mail, and has the power to detain suspects without trail under the terms of the Internal Security Act. Seow, accused of plotting with Americans to interfere in Singapore’s internal affairs, was held for 72 days while the ISD interrogated his about his political beliefs, sources of income, and possible financial support from the American government.

The crisis peaked when the Singapore government demanded that Mason Hendrickson, a U.S. Embassy employee, be removed from his Singapore post for interfering in domestic politics and secretly urging lawyers such as Seow to run in general elections. The U.S. government denied the charges and, in response, ordered the expulsion of a Singaporean envoy from Washington.

Soon after his release from ISA detention, Seow further infuriated the government by announcing his plans to run as an opposition candidate in the upcoming election. Seow won a non-constituency parliamentary seat. The government responded by filing six counts of tax evasion against Seow, who promptly fled the country for the United States. Seow was subsequently convicted of tax evasion in absentia and disqualified from his seat in Parliament. Fearing that Seow would appeal to the Privy Council and still angry with the earlier success of Jeyeratnam , the government abolished the defendant's right of habeas corpus and right of final appeal to the Privy Council.

Rather than returning to Singapore, Seow accepted a fellowship at Yale University and now resides in the United States. Seow authored an account of his experiences in To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew’s Prison. The book, as you might imagine, is not sold in Singapore but is widely available in Malaysia.

Chee Soon Juan
Dr. Chee, a neuropsychologist and former lecturer at the National University of Singapore, is one of the few individuals in Singapore who continues to challenge the ruling party in his position of head of the Singapore Democratic Party.

Chee was educated in the United States where he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1990 before returning to Singapore to work in the Department of Social Work and Psychology at the National University of Singapore. In 1992, Chee joined the Singapore Democratic Party and ran for prime minister against Goh Chok Tong, the former prime minister and major figure within the ruling party. Chee even sought public assurances from Prime Minister Goh that there would be no hard feelings if he opposed him in the elections.

Just months after losing the election to Goh, Chee was fired by the university on charges that he had spent US$138 of university research funds to ship his wife's doctoral thesis to Pennsylvania State University. Chee insisted that the reimbursement voucher had been signed by Dr. Vasoo, the head of the department and a PAP member of Parliament. Vasoo presented an altered voucher but Chee was in a hopeless position. After he lost his job at the university, Chee continued to insist that his dismissal was politically motivated. For these remarks, Chee was sued for libel by Dr. Vasoo and two other senior members of the department.

Rather than settle out of court, Chee sold his house to finance his defense but lost the case and was forced to pay the almost $300,000 to the litigants.

His problems did not end there. Back in private psychology practice, Chee finds most doctors unwilling to refer patients and most of his friends have abandoned him out of fear of reprisal. Yet Chee continues to stand up to the government. His first book, Dare To Change, argues that authoritarian forms of government will ultimately fail as democracy, free speech, and individual rights spread across Asia. Chee later wrote Singapore My Home Too. Both books receive limited distribution in Singapore.

Chee stirred up more controversy in September 1995 when he delivered a message about the state of Singapore at Williams College in Massachusetts. Parliament censured Chee two months later on the grounds that he had allegedly failed to contradict attacks on the judiciary made by Chee’s fellow panelists, dissident Francis Seow and academic Christopher Lingle.

Chee found himself in hot water again in August 1996 after he accepted an offer to debate the government on political issues and the rising costs of public health care. During the debate, Chee misquoted some statistics which infuriated the PAP and brought charges of parliamentary contempt from the Minister of Health.

Lee Kuan Yew Speaks
Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, once one of the world’s most articulate voices of freedom, had this to say in 1956 as an opposition member of Parliament: “But either we believe in democracy or we do not. If we do, then we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from any democratic process, other than by ordinary law of the land, should be allowed. If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at naught. . .”

In a subsequent speech made when Singapore was part of the Malaysian federation, Lee articulated his feelings about freedom of the press and media. ”Let us get down to fundamentals. Is this an open or a closed society? Is it a society where men can preach ideas—the novel, unorthodox, heresies. . . where there is a constant contest for men’s heats and minds on the basis of what is right, of what I just, or what is in the national interest? Or is it a closed society where the mass media—the newspapers, journals, publications, TV, radio. . . feed men’s minds with a constant drone of sycophantic support for a particular orthodox philosophy?”

British Journalist Tells his Story

Telegraph | News | 'I heard the terrifying click of the trigger in my first mock execution'
An amazing true-life story by a young British journalist who was kidnapped and beaten in Basra, then given back to British authorities to tell his terrifying tale.

Athens 2004 Olympic Games

ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games

The official website of the Olympics 2004.

Olympics 2004 and the Plight of Muslim Female Athletes

Olympics 2004

CENSORING THE OLYMPICS BY AMIR TAHERI
New York Post
August 14, 2004

The Greek organizers of this summer's Olympics, which began in Athens yesterday, claim that more women athletes are competing than ever before. Women are also playing a high-profile role in making the whole enterprise, the biggest of its kind in Greek history, run as smoothly as possible. Seen from the Muslim world, however, the Athens game will look like a male-dominated spectacle in which women play an incidental part.

According to officials in Athens, the number of Muslim women participating in this year's game is the lowest since 1960. Several Muslim countries have sent no women athletes at all; others, such as Iran, are taking part with only one, in full hijab. And state-owned TV networks in many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have received instructions to limit coverage of events featuring women athletes at Athens to a minimum.

A circular from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in Tehran asks TV editors to make sure that women's games are not televised live: "Images of women engaged in contests [sic] must be carefully vetted," says the letter, leaked in Tehran. "Editors must take care to prevent viewers from being confronted [sic] with uncovered parts of the female anatomy in contests."
Women athletes in Athens are unlikely to wear the Islamic hijab or full-length manteaux that cover their legs to the ankle and their arms to the wrist. The ministry's order thus could mean a blanket ban on images of female athletics.

Fear of Muslim viewers seeing bare female legs and arms on television is also shared by theologians in several Arab states. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian theologian based in Qatar, claims that female sport is exploited as a means of undermining "divine morality." Ayatollah Emami Kashani, one of Iran's ruling mullahs, goes further. In a recent sermon, he claimed that allowing women to compete in the Olympics was a "sign of voyeurism" on the part of the male organizers.

"The question how much of a woman's body could be seen in public is one of the two or three most important issues that have dominated theological debate in Islam for decades," says Mohsen Sahabi, a Muslim historian. "More time and energy is devoted to this issue than to economic development or scientific research. "

Islamist theologians are divided on how much of a woman's body can be exposed in public. The most radical, the Sitris, insist that women should be entirely covered from head to toe, including their faces and fingers. The less radical Hanbalis say a woman should be covered all over, but recommend a mask with apertures for the eyes and the mouth. (A version of this, known as the burqa, was imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban).

The Khomeinist version of the hijab, invented in the 1970s and now popular in many countries, including the United States, covers a woman's entire body but allows her face and hands to be exposed. Hijab theoreticians agree on one claim: a woman's hair emanates dangerous rays that could drive men wild with sexual lust and thus undermine social peace.

But the problem of women athletes goes deeper. Some theologians claim that any form of sporting activity by women produces "sinful consequences." In 2000, for example, the Khomeinist authorities in Tehran announced a ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles. The rationale? Riding bicycles or motorcycles would activate a woman's thighs and legs, thus arousing "uncontrollable lustful drives" in her. And men watching women on their bikes in the streets could be "led towards dangerous urges."

The problems don't end there. According to some theologians, a woman should not be allowed to venture out of her home without a "raqib" or male guardian. But that guardian must be either her husband or her father, brother, grandfather, uncle or son. Even if a woman is accompanied by such a "raqib" at a sporting event, the problem isn't solved. One woman's "raqib" will be a stranger to the other women playing, say, a game of volleyball. Thus any sport involving more than one woman produces complex chaperonage problems.
Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, have tried to avoid these by imposing a blanket ban on physical education and sports for women. Some Saudi women resent this and have been trying to persuade the government to change its mind.

In June, the kingdom's appointed parliament passed a bill legalizing physical education for girls. But last week the Ministry of Education announced that it would take no notice of the act of parliament because there has been no decision by the Council of Ministers, which is headed by the king (who also acts as prime minister). "Coming on the eve of the Athens Olympics, this is a big disappointment," says Fa'ezah Ahmad, a Saudi women's right campaigner.

There is also bad news from Iran. Last year, the Tehran Municipality presented a plan to provide sports facilities for women. It proposed amendments to 37 laws and ordinances that discriminate against women. It also unveiled a plan to develop women-only sports grounds. A model stadium was set up with 12-foot-high walls to make sure that no one could see the women from the outside. The stadium was to operate with an all-female staff, including coaches and administrators. The plan was scrapped last February, when critics claimed that the proposed stadium was located close enough to an airport that women in the stadium might be seen by men flying above them in jetliners and helicopters.

The municipality still hopes to find another plot of land to build an all-female facility. "Women account for a majority of the population in this city," says Esfandiar Mashaie, Tehran deputy mayor for social affairs. "We cannot ask them to pay municipal taxes but be denied the same facilities as men simply because we fear that some men may go wild by seeing women doing sport."
At times, fear of women doing sports causes major headaches for Islamic governments. The Islamic Republic in Iran, for example, has agreed to host the Muslim Women's International badminton games next year. Although all the participating athletes have agreed to wear uniforms that cover them from head to toe, the organizers are still worried that men might sneak in to have a look at what is going on.

To solve the problem, the authorities have decided to hold the games in a remote mountain resort. The only road leading to the resort will be sealed by an all-female unit of the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The games will be organized and supervised by exclusively female staff and recorded by an all-female TV crew. "The place would look like a lepers' colony," says Soheila Karimi, a women-rights campaigner. "These people live on another planet and in a different epoch."

Bali Tourism Still Suffers

Photo by Carl Parkes
Jakarta Post
August 12, 2004

Bali will celebrate its anniversary on Aug. 14. The country's top tourist destination, Bali is facing numerous problems ranging from its ruined image as a safe holiday destination for global tourists to acute economic, social and environmental problems. In conjunction with this event, The Jakarta Post's Rita A. Widiadana and I Wayan Juniartha explore the roots of the problems in the following reports.

When presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held a debate in Bali with wide cross-section of people involved in Bali's tourist industry, he could only suggest standard textbook solutions to the problems faced by hotel and restaurant owners, tour operators and airlines regarding the downturn of tourism in Bali and in Indonesia, in general. Separately, the incumbent president Megawati Soekarnoputri was reluctant to comprehensively explain her vision for a national policy on tourism, one of the country's prominent non-oil foreign exchange earners.

According to Putu Agus Antara, chairman of the Bali Tourism Board (BTB), the current government and future leaders still have no idea about the gravity of problems faced by people in the local tourist industry. "The leaders have no real and feasible platforms or action plans for the development of a healthy and profitable tourist industry," he added. Most people in the industry need real action rather than paper-based programs. "We are dying now and we need instant and potent `recipes' to survive," Antara said.

For Indonesia in general, and Bali in particular, tourism has become one of major foreign exchange earners and economic backbone supporting the island's economy. Before the 2002 Bali bomb tragedy, the number of tourists visiting the country amounted to 5.1 million per year generating around US$5.3 billion. Investment in tourist-related businesses in 2001 reached Rp 16.5 trillion For Bali, tourism has been the island's top foreign-exchange generator providing significant incomes and job opportunities for 30 percent of the island's workforce since the l980s.

The island enjoyed a robust economy thanks to tourism, but then came the decline in worldwide tourism with Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., followed by the Bali bombing on Oct. 12, 2002, the SARS outbreak thereafter and the Iraq war, all of which directly or indirectly crippled tourism in Bali. The hotel occupancy rates dropped to between 10 percent and 15 percent. Hotels, airlines and travel agents had to cut their rates and fares in order to lure back nervous visitors to Bali. The number of unemployed workers increased drastically causing serious social tension.

Although the industry is starting to show some positive signs of rebounding a bit, Bali is still suffering. BTB's data reveals that around 1.3 million visitors came to Bali in 2003, but that should increase when the 2004 numbers are tallied. A number of airlines from Singapore, Thailand and Japan have maintained their direct flights to Bali. Kuala Lumpur-based Air Asia has recently opened a direct flight between Kuala Lumpur and Denpasar with very low rates. Tony Fernandez, Group CEO of Air Asia, confirmed that the new route was showing signs of profitability. "Bali still is a magnet for Asian visitors, especially for Malaysians," he said.

But the number of tourist arrivals has not yet recovered and Bali still has quite a lot of vacant hotel rooms. "Compared to hotel rates in the world's other tourist destinations, Bali might be the cheapest. With around US$50 to $100, you can stay at the island's best resorts," Antara explained. With such low rates and rocketing bank interest rates, hotel owners and investors are now struggling hard to survive. Only those that are part of large, international chains can still manage their businesses. The newly-opened Conrad Hotel in Benoa is one of the most lucrative tourist establishments in Bali. According to Anastasya Lijadi, the hotel's marketing and communication director, the occupancy rate of the hotel, which had a soft opening in May, averages around 90 percent.

But, there are hundreds of star and non-star hotels across Bali, which have to work hard to meet the increasing operation costs and the decreasing number of guests, especially European and American tourists who stay longer than Asian tourists. Visa policy I Gusti Agung Prana, chairman of Bali branch of the Indonesian Travel Agents Association (ASITA), blamed the central government for the worsening situation. "The implementation of a ($25) Visa on Arrival Policy early this year has put foreign visitors off, especially those coming from the countries (mostly ASEAN), which are not granted visa-free facilities," he said. Agung Prana said that such a devastating policy had had a dramatic impact on the island's travel agents. "Many of us have had to close down. Some have only put their companies' names on the billboards. Actually, they no longer have clients," he complained.

In order to understand the real impact of the visa policy, Bali Tourism Board in cooperation with Bali Hotel Associations (comprising 56 star hotels in Bali) has launched a comprehensive survey involving 10,000 visitors to Bali starting from July through August this year. Upon check-in at any Association's member hotel, guests are offered a simple questionnaire to complete. The survey collects data including personal data, how visitors' visas were obtained and more importantly their reactions to the visa policy. "While many have speculated on the impact of the new visa policy, we are now gathering the hard data directly from visitors. Only Bali has made an effort to do an accurate survey," commented Antara. Robert Kelsall, chairman of Bali Hotel Association, stated before that "the survey is our response to the government's request for the industry's reaction to this visa policy." The result of the survey will be announced by the end of August and may be used as a means to make suggestions to the central government.

But, according to Professor Ida Bagus Adnyana Manuaba, chairman of Bali Human Ecology Study Group, a think-thank group consisting of professionals of diverse backgrounds, it would be difficult to convince the (central) government's bureaucrats. "I don't believe that the visa policy will increase our sense of nationalism as stated by the initiators of the policy. It really ruins the image of Indonesia, in general, and Bali in particular," said Manuaba, also a consultant on tourism and sustainable development projects. "Those who initiated the policy do not understand the tremendous impacts on the economy, the tourist industry and the people who depend on tourism to earn a living. Not to mention, all of its indirect effects," he added.

Amazingly, it was after the Bali bombing and the tourist downturn that the government decided on such a ridiculous policy. "What we had to do at that time was to install highly-effective metal detectors in Ngurah Rai airport, harbors and hotels in Bali and other parts of Indonesia and enforce necessary security measures to convince international visitors," Manuaba said. All the specially scheduled cultural and music events as well as international conferences failed in their bid to make international travelers feel that Bali was safe. "Those things was just a waste of time, money and energy," he said. Decentralization In Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia, a tourism policy must involve local people.

But, he also warned about the danger of the regional autonomy (decentralization) policy, which went into effect in 1999. The policy allows more responsibility and power to be transferred from the central to provincial and regional governments. Some regents in Bali are now going completely insane, said Manuaba. "One of them wanted to develop luxury resorts and a geothermal power plant in a protected national park. Another wants to build a place like Singapore's Sentosa Island complete with lines of glittering malls and a casino," complained Manuaba. The Study Group, he said, has identified some major problems including weak law enforcement, improper and unfair policies, a lack of coordination and a shortage of capable human resources. These problems have to be solved immediately in order to prevent Bali from experiencing further social, cultural, economic and environmental damage. "We need a strong and open-minded leader who is capable of implementing policies, enforcing the laws and acting in the interests of the Balinese people as well as safeguarding the island. If that were to happen, Bali could become a role model for other tourist destinations in Indonesia," he said.

Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive

The Atlantic Online September 2004 Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive Alan Cullison

So you're one of the first journalists to enter Kabul after the fall of the Taliban, and you purchase a couple of used computers left behind in the Al Qaeda headquarters. And what do you suppose would be stored on the hard drives. A rare look into Al Qaeda, so long as The Atlantic leaves this link open.......

FHM Magazine - American Female Olympics

FHM Magazine Click the "Slide Show" for a wonderful view of our female Olympians. Inspirational.

New York Times Editorial by Bob Herbert

The Walking Ape

Failure of Leadership
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times
Published: August 6, 2004

Anthony Dixon and Adam Froehlich were best friends who grew up in the suburbs of southern New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. They went to junior high school together. They wrestled on the same team at Overbrook High School in the town of Pine Hill. They enlisted in the Army together in 2002. And both died in Iraq, in roadside bombings just four months apart.
Specialist Dixon was killed on Sunday in Samarra. Specialist Froehlich was killed in March near Baquba. They were 20 years old.

No one has a clue how this madness will end. As G.I.'s continue to fight and die in Iraq, the national leaders who put them needlessly in harm's way are now flashing orange alert signals to convey that Al Qaeda - the enemy that should have been in our sights all along - is poised to strike us again.

It's as if the government were following a script from the theater of the absurd. Instead of rallying our allies to a coordinated and relentless campaign against Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, we insulted the allies, gave them the back of our hand and arrogantly sent the bulk of our forces into the sand trap of Iraq.

Now we're in a fix.

The war in Iraq has intensified the hatred of America around the world and powerfully energized Al Qaeda-type insurgencies. At the same time, it has weakened our defenses by diverting the very resources we need - personnel, matériel and boatloads of cash - to meet the real terror threats.

President Bush's re-election mantra is that he's the leader who can keep America safe. But that message was stepped on by the urgent, if not frantic, disclosures this week by top administration officials that another Al Qaeda attack on the United States might be imminent.

A debate emerged almost immediately about whether the intelligence on which those disclosures were based was old or new, or a combination of both. Nevertheless, because of the growing sense of alarm, there was an expansion of the already ubiquitous armed, concrete-fortified sites in New York City and Washington.

The pressure may be getting to Mr. Bush. He came up with a gem of a Freudian slip yesterday. At a signing ceremony for a $417 billion military spending bill, the president said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

The nation seems paralyzed, unsure of what to do about Iraq or terrorism. The failure of leadership that led to the bonehead decision to invade Iraq remains painfully evident today. Nobody seems to know where we go from here.
What Americans need more than anything else right now is some honest information about the critical situations we're facing.

What's the military mission in Iraq? Can it be clearly defined? Is it achievable? At what cost and over what time frame? How many troops will be needed? How many casualties are we willing to accept? And how much suffering are we willing to endure here at home in terms of the domestic needs that are unmet?
Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon was honest with the American people about Vietnam, and the result was a monumental tragedy. George W. Bush has not leveled with the nation about Iraq, and we are again trapped in a long, tragic nightmare.

As for the so-called war on terror, there is no evidence yet that the administration has a viable plan for counteracting Al Qaeda and its America-hating allies, offshoots and imitators. Whether this week's clumsy sequence of press conferences, leaks and alerts was politically motivated or not, the threat to the U.S. is both real and grave. And it can't be thwarted with military power alone.

Does the administration have any real sense of what motivates the nation's enemies? Does it understand the ways in which American policies are empowering its enemies? Does it grasp the crucial importance of international alliances and coordinated intelligence activity in fighting terror? And is it even beginning to think seriously about lessening our debilitating dependence on Middle Eastern oil?

The United States is the greatest military and economic power in the history of the planet. But it lacks a unifying sense of national purpose at the moment, and seems uncertain, even timid, as the national security challenges continue to mount. That is what a failure of leadership can do to a great power.

Soldier Blog from Iraq

MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq Excellent.

American Swim Stars Olympics

Olympics I've been trying for 15 minutes to transfer some comments from this to that page, but nothing is working out. You know...geek failure, so I'll give up and extend congratulations for all work and cheer in the upcoming O.

Ack! 

Chris Allbritton in Iraq

Christopher Allbritton is an independent journalist in Iraq who raised some funds from supporters and now provides reports for Time and other publications, while he (sometimes) maintains a personal blog, in some fashion to thank his fans back home. He has useful insight, and his post a few days ago is less than hopeful, as Sistani goes to London for possible heart surgery and Moktar gears up his thugs for more warfare with the Iraqi Army and the Americans.

Iraq has sunk into city fighting, guerilla warfare, random gangs of thieves, anarchists, butchers, stupid young kids with RPGs, suicidal bombers, maddened Islamic zealots, and whatever.

Let's get the hell out and let the Iraqi people figure out their own problems. In the meantime, you can read Chris here:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/

Quote for the Day

The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced.

It is in the nature of things that the progress of Reason is slow and no one loves armed missionaries.

The first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. One can encourage freedom, never create it by an invading force.

Maximilien Robespierre
The Incorruptible
Paris, 1791

Thanks to Abbas at abbaskadhim.blogspot.com for passing along this quote and for his consistent message that the war in Iraq is failed policy.

Carnival Cebu!

Photo by Carl Parkes

The Hand of Buddha - Sukhothai, Thailand

Photo by Carl Parkes

Philippines - Military Corruption and Abu Sayyaf

Abu Sayyaf and Burnhams

Philippines on Trial over Hostage Tale
By Leslie Davis in Manila

Asia Times OnLine
http://atimes.com

American missionary Gracia Burnham returned to the Philippines last week to turn the tables on the very people who held her captive for one year in the jungles of the southern island of Basilan; the Abu Sayyaf, a group listed by the United States as a terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda. But when her day-long testimony at the closed-door trial was finished, the main story bannered by government prosecutors was not how she fingered the various thugs who kidnapped and murdered innocents.

The main theme the government wanted the Filipino public and the world to know was how Burnham exonerated the armed forces of the Philippines from charges she made in her 2003 book, In the Presence of My Enemies. In the book, she claimed that certain army members connived with the Abu Sayyaf to divvy up millions of dollars in ransom money the group had raised through their kidnapping sprees. It was a stinging charge that to this day has caused embarrassment and denial among the army and the government, and resulted in nodding heads from a public that has long suspected corruption at the top of their armed forces.

State prosecutor Nestor Lazaro quoted Burnham as saying, "There is no collusion between the ASG [Abu Sayyaf] and the military." Senior state prosecutor Leo Cacera followed: "Her statement in court should put everything - the matter, all doubts - to rest," he said. It was then the turn of acting secretary Merceditas Gutierrez, who said, Burnham's testimony, "given under oath and in open court, should clarify any misunderstanding that her book might have created". Buoyed by the happy news, even President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo got in on the congratulatory parade, thanking Burnham for upholding "the integrity and uncommon valor of our armed forces".

There was only one problem with this mad dash by the Philippine government to tell one and all that Burnham had exonerated the army: it simply wasn't true. Burnham never said anything of the kind. By law, criminal cases in the Philippines are supposed to be open to the public. In this particular case against several alleged Abu Sayyaf members, however, neither the public nor the press had been allowed to witness the proceedings.

The press might have gone on "quoting" Gracia Burnham, and the government would surely have let them, had it not been for one enterprising reporter from a local television station. He just happened to chance on the judge's staff while they were reviewing a videotape of the proceedings. In that tape, the reporter noticed that Burnham never said anything that the government claimed she had said. Several times while on the stand, Burnham was asked by defense lawyers if she thought there was "connivance" between the military and Abu Sayyaf. Even before she had a chance to answer, the three government prosecutors stood up and made objections to the question, all of which the judge immediately sustained.

While Burnham was prohibited from speaking with the press and was quickly whisked out of the country, her book gives the real answers to the questions asked. Overall, the book is a harrowing and spellbinding first-hand account of her and her husband Martin's year in captivity at the hands of the Abu Sayyaf. The couple had spent 15 years performing missionary work in remote corners of the Philippines and decided to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary with a vacation at the luxury resort Dos Palmas on Palawan island. They were seized on May 28, 2001, along with 20 other hostages, and taken 400 kilometers across the open ocean to the bandits' island lair of Basilan. One year later, in a botched rescue attempt by the Philippine armed forces, Gracia was freed, while Martin and a Filipino nurse who had also been taken hostage were killed in the crossfire.

The book is a must-read for anyone who wants an insider's look at how one particular fundamentalist terrorist group operates first hand. Having lived a miserable year with the group in the forbidding jungles, she describes every detail of how the Abu Sayyaf operates, and the circumstances in which they function; the cold-blooded brutality of her captors, the hypocrisy of their religious beliefs, and how the group used their religion as a mere veneer in order to get millions of dollars in ransom.

When the book came out in 2003, it became an instant best seller throughout the Philippines. But its riveting blow-by-blow account of life with murderous bandits was not the only reason the book created a stir. What really caught Filipinos' attention were the several passages where Gracia writes of what many Filipinos had suspected all along; the hefty amount of ransom that made its way into the hands of the Abu Sayyaf in exchange for the freedom of some hostages, and, more importantly, how the Abu Sayyaf often works in connivance with certain members of the army in raising and sharing that ransom.

On pages 222-223, Gracia writes about how, after months on the run and being exhausted and hungry, the group's food supply suddenly changed for the better. "The armed forces were feeding us!" she writes. "A group of them [army] met our guys [Abu Sayyaf] and handed over quantities of rice, dried fish, coffee and sugar. This happened several times over the course of a few weeks. Why in the world did President Arroyo's troops provide the Abu Sayyaf with their daily bread? We were told that it was because Sabaya [the Abu Sayyaf's spokesman] was wheeling and dealing with the AFP [army] general of that area over how to split up any ransom that might be paid. Arlyn de la Cruz [a television reporter from Manila who had managed to find the group to do a story] had warned us about that. 'You know, this is going to be a really big deal,' she [Arlyn] said, 'and everybody is going to expect their share',"

Burnham writes. "Sabaya was willing to give the general 20% of the action. But the messenger reported back that this wasn't enough. The general wanted 50% - when his own government steadfastly condemned the ransom concept altogether."

Burnham also writes in detail of the infamous Lamitan Hospital siege, still highly controversial today. In this incident, the Philippine military had the entire group surrounded - along with their hostages - after they took refuge inside a hospital in the small Basilan town of Lamitan. Burnham writes that after a night-long gun fight, a jeep filled with high-powered guns and ammunition pulled up outside the hospital entrance and out jumped several cohorts of the Abu Sayyaf. The newcomers explained they were able to get through the cordon by telling the soldiers they were the bodyguards of the provincial governor. The provincial governor, it turns out, was one of the founders of the Abu Sayyaf who had had a falling out with the group. Then the inexplicable happened. The military pulled its troops out from behind the hospital and soon after, the Abu Sayyaf along with its hostages and new weapons, was able to escape.

The Lamitan siege was one of the centerpieces of the Senate's hearings in 2002 into the charges of collusion. A former hostage testified that he was released because ransom was paid and that certain high-ranking military members were involved. Twenty-seven residents from Basilan testified as well. Most claimed there was collusion between the military and the Abu Sayyaf. The Senate report concluded the same. "The Senate committees," the report stated, "are of the belief that, indeed collusion between some officers of the AFP and the ASG exists." They concluded that there was "strong circumstantial evidence", and recommended that the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman conduct further investigation into the charges. The Senate also recommended that the three officers linked to the charges be court martialled.

To this day, however, despite the Senate's recommendations, no charges have been brought against the officers. Clearly, the behavior of the government only creates more questions than it answers. Why is the Philippine government acting as a defense lawyer for its own military and not trying to get to the bottom of these serious allegations? And if there were some members of the military colluding with the Abu Sayyaf group, then shouldn't they be among the defendants? How much power does the military hold over what is supposedly a democratic civilian government?

These questions are not just important to Filipinos, but should also alert the rest of the international community to the muddled and complicated situation that exists in the southern Philippines. After September 11, 2001, Arroyo, who was installed as president due mostly to a military-backed coup in January of that year, was one of the first to stand up and declare her support for America's newly declared "war on terrorism". She even went so far as to declare the Philippines full of terrorists, specifically the Abu Sayyaf. This led to her bringing in the American military to help train the Philippine military to defeat the Abu Sayyaf.

For many Filipinos, though, the Abu Sayyaf isn't a terrorist group. They are a bunch of murderous thugs who use Islam as a shield to justify their existence and raise tons of cash. They are no different than any of the many other kidnap-for-ransom gangs that exist in various places in the Philippines, but mostly the southern island of Mindanao.

The idea that certain members of the military hierarchy may be profiting from the murder and kidnapping of innocent civilians, while underpaid and under trained foot soldiers do all the fighting and dying, is a scandal most Filipinos want to solve. The Senate has said it now wants to reopen the investigation into this alleged collusion. The government of Arroyo, however, has said that to go back and reinvestigate would be like beating a dead horse. Which, for most ordinary Filipinos seems quite unfortunate. For if the allegations are true, and most believe they are, then the existence of the Abu Sayyaf cannot just be explained by simply calling them "terrorists" and blaming their actions on Osama bin Laden. Their existence is a reflection of those whom they claim to do battle against.

In other words, the problem is home-grown, an ugly representation of the breakdown of law and order, the responsibility for which can only be placed at the front door of the Philippine government.

Thailand, Thaksin and Human Rights

What? Me Worry? Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister and richest person in the Kingdom, has spent most of his time in government enriching his family and friends, and tearing down the once substantial human rights records of Thailand. Yesterday, a human rights committee in Bangkok slammed his administration. Here's a summarized report from the usually timid Bangkok Post:

Thai Government Taken to Task for Rights Abuse

Human rights abuses have worsened over the past three years in a ''culture of authoritarianism'' under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said in its first report released yesterday. Set up three years ago, the NHRC accused the Thaksin administration of gross human rights violations, particularly during its war on drugs last year.

''Thailand is worryingly regressing towards a culture of authoritarianism, instead of progressing to a culture of human rights,'' the 230-page report said. ''The worst case is the extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs ... more than 2,500 people were killed without fair trials under the principles of democracy and rule of law,'' it said.

It also suggested the prime minister was using his position to favour his family's businesses while curbing critical media by threatening their advertising revenue or getting his friends to buy them out.''Freedom of expression and the right to monitor the government have been virtually treated as undermining stability and prosperity, and economic and social development,'' said the commission, which comprises mainly academics, lawyers and women's rights advocates.

Mr Thaksin, whose family owns major telecom and media companies, also supposedly delayed the establishment of independent bodies to re-allocate frequencies for telecoms and broadcasters due to a ''conflict of interests''. In the case of the war on drugs, the government declared it had won the battle, without referring to the killing of over 2,500 suspects. It claimed rival drug dealers had killed each other, but human rights advocates were certain it was the work of law enforcement officers.

Castro and Jailed Journalists

Both Bart and Che Support Free Journalism This week, Slate is running an excellent week-long series about a recent journalist visit to Cuba, including today's segment on Castro's imprisonment of journalists. While I support the lifting of the travel and trade embargo against the country, Castro is a man totally out of control and I anxiously await the death of this tyrant.

Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers." He just returned from a reporting trip to Cuba. Entry 3Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004, at 3:19 PM PT. This entry was written on Sunday, July 25.

I begin my Sunday at church. This is not exactly a tradition in my family. Let me explain: In the spring of 2003, while the world was focused on the invasion of Iraq, Castro launched a vicious crackdown on dissidents and independent journalists, throwing 75 of them in jail. (There is only one kind of legal media in Cuba—state-controlled.) The dissidents and journalists were found guilty of having violated Law 88, a kind of catch-all antisubversion clause that the government can invoke at will. The dissidents and journalists, none of whom had done anything more than express their opinions, were sentenced, on average, to 20 years in jail. One result, as Reporters Without Borders puts it, is the "world's largest prison for journalists."

The Ladies in White

Every Sunday, the wives of many of those imprisoned gather at the Santa Rita de Casia Church, in Havana's posh Miramar district. They dress in white, and after Mass is finished, gather and walk around the block. No bullhorns, no chants, no speeches. They call themselves Damas de Blanco— Ladies in White.
The Mass itself is uneventful. When the Ladies started coming to this church a few months ago, the priests got concerned and asked them not to protest inside. I'm sitting next to a Cuban journalist I have become friends with, A., so I ask her: If the priests are antsy about the Ladies, why did the group choose this church? "Because the saint represented in this church, Santa Rita," she explains, "is the patron saint of lost causes."

Their Silent Protest

After services end, A. introduces me to the women. Each has a button on her blouse with a photo of her husband and the number of years to which he's been sentenced. After their walk, we make our way to the home of Elizardo Sanchez, Cuba's most well-known human-rights advocate (who was also involved in a bizarre scandal last year after the state released a video that purported to show that Sanchez was also a state spy). He's not home. So we all sit on the porch as the women chat amongst themselves, in a sort of impromptu support group, and a few others shower me with details about their husbands' situations.
Most of their husbands have been jailed in far-away provinces (even though there are closer jails available), and the wives are only allowed to visit once every three months. They are allowed to call once a week, but the state schedules the time-slot, and as it happens, the time scheduled is usually Sunday morning during Mass.

Alejandrina Garcia de la Rivas, begins talking about trying to visit her husband, Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, who was sentenced to 20 years under Law 88. She had heard that he had been put in solitary confinement and wanted to find out how he was doing. "I stayed outside the prison for four days," says Garcia. "They wouldn't let me see him. Eventually a note came out: 'I am in solitary confinement. But I am OK. Please, stop waiting and go home.' So I went home."

I go back to my apartment, out again, and then, after about three hours of searching, meet Claudia Marquez, one of the brightest young independent journalists in Cuba. We spend the afternoon chatting and walking around Old Havana. Marquez has written for Internet sites as well as De Cuba, an underground magazine published last year. (She's also written op-eds for the Los Angeles Times and New York Times.) Then Marquez's husband, Osvaldo Alfonso, a member of the political opposition, was arrested during the crackdown. During his trial, Alfonso apparently recanted his statements and asked Marquez to stop her work. He was sentenced to 18 years. Marquez kept working.

Read the rest:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2104649/entry/2104776/

Henri Cartier-Bresson is Dead

The World's Greatest Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was, in my opinion, the greatest photographer of all time and an accomplished painter before his death last Monday at the age of 95 in the south of France. His homepage is less than useful since it's written in some foreign, strange language, but you can view a broad selection of his amazing photos at the Google image page: http://images.google.com/images?q=Henri+Cartier-Bresson&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&start=0&sa=N

Biographical notes here: http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa082399a.htm

Bush and Saudi Prince have a Special Relationship

Buddies for Life Perhaps George and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia have something special about their relationship, including the almost unbelievable gifts received by Bush last year from the Saudi Prince, as documented today in the Smoking Gun website at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0804041gifts1.html

Indonesia News - No Olympics on TV

Photo by Carl Parkes This Balinese Gamelan performer seems bummed that the 2004 Olympics will not be broadcast on local TV.

Indonesia to miss Olympics on TV

With 10 days to go before the Olympic Games begin in Athens, TV viewers around the world are getting ready for blanket coverage. But not in Indonesia, where the games will not be shown live on TV because there were not enough advertisers to make it commercially viable, according to local media reports.
Indonesia will be the only nation competing in Athens not to telecast the games, according to John Barton, from the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union.

"It is a sad day for international sports, and for the many people in Indonesia who would be keen to support their athletes and teams in Athens," he told the Jakarta Post. "We wanted to air the games but we couldn't get enough interest from advertisers," Teguh Juwarno, a spokesman for the local TV station RCTI, told the Associated Press news agency. He said that advertisers were not interested, because the action would be happening in the middle of the night in Indonesia, and medal hopes for local athletes were considered poor.

Indonesia will be represented by 39 athletes in the Athens games, with its greatest chance of a medal thought to be in badminton.

Concorde Final Flight

Concorde Final Flight You can find plenty of more military photos, including some grisly stuff from Iraq, at the link below, but you'd better have a pop-up blocker installed or this site will kill you.
http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/default.asp

World's Tallest, Abandoned Hotel

World's Tallest, Abandoned Hotel The world's tallest hotel isn't in Singapore or Dubai, but in the glorious capital of North Korea, Pyongyang. It's 105 stories tall, but the foundation work was so shoddy that it was abandoned and has never held a single guest. And foreign visitors aren't allowed anywhere near this magnificent failure.

Dubai Hotel and Tiger Woods

Dubai Hotel Last spring, Tiger Woods was invited to participate in the Dubai Desert Classic, and then invited to knock a few golf balls from the elevated helicopter pad into the gulf. That must have been great fun, not to mention that he was paid $2 million to attend the tournament.

In his spare time, Woods loves to go fishing and scuba diving and he also possesses the thirst of a young boy to try most things that smack of adventure.
At last week's Dubai Desert Classic, where he completed what he described as a "decent week" by tying for fifth at 12-under 276, the world number benefited from a wide range of perks.

Some were purely for the benefit of the sponsors, but a couple were right up his alley in terms of their uniqueness and sheer pleasure. Last Tuesday, after spending 18 hours flying through 12 time zones in his private jet from California to Dubai, Woods was required to perform one of the more unusual publicity stunts of his career.

With a cameraman in position to capture the moment, Tiger was taken to a helicopter pad at the top of the world's tallest hotel and, from an elevated tee of 321 metres, he drove several golf balls into the waters of the Arabian Gulf below.
The sponsors were happy, and so too was Woods. The hotel, the remarkable seven-star Burj Al Arab, was also his home for the week.

Soaring more than 1,000 feet into the air, the glistening white hotel is constructed in the shape of a dhow sail and stands sentinel on a man-made island just off Dubai's Jumeirah Beach. Almost certainly, though, the greatest highlight of Tiger's week was his flying visit with his good buddy Mark O'Meara to the USS George Washington in the Arabian Gulf last Wednesday.
The pair flew from Bahrain by military jet to the aircraft carrier and spent an hour and a half visiting American troops and giving a golf clinic.

"You're kind of strapped in pretty good, you have a helmet and life-jacket and, when you're catapulted off the deck, you hit 2-1/2 Gs," said O'Meara. "That's a pretty good force.

Thai Bar Girl Identification Guide

Bangkok Nightlife PACI bar girl identification guide Thai bar girl identification guide. Very funny stuff from a Bangkok-based website called www.mangosauce.com